A woman broke down in tears on the witness stand today as she recounted an incident in Berkeley last December in which she was wounded and her fiancé was killed in a shooting during a medical marijuana deal that went wrong. 

Rebekah Cleberg, 28, said she held the head of Kamahl Middleton, 36, after they both were shot in a parking lot near San Pablo and University avenues at about 9:45 p.m. on Dec. 29 and, "I kept telling him I loved him" as he was dying. 

Cleberg said she tried to call 911 to get help but she couldn't use her cellphone because there was blood all over it so she ran into the street to try to get assistance "but no one would stop." 

She said she eventually found someone across the street who agreed to call an ambulance but Middleton was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after the ambulance arrived. 

Cleberg's emotional testimony took place on the first day of what's expected to be a lengthy preliminary hearing for three men who are charged with murder, robbery and assault with a firearm for the shooting: Khalil Phanor, 18, and Carl Young, 20, both of San Leandro, and Gregory Foote, 19, of Hayward. 

The three men are also charged with the special circumstance of committing a murder during the course of a robbery, which carries a potential penalty of life in prison without parole or the death penalty. 

Prosecutors allege that Phanor was the suspect who shot Middleton and Cleberg. 

A 17-year-old suspect was also arrested in connection with the shooting but he's being prosecuted separately in juvenile court. 

Cleberg said she and Middleton had a license to grow medical marijuana at their residence in Pinole. 

Middleton became a paraplegic after he was in a car accident when he was in high school and Cleberg said she started using medical marijuana after she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in 1998 when she was 12. 

Cleberg said the planned marijuana deal was arranged after she and Middleton placed an ad on Craigslist to sell marijuana to qualified medical marijuana patients. 

She said she and Middleton didn't have a set price for the marijuana they sold to customers but instead asked for a donation that "was always negotiable." 

Cleberg said a man called them on Dec. 29 and they agreed to sell marijuana to him after he sent them a text with his identity card and a valid medical marijuana prescription. 

She said she and Middleton arranged to meet the man in Berkeley because it was about halfway between their home in Pinole and the man's residence in San Leandro. 

Cleberg said the meeting took place in a parking lot near San Pablo and University avenues that's adjacent to Everett & Jones Barbeque and is used by the 99 Cents Only store, a Subway sandwich store and other businesses. 

She said she and Middleton were "surprised" when four people got out of the prospective buyer's car because they had only expected to meet with the man they had talked to on the phone and his girlfriend. 

Cleberg said Young came into their car and tried to take the marijuana without paying and then Phanor said, "This is a stickup" and fired a single shot that struck Middleton and her. 

Cleberg said she lost consciousness a short time after the shooting and woke up in the hospital the next morning. 

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon, who is presiding over the hearing, adjourned court early after Cleberg began sobbing uncontrollably. Several of Middleton's family members and friends also cried. 

The preliminary hearing, which will determine if there's enough evidence for the three men to be ordered to stand trial on the charges against them, will resume on Thursday morning. The hearing is expected to extend into next week.

In Part 1 we observed that the times are changing and a new vision of what our future will be like is beginning to emerge. The advances made in energy efficiency will change how we live and the world we create for tomorrow. Today it is not hard to imagine a world with zero-emission autos and highly efficient homes that meet their energy needs with solar electric and solar hot water on rooftops.

Contrary to past beliefs, the goal today isn’t so much to use less energy, as it is to use less oil and produce less greenhouse gas. The idea that automobiles are obsolete so cities should be built very dense to facilitate public transportation, with everyone taking the bus, riding a bike, or walking to conserve energy is no longer persuasive and many people are beginning to wonder if the very concentrated model of development—dense urbanism—isn’t inferior to a more dispersed model of urbanism in terms of oil consumption, greenhouse gas reduction, and quality of life. We all want wonderful, livable cities. Our question is basic: what kind of future should we create?

Today, the dense urbanists are promoting many projects. Let’s look at two proposed for Berkeley, California. The Harold Way project is nearing the end of the planning process. It is a mixed-use project with 300 apartments, made of concrete, steel and glass, eighteen stories high, and will tower over everything else in the area. The second project is a short-term stay hotel with luxury condominiums on top and is located on the Bank America site. 

California law requires that certain large projects prepare an Environmental Impact Report, called an EIR. The process involves a draft report being circulated, questions gathered and answered in a final EIR, that then is either accepted or not by the local government. The report becomes a kind of dance with a community. The local government and developer take the lead, and the community is led along. One would expect to find all kinds of information in the report, both the project’s impacts and its benefits. Let’s look at the EIR for Harold Way and try to decipher the underlying assumptions to see if they make sense. 

Most cities make area plans that guide development and reflect the cities values. The plans are laced with statements of the kind of community they would like to become. These statements are used in the EIR to evaluate proposed projects with the hope that the community values are being adhered to. Here are two examples from Berkeley’s Downtown Area Plan: 

Goal ES-3: Encourage higher-density, highly livable development to take advantage of Downtown’s proximity to regional transit and to improve the availability of diverse walk-to destinations – such as retail, services, culture, and recreation. 

Goal AC-4: Promote transit as an efficient, attractive choice and as a primary mode of motor-vehicle travel. 

These goals reflect a time when we thought we would soon run out of oil. Recognizing that personal transportation isn’t going the way of the horse it is obvious that our planning documents are out of date. This is not surprising given that the dense urbanists wrote them years ago. Perhaps the above vision for our future should be revised something like the following: 

New Goal: Encourage highly livable, diverse and affordable cities built to a human scale without significant shadowing or traffic congestion. Develop adequate parking for personal vehicles in retail, services, culture, and recreation areas and in the proximity of regional transit centers.  

New Goal: Recognize that personal vehicles are the primary mode of travel and promote an efficient network of roads with a minimum of congestion and delays. Recognize that transportation is a necessity, work to make public transit more efficient for those who depend on it.  

How does the Harold Way project live up to the new goals? Nothing human scale about 18 stories. Such buildings tend to create dead zones around them. They are proposing 300 apartments ranging in size from 474 square feet to 1,085. A studio would rent for around $3,500. While the project will have 171 underground parking spaces, it is for the public and not the apartments. This follows the dense urbanists dogma—dense living using public transit. The apartments resemble student dorms but the community is being told the apartments are being built for people who work in the tech industry across the bay in San Francisco where rents are very high. We are told the tech workers make a lot of money so they can pay high rents, but won’t want an auto since they can take public transportation. 

There is an interesting pattern that the dense urbanists work. They tell a story about some demographic that will use the new building. At first glance it seems plausible, but with more reflection doubt creep in. Above we see the dense urbanists’ story about the tech workers paying high rents yet not wanting an auto. An earlier story the dense urbanists told for another project was that there is a bunch of elderly people, “empty nesters,” living in large mostly empty homes in the Berkeley hills, who would love to sell their home and move downtown. A large condominium project was designed just for them, except the empty nesters didn’t come. One didn’t even need a paper napkin to figure out that financially the project didn’t make sense for them. The project went through multiple bankruptcies, stood empty for a long time, and is now rentals. To their credit, the dense urbanists have stopped telling the empty nester story. 

Another project in the works is slated for the Bank of America site in the downtown core. The site would make a great location for a world-class conference center and hotel, something every great university needs but UC Berkeley lacks. Many of us would support such a project, but that is not what is being proposed. The project is described as a conference center and hotel. The conference center has a few small meeting rooms; the hotel is a short-term stay hotel with no room service. To help make things “pencil out” the developer wants to build luxury condominiums on top. It is hard to see anything world-class about this project. It will be another concrete and steel structure with a huge carbon footprint shadowing its neighbors and creating a dead zone in the heart of our city. The associated story this time is that there are a bunch of wealthy foreigners from Asia who want to buy property in Berkeley and that they would purchase the luxury condominiums. It is important not to put reason aside when hearing the stories. The projects should go nowhere but the dense urbanists have years invested in chanting their dogma and are blinded by their vision. They simply won’t hear that the world isn’t going the way they thought it would. 

Let’s look to see what we can learn about the dense urbanists’ approach to climate change. In 2009 the City of Berkeley adopted a Climate Action Plan. It calls for a 33% absolute reduction of green house gas from what was produced in the year 2000 by 2020. The end goal is reducing our emission by 80% though we have no idea how we will get there. Everyone felt good about the plan, but then nothing. Our city still doesn’t have solar on its buildings or new public transportation for those who might someday give up their cars. Like they say of some Texans: it is all hat and no cattle. The Harold Way EIR does mention the 2009 Climate Action Plan, goes though calculations, and concludes the project would not have a significant impact. The calculations are not documented, but more important the method used leaves a lot out. Basically, the EIR takes the emissions associated with the new building’s construction and its ongoing operation, then subtracts the emissions associated with the operation emissions of the old building. They then conclude the amount is below an established threshold and declare the extra greenhouse gas associated with the new project insignificant. 

What was left out? They should add to the project’s calculations the greenhouse gas associated with the manufacturing of the construction materials—all the concrete, steel, glass, and all the other materials used. They should add the greenhouse gas associated with the construction and materials for the building they are demolishing. After all, the old building is well built and demolishing it is a waste of its embedded energy. They should also assume that but for the demolition, the old building would have had energy savings features added to it in the future which would have reduced its future carbon footprint. This adjusted amount, instead of the current estimated ongoing emissions, is what should be subtracted from the new projects emissions in the calculations. Also, the project’s emissions from construction and the manufacturing of materials are emissions being made today, and we don’t get the true picture of what we are doing to the environment if we spread these emissions out over 50 years and not look at what is happening today. The project’s impact regarding greenhouse gas is significant and the EIR calculations are simply misleading and wrong. We should all support more housing but not inappropriate building fueling climate change. The progress a city makes in reducing greenhouse gas will be caused by individuals in the choices they make in personal transportation, life style, and in retrofitting their homes. The damage will be from choices the city makes in its development and the allowing of the use of inappropriate materials. Let’s look at materials. 

Wood is a wonderful product. When a tree grows, it takes in carbon from the atmosphere and uses it to create wood. About half the weight of a dry piece of wood is carbon. It the wood burns, or rots, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. If the wood is composted, much of the carbon ends up as soil with a net reduction in greenhouse gas. 

There are other ways to sequester the carbon embedded in wood. Perhaps the best way is to use it in buildings. Concrete, steel and glass are not such wonderful products. They can be recycled, creating more greenhouse gas, though less than if from raw materials, but they aren’t the carbon sink wood is. Wood, or manufactured wood products, is what we should be using for new buildings. Concrete, steel, and glass should be minimized. 

The Harold Way EIR looks at alternatives, but a wood building alternative for comparing greenhouse gas impacts is missing. It is almost as if the dense urbanists are cherry-picking their data to hide the effects of their projects from the community. This would not be surprising--dense urbanists view themselves as the good guys. To them the end justifies the means. But it is like destroying the village in order to save it. Except in this case the village is the world. 

What kind of future should we create? Let’s imagine two families, both concerned about how they live and their impact on the world. The first family lives in a small unit in a large apartment building at a transit center. They buy LED light bulbs and try to use as little electricity as possible. They are frugal with water and watch what they eat, staying away from foods with a high carbon footprint. They would like to reduce their carbon footprint even more, but there is little opportunity. 

There is not enough space on the apartment building for solar to meet their and the other residents’ needs, and anyway the space is designated as the apartment building’s open space. There is no land for a garden to grow vegetables or space for a shop to make things. Their apartment is well built of steel and concrete, has a huge carbon footprint, and is expensive. The land it sits on is also expensive. The cost is reflected in their high rent. They would like a pet, but the apartment rules won’t allow it. If they have a child, they will have to move to a larger apartment. They dream of a second home to get away. 

The second family lives on a plot of land, near or in a city, a short distance from a regional transit hub. They have a small home made of wood and designed to be highly energy efficient, with solar electric and solar hot water on the roof. They generate enough power for their home and almost enough for their auto. They have a garden and a few fruit trees and a gray-water system for watering. They plan their garden to not only grow food but also build up the soil, creating a carbon sink through composting. They would like to heat their home with wood chips--not by burning them--but by composting them. They live with nature and wake up in the morning to the sound of birds. They have a space where they enjoy making things, where the noise won’t disturb the neighbors. They have pets and a few chickens for eggs. Their mortgage is less than what it would cost for a condominium near a transit center, not including the association fees--many of the dense new apartment buildings rent for more than their mortgage. They are building equity in their home and have a retirement plan. They are thinking of children and will add a bedroom to their home when the time comes. They feel attached to the community and are home to stay. 

These two families represent the extremes, but the second family’s way of life should play a significant role in our future. It can achieve greater CO₂ reduction than the first family, perhaps even going negative in their carbon footprint. Also, it is more in keeping with our country’s values. Building dense apartments at transit centers to warehouse people no longer makes sense. A more organic “Garden City” approach to development projects does make sense. Wood framed apartment buildings with enough room for solar, an electric auto, and a garden for the residents also makes sense. This is what many people would like to see built in their community. 

No one knows what the future will bring. The dense urbanists made the best guess for 20 or 30 years ago and they were right to do so. The best guess for today is different; a less dense, less green house gas intensive form of development. I believe we should set limits on the total amount of greenhouse gas associated with a project. Projects should provide enough parking and solar for electrical and hot water needs. Carbon credits should be required of a project whose green house gas doesn’t pencil out if the project otherwise has redeeming public value. The details should be worked out in a public process--perhaps a city ballot initiative. City officials who remain embedded dense urbanists should be replaced or recalled.

“Service providers” train like Olympic athletes for the moment in spring when the city allows the sweet smell of a small pot of money to drift under their nostrils. Coupled with a city manager’s dry recommendation that their program get zero funding, any previously vocal political opposition to repressive anti-homeless policies starts to get the soft-pedal in case it can save their already cut-to-the-bone program and an already scrambled handful of jobs.

Berkeley consistently brags about its somewhat mythological tradition of compassion for the poor, a compassion not entirely extinguished. There are still a handful of shelter beds; a pretty stagnant, inadequate number in a landscape where people have come to assume their parks, their freeway overpasses, any vacant space will inevitably become, at least temporarily, somebody’s home.

Officials in Utah announced recently that they had reduced their “chronically homeless” population by 91% with a Housing First policy which gave people housing and social work assistance at a cost of $11,000 annually, much less than the $17,000 estimated price of hospital visits and jail and court costs. But Berkeley officials are strangely silent on Housing First policies.  

It isn’t that the efficacy of Housing First doesn’t shine like a sparkling diamond in the sea of ineffective and broken policies related to poverty, joblessness, homelessness, mental illness, drug abuse, etc. The Berkeley City Council is no different than other city councils nationwide; its members are a relatively intelligent crew, even compassionate if you’re willing to include slipping a dollar (a whole dollar!) into the new “Positive Change” donation boxes downtown. But the entire “service provider” network is designed to help people off the street, maybe get a bowl of soup, and find housing somewhere else in some other town, but not in Berkeley. 

The little donation boxes downtown? Free bus tickets – out of town. Evicted with nowhere to go? service providers will help you find scarce shelter space – in Richmond. People put through the traditional police wringer who find themselves either in the court system or the mental health sleigh ride or both will find themselves in Oakland, or Dublin- not in Berkeley - which makes them somebody else’s problem. Our present housing policy angles toward housing for a group that makes $74,000, or 80% of an Alameda County Median Income listed as $92,900.  

Whatever housing crisis is faced by the $74,000 a year crowd, it hardly compares to having all your worldly belongings hurled into a trash compactor because you made the mistake of finding a real bathroom in which to pee and wash up, as happens consistently to people in Berkeley.  

It’s pretty simple, really. If you’re on the city council you align yourself with the service providers who have learned that the only acceptable thing to say about people shipwrecked on our streets is what a shame it is when they spend money on booze while hoisting a trendy cocktail with the Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA) at their ghost town of an annual meeting so that you have some political cover. From there you barely have to say a word; you’ll be surrounded with developers and property owners (the majority of the DBA board) who will even write the next round of anti-homeless laws for you as they just did with the upcoming anti-blanket law. Because they care, they really care, about turning our common spaces into flowerpot-pocked Disneylands while converting what’s left of our housing to condos.  

Berkeley’s commitment: to nod vigorously at the practicality and morality of Housing First policies, to “oo” and “ah” over Utah’s and Arizona’s successes, while making sure that any actual housing produced in the city is limited to the not-quite-in-our-echelon-yet-but-trying crowd stuck at around $75,000 a year where season tickets to the theater compete with the family reunion at Leech Lake. You’re not there yet? Well, then, best of luck. And if not, see you under the bridge! 

The U.S. Postal Service, now headed by a governing body that favors privatization, is closing and selling off many post office buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, reducing postal services and cutting public sector union jobs. Many of these historic post offices have murals and art created during the 1930s New Deal. The City of Berkeley, however, recently prevailed in federal court, saving its historic post office building. This victory serves as a precedent and example for other communities who want to save their Post Offices. The case also may save union jobs by requiring the USPS to follow the law.

In the fight to save its historic post office building, the Berkeley community had the support of its City Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the California State Office of Historic Preservation, and the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO. The APWU formed A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service, which includes 74 national organizations. Berkeley's Congresswoman Barbara Lee now has a bill in Congress, The Moratorium on U.S. Historic Postal Buildings Act, to stave off continuing USPS privatization. In Its report, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the Post Office building sales were improper and even corrupt. The OIG found that the contract with realty company CBRE, headed by Richard Blum, Senator Diane Feinstein's husband, was improperly executed.

In Berkeley, the community organized Citizens to Save the Berkeley Post Office, which fought for their historic building and art for three years. They made the nation aware of the issue with articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. At one point, an official in the Postal Service commented "We shouldn't have messed with Berkeley." 

When confronted before a federal judge with multiple violations of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, the Postal Service chose instead to assure the court that Berkeley’s Main Post Office is no longer for sale. Although the USPS may still decide to relocate or sell Berkeley's much loved post office, it is unlikely because the judge is continuing his oversight for the next five years. Future legal action challenging the USPS remains an open option. Other communities, wishing to preserve their historic post offices, could work to replicate similar judicial rulings in their federal districts. 

Citizens to Save the Berkeley Post Office are grateful to the City of Berkeley legal staff Zach Cowan, attorneys Tony Rossman, Roger Moore, and Brian Turner for their pro boon legal services. Since this victory, a post office horror story has emerged. The historic Venice, CA. Post Office was sold by the USPS and is now abandoned and covered with graffiti. This could have happened here.

Cities around the Bay Area desperately need money for affordable housing and there is a potential source of funding that is right in front of them. Rents in the San Francisco Bay Area are among the highest in the country and are likely to keep going up for the foreseeable future, creating an affordability crisis for tenants. The only way off the treadmill is to build or buy housing that will be owned by non-profit organizations, land trusts and limited-equity cooperatives. And that takes money, a lot of money. So let’s tax the rising rents that increase the need for affordable housing in the first place. 

Increase the Business Tax on the Gross Receipts from Residential Rental Property 

It can be done in any city in the Bay Area. San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and many other cities have business taxes that are a percentage of gross receipts, which are all earnings before expenses. The tax on gross receipts from residential rental property can be increased by a vote of the people with a simple majority, 50 percent plus one. The tax measure could include a committee made up of people with expertise in developing affordable housing and in homelessness prevention programs to advise the City on how to spend the money, just as Berkeley did in setting up a committee of health professionals to accompany its “soda tax”. Alternatively, a corresponding ballot measure could allocate the same dollar amount raised by the new tax to go from the General Fund to affordable housing. That way we can be pretty sure the money will go for its intended purposes without making the tax increase a “special tax” requiring a two-thirds vote. 

San Francisco has over 200,000 rental units whose tenants pay $4 billion a year in rent. An increase in the gross receipts tax of a modest 2%, even with exemptions for small landlords, would bring in $60 million a year that could be invested in creating permanently affordable non-profit housing. Berkeley has nearly 30,000 rental units whose tenants pay $400 million a year in rent. Even with generous exemptions, an increase in the current 1% gross receipts tax to 3% would bring in $6 million annually for the City’s housing trust fund. That would cost the landlords $30 per unit per month, far less than the last rent increase the landlord imposed after their previous tenant moved out. 

The Tax Will Be Paid from Excess Profits, Not Passed on to Tenants  

The tax would not be passed on to tenants. In San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and East Palo Alto rent controls limit rent increases and would not allow the tax to be passed along to current tenants. Nor would the tax be added on when a new tenant moves in or added to the rent of current tenants in the newer apartment buildings that are exempt from rent regulation. The owners already raise the rent as high as the market will bear whenever they have the chance. Landlords might claim they will raise the rent if the tax passes, but the reality is that they will raise the rent just as much with no tax. 

Recapture the Value We Create As a Community 

Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, the classic work that is the foundation of market economics, recognized that “the rent of houses” has two parts. First, there is the “building rent”, which is the minimum amount actually necessary to profitably operate and maintain the building. The amount over the necessary minimum is the “ground rent” which is paid for the value of the location. This unearned income in “ground rent”, he pointed out, can very appropriately be taxed for the benefit of the community that created the value of that location. 

Landlords get to charge us an admission fee for the privilege of living here in the Bay Area, over and above the part of the rent actually needed to profitably operate and maintain the buildings we live in. They get to turn the value we all have created into their own private profit. 

The residents of the Bay Area, tenants and homeowners alike, have made this a desirable place to live. We created a diverse, open and creative culture supported by transit systems, schools and universities, parks, support for the arts, and so much more. And this made the area attractive to entrepreneurs and businesses whose workers want that creative culture, quality services and natural beauty. 

Homeowners’ contributions to the Bay Area help raise their property values. Tenants’ contributions to the Bay Area help raise their rents. They raise their landlords’ property values. This inequity results in a massive transfer of wealth, taking hundreds of millions of dollars of income away from people who do not own real estate and giving it to those who do own real estate. Nothing could be fairer than to recapture some of this unearned, windfall profit and return it to the community through a windfall profits tax on the gross receipts of the landlords who are raising our rents. 

 

---

This article originally appeared on people.power.media.org. It is published with permission under a Creative Commons License, 

Our email is aflame with expressions of outrage directed at the Capitelli/Bates proposal to give away the so-called “significant community benefits” payoff which citizens are supposed to get for permitting Los Angeles speculators to acquire entitlements to build a condo tower more 190 feet tall on the site which now houses the Shattuck Cinema and the Habitot children’s center. 

Since the applicant has supplied no pro forma financial calculations, and since the project description on which the EIR is supposedly based keeps morphing to suit the prevailing winds, estimates of the extent of the giveaway differ, but no one who’s copied the Planet on their outraged letters seems to think it’s a good deal. 

The Capitelli/Bates idea is on the agenda for Tuesday’s city council meeting in the form of this resolution asking the staff to draft language for the Council to pass as another resolution. 

 

Council Action Items  

 

35. Significant Community Benefits from Five Tall Downtown Buildings
    From: Mayor Bates and Councilmember Capitelli
    Recommendation: Request the City Manager to draft a Council resolution establishing a system for Downtown building projects over 75 feet to provide significant community benefits. The projects would be assessed a fee of $100 per square foot for the residential portion of the building between 76 and 120 feet, and $150 per square foot for the residential portion above 120 feet. A Project Labor Agreement (PLA) would be required. It would include local hiring and training components. The PLA would provide a credit, equal to 5 percent of the project construction costs, which would be deducted from the fee. In addition, the fee could be further reduced by voluntary on-site benefits for arts and culture, which must be approved by the City Council. The remainder would be paid into a City fund to be used for affordable housing and arts and culture benefits.
    Financial Implications: See report
    Contact: Tom Bates, Mayor, 981-7100

A media colleague inquired why, when I first posted this agenda item, I headlined it “Slush Fund”. My thought then was to describe a phrase in the last sentence: “…a City fund to be used for affordable housing and arts and culture benefits.” 

 

But on closer scrutiny I see that this proposal doesn’t even rise to the level of a slush fund. After the unions have claimed their piece of the pie and the developer has identified those “voluntary on-site benefits for arts and culture”, there will be precious little slush left for the City fund. 

Yes, the “voluntary on-site benefits” “must be approved by the City Council”, which in theory gives councilmembers more to give away to their friends, that’s true. However smart money is guessing that the developer’s proposal will simply be to put back something like (though not necessarily identical to) the 10 movie screens scheduled for demolition when this project starts. This would be no benefit, just mitigation of a detriment directly caused by the project., 

Net public gain = zero, or possibly less. 

Why on earth would Berkeley councilmembers go for this? 

It’s not even clear why Capitelli, who is rumored to want to succeed Mayor Tom Bates in 2016, is pushing the fast track for this building, the first candidate for the Berkeley’s Bigger Buildings prize, the Residences at Berkeley Plaza (RatBP). 

Yes, RatBP’s sponsors, and especially Berkeley’s most active expediter-for-hire, former City planner Mark Rhoades, can be expected to contribute heavily to a mayoral campaign war chest. But if all goes according to the announced schedule, in November of 2016 downtown Berkeley will be in the throes of development hell. 

You can take all the minor messes around town now from the current building boom and multiply them exponentially. With the Shattuck Cinemas demolished, downtown shops and restaurants will be hurting bigtime. Construction traffic will be clogging major arteries. The noise and pollution at Berkeley High and the main library will be in many citizens’ faces. So if RatBP can be labelled “Capitelli’s project”, it will be a gift for his opponent. Why would Capitelli want this, no matter how much money he gets from developers? 

The Capitelli/Bates resolution is no way to run a railroad. It is far, far away from accepted best practices for delivering community benefits through economic development. Before voting for it, councilmembers should really take a look at the guide on this topic for elected and appointed officials published by the Community Benefits Law Center. From its introduction: 

The guide focuses on the following five core strategies: 

 

• Demand strong community benefits in government agreements with developers;
• Encourage negotiation of private community benefits agreements between developers and community coalitions;
• Enact ordinances and policies establishing baseline community benefits for future projects;
• Incorporate community benefits into land use planning and policy; and
• Convene key stakeholders to reach agreement on community benefits principles for future projects.

Some of our smarter citizens with sharp pencils are engaged in calculating exactly how much the Capitelli/Bates scheme would cost Berkeley if it were adopted. In this issue are two early analyses, from former Planning Commission and Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee member Rob Wrenn, government management consultant Kate Harrison and economist James Hendry. 

 

Berkeleyans are not chumps, so I’m sure more figures will appear, and when they do you’ll see them here. The Planet is committing to publish these numbers, and of course anything from the City staff or elsewhere that attempts to contradict them. And as they used to say about obits in the old newspapers, Other Papers Please Copy. Permission freely granted. 

. 

‘ 

 

 

NEW: Berkeley postpones vote on tall buildings proposal

Real estate investment is cashed in for green cards.

Please vote to reject the recommendation from Mayor Bates and Councilmember Capitelli.

It’s offensive that this item was snuck onto the agenda at the last possible moment and is scheduled as the very last agenda item, an obvious attempt to discourage citizen participation in discussion of this issue, despite the enormous public interest that has been shown to date. This item should be continued to a later meeting when discussion can take place at a more reasonable hour.

Their recommendation is not based on any study or analysis of what developers of tall buildings can afford to pay. The amounts proposed are grossly inadequate and seem to be tailored to accommodate the developers of 2211 Harold Way and other taller buildings in the planning pipeline and to ensure them large windfall profits from their projects. Indeed, since the proposed fees are not based on any independent study and analysis, it is not unreasonable to suspect that they are the product of improper behind the scenes discussions with developers. 

Sound planning practice would require setting fees in one of two ways. Either, a study is done by independent consultants, which takes into account current market conditions and developer costs and recommends fees based on what developers can afford to pay, taking into account the enormous increase in value of downtown sites resulting from the public action of upzoning downtown. Or, the City opts for case by case determination of benefits, with an independent review of financial info that each developer would be required to submit. These are the approaches that other cities have followed in determining community benefits. 

But Mayor Bates and Councilmember Capitelli are rejecting current best practice in favor of an entirely political determination of fees. Far from acting in the public interest, they are handing developers a huge windfall. 

Other problems with their proposal include: 

• Allowing developers to reduce the minimal required benefits for having a required Project Labor Agreement. Project Labor Agreements benefit developers and there is no independent evidence to suggest that they increase overall project costs, given that the use of skilled union labor increases the likelihood of projects being completed on time and on budget, with reduced likelihood of accidents and reduced workers’ comp costs.
• A completely undefined “local hiring and training component.” How many Berkeley residents would have to be hired or trained to meet this requirement? Would Berkeley residents be 5% of the workforce? 20%?, 50%? How many Berkeley residents would have to receive training? 5? 10? 50? 100? 

• “Voluntary on-site benefits for arts and culture” is a huge loophole. How would value be assigned to such benefits? Would that be a political process since the Bates-Capitelli proposal does not call for any independent evaluation of developer-submitted numbers? With respect to 2211 Harold Way, developers should get no credit for merely retaining the movie theater space that’s currently there, and get no credit for adding “community performance space” unless it’s in addition to a full replacement of the existing theaters. 

• Why are community benefits being limited to affordable housing and arts and culture? Why couldn’t developers contribute to open space, alternative transportation improvements or supportive social services? Arts and culture are not even mentioned in the zoning ordinance tall building language and the City is already working on a base 1% for the arts requirement. Any expenditure for arts and culture should have to exceed 1% of construction costs before it could count as an extra community benefit required for taller buildings. 

• Their proposal fails to encourage energy efficient buildings and use of renewable energy. Developers of a building with a substantial solar component would get no credit for that. In Berkeley, buildings account for 53% of the greenhouse gases generated. The currently proposed taller buildings are not green, but would have substantial carbon footprints and would be obsolete as soon as the are built as the state is moving toward adoption of a zero net energy standard by 2020. 

• It’s not clear from the proposal whether the fees would apply to all square footage above 76’ or to only what is defined as “residential” square footage. To take the example of 2211 Harold Way and using residential square footage for floors 8-18 from the project plans submitted last July, I have calculated that the fee would be no more than about $7 million, for what is likely a $300 million project. It would be only modestly higher if everything from floor 8 on up were included. This is way below what the 2011 feasibility study suggested for feasible community benefits. That study assumed residential rents of $3.35 per square foot, but rents have soared since then so developers can afford to provide substantially more. Developers of 2211 Harold Way were assuming $5.10 per square foot in their community benefits submittal last year. 

 

In sum, the Bates-Capitelli proposal would be a huge giveaway to developers, giving them a huge windfall, while minimizing benefits to the City. It should be rejected in favor of one of the sound approaches that other cities have used.

We are concerned that the proposed community benefits associated with large downtown developments are woefully inadequate based on the City’s own assessment in the Downtown Area Plan and likely profits from City-granted planning permission to increase height at the sites.

The proposed assessment should be evaluated against the numbers the City itself developed as part of the economic analysis accompanying the Downtown Area Plan. For example, that economic analysis indicates that an 18-story project at the corner of Shattuck and Allston (across the street from the proposed Harold Way project) could feasibly support $33,000 in community benefits per unit – nearly $10 million -- PLUS meeting a 20% affordable housing goal twice the City’s current requirement of 10% on site or a $20,000 fee. Since the Downtown Plan indicates that a similar project could support a level of affordable housing twice that required in current statute (20% vs. 10%); the corresponding affordable housing fee should equal $40,000 per unit, or approximately $12 million. This combined total of $22 million is very conservative given continuing rent increases since the 2011 completion of the Downtown Plan. The City Council itself recognized this fact when voted to reexamine the affordable housing fee once the long-delayed affordable housing nexus study is complete. 

Again using the Harold Way project as an example, it appears that that the proposed assessment would provide for about $14 million in community benefits (see Attachment 1). The fee would then be discounted by $6.5 million (5% of estimated construction costs) for having a project labor agreement, reducing available fees to approximately $8 million. Since the proposal would allow another portion of this money to be credited toward on-site arts and cultural activities, these funds would basically replace the $10 million in funding claimed as a rent subsidy for the Shattuck Cinemas in the developer’s original community benefits package. Thus, the proposal before the Council appears merely to repackage the numbers into a different format without any significant increase in community benefits. 

We instead request that instead of a standard per square foot assessment, a pro forma economic analysis be performed for each proposed large project that exceeds usual heights. This analysis should mitigate the loss of pre-existing site benefits before applying community benefits. The expected level of community benefits should also be evaluated against the potential revenues the project developer will receive from the site, as is done in other cities such as Santa Monica. For the much smaller Stonefire project (1974 University Avenue), Berkeley not only required a pro forma analysis of the project’s economic feasibility but also concluded that a return on equity of slightly over 6% was sufficient.

Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged in the $5 trillion FX spot market. UBS pleaded guilty for its role in manipulating the Libor benchmark interest rate. 

Attorney General Lynch stated that this illegal activity went on every single day for the last five years or so. The financial crime is staggering in its complexity and collusion. 

The Justice Department says traders used online chat rooms and coded language to manipulate currency exchange rates. Traders openly boasted that they were the cartel or the mafia as they conducted their dirty business. It also comes as no surprise that these banks will pay a paltry $3 billion for their brazen anti-trust violations and none of the individual bank employees will be liable for criminal charges. 

Unless the Justice Department uses it heavy hammer on prosecuting white collar crime this type of illegal activity will surely continue. The $3 billion penalty is probably a small fraction of the profits made from these illegal trades. 

The surprising disintegration of Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign has opened up the race for the 2016 Republican nomination, benefitting the other candidate from Florida, Senator Marco Rubio. This is a bizarre political development because Rubio is running as the second coming of George W. Bush. 

One of the most surprising things about Jeb Bush is that, despite all of his apparent advantages – national name recognition, money, and organization – his campaign has never taken off. (In mid April, 538’s Nate Silver observed that Bush’s unfavorability rating swamped his favorability rating.) And despite his reputation as “the smart Bush,” Jeb flunked his response to the obvious questions about Iraq. 

As Jeb Bush withers, other candidates gather support. The latest Huffington Post Republican presidential candidate poll summary shows Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ahead (15.2 percent of the vote), Jeb Bush second (13.8 percent), and Marco Rubio third (10.1 percent); the fourth and fifth place candidates are Senators Ran Paul (9.2 percent) and Ted Cruz (9.1 percent). However, the most recent national poll, YouGov/Economist shows Rubio ahead with 17 percent of the vote. 

Obviously, it’s too early to predict who will capture the Republican nomination at the July 2016 Cleveland convention. Each of the top candidates has a distinct approach. Marco Rubio has adopted the strategy George W. Bush used in 2000, depicting himself as a young outsider and super hawk. 

At 43, Rubio is the youngest of the major Republican contenders. He was born May 28, 1971, in Miami, Florida, to Cuban-American parents (who immigrated from Cuba in 1956). Rubio plans to use his status as a millennial to differentiate himself from the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, aged 67. He also plans to use his Hispanic roots to appeal to that (traditionally Democratic) voting segment. 

Nonetheless, while Marco Rubio may technically be a millennial, he doesn’t represent millenial beliefs. On issue after issue – gay marriage, decriminalizing marijuana, net neutrality, global climate change, equal rights for women, etcetera – Rubio comes down as a doctrinaire conservative; he’s more like the 68-year-old Dubya than he is similar to other politicians his own age. 

Even on immigration, Rubio has clung to his dogmatic conservatism. He opposed normalizing relations with Cuba. In 2013, Marco Rubio championed immigration reform, then he abruptly switched his position. Now he says legislation will have to come on a piece-by-piece basis and border security should be the first priority. 

Rubio is most like Dubya on foreign policy. 

In April of 2012, Marco Rubio remarked, “George W. Bush, in my opinion, did a fantastic job over eight years.” Given this level of adulation, and the fact that many of Dubya’s foreign policy advisers are counseling Rubio, the Florida Senator’s May 13th address to The Council on Foreign Affairs address was not surprising. 

Rubio lambasted President Obama: “He demonstrated a disregard for our moral purpose that at times flirted with disdain… The deterioration of our physical and ideological strength has led to a world far more dangerous than when President Obama entered office.” 

The Florida Senator elaborated his three “pillars” of foreign policy. The first is, “to restore American strength, my first priorities will be to adequately fund our military.” (By the way, the US currently spends $610 billion annually on defense; 20 percent of our budget and more than the next seven countries combined.) Rubio would also strengthen “the intelligence community” including reauthorization of The Patriot Act including the controversial bulk data collection authority (section 215). 

Rubio’s second foreign policy pillar is, “the protection of the American economy in a globalized world.” He would approve The Trans-Pacific Partnership and related trade agreements. Rubio promised, “[As President] I will use American power to oppose any violations of international waters, airspace, cyberspace, or outer space.” 

The Florida Senator’s third pillar is: 

Clarity regarding America's core values. We must recognize that our nation is a global leader, not simply because it has superior arms, but also because it has superior aims. America is the first power in history motivated by a desire to expand freedom, rather than simply expand its own territory.

 

The line in Rubio’s speech that received the most attention was “America is the first power in history motivated by a desire to expand freedom.” Salon political writer Elias Isquith described this as Rubio’s “noble lie,” noting “the way it pretends the millions of human beings who lived in North America before the states were united never existed.” Of course, this level of perfidy was the trademark of George W. Bush, who before the invasion of Iraq quipped, “The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.” 

Time will tell if Marco Rubio survives the 2016 Republican version of demolition derby. What’s clear is that despite his cherubic, youthful demeanor, Rubio is a hard-core conservative, every bit as dangerous as his idol, George W. Bush. 

---

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net 

 

 

 

Use a cane? Never! Perish forbid. Everyone will think you’re old! But a cane can really help, and not just for walking. The American Association for the Advancement of Science reports the use of canes and other mobility devices is on the rise among older adults. There may be a relationship between your hearing loss and a balance problem. The “assistive cane” is a walking stick used as a mobility aid for better balance. The white cane is a walking stick for mobility or safety of the blind and visually impaired. Hand rails on both sides of every corridor everywhere for everybody!  

You can cause damage by using a cane incorrectly. Usually hold the cane in the hand opposite, for example, a sore leg. Your elbow will be at 120-degree angle if the cane is the right height for you. Step out with the cane and the sore leg at the same time. The cane lessens pressure on it, resting it and giving it time to heal.  

A new study has reported that one quarter of older Americans use such mobility devices as canes, walkers or wheelchairs, but those who use a cane have a much greater fear of falling. Cane users did not fall more often, but they did report limiting their activities out of fear, suggesting the cane may not offer sufficient support for their needs. A rate higher rate than in past U.S. studies of mobility device use was found. 

More than 7,000 U.S. Medicare beneficiaries constituting a nationally representative sample were interviewed for a National Health and Aging Trends study in 2011. Twenty-four percent of the group reported using one of the devices; 16 % used canes, the most popular device. As reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Participants most likely to use one or more of the mobility devices tended to be older, female, and nonwhite, with a higher number of health conditions, lower education levels and greater obesity. 

It is possible that some cane users don't feel secure enough with a cane and therefore limit activity due to fear of falling. By design, canes offer a single point of support, compared to a walker with four points of a support. Many older cane users may be more suited to a walker, but they select a cane because it is cheap, easy to learn, and doesn’t make the user look as “old” as a walker might, according to Howe Liu of the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. Many older adults in senior communities purchased or received their devices from a spouse, family members, friends, or the community/facility in which they live. When medical professionals step in, they often help select a mobility device based on the device user’s mental status, medical conditions, physical ability, and living environment.  

Be sure to have the height and your use of a cane (or crutches) checked by an experienced physical therapist or nurse. As for Medicare paying, better check on what durable medical equipment is, and which, if any, durable medical equipment, prosthetic, and orthotic items are covered in Original Medicare. An ergonomically designed handle provides maximum comfort while in use. And tape to the cane your ID.  

Senior travel is becoming big business, with categories like alternatives for gentle walkers and alternatives to tour groups. The North Berkeley Senior Center designates its local trips: light walking, moderate walking, and heavy walking on uneven surfaces. Remember Elderhostel? It’s now Elderhostel Institute Network.  

Road Scholar Travel Services of Boston, Massachusetts offers trips like “Cuba Today: People and Society” through the University of Southern Maine, with “lively interactions at a local senior center.” But there’s a catch: “Due to the nature of this program, listening devices are not available.” Activity Notes include walking up to two miles per day with some walking on uneven cobblestone streets. 

xxxx 

Comedy has entered a new age with Netflix’s Grace and Frankie TV series premiered this month. Netflix is a subscription-based film and television program rental service that offers media to subscribers via Internet streaming and U S mail. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin (78 and 76 years old) co-starred in the 1980 comedy, 9 to 5. Since then, they have had some good, some bad roles, like the 2014 film “This Is Where I Leave You,” in which Fonda starred. After several mediocre, not-worthy-of-her-talent films, and knee surgery, Fonda has made a genuine comeback as Grace. Tomlin and she play two frenemies whose husbands (Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston) come out as gay and leave the women for each other.  

Older stars are still cast as crusty grandparents or needy neighbors, according to New York Times reviewer Alessandra Stanley. She writes that people who complain about aging sound old. Fortunately, “Grace and Frankie” is not another Golden Girls (1985-1992) knockoff. Betty White has a leading role in TV’s Hot in Cleveland, but she is not the focus, serving instead as a white-haired foil to middle-aged single women on that show. This premise -- the two women are forced together when their husbands announce they are gay and plan to marry each other — seems more like a conventional sitcom.  

Grace and Frankie find that without important husbands, they vanish. Old friends don’t call and strangers don’t even acknowledge them.  

xxxx 

CALIFORNIA NEWS 

"Language, Culture Prevent Chinese Seniors From Accessing Health Services," by Richard Lee (New America Media, April 14, 2015). 

“Japanese-Americans Could Serve as Model for Aging Population," (California Healthline, May 11, 2015). 

"Calpers' (California Public Employees' Retirement System) Pension Hammer Forces 'Unfair' Bond Ruling by Judge," by Steven Church and Romy Varghese (Bloomberg Business, May 12, 2015). 

"California's End of Life Option Act Moves Forward," by Monica Luhar (KCET Channel 28 [Los Angeles] TV News, May 14, 2015). 

"San Bernardino bankruptcy plan: bondholders hammered while pensions kept whole," by Tim Reid (Reuters, May 14, 2015). 

"Driving initiatives keep seniors safe on the road," by Anna Rumer (Desert News [Palm Springs, California], May 14, 2015). 

"L.A. County slow to probe nursing home complaints, state statistics show," by Abby Sewell (Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2015) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If someone beyond age thirty with a schizophrenic or bipolar illness has an episode of mania or psychosis, there is a significant possibility that they will not survive this. An episode of severe psychosis is a huge stress on the body. When someone is approaching or beyond forty years old, a psychotic episode could trigger a heart attack. When an older person is put in "four-point" restraints by hospital staff (usually because of being difficult to control) this can also trigger a cardiac episode.  

Relapses of mania or psychosis aren't always the result of noncompliance--they can happen to someone who continues to take prescribed medication. However, stopping medication against medical advice greatly increases the likelihood of a relapse, and it isn't a wise course of action.  

Severe psychosis can trigger a powerful "fight or flight" reaction because it takes over the mind with delusions--and some of these delusions can make a mentally ill person believe they are in imminent danger.  

The danger is real but does not usually come from the things the delusions are warning about. The actual danger is that of taking actions based on delusions. Consequently, it is the delusions themselves that are the threat. Delusions can make a mentally ill person believe that people are trying to kill him or her, or that there is some other kind of threat--this is a product of psychosis, and usually there isn't anything to worry about. 

Someone suffering from severe delusions may do dangerous things because their brain is lying to them and is producing a false, pseudo-reality. Imagine believing that you can fly, believing you are surrounded by extraterrestrials, or believing that all of your sources of water have deadly poison? A number of possible delusions can create a dangerous outcome.  

If an older man or woman initially survives a psychotic or manic episode, there is still an aftermath. When older, it takes longer for the brain to recover, if it does so at all. Recovery to a previous level of functioning following a full-blown psychotic episode takes not weeks, not months, but years--sometimes as much as ten years.  

(Following a severe episode of psychosis, all of the things most people take for granted are more difficult. It can be difficult to drive an automobile; it can be difficult to get basic tasks accomplished, such as cleanup of one's dwelling; it can be difficult to go out in public--especially to crowded places; it can be difficult to sit still; it can be difficult to focus on anything.)  

Someone with schizophrenia may believe the medication is the cause of problems. It might seem as though the medication is producing limits to consciousness, or making ordinary things in life very difficult. However, it is often the illness, not the medication, is causing these problems.  

One approach to medication is to prescribe the smallest dosage of antipsychotic medication that will work to keep the psychiatric consumer stabilized. However, this may not be the best way to go. A better option might be treating the illness more aggressively, with more medication, one option being the maximum the psychiatric consumer can tolerate without excessive suffering due to side effects. A higher level of meds than the absolute minimum is sometimes a good approach.  

If we go too low on medication, symptoms could begin to recur. That in turn can cause a loss of insight and judgment, the beginning of a possible relapse. At some point, an under-medicated person with schizophrenia will probably attribute his or her problems to the medication. The medication becomes the perceived enemy. That is the point at which we may become "noncompliant."  

When someone with a psychotic type illness meets with a psychiatrist for an outpatient visit, this psychiatrist, if they are any good, will probably ask a significant number of questions. They may ask if the psychiatric consumer has any unusual thoughts, may ask if the psychiatric consumer is eating and sleeping okay, and may ask if they have any discomfort from medication side effects. This is the perfect opportunity, if we feel that things are slipping, to report any symptoms we might notice.  

If the psychiatrist assesses that a higher or lower dosage of medication is needed, it is a good idea to heed this. If it appears to the psychiatrist that we are starting to have more symptoms, he or she may ask us to take more medication. If symptoms are under control but we are suffering a lot with medication side effects, it might be time for the doctor to lower the dosage.  

Preventative care is extremely important for someone with schizophrenic illness or bipolar illness. The work we do to get the illness under control, hopefully at a fairly young age, could determine the quality of life we have when we get older. If the illness doesn’t get controlled, we may end up with a future of being very ill. If the proper steps are taken to control the illness, it allows us to live under better conditions when we get to middle age and old age.  

Prevention at an early age could lead to better brain development and to becoming psychologically mature to match our chronological age. If we gain more development as a thinking, contemplating human being, it could lead to more development of insight, and this could prevent relapses when older--relapses that we could get too old to survive.

Mozart's last opera, La Clemenza di Tito, will be presented on Sunday, June 7 at 8 PM by The Handel Opera Project in conjunction with The Berkeley Chamber Opera. In the cast are Eliza O'Malley, Elizabeth Baker, Kathleen Moss, Shannon Latimer, Martin Bell and Michael Desnoyers as Tito, accompanied by a chamber orchestra conducted by William G. Ludtke. 

Prior to the performance at 7:30 there will be a lecture about the opera by Laurence Oppenheim. 

Tickets are $30 general admission and $10 for students. Tickets may be purchased through The Handel Opera Project web site. 

2601 Durant at Bowditch in Berkeley. For additional information call (510) 665-5988

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary at the Castro Theater in San Francisco May 28–June 1 with an expanded program that adds an additional full day to the event. 

 

Why Be Good? (1929), starring perky comedienne Colleen Moore 

 

 

 

If you are looking for a total break from movies involving wise-cracking action heroes battling it out in Hollywood's latest CGI-fest, you might want to seek out Counting from Infinity—a quiet, simple, and smartly seductive documentary about a humble mathematician named Yitang Zhang.

The film—produced by Oakland-based director George Csicsery and partly shot in Berkeley—was screened at a special one-night event at Berkeley's Elmwood theatre on May 21, with the director and a panel of local mathematicians on hand to celebrate the event.

 

 

 

Thanks to Csicsery (a talented niche-filmmaker who specializes in documentaries celebrating math and mathematicians), we can all share a rare look inside the generally unexplored world of cloistered academics and envelop-pushing thinkers. One stunning realization only dawned after a post-screening conversation. "Did you notice," another reviewer pointed, "on the entire film you never saw a computer or an electronic device." It was true. While you might think mathematicians would be surrounded by keyboards, calculators, screens and hard-drives, the thinkers we meet are more like philosophers, pondering profound mysteries of existence. Or like artists, sketching out parallel universes drawn in meticulous chalk strokes spread across the "canvas" of a whiteboard. 

"Who Is This Guy?" 

It was in April 2013 that Zhang mailed a masterful mathematical thought-piece to the Annals of Mathematics. In his meticulous paper, Zhang claimed to have solved one of the math world's most vexing challenges—the Twin Prime Conjecture. Almost immediately, the publication of "Small Gaps Between Primes" was hailed as a monumental breakthrough in Number Theory. But what really got the world's mathematicians talking was the fact that no one had ever heard of Yitang Zhang. The man behind the breakthrough was an unknown theoretician, working alone, without a fulltime job, and no record of previous publications. 

Zhang, or "Tom," as he likes to be called, is a real life superhero. Like the best superheroes, he comes from a humble and unlikely background. Raised in China during the Cultural Revolution, Tom saw his father, an engineering teacher, persecuted by the government. Tom, along with his mother and siblings, were relocated to a hardscrabble life on a collective farm. After resettling in the US and graduating from Purdue University, Zhang spent seven years working as an accountant at a Subway franchise in Kentucky. Eventually, a friend found him a job as a lecturer in the University of New Hampshire's math department. 

UC Berkley professor Ken Rivet remembers coming across Zhang's paper: "I am deluged with manuscripts in elementary number theory by people who . . . claim typically to have solved simultaneously Fermat's Last Theorem, the Twin Prime Conjecture, Goldbach's Conjecture and usually some unified theory of physics." Many of these papers arrive infused with an air of arrogant condescension, which journal editors generally recognize as a tip-off that the arguments will fail to deliver. Zhang's paper was different. 

A Primer on Primes 

For readers whose high school math may be a bit rusty, primes are those special numbers that are not divisible by any number other than 1—i.e., 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 and on into infinity. This theory goes back along time (Euclid is a prime example). 

But mathematicians have discovered something even more surprising about primes: As far out as you can count, you will find sequential clusters of prime numbers that are separated only by two numerals. Examples: The primes 1 through 7 are all separated by 2 (i.e., 7-5=2). A separation begins with the space between 7 and 11 and the next "twin prime" quickly arrives with 11-13 (13-11=2). The Twin Prime Conjecture proposes that these clusters continue to occur (although with greater and greater separations) endlessly. 

"Theoretically," as UCLA math maven Terence Tao parses it, primes seem to exhibit "some weird conspiracy between them [as if] they have some gentleman's agreement that every time one number decides to be prime, then the number two spaces down will always agree not to be prime…. If the twin primes ever ran out, it would be a huge shock…. We'd have to rethink all of our cryptographic assumptions. We'd have to rethink a lot of number theory." 

The Breakthrough 

While it is one thing to have a theory, it is quite another to offer a proof—and the Twin Prime Conjecture had stumped some of the world's best brains for a very long time. Zhang was also stumped. He recalls how he was frustrated by what seemed like an insurmountable barrier that needed one more new idea. 

It was in July 2012, during the backyard cigarette break at a friend's home in rural Colorado, that Zhang went looking for deer and had a flash of inspiration that carried him over the daunting "square barrier" that had been blocking a solution. 

The world of professional mathematicians was astounded by the insight of this unknown thinker. "He went to the deepest of the deep and he fully understood," said University of Montréal professor Andrew Granville. "His paper establishes him … as one of the top half-dozen people in the world in the field." 

The growing recognition and prizes (including a MacArthur grant) also caught Zhang and his wife, Yaling, by surprise. Yaling was totally unprepared for the news that her modest, self-effacing lifelong companion was somehow, suddenly, an international celebrity. In the documentary, her surprise, pride, and absolute delight, are endearingly palpable. 

Counting from Infinity includes interviews with some of the world's top mathematicians including UCLA's Tao, Britain's James Maynard and local math heavyweights David Eisenbud (from Berkeley's Mathematical Sciences Research Institute) and Daniel Goldston (from San Jose State University). 

The film includes footage shot in New Hampshire, New Jersey and at UC Berkeley's Evans Hall, where Zhang presided over a Colloquium Lecture on September 12, 2013. 

Counting from Infinity offers of a welcome respite from the boom-box bluster of a Hollywood blockbuster. Zhang his wife and his closest friends emanate a sense of quiet and profound contentment. Their daily lives are simple and unassuming while their emotional lives are filled and complete. We watch Zhang as he dons a backpack and walks to a bus stop for a ride to campus. We follow Zhang as he wanders for hours in the woods and pauses by quiet, turtle-stirred ponds, lost in his thoughts, draped in shadows and sunshine. 

George Csicsery admits it can be a challenge to direct a film starring a mathematician like Tom Zhang: "The qualities he embraces—solitude, quiet, concentration—are the opposites of those valued in the media." Fortunately, Csicsery is a master of this scholarly cinematic genre (having made a number of previous documentaries on math prodigies, including Hard Problems and Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem). 

What Csicsery has discovered (and in this film proves) is that you can reveal powerful cinematic truths if you simply take the time to show "a person just sitting with pencil and paper and thinking. The longer the scene, the more you realize that you really can see someone thinking. The human face is very expressive. Give it time and it speaks volumes." 

For more information contact: www.zalafilms.com