They were singing along with the well-known Calypso tune, feet flying off the swimming pool floor and back again, weighted arms lifting high over their heads as they swayed to the rhythms pulsing from the boom box out across the water. 

The water aerobics teacher—Yassir Chadly, 53, about to lose the job he’s held for 17 years in Berkeley’s recreation department—was demonstrating the moves on dry land and describing them so the blind student could fit with ease into the West Berkeley Swim Center class.  

At Tuesday’s 2 p.m. session conversation and giggles flowed with the movements of the dozen students at class, anxious to tell a reporter that another 10 of their regular classmates, who had met at the class, were off together in Yosemite at a city of Berkeley camp. 

“Yassir builds community,” participants at the West Campus pool said. The thought was echoed in calls and letters to the Planet from swimmers at King, Willard and Berkeley High pools, expressing gratitude to the city worker and outrage that he faces a demotion in his job. 

“I plant love and get love back,” Chadly, a teacher, lifeguard, musician and imam at a small North Oakland mosque, told the Planet. 

Two years ago, according to Chadly’s boss, Scott Ferris, youth and recreation services manager, the recreation department decided to restructure the department to save money. Chadly’s 50 percent time “career” position was eliminated in the last budget, Ferris told the Planet. 

“We’re restructuring some of our programs to better serve our residents,” Ferris said.  

Meanwhile, three 75 percent supervisor positions are being created in the department. Chadly told the Planet he was invited to apply for a supervisor post, but was informed that he did not get the job.  

The alternative offered has been a demotion: work as an hourly employee.  

According to David Hodgkins, Human Resources manager, Chadly currently earns $20.72 per hour. If he accepts the hourly position with the city, his pay will be cut to $19.35 per hour. Both figures include a city contribution to benefits valued at about 7 percent of the salary. 

Chadly now generally works more than the 20 hours he is guaranteed as a “career” employee—paid at an hourly rate beyond the 20 hours—and works full time during the summer.  

In the hourly employee position he is being offered, however, Chadly will no longer work a guaranteed minimum number of hours, Hodgkins said.  

(As a point of comparison, a person in the youth and recreation manager position earns between $7,300 and $8,800 per month, more than twice as much as Chadly earns when working full time at his hourly rate. And the director of parks, recreation and waterfront earns between $10,500 and $14,500 per month. The manager and director also get about 50 percent more than their salary in health and retirement benefits.) 

Unlike most other city employees, lifeguards/instructors are not part of a union. “There’s no one to represent me,” Chadly said. 

“It’s tough to know there are workers who are like step children of the workforce in Berkeley,” said Carlos Rivera, communications director for Service Employees International Union 1021. 

The Berkeley Housing Authority just announced it would lay off 13 people, leaving the BHA workers, represented by SEIU 1021, in a very different situation.  

Another swimmer, Janet McColl, wrote the Planet, comparing Chadly’s situation to the BHA workers, who, she says “won’t lose an hour of time and will simply be moved into other departments.”  

And, according to a report written by City Manager Phil Kamlarz, if the BHA workers are moved into positions where they get pay cuts, they will receive their current pay rate for a year.  

Chadly not only brings people together in the classes he teaches, he manages to create community among lap swimmers, according to Peter Seidman, who swims at King Pool. 

He introduces swimmers to each other when they share a lane and chooses the lanes for the swimmers he knows so that they are compatible with the person they’re sharing the lane with, Seidman said in a phone interview. 

Another touch Chadly, a Sufi teacher, brings to his work, is that he greets each person with a bit of wisdom, Seidman said. 

“He goes so far beyond being the bored lifeguard, watching bodies swimming in the pool,” he added.  

Another swimmer, Summer Brenner, collected 110 signatures in support of Chadly at the West Campus pool and delivered them to the mayor’s office on Wednesday. 

Cisco DeVries, Mayor Tom Bates’ chief of staff, told the Planet that while the mayor is aware of Chadly’s situation, he is unable to get involved. There’s an ongoing personnel process and the mayor’s not part of the process, DeVries said. 

In a phone interview, Brenner praised Chadly. “He makes everyone feel comfortable,” she said, pointing especially to the way in which he brings disabled and obese people into the community he builds in his classes. “What he gives us is so much beyond a job.” 

No active faults lie beneath the site of the high-tech and highly expensive gym UC Berkeley hopes to build next to the landmarked Memorial Stadium. 

That’s the finding of the seismologic consultants hired by the university to conduct a detailed examination of the earth beneath the Student Athlete High Performance Center, a $125 million, 186,000-square-foot partly subterranean complex. 

That project is part of 451,000 square feet of new construction planned in the stadium area over the next few years. 

Geometric Consultants, Inc., an Oakland firm, conducted the study to complete the investigation of specific areas of the Student Athlete High Performance Center site not included in their earlier analysis. 

The report, announced Thursday by the university’s public affairs staff, could resolve one of the key issues of a lawsuit challenging construction of the center at the site of the grove where protesters have been perched in the branches in protest of the project for the past 183 days. 

The issue of seismic safety was one of the concerns that prompted lawsuits against the project by the City of Berkeley as well as neighbors and an environmental group. 

Stephan Volker, attorney for the California Oaks Foundation, a plaintiff in the suit, said the new report simply confirms that the university failed to follow state environmental law when it approved the gym project. 

“This is a very tardy report, six months too late. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires the university to circulate an adequate seismological review before approving a project,” he said. “That failure was not rectified by this after-the-fact report.” 

Volker said he is submitting the 92-page document to his own expert, seismologist Robert Curry, who has studied the faults of the Berkeley Hills and taught geology at UC Santa Cruz for two decades. 

The adequacy of the university’s earthquake studies prior to its approval last December of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the massive construction program in the stadium area is only one of the alleged failures cited in the suits against the university by the tree advocates, the Panoramic Hill Association and the city. 

For Volker, a key failure of the EIR was its lack of any mention of the “logging operation” that will strip away a venerable grove of Coastal Live Oaks “held in the highest regard by thousands of citizens of the East Bay and by Native Americans everywhere.” 

In addition to the trees and the seismic issues, city officials are worried about other impacts that a major new construction program will cause to already strained city streets and public serrvices, and neighbors are concerned about those issues and specific impacts on their residences, including tightly constricted access during emergencies. 

Though the university had planned to start construction at the gym in January, the lawsuits won an injunction from Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller stopping work pending the outcome of a hearing on the evidence. 

A hearing on the action has yet to be scheduled. 

The seismological report remains a critical issue because all three plaintiffs had alleged that the gym project violated the Alquist-Priolo Act, which governs construction on projects on or within 50 feet of active faults. 

There is no question that the stadium itself sits directly over the Hayward Fault, which federal seismologists say is the most likely site of the Bay Area’s next major earthquake disaster, and Alquist-Priolo rules will apply to the university’s plans for a major stadium overhaul and expansion. 

Vice Chancellor Ed Denton, the university’s development boss, has estimated the cost of the year’s delay at between $8 million and $10 million on top of the already-estimated cost. 

The 142,000-square-foot, four-story gym would house the latest in technology designed to get the most out of university athletes whose programs are a major attraction for big-dollar donors to a university increasingly reliant on private pockets to fund its programs. 

By February, university Athletic Director Sandy Barbour was announcing that donors had pledged more than $100 million toward the gym. 

Construction can’t commence until after the end of the football season, putting off work at the site until next January at the earliest. 

Meanwhile, university police have continued to arrest protesters at the site, said Zachary Running Wolf, himself arrested twice at the site and currently facing felony charges. 

“The university police are not letting up,” he said Friday.

From David Gockley’s narrow point of view, the press release probably said it all in the first sentence: “After the final dress rehearsal for Don Giovanni, San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley, in consultation with Music Director Donald Runnicles and members of the artistic staff, made the decision that soprano Hope Briggs was not ultimately suited for the role of Donna Anna in this production.”  

But that bald statement, remarkably honest for the genre, leaves out in the cold all of the hundreds of Hope Briggs’ loyal fans in the Bay Area who are going to be deeply disappointed that they will be deprived of a chance to see the San Francisco-based soprano in what they were sure would be a perfect role for her. 

I should know—I’m one of them. I’ve been watching Hope Briggs for at least seven years in big venues and small. She has a glorious soprano voice. I’ve seen her at the Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, as the ideal Aida at the Sacramento Opera, and in her San Francisco Opera debut last year. 

The critics have always loved her: “Soprano Hope Briggs turned in a powerhouse performance marked by strong, clean vocalism and emotional transparency. The role calls for both tonal strength and limpid clarity, and Briggs provided both,” wrote Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Other singers who’ve worked with her say that she’s the ideal professional, hard-working and intelligent as well as vocally gifted.  

And she’s also generous and public-spirited, which not all singers are. In 2001, shortly after 9/11, I attended a concert at a high school on the peninsula which Hope had organized as a benefit for African-American students. At the end, when the lights went up, she called all the other singers to the stage and led them and the audience in singing “America the Beautiful.” Hokey-sounding, and I’m neither sentimental nor patriotic, but I was crying. 

She absolutely does not deserve to be treated like this. I’ve gotten to know her personally—she’s stayed at my house when she was between engagements. I called her as soon as I heard the news, and she clearly has no clue why this has happened to her. She’s had three weeks of rehearsals, including the final dress rehearsal attended by many people on Wednesday night, and no one involved said anything to indicate that she was on thin ice in the role.  

She said that members of the artistic staff, including Music Director Donald Runnicles, had been cordial and complementary throughout. I talked to a few opera house insiders who said that they were shocked, because she’d turned in a fine performance at all rehearsals, including the last one, but they were afraid to let their names be used for fear of retaliation. 

That might tell you something about what’s going on over there. There’s been no coherent statement other than what’s quoted above to reveal what was passing through David Gockley’s mind when he decided to dump Hope Briggs unceremoniously. 

I haven’t been able to get anyone in management to return my calls. However it’s well known that Gockley and Runnicles (a holdover from the tenure of the last General Director, Pamela Rosenberg) are not on the best of terms. Rosenberg took credit for picking Hope out of an open audition for her previous role, and that could be the kiss of death in the new regime. 

I heard Rosenberg tell that story at a dinner gala for African-American opera lovers held to honor Hope when she sang at the San Francisco Opera last year. A similar event was planned for this year, to honor Hope after the last matinee of Don Giovanni. I’ve already bought my tickets—even though I’m not African-American I got a gracious welcome at the first one. Now I guess that will have to be called off. What a shame, especially since Gockley claims that he’s trying to expand the audience for opera 

And as a cynical old-school veteran of the civil rights movement, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a (perhaps subconscious) subtext here. This production is going on TV: it will be simulcast to a number of venues. Hope is a big, handsome dark-skinned woman, with strong African features—quite beautiful, but not exactly like most faces you see in romantic roles on TV these days.  

Elza van den Heever, her replacement, whom I’ve heard many times and who also has a lovely voice, is a young South African woman of Dutch descent. She’s tall and pretty in a conventional European way, certainly destined for future stardom. I’m not willing to say that conventional racism affected Gockley’s decision to substitute her into the role, but by the standards of Texas, his last home base, Elza might be considered more telegenic, even though both are good singers.  

One hint that something’s been in the works for while: a Planet arts writer has been planning to do a preview of this production, and she’s been trying without success for two weeks to get the Opera public relations department to set up an interview with Hope. No luck. They never even sent photos as promised. Why? One wonders—did they know something? 

This will be—should be—a public relations disaster for the San Francisco Opera. When management starts casting about for fallback positions, they might consider letting Hope sing just one Sunday matinee, the one that all of the African-American opera supporters have already bought their tickets for. It wouldn’t hurt anyone, and it might help the Opera recover some of its lost luster.  

Berkeley’s Shipyard has been granted a reprieve—but for some artists, it may have come too late. 

City fire and building inspectors have ordered massive changes at the artisan colony, a font of creativity that had been housed in a nest of double-stacked steel shipping containers in a West Berkeley industrial neighborhood. 

But serious violations of a host of city codes and failure to comply with earlier deadlines had led to demands that essentially forced the popular creative center to close for the time being, scattering its tenants to other sites throughout the Bay Area. 

“We weren’t trying to evict them,” said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth, and the Shipyard’s architect, Les Young of San Francisco, agrees. 

“Jim Mason responded to the city’s comments basically by saying ‘We’re moving out,’” Young said. 

Mason, who operates the Shipyard and is the signatory on the property’s lease agreement, has maintained a strained relationship with city officials, and Young agrees that it’s probably best that he’s now handling relations with the city. Orth agreed. 

The publicity surrounding the move of artists from a city which has witnessed the closure of four other artists’ communities in recent years triggered an emergency meeting last week between Young, Mayor Tom Bates and other city officials. 

“They want the artists to stay,” said Young. 

“It’s just a wonderful operation,” said City Councilmember Darryl Moore Thursday. Moore attended last week’s meeting because his district includes the Shipyard. “They’re doing very creative work, and remarkable things around alternative energy. They have also been making very creative use of recycled shipping containers.” 

City Zoning Officer Mark Rhoades said Wednesday that while he signed off on the letter of enforcement that sparked the latest round of actions at the Shipyard, the zoning issues didn’t involve use of the property but building code issues that related to the ordinance. 

The letter, signed by Orth, city Building Official Joan MacQuarrie and Rhoades, cited 15 building code violations, 13 city and state fire code violations and four city zoning ordinance violations. 

Though Orth said the Shipyard “has made significant progress about rectifying their violations,” much remains to be done—and Young said bringing the eclectic gathering of artists and their studios back will mean major cash outlays. 

“We’re talking about the $500,000 range,” Young said. 

“I really hope they can work out their building and safety issues,” said Moore, who added that he will stay on top of the issue as it works its way through the city’s administrative process. 

“It’s going to be a very difficult, very expensive endeavor to turn those shipping containers into something someone can reuse in a safe manner,” Rhoades said. “I hope they can do it, but they have a long road ahead.” 

Meanwhile, the Shipyard gates were locked Thursday morning, though nine of the containers that had been stacked in the two-level ring that girded the northern end of the property had been removed and stored in the vacant railroad right-of-way west of the property. 

A large trash bin nearby was filled with broken boards and other discarded gear ripped from the vacated shipping containers, and Mason’s World War II-vintage amphibious landing vehicle was parked across Murray Street. 

Most Shipyard occupants have dispersed, many to the old American Steel plant in Oakland. “There was talk of some of them going to the Box Shop,” another artists’ collective in San Francisco, “and some went to other places,” Young said. 

Orth said that there’s one quick way to bring back some of the artists, and that’s to do the relatively minor work needed to bring the existing concrete workshop at the site up to code. 

“They misunderstood and thought they couldn’t use the space,” Orth said. “But they do need to get a permit if they are going to continue doing welding there.” 

Once a mechanic’s shop for the repair of BMWs, the building housed the Shipyard’s heavy machinery, used for crafting some of the high tech steampunk robotic gear as well as Mechabolic, the trash-to-energy system that was to have been a central feature of this year’s Burning Man festival in Nevada. 

“This year Burning Man is all about alternative energy, the Green Man, and the Shipyard was going to be” a leading participant, Young said.  

Another Berkeley artisan community shut down by the city—the Crucible, which operated within a block of the Shipyard—is back in business and thriving in Oakland, but only because of an anonymous $1 million gift, Young said. 

Young said he and city officials are also working on a timeline for improvements at the site. 

“The original deadlines they gave us were impossible,” he said, though a acknowledging that the facility had delayed submitting a permit for “to long” after originally promising to do so. 

But Young said the schedule outlined in the city’s letter was also “completely unreasonable,” mandating a 14-day deadline for submitting a permit application. 

“There’s no way we can bring in engineers, bring them up to speed and do all the drawings in that period,” he said. 

Young already has a structural engineer to help with the drawings needed before the next meeting with city staff. Young also has a structural engineer, but he still needs a mechanical, plumbing and electrical (MEP) engineer before he can finish. 

Once drawings are approved, “the ball would then be in the Shipyard’s court to find money and a general contractor,” he said. 

The architect is already sending out feelers to possible donors. “It’s not something we can do with a typical fundraiser that brings in $5,000 or so,” he said. But there are some well-connected people who are interested.“ 

Meanwhile, he’s also working with the Shipyard artist’s, trying to reassure them that the city inspectors had real concerns, “and they’re not out to get you.” 

Moore said that he hopes the city will find a way to include the use of shipping containers in its building codes. 

“I hope the Planning Department takes a look at them, like Portland and other cities have done,” he said. 

Even if the critical building issues are ironed out, two final questions will remain: will the former tenants return their old West Berkeley habitat, and will they be able to afford the increased rents that could come if Mason and Young can’t find enough donors to cover all their costs?

The citizen panel helping to chart the future of downtown Berkeley confronted the crucial questions of how high and how many, looking for answers that will shape the future face of the city center. 

Both issues are critically related, and members of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) are looking for answers that will shape the land-use element in the new plan mandated by the settlement of a town/gown lawsuit and shaped in part by the dictates of regional government. 

DAPAC has just six months left before it must submit a proposed new plan for the city center, and the issues of height and density will be central to their final vision. 

The new plan was one of the requirements of the settlement of the city’s lawsuit challenging UC Berkeley’s plans to add 800,000 square feet of new construction and a thousand or so new parking spaces in the heart of downtown Berkeley. 

While the committee has agreed that creating a green city core is the plan’s heart, the issue of building height and population density are more politically charged, especially when the topics of height and density are conflated. 

Matt Taecker, the city planner hired with university funds to put the plan between covers, offered committee members three alternatives Wednesday, one based on growth within the constraints imposed by the existing plan, one allowing for eight-story buildings throughout an expanded core area, and a third featuring a maximum height of five floors with the exception of seven new high-rises as tall as the Well Fargo building at the corner of Center Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

The high-rise model features half the number of skyscrapers than those in an earlier proposal that met with a chorus of criticism during earlier sessions. 

Under the existing plan, downtown could grow from the current 2,520 existing and approved residential units to 4,020 if all potential building sites are used under the current plan, to 4,720 under either the eight-story model or the five-floors plus seven high-rises version. 

Berkeley Planning and Development Director Dan Marks and Planning Manager Mark Rhoades have told the committee that creating policies to add more density to the city is important because without policies that allow expanded numbers to match the quotas set by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the city runs the risk of losing out on some state funding programs. 

ABAG quotas for Berkeley are higher than those for more suburban areas because the city sits astride BART and other urban mass transit services, and ABAG’s “smart growth” policies are designed to encourage development on transit corridors. 

Marks has also told the committee that adding density downtown is the least politically controversial solution. No concentrated housing is planned for the North Berkeley BART station, which Marks acknowledged earlier would be a near-impossibility because of neighborhood opposition, and a public furor erupted over a proposal to build a 300-plus-unit apartment complex atop the Ashby BART parking lot. 

That leaves downtown, where a large percentage of residents are renters, most of them college students with little involvement in city politics. 

“I want the committee to have some discussion, and to admit that there are some benefits of high density worth considering,” Taecker told the committee. 

But to house the density, downtown also needs amenities like a grocery store, open space and a day care center, he said.  

And economic realities, Taecker said, make it likely that the continued development of the city center would be as a regional arts and cultural destination, with other uses following. 

A new plan would probably strive to preserve three key existing neighborhoods of homes at the northwest, southwest and southeast corners of the expanded area included in the new plan—boundaries called for by the university. 

Likewise, two other areas might be designated as sites of possible future change, Herrick Hospital, which might eventually move out, Taecker said, and the old Dwight Station area on Dwight Way east of Shattuck Avenue. 

Taecker also proposed a series of open space and park areas totaling 10.6 acres and with a probable development cost of $8.14 million. The largest, the one acre site dubbed South Park, would occupy the center of Shattuck between Durant and Haste Streets. Among the other possibilities are: 0.29 acres created by closing Harold Way behind the Shattuck Hotel between Allston Way and Kittredge Street; the proposed closure of the .46-acre, one-block of Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck, with a possible complementary 0.73 acre site across Shattuck at BART Plaza. 

Taecker said an open space framework was “absolutely foundational” for the plan, a point that had been stressed by several committee members, notably Winston Burton and Juliet Lamont. 

Taecker also said if committee members win approval of a sustainabilty analysis for new projects—a point favored by many, including Lamont, Helen Burke and other during ongoing discussions—Berkeley would maintain its reputation for cutting edge policies. 

Taecker’s presentation was merely a first glimpse into the topic that will likely dominate much of the remainder of DAPAC’s discussions.

In a lop-sided vote Wednesday night, DAPAC members voted to urge the City Council to declare downtown Berkeley a Priority Development Area (PDA). 

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee’s action followed by a week the Planning Commission’s refusal to make a similar endorsement. 

The only opposition vote this week came from Gene Poschman, one of three planning commissioners who had opposed the notion last week. Two other DAPAC members, Jesse Arreguin and Patti Dacey, abstained, while 16 others voted for the proposal—including Planning Commission Chair James Samuels. 

The final decision on the designation rests with the City Council. 

Planning and Development Director Dan Marks presented the PDA proposal to DAPAC, making a stronger and more detailed pitch than he had a week earlier. 

The designation would make the city eligible for state bonds funds that may—or may not—be released by the state legislature under Proposition 1C, a bond measure passed by California voters last November. 

The money would be available to local governments through the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), a state-mandated regional planning agency which also acts as a conduit for some state funding programs.  

The one condition DAPAC members urged was that any proposals be strictly in accordance with the adopted city plan—whether the existing version, with its 1990 downtown plan, or in the form that will result from DAPAC’s proposal, as adopted by the Planning Commission and City Council.  

Wednesday night’s vote followed presentations by Matt Taecker, the planner hired to work on the new downtown plan, and Marks. 

Both dealt with increasing density in the downtown, with Taecker airing proposals for the new plan and Marks citing the city’s existing downtown plan. 

The key to winning funding under the ABAG-administered state bond allocations will be conformance to the policies of Transit Oriented Development, Marks said, with creates higher density along transit corridors and in the downtown. 

“It’s perfectly consistent with what we’re already doing,” said Marks. “The issue for Berkeley, as always, is process,” he said. “The bottom line is that I need to get a sense of the group ... the only group I can go to in terms of what is planned for the downtown.” 

DAPAC Chair Will Travis backed the proposal enthusiastically, and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission he serves as executive director is one of chief sponsors of the ABAG-administered program, along with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 

“The notion is that from the state planning perspective, smart growth—that is, transit-oriented development—makes all the sense in the world,” Travis said, adding that worries he was hearing from the community were “essentially bullshit.” 

“All this does, it gets Berkeley in the queue” for receiving bond funds, he said. 

Turning to Jesse Arreguin, a housing advocate who had questioned the designation, Travis said, “If you want affordable housing, Jesse, here’s your chance.” Turning to Juliet Lamont, who had also raised questions, Travis said, “If you want Strawberry Creek daylighted, here’s your opportunity to do it.” 

Noting that participation was voluntary, he added, “if you don’t want the money, you don’t have to take it.” 

Marks said no changes would be needed to apply, either for the downtown or for the San Pablo Avenue corridor. 

Arreguin said he remained unconvinced, “given the potential fallout,” a concern Lamont echoed. 

But as members commented, one after another, working their way around the table, the evidence for support was overwhelming. 

“We definitely should go for this,” said Rob Wrenn. Helen Burke agreed. 

“Go for it,” said Judy Chess, a university planner who serves as one of UC Berkeley’s ex officio DAPAC members. 

“Yes,” said Winston Burton. 

“I move that we direct staff to make downtown a Priority Development Area,” said former Councilmember Mim Hawley. 

“I second,” said Planning Commission chair James Samuels. 

Gene Poschman spoke for the longest time, noting that no one on DAPAC lived, worked, owned property or ran a business downtown. “We’re not stakeholders,” he said. 

More than that, he said, there was no guarantee the funds would go for any projects sought by committee members. “The simple truth is, we don’t know what it will be going for,” he said. 

But when it came time for the vote, Poschman was the sole opponent, and Marks will be able to carry their endorsement to the city council, where he said he would seek approval prior to submitting an application by the June 27 deadline. 

Just how much money will be available and for what have yet to be determined.

An Oakland School Board member has introduced a resolution calling for a moratorium on Oakland public school closures while the state remains in charge of the Oakland Unified School District. 

The call came as Oakland education officials said that 42 of Oakland’s 98 public schools have been closed for some period of time during the four years of the state takeover, and as Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s AB45 return-to-local-school-control bill is passing through its second State Assembly committee. 

Boardmember Christopher Dobbins introduced the closure moratorium resolution at Wednesday night’s board meeting on behalf of the Oakland-based Education Not Incarceration organization. 

At the request of boardmember Noel Gallo, who seconded Dobbins’ motion, discussion of the resolution will also include a broader look at OUSD’s current academic, financial, and enrollment situation. 

Meanwhile, a coalition of Oakland organizations and leaders is holding a public hearing on Oakland schools today (Friday), 4-6:30 p.m. at the OUSD administration building on 2nd Avenue, to talk about school closures, local control, charter- and new-school development, and other issues. 

The hearing was organized by the Ad Hoc Committee to Restore Local Control/Governance to the Oakland Public Schools, and sponsors include the Oakland Education Association, Education Not Incarceration, ACORN, state assemblymembers Sandré Swanson and Loni Hancock, county supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley, and several school board members  

The Dobbins Education Not Incarceration school closure moratorium resolution charges that recent decisions to close Oakland public schools “have been made in opposition to the democratically elected Oakland Mayor and without oversight of the democratically elected school board,” and says that “schools targeted for closure since the state takeover have been primarily in low-income predominantly African-American and Latino communities, who are already being under-served by California’s schools.” 

Under state takeover, OUSD state administrator Kimberly Statham will make the decision whether to place the resolution on the next joint board-administrator public meeting on June 13, but board president David Kakishiba said that if Statham refused, the board itself could hold its own meeting to discuss the matter. 

Several speakers came to the microphone at Wednesday’s meeting to support the resolution. 

Cassandra Martin, an OUSD parent volunteer and the parent of a Havenscourt Middle School student, said “I am saddened to see so many school closures in Oakland. It’s killing me. As a parent, I’m appalled. These kids have enough to go through. For some of them, the schools function as their second homes.” 

And Jonah Zern, an organizer with Education Not Incarceration, asked for Statham’s support for the resolution, saying that “the community knows best what to do with our own children.” 

In introducing the resolution, Dobbins, who was elected to the board last November, said that “as a school board, we can’t say that we would never close schools. But we would only do so by having a broader discussion that included consultation with the community.” 

And Gallo, in asking that the issue be broadened, said that “we need to have a serious discussion on why these closures may be necessary. We are facing lowering enrollment. The parcel tax renewal is going to be coming up next year. We’re going to have to pay for police services. We can’t balance our budget now. We’re still operating on borrowed money for the state. How are we going to pay for everything? The discussion has to be greater than just the closure of schools.” 

Major changes in AC transit bus service originally scheduled for June 3 have been postponed until June 24, according to district officials. 

The changes directly affecting Oakland and Berkeley will be the Launch of the new 1 and 1R International Rapid bus lines from Bay Fair BART to UC Berkeley, which will cause changes to AC Transit lines 5, 19, 40/40L, 43, 52/52L, and 82/82L. A district spokesperson said that the changes will involve a combination of elimination and consolidation of some of those lines, as well as schedule changes. 

Maps of the new lines and schedules will be available to the public today (Friday) on AC Transit’s website, www.actransit.org, as well as on the buses themselves by June 10. 

The biggest weekend of the UC Berkeley move-out is over. Students have emptied their dorms for the summer. This year for the first time they had the option of dispensing their trash in allocated dumpsters instead of dumping it on the sidewalk. 

While the university called the clean-up campaign, organized by the university and the city, a success, others viewed the process as mixed. The city of Berkeley contributed a third of the $30,000 price tag for the clean-up effort. 

“The American Cancer Society collected the clothes and the rest were donated to Goodwill,” said Irene Hegarty, director of community relations for UC Berkeley. “Uhuru House picked up the furniture and the Alameda Computer Resource Center took anything that had a plug. Anything that couldn’t be recycled ended up in the Transfer Station at Gilman Street. Urban Ore helped to sort out stuff there.” 

Hegarty added that a few more debris bins had been put out Wednesday to help students who would be moving out of private apartments in the next couple of days. 

“If there’s one thing I would do differently next year,” she said, “it would be to run the recycling center in a place other than the parking lot of the Clark Kerr campus. We need a parking area that’s more visible so that we can monitor people when they throw illegal waste such as cement and other toxic stuff into the dumpsters.” 

Hegarty said that when students dug into the 12-feet-long and four-feet-wide bins to look for things they could scavenge, they often ended up leaving stuff on the sidewalk. 

“As a result, we had to clean up after them,” she said. “We need to hold a campaign to educate the frats and sororities that dumping is illegal and that their habits need to change.” 

Berkeley Councilmember Kris Worthington—who initiated the clean-up campaign and helped secure $10,000 from the City Council for the process—said that the city looked “somewhat clean.” 

“I received angry emails from people who called the so-called hotline to report dumping and didn’t get called back for days and days,” he said. “Secondly, it’s wonderful that we have those big bins, but one of the problems is that the box gets overflilled and the trash ends up on the sidewalk. We need to make sure that we follow up and see that the dumpsters are empty.” 

Worthington added that the outreach had to be improved. 

“A lot of people haven’t heard about it except from me,” he said. “The flyers that went out to students did not have the hotline numbers on them. However, in spite of all the glitches, I think it’s still a success. Given the failure of the university to curb this problem in the past, it was important that the city put money and time into this to help.” 

UC Berkeley student and ZAB commissioner Jesse Arreguin applauded the city for the success of the campaign. 

“The city deserves all the appreciation,” he said. “And really, the university should pay for the whole thing.” 

Jill Lefebvre and Mert Yazicioglu, residents of Tau House, were two UC Berkeley students who had no clue about the clean-up campaign. 

“Do we think Frat Row is cleaner because of it?” asked Lefebvre. “No!” he said pointing to a broken couch lying outside one of the frat houses on College and Channing Way on Wednesday. 

As of Thursday morning, the Planet spotted a mattress, two desks and several broken couches along Channing Way. Broken furniture was also spotted in an alley outside the Delta Chi frat house. 

Alan Lightfeldt, a Spring 2007 graduate, said he had left a broken lamp inside a dumpster on the corner of Carleton and Ellsworth. 

“I used the dumpster simply because it was so close and easy to use,” he said. “From the amount of stuff that was overflowing from each dumpster, I’d say the drive was pretty effective, but I did still see some trash on some streets. Southside for the most part looked a lot cleaner than in previous years, but the drive definitely needs more publicity.” 

According to Hegarty, the worst dumping happened in the LeConte and Willard neighborhoods. 

“We received a lot of calls from residents on Piedmont and College and Ellsworth and Parker,” she said. “I am positive there are some frats nearby that are responsible. Once we find the source, we will be able to solve the problem easily.” 

Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington criticized the library administration for announcing a process for selection of a new trustee—Trustee Laura Anderson’s eight-year term expires in October—without direction from a council-library committee established to create a new selection process. 

“It’s funny for the trustees to establish a sunshine committee and go off and do things on their own,” said Worthington, who chairs the Ad Hoc Committee for Sunshining the Selection of Trustees. 

The committee is composed of two city councilmembers and two members of the Library Board of Trustees. Its purpose is to bring transparency to the trustee-selection process. 

Library director Donna Corbeil told the Daily Planet she was following the trustees’ directive when she posted an advertisement in several local newspapers, including the Daily Planet, letting people know in a timely way that there will be an opening for a trustee in October.  

“My understanding is that everyone agreed to get the word out as soon as possible, Corbeil said, noting that the ad hoc committee had met a couple of times “but hasn’t given any direction to [the trustees].” 

The newspaper advertisement says prospective trustees should come to a June 19 reception at 7 p.m. at the West Berkeley Library and submit application materials to the city clerk’s office by July 1. The advertisement suggests people contact the City Clerk’s office for information; however the Daily Planet found that the city clerk’s office is asking people to contact the library administration at 981-6195 for information. 

Historically, the trustees have chosen new members when there is a vacancy at the end of two four-year terms, with only a pro-forma reappointment process and pro-forma confirmation from the City Council.  

However, the trustees acknowledged they were in need of a more open selection process in response to community and staff outcry over a number of problems including the purchase of a controversial radio frequency identification checkout system with little public input and staff conflict with the former library director. 

The trustees also had been threatened with a lawsuit by the community group SuperBOLD, Berkeleyans Organized for Library Defense, for limiting public comment at their meetings. 

The ad hoc committee is to set qualifications for new trustees and create a more open selection process. 

“I think advertising [the reception and the date to turn in applications] is within the spirit of the committee,” said Trustee Ying Lee, a member of the ad hoc committee. “The main object is to give the public notice.” 

But SuperBOLD member Gene Bernardi said she disagrees. 

“My feeling is that the trustees’ process is undercutting the ad hoc committee,” Bernardi said, noting that they’re advertising the upcoming vacancy without the qualifications having been finalized and that the June 19 reception for perspective candidates conflicts with a City Council meeting.  

Further, Bernardi said, “A July 1 deadline seems too soon.”  

She conceded, on the other hand, that the trustees “got our message. At least they’re advertising the vacancy.” 

One might anticipate little tranquility at Monday evening’s Peace and Justice Commission meeting, when commissioners address an item placed on the agenda by Commissioner Elliot Cohen: 

“Discussion on the use of e-mail system by commissioners to spread racist propaganda.”  

Also on the agenda will be recruiting for the military at Berkeley High, making Berkeley a city of sanctuary for conscientious objectors, discussion strategies to address prejudice and more. 

Cohen’s item refers to the use of the commission’s email list, particularly by Commissioner Jonathan Wornick, who sent out a video clip to commissioners that condemned Islam as a religion of war and its prophet Mohammad as “some rambling ancient desert nomad with a psychological disorder.” 

The tape, which Wornick told the Daily Planet at the time was sent out to provoke dialogue, stated: “Muslim women in Britain who cover their faces are mentally ill. If God had intended for you to cover your face then in His wisdom He would have provided you with a flap of skin for the purpose.” 

“The issue has been misconstrued as a question of the First Amendment,” Cohen told the Planet on Wednesday. “As commissioners, we are not acting as private people. We are representing the city.” 

The emails go to the commission staff that sends them to commissioners. “We shouldn’t be spreading racism through city computers,” Cohen said. 

The way the item is written on the commission agenda “is accusatory,” Wornick told the Daily Planet on Thursday, arguing that what he had sent to the commission was not “racist” but “critical of an ideology within a religion.”  

Wornick added that Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who appointed him, stands by the appointment. “Gordon is very supportive although he doesn’t always agree with me,” Wornick said. 

Wozniak has told the Daily Planet that Wornick’s voice is an important addition to the commission as it adds diversity of thought. 

Wornick added that he will be working out of town during Monday’s commission meeting, but that he expects people will be at the meeting to support him. 

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

The State of Black California will be the subject of a Saturday afternoon town hall meeting at Oakland City Hall hosted by Oakland Assemblymember Sandré Swanson. 

The 1 p.m. meeting, which will include presentations by education, health, political, and economic experts, is part of a series of meetings sponsored by the nine-member California Legislative Black Caucus across the state to discuss their recently released report on the condition of African-Americans in California. 

“The purpose of the report is to try to emphasize the racial disparities that continue to exist in California in such areas as jobs, education, health care, and incarceration,” Swanson said in a telephone interview. 

The report uses something called an “equality index”, with white Californians as the baseline, to conclude that African-American Californians fare poorly across the board in all social, political, education and economic categories. In addition, the report looks at conditions in individual sections of the state, finding, in one is example, that “racial inequality in housing quality [in California] is the greatest in Oakland; in large part because the black-white gap in homeownership is greatest there.” 

The equality index was developed by the Global Insight consulting firm, and the report was prepared by Assistant Professor Stephen Raphael of the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and Associate Professor Michael A. Stoll of the UCLA School of Public Affairs. 

Along with its findings of conditions among African-Americans in the state, the 86-page report lists recommended legislation to address some of those conditions in the areas of education, economics, corrections and rehabilitation, health, housing, and foster care. 

But Swanson said by telephone that many of those bills have already been introduced in the legislature this year, including encouraging an increase of minority- and women-owned businesses in state bond construction projects, creating after school programs, inclusion of provisions in the various versions of the health insurance bills that provide accessibility to health care for those who are not working, and “making sure we are not just imprisoning people, but rehabilitating them as well while they’re in prison.” 

Swanson said the latter issue was of particular importance to African-Americans in the state “because obviously, African-Americans are disproportionately incarcerated.” 

“These bills have been stimulated and supported by the previous hearings on the report in other parts of the state,” Swanson said. “We expect the Oakland hearing as a follow-up to get feedback from the public and local elected officials on some of that legislation.” 

Swanson said that while there are no current plans to introduce a Legislative Black Caucus legislative package (“it’s difficult to make it that neat,” he explained), there are plans by the caucus following the end of the legislative year to issue a report on how legislation of specific interest to the Black Caucus has fared.  

“We see this as only the beginning of the process,” Swanson said. 

Swanson also said that there are no current plans by the Black Caucus to issue a legislative report card with reports on how state legislators voted on issues important to the Black Caucus, although he did not rule out such a report card being developed in the future. 

He said that to the best of his knowledge, the only African-American-based legislative report card issued in California is done by the state office of the National Association For The Advancement of Colored People. 

In many ways, Rivka Mason is like any other elementary school gardener who likes to teach students how to grow a green thumb. 

She assigns children at Malcolm X Elementary School to water the flower beds, explains the ABCs of the food chain to them and lets them chase butterflies. 

But Mason, with her passion for community service, also goes a step further. Thirteen years at Malcolm X coupled with efforts to make Berkeley greener recently earned her the 2007 American Institute For Public Service Jefferson Award.  

Initiated by Jackie Onassis, the award acknowledges people who do good work in the community. 

“It all started in 1992, when I volunteered at the LeConte Elementary School garden,” Mason told the Planet Wednesday while explaining the life cycle of a lady bug to enthusiastic fifth graders in the Malcolm X garden. 

“That led to a position at Malcolm X. At first I got $7 per hour from the PTA, but a couple of years later a grant from the California Nutrition Network came in. I was just at the right place at the right time and the funds helped me to start a Garden Based Nutrition Program. 

Mason, who describes herself as a “country girl,” grew up in the hills around Mendocino where she learned skills such as gardening and carpentry during home study. 

“When I came down to the Bay Area in 1985, I looked around and saw all these lawns,” she recalled. “I wanted to see food growing everywhere. I put my carpentry and gardening skills together and raised beds in people’s backyards. Then one day this 4-year-old boy came to me and said he wanted to help. That set off a light bulb and all I wanted to do was to teach young people how to garden.” 

Dressed in a straw hat and overalls, Mason takes her students for a ride around the world everyday. 

“A lot of kids learn for the first time that purple potatoes are from South America and that carrots originated from Afghanistan,” she says, handing out sweet-peas as treats. “They learn about math, culture, arts, writing and geography in the garden. We were cooking fava beans the other day for an entire minute and the kindergartners were told to count till sixty. That itself is a learning experience for them.” 

Over the years Mason has transformed 4,000 square feet of earth into a green patch which boasts a cob green house, a chamomile lawn, a wildflower garden, a sweetpea wall, an octagonal pizza garden, a compost heap, an apple tree and a pumpkin patch. 

The highlight of Mason’s curriculum is the Pumpkin Fundraiser which takes place just before Halloween every year. 

“Local organic farmers donate pumpkins to the school,” she said. “We then hold a pumpkin giveaway sale where kids and parents are charged anything between $3 to $5 for a pumpkin. Some of the kids just give me nickels at times and those who don’t have any money walk away with a free pumpkin.” 

Spring ushers in planting season. Kids get to get their hands dirty from sowing carrots, radishes, beans, strawberries and lettuce. Under Mason’s watchful eyes, they even hold a celebration on Cesar Chavez Day, taking strawberry seedlings home to sell to neighbors. On some days, classes cook up potato salads, apple juice and learn to grind wheat. 

“Right now they are planting corn,” she said. “When the new kids will come back in September and eat the fresh sweet corn, they will get hooked to the garden immediately. It’s important for kids not to lose touch with nature. That said, the award committee might have picked me this time, but there are garden teachers all over who want to start gardens in their schools. So it’s not just Rivka and it’s not just Berkeley. Letting children find out where their food comes from is a huge movement by itself.” 

Health staff and public information officers were upbeat last week when they called out the press to a Tuesday morning briefing in which they emphasized the city’s overall good health. 

“The increase in life expectancy has gone from 73 to 80” over the last 10 years, Health Officer Dr. Linda Rudolph said. 

While Rudolph touched on the health divide between African Americans and whites at the press briefing, she painted a more alarming and more complete picture of the city’s health disparities at the Tuesday evening City Council workshop, where she presented the 190-page Berkeley Health Status Report 2007, authored by Health Department staff. 

“The gap in mortality [between African Americans and whites] has not narrowed in the last 15 years,” Rudolph told the councilmembers, who were thumbing through the booklet, getting their first look at the statistic-laden document. 

The report shows that while Berkeley’s white residents lived an average of 81.7 years in 1997-2000 and 83.1 years in 2001-2004, African Americans’ longevity did not increase during the same period, with blacks living an average of 70.9 years in 1997-2000 and 70.8 years in 2001-2004.  

The study provides no comparative data for Latinos, but shows that the longevity for Asian Americans decreased slightly from 86.3 years in 1997-2000 to 85.3 years to 2001-2004.  

“The income inequality in Berkeley is growing.” Rudolph told the council, noting the recent “increase of wealthy white individuals in the city” and the loss of some 3,000 African Americans in the city during the 1990s.  

“Of all risk factors for health, poverty is the most important,” Rudolph told the council. “In the U.S., race and poverty are inextricably intertwined.”  

In Berkeley, 2,100 children live in poverty, Rudolph said. 

On the positive side, statistics show that today 95 percent of Berkeley women of all races get prenatal care, beginning in the first trimester of pregnancy. In 1995 only about 85 percent of Latino women and 80 percent of African American women got early prenatal care. 

Despite early care, African Americans in Berkeley continue to deliver low-weight babies. “Low birth weight declined in African Americans during the 1990s, but has increased again in recent years. The proportion of low birth weight babies is still twice as high in African Americans compared to other groups,” the report says. 

Although there is better access to prenatal care, about 18 percent of African American women gave birth to low-weight babies in 2005-2006, while the number of low-weight babies among Latinos, whites and Asian Americans in 2005-2006 ranged from 4-to-8 percent.  

Rudolph pointed the council to some of the other health disparities noted in the report: while overall statistics for high blood pressure are lower in Berkeley than in other parts of Alameda county, the rate for African Americans in Berkeley is three times higher than for whites and Asians.  

The rate for hospitalization for diabetes is 10 times higher for African Americans than for whites. The highest number of hospitalizations is in the southwest Berkeley zip codes 94702-94703. 

Similarly, rates of hospitalization for asthma and lung cancer are elevated among African Americans in Berkeley. 

While the problems are clearly stated, the report does not suggest specific solutions. Rudolph said she wants to work with the community and other city departments to name them. 

Councilmember Max Anderson said at the workshop that the council should look more seriously at addressing the health disparity question. 

“It’s a matter of political will,” Anderson said. “We spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on land use; [health issues} are of equal importance—in many cases they are more important. This translates into who lives and who dies in our community.” 

“We’re not going to impact [the disparities] with the medical model,” Rudolph said, pointing to the need for access to nutritious food, clean air, safe housing and employment. 

Richie Smith works with the South Berkeley Community Action Team, a city-sponsored community organization that looks at health and quality-of-life questions in southwest Berkeley. 

In a phone interview Friday, she pointed to the lack of stores carrying fresh fruit and vegetables in southwest Berkeley.  

“If the [liquor store owners] were encouraged to enter into the community, things could dramatically change,” she said. 

There are very few places for youth to go,” Smith said, noting the need for jobs and employment. 

And seniors face problems as well, including the high cost of housing and health care, the lack of transportation, hazardous sidewalks and poor lighting on parts of Alcatraz Avenue, said Smith who also serves on the Commission of Aging.  

“All this has to do with health and well-being,” Smith said, adding that it is hard to get city officials to focus on these questions. “Officials say things to get elected and then they forget,” she said. 

The report points to some actions the city has taken, including the opening of a hypertension clinic at the Over 60s Health Center at Sacramento Street and Alcatraz Avenue.  

The Berkeley High School Health Center is credited with reducing sexually transmitted diseases and teen births, and an oral health program has been instituted in the schools. 

While the report names racism as a factor in health disparities, it does not posit remedies. 

The health disparities “have to be a community concern,” said Councilmember Max Anderson, in a phone interview Friday. Anderson represents much of the city’s low-income and African American community. “The whole city has to take this as seriously as the fire danger in the hills. An injury to the hills is an injury to all. Health disparities in the flatlands is an injury to all.” 

The only hearts and minds Bus Rapid Transit seemed to have captured during an emotional public meeting in Berkeley Thursday were those it already possessed. 

The only audience applause during the two-hour session came after public speakers slammed the agency’s plans to establish a fast-moving bus service along a highly traveled East Bay corridor. 

Jim Cunradi, AC Transit’s BRT project manager, came to Berkeley to speak to a combined meeting of the city’s Transportation and Planning commissions and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee. 

Bus Rapid Transit is a less costly alternative to light rail and subway systems, and increasingly popular in cities around the world. 

But the system’s typical reliance on dedicated lanes—meaning the loss of existing car lanes—and its potential to trigger legal thresholds aimed at stimulating high-density development seemed the biggest worries to many of the speakers who turned out to have their say. 

Thursday’s session was a preliminary discussion designed to ready commissioners and citizens to register official comments as the project moved through the environmental review process. 

The agency’s board of directors officially selected the main route in a resolution passed on Aug. 2, 2001, and the plan has been in the works ever since as the agency has worked with the state, county and cities in refining the details. 

As now formulated, the final results are included in the draft environmental impact report, the critical document which must be approved before the project can move forward. 

That document was released on May 4, triggering a 60-day public comment period during which individual and governments may weigh in with comments and critiques that the agency must address in the project’s final environmental impact report (EIR). 

Thursday night’s meeting wasn’t a formal hearing, but speakers had plenty to say, with the commissioners generally supportive, though some cautiously so, while most of the public came armed with edged words. 

Supporters often endorsed the system citing the need to take prompt action to reduce global warming by cutting down on the car exhausts that comprise the largest share of America’s greenhouse gas output.  

One difficulty for both sides was the lack of a definitive plan for the route’s passage through the city. Yes, buses will travel on Telegraph, but will they move in a dedicated lane or lanes, or will they share the road with cars? 

And yes, buses will make a loop down to Shattuck Avenue, but will the travel on Bancroft Avenue be limited to only buses? And what of Shattuck Avenue, where the DAPAC is thrashing out alternatives that include dedicated lanes and the possible closing of the eastern half of the avenue’s split between Center Street and University Avenue? 

The first two public speakers were avid fans of BRT, Leonard Cony and Steve Geller, members, like Transportation Commissioners Rob Wrenn and Wendy Alfsen, of Friends of BRT, and both advocates of dedicated BRT-bus-only lanes. 

The criticism began with the third speaker, Sharon Hudson, who questioned the closing of the northern end of Telegraph Avenue to car traffic and said that “the more people know about it (BRT), the less they like it.” 

Mike Friedrich took up the pro-BRT flame, offering the enthusiastic endorsement of Livable Berkeley, a group that lobbies hard for “smart growth” projects. 

Former AC Transit and BART director Roy Nakadegawa joined win the praise, declaring BRT “one of the most cost-effective ways to encourage more transit use.” 

Mark Lowe, a Hillegass Avenue resident, said he was concerned both because AC Transit had limited its direct contacts with individual households to those living within 300 feet of the proposed route, and because the project could have a “huge impact:” on his neighborhood as frustrated drivers sought other ways to travel in the popular Telegraph Avenue neighborhood. 

Charles Siegel, member of Friends of BRT, lauded the system as a means for more efficient travel through the East Bay, and suggested that legitimate concerns of Telegraph area residents should allow for at least some through traffic on the avenue.  

Doug Buckwald began by twice asking for a show of hands, first of those who wanted to stop global warming and second, of those who took mass transit to the meeting. There were dramatically fewer the second time around, including those of many of the strongest BRT supporters. 

Buckwald noted the opposition of San Leandro’s mayor to dedicated BRT land and asked why bus riders would support the expenditure of still more funds on the unpopular Van Hool buses that AC Transit has been purchasing, and which are depicted in the illustrations the agency provides of the proposed BRT line. 

Other speakers questioned whether BRT would make a significant reduction in greenhouse gases. 

And throughout the public’s portion of the meeting, only opponents were applauded. 

Meanwhile, AC Transit says it already has commitments for $102.5 million of the $310 million to $400 million needed to build the system, as well as strong support from a variety of agencies. 

Berkeley residents will have their chance to weigh in officially when AC Transit holds its local public hearing on June 14 at the North Berkeley Senior center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Events begin with an open house starting at 5:30 p.m. featuring exhibits and the opportunity to speak with officials, followed by the hearing itself at 7 p.m. 

Anyone may speak at the hearing, and the agency is legally obligated to respond in the final version of the EIR.

A long delayed study of fairness in purchasing and contracts by the City of Oakland has shown that minority- and women-owned firms are being discriminated against by city agencies, but contractors will now have to wait another few months to find out what, if anything, Oakland City Council will do about it. 

With two members—Council President Ignacio De La Fuente and Councilmember Larry Reid—of council’s four-member Community and Economic Development (CEDA) Committee absent for last week’s committee meeting, CEDA put over a report by Oakland-based Mason Tillman Associates which concluded that there is a “statistically significant underutilization” of minority and woman-owned business enterprises by the City of Oakland over the three-year period between the summer of 2002 and the summer of 2005.  

In addition to underutilizing minority- and women-owned businesses, the study found that city contracts in the three year period were concentrated in a small handful of businesses. Of more than $244 million in 25,000 contracts awarded during that time, 60 percent of the contract dollars went to fewer than 2 percent of the vendors and businesses used.  

The study makes no recommendations for action to correct the disparity. Such recommendations will be put forward in Volume II of the study after City Council considers the data presented in the findings in Volume I. 

But with Oakland City Council scheduled to begin a summer recess early next month, the CEDA committee will not begin consideration of the findings until September.  

An article in the Oakland Tribune last week had indicated that De La Fuente wanted to take a closer look at the study to make sure it contained enough data to make it accurate. 

Victor Ochoa, Deputy Chief of Staff for Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, said that the 250 page study is currently being reviewed by the mayor’s office, and would have no further comment. 

Meanwhile, at least one local African-American business owner says that no study was needed to know that the City of Oakland was discriminating against minority- and women-owned businesses in letting out contracts. 

“We didn’t need the study to authenticate what we already know,” Oakland Black Caucus chairman Geoffrey Pete said in a telephone interview. “It’s something that minority businesses live with in Oakland, particularly over the last eight years during the Brown Administration. I believe that the discrimination is wilfull, intentional, and deliberate. It didn’t happen out of thin air.” 

Pete said that African-American business owners were particularly hard-hit during the Brown years, calling the situation “grim and grave.” “The city’s contract compliance office was gutted,” he added. “Local hiring was put off. The disparity study itself was put off for six years, even though it was mandated by the charter.” 

Pete, the owner and operator of Geoffreys Inner Circle nighclub in downtown Oakland and a longtime political activist in the city, is currently one of the plaintiffs in a class action federal lawsuit against the City of Oakland charging race discrimination by the city in contracting, procurement, lending, and grants. The lawsuit is currently in the discovery phase. 

The so-called “Croson” study by Mason Tillman Associates, named for the defendant in a lawsuit against the City of Richmond, is mandated by the Oakland City Charter to be conducted every two years. But the last “fairness in purchasing and contracting disparity” study was done in Oakland in 1996, and no study was done at all during the period of 1999-2006 while Jerry Brown was mayor of Oakland. During that period, there were repeated charges that the City Council and the Brown Administration were discriminating against minority-owned businesses. 

The study matched the contract dollars awarded by the city with the available minority-and women-owned businesses in the area, and restricted the prime contract amounts to under a half a million dollars to make sure that the businesses included in the study had the capacity to perform them. 

The study looked at three areas of city contracts (formal, informal, and subcontracts) across four areas of interest (construction, architecture and engineering, professional services, and goods and other services).  

It found that African-American businesses were the most underutilized in City of Oakland contracts, with disparities found in the areas of construction and professional services in both formal and informal contracts and in the area of construction in subcontracts. But the Mason Tillman study also found that businesses owned by Asian Americans, Latinos, women, and minority women were all underutilized in significant contract areas. 

In her report to City Council accompanying the study, City Administrator Deborah Edgerly listed four possible steps the council could take with regard to the Mason Tillman study. 

Among those possible actions were convening a public hearing on the report and its implications, forwarding the study to “key stakeholders” (mentioning the Black Caucus by name) for their recommendation, using Mayor Ron Dellums’ economic development task forces (which Edgerly called “an excellent source”) to gather community-based ideas and recommendations, or appointing a business working group to gather public feedback. 

Berkeley Planning Commissioners got their first look last week at the university’s plans for a $130 million retrofit of the Clark Kerr Campus, the 500-acre, 20-building Spanish Colonial Revival complex on the corner of Derby and Warring streets. 

In a second briefing, commissioners learned about the city’s plans for workshops under Measure G, the measure passed by Berkeley voters last December which calls on the city to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. 

Clark Kerr Campus 

Originally known as the State Asylum for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, the site was transferred to UC Berkeley in 1982, two years after the renamed California Schools for the Deaf & Blind moved to Fremont in a deal brokered by then-Assemblymember Tom Bates. 

Though it was claimed at the time that the move was prompted by concerns that the Berkeley site was located on the Hayward Fault, the Fremont site suffers from the same fault. 

Designated for student housing, the complex was renamed after the former UC Berkeley Chancellor and Board of Regents president and opened to students in 1984. 

Beth Piatnitza, the university’s associate director of physical and environmental planning, briefed commissioners on the project, which targets six of the ten structures currently used by the university for student housing. 

Work will begin next year and continue for the next seven years, with the work focused on improved safety, accessibility and infrastructure upgrades. 

The university has already issued a call for submissions from contractors for work on a $13 million infrastructure retrofit, which is scheduled to begin in July 2008. 

Piatnitza said the project will maintain the site’s architectural integrity, a critical factor since the campus is listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and Berkeley’s own list of designated landmarks. 

Measure G 

Timothy Burroughs, hired by the city to formulate the city’s plan for reducing climate-heating greenhouse gasses, told commissioners he is planning workshops with city policy boards “to help develop a community-wide climate action plan.” 

Measure G, endorsed by 81 percent of Berkeley voters, calls on the city to formulate the plan by the end of the year, and to help guide the process, Burroughs said he is meeting with seven commissions in the upcoming months. 

In addition to the long-term goal, Burroughs said the plan will feature short-term targets as well as “a variety of ways for people to get involved,” including surveys, an on-line forum for discussions, focus groups and other measures. 

“We want to develop a series of strategies, including the top three to five things people can start doing today,” he said. 

Once the strategies are formulated, members of the commissions will then have a chance to review the resulting plan, which he said should be ready by the end of summer or in the early autumn. 

The only skeptical comments of the evening came from commissioner Gene Poschman, who asked, “What if Berkeley does something wonderful but no other government in California does? Then we’ve saved our souls, but had no impact. It’s so difficult to separate the hype” from meaningful action. 

Burroughs said individual citizens can take immediate actions in their own spheres of influence, and that “what happens first in California often happens later in other parts of the country, and the State of California is looking at the cities to figure out what it can do as a state.” 

“It’s an interesting theory,” said Poschman. 

The planning Commission workshop, titled Climate Protection and the Built Environment, will be held during the commission’s regular July 11 meeting.

Twenty-one-year-old Sam Thompson hasn’t stopped walking since he was released from prison a few weeks ago. Born to homeless parents in Berkeley, Thompson was recently arrested for peddling drugs and is out on felony probation. 

His feet—covered with cuts, bruises and blisters—finally got to rest for a bit when he visited the city’s third Youth Connect at St. Mark’s Church Parish Hall on May 21 to look for a job. 

They were also treated to some first-rate pampering, courtesy Suitcase Clinic volunteer Sandhya Jacobs. 

“Would you like powder or lotion?” Jacobs asked a delighted Thompson, while she bathed his feet in soapy water and wiped them dry with a towel. “Both,” he said grinning, as Jacobs moisturized his toes with Vaseline. 

Foot washing was just one of the many services offered free-of-charge to homeless youth by the dozens of volunteers who had gathered inside Parish Hall that afternoon. 

Vi Dyas, with the library’s Teen Services Department, helped Thompson sign up for a library card. 

“He can put down St. Marks under residence,” she said. “That way he has a proof of address, which is required to apply for a library card.” 

Across the room, AC Transit was accepting applications for bus passes that would allow homeless youth to ride the city’s buses at a discount. Next to the bus company, Andrew Wicker of the city’s Housing Department, registered visitors and informed them about housing opportunities. 

“It’s really amazing how well these kids are educated about HIV and STDs,” said Sonya Dublin, a volunteer from the city’s Public Health division who was directing students to a testing unit located inside a mobile clinic on Bancroft Avenue. “But many don’t know where to go to get tested. If they test here today, they know their HIV test results within 20 minutes. It takes about two weeks for the STD test results to arrive.” 

An initiative of the mayor’s office, the Youth Emergency Assistance Hostel (YEAH!), the Suitcase Clinic, the Fred Finch Youth Center, the City of Berkeley departments of Housing and Health and Human Services, Youth Connect is aimed at bringing service providers to the teenagers and young adults. 

Although held on a smaller scale this year, the emphasis remained on transition-age youth. About 30 kids came to the fair this year, organizers said. 

“We are not expecting too many kids this year,” said Julie Sinai, senior aide to Mayor Tom Bates. “Last year’s event was connected with [the shelter at] YEAH!, so more than 50 people showed up to take advantage of the services. We hope to do a bigger event in fall.” 

Sinai added that although such projects were common all over the United States, Berkeley was the only city that focused on the 18- to 25-year-old age group. 

“Many of these kids have a trust issue,” she said. “They are anti-authoritarian and have aged out of the foster care system. Getting them to stabilize their life is not an easy thing to do.” 

Mayor Tom Bates, who came to chat with the kids, said the event was a positive way to get kids to put their life together. 

“It’s a small step toward getting our youth off the streets,” he said. 

Dominique Linton, 20, said that she came to YEAH! because she was kicked out of her parents’ house in Fremont nine months ago. 

“I don’t ever want to go back home,” she said walking toward the AC Transit booth, “I am really hoping I get one of the discount passes. Then I will be free to travel wherever I want.” 

In one corner of the hall, Stephanie Finley was telling YEAH! Executive Director Sharon Hawkins Leydon about the horrors of sleeping on the street at night. 

“Stephanie wants a year-round place to stay, which will be designed for her needs and will accept her for who she is,” said Hawkins. “She likes coming to the winter shelter at YEAH! because, apart from a few safety rules, she is welcome there. The youth really respond to that.” 

Like Stephanie, there were other YEAH! regulars who gathered around Leydon Hawkins to talk. 

“Often all these kids need is a sense of community,” she said. “Somewhere they can go to and feel safe. Forty-six percent of youth who come out of the foster care system end up homeless, 50 percent don’t have a high school diploma, and almost everyone is burdened with personal problems.” 

Hawkins said she has a five-year plan to house homeless youth with the help of the mayor, the City Council and the city manager. 

“It will be a one-stop center which will provide 18- to 25-year-olds with housing and other services under one roof in Berkeley,” she said. “It will be a parallel community to college. We want to create a campus. We are in the process of expanding our board of directors and we hope to start a feasibility study by September.”

Though Berkeley planning commissioners last week rejected a proposal to designate the city center a state Priority Development Area as a first step to winning bond funds, the topic is back on the table at the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC). 

City Planning and Development Director Dan Marks is scheduled to make a presentation on “potential state funding which requires immediate action to designate downtown as a Priority Development Area.” 

That move, urged by the Association of Bay Area Governments, is a necessary first step if the city is to share in the still undetermined allocation of revenues from bonds passed by California voters last December. 

At the Planning Commission meeting, Marks said a designation on short notice—the deadline for applications is June 29—would likely trigger a backlash. The proposal failed on a 4-3-1 vote, with 5 votes needed for passage. 

At this point, state legislators have yet to determine how or when the bond funds will be awarded, though the bond measure spelled out the priorities of high-density housing near mass transit systems, with an emphasis on providing residences for those with low incomes. 

Marks had told the planners that backlash was likely, given the city’s last effort to attract state funds for a high-density development at the site of the Ashby BART station. 

That proposal triggered community meetings attended by hundreds and angry confrontations between residents and the project’s leading backers, Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilmember Max Anderson. 

The proposal was subsequently tabled, though it remains alive. 

Other items scheduled for Wednesday night’s meeting, DAPAC’s 36th, include: 

• A presentation by Carpenter & Co. Vice President Peter Diana on the status of the high-rise hotel, condo and conference center his company will be building at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street; 

• A presentation on the effects of economics on building heights by architect and building code expert Ned Fenny; and 

• The committee’s first discussion of possible land use policies to be included in the new plan. 

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Historic element 

Meanwhile, a joint subcommittee hammering out details of the role historic buildings will play in the new downtown plan decided last week that they need one more meeting to finish their work. 

Representatives of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and DAPAC are hammering out a draft document for consideration of the full DAPAC panel. 

Last Wednesday’s meeting ended with near agreement, but members opted for a final meeting June 13 to iron out their remaining differences. 

Then, on June 20, the full memberships of both bodies are scheduled to meet, with a final DAPAC vote on the plan’s proposed Historic Preservation and Urban Design section expected by meeting’s end. 

The Berkeley Board of Education delayed a vote Wednesday on a proposal to install solar panels on the roof of Washington Elementary School. 

Proponents of the proposal and staff were asked to return on June 6 with a more comprehensive report on funding and payback figures. 

The delay in approving the proposal stalls the application for $750,000 in funds from the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC) and $305,000 in PG&E funds. 

The Berkeley Unified School District estimates the cost of the project to be $1.25 million, which takes into account the cost of putting in photovoltaic panels as well as replacing the current roof at Washington. 

KyotoUSA, a volunteer group which encourages cities to reduce greenhouse emissions, estimated the initial cost to purchase and install a solar system to be $800,000. The district, with KyotoUSA’s help, submitted a request to PG&E on March 21 for partial funding valued at $305,000. The school bond Measure AA would contribute $195,000 toward the cost. 

Tom Kelly, a Berkeley resident and director of KyotoUSA, highlighted Washington’s electricity costs for the current year. 

“Washington consumed approximately 170,560 KwH in energy and paid around $25,505 in electricity costs in 2006,” he said. “At a 5 percent increase in utility rates, the district would spend approximately $330,000 in electricity bills for Washington over a 10-year span.” 

Dubbed as the HELiOS Project (Helios Energy Lights Our Schools), the proposed system would cover 100 percent of the main building’s electricity needs. It also would come with a 25-year warranty.  

School board vice president John Selawsky supported the project. 

“We are leveraging the PG&E money which will go away on June 15,” he said, referring to a deadline by which project proponents would have to show “good faith in moving ahead with the project. I know there have been questions about good governance and spending our funds wisely, but this is important. I really urge board members to consider this.” 

Nancy Radar, a member of the Washington PTA, said that the school PTA members had adopted a resolution on the solar photovoltaic system proposed for Washington School which would help it to become an example of energy efficiency and long-term cost savings. 

“We are very concerned about global warming and want Berkeley Unified to take steps to curb it,” she said. “We want the district to approve the project, but in doing so we want an unbiased, independent on-site audit and assessment of the major opportunities for gas and electric GHG-reducing investments at our school.” 

Members of the Sierra Club also lauded the project. 

Board member Nancy Riddle commented that her main problem with the proposal was that it required additional funds from bond funds which were already oversubscribed. 

“I still struggle with the pay back,” she said. “My biggest concern is, where are we going to get this money? We can set aside a couple of hundred thousand dollars for this, but then we won’t be able to do something else.” 

Board president Joaquin Rivera echoed her thoughts. 

“It’s a great idea,” he said, “but we have a long list of projects we don’t have the money to complete. We need to prioritize all the projects we have left. So I don’t even know where the Solar Project fits on the list.” 

Selection of new principals 

The board announced the selection of four new principals and a vice principal for the upcoming school year. 

Don Vu will replace Jason Lustig as principal of Cragmont Elementary School. Lustig will be moving to King Middle School as its principal. 

Maggie Riddle, a Jefferson teacher, will become principal of Jefferson Elementary School. Quiauna Whitfield and LaSonya McCain were named principals of Longfellow Middle School and Pre-Kindergarten, respectively. 

Vernon Walton will be the new vice principal of Berkeley High School. 

Berkeley Police Friday announced a $15,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the killer who claimed the life of Berkeley’s first murder victim of 2007. 

BPD Public Information Officer Sgt. Mary Kusmiss also gave a name to the victim, 19-year-old Augustine Silva of Antioch. 

The young man’s body was discovered about 6:30 a.m. May 6 by an employee arriving for work at Second and Cedar streets. Sgt. Kusmiss said he had been slain by multiple blunt force blows. 

She asked anyone with information on the crime to call BPD’s Homicide Detail at 981-5741, or the department switchboard at 981-5900. 

Assault 

On May 21 at 11:48 p.m., a man in his 20s grabbed the breast of a woman also in her 20s on the 2400 block of Hearst. The suspect is not in custody. 

Burglary 

At 10:24 p.m. on May 21, somebody entered a private residence on the 2400 block of Dana through the back door. The resident was at home and didn’t think that anything was taken. There isn’t any information on the suspect. 

Robbery 

Three women robbed a 20-year-old woman of her purse at Russell and Milvia at 8:09 p.m. on May 21. The suspects have not been identified. 

Robbery with knife 

At 1:08 p.m. on May 21, a person was leaving the credit union on the 1900 block of University Avenue when a man and woman robbed him with a knife. They took $60. No suspects are in custody. 

Stabbing 

A 21-year-old homeless man was arrested early in the morning on May 20 for stabbing another homeless man in his 30s near the corner of Parker and Fulton streets. The injuries sustained did not appear to be very serious, said Berkeley Police Department Public Information Officer Wes Hester. 

Armed robbery 

On May 20 at 3 a.m., two men in their 20s robbed another male of his backpack, cell phone, and wallet at the corner of Ridge and Scenic streets. The suspects fled eastbound on Ridge Street in a dark-colored American vehicle. The suspects are not in custody. 

Spousal abuse 

At 2 a.m. on May 20, a man called the police to report that his wife was being physically abusive. The couple lives on the 1000 block of Cedar Street. The female suspect was served with a protective order.

On Wednesday we sent this letter to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ website and to East Bay Express editor Stephen Buel: 

“Well, the new ownership of the East Bay Express gets more confusing all the time, and we at the Berkeley Planet admit that we might have had some role in spreading the confusion. Based on one of those “don’t attribute it to me” sources which we all ought to avoid, the Planet first reported that Hal Brody would own “51 percent” of the new enterprise. Responding to a call from editor Stephen Buel, the story on the website was changed the day after publication to reflect what the reporter thought he had heard Buel say, admittedly with a bad cell phone connection involved—that’s where the mythical 100 investors made their brief appearance on the stage. Next day Buel called again to set the record straight one more time. Based on what he said, the following correction appeared in the next print edition of the paper and is now on the website: 

“According to editor Steve Buel, two groups of investors, each holding a 50 percent interest, are the new owners, with one group of three headed by new President Hal Brody and the second group of five investors headed by Buel.” 

Evidently Buel was still not satisfied, since he wrote a letter last Friday to Association of Alternative Newsweeklies executive director Richard Karpel to complain about information reported by Berkeley Daily Planet and picked up on the AAN website. He didn’t bother to send us a copy, but a friend forwarded it to us. Here’s what he said: 

“The actual situation is that Hal Brody and I each assembled small groups of investors who collectively each own 50 percent of the newspaper. Hal’s team consists of himself and two friends; my team consists of myself and four friends. There are eight investors in total (although currently the Daily Planet website counts 100).” 

The 100 phantoms are now gone from the web. And the only other difference that I can see between the two formulations is that Buel’s latest version does not speak to control of either group. It doesn’t say that either is “headed” by anyone.  

Now, that’s interesting. In order to make things perfectly clear, we’d like to offer Buel and his new business associates as much space as they need to explain completely, in their own words via e-mail, exactly who’s going to own the new Express, and even more important, who’s going to control it? 

We do have few more questions we’d like them to answer while they’re at it. Still not public: Who are these eight people? We’ve heard about localites Buel and Kelly Vance on one “team,” and according to the San Francisco Bay Guardian there’s a Monterey guy named Bradley Zeve in Brody’s group.  

How about the other four? Who are they? Are they local? For that matter, where does Brody hang out these days?  

One major question: What’s the form of ownership? That’s what determines who controls the enterprise.  

Is it a partnership, and if so is there a managing partner? Or is it some kind of corporation, and if so, might there be two classes of stock, voting and non-voting? Who’s on the board? If it’s a partnership, does one of the eight investors have enough ownership to have control of the whole?  

The Guardian reported that Brody told them he had a “plurality.” That might have been where our source’s “51 percent” came from— a plurality is not exactly the same thing as a majority, but similar in effect. Everyone’s equal, but some are more equal than others, perhaps? 

And what’s the relationship of the new entity’s advertising sales department to the New Times chain that it’s supposedly separating from? Various news accounts have characterized the deal in various ways, but let’s just give Buel et al one more chance to tell us in their own words just what the plan is. Advertising policy is important, because it’s at the center of the Guardian’s predatory pricing suit against New Times, which is still very much alive. 

We have plenty of room available for Buel’s complete answers in his own words to these questions, and for anything else he might like to add. If his e-mail comes in before noon on Thursday, it could even be in our Friday print paper.”  

And Buel responded promptly, if not completely: 

“Your recent article about the change in ownership at the East Bay Express contained some errors with regard to our new ownership structure. My partner Hal Brody and I have each assembled small groups of investors who collectively own 50 percent of the newspaper. Hal’s team consists of himself and two friends; my team consists of myself and four friends. Among our investors are original Express co-founder Kelly Vance, who is once again reviewing movies for the paper, and Bradley Zeve, the founder of the Monterey County Weekly. Our other investors are silent partners with no other East Bay business interests or conflicts. Hal and I are the sole corporate officers of our new company, East Bay Publishing LLC.  

“I would also like to make it clear that this is a very amicable transition between ourselves and Village Voice Media. As I noted in the editor’s note in which I announced the purchase to our readers, I am very proud of the time I have spent working for the paper’s prior owner. Under their guidance, the Express enlarged its editorial staff, professionalized its reporting, sharpened its news coverage, and tightened its writing. While we will indeed do some things differently at the new Express, it would be unfortunate if readers of the Planet were left with the impression that I have a low regard for the company that I’ve spent the last six years working for. In fact, they are the best employers I’ve ever had.”  

Lots of words expended on this discussion, producing very little new information..... Some outstanding questions: Is Hal Brody the investor-in-charge, or isn’t he? Does he have a controlling interest in the venture, whatever his percentage?  

On May 16 the Express’s East Bay Blog said that “Brody will take over as publisher of the Express,” but later reports elsewhere say the former head of ad sales for the Bay Guardian will be the new publisher. And is Brody still living in Kansas City? Is he still a commercial real estate broker there, as one web site indicates?  

Is it correct to say that the revised Express will be locally owned, or are Buel and Vance the only investors who can really claim to be local? On the Express’s East Bay Blog Buel said that the “silent partners...live elsewhere”, a data point omitted in his response to us. Does it matter who they are or where they live or how they made their money? Are they in any way connected with the former New Times chain, which has now acquired the Village Voice Media label, the “best employers” editor Buel says he’s ever had?  

And how is the joint NT/VVM-Express advertising agreement going to work? That’s a whole big can of worms which we’ll leave for the Bay Guardian to empty out as part of their suit.  

One more thing: the name of the new corporation: East Bay Publishing Limited Liability Corporation. They might want to run that choice by the East Bay Publishing Corporation, the long-time publisher of the San Leandro Times and the Castro Valley Forum. According to Claudette Morrison, the office manager at the East Bay Publishing Corporation, her company has no connection to the Express venture. 

Outside my window the scrub jays are engaged in their annual uproar. It might be about sex, it might be about fledglings, it might be about squirrels—who knows, but there’s always a bunch of them, and they’re always raucous. It’s possible even the jays have forgotten by now why they do it, but they do it every spring. 

As I’m watching them, I’m also watching the video clip of last week’s Berkeley City Council discussion of the latest version of proposals from Mayor Tom Bates to remove unsightly persons from the viewshed of potential shoppers: his Public Commons for Some People Initiative (PCFSPI). It makes the jays look civil.  

How many readers of the Planet actually watch or listen to the Berkeley City Council in action? Folks, if you love democracy you’ve got to do it. There’s a bunch of ways to see our current council in action. If you have cable television, Berkeley Community Media broadcasts it live, and then replays the tape several times during the week. It’s live on KPFA’s extra radio channel, KPFB. If you have high-speed Internet access (this is ideal for the two or three hundred well-heeled folks who vote on Kitchen Democracy) you can watch real-time, or check out the video segments, handily labelled so you can skip around, a couple of days later. Or, god forbid, you could even attend the City Council meetings in person. 

Yes, yes, the cliche launched by Otto von Bismarck is that people who love law or sausages shouldn’t watch either being made. But if it’s democracy you love, it’s your civic duty to see what laws are being made in your name, whether you enjoy the experience or not. 

The fracas that ended the last meeting was an all-time low in a series of public embarrassments that have been getting worse every time. Max Anderson put it politely: “We’re not at our best”—right before he put on his coat and walked out, along with Betty Olds, effectively halting the spectacle. Thank goodness. 

And what’s ironic is that it’s all avoidable. The PCFSPI topic is one that’s obviously fraught with controversy, so there’s no possible excuse for putting it at the end of a long and difficult agenda. It was after 11 when the council got to it. 

Several of the councilmembers started out by making intelligent if obvious remarks. Capitelli said you shouldn’t punish public elimination when you don’t have any public toilets open. Maio said you shouldn’t punish people sleeping on the sidewalk who don’t have beds to go to. Betty Olds said that providing such amenities was going to cost a bunch of money, and raising parking fees to do it would drive away even more shoppers. All good points, but they had to struggle to make them. Anderson came out against cruelty. Wozniak contributed a mish-mash of poorly digested statistics from the New York Times, just irrelevant, not harmful.  

But when Worthington and Spring attempted to introduce well-thought-out substantive ideas, the mayor, who was presiding as usual, stomped all over them. He’s a sound-byte kinda guy on his best days, and late at night he’s not very patient. Worthington tried valiantly to make a substitute motion, but was interrupted before he could even finish reading it. “We’re supposed to be out of here in nine minutes,” said Bates. 

Spring tried several times to get recognized, and when she finally was, asked for five minutes to speak because she’d so often been gavelled down when she attempted to talk about the topic. We never! said the mayor indignantly. (Oh sure. There’s a video guy and disability activist who’s threatened to make a video of nothing but instances of Bates interrupting Spring, as a lesson in how disabled people get shut out of conversations.) 

This is no way to make important decisions. Berkeley is becoming a laughingstock in the regional and even national media because of the proposal to use a no-smoking law to solve pressing problems on the streets, and yet no real solutions have been placed on the table in coherent form. Yesterday’s Chronicle had a front-page puff piece in which a Berkeley city staffer riffed on his bright ideas for Draconian laws to end global warming in Berkeley (“Ban Wedgwood stoves!”) which haven’t even been discussed at City Council, much less voted into law. Who’s in charge here, anyhow? 

Is there any way to bring the City Council back into the decision loop? They’re really not bad people, some of them even caring and intelligent human beings, but their hands are increasing tied by the way issues are presented to them. 

Here are a few of the things that are wrong with the picture, not everything but it’s a start: 

1) Too much meaningless paper. A recent council packet was 1,400 pages long (sadly, not 1,400 words as we mistakenly said here). Councilmembers freely admitted that they hadn’t read it. 

2) Meaningful paper delivered at the last amen minute. The important report on the health of Berkeleyans was delivered at 5 p.m. just as the workshop to discuss it started. Councilmembers were thumbing through it, but reading it? No. 

3) Meetings start too late, and therefore are over too late. Ceremonial items often delay the start of the action agenda until 8 or later. In Santa Cruz, non-controversial and ceremonial items are heard in the afternoon, leaving only the important things that the public needs to be able to watch to be heard at night, so the meetings ends at a reasonable hour. None of our councilmembers has a conventional 9-to-5 job, and several are retired, so they could easily adopt this schedule. 

4) Too few meetings. This is the biggy. Under the current mayor and council, vacations (“recesses”) have gotten longer and longer, and council has taken to meeting only every other week. As a result important city business is crammed into fewer and fewer meetings, which thus get longer and longer. Our councilmembers need to curtail their world travel (and reduce their carbon footprint) so that they can just have more meetings. 

It’s tempting to blame the length of recent meetings on the number of public comments allowed, but the city is simply complying, under threat of a lawsuit, with the state law which requires them to be heard. And if the PCFSPI, to take just one controversial example, hadn’t been tossed on to the council agenda from out of right field, but had been introduced and discussed at the relevant commissions in the first place, those whose conscience compels them to weigh in on the topic (and I include myself) wouldn’t have to speak at all these council meetings, and everyone could go home earlier. 

KITCHEN DEMOCRACY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In your May 22 editorial, you wrote that Kitchen Democracy is “an east-hills-oriented URL funded in part through Councilmember Gordon Wozniak’s office account.” This is misleading. Kitchen Democracy is a non-profit, all-volunteer organization whose only agenda is to promote healthy civic discourse. Last July the full Berkeley City Council unanimously approved a $3,000 grant to Kitchen Democracy proposed by Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. Our 2,000 users live in all eight Berkeley districts, as well as Kensington and Oakland. Any resident can post any issue regarding any neighborhood or the whole city at www.KitchenDemocracy.org — there is no “orientation” enforced by Kitchen Democracy staff. If the Daily Planet disagrees with opinions expressed by users on a Kitchen Democracy issue, and wishes to promote civic discourse in Berkeley, it should publish civil arguments directed at the issue—not misleading statements directed against the forum itself. 

Robert Vogel 

Kitchen Democracy 

• 

CLEAN-UP CAMPAIGN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Noah Grant’s May 25 letter to the editor criticizes the current student move-out clean-up campaign co-sponsored by the city and university—and the Planet’s coverage of it—as having “missed a key point: recycling.” I’m afraid it’s Mr. Grant who missed the point, which was clearly stated in the earlier Planet article: “Door hangers were also hung up on the north side and the south side which alerted students about ways to recycle their trash . . . a drop-off recycling center will be set-up on the Clark Kerr campus. Non-profits such as the Alameda County Food Bank and the American Cancer Society will be there to pick up stuff. Computer parts and anything with a plug will be picked up by computer resource centers.”  

In addition, there has been a considerable amount of informal scavenging from the debris boxes, which is fine as long as the scavengers do not leave a mess behind. Finally, when the debris boxes are taken to the city’s transfer station the contents are sorted and recycled to the extent possible. 

There are some individuals who assume they can leave furniture and mattresses on the sidewalks of Berkeley and “someone will take it.” But too often no one does and the items are left to clutter the neighborhood until the city eventually hauls them away. In some cases, the items left curbside are toxic. It is everyone’s responsibility to prevent this kind of environmental pollution.  

Irene Hegarty 

• 

LOOKING FOR  

GOOD SAMARITAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On May 17, just after noon, I took a spill while going down Marin Avenue on my bike, near the intersection of Monterey, when I hit an “invisible” pothole. 

While unconscious I’m told someone in a van stopped behind me, preventing others from possibly doing me further injury and stayed until the Berkeley police arrived. I assume this person also called 911. He or she then left without giving his or her name to the officer. 

To this Good Samaritan: I would very much like to thank you in person. If you see this letter please contact me at dpbergen@cwnet.com. If you still want to remain anonymous, I hope you at least see this letter in the Daily Planet and thus receive my heartfelt thanks this way. 

David Bergen 

• 

CONDELL’S RESPONSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I feel I must respond to the May 22 letter from Peace and Justice Commissioner Elliot Cohen in which he again accuses me of racism for criticizing people who teach their children to hate Jews. I realize Mr. Cohen is motivated by his own narrow personal and political agenda which has nothing to do with me or the video clip, but I must object to his assertion, also made by this newspaper in the original story, that I called the prophet Mohammed “a rambling desert nomad with a psychological disorder.” Anyone who takes the trouble to listen to the video will hear that I’m referring to non-Muslims in the UK who, emboldened by the success of Muslims in demanding special treatment in British society, are now much more vocal in demanding respect for their own unprovable beliefs, and in fact I am referring to whoever wrote the Old Testament, not the Koran. I hope Mr. Cohen and the editor of this newspaper will both be big enough to review the video clip to establish what I actually said, and then offer a full retraction and apology for this important inaccuracy. 

Pat Condell 

• 

IMMIGRATION PLAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The latest Senate proposal of a new points system for immigration is just another attempt to exploit people in the name of “economic progress” and “security.” As is often the case, those with the fewest options will be exploited the most as those who come from more impoverished backgrounds will have to leave when we have taken what we can from them and given them as little as possible. Just as predictably, the debates quickly lapsed into a discussion on how to further eliminate the rights of non-citizens with a proposal to do away with certain aspects of judicial review. Let’s not forget that the Supreme Court has said “the Due Process Clause applies to all “persons” within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.” It’s sad that our Supreme Court needs to clarify that “aliens” are, indeed, people. When we start valuing people based on their education and ‘productive value’ at the expense of recognizing that they are human beings with families, we have failed in setting our priorities as a society. How can we talk of “family values” and then value the family so little? Why is it that we are so willing to eliminate rights that are supposed to be (ironically) “unalienable”? So much for “give me your poor…” 

Drew Sieminski 

• 

DOG PARK COMMENTARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On May 25, a commentary published by the Daily Planet stated it was submitted “on behalf of the Ohlone Dog Park Association.” Without commenting on the article’s content, which was satirical, we would like to clarify that its author did not have authority to speak on behalf of the Ohlone Dog Park Association.  

The Ohlone Dog Park  

Association Board of Directors: 

Chris Bohnert 

Larry Gritz 

Eileen Harrington 

Michael Isaacs 

Dawn Kooyumjian 

Tim McGraw 

Grant McGuire 

Lewis Stiller 

Laura Young 

• 

PIT BULL ATTACK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing in response to Sally Tarver’s letter about a pit bull that allegedly injured her sister’s poodle. Supposedly, the pit bull was being walked on a leash when the poodle ran off leash up to the dog. Tarver makes a point that the pit bull was not wearing a muzzle, which I find interesting since there is no law in Berkeley requiring any particular breed to wear a muzzle while being walked on leash down the street. However, there are generally laws throughout most of California requiring that dogs be on leash when not on their property. At the time of this incident, according to Tarver, the poodle was out of its yard, off leash, and it (“being the friendly sort”) charged the pit bull. Of course, just about every owner of an off leash dog that has run up growling or barking while I walked my dog past has claimed their dog to be “friendly.” That’s great. Leash laws, however, are in place for a reason. I like to think I have a right to walk my on leash dog down the street without being accosted by all those “friendly” dogs. 

While it’s terribly sad what happened to the poodle, if Tarver’s account is accurate, she should look more closely at the culpability of her sister. I walk my dog regularly throughout my neighborhood, and I’ve lost count of the number of times some dog runs out of its driveway or out of the open garage and charges, barking and growling at my leashed dog. Sometimes the owners make a half hearted attempt to call their dogs back, sometimes they don’t. I would very much like to be able to walk my dog on leash without being accosted by other people’s off leash dogs. On one occasion, two loose dogs charged me and my dog, knocked me down, while the owner sat in the front yard pretty useless trying to call his dogs, whom he likely believed were just “being friendly.” I suffered scrapes and bruises while my dog was obviously put on the defensive being restrained on leash while I was knocked to the ground.  

People, please, keep your dogs on leash when they aren’t on your property. By doing so, you will prevent injuries to your dog and to other people and their on leash dogs.  

Dawn Capp 

• 

TRAVEL TIME ESTIMATES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Charles Smith questioned the travel time estimates on the Caltrans signs. 

The information is taken in real time by reading any visible FasTrak transponders in the traffic stream and aggregating the point-to-point time results. They apparently tried the idea and were surprised at the accuracy of the results. (The program discounts likely idiosyncratic stops, exit and re-entry, and so on.) Once discovering its effectiveness, they put it up in several places on low priority, and it’s all automatic. 

Even “stuck in traffic” people can get a good idea of likely arrival time and perhaps call ahead, or be reassured the trip looks good. Some might decide to leave that route, easing traffic. And Caltrans can use the remote information as a heads-up. 

Cost of the system should mostly be limited to installing some FasTrak readers, since the signs themselves and their controls were already installed for other purposes. Any FasTrak users who don’t like the idea of being traced for this purpose can cover or remove their transponders when not needed. 

Actually, I think it’s pretty neat. 

Janet Foldvary 

• 

UNFAIR HOSTILITY  

TO DRIVERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Downtown Berkeley is afflicted with ever-fewer parking lots and ever-increasing meter rates. The “message” to drivers is to stay away. The only socially approved means of access seem to be by foot, by bicycle, or by public transit. 

Lost in the noise is the fact that a lot of residents live too far away to walk downtown, cannot/will not bike in hilly areas, and don’t have convenient public transit. (My area in the hills has infrequent bus service, and the getting to bus stops requires walking blocks up or down hill, something you don’t want to do if you’re lugging packages or kids or are simply older.) AC Transit is cutting back, not improving bus service. The logical result? People like me will stop coming downtown; we’ll shop elsewhere and rent movies. We’ll also feel unwelcome in our own city. 

I wish the hostility to drivers—exemplified by all those “Stop Driving” signs—would go away. In light of the fact that there’s no good alternative, the criticism is unfair. 

Laura Spurrier 

• 

BUS RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your reporter writes that, at the recent Transportation Commission meeting, “the only hearts and minds Bus Rapid Transit seems to have captured ... were those it already possessed.” 

But he should have said the same thing about the opposition. Virtually all the speakers against BRT at this meeting were the professional kvetches who work against everything proposed in Berkeley, from Brower Center to infill housing to environmentally sound transportation. 

There was a roughly equal number of speakers for and against BRT at this meeting. It is true, as you report, that the only applause during the hearing came when speakers opposed the plan—but that is just because the professional kvetches are in the habit of being noisy and disruptive. 

Charles Siegel 

• 

DEFAMATORY OP-ED PIECES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Citizens of Berkeley, beware: The Daily Planet will publish opinion pieces or letters that contain unverified, scurrilous statements about you, presented as facts, as well as publicizing the block you live on. 

I am referring to Sally Tarver’s May 25 opinion piece headlined: “People Injured in pit bull Attack.” From the headline to the closing statement complaining about not getting an apology, the facts presented are arguable; but I am aware that my own opinion may be considered biased. I know the woman who is fostering the dog who bit the poodle; and I know the dog, who is half or pit bull or less. I have been a volunteer dog walker for about a decade and have attended shelter-offered seminars by trainers Bob Gutierrez, Ian Dunbar and Kathy Kear, as well as a Bad Rap presentation. And I have received countless excellent, knowledgeable tips from this foster/rescue activist for socializing and healing shelter dogs. She knows her dogs, and she knows how to handle dogs. Her work fostering as well as finding homes for shelter dogs make Berkeley’s euthanasia rate among lowest of any comparable shelter in the entire state. 

Because what I have been told about the attack and Floy’s medical condition may be deemed hearsay or biased, I won’t go through Tarver’s piece paragraph by paragraph. But my understanding, as a member of the rescue community informed of the incident, is that there has been an apology and that the foster mom paid 75 percent of the bills. As for the dog’s throat being ripped out, it is unlikely an old dog would have survived if this were the case. Stating all this is not to deny or withhold sympathy for the poodle’s suffering; of course, dog-on-dog bites are traumatic occurrences. The question is whether the incident occurred as Tarver related it; her piece contained as much reporting of alleged facts as expression of opinions. Has the Daily Planet corroborated Tarver’s statements with the veterinarian who treated the dog?  

The more mundane lesson from this incident is that all cities need leash laws. Furthermore, according to Tarver’s own account, Floy’s owner was the party in violation of the leash laws when her dog left her property and she didn’t or couldn’t call it back. Off-leash dogs on public property are meant to be under strict voice control--to protect dogs and people. 

There is much more to say generally on the plight of shelter animals, which most citizens seem to want to avoid, but it’s probably better treated in a separate op-ed piece. For now, I would urge the Daily Planet, even regarding your opinion pieces: check the facts. 

Alexandra Yurkovsky 

• 

A PIECE O’ WORK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Joanna Graham is a piece o’ work. Let me say first that I am a Jewish Lebanese (born of Syrian Jews)-American, who immigrated from Lebanon in 1949) so your readers can judge where I come from. She writes “Have you heard about the Arab Peace Initiative lately? No and you won’t.” 

For everyone’s information, Joseph M. Segal, president of the Jewish Peace Lobby, co-author of “Negotiating Jerusalem” (2000), and director of the Peace Consultancy of the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies, sent a recent mailing to American Jews, in which was reprinted an article he wrote and published in Haaretz, a major Israeli newspaper, on Feb. 16, titled “Final status in a new era” and “Who’s Afraid of 194?” (the Saudi Peace Initiative), published in English and Hebrew on YNET, March 20, the online edition of Yediot Aharanot, Israel’s largest daily paper. 

What’s your problem Joanna Graham, and where do you come from? 

Carmel Hara  

(first name Hebrew, family name Arabic) 

• 

IMPLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY  

AT BHA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Let me get this straight: Back in 2002, HUD said the Berkeley Housing Authority was “troubled” and needed fixing. For five years, the Mayor and Council got reports from Housing Director Steve Barton, describing how he had tried, and failed, to fix the problems. Four BHA managers served under Barton, unsuccessfully. Reports of outright fraud surfaced in the papers more than a year ago. Now, facing an imminent shutdown of the BHA by the feds, the City Council preemptively fires everyone and “reorganizes” the mess. A bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, isn’t it? 

So who is accountable? Not the mayor or council, who conveniently replace themselves with their own appointees, people who can be trusted not to investigate what came before. Not Steve Barton, who has suddenly stopped writing memos, and who now says he didn’t know (didn’t know!) what was going on right under his nose. Not the middle managers, who are long gone. And not even the staff: management has conveniently blamed them collectively but punished no individuals, and every full timer “fired” will, per their contracts, simply be “rehired” elsewhere in the city at the same pay. Collective guilt, collective ignorance, collective forgiveness. 

Someone(s), somewhere(s), did something(s) very wrong. Twenty-five million dollars managed “incompetently” is nothing to sniff at, especially when that money is intended to house the poor. If the Council cannot or will not investigate this matter, then the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury ought to do it for us all. 

Laurel Leichter 

Sally Tarver’s commentary “People Injured in Pit Bull Attack” is an example of a justifiable emotional response to a distressing situation, transforming into a nasty personal attack.  

When a dog is mauled or killed by another dog it is one of the most disturbing acts to witness. We have, especially in America, so anthropomorphized our dogs, so prettied them up, so created them in the image of “family members” that we forget where they came from. And that they do not have “human” responses.  

When my small 10-pound mutt, Roo, was badly mauled a year ago by a dog she knew and had been around with no previous incident, I blamed myself, of course.  

It’s natural when our child or animal is hurt to feel we could have done more to protect them. The dog that attacked was a shepherd mix. Roo, a year later, acts as if nothing ever happened, and I hold out the hope to the Tarver’s that Floy’s emotional recovery will be the miracle out of this trauma.  

The dog this time, Buster, is a dog with no previous history of attack. He was in a foster home, whose experience with dogs and with pitbulls (a loose definition of a certain breed and cross breed type) in particular, is exemplary. He was on leash on the sidewalk. With no prior history, why would a dog be forced to wear a muzzle? He served a 10-day quarantine at the animal shelter, the foster home contributed $2,000 towards Floy’s medical expenses. Could they have done more? Perhaps. Are the pages of the local paper the place to discuss that? I don’t think so. 

Nothing diminishes the anguish felt by everyone concerned. But surely it is unnecessary to generate such unbridled hostility towards good people. Or to heighten the sense of fear we, as a community, feel towards this group of dogs. Buster was a shelter dog, one of millions abandoned in our shelters every year across the United States. The type of dog most abandoned in America? The pit bull cross. The type of dog most frequently killed in shelters? You guessed it. 

Encouraging education around dog ownership issues, funding and providing easy access to vaccine and spay/neuter programs, and bringing new ideas to the table about how to raise a new generation of children who are neither afraid of dogs, nor treat them as disposable, will ensure a future more secure for everyone—Floy, Roo, the Tarver’s, Buster, shelter dogs and the amazing people who look after them.  

Berkeley resident Jill Posener is an artist and photgrapher.

This is in response to the May 15 article by Judith Scherr, regarding earthquake retrofit standards in Berkeley. I am very happy the city is finally recognizing that a lack of standards has seriously compromised the safety of our community. However, I do not believe Ms. Scherr’s article sufficiently explored the consequence of this fact.  

I am a licensed general contractor, and as the owner of QuakePrepare, a firm that evaluates existing retrofit work, I have seen more than my share of retrofits in Berkeley. (I don’t perform retrofit work for my clients because of conflict of interest concerns).  

In April 2006, a team of building inspectors evaluated a large number of retrofits, and found that 69 percent of retrofits will not perform as intended. I actually believe this much too generous. I would say the number of improperly installed retrofits is closer to 90 percent. I base this on the fact that the inspection team did not dismantle any retrofit shear walls, and thus did not see behind the plywood. So their evaluations were not truly complete: this is where many retrofits fail the test. 

Allowing contractors to do retrofit work without giving them a code to follow, without requiring they have any special licensing, and without competent review of their work by the Building Department, has cost all of us a great deal of our tax money. As of 2002, the city had helped finance 12,000 retrofits and spent 8 million dollars in tax money.By now this amount could exceed 12 million dollars.  

Doing the simple math and using the 69 percent statistic in the study mentioned above, the city has spent at least $8,280,000 dollars on ineffective retrofits. For that kind of money, I think we should have gotten something that works.  

The city has failed to act responsibly by not spending your money wisely. Information on proper retrofit principles and techniques have been understood for a long time. Our Building Department seems to have completely ignored this. For example, tests done by the Structural Engineer’s Association of Southern California in 1992 proved that old foundations perform just as well in earthquakes as new foundations. Nevertheless, the transfer tax program, under the Building Department’s supervision, paid for all types of foundation work—regardless of whether it helped a home’s earthquake resistance.  

In addition to spending millions for ineffective retrofits, the city polices have greatly compromised our level of protection. Many people who now think that they are protected are actually living under a false sense of security. These badly retrofitted houses will need to be retrofitted all over again at higher cost. It is much more expensive to tear out a bad retrofit and replace it than it is to start from scratch.  

Retrofit shear walls, which are a component in practically every Berkeley retrofit, are very sensitive to improper installation. Shear wall construction is so complex that the International Code Council published an entire book on the subject. The book can be seen at www.shearwalls.com In spite of this, the city has never required retrofit shear wall framing inspections. If they are not framed properly, they will not work.  

We have no way of knowing if millions of dollars of retrofit shear walls were properly framed behind the plywood. From what I have seen first hand, I would say very few of them were properly framed.  

The Building Department has also been very lax in the permit process: there is currently no way to know what has already been done to a house. A contractor with one of the largest retrofit firms in Berkeley told me that six years ago he forgot to put bolt inspection holes in the plywood. The inspector called him and told him she could not see the bolts and she would need to see them before she could sign off his permit. He told her he did not want to tear off the plywood so what should he do? She said, “Take the bolts off the plans!” and ever since then, just to stream-line the inspection process, none of the plans he has submitted to the building department have shown bolts on them, yet they were all approved as seismic retrofits!  

The article further mentioned that “Plan Set A” is now the standard the city is has been using since February 1. The three largest retrofit companies in Berkeley have all stopped doing transfer tax retrofits because they claim Plan Set A does not apply to Berkeley’s housing stock. I must agree with them. One contractor is even offering a free retrofit to anyone who can show him a cripple wall retrofit where Plan Set A can actually work!  

I am also aware that city staff is now being asked to fix these problems and is being given $25,000 to do so. I assume “city staff” means the Building Department. Why should we entrust $25,000 to the same people who have mismanaged $12,000,000? The Building Department got us into this mess in the first place, and I don’t think they should be trusted to get us out.  

Is this more Berkeley politics as usual, i.e., once you discover something does not work you just keep on doing it? Does this make sense to anyone?  

I think common sense and public safety demand that we go back to the drawing board, admit that Plan Set A does not work, and spend whatever it takes to develop a standard that does work. I doubt $25,000 is enough to do this, especially when managed by a Building Department that has already shown gross incompetence in this matter.  

Compared to the millions of dollars already wasted, and the projected billions of dollars in property damage, ten times this amount would be a bargain. The transfer tax program was approved by popular vote in 1992 and good management and proper funding is what we all expect.  

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and gas shut-off valve installation service.  

This Memorial Day season we remember Berkeley’s fallen walkers. (It was called Remembrance Day in years gone by). Pedestrians killed on Berkeley streets by vehicle driver s nearly exceed all other killings, including murder.  

We honor Fred Lupke on behalf of all pedestrians who have died on Berkeley’s streets. Fred was a passionate pedestrian activist who fought for equal and universal access for everyone. Fred died in his wheelchair in a vehicle travel lane where the sidewalk was then impassable on Ashby Ave near the South Berkeley Senior Center. A new sidewalk was later built by Caltrans and the City. We urge everyone to walk, reclaiming our neighborhoods and city as well as our own personal health.  

Participate in upcoming public workshops on Berkeley’s Pedestrian Plan (www.altaplanning.com/berkeleypedestrianplan/index_files/Meetings.htm) and urge the city to fully fund needed walking improvements (clerk@ci.berkeley.ca.us). In Fred Lupke’s honor, let’s make Berkeley the safest, walkable city that it can be . 

Wendy Alfsen, Coordinator, Walk & Roll Berkeley 

MISSING THE POINT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Noah Grant’s letter to the editor in the May 25 Daily Planet criticizes the current student move-out clean-up campaign co-sponsored by the city and university—and the Planet’s coverage of it—as having “missed a key point: recycling.” I’m afraid it’s Mr. Grant who missed the point, which was clearly stated in the earlier Planet article: “Door hangers were also hung up on the north side and the south side which alerted students about ways to recycle their trash . . . a drop-off recycling center will be set-up on the Clark Kerr campus. Non-profits such as the Alameda County Food Bank and the American Cancer Society will be there to pick up stuff. Computer parts and anything with a plug will be picked up by computer resource centers.”  

In addition, there has been a considerable amount of informal scavenging from the debris boxes, which is fine as long as the scavengers do not leave a mess behind. Finally, when the debris boxes are taken to the city’s transfer station the contents are sorted and recycled to the extent possible. 

There are some individuals who assume they can leave furniture and mattresses on the sidewalks of Berkeley and “someone will take it.” But too often no one does and the items are left to clutter the neighborhood until the city eventually hauls them away. In some cases, the items left curbside are toxic. It is everyone’s responsibility to prevent this kind of environmental pollution.  

Irene Hegarty 

• 

DEAD TENANTS DESERVE RESPECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am shocked and appalled at the snide tone of your May 22 article, “Dead Tenants Get Low-Income Housing.” 

Dead tenants need low-income housing, too! Many of us—city administrators and School Board officials excepted—have lost our jobs. We often suffer severe discrimination. Even your esteemed newspaper is full of negative references to “deadwood,” “deadweight,” and “dead wrong.” 

Avaricious landlords don’t want to rent to dead people. They’d just as soon stick us in a hole in the ground or shuttle us off to Rossmoor. We must stand up for our rights and by this I don’t mean rigor mortis. 

I know you have a certain amount of sympathy for our cause. Many of you staff seem like kindred spirits. 

So please, give us the same objective treatment that you do Patrick Kennedy, Tom Bates and AIPAC. 

Gordon Ghostwriter 

• 

WESTIN HOTEL PROTEST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On May 3, I participated in a demonstration in front of the Westin Hotel in Oakland to protest the firing of undocumented women workers—a very moving demonstration by people of all ages and races. 

At the end, Loni Hancock spoke, as well as one of the fired workers. By that time there was a large group of young people sitting in the street, obviously risking arrest.  

I argued with myself for a few minutes, then decided, in spite of the difference in my age (80-plus), to sit down with them. Not for long—I was lifted to my feet, put to one side, and told that their lawyer was expecting a certain number doing civil disobedience, and I could not be included. Discarded! Oh well, next time! 

Frances Berges 

• 

WARM POOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If BUSD will promise to subsidize swimmers at a new warm pool including new parking costs, additional swim fees about the current $2 per use, and other new costs such as locker room fees, showering fees, etc., and if BUSD will promise in writing not to tear down the gym and old pools until new facilities are ready to use, then and only then might I go along with BUSD plans to demolish the old gym. 

Frankly, I think BUSD fails to recognize the financial plight of most warm pool users; I believe the school board sneers at and dismisses the needs of the warm pool users, mistaking warm pool users for metal and emotionally disabled and the homeless. 

Frankly, I suspect BUSD has no idea how much teachers and students will have to pay to park in a new parking structure built by nobody knows who, and nobody knows what cost per vehicle...but probably more than $10,000 per car space minimum, more likely at least half again more than that. 

Frankly, I believe BUSD directors are hypocrites who have not read any of the engineers’ reports on the condition of the pools and old gym. Reading the charts in ABS Consulting’s report would clarify what is safer than what; the students who continue to use the main gym and its dressing rooms are in more danger than the few students moved to the Y who used to use the pool; See quotes in the May 4 Tribune by BUSD’s PR man, Mark Coplan. Possibly the engineers’ and ABS’s reports are incorrect; they are certainly confusing. ABS relies on calculations made for the SOHA reports seventeen years ago, which reports themselves are error-prone. 

My belief is that new swim fees will be between five and ten dollars per use, minimum, and parking will be between five and $15 per day. I will not be able to park and swim at those rates. 

The district failed to replace screens on new windows at south pool, in their grand wisdom, and now one huge panel has been smashed again. The city paid $6,000 to replace the windows a few months ago. The district is penny-wise and pound-foolish.  

Terry Cochrell 

• 

PRISON REFORM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

California needs prison reform now more than ever. With a dangerously overcrowded system that disproportionately incarcerates African-Americans and other minorities we need to shift the focus from building new prisons and place greater emphasis on prevention programs. 

Like many Bay Area cities, Richmond has a higher per capita percentage of residents who are parolees as compared to other cities in California. I have had the opportunity to work with programs that help these men and women get connected to support and I have seen first hand how the lack of state and federal funding for these programs has made it more difficult for parolees to successfully re-enter our communities. A great opportunity for helping these individuals is to create job training programs that will help the formerly incarcerated get into good paying jobs like those offered through union apprenticeship programs. 

California’s 70 percent recidivism rate underscores the need for more re-entry programs that can help those formerly incarcerated get connected to jobs and training programs, literacy programs, and substance abuse programs. As the California Legislature approaches a new fiscal year, greater emphasis must be placed on insuring there are state dollars to support reentry programs for those formerly incarcerated and meaningful rehabilitations programs that will help the incarcerated make successful transitions into society upon release. State efforts should also focus on creating alternative sentencing programs for youth offenders who commit non-violent crimes. These youth should be directed to programs where they will be given the chance to re-pay society for their crimes and have access to rehabilitative programs that can help them get a GED or diploma, counseling, training, mentoring, and support. This investment will help young offenders become constructive members of society rather than putting them on a path towards long-term incarceration. 

It was once stated that it would be cheaper to send a person to Harvard for a year than to house them in prison for a year. With that in mind let’s start focusing on the best ways to reduce incarceration rates, improve education, and eliminate poverty in California. 

Tony Thurmond 

Richmond City Councilmember 

• 

NIRVANA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We were marooned for 15 years in the San Joaquin Valley, working five-day weeks and escaping on long weekends to San Francisco. As we drove up the I-5, KPFA would suddenly appear on the radio dial. Nirvana! Music, classical, international, jazz; intelligent discussions; real news: A whole new world not accessible in the Valley. 

When we retired and moved promptly to the Bay Area, KPFA became and continued to be our medium of choice. Thank God, none of the mellifluous voices and “sponsored” programs of NPR. Admittedly, both KQED and KPFA do fundraising, but at least KPFA confines it to four times a year, while sponsors lurk 24-7 on KQED. 

Uneven program quality and bickering are probably inevitable on KPFA, a station whose roots go back only five decades to a tiny anti-war beginning. I’ll continue, gratefully, to contribute as much as I can, listen to the programs I want, and then read a good book. Many thanks to everyone at KPFA. 

Beth Wilson 

Oakland 

• 

CAPTAIN SLATER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On behalf of the Slater family, I would like to thank the Daily Planet and writer Daniella Thompson for the fine May 18 article on Captain Slater’s house—my great-grandfather and his home on Shattuck Avenue. 

As a Berkeley native and fourth-generation resident, I am very interested in the city and its history. We are fortunate to have groups such as the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association and the Berkeley Historical Society. But most of all, we are very fortunate to have a fine, locally owned newspaper—a rarity these days and a welcome antidote to the corporate garbage that passes for journalism in the rest of the East Bay. 

Keep up the good work. 

Paul Slater 

• 

YASSIR CHADLY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Although I now live in San Francisco, I spent my youth at the Berkeley public pools, along with Strawberry Canyon and Lake Anza. But it took the encouragement of my mother and the sense of community created by Yassir Chadly to make me a swimmer. In the fall of 2005, while living in Berkeley, I wanted to get into swimming, become a swimmer, and Yassir’s warmth and tips, very presence and attitude helped to take the sting out of the learning curve, making the pool and the water, quite simply, a much nicer place to be. Now back in The City, I get the chance to swim with my mother in the Berkeley public pools once every few months. I relish both the chance to join my mother in her element, in one of her passions, but also the chance to see this man. I know of very few people in this world that give so much to so many with such grace. It is something one recognizes about him in the very first minutes you’re in his presence. 

Thus, I would also ask the city to keep Yassir in place with all his previous benefits. Yassir plays a vital role to countless Berkeley residents and also to at least one beyond its borders. 

Felix Brenner 

• 

CALTRANS SIGNS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One of the stupidest, most idiotic things any bureaucracy ever did was when Caltrans put the signs that give an estimate of the time it will take to reach some place ahead. 

What does that mean for anyone stuck in traffic? Is it the time it would ordinarily take a driver traveling at the speed limit? 

Do those signs appear in the Sign Planning Manual? Did anyone in the whole organization object? Are they a pet project of someone who can’t be challenged? Was federal money involved? Has the federal inspector general’s office approved of them? 

Maybe Caltrans had some money they had to spend or they would lose it. It does happen. 

Why didn’t they spend it on bus stops at every interchange, like there is in Marin? 

Charles Smith 

• 

GRAHAM’S HIT PIECE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Joanna Graham and I have butted heads in these pages before. To be sure, there is no love lost, and I admit that I regard her as a very crude propagandist for the anti-Israel cause. As one example, among many, she has called Kuresh Arianpour’s now infamous Aug. 8, 2006 anti-Semitic screed published in the Daily Planet as an op-ed “eloquent.” Its thesis, readers will remember, was that Jews are racists who thereby caused all of their own miseries throughout history, from their enslavement in Egypt through the Holocaust. O’Malley claims to have published it only as an exercise in free speech, and even she has roundly denounced the piece. Not so Graham. For her it was “eloquent.” Should Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion be upheld for their eloquence also? But I digress. 

In her latest piece of libel, Graham, with no evidence whatsoever, and no doubt out of a sense of revenge for the times that I have called her to task in these pages, seeks to tie me into Wornick’s place on the Peace and Justice Commission. I am not in any way Wornick’s “mentor,” as Graham claims. I know him, but not well. He certainly did not ask my opinion before sending a video link about Islam to Peace and Justice members, nor did he copy me on his e-mail to O’Malley. And neither he, nor anyone else on the commission, is working the “Gertz plan,” as per Graham’s delusional claims, since no such plan exists. 

Graham deems that anyone who does not vote anti-Israel resolutions on the Peace and Justice Commission must be Gertz’s “nominee.” No sitting or past member of the commission was ever my nominee in any sense of the word. Graham fabricates this lie out of whole cloth. I have expressed my opinion about the Peace and Justice Commission. O’Malley has abetted me in this by publishing my thoughts from time to time. But it is a leap of fantasy to suggest that I run the show. 

Graham accuses me of “fealty to a foreign master” and “serving . . . on behalf of Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.” I am a proud American, not an Israeli spy, and I have long advocated in this publication and elsewhere an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, Gaza (both accomplished, thank goodness), and almost all of the West Bank (soon, I hope). Graham, again on the basis of absolutely no evidence, “presumes” that I am out to stop the Peace and Justice Commission from considering Iraq, Afghanistan, oil policy, nuclear weapons, and more. Utter nonsense. Be my guest, commissioners, debate them all. However, Ms. Graham, I can tell you with certainty that no one on the commission is waiting for this permission slip.  

To digress again, Graham assures readers that Azmi Bishara, an Arab-Israeli member of parliament faces the death penalty for treason (he has been accused of spying for Hizbollah). Ms. Graham, Palestinians routinely conduct summary executions for “treason” (no trial necessary in your precious Palestine). Israel, being a civilized democracy, has a fiercely independent judiciary, and does not have a death penalty. 

But my real beef is not with Graham but with O’Malley, who would deign to publish such libelous hysterics.  

John Gertz 

• 

ISRAEL/PALESTINE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

According to McClatchy, in 2006 the Israeli death toll from the conflict hit a six-year low; further, successful suicide bombings nearly came to a halt. On Monday, May 21, that period of relative calm and security (for Jews only, not for Palestinians!) ended when an Israeli woman was killed by a Qassam rocket in Sderot. I have been unable to find out her name or age; nevertheless, I feel a strange and sad connection with her because 24 days earlier, in these pages, I predicted her death. You might say she died in a martyrdom operation, although I doubt she knew she had been chosen or agreed to her own sacrifice. 

Here’s what happened. Israel was being subjected to what it most dreads: a “peace offensive.” The Palestinians were mostly abiding by a self-imposed ceasefire; Hamas and Fatah had formed a unity government; and the Arab League had met and dusted off the Saudi peace plan. 

The ball was in Israel’s court. But Israel doesn’t want peace. It wants to keep the occupied territories. However, Israel can never publicly admit this. It can’t afford to look obstructionist. Therefore, the other side must always be the problem. 

What Israel badly needed was Palestinian violence causing Israeli civilian deaths. 

So Israel embarked on a methodical campaign of assassination until, finally, Hamas called off its ceasefire. It was at that point I made my prediction, which came true so shortly thereafter.  

Announcing further military operations, Foreign (and potential Prime) Minister Tzipi Livni said, “Israel will defend its citizens.” What she meant was, “It’s working! Everyone is stupid—except us Jews.” Have you heard about the Arab Peace Initiative lately? No, and you won’t. As Dov Weisglass—Ariel Sharon’s Karl Rove—famously remarked on a previous, similar occasion, it is now “in formaldehyde.” 

Joanna Graham 

• 

PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Congratulations to the Daily Planet for looking into the considerable costs of RFID at Berkeley Public Library, and for uncovering the fact that the cost of RFID tags has increased 84 percent for the media/donut tags (from $1.15 to $2.12 each), and increased 28 percent for the regular tags (from 60 cents to 77 cents each)—just since September, 2005, and despite predictions to the contrary. 

Of course, the price increases are even more dramatic when compared with the much lower cost of the previously installed bar code technology. 

In the last several years, the most important assets of the library were cut—staff, book budgets, and open hours—even as privacy-threatening RFID was installed at a cost the union has estimated at more than $2 million. It is an unfortunate record of misplaced priorities.  

For the record, my comments about the failure of price cuts for RFID tags to actually occur were not directed at any individual’s comments, but at the general concept. As I mentioned to the article’s author, RFID tags made by one vendor cannot routinely be read by the equipment of another vendor. Thus, each vendor, including Berkeley Public Library’s vendor, Checkpoint, obtains a kind of “lock” on its customers. When customers do not have the ability to get tags from other vendors, they are not in a good position to resist their vendor’s price increases.  

This lack of “interoperability” unfortunately makes the library vulnerable to rising costs in all aspects of its RFID operation, and vulnerable to increasing drains on the money that staff and public alike want for both staff and materials that support the core functions of the library. We hope you continue to review questions about RFID, including a recent $108,000 RFID allocation that library staff said could better be used for staffing, and the concerns raised by a March, 2007 report from the union that suggests additional problems and costs may be attributable to RFID from an increase in worker injuries since RFID was installed.  

Peter Warfield 

Executive Director,  

Library Users Association 

• 

Y-SCHOLARS PROGRAM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hello, My name is Abdur Shemsu and I am a senior at Berkeley High School. I have been a part of the Y-Scholars program since ninth grade. 

It has always been my goal to attend college, but since I will be the first in my family to pursue a university education, neither my family not I knew how to get there. I knew Y-Scholars would help and I was eager to get started. I participated in Academic Support Group meetings where a UC Berkeley Coordinator taught us about college requirements job applications, and scholarships. I attended tutoring to receive help on my homework and exams, SAT prep courses that improved my score by over 200 points, and college panels where I spoke to college students and gained an understanding of college life and its process. I took advantage of many other services provided through Y-Scholars and because of all their guidance and support, I was well equipped to enter my senior year. 

The first semester of my senior year, like for all seniors, was tough. Not only was I taking a rigorous course load that included honors and AP classes, I was also applying to colleges, scholarships and financial aid. Since my parents knew nothing about the process, I was left to handle this load on my own. Thankfully, Y-Scholars was there to help me. Since I was a senior, I didn’t have to attend Academic Support Group or tutoring. Instead, I was given my own personal college advisor who helped me throughout the whole process. We researched colleges together, wrote, edited and revised personal statements, applied to scholarships, and filled out the FAFSA. My coordinator also wrote numerous letters of recommendation for scholarships and academic programs, looked over my school assignments to make sure I wasn’t falling behind in school and kept me motivated throughout all of this even when things were looking down. 

Y-Scholars really helped me get through my senior year, and because of them, I have been accepted into UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Clara University, and all the Cal States I applied to! I am very proud of my accomplishments and it is because of Y-Scholars that I have to overcome my family hardships and my financial circumstances. Thank you Y-Scholars, and thank you for helping me raise money for a program that has made a difference in my life. 

Thank you for caring, and thank you for making a difference. 

Abdur Shemsu 

• 

GLOBAL WARMING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Global warming it the most serious issue facing this country today. For example, there are a lot of cars and trucks on the freeways here in the Bay Area, which result in heavy traffic. With both cars and trucks stuck there for hours, the smoke that comes out of them goes into the air. It seems that some people cannot survive even a day without a car. 

However, there are two groups that use the bus as their only transportation. They are seniors and the disabled. The majority of them are helping to combat global warming here in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties, by not either owning or driving a car. So it is a travesty that the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District still has a bus pass costing $20 a month for both these groups of people. I urge AC Transit to have some balance by lowering the price of the bus pass for both seniors and the disabled. 

Billy Trice, Jr. 

Oakland 

• 

GREAT SUMMER FUN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Want something fun to do with your kids this summer while also getting out in the sun and fresh air? How about volunteering at your local animal shelter walking dogs? These dogs would love the exercise and you just might get some licks and kisses. 

Vanessa Gaglione 

• 

UNRELIABLE DEMOCRATS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On May 22, the Democratic leadership led by San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi cut a deal with the Bush regime to continue funding the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars are illegal under international law and immoral under any decent standard. Funding them is complicity in war crimes even under the guise of “supporting the troops” which was one of the Democratic excuses for this deal. 

Why should anyone opposed to an unjust war wish to fund the troops to prosecute such a war. Would it have been OK for Germans to support the German troops in their prosecution of Hitler’s war as long as they personally opposed Hitler and the war? You can not support the troops and not also support the war in which they are fighting. We should support troops like Lt. Watada who have refused to fight in Iraq. But those fighting Bush’s war deserve no support in that war. 

In announcing the dastardly deal, Pelosi stated, “It is a new direction in Iraq that the American people called for. The president is finally conceding he has to be accountable.” Senator Harry Reid also claimed victory, “I don’t think there’s any way you can stretch what we’ve done in this supplemental as a defeat. Look how far we’ve come.” 

I am looking at the “new direction” and at “how far we’ve come” and we are on the same old road to destruction. The war in Afghanistan is now in its seventh year and the Iraq war is in its fifth year. Hundreds of thousands have needlessly died in these imperialist wars. Blood is on the hands of anyone who enables Bush to continue his crimes against humanity. 

Half-a-trillion dollars have been spent to defend and expand the U.S. global empire through these two wars and if the Bush regime is not stopped, we will soon face a third war in Iran. The Democrats can cut-off funding for the wars and impeach Bush, but both ideas are “off the table” according to their leaders. 

We can not rely on the Democrats to halt the fascist program of the Bush regime. Only concerted mass action can do so. Bush must be impeached. Funding must be stopped for crimes committed in our names. To find out how you can help, see worldcantwait.org. 

Kenneth J. Theisen 

Oakland 

• 

FUNDAMENTALISM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

For those still in the dark about Bush and his administration, its agenda and motives: Fundamentalists, unchecked, can destroy not only the World Trade Center but any country in the world, if given the chance. It was fundamentalists that flew airplanes into our buildings and it was another kind of fundamentalism that responded by attacking and occupying Iraq. From President Bush’s first use of the word “crusade” a fundamentalist mindset has been driving American policies, just as a comparable fundamentalism drives the attacks of our enemies. 

Fundamentalism is alive and well in our country’s borders, at home in the offices of the White House and the Pentagon (remember Lt. General William Boykin’s comments) as much as in the hills of Afghanistan and desert of Iraq. The Bush administration and Republicans will only become more extreme as time goes on, if they retain power. 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 

• 

AROUND THE CORNER AND  

UP YOUR BLOCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When it comes down to “other peoples’ money,” communities in Berkeley may inevitably find themselves involved in a prospective Utility Underground Program. This account of such an involvement focuses on the imperative to total procedural disclosure ... caveat, caveat ... usually included as an essential “gratuity” in any project of this magnitude and scope. 

Lack of specific consent datum and procedural guidelines as officially established in letter and intent subordinate this entire process to a mere formality. Going through the motions with wink-wink, quid pro quo politics also relegate the city of Berkeley, once esteemed as a city of intellectual enlightenment, to one of self-serving entitlement. 

If a proposed utility underground is more corporately expedient in promotion, as in this instance, than it is collectively engaged, acquisition of the end purpose becomes the integral component, by choice and presumptive design, in a very flawed process. As refers to this case in point ... the portentous assertion, “We’re going to do it anyway!” ... or the one-time great deal sell “Others paid $50,000 (or was it $35,000, or maybe $25,000) for the same thing!” ... and the ultimate ruse “You aren’t going to have any electricity!” These “hard sell” verbal vindictives appear subjectively conclusive as to their end, and objectively obscured as to their means of accomplishment. 

Also related specifically to hands-on access of the original disclosure guideline is the amorphously manipulated (or now lowered) 60 percent initial petition of consent by consensus, which dovetails the final 2/3 voter approval count of ballots cast (received). As regards the hands-on promotion of this underground, pursuant to the initial petition, schematic datum of the properties involved with calculated duns ... or the “done-deal,” complete with financial-aid options, for the less fortunate, are dispersed with alacrity. 

Embedded in the residual of this pervasive attrition is the “just hatched” neoclass of expendables, e.g. the elderly, new nesters, and no throw away doughers, who ultimately assume by pecuniary design, worst case scenarios ... property tax liens and/or incontrovertible debt. Recourse, as reasonable intervention and review of the process is “a day at divorce court.” Pile up a white collar laundry of bombastic diatribe, purposeful equivocations, pin-the-tail politics and the voice of counter-intuitivism, “How could I treat my neighbors so?” Some empowered advocates embrace city hall, while others are on a “Tahitian vacation.” 

As a cosmetic “eye-tuck” to upgrade the beauty of the surround and enhance panoramic ambiance, or if that’s too dilettante, maybe up the safety quotient for we few ... another emergent neoclass, Berkeley’s oligarchical plutocracy, as averred, “Did what they want to do and any way they can.” 

Why not an aboveboard underground? Is the answer obvious, or is it “just because we could?” without the intrigue, “all” may have had their own way anyway; maybe not ... honestly, we’ll never know! 

Margaret E. Castillo 

How can people live together best? Is it by owning things and working individually, or by sharing things and working together? The 20th century preferred owning, but the 21st century will have to do more sharing—even in a nation blessed with an abundance of space, resources, and wealth.  

Recently, the California Studies Association hosted a conference called the “Crisis of the California Commons.” The conference gave me an interesting perspective on Berkeley’s land use struggles. 

Broadly, “the commons” is any space or resource that is shared, or used in common, by a defined user group (usually the public, or commoners). The traditional commons includes tangible public spaces like parks, roads, and waterways, accompanied, increasingly, by the means to use those spaces (disabled access, bathrooms, etc.). The commons also includes some provisions of nature: the air we breathe, the water we (or our crops or livestock) drink, greenspace, some energy sources, and perhaps species and genomes. It includes semi-tangible resources, such as the visual commons (views) and the auditory commons (“earspace”), and certain cultural commons embodied in physical form, such as historic buildings. And finally there are the intangible cultural commons: the information or knowledge commons, the legal commons, the moral commons—the entire shared and used database of ideas accumulated over human history.  

History reveals a continuous tug-of-war between the expansion and the “enclosure” of the commons. Humankind started out with more in common and less in private, but over time the feudal aristocracy managed to enclose, constrain, or privatize ever more spaces; later, materialism and capitalism continued to commodify resources. These days, more privatization is the agenda of the right, and more “commonism” has been the agenda of the left. Major expansions of the commons have included the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, the New Deal, and the Environmental Protection Act. In contrast, perhaps because taking things away from the majority is difficult, enclosures of the commons are rarely so cataclysmic. They are usually quiet, even covert, and incremental (like the privatization of the university or the penal system), and/or very slow (like the conquest of the New World). Hitler’s Enabling Act, the Reagan Revolution, and the Patriot Act are remarkable exceptions. 

The public uses the commons, but often the public does not own or control them. They may be privately owned (like media), or public-private partnerships (like private museums, telecommunications, some transit). Politically speaking, the commons are anything a given group of people thinks they are and can successfully claim and defend. Thus the commons are as much psychological as physical, and once the public has appropriated the “space,” it may be politically impossible for the “owner” to retrieve it. This is why the university wants to keep the Memorial Stadium Oak Grove from following People’s Park into the public’s affections. Conversely, private property is that which a given group can successfully keep for themselves, out of the commons. Some may insist that property ownership is the “natural state” and that the commons is the encroacher, but the point is to constructively balance the private and the shared. 

Finally, a successful commons must have several critical features. First, it is a negotiated resource or space; it is not a free-for-all space in which users can do anything they want. Second, it is not a space that is available “by right” to those outside the defined user group. Without these rules, the powerful, greedy, needy, or uncivil will inevitably monopolize, abuse, or use up the commons. So ignoring these two vital conditions destroys the commons. Third, the commons is not a serene, utopian place where “we can all just get along”; it is often a contentious space and one that is renegotiated as needed. Finally, the commons is a space that requires constant protection and, in crowded conditions or under high demand, it requires considerable proactive caretaking. 

Privatization permits 

Society has negotiated rules limiting private property rights impacts, both upon other private property and upon the commons (greenspace, parking, views, etc.). Zoning ordinances embody these rules. Use permits (and state density bonus concessions) create exceptions to these rules; they effectively turn bits and pieces of the commons over to private citizens (developers). For example, if the prescribed building height is 30 feet, and a developer gets permission to build to 40 feet, he has taken for his own use 10 feet of the commons, intended to provide others with light and views, to limit overcrowding, etc. Therefore, use permits constitute incremental privatizations of the commons. So do violations of our area plans, although the largest recent privatizations in Berkeley have come from the state density bonus law. The planning staff’s eagerness to expand zoning exceptions and bonus concessions, and to “renegotiate” area plans, are all perceived by us simple commoners as a violation of the public trust, because staff is irrevocably privatizing the commons, rather than protecting them—and us.  

The rationale for reducing the commons is that the privatizations are offset by some public benefit, such as more housing. But Berkeleyans are increasingly skeptical: Is the “benefit” really public, or private? And is increased population really a benefit? Additionally, to assess the tradeoff properly, we must recognize both the increased value of the commons and the expanding umbrella of the commons, under increasingly dense living conditions. For example, Berkeley’s back yards are not merely private property but also part of our common livability, our common wealth.  

When part of the commons is given away through a use permit, often conditions are placed on the use permit in order to reduce the damage to others. For example, a developer may be permitted to provide less-than-prescribed parking, but only under the condition that he provide valet parking to maximize his spaces. But usually within months the conditions are forgotten, causing unintended further encroachments on the commons. Generally the violations continue for years, because there is no functional system by which the City of Berkeley takes care of the commons. So eventually some citizen has to notice, investigate, and file a complaint. Then the city usually either ignores the complaint or “legalizes” the encroachment. This is another betrayal of the city’s obligation to protect the commons.  

The unruly commons 

Permissiveness is deadly to the commons. For example, let’s say one resident of a rooming house, Booming Bob, likes to play his music very loud. Studious Susan’s right to quiet in her own room should be honored because Bob’s actions cannot violate Susan’s equal right to enjoy her room. But what if Bob’s music goes into the living room, the common space?  

Some (negotiated) rules protect users of the common space from Bob’s music, but who enforces them? Does each wannabe user of the common space have to ask Bob to turn down his music? Or what if nobody is in the common space? Or what if only Amiable Amy, who doesn’t mind Bob’s music, is in the commons? Then can Bob play his music loudly? Common sense says, “Yes: no harm, no foul,” but “commons sense” says, “No.”  

Let’s say that Susan wants to use the common room. Although theoretically protected by the rules, she has to ask Bob to turn down his music. So she has to alienate Bob just to assert her standing right to the commons. Or worse, when Shy Sheldon wants to use the commons, he doesn’t confront Bob, but retreats to his room and loses his access to the commons entirely. Bob’s encroachment on the commons has placed undue burdens of labor, ostracism, and risk of retaliation on Susan and disenfranchised Sheldon. Therefore, commons rules (e.g., laws) almost always apply even when nobody else is there, so the commons is always ready for appropriate use by anyone. Individuals should not have to either renegotiate or personally enforce their legitimate rights every time they want to use the commons.  

Before long, Susan and Sheldon move out and Dancin’ Donna and Ravin’ Randy move in. Eventually the neighbors of the rooming house also move away. Thus a single uncivil individual, Bob, helped by tolerant Amy and silent Sheldon, eventually destroys a neighborhood. In Berkeley, uncivil behavior has destroyed numerous commons, including most of Southside. 

Some crimes must be reported by witnesses or victims, but whenever possible, designated authorities should protect the commons proactively, without waiting for complaints. Relying on complaints is unethical and ineffective. If Susan reports the problem to the house manager and he doesn’t want to act, he will marginalize Susan—“complainer,” “troublemaker,” NIMBY. This is a standard bureaucratic response, especially in Berkeley. But the rest of us should thank the Susans and the much-maligned NIMBYs and “complainers” among us, because in the absence of municipal stewardship, they are the only ones protecting the commons. 

Our laws are the rules of the urban commons, and it is the job of the city staff (not Susan) to enforce them. Every time the city fails to enforce, it diminishes Berkeley’s commons. Recently, neighborhood groups had to sue a drug house (in south Berkeley) and a rooming house (in Willard), because the city allowed these house residents to destroy the neighborhood commons. In economic terms, allowing private user groups to steal neighborhood security and civility—its livability—is another form of privatization. In social terms, it’s slummification. 

Honey, I Shrunk the Commons! 

When people acquire new rights, it expands the commons. Every right requires and produces a corresponding system, or space, in which everyone can exercise that right. That system (which includes philosophical, legal, and physical components) becomes part of a people’s shared cultural resource—their commons. And once a group has enjoyed a new space for a while, they are loathe to give it up.  

In 1973, the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) gave the public two new rights: (1) the right (through our representatives) to save individual, privately owned historic resources based on certain values; and more profoundly, (2) the right to decide those values for ourselves—to define our own identity and historical commons. This right is supported by public initiation of, and participation in, the landmarking process, which contributes to the community’s cultural self-discovery.  

Last year, the mayor and some developers attempted to create a loophole in the LPO, through which developers could more easily remove historic buildings from the commons. More insidiously, private consultants hired by developers would do more of our historical evaluations, thus encouraging the privatization of how Berkeleyans define our history. But the developers’ “definition” of us almost always reflects their commons-reducing agenda. Outraged supporters of the cultural commons temporarily blocked the mayor’s loophole through referendum. 

Outrage was also the response the year before when the mayor and City Council secretly capitulated to the university’s long-range development plan. The university is by far the greatest commons abuser in Berkeley, with parking, traffic, noise, litter, and indirect crime impacts, and freeloading on city infrastructure. But instead of taking this rare opportunity to reclaim some of its commons, the council gratuitously gave the university a free pass to massively increase its encroachment, betraying the municipal commons (and taxpayers) utterly. 

Progressivism normally advocates expanding the commons, not privatizing them. A truly progressive vision, which created the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance and the LPO, is grounded in community and mutual respect. This is well suited to interconnected life in a small, dense city, and anticipates the urban needs of the 21st century.  

But our political “leaders” are elsewhere. The mayor undermines the LPO and negotiates development deals behind closed doors. The council cedes our town to the university. The Zoning Adjustments Board gives away use permits like candy. The city staff fails to protect our livability. These represent an incremental but massive giveaway of the commons. If this is “Progressive,” the party has definitely pooped. 

Neighborhood activists understand that any civilized urban future must be one with more in common. I urge City Hall to stop wagging the tail of the 20th century. Instead, please help us prepare for a livable future by honoring our commons.

In event of an emergency or disaster, direct and timely communication among first responders (police, fire and service providers) is the key to successfully responding to and mitigating the impacts to our communities. In the East Bay, we experienced the Loma Prieta earthquake (1989) and the Oakland Hills Firestorm (1991) where communications was identified as a weakness in the response. We also saw the total breakdown that occurred when communications systems failed agencies responding to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The Alameda Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo), representing cities, special districts and the county, supports coordinated radio communication interoperability and urges affected jurisdictions/agencies in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties to complete and implement a common radio network and communications system. 

Alameda LAFCo is a state-mandated local agency that oversees boundary changes to cities and special districts, the formation of new agencies including incorporation of new cities, and the consolidation of existing agencies. As required by state law, Alameda LAFCo recently concluded a Municipal Service Review (MSR) to ensure efficient public service structures, logical boundaries and protection of open spaces and agricultural lands. We learned that in emergencies/disasters, public safety and health personnel were not able to communicate directly with one another—making a difficult situation even worse. This is not acceptable. Finding a solution was a recommendation of the MSR and is a high priority for Alameda LAFCo. 

We further learned that both Contra Costa and Alameda counties and cities have been working together over three years as part of the federally sponsored Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) to establish priorities for homeland security funding and to evaluate different alternatives. Public safety officials from Contra Costa and Alameda counties have developed a joint powers agreement for the East Bay Regional Communications System (EBRCS), which consists of a board of directors with broad representation from both counties that will oversee the financial, technical, and operations of a two-county communications system. The EBRCS has been widely presented throughout the two counties with broad support from many cities and special districts.  

No one seems to question the need or the value for a coordinated emergency communications system. Each entity is performing its due diligence on this matter—cost, governance, accountability, etc. Many of the entities are ready to proceed to the next step and join the EBRCS.  

As an agency that encourages increased efficiencies of public service providers, Alameda LAFCo applauds the establishment of a two-county emergency communications system and urges timely implementation by all affected agencies—before an emergency or disaster occurs. 

Janet Lockhart is chair of LAFCo. 

After four successful years of turning a quick, solid victory in the Iraq war from “Mission Accomplished” to “We’re winning” to “We’re not winning” to “Give it a chance to succeed,” President Bush vetoed the war funding bill because it comes with a withdrawal timeline. He continues to insist on his right as the Commander in Chief to direct duty-bound American soldiers into the Middle East’s Killing Fields without a troop withdrawal deadline, benchmark, or any type of Congressional oversight that would restrain his executive power.  

Given that he and the Republican members of Congress confidently think this is the way forward for the good of the nation and American troops on the ground in Iraq, the Democratic members of Congress should oblige by repassing the war spending bill without a provision for troop withdrawal deadline or benchmark. In place of a restraint condition, the Democratic lawmakers should pass the war-funding bill with the following law or constitutional amendment: 

Elected officials who support sending soldiers to war or be stationed in battlefront must each send one of their family members between the age of 18 and 49 to the battlefront as well until the war ends. 

Time has come for the President and his supporters to encourage their children to join the 140,000 plus Americans to fight the war they persist on worth sustaining. If the war is worth fighting, then it must be worth fighting with the children of those with the power to take the nation to war as well.  

American voters want a change of direction on Iraq, and they made this clear in last November’s election when they gave the Democrats both houses of Congress. They want the U.S. to start disengaging from Iraq and bring our troops home. It is not that the anti-war activists want President Bush or Iraq to fail. The reality is sectarian violence in that country, driven by century-old tribal feuds and religious hatred, is beyond U.S. control. It is not worth sacrificing any more American lives than the 3,300 we have already loss.  

The question of whether it is worth it is not referring to the cause, but to “who is willing to die for that cause,” as Dr. Charles Moskos, world’s renowned military sociologist and professor emeritus at Northwestern University, wrote in an article on “what ails the all-volunteer force” in the summer 2001 edition of Parameters, the U.S. Army’s Senior Professional Journal: 

“Only when the privileged classes perform military service does the country define the cause as worth young people’s blood. Only when such youth are on the firing line do war losses become more acceptable…Citizens accept hardships only when their leadership is viewed as self-sacrificing.” 

The proposed constitutional amendment will put to rest the question: is it worth it? If the war is worth continue fighting for, as President Bush and his Republican guards insist it is, then surely they would agree that it is worth fighting with their children. What better way to back their conviction then for the Republican political leaders to encourage their patriotic children to serve the nation for the cause that they profoundly believe in?  

It is important to note that the amendment proposed above is not a draft, but an alignment of the interests of those with the power to take the nation to war, with the interests of those who have to sacrifice for the war. By passing the amendment, President Bush and Congress confirm to the one million Americans who bore all the brunt of the war in the last 4 years, that their sacrifice is genuinely worth it. And America’s true brave hearts and their love ones will no longer be alone in feeling the pain, the loss, the nightmare, the destruction of war—even as we march down the road to perdition.  

With ten of thousands of American soldiers heading to Iraq for the third and fourth times—with a deployment now being 15 months instead of 12—it is clear that America does not have enough troops. The country needs additional heroes and brave hearts, and can use a few privileged, well-educated, and politically connected men and women to protect American interest in Iraq. This proud Union cannot have more fitting soldiers protect its freedom and nurture the young democracy in Iraq than the children of its dedicated political leaders.  

Undoubtedly the children of our political leaders do not necessary have all the skills and experience the Iraq War required, but as the former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said, “we go to war with what we have, not what we need.”  

I don’t write to newspapers—ever. I can’t remain silent any longer, however. I’m compelled to protest against the implementation of a well-intentioned but poorly though tout law, Prop 83. Let me first say that I have absolutely no sympathy for the class of sex offender that I believe this law was aimed at, the very disturbed molesters of young children. Those who rape, torture and damage these innocent, trusting children and are eventually “cured” and released should never be trusted again ever.  

I’m concerned about the draconian aspects of 83. As I understand it, all people convicted as a sexual offender are subject to the same restrictions upon release. These include: wearing a GPS locator for life, severe restrictions upon where they may live and work, prohibitions against visiting any residence where children may be present (including their own), possibly having to report where they are working on a Megan’s List, and having the curfew of a middle school student (9-10 p.m.).  

These are fit and justified for the extremely disturbed individuals I just mentioned, but not all sexual offenders fall into that category. There is a class of sexual offender who in a weak or vulnerable moment stepped over the line and got involved with a 16- or 17-year-old. They know it was wrong. They would never do it again. It is an error in judgment that cost them their career, their friends, years in jail and in many cases their families. Under the present law their chance to once again become a contributing member of society is very small. It is virtually impossible to find an affordable place to live that is at least 1/2 mile from schools or parks or any other place children are likely to congregate. There are offenders in Florida who have been forced into living under a highway overpass as a last resort. What employer would want it known that he has chosen to give such a person a place to work? Finally, there is the matter of the GPS bracelet FOR LIFE. It is a modern scarlet letter, almost a reincarnation of the armbands worn by the Jews under Hitler. This kind of punishment is not justified for the mistake for which this class of sexual offender has been found guilty. They are not likely to repeat the kind of mistake for which they have already paid a very stiff price. What is likely to happen is that they will be backed into such a corner economically and socially that they will become a drain on society or a threat to it. In such a case we will either be supporting them on welfare or in prison. We will need even more taxes to pay for even more prisons. Maybe that’s what the governor has in mind. Why don’t we just buy an island for all of our sexual offenders? We could call it Devils Island. Oh wait, I think that’s been done.  

If the people really want to implement a law such as this one, the only just way to do it is with a tiered sexual offender structure. This scale of punishment should be applied to the most severe of these cases. Multiple “mistakes” of the kind I mentioned should also be subjected a higher degree of monitoring. People who have truly chosen poorly in a weak and vulnerable moment need to be given the chance to re-establish themselves in society.  

In my professional life I am an engineer. We are trained to see the world as it really is. We live in the realm of facts, analysis and logic. As it stands Prop 83 is not addressing the facts. It is not logical. Most of all it is not justice. It can work if we rewrite it. It will be tragic if we don’t.  

Tim Ronson is a Sunnyvale resident.

Here on the left coast, there’s such strong opposition to the war in Iraq that the May 24 Democratic capitulation to President Bush came as a shock. We thought that Dems won back control of Congress because of their opposition to the war, so we didn’t understand why they pulled the requirement for troop deployment timelines out of the military appropriations bill. Fortunately, this isn’t the last vote on the war; it’s merely another skirmish in an extended battle between Congressional Democrats and the warmonger-in-chief. 

The good news is that trends in public sentiment favor the Democrats. According to the latest Gallup Poll, roughly 60 percent of Americans now believe that it was mistake to send troops to Iraq and 70 percent feel that things are going badly there. As a consequence, most Americans favor troop withdrawal. However, they are divided about when to withdraw: 20 percent say “immediately”; 38 percent say “in 12 months’ time”; and 26 percent say “take as many years as needed.”  

The 58 percent in favor of withdrawal within 12 months isn’t a huge majority and that’s reflected in the thin pro-withdrawal plurality in Congress, where a two-thirds majority is required to overcome President Bush’s veto. Some political observers believe that in the next debate over funding for Iraq—the one that will occur in September—enough Republicans will defect from Bush’s “victory at any cost” position that anti-war forces will finally obtain a veto-proof majority.  

In the meantime, what was most distressing about the May 24 war appropriations compromise was the tepid language about holding the Iraqi government accountable for meeting specific milestones. In December, the Iraq Study Group report observed, “There is no action that the American military can take that, by itself, can bring about success in Iraq.” The Iraq Study Group report highlighted the milestones proposed by Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki; the bulk of these should have been met by May 2007, but so far none have been accomplished. Nonetheless, the May 24 appropriations bill lets President Bush waive consequences for the Iraqi government’s continued failure to meet their commitments. This is a tacit acknowledgement that there’s no there, there: the Maliki government is incompetent. 

However, in the latest Gallup Poll three quarters of respondents felt that there must be “benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet in order to continue to receive … assistance.” That’s consistent with the May 24 New York Times/CBS News poll that noted that “Thirteen percent [of respondents] want Congress to block all spending on the war … 69 percent … say Congress should appropriate money for the war, but on the condition that the United States sets benchmarks for progress and that the Iraqi government meets those goals.” Nonetheless, Democrats agreed to toothless language regarding these benchmarks because that was the only way to gain Republican support. 

While it’s discouraging to see Congressional Democrats capitulate to President Bush and give him what he wants for the next four months, it’s important to take a long-term perspective. What’s happening in Washington is a battle between two competing views of “success” in Iraq. One is the Iraq Study Group stance that there has to be a political solution and, if the Iraqi government can’t get it together, then the United States should withdraw. The other is the Bush position that there must be military solution, no matter how long it takes. In recent remarks, the president suggested that if the United States left Iraq without “total victory,” Osama bin Laden would turn it into a “terrorist sanctuary” from which al Qaeda would launch attacks against the United States. 

Most Republican presidential candidates have accepted Bush’s perspective: Rudy Giuliani believes “setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal from Iraq now would be a terrible mistake, because it would only embolden our enemies. Iraq is only one front in the larger war on terror, and failure there would lead to a broader and bloodier regional conflict in the near future.” John McCain says, “A greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success in Iraq.” And Mitt Romney argues, “I want to see us be successful, if at all possible, militarily in backing a central government and military in Iraq.” 

As May draws to a close, two trends are intersecting: one is the decline of public support for the war. The other is strident Republican advocacy of a military solution—coupled with President Bush’s stealth increase in combat forces. Inevitably, these two trends will collide. 

Four months from now, we’re likely to see increased public sentiment against the war and widespread recognition that the Maliki government is incapable of meeting any benchmarks. Meanwhile, President Bush and the main Republican presidential candidates will escalate their rhetoric and dogmatically pursue military “victory.” Sometime in September, anti-war Congressional Democrats will get another chance to restrict funds for the war. Will they have a veto-proof majority by then? Stay tuned. 

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

One of the old lessons we are relearning through the Iraq war experience is that in any conflict, the faction which is less concerned about catastrophic consequences resulting from their actions has a decided advantage over the faction which has those worries. 

And, yes, one might apply this to the fact that “their” Iraqis seem to be winning over “our” Iraqis, true, but what I really was talking about is why President George W. Bush and his friends have the current upper hand over the Democrats and Republican war opponents in the Iraq war funding fight. 

All of this has been prompted, obviously, by the events over the past month in which Congress passed a war-funding measure that included what were commonly called “timetables” for an end to the U.S. military involvement in Iraq, Bush vetoed the measure, saying that he would never sign a war-funding bill with such “timetables,” and Congress then passed a new war-funding measure (H.R. 2206, the “U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007”) that took out the “timetables,” but included something called “benchmarks” which the government of Iraq must meet, over time, or else something bad will happen. 

One could do a long study on the meaning of such things as “timetables” and “benchmarks” in American legislation. I haven’t done such a long study, and I have to confess that I have not followed the ins and outs of the congressional war-funding strategies as closely as I’d like. Perhaps you have not, either. Whether this legislation will eventually lead to an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq during the presidency of George W. Bush, or whether it delays a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq until after inauguration day in January of 2009, is debatable, and may only become evident with time. But for those who thought the Democratic electoral victories of November, 2006 would either bring an immediate end to the U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, or legislation mandating a U.S. military withdrawal by a date certain, this is a decided dashing of hopes. 

But if the (barely) Democratically-controlled Congress indeed has an electoral mandate for a swift end to U.S. military involvement in Iraq, why did Congress back off their original date-certain-withdrawal legislation? 

The dilemma was summed up by one anti-war Democrat, Congressmember Louise Slaughter of Buffalo, New York. 

In February, during opening debate on the war funding measure, Ms. Slaughter gave a stirring Congressional floor speech against “blank check” funding of the war, saying that “the simple reality is that two thirds of Americans, myself included, do not trust the President’s judgment when it comes to this war. It is a conflict that has been defined by mismanagement and misinformation since before it began, and the results have been devastating for the Iraqi people and for our men and women in uniform. …We need to stop this surge, and change what we are doing in Iraq. We need to promote a political solution and a diplomatic solution to that nation’s problems…. And at this moment in history, to give this Administration yet another blank check to send our troops on the wrong mission…, it wouldn’t be worthy of the dedicated soldiers this body claims so sincerely to support.” 

But two months later, while voting for the new bill that failed to set a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, Slaughter was decidedly more downbeat, noted that “the president and his allies in Congress have put our soldiers in harm’s way and Mr. Bush is willing to keep them there no matter how much they suffer. If this Congress delayed funding by continuing to back a bill we cannot pass at this time, we would not force the president to end the war. All indications are he would leave our soldiers in Iraq, and without adequate funding they would have to do even more with even less.” 

That is a start, but does not go far enough in explaining the anti-war Democrats’ dilemma. Mr. Bush actually has two options if war-funding is withdrawn—both options potentially devastating to long-term anti-war interests—and the president’s hand is enormously strengthened by the fact that he has already shown he does not mind risking bad consequences to U.S. troops or to the country of Iraq in order to pursue his own long-term goals. 

Mr. Bush’s first option in the event of passing of a war-fund-withdrawal measure, as Ms. Slaughter suggested, would be to leave the U.S. troops where they are, getting the money from other sources. He has that power. A more responsible president would figure out the way to fully fund the troops in such an event, but there is every reason to believe that this president would deliberately allow egregious shortages in certain areas in order to advance a political agenda.  

This is, after all, an administration that allowed U.S. troops to stay in harms way for months upon months with inferior combat vehicle armor that was allowing soldiers to get blown up by roadside bombs. Asked by a member of the Tennessee National Guard, you remember, “why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles? Our vehicles are not armored. We’re digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that’s already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat.", then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld replied that three years into the war, the army was putting armor on combat vehicles “(at a) rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment,” adding famously and airily that “as you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” 

Rumsfeld has since left the building, but his spirit remains in the Bush administration. And an administration that let American soldiers unnecessarily suffer in combat, perhaps so that favored corporations like Halliburton could get cushy insider contracts, would certainly have no qualms about allowing the same thing so that the blame could be placed upon the Democrats. That is, after all, the Karl Rove way. 

Democrats could try to force a troop withdrawal by specifically rescinding the original 2002 legislation authorizing the Iraq invasion but in that event, the Bush administration might argue that once a war is authorized by Congress, Congress has no right to unauthorize it while such a war is in progress. That would be a Constitutional issue which would have to be decided by the United States Supreme Court. Good luck with that. 

But disturbingly, Democrats and anti-war Republicans might not fare better if Mr. Bush were to “honor” a Congressional withdrawal of war funds and pull the troops out of Iraq. This would be in no ways comparable to the situation in Vietnam when the U.S. withdrew its military forces from combat, with a South Vietnamese government intact and an army in the field. A precipitous U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq would almost certainly result in a period of chaos and instability as various factions moved in to fill the U.S. void—Shi’a, Sunni, Kurdish, Iranian, and al-Queda, certainly.  

There is enormous political danger here within the United States. Such chaos and instability would be blamed on the Democrats by the Bush administration and their media friends, and while there is solid anti-war opinion currently within the United States, it is not based upon a unified theory. That opinion could turn, for example, if a U.S. withdrawal resulted in a wider Middle East war that seriously threatened Israel or if al-Queda—which is clearly benefiting from the U.S. military presence in Iraq—attempted to launch another terrorist strike either on U.S. soil or at U.S. interests elsewhere in the world. Either of those two events, if enough Americans blamed it on Congressional troop withdrawal legislation, could turn a favored Democratic victory in next year’s presidential race into a Republican triumph, and under those circumstances, God only knows what a President Guliani or McCain might do, especially if that was accompanied by a reversal of Democratic majorities in the U.S. Senate and House. 

Am I suggesting that progressives and other anti-war forces should, therefore, do nothing about the war in Iraq because the consequences of doing something are dire. Absolutely not. But in analyzing the current actions of the Democratically-controlled Congress, one has to take into account that these are consequences that are much on their minds. My guess is that the current crisis will have to deepen in some way—either in Iraq or inside the United States itself—before Congress on its own is ready to take the leap into those dark spaces. 

When Captain John Slater died in January 1908, a newspaper obituary declared him to have been “part owner in steamship companies with Captains Dudreau and Miles [sic]” and his family “among the largest property owners in the north end.” Slater’s employers were captains Boudrow and Mighell, owners of the California Shipping Company and residents of 1536 and 1533 Oxford Street, respectively. The writer of the obituary may have exaggerated Slater’s role within the Boudrow & Mighell company, just as Slater’s land holdings appear to have been inflated beyond their actual extent. 

Property assessment records indicate that the Slater holdings in 1908 consisted of two houses: 1335 Shattuck Avenue and 1426 Spruce Street. Family records confirm that the Slaters suffered a reversal of fortune as a result of the captain’s death. Louise Slater (1867–1948) remarried, but her second husband, Edward Phillips, lived for no more than three or four years. In 1912 or ’13, Louise sold the big house, keeping the smaller one. 

At the time, daughter Marguerite was a student at UC, while younger sons Norman and Colby were at Berkeley High School. For a while, the family lived at 2317 Haste Street, a house they may have found thanks to their former tenant, Andrew H. Irving. 

Plant superintendent of the Paraffine Paint Company, Irving was then living across the street, in the enormous and ornate Lafayette Apartments at 2314 Haste Street.  

In 1935, the Lafayette would become Barrington Hall, the University Students’ Cooperative Association’s largest residential co-op. By 1915, when Andrew’s elder brother, Samuel C. Irving, was elected mayor of Berkeley, their widowed mother and sister had also moved into the Lafayette. 

The mother, Jane Scott Irving, was born in 1829 in Nova Scotia and died at the Lafayette in January 1917. Her obituary in the Berkeley Gazette declared her to have been the granddaughter of Zephaniah Williams, “one of the heroes of the revolution. Williams was presented with a purse of $3,000 and a sword of honor for his services in the war by the Continental Congress.” 

The Gazette failed to mention that after fighting numerous battles against the British, Zephaniah Williams joined the Duke of Cumberland’s Regiment, in a unit consisting entirely of former officers and men of the American Continental Army, and spent three years as a British soldier on garrison duty in Jamaica. 

When the regiment was disbanded in 1783, the American soldiers were allowed to settle in Nova Scotia and given land grants. In 1785, Williams came to Antigonish, NS and put down roots in a place now known as Williams Point. 

While three Irvings were residing at the Lafayette Apartments, Louise Slater’s eldest son, James Herbert Slater (1889–1969), had gone to work for the Paraffine Paint Co. as an electrical engineer and took up residence at 1402–04 Spruce Street, a few doors to the north of his mother’s property. This two-flat Victorian cottage would soon be acquired by the Slaters and remain under family ownership until 1970. 

The Paraffine Paint Company of San Francisco manufactured specialty paints, building papers, and ready roofing materials under the Pabco and Malthoid brand names. Malthoid, a bituminous rolled membrane with adhered granules, was in demand for roofing bungalows. In 1908, it was used to roof the “ultimate bungalow,” Greene & Greene’s famed Gamble House in Pasadena. According to an architectural report, it failed within the first 10 years. 

Malthoid’s popularity extended as far as Australia and New Zealand, where many bungalows were being constructed. Sales were robust enough to warrant the extended visit of an executive from the home office. That executive was none other than Samuel C. Irving, Berkeley’s future mayor, who would serve as vice-president and manager of the Paraffine Companies from 1903 to 1930. The visit to Australia lasted close to a year, and Samuel was accompanied by his wife. The couple’s first son, Fred Elton Irving, was born in Sydney in October 1886. The Irvings would not return to California until Fred was six months old. 

Samuel C. Irving (1858–1930) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He was the son of Andrew K. Irving, a Scottish shipwright. The Irving family came to the Bay Area from New York in 1868. According to Jane Scott Irving’s obituary in the Gazette, Andrew K. Irving founded the first shipbuilding yard on the Pacific Coast at San Francisco and organized the first labor union in the West. 

In 1880, Andrew and Jane Irving were living with their five children in Vallejo, site of the U.S. Navy’s Mare Island shipyards. Samuel, who had graduated from UC in 1879, was still registered as a student when the census taker came calling the following year. 

Samuel married Laura Sell in 1886, and the couple settled in Cow Hollow, San Francisco, raising two sons. In 1901, Samuel served as president of the Mechanics Institute and an ex-officio UC Regent. 

Like many refugees of the San Francisco earthquake and fire, the Irvings moved to Berkeley in 1906. At the time, Samuel’s younger brother, Andrew, was rooming with the Slaters at 1335 Shattuck Avenue. Across the street, Captain Seabury’s house at 1322 Shattuck Ave. was unoccupied (more about Seabury in the next article). It seemed an ideal arrangement, and Samuel bought the house from Seabury. He would remain there for fifteen years. 

While living at 1322 Shattuck Ave., the Republican Samuel Irving was twice elected mayor of Berkeley, serving from 1915 to 1919 (in 1926 he would run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat). Shortly after leaving office, he acquired the former Slater house across the street and resided in it for the rest of his life. On December 2, 1930, he was fatally struck by a car while crossing Shattuck Avenue on his way home. Samuel Irving was a member of the Bohemian, Commercial, Commonwealth, Faculty, and Hillside Clubs, the Berkeley lodges of Elks and Masons, and the Golden Bear Society. 

Samuel Irving’s sons followed him into his businesses. Fred (1886–1973) was a department manager at the Paraffine Companies until his father went into the cider, vinegar, and fruit-juice business. Shortly after the end of World War I, Fred could be found in Sonora, CA, managing the California Cider Company. Living with him was his younger brother Livingston, who looked after the orchards. 

Livingston G. Irving (1895–1983) had made a name for himself as a World War I ace flyer in the Lafayette Escadrille and the 103rd Aero Squadron. After his stint as orchard keeper, he went to work at the Paraffine Cos. as an engineer. During the 1920s, he continued to fly in the Air Corps Reserve out of Crissy Field. When the Dole Race from Oakland to Honolulu was announced in 1927, Livingston was the first contestant to enter. His plane was a Breese monoplane purchased and sponsored by the Paraffine Companies. Christened the Pabco Pacific Flyer, the plane was painted bright orange and sported the Indian warrior’s head insignia of the Lafayette Flying Corps. 

Technical problems plagued the Dole Race; of the 15 contestants, only eight took off and a mere two reached Hawaii. The Pabco Pacific Flyer was one of the non-starters. On the second attempt to take off, the plane rose briefly before crashing down. Livingston bought the wreck from the Paraffin Cos. for a reported $10 and had it rebuilt to his specifications. Renamed the Irving Cabin Monoplane, it was sold in 1929 to the Pacific Finance Corporation. 

Livingston retired from the Army Air Force as a colonel. He was not the only illustrious son of a prominent father to have come out of the Slater-Irving connection. Captain Slater’s youngest son, Colby E. “Babe” Slater (1896–1965), was a world-class athlete. In 1911 and ’12, “Babe” led the Berkeley High School rugby team to county, regional, and state titles. In 1914, he went on to the University Farm School (now UC Davis), starring in rugby, football, basketball, and baseball. 

U pon graduation in 1917, “Babe” enlisted in the United States Army and served with the Medical Corps in France and Belgium during World War I. After the war, he raised sheep, hogs, and feed in Woodland, CA. When the Olympic Games Committee allowed the formation of a United States rugby team for the 1920 Olympics, “Babe” Slater was one of the first players chosen. To everyone’s surprise, the inexperienced U.S. team won the gold after beating France 8-0. 

In the 1924 Olympics, “Babe” was captain of the U.S. rugby team, which also included his brother Norman (1894–1978). Once again, the U.S. beat France to win the gold. Angry French fans rioted in the stands, and rugby was thereafter removed from Olympic competition. 

Around 1927 “Babe” Slater bought land in Clarksburg, CA and raised various crops for close to thirty years. Norman Slater, who had been a mechanic in San Francisco, joined his brother’s farming operations. The only Slater to remain in Berkeley was James Herbert, who continued to work for the Paraffine Cos. and raised a family at 1404 Spruce St. before moving north to 776 Spruce in the 1930s. Not far from him, at 1814 San Antonio Road, lived Fred Irving, who had forsaken Paraffine for apple juice. 

This is the second part in a series of articles on north Berkeley houses and the families that inhabited them. 

Photograph by Daniella Thompson.  

This house at 1841 San Antonio Road was the home of Fred E. Irving, elder son of Berkeley mayor Samuel C. Irving.  

Daniella Thompson publishes berkeleyheritage.com for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA). 

It’s summer—a month from St. John’s Eve, but no longer quite the juvescence of the year—and time to take a deep breath. If you’re more organized than I am, as most humans are, you’ve got almost everything in the ground and watered and fertilized, at least sufficiently for the time being, and things are hinting at bearing fruit.  

Time to go for a stroll and look at other people’s gardens. 

The flush of official garden tours is past. But the roses are still blooming, and shade plants are spreading their foliage; tropicals are just getting on with it, blooming and greening in the brief beats of heat we’ve enjoyed this past month.  

Regular brisk strolls around the neighborhood are good for your health and for your observational skills too. Leave the iPod at home and tune your ears into the sounds that you can filter through the din of human cities.  

Chez nous, the robins are having a competitive year. There’s one couple nesting in the mutilated plum tree next to our backyard, which will keep the carwash folks in pocket change for a few months. When we water out back, they’ll come down to the wet spots, each taking a turn, to see what sort of tasty invertebrates might have come up from the sudden mud for air.  

Rival robins have been rockin’ just a few doors to the east, and just across the intersecting street to the west. Some evenings the boyos all come out to the streetside utility lines and stage song duels.  

A lately-insomniac neighbor tells me that our yardbird, at least, has been inspired to bursts of song at 4 a.m. some nights.  

That sad little whine from overhead is the call note of the local lesser goldfinch. His song is much sweeter, and he and his honey seem to be nesting in the Japanese maple next door. Such dialogues I’ve been hearing from that canopy!  

The crows are headquartered on the block just southeast of us, and they carry on at intervals all day. One thing I’ve learned from this family is that they use the same word for “raven” as for “hawk”—a nasal flat “caah”—when they see and chase one through the neighborhood. Listen for that note and look up to see what fancy predator is in transit. 

Meanwhile, the human neighbors’ gardens put on the visual part of the show. The guy on the corner has a hedge of white roses that smell better than white roses tend to, and his Brugmansia has a sweet scent too. Now I find myself sniffing as I go, like a dog. Think how this block must “look” to dogs! 

It’s enlightening to see how perennials fare here over a few years; what gets overgrown; who keeps their poor shrubs trimmed into poodleballs.  

Sometimes I even get to meet the people who garden my local favorites. We’ve swapped histories, tips, and cuttings. I’m not terribly social usually, but gardens (and birds!) bring out the gladhander in me. 

Where did you get that gorgeous iris? 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Daily Planet.

Some things are always a bad idea. Karaoke with your boss, bell bottoms on chain driven motorcycles, long-haired thoracic surgeons or pesto-flavored ice-cream. 

Another thing that is nearly always a bad idea is converting a basement into somebody’s bedroom. 

I’ve seem this a lot and there is a special red flag (animated with flashing stripes) that goes up in my head whenever I walk down stairs in a house and see a “staged” bed over new carpeting and can just make out the flue from the furnace sticking out from behind the lacy curtain. As they say, “What could go wrong?” 

Long ago, when I was young, basements were places where people drank and shot pool. They were places where a boy could take apart the family TV and be threatened with a spinal transplant by a red-faced father (clearly this was way before Child Protective Services). They were, however, not living spaces. They tended in many parts of the country to be damp or even wet. They often housed a sump (a well recessed into the slab) and a pump for management of subsurface waters. 

You see, basements violate nature’s laws when it comes to grade (ground level), erosion patterns and the design of the watershed. If you’re lucky enough to live in a fairly dry part of the country, this is far less of an issue, but most places suffer as we do, with water that insists on filling up spaces that we dig out of the earth. They used to call them wells. Big ones might be called quarries. Whatever you call them, they’ve always tended to get wet. 

Regardless of this truth, in our modern age of common senselessness, we’ve forgotten all the basic stuff. While it was well understood a hundred years ago that a cellar would be damp and that action would have to be taken to keep one dry, we have forgotten these things and end up carpeting concrete floors 8’ below ground level. 

Basements ARE excellent spaces for crafts and storage and occasional short-term belching and cursing but they do not work well as bedrooms. 

One thing that is not commonly understood is that typical concrete is quite porous to water and much like a wick will transmit substantial volumes of water into a basement, even across a slab or wall of 6” or more. As concretes go upward in strength they also become less porous and so, when designing a basement, this is one of many strategies that can be employed in producing a dryer environment. 

It’s common to see a white crystalline precipitate (powder) on the surface of concrete floors and walls in basement as evidence of this slow water movement. We call this efflorescence. As water moves through the concrete it carries evaporative salts such as calcium chloride to the dryer side and as the water evaporates from the exposed side of the concrete, it leaves these salts behind. These are largely benign but do illustrate a problem with drainage.  

If the concrete is kept relatively dry, or if there is a low-pressure path to allow the water to move easily along the other side of the concrete (the soil side), the water would not make the more difficult journey through the concrete, at least not much of it. 

The pressure of water on the back side of the concrete wall or floor is known as hydrostatic pressure and the higher it is, the more it wants to push through the concrete and dampen the rug and grow the mold colony in the new bonus room. 

On retaining walls, we usually create holes through the walls to relieve this pressure. Without these “weep” holes, large walls can be slowly toppled. Water is amazing stuff. It always wins unless you let it through. There is no opponent more dangerous than the one that is patient and moves very slowly. 

In basements, it is possible to arrest some of the infiltration of water in liquid or vapor form by the use of sealants. The problem is that they cannot resist high levels of hydrostatic pressure. If there’s a lot of push to the water on the other side of the wall, the surface of the concrete including the sealant can “spall” or exfoliate in thin chips releasing the moisture and damaging the surface. 

If there is just a little weeping going on and the concrete quality is good, a sealant can be quite effective. There are two common sealants that have been in use for quite a long time, UGL Drylok and Thoroseal. Thoroseal is a cementitious sealant with an acrylic component and seals over the concrete. 

It comes in a range of colors and can be painted when installed. Drylok is a clear latex sealant that impregnates the concrete surface. In my experience, Thoroseal is the better choice for weeping concrete although Drylok is a nice choice for maintaining the appearance of brick or other masonry (being a clear sealer). 

Better than either of these is a line of products by Aquafin™. Included in these are epoxy sealants that can solve major problems where escaping water vapor has made living spaces uninhabitable and also cementitious sealants that can seal rough, highly porous concrete. 

I don’t want to create any illusions here. Damp basements can be restored to relatively dry conditions with these methods as well as ventilation, heat, dehumidifiers and drainage systems. But when pushing water comes to shoving humidity, nature often wants these basements to stay damp. 

The key to using this data properly is not in the utter abandonment of the basement but in reasonable expectations and appropriate use of space. To those of you who are now carpeting and painting that basement in preparation for sale, keep in mind that the next owner will assume that these finishes guarantee dry, cozy space. 

If nothing else, take some time to write down what you know and what you don’t know about the basement (“it’s seemed mostly dry these last four years but it wasn’t carpeted or painted”). It could mean the difference between a nasty phone call next January and a clear conscience combined with reduced liability. 

If you’re a buyer, look twice and three time at that basement and don’t start planning the office layout just yet. Give yourself a winter to assess the real utility of the space and be prepared to take some special measures (or to use it as a …. basement). 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net.

“Triangle of Life” – Watch Out! 

Every so often I get an email from someone passing on information from a person named Doug Copp, who is a self-proclaimed “expert” on disaster management.  

He says that, in a serious quake, the “drop, cover, and hold on” advice from the Red Cross and other American disaster agencies is wrong, and that instead you should find some “triangle of life” area in the room to protect you.  

Please don’t listen to this advice. His observations are based on buildings in third world countries and, even if his ideas may have value there (who knows?), they DO NOT have value here. Engineering researchers have demonstrated that very few buildings collapse or “pancake” in the U.S. as they might do in other countries. 

If you want more info on this, google “triangle of life hoax.” You’ll learn a lot. 

Wishing you a safe home and peace of mind. 

Larry Guillot is the owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and gas shut-off valve installation service. Contact him at 558-3299 or visit QuakePrepare.com to receive semi-monthly quake safety reports.

I don’t usually devote this space to book reviews, but I’m making an exception for the latest in UC Press’s California Natural History Guides series: Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, by Arthur M. Shapiro and Timothy D. Manolis. I know there are a bunch of good butterfly guidebooks out there already: Jeffrey Glassberg’s Butterflies through Binoculars: The West, Jim Brock and Kenn Kaufman’s Butterflies of North America, Paul Opler’s Field Guide to Western Butterflies. Well, make shelf room for the new one. 

Shapiro, who teaches at UC Davis (and is notorious for offering a pitcher of beer to whoever brings in the year’s first butterfly, a prize he tends to collect himself), is responsible for the text. Manolis, author and illustrator of the UC Press dragonfly guide, did the 31 color plates, showing all the variations by sex and season. There’s a hefty introduction to butterfly biology, a section on gardening for butterflies with a plant list, a glossary, a useful bibliography. My only real beef with the book is the absence of range maps. 

Every species gets a detailed account, covering life cycle, larval host plants, distribution, and separation from similar species. That last is especially helpful with the skippers, a confusing complex of small brown jobs that are the Empidonax flycatchers of the butterfly world. You’ll learn nifty words like diapause (a dormant period), multivoltine (having multiple adult emergences in a year), and sphragis (look it up; I’m not about to discuss the sex life of the clodius parnassian in a family publication.) 

Shapiro’s enthusiasm for his subjects is contagious; he makes even the potentially dry stuff like taxonomy and nomenclature engaging. I’ve seen friends open this book at random and laugh out loud. He pulls together a lot of material from the technical literature, much of it new to me. 

For one, there’s the recent study of two lookalike butterflies, the California sister and the Lorquin’s admiral. Really alike: both are dark brown with a broad white diagonal sash across the upper wing surfaces and a bold orange tip to the forewings. I’ve seen speculation for years that the sister was unpalatable to predators, mainly birds, and the admiral mimicked its coloration—a case of Batesian mimicry, named after Darwin’s contemporary Henry Walter Bates, who studied the phenomenon in the Amazon rain forest.  

This made a certain amount of sense: larval sisters eat oak foliage, likely to render them tannic in taste, while larval admirals consume willow leaves. And several of the admiral’s relatives—including the viceroy, which resembles the unpalatable monarch—are known mimics.  

But hard data was lacking. And there was always the possibility that both butterflies tasted bad, and the orange-and-white patterns were mutually reinforcing advertising (a case of Muellerian mimicry.) About six years ago, according to Shapiro, someone asked the birds what they thought. A tasting panel of jays devoured admirals but rejected sisters.  

The Bay Area turns out to be prime territory for butterfly studies.  

We’re at a geographical crossroads, with northern/alpine species like the clodius parnassian in Marin County and semitropical types like the handsome Sonora blue in the South Bay. We have superspecialists: the Lange’s metalmark, which feeds only on naked-stem buckwheat growing in a remnant dune field near Antioch, and other butterflies restricted to serpentine vegetation. We have natives that have shifted hosts, like the anise (or as some purists call it, yampah) swallowtail. We have newcomers like the gulf fritillary, a southeastern butterfly that followed the passionvines west. 

Unfortunately, not all native butterflies have been so adaptable. Manolis illustrates the xerces blue, a former resident of San Francisco’s coastal dunes, although it’s about 66 years too late to see a live one. The Strohbeen’s parnassian of Santa Cruz County hasn’t been observed since Eisenhower was in office. The San Bruno elfin is barely hanging in there. 

Surprises are still possible, though. This, as Shapiro points out, is an area where citizen scientists can make real contributions to the state of knowledge. Patches of serpentine and other specialized habitats remain unexplored: no one has done a butterfly census of Ring Mountain near Tiburon, known for its endemic plants. Life cycle details are undocumented for some species. Shapiro says he has never seen a golden hairstreak visiting a flower, courting, or mating.  

And nets aren’t always necessary. Some butterflies can be cooperative photograph subjects (although others, like the Sara orangetip and its sulphur relatives, never seem to sit still.) Several optics manufacturers offer close-focusing binoculars for butterfly watching.  

I have to admit that butterflies have grown on me over the years; I’ve even reached the point where they can distract me from birds. 

Take Shapiro and Manolis along on your next hike on Mount Diablo and see for yourself.  

I just hope UC Press has somebody working on the moths. 

Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Ron Sullivan’s “Green Neighbors” column on East Bay trees. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan 

A buckeye, one of the most easily recognizable Bay Area butterflies.

FRIDAY, JUNE 1 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “The Last Five Years” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through June 10. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Berkeley High School “Schoolgirl Figure” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Benefits the Eating Disorders Program at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. Tickets are $6-$12. 236-1620. ShiftTheatre@aol.com 

Berkeley Rep “Oliver Twist” at 8 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. through June 24. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org  

California Shakespeare Theater “Richard III” at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through June 24. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

“Dust Storm” the story of the artist Chiura Obata at the Topaz relocation camp in Utah during WWII, at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$10. 238-2200. 

“Laughter with Paul Mooney and the Mooney Twins” Fri.-Sat. at 8 and 10 p.m., Sun. at 8 p.m. at Black Rep, 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $25-$50. 652-2120. 

Shotgun Players “The Cryptogram” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through June 17. Tickets are $17-$25. For reservations call 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Travelling Jewish Theater “Death of a Salesman” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave., through June 10. Tickets are $15-$44. 1-800-838-3006. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Yosemite Night” Exhibition tour of “Yosemite: Art of an American Icon” at 6 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Patricia Mitchell “Selected Works” Assemblage, collage, photography and painting. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Eclectix, 7523 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito. 364-7261. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tom Odegard and John Rowe read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Hearst Ave.  

Dixon Long describes “Markets of Paris” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Arts Encounters” featuring Faye Carol, John Handy, Kenny Washington with Khalil Shaheed, Richard Howell, Danny Armstrong, Glen Pearson, Ron Belcher, Deszon Claiborne and Babatunde Lea at 8 and 10 p.m. at the Kaiser Center Auditorium, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Benefit for the Oakland School for the Arts. Tickets are $25. 478-8896. www.bennubirdbookings.com  

Presidio Ensemble, modernist-classical quintet, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Ticketsa re $10-$15. www.hillsideclub.org  

Very Be Careful, vallenato dance music, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

John Gruntfest, sax, at Free-Jazz Fridays at 8 p.m. at 1510 8th Street Performance Space, 1510 8th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$15. 

Jolly Gibsons, Headshear, 3-P-O, Mo’Fone and more at 5:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Norton Buffalo & Friends at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Star Ledbetter and Lisa Alice at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

David Jacobs-Strain Band, Cas Lucas at 10 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Godstomper, Magrudergrind, I Object, Noisear at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Sweet Crude Bill at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Interseed, Burned Beyond Recognition at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Machina Sol at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Spiral Arms, Greenhouse Effect, Dolerada at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Lalah Hathaway at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, JUNE 2 

CHILDREN  

Hanna Banana Children’s folk music at 11 a.m. at Studio Grow, 1235 10th St. 526-9888. 

THEATER 

“Scatter My Red Underwear” Workshop performance by Milta Ortiz on vulnerabilities and struggles of four contemporary women of color at 8 p.m. at Malonga Casquelourd Arts Center, 1428 Alice St. Cos tis $7-$15. www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/4096 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Black/White & Color” Painters and photographer explore color and its absence. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

“The Edge: Where California Culture, Critters and Environment Collide” opens at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

East Bay Open Studios Sat. and Sun. at various studios around the East Bay. For maps see www.proartsgallery.org 

FILM 

Superfest International Disability Film Festival from noon to 5 p.m. and Sun. from 2 to 7 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $5-$20 at the door. 845-5576. www.culturedisabilitytalent.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

James Wagner and Suzanne Stein, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Bay Area Poets Coalition holds an open reading from 3 to 5 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street, not in Lodge parking lot. 527-9905.  

Alan Bern introduces “Waterwalking” poetry at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Emerson Spartz and Ben Schoen on “What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley World Music Festival Sat. and Sun. from noon to 9 p.m. throughout the Telegraph Ave. district between Bancroft Way and Parker St. 647-3506. 

Gamelan Sekar Jaya at 3 p.m. in the gardens of the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. at 10th., Oakland. Concert included with museum admission $5-$8. 238-2200.  

Moment’s Notice Improvised music, dance and theater at Western Sky Studio, 2525 8th St. Tickets are $8-$10. 847-1119. 

The Mixers at 9 p.m. at the Baltic Pub, 135 Park Place, Pt. Richmond. Cost is $5. 237-4782. 

Cave Painters at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

La Trova es Mujer with Leticia Servin and Meli Rivera at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $22-$24. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

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

Tom Rigney, cajun/zydeco at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

The New Hour, Shanks and Stilettos, Jon Weston at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Jon Roniger and Sentimental Heroine at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.com 

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

Laurie Antonioli Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazz 

school.com 

Ric Didia & Aireene Espiritu at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Rimshot at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100.  

The Underworld Opera Co. Circus and Variety Show at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $8. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Mitch Marcus Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Resilience, Tried & True, Trouble Maker at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 3 

THEATER 

“Dust Storm” the story of the artist Chiura Obata at the Topaz relocation camp in Utah during WWII, at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$10. 238-2200. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Reception for Wang Gangfeng, photographer from Shanghai, at 3 p.m. at Alta Galleria, 2980 College Avenue #4. 421-1255. www.AltaGalleria.com 

FILM 

Superfest International Disability Film Festival from 2 to 7 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $5-$20 at the door. 845-5576. www.culturedisabilitytalent.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

A Conversation with Peter Selz on Anslem Kiefer’s painting “Die Sieben Himmelspalaste” with Carl Worth at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Wednesday Writers of Oakland “Something That Metters” at 3 p.m. in the Peralta Pavilion of Alta Bates Summit, Second flr Living Room, 450 30th St., Oakland. Donation $10. RSVP to 869-8735. 

“Wars Within and Across Our Borders” Poetry and music at 6:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Open mic follows. Donations of $1-$10. 439-8777. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley World Music Festival from noon to 9 p.m. throughout the Telegraph Ave. district between Bancroft Way and Parker St. 647-3506. 

WomenSing and San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus at 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10-$25. 925-974-9169 www.womensing.org 

Pacific Boychoir Academy Springtime Serenade at 3 p.m. at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church, 400 Alcatraz, Oakland. Free. 652-4722. 

Dennis Edwards, pianist, performs music of Gershwin, Miles Davis, and more at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $12-$15. 644-6893. 

Twang Cafe with Val Esway and El Mirage, The Blushin' Roulettes at 7:30 at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $10.  

Missy Raines & the New Hip at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Benefit for Victims of the Arab-Israeli Conflict with Posterboy and Bring it Home at at 3:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Aleph Null at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Ken Berman Trio at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Don Neely’s Royal Society Jazz Orchestra at 5 and 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Philips Marine Duo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Skinlab, The Face of Aggression, Ankla at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146.  

MONDAY, JUNE 4 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Photographs of China and Mongolia” by Berkeley photographer Caroline Johnson, opens at The LightRoom, 2263 Fifth St., Oakland. 649-8111.  

Works by Damon Guthrie at Lanesplitter, 4799 Telegraph Ave., through June 31. 815-0691. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Waterwalking” Poetry/dance collaboration with Alan Bern and Lucinda Weaver at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Howard D at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Valerie Bach, world music, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100.  

Bill Charlap at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 5 

THEATER 

Shotgun Players presents Week 30 in “365 Plays/365 Days” Tues. and Wed. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $5. 841-6500. 

FILM 

“Unreleased Beatles” film clips and music shown by rock music historian Richie Unterberger at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, Community Meeting Room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ilona Meagher, editor of the online journal “PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Austin Grossman introduces “Soon I Will Be Invincible” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Book. 559-9500. 

Gordy Slack reads from “The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything” at 7:30 p.m. at Laurel Book Store, 4100 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 

Freight and Salvage Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $4.50-$5.50. 548-1761.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellen Hoffman and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Middian, Minsk at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100.  

Bill Charlap at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6 

THEATER 

Berkeley Rep “Great Men of Genius” with Mike Daisy in four different monologues at 2025 Addison St. through June 30. Tickets are $30-$75. 647-2949. 

“Colorstruck” Donald Lacey’s one-man show at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland, through June 15. Tickets are $10-$20. 663-5683. www.colorstruck.net 

FILM 

“From Saturday to Sunday” on Jazz Age Prague at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free screening. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Sally Denton describes “Passion and Principle: John and Jessie Fremont, the Couple Whose Power, Politics and Love Shaped Nineteenth-Century America” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Johnny Smith Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $6. 841-JAZZ.  

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Sweet Crude Bill and the Lighthouse Nautical Society at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Two Sheds, Dame Satan at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Anat Cohen at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, JUNE 7 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Unknown Knowledge” Paintings and collages by Nicollette Smith. Opening reception at 5:30 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Lisa Gluskin, Alison Powell and Barbara Yien at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. www.poetryflash.org 

Joseph Lease, poet, followed by an open mic, at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Larry Doyle reads from “I Love You, Beth Cooper” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

New Century Chamber Orchestra with guest concertmaster Cho-Liang Lin at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $28-$42. 415-357-1111. www.ncco.org 

Berkeley Edge Fest “The Tyrant” composed by Paul Dresher, John Duykers, tenor, at 8 p.m. at the Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $36. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/presents/season/2006/edgefest/ 

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

“Two Cities, One Song” Rhonda Benin & Youth Choirs at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

GoGo Fightmaster, Dear Liza, Jon Raskin at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Anat Cohen at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200.  

Blurred Vision, The Cons, Hazerfan, rock, at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

The Superfest International Disability Film Festival, the world’s longest running film festival dedicated to films by and about the disabled community, takes place this weekend at the Gaia Arts Center in downtown Berkeley.  

Superfest was founded three decades ago in Southern California and made its way up to Berkeley about 15 years ago. The festival has long made its home at La Peña on Shattuck Avenue in South Berkeley, where it accomodated as many as 40 patrons per screening. But as the festival’s reputation has grown so has attendance, necessitating a change in venue. Thus this year’s festival will be held downtown at the Gaia Arts Center, a venue that can accomodate more than 100 theatergoers. 

Each fall, Superfest, a presentation of Culture! Disability! Talent!, sends out a call for entries and by January receives submissions from all over the world. This year’s call brought in more than 40 films from 10 countries. The program will consist of 13 of these films, representing seven countries and more than a dozen disabilities. The festival runs Saturday morning through Sunday night, and includes a reception and awards ceremony from 6-9 Saturday evening with live entertainment and opportunities for the public to meet the filmmakers.  

The festival starts at noon Saturday with The Rest of My Life: Stories of Trauma Survivors (USA, 25 minutes), a look at the lives of two people whose lives were transformed by sudden violence. The first is Presley LaFountain, a Chippewa sculptor whose injuries from a brutal hate crime nearly robbed him of the ability to pursue his art. The second is a young woman, a yoga instructor, who fought to regain her strength after a car accident. The film alternates between the two, allowing each to tell their own story, detailing the ways in which their lives were radically altered in an instant. 

A local film screens at 1:20 Saturday, spotlighting an Oakland arts center and its resident star. Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott (USA, 26 minutes) presents a moving portrait of a deaf woman with Down syndrome who, after more than 30 years of institutionalization, finally got a second chance to prove that she was not a lost cause. Scott, with the support of her twin sister and Creative Growth, an Oakland art studio for the disabled, began a career as a fiber artist that led to international acclaim. The film was directed by San Francisco filmmaker Betsy Bayha and is the winner of Superfest’s Excellence Award. 

Another short film, showing at 2:40 p.m. Saturday, follows the process by which a 14-year-old deaf girl develops a spoken-word performance in sign language, accompanined by an orchestra. Symphony of Silence (Canada, 22 minutes) conveys the poetry of movement by revealing the range of subtle inflection possible within the gestures of American Sign Language and, in a striking shot during the final performance, juxtaposes the movements of the poet with the sweeping gestures of the conductor in a stirring tribute to the power of physical expression. 

Sunday’s schedule will feature a similarly broad program of films. Darius Goes West: The Roll of His Life (USA, 92 minutes), screening at 3:40 p.m., traces the journey of a young man with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy who sets out with a group of friends on a cross-country trip to Los Angeles to persuade MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” to overhaul Darius’ motorozied wheelchair.  

Screening at 5:30 p.m., Planet of the Blind (Germany, 20 minutes) takes the program in a radically different direction with a poetic rumination on blindness that pairs the words from Stephen Kuusisto’s best-selling memoir with distorted images to simulate the experience of living with impaired vision. 

The festival closes with the 6 p.m. screening of The Epidemic (Denmark, 51 minutes), the winner of Superfest’s 2007 grand prize. The Epidemic is a stirring Danish film that combines archival footage of that country’s 1952 polio epidemic with a first-person account of the tragedy from Neils Frandsen and his family. Frandsen was a child at the time, and through his own dream-like narration and interviews with his parents and sister we get a harrowing and inspiring glimpse of a family caught up in an epidemic beyond their control or comprehension. 

Other films include: 

• Headstrong: Inside the Hidden World of Dyslexia and ADHD (USA, 27 minutes), co-produced by Ben Foss and Chloe Sladden of San Francisco and Steve Schecter of Oakland. The film won this year’s Achievement Award for its uplifting look at the lives of people living with dyslexia and ADHD. 

• Stroke (Germany, 58 minutes) by Katrina Peters, winner of the Achievement Award for its look at the impact Peters’ young husband’s massive stroke has had on their relationship. Peters, who lives in Germany, studied film at the San Francisco Art Institute in the 1990s.  

• Mercury Stole My Fire (Australia,12 minutes), in which a woman’s environmental illness is dramatized through mime and poetry. 

• Carmela (Mexico, 30 minutes), the story of a polio survivor and her adult son with Down syndrome. 

• No Bigger Than a Minute (USA, 53 minutes), an irreverent portrait of how dwarves, or people of short stature, have been represented on screen since the earliest days of film. 

• Seeing is Believing (Russia, 13 minutes), a portrait of a blind Moscow college student. 

• Let Us Spell It Out For You (USA, 3 minutes), a pastiche of spirtuals and folk songs performed in sign language to protest government funding cuts to deaf theater programs. 

SUPERFEST 27 

International Disability Film Festival 

Noon-5 p.m. Saturday and 2-7 p.m. Sunday. A “Meet the Makers” reception will take place from 6-7 p.m. Saturday, followed by an awards ceremony from 7-9 p.m., both free of charge and open to the public. The venue is wheelchair-accessible. Braille and large-print screening schedules will be provided at the event. Please refrain from wearing perfume and other scented products. Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets cost $5-$20 each day on a sliding scale and will be sold at the door. For a complete schedule, visit www.culturedisabilitytalent.org or call the CDT voice mailbox at 845-5576.  

Photograph: Images of the child are projected onto the man in Neils Frandsen’s The Epidemic, a memoir of Denmark’s 1952 polio epidemic.

Bay Area percussionist and educator Babatunde Lea will host a benefit Monday with a stellar lineup of West Coast jazz musicians to raise money for medical treatment for his middle daughter, championship athlete Tanya Lazar-Lea. 

The benefit will feature his quartet (Richard Howell, Glen Pearson and Geoff Brennan) with guests, trombonist Steve Turre, percussionist Bujo Kevin Jones, and Los Angeles vocalist Dwight Trible, 

Other performers on this bill include Khalil Shaheed and his Mo’ Rockin’ Project, vocalists Faye Carroll and Madeleine Eastman, drummer Vince Lateano, Frankie Kelly, David Gonzalez, the Bud Spangler Quartet, with singer Ed Reed, drummer Eddie Marshall’s Holy Mischief, Keith Terry and the All-Slamming Body Band, Linda Tillery’s Cultural Heritage Band, vocalist Rhonda Benin, past-San Francisco poet laureate Devorah Major and jazz poetry with UpSurge! 

Tanya Lazar-Lea’s troubles began at 19, when a vertibra in her lower back was broken in a fall on a high jump bar. A Vallejo High School championship athlete, whose records still stand, Lazar-Lea had been awarded a scholarship to UC Berkeley.  

“The permanent damage led to adrenal gland problems,” said her father, “and after a car accident in 2004, Medi-Cal refused to fund her ongoing treatment. She’s needed a concert of doctors, but instead has been sent to one, then another, until the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing.”  

Lazar-Lea is now living with her parents in Vallejo and doing her own research on her condition. “After 14 years, she’s pretty good at it, leading the doctors to where the problems are,” her father said. “She has that tenaciousness athletes have, to do what they have to do.” 

Babatunde, who plays set drums and congas, first arrived in the Bay Area in 1966, later had a stint in New York until 1977, resettled in San Francisco, and moved to Vallejo in 1991. 

He and his wife, Dr. Virginia Lea, a Sonoma State professor, founded the Edu-Cultural Foundation (educulturalfoundation.org) in 1993 to teach critical thinking in cultural and social studies through the arts, working with various West Coast schools. 

“Outside of an incredible night of music,” Babatunde said, “we want to fill the room with love and support to raise Tanya’s spirits, then go to work to get her what she needs, to give her back a degree of real independence, the quality of life she deserves.” 

BABATUNDE LEA 

7 p.m. Monday at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. (at 27th Street). $25 donation requested.  

For Information call Arts First, Oakland at 444-8511.

By KEN BULLOCK 

Special to the Planet 

Late spring, and time for the diverse sounds of the Berkeley World Music Festival, which transforms Telegraph Ave. and its environs between Bancroft and The Village all weekend into a global celebration of an international spirit, expressed through the strains of each specific musical tradition represented.  

“I’m always amazed at the wide variety of talent in the Bay Area,” said Gianna Ranuzzi, the four year-old festival’s founder and director, adding that each year the line-up of musicians and groups changes—and that the broad spectrum of sounds don’t only represent the cultures of the world, but the diversity of this region: “They all live here!” 

And the festival is especially set up for the complement to music—dancing—with stages along the street and a Saturday afternoon extravaganza in People’s Park, sponsored by Amoeba Music and mc’d by digeridu maestro and KPFA radio personality Stephen Kent, featuring the likes of Balkan Gypsy-style Brass Menazeri, Yassir Chadly and Bouchaib Abdelhabi’s traditional Moroccan with the addition of Kent’s digeridu, and the great Samba Ngo, Congolese dance music master, with his very personalized Pan-African beat and vocals. “We’re lucky to have him!” Ranuzzi commented. 

One of the street stages—call it ‘Cody’s Corner,” said Ranuzzi—will be at Haste and Telegraph, in front of the former location of Cody’s Books, featuring Chilean singer Rafael Mariquez; the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music’s Youth Marimba Band, with a dozen young people playing diasporic music on seven marimbas and on goards; and the Belly Dance Bazaar on Saturday and Sunday will see on that stage Julia Tsitsi Chigamba and her Zimbabwe music and dancers; Ya-Elah, world spiritual choir and the Druid Sisters Tea Party, “Celtic Gypsy Tribal Grooves.” 

Also on Saturday, Mario’s La Fiesta restaurant will open its banquet room on Haste for Sara and Swingtime, Hollywood Latin dance. Portuguese Fado, the poetic ballads of saudade, will be sung by Ramana Vierra at Raleigh’s Pub, appropriately in the early evening, and Moh alileche will play the Parisian diasporic cafe form of his Amazigh Berber music to finish off the day’s festivities at The Village.  

Elsewhere, up and down the Avenue on Saturday, the Caffe Mediterraneum presents the Parisian cafe sounds of the Baguette Quartette; Rasputin Music features The Palm Wine boys’ acoustic world folk, while Magic Carpet combines Indian sarode with Latin rhythms at Naan ‘n Curry—and Tara Linda y Sombra de la Luna plays 1930s Tex-Mex dance music and songs at the corner of Channing Way. 

Sunday kicks off with Mamidou and vanessa with their seminal Mali Blues at Caffe Med, and Trillium World Harp Trio at the Musical Offering on Bancroft, followed by Gary Wade’s unplugged R & B at Moe’s Books, the Cajun All-Stars’ Zydeco at the Durant Food Court, the great Tito y Su Son de Cuba at Durant’s Beau Sky Hotel, Pusaka Sunda’s Javanese Gamelan Dejung at Julie’s Healthy Cafe on Bancroft, Evelie S. Posch and Mahal with Filipino Fusion at Caffe Milano (also on Bancroft), Grupo Falso with Brazilian Choro and Samba at Raleigh’s—and the festival closer, Freddy Clarke’s Wobbly World, world fusion at The Village, a fit finale for such a display of worldwide musical color. 

“This year’s line-up’s proven so stellar, the morning openers could all just as well be evening headliners,” said Ranuzzi. “These artists are the ones preserving and teaching their cultures. It’s a chance to hear in intimate places, to talk with or dance outside to performers who usually appear in expensive venues—and all for free, on Telegraph Avenue.” 

For details see www.worldmusicberkeley.org.

When Captain John Slater died in January 1908, a newspaper obituary declared him to have been “part owner in steamship companies with Captains Dudreau and Miles [sic]” and his family “among the largest property owners in the north end.” Slater’s employers were captains Boudrow and Mighell, owners of the California Shipping Company and residents of 1536 and 1533 Oxford Street, respectively. The writer of the obituary may have exaggerated Slater’s role within the Boudrow & Mighell company, just as Slater’s land holdings appear to have been inflated beyond their actual extent. 

Property assessment records indicate that the Slater holdings in 1908 consisted of two houses: 1335 Shattuck Avenue and 1426 Spruce Street. Family records confirm that the Slaters suffered a reversal of fortune as a result of the captain’s death. Louise Slater (1867–1948) remarried, but her second husband, Edward Phillips, lived for no more than three or four years. In 1912 or ’13, Louise sold the big house, keeping the smaller one. 

At the time, daughter Marguerite was a student at UC, while younger sons Norman and Colby were at Berkeley High School. For a while, the family lived at 2317 Haste Street, a house they may have found thanks to their former tenant, Andrew H. Irving. 

Plant superintendent of the Paraffine Paint Company, Irving was then living across the street, in the enormous and ornate Lafayette Apartments at 2314 Haste Street.  

In 1935, the Lafayette would become Barrington Hall, the University Students’ Cooperative Association’s largest residential co-op. By 1915, when Andrew’s elder brother, Samuel C. Irving, was elected mayor of Berkeley, their widowed mother and sister had also moved into the Lafayette. 

The mother, Jane Scott Irving, was born in 1829 in Nova Scotia and died at the Lafayette in January 1917. Her obituary in the Berkeley Gazette declared her to have been the granddaughter of Zephaniah Williams, “one of the heroes of the revolution. Williams was presented with a purse of $3,000 and a sword of honor for his services in the war by the Continental Congress.” 

The Gazette failed to mention that after fighting numerous battles against the British, Zephaniah Williams joined the Duke of Cumberland’s Regiment, in a unit consisting entirely of former officers and men of the American Continental Army, and spent three years as a British soldier on garrison duty in Jamaica. 

When the regiment was disbanded in 1783, the American soldiers were allowed to settle in Nova Scotia and given land grants. In 1785, Williams came to Antigonish, NS and put down roots in a place now known as Williams Point. 

While three Irvings were residing at the Lafayette Apartments, Louise Slater’s eldest son, James Herbert Slater (1889–1969), had gone to work for the Paraffine Paint Co. as an electrical engineer and took up residence at 1402–04 Spruce Street, a few doors to the north of his mother’s property. This two-flat Victorian cottage would soon be acquired by the Slaters and remain under family ownership until 1970. 

The Paraffine Paint Company of San Francisco manufactured specialty paints, building papers, and ready roofing materials under the Pabco and Malthoid brand names. Malthoid, a bituminous rolled membrane with adhered granules, was in demand for roofing bungalows. In 1908, it was used to roof the “ultimate bungalow,” Greene & Greene’s famed Gamble House in Pasadena. According to an architectural report, it failed within the first 10 years. 

Malthoid’s popularity extended as far as Australia and New Zealand, where many bungalows were being constructed. Sales were robust enough to warrant the extended visit of an executive from the home office. That executive was none other than Samuel C. Irving, Berkeley’s future mayor, who would serve as vice-president and manager of the Paraffine Companies from 1903 to 1930. The visit to Australia lasted close to a year, and Samuel was accompanied by his wife. The couple’s first son, Fred Elton Irving, was born in Sydney in October 1886. The Irvings would not return to California until Fred was six months old. 

Samuel C. Irving (1858–1930) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He was the son of Andrew K. Irving, a Scottish shipwright. The Irving family came to the Bay Area from New York in 1868. According to Jane Scott Irving’s obituary in the Gazette, Andrew K. Irving founded the first shipbuilding yard on the Pacific Coast at San Francisco and organized the first labor union in the West. 

In 1880, Andrew and Jane Irving were living with their five children in Vallejo, site of the U.S. Navy’s Mare Island shipyards. Samuel, who had graduated from UC in 1879, was still registered as a student when the census taker came calling the following year. 

Samuel married Laura Sell in 1886, and the couple settled in Cow Hollow, San Francisco, raising two sons. In 1901, Samuel served as president of the Mechanics Institute and an ex-officio UC Regent. 

Like many refugees of the San Francisco earthquake and fire, the Irvings moved to Berkeley in 1906. At the time, Samuel’s younger brother, Andrew, was rooming with the Slaters at 1335 Shattuck Avenue. Across the street, Captain Seabury’s house at 1322 Shattuck Ave. was unoccupied (more about Seabury in the next article). It seemed an ideal arrangement, and Samuel bought the house from Seabury. He would remain there for fifteen years. 

While living at 1322 Shattuck Ave., the Republican Samuel Irving was twice elected mayor of Berkeley, serving from 1915 to 1919 (in 1926 he would run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat). Shortly after leaving office, he acquired the former Slater house across the street and resided in it for the rest of his life. On December 2, 1930, he was fatally struck by a car while crossing Shattuck Avenue on his way home. Samuel Irving was a member of the Bohemian, Commercial, Commonwealth, Faculty, and Hillside Clubs, the Berkeley lodges of Elks and Masons, and the Golden Bear Society. 

Samuel Irving’s sons followed him into his businesses. Fred (1886–1973) was a department manager at the Paraffine Companies until his father went into the cider, vinegar, and fruit-juice business. Shortly after the end of World War I, Fred could be found in Sonora, CA, managing the California Cider Company. Living with him was his younger brother Livingston, who looked after the orchards. 

Livingston G. Irving (1895–1983) had made a name for himself as a World War I ace flyer in the Lafayette Escadrille and the 103rd Aero Squadron. After his stint as orchard keeper, he went to work at the Paraffine Cos. as an engineer. During the 1920s, he continued to fly in the Air Corps Reserve out of Crissy Field. When the Dole Race from Oakland to Honolulu was announced in 1927, Livingston was the first contestant to enter. His plane was a Breese monoplane purchased and sponsored by the Paraffine Companies. Christened the Pabco Pacific Flyer, the plane was painted bright orange and sported the Indian warrior’s head insignia of the Lafayette Flying Corps. 

Technical problems plagued the Dole Race; of the 15 contestants, only eight took off and a mere two reached Hawaii. The Pabco Pacific Flyer was one of the non-starters. On the second attempt to take off, the plane rose briefly before crashing down. Livingston bought the wreck from the Paraffin Cos. for a reported $10 and had it rebuilt to his specifications. Renamed the Irving Cabin Monoplane, it was sold in 1929 to the Pacific Finance Corporation. 

Livingston retired from the Army Air Force as a colonel. He was not the only illustrious son of a prominent father to have come out of the Slater-Irving connection. Captain Slater’s youngest son, Colby E. “Babe” Slater (1896–1965), was a world-class athlete. In 1911 and ’12, “Babe” led the Berkeley High School rugby team to county, regional, and state titles. In 1914, he went on to the University Farm School (now UC Davis), starring in rugby, football, basketball, and baseball. 

U pon graduation in 1917, “Babe” enlisted in the United States Army and served with the Medical Corps in France and Belgium during World War I. After the war, he raised sheep, hogs, and feed in Woodland, CA. When the Olympic Games Committee allowed the formation of a United States rugby team for the 1920 Olympics, “Babe” Slater was one of the first players chosen. To everyone’s surprise, the inexperienced U.S. team won the gold after beating France 8-0. 

In the 1924 Olympics, “Babe” was captain of the U.S. rugby team, which also included his brother Norman (1894–1978). Once again, the U.S. beat France to win the gold. Angry French fans rioted in the stands, and rugby was thereafter removed from Olympic competition. 

Around 1927 “Babe” Slater bought land in Clarksburg, CA and raised various crops for close to thirty years. Norman Slater, who had been a mechanic in San Francisco, joined his brother’s farming operations. The only Slater to remain in Berkeley was James Herbert, who continued to work for the Paraffine Cos. and raised a family at 1404 Spruce St. before moving north to 776 Spruce in the 1930s. Not far from him, at 1814 San Antonio Road, lived Fred Irving, who had forsaken Paraffine for apple juice. 

This is the second part in a series of articles on north Berkeley houses and the families that inhabited them. 

Photograph by Daniella Thompson.  

This house at 1841 San Antonio Road was the home of Fred E. Irving, elder son of Berkeley mayor Samuel C. Irving.  

Daniella Thompson publishes berkeleyheritage.com for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA). 

It’s summer—a month from St. John’s Eve, but no longer quite the juvescence of the year—and time to take a deep breath. If you’re more organized than I am, as most humans are, you’ve got almost everything in the ground and watered and fertilized, at least sufficiently for the time being, and things are hinting at bearing fruit.  

Time to go for a stroll and look at other people’s gardens. 

The flush of official garden tours is past. But the roses are still blooming, and shade plants are spreading their foliage; tropicals are just getting on with it, blooming and greening in the brief beats of heat we’ve enjoyed this past month.  

Regular brisk strolls around the neighborhood are good for your health and for your observational skills too. Leave the iPod at home and tune your ears into the sounds that you can filter through the din of human cities.  

Chez nous, the robins are having a competitive year. There’s one couple nesting in the mutilated plum tree next to our backyard, which will keep the carwash folks in pocket change for a few months. When we water out back, they’ll come down to the wet spots, each taking a turn, to see what sort of tasty invertebrates might have come up from the sudden mud for air.  

Rival robins have been rockin’ just a few doors to the east, and just across the intersecting street to the west. Some evenings the boyos all come out to the streetside utility lines and stage song duels.  

A lately-insomniac neighbor tells me that our yardbird, at least, has been inspired to bursts of song at 4 a.m. some nights.  

That sad little whine from overhead is the call note of the local lesser goldfinch. His song is much sweeter, and he and his honey seem to be nesting in the Japanese maple next door. Such dialogues I’ve been hearing from that canopy!  

The crows are headquartered on the block just southeast of us, and they carry on at intervals all day. One thing I’ve learned from this family is that they use the same word for “raven” as for “hawk”—a nasal flat “caah”—when they see and chase one through the neighborhood. Listen for that note and look up to see what fancy predator is in transit. 

Meanwhile, the human neighbors’ gardens put on the visual part of the show. The guy on the corner has a hedge of white roses that smell better than white roses tend to, and his Brugmansia has a sweet scent too. Now I find myself sniffing as I go, like a dog. Think how this block must “look” to dogs! 

It’s enlightening to see how perennials fare here over a few years; what gets overgrown; who keeps their poor shrubs trimmed into poodleballs.  

Sometimes I even get to meet the people who garden my local favorites. We’ve swapped histories, tips, and cuttings. I’m not terribly social usually, but gardens (and birds!) bring out the gladhander in me. 

Where did you get that gorgeous iris? 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Daily Planet.

Some things are always a bad idea. Karaoke with your boss, bell bottoms on chain driven motorcycles, long-haired thoracic surgeons or pesto-flavored ice-cream. 

Another thing that is nearly always a bad idea is converting a basement into somebody’s bedroom. 

I’ve seem this a lot and there is a special red flag (animated with flashing stripes) that goes up in my head whenever I walk down stairs in a house and see a “staged” bed over new carpeting and can just make out the flue from the furnace sticking out from behind the lacy curtain. As they say, “What could go wrong?” 

Long ago, when I was young, basements were places where people drank and shot pool. They were places where a boy could take apart the family TV and be threatened with a spinal transplant by a red-faced father (clearly this was way before Child Protective Services). They were, however, not living spaces. They tended in many parts of the country to be damp or even wet. They often housed a sump (a well recessed into the slab) and a pump for management of subsurface waters. 

You see, basements violate nature’s laws when it comes to grade (ground level), erosion patterns and the design of the watershed. If you’re lucky enough to live in a fairly dry part of the country, this is far less of an issue, but most places suffer as we do, with water that insists on filling up spaces that we dig out of the earth. They used to call them wells. Big ones might be called quarries. Whatever you call them, they’ve always tended to get wet. 

Regardless of this truth, in our modern age of common senselessness, we’ve forgotten all the basic stuff. While it was well understood a hundred years ago that a cellar would be damp and that action would have to be taken to keep one dry, we have forgotten these things and end up carpeting concrete floors 8’ below ground level. 

Basements ARE excellent spaces for crafts and storage and occasional short-term belching and cursing but they do not work well as bedrooms. 

One thing that is not commonly understood is that typical concrete is quite porous to water and much like a wick will transmit substantial volumes of water into a basement, even across a slab or wall of 6” or more. As concretes go upward in strength they also become less porous and so, when designing a basement, this is one of many strategies that can be employed in producing a dryer environment. 

It’s common to see a white crystalline precipitate (powder) on the surface of concrete floors and walls in basement as evidence of this slow water movement. We call this efflorescence. As water moves through the concrete it carries evaporative salts such as calcium chloride to the dryer side and as the water evaporates from the exposed side of the concrete, it leaves these salts behind. These are largely benign but do illustrate a problem with drainage.  

If the concrete is kept relatively dry, or if there is a low-pressure path to allow the water to move easily along the other side of the concrete (the soil side), the water would not make the more difficult journey through the concrete, at least not much of it. 

The pressure of water on the back side of the concrete wall or floor is known as hydrostatic pressure and the higher it is, the more it wants to push through the concrete and dampen the rug and grow the mold colony in the new bonus room. 

On retaining walls, we usually create holes through the walls to relieve this pressure. Without these “weep” holes, large walls can be slowly toppled. Water is amazing stuff. It always wins unless you let it through. There is no opponent more dangerous than the one that is patient and moves very slowly. 

In basements, it is possible to arrest some of the infiltration of water in liquid or vapor form by the use of sealants. The problem is that they cannot resist high levels of hydrostatic pressure. If there’s a lot of push to the water on the other side of the wall, the surface of the concrete including the sealant can “spall” or exfoliate in thin chips releasing the moisture and damaging the surface. 

If there is just a little weeping going on and the concrete quality is good, a sealant can be quite effective. There are two common sealants that have been in use for quite a long time, UGL Drylok and Thoroseal. Thoroseal is a cementitious sealant with an acrylic component and seals over the concrete. 

It comes in a range of colors and can be painted when installed. Drylok is a clear latex sealant that impregnates the concrete surface. In my experience, Thoroseal is the better choice for weeping concrete although Drylok is a nice choice for maintaining the appearance of brick or other masonry (being a clear sealer). 

Better than either of these is a line of products by Aquafin™. Included in these are epoxy sealants that can solve major problems where escaping water vapor has made living spaces uninhabitable and also cementitious sealants that can seal rough, highly porous concrete. 

I don’t want to create any illusions here. Damp basements can be restored to relatively dry conditions with these methods as well as ventilation, heat, dehumidifiers and drainage systems. But when pushing water comes to shoving humidity, nature often wants these basements to stay damp. 

The key to using this data properly is not in the utter abandonment of the basement but in reasonable expectations and appropriate use of space. To those of you who are now carpeting and painting that basement in preparation for sale, keep in mind that the next owner will assume that these finishes guarantee dry, cozy space. 

If nothing else, take some time to write down what you know and what you don’t know about the basement (“it’s seemed mostly dry these last four years but it wasn’t carpeted or painted”). It could mean the difference between a nasty phone call next January and a clear conscience combined with reduced liability. 

If you’re a buyer, look twice and three time at that basement and don’t start planning the office layout just yet. Give yourself a winter to assess the real utility of the space and be prepared to take some special measures (or to use it as a …. basement). 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net.

“Triangle of Life” – Watch Out! 

Every so often I get an email from someone passing on information from a person named Doug Copp, who is a self-proclaimed “expert” on disaster management.  

He says that, in a serious quake, the “drop, cover, and hold on” advice from the Red Cross and other American disaster agencies is wrong, and that instead you should find some “triangle of life” area in the room to protect you.  

Please don’t listen to this advice. His observations are based on buildings in third world countries and, even if his ideas may have value there (who knows?), they DO NOT have value here. Engineering researchers have demonstrated that very few buildings collapse or “pancake” in the U.S. as they might do in other countries. 

If you want more info on this, google “triangle of life hoax.” You’ll learn a lot. 

Wishing you a safe home and peace of mind. 

Larry Guillot is the owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and gas shut-off valve installation service. Contact him at 558-3299 or visit QuakePrepare.com to receive semi-monthly quake safety reports.

FRIDAY, JUNE 1 

Plaque Dedication for denise brown at 7 p.m. at LeConte School, 2241 Russell St. To donate food, please call 841-2110. 684-7273. 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Field Trip to Jewel Lake in Tilden Park. Meet at 8:30 a.m. at the parking lot at the north end of Central Park Dr. 843-2222. 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Prof. George Bisharat on “Maximizing Rights: The One-State Solution to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

Wheelchair Yoga with Sally Maxwell at 11:30 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

Movies that Matter “Roxanne” at 6:30 p.m. at Neumayer Residence, 565 Bellevue St. at Perkins, Oakland. 451-3009. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

SATURDAY, JUNE 2 

Berkeley History Center Walking Tour “The Maybeck Estates” led by Paul Grunland with Bob Shaner, at 10 a.m. Cost is $8-$10. For information on meeting place and to register call 848-0181. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Strawberry Family Fun Fest with entertainment and activities for children from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK. 548-3333.  

Sushi Basics Learn the natural and culltural history of sushi as you learn to prepare it from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Parent participation required for children ages 8 to 10. Cost is $25-$39. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“Restore Wetlands in Oakland” with Save The Bay and the East Bay Regional Park District on a wetland restoration project near the Oakland Airport. From 9 a.m. to noon at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland. RSVP to 452-9261 ext. 109. bayevents@savesfbay.org 

Longfellow Middle School Annual Health Fair with student performances, activities, health information, food, fun for the whole family, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1500 Derby St. Free. 883-5258, ext. 2. 

Spring Faire at Washington Elementary School with face painting, boat races, book exchange, soul food and performances from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 2300 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, enter on McKinley. 486-1742. 

“Planning and Caring for Aging Loved Ones” with workshops and resources from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Malcolm X Elementary School, 1731 Prince St. Sponsored by Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. For information or to register call 272-6695. www.acgov.org/board/district5/event.htm. 

Eco-Oakland Volunteer Opportunuity Help elementary school students with mapping and habitat restoration at Lion Creek, neat Merritt College. For information call 635-5533.  

“Mentors for Backyard Garden Program” Volunteers needed to help low-income residents of West Oakland build and maintain vegetable gardens, provide ongoing support, seedlings, seeds and compost. Information meeting from 10 a.m. to noon at West Oakland Woods Farm, 537 Lewis St., corner of Peralta and 7th, Oakland. SPonsored by City Slicker Farms. 763-4241. 

“Build an Earth Oven” Learn how to build your own oven from clay, sand, straw, and bricks. From 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Grandma Mary’s Organic Farm, 100 Behrens St., El Cerrito. Cost is $150. To register call 527-9271. www.kleiwerks.org 

Twins by the Bay Annual Garage Sale Families with twins, triplets, and more, sell gently used baby gear, clothes, car seats, strollers, and more from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 1707 Gouldin Rd., Montclair. 593-5911. www.homestead.com/twinsbythebay 

Future Leaders Institute Legacy Awards at 4 p.m. at The Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland. www.thefutureleadersinstitute.org 

Citizenship Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Fruitvale Village, located directly across from the Fruitvale BART station at the 3300 block of East 12th St,, between Fruitvale Ave. and 35th Ave., Oakland. 535-6900. svelazquez@unitycouncil.org 

“Crossing the Line” Chris Brown speaks of his experience as a Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. 499-0537. 

“Exploring Class... “ A two day-workshop examining the impact of class on our lives, and breaking down barriers between people from different socio-economic classes. Workshop held in Oakland. Register online at www.classism.org 

“Take a New Step and Meet Your Neighbors” Community fair with programs and service providers, basketball tournament, music and drama to reduce risk factors and combat violence in West Oakland. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1143 10th St., Oakland. 677-6364. 

Free Electronic Waste Drop Off Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the El Cerrito Department of Motor Vehicles, 6400 Manila Ave. E-waste accepted: computer monitors, computers/computer components, televisions, VCR & DVD players, toner cartridges, printers, fax machines, copiers, telephone equipment, cell phones, MP3 players. NO appliances, batteries, microwaves, paints, pesticides, etc. Please take these items to the Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Facility at 101 Pittsburg Ave. in Richmond. For HHW facility information, call 1-888-412-9277. The HHW facility will be open June 2. For E-waste Event questions call 1-888-832-9839 

Rachel Corrie Rebuilding Campaign Benefit to rebuild the next home in Northern Gaza with Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom from Jerusalem and Husam El Nounou from Gaza at 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Church, Cedar and Bonita. Sponsored by Progressive Democrats of the East Bay, Ecumenical Peace Institute, Rebuilding Alliance, American Friends Service Committee, and the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church. Donation $10-$25 sliding scale, no one turned away. 524- 4244. 

AnewAmerica Social Responsibility Summit with workshops on Immigration Reform, Healthcare for Immigrants, Advocacy for Small Business and Food Justice from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. Elizabeth Church, the Franciscan Hall, 1500 34th Ave. & International Blvd, Oakland. 532-5240.  

Children’s Fairyland Personalities in costume at noon, followed by music with John Weaver at 1:30 a.m. puppet show at 2 p.m. at 699 Bellvue Ave., Oakland. 452-2259. 

Origami for All Ages from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 3 

Greening Albany Learn about community actions to reverse global warming, with speakers and information on goods and services, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Albany Middle School, 1259 Brighton Ave. 219-7211. 

“Climate Change: Technology and Policy” with Karen Street at 1 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Meeting, 2151 Vine. 653-2803. 

Yosemite Family Explorations with Ranger Ben telling stories about the park’s black bears, and other activities, at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to keep your bike in excellent working condition through safety inspections, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Toddlers and Friends For 2-3 year olds to explore the meadows, ponds and trails in Tilden. Meet at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Summer Ponds Look for tadpoles, newt larvae, dragonfly nymphs and more from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Berkeley City Club Wine Festival from 6 to 9 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave.Tickets are $40. 848-7800. 

Community Singalong with jazz pianist Ellen Hoffman from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison, Oakland, near 19th St. BART. Cost is $5-$15. 534-2750. 

Holistic Pet Consultation from 1 to 4 p.m. at RabbitEARS, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, but appointment required. 525-6155. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Social Action Forum with Mary Dewey-Wagner on ethical treatment for animals at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Univresalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Mary Gomes on “Everyday Compassion” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, JUNE 4 

“But What Can We Do About Global Warming?” A talk by author Ernest Callenbach at a brown-bag lunch at 12:30 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Explore Upper Codornices Creek on a challenging walk with Friends of Five Creeks Meet at 6:30 p.m. at the main entrance to the Berkeley Rose Garden, west side of Euclid Ave. south of Eunice St. This walk gains 500 feet elevation and includes hill staircases and narrow, uneven trails. Wear sturdy shoes; bring water, flashlight and walking sticks. 848-9358.  

“Renewable Energy from Synthetic Biology” with Jay Keasling of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater 2025 Addison St. 486-5183. 

“Is Anybody Out There? The Search for ET” with Dan Werthimer of SETI at UC Berkeley, at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $5 at door. www.hillsideclub.org 

Drop in Knitting Class at the Albany Library Work on your own project or make pet blankets and children’s hats to be donated to charity organizations. Yarn and needles provided for donated items. At 3:30 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 5 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit the Wildcat Regional Trail. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Empty Bowls” fundraising event in conjunction with National Hunger Awareness Day at 5:30 p.m. at Alameda County Community Food Bank, 7900 Edgewater Drive, Oakland. Tickets are $20, or $40 for a family. 635-3663, ext. 328. www.accfb.org 

Eco-Oakland Volunteer Opportunity Help elementary school students with mapping and habitat restoration at Lion Creek, near Merritt College. For information call 635-5533.  

Tilden Mini-Rangers Hiking, conservation and nature-based activities for ages 8-12. Dress to ramble and get dirty. From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

“The Citizen Powered Energy Handbook” with author Greg Pahl on renewable energy technologies ways that individuals and communities can work toward sustainable energy, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. 548-2220 ext. 223. 

Climate Action Networking Lunch with strategies for reducing our community-wide GHG emissions at noon at Spud's Pizza, 3290 Adeline near Alcatraz. Hosted by the City of Berkeley. 981-7081. 

Digital Earth Symposium: Humanitarian and Climate Change Presentations A 5 day conference on using satellite and aerial images of the earth at UC Berkeley. For information see www.isde5.org 

Berkeley Rep Book Club meets to discuss “The Real Oliver Twist” by Jonathan Waller at 6 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. RSVP to 647-2916. 

Berkeley School Volunteers training for summer volunteer opportunities in preschool, elementary, and middle schools from noon to 1 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Free Legal Assistance the first Tues. of the month at 6 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Advance registration required. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around Preservation Park to see Victorian architecture. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Preservation Park at 13th St. and MLK, Jr. Way. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Workshop for Low Income Berkeley Homeowners on how to get help for maintenance of your home, at 10:30 a.m. at West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5180. 

“Sustainable Futures” a documentary about seven communities where sustainability is a high priority at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., between Telegraph and Broadway, Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

New to DVD Screening and Discussion at 7 p.m. at JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Discussion follows. 848-0237. 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 10 a.m. to noon at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. 594-5165. 

Backpacking 101, a talk on the fundamentals needed for a weekend trip, at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, JUNE 7 

“Last Journey for the Leatherback Sea Turtle” A video and talk with Karen Steele, the coordinator of the Sea Turtle Restoration Network, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. 548-2220, ext. 233. erc@ecologycenter.org 

“Israel & Palestine - What Peace Could Look Like” with Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom and Husam El Nounou at 7 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave, corner of Grand Ave. and Fairview, Piedmont. Donation suggested $10-$25. 547-2424. 

Storytime for Babies and Toddlers at 10:30 a.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. June 4, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., June 4, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5510.  

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., June 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. June 6, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., June 7, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs. June 7, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7419.  

Community Environmental Advisory Commission Workshop The Co-Benefits of Climate Protection Thurs., June 7, at 7 p.m. at 2118 Milvia Street, 1st Floor Conference Room. 981-7461.

TUESDAY, MAY 29 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Painting to Live: Art from Okinawa’s Nishimui Artist Society, 1948-1950” opens at the IEAS Gallery, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor. 642-2809. 

Pinocchio Florentine Art Show Art created by Roberto Ciabani through May 31 at Cafe Expresso Roma, 1549 Hopkins St. 526-8736. 

FILM 

BALLE Film Festival “Manufactured Landscapes” on China’s industrial revolution at 6 p.m. and “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil” at 8:30 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $10-$15. www.livingeconomies.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tell on on Tuesdays Storytelling with Margery Kreitman, Zoe Sheli Sameth, Dana Chernack and Jeff Byers at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Cost is $8-$12 sliding scale. www.juiamorgan.org 

Paul Hawken discusses “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley. Suggested donation $5-$10. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Motordude Zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Randy Craig Trio at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30 

FILM 

BALLE Film Festival “Everything’s Cool” on addressing global warming at 6 p.m. and “A Drop of Life” on clean drinking water at 8:30 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $10-$15. www.livingeconomies.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Paul Duchscherer, author of many books on Arts & Crafts homes, on “Beyond the Bungalow” at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $20. 848-4288. 

David Corbett reads from his new novel “Blood of Paradise” set in present-day El Salvador, at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Sherman Alexie reads from his new novel “Flight” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley. 559-9500. 

Jewish Writers in the Bay Area with Gina Rose-Halpern at 7:30 p.m. at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10-$20. 465-3935. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trombonga with Jeffrey Carter, Marcus Bell, Pat Mullan and Curtiss Mays at 12:15 at Berkeley Arts Festival, 2323 Shattuck Ave. www.berkeleyartsfestival.org 

Del Sol String Quartet “Umbilical Chords: Women Composers & the Creative Process” Compositions by Kui Dong, Linda Catlin Smith, Teresa Carreño, Sally Beamish, Ruth Crawford, Mark Fish at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $7-$20. 415-374-0074.  

Joe Escobar Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Kusun Ensemble at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. Ghanian dance workshop at 7:30 p.m. for $8. 525-5054.  

Orquestra Candela at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Alexis Harte at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Klez-x and Davka at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

THURSDAY, MAY 31 

THEATER 

Berkeley High School “Schoolgirl Figure” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Benefits the Eating Disorders Program at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. Tickets are $6-$12. 236-1620. ShiftTheatre@aol.com 

FILM 

8th Annual Berkeley High School Film Festival with music videos, animation, documentary and experimental works from students at Berkeley High School at 7 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Allston between Milvia and MLK. Tickets are $5-$10. 

“Long Train Running: The Story of the Oakland Blues” A documentary presented by Oaklandish at 9 p.m. at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, 1834 Park Blvd. Oakland. Cost is $6. 962-5044. www.oaklandish.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Michele Simon describes “Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Arnie Passman reads from “Scherzofrenia” at 8 p.m. at The Book Zoo, 6395 Telegraph Ave, near Alcatraz, Oakland. 654-BOOK. 

J. Ruth Gendler reads from “Notes on the Need for Beauty: An Intimate Look at an Essential Quality” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

“Kosher Hollywood: Jews, Food, and Film” with Alisa Braun at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Tickets are $6-$8. 549-6950.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School Jazz Band Fundraiser Concert at 7:30 p.m. at 1781 Rose St. Free, but donations benefit the MLK Jazz Band program. 

Pat Nevins and Ragged Glory, Victor Barnes at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. All ages show. 525-5054.  

Congolese Dance and Drum Conference A weekend of Central African culture, music, and dance Thurs.-Sat. at Laney College, 900 Fallon Sr. Dance Studio D-100, and Sun. at MCC, 1428 Alice St., Studio A, Oakland. Cost is $15-$20 per workshop. 368-2475. www. 

youmustdance.blogspot.com 

In the Steel of the Night: Joe Goldmark and the Seducers at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761.  

Josh Workman Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Wiggle Wagons, Uncle Monk, Lariats of Fire at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 . 

The Dilettantes, The Mania, The Countless Others at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Selector: DJ Riddm at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 1 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “The Last Five Years” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through June 10. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Berkeley High School “Schoolgirl Figure” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Benefits the Eating Disorders Program at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. Tickets are $6-$12. 236-1620. ShiftTheatre@aol.com 

Berkeley Rep “Oliver Twist” at 8 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. through June 24. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org  

California Shakespeare Theater “Richard III” at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through June 24. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

“Dust Storm” the story of the artist Chiura Obata at the Topaz relocation camp in Utah during WWII, at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$10. 238-2200. 

“Laughter with Paul Mooney and the Mooney Twins” Fri.-Sat. at 8 and 10 p.m., Sun. at 8 p.m. at Black Rep, 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $25-$50. 652-2120. 

Shotgun Players “The Cryptogram” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through June 17. Tickets are $17-$25. For reservations call 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Travelling Jewish Theater “Death of a Salesman” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave., through June 10. Tickets are $15-$44. 1-800-838-3006. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Yosemite Night” Exhibition tour of “Yosemite: Art of an American Icon” at 6 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tom Odegard and John Rowe read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Hearst Ave.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Arts Encounters” featuring Faye Carol, John Handy, Kenny Washington with Khalil Shaheed, Richard Howell, Danny Armstrong, Glen Pearson, Ron Belcher, Deszon Claiborne and Babatunde Lea at 8 and 10 p.m. at the Kaiser Center Auditorium, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Benefit for the Oakland School for the Arts. Tickets are $25. 478-8896. www.bennubirdbookings.com  

Presidio Ensemble, modernist-classical quintet, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Ticketsa re $10-$15. www.hillsideclub.org  

Very Be Careful, vallenato dance music, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568.  

Tanaora Brasil at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Jolly Gibsons, Headshear, 3-P-O, Mo’Fone and more at 5:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20. 525-5054.  

Norton Buffalo & Friends at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Star Ledbetter and Lisa Alice at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Godstomper, Magrudergrind, I Object, Noisear at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Sweet Crude Bill at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Interseed, Burned Beyond Recognition at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Machina Sol at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Spiral Arms, Greenhouse Effect, Dolerada at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Lalah Hathaway at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, JUNE 2 

CHILDREN  

Hanna Banana Children’s folk music at 11 a.m. at Studio Grow, 1235 10th St. 526-9888. 

THEATER 

“Scatter My Red Underwear” Workshop performance by Milta Ortiz on vulnerabilities and struggles of four contemporary women of color at 8 p.m. at Malonga Casquelourd Arts Center, 1428 Alice St. Cos tis $7-$15. www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/4096 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Black/White & Color” Painters and photographer explore color and its absence. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

“The Edge: Where California Culture, Critters and Environment Collide” opens at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

East Bay Open Studios Sat. and Sun. at various studios around the East Bay. For maps see www.proartsgallery.org 

FILM 

Superfest International Disability Film Festival from noon to 5 p.m. and Sun. from 2 to 7 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $5-$20 at the door. 845-5576. www.culturedisabilitytalent.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

James Wagner and Suzanne Stein, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Bay Area Poets Coalition holds an open reading from 3 to 5 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street, not in Lodge parking lot. 527-9905.  

Alan Bern introduces “Waterwalking” poetry at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St.  

Emerson Spartz and Ben Schoen on “What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley World Music Festival Sat. and Sun. from noon to 9 p.m. throughout the Telegraph Ave. district between Bancroft Way and Parker St. 647-3506. 

Gamelan Sekar Jaya at 3 p.m. in the gardens of the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. at 10th., Oakland. Concert included with museum admission $5-$8. 238-2200.  

Moment’s Notice Improvised music, dance and theater at Western Sky Studio, 2525 8th St. Tickets are $8-$10. 847-1119. 

The Mixers at 9 p.m. at the Baltic Pub, 135 Park Place, Pt. Richmond. Cost is $5. 237-4782. 

Cave Painters at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

La Trova es Mujer with Leticia Servin and Meli Rivera at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $22-$24. 849-2568.  

Quejerema! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Tom Rigney, cajun/zydeco at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Jon Roniger and Sentimental Heroine at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

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

Laurie Antonioli Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Ric Didia & Aireene Espiritu at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Rimshot at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100.  

The Underworld Opera Co. Circus and Variety Show at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $8. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Mitch Marcus Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Resilience, Tried & True, Trouble Maker at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 3 

THEATER 

“Dust Storm” the story of the artist Chiura Obata at the Topaz relocation camp in Utah during WWII, at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$10. 238-2200. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Reception for Wang Gangfeng, photographer from Shanghai, at 3 p.m. at Alta Galleria, 2980 College Avenue #4. 421-1255. www.AltaGalleria.com 

FILM 

Superfest International Disability Film Festival from 2 to 7 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $5-$20 at the door. 845-5576. www.culturedisabilitytalent.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

A Conversation with Peter Selz on Anslem Kiefer’s painting “Die Sieben Himmelspalaste” with Carl Worth at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Muesum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Wednesday Writers of Oakland “Something That Metters” at 3 p.m. in the Peralta Pavilion of Alta Bates Summit, Second flr Living Room, 450 30th St., Oakland. Donation $10. RSVP to 869-8735. 

“Wars Within and Across Our Borders” Poetry and music at 6:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Open mic follows. Donations of $1-$10. 439-8777. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley World Music Festival from noon to 9 p.m. throughout the Telegraph Ave. district between Bancroft Way and Parker St. 647-3506. 

WomenSing and San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus at 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10-$25. 925-974-9169 www.womensing.org 

Pacific Boychoir Academy Springtime Serenade at 3 p.m. at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church, 400 Alcatraz, Oakland. Free. 652-4722. 

Dennis Edwards, pianist, performs music of Gershwin, Miles Davis, and more at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $12-$15. 644-6893. 

Twang Cafe with Val Esway and El Mirage, The Blushin' Roulettes at 7:30 at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $10.  

Missy Raines & the New Hip at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Aleph Null at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Ken Berman Trio at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Don Neely’s Royal Society Jazz Orchestra at 5 and 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Philips Marine Duo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Skinlab, The Face of Aggression, Ankla at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146.  

MONDAY, JUNE 4 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Photographs of China and Mongolia” by Berkeley photographer Caroline Johnson, opens at The LightRoom, 2263 Fifth St., Oakland. 649-8111.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Waterwalking” Poetry/dance collaboration with Alan Bern and Lucinda Weaver at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Blue Monday Jam at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Valerie Bach, world music, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100.  

Bill Charlap at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. 

WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL 

Telegraph Avenue blossoms in late spring for the Berkeley World Music Festival on afternoons and evenings this weekend, from Bancroft down to The Village and in People’s Park Saturday, June 2, with music from all over for listening and dancing—and it’s all free. Founder and organizer Gianna Ranuzzi emphasizes that the festival supports both local musicians and international multiethnic consciousness—most of the players, singers and dancers live right here, in the Bay Area. But the scope of the cultures they represent is truly staggering, from Mamadu and Vanessa playing and singing the Mali Blues, to Pusaka Sunda Javanese Gamelan Dejung; Julia Tsitsi dancing Zimbabwe style to Brass Menazeri’s Balkan band; Tito y Su Son de Cuba’s salsa to Mahal’s Filipino fusion; Mo Alileche’s Berber diaspora music and song to the Cajun All-Stars ... and fusion like a traditional Moroccan group with djeridu wizard Stephen Kent of KPFA and the Druid Sisters’ Tea Party (”Celtic Gypsy Tribal Grooves”)—continous music outdoors and in cafes, for two days. See www.berkeleyworldmusic.org.

Belefagor, aka “The Devil Takes a Wife,” Machiavelli’s only novella, about an unfortunate devil who returns to earth and is “suffocated by the sheer social force to conform and consume,” adapted to opera by Lisa Scola Prosek; and an aria from Peter Josheff and Jaime Robles’ work-in-progress based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, will be presented this weekend at the Thick House Theater, 1695 18th St. on San Francisco’s Potrero Hill.  

Belefagor will be conducted by Martha Stoddard, artistic director of the Oakland Civic Opera, with stage direction by Jim Cave, who draws on the physical theatrics of Commedia dell’Arte, featuring a “soft set” by filmmaker Jacob Calouseque, of interactive real-time video composed of original footage shot on location and in studio in Prague: “a ‘soft’ environment” in both large scale and close detail, integrated into the depth of the stage. 

The title role of Belefagor will be sung by tenor Aurelio Viscarra, and will also feature baritone Clifton Romig, sopranos Maria Mikheyenko and Eliza O’Malley, and mezzo-soprano Gar Wai Lee, accompanied by Katrin Wreede (violin), Rachel Condry (bass clarinet) and Alexis Alrich (piano). 

The aria from Francesca’s Complaint, in which the female protagonist from the Paolo and Francesca story from Canto V (“The Whirlwind of Lovers”) of Dante’s Inferno tells Dante and Virgil of their tragic love and murder, will be sung by Eliza O’Malley, for whom it was composed, accompanied on piano by Alexis Alrich. 

The operatization of Belefagor came about when Lisa Scola Prosek noticed that the satiric tale, by the famed (and often defamed) political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli “seemed the same as Alberto Moravia’s novel, The Conformist [adapted by Bertolucci for the film of the same name]. In The Conformist, the hero, marrying into a bourgeois family, is oppressed by their need for ostentation, to show off their wealth to others. I was teaching in Marin, and could see the same thing in our society: certain cars to have; certain things, like playing tennis, for children to do ... the social pressure is enormous. And that’s what destroyed Belfagor in Macchiavelli’s Renaissance novella.” 

Prosek discussed Machiavelli’s great influence on Commedia and later forms of low humor: “The Barber of Seville is really the same as Macchiavelli’s play, La Mandragola [The Mandrake].” Her opera is “overall, classic” in form, a kind of “Minimalist Bel Canto. It has arias, an ingenue, a basso buffo, a passionate tenor, both a shrill and a pretty soprano ... vocally, it covers the entire menu of classical opera. And from the overture on, the bass clarinet is the voice of Belfagor.” 

“Everybody wants to deconstruct forms now, but it’s difficult to deconstruct what you don’t know,” she continued, “like deconstructing the human body if you don’t know anatomy. Formal opera isn’t done much now. People want it to be like a musical—and sung in English. I’m bilingual, and the story’s Italian, andthe music cries out for the language. It just can’t be “Baby, baby!’” It’s sung in Italian with supertitles.” 

Francesca’s Complaint is the “first unit” of a “work very much in progress,” a collaboration between composer and clarinetist Peter Josheff and poet Jaime Robles, based on an extension of Dante’s 33 lines in Canto V of the Inferno, when Francesca “approaches Dante and Virgil, telling her story to justify herself as an innocent who doesn’t belong in Hell,” according to Robles. 

(In Dante’s poem, he encounters Paolo and Francesca, who have been killed by her husband, his brother, for their adultery. Francesca tells of how reading together a poem of courtly love sparked love between them.) 

“Eliza will sing the aria that’s from about halfway through the libretto, and is the part closest to Dante,” said Robles. “It’s a rewriting of what’s in those 33 lines. She takes the same stance, yet more contemporary: Words are deceivers, words and stories deceive both listener and speaker. It’s addressed to the audience as well. Francesca denies her own responsibility.” 

In the libretto, that aria is followed by a trio between Dante, the Latin poet Virgil (his guide through Hell) and a figure Robles invented, called Love, with “Dante examining the medieval troubadour stance towards love, Virgil a more classical, pragmatic sense—and the Love figure a more existential take.” From there, the piece changes. 

“Dante kicks it all off, and then the libretto moves into another area altogether,” said Robles. “Dante and Virgil meet Francesca’s husband, Paolo’s brother, buried in ice in the Ninth Circle of Hell, which isn’t treated in the Inferno; it’s talking about war, about families and betrayal, the battle between siblings as the cause of war. I drew from the war journals, some from recent wars, for it.” 

“It’s a chamber opera,” commented Josheff, “All in Jaime’s own words, freely interpreted from Dante, but trying to capture all the emotions in the aftermath of a violent life. Paolo’s brother used him as a surrogate to woo Francesca, a bait and switch game. So Francesca sees herself just as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why is she in Hell? The music tries to capture that poignant sense, of her consciously suffering her fate, trying to work it out in her mind. The opera is for a chamber orchestra, and I’ve been writing in installments as piano pieces. This will be the first time we’ll see Eliza sing from memory and act out Francesca on stage to music. We’ll be able to glimpse what it will all be like, down the road. Exciting for us!” 

BELEFAGOR 

8 pm. Friday and Saturday, and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Thick House Theater, 1695 18th St. on San Francisco’s Potrero Hill. $15. (415) 401-8081. www.thickhouse.org.

Joshua Key had enlisted in the Army and boot camp was in Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. His trainers told him that “Muslims were responsible for the September 11, 200l, attacks and that the people of Afghanistan were “pieces of shit that all deserved to die.” At different training camps he learned to take orders or be punished, and he learned to beat up fellow soldiers his superiors had decided to discipline. 

This is a thin book, only 231 pages of fairly large type so it should have been read quickly, but it took me days where avoidance was easier to manage than the will power to continue reading. We know from reading about war that it is “brutal.” While in my teens and reading All Quiet on the Western Front or A Farewell to Arms, there was such delicacy in writing about the awfulness of war—it was hinted at and the pain of the soldiers and officers was encapsulated in the term: “battle fatigue.” We non-combatants were protected from knowing what soldiers in battle did, and when the soldiers returned after combat, there was sympathy from those near and dear, and although we could always try to imagine actual harm, we did not know the details. It was assumed that the memories marked the soldier for life and that he would not, could not, talk about them. The Naked and the Dead was more descriptive about invasion and war, but there was nothing about occupying a country. 

Vietnam, television crews and unimbedded photographers and reporters gave us pictures of napalm dropped on civilians, villages being razed by fire with householders still in them—we had stories of suspected Vietcong being dropped from helicopters and the horrors of war became more difficult to avoid. Post-war traumatic stress disorder was beginning to be described. 

Now we have the details, a book, a deserter’s story as told to a Canadian journalist and writer. It is a simple story told simply: of how our soldiers in Iraq (and Afghanistan I would suppose) are trained, what they do as an occupying army, and how war affects them. 

War is not unfamiliar to me. I was a child in Shanghai and Hong Kong in the 1930’s and 40’s who grew up with experience of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and then the attack on Hong Kong (simultaneous with the attack on Pearl Harbor, Malaysia and the Philippines) and the constant stories of what the Japanese troops did to Chinese civilians: wanton execution of the males and rape, brutalization and execution of the females. At the end of World War II, I learned about the unspeakable cruelty of the Germans (Nazis as I learned later to describe the malefactors of the European wars). 

And I had a contrasting picture of a country with my knowledge of America. I grew up knowing that American values—the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, the Protestant missionaries who introduced me to clam digging and New England clam chowder and toasted marshmallow in Hong Kong—that American values would not allow rape and brutalization of an occupied people and that American soldiers were under control. 

After all, we all believed that one reason why the Chinese Communist Party was able to succeed in pushing out the corrupt Nationalists, who the U.S. supported, was because the communist soldiers did not rape, did not plunder but helped the farmer plant and harvest and provided medical care.  

Now I have been an American for over 62 years and although I no longer have romances about U.S. history I am nevertheless left breathless by this book. 

Along with the U.S. Constitution, the Nuremberg Principles, and our dutiful paying of federal taxes, all of us should be familiar with this short story. No wonder the war in Iraq is a disastrous failure—no number of troops, no amount of money and rhetoric could possibly make a dent in the way that we are occupying the country and dehumanizing our soldiers and ourselves. 

We are thousands of miles away but the truth is here for us to know about. 

Please read this and let’s do something. 

Take a playground 

Fill it full of kids, 

Drop on some napalm 

And barbecue some ribs. 

Who can take a shopping mall 

And fill it full of people? 

The sapper daddy can, 

‘Cause he takes a lot of pains 

And makes the hurt go good. 

Who can take all the people in the mall 

And chop ‘em up with Uzis? 

The sapper daddy can,  

“Cause he takes a lot of pains 

And makes the hurt go good. 

THE DESERTER’S TALE 

By Joshua Key, as told to Lawrence Hill 

Atlantic Monthly Press, NY, 2007

I don’t usually devote this space to book reviews, but I’m making an exception for the latest in UC Press’s California Natural History Guides series: Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, by Arthur M. Shapiro and Timothy D. Manolis. I know there are a bunch of good butterfly guidebooks out there already: Jeffrey Glassberg’s Butterflies through Binoculars: The West, Jim Brock and Kenn Kaufman’s Butterflies of North America, Paul Opler’s Field Guide to Western Butterflies. Well, make shelf room for the new one. 

Shapiro, who teaches at UC Davis (and is notorious for offering a pitcher of beer to whoever brings in the year’s first butterfly, a prize he tends to collect himself), is responsible for the text. Manolis, author and illustrator of the UC Press dragonfly guide, did the 31 color plates, showing all the variations by sex and season. There’s a hefty introduction to butterfly biology, a section on gardening for butterflies with a plant list, a glossary, a useful bibliography. My only real beef with the book is the absence of range maps. 

Every species gets a detailed account, covering life cycle, larval host plants, distribution, and separation from similar species. That last is especially helpful with the skippers, a confusing complex of small brown jobs that are the Empidonax flycatchers of the butterfly world. You’ll learn nifty words like diapause (a dormant period), multivoltine (having multiple adult emergences in a year), and sphragis (look it up; I’m not about to discuss the sex life of the clodius parnassian in a family publication.) 

Shapiro’s enthusiasm for his subjects is contagious; he makes even the potentially dry stuff like taxonomy and nomenclature engaging. I’ve seen friends open this book at random and laugh out loud. He pulls together a lot of material from the technical literature, much of it new to me. 

For one, there’s the recent study of two lookalike butterflies, the California sister and the Lorquin’s admiral. Really alike: both are dark brown with a broad white diagonal sash across the upper wing surfaces and a bold orange tip to the forewings. I’ve seen speculation for years that the sister was unpalatable to predators, mainly birds, and the admiral mimicked its coloration—a case of Batesian mimicry, named after Darwin’s contemporary Henry Walter Bates, who studied the phenomenon in the Amazon rain forest.  

This made a certain amount of sense: larval sisters eat oak foliage, likely to render them tannic in taste, while larval admirals consume willow leaves. And several of the admiral’s relatives—including the viceroy, which resembles the unpalatable monarch—are known mimics.  

But hard data was lacking. And there was always the possibility that both butterflies tasted bad, and the orange-and-white patterns were mutually reinforcing advertising (a case of Muellerian mimicry.) About six years ago, according to Shapiro, someone asked the birds what they thought. A tasting panel of jays devoured admirals but rejected sisters.  

The Bay Area turns out to be prime territory for butterfly studies.  

We’re at a geographical crossroads, with northern/alpine species like the clodius parnassian in Marin County and semitropical types like the handsome Sonora blue in the South Bay. We have superspecialists: the Lange’s metalmark, which feeds only on naked-stem buckwheat growing in a remnant dune field near Antioch, and other butterflies restricted to serpentine vegetation. We have natives that have shifted hosts, like the anise (or as some purists call it, yampah) swallowtail. We have newcomers like the gulf fritillary, a southeastern butterfly that followed the passionvines west. 

Unfortunately, not all native butterflies have been so adaptable. Manolis illustrates the xerces blue, a former resident of San Francisco’s coastal dunes, although it’s about 66 years too late to see a live one. The Strohbeen’s parnassian of Santa Cruz County hasn’t been observed since Eisenhower was in office. The San Bruno elfin is barely hanging in there. 

Surprises are still possible, though. This, as Shapiro points out, is an area where citizen scientists can make real contributions to the state of knowledge. Patches of serpentine and other specialized habitats remain unexplored: no one has done a butterfly census of Ring Mountain near Tiburon, known for its endemic plants. Life cycle details are undocumented for some species. Shapiro says he has never seen a golden hairstreak visiting a flower, courting, or mating.  

And nets aren’t always necessary. Some butterflies can be cooperative photograph subjects (although others, like the Sara orangetip and its sulphur relatives, never seem to sit still.) Several optics manufacturers offer close-focusing binoculars for butterfly watching.  

I have to admit that butterflies have grown on me over the years; I’ve even reached the point where they can distract me from birds. 

Take Shapiro and Manolis along on your next hike on Mount Diablo and see for yourself.  

I just hope UC Press has somebody working on the moths. 

Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Ron Sullivan’s “Green Neighbors” column on East Bay trees. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan 

A buckeye, one of the most easily recognizable Bay Area butterflies.

TUESDAY, MAY 29 

Community Meeting on the City of Berkeley Budget at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst and MLK, Jr. Way. The budget may be downloaded from www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/budget 981-7008. 

Strawberry Tasting at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market from 2 to 7 p.m. at Derby St. at MLK,Jr. Way. 548-3333. 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We will explore ponds from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m.. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. Meet at 10 a.m. at Miller Knox. For information call 525-2233.  

Best Swimming Holes in Northern California at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Solo Sierrans Hike at Lake Chabot Reservoir Meet at 6:30 p.m. at the boat house. Optional dinner follows. For information call Delores 351-6247. 

Live Oak Codornices Neighborhood Assn meeting at 7:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park, Arts & Crafts Rm. We will discuss the proposed North Shattuck Plaza. 

Meditation and Social Action Circle at 7 p.m. at Unitraian Universalist Fellowship Hall, Cedar and Bonita. 540-1975. 

“Am I Ready to be a Parent?” A workshop for prosepctive LGBT parents at 6:30 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. 415-865-5533. www.ourfamily.org 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. near corner of Eunice St. MelDancing@aol.com 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30 

“Beyond the Bungalow” with Paul Duchscherer, author of many books on Arts & Crafts homes, at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $20. 848-4288. 

Environmental and Political Action Films “Everything’s Cool,” “A Drop of Life” and “The Forest for the Trees” at 6 and 8:30 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Cost is $10 per screening or $15 for the night. 415-255-1108. www.livingeconomies.org/events/conference07/filmfest/ 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We will explore ponds from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m.. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

National Senior Health & Fitness Day with information booths, health and fitness experts, and presentations from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Salem Lutheran Home, 2361 East 29th St., Oakland. 534-3637.  

New to DVD Screening and Discussion at 7 p.m. at JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Discussion follows. 848-0237. 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “The Manchurian Candidate” by Richard Condon at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble Coffe Shop, El Cerrito Plaza. 433-2911. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, MAY 31 

North Shattuck Community Meeting on Safeway Development Plans at 6:30 p.m. at the JCC.  

Congolese Music and Dance Workshops Thurs.-Sun. at Laney College. Cost per workshop is $8-$20. For information call 368-2475. www.youmustdance.blogspot.com 

“Long Train Running: The Story of the Oakland Blues” A documentary, presented by Oaklandish at 9 p.m. at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, 1834 Park Boulevard, Oakland. Cost is $6. 962-5044.  

Lifeskills 411 Graduation Gala Dinner, with music, dinner, student speeches, at 7:30 p.m. at the Emeryville Hilton, 1800 Powell St. Tickets are $65-$75. 741-2045. www.lifeskills411.org  

Family Storytime for children ages 3-7 at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda. 981-6107. 

Baby and Toddler Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 1 

Plaque Dedication for denise brown at 7 p.m. at LeConte School, 2241 Russell St. To donate food, please call 841-2110. 684-7273. 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Field Trip to Jewel Lake in Tilden Park. Meet at 8:30 a.m. at the parking lot at the north end of Central Park Dr. 843-2222. 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Prof. George Bisharat on “Maximizing Rights: The One-State Solution to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

Movies that Matter “Roxanne” at 6:30 p.m. at Neumayer Residence, 565 Bellevue St. at Perkins, Oakland. 451-3009. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

SATURDAY, JUNE 2 

Berkeley History Center Walking Tour “The Maybeck Estates” led by Paul Grunland with Bob Shaner, at 10 a.m. Cost is $8-$10. For information on meeting place and to register call 848-0181. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Strawberry Family Fun Fest with entertainment and activities for children from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK. 548-3333.  

Sushi Basics Learn the natural and culltural history of sushi as you learn to prepare it from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Parent participation required for children ages 8 to 10. Cost is $25-$39. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“Restore Wetlands in Oakland” with Save The Bay and the East Bay Regional Park District on a wetland restoration project near the Oakland Airport. From 9 a.m. to noon at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland. RSVP to 452-9261 ext. 109. bayevents@savesfbay.org 

Longfellow Middle School Annual Health Fair with student performances, activities, health information, food, fun for the whole family, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1500 Derby St. Free. 883-5258, ext. 2. 

Spring Faire at Washington Elementary School with face painting, boat races, book exchange, soul food and performances from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 2300 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, enter on McKinley. 486-1742. 

“Planning and Caring for Aging Loved Ones” with workshops and resources from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Malcolm X Elementary School, 1731 Prince St. Sponsored by Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. For information or to register call 272-6695. www.acgov.org/board/district5/event.htm. 

Eco-Oakland Volunteer Opportunuity Help elementary school students with mapping and habitat restoration at Lion Creek, neat Merritt College. For information call 635-5533.  

“Mentors for Backyard Garden Program” Volunteers needed to help low-income residents of West Oakland build and maintain vegetable gardens, provide ongoing support, seedlings, seeds and compost. Information meeting from 10 a.m. to noon at West Oakland Woods Farm, 537 Lewis St., corner of Peralta and 7th, Oakland. SPonsored by City Slicker Farms. 763-4241. 

“Build an Earth Oven” Learn how to build your own oven from clay, sand, straw, and bricks. From 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Grandma Mary’s Organic Farm, 100 Behrens St., El Cerrito. Cost is $150. To register call 527-9271. www.kleiwerks.org 

Twins by the Bay Annual Garage Sale Families with twins, triplets, and more, sell gently used baby gear, clothes, car seats, strollers, and more from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 1707 Gouldin Rd., Montclair. 593-5911. www.homestead.com/twinsbythebay 

Future Leaders Institute Legacy Awards at 4 p.m. at The Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland. www.thefutureleadersinstitute.org 

Citizenship Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Fruitvale Village, located directly across from the Fruitvale BART station at the 3300 block of East 12th St,, between Fruitvale Ave. and 35th Ave., Oakland. 535-6900. svelazquez@unitycouncil.org 

“Crossing the Line” Chris Brown speaks of his experience as a Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. 499-0537. 

“Exploring Class... “ A two day-workshop examining the impact of class on our lives, and breaking down barriers between people from different socio-economic classes. Workshop held in Oakland. Register online at www.classism.org 

“Take a New Step and Meet Your Neighbors” Community fair with programs and service providers, basketball tournament, music and drama to reduce risk factors and combat violence in West Oakland. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1143 10th St., Oakland. 677-6364. 

Free Electronic Wate Drop Off Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the El Cerrito Department of Motor Vehicles, 6400 Manila Ave. E-waste accepted: computer monitors, computers/computer components, televisions, VCR & DVD players, toner cartridges, printers, fax machines, copiers, telephone equipment, cell phones, MP3 players. NO appliances, batteries, microwaves, paints, pesticides, etc. Please take these items to the Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Facility at 101 Pittsburg Ave. in Richmond. For HHW facility information, call 1-888-412-9277. The HHW facility will be open June 2. For E-waste Event questions call 1-888-832-9839 

Rachel Corrie Rebuilding Campaign Benefit to rebuild the next home in Northern Gaza with Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom from Jerusalem and Husam El Nounou from Gaza at 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Church, Cedar and Bonita. Sponsored by Progressive Democrats of the East Bay, Ecumenical Peace Institute, Rebuilding Alliance, American Friends Service Committee, and the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church. Donation $10-25 sliding scale, no one turned away. 524- 4244. 

AnewAmerica Social Responsibility Summit with workshops on Immigration Reform, Healthcare for Immigrants, Advocacy for Small Business and Food Justice from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. atSt. Elizabeth Church, the Franciscan Hall, 1500 34th Ave. & International Blvd, Oakland. 532-5240.  

Children’s Fairyland Personalities in costume at noon, followed by music with John Weaver at 1:30 a.m. pupet show at 2 p.m. at 699 Bellvue Ave., Oakland. 452-2259. 

Origami for All Ages from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 3 

Greening Albany Learn about community actions to reverse global warming, with speakers and information on goods and services, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Albany Middle School, 1259 Brighton Ave. 219-7211. 

“Climate Change: Technology and Policy” with Karen Street at 1 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Meeting, 2151 Vine. 653-2803. 

Yosemite Family Explorations with Ranger Ben telling stories about the park’s black bears, and other activities, at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to keep your bike in excellent working condition through safety inspections, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Toddlers and Friends For 2-3 year olds to explore the meadows, ponds and trails in Tilden. Meet at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Summer Ponds Look for tadpoles, newt larvae, dragonfly nymphs and more from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Berkeley City Club Wine Festival from 6 to 9 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave.Tickets are $40. 848-7800. 

Community Singalong with jazz pianist Ellen Hoffman from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison, Oakland, near 19th St. BART. Cost is $5-$15. 534-2750. 

Holistic Pet Consultation from 1 to 4 p.m. at RabbitEARS, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, but appointment required. 525-6155. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Social Action Forum with Mary Dewey-Wagner on Ethical treatment for Animals at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Univresalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Mary Gomes on “Everyday Compassion” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, JUNE 4 

“But What Can We Do About Global Warming?” A talk by author Ernest Callenbach at a brown-bag lunch at 12:30 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Explore Upper Codornices Creek on a challenging walk with Friends of Five Creeks Meet at 6:30 p.m. at the main entrance to the Berkeley Rose Garden, west side of Euclid Ave. south of Eunice St. This walk gains 500 feet elevation and includes hill staircases and narrow, uneven trails. Wear sturdy shoes; bring water, flashlight and walking sticks. 848-9358.  

“Renewable Energy from Synthetic Biology” with Jay Keasling of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater 2025 Addison St. 486-5183. 

Drop in Knitting Class at the Albany Library Work on your own project or make pet blankets and children’s hats to be donated to charity organizations. Yarn and needles provided for donated items. At at 3:30 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. June 4, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., June 4, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5510.