Final vote tallies posted from the Nov. 2 election show that despite significantly closing the margin in post-election counting, Berkeley’s medical marijuana Measure R has lost by 191 votes. The final totals were 25,167 to 24,976. 

When preliminary count ing ended on election night, the measure had trailed by 866 votes. 

The measure had proposed eliminating limits on the amounts of medical marijuana that could be possessed by patients or caregivers. In addition, it would have allowed existing dispensaries to move anywhere within the city’s retail zones. The City Council recently imposed a limit on pot dispensaries, allowing no more than the three currently operating in the city. 

The final vote tally also showed challenger Karen Hemphill losing to Berkele y School Director John Selawsky by 602 votes, 16,366 to 15,764, in the only other city race which remained undecided after election day. 

The final vote count this week had come as something of a surprise, as county election officials had earlier indicate d that a vote update would not be ready until next week. A spokesperson for the Registrar of Voters office said that they simply ran out of ballots to count. 

More than 28 percent of Berkeley’s votes were counted after preliminary tallies were released on election day. Since that time, county election officials have been counting paper ballots as well as absentee ballots turned into precincts on election day. Absentee ballots mailed into the registrar’s office at the Alameda Courthouse were counted on ele ction night. 

Alameda County Assistant Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold said that although her office has “no more votes to count,” the tally will not be considered official until Nov. 30, when the county will certify the vote. 

Degé Coutee, campaign manager for Measure R, said the group was considering its options for a recount, but expressed concern about the way the count was handled. 

“We’ve just been looking for some consistency in dealing with the county officials,” she said. “And that isn’t what we had, and that’s what was disconcerting, more than anything else. There hasn’t been much consistency from them regarding the time frame or how many votes they thought they had to count. We’ve been told for the past couple of days that they were going to need until Tuesday, and then—boom—they’re done.” 

Coutee had also said she was concerned that members of the campaign had been denied access to the vote count. 

“We just think it’s strange,” she said, “that’s all, and we think that this particular office has some problems so we’re going to look into it.”ä

To the untrained eye the mess of snaking wires and blinking electronics hardly looks revolutionary. 

But the television monitors, DVD players and amplifiers in Free Radio Berkeley’s West Oakland warehouse are more than just a jumble of hardware. 

They’re the parts to a TV channel, and the newest wave in micropower media—low wattage, garage-style broadcasting, sometimes referred to as pirate radio, that usually operates without a license.  

It’s a major part of an international movement to claim the airwaves for public use—and it may soon be coming to a television set near you. 

Engineers at Free Radio Berkeley say they have for the first time developed a simple, affordable, low-power television transmitter and antenna which individuals can use to broadcast their own programming.  

“Our goal is to basically empower communities to do their own broadcasting, regardless of what the government or the corporations have to say about it,” said Free Radio Berkeley founder Stephen Dunifer, who has been challenging government regulation and corporate ownership of the air waves through guerrilla broadcasting for a dozen years. 

While Free Radio Berkeley has provided FM micropower broadcasting kits and how-to workshops since its inception, this is the first time it’s been able to make TV broadcasting cheap and easy enough for the masses, Dunifer said.  

Starting next week, would-be TV producers can get from Free Radio Berkeley the parts they need for an estimated $500 to $1100, depending on the power level.  

Once assembled—a process Dunifer claims is no harder than putting together a stereo—the transmitters are capable of reaching four to five miles. They can be hooked up to a DVD player to show prerecorded material or to a video camera for a live broadcast. 

Dunifer started Free Radio Berkeley in 1992. The next year, the group began broadcasting its own FM radio station, often from a perch in the Berkeley Hills.  

The collective made national headlines when Dunifer challenged in federal court the Federal Communication Commission’s attempt to shut it down for operating without a license.  

Dunifer and his lawyers argued the FCC‘s regulations—which require that all broadcasters obtain a license—were unconstitutional. The agency’s regulations were overly burdensome, they said, because the expensive and complicated application process created too high a barrier of entry for average communities to have radio stations. 

The FCC eventually won, saying in a June 17, 1998 statement: “The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California yesterday issued a permanent injunction against unlicensed broadcaster Stephen Dunifer (”Free Radio Berkeley”). The 18-page decision reaffirms the FCC's authority to require a license before any person can broadcast on the public airwaves.” 

Free Radio Berkeley, which had a staff of nearly 100 producers, went off the air. Members later reorganized as Berkeley Liberation Radio, which is still broadcasting. 

Although the licensing process for low power broadcasting has changed, Dunifer and other micropower advocates still argue that the FCC’s “regulatory inertia” makes getting licensed nearly impossible. The airwaves belong to the people, they say, but are being hoarded by corporate interests. 

The FCC didn’t return calls for comment.  

“In reality, (the airwaves) have been taken over,” said Maria Gilardin, a micropower advocate who has worked in the field for 13 years. “Micropower radio has shown that a response with a lot of integrity is to simply take the airwaves back by taking over a slice of the spectrum and using it as we see fit.”  

“Now here comes “illegal” TV,” she added. “Same concept, same technology, same expression of the creative spirit of rebellion.” 

People need a medium where they can experience what it’s like to be their own media, Gilardin said. 

Micropower television could also give people access to a wider variety of perspectives, something lacking in the TV channels that dominate the airwaves, according to UC Berkeley mass communications lecturer Jonathan Gray. 

Most stations are owned by a handful of media companies, which affects their content, intentionally or not, he said.  

“There are viewpoints that we’re not being exposed to,” Gray said. “A thriving democracy should allow access to these viewpoints, and that’s what these independent media outlets allow us to do.” 

There are problems with television. Accessing the majority of viewers who now get their TV from cable companies and therefore wouldn’t be likely to stumble across a micropower station could prove challenging. The medium also doesn’t offer the same anonymity as radio.  

But the benefit is TV has the potential to reach many more people than FM radio. 

“TV has certainly got to be probably the primary means of maintaining the propaganda environment,” Dunifer said. “For average people to be able to reclaim that medium for their own purposes is very important.” 

Free Radio Berkeley is to begin selling the kits this week, and will provide an all day, introductory workshop to low power TV broadcasting on Saturday, Dec. 4.  

For more information call Free Radio Berkeley at 625-0314 or check out its website: www.freeradio.org. 

On Wednesday about 200 hungry East Bay residents enjoyed a free Thanksgiving feast with carved turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, fresh vegetables, and bread at Ann’s Kitchen, a restaurant at 2498 Telegraph Ave. 

For the past 14 years, David and Suki An, husband and wife owners of Ann’s Kitchen Restaurant, have prepared and served a holiday feast to anyone who shows up hungry at their restaurant the day before Thanksgiving. 

The Ans came to the United States from South Korea 29 years ago. After selling his San Francisco hofbrau restaurant, David An purchased Ann’s Kitchen fourteen years ago. Since the name of the restaurant was so similar to his last name, David decided to stick with the original moniker. 

Although Ann’s Kitchen is well-known for its hearty breakfasts and lunches, David enjoys cooking the most traditional American dinner. 

“Before coming to America, I had never tried turkey, but I learned how to cook it when I ran my San Francisco hofbrau,” said David An. 

“I feel grateful that I’ve done so well in this country, and it just seems right that I give something back to others who are less fortunate,” said David An. 

David and Suki’s two children, a UC Berkeley senior and an Oakland high school student, have helped out during the annual free Thanksgiving meal since it began.  

The majority of people who eat at Ann’s Kitchen on the day before Thanksgiving are homeless and needy East Bay residents. But, there are always some UC Berkeley students and people alone for the holidays that come to enjoy the camaraderie of sharing a holiday meal with others. 

“I wish that everybody had enough to eat. But, it seems like there are more hungry people every year who need a free meal,” said David An. 

In spite of working so hard to cook a Thanksgiving meal for hundreds on the day before Thanksgiving, David said he was looking forward to preparing a Thanksgiving meal for his family the following day. 

“I wouldn’t miss Thanksgiving for anything—especially the cranberry sauce,” he said. 

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UC Berkeley officials are in the midst of negotiations to turn much of their Richmond Field Station into a corporate/academic research park, with the facility—including property retained by the university—to be renamed the Bayside Research Campus. 

The U C Field Station property borders the proposed Campus Bay residential development, which has come under heavy criticism from neighbors and state legislators in recent weeks for the management of the toxic cleanup at the site. 

The UC proposal calls for leasing over 70 of the 152 acres at the field station—the vast majority of developable land—to a private developer and construction of new buildings, which, when added to existing structures at the site, would provide two million square feet of research and office space. 

The proposal was circulated with no public fanfare to would-be developers in a request for qualifications (RFQ) mailed out in on April 9. 

Though university has selected a possible candidate for the project, no agreement has been signed, an d “we’re still trying to make sure there’s a viable and feasible strategy for developing the site,” said UC Project Manager Kevin J. Hufferd. “We’re not sure that’s the case.” 

“The idea is to see if it can be redeveloped with a private developer that wou ld meet the university’s need for new facilities and generate some revenue” for the school, Hufferd said. “We have the opportunity to explore that now.” 

Hufferd acknowledged that the university wasn’t eager for publicity on the proposal.  

Among the goal s of the project cited in the RFQ is: “Creating an environment that supports private enterprise collaboration with university-lead research activities, and through working in partnership with the community to establish a unique market identity for the BRC.” 

Ignacio Chapela, the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources professor denied tenure after his blistering critiques of the University’s controversial research partnership with biotech giant Novartis, said the proposed project at the field station “ra ises the same questions as Novartis multiplied times ten.” 

Despite overwhelming support from scientific colleagues both at the university and nationwide, Chapela was denied tenure and his last scheduled day at UC Berkeley is Dec. 31. In June, the UCB Academic Senate found Chapela’s rights “may have been violated in two ways.” 

An outside review of the Novartis pact contracted by UCB and released in July found that Chapela’s criticisms of the accord had played a role in his ouster and that the university officials involved had ignored some of their own conflicts of interest. Chapela has appealed the ouster and is contemplating legal action.  

“I was shocked to hear about” the RFQ at the field station, Chapela said. “The fact that it had never been discuss ed with the campus community is another example of how the public has lost insight into the operations of the university. 

“This has the net effect of serving to cover up the effects of what could be a major toxics disaster.” 

The field station, purchased by the university in 1950, is located just north of the troubled Campus Bay project, now the center of a battle over the handling of polluted soil and hazardous waste at the site. 

The field station has its own toxics problems, much of them stemming from the same chemical manufacturing complex that polluted Campus Bay and others from a blasting cap factory that left soils contaminated with mercury. 

While the RFQ called for the developer to bear the cleanup costs at the field station, Hufferd said “We h ave since backed away” and the provision has been dropped. Instead, the university would assume that portion of the burden not being borne by Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, the last owner of both Campus Bay and much of the UC site. 

“UC does have some responsibi lity for the costs,” Hufferd said, “and some was allocated to Zeneca under prior agreements.” 

The toxin-laced cleanup sites for which the university does bear responsibility are those associated with the activities of the California Cap Company, which pr oduced explosives and blasting caps made with the fulminate of mercury. 

The resulting contamination produced in concentrations of the dangerous heavy metal compounds both in the dry, upland portions and in the wetlands bordering the site. 

Remediation ef forts began after the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Board in September 2001 served the school with a cleanup order. Six years earlier, UC officials had spurned a voluntary cleanup proposal from the much stricter state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), an agency that includes greater scientific expertise and invites public participation in the cleanup process as all stages. 

Mark Freiberg, director of UCB’s Office of Environment, Health & Safety, said the offer was declined by universit y official Susan Spencer because the school was then working with the federal Environmental Protection Agency on a voluntary cleanup effort of their own. 

“EPA said there was not an imminent risk, but we knew we had to clean it up,” Freiberg said, so we b egan to do sampling” to test for concentrations of hazardous materials at the site. 

“When the water board sends us an order, we’re forced to take action,” he said, adding that a Nov. 19 Daily Planet article erred in saying that the university asked the w ater board to take jurisdiction. “We didn’t turn to the water board. We opened our mail and found an order. 

“The site is viewed primarily as a water hazard, but we’re also hauling away contaminated soil” from the upland portion of the site. “Soils contam inated by Zeneca are being hauled back to Zeneca”—that is, the Campus Bay site—“and contamination caused by others is being taken to approved toxic waste dumps.” 

Freiberg said that “overall, regulators and community groups have seen our actions in a very positive way. We’re pretty proud of what we’re doing.” 

That doesn’t hold for Sherry Padgett and the other community activists of Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development (BARRD), who have been critical of cleanup efforts at both sites and who have been harshly critical of the burial of Field Stations wastes at Campus Bay. 

BARRD has called for the DTSC to take the oversight of both sites. 

In addition to mercury and iron pyrite ash, the field station also has hot spots contaminated with PCBs, an organic compound linked to several health problems, another other compounds. 

The Peralta Community College District has been making extensive changes in its operations department in recent months. 

Among the changes is a move which consolidates two departments involving the control of $130 million in public construction funds, removing the director heading one of those departments, and then hiring her one month later as a long-term consultant. 

In August of this year, the Peralta Trustee Board approved a recommendation by Chancellor Elihu Harris, upgrading the post of director of purchasing to director of general operations. 

A month later, according the board minutes, that title reappeared as director for general services. At the same time, the trustees approved the hiring of Purchasing Director Sadiq Ikharo in the post of interim director for general services, at an annual salary of $112,000. 

According to Oakland project management consultant Ineda Adesanya, who recently left her $105,000 a year post as interim director of physical plant for the district, the job title change actually involved a consolidation of two departments—the Department of Physical Plant and the Department of Purchasing—with the general services director assigned to oversee both departments. But no record of that consolidation appears in board minutes. 

In a report issued last September, Adesanya had listed the overall function of the Office of Physical Plant as “the administration and development of all physical facilities, grounds, equipment, and energy conservation programs for the district.” 

Those responsibilities included implementing construction, improvement, maintenance and ground programs for the district, as well as negotiating and managing all consultant and construction contracts. 

The report said that as of mid-September, Peralta’s Physical Plant Department was managing nearly $130 million in construction projects. 

The August minutes of the Peralta Trustee Board included the notation that “a copy of the proposed job description [for the Director of General Operations] is included in Board packets.” 

However, unlike governmental bodies such as the Berkeley City Council, the Berkeley Unified School District, or the University of California Board of Regents, the Peralta Community College District does not post reports or other meeting backup materials to its website along with minutes of meetings. 

Chancellor Harris did not return telephone calls related to this story, and newly-appointed Interim Director for General Services Ikharo referred queries to the office of Marketing and Communications Executive Director Jeff Heyman. Heyman said all queries on the matter would have to be submitted in writing, and any documents could be supplied following a written request under the Freedom of Information Act. 

Adesanya left her Peralta position at the end of September of this year. A month later, upon Chancellor Harris’ recommendation, the Peralta Board of Trustees approved entering negotiations with Adesanya’s Oakland-based IPA Planning Solutions company for a three-year, $90,000 contract to develop and coordinate a Facilities Master Plan and Strategic Master Plan for the current facilities and capital construction of the district. 

Adesanya said in a telephone interview that under the proposed contract, “I’ll be developing a Facilities Master Plan, which evaluates use of current facilities, the actual educational programs, and the conditions of the facilities, whether or not the boilers are working properly, the buildings are falling apart or need paint, that kind of stuff. So we are evaluating the existing facilities to see if they are adequate to service the educational programs at our four colleges. And then I will be making recommendations on what is needed in facilities to adequately service the educational programs.” 

Adesanya said her plan would definitely not involve a master land use plan for development of the district’s potentially developable properties, a subject that became an issue in the recent Board of Trustees election. 

That contradicted an earlier assertion by Ikharo, who had told the Daily Planet in an interview concerning a previous story that the IPA contract involved developing a plan for underutilized properties such as the athletic fields at Laney College.f

The owner of the site of the proposed five-story condo and retail project planned for 2701 Shattuck Ave. is the Choyce Family Trust, the creation of the Rev. Gordon Choyce Sr., pastor of the Missionary Church of God in Christ and head of low-income housing builder Jubilee Restoration. 

The trust purchased the property on June 17 from A1 Shattuck, a limited liability corporation (LLC) based in San Francisco. The sales price according to the Alameda County Assessor’s office, was $1.475 million. 

Thirteen days after the sale, Choyce’s son filed papers creating another LLC, 2701 Shattuck Condominiums, although the family trust remains as legal owner. 

The site developer is Ronnie Turner, a former city housing supervisor, now vice president of the board of the Rev. Gordon Choyce’s Jubilee Restoration Inc. 

Berkeley’s Design Review Committee last Thursday panned Turner’s plans and called for a height reduction to four stories.

In a time of fiscal problems affecting all government agencies, the Berkeley Unified School District announced last week that all the news isn’t bad: BUSD staff has completed a refinancing of the 1992 Measure A bonds that is expected to save the district $3.2 million over the next 20 years. 

The refunding of the three general obligation bonds issued under Measure A will drop the interest rates paid by Berkeley taxpayers from between 5.7 and 6.1 percent to 3 percent across the board. 

“This is not a typical method of cost cutting we might think of, because we are usually looking for direct income or savings to our budget,” said Superintendent Michele Lawrence. She credited the refinancing idea to Deputy Superintendent Glenston Thompson, who has been with BUSD for three months and is considered the district’s chief business officer. 

The soft-spoken Thompson himself said that the refinancing was merely “being good stewards and good decision-makers over the use of the District’s financial assets. I’m just glad to be able to do my part as a member of the BUSD team.”i

Eighteen days following the initial request, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has agreed this week to investigate several incidents of election problems from the recent November election to satisfy the concerns brought forth by U.S. Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and 12 other congressmembers.  

“The right to vote and the right to have our votes counted are both fundamental to our democratic system of government,” Lee said in a statement last week. “As elected representatives of the people, we hold a sacred responsibility to every voter across this nation to ensure that their vote is counted and recorded properly. We cannot, and we should not accept any flaws in our election process.” 

Julie Nickson, press secretary for Lee, adde d, “She signed it because she was aware of the situation. We got some phone calls from constituents.” 

Results from the investigation are not expected to be available prior to Bush’s inauguration. “I don’t think the results are going to be as rapid as peo ple want them to be,” said John Doty, press spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). 

A series of letters had been sent to the GAO, beginning on Nov. 5, by U.S. Reps. Lee, Conyers, Nadler, Robert Wexler (D-FL), Robert Scott (D-GA), Melvin Watt (D-NC), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), George Miller (D-CA), John Olver (D-MA), Bob Filner (D-CA), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and . Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) called the House Judiciary Committee office this week to become the 14th signatory. 

A statement issued by the GAO on their website said that the nonpartisan congressional research office will be conducting an impartial investigation. It will be up to state and federal agencies, however, to respond to findings in order to uphold election laws and citizens’ rights, or challenge the elections results. 

Conyers and the other supporters of the GAO probe are encouraged. A press release out of Nadler’s office, stated, “We are pleased that the GAO has reviewed the concerns expressed in our letters and has found them of sufficient merit to warrant further investigation.” 

The representatives’ statement continued, “We are hopeful that GAO’s non-partisan and expert analysis will get to the bottom of the flaws uncovered in the 2004 election. As part of this inquiry, we will provide copies of specific incident reports received in our offices, including more than 57,000 such complaints provided to the House Judiciary Committee.” 

Doty, spokesperson for Nadler, said, “A lot of peo ple are interested in changing the election results, but I don’t think at this point, at least the Congressmen don’t see enough content to change the election results. The point is to fix irregularities.” 

Nadler, who is the ranking Democratic member of t he Subcommittee on the Constitution, on the House Judiciary Committee, plans to continue supporting Holt’s bill to demand a receipt, or paper trail, for all voters. 

“There will be calls for hearings,” said Doty. “We need to reauthorize the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act. We’ve been pushing for the Rush Holt paper trail bill. Nadler intends to play an important role in improving our elections, and in working closely with the Judiciary Committee. As Democrats on the committee, we will continue to investigate the election, but we’re unsure whether Republican Chairman Sensenbrenner will ultimately support a bi-partisan Congressional investigation. We certainly hope he will.” 

CNN has reported that the GAO “will not investigate every charge listed by the Democrats, but will examine ‘the security and accuracy of voting technologies, distribution and allocation of voting machines and counting of provisional ballots.’’’ 

The GAO issued a statement asserting, “Under the nation’s leg al framework, elections are largely a matter reserved to, and regulated by, the states… Congress has, however, asserted its prerogatives under the Election Clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1) to impose certain procedural requiremen ts on federal elections through such federal statutes such as the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act, both of which are enforced by the Department of Justice.” 

Actual steps to enforce remedies when election irregularities occur are referred to the following three agencies in the GAO statement: the Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, at the Department of Justice; the Criminal Division, Public Integrity Section, at the Department of Justice; and the U.S. Election Assistance Co mmission. 

Many concerns were brought forth by the congressmembers, including the almost 4,000 votes awarded to Bush in Columbus, Ohio, reported by the AP, which was starkly noticeable because more votes were recorded in the precinct than there were regis tered voters. 

Other reported incidents included votes that were lost on a local initiative in Florida because the computer could only store so many votes; approximately 4,500 votes lost in one North Carolina county; a glitch in San Francisco computers wh ich caused many votes to be uncounted; and Florida’s anomalous results where only districts with touch screen voting had disproportionate votes for Bush than expected. 

A second letter, dated Nov. 8, cited even more problems, including AP reports in Flori da and Ohio of voters who stated when using touch screens, that if they selected ‘John Kerry,’ instead ‘George Bush’ would appear on the screen; long lines reported in urban Ohio areas; 3,000 phantom votes that were added by a Nebraska ‘vote tabulator’ which doubled the votes; 22,000 North Carolina votes the computer initially discarded; 21 voting machines in Broward County, Florida, that malfunctioned, eliminating prior votes; and boxes of absentee votes discovered after the election in a Broward County election office. 

Nine out of the current 14 supporters are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). They are Lee (who is a leader of the Caucus), along with Conyers, Nadler, Watt, Baldwin, Miller, Olver, Filner, and Schakowsky. There are cu rrently 55 congressional members on the Progressive Caucus. 

Support by at least one senator and one House Representative is required to formally contest an election result prior to inauguration. 

Matthew Cardinale is a freelance writer, activist, and gr aduate student in sociology and democracy studies at UC Irvine. He may be reached at mcardina@uci.edu. 

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This past January, New Yorker essayist Malcolm Gladwell observed that sports-utility vehicles are bestsellers because Americans have bought into the marketing myth that SUVs are safer than conventional cars. Actually, they are more dangerous because they are less maneuverable and more prone to tip over. 

On Nov. 2 Americans bought into another marketing myth—that George Bush would keep them safe. The truth is that the Bush administration has imperiled our security: Bush domestic policies have made the economic future less secure and his international policies have fueled the flames of terrorism. (In retrospect, the motto of the Kerry campaign should have been, “George Bush—unsafe at any speed.”) 

Many Democrats believe that those who voted for George W. did so because they are unintelligent, but there is a more plausible explanation for his victory on Nov. 2: Americans preferred Bush because they are vulnerable to mass-marketing myth makers. 

Americans bought into a fabricated Bush persona on many levels: Those who voted for George W. believed that he was more pious, patriotic, and athletic than John Kerry. The gulf between the perception of Bush and the reality was the result of a carefully orchestrated marketing campaign. 

After it was clear that John Kerry would be the Democratic nominee, a friend remarked that on election day the American electorate would have the choice between spam (Bush) and prosciutto (Kerry); in other words, voters could pick either a manufactured product, a nutritional illusion, or one that was real but unfamiliar to Middle America. 

Once Kerry secured the nomination, polls showed him with a slight advantage over the incumbent. The Bush marketers responded with the first stage of their image campaign: George W. is just like you, and John Kerry is not—he’s an effete intellectual. At this point, Laura Bush began to play a bigger role in the campaign because she has broad popular appeal. (Laura’s prominence reminded me of a comment that my mother once made about Dick Nixon, “He must be okay; he’s married to that sweet woman, Pat.”) Throughout the campaign, Laura was used to reinforce the “folks like us” theme. Theresa Heinz Kerry was too exotic for much of Middle America; her presence supported the Republican claim that John Kerry was out of touch with average people. 

At the Democratic convention Kerry was packaged as a decorated veteran, “reporting for duty” to protect America. This presented a serious challenge to the Bush image-makers. They responded with two thrusts:         

The first was to say, in effect, Kerry served honorably in Vietnam but since then has had a career primarily characterized by vacillation—he’s a flip-flopper. The Bush marketing campaign claimed that George, in contrast, was resolute, “He says what he means and means what he says.” 

The second thrust was the infamous “Swift-Boat” advertisements, and the accompanying book, “Unfit for Command.” These attacks served two purposes: they marginalized Kerry’s credibility as a decorated war hero. And, they diverted attention from Bush’s greatest vulnerability, the failure of his Administration to respond to the Al Qaeda threat prior to 9/11. 

After Kerry’s campaign was reenergized by his victories in the debates, the Bush image-makers responded with the third stage of their campaign: moral values. Bush was portrayed as the defender of traditional values; he would protect the American family from the “threat” of gay marriage and, more generally, immoral lifestyles promoted by the liberal elite. Kerry was lambasted as a liberal, someone out of touch with core American values.  

The Republican theme, Bush will protect America, was extended to the war on terrorism; George W. was portrayed as a Christian warrior who would defend the American family from threats within and without the United States. 

Democrats didn’t take this marketing campaign seriously enough. They laughed when, for example, Dick Cheney told an audience that if John Kerry were to be elected president there was no doubt that Al Qaeda would “hit us again.” Rather than talk about values, and Kerry’s own positives, the Democratic campaign managers retreated into policy wonkdom.  

When the Bin Laden video ran a few days before Nov. 2, the Democrats had no effective response. But, the video reminded the average American of 9/11 and, therefore, reinforced the artfully constructed image of Bush as protector of the nation. At the last minute, crucial voter groups shifted from Kerry to Bush because of a concern about security and values. 

When push came to shove, the American voting public bought the Bush marketing campaign. They chose spam. Not because it tasted better, or was healthier, but because it was comfort food in perilous times. They disapproved of most of what Bush had done in his first term, but they liked him better, felt more comfortable with him. 

In 1992, Bill Clinton won because Democrats did a better job of marketing him than Republicans did with George H. W. Bush. In 2000 and 2004, Gore and Kerry lost because the Republicans were better mythmakers. There’s a vital lesson to be learned from this experience—in 2008, Democrats must do a far better job marketing their presidential candidate. 

Sometimes the fate of a single battle foretells the outcome of a war, long before it’s over. The eventual end of the San Francisco hotel lockout promises to be this kind of watershed moment.  

Last Saturday, before San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom strode into his office to announce the end of the five-week lockout before a bank of television cameras, he went down the hall to pay respects to the workers who had made it possible. Dozens of room cleaners, waiters, bartenders and floor sweepers rose to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. It was the culmination of one of the most remarkable political turnabouts in a city known for unconventional politics.  

The mayor, after all, was the candidate of the workers’ adversaries. For years, the city’s hotels had bankrolled Newsom’s political initiatives, especially the “Care not Cash” program, designed to rid the streets of the homeless. When Newsom finally ran for mayor, downtown businesses, including hotels, were his primary supporters. At the time, the hotel union was one of the few that strongly campaigned for his opponent, Green candidate Matt Gonzalez.  

But beginning last summer, UNITE HERE Local 2 skillfully exploited new fault lines in urban politics and the economics of the hospitality industry in its quest for bargaining leverage. In fact, leverage has been at the heart of the conflict from the beginning, more important than even wage increases or benefits.  

By Labor Day, the union was locked in fractious negotiations with the 14 hotels of the Multi Employer Group representing hotel operators, including multibillion-dollar corporations like Hilton, Intercontinental, Starwood and Hyatt. The actual hotels are owned by large investment groups and pension funds.  

While the hotel operators were proposing tiny wage increases and big hikes in health insurance payments of up to $273 a month, the key issue was the duration of the contract itself. Local 2 proposed that a new agreement expire in 2006, when similar contracts with the same corporations expire in other cities around the country, from New York to Chicago to Honolulu. By lining up the expiration dates, the union hoped to form a common front of workers in major urban hotel markets, who could act together to win a new standard of living that individual local unions are too weak to gain alone.  

Barbara French, spokesperson for the hotel group, called this idea “a non-starter from the beginning.”  

Another union proposal sought to unify its membership base and solidify community support. Existing contract language protecting the rights of immigrants would be combined with a new bid to increase the diversity of the hotel workforce, particularly by hiring African American workers. Since the end of the 1960s-era civil rights protests, the largest of which focused on the Sheraton Palace Hotel, black employment in hotels has dropped to less than 6 percent.  

In September the union launched a limited two-week strike against four hotels in the employer group. The operators answered with the first of a series of strategic missteps. They locked the workers out of the other 10 hotels in the group, saying they’d extend the lockout beyond the strike’s end, so long as workers kept demanding the 2006 expiration date.  

Perhaps believing that workers wouldn’t sacrifice paychecks simply for an expiration date, the hotels miscalculated again. Hotel worker Elena Duran, speaking for many others, reacted by saying simply, “It’s important for us to level the playing field.”  

Then the union turned the lockout, meant as a pressure tactic against it, into a weapon against the operators themselves. The 4,300 locked-out laborers mounted large, boisterous picket lines. Bullhorns blasted their chants into the streets, and up into the hotel rooms, from early morning until after midnight. Union members ate on the lines, often bringing their children with them.  

Picketers were a polyglot reflection of the city’s diversity, with all its racial groups, speaking a bewildering variety of languages.  

Some conventions pulled out of picketed hotels, while guests complained about disruption inside, or just refused to cross the lines. When operators brought in strikebreakers from hotels in other cities, the union extended its picket lines to Chicago, Honolulu and Monterey, provoking one-day shutdowns that previewed what coordinated bargaining in 2006 might accomplish.  

Finally, the union turned to the city itself. Matt Gonzalez, Board of Supervisors president, held a crowded hearing at City Hall. The mayor, hitherto quiet about the dispute, decided to make his own attempt to settle it. Here, the hotel operators made their most disastrous error. Newsom asked them to end the lockout while he tried to make progress in negotiations. The hotels turned him down flat. And when he threatened to picket with the workers, a gesture with little actual economic clout, they criticized him publicly. Matt Adams, head of the Multi Employer Group, wondered aloud in the San Francisco Chronicle why the mayor, whose campaign they had financed was not taking their side without question.  

Newsom went to the picket lines and announced he was pulling city business from the hotels, encouraging all their clients to go elsewhere. As complaints of lost revenue and noise from the picket lines mounted from businesses around the hotels, Newsom pulled the police away, saying the operators could end the ruckus any time they liked.  

Finally, the union and its allies, now including the mayor, drove a wedge between the hotel operators and the owners, who gained nothing from the lockout. After five weeks, the operators let the workers return to their jobs, with no agreement on their essential demand that the union give up the 2006 contract expiration date.  

The contract remains unresolved. The union agreed not to strike for 60 days. The operators and the hotels will be able to function unhindered through their busiest season. But the grand strategy to stop the union’s bid for greater bargaining power has unraveled, leaving the Multi Employer Group in disarray and politically isolated. 

David Bacon writes regularly on labor and immigration issues. His latest book is The Children of NAFTA (University of California Press, 2004).  

›

Poor Democrats. They stand like Jack Nicholson as the Joker in the Batman movie, deserted and alone on an inner city street, watching the Republican juggernaut disappearing in the distance overhead, wondering why their toys don’t work like that. 

These days, the Democrats always seem to be functioning one election behind. John Kerry and the national party did all the right things to win the 2000 presidency, plugging all the holes left open by Al Gore’s candidacy. Unfortunately, our Republican friends were running a campaign built for 2004. 

And so, now, the anguish. The soul searching. The pulling of hair and covering of bodies with dust and ashes as Democrats wonder, “What can we do to make the people like us again?” 

The word of the day, today, is “morals,” with polls saying that the national election was largely decided on that issue, our Republican friends squatting contentedly on theirs, and Democrats scramble to try to find some place to make an inroad. The first such “opening” came when Republican members of Congress, worried that House Majority Leader is in some danger of being indicted by a Texas Grand Jury for possible election law violations, rescinded their own rule that an indicted Congressional leader must be automatically removed from his post. 

Hypocrites!, the Democrats shouted. Why, you’re not moral at all! 

The problem is, as my country friends used to say, that when you point a finger at somebody else, three of your own fingers point back at you. 

And so Democrats, if they want to show the public that they are less corrupt than the other guys, might simply want to clean out their own stalls first, before going after the opposition. 

In the largest state of the union—California—a good starting point would be declaring that any state Democratic legislative leader indicted by a grand jury should immediately be removed from her-or his-leadership post. That would send the nation a clear message that the Democrats were serious on this issue. 

It would also mean that our own Democratic State Senator Don Perata—who is reportedly under federal investigation for alleged misuse of his office—would have to remove himself from his newly-achieved post of president pro tem of the California State Senate if that investigation happens to end up in an indictment against Mr. Perata. 

Will California Democratic legislative leaders take that position? In a story this week, the Oakland Tribune’s Sacramento bureau correspondent, Steve Geissinger, gave some interesting—and probably predictable—insight: “[State] senators, however, withheld predictions of what Democrats, who hold 25 of the [California] Senate’s 40 seats, would do if Perata is indicted. On the other hand, if Perata survives the episode, no senators want to have appeared as if they were scheming on his job, lest they be punished.” 

Yes, I see. Let us be known as the party of morality, but only if it means we don’t have to take any risks. But morality is not a soundbite or a political position. Most often it involves the courage to stick to a principled belief, even at personal or political cost. The public recognizes and respects that, even when they don’t hold the same belief. 

Another running theme in the panic following Nov. 2 is that, since Americans are showing that they like Republicans more than they like Democrats, then Democrats should become more like Republicans in order to get Americans to like them again. And so, the talk that Democrats should move more toward the “center,” which is code for “let’s be less like us, and more like them.” 

This defies both logic and history. 

In the election of 1964, Republican conservativism had its clock cleaned by President Lyndon Johnson, who beat Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater 486 to 52 in the electoral vote, 61 percent to 39 percent in the popular vote. In the wake of that debacle, Republicans could have modified their conservatism, and moved their positions closer to the “center” and the mood of the country. Instead, led by people like Ronald Reagan, they set about systematically to move the mood of the country closer to them. Within 20 years they had accomplished a complete reversal, with President Ronald Reagan beating Walter Mondale 525 to 13 in the electoral vote in 1984, 59 percent to 41 percent in the popular vote. 

If Democrats want to take a lesson from Republicans, that would be a good one to start with. 

For progressive Democrats, that would mean not worrying so much about who the party nominates for the presidency in 2008, but instead working to transform the party from the bottom up, concentrating on local office, and setting sites on statewide and national power for 2012 and beyond. We saw a model for that this year in Richmond, where progressive Democrats aligned themselves with Greens and Peace and Freedom Party members and “even” Libertarians (the “even” is their term) to form the Richmond Progressive Alliance and elect Gayle McLaughlin to the Richmond City Council. That’s a model to be studied: perhaps the formation of a Progressive-Populist Democratic coalition as part of the state and national Democratic Party, that would support Democratic nominees in statewide and national elections in the near term, but would run their own slates for local offices, biding their time while they change peoples’ minds and build their strength. 

That might even mean an electoral challenge from the left for politicians like Senator Perata, who ran uncontested for his seat this time by skillfully maneuvering his most serious opposition out of the way before it was time for the votes to be cast. Winning political power by hoping your opposition gets put in jail is not a good political strategy. It’s not a strategy at all. 

The “populist” part is critical to the progressive-populist equation. A lot of my good friends are Green Party members, but once you get outside of the city limits of Berkeley—which is as naturally “green” as you’ll get in the state of California—the Greens tend to be more a debating society than a serious player in community politics. The same—unfortunately—is true for the progressive Democratic clubs, whose platforms and agendas rarely reflect the problems and concerns of a good portion of the population. While the media proclaims that the “exurbs” are the new political battleground, millions of potential progressive voters in the traditional inner cities go abandoned, waiting for their concerns to be heard. You cannot lead people if you’re afraid to walk down their streets. Or worse yet, don’t even know where they live. 

Anyways, forgive me for preaching. I’ll try not to get carried away next time. Thus endeth the lesson. 

H

My sincere hope is that the Daily Planet follows up with an article on the public safety issues surrounding Cal Stadium’s current location and proposed future location of the Stadium Rebuild Project. It is dramatic to put neighborhoods in an adversarial role against this university and its athletic program, but to do so is missing the point. We are not the best representatives of the public safety issue because of our clear self-interests, but at the same time, we perhaps better than anybody else are all too familiar with the public safety issues because of where we live.  

It is not our fault that the university persists in its denial about the problems with the Strawberry Canyon location. Anybody in their right mind would foresee difficulties too numerous to list in a short letter to the editor. Everybody knows about, but turns a blind eye to, the fact that the stadium is located at a virtual dead end, at the mouth of a canyon, near a state-designated critical fire zone, built on fill, where a waterfall once was. No other campus stadium comes close to having any one of these problems, and the combination of problems is unheard of.  

I will be requesting from this university a headcount of the number of students who do attend games. No matter how the stadium itself is rebuilt to be earthquake safe, no technical solution accounts for 73,000 people (approximately 75 percent of the population of Berkeley concentrated in this one location), evacuating the area. Any realistic scenario accounts for the human tendency to run, to flee, to do what others are doing, which might be correctly named “stampeding.”  

Never have I heard one word from the university, or the city for that matter, that the stadium is located near the most population dense area of the City of Berkeley. It is nice to minimize the problems by the university’s focus on Panoramic Hill, but any realistic scenario accounts for the fact that 73,000 individuals leaving the area will also interfere with emergency access to not only the Panoramic Hill neighborhood, but also to numerous student co-ops, residence halls, fraternities and sororities. But instead of protecting the students, this university uses the students’ enthusiasm to reinforce denial about the real risks associated with rebuilding at this location.  

Already, the City of Berkeley fails to protect the one neighborhood I know most intimately, the Panoramic Hill neighborhood, which is the canary in the mine shaft, if you think about it. As a result of this failure, the university’s environmental review documents historically underestimate impacts by counting on a fire department service that is simply not available to us. Instead, the perception is of a city that manipulates public opinion about budget issues by sacrificing public safety.  

No matter how UC Berkeley administrators package it, retrofitting old concrete means removing the existing concrete, transporting it out through predominantly student neighborhoods, and rebuilding, which means more trucks bringing materials in through two-lane residential streets. It is realistic to imagine air quality and noise impacts even worse than what we already endure with the construction of the Underhill and Northeast Quadrant Projects.  

Let’s call it what it is: a stadium rebuild and not a retrofit. It is not possible to retrofit 81-year-old concrete on a 22-acre site built on fill with a fault running lengthwise without extensive construction work that by any reasonable definition would constitute a new project.  

The map of Strawberry Valley prepared in 1875 shows the natural terrain, a ravine and a waterfall, which we would all do well to remember. This is the least reported fact, i.e. that the stadium is prominently situated near the headwaters of a watershed. How the construction will take place so as to not pollute Strawberry Creek will require significant public input. In the past, the city and university failed to protect the environment: To wit, the portable toilets on Rim Road are testimony if anyone has wondered: The sewers from stadium toilet use contaminated Strawberry Creek. 

The wild turkeys, that Joe Eaton wrote about in the same issue of the Planet as the neighbors versus athletics article, have been sighted on non-game days walking on Rim Road. But this was before the Big Game and the crowds roaming about Tightwad Hill and probable turkey habitat.  

Instead of being protective of the environment, and mindful of public safety, the university spin doctors brush aside each and every issue and somehow manage to blame “selfish neighbors.” This will work in the short-term, but it is not wise.  

Meanwhile, a sexy, magnificent, bright, radiant stadium awaits to be built somewhere else, where it can be used to generate revenue and for uses not limited to intercollegiate sports. The stadium rebuild does not have to be a zero-sum solution.  

Janice Thomas is a Strawberry Canyon resident. 

Although the election is over, people still have Query stickers on their cars and signs endorsing or opposing the different measures. The most popular sign in my area, West Berkeley, seems to be the red and white “Vote No on Q.” Measure Q was the Berkeley ballot initiative that would have made prostitution a low priority for local police. The plethora of red and white signs down San Pablo Avenue promised that voting no on Q would protect women and protect neighborhoods. The defeat of Measure Q was a lost opportunity for this historically progressive city and guarantees that the current system will continue to persecute sex workers and fail to make our community safe. 

Sex workers encounter many types of violence. They often report that the greatest violence that is committed against them is by police officers. Many sex workers report being sexually assaulted, harassed and raped by the police, and that the threat of criminal prosecution is used to coerce them into not reporting these acts of violence. This also includes customers, pimps, or strangers who are protected by the criminalization of sex work. Reporting acts of violence that occurred while on the job, they risk criminalizing themselves. 

In this climate of increasing criminalization, there is no immunity for those engaging in sex work, even when they are the victims of violence. Measure Q would have promoted safety of sex workers by reducing their fear of criminal prosecution. 

For the past few months, I have been working as a legal advocate at Justice Now, a local human rights organization that works with women in prison. During the course of my employment, I have learned that many of the roughly 11,000 women imprisoned in California report that one of their first contacts with the criminal justice system was through sex work. 

Once women enter this system, they face a litany of human rights abuses including sexual harassment and abuse, brutality, extreme medical neglect and loss of their parental rights. Significantly, jails and prisons are designed in a manner that creates a climate of sexual violence against women. Such violence is systemic, occurs daily, and is experienced by all women even if they are only held for the few hours of booking. 

For example, women are guarded primarily by male guards who watch them change, shower and use the toilet; there is no privacy. Such an experience can be particularly traumatic for women with histories of sexual violence at the hands of men, as is the case for many women in the sex industry. Measure Q could have helped to reduce the number of women jailed in these conditions by paving the way for communities across California to remove prostitution from the focus of the police. 

Measure Q had the potential to reduce the stigma surrounding sex work, which would have eased the transition for sex workers out of the industry. Once a person is targeted by the criminal justice system, the system itself functions to keep the person trapped within it. People with a criminal record or who are thought to be sex workers face heightened surveillance, prosecution, and harassment by police. People with criminal records find it virtually impossible to legally earn a living wage for themselves and their families; most employers, including those paying only minimum wage such as Jack in the Box and IKEA, screen job applicants based on criminal records. By reducing enforcement of anti-prostitution laws in Berkeley, Measure Q could have relieved these women of the stigma associated with criminal prosecution and thus would have facilitated their exit from sex work if that is what they wished to do. 

Opponents of Measure Q argued that passing it would have led to deterioration of our neighborhoods. Berkeley is not a safer place because we target sex 

workers for punishment and confinement. Instead, the current system perpetuates the cycle of violence against women in our neighborhoods by assuring that sex workers will continue to be victims of both interpersonal and state violence. And as long as they are experiencing violence, how can we be safe? 

Jane Ashley Freeman, a Berkeley resident, recently graduated from Mills College with a degree in political, legal, and economic analysis. 

PERFORMANCE GAP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Perhaps it is time for the terminology of the “achievement gap” to evolve to the “performance gap.” Maybe this would shift the perception and attitudes of our schools as victim/villain industries. This might allow for greater personal and collective responsibility, by rewarding individual effort and acknowledging the need for school site achievement plans to use an inclusive framework ensuring the value-added concept for all skill levels. 

Laura Menard 

• 

CONDOLEEZZA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The cartoon portrait of Condoleezza Rice (“Face of Diplomacy,” Daily Planet, Nov. 19-22) proved Justin DeFreitas a brilliant artist (not that I ever doubted his talent). It captures perfectly—without exaggeration(!)—the mean, intense, obsessively ambitious and twisted determination of this woman. I’m exasperated when people say that the elevation of her and Colin Powell represents progress in integration. An evil person is evil, whatever his or her color. Thanks, Justin. 

Dorothy Bryant 

• 

SEAGATE, ROBERTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for the recent coverage of the proposed Ed Roberts Campus and the proposed Seagate Building. The juxtaposition between the two couldn’t be clearer.  

The Ed Roberts Campus will house many of Berkeley’s most vital services for the disabled next to the Ashby BART station. The developers, led by the Center for Independent Living’s Executive Director Jan Garrett, have worked (and continue to work) with the surrounding neighborhood and have compromised on many issues to lessen the ERC’s impact on the neighborhood. 

The Seagate building is two stories over the maximum height allowed in our downtown. The few units of affordable apartments may, according to the developers, be changed into market-rate condominiums. Our city is under constant pressure from the state to expand affordable housing, yet this oversized residential building may easily contain no units of affordable housing. I have heard of no efforts to address the community’s concerns by the developers. Hopefully with the arrival of the Friends of Downtown Berkeley on the scene, this lack of community input into this major project will be history and we will be able to work together and craft an acceptable, appropriate project at the Seagate site. 

Jesse Townley 

• 

BUDGET CRISIS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Eureka! Becky O’Malley and her merry band of “amateur policy wonks” have discovered the cause of Berkeley’s budget crisis : The city actually pays its employees! 

Surely, Becky and her merry band has a more sophisticated analysis than this. For example, I’m sure I missed the Daily Planet’s in-depth analysis of city funding streams and the structural limitations that have thrown cities across the state into dire financial situations. Certainly Becky’s band has crunched the numbers regarding the financial impact that the state’s massive takeaway has had on our cities. 

Alas, it’s so much easier to belittle public employees and to complain about being “dissed” (oh Becky, you are hip!) by an overpaid city worker than it is delve into the mind-numbing world of urban finance. Come on Becky! It’s time to climb down from that soap box and do some real work—lest someone might accuse you of being just another lazy journalist... 

Eric Riley 

• 

CAL STADIUM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am bemused by some neighbors’ complaints about football games (“Berkeley-Stanford Big Game Means Big Headache for Stadium Neighbors,” Daily Planet, Nov. 23-25).  

One resident who lives at Dwight and College Avenue says he had to stay home on Saturday afternoon, because if he had gone out, he would not have found a parking space when he got back. I used to live at Dwight and College, and it was an easy walk to two nearby shopping districts, an easy bicycle ride to most of Berkeley, and on a bus line that connects with BART. Is this person physically chained to his car, so he cannot go anywhere without it? If so, I suggest that he cut the chain.  

Another resident who lives on Panoramic Hill wants to move the stadium to the site of Golden Gate Fields. Currently, students walk to stadium and many fans come by BART. Golden Gate Fields is not within walking distance of campus and has little transit, so virtually everyone would drive there—creating much worse traffic for all of Berkeley. This proposal to move the stadium proves that some people care only about their own back yards.  

I will repeat a proposal I have made before. The best way to eliminate the conflict between the stadium and its nearest neighbors is to remove the housing from Panoramic Hill and move that handful of residents to a location within walking distance of shopping and transit. That would be less expensive than moving the stadium, and it would be better for the environment: It would mean more open space, improved wildlife habitat, and less traffic.  

Charles Siegel 

• 

COMMON SENSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am unable to understand the complaints of the neighbors of the Cal Stadium. Is it possible they didn’t notice the stadium before they bought their houses? Surely ease of access to their homes could not have been a high priority—I defy anyone to prove that Panoramic is an easy street to drive up and down, and none of the other neighboring streets to the north and south are easy to access either. If there’s an earthquake or fire, the same issues of access exist.  

There are only five or six games a year, and it seems to me that a reasonable, intelligent person would have taken into account the possible inconveniences of living close to the stadium before paying so much for his or her home in this location. However, I have been in Berkeley for 43 years now, and I do know that reasonable, intelligent people are hard to find here. 

Just a little common sense, people—if you live close to a stadium, there are bound to be a few noisy days with incredibly inconsiderate people around, and a few days on which you can’t drive and people park in the most inconsiderate fashion imaginable (ticket and tow those suckers!). Common sense, hard to find in Berkeley, California, Washington, D.C., and most red states... 

Ellen L. Franzen 

• 

QUESTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

How do I feel about the current fashion of asking a question in order to provide the answer? Sick at heart that style is sacrificed to cuteness, that’s how. 

How do I feel about cuteness? Oh dear, I think I just committed it. 

Dyspeptically, 

Bonnie Hughes 

• 

SMART GROWTH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ms. Nicoloff’s seemingly rational review on smart growth using short quips from various experts came to an irrational conclusion (“Smart Duplicity,” Daily Planet, Nov. 12-15). She did not consider the basic reason why more people are speaking for smart growth. It is that we cannot continue to build in the same status quo manner as we have since the advent of the auto. We have an energy crisis, warming of the earth and air quality problem, unsolvable congestion problem, the misuse of land, and deteriorating quality of life that needs to be addressed. She basically supports status quo, which does not face these problems. These are the reasons top planners are urging some form of smart growth what ever it is, for smart growth has never been specifically defined.  

She is correct in stating the reason for more density is to reverse the declining ridership of mass transit. We definitely need to consider more compact development where people do not have to travel as far to their day-to-day activities, where we have more walkable communities, have frequent and convenient transit, and develop a community that is less dependent on the auto. I have traveled worldwide, at my own expense examining transit, and found in Curitiba, Brazil they have done this primarily along corridors and not throughout the neighborhoods and now has more than 1.3 million transit trips per day, which balances the number of transit trips versus autos transit even though Curitiba has a population under 1 million and the second largest number of cars per capita in Brazil.  

Roy Nakadegawa 

• 

SNOBBISH, SNIDE, STUPID 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

“Apparently, even the news is slow to travel to Yuba City” is a snobbish and stupid thing to print, whether it’s true or not (Letters, Daily Planet, Nov. 19-22). Exactly the mindset that gives our area some of its perhaps deserved negative reputation. 

Did your Police Blotter reporter get beat up, or “relieved of” something? The writing is starting to sound like he actually gets the idea that crime victims do best with a caring treatment, instead of the snide casting as if they were cheap theater pieces. 

The (formerly in-living-) color Nov. 19 shot of the frat boy with the dead pig was... 

Sandy Rothman 

?

Who’s Who in the Tough Love Game—Ishmael Reed’s “serious comedy” at the Black Repertory Group—opens with a strange tableau, a wild variety of figures posed in front of an American flag and a chart reading “Only Foundation Agenda.” 

The group includes a s eated Klansman holding a microphone, interviewing a professional black woman; a middle-aged, bearded white man in tie-dye and huaraches, impatient on his cellphone; and a black man dozing on a couch, hat pulled over his brow, while a well-dressed black wo man stands over him, steaming. 

Taking it all in, with a weary shake of his head, is an older black man in a business suit, who introduces himself as Cicero Cincinnatus (played by N. Bruce Williams, who also directed the play), “a Republican—party of Linc oln and Douglas.”  

Cicero is an orator indeed. He explains to us he’s a ‘60s Republican, a friend of Nixon (who was, after all, photographed with Dr. King—yet still “took a leaf from George Wallace’s Southern strategy.”) 

Whereas liberals’ “answer to so cial problems,” Cicero explains, “was to pay attention just when they wanted our votes . . . [otherwise] throw money at them,” the old conservatives could offer more (or as Wadsworth Cornilee (Clint Cartridge) puts it after he breaks ranks, the receptions were better, “not just cheese and crackers”). 

But after “the intellectual counter-revolution,” a new breed has taken over: “They think that everybody but them should fend for themselves,” that Reagan didn’t even tip the porters on the train; “no wonder they called him Dutch.” But Reagan “turned out like Nebuchadnezzar, unable himself to appreciate all the splendor.” 

Cicero had been given a fellowship “by Old Man Only” with the Only Foundation, a conservative think tank that preaches that black people are their own worst enemy. But with the father’s death, the yuppie son, Bradley Only Jr. (“Masz” Maszewski, in the tie-dye and on his cellphone with his frat bro, Bush Jr.), an ex-surfer, has taken over the foundation and is downsizing. This has started a cutthroat flurry among the other black fellows, each trying to discredit the others and make the cut. 

They’re all introduced, doing their jobs of giving disinformation: Wadsworth Cornilee (dozing on the couch) and his fashionable wife Kornalessa (played with elan by Pheleta Santos) and their African houseboy, soon-to-be-adopted Wamu Rudurudu (Dawayne Ileyray Jordan), “an enterprising young man” into self-help—who’s helped himself to Kornalessa (as she puts it, when Wads was out protesting Affirmative Act ion); Ring Starr (Penny Donaville/Deborah Sherman-Price), a black academic who’s hip to the critical theory jive and blames the black man, not poverty, for domestic woes; and author Oliver McNutley (Steve Crum in a good turn), who lectures to rehabilitate the memory of Simon Legree, “that compassionate conservative,” and who shouts at the cop who brings him down, “Is this any way to treat a future Pulitzer Prize winner?” 

The canvas is broad, the dialogue can be pretty wayward and spicy, a perfect satiric al antidote to post-election letdown. And a good hook for the valiant Black Rep players to hang their hat on. 

The Black Repertory Group started out as a church drama program in 1964; it still has the feel of a community group in every sense, on stage and in the audience. And, like any community theater project that draws its talent from a range of experience, there are some rough edges and slow patches. But this is a play of moments, of tart sayings, poses and glances, as well as some riffing. 

It brings to mind at a few points the community-based origins and style of the Abbey Players, maybe the original nationalist theater company, successful long before agit-prop. And everybody has their moment, too—including Clarence R. Johnson Jr. (who alternates wi th Monica Greggs) as the Newscaster, and Alan Garth Tuttle as the Klansman-Cop-College Dean (caught tying a noose just before firing Ring Starr—who even the networks have refused and is stuck with cable as venue). 

This tongue-in-the-other-cheek satire by the author of Yellowback Radio Broke Down and Airing Dirty Laundry has been extended through Dec. 11. The performance that night will be followed by a benefit, a Soul Food and Champagne Gala, for the Group’s literacy and after-school programs.  



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.  

EXHIBITIONS  

“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.  

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.  

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

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

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.  

SATURDAY, NOV. 27 

EXHIBITIONS 

“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, through Dec. 30. Opening reception at 4 p.m. 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, 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.  

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

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

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 

EXHIBITIONS 

“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.  

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.  

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

“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 

“Innovative Developments in Glass Arts” by five East Bay glass artists on display in the Addison Street Windows Gallery through Jan. 15. 981-7533. 

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

FILM 

Powerpoint to the People An evening of automated digital presentations at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

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 at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-7. 841-2082.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, Javanese Gamelan Ensembles, directed by Midiyanto, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864.  

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.  

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

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

Bill Miller at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761.  

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

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.  

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 

FILM 

Cine Mexico: “Canoa” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free screening. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

EXHIBITIONS 

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. 

“Threshold: Byron Kim” Guided tour at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

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.  

“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.  

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

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.  

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

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

FRIDAY, DEC. 3 

THEATER 

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

Berkeley High School “O & E” An original interpretation of the greek myth of Eurydice and Orpheus, at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat., Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Little Theater, Allston Way. Tickets are $5-$7. 332-1931. 

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  

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 

“The Bloods of ‘Nam” Screening of the 1996 film based on the book by Wallace Terry at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Cine Mexico: “Bricklayers” at 6:30 p.m., “Midaq Alley” at 8:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tallis Scholars performs “O Magnum Mysterium” at 8 p.m. at First Congragational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $42. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Matthew Bourne’s “Nutcracker!” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. Tickets are $30-$74. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Messiah Sing-Along with the University Symphony at 7 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $15. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

“Praetorius and the German Carol Tradition” at 8 p.m. at 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $10-$25. 415-262-0272. www.calbach.org 

Desde la Bahia Party with Edgardo Cambón y Candela at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

New Chicano Music with Quetzal at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Lecture and demonstration at 8 p.m. Cost is $5 for lecture, $15 for lecture and concert. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Geoff Muldaur & The Fountain of Youth at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Vinyl, Diego’s Umbrella at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7-$10. 548-1159.  

Mushroom, The Weepies at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886.  

The Sadies at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Frank Jackson Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

John Zalabak Trio with vocalist Beth Robinson at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Actions Aside, Tiger Uppercut, Sabretooth Zombie at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

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 

ª

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.  

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 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 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 Park. 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 reservations information, call 848-7800. 

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 Successful 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 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 

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. 

Party for Kriss Worthington Debt retirement party, all welcome. From 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at La Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 

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. 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 6:30 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 the 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 Cameron-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 Andree 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 Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

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

PAWS Holiday Photos Have your pet photographed in a fundraiser for Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Red Hound Pet Store, 5523 College Ave. Cost is $20. 845-7735 ext. 19. www.berkeleyhumane.org 

Holiday Decorations - Naturally Create wreaths and garlands using 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 

Decorate a Flower Pot, Plant a Bulb from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Free and open to all ages. 526-3720 ext. 17. 

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 books 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 Park. 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 

CopWatch Know Your Rights Workshop A free training from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. covering your rights when you are stopped, how to keep safe while documenting/observing the police, what we can do if police have violated our rights. 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

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, DEC. 5 

Celebration of Forest Activism and Silent Auction to benefit the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters, with food, live music and book signings from 4 to 8 p.m. at Unitarian Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. 548-3113. www.HeadwatersPreserve.org 

Voyage Through Time Make a flipper book of the motion’s of the Earth’s continents over the past 250 million years, from 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Area. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. 

Astronmony of the Star of Bethlehem with a slide show on recent ideas about the star and how great writers have told its tale, at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Art Show and Holly Fair from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. www.uucb.org 

Holiday Art Show and Sale with works by the Albany Adult School Senior Painting and Drawing Class from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122. 

Richmond Art Center Arts Festival from noon to 5 p.m. at 2540 Barret Ave., Richmond. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

Pottery of Marty Weinstein on sale from noon to 5 p.m. at 871 Indian Rock Ave. Half of all proceeds go to Bay Area Community Resource. 526-5823. 

She Made Holiday Arts Bazaar to benefit the Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland at Jack London Square. www.she-made.com 

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

Introduction to TaKeTiNa, rhythmic group process, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Ashkenaz, back studio, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $25-$45 sliding scale, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. 650-493-8046. 

“Eyes of the Beholder” workshop from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St, El Cerrito. 415-383-7159. www.essential-motion.com 

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Lee Nichol on “The Self Traversing Time” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, DEC. 6 

Public Hearing on Mental Health The public is invited to comment on gaps in services in the mental health system, how to expand services, and on the need for prevention and early intervention at 6 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. For further information contact Harvey Tureck at 981-5213. 

Civic Arts Grant Workshop Sponsored by the City of Berkeley Civic Arts Commission at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. For information call Charlotte Fredriksen 981-7539. 

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 

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 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. 

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 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 Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society Adoption Center, 2700 Ninth St. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., Nov. 29 at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Planning Commission meets Mon. Nov. 29 at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Mon. Nov. 29 at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning  

In a world increasingly filled with big box chain stores, mass-market catalogs, and “unique” gifts manufactured in the millions, where to shop for distinctive and meaningful gifts as the holidays approach?  

A good place to start your search might be one of Berkeley’s holiday artisan and craft fairs and events.  

Several events this season, some starting this weekend, provide direct access to hundreds of fine artists and craftsmen and women, many of who make Berkeley their year-round home or workplace. 

These sales also provide the welcome opportunity to spend your gift money locally and put it directly into the hands of those who conceived and created the artwork you’re purchasing. 

Holiday Gift Shoppe,  

Berkeley City Club 

11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 28. 2315 Durant Ave., between Ellsworth and Dana. 

An intriguing and wonderful building opens its doors for a one-day gift fair this weekend, featuring “a select group of local artists, craftspersons, and artisans” as well as musical entertainment. 

Besides the shopping and music, a strong incentive is the opportunity to tour Julia Morgan’s “Little Castle,” one of Berkeley’s most opulent and well-preserved institutional buildings.  

If you have never been inside this neo-Gothic fantasy, complete with lushly planted courtyards, indoor swimming pool and baronial event spaces, here’s a chance to look. The sale is a benefit for the preservation of the City Club building.  

For more information, call 883-9710 or 848-7800. 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday  

Open Studios 

11 a.m.-to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Nov. 27-28, Dec. 4-5, 11-12, 18-19. Multiple locations. 

This annual event gives shoppers four weekends to visit studios all over town. Nearly 30 locations and scores of artists are included, from the Elmwood in the southeast to Gilman Street in the northwest; a few Emeryville artists also slip in under the Berkeley umbrella.  

Hand-blown glass, ceramics, works of photography, jewelry and oil paintings or watercolors seem to the primary offerings. Within those media, however, the range of type and technique is very eclectic. 

The descriptions of art also include “art glass stepping stones” (Cordelia DeVere), “watercolor and Japanese calligraphy” (Diane Abt), “children’s book illustrations” (Thacher Hurd), the intriguing but enigmatic “unusual egg ornaments & dioramas” (J. Brooke Patterson) and even “handcrafted wines” (Grapeleaf Cellars). 

Since many of the artists work in fairly specific styles, media, or price ranges, it’s unlikely that absolutely every studio you visit will suit your taste or budget. The hunt is intriguing, however, and collectively the range of offerings is vast. Most of the studios are also listed as wheelchair accessible. 

Open Studios also provides a chance to see inside several of Berkeley’s workshop buildings including the Strawberry Creek Design Center and the Sawtooth/Kawneer Building at 8th and Dwight. The next time you read about public policy or development disputes over live/work or affordable artist space, the issues will seem less abstract. 

For more information, visit http://berkeleyartisans.com (which includes links to individual artists’ and artisans’ websites) or send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Berkeley Artisans, 2547 Eighth St., No. 24A, Berkeley, 94710. 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market  

Holiday Crafts Fair 

Saturdays, December 4, 11 and 18. 

Downtown, Center Street at Martin Luther, King, Jr. Way. 

Along with organic fruits and vegetables, the Ecology Center’s popular Downtown Farmers’ Market offers Earth-friendly arts and crafts in December. 

“A wonderful variety of beautiful handcrafted gifts—jewelry, fabric arts, leather, ceramics, hats, dolls, fine art, photos, soaps and herbal potions, and other surprises,” is promised. Musicians will also provide entertainment.  

The sponsors are requiring that all the craft items sold must be made locally (in California) by the seller’s family, or employees, and “not have extensive negative impacts on the environment”. 

For more information call 548-3333 or visit www.ecologycenter.org. 

Telegraph Avenue  

Holiday Street Fair 

Weekends of December 11-12 and 18-19, and Thursday and Friday, December 23 and 24. 

For genuine Berkeley atmosphere, nothing beats shopping at the Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair where craftspeople present their handcrafted wares beneath lampposts festooned with politically correct, non-sectarian, holiday decorations.  

The Telegraph Fair typically offers an abundance of special little items, from hand-made ceramic refrigerator magnets to jewelry, silk scarves, and tie-dye clothing.  

Telegraph, immediately south of the UC campus, is closed to traffic during the Fair and scores of colorful booths thickly populate both street and sidewalk from Bancroft to Dwight.  

Many of those selling are Telegraph Avenue regulars, but a number of artists make an infrequent or once-annual Berkeley appearance this time of year.  

You can make the fair a quick stop, but consider spending an afternoon browsing not only the crafts booths but also the excellent book and music stores along the Avenue.  

You can also stop for a sit down meal or get takeout here in Berkeley’s most extensive and eclectic dining district. Try the “Fifth Block” of Telegraph, just south, of Dwight for great Asian fusion at Unicorn, Vietnamese cuisine at Saigon City, traditional Japanese at Norikonono, or Ethiopian at the Blue Nile. 

Holiday Plant and Gift Sale 

UC Botanical Garden 

10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4. 

Centennial Drive, Strawberry Canyon, above the UC Berkeley campus. (Free parking in the lot across the street from the garden). 

Featured plants for sale will include cacti, species orchids, house plants, begonias, bromeliads, and tillandsias, along with the garden’s ever popular (and hard to get) Lapageria—Chilean Bellflower—vines, carnivorous plants, and unusual bulbs. Pottery, books, jewelry, seeds and garden ornaments are also available in the Garden gift shop. 

You could combine a visit to this sale with a stroll through the tranquil gardens, far from shopping mall parking lots, plastic Santas, and canned caroling. 

For information on garden access and how to get there visit http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu. 

ASUC Art Studio 2004  

Holiday Sale 

Tuesday, Dec. 7 through Saturday, Dec. 11, noon-5 p.m. Extended hours (6-9 p.m.) on Dec. 7 in a special open house for artists, which is also open to the public. 

This year’s sale is the 25th annual holiday event (and fundraiser) at the Associated Students Art Studio that resides on the UC campus just a pot’s throw from Sather Gate.  

The art studio’s primary activity is offering affordable classes in ceramics, photography, and other media. The annual sale features works by both enthusiastic students and accomplished instructors.  

Here you can adopt a homely little vase that represents a budding potter’s first effort, or purchase at quite reasonable prices finely crafted one-of-a-kind pieces by recognized artisans. 

While photographs, jewelry, works on paper and other crafts appear in the sale, the bulk of the offerings—and the strength of the show—are traditionally ceramic works, both decorative and practical. Hundreds of items should be for sale, with new ones added as the event goes on. 

To reach the sale, walk north through Sproul Plaza, turn left right before you pass through Sather Gate, go down the creekside path, and quickly turn left again next to the breezeway. 

For more information go to www.asucartstudio.org. 

Berkeley Potters Guild 33rd Annual Sale and Show 

731 Jones St. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Nov. 27-28, Dec. 4-5, 11-12, and 18-19, plus Dec. 20-24.  

Work by a score of ceramic artists and a display of gifts built around a kitchen theme highlight this year’s event, held under one roof. Both first-rate handmade works and “seconds” will be for sale.  

For more information call 524-7031 or visit www.berkeleypotters.com. 

OTHER OFFERINGS 

ACCI Gallery 

1652 Shattuck Ave., at Lincoln. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday. 

In addition to the special fairs and open studio events described above, Berkeley’s ACCI Gallery, the oldest arts cooperative in the West, is offering a “Holiday Celebration of Arts and Crafts”, including jewelry, glass, ornaments, cards, ceramics, wood and fine arts during November and December. This airy storefront at the southern end of the North Shattuck shopping district, is always a nice place to browse.  

Call 843-2527 or visit www.accigallery.com. 

KPFA Crafts and Music Fair 

10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 11-12, Concourse exhibition center, Eighth and Brannan, San Francisco. 

Although it abandoned a Berkeley venue years ago, many locals still maintain an attachment to this annual event, a benefit for Berkeley’s KPFA radio. 

This year there will be some 220 artists and craftspeople selling, as well as music, and food. There is an admission charge of $8 for adults, under 17 free, $5 for seniors and disabled individuals.  

For more information call 848-6767 ext. 611 or visit www.kpfa.org/craftsfair. 

This is the second in a series profiling Berkeley elementary schools. The reports are written by students of the UC Berkeley Journalism School. 

Students at Emerson Elementary like doing their homework—at least the ones excitedly waiting for a familiar face to appear around the corner and give them their undivided attention.  

Emerson, one of the smallest schools in the district, nestled in southeast Berkeley on Forest Avenue, provides one-on-one mentoring, matching more than half of the students with tutors from UC Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Department, the Jewish Coalition for Literacy, Americorp volunteers and Caltrans District Four Office.  

“The kids are so accustomed to seeing their peers being pulled out of the classroom for their mentor time,” said Monica Santos, Emerson mentor coordinator, “that there isn’t any stigma attached to it. It’s a popular thing; kids want to be paired with a Cal student.” 

About 150 UC Berkeley students participate in the program each year.  

“The reason I keep coming back is because of her,” 19-year-old Cal student Pat Campbell said, smiling over a game of battleship with a second-grade student she has mentored for three years. “It’s more of a bonding experience than anything.”  

The Mentor Program was started in 1999 with a state grant, but that money has long since dissipated and school staff has spent the past three years trying to keep the program alive with outside supporters like Dreyer’s Ice Cream, Berkeley Community Fund and the PSTA, Santos says. 

Emerson Elementary typically produces among the highest test scores in the district, said Berkeley Unified School District spokesman Mark Coplan. The school’s 2004 Academic Performance Index, which ranks test scores in math and English, was among the top three in the district. 

And the Mentor Program, Santos says, may have something to do with that.  

“Historically there has been an achievement gap where students of color have not been performing as well as Caucasian and Asian students,” Santos said. “We have seen a closing of the gap. An increased number of students have a 3.0 grade point average or above.” 

Emerson African American and Hispanic students also regularly score higher than other students of color in the district. 

The school draws students through the southeast portion of the city, which starts in the more affluent hills, curving through the middle of the city to lower-income West Berkeley. 

Last year, Emerson’s classes comprised 41 percent black students, 24 percent white, 4 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic and less than 1 percent Pacific Island. 

Mentor Coordinator Santos also attributed Emerson’s strides in academic accomplishment to excellent leadership and a creative staff. 

At Back to School Night this year, teachers performed a number from the musical Grease to introduce the staff and features of the school. “We like to get the message out in a fun and interesting way,” three-year Principal Susan Hodge says. 

“We are also a very close staff,” Hodge said. 

Hodge spent the prior 15 years as a teacher at Emerson. Indeed, the school seems to have an aura of camaraderie, as district spokesman Coplan says Hodge has a reputation among teachers and the community for her strong track record of commitment to education. 

“She is not only an active leader of the school, but she’s worked in the trenches with the teachers,” he said. 

Parents can expect a typical school week to include an hour and a half of computer instruction, as well as interactive learning of history, art and geography through activities such as making Inuit hunting hats and writing myths based on multi-cultural texts. Emerson pupils also learn how to cook with organic foods and learn about nutrition. 

“Our biggest concern right now is funding,” Hodge said. In light of the $12 million district-wide budget cut in the past two years, Emerson parent and PSTA secretary Rafael Friedman said classrooms are over-crowded and library hours have been reduced. 

“They say no child should be left behind, but then they don’t fund it,” he said. 

›

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. 

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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. 

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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.” 

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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. 

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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 

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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. 

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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. 

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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  

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Berkeley planning commissioners will hold an unusual Monday night meeting because the date of their usual meeting date fell on Thanksgiving eve. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) will also meet Monday night, a session delayed because their meeting on the regularly scheduled date would’ve meant an interruption of Turkey Day.  

The planning session gets underway at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. ZAB’s meeting begins at the same time in City Council Chambers in the second floor of Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. 

Planning commissioners will hold a hearing on recommendations by the Mayor’s Task Force on Permitting and Development for changes in commercial parking requirements. 

Also scheduled for discussion are the potential impacts of the City Council’s actions on the Creeks Ordinance and possible comments for the scoping process on the Southside Plan’s draft Environmental Impact Report. 

Two hearings will be conducted on proposed zoning ordinances changes and another will address a proposal to allow conversion of the 29 residential units and three commercial spaces at 1809 Shattuck Ave. into condominiums. 

The major item on ZAB’s agenda is the request by developer Alex Varum to demolish the existing buildings at 1116 to 1132 University Ave. to make way for a three-to-five story building that would house 65 condos, two live/work condos, 5,309 square feet of first floor commercial space and 74 underground parking spaces. 

The project also includes 11 units designated as affordable, meaning they are within the reach of buyers earning 120 percent of the median area income. Adding the inclusionary units allows the developer to exceed the four-story height limit for the area.  

City planning staff has recommended approval of the project.

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 

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