By Michelle Hopey 

Special to the Daily Planet 

A parking crunch at Berkeley High School that forced the school to turn several tennis courts into a parking lot, has left some of the players crying foul. 

Three of the six courts on the corner of Milvia Street and Bancroft Way have been turned over to the faculty for parking. School construction, scheduled to begin this week, will be on the site of former parking, said Berkeley High Principal Frank Lynch.  

“In order for us to provide parking for the staff, we needed to pave three of the tennis courts,” Lynch said. “We didn’t want to risk the chance of teachers not coming to school because they have no place to park.” 

With tennis season set to begin Monday, members of the team say they are upset with the way the school handled the situation. 

“It would have been nice to have some prior notice,” said team captain 18-year old Gabe Zeldin. “I wish they had found us other arrangements before they went ahead and paved it. Now we’re scrambling to find a place to play with less than a week until the season (starts).” 

“It would have been nice to have a say in this decision - since we are the ones who are affected,” said team member Jonah Schrogin, who found out about the plan when he walked by the courts two weeks ago and saw crews pouring asphalt. 

Lynch said the school was not required to hold a public hearing or post notices since the tennis courts are owned by the Berkeley Unified School District and it’s not mandatory for school districts to hold such hearings. He said the students don’t need to worry because the school has already put calls in to UC Berkeley to ask to use their courts and has looked at other facilities. 

The push to add more parking comes with the construction of several new academic buildings at the school. A new physical education building, new administrative building and student center, removes 150 faculty parking spaces, said Board of Education President Terry Doran.  

“The tennis courts were one of our worst alternatives, but one that we were forced to use,” said Doran on Tuesday.  

The paving is only temporary say officials and will continue only until the construction is completed, which is expected to be in about three years. 

Originally, BHS had planned to provide parking on the school’s blacktop during the construction. However, that plan changed after a fire destroyed the B Building last year, forcing the school to install portable classrooms on the blacktop.  

In December, the board approved an interim parking plan which called for a request to the city for up to 110 residential parking permits for faculty members to allow them to park full days on residential streets where non-residents are restricted to two-hour parking. However, according to Doran, the city has yet to respond to the board’s request. 

Three weeks ago, with the start date for construction looming and unsure if the application for parking permits would be accepted, Lynch said the school parking committee, along with the board, made the decision to go ahead and begin paving the lot.  

“ We didn’t know what the outcome would be and the construction was starting,” said Lynch, noting that the new lot gives the school 50 parking spaces.  

“It’s extremely unlikely that they’ll get the permits,” said City Councilmember Dona Spring. “There is just not enough parking in this city.” 

Spring said she is concerned with the impact of turning open-space into a parking lot. She said an environmental assessment should have been done to determine the impact. She worries about the Bancroft Way residents being inundated with car fumes since most of the block is surrounded with parking garages.  

“ The situation is only temporary” said Spring. “I am empathetic to their crunch. It is a crisis - they’re really between a rock and a hard place.”  

Regardless, the tennis team, which ranked number two in the East Bay Athletic League last year, is in limbo. 

“ We’re just not sure what we’re going to do,” said Dan Seguin, the BHS tennis coach. “It’s going be hard to run matches on three courts. I mean we can run varsity on three courts, but not junior varsity.  

Seguin fears the JV team will suffer the most, since the JV will probably no longer be able to practice with the varsity team. That will affect the program negatively in the next few years, he said. 

He anticipates that next week will be difficult with try-outs on only three courts.  

“ They say it’s temporary, but I don’t believe them,” said Gabe Zeldin. “ I just hope they find us good facilities to use.”

I called Radio Mindanao today at 3 pm PST to make the following appeal:  

Thank you for allowing me to speak on your radio program. My name is Carol Schilling and I am the mother of Jeffrey Schilling.  

I am asking your listeners for their help to secure the safe release of Jeffrey Schilling, a Muslim convert who is being held captive by the Abu Sayyaf on Jolo. I am asking you to please pray for my son. Please add your voice to mine when I appeal for his release.  

Jeffrey is a goodhearted, well-intentioned Muslim who regularly performed zakat (giving money) for the Filipino Muslim community and others in need.  

Holding Jeffrey captive is counterproductive for the goals of the Abu Sayyaf. It makes no sense for Abu Sayyaf to hold anyone against his will, most especially a fellow Muslim.  

Jeffrey is very sick. I am distressed by this news.  

The Abu Sayyaf knows how sick he is and can raise themselves in world opinion by releasing my son so he can get the medical care he needs.  

Jeffrey's Muslim name is Abdur Rahman, servant to the Most Merciful. Please join me in calling upon the Abu Sayyaf to show mercy by releasing Jeffrey Schilling safely and immediately.  

His wife, Ivy Osani, and I are desperate to hear that Jeffrey is free to reunite with us, especially on the occasion of his 25th birthday this coming Sunday.  

To Jeffrey I say “I love you, Jeffrey, and I pray every day for your safe and immediate release. I pray for your well-being. I pray for your heart, that you can feel the love we are sending to you.”  

Carol Schilling  

Oakland 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership 

Jan. 26: Tragedy, Yaphet Kotto, Esperanza, Under a Dying Sun; Jan. 28, 5 p.m.: 18 Visions, 12 Tribes, Blood Has Been Shed, Anti Domestix; Feb. 2: Nerve Agents, Jemuel, The Blottos; Feb 3.: Time In Malta, The Cost 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted Feb. 1: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 3: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Quartet; Feb. 6: Pickpocket Ensemble; Feb. 7: Whiskey Brothers; Feb. 8: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 13: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Duo; Feb. 14: Carlos Oliveira Brazilian Jazz Duo 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz Jan. 31, 9 p.m.: Cajun Coyotes, dance lesson at 8 p.m. 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Feb. 2: Henry Clement; Feb. 3: Daniel Castro; Feb. 9: Red Archibald; Feb. 10: Kenny Blue Ray; Feb. 16: Little Johnny & the Giants; Feb. 17: Ron Thompson; Feb. 23: Carlos Zialcita; Feb. 24: R.J. Mischo 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All shows begin at 8 p.m. Jan. 31: Slack Key Guitar Festival w/George Kahumoku, Jr., Princess Owana Salazar, Daniel Ho; Feb. 1: International Guitar Night with Andrew York, Laurence Juber, Peppino D’Agostino, and Brian Gore; Feb. 2: Cats & Jammers; Feb. 3: Lou & Peter Berryman; Feb. 4: Dave Van Ronk; Feb. 5: Tony Trischka & Junk Genius; Feb. 6: Chuck Brodsky; Feb. 7: Keola Beamer with Moana Beamer; Feb. 8 & 9: Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys; Feb. 10: Baguette Quartette with Odile Lavault; Feb.11: Bob Franke 1111 Addison St. 548-1761  

Jazzschool/La Note All shows at 4:30 p.m.Tickets are $10 - $12  

Jan. 28: Ann Dyer Trio; Feb. 4: Jeff Chambers and the J2W Project 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Cal Performances Feb. 2 & 3, 8 p.m.: Allee der Kosmonauten by Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz with video installations by New York artist Elliot Caplan, $20 - $42; Feb. 4, 4 p.m.: Russian National Orchestra, $30 - $52; Feb. 10, 8 p.m.: Masters of Persian Classical Music, $20 - $40; Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m.: Balinese Orchestra Gamelan Sekar Jaya present “Kawit Legong: Prince Karna’s Dream,” $18 - $30. Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu Feb. 11, 3 p.m.: Horacio Gutierrez $24 - $42 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

“Clori, Tirsi e Fileno” Jan. 27, 8 p.m.; Jan. 28, 7 p.m. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before each performance. Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company perform Handel’s opera. $15 - $20. Crowden School Theater 1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 658-3382 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Jan. 31, April 3, and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Eighth Annual Robert Burns Birthday Celebration Feb. 2, 8 p.m. and Feb. 4, 7 p.m. A celebration of Scotland’s beloved 18th century poet: his songs, his letters, his life. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church 1501 Washington Ave (at Curtis) Albany 848-3422 

Empyrean Ensemble Feb. 3, 3 p.m. The ensemble will present “The Soldier’s Tale,” by Igor Stravinsky, “Prosperous Sould, Gregarious Heart,” by Peter Josheff, and “Horizon Unfolds,” by Yu-Hui Chang. $4 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. (at Derby) 925-798-1300 

Flauti Diversi Ensemble Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m. Performing the music of 17th and early 18th century composers on baroque instruments in a program titled “Bell Fiore, Belle Fleur.” $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley 1 Lawson Rd. 525-0302 

“Mostly Baroque” Feb. 4, 5 p.m. Instrumental works by Corelli, Schickhardt, Quantz, Mozart, a new work by Glen Shannon and Bach’s Cantana 82. Donations accepted Church of Saint Mary Magdalen 2005 Berryman (at Milvia)  

Toshi Makihara & Colin Stetson Feb. 4, 7:48 p.m. Philadephia percussionist Makihara teams up with local solo saxophonist Voigt and local contrabassist Morgan Guberman for an evening of improvised music. $8 donation Tuva Space 3192 Adeline (at MLK Jr. Way) 649-8744 

“Songs for the Young at Heart” Feb. 10, 4 p.m. Featuring La Bonne Cuisine by Bernstein and The Shepherd on the Rock by Schubert. Donations accepted St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave.  

Community Women’s Orchestra Feb. 11, 4 p.m. Pieces to be played include those written by Berkeley High students Ariel Wolter and Maianna Voge. Donations accepted Malcolm X School 1731 Prince St. 653-1616 

Percussions Du Guinee Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m. Feb. 18, 7 p.m. Internationally respected Guinean percussionists craft a performance simultaneously inspired by traditional music, yet modern in presentation. $20 - $25 925-798-1300 

“Fall” by Bridget Carpenter Through Feb. 11. $15.99 - $51. Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, www. berkeleyrep.org 

“In Search of my Clitoris” Written and performed by Sia Amma Feb. 1 & 2, 8 p.m. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. Feb. 8 & 9, 8 p.m. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. $12 - $14 415-775-6608 

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett Through Feb. 3, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. $8 - $12. Subterranean Shakespeare La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 234-6046  

“The Road to Mecca” by Athol Fugard Through Feb. 24, Friday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Feb. 22, 8 p.m. $10 Live Oak Theatre 1301 Shattuck 528-5620 

“Nightingale” presented by Central Works Theater Feb. 9 - March 4, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 24 & Saturday, March 3, 5 p.m.; Free preview Feb. 8, 8 p.m. $8 - $14 LaVal’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Feb. 15 - March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“Magnetic North” Six programs of experimental Canadian video from the past 30 years that range from documentary to conceptual art. In all, 40 tapes from 46 artists will be shown on six Wednesday evenings. Through Feb. 28. $7. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

“Durruti and the Spanish Revolution” The LaborFest U.S. premiere screening and dicussion of this documentary which tells the story of the Confederation National del Trabajo during the Spanish Civil War. Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m. $7 donation requested. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 415-642-8066 

“Toto Recall” A 15-film retrospective honoring Italy’s comic genius. Feb. 3 - Feb. 24 Weekend days only, Friday - Sunday. $7 for one film, $8.50 for double bills. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Feb. 10: Karin Kallmaker reads from “Sleight of Hand”; Feb. 23: Becky Thompson reads “Mothering Without a Compass: White Mother’s Love, Black Son’s Courage” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 31: Poetry of Steven Ajay & Anita Barrows  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. Feb. 1: John Rowe; Feb. 8: Tom Odegard; Feb 15: Kathleen Lynch; Feb. 22: Charles Ellick; March 1: Eliza Shefler; March 8: Judy Wells; March 15: Elanor Watson-Gove; March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. Feb. 1: Sherman Alexie; March 1: Aleida Rodrigues; April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

Robert Hass Former U.S. Poet Laureate will read Jan. 31, Noon - 1 p.m. Lower Sproul Plaza, Pauley Ballroom in case of rain UC Berkeley 

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800  

The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623  

Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting.  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 

Lectures 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested Jan. 28: “The Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings,” a panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history; March 11: Director of Berkeley’s International House, Joe Lurie, will show a video and dicuss the history and struggle to open the I-House 70 years ago. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Feb. 13 - April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

Wednesday, Jan. 31

Planning Commission Hearing on the Oxford lot 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

Martin Luther King Jr. Way at Hearst Ave. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring “Berkeley Images,” a world premiere by Jean-Pascal Beintus.  

$10 - $35 Call 841-2800 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling Classes for  

Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley High Poetry Slam  

6:30 p.m.  

Berkeley High School  

2246 Milvia St., Room G-210 

A preliminary round for the regional poetry slams sponsored by youth speaks.  

Human Welfare & Community Action Commission 

7 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St.  

The Poetry of Robert Hass 

Noon - 1 p.m. 

Lower Sproul Plaza 

UC Berkeley 

Former U.S. Poet Laureate will read.  

Public Exposure: DNA,  

Democracy and the “Wireless Revolution” 

7:15 p.m.  

Community Meeting Room 

Public Safety Building 

2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

A video on the health risks of wireless communication technology. 

Thursday, Feb. 1

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet John Rowe and host Randy Fingland.  

644-0155 

Hiking the California Desert  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Steve Tabor of the conservation group Desert Survivors presents a slide-show of highlights from his reconnaissance trips along more than 400 miles of trail. Free  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Dark Caves & Sunlight 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Explore the origins of how people speak to each other. $10  

Friday, Feb. 2

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Allee der Kosmontauten 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Performance of Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz 1996 work in its West Coast premiere. Also features the film work of Elliot Caplan. $20 - $42  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

“A Night In Oakland” 

8 p.m. 

Alice Arts Center 

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) 

Oakland  

Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.  

$10 - $15 

Call 496-6068 or visit  

www.savagejazz.org 

Stagebridge Free Acting  

& Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Taize Worship Service  

7:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Loper Chapel  

(adjacent to) First Congregational Church of Berkeley  

2345 Channing Way 848-3696 

Saturday, Feb. 3

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Artists Talk 

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to hear artists speak about their work and show slides. Free 

Call 763-9425 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St.  

Call 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts Classes for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 

644-8515 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Fruit Tree Pruning 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Ecology Center Library  

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

An introductory class for the home fruit grower. Class taught by Greg Peck, owner of an organic landscape and garden design business in the East Bay.  

$7.50 - $10  

Call 548-2220 

Women’s Evening at the Movies 

7:30 p.m. 

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

“Late Bloomer,” the story of a high school basketball coach who realizes she’s fallen for the school secretary. Women’s Evening at the Movies is the first Saturday of every month.  

Visit www.pacificcenter.org 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Empyrean Ensemble 

4 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

Featuring a commissioned piece, “Prosperous Soul, Gregarious Heart,” newly composed by Peter Josheff in honor of his late father.  

Call 845-8542 

Sunday, Feb. 4 

“Under Construction No. 10” 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2727 College Ave.  

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers.  

Call 841-2800 

Russian National Orchestra  

4 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

On their tenth anniversary tour, the RNO will perform Shostakovich’s symphony No. 5 and Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto No. 2.  

$30 - $52  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

From Flatlands to the Stars  

9:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Diamond Park  

Fruitvale Ave. (at Lyman Rd.) 

A hardy hike along Sausal Creek in Oakland’s unexplored Diamond and Joaquin Miller parks. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Timbrels & Torahs: Celebrating Wisdom,  

Celebrating Age  

10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Miriam Chaya and Judy Montell discuss their Simchat Hochmah ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s transition from mid-life to her eldering years.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

“A Night In Oakland” 

2 & 8 p.m. 

Alice Arts Center 

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) 

Oakland  

Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.  

$10 - $15 

Call 496-6068 or visit www.savagejazz.org 

Spiritual & Cultural Context of Mbira  

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Berkeley native Erica Azim has played Shona mbira music for 30 years, and is the foremost mbira performer and recording artist in the U.S. The mbira has metal keys which are plucked with two thumbs and one forefinger, “creating relaxing yet invigorating polyphony and polyrhythms.” Free 

Call 848-8443 

Solving the East Bay Energy Crisis 

3 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 

Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters and a Utility Reform Network representative, Kris Worthington, Berkeley city council member, Ross Mirkarimi of the Green Party, and others will discuss the past and future of the energy situation in the East Bay, including possibilities of conservation, clean, renewable energy and municipally-owned public utilities.  

Call 233-3175 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Meditations for Relieving Pain 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Pl.  

Sylvia Gretchen presents specific meditations and visualization practices that can help to relieve physical and mental pain. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Open House 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

A free introduction to Tibetan Buddhist culture including a prayer wheel and meditation garden tour and yoga demonstration. Refreshments will be served. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Monday, Feb. 5  

Youth Commission  

6 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Center 

1730 Oregon St.  

Rent Stabalization Board 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Personnel Board Meeting  

7 p.m. 

Permit Center 

2118 Milvia St.  

First Floor Conference Room  

Landmarks Preservation Commission  

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Peace & Justice Commission  

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Tuesday, Feb. 6  

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is sex, love, dating, and relationships in celebration of Valentine’s Day.  

Call 527-5332  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 7  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Legacy to Liberation  

7 p.m. 

Revolution Books  

2425 Channing Way  

A roundtable discussion by contributors to the recently published anthology “Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America.” Contributors include Richard Aoki, Yuri Kockiyama, Sun Lee and Dolly Veale.  

$2 donation  

848-1196 

Thursday, Feb. 8 

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Tom Odegard and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Great Mt. Diablo Day Hikes 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Ken Lavin, former president of Mt. Diablo Interpretative Association, for a slide-show of his favorite day hikes in Mt. Diablo State Park.  

Call 527-7377  

Jam Session  

7 p.m. 

Maurice’s Cafe 

6038 Telegraph 

Oakland 

Poetry with jazz featuring Jimmy Sands.  

Call 653-6775 

Exploring Surfaces  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Transverse the world’s ecological regions, describing what you know and what you’ve heard. 

$10  

Friday, Feb. 9  

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley PC Users Group 

7 p.m. 

Vista College 

2020 Milvia St., Room 303 

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com 

Introducing: Julia Morgan School for Girls 

7:30 - 8:30 a.m. 

Julia Morgan School for Girls 

Holy Names College 

Sky Room, Durocher Hall 

3510 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A select gathering of business and professional women devoted to fostering leadership in the young girls in our community.  

Saturday, Feb. 10  

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Open Mic.  

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to see special performances, spoken word, commentary and more.  

Call 763-9425 

Masters of Persian Classical Music 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring vocalist Mohammad Reza Sharjarian and his son, Homayoun Sharjarian.  

$20 - $40  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Dreams & Intuition 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

1502 Tenth St.  

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss how to attune your intuitive dream antenna, intuitively unravel the symbolic message of a dream symbol and apply an intuitive dream interpretation method to the entire dream.  

$85  

Call 526-5510 

“The West Wing Meets the East Bay” 

7:30 p.m. 

Saint Joseph the Worker Church 

1640 Addison St.  

A conversation with Martin Sheen. Tickets available at Black Oak Books, Cody’s Books, St. Joseph the Worker Church, and at the door.  

$20 donation 

525-3787  

Sunday, Feb. 11  

Ruth Acty Oral History Reception 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

In 1943 Miss Ruth Acty became the first African American teacher to be hired by the Berkeley Unified School District. She taught thousands of students until her retirement in 1985. Oral History Coordinator Therese Pipe interviewed Acty in 1993-94 for the Berkeley Historical Society. Free  

Horacio Gutierrez  

3 p.m. 

Hertz Hall 

UC Berkeley  

The Cuban-American pianist will perform Berg’s Sonata, Op.1, George Perle’s Nine Bagatelles, Schumann’s Fantasie, Op. 17 and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29.  

$24 - $42  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

“From Swastika to Jim Crow” 

2 - 4:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Due to the depression and anti-Semitism in the ‘30s, many Jewish “refugee scholars” found they had difficulty finding jobs and were embraced by black universities. Both students and teachers, in the pre-Civil Rights era, found they shared a common experience of living under oppression and a passion for education. Guest speaker Jim McWilliams.  

$2 suggested donation  

Call 848-0237 x127 

Why Do a Long Retreat? 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

Retreatants from Holland, Brazil, Germany, and other places share how they made the time to participate in two and four month retreats.  

Call 843-6812 

Tuesday, Feb. 13 

“Great Decisions” - U.S. Trade Policy 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple  

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 14 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Faye Carol Sings Lady Day 

7:30 p.m. 

King Middle School  

1781 Rose St.  

A tribute to Billie Holiday including Lady Day’s most popular songs, including “Strange Fruit,” “Good Morning Heartache,” “God Bless the Child” and “You Let Me Down.” Benefit for KPFA Radio and La Pena Cultural Center.  

$15 

Call 848-6767 x609 or visit www.kpfa.org 

Thursday, Feb. 15 

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicty,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with friends and family.  

Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org  

Basics of PCs 

9 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley 

A class for adults that will cover file management, loading software, software management, downloading pages from the Web, and more. 

$30 - $35, registration required  

Call 642-5134  

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Natural Conversations 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Focus on conversations in nature and explore what they are meant to convey.  

$10  

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Kathleen Lynch and host Mark States.  

644-0155 

Climbing Mt. Shasta 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Tim Keating of Sierra Wilderness Seminars will give a slide presentation on climbing and skiing this North California peak.  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Friday, Feb. 16 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Saturday, Feb. 17  

“Go-Go-Go Greenbelt!” 

10 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Rockridge BART  

Oakland  

A bike tour on this ride into the rolling East Bay hills. A free ride sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Valentine’s Dinner Dance Benefit Gala 

4:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)  

Dance to the music of Toru Saitu & his band. Benefits BFUU.  

$10 donation  

Call 849-9508 

Sunday, Feb. 18  

Waterfalls of Berkeley  

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley BART  

Sacramento at Delaware  

On this urban waterfall hike, discover three waterfalls along rushing creeks hidden in Berkeley neighborhoods. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Kaleidoscope Performances  

2 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave. (at Derby)  

Yassir Chadley, traditional Moroccan musician and Sufi storyteller.  

$5 - $10  

Call 925-798-1300 

Tuesday, Feb. 20 

“Great Decisions” - China & Taiwan 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is different cultural, ethnic and religious values.  

Call 527-9772  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 21 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Control Hypertension 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Summit Medical Center - Summit Campus 

Summit South Cafeteria Conference Room  

3100 Summit St.  

Oakland 

Bessanderson McNeil, MPH, and the Ethnic Health Institute, will help attendees take control of their lives. Free 

Call 204-3443 

Sacred Cinema  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave., Chapel Six 

Ken Peer has sought to explore sacred themes and to draw attention to the spiritual lives of individuals from the world’s great wisdom traditions. See three of his short films at this free screening.  

Call 649-2523 

Thursday, Feb. 22 

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Charles Ellick and host Louis Cuneo.  

644-0155 

Rivers of the World  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Pamela Michael, writer, educator and river conservationist, will highlight her new anthology “The Gift of Rivers: True Stories of Life on the Water,” showing slides of nearly 100 of the world’s great rivers. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Growl & Howl of Man & Woman 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Bring your favorite gender assumptions and put them to the test.  

$10  

Friday, Feb. 23 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Saturday, Feb. 24 

Tibetan New Year’s Celebration 

6 - 9 p.m. 

Britta Hauenschild gives a flute concert followed by a festive dinner and New Year’s celebration. Proceeds support Nyingma Institute sacred art and education programs.  

$30 suggested donation  

Call 843-6812 

Sunday, Feb. 25  

“Imperial San Francisco: 

Urban Power, Earthly Ruin” 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley History Center 

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

Gary Brechin speaks on the impact and legacy of the Hearsts and other powerful San Francisco families. Free 

Call 848-0181 

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

Authors in the Library: Lois Silverstein 

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Writer and performer, Silverstein, will read selections from “Oh My Darling Daughter,” “Behind the Stove,” and a work-in-progress, “Family Matters.” Discussion and book signing will follow. Free.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

Planetary Temples 

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Employee Don Frew will show slides of teh ruined city of Harran. Free 

Call 848-8443 

Tuesday, Feb. 27 

“Great Decisions” - Missile Defense  

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 28  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe founder Ron Davis and icon clown Wavy Gravy give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

Women in Interfaith Relationships  

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Led by Dawn Kepler, this workshop will explore interfaith relationships on many levels, in relation to culture, religion, and gender. People of all backgrounds and orientations are invited to attend.  

$10 

848-0237 x127 

Thursday, March 1  

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Eliza Shefler and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Friday, March 2  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Saturday, March 3 

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Sunday, March 4  

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Tuesday, March 6  

“Great Decisions” - U.S. & Iraq 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is health, nutrition and science; bioengineering.  

Call 527-5332  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, March 7  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Women in Interfaith Relationships  

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Led by Dawn Kepler, this workshop will explore interfaith relationships on many levels, in relation to culture, religion, and gender. People of all backgrounds and orientations are invited to attend.  

$10 

848-0237 x127 

Thursday, March 8 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Judy Wells and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Friday, March 9  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Berkeley PC Users Group 

7 p.m. 

Vista College 

2020 Milvia St., Room 303 

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com 

Saturday, March 10  

The Secrets of Sacred Cinema 

10 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion  

1798 Scenic Ave., Mudd 103 

Kevin Peer, a documentary film maker for the past 25 years, gives a two-day intensive for people interested in exploring documentary filmmaking. No equipment or prior experience required.  

$200 per person and registration is required 

Call 486-1480 

Sunday, March 11 

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

Myths & Realities of the International House  

3 -

By Erika Fricke 

Daily Planet Staff 

The twin issues of parking and transit appear regularly before the City Council.  

Currently the city manager is meeting with groups to find parking spaces for the school district, the court and Vista College, said Mayor Shirley Dean. 

While the city struggles to find downtown parking spaces, some experts believe that providing parking is counter to the goal of decreasing single-occupancy automobile use. 

Elizabeth Deakin, UC Berkeley associate professor and director of the UC Transportation Center, researches ways to decrease the societal cost of the automobile. Deakin estimated the cost of a parking space within a garage at $15,000 to $20,000 while a surface space in an urban environment can cost $8,000 to $10,000 for the cost of the land.  

“We create a system where it’s really easy for people to drive their cars once they’ve bought them,” she said. “We don’t charge them for parking, we don’t charge them for air pollution, we don’t charge them for environmental damage. Society picks up a big chunk of  

the cost.”  

Deakin said that charging people for the actual cost of driving would make a significant impact in the number of cars on the road. 

City Councilmember Miriam Hawley used to be a member of the AC Transit Board of Directors. She said that Berkeley has recently used the approach of charging people more equitably for the spaces they occupy, by increasing the cost of full day parking in garages downtown.  

But, Hawley also said that Berkeley hasn’t been doing enough to put public and alternative modes of transportation at the top of the agenda. “We do offer free parking for many city employees,” she said. “We need to look at that policy, and begin to think about how not only to discourage people from parking downtown, but also encouraging people to use transit.”  

Deakin said that an important part of getting people out of their cars is finding them a feasible alternative. She mentioned a Santa Clara County subsidizes a public transit program as one good way to “encourage people to use transit.” 

Santa Clara employers can purchase an “Eco Pass” for each of their employees, which they can then use as a pass to board any Santa Clara public transit. Scott Haywood, Eco Pass sales program manager, said the numbers evidence the program’s success. Over 100 employers have purchased passes for 100,000 employees. “They’ve been really willing to put their money where their mouth is,” he said. 

City governments in Santa Clara have been some of those buyers. The city of San Jose instituted the Eco Pass in 1998. Dennis Ng, traffic engineer for the city, said according to a survey done the first year after they instituted its use, that it is changing the way some city employees get to work. 

At that time, 22 percent of their employees used public transportation, and half of those used it to commute to and from work. A much smaller percentage used the pass daily. More significantly, half of the people who indicated they used public transportation said they began to do so after receiving their Eco Passes. 

The city of Sunnyvale also purchases Eco Passes for its employees. Sunnyvale is a smaller community where parking is not yet an issue, according to Mark Dettle, acting public works director for the city of Sunnyvale.  

He said that city employees’ public transportation use did increase once the city started offering the Eco Pass. Sunnyvale incorporated the Eco Pass into its development. “We work with our new businesses that come in and encourage them to provide their new employees with an Eco Pass. We’re starting to see businesses really develop around the light rail.” 

All of the employers that purchased the Eco Pass did so in addition to providing parking. 

The closest Berkeley equivalent to an Eco Pass is the UC Berkeley class pass. All students pay an added $18 dollars each semester when they pay tuition and have the option of getting the pass – a sticker affixed to their student ID. It allows them to board any AC Transit bus. Mayor Shirley Dean is looking to the class pass and the Eco Pass as potential models for the city. “This is going to be an enormous,” she said. Dean said she envisions a plan where everyone in the city, not just city or school district employees, could get access to a pass. Dean hoped that the details would be arranged in the coming months.  

In accordance with Berkeley’s Transit First policy, the city currently offers some employees an incentive for using public transportation in the form of a monthly $20 subsidy they can redeem at Berkeley Transit Ridesharing and Parking, better known as TRIP. But access to the subsidy depends on employee contracts. Those employees who don’t fall within the bargaining units that negotiated for the larger amount receive a subsidy of $6. About 200, or 20 percent of the city’s 1,000 eligible employees redeem their $20 dollar subsidy, only a handful of those receiving the $6 subsidy redeem it. 

Rochelle Wheeler, associate planner, said that because the subsidy can only be redeemed at Berkeley TRIP, the alternative transportation center in Berkeley, many people who already use public transportation may not go to the trouble to claim their subsidies. But, she said, many more people are using transportation than the 23 that cash in their $6 subsidy.  

Employees who don’t drive can also sign on to an Alameda County guarantee ride home program, free for both employer and employee. In case of an emergency illness or unscheduled overtime, an employee can take a taxi home and pay for it with a voucher. 

But Professor Deakin said that cities can provide even more compelling incentives to get people out of their cars. She said employees who don’t drive should receive the cost of their parking space back, which they could use to purchase public transit or to line their own pockets.  

“It makes the city rethink, you know we don’t really need so much parking.”  

Labs should test staff blood 

The Daily Planet received this letter addressed to the Environmental Sampling Project Task Force at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: 

In order to assess the health risks and damage due to exposure to tritium (radioactive hydrogen), three blood tests should be done on the director of the Tritium Labeling Facility, local workers and nearby residents. The director at the Lawrence Hall of Science and workers there should also be tested since they are downwind.  

These tests are: 

1. Check the white blood cells for the presence of micronuclei. 

2. Check the red blood cells for glycophorin-A molecule change. 

3. Chromosome painting. 

The presence of micronuclei in white blood cells indicates the loss of proper DNA repair processes, leading to increased cancer risk and other health problems.  

Micronuclei is one of the most useful tests for potential and actual cancer and other health risks. 

Genetic modification of the glycophorin-A molecules on the surface of the red blood cells is also an indicator of DNA damage.  

This method was used in a study by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Japanese exposed to nuclear bombs.  

The study on DNA damage indicated that after 40 years, the DNA code for making that molecule did not get repaired.  

The damage was worse the closer victims were to ground zero. 

UC-LBNL could preempt epidemiological studies that would search and compile the number of dead, deformed, and diseased bodies that may or may not be correlated with some possible, real, or known hazard such as tritium.  

The importance of these simple tests which you can do might ease the concern of the public. 

Marion Fulk 

Retired Staff Scientist Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

Doctors should label service dogs, not their owners 

Editor: 

In her response to a Jan. 15 letter to the editor, Karen Craig claims that “the Americans with Disabilities Act states clearly that it is a violation of the ADA to ask a person, ‘What is your disability?’” 

Outside of passages regarding job interviews, I am unable to find such a passage in the text of the law.  

As I noted in my letter, the Justice Department’s guidelines on service-animal regulations say only that documentation “generally may not be required.” 

In any case, I never meant to suggest that persons with no apparent disability whose service animals perform no apparent service should be required to disclose their disability to anyone other than their doctors.  

It would be sufficient for a doctor to provide a letter identifying the service animal as such, without further details. 

As for Michael Minasian’s letter citing a statute that prohibits passing off a pet as a service animal, if, as he argues, police may not require any proof beyond the owner’s say-so, it is hard to see how the statute could ever be enforced. 

Robert Lauriston 

Berkeley

As the energy crisis continues across the state, the city is trying to find an effective way to apply a utility tax break for gas and electricity users. 

The City Council asked the City Manager’s Office to look into implementing a utility users’ tax break on recent increases in gas and electric rates. The tax break would represent more of a gesture than a significant savings. But the Budget Commission, which recommended the idea to the council, said it’s important the city not benefit from the financial pain of increased utility rates. 

If the city caps the gas and electric utility tax, it would save the average residential user, based on recent rate increases, $4.40 per year according to the city’s energy office. 

Berkeley charges utility users 7.5 percent on a variety of utilities including telephones, cell phones, electricity, gas and cable. Last year the city collected $11.9 million in taxes on all the utilities combined. The tax on gas and electricity alone was about $5.9 million.  

PG&E spokesperson Staci Homrig said only 70 of the 300 municipalities PG&E serves charge a Utility Users’ Tax and of the 70 Berkeley is among the highest. “The cities that do charge the tax range anywhere from 1 percent to a higher end of 8 percent,” Homrig said. She added that one city, Firebaugh, Calif. charges a rate of 10 percent. 

The most effective way to implement the tax cut, according to Homrig, is for the city to adjust the utility tax rate of 7.5 percent so the revenue generated is the same as before utility increases. “We could compute that figure and all the city would have to do is approve it through whatever process they use,” said Homrig. 

But Budget Director Paul Navazio expressed a reluctance to adjust the tax because once it’s lowered it can’t be raised again without the increase going before the voters. Navazio also said because of the volatile energy market, the tax might have to be adjusted every month, which would be an onerous administrative task.  

Mayor Shirley Dean said she would prefer that utility users never be charged taxes on the increase in utility rates, but if it proves too difficult to administer she would support putting the extra revenue into a specific fund that would somehow benefit Berkeley’s utility users.  

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said there are a number of ways to implement the tax cut. “Another possibility is reducing or eliminating the tax for residential properties and maintaining it for commercial properties,” he said. 

Worthington said that commercial property owners already have enough breaks under Proposition 13 which froze property tax rates in 1978 – unless a property is sold at which time it is reassessed. 

Speaking first in English, then Spanish, Principal Kevin Woodbridge welcomed the hundreds of parents and community members who turned out to the formal opening of the newly rebuilt Thousand Oaks School.  

Mayor Shirley Dean, outgoing Superintendent Jack McLaughlin, School Board President Terry Doran, Thousand Oaks Neighborhood President Zelda Bronstein and others thanked Berkeley taxpayers for the “generous” gift of the beautiful new buildings, in which teachers team-teach and use the courtyards as an extension of their classrooms. 

But for tour guide Sofiya McGuire, 11, the best thing about the new school is the science room. 

“They have all kinds of pets,” she said, fearlessly, “a tarantella, and a snake and frogs.”  

The event at Thousand Oaks School was the last in a long day of celebrations for the Berkeley Unified School District.  

Earlier in the day a groundbreaking of a new building on Milvia Street and Allston Way was held, kicking off construction of a new building that will house a student union, a library a media center and more. 

The day also included several events honoring the outgoing superintendent whose last day is today. Feb. 1 McLaughlin takes over as state superintendent of schools in Nevada.

BERKELEY — A record number of underrepresented minorities applied to the University of California in the first year of a new program guaranteeing a spot to top-performing high school students. 

UC officials said Tuesday they don’t have enough information to declare a definite correlation, but they’re happy with the numbers, which come three years after the school dropped affirmative action. 

“This is quite exciting for the university,” said Dennis Galligani, associate vice president for student academic affairs. 

Overall, applications from California students for freshman admission increased from 54,146 to 58,424, an increase of 4,278 students, or 7.9 percent. 

That is more than double last year’s 2.5 percent increase in applications and may be due to a combination of the new program guaranteeing eligibility to students in the top 4 percent of their class as well as expanded state financial aid, Galligani said. Applications from black students went up 11.4 percent, from 2,174 to 2,421, and applications from Hispanic students increased 14.5 percent, from 7,814 to 8,950 students. 

About 80 percent of students eligible under the 4 percent plan applied. “We really touched a chord,” said Galligani, who had hoped for a two-thirds application rate. 

Under the 4 percent plan, which took effect for 2001 freshman, students qualify based on UC-required courses; schools send the names in to UC. This year 84 percent of public high schools complied, 134 didn’t, but UC granted an extension. 

Previous research indicated that two-thirds of the estimated 10,200 students in the 4 percent pool were already eligible for UC. Officials are still analyzing the real-life pool. The 4 percent plan guarantees eligibility, not admission, but it is UC’s policy to find a place somewhere on one of its eight undergraduate campuses for all eligible students. 

The bumper crop of applications was hailed by Regent Ward Connerly, who led the fight against taking race into consideration, as proof that “if UC will simply go out and make these students aware of the opportunities that are available, they will apply. The naysayers just never were willing to give it a chance and they’ve been proven wrong.” 

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, an ex-officio regent, noted that more applications may not translate into more admissions. 

Last year, the number of underrepresented minority students – blacks, Hispanics and American Indians – admitted as freshmen on University of California campuses surpassed, for the first time, the number from 1997, the last year of affirmative action admissions. But some minority students decided not to enroll. 

“We’ve been down this road before. This is an old song and an old dance,” Bustamante said in a statement. “Somewhere between applications and actual enrollment, something tragic happens – we aren’t competing with other top schools in the nation.” 

Bustamante and Regent William Bagley have talked about asking the board to repeal its affirmative action vote. That wouldn’t bring back the old system because of Proposition 209, the state anti-affirmative action ballot measure passed in 1996. Proponents argue it would reassure students who might not feel welcome at UC and extricate the university from a political debate. 

The political makeup of the board has changed since the 1995 vote and Bagley said he may bring repeal to the board in May. 

Connerly said the new application numbers undercut that effort. 

“We have a record number of ’underrepresented minorities’ seeking admission to the University of California and you would have to be living on another planet not to recognize that this is an indication of their interest in attending UC,” he said. 

Bagley said he’s glad outreach programs are working, but noted that even with the increase, black applications are low, constituting about 4 percent of applications. UC figures show blacks comprise 7 percent of California high school graduates. 

“This university has a reputation nationwide for having started this divisive movement and all we’re trying to do is repair the reputation of the university. Get us out of the vortex,” he said. 

——— 

On the Net: http://www.ucop.edu 

SAN FRANCISCO — California could do much more to improve health care for women and girls, according to a report issued Tuesday by a women’s group. 

The study released by the Women’s Foundation, a San Francisco fund for women in the western United States, gave the state a “D” grade on the health status of women and girls in the state. 

“Despite a plethora of policies that have been put in place, the health care coverage for women and girls is mostly inadequate in the state of California,” said Patricia Chang, president and CEO of the Women’s Foundation. 

“For the richest state in the country, we’re not living up to our potential.” 

The report commends the state’s policies for family and medical leave and coverage for low-income children, but says women may not know they are covered and what exactly they are covered for, or how to apply. That’s a concern because women often take the responsibility of caring for their families, Chang said. 

But Ken August, a spokesman for the California Department of Health Services, said the report leaves out too much information to be accurate. 

“The report points out some challenges and some areas where work is needed, but it ignores so much else,” he said. 

He pointed out that California is strong in some areas, such as reproductive health, where it has an extensive family planning and reproductive health services program. He also said that any evaluation of health status should consider mortality rates.  

The mortality rate among women in the state decreased by 11 percent from 1990 to 1998. 

Still, one out of five women are not insured in California, which has the highest rate of uninsured people in the nation. 

“It’s common enough to be scary, that there are so many people who are put in a position of not being able to get or stay healthy,” said Ann Conradsen, who along with her 9-year-old son was without health care coverage for about five years. 

She left a job that provided health insurance and moved to Sacramento, where she now works three part-time jobs. 

Without health insurance, “it makes it really hard to be a good parent,” said Conradsen, who has back problems that have left her in crutches and has been paying for medical bills out of her pocket. 

Environmental risks are one of the factors that the report lists as a threat to women’s health, with California named the seventh largest hazardous waste-generating state in the country. 

One of the state’s most prominent industries is also pinpointed as a risk factor:  

Women who become pregnant while working in semiconductor plants are 40 to 100 percent more likely to miscarry than other women, according to a 1999 study. 

Women who work in low-paying jobs traditionally held by females face many environmental hazards in the workplace, and those women are the least likely to have access to health care, according to the report. Nearly half of the women of childbearing age in the state are at risk for hunger. 

The foundation makes recommendations to the governor and legislature, Cal-OSHA, employers and environmental enforcement agencies.  

It calls for a a study of the feasibility of universal coverage, expansion of the Healthy Families program, increased health coverage for unemployed and working adults, and a reduction in environmental and safety hazards in the workplace. 

“We hope this report encourages women and girls to organize, speak out and push for change,” said Diane Littlefield, executive director of Women’s Health Leadership, one of the report’s sponsors.  

Others were the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation, California Black Women’s Health Project, Latino Issues Forum, and Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum.

SAN FRANCISCO — The attorneys whose dogs killed a 33-year-old woman at her front door have adopted the prison inmate who ran a scheme in which vicious canines, including those two dogs, were bred and trained to guard methamphetamine labs. 

Attorneys Robert Noel and his wife Marjorie Knoller were issued a decree of adoption in San Francisco Superior Court Monday and are now recognized as the parents of Paul John Schneider, nicknamed “Cornfed,” an inmate at Pelican Bay State Prison. 

“The adoption will be in the best interest of the parties and in the public interest,” the decree read in part. 

Schneider, 38, and another inmate Dale Bretches, 44, are both active members of the Aryan Brotherhood and ran a fighting-dog ring which included two Mastiff-Canary Island dog mixes that the attorneys sued to gain custody of, according to Russ Heimerich of the California Department of Corrections. 

On Friday, one of those two dogs, a 120-pound 3-year-old named Bane, latched on to Diane Whipple’s neck as she attempted to enter her Pacific Heights apartment and killed her. Animal control officers used tranquilizers on the dog to remove him from the hallway. He was taken to a kennel where he was later put down. 

Hera, Noel’s other dog who reportedly bit at Whipple’s clothes while Bane killed her, was in the custody of the city Tuesday. A hearing was set for Feb. 13 to determine whether she too would be put down or could be given back to her owners, who have requested her return. 

“They do want the dog Hera,” said Carl Friedman, director of San Francisco Animal Care and Control. He said the couple brought Hera a bed Monday evening. Four people have inquired about adopting Hera and Freidman said his department has received between 50 and 100 calls a day from the public weighing in on her fate. 

Hera’s demeanor while in custody was described as nervous and the workers have had limited contact with her. 

Whipple was a popular varsity lacrosse coach at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. She was a two-time first team All-American lacrosse player at Penn State and was named NCAA national player of the year in 1990. 

Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections, said inmates Schneider and Bretches were at the center of a business that bred and trained fighting dogs to guard criminal enterprises such as methamphetamine labs. 

“They were indeed running a dog fighting business out of Pelican Bay,” Heimerich said Tuesday. “The two dogs that were involved in that attack (in San Francisco) were involved in that fighting ring.” 

Noel and Knoller have both visited Schneider and Bretches at Pelican Bay, state records showed. 

“The two attorneys representing these guys ended up with these dogs,” Heimerich said. “Our information was that (Schneider and Bretches) were using third parties and attorneys” to run their dog business. 

“It was a breeding scheme,” Heimerich said. 

A California Department of Corrections investigation into the fighting-dog ring concluded that the inmates were behind the scheme, but found no wrongdoing on the part of Noel or Knoller. The investigation was concluded months ago. 

Noel sued to gain custody of Bane and Hera from Janet Coumbs of Hayfork who was raising the dogs for the inmates. He acquired custody of Bane and Hera three months ago. 

Coumbs told the San Francisco Chronicle that the dogs were hard to handle. 

“They ate all my sheep, all my chickens and my house cat,” Coumbs said. “No matter what I did, they killed. I couldn’t deal with it anymore.” 

The two inmates’ violent pasts are also well documented. 

Schneider is in prison for a robbery conviction in Los Angeles County and attempted murder while incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. He has been in Pelican Bay since 1986, Heimerich said. Schneider is currently serving life without the possibility of parole. 

Bretches, 44, is in Pelican Bay for second degree murder and was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon while incarcerated, according to state records. He is currently serving life without the possibility of parole

CUPERTINO — Based on a tip from a drug store photo lab clerk, police arrested a 19-year-old San Jose man they said planned to carry out a “Columbine-style attack” on a local community college with 30 pipe bombs, 20 Molotov cocktails and other weapons. 

Police arrested Al DeGuzman, a student at De Anza College, on Monday evening and found the arsenal of bombs and booby traps at the house where he lived with his parents. 

Police also found a tape recording on which they said DeGuzman expressed sympathy with the two boys who killed 13 people and themselves at Colorado’s Columbine High School in April 1999. 

They said they also found a diagram of the De Anza campus and other notes indicating that DeGuzman intended to begin planting bombs at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday and then spring his attack at 12:30 p.m. in the school’s main cafeteria. Police said they thought he had been planning the attack for two years. 

“This was an elaborate plan for a mass murder,” said San Jose Deputy Police Chief Mike Miceli. “He had a game plan and was very intent on doing what he was going to do.” 

Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies and other officials evacuated the campus at De Anza, a community college with 25,000 students about 10 miles east of San Jose, at 9 a.m. Tuesday. 

Police offered no motive for the alleged plan and said they believe DeGuzman has no prior criminal record. 

He faces charges on 30 counts of possession of an explosive device, 20 counts of possession of a firebomb, and two counts of possession of an illegal weapon, for having a sawed-off shotgun and rifle. He was being held at the Santa Clara County jail. 

DeGuzman will not likely be arraigned until Wednesday afternoon, said Tom Farris, assistant Santa Clara County district attorney. 

Miceli said San Jose police learned of DeGuzman’s arsenal at 6 p.m. Monday when a girl who worked at a local Longs Drug store called police after developing photos of DeGuzman posing with his arsenal. The girl’s father is a San Jose police officer. 

Miceli gave the following account of what happened next: 

As San Jose police responded to the call, DeGuzman came into the store to pick up his photos. The girl – whose name was not released – stalled him, asking for identification. 

DeGuzman turned to leave just as officers were approaching. He tried to run, but was caught inside the store. 

Police searched his parents’ one-story house around 11 p.m. In DeGuzman’s bedroom they found some 60 explosive devices, as well as the diagram and recording. Police said on the tape, DeGuzman also apologized to his parents, friends and the U.S. media. 

DeGuzman’s parents told police they respected his privacy and never entered the bedroom. 

Phone messages left at the DeGuzman house were not returned and a woman who came to the door said the family had no comment. 

Law enforcement officials from several agencies, including bomb squads and a SWAT team, closed and evacuated the college Tuesday morning. 

Some 10,000 students and 1,000 staff were forced off campus, according to De Anza President Martha Kanter, who said the school experienced a false bomb threat and evacuation last year. Kanter said neither she not her staff knew DeGuzman. 

“He didn’t stand out in a crowd, unfortunately,” Kanter said. 

Police ordered the evacuation because they wanted to ensure DeGuzman had not already placed any bombs and that he did not have an accomplice, said Cary Colla, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. 

Colla said San Jose Police did not notify the sheriff’s office of the possible threat at De Anza until 7 a.m. 

By midday, sheriff’s deputies began searching each structure on the 65-building campus. De Anza covers 112 acres — about the size of 85 football fields. 

“You would think you go to college and you would be safe, but safety is such an illusion nowadays,” said Mike Utterback, a 24-year-old De Anza sophomore. 

Meanwhile, DeGuzman’s neighbors said he was an unassuming kid from a clean-cut household. 

“He’s a choir boy, like a straight-up school boy,” said 18-year-old Bobby Playa, a neighbor who attends Independence High School, where DeGuzman was one of five yearbook editors in the 1998-99 school year. 

Other boys crowded outside the house with reporters agreed – they said they thought he was going to grow up to become an engineer. 

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s cash flow is nearly exhausted and its credit ruined, and the beleaguered utility should consider staff cuts, a state-ordered audit disclosed Tuesday. 

According to the audit the investor-owned utility failed to heed months of warnings that California’s deregulated electricity market was in severe trouble, and was caught by surprise when its credit was damaged. 

The long-awaited audit ordered by the Public Utilities Commission said the state’s largest utility lost some $5.2 billion during the past year by buying wholesale electricity at prices that it was unable to pass on to its millions of customers. 

The study also noted that PG&E Corp., the parent company of the utility, was due a $500-million to $1-billion federal tax refund, but that it had not decided whether to use that money to help erase the utility’s red ink. 

The audit sought by the PUC to resolve questions about the utility’s fiscal health. It was compiled by the Barrington-Wellesley Group, Inc. of New London, N.H. 

The San Francisco-based utility, and Southern California Edison Co., are seeking state assistance, following a failed attempt at deregulation of California’s electricity market.  

Both utilities have lost billions of dollars from spiraling costs of wholesale energy – costs that a rate freeze prevents them from passing on to their customers. 

The document notes that the utility, despite a months-long cash crunch, was caught by surprise by the magnitude of fiscal upheaval. 

“PG&E did not anticipate it would be constrained in its borrowings and did not develop a cash conservation program until December 2000,” the audit said. 

“Deferment or reduction of employee or management compensation represents one of the most immediate ways to achieve savings,” auditors added. 

A statement issued by the utility, which serves 14 million people, said PG&E would “study and evaluate this report thoroughly.” 

But the company said belt-tightening efforts would not have made a significant difference. 

“That is simply not the case,” the statement said, noting that “laying off every management employee, reducing the rank-and-file workforce by an additional 1,000 employees, breaking contracts and implementing a salary freeze on union employees – the total savings would amount to less than one month’s worth of power at current prices.” 

Also on Tuesday, consumer activists protested the prospect of higher utility bills as lawmakers debated a multibillion-dollar power-buying plan Tuesday aimed at fending off further blackouts.  

As legislators worked to hash out which customers might have to pay for the plan and how much, state regulators scrambled to avoid outages.  

They blamed dwindling imports from the Pacific Northwest for their worry, but later found enough power there to ease blackout concerns. 

The Independent System Operator, keeper of the state grid, said it would extend a Stage 3 power alert into Wednesday, with reserves in danger of dropping to 1.5 percent. 

Edison customer Eva Hartigan was keeping a close eye on the crisis. 

“It’s hard for a lot of us widows. You gotta have lights,” said Hartigan, 77, of Duarte, who has cut her electric and natural gas use by shutting off her furnace early and wearing more sweaters. 

The attorneys general in Oregon and Washington said they will investigate to see whether wholesalers have been illegally limiting supply and hiking prices in their states. California’s top prosecutor is conducting a similar probe. 

Lawmakers, meanwhile, considered proposals to resolve the state’s electricity crisis, blamed on a bungled 1996 utility deregulation law, high demand and tight supplies.  

California could spend $1.3 billion on day-to-day power purchases alone to try to keep the lights on while lawmakers work on a bill that would let the state sign lower-cost long-term contracts to buy electricity. 

The Davis administration spent $400 million hastily approved this month by lawmakers to buy power for Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, both denied credit by suppliers. The utilities say they are $12.7 billion in debt due to soaring wholesale power prices the deregulation law bars them from recouping from customers. 

On Monday, Gov. Gray Davis began using his emergency authority to buy power. The governor can spend up to $400 million from the Department of Water Resources budget. 

Legislation under discussion Tuesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee would extend another $500 million to continue short-term purchases while the state negotiated long-term contracts. 

While no lawmaker said that measure would raise rates for consumers, senators discussed how rates would be used to pay back long-term revenue bonds that would fund the state’s wholesale energy purchases. No dollar amount has been put on the bill, but the long-term contracts would last up to 10 years and cost billions. 

One sticking point is a provision that would charge consumers more if they exceed a 130 percent of a minimum baseline designed to encourage conservation. 

There are 20 regions of the state and the baselines are set according to their energy use. About 22 percent of a typical residential bill exceeds that baseline. 

Davis supports the 130 percent baseline, which only applies to residential consumers, said Tim Gage, director of the state Department of Finance. 

Gage, who predicted last week that modest increases would be needed, said Tuesday that the state would do everything it could to avoid price hikes for consumers. 

Observers ranging from Keith McCrea of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association to Lenny Goldberg of The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group, said they generally support the bill but would prefer to see small business protected. 

Some consumer advocates vehemently oppose the measure. Activists protested outside the Los Angeles-area office of Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, on Tuesday and planned statewide demonstrations Wednesday. 

“There will be massive rate increases for consumers and a taxpayer bailout for utilities,” said Medea Benjamin, a former Green Party U.S. Senate candidate who was among more than a dozen protesters. 

Financial analysts had a far more enthusiastic reaction to the relief plan. The Legislature’s discussions curtailed talk of utility bankruptcy and renewed confidence on Wall Street. 

On Monday, a state-ordered audit was released showing SoCal Edison gave parent Edison International $4.8 billion in dividends in the five years leading up to the electricity crisis. The amount would have covered the bill run up by the utility since May as it paid for costly wholesale electricity during a deregulation-induced freeze on its retail rates. 

SoCal Edison Vice President Thomas Higgins said money that went to Edison International paid back power plant investments by shareholders. 

“It seems to me that there is no escaping that the debt we incurred is legitimate, prudent and reasonable debt,” Higgins said. 

Lawmakers, while awaiting release of a PG&E audit, reacted with frustration to the Edison report. 

Sen. Kevin Murray said the audit shows the utilities must offer concessions, possibly in a second rescue bill that would have the state issue revenue bonds to help the utilities pay off their debts, then pay the bonds back by giving the state a stake in the companies and extending a recently approved rate increase. 

“One of the things we’re not going to do is help them pay off their debt without them paying something,” said Murray, D-Culver City. 

As a further sign of deregulation’s demise, the California Power Exchange announced it will stop trading short-term power contracts as of noon Wednesday, essentially closing the exchange. 

Because of their credit troubles, Edison and PG&E were kicked off the exchange earlier this month, cutting its market 70 percent.

WASHINGTON — Papers that had been stashed in Siberia since America’s Red Scare detail Communist Party efforts to recruit blacks in Harlem, steal State Department secrets and organize sharecroppers. 

Threaded through the nearly half a million pages retrieved by the U.S. government is information on Soviet financing of the Communist Party in America and an ambassador’s letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, sent to Moscow by a mole at State. 

Experts on the history of the Communist Party’s often-hidden activities in the United States say the records, copied in Russia by the Library of Congress, provide an unprecedented view of the radicals at work in the 1920s through 1940s. 

“This is the most complete archive of American Communist Party materials scholars have ever had available,” said Harvey Klehr, history professor at Emory University. 

The collection includes letters by and about John Reed, the radical American journalist and early Soviet hero. 

Best known for his book “Ten Days that Shook the World,” an eyewitness account of the Russian revolution that was the subject of the movie ‘Reds,”’ Reed helped organize the Communist Party in the United States and is the only American known to be buried at the Kremlin. 

In a 1920 letter to a friend, Reed’s wife, Louise Bryant, spoke of her typhoid-stricken husband’s death in Moscow and how she watched Soviets pass his grave. 

“I have been there in the busy afternoon when all Russia hurries by,” she wrote. “Once some of the soldiers came over to the grave. They took off their hats and spoke very reverently: ‘What a good fellow he was!” said one. ‘He came all the way across the world for us. He was one of ours.”’ 

Most of the newly opened records were sent to the former Soviet Union by communist organizers in the United States. 

They were shipped there for safekeeping and to keep Moscow abreast of U.S. activities, said Klehr, author of several books on communists in America. 

He said scholarly works on the U.S. party over the past 50 years have been handicapped by piecemeal records, but the new collection fills in many blanks. 

John Earl Haynes, a historian at the Library of Congress, first peeked at the records in 1993, following negotiations with Russian archivists. 

“I really did have to blow off the dust,” Haynes said. 

“These are records created in America by Americans, mostly about Americans. Now some people may think they were not particularly good Americans, but they’re American records.” 

The records contain further evidence that communists had infiltrated the State Department in the 1930s. 

Included are letters from two U.S. ambassadors in Europe to Roosevelt and a senior State Department official. Thanks to a mole in the department, the confidential correspondence, concerning political and economic matters in Europe, ended up in the hands of Soviets. 

Other materials highlight communist attempts to organize sharecroppers in the South in 1934 and blacks, other minorities and even children in Harlem. 

Communist staff workers at a “farm school” organizing sharecroppers in St. Louis wrote to their superiors: “The students were given names and addresses in St. Louis to cover their identities.” 

From the party’s perspective, blacks were the most oppressed section of the American population and therefore were prospective recruits. 

The party’s Harlem organizer in 1934 reported on efforts to “develop a proletarian backbone in the broad movement for Negro liberation.” 

He said 20 children in Harlem were being brought into the cause and party officials were looking into getting them uniforms. Working with children “has possibilities of development into a mass movement,” he wrote. 

Mark Rosenzweig, chief librarian of the New York-based Reference Center for Marxist Studies, which is affiliated with today’s Communist Party in America, says the party’s work with blacks is a source of pride. 

“Whatever documentation we can recover about this enriches the story of the party, which is often reduced to a kind of Cold War caricature,” he said. 

But he said he’s disturbed that the party was not appraised of the project to open “our records.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov 

LONDON — Doctors at a prominent hospital removed hearts, brains, eyes and heads from thousands of dead children without the consent of their parents, a government report published Tuesday has found. 

Health Secretary Alan Milburn told lawmakers that Dutch pathologist Dick Van Velzen, who was responsible for post mortem examinations at the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital, Alder Hey, between 1988 and 1995, had “systematically ordered the unethical and illegal stripping of every organ from every child who had a post mortem.” 

Milburn said the report found Van Velzen lied to parents, other doctors and hospital managers; that he stole medical records, falsified reports, and encouraged others to do the same.  

The report, which was referred to police for possible criminal prosecution, recommended he have his medical license revoked. 

“The pain caused to the parents by this dreadful sequence of events is unforgivable,” Milburn said. 

Besides more than 2,000 children’s hearts, a large number of brain parts, eyes taken from fetuses, over 1,500 stillbirths or fetuses and a number of children’s heads and bodies were obtained without consent, Milburn told lawmakers. 

In a related report published Tuesday, England’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Liam Donaldson said more than 100,000 hearts, brains, lungs and other organs were held by hospitals and medical schools across the country, many without the knowledge of next-of-kin. In some cases, organs were removed illegally, his report said. 

Grieving relatives were not told that by signing a consent form for a post mortem examination they were allowing pathologists to strip their loved ones of many of their organs, the related report concluded. 

Donaldson recommended major changes in the law. 

“The unsatisfactory nature of the agreement forms, the lack of information and the lack of counseling support or advice when a signature was being sought at a distressing time suggests that in many cases, agreement to retention fell well short of being fully informed consent,” he said. 

Revelations that Alder Hey was keeping infants’ organs emerged in 1999 during an inquiry into the high number of pediatric cardiac deaths at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. 

Van Velzen left Liverpool in 1995 to go to Canada, where he ran the pathology department at a Halifax children’s hospital for two years until he was fired in 1998. 

In September, Canadian police issued a warrant for his arrest after warehouse workers discovered eight organs thought to belong to two 5-year-old children.  

He was charged with indecent interference with a dead body, which carries a five-year prison sentence. 

Van Velzen is currently on leave from the Westeinde Hospital in The Hague.  

The hospital said Van Velzen would not be available to comment, and that hospital officials would review the report.

SAN FRANCISCO — Charles Schwab Corp. is ordering thousands of its employees to take off three Fridays during the next five weeks as part of the stock brokerage’s continuing efforts to weather a downturn in its once-booming business. 

All employees that don’t interact with Schwab’s customers in the branches or telephone service centers have been told not to report for work this Friday, Feb. 16 and March 2, said spokesman Glen Mathison. To get paid, the employees will have to use their vacation time. 

Schwab is still determining how many employees will be affected by the mandate. More than 10,000 of Schwab’s 26,300 full-time employees probably will be kept away from the office. 

Although its operations will be scaled back during the three Fridays, all of Schwab’s branches will remain open. 

The Friday furloughs will help Schwab pad its profits during what analysts expect to be a poor quarter for the San Francisco-based company. Even if all the affected employees use vacation time to assure they get paid, the move will still reduce Schwab’s accrued liabilities and improve its balance sheet, Mathison said. 

To combat the sluggish market conditions, Schwab has already slashed management salaries by up to 50 percent through March and reduced the company’s first-quarter bonus pool by 5 percent. 

The belt-tightening has required Schwab to balance satisfying shareholders and making sure it has the proper staffing to keep its customers happy. 

Schwab, the nation’s most popular online stock brokerage, has been hard hit by the recent Wall Street volatility that has scared off many investors. The falloff took a toll on the company’s fourth-quarter profit, which represented Schwab’s first decline in quarterly net income in three years. 

Analysts expect Schwab’s first-quarter earnings to fall 32 percent below last year’s profit. 

“They are going to be in for a rough first half of the year,” predicted industry analyst Andrew Collins of ING Barings in New York. “Their stock still looks overvalued.” 

Schwab’s stock fell by $1.29 Tuesday to close at $27.29. 

A steady escalation in stock prices, particularly in the technology industry, had ignited a period of rapid growth at Schwab. In 2000, the company increased its payroll by more than 30 percent, or 6,300 employees, and opened a sprawling new suburban campus about 40 miles east of its San Francisco headquarters to accommodate its growth. 

The company is hoping to avoid layoffs if business continues to slump, Mathison said. 

On The Net: 

http://www.aboutschwab.com

NEW YORK — Growing fears of a recession sent consumer confidence plunging in January to its lowest level in four years. 

The survey by the Conference Board was released Tuesday as the Federal Reserve opened a two-day meeting to decide whether to cut interest rates for the second time this month to revitalize the staggering U.S. economy. An announcement is expected Wednesday. 

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said last week that he did not believe “the fabric of consumer confidence” had been shaken enough to bring on a recession. 

The Conference Board reported that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped more than 14 points to 114.4 in January, the lowest level since December 1996, when it was 114.2. 

The decline heightens fears about the fragility of the economy, with consumers decidedly more pessimistic about business and employment conditions, said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center. 

“Since apprehension leads to caution and cautious consumers spend less than the confident ones, confidence levels in February will be carefully watched,” Franco said. “Further erosions in consumer confidence will create more serious concerns about the overall health of the economy.” 

But economists noted that consumers still view the current situation in relatively favorable terms, with their doubts focused on the future. The question is whether consumers will act on those fears. 

“Historically, when we see confidence decline, we have to watch and see if it shows up also affecting spending,” said Gary Thayer, chief economist with A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. The Conference Board index, based on a monthly survey of some 5,000 U.S. households, is considered a key indicator because consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the nation’s economic activity. The index compares results with its base year, 1985, when it stood at 100. 

Consumer confidence has fallen four months in a row since the index hit 142.5 in September. 

The Conference Board said consumers’ expectations for the next six months have worsened. Of those surveyed, 15.7 percent expect business conditions to worsen, compared with 10.1 percent last month. 

Only 12.4 percent of consumers expect conditions to improve, down from 16.9 percent last month. The board also said 21.8 percent of consumers expect fewer jobs to become available, up from 15.7 percent in December. 

The markets were mixed following the release of the report, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 9 points at 10,711 and the Nasdaq composite index off 10 points at 2,827. 

On the Net: http://www.conferenceboard.org 

NEW YORK — Investors flocked to the safety of blue chips and shied away from the tech sector Tuesday while awaiting the Federal Reserve’s anticipated interest rate cut. 

Analysts said investors put off major high-tech purchases, wanting to be sure the Fed does in fact lower rates at its two-day meeting ending Wednesday. Traders fell back into a recent pattern – bidding up safer blue chips and buying little else – that they’ve followed while pondering the future health of earnings and the economy. 

While Wall Street expected a 0.5 percentage point reduction in interest rates, which would be the second such rate cut this month, the market also wondered how long it would take for the slumping economy and disappointing corporate earnings, particularly in the tech sector, to benefit. 

Investors were also worried by news that consumer confidence slipped in January to its lowest level since December 1996. Consumers’ fears about recession caused the sharp decline in confidence, according to the report by the Conference Board. 

“The consumer confidence numbers were pretty shocking. The deterioration was greater than people had expected,” said Ronald J. Hill, investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., adding that the decline in confidence reawakened investors fears about a recession. 

“What it does say is that there is a reason the economy is slowing and it has a lot to do with consumers’ poor outlooks for the future,” Hill said. 

Other issues, particularly in the high-tech sector, were mixed. Analysts said this had partly to with investors’ concerns about the weakened economy. 

“If we go into recession, people don’t want to be long on stocks. But if we avoid recession, this could be a great time to buy stocks,” said Hill, the strategist for Brown Brothers Harriman.  

“That’s the fear and greed people are working on right now.” 

— The Associated Press 

Techs, which have been the most beaten down by slumping growth, again suffered from bad earnings news. 

Amazon.com, which stumbled $1.19 to $18.94, fell 44 cents further in extended-hours trading. After the market closed, the Internet retailer, which beat fourth-quarter earnings estimates, warned that difficult business conditions would crimp profits. It also said it was cutting 1,300 jobs. 

Likewise, Nokia fell $1.71 to $35.28 after the cell phone maker warned earlier that first-quarter profits will be less than expected. 

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 8 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange where consolidated volume was 1.38 billion shares, compared with 1.27 billion Monday. 

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks the performance of smaller company stocks, rose 3.75 to 511.66. 

Overseas markets were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei stock fell slightly, off 0.1 percent, and Germany’s DAX index finished down 0.2 percent. Britain’s FT-SE 100 gained 0.3 percent, and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.5 percent. 

——— 

On the Net: 

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com 

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com 

A proposal to inspect vacant rental units for safety hazards and code compliance, has left at least one property owner grumbling. 

The Housing Advisory Commission will hold a public hearing Thursday to get public input on the program, which requires the inspection of vacant rental housing units in order to assess whether they are in compliance with the housing code.  

The legislation was spawned in part by the Aug. 20, house fire in which a UC Berkeley student and her parents were killed. The program would especially help students whose apartments regularly turn over. The frequent inspections might prevent fires due to code violations. 

“This is a major first step in not being reactive to tenants calling with complaints, but having preventative inspections,” said Interim Housing Director Stephen Barton.  

“This is not a perfect system. We don’t have regular inspections for units, but it’s a step in that direction. We can take this on and then evaluate how this is serving tenants in general, and assess whether we need to go further,” Barton added.  

Peggy Schioler of the Berkeley Property Owner’s Association took strong exception to the proposal. 

“It’s like being found guilty until proven innocent, and you have to pay to be proven innocent,” she said. “I’m guilty until I pay for an inspection and that’s an insult,” she added.  

Schioler’s point of contention lies in the $75 per unit fee landlords will be required to pay for the inspection. There is already a $200 fee for complaint-driven inspections.  

“They come and inspect until they find something wrong, then they fix it, and they come back and inspect it again. The poorest landlords are getting hit with these fees. They already provide the lowest cost housing,” Schioler said. 

Schioler contends she and other landlords are already feeling the financial brunt of being a Berkeley property owner by being subject to rent board, garage, fire, and elevator inspection fees, as well as business license and property taxes. 

Housing Department Senior Planner Teri Piccolo who helped co-author the proposal says the new inspection process will ultimately save landlords money since proof of certification would counter tenant claims in case of litigation, and possibly reduce insurance costs.  

“They’ll like it because on one level we’ll give them a safety certification and they’ll be able to show renters their unit is in compliance,” Piccolo said.  

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington says the new program, in an already tight housing market, would allow the city to see just how many units are vacant and ensure that they meet the city’s safety requirements. “I think it’s very important that we make sure every unit is safe,” Worthington said. “It’s not like there are 10,000 vacant units out there. It’s a pretty targeted segment of the housing stock. It will require a lot of coordination to identify units and get them inspected,” Worthington said. 

If implemented the city would hire one new inspector and a part time clerical assistant. The additional positions and the program at large, would be funded by a $485,000 Community Development Block Grant applied for by the housing department. The program will also be funded by the city’s general funds, with the ultimate goal of being funded solely by inspection fees.  

Worthington expects the nine-member HAC will approve the plan, which would then bring the proposal before the City Council tentatively scheduled for March 13.  

Piccolo remains optimistic that the plan will be passed by both HAC and the council. “So far I haven’t heard from people who are opposed to it, but we’re starting the process now, and we’ll hear what people have to say at the public hearing,” she said. 

The meeting will be held this Thursday at 7:40 p.m. in the South Berkeley Senior Center, located at 2939 Ellis Street.

Tuesday, Jan. 30

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.531-8664 

Digital Photography  

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

With Allen Stross 644-6107 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Ribbon Cutting: Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

5 p.m. 

Thousand Oaks Multipurpose Room  

840 Colusa  

The ribbon-cutting will take place at 5 p.m. and tours will follow the ceremony.  

Wednesday, Jan. 31

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring “Berkeley Images,” a world premiere by Jean-Pascal Beintus.  

$10 - $35  

Call 841-2800 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling Classes for  

Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley High Poetry Slam  

6:30 p.m.  

Berkeley High School  

2246 Milvia St., Room G-210 

A preliminary round for the regional poetry slams sponsored by youth speaks.  

Human Welfare & Community Action Commission 

7 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St.  

Thursday, Feb. 1

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet John Rowe and host Randy Fingland.  

644-0155 

Hiking the California Desert  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Steve Tabor of the conservation group Desert Survivors presents a slide-show of highlights from his reconnaissance trips along more than 400 miles of trail. Free  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Dark Caves & Sunlight 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Explore the origins of how people speak to each other. 

$10  

Friday, Feb. 2

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Allee der Kosmontauten 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Performance of Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz 1996 work in its West Coast premiere. Also features the film work of Elliot Caplan.  

$20 - $42  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

“A Night In Oakland” 

8 p.m. 

Alice Arts Center 

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) 

$10 - $15 

Call 496-6068 or visit www.savagejazz.org 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Taize Worship Service  

7:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Loper Chapel  

(adjacent to) First Congregational Church of Berkeley  

2345 Channing Way  

Call 848-3696 

Saturday, Feb. 3

“Waiting for Godot” 

8 p.m. 

La Val’s Subterranean  

1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 

Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Yoni Barkan, director of last summer’s “A Midsummers Night Dream.”  

$8 - $12  

Call 234-6046 

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Artists Talk 

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to hear artists speak about their work and show slides. Free 

Call 763-9425 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St.  

Call 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts Classes for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 

644-8515 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Fruit Tree Pruning 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Ecology Center Library  

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

An introductory class for the home fruit grower. Class taught by Greg Peck, owner of an organic landscape and garden design business in the East Bay.  

$7.50 - $10  

Call 548-2220 

Women’s Evening at the Movies 

7:30 p.m. 

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

“Late Bloomer,” the story of a high school basketball coach who realizes she’s fallen for the school secretary. Women’s Evening at the Movies is the first Saturday of every month.  

Visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Empyrean Ensemble 

4 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

Featuring a commissioned piece, “Prosperous Soul, Gregarious Heart,” newly composed by Peter Josheff in honor of his late father.  

Call 845-8542 

Sunday, Feb. 4

“Under Construction No. 10” 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2727 College Ave.  

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers.  

Call 841-2800 

Russian National Orchestra  

4 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

On their tenth anniversary tour, the RNO will perform Shostakovich’s symphony No. 5 and Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto No. 2.  

$30 - $52  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

From Flatlands to the Stars  

9:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Diamond Park  

Fruitvale Ave. (at Lyman Rd.) 

A hardy hike along Sausal Creek in Oakland’s unexplored Diamond and Joaquin Miller parks. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Timbrels & Torahs: Celebrating Wisdom,  

Celebrating Age  

10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Miriam Chaya and Judy Montell discuss their Simchat Hochmah ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s transition from mid-life to her eldering years.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

“A Night In Oakland” 

2 & 8 p.m. 

Alice Arts Center 

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) 

Oakland  

Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.  

$10 - $15 

Call 496-6068 or visit www.savagejazz.org 

Spiritual & Cultural Context of Mbira  

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Berkeley native Erica Azim has played Shona mbira music for 30 years, and is the foremost mbira performer and recording artist in the U.S. The mbira has metal keys which are plucked with two thumbs and one forefinger, “creating relaxing yet invigorating polyphony and polyrhythms.” Free 

Call 848-8443 

Solving the East Bay Energy Crisis 

3 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 

Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters and a Utility Reform Network representative, Kris Worthington, Berkeley city council member, Ross Mirkarimi of the Green Party, and others will discuss the past and future of the energy situation in the East Bay, including possibilities of conservation, clean, renewable energy and municipally-owned public utilities.  

Call 233-3175 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Meditations for Relieving Pain 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Pl.  

Sylvia Gretchen presents specific meditations and visualization practices that can help to relieve physical and mental pain. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Open House 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

A free introduction to Tibetan Buddhist culture including a prayer wheel and meditation garden tour and yoga demonstration. Refreshments will be served. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Monday, Feb. 5

Youth Commission  

6 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Center 

1730 Oregon St.  

Rent Stabalization Board 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Personnel Board Meeting  

7 p.m. 

Permit Center 

2118 Milvia St.  

First Floor Conference Room  

Landmarks Preservation Commission  

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Peace & Justice Commission  

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Attack not by pitbulls, but Bull Mastiffs 

I was very upset to see that your paper had allowed an AP story to be printed with the totally incorrect caption, "Pitbulls attack SF woman." (Weekend, Jan. 27-29, pg. 5).  

I doubt that this was AP's headline title, since they probably got the story from the SF Chronicle, whose article on page one today correctly identifies the breed as Bull Mastiffs, which are NOT Pitbulls, but a breed derived by crossing English Mastiffs with Bulldogs. 

For once, Pitbulls, a much maligned breed, cannot be made the guilty breed!  

Think of that! But you have just contributed to the bad press they always receive. 

Gwen Willows 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership 

Feb. 2: Nerve Agents, Jemuel, The Blottos; Feb 3.: Time In Malta, The Cost 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted Feb. 1: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 3: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Quartet; Feb. 6: Pickpocket Ensemble; Feb. 7: Whiskey Brothers; Feb. 8: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 13: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Duo; Feb. 14: Carlos Oliveira Brazilian Jazz Duo 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz Jan. 27, 9:30 p.m.: Amandla Poets & Zulu Spear; Jan. 28, 8 p.m.: Ellis Island Old World Folk Band; Jan. 30, 7 p.m.: Bandworks; Jan. 31, 9 p.m.: Cajun Coyotes, dance lesson at 8 p.m. 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Feb. 2: Henry Clement; Feb. 3: Daniel Castro; Feb. 9: Red Archibald; Feb. 10: Kenny Blue Ray; Feb. 16: Little Johnny & the Giants; Feb. 17: Ron Thompson; Feb. 23: Carlos Zialcita; Feb. 24: R.J. Mischo 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All shows begin at 8 p.m. Jan. 31: Slack Key Guitar Festival w/George Kahumoku, Jr., Princess Owana Salazar, Daniel Ho; Feb. 1: International Guitar Night with Andrew York, Laurence Juber, Peppino D’Agostino, and Brian Gore; Feb. 2: Cats & Jammers; Feb. 3: Lou & Peter Berryman; Feb. 4: Dave Van Ronk; Feb. 5: Tony Trischka & Junk Genius; Feb. 6: Chuck Brodsky; Feb. 7: Keola Beamer with Moana Beamer; Feb. 8 & 9: Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys; Feb. 10: Baguette Quartette with Odile Lavault; Feb.11: Bob Franke 1111 Addison St. 548-1761  

Jazzschool/La Note All shows at 4:30 p.m.Tickets are $10 - $12  

Feb. 4: Jeff Chambers and the J2W Project 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Cal Performances Feb. 2 & 3, 8 p.m.: Allee der Kosmonauten by Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz with video installations by New York artist Elliot Caplan, $20 - $42; Feb. 4, 4 p.m.: Russian National Orchestra, $30 - $52; Feb. 10, 8 p.m.: Masters of Persian Classical Music, $20 - $40; Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m.: Balinese Orchestra Gamelan Sekar Jaya present “Kawit Legong: Prince Karna’s Dream,” $18 - $30. Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu Feb. 11, 3 p.m.: Horacio Gutierrez $24 - $42 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Jan. 31, April 3, and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Eighth Annual Robert Burns Birthday Celebration Feb. 2, 8 p.m. and Feb. 4, 7 p.m. A celebration of Scotland’s beloved 18th century poet: his songs, his letters, his life. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church 1501 Washington Ave (at Curtis) Albany 848-3422 

Empyrean Ensemble Feb. 3, 3 p.m. The ensemble will present “The Soldier’s Tale,” by Igor Stravinsky, “Prosperous Sould, Gregarious Heart,” by Peter Josheff, and “Horizon Unfolds,” by Yu-Hui Chang. $4 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. (at Derby) 925-798-1300 

Flauti Diversi Ensemble Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m. Performing the music of 17th and early 18th century composers on baroque instruments in a program titled “Bell Fiore, Belle Fleur.” $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley 1 Lawson Rd. 525-0302 

“Mostly Baroque” Feb. 4, 5 p.m. Instrumental works by Corelli, Schickhardt, Quantz, Mozart, a new work by Glen Shannon and Bach’s Cantana 82. Donations accepted Church of Saint Mary Magdalen 2005 Berryman (at Milvia)  

Toshi Makihara & Colin Stetson Feb. 4, 7:48 p.m. Philadelphia percussionist Makihara teams up with local solo saxophonist Voigt and local contrabassist Morgan Guberman for an evening of improvised music. $8 donation Tuva Space 3192 Adeline (at MLK Jr. Way) 649-8744 

“Songs for the Young at Heart” Feb. 10, 4 p.m. Featuring La Bonne Cuisine by Bernstein and The Shepherd on the Rock by Schubert. Donations accepted St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave.  

Community Women’s Orchestra Feb. 11, 4 p.m. Pieces to be played include those written by Berkeley High students Ariel Wolter and Maianna Voge. Donations accepted Malcolm X School 1731 Prince St. 653-1616 

Percussions Du Guinee Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m. Feb. 18, 7 p.m. Internationally respected Guinean percussionists craft a performance simultaneously inspired by traditional music, yet modern in presentation. $20 - $25 925-798-1300 

“Fall” by Bridget Carpenter Through Feb. 11. $15.99 - $51. Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, www. berkeleyrep.org 

“In Search of my Clitoris” Written and performed by Sia Amma Feb. 1 & 2, 8 p.m. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. Feb. 8 & 9, 8 p.m. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. $12 - $14 415-775-6608 

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett Through Feb. 3, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. $8 - $12. Subterranean Shakespeare La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 234-6046  

“The Road to Mecca” by Athol Fugard Through Feb. 24, Friday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Feb. 22, 8 p.m. $10 Live Oak Theatre 1301 Shattuck 528-5620 

“Nightingale” presented by Central Works Theater Feb. 9 - March 4, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 24 & Saturday, March 3, 5 p.m.; Free preview Feb. 8, 8 p.m. $8 - $14 LaVal’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Feb. 15 - March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“Magnetic North” Six programs of experimental Canadian video from the past 30 years that range from documentary to conceptual art. In all, 40 tapes from 46 artists will be shown on six Wednesday evenings. Through Feb. 28. $7. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

“Durruti and the Spanish Revolution” The LaborFest U.S. premiere screening and dicussion of this documentary which tells the story of the Confederation National del Trabajo during the Spanish Civil War. Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m. $7 donation requested. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 415-642-8066 

“Toto Recall” A 15-film retrospective honoring Italy’s comic genius. Feb. 3 - Feb. 24 Weekend days only, Friday - Sunday. $7 for one film, $8.50 for double bills. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 27: Susan Swartz reads from “Juicy Tomatoes: Plain Truths, Dumb Lies, & Sisterly Advice About Life After 50”; Feb. 10: Karin Kallmaker reads from “Sleight of Hand”; Feb. 23: Becky Thompson reads “Mothering Without a Compass: White Mother’s Love, Black Son’s Courage” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 28: Poetry of Lynne Knight & Kathleen Lynch; Jan. 29: Tim Wohlforth discusses “On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left”; Jan. 30: James Elkins discusses “how to use Your Eyes”; Jan. 31: Poetry of Steven Ajay & Anita Barrows  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. Feb. 1: John Rowe; Feb. 8: Tom Odegard; Feb 15: Kathleen Lynch; Feb. 22: Charles Ellick; March 1: Eliza Shefler; March 8: Judy Wells; March 15: Elanor Watson-Gove; March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; April 19: Garrett Murphy; April 26: Ray Skjelbred. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. Feb. 1: Sherman Alexie; March 1: Aleida Rodrigues; April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800  

The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623  

Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting.  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested Jan. 28: “The Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings,” a panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history; March 11: Director of Berkeley’s International House, Joe Lurie, will show a video and dicuss the history and struggle to open the I-House 70 years ago. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Feb. 13 - April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925

Yvon Bryant of Oakland takes advantage of spectacular winter weather Monday and tests her luck fishing at the Berkeley Marina pier. She says she generally catches crabs and perch. Darryl Perry, fishing nearby, says he sometimes catches bass. Neither Perry nor Bryant eat more than one fish a month caught at the Marina, aware that eating more may be dangerous to their health. The state health department has warned against contaminants in the water.

The city is trying to find funds to assist a popular proposal from a group of parents who are determined to help failing high school freshman get back on track. 

The parents and grandparents got together in November to discuss problems with their high-school-aged children. The group, Parents of Children of African Descent, soon found that nearly 250 freshman were on their way to failing either algebra or English or both.  

Shocked at the large number of children in danger of failing, the parents took immediate action to develop the Berkeley High School Achievement Program that would intervene to get failing students back on track. The backbone of the program is a partnership between parents, teachers, administrators and the city. 

Last week PCAD received a commitment from the School Board for $100,000. Berkeley High School has promised six classrooms and three teachers. Immediately after the school board approval Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to direct the City Manager‘s Office to determine what funds the city could pitch in. Tonight the council is expected to approve any funding the city manager was able to find. 

The primary cost of the program is to hire teachers specifically to work with the failing students. The program’s student-teacher ratio is planned to be as low as 10 to one. According to Irma Parker, a member of PCAD and grandmother of a Berkeley High School student, the program has already received dozens of applications and the school has been interviewing potential teachers for the spring semester, which starts today.  

“What we’re proposing is that the city match the $100,000 that the School Board is putting in,” Councilmember Kriss Worthington said. “It’s central to a good city to have well-educated kids and getting them to be successful in school is really fundamental.” 

City Manager Weldon Rucker warned the council last Tuesday that it might be difficult to come up with that kind of money on short notice. “We’ll provide every effort, but it may be unrealistic to expect a quick turnaround,” Rocker said. “We will certainly try to identify where we have resources to assist with this partnership.” 

As of Monday Arietta Chakos, chief of staff to the city manager, said it was still uncertain how much funding would be available. “We have a number of programs that are targeted for at-risk kids and we have to look at what will be the best way to coordinate the investment,” she said. 

The program is now geared to enroll 48 students with the possibility of increasing to 96 students depending on what the city can offer in funding and the number of qualified teachers that can be hired, according to Parker. 

“We’ve already had 75 kids sign up for the program,” Parker said. “But we still have to check their eligibility.” 

The proposal was warmly received by the City Council last Tuesday. Councilmembers who usually don’t agree with each other joined to enthusiastically approve the program. 

Councilmember Polly Armstrong said there was something special about the proposal. “I think the difference we’re seeing is the parental involvement,” she said. “What we all want to do is jump on this pony while it’s moving and try and capture its energy.” 

The City Council will consider extending a 45-day moratorium on new telecommunications antennae to give city staff time to revise zoning regulations to deal with the increasing numbers of applications for them. 

The city manager has suggested two options to the council. The first is to extend the moratorium for six months while zoning regulations are modified. The other is to prohibit the approval of any new permits in all parts of the city except the central commercial district. 

Without City Council action at tonight’s special meeting, the moratorium will expire Feb. 3. To keep the moratorium in effect, the City Council must approve the extension by at least a 7-9 vote. 

The moratorium was initially approved by the City Council on Dec. 19, after hearing from neighbors of the Oaks Theater on Solano Avenue who complained about the Zoning Adjustments Board’s approval of an Nextel application to place 12 wireless telecommunication antennae on the theater’s roof. The antennae are primarily used to  

support cellular phone use. 

Neighbors said they were worried about health risks posed by the radio frequency waves emitted by the antennae and the aesthetic impact the increasing number if antennae will have on residential and mixed use neighborhoods. 

According to a report by the City Manager’s Office, the City of Berkeley has received 35 applications for telecommunications antennae, compared to only five during the previous seven years. The city has issued permits for antenna installation at 20 different locations throughout the city. 

The report said the planning department expects the number of applications to continue to increase and especially in residential neighborhoods where there is a need for telecommunications companies to expand coverage. The majority of early applications were for the industrial areas in west Berkeley. 

The City Council meeting will be held in the City Council Chambers at 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, Tuesday at 7 p.m.  

SACRAMENTO — California’s state government is scoring higher marks on a national report card, particularly in fiscal policy, but still ranks behind most other states, a new study shows. 

California’s overall grade jumped to C+ this year from C- two years ago. The state still ranked near the bottom overall, with only 11 states having lower ratings, according to the report card. 

The report, “Grading the States: A Management Report Card,” was scheduled for release Tuesday in Washington, D.C. The Maxwell School of Syracuse University and Governing magazine produce the report card. 

The study, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, grades state governments on how well they are managing systems that deliver public service. 

The 50 states were given grades on how well they managed five areas: finances, capital, human resources, results and information technology. 

California’s grade for financial management leaped from a C- in 1999 to a B- in the current report. 

“Many of California’s most egregious finance problems of the late 1990s have been cleaned up. Perhaps most important, the state showed a positive balance of $622 million at the start of the 2000 fiscal year,” the magazine wrote. 

“We were impressed that the state had begun to set aside money in a rainy-day fund, which it had not done before, that it had brought itself out of debt, that it has passed its budget on time,” said Katherine Barrett, special projects editor for Governing magazine. 

However, Gov. Gray Davis is dipping into that reserve to buy energy to keep California lights on. The Legislature approved $400 million for emergency power purchases that has already run out and Barrett said the state’s power problems could present problems. 

Lawmakers are considering a long-term plan to put California in the energy-buying business for years, possibly financed by state-issued revenue bonds rather than the state’s general fund. 

Earlier this month, Standard & Poors put California’s general obligation bonds on “credit watch with negative implications” because of the possibility the state could end up buying power long-term and deplete its currently ample reserve. 

Davis spokeswoman Hilary McLean said the improved grades “are recognition that California is moving in the right direction.” 

She said while the $400 million spent to buy power is coming out of this year’s reserve, Davis hopes “the state will get that money back” from utilities or ratepayers once the Legislature and governor approve some long-term solution to the energy crisis. 

California’s other grades were C+ (up from C-) for capital management, C (up from C-) for human resources, C- for managing for results (the same) and B- (up from C+) for information technology. 

Three states, Michigan, Utah and Washington, had the top grades of A-. Twenty-six states had B grades and 21, including California, were in the Cs. The lowest grade was C- for Alabama. 

The California energy mess has created two vastly different reactions, a popular impression that deregulation has failed and a determined opposition that views it as the only solution. 

The latter, in fact, blames the long-term myopia of regulators in general for having produced energy shortages, and the misguided efforts of California officials for having exacerbated it into a crisis. 

Never, they say, was the free market given a proper chance to match supply with demand. California reformers, they say, adopted a system that left only part of the market free while the rest remained regulated. 

Broadly stated, the California formula deregulated power generation but left regulated its distribution via utilities. As demand rose, power generators raised prices but utilities could not, losing on every sale. 

No matter how well-intentioned, “it wasn’t a free market,” says Bill Fogel, power technology analyst at First Albany securities. But the unanticipated shortages and rising prices had a long prior history. 

Since the 1920s, the nation’s electricity system was highly regulated through mandated monopolies, and environmental issues added additional regulations. Competition was insignificant, as were incentives to build infrastructure. Still, prices fell because of technological advances. 

In California, deregulators expected that competition at the wholesale level would keep prices level or even force them down, and that the utility retailers, even under fixed prices, would make a profit. 

However, the years of inattention to the infrastructure, both in generation and transmission of power, coincided with the growth and shifts of the nation’s economy. The effect was especially strong in California. 

Alternative sources of power were plentiful on the drawing board but not yet in the marketplace, where they could have provided new energy sources and competition. Developmental incentives were few. 

Specialists Peter VanDoren and Jerry Taylor describe how earlier deregulation and alternative energy sources, so long discouraged by a monopoly marketplace, might have helped avoid the current emergency. 

“If consumers faced real hourly varying prices – instead of fixed monthly costs – they would have an incentive to buy or contract for small-scale power sources,” they comment in an article for the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C., free-market think tank. 

These new sources, such as fuel cells that convert hydrogen and oxygen to electricity and heat without combustion, and small turbines, could be activated by computer whenever the cost of other power rose too high. 

“Consumers would also have an incentive to shift their electricity demanding activities away from peak periods,” they say. 

Fogel tends to agree, and adds that we shouldn’t overlook solar and wind power too, although he concedes these are not immediate remedies to shortages and high prices. And then there is nuclear power to consider. 

In the meantime, the power problem conceivably could spread – and, in fact, has begun to spread – to other states. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are net importers of electricity. 

Among advocates of free and competitive markets, there is a resigned sense of irony about impressions that deregulation failed and that the solution, as has been proposed in California, is re-regulation. 

John Cunniff is a business analyst for The Associated Press

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. —DaimlerChrysler AG's slashing of 26,000 jobs at its ailing Chrysler division stands as the most dramatic sign yet that the 1998 merger of German and American automakers has not lived up to its promise.  

“Instead of making the billions of dollars in cost savings and synergies at the time of the merger, they’re making desperate cuts to get Chrysler back in the black,'' said analyst David Healy of Burnham Securities.  

Now, he said, “surgery is necessary to save the patient.”  

On Monday, the man tapped in November to stem Chrysler’s financial hemorrhaging said the U.S. unit would slash about one-fifth of its work force over three years, as well as idle six plants over the next two years.  

“No one wants this to happen. I personally wish it didn't have to happen,” Dieter Zetsche, Chrysler's president and chief executive, said Monday. He called the moves painful but necessary in the face of “brutal” competition, advances by imports and slackened U.S. sales.  

“Today is our turning point,” he said.  

Zetsche expects a large part of the job-cutting to be done through retirement programs; others will be phased out through layoffs, attrition and other programs.  

About three-quarters of the job cuts should come this year, he said.  

In addition, production will be curbed at factories in four states and Canada by slowing assembly lines and trimming the number of shifts, ultimately paring production by 15 percent.  

DaimlerChrysler chairman Juergen Schrempp has said Chrysler would lose money this year, and that rehabbing the troubled division that pioneered the minivan could take two to four years.  

Zetsche already has asked for 5 percent price cuts from Chrysler suppliers.  

Chrysler also plans to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and showroom subsidies to its 4,400 dealers.  

Zetsche said Chrysler will unveil its complete turnaround plan Feb. 26.  

The overhaul comes about 23 years after Lee Iacocca engineered a rescue of Chrysler, including layoffs and a $1.5 billion government bailout, as the company teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.  

Chrysler was restored to health, even becoming the industry leader in per-vehicle 

profits. That impressive record was what 

appealed to the German automaker as it 

sought to further expand in the United 

States.  

The vaunted 1998 trans-Atlantic 

combination of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler 

Corp. was touted as a merger of equals. But 

last year Schrempp said the company never 

intended to be an equal partner with 

Chrysler and that he only said that to gain 

shareholder approval.  

The comments prompted a lawsuit by 

billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, one of 

DaimlerChrysler's largest shareholders, seeking to have the deal 

reversed on grounds that executives misled investors.  

DaimlerChrysler's stock price, now at about $47, has fallen steadily 

since reaching a high of $108 in January 1999.  

Chrysler's performance hasn't met Stuttgart-based 

DaimlerChrysler's expectations, either. Sales incentives have erased 

profits and production of the hot-selling PT Cruiser has fallen short 

of demand. Daimler and Chrysler also have been reluctant to share 

parts to cut costs, which might change with a new emphasis on 

saving money.  

Still, DaimlerChrysler has insisted it has no plans to spin off or sell 

Chrysler.  

The job cuts involve 19,000 hourly workers and 6,800 salaried ones. 

United Auto Workers-backed Chrysler workers who get laid off will 

get 95 percent of their take-home pay under their contract, which 

ends in 2003. Employees backed by the Canadian Auto Workers will 

get 65 percent of their pre-tax salary as part of their contract, which 

expires in 2002.  

In a statement Monday night, United Auto Workers President 

Stephen Yokich said ``we have been down this road before, and we 

are confident that our current contracts with DaimlerChrysler will 

provide our members and their families with economic security 

during this difficult period.''  

Yokich and Nate Gooden, the UAW vice president who heads the 

union's DaimlerChrysler unit, plan to attend DaimlerChrysler 

meetings next month ``to further ensure that the rights and 

interests of UAW-represented workers at Chrysler Group are fully 

understood and protected,'' the statement said.  

About 22 percent of Chrysler's Canadian workers would lose their 

jobs, compared with 18 percent of U.S. Chrysler workers, Canadian 

Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove said.  

``For stockholders, it is a blip, but for the workers it is a tragedy,'' 

he said.  

Plants slated to be idled include transmission and engine plants in 

Toluca, Mexico and assembly plants in Cordoba, Argentina; Lago 

Alberto, Mexico; and Parana, Brazil. Chrysler also plans to shift 

production from a Detroit engine plant to two other sites.  

Production will be scaled back at plants in four states and Canada, 

including Detroit; Belvidere, Ill.; Toledo, Ohio; Newark, Del.; 

Brampton, Ontario, and two sites in Windsor, Ontario.  

In the long run, what matters most is Chrysler's ability to develop 

and make vehicles people want, said analyst David Garrity of 

Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in New York. He said he was 

encouraged that the company was leaving its product development 

budget relatively untouched.  

Still, Garrity said it was shortsighted for the company to cut 

production most in Mexico and Canada, where costs are lower, 

while shielding higher-paying U.S. jobs. The Chrysler-UAW 

national contract contains safeguards against job cuts.  

``You have a company that in some respects had been hamstrung 

by the UAW agreement, that has limited their ability to reduce 

costs,'' Garrity said.  

Last year, Chrysler posted a third-quarter loss of $512 million and 

warned that its fourth-quarter loss could more than double that 

amid a downturn in the U.S. auto market.  

DaimlerChrysler's stock price has fallen steadily since reaching a 

high of $108 in January 1999. In trading on the New York Stock 

Exchange Monday afternoon, the company's stock was down 95 

cents to close at $47.29.  

———  

On the Net:  

DaimlerChrysler AG: http://www.daimlerchrysler.com  

United Auto Workers: http://www.uaw.org  

Canadian Auto Workers: http://www.caw.ca

Investors sent stocks moderately higher Monday but kept their purchases to a minimum while they awaited the outcome of this week's Federal Reserve meeting.  

Despite a hint of difficult quarters ahead from Cisco Systems, buyers bid technology stocks up on expectations the battered sector would benefit from an interest rate cut. But trading was light as investors generally remained cautious.  

Analysts said Wall Street remained focused on the strong likelihood that the Fed will cut rates for a second time in a month when it holds a two-day meeting starting Tuesday. But many investors are skeptical about whether that will be enough to improve soft corporate earnings.  

“The market will tend not to take any bold or aggressive steps until we find out if or how much the Fed is going to cut rates,” said Gregory Nie, technical analyst at First Union Securities. “This lackluster, somewhat range-bound trading we've been seeing is typically what happens in anticipation of a Fed meeting.” 

In the Dow, losses in its manufacturing and pharmaceutical components offset gains from banker J.P. Morgan, up 93 cents at $55.12, and American Express, up 99 cents at $47.61.  

Technology issues were buoyed by a late-afternoon buying spree, despite comments by Cisco Systems' chief executive that suggested business may be difficult in the coming quarters.  

“This has become a hallmark of the markets recently. We get soft corporate news and we don't dive. We ease our way around it, which I find encouraging,” said Larry Wachtel, market analyst at Prudential Securities, who said stock prices are starting to reflect the economy's slower growth rate. “Last fall, this kind of thing would have sent the whole market down.” 

The narrow trading range and light volume was the latest twist on the pattern that has characterized Wall Street's trading in recent weeks.  

Instead of rotating in or out of technology stocks, investors appeared to be waiting for some type of catalyst before making any major moves.  

— The Associated Press 

The Fed meeting is expected to provide some type of spark.  

“The market is expecting a cut, although I’m not sure we'll get one,” said Nie, the First Union analyst. “If we don't, the market is not prepared and we'll get at least a temporary selloff.” 

Another sign of the slowing economy came from Daimler Chrysler, which said it would cut 

26,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its North American work force. The company's stock fell 95 cents to $47.20.  

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 1.26 billion shares, compared with 1.32 billion at the same point Friday.  

It was the first day ever that the NYSE's 3,500-plus issues traded solely in decimals. Officials there reported no problems with the transition. The Nasdaq Stock Market is expected to complete a similar change in early April as part of the same government mandate.  

Just days after a major 7.9 earthquake shook India causing massive damage and loss of life, the Claremont-Elmwood Neighborhood Association held a meeting to organize community preparation for the earthquake residents know will eventually hit the Bay Area. 

“The reality is it’s coming, but you can do quite a bit to minimize the impact,” Fire Chief Reg Garcia told more than 100 people in the audience at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church on Saturday. 

The city has found that in the case of a major emergency, important relief services such as the fire department and medical services, will be unable to reach all of the areas in need.  

“We’ve found from recent experiences,” said Fire Chief Reg Garcia, “A major disaster will quickly overtax the services.”  

Instead, he emphasized, the most important players in any emergency will be community members. “You’re the people who will decide. Your efforts, your ability to organize, your ability to make a response.” 

Claremont resident Martha Jones, Mayor Shirley Dean’s appointee to the city’s disaster commission, has taken on that role. She first organized earthquake preparedness for her neighborhood in 1995.  

When she realized that at least 30 percent of her neighbors had moved in after the 1995 planning, she decided it was time to organize again. 

To spread out duties, Jones organized the neighborhood into a series of blocks. Each block of nine houses has a block leader to coordinate services and prevention for that neighborhood. 

Fire Chief Garcia said that organized community members can make an enormous difference in lessening the impact of a disaster with both prevention and disaster relief. They should retrofit their homes, bolt bookshelves to the wall, find their gas valves and learn to organize search and rescue efforts and basic first aid. But one important part of preparedness, he said, is receiving the necessary training. 

“What we found is following a major disaster is people will come out to help, they want to help, but if they’re not trained they won’t be effective help,” said Garcia. 

The city of Berkeley is offering free emergency response training in topics such as Disaster First Aid and Search and Rescue. Jones urged the block leaders to make sure someone on their block attended each one of the sessions. 

One of the most dangerous effects of an earthquake is the ensuing fires.  

“As I always say, after we shake, rattle and roll, we’re going to burn,” said Jones.  

Garcia said that residents can help by keeping fire extinguishers, knowing how to turn off gas valves for houses on the block, and by purchasing hoses and learning how to attach them to fire hydrants. 

Beyond community preparedness, Jones urged that residents remember the little things which help people survive an emergency. She urged listeners to put a pair of shoes next to the bed because in an earthquake glass from windows may cover the floor, making walking barefoot impossible. She told them to purchase a crowbar to pry open doors that may stick and trap residents. And she reminded the audience to stockpile enough food and water for between 72 hours and a week.  

“One of the main reasons for organizing,” she said, “is the ability to buy in bulk. If 1,400 houses buy fire extinguishers they’re able to do it inexpensively.”  

The same holds true for water drums and Meals Ready to Eat — full meals with a long shelf life.  

The city of Berkeley was named a model community for earthquake preparedness, Mayor Dean said at the meeting. And, she said, focusing on preparedness continues to be necessary. 

A 1999 study by the US Geologic Survey found a 70 percent risk of a major earthquake in the Bay Area over the next thirty years. The Bay Area is situated on two different tectonic plates, which are moving in opposite directions at a rate of two inches per year. Eventually the earth cracks along fault lines. One such fault line, the Hayward fault, runs directly through the city of Berkeley. Of the all the various fault lines in the Bay Area, the Hayward fault has, at 30 percent, the highest risk of failure. 

David Schwartz, Earthquake Geologist and Chief of the Bay Area’s Earthquake Hazard’s Project presented the data about earthquake risks. He said that Bay Area residents consider themselves earthquake experts, but the region has experienced comparatively few earthquakes in the past hundred years compared to earlier centuries. The severe 1906 earthquake reduced much of the stress in the ground.  

A map prepared by the Department of the Interior shows 33 earthquakes over 5.5 in the 68 years between 1838 and 1906. In the 94 years between 1906 and 2000, however, the Bay Area has only experienced 11 earthquakes of similar size. He said that Bay Area residents may expect many more quakes in the next century. 

Heeding the ominous figures, Martha Jones follows her own creed of disaster preparedness. She keeps supplies of food and in extra pair of tennis shoes at her home, office and in her car. Just in case. 

To attend a free Emergency Response Training, or get assistance in organizing earthquake preparedness, call of the office of Emergency Services at 644-8736.

Monday, Jan. 29

Poetry with Nancy Wilson 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Call 644-6107 

Starving For Love? 

7 - 9 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Keith Braselton invites you to experience love all the time and claims he can show you how.  

Call 707-435-5425 

Homeless Commission 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Tuesday, Jan. 30

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Digital Photography  

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Call 644-6107 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Opening of Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

5 p.m. 

Thousand Oaks Multipurpose Room  

840 Colusa  

The ribbon-cutting will take place at 5 p.m. and tours will follow the ceremony.  

Wednesday, Jan. 31

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring “Berkeley Images,” a world premiere by Jean-Pascal Beintus.  

$10 - $35  

Call 841-2800 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

Stagebridge Free Acting &  

Storytelling Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley High Poetry Slam  

6:30 p.m.  

Berkeley High School  

2246 Milvia St., Room G-210 

A preliminary round for the regional poetry slams sponsored by youth speaks.  

Human Welfare & Community Action Commission 

7 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St.  

The Poetry of Robert Hass 

Noon - 1 p.m. 

Lower Sproul Plaza 

UC Berkeley 

Former U.S. Poet Laureate will read.  

Thursday, Feb. 1

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet John Rowe and host Randy Fingland.  

644-0155 

Hiking the California Desert  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Steve Tabor of the conservation group Desert Survivors presents a slide-show of highlights from his reconnaissance trips along more than 400 miles of trail. Free  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Open Mic. 

7 p.m. 

Maurice’s Cafe 

6038 Telegraph 

Oakland 

Call 653-6775 

Dark Caves & Sunlight 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Explore the origins of how people speak to each other. 

$10  

Friday, Feb. 2

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Call 549-2970

Instabilty is crippling Berkeley’s schools 

Editor: 

The departure of BUSD Superintendent Jack McLaughlin is no real surprise; he’d had one foot out the door for months. But it continues an unhealthy trend that has crippled Berkeley public schools. 

"Stability" is one word that cannot describe leadership within the district, and instability seems to blossom and thrive at Berkeley High. The principal post has been a revolving door, as one administrator after another has proved ineffective – sometimes because of their own faults, sometimes because of faults deeply imbedded in the school and the system. 

The latest soul to stroll through the door, Frank Lynch, seemed unaware of the school’s record of instability. In August, on his first day as principal, he told a Daily Planet reporter that he hadn’t heard about all of the school’s problems – a rather honest but surprising confession. Only time will tell if he can stop the revolving door to the principal’s office. 

More than 20 years ago, Berkeley High lost a good man who could have been an effective long-term leader. BHS Principal Tom Parker left his post to become principal of Turlock High School, my own alma mater over in the Central Valley. Parker held the THS job for 18 years, and when he retired, he was succeeded by his longtime assistant principal. 

Imagine what that kind of stability through the 1980s and 1990s might have done for Berkeley High. Perhaps the school could have avoided, or at least would have handled better, the myriad crises of the 1999-2000 school year. 

Instability at the top of the leadership ladder inevitably will affective lower rungs, and once again, you need only look at Berkeley High to find another example of instability: teachers. Every year, the district must hire dozens of new BHS teachers. They leave for a variety of reasons – higher pay in other districts, smaller schools in other districts, other career options – but the departures undermine the stability that a school needs in order to help all students. 

The loss of a superintendent, one could argue, is not as troubling as instability at the principal or teacher levels. Perhaps this is true in a city like Berkeley, which places such a high emphasis on parental and community involvement in the school district. 

Still, losing McLaughlin AND Assistant Superintendent Frank Brunetti within a span of six months only perpetuates the pattern of instability. It has been said that everything rises and falls with leadership, and the more turnover you have among your leaders, the more difficult it becomes for an organization to achieve significant goals. 

McLaughlin wanted to leave his mark on the BUSD by helping the district battle the achievement gap between Caucasian and Asian students and their Hispanic and African-American peers. He set some wheels in motion to help reach this goal, but if that gap ever is bridged, it will be intriguing to see if McLaughlin gets any credit. 

Rob Cunningham 

The writer was editor and schools reporter for the Berkeley Daily Planet from April 1999 to July 2000 and currently lives in Athens, Greece. He grew up, in part, in Turlock, Calif. 

Native language testing should be discouraged 

Editor: 

A recent article, “Berkeley schools rank well in state,” had some comments about the API scores for Thousand Oaks Elementary School. The scores were not high enough. The “probable” reason is students whose primary language is not English. A good cure for this is testing the students in their native language.  

I find this be totally unacceptable. As far as I know, I am living in the United States of America. The Berkeley Daily Planet is in English. Most media and print is in English. The Constitution is in English. Congress conducts sessions in English and the laws passed are written and printed in English. In short, speaking, reading and writing in English allows one to participate in American life.  

I guess it is easy to forget that the United States is a land of immigrants. The previous immigrants did not have any special programs for them. Yet, they and their children gradually assimilated into American life. My family came to the US as displaced persons, after World War II. When my parents and I came, in April 1953, to the US, I spoke only Latvian and Swedish. Latvian was my native language. None of my fellow immigrants of this period received any special treatment, because English was not our native language. Yet, we went to schools and work and became part of the American experience. Latvian was the language we spoke at home. We spoke English outside the home. 

There is nothing wrong with English not being your native language as long as one can use English in the appropriate settings. Testing in “native” languages needs to be strongly discouraged. 

John G. Cakars  

Berkeley 

Cell phone antennae  

battle has many sides 

Editor: 

I have read the Forum comment from Mr. Schwartzburd in today’s newspaper. As one of the "hired guns" for Nextel he vilifies, I believe I should briefly reply. I have lived here since 1955 when I came up to go to law school and fell in love with Berkeley. I have been a civil rights attorney here for many years and take no back seat to Mr. Schwartzburd in that world. I participated in the School Board recall election and the fair housing fights in Berkeley in the 60s. I represented CORE, the NAACP and the Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination, to name just a few. In short, I have long learned to recognize racism when I see it.  

So when some Thousand Oaks neighbors fear the effects of radio waves from cell phone antennae and thus object to having such antennae in their neighborhood but are perfectly willing to site those antennae in south and west Berkeley, the conclusion is obvious. That some members of the CityCouncil also see the connection is not surprising. Of course the city is actually forbidden by federal law from acting on the basis of health and safety fears as Congress has determined that the FCC must set the nationwide safe levels, and the proposed antennas on the Oaks Theater will be no more than 1/43rd of the allowable level (at full power) set by the FCC. But undeterred by either the facts or the law, these neighbors are looking for some subterfuge to save them from what they fear but don’t understand and have no evidence is harmful. However, there is no legitimate hiding place in the areas of aesthetics or property values, as the installation (to be completely concealed behind a fiberglass extension of the roof parapet) will be literally undetectable by any observer, no matter where she/he is located. In times of natural or man-made disaster, I would add, cell phones may be the only viable methods of communication, and thereby saving lives. 

And so when Nextel asked me to represent them in connection with this application, I agreed with no hesitation for the health and safety of the City I love and would not harm for any amount of money or client. 

Malcolm Burnstein 

Berkeley 

Cal’s Lampley scores 21 in Seattle 

SEATTLE - Sean Lampley scored 21 points and added 11 rebounds and the Cal defense held Washington without a field goal for a 9:34 stretch of the second half as the Golden Bears defeated the Huskies, 79-64, Saturday afternoon at Bank of America Arena.  

Coupled with Thursday’s 75-71 victory at Washington State, Cal (14-5 overall, 5-2 Pac-10) completed its first sweep of the Washington schools on the road since 1993.  

For the second straight game, the Bears jumped out to an early lead only to see their opponent claw back into the contest. After spotting the Huskies a 2-0 lead, Cal scored the next 13 points for a 13-2 advantage.  

Washington responded by tying the game at 13-13, but Cal came back with a 13-2 run for a 26-15 lead with 6:54 left in the first half. The Bears then extended thier lead to 35-20. However, the Huskies charged back and were down, 40-35, at the break.  

Washington then took the lead in the second half at 51-50 on a Michael Johnson layup. But that’s when Cal’s defense clamped down. The Bears scored the next 11 points before allowing a free throw by UW’s David Dixon. Cal then was up, 65-52, before Washington broke its field goal drought on a bucket by Dixon with 4:33 to go.  

The Bears then relied on free throws down the stretch to clinch the game.  

Cal has now won 13 of its last 15 games for its best 15-game stretch since the 1993-94 season. Lampley, who had 27 points and 12 boards at WSU, posted his first back-to-back double-doubles since the first two games of last season.  

Dennis Gates was the only Bear other than Lampley to reach double figures, coming off the bench for 10 points and three steals.  

Game notes: Lampley drew nine fouls on Washington players in the game ... at 14-5, Cal is off to its best start since Ben Braun’s first year in 1997 ... Cal shot 26-for-35 from the free throw line and UW was 13-for-16 from the stripe to improve the Bears record to 13-0 whe they make for free throws than their opponents attempt.

In response to the California’s power crisis, Berkeley City Councilmember Linda Maio is asking for a special meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 24 to discuss various ways that the city can cut back on energy use and rid the city of the shackles of Pacific Gas And Electric.  

But in a power play of her own, Mayor Shirley Dean, said Maio’s proposals will not be heard until the regular City Council meeting of Feb. 13. At that time, Dean said she will have her own plan on how Berkeley can do its part to help solve the energy crisis.  

On Jan. 16, Maio tabled a proposal by Dean requesting that PG&E implement a power-reduction plan for Berkeley residents and businesses while Dean was away at a mayor’s conference in Washington D.C. 

“My proposal ... was removed and blocked. For [Maio] to come back with a proposal of her own is a little interesting to say the least,” Dean said.  

Maio wants the city to step up its conservation efforts and encourage more state-wide efforts. She also wants the city government to start getting active on a regional level and host an energy summit for stakeholders in the utility market.  

“We want people who can make sure we are not tied to the grid and are not tied to the vagaries of the market,” Maio said.  

Berkeley’s city government currently buys power for its own use at a lower rate through the Association of Bay Area Governments — a regional government planning group. By buying power as a collective group with other municipalities, the agreement provides a lower rate for Berkeley and other member municipalities. Maio wants to push legislatures to ease PG&E regulations that require residents to have sign up to join that group. 

“I want to embrace everybody in the city as a single power buyer, and if you don’t want to you can drop out,” she said.  

Maio also suggests providing some tax money to support some low-income residents and looking into the idea of expanding the East Bay Municipal Utilities District to be an energy provider. 

“This is an opportunity here we really can’t miss,” she said.  

Although not completely dismissing that idea, Dean said it is far too premature to start taking seriously as a solution to this current problem. 

“East Bay MUD generates about 12 megahertz of energy. That’s enough to run 12,000 homes,” she said. “If you want to look at increasing that, it’s in the very preliminary stages.” 

Instead, Dean wants to continue those talks while looking at more immediate fixes to the power problem. Dean refused give further details and said she would reveal her ideas later this week.  

“We’re looking at a program with real meaning and real substance,” she said.  

A second half surge and a five point lead with 7:51 remaining in the game were not enough to beat the Huskies Saturday night as Washington regained the lead with 1:18 to play, defeating California 69-68 inside Haas Pavilion.  

With just 1:37 left on the clock, senior guard Courtney Johnson scored on a fast-break lay-up to hand California (6-11 overall, 2-5 in the Pac-10) a two point, 68-66, lead. The Huskies came right back down the floor, missing on their first shot but grabbing the rebound and kicking the ball out to sophomore guard Loree Payne who promptly hit a three-pointer, the final points of the game, giving Washington (12-6 overall, 5-3 in the Pac-10) the 69-68 win.  

California put up three shots after calling a time out with 24 seconds remaining, all failing to drop, before Forney committed a foul with five seconds on the clock. Senior forward LeAnn Sheets missed both resulting free throws for Washington, giving the Bears a glimmer of hope, but the Bears final shot by senior guard Kenya Corley with a second remaining again would not fall. 

Washington guard Megan Franza had a huge first half with 22 points in the opening period, staking her team to a a 39-30 lead. Franza scored a game-high 30 points, shooting 11-for-17 from the field. 

Junior center Ami Forney erupted with a huge double-double for the Bears, throwing down a career-high 27 points while pulling down 14 rebounds, also a career-high, in 36 minutes of work.  

“Ami Forney was all over the court tonight,” Horstmeyer said. “From an offensive perspective, she made a difference. She was aggressive and wanted the ball.”  

Corley scored 20 points for the Bears while Johnson tallied 11 points, six assists and six steals.  

“To lose a game this close is hard, but we’re building and playing hard as a team,” said Horstmeyer. “We made the game close tonight. A year ago we wouldn’t have made it so close.”  

Freshman center Andrea Lalum finished with 11 points and seven rebounds for the Huskies. Washington shot 42 percent as a team over the course of the night, besting Cal’s 35 percent showing.

A group of 22 professors and economic experts say that a state utility takeover will only worsen California’s power crisis while raising power rates will help stakeholders, “share the pain.” 

The Institute of Management, Innovation and organization at the University of California, Berkeley issued a report this week called the “Manifesto on the California Electricity Crisis.”  

The manisfesto states that raising power rates will promote conservation (which would reduce wholesale prices) while also restoring financial viability to the state’s utilities. 

“There is no other way out,” the report states. “Either retail prices must go up, or blackouts will continue with the consequent high costs to the California economy. Facing the pain now should reduce the ultimate price increase. We must put the horse before the cart.” 

The report states that deregulation failed because it did not anticipate the current reduction in supply and the increase in demand. That, the report said, combined with a retail rate freeze meant that consumers were buffered from situation and did not conserve energy as they would have if rates rose according to higher market prices. It also reduced incentives to turn to lower-priced competitors that deregulation helped create. When wholesale prices went up, the report said that retail prices did not, creating the current power crisis.  

By raising rates, the report states that California will be able to purchase more available power while new contracts are sought to stabilize prices during the two to three year transition while more permanent solutions are identified.  

A State purchase of electric utilities would only shift the burden to the taxpayers, the report said. Because buying the utilities would do nothing to increase supply, the report said that the state government should instead focus on creating a “supportive environment for necessary new private investment.” 

The report also emphasized the need to pay all existing energy bills and to build new power plants.

With 20 minutes gone in the first half on Saturday, the Chico State rugby team had to be pretty happy. They had conceded just one try to the 10-time defending national champion Cal squad to just one score, and had made two forays deep into Bear territory on Witter Field. Then the roof caved in. 

Cal eight-man Shaun Paga got into the Cal backline on a second-phase play, took a pass from flyhalf Matt Sherman and broke two tackles on his way to a 40-yard try. That score opened the floodgates for the Bears. They scored four more tries in the half, then piled on nine more in the second half against the tiring Wildcats, including six in the final 20 minutes of the match. 

Paga led the Bears with four tries on the day, including the team’s first two scores and the last one, and was a force to be reckoned with all day. He spent a lot of time in the backline, as the Cal forwards had very little trouble keeping possession with just two or three forwards in rucks and mauls. 

The Bear forwards also dominated the set pieces, repeatedly stealing Wildcat lineouts and scrums. 

Outside center John Buchholz scored 37 points for Cal, including three tries and 11 conversions, and wing Eric Andersen and inside center Michael Bonetto each scored two tries. 

Chico State lost to Cal 35-7 last year in Berkeley. This year’s game was scheduled for Chico, but poor field conditions forced the Wildcats to travel to Berkeley. 

The Bears are now 2-0 on the season, while Chico State drops to 0-1.

Residents are UCB students 

OAKLAND – The Oakland Fire Department reports today that one man died and four others were hospitalized after a house full of students caught fire. 

Spokeswoman Vicky Evans-Robinson said the fire was reported at 7:12 a.m. at 5247 Desmond St. by a neighbor. The neighbor was able to rouse some of the occupants, who were said to be seven University of California at Berkeley students, before the fire department was called. 

Evans-Robinson said firefighters arrived at the scene and found the two-story house heavily involved in flames. The fire was put under control at 7:56 a.m. 

A total of five people were able to make it out on their own, she said, including one man who had to jump from a second-story window. But firefighters found one man dead inside the house and they were forced to use a ladder to rescue a woman from a second-story window.  

The cause of the victim's death is uncertain at this time, Evans-Robinson said. Four people, including the man who jumped out of the window, were taken to local area hospital for injuries suffered in the fire. 

Damage was estimated at $500,000 and the cause of the fire is under investigation.

Judge asked to throw out Raider lawsuit 

OAKLAND – Attorneys for Oakland and Alameda county are asking a state judge to throw out the remnants of a fraud lawsuit filed against them by the Oakland Raiders. 

The football team has contended that the city, county and local businessman Ed De Silva misled team executives into believing that the team’s home games would be sold out. 

The team sought $1.1 billion in damages, saying that’s how much it will lose from empty seats and loss of brand value over the life of its contract to stay in Oakland. 

But Sacramento Superior Court Judge Joe S. Gray dismissed fraud claims against the city and county last month, saying the team had waited too long to file its lawsuit. 

That decision did not exonerate De Silva, a Dublin-based contractor who helped negotiate the Raiders’ return. He has repeatedly denied the charges. 

Lawyers retained by the city and county filed a motion Friday asking that the claims against De Silva be dropped. Gray is scheduled to hear the matter Feb. 23 

Teen charged with shooting at police officer 

OAKLAND – A teen-ager faces attempted murder charges for allegedly trying to shoot a police officer, investigators said Friday. 

During an arrest at 11:45 a.m. Thursday, the 17-year-old boy aimed a gun at Officer Todd Mork and pulled the trigger, police said – but the gun’s safety mechanism was on and Mork was not injured. 

“It was definitely one of those times when you go home and kiss your wife and count your blessings,” said Sgt. Mark Dunakin, who investigated the case. 

The boy claimed he was only trying to get away from the officer and did not intent to shoot him. 

Police saw him get out of a car that had no plates, and then run from officers. Mork tackled him to the ground, when the boy lifted his hand and pointed a gun at the officer, then attempted to pull the trigger several times. 

The incident happened near Oakland’s border with San Leandro. The car had been stolen in San Jose. 

Basketball coach on leave after DUI, pot arrest 

ANTIOCH – The Antioch High School boys basketball coach has been place on administrative leave after his arrest last weekend. 

Darryl Reeves, 39, was arrested last Sunday on suspicion of driving under the influence and marijuana possession. 

He acknowleged the arrest, apologized for embarrassing the school and then claimed the marijuana belonged to someone else. He didn’t say who owned the drugs. 

Reeves, who was placed on indefinite administrative leave, was in his second season as Antioch’s coach. 

S.F. schools are rat infested 

SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco Unified School District officials have found too many rodents in the city’s schools. 

Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said the district has taken immediate steps to eliminate the problem.

LOS ANGELES – As Southern Californians gathered around their televisions to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, many consumers in the market for a big-screen TV seemed blissfully unaware a power crisis was at hand. 

“Let somebody else worry about that problem,” said Fernando Terrazas, 35, as he examined a 55-inch television in a Best Buy store in Cerritos, south of Los Angeles. 

“I’m going to my cousin’s house to watch the Super Bowl. He has a big-screen TV. That way we can save electricity,” Terrazas said, grinning. 

“Not one person has asked me about energy-efficient TVs,” said Ray Armijo, a sales associate in the electronics department at a Los Angeles Sears store. The area is served by the Department of Water and Power, a municipal utility where rates have remained stable and there are no threats of outages. 

“I haven’t heard anyone talking about an electricity crisis,” Armijo said. “There are probably some people who don’t even know about it.” 

However, in Ontario, a suburb east of Los Angeles served by struggling Southern California Edison, some shoppers facing the threat of rolling outages have been more energy-conscious. 

Mike Lancaster, a sales associate at an Ontario Sears store, said he estimated about one in 10 customers have asked about a program called Energy Star, which offers rebates to consumers who purchase energy-efficient appliances. 

That California Public Utilities Commission program is funded with a surcharge on bills from the state’s investor-owned utilities. Those utilities give rebates to customers who buy from a list of energy-efficient appliances, said Southern California Edison spokesman Gil Alexander. 

In other areas served by Edison, electronics salesmen said conservation is the last thing on the minds of consumers. 

“It’s the least of their concerns — they’re buying a big-screen TV,” said Robert Peng, a salesman in the video department of a Good Guys store in Cerritos. 

“I haven’t had one customer ask me about that yet. I thought they would, but they’re not,” said Rooshi Panchal, a salesman at a Good Guys store in Chino Hills, east of Los Angeles. 

Big-screen TV buyers’ lack of concern probably won’t bring down the power grid, officials said. The jumbo models use only slightly more energy than a normal TV, said Alan Meier, a staff scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

Despite an apparent lack of concern about electricity bills, Armijo said shoppers find other ways to save money. 

“We get people who buy big-screen TVs the day before the Super Bowl and then they return them on Monday,” he said. 

No big-screen buying was necessary for about 200 people gathered at ESPN Zone, an Anaheim sports restaurant and entertainment complex that boasts 165 television sets, including restroom TVs and a 16-foot-by-13-foot screen surrounded by 12 smaller sets. 

“This is the first time I’ve gone out to be with other people to watch the Super Bowl,” said Leo Hamilton, 35. “I think it’s a bonus that it saves electricity, but that’s not why I’m here.” 

He was there because he had won free tickets to the complex from a radio station.

EMERYVILLE – On a drab afternoon, the rich, warm smell of vegetarian chili curls around the couch where 9-year-old Jessie flips through her math homework. 

It’s a typical living room scene in a rather unusual living room. This is the communal area in the house that Jessie’s parents and their friends and neighbors built, a blend of private and shared spaces known as co-housing. 

There aren’t a lot of houses like this around, but more are being built every year. So far, about 55 co-housing communities have been completed in the United States and Canada, a dozen of them in California, and demand for more is strong, says Stella Tarnay, executive editor of the Cohousing Journal. 

“Co-housing is a decade old in the United States and it’s proven itself,” says Kathryn McCamant, co-housing advocate, architect and Jessie’s mother. “It’s not for everybody, but it does work for a segment of the population.” 

“The good thing co-housing has going for it is it really responds to a need in the culture,” says Tarnay. “It’s a real need for community. It’s a real need for practical support among neighbors and families.” 

Although it may evoke images of tie-dyed utopias, co-housing bears little resemblance to the flower-powered communes that sprouted in California in the 1960s. Typically, a group of up to 30 people will form and start looking for a place to build a community made up of private homes and a communal space. 

There’s privacy — each unit is a self-contained home with its own living room and kitchen. But there’s one big yard and a common house where laundry is done, parties held and meals served several nights a week. 

It’s a lifestyle that appeals to many — singles, divorced parents, empty nesters and people turned off by suburban isolation. 

“What they discover when they get that dream single-family home in the suburbs is that they’re extremely lonely and their lives are utterly disconnected from the lives of others,” Tarnay says. 

McCamant was drawn to co-housing and to her future husband, Chuck Durrett, also an architect, while studying in Denmark in the 1980s. 

They came back inspired by the idea of promoting co-housing in a country where single-family dwellings define the American dream. 

“It made sense to us personally. I guess we were just crazy enough to think we weren’t the only ones it might make sense to,” McCamant says. 

McCamant and Durrett formed the CoHousing Company in 1987. One of their projects is their current home, the Doyle Street house in Emeryville, a suburb on the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay. 

There, a dozen families live in what used to be a cement-mixing factory. 

McCamant considers co-housing the best of all worlds — residents get to share things such as the new hot tub, the children’s play room and meals. They also can go home and close their doors. 

“We don’t look at this as utopia where you’re committed to the rest of your life. This is a housing option,” McCamant says. 

Appraisers have a hard time dealing with the configuration, but units have kept up with the market, McCamant says. The unit’s prices initially ranged from $150,000 to $240,000. A two-bedroom unit recently sold for $325,000. 

Decisions are reached by consensus and residents take turns cooking the communal meals. The meals aren’t mandatory, but residents do have to help pay for them. 

Knowing your neighbors means being able to rely on them. Residents pick up each other’s kids, open their homes as extra guest space when they’re away and share camping and other recreation equipment. 

Families have come and gone over the unit’s 9-year history, but there aren’t too many co-housing dropouts. 

Fran Ternus is one of the old-timers of the Emeryville community, moving in as the single mother of a 10-year-old girl who is now 20 and in college. 

“I enjoy the meals a lot. I really enjoy seeing kids grow up. That is really fun. We’ve had five babies born here. This is really a microcosm of life. We’ve had several divorces and several deaths and we had weddings and babies,” she says. “We share it all.” 

Don’t people sometimes get on each other’s nerves? 

“Oh sure,” chorus McCamant and Ternus in unison. But, Ternus points out, “This is not family. You have more of a good-neighbor distance.” 

One thing holding co-housing back is the real estate market. In pricey San Francisco, for instance, there are a number of groups that want to start co-housing, but it’s hard for them to compete with big-money developers. 

Demand, though, is strong. A new co-housing community under construction in nearby Pleasant Hill is sold out. There are also co-housing communities in Berkeley and Oakland. 

At one, the Temescal Project, eight families from a church paid to develop nine houses, with the idea of renting the ninth out to a homeless person for a few hundred dollars a month.

SAN FRANCISCO – Neale McFarland never expected to get rich by owning stock in California’s two largest utilities, but he knew he could always count on a decent-sized dividend check to cushion his retirement income. 

It all changed in a few mind-boggling weeks marked by almost daily bankruptcy threats from PG&E Corp. and Edison International that turned two of the nation’s steadiest stocks into risky gambles. 

The financial duress caused by California’s power crisis wiped out quarterly dividends that had been regularly paid to the utility’s shareholders through both World Wars, the Depression and the oil shocks of the 1970s. 

Edison, the owner of Southern California Edison, had paid dividends every quarter since 1910. PG&E, the holding company of Pacific Gas and Electric, hadn’t missed a dividend since 1916. 

“It’s hard to believe that big companies that you depend on for years can all of a sudden get messed up something awful,” said McFarland, 81. 

The abrupt financial descent of the two once-stable utility stocks is eroding the retirement incomes of thousands of retirees. 

“These are real ma and pa stocks,” said Sunnyvale bankruptcy attorney Wayne Silver, who has fielded frantic calls from retirees amid PG&E’s dire financial warnings and the suspension of its dividend. 

McFarland, a San Carlos resident, decided to pull the plug on his utility investments after hearing the bad news about the dividends, which had given him $3,600 annually. 

Earlier this month, he sold his remaining holdings in Edison and PG&E — 1,500 shares in all — and swallowed a $15,500 loss in the process. 

That might not sound like much in a high-rolling era when high-tech investors lose thousands — or even millions — in a few minutes. 

But the downfall of San Francisco-based PG&E and Rosemead-based Edison has been traumatic for retirees who thought utility stocks were as reliable as their Social Security checks. 

“I would never have thought something like this could happen,” said Donald Zwicky of Walnut Creek, a PG&E shareholder for more than 30 years. 

Zwicky, 72, plans to hold his PG&E shares for two more months in hopes the stock will recover and the dividend is restored. If that doesn’t happen, he plans to sell his entire stock portfolio, which also includes holdings in four other utilities around the country. 

“If something like this can happen to these utilities here, then it can happen to any company. I am done with the stock market. I just can’t take it anymore,” Zwicky said. 

Utilities have been investment magnets for retirees for decades because their dividends frequently yield a higher return than most bank accounts. 

Together, Edison and PG&E in a normal year would distribute dividends of about $840 million to nearly 400,000 shareholders. 

But they eliminated their dividends after rapidly running up more than $11 billion in debt paying more for electricity than they are permitted to charge customers under California’s market deregulation. If they go bankrupt, their shareholders’ investments could become worthless. 

Both companies have been swamped with phone calls from retirees. 

“Many of them are quite shocked and quite concerned about what has happened to their savings,” Edison spokesman Kevin Kelley said. 

The paper losses have already been huge. 

PG&E’s stock began the 1990s trading at $22.50 and ended the decade at $20, a 7 percent decline. Edison’s stock gained $6.50, or 33 percent, during the 1990s, climbing from $19.69 a share to $26.19. Over the same decade, the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index soared by 316 percent. 

On Friday, PG&E’s stock finished the week at $12.50, a 54 percent decline in less than two months. The shares have traded as low as $8.38 this month. 

Edison ended the week at $12.19, a 45 percent decline since Nov. 30. Its shares have traded as low as $6.25 this month. 

Some shareholders are taking the slide in stride, figuring California’s government won’t let the utilities go bankrupt and possibly jeopardize the state’s economic health. 

“These aren’t a bunch of dummies. Somehow, it is all going to work out,” said Bob Wicker, 90, a shareholder in both PG&E and Edison. 

Wicker, of Walnut Creek, would lose $12,000 in annual income if the dividends aren’t restored. He said he can afford it because other stocks that he owns continue to pay dividends. 

Former PG&E employee Dolores Goltra, 73, accumulated 2,000 shares of the company’s stock before retiring 11 years ago. She stands to lose $2,400 in dividend income. 

“I think the stock will bounce back eventually,” she said. “I just hope I live long enough to see it.”

The Community Health Commission on Thursday sent a medical marijuana ordinance, which has been bouncing around city offices for the last 18 months, to the City Council. 

The commission and 50 audience members, almost entirely medical marijuana supporters, listened to presentations from the City Attorney’s Office, the police department, the director of public health and a variety of advocates before voting to recommend the council adopt the ordinance. 

The ordinance would establish the numbers of plants a qualified patient can grow and the amount of dried marijuana any one patient can have in his or her possession for personal use. The commission was also trying to determine how many plants could be grown by Berkeley’s marijuana collectives.  

The collectives are groups of people who assist one another with the cultivation of medical marijuana. They come together to share growing costs, gardening tips and in some cases people join because they’ve become too ill to take care of a crop on their own. 

The commission sent the recommendation to the City Council last October only to have it returned to them by City Manager Weldon Rucker. According to Commission Chair, Mark Chekal-Bain, Rucker wanted the commission to consider additional reports from the City Attorney’s Office, the director of public health and law enforcement. 

Rucker returned the ordinance to the commission requesting that it reduce the number of plants one person could grow indoors to 10. The commission had originally proposed 144 plants for a patient who grows them indoors and 60 plants for one who grows them outdoors. Rucker also wanted the commission to reduce the amount of dried marijuana a qualified patient could have on hand to 2.5 pounds from 6 pounds.  

The commission, however, decided to keep its original recommendation. 

Advocates argued that while 144 plants sounds like a lot, not all the plants grown are usable. Only the female plants flower – that’s where medical marijuana comes from – according to a report written by Chris Conrad, a court-qualified cannabis expert. The marijuana yield of a garden can depend on a variety of things including interrupted electricity, theft, pest infestations and fungus invasions. 

Police department representative Lt. Russell Lopes said the reason for requesting reduced numbers of plants was one of safety. He told the council that the police department supports the ordinance and that he, as a cancer patient, especially supports anything that will help ease symptoms of life-threatening disease. 

But Lopes said the police department is worried about personal growers cultivating large numbers of plants because of the threat of home robberies. 

“There were six home-invasion robberies last year directly related to residents who had large amounts of marijuana in the house,” Lopes said. “While we support a medical marijuana ordinance, we see an inherent risk in allowing large amounts to be grown in the home.” 

Lopes said security worries were also an issue with the collectives which could theoretically have more than 1,000 plants growing in one location. 

Dun Duncan, who runs the Berkeley Patient Group, said that most patients who are growing their own marijuana are discreet and the home invasion robberies Lopes referred to involved drug dealers who made no secret of having large quantities of marijuana. 

Attorney Robert Raich of the American Civil Liberties Union, said there was another type of home invasion the ordinance should stop. “The kind of home invasion where thugs carrying guns and badges burst in and hold you hostage in your own home and then take your personal possessions.” 

After the meeting Lopes said Raich’s comments were uncalled for. “The comments were totally inappropriate in what had been a peaceful, supportive meeting,” he said. “But it’s not surprising considering the source.” 

While the commission stuck to its original proposal for the number of plants that could be cultivated and the amount of dried marijuana that could be kept on hand, it could not come to an agreement about the maximum number of plants that a collective would be able to grow. It left that determination up to the council. 

“I feel very good about the ordinance,” said Chekal-Bain. “I wish we could have come to an agreement about the collectives, but I have full faith in the council. We’ve been working on this for a year and a half. It’s time to move it forward.” 

The ordinance has not yet been placed on the City Council agenda.

Saturday, Jan. 27

Amnesty & Immigrant Rights March  

11 a.m.  

St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church  

1500 34th Ave.  

Oakland  

Join thousands of immigrant families, union members, members of local congregations and community supporters in demanding immigrant rights. Confirmed speakers at the rally, to be held at Carmen Flores Park on Fruitvale Avenue in Oakland, are Senator Barbara Boxer and Congresswoman Barbara Lee.  

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St.  

Call 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts Classes for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 

644-8515 

“Arab-Jewish Co-Existence: Reality & Challenges Ahead” 

1 - 2:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Hillel 

2736 Bancroft  

Walid Mula, an Arab-Israeli educator and activist who specializes in training and facilitating dialogue groups and educating for co-existence between Arabs and Jews, will speak and discuss. All are welcome at this free event. E-mail:  

israeloncampus@hotmail.com 

The Big One 

10:30 a.m. 

St. Clement’s Episcopal Church 

Claremont & Russell  

The Claremont-Elmwood Neighborhood Association hosts a neighborhood organizing meeting on house to house emergency preparedness. Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean, Councilmember Polly Armstrong, and Fire Chief Reginald Garcia as well as Charles Schwartz, from the U.S. Geological Survey, will be present.  

Sunday, Jan. 28

Reimagining Pacific Cities 

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio 

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other Pacific cities. $10 per meeting.Call 849-0217 

Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society  

1931 Center St.  

A panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history and on the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley.  

$10 donation  

Call 848-0181 

Mediterranean Plant Life 

3:30 p.m. 

UC Botanical Garden  

200 Centennial Drive  

Peter Dallman, author of “Plant Life in the Mediterranean Regions of the World,” will motivate attendees to look closely at California native plants and experiment with dramatic and drought-tolerant species in their own gardens.  

Call 643-2755 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mike 

2 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Museum 

2621 Durant (at Bowditch)  

Poet Katharine Harer and jazz guitarist Joe Vance. Call 527-9753 

Unitarian Universalism at Millennial Transition 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists  

1606 Bonita St. (at Cedar St.)  

Paul Sawyer, long-time Berkeley activist and former minister at the Berkeley Fellowship and Dr. Cary Wang will speak. Call 841-3477  

Master of the Nyingma Lineage 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Pl.  

Barr Rosenberg discusses the achievements of Longchenpa, a 14th century Tibetan master. Free 

Call 843-6812 

City must treat antenna concerns more seriously 

The Daily Planet received this letter, edited for length, addressed to Mayor Shirley Dean and members of the City Council: 

By Leonard Schwartzburd, Ph.D. 

This open letter is written to express concerns growing out of the council hearing on Jan. 23 concerning the Nextel application to place twelve RF radiation emitting antennas on the Oaks Theater and on the antenna moratorium in general.  

Since the previous meeting when the council established the moratorium, it appears as though there may have been a weakening of the knees which is of great concern to me and many of my neighbors. There is particular concern because of the manner in which the city has handled this situation all along and now that Nextel has launched a major offensive to force its application through, the reasons for concern continue. 

Nextel has begun to resort to what I think of as "dirty tactics." One of the speakers for Nextel, apparently a hired gun saying he is a Berkeley resident, who doesn’t know me or the other neighbors supporting the appeal and moratorium, made a slur about us in front of the council, suggesting by an innuendo evoking racial overtones, that we want to dump the antennas on residents from other parts of the city, specifically West Berkeley. It was disheartening to see one council member, who also doesn’t know us nodding in agreement.  

I ask that the Council members keep an open mind about us and open hearts towards us. I’d be proud to discuss my own civil rights credentials with any interested members, and you all might want to know that I and other members of our all Berkeley coalition have spent many hours in meetings and drafting a proposed ordinance for antenna siting to protect all of Berkeley’s residential areas.  

Though those of us affected most by the Nextel application naturally have personal concerns, we also care about all the people of Berkeley and believe that all the people of Berkeley have a direct and vital interest in this issue. Let it be clear that our position is not one of “Put it in your back yard but not in our back yard.” I want to be crystal clear. Our position is that antenna siting policy protecting residential areas should apply to all residential areas equally. It is not us but Nextel that is operating with disregard for the concerns of residents of Berkeley. 

I am hopeful that some of the concerns I am voicing about the position and conduct of various elements of our city government are about innocent actions and that there is no caving into the pressure from the cellular industry and the full court press by Nextel in particular.  

Let me explain some of the recent history which is the cause of some of the anxieties the situation arouses in me. Most recently, after the hearing of the 23rd, while standing in the corridor outside the council chambers, in the presence of a member of the council, the apparently paid Nextel supporter who cast the slurs with racial overtones asked me questions in a challenging tone which I took to be an attempt to intimidate me by threatening my own livelihood.  

Early in the process, a member of the city staff whom I had been critical of for failing to provide adequate notice to the people of the immediate neighborhood of the early stages of the application review process, among other things, attempted to intimidate me in a similar manner. Initially there was great resistance on the part of staff to taking our concerns seriously. The same staff member who attempted to intimidate me, duplicated and made available at the community meeting with Nextel about 50 copies of the lengthy report by Nextel and did so at city expense.  

The city has permitted the cellular industry to sprout antennas around Berkeley like mushrooms and has not even kept track of where they are. This makes it impossible for anyone without making special tests, which have not been made, to comply with FCC guidelines concerning calculating the cumulative levels of radiation in Berkeley.  

The industry stresses the Federal law which limits the determination of health and safety standards to the FCC and then blithely ignores FCC requirements for compliance with those standards. And so far, until the declaration of the 45 day moratorium, the city has appeared complicit with that conduct. Will the city government now back down to the implied threats of Nextel and their cadre of hired guns? Will the city extend the moratorium and not grant Nextel the special privilege it seeks in being exempted from it. 

One member of the council caught a member of the Nextel forces in a misrepresentation of the relevance of the proposed antenna placement to the Berkeley Police Department. 

The tactics of Nextel have led my neighbors and me to have no trust in their presentation and allegations about the need to place their antennas in any given area to get coverage.  

During the community meeting a number of months ago, I asked Nextel’s expert a question about a published report regarding a 50 percent rise in the incidence of childhood leukemia in a population exposed to high but FCC accepted levels of RF radiation. Nextel’s expert made a statistical response which negated the significance of the report. What is disturbing is that when I remarked to another neighbor who was there – a professor in a biological science at UC – that while I am no statistician by a long shot, I did have a year of advanced statistics in graduate school and I couldn’t understand a darn thing the expert said, the neighbor said that he couldn’t understand any of it either.  

It’s disturbing that when Nextel showed huge enlargements of photos of the Oaks Theater at the hearing, photos which show views of the theater not including the roof, the photos were crystal clear and sharp. The one photo that did show the roof itself was very small by comparison and in blurry focus.  

Recently I attended a meeting at the Berkeley Jewish Community Center with some of my neighbors who are working on this issue. The JCC hired an expert to consult on their consideration of placing antennas from another cellular provider on their roof for a rental fee. The meeting was for parents of the day care and preschool children at the JCC. The expert told us how the standards are set by the FCC.  

Rats are exposed to RF radiation. The level of radiation at which a rat manifests observable behavioral changes caused by the radiation is established. The FCC standard is 50 times less than that which causes rats to react behaviorally in an observable fashion. The same expert confirmed the report by the Stewart Commission in the UK that a one year old sustains 100 percent more impact from RF radiation than an adult, and a five year old sustains 60 percent more impact. The Nextel proposal for the Oaks Theater is for an array of antennas 1,200 percent more powerful than that which had been proposed at the JCC. The JCC Board of Directors decided not to lease their roof for antennas in response to the concerns of the parents.  

My neighbors and I are concerned about an industrial strength installation in a largely residential area and the effect on the residential character of the neighborhood. We are concerned whether we can trust Nextel’s representations about the aesthetic character of the installation, particularly as we caught an earlier misrepresentation of its physical character.  

We are asking that our city government afford us the protection we feel we deserve . 

Leonard Schwartzburd, Ph.D.

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett Through Feb. 3, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. $8 - $12. Subterranean Shakespeare La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 234-6046  

“The Road to Mecca” by Athol Fugard Jan. 26 - Feb. 24, Friday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Feb. 22, 8 p.m. $10 Live Oak Theatre 1301 Shattuck 528-5620 

“Nightingale” presented by Central Works Theater Feb. 9 - March 4, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 24 & Saturday, March 3, 5 p.m.; Free preview Feb. 8, 8 p.m. $8 - $14 LaVal’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Feb. 15 - March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“Abel Paz Durruti & the Spanish Revolution” A new documentary film made in 1998. Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m. $7 donation requested. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. LaborFest, 415-642-8066  

Human Rights Watch International Film Festival Jan. 26, 7:30 p.m.: ”Long Nights Journey Into Day,” presented by filmmakers Deborah Hoffman and Frances Reid. Jan. 27, 5 p.m.: “Pripyat,” “Crazy,” and “Bread & Roses.” $7 for one film, $8.50 for multiple films. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

“Magnetic North” Six programs of experimental Canadian video from the past 30 years that range from documentary to conceptual art. In all, 40 tapes from 46 artists will be shown on six Wednesday evenings. Through Feb. 28. $7. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 27: Susan Swartz reads from “Juicy Tomatoes: Plain Truths, Dumb Lies, & Sisterly Advice About Life After 50”; Feb. 10: Karin Kallmaker reads from “Sleight of Hand”; 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 26: James Carroll discusses “Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews”; Jan. 28: Poetry of Lynne Knight & Kathleen Lynch; Jan. 29: Tim Wohlforth discusses “On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left”; Jan. 30: James Elkins discusses “how to use Your Eyes”; Jan. 31: Poetry of Steven Ajay & Anita Barrows  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature.” Aweekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. Feb. 1: John Rowe; Feb. 8: Tom Odegard; Feb 15: Kathleen Lynch; Feb. 22: Charles Ellick; March 1: Eliza Shefler; Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Robert Hass Former U.S. Poet Laureate will read Jan. 31, Noon - 1 p.m. UC Berkeley, Lower Sproul Plaza, Pauley Ballroom in case of rain . 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623  

Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting.  

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm.” $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tuesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Judah L. Magnes Museum “Telling Time: To Everything There Is A Season” Through May, 2002 An exhibit structured around the seasons of the year and the seasons of life with objects ranging from the sacred and the secular, to the provocative and the whimsical. “Second Annual Richard Nagler Competition for Excellence in Jewish Photography” Through Feb., 2001. Featuring the work of Claudia Nierman, Jason Francisco, Fleming Lunsford, and others. 2911 Russell St. 549-6950  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “Tacita Dean/MATRIX 189 Banewl” through Jan. 28. A film instillation by British conceptual artist Tacita Dean of the total solar eclipse of Aug. 11, 1999; “The Mule Train: A Journey of Hope Remembered,” through March 26. An exhibit of black and white photographs that capture the fears and faith of those who traveled from Marks, Mississippi to Washington, D.C. ,with mule-drawn wagons to attend the Poor People's Campaign in December, 1967; “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Feb. 7 through May 27. The selections include 150 collages, assemblages, paintings, drawings, and book covers. Brainard’s art is characterized by its humor and exhuberant color, and by its combinations of media and subject matter; Muntadas - On Translation: The Audience, Feb. 7 through April 29. This conceptual artist and pioneer of video, installation, and Internet art presents three installations. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. 642-0808. 

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery,” open-ended. A display of early Chinese works from the permanent collection. “Chinese Ceramics and Bronzes: The First 3,000 Years,” open-ended. “Works on Extended Loan from Warren King,” open-ended. “Three Towers of Han,” open-ended. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 642-0808 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 by 40-foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. 

“Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology “Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended. This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history.“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing.This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. $2 general; $1 seniors; $.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” Ongoing. A math exhibit of hands-on problem-solving stations, each with a different mathematical challenge.“Within the Human Brain” Ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Vision,” Through April 15, 2001. Get a very close look at how the eyes and brain work together to focus light, perceive color and motion, and process infomation. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

Holt Planetarium Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership. Jan. 26: Tragedy, Yaphet Kotto, Esperanza, Under a Dying Sun; Jan. 28, 5 p.m.: 18 Visions, 12 Tribes, Blood Has Been Shed, Anti Domestix; Feb. 2: Nerve Agents, Jemuel, The Blottos; Feb 3.: Time In Malta, The Cost 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted Feb. 1: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 3: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Quartet; Feb. 6: Pickpocket Ensemble; Feb. 7: Whiskey Brothers; Feb. 8: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 13: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Duo; Feb. 14: Carlos Oliveira Brazilian Jazz Duo 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz Jan. 24, 8 p.m.: Fling Ding, Bluegrass Intentions, Clogging w/Evie Ladin; Jan. 25, 9 p.m.: Berkeley & Oakland Students for South African Relief Benefit with Moxi Heartbeat, Neglected Dialectz, DJ Eklectyk, Sugarflip; Jan. 26, 9:30 p.m.: Johnny Nocturne with Kim Nalley, dance lesson at 8 p.m.; Jan. 27, 9:30 p.m.: Amandla Poets & Zulu Spear; Jan. 28, 8 p.m.: Ellis Island Old World Folk Band; Jan. 30, 7 p.m.: Bandworks; Jan. 31, 9 p.m.: Cajun Coyotes, dance lesson at 8 p.m. 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Jan. 26: Carlos Zialcita Band; Jan. 27: Mark Hummel; Feb. 2: Henry Clement; Feb. 3: Daniel Castro; Feb. 9: Red Archibald; Feb. 10: Kenny Blue Ray; Feb. 16: Little Johnny & the Giants; Feb. 17: Ron Thompson; Feb. 23: Carlos Zialcita; Feb. 24: R.J. Mischo 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All shows begin at 8 p.m. Jan. 24: Pierre Bensusan; Jan. 25: Ben Graves, Erika Lucket, Austin Willacy; Jan. 26: Adrian Legg; Jan. 27: Mike Greensill; Jan. 28: Okros Ensemble w/Balogh Kalman & Aladar Csiszar; Jan. 31: Slack Key Guitar Festival w/George Kahumoku, Jr., Princess Owana Salazar, Daniel Ho; Feb. 1: International Guitar Night with Andrew York, Laurence Juber, Peppino D’Agostino, and Brian Gore; Feb. 2: Cats & Jammers; Feb. 3: Lou & Peter Berryman; Feb. 4: Dave Van Ronk; Feb. 5: Tony Trischka & Junk Genius; Feb. 6: Chuck Brodsky; Feb. 7: Keola Beamer with Moana Beamer; Feb. 8 & 9: Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys. 1111 Addison St. 548-1761

The St. Mary’s soccer team went into Friday’s match against Kennedy undefeated in league play and looking for a first-place finish. They headed home with their first BSAL loss and hoping to salvage a first-round playoff bye. 

Missing one of their best offensive weapons for disciplinary reasons, the Panthers fell 2-0 to the EBAL leaders, falling to 5-1-1 in league play. Only the two top finishers get a bye in the first round, and St. Mary’s now has to win their final match on Friday to assure themselves a second-place finish. 

Midfielder Bryan Warren has been suspended for the remainder of the season for earning his second red card of the year. But he may be able to return, according to St. Mary’s coach Teale Matteson, because the second ejection came as a result of foul language, not violent play. 

Without Warren, the Panthers were forced into a defensive posture against Kennedy. They managed some moves forward, mostly through striker Patrick Barry, but were unable to finish any chances. 

“Bryan would have made a big difference in the match,” Matteson said. “He can convert chances into goals, make things happen.” 

Thirty minutes into the first half, Kennedy forward Roberto Murilio slipped past St. Mary’s sweeper Nolan Hornuchi for a breakaway, and goalkeeper Mick Osborne could only deflect the ball on its way into the net, giving the home side a 1-0 lead. 

The Panthers were unable to answer the goal with their defensive tactics, and were forced to push more and more players forward as the second half wore on. Barry came close in the 70th minute, making a 20-yard run, beating two defenders and putting a shot just over the bar from 25 yards out. 

Murilio made the Panthers pay for their offensive push with just five minutes remaining, standing alone at midfield to run onto a long clearance by one of his defenders. Osborne, who made several spectacular saves in the game, was helpless, and Murilio put the game away cleanly. 

“We got caught pushing up on the second goal,” Matteson said. “We got caught off guard on the through balls.”

Washington board member calls fears ‘paranoia’ 

Promulgation of draft bylaws has caused a stir in the KPFA activist community, where people are saying that proposed board rules would allow a concentration of power in the hands of just a few board members. 

The bylaws’ author, Washington, D.C. attorney John Murdock, however, says the activists are overreacting, that the document is a jumping off point, not set in stone. 

“Instead of engaging in productive dialogue – asking, ‘can we rework this?’ people scream at you,” Murdock said in a phone interview Thursday. “That’s not free speech.” 

Tuesday, eight persons were arrested for trespassing, when they entered the San Francisco offices of Murdock’s law firm and, calling for his resignation from the board, refused to leave. 

The Pacifica Board owns five community radio stations around the country including KPFA. Tensions between the local listener-sponsors and staff on the one hand and the board on the other has grown over the two years since the board changed its bylaws to become self-selecting. It had formerly been made up of representatives of the stations’ Local Advisory Boards. 

The firing of a popular station manager at KPFA in March 1999 set off a string of protests that continued through the summer. Listener and Local Advisory Board lawsuits naming the board are now wending their way through the judicial system. 

Murdock said his goal in reworking the bylaws is to “provide some order for the process. It’s a starting point (in order to) get feedback.” 

Instead of using the document to open dialogue, Murdock says activists have been distorting its purpose and content. He points to the section of the draft that refers to the sale of the Foundation’s assets: 

“...the Executive Committee shall not have the power or authority with regard to the following matters:...the sale, transfer or other disposition of substantially all of the assets or property of the Foundation....” 

Board member Tomas Moran, who represents the KPFA listener area and is an active opponent of the board majority, sees the new bylaws as one more step board members are taking to consolidate their power and shut out those who are pushing to democratize the board. 

He jumped on the clause that talks about the sale, contending, in fact, that it would, in fact, permit the sale of some of the assets, such as a single radio station.  

Murdock argued that, in fact, that clause was meant to protect the assets. “It says the executive committee does not have the power of sale,” he said. But Moran said that if that were so “Murdock would have written it in(to the bylaws).” 

Moran points to another section of the draft document with which he disagrees: “permission to compensate a director for services rendered.” Moran conceded that, under other circumstances, for a board member to do paid work for a board from time to time might be acceptable. However, given the mistrust between the listener-sponsors and the board, “it raises a whole host of trust issues,” Moran said. 

Murdock said such a clause was acceptable under California nonprofit law, as long as the work is publicly disclosed. (The Foundation is incorporated in California.) He pointed out that such work can be advantageous to the nonprofit. For example, his law firm is defending Pacifica in some of the lawsuits that the listeners and LABs have filed. “Epstein, Becker & Green offer legal services at a discount,” he said, noting that he had worked long hours on the bylaws without pay. The notion that the purpose of the clause is to allow board members to profit from their membership on the board is “paranoid,” he said. 

Moran’s overarching fear is that “the tone and nature (of the draft bylaws) tend to centralize power in a few hands. The board would be unaccountable.” 

He points to the section of the bylaws that says that board meetings can be called within a 24-hour period when notices are delivered by telephone or electronically or “on such shorter notice as the person or persons calling such meeting may deem necessary or appropriate under the existing circumstances.”  

Moran said that means that “a small group of people might control the board.” They could call a meeting and, with limited attendance, pass resolutions with a quorum of those present.” 

Murdock said he encourages board members to put forward their ideas to modify the draft. “It’s a working document,” he said. “I’m interested in seeking input, not wild attacks. 

Local activists, such as KPFA reporter Aaron Glantz who was arrested at the law offices on Tuesday, say they do not trust the board and plan to keep up demonstrations at the firm’s San Francisco offices. 

Asked about recent firings of three staff people and bannings of a number of volunteers from the New York Pacifica station, Murdock said that the board was not involved. “We are a policy board. Day to day operations are up to management.” 

The full text of the bylaws is at http://www.savepacifica.net/bylaws_revise.html.

It took the first quarter for Berkeley High to find its rhythm, but as soon as the whistle blew to start the second period, the Yellowjackets dominated Encinal en route to a 58-32 win Friday. 

With the win, Berkeley improved to 14-5 overall and 5-0 in the Alameda Contra Costa Athletic League. 

Known for their tough full-court press, the ‘Jackets forced turnovers and capitalized on the offensive end by pushing the ball quickly up the court for easy hoops. Berkeley led by as many as 34 midway through the fourth quarter.  

“When we play hard and when we get the tempo of the game quick, we’re very hard to beat,” said Berkeley coach Mike Gragnani. “We’ve got some pretty quick athletes, so if we get good pressure on the ball, we’re in good shape.” 

After keeping pace with the ‘Jackets through the game’s first eight minutes, Encinal struggled during the second quarter. Berkeley scored 10 straight points to start the period and ultimately outscored a sluggish Jets team 21-5, taking a 33-15 lead into the locker room.  

Encinal became even more discouraged with Berkeley’s scrappy defense following the break. The Jets’ first points of the second half didn’t come until the 3:58 mark of the third quarter. Meanwhile, Berkeley had added another eight, increasing its advantage to 41-17 with just over four minutes to play in the third. 

“We play that way all the time,” Gragnani said of the ‘Jackets stingy defense. “Basically we’re a full-court, man-to-man team. We pressure the other team and make them work hard for every inch of the court they get.” 

The ‘Jackets wore out Encinal, whichGragnani credited to the depth of Berkeley’s bench. 

“We go 11, 12 deep and try to wear other teams down,” he said. “Tonight, I just don’t think they were ready for that.” 

By comparison, Encinal had just two players score in the first half. Overall, only five Encinal players put points on the board. Berkeley, on the other hand, played a balanced offense with 10 players scoring, led by Byron St. Jules’ 12 and Ryan Davis’ 10. The ‘Jackets also were solid from the free throw line, at one point hitting seven in a row and finishing 9 of 14.  

Following the game, St. Jules said that the ‘Jackets didn’t take advantage of their inside game as much as they should have.  

“We need to work on our help defense when they’re penetrating,” St. Jules said. “And we need to throw the ball into our big men. We have some big men that can play so we have to mix it up a little bit.” 

Gragnani couldn’t explain the ‘Jackets slow start. He said it was just a matter of stepping up the intensity. 

“In the first quarter, we weren’t playing at nearly the game speed that we had been playing, so we just picked it up, hit them with a couple groups of five guys,” Gragnani said. “Any time you hold a team to single digits in a quarter, that’s a pretty good defensive effort.” 

Also contributing for the ‘Jackets was 6-1 forward Ramone Reed, who tossed in five points and forced some key turnovers. Junior Madiou Diouf added two three-pointers for the ‘Jackets. 

Berkeley next travels to face El Cerrito on Tuesday. According to Gragnani, the key for the ‘Jackets in that game will be containing El Cerrito’s perimeter players. 

“Their (El Cerrito’s) perimeter players are good at handling pressure,” he said. “We’re going to need to do a good job of containing them. They’re a little more adept at finishing (than Encinal).”

Perhaps it was a twist of fate or maybe Lady Luck stepped in. 

One thing is for sure: Mark Manashil and Dr. Omer Pasi barely missed being caught in the midst of an international incident. 

The two men work for The Clarence Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Albany. Manashil and Pasi took a trip to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in late December as part of their work in providing grants to other non-profit groups.  

Manashil returned a couple of weeks later, on a Thursday; Pasi came back the following Saturday. 

They flew out of Congo just four and two days, respectively, before the country’s president, Laurent Kabila, was reportedly shot to death on Jan.17. 

“We would have been trapped there,” said Pasi, pondering the likely outcome if they had not left when they did.  

Kabila, according to news reports, was killed by one of his bodyguards after he met with advisers at his Marble Palace. 

Kabila assumed power in 1996 after overthrowing the late Mobutu Sese Seko, who was president for 30 years. The Congolese government government has named Kabila’ s son, Maj. Gen. Joseph Kabila, as its new leader. 

Manashil, executive director of The Clarence Foundation, said that he is thankful he was not in Congo when the shooting occurred. 

“What if I had been there?” Manashil said he thought to himself after hearing about Kabila’ s shooting. “It’s just a weird feeling.” 

Though it is impossible for Pasi to have predicted the assassination, he said that he felt an eerie aura lingering around his homeland. 

“Being there was very strange. It was very calm, almost too good to be true,” said Pasi, who serves on foundation’s board of directors and is studying at the University of California, Berkeley. 

“Within two weeks, the currency had devalued twice. There was no gas and hundreds of cars were lined up at gas stations,” Pasi said. 

“When I would ask people how were things going and I heard, “Well, there’ s no gas and we’re close to starving. But other than that, life is great,’” he said, noting that the responses he received were not coated with sarcasm. They were sincere. 

Pasi and Manashil said that they plan to return to Congo to finish the work that they had started on behalf of The Clarence Foundation. 

Formed a year and a half ago, The Clarence Foundation is a small group run by private donations. It searches for grassroots organizations throughout the world that are doing successful work in health 

care, education or working on human rights issues within their communities. 

The Clarence Foundation then provides the groups with financial support so that they may expand their services. 

Manashil said Pasi told the foundation about projects underway in Congo, a country with a long history of military and regional conflicts. 

“The people there have a certain resiliency,” said Manashil. “But 

we can’t neglect the fact that there’s suffering there.” 

Some of their work went beyond visiting a project site. Soon after arriving at an orphanage, Manashil and Pasi rushed an 8-year old boy to a health center for emergency care. 

“He was obviously sick for a couple of weeks and he never went to see anybody,” said Pasi, a general practitioner. 

“So, we decided to pay out of our own pocket. He had fever of 104 degrees. We paid 50 cents for the visit and 75 cents for the medication.” 

Manashil and Pasi are now reviewing seven projects based in Kinshasa and surrounding towns. 

Pasi said that the trip was one that he and his friends would not soon forget. 

“I’m still getting phone calls from friends who heard about (Kabila’s) shooting. They’re leaving messages asking, ‘Are you trapped?’” Pasi said. 

The Clarence Foundation is at 1501 Washington Ave., in Albany and can be reached at 558-7188 or  

info@theclarencefoundation.org  

Nearly everything that could have gone wrong for the Berkeley girls’ basketball team did just that on Friday. Their star player was late for the game and sat for most of the first half. They shot poorly, and were called for 19 fouls in the first half. Their coach called it their worst effort of the year. Yet the Lady ’Jackets still beat the Encinal Jets by 15 points. 

“I’m thoroughly embarrassed by the way we played tonight,” Berkeley head coach Gene Nakamura said. “There was not one person who played well.” 

The turnovers and missed shots were bad, but the constant whistles made it an agonizing game for players and fans alike. The referee’s called fouls in the first half as if it were a bodily function, with 26 personal fouls in the first 10 minutes and 29 in the half. Berkeley and Encinal combined to shoot 52 free throws, keeping the game at a snail’s pace and preventing either team from getting into a flow. 

“I’ve been in basketball for 20 years, and I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Encinal head coach Tanda Rucker, who played for Nakamura from 1987 to 1991, helping to establish the Lady ’Jacket tradition. “This was a totally new experience.” 

Berkeley’s leading scorer, forward Robin Roberson, arrived late and was benched for most of the first half, and the ’Jackets struggled, making just one of their first seven shots. But they were fierce on the offensive glass, and crawled to a 13-11 lead at the end of the first quarter on 11 free throws. Up just 26-22 with three minutes left in the half, Nakamura finally inserted Roberson, who led her team on a 13-5 run with three quick baskets. Roberson finished the game with 16 points, supported by Angelita Hutton’s 15 and Danielle Milburn’s 12. 

The ’Jackets pulled away in the second half, but were still plagued by turnovers and missed opportunities. 

“We just didn’t show any court sense out there,” Nakamura said. “I thought back to when Tanda was playing for me, and she was the best floor leader I ever had. She was like a coach on the court. We certainly could have used that tonight.”

Berkeley police report that a train struck a semi-truck at about 12:34 p.m. today but there are no reports of any injuries. 

A spokeswoman says the accident happened on the tracks near Camelia and Fourth streets in Berkeley.

SAN FRANCISCO – A man has been accused of taking $200,000 from his nephew after selling part of the Golden State Warriors that he didn’t own. 

Roger Steven Miller, 56, of Menlo Park, was indicted Thursday on eight counts of mail fraud by the U.S. Attorney’s office here. 

Miller allegedly told Jay Frye, an Indiana man, that he was seeking investors to buy the Warriors, and collected $250,000 from him for the deal. 

Prosecutors allege that to repay Frye, Miller took more than $200,000 of American Building Maintenance Industries stock from his nephew, Scott Ladenheim, in Oct. 1998. Miller forged Ladenheim’s signature to transfer the stock to his Prudential account, an indictment said. He then sold the shares and used $175,000 of the funds to pay his debt to Frye. 

For each violation in the Ladenheim case, Miller faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution. He has been released on bail and is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 2.

SAN QUENTIN – At least 50 inmates broke into a race riot at San Quentin State Prison that saw nine men injured, two by makeshift knives fashioned from bed springs. 

A San Quentin official said the prison remained in lockdown Friday evening pending the results of an investigation. 

The riot broke out around 6:20 p.m. Thursday, when a group of about 10 black inmates attacked a small group of white inmates, prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon said. 

About two dozen guards controlled the situation with the help of pepper spray. In disarming the inmates, guards found four weapons made from straightened-out bedsprings, each about six inches long. 

Prison officials believe the attack stemmed from an earlier incident when the white inmates taunted the black inmates with racial epithets. 

The melee quickly grew to about 50 inmates, Crittendon said. Combatants have been segregated from other prisoners while San Quentin officials investigate the incident, he said. 

Two of the inmates suffered stab wounds — a white prisoner had a puncture wound in his back, and a black prisoner had one behind his knee. The rest had cuts and scrapes, Crittendon said. 

All nine were treated at the prison. 

The riot took place in the Badger Section of the prison, where new prisoners are screened before being placed into the prison or shipped to other prisons.

SACRAMENTO – No one trying to solve California’s power crisis wants to utter the b-word to describe the multibillion-dollar plan that would keep the lights on while rescuing the state’s two largest utilities. 

“It’s not a bailout,” Gov. Gray Davis hastened to say after the proposal emerged this week. 

Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg said: “It’s not just a quick fix, a Band-Aid. It’s not a gift.” 

Though the plan and its costs are still evolving, consumer advocates and economists aren’t so shy about calling it a bailout. They say utility customers will bear the cost through rate hikes that will be in effect for a decade. 

“The utilities get bailed out and the consumers pay and pay,” said Jamie Briesemeister, senior policy analyst with Consumers Union. “If this proposal gets enacted, deregulation will go down as the biggest consumer rip-off in California history.” 

Whatever the terminology, the relief plan being forged for Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric — who say that together they are more than $12 billion in debt — would rank among the nation’s biggest. 

The deal would be dwarfed by the federal bailout of the savings and loan industry, where cost estimates soared as high as $481 billion. But it would be much bigger than the 1995 bailout of Orange County, which rolled up $819 million in debts, and the 1979 Chrysler bailout, even when inflation is factored in. 

Congress authorized $1.5 billion for the moribund automaker while it reorganized under Lee Iaccoca. Chrysler used only $1.2 billion of the money. 

California has been under a Stage 3 alert for nearly two weeks, meaning power reserves are practically exhausted. Thousands of homes and businesses have been hit by rolling blackouts in a crisis blamed in part on California’s deregulation of its electric industry. 

Under the deregulation law, the utilities had to sell off their power plants and buy electricity on the open market. But the two biggest utilities have been sliding toward ruin because wholesale prices are soaring and the companies are not allowed to pass the full cost on to their customers. 

“The ratepayers’ anger is understandable because that’s the entity to which they pay their bills,” said Catherine Wolfram, a University of California energy economist. “But the utilities faced real regulatory hurdles. And the power generators have been making out like bandits.” 

Because the two utilities’ credit is practically worthless, the state is spending at least $400 million to buy power on their behalf on the expensive spot market. At the same times, state officials are negotiating long-term power contracts with suppliers of up to 10 years. 

California lawmakers are also trying to put together a rescue plan under which the state would issue bonds to cover SoCal Edison and PG&E’s debts. Millions of the utilities’ customers would pay back the bonds over several years through an extension of recently approved rate increases. The exact amount of the deal is uncertain. 

As part of the deal, the state would get long-term options that would let it buy utility stock at a low price. If stock prices rise, the state could sell the stock and use any profits to pay off the bonds. 

Investment analysts offered cautious praise for the rescue plan, which stops far short of another option that has been on the table: a huge state takeover of utilities’ hydroelectric plants and other facilities. 

“Bailout implies incompetence on the part of companies who don’t deserve help,” said Susan Abbott, managing director of the public utilities group at Moody’s Investor Service. But “the way the market was structured didn’t allow the companies to protect themselves from the volatility of electricity pricing. We believe this is a step in the right direction, although a lot more has to be done.”

SACRAMENTO – California’s power managers working on the state’s fragile electricity grid Friday ordered service cut to voluntary customers in Southern California as they lost power imports from Arizona and the Northwest. 

The state was in a Stage 3 alert for the 11th straight day, but managers said blackouts were unlikely. 

“We still anticipate being able to avoid rotating blackouts; however, conservation is even more critical,” said Stephanie McCorkle, spokeswoman for the California Independent System Operator. 

At one minute before midnight Thursday, the ISO had lifted the Stage 3 alert for the first time in nearly two weeks. That alert means power reserves are so low that there is a good chance of blackouts. 

However, the ISO reinstated the Stage 3 at 4:32 a.m. PST, when a 260-megawatt Northern California power plant went down. The ISO said the alert would run through midnight Friday. 

A total of 1,200 Southern California customers who have been paying lower rates in return for allowing their power to be cut during shortages were ordered to shut off electricity until 4:15 a.m. Friday, McCorkle said. 

In addition to the plant being down, the state had imports from Arizona and the Northwest cut by a total of about 2,200 megawatts, she said. 

A Stage 3 alert means power reserves are below 1.5 percent, Stage 2 is below 5 percent and Stage 1 is below 7 percent. 

Energy managers on Thursday had suggested they might even be able to go to a Stage 1 alert later Friday, in which people are simply advised to conserve energy, and praised the state’s consumers. 

“California’s conservation efforts played an important role in the ISO’s ability to keep the lights on this week,” the ISO, which controls most of the state’s power grid, said in a statement. 

On Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that if the state’s energy crisis isn’t resolved soon, it could cause a ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy that could undermine the nation’s decade-long expansion. 

“It’s scarcely credible that you can have a major economic problem in California which does not feed to the rest of the 49 states,” Greenspan said in congressional testimony, adding that the crisis could reduce investment in the West, which in turn could shake consumer confidence. 

He called the situation “a significant problem that this country is going to have to address, and ... rather quickly.” 

System operators, meanwhile, said as many as 1,000 megawatts of electricity — enough to power one million homes — were saved each day this week through conservation. 

Last week, in the midst of a record 10 straight days of Stage 3 alerts, power had to be shut off to hundreds of thousands of users across central and northern California on two consecutive days. 

Many more large users, those who had signed agreements to shut off their power during a shortage in exchange for lower rates, also lost electricity for hours at a time. Representatives of many of them were in San Francisco on Friday to lobby the state Public Utilities Commission to let them out of those agreements. 

“What we are stuck with is a program that was put together prior to deregulation that makes no sense now,” said Phillip L. Doolittle, vice president for finance and administration at the University of Redlands. The school has amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties by ignoring the agreement and keeping its electricity on to avoid canceling classes. 

As Friday began, the biggest threat of the day to most power users appeared to be a heavy winter storm that brought driving rain to San Francisco and several inches of snow to the Sierra Nevada. It knocked out power to more than 40,000 users in Sonoma and Marin counties and parts of the Sierra foothills as it lumbered toward Southern California. 

Lawmakers prepared to work through the weekend to find a long-term solution to the crisis. 

Occupying their attention was a plan under which California would issue bonds to cover the multibillion-dollar debts of its two biggest electric utilities and make the utilities’ customers pay the money back over 10 years. 

One of the state’s most prominent consumer activists immediately denounced the plan as a bailout and promised to lead a voter initiative campaign against it. 

“If that’s what they plan to do, they’ll have to contend with a ratepayer revolt at the ballot box in 2002,” said Harvey Rosenfield of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. 

“It’s not a bailout,” said Gov. Gray Davis, who supports the proposal. “It accomplishes two purposes: It provides the funding to revitalize the utilities, but it lets ratepayers know they will gain as the utilities gain.” 

Under the proposal, the state would issue revenue bonds that Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers would pay back through recently approved rate increases of 9 percent for residential customers and 7 to 15 percent for businesses that would be kept in force for 10 years. 

In exchange, California would be granted long-term options allowing the state to buy low-priced stock in the utilities. If the price goes up, the state could sell the stock and use the profits to help pay off the bonds. 

The utilities have declined to comment on the proposal. 

Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, said the plan wouldn’t require spending taxpayer money, but Rosenfield complained that it would be financed through “hidden charges on people’s utility bills.” 

“They’re desperately looking for a way to make it look as if the rate payers are going to get something in exchange for giving the utilities $12 billion to bail them out for the mistakes they’ve made under deregulation,” he said.

Belgian endives are those torpedo-shaped, pale green leafy heads that sell for high prices in the market. The hefty price tag comes about because Belgian endive is a specialty vegetable and much of it is flown here from Europe. But this pricey item is easy to grow indoors in winter -- the plants need no light and little soil. 

To harvest Belgian endives in winter, you have to plan ahead by sowing seeds out in the garden in late spring. Growing outdoors through summer and autumn, the plants store up minerals and the sun’s energy to be tapped later when you “force” the roots indoors. 

Do not harvest any leaves from the plants while they are growing out in the garden. 

Before the ground freezes solid in autumn, dig the roots and save for forcing those that are straight and an inch or two thick at their tops. With a sharp knife, cut off any side roots, cut the leafy tops to within an inch of the crowns, and shorten each root to a manageable length of about eight inches. 

To prolong the winter harvest, store some roots in a perforated plastic bag in the refrigerator (just as you would store carrots), and remove a few at a time for forcing. 

Force Belgian endive indoors in a deep flowerpot or wooden or cardboard box. Pack the roots upright into the container, sifting well-drained garden soil, sand, or new or used potting soil into the spaces between the roots. Water thoroughly. 

Belgian endive leaves taste best when forced in the dark. Keep the leaves in the dark and keep the growing heads tight by covering the crowns of the plants with about eight inches of dry sand, soil, or sawdust. (Do not use sawdust from wood that has been treated with a preservative.) 

Place the box in the basement or some other spot where the temperature is cool, preferably in the low 60s, and periodically check to make sure the mix around the roots is moist. 

In three or four weeks, depending on the temperature, tips of leafy heads will begin to peek through the top layer. That’s the time to pull off the covering and harvest the heads.

HERMOSA BEACH – In a significant victory for opponents of coastal oil drilling, an appeals court has ruled the city may ban ocean-tapping wells within city limits. 

The California Court of Appeals overturned a 1998 trial court decision that said the city had violated a contract with Macpherson Oil Co. that allowed it to place “slant wells” just a few blocks from the beach. 

If the oil company had been given the go-ahead to tap undersea oil pockets, it would have been the first slant oil drilling project in Santa Monica Bay since the 1950s, according to an attorney who represented a coalition of residents and environmental groups that appealed the initial court decision. 

The battle over oil drilling has stirred emotions for nearly 70 years in Hermosa Beach, a picturesque beach town southwest of Los Angeles. City officials banned drilling in 1932 but voters approved lifting the ban in 1984 because the city needed money. 

The city signed a lease in 1986 with Santa Monica-based Macpherson, and in 1998, after a lengthy process, the company received the needed approval to drill from the California Coastal Commission. 

But in the meantime a citizens’ coalition called Hermosa Beach Stop Oil had helped sway public sentiment against the drilling. In 1995 voters passed a new drilling ban and in 1998 the City Council voted to stop the project, sending Macpherson to court to fight to keep it alive. 

In sending the case back to the lower court Wednesday, the appeals court did not address whether the city can be held liable for damages to Macpherson, which has asked for $100 million in restitution. 

Attorneys for Macpherson did not immediately return voice mail messages seeking comment early Friday.

OXNARD – Rose Burgess played red-light, green-light with the California Department of Motor Vehicles after she was told she incorrectly answered one of the questions on her renewal test. 

The Oxnard woman was given Test No. 8, one of 10 given annually to about 3 million Californians who renew their licenses each year. 

Question No. 13 read: Your wheels should be pointed straight ahead, unless you are: 1) Waiting to make a left turn at a traffic light; 2) Parked on a hill or sloping driveway; 3) Parked on the side of a level roadway and there is no curb. 

Burgess marked the second answer, but a DMV official said it was wrong and insisted the correct answer was No. 3. Burgess, a senior citizen, pulled out the California Driver Handbook 2000, turned to page 26, and showed the examiner she was correct. 

The examiner brushed her off, so Burgess took the matter to an administrator. 

The test was corrected Monday throughout the state. “We will no longer mark the answer wrong,” said Bill Branch, a spokesman for the DMV. “We regret the error. Very few errors slip by us.” 

Burgess told the Ventura County Star that she just wanted to do the right thing. “Something was wrong, I investigated it. I wanted to help other people,” she said. 

For the record, Burgess only missed one other question out of 18 and the state allows people renewing their licenses to miss three questions.

SAN JOSE – When a rolling blackout hit the neighborhood of Equinix Inc.’s data center, the hundreds of computers inside hummed along unperturbed, the lights didn’t blink and the temperature remained a steady 68 degrees. 

Thanks to a warning from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and constant monitoring of the power supply, diesel generators fired up in time to maintain the facility that serves some of the world’s largest Web sites. 

Electricity is the lifeblood of the Internet Age, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the power-hungry data centers that connect backbone networks and provide a home for thousands of servers. 

The Internet’s growth as a marketplace and demands for reliability have led to an explosion in the number of server-filled data centers nationwide, particularly in electricity-starved California with its abundance of high-tech companies and the data highways that make up the core of the Internet. 

“We have a very tight ship here where we’re watching literally every electron that passes through,” said Jay Adelson, chief technology officer of Equinix, whose clients include IBM Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. 

Data centers offer services ranging from a fast links to the Internet for companies to complete Web management solutions.  

With racks of servers, air conditioning and support systems, they can draw from 10 to 65 megawatts of electricity, enough to power on average 10,000 to 65,000 homes.  

It is estimated that the equipment needed to power the Internet consumes from 1 percent to as high as 13 percent of national demand. Koomey believes the actual figure is at the low end. 

Because most data centers are built to withstand terrorist attacks and other calamities, California’s rolling blackouts have not posed a serious threat to the traffic they process daily. 

Equinix, which has six centers around the nation, has enough fuel to power its generator for 48 hours at full load — or a week or more when usage is less. It also has contracts with two diesel suppliers. 

The company also has contingency plans in place to enter into energy contracts or construct its own power plant, Adelson said. 

Exodus Communications Inc., recently announced it would work with General Electric to construct a natural-gas-powered generator at one of its Santa Clara facilities. 

Planning started last year, before the energy crisis exploded, said chief executive officer Ellen Hancock. The company sees the plant as a way to strengthen its reliability beyond battery and diesel backups. 

Centers are limited in what they can do to conserve power. Server processors are sensitive to the slightest changes in electricity. The other big expense — air conditioning — is necessary to prevent meltdown in the racks. 

Exodus, like most firms, dims the lights when possible. Center operators note that by centralizing servers, they use less power than if their clients ran separate server farms, each with its own air conditioning and support. 

But the equipment in data centers could be more efficient — and some companies plan to introduce servers that draw considerably less power. 

FiberCycle, RLX Technologies Inc. and others are planning to launch servers using lower-energy chips developed by Transmeta Corp. 

Transmeta’s Crusoe chip can adjust its speed – measured in megahertz – according to demand, and thus decrease power consumption. 

“The great thing about Transmeta’s technology is that it allows you to throttle the CPU (central processing unit) down enough megahertz to handle what’s happening on the server at that time, and nothing more,” said Chris Hipp, RLX’s co-founder and chief technology officer.

After a devastating 5-1 loss to league rival Richmond on Tuesday, the Berkeley High boys’ soccer team could have done two things: come back and play harder than ever, or go into the toilet against a weak opponent. They chose the former. 

All negative feelings over the loss were washed away with a 7-0 whipping of Pinole Valley (1-6-1 ACCAL) on Thursday. Senior Stefan Isaksen got a first-half hat trick, then sat for the second half with most of his senior teammates, as head coach Eugenio Juarez took advantage of a 5-0 halftime score to try out some of his younger players. 

Most of the first half was played in a driving rainstorm, but the ’Jackets (11-5 overall, 7-2 ACCAL) somehow caught fire anyway. It took all of nine minutes for them to run up a 3-0 lead, with the opening salvo coming just four minutes in. Isaksen took a feed from senior captain Tiago Venturi and slammed the ball past Spartan goalkeeper Tim Torres from 10 yards out. 

Freshman Kamani Hill scored the next two goals in the seventh and ninth minutes, both off of assists by Venturi. Isaksen scored on a solo effort soon after, and wrapped up the first-half scoring from yet another assist by Venturi in the 29th minute. 

“We knocked the ball around well in the first half and kept possession,” Juarez said. “It looked like we were just playing with them for a while.” 

That ease led Juarez to pull most of his starters, including Isaksen, Venturi and goalkeeper Andrew Kelley, but it made little difference. The younger Berkeley players kept possession for most of the second half, as the Spartans started to look more and more weary. Torres began screaming at his defenders, and with good reason. He was forced to make several spectacular saves on wide-open Berkeley shots, and only his heroism kept the score 5-0 for almost the entire half. Venturi re-entered the game with 10 minutes left, and immediately created chances for himself and his teammates. 

“This was a great way to come back from the loss,” Venturi said. “This builds our confidence going into Alameda next week.” 

Alameda dealt the ’Jackets their first loss of the ACCAL season earlier this year. 

Just when it looked as if the Spartans would manage a scoreless second half, Berkeley midfielder Liam Reilly took center stage. The junior streaked ahead for a breakaway and scored with 2:16 on the clock, and waited all of 30 seconds to score his second, beating two defenders on the way. 

“Our young guys didn’t play badly out there, they just couldn’t ring up the scores for a while,” Juarez said.

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm.” $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tuesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Judah L. Magnes Museum “Telling Time: To Everything There Is A Season” Through May, 2002 An exhibit structured around the seasons of the year and the seasons of life with objects ranging from the sacred and the secular, to the provocative and the whimsical. “Second Annual Richard Nagler Competition for Excellence in Jewish Photography” Through Feb., 2001. Featuring the work of Claudia Nierman, Jason Francisco, Fleming Lunsford, and others. 2911 Russell St. 549-6950  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “Tacita Dean/MATRIX 189 Banewl” through Jan. 28. A film instillation by British conceptual artist Tacita Dean of the total solar eclipse of Aug. 11, 1999; “The Mule Train: A Journey of Hope Remembered,” through March 26. An exhibit of black and white photographs that capture the fears and faith of those who traveled from Marks, Mississippi to Washington, D.C. ,with mule-drawn wagons to attend the Poor People's Campaign in December, 1967; “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Feb. 7 through May 27. The selections include 150 collages, assemblages, paintings, drawings, and book covers. Brainard’s art is characterized by its humor and exhuberant color, and by its combinations of media and subject matter; Muntadas - On Translation: The Audience, Feb. 7 through April 29. This conceptual artist and pioneer of video, installation, and Internet art presents three installations. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. 642-0808. 

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery,” open-ended. A display of early Chinese works from the permanent collection. “Chinese Ceramics and Bronzes: The First 3,000 Years,” open-ended. “Works on Extended Loan from Warren King,” open-ended. “Three Towers of Han,” open-ended. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 642-0808 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 by 40-foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. 

“Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology “Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended. This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history.“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing.This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. $2 general; $1 seniors; $.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” Ongoing. A math exhibit of hands-on problem-solving stations, each with a different mathematical challenge.“Within the Human Brain” Ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Vision,” Through April 15, 2001. Get a very close look at how the eyes and brain work together to focus light, perceive color and motion, and process infomation. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

Holt Planetarium Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

Music 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership 

Jan. 26: Tragedy, Yaphet Kotto, Esperanza, Under a Dying Sun; Jan. 28, 5 p.m.: 18 Visions, 12 Tribes, Blood Has Been Shed, Anti Domestix; Feb. 2: Nerve Agents, Jemuel, The Blottos; Feb 3.: Time In Malta, The Cost 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted Feb. 1: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 3: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Quartet; Feb. 6: Pickpocket Ensemble; Feb. 7: Whiskey Brothers; Feb. 8: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 13: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Duo; Feb. 14: Carlos Oliveira Brazilian Jazz Duo 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz Jan. 24, 8 p.m.: Fling Ding, Bluegrass Intentions, Clogging w/Evie Ladin; Jan. 25, 9 p.m.: Berkeley & Oakland Students for South African Relief Benefit with Moxi Heartbeat, Neglected Dialectz, DJ Eklectyk, Sugarflip; Jan. 26, 9:30 p.m.: Johnny Nocturne with Kim Nalley, dance lesson at 8 p.m.; Jan. 27, 9:30 p.m.: Amandla Poets & Zulu Spear; Jan. 28, 8 p.m.: Ellis Island Old World Folk Band; Jan. 30, 7 p.m.: Bandworks; Jan. 31, 9 p.m.: Cajun Coyotes, dance lesson at 8 p.m. 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Jan. 26: Carlos Zialcita Band; Jan. 27: Mark Hummel; Feb. 2: Henry Clement; Feb. 3: Daniel Castro; Feb. 9: Red Archibald; Feb. 10: Kenny Blue Ray; Feb. 16: Little Johnny & the Giants; Feb. 17: Ron Thompson; Feb. 23: Carlos Zialcita; Feb. 24: R.J. Mischo 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All shows begin at 8 p.m. Jan. 24: Pierre Bensusan; Jan. 25: Ben Graves, Erika Lucket, Austin Willacy; Jan. 26: Adrian Legg; Jan. 27: Mike Greensill; Jan. 28: Okros Ensemble w/Balogh Kalman & Aladar Csiszar; Jan. 31: Slack Key Guitar Festival w/George Kahumoku, Jr., Princess Owana Salazar, Daniel Ho; Feb. 1: International Guitar Night with Andrew York, Laurence Juber, Peppino D’Agostino, and Brian Gore; Feb. 2: Cats & Jammers; Feb. 3: Lou & Peter Berryman; Feb. 4: Dave Van Ronk; Feb. 5: Tony Trischka & Junk Genius; Feb. 6: Chuck Brodsky; Feb. 7: Keola Beamer with Moana Beamer; Feb. 8 & 9: Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys; Feb. 10: Baguette Quartette with Odile Lavault; Feb.11: Bob Franke 1111 Addison St. 548-1761  

Jupiter All music begins at 8 p.m. Jan. 24: Realistic w/DJ Turtle; Jan. 25: Joshi Marshall Project; Jan. 26: Paula Murray Trio; Jan. 27: Solomon Grundy 2181 Shattuck Ave. Call THE-ROCK  

Jazzschool/La Note All shows at 4:30 p.m.Tickets are $10 - $12  

Jan. 28: Ann Dyer Trio; Feb. 4: Jeff Chambers and the J2W Project 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Crowden School Sundays, 4 p.m.: Chamber music series sponsored by the school. 1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 559-6910 

Cal Performances Jan. 27,8 p.m. and Jan. 28, 3 p.m.: The Peking Acrobats $18 - $30; Feb. 2 & 3, 8 p.m.: Allee der Kosmonauten by Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz with video installations by New York artist Elliot Caplan, $20 - $42; Feb. 4, 4 p.m.: Russian National Orchestra, $30 - $52; Feb. 10, 8 p.m.: Masters of Persian Classical Music, $20 - $40; Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m.: Balinese Orchestra Gamelan Sekar Jaya present “Kawit Legong: Prince Karna’s Dream,” $18 - $30. Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Feb. 11, 3 p.m.: Horacio Gutierrez $24 - $42 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

“Women in Salsa” Jan. 25, 8 p.m. Orquesta D’Soul, a San Francisco based band, is hosting this benefit featuring the musical talents of local bay area women in salsa. $8 in advance, $10 at the door. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or visit www.lapena.org 

Duets for Dance & Piano Jan. 25, 8 p.m. Maxine Heppner, choreographer/dancer, with John Sharpley, composer/pianist. $20 Takara Sake Tasting Room 708 Addison St. 527-1892 

“Sweet Honey” Jan. 26, 8 p.m. This Grammy award-winning African American female a cappella ensemble has deep musical roots in the sacred music of the black church including spirituals, hymns, gospel, as well as jazz and blues. Their words will also be interpreted in American Sign Language. $25 - $27.50 Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley 642-9988 

“Clori, Tirsi e Fileno” Jan. 27, 8 p.m.; Jan. 28, 7 p.m. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before each performance. Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company perform Handel’s opera. $15 - $20. Crowden School Theater 1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 658-3382 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Jan. 31, April 3, and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Eighth Annual Robert Burns Birthday Celebration Feb. 2, 8 p.m. and Feb. 4, 7 p.m. A celebration of Scotland’s beloved 18th century poet: his songs, his letters, his life. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church 1501 Washington Ave (at Curtis) Albany 848-3422 

Empyrean Ensemble Feb. 3, 3 p.m. The ensemble will present “The Soldier’s Tale,” by Igor Stravinsky, “Prosperous Sould, Gregarious Heart,” by Peter Josheff, and “Horizon Unfolds,” by Yu-Hui Chang. $4 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. (at Derby) 925-798-1300 

Flauti Diversi Ensemble Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m. Performing the music of 17th and early 18th century composers on baroque instruments in a program titled “Bell Fiore, Belle Fleur.” $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley 1 Lawson Rd. 525-0302 

“Mostly Baroque” Feb. 4, 5 p.m. Instrumental works by Corelli, Schickhardt, Quantz, Mozart, a new work by Glen Shannon and Bach’s Cantana 82. Donations accepted Church of Saint Mary Magdalen 2005 Berryman (at Milvia)  

Toshi Makihara & Colin Stetson Feb. 4, 7:48 p.m. Philadephia percussionist Makihara teams up with local solo saxophonist Voigt and local contrabassist Morgan Guberman for an evening of improvised music. $8 donation Tuva Space 3192 Adeline (at MLK Jr. Way) 649-8744 

Theater 

“Fall” by Bridget Carpenter Through Feb. 11. $15.99 - $51. Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, www. berkeleyrep.org 

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett Through Feb. 3, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. $8 - $12. Subterranean Shakespeare La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 234-6046  

“The Road to Mecca” by Athol Fugard Jan. 26 - Feb. 24, Friday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Feb. 22, 8 p.m. $10 Live Oak Theatre 1301 Shattuck 528-5620 

“Nightingale” presented by Central Works Theater Feb. 9 - March 4, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 24 & Saturday, March 3, 5 p.m.; Free preview Feb. 8, 8 p.m. $8 - $14 LaVal’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Feb. 15 - March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

Films 

“Abel Paz Durruti & the Spanish Revolution” A new documentary film made in 1998. Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m. $7 donation requested. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. LaborFest, 415-642-8066  

Human Rights Watch International Film Festival Jan. 26, 7:30 p.m.:“Long Nights Journey Into Day,” presented by filmmakers Deborah Hoffman and Frances Reid. Jan. 27, 5 p.m.: “Pripyat,” “Crazy,” and “Bread & Roses.” $7 for one film, $8.50 for multiple films. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

“Magnetic North” Six programs of experimental Canadian video from the past 30 years that range from documentary to conceptual art. In all, 40 tapes from 46 artists will be shown on six Wednesday evenings. Through Feb. 28. $7. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

Exhibits 

Berkeley Historical Society “Berkeley’s Ethnic Heritage.” An overview of the rich cultural diversity of the city and the contribution of individuals and minority groups to it’s history and development. Thursday through Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m. Free. 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Consecrations: Spirits in the Time of AIDS,” Through Feb. 24. An exhibit seeking to expand the understanding of HIV and AIDS and the people affected by them. Wednesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Pro Arts Gallery 461 Ninth St., Oakland. 763-9425  

“Celebration” An exhibit of artists working and living in the East Bay. Through Feb. 3; Tuesday - Saturday, 11 - 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 - 5 p.m. !hey! Gallery 4920-b Telegraph Ave., Oakland 428-2349 

Acrylic Paintings of Corinne Innis Paying homage to her subconscious, Innis uses rich colors in her acrylic paintings. Through Feb. 26; Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, 1 - 7 p.m. and by appointment. Women’s Cancer Resource Center 3023 Shattuck Ave. 548-9286 x307  

Drawings & Watercolor Paintings of Daniel Hitkov Hitkov is a young Bulgarian artist whose subjects are the real and unreal in nature, people and things. Through Feb. 12. Red Cafe 1941 University Ave. 843-7230 

“Trees With Frosting” Stevie Famulari decorates landscapes with sugar and frosting, making her artwork edible and changeable by viewers. This particular display will remain for two months. Through February Skapades Hair Salon 1971 Shattuck Ave. 251-8080 or steviesart@hotmail.com 

BACA Members’ Showcase Exhibition Nearly 150 artists submitted art in every imaginable medium: Painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and mixed media. More than ever before. Through Feb. 3 Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. Live Oak Park Wednesday through Sunday, Noon - 5 p.m. 644-6893  

“Dorchester Days,” the photographs of Eugene Richards is a collection of pictures portraying the poverty, racial tension, crime and violence prevalent in Richards’ hometown of Dorchester, Massachusetts in the 1970s. Jan. 25 - April 6; Opening reception Jan. 25, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.; Public lecture and screening of “but, the day came,” a film written, produced and directed by Richards, Jan. 26, 7 p.m. UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism 121 North Gate Hall #5860 642-3383 

“Still Life & Landscapes” The work of Pamela Markmann Through March 24, Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Red Oak Gallery 1891 Solano Ave. 527-3387 

“Kick Back,” the Department of Art Practice of UC Berkeley spring faculty show Feb. 6 through March 2; Opening reception Feb. 6, 4 - 6 p.m. Informative lecture Feb. 14, Noon Worth Ryder Gallery Kroeber Hall UC Berkeley Call 642-2582 

“Unequal Funding: Photographs of Children in Schools that Get Less” An exhibit of black & white photographs by documentary photographer Chris Pilaro. Feb. 1 - March 16, Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m., Saturday, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.; Opening reception, Feb. 9, 6 - 8 p.m. Photolab Gallery 2235 Fifth St. 644-1400 

“Musee des Hommages,” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Boticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours 2028 Ninth St. (at Addison) 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

Readings 

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 27: Susan Swartz reads from “Juicy Tomatoes: Plain Truths, Dumb Lies, & Sisterly Advice About Life After 50”; Feb. 10: Karin Kallmaker reads from “Sleight of Hand”; Feb. 23: Becky Thompson reads “Mothering Without a Compass: White Mother’s Love, Black Son’s Courage” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 24: “Grrrrr Anthology” poets CB Follett, Lynne Knight, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Robert Aquinas McNally, & John B. Rowe; Jan. 25: Norman Stolzoff presents “Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica”; Jan. 26: James Carroll discusses “Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews”; Jan. 28: Poetry of Lynne Knight & Kathleen Lynch; Jan. 29: Tim Wohlforth discusses “On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left”; Jan. 30: James Elkins discusses “how to use Your Eyes”; Jan. 31: Poetry of Steven Ajay & Anita Barrows  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. Jan. 25: Glenn Ingersoll; Feb. 1: John Rowe; Feb. 8: Tom Odegard; Feb 15: Kathleen Lynch; Feb. 22: Charles Ellick; March 1: Eliza Shefler; March 8: Judy Wells; March 15: Elanor Watson-Gove; March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; April 19: Garrett Murphy; April 26: Ray Skjelbred. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. Feb. 1: Sherman Alexie; March 1: Aleida Rodrigues; April 5: Galway Kinnell; Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

Robert Hass Former U.S. Poet Laureate will read Jan. 31, Noon - 1 p.m. Lower Sproul Plaza, Pauley Ballroom in case of rain UC Berkeley 

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800  

The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623  

Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting.  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 

Lectures 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested Jan. 28: “The Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings,” a panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history; March 11: Director of Berkeley’s International House, Joe Lurie, will show a video and dicuss the history and struggle to open the I-House 70 years ago. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Feb. 13 - April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

City Commons Club Social Hour & Speaker Series Fridays, 11:15 a.m., Jan. 26: “The Aftermath of the National Election,” Susan Rasky, senior lecturer at the graduate school of journalism at UC Berkeley. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 848-3533 

Friday, Jan. 26

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. 549-2970  

“The Aftermath of the  

National Election” 

11:45 a.m. luncheon 

12:30 p.m. speaker  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

Susan Rasky, senior lecturer at the graduate school of journalism at UC Berkeley will speak.  

$11 - $12.25 with luncheon, $1 with coffee, students free  

848-3533 

Stagebridge Free Acting  

|& Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit 

www.stagebridge.org 

Crisis in Colombia 

7 p.m. 

Berkeley UU Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)  

Peter Dale Scott, UC Berkeley professor and Daniel de la Pava, of the Colombia Support Network will, will discuss the U.S. role in perpetuating the violence and how to organize to help.  

$5 - $10 donation requested  

Call 704-9608 

Yiddish Conversation  

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

With Allen Stross 

Call 644-6107 

Saturday, Jan. 27

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno 

8 p.m. 

Crowden School  

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.  

$15 - $20 Call 658-3382  

Cuddly, Soft, Furry Things & Friends 

10 - 10:50 a.m. & 11:10 a.m. - Noon  

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley  

A special workshop for two - three year-olds to meet, pet, and feed rabbits, doves, and snakes.  

$22 - $25, $10 for additional family members, registration required  

Call 642-5134 

Amnesty  

& Immigrant Rights March  

11 a.m.  

St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church  

1500 34th Ave.  

Confirmed speakers at the rally, to be held at Carmen Flores Park on Fruitvale Avenue in Oakland, are Senator Barbara Boxer and Congresswoman Barbara Lee.  

Book Publishing Seminar 

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Regent Press 

6020-A Adeline St.  

Mark Weiman presents an overview of the business of book publishing oriented towards the author considering self-publication. Weiman will cover all practical aspects of independent book publishing.  

Call 547-7602 or e-mail: regent@sirius.com 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community  

Center San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St. 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts  

Classes for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier  

Community Center  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 644-8515 

One-Day Travel Careers Class 

8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. 

Vista College  

2020 Milvia St.  

Room 210 

Learn about new employment opportunities in travel in the 21st century. Bring payment by check to the class. $5.50 for California residents 981-2931  

President George W. Bush's decision to rescind current policy toward foreign family planning agencies will result, tragically, in more abortions. 

To understand this, consider the daily round for health workers in any one of the thousands of grassroots family programs now receiving U.S. aid. 

Walk or ride a slow bus (funds rarely cover a car) to a remote location, fish through near-empty medicine cabinets (funds rarely provide enough medicine) to find the de-worming pills or oral rehydration supplies women seek for their children before they ask for contraceptives for themselves. 

Or it means a day of carrying an anatomically correct poster door to door in an urban misery belt where few can read or write. 

“We have organs we see, and organs we don't see,” I heard a 28-year-old local health educator in Guatemala City explain to a woman of 39, “and this is where the man's seed joins with our seed to make the baby.”  

The older woman, barefoot in the mud, looked at the picture as if she had never seen anything like it before. Asked how many children she had, the woman answered in the two-part fashion of the poor, “Seven – four alive.”  

The overwhelming emphasis of overseas family planning programs subsidized by U.S. dollars is on ensuring that pregnant women give birth to healthy youngsters and on keeping them that way.  

Often, this means assisting women to become financially independent, even in a small way. 

One of the 138 partner organizations in 40 countries connected to the Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), a 30-year-old Washington-based non-profit, created a milk cooperative in northeast India.  

When one of the women (there are hundreds) delivers the product of her single cow to a collecting station she finds medics and family planning advice. 

In a tiny project in central Guatemala, young teen-age girls learn to sew beautiful aprons for sale in the market. An hour per session is given to sex education.  

This U.S.-funded program gives girls a skill – and information they won't get at home. In this way, it is possible to delay the onset of sexual relations – an important step in areas where girls have babies by age 14. 

U.S. taxpayer dollars do not fund abortions abroad – that has been outlawed since l973.  

For that matter, neither funded programs nor planning experts consider abortion a safe or necessary method of birth control. 

In four months of interviewing ordinary women about reproductive health in Mexico and Guatemala, I found not one who advocated abortion as a planning “option” or a “right” – nor anyone who thought it a “wrong.”  

The Roman Catholic Church takes a strong public stand against abortion in those countries, but even outside the Church, abortion is widely considered a tragedy, although sometimes unavoidable. 

“ We use the stone method,” said a middle-aged mother of six in a Mexican village.  

At night, when no one can see, a woman trudges up and down the precipitous cliffs with a boulder strapped to her back until she aborts. 

Worldwide, some 200,000 to 400,000 die from illegal, unsafe abortions each year, most in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization. Others are mutilated or rendered infertile. 

Should any of the thousands of U.S.-assisted family planning programs – using money from another source – advocate for safe abortions in a country where they are illegal or perform safe abortions where legal, it can lose all U.S. funding, including for humanitarian child welfare or adolescent education outreach.  

Even small cuts can close shoestring operations. 

The requirements set by President Bush revert to those presented by President Reagan at the l984 population conference in Mexico City. They are extreme. 

If a sex-education pamphlet for youth includes the question, “What is abortion?” that trips the cut-off (this happened to a prestigious Mexican program). 

If women are told under any circumstances that abortion is an option for ending pregnancy, funds can be cut off. 

The decision on whether a given program meets the guidelines rests with the Bush administration, but until directives are in place, agencies do not know precisely what to expect. 

The United Nations Population Fund receives $25 million from Washington yearly, for instance, and spokesman Alex Marshall says President Bush's new policy “won't have an effect because we don't support abortion in any way, shape or form.”  

But from l984 to l993, the United States contribution was “zero” because the agency cannot withhold funds from UN member nations where abortion is legal. 

At a time when intelligent, community-based planning programs are making headway in providing care to families who desperately want it, more money – not threats of less – ought to be going out.  

If Bush's decision eliminates or weakens programs among the poorest, there will be more unplanned pregnancies, and in a real world of few safe harbors, sadly more – not fewer – unsafe abortions.

A sociology class in Wheeler Hall on the UC Berkeley campus reviews texts without the help of electric lighting  

Thursday. The California Public Interest Research Group launched an initiative on campus to encourage students and instructors to minimize electricity use. Lights blazed brightly in the four other classrooms along the second-story  

hall way, but CALPIRG organizers said they’ve just begun their campaign. “The UC’s use a lot of energy and the students should be a major part of the solution to the energy crisis,” said CALPIRG Energy Coordinator Melanie Lane.

It had all the ingredients of a tough Pac-10 loss for the Cal Bears. They went ahead of Washington State early, only to struggle early in the second half, just like in losses to Arizona and Arizona State earlier this year. But the Bears, jump-started by an injury substitute, came right back and took control of the game with a 20-4 run that gave them their second conference win of the year. 

“We could have folded, but we didn’t,” Cal head coach Caren Horstmeyer said. “We did what we had to do late in the game.” 

That fight finally showed up with five minutes left in the game. Down 46-39, Cal guard Courtney Johnson hit a three-pointer to pull her team within four points. Johnson scored Cal’s first eight points of the second half on her way to a game-high 18 to go with nine assists and just two turnovers. 

Forward Lauren Ashbaugh finally shook her Pac-10 slump with two tough baskets inside, sandwiched around a blocked shot on the defensive end, to tie the game. Ashbaugh, who averaged less than five points in the team’s first five conference games, including two scoreless efforts, scored 13 on Thursday to go with six rebounds, including four on the offensive end. 

“I haven’t played well at all in the Pac-10, because I was putting too much pressure on myself,” Ashbaugh said. “I thought back to what I did in high school and totally reset myself for this game.” 

After an Amy White free throw gave the Bears (6-10 overall, 2-4 Pac-10) the lead, Johnson went down with a muscle cramp in her calf. Losing their floor general could have brought the Bears down, but reserve Nicole Ybarra came in and gave them a lift instead. The senior scored two quick baskets to extend the lead to 51-48, then drove the baseline and found Ami Forney open under the basket. Forney made her layup and was fouled, making the free throw to give the Bears a five-point lead. Forney then hit a turn-around jumper, and Ashbaugh made a layup to finish the Bears’ furious run and seal the victory with less than a minute remaining. 

“Nicole Ybarra really set a new tempo for us when she came in, and that got us going,” Horstmeyer said. 

That surge was necessary because of a 14-5 Washington State run to start the second half. The Cougars (8-9, 3-4) started pounding the ball in low, getting four easy baskets in a row to get the lead after trailing 34-32 at halftime. Center Kelley Berglund finished with 12 points, and hefty forward Brittney Hawks bulled her way inside for seven. But Horstmeyer decided to let her inside players loose on defense, and Forney and Ashbaugh combined for five blocked shots. Overall, the Bears had seven blocks in the game, a season-high. 

“I’m usually a big supporter of the two-hands-in-the-shooter’s-face defense, but I told Ami and Lauren they could try to block some shots tonight,” Horstmeyer said. “I hope nature doesn’t strike me with lightning or something.”

The City Council held a public hearing Tuesday in the latest of a long list of skirmishes that go back 20 years with a landlord who is notorious for substandard housing. 

Reza Valiyee, who owns at least 10 properties in Berkeley, appealed a Nov. 9 Zoning Adjustments Board decision to declare his building at 2412 Piedmont Ave. a public nuisance largely because of five units Valiyee built without permits. The City Council will take action on the appeal at its Feb. 13 meeting. 

Valiyee applied for a permit to add four units in 1981, which was denied by the planning department because of a lack of sufficient open space and parking. Undaunted, Valiyee built the four units in a basement area of the two-story house. He also added another allegedly illegal unit to the second floor. 

The building is a former fraternity house. There are currently 30 to 40 rooms in the building that are mostly rented to students. Tenants share common cooking areas and bathrooms. 

If the council supports the ZAB’s resolution, Valiyee will have to remove the five units.  

Councilmember Polly Armstrong said Valiyee recently spent two days in jail for refusing to comply with city requirements on his property at 2455 Prospect St. The city has spent well over $100,000 in staff hours trying to get Valiyee to comply with building regulations, according to Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

“It seems (Valiyee) doesn’t understand the importance of working with authorities,” Armstrong said. “He’s threatened and angered by having to deal with rules and regulations.” 

Armstrong added that Valiyee has become adept at delaying tactics. According to a staff report written by Wendy Cosin, the acting director of planning, the city has been trying to get Valiyee to bring the illegal units into compliance for 18 years. 

Valiyee’s lawyer, San Francisco attorney Malcolm Smith, said the city has been looking for reasons to give his client a hard time.  

“There’s a lot of evidence that Berkeley has decided to make Reza a poster boy for building violations,” Smith said. “The city has known about these units for 20 years and now they want to take five affordable units off the market during the biggest housing crunch the city has ever seen.” 

Worthington said allowing illegal units to be built would cause the quality of life to decline all over Berkeley. “It’s true there’s an urgent need for housing but we can’t say because of the need we will accept substandard housing.” 

Lynne Craven, who lived in the Piedmont Street property in 1981-84 while she attended UC Berkeley, recalled the squalid conditions of the building. “There was a leak in the roof and when it would rain a section of the wall in my room would become soaked,” Craven said. “There were sections of carpet in the common areas that had mushrooms growing on them from the dampness and dirt. It was depressing.” 

Craven sued Valiyee when she fractured her ankle after tripping on a torn piece of carpet on a stairway. She said that even after he was forced to pay her medical bills, he never fixed the hazardous section of carpet. 

“We used to call that place ‘Reza Land’ because of his nutty ideas about how his tenants should live,” she said. 

PULLMAN, Wash. – California’s Sean Lampley scored 27 points and grabbed 12 rebounds Thursday night to lead the Golden Bears to a 75-71 overtime victory over Washington State. 

After overcoming a late, six-point Washington State lead, Shantay Legans’ layup with 1:04 left in the game gave California a 63-62 advantage. Legans then extended the lead to three points with a pair of free throws on California’s next possession. 

But Washington State’s Mike Bush answered with a 3-pointer with 23 seconds left to send the game into overtime. 

In the extra period, Lampley and Legans scored six points each to down the Cougars on their home court for the first time this season. 

Bush scored 22 points and freshman Marcus Moore added 17 to pace Washington State (7-9, 1-6 Pac 10). 

California (13-5, 4-2) has won 12 of its last 14 games.

A San Francisco police officer on trial in Oakland Superior Court has been found innocent of charges he battered his girlfriend in her Berkeley home and then tied her hands together with a device the pair used during sex.  

A jury hearing the misdemeanor criminal case against 52-year-old motorcycle officer James McKeever returned “not guilty” verdicts on both charges shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday, after deliberating for four hours. 

“We’re exceedingly happy,” said defense attorney Michael Cardoza. “It was a verdict of 12 people from the community saying ‘we don’t believe what happened,’” he said. “They did the right thing.”  

McKeever was arrested in the morning on Aug. 7 at an apartment on Seventh Street in west Berkeley after an altercation with the alleged victim, a 36-year-old woman with whom he has admitted having an extramarital affair. McKeever claimed he acted in self defense. 

The four-day trial before Judge Carlos G. Ynostroza became a battle of dueling stories about the nature of their relationship and what transpired that midsummer night. 

“These types of cases are hard where it’s one person’s word against another person’s word,” said Oakland Deputy District Attorney Tara Desautels, who prosecuted the case. “It comes down to a question of credibility,” she said. “Unfortunately for the victim in this case, (the jury) didn’t think it was enough.”  

Carmia Caesar, a staff attorney with the Family Violence Law Center in Berkeley who represents the alleged victim in the case, expressed disappointment with the verdict. “Of course we’re disappointed,” she said. “If someone violates the law and threatens the safety of a citizen we have a system of justice that’s set up, ideally, to punish them,” she said. 

Despite his acquittal Thursday, McKeever’s legal battles are far from over. He faces continuing legal proceedings in Berkeley, San Francisco and Texas. 

McKeever will appear for a restraining order hearing on Feb. 2 in Berkeley Superior Court that could jeopardize his career with the police department. Federal law prohibits anyone who is the subject of a restraining order from carrying a firearm.  

“If the restraining order is put into effect with the gun prohibition he loses his job,” defense attorney Cardoza said in an interview Thursday. McKeever, a motorcycle officer who joined the police force in 1975, is currently on desk duty.  

Cardoza said he would agree to a three-year restraining order if it did not include a firearms prohibition. Caesar declined to comment whether her office would agree to such an arrangement.  

McKeever also faces a hearing before the San Francisco Police Commission, which will hear evidence on the Berkeley incident and could terminate him from the force, or take no action at all. McKeever was briefly suspended from the force in September but reinstated a week later. 

But McKeever’s greatest remaining legal challenge is a felony case pending against him in Texas. That prosecution stems from an incident at the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport two weeks after his Berkeley arrest in which McKeever is alleged to have twice struck his 13-year-old stepdaughter in the face while waiting to board a Delta Airlines flight to San Francisco. The teenager and her younger sister attended part of the trial in Oakland along with several other of McKeever’s family members. 

McKeever has been charged with felony injury to a child by the Tarrant County, Texas district attorney.  

Oakland DA Desautels said she had been in contact with authorities handling the McKeever prosecution in Texas, but would not elaborate.  

According to Cardoza, Texas police only arrested McKeever when they checked his name against a criminal database and discovered the Berkeley arrest for domestic violence. “They probably would have blown by it otherwise,” Cardoza said. 

“I haven’t heard anything like that,” Desautels said about Cardoza’s comments.  

Desautels would not comment whether a plea bargain had been offered to McKeever before trial, saying only “There was no agreement.”  

She said the Oakland DA’s office did not hesitate to prosecute the 26-year veteran of the San Francisco police force, despite the dependence of prosecutors on police testimony to secure criminal convictions. 

“We reviewed this case as we do every case in terms of evaluating the victim, the defendant and the witnesses,” she said. “We wouldn’t have gone forward unless we believed in the case.”  

St. Mary’s High School star and future Cal Bear Lorenzo Alexander was one of two East Bay players selected for the 2000 Parade All-America High School Football team this week. 

Alexander, a two-way lineman who is the jewel of Cal’s 2001 recruiting class, joins De La Salle’s Kevin Simon on the prestigious national list. A total of 57 players were selected from 33 states. California had the most players of any state with eight. 

The 6-foot-2, 275-pound Alexander was lineman of the year in the Alameda Contra Costa Athletic League as a junior, and took the same honor in the Bay Shore Athletic League this season.

“ ...we have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering...” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D. On death and dying. 1969  

By Helen Wheeler 

Last fall I interviewed Berkeley senior citizens about the election. Most were eager to share their opinions and willing to be quoted.  

But when I asked people about the “right-to-die” – assisted suicide, death with dignity, euthanasia, medicide, mercy killing, physician-assisted-dying, self-deliverance, suicide, voluntary euthanasia – people were more hesitant.  

A number of seniors responded: “I don’t want to think about that!” Others were willing to express opinions and talk about personal information, but not “to have everyone know.” Ultimately, I learned about some remarkable and admirable people.  

Eighty-year old Aiko Yamamoto favors physician-assisted suicide, but she is not confident that physicians can be counted on for  

that assistance. Her family has been decimated by cancer. She knows well that physicians “don’t do that,” that is, provide adequate pain relief. 

Aiko had been a Hemlock Society member for many years. She joined when she underwent colon cancer surgery. When six months of chemotherapy was recommended, she learned that survival chances might be enhanced by 5 percent. “Forget it!” Aiko, a positive and active person declares: “ I am ready to go any time. To me, the right-to-die means no extraordinary measures.” 

J.W. is an 84-year old breast cancer survivor who relies on a hearing aid, and considers herself in good health. She has disaffiliated from her Jewish heritage. She was reluctant to be interviewed until I suggested using initials, rather than her full name. A widow living separately in the same building with a married son, she takes for granted that he will regard her wishes as recorded in “that health thing” stored in a box in her apartment.  

What does it provide? Have you gone over it with him? Not sure. No. Have you discussed your wishes with your primary care physician? No.  

Occasionally she laughed nervously, “ Whatever you do, I don’t care!” Suddenly serious: “I don’t want to go to a home. What do they call it? No extraordinary measures.” Then, “ I am going to live forever.”  

Are you a feminist? I asked Doris Brown Echols, a 67 year-old African American widow. “ No. I’m for whatever is best for the situation.” Doris lives alone with her rottweiler in her own home, which she owns, within walking distance of the senior center where she is an active volunteer Exercise to Music leader and also staffs the telephone one afternoon a week. She received her bachelor’s degree with a psychology major in Texas and was employed as a bookkeeper, secretary and Berkeley junior high school teacher. Raised a Methodist, she is a member of her church choir and serves on its Board of Education.  

Doris had a hasty response to all concerns. What does the term, right-to-die, mean to you? “ If I found life boring or not interesting, nobody could tell me what is legal or illegal. I’d just go do it!” Boredom, depression, no pleasure in life would be her personal criteria. Meantime, “I stay here.” Undaunted by the But how would you do it? question, she readily acknowledged she hadn’t a plan, but she is certain she could do it. Shifting gears, I asked about concern for so-called extraordinary measures. She has prepared no plans or documents that would relate to a good death, and has absolute confidence in her daughter’s handling “it.” Doris takes no medications – not even calcium – because she eats right, and indeed her Kaiser physician concurs that she is in great shape.  

Well-known as a congenial Strawberry Creek Lodge neighbor and senior center participant, 80-year old Norman Hutchings depends on numerous medications for serious congestive heart and lung problems. “I am more afraid of pain than I am of dying.” Never married, he is alone except for one surviving sibling; a brother suicided in his early forties. They were raised in the Methodist environment of an orphanage. He graduated from Oakland High School and UC Berkeley and worked as an equipment specialist in naval supply. Hutchings is a participant in a UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Center controlled study, has taken numerous related tests, and his brain will be autopsied “for research on dementia and normal aging.” He wants no extraordinary measures, but has taken no steps to ensure this.  

My conversation with 72-year old Miriam Hawley was unrelated to her role as member of the Berkeley City Council. Mim received a bachelor’s degree from Antioch College, and her master’s in history is from San Francisco State University. She was employed as a transportation analyst. Raised a Methodist, she considers herself a “ nonpracticing Christian.” She has a family, is in good health, and her family health history is one of long life. Like many Kaiser patients, she has completed a “ durable power” document, but has not discussed it nor her desire for “no extraordinary measures” with her physician. She is concerned about the possible association of elder abuse with the right-to-die. Were a physician-assisted dying bill similar to that proposed by California Assemblymember Dion Louise Aroner reintroduced, she said she would support it “with safeguards.”  

Edie McDonald Wright is a 71-year old retired public nonprofit director who describes herself as “ a fallen away Catholic.” She rents a one-bedroom apartment in the Redwood Gardens senior housing development, with rents subsidized by HUD. Her daughter lives in Tracy. She was recently elected by her peers to serve on the North Berkeley Senior Center Advisory Council. Chronic fibromyalgia is a problem. She receives her health care at the Over 60 Health Center, where her file contains information provided by her concerning her demise. She has indicated a wish for no extraordinary measures, although she has completed no related legal documents. As our conversation (mainly in English with some Spanish) moved toward the idea of the right-to-die as a civil right, she declared: “ I don’t plan to die that way. When push comes to shove, I just want to not wake up one day.” How are you going to do this? “ I don’t know... I haven’t thought about it. I’m too young.” “ Conflicted” and “ cautious” were the key words. 

I drew several conclusions from the interviews: 

• Seniors often lack information needed to make informed decisions concerning a good death and the right-to-die; 

• Many seniors who consider themselves “ informed” have not taken a proactive approach to ensuring that their wishes are carried out;  

• Deficient care at the end of life is due in part to health care providers’ failure to implement the patient’s wishes and to provide adequate palliatives. 

Dr. Helen Wheeler is a member of the Alameda County Advisory Commission on Aging, the Berkeley Housing Authority, representing seniors and Section 8 tenants), and the North Berkeley Senior Center Advisory Council. She teaches in the Berkeley Adult School Older Adults Program and can be reached at pen136@inreach.com 

Albany resident Joanna Selby was no stranger to the issues of the elderly when she was appointed by Gov. Gray Davis to the Commission on Aging Dec. 4.  

Selby, 69, volunteered at the North Berkeley Senior center between 1986 and 1996 after retiring from a string of government jobs, which included a position at the U.S. Forest Service in Berkeley. In 1995, she applied to go to a White House Conference on Aging and was selected as the Alameda County delegate at the five-day conference in Washington, D.C.  

Selby, who immigrated to the United States from Korea in 1958, said all of her volunteering had to take a back seat after she was appointed to the Commission on Aging of Alameda County in 1996. She said she feels that it’s important that older people have a representative because they often feel that they don’t have anything to do and will stay inside their homes instead of venturing out into their communities. She feels it’s important to encourage older people to be independent as long as they can. “It allows people to enjoy their lives.”  

As a state commissioner, Selby deals will senior issues including health care, mental health care, housing, financial security and transportation.  

She serves on the commission’s transportation committee and said the committee is trying to deal with the unique problems facing seniors who live in rural areas where public transportation is not readily available. She said these people often have to rely on friends or neighbors for transportation, and the committee is trying to change that and balance suburban and urban public transportation funding.  

Selby also serves as the chair of PAPCO, the Paratransit Planning Advisory Committee, which works on issues dealing with BART, AC Transit, Paratransit, bicycle commuting, open space, and freeway and highway expansion. She has served on the committee since 1996.  

Selby said that housing is a major issue for the elderly in California because of a lack of low-income housing in the state. She said the solution is to get land and money, but said the land must come first. And because senior housing can’t be located in isolated areas, they need to obtain land in urban areas. “Urban areas are so well developed, it’s hard to find places to build,” Selby said Thursday. As a result, Selby said the number of homeless elderly is increasing. She also said that some seniors live on such a low fixed-income that they have too little money to qualify for low-income housing. 

Selby said she would like to see a universal health care plan because when people don’t have health care available to them and are ill they will simply get sicker and sicker.  

She said that universal health care is especially important for seniors because it makes health care preventative, rather than reactive. “That way you don’t have to wait until something bad happens.”  

Selby is a busy woman these days, with up to five meetings in one day sometimes. She says she enjoys being so active. “I say I have a full blossoming life,” she said. “I feel sorry for older people who don’t do anything. When I talk to older people, I say ‘get up, have your breakfast and go for a walk. Don’t stay home and look at the four walls.’ ”

More than half of Californians believe Congress is doing a good job, according to a poll released Thursday. 

The poll, conducted by the Field Institute, reported that despite the relatively high rating, a majority of Californians foresee political gridlock on Capitol Hill. 

The poll also reported the Supreme Court suffered in the eyes of state residents after the protracted fight over the presidential re-count and that the state’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, continue to be popular. 

The Field Poll surveyed 1,001 California adults by phone Jan. 12 through 16. The margin of error was 3.2 percentage points. 

Congress fared relatively well in the poll, with 54 percent of respondents saying they approve of the overall job performance of congressional members and 35 percent saying they disapprove. 

That 54 percent approval rating jumped from 41 percent in June 2000 and 33 percent in Oct. 1999, but was less than the 57 percent peak in Aug. 1998. 

Despite that relatively favorable opinion of Congress, Californians said given the GOP’s razor-thin margin in the House and even split in the Senate, gridlock will prevail over cooperation. 

While 52 percent predicted gridlock, 42 percent expected progress. 

Meanwhile, California’s two senators did well. 

Feinstein received approval from 60 percent of respondents — a full eight percentage points higher than June 2000 and her highest rating since 1994. Only in March 1999 has Boxer equaled the 51 percent approval rating she received from those polled. 

The Supreme Court’s reputation, however, has taken a hit. 

Though 63 percent of respondents approved of the institution to 28 percent who didn’t, the election re-count hurt its reputation. Among the 41 percent of respondents who said the case affected their opinion of the court, 30 percent said the re-count case “lowered their opinion of the court” while just 11 percent said the case improved its standing. 

Fluorescent light fixtures are more efficient and cheaper to run than incandescents.  

But some fluorescent fixtures buzz or hum, and they take a long time to start when temperatures fall much below balmy. If your fixtures have these problems, a failing ballast – the component that gives the lamps the power boost they need to start – might be the cause. If the light flickers or won’t work at all, the ballast is probably shot. 

Replacing a faulty ballast isn’t difficult, but it’s essential to match the ballast to the lamps in your existing fixture. That 4-foot, two-lamp fixture in your garage or basement, for example, likely uses T12 lamps and a matching electromagnetic ballast, says Jeff Goldstein, of Lamar Lighting in East Farmingdale, N.Y. (The industry measures the diameter of lamps in one-eighth-inch increments, so a T12 is 11/2 inches in diameter.) If you don’t know which ballast to buy, take your old one to an electrical-supply house. 

Magnetic ballasts are readily available and cost about $16. If you want to eliminate loud buzzing noises, upgrade to an electronic ballast (about $28), which is quieter and more efficient. Electronic ballasts are standard on newer T8 fixtures, according to Goldstein, but it might be more difficult to find them for older T12 lights. Also consider the location of the fixture. Standard ballasts work best in temperatures above 50 F, but if lamps are in areas where it’s colder, buy cold-weather ballasts; they fire up the lamps in conditions as low as zero. 

To remove the ballast, cut power to the circuit at the panel. It’s safer to turn the circuit breaker off at the main panel than it is to rely on a wall switch that might be wired improperly. Most corded garage or shop fixtures are hung from the ceiling by lightweight chain, so it’s simple to take a fixture down for repairs.  

Take out the lamps, then remove the access panel on the fixture and disconnect the black and white wires from the power supply.  

Next, clip the three pairs of wires emerging from the ballast; there should be two reds, two blues and two yellows. Reconnect leads on the new ballast with wire nuts; the light should work fine once again. 

One tip: Reconnect each pair of colored wires individually. The ballast won’t work properly if you gang together all four red wires, for example, and connect them with a single wire nut. 

Buying Fluorescent Lamps 

There’s an option in buying a replacement fluorescent tube or lamp that you might not be aware of. If you’re tired of the harsh, gray light given off by standard fluorescents, look for a lamp with a higher Color Rendering Index, or CRI. The CRI is a relative scale that rates light sources on a scale from 0 to 100 (sunlight is rated at 100). Lamps with a higher CRI make people and objects look more realistic. Manufacturers adjust the CRI by tinkering with the mix of phosphors that coat the inside of the lamp. A standard 34W “cool white” lamp has a CRI of 62, but lighting stores and home centers also stock lamps rated all the way up to 90. The only downside is that you will pay two or three times as much per lamp for that great-looking light. 

Remember the time you painted the bathroom and about a month after it was finished, the mildew started to show up again on your freshly painted ceiling? 

Have you ever had to scrape out the caulking from your shower because the mildew was so deeply imbedded in the joint you couldn’t bleach it away? 

Are the bedroom closets beginning to smell a bit musty? 

Is mildew growing somewhere in your home? 

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, read on. 

Mildew is everywhere. It’s in the air – all around us. And the minute it comes into contact with any kind of moisture, it begins to multiply exponentially after only about two hours of exposure. As it multiplies, it becomes visible as a soft blanket of black or green fir that begins to cover everything in its path. 

Mildew gets the liquid refreshment it needs in the most interesting ways: steam in a shower hits the surrounding walls and ceilings and condenses; steam from cooking hits the surrounding walls and ceilings and condenses; steam from the clothes washer hits the surrounding walls and ceilings and condenses. Starting to get the picture? Believe it or not, this same kind of condensation can occur when the clothes dryer is not ducted to the exterior. 

The damp air that a dryer usually exhausts can immediately inundate an area with moist air, which then condenses upon contact with any cold surface such as walls and ceilings. 

If your dryer already is ducted, make sure that the ducting is clean and clear. According to the National Fire Protection Agency, clothes dryers cause an estimated 14,000 home fires each year? And the leading cause of dryer fires was clogged ducting. So, if you are installing ducting do it properly, and keep it clean. 

Here are the rules on how to install an efficient and safe dryer duct: 

• Dryer ducting must be a minimum of 4 inches in diameter. 

• The ducting can be flexible in locations where it can be accessed (attic, basement, crawl space, etc.) and should be the foil or aluminum type – not the plastic kind. 

• Ducting must be rigid in inaccessible areas (as when built into a wall or between floors). 

• The male joint of each section should connect in the direction of the flow. 

• The duct must be dampered at the exterior. 

• All joints should be secured with metal tape (the shiny silver kind) – not duct tape. 

• No length of concealed rigid duct should exceed 25 feet in length. 

Deduct 5 feet for each 90-degree turn and half that amount for each 45-degree fitting (example: a concealed rigid duct with one 90-degree fitting should not exceed 20 feet; 25 feet minus 5 feet is 20 feet). Lengths may vary depending on local codes and manufacturer’s specifications. 

• Keep in mind that dryer vents must not be combined with any other vent system or chimney of any kind. 

Whatever you do, don’t duct your dryer into the attic, garage, basement or crawl space. You will create a fire hazard and a stinky, hard-to-access, mildewed mess. 

As to the actual installation, all you have to do is secure enough pipe and fittings to do the job, and cut to length as necessary. Tin snips (metal scissors) make light work of the task. And don’t forget heavy leather gloves. Freshly cut tin can be sharper than a jagged piece of glass. Use 1-inch-wide strips of tin to secure the pipe in place off the ground. Simply make a full wrap around the duct with the tin strap and nail the two loose ends to the framing. 

Finally, don’t forget to test your ducting on a regular basis. It’s easy. While the dryer is running, go outside and get up close to the exhaust damper. Is it open and is air gushing out or does the flow seem restricted? If the latter is the case, a cleaning is in order. You can do it yourself or hire it done, but don’t use your dryer when the duct is partially clogged. 

Readers can mail questions to: On the House, APNewsfeatures, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020, or e-mail Careybro(at)onthehouse.com. To receive a copy of On the House: Plumbing or On the House: Painting, send a check or money order payable to The Associated Press for $6.95 per booklet and mail to: On the House, PO Box 1562, New York, NY 10016-1562, or through these online sites: www.onthehouse.com or apbookstore.com. 

In an era of speed gardening, when shortcuts vie for attention, some vegetable gardeners still cherish the old, slow ways. Instead of saving time, they save seeds. 

The seed subculture, aside from commercial seed packets, features wide-ranging networks of seed-swapping among gardeners and, at the most demanding level, saving seeds from your own plants. 

The last requires attention, patience and devotion, but mastering the skills takes one back to ancestral days of agriculture when humans first selected seeds for replanting. Because of the historical associations and the acquired know-how, a tomato or other vegetables grown from your own seed gives you a sense of satisfaction not felt in easier ways of raising plants. 

Also, you may have an heirloom vegetable long cultivated in your family or community or one that has disappeared from the commercial market. You keep it on-going by saving the seed. Not to mention that should you ever need a survival tool, knowing seeds could be a life-saver. 

A cardinal rule of seed-saving is to avoid doing it from hybrid plants. That’s because hybrids are crosses, and the seed from them may not reproduce the original plants that you liked. The best way is to work with nonhybrids, or heirlooms. 

Gathering seeds differs according to the kind of plant. Some seeds are left to dry on the plant, like beans or peas, and then separated from their pods by various forms of threshing. But seeds of soft fruit, like tomatoes, which are embedded inside the plant, are harder to extricate. 

Saving tomato seeds involves several steps. After washing a fully ripe fruit, you slice it across the middle to expose the seed cavity, then you squeeze the seeds with their gel into a bowl or other container and let them ferment for several days, stirring the mixture occasionally. 

When the bowl, which has become smelly, gets covered with a layer of mold, you add enough water to double the size of the mixture. You stir this until the good seeds sink to the bottom. Then you pour off the hollow seeds and waste, leaving only the good seeds. These you rinse until clean, put them in a strainer on a cloth to rid them of moisture, then drop them onto a dish to dry. This takes a while and an electric fan may help, but don’t dry them in the sun or an oven. 

When dried, the seeds are best stored in an airtight container. Depending on the tomato variety, they should be good for 4-10 years. 

That sounds like a lot of work, especially in a day when even commercial seed providers acknowledge a drop in seed demand and an increase in customers who want ready-to-go plants. 

Anyone new to seed-saving can find excellent directions for as many as 160 vegetables in Suzanne Ashworth’s 222-page manual, “Seed to Seed,” available \or $20 from the Seed Savers Exchange, 3076 North Winn Road, Decorah, Iowa, 52101; phone 319-382-5990; Web site www.seedsavers.org. 

The volume is a treasure-house of information, starting with historical profiles of the plants and going on to botanical classification, flower structure and pollination method, isolation distances, caging and hand pollination techniques, and ways of harvesting, drying, cleaning and storing seeds. Ashworth, a master gardener from Sacramento, Calif., personally grew seed crops of all the vegetables mentioned. 

The Seed Savers Exchange, incidentally, is the best place to go in search of heirloom or nonhybrid vegetable seeds. Its latest Garden Seed Inventory ($26) lists more than 7,300 nonhybrid vegetables offered by more than 250 mail order providers throughout North America. After you grow such plants, you can save the seeds for a self-perpetuating garden.

Swing dancing – and then sex between a 14-year-old girl and a man 10 years older – are a lot of what Bridget Carpenter’s flashy and provocative, but ultimately insubstantial new play “Fall” is about.  

On Wednesday, Berkeley Repertory Theater opened a middling quality production of the play, which starts with promise, then teases and titillates, but ultimately doesn’t boil down to much of substance. 

Carpenter is part of a generation of playwrights younger than those the Rep usually produces.  

With this production, the company is making an effort to bring new work and new writers into the generally conservative world of repertory theater.  

Fourteen-year-old upper middle class Southern California teenager Lydia (Megan Austin Oberle) is bright and articulate, but moody and sarcastic – in fact, a typical teenager of her class. She has that self-conscious teen sneer and is, of course, embarrassed by her parents.  

Lydia calls her mother (Nancy Bell) by her first name Jill, because it annoys the mother. Lydia is at an age where she sees the worst of everything, and has sex on the brain. She also has a ghoulish, morbid streak. 

When Lydia’s school teacher mother Jill and businessman father Dog (Andy Murray) insist that she join them for three weeks on Catalina Island at swing dance camp – the parents’ passion – Lydia is dragged along under strong protest, miserable the whole time. Eventually she has an affair. 

Oberle’s hilarious and spot-on performance as acerbic teen Lydia is this production’s highlight. Bell and Murray also turn in strong performances as her parents. 

But once the character of Lydia is introduced and performed for a while, and once the play’s story device of swing dancing is given a few rounds, “Fall” takes a header. 

The play really doesn’t go anywhere meaningful or consequential or surprising. At best, it’s like a mainstream teen identity chick flick. 

The two story lines – swing camp and Lydia’s identity crisis – are not very well connected in “Fall.”  

They are two separate stories running at the same time. 

The parents turn out to be background for Lydia’s crisis, and neither parent changes in the play.  

Eventually, Lydia herself decides to keep her aborted affair secret, so whatever its deeper meanings and consequences for her might be, we get none of that. 

All this is ironic in the context of the play’s abrupt didactic message late in the second half that swing dancing (and they’re actually isn’t that much dancing in the production) is about learning to listen. 

There are other false notes in the story.  

Often the play’s moments of conflict seem to arrive out of the blue and not fit in well with the flow of the story, such as Lydia’s sudden snit with the dance instructor (Donnie Keshawarz) over dance steps, or a fight over dancing between the two parents. 

Elsewhere, mother Jill tells Lydia she would stay with her husband even if he had a mistress. When the play hits such adult issues, it often sounds childish. It is especially odd at the end of the play that the parents don’t figure out about their daughter’s affair. 

There are also some false notes in the staging by director Lisa Peterson, who mounted a fine minimalist production of "Antony and Cleopatra" a couple seasons back at Berkeley Rep. The dancers in "Fall," for example, often dance in sneakers. Swing nuts probably would not do that. And the swing dance teacher is not as good a dancer as his students. 

“Fall” is a tease with no payoff. Underage sex is a volatile and difficult issue. If it’s raised in a play, the playwright needs to make an effort to deal with it meaningfully, instead of in titillating teen romance movie clichés. 

The Eagles’ popular song says, “some dance to remember, some dance to forget.” The people in this play dance to forget. 

“Fall,” by Bridget Carpenter, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison Street, through March 11. Call (510) 647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org. 

Twenty half-price “HotTix” go on sale at noon at the Berkeley Rep box office Tuesday through Friday for that evening’s performance (cash only).  

Berkeley Rep also offers $15.99 tickets for anyone under the age of 30, with valid I.D. (not good for Saturday performances).

President Bush’s plan to scrap the federal estate tax would mean lower revenue for states too, in a ripple effect that would cut tens of millions of tax dollars from every state’s budget. 

Bush’s plan would cut $50 billion a year from the federal budget after about a decade. At the same time, it would knock out some $9 billion to the states, because their tax codes piggyback the federal government’s. 

In the fiscal year that just ended, estate and inheritance taxes brought in $5.5 billion for the states. California got $900 million. Alabama received $67 million. By 2010, the figure nationally would probably reach $9 billion a year, according to the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. 

“We can’t afford that kind of hit,” said Alabama House Speaker Seth Hammett, a Democrat who said lawmakers would be faced with having to pass a new estate tax or raise the revenue through other taxes and fees. 

Whether any states would be willing to create a new tax is questionable, after six solid years of state tax cuts. And the estate tax has few defenders – voters this year repealed it in Montana and South Dakota. 

“It is an unfair tax. These are assets that have been accumulated through hard work,” said Michigan Treasurer Mark Murray, who was appointed by a Republican governor. He acknowledged the state would lose money – the tax brought in $187 million this year — but said the government can absorb the loss as the cut is phased in. 

“As a public policy, we agree with it,” Murray said. 

In Michigan, estate taxes account for less than 1 percent of the total budget. Nationally, the taxes, which can vary widely each year, make up between 1 percent and 2 percent of a state’s budget on average, said Harley Duncan, executive director of the Federation of Tax Administrators. 

“That’s not chump change,” he said. 

The tax is levied on estates greater than $675,000. Nationwide in 1997, the estates of fewer than 43,000 people had to pay estate tax, out of 2.3 million who died that year, according to the center’s study. 

Former President Clinton vetoed a bill to eliminate the tax last year. He said it would threaten the nation’s financial well-being while handing the richest 3,000 families an average tax cut of $7 million apiece. 

Thirty-five states rely solely on the federal estate tax to calculate the death taxes paid to their governments, so if the federal tax were eliminated, their tax would also be lost. The remaining 15 states rely partly on the federal estate tax, but also have state estate taxes that would bring in less revenue if the federal law were eliminated, according to the center. 

Though Connecticut, New York and Louisiana are phasing out their estate tax and Montana and South Dakota repealed it, all continue to collect such revenue through a mechanism tied to the federal tax. 

State lawmakers with the National Conference of State Legislatures are studying the issue and have yet to take a stand. At a meeting last month, some wanted to lobby to keep the tax, while others wanted to let it die. 

Bush’s tax proposals, which were laid out during the campaign and introduced in Congress this week, would also affect other parts of state budgets, though none would be as sweeping as the estate tax change. 

If his plan becomes law, North Dakota, Vermont and Rhode Island would all see their income tax revenue shrink significantly because they set their taxes as a straight percentage of federal taxes, Duncan said. 

Nine states would see a slight increase in revenue, because they allow people to offset their state taxes according to the amount they paid in federal taxes, Duncan said. A cut in taxes paid to Washington would then mean slightly more taxes paid to the state. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: http://www.cbpp.org 

National Conference of State Legislatures: http://www.ncsl.org 

National Governors Association: http://www.nga.org 

The City Council heard arguments from corporate representatives Tuesday who want to place 12 telecommunications antennae on the roof of the Oaks Theater and from neighbors who say the installations are unattractive and pose a health threat. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board approved a permit allowing Nextel Communications to install 12 antennae on the roof of the theater at 1861 Solano Ave. in November. Neighbors appealed the permit and the City Council held a public hearing to listen to arguments for and against it. The public hearing will continue at the council’s Feb. 27 meeting. 

The Telecommunication Act of 1996 prohibits any municipality from regulating the antennae for health reasons.  

“We can only consider the appearance of the antennae,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington who supports increased access to new technology such as cell phones. “I think there are reasonable ways to protect neighbors without wiping out access to new technology.” 

The placement of wireless communications antennae that support cell phone use has become an issue in Berkeley as the number of installations increases along with worries about health threats posed by the radio wave radiation the antennae emit. 

Sprint PCS recently withdrew an application to place several antennae on the roof of the Jewish Community Center on Walnut Street. Center directors decided against the antennae after they held a meeting in which members, mostly parents, expressed worries about harmful effects from antennae emissions. The JCC offers a variety of children’s programs. 

After listening to community concerns, the City Council adopted an emergency 45-day moratorium on all new wireless antennae on Dec. 19. It expires at the end of the month. 

Even though the city cannot regulate the antennae for health reasons, worries about radiation emissions are the main concern of neighbors. 

Neighbors of the theater cite recent studies in the United Kingdom claiming a growing body of evidence that exposure to radio wave radiation, associated with cell phone use and their supporting antennae, are potentially harmful, especially to children. The United Kingdom has recently launched a public awareness campaign geared to reducing cell phone use among children and teenagers. 

Dr. Jerrold T. Bushberg, a specialist in radiation biology and health physics hired by Nextel, told the council that there is no scientific evidence that wireless antennae are harmful. “This is a learning process,” he said. “There are scientists and commissions that have literally put years of study into these cases and I encourage people to consult as much scientific literature as possible.” 

Dr. Leonard Schwarzburd, who lives near the theater and opposes the antennae installation, said he puts very little faith in governing bodies and regulatory commissions.  

“They are asking us to trust the same regulatory commissions that gave us the Ford Pinto, Firestone tires and the PG&E energy crisis,” Schwarzburd said Wednesday. “There is a long history of these bodies failing the public.” 

Bushberg agreed that scientists have been wrong. “The best minds come to the wrong conclusions,” he said. “But if you look at history, they’ve been right a great deal more than they’ve been wrong.” 

Mayor Shirley Dean said the public hearing raised more questions than it answered. She said the council can’t consider health risks from the antennae but it may be able to consider the cumulative emission levels of other antennae in the area. 

“It is still unclear what the cumulative radiation levels are and just how we calculated them,” she said. 

There are several antennae installed and operating on the roof of the office building at 1760 Solano Ave. about a block from the Oaks Theater. 

The City Council will hold a special meeting on Jan. 30 to determine if the emergency moratorium should be extended. In order to continue the moratorium, seven of nine councilmembers will have to vote to approve the item, which was instituted as an emergency, necessitating the supermajority vote.  

“I am very reluctant to support the moratorium as it exists now,” Worthington said. “I think it is too extreme to stop all antennae installation citywide when there are areas where everybody agrees its a good thing.” 

Thursday, Jan. 25

Spirits in the Time of AIDS 

6 - 8 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland 

Pro Arts reception for the opening of their new exhibition seeking to expand the understanding of HIV and AIDS and the people who are affected by them.  

Call 763-9425 

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission  

7 p.m. 

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth St.  

Review of the initial environmental study and recommendation on a request for establishment of a public market. Also, consideration of a petition requesting that diagonal parking and parking meters not be installed on Fifth St. 

Climbing Mt. Everest  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Bob Hoffman, organizer and leader of four environmental cleanup expeditions on Everest, will give a slide presentation. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Duomo Readings Open Mic 

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Glenn Ingersoll and host Louis Cuneo.  

644-0155 

Women in Salsa  

8 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave.  

Orquesta D’Soul, a San Francisco based band, is hosting this benefit featuring the musical talents of local bay area women in salsa.  

$8 in advance, $10 at the door 

Call 849-2568 or visit  

www.lapena.org 

West Berkeley Project Area  

Commission  

7 p.m. 

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth St.  

Discussions will include review of the initial environmental study and recommendations on a request to establish a public market. Also, consideration of a petition requesting that diagonal parking and parking meters not be installed on Fifth St. 

Take the Terror Out of  

Talking 

12:10 - 1:10 p.m. 

Department of Health Services  

2151 Berkeley Way  

State Health Toastmasters Club is hosting an open house to celebrate Toastmasters International Week and to kick-off the start of “Speechcraft,” a six-session workshop to help participants overcome nervousness and learn basic public speaking skills. 649-7750 

Middle East Crisis Teach-In  

7 p.m. 

2040 Valley Life Sciences 

UC Berkeley  

Ben Klafter of the San Francisco Israel Center, Zack Bodner, deputy director, AIPAC, Leeron Kaley, AIPAC student liaison, and Randy Barnes, UC Berkeley undergraduate. Sponsored by the Israel Action Committee.  

Housing Advisory  

Commission 

7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St.  

Zoning Adjustments Board  

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Friday, Jan. 26 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. 549-2970  

 

“The Aftermath of the  

National Election” 

11:45 a.m. luncheon 

12:30 p.m. speaker  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

Susan Rasky, senior lecturer at the graduate school of journalism at UC Berkeley will speak.  

$11 - $12.25 with luncheon, $1 with coffee, students free 848-3533 

 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or  

visit www.stagebridge.org 

 

Crisis in Colombia 

7 p.m. 

Berkeley UU Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)  

Peter Dale Scott, UC Berkeley professor and Daniel de la Pava, of the Colombia Support Network will, will discuss the U.S. role in perpetuating the violence and how to organize to help.  

$5 - $10 donation requested  

Call 704-9608 

 

Yiddish Conversation  

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

With Allen Stross 

Call 644-6107 

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Saturday, Jan. 27

 

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno 

8 p.m. 

Crowden School  

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.  

$15 - $20 658-3382  

 

Cuddly, Soft, Furry Things & Friends 

10 - 10:50 a.m. & 11:10 a.m. - Noon  

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley  

A special workshop for two - three year-olds to meet, pet, and feed rabbits, doves, and snakes.  

$22 - $25, $10 for additional family members, registration required  

Call 642-5134 

 

Book Publishing Seminar 

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Regent Press 

6020-A Adeline St.  

Mark Weiman presents an overview of the business of book publishing oriented towards the author considering self-publication. Call 547-7602 or e-mail: regent@sirius.com 

 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier  

Community Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St. 644-8515 

 

Free Martial Arts Classes  

for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier  

Community Center  

San Pablo Park  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 644-8515 

 

One-Day Travel Careers Class 

8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. 

Vista College  

2020 Milvia St.  

Room 210 

Learn about new employment opportunities in travel in the 21st century. Class will include a look at salaries, travel benefits, necessary education and preparation required. Bring payment by check to the class.  

$5.50 for California residents 

Call Marty de Souto, 981-2931  

 

Intuitive Healing 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

1502 Tenth St.  

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss the deeper meaning of illness, the way to tune into any body part to heal it and your intuitive X-ray or body scan ability. 

$85 Call 526-5510 

 

“Arab-Jewish Co-Existence: Reality and  

Challenges Ahead” 

1 - 2:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Hillel 

2736 Bancroft  

Walid Mula, an Arab-Israeli educator and activist who specializes in training and facilitating dialogue groups and educating for co-existence between Arabs and Jews, will speak and discuss. All are welcome at this free event.  

E-mail: israeloncampus@hotmail.com 

 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

 

---

Sunday, Jan. 28

 

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno 

7 p.m. 

Crowden School  

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.  

$15 - $20  

Call 658-3382  

 

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

 

Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society  

1931 Center St.  

A panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history and on the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley.  

$10 donation  

Call 848-0181 

 

Mediterranean Plant Life 

3:30 p.m. 

UC Botanical Garden  

200 Centennial Drive  

Peter Dallman, author of “Plant Life in the Mediterranean Regions of the World,” will motivate attendees to look closely at California native plants and experiment with dramatic and drought-tolerant species in their own gardens.  

Call 643-2755  

 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mike 

2 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Museum, Conference Room 

2621 Durant (at Bowditch)  

Poet Katharine Harer and jazz guitarist Joe Vance.  

Call 527-9753 

 

“Reclaim the Streets Wants You!” 

5 p.m. 

The Long Haul 

3124 Shattuck Ave.  

RTS invites you to an evening of videos, brainstorming, and Action planning. Anyone interested in helping with future actions or in learning more about RTS is encouraged to attend. Dinner and party will follow. Free  

Call 415-820-9658  

 

Unitarian Universalism at Millennial Transition 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists  

1606 Bonita St. (at Cedar St.)  

Paul Sawyer, long-time Berkeley activist and former minister at the Berkeley Fellowship and Dr. Cary Wang will speak.  

Call 841-3477  

 

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Monday, Jan. 29

 

Poetry with Nancy Wilson 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Call 644-6107 

 

Starving For Love? 

7 - 9 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Keith Braselton invites you to experience love all the time and claims he can show you how.  

Call 707-435-5425 

 

Homeless Commission 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

 

---

Tuesday, Jan. 30

 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

 

Digital Photography  

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

With Allen Stross 

Call 644-6107 

 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

 

Opening of Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

5 p.m. 

Thousand Oaks Multipurpose Room  

840 Colusa  

The ribbon-cutting will take place at 5 p.m. and tours will follow the ceremony.  

 

---

Wednesday, Jan. 31

 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring “Berkeley Images,” a world premiere by Jean-Pascal Beintus.  

$10 - $35  

Call 841-2800 

 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

 

Berkeley High Poetry Slam  

6:30 p.m.  

Berkeley High School  

2246 Milvia St., Room G-210 

A preliminary round for the regional poetry slams sponsored by youth speaks.  

 

Human Welfare & Community Action Commission 

7 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St.  

 

Disabled with service dogs don’t have to reveal disability  

Editor:  

Robert Lauriston’s letter to the Planet of Jan. 17, 2001 is ludicrous.  

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states clearly that it is a violation of the ADA to ask a person “What is your disability?” or “What is the nature of your disability?” No documentation of the disability is required.  

Many people with hidden disabilities have service animals. I personally know people who use service animals to guide them, to alert them and to carry objects for them. Among these disabilities are people with low vision, post polio, decreased hearing, physical instability, chronic dizziness, early stages of multiple sclerosis, seizures, fibronyalgia, decreased spacial awareness, and some developmental disabilities.  

You cannot tell by looking at any person whether they have a hidden disability. Nor, under the ADA, does anyone with a hidden disability have to reveal their disability when asked. And, by definition, any person with a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits major life activities is considered disabled.  

It follows then that Michael Miniasian does not have to “prove” that he has a disability or reveal it. All we need to know is that he says he is disabled and that his dog, King, is a service animal. That’s the law.  

The challenges of dealing with ignorance is the most difficult disability we face. I sincerely hope that Mr. Lauriston never develops a disability - hidden or obvious. Because, if he does, he will have to eat his words.  

Karen Craig 

Co-Chair, Commission on Disability 

Anti-inaugural protest holds hope 

Editor:  

Bush gives an anti-abortion rights ruling the first day in office. He nominates right wingers to the cabinet, and there is a repressive police presence at his inaugural. The signals are for a grim future, but then there are the signals given off by the anti-inaugural protest demonstration in San Francisco this past Saturday.  

The behavior and composition of Saturday’s massive march is something this old Berkeleyan has not seen since the Vietnam war and Cal’s FSM demonstrations. Demos in the 1980s and 1990s featured “the usual suspects” among whom I guess I am one. We used to come in organized contingents that supplied pre-made signs and we shouted clichés. This Saturday’s crowd had a flood of home made signs, very few “leaders,” and few specific contingents.  

Personal rather than ideological feelings marked many signs, such as “Hope my First Vote Counts,” and “We Wuz Robbed by King George the Turd.” The people with bull horns skipped the united people never being defeated cheer and instead had us chanting, “Cocaine, DUI, Bush ain’t got no alibi. He’s stupid. He’s stupid.” 

After the march from civic center to Jefferson Square about a thousand people turned back toward downtown in a spontaneous, no-permit march that took over Van Ness and then Market Street. At Powell and Market Street, there was a half-hour long spontaneous break dancing contest to rave music blaring from a demonstrator’s boom box. Later the cable car turnaround was filled with demonstrators who made it a twirling merry-go-round, until police stepped in, at which point another original cheer was heard, “Whose merry-go-round thingy? - Our merry-go-round thingy!” 

All in all, this was a happy multi-racial, multi-aged crowd, one that will probably come back for more protests.  

Ted Vincent  

Berkeley 

Answer to BHS lunch problem: build a cafeteria 

The Daily Planet received this letter addressed to Mayor Shirley Dean: 

This letter is regarding the large number of BHS students in the downtown area at lunchtime and their negative impact on the area.  

As a retired High School counselor, I suggest the solution is having an adequate cafeteria right on campus and keeping the kids on campus.  

Your idea of "Working with the High School on a code of conduct and ways to commit the students to more positive behavior," is a hopeless idea.  

Jay Wagner  

Berkeley 

Poems can be protest 

Editor: 

How did I spend this Inauguration Day after spending Bill Clinton’s special days in 1993 and 1997 waving my United Nations flag among the tens of thousands on the Mall? I didn’t seem to need to be among the George W. protesters in San Francisco or D.C. 

I know! Since the best thing about both of those events was Maya Angelou reading her poem “On the Pulse of Morning,” I spent 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. downtown between BART and the Farmer’s Market giving people a chance to read or hear her still inspiring and very much-needed words.  

My sometimes Berkeley Daily Planet cart, my UN flag and my Berkeley Millennium Peace Bell seem like good ways to attract attention to Maya’s still beautiful words of hope.  

Bill Trampleasure 

Berkeley 

Spend funds on housing not hotels 

Editor: 

Like many others I have spent some time homeless in Berkeley as an unsuccessful gutter poet and painter. I’ve got a lot of opinions but I have one creative one: I went to the City Council meetings last winter to see about a hotel voucher for the homeless issue. I was a bit too frightened by the cameras and people to talk but I think it’s stupid to think that tens of thousands of dollars is granted so that a homeless person can stay in a hotel a few nights with a referral. Sounds like a good plan for some one with a hotel.  

Berkeley is my favorite place in the United States and I think it’s very advanced with its own order to it. If that money could be organized into low maintenance housing instead of stuffed up shelters. This is all I asked for as a teenage panhandler there. I wanted a closet to store my stuff and sleep safely, and a order of dollar Chinese everyday.  

Berkeley has a very warm and tolerant way of dealing with things but I think there is potential to make things better. Homelessness is becoming obsolete but there isn’t much of an alternative for people who aren’t stable enough to pay $500 a month for rent.  

My point is grant money going to hotels is wasteful and no solution to the problem. 

-dZel 

Berkeley 

The prevailing wisdom in the BSAL boys’ soccer league is that there are three top teams, and everyone else scraps for wins at the bottom. But that perception is changing with every game St. Joseph’s plays. 

The Pilots are 1-3 in league play after losing 2-1 at St. Mary’s on Wednesday, but they have played much better than their record indicates. They lost to league-leading Kennedy earlier this week by just one goal, and St. Mary’s scored their winning goal on Wednesday in injury time. St. Joseph’s head coach Jason Eisele feels his team is ready to take a run at the big boys of the league. 

“We’re going to be in the playoffs, and we’re going to do some damage,” Eisele said. “We’re going to upset someone in the playoffs, I promise.” 

Eisele’s team plays the last of the big three, Piedmont, on Friday. A St. Joseph’s victory would clinch a first-round playoff bye for St. Mary’s (5-0-1 BSAL) as one of the top two finishers in the BSAL. St. Mary’s will face off against undefeated Kennedy on Friday in a game that will likely determine the regular-season champ. 

St. Mary’s head coach Teale Matteson said he wasn’t surprised that the Pilots were able to give his team such a tough game. 

“I got a game tape of the St. Joe’s-Kennedy game, and they’re a strong team,” Matteson said. “We knew we were in for a dogfight today.” 

Wednesday’s game was a tense, physical affair, as the Pilots came out determined to make their mark. But St. Mary’s had most of the early chances with quick runs down the sidelines for crosses. A Stephon McGrew cross went just over forward Patrick Barry’s head, then McGrew controlled a loose ball in front of the goal, only to hit his shot straight at Pilot goalkeeper Chris Goin. Barry took advantage of a turnover to hit yet another cross, but Goin got just enough of the ball to tip it past an outstretched McGrew. 

But once the Pilots got their offense going, they put serious pressure on the tentative St. Mary’s outside defenders. Right fullback Alex Tapp turned the ball over in his own end, and Panther ’keeper Nick Osborne made a fine save on the quick shot by Victor Ramirez, tipping the ball over the crossbar. 

But the ensuing St. Joseph’s corner kick spelled disaster for the Panthers. Jeffrey Gonzalez found a wide-open Ian Mason at the near post, and Mason flicked the ball over Osborne to give the Pilots a 1-0 lead in the 31st minute. 

The intensity of the game rose from there, with both teams going into tackles and 50-50 balls with abandon. The Pilots stayed on the attack, hitting through balls that Osborne was barely able to corral. St. Mary’s midfielder Zack Huddleston had an open look from a counter-attack, but shot just over the bar. 

St. Joseph’s David Gordon had the final opportunity of the half, taking the ball wide and slotting the ball just wide across the goalmouth. Again, the shot came from a St. Mary’s turnover, this time by defender Remik Starkharper. 

The Panthers came out of halftime with one thing on their minds: a tying goal. They sent attacks at the St. Joseph’s goal in waves, with Barry and McGrew in the middle of most moves. Barry finally finished a scoring chance in the 42nd minute, taking a clever pass from left fullback Sean Rogan and slipping it calmly past Goin to tie the score. 

Barry got another chance two minutes later, breaking free of the defense only to be stopped by an aggressive charge by Goin. Pilot forward Andrew Snider answered with a breakaway of his own, but Osborne made a diving save to keep the score knotted. 

McGrew and Barry continued to pepper Goin with shots, but were unable to finish any chances. An over-aggressive Osborne nearly handed St. Joseph’s a go-ahead goal in the 65th minute, charging out of his goal only to have a throw-in sail over his head and across the goal, but no one was home for the Pilots, and the ball trickled meekly into the touchline. 

With a minute remaining in regulation, McGrew juked two defenders and was wide open inside the box. But Goin was equal to the task, diving to his left for an outstanding save that could have meant the game. 

Barry waited all of a minute to set up McGrew’s next chance. The lanky senior drifted down the left side, then streaked past two Pilot defenders to come free at the baseline. He surveyed the scene in front of him, then hit a grounder just out of Goin’s reach. Forward Kyle Low just missed the ball, but McGrew was at the far post and easily put the ball into the back of the net. 

“I felt just wonderful when I scored, but it was a sense of relief too,” Mcgrew said. “It was a great way to end it.” 

But the game wasn’t over, and St. Mary’s had to endure two more scares. Ramirez somehow got a breakaway, but hit the ball right at Osborne. But the Panthers couldn’t clear the ball from their zone, and Gonzalez found himself open at the top of the box with the ball at his feet. His shot was headed for the upper left corner of the goal, but Osborne covered it with ease just before the final whistle. 

Eisele said those unconverted chances were typical of his team’s season. 

“If we just start converting, we’ll start winning,” he said. “We’ve been coming so close this year.”

Both the School Board and City Council embraced a proposal by parents Wednesday night to intervene on behalf of ninth-grade students failing classes their first semester at Berkeley High School.  

The city government’s affirmation of the proposal added muscle to the partnership between parents and educators to create a system to serve struggling students.  

In a 4-1 vote, with School Board Vice President Shirley Issel dissenting, the board adopted the plan, created by a group called Parents of Children of African Dissent, which would place students that are failing both math and English into intensive courses with a low student-teacher ratio. In addition to the new courses, struggling students will be targeted with an aggressive attendance policy, and parents and mentors will keep a close eye on their progress by means of regular teacher contact. 

As of the 15th week of the school year, 242 ninth graders are likely to fail at least one core class, English or math, in their first-semester. Eighty-three students are failing both English and math. The parents hoped to serve as many of the students as possible with the smaller student-teacher ratio by Jan. 30, the beginning of the new semester, in order to prevent students from falling even further behind.  

An overview of resources available at Berkeley High School found that although the school offers many programs, students are not accessing them, such as an after school program to assist failing students with algebra and English and lunchtime math tutorials.  

Board President Terry Doran wanted to make certain that new resources for a new program would not join that list. “Will the PCAD program tie the kids that need the help with the help we already have?” he asked. 

Principal Frank Lynch said it would, “unequivocally.”  

“It’s risky because it’s new,” Lynch said . “The one thing that sells this program is the parent support.” Lynch said regardless of the mechanics of a program, the most important aspect is parental involvement. Because of that, the PCAD program has unprecedented prospects for  

success “if these parents can turn the light on to other parents,” he said. 

Parents asked for $225,000 to hire teachers for about 180 of the 242 failing students they estimated would participate in the program. Lynch and the Berkeley High administrative staff recommended the plan be adopted for a smaller number of students – those 60 to 80 students failing two or more classes – with the possibility for further expansion. The school offered six classroom spaces and three teachers for the reduced class size program. The school board offered to pay for another three salaried teachers out of the general fund.  

Lynch said he thought finding qualified teachers on such short notice, especially during a teacher shortage would be a major barrier. PCAD members said they already have 26 resumes submitted from interested parties. 

One important part of the plan involves “learning partners” to follow the students’ progress and demand success. The role that learning partners would play in the program was not mentioned explicitly at the school board meeting, although parent Valerie Yerger said they hoped to take advantage of an existing mentor program, the Link Program, which partners seniors with freshmen to help them ease into Berkeley High. 

After more than an hour of vociferous and sometimes angry testimony from parents of African-American students in the Berkeley school system, Issel expressed her feeling that the School Board was being railroaded into adopting a proposal.  

“I’m shocked by the way that we’re proceeding,” Issel said. “I can’t vote for something that comes from threats.” 

While strident parental demands were off-putting to Issel, others focused on the positive side of enthusiastic parental participation. “If there’s anything we’ve always longed for it’s a systematic, informed, motivated, organized and not prepared-to-leave group of parents.” Russ Ellis, former UC Berkeley vice-chancellor said in the meeting. 

After the Board of Education meeting the parents carried their momentum to the City Council meeting, where the council was asked to provide resources for the program. A usually politically divided City Council voted unanimously to adopt the plan, and asked the city manager to unearth resources to assist the collaboration. At the special meeting Jan. 30, City Manager Weldon Rucker will report on city resources available to the school district. 

Reporter John Geluardi contributed to this story.

BHS girls now 6-2 in ACCAL 

If Berkeley High’s athletic field was built on dirt, players would have been treated to a mud bath during Tuesday’s waterlogged girl’s soccer match that saw the host Yellowjackets defeat Richmond High 2-1. 

As it were, the artificial field kept the players’ uniforms clean while the rain poured down, causing water to splash and the ball to skid each time it touched the turf. 

“We’re used to playing here, so I thought they did a pretty good job of adjusting,” Berkeley coach Suzanne Sillett said. “When the turf gets wet, the ball hits it and it skids. I don’t think it really affected us that much.” 

For Richmond, the constant drizzle and a slick surface combined with Berkeley’s remarkable ball control was too much to overcome. 

“They played hard,” Oilers coach Jaime Anguiano said. “The turf definitely made a difference. We’re not used to that and the wet ball would just skid really fast.” 

The win marked Berkeley’s second straight come-from-behind victory as the Jackets improved to 6-2 in the Alameda Contra Costa Athletic League.  

“The first 15 minutes we really didn’t have the intensity we wanted,” said Berkeley forward Maura Fitzgerald. “It was a lot like the last game we played (against Bishop O’Dowd) when we took control in the second half.” 

After Richmond’s Isela Cazarez scored on a break-away shot midway through the first half, Berkeley regrouped to tie the game at one heading to the break when sophomore Rocio Guerrero scored on a pass from Fitzgerald. 

“What I didn’t like was that it took (Richmond) to score a goal before we woke up and started playing the way we should have been playing all game,” Sillett said. “I think once they scored their goal, we started doing what we needed to do.” 

After a quick wringing of the jerseys at halftime, the ’Jackets carried their late first-half momentum into the second period. At the 66th minute, Berkeley sophomore Annie Borton connected on a strike that found the top left side of the net to seal the ’Jackets’ victory. 

“Borton had a great game,” Sillett said. “She worked really well off the ball and made a lot of runs up top to give us options in our attack.” 

Up next for Berkeley is a road game on the natural grass field at Pinole before the team visits Alameda in a rematch next week. 

“Alameda will be a huge game next Tuesday because they beat us here already this season,” Sillett said.  

A top priority for the rest of the season, Sillett added, is playing the way the Jackets have played all year, with one exception. 

“Finishing,” she said is what Berkeley’s missing. “Our inability to finish is definitely a big weakness that caused us to lose some games this year and barely scrape out games that we clearly have dominated, but the score doesn’t represent that.”  

The Jackets maintained their trademark one- and two-touch game throughout Tuesday’s contest to keep control of the ball and force Richmond’s defenders to work extra hard. 

Berkeley outshot the Oilers by a dozen in the first half and 11-3 in the second. Also contributing, Sillett said, was Veronica Searles, a reserve who stepped in for a sick Esther Schmidt.

One month after what KPFA activists are calling the “Christmas Coup” – the firing of several staff members and banning certain volunteers from a sister station in New York City – a group of local activists was arrested Tuesday at the San Francisco law offices of Epstein, Becker & Green. 

The same day, nine persons were arrested at the New York station when they tried to attend an advisory board meeting. 

The San Francisco protesters were targeting John Murdock, an attorney who works at the firm’s offices in Washington, D.C. Murdock is a member of the Pacifica Board of Directors, which governs five community radio stations – KPFA in Berkeley, WBAI in New York and others in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Houston. 

Large demonstrations occurred in Berkeley in the summer of 1999 as a result of tensions between the listener-sponsors and staff of the station on the one hand and the board on the other. Activists say the board ought to be a democratic institution, representing the listener sponsors.  

The board changed its governing rules two years ago and became self-selecting. Board members were previously appointed by the various stations’ Local Advisory Boards. 

Murdock was appointed to the board last year.  

Aaron Glantz, KPFA’s Sacramento reporter who resides in Berkeley and Sacramento was among the eight arrested Tuesday. In a phone interview Wednesday, Glantz said that Murdock was targeted for several reasons. One is that Epstein Becker & Green is a “union busting” firm. Glantz pointed out that the company’s website says: “For almost 30 years, Epstein Becker & Green has effectively represented employers in all facets of traditional labor law including...maintaining a union-free workplace....”  

Glantz claims that Murdock has been charged by the board with re-writing its bylaws and says he fears that the result will be that the board will be able to sell the stations with greater ease – among the reasons for the 1999 summer protests was the receipt (in error) by a local activist of an e-mail written by one of the board members who discussed the possible sale of WBAI and/or KPFA. 

Glantz further pointed out that the board has recently hired Murdock’s law firm to defend it against the various listener lawsuits which have been filed. “That’s kind of sleazy,” he said.  

“The same board members who locked out the journalists at KPFA are at it again at WBAI,” said Media Alliance Director Andrea Buffa in a written statement. “People who censor and ban journalists at their stations have no place running the only progressive radio network in the United States.” 

To make their point, Glantz and seven other activists showed up Tuesday morning at the Epstein Becker & Green law firms offices in San Francisco and refused to leave until Murdock resigned from the board. The group was arrested and released. 

They returned outside the offices Tuesday afternoon to join a picket of some 40 or 50 KPFA protesters. “It was an informational picket outside; it was not meant to be confrontational,” Glanz said. 

However, when the group moved to the ground floor of the building, which is a mall, the manager called police and Glanz and three others were arrested. After being held in the San Francisco jail until about 1 a.m., Glanz said charges against the four were dropped. The eight persons arrested Tuesday morning have a March court date. 

East Coast activists have staged similar protests at the law firm’s Washington, D.C. headquarters.  

And Tuesday evening, when a group of listeners tried to attend a Local Advisory Committee meeting at the New York station, the station manager – recently appointed by the Pacifica executive director after the firing of the former manager – refused to allow their entry into the station and eventually had nine of them arrested by the New York Police Department on trespassing charges. 

Daily Planet wire reports contributed to this story.

Project Impact presents an educational series on earthquake and fire hazards prevention through March on Berkeley Community Media's Cable Television Station Channel 25. These are educational, pre-produced videos that come in a variety of formats reaching people of all income brackets, nationalities, and physical abilities.  

The first series provides an overview on Project Impact and includes a do-it-yourself guide to bidding and contractor selection, when to apply for permit, and costs. It will also give information on foundation and cripple wall retrofit techniques. Earthquake preparedness focuses on both individual and neighborhood planning, with special attention given to senior and disabled people. Its next airing is Jan. 30 at 4 p.m.  

The second series features a guided tour through the home of a disabled woman, who modified her apartment to reduce earthquake hazards after the Loma Prieta Earthquake. This program describes and demonstrates steps that can make a family child care home safer in earthquakes and how to handle the difficulties that may follow a damaging quake. Its next airing is Feb. 6 at 4 p.m. 

The third series shows everything you need to know to reduce the fire risk to your home in the urban/wildland interface. Produced just a month before the Oakland Hills fire in 1991, this videotape discusses prudent landscaping and vegetation management, and explains how fire-resistant building and roofing materials can increase your safety. Its next airing is Feb. 13 at 4 p.m. 

The complete schedule is on the city website: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us. Project Impact is at 705-8168. Its e-mail address is projectimpact@ci.berkeley.ca.us

SAN FRANCISCO — Paul Torello is upfront about his life. He sells sex on the streets for drug money, and he’s HIV positive. It’s a story he tells all of his male clients before he lets them chose whether to proceed with or without a condom. 

But more often than not, his words have little effect. 

“It’s sex that they really want to have,” Torello said. “That’s primarily the attitude in the city. It’s a fun thing for them.” 

That attitude is partly responsible for an alarming new report released Wednesday that finds the HIV infection rate has more than doubled among San Francisco’s gay men in four years. 

The report estimates that 2.2 percent of San Francisco’s gay men will contract the virus — up from 1.04 percent in 1997. If nothing changes, 748 gay men in San Francisco will fall prey to HIV this year, the report projects. 

That draft analysis, released Wednesday, combines more than 25 studies by the University of California, San Francisco, that surveyed some 10,000 gay men. 

“We’ve been at this for 20 or 21 years, and people are tired of it,” said Dr. Tom Coates, director of the UCSF Aids Research Institute and one of two dozen researchers and experts on the panel that released the report. “People would rather not have to talk about difficult issues and not take precautions if they think there’s a form of chemicals available to help them.” 

Indeed, the new antiviral drugs responsible for extending the lives of many HIV patients may big the biggest catalyst driving up the incidence rate of new infections. 

Long life spans make it possible for victims to spread the virus to more people, said Mike Shriver, Mayor Willie Brown’s adviser on AIDS and HIV policy and an organizer of the research panel. In addition, he said, the drugs – first released in the mid-1990s – have eased the horror of watching loved ones die a slow, agonizing death. 

“Why is it going up among men having sex among men?” said Coates, who’s been HIV-positive since 1985. “The whole idea of gay liberation is having sex with whom you want to have sex. It’s breaking down old moralistic barriers. But it carries with it something lethal, and it’s hard for the gay community to come to grips with.” 

Coates said he’s seen a 50 percent decrease in HIV rates among intravenous drug users. He also hasn’t seen any increases in the heterosexual population. 

Yet a quarter of the city’s estimated 46,800 gay men are HIV-positive. And 80 percent of HIV infections in the city are among gay men, the study found. 

That means stories like Torello’s aren’t uncommon. 

A native of Hamden, Conn., Torello, 36, came to San Francisco three years ago and contracted HIV in the past 18 months. He was sharing dirty needles to shoot-up speed and having unprotected sex with whomever would pay. He’s not sure how he contracted the virus. 

Still, he continues to prostitute himself. 

“Every person who I ever hook up with, I tell them. Always,” said Torello. “But I’ve only been turned down once or twice.” 

The increase isn’t unique to San Francisco. Coates said numbers are on the rise in Sydney and Vancouver. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reports an increase in syphilis and gonorrhea among gay males in Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle. 

“We’re definitely concerned about gay men across the county,” said Robert Janssen, the CDC’s director of the division of HIV/AIDS prevention. “We’re pulling together and have begun to look at a variety of ways to improve intervention and prevention programs for gay men and to begin to look at specific things we need to do.” 

———— 

On the Net: 

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu 

LOS ANGELES — The plea bargain that will imprison white supremacist Buford Furrow Jr. but keep him off death row outraged some who knew the victims of his 1999 shooting rampage but brought satisfaction or relief to others Wednesday. 

Furrow, 39, pleaded guilty to killing Joseph Ileto, a Filipino-American mail carrier, and other crimes involving his Aug. 10, 1999, assault on the North Valley Jewish Community Center in which three boys, a teen-age girl and a woman were wounded. 

In exchange for his plea, Furrow won’t face the death penalty originally sought by prosecutors but he agreed to spend the rest of his life in prison. He will be sentenced in March. 

“It’s fine with me that he’s forced to spend the rest of his life behind bars,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance. “Sometimes the death sentence is a deterrent, but the death sentence is over relatively quickly.  

If a person knows that for 30 to 40 years he will never be a part of society, that can be a greater deterrent to others.” 

Not everyone believed Furrow’s life should be saved and were disgusted that taxpayers’ dollars will support him while in prison. 

“It’s absolutely outrageous,” said Sonny Castellano, who worked with Ileto at a post office in Chatsworth.  

“He tried to injure children and that alone shows his life is worthless. It seems this was a coward’s way out.” 

Prosecutors said there was extensive evidence showing Furrow’s previous mental problems, which was a major factor in reaching the plea bargain with defense attorneys. U.S. Attorney Alejandro Mayorkas said the victims’ families as well as other law enforcement agencies were advised of the deal. 

“We have the full support of the Ileto family and the victims of the JCC center...,” Mayorkas said.  

“We have decided not to seek the death penalty based upon information obtained after our initial decision that revealed a long history of his (Furrow’s) mental illness.” 

Some people who supported the decision, sidestepped the touchy subject.  

Ileto’s brother, Ismael, declined to comment on how family members felt about the death penalty. Nina Giladi, executive director of the Jewish center, also declined. 

“We trust the judicial system will work in an effective and fair manner,” Giladi said. 

Support for the death penalty appears to be waning in California.  

A Los Angeles Times poll conducted in November 2000 found that 58 percent of those surveyed supported the death penalty, down from 78 percent in 1990. 

But some people who knew the victims said they would rather have closure than endure a lengthy legal process. 

“It wasn’t the resolution I would have liked personally,” said Ramona Burke, postmaster of the Chatsworth post office.  

“We are relieved the situation is now behind us and know Furrow will be punished for his actions.” 

Handcuffed and shackled, Furrow was thin and clean-shaven – a far cry from the pudgy, mustachioed man who was arrested last year.  

He answered softly, “Guilty, your honor,” 16 times. 

Furrow sprayed the North Valley Jewish Community Center in the San Fernando Valley with more than 70 bullets, wounding three boys, a teen-age girl and a woman.  

Hours later, he killed Filipino-American Joseph Ileto, shooting him nine times as the man was delivering mail. 

Furrow surrendered in Las Vegas the next day. 

Furrow, of Olympia, Wash., had a long history of involvement with anti-Semitic groups operating in the Pacific Northwest, among them the Aryan Nations. 

Authorities said he told them he shot up the community center to send a “wake-up call to America to kill Jews.” Prosecutors said he shot Ileto because the man appeared to him to be Hispanic or Asian. 

Prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty. But U.S. Attorney Alejandro Mayorkas said prosecutors changed their mind after the defense submitted extensive evidence of Furrow’s previous mental problems. 

Mayorkas said the material showed Furrow sought psychiatric help for 10 years before the crime and complained of being plagued by homicidal and suicidal thoughts. Furrow’s lawyers had planned to make his mental condition an issue at his trial. 

In a statement, Furrow’s lawyers said: “The crimes committed by our client ... were tragic in their consequence to many, many people. ... Together with the government’s lawyers, we believe this is the appropriate resolution to this case.” 

Mayorkas said Furrow’s attempt to spread a message of hate had been thwarted. “The only statement he made is he is a pathetic cowardly man. What he did was remind us that we are all one,” the U.S. attorney said. 

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, said he is satisfied that Furrow will go to prison for life. 

“In one respect Buford Furrow was right when he said he was trying to register his crime as a ‘wake-up call to America,”’ Hier said.  

“What these haters are doing in this country and all over the world is showing how much damage a single individual bent on destroying society can accomplish.” 

The Ileto family on Wednesday occupied a back row of the courtroom, listening quietly to the plea, which they had agreed to in advance. 

“We are just relieved that this is closed, that we don’t have to go to court to hear any testimony,” said Ileto’s brother, Ismael.

SACRAMENTO — California wrapped up a desperate power auction Wednesday, hoping to find electricity supplies on a long-term basis at a price that won’t break the state. 

At the end of the 27-hour bidding period, governor’s spokesman Steve Maviglio would say only that at least one bid was received. A formal announcement was expected later Wednesday. 

“I predict that what those bids will look like will not cause people to do back flips for joy,” said Assemblyman Fred Keeley, the Legislature’s lead negotiator during the power crisis. 

Power managers have called on Californians to do everything they can to conserve, even suggesting people planning to watch Sunday night’s Super Bowl do so in groups. 

The state has been frantically scrounging power for days to avert rolling blackouts, buying megawatts on the expensive spot market from as far away as Canada. 

State officials say they have already spent more than $113 of a $400 million fund approved last week by lawmakers to buy power for cash-strapped Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric, which are on the verge of bankruptcy. 

At that rate, the remaining state money would be depleted in less than a week, said Kellan Fluckiger, chief executive of the Independent System Operator, which manages most of California’s power grid. 

Gov. Gray Davis began accepting bids Tuesday for electricity contracts ranging from six months to 10 years. He hoped suppliers would agree to sell for $55 per megawatt, though wholesalers have suggested they are more interested in the $80-per-megawatt range. 

Spot market prices have soared as high as $600 per megawatt in the past year. 

Energy suppliers also said they have sold most of their generating capacity for the next year or more, leaving little to offer to California in the near future. 

“We are 90 percent sold for 2001, and a substantial portion is sold for 2002,” said Tom Williams, spokesman for Duke Energy, which owns four power plants in California. 

The crisis is blamed largely on the state’s 1996 deregulation law, which ordered utilities to sell their power plants and buy wholesale power, but capped the rates they could charge customers. 

As a result, when energy prices began to rise last year, SoCal Edison and PG&E were unable to raise their rates. Other problems, including a shortage of new power plants, transmission glitches, low hydroelectric output and plant maintenance, have left the state precariously low on megawatts. 

Lawmakers are pursuing other solutions, including one in which California would take over hydroelectric plants or transmission systems of SoCal Edison and PG&E. 

There is little time left to develop a plan – perhaps only a matter of days, said Keeley, D-Boulder Creek. 

The state’s two largest utilities, both nearly bankrupt, are losing about $250 million per week and trying to ward off creditors from seizing their assets in court, Keeley said. 

Both utilities went to court to block the Power Exchange, the state’s largest electricity marketplace, from seizing energy contracts to raise cash. Both have missed multimillion-dollar payments to the exchange. 

A Los Angeles judge temporarily barred the power exchange from selling Edison long-term power contracts. Superior Judge David Jaffe’s order came after the attorney general’s office intervened, saying the governor wants to retain the option to seize the contracts. 

Davis declared a state of emergency last week, giving him a wide range of powers to address the electricity crisis, including the power to commandeer any private property he considers necessary. 

The attorney general’s office filed a brief arguing that the auction of the long-term contracts would “have a severe effect on California’s already calamitous electricity situation.” 

The judge gave Davis a week to decide whether to seize the contracts. David Chaney, senior assistant attorney general, said he didn’t know whether Davis was considering such a seizure, but added that the governor “wants to keep his options open.” 

President Bush made it clear Wednesday that California cannot look to Washington for a solution. 

Federal orders requiring wholesalers to sell electricity and natural gas to California despite concerns about utility solvency will stay in effect for two more weeks only, White House officials said. 

“The federal arsenal is not well equipped to get California out of this problem,’ Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.caiso.com 

SACRAMENTO — Farmers, conservationists, water districts and some legislators fear a state proposal to take over hydroelectric plants could endanger California’s water supply. 

The Assembly is considering a plan to take over hydroelectric plants owned by Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison in return for helping the utilities with their overwhelming debt. But those who depend on that water for irrigation fear the state might run reservoirs dry as it struggles to produce enough electricity. 

“We’re an irrigation district first and a power district second,” said Bill Carlisle, general manager of both the Southern San Joaquin Municipal Utility District and the Friant  

Power Authority. 

Carlisle, who testified at an Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee hearing Wednesday, worries that the state’s push for electricity might reverse those priorities even in dry years. 

“We’re the good guys, not the bad guys, but we’re getting sucked into the black hole of the state owning everything,” Carlisle said. 

Committee Chairman Dean Florez shares that concern. 

“We’re fixing a short-term problem and maybe creating a long-term problem in terms of water reliability,” said Florez, D-Shafter. 

The alternative is far worse in terms of darkened homes and bankrupt utilities, said Assemblyman Fred Keeley, a Boulder Creek Democratic sponsoring the hydroelectric proposal. 

The proposal is one of many lawmakers are considering as they try to find a way to ease California’s deregulation-induced electricity crisis, which plunged the northern two-thirds of the state into scattered outages last week and has left SoCal Edison and PG&E on the verge of bankruptcy. 

Assembly leaders want the utilities to agree to give the state their hydro plants, valued at $4 billion to $7 billion, in return for the state’s help in buying electricity and paying off some of their $12 billion debt. 

The hydro plants’ estimated $1.25 billion annual revenues would be enough to pay off long-term bonds the state would use to buy more electricity at wholesale prices, said Guy Phillips, Keeley’s water consultant. 

The state would make no changes to the hydro plants’ operation, Phillips said, and would reimburse local governments for lost property taxes under the plan. 

Senate leaders want the state to take the utilities’ power transmission lines instead of their hydro plants. But Phillips argued those produce no revenue and in fact would cost billions to improve. 

Meanwhile, small electricity producers like the Friant Power Authority are hurting from the utilities’ hard times. 

The authority produces a mere 25 megawatts of electricity for PG&E from its hydroelectric generators in the San Joaquin River, enough for about 25,000 homes. But it is owed about $180,000 by PG&E with no payment in sight. 

“We’re just a little guy, but we’re getting squashed in the process,” Carlisle said. 

WASHINGTON — A trade group filed a federal suit Wednesday seeking to block a California ban on the fuel additive MTBE, which reduces air pollution but is blamed for fouling groundwater across the state. 

Gov. Gray Davis ordered a ban on MTBE after Dec. 31, 2002, because contamination forced the closure of drinking water wells in Santa Monica and South Lake Tahoe. MTBE has been found in 10,000 groundwater sites statewide, with as little as a tablespoon in an Olympic-sized pool making water taste and smell like turpentine. 

But the Oxygenated Fuels Association filed suit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento asking a judge to invalidate the ban under the argument that it violates the Clean Air Act.  

The group contends the ban would dictate ethanol as a fuel additive rather than tackle the real problem of fixing leaking underground fuel tanks that taint water. 

Two other federal cases against similar MTBE bans are pending. The trade group filed a similar lawsuit in July 2000 challenging a New York law banning MTBE in that state by 2004. 

Methanex Corp., based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the world’s leading producer of methanol – a key element in MTBE – has a $1.4 billion lawsuit against the U.S. government for what it contends is a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement relating to California’s ban. 

MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is included in about one-third of the nation’s gasoline under the 1990 Clean Air Act, which required higher oxygen content in gas sold in the most-polluted cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento. The goal was to fight smog through cleaner-burning gasoline. 

MTBE is the most widely used of such fuel additives, called oxygenates, while corn-based ethanol is the choice in much of the Midwest. 

A California ban on MTBE would have a far-reaching effect on gas production because the state consumes about 40 percent of the 250,000 barrels produced each day, while only about 5 percent is produced within the state. 

But the Environmental Protection Agency labeled MTBE a possible carcinogen. The material moves swiftly through groundwater after spilling in traffic accidents or leaking from underground storage tanks. 

A Senate committee approved a ban last year on MTBE, but the bill went no farther. The Clinton administration considered for months whether to grant California a waiver to the requirement for oxygenates in gasoline, but didn’t act before its term ended Jan. 20.  

The Bush administration hasn’t taken a position on such waiver requests. 

The Oxygenated Fuels Association argued in its suit that Congress didn’t make any choice between which kind of additive should be used in fuels, so a state ban on MTBE would be unconstitutional. MTBE burns cleaner than ethanol, is less expensive to make and is easier to distribute, the group said. 

“Retaining MTBE as an oxygenate will enable California to continue to reap the air quality benefits and cost effectiveness associated with MTBE,” said Tom Adams, the group’s president. 

A Davis spokesman didn’t immediately return two calls for comment Wednesday. 

But environmental groups have advocated ethanol as a better option to reduce pollution. 

“The Oxygenated Fuels Association has proven that its bottom line is far more important than protecting the public’s right to clean drinking water,” said Russell Long, executive director of the Bluewater Network based in San Francisco. “It’s very upsetting that they would try to force Californians to drink polluted water.” 

——— 

On the Net: The Oxygenated Fuels Association is at http://www.ofa.net 

Bluewater Network is at http://www.earthisland.org/bw 

WASHINGTON — Hispanic girls have a higher high school dropout rate than girls in any other racial or ethnic group and are the least likely to earn a college degree, according to the American Association of University Women. 

Schools must do more to recognize cultural values that saddle Hispanic girls with family responsibilities, such as caring for younger siblings after school, that take away from educational endeavors, researchers said in a report Wednesday. 

“If we want Latinas to succeed as other groups of girls have, schools need to work with and not against their families and communities and the strengths that Latinas bring to the classroom,” said Angela Ginorio, the study’s author. 

The report, citing Census Bureau statistics, said the dropout rate for Latinas ages 16 to 24 is 30 percent, compared with 12.9 percent for blacks and 8.2 percent for whites. 

Only 10 percent of Hispanic women completed four or more years of college, compared with 13.9 percent of blacks and 22.3 percent of whites, according to the National Council of La Raza, an umbrella organization for Hispanic groups. 

“Many Latinas face pressure about going to college from boyfriends and fiances who expect their girlfriends or future wives not to be ‘too educated’ and from peers who accuse them of ‘acting white’ when they attempt to become better educated or spend time on academics,” the study said. 

At the University of Texas at El Paso, the Mother-Daughter Program targets sixth-grade Latinas, using tutoring and “big sisters” to encourage the girls to graduate from high school and attend college.  

It also helps Hispanic mothers return to school. 

“Part of the dropout rate problem has been the belief that the girl has to work to help the family and besides, she’s going to get married anyway so why go to college?” said Josefina Tinajero, the program director. 

“I think there needs to be a tremendous awareness in communities about this, especially in those that have smaller numbers of Hispanics,” she said. “They need to know how to work with this population.” 

Latinas are the country’s fastest-growing female minority population, while Hispanics as a whole will account for 25 percent of the nation’s school population in 2030. 

The researchers recommended educators pay closer attention to the cultural issues faced by Hispanic girls, recruit Hispanic teachers who can serve as role models and involve entire families in decisions about college. 

Among the study’s other findings: 

• Hispanic girls are underrepresented in gifted and talented and advanced placement courses. 

• Hispanic girls are less likely to take the SAT college entrance exam than their white or Asian counterparts, and those who do score lower on average than the other girls. 

• Among Hispanics, more girls than boys take the SAT exam, but the girls score lower. 

• More Hispanic women than men obtain associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but more men earn professional and doctorate degrees. 

Raul Gonzalez, National Council of La Raza education policy analyst, said having qualified teachers and rigorous curriculums are the best ways to improve the performance of Hispanic girls and boys. 

“I think the bottom line is we need to improve schools for Hispanics altogether,” Gonzalez said. 

——— 

On the Net: 

The study: http://www.aauw.org/2000/latinapress.html 

NEW YORK — Less than a week after a major revamp at CNN, newly formed media giant AOL Time Warner is making sweeping job cuts that will result in an additional 2,000 positions being lost. 

The cuts, announced to employees Tuesday, affect the company’s music business, its America Online division, the Time Inc. magazine company and its movie studios. The cuts are part of an overall belt-tightening to make good on a promise to investors that the merger would deliver a major boost to earnings. 

Combined with the 400 positions eliminated last week at CNN, the total of 2,400 job reductions would represent about 3 percent of the company’s work force of 85,000, company spokesman Ed Adler confirmed Wednesday. 

The job toll could rise even further over the coming months if the company ends up closing its 130 Warner Brothers retail outlets, which employ 3,800 people. The company is hoping to sell the stores but may close them if a sale proves impossible, Adler said. 

New Line Cinema let about 100 people go, or nearly 20 percent of its work force. New Line has had a poor showing at the box office recently and Michael de Luca was fired as the studio’s president last week, with Toby Emmerich replacing him. 

Warner Music Group, another division that senior management has singled out for poor performance, will lose 600 jobs through attrition and early retirement packages, or about 5 percent of its work force. 

AOL, now a division of AOL Time Warner, will also reduce 725 positions, including a number at its former headquarters in Dulles, Va. The combined company’s headquarters is in New York. 

Some 400 jobs are being trimmed from the staff of Time Inc. The job cuts will be made at a back-office operation in Birmingham, Ala., and at a direct marketing office in Alexandria, Va. 

Time Inc. is also closing three of the 20 consumer magazines it acquired last year in its purchase of Times Mirror Magazines from Tribune Co. Senior Golfer magazine is being combined with Golf magazine, Outdoor Explorer is being closed, and Today’s Homeowner is being merged into This Old House magazine. A total of 40 jobs will be affected in addition to the 400 cuts announced at Time Inc. 

Another 100 jobs will be cut at the Warner Bros. movie studio, where the Entertaindom.com Web site is being melded into the studio’s own site, and another 100 jobs are being shed at its corporate headquarters. 

The cuts across AOL Time Warner came less than a week after a major reorganization at CNN, where about 400 jobs are being cut. CNN is also installing several new executives, overhauling its newsgathering infrastructure and shaking up its programming schedule in an effort to get ratings out of a slump. 

Competitors MSNBC and Fox News Channel have been chipping away at CNN’s audience with feisty talk show hosts like Chris Matthews and Bill O’Reilly, and several new shows on CNN’s lineup are aimed squarely at winning those viewers back. 

AOL Time Warner has made other executive changes in the 10 days since the $106 billion deal closed, including a new management lineup at AOL. Sarah Crichton is leaving as head of Little, Brown & Co., an imprint Time Warner Trade Publishing. Michael Pietsch was promoted to replace her. 

Other divisions of the conglomerate are not facing cuts this time. The WB broadcast network and the cable systems operations did not have any job cuts, and the HBO cable network already implemented a 10 percent job reduction over the past year. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.aoltimewarner.com 

NEW YORK — The New Economy, not even a teenager yet, is beginning to look frayed and strained, and the most dour of the calamity crowd are claiming it is seriously ill and in need of intensive care. 

Here it is, still new to this world, and nobody has even clearly defined its characteristics, the traits of personality that have had such an impact on modern society. 

“I wake up each morning in the same bed, watch the garbage get picked up in the same way, and watch TV to get the early news,” so that couldn’t be it, says William Dunkelberg, who seeks to elucidate what makes it new. 

“I’m looking for that ’new economy’ that is nothing like the old one,” he says. “Yes, there’s a chip in everything these days, but that’s not a new economy, it’s just a more efficient one,” he says. 

The more specific you try to be about what makes the New Economy new, the more elusive it becomes, suggests Dunkelberg, an academic economist at Temple University who probes more deeply than most into such things. Whatever it is, he says, we can be sure of two things. One, it changes how we do things, but less what we do, including what we buy. “Are there really new products, or just better ones?” he asks. 

Secondly, he says, the chip and the computer are at the core of it all, observing that that high-tech growth has accounted for about one-third of our gross domestic product in recent years. 

If that is so, he continues, then maybe we can find some clues in job growth. 

Yes, he agrees, electronics has been growing twice as fast as nonfarm private-sector employment. “But the real hot growth areas have been segments like amusement and moving pictures and entertainment.” 

He agrees, on the other hand, that labor-intensive Internet services require lots of people to install, maintain and customize the software that runs on all the new computers. But if higher employment and changes in jobs skills are defining characteristics, they are hardly new ones. 

John Cunniff is a business analyst for The Associated Press 

He looks elsewhere others might not – to immigration as perhaps a vital element in changes that produced the New Economy. Immigration reached historic proportions in the late 1990s, he points out, and it was different from earlier immigrations. 

For one thing, he explains, it created new, insular environments so large as to produce ethnic economies within the larger economy that affect education, culture and communication. He calls it fractionalization, a definite change but hardly defining. 

Back to the chip. If it is indeed the chip that defines New, he observes, “then most of our economy is or will be ’new.’ ” But much of what we call new has origins way, way back in history. 

That is, “appliances, cars, communications devices, heating and cooling systems, security systems, lighting systems — all have chips at their core,” he explains. More efficient and creative, but not new. 

Still, the definition of New seems to be in the chip. In the speed at which the chip works, lowering costs, raising productivity, improving quality, increasing the availability of information and the effectiveness of management. 

But Dunkelberg, while agreeing that the speeding up of discovery and progress has been stunning, “it is not new — it’s been happening for centuries.” 

So what’s his conclusion? “There is no New Economy that is entirely different from the old.” 

The Internet, he says, reduces the cost of what business always did, and the chip makes it possible to do it better, more efficiently and with higher quality. And communications technologies make it possible to do it world wide. 

The so-called New Economy is different, to be sure. It has changed the face of the labor market. And there is clearly a higher return to education in the boom, “but again, that has always been the case.” 

And on it goes. What we see as new seems to be a consequence of our limited appreciation of history. In truth, what is new may be only the “New Economy.” 

End Adv PMs Thursday, January 25. 

NEW YORK — Investors refrained from making any big commitments on Wall Street Wednesday, leaving stocks little changed as the market tried to discern a trend in earnings and the economy. 

Blue chips fluctuated amid a series of bleak profit reports and forecasts. Tech stocks fared better but struggled to stay in positive territory. 

With blue chips including DuPont and McDonald’s issuing downbeat reports Wednesday, investors were taking few chances. 

Analysts said it’s hard to predict how upcoming earnings announcements will affect trading each day. Wall Street’s overall mood seems optimistic, but there’s some uncertainty about whether bad earnings news has been factored completely into the cheaper prices of many stocks. 

“The general tone is positive even though the market is weighing things,” said Dan Ascani, president and research director at Global Market Strategists in Gainesville, Ga. “Generally speaking, the market is digesting (earnings) well.” 

What investors are most concerned about is the future. Shares of many companies that meet or beat fourth-quarter earnings expectations have slipped when those firms also warned that first-quarter results will be disappointing. 

That was the case Wednesday with DuPont, which surpassed profit forecasts by a penny but said challenging business conditions will pinch earnings into the first half of this year. The chemical company fell 19 cents to close at $41.88. 

McDonald’s, after warning that the first quarter will be difficult, tumbled $2.06 to $30.81. McDonald’s also missed fourth-quarter earnings forecasts by a penny. 

Although investors still are trading with some caution, they seem to be growing more confident that profits and the economy will improve, partly because of lower interest rates.  

The market is hopeful that the Federal Reserve will reduce rates for the second time in a month when it meets next week. 

— The Associated Press 

“An edge of optimism has come into the market,” said A.C. Moore, chief investment strategist at Dunvegan Associates in Santa Barbara. “There’s the thought that the economy may have a soft landing as a consequence of the Fed’s action.” 

There’s evidence of the market’s increasing optimism in its recent preference for tech stocks over so-called defensive issues, such as drug stocks, that tend to perform better in bearish markets. 

Drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb fell $1.38 to $64.88, despite beating earnings forecasts by a penny. Analysts say the drug sector has become overpriced as investors sought safer bets during last year’s high-tech tumble. 

Trading in the tech sector was mixed Wednesday. 

Texas Instruments, which on Tuesday issued a disappointing earning report and first-quarter outlook, fell $1.50 to $43.50. But Dell, which warned of weaker profits on Monday, climbed 75 cents to $27.13. 

Advancing issues nearly matched decliners on the New York Stock Exchange where consolidated volume was 1.57 billion shares, compared with 1.48 billion on Tuesday. 

The Russell 2000 index advanced slightly, up 0.19 at 502.25. 

Overseas, stock markets were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 0.7 percent, and Germany’s DAX index slipped 0.2 percent. Britain’s FT-SE 100 rose 0.8 percent, and France’s CAC-40 advanced 1.0 percent. 

When Margot Smith went shopping for medicine for a visiting relative, she was startled to find that different pharmacies charge greatly varying prices for drugs. Not content to simply purchase the cheapest drug for the relative, Smith, an active member of the Berkeley Gray Panthers, decided to take her discovery to a new level. 

She engaged her fellow Gray Panthers in a project to compare drug prices: They found Candis Poon, a graduate student in public health, to help. Poon went to various local drug stores and checked prices. 

“In general, the American Association of Retired Persons had the best prices for brand name drugs, and Costco had the best prices for generic drugs. However, AARP orders are taken over the Internet, so the drugs take time to arrive and one must pay shipping costs. Costco purchases are only available for members,” according to the Gray Panther report. “Longs Drug Store charges the most for brand name drugs, but offers a 10 percent senior discount.” 

Smith pointed out that seniors having Medicare don’t regularly take advantage of a law that kicked in one year ago. “The law requires that drug stores charge Medicare seniors the same price for drugs that MedicCal patients pay.”  

The report concludes “the moral of the story is that seniors must first ask the pharmacist for the MedicCal price and make sure it is lower than the asking price. Seniors must shop around for the best prices if they wish to save money on prescription.” 

The Gray Panther survey is available by calling the organization at 548-9696.

SAN FRANCISCO — Two white supremacists serving time at Pelican Bay State Prison are now part of the investigation into the bloody, fatal mauling of a 33-year-old San Francisco woman by dogs, state prison officials and local authorities confirmed Monday. 

Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections, said inmates Paul Schneider and Dale Bretches are being investigated for any role they might have played in organized dog fights. 

The owners of the dogs involved in the fatal mauling, attorneys Robert Noel, and his wife Marjori Knoller, have both visited Schneider and Bretches at Pelican Bay in their professional role, Heimerich confirmed. 

Noel acquired the two huge dogs three months ago. Bane, a 3-year-old, 120-pound Mastiff Canary Island cattle dog, attacked and killed Diane Whipple. The other dog was 113-pound Hera, 2, also a Mastiff-Canary Island mix. 

There is no indication Noel received the dogs from the inmates or that the animals had been used in fights. No charges have been filed against either Noel or Knoller. 

“We did run an investigation into a fighting dog ring with links to those two inmates,” Heimerich said. State officials have turned their information on Schneider and Bretches over to San Francisco police investigators as they look into the attack. 

Whipple died Friday night after the two large dogs broke free from their handler. Bane latched onto Whipple’s neck. Whipple died a few hours later. 

The two inmates have violent pasts and authorities are investigating possible links they might have had to dog fighting rings. 

“Schneider is a validated gang member belonging to the Aryan Brotherhood,” Heimerich said. He described the organization as a violent white supremacist group. 

Bretches is also a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, he said. He said both men are active members of the tight-knit supremacist sect. 

Schneider, 38, is in prison for a robbery conviction in Los Angeles County and attempted murder while incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. He has been in Pelican Bay since 1986, Heimerich said. Schneider is currently serving life without the possibility of parole. 

Bretches, 44, is in Pelican Bay for second degree murder and was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon while incarcerated, according to state records. He is currently serving life without the possibility of parole. 

“Noel and Knoller have visited Mr. Schneider in an attorney capacity at Pelican State Prison,” Heimerich said. Both attorneys have also visited Bretches, he said. 

San Francisco investigators would not say if Noel had acquired his dogs from Schneider or Bretches. San Francisco district attorney’s office spokesman Fred Gardner did say his office was trying to determine if Noel’s dogs were “trained to fight, attack or kill causing injury.” 

Information of such trained behavior would allow the district attorney’s office to “go forward with a maximum prosecution,” Gardner said. 

Knoller and Noel did not return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment. 

Noels’ dogs were a dangerous crossbreed, according to Merry Johnson, president of the Gunpowder Bull Mastiff group based in Baltimore and a Mastiff breeder with 25 years experience. 

“It’s unwise because you’re taking a terrier type personality and you’re making it very large,” Johnson said. “The Canary mix is a dangerous dog.” 

Whipple was a two-time first team All-American lacrosse player at Penn State and was named NCAA national player of the year in 1990. She was on the Penn State squads that captured the NCAA championships in 1987 and 1989. 

Whipple was hired in 1999 as St. Mary’s first varsity coach in the inaugural season as a Division I team. 

SAN FRANCISCO – The lawyer who owned the two dogs that attacked and killed a 33-year-old woman says the animals were generally gentle and showed no previous signs of aggression. But neighbors who say they called Bane, a Canary mastiff, “Killer Dog” or “Dog of Death,” often avoided the dogs and regret not reporting them. 

One unidentified neighbor, interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle, said she went so far as to work out a schedule with Bane’s owner, Robert Noel, so their quarreling canines would not cross paths. 

“None of us ever filed a complaint, and that’s what makes me sick now,” said Cydnee Dubrof, a dog owner who lives a few doors away from Noel and his wife, Marjorie Knoller. “This woman died from our negligence.” 

On Friday, the 123-pound dog lunged at Diane Whipple, who lived next door to Bane’s owners in an upscale apartment building at Pacific Avenue and Fillmore Street. Whipple had just returned home from her job as women’s lacrosse coach at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. 

“Marjorie just about had the dogs completely in the apartment when the elevator door opened and our neighbor came out,” said Noel, who arrived home shortly after the attack. “Bane sort of perked up and headed down to the end of the hall. The woman had the apartment door open and was just standing there” when the dog attacked. 

Despite the efforts of Noel’s wife to come between the two, Whipple sustained deep bites to her neck and died at San Francisco General Hospital about five hours later. 

Bane, a mix of English mastiff and Canary Island cattle dog, was euthanized at the city’s animal shelter Friday night. The couple’s other dog, Hera, that was also in the hallway but, according to Noel, did not join in the attack, remained at the shelter. 

A shelter spokesman said the fate of 112-pound Hera, also a Canary mix, depended on the outcome of a police investigation. 

No charges have been filed against Noel, 59, or Knoller, 45, both attorneys who work out of their sixth-floor apartment. 

“He looked like the beast of death,” said Dubrof, who referred to Bane as “Killer Dog” to her friends. 

Another neighbor who worked out the dog-walking schedule with Noel said she began walking her dog in tennis shoes and bought pepper spray in case she ever needed to react quickly. 

She said she was particularly concerned when she began to see Knoller walking both dogs. She had doubts that Noel could control one dog; she didn’t think his wife would be able to control two, she said. 

“I literally would take my dog and walk back into my apartment” if she saw them, she said. 

Despite neighbors’ fears, Noel insisted that neither dog had ever shown aggression toward humans. In fact, Bane had in the past befriended a kitten, whom he would gently carry around in his mouth. 

Noel said he once owned a greyhound that nipped at children. “Inside the hour, that dog was at the vet with a needle in his arm,” Noel said. “If Bane had shown any aggression toward people, he wouldn’t have been here.”

SAN FRANCISCO – Infants in California are less likely to be counted than in any other state when the U.S. Census Bureau conducts its surveys, according to a new analysis released Wednesday. 

And no where more so than San Francisco, the city where the greatest percentage of those under age one were missed. The census reportedly failed to count nearly four in ten of the city’s infants. 

The conclusions were drawn from 1990 census data but have implications for 2000 data that will trickle out in the coming months and years. 

“I was astounded by these findings and though they pertain to the 1990 count, they demonstrate the shortcomings that are inherent in the process of the census,” said study co-author Dr. Beth Osborne Daponte of Carnegie Mellon University. 

Overall in California, one in four infants were not counted, Daponte reported. 

Meanwhile, infants in North Dakota were most likely to be counted, as the census missed only 10 percent there, Daponte said. 

The Census Bureau, in a politically divisive blueprint established by the Clinton administration, is ascertaining whether the statistical method known as “sampling” offers the most accurate picture of the American population, including traditionally undercounted groups like minorities and the poor. 

Most Republicans contend the Constitution calls for an “actual enumeration” free of statistical adjustment and President Bush said during the campaign that a “head count” is the most accurate way to conduct the census. He has not said if he supports releasing sampled data.

California’s clean air board debated Thursday whether to scale back regulations that would require automakers to market thousands of electric vehicles in the state, starting in 2003. 

The Air Resources Board’s staff recommended a series of complicated changes that would cut the number of electric vehicles initially required by the regulations from about 22,000 to as few as 4,650. 

“We would rather start small and build than have an overly ambitious program that results in unsold vehicles,” said Charles Shulock, a vehicle program specialist with the board. 

Environmentalists and health groups urged board members to beef up the staff proposals, but the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers argued that electric vehicles would be too expensive and too limited in range to sell or lease in significant numbers. 

“Electric vehicles with broad consumer appeal are an idea whose time has come and gone, much like eight-track tapes, Betamax and New Coke,” said Josephine Cooper, the association’s president and chief executive officer. 

She urged the board to put off consideration of the changes for 60 days. She said that would give automakers and the board time to discuss an arrangement under which the regulations would be suspended for a period of years and the staff proposals would be tested under agreements between the board and automakers. 

Suspending the regulation would prevent other states from implementing them, she said. 

States have the option under federal law of adopting California’s clean air requirements or following the usually weaker federal standards. 

“We are going to push vehicles out there that may not be sold,” Cooper said. 

But board member Matthew McKinnon rejected the idea of a delay. “We have cut this to the bone,” he said. “What the 60 days might do for me is convince me that we need to add to the (staff’s) numbers.” 

The board’s executive officer, Michael Kenny, said automakers did not fully live up to earlier agreements with the state under which they leased a few thousand electric vehicles to Californians. 

Currently, the regulations require that zero-emission vehicles or extremely low-polluting vehicles make up at least 10 percent of the new cars and light trucks offered for sale in California by major manufacturers, starting with 2003 models. 

At least 4 percent would have to be zero-emission vehicles. 

With current technology that would mean auto companies would have to produce about 22,000 electric vehicles the first year. That number would jump to about 38,600 if the companies decide to market only so-called city electric vehicles or neighborhood electric vehicles, which are smaller and have less range than full-size EVs. 

Under the staff proposal, those numbers would drop to 4,650 to 15,450 electric vehicles, depending on the mix of vehicles involved. 

The staff proposals include a long list of incentives designed to ease the impact of the regulations on automakers and increase the variety of vehicles that could help a company meet the state’s requirements. 

For example, they would allow low-polluting hybrid vehicles that have both gasoline and electric motors and can get at least 20 miles between battery charges to count as zero-emission vehicles. 

Another change would change the definition of major manufacturer to a company that sells 60,000 vehicles a year in California instead of 35,000. 

Bonnie Holmes-Gen, a spokeswoman for the American Lung Association, said environmental and health groups wanted the board to increase the number of zero-emission vehicles required under the staff plan so there would be 40,000 on the market in 2010. 

Jerry Martin, an ARB spokesman, said the staff proposal would result in 8,000 to 9,000 zero-emission vehicles in 2010. 

The environmental groups also urged the board not to classify hybrids as zero-emission vehicles and to include trucks and sports utility vehicles weighing up to 8,500 pounds in the vehicles from which the 4 percent and 10 percent requirements would be calculated. 

S. David Freeman, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, urged the board to reject the staff proposals, saying that automakers hadn’t really tried to market electric vehicles. 

“Have you seen television ads with good looking people wrapped around electric vehicles?” he asked reporters. “Until you do they are not trying to sell them.” 

SAN FRANCISCO — Employers are increasingly hiring welfare recipients into positions paying above minimum wage and providing health benefits, apparently because of the current tight labor market, a new study reports. 

Employers with more job openings were more likely to hire welfare recipients than those with fewer vacancies, which suggests an economic downturn could also mean a decrease in demand for welfare recipients, said Harry Holzer and Michael Stoll, authors of “Employers and Welfare Recipients: The Effects of Welfare Reform in the Workplace,” a study by Public Policy Institute of California. 

“There are a lot of jobs out there for welfare recipients and a lot of employers willing to hire. And once they do hire them a lot of performance measures are higher than we expected,” said Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University.  

On the upside, more than 3,000 employers surveyed in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland and Milwaukee during 1998 and 1999 said they were willing to hire welfare recipients – particularly those situated near public transportation or worker neighborhoods.  

Between 30 and 40 percent of the employers surveyed said they have hired welfare recipients over the past two years, most frequently in clerical and service positions. 

In all four cities, the study found that jobs filled by welfare recipients pay an average of $7 per hour and generally provide 40 hours of work each week. Employers were also willing to provide health care coverage in two-thirds of the jobs. 

However, a significant portion of the jobs filled by welfare recipients still pay low wages, provide few working hours or offer no health insurance.  

And employees consider the performance of half of all welfare workers comparable to other workers in each metropolitan area and 25 to 40 percent are viewed as better than the average employee. 

Only 10 to 25 percent of workers are considered worse, the study said. High turnover, weak performance and absenteeism linked to child care and transportation issues were criticisms cited by the employers surveyed. That may be because the more welfare workers hired, the greater the chance of hiring those who turn out to be unqualified for the job, Holzer said. 

“The easy people left the rolls and got employed and now we’re in the more difficult part of the case load,” Holzer said. 

Race and education often make or break a job seeker’s chances, the study found. Minority welfare workers, who tend to live in inner city and rural areas, are hired less frequently than whites, likely because of their limited transportation options to jobs in suburban areas, the study found. High school dropouts also did not fare well in the job market. 

“Though a lot of the jobs exist, a lot of them may not be accessible to lower income folks who live in the inner city or in rural areas,” Holzer said. 

Welfare workers had better luck in some regions than others. Los Angeles employers hire fewer welfare recipients, though the job performance of workers appears better. Milwaukee hires the most, but also faces a low job retention rate. 

Governments and institutions should invest in training and support services, such as child care and transportation, to create greater job stability among welfare workers before the next recession, Holzer said. That would mean fewer workers returning to the welfare rolls and a chance for the unemployable to try community service jobs or other programs.