Janice Thomas lives on Panoramic Hill just southeast of Memorial Stadium, close enough to keep track of Cal football games by the yells of the crowd and the blasts of the nearby cannon. This past Saturday morning, as the city filled up for the Big Game against Stanford, Thomas had a big problem. 

“Traffic isn’t moving on Prospect Street,” she said. “It’s never been this bad. There’s no access to our neighborhood.” 

And it was getting worse. Busses carrying hundreds of Stanford students arrived just then on Fraternity Row for the game. 

Minutes later brothers at Alpha Sigma Phi jeered at the caravan of cardinal red. “Go back to Palo Alto,” screamed Jaime Mondragon at Stanford students, some of whom were wearing shirts that read “Berkeley, Not Bad For a Public School”. 

“You guys suck,” Mondragon shouted as he traded middle fingers with several Stanford fans. “Today belongs to us.” 

He was right. Cal won Saturday’s Big Game 41-6 and students on Fraternity Row partied and heckled Stanford fans back to their busses. 

But for many residents who live within walking distance from the stadium, their ire was not directed at Stanford, but at Berkeley—the city for not managing traffic or enforcing its parking laws, and the university for putting its 74,000 capacity stadium in a residential neighborhood right on top of an earthquake fault. 

“The best thing about this Big Game is that it will be two years until there is another,” said Jim Sharp, who lives just north of the UC Berkeley campus. 

Sharp and other residents are concerned that future disruptions may grow worse. 

UC Berkeley is preparing to sprint forward with a $140 million fundraising drive to renovate and expand the dilapidated 81-year-old stadium. Time is of the essence if they hope to retain third-year head coach Jeff Tedford, who is expected to draw interest from traditional college football powers after resurrecting Cal’s moribund program and putting the school in position for its first Rose Bowl appearance in 46 years.  

“They keep saying Tedford won’t stay unless there are big changes to the stadium, yet the neighbors have no idea what kind of changes they want to make,” said Andrew Masri, who lives just southeast of the stadium on Panoramic Hill. 

No other neighborhood has faced a bigger impact from Cal’s sudden emergence as a football power or its surging attendance at home games which topped an average of 64,000 fans a game this year—nearly double the average from three years ago. 

For Ernest Sotelo, the Big Game began Saturday at 7:30 a.m. when he was awakened by the Cal band taking the field to practice. Sotelo didn’t need to turn on the television Saturday to know what was happening inside Memorial Stadium. His house, which he bought in 1959, the last year the Bears went to the Rose Bowl, has a view of the scoreboard and chants of “Block That Punt” echoed in his living room. 

Sotelo, who spent some of his undergraduate days at Cal in the bleachers, doesn’t begrudge students their fun, but fears that the university plans to maximize the stadium for all it’s worth at the expense of neighbors. 

Although UC Berkeley officials have remained silent on their renovation plans, neighbors fear any project would include permanent television quality lights for night games, which UC had previously proposed, and would include more events like concerts to help offset construction costs. 

This year the university unveiled temporary lights for the first-ever night game at Memorial Stadium and has continued to test them during some weekday afternoons to the fury of neighbors like Sotelo. 

“It’s like someone’s driving at you with their high beams on,” he said. 

Jeanne Allen, who lives a few doors down from Sotelo said the lights have been accompanied by piped-in crowd noise during several late afternoon practices this year. 

“You can mentally prepare for the game, but it’s the two to three days before with the fake crowd noise and the lights that are really annoying,” she said. 

On the five or six Saturdays a year when the Cal team plays a home game, Allen said she or her husband has to stay home to make sure fans don’t climb on her roof to watch the game. “Once they get up there, they’re really hard to get down,” she said. “Sometimes if it’s windy on a Saturday night, we hear beer cans blowing around on the roof.” 

Trying to leave is a chore as well. Allen said it took her two hours to drive from her house to the corner of Claremont and Ashby avenues after the previous home game, a distance of about a mile and a half. “It’s scary to think what would happen if there were an emergency,” she said. “There’s only one route out.” 

When it comes to traffic and parking impacts, Panoramic Hill is far from the only neighborhood affected by big crowds at Memorial Stadium, on the southeastern portion of the campus. 

“We have to schedule our lives around UC’s Schedule,” said Doug Buckwald, who lives at Dwight Way and College Avenue. Buckwald said he decided to stay home Saturday knowing that he would never be able to park again near his house that afternoon if he moved his car.  

On the north side of the campus, traffic and parking enforcement has been so lacking that Roger Van Ouytsel has spent every Saturday home game taking pictures of cars parked illegally in front of expired parking meters, at red zones and at disabled parking spaces. 

For the first time this year, he said, police and parking officers patrolled the area and handed out tickets. On Ridge Road between Le Roy and Euclid avenues, several cars were ticketed in red zones and preferential parking zones, but a row of cars at expired meters had no green envelopes under their windshields. 

Van Ouytsel said he talked to a parking officer on duty who said he had given out more than 100 tickets Saturday, but didn’t have enough time to ticket everyone on the block. 

In all, Van Ouytsel counted 50 unticketed cars that were parked illegally. “The good news is this was the city’s best day ever, but it’s still losing thousands in revenue,” he said. 

Facing a stream of complaints from neighbors this season, Assistant City Manager Arrietta Chakos said the city doesn’t have the resources to police football games to the level sought by residents. 

“We’re in a time of tremendous budget cuts,” she said. “We’re giving it the best shot we can.” 

On Saturday, the city provided 30 regular officers and seven reserve officers to help police the game and manage traffic, all paid for by UC Berkeley, said BPD spokesperson Joe Okies. 

For the past three home games, the city has hired two additional officers to work the football games, said Lt. Bruce Agnew, of the BPD’s traffic division. He added that police had not completed a tally of the number of tickets given at Saturday’s game and that previous tallies weren’t readily accessible.  

The extra staff gave the city 12 on-duty parking officers on Saturdays, four of them dedicated to parking enforcement at football games. The UC Berkeley Athletic Department pays for two of the parking officers dedicated to the football game. However, those officers work only until 1 p.m., just after the opening kickoff, to identify cars parked on streets that are designated for press or other officials officials so they can be towed before the game.  

Irene Hegarty, UC Berkeley’s community relations director, said the university encourages fans to take mass transit to the game and offers them free shuttles to the stadium. 

She said her office has received complaints from neighbors in Panoramic Hill about the fake crowd noise and lights during practices, but no solution has been found yet. 

Not everyone is angry over the crowds at Memorial Stadium. Restaurants along College Avenue were crowded on Saturday evening and Emerson Elementary School opened its parking lots to fans for between $30 and $40 a spot. 

“It’s the biggest fundraiser our school has,” said John Hood, an Emerson parent. “We’re all hoping the coach stays.” He said last year the school raised $12,000 from parking fees. Fraternities and student co-ops also cleared out their lots so they could charge top dollar for parking spaces Saturday. 

Meanwhile Thomas and other neighbors want UC to consider other sites for a new Memorial Stadium, preferably one with access to freeways and mass transit. They have proposed building a stadium at Golden Gate Fields on the Albany shoreline, and Rex Dietderich, a retired Berkeley firefighter, continues to lobby for his plan to build a stadium at Oxford and Center streets. Former Mayor Shirley Dean championed Dietderich’s proposal during her failed re-election bid against Mayor Tom Bates, a former Cal football player and proponent of keeping the stadium at its current location. 

Thomas charged that the university is purposely misrepresenting the project as a renovation instead of a rebuild. She said a stadium rebuild at the site would likely require the university to conduct an extensive environmental review that would force it to consider alternative sites. 

“I just want a process,” she said, adding that public hearings and a review of alternative locations should be part of any proposed changes to the stadium. 

Hegarty said the university would decide if it needed to do an environmental impact report once it had settled on the extent of the project. She added, though, that UC Berkeley was intent on keeping the football stadium at its current home. 

“It’s a historic structure and it’s walking distance for students,” she said. 

Students reveling on Fraternity Row after the game Saturday sided with the university on the fate of the stadium. 

“How are we supposed to get to Albany?” asked David Bui, an undergraduate student. “It would be bad for the environment and you’d lose the sense of community.”

Berkeley’s medical marijuana Measure R—presumed defeated on election night—has been quietly but steadily increasing its percentage of the vote during Alameda County’s count of provisional and absentee ballots, and is now within striking distance of a possible victory. 

With at least one more round of vote tallies to go, the total for Measure R stands at 49.7 percent, up almost a full percentage point from the 48.8 percent total it was reporting on election night. Yes votes for Measure R now stand 270 behind No votes, a pickup of more than 600 votes since election night. The count on Measure R, as of Monday afternoon, was 24,749 yes to 25,019 no. 

In addition, because of charges of lack of access to the provisional and absentee ballot count, Measure R officials say it is likely that they will request a recount if their measure does not win. 

Unlike several other states, California does not provide by law for a mandatory recount if the difference in an election’s vote totals fall within one percent of the total votes cast. Recounts can be requested by any voter at any time, but the requesting party must pay for the cost of recount. 

In Alameda County, the Registrar of Voters office estimates that first-day costs of staff and other items would be approximately $3,000, with an approximate cost of $2,000 for each subsequent day the recounting takes place. However, Assistant Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold said that if the recount overturns the results of the election, the money is returned to the requesting party. 

Degé Coutee, campaign manager for Yes On Measure R, said the closeness of the vote, and a lack of access to the vote counting over the weekend, are reasons for concern. 

“Volunteers for Measure R were told numerous times by Registrar of Voters staff that they were going to be counting over the weekend,” Coutee said. “But when volunteers got there on Saturday, we were locked out of the courthouse. So they handled ballots, did things with ballots, and there was no public entry to where they were, which is a problem.” 

Assistant Registrar Ginnold, who could not be reached to respond to Coutee’s remarks, had said earlier that staff members have been in the process of counting paper ballots “that were too damaged to go through the scanner. Some of them were torn. So they need to be remade.” 

Coutee said the public has not been provided with an accurate notice of when the continued vote counting is taking place. 

The unexpected turn of events on Measure R added to a simmering list of Alameda County election controversies that refused to go away, including concerns about procedures that were used for Nov. 2 voters requesting paper ballots, and a questionable court settlement with the Diebold Elections Systems, maker of the county’s touchscreen voting machines. 

The Diebold settlement was announced shortly before the Nov. 2 election by Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who filed the fraud lawsuit in conjunction with the Alameda County District Attorney and the Alameda County Counsel. The suit alleged that the Texas-based company gave false information to the state and counties about its electronic voting equipment.  

In the March primary election, Diebold machines in Alameda and San Diego malfunctioned, causing voting and vote tabulation to be delayed. Had the attorney general and Alameda County prevailed, the county could have received enough money to scrap the Diebold machines in order to purchase new ones from another company. 

Instead, under the settlement, Alameda County will keep the Diebold machines, but Diebold must upgrade them and provide better security. In addition, the $2.6 million settlement includes a $475,000 payment to Alameda County, as well as $500,000 to the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies to fund research aimed at training poll workers to use the machines. 

However Jim March, the Sacramento activist who originally filed the Diebold lawsuit—it was later taken over by the state and Alameda County—called the settlement “premature.” 

“This settlement will shut down a major avenue of investigation before evidence starts trickling in,” March said. The computer system administrator had hoped that information obtained in the discovery phase of the lawsuit would allow citizens to get a better grasp on how computer voting machines are affecting—or even altering—elections. 

Meanwhile, state voter activists were critical of Alameda County’s decision in the Nov. 2 election to require all citizens requesting paper ballots to fill out a provisional ballot envelope. Provisional ballots are normally used only when voters’ names do not appear on the registration list of the polling places where they go to vote. Such voters are allowed to fill out a ballot, which is then placed in a sealed envelope on which the voter is required to provide identity information. The voter’s ballot is counted only if the Registrar of Voters later determines that the voter was eligible. 

The exact number of provisional ballots cast in Alameda County in the Nov. 2 election—including the number of provisional ballots that were issued merely because an eligible voter requested a paper ballot—will not be known until the Registrar of Voters office runs a computer report sometime after the Nov. 30 certification of the vote. 

Assistant Registrar of Voters Ginnold called the paper ballot, provisional ballot decision “no more than an accounting mechanism” to keep track of the number of voters. 

“In the interest of simplicity, [the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office] mandated that all paper ballots go into envelopes. That was our decision, and the Secretary of State agreed with it,” she said. 

Merced, San Bernadino, and Shasta were other counties with computerized voting machines in California that required all paper ballot voters to fill out provisional ballots. 

Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit independent California Voter Foundation, which monitors elections across the state, said her organization was very disappointed that several counties chose to treat paper ballots as provisional votes. 

“Number one, it required voters to go through an extra step of filling out forms, providing personal information that might have led some voters to be concerned that their ballot might not be secret,” she said. “And secondly, provisional ballots are treated as secondary ballots. They’re treated as questionable ballots... We felt that those voters should not be relegated to second class status simply because they chose to cast their ballot on paper.” 

Alexander also disputed the contention that using one provisional ballot system for all paper ballots made the process simpler. 

“It not only created more work for the voters, but it created more work for the poll workers and more work for the county in processing those ballots,” Alexander said. “There’s more work for a poll worker processing a provisional ballot than simply to give out a paper ballot and insert it into a locked ballot box. They have to make sure the envelope is filled out completely and correctly. On the back end, when the elections department processes these provisional ballots, it takes quite a bit of time. When someone counts a provisional ballot, the elections department has to be very careful to ensure that the voter is a valid voter and did not cast a ballot in some other fashion in the election, and therefore be able to vote twice. Typically, verifying provisional ballot means checking the signature on the provisional ballot envelope against the voter’s registration card signature. So it’s a very time-consuming, labor intensive process.” 

But the major uncertainty in local elections continued to be Berkeley’s Measure R. 

If the final count brings it victory, the voter initiative would eliminate limits on the amounts of medical marijuana that could be possessed by patients or caregivers. In addition, Measure R would allow existing dispensaries to move anywhere they chose in the retail zones of the city, without City Council or the zoning department being able to put limits on those areas.) The measure originally would have allowed an unlimited number of marijuana dispensaries in the city, but in between the time the measure was put on the ballot and the Nov. 2 vote, the Berkeley City Council imposed a limit on pot dispensaries in the city, allowing no more than the three currently operating in the city. 

Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who introduced a medical marijuana reform law to the council earlier this year, said that if Measure R fails, he plans to reintroduce the idea to council “using the basic core ideas.” Worthington’s original measure would have increased the allowable number of marijuana plants from 10 to 72 per person, the same number allowed in Oakland. 

It was the defeat of Worthington’s proposed city law by the council that led to the introduction of Measure R to Berkeley’s voters. Worthington, who did not participate in the drafting of Measure R, said that the measure would have passed easily without the inclusion of a provision that mandated the automatic licensing of medical marijuana facilities in any zoning district of Berkeley that allowed retail sales. The councilmember said his informal survey of Berkeley voters showed that “many voters had problems with that provision.” 

In the only other local election that had any possibility of being changed by the continued vote counting, Berkeley school board incumbent John Selawsky maintained a comfortable plus-600 vote margin over his closest challenger, Karen Hemphill. Selawsky was 680 votes ahead of Hemphill on election night—that margin has now closed only slightly, to 618. 

At last week’s School Board meeting, Selawsky declined the opportunity to declare victory, saying that because the vote was so close, he wanted to wait until all the votes were counted. But with the newly-released totals, the possibility that Hemphill could catch Selawsky’s totals now appears remote, at best. 

The new totals were released by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office late Friday afternoon. The registrar’s office plans to release at least one more new vote count total tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 23). By law, final certification of the vote must be done by Tuesday, Nov. 30, and county registration officials say that if the vote counting is not finished on Nov. 23, then new—and final—vote totals will be released on Nov. 30. 

County election officials did not release an exact total of the votes that remain uncounted, but estimated that it was “a few thousand.” And there was no estimate of how many of those votes would come from the city of Berkeley. 

Despite the use of touch-screen computer voting machines that promised quick results, Berkeley could see as much as 30 percent of its votes counted in the four weeks between the Nov. 2 election and the Nov. 30 certification date. Roughly 28 percent of the total vote in the Berkeley School Board and Measure R races was counted after Nov. 2. Oakland did not fare much better, with nearly 25 percent of the vote on violence prevention Measure Y being counted after election day. 

Alameda County’s still-to-be-counted ballots include absentee ballots which were turned into polling places on election day, provisional ballots cast by voters who registered too late for their names to show up on their precinct’s registration rolls, and paper ballots cast by voters who chose not to use the computer voting machines. These ballots are being counted by computerized vote scanners. 

?

Members of Berkeley’s Design Review Committee (DRC) last week hurled stinging rebukes at a former city employee turned developer and his five-story condominium and retail building planned for the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Derby Street. 

Ronnie Turner, a former city housing supervisor now vice president of the board of the Rev. Gordon Choyce’s Jubilee Restoration Inc., the project developer, presented the latest version of his plans for the 41,779-square-foot structure at Thursday evening’s DRC meeting. 

“It’s insulting that you didn’t even bring your architect and your landscape architect,” DRC member Robert Allen told Turner. Architects accompanied every other project presented to the committee that evening. 

“There’s absolutely nothing about it I can support,” said member Carrie Olson. 

“It’s far too massive,” said committee vice chair David Snippen. “There were five pejorative statements from (city) planning staff that tells me it shouldn’t have been brought here tonight. . .This should’ve been stopped and not been brought to design review at this point.” 

Committee member Rob Ludlow, himself a licensed architect, said, “The purpose of this committee is to develop a design in a collegial review, which is hard to do without a architect.” 

For starters, Ludlow suggested, the developer should take out one of the middle floors. 

“These are thoroughly inadequate plans,” said DRC Chair Burton Edwards, another architect. “They’re not appropriate. As designed, this is a non-starter with this body. I will recommend denial to the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) before I can ever approve such a project. You’ve got a lot of work to do.” 

Rolf Bell, who lives on Ward Street, a block away from the proposed site, called the project “a big, stark massive building. . .a visual Berlin Wall.” Neighbors could, he said, support a four-story building—but not one that resulted in more cars parking on nearby residential streets. 

He said neighbors were also hoping for a design more in keeping with the character of the surrounding neighborhood, including the Craftsman-style homes just behind the project on Derby. 

A city staff report noted that “the project would (be) overdeveloping the project site,” creating “a very tight and looming relationship. . .to the residential buildings to the east of the property,” casting an excessive shadow on them as well. 

The project has been mired in the DRC process for nearly a year. 

Berkeley Bowl West 

Committee members lavished praise on Berkeley architect Kava Massih, who gave the panel its first look at his plans for the new Berkeley Bowl planned for 920 Heinz Ave. in West Berkeley. 

The 91,060-square-foot three-story project will sit atop an underground parking lot and feature a semi-detached 7,070-square-foot building offering prepared food for on- and off-site consumption. 

The proposed steel-clad structure drew approval from Ludlow, who called it “a nice clean design, appropriate for the area.” 

“A great building, nicely styled—very beautiful,” said Snippen. 

“A wonderful project. The scale is perfect,” said Allen. 

“I like the project,” said Olson. “I think it will fit right in.” 

Members offered critiques of the plantings, but Massih’s designs had carried the day in their first public showing. After incorporating the suggested changes, he’ll be back before the panel in search of final approval. 

University Avenue Senior Housing 

The committee also liked what they saw in the latest version of Satellite Housing’s plans for an 80-unit senior residential facility at 1535 University Ave., though they found flaws with some of the specifics. 

Steve Wollmer, a neighborhood resident active in PlanBerkeley.Org., a group that monitors construction projects on University Avenue, said he generally supported the four-story, 80,501-square-foot project, while noting that the University Avenue Strategic Plan (UASP) called for a three-story building with a 20-foot setback at the site. 

The City Council, at the urging of member Linda Maio, had deemed the project complete and exempt from the UASP in February, he said. 

“I actually like this project,” said Olson, though she expressed reservations about the vivid murals of Berkeley artist Juana Alicia, retained by Satellite to add color to their building. 

Alicia’s bold creations, often involving Hispanic themes, are featured at several Bay Area sites, including a pair of five-story creations at the UC San Francisco Medical Center and the critically acclaimed “Santuario/Sanctuary” fresco at the new International Terminal and San Francisco International Airport. 

Margot Smith of the Berkeley Gray Panthers, offered support for both the project and the art. “It will make a tremendous difference to people entering Berkeley via University Avenue,” she said. 

Architect Erick Mitiken, accompanied by his landscape architect, fielded questions and critiques. 

Though they withheld final approval, it was clear that the committee liked the project and that once their critiques were incorporated into the plans, approval would likely follow. 

Bayer’s Building 66 

Bayer Corporation fielded a full-scale delegation when they presented their revised plans for Building 66 at their Berkeley campus and emerged with the committee’s blessings for the two-story, 34,000-square-foot structure at 800 Dwight Way. 

The DRC had suggested slight modifications to the plans presented to the on June 17, and they liked what they saw Thursday night, voting the approval that clears the way for final action by ZAB.

As many as 7,000 nurses and other hospital workers are planning to strike Dec. 1 at 14 Bay Area Sutter hospitals including Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, union leaders said Friday. 

At Alta Bates, which includes three campuses in Berkeley and Oakland, the striking workers could number up to 1,700, about 40 percent of the hospital’s staff. 

The California Nurses Association (CNA) and the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Locals 250 and 707 called for the one-day walkout, arguing that Sutter continues to violate a state law that set staffing ratios for registered nurses and committed unfair labor practices. 

The strike is scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. on Wed., Dec. 1, and end at 6 a.m. the following day. Among the other affected hospitals are Saint Luke’s and California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch and Eden Medial Center in Castro Valley. In the case of a major emergency, union leaders said they would call off the strike.  

Announcement of the strike at Alta Bates comes one week after the hospital learned of findings that could potentially result the loss of its accreditation status needed to serve Medicare and Medicaid patients. The preliminary report from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations found the hospital lacking both in administrative procedures and patient care. 

“We hope to call attention to the fact that something is terribly wrong with this organization,” said John Brosos, vice president of SEIU Local 250. The union, which represents 1,200 radiology technicians, nurses’ assistants, licensed vocational nurses and others, has been without a contract since April 30. 

Alta Bates plans to lock out striking employees for five days and replace them with temporary workers, said hospital spokesperson Carolyn Kemp. She said she didn’t know which staffing firm Alta Bates had contracted with to hire the replacement workers. 

Nurses attending Friday’s press conference urged patients to avoid elective surgery during the strike. Kemp said Friday that Alta Bates had not yet decided whether or not to proceed with scheduled non-emergency procedures. 

Sutter last faced one-day strikes in 2001 when negotiations with SEIU stalled. The last joint CNA/SEIU strike at Sutter came in 1992. 

Borsos said SEIU is holding out for a stronger voice in staffing and a training fund to pay for employees to upgrade their skills. He insisted wages were not the primary issue at the bargaining table, saying that other hospitals in the state already offer employees the perks demanded by the union.  

CNA, which represents registered nurses and whose contracts have not expired, will stage sympathy strikes at five locations where their contract permits it. They argue that Sutter continues to violate a state law that went into effect this year which requires hospitals to have one registered nurse on duty for every six patients. 

“We don’t have the staff to give quality care at this hospital,” said Jan Rodolfo, a registered nurse at Summit Medical Center in Oakland. She said that although Sutter had improved staffing ratios since January, Summit continues to use licensed vocational nurses in place of more highly trained registered nurses.  

Alta Bates’ Kemp disputed the claims of both unions, insisting that Alta Bates is adhering to the state staffing law. She also said that the 12 unfair labor practices filed specifically against Alta Bates by SEIU had either been rejected by the National Labor Relations Board or withdrawn by the union. 

The next bargaining session is scheduled for this week between SEIU Local 250 and San Francisco’s California Pacific Medical Center. Although Sutter operates all of the hospitals targeted for the strike, each hospital negotiates contracts independently. Borsos said the two sides have failed to settle any terms of a new deal. 

›

Community and religious leaders, workers, and representatives from various unions stood outside 38 Bay Area Safeway stores on Friday asking customers to sign cards pledging their support for workers in the event of a strike or boycott as contract negotiations between the two sides drag on. 

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which represents 30,000 workers, and three supermarkets—Safeway, Albertson’s, and Kroger—have been negotiating a new contract since September, and according to the union have made little progress.  

Matthew Hardy, a representative for the UFCW Bay Area coalition, said the union expects to receive a contract offer similar to the one accepted in southern California in February. Last week the stores delivered their wage proposal, which the union called a “non-starter.” As the Daily Planet went to press, the two sides were deliberating about the store’s health benefits proposal. 

“The Northern California locals will not accept the same contract,” said Hardy.  

That contract, ratified after a four and a half month strike, created a two tier system for the southern California employees. It will take new employees longer to reach the top of their pay scale and their top pay was significantly reduced. New hires and their dependents also have to wait significantly longer to be eligible for health benefits. Under the old contract new hires were eligible after five months, and now have to wait one year. Dependents have to wait 30 months. 

“It’s not like we want to strike, but we feel like the best way to protect our families is to prepare for one,” said Hardy. “Everyone knows. People have been saving for months.” 

Representatives from Safeway did not return phone calls. 

On the sidewalk in front of the Shattuck Avenue Safeway, volunteers collected a stack of cards several inches thick after being told by the Berkeley Police they could not solicit in the parking lot. A majority of shoppers signed the cards. 

“It’s really pathetic that people wouldn’t have health care,” said Dave Wilkerson, a neighbor who said he stops by the store four to five times a week. He said if employees struck the store he would quickly take his business elsewhere.  

Union representatives for UFCW employees in Berkeley, Albany, and Oakland said a strike is a real possibility. 

A study released by the UC Berkeley Labor Center after the Southern California contract was signed estimated that the grocery industry’s turnover rate, combined with the longer waiting period, plus higher premium costs might leave up to 53 percent of the union workers without health benefits by 2007. As a result, the report says, workers will be forced to rely on the public health care system, shifting between $66 and $102 million in health care costs onto the tax payers.  

I’ve spent the last two years of my life receiving an education from De Anza Community College, behind my family’s back. During that time I had the audacity to tell them that I had already graduated. In fact, I was barely passing English 101.  

I lied to them because it is shameful in my family for someone to be spending so much time at a junior college. It’s particularly bad since my cousins are all on their ways toward graduating from four-year colleges with bachelor degrees in marketing, engineering a nd other subjects.  

The truth was simple. I did not understand this cyclone of a thing called school. To me, attending community college was something that people my age did, just to do. I never thought it would take me anywhere.  

It was my only my invo lvement with Students for Justice, a politically charged student organization at De Anza, that kept me in school. I was becoming deeply involved in campus politics and constantly challenging myself to learn new things about the world. I was finally learning, whether I was taking classes or not. But activism did not move me toward a degree, a job or more money.  

When my cousins began to graduate, all eyes turned to me. With the mounting pressure, I told my family that I was transferring to San Jose State University and was not interested in De Anza’s graduation ceremony. I told them that graduation ceremonies were childish and that I would wait for my junior college degree to arrive in the mail. This was during the Spring quarter of 2002, a good two years and about 10 classes away from my actual graduation. During those two years my family kept asking for that AA (Associate in Arts) degree. I stalled, telling them the school had the wrong address and that they were verifying all my information. Besides, I told them, I was enrolling at San Jose State.  

I would purposely leave random San Jose State University documents that I had picked up from the De Anza College transfer center around my parents’ house. I kept my De Anza parking permit locked up in the glove compartment. My charade continued until I realized that a real graduation ceremony was soon becoming a possibility. Despite all the random classes that I had jumped in and out of, it finally seemed that I might be moving toward something.  

So after five years—two years after my pretend graduation—I did it. I became the first in my immediate family to earn a college degree. The ceremony featured local politicians—the same ones who kept quiet when our tuition fees doubled—speaking enthusiastically abo ut the significance of our college education. “So how many of you are the first ones in your family to graduate from college?” they asked. I shyly lifted my hand from my shining graduation gown, and raised it with the others. My family, who would have bee n so proud, were absent. They thought the ceremony took place years ago.  

It’s somewhat difficult to explain how I came to this predicament, especially to people who may not understand the complexities of growing up in a first-generation immigrant family. My family comes from a generation of Afghan refugees who sacrificed their entire lives in order to allow their children to have the opportunity to live the life they were denied. Both my parents were only a few academic units short of graduating from college in Afghanistan when the Soviet tanks rolled in and forced them to flee. Attracted to Germany’s free university system, they found refuge in the industrial city of Frankfurt and hoped to gain their college degrees. Their hopes were crushed when they found out that academic units from Afghanistan did not meet the “prestigious” educational standards of Germany. Education eluded my parents a second time.  

My mother, one of the few women in Afghanistan to study engineering, was in Germany a homemaker wh o used her quick math skills to get the best deals at local markets. My father, in Afghanistan a man of science and a well-respected student of economics, was left to use his skills working as a laborer at the German National Airport. They came to the United States for more opportunity and placed all their hopes on their newborn-to-be: me.  

I still have no money and no job, but took enough classes to stumble across the graduation stage and receive a document that suggests that I’m an accomplished person. I don’t feel accomplished, and the degree means very little to me since I did not share it with my family. It would be a shame if I didn’t tell my parents about the events of the last two years. I intend to tell them. I owe it to my family to include the m in my life, and I owe it to myself to deal with my insecurities. Things will probably never be the same in my family now, but the important thing is that my soul can finally be at ease.  

Ali Rahnoma, 23, is a writer for Silicon Valley De-Bug (www.sili convalleydebug.org), a PNS project. ÅÅ

For people who want to give a little time and effort to help those in need this Thanksgiving, several organizations in Berkeley would be happy to receive a helping hand. 

The Berkeley Food and Housing Project is looking for volunteers to help serve and prepare meals. The nonprofit needs about 10 volunteers for a Thanksgiving Day lunch at the Trinity Methodist Church at 2362 Bancroft Way. Food will be served at noon, and volunteers are asked to arrive at 11 a.m. 

Then at 7 p.m. at the North County Women’s Center at 2140 Dwight Way, the group will be serving a Thanksgiving dinner. Five volunteers will be needed at the center at 3 p.m. to help prepare the meal and an additional five volunteers will be needed at 6 p.m. to help serve it. 

Anybody interested in helping prepare dinner at the women’s center should contact Jamie Boreen at 649-4965, extension 315. Those who would like to serve dinner or volunteer for the lunch should contact Emily Bonelli-Padow at 649-4694, extension 312. 

At 10 a.m. the McGee Avenue Baptist Church at 1140 Stuart St. will welcome volunteers to help serve and prepare the church’s annual Thanksgiving Day lunch. 

Also, St. Paul AME Church at 2024 Ashby Ave. will be serving lunch to those in need. Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Denise Lenire at 848-2050. 

For those interested to volunteer year-round, the Alameda County Community Food Bank offers opportunities with different member organizations and can be reached at 834-3663, extension 308. 

—Matthew Artz 



While trucks, backhoes and a dredging machine moved earth outside, anxious neighbors of the hazardous waste-filled Campus Bay project gathered with state officials Friday morning to unload some dirt of their own. 

Friday morning’s gathering was intended to be the launch of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control’s (DTSC) first meeting to formulate a public participation plan—a three-month process—but the folks gathered in a second floor conference room of Kray Cabling wanted action now. 

And as one drama unfolded in South Richmond, another was underway elsewhere, as lawyers for DTSC and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board labored to hammer out an agreement that would divide the site into two parcels, the shoreline marsh under the water board and the larger upland parcel under DTSC. 

While officials had hoped for a handoff within a week of the announced handover on Nov. 8, the process entered its third week Monday. 

The process is complicated by dredge and fill operations now underway in the marsh under water board supervision. Polluted muck from Stege Marsh is trucked onto the upland portion and dirt stored on the upland is hauled to the march to replace the missing muck. 

Community activists and site neighbors are particularly troubled that cleanup crews uncapped a portion of the 350,000-cubic-yard mound of buried contaminated soils to build a temporary home for the muck. 

Appearing for DTSC at Friday’s meeting were Diane Fowler, a Sacramento-based public participation program official, Nancy Cook, who is based in Berkeley, and Angela Blanchette, the agency’s local media liaison. 

“The department feels very, very strongly that when decisions are made, they are made where every voice in the community is heard through the total completion of the site,” Fowler said. “This project is a little more complicated because we are stepping in late.” 

Under normal circumstances, members of a community advisory board are chosen from candidates who had turned in petitions signed by 50 or more community members, but East Bay Assemblymember Loni Hancock had requested that DTSC bypass the process, Fowler said. 

The panels typically include 15 to 20 members of the general public. 

As an initial step, the department will mail a survey to 7,000 area residents after Thanksgiving, with questions about languages used in the home, newspapers read, favorite radio stations, and if they would like to form a community advisory group. The mailing could also include a fact sheet and newsletter. 

Once chosen, the panel produces a draft public participation plan. 

Each milestone in the cleanup will be documented and advertised in area newspapers. 

The key obstacle for the dozen or so citizens gathered at Kray Cabling came when Fowler said that marsh cleanup work wouldn’t stop while the public participation process is underway. 

Sherry Padgett, one of the leading activists in Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development, a community group formed in response to Campus Bay development, declared that the ongoing work being conducted “is completely unacceptable.” How, she asked, could local residents and workers be certain if the work now underway is safe? 

“It’s totally unacceptable,” echoed Alex Sajkovic, the owner of ASN Natural Stone, which recently moved into the area from San Francisco. 

“Sajkovic likened the DTSC’s arrival into the project to a player arriving at a pool game after most of the balls had already been sunk. 

“Right not there are only one or two balls left, and we’re behind the eight-ball,” he said. 

“I think public participation is a detriment,” said Bourne Harris, another business owner. 

“What I want is a strong DTSC as an advocate. I want a single point of contact; I don’t want a public participation process.” 

“Nothing should move forward ‘til you get up to speed and pass us and are able to answer our concerns, We want a response today. We need a different kind of participation that responds to our concerns,” she said. “Two weeks ago we had 200 or 300 people” turn out for a joint Assembly hearing at the nearby Richmond Field Station. “At the next meeting, we will fill city hall.” 

“The machines must stop,” said Claudia Carr, a UC professor and BARRD activist. “If not, there’ll be a blockade.” 

“I’ll participate,” Harris declared. 

“We’ve had plenty of volunteers,” said Padgett. 

Attendees also bombarded Fowler with concerns about invisible toxins, particularly cancer-causing volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and raised concerns about Making Waves, an after-school program housed in a Zeneca Pharmaceuticals Building directly adjacent to the contaminated wastes. 

Zeneca was the last owner of the Campus Bay site in its earlier, highly polluting incarnation as a chemical manufacturing plant before the property was sold to Cherokee Simeon Ventures, a purpose-formed amalgam of a Marin County developer and a pension fund investment firm. 

Cherokee Simeon first intended the site as a biotech research facility until recession-induced industry cutbacks led them to propose a highly controversial 1,330-unit housing complex to be built directly on top of the buried toxic waste. 

Contra Costa County Public Health Director Wendel Brunner wasn’t able to make the meeting, but he said Monday that he wasn’t as concerned with the current dredging operations as he was with what would happen in the spring after the muck had dried and crews moved in with tilling equipment to blend the soil with lime to neutralized the high acid content before moving it to an offsite dump. 

Similar operations two years ago involving the highly contaminated upland soils resulted in massive dust clouds that spread throughout the area, destroying community trust in the process. 

“The confidence of the community is understandably shattered and it’s going to take some time to restore it,” Brunner said. “Right now, the operations are relatively low risk, which provides an opportunity for DTSC to develop public participation and build some community trust. This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be alert and questioning. They should.” 

After questions were raised about the safety of the fill dirt brought in to replace the contaminated marsh muck, Brunner said he met with regional DTSC chief Barbara Cook, who has ordered thorough tests of the fill material. 

Brunner also said that tests revealed that VOCs at Making Waves were currently no higher than normal Contra Costa County background readings, adding that Padgett was right to pay attention to the facility. 

“The broader public policy issue is how such sites should be handled statewide. We need a statewide public policy so that all the other sites around California are handled properly,” he said. “This group has made the point that they shouldn’t have to be the ones paying attention.” 

?

Geneva Agnes Gates Foote, a widely-admired and wise woman, writer, naturalist, spiritual seeker, and Westbrae neighbor, passed away peacefully on Tues., Nov. 9 surrounded by friends and loved ones. She was 81 years old. 

Geneva’s life was spent deeply involved in spiritual and humanitarian endeavors. An early participant in The Guild for Psychological Studies, Four Springs, and what became the Esalen Institute, Geneva studied with Krishnamurti, Vimala Thakar, and Howard Thurman, as well as with Alan Watts at the Academy of Asian Studies. 

Her affiliations included the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, the Friends Meeting, the Sanctuary Movement, and several environmental groups. Geneva helped initiate the North Peralta and Northside community gardens and up until her death was active with the Tibetan community, several Native American groups, and many, many spiritual, cultural, and environmental organizations. 

Born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts on April 15, 1923, Geneva graduated Phi Beta Kappa from St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., in 1944. With further training at the Philadelphia School of Occupational Therapy, Geneva moved to California in 1951 where she practiced OT with disabled children at Charles Whitton School in Oakland. From the time Geneva was 16 she battled diabetes and after 25 years at the Whitton School she suffered blindness, a common result of the disease, which terminated her work.  

Geneva was well known to her Northside Avenue neighbors and friends where she lived since 1960. Her husband, Abbot Foote, whom she married in 1991, remained her confidant, champion, caretaker, and admirer for these past 13 years. Geneva, Abbot and their little dog, Betsy Jingle (and then Buster) have been sought-after companions each morning as friends and neighbors joined them for sunny and scintillating conversation, daily, near several of the nearby little shops on Gilman Street. Geneva, who always engaged with the world and had a penetrating wisdom, never disappointed. 

Geneva Agnes Gates Foote was honored as one the City of Berkeley’s Outstanding Women of 2001. In her honor, the City of Berkeley named the small path she frequently traveled between Northside and Gilman, after her. Geneva’s life and thought can be known through seven of her small books of poetry and stories. Three more are ready for publication.  

A memorial gathering will be held at a later date to honor her wonderful life. Geneva lived her motto: Love and caring are what life is all about.  

For more information about Geneva’s books, contact Cindy Neveu at Cneveu@aol.com

For the first time ever, an American company will be put on trial for human rights abuses committed by a government with which it did business.  

Unocal, the $11 billion California oil giant, is accused of being ‘vicariously liable’ for the rape, torture, murder and enslavement of villagers by the company’s hired security forces along the site of an oil pipeline built with Unocal’s help in southern Burma in the 1990s.  

“Unocal had nothing to do with any human rights abuses whatsoever,” says Daniel Petrocelli, the company’s defense counsel. Unocal, he says, did “everything in its power to prevent even the potential for any abuses accruing” in connection with the pipeline project.  

The “vicarious liability” charge specifies that the defendant was aware of crimes being committed within its auspices, and did nothing to stop them.  

The federal case, Doe vs. Unocal, marks the first time a multi-national corporation could be legally bound to international human rights law, and its outcome is being closely watched by human rights advocates and business leaders alike.  

The plaintiffs also filed a case in California state court in 2000, arguing that Unocal’s forced labor practices violated California business law. A trial date was recently set for June 21, 2005, in California civil court. If found guilty in either case, Unocal will be forced to pay an award to the villagers.  

“The mere fact that we’ve gotten this far has had a very positive effect on corporations and how they conduct their business,” says Dan Stormer, lawyer for the plaintiffs. “The existence of the case, and the successes that we’ve had, has held Unocal and other corporations up to public scrutiny.”  

Hundreds of American businesses are arguing that the case will harm U.S. business interests. USA*Engage, a coalition of over 600 corporations, as well as lawyers for President Bush, have filed briefs on behalf of Unocal, arguing that if the matter is not dismissed its continuation could deter future economic engagement with foreign countries, and that similar cases could impede the war on terror by condemning governments that are otherwise on good terms with the United States.  

“The Bush administration has been very, very hostile toward this and other similar cases,” says plaintiffs’ lawyer Judith Chomsky.  

The case rests on the Alien Tort Claims Act, a 1789 law originally used to prosecute pirates in international waters. Since the 1980s, the law has been used to uphold human rights law against individuals responsible for massacre and torture abroad. The Unocal case will be the first time the law is used to sue a company.  

Bill Reinsch, president of the American Foreign Trade Council said he is concerned about using U.S. courts to fight wrongs committed by other people, in other countries. “We are dealing with U.S. law and the way the founding fathers wrote it,” he says, arguing that the Tort Claims act was not intended to address human rights issues. “We shouldn’t go around ignoring that because we have a sympathetic case.”  

One of the plaintiffs, Jane Doe, has testified that her husband was shot when attempting to flee forced labor on the pipeline, and that her baby was killed when thrown into a fire in retaliation for his attempted escape. All 12 plaintiffs remain anonymous for fear of repercussions against them and their family members.  

The case has become a sort of poster child for a long line of similar cases against multinational corporations and the security forces they often use to protect their projects in the developing world. A group of Nigerians are trying to sue Chevron for the murder of protestors at Chevron’s Parabe offshore platform and the destruction of villages in the oil-rich Niger Delta region. Eleven villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, are suing Exxon Mobil, and a group of labor leaders from Colombia are suing an Alabama-based mining corporation on behalf of the families of slain workers.  

David Vogel, business professor at University of California, Berkeley, and author of “Kindred Strangers: The Uneasy Relationship Between Politics and Business in America,” says that past efforts to get corporations to follow human rights law mostly sought voluntary corporate compliance. “What makes these cases unusual,” Vogel says, “is that they actually attempt to use the legal system to improve U.S. corporate standards.”  

The Unocal case was born 10 years ago when a Burmese refugee approached a young American law student in Thailand. The refugee said that hundreds of Burmese villagers where fleeing forced labor on an oil pipeline being built with the help of an American company, and asked if the U.S. legal system could help. The law student brought the question back to lawyers in the United States, and they began to plan the case.  

The business community fears that the case could leave Americans on the sidelines of lucrative ventures, including oil markets. “We do not want a group of folks who have differing points of views to stand in the way of the rights that companies have to conduct business where they believe it makes most sense to conduct business,” explains Unocal lawyer Daniel Petrocelli. “Otherwise we’ll become an isolated economy, and that’s of course inimical to the values that this country has always espoused, which is to press ahead to the next frontier and engage the world.”  

Burmese villagers still living near the pipeline site say that as the case progresses there is less use of forced labor, according to Burmese activist Ka Hsaw Wa, of EarthRights International. “The pipeline operators, the military and corporations and the villagers all listen to news about the case on the radio. The majority of people know about the case over there,” Wa says.  

Anna Sussman covers Burma and Southeast Asia for radio and print outlets. She is a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. ?

The 2004 presidential exit polls were wildly off the mark in swing states; the difference between the expected and actual results was not randomly distributed, it was all in Bush’s favor. 

Because of these discrepancies, I studied the election results in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. What I found were not answers, but more questions. 

Because of the amount of data, I made two assumptions to simplify my inquiry. The first was to examine the states in the order of the reported magnitude of the difference between the expected and the actual results; I started with New Hampshire where the difference was 9.5 percent. And, I did not consider anecdotal evidence; I disregarded reports that a voting machine had malfunctioned in a particular precinct, for example, and, instead, looked for systemic failures. 

New Hampshire: Kerry was projected to win by 10.8 percent and actually won by 1.3 percent, 9,274 votes. Bush narrowly won New Hampshire in 2000, but this time Democrats expected to win as they had conducted an aggressive registration drive. However, New Hampshire permitted same day voter registration and there were 96,000 registrations on Nov. 2, about 15 percent of the turnout; Democrats accused Republicans of taking advantage of the rules and bringing in questionable new voters. It’s not clear how these voters were profiled by party registration but exit polls indicated that 44 percent of voters said there were Independent, 32 percent Republican, and 25 percent Democrat—fewer Democrats than were expected.  

An independent assessment of voting results in areas serviced by optical scanning equipment indicated irregularities. For example, in 2000 Al Gore carried Newton Township by 126 votes, whereas in 2004 Kerry lost by 57 votes. There will be a recount in 11 precincts that produced anomalous results. 

Ohio: Kerry was projected to win by 4.2 percent and lost by 2.5 percent—using unofficial numbers. There are have been many reports of voting irregularities; Greg Palast noted some at www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=395&row=0. Most counties in Ohio continued to use antiquated punch-card equipment; the problems experienced were similar to those that plagued Florida in 2000. 

Forty percent of Ohioans registered as Republicans, 35 percent as Democrats, and the balance Independents. Kerry got more votes and a higher percentage of the total vote than Gore did in 2000, but still lost. Former Ohio Senator John Glenn said that Republicans won because they did a better job getting out the vote. 

Pennsylvania: Kerry was projected to win by 8.7 percent and actually won by 2.2 percent. There were remarkably few voting problems reported in Pennsylvania, which has a mixture of old and new equipment. 

While Pennsylvania voter registration roles show that 48 percent are registered Democrats—versus 41 percent Republican and the balance varieties of Independent—exit polls showed that only 41 percent of those who voted said they were Democrats. 

This suggests that either fewer Democrats showed up to vote than were expected, or those who did voted as if they were Independents, i.e. crossed over and voted for Bush. Pennsylvania exit polls indicated that voters who made their Presidential decision at the last moment favored Bush, a characteristic that was not true in the other swing states, where last-minute voters favored Kerry. 

Minnesota: Kerry was projected to win by 9 percent and won by 3.5 percent. There was an unusually large turnout, 77 percent, and Kerry’s plurality was almost 100,000. 

Minnesota is one of the states that permit same day voter registration and this may have been a factor in the final results. Relative to the 2000 election, Bush picked up support among both Republicans and Democrats. 

There were no major problems reported with voting equipment—most counties used optical-scan equipment but rural areas still have paper ballots. 

Florida: Bush was projected to win by 0.1 percent and actually won by 5 percent, a margin of approximately 380,000 votes. 

There are many articles on the Internet concerning Florida vote irregularities. The most recent, and damming, was conducted by UC researchers and released on Nov. 17, http://ucdata.berkeley.edu (under “voting”). The carefully conducted study concludes that electronic voting machines—touch-screen devices—appear to have systematically over counted in Bush’s favor. There is another study found at http://blog.democrats.com/florida that shows problems in counties with optical-scan equipment. There are several ongoing investigations in Florida; including one led by Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org. 

I don’t have space to chronicle all that I found in the other five swingstates, but in each case there were anomalies; the most worrisome occurred in New Mexico, which has yet to declare its official results. 

The bottom-line is that there are troubling problems in at least three swing states and issues in others. The anomalous exit-poll results may have resulted from a very effective GOP get-out-the-vote effort that brought more Republicans than expected to the polls. Unfortunately, the exit-poll discrepancies may also indicate political chicanery in some states. It is in the best interests of the American people for all these matters to be carefully investigated. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and computer scientist best known as one of the executive founders of Cisco Systems. 

Å

Several nights ago I cooked a pot roast for the very first time. It turned out well, and was so appreciated by the people who live with me, that I decided to cook another. Preparing two pot roasts two nights in a row got me wondering why I waited 52 years in order to tackle a roast. This led me to question just what I’d been doing in the kitchen for the past 40 years, since making my first peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the age of five. If I’d cooked only two roasts, then how many turkeys have I prepared in my lifetime, and of those, how many were for Thanksgiving dinner?  

How many yams have I baked and how many have I eaten with melted marshmallows? Not a lot. How many salads have I made that were labeled ambrosia and contained marshmallows? Zero. But how much of that stuff have I consumed at potlucks (showers, fundraisers, church dinners) throughout the years? I regret to say, at least 12 large helpings. 

When did I first eat a s’more, (in kindergarten) and when was the last time I had one? 1993. For that matter, when was the last time I munched a graham cracker, or made one of those delicious no-cook cream cheese pies with the buttery graham crust and the canned cherry topping? I think it might have been 1972 when I lived in a teepee in Santa Cruz.  

How many times have I had Cherries Jubilee, (zero), or Baked Alaska? Once. And just how many pieces of pumpkin pie have I consumed, and in addition to pumpkin, what about sweet potato, pecan, key lime, and lemon chess? Why haven’t I tried the pumpkin ice cream that appears in grocery stores only during the holidays and why did my grandmother insist on making mincemeat pie on Thanksgiving day? Nobody liked it but Grandpop.  

What is mincemeat anyway, and whose idea was it to bake it in a pie shell and call it a dessert, and while we’re at it, what about fruit cake and mint jelly? Why do we put mint jelly on lamb but not on beef and why do I cover French fries in ketchup and not mayonnaise? Why do some people make potato salad with mayonnaise and others prepare it with sour cream, and still others drizzle it with oil and vinegar, and add bacon and hardboiled eggs? 

My mother taught me to put a raw egg in Caesar Salad dressing, and one in poultry stuffing to keep it moist and stuff-able. I once made dressing with Italian bread and sausage and another time with cornbread and oysters but it didn’t work as an aphrodisiac. How many times have I reluctantly swallowed raw oysters with the hope that something fun would result? Three. How many times did big fun come my way? Zero. Why would anyone think something so ugly and slimy would work as a turn on? I don’t know. How many times have I swigged champagne with oysters? Twice. How many times was it Dom Perignon? Zero. How often have I been in the company of someone who ate a “bad” oyster? I don’t even want to go there.  

Returning to the original question, how many turkeys have I cooked? I’ve been thinking about this for quite awhile and I’ve concluded that although I’ve probably baked at least 2,223 chocolate chip cookies over the past 10 years, (burning a mere 998), I’ve prepared only 17 turkeys. Fifteen of those I roasted and two I threw into a pot with Kosher salt and brined. Five of these turkeys were consumed at Christmas, the rest for Thanksgiving. 

How many wishbones did I keep, dry, and snap after those dinners were over, the guests went home, the dishes were washed, and put away, the leftovers devoured, and the cranberry sauce thrown out six months later? Maybe eight. And of those, how many times did I win the snap? Three. How many of my wishes came true? None. Refer back to paragraph with the part about the oysters.›

FINISHING THE JOB 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As was planned by President Bush, we have removed Saddam and given Iraq an opportunity to plan their own democratic future. Post-election U.S. is also at a political crossroads, with vital decisions being considered about the extent of our continued military and reconstruction involvements in that country. There are strong feelings, perhaps by a majority of Americans, that we have no choice but to “finish the job.” But isn’t there an option? 

Instead of wasting more human lives, and more billions, in repairing the war’s vast destruction, perhaps it is time to give Iraq’s new government the respect and the funds to begin this restoration of their country.  

This would not only bring home our military, it may even prove to the citizens of Iraq that our intentions were always, to aid in their freedom from tyranny, to respect their values, their culture, and their innate abilities to govern themselves. It would also trust them to find their own answers to Iraq’s current political discords, expected in a nation’s re-birth.  

The billions we are spending for our military, and for often controversial U.S. contractors, can be used instead to provide the jobs, the self-esteem, and the reinforcement necessary for Iraqis to begin the rebuilding, of their own infrastructures, as well as their critical social and civic needs. 

More American, more coalition, and more Iraqi deaths will not aid them in these recoveries! 

Gerta Farber 

• 

COMMISSION ON AGING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The monthly-except-August meeting of the Commission on Aging has for years been scheduled for the third Wednesday of the month at 1:30 at the South Berkeley Senior Center. The Nov. 16 Daily Planet’s list of commission meetings included for the Commission on Aging: November 17 at 1:30 at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 

• Is it not Brown Act non-compliant when the meeting is subsequently and thusly changed to another location, at another time later in the day? 

• Is it not notable that the meeting’s agenda included “Action re: the Housing Department’s Paratransit Proposal” re: taxi scrip eligibility changes? 

• Were five members of the public present to comment? (This commission provides for public comment from five persons, three minutes each.) 

Here’s a reminder of the Commission on Aging’s mission: “Charged with identifying the needs of the aging, creating awareness of these needs, and encouraging improved standards of services to the aging. Council shall appoint one of its members as liaison.” 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

• 

ED ROBERTS CAMPUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I disagree with the characterization of the Nov. 15 ZAB hearing in the article “State Agency Challenges Ed Roberts Campus Plan,” in the Nov. 19-22 edition. There was a large contingent of ERC supporters and many speakers (outnumbering opponents), including neighbors and a former Landmarks Preservation Commission chair, who spoke eloquently about the design and fit of the ERC in the Ashby BART neighborhood.  

The ERC’s design was approved unanimously by the Design Review Commission and at two ZAB hearings commissioners praised the building. The ERC’s design is elegant and symbolic of the disability rights movement. The building does not displace an existing historic building, and it will add beauty to an unattractive slice of Adeline. 

Susan Henderson 

• 

ROBERTS CAMPUS DESIGN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The architects of the Ed Roberts Campus, the local firm of Maytum Leddy Stacy, are part of a tradition of Bay Area modernism that traces back to Bernard Maybeck. Their design (which I heard Bill Leddy present last year) responds to a community of users who are also part of Berkeley’s history. Ed Roberts helped to liberate people as surely as Martin Luther King did.  

Beginning with the rejection of Pfau and Jones’ design for the Public Safety Building downtown, Berkeley has seen a succession of “genre” buildings that purport to relate to its historic fabric. The results are Disneyesque, turning an important part of the city into a themed environment. This is not our tradition, or the tradition of the Bay Area.  

The Ed Roberts Campus is not “an airport,” but a humane and reasonable interpretation of a setting, a program, and an urban context, using a vocabulary that has been part of Berkeley since the thirties. It is part of a real tradition, which can’t be said of most of the other recent buildings in downtown Berkeley.   

John Parman 

• 

MORE ED ROBERTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ed Roberts Campus president Jan Garrett’s letter (Daily Planet, Nov. 19-22) correcting inaccurate statements in a recent letter from neighbor Rosemary Hyde itself needs some correcting. 

Jan says, “The ERC garage will have the capacity to provide 21 more spaces than the estimated peak parking demand.” According to the ERC’s own traffic study, peak demand is 133 “daily” plus 29 “additional.” Since the proposed garage has 118 spaces, its capacity is actually 15 to 44 spaces short of estimated peak demand. Moreover, that traffic study did not include demand that might be generated by the proposed meeting room, which could hold up to 280 people. 

She also says “the BART parking lot will see a net loss of 16 parking spaces.” The east parking lot currently has 250 spaces; the ERC proposal would cut that to 187, a net loss of 63 spaces. The ERC arrives at the 16-space count by subtracting the 47 spaces that were added eight years ago by restriping the west lot. 

The ERC soothed neighbors’ initially intense concerns about parking by promising to build an underground lot with 143 spaces and not to reduce BART parking spaces from the current 250. From discussion at a Design Review Committee hearing two years ago we expected to lose 20 to 40 of the BART spaces to save some trees, but otherwise we thought that deal was still in place. So far as I know no one in the neighborhood was aware that the ERC had dropped a total of 88 spaces from its design until we found the information buried in the 50-page proposed mitigated negative declaration the ZAB approved last week. 

Robert Lauriston 

• 

FRIENDS OF DOWNTOWN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In behalf of Friends of Downtown Berkeley, I would like to thank the Daily Planet for covering our appeal of the Seagate project’s use permit (“Seagate Foes Challenge Zoning Approval,” Nov. 19-22). I’d also like to correct some errors that appeared in the article.  

Nowhere do we contend that each of the objections we raise to the project “would be grounds for a reversal” of the Zoning Adjustments’ Boards approval of the Seagate’s permit.  

Nor do we state “[t]hat city calculations which permitted the construction of the additional four floors [over the legal base height in the downtown core] were wrong, because they included ground floor space.” Our appeal says nothing about “ground floor space.”  

Nor do we contend “that the [Zoning Adjustments Board’s] findings included no basis for violating the downtown limit of five stories.” As we emphasize, the maximum legal height in the downtown core (C-2 District), as set out in both the Zoning Ordinance and the Downtown Plan, is seven stories—a base height of five, plus a maximum of two bonus stories.  

Finally, the name of our group is Friends of Downtown Berkeley and not, as reported, Citizens for Downtown Berkeley, though the latter, I grant, might be an improvement.  

Zelda Bronstein 

Friends of Downtown Berkeley  

• 

POINT MOLATE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While I agree that there is uncertainty in the outcome of the contract with Upstream, I take issue with your conclusions that Richmond should simply do nothing or wait for someone’s vision of the perfect offer (“Richmond Takes a Piece of Pie,” Daily Planet, Nov. 16-18). The land was given to the city with a mandate from the U.S. Government to make it productive—not to keep it all as open space or land bank it. (“The magnificent bay front sites which are jurisdictionally in Richmond could be around to sustain our children and our grandchildren and their children if we conserve them prudently.”) Despite the apparently common perception that Point Molate is pristine open space, it is not. It is a former industrial complex that became highly polluted over the last 60 years and is still being cleaned of toxics. Some 50 acres (Winehaven) is also a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places with some 300,000 square feet of invaluable historic structures in danger of irreversible deterioration. It costs at least $500,000 annually, and should cost more than twice that, just to perform minimum maintenance. The City of Richmond does not have the resources to maintain Point Molate indefinitely in a state of genteel decay while naïve dreamers from other places ponder its future.  

The only plan for Point Molate that has been through an extensive public review process is the Reuse Plan adopted by the City Council in 1997. It was endorsed by every environmental group and open space advocate, including those that are now suffering from memory loss. The Upstream Plan incorporates all of the park, trail and open space components of the Reuse Plan. People may object to the Upstream Plan based on its incorporation of a casino or the scale of the development, but an objection based on open space is simply misplaced and based on misinformation. 

The Reuse Plan includes an alternative for mixed use, including approximately 800 housing units. These may or may not be “upscale condos,” but what if they are? Richmond provides more low cost housing than any other city in the Bay Area, including Berkeley, so why shouldn’t our city be able to attract a few well heeled residents who might also bring their businesses and purchasing power to our city? In any event, Richmond does have a very aggressive inclusionary housing ordinance that will require any new housing at Point Molate to incorporate or pay for low cost housing as well. 

Tom Butt  

• 

PALESTINE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A recent letter suggested that “Palestinians get their act together” and criticized “friends of Palestine.”  

Some context here would be helpful. During a recent military campaign conducted in illegally occupied Gaza the Israeli military killed over 133 Palestinians, including 31 children. Including a girl sitting in her schoolroom (so it is true that children may learn to distrust Israelis, but the lesson does not come from the textbooks). The military destroyed 85 homes (damaging 235 more), making hundreds homeless. Crops were destroyed, olive trees uprooted. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers brutally beat those who were accompanying Palestinians harvesting olives, including local Christopher Brown (who was volunteering with a pacifist organization).  

What was the purpose for this campaign of terror? To “freeze out the peace process” a candid top aide to Sharon put it in an interview with an Israeli newspaper. Campaign is a remarkable success by that criterion! 

The urgency many of us feel in regards to this conflict is not merely because of the lack of accountability Israel has to world opinion or international law. Israel gets $5 billion a year from U.S. taxpayers. Therefore how it is used is U.S. policy, and we have a right, and a duty to dissent. Our demand is that the U.S. must stop funding this occupation.  

Jim Harris  

• 

METROPOLIS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Marcia Lau writes that we are yelling madly (Daily Planet, Nov. 19-22). Marcia, it is you that needs to look beyond the city limits. We live in an ever increasing metropolis now reaching into the Sierra Foothills. Earth’s, California’s, San Francisco’s, Berkeley’s, and UCB’s populations, will continue to grow. These are macro economic forces far larger than we care to imagine. We can only respond responsibly by planning well for that which is inevitable. Like a cancer metastasizing, concrete and asphalt swallow up farmland because economics dictate that farmland is more valuable as housing. Talk all you want about “ rights,” urban communities have responsibilities too. To house their workers at very least.  

I have a business in Berkeley, that employs managers earning $40,000 -$60,000 a year. Not one can afford or find appropriate housing to own. Our town enjoys the sweat of their labors, but makes no effort in planning to house them. 

Old buildings, some poorly placed and designed (by previous communities who did not plan smart growth), will burn down, fall down, come into dis-use, or will not be economical to maintain. These empty lots will be filled. So, Marcia, how would we like these lots to be developed ? 

I believe we could grow smartly and sustain our “livable neighborhoods, daylight access and (increased) views.” How you would define “a reasonable population size” baffles me. More people and smart growth do not preclude a “face to face public sphere” and “responsive city government,” rather they might promote it. Face it Marcia you want nothing built at all. The “skyscrapers” you are so scared of are placed along San Pablo, University and Shattuck. Exactly where it makes sense to build them. Few views, very few back yards, no parks or open space, are affected by these “skyscrapers.” Rather, they usually replace urban blight, existing eyesores or buildings that serve almost no one in the community. What is progressive? And what ultimately is conservative? It is not so crystal clear how best to preserve open space and quality living.  

I am proud to have lived in Berkeley for 20 years and have no plans to “go away.” I am not an interloper. I do not want to move to Emeryville. I am, however, saddened to see our downtown movie theaters become less vital than Emeryville’s because it is too difficult to develop viably in Berkeley. It is unfortunate that vigorous dialogue so quickly disintegrates into name calling and side taking. Businesses, architects and developers are part of the solutions. Rather than thinking of us as outside interlopers, try and see us as we see ourselves. People who are as much a part of the fabric of Berkleley’s streets and communities as those who wish we would go away. We will not go away, and we love Berkeley. We might just see it differently. 

P. Levitt 

• 

LOCAL HOUSING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am responding to two related lines of discussion occurring in the letters to the editor section of your paper. One started with a letter from Sig Cohn (Daily Planet, Nov. 16-18) that was responded to by Chris Kavanagh (Nov. 19-22) and the other started with comments from Dan Marks (“Housing Boom Ending, Says Berkeley Planner,” Nov. 12-15) that were responded to by Ignacio Dayrit (Nov. 19-22). As for Sig Cohn, his position seems to me to border on the inhuman. I will not attempt to quote facts in this brief letter, but I am presently making a study of the effects of vacancy decontrol under the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, as aggravated by the combined effects of the Ellis Act. I am accumulating facts from several cities and using statewide studies as well.  

The preliminary results indicate nothing less than a devastating housing crisis, wherein the majority of tenants have either been displaced or are paying over fifty percent of their income in rent. Thirty percent is the federal guideline for the maximum that a person should have to pay. As for the claim of a housing glut, from a high-ranking city official no less, I am astounded. I would like to see Dan Marks’ data, but I have a good idea of what it really shows. There is a slight glut in the rental market for lousy apartments that are now renting for three to five times (300 percent to 500 percent) what they rented for under original rent control. Even that is only a slight glut, however, as Berkeley becomes rapidly gentrified, and housing conditions that are at all decent remain very difficult to find for ordinary people who are not well-heeled. It is not a “renter’s market”—that is a myth.  

If the absurd plans of opportunists like Patrick Kennedy are somewhat stalled, that is wonderful beyond belief, because it will give people like Max Anderson a chance to rethink their policy about increased density in commercial districts. Who really wants to live in a commercial district? Does Max Anderson? Having spent several months in the Shattuck Hotel, I can testify that it stinks, literally—you are breathing bus, truck, and car fumes 24 hours a day, which is not too good for your lungs, heart, or nervous system. I am sorry to say that Berkeley is going to hell in a hand-basket along with rest of the brainwashed country, following the pied piper, embodied as Mr. Bush, down the primrose path.  

Peter J. Mutnick 

• 

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To those who insisted that Ralph Nader and David Cobb voters hold their noses and vote for Kerry, the aftermath of this last election ought to show them how wrong they were. 

John Kerry tucked his tail and fled and left it to the third party candidates, with their limited resources, to save any vestige of legitimacy to the process. While Kerry has reported $51 million left in the bank, Michael Badnarik, Cobb and Nader are left scrambling to pull together a low budget recount effort.  

It seems clear that, no matter what the true outcome of this last election, that the country needs paper trails for all voting machines and instant runoff voting (IRV). 

Given San Francisco’s recent history election history, the fact that they managed to not only pull off the cleanest election in recent memory but add IRV at the same time should show that making IRV is not a Herculean task, we just need the will to make it happen. 

I call on all those people who insisted we vote for the “lesser of two evils” (LOTE) to really make a difference and support the people and join the parties that are now making sure all votes are being counted. And in the future, don’t LOTE the VOTE! 

Dave Heller 

• 

ALBANY WATERFRONT 

Editors, Daily Planet, 

Having just read the Daily Planet interview with Albany Chamber Director James Carter (“Albany Race Hinged on Waterfront Plans,” Daily Planet, Nov. 9-11) I feel compelled to point out that his concern about a waterfront shopping center harming local business fails to take into account the unique nature of the site. Its isolation from Albany makes the waterfront area primarily a regional resource, whereas Solano and San Pablo avenues are mainly local resources. The great majority of customers on the Albany waterfront would come from Berkeley, El Cerrito, Richmond, and Emeryville as well as travelers along the I-80 corridor. The result is that the Albany community would take in more money from waterfront sales and property taxes than it would spend on goods at the waterfront. Some of this surplus would be spent at local stores. Retail development on the waterfront would likely result in a gain and not a loss to local businesses, particularly if the mix of waterfront stores is carefully chosen to minimize competition with our local merchants. 

We cannot take preconceptions about malls, casinos and hotels which are based on other sites and blindly apply them to the Albany waterfront. To get the best possible outcome we must examine all our options carefully based on the unique properties of this site. 

Tony Caine 

Albany 

Click here to view Justin DeFreitas' latest work ?

Trio Robs Duo 

A trio of pistol-packing teenagers confronted a pair of adults outside Willard Junior High School just before 1 a.m. Friday and demanded their money. 

The two victims, both 32, handed over a wallet and a purse and the teenage felons fled, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Unknown Rapist  

A woman walked into a local hospital just before noon on Friday with injuries consistent with a rape. Because she’d been intoxicated at the time of the attack, she had no memory of the crime and was unable to assist police beyond describing to the location of the attack as the 900 block of Gilman Street.›

In September of this year an organization was formed to represent homeowners on creek properties, who are traditionally the stewards and caretakers of Berkeley’s many creeks. This group, Neighbors on Urban Creeks, through public interest, brought about a revision of that part of the creek ordinance which would have prevented the rebuilding of creekside homes destroyed by fire or quake.  

There has been general agreement that the ordinance should be updated and revised in other ways, but disagreement about how that revision should be done. Neighbors on Urban Creeks felt that the Planning Commission, in conjunction with Public Works, should be given the job. Creek activist groups wanted to create a special task force in which they might assert their own agenda. This choice was to be made by the City Council on Oct. 26, but at the beginning of that meeting Mayor Bates announced a last-minute plan for a creek task force to be appointed by councilmembers. Some attendees as well as some councilmembers felt ambushed by this last-minute ploy, so discussion was put off until Nov. 9. 

Well in advance of that meeting, Neighbors on Urban Creeks offered an alternative proposal, which was co-sponsored by councilmembers Wozniak and Olds, and was distributed to councilmembers and creekside residents. Feeling that the mayor’s proposed task force would be politically biased, as the council is, this counter proposal called for a balanced advisory group of twelve members, six appointed by Neighbors on Urban Creeks, and six by creek activist groups. 

Dozens of residents attended the meeting, and each statement in support of this proposal was met with sustained and vocal applause. Nonetheless, in a stunning display of political arrogance and indifference to the will of the assembly, the mayor’s power block on the council passed his proposal instead.  

Why did this entrenched majority dig in their heels on an issue that should be of general and open concern? Because the creek activists are under the wing of the Sierra Club, which is the Big Brother of ecology politics. Since the Sierra Club meddles in local politics by offering candidate endorsements based myopically and solely on ecology issues, with no concern for any other matters of political or social balance, those candidates are eager to do the Sierra Club’s bidding, at any cost. We may expect, therefore, to see a revised ordinance heavily influenced by activist groups, including some who have proposed daylighting Strawberry Creek from the campus to the bay, designating 36 homes and businesses that would be removed in this process. Others would like to send creek squads to inspect creeks on private property to ensure that the residents are properly maintaining the creek banks, planting only correct vegetation, etc.  

I canceled my Sierra Club membership two years ago, and now support the Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Other Berkeley residents, especially those who reside by creeks and are content to care for them in their own way, may want to think twice about future support of the Sierra Club.  

Jerry Landis is a member of Neighbors on Urban Creeks.f

As a senior in the Planning Profession and an avid watchdog for deviations in socially and environmentally responsible urban and regional planning in the Bay Area, I am alarmed by the unilateral actions by the City of Richmond giving developer J.D. Levine “approval” to build a “world class” casino resort at Point Molate (“Developer Wins Pact to Build Point Molate Casino,” Daily Planet, Nov. 12-15). 

I have questioned State Senator Perata, Assembly Member Hancock, and Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates with why the City of Richmond should be able to launch a major multi-use casino project that can have tremendous serious future social, cultural, moral, economic, environmental, transportation, land use, and public safety consequences? Why should not the City of Richmond and/or the developer be required to first file for an environmental review before one or another of the multitude of regional agencies that supposedly are established to over see the efficacy of regional planning in the Bay Area? Perhaps the answer is, as has been long presumed, there is no state law or a regional authority to require such a preliminary review process. Perhaps we are actually bereft of responsible governance to protect us from urban casino resorts in the San Francisco Bay region. 

Will a region-wide environmental impact report be required, and by whom? It seems unfair to cash-strapped Richmond for it to be allowed to naively (what else?) stumble into a costly process that should be preempted by a regional body that looks at all factors simultaneously: open space, bay preservation, traffic, public and environmental safety, etc. The MTC, ABAG, and the other single purpose so-called “regional” agencies do not appear to have such capabilities. 

The attempt by ChevronTexaco to buy the Point Molate land indicates that they are fully aware of the security and public liability dangers that a large casino resort presents, sandwiched as it would be between the bay and the Chevron-Texaco refinery. Is there not a State of California statute or agency that oversees public safety issues regarding refineries and adjacent land use and population densities? If there is no such safeguard, then there is extreme nonfeasance by all jurisdictions involved relating to protection of the public.  

An inquiry to the supervisor in Alameda County whose district abuts Richmond has so far only registered the response that since Richmond is politically in Contra Costa County that Alameda County has no jurisdiction, nor does he have time to look into it (supervisor’s name withheld). The conclusion here seems to be that the Bay Area is actually devoid of professional, cohesive, competent, and comprehensive urban regional planning.  

The urban casino invasion may well be the litmus test of the caliber of officials within the region who ostensibly were elected to protect the public safety and general welfare. 

Ken Norwood was a paratrooper in World War II.›

The Democrats’ defeat in the Nov. 2 national election comes as yet another temporary setback to progressive politics in this country. However, while there is much to be concerned about (from election fraud to the Supreme Court to the war in Iraq), we must all recognize that now is not the time to fall into an indulgent stupor of defeatism, but rather to energize ourselves once again. Life isn’t easy, and neither is politics. 

Bush is inheriting his own messes, both in Iraq and with the ballooning national deficit. This house of cards will fall, and even the Republicans aren’t clever enough to blame anybody else when that happens. In the meantime, it is crucial that every progressive citizen of this country contribute our intellects and energies in the development of a coherent opposition message. We need to be ready to supplant the current flawed model of fear, greed, nationalism, selfishness, short-sightedness, and bigotry when its corrupted foundation gives way.   

The thing that really struck me as I was listening to analysis on election night was that people in the exit polls listed “moral values” as their top priority more often than any other category (such as the economy, terrorism, or Iraq). And when I heard it I knew that this was bad for Kerry. Because the Republicans have somehow made Americans associate them with “moral values.” Which is quite a trick, given the irresponsible, dishonest, and mean character of the party’s leadership. 

How has the Democratic Party allowed the Radical Right to take command of the language of morality in the political sphere? Kerry plainly looked uncomfortable when the “morality” questions came up. He seemed so concerned about not offending anyone that he could not make his own vigorous moral argument. Well, we’re not going to win that way. 

The Democrats are going to have to find the courage of their own moral convictions again. It is time for the Democratic Party, and for all of us who consider ourselves to be “liberals,” “progressives,” “Democrats,” or even “Greens” (a party I am still proud to be affiliated with) to employ our intellect in this struggle. To learn how to articulate those beliefs that we hold in our hearts. To begin aggressively re-framing and re-defining the public morality of America. 

Beliefs in social and economic justice are moral values. Beliefs in equality and inclusion and compassion are moral values. Beliefs in honesty and integrity are moral values. A belief that each generation has a responsibility to leave a better world (environmentally, fiscally, educationally, socially) for their descendents is a moral value—in my view, it is the transcendant one. 

The Democrats are not going to be able to shift the debate without taking some risks, and perhaps without alienating some people. But I think we can afford to alienate a few bigots and jerks in our efforts to convince the majority of Americans that we are right.  

We all know that gay marriage is not “polling” very well right now. Who cares?? Martin Luther King, Jr. did not wait for people to stop being bigots. He did not wait for the polls to become favorable. He said that discrimination is wrong. He said this nation was founded upon an ideal of equality, and it is time for the nation to live up to that ideal. And by providing leadership, he helped move the nation forward. We are desperately in need of this type of leadership. So let each of us provide it in whatever tiny way that we can. 

The Democratic Party is going to have to stop being afraid of the moral questions. It is going to have to find the courage of its own convictions. And it is going to have to make the argument, on behalf of all of us, that secular morality is not inferior to the religious variation. That it is possible for people to access their own intelligence, intuition, history, empathy, and instincts to produce a moral order and vision. That the Enlightenment is alive and well, and that “morality” is not synonymous with the abandonment of rationality, logic, fact, evidence, and science—but rather, that these modern tools can be employed in the search for a more perfect moral order.  

As citizens, I think it is important that all of us participate in this imaginative work.  

Pierre Vladimir Stroud lives and works in San Francisco. He is a project coordinator at the Volunteer Legal Services Program, as well as a writer and performer.

British playwright Michael Fry is clearly no Jane Austen. And nobody is going to claim that he’s a dramatic genius. But for those of us who either never knew or have forgotten Emma, Austen’s comic masterpiece, and are simply out looking for an evening’s amusement, the Aurora Theatre’s new production of Fry’s play pays off.  

Full Disclosure requires that I admit (Woe!) I have never read the book. Perhaps harder to explain is that I never even got around to seeing the movie Clueless, which arguably has se rved as the present generation’s major introduction to Austen’s famous work. 

Frankly, until now, neither issue has caused me much trouble. However, they probably are the reason that I find myself in nose-to-nose conflict with two esteemed Bay Area critic s. Neither seems to find any redeeming qualities at all in Aurora’s production, apparently on the grounds that it doesn’t convey Austen’s work adequately.  

Certainly anyone determined to see a rendition of the “real” characters and the wit that they reme mber from Austen will find the play an irritating failure. But if you can rid yourself of such expectations, this production definitely has its own charms. Yes, the play is not well-structured, and it’s quite possible to become a bit bewildered by the sheer number of subplots. And, certainly, the “play within a play” device is hackneyed. But it does offer the cast and director Jeffrey Bihir an opportunity to almost wallow in a demonstration of what good actors and good staging can produce. 

What we have here is a group of talented actors who are given the opportunity to strut their stuff through a series of wildly different, albeit humorous, characterizations. With the exception of Lauren Grace, who has the substantial role of “Sarah-pretending-to-play-Emma” (and does fine work) each of the cast members spends the evening bouncing back and forth in four entirely unique roles. And the nice thing about it is that they’re all rather absurd. Nice, but absurd.  

Perhaps even better is the fact that there isn’t a weak performance in the lot. 

Indeed, clearing yourself of much interest at all in the “story” part of the production may help quite a bit in itself. Failing that, it is quite conceivable that you could find yourself lost in the tangle of multiple sto ry lines as they are played out by five talented actors, assuming—in full sight of the audience—a grand total of 18 different characters. Lost or not, it’s great fun to watch the actors switch roles back and forth; it may be the strongest part of the prod uction.  

While, of course, it isn’t remarkable for actors to fill a couple of (customarily minor) roles in a presentation, it is usually a matter of economy. What this production of Emma has to offer is a delightful emphasis on the artificiality of the t heatrical performance itself. It’s a little like being invited inside the play to watch how the actors do it. 

The props—a partial wig, a hat, some minor thing or another—are just enough to make at least something more than a mere symbolic change of chara cter as an actor switches from one role to another. They’re presented on stage by one of the actors who is waiting around—again, on stage—for his/her next time at bat. They’re not terribly obtrusive, but they’re there for sure.   

The joke is emphasized b y two cross sex performances: Joe Wyka, a fairly large, heavily muscled man, does a turn at bat as Mrs. Bates, the elderly mother of the rather delicately youthful Kathleen Dobbs. She, in her turn, plays the spinster aunt of Jane Fairfax, played by the equally graceful Lindsay Benner, who manages to become the aged Mr. Woodhouse. 

David Mendelsohn is part of the faction in the cast who are able to maintain the same sex throughout the evening. In the process, he plays two relatively young men and a Vicar, all of whom are impressively individuated. 

This is a very strong cast. 

Since there are obviously actors of the right sex ready and available to play all the necessary roles, as well as reasonable ways to get the actors who aren’t immediately in action o ut of the way, it is clear that both the cross-gender casting and the fact that the entire cast spends “off-stage” time lurking around the edges of the action are a matter of choice. 

This sort of nonsense which, understandably, can make the details of th e plot at least a wee bit confusing is, to this viewer at least, worth the price of admission.  

According to Aurora’s artistic director, Tom Ross, this play was chosen as the result of “the notion of doing a theatricalization of a novel, one with many ch aracters offering plenty of opportunities for actors to play multiple roles.” 

Mission accomplished. 

µ

TUESDAY, NOV. 23 

THEATER 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Polk County” opens at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. and runs through Jan. 9. Tickets are $15-$60. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

FILM 

Recent Arab Documentary and Experimental Media at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Michael Finney describes “Consumer Confidential: The Money-Saving Secrets They Don’t Want You to Know” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance Series presents Parisian bassist Joelle Leandre and trombonist Dave Dove at 8 p.m. at CNMAT, 1750 Arch St. Admission is $6 to $10, sliding scale. 649-8744.  

Peter Barshay and Deborah Poyres at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Albany High School Jazz Band and Rhythm Band in a benefit for the Albany Music Fund at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazz- 

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

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with students from CSU Hayward performing works of Bach and Mendelssohn at 12:15 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555.  

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

Mas Cabeza at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Slammin’ with Keith Terry, a cappella, beat boxing and body music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Orquesta Sensual, salsa, at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Tuck & Patti at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, NOV. 25 

Happy Thanksgiving 

FRIDAY, NOV. 26 

CHILDREN 

Splash Circus Theatre “Circus Rhymes” at 2 p.m. through Nov. 28 at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets $8-$15. 925-798-1300.  

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Paintings by Keith Wilson” opens at The Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. and runs through Dec. 24. Gallery hours are Wed.-Fri. 1 to 6 p.m., Sat.- Sun. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 848-1228.  

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Emma” at 8 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. through Dec. 19. Tickets are $36. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Polk County” A musical about aspring blues musician, Leafy Lee, at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. to Jan. 9. Tickets are $15-$60. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org  

Black Repertory Theater, “Who’s Who in the Tough Love Game” a new play by Ishmael Reed. Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2:30 and 8 p.m., through Nov. 27. Tickets are $5-$20. 3201 Adeline St. 652-2120. 

Impact Theatre, “Meanwhile, Back at the Super Lair” by Greg Kalleres, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 11, at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny Trilogy: “Marius” at 6:30 p.m. and “Fanny” at 8:55 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Matthew Bourne’s “Nutcracker!” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through Dec. 5. Tickets are $30-$74. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Moh Alileche, North African and Berber music at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, bluegrass and traditional folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightand- 

salvage.com 

Smoov-E, First Degree the D.E., Equipto at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10-$15. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

Eric Crystal Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

David Gans at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Mingus Amungus at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Jinx Jones Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Gather, Jealous Again, The Starting Point at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Tuck & Patti at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, NOV. 27 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Up and Balanced” New works by John E. Sloan opens at Nexus Gallery, 2701 Eighth St. and runs through Dec. 12. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Mon. to Fri. noon to 5 p.m. Sat. and Sun. 

“A Lifetime of Form” Ceramics by Hall Riegger. Opening reception at 4 p.m. Exhibition runs through Dec. 30 at TRAX Gallery, 1812 Fifth St. 540-8729. 

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny Trilogy “Fanny” at 4:30 p.m. and Henri Langlois Tribute at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Juliet S. Kono will read from her latest book ‘Ho’olulu Park and the Pepsodent Smile” at 4:30 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Healing Muses “Celtic Spirit” Baroque and traditional music from the British Isles and beyond at 8 p.m. at St. Alban’s Church, 1501 Washington St. at Neilson. Tickets are $15-$18. Advance reservations suggested. 524-5661. www.healingmuses.org 

Fundaraiser for the Jazz House with Marcia Miget and Deep Space Posse, Sun Ra Arkestra members at at 11 p.m. and midnight at the Last Day Saloon, 406 Clement St., S.F. Cost is $10. Help raise funds for the Jazz House to find a new home in Berkeley. 415-258-8122. 

Wadi Gad & The Reggae Angels at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Shots at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Weapons of Mass Construction at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, bluegrass and traditional folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Vice, Cushion Theory, Ned, The Dead Bullfighters at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

The Mutilators, The Tantrums at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Josh Workman Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

David Jefrey Fourtet with Keith Kelly at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Local Band Night with Factory Seconds, Sabretooth Tiger at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 28 

FILM 

The World of Astrid Lindgren: “Rasmus and the Vagabond” at 3 p.m. Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny Trilogy, “César” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Bruce Isaacson and Eliot Schain at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ferron, singer, songwriter, and folk music poet, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Odd Shaped Case, Balkan music brunch at 10 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

MONDAY, NOV. 29 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Art from the Heart” featuring the works of over 50 artists with disabilites at NIAD Art Center, 551 23rd St., Richmond. Exhibition runs to Jan. 7. 620-0290. www.niad.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Gretel Erlich describes winter themes in “The Future of Ice” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express theme night on “family” from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Song Writers Symposium at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $3. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Harry Manx, original world music, folk and blues guitarist, 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 

Zoe & Dave Ellis at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, NOV. 30 

CHILDREN 

First Stage Children’s Theater “Flights of Fantasy” at 7:30 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $4 at the door. 845-8542. www.juliamorgan.org  

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “Latent Excavations,” new work by Lynn Marie Kirby at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Ross describes “Murdered by Capitalism: 150 Years of Life & Death on the U.S. Left” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra “Symphony Not As Usual” Bartók’s “Rhapsody” and Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge” at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$49. 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org  

Gerard Landry & The Lariats at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Peter Barshay and Murray Low at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Taj Mahal at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Through Sun. Dec. 5. Cost is $16-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Visions of the Holidays” Art work by Berkeley residents, from kindergarteners to seniors, on display in storefronts throughout downtown Berkeley, through Dec. 31. 549-2230. www.downtownberkeley.org 

Jesse Allen, Giclee Prints. Reception at 5 p.m. at Epoch Frameworks and Gallery, 2284 Fulton St.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed on “In Search of Paul: How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host with Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-7. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, Javanese Gamelan Ensembles, directed by Midiyanto, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Music for the Spirit Lenore Mathias, flute, performs Handel, McKean and French works at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra “Symphony Not As Usual” Bartók’s “Rhapsody” and Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge” at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$49. 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org  

Matthew Bourne’s “Nutcracker!” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through Dec. 5. Tickets are $30-$74. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Bill Miller, Native American songs, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kaputnik, Mister Loveless, Buffalo at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Candela, salsa, at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Whiskey Brothers at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Taj Mahal at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $16-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, DEC. 2 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Keith Wilson, paintings. Reception at 6 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. at Ashby. 848-1228. www.giorgigallery.com 

Kazutoshi Sugiura, prints. Reception at 6 p.m. at Schurman Fine Art Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. Exhibit runs to Jan. 30. 524-0623. 

THEATER 

“Measures Taken” by Bertolt Brecht, workshop production by UC Dept. of Theater and Dance at 8 p.m. in Zellerbach Room 7, UC Campus. Also on Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. and Dec. 4 at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $5. 642-9925. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems Reading Series with Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate and author of “Sailing Alone Around the Room: Selected Poems” at 12:10 p.m. at the Morrison Library in Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-0137. http://lunchpoems.berkeley.edu 

“The Rebozo: History and Technique” with Virginia Davis, textile artist, at noon at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft at College. 643-7648. 

“Food in California Indian Culture” with Ira Jenkins, editor, at 4 p.m. at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft at College. 643-7648. 

“Hard Manual Labor of the Imagination” the poetry of Ishmael Reed, at 7:30 p.m. at College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $5-$10. 658-5202. www.college-prep.org/livetalk 

David Thompson on “The Whole Equation,” a history of Hollywood, at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Andrew Wood on “Road Trip America: A Tour of Off-beat Destinations” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 843-3533. 

Poetry at the Albany Library with Eva Schlesinger and Jeanne Lupton at 7 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720. 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with Michael Kelly and Selene Steese followed by an open mic at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. 526-5985.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Voices of Heaven and Earth” with Holy Names University Chamber Singers at 7:30 p.m. at the Regents’ Theater, Valley Center for Performing Arts, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$15. We encourage you to bring an unwrapped gift for a child of any age for Project Joybells. 436-1330. 

Oakland Opera Theater “Rake’s Progress” by Igor Stravinsky, at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through Dec. 19. Tickets are $22-$32. www.oaklandopera.org 

Petty Booka, Old Puppy at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Ian Tyson, folk and western, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Gini Wilson, solo jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

›

In his journal entry for March 23, 1856, Henry David Thoreau got to brooding about what New England had lost since it was settled by Europeans: “The nobler animals have been exterminated here—the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene [sic], wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc.” 

The turkey? What’s that doing among all those totems of wilderness? Well, “noble” might be a stretch, but the wild turkey is a bird to be reckoned with. It’s a totally different creature from feathered vegetables like the Beltsville White that are too dumb to mate without human assistance. For a glimpse into the mind of the wild turkey, hunt down a copy of Joe Hutto’s book Illumination in the Flatwoods. Hutto, a Florida-based artist-naturalist, raised a clutch of turkeys from the egg, and followed them around as they learned how to be competent turkeys. It was an education for him as well. 

I think it was a couple of years ago that I first heard of wild turkeys in Berkeley: Someone called the Northern California Rare Bird Alert to report one in a tree in Live Oak Park. Since then, they seem to have established residency. I’ve heard from one Berkeleyan who saw three hen turkeys escorting a dozen chicks in her neighborhood, and another who had a flock of 12 in his back yard.  

Whether the presence of the turkeys is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how you feel about exotic wildlife, and whether you regard the turkeys as “introduced” or “re-introduced.” It’s well known that bringing a plant or animal into an ecosystem where it did not evolve, where it may have no natural parasites or predators, can wreak all kinds of havoc. Think of the Eurasian starling, the blue gum eucalyptus, the bullfrog, the yellow star thistle, the eastern red fox. On the other hand, some naturalized creatures seem relatively benign, like the wild parrots of San Francisco. 

Determining which category the wild turkey falls in gets a little problematic. One thing that’s clear is that the Berkeley turkeys, and their comperes in the North Bay and the Coast Ranges, are the descendants of transplanted Texans. Hunters had been trying to establish wild turkeys in California since at least 1877, but with limited success. Then in the 1960s, the state Department of Fish and Game began a major introduction push using turkeys of the Rio Grande subspecies that had been trapped in the wild.  

The Texas turkeys flourished and multiplied. Today they’re in every county except San Francisco, with an estimated statewide population of 100,000. I’ve been seeing and hearing them for years around Livermore, and more recently in the North Bay. The turkeys of Marin County have joined the Feral Pigs and the Golden Gate Park Cats as regulars in the Farley comic strip. 

Clearly these birds have found the environment out here congenial—lots of acorns to eat, lots of low-branching trees to roost in. (Their impact on that environment is debatable; I’ve heard them accused of competing for resources with the native California quail.) And there’s a precedent for turkeys in California. It’s a complicated story, and I’m indebted to Don Roberson, author of Monterey Birds, for the background; you can find the full version on his website, www.montereybay.com/creagrus/turkey-in-CA. 

Turkeys, according to palaeontologist David Steadman, descended from peafowl-like ancestors that crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Asia tens of millions of years ago. By the Pleistocene era, the time of the ice sheets, four species existed in North America. Two are still around today: your basic wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) and the ocellated turkey of Mexico and Central America (M. ocellata), which you can see around the Mayan ruins at Tikal. Then there was the California turkey (M. californica), a bit smaller than M. gallopavo, whose remains have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits. 

Hildegarde Howard, the legendary authority on fossil birds who died six years ago at the age of 96, worked on californica as a UC graduate student. 

Steadman speculated that californica may have evolved from an isolated group of gallopavo that was cut off from the main population by the Mojave and Sonora Deserts. “Species” is a tricky concept when you’re dealing with fossils, anyway. Biologists define living species by their inability to breed with similar populations. But whether ancient California turkeys and eastern wild turkeys could have mated and produced fertile offspring is anyone’s guess. 

So there were turkeys in Southern California, at least, until around 10,000 years ago, when the whole La Brea fauna—mammoths, ground sloths, sabertooths, dire wolves, teratorns, dung beetles—died out. What about the rest of the state? Well, there’s one tantalizing piece of evidence: a fossil turkey femur—a thighbone—found in Potter Creek Cave in Shasta County. Steadman examined the bone and said it could be either gallopavo or californica. And there’s apparently another turkey fossil from El Dorado County that Steadman couldn’t get hold of. 

It’s always possible that the Potter Creek turkey bone was part of some Paleoindian traveler’s lunch. But if not, the find would place either the modern wild turkey or its evolutionary next of kin in Northern California, maybe even the Bay Area, only yesterday in geological terms. And that would make the establishment of turkeys in the Berkeley hills a kind of homecoming. 

“I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth,” lamented Thoreau. We’ll never get the whole thing back, of course; it’s too late for the sabertooth and the ground sloth, or even the California grizzly. But if Steadman was right, the return of the turkey does at least give us a small piece of California as it used to be. 

›

TUESDAY, NOV. 23 

Morning Bird Walk Meet at 7:30 a.m. at Tilden’s Inspiration Point for a hike on EBMUD trails. It could be muddy. 525-2233. 

Berkeley High School Site Council meets at 4:30 p.m. in Room C106, BHS. Agenda includes appointment of a BHS admini strator to the SSC, a proposed timeline for SSC for 2004-2005, athletic eligibility requirements, and requests for authorization by two new small schools. bhssitecouncil@berkeley.k12.ca.us 

“Update from Israel and Palestine” Panel discussion has been cancelled because two speakers have been unable to get exit permits. The event was sponsored by Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Campus. 

“Anthropology and Architecture: The Making of Public Space in Kinshasa, RD Congo” with Filip De Boeck, Univ. of Leuven, Belgium, at 4 p.m. at 652 Barrows Hall, UC Campus. 642-8338. www.ias.berkeley.edu/africa 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem solving and beginners meeting to answer, in simple English, users questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St., near corner of Eunice St. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

El Cerrrito Library Book Club meets to discuss “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini at 7 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. www.ccclib.org 

Family Story Time at the Kensington Branch Library, Tues. evenings at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. This is a project of Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Charles Fitch will show travel slides at 11 a.m. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Acti ng and Storytelling Classes for Seniors offered by Stagebridge, at Arts First Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Classes are held at 10 a.m. Tues.-Fri. For more information call 444-4755. www.stagebridge.org 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24 

“The Native Americans” a PBS documen tary on the tribes of the northern and southern Great Plains at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 452-1235. 

“We Voted: Now What?” with Larry Bensky, host of KPFA Sunday Salon, at 1:30 p.m. at the Gray Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes” by Mark H. Gaffney at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble Coffee Shop, El Cerrito Plaza. 433-2911. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday, rain or shine, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Prose Writers’ Workshop An ongoing group focused on issues of craft. Meets Wed. at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 524-3034.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, NOV. 25 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services yo u desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

Vegetarian Give Thanks Potluck Feast at 6 p.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Please bring a vegetarian dish and a game or a song to share. Sponsored by East Bay Food Not Bombs. 

Walk the Water Labyrinth from 10:45 to 11:45 in the Main Pool at the Berkeley YMCA, 2001 Allston Way. Arrive in your swimgear, float belts provided. Sponsored by Spirit Walking: Chi in Water. 665-3228. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 26 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

Splash Circus Theatre will perform “Circus Rhymes” at 2 p.m. Nov. 26 to 28, Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. Tickets $8-$15. Call 925-798-1300.  

Berkele y Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324. 

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

Me ditation, 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. 655-6169. www.bpf.or g 

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. 27 

Family Bike Ride in Tilden Take a moderate ride with your young ones to discover the natural history of Tilden’s exotic trees. Meet at Inspiration Point at 11 a.m. Bring water, lunch and your helmet. Heavy rain cancels. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Compostable Compounds We’ll see the beginning and end of composting garbage and discover the organisms that dedicate their lives to make soil. For ages 8 to12 yrs. At noon at Tilden Environmental Educational Center. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios Sat and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For map see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Berkeley Potters Guild Sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. and Sun. through Dec. 19. 731 Jones St. 524-7031. www.berkeleypotters.com 

Womyn of Color Arts and Crafts Show Sat. and Sun. from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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. 28 

Monarch Migration Adventure in Pt. Pinole Regional Park. Search this waterside park for the illusive colony of Monarchs that spend their winter break in the eucalyptus trees. Pack lunch and liquids, we’ll stop for a break and hear the incredible story of their miles of migration. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For information call Salli or Jessica at 525-2233. 

“Growing Native Seeds from Ferns” A workshop on growing beautiful ferns from nearly microscopic spores. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Visitors Center, Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden P ark. Cost is $40-$45. 845-4166. www.nativeplants.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. 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios Sat and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For map see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Tibetan Buddhism with Erika Rosenberg on “Meditation and Successfu l Work” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, NOV. 29 

Tea at Four Taste some of the finest teas from the Pacific Rim and South Asia and learn their natural and cultural history, followed b y a short nature walk. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60 years and over meets Mondays at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior C enter, 846 Masonic Ave. Join at any time. 524-9122. 

“Ulysses” Discussion Book Group at 7 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. We will meet every Monday night and hopefully finish by Bloomsday 2005. 

Fitness for 55+ A total body workout including aerobics, stretching and strengthening at 1:15 p.m. every Monday at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170. 

TOPS Take Off Pounds Sensibly meets every Mon. at 9 a.m. in Albany. For information call Mary at 526-3711. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 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. 30 

Morning Bird Walk at 7:30 a.m. at Briones. 525-2233. 

“Harvest Health Fair” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Berkshire, 2235 Sacramento St. Health screening for blood pressure, hearing and podiatry, plus health education and vendors. 841-4844. 

“Elder Abuse” A video on legal and medical issues at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 549-2970. 

“The Socio-Ecology of Elephants: Analysis of the Processes Creating Multilevel Societies” with George Wittemyer, UCB, at 4 p.m. at 652 Barrows Hall, UC Campus. 642-8338. www.ias.berkeley.edu/africa 

Argosy University Information Sessions for degree programs in Psychology, Education and Business at 6 p.m. at 999-A Canal Blvd., Point Richmond. To RSVP or for directions to the school, call 215-0277. 

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. This is a project of Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Family Story Time at the Kensington Branch Library, Tues. evenings at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:15 a.m. at Au Cocolait, 200 University Ave. at Milvia. For information call Robert Flammia 524-3765. 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, for ages 4-6 years; accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $3-$5. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday, rain or shine, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:3 0 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Fun with Acting Class every Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome, no experience necessary. 

THURSDAY, DEC. 2 

Morning Bird Walk Meet at t he Tilden Nature Area at 7:30 a.m. to look for locals and winter visitors. 525-2233. 

Vista Community College 30th Anniversary Party at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Music by Steve Lucky and Rhumba Bums. Proceeds go toward furniture, equipment for new Vista campus. Tickets are $10-$20 and available at Vista’s Cashier’s Office, 2020 Milvia St., 1st Floor, or online at vistabash.tix.com. 981-2800. 

FRIDAY, DEC. 3 

Outings on Fridays with Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association Tour of the Came ron-Stanford House in Oakland at 11 a.m. Cost is $15. Reservations required. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com  

American Indian Pow-Wow and Craft Fair from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. in the R Building cafeteria, Merritt College, 12500 Campus Drive, Oakland. Cultural entertainment and Grand Entry at 1 and 7 p.m. Benefits the American Indian Child Resource Center. www.aicrc.org 

First Fridays Film Series “In Bad Company” Fr. Bill O’Donnell in conversation with Martin Sheen, filmed in Dec. 1998, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free. 482-1062. 

Bhopal: 20 Years of Survival with a screening of “Bhopal Express” at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5-$50. All proceeds to go to The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. 415-981-1771. 

Christmas Play Auditions for Arlington Community Church Christmas Play 6 to 8 p.m. for children ages six and fourteen, and various adult roles. To reserve audition slot call 526-9146. 

Hayehwatha Institute Peace Ceremonies with An dree Morgana at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $10. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324. 

Women in Black Vigi l, 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. 655-6169. 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 accessi ble. For information call Katherine, 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, DEC. 4 

Sick Plant Clinic The first Sat. of every month, UC plant apthologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants from 9 a.m. to noon at the Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755. 

Long Walk with Your Dog Meet at 2 p.m. at Meadows Playfield in Tilden Park for a 3.5 mile walk along Wildcat Gorge. 525-2233. 

Holiday Decorations - Naturally Create wreaths and garlands usi ng natural materials. Bring a pair of small hand clippers, a bag lunch, and a large flat box to take home your creations. From noon to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. For adults and children 8 and over. Cost is $30-$61. Reservations required. 636-1684. 

Fungus Fair The beauty, tastes, smells and intricacies of the world of fungi from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios Sat and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For map see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Reused and Recycled Handicraft Sale from 10 a.m. to noon at GAIA, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, 1958 University Ave. 883-9490. www.no-burn.org 

Holiday Open House Gardening and writing book s will be featured at Small Press Distribution from noon to 4 p.m. Readings at 2 p.m. 1341 Seventh St. at Gilman. 524-1668. www.spdbooks.org 

Holiday Crafts Fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center P ark. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Holiday Plant Sale with bulbs, house plants, cacti and succulants, carnivorous plants and orchids from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755. 

Holiday Arts Fair at the California College of the Arts from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 5212 Broadway at College Ave. 594-3666. 

American Indian Pow-Wow and Craft Fair from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. in the R Building cafeteria, Merritt College, 12500 Campus Drive, Oakland. Benefits the American Indian Child Resource Center. www.aicrc.org 

Community Arts and Wellness Day with yoga, martial arts, dance classes and more from 2 p.m. to midnight at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Cost is $10-$20. Sponsored by Studio Rasa and Epic Arts. 843-2787. 

Artisan Marketplace from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Belladonna 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

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. 

HOW TO HELP 

Alameda Co unty Community Food Bank’s Annual Food Drive accepts donations of non-perishable food in the red barrel at any Safeway or Albertson’s. 834-3663. www.accfb.org 

November is We Give Thanks Month! Join participating restaurants in supporting the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. For a list of participating restaurants please visit www.bfhp.org  

Firefighters Toy Drive Donate new, unwrapped toys and canned food to any Berkeley fire station. For information call 981-5506. 

Find a Loving Animal Companion at the B erkeley-East Bay Humane Society Adoption Center, 2700 Ninth St. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

›a

Three days after the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board approved construction of the Ed Roberts Campus in South Berkeley, the project has been challenged by a state agency, questioning its fit in a historic area. 

Overriding the pleas of residents worried about parking problems and the intrusion of “airport terminal” architecture in their South Berkeley neighborhood, Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board Monday approved construction of the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC). 

The new facility, named for a noted Berkeley disability rights activist, will house a consortium of organizations serving the needs of the disabled in a modernist two-story building at 3075 Adeline St. 

But California state Historic Preservation Officer Milford Wayne Donaldson sent a pointed letter to Berkeley Planning Director Dan Marks, criticizing the city for failing to respond to a letter he sent 13 months ago challenging the project. 

While the city determined that the project would have no impact on historical resources in the area, the state Office of Historic Preservation “did not concur with the city’s determination, and raised a number of issues and questions,” Donaldson wrote in a Nov. 17 letter. 

“We are concerned about the length of time that has passed since we provided the city with our comments. We are also concerned by the questions raised by the public regarding the city’s planning and environmental review efforts,” he wrote. 

“What is the status of the project? When may we receive a response from the city to our letter of Oct. 21, 2003?” 

Approval by the state agency is critical for the project if they are to receive federal funds, which center officials have said are integral to their plans. 

Jan Garrett, president of the ERC board of directors and executive director of the Center for Independent Living, an affiliated organization, said late Thursday that she was not aware of the letter. 

“I’ll probably be finding out more about it tomorrow,” she said after a reporter read her the document. 

Garrett said ERC had commissioned a study by architectural experts which concluded that the new building wouldn’t conflict with the neighborhood. 

“”We are willing to meet with anyone to resolve the issue,” she said. 

Provided the building wins state approval, she anticipates groundbreaking would take place in late 2006 and completion would follow within two years.  

The center will provide training for the disabled and office space for disability rights, job training and related programs. 

The new structure would replace the Ashby BART Station facility on the eastern side of Adeline with an 80,000-square-foot building a lot bounded by Tremont and Adeline streets on the east and west and Essex and Woolsey streets on the north and south. 

Unlike earlier ZAB meetings, where Ed Roberts supporters packed the meeting rooms, wearing badges dispensed by the organization’s hired PR specialist, the presence at Monday’s ZAB meeting was much more subdued.  

The larger turnout came from neighbors who objected not to the presence of the center in their community, but to its appearance and anticipated parking problems. 

Neighbors said the design failed to fit in with a community dominated by turn of the century and early 20th century homes and commercial buildings—a concern the state agency had also raised. 

“No one’s saying the building shouldn’t be welcoming and open, but there are better designs,” said Erica Cleary, a Prince Street resident who lives less than a block from the site. As Cleary spoke, other neighbors held aloft photos of other buildings in the neighborhood as a contrast. 

“We have a wonderful diversity of designs in our neighborhood. The one thing we don’t have is anything that resembles this design. It doesn’t fit in,” said Adam Cash. 

“My biggest objection is the airline terminal look of the front of the building,” said Toby Holt. “We need a compromise to make it look less modern. Take a look down Adeline and see if there are any other airline terminals.” 

Victoria Ortiz, who lives nearby on Shattuck Avenue, begged ZAB members not to adopt the mitigated negative declaration that would exempt the project from a full-scale Environmental Impact Report. 

“It has too many problems, especially parking,” she said. “The Planning Department has to take into account how many cars are going to be coming into our neighborhood and taking our parking spots.” 

The handicapped plates and placards used by many of the center’s clients and employees are exempt from the two-hour limits in the residential preferred parking zones in the area. 

When it came time for a vote, only ZAB members Dean Metzger and Andy Katz vote against the mitigated negative declaration, with David Blake abstaining, with the other five votes deciding for approval. The vote was 6-2-1. 

Blake also abstained on the vote to approve a use permit for the project, while the rest of the board voted for approval. 

Construction is sometime in the indefinite future, but center officials have said they need the approvals to qualify for additional funds to build the project. 

The project has been strongly endorsed by Mayor Tom Bates, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and others. 

The board also voted to approve an on-site beer and wine license for the planned Adagia Restaurant in Westminster House, a residential hall sponsored by the Presbyterian Church at the corner of College Avenue and Bancroft Way. 

Police and Berkeley Planning Commissioners had approved the sale of low-proof drinks with the stipulation that sales must cease at 10 p.m. and no alcohol may be taken off the premises. 

The restaurant is scheduled to open something next year.

A nationally renowned expert on statistical research and a team of graduate students at UC Berkeley yesterday sounded another alarm bell about the Nov. 2 elections, releasing a study suggesting that irregularities in electronic voting machines in Florida may have awarded hundreds of thousands of “excess” votes to George W. Bush. 

The report, published by the Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team, said Bush picked up 130,000 to 260,000 votes the group’s statistical analysis can’t explain from three heavily Democratic south Florida counties that used touchscreen voting equipment this year.  

The probability of such a discrepancy arising by chance is less than one in a thousand, according to Michael Hout, professor of sociology at the campus, member of the National Academy of Science, and leader of the research team. 

Bush carried Florida by a margin of 380,978 votes over the Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Had the state’s 27 electoral votes gone to Kerry, he would have an Electoral College edge of 279 to 259 for Bush. 

“Our aim is not to attack the 2004 election results per se,” Hout said at a press conference announcing the study. “We’re not a political action committee, not a lobby—we’re just a bunch of researchers who happen to have something we think is important.” 

“Our approach is like a smoke alarm—we’re calling on Florida officials to determine if there’s a fire,” he added. “For the sake of all future elections involving electronic voting, someone must investigate and explain the statistical anomalies in Florida.” 

Ever since the polls closed, the Internet has been abuzz with reports casting doubt on the integrity of the reported vote totals, largely by pointing out what the critics say are discrepancies in some areas between those results and exit polls or party-registration data. The Berkeley team took a different approach, focusing on the increase in support for Bush in each county between 2000 and 2004. 

In addition to results from the last three presidential elections, they collected data for each of Florida’s 67 counties on other variables that might have influenced the results, such as changes in turnout, median income, and Hispanic/Latino population—as well as the voting technology used. Then they performed a multiple-regression analysis, a statistical technique widely used in the social and physical sciences to measure the effects of different variables on quantitative outcomes. 

Following statistical patterns in the counties that didn’t use e-voting, support for President Bush should have decreased by 28,000 in Broward County, for example, but the machines tallied an increase of 51,000 votes—a net gain of 81,000 for Bush, in the study’s terms. 

“No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained,” Hout said. 

The group performed a similar analysis on Ohio’s results, but found no anomalies there. 

The 130,000 figure, according to the study (available at http://ucdata.berkeley.edu, under the “Voting” heading), is the total of unexplained votes for Bush in the 15 Florida counties with e-voting. If it’s assumed that these votes should have been counted for Kerry, the net effect doubles to 260,000. 

The discrepancy was most pronounced in three large and heavily Democratic counties—Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade. In fact, Hout said at yesterday’s press conference, “the size of the discrepancy was proportional to the level of support for Al Gore” in 2000. 

Explaining how the apparent anomalies occurred is “beyond our powers,” Hout said, but in answer to questions at the press conference he mentioned several possibilities: “embedded software glitches,” “passive electro-mechanical problems,” or even “an accumulation of smudges on one area of the touchscreens causing misreads.” 

In addition to Hout, the study was written by three first-year graduate students in sociology at UC Berkeley: Laura Mangels, Jennifer Carlson, and Rachel Best. 

“Jennifer and I were hanging out in a café after the election, feeling really frustrated because all these rumors were flying and no one was presenting any really hard evidence,” said Mangels, 24. “We said, ‘Wouldn’t it be good for someone to test the results using solid statistical methods.’ So on the Saturday night after the election we went over to the computer lab and began entering data.” 

When the results began to emerge, the student took them to Hout—not only because he’s “one of the leading statistical sociologists in the U.S.,” Mangels said, but also because “he’s known as one of the most skeptical people in the department.” Later the findings were reviewed by half a dozen other Berkeley professors, as well as others at Harvard and other universities, according to Mangels. 

“We’ve been back to the lab dozens of times” as the professors suggested additional variables and tests, she said, but “at this point no one can come up with anything else to poke any holes” in their analysis. 

But one elections expert, who asked not to be named because she hadn’t had a chance to read the Berkeley report, said she can think of one factor that’s been left out of most discussion of the Florida vote: the effect of the three major hurricanes that hit Florida this fall, the presidential visits that followed, and voters’ calculations about possible benefits to the state from having the brother of its governor leading the federal government. 

Ted Selker, a former IBM Fellow who is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and MIT director of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project, said he was unimpressed with the Berkeley paper. Noting that it includes no references and that the authors had not observed the Florida balloting first-hand, he said “I just find this paper neither interesting nor believably accurate.” 

Kim Alexander, founder and president of the California Voter Foundation, said “It’s unfortunate that we can’t verify the results in those three counties, because they used equipment that produces no paper trail that can be checked. As long as we have a significant proportion of votes that can’t be verified, we’re just left to speculate.” 

›

As negotiations continue between two state agencies over the cleanup and supervision of Richmond’s heavily polluted Campus Bay, new questions have arisen about an adjoining UC Berkeley-owned site. 

The Daily Planet has learned UC Berkeley officials rejected a 1995 proposal from the state’s strictest toxics regulator to join in a voluntary cleanup of the Richmond Field Station, then turned for a deal to the weaker regulator—the same one now in the process of surrendering its lead role at Campus Bay. 

In doing so, UC officials rejected the oversight of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), an agency staffed with scientific experts and an agenda that includes heavy public involvement in cleanup formulation plans, and signed on with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB), an agency that offers little chance for public participation and minimal expertise. 

Meanwhile, the planned transfer of the adjacent Campus Bay property from the water board to the stronger and stricter DTSC is taking longer than expected while lawyers from both agencies negotiate a handover agreement. 

While UC’s Richmond Field Station and Campus Bay are separately owned, both sites were part of the former Stouffer Metals complex, and the Richmond Field Station also housed a blasting cap factory, which produced mercury contamination. 

According to DTSC records, Hazardous Substances Scientist Remedios V. Sunga sent a letter to Kevin J. Hufferd, senior planner for UC Berkeley’s Physical and Environmental Planning office, on Oct. 20, 1995, inviting the school to sign on with the agency’s Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP). 

“[B]ased on my evaluation of the DTSC files, removal actions should be conducted to eliminate possible exposure pathways at this site for the protection of public health and the environment,” Sunga wrote. “DTSC provides guidance and oversight of the site investigations and cleanup activities through our (VCP) which is a cooperative effort between DTSC and interested parties.” 

Three days later, DTSC testing disclosed high levels of mercury, arsenic and lead in Field Station soil samples and very high levels of arsenic in sediments from the portion of Stege Marsh adjoining the site. 

The university did not respond to the cleanup offer, said Angela Blanchette, DTSC spokesperson. 

Hufferd said he forward the letter to UC Environmental Health and Safety specialist Karl Hans, who was unavailable for comment Thursday. 

Under current California law, anyone who owns a polluted site chooses the regulator which will set remediation standards and oversee the site cleanup. 

Developers can opt either for the water board, which has minimal scientific staffing—not even a toxicologist for the last two years—and little opportunity to public input, or the much stricter DTSC, which has several toxicologists on staff as well as a broad array of other scientific expertise and mandatory requirements to involve the public in all stages of cleanup operations, from planning on through completion. 

In subsequent water board-supervised cleanup operations, contaminated soil from the field station was trucked next door to Campus Bay, a privately owned site then earmarked for the building of a biotech research park. 

At least 350,000 cubic yards of polluted soil and industrial waste, most iron pyrite cinders, was buried beneath a crushed paper and concrete cap at Campus Bay. 

Two biotech buildings were erected at the site, but after the biotech market tanked in the post-9/11 recession, the developer announced new plans calling for the construction of a 1,330-unit housing project. 

The Campus Bay site had been under the regulatory control of the water board until a Nov. 6 legislative hearing exposed serious flaws in the system. 

Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-East Bay) and Select Committee on Environmental Justice Chair Cindy Montanez (D-San Fernando Valley) heard testimony that the RWQCB had no toxicologist on its staff and was not required to take public input in creating toxic waste cleanup plans. 

Initially, California Environmental Protection Agency officials said they anticipated the handover of the upland portion of the Campus Bay site would occur by the end of last week, but legal negotiations were still underway this week. 

Meanwhile, the water board allowed excavation of the marsh to resume Wednesday, after they had been halted Nov. 8, the day EPA External Affairs Rick Brausch met with officials of both agencies to force an agreement on the handover. 

“I’m in shock,” said Sherry Padgett, a leading member of Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development, the citizen’s group which led the public and legal fight for a change in administration at the site. 

The cleanup, conducted by LFR Levine Fricke, an Emeryville firm once headed by James D. Levine, the would-be developer further north in Richmond at Point Molate, includes monitoring for eight metals and two volatile organic compounds. 

Marsh samples tested in 1997-98 revealed the presence of 125 separate potentially hazardous compounds, including 19 metals and 40 or more volatile organic compounds, Padgett said. 

In addition, the records of hazardous wastes underneath the cap include only those from the Campus Bay site, and not those from UC material later buried at the same location, she said. 

“It’s a new nightmare under that cap, and at no point have they tested for everything that’s there,” she said. 

To make a temporary home for the 25,000 yards of marsh muck now being excavated, the cleanup firm uncapped a portion of the buried waste and built a barrier out of the waste to contain the new muck. 

“We have no idea what’s coming our way,” Padgett said. “The exposure standards for each toxin are based on exposure to that substance alone, and not in combination with other materials. There’s no information that tells us about the possible effects of combined exposures.” 

Health risks are more than an abstract concern to Padgett who has worked long hours at the offices of Kray Cabling just to the south of Campus Bay. She has developed two rare forms of cancer and undergone multiple surgeries. Her physicians have told her she had no genetic predispositions to the ailments and said they were probably caused by environmental exposures. 

She’s also worried that under present testing standards, dust samples are only tested for the windiest day of each week. “That’s based on the assumption that all the dust is the same. It doesn’t account for pockets of concentration, which were clearly evident from the earlier tests,” she said. 

The results aren’t available until two-and-half weeks after the samples were collected. 

DTSC officials are meeting with Padgett and other concerned citizens at 10 a.m. Friday (Nov. 19) in the Kray Cabling offices at 1344 S. 49th St., which can be reached by turning west at the Interstate 580 Bayview Avenue exit, then turning west at the first stop sign (Seaport Avenue) followed by a right turn at 49th Street. 

The meeting is open to the public. 

Hancock and Montanez are working on new legislation, which they plan to introduce in January, which would clarify the role of the regional water boards and DTSC in toxic cleanup operations, said Michael Mendez, a consultant to the Select Committee on Environmental Justice. 

“We’re researching for the legislature and we will be working with stakeholders” in formulating proposed laws, he said.?

Foes of the nine-story high-rise apartment—or is it condo?—and theater complex planned for Center Street filed a last-minute appeal to the City Council Wednesday afternoon seeking to block the project. 

Berkeley Senior Planner Greg Powell, who has handled the project for the city, declined to comment on the appeal Thursday. “We just got it at 4 p.m. yesterday and we haven’t had time to review it.” 

He said planning staff would prepare a response for the City Council, which would take up the hearing in January. 

“There are a number of points raised and we’ll have to see how they relate to the actions taken by the Zoning Adjustments Board,” Powell said. ZAB issued the final approvals for the project on Oct. 14.  

The Seagate Building will be the tallest new downtown structure in decades, though it’s three stories shorter than the hotel UC Berkeley wants to build just one block to the east.  

Former Planning Commission Chair Zelda Bronstein submitted the document to Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilmembers on behalf of herself and the other members of Citizens for Downtown Berkeley, a new citizens’ action group. 

Bronstein said eight members worked on the appeal. 

City officials allowed the project developer to add four floors above the maximum five allowed in the Downtown Plan because they ruled that the developer, Seagate Properties of Marin County, qualified under two sets of bonuses, one statewide and the other unique to Berkeley. 

The inclusionary bonus awards extra size for residential buildings that include units reserved for low-income tenants, and the city awards additional size for structures that include space dedicated for cultural uses. 

The Seagate project qualified for both, with the cultural space dedicated to the Berkeley Repertory Theater and a hallway art gallery. 

Bronstein’s appeal challenges the Zoning Adjustments Board’s issuance of a demolition permit for the four existing buildings on the site—2041-2067 Center St.—as well as its mitigated negative declaration and use permit for a project the group contends requires a full Environmental Impact Report. 

The ZAB approvals authorized the leveling of four existing buildings, construction of a 181,151-square-foot tower opposite the new Vista College site with 149 apartments; 5,765-square-feet of ground floor retail; 12,067 feet of cultural space, and 160 underground parking spaces in two levels. 

The project of Seagate Properties, a San Rafael development firm with real estate interest throughout the West, the structure would tower four stories above the five-floor limit specified in the city’s downtown plan. 

The opponents also laid out 12 objections, each of which they contend would be grounds for a reversal: 

• That city calculations which permitted the construction of the additional four floors were wrong, because they included ground floor space. 

• That the project violates the Downtown Plan and city zoning ordinances by counting the cultural bonus space as part of the building’s basic height before the inclusionary bonus was added on. The appeal cites a table in the zoning ordinance (23E.68.070) which establishes the base height without the inclusion of either bonus. 

• That the approval citation that the project was “consistent with the Downtown Plan” is erroneous and that the findings included no basis for violating the downtown limit of five stories. 

• That the project violates no fewer than 21 city General Plan policies. 

• That the project misuses the General Plan, especially by ignoring Downtown Development Standards and height limits. 

• That the project was approved without the requisite permits for cultural and arts uses. 

• That the interpretation and application of density bonus are flawed. 

• That included parking spaces are far higher than required by the zoning ordinance and would result in increased automobile traffic in the downtown. 

• That the location and attributes of the inclusionary housing units violate city standard. 

• That the city failed to include in their requirements provisions for maintaining affordability should the developer turn the units into condos. 

• That the project violates the aesthetic and historic context of the area, and 

• That the project disregards the city’s creek and watershed policies.

Faced with the possible loss of their all-important accreditation, the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley is confronting the possibility of a one-day walkout early next month by virtually all of its employees. 

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) presented the hospital with a stinging critique of the hospital after a team of investigators examined the hospital earlier this month. 

The JCAHO findings come at a bad time for the hospital, which faces an impending strike by members of Local 250 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents most hospital and medical center employees except registered nurses (RNs) and physicians. 

SEIU employees in Sutter’s other 11 Northern California hospitals have either voted or are scheduled to hold votes for a one-day walkout early next month. 

Members of the California Nurses Association, which represents registered nurses, voted Wednesday and Thursday on a walkout in support of SEIU’s job action at five Sutter hospitals including Alta Bates in Berkeley and Summit Medical Center in Oakland. Results are expected today (Friday.) 

“We’re very concerned about Sutter’s continual foot-dragging on safety standards and their lack of compliance with the minimum staffing levels set by the state,” said CNA spokesperson Charles Idelson. 

Alta Bates spokesperson Carolyn Kemp denied the allegations. “How could we possibly not be in compliance with state staffing standards? We’ve met or exceeded whatever staffing ratios the state requires.” 

The walkout would involve 2,700 RNs at Sutter hospitals in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, San Leandro and Vallejo in addition to the 4000 SEIU members. 

SEIU members are seeking two key concessions from Sutter. First is a voice in setting staffing levels, and second is the establishment of a training fund so workers can upgrade their skills and advance in their jobs.  

“Every other hospital chain in Northern California has accepted these standards, including Kaiser and Catholic Healthcare West,” said a union spokesperson. 

“The employees do have a voice in staffing,” said Kemp. “They participate in the committee that sets staffing levels, and there’s a provision for arbitration by a third party in case of disputes.” 

Kemp said the only dispute about training funds involved who would control them. 

“Maintaining a pool of people with the skills to work in the modern healthcare environment is very important to us,” she said. “We currently have in place a tuition reimbursement fund of up to $1,200 per employee, but the SEIU wants us to put our money in their pot, which could go anywhere they choose. We want out money to go to our own people in our own community.” 

In response to a strike, Alta Bates “would take whatever steps are necessary to maintain continuity of quality care for our patients,” Kemp said. 

“We may have to bring in replacement staff for as many as five days, though any staff member who works the first day can work as many days as they like,” she said. 

The initial accreditation report won’t be ready for another 10 to 14 days, and when it’s issued the hospital will have 10 to 14 days to reply. 

“We’ll be able to provide additional information we know will be very helpful,” Kemp said. “Everyone should hang their hat on the final report. We’re not going to lose our accreditation.”  

JCAHO is a private, industry-funded organization whose seal of approval is a prerequisite for receiving Medicare and MediCal funding, a major source of capital for most of the nations hospitals and HMOs. 

Kemp said none of the issues involve patient care. 

However, a Nov. 8 memorandum to hospital staff from Alta Bates President and CEO Warren Kirk warned that “The surveyors indicated that, unless we can successfully clarify and refute some recommendations, we could be at risk to receive a preliminary denial of accreditation.” 

The memo acknowledged failures in the patient care documentation process.  

The public has no access to JCAHO reports other than the final document, which offers no specifics other than numerical scores. Final reports are issued after organizations have reviewed the initial reports and implemented or challenged the findings and remedies in the initial report. 

Earlier drafts, which cite in detail the specific problems encountered by the inspection team, are never made public and—because the agency is private—they are immune from either the federal Freedom of Information Act or the California Public Records Act. 

The final report notes only the broad areas where failures were found and contains revised scores based on the institution’s ability to correct problems found. 

“It’s virtually impossible to flunk,” said CNA spokesperson Charles Idelson. 

The union official said Alta Bates had kicked four of their members out of the meeting to review the preliminary report. All four were quality care liaison RNs, he said. 

“What are Alta Bates and Summit hiding?” Idelson asked. “Though the hospital says there weren’t any patient care violations, we believe there were, and the public deserves to know what was in that report.” 

Problems with patient documentation were discovered three years ago when an Oct. 26, 2001 JCAHO review issued the lowest possible passing score, a “5,” for availability of patient-specific information. The rating were raised to the highest “1” score on May 8, 2002, following a compliance review. 

A July 22, 2003, survey of the Alta Bates laboratory resulted in an The hospital received another “5” for accreditation participation requirements, which was raised to a “1” on Dec. 16 of the same year. The same survey resulted in a “3” rating (”acceptable compliance, least deficient”) for general quality control systems, raised to a “1” on March 8 of this year. 

The full JCAHO commission will take up the initial report and the hospital’s responses after the hospital responds, which Kemp says will be in time for the scheduled Jan. 27 session.

Residents who live just south of the UC Berkeley campus said Monday that a plan which incorporates new land use guidelines for their neighborhoods included too many concessions to UC Berkeley, and that the initial study of the planned environmental revie w ignored earthquake risks and failed to identify historic buildings. 

Their comments came at a public meeting on the Southside Plan, which the Planning Commission unanimously approved last July after six years of debate. The meeting, referred to as a scoping session, is required under California law before the plan undergoes a lengthy and expensive environmental review process that is estimated to cost the city $329,000. 

City planning staff and LSA Associates, the city’s consultant on the environmental study, conducted the meeting. 

The plan, which must be approved by the City Council, will set guidelines for development, traffic and transportation in a roughly 30-block area south of campus. The area is currently home to about 12,500 residents, more tha n half of whom are UC Berkeley students. The planning district runs from Bancroft Way on the north and Dwight Way on the south between Fulton and Prospect streets. 

After the Planning Commission agreed to changes sought by UC officials last year, the city had hoped that the university would adhere to the plan and chip in for the draft environmental impact report (DEIR), but the university has declined on both counts.  

UC Berkeley, as a state entity, is not required to follow the plan, but has pledged to use it as a guide. 

In response, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district includes the affected area, proposed that the city study a prior version of the Southside Plan that didn’t include concessions made to the university.  

“That was the people’s Southside Plan,” Worthington said. “The public deserves that to be a legal option for the city.” 

After studying that previous proposal, the city could legally then chose to adopt it instead of the plan approved by the Planning Commission. 

At the unive rsity’s urging, the Planning Commission last July agreed to redesignate three residential lots owned by the university for a mix of housing or administrative uses. 

UC Berkeley has chipped in for the costs of developing the plan as required under a “memor andum of understanding,” which both sides agreed to when residents opposed the university’s expansion of the Haas Pavilion, where the UC Berkeley basketball teams play. The agreement, signed in 1997, does not require the university to abide by the plan or pay for the DEIR. 

The DEIR must study the proposed Southside Plan, as well as three alternatives chosen by the city and an alternative that would preserve the current land use rules. Currently, LSA, which will draft the DEIR, has not outlined the altern ative proposals to be studied. That was one of several concerns presented at the scoping session by John English, a retired planner and South Berkeley resident. 

“For people like me who want to influence the process, it is really important to have an idea of what they plan to study,” he said. 

The Draft Southside Plan calls for more intensive office and housing development along Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way and reducing the size of new development on nearby residential streets. It also supports the i dea of a bus rapid transit system serving Telegraph Avenue. 

English called on the consultants to “fine-tune” the proposed zoning requirements so a new state law that takes effect next year granting developers additional density if they include affordable housing units in their projects doesn’t increase the intended size of new buildings. Additionally, he asked that the consultants study the historic significance of buildings in the area that have not yet been landmarked. 

Many of the residents in attenda nce said the plan, as proposed, would be a disaster in an earthquake. 

“An earthquake is a major life and death issue,” said Jurgen Aust, a certified planner. “This is the densest area in the city, not to plan for earthquakes would be negligence.” 

Reside nts also raised concerns that the city wouldn’t enforce new development codes and that the parts of the plan, like its call for attracting more families to the area but not providing additional parking spaces, were contradictory.  

The DEIR must address t he concerns raised at the meeting. Residents will get a second opportunity to comment on the issue at a Planning Commission meeting scheduled for Nov. 29. The deadline for the city to receive written comments is Dec. 6. City Planner Janet Homrighausen anticipated that a DEIR could be completed by the spring. 

s

Student Brutally Beaten, Reward Offered 

Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying the two men who beat and kicked a 23-year-old student unconscious early Saturday morning. 

Thomas Osseck III, a senior in UC Berkeley’s American Studies program was attacked as he was walking near the Euclid Avenue and Virginia Street at about 3:30 a.m., reports Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Osseck’s family in Orange County and fellow students are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the assailants, said David Friedberg, who is acting as the family’s spokesperson. 

The young man was beaten so badly he didn’t recover consciousness until Wednesday. “He’s awake and seems to recognize people, but he’s still unable to communicate,” Friedberg said. 

Because the robbers emptied his pockets, police were unable to identify the beating victim until he mumbled his name Monday morning. 

“He’s an incredibly nice guy,” said his friend. “He was beaten so badly that the police said they might’ve killed him except for the presence of a witness.” 

Police said the two attackers were African American males, one heavyset and approximately six feet tall who was wearing dark pants and a white jacket with a hood, the other with a medium build approximately 5’9” tall and wearing a dark hooded jacket and dark pants. 

Anyone with information is asked to call the BPD Robbery Detail at 981-5742 or e-mail police@berkeley.ci.us. Callers can remain anonymous if they chose.  

Terrified Woman Flags Down Help 

Berkeley police arrested a 36-year-old man after a woman passenger in his car flagged down officers on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue near Allston Way. 

When the woman told police she’d been threatened and held in the car following a dispute that began in the Berkeley Marina, officers arrested her partner on charges of domestic violence, false imprisonment and making terrorist threats.  

Pair Popped for Heist 

Berkeley police arrested two 22-year-old men Sunday for the strongarm cash robbery of a 22-year-old woman near the corner of Allston Way and 9th Street just before 8 p.m. Sunday. 

Backpack Boosters Busted 

An alert Berkeley resident spotted a pair of teenagers strong-arming a backpack away from a young woman in the 1900 block of Grant Street at 7:47 p.m. Wednesday. 

Officers arrived in time to nab the two youths, recover the backpack and escort the robbers to new quarters in Juvenile Hall. 

Elderly Woman Returned Home  

A Korean-speaking woman police found lost and confused in Berkeley Monday was returned home Tuesday after callers responding to press reports alerted her family in San Francisco. 

Identifying the woman was complicated by the fact she carried no identification and spoke only her native language, said Officer Okies.

Flames Damage Home 

Responding to a 9:40 a.m. call reporting smoke pouring out the rear window of a home at 1310 Ordway St. Thursday, Berkeley firefighters arrived to find the dwelling ablaze. 

After knocking down flames that heavily damaged two rooms of the structure, investigators determined that the fire was accidental, caused by a space heater. 

No one was home at the time of the fire, said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. 

Damage was estimated at $70,000, he said.

An item originally placed on the non-controversial consent calendar became the biggest topic of discussion at this week’s Berkeley Unified School District board meeting, as board members sharply questioned student achievement improvement plans for several of the district’s schools. 

“There’s still a lot of work to be done to bring these plans up to what I think they should be doing,” said Board Director Joaquin Rivera, who pulled the item out from the consent calendar for discussion. “Some of these sites are staying in their comfort zones. We need to push them if we are going to close the student achievement gap.” 

Among other things, the site improvement plans track pupil achievement and progress toward meeting academic goals, progress in reducing dropout rates, expenditures per pupil and types of services funded, and progress toward reducing class sizes and teaching loads. 

BUSD’s student achievement gap was a key issue in the recent school board elections, with challengers Karen Hemphill and Kalima Rose charging that the district had not done enough to close achievement levels between the district’s white students and its African-American and Latino students. At Longfellow Middle School in 2003, African-American student average state test scores lagged more than 250 points behind white student scores (611 to 871). At Rosa Parks Elementary, white student scores averaged almost 250 points more than Latino students and 300 points more than African-American students. In the same year at Berkeley High, white student scores averaged around 300 points higher than both Latino and African-American students. 

While the board eventually unanimously agreed to accept the school site plans, they did so only after receiving assurances from Superintendent Michelle Lawrence that changes will be made in the future in the way the site plans are developed. 

Lawrence called the board’s concerns “reasonable requests that should be happening,” but cautioned that because the plans in the past have not been used to “drive change in the schools” but have merely been documents designed to assure compliance with state and federal regulations, “this is not something we need to tweak a bit. This involves some large conceptual changes, and that doesn’t happen overnight.” 

The superintendent said she would meet with the district’s principals and bring a report back to the board in late January or early February. 

Annual student achievement site plans for each of Berkeley’s 15 public schools are required by the California Department of Education, which the department defines as a “plan of actions to be taken to raise the academic performance of students and improve the school's educational program.” 

District Director of Curriculum and Instruction Neil Smith said that while the plans were originally designed merely to fill state and federal mandates, “we’re trying to get away from that. We want to stop the practice of merely writing a plan and then putting it on a shelf. We don’t want these things to be shelf-fillers.” 

This year’s school site improvement plans, written by the school principals and site councils, were originally submitted to the board in late June, but were returned to the schools for reworking. Berkeley High School and Willard Middle School are still working on their revised plans.  

But board members still expressed displeasure with the revised plans, with Rivera complaining that “some of the school sites seem to have set the same goals, even though they’re coming from different situations; there seems to be a little bit of boilerplate language.”  

Director Shirley Issell added that the plans did not include “goals for all students at all schools,” and that there was no district-wide standard to judge whether or not individual schools had reached their goals. 

Both Issell and Director Nancy Riddle and asked why there had been no evaluation of how the school sites’ achievements this year had actually stacked up to the goals set in last year’s plans. Lawrence agreed that “they should have gone through an evaluation of last year’s results before they worked on a new plan. But that didn’t happen.” 

Smith explained that the student state-mandated test data necessary for such evaluation is not available until August, long after the June due-date for the plans. 

Only Director Terry Doran expressed qualified satisfaction with the site plans, saying he was “very impressed; I think they are realistic. I don’t think the staff is taking this lightly.” Doran added that he was “comfortable with the plans as they are now, with the understanding that we need to incorporate some of these suggestions in future plans. We need to be realistic as a Board as to what is possible at this time.” 

In other action, the school board: 

• Appointed Berkeley resident Roy Doolan to fill the position of retiring Commissioner Carolyn Weinberger on the District Personnel Commission. 

• Approved BUSD’s food policy “to provide guidance to school personnel in the areas of nutrition, health, physical activity, and food service.” Included was a specific item, recommended by the Berkeley PTA Council, banning the sale of candy and sodas at elementary or middle school sponsored events or fundraising activities, and limiting the distribution of cookies and sweets at such events to be sold by adults only, and then only with the permission of school principals. 

• Approved a resolution declaring that the district’s students have sufficient and adequate textbooks and instructional materials. No one from the public offered testimony at a public hearing held on this matter at the meeting. 

• Passed, on first reading, a board policy on conflict of interest recommended by Superintendent Lawrence. Lawrence said that while the board had been operating under existing state conflict of interest laws, and no complaints were pending against any board members, such a policy was necessary to put the district in compliance with Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) recommendations. 

The policy will come back to the next board meeting for final consideration. The board indicated that while accepting the superintendent’s language as necessary to meet the FCMAT requirements, after final passage, it would refer the policy to a board subcommittee for possible tweaking and additions.?

Right up until Christmas Eve, Berkeley fire stations and the Public Safety Center at Center and Milvia streets will be accepting new, unwrapped toys for distribution to children in need. 

The drive is jointly sponsored by the department, the Berkeley Fire Fighters Association and the Marine Corps’ Toy for Tots program. 

The Firefighters Association and the Berkeley Lions Club are sponsoring another drive, this one to provide food for low-income seniors in Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville. 

Canned meats, beans, peanut butter, hearty soups, pasta, fruit juices, rice and vegetables are especially welcomed and may be dropped off at the same locations as the toys through Christmas Day. 

Baskets for seniors will be prepared for delivery on the 18th, and food received in the following week will be distributed to Berkeley homeless shelters. 

For more information on the food drive, call John Tarascio at 981-5520. 

—Richard Brenneman›

Among the hundreds of cable television stations available to Berkeley subscribers, only one has a prime time lineup that includes Jesus Loves His People followed by The Dr. Susan Block Show: Masturbation With The Pope. 

It’s BETV and today (Friday) its parent network Berkeley Community Media (BCM) is celebrating 10 years on the air. 

Begun in 1994 in a makeshift studio below the Shattuck Cinemas programming about 12 hours a day on one station, BCM now operates two stations that carry programming nearly 24 hours a day from its studio at Berkeley High School. One station BETV, channel 28, serves as Berkeley’s community public access station. The other, CTV, channel 33, is the government access station with a steady diet of public meetings, including the City Council, Zoning Adjustment Board, Rent Board and School Board. 

“We’re one of the few places around where people can come in and have a voice,” said BCM Executive Director Brian Scott.  

Just how many people are tuning in is unknown. Neilson, the company that tracks television viewership, doesn’t compile ratings for public access channels. BCM’s potential viewership is hindered by its hometown’s lukewarm reception to cable television. Scott said Berkeley has about 19,000 cable subscribers. That amounts to slightly more than one-in-three households, about half of the national average. For anyone without cable, BCM shows are simulcast on the network’s webpage www.betv.org. 

Getting a regular show requires joining BCM for a $40 annual membership and then enrolling in production classes that cost between $20 and $40.  

“I just love it,” said Piccola Evans, a Berkeley native who, with two weeks of training, debuted her interview program The Coco Mo Show in September. “My goal is to be a fraction of what Oprah Winfrey is. She’s my role model.” 

Berkeley resident and licensed physician assistant George Pearson said his long-running interview show Education Is The Best Medicine is designed to better inform fellow African Americans about current trends in health care. “Many black people are fearful of medical breakthroughs; they don’t want to be the guinea pig,” he said. “My show lets them make informed decisions.” 

Two shows are well established as the most controversial: Frank Moore’s Unlimited Possibilities, a variety show with explicit themes, and the Dr. Susan Block Show,” featuring a lingerie-clad sex therapist. 

In 2002, the City Council voted to move shows with adult content that had been aired after 10 p.m. until after midnight, but then backed off after the ACLU threatened a lawsuit.  

LA Wood, a local videographer who dropped his BCM membership last year, said the Block show, which is based out of Los Angeles, symbolized a more pervasive problem at BCM than sexually explicit content. 

“There has never been enough Berkeley-based programing,” he said, noting that a Berkeley resident merely has to sponsor a show from out of town to get it on the air.  

Wood blamed what he saw as BCM’s failings on a lack of financial support from the City Council, which he said has never adequately funded the network and promoted government access programing at the expense of public access. 

As part of an agreement reached with the Comcast Cable, the local cable provider, Berkeley gets 4 percent of cable revenues and then transfers about 40 percent of the proceeds to run BCM with the rest going to the city’s general fund. The deal, which expires in 2007, provides BCM with an average operating budget of about $300,000 in addition to a $900,000 equipment grant from the cable company. 

The contract is not as lucrative as deals reached by other California cities, and has left BCM with outdated equipment for much of its existence and a minuscule budget for training local producers, Scott said. 

However, he contended that under his four-year stewardship of BCM, Berkeley-based programming roughly doubled and now comprises between 60 to 70 percent of all shows on BETV. 

Scott said he would like to bring in younger producers, but that has proved to be a challenge. He said the UC Berkeley Film department has been inactive and that groups of university students who inquired about producing shows never followed through. Also, he said, BCM is not able to broadcast feature length local productions that are aimed at film festivals, because festivals prohibit prior screenings of submissions. 

BCM’s future will hinge on the dealings between the city and Comcast, Scott said. Even though the cable giant has sought to exclude public access franchises from recent deals with other cities, Scott said he remained confident that Berkeley would retain the stations and that BCM would continue to make strides. 

“We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go,” he said. 



With the help of tens of thousands of people like me, the Democrats and 527 Democrat-leaning organizations achieved their goals on Nov. 2: high voter turnout, millions of doorbells rung, a huge and enthusiastic army mobilized to defeat the president. Yet, as an old adage goes, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.”  

What, if anything, did our highly publicized efforts accomplish? I’ve been reflecting on my experience since the results came in.  

I volunteered in two states.  

Nevada, a highly-contested swing state, was not far from my California home, so I signed up with a Sierra Club group for a mid-October weekend of campaigning there. In Plumbers and Pipefitters Hall in Reno, we joined some 200 lawyers, retirees, union members and students.  

The guru of getting out the vote, longtime organizer Steve Rosenthal, gave the crowd an impassioned stem-winder: “The Republicans put up barriers to voting and it’s your job to take them down!” he cried. “The future of the free world is in your hands!”  

Out we went, armed with clipboards, precinct maps, lists of names and our memorized spiel. Up and down the streets of Reno we knocked on the targeted doors, urging people to vote. As the day went on, I found that many people on my list were annoyed, having already been bombarded with phone calls, literature, and personal visits from other like-minded groups such as MoveOn.org. Other people were encouraging. Driving home, I hoped my efforts had done some good.  

Two weeks later, because Pennsylvania was an important state where I have relatives, I flew to Philadelphia to volunteer for Election Protection, a coalition of more than 50 organizations ranging from the NAACP and the League of Women Voters to Rock the Vote. On election day, the multi-million dollar coalition effort sent out an army of 25,000 volunteers divided into teams of two or three to selected “high risk” polling places in 17 states—targeting minority communities where, in past elections, voter intimidation had taken place or was suspected.  

Along with about 2,500 others, I attended a final training session in Philadelphia the evening before election day. Our mission: to make sure that every voter cast a ballot. If a person was turned away, we had cell phones with which to contact attorneys. We had an 800 number to locate people’s polling places. We were to watch for anything that could intimidate voters, like dark-suited men with earpieces hanging around and looking like law enforcement.  

A spirited young organizer took the stage. He asked us to remember the old Westerns where a beleaguered outpost is about to surrender when—tarant tara—a trumpet sounds and the cavalry rides to the rescue. We volunteers, he said, were the cavalry, riding to the rescue of democracy. Except he pronounced it “calvary.” He had us repeat, as he ginned up the crowd’s energy, “The calvary is coming! The calvary is coming!”  

At 7:30 a.m. on election day, I arrived at my assigned polling place in a quiet housing project in a predominantly black area, teamed with two young black men—one a lawyer from D.C. and the other a fellow who lived nearby.  

We were not alone. Three older black ladies stationed there by the local Democratic Party handed out fliers urging votes for the Democratic ticket. They knew pretty much every one in the neighborhood, greeting voters with hugs and jokes, talking about their families, answering questions. They had been working elections for decades.  

The ladies were heavily outnumbered by outsiders: besides we three from Election Protection, there was an observer from a labor union, and two young black women lawyers who had traveled from New York for the Kerry campaign. From time to time during the day, four other nonpartisan watchdogs, a few more Kerry people and a pair of Republican attorneys stopped by.  

Despite the Democrat and nonpartisan superiority in numbers, the Republicans had the organizing edge. They had arranged for two certified poll watchers to be stationed inside the polling place, equipped with clickers so they could keep a running count of voters and lists of first-time voters, who could be challenged if they failed to present proper identification. Democrats had neither certified poll watchers nor lists of first-time voters, nor a running vote count.  

For the most part, voting proceeded uneventfully. Rarely did anyone have to wait more than a few minutes. On the few occasions when a prospective voter had a problem—name not on the list, no ID, etc.—the person was instantly surrounded by six or eight volunteers desperately eager to set things right. I thought to myself, “We may be the most intimidating bunch here, swamping the very people we are trying to help.”  

The day passed slowly. In mid-afternoon a garbage truck lumbered by, a large worker hanging on at the back. As it passed, he shouted, “Bush goin’ kill us all!”  

At the end of the day, we said our goodbyes and went home.  

Despite my efforts, Nevada went for Bush. Pennsylvania went for Kerry. Perhaps our presence in that Philadelphia precinct helped to prevent skullduggery and fraud. In our polling place, we did assist four or five voters to cast ballots and we directed a few others to their proper voting sites. But I ended up feeling that a vast amount of money and volunteer time had been expended, for minimal results. Those three black ladies at our polling place had the situation well in hand; they knew their community, and they were far more effective than the dozen or so outsiders who, for a day, stood around on the sidewalk with clipboards and cell phones and very, very little to do.  

Participating in Campaign 2004 gave me the satisfaction of working with others on an important mission. But that glow was short-lived, as the reality of the election results soon smacked me in the face. Looking back, I feel that I was part of a venture that was well-intentioned and somehow off the mark—a foot soldier following leaders whose battle plans turned out to be defective. 

Eve Pell is a writer in Mill Valley. 

?

The City Council chambers could have been mistaken for a flower shop Tuesday as a line of well-wishers—at one point extending nearly the length of the hall—heaped praise and bouquets on retiring councilmembers Maudelle Shirek, Miriam Hawley and Margaret Breland. 

While all three women received an equal share of floral arrangements, the loudest and longest ovation followed farewell remarks from Shirek, who marked the end a 20-year run on the council. 

“I want you to continue the struggle to make this a better world,” the 93-year-old councilmember implored the packed house. 

Shirek, an icon of the civil rights movement, once battled housing discrimination in Berkeley, introduced a recently freed Nelson Mandela to a crowd of over 60,000 at the Oakland Coliseum, and continues to prepare and serve food at a senior center she helped found. 

While Hawley and Breland can’t match Shirek’s length of service, all three councilmembers leave a legacy on a council where alliances have grown more fluid and relations more cordial than the one Shirek first joined in 1984. 

Don Jelinek, who was elected the same year as Shirek, said she came into her own as a councilmember two years later when the progressives saw their majority reduced from seven votes to one. 

Although Shirek hasn’t been as vocal during council debates in recent years, Jelinek recalled one instance in 1987 when Shirek wouldn’t stop talking until she carried the day. With only four votes in favor of a proposal to accept state money to help bring homeless services into the Veteran’s Building, Jelinek said he and Shirek staged a rare filibuster. They prolonged the debate for hours until Councilmember Fred Weeks changed his vote and secured passage of the bill. 

“It never would have happened without Maudelle’s moral force,” Jelinek said in a Wednesday interview. 

In 1988 Shirek joined a Berkeley delegation on a visit to Palestine, right at the onset of the first Intifada. 

“I remember everyone being half asleep and Maudelle leading us down dark alleyways in Gaza telling us not to be afraid,” said Barbara Lubin, executive director of The Middle East Children Alliance. 

Shirek’s passion for global justice didn’t always sit well with residents of her council district, several of whom have complained that her office neglected their local concerns. On Tuesday, however, representatives of the LeConte Neighborhood Association, which previously had included several critics, offered Shirek a bouquet. 

“We feel so lucky to have had such a treasure right around the corner from us,” said LNA member Pam Speich. 

Elected to a stridently divided council in 2000, Councilmember Hawley foreshadowed the blurring of the progressive versus moderate divide that had been the hallmark of Berkeley politics since the 1970s. Hawley, a former PTA president and AC Transit director, remains the only candidate ever endorsed both by the Berkeley Democratic Club, the organization representing political moderates, and the progressive Berkeley Citizens’ Action. 

Since voters elected Tom Bates as mayor in 2002, Hawley helped the mayor form a potent centrist coalition on the council, at times angering stalwarts on both sides of the political divide, but pleasing those who sought a more cordial political discourse in the city. 

“She has been a calming influence on the City Council,” said Public Arts Commissioner David Snippen. Hawley has also overseen the transformation of her Council District 5 from being aligned with the moderate camp to one which produces deal makers. Her successor Laurie Capitelli, endorsed by the BDC, came several votes shy of also being endorsed by BCA. 

Councilmember Spring praised Hawley for taking a softer line on affordable housing and rent control than other councilmembers who represent large portions of the Berkeley hills. 

Margaret Breland’s legacy from her eight years on the council can be measured in dollars and cents. “She brought home the bacon,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “South and West Berkeley had been getting screwed for years and she said ‘you guys are going to give us our fair share or I’m not cooperating.’” 

“That was just a threat,” Breland said with a smile after Tuesday’s council meeting.  

Marty Lynch, executive director of Berkeley-based Lifelong Medical Care, said Breland fought to secure his group an emergency $400,000 allocation to finance the construction of the Over 60 Health Clinic in her district. Lynch said that Breland, a nurse, was also the force behind the South and West Berkeley Health Forums that met and later became the community health action teams after a city report showed wide disparities in health and longevity between minorities in South and West Berkeley and the rest of the city. 

Homeless advocate Michael Diehl said that Breland, a devout Christian, proved to be a reliable vote for the rights of Berkeley’s homeless. Recalling a proposal to prohibit the homeless from squatting on city sidewalks, on which Breland cast the deciding vote, Diehl told her Tuesday, “You said you heard from God to vote no and I’m so glad you did.” 

During her farewell speech, Breland gave special thanks to Councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Linda Maio and Maio’s former aide Calvin Fong for helping her first get elected in 1996. While Breland was often seen as a reliable vote for Maio on key matters, Councilmember Dona Spring said she believed Breland’s frequent support for Maio’s positions stemmed more from her own political convictions rather than any sense of gratitude towards Maio. 

Breland, who has battled cancer and heart disease that kept her away from council meetings for several months, gave special thanks to Shirek, who visited her house often to deliver freshly prepared meals. Speaking to Shirek Tuesday, Breland joked that it took her three years but she had finally learned to decipher what the councilmember meant when she, instead of giving a clear answer to a question, often offered her trademark response, “It’s interesting”. 

Moments later Shirek addressed the audience and lamented that since she was first elected by a the entire voting public, the city had “fractured” itself politically into homogeneous political districts. “As I say, it’s interesting.” 

?

The City Council Tuesday voted (7-1, Olds, no) to grant one of the city’s biggest nonprofit developers half of an emergency funding request as it struggles to survive a federal investigation. 

Jubilee Restoration Inc. will receive $13,000 of a $26,000 annual grant that the city had previously earmarked for an outreach coordinator at Jubilee’s homeless youth drop-in center. The money will now go to help the organization sustain itself while it answers a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report that cited Jubilee for nepotism and misallocating federal funds that should have gone to its homeless youth program.  

Berkeley had withheld this year’s grant because Jubilee failed to file reports on time showing how it spent last year’s allocation.  

The city will hold on to the remaining half of the grant to spend on services for homeless youth in 2005. HUD froze payment on a $121,633 annual grant to Jubilee, pending completion of the investigation. The HUD grant had required that the city fund $26,000 towards the program as a local cash match to secure the federal funding.  

Citing the experience of the Berkeley-based Jobs Consortium, which is on the brink of collapse after HUD also froze its funding earlier this year, Housing Director Steve Barton had recommended the council give Jubilee the full $26,000. 

“We’re asking you not to allow HUD’s finding to result in the immediate death of the organization,” said Barton, who added that Jubilee officials told him that the nonprofit was nearly out of cash and would have to lay off staff it needs to deal with the HUD investigation.  

If HUD is ultimately not satisfied with the organization’s response, it could withdraw funding both for Jubilee’s community projects, which also include a home for recent parolees, and its development arm, which is planning to build 110-unit affordable housing complex at 2612 San Pablo Avenue. 

Barton said Jubilee, which has delivered an initial response to HUD’s charges, was already in the process of shelving the homeless youth drop-in center, whose effectiveness has long been questioned.  

Pressed by Councilmember Linda Maio on Jubilee’s performance, Barton replied, “I am aware from reports from our staff that there have been turnover issues and problems with gaps in services.” 

Councilmember Betty Olds, who favored denying Jubilee any city funding, said, “There as been a lot of talk for a long time that their operations have been inefficient.” 

Racing to Jubilee’s defense was Councilmember Margaret Breland, who maintained that the group “deserved a chance to clear its name.” 

In its report released last month, HUD alleged Jubilee of numerous violations including transferring money from HUD accounts to pay for an office luncheon and hiring relatives of board members for paid positions in the organization. The grant was intended to pay for three full-time counselors beginning in 2002, but as of October, 2003, Jubilee records showed only one position had been filled. 

If Jubilee is not exonerated, city officials are hoping they can use the remainder of its grant to leverage HUD money for a different local program that serves homeless youth. 

Also at Tuesday’s session, which was nearly entirely devoted to farewell ceremonies for departing councilmembers Maudelle Shirek, Miriam Hawley and Margaret Breland, the council voted 7-1 (Wozniak, no) to charge Sunday fees at the Oxford Parking Lot starting Dec. 12. Additionally, city firefighters and members of several community groups that opposed new taxes urged the council to restore the ladder truck it closed during evening hours to help balance the budget. 

As I worked getting out the vote in Boulder, Colo. on Nov. 2, I received early exit poll data showing Kerry ahead in key states. Indeed, when the Colorado polls closed, all indications favored the Democrats. What troubles me about the final results is that they greatly varied from the exit polls. 

It’s not like exit polling is an unproven technology. Historically American exit polls have been very accurate; so reliable that international institutions use exit polling to validate election results in emerging democracies such as Georgia and Afghanistan. 

In the 2004 presidential election, two organizations conducted exit polls: the National Election Pool, which merged the facilities of Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, and Brigham Young University, which conducts surveys in Utah. 

The 2004 BYU exit polls accurately predicted the final Utah outcome; they had Bush at 70.8 percent and Kerry at 26.4 percent where the actual result was Bush 71.1 percent and Kerry 26.4 percent. 

In non-swing states the exit polls conducted by the National Election Poll group closely tracked the final tallies; for example, in Missouri, the exit polls predicted the result as 46 percent Kerry and 54 percent Bush where the final result was 46 percent Kerry and 53 percent Bush. 

The problems with exit polls occurred only in swing states. There were eleven “battleground” states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Only in Wisconsin did the exit polls come close to the final result. In the other 10 swing states the polls were dramatically off. 

What caught my attention was that the variance was not random, some for Kerry and others for Bush; all the final tallies were significantly better for Bush than the exit polls predicted. The average net differential—predicted difference between Bush and Kerry less the actual difference—was 4.8 percent. (For example, in New Hampshire Kerry was predicted to beat Bush 54.9 percent to 44.1 percent, a difference of 10.8 percent; the actual results were Kerry 50.3 percent, Bush 49 percent, a difference if 1.3 percent; therefore the net differential favored Bush by 9.5 percent.) 

Thus, there were two problems with the swing-state exit polls: they were wildly off the mark—4.8 percent is a huge error for these polls—and they all erred in Bush’s favor. 

When asked to explain these abnormalities, Warren Mitofsky, head of one of the groups conducting exit polling for the National Election Polls, gave two excuses. The first was that the “early numbers” shouldn’t have been released to the media, because they were, in fact, early; i.e., the sample size wasn’t adequate. But, the early polls in many swing states were virtually the same as the late polls. For example, in New Mexico the results of the first poll showed Kerry ahead 50 percent to 48 percent and the results of the last poll showed Kerry still ahead 50 percent to 49 percent. 

On the PBS News Hour Mitofsky stated, “we suspect that the reason [Kerry was ahead in the exit polls] was that Kerry voters were more anxious to participate in our exit polls than the Bush voters.” Of course, this excuse doesn’t explain why the exit polls were inaccurate only in swing states. 

And it ignores the fact that the exit polls are carefully constructed samples weighted by factors such as party affiliation and gender. In other words, it is not the case that pollsters grab the 20th voter coming out of the polls and mark down their vote preferences regardless of what party they belong to; polling protocol dictates that if they have too many Democrats, or women, they don’t take anymore in that particular category until the sample is balanced. 

Steven Freeman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted a thorough review of the exit poll results in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. 

These polls predicted a narrow Bush win in Florida, and a substantial Kerry win in the other two states. But, the actual difference between the predictions and actual results favored Bush in all three states; the average being 6 percent. Using careful statistical methods, Freeman calculated that given the exit polls the likelihood of the final result in each state is outside the 99 percent confidence interval. Taking the results together, Professor Freeman estimated that, “the odds against all three occurring together are 250 million to one.”  

Freeman’s thorough analysis left me between the proverbial “rock and a hard place” with regards to the final election result. I could choose to believe that Bush’s performance in the battleground states was a statistical anomaly, believe that the exit polls failed and these failures systematically benefited the incumbent. 

My other choice was to acknowledge that the Nov. 2 presidential election may have been stolen, the results manipulated to favor Bush. While I don’t want to believe this, I have read enough about Karl Rove to think he is capable of such a coup. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and computer scientist best known as one of the executive founders of Cisco Systems 

Click here to view Justin DeFreitas' latest work

ROLLBACK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The re-election of President Bush means four more years of rollback of American Indian sovereignty and environmental destruction that President Bush supports. Plus, the majority of religious conservatives can use their faith in an abusive way and have allies in both President Bush and a conservative Congress. I hope some people will fight back against these reactionaries in Washington. 

Billy Trice, Jr. 

Oakland 

• 

JENSEN COTTAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Designed by no less an architect than William Wurster, the Jensen Cottage at 1650 La Vereda Road does indeed appear to be historically significant. But it seems that when a zoning application was filed proposing a major addition to the house, nobody in city government even noticed that likely significance. The long subsequent dispute over the zoning proposal teaches some important lessons. 

An effective screening system in needed to identify—early on—projects that could impact historic resources. And as the La Vereda case itself illustrates, this needs to involve residential properties, not just commercial ones. 

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has worked very hard to craft such a system. It is an integral part of the potential ordinance amendments which they recommended this summer, and which are now being discussed by the Planning Commission. 

If the LPC’s recommended system had been operative at the time, the Jensen Cottage’s significance would have been grasped right from the start. 

John English 

• 

BROWER MEMORIAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

David Brower should be honored. 

Perhaps the giant ball could be placed on top of the UC Campanile like a giant golf ball. 

If it were half buried, it wouldn’t be so imposing. Fran Segal’s ideas are good. 

If it were designated as a “Memorial” rather than “Art” it wouldn’t be subject to stringent state laws. 

I have read in a science magazine that the human brain acts as an advocate or lawyer rather than as a truth seeker. Therefore, if we have an idea or position we will defend it, in spite of information or evidence to the contrary. It is important to keep this in mind. 

Richard List 

• 

INVESTIGATE E-VOTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There have been widespread reports of voting irregularities in the recent election. In particular, I am concerned that prevalent use of electronic voting is subject to hacking and implanted tallies. When I requested a paper ballot at my polling place, because I had read about the ease of altering e-votes, the worker at my precinct didn’t know about my right to demand a paper (provisional?) ballot, and had to get confirmation. But why was my vote “provisional”? I was not reassured that my vote and others would be counted correctly. I support the demand that voting irregularities and the reliability of e-voting be investigated by Congress. 

Dr. Mina D. Caulfield 

• 

RENT CONTROL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his Nov. 16 letter assailing Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance program (rent control), rental property owner Sig Cohn remarks that he would be “happy to pay” into a program that is “beneficial to the community,” rather than support the city’s rent ordinance program. 

In actuality, the rental unit fee that Mr. Cohn tenders contributes directly to the single largest—and most beneficial—affordable housing public policy program in the entire City of Berkeley: the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance program. 

Under the city’s rent program, nearly 19,000 units are regulated. This provides rent level stability, affordability and housing security for tens of thousands of Berkeley citizens—the overwhelming majority of whom are low income—including seniors and disabled on fixed incomes, single mothers, working families and students among others. 

Mr. Cohn declares that the “necessity for Berkeley rent control certainly now is a thing of the past.” Given that the Bay Area region has some of the highest rent levels in the entire nation, comparable to New York City and Honolulu, I would suggest that the city’s rent stabilization program is more critical than ever.  

Chris Kavanagh 

• 

NUCLEAR WEAPONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I gave a year of my life to the Nuclear Weapons Freeze 20 years ago, and it was one of my best years because of that work. This week the Senate will consider funding President Bush’s research into new nuclear weapons, so-called bunker busters and “mini-nukes.” Despite his claims to the contrary, he has no “mandate” from the American people to build new nuclear weapons. According to a recent poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, the vast majority of our citizens believe we should not develop new nukes. Even Republicans in the House of Representatives have rejected funding for these weapons. The Senate must do the same. New nuclear weapons put America at risk. We don’t need them. They could not have prevented 9/11 and only increase a sense of insecurity in nations that don’t have them, thus fueling a renewed arms race. This endangers us all. Stop the madness, a thinly veiled gift to corporate interests that helped re-(s)elect Bush. 

Phoebe Anne (Sorgen) 

• 

SCHOOL BOARD COVERAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I really enjoyed running for the Berkeley School Board, although due to a death in the family, it was a very short campaign for me. 

I believe it was unfair for Daily Planet reporter J. Douglas Allen-Taylor to trash my candidacy (“Incumbents Face Stiff Challenge in School Board Race,” Daily Planet, Oct. 15-18) and to give readers no clue about my reasons for running. 

My issues were important: kids first, politics last; school sites as a public trust—not development opportunity; safe schools, neighborhoods, and routes to schools; excellent schools for all our kids—not just for political favorites; and much more. 

My issues were different from those of the other four contenders, who were “progressives.” My understanding is that “progressive” strategists wanted to re-elect the incumbents, while giving the other two candidates (both associated with Terry Doran’s “small schools plan”) name recognition and a head start for the 2006 election. 

This kind of strategic planning succeeded in electing long time BCA Executive Director Terry Doran to the School Board in 1998, and then electing Green Party/BCA member John Selawsky the following term. Quid pro quo, Doran got the Green endorsement to win in 1998, and Selawsky was given the BCA endorsement to win in 2000. Selawsky also became executive director of the BCA. He remained Green enough to get the Green Party “bullet vote” endorsement this year: Vote for John Selawsky and don’t vote for Joaquin Rivera or Merrilie Mitchell.  

I had to run against Berkeley’s political machine, a process so ugly that few will participate. They use cold-blooded strategies and tactics like the “Exclusionary Principle” which tries to close out everyone else. I was not invited to some candidates forums, including for example, “Candidates Night and Berkeley School Board Forum,” organized by Zelda Bronstein for Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association. Only incumbents were invited! Zelda is a special reporter for the Planet, and was a longtime Planning Commission appointee of Linda Maio. 

Although most independent candidates were marginalized in the press, I felt particularly wronged by Daily Planet reporter J. Douglas Allen-Taylor. He disposed of me cleverly on page one, and my response and correction was buried on page 20. Editor Becky O’Malley did give a fair and equal chance for each candidate to provide a statement, but that could not make up for being trashed on page one.  

Reporter J. Douglas Allen-Taylor deserves credit for being a talented writer on local politics, but not on Berkeley politics! In his “Undercurrents” column he goes after FCMAT, Oakland Schools’ issues, and Mayor Jerry Brown. See “That Old Brown Magic….” (Daily Planet, Aug. 1-4, 2003) a terrific expose of Jerry Brown bragging about the Oakland School takeover. Taylor sums up: “The trick for the astute politician is not to actually solve problems, but to keep up the nice slogans while continuing to spend all the money.” Hey Jessie, that sounds just like Berkeley! But Taylor doesn’t criticize Berkeley’s “progressives.” 

Berkeley is run by a machine, which makes a mockery of democracy. Mayor Tom Bates has made it worse by implementing Sacramento-style politics: Agenda Committee, special City Council meetings before the regular meetings, “moving–target” meetings of the Housing Authority and Redevelopment Agency, where millions of dollars vanish into massive political-base housing projects, and school properties are eyed for sites. As Mr. Taylor excluded my independent campaign from his school board coverage, he also excluded Housing Authority and Redevelopment Agency when he covered City Council meetings. I feel he is protecting the “progressive” agenda and showing his active disrespect for the majority of people in Berkeley who deserve to know what is really going on in their hometown. 

Merrilie Mitchell 

• 

ON RICHMOND 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read your Nov. 16 editorial (“Richmond Takes a Piece of Pie”) on describing your recent interest in Richmond. Your rationale is that you “see the whole bayside corridor, at least from Richmond all the way don to the southern reaches of Oakland as part of a web of interlocking issues which concern all of us.” You go on to suggest baysiders are alike and “those on the other side of the hill” are different, but your rationale on why you take politically correct but simple minded positions on very difficult issues strikes me as thinking from “the other side of the hill.” 

You see the environment as good, development as bad. You see open space as good, but fail to consider how the public might be allowed to enjoy the open space. I lived in Berkeley for 30 years and always saw issues in black and white. I now live in Richmond and now see issues a bit grayer.  

Your “seasoned reporter plus the part time efforts of another one and a good effort from a diligent student” have failed to provide a balanced picture of the open space component of Upstream’s offer for Point Molate development, Chevron’s history with regard to open space on the western half of the Point San Pablo Peninsula, the history of the Reuse Plan for Point Molate and the efforts of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Advisory committee for Point Molate which recommended a residential component, Chevron’s strong opposition to any residential at Point Molate and the coincidental odd conclusions of the Environmental Impact Statement that found Chevron was far to dangerous a place to have residential on the other side of a 500 foot hill and 1.5 miles from their ammonia plant (little comfort to the residents of Point Richmond or the newly built housing on the Richmond Parkway), the efforts of the San Pablo Peninsula Open Space Committee’s feasibility study to develop a comprehensive open space plan for the San Pablo Peninsula, the need of the city of Richmond to be able to generate revenue from this property, the relationship of the city property at Point Molate to the city property at Terminal Four at the tip of the peninsula or the private property at the Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor, or a plethora of other salient and dicey questions.  

I too hope that Gayle McLaughlin will bring a fresh perspective to the city council, but not I sincerely hope, the perspective of outsiders that don’t want make the effort to do their homework and would like to see Richmond’s issues either through the simple lens of political correctness or through the more calculated lens of a “regional (read egocentric) perspective.” 

David Dolberg 

• 

BREUNER MARSH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Tomio Geron’s “Parchester Village Residents Fight to Preserve Breuner Marsh, Open Space,” (Daily Planet, Nov. 12-15), Breuner Marsh and Point Molate present opportunities for open space and public access to the bay shoreline. 

Breuner Marsh is one of the last bay wetlands still connected to undeveloped upland that provides habitat for the endangered California clapper rail and salt marsh harvest mouse. Without upland connected to the marsh, these animals would drown during high tides. This weekend at Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, twelve clapper rails found refuge on the park’s lawn due to high tides. During high tides, these reclusive creatures are forced onto upland—a housing development or road at the marsh’s edge spells their doom.  

At Point Molate, public recreation and Bay access are “endangered.” The Base Reuse Plan allows development on the existing developed “footprint” and open space including a 40-acre shoreline park, 156 acres of public parkland, and a Bay Trail easement. Astonishingly, the developer’s current plan would have the Bay Trail go through a hotel lobby! The city should ensure that public access and open space are central to planning at Point Molate.  

With more than 90 percent of the bay’s wetlands diked, drained or filled, isn’t it time the bay’s shoreline and wetland habitat are top priorities for shoreline communities? Other cities around the Bay are seizing the opportunity to reconnect their residents with the nay shoreline through shoreline parks and open space. Richmond’s City Council should do the same.  

Jen Jackson 

Community Organizer, Save The Bay 

• 

HOUSING GLUT? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Planning Director Dan Marks thinks there’s a housing glut (“Housing Boom Ending, Says Berkeley Planner,” Daily Planet, Nov. 12-15). Perhaps for studios and one-bedroom apartments. But there’s a shortage of housing for families. Berkeley is certainly capable of designing solutions for multi-family housing. But is Berkeley willing? 

Ignacio Dayrit 

• 

FATHER BILL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last December there was a memorial in Berkeley attended by a thousand people honoring the life and death of Father Bill O’Donnell of St. Joseph The Worker Church, Berkeley. Father Bill was an activist who protested the School of Americas many times. The last time he was arrested and spent six months at the Atwater Federal Prison.  

Thousands of people of conscience will stand in solidarity this weekend, Nov. 20-21 at the annual vigil in Fort Benning, Georgia to close SOA.  

In Father Bill’s honor it is time to contact your congressperson and urge them to the support HR 1258, a bill to close, investigate, and prevent another cosmetic remake of the SOA.  

Helen and Frank Sommers  

Richmond 

• 

ED ROBERTS CAMPUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As president of the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC), I want to correct the inaccurate statements in Rosemary Hyde’s recent letter (Daily Planet, Nov. 12-15). 

Contrary to Ms. Hyde’s assertions, the ERC will improve pedestrian access from Tremont Street to the BART Station. ERC will provide a new ramp and staircase from Tremont as well as a safe, well-lit and landscaped pathway across the parking lot to Adeline Street, where a new staircase and elevator will provide disabled access to the BART concourse below. 

Ms. Hyde is also incorrect about ERC and BART parking. Visitors and staff who drive to the ERC will park onsite in an underground parking lot under the Campus. The ERC garage will have the capacity to provide 21 more spaces that the estimated peak parking demand because we are committed to discouraging parking in the surrounding neighborhood. While it is true that the BART parking lot will see a net loss of 16 parking spaces, this is the necessary trade-off to save mature redwoods on the north edge of the property, which was very important to most neighbors and the Design Review Committee (the DRC approved the project’s design on a 6-0 vote). 

The ERC has responded to the desires of the residents in the Ashby BART neighborhood by reducing the overall size of the project from 130,000 to 80,000 square feet, providing more than enough parking onsite, and creating a new vehicular entrance to the BART lot from Adeline Street, thus reducing BART patron traffic on residential Woolsey Street. 

On Nov. 15, the Zoning Adjustments Board recognized the ERC’s commitment to the community by approving the ERC’s use permit application. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our neighbors in the years ahead, and I encourage anyone with questions about the ERC to contact me at info@edrobertscampus.org or call 841-4776. 

Jan Garrett 

President, Ed Roberts Campus 

• 

COUNT EVERY VOTE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am saddened by John Kerry’s concession of the 2004 presidential election prior to a full count of the votes. The Democratic (and the Republican) Party should—in victory or in defeat—work with unwavering commitment to a scrupulous and methodical count of every vote.  

Letting hurry guide the process fosters a disheartened electorate and facilitates voter fraud. Kerry’s early concession helps birth a brave new world of probabilistic voting—where races are decided by exit polls and media analysis, rather than by certified vote counts informed by citizen dialogue. Voting the United States of America has become a statistical process, rather like craps, and the odds of effecting meaningful social change through the ballot box have suffered accordingly.  

The Democratic Party must protect the integrity of the voting process. The Democratic Party should safeguard voters’ rights by refusing to concede defeat or accept victory until all votes are counted. I urge the Democratic Party to set a democratic precedent: to ensure that all votes are counted and that any grievances regarding voting irregularity are heard and addressed.  

Susan Lynn Fischer 

• 

MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To make a positive impact on developments in the Middle East and encourage the development of a serious Palestinian post-Arafat leadership the press should stop treating the Palestinians as if they were savages leading an uncontrollable mob and instead show them respect by actually expecting proper behavior. 

It is not acceptable for Palestinian leaders to call for a continuation of the Intifada against Israel, nor can Palestinian violence be tolerated. It is not acceptable that illegal militias continue to operate. And the list goes on. 

Each time so-called friends of the Palestinians engage in apologetics instead of expecting and demanding Palestinian progress they make it just that much more unlikely that the Palestinians will ever get their act together. After all, why should the Palestinian leadership take the heat for complying with agreements when compliance is not actually required—just verbiage and photo ops. 

Ted Cohen 

• 

SOMEBODY STOLE MY JESUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I arrived home from work on the Wednesday after the election to find a cartoon on my refrigerator door. It had North America divided in half. The top part was labeled “The United States of Canada,” the bottom “Jesusland.” Every time I approached the fridge it jumped out at me, mocking me. I pondered it as I made my salad, why did it bother me so much? In a way, I could see how it was true. Since the election, the talk has been about how the Republicans won the election based on Christian values and morals. I don’t doubt that the appeal to conservative Christians in Florida and Ohio did influence the way those states swung, but I keep hearing that the election results are “the Christians fault.” Well then, where does that put me?  

I struggled with my faith, growing up in the conservative Bible belt with a concern for the poor, a distaste for hatred and violence, a hope for equality and justice, and a belief in the value of human life (for those already born, as well as those unborn). Luckily I grew up in a church and a family where those things were valued as Christian. I have struggled with the Christian Right and the common mis-belief that it defines Christianity. From my perspective and the perspective of many other progressive Christians out there, these values are not incompatible with Christianity. In fact, they are the very essence of who my Jesus is. As I grew up I was lucky to discover a whole group of progressive Christians that feel the same way and hold similar beliefs.  

Then George W. Bush became president. He began to openly talk about his faith in the public arena and claimed to act almost with a power instilled by God. Churches told their parishioners that the only way they could vote in good conscience would be for GW. When did God become a registered member of the Republican Party? Now Bush has been re-elected, by the Christians, based on the values of preserving life for the unborn, but not innocent Arabs, and pushing marriage for moms on welfare but preventing marriage for people of the same sex who are in love. What about loving thy neighbor, about serving the least among you, about fighting against social injustice being the fasting that God asks for? Aren’t these Christian values too? What made gay marriage and abortion into the definition of Christian values?  

If Christianity is about loving those who love me back and do what I want, and about condemning those different from me, then what am I? If the United States is Jesusland and the foreign policy decisions it makes are Christian decisions, then do I have to give up my faith because I have a different political opinion? Do the identities of progressive and Christian have to be self-exclusive? I guess now George Bush and the religious right have helped me to define what I am not. Now who is going to help me define who I am? 

Deanna Eberle 

Oakland 

• 

GILL TRACT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kim Linden, organic gardener and member of Friends of the Gill Tract, asks us to use this year’s funding hiatus of UC plans to uproot the 100 years of continuous cultivation of community gardens at the historic Gill Tract as an opportunity to mobilize to avoid having the currently situated Albany Village Little League fields moved to the garden site (Letters, Daily Planet, Nov. 12-15). 

While the City of Albany Parks Master Plan is close to incorporating Gardens on Wheels Association’s request that community gardens be included in every Albany park, including the Gill Tract owned by UC Berkeley via the UC Regents in stewardship for the taxpaying citizens of California, there is another, more subtle, but also important reason for maintaining the Little League fields current location: 

Right now, they sit as far as possible away from car and truck pollution caused by the heavy traffic on San Pablo Avenue and Buchanan Street. My son is going into his third year of Little League and I have had a chance to attend many games. The current site has good air, so the kids are not harming themselves playing there, as they might if they are as close to San Pablo and Buchanan as they would be should Gill Tract community gardens be destroyed. The current fields are contiguous to the creek and a restored native plants and fruit tree garden on the creek lovingly tended by residents. The fields and open space between the fields, the foot traffic ingress and egress, all contribute to a homey, intimate and yes, organically historical feel that once destroyed, can never be duplicated. 

Is there even one Albany Little League parent who does not like the current fields? Think about all the good times we have had there. Think about trekking in from the North side on the crunchy gravel, passing the Snack Shack where we have all put in so many fun volunteer hours getting to know each other and living the small town good life. Think about walking up the creek path and plucking a ripe plum or apricot on the way to hearing the loudspeakers announce each team. If the Little Leagues replace the Gill Tract, you won’t be able to hear anything but traffic and your kids will be breathing noxious fumes as they exert themselves running the bases. 

Why bother? 

Wendy Schlesinger Stephens 

Albany 

• 

MOVIE REVIEW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Polar Express is now playing at Renaissance Oaks Theater on Solano Avenue. It has unique animation and a cute story line, but some really creepy characters and wild swings of emotions. Not recommended for people with bi-polar disorder. 

Bob Gable 

• 

NEW LAW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Any illegal immigrant elected to a governorship or to the presidency should be afforded automatic immunity from deportation. 

Al Durrette 

• 

IN DEFENSE OF YUBA CITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Come on now, there are worse places to live than Yuba City. 

I have lived there all of my life. I have been to many places around the country, Washington D.C. and those areas for example, and in other places in the world. The point is that I have been out of this little area and have seen a few places. I would like to know what is the reason behind the rating of “the worst place to live.” Is it crime statistics? Unemployment? Things to do? What the hell is it? This place is so rich in history, culture and people who want to run their own lives without their government telling them what to do, taking their money, giving it to the people on welfare sitting on their ass. We here in Yuba City are 30 minutes away from night life in cities like Chico and Sacramento, and hour away from the mountains and two hours away from the ocean. I think it is a grand place to live because we are so close to fun things, without being in the middle of it. And those who don’t think it is great, for whatever reason can kiss our Republican asses.  

Bruce Smith 

Yuba City 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. Smith is apparently referring to a Daily Planet article called “Don’t Blame City for State’s Woes,” which cited a Rand McNally survey naming Yuba City the worst place to live in the United States. The article ran in our Jan. 2, 2004 edition. Apparently, even the news is reluctant to travel to Yuba City. ?

My good Christian friends used to tell the story about a young colored man from the little community of Pineville, South Carolina, who was drafted into the Army just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (“colored” was a progressive term in those days, a giant step up from “nigger”). When he got his notice papers, this colored fellow—a good Baptist—got down on his knees and told God he would not fear going to war so long as Jesus would walk with him, wherever he went. So Jesus agreed to go. 

And so the young colored soldier went through some of the fiercest battles of the war—first in North Africa, then the invasion of France, Italy, and finally the storming of the heartland of Germany. He came out with nary a scratch, because Jesus was always at his side. Jesus was with him when he got his discharge papers, and with him, as well, on the long ocean trip by troop ship back to America. Disembarking at Charleston, the soldier was so happy to be home and unharmed, he jumped up, shouting, as soon as his feet hit Carolina soil, saying, “Come on, Jesus, I ain’t catching no bus; I’m fixing to walk myself back home.” And so he did, Jesus still by his side. Going through the little town of Goose Creek on Sunday morning, the soldier came upon a little church by the side of the road, where a congregation of white folks were inside, shouting and singing and praising the Lord. 

It was the first church the colored soldier had seen since he got back home, and flushed and full, he decided to go inside and join the good white folks, so he could properly thank God for saving him in the war. But looking back as he walked up the steps, the soldier saw that Jesus was still standing in the middle of the road, hanging back. “What’s wrong, Jesus?” the soldier asked. “This is where we part our ways, my son,” Jesus answered. The soldier could not believe it. “You come with me through hell’s firestorm of war like you promised, every step of the way,” he said. “You come with me through the streets of Berlin, with bombs falling all over like hailstones on a cabbage patch. Why are you abandoning me now, Jesus?” “I’m sorry, son,” Jesus answered, shaking his head and turning back down the road. “They don’t even let me go in there.” 

That’s the story my good Christian South Carolina friends used to tell, anyway, and if you got a problem with it, you’ve got to check with them. 

I thought about that story just after I read a congratulatory letter allegedly written shortly after the Nov. 2 elections to President George W. Bush by Mr. Bob Jones III, who is the president of Bob Jones University over in Greenville, South Carolina. I say “allegedly” only because the widely-publicized letter was supposed to have been posted on the university’s website. If so, it has since been pulled, and there’s always the possibility that this whole thing was a hoax. But we’ll treat it seriously, at least for now. 

Some brief background. I lived in South Carolina for many, many years, and now and then got up to Greenville, which is in the foothills in the northwestern corner of the state. It’s a lovely, lovely place with lots and lots of nice people, and I’d rather be stranded beside the road out there than in some places outside of Benicia or Antioch, or even San Leandro or Hayward. But it does have its downsides. 

One of these downsides is that Greenville is one of the centers of what you might call—what’s the best way to put it?—OER (“Or Else Religion,” that is, the kind of religion that says you better believe in what we believe in, or else God gonna do something awful bad to you.) If the Old South is the Bible Belt of America and Mississippi is the buckle, then right around Greenville, you come across the end of the strap that the old folks used to whip you with. 

The other downside of Greenville is that it is in that part of the world that used to not take too kindly to niggers who got out of our place—it is, after all, only a state away from Pulaski, Tennessee, where the Ku Klux Klan was formed. Bob Jones University was very much in backward step with the worst sentiments of that region, finally accepting Negroes in its classrooms so long as we stayed in our place, but most famously banning—until March of 2000—interracial dating among its students. James Landrith Jr., editor of The Multiracial Activist journal of Alexandria, Virginia, says that he was denied admission to Bob Jones University in 1998 because he married outside of his race. The Activist has a letter from the Bob Jones community relations coordinator from that time, stating that “Bob Jones University [has] a rule prohibiting interracial dating among its students. God has separated people for His own purpose. ... God has made people different one from another and intends those differences to remain.” 

BJU’s website still proclaims that the university “stands without apology for the old-time religion,” which sort of gives me the willies, friends, since I was around when some of that old-time religion was still in place, and I ain’t so anxious for some of it to come back. 

Anyhow, on the day after the election, BJU President Bob Jones III is supposed to have written a public letter to President Bush, telling the president, among other things that “In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn’t deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. … You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you. … Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. ... If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them.” 

Mr. Jones’ beliefs are not necessarily Mr. Bush’s beliefs, and the President is not bound by them or answerable to them. Still, I feel as the 18th century Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture did when he saw, from afar, warships gather in French waters in preparation for sail to Port au Prince. After expressing his concerns, L’Ouverture received a reply from Bonaparte that “we are sailing to Haiti on a mission of peace and goodwill, and you have all of my assurances that we mean you no harm.” To which L’Ouverture answered, “if this is, indeed, a mission of peace, then why are so many of my enemies in its midst?” 

There are about as many interpretations of the Bible as there are people who read it. And so, one wonders, what is this “biblical norm” to which Mr. Jones refers, what are its precepts and tenets, and what part will it actually play in the new national government to be established by Mr. Bush? 

I suppose we will have a bit more to say on this subject, in coming weeks. 

™

P. Levitt’s Nov. 16 letter lists gripes aplenty. Mr. Levitt “want[s] to own property in Berkeley,” but complains that “new buildings may have filled the need for the rental market but not for the ownership market.” P. blames the city’s Planning Director and “NIMBYs” (presumably, people Not Intimidated By Mad Yelling). 

This reads like the standard form letter we keep getting from underemployed Berkeley architects. They’re unable to build their qualifications or overall client lists, and can’t get any more of their immediate family members onto the city’s Planning Department staff. So they seek a little juice by cheerleading for local developers’ self-proclaimed right to Build Absolutely Anything Anywhere (BAAA). 

Am I the only one who’s tired of this? Berkeley real estate is an inherently finite resource. There’s no entitlement to own a piece—just like there’s no entitlement to a (212) area code or a particular “.com” domain name. Also, there is no Tooth Fairy. 

Would-be buyers have no open-ended “right” to plop and own another condo tower wherever they wish, whatever the neighbors’ desires. Especially not at the cost of degrading the very things that make Berkeley attractive to current and potential residents alike: livable neighborhoods, breathing room, daylight access, views, and (most importantly) a reasonable population size that preserves our face-to-face public sphere and our responsive city government. 

As a university town, our blessing and curse is to attract lots of intellectuals. Some are free-floating fanatics of Development in Berkeley, who can no longer even see beyond the city limits. If they could, they’d notice that one neighboring city—Emeryville—is building plenty of the high-density housing that these folks advocate. (Along with the forbidden big-box retail and parking.) 

Other neighboring cities are doing much less than Berkeley does to meet their fair share of regional housing production: El Cerrito! Richmond! Piedmont! 

These cities deserve a lot more attention from the local fanatics who insist on exclusively nagging Berkeley. They’re also perfectly reasonable places to invest in property.  

To quote the famous marquee on the venerable Harvard Square travel agency: Please go away. 

Marcia Lau is a Berkeley resident.f

“According to exit polls, Bush supporters tend to be culturally and religiously conservative married rural voters, a large majority with an annual salary of over $150,000.” 

—Rebecca Paris, “Divided We Stand”, Berkeley Daily Planet, Nov. 5-8. 

Last summer, I spent three months with family in rural Northern Michigan (a red zone in a blue state) where almost everybody owns a gun, drives a pick-up and is a member of a faith based community. Except for some tourists, I met only three people who made over $150,000 a year—a real estate broker who sold properties to Wal-Mart, a retired developer from the city who built a mansion in the woods and a drug dealer. Not even the president of the local university makes over $150,000 a year. 

Almost all of rural America voted Republican and the vast majority of rural counties have average income well below $60,000 a year. According to the 2004 Census, the Average Household Income in my brothers’ county was less than $50,000. In comparison, in Detroit’s Wayne County, the annual income was $58,000. Alameda County is $81,000. 

If the polls were correct, it was not the working class guys in pick-up trucks or the members of faith based communities who reelected Bush. They don’t have the money. Nor was it the single mother living in a trailer on her folks’ land, the retired worker in a double wide out in the woods or the small farmers, teachers, loggers or local merchants. Most make well under $50,000 a year. 

Many rural poor did not vote. In my brothers’ township there are over 2,000 potential voters. Of these, less than half are registered and only 528 voted—almost 50 percent more than in previous elections. 

Only 11 percent are registered Democrats. The area has a virtual one-party system that has been dominated for generations by a few influential families. All elected offices are partisan and usually Republicans run unopposed. The media is tightly controlled. The war in Iraq is barely mentioned. Homeland Security, Palestine and the Patriot Act simply do not exist. When Fahrenheit 9/11 came out, it never made the news. And for most, the Internet has yet to arrive. 

Democrats have ceded control of the area to the Republicans. There is almost no Democratic presence there. No one from the state party, Kerry’s campaign, the DNC or MoveOn was visible during the campaign. Nor is there ever any support from the state apparatus for those few candidates who do run locally as Democrats. As a result, the perception that Democrats are the party of city folds, think-they-know-it-all intellectuals, minorities and gays goes largely unopposed. 

Despite this bias, only 47 percent are registered Republicans. The remaining 42 percent are Independents or third-party folk. These Independents didn’t flock to the polls to vote for Bush. In my brothers’ township, Bush got only 54 percent of the vote. Kerry pulled 40 percent, much better than Gore while 6 percent voted for third party candidates. In the poorest township in the county, the Democrats won. 

People talk to each other freely in Northern Michigan. Conversations spring up spontaneously in restaurants, bars and stores. While people certainly had strong opinions on abortion and gun control, these issues were, for most, of peripheral concern. The big issues were the economy and the war. 

Despite the constant propaganda, the war in Iraq is not popular. I only heard one person, a retired Special Forces officer, wholeheartedly support it. While some tried to justify it, most were opposed and much of this opposition ran deep as it is their kin being called to fight. Even veterans spoke of our present military with scorn. 

The most pervasive issues were economic. The center of the towns in virtually every part of this country are dying. Good buildings, houses, factories and stores, stand empty. Strip malls are in disrepair. Full time, permanent jobs are hard to find. Since NAFTA, local factories have either closed or been forced to move. Big boxes have destroyed local businesses. The multinationals that have moved in, often over local opposition, are either dangerous or destructive to the environment - chemical plants, strip mining, toxic waste dumps and factory farms. Wages are low, benefits negligible, job security non-existent. Many men take temporary jobs hundreds of miles away. One WWII vet and “loyal American” told me the new corporations were destroying the community with their greed. 

Even with the media blackout, because of the war, the escalating debt and his ties to greedy corporations (Enron, Halliburton, the S&Ls) Bush is not well liked. Even die hard Republicans said they would have to hold their nose to vote. 

Unfortunately, Kerry did not present an attractive alternative. From the backwoods, it looks like the Democrats care more about the right of gays to marry or gun control than they do about the rural economy or the war. Even when Kerry said something meaningful, he was not trusted, partly because of his rich-boy demeanor, but also because he had no record of taking principled stands on the economy or the war. Then, too, there were those who felt betrayed when Clinton signed NAFTA. Others consider Reno’s massacre at Waco an attack upon the religious right. Because of this, distrust of Democrats runs deep. 

What got the most enthusiasm was a television interview with Ralph Nader. While no one thought he could win, they saw him as talking about something real and liked what he had to say. 

Two people ran for local office as Democrats. One lost by 20 votes. The other tied. No local Democrat has ever come that close before. They have asked for a recount. 

Joanne Kowalski is a longtime Berkeley resident. She is currently working on an economic development project with her brothers in Northern Michigan.?

Women from a Chiapas weavers cooperative are visiting Berkeley this week, sharing stories about their craft and their struggle to preserve their traditions, and to do so independently. 

Celerina Ruiz Nuñez, president of the Jolom Mayaetik weavers cooperative, will speak Sunday at the Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park from 2-5 p.m., 1275 Walnut St. The event is free and open to the public. 

What strikes one first about Chiapas is the beauty of the landscape, its dramatic mountains, the rich green of both wild and domesticated plants—hillsides as well as flatlands covered with fields and gardens of corn, coffee, bananas, orange trees, and flowers. 

The intensity of the natural colors is picked up in the brilliantly colored traditional clothing, still worn by most indigenous women and girls, but less so now by men and boys. And the vibrancy of the Mayan languages is the next revelation. The hundreds of Indian languages once spoken in California are lost. But in Chiapas, the aim of the Zapatista communities is to ensure that their children are educated bilingually. 

They value their Mayan languages. They want their children to be able to add Spanish to their native language, not be forced to abandon their own language if they are to be educated. 

A 1996 video showing Mayan women in their beautiful traditional huipiles marching through their village with banners celebrating International Women’s Day was, for me, a revelation and a catalyst. These women, for generations subjugated not only by their government but by fathers and husbands, had somehow connected to the international women’s rights movement, far from the modern world though they are. 

The images sparked my determination to find out what was happening in Chiapas, what the Zapatista uprising was all about, whether it had helped to embolden these women from a deeply traditional and patriarchal culture to express their solidarity with women around the world. 

The novels of B. Traven and conversations with an ethnobotanist friend who’d worked in Chiapas had aroused my curiosity about this beautiful country, whose natural riches had caused it to be plundered and many of its native people virtually enslaved during the colonial period and after Mexican independence as well. 

A trip arranged in 2000 by the Oakland-based Chiapas Support Committee (www.chiapas-support.org) brought me to San Cristóbal de las Casas, where I came to know members of Jolom Mayaetik, a cooperative of some 250 Mayan women weavers who in 1996 withdrew from the government-sponsored weavers cooperative to take the marketing, accounting, and sales of their work into their own hands. 

At the time, many of their members lived in communities that the Mexican military was harassing daily with roadblocks, overflights of noisy, frightening helicopters, and other forms of intimidation—all because these communities were sympathetic to the Zapatista movement. 

They had decided that, poor as they were, self-government offered the possibility of improving education and health care in their communities and would allow them a measure of dignity lacking in their relations with the Mexican government. 

The Jolom Mayaetik cooperative’s members create beautiful traditional work and they are also developing new designs with appeal to markets in the U.S. and Europe. Members are given the opportunity to learn accounting and business management. They elect officers who represent the cooperative on trips to cities in Mexico as well as to the U.S and Europe. 

The president of the cooperative during my initial visit in 2000 is now completing her B.A. at the University of Southern Mexico in San Cristóbal de las Casas and preparing to attend medical school. 

Charlene M. Woodcock, a retired UC Press editor and Berkeley resident of 37 years, is working to help establish interest in the U.S. for the work of Jolom Mayaetik. 

›

Impact Theatre has pulled out most of the stops with its current production, Meanwhile, Back at the Super Lair… Granted, a theater company determined to make every Thursday night a “Pay what you can” performance, as well as to keep its most expensive ticket at a pleasant $15 ($10 for students), may not offer an awful lot of dazzling stage effects. But there wouldn’t be much room for such high-falutin’ carryings on in their lair in the black basement at La Val’s Pizza Parlor anyway.  

What the company has served up is yet another bubble of pure nonsense with absolutely no earnest message to be found. It’s all just for fun. (You could argue that the ending wanders into an unnecessary reality, and it’s not awfully clear why the first scene of the second act is necessary, but they’re both easy enough to ignore). 

Super Lair concerns itself with four fake “Superheroes” whose images appear to have been blithely co-opted from the nearest comic book store. The set-up is that 10 years ago the then-recent college grads were accidentally responsible for solving a crime and the city has been crime-free ever since. 

With the sweeping logic common to entertainments like this one, the mayor immediately hired the quartet to handle the city’s (non-existent) crime problem. They promptly donned Super-Hero costumes and have spent the last 10 years with absolutely nothing to do except to hang around the Super-Lair (a sub-let apartment), wearing spandex and playing cards.  

They are, in short, not at all prepared when two really scary challenges show up. First (and maybe the scariest) is in the quiet form of “Darrell” (DJ Lapite). He’s a relatively sane civil servant, sent by the mayor to observe the Lair and evaluate whether or not they’re doing anything worth the money they cost the city. 

“The Human Fly” (Pete Caslavka) has his own agenda, which leads to the quartet’s second challenge, as well as the most effective part of the production: the fast-paced and really funny “Superheroes Against the Villains” fights. (Christopher Morrison has created truly terrific fight choreography).  

The Fly’s struggles with the meaning of it all (including his not totally solid relationship with Leopard Woman) has him putting in some supposedly therapeutic time with “Dr. Reynolds” (Jennifer Lucas, who rather remarkably also spends time being “Eddie One Arm” and just plain “Thug”). 

“Silver Streak,” the fourth member of the heroic quartet, is played by Jon Nagel, who also designed the set—never a small problem for the tiny stage space available in what must be the most truly “intimate” stage setting in the area. Nagel’s a good-sized guy himself, who theoretically would be a serious contender in the play’s battle against the Forces of Evil. However, bless his heart, Silver Streak isn’t conceived as the brightest light on the block; but he’d still be a pretty good guy to have on your side in a pinch. 

A sub-theme here is the occasionally rocky relationship between The Human Fly and Leopard Woman—an issue which leads to some rather impressive off-stage sound effects that most parents would probably not relish explaining to children in the middle of a crowd. 

Impact’s target audience is, after all, the 18 to 35-year-old demographic, and this production seems a good fit for exactly that. 

But let’s don’t underestimate the spandex. Amy Nielson’s comic-book-super-hero costumes are one of the great delights of the evening. Possibly the two most memorable are Rhino Man’s (Steven Epperson) horned, baby-blue, quasi “Sleeper Jammies” and Leopard Woman’s (Alexandra Creighton) skin-tight leopard skin—both of which make the most of the actors’ hand-in-glove fit for their roles. 

Impact has loaded the cast with a group of their most talented actors, who are obviously enjoying themselves in this romp through never-never land. 

›

FRIDAY, NOV. 19 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, “Present Laughter” by Noel Coward at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Through Nov. 20. Tickets are $10. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Aurora Theatre “Emma” at 8 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. through Dec. 19. Tickets are $36. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Polk County” A musical about aspring blues musician, Leafy Lee, at the Roda Theatre to Jan. 2. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org  

Black Repertory Theater, “Who’s Who in the Tough Love Game” a new play by Ishmael Reed. Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2:30 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through Nov. 27. Tickets are $5-$20. 3201 Adeline St. 652-2120. 

Central Works, “A Step Away” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Through Nov. 21. Tickets are $8-$20. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “Noises Off” Fri., Sat., and selected Sun., through Nov. 20. Tickets are $10-$15. 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. 524-9132. www.ccct.org  

Impact Theatre, “Meanwhile, Back at the Super Lair” by Greg Kalleres, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 11, at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. No show Nov. 25. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Dane Cook, from Comedy Central at 9 p.m. at the Berkeley Community Theater. Tickets are $15-$30. www.ticketweb.com 

“Post-Election Detox” with lesbian comic Marga Gomez. Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $17-$19. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“The Gift of Art: Small Works” by various artists. Reception at 6 p.m. at Cecile Moochnek Gallery, 1809-D Fourth St. Exhibition runs to Jan. 9. 549-1018. www.cecilemoochnek.com  

‘Eclectic Electric” culturally diverse lighting by Sue Johnson. Reception at 7 p.m. at 1745 Solano Ave. 527-2623. suejohnsonlamps.com 

FILM 

Cine Mexico: “Aventurera” at 7:30 p.m. and “Victims of Sin” at 9:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The Women are Burning: A Brief History of the European Witch Hunts” with photographer and sculptor Leonard Pitt, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Art Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $12. 848-1228. www.giorgigallery.com 

Mark States, performance poet, at 7:30 p.m. at the Fellowship Café & Open Mic, at Fellowship Hall, Cedar at Bonita St. Donation $5-$10. 841-4824. 

Stephen Mitchell introduces the new translation of “Gilgamesh” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

ntozake shange poetry and conversation at 7 p.m. at 1056 60th St., Emeryville. Donations benefit New Dharma Meditation Center for Urban Peace. 

Chris Carlson analyzes emerging political energies in “The Political Edge” at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674-A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble and combos perform at 7:30 p.m. at the Little Theater, BHS Campus. Tickets are $10, free for students, faculty and staff.  

Vox Populi, chamber vocal ensemble, at 8 p.m. at St. Mary Magdelene Church, 2005 Berryman. www.vox-pop.org 

Mark Levine Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Maria de Barros at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Lecture on the music of Cape Verde at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$15. 525-5054.  

Duck Baker & Ken Emerson, guitar, uke, Hawaiian steel guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50-$17.50. 548-1761.  

The Firebird Band, One Step Shift, Whitey on the Moon at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886.  

Research and Development at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082.  

David Berkeley at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Donation $10. 

Mundaze at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Lisa Baney Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Broun Fellinis at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Over My Dead Body, Allegiance, Life Long Tragedy, Our Turn at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Arturo Sandoval, Cuban trumpeter, at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, NOV. 20 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Gary Laplow at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $3-$4. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Flying Teapots Puppet Show” at 3 p.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

FILM 

Cine Mexico: “Nazarín” at 5 p.m. and “Macario” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The Art of Face: A Mask, a Body, a Movement” with photographer and sculptor Leonard Pitt, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Art Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $12. 848-1228.  

Tom Wolfe talks about his new novel “I Am Charlotte Simmons” at 10 a.m. in the Historic Reading Room of the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Sponsored by Friends of the Library and Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Anne Lamott will read from her recent works at 7:30 p.m. at PSR Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. Donation $20-$25. Limited seating. 704-7729.  

Rhythm & Muse featuring Clara Hsu. Open mic sign-up 6:30 p.m., reading/performance 7 p.m. Admission free. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 527-9753. 

Bruce Aidell guides us through “The Complete Book of Pork” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trinity Chamber Concert with Amy Likar, flute, and Miles Graber, piano, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864.  

International Taiko Festival “A Celebration of Japanese Drumming” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$36. 642-9988.  

Choreographers’ Performance Alliance with host Dana Lawton and performances by local dancers at 7:30 p.m. at Eighth Street Studios, 2525 Eighth St. Tickets are $10. 644-1788, ext. 2. 

Liber UnUsualis with the vocal trio Cinonia at 8 p.m. at St. Johns Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 528-1725. 

Bay Area Classical Harmonies at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 866-233-9892. www.berkeleybach.org 

Asunder, Laudanum, Damnweevil at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886.  

J-Soul at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Sarah Manning Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Steve Seskin with Nina Gerber at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Rio Thing with Phil Thompson at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473.  

Victims of the Groove at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Guerrilla Hi Fi, The Unravellers, George Pederson & the Reincarnatives at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Dick Conte Trio, with vocalist Vernelle Anders, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 21 

CHILDREN  

Baba Ken and the Nigerian Brothers at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

FILM 

The World of Astrid Lingren: “The Children of Bullerby Village” at 3 p.m. and Cine Mexico: “One Family Among Many” at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Paris Transforming: The Beauty and Horror of Urban Reconstruction” with photographer and sculptor Leonard Pitt, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Art Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $12. 848-1228. www.giorgigallery.com 

Artists from the Day of the Dead Exhibition Gallery talk at at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“A Conversation About Painting” with John Zurier and Todd Olson at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808.  

Mayan Weaving from Chiapas with a weaver from the Jolom Mayaetik Cooperative at 2:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. 

Poetry Flash with Kathleen Fraser and Jean Valentine at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

Ellen Weis and Kiran Singh introduce “Berkeley: The Life and Spirit of a Remarkable Town” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

San Francisco City Chorus, “Songs and Spirituals of America” with Wendell Brooks, soloist, at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $13-$20. 415-765-SONG.  

San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. 763-3851.  

University Wind Ensemble at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Sacro Sciento, with Jessica Gould, soprano, Jonathan Davis, harpsichord at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. Cost is $9-$10. 644-6893. 

Choreographers’ Performance Alliance with host Randee Paufve at 7:30 p.m. at Eighth Street Studios, 2525 Eighth St. Tickets are $10. 644-1788, ext. 2. 

“Tellabration” a storytelling concert presented by Stagebridge senior theater, at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison at 27th St., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. 444-4755. www.stagebridge.org  

International Taiko Festival “A Celebration of Japanese Drumming” at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$36. 642-9988.  

San Francisco Saxophone Quartet at 4:30 at the Jazz- 

school. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Abhinaya Dance Company “Timeless Traditions” at 4 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 845-8542. www.juliamorgan.org  

Berkeley Broadway Singers “Let Yourself Go” at 4 p.m. at St. Augustine’s Church, 400 Alcatraz Avenue, Oakland. Free admission. 604-5732.  

Oakland Youth Orchestra, at 3 p.m. at Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland. 832-7710. 

Razorblade, The Caribbean Groovers, reggae, at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. 

Ace of Spades at 1 p.m. at Mama Buzz Cafe, 2318 Telegraph, Oakland. 289-2272. 

Alter-Ego, Cal Jazz Combo, The Rubber Duckies at 6 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886.  

Holly Near at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

MONDAY, NOV. 22 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Play Cafe, “A Night of Thieves” a staged reading at 7 p.m. at LaVal’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid Ave. 415-921-6595. www.playcafe.org  

Victoria Nelson and Vivienne Plumb read from their short stories at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Co-sponsored by New Pacific Radio. Cost is $2. 845-7852.  

Alan Richman talks about “Fork it Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express Mark States Birthday Bash from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Contemporary Chamber Music at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. 642-4864.  

Song Writers Symposium at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $3. 848-0886.  

Head-Royce School Jazz Band Showcase at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$15. 238-9200.  

TUESDAY, NOV. 23 

THEATER 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Polk County” opens at the Roda Theater, 2015 AddisonSt. and runs through Jan. 9. Tickets are $15-$60. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

FILM 

Recent Arab Documentary and Experimental Media at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Michael Finney describes “Consumer Confidential: The Money-Saving Secrets They Don’t Want You to Know” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney and Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance Series presents Parisian bassist Joelle Leandre and trombonist Dave Dove at 8 p.m. at CNMAT, 1750 Arch St. Admission is $6 to $10, sliding scale. 649-8744.  

Peter Barshay and Deborah Poyres at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Albany High School Jazz Band and Rhythm Band in a benefit for the Albany Music Fund at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazz- 

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

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with students from CSU Hayward performing works of Bach and Mendelssohn at 12:15 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555.  

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

Mas Cabeza at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Slammin’ with Keith Terry, a cappella, beat boxing and body music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761.  

Tuck & Patti at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $26. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, NOV. 25 

Happy Thanksgiving 

FRIDAY, NOV. 26 

CHILDREN 

Splash Circus Theatre “Circus Rhymes” at 2 p.m. through Nov. 28 at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets $8-$15. 925-798-1300.  

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Paintings by Keith Wilson” opens at The Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. and runs through Dec. 24. Gallery hours are Wed.-Fri. 1 to 6 p.m., Sat.- Sun. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 848-1228.  

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Emma” at 8 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. through Dec. 19. Tickets are $36. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Polk County” A musical about aspring blues musician, Leafy Lee, at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. to Jan. 9. Tickets are $15-$60. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org  

Black Repertory Theater, “Who’s Who in the Tough Love Game” a new play by Ishmael Reed. Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2:30 and 8 p.m., through Nov. 27. Tickets are $5-$20. 3201 Adeline St. 652-2120. 

Impact Theatre, “Meanwhile, Back at the Super Lair” by Greg Kalleres, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 11, at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny Trilogy: “Marius” at 6:30 p.m. and “Fanny” at 8:55 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Matthew Bourne’s “Nutcracker!” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through Dec. 5. Tickets are $30-$74. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Moh Alileche, North African and Berber music at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, bluegrass and traditional folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightand- 

salvage.com 

Smoov-E, First Degree the D.E., Equipto at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10-$15. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

Eric Crystal Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

David Gans at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Jinx Jones Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Gather, Jealous Again, The Starting Point at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Tuck & Patti at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

This is the first in a series profiling Berkeley elementary schools. The reports are written by students of the UC Berkeley Journalism School. 

For parents in Berkeley, choosing an elementary school is about as easy as finding a parking spot on Fourth Street. Within Berkeley’s 10 square miles are 11 elementary schools, each with its own personality. 

Whether they prefer bilingual education or are looking for a focus on arts and crafts, all parents will benefit from doing as much research as possible.  

Marissa Saunders, parent outreach officer for the Berkeley PTSA Council, says many families don’t bother to understand the school assignment system and are sometimes unsatisfied with their children’s assignments. But Saunders, a mother of two students, says Berkeley schools are worth navigating the complicated assignment process. 

“The different choices make it different. And they have a lot of different enrichment classes, a lot of exposure to different things both culturally and socially. We have a pretty diverse school district—the kids learn from each other,” says Saunders.  

Since 1994, the district has used a system called Controlled Choice to assign pupils to schools. Controlled Choice splits the city into three school zones: Central, Northwest and Southeast. Central includes Berkeley Arts Magnet at Whittier, Cragmont, Oxford and Washington Communication and Technology. Northwest includes Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet, Jefferson and Thousand Oaks. Southeast includes Emerson, John Muir, Le Conte and Malcolm X Arts and Academic Magnet. 

Controlled Choice also allows parents to rank their top three school preferences. A pupil who lives in a zone has a good chance of being assigned to a school within that zone, but there is no guarantee. 

It is common for children from the same neighborhood to attend schools throughout the city. A student who attends a school within his zone will have access to Berkeley Unified’s buses. However, if parents seek a school outside the zone, they are responsible for providing transportation. 

In February, the district adjusted Controlled Choice so that school diversity would be achieved based on racial, educational and economic diversity in each planning area. The city was broken down into 445 planning areas, with each encompassing several blocks. 

A number called “Percent Students of Color” is used to measure the racial diversity within each planning area. Each school strives to enroll a balanced number of students from planning areas where PSC is as low as 10 percent or as high as 90 percent. 

In August 2003, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a frequent challenger of affirmative action programs, sued the school district on behalf of Lorenzo Avila. Avila, who had two children in Berkeley schools at the time, said that the district violated voter-approved Proposition 209, which prohibits racial preferences in public education. 

In April, two months after adjustments to Controlled Choice had been implemented, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the district, allowing it to continue to use race in its school assignment process. The Pacific Legal Foundation has announced that it will not appeal. 

The new Controlled Choice system also incorporates parent income level and parent education level into the diversity equation. 2000 census information is used to derive average household income and average parent education level in each planning area.  

“Before it was plainly black, white and other. Now one factor is class and that’s changing the picture,” said Berkeley PTSA Council President Roia Ferrazares. By including such socioeconomic factors, BUSD extended its definition of diversity to incorporate more than just race.  

Based on race, parent income level and parent education level, each student will be assigned to one of three Composite Diversity Categories. When assigning students to schools, the district will take proportionate numbers of students from each of the three categories to create a diversity balance at every school.  

Bilingual Education 

Bilingual education can be found at four schools: Cragmont, LeConte, Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet and Thousand Oaks. At Cragmont, LeConte and Rosa Parks, students learn both English and Spanish through a Dual Immersion bilingual program. From kindergarten through 6th grade, teachers emphasize both languages. 

Thousand Oaks offers the only transitional bilingual education program in the district. Under this system, kindergarten through 3rd grade classes are taught entirely in Spanish and 4th to 6th grade classes are taught in English. The Transitional Bilingual program is based on the idea that a strong foundation in a child’s first language makes it easier to learn a second language. The district also offers a Chinese bilingual program at Jefferson. 

Magnet Schools 

Specialized programs can be found at four schools: Berkeley Arts Magnet at Whittier, Malcolm X Arts and Academics Magnet, Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet, and Washington Communication and Technology Magnet. 

In February of this year, magnet schools were incorporated into the new Controlled Choice system, so they no longer use a separate student assignment system.  

Although Berkeley’s magnet schools no longer enjoy state funding, they have retained their magnet status. PTSA fund raising and the Berkeley Schools Excellence Project tax, recently renewed, have picked up the slack to ensure that magnet schools maintain the unique classes and activities that define them.  

Test Scores 

2003-2004 test scores and rankings for each school are available online at http://api.cde.ca.gov/. The annual Academic Performance Index measures schools on a scale between 200 and 1000. California schools strive to meet a minimum performance ranking of 800. 

2004 School-Wide API Growth Test Scores: 

Berkeley Arts Magnet at Whittier: 765 

Cragmont: 785; Emerson: 816; Jefferson: 838; John Muir: 819; LeConte: 697; Malcolm X Arts and Academics Magnet: 752 

Oxford: 785; Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet: 662; Thousand Oaks: 770; Washington Communication and Technology: 721. 

Deadlines  

Parents who want their children to be considered for the first round of school assignments should submit their Parent Preference Forms between January and February. After receiving assignment letters in the mail, students should register in June. The Parent Access office can be reached at 644-6504. 

Elementary school profiles will follow in coming issues.e

FRIDAY, NOV. 19 

Junior Rangers of Tilden Camping trip. For more information call 525-2233. 

Berkeley Community Media Ten Year Anniversary with a Media Martini celebration from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Lucre Lounge in downtown Berkeley. Tickets are $10-$15. 848-2 288, ext. 11. www.betv.org 

BOSS Graduation A celebration honoring homeless men and women who have completed the Clean City Program and are working to turn their lives around. At 6 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $60 s liding scale. To RSVP, or for more information, call 649-1930. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Dr. Robert Schoen on “What I Wish My Christian Friends Knew About Judaism” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Cl ub, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

“Migrants’ Tales: Life in China’s Boomtowns” with Peter Hessler, China Correspondent, The New Yorker, at noon in the Journalism Library, North Gate Hall, UC Campus. http://ie as.berkeley.edu 

“Three Beats for Nothing” a group that meets to sing, mostly 16th century harmony, for fun and practice, at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 655-8863, 843-7610. 

November is We Give Thanks Month! Join participating restaurants in supporting the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. For a list of participating restaurants please visit www.bfhp.org  

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324. 

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 U niversity Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. 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 i s handicapped accessible. For information call Katherine, 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 20 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meets at 9:15 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Sproul Conference Room, 1st Floor, 2727 College Ave. www.berkeleycna.com  

Junior Rangers of Tilden meets Sat. mornings at Tilden Nature Center. For more information call 525-2233. 

Kids Garden Club For children 7-12 years old to explore the world of gardening. We plant, harvest, build, make crafts, cook and get dirty! Fr om 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$6, registration required. 525-2233. 

Worm Composting Workshop Learn about a good way to compost kitchen scraps, even in apartments. From 10 a.m. to noon at 2530 San Pablo Ave. Free workshop s ponsored by The Ecology Center. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

Discover a Wildlife in Your Own Backyard with LeAnn Downing of Wild Birds Unlimited at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Help Restore a Rare Tidal Marsh on the UC Richmond Field Station, near the Bay Trail in Richmond, from 9 a.m. to noon. We will provide tools, gloves, rain gear and refreshments. Heavy rain will cancel the event. For more information call Elizabeth at 231-9566. 

Rummage Sale to Benefit United Nations Association are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Books, jewelry, clothing and china, pictures, small antiques, toys, baked goods. New UNICEF Holiday Cards and Calendars. To donate items please call Ingeborg at 849-1752. 

Bay Area Socialist Conference with workshops during the day beginning at 9:30 a.m. at North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Cost is $10-$50, sliding scale. Evening panel with Peter Camejo, Alexander Cockburn and Ah med Shawki at 6:30 p.m. at the Valley Life Science Building, room 2050, UC Campus. 415-861-3103. iso_berkeley@yahoo.com  

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 Univer sity Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 21 

Turkey Trudge and Tramp Bring the family and your guest to hike in preparation for the upcoming holiday. Learn the big, fat difference between farm fowl and their wild relatives. We’ll see our tame turkeys, and maybe ca tch a glimpse of wild gobblers running free in the park. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Seeds and Seed Treatment” A workshop on seed propogation and related plant biology. Learn how to collect, store, treat and sow a wi de range of seeds and care for seedlings. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Visitors Center, Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Cost is $40-$45. 845-4166. www.nativeplants.org 

Sweet History: Chocolate! Delve into the delicious natural history of choc olate, from trees to your table as you sample many varieties of the “food of the gods.” Learn an easy way to make truffles and take some home just in time for the holidays. From 1 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $10-$12, registration required. 525-2233. 

Southside Cleanup After the Big Game Join neighbors and city staff to clean up our neighborhood. For information call 981-2493. 

“Tellabration” a storytelling concert presented by Stagebridge senior theater, featuring Diane Ferlatte, Steven Heneger, Patricia Bulitt at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison, downtown Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. 444-4755. www.stagebridge.org  

Going Bat Crazy! A family exploration day to learn about bats at 1 p.m. at the Oakland Museum o f California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Artsy Afternoon for Families with storytime, family painting projects and advent art projects from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Arlington Community Church. For reservations call 526-9146. acc.youth@sbcglobal.net  

Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Palzang and Pema Gellek on “The Six Perfections as a Transformative Practice” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, NOV. 22 

Tea at Four Taste some of the finest teas from the Pacific Rim and South Asia and learn their natural and cultural history, followed by a short nature walk. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

“Saving the Sun: How Wall St. Mavaricks Shook up Japan’s Financial World and Made Billions” with Gillian Tett, Former Tokyo Bureau Chief, Financial Times, at noon in the IEAS Conference Room, 2233 Fulton St., 6th Flr. http://ieas.berkeley.edu 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60 years and over meets Mondays at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Join at any time. 524-9122. 

Fitness for 55+ A total body workout including aerobics, stretching and strengthening at 1:15 p.m. every Monday at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170. 

TOPS Take Off Pounds Sensibly meets every Mon. at 9 a.m. in Albany. For information contact Mary at 526-3711. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 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. 23 

Morning Bird Walk Meet at 7:30 a.m. at Tilden’s Inspiration Point for a hike on EBMUD trails. It could be muddy. 525-2233. 

Berkeley High School Site Council meets at 4:30 p.m. in Room C106, BHS. Agenda includes appointment of a BHS administrator to the SSC, a proposed timeline for SSC for 2004-2005, athletic eligibility requirements, and requests for authorization by two new small schools. bhssitecouncil@berkeley.k12.ca.us 

“Update from Israel and Palestine” A panel discussion has been cancelled because two speakers have been unable to get exit permits. The event was sponsored by Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Campus. 

“Anthropology and Architecture: The Making of Public Space in Kinshasa, RD Congo” with Filip De Boeck, Univ. of Leuven, Belgium, at 4 p.m. at 652 Barrows Hall, UC Campus. 642-8338. www.ias.berkeley.edu/africa 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem sol ving and beginners meeting to answer, in simple English, users questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St., near corner of Eunice St. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

El Cerrrito Library Book Club meets to discuss “The Kite Runner” b y Khaled Hosseini at 7 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. www.ccclib.org 

Family Story Time at the Kensington Branch Library, Tues. evenings at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. This is a project of Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Charles Fitch will show travel slides at 11 a.m. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Acting and Storytelling Classes for Seniors offered by Stagebridge, at Arts First Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Classes are held at 10 a.m. Tues.-Fri. For more information call 44 4-4755. www.stagebridge.org 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24 

“The Native Americans” a PBS documentary on the tribes of the northern and southern Great Plains at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 452-1235. 

“We Voted: Now What?” with Larry Bensky, host of KPFA Sunday Salon, at 1:30 p.m. at the Gray Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes” by Mark H. Gaffney at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble Coffee Shop, El Cerrito Plaza. 433-2911. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday, rain or shine, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Prose Writers’ Workshop An ongoing group focused on issues of craft. Novices welcome. Community sponsored, no fee. Meets Wed. at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 524-3034. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Fun with Acting Class every Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome, no experience necessary.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, NOV. 25 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahe ad to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

Vegetarian Give Thanks Potluck Feast at 6 p.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Please bring a vegetarian dish and a game or a song to share. Sponsored by E ast Bay Food Not Bombs. 

HOW TO HELP 

Alameda County Community Food Bank’s Annual Food Drive accepts donations of non-perishable food in the red barrel at any Safeway or Albertson’s. 834-3663. www.accfb.org 

November is We Give Thanks Month! Join participati ng restaurants in supporting the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. For a list of participating restaurants please visit www.bfhp.org  

Firefighters Toy Drive Donate new, unwrapped toys and canned food to any Berkeley fire station. For information call 981-5506. 

Find a Loving Animal Companion at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society Adoption Center, 2700 Ninth St. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

CITY MEETINGS 

Disaster Council meets Wed., Nov. 24, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. Carol Lopes, 981-5514. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

›n

Jakob Schiller:  

Edward Lin, an alumnus of UC Berkeley’s Acacia fraternity, carries a 130-pound pig onto the deck of the fraternity where the members were preparing to brine it. The pig, which cost $200, will be cooked for 24 hours in an outside pit and be ready just in time for kick-off in Saturday’s big game against Stanford.¸

Last year at about this time Planet readers were discussing the merits of putting city tax increases on the March ballot, and Mayor Bates was heard to complain that all the nay saying in the press and elsewhere was preventing him from doing so. The tax m easures were put off until the November election, but the results were no more palatable to mayor, council and city staff than March results would have been. Two of the most sacred of cows, libraries and firefighters, went down with the rest. What’s the p roblem here? 

The mathematically inclined had the simplest explanation: simply too many different measures, and they couldn’t all win. There’s a certain amount of truth in that. Given the opportunity, the voters cherry-pick. They choose their favorite c it y services, and assuage their civic consciences by voting yes on those and no on the others. Without checking the precinct-by-precinct results (are they even available yet?) it’s a reasonable bet that the flatlands voted yes on libraries and no on firefig hters, and the hills did the reverse, so no measure was able to get critical mass. And for the easy voter favorite, in Berkeley and elsewhere, the schools will always win, hands down. 

Conventional wisdom among politicians therefore says it’s simple: Just put fewer measures on the ballot and the survivors will win. But it’s not really quite so easy. Which ones do you choose? The hidden problem in this scheme is that people have caught on that it’s really all about robbing Peter to pay Paul. The less t he city has to spend on whatever voters are willing to vote for, the more money left in the general fund to conduct business as usual. And if we are to take communications from some of our correspondents at face value, it’s business as usual that is annoy ing many citizens these days. Even without the conscience-salving alternatives on the ballot, these voters might decide to vote no anyhow. 

Thanks to a remarkable effort by departing City Clerk Sherry Kelly and her staff, it’s now possible for the analyti call y minded Berkeley citizen to get all the facts about pay for city employees and the union contracts which set pay rates and increase schedules on the Internet. If you’re so inclined, you can search on words relevant to your favorite service, e.g. “li brary” or “fire,” or on your particular bête noire, e.g. “planning.” A number of the city’s amateur policy wonks have done just that, analyzed the data, and circulated their conclusions to an ever-widening circle of annoyed consumers of city services. Whe n such consumers can compare their own salaries with that of the person who last dissed them at a counter somewhere in the city offices, the results are predictable. 

Natural bureaucratic tendencies would immediately suggest reducing the amount of provoca tive information available to the public. In the wake of Sherry Kelly’s departure, everyone needs to watch out that this doesn’t happen. We’ve already gotten complaints that the information flow from the much-criticized planning department has been reduced. Fo r example, one civic watcher of the Landmarks Commission, which is now under siege from the builders’ lobby, reports that LPC packets, which have always been released late Fridays for the regular Monday meetings, are now not always available at the Main Library on weekends as they have been in the past.  

Many California governments, including the City of Oakland, are starting to refuse to release employee salary data. Even Berkeley’s list doesn’t show names of employees who hold described positions. You have to know the exact titles of employees to determine their salary range, and their rank within the range to know precisely what their salary is. Unless you know, for example, that Mark Rhoades’ title is Land Use Planning Manager, you might not be aware that he makes somewhere between about $96,000 and about $108,000 a year.  

Does having salary data in wide circulation lead to defeat of ballot measures? It’s hard to be sure, but as a newspaper we have to stand for the proposition that sunshine is alway s a good thing.  

We were deeply disappointed, by the way, in the recent attempt of losing pro-tax partisans, including some who should know better, to charge that the newsletter of the venerable Council of Neighborhood Associations should be ruled a camp aign document just because it ran editorials opposing the tax increases. Shooting the messenger is the classic example of a dumb move. 

We’re still willing to explore the idea that the city of Berkeley needs more revenue. We support discussion, in our pub lic forum and others, of the right way to get it. But city mothers and fathers, especially those who have just been elected, need to take an active role in broadening the choice of alternatives, and in making sure that all voices are included in the discu ssion. If they yield to the temptation of knee-jerk agreement to yet another round of ballot measures, without changing the way the city spends its current income, they’ll be setting themselves up for yet another defeat at the polls. 

The salary list address, for the technologically savvy, is www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/hr/ 

Salaries/SalaryListPage(a).asp.  

—Becky O’Malley 

?

Even though the election’s been over for two weeks, we continue to get many letters, commentaries and news analyses about what happened. A famous sociolinguist, Dr. William Labov, used to do his research by asking people to tell stories about times their lives were in danger, which produced a torrent of language which he could then study. The last five years, culminating in the election, are perceived by left-of-center political people as one of those experiences: a time when values they hold as dear as life itself have been endangered. Yes, the word is values. Believe it or not, Democrats have values too, just like evangelical conservatives. A touching report in Thursday’s papers reported that the Democrats are starting a task force on faith and values in politics. A congressman from New Jersey was quoted as saying that the task force would seek to promote such traditional Democratic values as “caring for the poor, the elderly and children and standing for the fiscal discipline embodied in the budget surpluses of the Clinton administration.” He hoped this would spark a Democratic victory in 2006 congressional elections. 

Now, fiscal discipline per se has not always been a traditional Democratic value. One of the clever tricks of the Clinton regime, with Senator Kerry a willing participant, was to prioritize a balanced budget to an extent which many economists thought was unnecessary. All too frequently, the budget was balanced on the backs of, yes, the poor, the elderly and children. “Welfare reform” a la Clinton and Kerry is the notorious example.  

Sooner or later, and sooner would be better, the Democrats must stand up again for the old traditional Democratic value of taxing the rich to take care of the poor. Kerry’s definition of the middle class, whose standard he was bearing, as people making less than $200,000 a year, did not, for good reason, resonate with the masses who are not part of that kind of expanded middle. The people who might listen to the Democratic message are more likely to be trying to support a family on less than $50,000 a year, but many of them have been working too hard to think much about elections. 

Americans strongly resist thinking of themselves as “the poor,” even if they’re working three jobs to put food on the table and don’t have health care. But if Democrats all over the country, and not just in the states which went Democratic in the last election, concentrated on educating voters about why their lives feel like such a struggle, it would make a great difference in the results of the 2006 election.  

Putting out a paper which is distributed for free, with bus stops a prime place it’s picked up, has taught us a lot about how to convey information to busy, harried people. You don’t have to talk down, but short and sweet is important. Web-based organizing is a great help, but racking up votes still depends on door-to-door personal contact with the citizens who might not have computers. Perhaps the most important job the web groups (MoveOn is pre-eminent) can do now is to put together a simple set of materials which can be printed out cheaply on home computers all over the country, even in the red states, and used as talking pieces by volunteers reaching out to the voter equivalent of what missionaries used to call “the unchurched.” A little newspaper which could be printed at home and handed out in working class neighborhoods and poor rural areas would be great.  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a lot of the energy of bright people is being devoted to chewing over the election numbers. It’s quite possible that fishy things happened in some places, notably Ohio and Florida, and they shouldn’t pass un-noticed. But the most important fact is that approximately half of the voters, give or take a few, actually did vote for Bush, most of them against their own self-interest. The next two years should be dedicated to helping them to understand what’s going on in their lives, and how voting differently in 2006 can change things for the better. 

—Becky O’Malley 

Even though the election’s been over for two weeks, we continue to get many letters, commentaries and news analyses about what happened. A famous sociolinguist, Dr. William Labov, used to do his research by asking people to tell stories about times their lives were in danger, which produced a torrent of language which he could then study. The last five years, culminating in the election, are perceived by left-of-center political people as one of those experiences: a time when values they hold as dear as life itself have been endangered. Yes, the word is values. Believe it or not, Democrats have values too, just like evangelical conservatives. A touching report in Thursday’s papers reported that the Democrats are starting a task force on faith and values in politics. A congressman from New Jersey was quoted as saying that the task force would seek to promote such traditional Democratic values as “caring for the poor, the elderly and children and standing for the fiscal discipline embodied in the budget surpluses of the Clinton administration.” He hoped this would spark a Democratic victory in 2006 congressional elections. 

Now, fiscal discipline per se has not always been a traditional Democratic value. One of the clever tricks of the Clinton regime, with Senator Kerry a willing participant, was to prioritize a balanced budget to an extent which many economists thought was unnecessary. All too frequently, the budget was balanced on the backs of, yes, the poor, the elderly and children. “Welfare reform” a la Clinton and Kerry is the notorious example.  

Sooner or later, and sooner would be better, the Democrats must stand up again for the old traditional Democratic value of taxing the rich to take care of the poor. Kerry’s definition of the middle class, whose standard he was bearing, as people making less than $200,000 a year, did not, for good reason, resonate with the masses who are not part of that kind of expanded middle. The people who might listen to the Democratic message are more likely to be trying to support a family on less than $50,000 a year, but many of them have been working too hard to think much about elections. 

Americans strongly resist thinking of themselves as “the poor,” even if they’re working three jobs to put food on the table and don’t have health care. But if Democrats all over the country, and not just in the states which went Democratic in the last election, concentrated on educating voters about why their lives feel like such a struggle, it would make a great difference in the results of the 2006 election.  

Putting out a paper which is distributed for free, with bus stops a prime place it’s picked up, has taught us a lot about how to convey information to busy, harried people. You don’t have to talk down, but short and sweet is important. Web-based organizing is a great help, but racking up votes still depends on door-to-door personal contact with the citizens who might not have computers. Perhaps the most important job the web groups (MoveOn is pre-eminent) can do now is to put together a simple set of materials which can be printed out cheaply on home computers all over the country, even in the red states, and used as talking pieces by volunteers reaching out to the voter equivalent of what missionaries used to call “the unchurched.” A little newspaper which could be printed at home and handed out in working class neighborhoods and poor rural areas would be great.  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a lot of the energy of bright people is being devoted to chewing over the election numbers. It’s quite possible that fishy things happened in some places, notably Ohio and Florida, and they shouldn’t pass un-noticed. But the most important fact is that approximately half of the voters, give or take a few, actually did vote for Bush, most of them against their own self-interest. The next two years should be dedicated to helping them to understand what’s going on in their lives, and how voting differently in 2006 can change things for the better. 

—Becky O’Malley