Applause rang out in the City Council Chambers Tuesday as dozens of people, many sporting blue “Save Berkeley Iceland” shirts, cheered the 5-4 council vote to uphold a city commission’s decision to landmark the 67-year-old structure that houses the ice skating rink at Derby and Milvia streets.  

While supporters of the nonprofit Save Berkeley Iceland hope the landmarking will facilitate its purchase of the site, there is no guarantee that will happen. A for-profit developer already has an option to buy the property, where he has plans to build townhouses and a child-care center, something that would be more difficult—but not impossible—in the context of the landmark designation.  

Councilmembers Gordon Woz-niak, Dona Spring, Kriss Worth-ington, Betty Olds and Linda Maio voted to uphold the Landmarks Preservation Com-mission’s April landmark designation.  

Tuesday’s 6 p.m. meeting, called for the purpose of the council vote, came one week after extensive debate at a public hearing where speakers focused less on the historic value of the site than on the question of whether it should be redeveloped for housing/child care or if the use should return to ice skating.  

Councilmembers, however, were required to make their decision based solely on the historic value of the structure in question.  

“The issue before us is not whether [the ice rink] is a viable option for this site,” Wozniak said. “It’s whether this is truly a landmark.” Addressing the council on behalf of East Bay Iceland, owners of the property, attorney Rena Rickles said landmarking would be “punitive” and “significantly impair a sale under contract.”  

Berkeley Iceland has been shuttered since the end of March. “We essentially have a beached whale in the neighborhood,” Rickles said. “Beautiful when alive, but when it’s dead, it stinks.”  

Similarly Councilmember Max Anderson, in whose district the rink is situated, said he feared the property would fall into disrepair, attracting rats and graffiti. “I don’t want to watch the building decay and decline and become a detriment to the community.”  

But in a phone interview Thursday Caroline Winnett of Save Berkeley Iceland said the group had asked the owners if they could lease the property so that it didn’t have to close at all. And, alternatively, she said, they had offered to clean up trash and graffiti at the site free of charge.  

Anderson argued on Tuesday that Save Berkeley Iceland’s business plan is unrealistic. “No amount of nostalgia and wishing will make it otherwise,” he said.  

Mayor Tom Bates, who also opposed landmarking, suggested that instead of saving the structure, a plaque commemorating Iceland’s history should be installed. This caused the audience to erupt in laughter and catcalls.  

Speaking for Save Berkeley Iceland, Elizabeth Grassetti told the council that the rink “represents values of community spirit of the late 1930s—it was built for the people by the people.”  

Voting to uphold the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation means an eventual developer will either have to preserve the exterior walls of the site, as well as the packed earth berms on the north and the south sides of the structure, or go through an extensive environmental review process to make changes.  

Developer Ali Kashani, president of Memar Properties, Inc. of Oakland, has an option to purchase the site where he has said he wants to build housing and a child-care center. California state law allows developers to build higher than local zoning laws otherwise permit when they include child care in the project.  

After the meeting, Kashani told the Daily Planet that he might still purchase the property, despite the landmarking. “It depends on the [sale] price,” he said.  

Winnett told the Planet after the meeting, that while “the owners have the right to sell to whom they want, the assumption is that a developer will not find the [landmarked site] economically attractive.” 

Now that the site is designated a landmark, Winnett said Save Berkeley Iceland is anticipating two significant donations. The nonprofit group is trying to raise $2 million for a down payment on the site, although it legally cannot negotiate with the owners, East Bay Iceland, while Kashani is exercising his option.

After repeated public hearings before the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB), the 1885 University Ave. project—which promises to bring Trader Joe’s to Berkeley—won a 5-3 victory at Council Monday night. 

More than 100 people crowded into the Berkeley City Council Chambers, many of them taking sides in the debate over the controversial five-story project planned for the corner of University and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The plan includes 148 apartments, 14,390 square feet of retail space, 109 tenant and 48 commercial parking spaces and two truck-loading spaces. 

Steve Wollmer, who appealed the project to the City Council after ZAB approved it in December, said that he was considering options to sue the city on the basis of City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque’s interpretation of state density bonus law, which grants developers the ability to exceed zoning limits. 

Albuquerque told the council that the state does not prohibit a city from granting unlimited additional density bonus units or waiving any development standards for siting of affordable housing projects that meet social needs. 

Opponents argued that this sets a “dangerous precedent,” allowing developers to come into Berkeley and propose a project of any size in any location in the city. 

The staff report claimed that the project qualifies under the state law for a “mandatory 35 percent density bonus over the otherwise maximum allowable residential density bonus allowed by the zoning because it provides at least 19 units at rents affordable to households earning up to 80 percent of the area median income.” 

The city also approved an additional 28 percent density bonus since the project includes significant amenities, “which increase the cost of the project, and therefore require additional density bonus units to make the project economically feasible,” according to the staff report. 

These amenities include reduction of the original mass and number of units to address neighborhood and city concerns, installation of a traffic diverter and signals at a cost of approximately $345,000 and underground parking. 

“These are things that almost every project in Berkeley does,” Wollmer contended. “Why should this project be given an additional 28 percent for it?” 

Councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring and Max Anderson voted against the project, citing concerns about the density bonus, parking and a non-unionized Trader Joe’s. 

A volley of concerns ranging from the size of the proposed project to noise hazards were addressed by Berkeley residents.  

“We have been working for the last five years to obtain a project that would improve the site and preserve the livability of our neighborhood,” Wollmer told the council. “We have never believed that any of our demands are unreasonable or make the project unfeasible, but we regret to tell you that the developers have refused to meet and negotiate with us for more than two years, rather they struck a private agreement with one neighbor, attempted retaliation through our employers and circulated thinly disguised bribes in an effort to break our solidarity.” 

Project developer Chris Hudson of Hudson McDonald said that the project could not be redesigned without significant financial loss. 

“We have been through two years of the design review and the zoning process,” he contended. “We’ve made every reasonable and feasible concession. This project is not protected under the NIMBY laws. So why did ZAB and design review choose to approve it? They could have rejected it if they wanted to.” 

Hudson added that the project would encourage the growth of other grocery stores in the area, provide low -cost transit-oriented housing and help Berkeley meet its growing need for housing. 

“High density housing is energy efficient housing,” he said, as project supporters cheered him. “This project will generate more than half a million dollars in tax revenue to the City of Berkeley or the Berkeley Unified School District. More than 500 people have expressed support and 73 percent of participants on KitchenDemocracy.com have spoken in favor of this project. This project has gone on for a long time and it is time for it to come to an end.” 

Mayor Tom Bates, who voted in favor of the project, emphazised the importance of an active downtown. 

“I am not in favor of Trader Joe’s,” he said. “I don’t shop at Trader Joe’s. I don’t like Two Buck Chuck. I think it’s a lousy wine. But we have to have a vibrant downtown. I wish we could have some compromise here.” 

While Berkeley resident Doug Buchwald warned people not to get excited by the “Trader Joe’s Love Fest,” a large number of people testified that the grocery chain would be a welcome addition in the neighborhood. 

“It’s a mistake to call a project by a particular part of it,” said councilmember Kriss Worthington. “What we get to vote on is a complete project.” 

“We heard a lot about how wonderful Trader Joe’s was,” Wollmer said, “but there’s no guarantee that Trader Joe’s will ever be there. The lease agreement between Trader Joe’s and the developers require that the developers turn over a project to them by 2009. It’s getting very close to that time. Once the applicants cannot deliver the project in time, Trader Joe’s has no obligation to come to Berkeley.” 

Councilmember Spring, who has constituents near the project site, recommended that the drop-off zone for the site be located on Martin Luther King Jr. Way instead of the predominantly residential Berkeley Way. 

Her amendment, along with Councilmember Kriss Worthington’s suggestion to include more affordable housing units, was turned down. The only change to the staff recommendation was the addition of a 40-foot-long drop-off zone on Berkeley Way. 

“This project has fatal flaws when it comes to the issues of traffic and parking,” said Worthington. 

Debbie Sanderson, ZAB secretary, contended that extensive analysis on the part of the planning department illustrated that the plan was flawless when it came to traffic issues. 

Verizon appeal 

Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communiication are up for another public hearing at the City Council on Oct. 23. 

After ZAB turned down their application for a use permit to install 11 cell phone antennas atop the UC Storage building at 2721 Shattuck Ave. on June 28, the two companies appealed the decision to the council. 

ZAB concluded they were unable to make the necessary finding based on substantial evidence that the towers were needed to provide personal wireless service in the coverage area. 

The proposal, which was first remanded to ZAB by the City Council on Sept. 26, 2006, had raised health concerns among the neighbors. After ZAB denied the request on Jan. 30, Verizon and Nextel appealed to the City Council. Council remanded it to ZAB for the second time in May. 

Although area residents had been concerned about the hazardous effects of the antennas on health, council had asked ZAB to make a decision based on third-party engineering review, parking concerns and illegal construction instead of health. 

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits local governments from rejecting wireless facilities based on health concerns as long as the stations conform to Federal communication standards.

The battle over the future of downtown Berkeley’s skyline took a new twist Wednesday when a group of Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) members offered their own proposal, sparking heated outbursts and a counterproposal. 

At issue is the theme which has driven, openly or more subtly, much of the debate throughout DAPAC’s 39 sessions. 

Tasked by the city and UC Berkeley with devising the basics of a new plan for the city center and pushed by city staff to accommodate much of the city’s anticipated—and, perhaps, mandated—growth in the years ahead, the panel is faced with two basic questions: How much and how high? 

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) wants the city to clear the way for adding up to 3,000 new housing units in Berkeley over the next seven years, though the consensus is that developers would probably build less—probably closer to 1,360 units, of which 559 would be built downtown. 

Still, city officials have said, failing to create a mechanism that would allow for approval of the entire sum might lead to problems with state funding—a point disputed by some DAPAC members, like Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman. 

Berkeley Planning and Development Director Dan Marks has told the panel that concentrating anticipated growth in the city center is the logical course of action, giving frequently strong neighborhood opposition to high density projects in other parts of the city. 

Howls of protest followed a February proposal to allow for construction of 14 new 16-story “point towers” in the city center, floated by Matt Taecker, the city planner hired with UC Berkeley funds to oversee the drafting of the new downtown plan. 

But the high-rise proposal was back, albeit in reduced form, when Taecker offered comparisons of three alternative development scenarios. 

First was development that called for filling in most of the city center with development at the currently zoned 5-story height, the so-called baseline plan, and two higher density variants, one with a new 8-story height limit and the other with the 5-story limit plus six condo-filled point towers. 

Extrapolating from ABAG’s projected requirements and likely units actually completed, Berkeley would accommodate 4,100 of the 9000 allowable new units through 2020, with 188 added downtown under the baseline version and 2,500 under either of the two higher density proposals, Taecker said. 

Taecker also offered up figures showing impressive reductions in greenhouse gases from locating new residents downtown near BART and bus lines, with a net savings of 112,000 barrels of oil and 60,600 tons of carbon. 

Those figures were based on assumptions that people who live near transit in dense neighborhoods will forgo cars in favor of public transportation. 

In addition, he said, the fees paid by condo builders in lieu of offering cut-rate prices on sales to low- and median-income people could provide up to $210 million in funds for affordable housing for those with very low incomes. 

Questions fly  

No sooner had Taecker finished than the questions started flying. 

“I don’t feel you’ve made your case,” said Jesse Arreguin, who said he also didn’t favor a plan that relied primarily on condominiums. 

Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman challenged the figures with a table he had prepared showing the actual density of new units constructed in recent years—which showed much higher concentrations of dwelling units than those shown by Taecker’s figures. 

Patti Dacey said comparisons with neighborhoods like Rockridge in Oakland and North Beach in San Francisco were skewed because neither area had the high density of students that characterizes downtown Berkeley—where as many as 90 percent of inhabitants are UC Berkeley students. 

“You have a self-selected group of students and people who don’t drive cars,” she said. 

Arreguin, one of the city’s most vocal proponents of creating housing for those least able to afford it, said he was also troubled by the emphasis Taecker’s proposals placed on keeping lower-income residents out of the condo buildings. 

“This is a pretty serious policy decision, whether we want all the money to go into the housing trust fund, or if we want a diversity of ages, incomes” and backgrounds to live together in the city center, he said. 

“I’m the one who put together the in-lieu fee,” said Poschman, referring to the city statue that allows developers to pay a percentage of their development costs to fund affordable housing outside of their projects. 

“If you build condos and no affordable housing, then you essentially have a downtown consisting of students and those who can afford” condos costing $800,000, $1 million or more, he said. 

Another vision 

The proposal from four members of DAPAC offered a fourth vision. 

“There isn’t anything in here I haven’t brought up before,” said Rob Wrenn, who serves on the city’s Transportation Commission. 

The draft, prepared jointly with Juliet Lamont, Helen Burke and Wendy Alfsen, calls for a plan where building heights above a three-story baseline are determined by the willingness of developers to fund housing for low-income tenants and implement environmentally friendly measures into their projects. 

When Wrenn made a motion to refer the proposal to planning department staff for an analysis to be brought back to the committee along with the staff’s other three proposals, Terry Doran, the newest committee member, bristled. 

“I don’t want to see this as part of any official report,” he declared, adding his support for the most controversial of the staff’s proposals—one calling for high-rise apartment towers near the BART station as tall as the Wells Fargo building. 

Mim Hawley added her voice, declaring “it makes me a little irritated” that four people got together and wrote something, then came back to the committee.  

“It really annoys me,” she said ... I absolutely don’t agree for this to come back as a fourth alternative.” Turning to Wrenn, she declared, “You haven’t listened to any of us.” 

Committee member Dorothy Walker, former UC Assistant Vice Chancellor for Property Development, declared her opposition, then offered her own motion, which was immediately seconded by Planning Commission Chair James Samuels. 

Her motion called for a minimum three-story height near downtown, plus a five-story base height “throughout the commercial portions of downtown,” “the existing height of four stories in the residential portions of Downtown” and “a few taller, slender towers in selected locations.” 

Wrenn immediately pointed out that the residential neighborhood height limit is actually six stories, not four. 

“If we pass the substitute motion, we are deciding to build point towers and more units than the staff has proposed—and we are making a land-use decision tonight,” said Alfsen. 

“What are we getting out of all these buildings?” asked Arreguin. “We have to focus on the benefits, not just the buildings. That’s why I like the Wrenn proposal, “because it is doing something about greenhouse gases.” 

Steve Weissman said he couldn’t support Walker’s motion, and that he found it odd to hear conversation going from Wrenn’s request for a staff evaluation of the proposal to the outright objections of Doran and Hawley. 

Lamont said she hadn’t been prepared to vote to adopt her own group’s proposal, much less Walker’s. “We were trying to reduce the polarization,” she said. 

It took the intervention of Matt Taecker, the city planner hired with UC Berkeley funding to bring the plan into shape, to defuse the tensions. “I appreciate Rob and Juliet’s proposal” and their detailed bonus proposal, he said. In the end, the committee voted unanimously to refer both the group proposal and Walker’s for city staff analysis and a return to the committee along with the other three. 

Image: Downtown Planner Matt Taecker created this montage depicting two of the proposed 16-story “point towers” on University Avenue to incresase the population of Berkeley’s city center. 

The last full City Council meeting before a long summer break ended with an angry exchange between Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Dona Spring over what Spring says is the mayor’s habit of cutting her and others off when they speak.  

Nonetheless, the council tackled a number of issues, unanimously backing a zoning board recommendation to shut down the Sacramento Street B-Town Dollar Store due to alleged criminal activity in and around the business, delaying approval of a single-family home on Panoramic Hill, allowing the development of a five-story condominium project on Shattuck Avenue, studying the creation of “quiet zones” where trains won’t sound whistles in Berkeley, allocating funds to a project to end city purchases of goods produced in sweatshops, and supporting locked-out Waste Management employees. 

The council delayed until September addressing an audit citing problematic city and police management of asset forfeiture funds, as the city clerk had forgotten to include the report in the council packet and the Police Review Commission had not been alerted that the audit was on the agenda. 

There was insufficient time for the council to address rules for public comment, placed last on the agenda by Mayor Tom Bates. 

While the agendized public comment rules got short shrift, there was a 20-minute non-agendized slide show on water conservation from East Bay Municipal Utility District representative Andy Katz, who spoke at the beginning of the meeting at the mayor’s behest under the rubric: “ceremonial matters.” 

B-Town Shuttered 

Six police officers and a code enforcement supervisor asked the council to follow the zoning board’s recommendation to shut down the B-Town Dollar Store at 2973 Sacramento St. where they alleged criminal activity had been taking place for years. 

Neighbors and nearby merchants did not attend the public hearing. “Community members said they were not going to come tonight,” Chief Doug Hambleton said. “They are afraid of reprisals.” 

In a written statement, police said they had “numerous dealings with people going in and out of B-Town, using B-Town as a safe haven to run from and avoid contact with the police, and to hide their drugs and other items involved in their trade.” 

Sgt. Randy Files testified that a B-Town manager had “provided a place for a burglar to hide.” 

Neither property owner Chul J. Kim nor property manager Joo H. Kim, a San Francisco police officer, attended the hearing.  

Nayef Ayesh, who owns the business, told the council that he and his wife have operated stores in Berkeley since 1984 and “never broken the law.” 

“What happens outside my business, I have no control over it,” Ayesh said, arguing that he can’t “grab an Uzi” to go after drug dealers outside his store.  

Police testified that there was no record of Ayesh or his family calling them for help, but Ayesh said when he called, “They said, there’s no loitering law.” 

Councilmember Max Anderson called for shutting down the business, saying: “The evidence is overwhelming, clear, and well-documented over a long duration.” 

At its brief July 31 meeting, the council will be asked to approve a formal document listing the reasons the store is being shut down. 

Condos Approved 

After mediation with neighbors resulting in a project reduced by 1.269 square feet, the council approved 6-0-3 a five-story, 24-unit condominium development at Shattuck Avenue and Derby Street. Four of the units will be sold at below market rate. 

“The real sticking point was the fifth floor,” said Anderson, who abstained, as did Councilmembers Dona Spring, and Kriss Worthington. Neighbors, who had appealed the zoning board approval of the project, said the fifth floor would cast shadows over nearby single family homes. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak pointed out that the fifth floor was a partial floor so that the building “stepped back” from the neighboring residences.  

SweatFree Berkeley funded with caveat 

The council released with conditions $25,000 set aside in June 2006 to fund SweetFree Berkeley, aimed at stopping city purchases of goods made in sweatshop conditions. The council approved the release of funds conditioned on other cities joining a consortium and contributing the additional $35,000 needed to implement the project. 

Panoramic Way decision delayed  

By unanimous vote, the council delayed a decision until September on an appeal of a zoning board decision to permit construction of a 1,425-square-foot single-family home at 161 Panoramic Way. 

Neighbors of the proposed dwelling say it will be too big for the lot size, that it poses a threat to a Live Oak tree in the public right of way and that coming to and going from the home on the narrow street with blind curves will be hazardous both during and after construction. 

“It will be a permanent detriment to the health and safety” of the neighborhood, said Jerry Wachtel, president of the Panoramic Hill Association, which is appealing the zoning board decision.  

“We are going to make Panoramic Hill safer by making a pullout,” said property owner Bruce Kelley. “It will be better than it is right now.”  

The delay will give the owners time to prepare a plan for vehicle traffic during construction and to respond to other planning staff concerns. 

Public comment rules delayed 

At about 10:50 p.m., Bates announced there wasn’t time to discuss the question of public comment rules before 11 p.m., but permitted people to speak on the question during time (after 11 p.m.) otherwise set aside to discuss “non-agenda” items. 

After SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense) threatened a lawsuit last year based on limits imposed on public speakers by both the library board and the council—limits which SuperBOLD and its attorneys, the First Amendment Project, said violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting laws—the mayor began “experimenting” with various rules to expand public comment. 

Contending that the rules should be set in concrete, rather than changing meeting to meeting, Worthington proposed a set of rules in June that would allow public comment on every item by all wishing to speak and setting specific time limits that diminish with larger numbers of people wishing to speak. 

At the mayor’s request, Worthington delayed his proposal until Tuesday’s meeting.  

The mayor’s proposal limits speakers, in some instances, to two sides of an issue and, in some cases, gives the presiding officer latitude to expand or decrease the number of speakers and their time. 

“Public comment is so basic to democracy,” Leona Wilson told the seven councilmembers who remained to hear speakers after 11 p.m. Wilson said that in the New England town where she came from, everyone was allowed to speak at town meetings. If someone went on too long, the public would intervene. 

“We didn’t have somebody on top micromanaging,” she said, underscoring the need for people to express many sides of an issue. 

Worthington and Spring, who wrote a separate proposal, both place public comment on non-agenda items early in the meeting. Bates’ proposal places it at the end.  

Putting public comment last “shows your contempt for public comment,” Gene Bernardi of SuperBOLD told Bates.  

Spring’s proposal calls for a public hearing in September on rules for public comment, which Phoebe Anne Sorgen told the council she supports. “We need more public comment in the home of the free speech movement,” she said. 

Others spoke in favor of Worthington’s measure, which could make meetings longer. Bates responded that when his wife, now an assemblymember, was mayor, she was younger and could work until 2 a.m., but that he was older and it was difficult to be clear-headed after 11 p.m.  

“You have to give us a break. We’ve changed the entire way of doing things [from the lottery system],” Bates said, apparently transforming the public comment period into a council discussion. 

“We have to find a balance between 2 a.m. and 11 p.m.,” Spring added, as someone from the back of the council chambers called for meetings every week. (The council generally meets twice monthly, although council rules call for three meetings per month.)  

Spring went on to say that the council needs a “fair and impartial way” to allow the public to speak, which drew Bates ire. “It takes five votes to overrule the chair,” he retorted. 

After the council voted to adjourn the meeting, Spring, who later told the Daily Planet she is often cut off by the mayor, told Bates: “You wouldn’t want to be treated the way you treat me!”

Despite pleas from Berkeley city officials, the UC Regents Thursday voted unanimously to approve Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) 2025. 

“We had asked the regents to delay action, because we felt they didn’t adequately address the concerns we raised about their environmental impact report (EIR),” said Berkeley City Manager Phil Kamlarz. 

“We just got it a week ago Monday, and we had only four days to respond,” he said. 

The Board of Regents Grounds and Building Committee had voted unanimously to approve the document Tuesday, and the full board approval came Thursday without any discussion. 

Approval of the EIR paves the way for construction of nearly a million square feet of new buildings—which includes one completed structure and one now underway—and up to 500 new parking spaces and 1,000 new employees over the next two decades. 

City officials argued that lab officials had failed to provide adequate responses to their concerns about the extensive developments in an environmentally sensitive landscape where earthquakes and wildfires poses major threats. 

“Our staff dropped everything to prepare a response,” said Kamlarz. “They didn’t respond.” 

The city manager said another major concern for the city is that the EIR failed to consider the cumulative impacts of the lab’s extensive development plans along with those planned for UC Berkeley just down the hill.  

The city has already filed legal action challenging the EIR for the university’s Southeast Campus Integrated Projects, which calls for more than 300,000 square feet of development including two major new buildings, an underground parking complex and large-scale work on Memorial Stadium. 

That suit, along with three others filed by neighbors, sports fans and environmental groups, is currently slated for a September hearing in Alameda County Su-perior Court. 

Kamlarz said the lab—run by the university under contract with the federal Department of Energy—failed to respond to the city’s plea that they look for alternative locations for buildings, including the university-owned Richmond Field Station. 

The EIR dismissed the field station as an alternative with a few words, erroneously reporting that a cleanup of toxics-laden soil there was being conducted by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. (In fact, the cleanup is under the aegis of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, which recently ordered the school to begin preparing plans for cleaning up more than 3,000 truckloads of contaminated soil it had illegally hauled to an adjacent site.) 

UC spokesperson Chris Harrington said the vote, taken during the board’s meeting at the UC Santa Barbara campus, was unanimous, with more than two-thirds of the regents in attendance for the Thursday afternoon session. 

“We think the regents should take another look,” said Kamlarz. 

Local environmental groups have also protested the lab’s expansion plans, including the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste. 

Pamela Shivola has urged a halt to developing the site, given the extensive network of seismic faults documented in the complex’s 203 acres and soil and groundwater pollution that includes radioactive tritium. 

The regents also voted unanimous approval Thursday for a 25,000-square-foot, 60-bedroom, four-story guest house, which was included in the square footage allowed under the lab’s previous LRDP. 

The city had not objected to that project, which is designed to house visiting researchers and students working on projects at the lab. 

The regents in March approved two other buildings at the site, including the Helios building, which will house researchers working at the Energy Biosciences Institute, a controversial $500 million BP-funded research program designed to turn crops and coal into fuel for internal combustion engines.

The search for a builder to erect a $90.4 million, 140,000-square-foot, 300-office state-of-the art computing research center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is down to the short list.  

The search was launched simultaneously with the hunt for a builder for the $160 million, 160,000-square-foot Helios building, which will house the labs for the $500 million BP (formerly British Petroleum) search for biofuels. 

The lab’s Computational Research & Theory Building will rise at the opposite end of the 203-acre LBNL complex from the Helios lab, a short distance from Blackberry Gate near the western end of the complex. 

The building will house 300 offices totaling 85,000 square feet and a 35,000-square-foot computer room with two separate hardware systems, with the remaining 22,000 square feet reserved for mechanical and electrical equipment. 

The building will rise to either four or five floors, depending on the final plans. 

Programs housed at the center will support key missions of the federal Department of Energy (DOE), which contracts with UC Berkeley to run the lab, though the scientists who work there will be employees of the university and not the DOE, according to the prospectus presented to would-be builders. 

The heart of the building is the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a round-the-clock operation operating with state-of-the-art hardware designated for replacement every three years. 

The structure would also house another computing facility to host ESnet, described as a “leading networking facility supporting all of DOE’s networking requirement in support of its science mission.” 

The third component, Computational Research Division, is described as “an internationally leading computation science and energy research effort.” 

According to the prospectus, the center will directly serve about 2,500 scientists working on an estimated 250 projects at any given time. 

According to the project’s schedule, a project environmental impact report should be ready for final approval by next January, with the design finalized by the following August and construction occurring between January 2009 and April 2011. 

The UC Board of Regents gave their blessings to the structure at the same March meeting in which they authorized the Helios building. Both buildings are being constructed without federal funding, though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is providing $40 million in state bond funds for the Helios building. 

According to LBNL’s 2008-2017 plan created for the DOE last year, the complex will replace the existing Oakland Scientific Facility for the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is described as occupying an “inefficient” location which is “less secure than optimal.” 

That facility, housed in a former bank building at 415 20th St., opened in 2001, the first LBNL facility located outside either the lab itself or the UC Berkeley campus. Oakland’s then-Mayor Jerry Brown attended the dedication ceremonies on May 24.

With a bill making its way through the state legislature that would take the state superintendent’s discretion out of the return to local control of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), the granting of limited local control in the nearby Vallejo Unified School District last week raises new questions about how objective the standards are for returning power to a school district once it has been taken over by the state. 

In the most glaring discrepancy between state treatment of the two districts, the state-financed education consultants Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) gave Oakland Unified half the improvement ratings of Vallejo Unified in pupil achievement over a three-year period, even though Oakland Unified’s Annual Progress Indes (API) scores rose twice as much as Vallejo’s in roughly the same period. 

On Friday, State Superintendent Jack O’Connell signed an executive order restoring local control in three areas of Vallejo Unified’s operations—student achievement, personnel and community relations/governance. The district’s state-appointed administrator will now become a trustee, and the district’s board regains the authority to hire a superintendent. For the time being the state retains control of two areas of Vallejo Unified’s operations—finances and facilities management. 

A state-appointed administrator sets district policy and carries it out unilaterally, with the school board acting in an advisory capacity only. A trustee, on the other hand, has only the power to veto board or local superintendent actions that the trustee feels may jeopardize the district’s financial situation. With a trustee in place, the school board resumes the power to set district policy. 

“Clearly, by any measure or standard, you are a school district moving in the right direction,” the Vallejo Times-Herald quoted O’Connell as telling district employees and community residents in the handover ceremony last week in Vallejo. 

Last week, two days before Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s AB45 Oakland Unified local control bill passed the State Senate Education Committee on a 6-1 vote, O’Connell came to Oakland to transfer local control back to the OUSD board in the area of community relations/governance. But in Oakland’s situation, the remaining four areas of operation will continue in state hands and the state administrator will remain with full powers. 

On Monday, Swanson said that he was “very encouraged” by the Vallejo transfer. 

“Their scores were higher than Oakland’s, and by right those areas of operation should be transferred back to them,” Swanson said by telephone. “We have been pushing for a reliable, transparent process for return to local control in districts taken over by the state, and it appears that the superintendent is responding favorably. I hope that he will respond with like speed in Oakland.” 

And the president of the Oakland Unified School District board, David Kakishiba, said that a part of Vallejo Unified’s more rapid progress than Oakland Unified’s can be traced to greater FCMAT oversight in the Solano County district. 

Kakishiba said that the FCMAT visited and evaluated Vallejo every six months, as opposed to once a year in Oakland. 

“The consistent review, comment and evaluation that Vallejo had probably had some influence over their faster progress,” Kakishiba said by telephone. He put part of the blame for lesser FCMAT oversight in Oakland on the OUSD state administrator. “It’s one thing for the board to take FCMAT seriously, it’s another thing for the district to do so. When FCMAT ran out of money to do evaluations in Oakland, it was the board who went to state legislators and lobbied for that money, not the district administration.  

“FCMAT wouldn’t be coming back to Oakland this fall to do another evaluation and report if it wasn’t for the board lobbying effort. It calls into question how important the FCMAT process is to the district administrator.” 

Even taking into account the differences in FCMAT oversight in the two districts, it is difficult to understand why Vallejo got many of its powers back, while Oakland did not. 

“It brings into question on what basis they are analyzing progress in the different districts,” said Oakland Education Association teachers union president Betty Olsen-Jones. 

A 2004 FCMAT report on the circumstances of the Vallejo takeover listed a situation that sounded remarkably similar to Oakland’s. 

“In summer 2001, a review commissioned by the Solano County Office of Education and conducted by School Services of California, Inc., identified serious weaknesses in the district’s fiscal practices and operations,” the FCMAT report said, “including inadequate systems controls and a need to be aware of a downward trend in enrollment. District and Solano County Office staff attempted to work together to resolve these fiscal concerns, and the Vallejo City USD board began making some difficult decisions in an effort to reduce expenditures and maintain the district’s solvency. Unfortunately, by the summer and fall of 2003, despite the district’s staff reporting that the district would show a balanced budget and the 3 percent reserve, the Solano County Superintendent of Schools disapproved the district’s 2003-04 adopted budget … In mid-September, with the issues still unresolved, the Solano County Superintendent of Schools formally disapproved the district’s fiscal recovery plan and identified steps the district must take to remedy its situation. A fiscal advisor to the district was appointed at that time. Throughout the fall and winter the district again attempted to work with the Solano County Office of Education and the fiscal advisor. A number of additional budget cuts were approved by the board; however, by that time the total annual deficit was projected to be in excess of $20 million, necessitating that the district seek a loan from the state and submit to state takeover provisions as part of the requirements of receiving the loan.” 

When senators discussed Swanson’s AB45 in the Education Committee last week, much was made of the fact that Oakland Unified could not get most of its local powers back because when it was taken over by the state in the summer of 2003 because it was in jeopardy of failing to make its payroll, the state authorized a “loan” of $100 million, the largest school bailout in the history of California. 

The $100 million is a much-misunderstood figure, however. SB39, the 2003 legislation that authorized the OUSD state takeover, did not “loan” the district $100 million, but merely established a $100 million state line of credit for the district. The district immediately borrowed $65 million of that amount, and functioned under that loan. The remaining $35 million was not borrowed until the last days of former state administrator Randy Ward’s suspension after three years of operating the district under state control. In other words, $65 million of Oakland Unified’s $100 million debt was attributable to the district under local control before the takeover. $35 million was attributable to the district while operating solely under state control. 

By contrast, according to the FCMAT reports, Vallejo Unified drew down $50 million of its $60 million state line of credit immediately after the state takeover of the district in 2004, making the actual bailout of Vallejo Unified only $15 million less than the Oakland Unified bailout, if you only take the debt actually incurred as a result of the actions under local control. 

Vallejo Unified’s debt came in a district that is less than half the size of Oakland Unified’s, with a little over 12,000 students taking the state API exam in 2006, compared to close to 29,000 students taking the exam in Oakland in the same year. The major difference between Vallejo Unified’s current situation and Oakland Unified’s is that FCMAT recommended return to local control in three operational areas for Vallejo, but only in one operational area for Oakland. 

Under the state legislation authorizing the state takeovers for the respective districts (SB39 for Oakland, SB1190 for Vallejo), operational control is returned to the district in any of the five operational areas—at the discretion of the state superintendent—after FCMAT “determines that for at least the immediately previous six months the school district made substantial and sustained progress in implementation of the plans in the major functional area.” 

In defining when it will make such a recommendation, FCMAT says in its takeover reports that it will do so when it rates any area a “6” on a scale of 1-10. 

In its various reports, FCMAT has judged that Vallejo Unified has made progress in the five operational areas between its initial findings in 2004 and its current ratings: from 3.35 to 7.82 in community relations and governance, 1.34 to 7.20 in personnel management, 2.39 to 7.61 in pupil achievement, 1.31 to 5.28 in financial management, and 2.46 to 5.80 in facilities management. 

In contrast, FCMAT’s Oakland Unified ratings between September 2003 and September 2006, the date of the last progress report, went from 3.92 to 7.0 in community relations and governance, 2.64 to 5.20 in personnel management, 2.47 to 5.0 in pupil achievement, 0.73 to 4.0 in financial management, and 1.46 to 5.8 in facilities management. 

The difference in judging pupil achievement in the two districts is puzzling. 

Vallejo’s API scores jumped 33 points between the 2003-04 and 2005-06 school years, from 642 to 671. Oakland’s, on the other hand, rose twice as much in the same period, a full 65 points, 592 to 653. Oakland’s API scores rose 33 points in 2004-05 alone, and when O’Connell came to Oakland last week, he praised Oakland as having the largest jump in API scores of any urban school district in the state. Yet FCMAT raised Vallejo’s ratings in pupil achievement more than 5 points during the state takeover, while at the same time giving Oakland only a 2.5 point increase. 

The problem in comparing the Oakland and the Vallejo scores is that there is no statewide standard for FCMAT ratings. The scores are developed on a baseline that is set up by consultants for each individual school district, and a “6” in the Oakland Unified School District rating has no relationship to a “6” in the Vallejo Unified rating. FCMAT, for example, was called in by the Alameda County Superintendent’s office to be the fiscal advisor for the Berkeley Unified School District in 2003 after BUSD ran into fiscal problems, rating BUSD in the same five operational areas that it did Vallejo and Oakland. 

In January of 2005, BUSD Superintendent Michelle Lawrence told the Daily Planet that the scores were not transferable from one district to the next. “Since FCMAT is not evaluating all school districts in the state, there’s not a standard by which we can judge ourselves and take examples,” Lawrence said. “If there is a school district that got a perfect 10 in any of the areas, for example, we’d like to go and look at it so we can go and see what they’re doing that we are not. I asked FCMAT, but they told me they haven’t given out any 10s. So in the absence of statewide standards, we can only use the reports as internal documents by which to measure our own progress.” 

In fact, using FCMAT’s criteria for districts taken over by the state that local control could only be returned if a district achieved a “6” evaluation, Berkeley Unified might have been eligible to lose local control in two operational areas. In its last report on the district in 2005, completing its job as BUSD’s fiscal manager, FCMAT rated Berkeley Unified a 5.65 in personnel management and a 5.70 in financial management.  

Another problem in using FCMAT’s reports as a guideline for suitability for return to local control is that in districts such as Vallejo and Oakland that have been taken over by the state, the reports can only analyze what the state has done in running the districts, not what the districts under local control have accomplished. 

Meanwhile, Oakland attorney and local educational activist Anne Weills said that she thought it was Oakland’s willingness to fight the state takeover that was the difference in Vallejo’s more rapid progress towards local control than Oakland’s. In early 2005, Weills was arrested along with four other activists during a sit-in in the office of then-OUSD state administrator Randolph Ward while demanding that State Superintendent Jack O’Connell come to Oakland to answer questions about the takeover. 

“I think this is punishment for Oakland” by the state superintendent’s office, Weills said. “I think it’s straight-up retaliation. We are the source of the fightback. We’ve fought Jack O’Connell tooth and nail. We resisted the land sale.” 

That was in reference to an attempt by O’Connell to sell 8.25 acres of centrally-located OUSD property, including the district administrative headquarters and five schools. O’Connell abandoned that effort earlier this year in the face of widespread opposition in Oakland. 

By contrast, the state-appointed administrator in Vallejo Unified has sold five parcels of surplus property to help pay down the state debt, including an 18-acre athletic field to a residential developer for $17.6 million. The transaction has reportedly left some 300 Vallejo Little Leaguers without a place to play baseball. 

Weills said that one possible motivation for the state to continue to hold onto control of the Oakland school district is “they don’t want conditions in the district to be exposed to the public,” which she said would happen once the board is able to get in and monitor financial books and other records concerning what has taken place under state control.  

“It’s a disaster,” Weills said. “It would be a huge embarrassment to the state.” 

SOLANO AVENUE 

• Discussed ways to spend $29,000—collected from businesses along with the business license tax—on Solano Avenue improvements. 

POLICE REVIEW 

• Heard status report on lawsuit against the Police Review Commission. Berkeley police sued in Superior Court to have complaints against police officers held in closed session. The city attorney’s office said attempts are being made to reach an out-of-court agreement with the police. 

MENTAL HEALTH 

• Putting together a task force from several commissions to train police in methods of handling people experiencing a mental crisis when crisis teams from Berkeley Mental Health aren’t available. The commission is now meeting the fourth Thursday of the month at 5 p.m. at 2640 Martin Luther King at Derby. 

ENERGY 

• Held workshop on Berkeley’s Measure G, which calls for cutting Berkeley’s carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. 

• Discussed the long-standing idea of Berkeley buying its own electricity. Such programs in Alameda and Sacramento have reduced costs to consumers. 

PERSONNEL 

• Recommended creation of two new positions of Recreation Supervisor for various after-school, youth and family programs.

When I was young and newly minted and released into the world at large, I rented a room, board included, from an elderly woman. Our disparate reading matter at the breakfast table was united under the banner of the Times: the obituaries for her, the engagements for me. 

Now it is quite the reverse. I was reminded of this when I read a sentence in a recent New York Times obituary of anthropologist Dame Mary Douglas, whose research found that group behavior governs the personal, even to the extent of the use of cutlery when one dines alone. 

This however is not true in my household. Take salad, for starters. There is something in its flavor that is greatly enhanced when lettuce is eaten with the fingers. Try eating a radish with a knife and fork! As for globe artichokes, surely no utensil exists that can eclipse the dexterity required for its leaves, the removing, the dipping, and finally the pressing of each tender leaf against teeth. 

This is not the only reason why I adore globe artichokes. They are one of very few vegetables that grow with scarcely any attention at all. In mid summer they appear to die. Last year I even dug all mine out, thinking they must be exhausted after having produced bumper crops for eleven years. To my astonishment, once cooler, wetter weather arrived, so did new growth, bigger and better than ever, eventually reaching shoulder height. One can emphatically describe the globe artichoke as a long-lived perennial. 

It is possible to start new plants of globe artichokes from offshoots of the parent plant, and these do need attention in the form of protection from the sun until established in a sunny, permanent spot in the garden, about three feet by three across. A circle of low wire around the perimeter will retain a light mulch, continuously renewed. That’s about it, apart from harvesting the young globes, because winter rain takes care of irrigation needs. 

The globe artichoke is in the sunflower family, readily evinced if one or two old globes are allowed to bloom into gorgeous, sky-blue thistles. Cut these for display in the house to avoid weakening the plants. The classification of this family, an extensive one, with over a thousand genera, is best left to botanists, since it seems to be in constant transition, like so many plants now that botanists can tinker with chromosome counts. Like many a plant hunter we could simply refer to it as an ADC, another damned compositae, were it not that botanists have now decided it’s an asteraceae. Note the endings of these two family names: those ending in the simpler form, -ae, indicate plants of ancient origin, in terms of human knowledge. 

Regardless of name, some members are indeed intransigent, causing hay fever, killing cattle, and generally being tiresome. On the whole, though, it is a glorious group. There is, for instance, something about a lawn sprinkled with small fat white daisies that eternally beguiles with its innocence. 

Probably native to the Mediterranean region, our artichoke, Cynara scolymus, is named after Cynara, a beauty beloved and deified by Zeus. Homesick on Mount Olympus, she frequently returned to earth, so enraging Zeus that he permanently bound her there, turned into our useful thistle. C. scolymus has a relative, the cardoon (C. cardunculus), that has naturalized in the Tilden hills. Local lore says these plants were started there by an Italian. The cardoon’s flower buds are too meager and spiky to eat, but the blanched stalks are edible when cooked. Both plants are thought by some people to have aphrodisiac and generative properties, enhancing the possibility of producing male offspring. 

There are many recipes for cooking artichokes, most of them elaborate. The easiest way to eat them, after boiling them for about 20 minutes, is to dip each leaf in a sauce. Before reaching this exquisite moment it is necessary to wash them, at which point insects can appear, such as aphids clustered around the stem, readily rinsed off with a small brush, and earwigs, which hide deep inside and have a disconcerting way of rushing out and threatening the chef with raised pincers. Tapping the globes against the risers of the back steps on the way from garden to kitchen will dislodge some of these. Large artichokes can be cut in half with a cleaver, which makes it easier to see lurking creatures. I try to give earwigs a sporting chance of survival, shouting the equivalent of “Timber!” before I cleave, but some decapitation can occur. 

Earwigs are interesting in their own right. They do no great damage that I can see, and this year, since there were very few aphids, they must indeed control these, as Powell and Hogue in California Insects imply. They also play a role in keeping decaying matter to a manageable level. 

Nutritionally, globe artichokes provide modest amounts of vitamins and minerals, and a significant quantity of fiber. When it comes time to feast on their leaves, I follow Julia Child’s recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking for making mayonnaise in a blender. Then I mix a little of this with a chili paste made from a blending of tomato paste, tamari, water, and Syrian or Aleppo spicey red pepper. Twist, pull, dip, scrape—mmm! So good! And so digestible, too. 

When I read the obituaries these days I’m always keen to learn whether the deceased has reproduced. It is after all a matter of importance to all of us that our species should survive and thrive. Just so with Cynara, apparently dead, in reality busy below ground, perhaps even gone for a brief fling on Mt. Olympus, awaiting the right moment to return to light and life.

Community members celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Berkeley farmers market at their Tuesday location on the 1900 block of Derby Street with food, speakers and music. 

Children from the YMCA Learning Academy, located in South Berkeley, headed off the program, singing “Happy Birthday” to the market and a camp song. Shirley Brower, executive director of the academy, said that she has been bringing children from the academy to the market for the last five years. 

“Our focus is on organic eating,” said Brower. “We have had concerns about children’s eating. We had concerns that their favorite place to go was McDonald’s. The market allows us to do hands-on learning.” 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates was among the speakers, noting that he and his wife, Assemblymember Loni Hancock, regularly shop at the market. 

Also, neighbor, longtime supporter of the farmers’ market and School Board Director John Selawsky said it was a day for celebration. 

“There’s good food and good people,” said Selawsky. “It’s the essence of the farmers market. My wife and I were one of its first and steadiest customers. It’s really such a great institution.” 

After the program ended, musicians from the community came on stage to play for the remainder of the event, while volunteers served up burgers, vegetarian foods and desserts. 

Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farms has been coming to the farmers market since it opened two decades ago. 

“I’ve been here since it started,” said Redmond, whose farm sells greens, watermelon, broccoli and nectarines. “We knew that we would enjoy the community here. It’s great because it is run by a non-profit, the Ecology Center. I love getting to know people and making new friends here.” 

A small farm called Guru Ram Das Orchards, run by Didar Singh, is another veteran at the Tuesday market. 

“I came here in the summer of 1989,” said Singh, who is known for his great organic Valencia oranges. “I love everything about the market. I’ve been very grateful for the support I’ve been receiving over the years and all the nice people I’ve met. We sell a good 60 to 65 percent of our produce at the market here.” 

Photograph by Rio Bauce.  

Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farms holds a nectarine at Tuesday’s 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Berkeley Derby Street farmers market.

With rumors circulating throughout Frank Ogawa Plaza all day Tuesday that Oakland City Councilmembers were threatening to hold up votes on the Wayans brothers Army Base project to stop at least one of Mayor Ron Dellums’ proposed nominees to the Port Commission, Dellums abruptly withdrew his Port Commission nominees, and the council later unanimously approved a four-month exclusive negotiating agreement with the Wayans. 

The Wayans, a Los Angeles-based entertainment production family, are proposing putting a creative factory business park, retail and an urban village, a creative children zone, a digital art center for children, and film production facilities on the property, but details of those proposed projects have yet to be developed. 

The dual action means that Dellums’ two Port Commission nominees—Margaret Gordon and Victor Uno—will not come before the council again until the council returns in September from its summer break. Nominees need five votes on the eight-member council for confirmation. 

Concern by at least some councilmembers appeared to center on Gordon, of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, an outspoken longtime West Oakland environmental and community activist who has served on several Oakland advisory councils over the years, and was named co-chair of the Port of Oakland’s Maritime Air Quality Task Force earlier this year. 

Dellums met with Gordon supporters shortly before Tuesday’s City Council meeting and his announcement that he was withdrawing his Port Commission nominees. 

The identity or identities of the councilmembers seeking to block the Gordon appointment were not revealed, but several City Hall sources confirmed that such a blockage and vote trade had been threatened. 

Meanwhile, Oakland and the Wayans brothers now have four months to decide whether they can enter into a purchase agreement for up to 47.3 acres of West Oakland land on the former Oakland army base. The purchase price for the property has yet to be determined and, unlike many recent developers coming to Oakland, the Wayans have not requested any city subsidies for their proposed project. 

The project has been enthusiastically supported by Councilmembers Larry Reid (7th District, East Oakland) and Desley Brooks (6th District, East Oakland). 

At last week’s meeting of the Council Community and Economic Development Committee that voted to move the project forward, Reid said, “I’m not starstruck, but I’m struck by how the Wayans have demonstrated what decent human beings they are. It’s amazing, when they come to West Oakland, to see young people flock around them. It’s incredible, the impact they have on young people. What the Wayans family is proposing to do will enhance our progress and our image.” 

The Wayans had earlier unsuccessfully tried to reach a development deal with Oakland over army base property, but blamed their failure to follow through on the deal on failures of a previous partner. 

Councilmember Jane Brunner (District One, North Oakland) had voted against the original 12-month negotiating agreement with the Wayans brothers when it came to Council in 2005, saying that the year-long agreement should be cut in half. But after insisting that the new deal contain both a short timeline and defined benchmarks for both the city and the Wayans to reach, Brunner voted for the negotiating agreement this time both in committee and in the full council, releasing a memo that said she was “extremely excited about the Wayans’ proposed project. I, too, believe that this project has the potential to create a one-of-a-kind arts, entertainment and business destination on the Oakland army base. The Wayans cachet and brand name is strong, Oakland needs new retail, and the basis of their project—film production—has been identified as a growth sector for Oakland, creating quality careers in an environmentally sustainable industry.” 

Council President Ignacio De La Fuente (5th District, Fruitvale) had been earlier critical of the Wayans brothers’ failure to complete the first negotiating agreement, and said he would support the new agreement only if it included a shorter negotiating timeline. Last week, calling the Wayans proposal an “incredible opprtunity; bringing in the film industry would be a transformation for West Oakland if we can pull that off” and saying that the new agreement was “well-developed” and “tight,” De La Fuente made the motion in the Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee to move the project forward. 

The Wayans first came to national attention in the early 1990s with the comedy variety show “In Living Color,” produced by the family’s eldest brother, Keenan Ivory. The program helped launched the careers of several nationally-known comedians and entertainers, including Jamie Foxx, Jim Carey, Jennifer Lopez (who worked as a dancer on the program), brothers Shawn and Marlon who now star in their own syndicated television show “The Wayans Brothers,” and Keenan Ivory himself. The Wayans later went on to produce and star in the first two “Scary Movie” movies, spoofs of traditional horror movies. Keenan Ivory also produced and starred in “I’m Gonna’ Get You, Sucka’,” a spoof of the 1970s “blacksploitation” films.

Lt. Wes Hester, spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department, announced Thursday that bike cops will be out on an intermittent basis in South Berkeley as part of a plan for increased patrol in that area of the city. 

“Each of the four area coordinators are bicycle trained,” said Hester. “We are putting together a response to the recent shootings and robberies in South Berkeley.” 

On Monday night, Angela Gallegos-Castillo, who works in the office of the City Manager, organized a neighborhood walk around the affected areas of South Berkeley that were sites of recent violence.

While staff at the new Berkeley Housing Authority says board meetings are posted on the city clerk's web site and city clerk staff thinks BHA meetings are posted on the housing authority website, a quick survey and several phone calls by the Daily Planet uncovered the fact that the meeting—scheduled for Monday, July 23 at 6 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St.—is posted on neither. 

1. Where were you born and where did you grow up, and how does that affect how you regard the issues in Berkeley and in your district? 

I was born in Plentywood, Mont., and I grew up in Montana and Colorado in rural areas. When I was about 15 years old my family moved to Los Angeles, and when I was 18 I came here to go to school at Cal. The way my youth affected the job I do today is that growing up in rural areas where everybody knew everybody else you’re exposed to much more of a village, family-like atmosphere. And Berkeley has that atmosphere. It’s a relatively small town and I’ve known people here for over 30 years. It’s a place where you can put down deep roots and it’s got a history and I like that about it, as opposed to living in a suburbia that seems to have no past or future: it’s just a place for people to go and sleep; it doesn’t have the strong since of history and community that Berkeley does. Or the pride in the community that Berkeley has in terms of integration, civil rights, women’s rights and environment. It was really one of the cradles of the green way of thinking. 

2. What is your educational background, and how did that help prepare you for being a council member? 

I have a double B.A. from Cal in psychology and anthropology. So having gone to school in Berkeley helps me understand the needs of the campus community, because I’ve always considered myself a part of the campus community. When I graduated I started to go to work for non-profits like the Center for Independent Living, which had just started. So I was in at the beginning of the disability rights movement. And I was also here as a student for the protest on the Vietnam and Cambodian War. I was involved in city politics a decade before I decided to run for office. I knew many people in the community before I ran and I’ve always been devoted to grassroots community politics. That’s where my roots are and that’s where I want to stay. 

3. What are the top three most pressing issues facing your district (4)? 

I’d have to say high rents, the high cost of living. So many people can’t afford to live here anymore. Longtime Berkeley residents are simply getting priced out of existence in Berkeley. People were fortunate to get their homes before the rents and the mortgages really skyrocketed. It’s always been expensive but it’s been escalating in the last decade as well. The other thing, besides the high cost of housing, which impacts all the things that Berkeley cares about in terms of its community, is its diversity. The high cost of living impacts the kind of people who can afford to live here: many people of color, lower income people, and other ethnic groups are getting priced out. We don’t want to become a white-bread community. So, you know, our diversity is at stake, and then I would say, because it costs so much to live here, we don’t have enough money to deal with all the deferred structural work that needs to be done. There’s a structural deficit, and by that I mean our storm drains are crumbling, our sewers are crumbling, our sidewalks need work, our streets need work. So, those I would say are the three most critical challenges for my district as well as the rest of the city.  

4. Do you agree with the direction the city is heading in. Why or why not? 

I would agree with about 70 percent of the direction we’re heading in. There are some differences I have about our direction. I think we’re becoming much more of a top-down government. Decisions are made behind closed doors and with the powers that be rather than grassroots, with the average citizens to help make decisions on how we should run our city. 

5. What is your opinion of the proposal to develop a new downtown plan and the settlement with the University of California over its LRDP? 

Well, I don’t think we really needed a new downtown plan. We maybe need to update our current plan. We have a very good plan that was written into our general plan and so I think we need to stick to that, not change our plan to order to accommodate the university’s development. We should work with the university. But the university has made it clear regardless of all the planning we do, they’re going to do what they want to do, as they always have.  

6. How do you think the mayor is doing at his position? Are you considering running for mayor, and if so, what changes would you try to make? 

Yes, from time to time I do consider running for mayor because I feel such a frustration; that’s one of the main reasons that attracted me to political office—which was to empower the neighborhoods. The community-involved government came out of the time when we did initiatives, You got a group of committed people together and you put what you wanted on the ballot. And now we have to resort to that and more and more, like with the landmarks ordinance. It’s shocking to me how the top levels of the government have tried to kick the landmarks ordinance. And it’s been really reinvigorating to see that the community has come to the defense of a vital quality-of-life issue in Berkeley, which is protecting our neighborhoods and saving our historical housing. You know, many rent controlled units are in historical buildings. And the only way you can control the rent controlled units is by rebuilding the structure so that the renters don’t lose their value, otherwise they’re easily evicted at an expensive market rate. So it also has consequences for what I think is the most pressing issue, which is the lack of affordable housing. 

7. Has Berkeley’s recent development boom been beneficial for the city? What new direction, if any, should the city’s development take over the next decade?  

Well, I think the development has been beneficial, especially for students who needed more housing opportunities. I think that when you get to the interface between the commercial areas and the neighborhoods, more can be done to interface better with the neighborhoods. But by and large I think it has been beneficial in that it’s created more housing opportunities. I think, though, it has left a sour taste in the neighborhoods who had to contend with the ad hoc interpretation of the zoning ordinance and state law. So the surrounding residents of the development have not been given a square deal by the city. 

8. How would you characterize the political climate in Berkeley these days?  

Old timers are, as I said, willing to work on important issues like preservation. But we need to get more youth involved in caring about issues. So I would like to see more younger people involved with Berkeley politics. 

9. What is your favorite thing about Berkeley? 

It’s the beautiful environment. That might include the beautiful diversity of people that we have here, people who share the values that I share, which is working for the common good. There are so many people here who are enlightened in one way or another. They’re either brilliant academics, poets, writers, socially conscious attorneys, filmmakers, artists ... this city is filled with people riches. Dedicated teachers. People working to make their communities better. It is a real privilege to be able to live here, quite frankly. 

10. What is your least favorite thing about Berkeley? 

How expensive it’s become. I would never be able to afford to live in Berkeley if I came here today without any assistance. And it’s getting harder and harder to get subsidized housing. That’s very sad, that people like myself would not be able to live in Berkeley anymore. 

Councilmember Dona Spring  

District 4 

Born Jan. 22, 1953 

1st elected November 1992

The Berkeley City Council upheld a commission vote Tuesday evening to landmark a 1939 ice skating rink, an act supporters of the nonprofit corporation Save Berkeley Iceland hope will facilitate the group’s purchase of the site and pave the way to reopening the facility for ice skating. 

The 5-4 decision (with Councilmembers Gordon Wozniak, Dona Spring, Kriss Worthington, Betty Olds and Linda Maio voting to uphold the landmark designation) came at a special 6 p.m. meeting, one week after an extensive debate at a public hearing that focused more on whether the site should be redeveloped for housing and child care, or if the use should return to ice skating.  

As councilmembers reiterated Tuesday evening, the decision they were making had to focus narrowly on the historic value of the structure to be landmarked.  

Voting to uphold the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation means an eventual developer will either have to preserve the exterior walls of the site, as well as the packed earth berms on the north and the south sides of the structure, or go through an extensive environmental review process to make changes.  

Developer Ali Kashani, president of Memar Properties, Inc. of Oakland, has an option to purchase the site where he has said he wants to build housing and a child care center. California State law allows developers to build higher than local zoning laws permit when they include child care in the project. 

Kashani told the Daily Planet after the council decision—which he opposed—that he may still want to purchase the property. “It depends on the price,” he said. 

Speaking for Save Berkeley Iceland, Caroline Winnett told the Planet after the meeting, that while, “the owners have the right to sell to whom they want, the assumption is that a developer will not find the [landmarked site] economically attractive.” 

Now that the site is landmarked, Winnett said Save Berkeley Iceland is anticipating two significant donations. The nonprofit group is trying to raise $2 million to purchase the site, although it legally cannot negotiate with the owners, East Bay Iceland, while Kashani is exercising his options. 

If the City Council decides to uphold a commission designation of Berkeley Iceland as a landmark, it could put a crimp in development plans for a housing/childcare project, while breathing new life into the plans of a nonprofit corporation to re-open the now-shuttered 68-year- old ice skating rink. 

The council will address the Iceland issue at a special 6 p.m. meeting tonight (Tuesday) to be followed by its regular 7 p.m. meeting, the last full council meeting—a brief meeting is slated for July 31—before a lengthy summer break, scheduled to end Sept. 10.  

In addition to Iceland, the city will consider public comment rules and an audit of the city’s asset forfeiture accounts (see accompanying stories), closing down the B-Town Dollar Store on Sacramento Street because of alleged drug activity there, addressing the zoning board’s approval of a new single-family house on Panoramic Way and more. 

Ice Rink as Landmark? 

The nonprofit organization that hopes to save the property at Derby and Milvia streets for use as an ice skating rink is trying to raise the $2 million they say they need to buy the site from the current owner and previous manager, East Bay Iceland. 

East Bay Iceland, however, has entered into a preliminary agreement with developer Ali Kashani, president of Memar Properties, Inc., who hopes to turn the real estate into townhouses and a child care center. Kashani has an agreement with the YMCA, which wants to consolidate various Y-run Head Start Centers at the facility. 

State law allows developers that include child care facilities at their projects to add units to their development (a “density bonus”) above limits imposed by local zoning laws. Berkeley has yet to take advantage of this law, according to Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman. 

The Landmark Preservation Commission designated the walls around the entire 1939 building as historic, which means that a developer who wants to demolish all or part of the building will have to go through a thorough review process at the LPC before alterations are approved or a demolition can be approved by the Zoning Adjustment Board. 

Proponents of saving the ice rink hope landmarking the facility will discourage development of anything but an ice rink. 

Caroline Winnett, among those working to save the ice rink, says supporters should not be discouraged. “Now is the time to donate and to pressure the council,” she said. The group is continuing in its efforts to raise $2 million for the facility’s purchase, although they are legally unable at present to negotiate with East Bay Iceland, due to its preliminary agreement with Kashani.  

B-town may go down 

The Zoning Board says that B-Town Dollars and More Disc, at 2973 Sacramento St., is a public nuisance due to drug dealing in and around the store and should be shut down. 

“B-Town has been a significant location of drug dealing for several years … the operator … has knowingly permitted it to be used as such,” says a staff report that alleges that the store operator and his managers have never called police for help to curb the problem. 

The property is owned by the Chul J. Kim family, managed by Joo H. Kim, a San Francisco police officer, and operated by Nayef Ayesh. The operator and his attorney say, according to zoning board staff reports, that “B-Town has no responsibility for what happens outside the store. Rather it is the responsibility of the Police Department to eliminate drug dealing….” 

However, the zoning board responded that “a business is responsible for problems on the sidewalk and adjoining public areas.” 

Other public hearings 

The council will hold three other public hearings: 

• On the Telegraph Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) and on the North Shattuck BID. The BIDs are renewed unless more than 50 percent of the members protest by mail or at the council meeting; 

• On the zoning board’s approval of the construction of a home on Panoramic Way. Neighbors of the proposed home say that construction will cause closure of the narrow street, presenting a danger in case there is a need for emergency vehicle access, and that the property owner presented the zoning board with inaccurate plans. The zoning board, however, approved the 1,460 square-foot house with conditions, including that it have sprinklers for fire safety and protection for a live oak tree in the public right of way. 

The City Council will also address: 

• Allocating $25,000, already approved, to Sweatfree Berkeley, to support the formation of a consortium of government entities, which would research and monitor where products are made that cities buy, so that cities avoid the purchase of products made under sweatshop conditions. If the council approves this item, the funds will be released only when at least one other governmental entity contributes an equal or greater sum; 

• Condemning Waste Management’s lockout of its employees; 

• A pilot program to double parking fines in certain areas on UC Berkeley football days; 

• Installing speed cushions as a test. They would be an alternative to “speed humps” which cause pain to people with certain health conditions and cause damage to fire equipment. The speed cushions are traffic-calming devices designed as several small speed humps, three inches thick, made of prefabricated rubber. They would be placed in such a way that emergency vehicles with wider axles could straddle the cushions;  

• The cost of establishing “quiet zones” at railroad crossings. “With the expansion of the Port of Oakland and steadily increasing train traffic, residents in West Berkeley are frequently awakened by long and sharp whistle blowing all during the night,” says a staff report written by Councilmember Linda Maio. The item calls for the city to work with Emeryville to get a sense of the cost involved in establishing zones where a train is prohibited from blowing its whistle. Other safety measures are put in place where quiet zones are designated. 

For more on the subject of Iceland see Randy Shaw in today's Beyond Chron: 

www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4722

Berkeley residents have until Aug. 10 to express their concerns about the environmental review of zoning ordinance and General Plan amendments to open up West Berkeley to car dealerships. 

The proposal, strongly backed by Mayor Tom Bates, is designed to keep car sellers in the city, along with the sales taxes they generate. 

While the EIR comment period closes in August, the city’s Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposals next week, during their July 25 meeting. 

The proposal calls for opening up all of the land now zoned for manufacturing (M) to car dealerships, along with a narrow parcel south of Ashby Avenue currently zoned for mixed-use light industrial (MULI) uses. 

Currently, dealerships are confined to geographically restricted parcels in the C-1, C-2 and C-W commercial zones. 

Most of the dealer sites are located in the core downtown area and along southern Tele-graph Avenue, while three of the city’s four existing dealerships are located in isolated parcels along southern Shattuck Avenue (Toyota of Berkeley, Berkeley Honda and McKevitt Volvo Nissan) and only one is currently sited in West Berkeley (Weather-ford BMW on Ashby). 

All three Shattuck Avenue sites are nonconforming uses which do not meet current zoning regulations for their sites and could not be located there today. 

During Planning Commission meetings last year, dealers said car manufacturers want their dealerships concentrated along freeways to provide the easiest access, leading to an exodus of car sales locations from city centers. 

Car sales provided 11.5 percent of the city’s sales tax revenues in the second quarter of 2005, the latest figures in a staff report by Jordan Harrison, the associate planner assigned to the commission. 

The proposed zoning changes would allow dealers to locate in a much larger area than currently allowed in West Berkeley—sites primarily clustered along Univer-sity Avenue west of San Pablo Avenue and along Fourth Street near its intersection with University. 

A small number of additional sites are located near Weatherford BMW along Ashby. 

A number of smaller sites are scattered along San Pablo Avenue and a few are clustered along a narrow stretch of Dwight Way west of San Pablo. 

The last remaining dealer on San Pablo, McNevin Volkswagen, abandoned the city at the end of 2005. 

Berkeley’s remaining car dealers have been supportive of the project. 

Two categories 

The new regulations would create two classes of dealerships in each of the new zones, major outlet and small so-called “boutique dealerships.” 

In the M zone bloc, classes are demarcated by parcels above and below 40,000 square feet, with the former requiring a Use Permit (UP) issued by a vote of the Zoning Adjustments Board and the smaller parcels requiring only an over-the-counter Administrative Use Permit (AUP). 

In the south-of-Ashby section, 30,000 square feet would serve as the dividing line between the two permit categories. 

The documents now under review are required under the California Environmental Quality Act, and examine the potential consequences of developments and laws and regulations that pave the way for expanded development. 

According to Harrison’s 36-page draft Environmental Impact Study (EIS), proposed mitigations would eliminate any significant adverse impacts stemming from the proposals. 

Rick Auerbach, a West Berkeley resident and an activist with WEBAIC (West Berkeley Artisans & Industrial Companies), said his group has been generally supportive of the proposal, “but significant questions remain.” 

WEBAIC has advocated for preservation of the city’s dwindling supply of industrial sites, and members challenged the development of the new Berkeley Bowl now under construction in West Berkeley. 

One of WEBAIC’s main concerns has been the increasing volume of traffic on major thoroughfares in the area, including the intersection of San Pablo and Ashby avenues and the eastern end of the proposed MULI dealership zone. 

Auerbach said he wants to see confirmation that traffic projections include the impacts of the new supermarket and other developments now in the planning stages. Harrison said she would check to make sure they did. 

Impacts listed 

Potential adverse impacts to air quality would be reduced to insignificance by measures that include:  

• Water spraying to reduce dust;  

• Covering or reducing the levels of truckloads of soil and other loose materials; 

• Daily sweeping of access roads and nearby streets and parking areas, seeding or stabilizing nearby soil; 

• Covering, binding or watering earth and sand stockpiles; and 

• Limiting traffic speeds on unpaved roads and installing erosion control measures to prevent silt runoff onto roads. 

Other measures call for: 

• Preventing exposure to lead paints and asbestos during demolition of old buildings;  

• Examining sites for historic or prehistoric relics and remains and fossils; 

• Examination of sites for earthquake and soil liquefaction hazards;  

• Mandating traffic impact analyses for new dealerships and following their recommendations; 

• Fair-share payments from new M zone dealers for the cost of installing a signal and Fourth and Gilman streets, and  

• Limiting the size of dealerships near the Gilman/I-80 interchange to 4.5 acres or less unless evidence of no adverse impacts are shown.  

The documents are all available online at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/planning/  

landuse/WestBerkeleyAuto/default.htm 

An auditor’s report released late Monday morning says Berkeley police and city workers mismanaged asset forfeiture accounts, which could have caused the city to lose the uninsured funds or allowed the money to be misused or embezzled—neither of which happened, according to the audit. While the council and public did not receive a copy of the audit on asset forfeiture funds until late Monday morning, the council will be asked to approve the report and its suggested remedies at tonight’s (Tuesday) council meeting.  

City Auditor Ann-Marie Hogan performed the audit following a request by the Police Review Commission’s Subcommittee on Evidence Theft Issues, a committee originally formed to examine issues arising from the theft of drug evidence by convicted felon and former Berkeley police sergeant Cary Kent, who stole drugs from the evidence locker he oversaw.  

After another alleged incident of police misconduct, the subcommittee added to its charge a review of policies that could have led to the alleged theft of cash and property belonging to arrestees by another officer. This officer was charged with criminal activity by Berkeley Police; he subsequently left the department. The Alameda County district attorney’s office declined to press charges against him.  

Kent’s responsibilities, in addition to oversight of the drug evidence room, included being a signatory on the asset forfeiture funds accounts. When cash is found by police as part of narcotics enforcement, it is placed in an asset forfeiture fund.  

There are three of these funds that had been housed at the United Services Credit Union. As a result of the audit report, the funds were moved to Wells Fargo Bank, according to Hogan, in a Monday morning phone interview with the Planet.  

Hogan underscored that, while there were a number of managerial problems in the account oversight, she concluded that no money was stolen from the accounts, which had been a major concern for members of the Police Review subcommittee.  

The audit covered the period of July 1, 2003, when Kent began his role in charge of the accounts, to April 30 of this year.  

When Berkeley police confiscate cash, they put the money into a bank account. That money then is transferred to the Alameda County District Attorney, Hogan said.  

“If they don’t successfully prosecute, they have to give the money back [to the suspect],” Hogan said.  

Part of the funds not returned to former suspects are given back to the city. The funds are shared with the state or federal government, depending on the jurisdiction of the crime.  

“We found no indication that any transaction in the three asset forfeiture related accounts during the period covered by our review was inappropriate,” Hogan said in her report. “However, accountability and controls for these deposit accounts need improvement.”  

Among the problems was that a sum of about $738,000 was in uninsured, non-collateralized credit union deposits. The credit union cannot insure accounts of that magnitude and the city risked losing the funds if the credit union failed, Hogan said, noting that the city has responded by moving the funds to a commercial bank.  

Another problem is that, while the City Charter requires two signatures for every withdrawal, the officer in charge—the one convicted of stealing drugs—was able to withdraw funds without the signature of either the city manager or city auditor.  

“During the period of our review the city manager and the city auditor approved only two of 35 transfers from the seized cash impound account,” the report says, further noting, “One police officer had autonomy over withdrawals because the credit union did not enforce the dual signatures requirement.”  

The audit report points to the potential for embezzlement: “…one police officer acting alone could withdraw funds from the three accounts, which increased the risk of misappropriation of funds. Segregation of duties, where no one person has control over all aspects of a transaction, is a basis [sic] tenet of internal control.”  

On the question of signatures, the report concludes that no wrongdoing was found: “Although we found no evidence that any withdrawal was for an inappropriate purpose, failure to obtain required approval, combined with the lack of dual signatures, increased the risk of withdrawals being made for inappropriate or illegal reasons.”  

The report says that on June 26 the police chief instituted corrective action, issuing a memorandum stating “… no withdrawals should be made from police credit union accounts without approval signed by the city manager and the city auditor.”  

The audit also discovered that:  

• The Finance Department did not reconcile the quarterly and monthly deposit account statements received from the credit union and  

• Police do not have written procedures to specify requirements for credit union transactions involving seized currency and asset forfeiture.

Threatened by citizens considering a lawsuit to force state-mandated public participation in city meetings, Mayor Tom Bates has been experimenting since the fall with a variety of rules aimed at increasing opportunities for public comment at council meetings.  

Now the mayor says he wants to make the rules permanent and has proposed a set of guidelines for public participation that appear on tonight’s agenda for council approval. 

Counclmembers Kriss Worth-ington and Dona Spring, however, say Bates’ draft resolution gives the mayor/presiding officer too much latitude to decide who speaks, when, and for how long. “It shouldn’t be someone with so much vested interest” making these decisions, Spring told the Daily Planet.  

Worthington wrote his own resolution, which he submitted last month but delayed at Bates’ request, to allow the competing resolutions to go before the council at the same meeting. 

Spring has made some suggestions for rules on public comment, but is calling for a fall workshop to fully discuss citizen participation in meetings. 

Bates’ proposal “gives him dictatorial power over public comment.” Spring said. “The public needs to know what the rules are ahead of time.” 

How long? 

One question the council will be asked to resolve is how long speakers can talk.  

Under the old rules, before SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Or-ganizing for Library Defense) threatened to sue the city for limiting a citizen’s right to comment at public meetings, 10 speakers were chosen by lottery to speak for three minutes each at the beginning of the meeting.  

SuperBOLD and attorneys from the Oakland-based First Amendment Project said the system unfairly restricts public participation. 

However, “It doesn’t make sense to have 100 people speak for three minutes each,” Worthington said. 

His proposal gives the public two minutes to speak, when there are five or fewer people who want to address a particular issue, and one-and-a-half minutes when there are six-to-nine people and one minute when there are ten or more people who want to speak to one item—this would apply to both the consent and action calendars. 

Bates’ proposal addresses the time issue differently for “consent” items and “action” items. 

With respect to items on the consent calendar—generally non-controversial issues approved as a block—Bates is proposing to allow one speaker in favor of each agenda item and one speaker opposed to the item. Each would speak for two minutes; others present in support or opposing the item would be asked to stand to indicate support or opposition.  

If the mayor determines there is “significant opposition” or if numerous people want to speak in support of the item, it would be pulled off the consent calendar and placed on the “action” calendar at the end of the agenda. 

Spring has proposed that when fewer than 19 people want to speak on one item, there should be a two-minute time limit, but when more than 18 want to speak, a one-minute limit should be imposed. Alternatively, Spring suggested imposing a 12-minute time limit on public comment before each item. 

Bates proposes that the public would be allowed to speak for two minutes on items calendared for action, but if more than 10 people wish to speak “the presiding officer may limit the public comment to one minute per speaker.”  

Alternatively, Bates says that, with the consent of people representing both sides of an issue, he would “allocate a block of time to each side to present their issue.” 

But Worthington says this is an example of the mayor giving himself too much discretionary power. People need to come to meetings knowing how much time they can speak on an issue, he said. 

Gene Bernardi of SuperBOLD said in an interview Monday that while it would be fine with her if people had more time to speak, the compromise time limits suggested by Worthington are acceptable to SuperBOLD.  

While Bernardi said it might be appropriate for the mayor to suggest that only one person speak for and one against a non-controversial consent item, he should not impose that on the public. There may be more than two clearly identifiable sides to an issue, making it difficult for one person to speak on each side of a consent calendar item, she said. 

Non-agenda items 

If people come to the council to talk about concerns not noted on the agenda, Worthington says they should be permitted to talk directly after the consent calendar has been approved, which is early in the evening. 

Bates, on the other hand, says public comment on non-agenda items should come at the end of the agenda.  

“If by 11 p.m. an extension [of the council meeting] is not approved, any unfinished agendized business will be moved to the next council meeting and fifteen minutes will be automatically allocated for pubic comment on non-agenda items,” Bates’ item says. 

Bates did not return calls for comment. 

Enforcing the rules 

Neither of the proposed resolutions suggests remedies for violations or designates an individual or office to oversee the rules. 

When asked about enforcement, Worthington said, “There should be a clearly designated parliamentarian who does the job.” In many cities, the city attorney plays that role, he said, adding that it often falls to him to speak up when rules are broken, which, he said, is not a good way to handle such questions.  

“When a councilmember brings up [problems with following the rules], it adds to the emotions in a discussion,” he said. 

Worthington noted that a substitute city attorney had effectively played the role of parliamentarian when City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque was on vacation a few weeks ago. 

Many cities include public comment rules in their Sunshine Ordinances, laws that mandate greater government transparency than state laws. Albuquerque told the council she would post a draft Sunshine Ordinance on the city website in May, but has yet to do so. 

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) set the appeal of an administrative use permit to construct an addition to a one-story, two-unit building at 2516 Ellsworth St. for a public hearing Thursday. 

A group of LeConte neighbors are worried that the proposed building, which will be converted into a dorm for UC Berkeley students by Oakland-based William Coburn Architects, will create noise, shadow, privacy and traffic impacts on the neighborhood. 

The architects propose to construct a 2,974-square-foot addition to an existing 903-square-foot, one-story, two-unit building by expanding the footprint towards the rear yard and raising the existing house approximately 10 feet. As a result of the addition, the building units would increase from two to 14. 

ZAB approved the project on Feb. 6 because of its consistency with the zoning ordinance and the development standards of the district.  

The current building exists right on the border of a higher-density and a lower-density residential zone in a neighborhood comprised predominantly of duplexes and apartment buildings. 

According to the appellants, the proposed development was “too dense” and should be zoned as a medium density residential building because of its proximity to that district. 

The appellants also contend that the project would increase parking demand without providing any additional off-street parking, and they are against the issuance of residential parking permits to its occupants. 

Michael Walensky, who lives around the corner from the proposed project, complained about its negative effects in a letter to ZAB. 

“I bought my condo in 1995,” he said. “At that time things were relatively tranquil in this neighborhood, but in the past few years the quality of life has deteriorated dramatically.” 

Walensky said the level of noise caused by students in nearby apartments having loud parties has become so bad that he frequently calls the police to complain. 

“Students seem to have no notion that many of us in this neighborhood are homeowners who work for a living and have to sleep.” 

In a letter to ZAB, the LeConte Neighborhood Association said that the “massive residential expansion” would prove to be a detriment to the neighborhood because of inappropriate density, “which would exacerbate existing noise and parking problems in the area.” 

Staff maintains that the project is compatible with the size, density and scale of the neighborhood. 

1819 Fifth St. 

The zoning board discussed the 1819 Fifth St. Pads Projects Thursday. 

Architect Timothy Rempel and his wife Liz Miranda have requested a permit to construct a mixed-use project which involves renovation and modification of an existing building at 1819 Fifth St., with four live-work units, 10 residential condominium units, 11 commercial units (7,298 square feet), 27 parking spaces and a new four-story construction. 

Area residents have described the  

project as a “looming monstrosity” and vociferously opposed it, citing shadow, height and traffic concerns. A petition, signed by 15 neighbors, was also submitted to ZAB Thursday. It stated, among other things, that the proposed building would be out of character with the rest of the neighborhood. 

The property, which is located in West Berkeley, on Fifth Street between Hearst Avenue and Delaware Street, was acquired by Rempel for two and a half million dollars in July. Although the existing brick building is not a landmark structure, the site is located south of the Delaware Historic District. 

Rempel asked for a variance modification to add a 4th floor, which is not otherwise allowed in the district. 

“Our neighborhood is mostly comprised of one- or two-story houses,” said Nick Lawrence, who has lived at 835 Delaware St. for almost 21 years. “There is nothing else that compares to the mass and size of the proposed building. The ZAB should not be concerned with whether they will make a profit but with whether it is good for the neighborhood.” 

Owen Maercks, owner of East Bay Vivarium at 1827 Fifth St., which houses up to 30,000 animals at any given time, said that the project would drive his business out of the city. 

“He is asking for 27 parking spaces for 25 units,” he said. “So little parking for such a massive structure. We are already having parking wars in the neighborhood. Nobody will come there to shop anymore.” 

Maercks also expressed concern that the building’s shadow would prevent his reptiles from sunning outside.  

“We won’t be blocking the sun,” Rempel answered. “There are many three storied buildings in the immediate vicinity.” The Delaware Homeowners Association spoke in favor of the development. 

Board member Bob Allen said that ZAB did not have the ability to grant Rempel the variance for the 4th floor. 

“I think it’s too frivolous a reason to just say that we want to make it look better,” he said. “You have to make it more convincing. This building will not do anything but add parking to the street. I admire the design but am not particularly comfortable that the color schemes and the materials don’t match with that of the neighborhood.” 

Board vice chair Rick Judd said that there were a lot of alternatives for the proposed project that hadn’t been looked at. 

“Three stories needs to be explored,” said board member Jesse Arreguin. “It’s clear that there are no four-story buildings in the area. It’s clear that there are parking violations.”

West Berkeley-based Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) is scheduled to release its health risk assessment report (HRA) to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Monday. 

The report, which will help determine whether the steel foundry is a health hazard, was originally due in April, but was delayed due to further testing required by the air district. 

Elisabeth Jewel, of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, the public relations firm representing Pacific Steel, said that consultants hired by PSC prepared the report based on the emissions inventory report made public on Feb. 23. 

In an email to the community, Brian Bateman, the air district’s director of engineering, said that the HRA would be available for public review after the air district completed its preliminary review of the data. 

“We expect that we will be able to get this done by the end of July,” he wrote. “We plan on providing copies of the document (hopefully in electronic format) to the city of Berkeley for their review and distribution (as we have done with several related preceding documents). We will also provide copies to the local public libraries.” 

For residents of West Berkeley, the release marks the end of a much anticipated wait for information. 

Some, such as environmentalist LA Wood, remain skeptical about its contents. 

“The HRA is a reminder of the ongoing conflict in West Berkeley between mixed-use housing and light industry,” he told the Planet Monday. “If the HRA had any sense of honesty, it would state that the area surrounding the steel mill is not an ideal location for long-term housing. The same should also be said about the steel mill given that PSC has no buffer to the residential community.” 

Wood added that the HRA process reflects a sixteen-year lapse of city zoning regulation oversight of PSC and concern over community health.  

“The HRA should have been done years ago,” he said. “The one PSC operates on right now was done in 1991 and was recognized by the zoning staff as inadequate. The entire process marks a serious failure of the regional air district for waiting so long to update the HRA. The foundry’s increased activities, employment and new sources of emissions demanded a review years ago.” 

PSC has operated out of West Berkeley since 1934. Area residents have protested the foundry’s emissions and odors, which they say pose serious health and environment hazards, for over two decades. 

In an email to the community on June 6, Mayor Tom Bates addressed the HRA release. 

“I understand the limitations of the study, specifically the concerns raised about the threshold standards of the HRA,” he said. 

“The mayor’s comments suggest that the new HRA is headed down the same path as the 1991 steel mill’s health assessment,” said Wood. “The HRA is about community health. Hopefully we are all going to have a review period for this document.” 

According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, risk assessments “help scientists and regulators identify serious health hazards and determine realistic goals for reducing exposure to toxins so that there is no significant health threat to the public.” 

The four-step process of risk assessment usually includes hazard identification, exposure assessment, dose-response assessment and risk characterization. 

The air district is currently in the process of installing a mobile air station to further test and monitor emissions in West Berkeley which will establish baseline ambient air quality and the sources of variations in the air quality.  

The air district and Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE) recently settled their lawsuits against PSC. The air district settlement requires the steel foundry to install a capture hood to control emissions and pay $150,000 in fines to the air district. 

“We have applied to the air district for a use permit to install a capture hood at Plant 3,” said Jewel.  

“As per the settlement with CBE, we will be installing an air filtration system as soon as the air district gives us the necessary use permit.” 

A separate small claims lawsuit filed by the nonprofit organization Neighborhood Solutions against Pacific Steel is scheduled to be heard at the Alameda County Superior Court on Monday. 

Warnings of criminal penalties, charges of intimidation and ousters of worried UC Berkeley workers and concerns about radioactive contamination dominated discussions about two polluted southeast Richmond sites Thursday. 

Cleanup actions at the university’s Richmond Field Station (RFS) and the adjacent Campus Bay development site are being closely watched by the Richmond Southeast Shoreline Area Community Advisory Group (CAG), a community panel advising the state Department of Toxics Substances Control (DTSC). 

Thursday night’s CAG meeting was the first since the DTSC issued two letters June 29 detailing alleged violations during the 2002-2004 cleanup, including alleged illegal dumping of more than 3,000 truckloads of contaminated soil from university property into the massive mound of buried contaminated earth at Campus Bay. 

The soil contained mercury, arsenic, zinc, cadmium, selenium, PCBs and copper at levels above the state thresholds for toxic materials. 

Doreen S. Moreno, a UC Berkeley Governmental and Community Affairs analyst, spoke near the end of the monthly meeting of the Richmond Southeast Shoreline Area Community Advisory Group (CAG) to read a prepared statement. 

Moments after Moreno described the illegal dumping violations as “alleged deficiencies in meeting administrative requirements” and not a current health risk, attorney Peter Weiner rose to challenge her claim. 

What the DTSC had charged were not simply “administrative violations” but substantive problems, punishable by up to nine years in jail for each count, Weiner said. 

A senior attorney with the international law firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Weiner typically represents major developers. But in Richmond, he is representing the community activists of Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development (BARRD). 

Retribution alleged 

Weiner said he was also concerned with allegations raised minutes earlier by Claudette Begin, vice president of Local 7 of the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), which represents UCB clerical workers, including those at the field station. 

Begin charged that a number of union workers suffered health problems during the cleanup, “and when they spoke up, they were driven out.” As a result, she said, “people are not interested in speaking up. That’s the level of intimidation that’s gone on.” 

Her voice breaking with emotion, she said she felt personally responsible for the plight of workers, including those she said had warned of arsenic contamination at the RFS Forest Products Lab. 

“The university has denied in the past that there were arsenic problems,” she said. 

But those claims were substantiated earlier in the meeting by Barbara Cook, DTSC’s active statewide head of cleanup operations, who said that the discovery of hazardous levels of arsenic at the surface in the lab area pose “a potential imminent threat to people working at the complex.” 

Cook’s staff is reviewing a cleanup plan submitted by the university and will issue a public notice before the actual cleanup of an estimated 85 cubic yards of earth is removed and hauled to the licensed Kettleman Hills hazardous waste facility near King City. 

Weiner said he was concerned about allegations that the university may not have informed employees about the potential hazards to employees during the cleanup at Campus Bay, and said the state labor code bars any punitive action toward workers who complain about possible job safety issues. 

Field station workers and BARRD activist and CAG member Sherry Padgett have also charged that the university has failed to conduct an adequate investigation of hazardous materials at the site, and Padgett has alleged that the presence of a highly contaminated toxic “hot spot” immediately adjacent to the RFS is cause for concern. 

Douglas Moesteller, an executive of Cherokee Investment Partners, told the CAG about plans to clean up the hot spot, a site measuring about 200 feet by 30 feet. 

Michelle Kriegman-King, a vice president and environmental engineer with the consulting firm Erler & Kalinowski, described the plans in detail for a site with high levels of toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and pesticides. 

Rejecting a plan that would call only for excavating and removing some of the contaminated earth while capping the rest and leaving it in place, Kriegman-King said all the earth would be removed. 

Radioactive concerns 

Two scientific consultants working for the CAG under a grant provided by Cherokee Simeon Ventures, the special purpose corporation created to develop the site, are urging caution—and are calling for comprehensive testing of the site for radioactive waste before any further work is done at the site. 

Dorinda Shipman of Treadwell & Rollo and Adrienne LaPierre of Iris Environmental are working under contract to the CAG, as is a court reporting service—all paid for by the Campus Bay developers and negotiated with Weiner’s assistance, a first in the history of DTSC’s CAG system. 

Newly emerging information has also revealed that experiments with melting and coating uranium at the Stauffer Chemical plants were much more extensive than previously revealed, and a document produced as the result of lawsuits against tobacco manufacturers has revealed that radioactive polonium in cigarettes produced by the Philip Morris Co. was traced to a superphosphate fertilizer produced at the site. 

The confidential Feb. 25, 1976, inter-office memorandum recounts a visit by a tobacco company executive to the Stauffer plant which confirmed the fertilizer as the probable source of the deadly substance. 

The memo also alleges that a federally funded University of Virginia scientist who had sided with the tobacco company’s claims that the material was harmless and not proven otherwise would continue to do so because he “knows where his bread is buttered.” 

That document is available online at http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/139670.html. 

Dr. Michael Esposito, a retired UC Berkeley scientist who serves on the CAG’s Toxics Committee, said he is especially worried about polonium because it emits alpha particles, potentially the most deadly form of radiation but impossible to detect using surface Geiger counters used in previous tests at the site. 

The metal was used to fatally poison former Soviet KGB officer Aleksandr Litvinenko in London last year. 

He said he was also concerned because tests for other radioactive elements, including groundwater tests for uranium, were incomplete, and many used outdated water samples which prevented accurate measurement of radon gas, a product of radioactive decay. 

An angry Henry Clark, executive director of the West County Toxics Coalition, said that the discoveries of additional work with uranium and other radioactive elements at the site had confirmed the claims of CAG member Ethel Dotson. “Practically everyone made it seem like she was crazy, but she was on point,” Clark said. 

Dotson has been stricken with cancer, which she has attributed to a childhood spent growing up near the Stauffer complex. 

Esposito said that all site maps should now carry the footprints of the vanished chemical plant buildings, given that an increasing number of structures have been identified as the site of work with radioactive materials. 

CAG history  

The CAG, created by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, is advising the agency about cleanup of contaminated sites. It was formed after activists from BARRD, the West County Toxics Coalition, the Richmond Progressive Alliance and nearby neighborhoods grew alarmed over cleanup activities at the two sites. 

Polluted by a complex of plants which manufactured toxic chemicals at Campus Bay for a century and a munitions plant at the RFS, the sites were being rehabilitated by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board before the activists set to work. 

Concerned about potential hazards from the clouds of dust generated by the factory demolition and soil work and frustrated at dealing with an agency which had no scientists trained in handling toxic materials, activists pressed for a regulatory handover to the DTSC, enlisting the support of Assemblymember Loni Hancock and the Richmond City Council. 

The eventual result was a handover of jurisdiction by the water board to the DTSC, which is well-staffed with toxicologists. 

The 2002-2004 Campus Bay cleanup was conducted by an Emeryville company which had been headed by a former water board staff member, while the university devised its own cleanup. 

UC Berkeley’s plans to build an academic/corporate research park at the field station, with up to 1.5 million square feet of new buildings, have been stalled by change in state agencies and the ensuing tightened regulatory regime.

Oakland Assemblymember Sandré Swanson modified his AB45 Oakland Unified School District local control bill again last Wednesday, giving back more powers to State Superintendent Jack O’Connell over when state control of the Oakland schools will end and winning, in return, key Republican support and passage in the California State Senate Education Committee. 

In the new version the state superintendent, not FCMAT, will control when local control is restored to the Oakland school board in the area of financial management. Swanson’s modified bill continues to give FCMAT power over when local control will be restored in the Oakland schools in all other areas of district operations.  

The new modification in Swanson’s local control restoration bill was not enough to win the support of O’Connell, however. State deputy superintendent for governmental affairs told committee members Wednesday that “although the bill as amended is better” and “FCMAT (Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team) reports are important and critical to the [local restoration] process” and O’Connell “understands the desire for local control and shares that goal,” the superintendent would not support a bill that takes away his discretion in that restoration. “He continues to oppose this bill,” California Education Department staffmember Andrea Ball said. 

But the modification was enough to win crucial 6-1 passage in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, including—and perhaps, most importantly—the vote of one of the committee’s Republican members, Jeff Denham (Merced, Modesto, Salinas). Significant Republican support in the legislature is needed if AB45 is to overcome a possible veto by Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but even a small amount of Republican support increases the likelihood of Schwarzenegger signing the bill into law if it passes both houses. 

A second committee Republican, Mark Wyland (San Juan Capistrano, Carlsbad), cast the lone vote against the bill, saying that after “a good discussion” with Swanson, “I thought a lot about it” and preferred to keep authority over restoration in the state superintendent’s hands. 

“There has been tremendous improvement in student achievement [in OUSD], and it’s significant that this happened under the state administrator,” Wyland said. “I don’t want to upset that progress. I’d rather wait until the superintendent agrees it’s time to restore local control.” 

For Swanson’s part, he was upbeat about the passage. 

“Today’s vote represents substantial progress for the return of democracy and accountability to the Oakland Unified School District,” Swanson said in a prepared statement following the Education Committee vote. “I look forward to a successful vote on the Senate floor.”  

Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), a co-sponsor of the measure, added that AB45 “will put in place important benchmarks for the return of local control to the Oakland Unified School District and set the standards for return of local control for districts that may face the same challenges in the future. I have every confidence in the Oakland Unified Board of Education to take the reins in a responsible manner.” 

But before committee members voted to support the measure, the hearing itself at one point threatened to unravel over the contentious, unresolved issues that continue to simmer in and around Oakland over the state takeover. 

It began during a parade to the microphone of Oakland parents, students, education activists, and officials who had come to Sacramento to support Swanson’s bill, with a seemingly innocent statement by Oakland Education Association teachers union president Betty Olsen-Jones that her organization “supports complete return of local control to the Oakland Unified School District.” 

While Olsen-Jones did not use the term “immediate return” committee chair Jack Scott (D-Pasadena) appeared to take it that way, interrupting Olsen-Jones to lecture her that “this bill is not about a return to full local control” to Oakland Unified, adding that “the reason that Oakland is not in full control now is because the district went bankrupt.” 

Olsen-Jones appeared stunned by the chairperson’s outburst and did not directly reply to it, though several people in the committee room who had come from Oakland said “it wasn’t bankrupt” loud enough for committee members to hear. And taking the podium several minutes later, Susan Harman, a former Oakland charter school principal who frequently clashed with former OUSD state administrator Randy Ward, began her testimony by telling Scott, “we were not bankrupt when the state took over the Oakland schools, but we’re bankrupt now. The district is further in debt under state administration than when it began.” 

Senator Denham then said that he had been in the Senate in 2003 when the OUSD takeover legislation was passed, and voted for it himself. When he asked Harman, “were we duped when we voted for that bill,” Harman answered pointedly, “yes.” 

That brought Scott back into the discussion, appearing disturbed by Harman’s challenge to his version of the school takeover issue, but before Swanson’s carefully crafted compromise could fall apart, the assemblymember smoothed things over by saying “it was clear that we needed assistance from the state in Oakland at the time it was given,” and Scott appeared satisfied and dropped the issue. 

But the state superintendent’s office caught committee heat as well from an unlikely Republican source. 

After Ball expressed O’Connell’s opposition to the bill, Denham told her, “you’ve said that there are gaps in [Oakland Unified’s] performance that prevent the return to local control. What are those gaps?” 

Ball answered that “until FCMAT gives the district a rating of 7 in any operational area, [FCMAT doesn’t] recommend a return to local control,” but when Denham asked her, again, what was keeping those scores from the local control threshold, Ball suggested that he read the FCMAT report. 

That answer appeared to annoy Denham, who told the superintendent’s representative, “you’re here to tell us that the school district is not ready for local control. I just want you to tell us why they are not ready.” 

Ball did not answer. 

A spokesperson for O’Connell later said by telephone that Ball realized following the hearing that she had been in error in saying that FCMAT requires a score of 7 on a scale of 1-10 before a recommendation is made for return to local control. The state superintendent’s public information officer, Hilary McLean, said that the actual score is 6, and comes from the written FCMAT scoring criteria that state standards in a given area “are implemented, monitored, and becoming systematic.” 

There was also a contradiction in Ball’s statement to the committee that was not caught by committee members or Swanson at the time. 

Making the point that AB45 was not necessary because the state superintendent was already moving ahead with a return to local control in several areas, noting last Monday’s return of community relations and governance to control of the Oakland school board, Ball said that “we are expecting a FCMAT report by the end of the year” that will contain “one other area for possible return.”  

O’Connell said on Monday that this area might be facilities management. 

But Ball failed to note that money authorized for FCMAT reports under the original takeover legislation has run out, and one of the provisions of Swanson’s AB45 is to restore that money for periodic FCMAT reports until full local control is restored. Without AB45 or some other form of legislative financial authorizations, there will be no future FCMAT reports, and no way under the SB39 takeover legislation for O’Connell to evaluate how well, or how poorly, the district is operating. 

AB45 now goes to the full Senate for consideration, where it will be floor-managed by State Senate President Don Perata (D-Oakland), who wrote the original SB39 OUSD state takeover legislation in 2003. The bill has already passed the Assembly. 

The Oakland schools have been run under state receivership since complications surrounding a teacher pay raise caused the district to be unable to meet its spring 2003 payroll, forcing the district to ask for a $100 million line of credit from the state. 

Swanson’s original bill would have immediately returned local control to the Oakland schools in four of the five areas that the state-financed FCMAT has been monitoring since 2003—community relations and governance, personnel management, pupil achievement, and facilities management. The fifth FCMAT monitoring area, fiscal management, would have remained under state control under Swanson’s original bill. 

But shortly before the bill was considered in the Assembly Education Committee last April, Swanson modified AB45 after discussions with Schwarzenegger and Perata, among others, convinced him that the bill could not be both passed and signed into law in that form. Under those April modifications, local control would no longer be restored immediately, but would be restored in any one of the five FCMAT monitoring areas upon FCMAT’s recommendation. 

Under the original 2003 state takeover legislation, FCMAT could make the recommendation for restoration of local control, but the State Superintendent retained the ultimate control over whether, and when, that restoration was carried out. 

That provision in the original takeover legislation led to one of the more contentious issues of the takeover, after O’Connell failed to act on a 2005 FCMAT recommendation that local control be restored to the Oakland school board in the area of community relations and governance. O’Connell came to Oakland on Monday of this week to grant that local control restoration in that area, two days before the Senate Education Committee hearing and vote on AB45, and two years after FCMAT made its original recommendation in that area. 

Two teenagers were arrested Friday on charges of shooting a gun at passing vehicles on the 2600 block of California Street. 

Berkeley Police arrested an 18-year-old who is a student at Berkeley High School and a 15-year-old boy on charges of conspiracy, possession of a 9 mm gun, and intent to sell marijuana. Police charge that they were taking turns shooting at passing cars. 

Police believe that no one was hurt and that there wasn’t any property damage. They located the 18-year-old in a nearby home, while the juvenile was located near the scene of the crime. 

“We got calls from concerned citizens that helped us find the suspects,” said Lt. Wes Hester, spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department. “Without that, we would have not able to locate the suspects. We want to give the community a big thanks.” 

Corporal punishment 

On Sunday at 2:45 p.m., Berkeley police arrested a Berkeley woman and man for inflicting corporal punishment on their 12-year-old son on the 3200 block of California Street. The couple struck their son with a belt. The child was placed in protective custody following the incident. 

Car burglaries 

There has been a series of car break-ins surrounding Pyramid Brewery on the 900 block of Gilman Street. On Saturday, two patrons were inside between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. When they returned to their cars, many things were missing such as a suitcase, toothpaste, and other toiletries. There are no suspects. 

Stolen food and beer 

On Friday at 9:24 p.m., an employee of Andronico’s, on the 1400 block of University Avenue, called in to report that a 21-year old Berkeley man had been caught stealing food and beer from the store. Store employees were able to recover the stolen items. Berkeley police arrested the man. 

Internal theft 

On Friday at 8:38 p.m., an employee from the Double Tree Hotel on 200 Marina Blvd. called in to report that somebody who worked there had taken $3,100 in cash from the building. It was reported that they have identified a suspect, whose description has not been released. 

More vandalism at BMHC 

On Friday at 5:13 p.m., someone called the police to report that the window at the Berkeley Mental Health Center, on the 2600 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, was broken. Investigators reported that it was a punch to the window. The crime is said to have happened between 4 and 5 p.m. No suspects have been identified. This follows two instances of arson at the center last week. 

The San Francisco Preservation Consortium appealed the San Francisco Planning Commission’s decision not to landmark the UC Berkeley Extension Laguna Street campus last week. 

The Planning Commission’s 4-3 vote last month not to landmark the five-building historic campus was a blow for community members and preservationists. 

After citing prohibitive maintenance costs, the university closed its Laguna Street campus in 2004 and leased it to private developers AF Evans to turn it into a mixed-use development featuring residential rental units and retail space. 

First used as a city orphanage from 1854 until the San Francisco State Normal School was established in the 1920s to accommodate public school teachers, the campus has also served as the original home of San Francisco State University. 

The San Francisco Preservation Consortium consists of neighborhood and historic preservation organizations including the Friends of 1800 and Save the UC Berkeley Extension Laguna Street Campus Group. 

The association’s appeal is based on the grounds that, the Planning Department and its historic preservation consultant, the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board (LPAB) and the State Historic Preservation Officer all agreed the former San Francisco State Teacher’s College Campus at 55 Laguna St. was eligible for listing in the California Register of Historical Resources. 

In a letter to the Board of Supervisors on behalf of the consortium, Joseph Butler, AIA Chair, stated that landmarking the site would “provide the much needed LPAB oversight to ensure this National Register-elible historical resource is protected.” 

Since the Planning Commission would be asked to certify the 55 Laguna Mixed Use Project final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in the fall, local preservationists are accelerating efforts to save the campus. 

The proposed construction would demolish Middle Hall and the administrative wing of Richardson Hall. 

In a letter to the Planning Department, Grey Brechin, author of Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, described the site as an “early example of an urban campus.” 

“These properties have historical relevancy within the context of California’s teacher education system and architectural significance as an excellent example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style in the City of San Francisco,” his letter stated. 

The SF LPAB voted unanimously on June 20 to file a concurrent appeal of the commission’s decision. 

“The world, Mma Ramotswe believed, was composed of big things and small things. The big things were written large, and one could not but be aware of them—wars, oppression, the familiar theft by the rich and the strong of the those simple things that the poor needed, those scraps which would make their life more bearable; this happened, and could make even the reading of the newspaper an exercise in sorrow. There were all those unkindnesses, palpable, daily, so easily avoidable; but one could not just think of those, thought Mma Ramotswe, or one would spend one’s time in tears—and the unkindnesses would continue. So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one’s own life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their own solution?” 

—From The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith 

Last week I had the occasion to visit Kaiser’s Oakland clinic laboratory to have blood drawn for the usual routine tests, the day after I’d incurred a minor but painful twisted leg muscle because of an unwise choice of shoes. I limped, conspicuously, from the main entrance to the elevator, and from the elevator to the fourth floor laboratory. When you’re limping yourself, you can’t help noticing how many other people around you are limping too, and it seemed that everyone in the building was limping that day, some worse than others, some needing canes and walkers to keep themselves steady.  

Despite the many other limpers around me, it seemed that I was deluged with sympathetic glances and offers of help during my short journey. Doors were held for me; wheelchairs were mentioned. One man who spoke English with difficulty took the trouble to tell me a long story about his leg injury, and how he’d injured his other leg by favoring the sore one, which he wanted to make sure I’d avoid. Advice taken: I’ve been careful, and so far this week both legs have been working pretty well, knock on wood. 

When I’d finished at the lab I had a chance to sit in the shade on the bus bench on Howe Street for a while and observe the passing throng. There’s a miniature farmer’s market there now some days, so I saw produce shoppers as well as patients and employees. Not for the first time, I realized how lucky we are in the East Bay, because the whole world comes to us, no need to deal with crowded planes and travel restrictions. I saw every possible type, every conceivable standard of physical beauty, every style of colorful or outrageous dress among the people getting on and off the shuttle buses. Many were undoubtedly at Kaiser because they had problems to deal with, but most were smiling and courteous despite that. And someone’s cultivating a really sensational bed of begonias at the clinic door.  

Reading the newspapers is part of the job description here, and yes, Mma Ramotswe is right, it’s all too often an exercise in sorrow. If anyone out there hasn’t encountered Alexander Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books yet, they’re a gentle antidote to a world too much with us in the daily news. The protagonist is a “traditionally built” woman in Botswana who specializes in unraveling the simple puzzles of daily life, and they beautifully evoke the joyful world of small things which are too easily overlooked.  

“News” is most often the big things. “Big” in our range can mean national, international or local, but hard news these days is seldom good. That’s why it was a pleasure to be at the Maudelle Shirek building on Tuesday when Iceland devotees got the good news that five councilmembers had actually listened to what they had to say.  

Sports for kids is not Big news, nor should it be. What made Iceland a Big Thing in our small pond was bad news, plans to take sports away from kids, and from adults as well. I seldom go to council meetings these days, too depressing and I’ll read about them eventually anyhow. But I was at the farmers’ market on Tuesday afternoon, and when three people, including one total stranger, came up to me lamenting the potential destruction of Iceland I knew something interesting was happening, and I wanted to see it for myself, live and in color. 

Among people I know, I was already aware that Iceland partisans were the most politically diverse assortment seen in Berkeley in many years. I joke that if I invited them all to one party fistfights might break out, not about Iceland but about everything else they believe in. That’s not actually true, because what links all the Iceland supporters together is their shared belief that the commons matters, even though they might often differ in their analysis of what needs to be done to protect it. If the topic of rent control, for example, came up, you would certainly see some spirited debates among the fans. 

But among the official Iceland boosters at the council meeting, the ones in the blue tee shirts, there was nothing but goodwill and courtesy. They were quite diverse in the non-political sense—all races, ages and genders—but what made them alike was their cooperative attitude and demeanor. A shining human bouquet, in fact, more beautiful than the begonia bed at Kaiser. 

I myself was probably the rowdiest person in the audience, since I couldn’t help laughing out loud at the Mayor’s suggestion that Iceland could be commemorated by a nice plaque. I happen to know that commemoration by a plaque alone is specifically banned in the California Environmental Quality Act as a mitigation for the loss of a historic resource, so the proposal was either ignorant or cynical in the extreme. Councilmembers Wozniak and Maio are to be commended, on the other hand, for educating themselves on what the job at hand was: to evaluate the building’s value as a resource, not to make dire predictions about its future if neglected or to decide whether they might prefer to see some condos on the site. They also managed to squeeze out of a very reluctant City Attorney Albuquerque the accurate information that Berkeley’s Landmark Preservation Ordinance, still in effect despite Bates’ efforts to get rid of it, contains perfectly adequate provisions to counter “demolition by neglect.” Betty Olds relied on her excellent political instincts to tell her the right way to vote, and Spring and Worthington were on the mark as they usually are.  

The other councilmembers brought to mind the British press’s unkind characterization of Tony Blair as “George Bush’s poodle.” They aren’t exactly Tom Bates’ poodles, of course, but they do seem to follow him around. Anderson acted more like Bates’ rottweiler, launching an uncalled-for attack on Iceland supporters, with the genial Moore perhaps a cocker spaniel and Capitelli, who didn’t say much but voted with Bates, something fast and nervous like a whippet.  

Is a bunch of folks getting together to save a skating rink a Big Thing or a Small Thing? The best hope we could have is for a world in which “small acts of helping others … small ways of making one’s own life better” like creating or saving skating rinks become Big Things, and the ugly big things in the daily papers shrink in importance or fade away altogether. Sad to say, that’s a hope we’re not likely to see realized in our lifetime, so we’d better cherish the small things we have. 

"Public Commons for Everyone.” Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? The slogan, adopted by Mayor Bates for his re-run of the anti-panhandling ordinance which he’d supported once before, was probably coined by his house flack Cisco DeVries, formerly of San Francisco’s Staton & Hughes political public relations firm. It acquired Orwellian overtones when it became clear that the Bates ordinance’s real purpose was to keep unattractive persons away from the public commons, particularly from shopping districts. But the council approved it, in concept at least. 

However. At the end of the Berkeley City Council’s ever-shorter work year, we now have the opportunity to evaluate what’s actually happened to the genuine concept of creating and maintaining public spaces for all to use under their watch. 

It’s a dismal record. Headed for the chopping block as we speak are Berkeley Iceland, the warm pool at Berkeley High, and the public comment period at City Council meetings.  

Here’s a little story about Iceland. A grandmother friend of mine was unexpectedly awarded the privilege of having her grandson, about ten or twelve years old, to stay with her for one whole summer. Though he’s a fine boy and she enjoys his company, she was a bit apprehensive about how to take care of him and keep him out of trouble. Someone suggested that he could learn to ice skate. She took him over to Iceland one fine morning in June, he strapped on the skates and never looked back. He got there every day when the doors opened and skated up a storm from morning to night under competent adult supervision, handily avoiding both juvenile deliquency and childhood obesity, America’s current twin horrors. And if diversity matters to you (as it should), he’s African-American, as are an increasing number of the kids who have enjoyed Iceland. Tearing down Iceland to build condos, even condos with a childcare center in the basement or a teen center on the first floor, is a very poor idea. 

And another story, this one about the warm pool. A middle-aged hiker who was run down by an off-leash dog on a trail in Mendocino ended up with a persistent knee injury which kept her from hiking for more than a year. Kaiser couldn’t help. Someone suggested the warm pool, and after about three months of simply swimming there several days a week, she was back on the trails. That was me, but it could be you, any time now. Anyone could become disabled at any moment, and disability isn’t just for wheelchair users. And let’s not count on pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by building projects to replace the currently usable pool—replacement buildings always cost more and take much longer than expected and often don’t materialize at all. The proposed plan for a warm pool without parking certainly won’t work because swimmers who are working to recover from injuries, especially those who can’t walk well but don’t use wheelchairs, will need to arrive by car. 

Then there’s the public comment period at City Council meetings. Leaving the choice of speakers up to the mayor’s sole discretion, which he’s now proposing, is begging for a lawsuit and is also wrong in principle. When we moved back to Berkeley, after more than a decade of political activism in the sincere and wholesome Midwest, we were surprised to learn that speakers at City Council meetings in Berkeley were limited to ten in number and that the mayor chose them by taking all the submitted cards in her hand and reading the ten lucky names aloud. One got the impression that cards were taken in the order received, but it soon became apparent that she selected the cards of people who supported her programs (ourselves among them in those days). It was one of those you’re-not-in-Kansas-anymore moments, the beginning of our disillusionment with much of what passed for progressive politics in Berkeley. Adding the mechanical shuffling cage was a big improvement, and the changes this year which were prompted by threats of Brown Act litigation were further improvements. The mayor’s new proposal would be a return to the bad old days of favoritism, and we don’t need that. 

What links all three of these misbegotten ventures is the current council majority’s strong impulse to turn common amenities, which serve a wide swath of the general public, over to builders who stand to make healthy profits on new building projects, regardless of whether the ultimate development serves the public interest. The profit motives behind demolishing Iceland and the warm pool, both originally built with funds provided by the people of Berkeley, are easy to spot. Ali Kashani and his associates (perhaps exiting city planning manager Mark Rhoades among them) will make nice money from whatever they plan to build on the Iceland site. A fancy new building for a swimming pool, if it ever materializes, promises big bucks for ELS Architects, beneficiaries of several Berkeley civic projects and for whatever builder is chosen for the job. Rehabilitation of existing buildings is the environmentally “greenest” alternative, but new buildings like these always provide more of the other kind of “green” for the building industry. 

And public comment slows the whole process down. It’s definitely in the interest of the building industry to fast-track projects, to stifle criticism from the public in order to start new profit centers as fast as possible. The mayor’s allegiance to accelerating building ventures has been apparent from the first days of his administration, when he convened a special task force to speed up the permitting process. As a result, at the end of this council term we now have a huge backlog of angry citizens who, despite the Planet’s best efforts, have just found out which of the public amenities they particularly cherish are scheduled for destruction. The council members as they get older can’t take late nights, but they might perhaps have considered weekly meetings, shorter vacations, or starting in the afternoon as other city councils do. They have a cushy job with an easy schedule already, and the least they could do is listen to the vox populi howling with rage in what’s left of the commons, before they turn it over to the developers.  

For more on the subject of Iceland see Randy Shaw in today's Beyond Chron: 

www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4722

BRT TO KAISER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am responding to Steve Geller’s (July 13) desire for a letter from potential Bus Rapid Transit riders. I plan to use BRT for trips to Kaiser Oakland from Berkeley two or three times each year. Hope this helps. 

Robert C. Chioino 

• 

FAMILY VALUES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A Republican “family values” politician is caught playing hanky panky with a prostitute. Conservative pundit Sean Hannity is quick to dredge up the ghost of Bill Clinton’s past in an effort to deflect attention away from David Vitter’s transgressions. Vitter himself, trots out his wife in hopes of swaying the media and quelling the growing storm.  

The spectacle unfolding shows another holier-than-thou religious conservative talking the talk while at the same time getting caught with his pants down.  

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley  

• 

FARM BILL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This summer, while you’re hopefully enjoying some much needed vacation time and hitting the pool or a BBQ with friends, Congress is considering the Farm Bill. I’m pretty sure we have the better deal. 

All kidding aside, the Farm Bill is an important piece of legislation and a big opportunity. Congress has the opportunity to significantly improve the livelihoods of small farmers around the world, including here in the United States, by instituting reform in the U.S. Farm Bill. 

Considered once every five years, the Farm Bill is in desperate need of change and this year is our time to act. 

The current Farm Bill encourages American farmers to overproduce and flood world markets with crops sold at artificially low prices, making it almost impossible for small farmers at home and abroad to sell their own crops. 

The current system does not even primarily benefit America’s small farmers. Reforms should also provide better support for U.S. farm families of modest means as well. 

As a member of the ONE Campaign, I urge Congress to make the necessary changes to the Farm Bill—smart trade reform helps everyone. Please visit www.one.org and learn more. 

Congress has the opportunity to significantly improve the livelihoods of small farmers around the world. 

Alicia Childs 

Hayward 

• 

PLANET’S OMISSIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I grew up in Boston, where I read the Boston Globe every day. I loved the paper’s liberal slant. Meanwhile, I held contempt for the very conservative Boston Herald which was known for flagrantly ignoring any story or news event that conflicted with their political philosophy. The Globe, on the other hand, continues to offer a balanced viewpoint today by including rabidly conservative columnists. I had hoped the Daily Planet would be more like the Globe, but your paper’s refusal to print any story about the recent revelation that the tree-sitters in the university’s oak grove have permanently damaged trees in order to make their sitting space more comfortable is upsetting. The protesters have admitted to the damage, and yet the Planet, who seemed to have no end to it’s desire to publish stories about the protest, has refused to print any stories about this vandalism. It’s sad to realize that the conservative Herald’s news repression and manipulation of public opinion is shared by the Daily Planet.  

Sherman Boyson 

• 

FOUR MORE YEARS! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was at the Oakland airport yesterday, waiting for a plane to take me off to an AIDS training course, when I saw a book that scared the [bodily waste] out of me! There it was. On the top shelf of Hudson News. In hardcover. The Next Bush.  

Poor Rudy Guliani, being, led down the garden path to think that he might actually be the next neo-con Republican to steal the White House—while all the time it is Jeb that is being primed. Holy Cow! I was hoping to take a break from blogging once George W. was safely in jail but now it looks like I’ll be spending the rest of my life trying to get Bushes into jail. Let’s see. There’s Melvin and the twins and Laura and.... 

Jane Stillwater 

• 

WHAT’VE YOU GOT? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here is a motto for your letters section: When Marlon Brando was asked in The Wild One, “What are you rebelling against?” he retorted: “What’ve you got?” 

Sam Craig 

• 

WARM POOL MISCONCEPTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions in the recent article about the Berkeley Warm Pool Plan (“Warm Pool Plans Criticized For Parking Lack,”July 13) . Much of the criticism about the plan had to do with the lack of provisions for parking. But the architects who created the plan were never tasked to find parking for this project. They were tasked with coming up with a preliminary plan that would make use of the space designated by the BUSD for a warm pool as part of their Berkeley High School South of Bancroft master plan. Obviously, this space, which takes up approximately the northern third of the current parking lot (formerly tennis courts) bounded by Bancroft Way to the north, Milvia Street to the west, and Durant Avenue to the south, is not large enough both for a warm pool and parking. 

But what about the other two thirds of that property? The whole lot presently is serving as parking for BUSD employees, and would remain parking after the warm pool is built on the northern third of the property, according to the south of Bancroft plan. Indeed, it will likely become multistory parking if the school district can fund such a project. I don’t recall any other use being suggested for this property in the south of Bancroft plan because, after all, the school district needs parking, too. Deputy City Manager Lisa Coronna was quoted out of context in the article when the reporter paraphrased her as saying school district parking could not be used. I believe her complete thought was that school district parking could not be used while school was in session, when it would be needed by school district employees. But that is no different from the situation that exists now at the existing warm pool, which is why public programs at the warm pool take place after 4:30 p.m., when school is closed. Why would we assume that this state of affairs would not continue at the new warm pool location? This preliminary plan deserves better than to be characterized as unrealistic and “illogical,” on the basis of fears and assumptions that have yet to be even examined in the development process. 

Mark Hendrix 

Warm Water Pool Task Force 

• 

SECOND FUNNIEST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Maybe I can convince Sharon Hudson that I am not just the second funniest letter writer in the Planet (as she said in the July 17 Planet) by reminding her of the letter that everyone considers the funniest I ever wrote: When Ms. Hudson claimed that the Urban Land Institute recommended a height limit of 35 feet for new buildings, I wrote pointing out that their website featured an award to a 35-story building, and saying that she must have misread their recommended height limit of 35 stories. I like to use humor to show up the misrepresentations and distortions of Berkeley’s NIMBYs, and I was very glad that the author of “The NIMBY Manifesto” gave me this golden opportunity. 

Unfortunately, I find it hard to joke about this subject as much as I would like to. When I consider how much damage Ms. Hudson and her fellow NIMBYs across the nation are doing when they constantly oppose attempts to slow global warming by providing better public transportation and transit-oriented development, I can’t help thinking that the world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren will not be amusing. 

Charles Siegel 

• 

WHAT IF? 

Editors, Daily Planet: What if the over $600 million coming to Berkeley was spent on creating and implementing smart, efficient public transit. Two thirds of people enslaved to their car and insurance payments, repairs and check-ups, DMV lines, car seats etc., could give up their cars completely. We could use one lane of parking on every street as orchards or picnic areas. Berkeley would require new housing units to include a gardening instead of a parking space for each unit, so people could grow some of their food locally. Parking lots could become play areas. Asthma rates and stress would drop and real progress would be made toward the reduction of global warming. 

Tierra Dulce 

• 

WRIGHT’S GARAGE PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just returned from three weeks vacation and am dumbfounded to find that the behemoth nightclub project at the former Wright’s Garage location has been summarily rammed through the Zoning Board, with the full endorsement of our councilmember. I understand that a number of “neighbors” attended a recent City Council meeting to endorse the project. Puhleez, who could take these shills seriously? People who want this kind of “hip” development should move to Emeryville or Concord or just about Anywhere USA, not destroy the character of a neighborhood most of its residents chose for that very reason. No sane homeowner or renter who loves the Elmwood for its beauty and its link to history wants a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and a bar in our midst. When Mr. Wozniak asked for neighborhood “input” into usage of the space last year, was this really what the neighbors asked for? Where are the delivery trucks going to park...on Ashby? Where are the “patrons” going to park? This project and the approval process reek of corruption.  

Nancy Hair 

• 

RESTORE ROSE GARDEN VIEWS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I recently read the article about the Berkeley Rose Garden titled “New Deal Legacy Remains Visible and Vibrant in East Bay.” The Rose Garden is truly a New Deal wonder and beautiful asset to the City of Berkeley and residents of the Bay Area. A landmark, it is a must stop for visitors from out of the area and a showcase for seekers of beauty and nature.  

There is, however, one important part of the Rose Garden that the city has allowed to deteriorate and literally disappear. That asset is the glorious irreplaceable bay views that visitors to the Rose Garden used to have available to them. When my wife and I first moved to Berkeley in the early 1970s, one of our must stops on almost a daily basis was the top entry to the Rose Garden where we and many others would avail ourselves of the magical sunsets, the vistas of the bay, the topography of Marin County, the skyline of San Francisco, the view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. These were captivating views, always changing with the seasons, the lighting and the time of day or night. The sky and the clouds would literally shower the bay, the hills and the skyline with their beauty. The City of Berkeley has failed to maintain these wonderful public vistas. The city has allowed a grove of trees to grow to unacceptable heights on the property of the Rose Garden itself. The trees have destroyed the views.  

For those citizens who prefer to view trees, I would suggest they merely walk east across Euclid Avenue and partake of the thousands of trees available for appreciation in Codornices Park. To allow the city’s most wonderful public view to disappear is pure neglect. I can’t emphasize enough these are not views from a private home, but are in fact public views from a public treasure. We are not dealing with a private home owner’s enjoyment of view versus a neighbor’s enjoyment of a tree. The trees in the Rose Garden need to be either removed or scaled back to make the views and vistas once again a marvel to behold. This is after all a landmark. I must assume the original planners of the Rose Garden sited the garden in this location and built it the way they did to take advantage of the wondrous views. Per their plan, below the visitor was a dazzling garden of roses. Straight ahead were the most captivating public views in the bay area. Let’s restore the Rose Garden’s wondrous public views to their former majesty. The city is very protective of landmarks. It is time the city protects it’s own best landmark.  

Paul M. Schwartz 

• 

WOODFIN BOYCOTT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The East Bay Labor and Community Coalition (formerly Berkeley Honda Labor and Community Coalition) wants Planet readers to know that we now have a bumper sticker urging people to boycott Woodfin Hotels, which you may order by contacting Judy Shelton at beactive@sbcglobal.net. You can pick it up from me, or I’ll mail it to you. If the latter, we ask that you reimburse the cost of postage; donations are optional. 

For those who don’t know, the Woodfin began retaliating against its workers when they asked management to conform with Emeryville’s new Living Wage Law. Management refused for nearly a year to comply with the law and meanwhile began questioning the validity of workers’ Social Security number. Employees whose names appeared on Social Security Admonition’s no-match list were threatened with dismissal, a threat the hotel eventually carried out. Management did finally start paying the living wage, but has refused to pay it retroactively. Now the City of Emeryville is making the renewal of the Woodfin’s business license contingent upon the reinstatement of these back wages, including those owed to the fired workers. 

This may be tied up in courts for some time, since the Woodfin is exploring every legal challenge they can at every step of the process. So we’re ratcheting up the pressure with our bumper stickers. Get one and show your support. And join us on the picket line, every Saturday from 7-11 a.m. and Tuesday from 3-7 p.m. at the Woodin, 5800 Shellmound, Emeryville. 

Judy Shelton 

Eastbay Labor and Community Coalition 

A venom-filled attack on Barry Bonds which appeared in the weekend edition of the Planet is gravely inaccurate.  

Mark Winokur’s letter stated, among other bits of disinformation, that “Bonds is almost universally despised by the fans, but racism is not the root of this justifiable contempt.” Winokur provides no data for his conclusion. Maybe he would be interested to learn that a recent ESPN poll found that black fans are more than twice as likely as white fans to want Bonds to break Hank Aaron’s home run record. Also, it would appear from the data the wild claim that Bonds is “almost universally despised by the fans,” didn’t consider the black fans. 

Barry Bonds is a black athlete in the mold of Jack Johnson and Muhammed Ali. He’s the best in his game, and he doesn’t kowtow. Black athletes learn very quickly that there are different rules for them and, if they won’t kowtow, they will be vilified by the mostly white sports media. This media continually demonizes Bonds for his “attitude.” However, it is well documented that Hall of Famer Ted Williams—like many white players--had a very nasty personality, but the media gave him a pass.  

Winokur states that Bonds had “an inordinate increase in offensive output at an age when exactly the opposite happens to virtually all major league hitters,” but fails to mention that sluggers like Carleton Fisk, Willie Stargell, and Aaron himself hit more homers per at bat when they were near the end of their careers. For example, when Aaron was 39, he hit 40 homers in 392 at bats. Bonds at 39 hit 45 homers in 373 at bats, virtually a statistical tie. 

Winokur’s concern about the sanctity of baseball’s statistics is sadly misplaced. Major league ball parks have never had equal dimensions, the pitcher’s mound has been raised and lowered, strike zones have been changed, and the ball was “juiced” after the 1994 strike to facilitate an additional 1,000-plus homeruns a year.  

However, the biggest obscenity regarding these stats is that many of the best players available during the era when these records were established were not allowed to play because they were black. Records from apartheid baseball remain bogus because Babe Ruth never faced Satchel Paige, Bruce Petway was never given the opportunity to throw out Ty Cobb, and Josh Gibson never came to the plate.  

The real tragedy of the whole Barry Bonds affair is that so many white fans have allowed themselves to be led into this sea of hatred by the bigoted pied pipers of the white sports media. 

Don Santina 

Oakland 

• 

MOCKINGBIRD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The phantom bird-song CD. It was dusk; the sun had just settled into the evening’s perennial fogbank in the western sky. I had finally finished a long dinner and I was absentmindedly watching an Oakland Athletics game on television, when I thought that I heard some bird calls coming from the stands. I checked to make sure that my American Bird Songs CD was not playing; no, that wasn’t it. Then I hypothesized that my increasingly senile elderly mind was playing a neat trick on me by converting baseball fan noises (with horns and whistles and whatever) into some background bird calls. 

The half-inning over, I switched the television to the Hawai’ian music channel. However, the bird calls continued. Hmm, now they’re Hawai’ian bird calls? Finally I realized that these calls were coming thorough the open bedroom window. It was the local male mockingbird, perched up on the old rooftop TV antenna, performing one of his evening midsummer serenades, which included a variety of different calls. As we weave our increasingly impenetrable technological cocoons around ourselves, it is reassuring that Mother Nature can still occasionally break in and say hello now and then. 

A couple of weeks ago, this same mockingbird had performed what I thought was a rather odd and cheeky maneuver. For the first time in several months, I drove back home with a gold Oldsmobile sedan, instead of the usual red Pontiac sedan. After I had parked the Oldsmobile in the front yard parking spot, I sat inside for a few seconds of woolgathering, and suddenly the mockingbird flew down and hopped onto the engine hood and carefully eyed me. After a few seconds, his curiosity apparently being satisfied, he flew back up to his perch on the telephone pole wires. It’s like he was thinking: What’s your problem, buster? Showing off your new (old) car? Maybe I should be thankful for having a watch-mockingbird who carefully checks out possible intruders in his territory (and my yard). 

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

• 

2507 MCGEE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Every Berkeley property owner, and many tenants, should know of and be alarmed by plans for the building at 2507 McGee Ave., where other senior citizens and I work and live. Soon-to-resign Berkeley Planning and Zoning Director Mark Rhoades seems bent on destroying everything we have here, including a nondenominational temple.  

In 1991, the city encouraged this building’s owner, Dr. Rash B. Ghosh (a great landlord) to buy and fix the building when it was in poor shape, even a declared “public nuisance.” Telling him that the city works with owners who conserve rental stock, Planning and Zoning accepted Ghosh’s plans and fees, and issued permits; he followed those exactly.  

But a year and a half after he completed work that city inspectors approved (Dr. Ghosh has copies of their signed inspections), at a City Council hearing when every member and Mr. Rhoades knew Dr. Ghosh couldn’t be present, Rhoades urged the council to declare the property a current “public nuisance,” although the building is vastly improved, with a new roof, foundation, and more.  

Even now, Mr. Rhoades continues to claim that the owner—who began a small but important non-profit conservation Institute that serves people on three continents—is careless of city requirements. If anyone is doing that, this property’s owner is not.  

Why does Mr. Rhoades insist that the property will go into receivership? Why has Mr. Rhoades named as receiver a developer he works closely with—Ali Kashani—rather than the non-profit Institute, the second mortgage-holder? Why will the city give Mr. Kashani unlimited funds to change the property in ways that benefit only him, but will not help Dr. Ghosh in any way to provide for his tenants? Why do City Councilmembers ignore Dr. Ghosh’s signed inspection reports? Why do Mark Rhoades and company offer the “option” to demolish the building, now that it is sound and livable, but the building’s former owner couldn’t get such a permit, when the building was in unsafe, blighted condition? (City staff said Berkeley shouldn’t lose rental stock in 1991, a need that remains.) 

Do Berkeley City permits have any value? We who live and work at this address worry for other city property-owners with permits, and for their tenants. And we know Mr. Rhoades’ plans for our building will harm us and the city, and are based upon a faulty city order that Rhoades helped engineer. We want the city to allow us to go forward with the condo-conversion the city approved, that Dr. Ghosh paid fees for and got architect’s plans for, and that would remedy every possible “code violation” the city claims.  

Dr. Kenneth H. Thompson 

• 

PLAY FAIR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wonder how many of you have by now been surprised with a $36 ticket on your vehicle, payable immediately, because your residential parking permit sticker expired June 30. However, upon checking your records, you find you never received the traditional renewal notice in the mail, and now you must hotdog it down to 1947 Center Street at 9 a.m. to get that 2008 sticker, or anticipate additional tickets on your wheels. That was the situation of at least a dozen citizens of his fair city Wednesday morning July 18, whose company and grumbling I shared while waiting nearly an hour in line to reach a station to issue the 2008 sticker. 

It is still a mystery whether the lapse in notice by mail was partial or total, whether a new policy, or just a screw-up. There appeared to no geographical pattern to it. And no explanations were forthcoming. However, those who brought their ticket in and who were only ticketed once received dismissal of the ticket. 

No compensation for their time and anxiety expended in the scramble to avoid future interactions with meter maid/men and the City of Berkeley’s ravenous Finance Department. 

I realize that Mayor Bates believes the source of all future unearmarked revenue derives from increasing meters, increasing tickets and increasing parking fees. But hey, let’s play a little fair about it! 

Marilyn Talcott 

• 

THE IMPORTANCE OF VIEWS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After recently seeing one massive development project after another approved for the flatland areas of Berkeley, I have one small question: Why is it that the views of people who live in the hills are so critically important that lawsuits are filed over fences that are a couple feet too high or trees that are not pruned back, while the views of people who live down below are apparently not worth anything at all? It is a shameful double standard, and we should not allow it to continue. Everyone has a need for access to sunlight and air and greenery, and it can be argued that this need is even greater in the flats because these environmental amenities exert a moderating influence on the congestion and noise that exist there. Let’s not allow Berkeley to become a city of natural views for the privileged only. 

Doug Buckwald  

• 

WE THE PEOPLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The question of what to do about Iraq is attracting tsunami waves of responses from Congress, Bush, cabinet officers, military top brass and numerous “expert” advisors. Conflicting, contradictory and overlapping answers spread into every available media space and, irrespective of political or professional source, most voices begin with the first person plural pronoun, “we”:  

We must stay, we must win, we must withdraw, we must not give up, we must accept, we must force/help their government, we must allow more time, we must change course, we this …we that. 

By definition “we” functions as a place holder, in this case for an unspecified group and yet none of the many voices take the time to identify the referent when they use it to answer the question. Why? 

“We” often refers to an assembly of family, friends, professional associates, political colleagues and such, but not in this instance because the question concerns national interest and the speakers are governmental leaders and policy makers.  

Given the context of the question, “we” can only stands for “We, the people of the United States.” That’s what Republicans, Democrats, Bush and his top advisors want us to believe. But they’re wrong.  

“We,” meaning our legislative and executive representatives, invaded Iraq on false claims, followed inept planning that has left our mighty military stuck like br’er fox to the Iraq tar-baby.  

“We,” meaning an estimated seven citizens out of ten want to detach our soldiers. We, the people recognize the folly and mendacity of our leaders. We, the people can foresee more carnage in the trap the wily al Qaeda rabbit has sprung.  

We, the people want the troops home. The sooner, the better. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

• 

FAMILY VALUES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A Republican “family values” politician is caught playing hanky panky with a prostitute. Conservative pundit Sean Hannity is quick to dredge up the ghost of Bill Clinton’s past in an effort to deflect attention away from David Vitter’s transgressions. Vitter himself, trots out his wife in hopes of swaying the media and quelling the growing storm.  

The spectacle unfolding shows another holier-than-thou religious conservative talking the talk while at the same time getting caught with his pants down.  

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley  

Amidst a packed crowd of cheering children and their adult allies, the Berkeley City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday night to uphold the landmark status of the historic Berkeley Iceland. The vote reflected an ideological split between those councilmembers (Gordon Wozniak, Betty Olds, Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring and Linda Maio), who recognized the building’s historic features and expressed excitement about future prospects for the site, and a group of bitter naysayers (Mayor Tom Bates, and Councilmembers Max Anderson, Laurie Capitelli and Darryl Moore) who predicted that Iceland would be overrun by rodents and become a public nuisance. This powerful demonstration of “people power” led Councilmember Olds to acknowledge that the coming together of such a diverse group might “scare” some people; the victory was a classic case of grassroots organizing overcoming big money real estate interests.  

The scene at Berkeley City Hall on Tuesday night was one for the ages—every seat occupied by children or adults holding signs and wearing bright blue “Save Berkeley Iceland” T-Shirts. The Council’s deliberation reflected a profound division between those who believe in a positive future for both Iceland and Berkeley, and a group of politicians led by Max Anderson who seemed to have given up on anything positive ever happening to boost the city’s communal spirit. 

Attorney Rena Rickles, the East Bay version of San Francisco’s Andrew Zacks, began the hearing by disparaging Iceland’s historic status and the community efforts to preserve the building. Rickles introduced the theme that a land-marked Iceland would be a public nuisance, an unfounded idea subsequently reiterated almost verbatim by Councilmembers Anderson and Moore, as well as by Mayor Bates. 

In response to Rickles, Save Berkeley Iceland representative Elizabeth Grassetti gave a stirring speech in which she declared that Iceland had been built by Berkeley, for Berkeley, and still had the ability to transform the city’s vision of diversity “into reality, not just a dream.” Grassetti noted that Iceland brought together rich and poor, and people of all races, and that “all were equal on the ice.” 

Tom Killilea, executive director of Save Berkeley Iceland, followed Grassetti and dispelled the many myths included in Rickles’ testimony. By this point it had already become clear that pro-demolition forces knew they had to shift the argument away from Iceland’s obvious historic status, and instead argue that the Council’s upholding this status would leave the building a public nuisance. 

Councilmember Max Anderson was the point person for the pro-demolition forces. Despite a roomful of children at the hearing, Anderson insisted that the only people who cared about Iceland were those who had fond memories of their youth; he even compared Iceland to the feeling he got attending his high school reunion. 

Although Anderson represents the district that includes Iceland, he seemed unaware that the facility has only been closed for six months, not thirty years. Instead of applauding youth involvement in trying to save their ice skating rink, Anderson treated their effort with condescension. 

And then politicians like Anderson wonder why young people are turned off by the political process. 

After Anderson tried to argue that a landmarked Iceland would be a rodent-infested public health hazard, Tom Bates echoed his conclusion that saving Iceland would be bad for Berkeley. Bates said that only the façade should be saved, and urged that a plaque be installed to remind future residents of the former historic building on the site. 

Bates’ call for a plaque brought an avalanche of boos from the audience. 

Responding to Anderson and Bates was Councilmember Wozniak. He reminded the council that Harrison S. Fraker, the dean of the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, had described Iceland as a “national treasure, “ and determined it was “undisputedly” an historic landmark. Wozniak also stated that “a skating rink is a treasure that deserves every effort to be saved.” 

Wozniak, Olds and Maio all expressed excitement that a broad-cross section of the community had come together to save Iceland. These politicians were genuinely happy to see democracy at work, and appreciated a scene that resembled an old New England town meeting. Olds captured the sentiment best, noting “many people are scared to see how many people really care about saving Iceland, and slapping these people down is not something I will do.” 

Olds brought the crowd to its feet when she declared “once its gone, its gone.” She said that Iceland contained the history of the community and that “all have come together in that building.” 

Olds and Wozniak are often viewed as conservatives on the Council, yet they had a far keener understanding of community building than so-called progressives like Anderson and Moore. The latter two could find no joy in this process of community togetherness, and both argued the NIMBY line that because people living near Iceland wanted it torn down, the Council should vote to do so. 

(These same councilmembers ignored neighborhood resistance to a housing development known as the Trader Joe’s project, yet took the opposite position regarding Iceland. There was no evidence presented that Anderson’s district actually wanted the landmark demolished.) 

Councilmembers Worthington and Spring were always solid Iceland supporters. Worthington made the critical point that developer attorney Rickles had conceded that by only making the façade a landmark—the Anderson-Bates “fallback” position—that landmark status for the building would not be justified. 

All in all, hope triumphed over fear, and a rare opportunity for young people to see the value of participating in our democratic process. As youngsters like 10-year-old Marie and her fellow skaters from King Middle School filed out of City Hall, smiles replaced the anxious faces that preceded the vote. 

Many of the kids wore shirts from the Berkeley Bulldogs, a youth hockey team that played at Iceland from 1940 until the facility closed earlier this year. Iceland also had the only girls hockey team in the area, and the number of girl skaters at the hearing exceeded that of boys, showing Iceland’s value in enhancing gender equity in recreational facilities. 

Now the future of Berkeley Iceland must be worked out between the owner and the hard-working volunteers at Save Berkeley Iceland (go to http://saveberkeleyiceland.org for information.) An economic plan has been developed, over $500,000 has been raised in the past week, and optimism is high. 

Thanks to a huge grassroots volunteer effort and five principled councilmembers, Berkeley has put community interests over private profits. May the saving of Iceland be the first step toward a community that works together to build a better future. 

Randy Shaw is the editor of BeyondChron, where this article first appeared. He can be reached at rshaw@beyondchron.org. 

South Branch library is on the Library Trustees’ fast track to being moved to the Ed Roberts Campus. Much money has already been spent on this project. Please come to the next Board of Library Trustees meeting. The meeting will be at South Branch Library, Russell and M.L.King Jr. Way on July 25 at 5 p.m. with public comment (you will have to sign a speaker card so please arrive a few minutes early). Your presence insures the democratic process. We are a group of South Berkeley residents who are opposed to the proposed move. We have called ourselves Save Our Library, (SOL). We believe that the proposal is being driven by political motives that have little to do with better serving South Berkeley residents. 

Architects Noll and Tam will make a presentation on three space options at the Ed Roberts campus.  

At the June 9 community forum, held at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), some community members felt strongly that the move to the Ed Roberts Campus was being “sold” to the community and their survey did not reflect the number of neighbors and community members who do not want our South Branch library moved or services reduced. We are concerned with maintaining this venue as it is central to our diverse community connection which has been developed over years.  

After the forum it was clear that we needed to raise our community’s awareness of these issues. We decided to take the concerns we voiced at the forum to our community members and get their opinions and concerns to get a consensus. The consensus was concern for the safety of our children, keeping the library in our neighborhood and making the changes at South Branch, e.g., remodel, rearrange, and reuse, rather than putting our money somewhere else, were the dominant issues. We are advocating for the preservation and improvement of our South Branch library.  

Many children use the South Branch Library. We are concerned that the move will put our children at risk in two ways. There will be two large very busy streets for the children to cross. Currently, the intersections of Adeline Street and Ashby Avenue do not have caution signs alerting motorists that our community has disabled persons, children, elders, or dogs, as pedestrians. Even if caution signs are installed, people drive and multi-task these days and there is no way to guarantee the safety of pedestrians. Several people have been killed or badly injured in this area as it is. There are many concerns with the concept of a “transit library” built on top of a light rail system.  

A Berkeley firm, Hatcheul Tabernik & Associates (HTA), was hired by the Library Trustees to survey the South Berkeley community’s library needs. They came up with statistics that pointed to a very favorable response to the move by the community; we decided to look into it further. 

We stood outside the South Branch library for many days and asked people if they knew about the move and how they felt about it. In the course of a petition drive to contest the proposed move, we collected hundreds of signatures, but encountered only a handful, (fewer than 10 percent) who even knew about the proposed move, and only one person who had been actually interviewed by HTA.  

What we want is for the South Branch library to stay on Russell Street as a Children’s library from infancy through high school, and the Tool Lending Library. 

For more information, contact Save Our Library at 849-1296 or savesobranch@yahoo.com. 

Jane Welford is a Berkeley resident active in library issues. 

Ten years ago, I became concerned about the health of democracy in this country, especially at the local level. Lasting to midnight and beyond, City Hall meetings were often tyrannized by a noisy few who claimed to represent the will of the people. Democracy was a mess, and I felt obligated to use whatever skills I had to try to help. 

After various experiments, my wife and I started a nonprofit called KitchenDemocracy.org. We wanted to add a new channel for participation, one which would enable busy people to participate in City Hall discussions without needing to attend meetings until midnight. We envisioned a process where citizens could quickly learn about issues both from their elected officials and from their neighbors. We wanted people to be free to express their opinions—anonymously if desired—knowing that they would not be personally attacked for those views. We even dreamed that ordinary citizens could suggest agenda items—and select the best ones democratically—so that the entire process could be democratic and transparent. 

Thanks to a circle of 10 volunteers—and the active participation of elected officials including Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Gordon Wozniak and Darryl Moore, we’ve made significant progress. More than 20 important issues have been discussed by more than 2,100 residents in a peaceful, civil process. We are thrilled to see many of those discussions influencing discourse at City Hall, and even more thrilled to see this quiet revolution grow; Oakland Councilmember Pat Kernighan and Kensington Board Director Bill Wright have introduced Kitchen Democracy to their communities. 

Our progress has not been without controversy. Affluent residents are overrepresented on Kitchen Democracy, leading some to believe that it represents the vested interests of the wealthy. While the affluent do indeed participate more than the poor, this is true not only for Kitchen Democracy. Unfortunately, this problem is endemic to our political system; just look who actually votes in elections. 

The good news is that Kitchen Democracy makes government accessible to anyone who uses a computer, including those at the public library. Because going online is considerably easier than attending late-night meetings, we believe Kitchen Democracy makes the democratic process more inclusive of a diverse range of participants. In fact, Kitchen Democracy issues typically attract participation from 10 times as many people as agenda items discussed solely in council chambers. More importantly, it appears that this is true for participants from the poorest district to the most affluent. 

Perhaps because of our progress, City Hall faces another controversy. It is accused of giving too much weight to the opinions expressed on Kitchen Democracy, most notably on the Wright’s Garage issue at Ashby and College. If true, City Hall made a mistake. Kitchen Democracy is but one of several channels for participation. To give that channel special influence is as grievous an error as giving special influence to any one person. 

As a co-founder and head of Kitchen Democracy, I want to emphasize that Kitchen Democracy is not intended to replace existing channels of participation. Nor does it represent the definitive voice of the people—no single channel does. Instead, Kitchen Democracy augments existing channels to make our democratic process more inclusive, to better inform decision makers and to build a stronger democracy. 

Our progress indicates that people want more options to participate—bigger, more comfortable meeting rooms, options for the home-bound to participate with or without anonymity, more online sources of information and participation. Given our limited resources, Kitchen Democracy will do what we can to help grow a thousand channels for participation and inclusion. We invite all of Berkeley to join us in that effort. 

Robert Vogel is a co-founder of KitchenDemocracy.org.

Last week in the West Bank Bedouin village, Arab al-Jahaleen, a 15-year-old boy named Khaled was killed by a speeding garbage truck. Khaled was on the edge of the road collecting scrap metal and other discarded materials useful in constructing the ramshackle homes his community lives in, when the driver struck and killed him. The road upon which he scrambled for these materials divides his village from the nearby Israeli dump.  

Fearing for his life in retaliation for the boy whose brains had been splattered across the road, once the truck stopped the driver got out and started to run. In the moments after the incident took place, the children threw rocks at the truck. As more villagers discovered what happened, the truck was set aflame. 

Volunteers from Rabbis for Human Rights were playing with the children of this village, joining a German-NGO sponsored summer camp. “Earlier that morning I had been playing basketball with that boy, and then he was dead,” said an eyewitness volunteer to the incident, bewildered by what he had seen. 

Israeli police arrived at the scene shortly after the incident. The abandoned Israeli garbage truck remained in the road, burning. Police broke up the enraged group of people. Burial preparations for Khaled began immediately.  

Whether or not the driver will be held responsible for this crime is unknown.  

Bedouins in Israel suffer the gamut of Israeli occupation casualties. House demolitions, lack of electricity, water, employment, lack of access to health care and education are but a few of the hardships which plague these traditionally nomadic people. Relocated time and again, al-Jahaleen is one example of Israel’s ill-treatment of the Bedouins, giving them no other option but to make a life surrounded by garbage. 

More Israelis and the international community need to become aware of the sub par life Bedouins are forced to live under the Israeli government’s inhumane policies toward these people. It is impossible to imagine a true negotiated peace in which injustices without recourse occur daily—against Bedouins, Palestinians and Israelis as well.  

Rocks and fire do not substitute for legal process. Although the life of a fifteen-year-old boy could never be compensated for, it is unacceptable that culpability and the appropriate punishment for this crime will go unmeted. It behooves all members of a society to enforce its government’s commitment to democracy. Therefore it is the responsibility of the people to become aware of these tragic incidents that happen too frequently, and to demand justice. 

Heidi Basch is an Oakland resident.

Last Monday’s Berkeley City Council approval of the Trader Joe’s project at the Kragens lot at University and MLK is not only a disaster for our near-downtown, but eminently livable neighborhood, but also poses a significant risk to every neighborhood in the City. To approve this project the City Council has adopted new ad hoc procedures to grant 25 additional units of unknown provenance to reward the developer Hudson McDonald for their promise of bringing Trader Joe’s to Berkeley. According to our city attorney, the City Council’s newly found power is entirely at their discretion—an extremely scary thought given the current composition of the Council.  

Although our city government cannot give golden parachutes to departing employees, I can think of no more thoughtful gift than this precedent to give Mr. Mark Rhoades as he leaves his role as the city’s developer-friendly zoning officer and goes on to his new role as your friendly Berkeley developer. Those who have watched Mark in action bending and mutilating our Zoning Ordin-ance over the past five years can only imagine how much damage such a precedent can cause when placed in the hands of such a true believer in smart growth.  

Over the past week, the developer made a number of proposals taking off and/or reshaping a few units here or there to produce a marginally less severe transition to our neighborhood, but we could never get them to agree to changing their basic building configuration that burdened one of our most vulnerable neighbors with much of the project’s detriment by placing too many project facilities along our residential street. We were willing to agree to a project with a Trader Joe’s (after all, a legally permitted use) and more than 140 units of housing (40 units per acre more than called for in the General Plan) if only the developer would move all project elements except for the Trader Joe’s driveway off of Berkeley Way and agree to project findings that protected the integrity of our city’s land use process and commitment to affordable housing. Even up until the recess between the public hearing and council deliberations the developer urged us to accept their final offer and drop our appeal, but we ultimately refused.  

While the ZAB findings honestly stated that the 25 additional units were only “necessary” for the Trader Joe’s, the findings approved by the council amount to an abject capitulation to long-time developer complaints that complying with our development standards and inclusionary ordinance is too expensive. Under the council’s new procedures, an unlimited number of additional units can be granted to any project on the basis of whole project “feasibility” rather than being reserved to offset the cost of providing affordable housing units. Since the new criteria is the feasibility of the “whole” project, the council approved additional units can be used to offset any and all project “costs.” For the Trader Joe’s project the council findings cited no fewer than 12 “costly” project elements, including commercial floor area and parking, resident open-space and parking, and even “good-design”—things that Berkeley’s development standards and policies expect from all projects. There should be no doubt in any one’s mind that these new criteria will be noted by other Berkeley developers and used in future projects—we can only guess how many additional units “designer kitchens” might require. 

Equally disturbing is the council’s finding that it is now acceptable that property line setbacks guaranteed to protect each adjacent residential property can be waived if the project as a “whole” is better than some other proposed project for the site. This procedure will balance an increased setback granted to one neighbor against a reduction in setbacks promised to other neighbors, a finding that opens every neighborhood to a cynical and divisive process of “beggaring your neighbor.” Additionally, it is feared by many that a Trader Joe’s at this location will cost West Berkeley its University Avenue Andronico’s, a result that the City Council joked might leave the poor no choice but to shop at Grocery Outlet, but offering their constituents an attractive choice between shopping at a Berkeley Trader Joe’s or Berkeley Bowl. Displaced Andronico’s workers can, of course, apply for one of those high-paying manager jobs at Trader Joe’s some project advocates spoke about. 

We have all watched with dismay and frustration as President Bush issues signing statements saying he won’t enforce a new law he doesn’t like; now in Berkeley our City Council issues findings on a single project that gut the protections for neighborhoods that are at the heart of our land use policies and ordinances. Because the council’s new procedures come into force outside of the ordinary legislative process there is no ordinance to put to a referendum (the council learned its lesson from their attempt to change the Landmarks Ordinance).  

The only remaining forum for us is to bring this matter before a court to determine whether such a significant change in Berkeley’s pattern and practice of land use can be established on an ad hoc basis in response to a specific project. We urge all concerned Berkeley citizens to join us in our effort to preserve the livability of our neighborhoods in whatever way is “feasible” for you. 

Stephen Wollmer is a Berkeley resident and neighbor of the proposed development. 

Fulfilling a New Year’s resolution to do more community activism, in January I accepted an invitation to join the City of Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. I am the token pedestrian. So when Bike to Work Month came along, and the committee needed to recruit novice cyclists for 511.org’s Team Bike Challenge, I was an easy target. 

The East Bay Bicycle Coalition kindly lent me a sturdy bike, provided me with training, and let me loose in Downtown Oakland. For a month, I pedaled almost every day; it was an experiment with the most-hyped commute, blending healthy and green living. 

I met cyclists who sport body armor, high-tech helmets, and jarring fluorescent outfits. One friend rides through West Oakland protected only by two outstretched middle fingers and his foul mouth. I found the combination of a helmet and the willingness to yell at cars adequate. I never suffered a fall, perhaps due to the adrenaline that gripped me on every trip, whether from terror or exertion I don’t know. 

Not that I challenged myself. As a freelance worker, most of my bicycle trips consisted of trans-downtown treks for banking, meetings, groceries and cocktails; no errand required more than a half-mile of pedaling. Nonetheless, I found myself white-knuckled and alert at every intersection, trying to deduce the motives of shielded drivers whose turn signals must be broken. Or I’d cruise smugly down Franklin for a block, only to realize that I’d gone the wrong way on a major regional arterial. More than once, rather than navigating three turns on one-way boulevards, I’d get off my bike and indulge in the pedestrian freedom to take a shortcut. 

I had bicycled for three weeks by Bike to Work Day. I had once set downtown’s throngs to throbbing electro beats; as a cyclist, I missed my iPod. I did not miss the five pounds I quickly shed, transferring the stored energy of flab to carbon-free pedal power. At the day’s event, after helping with valet bike parking, I listened to promises from politicians, and picked up a handy canvas tote stuffed with goodies. The bicycle coalition said they hoped lending me a two-wheeler would be a learning experience for me. It was. 

I learned that the sleek, stylish spinners favored by artists and musicians lack essential equipment, like gears, and brakes. I learned that I was more out of shape than I thought. I learned that downtown Oakland is far from flat. I learned that both wheels need to be locked to a parking meter. I learned that the city is removing all the parking meters. I learned that my lambskin loafers and Hollywood hair do not go well with a helmet or late-night safety vest. I learned that bicycles need bike lanes or cars become impatient—their horns of outrage trumped my indignant bell every time. Certainly the bike activists made me a convert. 

Downtown Oakland embodies the sort of healthy living that urban planners try tirelessly to bring to neighborhoods—a high density of housing and employment, unparalleled access to parkland, excellent transportation, and a growing population of residents and retailers. 

Primarily a pedestrian, I find that every month there’s something new to do within walking distance. But bicycling expanded my easy-access radius to include Koreatown, warehouse art galleries, and the forthcoming Whole Foods. Healthy eating due to healthy biking! And I don’t think I’ll miss the next five pounds I lose either. 

OPEN CALL FOR ESSAYS 

Healthy Living 

As part of an ongoing effort to print stories by East Bay residents, the Daily Planet invites readers to write about their experiences and perspectives on living healthy. Please e-mail your essays, no more than 800 words, to firstperson@berkeleydailyplanet.com. We will publish the best essays in upcoming issues.

DUMBING DOWN THE MEDIA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley’s editorial on the accelerating dumbing down of ever more concentrated mass media, and especially about the Chronicle’s tragic death spiral. was particularly apt as Dean Singleton and the Hearst Corporation collude to control and corrode virtually all of the print media in the entire Bay Area. 

I remember when, in 1999, the Hearst Corporation was engaging in “fancy horse trading” to sidestep vanishing anti-trust laws and essentially turn San Francisco into a one-newspaper town by buying the deYoung family’s Chronicle and paying the Fang family $66 million to take its flagship Examiner. A spokesperson for the company promised that with Hearst’s far greater financial resources, it would make the Chronicle into the “world-class newspaper that the Bay Area deserves.” At the time, I thought that that would be an historical first for Hearst; conservative editor Thomas A. Rickard once said that William Randolph Hearst had “for the time of a whole generation, debauched and defiled the intelligence of the American people,” and he was by no means alone in that assessment. Boozy media magnate Bill Hearst, Jr. contended that his “Pop” was “the greatest newsman of all times,” but Hearst has never been known for first-rate journalism and my own research into the papers that Pop acquired and degraded abundantly confirmed Rickard’s claim. Hearst was the Rupert Murdoch of his time. 

Instead of giving the Bay Area the excellent newspaper it allegedly deserves, a Manhattan-based corporation born in the West is now canning some of the best people on the Chron’s staff and delivering a tabloid ever more like the gee-whiz journalism that Hearst, Sr. created as his way to ever greater wealth and the White House a century ago.  

Gray Brechin 

• 

pg&e COMPLAINT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

PG&E leaves city street lights in cities on too long in the morning—long after the daylight occurs. 

At a time when we are all concerned about the chance of more electrical blackouts, this waste of electricity is a major statewide factor on which the Public Utilities Commission should take action. 

Charles L. Smith 

• 

HEALTH CARE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I must admit to not being 100 percent informed on the details of SB 840. I probably know more than most as I’ve read portions of the bill as well as various synopses of it. I do know that “health care” in this country is a sick joke. I lived for 10 years in Germany and can say this with personal authority. The only real reason to not support wholesale reform of our system is to preserve the profits. Simply put, support for the status quo is an unethical and profoundly inhuman stance to take. It may serve someone personally of course, but so do theft, assault, fraud, murder and the like. We manage to almost universally disregard the claims of perpetrators who defend their actions by claiming personal gain: “I killed him because he was inconvenient and I didn’t feel like dealing with him.” This argument is not likely to win over many juries. This is, however, exactly what our health care system is doing to us on a daily basis again and again. Virtually everyone feels it, most of us know it deeply and can relate personal tales to this effect.  

SB 840 might not be perfect, but it is so beyond the disgusting heap that we currently have and any of the other dishonest attempts to reform that I have seen. Let us move into a new paradigm here and get something fundamentally good and honest on its feet. Then we can split hairs over minor details. I am sick of arguments to delay because the alternative is not perfect. Would you tell a starving man that he must continue eating dirt because the vegetable soup isn’t fully developed and the salt may still be a bit off? Would you support legislators or a Governor who make these kinds of arguments? I won’t. The time is ripe for change so let’s go to harvest! 

Timothy Melton 

• 

PUBLIC POLICE RECORDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The recent California Supreme Court decision in Copley Press to close records and hearings about police misconduct complaints that were previously public only serves to protect a few bad officers and will undermine police-community relations. Without public access to a police department’s response to citizen complaints about serious police abuse, members of the public will always question whether misconduct complaints are being taken seriously. 

Although the effects of the closure of police misconduct records are being felt statewide, the situation in Berkeley is particularly poignant. Created pursuant to a citywide ballot vote in 1973, the Berkeley Police Review Commission was the first organization of its type in the nation. As such, it was an inspiration for many commissions that were established later.  

Here and elsewhere, the answer to the present problem is the passage of California Senate Bill 1019 (authored by Gloria Romero, Los Angeles). If passed into law, the legislation will allow for records to be reopened, and for independent review boards to again operate in the public’s view. 

Citizen trust for peace officers is critical to the smooth running of the criminal justice system. Secrecy surrounding police misconduct undermines that trust and ultimately hurts public safety.  

State Sen. Don Perata should join Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton and the National Black Police Association in supporting SB 1019. 

Thomas Sarbaugh 

Corresponding Secretary, 

ACLU of Northern California 

• 

SOLIDARITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing to ask readers to extend solidarity to the recycling, clerical and landfill workers in ILWU 6 who are honoring the picket lines at Waste Management in Oakland, and do not qualify for unemployment or strike fund benefits. 

If we in the Bay Area community offer concrete financial support to enable other garbage workers NOT to cross picket lines, it may be the most significant contribution we can make to helping the labor movement survive in this difficult era, and it will show the garbage company that we won’t tolerate such abuse of union workers. Call your Supervisor and ask them to end the lockout, then send a contribution to the Hardship Fund c/o Central Labor Council, l00 Hegenberger Rd, #l50, Oakland 94621.  

Lauren Coodley 

• 

SPEAK UP, YOU SELFISH EARTH-HATERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As usual, I read with delight another missive from your frequent letter writer, Steve Geller. Surely Mr. Geller is the most subtle humorist of our generation, raising postpostmodern literary ambiguity to new heights. Mark Twain, move aside! The master has arrived! 

(Sorry Charles Siegel, your work is also very humorous, but Mr. Geller’s high head-scratching score and tone of charming naiveté make him the winner—for now.) 

Yes, indeed! Where ARE all the letters from UC’s SUV-driving commuters, who are waiting with bated breath for BRT to rescue them from their onerous daily commute? After all, BRT will save them 3.5 minutes over the current rapid bus—minus their extra walk time to the BRT stop. I daresay, if that doesn’t get them out of their cars, nothing will! So why haven’t those selfish, earth-hating bastards been speaking up? Inquiring minds want to know because in the complex answer to that question lies the real solution to making mass transit work. 

Yes, Mr. Geller, when the Planet receives about 5,000 such letters from future repentant drivers, then let’s give serious consideration to implementing BRT. 

Or alternatively, since BRT will take half the traffic lanes (not even counting the removed parking lanes), when (let’s say) 30 percent of Telegraph users are bus riders, instead of the current tiny percentage rattling around in supersized buses, then again we might consider BRT. 

I’m happy to go with either option. Are you?  

Sharon Hudson 

• 

AC’S BRT PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Although transit dependent account low vision and a long term transit advocate, I find myself in the company of pro auto, pro parking NIMBYs. AC’s BRT project is a mistake driven by availability of funding for capital projects while operations are shortchanged. Ride the Telegraph bus as I often do(it is closest to my home) and you can be the sole passenger circa 7 PM between 40th and Alcatraz. This level of usage does not justify either exclusive lanes or the elaborate “stations” proposed by AC. The recently instituted Rapid service does not operate weekends BECAUSE the riders aren’t there. (It does operate east of downtown Oakland where ridership is much heavier) If AC were serious abou speeding up buses, exclusive lanes on University would be a far better investment as the auto interference is greater and ridership higher than Tele south of Ashby. 

In the larger picture, the issue raised by Michael Katz on July 6th is far more relevant. AC and BART must be forced to again provide unlimited use joint agency passes. As riders we are not impressed by different paint schemes, we simply need to access the most convenient combination of transit modes from A to B. 

David Vartanoff 

Oakland 

• 

DELIVERY SERVICE? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Would it be possible to require Trader Joe’s to provide a package delivery service within a few miles of the store? Customers would come to the store to shop on foot or bike or bus but not have to worry about carrying packages. Similar to what is available commonly in Japan. This would help cut down on the parking problems.  

Janine Brown 

• 

ICELAND  

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The editorials and letters regarding Berkeley Iceland miss the point. Almost everyone—skaters, owners, and developers— would like to save Iceland, and save the facade of the building. But who’s going to do it?  

Mr. Zamboni, the present owner tried hard and couldn’t make a go of it, and it is extremely unlikely that any new owner would have better luck. The Save Iceland group is many tens of millions of dollars from being close to buying and renovating and operating any ice rink. The City of Berkeley could buy it if it thinks saving the ice rink is so important to the city, but even they can not afford to do it. By the way, isn’t there an ice rink in downtown Oakland, about a block from a BART station? Unfortunately, it is one of life’s hard realities that times change, and ice rinks simply are not as commercially viable as they once were. So if no one can afford to operate an ice rink, the only choice is to use the property for some other purpose or leave it vacant, maybe a home for vagrants, the homeless or addicts. The only questions is who can put the space to the best use for the most residents of the city. The YMCA and Ali Kashani have submitted a proposal that would leave the front facade intact, preserved for history, while using the back, rink area for Head Start, a teen center, and affordable housing. I doubt if there is a better, more responsible choice available. Blaming them for anything Patrick Kennedy might have done is unfair and wrong. Their proposal, any everyone else’s proposal, should stand or fall on its own merits, or the building will remain a vacant, dangerous eyesore or decades. 

David Weitzman 

• 

SUMMER IN BAGHDAD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Explaining President Bush’s failure to pressure the Iraqi parliament to remain in session in August, White House press secretary Tony Snow remarked “You know, it’s 130 degrees in Baghdad in August.” Yes, Mr. Snow, we KNOW that temperatures in Baghdad reach 130 in August. So do thousands of American soldiers and marines, sweltering in unbearable heat, wearing heavy helmets and combat gear weighing close to forty or more pounds! Could the President not grant them a reprieve in August? 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

CONGRATULATIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Congratulations to Judith Sherr and the Berkeley Daily Planet for covering the Alameda County Grand Jury Report on the Berkeley Public Library, and for providing the link to the full online text (article 6-29-07). 

The Grand Jury report faulted the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) management of the contract with the Library’s RFID vendor, Checkpoint Systems, Inc., as “laissez-faire” and “not in the public interest,” as your article said, and the Grand Jury “did indicate some concern with performance,” saying the [Library] director “is working . . . to improve the system.” 

Two points were not mentioned in the article: the Grand Jury report began by saying it received a complaint about the contract, and for this we should thank whoever sent the complaint; and second, the report did not appear to provide a comprehensive review of the system’s performance, although it clearly expressed concern, and it was not clear whether the recent report of operational problems presented to BOLT by library workers was included among the documents that the Grand Jury reviewed. 

Peter Warfield, Executive Director 

Library Users Association 

• 

EARL WARREN HALL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Some of the information in the Daily Planet’s July 13 article “Wrecking Ball Scheduled for Earl Warren Hall” is in error. While Warren Hall at UC Berkeley is indeed scheduled to be replaced, demolition work will not begin this fall, as noted in your story, but in early 2008. 

The Request for Qualifications mentioned in the article is for work needed in advance of the demolition. This preliminary activity is scheduled to take place this fall, along with the underground utilities upgrades that have started. Following the demolition of the building in early 2008 the campus will construct the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. For more on the project please see http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/05/17_lks.shtml Construction updates about this project will be posted on the web at http://www.cp.berkeley.edu/CP/Projects/LKShingCtr_WarrenHallRplc/Info.html, where there is currently some detail about the utilities work underway. Anyone with questions about the project is welcome to contact me at cshaff@berkeley.edu. 

Thank you for correcting the information, 

Christine Shaff 

Communications Manager 

UC Berkeley Facilities Services 

• 

PROTESTING MOVIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As one Charles to another, I read, with more than a little amusement, the letter from Charles L. Smith. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that Mr. Smith is somewhat of a nut case. He didn’t like a film (Mr. Brooks), so he went through all the trouble and expense to make up two sandwich boards, print 200 copies of a “statement”, carefully fold the statements and then hold a one-person protest at a movie theater. (Not to mention the fact that he owns a folding machine and apparently a printing press too!) 

Sounds a tad excessive over a film he didn’t even like. He wasn’t offended by the film, he just didn’t like it. Yikes! I can usually tell within a half hour or less that I don’t like a film. One can always ask for their money back and I almost guarantee that you will get the money back. I also might bad-mouth the film to family and friends, but sandwich boards? 

I might suggest to Mr. Smith that he go to Craig’s List and post a scathing review. It’s easy and free. 

I also saw Mr. Brooks and thoroughly enjoyed it. That’s what happens. Some folks like a film, some don’t. I personally thought March of the Penguins was a terrible film, but most people loved it. Go figure. 

Charles R. Shaw 

• 

MILKING A CORPORATE COW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If you have any hopes for the Bush administration to pullout of Iraq don’t hold your breath. Iraq has been a big milking cow, $450+ billion dollars so far and growing, for the Bush administrations “friends” so you think they are going to give that up? For example a recent documentary, Iraq for sale, revealed among many other things that the government has been paying Haliburton/KBR $100 for each bag of laundry it washes for our troops in the field. According to interviews, troops are not allowed to wash their own laundry. Let’s just work that out with some quick math: 130,000 troops in Iraq times $100 per bag of laundry works out to … let’s see … $13 million dollars paid to Cheney’s ex-company Haliburton/KBR each week. That’s $676 million per year—just for laundry. No wonder this war is so expensive. It is also easy to see how the Iraq war became the most privatized war ever. So do not fool yourself: this is not a war to fight terrorism or to spread democracy but a privatized war for corporate profit using American tax payers’ money and our soldiers’ blood.  

Thomas Husted 

• 

THE SAME OLD SAME OLD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here we go again! The Bush administration keeps doing the same things over and over and Americans keep falling for it. Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff has a gut feeling that the U.S. is in for another terrorist attack this summer. Will the Bush administration, being forewarned, stop the disaster? 

Instead of higher gas prices this summer look for higher color-coded terror alerts based on uncorroborated intelligence from the White House. Will Chertoff’s premonition turn out to be self-fulfilling?  

Ron Lowe

On Tuesday July 17, the City Council will take up the issue of how public comment at Council meetings is structured. We will be deciding who gets to address the Council and how long they will get to speak.  

The rules for public comment drafted by Mayor Bates are unfair. They give the Mayor total discretion over who can speak and how much time is allowed per speaker, as well as over the time allotted per topic. Members of the public and Councilmem-bers deserve fairness, impartiality and certainty in knowing in advance of the meeting from whom and for how long comment will be taken.  

The Mayor’s proposal essentially allows all public comment (even during land-use public hearings) to be dictated by his own likes and dislikes. He has a past record of sometimes being quite arbitrary in the use of his discretion, both about who he allows to speak and how long he will let people speak. The people and topics he likes tend to get to speak for longer time periods than those he does not. This approach violates the spirit of fair play as well as the Brown Act. 

The re-examination of the historical 30 minutes of public comment allowed at the beginning of the council meeting was triggered by the threat of a lawsuit from BOLD (Berkeleyans Organized for Library Defense) and the First Amendment Center. At first the Mayor was experimenting with different approaches and more members of the public were getting to speak, which was all to the public good. Unfortunately now however, as the experimental phase has come to an end, the Mayor seems to be using this opportunity for improving public access as a means to hijack public comment so he can have the maximum ability to control who gets to speak and for how long. At a recent meeting, when Councilmember Kriss Worthington spoke up for people who had requested to address the council, the Mayor angrily responded by twice demanding that Councilmember Worthing-ton’s microphone be cut off. 

The Mayor has a dismal record on supporting the public’s involvement in their city government: 

1) in 2002, on the day of the election, when the Daily Californian newspaper endorsed former Mayor Shirley Dean instead of him, he threw out in the trash a large stack of their newspapers and then lied to the editor of the Daily Californian when asked about the theft; 

2) his original proposal for the “rules committee” after he was first elected gave him the power to stall, essentially to veto, any topic that he did not want on the Council agenda from either a Council-member or a Commission; 

3) two years ago he attempted to dramatically reduce the number of Commis-sions and the times they could meet—this was only defeated by a strong response from affected Commissioners; 

4) after repeatedly promising the public that he was going to make any city agreement with UC on its long-range development proposal public before it was adopted by the Council, he got the majority on the City Council to approve a secret backroom deal that was not released to the public until it was already a done deal, thereby depriving citizens of the ability to bring suit on the severely flawed Environmental Impact Report. 

Unless there is a strong response from the public, the Mayor’s proposal is likely to pass this City Council. Calls and e-mails will help stop it. Come to the meeting at 2134 Martin Luther King Way tonight at 7 p.m. to fight for the future of free speech at the Berkeley City Council. Urge the Council to set this matter for a special meeting/workshop to flush out the issues and to fully discuss the pros and cons of the alternative methods of structuring public comment proposed by Council-member Worthington and myself. (How ironic it is that we have to fight Berkeley’s Mayor for our legal right to public comment in the cradle of the Free Speech Movement?!)  

Dona Spring is a Berkeley Councilmember.

I attended the hearings on the landmark designation for Iceland, our jewel in the heart of Berkeley. Those wishing to preserve Iceland spoke spiritedly on behalf of this well-loved asset—and they were brilliant. They paid tribute with eloquence and soul.  

Perhaps most eloquent were two words spoken by a beautiful girl, who grew shy when it came her time to speak, then exclaimed with vivid simplicity, “It’s Iceland!”  

I first heard the rumor that developer Ali Kashani had an interest in Iceland at about the time that the Drayage Building was sold in 2005. Kashani was prepared to purchase the Drayage when it received the fire inspection from hell, or rather, from Fire Marshall David Orth, who found 255 bogus “code violations” where none had been found in twenty prior years.  

While the rumor of Kashani’s interest was disturbing, I didn’t believe that Iceland could be gone after in the same manner as the Drayage Building. The Drayage was a warehouse next to the railroad tracks occupied by artists of modest means, who, despite the spin and rhetoric, are treated as expendable by our city government. (For those who don’t know the outcome: the artists were evicted; another developer bought and demolished the building, and it’s now a vacant lot).  

But Iceland was a thriving institution, the best youth program this town has ever had, and was beloved by thousands of people of all income levels, all races, all ages. How could those in power think they could get away with destroying something so vibrant and so loved?  

Sadly, no deal on behalf of developers is too heinous for the Bates Regime, and Iceland was assailed with the full force of municipal harassment. Other facilities that use ammonia, much more ammonia than was contained in Iceland’s system, are left in peace. Other facilities have had ammonia leaks. But only Iceland’s cooling system was gone after and destroyed.  

In March and April of 2006, I spoke at length with a manager of the rink. He told me of David Orth treating him “like we were making weapons of mass destruction,” and about ultimately giving up: “We’ve made the decision to sell. They’ve run us out of the business in Berkeley.” He talked about meeting after grueling meeting with City officials: “We jumped through every hoop trying to resolve the situation and had no cooperation on their part.”  

The manager’s statements were confirmed by documents obtained through a Public Records Act Request (PRAR). There were notes about rink employees attending countless meetings with high level city officials including Dan Marks, Mark Rhoades, Joan MacQuarrie, Zack Cowan, and a host of others. Why were so many city employees willing to participate in this witch hunt?  

The PRAR turned up an interesting exchange between the Mayor’s aide, Cisco DeVries, and the rink owner’s attorney Rina Rickles, known affectionately as the “one-woman dream team for developers,” conferring about how to spin the closure of the rink. On January 16, 2007, DeVries suggested for the rink’s press release: “We worked closely with Berkeley’s mayor and city council members to examine a range of options, but unfortunately did not find a workable solution.”  

Why was the mayor’s office collaborating with the developers’ favorite attorney? Why wasn’t the mayor’s office trying to save the rink? And who advised the rink owners to select an attorney who is so closely associated with Berkeley’s big developers?  

The fact that Kashani is now in contract to purchase Iceland makes it clear why city officials went along with the willful destruction of a beloved institution. Patrick Kennedy reigned as Berkeley’s developer-king for almost a decade—a couple of years ago, he stepped down, and Kashani ascended the throne.  

The Save Berkeley Iceland group made the highest bid to buy the building. It is therefore inexplicable why the owners of Iceland are now, in essence, teamed up with their harassers. (To the rink owners: the City’s political machine went after your building—why are you doing exactly what they want you to do?).  

Iceland’s owners have appealed to the City Council, seeking to weaken the landmark designation, a move which Kashani appears to be banking on. That decision will come before the City Council today at 6:00 p.m. If the Council goes along with the wishes of the reigning developer-king, it’ll be a very sad day in Berkeley.  

Gale Garcia is a Berkeley resident who thinks that this time, the Bates Regime has gone too far.

One of my favorite songs from long ago begins “Why, oh why, oh why oh why did I ever leave Ohio?” 

Now in my case it was New Jersey, but the thought is apt. 

I learned that California history is taught in Berkeley schools. Not so in NJ. We learned the Revolution and all the historic sites. In my town, George Washington’s headquarters are impeccably preserved. As far as I know no one has tried to tear them down to replace them with affordable housing. 

Fortunately our skating was on a local lake that was always frozen on Thanksgiv-ing. No urge to fill it in for affordable housing has been reported. 

Now in Berkeley we have wonderful history in many buildings and in our famous university town itself, but it seems to me someone is always trying to tear down or rip out. I refer of course to our lovely and friendly treasure—Iceland. 

First, the fire department found fault with the ice-making equipment, a complaint perhaps from the adjacent affordable housing that is built too close to the rink. 

Not surprisingly, the family that owns Iceland cannot afford new ice-making equipment or even roof repairs. Not surprisingly, the affordable housing community wants to buy it, level it, and build more housing. 

The question arises: Where will these folks go to have fun? Maybe to the new baseball field that is to be fenced in for only high school baseball? Oops. Guess not.  

Or perhaps folks can take a bus to the new fields down by the freeway in Albany? 

Oops, those fields will be reserved, and who knows if the bus goes there? (Don’t get me started on the Busosauers cruising the town.) 

The question is for the silly ... er, City Council to answer: Will they uphold our Landmarks Commission’s protection of the irreplaceable skating rink and social resource or build more—largely unwanted—economy housing? 

Tune in 6 p.m. Tuesday, channel 33 and see the inevitable result or pray for a miracle.  

We have nice city parks. Why doesn’t the city buy Iceland and make it a park? Six million bucks would be a bargain for such a prize. 

No dough? I’ve heard that nearly $90 million dollars has been contributed by the city toward the new affordable housing and ecology center that is being built by private parties on the Oxford parking lot that used to support downtown businesses. 

Who wanted this? Not our citizenry. Just someone at sullied, er ... City Hall. 

Oh, I forgot, a councilman wants a new youth center in his district. Maybe that’s where the money should go.  

Things are not going well in Berkeley where the government cannot even uphold the laws that its predecessors passed. We’ve learned that, because we are a charter city, the council does not have to follow the city plan. 

We’ve also learned that the Elmwood zoning ordinance, which does not permit too much liquor service, can be blithely ignored by pro-growth politicians with friends in the development business. 

I have heard that Houston has no zoning laws, and that one can find a car lot next to a house. This is called spot zoning: no plan, just build what you want where you want with no concern for your neighbors. 

Things are not going well in Berkeley where the excuse for overbuilding on the corner of MLK and University is providing a spot for a Trader Joe’s.  

Has no one noticed the empty retail space all up and down the downtown streets? 

The mayor wants to revitalize downtown. OK, good, what would bring people down there faster than a Trader Joe’s? This plan would infuse downtown with commerce instead of overwhelming a hitherto quiet neighborhood of homes. 

And not to wonder why this item was sneaked on to a consent agenda when citizens were waiting in the wings to speak their hearts out to the council. 

While I am at it: I noticed that the Pony Rides up in Tilden have closed, and I wonder if the carousel owners have managed to reopen after a state 

inspector closed them down by requiring a protective fence that hasn’t existed for the last 50 plus years. 

Things are not going well in Berkeley.  

Talk to your councilperson if you find them willing to listen. 

If not, I just dunno. I sure don’t want to go back to Ohio, or New Jersey or especially Houston. 

George Oram is an Elmwood resident.

These essential questions are being raised more and more often, at least in California, and several local authors and filmmakers have addressed them recently in illuminating ways.  

Offering useful information are Marion Nestle in her book What to Eat, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Lisa Brenneis’ delightful film about Berkeley’s Monterey Market, Eat at Bill’s; and Emiko Omori and Jed Riffe’s prize-winning new film Ripe for Change: Agriculture, Sustainability, and the Foods We Eat. 

We’re beginning to see the frightening consequences of our disproportionate contribution to climate change. And we see unprecedented obesity in the United States, thanks to widespread consumption of processed food, high in calories from sugar and fat and low in food value. These two problems derive in part from the practices of corporate agriculture. 

The evolution of agriculture from the family farm, based on local production and consumption, to large-scale, mechanized, fossil-fuel-dependent agriculture has provided huge quantities of corn and grains, much of which is processed into packaged foods low in nutritional value or is used for animal feed. 

Industrial agriculture is a significant contributor to global climate change with its heavy use of gas, oil, and petroleum-based pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, including fuel for the trucks and planes that carry its products to markets around the world. Petroleum-based chemicals kill the soil and make the growers heavily dependent on their use for continued productivity.  

Is this giving us food that is healthful and nutritious, or is it the means by which giant corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Monsanto maintain their control of U.S. food production and siphon off our tax dollars by way of very generous agribusiness subsidies? 

Ripe for Change investigates this question by examining two contrasting approaches to agriculture to be found in California—the agribusiness model of huge fields planted with a single crop and heavily sprayed and watered, to produce high quantity and uniformity at low (subsidized) cost, vs. small-scale and organic farming with the goal of producing flavorful and nutritious food in ways that are sustainable, by ensuring healthy soil, careful use of water, worker safety, and prices that reflect the investment of labor and experience. The film offers comments from defenders of agribusiness as well as those who have rediscovered the reasons for a local agriculture that connects farmers with the people who depend on their produce.  

When David Mas Masumoto was ready to plow under the orchards he’d planted with his father, because their ripe delicious peaches had been displaced in the market by uniform, flavorless, undentable peaches at a lower price, his now famous essay on the dilemma struck such a chord with readers that he stepped back to reconsider just what he was doing as a farmer. 

When Alice Waters realized that we could only recover a sense of what the pleasures of good food are if we introduce children to them, her Edible Schoolyard project was born. Masumoto and Waters describe these realizations in Ripe for Change, as do others committed to providing food in ways that respect and sustain the rich soils and wonderful climate that have made California one of the world’s primary food producers. 

There are frustrating problems in our lives that are beyond our control, but we can make choices about what we buy to eat, and we’re fortunate in Berkeley to have a range of sources for fresh, local, affordable produce as well as writers and filmmakers in our midst whose work can educate us about those choices. 

Healthy Living 

As part of an ongoing effort to print  

stories by East Bay residents, The Daily Planet invites readers to write about their experiences and perspectives on living healthy. Please e-mail your essays, no more than 800 words, to firstperson@ berkeleydailyplanet.com. We will publish the best essays in upcoming issues.

As the psychedelic ’60s morphed into the sour reality of the ’70s, many a dazed survivor was struck with the revelation that there was more to life than sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. For some, a search for enlightenment led to Buddhism, which had a particular appeal for Jewish hippie intellectual lefties—such as a fair percentage of my pals. Picking up on this trend, a local stand-up comic, Darryl Henriques, did a shtick where he inhabited the persona of the Swami from Miami, chief guru of the Bu-ish religion. 

Although quite a few friends were drawn to Buddhism in the early 1970s, my personal experience with meditation never got much past chanting the Bu-ish mantra, “Ommm Shalommm.” And despite occasional exposure to Buddhist writings and lectures, all that lingers in my brain’s recesses today is the Swami’s favorite maxim: “Yes, we are all one—but not the same one”! 

Nonetheless, I remain intrigued by the very different ways Buddhism and the Abrahamic religions handle “life’s persistent questions,” namely, those pondered by Guy Noir. And I admire my budding Buddhist buddies from the 1970s who are still trekking the Dharmic path and resisting the lure of cynical materialism. 

Two who fit this description are Barbara Gates and Wes “Scoop” Nisker. In 1983, Barbara and Scoop’s commitment to Buddhism motivated them to found Inquiring Mind, a journal “dedicated to the creative transmission of Buddhist teachings to the West.” 

Based in Berkeley, the semiannual Inquiring Mind now boasts a worldwide circulation of more than 30,000 and for 25 years has treated readers to a wide variety of Buddhist-inspired art, poetry, philosophy, psychology, politics and humor. Regular contributors include such Buddhist notables as Gary Snyder, Joanna Macy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield and Ram Dass. 

The journal’s most recent, Spring 2007, issue is devoted to “The Tough Stuff: Money, Sex, Power.” Browsing its graphically pleasing pages, a number of pieces caught my attention. 

One titled “The Lingerie Zen Sect” was written by Michael Attie, the Buddhist proprietor of “Playmates of Hollywood,” which bills itself as “the world’s largest lingerie store.” Attie suggests meditating in a sexually charged environment, for example the meditation hall he built above his store, releases “sexual energy” enhancing “enlightenment.” It’s a pity I never discovered this secret while growing up in a flat above my parent’s lingerie shoppe in Brooklyn. 

Another article focuses on how a need for recognition by philanthropists limits the satisfaction they obtain from their charitable acts. Learning “to love anonymity” with no expectation of being thanked, says author Bokara Legendre, made giving money away far more rewarding for her. This insight hearkens back to Maimonides, who considered anonymous donors especially worthy in his “Eight Levels of Charity” discourse. 

Both Gates and Nisker also contributed to the issue. Gates relates how she has applied a Buddhist perspective in her struggle to overcome a fear of freeway driving—a fear I happen to share. The inquiring mind that inquires too much is Nisker’s subject. He reflects on the difficulty of subduing the “thinking mind” to prevent its domination of the “other aspects of our being.” 

Inquiring Mind is distributed free of charge with the bulk of its costs funded by reader donations. 

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, a daylong party benefiting the journal will be held Saturday, July 21, at Marin County’s Spirit Rock Meditation Center. 

The festive event will feature the “Rockin’ Mantra Band,” performance artists and a host of Buddhist luminaries including Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield and Jane Hirshfield. In addition, the journal is sponsoring an online auction, running through July 29. You can bid on a signed illustrated letterpress print of Gary Snyder’s “Smokey the Bear Sutra,” an intimate brunch with Jon Kabat Zinn or cooking and dining with Tassahara Cookbook author Edward Espe Brown. For details, please see: www.inquiringmind.com. An archive of back issues is also available at the website. 

The rising tide of Afghan civilian deaths has opened a rift between the U.S. and NATO’s 37,000-member International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). According to NATO officials, the United States’ increasing use of air power has badly damaged support for the war in both Afghanistan and Europe. 

Daan Everts, the senior NATO civilian in Afghanistan, says the United States has created “a fallout that is negative because the collateral damage and particularly the civilian casualties are seen as unduly high, certainly by the Afghan people. This is of concern to us.” 

German Defense Minister Franz Joseph Jung said, “We have to do everything to avoid that civilians are affected. We are in talks with our American friends about this.” 

The issue has split German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Grand Coalition.” While Merkel’s Christian Democrats generally support the war, their coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), is suddenly feeling pressure on its portside from the newly formed United Left Party. SDP leaders have come out against renewing the current mandate to deploy German troops in Afghanistan, a vote that will come sometime this fall. 

The rising tide of Afghan civilian deaths—over 1,800 killed in 2007—has helped fuel a push for United Nations participation to end the conflict. Leading the drive is British Secretary of Defense, Des Browne.  

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Browne said the solutions to narcotics, security, and establishing the rule of law are political, not military. “An overarching campaign plan is required to develop all of these disparate strands together. It has to be a strategic plan, not just a military plan … and there is no organization better placed than the UN to take that role.” 

Browne said that if the international community cannot find a political solution, “then I say to you that we have no moral right to ask our young people to expose themselves to that danger.” 

In the meantime, in spite of opposition by the Kabul government, senior U.S. military officers and European nations, the Bush Administration is forging ahead with a plan to use massive aerial spraying of the herbicide glycophate to destroy Afghanistan’s opium crop. 

More than 90 percent of the world’s opium comes from Afghanistan, and the drug trade generates about one third of the country’s gross domestic product. Projections are that this year the crop will be larger than in 2006. 

The Germans are so opposed to the spraying that they say they will reconsider their participation in the NATO operation if it goes forward. Many military leaders are unhappy as well. 

Gen. Dan K. McNeil, NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, says his forces are not equipped or trained to deal with drugs. “Eradication done improperly is counterintuitive to running the counter-insurgency because it will alienate people and you may have more insurgent people appearing than you had before.” 

Many Afghans agree. According to Mirwais Yasini, a member of the Afghani parliament’s Committee on Counter-Narcotics, “Aerial eradication will maximize the antagonism against the government.” 

DynCorp, a private mercenary company that has done extensive spraying of coca plants in Columbia, has been contracted to do the job. Using DynCorp is hardly a coincidence. The new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, William Wood, oversaw the company’s aerial spraying campaign in Colombia.  

“The U.S. is hell-bent on eradication,” Harvard University Professor Robert Rotberg, an expert on conflict resolution at the Kennedy School of Government, told the Financial Times. “They claim it worked in Columbia and so it will work in Afghanistan. It is not clear to anyone it worked in Columbia.” 

Actually, it is quite clear. Coca acreage in Columbia increased 9 percent in 2006, following a 26 percent increase in 2005. Coca acreage is the same today as it was when the spraying campaign began in 2001. 

Have gun, will travel? Widespread use of mercenaries in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Latin America by the Bush administration has drawn the attention of the United Nations Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries, according to upsidedownworld.com. 

“We have observed that in some cases the employees of private military and security companies enjoy an immunity which can easily become impunity,” says Jose Luis Gomez del Pardo, chair of the U.N. Working Group, “implying that some states may contract these companies in order to avoid direct legal responsibilities.” 

The Working Group found that mercenaries were recruited from throughout Latin America and then flown to Ecuador to train at the huge U.S. base at Manta. Others were trained in Honduras at a former training camp used during the Reagan administration’s war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. 

According to the Working Group, mercenaries working for a subsidiary of an Illinois-based company, Your Solutions Inc., suffered “irregularities in contracts, harsh working conditions, wages partially paid or unpaid, ill-treatment and isolation and lack of basic necessities such as medical treatment and sanitation.” 

A major reason for using private security companies is that they are not subject to Congressional oversight. 

Jeffrey Shipper, who worked at Manta for DynCorp, told the Los Angeles Times that a major reason for using Latin American mercenaries was that, “The State Department is very interested in saving money on security now. Because they’re driving the prices down, we’re seeking Third World people to fill the positions.” 

While most American and British mercenaries earn up to $10,000 a month, Latin Americans get $1,000. Last summer, dozens of former Colombian soldiers went on strike in Baghdad because Blackwater USA, a major security firm, promised them $4,000 a month, but paid them only $1,000. 

According to the Financial Times, there are hundreds of mercenaries from Colombia, Ecuador and Chile working in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Hilla. Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Study estimates that there are 50,000 mercenaries working in Iraq, making them the second largest armed contingent after the U.S.  

Cheap wages are only one of the ways that the security companies increase their profit margin. Because the firms are private they don’t have to operate with safeguards. Blackwater’s flight BW61 out of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan is a case in point. 

The plane—flying during the day in clear weather—was carrying mortar shells and soldiers when it hit a mountain peak last November, killing everyone on board. The pilots had been in Afghanistan less than two weeks. 

“This was infinitely worse than any armed forces flight would have been. It [a military flight] would have had triple redundancy, with checklists,” the lawyer for the families of the passengers told the New York Times. Even though the plane was unpressurized and flying at 14,000 feet, neither of the pilots was wearing an oxygen mask. 

The Americans are not the only ones recruiting mercenaries. Over 1,000 Fijians work in Iraq for the British company Global Risk Strategies. According to Jone Dakuvula, the director of Citizens Constitutional Forum, a non-governmental public education organization, many Fijians who have gone to Iraq have never been paid, but can’t come home because their passports have been impounded. 

Dakuvula says that high unemployment in rural areas is the main impetus for signing up to go to Iraq. According to Dakuvula, many Fijians come home wounded and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress to find there are no medical or psychological resources.  

Iraq is now a major source of foreign exchange for the Pacific nation. Personal remittances have climbed from $50 million in 1999 to over $300 million in 2005, or seven percent of Fiji’s GDP. 

Whether it is Brits or Yanks hiring the mercenaries makes little difference. Getting other people to die for you is cheap and politically safe. The body bags and the maimed return to places most Americans and British will never see or think about. 

In my younger days, with more time on my hands but less patience, I used to try to figure out ways to make the water run out of the bathtub faster. Short of taking a hammer to the bottom of the tub, you can’t. It’s a mass-space-flow kind of thing. You can slow the water down or stop it back up altogether, I finally found, but you cannot speed up the water running out of the bathtub. 

So it is with Iraq. 

Later historians will have a better take on this, of course, but the plug seems to have gotten pulled out of the Iraq War tub sometime in the early spring of this year, about the time some of our Republican and conservative friends began recognizing the lost causiness quality of this particular American endeavor, something like our Confederate friends did in the winter months of 1865. Therefore, sometime during the first year of the first term of the next President of the United States, unless some unforeseen event intervenes, you can expect to see the end to U.S. combat operations between the Tigris and Euphrates. 

The narrow drainpipe keeping that from happening sooner is the administration of President George W. Bush. It is clear to all who have eyes to see that Mr. Bush has made the decision that a withdrawal from Iraq will not take place on his watch and, again short of busting out the bottom of the bathtub with a hammer, there is little that can be done to force him to do otherwise. It is not easy to stop a president in the midst of a war under any circumstances, and extricating from this one will be more difficult than most. Not the least of the problems with any withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq is the danger inherent in such an operation. This would not be anything like General Kutuzov offering Napeoleon and the Grand Army of the Republic a golden bridge to the West. The various factions attacking U.S. soldiers now would be expected to increase—not decrease—those attacks as the American combat presence wound down, making the planning and carrying out such a withdrawal more dangerous and difficult than anything American forces have so far done in Iraq. It would be a hard job for a president committed to such a withdrawal, a potential disaster for one—like Mr. Bush—who could only be made to do the task at the end of the whip. Knowing this, and knowing that responsible Congressional war opponents know this, Mr. Bush can afford to dawdle. In another six months, with the 2008 presidential campaign in full howl, most in the country will be looking to put the solution into the next President’s hands, and Mr. Bush will be off the hook. 

The most important question at that point will probably not be whether U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq, but rather in what form that withdrawal should take place, and what type of American military/diplomatic/political/economic Middle East policy should come afterwards. 

I raised this issue in this column in November of 2006, shortly after Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress, writing then that progressives should use that opportunity to begin a public discussion on terrorism—“how it should be defined, how it should be addressed, how it should be stopped.” 

The 2006 November victories—coming in no small part thanks to help from progressive actions and ideas—gave progressives an opportunity to enter the national defense debate in a serious way. 

“A good place to start, for progressives,” I wrote, “is a discussion of what we think should be done with and to al Qaeda and the organization’s leader—Osama bin Laden—and, in a broader question, what we advocate to do to prevent the growth of terrorism and terrorists in the world. … We have come into a brief, breathless moment in which we can have a quiet talk among ourselves about what we now want to do, and who we want to be. Let us not waste it.” 

But, of course, we did waste it, bless our hearts, spending most of the last six months trying to figure out ways to force Bush to end the war or to force Democrats to force Bush to end the war—how to make the water go faster out of the tub, in other words—with little thought to what will come next, or what we might do to influence it. 

On Wednesday, for just one example, after Senate Republicans defeated a war-ending measure during an all-night session, the Huffington Post sponsored a live online chat on “ending the war,” with readers spinning off various scenarios on how it might be done. 

When someone named RK in Fishkill, New York asked as one war-ending solution “Could we consider a modified partition? Define separate Sunni, Shia and Kurd havens of self-government (and safety), while internationalizing Baghdad and the oil (revenues to be split between the three entities according to a formula to be negotiated).”the moderator, Huffington Post columnist Tom Mattzie replied, “Bluntly, its none of our damn business what the geographic boundaries are inside Iraq . The Iraqis should decide that.” 

While that seems a reasonable enough rock upon which progressives can build their church of the world view—a throwback to the old let-everybody-do-their-own-thing days of my youth—how would such a doctrine square with other things that progressives might want to accomplish in the world? “Let Iraqis decide what’s best for Iraqis” runs into trouble when you are forced to decide how to define “Iraqis,” for example. Sadaam Hussein and his followers, with considerable historical evidence to back it up, once said that the split between Iraq and Kuwait was an artificial boundary drawn by Europe for the economic benefit of Europe, that Iraq and Kuwait were historically one, and that Kuwatis were actually Iraqis. Should Mr. Hussein, therefore, have been allowed to reclaim the diasporan Iraqis for the mother country? Further, at what historical point should we freeze the world’s geographical boundaries and declare that this was the legitimate point where everything was divided up fair, and everything that was changed afterwards was false? When Europe got into the picture? Does that mean European imperialism was bad but, say, that practiced by the emperor of China was not? It’s a slippery slope, friends. 

Meanwhile, if it’s “none of our damn business” what geographical boundaries are inside of Iraq, then, by extension, wasn’t it “none of our damn business” what geographical boundaries were inside of South Africa during the time of apartheid, and all the world’s efforts to intervene—including some valiant work by progressives—was a meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation? Further, during the period when the United States set up its own internal geographical boundaries, dividing White communities from Black in the system called “segregation” and punishing the Black person who dared overstep those boundaries, was the old Soviet Union wrong to raise a fuss about it, and was the United Nations right to refuse to intervene at the request of such progressives as Paul Robeson and a Boalt Hall graduate named William Patterson, who charged that the United States was committing genocide upon its African-American citizens? 

And if it’s none of our damn business what happens within Iraq, is it none of our damn business what happens in Dafur, as well? 

Though I don’t know Mr. Mattzie that well, and I haven’t asked him the question, my guess is that he would believe otherwise. The problem is, how do you decide to draw the lines, and by what standards do you judge each situation? 

In the old, old, olden days—long before people even started using the term “back in the day”—we used to operate on what people then called “ideology.” This was not so much a set of do’s and don’ts—like an expanded Ten Commandments—but more a generalized view of the world and our place and responsibilities in it. Marxists used to be the main folks talking about ideology in that time—before the Marxist view of the world got cast down into darkness, and its proponents relegated to serving on school boards or corporate boards or city councils in Oakland and Berkeley and other such places—and it was a way they attempted to hold a general balance in their views and actions and keep from contradicting themselves from moment to moment. It was often a painful exercise, and it did not always work out so well in practice, but it was heads and shoulders above what we have now, where people seem perfectly content to alter their positions from situation to situation, depending upon the political direction from which and to which that particular wind is blowing. Mr. Clinton should be condemned because because lying to a grand jury under oath is a serious matter, for example, but Mr. Libby should be forgiven because lying to a grand jury under oath is not a serious matter. Progressives easily see that particular toothpick stuck in conservative eyes, to paraphrase the Bible, but not the plank in their (our) own. 

A progressive ideology would be a nice thing to have right about now, a sort of unified political theory that tied together issues of race and racism and global warming and environmental health and health care and economic policy and families and child-raising and war and such in a package that allowed each to be understood, and saw each in relation to the others. An overall progressive American defense strategy might be good as well, looking at how progressives think Americans should defend ourselves in a troubled world. But all of that is a lot to ask for, given the time constraints. I would just settle for knowing what general conditions progressives want in the Middle East, both involving America and not involving America, once the war in Iraq is over. That seems more than enough for progressives to think about and develop, while we’re waiting for the water to run out of the tub, and preventing our Republican and conservative friends from stopping up the drain.

“It’s a castle!” a friend said when I showed her a picture of the turreted Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Avenue in Berkeley. 

With five bedrooms and two baths it’s not really a castle, but it does make you look twice. The unpainted concrete exterior, formed to resemble stone, is quite out of the ordinary for a Berkeley home. It looks a bit like an English country villa, set back from the street behind a green lawn.  

The house is on the market for $1,090,000 and is open this coming Sunday, July 22, from 2-4:30 p.m.  

William Burr Gester, the original owner, was a civil engineer who had the house built in 1905 of reinforced concrete with a “Roman stone” concrete veneer. It’s thought to be the first reinforced concrete residence in Berkeley, completed just in time for the 1906 earthquake. 

The gray “Roman Stone” exterior is concrete mixed with bits of stone and cast into concrete blocks that look like cut stone. Some are deeply rusticated to resemble rough-hewn stone. 

“The whole building rose and fell as a single mass, without creak, or groan, or complaining strain,” Gester wrote after the earthquake. Residents were thrown to the floor by the vigorous shaking, and “pictures, furniture, the chain-hung electroliers, everything not fastened…was put into instantaneous motion, the commotion and din being indescribable.”  

However, there was only a small amount of damage to one chimney and parts of the entry porch, serving “as an example of the value of a simple type of ferro-concrete construction.” 

Although the house weathered the earthquake, the Gesters—William, wife Kate, and two sons who both became geologists—don’t seem to have lived at 2620 Piedmont for very long. By 1908 they were at 2800 Derby a few blocks to the southeast. 

The arcaded entry porch has an interesting seating nook, hanging lantern, patterned concrete floor and painted wooden ceiling. 

Inside there’s a central stair hall, and a large living room to the right, across the front of the house. The living room incorporates the first level of the turret—note the intricate woodwork of the turret floor. A columned fireplace is now painted white but looks to be made out of cast concrete, or stone.  

West of the stair hall there’s a dining room then a large back bedroom. Kitchen, storage pantry, butler’s pantry, a full bathroom, laundry porch, and two small hallways round out the first floor. 

A substantial concrete stair grandly descends to the garden from the back door, complete with back doorbell, probably for tradesmen.  

Upstairs, a large master bedroom extends across the eastern front of the house and two other bedrooms shelter under a south-facing dormer. A large fourth bedroom at the back accesses a small deck and metal spiral staircase to the yard.  

Gleaming inlaid hardwood floors (carpet in the upstairs hall), paneled doors, and painted woodwork all continue from downstairs. The second floor bathroom has a venerable marble corner sink. A galley kitchen, accessible from both hall and back bedroom, is tucked in next to the bath.  

A 1977 historic resources survey says “the house has been divided into apartments.” Two kitchens and the second “front door” from the main porch (note the holes for two doorbells) seem to attest to that. 

An architectural history of this house would be immensely intriguing. Is there a box beam ceiling similar to that in the entry hall, hidden under the apparently dropped ceiling in the dining room? Was the built-in seat moved across the room from where a window bay was altered for that second wire glass “front door”? 

Is a vanished doorway to the kitchen indicated by the jog in the crown molding in the front hall? Why were four of the window sashes in the two-story tower converted to vertical divided lights?  

What was the original finish on the walls? Some who saw the house years ago remember the dining room at least as having dark woodwork, but all wainscoting, casework, and trim is now painted in white and light tones.  

An early photo shows that a high, horizontal window in the living room was replaced decades ago by two side-by-side double-hung windows. 

The wide yard—grass, ivy, some shrubbery, a large redwood—has a concrete parking slab to the side. Look up. From the rear, under its hipped roof, the house appears much smaller than it seems inside. 

The interior is refurbished, carefully painted and polished, and lightly staged. At present, though, most of the spacious rooms are as empty as the known historical record. With a century old house like this, one wonders about the procession of people who once called it home. 

Something is known of Joseph Leonard (1850-1929) who built the house, real estate man, designer, contractor, and yachtsman, he was profiled in detail by Dave Weinstein in the April 10, 2004, San Francisco Chronicle.  

Leonard was an active and energetic businessman, originally from Texas, who developed the Ingleside Terrace district in San Francisco and what’s known as Leonardville, a distinctive Victorian neighborhood in Alameda.  

Weinstein writes that Leonard subscribed to a “Romantic, anti-urban vision” that provided comfortable, detached, houses on large lots close to street railways connected to denser commercial and office districts. 

Leonard integrated elements of both Victorian and Arts and Crafts design into his buildings. The Gester House is not conventionally “Victorian”, but if you added painted wood shingles and decorative trim to the exterior, it could pass for a Queen Anne.  

Only a few other Leonard-built houses have been identified in Berkeley. They range in style from Colonial Revival to brownshingle, to Classic Box.  

The calm neighborhood surrounding 2620 Piedmont is enclosed by busy College Avenue, Dwight, Way, Warring Street. To the north is the UC student-oriented Southside district, to south and southwest the determinedly single-family residential Claremont-Elmwood. 

A block and a half north and you’re in a district of apartment houses, fraternities and sororities. But traffic barriers on Etna and Piedmont help make this 2 x 3 block district a quiet enclave with large, mainly single-family, homes and lots of greenery. 

Most of the surrounding houses are a century or more old. The land where they stand was acquired by pioneer farmer and Irish immigrant John Kearney around 1860.  

In 1876, he subdivided this portion into large “villa” lots. Some homes were built, but much remained fallow until the College Avenue streetcar line came through early in the century. Then, within a decade, the district rapidly built up. 

Barbara Reynolds at Prudential California Realty is the listing agent for 2620 Piedmont. www.barbarareynolds.com 

To reach the house while avoiding traffic barrier confusion, head east two blocks on Derby Street from College Avenue, then turn left onto the 2600 block of Piedmont. 

This article will eventually be expanded at berkeleyheritage.com into a more detailed photo essay on the house and its history. 

The Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Ave. is open Sunday, 2-4:30 p.m. 

Photograph: The turreted Gester house dates to 1905 and is thought to be the oldest reinforced concrete residence in Berkeley. 

I ran into an old friend from hospital nursing days and we got together to go on about old times and friends—it’s amazing how many of them are still working where we’d met; they’re definitely made of tougher stuff than I am—and, surprise, about gardens. She’s got a rental house with a yard and a co-operative landlady and a pleasant garden already, and was looking for ways to make the place bloom more. 

She also has a neighbor with a rototiller, and he’s worked over some of the back yard already. The landlady had some sod installed, just a little playspace for the fox terrier and the cat, both of whom are engagingly rompity. The cat has been known to ride the dog, just for example, and I think that’s worth a patch of sod. Giddyup, pup. 

There’s a shady patch in front, a northern exposure further shaded by a Chinese elm by the sidewalk. Mister Rototiller has offered to give that little spot, now home to a comb-over of grass, a thorough treatment too, and the landlady wanted to get rid of the tree because “the roots got into her sewer pipes a few years ago.” 

So what am I telling my friend? 

First, vis-à-vis the direst prospect: Please don’t let anyone mess with that tree. It’s one of a row of Chinese elms gracing the whole block. Its shade is light and open—most of the shade on that patch is from the house—and to judge by that block, El Cerrito has a tree crew who do good work at lacing out street trees.  

There’s no reason to believe that that individual’s roots were the ones in the sewer pipe, or that if it were gone that the rest of the street trees’ roots wouldn’t take over. The old rule of thumb is that a tree’s roots extend in a rough circle whose radius is one and a half times the height of the tree, and there are at least four other trees that close to the lot. 

Now, that rototiller. I’m suggesting that she give the neighbor a beer and tell him “No, Thanks this time,” because the tree’s support roots are just under that patch. Instead, put down some organic mulch and plant, oh, native coralbells (Heuchera spp.) or their colorful cultivars, or some nice small bunchgrass and forest flowers.  

The virtues of sweat with regard to garden soil are overrated, in my experience. If you have to get the rutabaga crop in quick because you’ll be living on it all winter, OK. But with a little time, you can lay down some nice organic material and let your earthworms do the work and the neighboring plants, trees, even the soil will be the better for it. Worms are skilled workers.  

American Soil has old reliable Walt Whitman compost for this, but my current crush is their pomace mulch. Pomace is the dry stuff left of grapes after winemaking. As mulch it’s elegant, finely granular, very dark (almost black) and I swear has boosted the red colors in my shady foliage garden.  

Smells better than Walt too.  

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

The town council of Danville has passed an ordinance stating that, as of July 1, an automatic gas shut-off valve must be installed any time a permit is pulled for work of $10,000 or more. 

They also waived the permit fee for stand-alone installation of the valves for a period of two years. What an enlightened group of public servants! Let’s hope their example is an inspiration to every city in this wonderful earthquake country of northern California. 

Do you want to make your city, your neighborhood, your block, safer? Contact your elected city officials and ask them to follow the sterling example of Danville. And have your valve put in, of course. 

Here’s to making your home secure and your family safe. 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.

Like most people, I want to think of myself as a good person. Someone interested in the general welfare, democracy and wholesome values. But like most people, I have a bit of a dark streak. Mayhem is fun. Trouble is more interesting than smooth, well-oiled continuity. Admit it, you probably find earthquakes and plane crashes interesting. The whole news business is based on our fascination with things gone wrong (especially things gone terribly wrong).  

In that spirit, I offer the following bit of lame-brained stuff. It’s only a tiny thing but it’s so rich in stupidity that I thought it might prove for a little good, old-fashioned, mouth-full-of-Cheetos, couch-potato gawking.  

Note our photo. Here’s what you’re looking at: This is a steel, electrical junction-box in the wall at the back of a sink cabinet in a kitchen. The cover plate for the “J-box” is of a type used to install an outlet (the big cover has a smaller opening just right for a small device). There probably used to be an outlet installed here, although given the lack of acumen and forethought in evidence, it’s absolutely possible that this was the coverplate the “electrician” (please excuse my very loose use of this term) had on the truck and “was gonna come back and put that little cover on real soon.” How the time gets away from us. Darn. 

Note the swell job done setting the J-box in the wall. It ended up getting “mudded-in” or buried in a layer of drywall joint-compound (AKA mud) because it was partially installed behind the plane of the drywall. This will necessitate excavation every time the box gets opened to make a change and will make it extremely hard to create a neat finish when installing an outlet and coverplate. Sloppy, thoughtless and no pride of workmanship. 

As a result, it was hard to get the cover to seat properly and as a result of that, it’s hanging open on the left side. Now, watch both hands closely. There’s nothing up my sleeve. It’s about to get interesting. 

Clearly, rats or mice were present. See the steel wool stuffed in all around the edge of the cabinet? This is common, if goofy, technique. Rodents, for all their tiny superpowers, can’t eat steel wool and, therefore, can’t re-enter through channels previously gnawed. It looks pretty awful but, up to this day, I’d never had more complaint about it other than to say that it was an unsightly fix and should be replaced by new drywall, blocked at the framing and supplanted by a more plausible approach to rodent control.  

But wait, this little exterminator was out for more than just rodents. They stuffed the steel wool inside the electrical box through the loose cover and wrapped it all around. This does several things. First, steel wool is a metal and is pretty darned conductive. Not as much as copper but it will do just fine for our experiment. We are, at very least, creating an electrical path between the junction box and the steel wool.  

If a hot wire touches the metal box (or the steel wool that’s been stuffed inside) as a result of some imperfect set of conditions, and this stuff really does happen, the steel wool would become energized. Like a bulb filament, steel wool is so thin that it would begin to glow red hot. 

Here’s an interesting fact. Steel wood burns! Strange, yes, but it’s true. Steel wool tends to glow red hot with only minimal flame (depending upon the air supply, temperature and other factors). In any event, it burns hot enough to set adjacent materials on fire. 

So, we now have a source of energy, a fuse (the kind used to set off a bomb) and some flammable material (your house).  

To make matters even worse, the gaps and holes around the edge of the J-box are, in part, clearly the work of rodents. This means that they communicate through to the crawlspace or the outside. The same small passage through works nicely as an air inlet to accelerate fire when the steel wool begins to burn, driving it up into nice flames and setting the cabinet on fire. 

O.K., I’ll give it a break. Yes, the wires in the box are fairly well covered over (for now) and the steel wool isn’t exactly filling the J-box. It’s not a sure-fire … fire. But that’s not good enough. 

We live in wooden houses. Let me say that again. We live in wooden houses. We put our babies and our parents in wooden houses. We run electricity through them, build fires in them and heat air, water and food with flammable (and explosive) gas inside them. This is, as they say, no mean trick. We do it with codes and practices that requires great attention to detail. We also do them sober and fully awake so that we can be aware of the many ways in which we can work around the rules and arrive at Waterloo. 

I see the work of the roving brainless on a pretty regular basis. This one was fun because it wasn’t obvious. I had to sit there for a while to get the full impact of it. The longer I looked, the bigger my eyes got. I admit it. It was, and is, fun.  

Everybody slows down to watch an accident. What I would wish for (is this my beauty pageant?) is to see a few more people slow down for the one that hasn’t happened yet.  

Photograph by Matt Cantor. This electrical junction box has become a fire hazard. 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.

The week before the Fourth of July we were up at Lassen Volcanic National Park watching the traffic at Hat Lake. The place was jumping.  

A male western tanager, resplendent in red and yellow, came down to the lake’s edge to drink. Audubon’s and Wilson’s warblers flashed in and out of the young lodgepole pines. A dipper made repeated shuttle flights from its nest below the highway bridge, alternately ducking underwater to forage or swimming like a little duck as it retrieved insects—mayflies?—from the lake’s surface. Another hard-working parent, a male white-headed woodpecker, commuted between its tree-cavity nest and some beetle-rich dead snag nearby. Tree swallows skimmed low over the lake, and noisy young spotted sandpipers chased each other around the beaver lodge. 

No beavers, though. The last time we were there, we watched them late into the buggy twilight as they cruised the lake they had made, or at least augmented. This time the dam was in poor repair, and the lodge was surrounded by mud. We blamed that on the dry winter, but were still worried about the beavers. Later a ranger-naturalist told us they were gone. One had been found dead on the highway last year; another on a hiking trail—disease, old age, who knows. 

Maybe another pair will wander up from the Warner Valley and take over the franchise. If not, the lake will inexorably change, and the results of all that dedicated beavering will be gone. And everything in and around it—the tanagers, the woodpeckers, the mayflies, the pines—will be affected, one way or another. 

Some years back, before he took on organized religion, Richard Dawkins wrote a book called The Extended Phenotype. A phenotype is the physical manifestation of a genotype—the ensemble of physical traits that the genome codes for. Dawkins’ point was that you have to think of behavior as part of that ensemble, which is fair enough with beavers. Their dam-building drive is so hard-wired that if you play the sound of running water for captives, they’ll pile up sticks and brush in front of the speaker. 

Beyond that, Dawkins’ notion of the phenotype also includes the built environment that results from an organism’s behavior—the dam, the pond, the lodge. 

We tend to think of our species as the only one that leaves a significant mark on the world, for better or worse. Far from it: beyond the engineering of beavers, consider the cities of the termites or the coral polyps, the soil moved by pocket gophers. All of us, man to microorganism, shape our various environments.  

And our environments shape us back. Another book from the ’80s, Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin’s The Dialectical Biologist, tried to make that point, albeit with too much Marxist jargon for most tastes. (With us, there’s another layer when culture feeds back into the genome, as when Northern European and East African cattle herders independently—by separate genetic pathways—evolved adult lactose tolerance.) 

Woodpeckers—to pick just one of the cast of characters at Hat Lake—are builders and shapers in their own right. Their nesting cavities provide housing for a whole community of hole-nesting birds: chickadees, nuthatches, flycatchers, swallows, wrens. A woodpecker neighborhood tends to have high avian diversity. Small mammals like flying squirrels also  

adopt old woodpecker nests. 

But it doesn’t stop there. Working in Lassen National Forest, not far from where we were, Kerry Farris and Steve Zack of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Martin Huss of Arkansas State University made an interesting discovery about woodpeckers. They mist-netted white-headed, hairy, and black-backed woodpeckers, swabbed their beaks, and cultured the contents of the swab in a petri dish. Half a dozen species of filamentous fungi, some known wood-decayers, were identified in the culture.  

The woodpeckers seem to be carrying around little fungus colonies, inoculating the ponderosa pine snags where they feed with organisms that hasten the decay of the dead wood, making the birds’ foraging routines a little easier. Other cavity nesters like red-breasted nuthatches and mountain chickadees had their own fungus cultures; a control group of non-cavity-nesters—warblers, kinglets, tanagers, finches—did not. 

The jury is still out on whether what’s going on with the woodpeckers and the fungi is dedicated mutualism or opportunistic hitchhiking, and who is part of whose extended phenotype. The more you look at the interface of ecology and evolution, the more complicated it seems to get. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan, 

A male white-headed woodpecker at Hat Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park. 

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

FRIDAY, JULY 20 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “All in the Timing” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Altarena Playhouse “Oh My Godmother” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Bosoms and Neglect” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., SUn. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 22. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “Man and Superman” by George Bernard Shaw at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through July 29. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Central Works “Bird in the Hand” Thurs-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 29. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Meet Me in St. Louis” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. in July at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Aug. 4. 524-9132. 

Impact Theatre “Impact Briefs 8: Sinfully Delicious” Thurs.-Sat. through July 21 at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Woodminster Summer Musicals “West Side Story” at 8 p.m. through July 22 at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland. Tickets are $23-$36. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

FILM 

International Working Class Film Fest “The Scavengers” and “Central Bakery” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net  

Movies About Movies “Hearts of Darkeness” at 3:30 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6139. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music that Cooks Steve Taylor-Ramírez, neo-folk, blues and Latin-hillbilly roots, in a benefit concert to feed the homeless at 7:30 p.m. at College Ave. Presbyterian Church, 5951 College Ave., Oakland. Donation $5-$10.  

The Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of S.F. at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Jeff Stein Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Rachel Efron & Her Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Broun Fellinis, The Funkanauts, Winstrong & The 7th Street Sound and others at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15, or $12 with donation of a canned good. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jessie Turner at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blame Sally at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Two Headed Spy, Paris King, Sorry Mom and Dad at 10 p.m. at the Sotrok Club, 2330 Telelgraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 

Brothers Goldman, funk, blues at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Elizabeth August and friends at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Push to Talk, The Attachments, The Makes Nice, Poor Bailey at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Phobia, Intronaut, Book of Black Earth at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Jayson Bales at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Sugar Shack at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mose Allison Trio at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 21 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley’s “Other” Revolution: Celebrating 35 Years of Independent Living, Disability Access, and Disability Rights. Photographs by Ken Stein on display in the windows of Rasputin Music, 2401 Telegraph Ave., between Channing Way and Haste. 525-2325. 

“Burdened Dreams” Paintings and sculpture by Marty McCorkle and Victoria Skirpa. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcott Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

Art in the Garden featuring Richmond and East Bay artists Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 2p.m. at Annie’s Annuals, 740 Market Ave., Richmond. 215-1326. 

FILM 

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema “Ray” with screenwriter James L. White at dusk at Ninth St., between Braodway and Washington. 238-4734. www.filmoakland.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jane Powell on the “Smart Growth” agenda and true green alternatives to enhance respect for neighborhood character, at 1 p.m. at Faith Presbyterian Church, 430 49th St. at Webster, Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 655-3841. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Aïda” at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $15-$40. 925-798-1300. 

Many Faiths, Many Forms: A Sacred Dance Concert at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church in the Sanctuary, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $8.50-$15 adults. 849-0788. www.sacreddanceguild.org 

Meidoko “Unearth” Japanese drumming with electronic instrumentation at 8 p.m. at Capoeira Arts Cafe, 2026 Addison St. Cost is $10.  

Robin Gregory & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Kalbass, Haitian at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Jon Roniger and Jacob Wolkenhauer at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Sugar Shack at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Carol McComb & Kathy Larisch at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Max Chanowitz Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. 

Nicole McRory at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Buxter Hoot’n, Loretta Lynch at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Kasey Knudsen Sextet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, JULY 22 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Mosswood Park, MacArthur and Broadway, Oakland. 415-285-1717. www.sfmt.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Second Bay Area Baby Beats with Sterling Bunnell, Marsha Campbell, Joie Cook, Deirdre Evans and Chris Trian, H.D.Moe and Mark Schwartz reading from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-3402. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Midsummer Mozart, Program I featuring pianist Janina Fialkowska at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church. Tickets are $30-$60. 415-627-9145. www.midsummermozart.org 

Negro Spirituals Heritage Day at 3:30 p.m. at West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St., Oakland. 869-4359.  

Summer Jazz with Robert Stewards at 3 p.m., The History of Jazz with Randy Moore at 4:30 p.m. at Open Jam Session at 5 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Golden Gate Branch, 5606 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 597-5023. 

“Stars and Pipes Concert” at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway, Oakland. 444-3555. 

“Dietrich & Piaf, The Intimate Song” with Ellen Brooks and Shannon Nicholson at 7 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda. Tickets are $18-$20. Reservations recommended. 523-1553.  

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

Rahmil & Barley at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Americana Unplugged: Redwing Bluegrass Band at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Joe Young/Hamir Atwal Group at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Barbara Dane at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

MONDAY, JULY 23 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Color & Light” Photographic art by Bill Hannapple opens at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St., through Aug. 24. 649-8111. www.lightroom.com 

“Shaped by Water” Abstract landscape paintings by Jane Norling opens at the EBMUD Gallery, 375 11th St., Oakland. 287-0138. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Marc Freedman describes “Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Richard Denner and David Mansfield Bromige at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express open mic theme night on “folktales” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Musica Ha Disconnesso traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

John McCutcheon at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761  

Anthony Blea y su Charanga “A Night in La Havana” at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, JULY 24 

EXHIBITIONS 

“At the Med ... Were You There?” Thirty years of sketches from Telegraph Ave.’s Mediterranean Coffee House by Doyl Haley on display at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

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

Robin Meredith introduces “The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Flauti Diversi, solo sonatas and suites for recorder, harpsichord and violoncello at 8 p.m. at St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Tickets at the door are $10-$15. 528-1725. 

Swamp Coolers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun/Western Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Matt Morrish at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Ravi Coltrane at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 25 

FILM 

+---3 with response by entomologist Vincent Resh at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Noisy People” A documentary on sound artists and musicians from the San Francisco improvisational music community at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. at Arch. Cost is $10. 843-8724. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Introduction to Jazz Improvisation for Recorders” A workshop with Eddie Marshall, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Aulos Room, St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Cost is $20. 528-1725. 

Michael Eric Dyson will discuss his book “Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop” at noon at Barnes & Noble at 6050 El Cerrito Plaza, El Cerrito. 524-0087. 

Michael Tucker indroduces his memoir “Living in a Foreign language” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Writing Teachers Write” Teacher/student readings from the Bay Area Writing Project at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

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 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Aïda” at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$40. 925-798-1300. 

Terry Disley Experience at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Orquestra Bakan at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Buxter Hoot’n at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Adrian Gormley Ensemble at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

A Global Threat, Monster Squad, The Wednesday Night Heroes at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $7. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Wake the Dead at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ravi Coltrane at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 26 

CHILDREN 

Zoomobile Come meet unusual animals at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Montclair Branch, 1687 Mountain Blvd. 482-7810. 

FILM 

International Latino Film Society “Soledad is Gone Forever” at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$6. 849-2568.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Deep Listening for Recorder Players” A workshop with Tom Bickley and Nancy Beckman at 7 p.m. at St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 528-1725. 

Poetry Flash with Susanne Dyckman and Laura Walker at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Oakland Out Loud Poetry Reading with poets from PEN Oakland, followed by open mic, at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, 125 14th St. 238-3134. 

Robin Romm reads from her collection of stories “The Mother Garden” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Taste Matters” with Benjamin Wurgaft on Jewish food in the eyes of American and European food writers, at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950. 

Michelle Redmond reads from her novel “The Year of Fog” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kaz George Quartet at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

Polyhymnia “Never and Always” A concert of chamber works for musicians, actors, photographers, and laptops, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Cost is $10. 548-9050. 

“Voices in the Virtual World” James Minton, Chris Runde and Gene Baker at 8 p.m. at Oaktown Creativity Center, 447 25th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5-$10. 568-6920. 

Eric McFadden Trio/Satisfied Allstars, featuring Bobby Vega, Jessica Lurie, Dave Watts, Chris Rossback at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Rory Block at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Mack Rucks Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Jack Gates Trio, Latin jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Willard Grant Conspiracy, Chris Jones at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Fred O’Dell at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

A Christian McBride Situation at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200.  

These days, when the news is usually bad and often horrific, even resolute humanists may be reconsidering misanthropy. Before succumbing to cynicism, check out “Painting to Live,” the moving exhibit at UC Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies. 

The show features paintings, drawings and Christmas cards produced by four artists from Okinawa between 1948 and 1950, along with paintings by one of their students and others by an American doctor, Stanley Steinberg. 

As curator Jane Dulay says in her notes to the show, the exhibit is a testament to “the resilience of the human spirit” and “a celebration of art and life out [of] a period of war and anguish.” 

In 1948 Steinberg was in Okinawa as part of the American military occupation that followed World War II. One day he and three other young American military physicians happened upon a small artist colony near the ruins of Shuri Castle. In a land devastated by war, the artists were trying to recreate their lives. They called themselves the Nishimui Artist Society.  

Steinberg writes of this first meeting: “I was absolutely delighted. Something of Okinawa’s civilization had survived in this absolutely flattened, unfortunate country.” Invited into a studio for a private showing, he asked to buy some of their paintings, which, he says, “were startling good” and also to take painting lessons. His request, which he recalls as “quite bold,” was granted. 

On the one side, the artists “needed an appropriate audience,” as well as a living; they sold their work to Steinberg and other physicians in exchange for cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes, at the time one of the local currencies. On the other side, the young Americans were seeking out culture and community in a ravaged foreign place. “For the next two years,” Steinberg writes, “our weekends were spent together.” 

In 1950 Steinberg returned to the United States, left the military and began practicing psychiatry in San Francisco. He cherished the memory of his encounter with the Okinawan artists and hung their landscape paintings on the walls of his office. And there they might have remained, out of the public eye, if not for another happenstance.  

In 1992, Steinberg was supervising Jane Dulay, then a resident in psychiatry. When Dulay walked into Steinberg’s office at the California Pacific Medical Center for the first time and saw the paintings, she told him that they reminded her of the place where she grew up. He asked her where that was.  

Her answer: Okinawa. “It is Okinawa,” he said. That exchange was the beginning of a connection that grew beyond professional collegiality into a deep friendship. It also sparked Dulay’s desire to put on an exhibit of Steinberg’s collection of paintings and photographs of the Okinawan artists. The show, she told me, “was mainly a gift to Stanley. I did it for him.” 

But she did it for herself, too, as a way of “giving back” to the Okinawan people. The daughter of Fillipino immigrants, Dulay grew up on Okinawa because her father was stationed there as a member of the American military. “I’m ashamed of how we as military people treated the Okinawans,” she says. When she was growing up, “There weren’t a lot of models like Stanley Steinberg who mingled with the local community.” She hopes the exhibit will help people realize that “there’s a culture there,” and to increase interest in and respect for Okinawa.  

The members of the Nishimui Artist Society—Masayoshi Adaniya, Kanemasa Ashimine, Itoku Gushiken, Seikichi Tamanaha and Chosho Ashitomi—are now credited with founding Okinawa’s modernist artist movement. But this is the first time that their paintings—landscapes and portraits—have been shown in the United States. Drawn from Steinberg’s and others’ private collections, the exhibit also includes photographs of the artists and the American soldiers who befriended them, all taken between 1948 and 1950.  

Thanks to the show their work is winning new recognition. An Okinawan filmmaker is doing a documentary on “Painting to Live” that will screen in Okinawa in November and that may be shown at the Oakland Museum. And since Dulay issued an internet call for work of the Nishimui artists, the market value of their work has risen substantially.  

“Painting to Live” will be at the Institute of East Asian Studies through Sept. 7. The IEAS Gallery is at 2223 Fulton St. on the 6th floor, open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call 642-2809. 

Image: untitled landscape, 1949, oil on masonite by Kanemasa Ashimine, 1916-1993.

Actors Ensemble—in their 50th year, Berkeley’s senior theater company—turns its attention to David Ives’ All in the Timing, short comedies that are like more developed sketch material, to show another facet of what a community theater can do very well, indeed, at Live Oak Theatre.  

Ives’ six short plays, selected from a bigger repertoire, are somewhat conceptualized, even gimmicky, versions for the stage of the kind of thing once practiced on TV by Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs, then, later, Monty Python and the Saturday Night Live troupe. As directed by Jon Wai-keung Lowe, ensemble members (Sam Craig, Nick Crandall, Lia Fischer and Stanley Spenger) try on chosen material that fits them very well. 

The men lift off as “Mere Mortals,” high steel construction workers, chewing the rag at lunch. And the rag yields the taste of past riches, as Charlie (Stanley Spenger) reveals he’s not just the blue-collar fellow he seems. With “Words, Words, Words,” Nick Crandall, Sam Craig and Lia Fischer get under the skin of the simians set up to randomly type out copy that must, statistically, shape up as Hamlet—eventually. There’s a little rage, some spirited swinging, ape-like cynicism—and Fischer’s tantalizing toe-picking at the keyboard. 

With “Variations on the Death of Trotsky,” the material really gets into that special area between parody and burlesque—and the cast is more than up to it. “The Universal Language” takes a refreshing step back into the sort of routine a Red Skelton could—and would—pull off. 

When Fischer shows up to learn Unamunda, the new universal language, Spenger, its sanguine creator, leads her through grammar and diction—all puns and malapropisms that soon has the audience co-dependent on the declensions of Harvard or Howard Hughes to arrive at something in-between that means “How are you!” 

“English Made Simple” makes up the difference between the previous two plays, as an Announcer (Sam Craig) moderates Jack and Jill (Crandall and Fischer) through the various commonplaces and responses of partygoers meeting for the first time. 

It’s a quick, fun evening, lighter even than Actors Ensemble’s full-length comedy fare. It goes to show that there are more arrows in the quiver—or is it strings to the bow?—of community theater than usually conceived. 

All in the Timing 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley 

Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m. 

Like Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. 

through Aug. 11, Tickets $12 

525-1620, www.aeofberkeley.org

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the first and largest of its kind, is now in its 27 year. “Independent Jewish cinema is an expanding, vibrant and surprising field, and our 54 films reflect that,” says Peter Stein, the festival’s executive director.  

The festival begins July 19 at the Castro Theater and continues July 28-Aug. 4 at the Roda Theater in downtown Berkeley. 

In addition to the usual wide range of comedies and dramas, short subjects and features, this year’s program focuses on two particular themes: Jewish boxers, and new documentaries from Israel.  

Between 1901 and 1939 there were 27 Jewish world-champion boxers. More Jews participated in boxing than in any other professional sport. The festival will delve into this history with screenings at the Roda of Orthodox Stance, Jason Hutt’s documentary about Dmitriy Salita (6:30 p.m. Monday, July 30); Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1943 My Son, The Hero (2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 1), coupled with Avida Livny’s short mockumentary Max Baer’s Last Right Hook, a fictional tale of the great heavyweight’s experience in 1942 Palestine; and Robert Rossen’s 1947 classic Body and Soul (4:15 p.m. Monday July 23), starring John Garfield.  

The boxing theme continues with a special screening at the Castro Theater of His People (7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 21), a rarely seen 1925 silent film, co-presented with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and featuring a live jazz score by New York composer Paul Shapiro and his sextet. 

Documentaries from Israel showing at the Roda include Nurit Kedar’s Wasted, an examination of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Lebanon; The Cemetery Club (4:15 Tuesday, July 31), Tali Shemesh’s portrait of the Holocaust generation; Hot House (4:15 Sunday, July 29), Shimon Dotan’s film about Palestinians in Israeli prisons.  

Another festival highlight is sure to be Making Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women, a documentary about six great comediennes: Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Wendy Wasserstein and Gilda Radner. The film screens at the Roda at 10 p.m. Saturday, July 28. 

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 

For a complete schedule see www.sfjff.org. Tickets can be purchased through the website or by calling (925) 275-9490 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday.  

Image: Scene from The Cemetery Club, a new documentary showing at the Jewish Film Festival.

As newlyweds working their way through college while living in the Elmwood in the late 1960s, my parents had little money to spare. The only forms of entertainment they could afford were the occasional game of Video Pong at Dream Fluff Donuts and a monthly visit to the Elmwood Theater. At the time it was an arthouse theater, and the eclectic programming opened up a whole new world of cinema to two young folks raised on Hollywood fare.  

Ten years ago or more, my father recalled to me the pleasures of the Elmwood Theater in those days, and rattled off a list of great films that played there. But the most moving film he saw was one whose title he had long forgotten. All he could remember was that it was a simple and endearing story about the friendship between an old man and a young boy.  

Last week, about halfway through Claude Berri’s debut film The Two of Us (1967), newly released on DVD by Criterion, I realized that this was the film I had heard about all those years before, and that it more than lives up to my father’s fond memory. 

The story takes place during World War II, when a young Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied Paris is sent by his parents to the countryside to live with a family friend’s parents—a Catholic and wholly anti-Semitic elderly couple. The boy is instructed by his parents to conceal his true identity and pass himself off as Catholic, adopting a new name, learning the Lord’s Prayer, and by all means concealing any sign of tell-tale surgical procedures.  

The boy’s new “Grampa” is strident in his opinions about the war that is tearing his country apart, railing against the Communists, the Freemasons, the Brits and the Jews, his ire fueled by the ranting editorials of Philippe Henriot, “the French Goebbels,” to whose Radio Paris broadcasts the old man listens with rapt attention. Against all odds, the old man and the boy, Claude, become inseparable companions, the boy patiently listening to the man’s bigoted speeches and at times playfully debunking them.  

The film begins with sadness and uncertainty as the parents put their boy on a train, unsure whether they’ll ever see him again, but quickly gives way to bucolic depictions of a pastoral summer spent tending rabbits and chasing chickens amid the joy and companionship of a blossoming friendship. Berri’s direction, aided by a wonderful score by Georges Delerue, paints a lyrical portrait of childhood, both in the form of Claude and in the second wind his presence gives to the old man, whose heart has grown weary amid warfare and old age. 

Berri visited Paris schools in search of a boy to play the role and found Alain Cohen, who delivers one of the great child performances. For the old man he cast Michel Simon, a beloved French actor who had fallen on hard times, his career essentially washed up. The Two of Us was a comeback of sorts for him, giving him one of his most memorable roles late in life. Simon’s sensitive portrayal of Grampa delves far deeper than the usual depictions of racists and bigots, revealing the old man as a gentle soul, a kind, generous man whose only real fault is ignorance. When Alain Cohen’s mother showed him a picture of the man he would be acting with and asked the boy if he was nervous about the meeting, Cohen couldn’t understand her meaning. How could anyone be afraid of this big “chocolate cake of a man,” an adorable teddy bear who looked like Santa Claus? 

Much of the film’s power is in its subtlety, for once the action shifts to the farm, the war and all its attendant horrors are barely mentioned. Aside from the old man’s radio, the global context for the tale is merely suggested. But the subtext is nevertheless clear in every scene, providing a quiet undercurrent of solemnity.  

Claude Berri based the movie on his own experience. As a young boy he spent the last six months of the war in hiding on a farm in the countryside with an elderly couple, and The Two of Us is his attempt to capture that magical period of his life. And his choice of Cohen was fortuitous, as the boy, despite his youth, was well aware of the tragedies of the war, his grandparents having perished at Auschwitz.  

French New Wave director Francois Truffaut hailed The Two of Us upon its release. For 20 years, he said, he had been waiting for “the REAL film” about World War II France—not a story not about those who collaborated with their Nazi occupiers, nor about the Resistance, but about the vast majority who simply waited out the war, those “who did nothing, either good or bad.” 

Criterion’s new disc features a beautiful transfer and plenty of extra features, including a new interview with Alain Cohen, 1967 interviews with Claude Berri and Michel Simon, a 1975 television show featuring Berri and the woman who secured his family’s safety during the war, and essays by Truffaut and critic David Sterritt.  

But the best addition to the release is his Le poulet (*The Chicken), Berri’s Oscar-winning 1962 short film, in which the roots of his style are evident. It’s a charming little story of a boy who seeks to save the life of his beloved pet rooster by sneaking out each night to place an egg in its nest in hopes of persuading his parents that it’s a hen. Berri’s affection for the conceits of childhood and his talent for bringing them to the screen are clearly on display here, and he would master the method in his debut feature.  

THE TWO OF US (1967) 

Written and directed by Claude Berri. Starring Michel Simon and Alain Cohen. Music by Georges Delerue. 

$39.95. 87 minutes. In French with English subtitles.  

www.criterion.com.

Richard Denner, dubbed “the Berkeley Barb poet” by Max Scheer, a founder of that fabled ’60s publication, will read with Sonoma County Poet Laureate David Bromige 7:30 p.m. on Monday, July 23, at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. Admission is free. 

Denner and Bromige will read from the first two sections, “Spade” and “The Petrarch Project,” of their longterm collaborative poem in three parts, The 100 Cantos. Three sections of “Spade” appear on www.goldenhandcuffsreview.com  

“It’s a mock heroic epic,” said Denner, “but not quite Dante. ‘Spade’ is more like the Inferno, and ‘The Petrarch Proj-ect’ started as a Petrarchian sonnet for David’s wife on her birthday, and has many humorous, transliterary Petrarchian themes.” 

Denner was born in Santa Clara, “but I think of myself as an old Berkeley hand,” he said. His adoptive parents had lived in Berkeley and he went to school here, later to high school in Oakland, then entered UC Berkeley in 1959.  

“It was the beginning of the student unrest. The House Un-Amerian Activities Committee was supposed to convene in the Bay Area that year, but put it off till the next. I had [poet and critic] Thomas Parkinson for English 101, who was intimidating as a professor. He scared the pants off of us!” 

“I didn’t grow up in a family of artists,” Denner said. “I knew [poet] Joaquin Miller’s daughter, who gave me a book of his. It wasn’t Keats or Shelley, but he did celebrate the area. I memorized some poems. Then I made the discovery that people write poetry. Then it seemed everybody did it.”  

He mentioned the influence of jazz at San Francisco’s Black Hawk, first getting kicked out as underage, then admitted again when the club put in a special section for minors.  

Later Denner enrolled in Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and was told by a professor to go see Robert Creeley at the Berkeley Poetry Conference in 1965. “That cut me loose. It was a mind-blowing, white-light experience. Creeley, Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Spicer, Lew Welch ... and there were younger poets like Jim Thurber and David Gitin.” 

Denner “ran into Max Scheer, who thrust me into service for The Barb. I guess I was part of the family. I began to look at the world for a story, to write about it—the metaphor was right in front of you, not in your head. I wrote a story about students trying to stop a troop train.”  

Denner talked about the Berkeley street scene: “I was trying to be like a street poet, using magic markers to write on napkins at Cafe Med for espressos, on girls’ arms and feet ...” 

Other street poets were busted for obscenity, for begging. “There was a difference between the newer hippie poets and the older poets, like the Beats. We were trying to follow their instructions, their advice, but had been influenced by JFK, very idealistic,” he said.  

After stints in Alaska and Ellensburg, Wash., involved in small town life, running galleries, bookstores, and his series of chapbooks, Denner returned to the Bay Area. He cited the influence in poetics of Luis Garcia (“who strung my short poems together—and suddenly I had long poems”) and Jack Spicer (“his idea of the serial poem [short poems on a sequence that becomes narrative] led to the way I published my serial chapbooks, a continuous poem in a way.” 

Denner, an ordained Buddhist monk, now lives in Sonoma County, and is working on a kind of “mural of ’60s Berkeley poetry, with a real cast of characters. There must be 500 poets connected with Berkeley ... Berkeley is kind of the Holy Grail; it always gave me what I wanted.”

Dietrich and Piaf, La Chanson Intime (The Intimate Song), the story of two great stars and their friendship, with cabaret music and song, will be performed just this Sunday at 7 p.m. by the authors, Ellen Brooks as Piaf and Shannon Nicholson as Dietrich. The play will be at Altarena Theatre, 1409 High St. in Alameda, with music director and accordionist Deb Cimbellon, Armando Fox on piano and Ted Barker as announcer. Set just after World War II, when Piaf was in the Resistance and Dietrich was entertaining (and risking her life), the play expresses the sympathy between “two icons who both led intensely private lives.” Piaf, at whose first wedding Dietrich was matron of honor, died in 1963; Dietrich lived on for decades after. Tickets are $18-$20. Reservations recommended, 523-1553.

“It’s a castle!” a friend said when I showed her a picture of the turreted Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Avenue in Berkeley. 

With five bedrooms and two baths it’s not really a castle, but it does make you look twice. The unpainted concrete exterior, formed to resemble stone, is quite out of the ordinary for a Berkeley home. It looks a bit like an English country villa, set back from the street behind a green lawn.  

The house is on the market for $1,090,000 and is open this coming Sunday, July 22, from 2-4:30 p.m.  

William Burr Gester, the original owner, was a civil engineer who had the house built in 1905 of reinforced concrete with a “Roman stone” concrete veneer. It’s thought to be the first reinforced concrete residence in Berkeley, completed just in time for the 1906 earthquake. 

The gray “Roman Stone” exterior is concrete mixed with bits of stone and cast into concrete blocks that look like cut stone. Some are deeply rusticated to resemble rough-hewn stone. 

“The whole building rose and fell as a single mass, without creak, or groan, or complaining strain,” Gester wrote after the earthquake. Residents were thrown to the floor by the vigorous shaking, and “pictures, furniture, the chain-hung electroliers, everything not fastened…was put into instantaneous motion, the commotion and din being indescribable.”  

However, there was only a small amount of damage to one chimney and parts of the entry porch, serving “as an example of the value of a simple type of ferro-concrete construction.” 

Although the house weathered the earthquake, the Gesters—William, wife Kate, and two sons who both became geologists—don’t seem to have lived at 2620 Piedmont for very long. By 1908 they were at 2800 Derby a few blocks to the southeast. 

The arcaded entry porch has an interesting seating nook, hanging lantern, patterned concrete floor and painted wooden ceiling. 

Inside there’s a central stair hall, and a large living room to the right, across the front of the house. The living room incorporates the first level of the turret—note the intricate woodwork of the turret floor. A columned fireplace is now painted white but looks to be made out of cast concrete, or stone.  

West of the stair hall there’s a dining room then a large back bedroom. Kitchen, storage pantry, butler’s pantry, a full bathroom, laundry porch, and two small hallways round out the first floor. 

A substantial concrete stair grandly descends to the garden from the back door, complete with back doorbell, probably for tradesmen.  

Upstairs, a large master bedroom extends across the eastern front of the house and two other bedrooms shelter under a south-facing dormer. A large fourth bedroom at the back accesses a small deck and metal spiral staircase to the yard.  

Gleaming inlaid hardwood floors (carpet in the upstairs hall), paneled doors, and painted woodwork all continue from downstairs. The second floor bathroom has a venerable marble corner sink. A galley kitchen, accessible from both hall and back bedroom, is tucked in next to the bath.  

A 1977 historic resources survey says “the house has been divided into apartments.” Two kitchens and the second “front door” from the main porch (note the holes for two doorbells) seem to attest to that. 

An architectural history of this house would be immensely intriguing. Is there a box beam ceiling similar to that in the entry hall, hidden under the apparently dropped ceiling in the dining room? Was the built-in seat moved across the room from where a window bay was altered for that second wire glass “front door”? 

Is a vanished doorway to the kitchen indicated by the jog in the crown molding in the front hall? Why were four of the window sashes in the two-story tower converted to vertical divided lights?  

What was the original finish on the walls? Some who saw the house years ago remember the dining room at least as having dark woodwork, but all wainscoting, casework, and trim is now painted in white and light tones.  

An early photo shows that a high, horizontal window in the living room was replaced decades ago by two side-by-side double-hung windows. 

The wide yard—grass, ivy, some shrubbery, a large redwood—has a concrete parking slab to the side. Look up. From the rear, under its hipped roof, the house appears much smaller than it seems inside. 

The interior is refurbished, carefully painted and polished, and lightly staged. At present, though, most of the spacious rooms are as empty as the known historical record. With a century old house like this, one wonders about the procession of people who once called it home. 

Something is known of Joseph Leonard (1850-1929) who built the house, real estate man, designer, contractor, and yachtsman, he was profiled in detail by Dave Weinstein in the April 10, 2004, San Francisco Chronicle.  

Leonard was an active and energetic businessman, originally from Texas, who developed the Ingleside Terrace district in San Francisco and what’s known as Leonardville, a distinctive Victorian neighborhood in Alameda.  

Weinstein writes that Leonard subscribed to a “Romantic, anti-urban vision” that provided comfortable, detached, houses on large lots close to street railways connected to denser commercial and office districts. 

Leonard integrated elements of both Victorian and Arts and Crafts design into his buildings. The Gester House is not conventionally “Victorian”, but if you added painted wood shingles and decorative trim to the exterior, it could pass for a Queen Anne.  

Only a few other Leonard-built houses have been identified in Berkeley. They range in style from Colonial Revival to brownshingle, to Classic Box.  

The calm neighborhood surrounding 2620 Piedmont is enclosed by busy College Avenue, Dwight, Way, Warring Street. To the north is the UC student-oriented Southside district, to south and southwest the determinedly single-family residential Claremont-Elmwood. 

A block and a half north and you’re in a district of apartment houses, fraternities and sororities. But traffic barriers on Etna and Piedmont help make this 2 x 3 block district a quiet enclave with large, mainly single-family, homes and lots of greenery. 

Most of the surrounding houses are a century or more old. The land where they stand was acquired by pioneer farmer and Irish immigrant John Kearney around 1860.  

In 1876, he subdivided this portion into large “villa” lots. Some homes were built, but much remained fallow until the College Avenue streetcar line came through early in the century. Then, within a decade, the district rapidly built up. 

Barbara Reynolds at Prudential California Realty is the listing agent for 2620 Piedmont. www.barbarareynolds.com 

To reach the house while avoiding traffic barrier confusion, head east two blocks on Derby Street from College Avenue, then turn left onto the 2600 block of Piedmont. 

This article will eventually be expanded at berkeleyheritage.com into a more detailed photo essay on the house and its history. 

The Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Ave. is open Sunday, 2-4:30 p.m. 

Photograph: The turreted Gester house dates to 1905 and is thought to be the oldest reinforced concrete residence in Berkeley. 

I ran into an old friend from hospital nursing days and we got together to go on about old times and friends—it’s amazing how many of them are still working where we’d met; they’re definitely made of tougher stuff than I am—and, surprise, about gardens. She’s got a rental house with a yard and a co-operative landlady and a pleasant garden already, and was looking for ways to make the place bloom more. 

She also has a neighbor with a rototiller, and he’s worked over some of the back yard already. The landlady had some sod installed, just a little playspace for the fox terrier and the cat, both of whom are engagingly rompity. The cat has been known to ride the dog, just for example, and I think that’s worth a patch of sod. Giddyup, pup. 

There’s a shady patch in front, a northern exposure further shaded by a Chinese elm by the sidewalk. Mister Rototiller has offered to give that little spot, now home to a comb-over of grass, a thorough treatment too, and the landlady wanted to get rid of the tree because “the roots got into her sewer pipes a few years ago.” 

So what am I telling my friend? 

First, vis-à-vis the direst prospect: Please don’t let anyone mess with that tree. It’s one of a row of Chinese elms gracing the whole block. Its shade is light and open—most of the shade on that patch is from the house—and to judge by that block, El Cerrito has a tree crew who do good work at lacing out street trees.  

There’s no reason to believe that that individual’s roots were the ones in the sewer pipe, or that if it were gone that the rest of the street trees’ roots wouldn’t take over. The old rule of thumb is that a tree’s roots extend in a rough circle whose radius is one and a half times the height of the tree, and there are at least four other trees that close to the lot. 

Now, that rototiller. I’m suggesting that she give the neighbor a beer and tell him “No, Thanks this time,” because the tree’s support roots are just under that patch. Instead, put down some organic mulch and plant, oh, native coralbells (Heuchera spp.) or their colorful cultivars, or some nice small bunchgrass and forest flowers.  

The virtues of sweat with regard to garden soil are overrated, in my experience. If you have to get the rutabaga crop in quick because you’ll be living on it all winter, OK. But with a little time, you can lay down some nice organic material and let your earthworms do the work and the neighboring plants, trees, even the soil will be the better for it. Worms are skilled workers.  

American Soil has old reliable Walt Whitman compost for this, but my current crush is their pomace mulch. Pomace is the dry stuff left of grapes after winemaking. As mulch it’s elegant, finely granular, very dark (almost black) and I swear has boosted the red colors in my shady foliage garden.  

Smells better than Walt too.  

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

The town council of Danville has passed an ordinance stating that, as of July 1, an automatic gas shut-off valve must be installed any time a permit is pulled for work of $10,000 or more. 

They also waived the permit fee for stand-alone installation of the valves for a period of two years. What an enlightened group of public servants! Let’s hope their example is an inspiration to every city in this wonderful earthquake country of northern California. 

Do you want to make your city, your neighborhood, your block, safer? Contact your elected city officials and ask them to follow the sterling example of Danville. And have your valve put in, of course. 

Here’s to making your home secure and your family safe. 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.

Like most people, I want to think of myself as a good person. Someone interested in the general welfare, democracy and wholesome values. But like most people, I have a bit of a dark streak. Mayhem is fun. Trouble is more interesting than smooth, well-oiled continuity. Admit it, you probably find earthquakes and plane crashes interesting. The whole news business is based on our fascination with things gone wrong (especially things gone terribly wrong).  

In that spirit, I offer the following bit of lame-brained stuff. It’s only a tiny thing but it’s so rich in stupidity that I thought it might prove for a little good, old-fashioned, mouth-full-of-Cheetos, couch-potato gawking.  

Note our photo. Here’s what you’re looking at: This is a steel, electrical junction-box in the wall at the back of a sink cabinet in a kitchen. The cover plate for the “J-box” is of a type used to install an outlet (the big cover has a smaller opening just right for a small device). There probably used to be an outlet installed here, although given the lack of acumen and forethought in evidence, it’s absolutely possible that this was the coverplate the “electrician” (please excuse my very loose use of this term) had on the truck and “was gonna come back and put that little cover on real soon.” How the time gets away from us. Darn. 

Note the swell job done setting the J-box in the wall. It ended up getting “mudded-in” or buried in a layer of drywall joint-compound (AKA mud) because it was partially installed behind the plane of the drywall. This will necessitate excavation every time the box gets opened to make a change and will make it extremely hard to create a neat finish when installing an outlet and coverplate. Sloppy, thoughtless and no pride of workmanship. 

As a result, it was hard to get the cover to seat properly and as a result of that, it’s hanging open on the left side. Now, watch both hands closely. There’s nothing up my sleeve. It’s about to get interesting. 

Clearly, rats or mice were present. See the steel wool stuffed in all around the edge of the cabinet? This is common, if goofy, technique. Rodents, for all their tiny superpowers, can’t eat steel wool and, therefore, can’t re-enter through channels previously gnawed. It looks pretty awful but, up to this day, I’d never had more complaint about it other than to say that it was an unsightly fix and should be replaced by new drywall, blocked at the framing and supplanted by a more plausible approach to rodent control.  

But wait, this little exterminator was out for more than just rodents. They stuffed the steel wool inside the electrical box through the loose cover and wrapped it all around. This does several things. First, steel wool is a metal and is pretty darned conductive. Not as much as copper but it will do just fine for our experiment. We are, at very least, creating an electrical path between the junction box and the steel wool.  

If a hot wire touches the metal box (or the steel wool that’s been stuffed inside) as a result of some imperfect set of conditions, and this stuff really does happen, the steel wool would become energized. Like a bulb filament, steel wool is so thin that it would begin to glow red hot. 

Here’s an interesting fact. Steel wood burns! Strange, yes, but it’s true. Steel wool tends to glow red hot with only minimal flame (depending upon the air supply, temperature and other factors). In any event, it burns hot enough to set adjacent materials on fire. 

So, we now have a source of energy, a fuse (the kind used to set off a bomb) and some flammable material (your house).  

To make matters even worse, the gaps and holes around the edge of the J-box are, in part, clearly the work of rodents. This means that they communicate through to the crawlspace or the outside. The same small passage through works nicely as an air inlet to accelerate fire when the steel wool begins to burn, driving it up into nice flames and setting the cabinet on fire. 

O.K., I’ll give it a break. Yes, the wires in the box are fairly well covered over (for now) and the steel wool isn’t exactly filling the J-box. It’s not a sure-fire … fire. But that’s not good enough. 

We live in wooden houses. Let me say that again. We live in wooden houses. We put our babies and our parents in wooden houses. We run electricity through them, build fires in them and heat air, water and food with flammable (and explosive) gas inside them. This is, as they say, no mean trick. We do it with codes and practices that requires great attention to detail. We also do them sober and fully awake so that we can be aware of the many ways in which we can work around the rules and arrive at Waterloo. 

I see the work of the roving brainless on a pretty regular basis. This one was fun because it wasn’t obvious. I had to sit there for a while to get the full impact of it. The longer I looked, the bigger my eyes got. I admit it. It was, and is, fun.  

Everybody slows down to watch an accident. What I would wish for (is this my beauty pageant?) is to see a few more people slow down for the one that hasn’t happened yet.  

Photograph by Matt Cantor. This electrical junction box has become a fire hazard. 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.

FRIDAY, JULY 20 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

International Working Class Film Festival with “The Scavengers” and “Central Bakery O, Dridi” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

Get a Clue at Your Library with musician Gary Lapow at 10:30 a.m. at South Branch, Berkeley Public Library, 1901 Russell St. 981-6260.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation $5. 528-4253.  

SATURDAY, JULY 21 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meet at 9:30 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2407 Dana St., Geneva Bldg. Rm. 206 (2nd Fl) Mariebowman@pacbell.net  

Trails Challenge in the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Bring water, lunch, sunscreen and sturdy walking shoes for this 4.5 mile excursion with steep ups and downs. For meeting place call 525-2233. 

Fresh Tracks in Point Pinole on a easy-paced 1.5 mile walk along the shoreline park preserved by dynamite. Walks begin at 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. For information and meeting place call 525-2233. 

Trees are Treasures Learn about the diverse species of trees in Tilden Park on a 2 mile walk. Meet at 2:30 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Chapel of the Chimes Historical and Botanical Tour of this Julia Morgan landmark and its maze of gardens, alcoves, chapels and more, from 10 a.m. to noon at 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 228-3207. 

Art Deco Tour of Uptown Oakland Meet at 11:30 a.m. in front of the Oakland Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, for atour of Oakland’s Deco buildings including the Floral Depot, Fox Theater, I Magnin, Breuners and more. 415-982-3326. www.artdecosociety.org 

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. For reservations call 238-3234.  

Introduction to Alameda County Bioregional Ecology A workshop in the Sausal Creek Restoration Area discussing interrelationships, and practicing hands-on learning techniques and restoration. Meet at Sausal Creek restoration area in Dimond Park at 8:30 a.m. Bring a bag lunch, good walking or hiking shoes, and work gloves. Cost is $35-$50, limited scholarships and work exchanges available. To register call 415-285-6556. www.planetdrum.org 

Standing Together for Accountable Neighborhood Development with author Jane Powell on the “Smart Growth” agenda and true green alternatives to enhance respect for neighborhood character, at 1 p.m. at Faith Presbyterian Church, 430 49th St. at Webster, Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 655-3841.  

“Animals, Sea Creatures and Animation” Paintings, sculpture, digital and fiber art and more, in a benefit for Hopalong Animal Rescue. Meet the artists, and join in art projects from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2053 Ashby Ave. 644-4930.  

SolarCity Informational Meeting Find out if your home or business is a good candidate for solar power, at 10 a.m. at Live Oak Park Rec Center in North Berkeley. 888-765-2489. www.solarcity.com 

Kite-Making in conjunction with the summer reading of “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 3rd floor community room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6275. 

El Cerrito Historical Society meets at noon in Huber Park, 7711 Sea View Drive, El Cerrito. Please bring a salad, a main dish, or a dessert. 526-7507. 

Weeding Work Party on Cerrito Creek to remove thornless blackberries and cape ivy on the south bank. Meet at 10 a.m. at Adams St., one block west of San Pablo, on the Albany/El Cerrito border, just north of Carlson. 848-9358.  

California Historical Radio Society Open House from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the old KRE radio Station Building, foot of Ashby. Best access is via 67th St. in Emeryville. 524-6798. 

Report on Health Care in Cuba with KPFA’s Emiliano Echeverria, at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Nutrition Education and Food Demonstration on how to prepare simple, quick and nutritious family meals from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at San Pablo Liquor & Grocery, 2363 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. Free. 444-7144. 

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

Preschool Storytime for 3 to 5-year-olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext. 17. 

Free Lawn Bowling Lessons Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club, Acton St. at Bancroft Way. 841-2174. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, JULY 22 

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Family Birdwalk Learn birding basics during a 3 mile walk through a variety of habitats in Point Pinole, from 10 a.m. to noon. For information and meeting place call 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Dog Park Behavior Training from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Ohlone Dog Park, Grant St. and Hearst Ave. Second class July 29. Cost is $25 for both sessions. Registration required. 845-4213. www.ohlonedogpark.org 

Butterflies and Butterfly Gardening for the whole family from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Progressive Democrats of the East Bay Annual Potluck Picnic & Politics from noon to 4 p.m. at Codornices Park, Euclid & Eunice, across from the Rose Garden. All welcome.  

Local Medicinal Herbs and Your Health Learn the benefits of herbs and their use in western herbal medicine from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at EcoHouse, 1305 Hopkins St. Bring small pots and hand shovels and leave with an easy to grow medicinal herb. Cost is $15 sliding scale, no one refused for lack of funds. 548-2220, ext. 242. 

How to Inspect a House A workshop for homeowners, prospective buyers and property sellers to learn how to get the most out of a home inspection from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $85. To register call 525-7610.  

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring you rbike and tools. 527-4140. 

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, Julia Morgan’s “little castle” at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:15 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. Free, donations welcome. 883-9710. 

Social Action Forum on international environmental concerns at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Lime, Peach and Pear Tasting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Kensington Farmers’ Market, 303 Arlington, behind ACE Hardware, Kensington.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Sandra Guimares and Roselene Costa on “Beyond Psychotherapy” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JULY 23  

Preserving California’s Japantowns Community meeting on the Historic Japantowns of Berkeley and Oakland at noon at Berkeley Methodist United Church, 1710 Carleton St. Community members are invited to bring historic photos and stories that document community life. 277-2164.  

Peace Corps 50+ An information session and volunteer panel at 6 p.m. at Rockridge Public Library, 5366 College Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 452-8444, nbosustow@peacecorps.gov 

LGBT Family Picnic from noon to 3 p.m. at Lake Temescal, Park View Picnic Area, 6500 Broadway Terrace, Oakland. Bring your own picnic food and blankets. 415-981-1960. stephanie@ourfamily.org 

FOCUS Economy and Environment Forums Join a planning effort that encourages Bay Area urban growth near transit and in existing communities. The economy forum will be held from 10 a.m. to noon, and the environment forum from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Lawrence D. Dahms Auditorium, Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 8th St., across from Lake Merritt BART, Oakland. Sposored by the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 464-7926. FOCUS@abag.ca.gov, www.bayareavision.org/focusthree-e.html 

“Zero Waste and Climate Protection: Making the Connection” at the Zero Waste Commission meeting at 7 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-7081. 

Family Sing-a-long at 6:45 p.m. at the Fourth Flr. Children’s Library, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

Sing-a-long Circles in the Oak Grove from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the threatened Oak Grove in front of Memorial Stadium, Piedmont Ave., just north of Bancroft. 658-9178. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

TUESDAY, JULY 24 

Southwest Berkeley Community Library Needs Assessment Community Meeting at 7 p.m. at LifeLong Medical Care, 3260 Sacramento St. at Alcatraz. 981-6195. 

Bus Rapid Transit: Focus on Southside Berkeley Community Workshop at the Transit Subcommittee of the Transportation Commission at 6:30 p.m. at 2362 Bancroft Way. 981-7010.  

Public Meeting on Bay Area Transportation Planning The Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration are reviewing the Bay Area's transportation planning process carried out by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The public in invited to comment at 5 p.m. at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter Auditorium, 101 Eighth St., across from Lake Merritt BART, Oakland. 817-5757. www.mtc.ca.gov 

East Bay Vivarium’s Traveling Reptile Show at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave, Albany. 526-3720 ext 17. 

“Looking Outside the Big Box for Local Economic Growth” with Jeff Milchen, co-founder of the American Independent Business Alliance at 7 p.m. at The Home of Truth, 1300 Grand St., between Encinal and Central, Alameda. Sponsored by Action Alameda and California Healthy Communities Network, a project of non-profit Tides Center. 522-2208. www.calhcn.org  

Educator’s Academy on Natural History for pre-school to 3rd grade teachers to learn easy ways to liven up lessons on natural history. From 9:30 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Fee is $45-$51, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

“Mobility Matters for Older Drivers” a video presentation at 1 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Free Diabetes Screening Come find out if you might have diabetes with our free screening test and make sure not to eat or drink anything for 8 hours beforehand, from 8:45 to 1:30 a.m. at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, 200 Grand Ave. 981-5332. 

Tuesday Documentaries at 7 p.m. at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Donation of $5 benefits the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. 665-0305. 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. MelDancing@aol.com 

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

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

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 1247 Marin Ave. 524-9122.  

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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, JULY 25 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about butterflies from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Walking Tour of Oakland Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the courtyard fountain in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

“The Political Scene: State and County Priorities” with Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson at the Berkeley Gray Panthers meeting at 1:30 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 548-9696. 

South Berkeley Library Move with Noll & Tam Architects who have been hired to investigate possible spaces for the library at the Ed Roberts Campus, at Board of Library Trustees meeting at 5 p.m. at South Branch Library, 1901 Russell Street at MLK, Jr., Way. 981-6107. 

“Climate Protection and Berkeley’s Built Environment” at the Planning Commission meeting at 6 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-7081. 

Prevent Scams, Fraud and Identity Theft A presentation to help seniors at 7 p.m. at the Persian Center, 2029 Durant Ave. RSVP to 848-0264. 

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

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

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, JULY 26 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about butterflies from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Tilden Explorers A nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We’ll learn about butterflies from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m.. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Starry Night Skies with Celeste Burrows from the Chabot Space and Science Center followed by a 3 mile hike to Wildcat Peak to watch the sunset, search for constellations and observe the moon. At 6:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

FOCUS Equity Forum Join a planning effort that encourages Bay Area urban growth near transit and in existing communities, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Lawrence D. Dahms Auditorium, Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 8th St., across from Lake Merritt BART, Oakland. Sposored by the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 464-7926.  

“The Truth About Darfur and the Struggle for African Liberation” A teach-in and fundraiser at 7 p.m. at Interplay, 2273 Telegraph Ave, Oakland. 625-1106. www.solidarityforafrica.org 

Kibale Community Fuel Project A report on how innovative stoves are being used in Uganda, at 6:30 p.m. in the Marian Zimmer Auditorium, Oakland Zoo. 632-9525, ext. 122. 

“Staying Human in the Computer Age” A conference on the the challenges of and opportunities for human identity in the computer age. Thurs.-Sun. at International House, Piendmont Ave. at Bancroft. For information call 415-567-5115. www.binarybeing.org 

Compressed Natural Gas Station Grand Opening at 10 a.m. at 205 Brush St., West Oakland. Includes a display of alternative fuel vehicles. 238-2966. 

Easy Does It Board of Directors’ Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at 1636 University Ave. 845-5513.  

Cope with Creativity Workshop on “Art to Express Grief” at 6:30 p.m. at 4401 Howe St., Oakland. To register call 888-755-7855, ext. 4241. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Zero Waste Commission Mon., July 23, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. 981-6368.  

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533.  

Energy Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., July 26 , at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs. July 26, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213. 

TUESDAY, JULY 17 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Burdened Dreams” Paintings and sculpture by Marty McCorkle and Victoria Skirpa opens at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcott Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Storytellers Bob and Liz tell tales for all ages at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Diana Abu-Jaber reads from her new novel “Origin” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jeffrey Broussard & The Creole Cowboys at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

George Costileros Trio at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Herb Gibson at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $6-$10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18 

FILM 

International Latino Film Festival “Barrio Cuba” at 7 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6555. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Matthew Rothschild, editor and publisher of The Progressive reads from his new book “You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression” at 7 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Samantha Schoech and Lisa Taggart, editors, read from “The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty and Body Image” at 7:30 p.m. at Diesel, 5433 College Ave., Oakland. 653-9965. 

Ellen Sussman describes “Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Café Poetry with Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

Loose Wig Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Bernard Anderson & The Old School Band at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

La Verdad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Buxter Hoot’n at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mikie Lee and Amber at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

The Energy Trio, funky jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Lower Class Brats, Career Soldiers, The Ghouls at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $7. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Marc Carey at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 19 

THEATER  

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 7 p.m. at Montclair Ball Field, 6300 Moraga Ave., Montclair. 415-285-1717. www.sfmt.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Women by Women: The Dynamic Feminine Aspect” works by Jennifer Downey and Susan Matthews. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Office Building Atrium, 1515 Clay St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to Aug. 31. 622-8190. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Shipibo-Conibo Song Cloths from the Amazon” A lecture at 7 p.m. at Gathering Tribes, 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038. 

Poetry Flash with Luis Garcia and Maurice Kenny at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Bruce Riordan on “Global Warming Impacts on the Bay Area” a slideshow and lecture at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Jason Roberts describes “A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveller” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Lloyd Gregory at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

“Voices in the Virtual World” Oaktown Creativity Center House Choir at 8 p.m. at 447 25th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5-$10. 568-6920. 

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

Stephanie Crawford & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Therese Brewitz at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Brian Kenney-Fresno, 20 Minute Loop, Midline Errors at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Eleggua, percussion from Venezuela with African roots, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mose Allison Trio at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, JULY 20 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “All in the Timing” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Altarena Playhouse “Oh My Godmother” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Bosoms and Neglect” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., SUn. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 22. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “Man and Superman” by George Bernard Shaw at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through July 29. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Central Works “Bird in the Hand” Thurs-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 29. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Meet Me in St. Louis” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. in July at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Aug. 4. 524-9132. 

Impact Theatre “Impact Briefs 8: Sinfully Delicious” Thurs.-Sat. through July 21 at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Woodminster Summer Musicals “West Side Story” at 8 p.m. through July 22 at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland. Tickets are $23-$36. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

FILM 

International Working Class Film Fest “The Scavengers” and “Central Bakery” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net  

Movies About Movies “Hearts of Darkeness” at 3:30 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6139. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music that Cooks Steve Taylor-Ramírez, neo-folk, blues and Latin-hillbilly roots, in a benefit concert to feed the homeless at 7:30 p.m. at College Ave. Presbyterian Church, 5951 College Ave., Oakland. Donation $5-$10.  

The Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of S.F. at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Jeff Stein Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Rachel Efron & Her Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Broun Fellinis, The Funkanauts, Winstrong & The 7th Street Sound and others at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15, or $12 with donation of a canned good. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jessie Turner at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

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

Brothers Goldman, funk, blues at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Elizabeth August and friends at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Push to Talk, The Attachments, The Makes Nice, Poor Bailey at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Phobia, Intronaut, Book of Black Earth at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Jayson Bales at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Sugar Shack at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mose Allison Trio at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 21 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Burdened Dreams” Paintings and sculpture by Marty McCorkle and Victoria Skirpa. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcott Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

Art in the Garden featuring Richmond and East Bay artists Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 2p.m. at Annie’s Annuals, 740 Market Ave., Richmond. 215-1326. 

FILM 

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema “Ray” with screenwriter James L. White at dusk at Ninth St., between Braodway and Washington. 238-4734. www.filmoakland.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jane Powell on the “Smart Growth” agenda and true green alternatives to enhance respect for neighborhood character, at 1 p.m. at Faith Presbyterian Church, 430 49th St. at Webster, Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 655-3841. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Aïda” at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $15-$40. 925-798-1300. 

Many Faiths, Many Forms: A Sacred Dance Concert at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church in the Sanctuary, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $8.50-$15 adults. 849-0788. www.sacreddanceguild.org 

Meidoko “Unearth” Japanese drumming with electronic instrumentation at 8 p.m. at Capoeira Arts Cafe, 2026 Addison St. Cost is $10.  

Robin Gregory & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Kalbass, Haitian at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Jon Roniger and Jacob Wolkenhauer at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Sugar Shack at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Carol McComb & Kathy Larisch at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Max Chanowitz Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Nicole McRory at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Buxter Hoot’n, Loretta Lynch at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Kasey Knudsen Sextet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, JULY 22 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Mosswood Park, MacArthur and Broadway, Oakland. 415-285-1717. www.sfmt.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Second Bay Area Baby Beats with Sterling Bunnell, Marsha Campbell, Joie Cook, Deirdre Evans and Chris Trian, H.D.Moe and Mark Schwartz reading from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-3402. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Midsummer Mozart, Program I featuring pianist Janina Fialkowska at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church. Tickets are $30-$60. 415-627-9145. www.midsummermozart.org 

Summer Jazz with Robert Stewards at 3 p.m., The History of Jazz with Randy Moore at 4:30 p.m. at Open Jam Session at 5 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Golden Gate Branch, 5606 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 597-5023. 

“Stars and Pipes Concert” at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway, Oakland. 444-3555. 

“Dietrich & Piaf, The Intimate Song” with Ellen Brooks and Shannon Nicholson at 7 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda. Tickets are $18-$20. Reservations recommended. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Terrance Kelly at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Rahmil & Barley at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Americana Unplugged: Redwing Bluegrass Band at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Joe Young/Hamir Atwal Group at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Barbara Dane at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MONDAY, JULY 23 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Color & Light” Photographic art by Bill Hannapple opens at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St., through Aug. 24. 649-8111. www.lightroom.com 

“Shaped by Water” Abstract landscape paintings by Jane Norling opens at the EBMUD Gallery, 375 11th St., Oakland. 287-0138. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Marc Freedman describes “Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Richard Denner and David Mansfield Bromige at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express open mic theme night on “folktales” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Musica Ha Disconnesso traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

John McCutcheon at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Anthony Blea y su Charanga “A Night in La Havana” at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

For the last two weeks, Maestro George Cleve has been teasing Mozart aficionados with hints of what they can expect at this year’s upcoming 33rd Annual Midsummer Mozart Festival.  

A week ago Sunday, 150 fans were treated to a cornucopia of smoked salmon, brie cheese, Joseph Schmidt truffles and a delicious Gundlach Bundschu Pinot while members of the Festival Orchestra regaled them with a variety of duets, trios and quartets in an idyllic garden setting of roses, hummingbirds, violets and finches.  

Last Wednesday, the whole Ensemble previewed the opening piece of this year’s first program at a Noontime Concert at the historic St. Patrick’s Church at Yerba Buena Gardens. 

For the garden party there were contemporary transcriptions for flute and violin of arias from The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute including some of the bird catcher Papageno’s most beloved songs; two movements from the intense, late Divertimento for String Trio, a masterpiece and, sadly, his only string trio; and the two movements of his brief 3rd Flute Quartet, whose second movement Mozart later transmuted into the sixth of his magnificent Gran Partitas. Flutist Maria Tamburino was outstanding, as always, in the duets and the quartet. 

At St. Patrick’s, the orchestra performed the Divertimento for Two Horns and Strings in B flat, which was probably composed to celebrate Mozart’s sister Nannerl’s name day on July 26, 1776. When Mozart penned this, he was 20, his sister was 25 and the United States was three weeks old. 

These performances in gardens and churches return this great composer’s music to the kind of informal and occasional settings in which they were first played. 

This is not to say that Mozart was never played in concert halls in his own lifetime, but almost all of his music was written for some specific event: the sacred music was presented as part of a service at a church or cathedral; the operas premiered in theaters as the equivalent of our Broadway musical openings; many of the piano sonatas were written as practice pieces for his students; the serenades and divertimentos were the background music to graduations and weddings; the Masonic pieces were played in the Lodge and at memorials for departed brothers; arrangements of Bach and Handel were done for the musical get-togethers in the home of his patron, Baron von Swieten. It would be easy to multiply examples.  

The first program of the festival, which runs from July 19-22, will feature the aforementioned Divertimento for Oboe, 2 Horns and Strings in D major. Mozart composed this work in the same month that he composed the Haffner Serenade and its accompanying march, the opening pieces of the festival’s second program. The strings called for in the title are a quartet, not the full ensemble, so this is an intimate chamber piece.  

The Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat major, featuring internationally renowned pianist Janina Fialkowska, was the first of three that he wrote over a fourteen-week period for performance at Lenten concerts in 1786. Although No. 23 is the most famous, there is nothing shabby about any of them. The final rondo allegro of No. 22 begins with a child-like theme that becomes a happy march when picked up by the full orchestra.  

The Bassoon Concerto in B flat major, featuring Rufus Olivier, principal bassoonist with the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet, like all the wind concertos, is less well-known than the keyboard and violin concertos. It is a treat to hear Mozart composing for a more unusual horn sound. Like Shakespeare, he gets inside the personality of the voice for which he is writing and gives the bassoon a profound set of wordless arias full of lovely melodies and some amount of virtuosic gymnastics. 

Symphony No. 34 in C major is a transitional work, the last before the final six great symphonies. Scattered among the earlier numbers, none of which have a minuet movement, are such masterpieces as Nos. 25, 29 and 31, and the Paris Symphony. No. 34 is the last of these charming, early, small-scale gems.  

The second program of the festival, which runs from July 26-29, will begin with the March in D major, K.249, and the Serenade for Orchestra in D major, “Haffner,” featuring violinist and concertmaster Robin Hansen. Although the serenade and the later symphony of the same name were written for the Haffner family, there is no musical connection between them. The serenade was commissioned to celebrate the marriage of Marie Elisabeth Haffner and contains some exquisite solo violin writing by Mozart. 

“Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia?” aria, K.582 and “Vado, ma dove?” aria, featuring lyric mezzo-soprano Elspeth Franks, both have texts by Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart’s great Italian librettist of the Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni. Neither of these pieces, though, is from a Mozart opera. Instead, they were written in 1789 for insertion into an otherwise forgotten opera by Martin y Soler featuring Louise Villeneuve. The emotionally charged Mozart arias would have spiced up an otherwise dull opera while also displaying the strengths of Villeneuve’s voice. The following year she was the first Doribella in Cosi fan tutte. 

This year’s Midsummer Mozart Festival concludes with the glorious Mass in C Major “Coronation,” sung by Cantabile Chorale. Two of Mozart’s greatest masses, the C minor and the famous Requiem, are incomplete, so the Coronation Mass is the only one of his sacred masterpieces that Mozart finished. It takes its name from the fact that Salieri, his supposed enemy, directed a performance of this mass at the 1791 coronation of Leopold II. Mozart applied all the resources he would have brought to an opera to this Latin text church composition. The soprano solo parts function as beautiful arias. 

We are often reduced to inadequate adjectives when we attempt to describe music, but the compositions of Mozart include masterpieces as great and greater than those of any other European classical composer.  

Yet even his lesser works have an inherent perfection that is unparalleled in the work of any other composer. Once they are begun, they have an inevitability that is the sign of their genius. George Cleve is one of the great living interpreters of Mozart and whether he chooses to open up some small unknown treasure otherwise ignored or to revisit a familiar masterpiece and give it new life, he always presents something revelatory about the work of this divinely gifted composer. 

The four performances of the first program take place on July 19 at 7:30 pm at St. Joseph Cathedral Basilica, San Jose; on July 20 at 8 p.m. at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; on July 21 at 6:30 p.m. outdoors at Gundlach Bundschu Winery, Sonoma; and on July 22 at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Berkeley.  

The four performances of the second program take place on July 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Mission Santa Clara, SCU Campus, Santa Clara; on July 27 at 8 p.m. at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; on July 28 at 6:30 p.m. outdoors at Gundlach Bundschu Winery, Sonoma; and on July 29 at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Berkeley. 

For tickets and information about the Midsummer Mozart Festival call (415) 627-9145 or see www.midsummermozart.org 

To the strains of “Makin’ Whoopie,” the Impact Briefs 8: Sinfully Delicious ensemble (Steve Budd, Elissa Dunn, Leon Goertzen, Jon Lutz and Monica Coretes Viharo) hits the stage with a round-robin confession, disguised as a survey: The Last Sinful Thing You’ve Done—ran over a frog, poked a badger with a spoon, talked to my ex under an assumed name, shoplifted an onion, mooned the Pope, touched myself and thought of Prince Gomovilas, had a secret orgasm onstage (“Just now?”) ... and the humor gets equally bad in proportion to the sins. 

But Bad is Good at impact, at least “in Brief”—brief also meaning the scanty attire of the four burlesque dancers (Jessica Kiely, Helen Nesteruk, Monica Santiago and Rachel Throesch) who punctuate the sketches with high-spirited, oldtime risqué’ dance numbers, whether as sailors or nuns in high heels, sometimes vaguely Busby Berkeleyish, in Helen Nesteruk’s choreography. 

The sketches range all over, though the theme seems to be pushing the envelope. There’s the jilted high school sweetheart who calls “1-800-SUICIDE,” cinched up with her ex’s necktie, ready to end it all—only to be asked out by the “older guy” who answers her plea for help. Or the poor jerk who gets off at the wrong underground stop, only to find himself trapped, still living, in a downsizing corporate Hell (“Haven’t had a Divine Comedy [code name for a live one] in centuries!”)—followed by the burlesque dancers in a catfight betwixt angels and devils. 

The most successful—and audibly appreciated—sketch features a wife’s dismay at her husband bringing home a dead clown. There’s time for a door prize for survey completions, though the prize turns out to be another bad gag: a condom, chocolate kisses and chocolate coffee beans ... “Are you of age, Joseph?” the winner is queried. 

Below LaVal’s Northside pizzeria, and offering student discounts to an already reasonable price, the audience is made up in great part of students and younger spectators. But last Friday, a good percentage were middle-aged and older—some obviously repeat customers, to judge by the Impact T-shirts. 

The show’s staged briskly enough, by Dawn Monique Williams, yet the performers have the opportunity to be personable. All-in-all, Impact serves up what they promise—and, as they note, “Nowhere else in the Bay Area can you eat pizza and drink beer while you’re watching a play.” Equity companies note: the gauntlet is down.  

Impact Briefs 8: Sinfully Delicious  

La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. 

through Saturday 

Tickets $10-$14 

464-4468 

The week before the Fourth of July we were up at Lassen Volcanic National Park watching the traffic at Hat Lake. The place was jumping.  

A male western tanager, resplendent in red and yellow, came down to the lake’s edge to drink. Audubon’s and Wilson’s warblers flashed in and out of the young lodgepole pines. A dipper made repeated shuttle flights from its nest below the highway bridge, alternately ducking underwater to forage or swimming like a little duck as it retrieved insects—mayflies?—from the lake’s surface. Another hard-working parent, a male white-headed woodpecker, commuted between its tree-cavity nest and some beetle-rich dead snag nearby. Tree swallows skimmed low over the lake, and noisy young spotted sandpipers chased each other around the beaver lodge. 

No beavers, though. The last time we were there, we watched them late into the buggy twilight as they cruised the lake they had made, or at least augmented. This time the dam was in poor repair, and the lodge was surrounded by mud. We blamed that on the dry winter, but were still worried about the beavers. Later a ranger-naturalist told us they were gone. One had been found dead on the highway last year; another on a hiking trail—disease, old age, who knows. 

Maybe another pair will wander up from the Warner Valley and take over the franchise. If not, the lake will inexorably change, and the results of all that dedicated beavering will be gone. And everything in and around it—the tanagers, the woodpeckers, the mayflies, the pines—will be affected, one way or another. 

Some years back, before he took on organized religion, Richard Dawkins wrote a book called The Extended Phenotype. A phenotype is the physical manifestation of a genotype—the ensemble of physical traits that the genome codes for. Dawkins’ point was that you have to think of behavior as part of that ensemble, which is fair enough with beavers. Their dam-building drive is so hard-wired that if you play the sound of running water for captives, they’ll pile up sticks and brush in front of the speaker. 

Beyond that, Dawkins’ notion of the phenotype also includes the built environment that results from an organism’s behavior—the dam, the pond, the lodge. 

We tend to think of our species as the only one that leaves a significant mark on the world, for better or worse. Far from it: beyond the engineering of beavers, consider the cities of the termites or the coral polyps, the soil moved by pocket gophers. All of us, man to microorganism, shape our various environments.  

And our environments shape us back. Another book from the ’80s, Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin’s The Dialectical Biologist, tried to make that point, albeit with too much Marxist jargon for most tastes. (With us, there’s another layer when culture feeds back into the genome, as when Northern European and East African cattle herders independently—by separate genetic pathways—evolved adult lactose tolerance.) 

Woodpeckers—to pick just one of the cast of characters at Hat Lake—are builders and shapers in their own right. Their nesting cavities provide housing for a whole community of hole-nesting birds: chickadees, nuthatches, flycatchers, swallows, wrens. A woodpecker neighborhood tends to have high avian diversity. Small mammals like flying squirrels also  

adopt old woodpecker nests. 

But it doesn’t stop there. Working in Lassen National Forest, not far from where we were, Kerry Farris and Steve Zack of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Martin Huss of Arkansas State University made an interesting discovery about woodpeckers. They mist-netted white-headed, hairy, and black-backed woodpeckers, swabbed their beaks, and cultured the contents of the swab in a petri dish. Half a dozen species of filamentous fungi, some known wood-decayers, were identified in the culture.  

The woodpeckers seem to be carrying around little fungus colonies, inoculating the ponderosa pine snags where they feed with organisms that hasten the decay of the dead wood, making the birds’ foraging routines a little easier. Other cavity nesters like red-breasted nuthatches and mountain chickadees had their own fungus cultures; a control group of non-cavity-nesters—warblers, kinglets, tanagers, finches—did not. 

The jury is still out on whether what’s going on with the woodpeckers and the fungi is dedicated mutualism or opportunistic hitchhiking, and who is part of whose extended phenotype. The more you look at the interface of ecology and evolution, the more complicated it seems to get. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan, 

A male white-headed woodpecker at Hat Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park. 

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

TUESDAY, JULY 17 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Arrowhead Marsh at the Martin Luther King Regional Shoreline. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. For information and to register call 525-2233.  

The Pit Stop: Peaches & Barbecue at the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers’ Market from 3 to 7 p.m. at Derby St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org/bfm  

Prospective Parenting for the LGBT Community at 6:30 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 415-981-1960. stephanie@ourfamily.org 

Feng Shui Your Mind with Maureen Raytis, acupuncturist, and Jill Lebeau, psychotherapist at 7 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

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

Tuesday Documentaries at 7 p.m. at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Donation of $5 benefits the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. 665-0305. 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 1247 Marin Ave. 524-9122.  

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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

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

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

“You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression” with Matthew Rothschild, editor and publisher of The Progressive, at 7 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698.  

Harry Potter Jeopardy Children up to the age of 15 can show off their Harry Potter knowledge at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

Family Math and Science Night for children aged 7-10 and their families at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JULY 19 

Tilden Mini-Rangers Hiking, conservation and nature-based activities for ages 8-12. Dress to ramble and get dirty. From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Summer Family Film Festival Children’s film at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 3rd flr., 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

“Global Warming Impacts on the Bay Area” a slideshow and lecture with Bruce Riordan at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways Bookstore, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

“Alternatives to the Automobile in Berkeley” A public meeting to discuss ways the city can meet the greenhouse gass emissions reduction target, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-7081.  

Estate Planning Essentials for the LGBT Community at 6:30 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 415-981-1960.  

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755.  

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline. nam 

aste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

FRIDAY, JULY 20 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

International Working Class Film Festival with “The Scavengers” and “Central Bakery O, Dridi” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

Get a Clue at Your Library with musician Gary Lapow at 10:30 a.m. at South Branch, Berkeley Public Library, 1901 Russell St. 981-6260.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253.  

SATURDAY, JULY 21 

Trails Challenge in the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Bring water, lunch, sunscreen and sturdy walking shoes for this 4.5 mile excursion with steep ups and downs. For meeting place call 525-2233. 

Fresh Tracks in Point Pinole on a easy-paced 1.5 mile walk along the shoreline park preserved by dynamite. Walks begin at 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. For information and meeting place call 525-2233. 

Trees are Treasures Learn about the diverse species of trees in Tilden Park on a 2 mile walk. Meet at 2:30 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Chapel of the Chimes Historical and Botanical Tour of this Julia Morgan landmark and its maze of gardens, alcoves, chapels and more, from 10 a.m. to noon at 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 228-3207. 

Art Deco Tour of Uptown Oakland Meet at 11:30 a.m. in front of the Oakland Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, for atour of Oakland’s Deco buildings including the Floral Depot, Fox Theater, I Magnin, Breuners and more. 415-982-3326. www.artdecosociety.org 

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. For reservations call 238-3234.  

Introduction to Alameda County Bioregional Ecology A workshop in the Sausal Creek Restoration Area discussing interrelationships, and practicing hands-on learning techniques and restoration. Meet at Sausal Creek restoration area in Dimond Park at 8:30 a.m. Bring a bag lunch, good walking or hiking shoes, and work gloves. Cost is $35-$50, limited scholarships and work exchanges available. To register call 415-285-6556. www.planetdrum.org 

Standing Together for Accountable Neighborhood Development with author Jane Powell on the “Smart Growth” agenda and true green alternatives to enhance respect for neighborhood character, at 1 p.m. at Faith Presbyterian Church, 430 49th St. at Webster, Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 655-3841.  

“Animals, Sea Creatures and Animation” Paintings, sculpture, digital and fiber art and more, in a benefit for Hopalong Animal Rescue. Meet the artists, and join in art projects from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2053 Ashby Ave. 644-4930.  

SolarCity Informational Meeting Find out if your home or business is a good candidate for solar power, at 10 a.m. at Live Oak Park Rec Center in North Berkeley. 888-765-2489. www.solarcity.com 

Kite-Making in conjunction with the summer reading of “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 3rd floor community room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6275. 

El Cerrito Historical Society meets at noon in Huber Park, 7711 Sea View Drive, El Cerrito. Please bring a salad, a main dish, or a dessert. 526-7507. 

Weeding Work Party on Cerrito Creek to remove thornless blackberries and cape ivy on the south bank. Meet at 10 a.m. at Adams St., one block west of San Pablo, on the Albany/El Cerrito border, just north of Carlson. 848-9358.  

California Historical Radio Society Open House from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the old KRE radio Station Building, foot of Ashby. Best access is via 67th St. in Emeryville. 524-6798. 

Report on Health Care in Cuba with KPFA’s Emiliano Echeverria, at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Nutrition Education and Food Demonstration on how to prepare simple, quick and nutritious family meals from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at San Pablo Liquor & Grocery, 2363 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. Free. 444-7144. 

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

Preschool Storytime for 3 to 5-year-olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext. 17. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club meets at 10 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, JULY 22 

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Family Birdwalk Learn birding basics during a 3 mile walk through a variety of habitats in Point Pinole, from 10 a.m. to noon. For information and meeting place call 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Butterflies and Butterfly Gardening for the whole family from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Dog Park Behavior Training from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Ohlone Dog Park, Grant St. and Hearst Ave. Second class July 29. Cost is $25 for both sessions. Registration required. 845-4213. www.ohlonedogpark.org 

Progressive Democrats of the East Bay Annual Potluck Picnic & Politics from noon to 4 p.m. at Codornices Park, Euclid & Eunice, across from the Rose Garden. All welcome.  

Local Medicinal Herbs and Your Health Learn the benefits of herbs and their use in western herbal medicine from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at EcoHouse, 1305 Hopkins St. Bring small pots and hand shovels and leave with an easy to grow medicinal herb. Cost is $15 sliding scale, no one refused for lack of funds. 548-2220, ext. 242. 

How to Inspect a House A workshop for homeowners, prospective buyers and property sellers to learn how to get the most out of a home inspection from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $85. To register call 525-7610. www.bldgeductr.org 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring you rbike and tools. 527-4140. 

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, Julia Morgan’s “little castle” at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:15 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. Free, donations welcome. 883-9710. 

Social Action Forum on international environmental concerns at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Lime, Peach and Pear Tasting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Kensington Farmers’ Market, 303 Arlington, behind ACE Hardware, Kensington.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sandra Guimares and Roselene Costa on “Beyond Psychotherapy” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, JULY 23  

Peace Corps 50+ An infomation session and volunteer panel at 6 p.m. at Rockridge Public Library, 5366 College Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 452-8444, nbosustow@peacecorps.gov 

Preserving California’s Japantowns Community meeting on the Historic Japantowns of Berkeley and Oakland at noon at Berkeley Methodist United Church, 1710 Carleton St. Community members are invited to bring historic photos and stories that document community life. 540-6809. 

LGBT Family Picnic from noon to 3 p.m. at Lake Temescal, Park View Picnic Area, 6500 Broadway Terrace, Oakland. Bring your own picnic food and blankets. 415-981-1960. stephanie@ourfamily.org 

Family Sing-a-long at 6:45 p.m. at the Fourth Flr. Children’s Library, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

Sing-a-long Circles in the Oak Grove from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the threatened Oak Grove in front of Memorial Stadium, Piedmont Ave., just north of Bancroft. 658-9178. 

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. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Tues., July 17, at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers. 981-6900.  

City Council meets Tues., July 17, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., July 18, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6601. 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., July 18, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5344.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed., July 18, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., July 19, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

Commission on Labor meets Thurs., July 19, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7550.  

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., July 19, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7010.