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Healthy Heavenly Foods proprietor Ann Vu prepares Vietnamese chicken noodle salad at her shop at the Bear’s Lair Food Court Monday morning.
Riya Bhattacharjee
Healthy Heavenly Foods proprietor Ann Vu prepares Vietnamese chicken noodle salad at her shop at the Bear’s Lair Food Court Monday morning.
 

News

Man Gets Five Years Probation in Connection With Fatal Berkeley Shooting

By Bay City News
Tuesday July 21, 2009 - 03:00:00 PM

A Berkeley man who had been charged with murder in connection with the shooting death of a former friend near the University of California at Berkeley campus three years ago will be released from jail today after serving only 18 months. 

Alameda County Superior Court Judge C. Don Clay told 21-year-old Brandon Crowder, “You’re being given a break” after placing him on five years’ probation in connection with the death of 23-year-old Wayne Drummond of Oakland on Sept. 4, 2006. 

Clay told Crowder, who attended a junior college in the East Bay, “I hope I never see you again” and said Crowder will be sent to state prison for a long term if he violates the terms of his probation. 

Clay found that Crowder, who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter on June 15, testified truthfully for the prosecution in the trial of 23-year-old Nicholas Beaudreaux of Richmond, who was convicted July 7 of first-degree murder and attempted second-degree robbery in connection with the shooting. 

Beaudreaux faces a term of 50 years to life in state prison when Clay sentences him on Aug. 28. 

Berkeley police said they believed Crowder directed Beaudreaux to shoot Drummond in the incident, which began when Crowder and Drummond, who grew up in Southern California but also attended a junior college in the East Bay, got into a confrontation outside Blakes on Telegraph at 2367 Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley shortly after midnight on Sept. 4, 2006. 

But prosecutor Tim Wellman said today that the evidence in the case didn’t support that theory. 

Crowder’s lawyer, Darryl Stallworth, said Crowder had made “idle threats” about doing harm to Drummond before the incident and that those threats made police think that he had directed Beaudreaux to kill Drummond. 

But Stallworth said, “None of those threats had any immediacy. It was just a kid talking.” 

Stallworth said Beaudreux, who has known Crowder since they were in middle school together but didn’t know Drummond, injected himself into the confrontation by trying to protect Crowder and attempting to take Drummond’s wallet. 

Wellman said to jurors in his closing argument in Beaudreaux’s trial that Beaudreaux told Drummond, “I don’t know how to fight, but I know how to use this metal in my waist” and then pulled out a gun, stuck it into Drummond’s neck and demanded Drummond’s wallet. 

Drummond fought back and struggled with Beaudreaux over control of Beaudreaux’s gun and Beaudreaux shot him, Wellman said. 

Clay said today that he doesn’t believe Crowder anticipated that Beaudreaux would insert himself into the situation, attempt to rob Drummond and then shoot him. 

The judge said the shooting “was shocking to everyone there.” 

Wellman said in his closing argument that Drummond’s friends and a Berkeley police officer who came to the scene a few moments later attended to Drummond while he was lying on the sidewalk but they didn’t see any blood and didn’t take him to the hospital because they didn’t realize he had had been shot. 

Instead, Drummond’s friends drove him to a friend’s room at the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority at 2311 Prospect St., near the UC Berkeley campus, where he collapsed and died shortly after 2:30 a.m. that day. 

Beaudreaux and Crowder weren’t arrested until February 2008 because it took authorities time to develop sufficient evidence in the case. 

Crowder, who is 6 feet 7 inches tall, also faced a felony terrorist threat for allegedly threatening a basketball player at a UC Berkeley facility in December 2007, but Wellman dismissed that case. 

Clay said that charge is an example of Crowder’s “hot-headedness.” 

Stallworth said Crowder and Drummond had been good friends and drinking buddies but “got into a feud about name-calling and teasing each other.” 

He said it was “silly stuff” that was compounded by the fact that Drummond had been drinking and Crowder had been smoking marijuana the night of the incident. 

Stallworth said Crowder has matured since the incident and wants to go into computers and real estate after he’s released from jail. 


Berkeley Police Seize Explosives From Grizzly Peak House

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Monday July 20, 2009 - 09:31:00 PM

A 911 call led to an arrest and seizure of explosives by Berkeley police Saturday. 

At 12:30 p.m. July 18, someone dialed 911 from a house in the 900 block of Grizzly Peak Boulevard in North Berkeley and quickly hung up. 

Patrol officers responded to the call but, according to Lt. Andrew Greenwood of the Berkeley Police Department’s Community Services Bureau, did not get a response when they knocked on the door and rang the bell, though they heard movement inside.  

Eventually a man later identified as Emoru Oboke Obbanya, a 27-year-old Berkeley resident, came out and quickly closed the door behind him. Greenwood said Obbanya appeared very agitated and nervous.  

“What was a routine check-up became non-routine due to the conduct of the person,” Greenwood said. “He looked extremely angry right from the very beginning, rather than getting upset with the police gradually.” 

Greenwood said Obbanya repeatedly cursed the officers and refused to confirm that he lived in the house. He did not cooperate with the officers’ efforts to make sure that no one inside the residence was injured or in need of help. 

Concerned about the safety of other residents, and in light Obbanya's behavior, the officers checked inside the house. Though they did not find anyone inside the house who needed aid, they saw signs of possible criminal violations. Greenwood refused to release specific details about the violations, explaining that the investigation was still ongoing. 

After obtaining a warrant, officers searched the house and found explosives, chemicals and other items which could be used to make explosives. 

Greenwood did not release information about the amount of explosives recovered. Berkeley police arrested Obbanya when he tried to stop them from searching the house. 

The officers called the Berkeley Police Department Bomb Squad to “safely conduct the search and seize illegal material,” Greenwood said. After finding the explosives, the officers evacuated the home and neighboring residences. 

The Berkeley Fire Department Hazardous Materials Team, the University of California Police Department Bomb Squad, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted in the operation. 

  A number of volatile items were safely removed using the UCPD blast transport vessel, Greenwood said. 

Obbanya was charged with four felony counts and one misdemeanor, including possession of an illegal firearm, prohibited possession of a firearm, possession of a destructive device, possession of material with intent to make an explosive device and obstructing a police officer from doing his duty. 

His bail has been set at $121,500. Greenwood said police officers left the house after completing their investigation at midnight Sunday. He added that the 911 number had likely been dialed by mistake, and that police had no reason to believe that there had been a hostage situation at the house. 


Daily Cal Receives Debt Relief, Three-Year Lease

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Monday July 20, 2009 - 03:31:00 PM

The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s independent student newspaper, can stay put—for now. 

Though the two parties have yet to officially sign off on the agreement, the Store Operations Board of the Associated Students of the University of California Auxiliary confirmed Thursday that half of the newspaper’s debt for rent and utilities will be forgiven and its lease extended by three years. 

The Daily Cal rents office space on the sixth floor of Eshleman Hall from the auxiliary for $5,061 per month.  

Like many newspapers across the country, the Daily Cal is facing tough times and been forced to scale back on its operations. The paper is no longer printing its Wednesday edition and has stopped paying its student reporters the $8 to $15 they previously received for each article. 

Faced with a drop in advertising revenue, the Daily Cal has only paid half its rent since October. 

In May, the newspaper and the Store Operations Board reached an agreement that would extend the paper’s lease by three years and excuse half of the $28,000 the paper still owed for rent and utilities. 

The Daily Cal plans to repay the remaining half—roughly $14,000—and invite a student member of the Store Operations Board to sit on the paper’s board of directors. 

Under its new agreement, the Daily Cal will continue to pay the same rent and utility costs and will continue to give the ASUC one free page of advertising space during the fall and spring semesters. 

ASUC Auxillary Director Dr. Nad Permaul said the paper “will have its utilities monitored and pay the actual costs, and will reduce its custodial services to maintain custodial costs at the current level.” 

When asked about the board’s decision to pardon the Daily Cal’s rent at a time when the auxiliary’s finances were in dire straits, Permaul said that “the Daily Cal has a significant value to the student population at Cal, and has long and close association with the ASUC. ... The campus will not let the auxiliary rent out the office space in Eshleman Hall to any other third-party vendor without seismic improvements to the building, hence this was the best rent agreement the board could negotiate.”  

The auxiliary is currently working on a plan to revitalize the Lower Sproul Plaza—the site of the UC Berkeley student union building—to make it more attractive for students and new businesses.  

Store Operations Board chair Nish Rajan said the paper provided invaluable “educational and informational scope” for students on campus. 

“The board thought it was worth saving,” Rajan said. “We are not a-profit maximizing entity. Our sole purpose is not to increase revenue. We provide a correct mix of services for students.” 

In a May 7 editor’s note, the Daily Cal’s then editor-in-chief Bryan Thomas acknowledged that some readers might question whether the Store Operations Board’s decision to forgive the back rent might bias the Daily Cal’s coverage of the ASUC or the board. 

“Our readers should be assured that this is a temporary arrangement—the board position will expire when the loan has been repaid in full,” Thomas said. “Perhaps more importantly, the Daily Cal Board of Directors has no control in any way over newsroom operations or editorial decisions. The board, made up mostly of our own alumni, is responsible for financial oversight and long-term business operations. We will also seek to acknowledge this arrangement in any coverage when it might be relevant.” 

Calls to Will Kane, the Daily Cal’s current editor-in-chief and president, were not returned by press time.


Berkeley Police Investigate Sex Assaults

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 04:13:00 PM
Sketches of the suspects in the Cedar (left) and Hillegass (right) sexual assaults.
Sketches of the suspects in the Cedar (left) and Hillegass (right) sexual assaults.

Berkeley police are investigating two sexual assaults which took place early Thursday morning. 

At approximately 2:32 a.m., Berkeley Police Department patrol officers responded to a report of a sexual assault which took place on the 2100 block of Cedar Street in North Berkeley. 

A high school-aged girl woke up to find the suspect straddling her and lifting her shirt. The girl’s mother—who was sleeping in the same bed—woke up and fought the suspect off until he ran away. 

The girl’s mother called police to make the report. The suspect was described as 16- to 20-year-old male, between 5 feet 7 inches and 6 feet tall, wearing a gray, hooded sweatshirt. 

At 7:24 a.m., Berkeley patrol officers responded to another report of sexual assault on the 2600 block of Hillegass Avenue. A college-aged victim woke up to find the suspect on top of her. When she resisted the attack, the suspect escaped from the apartment. 

The suspect was described as a 16- to 20-year-old black male, between 5 feet 7 inches and 6 feet in height, wearing a gray non-hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans. 

The suspects entered the ground-floor residences through unlocked doors and windows in both cases. Police remind resident to lock and secure doors and windows as summer temperatures climb higher. 

Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Officer Andrew Frankel declined to release the victims’ age or details of the investigation. Frankel said a sketch of the suspect would be available by Friday. 

Berkeley police have asked community members with any information on the case to call the BPD Sex Crimes Detail at 981-5734. If the event has just occurred or is in progress, call 911 or from your cell phone 981-5911. 

Callers wishing to remain anonymous can call the Bay Area Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS. 

 

 

 


Berkeley Financier Faces Tax Woes

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 04:08:00 PM

David Teece is having a bad year. For a man once dubbed “an economics rock star,” 2009 is shaping up more like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. 

The low-profile Berkeley academic was estimated to be worth $150 million in 2008 by a New Zealand business publication. So far this year, he’s ended up on the wrong end of a $1.84 million IRS tax settlement, watched the stock of an Emeryville company he founded plunge and seen the bankruptcy of a once highly touted firm he owned in his native New Zealand. 

Teece currently serves as professor of business administration at UC Berkeley’s Haas business school, where he also holds the Thomas W. Tusher Chair in global business.  

But for Berkeley residents, his main impacts have been to the city’s skyline in his role as very silent partner in the downtown housing projects of developer Patrick Kennedy—projects recently sold to Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell. 

Teece is also a co-founder and vice chair of Emeryville-based LECG, the Law and Economics Consulting Group, a company which, according to its website, “has provided independent expert testimony and analysis, original authoritative studies, and strategic consulting services to clients.” 

Founded in 1988 by Teece and other UC Berkeley faculty, the company went public in 2003. Its stock has been badly battered in the market crash, though Teece received a $10 million retention bonus, paid out in two $5 million chunks in November 2007 and January 2008, according to the company’s most recent annual report. 

In addition to that one-time sum, he also received another $4,471,000 for his services in 2008—the same year the company reported an $86.9 million loss, down from an $11.4 million profit the year before. 

Share prices, which had peaked at $25.19 in early 2004, have fallen to as low as $1.50 in recent months, reaching at $3.71 during Thursday’s trading to close at $3.69.  

On July 6, LECG announced that “Michael Jeffery has notified the company of his intention to step down as CEO of LECG, effective at the annual meeting of stockholders” later this month. 

Another major Teece holding, Canterbury of New Zealand, has also hit the financial rocks, and his major partner, a Bahrain investment fund owned by the Kuwait Finance House, has forced the company to look for a buyer, reports Karyn Scherer, deputy business editor of the New Zealand Herald. 

Scherer also reported that the sportswear company, which manufacturers rugby gear, lost $5.5 million in 2007—the most recent records available—and $18.2 million the year before. 

But the most damaging blow may have come from Uncle Sam, inflicted in the April 8 decision by federal Tax Court Judge Harry A. Haines in Washington, D.C. 

Haines ruled that Teece underpaid his income tax for 1999 by $1,824,886. 

The judge rejected IRS claims that more taxes were due from 1998. 

The IRS had originally alleged that Teece and his spouse Leigh had owed more than $12 million. Tax cases are frequently settled for smaller amounts than initially sought. 

After the IRS began its court actions, Forbes Magazine writer Janet Novack reported that “An adverse outcome in the cases could hurt Teece’s credibility as a highly paid witness and provide fodder for hostile cross-examiners.”  

Haines’s decision, along with Teece’s problems with Canterbury, leave Novack’s question an open issue. 


UC Regents Approve Pay Cuts

Bay City News Service
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 02:25:00 PM

The University of California Board of Regents Thursday morning voted unanimously to approve a plan that will institute employee furloughs along with other cuts and fee hikes to offset an anticipated $813 million budget shortfall. 

The plan, adopted at a board meeting at the UCSF Mission Bay campus, will force more than 108,000 members of the UC’s faculty and staff to take anywhere from 11 to 26 furlough days, with higher earners being forced to take more furlough days and steeper pay cuts. 

The furloughs are expected to eliminate about a quarter of the budget deficit. The rest of the savings will come from previously approved student fee increases, debt refinancing and cuts spread across the 10 UC campuses.


Students Plan UC Berkeley’s First Student Food Cooperative

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 02:30:00 PM
UC Berkeley alumna Alex Stone sets up the produce stand on Upper Sproul Hall Monday to inform students about the Berkeley Student Food Cooperative.
Riya Bhattacharjee
UC Berkeley alumna Alex Stone sets up the produce stand on Upper Sproul Hall Monday to inform students about the Berkeley Student Food Cooperative.

At first glance, the cute little blueberry baskets might seem out of place among the maze of political posters, stickers and T-shirts inside UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza.  

And yet, this, too, is the beginning of a new kind of campus movement. 

When fast-food chain Panda Express told the ASUC Auxiliary’s Store Operations Board the company wanted to take over the space formerly occupied by Naia Gelataria, students, staff and faculty at the university had mixed reactions. 

Some supported the idea, arguing it would bring much-needed revenue to a flagging ASUC budget, but others let out a howl of protest. 

Calling Panda Express a “big, unhealthy and non-eco-friendly chain corporation,” a group of students offered the option of a student-run food co-op as an alternative. 

The students’ petitions and presence at board meetings were enough to sway the vote against the chain, and now the empty gelataria space is a potential spot for the food co-op.  

“We wanted a student-controlled space which would produce cutting-edge, sustainable food,” said ASUC Senator Christina Oatfield, one of the leaders of the campaign against Panda Express. “Something on the lines of a member-owned grocery, cafe and deli to provide fresh, healthy, cheap and environmentally sustainable food.” 

Every Monday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., a couple of students pile fresh, local produce on a small table across from Upper Sproul Plaza, hoping to get the word out to more people. 

So far, 1,000 students have joined the food co-op campaign, of which 40 are active participants, Oatfield said.  

The group is in the process of developing a business plan and has raised $106,000 toward the co-op to date, thanks to grants from UC Berkeley’s Green Initiative Fund, the Berkeley Student Cooperative and Bears Breaking Boundaries, a competition sponsored by the student government to encourage new ideas on campus. 

Alex Stone, a recent UC Berkeley graduate, said that the co-op would buy its produce according to the Real Food Challenge’s Guidelines for Real Food (realfoodchallenge.org). 

“It will be as local and organic as possible,” said Stone, balancing a couple of avocados on top of some squash, which had just been delivered from Oakland. “And the pricing will be as affordable as possible. Everything will be ‘at cost.’ This is really a grassroots level effort.” 

A bunch of sophomores stopped by to inspect the fruit, paying $3 for a basket of blueberries. “Youth power!” they chanted, making a V sign with their fingers. 

“People are excited about it,” said Marc Smith, a Berkeley City College student who was helping Stone. “We are excited that we are getting healthy food to people.” 

When asked why students would want to shop at a student co-op when they could buy the same things at Berkeley Bowl or Whole Foods, Smith said the coop’s proximity to the campus would be more convenient for students. 

Oatfield said the students were also looking at a couple of other places on Telegraph Avenue in case the space on Lower Sproul Plaza, which Naia was renting for around $2,800 every month, fell through. 

Adam Wright, a provider who brings produce to the students from different farmers’ markets in Berkeley and Oakland, said cheap, fresh food would always be in demand during a desperate economy. 

“I love it when things are at this scale,” he said. “Grocery stores mark things up 100 percent, we mark things up zero percent.” 

Stone handed Wright a list of things she wanted him to bring for the produce stand next Monday. 

“The duck eggs will probably have to go,” she said smiling. “It’s a little odd to see duck eggs at a produce stall.” 

For more information on the Berkeley Student Food Cooperative, see berkeleyfoodcoop.com. 

 


Bear’s Lair Vendors Threatened by Rent Hikes

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:35:00 AM
Healthy Heavenly Foods proprietor Ann Vu prepares Vietnamese chicken noodle salad at her shop at the Bear’s Lair Food Court Monday morning.
Riya Bhattacharjee
Healthy Heavenly Foods proprietor Ann Vu prepares Vietnamese chicken noodle salad at her shop at the Bear’s Lair Food Court Monday morning.
Ann Vu and Dona Ngo, a Healthy Heavenly Foods employee for 12 years, serves lunch to UC Berkeley students and staff Monday.
Riya Bhattacharjee
Ann Vu and Dona Ngo, a Healthy Heavenly Foods employee for 12 years, serves lunch to UC Berkeley students and staff Monday.

Plans to revitalize UC Berkeley’s Lower Sproul Plaza may have dire consequences for small, family-owned businesses on campus.  

Faced with the worst financial crisis since it almost went bankrupt in 1998, the Associated Students of the University of California Auxiliary, the administrative wing of the campus’ student government, is scrambling to find ways to stay afloat—even going as far as to restructure its $3 million annual budget and lay off staff. 

The Store Operations Board of the auxiliary, which manages ASUC’s commercial activities, has plans to improve Lower Sproul Plaza, the site of the Student Union, to attract more foot traffic and bolster declining revenue. 

However, not everyone is cooperating. 

A small but growing group of students and community members have voiced concern about the board’s recent decision to raise rents for the three independent food vendors at the Student Union’s Bear’s Lair Food Court, a move the opponents say will threaten the owners’ livelihood and result in fast-food chains taking over their spots. 

Other terms and conditions for the vendors’ new lease agreement with the auxiliary mandate that vendors will need to generate $400,000 in annual sales by the end of their second year. If not, their contracts can be terminated. The vendors will also have to share a percentage of their profits with the landlord and invest in equipment upgrades and storefront improvements. 

For at least one food vendor, this pretty much means the end. 

Ann Vu has run Healthy Heavenly Foods, a Vietnamese concession, out of a 400-square-foot stall at the food court for the last 19 years. She doesn’t think she could pay the increased monthly rent of $4,452—more than double what she has been paying so far—let alone meet the other requirements. 

“I don’t think I can make it,” said Vu, while preparing breakfast for some 20 hungry UC Berkeley students and staff members on a recent Monday morning. “It’s too much. It’s too heavy. It will kill me.” 

ASUC Auxiliary Director Dr. Nadesan Permaul told the Daily Planet that the board voted on the terms and conditions of the lease agreement after considering a request from the vendors for a long-term lease. 

“The rental and revenue-sharing component was part of the deliberation by the board in response to their request,” said Permaul, who is also a professor of political science at the university. 

Nish Rajan, chair of the Store Operations Board, which is made up of students and UC faculty and staff, said the consultants working on the $100 million Lower Sproul Redevelopment Project had informed the auxiliary about the untapped potential for growth and expansion in Lower Sproul. 

“There is a general agreement that it can be used much better, but it requires a lot of investment on our part,” said Rajan, a graduate student at the university’s Haas School of Business. “This is in keeping with Lower Sproul’s long-term redevelopment, although indirectly, because the vision of the project is still being developed.” 

Rajan said, while grappling with questions about the real estate value of the Bear’s Lair Food Court, the board had decided to issue a request for proposals to get a better understanding of market rental rates and to investigate if there were better options available for the space. 

The food vendors were operating on expired leases, he said, and the board thought this would be a good opportunity to “either give them a lease extension or a fair way to move forward.” 

“The status quo was not working,” Rajan said. “We didn’t know what the right fit was for the students. But our goal was not to exclude the vendors from the bidding process.” 

Protests from the vendors about the high costs of bidding for the space brought the idea to a halt, and the board instead voted to approve a new lease agreement, one that they hoped would address the auxiliary’s shrinking revenue, Rajan said. 

Feeling threatened by the high rent, the vendors crafted a counterproposal that would have increased rents by 25 percent each year, but it was rejected by the board. 

On July 9, the board voted to give the vendors a week to accept or reject the terms of the new offer. A rejection would open up the bidding process to other businesses and give the vendors until Dec. 15 to move out. 

Vu has no pension and very little savings. Her business generates about $300,000 in sales every year from $1 tofu cakes and $5 teriyaki chicken rice bowls.  

She said that she has little choice but to accept defeat. 

“I told Mr. Permaul right away, I cannot match what you ask for because right now times are very difficult for the business,” she said. “Students don’t have the money, and staff don’t have the money. I don’t have the money to pay the rent.” 

An immigrant from the Vung Tau province of South Vietnam, Vu came to the United States in 1988 with her mother when she was 27. Three years later, she took over Southern Select Gourmet in the Bear’s Lair from Charlie Moore, paying $500 for the tiny space, while her husband managed a food truck. Her limited knowledge of English makes contract negotiations even more difficult. 

 Today, at 51, Vu can’t imagine life without Healthy Heavenly Foods, her customers or the UC Berkeley campus. 

“I like it in here, because I love the students,” she said, ladling out pho to a regular customer. “They are young, they are friendly and they’re not picky. I like to cook my country’s food—healthy food. This is my second home. I know a lot of people here. They love me, and I love them, too. They have supported me, but I don’t think I can stay here anymore.” 

Arnoldo Marquez, a Mexican immigrant who runs Taqueria Tacontento, said the auxiliary’s demands were “too much too soon.” 

“They told us, ‘Take it or leave it,’ ” said Marquez. He said he would try his best to scrape up enough money for the new rent, but he isn’t too sure he can meet the board’s sales targets. 

“It feels threatening,” Marquez said. He generates about $320,000 in sales annually and would need time to boost his profits. “I want to work with UC. I am optimistic when they say they will help with marketing. But I need time. I have put all my effort and my money into this place, I have to do something to make it survive.” 

The Coffee Spot pays the highest rent of all three food stalls but also occupies a slightly larger floor area. 

“The idea was to bring the per square foot rent for all three vendors to the same level,” Rajan said, adding that the increase had taken into account inflation and increased costs. 

Revenue sharing, Rajan said, would help the vendors build a relationship with the board. 

“It will boost the revenue of the ASUC itself, but not nefariously,” he said. “You want to have businesses who are successful along with businesses that can grow.” 

A study of food court businesses in comparable college campuses across the country showed that most brought in more money than those at the Bear’s Lair. 

ASUC’s revenue has been pretty flat for the last 10 years, Rajan admitted, although the demand for services has skyrocketed. 

In fact, things have been so bad in the last couple of years that the auxiliary has not been able to come up with the $200,000 it usually hands over annually to various student groups on campus. 

Vu said that the board’s demand that the food stalls stay open until midnight was the last straw. 

“I already work 12 to 13 hours a day,” said Vu. She opens her store at 6 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m.  

  Rajan said the board had mandated the midnight closing time due to popular demand. 

“All the surveys we did had students asking for places which stayed open until midnight or later,” he said.  

Vu said the auxiliary had tried to raise the rent on her shop before but had backed down when students had protested. 

In spring, a group of students, including ASUC senators, had fought to keep the fast food chain Panda Express out of Lower Sproul, proposing a student food co-operative in its place. ASUC Senator Christina Oatfield said the students soon realized they had a lot in common with the food vendors, because they were all fighting to preserve the same space. 

At an April 14 Store Operations Board meeting, UC Berkeley student Matt Marks urged boardmembers to come to a resolution with the vendors so that the campus could have “family-owned, immigrant-owned businesses, where people could speak students’ native languages.” 

The vendors, Marks said, do their best to provide the students with whatever they need, often working more than 12 hours a day to keep costs down for their customers. 

Some community members said they were appalled at the way the ASUC Auxiliary was doing business. 

“Raising the rent is to be expected, but a 100 percent increase in these tough economic times is cruel,” said Nhu Miller, a UC Berkeley alumna who heard the news when she stopped by Vu’s stall last month. “After working for nearly 20 years, Ann has nowhere to turn if the ASUC turns her out at a time when the entire economy is suffering. Without her livelihood, she has no money. She is just staying alive. What is the point of driving out small businesses which contribute to the health, well-being and character of a great university?” 

Point Richmond attorney Joshua G. Genser, who is helping Vu on the issue, said the auxiliary’s demands of the vendors was basically a blatant invitation for them to leave. 

“It was certainly reasonable for ASUC to increase the rent, but it’s a question of degree,” Genser said. “It’s not like the rents were raised just a little bit. The only ones who can afford it would be chains like Quiznos or Subway. If ASUC is hurting, they only have themselves to blame. It hasn’t kept rents up in the past and now it’s playing catch-up.” 

 

The Store Operations Board is scheduled to take up the lease agreement issue with the food vendors from 5-8 p.m. Thursday, July 16, at Stephens Lounge, MLK Student Union, UC Berkeley...


Pacific Steel Lays Off Half Its Work Force

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:37:00 AM

West Berkeley’s Pacific Steel Casting, the nation’s fourth largest surviving steel foundry, is hurting badly. 

Company spokesperson Eliza- 

beth Jewel told the Daily Planet Friday that a weak economy was playing havoc with its sales, forcing the steel plant to cut half its workforce. 

The foundry, which has been operating at Second and Gilman streets for 75 years, has laid off a couple of hundred workers in the last seven months, including 40 in June, and announced that another 75 layoffs are on the way, sometime after Aug. 31. Pacific Steel had about 600 workers on its payroll until earlier this year; the cuts will leave the company with just 300. 

Management positions have also been eliminated, she said. 

The company, founded in 1934, is suffering low sales in part because one of its biggest customers, the Peterbilt Motors Company, has drastically reduced orders. 

“They were a longtime, consistent customer,” she said. “We can only hope that the economy will turn around as quickly as possible, and people will start ordering trucks once again.” 

Jewel also blamed the recession and the weak housing market, explaining that steel products were just not in demand at the moment. 

“Orders are way, way down,” she said. “Nobody is ordering castings. It’s similar to what’s happening in other cities, and we are not immune.” 

Because the company is privately owned and operated, it is not required to make its profits public. 

Jewel said Pacific Steel laid off a few workers in the 1980s, but the numbers have never been this bad. 

“There have been cuts across the board—it’s the most serious situation in the last 20 years,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking. We are a family-held company and we have multiple generations of employees. These are people who have been working here for 30 years.” 

Most of Pacific Steel’s workers are Spanish, Asian or German immigrants and belong to the Glaziers, Molders, and Plasterers Union Local 164B. 

The union is working with Pacific Steel to provide counseling to the laid-off workers, advising them on how to find new jobs and survive foreclosure. 

Ignacio De La Fuente, the union’s vice president and an Oakland city councilmember, blamed the layoffs on the economic slump as well as environmental activism, which he said had compelled Pacific Steel to invest a lot of money on new technology for cleaner air. 

Local environmental groups and West Berkeley residents have protested what they say are toxic air emissions and odors from Pacific Steel for over two decades. Some area residents have blamed the steel mill for their health problems, even taking the company to court several times. 

“When there are no orders for products, no work and no money, eventually the workers will have to go,” De La Fuente said. “The economy is down, and the city of Berkeley and some environmental groups and small groups of people in West Berkeley have asked Pacific Steel to spend millions and millions of dollars on environmental technology, installing scrubbers, fan systems and air monitors.” 

De La Fuente said Pacific Steel’s legal expenses in battles against environmental groups may have affected the company as well.  

“The fact is that all this has taken its toll and there is less and less money,” he said. “I have represented the union since 1978 and we have had 10 to 20 layoffs at the most in the past. This is serious.” 

However, environmental groups and activists denied having any role in the layoffs. 

“There is not a shred of evidence that the layoffs are the result of environmental activism,” said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, one of the nonprofits that have pushed for cleaner emissions. “Pacific Steel still has the same permits with the same operating conditions they have had for a very long time, so blaming concerned community members for the layoffs ordered by this greedy corporation is shameful. Ignacio De La Fuente and the Pacific Steel bosses are more concerned about protecting corporate profits than the jobs or health of their workers.” 

L A Wood, an environmental activist who ran for Berkeley City Council last year, questioned De La Fuente’s motives for singling activists out. 

“Perhaps he feels threatened by the community’s inquiries into health issues—that says something about how effective we have been about getting his attention,” he said. “Honestly, we did very little to affect their operations. Pacific Steel has been operating under the gun since 1980 and they have dictated their own course. They should be working with us, and not see us as the enemy.” 

Ruth Breech, program director for Global Community Monitor, another environmental group, said that a cleaner, technologically advanced facility showed that the company was interested in making a long-term investment in the community. 

“When they make that investment, it means ‘we are going to be in the city for a long time,’ ” she said. “It shows they want to be a good citizen. Being a visionary, you’d expect Pacific Steel to reform its plants way ahead of everyone. All the legal stuff doesn’t have to happen if Pacific Steel is transparent and willing to talk to everyone, rather than pointing fingers at neighbors who are entitled to breath clean air.” 

Berkeley Councilmember Linda Maio, whose district includes Pacific Steel, said there would be tremendous ramifications from the cuts. 

“There’s going to be a ripple effect—not just for the families of the workers but for the city as well,” she said. “These are very good jobs with high-quality benefits, so there will be social impacts as well.” 

Maio blamed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for California’s budget deficit, which she said was negatively impacting trade and industry in the state. 

“Maybe when President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan really hits, we will see some new construction projects, which will improve things,” she said. 

The only other large industrial employer in West Berkeley was the pharmaceutical company Bayer, Maio said, which had not been as badly hit. 

As for whether environmental activists had affected the layoffs at the plant, Maio said there was very little basis for that argument. 

“For many decades, Pacific Steel didn’t pay very much attention to upgrading their facility.” she said. “They are playing catch-up now. They should have been doing this a long time ago.”


City Council Passes Downtown Plan

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:37:00 AM

The Berkeley City Council worked late into the night Tuesday to pass a modified Downtown Area Plan (DAP), setting the direction and goals for development in the city center for the foreseeable future. 

The plan passed on a 7-2 vote with Jesse Arreguín and Kriss Worthington voting against it. The plan is the fifth official version, with Planning and Development Department staff producing one new version on July 10 for consideration at Tuesday’s meeting, and then producing the final amendments only hours before the meeting after councilmembers, staff, and a collection of citizens worked on compromise language and provisions throughout the day. 

The plan was originally drafted by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC), with a modified version written by the Planning Commission, and a third staff-written version modified from the Planning Commission version last month after Bates, Maio, and Capitelli offered amendments to bridge some of the differences between the DAPAC and Planning Commission versions. 

The council also approved the DAP’s environmental impact report on an 8-0-1 vote with Arreguín abstaining. 

The council ignored requests by several speakers from the public to put off consideration of the final plan for at least a week—and possibly even until the fall—so that the community could analyze the final version. 

In the end, the differences on the council over the final plan came down to taller building height limitations. Councilmembers fiddled with those numbers up until the final vote, initially approving a plan by Bates for three exceptions at 180 feet and four at 120 feet, then reconsidering that vote, and finally agreeing on a plan offered by Moore that allows two buildings at 180 feet, four at 120 feet, and two at 100 feet. Arreguín voted no on the final building height allowance and Worthington abstained, with the other councilmembers and the mayor voting yes. 

The plan also calls for UC Berkeley to be allowed two buildings at 120 feet in the downtown area. While the university is not legally bound by the height limitations in the city’s Downtown Area Plan, UC Berkeley officials have been deeply involved in the negotiations over the plan,and have said they will voluntarily comply with the final height limitations. The cover page of the Downtown Area Plan lists the author of the DAP as “City of Berkeley in cooperation with the University of California, Berkeley.” 

Moore, who authored the final height limitations, said he would even be in favor of a greater density in the downtown area than was called for in the final version. “I think [former Oakland Mayor] Jerry Brown was right when he wanted to bring 10,000 new residents into the downtown of Oakland,” Moore said. “We’ve seen the success there with the development and restaurants and businesses which are supported because they have dense development in downtown Oakland. I work there every day and I see it. ... If I had my way, we’d build bigger, denser buildings.”  

But with a smile and a nod toward Arreguín, who sits next to him on the council dais, Moore said he was offering his modified height limitation amendment “given that this is Berkeley, and we have to all compromise.” 

Arreguín, who represents the downtown area in his council district, said the higher building height limitations kept him from voting for the final plan. “You’ve put me in a situation where I can’t vote for this plan,” he told his fellow councilmembers. 

The council also failed on a 2-7 vote (Arreguín and Worthington, yes) to approve a plan by Worthington to bifurcate the plan, voting separately on what Worthington called the “controversial” parts from what he called the “90 percent of the plan that we all agree on.” Worthington said that such a procedure would ensure that application of the provisions of the majority of the plan would not be held up by a threatened citizen referendum against the DAP. But both Capitelli and Maio said that it would be impossible to separate many of the individual provisions out of the integrated plan without destroying the compromise agreements that had put the final version together. 

Citizens will have 30 days after a final version of the plan has been certified and published to complete the petition process that could lead to a referendum on the DAP. 

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the council unanimously approved Arreguín and Moore’s modified resolution calling for the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) to coordinate its controversial transportation of demolition debris through Berkeley city streets from the decommissioned Bevatron particle accelerator. 

One of the provisions of the Arreguín-Moore resolution asks the LBNL to “consider compensating the City of Berkeley” for the impacts of the heavy truck use of Berkeley streets during the waste transportation. LBNL officials said Tuesday they would consider that request. 

At least some of the debris contains radioactive nuclear waste materials, but LBNL officials said Tuesday night that any hazardous debris being transported has been sealed and tagged according to federal standards. 

A coalition of Berkeley residents has been calling for a halt in the debris hauling, charging that the nuclear waste material was dangerous to residents’ health and that the hauling violated Berkeley’s Nuclear-Free Zone Ordinance. Many of them showed up at Tuesday’s meeting, calling on the council to prevent the demolition and debris hauling, which has been going on for several weeks. 

At one point in thepublic speaking time, Berkeley activist Zachary Runningwolf accused LBNL of being “very arrogant; they are liars. They said last February that they would come back with a demolition plan. Now we find out that conveniently, on your own, you have passed nuclear waste through our city streets.” Saying that “every single person in this room is in danger from these liars,” Runningwolf turned directly to a man at the front table whom he presumed to be an LBNL official and said “you’re a liar, at best, and you’re extremely dangerous.” The man sat red-faced and silent at the table, staring back at Runningwolf.  

Following Runningwolf’s presentation, Mayor Bates told him he owed an apology to the man, whom he identified as a city staff member and not an LBNL official. Runningwolf apologized to the staff member, butm walking back into the audience, he spotted an LBNL official in the crowd and told him, “I’m not apologizing to you, though.” 

At a question from councilmembers, Acting City Attorney Zach Cowan said that portions of the Nuclear-Free Zone Ordinance, which prohibits the transportation of nuclear materials through the city, are pre-empted by federal law, which covers the operations of federal facilities such as the Lawrence Lab. 


City Receives $1.3 Million in Homelessness Prevention Funds

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:37:00 AM

Berkeley was awarded $1.3 million in federal homelessness prevention funds Thursday under President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. 

The news came a day after Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates announced the results of a new study that showed a 48 percent drop in chronic homelessness in the city over the last six years.  

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan allocated a total of $1.2 billion to more than 400 communities nationwide Thursday as part of the agency’s new Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP), funded by the Recovery Act. 

Alameda County was awarded $802,915; Oakland was awarded $3.4 million; and Alameda received $552,208 under HPRP. 

The total amount awarded to Alameda County jurisdictions was $6.8 million. 

  These new awards represent about a nine-fold increase from what any jurisdiction typically receives under the department’s formula allocation, said HUD Regional Coordinator Eduardo Cabrera. 

Cabrera said the funds would be used to prevent homelessness and to swiftly re-house families that are already homeless. 

The program helps individuals and families who have met with a sudden financial crisis that could lead to homelessness by providing them with short-term (up to three months) and medium-term (up to 18 months) rental assistance and services. 

It will also provide security deposits, utility deposits, utility payments, moving-cost assistance and hotel vouchers. 

“This is money that will not only spare families the hardships of homelessness, but will save taxpayers significant money in the long run,” Donovan said in a statement. “Often times, a little bit of financial assistance can make all the difference between a stable home and being forced to live in a shelter or on the streets.”  

HPRP grants are not intended to provide long-term support or to offer mortgage assistance to homeowners facing eviction. 

Cabrera said in order for these funds to be released, each jurisdiction had to submit a plan by December.  

The Recovery Act includes $13.61 billion for projects and programs overseen by HUD, of which nearly 75 percent was allocated to state and local recipients eight days after President Obama signed it into law. The HPRP funding was included in the 75 percent allocated at that time. Because HUD has approved the grant recipients’ spending plans now, the agency is officially making the money available for spending. 

The remaining 25 percent of HUD Recovery Act funds will be awarded through a competitive process. 

Bates’ Chief of Staff Julie Sinai said that Alameda County’s EveryOne Home program would be coordinating with six resource centers in the county, including Berkeley’s, to provide rent support, case management and help with down payments. 

The Berkeley center will help homeless populations from Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville and Piedmont. A request for proposals is currently being developed, Sinai said, in order to find a nonprofit organization to operate the center. 

For more information on the HPRP, see www.hudhre.info/HPRP. 


Laser-Powered Accelerator Plan Gets Boost From Recovery Act

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:38:00 AM

A strangely colored beam pouring out a quadrillion watts of peak power spewing out subatomic particles juiced up by a ten-billion-electronic-volt laser plasma accelerator housed in a facility dubbed the “experimental cave”? 

While it may sound like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) officials are calling it BELLA—short for Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator and not for that Lugosi guy who played Dracula, though he, too, lurked in dark, cavernous places. 

To be built with the help of $20 million in funding from the Obama administration’s Amer- 

ican Resource and Recovery Act, the project is part of the lab’s $115.8 million in Recovery Act funding awarded the lab in March by former LBNL director and now Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. 

The total cost of the laser facility will be $28 million, with the balance of funding also coming from Department of Energy accounts. 

Designed to replace vastly larger particle accelerators used in the study of the fundamental properties of matter, the research equipment will be housed in an existing structure, Building 71, on the northern edge of the lab’s campus. 

Construction of Building 71 was begun in 1957 to house the lab’s Heavy Ion Linear Accelerator (HILAC), according to the environmental assessment released by the lab to cover the BELLA project. 

The Department of Energy in 2007 listed the structure as eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places “because of the important role that the building had played in the nuclear physics and accelerator development” at the lab, according to the environmental assessment. 

But the removal in 2008 of the last equipment used in the HILAC experiments represented the disappearance of the building’s last remaining historic elements, the environmental assessment concluded. 

Unmentioned is the fact that building interiors are expressly excluded from the city of Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, which evaluates buildings solely on their exteriors and precludes designating interiors. 

Likewise, interiors aren’t mentioned in the criteria for designating an official California state landmark, which include: 

• Association “with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of local or regional history or the cultural heritage of California or the United States.” 

• A connection with “the lives of persons important to local, California or national history.” 

• Embodiment of “the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region or method of construction or [that] represents the work of a master or possesses high artistic values.”  

• Documentation that the site “has yielded, or has the potential to yield, information important to the prehistory or history of the local area, California or the nation.” 

To be considered for designation, structures need only meet one of the four criteria, according to the state Office of Historic Preservation (http://ohp.parks.ca.gov). 

Neither the city nor state landmarks laws are mentioned in the environmental assessment, which was prepared by a Berkeley private planning firm, Design, Community & Environment, which also prepared the environmental analysis for the university’s controversial Long Range Development Plan 2020. 

The city has designated landmarks on the UC Berkeley campus and at LBNL, but the sites are outside the city’s official jurisdiction, though sometimes at least within the state’s purview. The BELLA itself is exclusively a federal project, and LBNL’s status as a federal lab operated under contract by the university adds to the legal complications of the environmental review process.  

“The Proposed Action would not affect cultural resources,” the environmental assessment states, though the assessment also notes that the project would make one significant alteration to the building’s exterior—a 2,000-square-foot rooftop structure housing a utility room and stairwell. 

While the lab’s project review has been conducted under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), project critics like Pamela Shivola and Mark McDonald of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste said at least a preliminary review—a document formally entitled an initial study—should be conducted under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). 

In a June 10 letter, Shivola told city Planning and Development Director Dan Marks that a broader review was needed because of the site’s “proximity to residential neighborhoods ... and the Lawrence Hall of Science, a children’s school and a museum just a few hundred yards away.” 

“This is very important,” Shivola told a reporter before a recent city Planning Commission meeting. 

In addition to the lab’s relative nearness to residences and places where children congregate, McDonald and Shivola point to the area’s seismic faults, and the predictions of state and federal geologists that the Bay Area’s next major shaker is most likely to come from the nearby Hayward Fault, which runs directly beneath Memorial Stadium. 

The heart of the new facility is the experimental cave, from which much of the equipment mentioned in the environmental assessment has already been removed. The environmental assessment notes that, of an estimated 100 truckloads of material involved in the project, one will be filled with hazardous material destined for a licensed waste facility. 

“Most of the material will be what you find in any old building, including asbestos and lead,” said LBNL spokesperson Paul Preuss, though some traces of other hazards might be present, including possible spills of small quantities of radioactive materials. 

The environmental assessment acknowledges that “several instances of low-level surface radioactivity have been detected in Building 71 equipment,” include americium-241, cesium-137 and curium-244, as well as subsequently cleaned-up traces of beryllium and PCBs. 

Experiments will be conducted by new equipment surrounded by heavy radiation shielding, including three-foot-thick concrete walls plus “an additional 16 inches of lead, 36 inches of steel and another six feet of concrete to absorb the radiation and reduce exposure levels.” 

The environmental assessment also states that the beam will produce subatomic gamma rays, neutrons and photomuons, and that even workers standing near the beam’s terminus—the point of most potential exposure—would receive less than a fifth of the allowable exposure level over the course of the year. 

But McDonald is skeptical, noting that federally set levels of radiation have changed over the years. He also cites a 2001 city-commissioned review of radiological monitoring at the lab prepared by researchers at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg, Germany. 

That report concluded that radiation levels from lab accelerators had exceeded permissible levels 40 years ago at the lab’s border at the Olympic Gate monitoring station. 

Preuss and the environmental assessment both insist that the new accelerator won’t emit unsafe levels of radiation. 

The new accelerator will produce a beam about a million times more powerful than that emitted by the last-generation television’s cathode ray tube, he said, “so you definitely would not want to stand right in front of it.” 

But, “energetic as they are, none of the electrons in BELLA’s hair-thin beam are going to get out of the experimental area,” he said, “and no one can get through the interlocked doors when it’s on—it will shut down if anybody tries.” 

The device also stops abruptly in the event of an earthquake, Preuss said.  

In addition, the device, which is a mere three feet long, isn’t expected to irradiate other materials in the cave. 

McDonald and Shivola remain skeptical. 

The environmental assessment is available at www.lbl.gov/Community/BELLA.


West Berkeley Zoning Struggle Heats Up as Deadline Nears

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:57:00 AM

The fate of large-scale West Berkeley developments—pushed by both Mayor Tom Bates and officials at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—continued to preoccupy city planning commissioners Wednesday. 

Proponents of the project once called “West Berkeley Flexibility” say significant zoning code changes are needed to accommodate high-tech businesses spun off from patents generated by scientists at the university and its federal lab complex. 

But current residents, including artists, crafts workers and many business owners, have been skeptical of a push they fear could drive them out of their only foothold in the community. 

The central issue before the commission is a redefinition of the city’s master use permit rules governing development of larger sites in West Berkeley—the only part of Berkeley zoned for industry and manufacturing. 

As chair of the East Bay Green Corridor alliance of cities, universities and community colleges, Bates has led an alliance of public bodies who hope to attract green tech businesses to provide new revenues and jobs. 

That effort has sparked resistance from Berkeley’s low-tech green businesses, including the principals of Urban Ore, which specializes in selling recycled materials. Many existing business, as well as West Berkeley’s sizable community of art and craft workers, say they fear that pricey labs will lead to spiraling rents and property values, which could force them out of their last refuge in the city. 

Planning commissioners were unanimous during their July 8 session that retaining artists should be one of the incentives new enterprises could use as leverage to win approval of their projects. 

But what other incentives might be used to win approval of master use permits remained an open question by the end of the meeting, with some commissioners voicing fears that offering too many choices would reduce their cumulative impacts on higher priority objectives. 

“Be careful of Christmas trees,” said Alex Amoroso, the city planning staffer who has been leading the effort to draft new zoning rules. “If you water down your benefits, you get a couple of trees and an artist.” 

Commissioner Victoria Eisen, a private-sector transportation planner and an avid cyclist, said she’d like to see more bicycle improvements, including the completion of links between existing bike routes. 

“I would like to add something about support for open space and the arts,” said Commissioner James Novosel, an architect. He’d also like to add preservation, “because it’s going to cost developers a lot of money to preserve these buildings.” 

“I would like to add both green buildings and green manufacturing, said chair David Stoloff, a retired planner. 

Eisen said she’d like staff to investigate Emeryville’s shuttle system to find out what makes that program work as a possible incentive to create a similar system in West Berkeley to link employees with transit and reduce reliance on cars. 

Deborah Sanderson, the city’s land-use planning manager, said the key to Emeryville’s success was the shuttle’s connection to BART. 

“How do you get to the commensurate aspect of this,” asked Gene Poschman, the commission’s resident policy expert. How, he wondered, would the city place a value on granting exceptions in increased building mass and height in exchange for benefit? How do you set a price on mass, 90-foot buildings and reduced parking, he asked. 

“At this point we don’t have any way to put a value on these,” he said. “I don’t see any meat on these bones.” 

West Berkeley’s 692 acres constitute about a tenth of Berkeley’s land mass. The area is bounded by city limits on the north and south, and stretches from San Pablo Avenue to San Francisco Bay, including the 99 acres of water in Aquatic Park. 

By way of comparison, the city’s University of California campus, a politically separate entity, totals 1,232 acres, not including off-campus university-owned properties. 

According to the Land Use Element of the city’s General Plan, only 4 percent of the city is zoned for manufacturing, and all of it is in West Berkeley. “In 1977, industrial uses occupied virtually all of West Berkeley aside from its residential areas. Since then, industrial activity in the area has decreased substantially, and office and retail uses have occupied a portion of the former industrial area,” the document declares. 

That same document states that “Approximately 24 percent of all Berkeley jobs are in West Berkeley, where manufacturing and wholesale jobs account for 41 percent of all jobs, service jobs for 30 percent, retail jobs for 16 percent, and other jobs (construction, transport, etc.) for 13 percent.” 

The West Berkeley Plan specifically calls for retention of manufacturing in the area, and the current debate centers in part around definitions. 

The area is zoned for manufacturing and light industrial uses—the M, MM and MULI zones—and for mixed-use residential—MUR. 

The zoning code prescribes uses allowed in each zone, and one of the issues the commission has already tentatively resolved is a change in the documentation used to describe permitted use. While the existing code uses the Standard Industrial Classifications, or SIC code, to define business types, commissioners have already indicated they favor switching to the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), which incorporate high tech business types that didn’t exist when the older code was drawn up. 

A second issue that may be close to resolution is the ability of property owners to reconfigure uses within a site as business uses change, though some dispute remains over the level of oversight of the needed permits. 

But other issues have generated more contention, especially the definition of sites that could apply for a master use permit. 

One issue is size: Should they be restricted to a few pre-existing and named sites or to any parcels of a given size? And what should be the minimum size? Three acres? Four? Five? A city block even if it is smaller than the agreed-upon size? 

And should they be pre-existing parcels or should a developer be allowed to buy contiguous parcels until the minimum size is reached? 

This, perhaps the thorniest of the issues, has generated heat between would-be developers, West Berkeley residents and members of West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies (WEBAIC). 

While Amoroso said staff has focused on a four-acre minimum, WEBAIC has pushed to confine master use permits to a limited number of sites. The commission majority has often sided with developers in the past, ensuring that WEBAIC and its allies have filled the great majority of seats in meetings devoted to the issue. 

Rick Auerbach, WEBAIC’s lone staffer, told commissioners that while the group was willing to settle for a four-acre minimum, “unlimited consolidation does effectively change the West Berkeley Plan because it changes the mix of uses sought in the plan.”  

Commissioner Patti Dacey, with Poschman a member of the minority on many votes, has been strongly critical of the staff’s handling of discussions with West Berkeley stakeholder groups, urging her colleagues to spend more time listening to critics and asking staff to let the groups meet jointly in an effort to come up with a consensus proposal. 

“You’re just raping the West Berkeley Plan,” Primo Facchini of Pacific Coast Chemical told commissioners. 

The commission is pushing forward with its work and will hold a critical discussion July 22 when it will vet tentative language on zoning code changes. 

After the August break, commissioners will be back to vote on the first measures to be sent to the City Council, which is expected to approve the final package in January.


Planners to Vote on Subdividing in West Berkeley

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:56:00 AM

Planning commissioners will take up controversial zoning code changes for West Berkeley when they hold their last session before the August break on July 22. 

The panel, working with city staff, is hammering out a package of measures aimed at easing rules for larger developments in the city’s only industrial and manufacturing district in response to a City Council directive spearheaded by Mayor Tom Bates. 

The last July meeting will take up four items. 

Three proposals have stirred little controversy: Changes in zoning to allow small retail outlets for products on the same sites where they are manufactured, clarification of the existing code to allow reallocation of permitted uses within a site; and a switch from an outmoded list of industrial codes to a more contemporary version. 

The fourth item has generated some controversy, and commissioners will be presented with two competing proposals to demising—plannerese for subdividing—space within a site into more separate units. 

A joint proposal comes from commercial brokers Norheim & Yost and members of West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies (WEBAIC). A second proposal comes from city planning staff. 

They key differences between the two versions lie in the amount of discretion allowed city staff in granting permits. 

The joint proposal would allow any property to be divided into two to five spaces with an over-the-counter zoning certificate (ZC), subdivision into six to nine space with a staff-issued administrative use permit (AUP), and breakdown into ten or more spaces only with a full use permit ,which requires a public hearing before the Zoning Adjustments Board. 

The staff alternative would grant all three types of subdivision with an AUP. 

Commissioners will also schedule a public hearing on rules for creating columbaria in the city. 

The commission’s earlier language flunked the constitutional test because it allowed ashes to be interred only on church property, leaving atheists and agnostics without a venue for the “cremains.” 

Following threats of legal action from the American Atheist Association and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the city opted to send the law back to commissioners with the charge of drawing up a more secular ordinance. 

The last item on the agenda is a vote on whether or not to approve a revised tract map for 2025 Channing Way, where commissioners had approved a 30-unit condominium project three years ago. 

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 


Environmental Review Details Richmond Casino Alternatives

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:57:00 AM

The long-delayed environmental impact report on the proposed Point Molate $1.5 billion casino resort complex is finally finished, four years after the first public meeting to gather public comment. 

This is the first of three articles on the Richmond shoreline project. This article focuses on the project itself, looking at the range of alternatives presented in the environmental impact report. Subsequent articles in the coming weeks will look at environmental impacts and community—and official—reactions to the proposal. 

The site of the project is the former naval refueling station at Point Molate, one of the last remaining relatively undeveloped areas of the San Francisco Bay coastline available for development. 

After the base was closed in 1998, under terms of the 1990 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act, the property was transferred to the city in 2003 for a dollar, conditional on an environmental cleanup, which is still underway. 

The city commissioned a study by Canadian economists, who concluded that a casino might generate the most revenue for the city. Richmond then began seeking a partner. 

 

Developers 

Berkeley environmental cleanup specialist James D. Levine won the right to develop the property. He has teamed with two partners to form Upstream Investments, LLC: former Secretary of Defense and Maine Sen. William Cohen, and Napa developer John Salmon, former director of the Governor’s Office of Asset Management and, previously, vice president for property development and sales of Santa Fe Pacific Realty Corp., now known as Catellus Development.  

They, in turn, recruited the Guidiville Rancheria Pomos, a Native American tribal group that the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (Bureau of Indian Affairs) has determined was wrongly deprived of its federal reservation. 

After winning initial backing from Harrah’s Entertainment, a global casino industry operator, Upstream later teamed with the Rumsey Band of Wintuns, operators of the highly successful Cache Creek Casino resort in Yolo County, when Harrah’s began to sink under a sea of red ink.  

The developers created another entity, Winehaven Partners, to solidify the partnership. Winehaven Partners is a limited liability corporation formed in Delaware on Dec. 20, 2007, registered to do business in California on April 21, 2008, from an address that traces back to Levine’s Emeryville office.  

In 2004, the city projected that payments and benefits to the city for the project would total more than $350 million. 

The project faces a variety of hurdles before development can commence, including the critical decision by the Bureau of Indian Affairs about whether to allow the site to be created as a Guidiville reservation. Without reservation status, the massive casino could not be built, since full-blown casinos aren’t allowed in California on non-reservation land.  

Other obstacles in the path of development include resolution of any lawsuits challenging the project and negotiation of a tribal gambling compact with the state. 

The Point Molate project is one of two pending Richmond casino projects. The environmental impact report on the second project, the Sugar Bowl, a no-frills casino planned for North Richmond by the Scotts Valley Pomos and a Florida developer, has been overturned after a court win by opponents.  

The Sugar Bowl would be a $200 million casino with 1,940 slot machines and a parking structure and lots to hold 3,500 cars.  

The Point Molate site includes the Winehaven National Historic District, which includes 34 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

The most notable of the structures is the Winehaven building, which housed the country’s largest winery until Prohibition forced its closure. Also of note are cottages built by the Navy when the site housed a naval refueling station. 

Both the city and the Bureau of Indian Affairs must approve the environmental review, which was conducted jointly under terms of the federal National Environmental Protection Act and the California Environmental Quality Act.  

 

Project alternatives 

The environmental impact report lists six project alternatives, including one that reflects leaving the site as it currently exists and another that projects the 413-acre site as a city park developed with city funds. 

About 140 of the acres of the site are located under the waters of San Francisco Bay, and the city would retain the right-of-way for Western Drive which goes through the site, as well as the title to a 50-foot-wide shoreline strip, which would be leased to the tribe under the first four alternatives. 

In all versions, the existing historic structures would remain. 

The four projects that call for development include: 

• Development solely as a casino resort, including two hotels with a total of 1,075 rooms, 54 luxury guest cottages and a 240,000-square-foot casino including 124,000 square feet of gambling area, a 300,000-square-foot shopping center, two parking garages, a ferry terminal and a public transit hub. 

• An otherwise identical gambling, entertainment and shopping complex plus the addition of 340 attached housing units, including three- and four-bedroom townhouses ranging from 1,700 to 2,600 square feet on 32 acres. 

• A reduced casino and entertainment development with 400 hotel rooms, 50,000 square feet of conference space, a 30,000-square-foot entertainment venue, 20,000 square feet of retail and 236 acres of open space. 

In all three gambling alternatives, the casino would be housed in the Winehaven building. 

• A non-reservation mixed-use project with housing, a 150-room hotel, retail and offices, to be developed by the tribe and Upstream. It would include 1,100 residential units in high-, medium- and low-density structures in five sites occupying 70.5 acres. This alternative would require the tribe to sell the land to Upstream. 

The housing alternatives would be developed on the site’s southwestern shoreline segment inland from Western Drive. 

Construction would take place over 36 months for the first four alternatives and would include a range of “green” building features, including photovoltaic electrical generation and solar water heating for the residential alternatives, gray water recycling and hotel rooms with systems to automatically switch off lighting when guests leave. 

An on-site city fire station and law enforcement by the city are mandated in the agreement between the city and the tribe, at a cost to the tribe of $8 million annually for the first eight years and $10 million a year thereafter. 

The city would also receive $10 a day for each hotel room in exchange for waiving the hotel tax, and $5.25 a year per square foot of retail space in lieu of sales tax revenues on tribally operated areas of the site, plus other fees on any non-tribal areas. 

If the site remains in city hands, the environmental impact report estimates the city would have to pay $4 million to clean up toxins in the soil remaining from its use as a naval facility. 

A variety of toxic organic compounds have been found in the soil and groundwater, including trichloroethane (TCE), metals and oil-based hydrocarbons. 

 

Hotels, parking 

Under the first two alternatives, the project would include two hotels, the first a 160-foot-high, 800-room casino-hotel building, and the second—dubbed the Point Hotel—with 275 rooms in a 105-foot-high main structure as well as 25 detached “casitas.” 

The smaller hotel would be built on the point itself in a wide C-configuration while the larger hotel would be adjacent to the Winehaven building.  

Drawings in the environmental impact report depict stepped configurations for both structures. The buildings appear to be designed so that all of the rooms have views of the bay. 

The 29 existing cottages in the historic district would be refurbished as luxury suites that range from 700 to 1,500 square feet. 

The developed tribal alternatives would include a 7,100-square-foot office building, a 3,500-square-foot ceremonial roundhouse and three acres of dancing grounds and parklands. 

Tribal developments would include 180 acres of parklands and open space in two main parcels: 

• 145 hillside acres maintained as open space with walking trails, picnic areas and restrooms.  

• 35 shoreline acres, including the 50-foot city-owned strip.  

The Bay Trail would be extended through the area in all four developed versions in a manner similar to other sections of the existing trail. Also included in the plans is a kayaking center. 

The existing naval pier would be refurbished, reduced slightly in size and equipped with up to 5,000 square feet of covered space to accommodate offices and services for what the developers predict will be as many as 3,000 daily round-trip passengers. 

The first two projects would including a massive amount of excavation, and the environmental impact report estimates that construction of the two underground parking structures would require removal of 1.38 million cubic yards of rock and soil, which would be barged off site and marketed to construction projects around the bay. 

A 5,000-space parking structure would be constructed across Western Drive from the Winehaven building, and a second 2,500-space structure would be built near the smaller hotel. 

The smaller casino project would use only one 5,000-space parking structure.  

Full development would generate an estimated average of 567,000 gallons of wastewater daily, with a peak use estimated at 777,000 gallons, most to be handled by connection to city lines. 

Gray water from sinks, showers and laundry facilities would be treated by the tribe with a 4,000-square-foot facility located in the larger of the two parking structures. 

 

EIR available 

The massive environmental impact report is contained in four volumes totaling 5,284 pages. Hard copies may be perused at City Hall on the second floor at 450 Civic Center Plaza or at the Richmond Public Library, 725 Civic Center Plaza. 

The documents are also available online in PDF format at www.pointmolateeis-eir.com 

Technical experts will be available for questioning at two public workshops at 6 p.m. on Aug. 10 and Aug. 27 at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza. 

The public may present its praise or criticism of the document and the projects it describes until Sept. 23. Two public hearings are scheduled at 6 p.m. on Aug. 12 and Sept. 17 at Richmond Memorial Auditorium.  

The public’s comments must be addressed in the final version of the document.  

 


UC Announces Sliding Scale Cuts; Regents to Act on Stadium Finances

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:56:00 AM

The University of California Board of Regents was expected to slash pay for faculty and staff Thursday, July 16, during the same three-day meeting at which they were set to approve funds for rebuilding Memorial Stadium. 

UC President Mark Yudof announced Friday, July 10, that he would present the regents with a plan for pay cuts during the July 14-16 session at UCSF Mission Bay. 

A regents subcommittee approved the cuts during a Wednesday morning session, with a vote on final approval set for the full board Thursday morning, July 16. 

Yudof’s proposal, released in a “Dear Colleagues” letter, calls for a sliding scale of cutbacks delivered through unpaid furlough days, ranging from a cut of 4 percent for those earning $40,000 or less up to 10 percent for those earning over $240,000. 

Unpaid days off will range from 11 at the bottom end to 26 at the high end. 

The one exception is for senior management, who will take only 10 furlough days “even though their pay cut percentage may be higher,” according to Yudof’s letter. 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) employees have been exempted from the cuts, and exemptions will also be granted some other employees. 

“Systemwide furloughs will produce $515 million from all fund sources,” Yudof wrote, “including $184 million in General Fund savings which equals roughly one-quarter of our State funding deficit.” 

Action on the cuts was set for Wednesday’s meeting of the Committees on Finance and Compensation as part of a package that includes a declaration of financial emergency. 

For more on the proposal, see www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul09/joint.pdf. 

During the same three-day meeting, regents were expected to confirm the appointment of A. Paul Alivisatos as LBNL Interim Director pending the hiring of a permanent replacement for Steve Chu who left the lab to become Secretary of Energy in the cabinet of President Barack Obama. 

The proposal before the regents would pay Alivisatos—who won’t be affected by the cuts—a base salary of $357,000 plus another $49,980 stipend and an $8,916 car allowance. He’ll also be entitled to a home loan “up to policy limits.” 

The board’s Committee on Grounds and Buildings was also expected to approve $18.3 million in interim financing for preliminary plans for renovation of California Memorial Stadium, the landmark Berkeley structure that sits directly over the Hayward Fault. 

The full schedule for the three-day meeting is available online at www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/july09.html. Documentation for each item is available by clicking on the entry. 

 

Bay City News contributed to this article.


UC Buys Another Berkeley Office Building

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:56:00 AM
UC Berkeley has acquired another Berkeley office building, paying Seagate Properties $21.8 million for 2850 Telegraph Ave. The UCB law school already occupies about two-thirds of the six-story building.
Richard Brenneman
UC Berkeley has acquired another Berkeley office building, paying Seagate Properties $21.8 million for 2850 Telegraph Ave. The UCB law school already occupies about two-thirds of the six-story building.

UC Berkeley has quietly occupied yet another Berkeley building, with the law school taking occupancy of 2850 Telegraph Ave. 

The six-story structure at the southwest corner of the intersection of Telegraph and Oregon Street was built in 1970, replacing a 1931 Tudoresque mortuary. 

Seagate Properties, a San Rafael company, bought the building in January 2005. 

In addition to the 68,587 square feet of the office building, 68 underground parking spaces and a basement add another 20,000 square feet, according to a press release from Seagate at the time of its purchase. 

The lot contains another 86 surface parking spaces behind the building. 

In an April 9, 2008, e-mail to law school students, Dean Christopher Edley had announced plans to lease 40,000 square feet of the building. 

“This would allow us to consolidate many of our operations into a single location,” he wrote. “We would have a frequent shuttle to carry people between the two Law buildings. At the moment, this looks like the most viable option for a second law school campus.” 

The school’s Alumni Center moved officially into the building on April 13, and other law school tenants include the Center for Law, Business and the Economy, the Center on Health, Economic and Family Security, the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity, the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, and the school’s press and communication departments. 

Because no property taxes or assessments are levied against building space owned or leased by the university, a complete takeover of the building could spell the loss of the $184,167 Seagate was billed by the Alameda County Assessor’s office for the most recent tax year. 

The Telegraph Avenue building is the university’s second major off-campus acquisition in recent months. Earlier this year UC Berkeley bought the 211,000-square-foot Golden Bear building at 1995 University Ave. In that instance, the university agreed to pay the city $159,000 a year as compensation for lost tax and assessment revenues. 

Unlike that agreement, no such agreement was struck in the Telegraph Avenue acquisition, said Dan Mogulof, campus executive director of Public Affairs. 

Mogulof said the sale closed on April 1, 2009, with a purchase price of $21.8 million, financed “through University-sponsored tax exempt bonds with payments funded by revenue from tenants.” 

The law school currently occupies about two-thirds of the structure, with non-university clients leasing the rest. 

Seagate has been selling off some of its Berkeley properties. In 2005, the company sold the site and plans for the nine-story-plus Berkeley Arpeggio now rising on Center Street west of Shattuck Avenue was sold to SNK Development, which is now busily building the condo mid-rise. 

Two years later, Seagate sold its landmark property in the city, the Wells Fargo building at the intersection of Shattuck and Center, to a Nevada corporation based in Marin County, the Bollibokka Land Company. 

A call to Seagate was not returned by the Daily Planet’s deadline. 


Hall of Health Museum Closes After 35 Years

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:55:00 AM

A downtown Berkeley based health museum that once drew 24,000 visitors a year is closing its doors this week because of falling attendance and a loss of grant funding. 

Hall of Health , a hands-on health museum will close its doors Saturday, July 18 after 35 years. 

The museum, located at Shattuck and Kittredge, is operated under the aegis of Children’s Hospital and Research Center of Oakland. 

“It’s really sad to lose this,” the outgoing museum director, Dr. Lucy Day said. 

Specifically designed to instruct youth in the subjects of the human body, nutrition, puberty, safety, drugs and addiction, genetics, and body image, the museum provided various hands-on exhibits, including electronic quizzes, medical equipment, health-related computer programs, and body and organ models. Two-thirds of the museum’s attendance consisted of tours sponsored primarily by school groups. 

At its height, the museum had three employees and a large contingent of UC Berkeley work-study students. In recent weeks, due to declining attendance, the museum has been staffed by just Day and two work-study students. Day, a 17-year veteran of Children’s Hospital, said the closure of the museum will end her employment with the hospital, but she’d be glad to return if funds can be found to reopen the museum. 

According to Day, drastic changes in the area’s primary education establishment, as well as other educational and economic changes, led to the attendance decline, which had plummeted to 5,500 visitors a year. Day said that tours from Oakland public schools dropped following the state takeover of Oakland Unified in 2003, and the district’s transfer of the sixth grade classes from elementary to middle school led to a complete end to tours from sixth graders. In addition, Day said that the constrictions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act caused many local teachers to concentrate more on activities designed to boost test scores, leaving out auxiliary learning such as that provided by the Hall of Health. 

Rental costs played a factor as well. 

The museum was operating on a $335,000 annual budget, 10 percent supplied directly by Children’s Hospital, the rest provided by grants from the National Institute of Health and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Day said that the $7,000 per month lease for the Berkeley center property where the museum is located was a good deal for downtown Berkeley and she had no quarrel with the property owners. But she added that nonprofit museums are typically housed rent-free, and the Hall of Health’s funders balked at paying what they considered a steep rent. Outside funding for the museum ends this month. 

Day said that she relied on a real estate broker to try to find alternative housing for the museum, but admitted that she might have made a mistake in not trying harder to search for new spaces herself. 

Children’s Hospital officials say they have not given up hope to reopen the museum and are pursuing money and an alternative location. They said that anyone with suggestions can contact Diana Yee in the Children’s Hospital Media Relations Department at 428-3367.  

In the meantime, Day said that exhibits from the museum are being loaned out to local schools and other education institutions to aid in student health instruction. 

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story corrects a mistake in the print edition. The Hall of Health's lease is $7,000 per month, not per year. 


Three Arrests in Berkeley-Oakland Gang War

Bay City News Service
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:55:00 AM

An investigation into two rival gangs from North Oakland and South Berkeley led to the arrests Friday, July 10, of several suspects, including one who was shot by a police officer, authorities said. 

Oakland and Berkeley police have been investigating the feud between the two gangs since 2001. Oakland police said the gangs, mostly consisting of males between the ages of 16 and 30, may be behind a recent escalation of shootings in Oakland and Berkeley. 

Over the past two weeks, Oakland police have conducted several hours of surveillance and dozens of interviews, which led to the issuing of seven search warrants and several arrest warrants that targeted the most violent gang members, according to police. 

On Friday, officers served high-risk warrants in a number of East Bay cities and made at least three arrests. Additionally, police seized 12 firearms and some narcotics. Hercules, Berkeley, Richmond, and Hayward police assisted in the operation, as did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives. 

Coleon Carroll, 19, was arrested on an outstanding robbery warrant at about 7 a.m. at a home in the 100 block of Chestnut Avenue in Hercules, Hercules police said. 

Carroll allegedly fled the home through a back window. Hercules police said an officer shot Carroll after seeing him reach for a weapon. 

Carroll then went back into the home where he was apprehended. He suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and was taken to the hospital to be treated for the injury, which did not appear to be life-threatening. 

The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office and Hercules police are investigating the shooting. 

In addition to Carroll, Gregg Fite, 34, was arrested on an outstanding murder warrant and Joseph Carroll, 22, was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm. 

Oakland Acting Police Chief Howard Jordan said of the operation, “We are highly sensitive to the ongoing issues involving firearms within our city. We put significant resources into this investigation and today’s operation and are here to stem the tide of violence within our community.”


Former Cal Bear Sentenced for Student Rapes

Bay City News Service
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:54:00 AM

Former University of California at Berkeley football player Noah Smith was sentenced Wednesday to four years in state prison for sexually assaulting two female students. 

Prosecutor Patrick Moriarty asked that Smith, 23, who was a wide receiver for UC Berkeley, be sentenced to the maximum term of 17 years for his crimes, but Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon said four years was an appropriate sentence, in part because Smith didn’t have a prior record. 

On June 16, jurors convicted Smith of attempting to rape a woman in March 2005 and of forcible rape and forced oral copulation for an incident on May 7, 2007. 

During Smith’s trial, two other women testified that Smith had also sexually assaulted them. 

Smith, who is from Lake View in Southern California, was a high school All-American but saw only limited action at Cal. 

According to Cal’s website, Smith played in only six games in 2004 and four games each in 2005 and 2006, catching a total of six passes for 89 yards and scoring one touchdown.


Gang of Five Robs Pair of Pedestrians

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:54:00 AM

Campus and Berkeley police are looking for a gang of five that robbed a pair of pedestrians at the corner of Oxford Street and University Avenue Sunday night, July 12. 

According to a campus police bulletin, a man and a woman were braced by five youths as they strolled along University. 

“One of the juveniles brandished a knife and demanded the victims’ property while two other suspects grabbed the victims’ property,” reported campus police. 

The five fled on foot, heading west on Allston Way. Despite a search by both law enforcement agencies, the five juveniles remain at large. 

No one was hurt in the incident. 

The victims were able to offer general descriptions of three of the suspects, all of whom were estimated to be about 16 years old. 

Campus Police Chief Victoria L. Harrison urged anyone with information about the incident to call the Berkeley Police Department at 981-5900. 

 


Albany Activist’s Family Wins Wrongful Death Settlement

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:53:00 AM

The family of much-loved Albany environmentalist Ruth Meniketti has won a $500,000 settlement for her wrongful death, said family lawyer and former Albany Mayor Robert Cheasty. 

Meniketti was killed June 7, 2007, two weeks before her 86th birthday, when she was struck by a drunk driver as she was walking across Marin Avenue at Talbot Avenue, police reported. 

The driver, construction worker Rebecca Rivera, was arrested on charges of gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence, said Albany Police Lt. Daniel Adams at the time. 

Rivera subsequently spent three months in county jail and remains on probation, Cheasty said Wednesday.  

Meniketti served for more than three decades on Albany’s Parks and Recreation Commission and had also served on the city’s Traffic and Safety Commission. 

An environmental activist, she was deeply involved with Citizens for Eastshore Parks and Friends of Five Creeks. 

“Ruth was a shining example of how to live your life—always giving and compassionate. She was an example of how to stay young. Just two weeks before she was killed I was working with her on our Green Albany Day,” stated Albany Mayor Marge Atkinson.  

At the time of her death, then-Mayor Robert Lieber said Meniketti “was one of the icons of our community,” noting that “she had served on the waterfront commission. She was a really interesting person.” 

The Albany Chamber of Commerce named her Citizen of the Year in 2001, and she played an active part in the 2006 political campaigns over the planned shopping mall at Golden Gate Fields. 

Son Marco Meniketti is an anthropology professor at San Jose State. “Most of all I will miss not having her here with us while my daughter grows up. I just wanted her to help guide my daughter as she guided my sister and me,” he said. “She was so full of ideas and love of life. She was truly inspirational.” 


Drought

By Shirley Barker Special to the Planet
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:52:00 AM

In the Bay Area we have the so-called Mediterranean climate, with cool rainy winters and warm dry summers. Rarely does measurable rain fall between May and September, five dry months. 

If this rainfall pattern continues, we will always have a water shortage as long as our population continues to increase. We are always at risk for drought. 

Because it arrives in our houses clean and drinkable at the turn of a tap, we take water for granted. In countries where water has always been scarce, it is revered. Such an attitude helps to conserve water, says Francesca de Chatel in her book, Water Sheikhs and Dam Builders (Transaction Publishers, 2007). 

In the wet West, water has to be sanctified by priests before it is considered worth respecting. Beneath California’s Central Valley lies an immense aquifer. During the Gold Rush, hydraulic mining was used to dislodge gold-bearing ore. Canals were dug to carry water to where it was needed to wash gold particles. This is the genesis of the Central Valley’s irrigation system. 

When mechanical pumps are deployed to take water from aquifers for irrigation, the danger is that the strength of the pumps will deplete the aquifer beyond its capacity to recharge its water supply. This is now happening in the Central Valley, our bread basket. 

It is therefore important to recognize that there are limits to our water supply. There are limits to technology. Mankind can not control and dominate nature even by technology because human imagination is limited. We can not foresee the consequences of many expensive, highly-industrialized schemes. The Aswan Dam in Egypt is a case in point. Before the dam was built, as every schoolchild knows, the Nile flooded annually, spreading the lands on either side with nutritious silt. According to Chatel, Egypt now has to buy fertilizers, which pollute the ground water. Nile silt, which now has nowhere to go, is gradually filling Lake Nasser, which lies behind the dam. When Lake Nasser has filled with silt, there will be no water in the lake. There are many stories like this in industrially-underwritten regions—grandiose, expensive, and short-sighted. 

Chatel believes that conservation has a better chance of solving water-shortage problems than have technology, money and dreams. It is a solution less flashy, less popular with politicians. It sounds tedious, because we do not respect water. 

We gardeners can do our bit, by conserving every drop of water we receive so easily, making sure it goes just where our plants need it, at the roots, and in the right amount, neither too much nor too little. Plant roots need air as well as water. Only bog plants like their roots permanently saturated. Robert Rubik (Drip Irrigation, Metamorphic Press, 1992) thinks that roots longer than two feet are probably produced for stability. It is short roots closer to the surface that convey nutrients to the plant.  

Methods of irrigating East Bay gardens include sprinkler systems, soaker hoses, and regular hoses. The most economical and reliable is the humble, hand-held hose. All mechanical systems are expensive to install and maintain. Even soaker hoses clog and become useless after a year or two. Drip irrigation is less wasteful than sprinklers, which spray leaves and create puddles. Most plants dislike wet leaves. Wet leaves in hot sun can burn, and attract virus diseases or mildew. However, even drip systems can not discern the water requirements of individual plants. It is another obligate watering system. If water is applied too fast and for too long, the plant can not absorb it, another source of waste. Rubik advocates frequent, shallow watering. Again, this depends on the location of the garden and the plants that grow in it. Hand watering gives the gardener a chance to observe what each plant needs and when to water it. Daily watering is hardly necessary this side of the East Bay hills. 

Chatel’s book is more than a cautionary tale, it is frightening. Imagine atomic-bombing the Congo River to divert it to the Sahara, so that a desert might bloom! Never mind the disruption to thousands of humans, the destruction of acres of tropical rain-forest, the cost. Clearly, this scheme was beyond the capacity of its instigator to imagine the consequences. Desalination has its limits too, she says. It takes huge amounts of energy to remove salt from oceans, and the residue adversely affects its origin. 

Closer to home, recently I watched a television interview of a Central Valley farmer. He was angry, because his crop of wheat had died. Wheat is a water-demanding cereal. There are drought-tolerant grains that make delicious breads. There seems to be a connection between political decisions at the highest level in the form of farm subsidies—water as well as crops—and what we see in our shops to eat, vast amounts of wheat-only products in bakeries, for example. In between, there is waste: water carelessly used because it is cheap, acreage with no mulch in sight. Mulch is a great way to prevent surface water loss from evaporation, just as great for farms as for small back yards. 

In her last chapter, Chatel’s comments seemed to me to apply as much to the Bay Area as anywhere else where no measurable rainfall is part of the climate pattern. “It is as though water is so fundamental to our lives, that we cannot imagine it running out.” Even where it is scarce on a daily basis, few people feel it is their responsibility to resolve the problem. Could our water supply vanish so radically? Absolutely. When demand exceeds supply, where will the extra water come from?  

 


Opinion

Editorials

If Mass Transit Worked Here, It Might Look Like London

By Becky O’Malley
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:50:00 AM

For the East Bay’s many public transit groupies, London must seem like Nirvana. Cars are now taxed and otherwise restricted, so that in theory there are many fewer of them in central London. Parking, such as it is, is priced at premium rates, both on street in a few privileged neighborhoods and elsewhere.  

Streets, however, are still crowded—with buses of all descriptions, powered mainly by diesel and emitting unpleasant odors. Besides the iconic red double-deckers, there are “coaches” of all kinds, in from all over Britain and now even from distant parts of the continent, variously powered and therefore variously polluting. There are a lot of taxis too, reputed to be expensive but still popular with those who can afford them—the big black cabs from World War II spy films and a lot of minis and vans.  

The Tube, London’s huge and extensive subway network, is still running, though it’s had problems in recent years. Apparently there was a strike not too long ago, but now all is sweetness and light, just in time for the massive influx of tourists from around the globe. It’s rare to hear conversations in English on the Tube this summer. Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, French and a lot of languages no one in our group has any chance of recognizing are a lot more common. Most of these are lively parties of youngsters on summer school holidays, but bourgeois families are also visiting London this year, despite the economic downturn, or perhaps because of it. 

Perhaps the—what are we calling it these days—recession has something to do with the Tube’s all too frequent and unnerving outages. The line that serves the flat that our family group is using for the week was completely out of service all day Sunday—not a bad thing, since it motivated us to learn how to use buses, which are pleasanter and more convenient if you can figure out where to catch them. 

There’s no shortage of transit information, either, perhaps too much information. There seem to be several kinds of buses in London alone, besides the huge number of competing inter-city coach companies, a legacy from Thatcherite privatization. The best aspect of London transit is the “oyster cards,” plastic credit cards that document pre-purchase of travel fares which can be used on many different systems. Using them automatically halves your fare for a given ride, and it’s also possible to pay a flat rate for a stipulated number of travel days, as many rides as you want. Kids are free if they’re with adults. 

When you enter the Tube system or get on a bus, you just have to touch your card (or even your purse with your card in it) to a bright yellow disk at the entry. That way tourists can jump from Tube to bus and back again all day long, and they do. 

Is this better than having personal cars? It’s certainly preferable, in a city like this, to the single-occupant gasoline-powered vehicles that are the California standard.  

Could we ever get there in the Bay Area? It doesn’t look promising. 

We can’t even manage to implement a single card system for all Bay Area transit, or a simple payment method like the oyster cards for even one of our various transit authorities. The Tube, imperfect as it increasingly is, represents a huge sunk cost, which could never be raised by California’s failing governments if we wanted to build a decent subway.  

Privatization hasn’t proved to be the panacea Thatcher envisioned. We rode from the Holyhead Ferry to London on a train operated by Virgin—yes, that Virgin—and it was not a pleasant experience. There was no provision for luggage, and there was a scheduled train change half an hour into the trip, with little guidance for foreigners on how to do the transfer. 

Even worse was the unscheduled change of trains after a traveling dog got his leash caught in an automatic door, bringing the whole train to a grinding halt. One employee of the substituted train directed second-class passengers to take seats in the first-class cabin since no regular seats were left, and then a different employee came along and tried to throw them out. Eventually he conceded, but the whole thing was annoying and added almost an hour to a supposedly four-hour trip. 

The other major problem with mass transit is that it works for able-bodied people, and it provides for disabled people who use wheelchairs, but it’s difficult and frustrating for the increasing number of riders with some mobility impairment, often invisible. I’m luckier that many of my age peers in that I’m still using my original-equipment hips and knees, but most of us can expect to see the day when that becomes painful or impossible.  

Swinging yourself up onto a bus or subway using your shoulders and knees for leverage will get harder and harder. London’s fast-moving public transit systems don’t take this into account, nor do those in the Bay Area. Walking several blocks to get on a train or bus is also hard for many. 

I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to drive in London, however.  

At the moment, warts and all, London’s mass transit options are terrific. 


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:50:00 AM

WEST BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The July 8 Planning Commission meeting did not address or mention the health issues of the proposed changes to either the West Berkeley zoning amendments or housing issues. 

Do a quick search on the Internet using these words “traffic emissions cancer” “traffic emissions disease,” “traffic emissions premature death.” 

Before trusting high tech companies spun off from research generated at UC Berkeley, LBL and developers to act responsibly. Check track records regarding radioactive, hazardous, and non-hazardous waste. 

Time to end coddling the temple moneychangers. 

Alexandra Andrews 

 

• 

PACIFIC STEEL LAYOFFS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs was founded to protect our community and jobs—including the jobs of workers at Pacific Steel Casting Company (PSC). PSC’s union vice president, Ignacio de la Fuente, is under the mistaken impression that PSC suffers because “environmentalists have gone too far,” but he provides no evidence to support such a far-fetched claim. 

To the contrary, environmental justice activists have long stood for economic and social justice; that includes protecting both workers’ jobs and a clean environment. Global financial trends (such as the lack of financial regulation) are in large part the generators of the recession, not activists working for environmental regulation. Financiers, not cash-strapped tree huggers, are making out like bandits while folks downwind of PSC get cheated out of health and green jobs in our community. 

If only PSC would be a good neighbor by establishing transparency and participatory, comprehensive toxic use reduction, think what could happen when the recession ends. Neighbors and industrial workers could finally share the benefits of clean air and safe green collar jobs. 

David Schroeder 

West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs 

 

• 

JOB LOSSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Contra Costa Times recently published an article blaming the environmentally concerned citizens of West Berkeley for the economy’s job losses. Once again, this was an attempt made by supporters of Pacific Steel Casting, a major corporate polluter in Berkeley, to deflect attention away from the real issue—the community’s health.  

Hundreds of community residents have expressed their outrage at the health impact of massive amounts of chemicals, from Pacific Steel Casting, to which their children and they are being subjected. These concerns remain.  

The state’s calculations of a nervous system hazard index show that Berkeley’s nervous system risk is about four times higher than that in San Francisco and San Jose. These increased neurological and cancer risks are a genuine reason for the citizens of Berkeley to be alarmed. That’s the real shock in Berkeley, purported to be the green city, not the loss of jobs, unfortunate and dismal news but to be expected in this highly troubled economy. 

Carole Marasovic 

 

• 

BEVATRON BLUES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Words beggar to describe the spiritual anguish that I have felt during the last phases of the Bevatron Demolition. 

I have this overwhelming feeling that something monstrous is happening. Not just here but wherever that dreadful stuff is being carted off to. 

That this has coincided with the excavations at what was once the oak grove is just further proof of the absurdity and falsity of both the University of California and the government of the City of Berkeley’s claims to be either concerned with public health or the environment. 

My suspicion is that the Green movement in the government of the City of Berkeley is more of a Brown Movement. 

Arthur Fonseca 

 

• 

OAKLAND SPECIAL ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Attention Oakland voters! This summer’s special mail-in Oakland election will end very soon. The Registrar of Voters needs to receive your ballot by Tuesday, July 21 in order for it to be valid. Remember, postmarks do not count. 

The Green Party of Alameda County has prepared an online Voter Guide, at: www.acgreens.org. Our guide contains articles explaining each of our endorsements: No on C (Hotel Tax), Yes on F (Cannabis Businesses Tax), Yes on H (Corporate Property Transfer Tax), and “no endorsement” for D (Kids First! Funding Reduction). 

We encourage you to read our Guide and to also mail in your ballot very soon, as the deadline is almost here! Remember, the polls will not be open for this “mail-in ballot only” special election.  

(Note: If you haven’t yet received your ballot, you should call the Registrar of Voters at 272-6973 right away.)  

Please don’t forget to vote in this important special election. 

Greg Jan 

County Council Member 

Green Party of Alameda County 

 

• 

WOMAN’S WILL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was among the rowdy band of players who launched the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival in John Hinkle Park in 1974, and through its first five years I appeared in a dozen shows before moving on to Berkeley Rep and other venues. I look back at those five years of rough and tumble Shakespeare as one of the most joyous times of my life. Last weekend I revisited that lovely park, on Southampton Road off the Arlington, to see the Woman’s Will production of The Taming of the Shrew. What fun! It is imperfect, uneven, brawling, and delightful—and free, just like old times. The show is solidly anchored by the performances of Kate Jopson as Kate and El Beh as Petruchio, both Cal grads. Jopson is a natural for the role—tall, beautiful, fuming. Beh, who has to “dude it up” as the male antagonist, is totally convincing, with no trace of camp or caricature. All the players are bright and colorful. See it Saturday or Sunday (July 18,19) at Hinkle, or other sites through Aug. 16. 

Jerry Landis 

 

• 

LAND SPECULATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding “Development Goes Bust in Ireland” (July 9), it is superficial to blame the bankers and developers. These interests always exist, and most of the time the economy is not crashing.  

The financial crash and Great Recession was caused by rapidly escalating land prices. Land values capture most of the gains from economic expansion, especially because landowners pay little of the cost of public works and civic services. Land speculators then jump in and raise land values to heights unaffordable by households and business. The financial sector becomes tied to the real estate interests because the land value is mortgaged.  

The only remedy is to remove the subsidy to land speculation: replace taxes on wages and goods with a tax on almost all the rent or land value. That both raises wages and eliminates the real estate boom and subsequent bust. The landed interests and their political and media allies have misled the public with propaganda blaming the banks and developers, leaving the politicians free to continue their land-value subsidies, creating yet another boom and bust. 

Fred Foldvary 

 

• 

SETTLEMENTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Tracie De Angelis Salim claims that “Settlers began building settlement outposts in the early 1990s in an effort to expand Jewish presence on territory the Palestinians claim for part of a future state. These settlers had no government sanction” (“The Settlements Are the Real Barrier,” July 9). This is incorrect. 

The so-called outposts were built on land properly zoned and registered within the boundaries of existing communities. The process accelerated when the Barak government agreed to redefine the limits of the communities by agreeing to Arafat’s demand that the Palestinian Authority could encroach as close as 50 meters from the last house rather than the previous arrangement. Faced with this alteration, outposts were set up as far away from the built-up area but within the legally recognized community area. 

Yisrael Medad 

Israel 

 

• 

VIVA EL PLANET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

La Peña supports the independent voices as expressed in the Berkeley Daily Planet. In a time of corporate monopolization of the news media and the dire situation of the printed media, an independent voice such as the Daily Planet is needed more than ever. 

The Daily Planet is essential and unique in its reporting of local, national and global issues and signify the opinions and voices left out from the corporate machinery we are subject to daily. 

This Berkeley paper is truly a valuable and exemplary institution for the promotion and protection of free speech. 

Viva el Daily Planet! 

Fernando Torres 

La Peña’s Staff Collective 

South Berkeley 

 

• 

NOT SO COMPLEX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In response to Rabbi Andrea Berlin’s letter to the editor: 

Dear Rabbi, I need to inform you that the Israeli-Palestinian situation is not complex at all. On one side are a people who had prospered in their orchards and towns for more than 1,000 years, without invading and murdering their neighbors. On the other side are violent and criminal ideologues, who used the deaths of six million Jews in World War II death camps (where another six million gypsies, the retarded, disabled and others from at least six national populations also died) for their justification to enact the Jewish National Fund plan for invading Palestine in 1948. The Irgun and Lehi soldiers began the slaughter of civilians and the destruction of towns and orchards in 1948, and those who continue to murder civilians and destroy others property today are criminals and terrorists. Ninety-five percent of the world’s adult population realizes that the State of Israel treats the defenseless Palestinian population with the same contemptuous zeal that the German SS and Gestapo treated European Jewry in World War II. Fanatics with a cause, and cowards with power, attacking defenseless women and children. Theodore Hertz, the founder of Zionism, articulated the policy: “Both the process of expropriation and removal of the poor (Palestinians) must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” Not so complex, Rabbi, ya think?  

Mark A. Wetzel 

 

• 

ELITIST ECOLOGY CENTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The plastic bag ban instituted by the Ecology Center at the Berkeley Farmer’s Market hurts working people. I shop on the weekend for the entire week as do thousands of other working people. I do not have time to go shopping during workdays so I need my food to last until the next weekend. Those expensive, opaque, high-fructose Cornspiracy bags that the Ecology Center allows shrivel my vegetables in just a few days. But there is a way to defeat these liberal elites: buy a giant roll of see-through biodegradable plastic bags at the Berkeley Natural Grocery for $15. Manager Rick will hook you up—and tell him that Dave sent you. 

David Akawie 

 

• 

ISRAEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I think I should be honest. I am descended from Jews, but do not practice, so I call myself a Hebrew agnostic. Nothing that I have heard throughout my life has driven me to hold Israel in any higher regard than any other country. My mother tells me that Jews are so intelligent because the dumb ones get killed off. Yet how am I to interpret people who, because Jews are even in the present day so endangered they say, purport to solve this by cramming us all into a sliver of land so that if one enemy or another decides to do something, we’ll all be right there in range for easy disposal? It sounds like a great country to stay the hell away from if the survival of our people is the question, at least until cooler heads prevail in the leadership. And yes, a leadership less lopsidedly European might help I think. It also sounds like “Never Again” was lost on some people. I see the “Freedom of Speech? Only In Israel” posters on BART. Yes, I think, we should have this here as well, nu? 

And oh yes, I wonder what would happen if a group of Arabs did to a boat what was just done to the Free Gaza Dignity? Oh wait, such a group of Arabs did do that to a boat once. It was called the Achille Lauro. Well, no one’s died yet... that we know of. 

Avery Ray Colter 

Bay Point 

 

• 

GOVERNOR STEALS FROM POOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I live on Social Security Disability payments and Supplemental Security Income payments. Granted it isn’t much but it was a lot easier to make it through the month before the government of California decided that I was getting too much. The governor in his wisdom took 36 dollars away from my SSI check in May and now in July another $20 goes back. What are they thinking? When a person barely makes it month to month on meager monies and takes away Denti-Cal so that everyone has to get there teeth checked before the end of June is just unfeasible. How about food prices staying the same, clothing and other necessities. I didn’t vote for the present governor but I did write him an angry e-mail and got a letter back, yet they still make the wrong choice and make being poor even more miserable. 

Anita Fiessi 

 

• 

BIOFUELS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Sunday Bay Area News Group Business headline, “Fuel’s Gold,” and story hide the foolishness of biofuels that do not remove any of the overload of carbon dioxide already in the biosphere of earth. All the biofuels process can achieve is recycling of that gas with more getting added from disturbing the land in the farming process. A much better process is the pyrolysis of organic waste matter and also of trees, rather than annual crops, in a long-range planting operation to get much land spoiled by mining recovered. 

In the biofuel process, the fermenting of the sugars sends off 50 percent of the trapped carbon as carbon dioxide before fuel is gotten. If pyrolysis were applied to the plant material about 50 percent of the carbon would be converted to inert charcoal that can not recycle carbon dioxide. The rest of the carbon gets expelled as a mix of organic compounds that can be refined for fuel or to supply chemical companies with raw materials, free of oil supply, to make drugs, detergents, etc.. In view of having 50 percent of the carbon going into fermentation lost as that gas before getting the bioethanol, it makes no sense to pursue the bioethanol path when the pyrolysis path will convert that 50 percent into easily buried inert charcoal thereby removing it from recycling to start a slow reducing of that overload already exerting decided effects on climate and the environment, especially coral life. 

By the way, a big extra benefit accrues if the massive ever-expanding messes of organic wastes and sewage solids are pyrolyzed as just about all germs toxics and drugs are destroyed. That will greatly reduce costs of maintaining new dumps as they will not have to be monitored for escapes of those hazards and can not have wash-out messes. That also will mean much less chance of water pollution problems. 

If we are going to get some control of climate change, we have to go to a process that can actually remove some carbon dioxide from the biosphere, and biofuels at best only recycle that gas.  

James Singmaster 

Fremont 

 

• 

MOE’S 50TH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To say that Moe’s Books was a veritable beehive of activity this past Saturday would be an understatement. Celebrating its 50th anniversary, this revered bookstore on Telegraph Avenue threw a party to end all parties, attracting hundreds of customers and friends throughout the day. 

On entering the store, visitors were warmly greeted by Doris Moskowitz, Moe’s charming daughter, whose handsome young son manned the busy elevator. I was particularly attracted to the guest book just inside the store, with its affectionate, sentimental and witty messages reflecting the history of the store and its flamboyant, hard working and opinionated owner, Moe Moskowitz. 

Nothing was overlooked in making this celebration a huge success; there was music, entertainment, and enough food to feed the entire city of Berkeley, thanks to the generosity of local merchants, such as the Virginia Bakery, the Cheese Board, Peet’s Coffee, Star Grocery, and Noah’s, to name just a few. 

For most of the afternoon and evening there was something doing on all five floors, with rousing entertainment in the basement, featuring hula dancers, guitarists and a great jazz combo. It was well known that music played an important role in Moe’s life. Customers were amused when, working at the cash register, Moe would ask admiringly, “Did you hear that? That perfect tone?” So it was altogether fitting that Amoeba Music, together with Marc Weinstein, honored today’s celebration with a free CD of Moe’s favorites (Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holliday, etc.). 

For those attending this 50th birthday celebration, it was an occasion of sheer joy! And I’ve no doubt whatever that Moe was right there with us—in spirit, if not in body, in his beloved bookstore. 

Dorothy Snodgrass 


Lab Snookers Council Over Tiny Laser Accelerator’s Big Wallop

By Gene Bernardi
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:49:00 AM

With its typical modus operandi, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) mailed the BELLA High Energy Laser Accelerator environmental assessment notification such that it was received circa June 23, when many concerned citizens are vacationing. (Look for next lab environmental assessment at Christmastime!) The notice stipulated that the cut-off date for public comment is July 18, just 25 days after receipt of notice. Furthermore, the lab sent a contingent to lobby councilmembers prior to the July 7 meeting at which this proposed High Energy Laser Accelerator was on the agenda. The agenda recommendation was that residents near the project be notified, the comment period be extended, and that city staff comment on the project. 

Lab public relations personnel mollified our council “representatives” by emphasizing the size of the BELLA laser and laser plasma accelerator. They did not mention that what is so unique about the small size of the accelerator is the fact that, although only one meter in length, it will generate 10 billion electron volts (GeV) as much energy generated by current accelerators of 300 meters. Ten billion electron volts (10 GeV) is 60 percent more powerful than the lab’s Bevatron accelerator which reached 6.2 GeV. (See Franke and Greenhouse, “Review of Radiological Monitoring of NBNL: Final Report” City of Berkeley, 2001, p.37) 

The Lab’s making hay over the 450 notices they sent out means little when the individual households located within less than one-tenth of a mile (138m) of Building 71 (to house the accelerator) and all schools and parents, potential visitors to the Lawrence Hall of Science just one-tenth of a mile (159m) from Building 71, have not each been notified of the project: an accelerator which converts energy to radiation in the form of gamma-rays, neutrons and photomuons. This flies in the face of the Precautionary Principle and surely does not allow for informed consent or dissent. 

If the tiny “nano” BELLA accelerator is nothing to worry about, why will the Experimental Cave in which it will be housed have a “concrete wall…three feet thick at the west end where the electron beam would terminate… and an additional 16 inches of lead, 36 inches of steel, and another six feet of concrete to absorb radiation to reduce exposure levels outside the Experimental Cave for LBNL personnel…” (p.27, US Department of Energy environmental assessment, June 18). Please note: employees are allowed a higher exposure level than the general public. Is the exposure level for the general public at or below that which is allowed? Do you want to be exposed at all? The hazard of greatest concern is eye injury (p.28, Ibid); also skin burn and ignition of worker’s clothing. 

How is it that the majority of our so-called representatives, the city councilmembers, voted that the city staff not study and comment on the environmental assessment for the proposed BELLA Laser accelerator, a radiation producing project next to Berkeley residents’ homes and not call upon the lab to mail notices to these homes? 

Is it respectful, to say nothing of cost effective, for commissioners, members of the public and city councilmembers to spend hours in public facilities discussing and voting for resolutions such as “The Precautionary Principle” and “Stop Cancer Where It Starts” as well as discussing implementation of “The Nuclear Free Berkeley Act,” only to have the City Council ignore their own resolutions and the law? 

Should not the current city councilmembers suspend judgment on an issue until they have studied it and determined the Council history on the issue? In this case, thousands of dollars approved by the City Council spent for a report “Review of Radiological Monitoring at LBNL” (Aug. 23, 2001). In this report it is stated that radiation doses from the Bevatron accelerator, measured at the Olympus Gate monitoring station located a few meters below a residence at Olympus Avenue and Wilson Circle exceeded the allowed annual dose by 60 percent. Why is it that this monitoring station no longer appears on the lab’s yearly site environmental report maps? Has the monitoring stopped despite the extraordinarily long half-life of many of the radioactive materials associated with accelerators? 

Call, mail or e-mail the LBNL director and/or Kim Abbott: 486-4000, LBNL 1 Cyclotron Road MS 90-1023 Berkeley, CA 94720. Or e-mail: kim.abbott@bso.science.doe.gov. 

Demand a full blown environmental impact report and environmental impact statement and demand notification of neighbors, schools and Lawrence Hall of Science patrons and an extension of the public comment period on the EA which is now scheduled to end at 5 p.m. Saturday, July 18. 

 

Gene Bernardi is a resident of Berkeley and lives near the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.


Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You!

By Pamela Shivola
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:50:00 AM

The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) are proposing to build an experimental High Energy Plasma Laser Accelerator Facility (“BELLA”) just 448 feet from a residential neighborhood in Northeast Berkeley, and 516 feet from the Lawrence Hall of Science, a children’s school and museum. 

The proposed facility is to be located at LBNL in an existing building (Building 71), which was previously deemed seismically unsafe and is located in a landslide area. The site is crisscrossed by several earthquake faults according to a 1984 Converse Consultants Report. It is also next to the North Fork of Strawberry Creek and one of the many springs of the Strawberry Creek Watershed. Past operations of the HILAC accelerator, in the same building, contaminated groundwater and soil in the area with volatile organic compounds, Freon, radioactive Curium 244 and tritium, according to LBNL’s Site Restoration Program Reports. 

DOE is currently circulating an environmental assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on this project, for the purpose of soliciting public comments on the assessment, which can be obtained from LBNL’s website, www.lbl.gov/community/BELLA.The comment period ends July 18.  

The Petawatt-class laser accelerator will be capable of accelerating beams to energies in the order of 10 billion electron-volts (GeV). The 10 billion electron-volt BELLA is 60 percent more powerful than LBNL’s Bevatron accelerator, now in the process of being demolished, which reached 6.2 GeV as reported by Franke and Greenhouse (“Review of Radiological Monitoring at LBNL: Final Report,” City of Berkeley, 2001). 

Operating accelerators produce a variety of radiation fields, including neutrons, gamma rays, muons and other radiations. This accelerator is no different. The Franke and Greenhouse Report also revealed that in the past 800 mrem/y radiation doses, measured at the Olympus Gate monitoring station, (located between the homes and Building 71), exceeded the then allowed annual dose of 500 mrem/y by 60 percent. 

Is it a coincidence that this monitoring station no longer appears on LBNL’s Site Environmental Report maps, and that the station now, surrounded by vegetation, seems abandoned? 

A full blown environmental impact statement under NEPA and an environmental impact report under CEQA is essential, due to the proposed facility’s proximity to sensitive receptors and the natural (the Hayward Earthquake Fault Zone, High-Risk Fire Area) and man-made hazards (contamination) of the site. 

Email your comments to kim.abbott@bso.science.doe.gov before the July 18 deadline. 

 

Note: In 2005 the National Academy of Sciences Panel: BEIR VII, Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation determined that there is no safe dose of ionizing radiation, no exposure level below which dosage is harmless!  

 

Pamela Sihvola is a member of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste.


BELLA Project Slipping Through Under Cover of Summer

By Mark McDonald
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:49:00 AM

It’s summer with hordes of folks heading out of town and once again Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) has decided this is the time to process their new controversial development projects like their proposed BELLA laser atom smashing accelerator. The Department of Energy (DOE) is skipping the normal environment impact review and instead have issued themselves an “environmental assessment” which means they have decided that the project offers “no danger to the public.” Proposed for site 71 which in the past has experienced unique seismic problems and located 500 feet from the Lawrence Hall of Science children’s museum should be enough reason to employ a normal review, but local folks have paid expert proof that they should be concerned about the operation of an accelerator in their neighborhood. 

Ten years ago the Berkeley City Council hired an independent scientist for $35,000 to evaluate radiological impacts from lab operations particularly the National Tritium Facility which for decades had been unloading clouds of tritium, a dangerous isotope out a stack 10 feet from the children’s museum back play area. The analysis by IFEU scientist B. Franke contained numerous alarming conclusions seriously challenging the professionalism and integrity of the lab’s declarations and handling of radioactive operations. Despite decades of assurances of careful handling and recycling at the Tritium Facility, the scientist declared the records were such a shambles that no meaningful conclusion could be made, itself an indictment. Mr. Franke also declared that the lab significantly underestimated radiation exposures to children attending the adjacent museum from any potential accident similar to the one that occurred when their incinerator for radioactive chemicals was operating unattended one weekend. The scientist also reviewed historical data from a boundary monitor and revealed that persons living in the neighborhoods received alarmingly higher doses of radiation from the past operations of accelerators at the lab. That boundary monitor has been removed and now there is no method of determining off boundary exposures to neighbors. LBNL differs from other DOE research sites because it operates in a densely inhabited neighborhood without the normal ‘buffer zone’ required for some hazardous activities. LBNL recently acknowledged that they had not notified local neighbors about the accelerator proposal.  

The Berkeley City Council should demand an extended comment period and a real examination of whether it is safe to live with a new accelerator which is more powerful than the Bevatron atom smasher, which is currently being demolished and whose 4,700 tarp-covered truck trips of asbestos, mercury and radioactive dusts are being hauled down Shattuck Avenue to the highway. The public can offer comment on the BELLA project until 5 p.m. July 18 by e-mail at kim.abbott@bso.science.doe.gov or by mailing with one’s name and address to Kim Abbott, NEPA Document Manager, DOE Berkeley Site Office, 1 Cyclotron Road-MS 90-R1023, Berkeley Ca. 94720. 

 

Mark McDonald is a Berkeley resident.


The Real Issue is Freedom of Speech

By Joanna Graham
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:47:00 AM

Although I am delighted and grateful that some person or persons took the time and trouble to produce the full page ad which appeared in the July 9 issue of the Berkeley Daily Planet and even more so that 138 members of the Bay Area Jewish community were moved to sign it, I am also relieved not to be one of the signatories, as I have some deep reservations about what the ad does and doesn’t say. 

Herewith, then, is my separate concurring statement, including an explanation of my reservations. To my mind, there is only one issue which needs to be addressed at this time and in this place, namely, the freedom of all persons to write what they wish about any subject, including but not restricted to the State of Israel, and the freedom of the editors of the Berkeley Daily Planet to publish these writings without fear of harassment, intimidation, or reprisal. Nevertheless, the people who published the ad decided to include among five separate items three which are off this subject, using the space to condemn three specific actions of the government of Israel. 

The decision to do so leads to several unfortunate consequences. First, it reduces an issue of broad and urgent importance to still another argument among Jews on a subject of which most people are tired. By doing so, it also leaves an opening for the “other side” to gather up “their” signatures (probably twice as many) and affix them to an opposing statement, such as “We are Jews and we support Israel’s right to defend itself by blah blah blah and we refuse to stand by ever again while blah blah blah.” A clear statement such as “We are Jews of many different opinions who often disagree with each other about Israel and other topics, but on this we are all agreed: we support free speech and therefore we support the Daily Planet” would have forestalled any such response. 

Furthermore, focusing on the one issue would have made it possible for some unknown but potentially large number of Jews to sign who might well have been willing to affirm free speech but who cannot agree with, or at least tolerate, these particular three items.Why should not a Jew, for instance, who believes that God has given the Jewish people Judea and Samaria forever, or even that all Arabs are cockroaches who should be drowned in the sea, not be given the opportunity to express his or her support for the Daily Planet’s commitment to air all views and to condemn the actions of a few who, while possibly sharing their opinions, are resorting to tactics which most must find abhorrent? 

In my view, as Norman Finkelstein says (look, John Gertz, I quoted him), we must leave aside the political opinions of Sinkinson, Spitzer, and Gertz as irrelevant. The issue is a simple one. These men are using Mafia-style tactics in an attempt to control what may or may not be said about Israel. Although they are (presumably) staying just this side of the law, they are harassing, intimidating, and deliberately causing people to fear that their livelihoods and possibly even their well-being is threatened. It is these tactics which we must oppose, not the political beliefs of the perpetrators, and we must never confuse the two issues. 

Finally, three cheers for Becky O’Malley who, without a dog in this fight and simply and purely because of her commitment to free speech, has helped to bring the longstanding and widespread practice of Zionist intimidation into the light of day. Because, despite O’Malley’s belief to the contrary, the current campaign is not an isolated incident perpetrated by a few crazies. It is business as usual which has been going on now for at least 61 years. Therefore, I hope we will all pitch in to insure that she wins (shop the Planet’s advertisers and tell them why!) because if she doesn’t, she’ll lose her paper, which would be sad for us all, but also because others—frightened off—will shun the battle, and still more time will elapse before public debate will ensue, not so much about Israel as about America’s extraordinary and almost unexamined entanglement with Israel with all its implications for our own lives and our country’s future. It is this latter, of course, which Messrs. Sinkinson, Spitzer, and Gertz et al. do not wish us to examine, because if we did, we might decide to sever it. They are protecting a “special relationship,” not for the sake of America, nor even for the sake of the Jews (although that’s what they claim), but for Israel’s sake. Why should any of us surrender our civil liberties to forward their agenda? 

  

Joanna Graham is a Berkeley resident and frequent contributor to the Planet’s opinion pages.


KPFA: Ten Years After the 1999 Hijack Attempt

By Richard Phelps
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:47:00 AM

After mass listener support rescued KPFA and Pacifica from a self-appointed Pacifica National Board (PNB) that was planning to sell KPFA or one of the other stations and take the “community” out of the network, new democratic bylaws were written and adopted. Pacifica’s bylaws state a commitment for peace and social justice, Article One, Section 3. It seems inconceivable that peace and social justice can even be approached with out a democratic process with transparency and accountability. As Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” 

As Pacifica embarked on its new democratic path it became clear is that everyone that fought the hijackers didn’t do so for the same reason! Most listener activists and some staff supported the new democratic process and welcomed the involvement and input of the listener/subscribers who are the regular audience and the financial supporters of the station and Pacifica.  

At KPFA some staff and their supporters sought to defeat the hijackers so that they could control KPFA and make the decisions about who/what gets air time and who gets the paid jobs. This latter group has used the power of the stations progressive reputation and the power of the microphone to maintain control and frustrate the new bylaws in many ways. The staff group I am referring to was identified by an e-mail from Brian Edwards-Tiekert to the other “insiders” that became public in 2005. You can read the e-mail at http://peoplesradio.net/Dismantle.htm. The author acknowledged its authenticity. Their group now claims that it never met to discuss “dismantling the Local Station Board (LSB),” aka the democratic process, or “how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come.” This group has been supported by their electoral counter part, first called KPFAForward (2004) and now Concerned Listeners (CL).  

In the five-plus years under this leadership group KPFA subscribers have gone from 28,000 in 2003 to 20,000 now! That is a 28 percent decrease while they increased the paid staff by 50 percent. Bringing us a $300,000 deficit this year. At the same time they refused to do anything about the financial problems hurting Pacifica. Their conduct actually precipitated a major financial crisis at Pacifica.  

Let’s see what these folks have done toward “dismantling the LSB.” In 2003 the KPFA Program Council, made up of paid and unpaid staff and listeners, voted to move Democracy Now! (DN!) to Prime time, 7-8 a.m. and move the morning show to 8-10 a.m. There was/is significant listener demand/support for this time change. It is common practice and common sense to put your most popular/dynamic program in prime time. In May 2004 the LSB voted to move DN! to prime time as per the Program Council’s prior vote. This has never been implemented. Why? 

In 2007 GM Lemlem Rijio, quietly ended the Program Council. The LSB’s CL majority ignored the previous Resolution codifying the Program Council and did nothing to save the Program Council.  

In 2007 GM Rijio took away the official status of the Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO). UPSO existed to represent the unpaid staff at KPFA, more than 200 people. These are the people who do the majority of the work that goes on the air.  

The CL slate literature for the 2006 and 2007 LSB elections was silent on the important issues of the Program Council, UPSO and the DN! move to prime time 

In 2009 the CL LSB majority voted to meet only once every other month, instead of every month as all the other stations do and KPFA had done for five years. They ignored the backlog of work to be done and how it delayed the selection of LSB members to important PNB committees. 

Over a year ago they took the link to the LSB page off the front page of the KPFA web site. They don’t announce the LSB meetings on the front page of the web site and often don’t announce them on the air as required by the bylaws. 

How has the CL maintained its slim majority on the LSB? Here are some of the dirty tricks they have used to dominate the elections. In 2006 and 2007 GM Rijio refused to allow any election information to be broadcast when the ballots were sent out. Rijio’s justification was that there was a fund drive in progress despite election information being broadcast during fund drives at other Pacifica stations. In 2006 and 2007 CL spent thousands of dollars and sent out a slate mailer to arrive with the ballots during the election information black out, imposed by their ally GM Rijio. To top that off, in 2007 when they finally did run some candidate carts, they ran all 22 at once, with CL candidate Sherry Gendelman’s first.  

After the 2007 KPFA election there was only one news story on KPFA about the election. Interviewed were Sherry Gendelman, Matthew Lasar, a CL endorser, and Dan Siegel and Larry Bensky both CL allies and supporters and both guilty of using station or Foundation resources to support CL or attack their opponents in violation of election ethics. No listener activist candidates were interviewed. Why is there a FOX in our newsroom?  

In the upcoming election there will be ample airtime for the election since the new PNB majority has resolved that it will be so. Bonnie Simmons, a CL/Rijio group member, recently made a motion to rescind the Resolution to require ample airtime for the election. Does an open inclusive election scare them?  

“Our leadership elite may still want to believe in democratic principles—they certainly profess that they do—but in practice they have shown themselves all too willing to violate those principles in order to gain or retain power”, Cornel West from his book Democracy Matters, page 28. If democracy matters to you, it is time for a new majority on the KPFA LSB.  

 

Richard Phelps is a former chair of KPFA Local Station Board, a 35-year listener/subscriber and former AM and FM radio announcer.  


The Homeless Count and Accountability For Results

By Ann-Marie Hogan
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:47:00 AM

How did the City of Berkeley manage to reduce the 2003 rate of chronic homelessness by nearly half? They analyzed the data. They tried new approaches. This time, they had systems in place for setting goals, measuring progress, and establishing accountability for results. 

This was not always the case. When the auditor’s office issued our Assessment of Job Training/Job Placement Programs and Community Agency Contracts in 2001, we found that nonprofit contractors could not answer simple questions about what they had accomplished. The programs were not adequately tracking and reporting how many individuals were trained or placed, and how many still had jobs a year later. Our 2000 Report on Community Agency Contract Administration and Monitoring included suggestions from city staff about how the city could do better.  

In response, the city manager held meetings with staff to improve community agency monitoring and program evaluation. By 2002, the Budget Office and the Housing Department had rolled out a plan requiring results-based reporting (“outcome measures”) in housing contracts. They trained city staff and the contractors. Since 2003, outcome measures are mandatory. 

Over the past six years, the City of Berkeley implemented clear priorities and measurable results for homeless agencies. The city’s Homeless Commission now ranks housing services proposals based on whether the goal is to house the chronically homeless. They also recommend funding based on how well agencies plan and monitor not only efforts but results. 

The number of chronically homeless people living on the streets of Berkeley dropped by 48 percent between 2003 and 2009, according to Alameda County’s Everyone Home survey. This happened because of the hard work and persistence of many organizations and individuals, not least the formerly homeless themselves.  

There is a cost to accountability, but it is worth the effort. By making some tough decisions about priorities and by following through with accountability systems, the city has demonstrated some clear results worth celebrating.  

 

Ann-Marie Hogan is Berkeley’s city auditor. 


BRT’s Combined Service Will Benefit Riders, Drivers, Merchants

By Alan Tobey
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:46:00 AM

The 27-mile Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project proposed for the East Bay will move into another phase this fall as final project parameters begin to be established. BRT is expected to provide bus service that’s faster and more reliable than the existing system through the use of dedicated bus lanes, signal priority, rapid boarding and prepaid fares. 

One of the key design choices has now been analyzed and decided. AC Transit’s “technical advisory committee” has recommended to the cities of San Leandro, Oakland and Berkeley that the Bus Rapid Transit route on International Boulevard, Telegraph Avenue and into downtown Berkeley be provisioned as “combined service.” The current 1 Rapid and 1 Local routes would be joined into a single BRT service. Stations would be spaced further apart than most current local service but be closer together than current 1 Rapid stops—on average about a third of a mile apart. 

Relatively few riders will be inconvenienced by the combined service, according to AC Transit’s recent study of the trip origins and destinations of 1/1R riders. In Berkeley, 87 percent of riders would go to the same bus stop they use today. Thirteen percent of riders might have to travel in a different direction to get to their closest station, but would not have to go more than one city block further. 

Combined BRT service will provide the community with five important benefits compared to maintaining separate local service: 

1. Faster journeys. Today’s riders of the 1 Local bus will enjoy improved travel times on a faster BRT bus that will stop at more stations than today’s 1 Rapid.  

2. More frequent service and a shorter wait. With only one route to pay for instead of two, AC Transit will be able to provide BRT service more frequent than either of the two current services does today, reducing riders’ average waiting time. 

3. More local parking. With no need for a local bus to stop at the curb (BRT stations will be built as platforms in the middle of the street wherever there are designated BRT lanes), most of today’s bus stops can be converted to two or three parking spaces. This will help local merchants and shoppers who drive, and increase meter revenue for the cities. 

4. Less local traffic. Without buses traveling in the auto traffic lanes or blocking a lane at bus stops, auto drivers on the many blocks where BRT uses a dedicated lane will travel more smoothly. 

5. Improvements for disabled passengers. Other AC Transit studies have shown that even disabled riders are willing to travel to a slightly more distant station, if necessary, in order to enjoy faster journeys. One statistic supports this conclusion: the percentage of riders using disabled passes on today’s 1 Rapid, with half-mile stop spacing, is higher than that percentage on the 1 Local with quarter-mile or less spacing. Most disabled travelers clearly know a better thing when they see it. In the future, when BRT vehicles provide access via roll-on level boarding instead of an awkward and time-consuming lift, disabled riders will surely not miss local service on a regular bus. 

In summary, AC Transit riders should not fear that the bus company will be taking away service on the 1 route. They should instead be eager for the benefits that combined BRT service will provide. 

This fall, AC Transit will be holding community presentations and workshops in all three cities to explain the current recommendations and alternatives for routes, station locations, blocks recommended for dedicated lanes, and other choices. Each city will then need to select which of these are the “locally preferred alternatives,” so that AC Transit can complete its final environmental impact report. If the three cities promptly approve the preferred project after its impacts and their mitigations are fully explained in the final EIR, BRT construction could begin in 2012. 

 

Alan Tobey, a Berkeley resident, is a member of Friends of BRT. 


UC Hubris

By Stewart Emmington-Jones
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:46:00 AM

Last Friday’s Berkeley Voice front-page article and picture flaunting the decimated oak grove and construction at the Memorial Stadium site really hurt. The picture in particular stung; it showed the cavernous pit dug along the west wall of the stadium where a year ago a grove of California oaks graced the stadium and historic Piedmont Way. Despite the personal pain it causes me, the controversy surrounding the oak grove demolition and the many remaining questions regarding the $100 million retrofit of a stadium sitting directly on the Hayward fault line are still of critical importance to the state-wide community and need to be talked about and explored by the media. Unfortunately the Voice’s article felt more like a UC press release than an investigative piece that could have explored ongoing concerns and responsibilities.  

The real issue for the university at this moment should be financial responsibility: where is the money coming from and how is its use justified? Right now the state is axing money for public education and that includes the UC system. On the University of California’s website it claims “the universities immediate state budget challenge” to be $450 million. In addition, the governor has proposed overall state funding cuts to the university of 25 percent spanning the next two years from the more than $3 billion yearly budget the UC system already receives. 

All this shortfall of money must put the UC system in a serious financial bind. The controversial 9.3 percent student fee raise will only cover part of the states funding cuts. Indeed, already the regents have cut pay for some faculty and staff. However, does the university continue cutting enrollment courses and services in order to make up for the remaining shortfall? Or, perhaps the best idea for the university is to put a freeze to frivolous $153 million developments like a High Performance Sports Facility (serving only a select few athletes, not the student body as a whole) being built on the oak grove site adjacent to the stadium. 

If the university truly cared about its “mission” as an institution of intellectual advancement it seems irresponsible during the current state wide financial crisis to dump more than a $100 million into a gym. Such arrogant behavior explains State Senator Leeland Yee’s campaign to curtail the Regent’s hubris and abuse of power.  

The elephant-in-the-room is the stadium and the fault line. The university claimed in 2008 that the value of the stadium is $593-million. According to the Alquist-Priola Act, all renovations and alterations to a state-owned building on a fault line must cost less than the appraised value of the building. Therefore, the university claims it can legally retrofit the stadium for less than $300-million. Where is all that money to come from in times like these? 

According to the Voice’s article there are three thousand private seats to be purchased between $40,000 and $225,000 of which the university claims to have sold 70 percent. During times of State IOUs and University cuts, is this an appropriate focus for fundraising? The article also pointed out that there are rooms in the Haas Pavillion which cost $500 million that are used specifically for fundraising for the stadium!  

It is difficult to believe the university PR that the sale alone of luxury seats will finance the expensive retrofit. Indeed, what the public has not been told is: the real source of future financing is based upon the stadium becoming a sports entertainment complex. In order to pay for itself the stadium, by necessity, will morph into a year-round commercial enterprise. 

Furthermore, is it even possible for any building to be safe when it is directly above an active fault line? Anybody who thinks this is not an important issue should remember the 1989 World Series and ensuing earthquake—and that was a gentle earthquake compared to what is expected on the Hayward Fault sometime soon. 

Finally, it is important to remember that Phase 1 of the retrofit plan for the stadium included the construction of the High Performance Sports Facility and originally planned to include a grade beam deemed necessary for the earthquake safety of both buildings. Superior Court Judge Miller, who ruled in favor of the university in the highly publicized case, first said that the university was in violation of the Alquist-Priola Act as long as this beam existed. Despite the university’s strong arguments during the litigation that the beam was a necessary safety precaution; when given the option by Judge Miller of removing the grade beam from the plan and moving forward on the project the university jumped through this small legal window summarily removing the beam and got the green light to proceed with a potentially unsafe project. 

The bravado of the university’s claims to a morale victory in the Voice, on KQED, and Cal neighbors, etc., with a new season of “Go Bears! in the historic Memorial Stadium” rings hollow. If the mainstream media does not serve the public interest in asking questions that are of growing state-wide significance, we can at least thank those who are courageous enough to carry the troubling questions surrounding the UC Memorial Stadium project forward to the state Appellate Court.  

 

Stewart Emmington-Jones makes  

T-shirts for Save Strawberry Canyon.


Columns

Dispatches From The Edge: The Settlements and the Quartet

By Conn Hallinan
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:53:00 AM

When President Barack Obama said in his Cairo speech that “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” he cut to the heart of the four-decade old conflict in the Occupied Territories, slicing through the thicket of “confidence building,” “security walls,” and “road maps” that have derailed one peace attempt after another.  

But has the process already gone too far? Has Tel Aviv’s policy of “creating facts on the ground” and moving more than 500,000 settlers into the West Bank made disentangling the two people impossible? Do the Israelis have any interest in removing some 120 settlements, and 100 so-called “outposts”? And if Obama is serious about putting the squeeze on the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, does he have the political backing to make it stick? 

On the last point, the answer would seem to be yes. According to a recent Zogby International poll, 50 percent of Americans think that the United States should “get tough” with Israel. Some 32 percent were not sure, and only 19 percent said do nothing. But once the partisan gap is factored in, Obama supporters overwhelmingly favor “getting tough” by 71 to 18.  

The poll shows strong support for Israel—71 percent to 21 percent—and a negative view of Palestinians—25 to 66—but again, there were strong differences between Obama and McCain supporters. Asked if Israeli and U.S. interests were identical, Obama voters said no 59 to 28, while McCain voters said they were identical 78 to 15. Obama backers had a largely negative view of Netanyahu—49 to 29—while McCain supporters favored the Israeli prime minister 82 to 9. 

While the Netanyahu administration has tried to rally American Jews to support the settlement project, according to Guttman, “On this issue, the community could find it difficult to back Netanyahu.” 

Indeed, the prime minister’s reluctant endorsement of a two-state solution—and one filled with so many caveats that it would be almost impossible for the Palestinians to accept—might have been, in part, a response to the concerns of American Jews. According to Guttman in The Forward, “For the mainstream Jewish community…has fully embraced the idea of a two-state solution and has been working to promote it within the community and among policymakers.” 

In short, Americans who voted for Obama have his back if he wants to lean on Netanyahu. 

The current Israeli government doesn’t even have a great deal of support at home. According to a recent Tel Aviv University poll almost two thirds of Israelis view the settlements as a liability, not an asset, and a majority are willing to dismantle all but the largest. According to Tel Aviv University political scientist, Tamar Hermann, the Israeli public believes that “settlements do not stop terror and they use up Israeli resources.” 

Which doesn’t mean they support dismantling them, or even freezing their expansion. A recent Maagar Mohot poll found that by a margin of 56 to 37, Jewish Israelis think the government should resist the Obama administration’s call for a freeze, and 36 percent think all the settlements should be kept, while 30 percent think only smaller settlements should be abandoned. 

But the poll also found out something that Washington should pay attention to: some 50 percent of those polled think that the Obama administration is not serious about a freeze. Only 32 percent of them thought it might be a “make or break” demand, suggesting that those poll numbers might shift dramatically if Israelis thought the $2.3 billion in yearly U.S. aid, plus billions in military support might be affected. 

Whatever their sentiments, Israel is currently gripped by political apathy except among some militant settlers and the core of the Israeli peace and human rights movement. 

“Israelis are generally worn out, and in the same way that today they won’t take to the streets calling for peace, they are not going to get up and fight for the settlements,” Michael Barak, CEO of Keevoon Research, Strategy & Communications told The Forward. 

In the meantime, however, settlement expansion continues. In spite of a serious economic down turn, and deep cuts in social services and education, Shas Party Interior Minister Eli Yishai is allotting $250 million to the settlements. Half will go toward settlement expansion. 

And according to Peace Now, “The official figures are nothing but the tip of the iceberg” with other settlement spending spread throughout Israel’s two-year $159 billion budget. “Israelis will pay not only a political price for the settlements, but also an economic one,” warns Peace Now’s Yariv Oppenheimer.  

“Natural growth” is the central rationale the Netanyahu government makes for why the settlements need to expand—although the prime minister does not use the term itself—but official figures don’t support the argument that this is about building to accommodate a baby boom. 

According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the annual population growth for the settlements is 5.9 percent, three and a half times higher than for Israel, which suggests immigration is a major cause of population expansion. For instance, in 2007 some 36 percent of all new settlers immigrated from Israel or abroad. 

“Somewhere between a third and two fifths of the growth of settlement population during the last decade hasn’t been ‘natural’ at all,” writes The Forward columnist Leonard Fein. “It has been the result of heavily subsidized migration, not family expansion.”  

What Netanyahu can count on are the most radical of the settlers, who have made it clear they will block any attempt to dismantle settlements. Settlers have launched “Operation Price Tag,” which organizes riots to smash Palestinian cars, assault Palestinians farmers, and burn fields and olive groves if the Tel Aviv government tries to remove any settlements. Indeed, part of the Israeli public’s souring on the settlers is because West Bank militants have increasingly clashed with the Israeli Army. 

“The hard core of the settlement movement today endangers Israel as a Jewish state,” says Yossi Alpher, co-editor of Bitterlemons, and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. “It prolongs an occupation that has already eroded Israel’s sovereign capacity to deal with the problem.” 

While a “freeze” seems like a relatively modest demand, according to Geoffrey Aronson of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, halting settlement construction would mean that Israel “would have to undo the system by which the military establishment, the legislative and executive arms of the state, settlers, and public, private, and supranational communal organizations collaborate in the encouragement and expansion of settlements.” 

In “A Settlement Stalemate With No End in Sight,” author and columnist William Pfaff writes says that “Major elements in the state administration, defense forces, planning and budget agencies, and security programs and practices, plus the incentives to individuals and businesses to develop the settlements, would have to be undone.” 

Some analysts argue that the prime minister will never agree to a real freeze. “Why won’t Netanyahu agree to a freeze?” asks Israeli historian and author Gershom Gorenberg. “[Because] he regards the West Bank as Israel’s patrimony, and has never recognized that denying political rights to the Palestinian population undermines Israeli democracy. His proposals for the future are the discredited colonial ideas of the past: Palestinians will concede dreams of independence in return for marginal economic progress.” 

Certainly the Israelis are still building. Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized construction of 300 housing units in the Talmon settlement. Under international law, all settlements in the Occupied Territories are illegal. 

But might Netanyahu agree to a freeze? He is a hard rightist, but also a crafty politician. A “freeze” on settlement expansion might buy his government time, and time is the enemy of a Middle East peace.  

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has floated a proposal to freeze “new building in the settlements, excluding Jerusalem, for three to six months. In return, the Palestinians would have to stop their protests and Arab countries would move toward recognition. 

The Israeli prime minister has already said, “We will not build new settlements and we will not expropriate additional land for settlements.” But the settlements have municipalized enough adjacent land to greatly expand without technically building “new” ones, or expropriating land. 

For instance, Mitzpe Shalem is a settlement of 200 people near the Dead Sea, but its municipal district embraces 13.6 square miles. No “new land” would need to be “expropriated” to vastly expand the settlement. 

It is unlikely that the Palestinians or Arab countries would accept a freeze that does not lead to an absolute ban on all building, meaningful negotiations on removing Israeli roadblocks in the West Bank, opening Gaza, sharing Jerusalem and establishing final borders. 

“It would indeed be a victory for Netanyahu if in return for freezing a few extra flats, Obama let himself be maneuvered into accepting that the existing settlements are ‘facts on the ground’ that can never be changed,” editorialized the British Guardian. 

The Netanyahu government is under increasing international pressure. Meeting in Trieste, Italy, the Middle East Quartet—the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations—called for a freeze on all settlement activity, and a “sustained reopening” of crossing points into Gaza. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that France “would no longer accept Israeli subterfuges meant to disguise colony construction.” 

The question is whether the quartet is willing to make the settlements a “make or break” issue? If they do, they might find it is possible to bring this long running tragedy to a close.


The Republican Death Spiral

By Bob Burnett
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:51:00 AM

Out here on the left coast, we’re not big fans of the Republican Party. So we’ve taken a perverse delight in the events of recent weeks—the sordid Sanford and Ensign affairs and the awkward resignation of Sarah Palin. To these jaundiced eyes, it appears the Grand Old Party is locked in a death spiral, gathering speed as it plummets downward. 

Perhaps the entire party has followed their leader, Rush Limbaugh, and developed a nasty drug habit. That would explain the bizarre behavior of Sen. Ensign, Governors Palin and Sanford, and RNC Chair Michael Steele. If that’s the case, our recommendation is to “just say no.” 

Perhaps it’s Karmic retribution and, after eight years of George W. Bush, the universe is finally moving back into balance. Indeed, Dubya, the man once touted as the party leader, whose election was to signal 30 years of Republican supremacy, has become the symbol of everything wrong with the GOP. When Bush failed—when the Iraq “mission” wasn’t easily accomplished, the Neo Con dream of “empire” evaporated, and the economy went in the toilet—Americans woke up, realized the emperor had no clothes, and got pissed off at Bush and the GOP in general. 

It turned out that Republicans had no bench. Who would have thought that Dubya was the best they had to offer? They fielded a woeful slate of 2008 presidential candidates. And their nominee, John McCain, started his campaign with an acknowledgement that he didn’t know much about the economy and then picked a running mate, Palin, who knew even less than he did, about everything. 

Perhaps Americans have figured out that Republicans don’t have an ideology—other than opposition to whatever Democrats propose. The GOP pretends it wants small government, but Bush oversaw one of the largest expansions of the federal government in history. They claim they want to reduce our taxes, but most Americans now understand the GOP only cares about the taxes of the rich and powerful. Republicans acknowledge they are the party of the business elite and assert that qualifies to manage the federal bureaucracy, but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the other principals in the Bush White House had questionable credentials as corporate executives and did a terrible job managing the federal government —it’s hard to imagine that the economy could have been more poorly handled than it was under Dubya. 

The roots of the GOP decline go back to the Reagan presidency that promulagated the key tenets of modern conservatism: Taxation deprives the people of money that is rightfully theirs. Reducing taxes on the rich will inevitably help the economy because “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The ideal role of government in a capitalistic society is to get out of the way, deregulation fosters a free market that is self-correcting. Over the past 20 years, these tenets have been discredited. Americans don’t like paying taxes, but they understand that cutting taxes only for the rich reduces funds for necessary governmental services and heightens inequality. And voters recognize market deregulation produced the financial meltdown and drained meaningful jobs from the U.S. economy. The failed GOP ideology wasn’t updated. In 2008, McCain and Palin sang from the Republican hymnal but no one joined in except the party faithful. 

Perhaps voters have finally realized that Republicans are iniquitous frauds. During the Reagan era, Republicans seized the moral high ground. They made family values a cornerstone of their party platform and labeled Democrats as purveyors of “sixties values.” The GOP brandished “the sanctity of life” and “personal responsibility” and turned these into effective wedge issues. 

Cracks in the GOP morals façade first appeared with Newt Gingrich, who became speaker of the House in 1994 and resigned in 1998 because of ethics violations. Then, after the invasion of Iraq, Americans realized that Dubya was a liar, a moral eunuch. By the 2008 election, Republican had lost their ethical luster; neither McCain nor Palin was a paragon of moral virtue. 

It helped that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had a squeaky clean bio. And Obama fought for the moral high ground with his own spin on family values, defining “sanctity of life” as concern for individuals throughout life—not just at birth. Obama presented a two-sided notion of responsibility: individuals were responsible for themselves, their family and community, but society also had a responsibility to provide the perquisites of humanity such as education, a social safety net, meaningful work and civil rights. 

The 2009 Republican Party is dead, a walking talking corpse that has no brain, heart, or soul. Instead of ideology the GOP offers dogmatic negativity. In place of rectitude they feature sleaze and hypocrisy. Rather than mature leadership they provide vicious incompetence. Republicans aren’t an alternative, they’re a travesty. 

Of course in politics anything can happen. We may yet see the resurrection of the GOP. Meanwhile, it feels so good to gloat, you finally got what you deserved, you rotten scoundrels. 

 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.


Are Peralta Problems Symptoms of Long-Term Difficulties?

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:51:00 AM

Over the weekend, our friends over at the Tribune published a series of devastating and troubling articles by reporters Matt Krupnik and Thomas Peele alleging a recent pattern of fraud and fund misuse by the administration and board of the Peralta Community College District—“Alameda County college leader’s business partner gets $900,000 contract”; “Peralta raises at odds with district rules”; “Peralta district pays Harris for 57 weeks of work, and more.” 

Of those, the most troubling to me, personally, is the $900,000 contract story. Although I knew nothing about the contract itself, I warned district officials—both in print and in private—that this type of situation was brewing. 

The Peralta Community College District operates four local colleges—Laney and Merritt in Oakland, Berkeley City College, and the College of Alameda. It is an important and necessary part of the East Bay’s education establishment. 

In their “business partner” article, Mr. Krupnik and Mr. Peele write that “Peralta Community College District Chancellor Elihu Harris helped steer a $940,000 no-bid contract to … business partner [Mark A. Lindquist in April of 2007] without disclosing the relationship to district trustees before they approved the deal.” Mr. Lindquist, who had joint real estate and radio station interests with Mr. Harris at the time the bid was awarded, received the contract to oversee the renovation of buildings at Laney College. According to the Tribune story, Mr. Harris had no relationship with 1701 Associates, the Lindquist firm that received the oversight contract, but several sources within the story were concerned that they were troubled by the fact that Mr. Harris did not disclose to the Peralta board the formal business relationships he did have with Mr. Lindquist, leaving open the unproven suspicion that there could have been some behind-the-scenes quid pro quo involved between the two partners. We stress the words unproven and could have been. The no-contract bid to 1701 Associates looks bad, but no-one has come up with evidence that Mr. Harris personally benefited from awarding the contract to his business partner. 

What disturbs me, however, is that the money for the Lindquist contract came from Peralta’s 2006 Bond Measure A which, according to the Krupnik-Peele article, “have been steeped in secrecy, said the chairwoman of the committee overseeing the bonds. ‘There has been a lot of circling the wagons around expenditures of Measure A funds,’ said Helene Lecar. The district did not tell her panel about the Lindquist connection, she said.” 

Actually, that’s not the half of it. 

I was covering the Peralta Community College District administration and board as part of my regular Daily Planet news beat during the spring of 2007 when the Lindquist contract award was announced. I don’t remember the contract discussion itself, but I do remember a lot about the troubles concerning Measure A oversight. 

The $390 million construction bond measure was passed by Alameda County voters in June of 2006 with specific language requiring a seven member citizen oversight committee to make sure the money was properly spent. But in late 2006 and throughout 2007, I wrote a series of articles outlining how the oversight committee was not properly functioning (“Peralta Bond Confusion Concerns Laney Faculty,” Dec. 12, 2006; “Problems With Measure A, Says Former Peralta Counsel “ Dec. 19, 2006; “Peralta Officials Backtrack on Measure A Money,” July 24, 2007; “One Year Later, Measure A Still Has No Citizen Oversight,” June 26, 2007; and “Confusion Continues to Plague Peralta District Measure A” Oct. 30, 2007. 

In the June 26, 2007 “Still Has No Citizen Oversight” article, I wrote that “more than a year after local voters approved the Peralta Community College District’s Facilities Bond Measure A, authorizing the four-college district to issue some $390 million in bonds, a citizens’ oversight committee required by that measure has yet to organize itself, has yet to meet, and has not yet been fully formed.” I added in the article that “Peralta Vice Chancellor Tom Smith says the oversight committee has not yet met because ‘there is nothing for them to do.’” That was written two months after the awarding of the Lindquist contract, in which Oversight Committee Chair Helene LeCar told the Tribune reporters that district officials “did not tell her panel about the Lindquist connection (with Chancellor Harris).” 

And in the Oct. 30, 2007 “Confusion Continues” article, I said that “the citizens’ oversight committee for the Peralta Community College District Measure A facilities bonds, which has not issued required minutes or a report on its activities for the year and a half since the bond measure was passed, descended into something close to disarray this month with confusion over its membership. Meanwhile, with or without citizen oversight, Peralta continues to move forward with projects funded by Measure A bonds, with the board approving requests for $2.7 million in 17 contracts and change orders at its Oct. 9 meeting and $2.1 million in three contracts at its Oct. 23 meeting.” 

I added that as of the end of October of 2007 “no public notices of committee meetings appear to have been ever given, no report has been issued, and no minutes or other documents from the oversight committee appear on the Peralta district website. Meanwhile, Peralta has not even fully formed the oversight committee.” 

At the time of the writing the “Confusion Continues” article only six of the seven member oversight committee had been chosen, a year and a half after the passage of Measure A, and six months after the awarding of the Lindquist Measure A contract. 

But it gets worse. 

During the 10 months I was writing articles on the problems with Measure A construction bond oversight between December of 2006 and October of 2007, I had several private conversations with board members high-placed district officials. I told them of the information that I was uncovering, that while I had seen no evidences of malfeasance in the Measure A contracts, I was also seeing no proper oversight of the bond money spending. The July 24 2007 “Peralta Officials Backtrack” story, for example, showed that the district was keeping no publicly reported, running total of the bond measure money being allocated. That followed the Dec. 12, 2006 “Peralta Bond Confusion” story which reported that “the itemized Measure A bond [project] list that [appeared at the time of the article] on the district’s website has serious discrepancies and lapses in its explanation of how its final figure was developed.” Following the publication of the Dec. 12 2006 “Peralta Bond Confusion” story, the itemized Measure A bond project list was pulled from the Peralta website. 

All of this, I privately told the Peralta officials, was adding up to a major fiscal oversight problem that could explode at any time and jeopardize the chance of passage of any new Peralta bond measures that came before county voters in the future. I kept being assured, in private, that something would be done about the problem, but my impression was that none of the Peralta officials took the situation as seriously as I did. Officials can say now that they did not know about the excesses alleged in the Tribune articles. But it’s not because they weren’t warned. 

It remains to be seen how much effect this will have when Peralta comes back to voters for renewal of the construction bonds. 

There is a river of deep irony in this situation. 

Earlier in the decade, the Peralta Community College District was something of a laughingstock in the local press, as it was mired in a series of malfeasance and fiscal mismanagement controversies surrounding the board and former Chancellor Ron Temple. But in December of 2006, while the Measure A problems were still a small smoldering and not yet a fire, I was observing that the district was experiencing a fiscal oversight turnaround. 

“After years at the center of scandal and turmoil,” I wrote in a December 1 article, “the Peralta Board has seen a complete turnover in two years, with only … trustee Bill Riley as the lone holdover from the years when former chancellor Ron Temple ran the district. Current board president Linda Handy won her … seat in 2002 against incumbent Brenda Knight, a Temple supporter, and four of the current board members—[Bill] Withrow, Marcie Hodge, Nicky Gonzalez-Yuen, and Cy Gulassa—came on in 2004 when the incumbents in their districts chose not to run. …[T]rustee Alona Clifton lost her seat to challenger Abel Guillen in the election earlier this month. Guillen does not take office until mid-December.  

“Meanwhile,” I continued, “beginning with Handy’s election in 2002, the board began to tighten up operations at the four-college district, firing Temple and replacing him with Elihu Harris. Those reforms escalated following the 2004 election, with added fiscal oversight and controls slowly put into place.” (“Withrow Expected to Take Helm of New Peralta Board.”) 

Among those oversight reforms were significant board questioning of contract cost overruns that previously had been routinely approved, the requirement that the district general counsel and chief financial officer sign off on “significant” items for legal and fiscal propriety before they were placed on the board agenda, and the hiring of a district oversight employee to report directly to the board. 

But because I was the only area newspaper reporter regularly covering the Peralta Community College District in 2006 and 2007 when the fiscal oversight and reforms were being put in place by the newly-constituted board (aside from student coverage in the Laney College newspaper), those reforms were largely unknown to anyone who was not reading the Daily Planet. For a good deal of the public—as well as for most of the local media—the Peralta District was still in the board and administrative disarray of the Temple years. And with the publication of the new Tribune fiscal mismanagement and malfeasance accusations, that view is now reinforced. 

Were the Peralta College District reforms of 2006-07 a real turnaround from the Temple days, and the current Tribune allegations either untrue, or simply a misstep along the road to full district fiscal accountability? Or were the 2006-07 Peralta reforms simply an aberration, a temporary fulfilling of reformist campaign promises before the district sank back into a general morass of mismanagement? 

I can’t answer that question, because I’ve moved on to other assignments, and no longer cover Peralta. As far as I know, no other non-student newspaper regularly covers the district, either. So unfortunately, unless another local newspaper or media outlet assigns a reporter to longterm monitoring of the district, the public has no way of knowing the full truth about Peralta, which could have deep effects on the district’s status and standing and public financing. And that is a shame, both for Peralta, and for the general public that pays the district’s bills and depends upon its necessary community college services. 


Wild Neighbors: Seedy Business: Diet Secrets of the Goldfinch

By Joe Eaton
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 11:19:00 AM
Male (left) and female American goldfinches at thistle feeder.
Ken Thomas
Male (left) and female American goldfinches at thistle feeder.

Last weekend Ron and I were on the front porch late in the afternoon when we heard an unfamiliar bird call: not the towhee, not the wren, not a lesser goldfinch; something different. The source was revealed when an adult male American goldfinch flew out of the mulberry tree and onto a utility wire, followed by a second bird, greenish and frowsy-looking, fluttering its wings and repeating the odd call. It was a fledgling begging its father for food. 

We don’t see that many American goldfinches in the neighborhood; lesser goldfinches have always dominated the feeder traffic. And this was the first youngster of either species we’d noticed this year.  

These “wild canaries” have a reputation as late-season nesters, due in part to the pervasive Eastern bias of North American bird books. Kenn Kaufman, in his admirable Lives of North American Birds, says: “Nesting begins late in season in many areas, with most nesting activity during July and August.” 

But that doesn’t apply to California. I needed to dig into my collection of breeding bird atlases to flesh out the details. 

(Breeding bird atlases are usually done on a county basis, with several consecutive years of field surveys covering as much of the county as possible. In Humboldt County, this was complicated by the inhospitability of marijuana growers; timber companies were more cooperative. Surveyors use a number of behavioral cues to rate the likelihood of nesting from possible to confirmed. Contra Costa’s BBA results are online, at www.flyingemu.com.ccosta; Alameda’s atlas data is still unpublished.) 

It seems that American goldfinches in northern California begin nesting in April or May, which is not out of line with most of our songbirds. In Napa County, they were seen carrying nesting material as early as April 9. They may produce more than one brood per season, which would account for the fledglings seen in Monterey County on Sept. 7 and Humboldt on Sept. 22. 

Why does the California population get an earlier start? American goldfinches are dedicated seed-eaters. One dietary study in California reported a diet of 95 percent vegetable matter on an annual basis. Most of that would be the seeds of thistles and other plants in the composite family, although the finches will also eat flower and leaf buds, young leaves, and more rarely fruit and berries. “American goldfinches in California initiate nests in late April or May, probably because of the earlier maturation of seed-bearing plants in our winter-wet Mediterranean climate,” writes Dave Shuford in the Marin County BBA. 

Goldfinches—and I believe this goes for the lesser and the nomadic Lawrence’s as well—are unusual even among finches in raising their young on seeds, a trait they share with the house finch. The male brings a cropful of seeds to the female on the nest, who parcels it out among the kids. Regurgitation is involved. Most other finches, including the closely related pine siskin, switch to insects during the spring and summer, giving their offspring a hefty dose of protein. But young goldfinches do fine on seeds alone. 

It would be interesting to know whether the popularity of bird feeding has affected the timing of goldfinch reproduction. Collectively, Americans put out a lot of thistle seed for these finches. Despite the extra resources, eastern goldfinches seem to be programmed to wait for the wild seed crop. There’s been speculation that nesting is triggered by the first flowering of thistles and other composites. 

The seed diet has one advantage you might not anticipate. American goldfinches, like most songbirds with open cup-shaped nests, are vulnerable to nest parasitism by brown-headed cowbirds. Female cowbirds dump their eggs in the nests of other species, leaving the hosts to hatch them and raise the voracious young. 

The cowbird chicks are usually larger than the host’s young and tend to starve them out. Unlike European cuckoos, in which lineages have evolved to specialize on particular host species, the brown-headed cowbird is a broad-spectrum parasite; any accessible nest will do. 

The trouble with goldfinches as hosts, thought, is that young cowbirds don’t thrive on all-seed diets. Field studies indicate that few cowbird chicks survive more than three days in a goldfinch nest. That gives the young goldfinches better odds of making it. 

At one Ontario study site, no cowbirds were raised to fledging by parasitized goldfinches. But female cowbirds, who don’t stick around to monitor the fate of their progeny, are unaware of this, and persist in wasting their eggs in goldfinch nests.


Wiring to Avoid: Porcelain Fuses and Knife Switches

By Matt Cantor
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:39:00 AM

I’m a sucker for old things. Seventy-year-old cars, 100-year-old tools and Fiesta-ware pitchers. Actually, much of the reason I inspect houses for a living is my love of old things. Yes, there are those bothersome days when I have to inspect a brand new 4,000-square-foot house, but I generally manage to conceal my ennui. (And then there’s the money…)  

Among the old features that fire those endorphin-generating neuronal pathways are the tiny doors that gave access to shower drains, milk doors where your children’s real father would leave the butter and cream, and funny little wooden fuse boxes lined with lots of real asbestos (be sure to smoke lots of cigarettes before you play with it). 

My love of these particular aspects of our early 20th century houses is truly warped. I confess to having a small collection of “knife” switches (you know… “It’s Alive!”) and lots of porcelain fuse and bulb holders. The effort applied to manufacturing these simple electrical components was astonishing compared to the modern electrical panels that handle 125 amps and have covers where the screw holes don’t line up. 

That said, my ardor does not keep me from appreciating the mortal threat that some of these elements present to the unfamiliar users. Especially the naive 9-year-old. And given that I still see a fair number of these very primitive elements in the houses we’re all living in, it’s worth it to point out a couple of major threats that you might still be living with. 

Among the most common, is a condition called Neutral Fusing. Prior to 1928, most houses were wired with glass Edison fuses on both the hots and neutrals in your electrical system. Now, don’t fret, I will explain about hots and neutrals and it’s quite simple. When you look at the little surprised face on an electrical outlet, you see two slotted openings and one surprised roundish mouth. The two slots are hot (+, positive) and neutral (-, negative). The mouth is an extra neutral, what we call a ground. The distinction between neutral and ground is pretty much a protocol since they both end up connecting to the ground, literally. 

So, when we wire a house, we want to protect the wires from getting too hot (literally) and so we put temperature-sensitive devices (fuses) in the path that power must pass through (the hot wires) to get to the outlets, lights and everything else. What they used to do was to put another one of the same devices (a fuse) on the path back from the devices (the neutral path) to the earth. This meant that some of the time the fuse that blew would stop the power from getting back to the earth but would leave electricity still present on most of the wire on that circuit.  

So, the neutral fuse has blown. This keeps the circuit from being completed and the devices (electric foot massager, lava lamp, kiwi juicer) from working. So what do you do? You meddle with what you think is a dead outlet, lamp base or other part of the wiring system. If you’re like many resourceful, helper types over the last century or so, you know just enough to start taking things apart (that you assume are dead) and you touch a live metal part and get shocked. In fact, since you’re the only possible path back to the ground at this point, you might just get a very serious or deadly shock. 

The folks who write electrical codes figured this out and, as I mentioned, in 1928 they eliminated the practice of neutral fusing. They said go ahead and fuse where the power enters the wiring system but leave all neutrals and grounds (which are essentially the same thing) connected to the ground all the time. 

If you look at enough of these things, you’ll see the modifications that were made in the years that followed in which they took the same fuse holders and soldered pieces of copper across the path to eliminate the fuse and then, just a year or two later, they all change and we see neutral buses (which has neither to do with gender nor public transport), little mounts where all the neutrals gang together and head off to touch the earth. 

If you’re in a house from before 1928, take a look in that very old fuse panel and you may be able to discern the layout of neutral fusing. These usually include porcelain fuse holders screwed onto a wooden backing in what is often a wooden cabinet in a hall or closet (I’ve found them in kitchen cabinets, too). Two wires will connect to two screw terminals on one side of a four, six or eight fuse base and then an array of wires will come off of either side. Ultimately, a tester is needed to determine if these two wires produce only 120 volts. 

The two wires will produce 120 volts because only one is hot and the other simply connected to the ground as a return path. If both are hot and part of a 240-volt system in which the two are “out of phase” with one another, we’ll get 240. Two hundred and forty volts enables us to heat stove or dry clothes. 

You can find out of you have 240 coming into your house by looking at the service drop outside your house. If three wires come down from the main power pole and connect to your house, you have 240 volts. Be cautious, there are often three being provided by the utility company with one of the three being folded back and left for the future 240 service that you don’t yet have (you must spy with your little eye very carefully to see the one that’s doing nothing).  

We still have houses around that have only 120-volt service and many of these still have nothing more than a single pair of 30-amp fuses in a compartment in the side of the house. Or even hanging on a wooden board in the crawlspace near the front of the house. These often feature an open knife switch of the kind I mentioned earlier, a meter and open wiring leading to more fuses on the board or in the house somewhere. These installations abound with places to rest your hand on energized metal parts.  

What were they thinking in 1915? Well, they weren’t, really. Hindsight is always 20/20 right? It was incredibly exciting having the new “electric” light in the house and the danger hadn’t manifested yet in the form of any real number of deaths. Safety features always take time to develop and, for better or worse, many of us still live in houses just as they wired them in 1915 or 1925. Imagine what they will say of us in another 100 years. What sorts of wild, mad risks are we taking that we saunter past on a daily basis (freeway driving, unbridled energy use, voting Republican)?  

So, do as I do, keep those old porcelain fuses bases and Frankenstein knife switches for everyone to ogle and laugh over….disconnected on your mantelpiece.


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:43:00 AM

THURSDAY, JULY 16 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Residency Projects I” New work by Pawel Kruk, Samantha Lautman, Chris Turbuck and Lindsey White. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Gallery, 2990 San Pablo. Exhibition runs to Aug. 15. 841-7000. kala.org 

Alameda Plein Air Paintout 40 artists capture the character of the city through Sat. at various locations. For details see www.frankbettecenter.org 

“The Many Faces of Frida” Artwork by 31 artists representing an aspect, a tradition or a connection to the life of Frida Kahlo. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Office Building – Atrium, 1515 Clay St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to Aug. 28. www.vivafrida.com 

FILM 

In the Realm of Oshima “100 Years of Japanese Cinema” at 6:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tiffany Higgins, poet, reads from “And Anenas Stares Into Her Helmet” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Sandi Wisenberg reads from “The Adventures of Cancer Bitch” at 6:30 p.m. at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave, Oakland. 

Peter Dale Scott reads from his new book of poetry “Mosaic Orpheus” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Rafa Postel, trumpet, at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART Station. 

The Crucible’s 9th Annual Fire Arts Festival Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Fire Arts Arena, W. Grand Ave. and Wake Ave., Oakland. www.thecrucible.org 

CB3, Michael Kang, High Heat at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$18. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Crazy in Love with Patsy Cline” with Lavay Smith, Carmen Getit and Belle Monroe at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ellen Hoffman’s Showcase at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Pam and Jerry, Jill Knight at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

The Adrian Gormley Jazz Ensemble at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

FRIDAY, JULY 17 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 15. Tickets are $12-$15. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse “Spitfire Grill” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 16. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Jack Goes Boating” through July 19. Tickets are $28-$50. 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.  

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Thoroughly Modern Millie” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through July 19. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org  

Woodminster Summer Musicals “Peter Pan” at 8 p.m. at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joachin Miller Rd., Oakland, through July 19. Tickets are $25-$40. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Paul Krassner, journalist/satirist, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Veronica Chater reads from “Waiting for the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Faith and Family” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “The Ballad of Baby Doe” at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $18-$48. 925-798-1300, www.berkeleyopera.org 

The Crucible’s 9th Annual Fire Arts Festival Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Fire Arts Arena, W. Grand Ave. and Wake Ave., Oakland. www.thecrucible.org 

Faye Carol, blues, at noon at the Kaiser Center Roof Garden, on top of the parking garage, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Free. www.KaiserCenterRoofGarden.com 

Bolokada Conde at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Sukhawat Ali Khan at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Big Organ Trio, Alex Lee at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $9. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Rising Stars High school jazz intensive concert at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Justin Ancheta at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Terrence Brewer Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, JULY 18 

CHILDREN  

“Tales from Beatrix Potter” Sat. and Sun. at 12:30 and 3 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $7. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

Kathryn Rosak & Her Children’s Dance Program at 3:30 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. For ages 3 and up. Free. 524-3043. 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Too Big To Fail” Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Cedar Rose Park. www.sfmt.org 

Woman’s Will “The Taming of the Shrew” at 1 p.m. at John Hinkel Park. Free.  

EXHIBITIONS 

Anthony Holdsworth: Cityscape Paintings” On dispaly through Aug. 20 at Alta Galleria, 2980 College Ave., Suite 4. 414-4485. www.altagalleria.com 

FILM 

In the Realm of Oshima “Double Suicide: Japanese Summer” at 6:30 p.m. and “Gohatto” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Explore Classical Music” with John Reager, Prof. of Music History at Laney College at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 3rd flr Community Room, 2090 Kittredge. 981-6241. www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

Rosie Sorenson reads from “They Had Me at Meow: Tales of Love from the Homeless Cats of Buster Hollow” in a benefit reading for the East Bay SPCA at 1 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, Jack London Square, 98 Boradway., Oakland. 272-0120. 

Jaimal Yogis reads from “Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

“Exploring the Attic of Family Stories” A workshop with Donald Davis from 3 to 5 p.m., and storytelling concert at 7 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4409 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $15-$65. www.ddavisstoryteller.com 

James Gavin on “The Legend of Lena Horne” at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Friends of Negro Spirituals “Generations Preserving Negro Spirituals Together” at 2:30 p.m. at West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St., Oakland. 869-4359.  

Allegro Ballroom Summer Showcase Exhibition of social dancing including ballroom, country, swing, club and Latin dances from 2 to 8 p.m. at Allegro Ballroom, 5855 Christie Ave., Emeryville. Tickets are $10-$20. 655-2888. www.allegroballroom.net 

Bobi Céspedes, Afro-Cuban, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $18-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Pamela Rose & Her Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Jazzsinger’s Collective with the Walter Bankovitch Trio at 3:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 

Stevie Coyle & the Ten-in-One Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

DiiGin at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Apple Pie Hopes, The Sweet Dominiques at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Wish Inflicted at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SUNDAY, JULY 19 

EXHIBITIONS 

”The African Presence in Mexico” docent tour at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Admission is $5-$8. 238-2200.  

Squeak Carnwath ”Painting Is No Ordinary Object” docent tour at 3 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Admission is $5-$8. 238-2200.  

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Too Big To Fail” at 2 p.m. at Cedar Rose Park. www.sfmt.org 

Woman’s Will “The Taming of the Shrew” at 1 p.m. at John Hinkel Park. Free.  

FILM 

Tribute to Hayao Miyazaki “Castle in the Sky” at 2:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Municipal Band Concerts from 1 to 3 p.m. at The Bandstand at Lake Merritt, 666 Bellevue Ave. Free. Lawn chairs, blankets and picnics welcome. 338-2818. 

Berkeley Opera “The Ballad of Baby Doe” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $18-$48. 925-798-1300. www.berkeleyopera.org 

Midsummer Mozart Festival Program I at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Berkeley. Tickets are $30-$60. 415-627-9141. www.midsummermozart.org 

Favianna Rodriguez, Visual Element, and Dr. Loco and his Rocking Jalapeño Band from noon to 4 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Admission is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Vukani Mawethu Choir at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Americana Unplugged: Jeanie & Chuck’s Country Roundup at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Madou Sidiki Diabate at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054.  

John Palowich: Non-Standard Basis at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Rita Hosking & Cousin Jack at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

MONDAY, JULY 20 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Subterranean Shakespeare “Richard III” Staged reading at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Tickets are $8 at the door. 276-3871. 

Chris Hedges on “Empire of Illusion: End of Literacy, Triumph of Spectacle” at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $10-$12. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Alonzo Addison on “Disappearing World: 101 of the Earth’s Most Extraordinary and Endangered Places” at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Poetry Express with Cat Ruiz and Jan Steckel at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

TUESDAY, JULY 21 

FILM 

Tribute to Hayao Miyazaki “Princess Mononoke” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Minal Hajratwala reads from “Leaving India” at 12:30 p.m. at Women of Color Resource Center, 1611 Telegraph Ave. #303, Oakland. 444-2700 ext. 304. coloredgirls.org/brownbag 

Gary Bukovik, watercolorist, will discuss his paintings of flowers at 6:30 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden. Cost is $35-$40. Registration required. 643-2755. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tri Tip Trio at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22 

FILM 

“Woman in the Dunes” screening in conjunction with “Reverberations” Japanese Prints of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake at 7 p.m. at Mills College Art Museum, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 430-2164.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Reading Benefit for Berkeley Food and Housing Project with Cryus Armajani, Larry Beresford, MK Chavez, Sharon Coleman and others at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. Suggested donation $5.  

Nick Laird on “Glover’s Mistake” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam at 8 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sonic Strut, R&B, Motown, at noon at Oakland City Center, 12th and Broadway. 

Music on the Main with Junius Courtney Big Band at 5 p.m. at the corner of Macdonald Ave. and Marina Way, Richmond. www.richmondmainstreet.org 

Inga Swearingen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Big Cheese & Jive Cats at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $6. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Celu’s Silver Kittens at 7 p.m. at Chester's Bayview Cafe, 1508 B Walnut Square. 849-9995. 

Fanfare du Belgistan at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Balkan dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Conjunto Rovira at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Rachel Efron at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

THURSDAY, JULY 23 

CHILDREN 

Active Arts Theatre for Young Audiences “If You Give A Mouse a Cookie” play based on the book by Laura Numeroff, Thurs. Sat, Sun. at 4 p.m., Fri. at 6 p.m., thruough Aug. 16, at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$12. 296-4433.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Bay Area: Big, Abstract, Digital” an exhibition of new digital prints. Reception at 6 p.m. at the Addison Street Windows Gallery, 2018 Addison St. Exhibition runs through Aug. 23. www.digitalartsclub.com 

“Big Frame Up” An exhibit of early American Tramp Art, carved, painted, and one of a kind frames at The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. through Sept. 2009. 845-4949. www.amesgallery.com 

FILM 

Free Outdoor Movies at Jack London Square “It Came from Beneath the Sea” Come at 7:30 p.m., movies begin at sundown. Bring blankets and stadium seat. 645-9292. www.jacklondonsquare.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Brendan Constantine, Steve Rood and Cathie Sandstrom at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

David Kessler reads from “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Summer Brenner and Owen Hill read from their murder mysteries set in the Bay Area at 7:30 p.m. at Pegauss Boos Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

David Hunter, bass, at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART Station. 

President Brown & The Solid Foundation Band, Andrew Diamond at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Kelly Park Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Five Eyed Hand, Bo Carpenter at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

The Sacred Profanities at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

FRIDAY, JULY 24 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 15. Tickets are $12-$15. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse “Spitfire Grill” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 16. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Sage Cohen and other poets on “Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation of Read and Write Poetry” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Opera “Agrippina 2000” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 630 3rd St., Oakland. Tickets are $22. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Seaon Brostol, soul, at noon at the Kaiser Center Roof Garden, on top of the parking garage, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Free. www.KaiserCenterRoofGarden.com 

The Cataracs, electro pop at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Aaron Bahr, trumpet, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Lady Bianca Blues at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Sila & The Afrofunk Experience at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jazzy Soul Collective with Eric Roberson, Anthony David and Angela Johnson at 10 p.m. at Maxwell’s Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakland. 839-6169. 

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

Ten Mile Tide, Mad Buffalo at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

The Rhythm Doctors at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Sonando Project Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, JULY 25 

CHILDREN  

“Rabbit on the Moon” A Japanese fairytale Sat. and Sun. at 12:30 and 3 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $7. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

THEATER 

Youth Musical Theater Company “Les Miserables” Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8-$20. www.brownpapertickets.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Moose Must Persuade The Duck” Encaustic drawings and monotypes by Cheryl Finfrock and kinetic art by Sudhu Tewari. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Float Gallery, 1091 Clacot Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. www.thefloatcenter.com 

Anthony Holdsworth: Cityscape Paintings Reception at 1 p.m. at Alta Galleria, 2980 College Ave., Suite 4. Exhibition runs through Aug. 20. 414-4485. www.altagalleria.com 

“Ex Libris” Books, objects and assemblages “from the library” by David Patterson on display in the Lobby Showcase at the Rockridge Branch of the O 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“How Art Helps to Preserve & Protect the Landscape for Future Generations” A conversation with Phyllis Faber and Elisabeth Ptak of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, with photographer Marty Knapp, at 5 p.m., followed by sale of photographs to benefit MALT, at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

Rhythm & Muse music & spoken word open mic with poets Adele Mendelson & Clive Matson at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 644-6893. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Open Opera “The Marriage of Figaro”at 3 p.m. at John Hinkel Park, 41 Somerset Place, off the Alameda. 547-2471. 

Oakland Opera “Agrippina 2000” at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 630 3rd St., Oakland. Tickets are $22. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Evelie Delfino Sales Posch “Heart Opening Chants” at 8 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. Tickets are $5-$20. 548-2153. 

Sila and Dublin in a benefit for the Solar Maasai Program at 4 p.m. at the Beta Lounge, 2129 Durant Ave. 845-3200. 

Peruvian Independence Day with De Rompa y Raja Cultural Assoc. at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15-$18. 849-2568. www.lapena.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 

Stompy Jones at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Erica Luckett & Ruby at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Vento/Grinder Quintet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Fred Randolph Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Shark Alley Hobos at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Live Dead at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Little Muddy at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SUNDAY, JULY 26 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Municipal Band Concerts from 1 to 3 p.m. at The Bandstand at Lake Merritt, 666 Bellevue Ave. Free. Lawn chairs, blankets and picnics welcome. 338-2818. 

Open Opera “The Marriage of Figaro”at 3 p.m. at John Hinkel Park, 41 Somerset Place, off the Alameda. 547-2471. 

Oakland Opera “Agrippina 2000” at 2 p.m. at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 630 3rd St., Oakland. Tickets are $22. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Midsummer Mozart Festival Program II at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Berkeley. Tickets are $30-$60. 415-627-9141. www.midsummermozart.org 

Shirzad Sharif, Kaveh Hedayati & Friends Songs in solidarity with the people of Iran at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5-$10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

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

Americana Unplugged: The Honey Dew Drops at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Bandworks Student band recitals at 1 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Big Enough Band at 4:30 p.m. and The Malachi Whitson Group at 7 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Matthew Monfort, Mariah Parker, Ancient Future at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 


From ‘Prairie’ to Freight and Salvage

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:44:00 AM
Inga Swearingen
Inga Swearingen

“I started off with my guitar, singing folk songs,” said jazz singer Inga Swearingen. A frequent guest on National Public Radio’s Prairie Home Companion show with Garrison Keillor, Swearingen will perform with her jazz band Wednesday, July 22, at Freight and Salvage. 

Swearingen, who was born in Sweden, Texas, and grew up in San Luis Obispo, where she still lives, “took choir through school, not one-on-one singing lessons. But my parents and my sister sang. Music was always there.” 

Trained operatically, “jazz came first.” Her high school had a jazz choir and “I had a sense of basic swing and tight jazz harmonies in my ear after high school.”  

Studying formally with mezzo Jacalyn Kreitzer, “who flies off to do something at the Met, then back to teach 30 kids a week in San Luis Obispo,” Swearingen strengthened a voice “that was not big ... when I arrange tunes, I arrange very sparsely. I leave a lot of open space. I know where my voice likes to sit. It’s the kind of music I like to hear, too, with lots of space, where you can hear each instrument.” 

Studying operatic singing, she said, “we both knew I had no intention of becoming an opera or classical singer.”  

Majoring in music at Cuesta College, Swearingen’s jazz choir went in 2003 to the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. There she “saw there was a workshop with Swiss singer and ECM recording artist Susanne Abbuehl. She asked for a volunteer; I raised my hand. She had me sing ‘Summertime,’ put it in five, phrase it all scrunched up, but with the last four measures stretched out, so ‘easy’—sounded easy!”  

Swearingen continued to write Abbuehl e-mails for two years until she had the money to return to Switzerland, taking private lessons in Lucerne. “She taught me where, under the big umbrella of music, my voice fits in.” 

Abbuehl had studied North Indian classical singing with Dr. Prabha Atre. “She taught me as Indian teachers do, when they take on a student. We’d cook together, have meals together. Things just bubbled up naturally. I could see how she balanced it all. I patterned my career after hers.” 

After Switzerland, Swearingen applied to Florida State University, and took her MFA in choral conducting at Tallahassee. “I wanted to study more about music, and have the option to teach.” 

Meanwhile, Garrison Keillor of “The Prairie Home Companion” came through San Luis Obispo. “The piano player from my jazz band sent in a CD, in case they were considering local talent. Probably having a name like Inga Swearingen got it to the top of the stack.” 

Speaking of Keillor, she said, “We hit it off right away. He loves improvisation, scat singing ... I think that’s what he tries to do, reading a story.”  

Swearingen’s been invited back “13 or 14 times. I got to go to Wolf Trap, Tanglewood, amazing venues,” she said. “It was a lot of fun, and very spontaneous. You never know what’s going to happen until moments before the show. They try out stuff, then rewrite it at the last minute. It’s exciting and scary. I’m exhausted after the show; I don’t see how he does it.” 

Being a frequent guest on National Public Radio “was such an opportunity,” she said. “People would write to me; amazing they still take the time. There’s no other show like it, combining music with humor. Listeners plan their day around a radio show!” 

Still, it’s “a slow, steady climb; I spend so much time at it. I have an amazing husband and family. It takes so much energy to get a gig, not being known.” 

Swearingen has performed in Berkeley before at the JazzSchool, at Jazz Vespers around the bay and with Anton Schwartz at Peralta loft concerts.  

She’ll be releasing a new CD, First Rain, in October. “There’s a clear difference between this and my other two. It’s jazz—jazz chords and harmonies—but folk jazz, with guitar, stand-up bass, percussion and my sister’s voice in harmony. The two voices together make it more folk.” 

The new CD will have “a handful of jazz standards, a couple folktunes—a Swedish folk song and John Jacob Niles’ ‘Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair,’ and a handful of original tunes.” 

“I love different genres,” Swearingen said. “That was something about school that disenchanted me, the general sense you could only do one thing, and never the twain shall meet. But Bobby McFerrin does it! He jumps across the line all the time. I want to pull from every single genre I’ve been influenced by, into my sound.” 

 

INGA SWEARINGEN 

8 p.m. July 22 at Freight and Salvage. $18.50.-$19.50. 548-1761. www.thefreight.org.


Midsummer? Then It Must Be Time for Mozart

By Ira Steingroot Special to the Planet
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:45:00 AM

If the economy, global warming, the state budget impasse, two wars, nuclear proliferation and the fact that your 401k is in the toilet have got you leaning on your elbow like Durer’s Melancholia, cheer up.  

The 2009 Midsummer Mozart Festival, the only all-Mozart festival in the country, begins this week. Most of this year’s selections will be very fresh for Bay Area audiences, but there will still be a few old favorites in the lineup. More to the point, George Cleve, a Bay Area treasure, will be conducting. Cleve has a special relationship with both the works of Mozart and with his performers. They each come to sparkling life when he is wielding the baton. 

Program I of the festival will begin with the Overture to La Clemenza Di Tito, K.621, Mozart’s final opera. It was first performed in Prague in September of 1791 to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia. It was not performed in America until 1952, but since then has increased appreciably in both popularity and critical esteem. Its theme is one of Mozart’s favorites, mercy and forgiveness, and the overture is like a brief mini-symphony. 

Next up is the beautiful Concerto No. 10 for Two Pianos in E flat, composed by the 23-year-old Mozart for his sister Nannerl and himself. Appropriately, sisters Yong Jean Park and Yong Sun Park join the festival orchestra for this performance. 

Coming forward from the orchestra wind section, flute virtuoso Maria Tamburrino will be featured on the Flute Concerto No. 1 in G. Mozart wrote this for the Dutch amateur, Ferdinand Dejean, a physician with the Dutch East India Company when they met in Mannheim in 1778. The wonderful cadenzas should give Tamburrino ample room to display not only her technical strengths and exquisite silvery tone, but her deep interpretive abilities as well. 

The first program will conclude with Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 in D, known as the “Haffner.” This piece began as a now partially lost serenade written for the occasion of the ennoblement of Mozart’s friend Siegmund Haffner in Salzburg in 1782. There is also another “Haffner” serenade, written for the marriage of one of Haffner’s daughters. Our symphony, written by a young man of 26, ushers us into the world of grandeur that is Mozart’s late symphonies.  

The festival’s second concert program will begin with one of Mozart’s best early symphonies, No. 29 in A. With a few exceptions, most of the early symphonies lack that greatness that is overflowing in the late symphonies. It is an exception with four full movements, all beautifully conceived and fully realized. Both the melodies and the orchestrations are brilliant.  

Legendary pianist Seymour Lipkin, a frequent festival guest, returns this year to perform the Piano Concerto No. 19 in F. Mozart composed six piano concertos in 1784, each one a masterpiece, and this was the last of the six. Its final movement is among the most dazzling in his oeuvre. 

French horn soloist David Sprung will present another facet of Mozart’s concerto writing when he joins the festival orchestra for the Horn Concerto No. 3 in E flat, from 1787. All of Mozart’s works for French horn were written for the virtuoso performer and Viennese cheese purveyor, Joseph Leutgeb.  

Although he was a gifted musician, Leutgeb brought out a strain of sarcasm in Mozart that lead him to ridicule the horn player mercilessly in the margins of some of these horn concertos (“silly ass Leutgeb,” for instance). In spite of this, the music he wrote for this vendor of frommage is wonderful, and the cadenzas allow the soloist to demonstrate everything of which the instrument is capable.  

The festival concludes with Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 in C, named the “Jupiter” by the British impresario J. P. Salomon. Mozart entered the opening bars of this and his other two last symphonies into his Verzeichnis aller meiner Werke, his autograph thematic catalogue of his compositions, between June 26 and Aug. 10 of 1788.  

That means that during a six-week period in the summer of 1788, after the failure of Don Giovanni in Vienna, during the time that his infant daughter died, while composing half a dozen other pieces, he carried these three symphonies around in his head and then wrote them down one after the other in fully orchestrated versions.  

Not only would that be difficult in itself, but these are the greatest symphonies of the 18th century and among the greatest pieces of music ever composed. The contrapuntal final movement of the Jupiter is usually singled out for particular excellence, but the whole symphony is magnificent from beginning to end.  

Program I of the Midsummer Mozart Festival will be performed Thursday, July 16, 8 p.m., Mission Santa Clara, SCU Campus in Santa Clara; Friday, July 17, 8 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall, in San Francisco; Saturday, July 18, 6:30 p.m., Gundlach Bundschu Winery, in Sonoma (outdoors); and Sunday, July 19, 7 p.m., First Congregational Church, in Berkeley.  

Program II of the festival will be performed Thursday, July 23, 8 p.m., California Theatre, in San Jose; Friday, July 24, 8 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall, in San Francisco; Saturday, July 25, 6:30 p.m., Gundlach Bundschu Winery, in Sonoma (outdoors); and Sunday, July 26, 7 p.m., First Congregational Church, in Berkeley.  

For more information on the Midsummer Mozart Festival and the receptions following the concerts call (800) 838-3006 or visit www.midsummermozart.org. 


Four Larks Presents ‘The Master and Margarita’

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:45:00 AM

Led through a progression of rooms—passages between them with flashing lights, bureaucratic apologies and evidence of some urban accident—into a devilish cabaret, devilishly good fun, where gypsies, eccentrics, a big cat on two legs and others sing and dance, the spectators are finally pulled into another room, a party, the guest of honor on a trapeze, all invited to kiss her knee . . .  

And this is just the chorus that swirls around the real story, The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov’s seductive tale of 1938 (though buried for a quarter century) about a great writer, lolling in a bathtub, spurned by secular censors, extemporizing as Pontius Pilate—so speaking of the Garden of Gethsemene and the lonely passion of another master there—provoking the devil himself and his wild retinue to descend on the unbelieving city to spread anarchy around. 

Four Larks, a nicely punning monicker for a committed little theater company that divides its time between the Bay Area and Melbourne, is putting on (I say it advisedly) a diverting show that proves their musical, their choral and cabaret sensibilities are very strong indeed. They also know how—and when—to have a good time, almost disguising their hard work in the process. 

Four Larks has focused on the love story of the great writer and his lady, but it’s the slightly out-of-focus carrying on by the company around the more romantic vignettes that give the show its giddiness and flavor. But the staged wildness, with a solid musical spine, becomes a kind of dialectic whereby the interplay of the cabaret/wild party with the dramatic tableaux give the troupe the chance to creatively use the whole space, every dizzying angle, entrance and exit, of Ghost Town Gallery in West Oakland, dragging a pleasantly puzzled yet willing audience along with it. 

Bulgakov was the brilliant and witty odd man out in the fantastic theater scene of post-revolutionary Russia. A disciple of Moliere, he first got on Stanislavsky’s wrong side (satirizing that old master and his dramatic mood swings in Black Snow), then incurred the displeasure of the Comintern’s toadies, with tragic effect. The Master and Margarita might be seen as his fairytale escape from such woes, summoning up the devil to beat back the ferocious functionaries of a people’s paradise gone awry. (As William Blake put it, “As a new heaven is begun ... the Eternal Hell revives.” 

A piquant pleasure, at a moment in history—or post-history, if that’s what they’re still selling—to go through the hoops of loneliness, the meatgrinder of social obloquy, like this, with a spirit of fun. 

Jesse Rasmussen put together the script and lyrics and directed, with assistance “devising” by Mat Sweeney (who directed the music and sang with Ellen Warkentine), Sebastian Peters-Lazaro and Alessandro Rumie, who also did the choreography, set and murals. Chloe Greaves, visiting from Melbourne, designed costume and lights and is running the boards. Almost everyone doubles up, some acting and on instruments, among them Em Gift, Susannah Freedman, Max Baumgarten, Nathan Greene, Caitlin Valentine, Troy Delaney, Danny Echevarria, Lidsay Cooper, Matthew Fleming, Mallory Gross and Stephanie Butterworth. It’s a bright, young troupe, finding their way instead of dutifully marching down the well-worn highways of one style or another. The Master and Margarita comes closer to vaudeville, burlesque, Commedia in spirit than many more polished “nouveau” presentations.  

 

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA 

Presented by Four Larks at 8 p.m. July 16-19 at Ghost Town Gallery, 2519 San Pablo Ave. Oakland. $10-$15. Phone or text: 967-0426. E-mail: info@fourlarkstheatre.com. Website: www.fourlarkstheatre.com. 


Shadowlight Puppet Play at ‘The Rootabaga Opera’

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:42:00 AM

“I’m driving to rehearsal in a truck loaded with banging metal shadow puppets,” said shadowmaster Larry Reed of Shadowlight Productions, who is co-directing the spectacular aspect of Dan Cantrell’s The Rootabaga Opera, featuring actors, dancers, shadowplay, women’s vocal group Kitka singing to live music. The show takes place tonight through Sunday at The Crucible’s annual Fire Arts Festival in West Oakland, which also hosts performances by several dozen other musicians, dancers, theater and circus artists, as well as demonstrations of the fire arts The Crucible teaches in workshops at its nearby facility. 

Cantrell, an Emmy-winner, also known for his accordion playing, has combined several of poet Carl Sandberg’s Rootabaga Stories (1922) in an ongoing narrative, “with a variety of means of telling, including different ones simultaneously—some spoken, some sung, with puppets going on and off, a troupe of dancers, and a narrator, the Potato-Faced Blindman,” said Reed.  

Working with the voices of Kitka and a septet he’ll direct (which will include a theremin for one number), Cantrell will play keyboards—“but I think he’ll pick up the accordion, too,” Reed said, describing the music as “varied, sometimes with a Bluegrass feel, sometimes like modern compositional music—Eastern European choruses—I don’t know how to describe it.” 

Reed, founder of Shadowlight Productions, will co-direct with Christine Marie, for 10 years with Shadowlight, now studying at CalArts, “who is close to the fire artists as well.”  

Another primary component, the shadow puppets cut from sheet metal, about 105 of them, were designed by East Bay artist Mark Bulwinkle. Some of them can be seen online at: markbulwinkle.com.  

“Mark has a whole bouquet of shadow puppet characters in his Emeryville studio,” Reed said. 

Cantrell approached Reed for the shadow work involved in the show. “Twenty years ago, I was thinking of the same thing, using the Rootabaga Stories. I spent about 10 years considering the project, but it never happened. This isn’t strictly a shadowplay, but I reread the stories and saw them in a new context. I saw the characters as metal puppets, and asked Mark to create them. I’d wanted to work with him for years and wanted to work with an arc welder as the light source. There’re fewer rehearsals than in the way we’re used to working, but the way the puppets are designed and shown, the technique’s fairly simple. It’s kind of exciting.” 

Reed described it like primitive film animation. “We don’t have to do a lot with them, just move them a little with the arclight behind them,” he said. “We’re using carbon arcs, like the old movie projectors.” 

Reed, one of the true originals in Bay Area performing arts—and one of the few to make fundamental contributions and changes to the medium he works in—studied French theater as an undergrad at Yale, then came to the San Francisco Art Institute for film with Robert Nelson (noted for Oh Dem Watermelons! with the Mime Troupe).  

After a stint in the Peace Corps, directing theater in Costa Rica, with the Vietnam War on going, “I wanted to go to Southeast Asia, but someplace at peace,” he said. “I wanted to live in a village, after the urban experience I had in Costa Rica, and learn about musical theater that was not Broadway.” 

He went to Bali as a filmmaker. “The camera got stolen and I saw shadow theater there in 1970. I realized it was a kind of movie, the original screenplay.” 

During the ‘70s, Reed studied intensively in Bali, returning to the Bay Area to perform shadow puppetry.  

“I went back to learn more, maintained relations there for over 30 years. I realized I learned everything I could.” he said. “With Shadowlight, I’ve made explorations of the shadow world through different cultures, different iterations, using cinematic technique, a big screen and so on.” 

Reed’s shadowplays employ more than puppets. There are projections, live “shadow actors” with specially designed masks ... in one show, based on Native Californian coyote myths, a Karok storyteller appeared in live video projection above the screen, intoning the tales in a mixture of English and Karok, all in “Indian time.”  

Besides playing in the Bay Area, it was played for Native Californian audiences in the state’s northwest. Octavio Solis’s Seven Visions, Latino-Indian stories, was performed at different California Missions. 

There has always been live music, “something I carried over from Bali,” either original or traditional. The Wild Party, from a 1920s poem, became a jazz piece shadowplay with guitarist Bruce Foreman.  

Reed has continued to collaborate with Asian artists, performing traditional Balinese shadowplay, producing a gamelan festival in San Francisco, creating the stunning In Xanadu about Kubla Khan in China, and collaborating with a Taiwanese theater company on Monkey in the Spider Cave, which toured Taiwan “and may be coming back to life, hopefully to tour Europe.” 

“Taking my work full circle,” Reed has produced eight shadowplays on DVD, available though Shadowlight. “I’ve completely upset the genre sense” of a form that was often considered mere decorative entertainment. With Reed’s innovations, “it’s a new way of telling stories, a new visual language.” 

 

 

ROOTABAGA OPERA 

9 p.m. Thursday, July 16 through Saturday, July 18 at The Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival at Fire Arts Arena. Free parking at West Grand Avenue; free shuttle from West Oakland BART. $25-$95 advance festival admission, plus $5 at door. (877) 840-0457. www.thecrucible.org, shadowlight.com. 

 


Julia Morgan Center, Berkeley Playhouse Merge

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:40:00 AM

The Julia Morgan Center on College Avenue and the Berkeley Playhouse have announced their merger as the Julia Morgan Young People’s Performing Arts Center.  

Current residents Berkeley Ballet Theater and Heart’s Leap Preschool are expected to continue at the center, and shows by performing troupes such as Youth Musical Theatre Company and Active Arts for Young Audiences, as well as other companies not specializing in children’s, youth and family theater, are also being encouraged to continue producing onstage there, according to Jerry Foust, formerly general director for Berkeley Playhouse, now managing director for the new joint entity.  

Foust said a new board of directors for the combined organizations will be announced soon. 

Meanwhile, Berkeley Playhouse is set to open its summer production of Peter Pan at the Ashby Stage this weekend, with some performances already sold out. On Tuesday, a remarkable 1,300 tickets had been sold in advance.  

Foust said 18 young acting interns would be included in the ensemble, along with the professional adult cast, and the show would restore the importance of the animal characters of Neverland from the original J. M. Barrie play, obscured in the Broadway musical version. Trapeze artists from Studio 12 in West Berkeley have served as consultants and trainers for both youth and adult actors, emphasizing aerial dance, “not the traditional flying associated with Cathy Rigby or Mary Martin in the role.” 

Youth Musical Theater Company is set to stage Les Miserables July 25–Aug. 2 at the center, and Stage Door Conservatory/Teens On Stage come in with Grease Aug. 7–9. 

“When the Choate family moved here 10 years ago,” Foust said, “the Julia Morgan Center was in financial trouble. They fulfilled a dream, got the center back into financial shape and started educational programs. For the past couple of years, Berkeley Playhouse has shared office space and resources. The advisors for the board we recruited for the Playhouse felt we needed to give the building an identity, as a place where young people can come. We’d like to add to our residents and renters—more music, for instance, like a children’s choir or a youth orchestra. And we’ve been working together with our regular renters during the transition. It’s been very open, very positive.” 

The new directorship will have a budget of nearly $1 million, Foust said—and plans are being laid for improvements to the century-old building, originally built by its famous namesake architect for St. John’s Presbyterian Church on a budget of $2 per square foot. New sound and lighting equipment are high on the list. 

Berkeley Playhouse, founded in 2007 by current artistic director Elizabeth McKoy, formerly on the faculty at Seattle Children’s Theatre and educational director for the Julia Morgan Center, “started out performing in a living room,” said Foust. Tickets for the Playhouse Summer Youth Company shows of Adventures in Terraleavferia (an original “environmental musical fantasy” by Playhouse musical director Phil Gorman and Lila Tschappat), the junior show on Aug. 7–8, and the teen show of Urinetown, the Musical are now on sale. 

“It’s been great to see parents walking with their family from the neighborhood to see the shows,” Foust said. “We hope to offer parking arrangements for season subscribers soon.” 

The Julia Morgan Center with the Berkeley Playhouse plans three mainstage shows and five youth shows for next season. “The Wizard of Oz will be in late fall, Singin’ in the Rain late winter, and next spring, Oliver! The Youth Company performances will include Godspell and Aladdin, one weekend each in winter, and our summer performance camps will feature Barnum and Pippin a year from now.” 

The Playhouse boasts four programs: a professional company, a youth company, an outreach program (“professional artists going into the schools, bringing the kids to the theater”) and a conservatory. “We have kids in all the shows, even in the professional company’s shows, as acting interns,” Foust noted. “They’re a crucial part of the ensemble, learning and acting alongside the professional actors. Elizabeth’s philosophy is that education is at the heart of everything.” 

“Now we have to figure out how to brand this!” Foust also said the Julia Morgan Center is planning to celebrate the building’s centennial next year. 

“Together, this is a great opportunity to expand our reach, to serve more families, children and schools in the East Bay,” said Julia Morgan Board President Tim Choate. “And this core of programs will give the Julia Morgan a true identity and niche in the community.” 


Wiring to Avoid: Porcelain Fuses and Knife Switches

By Matt Cantor
Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:39:00 AM

I’m a sucker for old things. Seventy-year-old cars, 100-year-old tools and Fiesta-ware pitchers. Actually, much of the reason I inspect houses for a living is my love of old things. Yes, there are those bothersome days when I have to inspect a brand new 4,000-square-foot house, but I generally manage to conceal my ennui. (And then there’s the money…)  

Among the old features that fire those endorphin-generating neuronal pathways are the tiny doors that gave access to shower drains, milk doors where your children’s real father would leave the butter and cream, and funny little wooden fuse boxes lined with lots of real asbestos (be sure to smoke lots of cigarettes before you play with it). 

My love of these particular aspects of our early 20th century houses is truly warped. I confess to having a small collection of “knife” switches (you know… “It’s Alive!”) and lots of porcelain fuse and bulb holders. The effort applied to manufacturing these simple electrical components was astonishing compared to the modern electrical panels that handle 125 amps and have covers where the screw holes don’t line up. 

That said, my ardor does not keep me from appreciating the mortal threat that some of these elements present to the unfamiliar users. Especially the naive 9-year-old. And given that I still see a fair number of these very primitive elements in the houses we’re all living in, it’s worth it to point out a couple of major threats that you might still be living with. 

Among the most common, is a condition called Neutral Fusing. Prior to 1928, most houses were wired with glass Edison fuses on both the hots and neutrals in your electrical system. Now, don’t fret, I will explain about hots and neutrals and it’s quite simple. When you look at the little surprised face on an electrical outlet, you see two slotted openings and one surprised roundish mouth. The two slots are hot (+, positive) and neutral (-, negative). The mouth is an extra neutral, what we call a ground. The distinction between neutral and ground is pretty much a protocol since they both end up connecting to the ground, literally. 

So, when we wire a house, we want to protect the wires from getting too hot (literally) and so we put temperature-sensitive devices (fuses) in the path that power must pass through (the hot wires) to get to the outlets, lights and everything else. What they used to do was to put another one of the same devices (a fuse) on the path back from the devices (the neutral path) to the earth. This meant that some of the time the fuse that blew would stop the power from getting back to the earth but would leave electricity still present on most of the wire on that circuit.  

So, the neutral fuse has blown. This keeps the circuit from being completed and the devices (electric foot massager, lava lamp, kiwi juicer) from working. So what do you do? You meddle with what you think is a dead outlet, lamp base or other part of the wiring system. If you’re like many resourceful, helper types over the last century or so, you know just enough to start taking things apart (that you assume are dead) and you touch a live metal part and get shocked. In fact, since you’re the only possible path back to the ground at this point, you might just get a very serious or deadly shock. 

The folks who write electrical codes figured this out and, as I mentioned, in 1928 they eliminated the practice of neutral fusing. They said go ahead and fuse where the power enters the wiring system but leave all neutrals and grounds (which are essentially the same thing) connected to the ground all the time. 

If you look at enough of these things, you’ll see the modifications that were made in the years that followed in which they took the same fuse holders and soldered pieces of copper across the path to eliminate the fuse and then, just a year or two later, they all change and we see neutral buses (which has neither to do with gender nor public transport), little mounts where all the neutrals gang together and head off to touch the earth. 

If you’re in a house from before 1928, take a look in that very old fuse panel and you may be able to discern the layout of neutral fusing. These usually include porcelain fuse holders screwed onto a wooden backing in what is often a wooden cabinet in a hall or closet (I’ve found them in kitchen cabinets, too). Two wires will connect to two screw terminals on one side of a four, six or eight fuse base and then an array of wires will come off of either side. Ultimately, a tester is needed to determine if these two wires produce only 120 volts. 

The two wires will produce 120 volts because only one is hot and the other simply connected to the ground as a return path. If both are hot and part of a 240-volt system in which the two are “out of phase” with one another, we’ll get 240. Two hundred and forty volts enables us to heat stove or dry clothes. 

You can find out of you have 240 coming into your house by looking at the service drop outside your house. If three wires come down from the main power pole and connect to your house, you have 240 volts. Be cautious, there are often three being provided by the utility company with one of the three being folded back and left for the future 240 service that you don’t yet have (you must spy with your little eye very carefully to see the one that’s doing nothing).  

We still have houses around that have only 120-volt service and many of these still have nothing more than a single pair of 30-amp fuses in a compartment in the side of the house. Or even hanging on a wooden board in the crawlspace near the front of the house. These often feature an open knife switch of the kind I mentioned earlier, a meter and open wiring leading to more fuses on the board or in the house somewhere. These installations abound with places to rest your hand on energized metal parts.  

What were they thinking in 1915? Well, they weren’t, really. Hindsight is always 20/20 right? It was incredibly exciting having the new “electric” light in the house and the danger hadn’t manifested yet in the form of any real number of deaths. Safety features always take time to develop and, for better or worse, many of us still live in houses just as they wired them in 1915 or 1925. Imagine what they will say of us in another 100 years. What sorts of wild, mad risks are we taking that we saunter past on a daily basis (freeway driving, unbridled energy use, voting Republican)?  

So, do as I do, keep those old porcelain fuses bases and Frankenstein knife switches for everyone to ogle and laugh over….disconnected on your mantelpiece.


Community Calendar

Thursday July 16, 2009 - 10:38:00 AM

THURSDAY, JULY 16 

“Butterflies in a Butterfly House” with entomologist Rich Kelson of Butterfly Habitat at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

Dog Day Thursdays Come practice your reading skills by reading to a dog. A free, drop-in program at 2 and 2:35 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

“The Suntrain and Mr. Swan’s Big Idea” Slideshow presentation on a solar-powered railway at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-3402.  

Berkeley Simplicity Forum on “Decluttering” at 6:30 p.m. at the Claremont Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 

Hip-Hop Dance Class for Teens with Lateef at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St.  

Early Childhood Safety Choke-Saving Skills Class, in English and Spanish,  

for parents and caregivers from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

Magic Workshop with Ordinary Objects with Heather Rogers from 6 to 8 p.m. at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $20. 932-8966.  

Harry Potter Night with games, snacks, and lots of Hogwarts-style fun at 6:15 p.m., at the Main Children's Room, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6557. www.richmondlibrary.org  

“Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry” Teach-in at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674-A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700. 

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, Thurs. at noon and Sun. at 1 p.m. to oppose UC weapons labs contracts. 848-8055. 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Summer Dance Party EveryThurs. at 7:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park. Teachers will lead a variety of dances from around the world. All ages at 7:30, teens and adults at 8:30. Cost is $2 children, $5 adults. 

FRIDAY, JULY 17 

Conscientious Projector Film Series “Torturing Democracy” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. Donation $5-$10. 841-4824. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Fri. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

SATURDAY, JULY 18 

Friends of the Albany Library Book Sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. For information or to volunteer contact friendsalbany@yahoo.com 

Master Gardener Plant Doctor Booth Get information on watering, plant selection, pest management from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. between MLK and Milvia. Bring pictures and samples. 639-1275. 

Garage Sale Benefit for Options Recovery Services, an outpatient drug and alcohol treatment program, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1065 Creston Rd. in Berkeley Hills between Marin Ave and Grizzly Peak Blvd. 666-9552. 

Colusa Circle Community FreeCycle Bring your castoffs too good to throw away to exchange for other treasures. No buying, no selling. Salvation Army will pick up the leftovers at the end of the day. To drop off or to reserve a space, call the Colusa Circle Merchants Assoc. 525-6155. 

Easy Tips to Save Money on Your Pets, While Treating Them really well from 1 to 4 p.m. at RabbitEars, 377 Colusa Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. 

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Trinity to Trident Interfaith Peace Walk Program and potluck “Each Step a Prayer Towards World Peace & a Nuclear Free Future” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Donation $5-$10. No one turned away. www.bfuu.org 

“A Troublesome Pioneer: Galileo Galilei” with Prof. Roger Hahn at 11 a.m. in Room 100, Genetics and Plant Biology Building, UC campus. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Greater Cooper A.M.E. Zion Church, 1420 Myrtle St., Oakland. To schedule an appointment go to www.helpsavealife.org  

Free Car Seat Checks From 10 a.m. to noon officers from the Berkeley Police Department will administer a car seat safety check on the 5th level of the Allston Way Garage, 2061 Allston Way between Milvia and Shattuck. Parking will be validated by Habitot. 647-1111.  

“How to Attract Butterflies and Beneficial Insects to Your Garden” at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. Free. 644-2351. 

Hip-Hop Dance Class for Teens with Lateef at 3:30 p.m. at West Branch Public Library, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270.  

Circus Weekend at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $10-$15. 932-8966. www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org 

Chocolate Chip Challah Learn to decorate and bake a treat for Shabbat at 10:30 p.m. at Jewish Gateways, 409 Liberty St., El Cerrito. 559-8140. www.jewishgateways.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

Open Shop at Berkeley Boathouse from 1 to 5 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Take part in constructing a wooden boat or help out with other maritime projects. No experience necessary. First time is free, cost is $10 per day. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

SUNDAY, JULY 19 

Bike Tour of Oakland for ages 12 and up with bikes, helmets and repair kits. Meet at 10th St. entrance of Oakland Museum of California. free, but reservations required. 238-3514. www.museumca.org 

Fun with Painting A children and family exporations day from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-3514. www.museumca.org 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children 5 and over welcome with parent or guardian. www.cal-sailing.org 

Social Action Summer Forum with Leon Litvak, Prof. Emeritus, UCB, on“Fight the Power After the Civil Rights Movement” at at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

East Bay Atheists Berkeley meeting at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Main Library, 3rd Floor Meeting Room, 2090 Kittredge St. This month we watch James Carroll’s documentary, “Constantine’s Sword” an examination by a liberal Catholic of the trubled history of Christianity. 222-7580. www.eastbayatheists.org 

“How to Forgive for Good” Practical ways to let go with Rev. Mary Elyn Bahlert at 9:30 a.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1255 First Ave., Oakland. Donations accepted. 465-4793. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Joleen Vries on “The Nyingma Mandala in Europe” 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 2 to 6 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Also on Thurs. from 2 to 6 p.m. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

MONDAY, JULY 20 

Reduce Your Personal and Community Carbon Footprint Four-session Climate Change Action Group, meets Mon. or Tues. at 6 p.m. at the Ecology Center in July or Aug. For specific dates see www.ecologycenter.org 

“Disappearing World: 101 of the Earth’s Most Extraordinary and Endangered Places” with author Alonzo Addison at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Community Yoga Class 10 a.m. at James Kenney Parks and Rec. Center at Virginia and 8th. Seniors and beginners welcome. Cost is $6. 207-4501. 

Three Beats for Nothing South Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Mon. at 3 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, Ellis at Ashby. 655-8863. asiecker@sbcglobal 

East Bay Track Club for girls and boys ages 3-15 meets Mon. and Wed. at 6 p.m. at Berkeley High School track field. Free. 776-7451.. 

Small-Business Counseling Free one-hour one-on-one counseling to help you start and run your small business with a volunteer from Service Core of Retired Executives, Mon. evenings by appointment at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. For appointment call 981-6148. www.eastbayscore.org 

TUESDAY, JULY 21 

Exploring the Mount Shasta Region Hiking, camping, cycling and more at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Family Program with The Bubble Lady at 6:30 p.m. at the Albany Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

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 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Bridge for beginners from 12:30 to 2:15 p.m., all others 12:30 to 4 p.m. Sing-A-Long at 2:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Bird Walk at Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the large spherical cage near Nature Center at Perkins and Bellevue. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. at the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

“The Attack on the Poor” with Wendy Peterson, director of Senior Services Coalition of Alameda County at Gray Panthers meeting at 1:30 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 548-9696.  

“A Crude Awakening” A documentary on America’s addiction to oil, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

Free Screening of “The Day the Country Died“ as part of the Radical Film Nite with free popcorn and post-film discussion, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul Infoshop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

Sidewalk Games and Art Learn how to play hopscotch, four square, jump rope games, jacks, paint the sidewalk, and make chalk art at 1 p.m. at the Richmond Public Library, Bayview Branch, 5100 Hartnett Ave., Richmond. and 4 p.m. at the West Side Branch, 135 Washington Ave., Richmond. 620-6557. www.richmondlibrary.org 

Family Singalong at 4:30 p.m. at the Albany Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m.at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. BlackstoneA@usa.redcross.org  

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. 

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. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6 p.m. at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JULY 23 

“U.S. Policy Challenges in the World Oil Market” with Dr. Severin Borenstein, at 1:15 p.m. at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $5. 848-0237. www.jcceastbay.org 

Dog Day Thursdays Come practice your reading skills by reading to a dog. A free, drop-in program at 2 and 2:35 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

“The Money Fix” Film on the problems with the current centralized monetary system and new currency solutions, followed by discussion, at 7 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Donation $5-$15.  

“Reforming the California Budget and the Process for Change”with San Francisco Assessor Recorder Phil Ting and UC Berkeley Professor of Linguistics, George Lakoff at the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club meeting at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Pot luck at 6 p.m. www.wellstoneclub.org 

“Creative Solutions to Balance Work and Life” with Chau Yoder, Chi Gung trainer at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, Thurs. at noon and Sun. at 1 p.m. to oppose UC weapons labs contracts. 848-8055. 

Three Beats for Nothing South Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Thurs. at 10 a.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, Ellis at Ashby. 655-8863. asiecker@sbcglobal 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Summer Dance Party EveryThurs. at 7:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park. Teachers will lead a variety of dances from around the world. All ages at 7:30, teens and adults at 8:30. Cost is $2 children, $5 adults. 

FRIDAY, JULY 24 

“The Visitor” A film about a professor who returns home to find a young couple, undocumented immigrants, living in his apartment, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Church, 1600 Sacramento St. Discussion to follow. 524-4122. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 8 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St. Potluck at 7 p.m. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com  

Shimmy Shimmy Kid’s Dance with clowns, dance music and more for the whole family at 6 p.m. at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave., Alameda. Cost is $5-$10. www.rhythmix.org 

SATURDAY, JULY 25 

Berkeley Kite Festival and West Coast Kite Championships Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. HighlineKites.com 

Help Restore Cerrito Creek Help Friends of Five Creeks volunteers remove invasives to reduce flooding and improve habitat on Cerrito Creek at the foot of Albany Hill. Meet at Creekside Park, south end of Santa Clara Ave., El Cerrito at 10 a.m. .All ages welcome, snacks, tools, and gloves provided. Wear closed-toed shoes with good traction and clothes that can get dirty. 848-9358. www.fivecreeks.org 

Walking Tour of Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the fountain of Pacific Renaissance Plaza, Ninth St., between Webster and Franklin. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Walking Tour of Fox Theater & Uptown Art Deco From 10 a.m. to noon. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Reservations required. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. 

Walking Tour of the Bungalows of Fairview Park Meet at 2 p.m. at the northwest corner of College Ave. and Alcatraz. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. 

East Bay Baby Fair for new and expectant parents, with information, workshops and demonstrations from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Albany Veterans Memorial Building, 1325 Protland Ave., Albany. Free. www.eastbaybabyfair.com 

“How Art Helps to Preserve & Protect the Landscape for Future Generations” A conversation with Phyllis Faber and Elisabeth Ptak of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, with photographer Marty Knapp, at 5 p.m., followed by sale of photographs to benefit MALT, at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

“What’s the Economy For, Anyway?” a new film by John de Graaf at 7:30 p.m. at the David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way. Cost is $10 at the door. RSVP to events@earthisland.org 

Vegetarian Cooking Class on greens from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $55, plus $5 food and material fee. Advance registration required. 531-COOK. www.compassionatecooks.com 

Plant Families of California: A Medicinal Perspective from 12:30 to 6 p.m. at Blue Wind Botanical Medicinal Clinic, 823 32nd St., Apt. B, Oakland. Cost is $40. Two additional sessions in Aug. To register call 428-1810. 

“Backyard Chicken Keeping” with Carla Bossieux and 4-H of Alameda County at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. Free. 644-2351. 

Fuzzy Bunny Grooming: Pluck, Clip or Cut? Learn how to care for your wool rabbit from 3 to 5 p.m. at RabbitEars, 377 Colusa Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. www.rabbitears.org 

Peach Tasting at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 

Family Day at MOCHA “String Things” Tug, pull, and wrap with cords and thread to make loopy paintings an dlacy sculptures, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Museum of Childrens Art, 538 9th St., Oakland. Cost is $7. 465-8770. www.mocha.org 

“Funding a Society Based on Human Needs” a Peace and Freedom Party discussion on the California budget crisis at 2 pm. at Spud’s Pizza, Adeline and Alcatraz Free. 845-4360. tomcondit@igc.org. 

Creature Features at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach with cast and crew, Sat. and Sun. at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Costs is $10-$15. 932-8966. www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org 

Mystical Dance Kiyana Workshop on movements from ancient Persia from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Oakland. For details call the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California. 823-7600. 

Bay Area Crafters with handdyed yarms ceramics and more at knit-one-one studio, 3360 Adeline St. www.knitoneone.com 

Master Gardener Plant Doctor Booth Get information on watering, plant selection, pest management from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. between MLK and Milvia. Bring pictures and samples. 639-1275. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

Open Shop at Berkeley Boathouse from 1 to 5 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Take part in constructing a wooden boat or help out with other maritime projects. No experience necessary. First time is free, cost is $10 per day. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

SUNDAY, JULY 26 

Berkeley Kite Festival and West Coast Kite Championships from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. HighlineKites.com 

Berkeley Path Wanderers: Three Summer Path-a-Thon Walks exploring the Southside/Claremont paths, 9:45 a.m. challenging, 10:15 a.m, moderate, 11 a.m. easy, followed by a bring-your-own picnic at 12:15 p.m. Meet at John Muir School, entrance at 2955 Claremont Ave. near Ashby. 520-3876. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, designed by Julia Morgan, from 1 to 4 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. Sponsored by the Landmark Heritage Foundation. 848-7800. 

Walking Tour of Jingletown: Industry to Art Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Lancaster and Glascock, Oakland. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to do a safety inspection, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring your bike and tools. 527-4140. 

Social Action Summer Forum on “U.S.-Russian Relations” with Sharon Tennison, Director of the Center for Citizen Initiatives at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

“How to Forgive for Good” Practical ways to let go with Rev. Mary Elyn Bahlert at 9:30 a.m. at Lake Merritt United methodist Church, 1255 First Ave., Oakland. Donations acepted. 465-4793. 

Couples Communication Workshop led by Inbal Kashtan, author of “Parenting from Your Heart” from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Chochmat HaLev, 2215 Prince St. For cost and information call 433-0700. www.baynvc.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Barr Rosenberg on “Heartfelt Work” 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 2 to 6 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Also on Thurs. from 2 to 6 p.m. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., July 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., July 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6950.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., July 20 , at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7429.  

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., July 22, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7533.  

Energy Commission meets Wed., July 22, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7439.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., July 22, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7416. 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., July 22, at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

City Council meets Thurs., July 23, at 5 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs., July 23, at 5 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5217.