On the eve of the first (and only) scheduled City Council hearing on the proposed March parcel tax increase, a loose federation of Berkeley neighborhood associations declared their opposition to the tax. 

It is the third Berkeley community organization to do so in recent weeks. 

Meanwhile, hoping to forestall a renegotiation of the city’s labor contracts, representatives of three of the city’s major city employee unions—Local One of the Public Employees Union, Local 535 of the Service Employees International Union, and Local 1245 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers—held a Monday noontime press conference on the steps of City Hall to reveal proposed cost-cutting strategies. 

A union spokesperson says the strategies were distilled from a comprehensive budget reduction package which the three unions presented to the City Manager at the beginning of the summer, and which have been the subject of continuous negotiations with the city manager’s office since that time. 

Without corrective action, Berkeley faces an estimated $9.5 million city budget deficit in fiscal year 2005, which could rise to $19.5 million in five years. Council has structured its proposed March, 2004, parcel tax increase ballot measure to wipe out half of the projected deficit, and intends to use budget cuts to take care of the rest. 

Organized opposition from significant numbers of the city’s neighborhood groups could make passage of the parcel tax measure difficult. A city-sponsored survey of Berkeley voters taken last summer showed that support for a parcel tax increase hovered between 65 percent and 69 percent, depending on how the measure was presented to voters. A 67 percent approval vote is needed to pass the measure. 

In a Nov. 15 memo addressed to Mayor Bates, City Council, and the city manager, the Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA) wrote that it is “opposed to the proposed property tax increase ballot measure and urge you not to place this measure on the ballot at this time. We believe that a full and fair discussion of the causes and cures for the City’s financial problems has not yet been undertaken.” 

The organization added that “having just one public hearing on the tax measure and one discussion of the city labor contracts, both on very short notice, is completely unacceptable.” 

BANA urged its affiliated organizations to take similar positions on the proposed parcel tax, and the LeConte and Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Associations previously announced opposition to the tax hike. 

In its memo, BANA cited its concern about what it called “excessive cost of the city’s labor contracts.” The alliance also suggested other “belt-tightening measures that the city can and should undertake” in lieu of a parcel tax increase, such as requiring “educational and wealthy nonprofit organizations, including UC” to “pay for the negative impacts they create and for all of the city services they use” and imposing “development impact fees” on both profit-making and nonprofit organizations. 

Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the parcel tax at today’s regular 8 p.m. meeting (Nov. 18th). Council has also scheduled a public report on the content of its city labor contracts at a special 5 p.m. meeting today, and then will break into private session to discuss negotiation strategies in asking city labor unions for budget cuts. 

Council must finalize language for the proposed parcel tax measure by its Nov. 25 meeting if the tax measure is to appear on the March, 2004 ballot. 

Mindful of a growing willingness of Council, the mayor’s and city manager’s offices, and citizen representatives to look at layoffs and cutting employee salaries as one way of attacking Berkeley’s budget deficit, city workers tied up city Landscape Equipment Operator James Wallace in red tape at their Monday press conference, and then descended the steps to cut him free with scissors. A handout said that the unions were symbolically cutting “needless red tape and bureaucratic inefficiencies, offering more citizen-friendly, streamlined and cost-effective services.” 

Called the “Three R’s” Initiative (representing “RightSize, Reduce, and Restructure), the union cost-cutting proposal committed its members to “working with management together on behalf of the Berkeley community to improve service delivery, restructure the organization and to reduce operating costs” and using “attrition and accelerating retirements...[to] reach sustainable, target personnel levels without requiring layoffs or wage and benefit cutbacks.” 

The unions presented a number of specific proposed cost-cutting measures, including a Safe Workplace Action Plan that they say will save the city $1 million annually in Workers Compensation costs. 

Eric Landes-Brenman, president of Public Employees Union Local One and a Senior Management Analyst with the Mental Health Division of Berkeley’s Department of Health and Human Services, said that the press conference and demonstration were also timed to coincide with the Sacramento inauguration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger “who is going to have a profound effect on city of Berkeley finances.” 

Landes-Breneman said that representatives of the three unions originally presented seven pages of budget-cutting proposals to then-City Manager Weldon Rucker last January, and have been holding periodic meetings on the proposal with representatives of the city manager’s office since that time. 

The three unions present at the City Hall demonstration represent most of the city’s civilian, non-sworn employees. Members of the SEIU Local 790, which represents the city’s clerical workers, were not present at the press conference and have not taken a position on the proposals. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington has maintained during City Council meetings that a review of the city’s labor contracts would show that city unions have already assisted in cutting Berkeley’s labor costs during the past several years. 

In response to citizen complaints that city workers had been recently granted higher-than-sustainable wage and benefit increases, City Manager Phil Kamlarz included a “Public Presentation and Council Questions Regarding Wages and Benefits in Existing Labor Agreements” with Council’s Nov. 18 agenda packet. 

The memo outlined the city’s recent negotiations with its safety and non-safety employee unions, and compared Berkeley’s recent labor contract salary increases with similar increases in several Bay Area cities. 

However, the Kamlarz memo failed to state the actual salaries of city employees in any of the listed cities, including Berkeley, making it difficult to determine how Berkeley city salaries compare to those of its neighbors.

TUESDAY, NOV. 18 

Public Hearing on Proposed Tax Measure, at the City Council Meeting, 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. 

Berkeley Garden Club, “Plant Ahead for the Winter Months” Jeff Small and John Hauser, owners of CityLeaf, will speak about indoor gardening, focusing on choosing plants, their placement and care at 1 p.m. at the Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. 524-4374. 

Ed Rosenthal, “The State of Medical Marijuana in California” at 6 p.m. at 2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Campus. stopdrugwarnow@cs.com  

Identity Theft panel discussion at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, with Alameda County Consumer Affairs Commission, Dept. of Justice, District Attorney, Dept. of Motor Vehicles, Social Security, Post Office and VISA offices. 981-5190. 

New California Media Awards Ceremony, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Westin St. Francis, SF. For information contact David Park at 323-954-0415. 

“Channel Change of the Colorado River: A Mandate for Restoration?” with John C. Schmidt, Associate Professor of Aquatic, Watershed & Earth Resources, Utah State Univer- 

sity, at 5:30 p.m. in 105 North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Water Resources Center Archives. 642-2666. 

Safety at Berkeley High, a forum by the PTSA and Safety Committee at 7 p.m. in the Florence Schwimley Little Theatre. Childcare, translation, and special accomodations by reservation, email cpapermaster@earthlink.net 

“Jewish Women from Muslim Societies: Reflecting on Life in Islamic Lands,” with Gina Waldman, at 7 p.m. at 2040 Valley Life Sciences, UC Campus. Sponsored by Jewish Student Union. iac@berkeleyhillel.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Glenn Stevenson will present an “Overview of Mature Driving Techniques.” We offer ongoing classes and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk a mile or two each Tuesday, meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. 215-7672.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Ernie Braun will speak on “Nature and Creative Slides.” 525-3565. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 19 

“The Gift of Responsibility: Fostering Global Social Contracts,” with Lewis S. Mudge, Robert Leighton Stuart Professor of Systematic Theology (Emeritus) at SFTS, at 7 p.m. in the Hewlett Library, at the Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. The Faculty Publications Fair and reception follows the lecture. 649-2464. 

“Teenagers and Drugs in Berkeley” with Meredith Maran, author of “Dirty: A Search for Answers Inside America’s Teen 

age Drug Epidemic” at 6:30 p.m. in the Main Gym at Berkeley High, followed by discussion groups, including one in Spanish. Sponsored by Downtown Berkeley YMCA, Berkeley High School’s Health Center and Parents of Children of African-American Descent. Free and childcare provided with RSVP. 665-3238. 

“Expectations for Next Year: Budget, Politics and Arnold,” with Assemblywoman Loni Hancock at 1:30 p.m. North Berkeley Senior Center. 548-9696. 

New California Media Expo of multi-ethnic print, TV, radio and online media, from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at San Francisco Exhibition Center, 635 8th St., SF. For information call David Park at 323-954-0415. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets at 7:15 a.m. at Hide-A-Way Café, 6430 Telegraph Ave. 925-682-1111, ext. 164. 

Fun with Acting class meets at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome. 985-0373. 

Yoga Holiday Festival, with yoga teacher Rodney Yee from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. Free. 549-9200. 

“Reverse Annuity Mortage” will be discussed by Cherisse Adams from ECHO Housing at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Sta- 

tion, vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Prose Writers Workshop meets 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut, at Rose. 524-3034. 

Berkeley CopWatch open office hours 7 to 9 p.m. Drop in to file complaints, assistance available. 548-0425. 

THURSDAY, NOV. 20 

The Ecology Center Celebrates 30 years of Curbside Recycling with a reception, dinner and program at 6 p.m. at the Banquet Hall, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. Tickets are $60. Register online at www.ecologycenter.org/30years/ or call 548-2220 ext. 237. 

“Neighborhood in Modern Times” discussion on the neighborhood struggle to Save Ocean View from redevelopment proposed in the 1970s, at 7:30 p.m. at Black Pine Circle School Faculty Arts & Drama Bldg, 2016 7th St. Part of a lecture series commemorating the 150th aniversary Ocean View, Berkeley’s early settlement village. Tickets are $10, no one turned away for lack of funds. 841-8562. bahaworks@yahoo.com  

Amy Goodman, “Fomenting Democracy: Independent media in a Time of War and Elections,” Mario Savio Memorial Lecture, at 7:30 p.m. in Pauley Ballroom, MLK,Jr. Student Union, UC Campus.  

Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, “Stories of the Paths,” at 7 p.m. at Live Oak Park Rec Center, 1200 Shattuck Ave.  

Berkeley High School Information Night at 7 p.m. in the Berkeley Community Theater. This event is primarily for parents of 8th graders in independent/private schools who are unfamiliar with the Berkeley Unified School District.  

“San Francisco Bay: Portrait of an Estuary,” a new book with text by John Hart, environmental historian, and photographs by David Sanger, will be introduced with a slide presentation at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose. 843-3533. 

Nepal-Woman Sherpa, a KQED-Frontline/World presentation at 7:30 p.m. at International House, Sproul Room, Piedmont and Bancroft Aves. 642-9460. http://ihouse.berkeley.edu 

Simplicity Forum, “Financial Transformation as a Way Out of the Corporate Rat Race,” with Fred Ecks at 7 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 549-3509. 

Berkeley Liberation Radio public meeting at 7 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190.  

FRIDAY, NOV. 21 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Eric Stover, Director, Human Rights Center, “My Neighbor, My Enemy.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $11.50 - $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

Family Literacy Night at the Berkeley YMCA, 7 to 9 p.m. activities include veggie art, pumpkin writing, storytelling. 665-3271. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 496-6000, ext. 135. www.bpf.org 

Overeaters Anonymous meets every Friday at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. Parking is free and is handicapped accessible. For information call Katherine, 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 22 

Green Living Series: Alternative Cleaning Recipes and Methods A workshop on methods and recipes for cleaning your house with such items as baking soda, vinegar, and borax, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. Cost is $10 EC members, $15 general, no one turned away. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

Eastshore State Park Walk Through Time Citizens for the Eastshore State Park and Save the Bay will offer a walk along the Bay beginning at 9 a.m. at Seabreeze Café off of University Ave. Learn about the history of this greatly transformed Bay shoreline. 452-926. jparsons@savesfbay.org 

Gardening: The Colorful Camellia Sasanqua at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Rights of the Child in the Middle East, a conference with discussion on the role of the United Nations, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Peacemaking, Refugees, and Children’s Education in Conflict Resolution, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Booth Auditorium, Boalt Hall, UC Campus. Donations appreciated. Proceeds benefit UNICEF projects in the region. 540-0830. Iameva@aol.com 

Goalball Invitational Tournament for visually impaired athletes, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Recreational Sports Facility, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program. For information call 849-4663, ext. 304.  

Get into the Swing at the Club Swing dance and open house at the Berkeley City Club from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Featuring live music from the 16-piece Class Act Traditional Swing Band, a full bar, and silent auction. Cost is $10. 848-7800. 

Dance for Lesbians and their Allies, a benefit for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and La Lesbian, at 9 p.m. at La Peña, 3015 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $20. 849-2568. 

Berkeley African Student Association Fall Banquet at 7 p.m. in the Lippman Room, Barrows Hall. For details see ww.ocf. 

berkeley.edu/~basa/home 

Alexander Technique Workshop on tension reduction, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley YWCA, 2600 Bancroft Way. Pre-registration recommended. 848-6370. 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class on Disaster First Aid for anyone who lives or works in Berkeley, from 9 a.m. to noon at 997 Cedar St., between 8th and 9th Sts. Register on-line at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes or by calling 981-5506. 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. The class is taught by Rosie Linsky, who at age 72, has practiced yoga for over 40 years. Open to non-members of the club for $8.00 per class. For further information and to register, call Karen Ray at 848-7800. 

Pet Adoptions, sponsored by Home at Last, from noon to 5 p.m., Hearst and 4th St. 548-9223. 

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, NOV. 23 

Plant a Winter Garden, for children and adults, from 1 to 3 p.m. Meet in the West End Community Garden in People’s Park. Heavy rain cancels. 658-9178.  

Hope Rises From the Ashes, Vietnam veteran Mike Boehm will describe eleven years of rebuilding and the rebirth of hope in My Lai, at 3 p.m. at the Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland. 

Basic Computer Use and The Berkeley Public Library Catalog will be taught from 1 to 2 p.m. and Getting and Using a Free E-Mail Account will be taught from 2 to 3 p.m. in the Central Library’s 3rd floor Electronic Classroom. Reservations are required. Sign up at the 3rd floor Paging Desk or call 981-6221. 

Haiti, a Celebration of the Bi-Centennial of Independence at 3 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Girl Army Cafe Night benefit for women’s self-defense at 7:30 p.m. at the Long Haul, a reading room, library and community center in South Berkeley located at 3124 Shattuck Ave. Donation of $3-$5 requested, no one turned away. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. The Berkeley City Club is located at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations or more information, call 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Tibetan Buddhism, Lama Amdo on “Meditation and the Four Noble Truths,” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Eckhart Tolle Talks on Video Free gathering at 7:30 p.m. to hear the words of the author of “The Power of Now” at the Feldenkrais Ctr., 830 Bancroft Way. 547-2024.  

MONDAY, NOV. 24 

Tea at Four Enjoy some of the best teas from the other side of the Pacific Rim and learn their cultural and natural history. Then take a walk to see wintering birds and dormant lady- 

beetles, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. Cost is $5 for residents, $7 for non-residents. Wheelchair accessible. 525-2233. 

Grief Information Session at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center from 6 to 7:30 p.m. If you have lost someone you love to cancer, come for gentle guidance through the basic steps of grieving. 5741 Telegraph. Please RSVP, 420-7900.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 6 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

13th Medicine Lodge, a gathering for shamanically inclined individuals, from 7 to 10 p.m. Please call 707-367-2282 for location. 

ONGOING 

Current and Former Department of Energy Employees and Contractor Employees A joint U.S. Dept. of Energy and U.S. Dept. of Labor Traveling Resource Center will be in the Bay Area to assist current and former DOE and DOE contractor employees file claims under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. The Traveling Resource Center will be at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel, 5115 Hopyard Rd., Pleasanton, on Nov. 18 and 19, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. For further information or to make an appointment to meet with a counselor please call, toll-free, 866-697-0841.  

We Give Thanks Month, Berkeley restaurants, Bar-Ristorante Raphael, Cold Stone Creamery, Downtown, La Note, Semi-Freddi’s, Skates, and Spengers will donate a portion of their proceeds to Berkeley Food and Housing Project during the month of November. 

Holiday Food Drive Help the Alameda County Community Food Bank help people in need. Offer to run a food drive, or donate healthy nonperishable food at Safeway stores, Berkeley Bowl and Bay Street Emeryville. For more information call 834-3663. www.accfb.org 

City of Berkeley Commissioners Sought If you are interested in serving on a commission, applications can be downloaded from www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/general.htm#applications or contact the City Clerk, 981-6900.  

The Online Civilian Conservation Corps Museum is seeking the stories about the CCCs, CCC Enrollees, Staff, or Technical Advisors for publication to this online historical resource. If you would like to participate please send your stories, with name company number and location if known, to CCC Collection, PO Box 5, Woodbury NJ 08096 or email to JFJmuseum@aol.com 

Personnel Commissioner Sought for Alameda County School Board Responsibilities include administration of the Merit System. Meetings once a month. Applications must be received by Nov. 28. For details please contact Alameda County Office of Education, 670-7703. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Tues., Nov. 18, at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/housingauthority 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Katherine O’Connor, 981-6601. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/humane 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/civicarts 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Lisa Ploss, 981-5200. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/aging 

Commission on Labor meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 6:45 p.m., at Berkeley Work-Source, 1950 Addison St., Suite 105. Delfina M. Geiken, 644-6085. www.ci.-berkeley.ca.us/commissions/labor 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Disaster Council meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. Carol Lopes, 981-5514. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/welfare 

Mental Health Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 6:30 p.m., at 2640 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Harvey Turek, 981-5213. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/mentalhealth  

School Board meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 7:30 p.m., in the City Council Chambers. Queen Graham 644-6147 or Mark Coplan 644-6320. 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Anne Burns, 981-7415. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/designreview  

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Prasanna Rasaih, 981-6950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/faircampaign 

Solid Waste Management Commission meets Mon., Nov. 24, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Becky Dowdakin, 981-6357. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste

MISREPRESENTATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your article of Oct. 31 regarding the picketing janitors protesting job conditions at UC Berkeley’s International House misrepresents the situation. I-House officials invited input from the custodial staff and are aware of their concerns about work conditions. The staff submitted a proposed workstation plan, which was taken under advisement. A formal letter of response was submitted to AFSCME in early September, and it was discussed in staff meetings. The supervisors mentioned to staff that they did not agree with implementing the proposed work assignments, but agreed to be receptive to new ideas. The article further implied that some workers were doing less than others. The fact is when assignments are completed, employees are assigned to utility work which equates to everyone working an eight hour day. 

It should be noted that charges of disrespectful treatment on the part of one supervisor are taken seriously and are being investigated. 

The department has continued to work proactively with AFSCME, that staff, and Campus Labor Relations to evaluate the workstation assignments and make changes if deemed necessary. 

Greg Rodolari 

Director of Physical Operations 

International House  

• 

FIERCENESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for your timely coverage of local issues. 

I was especially intrigued by the phrase “fierce neighborhood opposition” used in Matthew Artz’s recent article “Neighbors Defeat Disputed Seminary” (Daily Planet, Nov. 7-10). I would like to see some of that fierceness imported to North Berkeley in order to rid the area of the dilapidated bit of Berkeley history known as the Hunrich Grocery on Rose Street between Spruce and Oxford streets. The building was declared a Structure of Merit by BAHA in 1988. Now shrouded in flapping plastic and partially surrounded by a chain link fence with fluorescent caution tape blowing in the wind, this deteriorating structure is a blight to the entire neighborhood. Clearly it is also a safety and health hazard to its immediate neighbors. Are we to wait and watch the ailing building collapse little by little or can something be done to end its slow deterioration? It is painful to watch the walls sag further and shingles disappear. O, for some neighborhood fierceness! 

Andrea Foley 

• 

JUST PLAIN SCOUTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It was a pleasure to read your news article about Baily Hopkins, “Boy Scout” (“Boy Scout’s Not a Boy,” Daily Planet, Nov. 11-13). To see an upbeat story on the front page is a true delight. Stories about people like Baily, with critical minds and civilized attitudes, inspire more hope in the future that would otherwise be there. I particularly enjoyed learning that our Berkeley Scouts were the first to openly reject the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gays (for evil to flourish good people must remain silent). By the way, I think we could take a page out of the Central American Scout Book by not having our scouting organizations based on gender and just have Scouts.  

Virgil Todd 

• 

PUSHING THE RULES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One commonality between all of us, be one a child, an enterprising real estate developer, or an esteemed editor is that whenever we are given a rule it will be pushed to the limit. I would suggest that it is not necessarily a bad thing and that the problem you have been reporting about alleged underpayment of taxes by certain individuals may lie as much with the rule-makers, and as the investigation is unfolding it is looking more and more that way. In some instances it may be a good idea to build in sufficient financial slack into some of these rules so that desired projects are given more of a chance of succeeding. And further I would suggest that applying foresight by city planners to these matters is no easy matter. I am pleased with your reporting of this matter and would only encourage that you continue with dispassionate resolve and be mindful that the answers you may believe to be correct in the beginning of the investigation could be different than the one that are eventually reached. I never cease to be impressed with the thoughtfulness that permeates every aspect of life in this fine city including this publication, and I trust it will be reflected in the coverage of this matter. 

Steve Pardee 

• 

ABSURDITIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A recent letter concerning building heights made reference to “a handbook for planners and developers published in June, 2003 by the San Francisco District Council of the Urban Land Institute” which makes recommendations for building heights in “walkable” neighborhoods. 

This leaves me wondering whether the Urban Land Institute recognizes “unwalkable” neighborhoods as legitimate urban/suburban development. That concept is at the heart of the decline of older cities and the failure of repeated revitalization attempts to produce anything resembling sustainability. 

It’s amazing how so many professionals can sing the praises of taxpayer-subsidized “smart growth” and at the same time ignore a state planning code that fails to require all urban/suburban development to be equally accessible to those who cannot, should not, or choose not to drive. Traffic congestion and environmental problems will never be resolved if we continue to allow discriminatory urban/suburban development anywhere. 

New heights of absurdity were reached when the Democrats in Sacramento and Gov. Davis approved SB60, allowing illegal immigrants to have driver’s licenses. Now they can have access to jobs that are beyond the reach of citizens who don’t drive and lack adequate alternatives. 

Art Weber 

El Cerrito 

• 

VETERAN’S DAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for the excellent article “Moving Veteran’s Day Rites Provide Cause for Reflection” by poet Alta Gerry (Daily Planet, Nov. 14-17). As a life-long peace activist and conscientious objector, I appreciated her sensitive perspective on this often misunderstood holiday. 

Burl Willes 

• 

CULTURAL SPACE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ve followed with interest the Daily Planet’s coverage of the ways developer Patrick Kennedy and his Panoramic Interests appear to have played fast and loose with the terms of agreements in which he has been granted both extra height and reduced fees and assessments in return, as I understand it, for setting aside 20 percent of the housing units as “affordable,” and providing “cultural space.” 

Lately, Councilmember Dona Spring has called for a full investigation of how major developers (and there seem to be few besides Kennedy) do business in Berkeley. 

I am eager to see this happen, along with continuing investigative articles on this issue. In particular, I’d like to see some details on the “cultural space” matter.  

I subscribe to the Shotgun Players, and had eagerly looked forward to the company moving into its new home in the Gaia Building. For months, a banner hung from a veranda on the façade, promising this. Now it’s gone, and what I’ve heard through the grapevine is that the “cultural space” offered to the company lacked any of the amenities that would allow them to use it for theater. They were supposed to raise funds for lights, seating, etc. themselves—which a cutting edge group like Shotgun could not dream of doing. 

Then I heard that Anna’s, the jazz cafe venue formerly down on University, was going to move in. That sounded tantalizing. I have no information, but am unsure if it’s really happening.  

An old cliché has it that the devil is in the details. Frankly I get the sense that Kennedy is very adept at talking the talk, but when it comes to “walking the walk” of earning breaks from the city by meeting community needs, he plays fast and loose. Then too, his name appears on Shotgun’s contributor list--which might make it hard for them to publicly call him to account. 

So this is a plea to the Planet staff to do some digging. I doubt the paper owes Kennedy any favors. 

Donna Mickleson 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Recently I’ve been much impressed with the use of public transit for getting to Cal football games. I watch the big AC Transit buses roll by, coming from Rockridge BART and the parking lots out on College. I even see a lot of people who walk in to the stadium from out beyond where I live, at College & Parker. This is great. 

This is in contrast to the complaints I keep hearing about the lack of downtown parking. Berkeley has better bus service than the other Bay Area cities, and there are no less than four BART stations, if one counts Rockridge. In this town, it’s really easy to get downtown by transit. Maybe the people who complain actually don’t know what is available? Maybe transit isn’t advertised enough? I doubt that; it’s very easy to find out anything you need to know. The football game patrons seem to have figured it out. 

People who visit Berkeley’s many fine shops, restaurants and theaters really don’t need much downtown parking. The recent complaint from YMCA members is such an embarrassment. Of all organizations, the YMCA should be encouraging bus riding, not providing free parking. The YMCA office ought to fill the gap left by the closing of the Berkeley TRIPS store, and sell bus passes. 

Merchants complain about losing parking garage space. I even hear rumors that the Arts Commission is saying there isn’t enough parking. All this is really kind of silly, given the great transit we have in Berkeley. 

As a regular bus rider, I know the heady freedom of getting off at a downtown stop and proceeding to my destination, with no concern whatever for parking. I really like that.  

Sure the buses are crowded sometimes, but that’s no real problem. It’s mostly Cal students, flashing their “Class Pass.” One of them usually gives a seat to a senior citizen. 

Sure, buses are late sometimes. Actually, even as a regular rider, I haven’t memorized the schedules of the downtown buses. I just hang around at the nice bus shelter until a bus shows up. Of course I do know what buses go where, and about how often they run. I carry a 31-day pass, and I know where to wait and how to get on and off. Having acquired those urban skills of bus riding, I feel very secure. I can always find a bus to take me home. Maybe twice a year, I’ll get into some situation when I need to use a taxi; Berkeley has plenty of taxis too. 

Berkeley really does have enough parking; we really don’t need to keep clogging the streets by using a car for all trips, and poisoning the air with car exhaust. Bus riding in Berkeley is really convenient and fun. I know. And so do the football fans. 

Steve Geller 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

I believe the widespread frustration with the near zero degree of accountability in Berkeley City government is one factor fueling a growing “no taxation without representation” sentiment even in Berkeley. 

For example, permit parking is at best sporadically enforced in my neighborhood. Students living on my block, with luxury SUVs, without permits, rarely if ever receive tickets. The appropriate city officials will not tell our councilmember, Kriss Worthington, how many times a month the block is patrolled. This is one example of arrogance and lack of accountability.  

In my neighborhood we have tried to get the city to deal with the problem of commercial delivery trucks using residential streets as short cuts instead of staying on the city’s prescribed truck routes. Three and a half years ago in March 2000, City Council referred this problem to city staff calling for a three or four-ton limit on vehicles in residential areas. Three and a half years have gone by and the problem remains. For a while three-ton signs were installed, but city officials did not follow through to make the necessary changes to the city code to codify the change. Instead, Peter Hillier, the new deputy mayor for transportation, removed three-ton truck signs, arguing in part that this could inconvenience Hummers. We are in worse shape than where we started from three and half years ago. The action approved by Council has never been implemented. The truck problem continues. This is another example of arrogance and lack of accountability.  

One way to contribute to reducing the budget deficit and restoring citizen confidence in city government would be to enforce the traffic laws. A rough estimate is that several hundred cars a day speed on my block (and hundreds like it). If even some of them were ticketed, the quality of life would improve and the revenues would rise. I am told this is not a realistic proposal. Has anyone in Berkeley city government heard that there was a recall in the state because among other things the government and its officials were considered to be arrogant and unaccountable?  

Paul Rabinow 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a Berkeley resident and a San Francisco firefighter. In 2000, I also co-founded a camp for young women to teach about leadership and the fire service called Camp Blaze. 

I am frustrated with your word choice in your Nov. 11-13 article entitled “Firemen Describe Inferno.” As you well know there are a number of women working in the fire service around the Bay Area (yes, in Berkeley too) and throughout California. Using the word “firemen,” though while accurate to describe the gender of the Berkeley firefighters mentioned in your article, excludes firefighting women from public awareness. 

Women make up a small percentage of the firefighters nationwide, but that proportion is much higher here in California and higher still in the Bay Area. The citizens of our city and our state need to know that all firefighters are not men. Many young women still have no idea it is a career path option, and media representations such as yours continue to shroud our profession in mystery. 

Not all firefighters are men. Can we refer to what it is we do and not our gender? 

Alissa Van Nort 

The Berkeley Repertory Theater has pulled out all the stops (discretely, of course) as well they should, in publicizing its new production “Continental Divide.” 

And, by the way, that title represents two related, but definitely not interdependent, plays—“Daughters of the Revolution” and “Mothers Against”—by the British playwright David Edgar. 

The short version of this review is that they are both well worth seeing and each one makes totally good sense completely by itself. It very probably does make a different kind of sense if you see both of them. And it probably doesn’t matter which one comes first. 

This review is based on seeing both in one day—the Rep does have the thoughtfulness to give the audience time for dinner and a couple breaths of air in between plays—with the “Mothers” first. Rumor has it that your sense of the overall meaning of the productions varies with which one you see first. 

As is perhaps obvious, “Daughters” is tied up with the Democrats, although most of the action concerns events from the lead’s radical past. His journey in the play is his search to find out who among his associates in the old days betrayed him to the FBI, thus shadowing his subsequent career. And, by the way, he is not the Democratic candidate for the governorship. She (the candidate) actually spends very little time on stage, although her presence is a very significant part of the action (and often presented through video and seemingly real television screens). 

“Mothers” is a well-structured play with a single setting in the Republican candidate’s home where he and his family are being prepared for the upcoming debate with the Democratic gubernatorial debate. It is a focused presentation with a straightforward structure: a beginning, a middle and an end. 

The candidate himself, perhaps surprisingly, is presented in as fair and balanced a way as is the liberal from “Daughters.” It’s a fascinating presentation with intelligence—these plays seemingly show no bias. Perhaps it makes sense that a foreign observer is the person who was able to write them. 

With such large casts, and such a high level of acting, it is nearly impossible, or perhaps just unfair, to single out specific actors for the excellence of their achievements. This is particularly true in “Mothers” in which the seemingly supporting roles are about as large and demanding as is the apparent lead. The short version is that there is some excellent acting in these productions. A whole lot of it. 

The playwright, David Edgar is a pretty good sized theatrical fish. You may remember the huge success his musical based on “Nicholas Nickleby” had on Broadway a few years ago. It turns out that he and the Berkeley Repertory Artistic Director Tony Taccone became friends several years back when they were both working in San Francisco. And Edgar, who has both feet firmly planted in his home country, England, brought up an idea about the American political scene that he’s had cooking for years. 

He traveled across the country in 1979 talking to political activists from the 60s—he’d been the same age, and felt a part of the story. The idea stayed in his head for years, along with one for a separate story—that of the issues within the more conservative party, the Republicans. 

When both Berkeley Rep and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival approached him asking for a play, he realized that it could be a joint commission, a cycle of two plays “mapping the inter-generational and inter-party struggle between competing but not always incompatible visions of the American Dream.” The two companies were enthusiastic about the idea, and the first production was recently ended at Oregon. 

Primarily, the plays are connected to each other through their independent involvement in the opposing Republican and Democratic campaigns for the governorship of an unnamed Western state. One has to suspect California, although the playwright says he carefully elected to keep any part of the most recent unpleasantness (to quote Churchill) out of the plays. 

The original Oregon cast for ‘Mothers Against” has transferred to Berkeley. There have, however, been some changes in both cast and the text in “Daughters of the Revolution.” Before opening here, the one springing from the Democratic Party went through at least two rewrites between Ashland and Berkeley; and, although powerful, it still seems somewhat unfinished when seen in immediate juxtaposition with its sister. 

They’re far from twins, but they’re both worth seeing. 

Continental Divide is showing at the Roda Theatre through Dec. 28. Running time is three hours for each of the two plays, including one 15-minute intermission each. For more informaiton, contact the box office at 2025 Addison St. Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 7 p.m. 647-2949 or go to www.berkeleyrep.org/.

TUESDAY, NOV. 18 

CHILDREN 

Todd Parr, Berkeley author and illustrator, will read from his books and draw for children, at 7 p.m. at the Library North Branch, 1170 The Alameda. Sponsored by Friends of the Berkeley Public Library. 981-6624. 

First Stage Theater, “Time Capsule Blues,” a musical comedy, performed by 8-11 year olds, at 7:30 p.m. at the Julia Morgan. Tickets are $4 at the door only.  

FILM 

Alternative Visions: No and Goshogaoka at 7:30 p.m at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is  

$4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alice Sebold, author of “The Lovely Bones” will speak on the process of writing, the difference between memoir and fiction, and the issues of violence, loss, hope and faith at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall. Tickets are $18-$28 and are available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Gerald Torres introduces “The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy” at 4:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

Melody Ermachild Chavis introduces, “Meena: Heroine of Afghanistan” about the founder of RAWA, who was assassinated at age thirty, at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose. 843-3533.  

“Being Human at Work,” with six authors at 7 p.m. at Barnes and Noble.  

The Creative and Unconventional Journey of Jake Heggie, composer and pianist, at 7:30 p.m. at The College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway (north). 658-5202. www.college-prep.org/livetalk  

Roger Kamenetz will read from his new collection of poetry, “The Lowercase Jew,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Tom Rigney and Flambeau performs at 8:30 p.m. with a Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mark Erelli, singer, songwriter at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Dayna Stephens House Jam at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 19 

CHILDREN 

Todd Parr at 3:30 at the Library Claremont Branch, 2940 Ben- 

venue Ave. See listing for Nov. 18. 

FILM 

Standby: No Technical Difficulties, Program 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Leo Braudy discusses “From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Maargret Schaefer, translator, introduces Arthur Schnitzler’s “Desire and Delusion” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

Turning Corners a conversation with Richard Candida Smith and Lucinda Barnes on the influence of process at noon at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Ellen Waterston will read from “Then There Was No Mountain; A Parallel Odyssey of a Mother and Daughter through Addiction” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

David Law will show slides and introduce his two California history books, “Steinbeck Country” and “Silicon Valley” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Café Poetry and open mic, hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Conjunto Coyote and Friends CD release party at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ritmozolando, Venezuelan folkloric music, at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Weepies, Deb Talen and Steve Tannen at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Donation $10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Gareth Davis, will present a concert of new music with composer Nicola Sani, at 8 p.m. at CNMAT, 1750 Arch St. Free. www.cnmat.berkeley.edu 

Gerry Tenney and California Klezmer at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Excelsior, Last of the Juanitas, MASTEMA at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

Jules Broussard, Bing Nathan and Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Lithium Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

THURSDAY, NOV. 20 

CHILDREN 

Asheba, Caribbean rhythms, at 10:15 a.m. at the Library South Branch, 1901 Russell St. 981-6224. 

Daniel Galvez, muralist and illustrator, inspired by Mexican painting, speaks to elementary school children about his work at 4 p.m. at the Library West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6224. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Karl Seifert’s “Hedonists and Hooligans,” an exhibition of photographs at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

FILM 

Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival: “My Flesh and Blood” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Gallery Talk: Ecuadorian Arts and Crafts: 1963-1970 with textile collectors Kathleen Mossman-Vitale and Paul Vitale, at noon at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way at College Ave. Free with museum admission. 643-7648.  

Guided Tour: Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Steven Frank gives advice to writers at all levels in “Pen Com- 

mandments” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. www.codysbooks.com 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured reader Dhaia Tribe, followed by open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985.  

Michael Pollan, author of “The Botany of Desire” in conversation with Patricia Unterman at 7:30 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, Berkeley Reperatory Theater, 2025 Addison St. Benefit for Park Day School of Oakland. Tickets are $8-$15. 653-0317, ext. 103. 

Leah Levy, trustee of the estate of Jay DeFoo will discuss “Jay DeFoo and The Rose” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Scott Saul presents “Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Grateful Dead DJ Night from 10 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Drums and Tuba, Go Van Gogh at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Brian Joseph, CD release party for “King of Echo Park” at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Jackie Greene, folk and blues, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Keni El Lebrijano, flamenco guitarist, at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 21 

CHILDREN 

Splash Circus, “In the Magical Forest” at 7 p.m. at the Julia Morgan. Cost is $8-$15. 925-798-1300. 

Family Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“The Gift of Art,” reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at The Cecile Moochnek Gallery, 1809-D Fourth St. Exhibition runs to Jan. 25. 549-1018. www.cecilemoochnek.com 

“Creating an Atmosphere” with Elke Behrens, Audrey Kral and Tim Mooney. Reception from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at 4th Street Studio, 1717D 4th St. Exhibit runs to Dec. 5. 527-0600. 

FILM 

Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival: “The Lost Rebels of Pancho Villa” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Manufacturing Consent,” Noam Chomsky explains the media’s manipulation of reality, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Louis Bayard introduces his different Christmas story, “Mr. Timothy,” set in 1860’s London, at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. www.codysbooks.com 

Lauren Renée Hotchkiss, musician and poet, featured at the Fellowship Café at 7:30 p.m., Fellowship Hall, Cedar and Bonita. Donation $5-$10. 540-0898. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Falsobordone presents Personent hodie, Yule music from ancient Scandinavia, for voices and instruments, at 8 p.m. at St. Alban’s Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Tickets are $12-$15. 486-2803. 

Sensations, Norfolk and Western, and the Winter Blanket at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums with Ms Carmen Getit at 9:30 p.m., with a dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Chicano Groove with Hazel, Slowrider, and Quinto Sol at 9 p.m., at La Peña. Cost is $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Acoustic Singer Songwriter Night with Helen Chaya and Friends, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Baguette Quartette, music of Paris, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Randy Porter at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Holier than Thou, Voetsek, Knife Fight, Strung Up, Covered in Scars, Rabid at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Beth Custer’s Clarinet Thing and Edmund Welles’ Bass Clarinet Ensemble at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Wayside at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Damphibians, Ten Mile Ride, StarShak at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

SATURDAY, NOV. 22 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Cascada de Flores, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Splash Circus, “In the Magical Forest” at 2 p.m. See listing for Nov. 21. 

Mittie Cuetara, author and illustrator, will read from her books and draw for pre-schoolers and those interested in picturebook art at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6224. 

FILM 

La Lesbian, with films “Laughing Matters,” “Teaching Teo” and comic Susan Swift, at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“The Manchurian Candidate,” an evening with Greil Marcus, at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Sign Language Guided Tour: Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, at 1:30 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Oliver Chin present his new book, “The Tao of Yao: Insights from Basketball’s Brightest Big man” at 3 p.m. at Eastwind Books, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

Rosemary Wells will be here to sign copies of her newest books, “Felix and the Worrier,” “The Small World of Binky Braverman,” and “Only You” at 2 p.m. at Cody’s Books. You may also bring her books from home to have them signed. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson introduces us to “The Pig who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

“Kesey’s Jail Journal” will be introduced by Ed McClanahan, editor, at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Rhythm & Muse features musician/poet Matundu Makalani at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 527-9753. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

International Taiko Festival at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$36 and are available from 642-9988. www.taikodojo.org 

Musica Antiqua Köln, led by conductor and violinist Reinhard Goebel, at 8 p.m., First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $46. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Choreographers’ Performance Alliance, “Works in the Works” with host Aileen Kim, at 7:30 p.m. at Eighth Street Studio, 2525 Eighth St. Cost is $10. 644-1788. 

Moments Notice Gala benefit for Cassie Terman’s upcoming solo show “Citizen of Trees” at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio: 2525 8th Street, at Dwight. Tickets are $15-$20. 915-3883. 

Blue Eyed Devils at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave. El Cerrito. 525-2129.  

The Drink Tickets, Love Kills Love, Mommy’s Friend, and Ruby Deville and the Sons of Cocoa Country at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com  

Marley’s Ghost, from Jacob to Bob, a one-band music festival, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Eddie Gale Band performs classic to free jazz and beyond at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Maye Cavallero, contralto, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Tickets are $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

CitiZen One, singer/songwriter at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Donation of $7-$10, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Zydeco Flames at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz, with a dance lesson with Dana DeSimone at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jump/Cut at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Hypnogaja, Fantasia, Blvd. Strays at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

Scott Amendola at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Mike Park, Skyflakes, Clarendon Hills, Pete the Genius, Charmin at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 23 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Helen Mirra/Matrix 209 opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

CHILDREN  

Caribbean Kids’ Show with Asheba from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6 for adults, $4 for children. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Splash Circus, “In the Magical Forest” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $8-$15. 925-798-1300. 

FILM 

Yasujiro Ozu: “Days of Youth” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Gallery Talk with artist Helen Mirra of Matrix 209: “65 Instants” exploring the threads of Buddhist influence in American artisitc life, at 3 p.m. in Gallery 1, Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, Guided Tour at 2 p.m. and Lecture with Troy Duster at 3 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Poetry Flash with Jabez Churchill, Gerald Fleming, George Higgins, Christina Huggins, Diana O'Hehir, David Shaddock, Susan Terris, Julia Vinograd, and Gillian Wegenerp at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2 benefits “Americas Review.” 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Irwin Silber will discuss “Press Box Red: The Story of Lester Rodney, the Communist Who Helped Break the Color Line in American Sports” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Leonard Felder introduces his new book, “When Difficult Relatives Happen to Good People” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861.

Berkeley City Council asked citizens to come out to the regular meeting last Tuesday to air their opinions on the proposed March, 2004, parcel tax increase ballot measure. A large number of Berkeley citizens complied, packing Council chambers Tuesday night, and pretty much telling Council to take their tax and shove it. 

The city faces an $8 million to $10 million budget deficit next year, projected to rise to as high as $20 million within five years. Council has proposed a parcel tax measure for next spring’s ballot that would make up half that projected deficit, hoping to institute budget cuts to make up the rest. 

The proposed tax would raise property taxes in Berkeley a little over nine cents a square foot, which would add about $110 to the tax bill for a 1,200-square-foot of property, up to a $913 increase for 10,000 square feet. 

Implementation of the measure requires approval by two-thirds of the voters. 

According to city Budget Manager Paul Navazio, without a new source of revenue, the city faces a 10 percent across-the-board cut next year of all city services. If no cuts are made to fire or police services, those necessary cuts would balloon to between 20 percent to 30 percent of the remaining city budget. 

In anticipation of the pending cuts, Mayor Tom Bates and three members of City Council (Linda Maio, Miriam Hawley, and Gordon Wozniak) have proposed a “budget crisis recovery plan” for debate before Council at its Nov. 25 meeting. Included in the proposed plan are a freeze on most new hiring by the city and a moratorium on all new city expenditures. 

Meanwhile, at the request of the mayor, the city manager’s office will do some more tweaking of the proposed parcel tax before putting it to Council for a final approval of the ballot language Nov. 25. 

Bates asked City Manager Phil Kamlarz to cap the proposed tax at $7 million, eliminating the trigger that would allow the tax to increase in proportion to any potential state cuts to Berkeley’s budget. Bates also requested that the proposed tax be automatically resubmitted to voters for approval in four years, rather than the original six. 

If Tuesday night’s hearing is any indication, however, those alterations may be a case of too little, too late. Some 30 residents spoke their minds to Council, almost all in opposition to the proposed tax, and none citing any previous Council concessions on the measure. 

Berkeley resident Patrick Finley—stressing that he isn’t a landlord—summed up the position of many when he told Council, “The structure [of the proposed parcel tax] is proposed so that the majority can impose on a minority a property tax, so only the few will carry the burden to benefit the many. I say shame on you for your divisive proposal, and your failure to fulfill the trust to manage the city’s revenue.” 

Dorothy Adriennes, an artist, an unemployed single mother, and a Berkeley property owner since 1985, told council she was at her “wit’s end” because of a property tax bill that was already more than $4,000 a year. “I’m one of those persons who is at my limit,” she said. “I need some relief here. The Berkeley artists can’t afford to live in Berkeley.” 

Bob McDow, a Berkeley homeowner and taxi driver, said “a lot of us are fed up. Last November, three of four Berkeley tax measures were voted down, with no significant opposition. This time, there’s organized opposition.” McDow said that if Council did not make significant revisions to the tax proposal, “we will fight it, we will oppose it, and we will defeat it. There is no doubt.” 

Three more Berkeley neighborhood associations—the McKinley Addison Allston Grant Neighborhood Association, the Willard Neighborhood Association, and the Blake and California Streets Neighborhood Association—came out in opposition Tuesday night, bringing to five the number of Berkeley neighborhood groups against the tax. In addition, the Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA), an umbrella coalition, has announced opposition to the parcel tax. 

Many speakers questioned why Council didn’t propose other fund-raising measures rather than the parcel tax. 

But to the complaint of some speakers that the proposed parcel tax was a “regressive tax based upon the square footage rather than the value of the property,” City Manager Phil Kamlarz said that state law “limits the types of taxes we can implement. Few, if any, progressive tax raises are possible.” 

A clearly frustrated Mayor Tom Bates took aim at some of the public speakers, saying, “A lot of misinformation was put out tonight [about the nature of the Berkeley budget and the proposed tax cut]. It’s very frustrating to sit here and listen to this misinformation.” 

But Bates seemed almost resigned to the possible—some might say probable—defeat of the measure next March, stating that while he didn’t want to preside over layoffs and radical budget cuts, he would do so if that was the will of the voters. 

Bates, in fact, seemed to be almost publicly preparing for an imminent loss. “We’re trying to craft something that we can present to the voters, and if they turn it down, they turn it down. I used to play football up at Cal,” he added. “I know how to lose. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.” 

The remark got one of the few laughs of the night. 

Council got more bad budget news during an earlier 5 p.m. hearing on the city’s labor contracts. While Council has floated the idea of renegotiating the labor pacts as a way of cutting the budget deficit, representatives of several of the city’s major labor unions flatly rejected the notion during the public hearing. 

The city is presently locked into contracts with fire personnel until 2006, with police personnel until 2007, and with all other union-represented city staff until 2008. 

City staff and union representatives both said they were continuing negotiations over several labor cost-cutting proposals that would not involve renegotiating contracts.  

The only good news for the city on the labor front on Tuesday was the announcement that city department heads had agreed to a voluntary three percent pay cut to help in the budget crisis.

Berkeley Schools Superintendent Michele Lawrence doesn’t pull punches when expressing her disdain for President George W. Bush’s landmark No Child Left Behind law. 

“We’re robbing underachieving kids of their social capital,” she told audience members gathered in Lafayette Saturday for State Assemblymember Loni Hancock’s community forum on the 2002 law that requires rigorous standardized testing of students and harsh punishments for schools and districts that fail to achieve federally mandated goals. 

Lawrence blasted the law on multiple fronts, charging that the legislation places bureaucratic burdens on districts without providing the increased funds to pay for extra paperwork, forwards a right-wing political agenda aimed at undermining public education, and limits instruction in art, music and athletics in favor of a narrow focus on subjects that appear on tests. 

Berkeley has vowed to maintain a balanced curriculum despite the all-important tests that focus nearly exclusively on math and reading—but in separate interviews Berkeley administrators, principals and teachers said that, for better or worse, high stakes test preparation has crept into classroom instruction. 

“There’s no question that math and reading take precedent over other subjects, partly because of the tests and partly because they require more academic time for developing skills,” said Jennifer Adcock, a fifth grade teacher at Malcolm X Elementary. 

No Child Left Behind requires reading and math testing for all students in grades 3-8, with science to be added in 2006, and additional tests for high school students up to grade 11. 

Not only must schools demonstrate “adequate yearly progress” (AYP), but each ethnic and socioeconomic group—including English Language Learners and special education students—must likewise meet the standards. Ninety-five percent of each group must be tested and if any one group fails to make AYP, the school as a whole fails.  

While the requirements apply to all schools, punishments for failing only apply to schools that receive federal Title I funds for the instruction of disadvantaged students, which accounts for the majority of Berkeley elementary and middle schools, but not the high school. 

High school teacher Bill Pratt said No Child Left Behind wasn’t a big issue among his colleagues, but Washington Elementary school principal Rita Kimball said the law had “become a part of our lives.” 

She has required teachers to post curriculum standards in classrooms and collaborate on lesson plans to identify which standards will be taught with the accompanying lessons.  

Kimball credited standards-based testing with helping Berkeley rein in renegade teachers, establish stronger curriculum and help schools measure their progress, but said the federal requirements were catching a lot of improving schools in the government’s web. 

Despite gains since California first started testing in 1999, the failure of poorer students at Washington to achieve proficiency coupled with the failure to hit the 95 percent testing quota landed the school in the early stages of program improvement, which, she said, damaged morale. 

“It doesn’t feel good to know some parents might not choose your school because it’s in program improvement.” 

The poster child for No Child Left Behind in Berkeley is Rosa Parks Elementary, which despite some years of strong test score gains, finds itself in Stage Three of program improvement, potentially just two years away from a mandated overhaul. 

To help students pass the tests, the district has pledged additional development opportunities for Rosa Parks staff which will come at the district’s expense. 

That angers Lawrence, who has had to devote dollars and administrative staff time to administering the arsenal of tests as well as sorting through paperwork from overlapping federal and state testing laws.  

Hancock said that during the last legislative session she authored a bill that would have reduced some state testing requirements to ease the burden on school districts, but was told that even though it passed both houses, Gov. Gray Davis planned a veto. 

Lawrence fears the district will take another financial hit next year when all teachers must meet federal qualification standards that require a teacher to have majored in his or her subject or pass a competency exam—meaning that a history major may have to pass a test to teach English. 

Because some teachers, especially middle school teachers who often have multiple subject credentials, don’t always teach subjects aligned to their college majors, Lawrence said that the district might have to pay for additional training or competency exams. 

Lawrence also worries that the law’s unstated goal is to “see public education fall by the wayside.” In providing federally mandated after-school tutoring for struggling Rosa Parks students, the district had to offer students a choice of various private services—all paid for by public Title I money that Lawrence said should be spent in the classroom. 

“There’s a cottage industry cropping up now that’s tapping public school money,” she said. 

Aside from benefiting educational corporations, she feared No Child Left Behind advanced conservative social causes, noting it requires Berkeley to provide student names to military recruiters and certify that it will not interfere with a child’s right to pray on school grounds. 

Elisabeth Woody, a researcher at UC Berkeley-funded Policy Analysis for California Education, said she didn’t think the law had “evil intent,” but said her yet-to-be published study of state elementary schools found that despite forcing districts to focus on educational equity and higher curriculum standards, No Child Left Behind was too confusing and tended to squeeze out instruction for subjects that weren’t tested such as social studies. 

Cragmont Elementary School Principal Jason Lustig credited Berkeley for preserving enrichment programs and selecting less restrictive curriculum options from the state.  

“Berkeley is being pushed to state standards but is doing so in a progressive way,” he said, adding that teachers were still feeling increased pressure and some “are very disturbed by it for sure.” 

Adcock said high stakes testing has left her feeling more monitored, but that hasn’t soured her on the profession and she doesn’t even list it has her biggest concern. “There are 32 students in my class. That’s what kicks your butt.”

• 

LETTER TO THE CHANCELLOR 

Dear Chancellor Berdahl, 

As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, a resident of California, and a U.S. citizen, I write you today to express my very strong support for the No on 54 Coalition. In particular, I approve the Graduate Assembly’s use of student fees to support students’ organizing against Proposition 54. 

As you know, if Prop. 54 had passed, its wide scope would have eventually constrained research in many departments. By funding student efforts to organize against this potentially crippling state constitutional initiative, the Graduate Assembly demonstrated sound judgment and represented effectively the interests of graduate students at Cal. 

By providing funds to the student-organized coalition, the GA enabled students of diverse backgrounds to supplement their conventional education by engaging democracy—thereby refreshing the very best traditions of our country and the University of California. 

I very strongly urge you to support the GA’s decision and look forward to seeing this issue resolved favorably to the No on 54 Coalition. 

Marc-Tizoc González 

UC Berkeley plans to develop a downtown hotel and convention center which Mayor Tom Bates hopes will capture both millions in tax revenue in the near future and the imagination of residents by restoring Strawberry Creek sometime later. 

But many remain skeptical about the mega-development, which the mayor said is estimated to cost $150-200 million. 

“This could be a wonderful contribution to the city or a horrendous nightmare,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

The university has a tentative agreement—brokered in part by Mayor Bates—to buy the Bank of America branch at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street and turn it into the centerpiece of a radically different downtown core as early as 2007. 

On the bank’s property would stand the hotel/convention center with between 175 and 200 rooms, a 15,000-square-foot conference center and room for a new Bank of America branch—all above an underground parking garage. 

Next door, the university would evict its printing press and demolish the parking lot at Addison and Oxford streets to transplant three of its highest-profile museums—the Pacific Film Archive, the Kroeber Center, and the Berkeley Art Museum—to the heart of the city’s arts district. 

UC Berkeley issued a Request for Qualification on the property last week, inviting developers to present past plans as the university looks to find a partner for the project. 

The hotel would be the second largest in town and offers tantalizing hotel tax revenues expected to run upwards of $1 million per year for a cash-strapped city facing an estimated $8-10 million budget shortfall next year. 

A survey conducted by the city’s Office of Economic Development found strong demand for a downtown hotel from visitors to the campus who now cluster in hotels and motels around Emeryville. 

What the city would lose in the deal is property tax revenue, which UC Berkeley—a state entity—doesn’t pay. Just how much property tax the bank is currently paying couldn’t be determined by presstime. 

Bates said Berkeley would receive possesory interest taxes, which local governments levy on private companies that posses exclusive use of tax-exempt properties. 

The mayor called the lost property taxes “a drop in the bucket” compared to the hotel tax revenue the city stands to gain—but with a proposed citywide parcel tax hike making property taxes a political hot potato, Bates’ colleagues in Council were leery of allowing another parcel to escape the tax rolls. 

“We in no way should sacrifice that land,” Councilmember Dona Spring said. “We can’t afford to give free rides anymore.” 

Under the terms of the deal, UC Berkeley would own the land but lease the property to a private developer to build and manage. The university refused to divulge the sale price or their financing for the purchase. 

UC Berkeley’s central role in the development worries some officials because it’s immune to Berkeley development rules. 

“The city loses leverage as soon as the university becomes the owner of something,” said Planning Commissioner Rob Wrenn. “UC doesn’t have to pay attention to anything.” 

Bates, though, said only the university had the economic interest and clout to complete the deal, adding that he thought the development would “come to all of our commissions.” UC Berkeley spokesperson Kathleen Maclay said “public comment would be solicited.” 

Maclay also said the university was committed to abiding by the city’s downtown plan which calls for the hotel/convention center to be built to “green” building standards. She said the university had no objections to transforming that block of Center Street into a pedestrian walkway—with the added possibility that Strawberry Creek might once again be daylighted on the site. 

Creek supporters have long cast their gaze on the Bank of America site as the home of a future environmentally friendly convention center that could anchor a “green” block highlighted by the restored creek. “That’s been the vision for quite some time,” Spring said, acknowledging that the plan does not call for or provide money for the creek project. 

Some obvious issues remain. Building underground parking in downtown Berkeley has never proven feasible, and the driveway for the lot would likely have to encroach the future pedestrian area of Center Street. Also, without a waiver from the current zoning laws, the development would have to fit its rooms and convention space into five stories. University and city officials refused to comment on the height of the proposed building. 

“The general concept is not bad at all,” Wrenn said. “It’s all a question of how it’s done.”

While a proposed parcel tax increase has dominated news accounts of Berkeley City Council in recent weeks, it is three proposed election-altering charter amendments that might actually have most significant long-term affects on the city. 

Council has scheduled a public hearing on the three charter amendments for tonight’s (Tuesday, Nov. 18) meeting. 

Language for the proposed ballot measures must be finalized by Council’s Nov. 25 meeting. If approved by Council, the measures will appear on the March, 2004 ballot. 

The runoff charter amendment would lower the percentage a candidate for Berkeley city office needs to get in an election to avoid a runoff. Currently, a candidate must get 45 percent of the vote in order to win on the first ballot. The proposed runoff charter amendment would only require a 40 percent vote to avoid a runoff, making it easier for candidates to win on the first ballot. 

Under existing Berkeley law, for example, Councilmember Gordon Wozniak was forced into a runoff with opponent Andy Katz in last November’s District 8 Council race after Wozniak garnered only 44.2 percent in the initial vote. Wozniak beat Katz in the runoff. Under the proposed charter amendment, no runoff would have been needed. 

The proposed runoff charter amendment would also extend the time of the runoff from the December following the November election to the following February. City Clerk Sherry Kelly has told Council that the present short time between elections and runoffs makes it necessary for her office to spend money preparing for runoffs that the county registrar of voters has not yet ruled are necessary. 

The proposed nomination charter amendment would add a $150 filing fee to run for office in Berkeley. Currently, there is no filing fee. The proposed charter amendment would allow a prospective candidate to offset a dollar of the filing fee for each citizen signature submitted on a nominating petition. A candidate submitting 75 names on a nominating petition would only have to pay a $75 filing fee. A candidate submitting 150 names on a nominating petition would be exempt from paying any filing fees. 

If passed by Berkeley voters next March, the two charter amendments would go into effect for the November, 2004 election. 

The most controversial proposed charter amendment—the so-called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)—is also the one provision that will not go into effect for several years under any circumstances. 

IRV, which has the backing of several progressive political organizations in California, eliminates runoffs altogether by allowing voters to rate more than one choice in an election. If there are three candidates running for an office, for example, voters would be able to list one candidate as their first choice, another candidate as their second choice, and the remaining candidate as their third choice. If no candidate got enough votes to win on the first ballot, the Registrar of Voters would declare a winner by tallying up the second and third-choice votes as well. 

Under the language of the proposed IRV charter amendment, Instant Runoff Voting would not go into effect in Berkeley unless and until it is approved and adopted by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. That is not estimated to take place, if at all, for five to ten years. 

The most vocal proponent of IRV on Berkeley City Council is Councilmember Dona Spring. Councilmember Gordon Wozniak has expressed reservations.

To Mayor Bates, City Councilmembers, City Manager: 

The Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA) has studied and discussed our city’s fiscal crisis and is eager to be heard in the ongoing discussion about how to restore fiscal stability and a balanced city budget. 

At this time, we are opposed to the proposed property tax increase ballot measure and urge you not to place this measure on the ballot at this time. We believe that a full and fair discussion of the causes and cures for the city’s financial problems has not yet been undertaken. Having just one public hearing on the tax measure and one discussion of the city labor contracts, both on very short notice, is completely unacceptable. 

Please consider the following factors: 

• Berkeley homeowners are already among the most highly-taxed homeowners in a state in which there is already a very high combined tax burden. Our homeowners can no longer afford to be disproportionately responsible for balancing the city budget. It is our understanding that, even without this new tax measure, our property tax and property service bills, which have already risen significantly and rise automatically every year, will also rise to pay for already-approved but unfunded tax measures, such as the new animal shelter and BUSD funding. Many, many homeowners are having financial problems of their own and live on tight budgets. 

• Several other taxes need to be considered that will more fairly spread the cost of government among the entire Berkeley community.  

• We have an extraordinarily large number of educational and wealthy nonprofit organizations, including UC, that continue to expand their real estate and business operations while paying nothing for the services they use. If these organizations have the financial means to expand, then they also have the means to pay for the negative impacts they create and for all of the city services they use.  

• Most cities charge substantial development impact fees, even to large nonprofits. We are not assured that Berkeley is receiving any such fees from either profit-making or nonprofit organizations, to make up for the large impacts of most new development. 

• There are apparently several wealthy developers who for one reason or another have been able to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes. How can we have confidence in the financial abilities of our city government when things like this take place? 

• There are several other tax measures on the horizon. Berkeley voters need to be able to weigh and balance the relative merits of all of these before voting for any one tax measure.  

• We are concerned by the excessive cost of the city’s labor contracts. There appear to be either too many city employees or too high salaries and benefits or both. In good times this might be tolerable, but given the city’s shortage of funds and the diminished resources of city residents, these labor contracts should be changed. Our city workers, most of whom live elsewhere, need to make some sacrifices too.  

• There are certainly additional belt-tightening measures that the city can and should undertake. It is your job to figure out which of these will cause the least damage.  

In sum, the city needs to embark on a full, fair, and active discussion and pursuit of all budget-balancing alternatives and come up with a comprehensive plan that will work for our city and its residents over the next several years. We believe that such a discussion, if undertaken immediately, will take at least six months. While this discussion and planning is occurring and until the format of a comprehensive solution is in place, a freeze should be placed on all new taxes, hiring, expenditures, and city employee wage/benefit increases. 

Sincerely, 

Marie Bowman 

President, Berkeley Alliance of  

Neighborhood Associations

Critics of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) gave lab officials an earful Monday, arguing that planned expansion at the lab threatens to pollute their lungs, clog their streets and devour their tax dollars. 

“The lab should never have been built there, but it doesn’t have to keep growing,” said Susan Cerny, a local preservationist. 

The occasion of the complaints was a legally mandated Scoping Session that allowed the roughly 40 residents in attendance to weigh in on the Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) that will guide development at the 200-acre Berkeley Hills campus through 2025. 

The plan projects increasing the daily population at the lab by 1,200 to 5,500 and boosting building space by 800,000 square feet to 2.56 million square feet.  

Residents offered a litany of criticisms and suggestions that, by law, the lab must address in the Environmental Impact Report that will accompany the LRDP. Lab officials declined to address the speaker’s concerns, but said in private interviews that it would be difficult to satisfy them. 

The lab’s most promising new field of research—nanotechnology—also proved its most controversial. 

Nanoparticles are 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair, but when effectively manipulated exhibit dynamic properties that proponents say can revolutionize nearly every scientific field from medicine to weaponry. 

Neighbors, though, fear the particles and fibers are so small that they’ll float through standard lab filters and land in their lungs, causing unknown health risks. 

“Not even the Environmental Protection Agency knows the impact of these things, but we’re ready to let them loose in Berkeley,” said Tom Kelly of the Commission on Health. 

Lab officials said most nanotechnology research has been performed in liquid solutions or with the particles bound to other materials—which sharply reduce the risk of emissions. 

Residents called for a review of the future home for nanotechnology research—the Molecular Foundry— which they claimed lab officials snuck through environmental review before unveiling the long range plan. 

Jeffrey Philliber, a lab facilities manager, said that since the foundry had already met all state environmental standards, it won’t be incorporated into the Environmental Impact Report—which, however, will address health concerns about nanotechnology. 

On Tuesday, City Council tabled a recommendation from the city’s Community Environmental Advisory Commission to ask the lab to submit to annual studies on potential nanotechnology health risks from an independent board of scientists. 

Other residents feared that the military would ultimately reap the benefits of the lab’s nanotechnology research, but lab spokesperson Terry Powell said only two percent of the lab’s budget is sponsored by the Department of Defense, none of it classified. 

Many residents were just as concerned about the traffic heading to and from the lab. 

Claiming that Centennial Drive and other commuter roadways were already carrying maximum traffic loads, neighbors urged the lab to work with AC Transit to establish bus service and establish an Eco Pass program to give incentives for workers to ditch their cars. 

Powell said the lab planned to add just 600 new parking spaces for the projected 1200 new workers. But, he said, lab officials had previously rejected Eco Passes because many employees commute from Contra Costa County and therefore wouldn’t benefit from the program. The lab does run a shuttle service every ten minutes from downtown Berkeley. 

“We can’t mitigate the traffic problem by ourselves,” Philliber said, citing a 1998 study that showed the lab accounted for a small portion of rush hour traffic heading through the South Berkeley Hills. 

Lab officials were also quick to reject the city’s plan to seek compensation for city services, including maintaining sewers and access roads. 

Powell said the lab already provides roughly $1 million annually to the city by fielding a fire department that provides first call service to neighborhoods around the lab. Last year, Powell said, the firefighters responded to 650 calls, 70 percent of them from off-campus neighbors. 

Jeff Sherwood, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Energy, said Department policy precluded it from paying Berkeley for services because the lab rents its property from the University of California. 

Berkeley Assistant City Manager Arrieta Chakos said the city remained undeterred and would seek compensation either from the Department of Energy or the UC Board of Regents after staffers complete a report on the extent of the city’s expenditures towards maintaining the lab. 

Meanwhile, the city is funding a study of expenses related to UC Berkeley, which is also in the process of finalizing its own Long Range Development Plan. 

“It’s our responsibility to develop every type of avenue we can to work with the lab and campus,” Chakos said. “We really feel obliged to push this very early in the process.”

Vista College is ushering in a new era by bringing down the house—in this case, the old Berkeley City Services Center at 2020 Center St. 

Starting this morning (Nov. 18) demolition workers will break out their jackhammers and wrecking balls, paving the way for construction of a six-story downtown campus for Berkeley’s community college—long maligned as the stepchild of the Peralta Community College district. 

“I think it’s going to have a profound impact,” said Daryl Moore, of the Peralta Board of Trustees. “This gives us a permanent home.” 

Vista, the only one of Peralta’s four schools without a home, has been renting downtown classroom space to the tune of $1.5 million per year.  

When the new campus is completed in the Summer of 2005, Vista’s 4,500+ students will enjoy educational opportunities inconceivable at their current spaces, said Vista spokesperson Shirley Fogarino. 

“The facilities will be so updated,” she said, adding that students accustomed to outdated computers and snail-paced networks will have access to multimedia labs, digital video production studios and animation equipment. 

The building features an atrium with space to hold art exhibits, a ground floor 250-person conference center open for public use, and 40-50 classrooms on the floors above—enough to meet the needs of the 7,500 students projected to attend the school by 2016. 

Some residents, though, have scoffed at the design which calls for exterior glass paneling, which critics say makes it look more like a suburban bank than a college. 

“Anyone who has seen the design has to gasp,” said Landmarks Commissioner Leslie Emmington. “This is a very dark, unattractive, sad building.” 

Because it’s an Alameda County project, Vista was exempted from the city’s Design Review process.  

The new building is rooted in the “de-annexation” movement of the mid- and late 1990s. At the time, Vista advocates, including now-Mayor Tom Bates, accused Peralta of underfunding the college and threatened to abandon the district. 

A final settlement brokered by the state in 1998 included pledges to hire two new faculty members per year for 10 years and find the school a permanent home. 

Vista officials acquired the Center Street building and adjacent parking lot through eminent domain after failing to negotiate a price with the owner. City services have since been relocated to 1947 Center St. 

The district will finance the $65 million project through a series of voter-approved bonds. Fogarino said the district is getting $50 million from two previous district bonds approved by county voters in 1998 and 2000 and $25 million from Proposition 47, a statewide ballot initiative approved last year. 

Moore said the funding was coming from three district bonds as well as Proposition 47, amounting to $75 million—$10 million more than the current cost estimate. 

Berkeley wants the district to compensate it for the loss of 50 parking spaces at the former lot. Transportation Director Peter Hillier said the city and district are still negotiating, adding that the cost of replacing one downtown parking space ranged from $25,000-$40,000. 

Berkeley parking lots have maintained vacancies since Vista closed the lot last year, but city officials fear that with the planned closure of the Kittredge Street lot and an improving economy, downtown lots might fill up during peak early afternoon hours. 

Vista will provide parking spaces for 80 bicycles, and officials say most students will commute to class by BART or AC Transit.  

The ultimate impact on the downtown will likely depend on the school’s enrollment. After 10 years of steady growth, state funding cuts forced administrators to cancel 21 percent of classes, costing the school about 10 percent of its enrollment, Fogarino said. 

More cuts are expected for the spring semester, but Moore said he was optimistic that, despite the school’s being “under a dark cloud,” Vista will benefit from a rebounding economy and grow into the facility. 

Tuesday’s demolition also serves as the kickoff for a school fundraising drive aimed at matching $2.1 million offered by the state for computers, lab equipment, desks and chairs not covered by the bonds.

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The future for University Avenue cannot be wall-to-wall five-story buildings. Eight years ago, merchants, property-owners, and residents came together and created the University Avenue Strategic Plan. It calls for four-story buildings at certain “nodes” and three-story buildings on most of the avenue. It envisions an improved streetscape with landscaping and pedestrian amenities. It is sensitive to adjacent residential neighborhoods, directing that the height of University Avenue buildings should step down near adjacent smaller houses and that those buildings be designed to respect their neighbors’ privacy. The plan got a lot right. However, the plan was written before the State Affordable Housing Density Bonus law.  

The State Density Bonus was enacted to stimulate affordable housing in cities that skirted the need to build such housing. The law requires cities to loosen zoning rules to encourage the building of affordable housing. Berkeley is a town that supports affordable housing. Long before the state passed the density bonus law, we were working to encourage affordable housing. But the density bonus law applies to us the same as it does any other city. In some cases, the result is large, blocky buildings which are too big for the lot and overwhelming to neighbors and the street. 

Our town is as lovely as it is because we pay attention to how our buildings look and feel. We have a design review committee. We pay attention to aesthetics, to architectural design, to amenities like trees and landscaping, to blending with the neighborhood context, to the interface between commercial and residential, to how a building impacts the streetscape. That is why we labored over the University Avenue Strategic Plan.  

We need attractive new buildings on University Avenue and other major corridors where development is likely. New buildings in Berkeley need to respect adjacent homes and protect their sunlight and privacy—not loom above and overwhelm their neighbors. Several things have to happen make sure this happens.  

First, we need to incorporate the University Avenue Plan into the zoning ordinance. We will work closely with city staff and the Planning Commission to accomplish that in the coming months.  

Second, we are examining changes to our permit process to provide greater neighborhood notification of proposed buildings and to strengthen design review. 

Third, we will carefully scrutinize the state density bonus law. It was designed for cities that are skirting their affordable housing requirements. Berkeley should not be penalized for having done the right thing to begin with. 

We should all realize that our major corridors are where new affordable housing can and should be built. But we must respect the context of the street and neighborhood and ensure that new buildings do not make a significant imposition on their neighbors. 

Mayor Tom Bates 

Council Member Linda Maio 

Oakland shoppers were surprised to encounter what many thought was only a Southern California phenomenon when they tried to enter one local Safeway Friday and were met by a group of 30 striking workers. 

The workers, all from Southern California, battled rain as they tried to dissuade people from entering the store at Broadway and 51st Street.  

All belonged to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UCFW) and had been walking picket lines for almost five weeks before they boarded a bus and came north as part of what they said was a two-fold strategy meant to increase the geographical areas affected by the strike and to alert and prepare northern California workers—whose contract expires next year—that they could be in for a similar fight. 

Strikers say their biggest concern is a change in the health care package proposed by Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger, who employ the 70,000-plus UFCW members walking the lines. 

Under the current contract, for every hour on the job, the employers pay four dollars into a pool to fund health care coverage. The new management proposal would be cut the payout to $1.35 for new hires—which strikers say would destroy the package. 

Existing employees would still receive four dollars, but they contend that as their hours are reduced as more new hires are made, the balance would shift and then crumble. 

Alexander Winslow, a spokesperson for Safeway, said the move follows industry standards and is not what strikers make it out to be. 

“What we’re doing is simply asking workers to share in their health care costs,” he said.  

According to the UFCW International office, however, the moves would force workers to pay for a much higher portion of the package. For example, employees who currently make $10 co-payments for doctor visits would be forced to pay up to $95 a week to maintain their benefits—an impossibility for many, they say. 

While none of the Oakland employees joined the local picket line, several voiced support for the strikers, who carried signs and chanted slogans such as “Safeway the wrong way” and “Stop the greediest corporation in the world.”  

Aneesah Shelbourne, a checker at the Oakland store, said that even though she makes $19.08 an hour, she works only 24 to 32 a week. A single mother, she says she couldn’t afford the possible $95 additional payments to cover herself and her two daughters.  

“To have [my benefits package] taken away would mean that I would have to get on some kind of aid,” said Shelbourne. 

She says she is afraid of a strike coming to her store but if it happens she said she would support it. “I think it’s worth it,” she said. 

Strikers say they have been walking Southern California picket lines for up to 16 hours a day and they scheduled 12 hours at the Oakland store. 

Additional demonstrations are planned for Safeway stores in cities around the Bay Area including Hayward, San Jose and Castro Valley. 

On Friday, with rain drenching their clothes and sometimes drowning out their chants, they said they were resolute about their fight, saying that—win or lose—they know their fight will be key in determining whether workers across the country will be able to protect their health benefits in the face of strong anti-union campaigns and rising insurance premiums. 

Stephanie Massey led the Friday demonstration. An employee at a Safeway-owned Vons market in Anaheim and a strike captain, Massey—who makes $7.40 an hour—said she’d been willing to come north for the week to protect the health benefits she says are necessary to start the family she and her husband are planning.  

She and her husband—who is out of work with an injury—have been struggling to survive on her salary alone, and she says that without benefits, they couldn’t make a family work.  

“I barely make enough to pay rent,” she said. “Scraping by here is the key word.” 

She says she took the low pay because there are chances to advance in the supermarket industry. Without a benefits package, however, she would have to look for a second job which is difficult at best because of her shifting schedule. 

Shoppers greeted the pickets with mixed reactions outside the store, with some turning away to respect the line and others walking past, ignoring the entire event. 

“I find it very annoying,” was all Oakland resident Joe Bochniak had to say as he rushed off. 

Robert Masolele, also from Oakland, said he felt bad crossing the line, but said he needed groceries.  

“I support these people and I think their demands are reasonable, but I need food on the table,” he said. 

Workers say they’ve chosen to target Safeway stores in particular because CEO Steve Burd formulated the proposed benefits cut.  

“He is the ringleader in a full scale attack on the health benefits of these workers,” said Jill Cashen, media representative for the UFCW. 

According to Cashen, the 30 pickets will eventually return home, but another group will replace them. The cycle, she said, will continue until the fight is over. 

“There is a waiting list of people who want to come up,” said Cashen. “What people up here don’t realize is that this is not a one day thing. We’re not going away.”

California Nursing Association (CNA) organizers and member registered nurses (RNs) met outside Alta Bates and Summit Medical centers Friday to protest what they call a scheme to sidestep a new law that takes effect on Jan. 1 mandating patient-to-nurse staffing ratios. 

AB 395, signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis in 1999, establishes a ratio of six patients per nurse, with even lower numbers in intensive care units. But CNA charges that hospitals are skirting the law by hiring Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs) who must be supervised by RNs and can’t perform many of the duties required in patient care. 

CNA organizers point out that LVNs can’t assess patient conditions, which must happen at least once every 24 hours. Thus, an RN already assigned to cover six patients might still have to perform assessments of other patients assigned to LVNs, increasing and possibly doubling their workloads. 

CNA says this is also a violation of the Nursing Practice Act and have filed a complaint with the California Board of Registered Nursing. 

“We fear an attempt to replace RNs with LVNs,” said Vicki Bermudez, a regulatory specialist with CNA. “This is not an effective care model.” 

CNA organizers cite research recently released by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science that conclusively links RN staff levels to positive patient outcomes and hospital safety. Hiring more LVNs they say, is just a way to meet the quotas without providing the best possible care. 

“Does the public realize what this means?” asked an Alta Bates nurse who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal. “They are going to be expecting a certain level of care and they’re not going to get it.” 

Legally, LVNs can comprise up to half of the nurses assigned to patient care on any unit minus those requiring RNs only. 

According to Vicki Ardito, chief nursing officer at Alta Bates, her hospital and Summit plan to hire a total of 200 new nurses to meet the ratios. She expects that number will include a ratio of 80 percent RNs to 20 percent LVNs.  

The new jobs, she said, will be added to the already existing 1400 at the two hospitals and will come at a cost of $18 million. 

“No matter how you slice it, it’s more licensed people,” said Ardito. 

CNA charges that the decision to hire LVNs—who require less training and receive lower salaries—proves the decision is market-driven. 

They say both Alta Bates and Summit have been evasive and unwilling to schedule a meeting as the first step in the establishment of a system to monitor the hospital’s move towards meeting the quotas. 

In the meantime, CNA organizers say RNs already face the dilemma of scheduling assessments of LVN patients. During the meeting, they advised RNs to cite safety concerns, refuse increased workloads, and form a committee as a way to insure better outcomes. 

“Remember, the public is on our side,” said Donna Carter, an RN at Alta Bates. “People are concerned about the care they are going to get.”

Not sure how many burglaries occurred on your block last month? Neither are the police. 

A $700,000 hi-tech dispatch program purchased three years ago to bring Berkeley Police into the 20th century has proven less effective than carbon paper. 

Named HTE after its manufacturer, HTE Incorporated, the system promised to zip information from dispatch to Berkeley’s records management system so police could instantly map crimes at various city locations. 

But the system never worked, so the BPD must manage with its 13-year-old Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, which Capt. Doug Hambleton said prevents officers from generating accurate up-to-date crime reports. 

CAD data is based on information received in the initial call to police, not the final police report, so if a burglary call turns out to be just only a case of trespassing, CAD still shows burglary—and any police report compiled from it would reflect the wrong offense. 

Police must then manually input the correct data into the records system, which Hambleton said means a lag time of several weeks to months. 

“Our information is not 100 percent accurate and we can’t make it 100 percent accurate,” he said. 

Among a multitude of problems, Berkeley Director of Information Technology Chris Mead said that HTE couldn’t support several dispatchers simultaneously. 

“This system works well for a smaller police department, but couldn’t handle what we needed it to do,” he said. 

Former Chief Dash Butler opted for the program—which was paid for entirely by a federal grant—but Mead said that in retrospect the department needed a more sophisticated model. 

When Butler made the purchase, the BPD had its own technology department, and did not need to consult with city technology staff while shopping for systems. The city changed that arrangement last year, placing both police and fire technical personnel under the city auspices. 

The city is currently negotiating with HTE Incorporated on a refund for the system. 

HTE did not respond to the Planet’s telephone calls. 

In the meantime, city officials are drafting federal grant requests to help pay for a new system Mead estimates will cost between $1.2 and $1.5 million. 

Time is of the essence, Mead said, because the supplier of their current system, Tiburon Inc., has given notice that it intends to stop supporting the product after 2006. 

Further hampering the BPD’s ability to dispense data is the fact that department brass have yet to assign anyone to update the crime data on its website. That project was abandoned in September when previous Public Information Officer Mary Kusmiss was promoted to patrol sergeant. Her replacement Officer Kevin Schofield said the task will “probably fall on me, but we’re working on that.”

Identity Theft Forum 

Have you ever had your identity stolen? Do you know when you might be at risk? 

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the U.S. with 9.9 million people affected in 2002. Here in Alameda county, according to County Supervisor Keith Carson, the numbers were even higher because of the area’s urban setting. 

That’s why Carson, along with the Alameda County Consumer Affairs Commission will be sponsoring a free forum today (Tuesday, Nov. 18) to help educate local resident about how to prevent and, if need be, deal with identity theft. 

Representatives from the FTC, Department of Justice, Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Security Administration, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and the Post Office will be available to answer questions at the event, which starts at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave., and is free to the public. 

For more information, contact Tahera Kapasi in Keith Carson’s office at 208-9599.  

Turkey Call 

The Berkeley Food and Housing project has put out an urgent call for turkeys, asking people to donate so they can have enough birds for their annual Thanksgiving dinner at the Trinity Church and the Men and Women’s shelters. 

Due to funding problems, the program has received fewer than normal turkeys from the local food bank and instead has had to turn the community for donations. 

Right now they only have four of the 50 turkeys they say are needed for the holiday meals. 

Donations can be dropped at either the Trinity Church, 2362 Bancroft Way, or at the program office, 2140 Dwight Way. Both locations are open between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. 

For more information contact Jamie Boreen at 649-4965 ext. 302.

The high wind country sends its strong gusts roaring through the 20 acres of loblolly pines that are up to 14 feet since their harvesting in 1990. Raising trees is a big business in this part of Texas. The pines grow a foot and a half a year, and the wind’s sound increases as they get higher. The trees are in rows as they grow.  

Someday they will be for Malcolm Perry’s grandchildren, who are now 6 and 8. In a grove alongside the property, pine trees grow to 100 feet into the wind. The hardwood trees on the property, maple and oak, are scattered on hills and run down to a pond. Many of them have not been harvested. They grow 60 and 70 feet high and one tree shading the house is 75 feet. All the trees will grow, slowly, almost unnoticeably until they are high in the sky and in this place where time is measured by a tree’s step from the earth.  

Malcolm Perry listens to the wind coming through the trees with a low roar, or a whistle, or suddenly, a shriek that sometimes is familiar with him.  

The shrieks of Parkland Memorial Hospital have run through all the hallways and rooms and arenas of all the years, softening now, diminishing, but burrowing into the wind and reaching the unwilling consciousness of Dr. Malcolm Perry. He was working on John F. Kennedy’s heart when he died in Parkland Hospital on the fall day in 1963.  

“It was a bad weekend,” he remembers. Kennedy was on Friday. On Sunday, he operated on Lee Harvey Oswald. “A bad weekend and a bad aftermath.”  

The trouble at the end came when he walked into a large, writhing news conference, something in which he never had been involved. And for good reason, this was the only one like it since Lincoln.  

He observed that a throat hole looked like an entrance wound. He had qualified the observation in the next sentence but virtually nobody paid attention. They took that throat wound and carried it over the years into proof of a conspiracy. Somebody shot Kennedy from the front, in the throat. Somebody else shot him in the back of the head. So many wanted to believe the worst.  

Malcolm Perry then slipped away from questioning and walked into his own world of surgery and silence. He never spoke to news reporters. He mentioned his experience to practically nobody. He wanted to be known as a fine doctor. From 1978 until 1988 he was chief of vascular surgery at New York-Cornell Hospital in Manhattan. He lived at 15 Villa Lane in the elegant suburb of Larchmont. Apparently, nobody at the hospital who knew him ever mentioned anything about the Kennedy shooting. It was the same in Larchmont.  

“They were wonderful neighbors,” he says. “Nobody ever said, ‘Are you that person?’ I was discreet. I said little about those things. I played golf at Winged Foot, but nobody there brought it up.”  

He got up at 5 in the morning to drive to the hospital and got home at 9 or 10. He and his wife liked to walk on First and Second avenues and try new restaurants. For a full decade, he moved on boulevards where the people and the prints and screens scream for a new great name and he left without leaving a phone number. He had been in the vortex of American history and found it unwelcome.  

The wind speaks by rattling trees and bringing up that day for Malcolm Perry. He was having salmon croquettes for lunch in the doctor’s cafeteria at Parkland Hospital when the call came over the page.  

“Dr. Tom Shires STAT,” the woman’s voice said.  

Nobody ever called Tom Shires, who was the hospital’s chief resident in surgery, for an emergency. And Shires was out of town for the day. Perry put down his fork and went to the phone.  

“This is Dr. Perry taking Dr. Shires’ page.”  

“President Kennedy has been shot. STAT,” the operator said. “They are bringing him into the emergency room right now.”  

Perry walked out of the cafeteria, down a flight of stairs and pushed through a brown door, and a nurse pointed to Emergency Room One. Perry walked into it. The room was narrow and had gray-tiled walls and a cream-colored ceiling.  

In the center, on an aluminum hospital cart, the president of the United States was on his back and dying with a huge lamp glaring on his face.  

Jack Kennedy had been stripped of his jacket, shirt and T-shirt. A staff doctor was starting to place a tube called an endotrach down the throat. Oxygen would be forced down the tube. Breathing had to be fought for. The president was not breathing.  

Malcolm Perry, 34, at 6-2 and red-haired, threw his dark blue glen-plaid jacket on the floor. He held out his hands while the nurse helped him put on gloves. He looked at Kennedy. The president, he thought, he’s bigger than I thought.  

He noticed the dark-haired woman in the doorway with her husband’s blood all over the front of her skirt.  

Then he stepped up to the aluminum cart for the hopeless job of keeping John Kennedy alive. The chest was not moving and there was no heartbeat. The wound in the throat was small and neat. But blood was running out of it too fast. There was a wound in the back of the head that had a huge flap. Blood covered the floor. Air and blood were being packed together in the chest.  

Perry called for a scalpel. He was going to do a tracheotomy, opening the throat and inserting a tube into the windpipe. There was no anesthesia. Kennedy could feel nothing now.  

Other doctors and nurses were in the room now, but Perry saw only the throat with the hole in it, and the chest, shining under the huge light.  

As he finished the tracheotomy, Perry saw Dr. Kemp Clark, chief of neurosurgery, coming through the door. Clark looked at Kennedy. He looked at Malcolm Perry. His look told Perry something he already knew. There was no way to save the patient.  

Perry started to massage the chest. He has long fingers, and he used them to try to force the body to a heartbeat. The aluminum cart was too high. Perry was up on his toes for leverage.  

“Will somebody please get me a stool?” he said.  

One was placed under him. For 10 minutes, he massaged the chest. Over in a corner of the room, Dr. Kemp Clark kept watching the electrocardiogram. There was no action. He turned from the electrocardiogram.  

“It’s too late, Mac,” he said to Malcolm Perry.  

The IBM clock on the wall said it was 1 p.m. of Nov. 22, 1963.  

Afterward, the sound that follows him began with the caterwauling and clatter of a mob in a conference room. He said that he thought that the small hole in Kennedy’s throat looked like an entrance wound.  

Right after his entrance-wound statement, Perry said, “Neither Dr. Clark nor I know how many bullets there were or where they came from.”  

Right away, so many took the entrance wound at the throat to mean the shot had come from the front, not the rear, which was the Texas School Book Depository building where Lee Harvey Oswald fired out of a sixth-floor window.  

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Malcolm Perry remembers today. “I was naive. I didn’t know how much trouble I could get into. I shouldn’t have surmised. If I hadn’t said that, there wouldn’t have been a conspiracy theory.”  

The exams later showed it was an exit wound. No matter now. The conspiracy theories clutched the throat wound.  

That was on Friday. On Sunday he was back in the hospital operating on Lee Harvey Oswald, shot in the Dallas police station by Jack Ruby.  

For the conference after Oswald’s death, Perry had his statements typed out and this time there was no dangerous confusion.  

“I had a bad weekend and a bad aftermath,” he says.  

Perry testified for a day at the Warren Commission.  

He wonders if any reporters read the report.  

For the cry of conspiracy was raised by the jackals.  

And now all these years later, Malcolm Perry where he raises trees and once a week flies his Beechcraft plane to Dallas, where he is professor emeritus at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.  

To start the week when all news organizations try to make hard fresh news out of a story that is so old, Malcolm Perry, doctor at the end of the lives of Jack Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, will take no calls from anybody in news. He was good with the Nebraska-Kansas State game, and wind coming through his trees.

FRESNO—The scene at the Rainbow Ballroom on a crisp fall evening three years ago wasn’t unlike that offered at other popular nightspots in Fresno. 

Couples whispered at tables barely lit by fluorescent lights. Packs of young men hovered near the stage, casually speaking English while awaiting the arrival of the featured musical acts. English was the language of choice for the crowd of more than 1,000 who packed into the downtown dance hall for a night of music and dancing. 

Once the acts—rockeros like Jaguares, Julieta Venegas, Jumbo, Lysa Flores and La Gusana Ciega—jumped onstage, the concert-goers sang in unison to the Spanish-language songs. 

A week later at the same dance hall, Spanish is the only language heard as an equally young crowd waits for a concert featuring a collection of accordion-packing norteño groups. 

Welcome to the San Joaquín Valley of today. 

It’s a valley that is embracing a Latino accent thanks to the huge growth of a Latino population that is overwhelmingly young. 

Thus, when Latino politicians say the future is in the hands of the children, they couldn’t be more correct. 

It is the Latino youth that demographers are keeping an eye on as that segment of the population matures. Already, Latinos represent about 60 percent of the kindergarten enrollment in Fresno, Tulare, Madera and Kings counties that make up the Central Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland. Ten years ago, that percentage was less than 50 percent. 

That wave, which has been rapidly increasing in the past 10 years, sets the stage for further impacts on the Central Valley’s education, health, governmental, environmental and economic climate. The California Department of Finance estimates that Latinos will make up more than 1.6 million of the population—or 55.3 percent of the overall population—in the same counties in less than four decades when today’s kindergarten students will be approaching middle age. 

The Latino youth wave has been fueled by documented and undocumented immigration and high birth rates. 

The overwhelming need for Latino students is education, say experts. National studies show that Latinos make up three-quarters of all students enrolled in Limited English Proficient programs, although not all Latino students have limited English proficiency. 

Additionally, fewer Latinos than other students have access to a computer at home (18 percent compared to 52 percent of whites), there are fewer Latino teachers in comparison to Latino enrollment (four percent Latino instructors to 15 percent Latino enrollment) and Latinos under age five are less likely to be enrolled in early childhood education programs than other groups (20 percent compared to 42 percent of whites). 

Despite the shortcomings, there are success stories that are often written by motivated students. 

“Education is important to me because my mom had no education, neither have my brothers,” said Roosevelt High School graduate Fabiola Quiñonez in 2001. “I see the life we have had. It hasn’t been all that glorious. I want to give a better life to me and my kids. 

The rise of second-generation Latinos—those born in the United States with at least one foreign-born parent—will continue to shape the landscape for decades, says demographer Roberto Suro of the Pew Hispanic Center. 

“Hispanic births in the United States are outpacing immigration as the key source of growth,” says Suro, in a national study released earlier this month. “Over the next 20 years, this will produce an important shift in the makeup of the Hispanic population.” 

That impact, Suro says, will have a big impact on public schools and the work force. He estimates that one in seven of the new students enrolling in U.S. schools over the next 20 years will be second-generation Latino. And, the number of Latino workers will increase faster than the non-Latino labor force.  

The second-generation Latino will also tend to be more bilingual than first-generation Latinos (47 percent compared to 24 percent). 

Interestingly, says Suro, there are differences in intermarriage between native-born Latinos and immigrants. 

“First-generation Latinos, like immigrants in general, tend to marry within their ethnic/racial group,” says Suro. “That is not true of second- and third-generation Latinos.” 

He cites estimates showing that only eight percent of foreign-born Latinos intermarry, compared to 32 percent of the second-generation and 57 percent of the third-generation or older population. 

Most Latino parents, when asked, will say that in addition to education, they want their children to remember their roots, whether it’s dance, music or traditions. That spurred the creation of Centro Bellas Artes and Arte Américas in the late 1980s, and numerous Mexican folkloric dance groups at area schools. 

Robert Arroyo, a retired educator and former board member of Arte Américas, credits the immigration flow for keeping the Mexican culture alive. 

“It is the immigrant kid that is keeping our culture alive for those of us here who are desirous of keeping it alive,” says Arroyo, who remembers growing up in Illinois where Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day festivities were private celebrations. 

Overt discrimination in the 1960s kept many Latino students from speaking Spanish at school, says Arroyo. The population growth has led to an embrace of Mexican culture and the Spanish language, he says. 

Mexican folk artists say Latinos in the United States are bigger supporters of Mexican culture than Mexicans. 

“Mexican art is appreciated more on this side than in México,” said Tomás Velásquez, a Mexican folk dance instructor from Sonora, México. “They admire it and they even perform it. 

“I have seen many good groups in Fresno. They dance as well or better than we do in México. Frankly, I am surprised.” 

Ask local people about the future for Latinos in the Valley and you get difference responses. 

Mark Lozada, director of the Central Valley Opportunity Center in Madera County: “There are many opportunities for us to develop, but we don’t take advantage of them. There are numerous programs to help Latinos prepare themselves, but the people either are afraid or too lazy to become informed.” 

Rufino Domínguez, binational coordinator of the Frente Indígena Oaxaqueño Binacional: “The arrival of immigrants won’t slow down. We will continue to come because of the lack of opportunities in México. I believe that in a very short time, we’ll become citizens and that will translate into more participation.” 

Orange Cove Mayor Víctor López: “I see a change. Many people in the state already know that they must work with us, that they must make decisions with us in mind. Slavery has ended. We are now very different and they see us differently. But we must be more united, more educated and more prepared. I believe that in that way we can move mountains if we want to.” 

Tulare County Supervisor Lali Moheno: “One thing is certain: The population will continue to grow and we must get educated, get prepared. If the population grows, needs grow. During an economic crisis like the one we have right now in California, the most affected are the poor. And many of those poor are Latino.” 

The final word comes from Suro of the Pew Hispanic Center. 

“Regardless of whether immigration flows from Latin America increase, decrease or stay the same, a great change in the composition of the Hispanic population is underway,” says Suro. 

Much is still to be determined about the children emerging from immigrant households, he says. 

“Their cultural and political identities are likely to respond to their parents’ experiences and to contemporary influences that are different from those that shaped past Latino generations,” says Suro. 

“One prediction about second-generation Latinos, however, seems safe: Given their numbers, their future will be a matter of national interest.”

The security of nuclear power plants against terrorist attack has been hotly debated since 9/11. Less has been said about another threat that could compromise the viability of nuclear plants and seriously damage their surroundings. It is a menace largely ignored by power plant designers, utility companies and the U.S. government. 

That menace was felt in France this past August, when a devastating heat wave killed more than 14,000 people and left the French nuclear power industry under a cloud of questions. 

Nuclear power plants need an abundant supply of cool water to operate. After a week of scorching temperatures, the French power company Electricité de France (EDF) instituted emergency measures—at one point using garden sprinklers to hose down the exterior of a plant in the Alsace region—saying hot weather and lack of rainfall had severely reduced supplies of river water cold enough to sufficiently cool reactors. 

In the end, rather than cut back power generation, EDF was allowed to discharge hot water into rivers and streams, which can destroy aquatic life. 

Could what happened in France happen here? There are 103 nuclear power plants operating across the United States, by all accounts an aging fleet. Most plants date back to the 1970s, the same period as French reactors. All were designed using historical temperature data from their specific locations rather than anticipating an increasingly warmer climate. 

Experts on climate change say that in coming years, nuclear plants will likely be subject to similar environmental conditions that plagued Europe this summer. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules require a plant licensee to submit an environmental site assessment covering a 40-year period. Scott Burnell, a spokesman with the NRC, says new plant guidelines are unnecessary. “Global warming occurs on such a slow scale that we would be able to deal with any changes at an operational level as opposed to a policy level,” Burnell says. 

But climate scientists say the natural world may be on a different timetable. 

“We’ve known since 1984 that the main way we will feel the presence of global warming is through the increased probability of cracking extreme threshold events,” says Stephen Schneider, co-director of the Center for Environmental Science at Stanford University. Schneider and colleagues estimate that during the next 50 to 100 years there is at least a 90 percent probability of higher temperatures, more heat waves, greater risk of drought and increased demands on electricity supply systems. 

“If we had that sort of extreme event today, we would probably respond in a similar way to France,” says Per Peterson, director of the Nuclear Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. “You either reduce the power output from the plant, which will have societal consequences, or you get an exception from the regulatory agencies to allow discharged water to come out warmer.” 

In France, hospitals overflowed with heat-stricken elderly, and refrigerated trucks were turned into impromptu morgues. Cutting power was a last resort, and officials opted to discharge hot water. Environmentalists were outraged. 

In the future, overheated water from power plants could be released into an already heat-stressed and drought-ridden environment. “Global warming will make it more likely that operation of power plants will lead to thermal discharges that exceed mandated limits,” says Dr. Peter Gleick, Director of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security.  

Lance Vail, Senior Research Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has studied salmon habitat in the Yakima River in Washington state. “There is a temperature at which water becomes lethal for salmon,” Vail says. “If you have five or six consecutive years of lethal temperatures in a particular location, they may simply go extinct.” 

In addition to a license from the NRC, plant owners must obtain a discharge permit from the Environmental Protection Agency. Under the Clean Water Act, temperature can be considered a pollutant. That may be small comfort to those concerned about protecting water systems anytime soon. The Bush administration’s new EPA director is Utah governor Michael Leavitt, whose state was declared by the EPA in February to be guilty of significant non-compliance with the Clean Water Act. 

Power plant designers are planning no hardware changes. Vaughn Gilbert of Westinghouse, a nuclear power plant manufacturer, said that their newest reactor will operate at high temperatures but, “to my knowledge we did not take global warming as such into account during the design phase of the plant.” 

Essentially moribund since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, nuclear power is being resurrected by the Bush administration, which has pledged millions in federal subsidies and a streamlined licensing process. 

Peterson says he expects that the U.S. nuclear power industry may react to what happened in Europe by re-examining operating limits in order to obtain license amendments, which will allow plants to operate at higher temperatures. “Environmental limits are a policy decision between how much you like your water and how much you like having electricity,” Peterson said.  

Scientist Peter Gleick sees little reason for optimism. “I am afraid that as climate change continues to manifest itself, we will see growing impacts on rivers, growing pressure on power plants, and a risk that governments will move away from environmental protections in the name of economic protection.” 

Paul Schwartz is an American freelance journalist currently working in Europe.

Recently I attended a going away party for a friend. At the age of 52, Karen is heading for New York City. She’s given up her wonderful Potrero Hill apartment with its city and Bay views and is moving to a ground-floor, furnished sublet on the corner of 145th and St. Nicolas Avenue in the middle of Harlem. The company she writes for, Dance Magazine, is leaving Oakland and finally putting down roots in Manhattan. It makes sense, I suppose. Still, I’m going to miss her. 

A part of me is envious. To pull up stakes at our age, to start over in a city arguably one of the most exciting in the world... well, sometimes I think I’d like to do that too. Then I hear stories of the recent blackout, the continued repercussions of 9/11, the price of an almost mandatory pair of pointy, uncomfortable shoes and I wonder. Maybe I don’t want to move there after all. 

The young daughter of a friend of mine is going to school at Barnard, located at Broadway and 116th Street in Manhattan. She called home recently and told her Dad, “You know, it’s so horribly hot and muggy here, it feels like I’m walking around in a big ball of phlegm.” A rather graphic description, but, hey, I’ve been there and it does feel like that sometimes. 

But I envy Karen for making such a significant change in her life when others might not do so out of habit or fear of the unknown. I know it won’t be easy. She might get lonely. Her feet will start to hurt if she buys a pair of Manolo Blahnics. There will be things about the Bay Area she’s going to miss, like Trader Joes, good coffee, soft tacos and earthquakes. We tried not to point this out to her during our get together, but it was hard not to mention the sound of the cable cars, the amazing light at sunset, the sea breeze, the fog, the Transamerica Building. 

At the end of the party one of our friends, Doug, pulled out his 35-year-old, six-string Martin guitar and serenaded us. 

“I left my heart in San Francisco,” he softly crooned, “high on a hill, it calls to me. 

“To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars, the morning fog may chill the air, I don’t care.” 

Karen began to sob and the rest of us wiped away tears as Doug continued, “My love waits there in San Francisco, above the blue and windy sea. When I come home to you, San Francisco, your golden sun will shine for me.” 

Slowly we rose from our seats, gave Karen a hug and made her promise that she would come back and visit soon. My friend Martha and I headed for the Bay Bridge but all the onramps were blocked by police cars and red flares. We learned that the highway and bridge had been shut down by a dangerous truck fire. We scooted around the city, but finally realized that the only way home was to drive south on Interstate 101 to the San Mateo Bridge. The roads were jammed with everyone else who was trying to make it back to the East Bay. 

Two hours later, weary and frustrated, I arrived home. The fog had beat me across the Bay, of course, and my little house on Dover Street was engulfed in a blanket of misty, sparkling gauze. It was nothing like the big ball of phlegm my friend’s daughter had described as sometimes covering New York City. I realized that I was more than just happy to be home in the East Bay. I was positively grateful.

Now that the nation’s schools have had a year to adjust to President Bush’s much vaunted education law, the No Child Left Behind Act, its real consequences are beginning to surface—and it’s not looking good. Various governors and state officials, including those from Republican-leaning states such as Florida, West Virginia and Tennessee, are noticing that the president has treated them to the ultimate bait-and-switch: He has demanded more of their schools while cutting the money needed to do the job. 

In California, Roy Romer, the superintendent of Los Angeles schools, has found the law’s definitions of academic progress so arbitrary that he’s told his underlings to ignore them. Further north, San Lorenzo superintendent Arnie Glassberg is wondering how he, or any other superintendent, is going to get 100 percent of students proficient in math and reading by 2014, as Bush’s law requires. 

More than half the schools in many states are already failing to meet the law’s new standards. And things look like they will only get worse. Each year, new students pour in, including some from other countries who have language obstacles. Yet the federal bar indicating “adequate yearly progress” continually gets higher. 

Meanwhile, thanks in part to the president’s tax cuts, government revenues—and thus, school funding—will continue shrinking. The San Lorenzo district, for instance, already lost $2 million this year. “As time goes on, the failure list will get bigger and bigger,” Glassberg said. “It will look like schools aren’t doing their job, and that’s not true.” 

Before the pressure to fund Bush’s education law more generously becomes unbearable, let’s pause to think about exactly what definition of academic progress we’re buying. 

In some schools, wise principals and teachers have used the law’s new testing standards to leverage more profound understanding of the “three Rs.” The vast majority, though, are so desperate to pass these tests that they’re ignoring valuable subjects that aren’t being tested—principally foreign languages and the arts, the latter being a domain that science has shown can develop broad, creative, even analytical skills. Meanwhile, obsession with standardized tests has reached nearly absurd proportions.  

A particularly graphic example has occurred in Texas, where the president’s ideas about education obviously hatched. Pressures to excel on this state’s exam, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), have been so intense that they’ve created a whole new industry. 

There are “TAAS camps,” instructional videos for teachers, cram booklets and tutorial software such as “HeartBeeps for TAAS,” which, by mid-2000, an estimated 1,000 schools had purchased at $4,200 a copy. In many schools, class work has been largely given over to test preparation from New Year’s through April. 

Texas students have of course raised their scores as a result. But evaluations by college admissions officers and groups such as the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy group, indicate the students haven’t learned much in the process. 

This should come as no surprise. Standardized testing is such an oversimplified science that even experts who support it suggest its results be used only as a guide, not as a final scholastic judgment. Learning, imagination, and student potential are fundamentally human challenges, and trying to evaluate these attributes with crude numbers consistently yields false judgments. 

One new study of 20 states, by the University of Oregon’s Center for Educational Policy Research, found that standardized high school exams are providing a poor indication of students’ readiness for college. 

“Tests tend to test how one individual performs on that kind of test,” on that given day, says education reformer Theodore Sizer, founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools, a system funded by Bill Gates that aims at smaller classes and focuses on essential academic subjects. “It’s like taking a temperature in the hospital. It’s one important index, but it’s only one. We’re judging kids on the basis of their temperatures.” 

William F. Goodling, a former Pennsylvania Congressman and chair of the House committee on education and the workforce, once put it this way: “If testing is the answer to our educational problems, it would have solved them a long time ago.” 

Meanwhile, the number of testing inaccuracies have increased tenfold in recent years, as states across the country rush to process more tests than the testing industry can reliably produce and grade. California, for example, is one state that offers cash bonuses to high-performing schools. 

Yet, a recent investigation by the Orange County Register found that differences in school size, fluctuating enrollment, and the exclusion of some students from testing are making test results unreliable—so much so that a third of the millions of dollars in bonuses are going to California schools that may have simply gotten lucky. 

If political leaders want to put more money into education, they should be able to come up with something better than leaning even more heavily on these exams. If we want real change in the schools, we could start by revitalizing teacher training, coupled with a meaningful raise in teacher salaries. After all, it’s a little strange to watch politicians, who repeatedly say education is their top priority, pay the people in charge of that job half of what other professionals earn. 

Todd Oppenheimer, winner of a National Magazine Award, is the author of The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved, published this fall by Random House (www.flickeringmind.net).

As he awoke for the first time as chief executive of the largest state in the greatest country in the world, The Governator smiled his famous smile, lighting up the room. 

But when he reached for the mirror to be sure his teeth were still perfect, he found his body was so strongly fastened and wrapped in what felt like slender threads that he could not move. 

Soon, he felt something moving on his left leg toward his face. Unable to move his head, The Governator saw a human creature, about as big as his thumb. 

The man was carrying a cheap black stick pen stamped “State of California.” He wore a grey suit of some slightly shiny material, and eyeglasses. He looked vaguely familiar, and The Governator, unable to contain his curiosity, strained forward and broke many of the threads holding him down. 

But as he struggled to sit up, he felt an extremely unpleasant sensation on his right hand—as if a thousand dull darts were being thrown at him. Struggling to look, he saw a phalanx of men and women firing pens into his flesh with a sort of sling made form rubber bands. Each had a considerable supply, and The Governator decided it would be a good time to rest. 

Waving his white silk handkerchief—a sign they seemed to recognize, for the shooting soon stopped—he lay back down to consider his situation. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw some of the gray-clad figures in the distance holding large flowers as if they were golf clubs. 

“What are they doing?” he asked aloud. 

And a voice—the first man had now ascended The Governator’s chin—replied, “Practicing their putting.” 

“With flowers?” asked The Governator. 

“They’re lily-putters,” came the reply. 

“Aha! So this is Lilliput, I suppose, and you are all part of an elaborate practical joke,” said The Governator. “Well, you can stop now. I’m not that gullible.” 

“Which Gullible are you, then?” asked the man, now accompanied by about a hundred others. 

Suddenly, The Governator realized why they seemed so familiar. “You all look like the last governor, the one I terminated,” he said. “Are you all Gray Davis?” 

“Oh, no,” came a dozen voices, and a dozen or more men and women paraded by, saying their names. 

“Gary Davids.” 

“Davis Gray.” 

“Grace Davey.” 

“Darvis Gay.”  

“Ray G. Avids.” 

Until The Governator could stand it no longer. 

“Stop!” he shouted, and just then a man in a suit unlike the others appeared, and held out his hand. “FItchmoody Dow,” he said. “Here to see you about your ratings.” 

“Oh, they’re excellent,” said The Governator. “I had 16 pints with a 22 share last time out.” 

“But your bonds aren’t drawing that kind of interest,” said Dow, “so we may have to downgrade them, especially if you cut taxes. You did promise to cut taxes, didn’t you?” 

“I don’t recall,” said The Governator. 

One member of the group that had been firing into his hands now appeared, shooter at the ready. “We are from the rubber band of the Keno group of Palm Beach Indians,” he said, “and want to see how you feel about our proposal to build a casino on our property.” 

“I don’t recall,” said The Governator. 

And the parade continued for some time, until they formed in front of him. 

“Who are you, anyway?” said The Governator. 

“We’re your host of problems,” came the answer in unison. 

And from somewhere in the back of the crowd came a voice. “And we recall.” 

“Enough!” said The Governator, reaching for his ultrahigh powered laser-guided shooter, which had made him the toast of box offices from Anaheim to Annapurna. 

But it wasn’t there. Inside the case was only a slip of paper with the words “You’re not in the movies anymore.” 

The Governator’s smile slowly faded, and the room grew dark.

When George Soros, one of the world’s richest men, announced this week that he’s made getting rid of George W. Bush “the central focus of my life,” it was good news for Berkeley-based MoveOn.org. 

Soros announcement coincided with news that the billionaire is giving five million bucks to fund MoveOn issues advertisements attacking the neoconservative agenda. 

The Hungarian-born financier is just one of several deep pocket donors who have recently pledged to match monies offered by the 1.7 million recipients of MoveOn’s regular electronic mailings. [To be fair, this writer should note that he’s on the mailing list, though he hasn’t given any cash]. 

Another donor—whose name won’t be released till next week—has given a million, and others have volunteered lesser sums, all tied to matching sums from MoveOn subscribers. 

But that should be a snap. 

“Tuesday we took in $800,000 from our subscribers, and that means we’ll be getting a matching funds check for $400,000,” said Carrie Olson, one of MoveOn’s six staff members and the person who handles the incoming contributions. “We’ve had two $500,000 checks so far.” 

MoveOn is one of the leanest political operations ever, with six full-time staff, including Olson, aided by founders and full-time volunteers Wes Boyd and Joan Blades. 

“There are advantages to being lean,” Olson says. “You can turn on a dime because you don’t have to stop and convene a meeting of the board of directors. 

“We also have an absolutely fabulous support team we deal with. We have a great public relations firm, Fenton Communications, the absolutely best political and legal advice you could ask for, and excellent relations with representatives in the Congress and Senate. It’s been an amazing ride. 

“The days are long and we work hard, but we play hard too, and we allow our folks to take time off and recharge.” 

The newest addition to the staff is James Rucker, hired as director of MoveOn’s Political Action Committee after running—as a contractor—the group’s No on 54 campaign in the recent California elections. “We’ll be offering a full slate of candidates in the congressional and Senate races across the country next year,” Olson added. 

MoveOn’s skillful use of the Internet has showcased the electronic superhighway’s role as a medium for political activism. Howard Dean’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination has exploited the MoveOn model with such success that Dean has decided to run his bid without matching federal campaign funds. 

Ironically, it is often forgotten that it was the extreme Right that first capitalized on computerized communications, as extremist groups in the late 1970s and early 1980s created dial-up electronic bulletin boards to organize and share information. 

MoveOn’s success and increasingly high profile have targeted the group for frequent attacks by conservative commentators—Fox’s Bill O’Reilly among the most prominent—and Internet sites, most of which refer back to the organization’s creation to mobilize activist to fight the impeachment campaign against that ultimate neocon bete noir, Bill Clinton. 

“The more people like Bill O’Lie-ly—that’s what I call him—and people like him attack us, the more people are interested in what we’re doing,” Olson said. 

“There’s a growing awareness of people that they are being discounted as people whose opinions don’t count. Like they’re soccer moms who don’t care. But they really do care—in Kansas, in Mississippi, in North Carolina—and they’re waking up and wanting to get involved. 

“I wouldn’t be doing this unless I felt I was making a difference. It’s very unusual in this world that one person can feel they’re making a difference, and because I’m making a difference, I know that thousands of others are. It gets so it’s hard to stop working at night.” 

As MoveOn’s Chief Operating Officer, Olson runs the group’s day-to-day operations. The role is a natural extension of the job she held as Director of Internal Operations for Berkeley Systems, the software company created by MoveOn founders Boyd and Blades and most famous for creating the “Flying Toasters” screensaver. 

Peter Schurman is MoveOn’s executive director, New York-based Eli Pariser is campaigns director, and Washington, D.C.-based Zack Exley is the group’s organizing director. 

MoveOn’s most recent campaign, launched two weeks ago, calls on members to produce their own advertisement and commercial ideas. Once the entrants have been submitted, MoveOn will pick 15 finalists for submission to a panel of celebrity judges that includes polymath documentarian Michael Moore, activist actress Janeane Garofalo, Moby and others, who will pick the winner—which will then be aired for the public, thanks to the generosity of Soros and MoveOn’s many other contributors. 

“The great thing about the Internet is that we can provide a wealth of information people wouldn’t otherwise be able to find in a newspaper or in a 30-second news broadcast segment. People like to say the press is liberal, but that’s not true. There’s one liberal press left here in America, and it’s here in Berkeley,” Olson says. 

MoveOn’s success has attracted considerable interest from organizers in other lands, and efforts to duplicate the program are being tried in at least two other countries. 

“In addition to the 1.7 million on our domestic list, we have 600,000 from outside the country, most of whom came to us in the runup to the Iraq war. We don’t send them e-mails we don’t think will be of interest to them,” Olson said. 

MoveOn is also zealously protective of its mailing list. “Too many do-gooders share names, and you wind up with all this garbage in your e-mail box. We don’t want that.” 

Olson and her colleagues are clearly doing something right, raising cash and issues and sending and unending series tremors through the electronic ether and challenging the growing might of the Neoconservative machine.

FRIDAY, NOV. 14 

“Ecuador and the Price of Oil,” a film screening and panel discussion from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Free Speech Movement Café at Moffitt Library, UC Campus. fsminfo@library.berkeley.edu 

“Rekindling the Spirit of Brown v. Board of Education,” a conference on the journey from the vision of Brown to today’s debates over “minimum education” standards, beginning at 9 a.m. at Boalt Hall’s Booth Auditorium, UC Campus. 642-6969. 

“Life and Debt in Jamaica” a discussion of the price paid by Jamaica for seeking help from the IMF during the 1970s, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Vista College Annex, Room 120, 2075 Allston Way. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com, 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. 496-6000, ext. 135. www.bpf.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Rita Maran, Lecturer, Peace and Conflict Studies, UCB, “Take Another Look: The United Nations Today.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. $11.50 - $12.50. Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925.  

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at 5:30 p.m. at the Berkeley BART.  

Overeaters Anonymous meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 15 

Berkeley Association of Neighborhood Associations meets at 9:15 a.m. in the Sproul Room, St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 587-3257. www.berkeleycna.com 

Pond and Creek Restoration A 2-mile hike and work party in the San Pablo Creek Watershed, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. We will visit various restoration sites to see what has worked and what hasn’t. Then we’ll plant natives and do our own erosion control experiments. Cost is $25 and pre-registration required. 231-9430.  

Seed Saving Workshop Learn the importance and methods of saving seeds from the garden. Heavy rain cancels. From noon to 3:30 p.m. at Wildheart Gardens, 463 61st St., at Telegraph. Suggested donation $10. 658-9178.  

Alternative Building Materials: Cob and Strawbale workshop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Two natural building methods are currently undergoing renewed popularity. Cost is $75. Held at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 525-7610.  

Green Living Series: Non-Toxic Pest Control Find ways to deal with common pest problems without harmful pesticides, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

Worm Vericomposting, with Gige Coba, Alameda County Waste Management. Composting with worms is an exciting way to turn your kitchen scraps into a fast-release rich soil amendment. You and your children will love this class, held at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

“How the Federal No Child Left Behind Act Impacts Local Schools and Children” with Assemblywoman Loni Hancock from 10 a.m. to noon at Stanley Middle School 3455 School St., Layfayette. 559-1406. 

“Hope Rises from the Ashes” A Vietnam Veteran describes the rebuilding of Mai Lai, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Meeting, 2151 Vine St. Sponsored by American Friends Service Committee and Veterans for Peace. 

Argentine Tango Fundamentals Four class series on Saturdays from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. at the Berkeley Tango Studio. Call Stella at 655-3585 for directions or more information. 

Natural Approach to Pain Management from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Pharmaca Integrative, 1744 Solano Ave. 

“Ruthie & Connie: Every Room in the House,” dinner, Havdalah and movie at 6 p.m. Congregation Beth El, 2301 Vine St. Cost is $5. 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class on Shelter Operations for anyone who lives or works in Berkeley, from 9 a.m. to noon at 997 Cedar St., between 8th and 9th Sts. Register on-line at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes or by calling 981-5506. 

California Writers’ Club meets to discuss the art of storytelling and reading out loud, with Diane Kuzdry Bunnell at 10 a.m. at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861.  

Yoga for Seniors from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For further information and to register, call Karen Ray at 848-7800. 

Pet Adoptions, sponsored by Home at Last, from noon to 5 p.m., Hearst and 4th St. 548-9223. 

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, NOV. 16 

Seed Games and Art Projects for Children Play seed guessing games and make seed mosaics, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in the Play Area in the east end of People’s Park, Haste St. above Telegraph. Free. 658-9178.  

Bird Walk, sponsored by Citizens for the Eastshore State Park and the Golden Gate Audubon Society. Meet at 9 a.m. at the large bird sculpture at the end of Buchanan. Bring binoculars, snacks and plenty of water. Wear sturdy walking shoes, a hat and sunblock. For more information call Tina, 848 - 0800, ext. 313.  

“Libraries: Knowledge Providers or Censors?” a panel discussion with Daniel Greenstein, President, California Digital Libraries Initiative; Anne Lipow, Director, Library Solutions Institute; and Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Achive, at 6 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Sponsored by Berkeley Cybersalon. www.berkeleycybersalon.com 

Tibetan Buddhism, Open House from 3 to 5 p.m. Erika Rosenberg on “Healing through Compassion,” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, NOV. 17 

Public Scoping Session for Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s 2004 Long Range Development Plan at 6:30 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center. The Notice of Preparation of the Draft Enviromental Impact Report is available at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 2nd Floor Reference Desk, and at www.lbnl.gov.Community/env-rev-docs.html 

“How to Build and Repair GREEN” with Ed Gulick of the Green Resource Center at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Gray Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

Priority Africa Network, “Fighting to Live,” a talk by Zackie Achmat, founder of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) which mobilizes support for access to treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Laney College, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Donation $10. No one turned away. Proceeds go to TAC's new treatment campaign. 527-4099. priorityafrica@yahoo.com 

Pastors for Peace Fall Caravan to Chiapas and Central America, send-off celebration at 6 p.m. at St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Donation $10-$15 includes dinner. 527-2522.  

Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, UC Campus. Appointments recommended, visit www.beadonor.com (sponsor code = UCB) or call 1-800-GIVE LIFE. 

Friends of Strawberry Creek meeting is postponed until Dec. 8 to allow Friends to speak for the Creek at LBNL Long Range Development Plan Public Scoping Meeting at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 6:30 to 9 p.m. For more information email jennifemaryphd@hotmail.com, caroleschem@hotmail.com 

Berkeley Partners for Parks meets at 7:30 p.m. at the Corporation Yard Meeting Room, 1326 Allston Way. 649-9874. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 6 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, NOV. 18 

Public Hearing on Proposed Tax Measure, at the City Council Meeting, 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. 

Berkeley Garden Club, “Plant Ahead for the Winter Months” Jeff Small and John Hauser, owners of CityLeaf, will speak about indoor gardening, focusing on choosing plants, their placement and care at 1 p.m. at the Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. 524-4374. 

Ed Rosenthal, “The State of Medical Marijuana in California” at 6 p.m. at 2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Campus. stopdrugwarnow@cs.com  

Identity Theft panel discussion at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, with Alameda County Consumer Affairs Comission, Dept. of Justice, District Attorney, Dept. of Motor Vehicle, Social Security, Post Office and VISA offices. 981-5190. 

New California Media Awards Ceremony, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Westin St. Francis, SF. For information contact David Park at 323-954-0415. 

“Channel Change of the Colorado River: A Mandate for Restoration?” with John C. Schmidt, Associate Professor of Aquatic, Watershed & Earth Resources, Utah State University, at 5:30 p.m. in 105 North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Water Resources Center Archives. 642-2666. 

Safety at Berkeley High, a forum by the PTSA and Safety Committee at 7 p.m. in the Florence Schwimley Little Theatre. Childcare, translation, and special accomodations by reservation, email cpapermaster@earthlink.net 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Glenn Stevenson will present an “Overview of Mature Driving Techniques.” We offer ongoing classes and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk a mile or two each Tuesday, meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. 215-7672.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Ernie Braun will speak on “Nature and Creative Slides.” 525-3565. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 19 

“The Gift of Responsibility: Fostering Global Social Contracts,” with Lewis S. Mudge, Robert Leighton Stuart Professor of Systematic Theology (Emeritus) at SFTS, at 7 p.m. in the Hewlett Library, at the Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. The Faculty Publications Fair and reception follows the lecture. 649-2464. 

“Teenagers and Drugs in Berkeley” with Meredith Maran, author of “Dirty: A Search for Answers Inside America’s Teenage Drug Epidemic” at 6:30 p.m. in the Main Gym at Berkeley High, followed by discussion groups, including one in Spanish. Sponsored by Downtown Berkeley YMCA, Berkeley High School’s Health Center and Parents of Children of African-American Descent. Free and childcare provided with RSVP. 665-3238. 

“Expectations for Next Year: Budget, Politics and Arnold,” with Assemblywoman Loni Hancock at 1:30 p.m. North Berkeley Senior Center. 548-9696. 

New California Media Expo of multi-ethnic print, TV, radio and online media, from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at San Francisco Exhibition Center, 635 8th St., SF. For information cal David Park at 323-954-0415. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets at 7:15 a.m. at Hide-A-Way Café, 6430 Telegraph Ave. 925-682-1111, ext. 164. 

Fun with Acting class meets at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome. 985-0373. 

Yoga Holiday Festival, with yoga teacher Rodney Yee from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. Free. 549-9200. 

“Reverse Annuity Mortage” will be discussed by Cherisse Adams from ECHO Housing at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Sta- 

tion, vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Prose Writers Workshop meets 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut, at Rose. 524-3034. 

Berkeley CopWatch open office hours 7 to 9 p.m. Drop in to file complaints, assistance available. 548-0425. 

THURSDAY, NOV. 20 

The Ecology Center Celebrates 30 years of Curbside Recycling with a reception, dinner and program at 6 p.m. at the Banquet Hall, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave at Bancroft. Tickets are $60. Register online at www.ecologycenter.org/30years/ or call 548-2220 ext. 237. 

“Neighborhood in Modern Times” discussionon the neighborhood struggle to Save Ocean View from redevelopment proposed in the 1970s, at 7:30 p.m. at Black Pine Circle School Faculty Arts & Drama Bldg, 2016 7th St. Part of a lecture series commemorating the 150th aniversary Ocean View, Berkeley’s early settlement village. Tickets are $10, no one turned away for lack of funds. 841-8562. bahaworks@yahoo.com  

Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, “Stories of the Paths,” at 7 p.m. at Live Oak Park Rec Center, 1200 Shattuck Ave.  

Berkeley High School Information Night at 7 p.m. in the Berkeley Community Theater. This event is primarily for parents of 8th graders in independent/private schools who are unfamiliar with the Berkeley Unified School District.  

“San Francisco Bay: Portrait of an Estuary,” a new book with text by John Hart, environmental historian, and photographs by David Sanger, will be introduced with a slide presentation at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose. 843-3533. 

Nepal- Woman Sherpa, a KQED-Frontline/World presentation at 7:30 p.m. at International House, Sproul Room, Piedmont and Bancroft Aves. 642-9460. http://ihouse.berkeley.edu 

Simplicity Forum, “Financial Transformation as a way out of the Corporate Rat Race,” with Fred Ecks at 7 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 549-3509. 

Berkeley Liberation Radio public meeting at 7 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190.  

ONGOING 

Current and Former Department of Energy Employees and Contractor Employees A joint U.S. Dept. of Energy and U.S. Dept. of Labor Traveling Resource Center will be in the Bay Area to assist current and former DOE and DOE contractor employees file claims under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. The Traveling Resource Center will be at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel, 5115 Hopyard Rd., Pleasanton, on Nov. 18 and 19, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. For further information or to make an appointment to meet with a counselor please call, toll-free, 866-697-0841.  

We Give Thanks Month, Berkeley restaurants, Bar-Ristorante Raphael, Cold Stone Creamery, Downtown, La Note, Semi-Freddi’s, Skates, and Spengers will donate a portion of their proceeds to Berkeley Food and Housing Project during the month of November. 

Holiday Food Drive Help the Alameda County Community Food Bank help people in need. Offer to run a food drive, or donate healthy nonperishable food at Safeway stores, Berkeley Bowl and Bay Street Emeryville. For more information call 834-3663. www.accfb.org 

City of Berkeley Commissioners Sought If you are interested in serving on a commission, applications can be downloaded from www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/general.htm#applications or contact the City Clerk, 981-6900.  

Personnel Commissioner Sought for Alameda County School Board Responsibilities include administration of the Merit System. Meetings once a month. Applications must be received by Nov. 28. For details please contact Alameda County Office of Education, 670-7703. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon., Nov. 17,  

at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., Nov. 17, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St., Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

City Council meets Tues., Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Tues., Nov. 18, at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/housingauthority 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Katherine O’Connor, 981-6601. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/humane 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/civicarts 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Lisa Ploss, 981-5200. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/aging 

Commission on Labor meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 6:45 p.m., at Berkeley Work-Source, 1950 Addison St., Suite 105. Delfina M. Geiken, 644-6085. www.ci.-berkeley.ca.us/commissions/labor 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Disaster Council meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. Carol Lopes, 981-5514. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/welfare 

Mental Health Commission meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 6:30 p.m., at 2640 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Harvey Turek, 981-5213. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/mentalhealth  

School Board meets Wed., Nov. 19, at 7:30 p.m., in the City Council Chambers. Queen Graham 644-6147 or Mark Coplan 644-6320. 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Anne Burns, 981-7415. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/designreview  

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Prasanna Rasaih, 981-6950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/faircampaign 

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 20, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Peter Hillier, 981-7000. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/transportation

HEIGHT NOT RIGHT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Let me rush to assist Charles Siegel in his faulty research concerning smart growth height recommendations (Letters, Daily Planet, Nov. 11-13). In a handbook for planners and developers published in June, 2003 by the San Francisco District Council of the Urban Land Institute, you will find the following quote: “Building Heights Intent: Buildings in walkable neighborhoods need not exceed three stories to accommodate compact development. Maximum Building Heights: Primary buildings in walkable neighborhoods shall not exceed 35 feet; accessory buildings (garages and second units) shall not exceed 25 feet. Chimneys, vents, cupolas, ornamental parapets, and other minor projections may exceed these height limits by up to 5 feet.” (Note: Buildings in walkable neighborhoods are not to exceed 35 feet, not 35 stories as Mr. Siegel suggested!). 

Reference: Smart Growth in the San Francisco Bay Area: Effective Local Approaches.  

Martha Nicoloff 

co-author, Height of Buildings Initiative, 2002,  

• 

UC WAL-MART 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last Saturday, the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley held a meeting called “Women in Leadership Conference: The Definition of Success.” One of the speakers was a Wal-Mart executive. 

Wal-Mart is the most sued company in the United States and has a history of union busting. It provides information to its employees on how to get public assistance because it knows it pays less than a living wage. 

The company pays women even less than they do men and denies them promotions. At the moment a federal court in San Francisco is deciding whether a suit brought against Wal-Mart by six women, present and past employees, can be certified as a class action suit. If so, it will affect more than a million women. 

Recently Wal-Mart has been raided by the INS because, through contractors, it employs illegal aliens and overworks and underpays them. 

The meeting was picketed by both campus and the Oakland/East Bay National Organization for Women as well as by various labor unions. 

It is absolutely inconceivable that the University of California should give tacit approval to such an organization by inviting one of their officials to speak. 

Nancy Ward 

Oakland/East Bay 

National Organization for Women 

• 

SCOUT RECOGNITION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you so much for a positive article on Boy Scouts. There are hundreds of Boy Scouts in Berkeley working on improving their citizenship, leadership and outdoor skills. They should not be the target of the public’s frustration with BSA’s definition of who is morally fit to be a Boy Scout. The National Leadership of Boy Scouts of America based in Texas, has defined how morality should be practiced in scouting, and yet calls for more diversity in scouting. Scouts like Baily give hours to improving Berkeley and the Bay Area.  

This week is their annual Scouting for Food drive. Plastic collection bags are put onto front doors this week and full bags will be collected from door steps on Nov. 15. The Boy Scouts are the single largest food gatherer for the Alameda Food Bank. They will soon be out at store locations selling Christmas wreaths in order to earn their way to camp. Please thank them for the many hours that they also put into cleaning creeks, restoring habitats, and leading flag ceremonies. 

Ellen Georgi 

Crew 24 Advisor 

• 

DIEBOLD DANGER 

The following letter was addressed to Bradley J. Clark, Alameda County Registrar of Voters. 

Dear Mr. Clark, 

Having had no response to my letter of Sept. 12, I feel compelled to write again to express my deep dismay at the fact that Alameda County purchased Diebold voting machines that have no means of providing an accurate accounting of the votes made on them. 

That fact that Diebold can make changes to the equipment sold to our counties, as was done on machines used in the last two elections, without the election authorities even being informed is absolutely intolerable. It is outrageous that so essential an aspect of our democracy as the integrity of the vote is given over to profit-making companies who claim their software design to be proprietary information. Diebold’s CEO is a major Republican fundraiser who brazenly promised Ohio Republicans to deliver Ohio’s vote to Bush. How can we “trust” his voting machines when the opportunity to corrupt the vote is so readily available. 

If we are to use computer voting machines, they must function as an open source system, open to inspection by election authorities, technical experts, and others concerned to ensure their correct functioning. And they must provide a record on paper of the votes cast. A scanner of paper ballots would be vastly less expensive, more reliable and less susceptible to tampering. 

It is essential that before the 2004 primary election Alameda County voting machines be retrofitted to provide a paper trail, that there is no open line to the voting machine maker during an election, and that any technical servicing be checked and certified before the machine is used. To accept the makers’ insistence on proprietary technology rather than an open source system is a betrayal of U.S. voters and the democratic process. The voters of Alameda County rely on you to guarantee the integrity of our voting system and this cannot be done with software and machines whose functioning is protected as a “trade secret.” 

I look forward to hearing your plans for ensuring the integrity of the Alameda County voting system. 

Charlene M. Woodcock 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There is a relatively simple procedure which could have reduced the recent seven-hour traffic jam on the new Zampa Bridge. 

This procedure is “Alternate Merging.” My wife and I saw it at an on ramp to a freeway outside Calgary about twenty years ago where was a sign with alternate arrows pointing upward. 

What that means is that vehicles from different lanes have to merge together without closing up and forcing one lane to stop. It works no matter how many lanes must merge at different points, the two lanes move along at the same speed. It’s basically just common courtesy. A small cure for road rage. Closing up may be cited as a moving violation. 

I tried to get this system started here in California by writing letters to three members of the California Traffic Controls Device Committee (CTCDC), which is part of a nationwide Uniform Traffic Control System. 

I got no answer from the CTCDC then or later after I made a public comment at a meeting they held at the Caltrans in Oakland after which I had lunch with some of the members. 

At one time I appealed to the Caltrans ombudsman, who supposedly looked into it. Later he said “They did all they needed to do for you,” which was nothing. 

Caltrans’ attitudes toward employee suggestions and citizen complaints leave much to be desired. While I was at Caltrans, I had made many very practical suggestions which were largely ignored. That’s why I have written hundreds of mini-essays about transportation problems since retiring. 

Charles Smith 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Chris Kavanaugh of the Berkeley Rent Board asserts that “…property tax increases-along with over a dozen other city, county and utility taxes, fees, assessments, etc, --are passed through to Berkeley renters as part of the (AGA) Annual General Adjustment” (Letters, Daily Planet, Nov. 7-10).  

Kavanaugh is either ignorant or willfully dishonest. There is nothing secret or esoteric about it. Year after year the rent board has granted AGAs that are far less than the increases in fees, costs, taxes and expenses. The rent board has sometimes employed consultants (paid for with tax payer money) to determine a fair annual rent increase but have subsequently ignored these consultants’ recommendations. 

The increase in garbage collection costs and utilities alone are often greater than the entire monthly rent increase granted by the AGA. No compensation is granted for increase in maintenance costs or structural upgrades, the price of which has significantly increased due to rising material and labor costs. Nor is there compensation for increases in insurance costs and related required upgrades.  

The rent board has increased its per unit fee. The city has added housing inspection fees. Business license fees are assessed against landlords. The county annually increases tax assessment (2 percent, as per Proposition 13). Building permit costs have skyrocketed!  

In the midst of this, the rent board waste $3,000,000 a year in public money operating its unjust and Byzantine system. 

Kavanaugh constantly comes to the boards defense mouthing untruths and never addressing the fundamental injustices perpetrated by rent control. What motivates his blind allegiance to this absurd and unfair system? Perhaps, he personally benefits from it!? 

Mr. Kavanaugh, do you or any other board members enjoy the random benefits of this system? That is, do you or any members of the rent board live in a rent-controlled unit?  

Please answer Chris. As an elected official the public needs to know what is behind your misrepresentations. 

John Koenigshofer 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

The following letter was addressed to Mayor Bates and City Council. 

I am writing on behalf of the LeConte Neighborhood Association board to urge you not to place a parcel tax measure on the March 2004 ballot. 

Our association objects to this tax for several reasons: 

1) It’s not fair to expect taxpayers in Berkeley to bear the full burden of the current fiscal mess. City staff should share the burden by reopening their union contracts and agreeing to smaller raises. Union contracts negotiated in fall 2002 increase city employee compensation by 33 percent over six years. That’s an average increase of 5.5 percent a year. Not only are there large annual pay increases, but staff in some job categories are receiving extra “equity increases,” and pensions have been increased by over 30 percent with the 2.7 at 55 formula (three percent at 50 for police). 

Can any supporter of the proposed tax increase name a single city or county in the Bay Area that has negotiated such large increases in compensation costs in the current economic and fiscal climate? Certainly not the cities of San Francisco or Oakland, where unions agreed to new worker contributions toward pension costs, and certainly not Alameda County, where unions agreed to a one-year contract extension with no pay increase. 

We need equality of sacrifice. Right now, taxpayers are being asked to make all the sacrifices through higher taxes and reduced services. The large compensation increases are a major source of the current deficit. Reducing the size of those increases has got to be part of any fair and equitable response to the deficit. This needs to happen before any tax increase is put on the ballot. 

2) The Daily Planet reports that seven city developments didn’t pay the existing city parcel taxes over the last four years. The city should get its house in order and ensure that everyone is paying existing taxes before asking voters to create a new tax. 

3) The city is not the only public entity that may need a tax increase. What about the Berkeley schools where class size has increased sharply? What about Alameda County with its healthcare safety net in a state of collapse? Berkeley voters should know about whether the schools and the county will be asking for tax increases before being asked to decide on a tax increase for the city. If there is going to be a city tax increase, it should wait until November. 

4) Many residents of our neighborhood have questions about how current revenues are spent and also wonder whether there aren’t other ways to increase revenues. Alternatives to a parcel tax should be thoroughly explored. Each department should consider how fees and collectable fines should underwrite projects being considered. 

Residents of our neighborhood have traditionally voted in favor of parcel taxes and bond measures by large margins. But if a parcel tax of any size is put on the ballot in March, we predict that there will be strong opposition. 

Karl Reeh, President 

LeConte Neighborhood Association  

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Stack up the bodies—in Iraq, from Oakland murders, from homicides of innocent persons resulting from unauthorized chases by Oakland police officers. All victims just as dead; most acts essentially as unjust and preventable—two more in the last category Monday night. 

The police say they ended the chase, for reasons of safety, “seconds before the wreck,” according to the Oakland Tribune. Consider the fate of an ordinary citizen who should make such a statement to the police. Reasons of safety dictate not to begin a chase of a car going 70 mph on city streets, and what rules exist say such chases are permitted only upon knowledge that the fugitive has committed a violent crime. No such knowledge has been revealed in this chase. 

Same old story in Oakland, ramped up: One person thuslso killed in this city in November 1999, one in September 2002 and one in August of this year. I probably missed some. More notches on the cops‚ speedometer this month ˆ two down in one act. Yes, they do it elsewhere, but particularly in California, many in the Bay Area, most in Oakland. In a civil action resultant from the 1999 event, two witnesses, who claimed the police lied in respect to alleged violence as an excuse to chase, chose not to testify, due to their illegal-alien status. Time and time again, OPD officers do not play by their department‚s hot-pursuit rules [19 pages of them, dated 18 May 98]. 

What is the fix? A solution, of course, would not exonerate such fugitives; but the liability of each participant in chases resulting in such collisions should reflect that person‚s relative capability of avoiding damage and injury. One has to assume that the capability of a qualified police officer on duty greatly exceeds that of an inebriated, drugged, frightened, injured and/or otherwise-incapacitated fugitive. The instant fugitive is reported to have been decidedly drunk; and for driving while so incapacitated, his punishment must be great. However, it remains that the police had clear brains and able bodies and did not have authority under the cited OPD rules to chase, for any length of time, this 70-mph vehicle on city streets. 

The most basic solution is modification of California Vehicle Code 17004.7, which determines a police jurisdiction‚s liability in such „accidents‰. This code section merely states that to avoid such liability, the jurisdiction must have a written policy; but it does not specify any substantive restrictions on chases be within such. When Dion Aroner was our state assemblywoman, I asked her to pursue legislation to correct this situation. She refused. We should all write her replacement, Loni Hancock, in regard to pursuing this. No other fix will accomplish anything until such change is accomplished. Only the CHP investigates such local-jurisdiction collisions. The CHP has one of the worst records around, of maiming and killing as a result of high-speed chases. Nobody‚s prison time will ever lessen this sort of wholesale killing of innocents in Oakland and throughout California. 

Raymond A. Chamberlin 

Tom Ross says he’s been trying to bring “Lobby Hero” to the Aurora Theater ever since he first saw it in New York three years ago at the Playwright’s Horizon. He’s finally made it: The play opens this weekend on Friday night and runs through Dec. 21.  

Ross, who’s been the producing director of Aurora Theater for the last 12 years—sharing managing director duties with the near-legendary Barbara Oliver—is directing the play himself. (One suspects that he wasn’t about to let anybody else get their hands on this particular brain child: He’s put too much into getting it here).  

The playwright, Kenneth Lonergan is probably best known for his screenplays. He wrote and directed “You Can Count on Me,” was one of the writers on “Gangs of New York,” and wrote “Analyze This.” Ross describes “Lobby Hero” as “ebbing and flowing. There are no heroes or villains,” he says. “Just four people trying to do the right thing.” He says “It’s incredible dialogue, very funny, very moving.” 

The title suddenly makes sense when you find out that the four people he’s talking about are a security guard, an uptight boss, and two cops: one male, one a female rookie. 

During Ross’ three-year struggle to bring the play to Berkeley, he says that it became “a big hit” in London. He sounds a bit distressed that a Los Angeles theater managed to snag it for the West Coast premiere, but brightens over the fact that at least this will be the East Bay premiere. 

Ross tries to get to New York every year to scout for new plays as well as to renew old ties. He’s one of those ex-New Yorkers who can never quite give up his apartment there—just rents it out, keeping his hold on it, just in case... This has gone on for over twelve years, of course, but he has good reasons to keep his hold on the city fresh. 

While he’s back there, aside from seeing old friends, he takes in one or two plays a day, and meets with agents and performers. It’s a classic busman’s holiday, perfectly appropriate for a guy who learned his stuff at New York’s renowned Public Theater as a co-director and producer under Joseph Papp. 

Ross wrote plays in high school and went to New York from Chicago on acting scholarships, but knew he wanted something else: He “wanted to create my own world.” He says “Producing is addictive.” 

It must be. He’s done over 200 productions . 

His version of the work is simple. He says his job is to “bring in the artists, get the money, and over-see the production.” Saying that’s “simple” is a little like saying there are two kinds of people, tall and short. “Lobby Hero” is the first play of the season and will open this weekend.  

In addition to directing this production he is working on next season’s plays.  

What he looks for, he says, are things that are interesting, that will work for the audiences, and that will meet the limitations presented by the theater. He wants “intelligent plays, plays with an emphasis on ideas.” He selects an eclectic mix of styles, mixing comedies and dramas, but always offering one world premiere.  

Aurora uses local actors, Ross says, about 80 percent of whom are members of Actors Equity. Since the theater pays all of the actors equally regardless of the size of their parts or their membership, the only immediate benefit to the actors in belonging to the professional organization is that the theater pays for healthcare and pension benefits for members.  

Everybody knows that actors put in incredible hours, usually supporting themselves with “day jobs” in addition to their weeks of evening rehearsals and performances. But how about a kind word for the producers, juggling the details of more than one season at a time, maybe directing the occasional play in addition?  

It doesn’t make sense: It must be love.

FRIDAY, NOV. 14  

CHILDREN 

Rainbow Fish Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

THEATER 

UC’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, “Getting Married,” by George Bernard Shaw, directed by Barbara Oliver, opens at 8 p.m. and runs through Nov. 23 at Durham Studio Theater, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$14 and are available from TicketWeb 866-468-3399. www.ticketweb.com 

Alchemy Works, “Where There’s a Wil(l), There’s a Play” a collection of short works by, or inspired by famous Wills, at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Theater. Tickets are $10-$15 and are available from 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Aurora Theater Company, “Lobby Hero” opens at 8 p.m. and runs to Dec. 21. Tickets are $28-$40. 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Polly's Phat Phollies, A Musical of Generous Proportions, a singing and dancing play by well-know Fat Activist, Judy Freespirit, at 7:30 p.m., Hamilton Hall, 685 14th St. at Castro, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50, sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. Wheelchair accessible; no scents, please. 836-1153. 

FILM 

Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, “Thunder in Guyana” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Children Underground,” a documentary about street children in Romania, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble performs at 7:30 p.m. in the Little Theater, 1929 Allston Way. Tickets are $5-$10, available at the door. www.berkeleyhighjazz.org 

In Love with the Violin, concert by Donna Lerew, violin, and Skye Atman, piano, with narrative by actress Donna Davis, at 8 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $10-$15. 525-0302. 524-5203. 

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet performs an all-Balanchine program at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$46. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

The UC Jazz Fall Concert at 7 p.m. in Chevron Auditorium, International House. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. http://ucjazz.berkeley.edu 

Tim Barsky and Everyday Ensemble, musical theater, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Laetitia Sonami, composer, performer and sound installation artist will premiere “The Appearance of Silence,” at 8 p.m. at CNMAT, 1750 Arch St. Cost is $10 general and $5 students. www.cnmat.berkeley.edu 

Moh Alileche performs traditional Amazigh music from Algeria at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $10-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Noche de SKAtemoc, with Tokadiscos, La Plebe, Firme and La Banda Skalavera at 9 p.m., at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Wadi Gad, Cosmo, DJ Sister Yasmin perform conscious roots reggae at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

20 Minute Loop, Bitesize, Ex-Boys Friends, at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Ned Boynton at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Lost Weekend, western swing big band, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Matt Berkeley Group at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mood Food, Cosmic Mercy at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Fabulous Disaster, Butcher & Smear, Pin Up Motel, Whore You at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Doctor Masseuse at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

www.beckettsirishpub.com 

SATURDAY, NOV. 15 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Magic Window Puppets, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Kids on the Block Puppet Show, promoting acceptance and understanding of physical and cultural differences at 2 p.m. at the Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave., lower level. Sug- 

gested donation $3. Children under 3 free. 549-1564. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“The Long Walk to Freedom,” an interactive public art project highlighting the contribution of 28 civil rights activists opens at the African American Museum and Library, 659 Fourteenth St., Oakland, with a reception for honorees from 1 to 4 p.m. Exhibition runs Tue. - Sat. through Dec. 31, noon to 5:30 p.m. 486-2340. 

Kirk Thompson, “Ordinary Nature: Recent Landscape Photography,” from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St. 644-1400. 

A New Leaf Gallery/ 

Sculpturesite “New Works” reception from 2 to 4 p.m. at 1286 Gilman St. 527-7621. www.sculpturesite.com 

THEATER 

Polly's Phat Phollies, A Musical of Generous Proportions, See listing for Nov. 14.  

Alchemy Works, “Where There’s a Wil(l), There’s a Play” at 8 p.m. See listing for Nov. 14. 

Living Arts Playback Theater, “Listening to Stories of Your ‘Enemy’” at 7:30 p.m. at International House, 2299 Peidmont Ave. Cost is $10. 642-9460. 

FILM 

7th Annual SF Latino Film Festival, “The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa,” at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7.50 in advance, $9 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

A Short History of Polish Animation, Program 3 at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Multicultural Children’s Picture Books, with readings by three authors, at 2 p.m. at Eastwind Books, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trinity Chamber Concerts Farallon Brass Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Donation, $8-$12. No one turned away. 549-3864. 

San Francisco Early Music Society presents Classics of the Salon, what Mozart, Hayden and their friends played for each other, at 8 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10-25. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

St. Petersburg String Quartet, at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $42. Tickets for the previously scheduled Zehetmair Quartet concert will be honored at the door. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet See listing for Nov. 14.  

Choreographers’ Performance Alliance, “Works in the Works” at 7:30 p.m. at Eighth Street Studio, 2525 Eighth St. Cost is $10. 644-1788, ext. 2. 

Tim Barsky and Everyday Ensemble, musical theater, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Laetitia Sonami, composer, performer and sound installation artist will premiere “The Appearance of Silence,” at 8 p.m. at CNMAT, 1750 Arch St. Cost is $5-$10. www.cnmat.berkeley.edu 

Jinx Jones Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Dave LeFebvre Quartet, new music and odd meters, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com 

Roy Rogers and Norton Buffalo, harmonica and guitar duo, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50 in advance, $21.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Amandla Poets, South African township jive, Jamaican reggae and American R&B at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Hola! Hands out to Latin America!” a concert by the Berkeley Music Cooperative Players at 3 p.m. at La Peña. Donations accepted to help music teachers in Latin America. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Café de la Paz's 10th Anniversary and Flamenco Celebration featuring Yaelisa and Caminos Flamencos. Dinner show at 8 p.m., seating at 6 p.m. for $40-$47, or late show at 10 p.m. for $20-$27. Reservations encouraged. 843-0662. cafedelapaz.net 

Doni Harvey, blues singer and guitarist, performs at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $6-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazz- 

house.com 

Naked Barbies and The Jolenes at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, Thunderpussy at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Marcos Silva at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

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

Bananas, I Farm, Stivs, Mermaid-Unicorn, Problem at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 16 

THEATER 

Alchemy Works, “Where There’s a Wil(l), There’s a Play” at 8 p.m. See listing for Nov. 14.  

FILM 

“A Brivele der Mamen” in Yiddish with English sub-titles, the story of a Jewish mother’s efforts to keep her family together, at 7:30 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $2. 848-0237.  

A Short History of Polish Animation, Program 4 at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Marilyn Hacker and Sandra Gilbert at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Guided Tour: Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, at 2 p.m., followed by lecture with Maynard Olson at 3 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Robert Pollin on “Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Choreographers’ Performance Alliance, “Works in the Works” with host Frank Shawl, at 7:30 p.m. at Eighth Street Studio, 2525 Eighth St. Cost is $10. 644-1788, ext. 2. 

Music from Scotland, England and Beyond with Margaret Christl at 7:30 p.m. Donation of $12 in advance, $15 at the door. For reservations and location email sally@greenberg.org 

St. Petersburg Academic State Capella performs sacred hymns and Russian folk songs at 3:00 p.m. in Zellerbach Hall. Tickets are $24-$46, and are available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Rhythm Workshop: Ta Ke Ti Na with Zorina Wolf from 3 to 6 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $35. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Achi Ben Shalom and Adama CD release party at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Triaxium West with John Shiurba, Acme Observatory’s Comtemporary Composer’s Series at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. 649-8744. www.the 

jazzhouse.com 

Mingus Amungus, be-bop, funk and hip hop jazz at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com 

Siempre Los Sundays, premiere of the Sunday dance series with Domingo Siete and Somos at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Dan Bern, chronicler of the real and surreal at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Seratone, Operation Interstellar, End on Nine at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $3. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

MONDAY, NOV. 17 

EXIBITION OPENINGS 

“Art, Medicine and Disability,” artwork by students and participants from four local agencies, reception at 4 p.m. at the Worth Ryder Gallery, 116 Krober Hall, UC Campus. 642-2582. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

David Cole discusses the situation of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay in “Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express, open mic featuring Susan Birkeland from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

Susan Kinsolving will read from her new collection of poetry, “The White Eyelash,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dan Bern, chronicler of the real and surreal, John Vecchia- 

relli opens, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

TUESDAY, NOV. 18 

CHILDREN 

Todd Parr, Berkeley author and illustrator, will read from his books and draw for children, at 7 p.m. at the Library North Branch, 1170 The Alameda. Sponsored by Friends of the Berkeley Public Library. 981-6624. 

First Stage Theater, “Time Capsule Blues,” a musical comedy, performed by 8-11 year olds, at 7:30 p.m. at the Julia Morgan. Tickets are $4 at the door only.  

FILM 

Alternative Visions: No and Goshogaoka at 7:30 p.m at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is  

$4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alice Sebold, author of “The Lovely Bones” will speak on the process of writing, the difference between memoir and fiction, and the issues of violence, loss, hope and faith at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall. Tickets are $18-$28 and are available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Gerald Torres introduces “The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy” at 4:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

Melody Ermachild Chavis introduces, “Meena: Heroine of Afghanistan” about the founder of RAWA, who was assassinated at age thirty, at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose. 843-3533.  

“Being Human at Work,” with six authors at 7 p.m. at Barnes and Noble.  

The Creative and Unconventional Journey of Jake Heggie, composer and pianist, at 7:30 p.m. at The College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway (north). 658-5202. www.college-prep.org/livetalk  

Roger Kamenetz will read from his new collection of poetry, “The Lowercase Jew,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Tom Rigney and Flambeau performs at 8:30 p.m. with a Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mark Erelli, singer, songwriter at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Dayna Stephens House Jam at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 19 

CHILDREN 

Todd Parr at 3:30 at the Library Claremont Branch, 2940 Benvenue Ave. See listing for Nov. 18. 

FILM 

Standby: No Technical Difficulties, Program 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Leo Braudy discusses “From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Maargret Schaefer, translator, introduces Arthur Schnitzler’s “Desire and Delusion” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

Turning Corners a conversation with Richard Candida Smith and Lucinda Barnes on the influence of process at noon at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Ellen Waterston will read from “Then There Was No Mountain; A Parallel Odyssey of a Mother and Daughter through Addiction” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

David Law will show slides and introduce his two California history books, “Steinbeck Country” and “Silicon Valley” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Café Poetry and open mic, hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Conjunto Coyote and Friends CD release party at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ritmozolando, Venezuelan folkloric music, at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Weepies, Deb Talen and Steve Tannen at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Donation $10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org

In a distinct escalation of the ongoing battle between Berkeley developers and some Berkeley citizens, Councilmember Dona Spring has called for what amounts to a full city investigation of the way major developers do business in Berkeley. 

Spring’s request is scheduled for presentation to City Council at its Nov. 18 meeting, followed by a discussion by Council at its Nov. 25 meeting in conjunction with City Manager Phil Kamlarz’ report on “escaped property fees and assessments” in the city. 

In a “Request For Information Regarding Compliance Of Berkeley Development Projects” released on the city’s website this week, Spring asks her fellow Councilmembers to request the city manager to answer “a series of questions regarding compliance of [three] Berkeley development projects...with payment of fees and assessments, state and federal funding requirements, compliance with the provision of 20 percent low income housing, and cultural space in return for an extra story in height.” 

The three projects listed in her memo are the Berkeleyan, the Gaia Building, and what she identifies as the Pioneer Building. 

The Berkeleyan at 1910 Oxford St. and the Gaia Building at 2116 Allston Way were both developed by Patrick Kennedy’s Berkeley-based Panoramic Interests company. 

Spring said the “Pioneer Building” is the mixed-used project at 2161 Allston Way developed by Berkeley developer Avi Nevo’s Aldar Investment Company and also known as both Oak Court and Allston Oaks. 

The Gaia Building was completed in 2001 and has operated since that time under a temporary occupancy permit issued by the city. The Berkeleyan was completed in 1998. Oak Court was completed in 2002. 

All three developments were listed in the Nov. 4 Kalmarz “escaped property taxes and assessments” report as having not being billed by the city for significant Berkeley fees and assessments over the past few years. 

By late Wednesday night, Kennedy said he had not seen the Spring memo on the city’s website. Neither Nevo nor Aldar Investment Company could be reached for comment. 

For her part, Councilmember Spring had plenty of comments in a telephone interview.  

“I think the public is wondering why there’s favoritism of one business over another,” she said, adding that “citizens have been asking these kinds of questions for several years” concerning the three projects. 

“We’ve given maximum heights and densities, low setbacks, reduced parking—and we’re now finding out that these are heavily publicly-subsidized projects. It raises a lot of issues about how much is being doled out at the public trough. What are we getting for this funding? We have no way of verifying what we’ve been getting.” 

Spring said she was particularly galled by the fact that City Council has never received definitive information as to how many low-income tenant units actually exist in Kennedy’s Gaia Building. Called “inclusionary units,” these set-aside apartments are often cited by Kennedy as one of the benefits of the project in downtown Berkeley. 

“Not providing accurate information on the actual number of the inclusionary units is one of the reasons [the Gaia Building] was never given a permanent occupancy permit,” Spring said. 

“But [having a temporary occupancy permit] doesn’t hurt [Kennedy] any. He goes on with business as usual. Ironically, by only having a temporary occupancy permit, he was able to escape fees and assessments. So it only rewarded him. It didn’t put any pressure on him. 

“The city seems toothless to regulate this guy. We know that Mr. Kennedy exploits every loophole and angle that he has. He needs to be run under a fine-tooth comb.” 

Kennedy didn’t respond by presstime to a reporter’s voicemail message seeking his comments on Councilmember Spring’s assertions. 

Spring’s request lists nine separate questions she wants the city manager to answer concerning the three downtown projects, including the amount of fee waivers granted, the amount of money loaned or granted to the projects from federal or state sources, and the number of affordable units required for each project. 

In addition, Spring wants to know how the Gaia Building was occupied for three years without being in compliance for a permanent occupancy permit.

The Berkeley City Council will consider a proposal Nov. 18 to form a BID (Business Improvement District) on Solano Avenue in Berkeley. 

If the Council approves the proposal, one submitted by the Solano Avenue Association (SAA), merchants doing business on the Berkeley end of the avenue, and one block north and south, will be forced to join the BID—whether they like it or not. 

BIDs were originally developed for business districts that are “economically disadvantaged,” “underutilized,” or “unable to attract customers due to inadequate facilities, services, and activities…” (State of California Streets and Highway Code, Section 36501). Clearly none of these conditions exist on Solano Avenue—not in Berkeley nor Albany. 

Yet this is the third time in as many years the SAA has attempted to form a BID on Solano, though this year, they have limited its scope to Berkeley. Why? Because there is overwhelming opposition to a BID among businesses in Albany.  

If the Berkeley City Council endorses the SAA’s latest proposal, every business on Solano Avenue in Berkeley will be not only be required to join the BID, they will also be forced to pay an assessment on their business license, and forbidden from withdrawing from it. 

Why would anyone advocate such a proposal? At a meeting of the SAA last spring, that organization’s executive director explained: “I’m tired of having to collect dues and give everyone else a free ride,” she said.  

Things would definitely change in that regard if a BID is established on Solano. For one thing, the SAA would become the BID.  

The Albany Chamber of Commerce opposes a BID anywhere on Solano Avenue (two-thirds of which is in Albany). Why? We believe individuals and small businesses have the right to free association, and to join organizations by choice. If an organization like the SAA, or our Chamber, is doing good work, businesses can become dues paying members. However, if they are not, then a business owner can opt not to join, or stop paying dues. That is what keeps us honest. 

The process of forming a BID is also decisively undemocratic: there is no election, no vote, nor even a poll of the businesses involved. The SAA argues that though companies are not allowed to vote “yes” or “no” on the BID proposal, they can “vote” to prevent one.  

Yet only a rejection by over 50 percent of the businesses on Solano would stop a BID from being established there. What’s more, BID bylaws award larger firms substantially more votes than small ones, squeezing out family-owned businesses and defying the principle of “one person, one vote.”  

We urge that before the Berkeley City Council moves to establish a BID on Solano, that an election be held among businesses there -- an election where every business would have one vote. We believe that is the democratic way to decide this issue. 

James Carter is the executive director of the Albany Chamber of Commerce. 

When a North Oakland “troublemaker” was released on bail, Oakland Police Officer Robyn Clark e-mailed over 200 neighbors the following: Hi everyone! Mr. [Name withheld] is NOT currently wanted by the police. This information is being disseminated to you, because everyone needs to be very cautious of [Name withheld]. 

“This man is very articulate and smart. He can also be hostile if you confront him. If this man enters your business and causes any problems, call police, and use the following information to get a restraining order...” 

Later that day, the owner of a cafe just over the Berkeley border followed Clark’s advice, warning neighbors that the man had been a nuisance to customers in his cafe and had taken advantage of acquaintances. 

Clark and his fellow e-mail recipients belong to an Oakland Police Yahoo newsgroup—the brainchild of Oakland Police Lieutenant Lawrence Green—that releases up-to-the-minute alerts and oodles of crime data, putting pressure on known criminals in North Oakland as well as the Berkeley Police Department to keep up. 

“The neighbors love it,” said Samantha Herbert, an Oakland group subscriber and member of a South Berkeley group urging the BPD to develop something similar. 

“As far as we’re concerned what we don’t know might hurt us. Berkeley police mean well, but they’re having to be dragged into this by the nose.” 

Berkeley police, though, say that when it comes to providing crime data, they’re hamstrung by antiquated technology and a data system purchased three years ago that has since proved useless. (See Sidebar) 

Green’s chat group does more than just issue warnings and crime data. It’s a free-flow forum for residents in his six-beat patrol just across the border from Berkeley.  

When neighbors complained about noisy motorized scooters, an officer responded—outlining the OPD’s action plan. When neighbors wanted to pursue nuisance lawsuits against owners of drug-infested properties, Lt. Green e-mailed them a lawyers’ telephone number.  

“We include anything impacting crime or quality of life,” said Green, who started the group in June, 2002, and watched as OPD Chief Richard Word mandated a year later that the rest of Oakland follow suit. 

“I give to the community everything except what they don’t have access to,” such as domestic violence cases or specific crime fighting tactics, he said. 

BPD Capt. Doug Hambleton said his department wasn’t as comfortable releasing the information on individuals Oakland provides. “We have different interpretations on what is appropriate,” he said. 

Berkeley Police spokesperson Kevin Schofield said one of the department’s goals is not to release any information that would jeopardize anyone or inhibit an investigation. 

The different approaches were exemplified during a flare-up of shootings this summer along the North Oakland-South Berkeley border. 

While Berkeley police were hesitant to link the shootings, Green released the following on his website: “The bottom line is that North Oakland drug dealers are responsible for multiple murders and shootings in Berkeley, and Berkeley drug dealers are banding together to ‘take out’ the North Oakland dealers.”  

He later informed neighbors that both departments would perform joint drug buy-and-bust operations, infuriating BPD officials—who complained to Green’s boss that he was undermining the their work. 

“They got all bugged,” Green said. “I don’t understand that. “I’d rather have criminals think that we’re going to be in the neighborhood every day so they’d go somewhere else. I’m not as paranoid about information compromising things.” 

Though Green said his upfront style has resulted in “some touchy issues,” he remains committed to his community policing model. 

“The old way was ‘everything is police business.’ That’s fine if you can solve all the crimes yourself. But in reality, we don’t have big police forces. So we need to tell [residents] more so they can tell us more.” 

The chat group has won much praise, but few copycats. When contacted, most criminologists or police organizations knew little about their existence. 

“[Oakland] is right on target, said John Furman, a community policing researcher at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, adding that though “an excellent use of technology,” chat groups are “hardly a trend.” 

UC Irvine Criminology Professor Paul Jesilow said that if more police departments adopt Internet chat groups, the goal won’t just be better communication with residents. “This stuff is all politically driven,” he said. “If [the police] are seen as likable good guys they’re going to get money. If they’re seen as schmucks, they’re not.”  

Jesilow feared that the Internet was not an equitable tool for pooling community input. “If the Internet is the only mechanism, then priorities may turn on cultural differences rather than community-wide problems,” he said, noting that minorities and poor people are less likely to have online access. “You’re starting off with a segment of the population who likes the police and will buy into what the police say.” 

Ozzie Vincent, a South Berkeley resident who participates in Oakland crime prevention councils—the heart of that city’s community policing—said all seven area leaders in his beat were white, although until recently two had been African-American as are several of the grassroots members. 

Meanwhile, Vincent, Herbert and others have formed the South Berkeley Crime Prevention Council to lobby the BPD to reinvigorate community policing, something they say hasn’t existed for over a decade. 

First on their list is a call for Berkeley to scrap neighborhood watches—many of which are dormant—and replace them with Oakland-style crime prevention councils in which a beat is divided into seven or eight areas and area leaders meet monthly with beat cops to discuss concerns. 

“In two hours we cover everything in a 50-block area,” Vincent said. “If all the neighborhood watches in Berkeley were active, area coordinators would have to be at 60 meetings a month and then disseminate the information. It doesn’t work.” 

Next on their list: More information and better lines of communication.  

“In Oakland you have total transparency and mutual trust. In Berkeley you have to beg, borrow and steal to get information,” said Herbert who added that BPD Chief Roy Meisner was “blown away” when she showed him the detailed crime reports OPD provided.  

Two weeks ago, her group met with top BPD brass, who pledged to improve community involvement.  

“I was amazed how upfront they were,” Herbert said.  

“Lawrence Green is so energetic and devoted to this concept that you can’t just mandate it,” she added. “We don’t have to be carbon copies, but certainly there is room for real improvement.”

The University of California—under court order—finally posted all of the investment data for their risky venture capital funds, and the numbers aren’t pretty. 

Long the crown jewel of UC’s employee retirement portfolio, the funds have slid below benchmarks and plummeted more than 20 percent in recent years. 

As of June, they had dropped 21.5 percent over the past three years, 8.6 percent below their self-picked benchmark based on the Russell 3000, a tally that includes 98 percent of U.S. stocks. 

Last year, the funds barely underperformed the benchmark, losing 21.5 percent, compared to a 21.4 drop for the Russell 3000. 

“The more information we get, the more questions we want answered,” said Jason Barnett a spokesperson for the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), which joined the San Jose Mercury News in a lawsuit to force the university to release the data. “We want to know what they were thinking over the last three years putting more and more money into the investments when it’s a bad market.” 

Venture capital funds have taken a beating recently after years of unprecedented returns because fund managers raised too much money and began indiscriminately throwing it at failing start-ups. In 2002, investment opportunities were so bleak that some venture firms actually returned money to their customers rather than invest it. 

The university’s private equity funds have long outpaced other investments. Although they account for just under two percent of all investments, they account for eight percent of returns for the university’s $55 billion fund, according to spokesperson Trey Davis. 

New funds lagged far behind older funds. The 13 venture capital funds begun in 2000 or 2001 lost an average of 28 percent. That put UC on a par with other public entities that are obligated to release private investment data. The University of Michigan, for instance, saw its 15 new venture capital funds decline 26 percent. 

University officials and investment professionals cautioned that the performance indicators—known as individual rates of return (IRR)—are arbitrary and tend to start poorly when the fund is pouring money into private ventures that are not yet making profits. 

“If the vintage year is 2002 and the fund is negative 20 percent, that doesn’t mean that much,” said Danielle Fugazy, a reporter at Private Equity Week. 

Jeanne Metzger, spokesperson for the National Venture Capital Association (NVCP) called IRRs “squishy numbers” because private investments have no true benchmarks, and consequently IRRs are somewhat ambiguous and fluctuate drastically. 

UC fought to keep its investment returns private, fearing that public disclosure of IRRs would shut the university out of exclusive funds. After a federal judge ruled against them, UC released the IRRs and several weeks ago—responding to further requests from the Mercury News and CUE—provided the beginning year and amounts invested and cashed out for each fund and posted them on its web page. 

The jury is still out as to whether releasing the data will limit UC’s investment options. Top-tier firm Sequoia Capital banished UC from its new fund and asked them to withdraw from its nine other funds—which have netted UC investment returns of $508 million on investments of $110 million over the past 22 years.  

In all, private equity investments increased 26.5 percent over the last ten years versus 13.4 percent for the benchmark. During the same period UC’s equity funds increased 9.4 percent compared to 10.3 percent for the benchmark. 

But Brad Pacheco, spokesperson for the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), said the agency has not been booted from any funds since it began disclosing IRRs last year, also in response to a Mercury News lawsuit. “We felt in the short term there was the possibility that we’d be kept out of funds, but so far the funds have been cooperative,” he said. 

Metzger said the that since few new funds have been launched in the past couple of years, it’s too early to know how firms will handle public entities required to release IRRs. She warned that with fewer investment opportunities on the horizon, firms could be more finicky in picking their clients. 

For venture capital firms, the biggest fear is not so much the release of information contained in the IRRs, Fugazy said, but that ultimately judges could require public entities like UC Berkeley to release more extensive data on the individual companies invested within the fund. 

Venture capital funds manage the affairs of the nascent companies and fear that such information would give rivals a competitive advantage.

Eleven years after the California State Legislature created the privately-run Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) to help keep the state’s at-risk school districts from going under, the California State Auditor’s office is about to take its first formal look at just how well the rapidly expanding, Bakersfield-based agency is actually living up to its job. 

The increasingly controversial agency plays a dominant role in the Oakland public schools and is a growing presence in the Berkeley Unified School District.  

The audit is scheduled to begin within a month, and should be finished by mid-Spring. 

California Assembly Education Committee Chair Jackie Goldberg (D-LA) requested the formal state FCMAT audit this fall in the wake of public criticism of FCMAT’s role in the state takeover of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). 

In the fall of 2002, Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Sheila Jordan declared a fiscal emergency in the Oakland schools and FCMAT became OUSD’s fiscal advisor. 

A year later, when Oakland was forced to take out a $100 million line of credit from the state to keep from going bankrupt, the state appointed a professional administrator to run the district, and FCMAT was assigned to assist in the district’s recovery. 

The County Superintendent assigned FCMAT as fiscal manager to the Berkeley Unified School District in 2001 after learning the Berkeley district had mishandled state-assigned funds. 

Now the State Bureau of Audits has been asked to “determine whether FCMAT can demonstrate that its involvement has improved the fiscal health of school districts, thereby preventing the need for emergency loans to school districts.” 

The audit will also examine FCMAT’s contracting policies and administrative and overhead costs, and “determine the level of oversight other entities have” over the organization. 

FCMAT was created by the state legislature in 1991 during a fiscal crisis in the Richmond schools and is run by a governing board consisting of county and local school superintendents representing the 11 education service regions across the state. 

From a small, little-known agency, it has steadily increased its role as the deepening economic crisis afflicts California’s public schools. 

Today, FCMAT had been contracted to assist more than 300 local school districts and county offices of education—including its intervention in officially declared fiscal emergencies in the Compton, Emeryville, Berkeley, Oakland, West Contra Costa, and West Fresno school districts.

Though more than two weeks have passed since three UC Berkeley students presented their arguments to an independent tribunal that was to recommend appropriate university punishment for their participation in an anti-war sit-in last March, they’re still waiting to learn their fates. 

As of yesterday, the trio still hadn’t heard from Dean of Students Karen Kenney, who received the panel’s recommendation shortly after the Oct. 28 hearing. 

Although the students have charged that the university has been using scheduling to railroad a case they say is unfair and unfounded, university officials say the delay is merely business as usual. 

According to hearing panel chair Bob Jacobson, the group was supposed to present its recommendations to Dean Kenney within a week of the hearing, but they missed the deadline by a day.  

UC Berkeley’s Department of Public Affairs says the dean must issue her decision within 10 days from the time she received the report. 

The students, however, believed they’d get the panel’s report at the same time as Dean Kenney. 

If the dean upholds the charges against them, they say they plan to appeal—and for that, the Public Affairs office says, they’ll have 15 days. 

The students and their supporters—including Todd Chretien, a member of the Committee to Defend Student Civil Liberties, the ad-hoc group formed to defend the students—accuse university of employing stall tactics. 

“There are two things that they’re doing,” Chretien said. “One strategy is to drag it out because they are nervous that they’ve disregarded these students’ rights. And second, by delaying, they want to show that the dean is giving a measured approach. But it’s just a delay.” 

Janet Gilmore from the Public Affairs office said the dean is following code and expects her to issue the report by the deadline. 

The students suggest the university is stalling to release the decision until the approach of final exams and the holidays, a move they say would hinder their ability to file an appeal. 

“It is getting closer to finals and it makes it harder for us to respond,” said Rachel Odes, one of the three. 

Meanwhile, the university has announced revisions to the student code of conduct that change procedures for campus hearings. Most significant, the new code revokes the right of students to have an attorney speak for them during a campus hearing. The change would not prevent them from seeking legal advice. 

Ronald Gronsky, a professor in the Engineering department who chairs the Academic Senate and co-chaired the committee responsible for updating the code, says most changes were made to bring UC Berkeley’s policies in line with the rest of the UC system and to make the hearing process more educational and less adversarial so students can learn from the process, “rather than be distracted by a lawyer who comes in and takes over.” 

He said the move also lowers cost for students unable to afford a lawyer. 

“I think this is an abrogation of due process rights,” said Chretien. “They are trying to place themselves outside the Constitution and say that students don’t have legal rights, all the rights people fought so hard for, all the rights we take for granted.” 

Odes agreed, saying the charges she faces along with Michael Smith and Snehal Shingavi expose the errors in the code change logic. 

“The assertion that the process is educational and not adversarial is pretty flawed, and our experience at the university has shown that,” said Odes. “They made allegations about Mike that were untrue and they have run over our due process rights. Students need as much representation and as many resources as they can get because the university is not about safeguarding due process.” 

Neal Rajmaira, campus judicial officer who suggested the original punishments, said students can incur campus charges that stay on their records beyond school. At least two of the three students in the protest action could receive letters of warning in their files that would be reportable if they applied to a government job or waived their rights to the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). 

The students say it’s unfair to face such consequences without legal representation. 

Gronsky said the changes resulted in part from a schedule that mandates a code update every five to six years. “The [update] process was under way before the takeover [in question],” he said. “It was on the dockets.” 

“It’s obvious that they are revising the code of conduct in the middle of this case,” Chretien responded. “It proves that this is a kangaroo court.” 

Anne Weills, a lawyer with the National Lawyer’s Guild and one of the attorneys who represented UC Berkeley students involved in the Students for Justice in Palestine sit-in at Wheeler Hall, agrees that the new policies take away due process rights. She said the Wheeler case dragged on for months, and the students would have been railroaded had it not been for their legal defense. 

As a result of those proceedings, a university panel met to explore ways to rewrite the code in a way that—unlike the current changes—would have increased the student’s ability to defend themselves. She called the university’s backtracking a sure defensive sign. 

“They knew they lost [the Wheeler sit-in case] ultimately because these students were represented by lawyers,” she said. “They want to take that power back. This is the UC way, it is the same way they deal with labor unions and graduate students. It is a constant fight to maintain due process.” 

The three students and their supporters say they plan to publicize the delay until the dean announces her decision. 

The students have also contacted journalist Amy Goodman of the radio show Democracy Now and asked her to raise the issue when she visits the campus to receive the university’s Mario Savio free speech award. 

If Kenny upholds the charges, the student says they plan to re-contact all the people who signed a support letter published in the Daily Californian—a list that includes Green Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo and well-known academic Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn—to create pressure they hope, along with their appeal, will force the dean to drop the charges.

Knowing firsthand what it’s like to face student conduct charges, I have to admit I find myself sympathizing to some degree with the students who stand accused of violating the UC Berkeley student code of conduct. 

As editor of the UC Santa Cruz student newspaper, I was summoned to defend my editorial policy before a group of students who claimed I’d dished out biased, wrongheaded coverage of a prominent international issue. 

Needless to say, I was scared. It was the first time I’d faced any sort of judicial proceedings. 

While the potential outcome for me wasn’t as drastic as the one facing three UC Berkeley students arrested at the March anti-war sit-in, what happened reveals several problems with UC judicial systems that will can only worsen when the newly announced changes take effect. 

At the newspaper, word of the summons ignited a firestorm among my peers and the staff advisors. They quickly decided that none of them wanted to take the heat, advising me to set a meeting right away to work out a deal with the students who filed the complaint.  

Their solution: Comply, solve the problem and be done with it. 

University staff told me repeatedly that because the situation was a campus affair, the whole thing could be handled quickly and smoothly. Why bother with getting a lawyer involved? It would only cause complications. In other words, they wanted me to sacrifice my due process rights in order to avoid a confrontation—much like the framework spelled out by the code of conduct revisions. 

And now students are being told that campus hearings are part of the educational process, and they don’t require the presence of lawyers speaking for their student-clients. 

It’s the same policy at UC Santa Cruz, though I didn’t understand it at the time.  

I felt like I was being pushed, intimidated and manipulated. I also missed an excellent opportunity to educate myself about due process.  

Though the students facing severe student conduct charges are threatened with black marks that can stay on their records for life, the university seems to claim student hearings are less severe than criminal hearing. 

Really? Both have lifelong consequences, yet you can only have a lawyer represent you in one.  

When I was summoned, the first people I turned to were my parents. Then a lawyer. 

Fortunately I was able to avoid charges and the case was dropped. If it had proceeded however, and I had to defend myself in what could have been a First Amendment issue, I would have been lost. Nobody knows the law like a lawyer. 

True, students can obtain legal help, but in the complicated proceedings of a student hearing it’s hard for someone new to the process to make an adequate defense. 

Ultimately, even if UC Berkeley has the best of intentions, the proposed policy is dangerous. Students face serious charges and deserve the due process rights afforded to everyone else so they can obtain the most informed and effective defense.

Berkeley residents can voice their concerns about the future of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab at a scoping session at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

Because the lab’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) requires an environmental impact statement, concerned citizens can air their concerns at the legally mandated sessions. 

Of particular concern to residents have been impacts of major construction on open space, creek corridors, wildlife, parking, and traffic congestion, as well as pollution from the facilities themselves. 

But some neighbors are worried about something too small to see, too tiny to feel, but big enough to likely dominate some of the discussion at Monday’s session. 

Their concern in nanotechnology. 

A nanometer is a billionth of a meter—roughly 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. But that’s the scale of some of the most controversial technology ever to come down the pike. 

All sides agree that nanotechnology has huge potential. Nano-particles are already responsible for irritation-free contact lenses and sunscreen that doesn’t leave white gunk on your nose. 

Within a few decades, scientists envision nanotech devices tunneling through and cleaning out clogged arteries, forming factories in miniature that emit zero pollution, and making up bombs that can annihilate millions. 

If the technology’s possibilities are immense, some residents fear that risks could also be great if the LBNL’s already-approved Molecular Foundry releases nanoparticles into the air while performing research. 

Since the foundry is already in the pipeline, it’s not included in the long range development plan set to guide future expansion through 2020. But critics say they still intend to be heard Monday night. 

Residents fear are so minusculethat they’ll pass right through the standard lab filters used to capture research emissions. And while there’s little hard evidence that inhaling them is harmful, concerned residents want to be the first ones to know if it turns out they are. 

“This is such a new science, there haven’t been enough tests to know its health effects,” said Gene Bernardi of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste (CMTW), which has opposed the lab on numerous projects. 

The Community Environmental Advisory Commission (CEAC) unanimously asked City Council last week to ask the lab to incorporate an annual, independent environmental and health review of their nanotechnology work in their LRDP. 

Lab spokesperson Terry Powell called it a “good idea” and said she was sure “the lab would listen to that.” 

Powell said nearly all nanotechnology research already performed at the lab either binds the particles to other substances or traps them in solutions so they can’t escape from the lab. 

While everyone acknowledges nanotechnology will have military implications, Powell insisted that LBNL would not get involved in that facet of research. “This is a basic energy lab. We don’t do weapons work,” she said. 

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) website is vague on nanotechnology work at LBNL, saying the lab will focus on various types of research including carbon fibers and lithographic plates. 

But former Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientist and CMTW member Marion Fulk fears that work done at LBNL may find its way to the Department of Defense. “I’m concerned when a government lab all of a sudden gets interested in this at a time like this,” he said. 

CEAC’s monitoring proposal comes after it lost a fight in City Council earlier this year to request the lab to conduct an Environmental Impact Report of the Molecular Foundry—the proposed six-story 94,500 square foot nanotechnology center on the lab’s 200-acre Berkeley Hills campus. 

Preliminary estimates show the lab expanding from a daily flow of 4,300 staff and guests to a maximum of 4,750, while adding an additional 238,000 square feet of building space. 

CEAC wants future development restricted to preserve open space, asks that parking space development be limited in favor of better public transportation, and urges a comprehensive study of the facility’s impact on the Strawberry Creek Watershed.

When Solano Avenue Restaurateur Juan Romo saw the hired security guard napping while the party promoter pocketed fistfuls of bills from dozens of teenagers overflowing his 80-person capacity party room, he knew he’d made a mistake. 

“It was like a madhouse,” said Romo, owner of Montero’s restaurant in Albany, where a hip hop party Monday—organized by a local promoter responsible for a Berkeley party that turned violent last year—spun out of control.  

By the time peace was restored—more than an hour after Romo stopped the party—55 officers from six East Bay police departments and one California Highway Patrol helicopter had converged on the restaurant to break up fights and disperse roughly 200 partygoers. 

Police arrived outside the restaurant shortly after 10 p.m. in response to calls from neighbors who were reporting that nearly 100 people had spilled out onto lower Solano Avenue, said Albany Police Lt. Mike McQuiston.  

Romo said he confronted promoter Eugene Cockerham inside the restaurant, ordering him to close the doors after his restaurant had already been filled to capacity. 

“I said, ‘If you don’t stop letting people in, I’m going to have to shut it down.’” 

Romo said Cockerham agreed, but then continued to admit guests. When Romo asked the promoter again “Didn’t I tell you to stop letting people in?” Cockerham replied, “Didn’t you say you were going to shut it down?” 

“After that I told police, ‘I want to shut the party down so get ready.’” 

As the lights were turned up about 10:20 p.m., a fight erupted on the dance floor, and as the partygoers made their way to the street, more fights broke out, McQuiston said, prompting Albany to ask for backup from Berkeley, Kensington, Richmond, El Cerrito, UC Berkeley and the CHP. 

Police cleared the area by 11:30 p.m., McQuiston said, arresting one person for disturbing the peace. 

Romo said the fighters smashed Aztec pottery and paintings worth about $3,000, and left graffiti in the bathroom. 

Albany’s criminal investigations unit is reviewing the incident and could bring charges against Cockerham. 

Cockerham promoted a party last year at Berkeley’s former art complex, the Crucible, where police intervened after two people were shot. 

Earlier last year, a man was shot at a Cockerham party in Clayton following a concert at the Chronicle Pavilion in Concord, according to published reports. 

Romo, who had never previously hosted a Cockerham party and doesn’t expect to receive his promised fee, said he wasn’t aware of the promoter’s history. 

“I’m a trustworthy person,” he said. “I expect the same of other people.”

They built the nation’s capital on the banks of the Potomac River to satisfy the powerful Virginia lords of the time who, presumably, did not want to travel far from home to assume the presidency and other perks which they considered their own peculiar destiny. What the Virginians failed to let on before the plans were drawn up—clever fellows—was that the Potomac ran through the midst of a sickly swamp bottom.  

“Potomac Fever” was the name they gave the peculiar, brain-debilitating malady that afflicted those public servants forced to endure those godawful sweat-hot summers that straddle the Maryland and Virginia border. 

Time passed. The swamp got drained, and then paved over. But as the nation grew, and the power of the presidency with it, the name “Potomac Fever” hung on, now as the description of that peculiar, brain-debilitating malady that seemed to affect so many prominent United States citizens who grew loony, driven, and positively tongue-loose by a desire to occupy a bed in that nice little house on Pennsylvania Avenue. 

There’s no swamp along the Sacramento River—not now, anyways—but there must be something in the air up there that strikes California politicians with a similar malady, an intense desire to lay their heads on the pillows of the governor’s mansion (or the governor’s hotel suite, in the case of the incoming Mr. Schwarzenegger). Anyhow, I guess we’ll have to call it the Sacramento Shakes, and it seems to drive grown men mad. 

Billy Lockyer’s got it, and that’s about the only way you can account for the odd, recent ramblings of our state attorney general, who started off as such a decent-enough guy. 

On the day last spring that Modesto’s own Scott Peterson was arrested for the death of his pregnant wife, Laci, Mr. Lockyer was quoted in the Contra Costa Times saying that “this is a compellingly strong case. I would call the odds slam-dunk that he is going to be convicted.” 

One can understand Mr. Lockyer’s eagerness in this matter. The death of Laci Peterson has drawn the kind of national attention that we haven’t seen since—oh, gosh—the Kobe Bryant rape allegations. Watching Fox “news” from the ninth hour to the eleventh each night, one would think that the up-and-coming trial of Mr. Peterson equates to, at the very least, Christ before Pontius Pilate in its import on history and the modern world. 

Why hold down the office of attorney general, after all, if you don’t call attention to yourself by commenting upon attorney-type affairs? 

That the presentation of evidence at trial ought properly to precede a verdict predicted by the state’s top law enforcement officer apparently only made itself manifest to Mr. Lockyer ex post facto. In an explanatory interview with the Sacramento Bee in early summer, he explained that he had only been commenting about the reliability of DNA, which had been used to identify the body of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner, after they were pulled out of the waters of the San Francisco Bay. “The question I thought I was asked is, is the DNA stuff reliable?” Mr. Lockyer explained. “My comment was that DNA is reliable by factors of billions to one. It was an absolute slam dunk that no defense lawyer can refute that these are the bodies of Laci and Conner.” 

Conviction. Refutation. Let’s not quibble about words that end in ion. 

But having once been bitten by the Sacramento bug, Mr. Lockyer cannot seem to shake it loose. 

Speaking to reporters during a UC Berkeley conference following the gubernatorial recall election, Mr. Lockyer responded to queries about allegations of sexual battery by incoming Gov. Schwarzenegger by saying, “I’m convinced Arnold didn’t really understand that he was caught up in frat boy behavior.” 

A week or so later, with time to reflect on his words, Mr. Lockyer called upon Mr. Schwarzenegger to “have some form of independent, third-party review of these complaints to see if there is any criminal liability that attaches,” adding that “there is a reason to worry about the acts that may have occurred.” 

First, define the state of mind of the alleged perpetrator when he did whatever he was supposed to have done. Next, define whatever it was that he was supposed to have done. Finally, call for an investigation to determine whatever it was that he was supposed to have done. Kind of backwards, don’t you think? Almost like waiting until the election is over to announce who you are going to support… 

Anyway, Mr. Lockyer breezed through his home town of Oakland this week, speaking at the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club in pursuit of his 2006 gubernatorial quest. In response to a query by the Oakland Tribune’s Peggy Stinnett about his Schwarzenegger comments, Mr. Lockyer explained his definition of “frat boy behavior” as encompassing “a wide range, from rowdiness to date rape. It’s the kind of words you should use when you don’t have the facts.” 

Ahhh. A breath of honesty, at last. A symptom not normally associated with the Sacramento Shakes.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the situation in Iraq deteriorates, President Bush has outlined a grand vision for democracy in the Middle East. But the U.S. will have to change tactics quickly if legitimate elected bodies are to rule in Iraq.  

The Bush administration is trying to sell the disastrous war in Iraq to the American public as a vehicle for promoting democracy in the Middle East. This approach is misbegotten, especially given the vehicle the United States has chosen to promulgate democratic institutions -- the Iraqi Governing Council.  

Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction, the original reason given by the White House for the war, were never found. The administration was forced to admit that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 tragedy, thus eliminating their second reason. With these linchpins in the official justification for the war removed, the entire logic of the operation collapsed.  

Even the mantra, “The Iraqis are better off without Saddam,” began to fall flat, as U.S. mercenary redevelopers Haliburton and Bechtel proved unable to turn on the power and water and as killings of Iraqi citizens became part of the routine of daily life.  

Then the worst disaster of all for the Bush administration occurred: American public support for the war dipped precipitously.  

President Bush’s Nov. 6 speech before the National Endowment for Democracy reflected this latest attempt to staunch the hemorrhaging U.S. public opinion on the war. Bush painted a rosy picture of the creation of democracy in Iraq, which would spread throughout the region. “The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution,” Bush claimed. The president echoed these sentiments in two other speeches within the next week, and Secretary of State Colin Powell followed suit in a speech of his own.  

Then on Nov. 9, Robin Wright and Rajiv Chandrasekran reported in the Washington Post that the administration was thinking of sacking Iraq’s Governing Council. This is the hand-picked, largely exile group that the United States established as window dressing earlier this year to give the appearance of Iraqi local control. Earlier this year, Washington hailed the Council as proof of its good intentions in transferring power to Iraqis.  

The Governing Council proved problematic from its first meeting in July. Its mix of exiles and unknown figures gave it low credibility among Iraqis. Moreover, Ambassador Paul Bremer, the U.S. viceroy in Iraq, always had veto over the council’s actions. And Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi confidant of Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle who hopes eventually to rule Iraq, was placed on the Council. Bremer did this despite numerous warnings that Chalabi was utterly discredited as a potential leader among Iraqis.  

The Council began to unravel almost as soon as it began its work. One Council member, Aquila al-Hashimi, was assassinated on Sept. 24. Another, prominent Shi’a cleric Mohammad Bahr al-Uloom, quit after the United States failed to protect an important Shi’a shrine in the holy city of Najaf. After having appointed 25 interim ministers, the Council had nothing else to do, and its members frequently failed to even show up for meetings. They were reportedly out trying to make the most of their temporary positions by peddling their dubious influence and consolidating supporters for future political moves.  

The Council’s behavior shows how astonishingly incompetent the U.S. administration has been in trying to transfer power to Iraqis. If the disintegration of the Governing Council was not enough, President Bush continued to tout its existence as proof of American commitment to the founding of democracy in Iraq in a speech before the conservative Heritage Foundation on Nov. 12.  

It becomes increasingly clear that the Bush administration is not going to tolerate anything like free elections in Iraq. There are too many people the administration would like to declare ineligible. United States officials have made it clear that they will not allow Shiites to win, or former Baathists, or Kurds, or anyone with connections to Iran. This leaves almost no one left to run, except members of the former exile community.  

First among the acceptable candidates will be Ahmad Chalabi, of course, but he and his ilk among the exile community will never be able to rule without using authoritarian methods.  

Ambassador Bremer was recalled to Washington for talks on Nov. 12, to try and untangle the mess with the Governing Council. Internationalizing the process, as America’s European partners have repeatedly suggested, would lend it credibility and remove the stigma of American dominance. The United Nations or another international body, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has been monitoring elections and election processes internationally for many years, would be ideal for this task.  

But the Bush administration is now so desperate to earn credit for some modicum of success that they are unlikely to turn over the reigns either to the broader international community or to the denizens of “Old Europe.” It appears that President Bush’s need to control the process trumps his desire to see acceptable democratic institutions established in Iraq.  

William O. Beeman teaches anthropology and directs Middle East Studies at Brown University. He is author of the forthcoming “Iraq: State in Search of a Nation.”

Mother of Drowned Child Faces Judge 

The mother who reportedly lay sleeping on her living room couch while her 11-month old son drowned in a bucket of water was in court Wednesday. 

Judge Allan Hymer arraigned Tammie Galloway, 29, on a felony child abuse charge and ordered her to Santa Rita jail in lieu of payment of $31,000 bail. 

According to police accounts, the boy’s grandfather returned home from a brief errand at 3:05 p.m. Sunday to find Riheemm Titus face down in a bucket of water in the kitchen, while Galloway, apparently under the influence of drugs and alcohol, slept on the living room couch. 

Police and fire department paramedics attempted to resuscitate the boy, who was pronounced dead at Children’s Hospital in Oakland at 3:47 p.m. 

Woman Jogger Attacked 

Police are searching for the man who attacked a female jogger along West Frontage Road north of University Avenue at approximately 7:30 a.m. Saturday. The woman told police the man attacked her from behind after she jogged past him and tackled her into the surrounding brush where he tried to pin her to the ground. 

The victim fought back and managed to escape and then flag down a passing motorist and call 911. The man fled into the bushes. 

BPD Sex Crimes Detail Detective Keith DeBlasi said the incident appeared to be isolated. 

The attacker is described as a white male between 30-40, 5’10”, with light brown hair, medium build, wearing a tan or gray sweatshirt with the hood up. A black ski mask covered his nose and lower face. 

Police urge anyone with information about this case or a similar incident to call the BPD Sex Crimes Detail at 981-5735. 

Rat Pack Attack 

A Berkeley man had the presence of mind to get his bike back after he was attacked by a group of seven youths. Police said the teenagers spotted the victim as he rode his bike at Tenth and Delaware streets. One of the gang kicked the victim’s front tire, knocking him down to ground, where the youths began kicking him. No one reached for the victim’s wallet, but one youth began walking away with the bike. When the victim chased after him, screaming for help, the youth dropped the bike and fled with his friends.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of an ongoing series of articles by UC Berkeley journalism students on the paths of Berkeley. 

When fire swept through the hills of North Berkeley 80 years ago, one of the few structures to survive was La Loma Steps.  

No evidence of the devastation can be seen today on the rose-colored bricks of the steps and path that connect Buena Vista Way and Le Roy Avenue. The only reminders are old photographs and a historical marker that says “the steps remained exposed on a hillside of ruins and ashes.” 

No one knows who designed the steps, though some credit architect Bernard Maybeck. On a 1995 petition to have the steps designated a landmark by the city, Maybeck’s daughter-in-law, Jacomena Maybeck, wrote, “We were always told they were the Maybeck steps.” 

La Loma Steps represent the philosophy of Maybeck and the Hillside Club, founded in 1898 to support development that blended with the city’s landscape. Benches along the path allow passersby to enjoy the quiet and shade, undisturbed by nearby houses and traffic. 

When fire erupted in 1923, nearly 600 houses were destroyed. Standing, with minor damage, were La Loma Steps. The steps were reconstructed a year later by architect John Hudson Thomas. They remained intact, with minor rising caused by land shifts, until the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.  

In 1992, the Federal Emergency Management Administration paid for the second reconstruction of the steps. When crews came to patch the disturbed bricks, neighbors tried to make sure the new bricks matched the old ones. But because the original bricks were unobtainable, some of the steps are now multi-tone.  

Paul Crutchfield has lived adjacent to the steps since 1954. He was among the residents who fought to preserve the authentic look of the steps. “The steps represent a historical lineage. People of the area tried to have new bricks match the old ones as close as possible.” He also worries about the bricks that have shifted. “Irregularities cause a hazard to joggers at night.” This doesn’t disturb the beauty of the steps, he notes. 

The Berkeley Path Wanderers Association holds their next meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, at the Live Oak Park Rec Center, 1200 Shattuck Ave., in North Berkeley. 

The theme is “Stories of the Paths.” 

Members and the public are invited to share stories and anecdotes about Berkeley’s paths from any perspective: historical, aesthetic, emotional, natural, architectural, humorous, kinesthetic, amusing. Photos are welcomed, and will be scanned at the meeting for a planned website with stories and photographs of every path in Berkeley.

“I thought this started at 11 a.m. They’re late, just like the army,” grumbled the veteran leaning against his bike. A woman turned and reminded him, “They start at eleven minutes after eleven o’clock to observe Armistice Day.” 

Precisely at 11 minutes after 11, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of November—the moment the armistice began that ended World War I—the program started, with Country Joe McDonald as presenter, and city officials and veterans speaking to a crowd of nearly 200 people. 

Professor Peter Fowler was glad to see the turnout: “I don’t think Veteran’s Day has always been treated as reverentially as it should be.” 

The emotionally moving ceremony included, in addition to the remarks by those present, the presentation of colors, music—including Country Joe’s new song “Peace On Earth—and the retirement of two flags, one the Stars and Stripes, the other commemorating those missing in action. 

As the second flag was laid on the bonfire, one woman broke down sobbing. The young men next to her shook their heads and looked away; another woman walked over to put her hand on her shoulder. 

Mike Bacon, retired Marine, later reminded me, “People imagine the horrors of war and shrink from the thought of it. A soldier imagines the horrors of what might be without war and shrinks from that prospect.” 

Maria Staal, a survivor of WWII, recalled the end of the war in Amsterdam. “I saw people starve. I would see someone just sitting there, and then suddenly fall over from starvation…There was no bread for a year until the British did a bread drop from airplanes. We called it manna from heaven; people were on their knees, praying and thanking God.” 

Pat Mc Cullough, city of Berkeley employee and Navy veteran, concluded the remarks, saying, “Veterans remember, often in silence, and often alone.” 

Tax deductible contributions for next year’s observance may be sent to the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, 1834 University Ave., Berkeley, 94704. 

Alta Gerrey became a peace activist after a cousin returned from active duty with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

In 1970, recycling was one of those odd things that granola heads did, schlepping their newspapers and maybe their bottles and tin cans to a site behind a co-op market and tossing it all into marked bins. 

You can still do that, if you’re so inclined, at Dwight and Martin Luther King Jr. Way—at least until the site is sold and some new apartment block or other “dense-use” building goes up; or at Second and Gilman. But recycling has gone mainstream in the last 30 years, and in Berkeley as in many places you can just put the recyclables out once a week, next to the garbage, in those handy blue bins.  

The Ecology Center was in on the start of that trend, with one of the first curbside pick-up recycling programs in the country. Oddly, it’s become a survivor of sorts: one of the last nonprofits that still do the work.  

In 1973, working with a modest federal grant, leased trucks, and wooden boxes, a few good women and men started picking up bundled newspapers at curbside and delivering them to an egg carton maker. Old-timers might remember the converted Lucky Beer truck and its motley crew. 

In 1980, they added cans and bottles to the list for collection in biodegradable—sometimes a bit too biodegradable—waxed cardboard crates. The blue bins with the odd motto about “Heart of the Green Valley” (not a product of the Ecology Center’s prose mill) came later, and are still one of regrettably few actual uses for “recycled” plastic. 

The program had to weather at least two little wars to get this far. 

First was the campaign against the waste-to-energy incinerator that was proposed for West Berkeley in the 70s and finally defeated at the polls in 1982. This sounded like a good idea until people noticed that it would encourage more waste—more to be burned, including recyclables like paper, for more revenue-producing energy—and would dump dioxin and other pollutants on its neighbors, while producing toxic ash that would still need disposal.  

The other internecine battle was over the City of Berkeley’s recycling contract: Engineered Waste Control of Emeryville versus a coalition of the Ecology Center, Urban Ore, and Community Conservation Center, which was doing separation and bundling of waste for processing by then. 

When the smoke cleared and what was actually being offered was taken into account, the coalition was still doing the work. Berkeley voters confirmed the arrangement in 1984.  

Some wars aren’t over yet. In 2000, the recyclers grudgingly started picking up plastics; they’re still reminding people that plastics can’t be recycled indefinitely like metal and glass; plastics degrade as polymer chains break when the stuff is melted. 

Also, what markets exist for used plastic are largely in places like China, and no one here has been able to find out what they’re doing with the stuff there, under what working conditions.  

Recycling’s not all about grouchy foot-dragging. The Ecology Center’s recycling arm started experimenting with 100 percent biodiesel in 2001, and now the whole fleet runs on it, which is why you smell French fries when the truck goes by in the morning. 

They’re setting up a 200-gallon-a-day processor to make fuel out of stuff like eucalyptus oil—at last, a use for invasive exotics!—and to experiment with locally produced agricultural oils as well as restaurant grease. 

The center will celebrates its 30th anniversary Thursday night with a reception and dinner program starting at 6 p.m. at International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. 

With environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill serving as emcee, the Ecology Center fete features an organic vegetarian dinner and remarks from Martin Bourke, the center’s executive director, and Beverly Thorpe, co-founder of Clean Production Action—a nonprofit that promotes the creation of non-hazardous products. 

Tickets are $60, and proceeds will support biodiesel fuel promotion and the campaign to battle construction of six new trash incinerators in the state—including installations planned for Alameda and Santa Cruz. 

For more information call 548-2220 ext. 237 or see www.ecologycenter.org/30years/.

Yes, Berkeley people do read the San Francisco Chronicle on occasion. It’s always amusing to know what Chris Daly is up to. Sad to say, there’s less and less to read in the Chronicle these days. The Datebook section is increasingly pathetic. If the budget permits an occasional excursion to The City, Joshua Kosman’s reviews, though sometimes irritatingly choleric, are the best way to make sure you get some bang for your buck at the major SF performances. Otherwise, today’s Chronicle is pretty forgettable. 

An item in the East Bay Express suggests that Chron icle editors are toying with a lite paper (how could it get any liter?) in order to reach a younger audience. This is presumably based on the assumption that all young people are the mindless airheads who pick up the sex-drugs-rock’n’roll-‘n’-cusswords weeklies inflicted on us by the national corporate chains. Part of the package we got when we took over the Daily Planet was subscriptions to trade magazines aimed at publishers. These magazines regularly print articles by middle-aged white guys in suits about how to dumb down newspapers to appeal to the TV generation. These guys don’t seem to understand that a major portion of their audience, young and old, has defected, not to TV, but to the Internet, in search of more substance in their reading, not less. 

Since the Chronicle was taken over by the Hearst Corporation, another branch of the national corporate media, one of the few continuing bright spots has been Jon Carroll’s column. When Jon wants to, he has the knack of raising serious major moral issues in a compelling way. Sometimes, of course, he prefers to write about cats or what he did on his vacation, which is a lot less interesting but still relaxing. Recently, he’s been vacationing for long enough that we’ve considered putting our Chronicle subscription on vacation hold. We marked his return date, Nov. 9, on the calendar and toughed it out. So now he’s back, and what does he say in his first column? 

"For the next year or so, I will be writing three columns a week rather than five. I do not want to cut back, nor do my editors want me to cut back, but bureaucratic exigencies have prevailed. This temporary curtailment has nothing to do with either with my political opinions or my health. Please set your paranoia meters to zero." 

Sorry. Not nearly good enough. What does he mean, “bureaucratic exigencies”? Does he mean that the mighty Hearst empire is having cash flow problems? His editors like him, but his publishers don’t? His demographics are wrong? Inquiring minds want to know. 

Here at the Planet, we can offer a partial solution. Jon says he’s able to write five columns a week. For whatever reason, his corporate masters now only want to print three of them. The Planet hereby offers to take the other two for our two issues each week, paying our usual high two figures if he needs the money. The Berkeley audience being what it is, we would prefer to get the non-cat non-vacation columns, which should work out since his two Chronicle columns this week have both been vacation. The last time I offered Jon a regular column was in the late 70s, when I was an editor at Pacific News Service and he was at loose ends. He didn’t take me up on it then, but now, in view of the very dangerous political situation in which we find ourselves, he might want to reconsider. 

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Daily Planet.