Full Text

The downtown Peet’s at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Kittredge Street will soon be joined by 
                                          another a block away in the BART station.
Judith Scherr
The downtown Peet’s at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Kittredge Street will soon be joined by another a block away in the BART station.
 

News

Chan Files Complaint Against Hancock Charging Illegal Use of Funds

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday April 04, 2008

Posted Mon., April 7—Former 16th District Assemblymember Wilma Chan has filed a complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) against 14th District Assemblymember Loni Hancock—Chan’s opponent in the race to succeed termed-out 9th District State Senator Don Perata—charging that Hancock has illegally used her assemblymember officeholder account to pay a campaign staff member. 

The Hancock campaign denies the charge. 

In their FPPC complaint, the Chan campaign says that Hancock For Senate 2008 Campaign Manager Terri Waller was paid some $15,000 for campaign work from the officeholder account between June of 2007 and March 14 of this year. Until she became Hancock’s campaign manager on the first of March of this year, Waller worked as a district director in Hancock’s 14th Assembly District office. 

California law has established officeholder accounts to pay for an officeholder’s political activities during their time in office, but not for specific campaign expenses, which are paid for by a separate campaign account. The officeholder accounts are donor-financed, and are regularly reported to the California Secretary of State, with contributions and expenditures posted on the Secretary of State’s website. 

Chan’s complaint says that Hancock compensated Waller from the officeholder account for “campaign consultant services,” and that Waller accompanied Hancock to four Senate endorsement interviews between December 2007 and February of this year. 

The complaint also says that Waller “introduced herself as the campaign manager during at least one Senate endorsement interview,” but does not give the date of that interview. 

Cliff Staton, a consultant with the Hancock campaign, says “there is no truth” to the allegations.  

Staton said that any work done by Waller prior to the first of March was in her capacity of district director and not as campaign manager. He also said that Waller was paid from Hancock’s officeholder account in March, but the payment was for activities Waller conducted for Hancock’s assembly office in February, before Waller became senate campaign manager in March. 

 


Oakland Plans Reception Honoring Robeson on his 110th Birthday

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday April 04, 2008

Posted Sun., April 6—The City of Oakland will honor the legacy of Paul Robeson—one of the giant figures in American History—with an April 9 City Hall reception on the 110th anniversary of his birth.  

Robeson, the son of a minister escaped from Southern slavery, was a nationally famed athlete, singer, and film and stage actor, but he made his greatest mark as one of the leaders of the protest movement against injustices against African-Americans. His protest work bridged the gap between the W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey eras and the beginning of the 1950's-1960's civil rights movement. Robeson spoke in the Bay Area many times during his career, particularly at the University of California, and had many close ties and associations in the area.  

The 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. April 9 reception in the rotunda of Oakland City Hall will include speeches by ICLWU Executive Committee member Clarence Thomas and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, an excerpt presentation by English playwright Tayo Aluko of his newly written Paul Robeson play, and a performance by the Vukani Mawethu Southern African choir.  

Oakland's City Hall rotunda is the site of a month-long photo and memorabilia exhibit on Paul Robeson, his life and his accomplishments in sports, art, and protest, which will end April 30th. The exhibit is sponsored by the Bay Area Paul Robeson Centennial Committee. 


Group Marks 40th Anniversary of King Assassination

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 04, 2008

Posted Sat., April 5—A small but dedicated crowd turned up to mark the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination by reading aloud his Letter from a Birmingham Jail at the downtown Berkeley Public Library on Friday. The event coincided with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Youth Council's National Day of Nonviolence, started nine years ago by the organization's former director Jamal Bryant to encourage youth to fight against community violence.  

"Back in 1999, there was an increase in violence, brought about by the shootings of artists such as Tupac and Biggie," said Berkeley NAACP youth council advisor Denisha DeLane. "I remember being at the table when we created the day of non-violence, and almost a decade later, violence still lives and breathes. Attacks on Liberation Theology and what Rev. Jeremiah Wright said at the pulpit scare me. He doesn't have to be everybody's pastor but he's somebody's pastor. People are hurting, they feel rejected."  

DeLane said that Dr. King's letter, written in 1963, dealt with issues plaguing society that persist today. "Violence, crime, misogyny, sexism—it's still out there," she said. "Shootings and stabbings have increased in South Berkeley. One of my former classmates was shot by a young man in Berkeley two weeks ago. Unfortunately, we find ourselves gathering at the site of funerals and it's not until the next funeral that we have another dialogue again." Community leaders and local clergymen took turns reading from King's letter, which was a rebuttal to a statement made by eight white clergymen from Alabama. In response to their belief that the battle against racial segregation was meant to be fought in the courts and not in the streets, King said was that civil rights could not be won without forceful, direct actions. "This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never,'" he wrote.  

"And people are still telling us to wait today," Berkeley councilmember Kriss Worthington told the Planet after the reading. "It's a very powerful message. Sometimes social movements of the past can get people involved in social changes of today. Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement won some victories but the struggle still continues. America is not anywhere close to equality and fairness."  

Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action (BOCA) lead organizer Belen Pulido-Martinez said that the community had to take the first step to bring about change.  

"I work with young people from Berkeley High School who are involved in gang activities and violence," she said. "I don't think we need more police, I think we need more after-school activities, a safe place for them to go and do something constructive. How come in Berkeley we have three senior centers and not even one youth center?"  

Several meetings with Mayor Tom Bates and the city's Parks and Recreation Department led to BOCA youth getting a small space at the West Berkeley Senior Center for themselves. PG&E recently donated a building downtown to the Berkeley YMCA for a teen center, scheduled to open next year.  

"We need more stuff like that," Pulido-Martinez said. "We need a place for girls of color to go and dance for free. It's something they love to do but can't afford to pay for." Rev. Byron Williams, pastor of the Resurrection Community Church in Berkeley, echoed her thoughts.  

"The hopelessness that was there when Dr. King died is pervasive even today," he said. "People marched, people bled, they took on police dogs, they got civil rights legislation, but the economic condition put them in a second class citizenship. Our current economic situation makes things just the same. It's good to have the right to vote and fair housing, but what good is fair housing when you can't afford it?"  

Jamaul Thomas, who had been trying to sell his R&B CDs outside the library gates, followed Rev. Williams to the reading.  

"It's hard," Thomas, 22, said. "When young people don't have anything to do, they will find something to do. And more often than not, it's bad things. What we lack today is a role model, somebody to guide us through times." 


June 1 Demolition to Pave Way For Start of Trader Joe’s Project

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 04, 2008

Demolition of the strip mall at the corner of University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way will begin June 1, said developer Chris Hudson. 

Leveling of the strip mall that once housed an auto parts store and a pet supply shop is the first stage in the construction of the project popularly known as the Trader Joe’s building, but more formally named The Old Grove, after the previous name of MLK Way. 

Hudson discounted rumors that the five-story, block-long project had been canceled, with only the popular grocery store to go into a remodeled mall. 

“We’re working on the project right now,” said Hudson. “Nothing has changed, and everything is on track.” 

The project will feature four floors totaling 148 apartments above a ground floor grocery store and parking area. 

The city’s approval of the project is still the subject of a civil lawsuit filed by project neighbors on Berkeley Way, the residential street bordering the planned building on the north. 

Controversy over the building’s size and mass was one of the main reasons cited by Zoning Adjustments Board members when they decided to form a subcommittee to examine the city’s density bonus policies and come up with proposals for drawing up a city ordinance. 

Later expanded by the City Council to include members of the Planning and Housing Advisory commissions, the panel came up with recommendations that will be considered by the Planning Commission for adoption Tuesday night. 

A second set of recommendations prepared by city staff is also up for consideration at the meeting. It is a repeat of the staff proposal that city councilmembers opted to adopt in November 2006 when confronted by a state ballot measure that would have radically restricted the ability of local governments to regulate land use. 

The council adopted the staff proposal as law, with a sunset provision that voided the law soon after the state measure failed. 

Another measure, Proposition 98, on the statewide June ballot, is behind the latest effort to adopt a sunsetting density law. Opponents believe that it could outlaw both local zoning and rent control under the pretext of banning the use of eminent domain to take private homes for development.  

Meanwhile, Planning Commission members will continue to work on the density ordinance on the premise that 98 will fail. A Berkeley committee, including some planning commissioners, is now forming to oppose Proposition 98 and promote Proposition 99 as a better, less restrictive alternative.


Another Peet’s for Downtown, Underground, with Sippy Cups

By Judith Scherr
Friday April 04, 2008
The downtown Peet’s at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Kittredge Street will soon be joined by 
                                              another a block away in the BART station.
Judith Scherr
The downtown Peet’s at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Kittredge Street will soon be joined by another a block away in the BART station.

Commuting Peet-o-philes will no longer have to trudge the block or so from the downtown BART for their morning cup o’ joe.  

Come June, there will be a new Peet’s—Berkeley’s seventh —snug inside the downtown BART station. 

At first glance one might think that Peet’s and BART mix more like oil and water than coffee and milk, especially given BART’s hardline April 1 press release reminding riders: “BART police officers will ticket riders who eat or drink in the paid area,” that is, inside the gates and on the trains. 

But that does not worry Mark Lukin, president and CEO of Metropolitan Coffee and Concession, the company that’s putting Peet’s into eight BART stations around the Bay. 

The answer, Lukin says, is Metropolitan’s specially designed no-spill reusable thermal-plastic sippy cup—like the ones you see toddlers sucking on—a cup that riders could take on trains with BART’s blessing. Advertisers would subsidize the cups and Metro Coffee Peet’s outlets would take a dime off each drink they pour into one of the special sippy cups. 

“You can invert it and shake it,” Lukin said, noting that BART Board President Lynette Sweet likes the idea.  

Sweet, who represents part of Berkeley, told the Planet Thursday, “I think the sippy cup would be a wonderful addition.”  

She said BART needs to catch up with the times, now that technology can provide a no-spill cup.  

“You can’t ask people to buy the coffee, then give them a $250 fine for drinking it,” she said. 

Bob Franklin, who also represents parts of Berkeley on the board, said he needs more information on the cup. On the one hand, passengers sometimes ride the train for as much as 40 minutes and crave coffee. But on the other hand, they want clean trains. He said sippy cups are not spill proof—his toddler manages to spill liquids from his. 

As for the idea of Peet’s at BART? “It’s a good idea for a new source of revenue,” Franklin said, noting that the best places for them are at destination stations, where most people are coming into town in the morning, such as at Embarcadero in San Francisco or downtown Berkeley.  

Berkeley’s Economic Development Director Michael Caplan had not been contacted by BART and learned about the plan to put Peet’s in the downtown station from the Planet. He said the downtown has no quotas on coffee outlets. Some neighborhoods have a maximum number of certain kinds of businesses they permit. 

Although BART pays no property taxes to the city, Berkeley will benefit from Peet’s sales tax, just as it benefits from taxes on sales on UC Berkeley property. 

Asked whether Peet’s will be competing against itself and simply redistributing sales, Lukin told the story of a Starbucks in Portland that set up a second shop next to an established store.  

The second shop got the most sales and the original one increased its sales, he said, suggesting that could happen in downtown Berkeley. 

Peter Keim, Peet’s general manager of wholesale and licensing, said he thought the company would find new customers.  

Peet’s at BART will have more than the standard coffee and tea to attract customers. There will be tables and chairs and plasma TV.  

Asked whether the new Peet’s will hurt business at Tully’s Coffee, just up the escalator from the planned BART cafe, Caplan said, “There’s over 80 restaurants and cafes [in the area]. There’s usually a lively competition.” 

Reed McCann, lead barista at Tully’s was a bit less upbeat. “Personally, I’m not so hot about the idea. But as long as they’re not Starbucks, I’m not complaining.” 

 

Other downtown news 

Berkeley’s not going to have to wait till the opening of the new Peet’s to see new life downtown. 

On Tuesday, Cody’s celebrated its move to Shattuck Avenue with a grand opening marked by music and, according to Caplan, a gift certificate presented by Cody’s new landlord, Townsend Properties LLC, to the Berkeley Public Library to purchase $500 worth of books from Cody’s. 

Nearby, accompanied by fiddle music from kids and adults, Freight and Salvage broke ground on its new $12 million home Tuesday.  

Caplan said they’ll start construction immediately, even though they still lack some $3 million they need for the building. 

And up the street, Staples has opened, with its formal grand opening slated for April 9, to be accompanied by a gift of $1,000 to the Berkeley Education Foundation. 

The news from University Avenue is not so good, with the 24-year-old Plearn Restaurant having lost its lease. Its owners declined to talk about it but are looking for new restaurant space nearby.


Hancock, County Officials Blast North Richmond Casino Plans

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 04, 2008

A state legislator and county officials took sharp issue with the environmental documents prepared in support of a Lake County tribe’s bid to build a casino on industrial land in North Richmond. 

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has just released the final environmental impact statement on the Sugar Bowl Casino, planned to be built along a stretch of Richmond Parkway in the heart of one of the Bay Area’s most troubled communities. 

The Scotts Valley band of Pomos has filed for permission to take the site into trust as a reservation, the first critical step to winning approval to build a casino on the 30-acre parcel north of the intersection of Richmond Parkway and Parr Boulevard. 

The official responses released as part of the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) on the project done two years ago and released last week in the final EIS, prepared by a private consultant hired by the tribe. 

The Sugar Bowl is one of two off-reservation casino proposals being floated for the Richmond area, with the second, at Point Molate, considered less likely after the withdrawal of Harrah’s, the major corporate sponsor. 

James D. Levine, the creator of the Point Molate project, is a donor to state legislator Loni Hancock’s campaign fund. 

Both projects involve tribes who lost their ancestral lands after the BIA launched a subsequently abandoned policy of “mainstreaming” tribal people in urban society through forced off-reservation schooling and loss of their reservations. Only such tribes are currently allowed to build off-reservation gambling spas. 

“[T]he DEIS does not take into account the basic concerns of the local community and fails to give a clear, complete and objective analysis of the proposal,” wrote Loni Hancock, who represents the area in the California Assembly. “I concur with the county’s concerns and support their opposition to the land acquisition.” 

Hancock said the draft statement “is simply incorrect” in claiming there is no connection between crime and gambling, ignoring new studies that “have shown strong correlations exist.” 

Of special concern, Hancock wrote, was the fact that Richmond ranked as the state’s most violent city, and the 12th most violent nationally, making the community “an already high-risk urban area.” 

The legislator cited national studies showing that compulsive gambling rates double when a casino arrives in a community, creating a population with documented “higher rates of domestic abuse, divorce and suicide.” 

Proposed mitigation measures, she said, “are woefully inadequate.” 

Hancock also questioned the study’s claim that the casino would create 2,108 new full-time jobs, and she raised health concerns related to the smoking that would occur on-site. Tribal reservations are exempt from state anti-smoking laws, though some tribes in other states have agreed to ban smoking in their casinos. 

Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, who represents the county’s western district, provided a compendium of comments from county agencies, beginning with the comments that the environmental statement’s format is “dense, and the document is difficult for a reader to decipher.” 

 

Document glitches 

The final document came to the Planet in the form of a computer disk on which the document comprised a collection of computer files and folders in which key illustrations and figures were separated from the documents that they were meant to augment. 

BIA Environmental Protection Specialist Patrick O’Mallan said he was told that the consultants who prepared the document said that was the only way the files could be organized because of their size. 

This reporter has seen dozens of environmental documents, but has never seen one in which key parts weren’t assembled and which required extensive work by the recipient to make the document intelligible. The BIA offered to send a printed draft, which hadn’t arrived by deadline. 

The document itself was designed to be accessed only through a web browser, Firefox, installed on a minority of computers. 

 

County concerns 

County officials also charged that the EIS used a faulty study to estimate revenues that would be generated by the two casino proposals considered in the document, one a scaled-down version of the preferred alternative. 

The county letter charged that the report “substantially” overestimates casino profit margins, given the history of other casinos, and fails to consider interest costs as an expense against revenues. The county also charged that the report fails to provide an adequate basis for estimating revenues that will flow to the tribe. 

Annual payment to members of the Scotts Valley Pomos would be substantial in either case, with estimates ranging from $79,543 to $200,943. Additional revenues would flow to tribal operations and a tribal economic development fund, bringing the per-member revenues estimate range to between $389,762 and $984,620. 

Though the Scotts Valley Pomos lost their Lake County reservation, county officials say the initial environmental statement failed to document how many members had relocated to Contra Costa County and the broader Bay Area. The county also charges that the tribe was never located in the East Bay and thus has no traditional claim on the area. 

The county also charges that none of the plans fit within the uses prescribed by either the county’s general plan, the North Richmond Shoreline Specific Plan or the North Richmond Planned Unit Zoning Program, and the plans violate regulations governing site coverage, floor area and numbers of employees per acre. 

Conversely, county officials contend, the environmental document wrongly rejects development in the tribe’s traditional home in Lake County. 

Other concerns included seismic dangers, water quality and runoff, wastewater handling, housing and air quality. 

County officials also said the tribe’s environmental consultant had overestimated both total employment and salaries resulting from the casino, while failing to give adequate treatment to county-level em-ployment considerations as well as jobs for tribe members. 

Another concern of the county is loss of property taxes, which would run nearly $2 million for an equivalent structure built on non-exempt land. But since reservations are sovereign land, they are not legally part of the county and are thus exempt from property taxes. 

The county letter agreed with Hancock’s contention that impacts from pathological gambling had not been given adequate consideration, especially in light of national studies documenting the disproportional impacts of gambling on the young, the less-educated and the poor, populations found in large numbers in the West County area. The same studies also found higher rates of problem gambling among African Americans, who comprise a significant percentage of the surrounding community. 

The county charged that the study made “no attempt to quantify the problem of pathological gambling” stemming from the project, and called for a review of casino impacts on social problems, including mental health, alcoholism and other drug abuse, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, elder abuse, truancy, divorce, crime, health problems and smoking. 

County officials said the report also failed to address or failed to give thorough consideration to transportation issues that the county had specifically requested the study to address, including impacts on railroad crossings, possible truck and traffic diversion, pedestrian and bicycle safety and a wide range of other traffic-related issues, including impacts of casino-related travel on a number of intersections and freeways. 

County officials rejected most of the report’s section on law enforcement problems, noting that the three casinos used for comparison were all located in rural areas, and not, like the Sugar Bowl, in the heart of a densely populated urban setting. 

The county also charged that the report failed to give adequate consideration to possible impacts on fire protection and emergency medical services. 

The county charged the report failed to a acknowledge an “irreversible significant change in community character” that would result, failed to address the full range of minority populations in the area and misused standard guidelines for estimating minority poverty levels. 

By contrast, the final EIS contends “there is no link between casino-style gambling and crime” beyond the increase otherwise expected by bringing more people into the area, and it also claim there is no correlation between the introduction of casinos and bankruptcies. Only 105 new cases of people seeking treatment for gambling problems are likely, the document contends. 

Despite the rather scathing critiques from local government, the environmental statement drew plaudits from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which commended the BIA and the tribe for a “well-prepared document, including a thorough cumulative impacts section.” 

Duane James, manager of the Communities and Ecosystems Division of the EPA’s Environmental Review Office, wrote that his only concern was the document’s failure to address contaminants that might already be located in the soil of the project site and how these would be handled if any were found.


N. Shattuck Plaza Plan Resurfaces, Angering Foes

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 04, 2008

After almost a year-long hiatus, the North Shattuck Plaza is back—this time as part of the recently launched public review draft of the Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan prepared by the city’s Public Works Department Transportation Division. 

The city’s plan describes a two-phase process for pedestrian plaza improvement on North Shattuck, which would first restrict vehicle access to Shattuck and Rose streets to ease congestion and, if that works, then construct a plaza. 

For project opponents, many of whom have considered the plaza long dead, its revival came as a surprise and in some cases shock. 

“It’s sneaky,” said North Shattuck resident Julia Ross, a member of the Live Oak Codornices Neighborhood Asso-ciation (LOCCNA)—a neighborhood group around North Shattuck—which passed a resolution opposing the plaza. 

“This thing seems to ‘die’ and then, whoooooops, here it is back again,” LOCCNA member Ruth Peyton wrote in an e-mail to the city’s Planning Department. “Cats only have nine lives; how many do ill conceived and unwanted projects have?” 

Principal Transportation Plan-ner Matthew Nichols, who worked on the master plan, defended the proposal. 

“Some people think we are trying to sneak it back in but that’s precisely why we have a public comment period,” Nichols told the Planet Wednesday. “We want people to tell us what they think about it.” 

The City Council was presented with an information report on pedestrian issues at the March 11 council meeting and a public workshop was held at a March 20 Transportation Commission meeting to get feedback on the draft plan. 

The city’s Transportation Department is accepting public comments until April 11, after which transportation staff will revise the plan based on public comment, conduct an environmental analysis, and bring it to the City Council for adoption. 

Initially proposed by retired UC Berkeley planner and Berkeley Planning Commissioner David Stoloff seven years ago, the $3.5 million North Shattuck Plaza project proposes to transform Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto streetscape by closing off Shattuck Avenue between Vine and Rose streets and constructing a pedestrian plaza on what is now a small strip of paved service road adjacent to shops on the east side of Shattuck. 

After the City Council approved a schematic design of the project in 2001, it was tabled due to lack of funds. Stoloff introduced an updated design to the community in 2006 and described the “pedestrian-friendly” promenade as a way to attract people and help neighborhood businesses thrive. 

While some North Shattuck residents and businesses complained that the plaza would increase trash, panhandling and parking problems, others welcomed the idea of a green spot on which to eat a slice of pizza from Cheese Board and relax. 

The debate turned bitter at several community meetings held last year to discuss the project, with some attacks bordering on the personal. Efforts were made to unite project proponents, neighbors and merchants last March but eventually that fell through. 

Calls from the Planet to Stoloff for comment were not returned. 

The city incorporated the North Shattuck plaza concept into its Pedestrian Master Plan after Stoloff’s plan was endorsed by the council in 2001, Nichols said. 

“We pulled in the traffic changes from the earlier proposal with help from the city’s traffic engineer, Peter Hillier, and our principal consultants, Alta Planning and Design,” he said. “We were aware of the controversies surrounding the plaza, but we thought it was fine to go ahead with it.” 

North Shattuck resident Art Goldberg called the plaza’s revival a “backdoor attempt. 

“We found out about this by accident,” he said. “Who looks at things like master plans anyway? And this one was 300 pages long.” 

Goldberg said he had turned in a petition with 1,128 signatures opposing the plaza to the Transportation Department Thursday. 

“The North Shattuck Plaza project would make our community vulnerable to massive residential high-rise development,” he said. “It would escalate rents putting many local businesses in financial jeopardy ... The worst part is city money is going to be used for it. Where is this money coming from anyway?” 

Former Berkeley councilmember Mim Hawley supported the project. 

“I would suggest we try to do it,” she said. “It’s an environmentally friendly plan to create a pleasant place up there. It will bring more people and be very good for the businesses there. I think people were fearing that parking would be taken away, but the plan is flexible. People are welcome to tell us how we could make it more inviting.” 

The city’s plan proposes to spend $100,000 on expanding the island at Shattuck and Shattuck Place to slow motor vehicles. 

“This is a complicated spot for traffic,” Nichols said. “Some people drive very rapidly, which can result in traffic safety problems. The goals of the pedestrian plan is to increase pedestrian safety and also to create a welcoming pedestrian plaza.” 

This draft plan analyzes pedestrian safety and recommends a prioritized list of capital projects and programs to improve safety and accessibility.  

The plan also recommends changes in the city’s zoning, design review process and capital project design standards to further improve the pedestrian environment. 

Nichols said that although Berkeley was the safest city of its size for pedestrians in California, an average of 137 pedestrian collisions take place in the city each year. 

As part of its short-term goal for North Shattuck, the city proposes to restrict vehicle access to Shattuck and Rose and place bollards for emergency vehicle access, at a cost of $1,200. 

“If the traffic diversion works, then our long-term plan is to build a plaza with pedestrian amenities, which are lacking there,” said Nichols. “However the final design details and costs have yet to be determined.” 

Both Goldberg and Ross said that the neighborhood had no complaints about traffic. 

The plan “is unnecessary and unwanted,” said John Coleman, manager of the upscale clothing store Earthly Goods on North Shattuck. “There is nothing wrong with the area as it is. This whole experiment to see whether the plaza works is a segue for future development. We don’t see how closing the streets will help traffic. It’s like those superfluous traffic roundabouts popping up on the residential streets right now. The city should focus on street repair instead.” 

 

The Public Review Draft of the Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan can be viewed at: www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=4078 

Public comments can be addressed to Kara Vuicich, Associate Transportation Planner, until April 11, 2008, at 981-7064 or by e-mail: KVuicich@ci.berkeley.ca.us  

Hard copies of the Public Review Draft are available at Berkeley’s public libraries.  

For the latest information on Berkeley’s Master Pedestrian Plan see www.altaplanning.com/berkeleypedestrianplan/index_files/Documents.htm


Officials Praise Work of City Commissions

By Judith Scherr
Friday April 04, 2008

Whether it’s searching for a new animal shelter site, preserving Berkeley’s architectural heritage, scrutinizing police conduct or making sure schools have emergency caches, commissions do much of the city’s hard work, city staff, commissioners and several councilmembers told the Planet Thursday. 

They painted a picture very much at odds with a San Francisco Chronicle front page story Thursday that depicted Berkeley’s citizen commissions as not worth their cost. 

While most told the Planet that commissions actually save staff work, Councilmember Gordon Wozniak says commissions create extra work and should be consolidated to save staff time and city funding. 

The city has 36 commissions, most consisting of nine members, each appointed by one councilmember. In addition, there are two advisory commissions to nonprofit business improvement districts, mandated by law, and a library board, which is a self-selecting group of five that oversees the library.  

Wozniak suggested that the Zero Waste Commission, the Energy Commission and the Public Works Commission could be combined. “Overall there are probably too many commissions. There is a lot of overlap,” he said. 

He also advised combining the Homeless and Mental Health commissions. (The Homeless Commission, however, is comprised of a number of formerly homeless persons and the Mental Health Commission includes two members from the city of Albany; some of the members are or have been mental health clients.) 

Tania Levy, who staffs the Zero Waste Commission, said the focus of her commission and the focuses of the Energy and Public Works commissions are very different. The Energy Commission looks at reducing energy uses, such as by introducing solar power or insulating homes. The Public Works Commission looks at streets and sewers. 

At present, she said, the Zero Waste Commission (once known as the Solid Waste Commission) is looking at reducing through reuse or recycling the goods that get into the waste stream. 

She said she agreed with Wozniak that staffing the commission is a lot of work. “But the commission is also doing a lot of work,” she said, citing the tasks before it: writing policy to ban plastic bags and figuring out how to remodel the transfer station to keep more re-usable and recyclable items out of the dump.  

“It’s a great commission with a lot of skills,” she said, adding that staff gets input it needs from the public through the commission. 

Ruth Grimes, who chairs the city’s Energy Commission, said she doesn’t know much about the functions of the Public Works and Zero Waste commissions, but, at present, her commission would have difficulty taking on new tasks. 

It is studying a proposal for Community Choice Aggregation, which, if adopted, would put the city in charge of supplying energy, in partnership with Oakland and Emeryville. The commission is also looking at alternative energy sources. 

The Energy Commission also serves as the board of directors for the nonprofit Community Energy Services Corporation, although the corporation and the city are moving toward cutting their ties.  

Scott Ferris, recreation manager, staffs the Parks and Recreation Commission and had nothing but praise for it. “The commission gets a lot of work done,” he told the Planet Thursday. 

The Parks and Recreation Department faces multiple choices on where to spend its limited funds. “The commission gives feedback to staff on how to proceed,” he said. For example, the commission visited San Pablo Park when new paths were under consideration and realized that the buildings at the park needed improvement, which they then requested. 

The commissions are conduits for public input, he said, Partners for Parks or the Path Wanderers come to the commission to lobby, rather than lobbying staff, he said. 

Councilmember Betty Olds has worked with the Citizens’ Humane Commission on animal-related issues. “They all love animals,” she said. One of its major accomplishments was getting a bond passed for a new animal shelter. 

“The commission has done a huge amount of work,” she said. 

Community Health Advisory Commission has worked tirelessly on issues related to inequalities in health between the more affluent Caucasians in the Berkeley hills and the working-class African Americans in the Berkeley flatlands. 

Anderson credits the commission for lobbying for the hypertension clinic and for looking at problems related to spraying to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth. 

Bill White chairs the Police Review Commission. He says the commission continues to be of great value to the community, even though the courts no longer permit open-door hearings on complaints against the police.  

The commission has most recently presented to council its findings on policy implications stemming from the theft of drug evidence by a Berkeley police officer. 

Currently the commission is investigating the shooting of a grandmother by a Berkeley police officer, looking at the department’s use of force and domestic violence policies. (The officer was responding to a domestic violence call.) 

The commission is also looking at policies relating to crowd control, in the light of complaints stemming from alleged police overreaction during recent demonstrations at and around the downtown Marine Recruiting Center. 

“A lot of hours are put into commission work,” White said. “We do it because we are concerned citizens.” 

 

 

 


Nurses, Sutter Health Conflict over RN Strike Success

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 04, 2008

The ten-day strike of registered nurses (RNs) at Sutter Health’s Bay Area hospitals ended Monday with the start of the 7 a.m. shift. 

Whether the walkout was a success or not depends on whom you ask. 

Also in question is just how many members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) honored the picket lines and how many crossed over to keep drawing their regular paychecks. 

RNs at Berkeley’s two Alta Bates Summit medical facilities—the Ashby Avenue medical center and Herrick Hospital—walked out with the morning shift March 21, CNA’s third action since talks with the nonprofit chain’s hospitals had reached an impasse. 

The CNA, which represents RNs, announced in advance that the walkout would last ten days, while the two earlier one-day walkouts were extended to five-day lockouts by Sutter, which said the extended period was needed to attract temporary replacements. 

RNs rank at the top of the nursing hierarchy and typically have more required coursework for their degrees and greater responsibilities for patient care. 

According to information furnished by Sutter media representative Kami Lloyd, only half of Berkeley’s nurses joined the walkout, the same 50 percent reported at Eden Medical Center. Only nurses at Antioch’s Sutter Delta Medical had a higher rate returning to work, with 57 percent of nurses working all their regular shifts. 

According to management, the most militant nurses were at California Pacific Medical Center with only one in three crossing the picket lines. Those numbers also include nurses for the affiliated St. Luke’s hospital. 

But the Sutter statement is couched in ambiguous language, and while it describes CNA members as RNs, it uses only the word “nurses” in describing those who crossed the picket lines. 

When questioned by e-mail if their figures for returning nurses included LVNs and others as well as RNs, Sutter didn’t respond. 

“That’s a good question,” said CNA spokesperson Shum Preston, himself an RN. “We don’t know if their numbers include LVNs and CNAs and others.” 

Preston said “crossing the picket line was very rare,” and said union representatives reported 95 percent participation by members at all the hospitals affected by the walkout.  

While CNA’s first walkout was supported by licensed vocational nurses and other workers belonging the United Health Care Workers West, a subsequent dispute between the two labor organizations has since blocked cooperation. 

The rival union’s parent, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), subsequently split from the AFL-CIO umbrella in July 2005, along with the powerful Teamsters, and the two hospital workers’ unions have emerged as bitter rivals nationally, where the CNA now organizes as the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC). 

The NNOC has won votes in Nevada and Texas, becoming on March 29 in Houston the first union ever to win a hospital organizing election in the Lone Star State. 

CNA officials said the Sutter strike  

wasn’t about wages but about patient care standards and reductions in benefits, while Sutter charged that the walkout was about increasing union membership and clout. 

Sutter has insisted on separate contracts with member hospitals and hospital groups, and while CNA originally sought a master contract with the chain, the union subsequently shelved the demand. 

With neither side giving after the latest walkout, further walkouts could lie ahead. 

Sutter contends that five-year CNA members who work full-time evening shifts at Sutter’s Bay Area hospitals earn an average yearly pay of $142,350, premium-free health coverage for themselves and their families, a fully funded pension and supplemental health coverage during retirement. 

“Those numbers are pure fantasy,” said Preston. “We don’t know of a single nurse who makes that much. This just continues Sutter’s trend of lying about and attacking its own nurses.”


Activists Push Dellums to Fulfill Promise to 'Ban the Box'

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday April 04, 2008

Under “friendly” but pointed pressure from community activists to fulfill a campaign pledge, Oakland Mayor Dellums has set a May 31 deadline to begin removing barriers to the hiring of formerly incarcerated people for City of Oakland jobs. 

In a statement read to a Tuesday afternoon Frank Ogawa Plaza “Ban the Box” rally, the mayor said that removing the requirement that job applicants reveal criminal convictions will begin in the city’s Public Works Agency, with other departments to follow. 

The “ban the box” slogan refers to the fill-in box on employment applications where applicants are asked to check if they have been convicted of a crime. Activists say an admission of a prior conviction knocks many, if not most, ex-offenders out of many jobs where their conviction status is not relevant, preventing them from making a living and in many cases forcing them back into criminal activity. 

Activists first began calling on Oakland to implement “ban the box” at a July 2004 Peace and Justice Community Summit held at Oakland’s First Unitarian Church on 14th Street, a few blocks from the City Hall site of Tuesday’s rally. At that time, Jerry Brown was mayor of Oakland. 

At a Maxwell Park Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council meeting in mid-March, Dellums told the council’s members that he had concentrated on his full policing plan in recent weeks, because “I wanted to take the police issue off the table” and move on to the issues of violence prevention.  

“Crime and violence are not solely a police issue,” the mayor said, noting that he now wanted to move forward “immediately” in the city to address the issues of “poverty, health care, education, and the revolving prison door. These issues have been neglected for a long time.” 

But at the City Hall rally of over 100 activists and community residents sponsored by Plan for a Safer Oakland—a coalition of organizations focusing on the issues of prisoners and the formerly incarcerated—speakers said they wanted to make sure Dellums’ “immediate” meant exactly what it said. 

Many of the participants held signs with such slogans as “Jobs Not Jails” or “Stop Discriminating in City Hiring.” 

Responding to the announcement of the May 31 deadline for removing the conviction question from Public Works jobs, rally emcee Tony Coleman, of All of Us or None and the American Friends Service Committee, said “we’ve been promised before. It’s good to hear, but we’re going to keep up the pressure.” 

In a press release for the event, rally organizers put the blame for the delay in implementation of Dellums’ “ban the box” promise on Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly. While saying that Dellums had made the promise over a year ago to “remove the question about past convictions from city employment applications and to set aside city jobs for formerly incarcerated people,” Edgerly “has yet to implement this policy.” 

Privately, Dellums staffers tried to deflect the blame from Edgerly, who has announced her intention to resign. 

Dereca Blackmon, executive director of the Oakland-based Leadership Excellence youth training organization, told rally participants that activists would come back to City Hall on May 30, the eve of the Dellums deadline, to “visit.” “On June 2, we’ll hold another rally to either celebrate or take it to the next level.” 

Blackmon said that the “number one problem named by politicians is crime,” and that “the number one solution is opportunity.” 

Dorsey Nunn, an organizer with All Of Us Or None organization, said that the cities of San Francisco, East Palo Alto, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, and St. Paul-Minneapolis had all banned the prior conviction question on their city employment applications. 

“I wish Oakland had been the first to ban the box,” Nunn said. “We’re only asking them to do nothing more than other cities have done.”  

Nunn called the conviction question “structural discrimination,” saying it was the same as prior employment questions that “asked ‘Are you a Negro?’” 

Also speaking briefly at the rally was District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel, described by emcee Coleman as “a very good friend of us.” 

Nadel, who serves as chair of the city’s steering committee for re-entry of the formerly incarcerated, said, “We have been trying to ban the box in Oakland for years, but it wasn’t until we got this mayor that we started to get movement. This is the first time we’ve gotten a definite date” for implementation. 

Nadel ran against Dellums for Oakland mayor in the 2006 election. 

Nadel also praised Reentry Employment Specialist Isaac Taggart, saying he “is doing a fantastic job.” Taggart was hired by Dellums in January of this year to coordinate the city’s effort to integrate formerly incarcerated persons back into the city. 

Tying down the exact number of formerly incarcerated individuals in Oakland is difficult, according to Oakland-based Urban Strategies Council Chief Executive Officer Junious Williams Jr., but the number is enormous. 

Williams said that an estimated 6,000 individuals are released on parole into Oakland every year, with approximately 12,000 total parolees living in the city. He also said that there are 17,000 individuals on probation in Alameda County, 60 percent of them in Oakland. 

“We are not going to rebuild Oakland if we leave out large sections of the community,” Williams told rally participants. “If the pathway back into the community [from incarceration] is employment, then we have to have jobs. [Banning the box] is simple justice. It’s the right thing to do.” 


Tenants Rights Group Urges EBMUD to Keep Water Flowing

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 04, 2008

Advocates for tenants’ rights are hopeful that the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) will keep the water running permanently in multi-family rental properties in foreclosure status and adopt a lien system to collect unpaid bills from landlords. 

EBMUD’s Board of Directors voted on March 25 to approve continuing a moratorium on suspending services to tenants in foreclosed properties where the landlord has stopped paying the bill, and asked staff to propose a timeline for a process to take care of delinquent bills. 

“We are going to be testing out a six-step process to make landlords pay delinquent bills for water services in foreclosed properties,” said EBMUD spokesperson Jeff Becerra. “Some of these steps include asking tenants to advise us if the property is foreclosed, contacting the county records office to check if the property is in foreclosure, and in the event of a foreclosure contacting the landlord or the lender in an attempt to get payment. In the meantime the water will still be turned on.” 

Becerra said the agency’s staff would test the process over the next couple of months and report to the board in summer. 

“The board decided not to go forward with the seventh step, the lien system, and asked staff to come back for a timeline for the process,” he said. 

Kim Ota of Just Cause Oakland, a local activist organization, had lobbied the board for a permanent moratorium and adoption of the lien system. 

“We are really glad they have put a moratorium, for the time being, on turning off water, but we still hope they will have a permanent policy in place for keeping the water running,” Ota told the Planet Thursday. “We are disappointed that they did not set up a lien system to keep the water on and collect the bill from the landlord. They are still asking tenants to pay the bill or holding them accountable, whereas these tenants have signed leases with their landlords in which the landlords are responsible for paying the bills.” 

EBMUD had not tracked termination of water services to tenants in foreclosed properties until board member Andy Katz brought it to their attention in December. 

“Just Cause called me last year and told me that EBMUD had turned off the water for one of their members who was renting property that had been foreclosed by Countrywide,” Katz said. “EBMUD’s policy was to turn off water in case of non-payment of bills. In a typical situation tenants don’t have control over water and turning the water off would mean no water for cooking, bathing or flushing the toilet.” 

Katz was able to get the water service running after it had been suspended for a day.  

“When the utilities are taken away, it makes the unit inhabitable,” said Ota. “It’s a way of illegally evicting tenants.” 

Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco have “just cause” eviction laws which allow tenants to live in rental properties that are sold unless the new owner plans to convert its use or move in himself. 

Katz also proposed placing liens on rental properties to collect bills instead of turning off the water. 

“When a lien is recorded on title property it secures the debt owned to the creditor,” he said. “That way we can notify the current property owner that they have to pay the bill. However the board did not go ahead with it. EBMUD still needs to find a permanent system to collect the water bill without disconnecting water services.” 

The lien system is used by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. 

“It’s the best way for utility bills to get paid,” said Brenda Adams, an attorney with Oakland’s Eviction Defense Center who spoke in favor of the lien process at the EBMUD board meeting. “The moratorium should be permanent as well. There are tenants who have done nothing wrong ... low income families with small children and elderly people who are denied access to water. We live in a First World country, this should not be happening to us.” 

Adams said that EBMUD’s service suspensions also affected families in single family homes. 

“The point the board made was that renters in single-family homes were more capable of putting the water bill in their names,” she said. 

“That’s technically correct, assuming that they can afford it. Our clients can’t afford to do that.” 

According to Becerra, 23 multi-family properties, including one in Berkeley, had delinquent water bills in the EBMUD service area which stretches from Crockett to San Leandro. 

Katz said the number of service terminations had doubled from 2006 to 2007. 

“We have restored services to anyone who has come forward to us,” he said. “People can call 1-866-40-EBMUD for help. Our customer service staff is now aware of the problem.” 

 

 

 

 

 


Golden Gate Owner Sells Racetracks

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 04, 2008

The company that owns Golden Gate Fields is splitting from its corporate parent, whose directors have been eager to strip their successful firm of its ties with the money-hemorrhaging gambling subsidiary. 

Magna International (MI) Development announced last week that it’s shedding its majority interest in Magna Entertainment Corporation (MEC), the darling of Frank Stronach, the auto parts magnate who chairs the boards of both firms. 

MEC shares had plunged over the last year from $4.50 Canadian to 34 cents Wednesday morning, though they rose a penny after news of the split spread. 

With attendance plummeting at race tracks, Magna Entertainment has been seeking with little success to add casinos—turning them into Magna Racinos—at its tracks across the country. 

In California, Magna has teamed with Los Angeles mall developer and Republican Party major donor Rick Caruso in its quest to add upscale shopping centers with housing above in vacant parking lots at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita. 

Plans stalled for the local mall after project foes won the swing seats on the Albany City Council. A ballot measure opposing the track won enough signatures for the ballot but never made it to the ballot because a successful court challenge found fault with the way public notice had been issued prior to the petition campaign. 

Caruso and Stronach are forging ahead with their Santa Anita project. 

 

Race track reorganization 

One positive sign for the racing company is that the scale of its losses has been diminishing, from 2005’s loss of $62.8 million to $38.1 million in 2006 and $18.8 million last year, according to the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

According to the company’s annual report to the SEC, Golden Gate Fields took in $442.5 million in wagers last year, with revenues of $55.7 million. By contract, the Santa Anita wagering handle was just over $1 billion, earning revenues of $145.9 million. 

MI Development’s investors, led by Greenlight Capital of New York, had pushed for the spinoff of the racing arm of the real estate investment company, citing losses by Magna Entertainment for the six straight years, which had imposed what investors called an unfavorable debt burden on the parent corporation. 

Stronach, an Austrian citizen (and good friends with former Austrian citizen Arnold Schwarzenegger) lives in Canada, and he has fought repeated battles with his boards over his costly passion for the sport of kings. 

MI Development was itself created as a spinoff when investors in Magna International, Stronach’s highly profitable car parts business, grew frustrated with picking up his tab for his racing ventures. 

Magna Entertainment became the world’s largest single owner of racetracks, owning 12 tracks, 11 in North America and one in Austria at the end of last year. Four of the tracks had ceased operations, and the eight remaining tracks include three racing legends: Gulfstream Park in Florida and Laurel Park and Pimlico in Maryland. 

Under terms of the reorganization, the racing subsidiary would be sold to a legal entity designated by Stronach, and a limited partnership he heads would buy Magna Entertainment’s debt to its former parent, with Stronach and his investors throwing in $25 million of their own. 

In a statement, MI Development’s CEO John Simonetti said that internal dissension over the racing venture had sparked disagreements among board members for the past three years. 

“The reorganization proposal, which has expressions of support from both the Stronach Group and a majority of our public shareholders, appears to offer a new opportunity to reestablish a strong relationship with Magna International,” Simonetti said.  

Part of the reorganization includes the elimination of special stock categories that had given Stronach control over the votes of public investors. 

According to the MEC annual report, as of Dec. 31 the company had a working capital deficiency of $162.2 million, with $209.4 in debt coming due during 2008. The company has four tracks up for sale and has liquidated another proposed track in Dixon and a training track in San Diego County. 

 

Waves hits Albany 

“This is not surprising,” said Robert Cheasty, a former Albany mayor and environmentalist who was active in the fight against the Caruso mall at Golden Gate Fields. 

“This is just the latest example of the continuing financial meltdown of the racing industry which appears to have been accelerated by the real estate woes affecting the rest of the country,” Cheasty said. “I’m not surprised MI Developments would dump the tracks as they have proved to be exceedingly poor business investments.” 

“We expect the shock waves will hit the Albany shoreline as well,” he added. 


Youth Council Marks Anniversary of Martin Luther King Assassination

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 04, 2008

The Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville NAACP Youth Council will mark today (Friday) the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King by reading his Letter from a Birmingham Jail at the Berkeley Public Library on Kittredge Street. 

Students, local clergy and community leaders will take turns reading to the public to celebrate the NAACP National Day of Nonviolence, created in 1999 to encourage the nation’s youth and to fight against community violence. 

The list of people who will read includes Michael Miller, local educational equity advocate; Belen Pulido-Martinez, member of Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action (BOCA) and Rev. D. Demetrius Prather, former NAACP National Board Member.  

Participants will also share in reciting the Martin Luther King pledge of nonviolence.  

The event will take place April 4, at the Berkeley Public Library, Central Location, 2090 Kittredge St. at Shattuck, from 1 p.m.–3 p.m. 

Contact Denisha DeLane at Baenaacp 

youth@gmail.com or call 332-0040, or go to 

www.myspace.com/baenaacpyouth


Lower Sproul Redesign, Eshelman Demo Planned

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 04, 2008

UC Berkeley officials have called for new designs to transform the face of Lower Sproul Plaza, the less familiar portion of the university’s most famous public space. 

The plaza is located immediately to the west and down a flight of steps from the scene of the most famous event in the university’s history, the Free Speech Movement protests of the early 1960s that heralded the start of a decade of unrest on campuses across the nation. 

The request for proposals just posted on the university’s website calls for an architect to develop a master plan for design and construction of a revised plaza, including the demolition and replacement of Eshelman Hall along the lower plaza’s southern edge. 

The call for an architect follows a preliminary study completed in November which sketched out a variety of alternative designs, all of which called for the demolition of Eshelman. 

The other structures encompassing the site are: on the north, the Cesar Chavez Student Center; on the east, the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, and on the west, Zellerbach Hall. 

The request for architectural services and the 2007 study are both available online at www.cp.berkeley.edu/RFQ.html.


Code Pink April Fool’s Day Prank

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 04, 2008

Code Pink had the last laugh on April Fool’s Day, but the anti-war group preferred to call their little prank a “hope” instead of a hoax. 

The rumors circulating late Monday night about the Marine Recruiting Center at 64 Shattuck Square leaving Berkeley turned out to be what a lot of people had already suspected—an April 1 joke. 

Code Pink has been protesting since September against the recruiting station, which still has about a year and a half left on its lease. 

A fake press release announcing an amicable agreement between the Marines and their landlord Sasha Shamszad—complete with what purported to be quotes from Shamszad and Michael Applegate, director of the Marine Manpower Plans and Policy Division—was posted on web sites maintained by Code Pink and the nonpartisan coalition group AfterDowningStreet.org, among others, on Monday evening.  

“The phone was off the hook,” exclaimed Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, who crafted the mock release. “Channel 2, Channel 7, CBS News ... They all wanted to know if it was true. We kept making excuses, because we didn’t want to say anything before April 1. Something like that makes sense on April 1, you know, not March 31. Channel 2 actually ran with the story Monday evening but corrected it later.” 

Last year, as an April Fool’s Day joke, Code Pink announced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had invited the group for tea after they had camped outside her house for a few weeks trying to speak to her.  

The Berkeley stunt, Benjamin said, was part of a national day of April Fool’s jokes aimed at bringing about positive change. 

Code Pink’s national leadership sent out an e-mail alert Tuesday morning with a letter from Rep. John Conyers detailing his heartfelt realization that impeachment hearings must begin.  

After that, AfterDowningStreet.org followed with an announcement that Pelosi had committed to stop any future bills to fund the war in Iraq.  

The 30 or so people who came out to hear landlord Shamszad and Applegate announce their agreement in front of the downtown Berkeley recruiting center Tuesday were not disappointed. Dressed in their signature cotton candy pink, Code Pink members played the roles of Shamszad and Marine Officer Peaceovic. 

“We are scaling down our manpower by 33 percent,” said Code Pink supporter Tigbe Barry, who was playing Peaceovic. “We will be scaling it down by 66 percent by April 15 and plan on full redeployment by April 30. This decision has nothing to do with the protests outside our recruiting station. We make decisions as part of a cost benefiting analysis of recruiting stations. We just came out with a national productivity study by office, and the Recruiting Center in Berkeley was in the bottom ten percentile. So even before we heard from our landlord, we had already made our decision to redeploy to a military friendly place.” 

“And where could that be?” asked a curious onlooker. 

“Tiburon, Tiburon,” chanted a few Code Pink members. 

No one from the recruiting office—which was locked and had its blinds drawn—came out to object to the make-believe press conference.  

“It’s open, but I don’t think they want customers right now,” said a Berkeley police officer. 

Code Pink spokesperson Zanne Joi popped a bottle of pink champagne along with Barry after the announcement. 

“Some call it April Fool’s Day, we call it hopeful April Day,” she said. “It’s a day to envision a world that’s not as crazy as today.”


Man Drives to Hospital after Being Shot in Berkeley, Expected to Survive

Friday April 04, 2008

Bay City News 

 

A man who sustained non-life-threatening injuries after being shot in broad daylight in Berkeley Wednesday drove himself to the hospital, police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said. 

According to Kusmiss, Berkeley police received several 911 calls beginning at 12:22 p.m. reporting gunshots in the 3300 block of Adeline Street at Alcatraz Avenue. 

When officers arrived, they were told by witnesses that a white Ford Mustang convertible that may have had its windows shot out left the area soon after the gunshots were heard. 

The male adult victim, who was the driver of the Mustang, reportedly drove himself to the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center for treatment of a single gunshot wound to the lower part of his body, Kusmiss said. 

The wound did not appear to be life-threatening and the victim was transported to Highland General Hospital. Berkeley police officers went to the hospital to get information about the shooting, said Kusmiss, but the man would not share many details. 

Officers searching the scene found a bullet hole in an unoccupied vehicle parked nearby, said Kusmiss. 

“Daytime shootings in Berkeley are not common, and given the amount of vehicle traffic and pedestrian traffic—it’s the lunch hour, people going to shops—it’s a great concern to us and a great concern in the community,” she said. 

Some witnesses told police they saw a gray or silver Pontiac Grand Am leave the area around the time of the shooting, but police don’t yet know if there is a connection between the vehicle and the incident, according to Kusmiss. 

“We are appreciative of the witnesses that came forward and shared what they saw because each one shared a piece of the early investigation,” said Kusmiss.


Fire Log

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 04, 2008

Garage blaze 

Firefighters battled early morning flames that demolished a garage at 939 Allston Way last Friday, a fire triggered by smoldering smoking materials im-properly disposed of, said Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong. 

Firefighters caught the 911 call at 1:36 a.m., arriving to find the building fully ablaze. 

Damage to the structure was estimated 

 

at $40,000, with another $10,000 in losses to its contents. 

 

Autoclave immolation 

Berkeley firefighters rushed to UC Berkeley’s Northwest Animal Facility in the 1900 block of Oxford Street at 3:30 a.m. on the 23rd, arriving to find a piece of lab equipment ablaze. 

The fire, which destroyed an autoclave used to sterilize equipment, was triggered by equipment failure, said Deputy Chief Dong. 

Besides any damage that may have been caused by smoke or water, the loss was confined to the autoclave, he said.


Local NAACP Youth Council Plans Reading for 40th Anniversary of King's Death

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 01, 2008

Posted Thurs., April 3—The Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville NAACP Youth Council will mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King by reading his Letter from a Birmingham Jail at the Berkeley Public Library on Kittredge Street. 

Students, local clergy and community leaders will take turns reading to the public to celebrate the NAACP National Day of Nonviolence, created in 1999 to encourage the nation’s youth and fight against community violence. 

The list of people who will read include Michael Miller, local educational equity advocate; Belen Pulido-Martinez, member of Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action (BOCA) and Rev. D. Demetrius Prather, former NAACP National Board Member.  

Participants will also share in reciting the Martin Luther King pledge of nonviolence.  

 

The event will take place today (Friday), April 4, at the Berkeley Public Library, Central Location, 2090 Kittredge St. at Shattuck from 1 p.m.–3 p.m. 

Contact Denisha DeLane at Baenaacpyouth@gmail.com or call 332-0040 

www.myspace.com/baenaacpyouth 

 

 

 

 

 


Activists Push Dellumns to Fulfill 'Ban the Box' Promise

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday April 01, 2008

Posted Thurs., April 3—Under “friendly” but pointed pressure from community activists to fulfill a campaign pledge, Oakland Mayor Dellums has set a May 31 deadline to begin removing barriers to the hiring of formerly incarcerated people for City of Oakland jobs. 

In a statement read to a Tuesday afternoon Frank Ogawa Plaza “Ban the Box” rally, the mayor said that removing the requirement that job applicants reveal criminal convictions will begin in the city’s Public Works Agency, with other departments to follow. 

The “ban the box” slogan refers to the fill-in box on employment applications where applicants are asked to check if they have been convicted of a crime. Activists say an admission of a prior conviction knocks many, if not most, ex-offenders out of many jobs where their conviction status is not relevant, preventing them from making a living and in many cases forcing them back into criminal activity. 

Activists first began calling on Oakland to implement “ban the box” at a July 2004 Peace and Justice Community Summit held at Oakland’s First Unitarian Church on 14th Street, a few blocks from the City Hall site of Tuesday’s rally. At that time, Jerry Brown was mayor of Oakland. 

At a Maxwell Park Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council meeting in mid-March, Dellums told NCPC members that he had concentrated on his full policing plan in recent weeks, because “I wanted to take the police issue off the table” and move on to the issues of violence prevention.  

“Crime and violence are not solely a police issue,” the mayor said, noting that he now wanted to move forward “immediately” in the city to address the issues of “poverty, health care, education, and the revolving prison door. These issues have been neglected for a long time.” 

But at the City Hall rally of over 100 activists and community residents sponsored by Plan For A Safer Oakland—a coalition of organizations focusing on prisoners and formerly incarcerated issues—speakers said they wanted to make sure Dellums’ “immediate” meant exactly what it said. 

Many of the participants held signs with such slogans as “Jobs Not Jails” or “Stop Discriminating In City Hiring.” 

Responding to the announcement of the May 31 deadline for removing the conviction question from Public Works jobs, rally emcee Tony Coleman, of All Of Us Or None and the American Friends Service Committee, said “we’ve been promised before. It’s good to hear, but we’re going to keep up the pressure.” 

In a press release for the event, rally organizers put the blame for the delay in implementation of Dellums’ “ban the box” promise on Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly. While saying that Dellums had made the promise over a year ago to “remove the question about past convictions from city employment applications and to set aside city jobs for formerly incarcerated people,” Edgerly “has yet to implement this policy.” 

Privately, Dellums staffers tried to deflect the blame from Edgerly, who has announced her intention to resign. 

Dereca Blackmon, executive director of the Oakland-based Leadership Excellence youth training organization, told rally participants that activists would come back to City Hall on May 30, the eve of the Dellums deadline, to “visit.” “On June 2, we’ll hold another rally to either celebrate or to take it to the next level.” 

Blackmon said that the “number one problem named by politicians is crime,” and that “the number one solution is opportunity.” 

Dorsey Nunn, an organizer with All Of Us Or None organization, said that the cities of San Francisco, East Palo Alto, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, and St. Paul-Minneapolis had all banned the prior conviction question on their city employment applications. 

“I wish Oakland had been the first to ban the box,” Nunn said. “We’re only asking them to do nothing more than other cities have done.”  

Nunn called the conviction question “structural discrimination,” saying it was the same as prior employment questions that “asked ‘Are you a Negro.’” 

Also speaking briefly at the rally was 3rd District Councilmember Nancy Nadel, described by emcee Coleman as “a very good friend of us.” 

Nadel, who serves as chair of the city’s formerly incarcerated re-entry steering committee, said, “We have been trying to ban the box in Oakland for years, but it wasn’t until we got this mayor that we started to get movement. This is the first time we’ve gotten a definite date” for implementation. 

Nadel ran against Dellums for Oakland mayor in the 2006 election. 

Nadel also praised Reentry Employment Specialist Isaac Taggart, saying he “is doing a fantastic job.” Taggart was hired by Dellums in January of this year to coordinate the city’s effort to integrate formerly incarcerated persons back into the city. 

Tying down the exact number of formerly incarcerated individuals in Oakland is difficult, according to Oakland-based Urban Strategies Council Chief Executive Officer Junious Williams, Jr., but the number is enormous. 

Williams said that an estimated 6,000 individuals are released on parole into Oakland every year, with approximately 12,000 total parolees living in the city. He also said that there are 17,000 individuals on probation in Alameda County, 60 percent of them in Oakland. 

“We are not going to rebuild Oakland if we leave out large sections of the community,” Williams told rally participants. “If the pathway back into the community [from incarceration] is employment, then we have to have jobs. [Banning the box] is simple justice. It’s the right thing to do.” 


Code Pink Says April Fools at Marine Recruiting Station

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 01, 2008

Posted Wed., April 2—Code Pink had the last laugh on April Fool’s Day, but the antiwar group preferred to call their little prank a “hope” instead of a hoax. 

The rumors circulating late Monday night about the Marine Recruiting Center at 64 Shattuck Square leaving Berkeley turned out to be what a lot of people had already suspected—an April 1 joke. 

Code Pink has been protesting against the recruiting station, which still has about a year and a half left on its lease, since September. 

A fake press release announcing an amicable agreement between the Marines and their landlord Sasha Shamszad—complete with what purported to be quotes from Shamszad and Michael Applegate, director of the Marine Manpower Plans and Policy Division—was posted on web sites maintained by Code Pink and the nonpartisan coalition group AfterDowningStreet.org, among others on Monday evening.  

“The phone was off the hook,” exclaimed Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, who crafted the mock release. “Channel 2, Channel 7, CBS News ... They all wanted to know if it was true. We kept making excuses, because we didn’t want to say anything before April 1. Something like that makes sense on April 1 you know, not March 31. Channel 2 actually ran with the story Monday evening but corrected it later.” 

Last year, as an April Fool’s Day joke, Code Pink announced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had invited the group for tea after they had camped outside her house for a few weeks trying to speak to her.  

The Berkeley stunt, Benjamin said, was part of a national day of April Fool’s jokes aimed at bringing about positive change. 

Code Pink’s national leadership sent out an e-mail alert Tuesday morning with a letter from Rep. John Conyers detailing his heartfelt realization that impeachment hearings must begin.  

After that, AfterDowningStreet.org followed with an announcement that Pelosi had committed to stop any future bills to fund the war in Iraq.  

The 30 or so people who came out to hear landlord Shamszad and Applegate announce their agreement in front of the downtown Berkeley recruiting center Tuesday were not disappointed. Dressed in their signature cotton candy pink, Code Pink members played the roles of Shamszad and Marine Officer Peaceovic. 

“We are scaling down our manpower by 33 percent," said Code Pink supporter Tigbe Barry, who was playing Peaceovic. We will be scaling it down by 66 percent by April 15 and plan on full redeployment by April 30. This decision has nothing to do with the protests outside our recruiting station. We make decisions as part of a cost benefiting analysis of recruiting stations. We just came out with a national productivity study by office, and the Recruiting Center in Berkeley was in the bottom ten percentile. So even before we heard from our landlord, we had already made our decision to redeploy to a military friendly place.” 

“And where could that be?” asked a curious onlooker. 

“Tiburon, Tiburon,” chanted a few Code Pink members. 

No one from the recruiting office—which was locked and had its blinds drawn—came out to object to the make-believe press conference.  

“It’s open, but I don’t think they want customers right now,” said a Berkeley police officer. 

Code Pink spokesperson Zanne Joi popped a bottle of pink champagne along with Barry after the announcement. 

“Some call it April Fool’s Day, we call it hopeful April Day,” she said. “It’s a day to envision a world that’s not as crazy as today.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Sutter RNs End 10-Day Walkout

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 01, 2008

Posted Wed., April 2—The ten-day strike that hit Sutter Health's Bay Area hospitals ended Monday with the start of the 7 a.m. shift. 

Registered nurses for the two Alta Bates Summit medical facilities in Berkeley had walked out with the morning shift March 21, their third action since talks with the non-profit chain's hospitals had reached an impasse. 

The California Nurses Association, which represents RNs, announced in advance that the walkout would be for ten days, while the two earlier one-day walkouts were extended to five-day lockouts by Sutter, which said the extended period was needed to attract temporary replacements. 

While the first walkout was supported by licensed vocational nurses and other workers belonging to the United Health Care Workers West, the Service Employees International Union's California healthcare division, a subsequent dispute between the two labor organizations has since blocked cooperation between them. 

The SEIU split from the AFL-CIO umbrella in July 2005, along with the powerful Teamsters, and the two hospital workers' unions have emerged as bitter rivals nationally, with the CNA organizing as the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC). 

The NNOC has won votes in Nevada and Texas, becoming the first union ever to win a hospital organizing election in the Lone Star State on March 29 in Houston. 

CNA officials said the East Bay Sutter strike wasn't about wages, but about patient care standards and reductions in benefits, while Sutter charged the walkout was about increasing union membership and clout. 

Sutter has insisted on separate contracts with member hospitals and hospital groups, and while CNA originally sought a master contract with the chain, the union subsequently shelved the demand. 

With neither side giving after the latest walkout, further walkouts could lie ahead. 

Just what percentage of RNs stayed out or work remains an open question, with Sutter claiming early in the strike that less than 60 percent of nurses at the three Alta Bates Summit facilities-Herrick Hospital and Alta Bates Summit in Berkeley and Summit Medical Center in Oakland-had honored the picket lines. 

CNA spokesperson Shum Preston had blasted the claim as a lie. 

Neither Sutter Health nor CNA officials returned calls for this story.  

 

 


End of an Era in Elmwood?

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 01, 2008
The former Elmwood Pharmacy may be closing its doors.
Richard Brenneman
The former Elmwood Pharmacy may be closing its doors.

The transformation of Berkeley’s Elmwood commercial district into a trendy amalgam of restaurant row and upscale shopping district may be moving another step forward. 

One of the neighborhood’s oldest merchants is giving up the ghost, the former Elmwood Pharmacy, for decades the home of the now-vanished Ozzie’s. 

Shop owner Victoria Carter, the second generation of her family to own the business, is selling off her inventory, including the glassware of Ozzie’s, a popular soda fountain that occupied a fifth of her floor space. 

Asked on the record to confirm the closing, Carter declined comment Thursday, but was overheard telling a customer that she was closing in the near future. 

The building which houses the business and Mrs. Dalloway’s, a popular upscale bookshop, is owned by Hal Brandel, a Berkeley man who is also part-owner of Cafe Trieste’s Berkeley outpost at San Pablo Avenue and Dwight Way. 

Elmwood Pharmacy opened its doors in 1921. Carter’s father, who ran another drug store in the Elmwood, consolidated the two businesses in 1960, handing over the reins to his daughter 26 years later. 

Carter had signed a five-year lease three years ago, but closed her pharmacy business in August 2004. She told the Daily Planet at the time that prescription pricing dictated by insurance companies had made continued operation impossible. 

In the years since, the business, renamed Elmwood Health & Mercantile, offered over-the-counter medication and sundries, while Ozzie’s, a cherished neighborhood institution, struggled through a series of operators before finally closing for good last year. 

Just what will happen with the building remains in question, given that the city use permit for food service use covers less than a fourth of the floor area and the building has no provisions for full-service cooking. 

One neighbor, who declined to be quoted by name, noted that the building does not have handicapped accessible bathrooms nor space for walk-in refrigerators and other equipment needed by a restaurant.  

Food for Ozzie’s customers had been prepared on a plug-in electric griddle designed for home use. 

The building itself was constructed at the southwest corner of the intersection of College Avenue and Russell Street in 1921 by noted Berkeley builder John Bischoff. 

Fred Beretta took over ownership of Elmwood Pharmacy at the site two years later, and operated the business until 1960, when he sold to Carter’s father, who was then running his own drug store at the corner of College and Ashby, the site now occupied by Roma Cafe. 

Brandel, who has owned the building since the early 1980s, said he hasn’t received official word of the closing, “but I have heard it may close by the end of April or mid-May.” He said he’d heard of the possible closing from Dave Fogarty of the city’s economic development office. 

As for the future of the ground-floor commercial space, Brandel said nothing is certain, “though there are a few ideas floating around.” 

One possible notion “if we could work it out” would be to use part of the space, including the square footage allotment for the soda fountain, to extend the floor area of Mrs. Dalloway’s next door to the south. 

Brandel said one obstacle Carter had faced was that, unlike her father, she wasn’t a pharmacist, and she found it increasingly difficult to keep a pharmacist on her staff. 

“Finally she sold her customer list to Elephant Pharmacy,” he said. 

 

Ozzie’s legacy 

It was another crisis over the fate of Ozzie’s and Elmwood Pharmacy that gave rise to Berkeley’s short-lived program of commercial rent control. 

An announcement of a substantial rent increase in 1982 threatened to bring the imminent demise of the business and mobilized Ozzie’s regulars such as Marty Schiffenbauer and Barbara Lubin to circulate petitions headed “Save Ozzie’s” on behalf of a ballot initiative. 

Berkeley voters embraced the measure, which was then defeated seven years later when a more conservative state legislature outlawed commercial rent control. 

Ozzie’s was named for Charles Osborne, a World War II fighter pilot who took over the soda fountain in 1950 and became a beloved figure in the community. After he left Berkeley 13 years ago, several operators tried in vain to make a success of the fountain, but a short business day, high rents and lack of kitchen facilities may have combined to doom the enterprise..


BUSD Marks Cesar Chavez Day

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 01, 2008
Malcolm X Elementary School fifth grader Anala Griffin makes a strawberry smoothie by pedaling on a bicycle blender during the school’s Cesar Chavez Day celebrations Friday, as an AmeriCorp vounteer and Malcolm X garden teacher Rivka Mason look on.
Riya Bhattacharjee
Malcolm X Elementary School fifth grader Anala Griffin makes a strawberry smoothie by pedaling on a bicycle blender during the school’s Cesar Chavez Day celebrations Friday, as an AmeriCorp vounteer and Malcolm X garden teacher Rivka Mason look on.

Student power highlighted Cesar Chavez Day celebrations at Malcolm X Elementary School Friday. 

While youth activists across California rallied to close the state’s public schools to honor Chavez’s 81st birthday, Berkeley Unified marked the event through a day of learning. 

Third, fourth and fifth graders at Malcolm X pedaled away furiously on a bicycle-powered blender to whip up smoothies during their cooking and gardening class Friday before going on spring break on March 31 (Monday), when Chavez’s birthday was observed throughout the state. 

“Declaring a holiday on Cesar Chavez’s birthday would be counterproductive,” said district spokesperson Mark Coplan. 

“They wouldn’t be learning anything at all. The Berkeley Board of Education passed a resolution four years ago to declare it an in-school holiday as opposed to a holiday. It’s a day of learning and teaches our kids to reflect on our heroes. That’s more in keeping with the spirit of Cesar Chavez.” 

While students at Malcolm X learned about alternate energy, their peers at Thousand Oaks and John Muir Elementary schools held assemblies and dressed up as Chavez, Fred Ross and Dolores Huarte. 

But the biggest excitement was centered around the Byerly Bicycle Blender (www.bikeblender.com) at Malcolm X which utilizes the Xtracycle sport utility bicycle as its base. 

Used nationwide by public schools and corporations such as Clif Bar and Starbucks, the bike blender is designed to spin blender blades at over 10,000 rpm (revolutions per minute) which is equivalent to a household electric blender. 

“It’s an excellent way to educate kids about alternate ways to power a blender without electricity,” said Malcolm X gardening teacher Rivka Mason who received the American Institute For Public Service Jefferson Award last year. 

“It teaches them people power. When you peddle, the blender goes round and round. The faster you peddle, the faster the blade spins. It’s a form of service learning. Students get to reflect on what they are being taught in the classroom.” 

Mason usually hands out strawberry plants to students on Cesar Chavez Day every year, but a last minute ordering glitch called for a change of plans last week. 

As the students emptied frozen strawberries, apple sauce and cranberry nectar into the blender pitcher, Mason put in a word of caution. 

“Hands off the blender when it’s spinning,” she said. “We don’t want it to blow up on our face.” 

As the fifth graders lined up to take turns on the shiny red bike their excitement knew no bounds. 

“It’s so cool, I can’t believe we are using our hands and feet to make our own food,” said Anala Griffin, a fifth grader. 

“It’s a bit like Cesar Chavez. I learned in class that he worked on a farm. But it’s sad that he didn’t get paid much.” 

Her classmate Lydia Raag said it would be fun to have one in her house. 

“We are just trying to connect kids to what they eat,” said Ariana, an AmeriCorp volunteer who was helping Mason that afternoon. 

“There are so many possibilities. Some of them are learning about human energy for the first time.”


Businesses for Peace May Counter Boycott

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday April 01, 2008

Once again the anti-war Code Pink ladies are squaring off with pro-war Eagles Up. This time it’s not dueling demos at the Marine Recruiting Center.  

It’s contradictory calls to go shopping.  

Eagles Up and Move America Forward folk want their allies to shop outside Berkeley until the City Council apologizes to the Marines for its opposition to military recruitment in Berkeley. 

Not to be outdone by the (mostly) leather-clad, Harley-riding Eagles Up crowd that has held demonstrations in Berkeley three times, Code Pink is promoting Berkeley businesses under the moniker “Businesses for Peace.”  

The organization’s kickoff is noon on Thursday at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way, and so far it has 30 local tax-paying businesses signed up. 

“We support the city of Berkeley’s mandate to ‘seek to resolve international disputes through collective international diplomacy and without war’ and we are proud to be part of an association of businesses committed to promoting a more peaceful world,” says a statement on the website www.businessesforpeace.org. There’s no membership fee.  

 

What boycott? 

While Eagles Up has put out a call to boycott the city, some doubt its effectiveness. 

“This boycott’s got no legs,” Councilmember Dona Spring told the Daily Planet last week. 

Spring pointed to the Lafayette War Veterans, which cancelled a charity golf tournament in Tilden Park slated for September. 

“Tilden’s not even in Berkeley,” said Spring. It’s located in the East Bay Regional Parks, which has its own governing structure. Concessions in Tilden Park, on Berkeley’s eastern border, pay no taxes to the city. 

“People doing this boycott don’t spend their money here,” said Zanne Joi, organizer for Code Pink.  

A case in point, some say, is Brian G. Dennard, San Diego-based businessman who on March 22 called on the Eagle Up demonstrators at the Marine Recruiting Center to support the boycott. Dennard is a partner in Reno-based Meridian Development Corporation, which is building a condominium project with a yacht harbor in Ensenada, Mexico. 

Dennard wrote Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates: “In that we/MDG Resorts are currently building a state of the art mega-yacht marina [in Ensenada], all of the suppliers of Marina equipment, all owners of yachts, all suppliers of yacht materials and supplies, all yacht brokers and all tangential yacht business purveyors will likewise be informed that we will not do any business whatsoever with anyone from the Berkeley area.” 

When queried by the Planet, Dennard declined to name suppliers with whom he cancelled contracts. 

Sen. Jim DeMint, R–South Carolina, hoped to jump on the boycott bandwagon, authoring a bill that would have handed Berkeley’s federal funds over to the Marines. It went down to defeat in mid-March. 

 

Shopping for peace 

The right-wing boycott effort resonated with Code Pink, one of the organizations that has been demonstrating against the war and against recruiting for the war outside the downtown Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center since September.  

“We decided to do a ‘buycott,’” Joi told the Planet.  

The idea behind the Businesses for Peace initiative is to get people not only to spend their money in Berkeley, which would offset any impact a boycott might have, but also to support city efforts to resolve conflict peacefully, she said. 

One of those signed up for Businesses for Peace is Andrea Ali’s Guerilla Café, an eatery in North Berkeley where one can feast on organic cornmeal waffles topped with organic strawberries while enjoying art exhibits. Currently on display is “Love Devotion Surrender,” photographs Emerson Matebele shot in Tibet. 

Ali is originally from Iraq and has family there. “As a business in Berkeley, we reserve the right to support the recruiters not being in Berkeley,” said Ali, who also displays an Obama for President sign in her window.  

There’s no “party line,” for those who sign up for Businesses for Peace. Berkeley Mills owner Gene Agress told the Planet that, while he believes the U.S. should not be fighting in Iraq, he says it is the right of the military to recruit in Berkeley.  

In addition to eating waffles at the Guerilla Café or purchasing custom-made sustainably grown hardwood goods at Berkeley Mills, one can support a Business for Peace by taking in the sounds of local jazz greats such as Faye Carol at Anna’s Jazz Island, picking up a loaf of fresh baked bread at Nabolom Bakery, or choosing a game at Eudemonia. 

Berkeley Chamber of Commerce CEO Ted Garrett told the Planet he hasn’t heard of Businesses for Peace, but he did interact with the Eagles Up group. On March 22, “I spoke to the group in Emeryville [before the Berkeley rally] and invited them back,” said Garrett who, at one time, had pictures of himself and an officer from the Marine Recruiting Center prominently displayed on the chamber website. 

Writing to the Eagles Up in an attempt to dissuade them from the boycott, Garrett said, “We ask everyone to try to separate the actions of the City Council and not harm the good, hard-working small business owners—most of whom do not live in Berkeley and therefore cannot vote in Berkeley. 

 


SuperBOLD Awarded for Push for More Public Comment

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday April 01, 2008

When 90-plus-year-old Fran Rachel came to the Berkeley City Council in February to plead for the body’s approval of an item supporting peace, the speaker caused Councilmember Betty Olds to recall how she and friends had kept their children out of the Vietnam War through subterfuge.  

Olds said that, thanks to the speaker, she changed her mind and voted to support the item. 

Despite its reputation for free speech—which dates from the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in the 1960s—the Berkeley City Council only adopted liberal public speaking rules at the end of 2007. 

It took the threat of a lawsuit to do it. 

Before Gene Bernardi, Jane Welford and Jim Fisher of Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense (SuperBOLD) joined with the First Amendment Project of Oakland to threaten a lawsuit, only 10 people chosen by lottery were permitted to address the City Council at each meeting. 

On March 18, SuperBOLD received an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for Citizen Activism, based on its role in pressuring the council to change the rules and allow many more members of the public to speak at council meetings. 

First Amendment Project Attorney Sophia Cope wrote to the Berkeley city attorney in April of 2006: “The public comment lottery system improperly denies willing speakers the right to address the council and [library] board at public meetings and it improperly prevents certain agenda items from receiving public comment.” 

The First Amendment Project offered its services pro bono.  

After experimenting with various formulas for public speech, the council adopted new rules for public speaking at the end of last year. People may speak to every item on the council agenda if they wish. Five people can speak to items not on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting; others must wait until the end of the meeting. 

“SuperBOLD did an immense service by starting a lawsuit,” Councilmember Dona Spring told the Planet on Friday. 

Councilmember Linda Maio said she is of two minds on the new rules. “The speakers provide a good framework,” she said. At the same time, it makes the meetings longer. Maio said adding a third meeting to the two generally scheduled each month would not be a good solution since the break between meetings allows her time to study the issues. 

Bernardi said the new rules for public speaking are good—“when the mayor remembers to call for the public to speak”— but told the Planet she thinks the city ought to do better.  

If more than five people come to a meeting to speak on an item that is not on the agenda, some must wait until the end of the meeting, which may come as late as midnight. And meetings have been cut off without allowing the public to speak at the end. 

Bernardi says all speakers on non-agenda items should be able to address the council at the beginning of the meeting. 

She added that when there are large crowds that want to attend meetings, the meetings are not moved to a larger venue to accommodate them. “If [the public] can’t be in the council chambers, you can’t call it participatory democracy,” Bernardi said. 

Thanking SPJ for the award, SuperBOLD said: “The struggle for free speech continues and we hope this award will inspire the city of Berkeley to open its meetings to greater public participation and that it will inspire others to join us in this struggle.”  


Judge’s Ruling Puts Hodge on Ballot

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday April 01, 2008

A Superior Court judge ruled Friday that Oakland school boardmember Greg Hodge must be placed on the June 3 ballot for the City Council race in District 3, setting up what is expected to be a fierce election challenge to incumbent Councilmember Nancy Nadel. 

Judge Frank Roesch wasted no time in making his decision, ruling immediately following attorneys’ arguments in a Friday morning hearing that Hodge had substantially complied with the state election code in presenting the City of Oakland with a nominating petition containing the signatures of 50 registered voters in District 3. 

Roesch also ruled that Assistant City Clerk Marjo Keller had not acted improperly in the matter. 

The City Clerk’s office disqualified Hodge a week ago, ruling that his petition contained only 49 valid signatures. 

At issue was the signature of a Myrtle Street resident whose single dwelling has two legal addresses. The resident is registered to vote at one of the house’s addresses, but signed Hodge’s petition with the second address. Because the state election code requires that the addresses on the registration form and a candidate’s nominating petition have to be identical, Keller said she had no choice but to invalidate the signature. 

Following the judge’s ruling, Keller said, “I feel what I did was proper,” and was following state law. 

Hodge said he was happy about the judge’s order, adding, “I think the judge made a fair decision.” 

Besides Hodge, who represents District 3 on the school board, Nadel is being challenged by Covenant House Development Director Sean Sullivan, a political newcomer. 

 


Berkeley PTAs Unite Against State Budget Cuts

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 01, 2008

More than 100 PTA members from the Berkeley public schools discussed ways to counter Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $4.6 billion state education budget cuts at a Berkeley High School Parent Teacher and Student Association (PTSA) meeting last week. 

The California PTA is scheduled to rally against the proposed cuts on April 24 in Sacramento, followed by visits to state legislators. 

PTSA President Mark van Kriekan encouraged PTA members to partner with educators, administrators, school board officials, and business and union leaders to organize the trips. 

The state PTA is also organizing local rallies throughout the state on April 25 and asking community members to take part in “Flunk the Budget Fridays” between now and the end of the month. 

“The way it’s coming out in the press is not hitting home with a lot of parents,” van Kriekan said. 

“The effect on every school district in the state, including Berkeley, will be devastating. California currently ranks 46th in the country in education spending and is $1,900 below the national average in per student funding. The governor is proposing to put us another $800 below the national average. Parents statewide will have to become active immediately if we are going to protect our children's education and prevent these cuts from happening.” 

Parents also discussed the possibility of putting an initiative on the November ballot to force the state to either make California 25th in per student funding or to mandate a change in how the state budget gets passed—from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority.  

“There's no better place to start this effort than here in Berkeley, but we cannot do this without your participation,” said state assembly member Loni Hancock, who is protesting the proposed cuts. 

Van Kriekan’s suggestion to create a “reach out for mediocrity campaign” to help the state become 25th in per student funding met with loud applause. 

“We need to look at this as an opportunity to defend public education,” said Berkeley PTA Council President Cathryn Bruno, who is trying to get 100 people to lobby in support of saving Prop. 98 outside Hancock’s office in El Cerrito on April 25. 

“We need to raise revenue,” she said. “New York is going after Amazon.com to raise sales taxes—we need to do something similar.” 

Berkeley Federation of Teachers Cathy Campbell emphasized that the state budget problem was not because of a spending crisis. 

“It’s because of a revenue crisis,” she said. 

Berkeley Unified sent out 55 pink slips to teachers and counselors two weeks ago. Final layoff notices are expected to go out on May 15. 

“We are the richest state in the richest country in the world. We should be raising revenue,” Campbell said. 

According to state superintendent Sheila Jordan, 15 of the 18 school districts in Alameda County will be unable to submit a balanced budget if the cuts occur. 

Although Berkeley Unified is one of the three school districts which will be able to present a balanced budget, the district is facing cuts of up to $3.5 million. 

“This is going to be the fight of our lives,” said Hancock. “I hope everybody realizes that.” 

For more information on the rallies e-mail Cathryn Bruno, Berkeley PTA Council President, at jefcat1991@sbcglobal.net 

or visit the California State PTA at www.capta.org.


BUSD Surpluses Sixth Street Property

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 01, 2008

The Berkeley Board of Education voted unanimously on Wednesday to declare the district’s Sixth Street property to be surplus.  

The Berkeley Unified School District lent the City of Berkeley the site at 2031 Sixth St. in exchange for use of the Old City Hall Building at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way under a 20-year lease agreement that expires in 2009.  

The city then sublet the Sixth Street property to LifeLong’s West Berkeley Family Practice Center, which provides low-cost medical services to the uninsured and the sick. 

For the health center to remain at the Sixth Street site, the school district had to decide that the facility was not suitable for K-12 education. 

More than 50 seniors, parents and community members turned up at a recent public hearing on surplussing the property to support LifeLong’s existence at its current site. 

The school board’s Sixth Street Surplus Committee recommended to the board that the district work with the city to sell or lease the property for less than “fair market value.”  

Berkeley Unified is currently moving ahead with plans to relocate its administrative offices to West Campus, which is scheduled to take place over the next year. 

 

 


Landmarks Commission to Discuss Remodel of Former Bentley’s Facade

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 01, 2008

The Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) will look at remodeling the facade of the Roy O. Long Co. building at 2122 Shattuck Ave. 

Known as Bentley’s to many old timers, the building is on the State Historical Resources Inventory. LPC staff has asked the commission to comment on the project and recommends its approval. 

Designed by Edwin Lewis Snyder as a realty office for Roy O. Long, a prolific builder and seller of homes in Berkeley for almost three decades, the Spanish-Colonial Revival-style building dates to 1927. 

Snyder also designed a similar building on Allston Way which houses Cancun Restaurant. 

“They sold the most amazing array of colored tights—made for dancers when women’s stockings still required a garter belt—and fancy lingerie,” landmarks commissioner Carrie Olson told the Planet. “Mrs. Bentley watched you from the second you entered until the second you left.”  

The site now houses Amanda’s Restaurant, whose owner Amanda West said she wants to restore some old features and add some new ones to the building’s facade. 

 

1920 Tenth St. 

LPC will also vote on whether to landmark 1920 Tenth St., a two-story wood frame triplex designed in the vernacular Colonial Revival Style. The commission’s staff has expressed the opinion that the building does not meet the criteria for landmarking and should not be landmarked. 

 


Retired UC Berkeley Traffic Expert Casts Wary Eye on Bus Rapid Transit Plans

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 01, 2008
Wolfgang Homburger speaks about Bus Rapid Transit to members of the Berkeley City Commons Club.
Richard Brenneman
Wolfgang Homburger speaks about Bus Rapid Transit to members of the Berkeley City Commons Club.

For Wolfgang Homburger, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) provides the wrong solution to East Bay traffic and environmental concerns. 

A traffic engineer who served on the faculty of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies for 35 years, Homburger said projects that involve construction and lead to ceremonial ribbon-cuttings lure political figures far more than do projects that involve upkeep and maintenance. 

“When’s the last time you saw a ribbon-cutting for maintaining a building?” he asked members of the Berkeley City Commons Club, who had invited him to speak on East Bay transportation issues Friday. 

“AC Transit wants to spend capital funds,” he said, “which is money with a ribbon-cutting at the end.” 

Homburger said BRT makes sense in cities like Sacramento, Los Angeles and Pittsburg, where rights of way either follow abandoned rail lines or occupy new lanes built for the purpose. 

Taking away existing traffic lanes can only lead to political backlash, he said, citing the case of an experiment on the Santa Monica freeway where an existing lane was taken away for carpools and buses. “It lasted about 12 weeks,” he said. 

The BRT proposal now under consideration by AC Transit includes a proposal for creating a bus-only lane along Telegraph Avenue, a notion which has drawn the anger of neighbors and businesses along the thoroughfare. 

“I am very skeptical of the existing proposal,” he said, “though I am in favor of parts of it, including controlled traffic signals” and a new ticketing system that would speed up the entry of passengers onto the buses. 

Berkeley hasn’t grown since 1950, he said, nor has El Cerrito, while the populations of Richmond and Albany have declined, leaving Oakland the only city with some growth in the last half of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st. 

Bay Area transportation is complex, he said, with 30 agencies involved in running public transit systems, and only one, the privately owned Tiburon Ferry, operating independently of public financing. 

“I once advocated a birth control program for public agencies,” he said, smiling. “But our brightest graduate students are doing very well in them because there’s plenty of jobs.” 

And while traffic engineers and systems designers think in terms of creating works that last for decades, the public is far more fickle. “Pity a poor engineer who has built a facility for 50 years and after five years the public has changed its mind.” 

Another problem transportation system operators face is the thorny question of just who really does speak for the public. 

He cited one project in San Francisco, where a group of self-proclaimed public leaders called for and won a project to widen sidewalks at the expense of on-street parking. The moment jackhammers set to work, neighbors started asking what was happening, and within 48 hours the project had been abandoned. “It turned out that the people who worked with the city weren’t representative of the neighborhood,” he said. 

Successful transportation designs arise from working with neighbors, he said, citing the 1960s case of a 10 by 12 block business area of Richmond where owners wanted four-way stops at all the intersections. Instead, engineers worked with the neighborhood and came up with a system of street closure and forced turns that won wide support, ensuring the City Council’s approval. 

Some plans are so outrageous that failure is a virtual certainty. 

Consider the Reber plan, the creation of schoolteacher-turned-theatrical-producer John Reber, which would have resulted in the filling in of 20,000 acres of San Francisco Bay, transforming the East and South bays into freshwater lakes by two massive roadway-creating dams, one at the site of the Bay Bridge and the other stretching between Richmond and Marin. 

Part of the plan included creation of a shipping channel starting at Oakland and slicing through the heart of Richmond. 

That one didn’t even make it to the ballot box. 

Another ill-starred plan called for creation of the Southern Crossing, a span connecting San Francisco and Alameda which remained in the hopes of CalTrans planners as late as 2001. 

Of major plans proposed, one looks certain to be completed, the fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel, while another, an additional runway for San Francisco International Airport atop a trestle system anchored in the waters of the bay, remains a possibility, Homburger said. 

Proposals to extend the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s rails to San Jose are unlikely without a major cash infusion, he said, and on a grander scale, high-speed rail between the Bay Area and Los Angeles is probably a non-starter, given the lack of major population centers in between the two major conurbations. 


Zoning Board OKs 24-Hour Chevron Mini Mart on Shattuck

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 01, 2008

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) on Thursday approved the expansion of the Chevron gas station at the intersection of Shattuck and Ashby avenues, which includes turning the 24-hour retail kiosk into a 24-hour mini-mart. 

Some LeConte neighbors had complained that enlarging the gas station would increase traffic snarls at the intersection and increase panhandling in the area. 

Although the zoning board received several e-mails and a petition from a local neighborhood group against the proposed project, no one turned up to oppose it during the public hearing Thursday. 

ZAB Chair Rick Judd said there had been several misconceptions about the proposed project. 

“Some people thought that the business was owned by Chevron Corporation,” he said. “Others had the misconception that the store would sell liquor. When they found out that was not the case, I guess they lost interest.” 

“We are not corporate Chevron at all,” Keith Simas, a third generation-owner of the Chevron franchise Xtra Oil Company, told the board. “We want to create a safer environment for everybody, including ourselves. The police will be able to monitor the station better if we get rid of the kiosk from the middle of the site ... The 24-hour thing is really for baby-sitting the property throughout the night.” 

The proposed project calls for moving the existing kiosk to the northwest corner of the site and adding 600 square feet to it. 

“This will improve onsite circulation, organize the fueling pumps and provide disabled people with a safe access to the store,” said Muthana Ibrahim, the project architect. 

He added that the store would be locked at night and that the cashier would conduct business with customers through a dispensing drawer. 

“We want to modernize the station .... It’s got a very 1970s look to it now,” Simas told the board. 

The Leconte Neighborhood Association had voted against the proposed project, citing traffic and safety issues as well as competition with the Roxie Deli across the street. 

The city’s zoning ordinance does not regulate retail markets or impose limitations on the number of retail stores in the commercial south area district where the project is located.  

“I am not sure if I would be enthusiastic about supporting a new 24-hour service but it seems to me we are not increasing the nuisance,” said board member Sara Shumer. “In fact I am surprised that the city’s traffic engineer has said that the new use would not even require a traffic study.” 

Judd told the Planet that the proposed expansion did not meet the criteria for a traffic study. 

“It’s a very modest expansion,” said ZAB Secretary Steve Ross. “We don’t think there will be any significant increase in traffic.” 

Linda Olivenbaum, who was replacing commissioner Jesse Anthony on the board and is married to Councimember Max Anderson, in whose district the station is, voted against the project. 

“The project will entice traffic,” she said. “I live in the neighborhood and I think it will lessen the safety at that intersection. The store will not be an asset, it will attract unsavory activity at night.”


East Bay Daily News Prints Final Issue

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 01, 2008

The East Bay Daily News, a free tabloid launched by the Knight Ridder chain in its final days before its takeover by the ANG chain, died a quiet death Saturday, two months before its third anniversary. 

The brief announcement came in the form of an anonymous editor’s note, which declared that the paper, founded May 20, 2005, was folding so that the Daily News Group could “focus on its core Peninsula papers.” 

One reason for its failure might be discerned in the response to a question about its closing posed to a UC Berkeley journalism professor. 

“Was that the little Knight-Ridder throwaway?” asked Tom Goldstein. “I live in El Cerrito, and if it circulated there, I’ve never seen it.” 

The paper began when the Knight Ridder chain owned the Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury News. Knight Ridder was bought out by the Sacramento-based McClatchy chain, which then sold off some of its acquisitions to ANG, the chain owned by Dean Singleton which also owns the Oakland Tribune and Marin Independent-Journal. 

The local freebie was part of a group that also included free papers on the peninsula, including publications in San Mateo, Redwood City, Burlingame, Los Gatos and Palo Alto.  

All the papers in the Daily News operation shared most of their content, with the East Bay version adding stories culled from the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times, as well as extensive amounts of wire service copy and syndicated features. 

Berkeley stories were often written by reporters for the Tribune and Contra Costa Times and printed in all three publications. The paper had relatively few news rack boxes in Berkeley compared with the Daily Planet or the East Bay Express, two locally produced publications. 


Rumors Circulate About Marines Leaving Berkeley

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 01, 2008

Rumors started circulating around 7 p.m. Monday that the Marine Recruiting Center at 64 Shattuck Square had reached an agreement with their landlord Sasha Shamszad and that they would be backing out of Berkeley. These rumors, complete with what purported to be quotes from Shamszad and Michael Applegate, director of the Marine Manpower Plans and Policy Division, were posted on web sites maintained by Code Pink and the nonpartisan coalition group AfterDowningStreet.org, among others.  

Some observers speculated that the news might be an April Fool’s Day joke, since today is April 1. 

Last year, as an April Fool’s Day joke, Code Pink announced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had invited the group for tea after they had camped outside her house for a few weeks trying to speak to her.  

Callers to the Code Pink office were greeted by a recorded message which said: 

“We have breaking news. We just heard that the landlord and the Marine Recruiting Center have come to an agreement about the marines leaving Berkeley and they are going to announce it tomorrow, Tuesday, at noon, in front of the Marine Recruiting Center. So come out and hear what the landlord and the marines have worked out. Peace, Love and War.” 

Code Pink’s protest against the existence of the Marine Recruiting Center since September has made national headlines over the past few months. 

When contacted by the Planet at around 7:15 p.m. Monday, Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington said he had not received any information about the marines leaving Berkeley. 

“I was contacted by [television] media about half an hour ago about this but I don’t know anything about it,” he said. 

“I am just so thrilled and excited,” Code Pink spokesperson Zanne Zoi told the Planet in a telephone interview. 

“I am going to be there tomorrow with flowers and champagne. I could weep. We have been asking the Marines to respect the values of the citizens of Berkeley for a long time.” 

Zoi said Code Pink had received a press release informing them about the announcement. 

“The landlord said that the presence of the marines was sparking a controversy and affecting neighboring businesses. He said that it was costing the city a lot of money. He may have offered to buy them out. I think the marines were having a hard time recruiting people. I don’t care why they are doing it. I am just happy they are doing it.” 

Shamszad and Marine Recruiting Center Director Capt. Richard Lund could not be reached for comment before press time Monday.  

For updates on this story, check www.berkeleydailyplanet.com. 


Getting to Know the North Berkeley Library

By Phila Rogers, Special to the Planet
Tuesday April 01, 2008
Phila Rogers

The North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library is always jumping. Day or evening, most of the chairs in the reading rooms are full and all the computers are in use. Patrons sometimes are two deep at the counter where several of the branch’s 16 staff members check out books or answer questions. 

On a nice day, school kids (Berkeley’s biggest middle school is a couple of blocks away) congregate on the lawn or display their skateboard skills on the sidewalk. Streams of young children flow up the ramp or climb the nine steps. In the reading room or at the computers, teens are working on their homework. Or if it’s a Wednesday afternoon, heads may be bent over chess games, a club that was started by Will Marston, the teen librarian. 

Tara Rivera, who comes to Berkeley from Brooklyn, by way of jobs in several other library systems, has been North Branch’s head librarian since 2004. The perception that North Branch is a beehive of activity is supported by the figures. “We’re the busiest branch in the system with the highest circulation of materials and the largest number of reserves,” Tara points out. “We’re serving not only the Berkeley community, but people from Albany, Kensington, and El Cerrito as well.” 

In spite of the bustle, North Branch has a distinctive cozy feeling with its two fireplaces, deep window sills, and carved wood ceiling beams. But what most people notice about the interior is the bright painted rainbow that follows one of the two arches leading into the children’s section.  

“The story is that the legendary children’s librarian a generation ago, Starr Latronica, and her husband came in one weekend and painted that rainbow,” says David Howd, the present children’s librarian. 

Though David may not wear theme clothes like Starr did, in his 16 years as the branch children’s librarian, he is dangerously close to earning the title “legendary” himself.  

He has performed three story times a week for babies, toddlers, and preschool children. He also presides, with staff support, over the ever-popular summer reading program, which some years has more participants than the Central Library. 

“I also enjoy working with the Student Friends Program, a summer volunteer program for middle schoolers,” says David. “They do everything from washing books and shelving to writing thank you notes to those who donated prize gifts for the summer reading program. We often hear how much those notes are appreciated.” 

Tara points out that like all the staff, David is a generalist who also works at the adult desk (though he is seldom far from kid’s books as 43-47 percent of the library circulation is children’s materials). 

North Branch has its share of long-time employees. Anne-Marie Miller, a library specialist, has been with the system for 37 years, with many years on the reference desk at Central Library. At North Branch, along with her reference expertise, she also selects titles for the “Staff Picks” shelf, a feature so popular that she often has to restock the display more than once a day. 

And then there’s Vivian Vigil, a supervising library assistant who has been in the library for over 20 years. “Without Vivian, many of our circulation services would just fall apart,” says Tara. 

“I’m pleased to say that a year ago I helped create North Branch’s first adult book club. We call it the Book-Club-in-a Bag program with the books (and bags) supplied by the Friends of the Berkeley Public library,” she says. “For those with other interests, library specialist Lisa Hesselgesser has a knitting group and library aide Nga Trinh demonstrates the art of origami.” 

North Branch features the well-known quilt show where each year outstanding examples of local talent adorn the walls adding further to the warm ambience of the building. The show will return this spring after a two-year absence. 

“Sometimes, it feels like we’re drowning in our success,” Tara says. “Our little library building was built to accommodate 8,000 volumes and we now have just under 60,000 volumes in our collection.”  


On the Corner

By Phila Rogers, Special to the Planet
Tuesday April 01, 2008

The North Branch occupies a prominent corner on a triangular site bordered by The Alameda, Hopkins and Josephine streets. The Mediterranean-style building, flanked by four gnarled old olive trees, was designed by James W. Placek, the architect responsible for the Central Library.  

In 1921, a special library building tax funded the construction of the Central Library and the South Branch and Claremont Branch buildings. But when it was time to build the North Branch in 1936, funds were low. A depression-era Public Works Administration (PWA) grant made up the short-fall providing almost half the cost, but because of the budget constraints, a planned kitchen and club rooms had to be eliminated from the final plans. 

The first North Branch library began on another corner when in 1910 it occupied the upper floor of a Victorian building on the southeast corner of Vine and Shattuck. Before moving to its present home, the library had moved to the Penniman mansion at present-day Life Oak Park.  

Today’s building is full of charming details like the decorative panel of tiles below the front window, the wrought iron light fixtures flanking the main entrance, and the whimsical round windows high on the walls. 

Those who love and use North Branch look to the day when the library can expand on the buildable land behind the present building. 


Calling All Quilts

By Phila Rogers, Special to the Planet
Tuesday April 01, 2008

Come May, the walls of the North Branch Library will be adorned with 50 to 60 quilts—the art pieces of local quilters who are participating in the 27th annual quilt show. “Sign-up will be starting soon,” according to librarian Debbie Carton, who is coordinating the show. “Look for notices at the North Branch; former exhibitors will receive their notices in the mail,” 

The show this year will be in memory of quilter Dorothy Vance who was one of the long-time exhibitors. She is remembered for injecting humor in her work with tongue-in-check comments stitched into her panels. 

An extensive catalog will tell the story of each quilt. The quilts will be on display from May 2 until May 28.


First Person: Moving Out

By Annie Kassof
Tuesday April 01, 2008

My friend Peter has mice. Not pet mice, but uninvited ones, who, he tells me on the phone, have snuck into his cupboards and are ravaging his dry goods quick as they can. Until he figures out the best way to get rid of them, do I want some of the food that the critters haven’t discovered yet? I tell him sure, and drive to his house where he loads up big bags of kasha and hot cocoa mix and rice vermicelli and penne pasta and more. I figure the kids will enjoy eating (and drinking) some things I don’t ordinarily buy, and I’ll save money on the grocery bill this month. 

At home my 18-year-old son wanders into the kitchen while I’m putting the unexpected bounty away in the pantry.  

“Lookit all this stuff I got from Peter,” I say.  

“Great,” he replies. “Too bad I won’t be around to eat it. I’m moving out this weekend.” 

I raise my eyebrows and turn to face him, stunned, the bag of Basmati rice I’m holding suspended above its shelf.  

“Really?”  

So my only son, the one who implored me to adopt my foster daughter nine years earlier so he’d have a sibling to love; the one who was once found to have a nearly genius I.Q.; the one whose diagnosis two years earlier almost resulted in my own emotional collapse, calmly tells me that his best friend, who has a nice two-bedroom place in another part of Berkeley, has invited him to move in. 

I set down the rice. My head is filled with a thousand thoughts. The big one: is he ready? Of course many people leave home at 18. Many go far away. Yet fewer move out while on a regimen of medications that not only help them stay mentally balanced, but may affect their sleep, anxiety level and physical well-being should they miss a dose. Fewer move out who have a single mom (prone to depression herself) who .asks twice daily, “Did you remember to take your meds?”  

When the answer is yes, which thankfully it is almost always these days, I breathe an inward sigh of relief, and I thank the Greater Powers—again—that the impact of my son’s mental illness on my little family is finally easing its grip. 

I think about how difficult it might be for my 11-year-old daughter when her big brother goes. She won’t have anyone around to fake-strangle her, or walk her to Walgreens for hot Cheetos or candy when I’m not around to say no junk food. The little house could seem big with just the two of us. Maybe my daughter won’t know what to talk to me about. At least she won’t be able to say I’m paying more attention to her brother, which I suppose I was for a while, especially around the time he started saying things like he wished he could just go out to the desert and die.  

I think about packing up his stuff in my Honda and driving across town. It’ll probably take a few trips. My son doesn’t have a car and doesn’t want to get a license. So we’ll load his TV and video games and computer and school books into my car. We’ll put his bicycle on the bike rack. He’ll probably want to take his laminated poster of Jimi Hendrix smoking a joint, and his map of the world and his Italian peace flag and his vitamins. I haven’t asked him if he wants to keep the brown paper bag that holds all his empty medication bottles. Once he said he wanted to make an art piece with them, but he hasn’t yet. Another time he said he wanted to make a series of chairs from sticks, and he did make one—decorated with feathers as well—and it’s perched on a shelf in the living room. I hope he lets me keep it there. He made it not long after his last hospital stay, when his face was pale as water and his hands shook nearly all the time. I love its fragile beauty. He’s come so far since then.  

I’m not worried about his new place having mice like Peter’s does, so I think I’ll give him some of the food to take. If he invites his sister and me over for dinner once he gets settled in, I bet it’ll taste spectacular.  


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Over-the-Top Chronicle Has Finally Topped Out

By Becky O'Malley
Friday April 04, 2008

Habits die hard. For almost all of my adult life, or at least as soon as the kids were old enough to fend for themselves at breakfast, I’ve enjoyed taking to my bed with a cup of coffee and the morning paper while it’s still too early to talk to anyone in a civilized way. Of necessity, we’ve stuck with the San Francisco Chronicle all these years, since we just aren’t that interested in reading a lot about Contra Costa County or San Jose. The New York Times is fine for national news, but the last time we subscribed it was delivered at 10 at night, tempting us to stay up too late reading it, and now it’s easier to read it on the Internet anyhow.  

The Chron has made my mornings go faster and faster over the years by squeezing its newshole almost dry, so that a quick reader can now suck down the whole paper in less time than it takes to drink one cup of coffee and eat one piece of toast. One could see that as a plus, perhaps.  

And furthermore, I’ve never believed that it was right to cancel subscriptions to publications just because you disagreed with something you read there. I’ve put up with a lot of Debra Saunders all these years because she’s a good writer and tells me about points of view I might otherwise miss.  

But. It finally might be the time to draw the line. The piece by Carolyn Jones on the prominent upper-left hand side of the front page of Thursday’s Chronicle was easily the worst piece of so-called journalism I’ve seen in a formerly respectable mass-circulation publication in all of my long life. Before I’d even finished my 10-minute Chron read, the Planet’s experienced City Hall reporter was calling me at home before 8 a.m., which she’s never done before, hoping fervently to be able to change her assignment for Friday’s paper so she could do a piece setting the record straight. Of course!  

The topic of the silly story?  

Here’s the headline and subhead: 

 

COST OF BERKELEY’S DOZENS OF CITIZEN BOARDS  

Officials say city gets sidetracked by work of 45 commissions 

 

Now, I know that reporters don’t write heads. So let’s look at the lead: 

Berkeley is finding that having its own foreign policy isn’t cheap. The city’s recent dustup with the U.S. Marine Corps has so far cost the city more than $200,000, while businesses say they’ve been slammed by related protests. 

“And that’s on top of the $1 million the city spends annually on domestic and foreign policy matters hatched by its 45 citizen commissions, which outnumber those in virtually every other city in America and debate everything from regime change in Iran to the plight of non-neutered dogs. 

Can’t anyone over there do math? Forty-five commissions, a million bucks—that’s about $20,000 per commission, providing the city with the unpaid labor of about 400 citizens, many of them professionals with much more experience and much better education than the overpaid city employees whose jobs they often do for them. A million dollars would pay for between five and 10 city employees, especially when salaries are burdened with the lavish pensions public employees have negotiated for themselves lately. It wasn’t citizen commissions that sunk Vallejo.  

The Planning Commission, just as one example, currently boasts architects, attorneys, Ph. D. planners and political scientists, all working for absolutely free. I’ll leave the documentation of what the other commissions actually do to our reporter, but the lazy journalism in the Chron article is breathtaking. Almost every word on the front page of the paper is conclusory rather than factual, and it doesn’t get any better on the jump.  

The silliest thing about the piece is the way it jumbles up legitimate misgivings about the cost of policing the dueling Marine protests with completely off-the-point sui generis attacks on our citizen commission system. The dig about the non-neutered dogs is particularly stupid. For Berkeley’s many pedestrians and bicyclists, roaming horny canines could present more of a problem than potholes, and of course animal lovers in every city are a vocal constituency that has to be reckoned with. 

Gordon Wozniak, District 8 councilmember, is poorly served by this sloppy piece, even though it seems that the reporter was doing her best to make him look like a hero. Wozniak was disturbed by the wording of the resolution on the Marine Recruiting Center that the council passed, or at least by the trouble it caused, and his original solution was to ask that resolutions which originate in the city’s Peace and Justice Commission get considered at two council meetings instead of the current one.  

Critics, however, countered that councilmembers should instead take responsibility for reading everything they vote on more carefully. Now Wozniak has changed his proposal to a much more sensible one, asking that city staff do a better job of posting commission information, including putting agendas, minutes and background documents on the Internet, so that both council and citizens get the facts in a timely manner before crucial votes. No one could object to that. And Wozniak never proposed getting rid of Peace and Justice, despite the Chronicle’s provocative headlines and leads to the contrary. 

The reporter also repeats, with absolutely zero documentation, the urban legend that boycotts caused by the brouhaha about the Marines cost the city of Berkeley dearly in lost revenues. Our reporter has already checked this out, as reported in previous issues of the Planet, and it just ain’t so. But the Chron piece rehashed all of the discredited reports again on Thursday, citing as Exhibit A the possibly canceled golf tournament in Tilden Park.  

One more time, for all you reporters who live in Marin but report on Berkeley: Tilden is part of the East Bay Regional Park District, far from any Berkeley commerce, and the city hasn’t lost a penny in either fees or revenues from any comings or goings of golfers there. And none of the other legends check out either. 

The new executive director of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, an amiable fellow who just blew into town from San Diego, once again allowed himself to be quoted knocking Berkeley in this story, again totally data-free: “We’re very concerned about the effect this is having on business.” What effect might that be?  

Well, perhaps it should be someone’s job, perhaps even the Chamber’s or the Chronicle’s, to document the relative change in property values lately between Berkeley and, for a random example, San Diego. Guess what? A whole lot of people are still eager to buy into Berkeley at top dollar, even as home prices elsewhere are dropping like rocks. This isn’t even necessarily the good news—houses here are still too expensive for many of the people we’d like to see moving to town—but it’s the truth, not idle speculation.  

And most of our commercial districts are still coining money despite the recession and certainly despite the minor fuss caused by the demonstrations. Does the reporter ever go to Fourth street, or Solano, or College Avenue, or even Telegraph? Berkeley is continuing to get plenty of revenue from commerce, despite all the whining about homeless people and peaceniks which the Chronicle delights in promoting. Our bond ratings continue to be golden. 

So we’ll miss Jon Carroll, but we’ll see him on the Internet. (I once tried to hire Jon for Pacific News Service when he was looking for work and I was an editor there, but I was overruled by a higher power who thought he was too frivolous.) Otherwise, I think it’s finally time for Berkeleyans to save a few trees and send the Chronicle a message: We’re tired of being the butt of fictitious opinion pieces mislabeled as reportage.  

I just did a quick fact-check, and found out that at our house we’re paying about 20 bucks a month for the privilege of having this dribble delivered to the porch. And here’s the beauty part: The “promotional” rate for Chronicle subscriptions is only about 10 dollars a month anyhow.  

So anyone who can’t quite give up their daily newsprint fix forever has a nifty way of making the point. Cancel now, while you’re mad, and then if your addiction gets the best of you re-upping will only cost you half as much as before. (Their number is 415-777-7000).  

You can even spend the money you save taking out supportive ads in the Planet if you’re so inclined. 


Editorial: Annual Report

By Becky O'Malley
Tuesday April 01, 2008

The obits are everywhere this week: “Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive. Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago.”  

That’s Eric Alterman, reprising in the New Yorker what he’s been saying for a while now in his regular column in The Nation. 

It’s certainly true that exactly five years ago today, when the O’Malley family assumed responsibility for publishing the Berkeley Daily Planet, we never imagined that it would be quite so difficult to make our efforts break even financially. At that point many newspapers were still considered cash cows, promising and often delivering very handsome returns on investments. Even four years ago, as Professor Alterman notes, things still looked rosy to many.  

The hard facts were in Editor and Publisher on Friday, in a story by Jennifer Saba: 

“The newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years. 

“According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4 percent ....compared to 2006—the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.” 

That’s the bad news. The good news, to paraphrase Mark Twain, is that the rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated.  

The best thing about never having gotten enough revenue from advertisers to pay our costs is that we don’t miss it as much as we would have if we’d ever actually gotten it, if you can follow that twisted syntax. In fact, the paper is bigger and better than ever, yet the subsidy we provide is down somewhat. 

Of course, our operation is a lot leaner than that of typical metro papers in their heyday. The top executives (that would be Mike and me) aren’t taking home six figure salaries (or any salaries at all for that matter.) We wish we could afford to pay more to our staffers, but since we can’t, we don’t. Along with our readers, we appreciate the excellent work they continue to do regardless.  

And we haven’t lost our sense of mission. Partly, perhaps, this is because those folks who probably are up to something, the ones whose hands are in the public pocket at every opportunity, have from day one delighted in spreading rumors about the paper’s imminent demise. Sheer cussedness has impelled us to prove them wrong. 

We’re very proud of what we’ve accomplished. The Planet has won all sorts of awards, the latest being the James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.  

Our ace reporters have broken a great number of notable stories—the biggest accolade is same stories’ subsequent (unattibuted) appearance in the metro dailies. Our feature writers and columnists are among the best in the business. Many people rely on the Planet’s comprehensive community and arts calendars to plan their weeks. We’ve pioneered the concept of giving our readers plenty of space to analyze events in their own voices and from their own perspectives, now much the vogue in Internet publications like the Huffington Post.  

Ah yes, the Internet. Being blamed, everywhere, as we write, for causing the demise of print papers. Alterman’s piece contains extensive descriptions, presumably for the benefit of non-web-savvy New Yorker readers, of the most popular “news” sites on the Internet, with the Huffington Post leading the way.  

Why the ironic quotes? Well, up until now there’s been precious little original news reporting done for web-only daily papers. A lot of what people see when they look to the Huffington Post, Google News or the equivalent to find out what’s happening is just links to articles in the diminishing number of print dailies. 

But someone has to pay reporters. Huffington has just hired a few of them, but still has, last I checked, fewer reporters than the Berkeley Daily Planet employs. And our defined universe is a lot smaller than theirs. 

Nonetheless, Internet publication is one very fine way of getting the news out, once real reporters have collected it. Here at the Planet we’re starting to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunity. We’ve maintained the word “daily” in our title since the beginning, even though we’ve not been able to publish new content every single day, but it’s finally possible to do that thanks to the Web.  

Regular online readers might have noticed by now that we’re putting up new stories almost every day on our website, berkeleydailyplanet.com. Most of these will eventually appear in newsprint, but you can get your news fix early online.  

What community papers like ours excel at is reporting in depth on topics of mainly local interest, especially land use decisions. That’s our sweet spot, one that metro dailies are leaving to us as they downsize because of declining ad revenues and falling profits. Without additional printing and distribution expenses, we will be able to devote still more of our resources to comprehensive daily reporting of what our readers need to know. 

There are good reasons, too, why advertisers are increasing flocking to the web. Computer search engines allow willing buyers to connect with eager sellers in no time at all. That’s why the Planet’s advertising sales department is working on enhancing the role of our online paper to function as a powerful directory which can easily be accessed by consumers who want to find and support local businesses.  

As we go to press, we’ve learned that the East Bay Daily News, one of the many pubications acquired by the Media News conglomerate in the last year or so, is being shut down by its corporate masters. Some good reporting and photography, against all odds, has been done by those who worked there during its brief existence, but sophisticated East Bay newspaper readers just weren’t looking for a publication which featured “What is Hannah Montana’s real name?” in a prominent location on the front page. 

Someone called to ask if we’re going to have our annual celebration of the anniversary of our first publication, which is, fittingly, today, April 1. We are, but we’ve postponed the open house to a later day, Mayday, May 1, when we can expect better weather, since we now have so many friends we need to be able to spill outside into the backyard. (And perhaps this is the moment to acknowledge the contribution to our success of our gracious landlord, Bob Sugimoto, who has lived upstairs for most of these five years and has provided us with fresh tomatoes from his plants out back every year since we’ve been here. )  

An old writer friend, Michael Rossman, sent us a letter recently reminding us how lucky we are to be able to undertake this great adventure: 

“...how I envy you, in the best of ways, for being so enabled to live out a dream—quirky, idiosyncratic, substantive, modest-scaled, real. How fortunate you are, how fortunate you have made yourself, to be able just (amongst all other responsibilities) to sit there writing discursive, intelligent surveys and probes and nudges into so wide a variety of civic, citizenly, and humane affairs. In endless industry, fascination, and enjoyment, or so it seems; I’m sure I’m not just projecting....you are so consistently sensible and wide-reaching that this (for me) easily excuses your occasional quirks of focus and reaction, and leaves me with a sense of local, home-grown civic comfort to know your voice reaches so many so regularly in our small canton. And more personally with a little vicarious thrill of pleasure each time I see how you’ve enjoyed yourself doing it again.” 

He’s pretty nearly got it right. He’s missed some of the more difficult moments in this peculiar enterprise, but we know we’re lucky to be here, and we do often enjoy ourselves. That’s why we’re still around, despite all odds, still having fun most of the time. And why we expect to be here for a while longer, god willing and the creeks don’t rise. 

—Becky O’Malley 


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday April 04, 2008

LINCOLN BRIGADE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I attended the dedication of the memorial to the American Lincoln Brigade this last Sunday. I don’t know how many folks are familiar with the three-year Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Nearly 3,000 Americans volunteered to help fight the Franco, Nazi, 

and Italian forces trying to overthrow the elected government. A good portion of these men and women died in Spain. Had the Spanish Republicans won that war, World War II might well have been avoided. 

The United States, England and France embargoed the elected Spanish government, thus contributing to the victory of fascism. It certainly emboldened Hitler and Mussolini. 

Anyway, it was a thrill to see 11 veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, who were grateful for recognition and the memorial. There are 39 men and women veterans left. We do owe them for their sacrifice. 

The memorial is in San Francisco near the ferry building. Worth seeing. 

Harry Gans 

 

• 

CITY COMMONS CLUB 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Richard Brenneman wrote an excellent article in your April 1 issue summarizing the talk by Wolfgang Homburger at the City Commons Club of Berkeley on March 28. Mr. Brenneman captured the complex details covered by Mr. Homburger in his one-hour presentation, and he wrote the article in a very clear and understandable way that includes all of the subtle points included in the talk. 

Somehow, while taking copious notes during Mr. Homburger’s talk, Mr. Brenneman also managed to shoot a bunch of photos, and the one you published shows action and focus in one little frame. 

The Berkeley Daily Planet has been supporting City Commons Club of Berkeley for many years by publishing our meeting notices in every issue. This has brought us some new members and has helped Berkeley area residents to learn about the high quality of the distinguished speakers who appear every Friday at noon at City Commons Club which meets in the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley. 

We thank Richard Brenneman for his excellent article, and we thank the Daily Planet for your continuing support as we begin our 98th year of serving the East Bay communities with our educational programming. 

Edward L. Klinenberg 

President, City Commons Club 

 

• 

RECRUITING STATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am pleased the Berkeley City Council had the courage to say that recruiting for war is unwelcome, and admire the efforts of those who protest daily in front of the marine recruiting center to remind the recruiters we want them out of both Iraq and Berkeley. But I take issue with the idiot idea of announcing to news outlets that the Marine Recruiting station was going to be closing. 

Hearing the news on KPFA brought elation, followed by profound sadness when I later discovered it was untrue. The incident caused considerable confusion and demoralization among many who want to see the office closed. Starting rumors that sow confusion and that demoralize the left was a tactic favored by the FBI during operation Cointelpro because the FBI understood how discouraging such misinformation was. It is a shame that Code Pink engaged in this pathetic antic to get attention. 

I hope in the future that they focus on actually closing the recruiting station through protest and civil disobedience instead of using tactics that only serve to confuse and demoralize those who share their goal of closing the marine recruiting office. 

Anne Reisse 

 

• 

CODE PINK CRITICS  

AND THEIR CRITICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To disagree with a political opponent is fine. But to make fun of their appearance rather than arguing the issues seems like the behavior of a knave. A number of letters, and one editorial have painted the anti-Code Pink contingent as out-of-shape losers. As a long-time observer of political theater, I have noticed that both the Code Pink and pro-Marine groups seem to be made up of mostly middle-age folks with a smattering of younger people. Both groups seem to have about the same level of physical fitness and attractiveness. There seem to be more women in Code Pink, and more men in the pro-Marine groups, but other than that, not much difference in their level of fitness and attractiveness. If the two sides changed clothing and exchanged signs, I doubt if many of us would notice the difference. 

As to the effectiveness of the Code Pink tactics, I think they are counterproductive. I am against the Iraq war, and have been from the beginning. In every way, this is a bogus, inhumane, and wasteful war, being fought because of Bush administration lies. I am not, however, against the military. The Code Pink protests in front of the Marine Recruiting Office are preaching to the converted, and the smugness of the Code Pink members rubs many of us the wrong way. Why aren’t they in Texas or Ohio, where they might change some minds. Why aren’t they campaigning for Obama or Clinton. As long as the Bush/Cheney machine is in office, no amount of protesting will end the war in Iraq. There are many positive ways to make a difference in the world: help the presidential candidate of your choice, plant a tree or two, write letters to your representatives, mentor a child. But I am pretty sure that all of the Code Pink protests in Berkeley won’t shave one hour off of this war, and in fact will alienate a number of folks who share their disgust with the Iraq war. 

Fred Massell 

Oakland 

 

• 

TREE-ROOT MASSACRE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The tree-root damage that Barbara Widhalm commented on in the March 28 issue sounds like it might have been approved (if at all) by the same “behind-the-desk-arborist” who, a few years ago, insisted against the word of others more knowledgeable that the big tree at the corner of Cedar and Sixth streets was healthy and had to remain. So it did, until one day it did what seriously sick trees did—it fell over and died. Unfortunately, so did the driver of a car at that intersection, who had the misfortune of being stopped by the traffic light there, with his body exactly where the trunk of the huge tree fell. 

Why do we see so many erroneous pronouncements by those who aren’t experts in a particular specialty? Having to consult a truly knowledgeable source is not an admission of total incompetence. To the neighbors who enjoyed the curbside trees daily, their eventual loss may be as serious as the loss of Berkeley Iceland to the community’s ice skaters, where an inappropriate decision to require a portable refrigeration system of unknown condition was pronounced better than the original system that had been professionally maintained, thus depleting financial resources that could have been applied to current repairs and maintenance. 

Milford Brown 

 

• 

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wanted to read the commentary entitled The Winter Soldier Investigation, but it wasn’t until the third column that the author, Mark Sapir, bothered to talk about anything other than trashing KPFA. Been there (exhaustively), done that. I thought it was a rather poor April Fool’s joke—on your readers. 

Mal Burnstein 

Former Local Board Chair, KPFA 

 

• 

BUDGET CUTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If the teachers want more money, why don’t they identify a part of the budget to cut? Here are some ideas.  

Mandate that no person who works for the state can get more than 50 percent of their pay in retirement and work until 62 to get it. Return class size to 30-to-1; that will allow the schools to eliminate 25 percent of the administrators and teachers using attrition. Make government employees pay one third of their medical premium. Also, go into every part of government and get rid of at least 10 percent of the employees. This is more than fair and would go a long way to balancing the budget. See, what they want is just more and more. It is like a heroin addict he will never get enough and will sooner or later overdose on the drugs. The people are overtaxed and their lives and futures are being destroyed in order to keep an out-of-control system going.  

Dan Carter 

 

• 

SHAME 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Shame on you Chevron! You bussed your employees to the Planning Board Meeting to filibuster the important decision around the 22-mile highly explosive hydrogen pipeline, leaving opponents literally out in the cold. Then you used manipulating words—new jobs, upgrade, less pollution, help for Richmond. Fortunately the members asked probing questions: How many permanent jobs? (Answer: 10.) Why won’t you agree to no dirty polluting crude oil? (We don’t have the equipment. Then when pushed, we would have to come back to the board if we decide differently.) 

You had three years to explore alternative nonpolluting energy; you made $18.3 billion profit; you charge a record $110 per barrel. What a missed opportunity to clean up your shameful record in oil spills in our bay, the Australian Barrier Reef, toxic flaring around the world. Shame on you to say you’re helping Richmond then want to reduce taxes and increase pollution 5-50 times (according to scientists from CBE and Attorney General Brown). 

Folks, we have not only a cancer and respiratory illness epidemic, this is a global warming crisis! Write and ask the Planning Board to resubmit the DEIR and appear at the April 10 meeting. Democracy and health need you. 

Ruth Gilmore 

Richmond 

 

• 

NORTH SHATTUCK PLAZA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After the much-maligned North Shattuck Plaza ran into heated opposition from area residents and merchants in 2007, the plaza’s leading proponent, Planning Commissioner David Stoloff told the San Francisco Chronicle late last year that he was on the verge of withdrawing his plan. He claimed he was doing so because he was “outshouted.” 

People who have seen Stoloff in action were not convinced that his plan was really going away. Sure enough, the public review draft of the Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan was released this past February, and there, towards the end on pages 6-68 and 6-69 is a proposal for a North Shattuck Plaza. Key elements of the plan are nearly identical to what Stoloff proposed last year. 

How did this privately developed plan, dreamed up mainly by architects and developers who stand to profit enormously from it, wind up in a city master plan? It’s not hard to figure out. Stoloff campaigned very hard and raised a lot of money for Mayor Tom Bates in 2004, who subsequently appointed him to the Planning Commission. Bates is running for re-election this year.  

Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, another leading advocate for the Plaza, also may have had a hand in trying to quietly slip a very divisive proposal through the city planning process. Capitelli too, is up for re-election this year. 

Fortunately, neighborhood activist Merilee Mitchell took the time to read the nearly 300-page Master Plan document and alerted North Shattuck people to what was in it. If not for that, Stoloff & Co. might have been able to slip through the back door what it had been unable to obtain through an open public process. 

The public comment period for the Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan closes on April 11. Comments should be sent to Kvuicich@ci.berkeley.ca.us. 

Art Goldberg 

 

• 

STILL FIGHTING FOR  

THE RIGHT TO GIVE LIFE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Since 1983, sexually active gay men have been selectively prohibited from donating blood. The policy was enacted in reaction to the emergence of HIV/AIDS among the gay male population in the United States. In order to best protect the blood supply from the widely misunderstood virus, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA)—the federal body charged with overseeing blood donations—implemented a lifetime ban for all men who had engaged in sexual intercourse with other men, since 1977. Twenty-four years later, the policy is still in place despite technological and blood screening advancements, which includes a three-phase process to ensure all transferred blood is untainted.  

The FDA defers donors temporarily based on many conditions, such as travel to foreign countries or recent exposure to needles, but provides no flexibility when considering the deferral of sexually active gay men. If a man engages in monogamous, protected sexual intercourse with only one man over a lifetime, this man is still considered at higher risk than the general sexually active population, and is therefore banned for life from donating blood.  

Some university campuses have decided to approach the policy with a kind of activism and message to blood banks that is loud and clear—“you are not welcome here.” Based on public university non-discrimination policies, these campuses propose to ban blood drives on campus. University President Don Kassing recently enacted such a ban at San Jose State University and professors at Sonoma State University are currently weighing a measure that would do the same at their campus. The premise of this approach is commendable, but at what cost? UC Berkeley’s monthly blood drives bring in nearly hundreds blood units each school year, meaning that just as many lives have been affected by campus blood donation. While more adversarial efforts are effective in raising awareness, a new and innovative approach might better offer benefits for both a marginalized community seeking equality and an individual in desperate need of blood.  

To balance these competing interests, the LGBT community organized a Sponsor Blood Drive last year, which invited deferred donor students and community members to seek sponsors to give blood in their name. The event raised awareness of the policy and provided an opportunity for all individuals to participate in the unique act of giving life. Due to its success, and the Bay Area’s recent involvement in the cause, UC Berkeley is holding another Sponsor Blood Drive on Monday, April 7. UC Berkeley has an opportunity to take part in this important discussion, and we should be heard loud and clear—do not discriminate…but give blood, too.  

I encourage all those able individuals to give blood and save lives. If you cannot give on April 7, then find your nearest blood service provider at RedCross.org. We should all have the right to give life – let us continue to strive for that aim and continue to save lives in the process. Please stop by the Right to Give Life booth on Sproul the week of March 31– April 4 or drop in to give blood on Monday, April 7 in the Pauly Ballroom, MLK, Jr.  

Jeff Manassero 

Senior and former ASUC Senator 

 

• 

TOO OUT THERE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Martial law in America—a story that won’t go away. The Bush administration has passed several omnibus bills in the last four years that relate to martial law. Every once in a while you read nefarious reports that concentration camps and detention centers are being outfitted. Who are the shadowy groups involved with this clandestine plot? 

On another level, The Progressive magazine published an article about the FBI and Homeland Security deputizing 25,000 people from the private sector to report on suspicious activities and unusual events. 

Infragard, as the organization is called, is another secret surveillance unit that is keeping tabs on Americans. 

One chilling reference mentioned in the article was a agent advising the group “when—not if—martial law is declared.” A FBI spokeswoman’s response to the statement, how ridiculous. 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 


Commentary: UC Tries to Re-Write Earthquake Safety Law

By Hank Gehman
Friday April 04, 2008

The trial phase of the lawsuit brought by the City of Berkeley, the Panoramic Hill Association and the California Oaks Foundation against the University of California to stop the building of the new office/gym facility (SAHPC) and a mostly new Memorial Stadium heard its final arguments on March 20. The case is now in the hands of the judge who will give her decision within two months. The stakes couldn’t be higher. We have just seen in our newspapers a study of the probable damage from the severe earthquake expected at any time on the Hayward Fault. These experts are predicting staggering losses to homes and businesses of at least $165 billion. The magnitude of the damage and the rebuilding is hard to imagine. 

Yet, in the face of these frightening predictions, the university is using all of its political and legal muscle to throw fuel on the fire and convince the court to approve the new SAHPC and Memorial Stadium project which will be built on and adjacent to the Hayward Fault. The project is massive. It is currently projected to cost $450 million. The use of the stadium by the public will be expanded with the addition of seven large concerts and an unlimited number of smaller events. This would bring more than one million spectators a year to the fault. Add to that the increased daily use due to the SAHPC and it’s obvious that the number of people at risk would be greatly increased and that risk spread out over many more days of the year. 

The Alquist-Priolo Act has been protecting Californians for 35 years against the dangerous folly of building on an earthquake fault. So to build this project, UC has to find a way in court to get around this law. What has the university’s legal strategy been? In the end, it has been to get the judge to re-write the law. In the trial, UC has been trying to get the court to change some of the basic language of the Alquist-Priolo Act so it can play a “shell game” and hide the obvious fact that the SAHPC and the Stadium together make a unified project. 

Alquist-Priolo restricts most new building within a quarter-mile zone around major earthquake faults. For buildings already on the fault, the law limits “alterations and additions” to 50 percent of the value of the building. This way every time a building owner wants to improve or expand he would be limited and would have to ask himself if the limited improvements would be worthwhile or sufficient. The terms “alteration and additions” were chosen as the legal hurdle because the law wants to limit these improvements. Without improvements and expansion, over time, buildings loose their usefulness and might even be abandoned and would achieve the basic goal of Alquist-Priolo to get people out of harm’s way. 

In court UC has attacked the use of “alteration and addition” as the proper legal test and says that the real issue should be whether the SAHPC is “separate” from the existing stadium. They say the definition of “separate” should be whether the two buildings touch. But is using “separate” a better way to achieve the goals of the law? Or is it just a way to undermine the law? It is true that there is a seismic joint between the SAHPC and the stadium that would allow the SAHPC to move somewhat independently from the stadium during an earthquake. But buildings in earthquake areas have seismic joints for just this purpose. The SAHPC itself is divided by two seismic joints. Seismic separations, by themselves, don’t make buildings separate.  

When you look at the Memorial Stadium/SAHPC project as a whole, it’s clear that the seismic separations don’t automatically result in different buildings. The design for the new stadium is based on having seismically-separated sections at the critical places where the earthquake is expected to tear the stadium apart. These areas (A, B and C in the graphic) are completely separate structures. They have their own walls and their own separate foundations. Like the SAHPC they are designed to move independently. Webster’s dictionary would call these separate buildings. But who would argue that this design would make the Stadium itself four different buildings? When you look at the basic design, the SAHPC/Stadium is a collection of seismically isolated structures that together make a unified project. The SAHPC is one of those pieces. 

The university has said in court that from the beginning it was designing the SAHPC as separate and independent from the stadium and therefore it couldn’t be an addition or alteration. But the first set of plans made before they knew they were being sued showed numerous connections between the SAHPC and the stadium that even the university admits would make the SAHPC an addition to the stadium. Once UC realized that they might be held to the limitations of Alquist-Priolo, they removed most of the connections in later plans to make it appear that they were in compliance with the law. But UC still claims to have the right to make those connections later when they build the new stadium. 

This project is the ultimate example of how California should not invest its resources. UC is rolling the dice with public safety and surely squandering hundreds of millions of dollars. We can only hope that the judge will protect the public interest and see through these transparent attempts by the University to make an “end run” around Alquist-Priolo. For good reason, “separate” is nowhere found in Alquist-Priolo and to now make “separate” the key term would only thwart the intent of the law and even open the door to a flood of challenges to the law. The 2007 California Building Code says that, along with other criteria, an addition is defined as an “expansion” of a building. Regardless of the gaps between the SAHPC and the Memorial Stadium the SAHPC is an expansion and is part and parcel of the stadium rebuild project. If UC’s legal sleight of hand is allowed to prevail there will surely be tragic consequences. 

 

Hank Gehman is a former Ivy League football player and Cal graduate student.


Commentary: Message for Barbara Lee: Not Another Dime for Israeli Occupation

By JIM HARRIS
Friday April 04, 2008

Barbara Lee said this recently in regard to Bush’s war/occupation in Iraq: 

“Congress should not approve another dime for any measure for continuing the occupation of Iraq that does not include a clear timeline for safe and timely redeployment. We have the power to end the occupation of Iraq.” 

That is why progressives around the country, and especially here in the Bay Area, respect and admire Barbara Lee. Lee’s words are, much more often than not, direct, clear, principled, and for a sane approach to policy, while most other politicians are cautious, hesitant, and likely to first gauge the political winds. Barbara Lee is right to demand the halt of all funding of the US occupation of Iraq. 

What though of U.S. support of the Israeli occupation of Palestine? This military occupation is now over forty years old, eight times longer than the direct U.S. occupation of Iraq. Isn’t it about time to end U.S. military aid to Israel? Can Barbara Lee stand up to Prime Minister Olmert, and the political lobbies that support his policies, the same way she is standing up to President Bush? 

There is much talk these days of a renewed “peace process”, but we must look carefully at what Israel is actually doing, with the full complicity of Bush and the U.S. Congress. When nearly every administration has called the Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank an “obstacle to peace” (they are more than that, they are in fact in violation of international law), Israel never seems to miss an opportunity to begin every round of talks with an announcement of their expansion. The Israeli leadership does not seem serious about peace, and only seems determined to pursue its agenda, to create facts on the ground, in brazen contempt of international law. 

Not only is Israel building illegal settlements in the West Bank, it is also busy destroying Palestinian homes. Just this last month, the US-funded Israeli military destroyed homes of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley villages of Hadidiya and surrounding area, and destroyed a farm. Yet no word from Congress about how U.S. funds were misspent, no word from Congress suggesting that we could use those same funds, used now to make the lives of Palestinians miserable and homeless, might be better used to help provide homes right here. Only, at best, some clichés are repeated supporting the “peace process.” 

Another outrage occurs later this month, when the Israeli High court considers the question of whether the Israeli military may demolish yet another Palestinian village, including a kindergarten. This village is Al Aqabah in the Jordan Valley, deep in the heart of the occupied West Bank. The survival of a West Bank village in the hands of the Israeli courts? In a government that the citizens of this village have absolutely no say in electing? Isn’t that just another name for “apartheid”? 

We must ask then, at what point will Barbara Lee make an unequivocal statement demanding that no more aid be sent to Israel while it continues to destroy homes, farms, olive trees, and even kindergartens. While it continues to build settlements that destroy the possibility of peace. Barbara Lee, to her credit, has taken steps to criticize some specific Israeli policies that violate human rights. We now need her to take the next logical step, in calling for an end to all U.S. aid for Israeli occupation. Not another Dime. 

 

Jim Harris is a long time resident in Barbara Lee’s congressional district, and is founder of StopAIPAC.org. At that website you can find a petition to Barbara Lee to end U.S. aid to Israel. 


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday April 01, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

BAM / PFA BUILDING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In Toyo Ito’s rendering of the proposed art museum, the sidewalk on Oxford Street in front of the museum is filled with people. But that sidewalk is empty today, and the rendering shows nothing that will attract all those people. 

In the rendering, the Oxford Street facade of the museum is made up of blank white walls rising up behind small lawns with abstract sculptures on them. Anyone who understands how to create lively urban places can predict that this will be an empty, unused space. 

If we want this to be a lively space, we should replace the small, unusable lawns with cafe seating, and we should add a couple of stands nearby selling coffee, tea, and food. 

Artsy architects are attracted by blank white walls rising up behind small lawns, but ordinary people are not. If we want people here, we need something that will attract people. 

Charles Siegel 

 

• 

A BIKE FOR BILL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My friend, Bill, at North Berkeley Senior Center just had a second bike stolen at the senior center. It was securely locked to the bike rack in front of the senior center. I got the second bike for Bill from a friend who had an unused biked in his garage because his kids upgraded to more expensive, mountain bikes. 

Bill is an 81-year-old, low-income senior, and the bike was his sole source of transportation. This seems like a very mean thing to do. I understand that saws are available now that cut through metal like butter, and/or there are jacks that can open a lock. 

Anybody out there have an unused bike they would like to donate to Bill? 

Thank you for your consideration. 

Catherine Willis 

 

• 

EAGLES UP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It was invigorating to see Berkeley’s spirit of protest alive in the Eagles Up and MAF protests on Telegraph Avenue last week. The demonstration seemed to bring out the full diverse range of the pro-war contingent, from the overweight bikers to the slightly less overweight bikers. The fact that most of these people made the trek with a debilitating medical condition makes it all the more impressive. 

That is, I assume they all had invisible debilitating medical conditions. Since the army’s maximum enlistment age is 42, and these guys were “pro-war,” I can’t think of any other reason why they wouldn’t be in Iraq holding a rifle, or at least in military training somewhere. I just think the Daily Planet should have made a bigger deal over the heroism these young and middle-aged men showed by rising from their wheelchairs to travel to Berkeley and stand up for what’s right. 

Hooray for Eagles Up, MAF, and above all: Hooray for America. 

James Wiseman 

Albany 

 

• 

IN HARM’S WAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When American soldiers die in Iraq, do we punish the medics and doctors who try to save them? 

No, we recognize that our soldiers are in harm’s way, their injuries are often catastrophic, and sometimes no amount of medical intervention, even the truly heroic, will keep them alive. 

The children in our poorest neighborhoods, under the freeways, closest to the toxic dumps, living with the most crime and the fewest police, with more liquor stores than supermarkets, more check cashing businesses than banks or savings and loans, where good job opportunities are as rare as good health care—the children of these neighborhoods are also in harm’s way, living on the front lines, subject to catastrophe. 

To punish the teachers and schools that struggle to educate these children makes no more sense than punishing a doctor for not saving the victim of a roadside bomb.  

The destructive effects of extreme poverty cannot be cured by our schools alone. 

This does not absolve our schools of responsibility, but it means that our schools can only provide part of the solution. 

The tactic of blaming schools for the educational divide in California is a way to avoid taking responsibility for the malignant neglect of our poorest communities. 

Governor, step up. 

Drop your plan for a ten-percent budget cut to education. 

Drop your plan to punish so-called low-performing schools. 

Help California get out from under the misguided constraints of the No Child Left Behind Act. 

Instead, lead the way in supporting our teachers with adequate resources. 

Face the fact that new revenue will be required. 

Proposition 13 gutted the education system in California, and some kind of adjustment is necessary. 

Our most prosperous businesses and our richest citizens have been contributing too little for too long. 

We have wealthy school districts where the community is able to supplement state funding with lavish private contributions. And we have school districts where the meager state funding is all they’ve got. Your current proposal punishes the schools with the greatest need and the least money. 

We can’t continue to neglect and then punish our state’s poorest families. The fate of all our children is bound up together. 

Please raise the budget for education in California. There are children in harm’s way, and they need help. 

David Schweidel 

 

• 

THANKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

At about 9:30 this morning, my doorbell rang and through the crack in the curtain I saw silver badges on dark blue uniforms. After a frantic search through some questionable escapades in the late 1960s, my mind returned to the present and my heart resumed a normal beat. As I opened the door, my eyes focused on a familiar object in one of the officer’s hands. What is your name? He asked. I answered honestly. Do you have any identification? He said. I said that all my identification was (I hoped) inside the wallet he was holding. He handed it over and asked me to check the contents to see if everything was inside. Everything was. Even the $24.73 I had left after Fosters Freeze last night. Even my Kaiser card and my recently replaced debit card. Even the tiny silver pen that had come with my brand new Levenger wallet. The officers, who were growing more handsome by the minute as they stood there on my patio, explained that a woman on Grant Street had found it and turned it over to them without even opening it.  

Thank you, honest woman. Thank you, handsome policemen. 

Martha Dickey 

 

• 

STATE OF EDUCATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Only a couple weeks ago, over 10,000 teachers were informed that they would be laid off to partially account for California’s 4.4 billion dollar budget deficit. Gov. Schwarzenegger, who had strongly advocated for education prior to his election, needs to consider the long-term effects of this plan. The lay-off of 10,000 teachers while our population continues to grow will lead to large increases in class size. Second, the dismissal of teachers, increasing classroom sizes and the huge cuts to education will lower student’s test-performance on standardized tests, which will limit the amount of funding students will receive at the Federal level. California is already 47th of 50 in per pupil funding for education, this cut will surely bring California down the final notches for last place. Lastly, the worst hit schools will be those who can least afford it, the most needy children, with the weakest PTAs, which are least able to adjust their budgets and to fundraise. Our students are the working class of the next generation; our failure to support them is a failure to secure the economy and social health of our community in upcoming years. Sacramento needs to find another way to address this budget issue other than at the expense of our students. These cuts are a bandage, and a dirty one at that, it will worsen the situation in the long term.  

In the meanwhile, local government must address the local needs of their community and their schools while standing up for those teachers being so unjustly hit. Berkeley Unified school district is laying off over 50 of its teachers. While there are other districts which are extremely hard-hit, I am very disappointed in Berkeley’s response to the situation. Districts such as San Francisco and Oakland have been working hard locally to ensure that the students in their community do not suffer due to budget decisions made at the state level, not to mention to ensure that their teachers do not have to face the insult of being tossed aside. Local government needs to make education among its top priority, they need to step in to protect our children’s educations and they need to advocate for our students and our teachers as our elected officials.  

Debra Wong 

 

• 

PANORAMIC WAY PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In your March 28 report on what the council did, Judith Scherr showed her lack of knowledge about a project at 161 Panoramic Way. She wrote in part, “The neighbors said the new home would create dangerous conditions, especially while it was being built. Numerous conditions were placed on developer Bruce Kelley’s project, but that did not satisfy neighbors.” 

A simple search of earlier Planet articles would reveal much information as to why there has been so much opposition to the project. The 3,000-square-foot, exceedingly steep lot is in a subdivision that was created when developers paid no attention to the topography of the area. Developers were also not required by law to put in the infrastructure. Anyone who has driven up Panoramic Way knows that there is a stretch of road that is functionally one way but has two way traffic just past the hairpin curve at Dwight Way. Panoramic Way is the only paved road to access the neighborhood.  

While in the past the city has required individual property owners to widen the road, and build the house from the property line, the city is not requiring developer Bruce Kelley to do that. They allowed a slightly less than 1,500-square-foot house. The current zoning is the most restrictive in the city. Minimum lot size has been 9,000 square feet since Feb. 13, 1975. Kelley’s lot in an antiquated subdivision is “grandfathered.” Unfortunately, we are not living in the late 1800s. There were no cars at the time the lot was created. We do not use horses nowadays. 

One of the councilmembers voting against the appeal, Betty Olds, stated at the hearing that she used to drive up the road to visit her friend, Doris Maslach and that the Kelley project will widen the road. Olds seemed to have forgotten that Mr. Steve Maslach testified that his father, retired UC Provost George Maslach, had a stroke and his transport to the hospital was delayed because the narrow section of the road was blocked. Getting to the hospital as quickly as possible is essential when a person has a stroke. Mr. Maslach died. And Old’s friend, Doris Maslach, moved off the hill because of continual problems with the narrow section of the road. The council also seemed to have forgotten the Berkeley/Oakland firestorm of 1991 when 25 people died. Some of them died on a narrow Oakland road, Charing Cross that was blocked by a stalled car. The council also forgot that Safety Commissioner Dick White testified that it took a fire engine 14 minutes to drive to the 300 block of Panoramic Way. The council apparently did not read that Berkeley fire officials have told individual residents that the area is not a safe one to live, even thought the Fire Chief testifies that the area is safe.  

As a former member of the Zoning Board I know that it is easy to stipulate conditions. However, my experience is that the city does not enforce the conditions. In fact, the city does not enforce the zoning once the project is built and a certificate of occupancy signed.  

Ann Reid Slaby 

 

• 

FORGIVE EVERYONE 

FOR EVERYTHING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We see and hear the news about everything from the war to the economy, public shootings, etc. 

My suggestion: Forgive Absolutely Everybody for Absolutely Everything. Just clear out all the resentment from your body and mind! Clear out all the anger, fear, “hard feelings,” etc. It helps to make a written inventory a la Step 4 of Alcoholics Anonymous. “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” Of course, you can’t take this step out of context with the other 11 steps. Anymore than you can remove a heart from a human or animal, and expect either the heart or that person or animal to survive long apart. 

I kid you not. 

Clearing all resentment, anger, bitterness, abject fear of people or financial insecurity out of your body and mind, leads to great lovemaking, not to mention miracles of all kinds. Cures cancer, makes needed money appear right when you need it. Even helps prevent unjust evictions or foreclosures. Did I mention it is faster than a speeding locomotive and can outrun a bullet? All you need now is the cape.... 

Linda M. Smith 

Human angel, former Berkeley resident, Queen of Her Own Universe (or Mind, same thing), and sexual healer extraordinaire (yes I am one of those people who thinks that Sexual Healing Cures War and Loneliness.... and mighty proud of it, too!) 

P.S.: I forgive you, Berkeley, and all of America and the World, for all those times when you or I behaved in less-than-Godlike and glorious ways..... I AM God’s orgasm.... 

 

• 

MESSAGE OF THE DAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

War is over. 

U.S. budget is balanced. 

Bush and Cheney finally come clean and admit, that yes, the war in Iraq is all about oil. 

Anti-tax Republicans state that they will stop gifting the rich with tax breaks. 

Fundamentalist and evangelical anti-abortionists say they will stop interfering with a woman’s right to choose. 

Racists and white supremists will stop hiding their egregious activities under the guise of God, country and patriotism. 

Anti-gay activists will adhere to Christ’s teaching; love thy neighbor as thy brother. 

Gas prices will dip below $2 a gallon this summer. 

The real estate industry swears off greed and unconscionable loans. 

April Fools Day! 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 


Commentary: Seeing the Positive Reality of Change in West Berkeley

By Steven Donaldson
Tuesday April 01, 2008

West Berkeley, according to a West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies (WEBAIC), John Curl, Rick Auerbach and their host of experts at a recent meeting on the West Berkeley Plan and Sustainablity Berkeley, is a thriving industrial area in balance with the economy and the environment, supporting artists and living wage jobs.  

They claim there are 7,000 well-paid industrial jobs in West Berkeley. This portrayal of West Berkeley is far from accurate. What little facts they had did not represent the real employment figures or land use in West Berkeley. The presentation was glaring in its lack of specifics and in ignoring the real uses and changes going on in West Berkeley. 

What’s the nature of this change? The simply reality is that in the last 20 years, large-scale blue collar industry has disappeared from West Berkeley and much of the Bay Area, making way for new well-paying jobs across many sectors that are changing the face of the Bay Area economy and the economy of Berkeley particularly. The change and potential of new manufacturing businesses in West Berkeley—pharmaceutical processing, lab and research along with innovative and unique small manufacturing companies such as Timeworks and Berkeley Mills, Swerve, Meyer Sound, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, Trumer Pils—all reflect specialization, smaller scale and a focus on unique, highly valued products with a national or international customer base. 

According to the figures from the City of Berkeley, the total number of jobs in West Berkeley’s zip code 94710 went from 16,321 to 15,540 between 2001 and 2007—a small decline of 5 percent. But digging into the statistics reveals a bigger story— where jobs are growing and where they are shrinking. In the manufacturing sector, jobs declined from 5,003 to 3,880—a decline of 22 percent—and warehousing jobs went from 65 to 0. The remaining manufacturing jobs are mostly with Pacific Steel which has 700 well-paying jobs and the others are mostly at Bayer with over 1,600 well-paid technical folks in the pharmaceutical manufacturing line reflecting the single largest manufacturer in Berkeley. What does this really say? Most of the old manufacturing jobs are leaving or have left Berkeley. So, where did the other growth come from? In areas across the board in wholesale trade, professional/scientific jobs (almost 2,500 total jobs in 144 businesses) office related occupations, construction, arts and entertainment. These stats show West Berkeley in the midst of change with a diverse influx of workers and skills. New jobs are going to be in a wide variety of areas and they do not displace industry they replace dying industries. What’s wrong with this? The reality is these businesses provide a range of employment for highly valued occupations that support the city’s economy. 

In addition, Berkeley has a unique position in both the Bay Area and the United States. We are home to a leading university. It’s pioneering research into alternative fuel technologies and performing leading biotechnology and bioengineering research that will lead to new creative start-ups in Berkeley—if they can get the zoning and space. Otherwise, these new businesses will move to Emeryville, Richmond or out of the area. The link between the University and the potential for West Berkeley is immense. It doesn’t stop there. Tippet Studios, a leading animation house, and the new Fantasy Media Center provide opportunities for new art and media companies to flourish with well-paying jobs that will support other businesses and support services in West Berkeley.  

The West Berkeley Plan was painstakingly laid out to basically reflect the uses of the 1940s and 1950s industrial era, when industrial manufacturing really peaked in the East Bay. Those businesses are gone reflecting large shuttered and abandoned facilities such as Flint Ink, MaCally Steal. The realities of this changing demand makes it a necessity for Berkeley’s economic well being to evolve the zoning to reflect new realities of work and industry. This should not be a battle between office and high-end residential on one hand and small business, artisans and residential on the other, as is so often portrayed. It’s about allowing a good mix of uses, small business and large working together to create a healthy and prosperous community with new opportunity. Yes, we need artists and plumbing supply houses and sheet metal fabrication shops and lumber yards. No one wants these to go away! 

But the old paradigm of industrial uses as the backbone of “livable wage” jobs is gone and not coming back. We are in an era of global change with new technologies and responsive, innovative creative small businesses like furniture manufacturers, artists studios and craft chocolate makers working side by side with new green fuel research labs, animation studios and bioscience laboratories. 

Yes, its time for a change. Let’s look at where the demand is coming from and support a variety of new truly green uses and mixed uses that will build a strong and viable Berkeley and Bay Area of the future. 

 

West Berkeley resident, property owner and business owner Steven Donaldson is a member of the West Berkeley Business Alliance. 


Commentary: Obama — Guilty By Association

By Jack Bragen
Tuesday April 01, 2008

It is not good enough for a presidential candidate to have the right views on the issues, they must not associate with anyone deemed offensive. This is the sort of intolerance and witch hunting that the media does in the United States to knock anyone down for any reason.  

It is not so much that the American people necessarily feel that way, but the press and the media have decided to obsess about the offensiveness of Obama’s minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and to make it into a decisive issue.  

It is unfortunate that the presidential race, having started out on such lofty ground when Clinton and Obama began their competition, has sunk so low, down to the level where it is normally expected to be during these sordid political contests. We have three candidates who will do or say essentially anything that will get them an advantage. If doing or saying the thing reflects badly on their character, they will get someone else supposedly not connected to them to say it whose actions they can disavow knowledge of. If it looks bad for Clinton or Obama to sling the mud personally at the other, they’ll get someone lower down to do it who they can say was acting on their own. This campaign has turned into a free-for-all slugfest in which the dirtiest fighter prevails. It’s good to watch on occasion, but on a nightly basis like we’re getting is a bit much.  

It is flawed logic to believe that because Obama’s minister has views that are hard for mainstream, white Americans to digest, Obama has the same beliefs because he admires the minister or is in the minister’s parish. I’m Jewish and that doesn’t make me have the same beliefs as all Israelis. I can’t stand Leiberman, and I disagree with plenty of other Jews, some of whom I don’t even like. I have had friends who have held beliefs I’ve regarded as completely bogus. Just because you know and like someone, it doesn’t mean that you have to believe the same things as they.  

People who are more ignorant can’t get the idea of separating the belief from the person. They can’t get the idea that you are not soiled by who you know. It is too bad that politicians must seek the vote of the ignorant people as well.  

You might believe I’m writing this article in support of Obama. (In fact, my favorite candidate is Clinton until such time as Obama gets the nomination, and then I become an Obama supporter.) I simply don’t want so much silliness going on when the candidates could be chosen for better reasons.  

I suggest that the democrats get to work at finding some dirt on McCain. God knows who McCain could have shaken hands with! The democrats should focus on the fact that there is no reason to stay in Iraq. That we are an infectious force--one which maintains the diseased state. Take the focus off of who everybody knows.  

Obama should deliver a clear and concise rebuff, hopefully in an irate manner, to the misdirected issue of merely knowing someone with the wrong beliefs.  

 

Jack Bragen is a Martinez resident. 

 


Commentary: The Winter Soldier Investigation and our National Movement for Liberation and Popular Democracy

By Marc Sapir
Tuesday April 01, 2008

The town hall forum on the future of Media and the Pacifica Network, beautifully moderated by JR of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC) Block Report and held at Eastside Cultural Center in East Oakland on Friday (March 21) might be a watershed—or it might not.  

Powerless communities—of color and poverty, from East Bay to San Francisco were well represented and the program was educational on a number of different levels—about new media technology and its potential and about the tactics being used to continue the freeze out from Corporate Media of the working class, the voices of the poor and powerless. The panelists were not a group of outsiders to KPFA/Pacifica—unlike members of the Wellstone Democratic club who joined KPFA recently at the encouragement of their Club’s leadership only to back the elitist “interim” leadership and “professional” programmers at the station. This panel included Bay View Newspaper publisher Willie Ratcliff, a former member of the KPFA Station Board, Rainjita Yang-Geesler, staff coordinator of the KPFA’s First Voice Apprenticeship Program, Tiny of Poor News, also a producer and programmer at KPFA, Eloise Rose Lee of Media Alliance an organization long allied with the station, Renita Pitts of TEMPO, and Shahram Aghamir, representing KPFA’s unpaid staff organization (UPSO). (For readers who have not kept up with the KPFA story, the station’s interim management—now in power two years--recently and arbitrarily squashed the rights of the Unpaid Staff, the volunteers who weekly give so much time and energy to keep KPFA going, by decertifying their long existent Un-Paid Staff Organization as their legitimate representative).  

Tiny told the crowd how Poor News has been the only game in the country producing quality programming from the poor themselves, and particularly from the undocumented and most powerless people through Poor’s acclaimed educational institute. Under the guidance of Poor their students have learned writing and radio production and perfected a high level of skill in presenting their stories from the “I” perspective, yet KPFA managers attacked them for “using too much Spanish” and removed some of their vital programming time just when important programs about the real conditions of the undocumented were about to be aired. Rainjita Geesler and JR reflected a similar story about how this Forum was to have been broadcast on KPFA’s First Voice program live until, two days before the event, the interim program manager, Sasha Lilley stepped in and decided that, like a censor, she would have to review and edit the program tape before it could air, even though the moderator is a regular programmer who knows all the FCC rules.  

It was a revelation to this writer—as a KPFA listener member and contributor—to learn from Shahram Aghamir of the UPSO that as many as 75 percent of the programs on the airwaves at 94.1 FM are produced by volunteers (approximately 180 in all). Hearing this startling 75 percent statistic about a radio station that takes in several million dollars a year, I have an obvious question. How can an essentially self appointed group of paid staff back an “interim” leadership/management who would take away all rights to representation in station management decisions from most of the people who make it possible for KPFA to be on the air? If more than half of the staff there are volunteers and they are said to have no rights to elected representation as a group whatsoever, doesn’t this sound like a throwback to the feudal relations of the dark ages—of lords and vassals? 

But let me go on to my main point—how communities of color and those living oppressed in poverty, exploited by the likes of Lennar Corporation, Blackwater, KBJ, ICE, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco political power structure, and Capitalism in general, can get their voices heard by the public at large, and in particular through KPFA.  

KPFA recently broadcast the Winter Soldier Investigations organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War that ran three days in a Washington DC suburb. Over 200 vets and some active duty soldiers who oppose the war showed real heart. Fifty speakers took the risk of confessing their participation in war crimes and crimes against the people of Iraq, showing how brutality and oppression are a systematic part of the entire operation. As we well know, when the torture crimes at Abu Ghraib were exposed no ranking officers were charged only a handful of low ranking GIs—the bad apple story. The Iraq Vets Against the War are real heroes to take the risk of being attacked themselves in order to help build a GI movement against US aggression and occupation of others’ lands. KPFA did the right thing to help promote their cause and the struggle against this war. But that movement today has no permanent place at KPFA. And likewise two other nationwide movements of exceptional importance to forming a national movement that can effectively resist Capitalism’s predations—and its monopoly on power, organization, Media, and communication in general--have no regular radio shows. Those other two movements are the Prison Rights Movement and the Immigrants Rights Movement. Due to space considerations I can’t detail why I believe these three movements are of such particular importance for all of us, but there are lots of reasons every reader can think of. Who is being singled out for oppression by the police, courts, Media, fascist laws and why? Each of these three movements is based in the oppression of the most powerless people, people who are being scapegoated and used to divide our nation into feuding gangs. And each of these movements is forming to try and end the divisions between nationalities and ethnicities to try to unite us in defense of the rights of the most victimized among us.  

I have no doubt that in the long run KPFA can not work for or represent the local communities around the Bay Area unless we assure that it promotes the voices of the voiceless communities themselves. But the way to make that possible on the local level, I think, is not to begin with a defense of the rights of local communities. Instead we ought to unite everyone behind the critically necessary national movements by forcing KPFA to give each of them programs in Prime Time: a program for each of the GI resistance Movement, for the Prison Rights Movement and for the Immigrants Rights Movements. Those radio programs need to be organized from within those movements, not as reports “about” them by outsider journalists. Without doubt, groups like the First Voice Apprentices, La Onda Bajita, the Immigrants Rights Network, Critical Resistance, TEMPO and Poor News Network (to list some of the most obvious resources available) are in a good position to train the technical expertise within those movements to help them produce such shows. I say that the time has arrived for such a simple unifying program demand as these three programs to unite our disparate communities so that paid staff-appointed managers and their upper middle class supporters can not divide and conquer, as they have so far done successfully. Faced with many communities united they will have to concede the correctness of these programmatic demands. If we can see these changes come to fruition, a unified movement will be in position to advance local programming concerns for specific oppressed communities and groups. A firm foundation will help us enlist those communities in the fight to make KPFA a more representative beacon for change because such new programs as these three will attract many thousands of new listeners.  

 

Marc Sapir is a Berkeley resident.


Columns

Column: Undercurrents: Oakland Army Base Story Raises Concerns About Chronicle Coverage

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday April 04, 2008

With the sad, slow decline of the Oakland Tribune as a newspaper of substance over the past several years, Oakland has begun to depend more heavily on the San Francisco Chronicle for coverage of city issues and events. With that dependence have come expressed concerns—jelling in the Jerry Brown years, escalating during the one year of the Ron Dellums administration—that Oakland is being “unfairly” covered, for want of a better word. 

“Fair” and “unfair” are often difficult standards to judge, since they are all in the eye of the beholder. One of the best ways to make that determination is by looking at the way different media outlets cover the same story. 

On March 27, under the headline “Catellus, Federal Development among bidders for Oakland Army Base,” the East Bay Business Times wrote: “Catellus Development Corp. and Federal Development LLC are among 13 developers who have submitted bids for redevelopment of the former Oakland Army Base. … The companies will compete to redevelop 108 acres of the former base in west Oakland.” 

After giving details about Catellus and Federal Development and the major projects they have bid and worked on, the Business Times lists the other 11 developers and then includes a press release quote by Mayor Ron Dellums that Oakland is “extremely pleased by the strong response. This is a tremendous vote of confidence for Oakland’s economy. It also shows what a unique opportunity we have to revitalize the area, taking advantage of the central Bay Area location, prominent waterfront, and direct visibility and access from the freeways.” 

Straightforward reporting, from a newspaper that specializes in business and development issues, leaving the impression that the Dellums administration is moving forward with development of an important Oakland parcel. 

So how did the Chronicle handle the same story? 

In a March 31 article entitled “Wayans Brothers Drop Oakland Army Base Plans,” reporter Christopher Heredia begins, “Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has released a list of developers interested in building on the former Oakland Army base—but noticeably absent are Hollywood’s Wayans brothers, who had wanted to build a movie studio and shopping center there. Wayans business partner Britten Shuford said Friday that the partners dropped their latest proposal—for a business park and shopping center called Destination Oakland—because it was not compatible with heavy industry at the adjacent Port of Oakland.”  

Mr. Heredia’s story includes the Dellums quote and some history about the value of the Oakland Army Base land and what could be developed there, but mostly it’s about the fact that the Wayans Brothers decided not to compete. The Heredia story concludes: “Shuford, co-managing partner of the Wayans Brothers-Pacifica Capital Urban Development Partnership, said he and the Wayans brothers asked the city to commit to preserving the parcel’s bay views. But that request drew no response. The port intends to stack storage containers and build a dividing wall that would be six to 15 stories tall and block bayfront views. ‘We made clear the importance of the issue of preserving the bay views,’ Shuford said. ‘When that was not resolved by the city, we did pull out because we were left with no other choice. It’s not conducive to a creative environment.’” 

There are two things to note about the inclusion of the Wayans Brothers prominence in the Chronicle story about the response to RFQ of the Oakland Army Base. The first is that it is old news, reported—although prematurely at the time—eight months ago in the Chronicle. The second is that it is told entirely from the point of view of the Wayans Brothers, making it appear as if this is another “Oakland screwed up a development deal” thing. 

First, the old story part. 

In an Aug. 17, 2007 article entitled “Wayans Partnership Says No To Movie Studio In Oakland,” the San Francisco Chronicle said that “Actor/director Keenen Ivory Wayans and a Los Angeles development firm have dropped plans to build a movie studio and shopping center on the former Oakland Army base, a city official said today. Wayans and the Pacifica Capital Group informed city officials earlier this week that the land adjacent to the Port of Oakland would not work for the film studio/shopping center project that was dubbed Destination Oakland, a spokeswoman for City Administrator Deborah Edgerly said today.” 

I wrote two stories on the Wayans deal for the Daily Planet in September of 2007. The first one, on Sept. 7, reported that the deal, in fact, was not dead, and that Wayans representatives were making the rounds of Oakland City Hall to try to renegotiate the deal. The second article, on Sept. 25, went into detail that the plan to stack container cargo on land adjacent to the proposed Wayans development had been in the works since the mid-1990s, and available on public documents, long before the Wayans Brothers looked over the property and documents and signed their exclusive negotiating agreement. 

Around Oakland City Hall, there was a lot of private speculation that the container cargo problem was simply a smokescreen to cover the Wayans’ asses. The Wayans Brothers had reneged on the timetable of their first exclusive negotiating agreement, blaming their failure to submit a proposal on their development partner. They dropped that partner, got a new one, and got an extended ENA with the City of Oakland. When the time for submitting a proposal under the new ENA neared, the Wayans Brothers raised the issue of a problem with the container cargo storage which, as I’ve said, would have been known by anyone with a computer, a browser, and internet connection, and a knowledge of how to use Google. If they didn’t know it was their screwup, not the City of Oakland’s. 

The Wayans proposal had been developed during the Jerry Brown era, when Oakland was essentially running a development scheme in which we told developers we have nice pieces of property, come and tell us what you want to do with them.  

But in an Oct. 23 Oakland Tribune story announcing the Army Base proposals, the newspaper reported that Mayor Dellums “said it was important for the city to move away from a ‘project-driven’ development (such as the Wayans’), to one in which the city established its own goals to see if a developer can meet them. ‘My constant refrain has been we need to have a comprehensive vision of where we’re trying to go,’ [Mr. Dellums] said. ‘When you’re only moving on the basis of one project at a time, you’re never taking the long-term view of where you want to go.’” It was under this new framework--in which Oakland laid out broad plans for a piece of property and asked developers to submit proposals for how they would meet those plans--that the new Oakland Army Base RFQ was sent out. 

Why, then, did Mr. Heredia’s Chronicle article spend so much time on the failed Wayans Brothers proposal, since it was a deal that was long dead, and the new RFQ was put together under an entirely different format, reflecting the views of a different mayor? That’s something you’ll have to ask Mr. Heredia and the folks at the Chronicle. 

But the Chronicle, at least, puts on a pretense of even-handedness. Not so is Oakland’s old friend Chris Thompson, who is back at his old haunts at the East Bay Express after a sojourn at the Village Voice, finding things wrong about, well, everything.  

In an item in an April 2 column, Mr. Thompson writes, “After years of making bedroom eyes at poor, frumpy West Oakland, the comic filmmaking Wayans Brothers decided to court more comely ladies. Last week, the Wayans Brothers announced that they were abandoning all interest in developing a retail and business park in the old Oakland Army base, citing the inconvenient fact that the land rubs up against a hideous, toxic seaport that belches diesel fumes into the air. Meanwhile, Mayor Ron Dellums noticed that other developers were mildly interested in the site, and crowed that this was a ‘tremendous vote of confidence for Oakland’s economy.’” 

The Thompson items shows the danger of the Chronicle as the major source of news for Oakland. Mr. Thompson takes the Chronicle slant on the Oakland Army Base RFQ announcement—that the real story was that the Wayans Brothers chose not to bid—and then embellishes it all out of any sense of human proportion. The Wayans Brothers never mentioned any problem with the Port in their concerns about the Oakland Army Base property, but only with the Port’s plans to stack container cargo, something they said would block spectacular bayfront views of the San Francisco skyline. Mr. Thompson simply alters the facts, changing from a limited concern over a particular Oakland Army Base parcel into a slam at the entire Oakland Army Base property itself—why, after all, would anyone want to put anything in close proximity to “a hideous, toxic seaport that belches diesel fumes into the air?” 

(Dealing with the Port’s toxicity is a difficult problem, too detailed to take up in this column. We’ll tackle it at a later time.) 

Anyway, Mr. Thompson has a history of ridiculing attempts by (certain) East Bay cities to address serious development problems, once writing about an innovative plan by the City of Richmond to develop the old waterfront Ford Plant by spending the first paragraph talking about how bad America’s inner cities are, the second paragraph talking about how Richmond is so much worse than the rest (“If you take a walk through the city center—a center neatly bifurcated by BART and Amtrak lines—you will see a town too poor and dangerous to even support its own panhandlers. St. Vincent de Paul outlets, weed-choked lots, and an endless string of fast-food joints mark the route to City Hall. One evening two weeks ago, dozens of cops swarmed around a ghetto bungalow, conducting a major bust just five blocks from the City Council chambers, where officials with the Redevelopment Agency pondered once again how to dig themselves out of their decades-old morass. Now they’ve settled on their latest dream; Hollywood, they hope, will be Richmond’s ticket back to the big time.” “Bright Lights, Small City,” East Bay Express, May 28, 2003) 

Mr. Thompson’s story was so negative, it is credited by some Richmond officials with causing financiers to drop out of the deal, thus killing a proposal that would have turned the Ford Plant into an art and film center (the city later put together another deal which is revitalizing the site). 

And that’s why there is concern among at least some Oakland residents about the San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage of Oakland. They don’t expect the paper to be a cheerleader for the city, or to overlook its many problems. But newspapers sometimes have the power to be self-fulfilling prophets. By embellishing the bad, they can make it worse. 


East Bay, Then and Now: Parsons House: A Pioneering Design for Accessible Living

By Daniella Thompson
Friday April 04, 2008
A brick ramp leads to the Parsons house, designed by Albert J. Mazurette in 1911.
Daniella Thomspon
A brick ramp leads to the Parsons house, designed by Albert J. Mazurette in 1911.

Since the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, standards for accessible design have guided new construction and building retrofits. A plethora of products, from doors to bathroom fixtures, are especially designed with accessibility in mind. 

Imagine the plight of the mobility-challenged a hundred years ago, when only the well-to-do could afford to live in relative comfort. Making life comfortable for the disabled invariably entailed custom building at a time when practically no precedents existed for barrier-free architecture. 

This was the challenge facing architectural engineer Albert J. Mazurette in 1911, when he was commissioned to design an accessible house in Berkeley for William Parsons, a retired lumber dealer. 

Albert Joseph Mazurette (1887-1978) was born to French-Canadian parents in Detroit. He came to California in 1900 with his widowed father, who held positions in various sawmills. In 1904, after attending public schools in Stockton and Oakland, Albert entered a special course in drawing at the Polytechnic High School in Oakland. This course marked the end of his formal education. As his biography in Past and Present of Alameda County, California (1914) noted, “his later valuable training was acquired in the ‘university of hard knocks.’” 

In 1905, Mazurette obtained a job in a Santa Clara planing mill, where he “learned every branch of the business.” He must have been a quick study, for the same year he moved on to the Enterprise Planing Mill in Stockton, where he worked as a designer under Ralph P. Morrell—one of the leading architects in San Joaquin County—to whom he was “indebted for the major part of his present knowledge of the profession.” 

Mazurette returned to Oakland in early 1906, spending a year at the Pacific Coast Lumber & Mill Company. The following year, as the East Bay experienced a building boom in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire, he entered the employ of Karl H. Nickel, Oakland’s “bungalow king.” After three years with Nickel, Mazurette established his own architectural practice in the Bacon Building, downtown Oakland. 

In 1914, Mazurette would found the Melbourne Construction Company, but when he received the commission to design the Parsons house, the architect relied on his former employer, Karl H. Nickel, for contracting services. 

Nickel was best known for his brown-shingle bungalows, photographs of which appeared in his full-page ads in the Architect and Engineer of California. Mazurette no doubt designed scores of such bungalows for Nickel, and it was this experience that most likely led to his selection as Parsons’ architect. 

Not a great deal is known about William Parsons. He was born in Massachusetts about 1836. His father, a resident of Newton, appears to have been a wealthy Surinam and East-India merchant and later a leader in the manufacturing development of Massachusetts. The younger Parsons attended Harvard, graduating in 1856. Having begun his career as a merchant with his father, he moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where he was recorded as a bookkeeper in the 1870 U.S. census. In 1880, he was a lumber dealer in Chicago. Nothing further is noted of him until 1899, when the Report of the Secretary of Harvard College listed him at the Anglo-California Bank in San Francisco. 

Subsequent Harvard alumni listings follow Parsons into retirement and to 2924 Benvenue Avenue in Berkeley. But before moving to Berkeley, Parsons was recorded in the 1910 census as a 74-year-old widower residing in Pacific Heights with two live-in nurses. 

Even the sparse information currently available about Parsons paints the picture of an elderly invalid. This portrait is reinforced by the layout of the Benvenue Avenue brown-shingle house designed for him by Albert Mazurette. 

Although the house has both attic and basement, all the living spaces were originally concentrated on the ground floor. A brick ramp leads from the street to the house, indicating that William Parsons was wheelchair-bound. Further evidence of his condition is offered by the ample and straight porch leading to the front door, the generous width of this door and of the corridor bisecting the house, and the unusual spatial layout of the rooms. 

At the front, easily accessible from the front door, is an elegantly spacious, lofty-ceilinged living room with windows on three sides. This would have been Mr. Parsons’ day room, where he could sit by the large fireplace or at one of the full-length windows. His books were near at hand, housed in low, glazed built-in cases whose shelves could be reached from a sitting position. 

On sunny days, Parsons could be wheeled out to the front deck through a pair of French doors. At night, he retired to his bedroom by way of a door that opened directly from the living room. 

The Parsons house is long-for many years legend had it that Parsons was a sea captain who built his house “in the image of the longboats he had sailed around the world.” In reality, the length of the house served to separate the invalid owner’s quarters from the centers of activity and noise. Both kitchen and dining room are located at the very rear, 42 feet away from the living room. At mealtimes, Parsons could be wheeled down the corridor and through sliding, leaded-glass pocket doors into his wood-paneled, Arts and Crafts dining room. Meal over, he would be wheeled away from the clutter of dishes, back to the calm of the living room. 

As in San Francisco, a resident nurse lived on the premises. Her name was Effie Murchison, born circa 1881 to Canadian immigrants in Nicolaus, Sutter County. Her father, a farmer from Prince Edward Island, died prematurely in 1887, leaving a young widow and seven children, six of them girls. As soon as they were old enough, the Murchison girls-four of whom would never marry-went off to San Francisco to learn a trade or profession. In 1900, Effie was a boarder nurse-student at a hospital on Jones Street run by Edward M. Bixby, M.D. Ten years later, she was one of William Parsons’ two live-in nurses in Pacific Heights. 

By then, Effie’s mother had left the farm and was living in San Francisco with her unmarried daughters and the only son, a bookkeeper at a state prison. When Effie accompanied her employer to his new Berkeley home, the other Murchisons followed, settling a block away, at 2953 Hillegass Avenue. 

William Parsons died about 1916, leaving his house to Effie. The 1917 Berkeley directory listed Effie, her mother Margaret, her sisters Kathryn, Sarah, and Grace, and her brother John at 2924 Benvenue. 

During the Depression, the Murchisons divided the house into two units, converting one of the four bedrooms into a kitchen and letting the front part to renters. From 1934 to 1937, their tenants were Jacob I. Del Valle, a merchant and importer, and his wife May, a music teacher. Both were in their 60s. During World War Two, the front unit was occupied by Robert E. Ferguson, a U.S. Navy navigator, and his wife Nancy. Perhaps this is how the “sea captain” legend came into being. 

The youngest of the Murchison sisters died in 1968, and the house was left to their nephew, Craig Murchison, who sold it in 1971. The following year, it was on the market again, after new owners developed the attic. In June 1973, the house was sold to Arthur M. and Ruth Forbes Young, entering a new phase of its remarkable history. 

Arthur Middleton Young (1905-1995) was a mathematician, engineer, inventor, astrologer, investigator of parapsychological phenomena, and the elaborator of a unified field theory of consciousness called the Theory of Process, which he described in the books The Reflexive Universe and The Geometry of Meaning. 

Beginning in 1928, Young designed and developed what would become the Bell 47 helicopter, the first helicopter to be awarded a commercial license, in 1946. Concurrent with their purchase of the Parsons house in 1973, Arthur and Ruth Young founded the Institute for the Study of Consciousness, which was based in the house. 

The institute’s program was rich and active. A relic found in the house is a hand-written poster board displaying the institute’s weekly schedule and special events for a two-month period. On Mondays, Young’s theme was “Conversations on Consciousness”; on Tuesdays, he lectured on “Yoga of Thinking”; on Wednesdays, Alan Vaughn spoke on “Advanced Parapsychology.” The Thursday colloquiums featured a rotation of such thinkers as Frances Farelly, Ingo Swann, Hal Putoff, Kenneth Pelletier, Jack Schwarz, Geoffrey Chew, Fritjof Capra, and Joseph Chilton Pearce. On Fridays, Saul Paul Sirag presented “Paradigm or Paradox?” The special events included a Wheeler Hall discussion by Mad Bear and Doug Boyd on “Emergence of the Fourth World” and a conference at Dwinelle Hall in benefit of the Tibetan Aid Project, with seven notables discussing “Science & Mysticism.” 

Following Arthur Young’s death, Ruth Young-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, painter, and founder of the International Peace Academy-devoted herself to encouraging the study of her husband’s Theory of Process. She died in 1998, leaving the house to the Institute for the Study of Consciousness. Shortly thereafter, the house was sold. The current owners have returned it to single-family use, although vestiges of the second kitchen remain. 

The house retains its charming Arts and Crafts details, including beautifully proportioned windows, natural wood paneling, box-beamed ceilings, built-in cabinetry, and a great deal of leaded art glass in doors, windows, and cabinet glazing. It will be open for viewing on BAHA’s Spring House Tour, May 4, 2008. 

 

Beautiful Benvenue, Elegant Hillegass 

Berkeley Architectural Heritage Spring House Tour 

Sunday, May 4, 2008 

1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

Tickets: $35; BAHA members $25 

(510) 841-2242 

berkeleyheritage.com 

 

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

 

 


Garden Variety: Thank You, Jenny Fleming

By Ron Sullivan
Friday April 04, 2008

I owe a personal debt to Jenny Fleming, and so do you. Mine is perhaps more specific: Jenny was one of a group of people who saved my sanity after I crashed and burned out of nursing.  

It was purely an accidental group and I have no reason to believe they knew they were doing anything of the sort, but I managed to conjure them by enrolling in the Hort Department up at Merritt College and, waiting for the semester to start, joining the Tuesday propagation sessions that California Native Plant Society volunteers had there.  

A good handful of sweet gray-haired old ladies with razor-sharp minds (and tongues, when the occasion warranted) seemed to be the core of that group, and Jenny, with her aristocratic bearing and the look of eagles, was one of them. I heard about her legendary garden, and toured it during a Merritt California native plants class. It was astonishing. 

I worked as a gardener while taking those classes, and in due course Jenny hired me for a short term of maintenance there. Fellow students had passed on some combination of warning and promise about this, as quite a few of them had done similar stints. They were right.  

A few days of clinging with my toes to that amazingly vertical space, one foot on a rock upslope and one downslope and the rest of me wobbling between, prying weeds and planting seedlings and not daring to slip to my death for fear of crushing some botanical treasure I prized more than my own bones, rendered me as strong and limber as I’ve ever been in my life.  

It was worth the gymnastics of course, for the chance to learn, to work beside Jenny and enjoy her company with those marvelous plants in that marvelous place. It’s hitched in true John Muir fashion to the Tilden Park Botanic Garden, the California Native Plant Society, and our remaining wild places. Like those wild places, it rewards every moment of attention with beauty and learning. Like CNPS and the Tilden garden, it protects and propagates plant species that are under threat in their home ranges. Jenny was one of the people who founded CNPS after a successful campaign to keep the Tilden garden intact and working where it is.  

Jenny has passed on but her and Scott’s garden lives as one of her several interwoven legacies. It’s a plant collector’s paradise: thriving specimens in a beautiful, well-organized, integrated space, everyone looking right at home. Don’t take my word for it: the garden’s on this year’s free “Bringing Back the Natives Garden” Tour. Reserve your tour now, and get to the Flemings’ early; parking is a challenge there.  

Local CNPS members have (I hope) already seen the invitation to a memorial for Jenny hosted by her family on Saturday, April 5. If your Bay Leaf has been delayed or gone missing, I suggest emailing India Fleming-Farris: farris@dcn.org or calling (530) 758-4210; the invitation directs responses there.  

 

California Native Plant Society 

http://www.cnps.org 

2707 K Street, Suite 1  

Sacramento, CA 95816-5113 

(916) 447-2677, Mon–Fri, 9 a.m.–5p.m.) 

East Bay Chapter 

http://www.ebcnps.org/ 

 

Bringing Back the Natives  

Free Garden Tour 

http://www.bringingbackthenatives.net 

See the site for promising, modestly priced Select Tours! 

Questions?  

Kathy@kathykramerconsulting.net  

(510) 236-9558, 9 a.m.–9 p.m. 

 

An interview with Jenny Fleming: 

http://www.sfgate.com/ cgibin/ 

article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/09/01/ 

HO110880.DTL&hw=Ron+Sullivan&sn=125&sc=630


About the House: Imagining the Ideal Electrical System for Your House

By Matt Cantor
Friday April 04, 2008

I’m actually a very sensitive person. My feelings are easily hurt and I prefer to have an exchange of kind words: “I like you” is nice. On a good day someone might say “I like you, too.” Isn’t that nice. Then I wake up and realize, once again, that I’m a home inspector and no matter how I try to slice it, I have to criticize a few dozen things every day and, invariably, I’m going to have hurt someone’s feelings, made them angry or maybe a little scared. Well, at least I’m not in politics. 

Electrical systems take a lot of hits from me. After all, they do burn down houses. In the recent past, statistics have estimated 32,000 fires each year associated with electrical systems. That’s about 9 percent of all fires in the home. This also accounts for roughly 220 death and almost 1,000 injuries a year as well as roughly $700 million dollars in damage in the U.S. 

I had a call from a young renter the other day (Hello, yes, I am responding to your question) who was concerned with the danger of using her outside breaker panel in the rain, in the dark. 

I gave her something of an answer, while dancing a mazurka and spinning yarn from dog hair. In short, I didn’t really answer the question to my own satisfaction, so I thought about it for a while and realized that amidst all the criticisms I’ve made in the line of duty and all the notions I’ve posited in this column, I’ve never really defined the kind of electrical system I’d like to see and what clients should be looking for. So here’s a short textual diagram of my idea of a really good electrical system. 

 

The drop 

The wires coming from the power pole are called the service drop. Frankly, I’d rather see an underground service than anything as 18th century as a system of wires and poles strewn about our, otherwise, arcadian metropolis (the Tarzan system of power delivery). With underground wiring, there’s less to fail in an earthquake and yes, Olivia, we are waiting on a big one. If it has to be overhead, it should be out of the trees so it won’t get worn to bare wires and explode (yes, they explode and then burn; my artist-friend, Bill Shulte can attest to this. He lost his home of many years over an exploding main drop). I also like to see them high enough so that nobody’s going to hit it with their RV or extension ladder. 

 

The Main 

I’ve often gotten the following question: “Shouldn’t the main panel be inside where it can’t be tampered with?” No, a single main breaker for each living unit should be outside where it can be turned off by emergency service personnel without entering the dwelling (although in some places, like San Francisco, that’s not possible and they allow them to be inside the basement or garage)… BUT, my favorite recipe calls for all the rest of the system to be inside. Now, this usually costs more because you’re adding at least one more panel than you could get away with by putting all the breakers in the outside panel but here’s my thinking. We need one breaker outside but ideally (and here’s where we answer my young reader’s interrogative) the rest should be found in a convenient spot inside the dwelling where it’s warm, dry, safer and possibly a light (there may only be one tripped breaker and the light you need may still be on.)  

Isn’t it nicer to find and reset a tripped breaker when you don’t have to run out in the rain at night in that horrible frock and nightcap? Also, being less than fully insulated when operating breakers outside is less than ideal (although most modern panels do a smashing good job of protecting the person resetting breakers). 

This inside “sub-panel” isn’t so pretty. For years, electricians installed them in closets and I’d like to offer a general apology to all of you who’ve had their lava lamps, Sergio Mendez records and Star Trek memorabilia mashed by me as I attempted to get inside these panels. Putting panels in closets is a bad idea, not only because of the possibility of fire but also for the safety of electricians. Building codes addressed this quite a while back and bravo to them (as you may know, my praise for the codes is not unbridled).  

I like to see panels in places where they don’t compete with Wayne Thiebaud. If you don’t have a suitable basement, I’d tend to put it behind a door that’s usually swung against a wall. A blank wall in a laundry room is a good choice. It’s important that opening this panel involves no gymnastics because it’s dangerous enough working on these things as it is. That’s a very short version of a very long section of the code. 

 

Circuits 

I like lots and lots of circuits and lots and lots of outlets. Here’s how this works. You provide a given load: one TV (tuned only to PBS or the history channel of course), two computers, one toaster, one hairdryer and so forth. You would be using this bunch of stuff pretty much anywhere you went. The house may have more or less lighting, and you may use it more or less depending on how parsimonious you are or how many are in the clan, BUT the point stands that you will tend to use power more as a function of your own personal stuff and predilections than as a function of the electrical system you have. 

SO, if you have a system that has more circuits, those circuits are likely to each carry a smaller portion of your load. This translates to heat. On a typical day, you might be running 5,000 watts (a wild guess). If you have 10 circuits, each one might be carrying 500 watts, which is tolerable. With 4 circuits at 1,250 each and a few bad wiring splices hidden here and there (or a fried switch, or outlet, or cord), you may be heating the wiring up to a point where a fire can start. So one of the best ways to construct a safe electrical system is a build one with plenty of circuits. 

Another way is to have plenty of outlets. This is similar but not the same thing. If we add plenty of receptacles to our healthy number of circuits then we reduce the use of extension cords (circuits are like the branches on a tree and the panels are like the trunk, in fact, we use the word branch for circuits and, long ago, used the word trunk to describe the main wires coming into a system).  

X-cords are made of smaller wires than those in the wall. This means that they become resisters when we run power through them. They’re bottlenecks full of hot little electrons that want to run free and express themselves. (Hey, Ned, your house is on fire!) When you run a typical 2,000-watt electric heater on a small extension cord, the cord might get hot enough to melt or set fire to your dissertation on polynomial geometry so when building an ideal electrical system, don’t skimp on circuits or outlets. 

 

Lighting 

A true exploration of my preferences, alone, on this delightful and complex subject is beyond any sensible exploitation of this article, but I’ll hit a few high points anyway. Don’t miss out on lighting. Lighting shapes spaces, creates mood, allows one room to wear many outfits, if you will, and turns useless spaces into favored niches. Don’t miss the party. Lighting is one of the things that makes all that wiring worthwhile. That said, I now favor the use of compact fluorescents when and wherever you can manage. Bulbs are now available in dimmable versions and floods too. They’re also much better than just five years ago so come back and give them another try.  

I’m hoping that many of you will include LED lighting in your rehabs soon but the market IS lagging a bit on this amazing innovation. The reason for my excitement about fluorescent and even more for LED is that these do two great things. First, they lower your bill while decreasing energy waste (which also has far reaching political and environmental implications) while lasting years longer (your LED lamps might NEVER require replacement). Second, they make your house SAFER by lower ing the temperature of all the wires that feed to the lighting. Lighting can be one of the top energy users in your house and when we use CFLs or LEDs, the house runs cooler and safer.  

Additionally, the wiring and switches live longer since they’re not being “cooked” all evening from the heat created by typical higher wattage incandescent lighting. If you do have a scary-funky electrical system today, changing to CFL or LED is a pretty cheap way to make things a lot safer. 

The parting shots I’ll add before closing, will be to make a short case for new improved breakers. My ideal electrical system uses the new AFCI fire-sensing breakers wherever it’s practical to do so (talk to your Sparky) and used GFCI shock preventing outlets or breakers for anywhere that serious shock is a possibility: bath, basement, etc. 

I have long felt that there was more bang for the buck with electrical than in virtually any other system in our homes so this is not the place to cut corners. Buy cheaper cuts of meat. 

Remember, 32,000 home will burn as a result of sparks this year. My feeling is that when you’re looking for something to add sparks to, try your marriage instead. 

Thanks to the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) and the annual NFPA fire experience survey for the numbers cited above. 

 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at mgcantor@pacbell.net.


Column: Public Eye: Obama and Lincoln

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday April 01, 2008

In his remarkable March 18 speech, “A More Perfect Union,” Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama directly addressed the racial aspect of his campaign that, up until the preceding week, had largely been in the background. While the overt reason for the speech was the inflammatory remarks of Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, it also responded to right wing hate messages recently picked up by the Clinton campaign, suggesting America isn’t ready for a black president. 

Polls indicate that 62 percent of Americans believe the United States will accept a black president. Nonetheless, since it became clear that Sen. Obama was a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, many have suggested the poll results were a reflection of political correctness, as respondents didn’t want to tell pollsters about their latent racism. And, as her desperate presidential campaign careens through Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton seems increasingly willing to suggest she is more electable than Obama because, while she may be a woman, she’s the “right” color. 

Residing in Berkeley, I know no one who admits to being a racist and none of my friends has said they won’t vote for Obama because he’s black. Nonetheless, I’ve had acquaintances volunteer that someone in their family, a close friend, or “the guys back home” would never vote for a black candidate for president. I’m curious to know who these people are. Perhaps they’re the 13 percent of Americans identified in the latest NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll who believe Sen. Obama is a Muslim. Or, they may be the 14 percent who responded they would have some reservations about making Obama the first African-American president. But, there could be a simpler explanation; these bigots may constitute a significant element in the 32 percent of Americans who approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president: died-in-the-wool conservatives who are stuck in a dysfunctional way of viewing race, the Bush administration, and our democracy. 

What these polls make clear is there are two competing views of Barack Obama. Some see him exclusively as a black candidate and believe he has received preferential treatment to get where he is. Others see him as the embodiment of the American myth of “the triumphant individual.” Obama’s life has many of the elements of the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches fables: he was raised by his mother and grandmother, worked his way through college, became a community organizer, attended Harvard Law School and became the first black president of the Law Review, and returned to Chicago where he was a successful civil rights attorney and author before entering politics. His first book, Dreams from My Father, is considered an American masterpiece. 

Many observers note the parallels between Barack Obama’s life and that of America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. Both came from humble surroundings; Lincoln lost his mother when he was nine; Obama’s father left when he was two. Both are tall, lawyers, and began their political careers in the Illinois legislature. Lincoln also wrote his own speeches. 

Sen. Obama knew his presidential campaign would hinge on his response to the videos of Reverend Wright’s sermons, so he personally wrote the March 18 speech. Thus, the values and themes expressed in “A More Perfect Union” represent Obama’s true beliefs.  

His core message was contained in these lines: “Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have… white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze—a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.” “A More Perfect Union” was not restricted to the issue of race. It was Obama’s prescription for a better America based upon a transformative politics of unity, a politics where, “all Americans … realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.” His speech was a call for a new populism, an appeal for Americans to unite against conservative policies that have divided us by race, gender, religion, and sexual preference in order to wage class warfare, to “favor the few over the many.” 

Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address concluded with an appeal to “the better angels of our nature” and Barack Obama has repeated this call. Indeed, many of the themes Lincoln sounded 148 years ago echo in Obama’s speech: the need for Americans to remember the values of our nation’s founders—all men are created equal—and stand together against injustice. And like many of Lincoln’s speeches, “A More Perfect Union” was an appeal for unity and reconciliation. 

 

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

 

 


Column: Wild Neighbors: Antioch Dunes — Rare Insects of an Inland Island

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday April 01, 2008
Antioch Dunes evening primrose with unknown insect.
Ron Sullivan
Antioch Dunes evening primrose with unknown insect.

Mark your calendars: the annual spring surveys of endangered wildflowers at the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge are coming up. This year’s dates are April 9-10 for the Contra Costa wallflower and May 14-15 for the Antioch Dunes evening primrose.  

You don’t have to be a trained botanist to participate. You just need to be able to identify these showy plants (not a problem), use a clicker to tally your observations, and walk a straight-line transect without stepping on any rarities. Ron and I did it last year, and highly recommend it. For more information, contact U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manager Susan Euing at (510) 521-9624, or susan_euing@yahoo.com. 

This place, which has fascinated me for years, is the first (and so far only) federal wildlife refuge established for plants and insects. It protects a remnant patch of sand that was scoured off the Sierra by glaciers some 40,000 years ago and deposited by the wind. The wallflower and the evening primrose evolved into distinct species here, hundreds of miles from their nearest relatives, and  

occur nowhere else in the wild. 

That’s also true of the refuge’s third marquee species, the Lange’s metalmark butterfly (Apodemia mormo langei), a northern outlier of a mostly tropical family. The metalmarks have their own survey, in later summer during the adults’ brief flight season. They spend the rest of their life cycle as larvae, either noshing on naked-stem buckwheat, their only food plant, or waiting out the dry months in a dormant state. 

In an evolutionary sense, the dunes are like an island on the land. Like the Galapagos or the Canaries, they have their suite of unique species, many of them insects. During World War II, entomologists at UC Berkeley found their field trips curtailed by gasoline rationing. The Antioch Dunes were about as far from Cal as they could get. So, making a virtue of necessity, they did a thorough inventory of the dunes’ insect life, and described a bunch of new species. I’ve been told that the scientists adopted one of the local watering holes during the war years. An entomologists’ bar is something I wish Gary Larson had drawn. 

For some reason, Life magazine, of all venues, showcased the insects of the dunes in a 1957 article, with foldout paintings by the German artist Walter Linsenmaier. (I’ve been rummaging through piles of old magazines in antique stores for years, hoping that issue would turn up, but no luck.) Growing up in Little Rock in the ’50s, I found the old Life, with its earth-history, evolution, and human-origins series, a window on a larger world. Lord knows I wasn’t getting that stuff in school; this was still post-Snopes and pre-Sputnik. 

Sadly, many of those unique species haven’t been recorded for decades. The dunes have been subject to many abuses, beginning with large-scale sand mining. Dune sand went into the bricks that rebuilt San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire. Parts of the dunes became vineyards. Even after federal protection began in 1980, the area was vulnerable to fires and vandalism. The refuge was closed to the public (except for docent-led tours) after 1986, when fans of Humphrey the errant whale trampled the rare plants. 

A Nature Conservancy source lists some of the casualties: the Antioch Dunes shieldback katydid (Neduba extincta), the Antioch cophuran robberfly (Cophura hurdi), the Antioch sphecid wasp (Philanthus nasalis). These creatures vanished long before there was any kind of endangered species process. They would have been out of luck with the California Endangered Species Act anyway, since it precludes the listing of insects. 

But the insects are not all gone. It turns out that the specialized pollinator of the Antioch Dunes evening primrose—a solitary bee called Sphecodogastra antiochensis—is still around. It’s another Dunes endemic, a member of a bee genus associated with evening primroses. The nearest relative of S. antiochensis occurs in Merced County, 70 miles to the southeast of Antioch. 

These bees fly around sunrise and sunset. As their flight season progresses, they forage for pollen in the morning and nectar in the evening. Efficient collectors, they can gather a full pollen load in less than a minute. The pollen is used to provision larvae in wax-lined brood cells in the dune sands, although it appears that the larvae can develop without evening primrose pollen. A single female may establish as many as 31 cells.  

S. antiochensis has no protected status, but the Xerces Society—an estimable organization dedicated to the conservation of insects and other invertebrates—includes it in its Red List of endangered pollinating insects. For now, its survival may depend on the FWS personnel and volunteers who plant out nursery-raised evening primroses to augment the natural population. Antioch Dunes, like many other threatened places, must be tended like a garden-bees and all.  


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday April 04, 2008

FRIDAY, APRIL 4 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Chicago” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through April 12. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “The Trojan Women” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through May 11. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Conservatory Theatre “The Turn of the Screw” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at 999 East 14th St., San Leandro City Hall Complex, near BART, through April 27. Tickets are $20-$22. 632-8850. 

Masquers Playhouse “Tartuffe” Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., some Sun. matinees at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Pt. Richmond, through April 26. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Shotgun Players “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” by George Bernard Shaw. Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m., through April 27, at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $17-$25. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Teen One Acts Festival with the winners of the teen writing competition Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Rep School of Theater, 2017 Addison St. Tickets at the door ate $6-$12. 647-2917. 

TheatreFirst “Future Me” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $23-$28. 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com 

CHILDREN 

Splash Circus “Inspiruption: In Case of Emergency, Open Mind to Release Circus” Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Head Over Heels Gymnastics, Spur Alley, off 45th St., btwn Hollis and Doyle, Emeryville. Tickets are $10-$15.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Nature Study” Three Bay Area artists working with nature as a subject and/or medium. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, 25 Grand Ave., upper level, Oakland. www.chandracerrito.com 

“Earth Days” Works by Carrie Lederer, Irene Imfeld and Andrew Kaluzynski. Reception at 7 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 25th St., Oakland. Runs through May 3. 663-6920. 

“Protest in Paris 1968” Photographs by Serge Hambourg. Artist talk at 5 p.m. at PFA Theater Gallery. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Second Nature” Paintings of San Francisco artist, Elizabeth Garsonnin, and artist Doron Fishman of Oakland. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at NoneSuch Space, 2865 Broadway at 29th St, 2nd Fl, Oakland. 

FILM 

EarthDance: Short Attention Span Film Festival at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chris Vitiello and Mary Burger read their poetry at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Miriam Chase and Remi Barron, followed by open mic at 7 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. www.expressionsgallery.org 

Jonathan Rosen explores our paradoxical relationship to nature in “The Life of the Skies Birding at the End of Nature” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

Tim Wise, anti-racism activist and author at 7:30 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St., Oakland. Tickets are $12 - $20 sliding scale. 800-838-3006. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Lacey Baker and The Black Diamond Blues Band at 5 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Citywater: The Music of Steve Mackey at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Dan Zemelman Quartet at 8 p.m. at The Berkeley Hillside Club 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $10-$15. 845-1350.  

Orquesta d’Soul at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Europa Galante “Music Before 1850” at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Dana and Durant. Pre-perfomance talk with musicologist John Prescott at 7 p.m. Tickets are $48. 642-9988. 

RoShamBo & Guests, all a cappella night at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ.  

Inner Visions, reggae tribute to Mikey Dread at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Solo Piano Night, with Fred Weed, Nannick Bonnel, Carol Belcher, and Hadley Louden at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Anton Schwartz, jazz saxophone, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Carol McComb & Kathleen Larisch at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Braindrill, Scarecrow, Arise, Zombie Holocaust at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Red Summer at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7-$15. 548-1159.  

Code Name: Jonah at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 5 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Bonnie Lockhart, guitar and vocals at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Splash Circus “Inspiruption: In Case of Emergency, Open Mind to Release Circus” Sat. at 2 and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Head Over Heels Gymnastics, Spur Alley, off 45th St., btwn Hollis and Doyle, Emeryville. Tickets are $10-$15.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Open Range” The art of Douglas Light, Michele Hofherr and Scott Courtenay-Smith. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

“La Scuola di Antonio Holdsworth” Group show of paintings by Daniel Altman, Marvin Dalander, Susan Feiga, Lynne Hillock, Anthony Holdsworth, Tracy O’Neill, Michael Selvin, Ariella Seidenberg, Sally Stewart, Rolayn Tauben, O’Brien Thiele, April Watkins. Reception at 2 p.m. at The Art of Living Center, 2905 Shattuck Ave. 848-3736.  

THEATER 

San Leandro Players “Redwood Curtain” Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at San Leandro Museum Auditorium, Casa Peralta, 320 W. Estudillo Ave., through May 4. Tickets are $10-$15. 895-2573. www.sanleandroplayers.org  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Rachel Corrie Speaks” A dramatic reading of her journals by her mother and father and numerous young women peace activists, with original music by composer and cellist Matthew Owens, at 8 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-6767, ext. 609. www.kpfa.org  

Bay Area Poets Coalition Open Reading at 3 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street, not in Lodge parking lot. Free. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com 

“Jingletown Junction” Works by ten artists from the Jingletown neighborhood. Artists’ talk at 1 p.m. at ProArts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. www.proartsgallery.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra “Coronation & Victory” Works by Handel and Purcell, at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $30-$72. 415-392-4400. 

“Sekar Jaya” Music and dance of Bali st 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$18. 925-798-1300. www.gsj.org 

Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra at 3 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

The First Berkeley Piano Competition at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Burlesque ‘n Brass with Hot Pink Feathers and Blue Bone Express at 9 p.m. at Café Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave. 763-7711. 

Rachel Sage in Concert with child friendly activities available and the concert will be preceded by a magic show by Zappo the Magician at 1 p.m. at University Village, 1123 Jackson St., Albany. 867-8632. www.rachaelsage.com  

Sweet Honey in the Rock, African-American female a capella ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$58. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Bolokada Conde, West African drummer at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Darryl Rowe & His Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Backyard Party Boys, Betsy Maudlin & the Maudulators, JJ Schultz at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $10. 644-2204.www.twangcafe.com  

Eliyahu & Qadim, mystical music o fthe Near East, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Sotaque Baiano at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Doppler Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

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

Harish Raghavan Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Fred Randolph Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

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

DCOI, Static Thought, Knuickle Puck at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

The Latin Giants of Jazz, featuring members of the Tito Puente Orchestra at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, APRIL 6 

CHILDREN 

Hank Hooper CD Release Party for Children (and their Families) at 2 p.m. at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave., Alameda. Cos tis $5-$15 per family, sliding scale. www.rhythmix.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Legacy of Berkeley Parks: A Century of Planning and Making” opens at Addison Street Windows Gallery, 2018 Addison St, and runs through May 17. 981-7546. 

“Through My Eyes” A photography exhibit by Ann Kraynak. Opening reception at 1 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 228-3218. 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Dennis Fritzinger reads from “Earth National Park” a new book of poetry at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center Bookstore, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 227. www.kirklumpkin.com 

Joe Fisher talks about Balinese Art at 3 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Chamber Music Sundaes with San Francisco Symphony members and friends at 3 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets at the door are $18-$22. www.chambermusicsundaes.org 

Telemann Celebration concert by Florilegia at 3 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Free, but donationa accepted. 526-0722. 

San Francisco Choral Artists “Music Home-Grown” at 4 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $9-$28. 415-979-5779. www.sfca.org 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra “Coronation & Victory” Works by Handel and Purcell, at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $30-$72. 415-392-4400. 

Animal Crackers! Funny Songs & Delicious Desserts Music by Gershwin, Whitacre, PDQ Bach, at 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $15-$20. 525-0302. 

John Santos Quintet “What is Jazz Anyway?” at 4 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15, children under 12 free. 228-3218. 

Swedish Chamber Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$58. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

W. Allen Taylor & His Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Train Wreck Riders, Kemo Sabe, The Skinny at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $10. 644-2204.www.twangcafe.com  

Bandworks at noon at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jarrett Cherner Trio at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Claudia Schmidt at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$1920.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MONDAY, APRIL 7 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Call & Response” Works from Richmond High School and the National Institute of Art & Disabilities opens at NIAD, 551 23rd St., Richmond. 620-0290. www.niadart.org 

FILM 

New Digital Films from Palestine and Lebanon “The Roof” with filmmaker Kamal Aljafari, in person at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

PACES, with poet Alan Bern and choreographer and dancer Lucinda Weaver at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Piedmont Ave. Branch, 160 41st St., Oakland. 597-5011. jmurphy@oaklandlibrary.org 

Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium “text, Slides and Videotapes” with artist Kota Ezawa, at 7:30 p.m. at 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 643-9565. http://atc.berkeley.edu 

Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey reads from “Blowing on Embers: Stories for Hard Times” at a brown bag lunch, at 12:30 p.m. at the Edith Stone Room of the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Steve Hinshaw describes “Breaking the Silence: Mental Health Professionals Disclose their Personal and Family Experiences of Mental Illness” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

“Julia Morgan’s Unique Place in American Architecture” at 7:30 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. at Arch. Donation $5. 644-2967. 

Poetry Express 6th Anniversary with Kathleen Daly at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Slide Hampton in an interactive presentation at 7 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$25, no one turned away. www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/3087 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Debbie Poryes Trio at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, APRIL 8 

FILM 

“Intimate Communications: Films by Audrius Stonys” with the artist in person at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Susan Griffin on “Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being and American Citizen” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Slide Hampton, interactive presentation at 7 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20, free for youth under 13. www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/3087 

Bandworks at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Kelly Park at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Natalia Zukerman, Heather Combs at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

George Cotsirilos Trio at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Eric Alexander Quartet, featuring Harold Mabern, at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Paul Robeson, A Hero for All Time” A exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of Paul Robeson’s birth. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at Oakland City Hall Rotunda, corner of 14th and Broadway. www.bayarearobeson.org 

FILM 

“Belle de Jour” with lecture by Marilyn Fabe at 3 p.m. Film and Video Makers at Cal at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Portraits: Faces and Emotions” with Dr. Paul Ekman at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10 and up. Benefit for Ethsix Magazine. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Micheline Aharonian Marcom introduces “Draining the Sea” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody's Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with Rachel Li, piano, Kai Chou, cello, Jessica Ling, violin, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

 

 

Carla Kaufman Ensemble with Noel Jewkes and Benny Watson at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Mazacote at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Stephane Wrembel at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $25.50-$26.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Keola Beamer & Chris Yeaton at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, APRIL 10 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Call & Response” Works from Richmond High School and the National Institute of Art & Disabilities. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at NIAD, 551 23rd St., Richmond. 620-0290. www.niadart.org 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Amy Arbus: The Fourth Wall” A multi-media presentation by the photographer on her most iconic images at 6:30 p.m. at Sibley Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $10. www.fotovision.org 

“Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley” slide talk by author Richard Schwartz featuring highlights of Berkeley’s history from 1850 to 1925 at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

“The Radical Jack London” with author Jonah Raskin at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Forms in the Abyss: A Philosophical Bridge Between Sartre and Derrida” with author Steve Martinot, in conversation with Sandra Luft at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

Adam Mansbach on “The End of the Jews” at 7:30 p.m. at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Don Carlos, Jah Levi, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $18-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $25.50-$26.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzalicious! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Ken Mahru at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Holly Near & emma’s revolution at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $20-$25. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Akosua Mireku, Ghanaian-American folk-singer, at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Omar Sosa Afreecanos Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Moped at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 


Sims and Buchanan Sing For Four Seasons Concert Series

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Friday April 04, 2008

Baritone Robert Sims and Soprano Alison Buchanan, who originally sang together in 1998, will give a joint recital for Four Seasons Concerts on Saturday at Holy Names University. 

Buchanan, originally from Bedford, England, will sing songs by Michael Head, Richard Strauss and Leo Delibes, African-American Art Songs by Florence Price, Betty Jackson King and Adolphus Hailstork and Spirituals arranged by Moses Hogan, Hall Johnson and Jacqueline Hairston of Oakland. 

Sims will sing songs by Leonard Bernstein, Hugo Wolf, Henri Duparc, Aaron Copeland, Roland Carter and Spirituals arranged by Lena McLin, Roland Hayes and by Sims.  

Buchanan and Sims will also perform duets by Purcell, Mendelssohn, Gounod, Gershwin and Jacqueline Hairston. Pianist Dennis Helmrich will accompany. 

Sims, familiar to East Bay concertgoers from his work with Four Seasons and a Martin Luther King tribute concert with the East Bay Oakland Symphony, as well as with Friends of Negro Spirituals, spoke last week of his long friendship and collaboration with Buchanan. 

“We met each other at the Music Academy of the West, in Santa Barbara, when we were just kids, singing opera,” he said. “She went back to London to continue her studies and I went to Oberlin. Then Allison came back to the states to finish her master’s and was singing with San Francisco Opera ... and we met up again.” 

Dr. Williams, the founder of Four Seasons Concerts reintroduced them, Sims remembered. Williams then organized a sold-out house for the duo at Oakland’s Scottish Rites Temple in 1998, and then brought them back the following year, shortly before Williams died.  

“He gave us as young artists so much,” Sims said. “He was the most impressive impressario of the Bay Area. Many huge opera stars were presented by him—William Warfield, Marian Anderson’s farewell—and so many African-American singers got their debuts from him.” 

Talking about Saturday’s show, Sims said, “It’s great about this concert—Alison’s British, so she’ll open with Purcell. I’ll begin with Bernstein, a simple song. Then contemporary British composers ... The second half is all English and American, contemporary African-American songs for Alison, then Copeland and Spirituals for me. We’ll do a duet.” 

Sims just did a concert with Odetta in Virginia, and will teach in the Young Musicians Program at UC Berkeley this summer, as he did last year. 

Sims spoke of a book he’s working on with Christopher Brooks of Commonwealth University on Roland Hayes, “the father of African-American concert singers, who gave Marian Anderson cameos in his recitals from the time she was 11. He was a great arranger of Spirituals, traveled the world, and was the first African-American millionaire recitalist.”


TheatreFirst Stages ‘Future Me’

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Friday April 04, 2008

“Future Me is about how society deals with its monsters,” said British playwright Stephen Brown, “what we do with people who’ve done terrible things.” 

Brown, visiting here to catch TheatreFirst’s final rehearsals and opening night of the U.S. premiere of his play, tonight at the Berkeley City Club, summarized its point of departure: a bright, young, successful London barrister is about to move in with his girlfriend, with everything going well, when his computer sends out an e-mail to everybody in his address book with child pornography attached.  

The play follows him over the next five years, into and back out of prison, showing the people he meets (two other sex offenders, a probation officer who works in a treatment program) and the impact his troubles have on his girlfriend and his brother. 

“It deals with desire and anger, with what happens when our reasonable mind hits the iceberg of our buried visceral reactions, when we don’t know what to think,” said Brown. “Ungoverned desire provokes ungoverned anger. It’s slow burning. How to stay calm, think clearly—to punish, rehabilitate? When does punishment end? And what does it mean to say you’re sorry?” 

Brown emphasized Future Me is in no way a tract or merely educational problem play: “It has a lot of black humor in it. How do humans cope with strong emotions on a day-to-day basis? Maybe by laughing a lot, not beating their chests. It also has a lot of story.” 

Brown, who’s written plays professionally “for four or five years,” started out as “a freelance journalist working in publishing,” publishing and writing for the British political magazine Prospects for the better part of a decade, then writing theater reviews for Prospects, the Times Literary Supplement and others. 

Clive Chafer, TheatreFirst’s cofounder and director of FUTURE ME, had read reviews of the play last summer. “I’d been looking for a play on this subject,” he said. “Then in September I picked up a copy of the script in the bookstore of the National Theatre before a show, read half of it standing in the shop, then at intermission—even though the play was good—went to a pub and read the second half. By the end, I was wrung out. It’s the final taboo, which has reduced intelligent and rational people to monosyllables. We’ll have six post-show discussions with professionals who are in the rehabilitation field. We certainly want to make people think—but it’s important to remember it’s a play, not an essay.”  

Brown stressed how “very exciting it is for me to see a cast of American actors, with a different style, reveal different aspects of what I’ve written. I’ve started seeing lines, scenes opened up a bit. More open emotion.” 

TheatreFirst, an Oakland-based troupe for more than 13 years, has been searching for a new home after their site at the Old Oakland Theatre on 9th Street near Broadway became unavailable last spring after a successful season, for which the company won awards from the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle. 

“It’s astonishing that a city of over 400,000 doesn’t have a professional, full-season producing theater company,” Chafer said.  

TheatreFirst is negotiating for a space for a 99-seat theater not far from the Paramount Theater.  

“The area around the Paramount and Fox Theaters is being talked about as an arts district and is coming up rapidly,” said Chafer. “We’ve planned our next season, planning to go from three to four plays. We have city funding and private funding to compete for commercial rents.” 

 

 


East Bay, Then and Now: Parsons House: A Pioneering Design for Accessible Living

By Daniella Thompson
Friday April 04, 2008
A brick ramp leads to the Parsons house, designed by Albert J. Mazurette in 1911.
Daniella Thomspon
A brick ramp leads to the Parsons house, designed by Albert J. Mazurette in 1911.

Since the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, standards for accessible design have guided new construction and building retrofits. A plethora of products, from doors to bathroom fixtures, are especially designed with accessibility in mind. 

Imagine the plight of the mobility-challenged a hundred years ago, when only the well-to-do could afford to live in relative comfort. Making life comfortable for the disabled invariably entailed custom building at a time when practically no precedents existed for barrier-free architecture. 

This was the challenge facing architectural engineer Albert J. Mazurette in 1911, when he was commissioned to design an accessible house in Berkeley for William Parsons, a retired lumber dealer. 

Albert Joseph Mazurette (1887-1978) was born to French-Canadian parents in Detroit. He came to California in 1900 with his widowed father, who held positions in various sawmills. In 1904, after attending public schools in Stockton and Oakland, Albert entered a special course in drawing at the Polytechnic High School in Oakland. This course marked the end of his formal education. As his biography in Past and Present of Alameda County, California (1914) noted, “his later valuable training was acquired in the ‘university of hard knocks.’” 

In 1905, Mazurette obtained a job in a Santa Clara planing mill, where he “learned every branch of the business.” He must have been a quick study, for the same year he moved on to the Enterprise Planing Mill in Stockton, where he worked as a designer under Ralph P. Morrell—one of the leading architects in San Joaquin County—to whom he was “indebted for the major part of his present knowledge of the profession.” 

Mazurette returned to Oakland in early 1906, spending a year at the Pacific Coast Lumber & Mill Company. The following year, as the East Bay experienced a building boom in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire, he entered the employ of Karl H. Nickel, Oakland’s “bungalow king.” After three years with Nickel, Mazurette established his own architectural practice in the Bacon Building, downtown Oakland. 

In 1914, Mazurette would found the Melbourne Construction Company, but when he received the commission to design the Parsons house, the architect relied on his former employer, Karl H. Nickel, for contracting services. 

Nickel was best known for his brown-shingle bungalows, photographs of which appeared in his full-page ads in the Architect and Engineer of California. Mazurette no doubt designed scores of such bungalows for Nickel, and it was this experience that most likely led to his selection as Parsons’ architect. 

Not a great deal is known about William Parsons. He was born in Massachusetts about 1836. His father, a resident of Newton, appears to have been a wealthy Surinam and East-India merchant and later a leader in the manufacturing development of Massachusetts. The younger Parsons attended Harvard, graduating in 1856. Having begun his career as a merchant with his father, he moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where he was recorded as a bookkeeper in the 1870 U.S. census. In 1880, he was a lumber dealer in Chicago. Nothing further is noted of him until 1899, when the Report of the Secretary of Harvard College listed him at the Anglo-California Bank in San Francisco. 

Subsequent Harvard alumni listings follow Parsons into retirement and to 2924 Benvenue Avenue in Berkeley. But before moving to Berkeley, Parsons was recorded in the 1910 census as a 74-year-old widower residing in Pacific Heights with two live-in nurses. 

Even the sparse information currently available about Parsons paints the picture of an elderly invalid. This portrait is reinforced by the layout of the Benvenue Avenue brown-shingle house designed for him by Albert Mazurette. 

Although the house has both attic and basement, all the living spaces were originally concentrated on the ground floor. A brick ramp leads from the street to the house, indicating that William Parsons was wheelchair-bound. Further evidence of his condition is offered by the ample and straight porch leading to the front door, the generous width of this door and of the corridor bisecting the house, and the unusual spatial layout of the rooms. 

At the front, easily accessible from the front door, is an elegantly spacious, lofty-ceilinged living room with windows on three sides. This would have been Mr. Parsons’ day room, where he could sit by the large fireplace or at one of the full-length windows. His books were near at hand, housed in low, glazed built-in cases whose shelves could be reached from a sitting position. 

On sunny days, Parsons could be wheeled out to the front deck through a pair of French doors. At night, he retired to his bedroom by way of a door that opened directly from the living room. 

The Parsons house is long-for many years legend had it that Parsons was a sea captain who built his house “in the image of the longboats he had sailed around the world.” In reality, the length of the house served to separate the invalid owner’s quarters from the centers of activity and noise. Both kitchen and dining room are located at the very rear, 42 feet away from the living room. At mealtimes, Parsons could be wheeled down the corridor and through sliding, leaded-glass pocket doors into his wood-paneled, Arts and Crafts dining room. Meal over, he would be wheeled away from the clutter of dishes, back to the calm of the living room. 

As in San Francisco, a resident nurse lived on the premises. Her name was Effie Murchison, born circa 1881 to Canadian immigrants in Nicolaus, Sutter County. Her father, a farmer from Prince Edward Island, died prematurely in 1887, leaving a young widow and seven children, six of them girls. As soon as they were old enough, the Murchison girls-four of whom would never marry-went off to San Francisco to learn a trade or profession. In 1900, Effie was a boarder nurse-student at a hospital on Jones Street run by Edward M. Bixby, M.D. Ten years later, she was one of William Parsons’ two live-in nurses in Pacific Heights. 

By then, Effie’s mother had left the farm and was living in San Francisco with her unmarried daughters and the only son, a bookkeeper at a state prison. When Effie accompanied her employer to his new Berkeley home, the other Murchisons followed, settling a block away, at 2953 Hillegass Avenue. 

William Parsons died about 1916, leaving his house to Effie. The 1917 Berkeley directory listed Effie, her mother Margaret, her sisters Kathryn, Sarah, and Grace, and her brother John at 2924 Benvenue. 

During the Depression, the Murchisons divided the house into two units, converting one of the four bedrooms into a kitchen and letting the front part to renters. From 1934 to 1937, their tenants were Jacob I. Del Valle, a merchant and importer, and his wife May, a music teacher. Both were in their 60s. During World War Two, the front unit was occupied by Robert E. Ferguson, a U.S. Navy navigator, and his wife Nancy. Perhaps this is how the “sea captain” legend came into being. 

The youngest of the Murchison sisters died in 1968, and the house was left to their nephew, Craig Murchison, who sold it in 1971. The following year, it was on the market again, after new owners developed the attic. In June 1973, the house was sold to Arthur M. and Ruth Forbes Young, entering a new phase of its remarkable history. 

Arthur Middleton Young (1905-1995) was a mathematician, engineer, inventor, astrologer, investigator of parapsychological phenomena, and the elaborator of a unified field theory of consciousness called the Theory of Process, which he described in the books The Reflexive Universe and The Geometry of Meaning. 

Beginning in 1928, Young designed and developed what would become the Bell 47 helicopter, the first helicopter to be awarded a commercial license, in 1946. Concurrent with their purchase of the Parsons house in 1973, Arthur and Ruth Young founded the Institute for the Study of Consciousness, which was based in the house. 

The institute’s program was rich and active. A relic found in the house is a hand-written poster board displaying the institute’s weekly schedule and special events for a two-month period. On Mondays, Young’s theme was “Conversations on Consciousness”; on Tuesdays, he lectured on “Yoga of Thinking”; on Wednesdays, Alan Vaughn spoke on “Advanced Parapsychology.” The Thursday colloquiums featured a rotation of such thinkers as Frances Farelly, Ingo Swann, Hal Putoff, Kenneth Pelletier, Jack Schwarz, Geoffrey Chew, Fritjof Capra, and Joseph Chilton Pearce. On Fridays, Saul Paul Sirag presented “Paradigm or Paradox?” The special events included a Wheeler Hall discussion by Mad Bear and Doug Boyd on “Emergence of the Fourth World” and a conference at Dwinelle Hall in benefit of the Tibetan Aid Project, with seven notables discussing “Science & Mysticism.” 

Following Arthur Young’s death, Ruth Young-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, painter, and founder of the International Peace Academy-devoted herself to encouraging the study of her husband’s Theory of Process. She died in 1998, leaving the house to the Institute for the Study of Consciousness. Shortly thereafter, the house was sold. The current owners have returned it to single-family use, although vestiges of the second kitchen remain. 

The house retains its charming Arts and Crafts details, including beautifully proportioned windows, natural wood paneling, box-beamed ceilings, built-in cabinetry, and a great deal of leaded art glass in doors, windows, and cabinet glazing. It will be open for viewing on BAHA’s Spring House Tour, May 4, 2008. 

 

Beautiful Benvenue, Elegant Hillegass 

Berkeley Architectural Heritage Spring House Tour 

Sunday, May 4, 2008 

1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

Tickets: $35; BAHA members $25 

(510) 841-2242 

berkeleyheritage.com 

 

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

 

 


Garden Variety: Thank You, Jenny Fleming

By Ron Sullivan
Friday April 04, 2008

I owe a personal debt to Jenny Fleming, and so do you. Mine is perhaps more specific: Jenny was one of a group of people who saved my sanity after I crashed and burned out of nursing.  

It was purely an accidental group and I have no reason to believe they knew they were doing anything of the sort, but I managed to conjure them by enrolling in the Hort Department up at Merritt College and, waiting for the semester to start, joining the Tuesday propagation sessions that California Native Plant Society volunteers had there.  

A good handful of sweet gray-haired old ladies with razor-sharp minds (and tongues, when the occasion warranted) seemed to be the core of that group, and Jenny, with her aristocratic bearing and the look of eagles, was one of them. I heard about her legendary garden, and toured it during a Merritt California native plants class. It was astonishing. 

I worked as a gardener while taking those classes, and in due course Jenny hired me for a short term of maintenance there. Fellow students had passed on some combination of warning and promise about this, as quite a few of them had done similar stints. They were right.  

A few days of clinging with my toes to that amazingly vertical space, one foot on a rock upslope and one downslope and the rest of me wobbling between, prying weeds and planting seedlings and not daring to slip to my death for fear of crushing some botanical treasure I prized more than my own bones, rendered me as strong and limber as I’ve ever been in my life.  

It was worth the gymnastics of course, for the chance to learn, to work beside Jenny and enjoy her company with those marvelous plants in that marvelous place. It’s hitched in true John Muir fashion to the Tilden Park Botanic Garden, the California Native Plant Society, and our remaining wild places. Like those wild places, it rewards every moment of attention with beauty and learning. Like CNPS and the Tilden garden, it protects and propagates plant species that are under threat in their home ranges. Jenny was one of the people who founded CNPS after a successful campaign to keep the Tilden garden intact and working where it is.  

Jenny has passed on but her and Scott’s garden lives as one of her several interwoven legacies. It’s a plant collector’s paradise: thriving specimens in a beautiful, well-organized, integrated space, everyone looking right at home. Don’t take my word for it: the garden’s on this year’s free “Bringing Back the Natives Garden” Tour. Reserve your tour now, and get to the Flemings’ early; parking is a challenge there.  

Local CNPS members have (I hope) already seen the invitation to a memorial for Jenny hosted by her family on Saturday, April 5. If your Bay Leaf has been delayed or gone missing, I suggest emailing India Fleming-Farris: farris@dcn.org or calling (530) 758-4210; the invitation directs responses there.  

 

California Native Plant Society 

http://www.cnps.org 

2707 K Street, Suite 1  

Sacramento, CA 95816-5113 

(916) 447-2677, Mon–Fri, 9 a.m.–5p.m.) 

East Bay Chapter 

http://www.ebcnps.org/ 

 

Bringing Back the Natives  

Free Garden Tour 

http://www.bringingbackthenatives.net 

See the site for promising, modestly priced Select Tours! 

Questions?  

Kathy@kathykramerconsulting.net  

(510) 236-9558, 9 a.m.–9 p.m. 

 

An interview with Jenny Fleming: 

http://www.sfgate.com/ cgibin/ 

article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/09/01/ 

HO110880.DTL&hw=Ron+Sullivan&sn=125&sc=630


About the House: Imagining the Ideal Electrical System for Your House

By Matt Cantor
Friday April 04, 2008

I’m actually a very sensitive person. My feelings are easily hurt and I prefer to have an exchange of kind words: “I like you” is nice. On a good day someone might say “I like you, too.” Isn’t that nice. Then I wake up and realize, once again, that I’m a home inspector and no matter how I try to slice it, I have to criticize a few dozen things every day and, invariably, I’m going to have hurt someone’s feelings, made them angry or maybe a little scared. Well, at least I’m not in politics. 

Electrical systems take a lot of hits from me. After all, they do burn down houses. In the recent past, statistics have estimated 32,000 fires each year associated with electrical systems. That’s about 9 percent of all fires in the home. This also accounts for roughly 220 death and almost 1,000 injuries a year as well as roughly $700 million dollars in damage in the U.S. 

I had a call from a young renter the other day (Hello, yes, I am responding to your question) who was concerned with the danger of using her outside breaker panel in the rain, in the dark. 

I gave her something of an answer, while dancing a mazurka and spinning yarn from dog hair. In short, I didn’t really answer the question to my own satisfaction, so I thought about it for a while and realized that amidst all the criticisms I’ve made in the line of duty and all the notions I’ve posited in this column, I’ve never really defined the kind of electrical system I’d like to see and what clients should be looking for. So here’s a short textual diagram of my idea of a really good electrical system. 

 

The drop 

The wires coming from the power pole are called the service drop. Frankly, I’d rather see an underground service than anything as 18th century as a system of wires and poles strewn about our, otherwise, arcadian metropolis (the Tarzan system of power delivery). With underground wiring, there’s less to fail in an earthquake and yes, Olivia, we are waiting on a big one. If it has to be overhead, it should be out of the trees so it won’t get worn to bare wires and explode (yes, they explode and then burn; my artist-friend, Bill Shulte can attest to this. He lost his home of many years over an exploding main drop). I also like to see them high enough so that nobody’s going to hit it with their RV or extension ladder. 

 

The Main 

I’ve often gotten the following question: “Shouldn’t the main panel be inside where it can’t be tampered with?” No, a single main breaker for each living unit should be outside where it can be turned off by emergency service personnel without entering the dwelling (although in some places, like San Francisco, that’s not possible and they allow them to be inside the basement or garage)… BUT, my favorite recipe calls for all the rest of the system to be inside. Now, this usually costs more because you’re adding at least one more panel than you could get away with by putting all the breakers in the outside panel but here’s my thinking. We need one breaker outside but ideally (and here’s where we answer my young reader’s interrogative) the rest should be found in a convenient spot inside the dwelling where it’s warm, dry, safer and possibly a light (there may only be one tripped breaker and the light you need may still be on.)  

Isn’t it nicer to find and reset a tripped breaker when you don’t have to run out in the rain at night in that horrible frock and nightcap? Also, being less than fully insulated when operating breakers outside is less than ideal (although most modern panels do a smashing good job of protecting the person resetting breakers). 

This inside “sub-panel” isn’t so pretty. For years, electricians installed them in closets and I’d like to offer a general apology to all of you who’ve had their lava lamps, Sergio Mendez records and Star Trek memorabilia mashed by me as I attempted to get inside these panels. Putting panels in closets is a bad idea, not only because of the possibility of fire but also for the safety of electricians. Building codes addressed this quite a while back and bravo to them (as you may know, my praise for the codes is not unbridled).  

I like to see panels in places where they don’t compete with Wayne Thiebaud. If you don’t have a suitable basement, I’d tend to put it behind a door that’s usually swung against a wall. A blank wall in a laundry room is a good choice. It’s important that opening this panel involves no gymnastics because it’s dangerous enough working on these things as it is. That’s a very short version of a very long section of the code. 

 

Circuits 

I like lots and lots of circuits and lots and lots of outlets. Here’s how this works. You provide a given load: one TV (tuned only to PBS or the history channel of course), two computers, one toaster, one hairdryer and so forth. You would be using this bunch of stuff pretty much anywhere you went. The house may have more or less lighting, and you may use it more or less depending on how parsimonious you are or how many are in the clan, BUT the point stands that you will tend to use power more as a function of your own personal stuff and predilections than as a function of the electrical system you have. 

SO, if you have a system that has more circuits, those circuits are likely to each carry a smaller portion of your load. This translates to heat. On a typical day, you might be running 5,000 watts (a wild guess). If you have 10 circuits, each one might be carrying 500 watts, which is tolerable. With 4 circuits at 1,250 each and a few bad wiring splices hidden here and there (or a fried switch, or outlet, or cord), you may be heating the wiring up to a point where a fire can start. So one of the best ways to construct a safe electrical system is a build one with plenty of circuits. 

Another way is to have plenty of outlets. This is similar but not the same thing. If we add plenty of receptacles to our healthy number of circuits then we reduce the use of extension cords (circuits are like the branches on a tree and the panels are like the trunk, in fact, we use the word branch for circuits and, long ago, used the word trunk to describe the main wires coming into a system).  

X-cords are made of smaller wires than those in the wall. This means that they become resisters when we run power through them. They’re bottlenecks full of hot little electrons that want to run free and express themselves. (Hey, Ned, your house is on fire!) When you run a typical 2,000-watt electric heater on a small extension cord, the cord might get hot enough to melt or set fire to your dissertation on polynomial geometry so when building an ideal electrical system, don’t skimp on circuits or outlets. 

 

Lighting 

A true exploration of my preferences, alone, on this delightful and complex subject is beyond any sensible exploitation of this article, but I’ll hit a few high points anyway. Don’t miss out on lighting. Lighting shapes spaces, creates mood, allows one room to wear many outfits, if you will, and turns useless spaces into favored niches. Don’t miss the party. Lighting is one of the things that makes all that wiring worthwhile. That said, I now favor the use of compact fluorescents when and wherever you can manage. Bulbs are now available in dimmable versions and floods too. They’re also much better than just five years ago so come back and give them another try.  

I’m hoping that many of you will include LED lighting in your rehabs soon but the market IS lagging a bit on this amazing innovation. The reason for my excitement about fluorescent and even more for LED is that these do two great things. First, they lower your bill while decreasing energy waste (which also has far reaching political and environmental implications) while lasting years longer (your LED lamps might NEVER require replacement). Second, they make your house SAFER by lower ing the temperature of all the wires that feed to the lighting. Lighting can be one of the top energy users in your house and when we use CFLs or LEDs, the house runs cooler and safer.  

Additionally, the wiring and switches live longer since they’re not being “cooked” all evening from the heat created by typical higher wattage incandescent lighting. If you do have a scary-funky electrical system today, changing to CFL or LED is a pretty cheap way to make things a lot safer. 

The parting shots I’ll add before closing, will be to make a short case for new improved breakers. My ideal electrical system uses the new AFCI fire-sensing breakers wherever it’s practical to do so (talk to your Sparky) and used GFCI shock preventing outlets or breakers for anywhere that serious shock is a possibility: bath, basement, etc. 

I have long felt that there was more bang for the buck with electrical than in virtually any other system in our homes so this is not the place to cut corners. Buy cheaper cuts of meat. 

Remember, 32,000 home will burn as a result of sparks this year. My feeling is that when you’re looking for something to add sparks to, try your marriage instead. 

Thanks to the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) and the annual NFPA fire experience survey for the numbers cited above. 

 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at mgcantor@pacbell.net.


Berkeley This Week

Friday April 04, 2008

FRIDAY, APRIL 4 

EarthDance: Short Attention Span Film Festival at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Prof. Edouard Mayoral on “Recent Changes in the European Union and Some Consequences of These Changes.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 524-7468.  

Tim Wise, anti-racism activist and author of “White Like Me; Reflections of Race from a Privileged Son” and “Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White” speaks at 7:30 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St.. Tickets are $12-$20 sliding scale. 800-838-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Friday Films for Teens at 3:30 pm. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. For details call 981-6121. 

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. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 5 

Healthy Communities, Healthy Planet Sponsored by the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland. Cost is $30 at the door. www.transcoalition.org 

Teens Touch the Earth Learn about caring for the environment while earning community service credits, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline. For ages 13-19. Registration required. 1-888-EB-PARKS. 

“Rachel Corrie Speaks” A dramatic reading of her journals by her mother and father and numerous young women peace activists, with original music by composer and cellist Matthew Owens, at 8 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-6767, ext. 609. www.kpfa.org  

Alameda County Office of Education Credentialing Fair for individuals interested in becoming a credentialed teacher in California, from 9 a.m. to noon at 313 West Winton Ave., Conf. room 142, Hayward. 670-4224. www.acoe.org 

Models and Designs for a Proposed Center Street Plaza, developed by landscape architect Walter Hood for nonprofit Ecocity Builders, will be on display at Cody's Bookstore in downtown Berkeley, Shattuck Ave. and Allston Way, through April 12. www.ecocitybuilders.org 

Jack London Aquatic Center Ergathon Athletes take turns on a Concept2 rowing machine and pull non-stop for 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Jack London Aquatic Center by the Oakland Estuary. You can sponsor a rower, or row yourself. 208-6067. 

Latin Giants of Jazz: Sam Burtis and Sonny Bravo Clinic and master class from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Cost is $20-$50, Students, $10, youth up to age 15, free. 836-4649. 

“Passport to the East Bay Wine Trail” featuring eight winery tasting rooms in Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville, from noon to 5 p.m. Tickets are $30-$35. www.eastbayvintners.com 

Political Affairs Readers Group meets to discuss excerpts from Gerald Horne’s forthcoming book “Blows Against the Empire: US Imperialism in Crisis” at 10 a.m. at Niebyl Procter Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 595-7417. www.marxistlibr.org 

AHIMSA's Conference on the Human Capacity for Peace, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Badè Museum, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. www.ahimsaberkeley.org 

CopWatch Training Learn your rights when stopped by police, officers, as well as how to observe and document police misconduct, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Free. 548-0425.  

“Spring Blooming Perennials” with Aerin Moore at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave., off Seventh St. 644-2351. 

Auditions for the Woodminster Summer Musicals for adult singers and dancers of all ages and children who appear to be 8-10. For details see www.woodminster.com/Webpages/opportunities.html 

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. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Oakland Artisans Marketplace Sat. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Jack London Square. 238-4948. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 6 

“Why Care About Tibet?The Protests, the Crackdown and the Olympics Connection” with Topden Tsering, former president of San Francisco Chapter of Tibetan Youth Congress and former editor of Tibetan Bulletin, at 4 p.m. at Connie Barbour Hall, BFUU, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita Ave. 

Family Pond-tacular Learn about metamorphosis as your explore the ponds with naturalist Meg Platt, from 10:30 a.m. to noon in Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Family Footprints Learn about animal tracks and see what you can spot with naturalist Meg Platt, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. in Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Historical Society 30th Anniversary from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Charles Wollenberg will speak about his new book, “Berkeley, a City in History.” There will be music and refreshments. Reservations requested. berkeleyhistorical@yahoo.com 

The Crisis at KPFA and Pacifica A community forum with speakers Maria Gilardin, Les Radke, Joe Wanzala, from 2 to 6 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst at M L King Way. www.peoplesradio.net/ 

events.htm 

“What it Takes to Get Your Book Published” with Alan Rinzler at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

Friends and Family Day celebrating the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950. 

“US Labor, Chinese Workers and the Meaning of International Labor Solidarity” with Ellen David Friedman at 12:30 p.m. at SEIU Local 1021, 447 29th St., Oakland. Enter at rear between Telegraph and Broadway. Suggested donation $5-$10.  

“Kiss My Wheels” A film about a nationally ranked wheelchair basketball team at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd Flr. 981-6107. 

Films from the Center for African Diasporic Culture “Cubamor” at 6 p.m. and “Favela Rising” at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10 for each film, or $15 for both. 849-2568. 

Old Time Radio East Bay Collectors and Listeners gather to enjoy shows together at 5 p.m. at a private home in Richmond. For more information email DavidinBerkeley at Yahoo.com. 

Home Graywater Systems Slideshow & Tour Learn about the permitted greywater system at the Ecohouse. We will discuss the principles and process of safely irrigating with shower, bathroom sink, and laundry waste water. The workshop includes a 1 hour slide show presentation of greywater design and the application process. Tours at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Pre-registration required. Cost is $15 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. 548-2220 ext. 242. ecohouse@ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Rep’s Family Series, a monthly theater workshop for the entire family from 11. a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, Nevo Education Center, 2071 Addison St. Free, but bring a book to donate to the library at John Muir Elementary School. 647-2973. 

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 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Compassion and Well-Being” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000  

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 4 to 8 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577.  

MONDAY, APRIL 7 

El Cerrito Green Party Happy Hour at 8 p.m. at The Sky Lounge, 10458 San Pablo Ave, north of Stockton St. 526-0972. 

Yah Village Community Circle with children from Hoover Elementary School who have created Super Heroes who stand against violence at 6:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s Center, 925 Brockhurst St., Oakland. www.ahc-oakland.org 

“Castoffs” Knitting Group meets at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

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 

TUESDAY, APRIL 8 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit the Albany Bulb of the Eastshore State Park. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

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. 

Board Games Days, for 4th -8th graders, Tues.-Thurs. from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

“Kayaking 101” at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Come use our tools as well as receive help with performing repairs free of charge. Youth classes available. Tues., Thurs., and Sat. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org  

Teen Playreaders meets to read and discuss plays at 4:30 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

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

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

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

Sing-A-Long Group from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masoni Ave., Albany. 524-9122. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9 

Bus Rapid Transit in Berkeley A community discussion at the Planning and Transportation Commission meetings, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

Sudden Oak Death Preventative Treatment Training Session Meet at 1 p.m. at the Tolman Hall portico, Heast Ave. and Arch/Leconte, UC Campus for a two-hour field session, rain or shine. Pre-registration required. SODtreatment@nature.berkeley.edu 

Cycling Lecture with Gary Fisher, bicycle racer, at 7 p.m. at Velo Sport Bicycles, 1615 University Ave., enter at 1989 California St. RSVP to 849-0437. 

Board Games Day, for 4th -8th graders, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Radical Movie Night “Fern Gully—The Last Rainforest” at 8:30 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 

“Behind Every Terrorist There is a Bush” A documentary with stand-up comics and stage artists questioning the “War on Terror” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry” Learn about toxics in beauty products with author Stacy Malkan at 7 p.m. at Elephant, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200.  

Green Home Improvement 101 A lecture at 6 p.m. at 2619 San Pablo Ave. www.ecohomeimprovment.com  

“About Face: The Psychology of Portraiture and the Human Face” A benefit lecture for Ethsix* magazine featuring psychologist and facial expert Dr. Paul Ekman at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Donation $10 and up. 849-2568. 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

Theraputic Recreation at the Berkeley Warm Pool, Wed. at 3:30 p.m. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Warm Pool, 2245 Milvia St. Cost is $4-$5. Bring a towel. 632-9369. 

After-School Program Homework help, drama and music for children ages 8 to 18, every Wed. from 4 to 7:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $5 per week. 845-6830. 

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 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 10 

Alternatives to the Aerial Spray Program A forum on the spray plan for the Light Brown Apple Moth and alternatives to the spray, with agroecologist and UC Berkeley professor Miguel Altieri, Mayor of Albany and registered nurse Robert Lieber, and farmers Robert Shultz and Ames Morison, and healthcare worker John Davis, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. 548-2220 ext. 233, erc@ecologycenter.org 

Poverty Truth Commission at 6:15 p.m. at the Bade' Museum Building, Pacific School of Religion Campus, Graduate Theological Union, 1798 Scenic Ave. For more information, contact 845-6232, ext.103 glettini@sksm.edu 

“Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley” slide talk by author Richard Schwartz featuring highlights of Berkeley’s history from 1850 to 1925, at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from noon to 1 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

Creative Movement and Sign Language for ages 5-10 at 3:30 p.. at Elephant, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200.  

Board Games Day, for 4th -8th graders, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

ONGOING 

E-Waste Recycling St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County accepts electronic waste including computers, dvd players, cell phones, fax machines and many other ewaste products for disposal free of charge at many of its locations throughout Alameda County. Free bulk pick-up available. 638-7600.  

Free Tax Help If your 2007 household income was less than $42,000, you are eligible for free tax preparation from United Way's Earn it! Keep It! Save It! Sites are open now through April 15 in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. To find a site near you, call 800-358-8832. www.EarnItKeepItSaveIt.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., April 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., April 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., April 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., April 9, at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 981-4950. 

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., April 9, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. 981-6740. 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., April 10 at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5356.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., April 10, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7410. 


Arts Calendar

Tuesday April 01, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

TUESDAY, APRIL 1 

FILM 

“Goff in the Desert” by Heinz Emigholz at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Reckonings: Contemporary Short Fiction by Native American Women” Discussion and readings with the editors and authors at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Zydeco Flames at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 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.  

Time Out Quartet at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet & The Open World Jazz Octet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2 

FILM 

“Il Posto” with lecture by Marilyn Fabe at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Zachary Mason reads from his new novel, “The Lost Books of the Odyssey” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Chris Hedges on “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Suggested donation $10. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with Jessica Ling, April Paik, Quelani Penland at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864. 

Berkeley Symphony with Laura Jackson, conductor, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20-$60. 841-2800.  

The Very Hot Club of Berkeley at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ.  

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

Turlu, Balkan, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. 

Rumbache at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Ezra Gale Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, APRIL 3 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Palimpsest: Exploring the Layers” A mixed-media exhibit by Kate Swoboda on display in April at Gaylord’s Coffee & Tea, 4150 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. www.kateswoboda.com 

FILM 

Cine/Spin: “Simon of the Desert” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems with Jessica Fisher at 12:10 p.m. at the Morrison Library, inside the Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-0137. 

Artist Support Group Speaker Series with Rene de Guzman, Senior Curator, Oakland Museum, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. Cost is $8-$10. 644-6893. 

Michalel Krasny on his new autobiography “Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio” at 7:30 p.m. at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

New Century Chamber Orchestra with Stuart Canin, guest concertmaster, at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $28-$42. 415-357-1111.  

Sean Hodge with High Heat, Matthew Hansen, Fauna Valetta at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054.  

Eda Maxym & the Imagination Club, with Stephen Kent at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

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

Sitar and Tablo Duo at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373.  

Shawn Shaffer & Karen Sudjian-Lampkin at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Ise Lyfe, Rico Pabon, Big Dan in a fundraiser to help Oakland students travel to Puerto Rico at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Absolutely Zippo a zine (publication) party at 7 p.m. at 924 Gilman. 525-9926. 

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

The Latin Giants of Jazz, featuring members of the Tito Puente Orchestra at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Collie Budz at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $18-$20. 548-1159.  

Divasonic with Celeste Lear at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 4 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Chicago” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through April 12. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “The Trojan Women” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through May 11. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Conservatory Theatre “The Turn of the Screw” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at 999 East 14th St., San Leandro City Hall Complex, near BART, through April 27. Tickets are $20-$22. 632-8850. 

Masquers Playhouse “Tartuffe” Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., some Sun. matinees at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Pt. Richmond, through April 26. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Shotgun Players “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” by George Bernard Shaw. Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m., through April 27, at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $17-$25. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Teen One Acts Festival with the winners of the Teen writing competition Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Rep School of Theater, 2017 Addison St. Tickets at the door ate $6-$12. 647-2917. 

TheatreFirst “Future Me” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $23-$28. 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com 

CHILDREN 

Splash Circus “Inspiruption: In Case of Emergency, Open Mind to Release Circus” Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Head Over Heels Gymnastics, Spur Alley, off 45th St., btwn Hollis and Doyle, Emeryville. Tickets are $10-$15.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Nature Study” Three Bay Area artists working with nature as a subject and/or medium. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, 25 Grand Ave., upper level, Oakland. www.chandracerrito.com 

“Earth Days” Works by Carrie Lederer, Irene Imfeld and Andrew Kaluzynski. Reception at 7 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 25th St., Oakland. Runs through May 3. 663-6920. 

“Protest in Paris 1968” Photographs by Serge Hambourg. Artist talk at 5 p.m. at PFA Theater Gallery. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Second Nature” Paintings of San Francisco artist, Elizabeth Garsonnin, and artist Doron Fishman of Oakland. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at NoneSuch Space, 2865 Broadway at 29th St, 2nd Fl, Oakland. 

FILM 

EarthDance: Short Attention Span Film Festival at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chris Vitiello and Mary Burger read their poetry at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Miriam Chase and Remi Barron, followed by open mic at 7 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. www.expressionsgallery.org 

Jonathan Rosen explores our paradoxical relationship to nature in “The Life of the Skies Birding at the End of Nature” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

Tim Wise, anti-racism activist and author at 7:30 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St., Oakland. Tickets are $12 - $20 sliding scale 800-838-3006. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Lacey Baker and The Black Diamond Blues Band at 5 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Citywater: The Music of Steve Mackey at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Dan Zemelman Quartet at 8 p.m. at The Berkeley Hillside Club 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $10-$15. 845-1350.  

Orquesta d’Soul at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Europa Galante “Music Before 1850” at 8 p.m. at First Congreagational Church, Dana and Durant. Pre-perfomance talk with musicologist John Prescott at 7 p.m. Tickets are $48. 642-9988. 

RoShamBo & Guests, all a cappella night at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ.  

Inner Visions, reggae tribute to Mikey Dread at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Solo Piano Night, with Fred Weed, Nannick Bonnel, Carol Belcher, and Hadley Louden at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Anton Schwartz, jazz saxophone, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Carol McComb & Kathleen Larisch at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Braindrill, Scarecrow, Arise, Zombie Holocaust at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Red Summer at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7-$15. 548-1159.  

Code Name: Jonah at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 5 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Bonnie Lockhart, guitar and vocals at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Splash Circus “Inspiruption: In Case of Emergency, Open Mind to Release Circus” Sat. at 2 and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Head Over Heels Gymnastics, Spur Alley, off 45th St., btwn Hollis and Doyle, Emeryville. Tickets are $10-$15.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Open Range” The art of Douglas Light, Michele Hofherr and Scott Courtenay-Smith. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

“La Scuola di Antonio Holdsworth” Group show of paintings by Daniel Altman, Marvin Dalander, Susan Feiga, Lynne Hillock, Anthony Holdsworth, Tracy O’Neill, Michael Selvin, Ariella Seidenberg, Sally Stewart, Rolayn Tauben, O’Brien Thiele, April Watkins. Reception at 2 p.m. at The Art of Living Center, 2905 Shattuck Ave. 848-3736.  

THEATER 

San Leandro Players “Redwood Curtain” Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at San Leandro Museum Auditorium, Casa Peralta, 320 W. Estudillo Ave., through May 4. Tickets are $10-$15. 895-2573. www.sanleandroplayers.org  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Rachel Corrie Speaks” A dramatic reading of her journals by her mother and father and numerous young women peace activists, with original music by composer and cellist Matthew Owens, at 8 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-6767, ext. 609. www.kpfa.org  

Bay Area Poets Coalition Open Reading at 3 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street, not in Lodge parking lot. Free. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com 

“Jingletown Junction” Works by ten artists from the Jingletown neighborhood. Artists’ talk at 1 p.m. at ProArts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. www.proartsgallery.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra “Coronation & Victory” Works by Handel and Purcell, at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $30-$72. 415-392-4400. 

“Sekar Jaya” Music and dance of Bali st 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$18. 925-798-1300. www.gsj.org 

Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra at 3 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

The First Berkeley Piano Competition at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Burlesque ‘n Brass with Hot Pink Feathers and Blue Bone Express at 9 p.m. at Café Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave. 763-7711. 

Rachel Sage in Concert with child friendly activities available and the concert will be preceded by a magic show by Zappo the Magician at 1 p.m. at University Village, 1123 Jackson St., Albany. 867-8632. www.rachaelsage.com  

Sweet Honey in the Rock, African-American female a capella ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$58. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Bolokada Conde, West African drummer at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Darryl Rowe & His Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Backyard Party Boys, Betsy Maudlin & the Maudulators, JJ Schultz at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $10. 644-2204.www.twangcafe.com  

Eliyahu & Qadim, mystical music o fthe Near East, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Sotaque Baiano at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Doppler Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

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

Harish Raghavan Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Fred Randolph Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

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

DCOI, Static Thought, Knuickle Puck at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

The Latin Giants of Jazz, featuring members of the Tito Puente Orchestra at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, APRIL 6 

CHILDREN 

Hank Hooper CD Release Party for Children (and their Families) at 2 p.m. at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave., Alameda. Cos tis $5-$15 per family, sliding scale. www.rhythmix.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Legacy of Berkeley Parks: A Century of Planning and Making” opens at Addison Street Windows Gallery, 2018 Addison St, and runs through May 17. 981-7546. 

“Through My Eyes” A photography exhibit by Ann Kraynak. Opening reception at 1 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 228-3218. 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Dennis Fritzinger reads from “Earth National Park” a new book of poetry at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center Bookstore, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 227. www.kirklumpkin.com 

Joe Fisher talks about Balinese Art at 3 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Chamber Music Sundaes with San Francisco Symphony members and friends at 3 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets at the door are $18-$22. www.chambermusicsundaes.org 

Telemann Celebration concert by Florilegia at 3 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Free, but donationa accepted. 526-0722. 

San Francisco Choral Artists “Music Home-Grown” at 4 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $9-$28. 415-979-5779. www.sfca.org 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra “Coronation & Victory” Works by Handel and Purcell, at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $30-$72. 415-392-4400. 

Animal Crackers! Funny Songs & Delicious Desserts Music by Gershwin, Whitacre, PDQ Bach, at 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $15-$20. 525-0302. 

John Santos Quintet “What is Jazz Anyway?” at 4 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15, children under 12 free. 228-3218. 

Swedish Chamber Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$58. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W. Allen Taylor & His Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Train Wreck Riders, Kemo Sabe, The Skinny at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $10. 644-2204.www.twangcafe.com  

Bandworks at noon at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jarrett Cherner Trio at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Claudia Schmidt at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$1920.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MONDAY, APRIL 7 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Call & Response” Works from Richmond High School and the National Institute of Art & Disabilities opens at NIAD, 551 23rd St., Richmond. 620-0290. www.niadart.org 

FILM 

New Digital Films from Palestine and Lebanon “The Roof” with filmmaker Kamal Aljafari, in person at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

PACES, with poet Alan Bern and choreographer and dancer Lucinda Weaver at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Piedmont Ave. Branch, 160 41st St., Oakland. 597-5011. jmurphy@oaklandlibrary.org 

Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium “text, Slides and Videotapes” with artist Kota Ezawa, at 7:30 p.m. at 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 643-9565. http://atc.berkeley.edu 

Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey reads from “Blowing on Embers: Stories for Hard Times” at a brown bag lunch, at 12:30 p.m. at the Edith Stone Room of the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Steve Hinshaw describes “Breaking the Silence: Mental Health Professionals Disclose their Personal and Family Experiences of Mental Illness” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express 6th Anniversary with Kathleen Daly at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Slide Hampton in an interactive presentation at 7 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$25, no one turned away. www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/3087 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Debbie Poryes Trio at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Shotgun Stages ‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession’

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Tuesday April 01, 2008

“No secret’s better kept than the secret everyone guesses.” That secret finally breaking through to its unaware—and unwilling—beneficiary is the story of Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession, now on the Ashby Stage in a crisp new Shotgun Players production, with Shaw’s double-edged barbs at the double standard zinging around the auditorium. 

That realization, and what an independently minded late Victorian young lady come of age, like Shaw’s Vivie (in a fine portrayal by Emily Jordan) does with it, rivets the audience’s attention as the tightly wound plot unravels, revealing new nuances and secrets corollary to the principal one: What’s a girl to do, after leaving Cambridge with a sterling reputation in mathematics, when she discovers her mother, a mostly absent figure who provided for her and put her through school—is an old courtesan and businesswoman, in the hospitality business of running a string of bordellos across Europe? 

That the play, originally written in 1893 but banned from the stage until 1925, doesn’t seem dated to an audience today, as do many other socially aware spectacles of yore, is a tribute to Shaw’s cutting wit. It is also a testament to the penetrating quality of his dramaturgy, derived from Ibsen, which takes the formula of the modern commercial play (with its “arc” of emotional build-up and anticipation of a climax) and stiffens it with the Socratic sense of demonstrating the terms of a problem completely by arguing out its different points of view.  

Plato, who canonized that method in his Dialogues, was originally an aspiring tragedian. And when all is said and done, after the gusts of laughter have died down, it’s the genuine tragedy that remains. It’s a tragedy of independence won from stand-offs (not wars) between generations and between sexes, a Pyrrhic victory. The heroine divests herself of the shady business of the past, amid a welter of emotional promises and admonitions, to devote herself, ironically, to the shiny, if sterile, beacon of the commercial world, with a flippant “Goodbye, Frank!” It’s not Nora fleeing from her dollhouse, but it’s an irreparable split nonetheless. 

Vivie’s mother, the madame herself, is portrayed by longtime Shotgun star Trish Mulholland with all Mrs. Warren’s no-nonsense “vulgarity,” the result of coolly going from being a scullery maid in a Temperance establishment, to waitressing, and finally into management as a whorehouse keeper. 

Her old and seemingly stodgy bankroller, Crofts, is portrayed knowingly by John Mercer, another Shotgun Player, who makes an offer to the daughter. “Crofts ... only has one subject,” Vivie’s told when she complains. 

Vivie’s would-be lover, Frank, whose part Joseph O’Malley plays with tart insouciance, recognizes both Mrs. Warren’s questionable metier and Crofts’ corrupt gambit, despising him, though without prejudice, as it were, saying “There’s a freemasonry among the thoroughly immoral.” His father, Reverend Gardner, a social-position-obsessed clergyman, turns out to be an old familiar of madame Warren. 

Then there’s Praed, “old Praddy,” whom Nick Sholley brings off appropriately with a too discreet, overly delicate air. A Ruskin sort of chap, Praed believes in the power of Art and of Beauty—and a detached discretion—as a bulwark against the unpleasantness of the world, provided of course that one has the means to take a convenient tour of Italy. 

The show’s very well cast, and all show themselves at their best—in some cases, even better. Susannah Martin’s direction keeps the pacing brisk and funny with anticipation maintained at the right level to cash in on the reversals and double reverses in the plot. Shaw turns social hypocrisy back on itself with gusto, dryly exposing the true incestuousness of such a milieu, in which (as filmmaker Sam Fuller put it once, discussing war films and the causes of war at the PFA), everyone has an excuse: “If I didn’t do it, somebody else would.” 

Like most contemporary productions of Shaw, this one misses the way his characters know just who they are so well that they acquire a figural stature. Characters like these can make Euripidean rhetorical statements which transcend the situation of the play, making telling points in the guise of wit, somewhat as Shaw’s fellow Irishman Oscar Wilde did. This attribute, and the way it can be used politically, attracted Brecht to Shaw, who demonstrated that one could craftily stylize seeming realism to go beyond itself, . 

Here the actors occasionally half-turn to the audience to declaim, not quite in soapbox style, but using just enough oratory. Shaw always cuts both ways, so the springloaded irony of Mrs. Warren’s exclamation turns back on itself and on the beliefs of its onstage and offstage listeners: “Lord help the world if everybody took to doing the right thing!”


Column: Wild Neighbors: Antioch Dunes — Rare Insects of an Inland Island

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday April 01, 2008
Antioch Dunes evening primrose with unknown insect.
Ron Sullivan
Antioch Dunes evening primrose with unknown insect.

Mark your calendars: the annual spring surveys of endangered wildflowers at the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge are coming up. This year’s dates are April 9-10 for the Contra Costa wallflower and May 14-15 for the Antioch Dunes evening primrose.  

You don’t have to be a trained botanist to participate. You just need to be able to identify these showy plants (not a problem), use a clicker to tally your observations, and walk a straight-line transect without stepping on any rarities. Ron and I did it last year, and highly recommend it. For more information, contact U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manager Susan Euing at (510) 521-9624, or susan_euing@yahoo.com. 

This place, which has fascinated me for years, is the first (and so far only) federal wildlife refuge established for plants and insects. It protects a remnant patch of sand that was scoured off the Sierra by glaciers some 40,000 years ago and deposited by the wind. The wallflower and the evening primrose evolved into distinct species here, hundreds of miles from their nearest relatives, and  

occur nowhere else in the wild. 

That’s also true of the refuge’s third marquee species, the Lange’s metalmark butterfly (Apodemia mormo langei), a northern outlier of a mostly tropical family. The metalmarks have their own survey, in later summer during the adults’ brief flight season. They spend the rest of their life cycle as larvae, either noshing on naked-stem buckwheat, their only food plant, or waiting out the dry months in a dormant state. 

In an evolutionary sense, the dunes are like an island on the land. Like the Galapagos or the Canaries, they have their suite of unique species, many of them insects. During World War II, entomologists at UC Berkeley found their field trips curtailed by gasoline rationing. The Antioch Dunes were about as far from Cal as they could get. So, making a virtue of necessity, they did a thorough inventory of the dunes’ insect life, and described a bunch of new species. I’ve been told that the scientists adopted one of the local watering holes during the war years. An entomologists’ bar is something I wish Gary Larson had drawn. 

For some reason, Life magazine, of all venues, showcased the insects of the dunes in a 1957 article, with foldout paintings by the German artist Walter Linsenmaier. (I’ve been rummaging through piles of old magazines in antique stores for years, hoping that issue would turn up, but no luck.) Growing up in Little Rock in the ’50s, I found the old Life, with its earth-history, evolution, and human-origins series, a window on a larger world. Lord knows I wasn’t getting that stuff in school; this was still post-Snopes and pre-Sputnik. 

Sadly, many of those unique species haven’t been recorded for decades. The dunes have been subject to many abuses, beginning with large-scale sand mining. Dune sand went into the bricks that rebuilt San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire. Parts of the dunes became vineyards. Even after federal protection began in 1980, the area was vulnerable to fires and vandalism. The refuge was closed to the public (except for docent-led tours) after 1986, when fans of Humphrey the errant whale trampled the rare plants. 

A Nature Conservancy source lists some of the casualties: the Antioch Dunes shieldback katydid (Neduba extincta), the Antioch cophuran robberfly (Cophura hurdi), the Antioch sphecid wasp (Philanthus nasalis). These creatures vanished long before there was any kind of endangered species process. They would have been out of luck with the California Endangered Species Act anyway, since it precludes the listing of insects. 

But the insects are not all gone. It turns out that the specialized pollinator of the Antioch Dunes evening primrose—a solitary bee called Sphecodogastra antiochensis—is still around. It’s another Dunes endemic, a member of a bee genus associated with evening primroses. The nearest relative of S. antiochensis occurs in Merced County, 70 miles to the southeast of Antioch. 

These bees fly around sunrise and sunset. As their flight season progresses, they forage for pollen in the morning and nectar in the evening. Efficient collectors, they can gather a full pollen load in less than a minute. The pollen is used to provision larvae in wax-lined brood cells in the dune sands, although it appears that the larvae can develop without evening primrose pollen. A single female may establish as many as 31 cells.  

S. antiochensis has no protected status, but the Xerces Society—an estimable organization dedicated to the conservation of insects and other invertebrates—includes it in its Red List of endangered pollinating insects. For now, its survival may depend on the FWS personnel and volunteers who plant out nursery-raised evening primroses to augment the natural population. Antioch Dunes, like many other threatened places, must be tended like a garden-bees and all.  


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday April 01, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

TUESDAY, APRIL 1 

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 Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Docent Training for Tilden Nature Area Learn to assist the naturalists in providing interpretive programs at the Little Farm and narure area gardens, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Fee is $35. Application required. For information call 544-3260. 

Freight & Salvage New Home Groundbreaking Celebration at 10:30 a.m. at 2020 Addison St., with music by Suzy Thompson and friends. RSVP to 547-8248  

“A Dream in Doubt” A documentary that asks “What happens to the American dream when you look like America’s enemy?” at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Taxes and Personal Finance” discussion group at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley JCC at 1414 Walnut St.  

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

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

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

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

Sing-A-Long Group from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masoni Ave., Albany. 524-9122. 

Teen Playreaders meets to read and discuss plays at 4:30 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2 

Microfinance: A Global Tool to Reduce Poverty An interactive workshop for low-income entrepreneurs to secure loans and create income opportunities especially for womenat 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Sponsored by Calvert Foundation. 622-0202 ext. 203. 

“Under the Sea” A workshop for children to learn about how animals adapt to waves and predators, and how tide pool animals survive, from noon to 2 p.m. at Lawrence Hall fo Sceince, Centennial Drive. Cost is $6-$9. 642-5132. 

“The Carlyle Connection” A documentary about the world of private equity banking and the involvement of the Bush family, the Saudi Royal family, the Bin Laden family and others, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“Introduction to Triathlon” with Jane Booth at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Cycling Lecture with Dick Powell, organizer of European bicycle tours, at 7 p.m. at Velo Sport Bicycles, 1615 University Ave., enter at 1989 California St. RSVP to 849-0437. 

Kaleo and Elise Ching explain “Chi and Creativity: Vital Energy and Your Inner Artist” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books on Solano Ave. 525-6888. 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

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. 

Theraputic Recreation at the Berkeley Warm Pool, Wed. at 3:30 p.m. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Warm Pool, 2245 Milvia St. Cost is $4-$5. Bring a towel. 632-9369. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

After-School Program Homework help, drama and music for children ages 8 to 18, every Wed. from 4 to 7:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $5 per week. 845-6830. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 3 

A Question of Conscience: Military Perspectives on the “War on Terror” A panel discussion with Col. (Ret.) Lawrence B. Wilkerson, U.S. Army; Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch, U.S. Marine Corps; Lt. Col. (Ret.) Stephen E. Abraham, U.S. Army Reserve, at 5 p.m. in the Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. 642-0965. www.hrcberkeley.org 

Candlelight Vigil Marking the 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King at 7:30 p.m. at the Chapel, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 849-8329. 

Introduction to Urban Permaculture Permaculture designers from the Ecological Division of Merritt College's Landscape Horticulture Dept discuss what's possible in a city at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. 548-2220, ext.233. ww.ecologycenter.org 

“Explaining the Inexplicable: Suicide Bombers’ Motivation as the Quest for Personal Significance” with Prof. Arie W. Kruglanski, Univ. of Maryland at 7:30 p.m. at Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, UC Campus. 642-4670. 

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club at 6:45 p.m. at at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline.  

FRIDAY, APRIL 4 

EarthDance: Short Attention Span Film Festival at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Prof. Edouard Mayoral on “Recent Changes in the European Union and Some Consequences of These Changes.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 524-7468.  

Tim Wise, Anti-Racism Activist and author of “White Like Me; Reflections of Race from a Privileged Son” and “Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White” speaks at 7:30 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St.. Tickets are $12-$20 sliding scale. 800-838-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Friday Films for Teens at 3:30 pm. at the Berkeley Puplic Library, 2090 Kittredge St. For details call 981-6121. 

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. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 5 

Healthy Communities, Healthy Planet Sponsored by the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland. Cost is $30 at the door. www.transcoalition.org 

Teens Touch the Earth Learn about caring for the environment while earning community service credits, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline. For ages 13-19. Registration required. 1-888-EB-PARKS. 

“Rachel Corrie Speaks” A dramatic reading of her journals by her mother and father and numerous young women peace activists, with original music by composer and cellist Matthew Owens, at 8 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-6767, ext. 609. www.kpfa.org  

Alameda County Office of Education Credentialling Fair for individuals interested in becomming a credentialed teacher in California, from 9 a.m. to noon at 313 West Winton Ave., Conf. room 142, Hayward. 670-4224. www.acoe.org 

Jack London Aquatic Center Ergathon Atheletes take turns on a Concept2 rowing machine and pull non-stop for 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Jack London Aquatic Center by the Oakland Estuary. You can sponsor a rower, or row yourself. 208-6067. 

Latin Giants of Jazz: Sam Burtis and Sonny Bravo Clinic and master class from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Cost is $20-$50, Students, $10, youth up to age 15, free. 836-4649. 

“Passport to the East Bay Wine Trail” featuring eight winery tasiting rooms in Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville, from noon to 5 p.m. Tickets are $30-$35. www.eastbayvintners.com 

Politcal Affairs Readers Group meets to discuss excerpts from Gerald Horne’s forthcoming book “Blows Against the Empire: US Imperialism in Crisis” at 10 a.m. at Niebyl Procter Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 595-7417. www.marxistlibr.org 

CopWatch Training Learn your rights when stopped by police, officers, as well as how to observe and document police misconduct, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Free. 548-0425.  

“Spring Blooming Perennials” with Aerin Moore at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave., off Seventh St. 644-2351. 

Auditions for the Woodminster Summer Musicals for adult singers and dancers of all ages and children who appear to be 8-10. For deatils see www.woodminster.com/Webpages/opportunities.html 

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. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Oakland Artisans Marketplace Sat. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Jack London Square. 238-4948. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 6 

Family Pond-tacular Learn about metamorphosis as your explore the ponds with naturalist Meg Platt, from 10:30 a.m. to noon in Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Family Footprints Learn about animal tracks and see what you can spot with naturalist Meg Platt, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. in Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Historical Society 30th Anniversary from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Reservations required. berkeleyhistorical@yahoo.com 

The Crisis at KPFA and Pacifica A community forum with speakers Maria Gilardin, Les Radke, Joe Wanzala, from 2 to 6 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst at M L King Way. www.peoplesradio.net/ 

events.htm 

“What it Takes to Get Your Book Published” with Alan Rinzler at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

Friends and Family Day celebrating the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950. 

“US Labor, Chinese Workers and the Meaning of International Labor Solidarity” with Ellen David Friedman at 12:30 p.m. at SEIU Local 1021, 447 29th St., Oakland. Enter at rear between Telegraph and Broadway. Suggested donation $5-$10.  

“Kiss My Wheels” A film about a nationally ranked wheelchair basketball team at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd Flr. 981-6107. 

Films from the Center for African Diasporic Culture “Cubamor” at 6 p.m. and “Favela Rising” at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10 for each film, or $15 for both. 849-2568. 

Old Time Radio East Bay Collectors and listeners gather to enjoy shows together at 5 p.m. at a private home in Richmond. For more information email DavidinBerkeley at Yahoo.com. 

Home Graywater Systems Slideshow & Tour Learn about the permitted greywater system at the Ecohouse. We will discuss the principles and process of safely irrigating with shower, bathroom sink, and laundry waste water. The workshop includes a 1 hour slide show presentation of greywater design and the application process. Tours at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Pre-registration required. Cost is $15 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. 548-2220 ext. 242. ecohouse@ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Rep’s Family Series, a monthly theater workshop for the entire family from 11. a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, Nevo Education Center, 2071 Addison St. Free, but bring a book to donate to the library at John Muir Elementary School. 647-2973. 

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 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Compassion and Well-Being” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000  

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 4 to 8 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577.  

MONDAY, APRIL 7 

El Cerrito Green Party Happy Hour at 8 p.m. at The Sky Lounge, 10458 San Pablo Ave, north of Stockton St. 526-0972. 

Yah Village Community Circle with children from Hoover Elementary School who have created Super Heroes who stand against violence at 6:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s Center, 925 Brockhurst St., Oakland. www.ahc-oakland.org 

“Castoffs” Knitting Group meets at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

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 

ONGOING 

E-Waste Recycling St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County accepts electronic waste including computers, dvd players, cell phones, fax machines and many other ewaste products for disposal free of charge at many of its locations throughout Alameda County. Free bulk pick-up available. 638-7600.  

Free Tax Help If your 2007 household income was less than $42,000, you are eligible for free tax preparation from United Way's Earn it! Keep It! Save It! Sites are open now through April 15 in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. To find a site near you, call 800-358-8832. www.EarnItKeepItSaveIt.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., April 2, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190.  

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs. April 3, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461.  

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., April 3, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5400.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs., April 3, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7419.  

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., April 3, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6406.