The public doesn’t know exactly what the Berkeley City Council voted on at last Thursday’s closed-door session. And it doesn’t know how each elected official voted.  

The closed-session meeting was called to discuss a possible appeal to the decision by Judge Barbara Miller against the city over the construction of an athletic center next to Memorial Stadium, which is traversed by an earthquake fault. 

An open session where some 70 people addressed the council—several dozen were turned away due to time constraints—preceded the executive session.  

After the closed-door meeting, Mayor Tom Bates announced in a terse public statement that the council “decided not to take action.”  

Had the council made an affirmative decision, either voting to appeal the lawsuit or voting not to appeal it, it would have been required to disclose the precise decision and the council vote, according to Acting City Attorney Zach Cowan. 

Some members of the public are angry about constraints placed on the information revealed about the closed-door vote and also object to two other limitations placed on their input into the discussion of an appeal. One was the public not getting access to a letter sent to the council by the university outlining a settlement, a letter received by councilmembers earlier that same day. 

The other was the issue of disallowing full public comment on the question of an appeal. The meeting was held in the Council Chambers which limited the number of people present at the meeting. 

The number of people who could comment was also constrained by scheduling the public portion of the meeting so that it ran directly into a 7 p.m. zoning board meeting. 

Disclosing the decision 

Attorney Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said he had to concur with what he said was Cowan’s “technically right” interpretation of the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, which says that the City Council is not required to reveal a vote when a decision is not made. [See Section 54957.1(a)(2))] [www.cfac.org/Law/BrownAct/Text/ba_text.html] 

“The language [of the statute] is odd, ambiguous,” Scheer said, wondering whether it could be a drafting error in the law. “We’re stuck with the literal language—it is defensible,” he said. 

So, if the council voted on the question of whether to appeal Miller’s ruling against the city, there would have to be five affirmative votes for the city to be obligated to reveal exactly what the council was voting on and who voted in what way.  

Scheer told the Planet that if members of the council revealed either their own votes or how others voted, they could be accused of abusing attorney-client privileges. However, Scheer said, the City Council could also vote to reject the city attorney’s advice and make the vote public. Cowan concurred. 

Former Mayor Shirley Dean, who will face Bates in the November elections, was among those who criticized the council for not revealing particulars of the vote. 

“It’s important to know where each councilmember stands,” Dean said. “It should be part of the public record.” 

Citizens should know how their councilmembers voted and be able to call them and ask them to explain the reasoning behind their vote, open government activist Gene Bernardi told the Planet. 

Bates did not return calls for comment. 

The letter 

Another question members of the public are asking is why a letter from the university to the council regarding the lawsuit—which many assumed the council discussed in closed session—was not made available to the public so that people could address the questions raised by it before the closed session. 

Once correspondence from the public goes to a City Council majority that correspondence becomes a public document. Cowan told the Planet the public should have gotten copies of the letter, but said it was up to the city clerk’s department to make that happen.  

Acting City Clerk Deanna Despain called the lapse a “clerical error,” given that her staff had brought to the meeting only enough copies for the City Council and a few extras that had been left on the clerk’s table.  

“I don’t know who got them during the craziness of all that,” Despain said, referring to the crowded meeting, which was kept orderly by some six to eight uniformed police officers. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz backed up the clerk. “We just got the letter a few hours before the meeting. Deanna got jammed,” he said. 

Kamlarz said this was not a Brown Act violation and played down the importance of the university’s letter in the overall discussion. 

“It was not critical—a lot of stuff was put out already,” Kamlarz said. “It’s just a question of logistics.” 

The letter was given to members of the public by Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who made copies at his council office after the meeting. The press and public asked for it after the mayor had disclosed its existence in a press briefing after the open session announcement.  

Michael Kelly, president of the Panoramic Hill Association said, contrary to Kamlarz’ belief, he thinks not giving the letter to the public before the public comment period was a critical error. The Panoramic Hill Association was one of the three entities, including the city and the Oaks Foundation, that sued the university. The Panoramic Hill Association and the Oaks Foundation have filed an appeal and encouraged the city to do so as well. 

While the university letter recapitulates a number of concessions the university had already offered, including reducing the number of parking spaces for the project, reducing the number of events at Memorial Stadium, replacing trees eliminated by the project and creating an emergency access road in the Panoramic Hill area, it strongly advised the city not to appeal. 

The letter says that these “positions”—the reduced number of parking spaces, etc.—are “contingent on the city’s agreement not to file an appeal to the current litigation and not to file any future legal challenge to the Memorial Stadium project.” 

Kelly told the Planet there were issues he would have wanted to raise with the council based on the letter, which also addresses an accelerated schedule for rehabilitation of the stadium. 

“These issues weren’t revealed to those of us who wanted to speak” at the open session, Kelly said.  

Kelly said had he known about the letter, he would have been able to address its contents when he spoke to the council. “The reality is that in the city, there are citizens who have been paying attention to the project and understand it better than the council. I’ve spend the last two and a half years of my life working on it” he said.  

Public comment cut  

The public is permitted to address every item of every council meeting, including closed sessions. However, there wasn’t an opportunity for everyone who had come to speak to the council to do so. 

The mayor called the special closed session meeting in the City Council Chambers at 5 p.m. on Thursday, just two hours before the zoning board was scheduled to meet there. 

The open council session was therefore scheduled to end at 6:55 p.m. 

Hundreds of people showed up, many of them desiring to speak. Several dozen people were waiting their turn to speak at 6:30 p.m. The mayor took a 10-minute break at which time he directed those in line to fill out cards and put them in a drum, from which people would be chosen to speak in the remaining 15 minutes of speaker time. 

“The mayor cut off a whole group of people,” Dean said. “We don’t know what those people were going to say—that bothers me.” 

Further, Dean said she thought the meeting should have been moved to a place where the large crowd could be handled—people lined up outside the council chamber and rotated in. “It needed to be in a place that could handle the crowd,” she said. 

City manager Phil Kamlarz said there is no other venue in the city that can hold a large crowd and where the meeting can be televised. (He noted that city staff was looking at the possibility of moving the Council Chambers permanently to the adult school.) 

Further, Dean pointed to the two instances during the meeting where Worthington asked to be recognized so that he could pose a question to one of the speakers.  

One of those instances was when Worthington wanted to ask Michael Kelly his estimate of the cost for an appeal—information he wanted to have for the closed door discussion, he told the Planet later—but the mayor refused to recognize him. 

“Questions from councilmembers are always allowed,” Dean said. “I don’t believe the mayor had the right to say, ‘I don’t see you.’”  

Downtown building heights are back on the planning commission agenda, monopolizing Wednesday night’s special meeting. 

Only two business items are scheduled for the session, which begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

First is the timetable for the remaining meetings, during which the commission will finish their proposed revisions of the draft Downtown Area Plan, concluding with their own recommendations to the City Council—which must adopt a final version by next May or risk losing some UC Berkeley funds as specified in the settlement of a city lawsuit challenging the school’s downtown expansion plans. 

The plan was crafted over the course of two years by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, a citizen panel appointed by city councilmembers and the planning commission. 

The most significant item Wednesday will be a discussion about what heights will be included in the study that will document the plan’s environmental impacts. 

The Berkeley Unified School District will hold a public meeting Aug. 6 to discuss the latest design for new classrooms and athletic facilities on the south side of the Berkeley High campus. The district proposes to replace the landmarked Old Gym on Milvia Street, which houses the warm water pool, as outlined in the South of Bancroft Master Plan. 

The Berkeley Board of Education is scheduled to vote whether to approve the conceptual design on Aug. 20. 

Boardmembers have said in the past that the district’s ideal would be to build 15 or more classrooms in the new building to help alleviate the space crunch faced by Berkeley High students, who are forced to attend classes on the steps of the Community Theater at times. 

School Board president John Selawsky said the district would “reiterate and explain” the timeline for the proposed project at the meeting, adding that the demolition of the gymnasium would not begin before June 2011. 

Berkeley Unified passed a resolution last week to work with the City of Berkeley to relocate the warm water pool from the landmarked Old Gym to an appropriate location. 

Part of the master plan includes an opportunity for the district to work out a “property arrangement” with the city so that the city may construct a “replacement warm water pool.” 

The resolution calls for the city to prepare a ballot measure for the June 2010 election to improve the three community pool centers which are on district property, including the warm pool, and fund a new site for the warm pool.  

The district was sued over the South of Bancroft master plan last year by Friends Protecting Berkeley’s Resources for an inadequate environmental impact report, but settled the lawsuit with the group in February in exchange for a charette outlining possibilities to renovate the Old Gym. 

The warm pool is used by the City of Berkeley for recreational and therapeutic programs for seniors and disabled community members. 

According to a memorandum of understanding created in 1990, the city is responsible for operating and maintaining the pool and the adjacent north pool, which is closed for safety reasons, but provisions to recover costs from the school district also exist. 

All capital improvements have to be agreed upon by both the city and the district, according to a report included in the master plan. 

The conceptual design for the proposed project is being prepared by Baker Vilar Architects. A site committee has met eight times in the last six months to discuss the developments, said Lew Jones, the district’s facilities director.  

He said the proposed project was similar to the one outlined in the master plan. It would constitute three phases, starting with the construction of a two story bleacher building between April 2010 and June 2011. 

The building, which will have bleachers on top, would be built on the opposite side of the football field where the old bleachers currently exist, Jones said. 

“It will have locker and coach rooms which are now located in the Old Gym,” he said. “Before we tear down the Old Gym, everything in it, with the exception of the warm water pool, will be replaced in the new bleacher building.” 

The demolition of the Old Gym would take place between June 2011 and November 2011, followed by the construction of a new classroom building and gymnasium from January 2012 to August 2013. 

“We were never going to do those simultaneously,” Selawsky said.  

He added that the district would be putting in four portables and renovating parts of the Berkeley High campus—including the studio at the Berkeley Community Media—to have up to seven classrooms ready for students in September. 

Selawsky said the district has only conceptual designs for the new classroom building at this point. 

Jones said the new classroom and gym building would be smaller than the Old Gym, which is around 86,000 square feet. 

“The classrooms will take up approximately 20,000 square feet and there will be two small gyms,” he said. 

The ground floor of the Fine Arts Building on Shattuck Avenue— built on the site of Berkeley Fine Arts Cinema, which evolved from the historic Cinema Theatre, showcasing repertory films from all over the world—was approved to be converted to medical office by the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board Thursday. 

The board approved a use permit modification for the Fine Arts Building project to allow Chicago-based Equity Residential to build offices in a space previously approved for a 4,749-square-foot movie theater. The prospective tenant for the medical office was not named in the city report. 

The Fine Arts Cinema was demolished almost six years ago in order for the apartment building project to be built. One of the conditions of approval required a space on the ground floor which would be turned into a cinema in the future. 

In an e-mail to Greg Powell, the city’s project planner, Berkeley-based developer Patrick Kennedy —the building’s previous owner—said he had been unable to find a movie theatre operator to rent the space, attributing the failure to the lack of demand for single screen theaters in the movie industry today. 

Kennedy also included several media reports about the demise of single-screen theaters in the country, including articles from the New York Times and the San Francisco Examiner, which spoke about the challenges faced by single screen movie operators in the face of competition from multiplexes. 

He added that he had built the shell for a 150-plus seat, single-screen movie theater with plumbing and electrical systems and a 25-ton air conditioning system, as requested by Keith Arnold, who sold the theater to Kennedy.  

The original use permit required the owner to have a minimum of 275 seats in the theater. 

“Mr. Arnold was unable to raise sufficient funds to do any improvements to space and never even submitted plans to the city for a new theater,” Kennedy’s e-mail said. “For two years we advertised to find a new theater operator and received no interest ... Single-screen theaters have been economically challenged for many years, with almost all such institutions in San Francisco—40, in fact—closing in the last [25] years.”  

Zoning commissioner Jesse Arreguin, who voted against the project, asked city staff how the zoning board had arrived at a minimum of 275 seats when approving the project’s original use permit. 

“Why was it the standard we set?” he asked. 

“It appears the owner of the building did not comply with it since he only built 155 seats.” 

Powell replied he was not aware of the history behind the zoning board’s decision. 

“Going from memory the old theatre had around 150 seats,” he said. 

Patti Dacey, who sits on the city’s Planning Commission, criticized the proposed use permit modification. 

“This situation is very instructive,” she said during public comment. “The promise of developers to provide citizen amenities, cultural use and improve the quality of life for the community ... What is happening again and again is that these amenities are being stripped away. Now we are going to have office space instead of a well loved theatre. The citizens are not going to get anything from the Fine Arts Building.” 

Cindy O’Hara, who spoke on behalf of Equity Residential, which is owned by Sam Zell, said a medical office would also be an amenity to the community. 

“A vacant building is not good for the community, so we applied for medical offices,” she said. “If we could have a theatre we would have a theater. The medical office will also provide services to people.” 

Commissioner Bob Allen was the first to move approval of the project. 

“We are putting blinders on if we don’t recognize the theatre industry is a failing business,” he said. “Who are we kidding that if we like something we will get it? The Fine Arts Building is one of the best designed buildings we have got in the city in the last 25 years if not the best.” 

Arreguin pointed out that the Fine Arts Building was constructed by demolishing a “long-standing community resource.” 

“I think we are closing the door to another independent theater,” he said. 

Commissioner Sara Shumer echoed Arreguin’s thoughts. 

“I am also very disappointed that we are changing the arts to office space,” she said. 

The injunction preventing UC Berkeley from cutting down the Memorial Stadium oak grove to build an athletic training facility, set to expire Tuesday, could be extended for 20 days, following a notice of appeal filed Thursday by the California Oaks Foundation and the Panoramic Hill Association, according to UC’s press-spokesperson Dan Mogulof. Plaintiffs’ attorney Stephan Volker was not available for comment to confirm Mogulof’s opinion, but on Friday Volker’s office filed a petition asking the California appeals court for an immediate stay of project implementation until the appeal could be heard. 

The two groups,along with the city, sued the university to stop the project and appealed Judge Barbara Miller’s decision this week to allow UC to build the training facility. 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, after a special closed council meeting on Thursday, announced that the Berkeley City Council had not yet decided whether to join in filing an appeal. Votes taken by councilmembers at the meeting were not disclosed.  

The city has 57 more days to decide whether or not it wants to file an appeal. 

Mogulof said Friday that the university had expected the extension, but no appellate court ruling has as yet confirmed his belief that an automatic injunction will be in force after Tuesday. 

“The minute they filed their appeal, the 20-day injunction automatically happened,” he said. “This is nothing unexpected. We assumed it will happen all along. Obviously we are not going to do anything. They have 20 days to get their act together, get all their documents together to present the case.” 

Plaintiffs' attorneys are seeking a writ of supersedeas and an immediate stay from the Court of Appeal, in addition to confirmation that the 20-day stay is indeed applicable in this case.  

The immediate stay should be easy to get, according to UC Berkeley law school lecturer Antonio Rossmann. He said it would preserve the status quo while the court evaluates the claims for the writ (the equivalent of a preliminary injunction).  

The university, Mogulof said, was holding “a variety of conversations with a variety of parties to find a way to peacefully resolve the issue.” 

He added that he didn’t know if the stay would be extended beyond 20 days. 

Doug Buckwald, one of the plaintiffs, who is director of Save the Oaks at the Stadium, and has been supporting the tree-sitters perched in the oaks and redwoods to protest UC’s plan to cut them, said that he hoped the injunction would be officially extended. 

“I think the court would be choosing a responsible course of action in allowing adequate time for this legal process to move forward in an orderly fashion,” he said. “This delay would give our attorneys adequate time to prepare for the appeal.” 

A rash of robberies this week brought Berkeley to a total of 45 this month, up from 25 in July 2007. 

Wednesday alone saw two commercial robberies, two muggings and a third attempted mugging. This number does not include the many auto break-ins that occur every day. 

“We have seen an increase in robberies this month,” said Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, the Community Services Bureau Supervisor. “Whether that is going to be a persistent trend, we won’t know till next month.” 

According to Kusmiss, the trend extends across the Bay Area, with many nearby communities also suffering from an abnormally large number of robberies. 

“We’re not sure why there has been such an increase, but we’re certainly feeling the impact,” Kusmiss said. 

Berkeley saw 34 robberies in April, 35 in May and 33 in June. July’s total might reach 50 by the end of the month. Kusmiss said that a typical monthly average ranges from 25-40, but this summer has seen continually high numbers. 

On Wednesday, a Berkeley man was robbed at 12:07 a.m. in the 2000 block of Emerson Street. The suspect approached the victim from behind, shoved what the victim thought was a gun into his back and took his cell phone, keys and wallet. A second suspect approached the victim from and took his bag, filled with clothes. 

At 11:56 a.m., Environmental Concepts, in the 1600 block of 5th Street, was robbed. Two suspects threatened the two employees, a Walnut Creek resident and a San Rafael resident, with a pistol and ordered them to open the store’s safe and cash register. The suspects also took the two employees’ wallets, leaving with approximately $820 cash. 

At 8:59 p.m., a cashier at U.S. Gas Station, in the 3000 block of Shattuck Avenue, was shoved repeatedly by a suspect who took approximately $200 cash from the register that was open while the cashier helped a customer. 

At 11:27 p.m., a Berkeley man was threatened with what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun in the 2400 block of Blake Street and forced to give up his wallet and keys. The victim said he was approached by one suspect with a gun while the other two suspects stood behind him. 

On Tuesday, July 22 at 12:05 a.m., a West Berkeley man was robbed in the 2200 block of 7th Street. Two suspects approached him from the left and from behind, one of them holding a pistol to the victim’s cheek and taking his wallet, while the second suspect riffled through the victim’s bag. 

Today, Berkeley police issued photos of one of two suspects who robbed a Wells Fargo Bank in the Andronico’s Supermarket at 1444 University Ave. on July 18. 

“With robbery, unlike other crimes, the trend tends to be one suspect or a group of suspects, so when we can make one arrest, it will stop a series of crimes,” Kusmiss said. 

Although she said the Berkeley police have not identified a particular series in this month’s rash of crimes, in part because of the vague descriptions understandably given by victims, Kusmiss did say that robbers will keep using the same tactics in the same community because they have had past success. 

“Robbers are opportunistic,” Kusmiss said.  

To protect yourself, police stress the importance of awareness: turn off your cell phone or MP3 player, walk confidently, and pay attention to the behavior of someone making you uncomfortable. 

Boos and hisses filled the Berkeley City Council chambers Thursday night when Mayor Tom Bates announced that the council had decided not to appeal Judge Barbara Miller's decision on the UC Memorial Stadium lawsuit. The mayor revealed, after a council meeting which was closed to the public, that councilmembers had discussed a letter from the university's Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom on Thursday afternoon.  

Members of the public who spoke in the public comment period which preceded the session did not know about the letter. 

Bates added that the council had 58 days to file an appeal. 

"Shame on you," cried out several supporters of the tree-sitters. 

"Shame, Shame, Shame," chanted a few others in unison. 

"Is this your legacy? Is this your legacy?" asked a young girl from the middle row. 

As the council members prepared to leave the chambers, Ayr, who has been providing ground support to the tree-sitters for almost two years cried out: "How did you vote?" 

"We are not allowed to tell the public how we voted," Councilmember Kriss Worthington replied. 

Speaking to reporters inside the City Hall later, Worthington declined to say how he voted. 

"If five people had voted in favor of an appeal then we would have come out and announced that the city had decided to appeal," he said. 

"Now we will be in limbo for 58 days … I have said repeatedly that the city has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on this. For a tiny bit more the city can preserve that bit of land." 

Worthington said the City Council could vote on whether to file an appeal when it returned from summer break on Sept. 28 or at a special meeting before that. 

Bates told reporters at a press conference after the announcement that the council had been unable to get five votes to appeal the judge's decision. 

The nine-member City Council had only seven members at Thursday's closed session meeting because councilmember Dona Spring—who died earlier this month—will not be replaced till November and Councilmember Betty Olds was absent. 

"Do you think something is going to happen in the next 58 days?" asked a reporter. 

"Possibly, it will cost us very little to appeal," Bates said. 

Bates added that city and the council had received assurance from UC Berkeley about changes that were made to the Memorial Stadium project in a letter from university Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom Thursday afternoon. 

Answering reporter's questions about whether the letter from the university meant an appeal was unlikely, the mayor replied that the city would need to hear from the university on a number of issues first. 

"The language needs to be more precise," he said, holding the letter. 

"The language on the parking is vague. Also the Panoramic Hill residents are concerned about noise." 

In his letter, Brostrom wrote that parking, which is required for staff and faculty who worked in the southeast campus and visitors to the Optometry Clinic, would be displaced as the SCIP projects moved forward. 

He added that although the city and UC Berkeley had agreed to a specific number of additional parking spaces in the 2020 Long Range Development Plan settlement agreement, the university had agreed to conduct a comprehensive review of alternatives, including exploring possibilities for developing, funding and/or sharing parking with the city on the west side of the campus and downtown, before it developed new parking on the east side. 

"In any event, we will not develop additional parking as part of the SCIP projects until completion of Phase II of Memorial Stadium," Brostrom's letter said. 

Brostrom also reminded the council of numerous changes the university had made to the stadium project, and the subsequent phases of the stadium renovation to address the city and the community's concerns over the course of the lawsuit. 

The list of changes included a construction and financing strategy which would accelerate the renovation and seismic retrofit of the Memorial Stadium by over 18 months. 

Under this plan, the construction of the second phase would overlap with the construction of the Student-Athletic High Performance Center which would lead to its completion by the 2012 football season, the letter said. 

"This approach would impose additional costs, because of the need for surge space for Stadium occupants for an extended period, but we believe that our financing plan—which solely utilizes private dollars—can accommodate these increased costs," the letter stated. 

The list also included the university's promise to plant three trees for every tree removed from the areas around the stadium, removal of seven "additional capacity" events from the stadium and to work with residents of Panoramic Hill to minimize the effects of the university's programs in and around the stadium. 

The university, according to the letter, would also work with Panoramic Hill representatives to create an emergency access to Panoramic Hill during football games. 

At the end of the letter, Brostrom said the university had adopted these positions in response to concerns from neighbors and the City of Berkeley and that the changes continued "to hold in the face of the judge's decision in the case, contingent on the city's agreement not to file an appeal to the current litigation and not to file any future legal challenge to the Memorial Stadium project." 

The university, Brostrom said, believed it was "time to end the cost and adversarial relationship inherent in these legal proceedings" and redirect its efforts towards "working together in the best interests" of the community. 

"We are not getting involved with the other two groups in their appeals to the lawsuit," Bates said. 

The Panoramic Hills Association and Save the Oaks at the Stadium, who were both plaintiffs in the stadium lawsuit, appealed the judge's decision Thursday afternoon. 

"We are reserving our right to appeal," Bates said, 

"The cost of the appeal is an issue, but we have spent a lot of money in the past, and relative to that this is not a lot." 

An appeal would cost the city around $25,000 to $50,000, Bates said. 

"It's an important lawsuit," he said. "It's been going on for 18 months and has cost the university a lot of money. Maybe the next time we can resolve the issue in a better way." 

Jerry Wachtel, former president of the Panoramic Hills Association, said he was stunned by the city's decision. 

"I am stunned but I am not surprised," he said, 

"Maybe no decision is better than a negative decision. But it certainly makes our task more difficult." 

Wachtel said that apart from the appeal, the group had also filed a motion with the judge to vacate the decision and asked her for a new trial. 

The injunction issued by the court which stops the university from cutting down the oaks is set to expire Tuesday. 

Despite pleas and arguments for an appeal of the city’s lawsuit against the university by an overflow crowd Thursday evening in the Berkeley City Council Chambers, the council went behind closed doors and “decided not to take action,” according to Mayor Tom Bates, who reported the action to the public. 

On Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller ruled on the case, siding with the university, thus permitting the construction of an athletic training facility on the site of an oak grove and next to a football stadium traversed by an active earthquake fault. 

Bates told the public that the council could still appeal within 58 days. Councilmember Kriss Worthington commented that getting five votes—especially without Dona Spring's vote—would be difficult. Councilmember Spring, who died recently, was a strong supporter of the movement to save the grove. 

The trial judge’s injunction which has protected the oak grove at the construction site until now is scheduled to expire on Tuesday. The council’s failure to act at this time means that the university will be free to cut down the trees unless another party is successful in persuading the appeals court to renew the injunction. 

Only a handful of persons speaking to the council at the open session urged no appeal—Roland Peterson, immediate past president of the Chamber of Commerce, and Mark McLeod, President of the Downtown Berkeley Association, both pointed to the high court costs. 

“It’s an unwise use of our tax dollars,” Peterson said. 

Linda Schacht, lecturer at UC Berkeley journalism school, expressed a similar view: asking the council not to continue spending “a huge amount of money on a useless lawsuit.” 

The overwhelming number of speakers supported the appeal. There were about 60 people able to speak but several dozen could not, as Bates ended the public comment period at 6:55 p.m.  

Dan Lambert, who works for the city’s planning department said the cost to the city of providing services to the university was exactly why the city should appeal. “If the university paid its share, we could fill the potholes,” Lambert said. 

Given the earthquake and fire danger, the university should take responsibility to make the area safer, he added. The area around Memorial Stadium “is the most unsafe place in Berkeley,” Lambert said.  

Supporting an appeal, Dr. Ronald Berman also pointed to safety issues. “Part of the stadium is built on 30 feet of fill,” he said. “It’s a prime site for liquefaction.” 

Planet Executive Editor Becky O’Malley said that it did not make economic sense to stop the lawsuit now. “It would be frivolous to undertake a lawsuit and not carry it to the appeal level,” she said.  

Others pointed out that the university was addressing the issue backwards. Since the Hayward Fault traverses Memorial Stadium and since the stadium is in great disrepair, that structure should be the first to be repaired, they said. 

Former Mayor Shirley Dean, opposing Mayor Tom Bates in November, said the university should “stop holding sports camps for young children in the stadium.” 

A number of people spoke to the issue of filing the lawsuit in order to right the power imbalance between the city and university. 

Yvonne Knebel urged the council not “to rubberstamp what the regents tell you to do.” If you do, she said, “You are a puppet government.” 

“This is about normalizing power relationships between the city and university,” Sharon Hudson said. 

The appeal “is the only leverage you have,” Dean said. 

Michael Kelly, president of the Panoramic Hill Association – one of two other entities that joined the city’s lawsuit against the university – told the council his group was appealing the decision and urged the city to join the appeal. 

This led to Worthington’s attempt to question Kelly, but Bates quickly cut Worthington off, despite Worthington’s assertions that Bates was acting contrary to council rules.  

Later, Worthington told the Planet he had wanted to ask Kelly about the cost of the appeal, which would have helped the council in the closed-door deliberations following the open session.  

The cost of the lawsuit to this point is estimated by most observers to be about $300,000. The legal cost for the next step, continuing to press for an injunction to prevent the grove from being destroyed, was estimated by Councilmember Worthington after the meeting at about $10,000. 

Other speakers, such as Jack Gerson of the Oakland Education Association, bemoaned the university going from a world-class center of learning to an increasingly privatized entity, reflecting, Gerson said, “the corporate interests they represent.” 

“If Berkeley doesn’t stand up to them, who’s going to?” he asked. 

Many invoked the name of recently deceased Councilmember Dona Spring, who just a few weeks ago went in her wheelchair with her body in pain to support the tree sitters protesting the university’s plan to cut down the oaks. 

“Do it in Dona Spring’s name,” said Jane Welford. 

“We need you, Laurie, Max, Linda [councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Max Anderson and Linda Maio] to be Dona’s voice,” said Ayr, who uses one name and has been ground support for the tree sitters for some 600 days. 

While hotly contested elections are expected for Berkeley city and school board positions, Berkeley is not the only area of Alameda County where November voting will take place. 

A preliminary run-down of the offices up for grabs in the Daily Planet’s area: 

CITY OF OAKLAND 

There’s a run-off between AC Transit At-Large Board Member Rebecca Kaplan and Oakland School Board member Kerry Hamill for the at-large Oakland City Council seat being vacated by Henry Chang. Kaplan beat Hamill 40.8 percent to 21.8 percent in the initial round of voting last June. 

ALAMEDA-CONTRA COSTA TRANSIT DISTRICT 

Three seats on the board are up for re-election: at-large and Wards 1 and 2. A contest is already expected for the at-large seat, where retired Oakland architect and transportation advocate Joyce Roy has announced plans to challenge incumbent and Board President Chris Peeples.  

Employment specialist Joe Wallace of Richmond is the incumbent in Ward 1, which takes in portions of Berkeley and the cities of El Sobrante, San Pablo, Richmond, Albany, and Kensington. Former Emeryville mayor Greg Harper is the incumbent in Ward 2, which takes in Emeryville, Piedmont, and portions of Berkeley and Oakland. 

BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT 

Two seats on the BART Board are up for re-election in the Daily Planet area: Wards 3 and 7 (a third seat, Ward 5, is outside the Daily Planet area).  

Former BART financial department employee Bob Franklin is the incumbent in Ward 3, which takes in the cities of Piedmont, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Kensington, and a portion of Berkeley, Oakland, Castro Valley and Hayward, and includes the BART stations of Downtown Berkeley, North Berkeley, Rockridge, Bay Fair, Hayward, and San Leandro.  

Bank Manager Lynette Sweet is the incumbent in Ward 7, which includes the cities of Albany, Richmond, Emeryville, San Pablo, and El Cerrito and a portion of Berkeley, Oakland, El Sobrante, and San Francisco. BART Stations included in Ward 7 are Ashby, El Cerrito Del Norte, El Cerrito Plaza, MacArthur, Richmond, West Oakland, 12th Street/Oakland City Center, 19th Street, Embarcadero, and Montgomery. 

EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT 

Two seats (Wards 5 and 6) are up for re-election on the EBMUD Board. Public relations executive Doug Linney is the incumbent in Ward 5, which is comprised of the cities of Alameda and San Lorenzo as well as West Oakland and the Oakland Airport Area and a portion of San Leandro. Oakland community and business activist William Patterson is the incumbent in Ward 6, which takes in East Oakland south of Park Blvd./5th Ave. to the San Leandro boundary. 

PERALTA COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT 

Four seats are up for re-election to the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees: Areas 1, 2, 4, and 6. At least one contested race is expected, with Alameda County Social Services Agency Civil Rights Analyst Darleen Brooks challenging Area 2 incumbent Marcie Hodge.  

Area 2 takes in portions of Oakland. Former Alameda Mayor Bill Withrow is the incumbent in Area 1, which includes Alameda and a portion of Oakland. Nicky Gonzalez Yuen is the incumbent in Area 4, which includes Albany, Emeryville, and portions of Berkeley.  

Cy Gulassa is the incumbent in Area 6, which includes portions of Berkeley and Oakland. 

Berkeley’s tree-sitters and Memorial Stadium neighbors who had sued to block construction of a gym at the site of the adjacent oak grove were dealt a resounding setback Tuesday. 

But tree-sit supporters re-sponded Wednesday morning—the 600th day of the protest—by sending up two new tree-sitters along with “six or seven bags of food,” said Ayr, one of the most prominent of the supporters on the ground.  

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller’s judgment upholds the university’s plans for a four-level gym at the grove site and hits the litigants—including the city and late City Councilmember Dona Spring—with an order that they pay most of the university’s legal bill. 

Her order also ends, on July 29, the injunction that has blocked construction and spared the grove from university chainsaws. Work could begin immediately after the Tuesday date unless the plaintiffs are able to win a stay from the state appellate court. 

Judge Miller also divided costs for the litigation, which produced over 40,000 pages of documentation and lasted 18 months, with 15 percent to be paid by the university and the remaining 85 percent divided equally between: 

• The city of Berkeley, represented by Sacramento attorney Harriet Steiner, 

• The Panoramic Hill Association, represented by Alameda attorney Michael Lozeau, and 

• A group of plaintiffs represented by Oakland attorney Stephan Volker, which includes Spring, the California Oak Foundation and several other Berkeley residents. 

Just what those costs will include remains uncertain, with one university official stating that attorney fees probably wouldn’t be included. Volker agreed. 

The judgment and order, which follow Miller’s June 18 decision on the case, don’t hand the university an unequivocal victory. 

The judge repeated her rejection of the claim by the university that the Alquist-Priolo Act, which governs construction within 50 feet of active earthquake faults, does not apply to UC construction projects. 

But the decision won’t affect the gym project itself, since the university eliminated three features connecting it with the stadium, which Judge Miller had ruled in June is within the purview of the act. 

She also gave the city a minor victory, denying the university’s contention that traffic, noise and other impacts from a planned seven additional events at the stadium were unknowable. The university sidestepped the issue by announcing that the planned events would be dropped. 

“We are very pleased by this decision,” said Dan Mogulof, the university’s executive director for public affairs. 

“We see it as a vindication and validation of the process which led to our decision about where and how to build a facility that is absolutely necessary for the safety and well-being of our student athletes,” he said. 

Volker said he will be filing an appeal on behalf of the plaintiffs he represents within the next few days, though he couldn’t speak for the city or the Panoramic Hill Association.  

UC is asking that the plaintiffs, except for the City of Berkeley, should be required to post a multimillion dollar bond for the duration of the appeal, which could make appealing too expensive for his clients to go forward. 

The appeal has to be filed within the next seven days, while the injunction is still in effect, in order to win an automatic 20-day continuation of the injunction, he said. 

“It is our belief the judge misread the law and has misapprehended the facts of the case,” said Volker. “The public has a vital interest in preserving the outstanding oak grove, and we believe we will be ultimately vindicated by the courts.” 

Steiner is on vacation in Hawaii and was unavailable for comment, and Lozeau is out of state attending a family reunion, Volker said, while Zach Cowan, Berkeley’s acting city attorney, is scheduled to be out of town Wednesday through Friday. 

But City Councilmember Linda Maio said Tuesday night that the council will meet in closed session Thursday, “and we won’t recess until we’re done with this. Clearly, there are issues for us to deal with.” 

The meeting begins at 5 p.m. in the council chambers at the Maudelle Shirek (old City Hall) Building at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Maio said the recent adoption of the state’s green building code could also raise new legal issues. 

Mogulof said that the university  

wouldn’t take any precipitous actions against the protesters but was evaluating events at the grove “in a legal and law enforcement context.” 

Grove events 

Wednesday morning’s action, which began with the stringing of a line between the redwood tree at the grove that most of the tree-sitters occupy (which they have named “Helen”) and another redwood outside the anthropology building across Piedmont Avenue from the grove, said Zachary Running Wolf, one of the first tree-sitters and a Berkeley mayoral candidate, who Tuesday had filed his petition-in-lieu-of-signatures to run for the office in November’s election. 

“We don’t believe in your justice system,” he said. “Its corruption is demonstrated by this decision. This is our response to Judge Miller.” 

“This has never been about the legal process,” said Ayr. “Obviously, we would like the court to do the right thing, but we’re not here because of any court process. We’re here for the same things on day 600 that we were from day one.” 

“Unfortunately, the timing of the court’s decision makes it particularly difficult for us to proceed to the next step in the judicial process,” said Doug Buckwald, director of Save the Oaks at the Stadium. “The ruling has forced our legal team to rush into court with minimum time to consult with all clients and to prepare legal papers. 

“I believe that we have a strong case to take to the appellate court. It would be a real tragedy to lose the beloved oak grove now, and then win in court later when it would be too late to save the trees. You can’t put stumps and sawdust back in the ground and make things all better again. Those beautiful, majestic oaks would be gone forever.” 

Buckwald said he hopes the university will “do the right thing and spare the trees until the appellate court rules. That approach would be cooperative and would ensure that the legitimate interests of the city and community were not shortchanged on a legal technicality.” 

While the university looks forward to construction of the gym, Mogulof said, “In the wake of this long and difficult litigation we also look forward to working with our neighbors and the city on building a strong, collaborative relationship to address a broad spectrum of shared interests. 

“In the coming days, after the university has had a chance to fully analyze the court’s decision, all of the available options will be considered and additional information about next steps will be provided once decisions are in place,” he concluded. 

Buckwald and other tree-sit supporters are calling on allies to attend tonight’s City Council meeting. The supporters will meet at the grove at 3:33 p.m., followed by a rally in front of City Hall at 4:44 p.m. 

Legal basis 

The plaintiffs had challenged the university’s building program for what it calls the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects on two separate legal fronts, one involving Alquist-Priolo and the other focusing on the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). 

Enacted in 1970, CEQA was a state followup to the federal National Environmental Policy Act, which was passed by Congress the year before. 

The law applies to both public and private developers, and mandates a review process that looks for environmental impacts of projects and calls for mitigations when possible. 

The law applies to any private project that requires a permit from a governmental agency. For institutions like the University of California, the law mandates that “Each public agency shall mitigate or avoid the significant effects on the environment of projects that it carries out or approves whenever it is feasible to do so.” 

Judge Miller ruled that the UC Board of Regents had failed to meet CEQA requirements mandated to approve adding double the number of capacity events at the stadium itself, and the university responded by dropping plans for the seven proposed events. She rejected all the other alleged CEQA violations cited by the plaintiffs, providing likely grounds for appeal.

Fearing adverse health effects related to toxic debris from dismantling the Bevatron and the associated Building 51 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and trucking the materials through the streets of Berkeley over several years, the City Council Tuesday voted 7-1 for the city manager to write a letter to the lab demanding information on more than 25 issues related to the demolition of the Bevraton.  

Councilmember Gordon Woz-niak, a former lab employee, voted in opposition. 

The information the council wants to see includes the complete demolition plan, the sources of funding for the demolition, plans for hazardous materials abatement, details on the chemicals used at the site and more. 

The manager’s letter will further ask the lab to follow through on its plan to demolish the exterior of the building before dismantling the equipment inside and request a “contribution” towards the wear and tear on city streets from the anticipated 4,700 truck trips to and from the lab associated with the demolition. 

The Bevatron is a particle accelerator brought to the lab in 1954 and decommissioned in 1993. While it is a city landmark, the City Council approved its demolition last year. The site contains lead, asbestos, mercury and low-level radiation. The lab is owned by the Department of Energy and managed by the University of California. 

The resolution “is an outgrowth of [recently deceased Council-member Dona Spring’s] commitment to protecting the environment,” said Councilmember Max Anderson, introducing the resolution. 

Speaking to the council at the meeting, Don Medley, lab spokes-person, promised that the lab would respond to all the questions. Reached Wednesday with questions on the lab’s “contribution” to the city for wear on the streets, Medley said he wouldn’t be able to respond until he had seen the language in the city manager’s letter. 

On Monday, Medley issued a letter to the council that responded to a number of issues that the original resolution raised, including truck routes, the way hazardous debris would be contained on the trucks, and the demolition dates. 

In the letter, Medley promised that the Bevatron would be dismantled before the surrounding building was, explained that the process would go on between August 2008 and October 2011, that tarps would cover non-hazardous debris and that “all hazardous and radioactive material that is in the form of dust will be fully enclosed in containers.” 

Asked to comment Wednesday on the mayor’s request for a “contribution” to the wear on the streets, Medley said he had to wait until he saw the specific language in the city manager’s letter. 

While members of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste (CMTW) had wanted the lab to seal the Bevatron and surrounding building to let it decay in place—since the lab did not want to turn it into a museum—they said the lab’s response to the 25 questions would be satisfactory at this point. 

“There is no safe dose of radiation,” said Gene Bernardi, of the CMTW, speaking to the council on the danger of trucking the debris through the city. 

“This is a city that says how green it is,” Mark McDonald, of CMTW, told the Planet earlier in the week, arguing that trucking toxics through town is contrary to the city’s “green” policies.  

The extent of mercury at the site is just coming to light, McDonald said, pointing to a May 20, 2008, letter to the City Council by Otto J. A. Smith, professor emeritus in the UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department. Smith was professor in the department from 1950 to 1954, at the time the Bevatron was shipped to the university.  

“Every time that the system was operated with both inverters connected, one Mercury Arc Ignition tube exploded,” he wrote the council. “The public deserves to know what tests have been made on mercury liquid in floors, walls, ceiling and tests of mercury vapor in the power room at the Bevatron.”  

“We don’t know what happened to all that mercury,” McDonald said, adding, “How would you feel about 4,700 truckloads with low-level radiation, mercury and asbestos going by your house?”  

Among the questions asked of the lab in the resolution, one specifically speaks to the mercury contamination. It asks, “During the early years of the Bevatron operations there were several explosions of tanks that contained liquid mercury. How is the presence of mercury from these explosions inside the Bevatron building being assessed? What are the testing results? What are the mitigation plans?” 

For a number of documents and articles on the Bevatron see www.berkeleycitizen.org/bevatron. 

For environmental assessment documents, see www.lbl.gov/community/contruction/b51.html.

The City Council Tuesday cautioned against the criminalization of street people when it unanimously approved a contract for the city’s new $200,000-per-year “host” program, aimed at improving the downtown and Telegraph Avenue shopping experience by targeting people from those areas whose behavior is offensive to shoppers.  

Hosts will direct people behaving inappropriately to services, but if the people—often homeless individuals who are mentally ill or under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, or both—refuse help, or if services are not available, the hosts have the option of calling for police intervention. 

Councilmembers underscored that they want police called only as the last resort. 

“The priority will be assisting people into services,” said Councilmember Linda Maio, adding wording to that effect to the recommendation for the contract approved by the council. Also added was a clause that the program would be evaluated in 15 months rather than after two years and that it could be canceled if it was not working as expected. 

In a phone interview Wed- 

nesday, Lauren Lempert, analyst in the city manager’s office,  

who heads the program, told  

the Planet that she is “still grappling” with the question of how  

to track the work of the hosts.  

It is especially difficult to know what happens when police  

are called, since they do not track “quality of life” infractions such as smoking in a no-smoking area or drinking in public.  

The program can more easily track when referrals to programs are made and when police are called, she said. 

Hosts—two downtown and two on Telegraph Avenue—are to be stationed Thursday through Sunday as the “eyes and ears” on the street.  

“There will be more people on the street looking out for problems,” Deborah Badhia, executive director of the Downtown Business Association (DBA), told the Planet. Business people can’t take care of customers inside their shops and watch the street at the same time, she said.  

“Their sheer physical presence will help,” Badhia said. They will have uniforms but not resemble police, she added. 

“There will be no emphasis on arresting people,” Lempert told the council. “They will not be acting like police. The main emphasis is directing people to services.” 

Noting, in an interview last week, that the Downtown Berkeley Association, the Telegraph Avenue Business Improvement District and Options Recovery Services are the same trio of organizations that actively lobbied the council for the program, Councilmember Kriss Worthington called the contract “political rewards for the people who aggressively advocated for arresting and criminalizing homeless people.”  

Worthington questioned the experience of the group in managing this kind of program. 

Addressing the contract issue, however, Badhia told the Planet: “When [the contract] came up, we were the natural people to go to.” City officials “knew we’d be interested,” she said.  

The request for proposals were also sent to some 40 other nonprofit organizations, including the Center for Independent Living, the East Bay Community Law Center and the Dorothy Day House, according to the city manager’s staff. 

The host program is part of Mayor Tom Bates’ Public Commons for Everyone Initiative (PCEI), premised on the belief by representatives of the downtown and Telegraph Avenue business associations that people with mental health or drug and alcohol problems who act out in business districts keep shoppers away.  

During a tour of the Telegraph Avenue area last year, however, some business people and Councilmember Kriss Worthington told the Planet they believe shoppers stay away from Telegraph because of the numerous vacancies caused by property owners’ high rents and because of parking restrictions. 

Calling the program, “Public commons for everyone except those who need it most,” PhoeBe Sorgen, a District 6 council candidate, addressed the council during the public comment period. “I urge you to be very careful,” she said. 

“I don’t see anything about services here,” said Mary Rose (Redwood Mary) Kaczorowski, also addressing the council. Kaczorowski is a District 4 candidate. 

The PCEI program is gearing up to offer some services. According to Housing Director Jane Micallef, outreach staff has been hired, who will help get 10–15 people into permanent housing. A Nov. 27, 2007, staff report identifies these people as “10–15 chronically homeless adults who have previously been the hardest to reach, but who are probably the most likely to cause problematic street behavior.” 

At the Tuesday evening meeting, the council also approved a $100,000 contract with Lifelong Medical Care for “intensive case management” for these 10–15 individuals to help them keep their housing and to address their substance abuse or mental health needs.  

The city has allocated $125,000 to pay landlords market rent for the housing. Tenants will pay 30 percent of their income for the housing. 

Other services promised when the Public Commons for Everyone Initiative was approved in November included availability of 24-hour bathrooms. However, while bathroom hours have been extended at Civic Center, the Civic Center Garage, and the Telegraph-Channing Garage to midnight or 1 a.m., they are not available all night. 

Only one 24-hour portapotty—not the four originally planned—has been installed. Business owners downtown and on Telegraph Avenue did not want it placed near their businesses, and no business people took the city up on an offer to pay a stipend in return for allowing all people—not just customers—to use their bathrooms, according to city manager staff. 

Dr. Davida Coady, Options executive director, declined to talk directly to the Planet about Options’ role in the host program, but addressed the council on Tuesday, saying, “Our piece of this is to help recruit the people who will be the hosts.” 

Hosts will likely come from Options program graduates. “They are people who have gone through this,” Coady said, referring to substance abuse. “They know the way out. We at Options will provide services.” 

Addressing the council, TBID Executive Director Roland Peterson underscored that the purpose of the program was, “making sure downtown and Telegraph are more hospitable.” 

Peterson will manage the host program on Telegraph Avenue, and Badhia will manage it downtown. “I assure the council,” Peterson said, “there is no intention of violating anyone’s civil rights.” 

PCEI is funded mostly through a 25-cent-per-hour increase in parking that went into effect in April. The city is separately funding Lempert’s $7,562 per month salary plus 50 percent benefits.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums confirmed Thursday that Oak-land’s current budget deficit is far worse than originally estimated—in the tens of millions of dollars, the mayor noted—and said that he is asking city department heads to prepare new fiscal year 2008-09 budgets that include 10 to 15 percent across-the-board cuts. 

In addition, as has been rumored for several days, Del-lums announced he is bringing in a management team headed by former City Manager and City Administrator Robert Bobb to do a top-to-bottom evaluation of Oakland’s administration, as well as to do a national search for Oakland’s new administrator. 

The mayor made the twin announcements at a packed midday Wednesday City Hall press conference. In addition to reporters, the press conference room was filled with city department heads, city workers, and union officials, all interested in hearing the new direction to be taken by the city. 

Former City Administrator Deborah Edgerly—whom Dellums fired earlier this month in a city hall shakeup that included the firing of Edgerly’s second-in-command as well—had originally estimated an 2008-09 budget deficit of $15 million. But Dellums said Thursday that Edgerly’s figures “were not accurate numbers,” though he declined to give the exact size of the source of the deficit, saying only that he would provide specific figures at a later point. 

The mayor indicated that while his office will “look at all options” and “leave no stone unturned” in looking for budget cuts, the city’s public safety programs may be off limits to reductions.  

“Public safety has been due north for us,” Dellums said. “We have made major gains over the last several months, and that will not be compromised.” 

Dellums indicated that budget cuts are not imminent over the City Council’s summer break, which begins next week, but will be submitted to Council in the fall after consultation with the city’s labor unions. 

The mayor said that he has already instituted three budget-cutting measures to meet the city’s fiscal crisis, including a selective hiring hiring freeze, a review of the city’s credit card policies (which came under criticism in a recent Alameda County Civil Grand Jury report), and a halt of all travel expenditures by city workers other than travel that has already been approved. 

Meanwhile, Bobb returns to Oakland five years after he was fired by former Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, reportedly in a dispute over the direction of the city’s uptown development project. After leaving Oakland, Bobb relocated to Washington D.C., but has maintained close ties with Oakland officials, including several members of Oakland City Council. He will head a review team that includes former Oakland Budget Director Marianna Marysheva-Martinez, who will serve as a policy advisor to the mayor. 

In explaining why he selected Bobb to head the review and search team, Dellums said that “no one challenges [Bobb’s] brilliance, his organizational ability, or his knowledge of Oakland. Why do I bring him back? Because of his brilliance, his organizational ability, and his knowledge of Oakland.” 

Among other things, Bobb’s team will be charged with assessing Oakland city finances and making recommended revisions to the budget, developing measures to control city spending and hiring, and reviewing and recommending changes to the city’s executive and management structure. 

Bobb was present at the press conference but did not speak, and was not asked any questions by reporters. 

Though he did not mention former Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown by name, Dellums had implicit criticism for Brown’s loose management style. 

“In the past, the mayor’s office has been seen as some exotic agency sitting over somewhere and operating parallel to the city’s administrative operation,” Dellums said. “That’s wrong, it’s inefficient, and it’s not what Oakland voters had in mind when the decided they wanted a strong mayor form of government.” Dellums added that “it’s fallen upon this administration to define—operationally—what [strong mayor government] means” in Oakland. 

Asked by a reporter why he had not instituted such an administrative review sooner, Dellums took another dig at Brown, who left the mayor’s office without turning over any of the mayor’s official records. To this date, those eight years of Brown mayoral documents remain missing and unaccounted for. 

“When I came into this office, there were no files and no notes,” Dellums said, adding that it took until now to put the money and the team in place to go forward with the administrative review. 

By Judith Scherr  

Councilmember Dona Spring’s longtime companion, Dennis Walton told the council last week, speaking two days after the councilmember’s death, “Don’t mourn, organize!” 

And that’s what the candidates for Spring’s seat are doing. They don’t have a choice other than plunging immediately into the fray, if they want to run, given that they are obliged to run during just about the same period as other candidates for the Nov. 4 election. The formal nominating period for other local candidates is from July 14 to Aug. 8 and the period for District 4 is from July 16 to Aug. 8. 

During this period, candidates can file by paying a fee of $150. 

Candidates who don’t want to pay the filing fee can collect signatures instead. All signature-in-lieu papers needed to be returned today (Thursday). Each signature up to 150 valid signatures is worth $1 toward the filing fee. (The Planet will report on additional candidates successfully returning signature-in-lieu papers at berkeleydailyplanet.com.) 

Six candidates have cued up so far to fill the District 4 seat: Former School Board President Terry Doran, commissioners Jesse Arreguin and Asa Dodsworth, videographer L. A. Wood, and environmentalist Mary Rose “Redwood Mary” Kaczorow-ski have all taken out signature-in-lieu papers. Jerry Threet took out nomination papers on Wednesday, bypassing the signature-in-lieu option. 

For Dodsworth, a member of the Zero Waste Commission, taking out the papers is a place-holder while he decides if he will actually run in the race. Dodsworth told the Planet his goal in becoming councilmember would be to bring people together to build community. He said he would like to start a tutoring program for Berkeley High students, build “victory gardens” to provide food security and help neighbors come together in organizations block by block.  

“Dona has huge shoes to fill,” Dodsworth said. 

The 2008 race will be the second in which Wood runs for the District 4 seat. He faced Spring in 2000, even though he says he espouses many of the late councilmember’s ideals. He picked up 9.9 percent of the votes in a four-way race in 2000. Spring won with 66.7 percent of the vote.  

Like Spring and Dodsworth, Wood has supported the tree-sit at Memorial Grove. Several years ago, Wood and Spring collaborated on a video showing the needs of the animal shelter. Wood said, as councilmember he would champion neighborhood concerns, such as exclusive neighborhood parking on one side of the street near downtown, which would free up spaces on one side of the street for residents. 

“I’m known for being pretty bull-dog- like,” Wood told the Planet. 

Terry Doran serves on the Zoning Adjustments Board and told the Planet that, like Spring, he supports low-income housing, rent control and fair eviction policies.  

Doran also said he supports ecological development, which he describes as “density along traffic corridors.”  

“We need more housing and more affordable housing,” he told the Planet. 

He said Spring was among his supporters when he ran for the School Board. “I was the strongest advocate on the School Board to keep the warm-water pool,” he said. Doran said he is supported by Mayor Tom Bates. 

Elected to the Rent Stabilization Board, Jesse Arreguin chairs that board as well as the Housing Advisory Commission. He’s also a member of the Zoning Adjustments Board.  

“I feel there needs to be a strong progressive candidate to try to carry on the legacy of Dona Spring,” he told the Planet. 

Arreguin said he defines a progressive as “someone who fights for social justice.” He said he’s done that on the boards he serves on, working for affordable housing and equal access. 

Mary Rose Kaczorowski, better known as Redwood Mary, said she wants to continue in the tradition of Spring, supporting “heart-based” as well as intellectual values. 

Kaczorowski points to preservation of trees, care for animals and care for the downtrodden. “My life is dedicated to these values,” she said. 

She added that her election would preserve gender balance on the council. 

Districts 2 and 3 

Candidates taking out papers to run in District 2 are incumbent Darryl Moore and Jon Crowder, who has faced Moore before and also run for mayor.  

Incumbent Max Anderson has taken out papers for District 3 and, to date, has no opponent. 

Districts 5 and 6 

Incumbent Laurie Capitelli will face Jason Ira Magid and Sophie Hahn for the District 5 seat.  

Susan Wengraf, a member of the Planning Commission and aide to Councilmember Betty Olds, is running for the District 6 seat. That seat is being vacated by retiring Councilmember Olds.  

She will face peace activist PhoeBe Sorgen, a Peace and Justice commissioner, and Laura Miller.  

Mayor  

Incumbent Mayor Tom Bates is facing former Mayor Shirley Dean, also a former city councilmember, and Zachary Running Wolf, active in supporting the tree-sitters in the grove next to Memorial Stadium. Dennis McComb is also running. 

Rent Board  

Rent Board candidates include incumbents Eleanor Walden and Jack Harrison, former rent board members Judy Ann Alberti and Robert Evans, and Jane Welford, Nicole Drake, Judy Shelton, Marcia Levenson, Jesse Townley, Clydis Ruth Rogers and Taylor Kelly. 

School board  

School Board President John Selawsky, Beatriz Levya-Cutler and Toya Groves have taken out papers to run for the two School Board seats.  

After months of deliberating neighborhood concerns about Safeway’s proposed expansion plans on College Avenue, the Rockridge Community Planning Council (RCPC) has announced its decision to oppose the project. 

The national supermarket chain was scheduled to submit an application for the proposed project to the Oakland Planning Department at the end of this month, but Safeway representatives said it had postponed plans to apply to the city to address the community’s concerns. 

Safeway’s plans to “lifestyle” a 25,000-square-foot store at the intersection of College and Claremont by expanding it to almost three times its current size have met with stiff opposition from a large number of nearby residents, who fear the project will ruin the neighborhood’s small-town charm, increase traffic and threaten local independent businesses. 

“We are not going to the planning committee right now,” Esperanza Greenwood, a spokesperson for Safeway, told the Planet. “We are going to be reviewing options and taking into consideration the community’s needs.” 

Greenwood said area residents had asked Safeway to take more input from the community and design a smaller project. 

“We are working with our design team to incorporate those inputs,” she said. “We are taking into account all the comments. It’s going to take us a while.” 

In a letter to Todd Paradis, manager of Safeway Inc’s Northern California Real Estate Section, on July 11, RCPC Chair Stuart Flashman explained the reason behind the board’s unanimous decision. 

“The Rockridge Community Planning Council appreciates Safeway’s efforts to involve the community in developing its plans for rebuilding its College Avenue Safeway store,” the letter stated. “It is in that spirit of cooperation and constructive criticism that the RCPC Board of Directors, acting on the unanimous recommendation of the RCPC Land Use Committee, opposes the current Safeway College Avenue rebuild project.” 

The organization cited the project’s size and incompatibility with the neighborhood, as well as inadequate information about the proposed plans as the principal reasons for opposing the plan. 

“The project is too big and will cause major negative impacts on the community,” Flashman’s letter said. “The information provided to the public is totally inadequate for serious discussion of the project. RCPC hopes that Safeway will take these criticisms to heart, especially given the strong and almost unanimously negative response its plans received at the recent community meeting on the project. The existing College Avenue Safeway has been and continues to be an important and valued part of the Rockridge community. We are hopeful that Safeway will come up with revised plans for remodeling or rebuilding this store that will respond to the community’s needs and concerns.” 

Speaking to the Planet this week, Flashman said the board gave considerable importance to the community’s views about the proposed project. 

“We’ve been looking at the project since last year, and we considered the public’s comments at the last community meeting in June,” he said. “We are not asking Safeway to not upgrade the store, but we want it to keep to the current size.” 

About 300 people turned up at the June 19 public meeting at Peralta Elementary School to hear Safeway’s new plans for its College Avenue store, and more than 60 neighbors spoke against the project. 

One of them was Claremont resident Susan Shawl, who is spearheading the group Concerned Neighbors to oppose Safeway’s plans. 

“I am glad,” Shawl said of RCPC’s decision. “Safeway is talking about expanding the store to have all these different services, but we already have all those services in the store or nearby. We aren’t really getting anything more. I would like to see what Safeway has to say in response to RCPC’s decision.” 

In an e-mail to Shawl on July 10, Elizabeth Jewel of Aroner Jewel and Ellis, the public relations firm hired by Safeway to keep the community updated about the project, said the grocery chain was evaluating its next steps. 

“We are not going to adhere to any self-imposed timeline for submittal of the plans but rather take our time to continue listening to neighbors as new drawings are prepared,” she said. 

According to Safeway’s planners the new store will feature a full-service meat counter, an extensive organic produce section and a flower shop, departments it currently lacks. Shops directly across College Avenue from Safeway already include a florist, a meat shop and a produce market. 

The Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center of San Francisco filed charges with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Tuesday (today), alleging that the McDonald’s in downtown Berkeley unlawfully discriminated against one of its employees and her two co-workers because of their developmental disabilities. 

At a press conference Friday morning in San Francisco, Claudia Center, a senior staff attorney with the Legal Aid Center, said the center’s investigations revealed that at least three employees with severe disabilities were fired without notice or explanation when the franchise was sold in March. 

A former employee, Lisa Craib, 43, a Berkeley resident and a Berkeley High School graduate, claims that she was unfairly dismissed from the restaurant on the corner of University and Shattuck avenues, where she has worked for 21 years 

Craib, diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome—a form of autism—worked the morning crew from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. cleaning tables, preparing salads and bussing. 

She said that shortly after the franchise was sold to a new owner in March, she and two other workers with disabilities were abruptly fired. 

“At the end of my shift on March 18, my supervisor told me that I ‘was no longer part of the team,’” Craib said. “I was extremely upset. I felt as though my home was being taken away from me. It hit me really hard.” 

According to Craib, her mother, Karola Craib, and sister, Anne Craib, a “Help Wanted—Equal Opportunity Employer” sign appeared on the window of the restaurant right after she was fired. 

“I believe that the new owner selected workers with disabilities for termination,” Lisa Craib stated in one of her claims. She also said that two co-workers with disabilities, and who are East Bay Regional Center clients, were fired the same week as she was. 

Nick Vergis, the new owner of the McDonald’s franchise and named in the complaint, told the Planet in a telephone interview Tuesday that he didn’t know anything about the charges. 

“I don’t even know who she (Lisa) is,” he said. “I don’t know anything about her at all. I bought the store in March, and all I can say is when stores exchange hands one company closes its business and the other company opens the business. It’s not a sworn affidavit, but it’s possible that no one was fired unless the prior company fired her. I don’t know what her employment history was ... If there was any kind of a problem, I wouldn’t know.” 

In an e-mail to the Planet, Jesse Waters of Dudell & Associates, the public relations firm representing McDonald’s Pacific Sierra region, forwarded a statement by Vergis a couple of hours after the interview. 

“Other than what has been reported in the media, I have not received any notice of a legal claim that has been filed against me,” the statement said. “I have a strict policy prohibiting any form of discrimination in hiring, termination, or any other aspect of employment. I comply with all applicable laws—including the American Disabilities Act—and continually strive to maintain an environment in which everyone feels valued and accepted. Beyond that, it would be inappropriate to further comment or speculate.” 

Craib’s lawyer, Center, said that she was aware of only one complaint against her client regarding her work performance at the restaurant: a customer claimed that Craib had invaded his personal space. 

Mike Maddy, who sold the franchise to Vergis, said he had no information about Craib’s dismissal. 

“I stopped doing business on March 17, and I had no more employees at midnight of March 17,” he said. Craib was fired the next day. 

Center said that when Craib was fired, McDonald’s failed to inform any of her support services, including the East Bay Regional Center, which referred her to the Arc of Alameda County for job coaching while she was working at McDonald’s. 

“I had a job coach provided by the Arc, who interacted with the managers at McDonald’s,” Craib said. “When they fired me, they didn’t tell the coach.” 

In her statement to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, Craib said she did not receive her last paycheck until May 18, two months after she was fired. 

“In fact, I received my last paycheck after I made a formal request for my personnel file, which I still haven’t received,” Craib said. 

“I enjoyed my job,” Craib told reporters at the press conference. “Having a job means that I have my own money. I can be responsible. I can make my own choices. Everyone in my family works. I grew up knowing that if you want something, go ahead and work for it. I want to take responsibility in the community. I want to be someone respected. I don’t want to be looked upon as an outcast.” 

She is currently taking classes at Creative Growth—an art studio workshop—and is on a nine-month unpaid internship with the Children’s Hospital in Oakland, which she hopes will eventually lead to a paid position. 

“The reason I filed the charges is not because I want to go back to working at McDonald’s,” Craib said. “I want to make people aware of what’s going on. I want Nick Vergis to realize that there is protection for the disabled. I want him to say ‘Yikes, what did I get myself into?” 

Center pointed out that although July 26 will mark the 18th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a lot more work remains to be done to improve employment outcomes for people with disabilities. 

“The ADA was passed to promote the employment and integration of workers such as Lisa Craib and her co-workers,” Center said. “These actions cast serious doubt upon McDonald’s much publicized commitment to such ideals.”

Chicago-based Equity Residential (whose chair, Sam Zell, now also owns the Los Angeles Times) will ask the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board Thursday (today) for a modification to the use permit for the Fine Arts Building project to allow retail or offices in a space previously approved for a 4,749-square-foot movie theater. 

The Fine Arts Cinema was demolished almost six years ago in order for the project to be built, and one of the conditions of approval was to require a ground-floor theater space, which would have a cinema in the future. 

The previous owner of the property, Berkeley developer Patrick Kennedy of Panoramic Interests, informed the city’s project planner Greg Powell in an e-mail on March 14 about his unsuccessful attempts to find a movie theater operator who would rent the space. 

Kennedy attributed the problem to the lack of demand for single-screen theaters, providing several media reports about the challenges of operating a single-screen theater. 

In his e-mail, Kennedy said he had built the shell for a 150-plus seat, single-screen movie theater with plumbing and electrical systems and a 25-ton air conditioning system, as requested by Keith Arnold, who sold the theater to Kennedy. 

The original use permit required the owner to have a minimum of 275 seats in the theater. 

“Mr. Arnold was unable to raise sufficient funds to do any improvements to space and never even submitted plans to the city for a new theater,” Kennedy’s e-mail said. “For two years we advertised to find a new theater operator and received no interest. As you can see from the enclosed Exhibit 2, single-screen theaters have been economically challenged for many years, with almost all such institutions in San Francisco—40, in fact—closing in the last years.” 

Among Kennedy’s exhibits was a Dec. 6, 1998, New York Times article by Jack Cavanaugh, titled “Single Screen Theaters Find Their Days (and Nights) Numbered,” which talked about the demise of single-screen community theaters in the face of competition from multiplexes. 

Also included in the letter was a more recent column in the San Francisco Examiner by Ken Garcia, titled “Metro Theater Goes Dark in Latest Blow to Cinema Palaces” (October 2006), in which the writer informs readers that San Francisco had lost 40 single-screen film houses in the last 25 years. 

According to the column, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington placed San Francisco “on the top of the country’s most endangered list for disappearing single-screen theaters.” 

In an effort to preserve San Francisco’s “most stately movie houses,” the column says, the city’s supervisors passed an ordinance in 2005 that required “the conversion of a theater to a non-theater use to go through a conditional use permit.” 

Kennedy added that he was also unsuccessful in marketing the space to retail—even after using three brokers, Tallen & Associates, John Gordon, and Norheim & Yost—since it lacked street frontage. 

“The narrow frontage of approximately 20 feet and the presence of the large marquee over it made the space unattractive to any retail user,” Kennedy said. “There seemed to be very few users interested in space with such a configuration, and in the 3-plus years we owned the building, we never got a serious expression of interest in the space.” 

Thus, Equity Residential will ask the zoning board to approve the space for offices, which according to them, “don’t necessarily require significant street frontage.” 

The original use permit approved a mixed-use building at 2451-2471 Shattuck Ave. with 8,700 square feet of commercial space, including the theater space. 

The site has been developed into a five-story building, with 100 housing units, known as the Fine Arts Building. It is home to Herbivore—The Earthly Grill, which opened at the location in 2006. 

The owners have proposed only one tenant for the theater space, according to the staff report.

The owners of the Sutcliff Picnic Rock in North Berkeley said a new fence will simply replace the old one at the rock. 

Some members of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission expressed concern last week about fencing the landmarked rock on the 500 block of Santa Rosa Avenue in North Berkeley, but the alterations do not fall under the board’s jurisdiction. 

Usually, alterations to a landmark must be approved by the landmarks commission. But city officials informed the commissioners that the proposed alteration in this case—a fence—does not require a permit.  

Katie and Eric Wilson, who have owned the property that contains Picnic Rock since 2006, said the fence will conform to the city’s zoning requirements for height limits, including those pertaining to height on a slope. 

“Picnic Rock has been fenced for many years,” Katie Wilson told the Planet. “Front fencing was already in place when we moved to the neighborhood 22 years ago, and the rear fencing is likely nearing 20 years of age. The new ornamental iron fence, with its open character, will enhance viewing of the rock, and provide needed durability and security.” 

The couple added they had argued in favor of landmarking the rock in 1990 when the commission voted to declare it a “site of merit,” and that they had been motivated to purchase it 16 years later by a desire to preserve it as an open space and eliminate the recurring proposals to build a house on the site. 

“Neighborhood efforts over the years had achieved temporary preservation, but we sought a lasting resolution,” Katie said. 

The couple has opened the rock to numerous local tours, especially those led by the Berkeley Historical Society, over the past two years, she said. 

“However, Picnic Rock is private property and is not open to the general public,” she said, disputing the description by some community members that it was a “popular rock-climbing site for children.” 

“It is a sad fact of modern life that children no longer run through neighborhoods and backyards unencumbered by fences and property lines,” she said.

The Berkeley Board of Education approved a resolution last week to work with the City of Berkeley to relocate the warm-water pool from the landmarked Old Gym to an appropriate location, without naming West Campus as a preferred site. 

On Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to work with the school district to relocate the pool to an unnamed school district site.  

At the special school board meeting Friday, Mayor Tom Bates and warm-water-pool users criticized the board’s decision to pull the West Campus site from the language of the resolution.  

Board President John Selawsky and board member Karen Hemphill abstained from voting. The other three members voted for the resolution. 

Some board members objected to naming West Campus, the site of the former Berkeley Adult School, on University Avenue—which has been vacant for several years and is the proposed new headquarters for the Berkeley Unified School District—as a possible site for the warm pool before consulting with its neighbors. 

The South of Bancroft Master Plan outlines the demolition of the seismically unsafe Old Gym in June 2011 to make room for new classrooms. According to the resolution, Berkeley Unified would work with the council to maintain the three community pool centers, which are on district property, including the warm pool. The resolution calls for the city to prepare a ballot measure for the June 2010 election to improve the pools and fund a new warm-pool site.  

Additionally, it calls for Bill Huyett, superintendent of the Berkeley public schools, to work with City Manager Phil Kamlarz to develop a public pool plan representing the interests of pool users; the school district; the City of Berkeley, which would operate and maintain the pools and community programs; and the YMCA, which would bridge the gap for swimmers during construction. 

The city and district would also work together to estimate funds and operating costs for potential sites, hold a public process to identify a site and recommend a preferred project and alternatives for the warm pool as required by CEQA. 

The city will fund the planning and environmental analysis and prepare detailed drawings and award a contract for construction, pending approval of the bond measure.  

JoAnn Cook, co-chair of the One Warm Pool Advocacy Group, urged board members to work closely with parents and teachers to win their support for the 2010 pools bond. 

Bates lauded the district for its positive spirit and cooperation at the beginning of the meeting, and added that “a lot of it has to do with your new superintendent.” 

Board members also remembered councilmember Dona Spring in their speeches, commending her for being a stalwart for the warm pool and adjourning the meeting in her honor. 

Selwasky said he was supportive of the city’s decision to postpone the pools bond from this November to 2010 since it could have jeopardized the library and fire measures. 

Huyett informed the board that although the mayor had wanted to name West Campus as a preferred site in the document, the school district had acknowledged the possibility but had wanted to keep its options open for other sites as well. 

“West Campus pops into the mind, since there are already pools there, there’s space there and parking and access,” Selawsky said. “When you go through the list you really don’t have that many possibilities.” 

Some board members expressed concern about naming a specific site as a preferred location since the action would undermine the community’s trust in the district. 

“When you name a site, it looks like it has already been decided,” Board Member Joaquin Rivera said. “I want to make sure that the community of West Campus is involved in the process.” 

Board Member Karen Hemphill said the district had just begun to gain the trust of the neighbors for rebuilding West Campus; she said trust could be lost if future uses of the property were not discussed with them. 

“I am also troubled by calling out West Campus,” Board Member Shirley Issel said. “I think it’s a viable option, but it also has other pools, which have their own uses. It sounds like we are making a commitment to West Campus if no other site is found.” 

Hemphill said that the district’s previous mention of the tennis courts on Milvia Street as a possible site for a new warm pool had confused and frustrated people who have grown tired of the district changing its mind on the issue of where to move the pool. The school district has not made any decisions about whether the property would be sold or leased to the city for building a warm pool, although the city hired architects to come up with a schematic design for the site last year.  

“We are being asked to make a rallying cry that it [West Campus] is the best place to make a pool but I don’t see the same level of commitment on the city’s side to go out for a bond measure,” Hemphill said. “What if there’s no bond measure? Does it become the responsibility of the school district?” 

Bates replied that naming the West Campus as a preferred site was “the real sticking point” for the warm water pool users. 

“The West Campus is actually a very, very good site,” he said. “The warm water pool people cooperated with us ... At least they know there is a site ... This was something we put together with all the parties and now you are changing the deal. I don’t think anyone will believe you unless you nail it down.” 

Huyett pointed out that the language in the resolution without the West Campus was still a strong one. 

“It says the city council and the district agree to conduct a public process that will relocate the warm water pool to an appropriate site,” Huyett said. 

The word “will” was later changed to “shall” by the board by a motion from Issel. 

Selawsky stressed the importance of keeping West Campus in the language as a symbolic gesture to the warm pool users.  

“I have been telling my people the school district was going to take some responsibility,” Cook said. “The one thing was West Campus, and now it’s gone. It’s gone like the pool, like the tennis courts. For you, having the West Campus in the resolution is an esoteric thing maybe. But for us, it’s a symbol.” 

“Back to the tennis courts, back to the tennis courts,” Bates called out from his front row seat in the council chamber. 

Huyett said the board had arrived at its decision after giving the issue a lot of serious thought. 

“The majority of the board has the responsibility to have a process with the community,” he said. “I know the warm water pool people are desperate for a site but this [resolution] says the school district will be a partner in bringing them the solution.”

Washington Elementary is set to become the first school in the Berkeley Unified School District to go solar, once construction of photovoltaic cells on its roof is completed in August. 

Work to replace the school’s roof began at the end of June, district officials said, and solar panels are expected to go up in the next couple of weeks. 

After deliberating on the project for several months, the Berkeley Board of Education voted unanimously in June 2007 to allow the district to enter into a legal agreement with Berkeley-based nonprofit Kyoto USA to carry out the design work for the proposed project. 

Estimated to cost $1.2 million, the HELiOS (Helios Energy Lights Our Schools) project is expected to cover 100 percent of the main building’s electricity needs and is being funded by grants from the Office of Public School Construction, PG&E and district money. 

Lew Jones, the district’s director of facilities, told the Planet that Eshone—the contractors hired to carry out the work—were in the process of replacing the roof with a new one. 

“The roof has to be replaced to put in structural support,” Jones said. “We expect the solar panels to go up by the third week of August. It’s a pilot project, and we are interested to see how it works so that we can try it out in the other schools as well. We don’t know if we’ll be able to use the panels right when school starts, but that’s our goal.” 

Tom Kelly of Kyoto USA, who spearheaded the proposal along with his wife Jane Kelly, said he was happy to see the project get underway. 

“The Washington community is very excited about it,” he said. “The installation is likely to lead to educational opportunities for the kids. The cost of electricity from utilities is skyrocketing, so this investment in solar is likely to pay off very quickly. And it’s helping to reduce the amount of pollution and global warming gases—created by the burning of fossil fuels to produce the electricity the old-fashioned way.” 

Kelly said although the project was approved a year ago, the timeline for its construction was accurate, since getting it designed by an architect, identifying a building contractor and receiving approval from the Division of the State Architect took a considerable amount of time. 

“The first two matters required that an RFP be issued by the district, seeking qualified applicants,” he said. 

“It was also assumed that the construction would have to occur during a summertime when the school was not as heavily used.” 

The bids for the photovoltaic system and the new roof, Kelly said, came in at $900,000. 

Kelly said Kyoto USA was already looking at its next school. 

“We’d very much like to do the high school,” he said. “It has 3,000 students and gives us an opportunity to move this discussion to a much larger segment of our community. It certainly presents some challenges—a much bigger project, for one—but could also be a major catalyst in moving toward the solarization of all our public schools. It also gives us a chance to address energy conservation in the school and work on changing the type of individual and institutional behaviors that have grown up around cheap, and often polluting, energy.” 

To help finance the project, the organization is building a framework for a “community offset fund” so that donors will be able to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by making a tax-deductible contribution to a local project like HELiOs. 

The project will be based out of the Ecology Center.

The first statewide report on high school dropout and graduation rates tracking individual students revealed a high dropout rate for African Americans and Latinos compared to other ethnic groups, state educators said. 

The data, released by the state schools chief, Jack O’Connell, last week, shows that one in four students dropped out of school last year, more than the State Department of Education had predicted before they began using the new student-tracking system. 

The Statewide Student Identifier provides each student with an identification number and allows for more accurate information about how many students are or are not completing school. 

Although the dropout rate for students at Berkeley Unified School District (15.6 percent) was lower than the countywide (18.7 percent) and statewide (24.2 percent) rates, the rate for Berkeley Technology Academy (59.3 percent) is more than three times the countywide rate and more than double the statewide rate. 

The dropout rate at Berkeley High School was 12.3 percent, lower than both the countywide and statewide rates. 

Berkeley Unified officials told the Planet that a number of factors were responsible for B-Tech’s high dropout rate. 

“I don’t think you can compare B-Tech to Berkeley High School,” said Berkeley Board of Education president John Selawsky. “It should be compared to other continuation schools. It has a much lower attendance than Berkeley High. You are talking about a group of students who have not succeeded academically and many of them are discouraged. They find other things to do or get into the job market. It is mainly at-risk youth, but of course that is not an excuse.” 

Selawsky said although attendance rates had improved at B-Tech over the last few years, the numbers still lagged below Berkeley High’s. 

B-Tech Principal Victor Diaz said the poorly designed structure of continuation schools was a major factor behind dropout rates. 

“Some kids who are sent to our school never show up,” he said. “Others spend a month, earn some credits and go back to Berkeley High. It really exacerbates the problem.” B-tech has around 160 students, up from 140 last year, Diaz said. 

“A bigger issue is how efficacious are continuation schools,” he said. “We are all doing more poorly than the state average. Continuation schools can take students only when they are 16. These kids have one and a half years to make up for four to five years of sporadic education. Continuation schools were designed to be punitive. They were not designed to be graduation machines.” 

Diaz said attendance was rising at B-Tech, as was the college enrollment rate—but he acknowledged a lot more work needs to be done. 

The state also learned for the first time that there were 4,609 dropouts who completed all their requirements for graduation except one: the exit exam, which became mandatory in 2006. 

There were several special education students who didn’t pass the state high school exit exam from B-Tech last year, Diaz said. 

“The state needs to make modifications in the test for special education kids,” he said. “There are a number of kids who don’t have the skills to perform in that test-taking setting.” 

In the 2006-07 school year, 67.6 percent of public school students in California graduated, the report said, with a four-year dropout rate of 24.2 percent. 

“Twenty-four percent of students dropping out is not good news,” O’Connell said in a statement. “The data reveal a disturbingly high dropout rate for Latinos and African Americans. But the dropout rate itself is only part of the story. Now, using the new student-level data, we will have a much clearer picture of why students drop out. This is data-rich information that will be a powerful tool to better target resources, assistance and interventions to keep students in school and on track.” 

According to the report, 42 percent of black students (19,440) and 30 percent of Latinos (69,035) quit school last year, followed by Native Americans (31 percent), Pacific Islanders (28 percent), whites (15 percent) and Filipinos (12 percent). 

“Statewide the numbers are staggering,” Selawsky said. “And it’s one of the reasons behind the achievement gap.” 

Selawsky said the district was hoping 2020 Vision—the new districtwide initiative recently launched by the school district and the City of Berkeley—would provide services to students at B-Tech to make them graduate. “Obviously kids with spotty attendance are not learning,” he said.  

To view a school’s dropout rate, visit http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest. 

The Berkeley Board of Education gave Berkeley High the go-ahead to move forward with a five-year federal Smaller Learning Community grant that aims to expand small school programs, provide students with a personalized college prep education and work on closing the achievement gap. 

The $1 million grant will cover the first three years, Berkeley High Principal Jim Slemp told the board. 

The activities mandated under the grant for the 2008-2009 school year include piloting an advisory program and longer block schedules, planning and developing a new small school, engaging students in professional development to close the achievement gap and continuing the growth in small schools such as the Berkeley International High School—which recently received accreditation—and the School for Social Justice and Education. 

Berkeley High has 3,300 students, with six small school programs on campus. 

A few board members expressed concern about the possibility of introducing new schedules and advisory groups but were informed that all changes would first have to be reviewed and approved by the board. Some board members also said they were worried about the financial sustainability of carrying out the reforms but agreed that the grant gives Berkeley High the opportunity to come up with solutions for the achievement gap. 

According to a report submitted to the board by Superintendent Bill Huyett, some of the changes could require agreements with the Berkeley Federation of Teachers and the Berkeley Unified School District for compensation and exceptions to contracts. 

Under the grant, the high school will also train its teachers to use the advisory program to help students develop individual learning plans and teach organization, time management, and research skills. The grant also mandates a college preparatory curriculum that meets the state’s college entrance requirements. 

Teachers will also be coached by the Bay Area Coalition of Essential Schools and participate in professional development related to the strategic use of student performance data. 

Slemp informed the board that all students will be offered support services, such as tutoring and social support by a student learning center and a ninth-grade accelerated reading program, to help them achieve grade level proficiency. 

Berkeley High will also expand its Academic Pathways project, which targets low- income students. 

The grant will allow the school to bring in more tutors, mentors and supplemental services to ensure that the project’s participants are ready for post-secondary education and careers when they graduate from high school. 

“There is lots of hard data saying small learning communities make a difference on schools,” Huyett said. “I am appreciative of the work you [Slemp] and your staff are doing. But change is difficult. We have part of a vision, but not full ... I would like the school to come back periodically with updates.”

The mysterious financial angel bankrolling a planned billion-dollar casino proposed for Richmond’s Point Molate has emerged from the shadows. 

The Rumsey Band of Wintuns, operators of one of California’s richest casinos, is the backer of the controversial project proposed by Berkeley developer James D. Levine and the Guidiville Rancheria band of Pomos. 

The Wintuns own and operate the Cache Creek Casino in Yolo County’s Capay Valley, where they are proposing a $300 million expansion plan, including a 10-story hotel. They would serve as operators of the casino. 

Yolo County’s largest employer according to published accounts, Cache Creek houses more than 2,900 slot machines and 142 table games according to the casino’s website. 

The tribe pays the state $25 million a year under terms of its gambling compact. 

The massive Richmond project would provide a reservation for the Guidivilles and yet another source of revenue for the Rumseys, one of the richest tribal groups in California. 

Cache Creek already targets one of the key demographics Levine said would be sought for the Richmond casino, Asians and Asian-Americans from San Francisco, providing regular bus service to and from the city. Guidiville economic development director Michael Derry said that experience would be helpful in Richmond. 

“We also hope to target a lot of new tourism dollars,” he said. Derry said the Rumsey band was picked as a partner by the Guidivilles in part “because of their experience as operators of a high-class facility.” 

While Levine’s original proposal was developed through Upstream Point Molate LLC, the Rumseys are partners in another limited liability corporation, Winehaven Partners. 

Transfer of the site to the new owners had been contingent on completion of a cleanup of contaminants left over from the site’s previous incarnation as a naval refueling station. 

But the Navy has proposed an accelerated handover that would take place before the cleanup is finished, and a press release issued late Tuesday by Levine and Derry said the Rumseys would assist in the reclamation work. 

If the proposal Levine advanced—at a recent meeting of a citizen group that is advising the Navy on cleanup efforts— becomes reality, the new “five-star resort” would offer 1,100 hotel rooms, a 150,000-square-foot convention center, a business conference center, 300,000 square feet of retail outlets, outdoor cafes, other entertainment and educational attractions, and a condo community roofed with photovoltaic panels and solar water heating. 

Projections call for 15,000 visitors a day to the Las Vegas-style casino (everything but craps and wheels of fortune), and a bounty of cash, creating “an economic engine that can fuel community projects on a scale never dreamed of before,” Levine said. 

Earlier versions of the proposals called for 3,000 slot machines—more than most Las Vegas resorts—and a variety of table games. 

Report nears 

A draft statement on the resort’s environmental impacts is now under review by federal, state and local agencies. 

John P. Rydzik, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs environmental scientist handling preparation of environmental documents for East Bay casino projects, said the document would be delivered this week to reviewing agencies. 

“Cooperating agencies have a 30-day period to review the document, so we’re probably looking at some time between the end of August and mid-September for a release for public review,” he said. 

The document, prepared by Sacramento consulting firm Analytical Environmental Services, will undergo revisions after agencies finish their comments. 

It will serve as both a federal environmental impact statement and a state environmental impact review, meeting requirements set out by both the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act. 

One of Levine’s partners in the project has been former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who once exercised civilian oversight of the Navy. 

One-time financial angel Harrah’s Entertainment dropped out of the picture, but Levine told the citizens’ group that he has a new backer, another California tribe with a highly successful casino operation. He declined to name the group at the time. 

If all goes well, Derry said, the former navy base could become a reservation by late next year or early 2010, with construction following sometime later. 

Political cash 

The Guidivilles were major bankrollers of a series of campaign mailers targeting Assemblymember Loni Hancock, who had been a leading opponent of urban casinos in the Bay Area. 

Funded by the California Tribal Business Alliance (CTBA) and a front group called Education Leaders for High Standards, the campaign spent more than $161,442 in the closing weeks of the race between Hancock and former Assemblymember Wilma Chan for the state Senate in the June Democratic primary. 

Levine, however, gave Hancock $6,000 at the same time his then-silent partner was funding hit pieces opposing her. 

While the Rumseys aren’t listed as members of the alliance on the CTBA website, their website lists the alliance as one of three of the tribe’s projects, with the others being the casino and “economic diversification.” 

“Along with the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians,” the Rumsey web page states, “the CTBA’s other members are the Pala Band of Mission Indians, the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, the Pauma Band of Luiseño Indians, the United Auburn Indian Community and the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians.” 

The CTBA site, however, lists another tribe as a member, the Lytton Band of Pomos, the tribe that owns Casino San Pablo. 

Russell Street shooter turns himself in 

Gabriel Alejo of Berkeley, who was charged with shooting a man on July 20, turned himself in to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputies at the Santa Rita County Jail at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, authorities said. 

Alejo, 18, was booked for four counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and is being held on $100,000 bail. He will be arraigned at 2 p.m. Friday at the Wiley Manual Courthouse in Oakland. 

Berkeley police responded to a call reporting gunfire in the 1500 block of Russell Street shortly after 1 a.m Sunday. One man was shot in the arm and three women were hit by shrapnel in the shooting.  

All three victims were taken to the Alameda County hospital. Their status remains undisclosed, but Officer Andrew Frankel, the Berkeley Police Department’s public information officer, confirmed that none of the injuries was life-threatening. 

After witnesses helped identify the suspect, Berkeley police searched Alejo’s residence on 6th Street in West Berkeley later Sunday morning and a warrant was issued for his arrest. 

Police investigate third in series of sexual assaults 

Police are investigating the third in a string of apparently related sexual assaults in Berkeley. 

The most recent attack occurred Monday just before 4 a.m. in the 1600 block of Hearst Avenue. The suspect, described as black male adult with a thin, muscular build, entered the victim’s residence and attempted to sexually assault her. The victim awoke, screamed and the suspect fled. 

The earlier assaults occurred on June 17 in the 2300 block of Derby Street and on July 8 in the 1200 block of Milvia Street. In each case, the victims have described the attacker as a black male in his late teens to early 20s, height between five-and-a-half and six-feet, and carrying a weapon. 

“Because these type of assaults are so infrequent in our city, the fact that these are all happening so close together timeline-wise gives us reason for concern,” said Frankel. 

Berkeley police urge citizens to lock their doors and windows, particularly at night, and to exercise caution when traveling alone. 

Reward offered for information about South Berkeley homicide 

The City of Berkeley is offering $15,000 and Bay Area Crime Stoppers is offering $2,000 in reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect responsible for the June 19 shooting of a South Berkeley man. 

Charles Faison, 39, was found dead in his residence on the 2000 block of Emerson Street after firefighters responded to a 911 call requesting an ambulance for an unresponsive man. The day of the shooting, a neighbor told The Planet that Faison suffered at least one gunshot wound to the head. 

Detectives canvassed the neighborhood, interviewed Faison’s family and searched the victim’s home for any available evidence. They are now urging community members who have information about the crime to call the BPD Homicide Detail at 981-5741 or Bay Area Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). Callers who wish to remain anonymous should call the Crime Stoppers number. 

Man who fell multiple stories recovering 

A man who fell multiple stories from a window in a Berkeley apartment building on Saturday is recovering at the home of a friend. 

Police responded to a report of a man down in the 2400 block of Channing Way just before 4 a.m. when witnesses reported seeing and hearing the fall. The police found no sign of foul play and consider the fall an accident. 

The 20-year-old man, who is neither a UC Berkeley student nor a Berkeley resident, suffered multiple injuries and was taken to the Alameda County Hospital, where he is still receiving treatment. The police would not disclose the man’s identity or the nature of his injuries.

University of California regents last week made key votes on three major Berkeley campus building projects. 

On the consent calendar agenda for the board’s Committee on Grounds and Buildings were approvals for: 

• The radically modern $155 million to $175 million Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive building. 

• A $90 million “infill” building for the School of Law. 

• The $266 million Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, which will replace Earl Warren Jr. Hall. 

The first of the three votes scheduled at the committee’s session at UC Santa Barbara was approval of the $12 million preliminary planning of the art museum. 

The strikingly unconventional structure designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito will rise along the western side of Oxford Street between Center and Addison streets. 

The committee raised the $3.5 million in donor funding approved in January to $12 million for completion of the preliminary planning process. 

According to the budget amendment, fundraising efforts have already collected $12.4 million in cash and $15.6 million more in pledges, leaving a balance to be raised of $127 million to $147 million. 

Action on the new health science building was needed to authorize a budget increase for the 110,000-square-foot structure that will rise on the eastern side of Oxford Street not far from the new museum. 

In addition to covering $9.5 million in inflationary costs for construction, the funds will also cover radiation decontamination and disposal of materials contaminated by radiological equipment used at labs in the old building and window sill tiles that were discovered to have elevated levels of natural radioactivity. 

The funds also cover temporary relocation of the exhaust system of the facility’s underground animal testing facility. 

Unlike the funds for most new construction, which come primarily from public and corporate donations, $52.7 million of this structure’s budget comes from state funding, plus an additional $20.2 million from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which was supported by state voters, who passed an initiative backing stem cell research. 

Action on the law school expansion building consisted of approval of an addendum to the university Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) 2020 as well as approval of the design. 

Earlier in the morning, the committee met in closed session to hear updates on five lawsuits challenging projects they have already approved—four of them in Berkeley. 

Two of the suits challenge projects at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a third challenged approval of the lab’s 2025 LRDP. 

The fourth action is the ongoing legal battle over the proposed gym west of Memorial Stadium and other projects in the southeast quadrant of the main campus.

Berkeley planning commissioners zipped through a chapter and a half of the Downtown Area Plan last week, including the potentially controversial section on historic buildings and design. 

Commissioners then made short work of the section on streetscapes and open space, spending the largest portion of their time on the future of the block of Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

It’s in that space the Berkeley might—or might not—create a pedestrian plaza that might—or might not—include either a daylighted Strawberry Creek or something “to reference Strawberry Creek,” a term Commissioner Gene Poschman found a bit obscure. 

“I’m not sure what it means,” said Poschman. 

“It doesn’t mean a literal creek,” answered Matt Taecker, the city planner hired with the help of university funding to develop the plan. 

Why not just call it a “water feature?” Poschman suggested. 

Walter Hood, a nationally known landscape architect, is finishing a proposed design for the plaza under the auspices of EcoCity Builders, a Berkeley nonprofit that raised grant money for his work. 

Commission Chair James Samuels, an architect himself, said he looked forward to Hood’s presentation to the commission in September, in part because “I frankly have a bit of difficulty reading his plans.” 

Samuels said he also wanted to make certain plaza designs wouldn’t block deliveries to the many restaurants located along the block or prevent vehicle access by the disabled and by residents who would be living in planned new housing. 

Blocking vehicle access, he said, means “you’re only asking for the property owners to yell and scream.” 

Jim Novosel, a fellow architect and commissioner, said that nothing in the chapters drafted by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee would deny needed access. 

Traffic and parking concerns popped up repeatedly during the discussions, though the traffic issue in particular will be tackled in depth in the upcoming access chapter. 

Harry Pollack, an attorney and commissioner, said he had problems with a chapter “that assumes it’s okay to have fewer lanes of traffic and no additional parking, or even fewer parking spaces.” 

Novosel said he was concerned that UC Berkeley had abandoned its plans for underground parking at the planned Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive building at Center and Oxford streets. 

Parking spaces form something of a political divide, with public transit advocates calling for their elimination or reduction to force people out of cars and onto buses, BART or bikes. 

But the commissioners sailed through the chapter with no major changes, though more language was tweaked. 

One term popped up again after Commissioner Roia Ferrazares had shot it down in previous chapters: “Wayfinding” devices, which means signs offering directions. 

Poschman had more linguistic critiques as well. Looking at the streetscape chapter he asked, “What the hell is ‘a consistent vocabulary of features?’” 

“It sounds like a Steinberg cartoon,” said Novosel. 

“I have problems with the whole paragraph,” said Samuels. 

“What about going back to the original DAPAC language?” asked Taecker. 

Nobody disagreed. 

Five commissioners were also DAPAC members. 

Commissioners have loaded their schedule to finish the plan in time to get it to the City Council early next year. The city must adopt the plan by May or risk the loss of some of the university funds mandated in the settlement of a city lawsuit challenging the school’s downtown expansion plans. 

On Wednesday night the commission was scheduled to decide on building dimensions to be included in the plan’s environmental impact report outlining the plan’s physical and cultural consequences.

Bidding closes July 31 for a $7.4 million renovation of UC Berkeley’s Durant Hall. 

The structure, home of the university’s East Asian Library from 1951 until the library was relocated in March to the new C. V. Starr East Asian Library building, will be transformed to house administrative offices. 

The steel-frame granite building originally housed the University of California’s law school. It was designed by architect John Galen Howard as Boalt Hall, named for John H. Boalt, a mining engineer turned San Francisco judge, thanks to a $100,000 grant from the jurist’s widow.  

Total cost for the 17,000-square-foot structure when it was built was $163,500. 

The building was renamed in 1951 when the law school moved out, with the titular honor given to Rev. Henry Durant, the university’s first president. 

Howard’s design and the building’s illustrious history have earned the structure both a listing on the National Register of Historic Places and a slot on the city’s list of designated landmarks. 

The university has qualified eight construction companies to bid on the project, with final submissions due by 2 p.m. on the 31st, with the opening of the bids two minutes later. 

The City Council addressed dozens of issues at its Tuesday meeting, the last before its summer break. The council reconvenes Sept. 16. 

• The City Council voted unanimously to work with the school district to relocate the warm-water pool to an unnamed school district site. Members of a city-school group addressing the question of the four city pools will be named by the superintendent of schools and the city manager. School Board President John Selawsky said most of the meetings would be open to the public, but that the group is not one of those for which open meetings are legally required. 

• The council decided not to address a proposed ballot measure on ending the war in Iraq, but to come back with further council action on the question in September. In a straw vote, councilmembers Max Anderson, Kriss Worthington and Linda Maio said they wanted to place getting out of Iraq on the ballot. 

• The council unanimously voted to extend the moratorium on building in the Panoramic Hill area by 10 months and 15 days. 

• The council voted unanimously to extend residential parking permit areas to Francisco Street between Grant Street and McGee Avenue, Ashby Avenue on the south side between Claremont Crescent and Claremont Avenue, and Fulton Street between Ashby Avenue and Prince Street. 

• A proposed moratorium on new telecommunications antennas was defeated, with councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Darryl Moore, Gordon Wozniak and Betty Olds voting in opposition, Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Max Anderson voting in favor, Councilmember Kriss Worthington abstaining and Councilmember Linda Maio recusing herself. 

• The council unanimously approved wording for the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance referendum that was also applauded by those who worked to get the referendum on the ballot.

There will be a celebration of the life of Councilmember Dona Spring beginning at 2 p.m. Aug. 10 at Civic Center park, followed by a gathering at the North Berkeley Senior Center.

Buyer’s Remorse is hitting the presidential sweepstakes long about now. Left-leaners are discovering that Barack Obama just might not be the messiah incarnate, might even have at least one clay foot, or perhaps a clay toe or two. They cringe when he compromises on Senate votes, even on votes where the good guys had not a prayer of winning. I’m as guilty as the next aging lefty—I unsubscribed from his web page in a fit of pique after the FISA vote. But really, does that make sense? No. 

When Obama first started to gain ground in this horse race, a younger friend, a contemporary of my daughters, expressed a bit of chagrin because he’d been in the same class with Barack at Columbia, another one of the small number of African-Americans there, and he hadn’t even known the future candidate. And not only that, here was this guy already a serious presidential candidate, though only in his forties. Had he missed the boat himself somehow? 

His feelings quickly changed to pride and enthusiasm, of course. It’s clear now that one of the main benefits of the Obama candidacy is semiotic: He represents the first real opportunity for the post-Boomer generations to take their rightful place in public life. For those of us who remember casting their first vote for the young Jack Kennedy (I was just a few months too young) 47 doesn’t seem prohibitively young to be president—Kennedy was just 43 when he died.  

Our children, though, grew up in a boomer-dominated world, where the enormous number of Americans born between 1946 and the Kennedy administration absorbed all the oxygen in the room. They had the answers to all the questions that confronted the world, just ask them. A lot of good ideas came out of this heady stew, more than a few bad ones as well. 

My own participation in all the intellectual and civic ferment was hedged by my slightly older age and my early entry into parenthood. When my peers and I joined picketing and peace marches, we had children in backpacks and strollers to think about. We pursued change largely through the electoral process, less inclined than boomers to plant bombs or riot in the streets to make political points. 

For those whose formative years were the Nixon-Reagan-G.H.W. Bush drought, the electoral process didn’t appeal any more than street theater did. Clintonian cynicism followed by more and worse Bush wasn’t any more attractive. But when Barack Obama appeared like a comet on the political horizon, many of the children who were raised in the shadow of their leftish parents’ disappointment brightened right up.  

The first discussion of the Obama phenomenon in this space featured an enthusiastic letter from the son of a Free Speech Movement stalwart. Since then I’ve checked in on the offspring of several ’60s radicals and seen a similar response. One friend who was once indicted for (I dimly remember) trying to blow up Tucson (he didn’t do it, and he got off) has four sons by assorted wives, all of whom (sons, not wives) are passionate Obama fans.  

Another Berkeley-raised son of a radical, this one a founder of SDS, shows up on the Internet with a spiffy web page promoting himself as an Obama-pledged delegate to the Democratic National Convention. “I believe that for the Democratic Party to truly thrive it must return to its roots as a year-round, year-in/year-out community party harnessing the energy exhibited in the primaries into building better neighborhoods through local civic action, not just national policies,” he says on his page. I chuckle as I read this, remembering how his father used to chide me in the sixties for my stubborn insistence on trying to fix the poor old Democrats on the local level.  

And as the younger generation takes its rightful place on the national stage, it’s time for a little of that energy to be put to work in Berkeley. Since we don’t have term limits, boomers and even pre-boomers have dominated the Berkeley City Council for a full generation or more.  

Loni Hancock and Ron Dellums were in their late twenties or early thirties when they first served on the council. Nancy Skinner was even younger, a student, when she was first elected. All three are still active, but no young’uns have taken their places on the council.  

It’s not that I have anything against old folks—how could I, being dangerously close to being one myself? But it would be great to have a mix of ages on the council again, and not just for ideological reasons.  

We’ve lately had a spate of letters complaining about the anti-social behavior of a few young people, probably students, who live in the area south of the University of California campus. Part of that area is represented by the relatively youthful Kriss Worthington, practically the baby of the bunch at about 50, but another part is represented by retiree Gordon Wozniak, who has no opposition in sight. If anyone is going to tackle the sorely-needed community-building tasks which my young Obama-delegate friend outlined so well on his web page, it would be someone close in age to the badly-behaved young folk who live in the area. 

And the main struggle for Berkeley, now and in the future, will be reconciling the competing needs and desires of residents and the university establishment. 

That’s why I’m delighted to see that not one but two active young candidates have volunteered to try to fill the void left by the untimely death of Dona Spring. She herself was one of the younger councilmembers, and she maintained a youthfully open attitude until the end. It seems soon to be thinking about replacing her, but vacancies on the Berkeley City Council are so infrequent that several candidates have jumped right in to circulate petitions in time for the November election. 

The older candidates already in the race are estimable in their own right, of course. One of them, another retiree, taught my (now over-forty) daughters at Berkeley High. Another ran against Dona a few years ago and lost, but he’s busied himself with all kinds of community service since, including documenting the tree-sitters’ efforts. A third, a recent arrival in Berkeley, is one of their most active supporters.  

Any of the three could make a perfectly fine councilmember, but it would be better if District 4 voters seized the opportunity to contribute a young person with fresh ideas to the somewhat stale mix on the current council.  

We’ll see more of the younger candidates as the campaign develops. Asa Dodsworth serves on the Zero Waste Commission, and has been the backbone of the tree-sitter support network (which could be a plus or a minus electorally).  

Jesse Arreguin is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, where he was active in student government. As a resident of the city of Berkeley he’s jumped eagerly into civic action. He’s been a member of the key Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee and is now on the Zoning Adjustment Board, where he regularly deals with neighborhood disputes, and he also chairs two other commissions. He’s the staff aide for District Six Councilmember Worthington, where his job is handling problems very similar to those in District 4 where he lives.  

Again, either might do an excellent job on council—but both also have the edge of adding a much-needed youthful perspective to the mix. In a year when the presidential candidate and likely winner on the November ballot is in his forties, isn’t it time to have someone under 40 on the Berkeley City Council again? 

Today’s regular editorial, to be found in its usual place in the opinion section, was written on Tuesday, before the trial court decision on the three lawsuits against the University of California. But Judge Barbara Miller’s decision, faxed to attorneys late in the day on Tuesday, puts the Berkeley City Council suddenly on the hot seat. Because of the judge’s curious timing—some angry friends of the oaks even call it prejudicial—plaintiffs, including the City of Berkeley, have only a short week in which to file their appeals. It’s especially tough because Tuesday night was supposed to have been the last City Council meeting before the summer recess, and many other members of plaintiff groups and their attorneys are on vacation, to be expected at this time of year. 

Here’s the concrete version of what has to be balanced: the plaintiffs’ sunk costs from the trial level against the possible added cost of going forward. In this equation, since Judge Miller stuck the plaintiffs with the lion’s share of the expenses, appealing only makes sense.  

It’s usually taken for granted that the cost of appealing is but a fraction of trial costs, since the expensive presentation of evidence is over and done with—appeals are mostly just writing. An appeal is like a lottery ticket with much better than usual odds of winning. Experienced legal commentators, in this paper and elsewhere, have given plaintiffs a good chance of winning on appeal, some noting a number of probable errors in the trial record.  

If the city wins, it’s likely that the sunk costs of the trial will be recouped. As poker players would say, you have to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em, and this is not the time to fold. 

In the intangible category, appealing also makes sense. The City of Berkeley is embarking on what could be a lengthy power struggle, stretching over decades, to determine whose city this is. One view is that it’s home to more than 100,000 residents, including students, employees and faculty members of the University of California at Berkeley. The contrary view is that it’s become just one vast industrial park to be sliced and diced at the behest of the local industry, which happens to be in the sports biz at this site.  

The worst outcome of this controversy, for both city and university, and a very likely one, is that the gym will be built but the stadium won’t be rehabbed, because of its location smack dab on top of the Hayward fault—a key part of the trial court’s decision. That would leave both parties stuck with a large new white elephant in a location that is worse than awkward, snuggled right up to an aging and unusable shell.  

In a previous piece we used the German word lebensraum, literally “living space,” to characterize the university’s desires. A younger copy editor wasn’t familiar with the word. It has unpleasant associations with Hitler’s expansion of Germany into Poland, but it’s a concept that clearly describes the institutional tendency toward infinite territorial expansion in the name of progress.  

One of the key grounds on which environmental attorneys say the trial decision is vulnerable on appeal is failing to consider more environmentally sound alternatives than just adding more concrete to an already compromised site. In a world threatened by climate change, where green ideas have suddenly gained new currency, perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that we can no longer just build our way out of problems. The City of Berkeley now has the ability—and the responsibility—to teach the university something in this regard.  

And a good chance to save local taxpayers some money in the bargain.

Help send your cartoonist to D.C.! 

Each year the Union of Concerned Scientists sponsors a cartooning contest on the topic of political interference in science. Hundreds of entries are whittled down to 12 cartoons to appear in their calendar, and this year Daily Planet editorial cartoonist Justin DeFreitas has two of the 12. The public votes on the best of the 12 and the winner gets an all-expenses-paid trip to D.C. and their cartoon on the cover of the calendar.  

You can vote for DeFreitas' "Lab Coats" cartoon (No. 11) here: http://ucsaction.org/campaign/science_idol_2008_vote 

Voting closes Aug. 8.

CODY'S REPLACEMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley and the East Bay do not need a replacement for Cody’s. What we need is to throw more of our support behind the remaining independent bookstores that we have to ensure that they stay in business. These remaining stores are still struggling even with the closing of Cody’s. They cannot afford for the citizens to open up a book co-op or the like. Any less business for them and we may not have any bookstores left to walk into anymore.  

Support our local independent bookstores; don’t help put them out of business. 

Scott Parker 

• 

WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Taking a Saturday stroll through the farmers market a few weeks past, I came upon a Code Pink member exhorting the shoppers to help out at the Marine recruiting office because "the bikers were in town." While flattered to be considered for an extra spot in our monthly remake of The Wild Ones, I've already been subjected to enough noise on that block. My lack of enthusiasm must have shown because as she passed she muttered, "unless you're pro-war." 

To clarify, it's not pro-war—it’s anti-jerk. 

Now that the Scientologists have moved into Shattuck Square perhaps they, the Marines, Code Pink, and the leather vest-wearing bikers from Lafayette can have an epic Jerk Fest. Those SOS jerks from Telegraph are invited too. I'll spring for the "music" permit. 

John Vinopal 

• 

REALLY? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Becky O'Malley's July 24 editorial, "Appeal is the Prudent Choice": Honestly? I knew the Daily Planet was known for provocative work, but comparing the University of California to Hitler might not be part of "all that's fit to print." Really, Ms. O'Malley? Really? 

Phil Parent 

• 

CLASSY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Comparing UC Berkeley developing land which it owns to the Nazi occupation of Poland...classy. 

Then I'm guessing you equate cutting down 44 trees (and replacing them at a 3 to 1 ratio) with the slaughter of six million Jews, right? 

And here's another take: 

Your understanding of history is embarrassing because you have the analogy completely backwards. Poland was once a part of Germany but it became a sovereign country just as the United States was once a part of the British Empire and Kuwait was a part of Iraq. Things change as time moves on, in spite of how much people like you don't want it to. 

The land on which Memorial stadium was built once belonged to the city, but it was purchased legally and it no longer does. It was Hitler that said he would completely ignore Poland's legal claims to the land and take it back by force, regardless of the devastating consequences to the Polish people. 

Many decades later the terminally idle of Berkeley are completely ignoring the legal rights of the students and taking back the grove by force, regardless of the cost to the students. 

Did the rule of law stop Hitler from acting out his selfish and evil desires? No. Will the rule of law stop the selfish trespassers in the trees? If Hitler has taught us anything, the answer is also no. 

Will Rohrer 

• 

KNOW WHEN YOU'VE LOST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After having read Becky O'Malley’s July 24, editorial, “Appeal Is the Prudent Choice In UC Decision,” I fail to see her logic. I understand the various anti-stadium groups’ basic positions. However, there is no way that an intelligent person who has followed this situation can say that an appeal is a cost-effective measure, as Ms. O'Malley seems to do.  

She bases her position the following: (1) the judge ordered the city to pay the lion’s share of UC’s costs, (2) a successful appeal would make it so the city would not have to pay UC’s costs, and instead recoup its own; and (3) an appeal would most likely be successful.  

First, she underestimates the cost of an appeal. While it would be cheaper than what the city has already spent (a fortune), it is still very expensive to put all of the documentation supporting the appeal together. Further, she does not include the fact that the city will have to continue paying large fees to its attorneys for any appeal to go forward.  

Finally, she misrepresents the likelihood of a successful appeal. Any objective commentator would know that any appellant in a civil case is fighting an uphill battle from the start. Even worse, the judge found that this case was not even close. Chances are that an appeal here would be a loser.  

Ms. O’Malley states that the worst-case scenario for an appeal is that the city loses, and the stadium gets built. The real worst-case scenario is that the city loses, the stadium gets built, and the city pays for the costs of the appeal as well as the costs that they have been ordered to pay already. Apparently, Ms. O’Malley’s philosophy is that when you are in a hole, its best to keep digging.  

The last thing we should want is the city to get gun-shy from the prolonged, costly, beating in court and then shy away from the other upcoming battles with UC. It’s important to fight like a brave for the causes you believe in. However, it is equally important to know when you have lost a battle, and to pull out and prepare for the next one. Trust me, there will be others. For the city to sink its limited resources in this particular battle is foolish.  

Darrell W. Spence 

Sacramento 

• 

BUCKWALD IS A LIAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As I read Doug Buckwald's distorted and misleading commentary about the Berkeley City Council's decision not to pursue an appeal against UC Berkeley, I felt as if I was in Orwell's 1984. 

Buckwald writes how the tree supporters spoke "one after the other, with impassioned and well-reasoned arguments," but he fails to point out how they shouted down anyone who tried to offer a different viewpoint. The tree supporters were in full mob-rule mode. Not one person who spoke against the appeal was allowed to speak without interruption—not one was saved from insults and jeers. That's well reasoned? 

Buckwald writes how the City Council "stole democracy." Ridiculous. The City Council listened, didn't agree, and voted their conscience. That's what democracy is. Democracy is not winning just because a foul-mouthed, unshowered group packs a meeting because they do not have jobs to perform or children that need dinner made. Just because these non-Berkeley misfits have nothing else to do in their life does not make their large number at the meeting the only factor that the City Council should vote on. 

And Buckwald refuses to write about how his wonderful democratic supporters dealt with the City Council's decision. They screamed and hissed. One woman chased the mayor into his office screaming at him with extreme foul language. 

Buckwald should be ashamed to lie in print and try to make his tree-sitting mob anything related to democracy when it is clear they are just unwashed thugs trying to intimidate others. 

Sherman Boyson 

• 

BUCKWALD'S 'SECRET" UC LETTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The letter from the university to the City Council was so "secret" that one of the councilmembers showed a copy of it to a group who visited mid-afternoon Thursday. It was so "secret" that it was posted on a website. Councilmembers were talking about the letter to many people throughout the day. But that really isn't the point. 

The tree -sitters and the Save the Oaks supporters spent 95 percent of their time at the council's public comment session talking about saving the trees, ignoring the fact that the city's lawsuit was never about the trees. It was about health and safety at the stadium. I'm surprised the council didn't label their testimony irrelevant from the beginning of the meeting. But democracy, far from being "subverted" by the council, called for listening to all who came forth, no matter their position. 

Mr. Buckwald claims the council should have let people know about "the topics that they would be focusing on" in closed session. The topic of that session was obvious and listed publicly. They'd be discussing issues pertinent to their lawsuit, not the Save the Oaks lawsuit. That's why the university's letter wasn't addressed to the Save the Oaks Foundation or the Panoramic Hill Association. It was addressed to the City Council and concerned topics related to the city's lawsuit and possible appeal. 

I and thousands of other citizens of Berkeley are gratified that the council acted responsibly and courageously. Litigation on the public's behalf should never be used as a political tool or a weapon. If the city's chances of prevailing on appeal are slim to none, and the potential damage and cost of pursuing an appeal high, the city must take responsible action and move on. 

Linda Schacht 

• 

ROWDY SOUTHSIDE STUDENTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Although I'm a Northside resident, I sympathize with the plight of Doug Buckwald and his Southside neighbors in trying to cope with the rowdy behavior of all-too-many Cal students. I'm curious what measures they suggested to the Chancellor's Task Force that received a cool reception. I'm a Cal alumnus, and would be happy to write to the chancellor on this issue. Probably others would as well. Let's face it, though—the more students there are in an area, the more they see it as a neighborhood where “grown-ups' rules” don't apply. Perhaps the Southside residents could prevail on Cal to provide some compensation for the aggravation caused by the growing multitude of students that the university is housing in the area. Season football tickets, at least—and if you don't like football, you can always scalp the tickets. 

Steve Meyers 

• 

STADIUM FOLLY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As nature, the economy, civil rights, and news content tank in tandem, as diseases and nukes spread, as food, fish, and fresh water run short, and as we find that our only energy policy is to invade places that still have what we have used up in order to accelerate climate change, what a splendid metaphor the officials of "the world's greatest public university" provide us with their hugely expensive plan to expand a game facility on one of the most dangerous sites in California in order to distract spectators and their children from what is coming at them. 

Gray Brechin 

• 

SAVE THE OAKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

White-haired men in suits from the university (all rise and bow) are telling community activists/environmentalists that a grove of oak trees, some over a hundred years old, will be cut down to build exercise rooms for football players. Unfortunately, not too many people give a damn about this kind of thing anymore. Apathy has set in even here in Berkeley. The chains saws will rip these trees out in the next few weeks and an ugly glassy structure will rise up. I'm really disappointed with the youth of this generation if they can't get out there and breathe a little tear gas. It was the best part of my education.  

(Hint to the more creative protesters: I swore I saw some endangered species of insects at the oaks the other day.) 

Name withheld 

(works for the university) 

• 

DOWNTOWN BERKELEY McDONALD'S 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If you are a regular customer at the McDonald's at Shattuck and University in Berkeley, then you may have noticed a change. As of March 18, a new owner took over. Committed and loyal staff were laid off, some relocated. The new owner appears to have decided that he did not need to employ some of those workers who had worked there for over 11 years, some who had worked there for 20-plus years. The employees who were let go were given as little as one day of notice. This location, well known for its employing of older and or disabled staff, has been altered.  

My 83-year-old mother, who wore her uniform with pride, was given one day of notice—"tomorrow will be your last day"—after working at this location for almost 12 years. Heartless. To make the situation feel even worse, the new owner placed a "Now Hiring Crew" sign in their Shattuck-facing window almost immediately. How does he think this made the "leaving crew" feel? Guess he didn't care. I for one, will never patronize this location again, or any of the franchises that he owns; I will take my business elsewhere. There are plenty of other McDonald's to patronize. So, when you look for the cute lady with all her sports/holiday pins...she won't be there. Shameful! 

Cindy Woo 

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PROTEST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We are calling for a demonstration in support of the three workers that were fired for being disabled at McDonald's at Shattuck and University in Berkeley. The time is 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday July 29. We need everyone to come in solidarity as a community to stop wrongful terminations against mental and physical disabilities at the work place.  

Michael Pachovas 

Michael Delacour 

Gina Sasso 

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A GREENER WAY TO SPEND $400 MILLION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bus Rapid Transit is estimated to cost $400 million. That amount of money could buy 10,000 new hybrid cars. If those cars were given away to East Bay motorists, a gasoline-use reduction of roughly 10,000 gallons a day could result. This is over 10 times the reduction in fuel use predicted for BRT, and it raises the question of what the BRT supporters really want. If they want to improve the environment and reduce greenhouse gases, giving away new hybrids could do that 10 times better than BRT, for the same dollar cost. If they don't want to improve the environment and reduce greenhouse gases, what do they want? 

Why should we waste 9,000 gallons of gasoline every day, over 3 million gallons every year, by spending $400 million on BRT rather than on improving automobile fuel economy? That doesn't sound very green to me. 

Russ Tilleman 

• 

WHAT RUBBISH! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Alan Tobey's July 24 commentary reminds me of the Bush administration's approach to science: Let the eggheads do their studies. Then, if you don't like the result, either attempt to discredit the scientists or discredit or suppress their study. 

Mr. Tobey would have us believe that AC Transit paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a huge team of transportation planners, environmental planners, and engineers just to get a report that "generally describe(s) the (BRT) project." What nonsense. The professionals who worked on the BRT draft environmental impact report used all the tools at their disposal to try to predict the impacts, costs and benefits of BRT. Mr. Tobey doesn't like the results. So he resorts to questioning the validity of the report. 

Here are the findings in the draft EIR that Mr. Tobey doesn't like: (1) BRT would result in a minuscule number of new transit users. (2) BRT would result in no reduction in fuel use. (3) BRT would have a negligible impact on pollutant emissions. (4) BRT would cost taxpayers at least $250 million. These are not my conclusions; they are the conclusions of the professionals who wrote the DEIR. 

Mr. Tobey would have us ignore the draft EIR and take it on faith that BRT would be a "good thing." Sorry, Mr. Tobey. The fact is that AC Transit has produced four BRT alternatives and studied each extensively. Even a cursory reading of the draft EIR shows that each alternative is a bigger financial boondoggle that the last. Now AC Transit is asking the City of Berkeley to select one of these lemons as a "preferred alternative." The only rational, fiscally responsible, response from the city is "none of the above." Let AC Transit go back to the drawing board and come up a project that can be studied by professionals and is actually projected to accomplish something. 

Jim Bullock 

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SUICIDE BARRIER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the proposed suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge, I strongly oppose said barrier. More people die in car accidents just crossing the bridge than by jumping. Yet nobody is clamoring to install car barriers to prevent head-on collisions or other methods to make it safer for motorists who have to drive across daily. 

Tori Thompson 

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UNDERSTANDING SATIRE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The mostly white responses to the mostly black, angry responses to the New Yorker magazine cover in which Barack Obama is portrayed as a Muslim cleric and his wife Michelle as an AK-47-packing Angela Davis are mostly racist. 

African Americans are snootily informed that the magazine cover is political satire and that Obama, as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for the presidency, black or not, is fair game for political satire. Fair enough. We’re all for political satire. 

The racist assumption here however, seems to be that black folk are too politically naive to understand political satire and their angry responses to the magazine cover are out of bounds. 

However, if you look at the historical record, very few segments of American society have a longer record of political and social satire than African Americans. America’s long drama of oppression and betrayal of our interests and needs has made this so. 

The 19th century’s wildly popular dance craze, the Cake Walk, was political satire of the slavocracy’s cultural and morale standards. Black comedians too numerous to name, but most recently Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, have pushed political satire way beyond the boundaries of most late-night talk show hosts. African Americans don’t need any arrogant lessons on what is political satire. 

On the other hand it seems some “other” citizens of America need lessons on what is racism. In the midst of a national presidential campaign, images that portray African American candidates in styles of dress that conform to most Americans' worst fears of terrorism are racist, and to expect the general public to see this as political satire and not racism is itself racist and naive. 

The irony in all this is clear to see. However, the question should be, “Don’t you see the racism?” 

Jean Damu 

• 

WESTERN CLIMATE INITIATIVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On July 23, California, six other Western States and four Canadian provinces released their plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, called the Western Climate Initiative. Unfortunately, in this plan, it is not specified whether carbon credits would be given away for free or sold in auction. As a resident of El Cerrito, every day I see pollution billowing out of the Richmond Refinery Plant, and every day I wonder if the people creating this pollution have to pay for contributing to global warming. With the help of the Western Climate Initiative the polluters will have to pay, but only if these carbon credits are sold at auction. So as Californians, and as people of the earth, we must call on Gov. Schwarzenegger to revise the Western Climate Initiative, and make polluters pay for every ton of global warming pollution they produce. 

Wesley Hrubes 

El Cerrito 

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BERKELEY COMMUNITY MEDIA AT BHS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

George Coates writes that Dona Spring helped "rescue Berkeley Community Media from an attempt by its landlord, the Berkeley Unified School District, to convert the Bay Area's second largest public access TV facility into a dedicated high school classroom." 

Excuse me, but the Bay Area's second-largest public access TV facility is occupying space that belongs to Berkeley High School. This school is sorely lacking in classrooms. Please, Mr. Coates, go find your own facilities. Berkeley High School is horribly overcrowded and needs every single classroom it can obtain (of course the space in question was originally a classroom and should be returned to its original purpose). Go take a look at students in hallways, in portables at the nearby elementary school, in moldy rooms in the gym, in the foyer of the theater, and then ask yourself if you should really be taking classroom space away from the high school on its own property. Go ask the Berkeley High School teachers, 30 percent of whom quit every year because they don't have a classroom of their own, if you have any rights to high school classrooms. 

What is it with our city and local groups that think they have the right to pressure our schools into giving them space that's desperately needed by the schools themselves? It's nuts. 

Peter Kuhn 

• 

OBAMA VS. McCAIN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the July 24 Planet Bob Burnett is perplexed that McCain continues to run close to Obama in the polls. He alludes to the obvious factor of endemic racism, which, if admitted, would probably make the poll numbers even closer. What he may overlook, like many of us in Berkeley, is the simple fact that we live in a nation of semi-literate dolts who have no ear for the subtleties of Obama's balanced and nuanced reasonings, but respond reflexively to McCain’s jingoistic simplifications ("winning" or "losing" in Iraq). McCain may win the presidency, as Burnett warns. And to those spiteful Hillites who can't accept the election of the first black president before the first female, consider what a McCain presidency may do to the balance of the Supreme Court—you may well overturn Roe v. Wade. 

At the center of the Republican Party there is a black hole of right-wing power and money that has penetrated and manipulated every aspect of the Bush administration, and despite whatever virtues of character John McCain may exhibit, it will subvert and manipulate his presidency as well. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

EASTSHORE STATE PARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I attended the "General Board Meeting" of "Citizens for Eastshore Parks" on July 16 and it was confirmed what I had assumed, that the fence around the "resource protection area" is to keep out the occasional dog-walker who would disobey a leash law. 

I was informed that the area is owned by the State Department of Parks and managed by East Bay Regional Park district. CESP is only an advisory board of those who were part of workshops held about 10 years ago to help the state decide how to manage this land. These workshops were open to the public, though of course I and many others never heard of them, so there were not a lot of people who disagreed with the fence, leaving those who wanted it to get their way. 

I have written about this before and I don't want to harp on it, but I need to say for the last time that the area extends from University Avenue to what would be Cedar Street and the frontage road to the marina, and to exclude the public from it all because of an occasional disobedient dog-walker is not only draconian but unjust. 

I admit the dog problem is serious, but the fence is more than a terrible solution. I'm all for giving birds the space to nest, but surely they don't need all of it. They love me, too, I'm sure, and with the help of creative planners instead of the unimaginative we might live together in peace. In my view the wildlife and wildlife lovers were just fine before meddling led to yet another development that has been fenced like private property. Yes, there was a dog problem but education would have been better than imprisonment. 

However I am just one voice in a wilderness and I give up crying about it. Were there others who would join me in petitioning the State Parks Department and the park district, then maybe things might change, but it doesn't look like this will happen. I haven't read any other letters about it and I feel alone in my complaint. So never again will I be able to enjoy what was once a wonderful meadow, which is a great loss to me personally, since I paint plein air and used to spend many pleasant hours there. 

Pete Najarian 

• 

GREEN AND HAPPY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

According to recently published research, happiness is based more on two factors—helping others and participating in something larger than oneself —than seeking positive emotion ("Happiness: A better path that may be greener, too," Christian Science Monitor, July 23).  

Citing the World Values Survey (www.worldvaluessurvey.org) and Happy Planet Index (www.happyplanetindex.org), the research reveals that beyond a certain point, people who value material good and wealth are treading more heavily on the earth while not getting happier. It turns out that being environmentally conscious—recycling, conserving and implementing sustainable practices—also makes us happier than valuing wealth, power and fame.  

Engagement with community and family, fostering strong social institutions, and seeking adventure and meaning, are all linked to well-being. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, North America accounts for 22 percent of the human footprint, while Africa, with 13 percent of the population, accounts for 7 of the footprint. The United States is 16th on the happiness index, a ranking that has been flat for the past 25 years. All that stuff? We’re not getting happier. In fact, aspiring to a lot of materials goods is unhappiness-producing, while contributing to ecological destruction.  

Not too surprising, then, that as we seek to enrich our lives with the intangibles—beauty, goodness, justice and love, while pursuing a lighter impact on earth’s resources—we’ll find a happiness that is worth pursuing. 

Marilyn McPherson 

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TEACHING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If we change the existing style and teaching methods and our class curriculum to make it more meaningful to our students, we may become more useful for the student community and will bring more interesting and meaningful subjects in our classroom for them to become interested in learning and acquire the real-life skills to grow and develop as useful persons for themselves and the society. 

Romila Khanna 

Albany 

• 

CELEBRATION AT OBAMA FIELD OFFICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Clearly the place to be this past Saturday was the new East Bay for Obama Field Office in Berkeley. To say that the joint was jumping would be a masterpiece of understatement! Located at 3225 Adeline St., the headquarters was hard to miss because of the soaring archway of red, white and blue balloons, which stretched along the street. Throughout the day hundreds of people crowded into the office, where they were greeted by volunteers, given Obama stickers and registered for various volunteer assignments. In marked contrast to the apathy and somber mood that's permeated the White House in recent months, there was enough enthusiasm and raw energy in this gathering to provide electricity for the entire city. Obama supporters were in high spirits, sporting colorful T-shirts and caps (I liked the slogan that read "The End of An Error") and chanting, "Yes, we can—yes, we can." 

Not only was there nourishment for the spirit, there was a bountiful buffet with food and cold drinks generously provided by local merchants: Domino's Pizza, Sweet Adeline Bakeshop, the Cheese Board, Nomad Coffee, etc. Children had their own table with crayons and paper for creating very imaginative posters. It was also a field day for dogs. 

At 3 p.m. people gathered outdoors in the brilliant sunshine for brief speeches. Mayor Tom Bates urged supporters to bring cell phones to make out-of-state calls. Barbara Lee had appeared earlier in the day. Cars speeding along Adeline Street honked their horns in approval of the event. 

All in all, it was a wonderful energizing day and one can only hope that the optimism so evident on this occasion will spread around the country, resulting in the election of a charismatic, intelligent and compassionate young man, the total opposite of our present "war president," George W. Bush. 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

As predicted, Judge Miller’s decision enabled the university to “find” their way out of it, with minimal environmental commitments. (Those promises about stadium use etc should be recorded as were the UC commitments when they acquired the blind school for Clark Kerr.) I am a bit surprised that she (to use your phrase) sliced and diced the costs; that is her discretion and proves, as does her final order, that she really believed that UC won the case as originally decided.  

At least this time other plaintiffs still control the destiny of the litigation, in contrast to the unfortunate Long Range Development Plan outcome. They will need to file an appeal this coming week and simultaneously seek a writ of supersedeas and immediate stay from the Court of Appeal. This can easily be done by competent counsel; it’s been done before on one day’s notice. The immediate stay should be easy, to preserve the status quo while the court evaluates the claims for the writ (equivalent of a preliminary injunction). The potential appellants have a roadmap and in my view should follow it. Not only can they force reconsideration of the project; they could obtain all their costs and potential fees as well. 

The City of Berkeley presents a sad example when it comes to litigation against UC. If you are going to war, you resolve to complete the task; now, not unlike Vietnam and Iraq, they are forced into a distasteful withdrawal because of poor foresight, planning, and resolve. Of course the comparison breaks down because the former were mistakes ab initio and post hoc, but in the stadium case there are several outcomes still possible much better for the university the city and the community.  

You don’t bring a case like this without expecting that your victory will need to come on appeal. 

Antonio Rossmann is an environmental attorney who teaches land-use law at UC Berkeley's law school. 

One never really gets used to getting thrown out of the lifeboat, no matter how many times it may have happened in the past. It is always excruciatingly shocking and painful. Last Thursday night, the city council did this to its own citizens again—right after a special closed council meeting called by the mayor to decide whether or not the city would appeal Judge Barbara Miller’s recent ruling in the Memorial Stadium oak grove case. The city decided not to appeal, thus also tossing overboard the quarter million dollars it has already invested in the case. 

This leaves the remaining two plaintiff groups, the California Oak Foundation and the Panoramic Hill Neighborhood Association, likely to face a huge financial hurdle—a requirement to post a bond of a million dollars or more per month to avoid dissolving the injunction—that would effectively end the protection for the oak trees and allow the university to chop them all down. It did not have to be this way. If the city had decided to join the appeal, there would have been no bond requirement, because municipalities are categorically exempt from such obligations. Thank you, Mayor Bates and councilmembers, for summarily slamming the door in your citizens’ faces. 

The city’s craven collusion with the university against its own residents in the oak grove case is just part of a disturbing pattern of city disregard for the rights and quality of life of its citizens. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the neighbors who live near the UC campus to deal with the detriments caused by the continuous expansion of this massive, unaccountable, corporate-controlled institution. Every day, UC activities create more problems with traffic, parking, pollution, noise, construction impacts, destruction of trees and green space, student disturbances, and strain on uncompensated city services. 

The cumulative impact of these factors is enormous, but one problem that residents face in getting attention to these issues is that these substantial detriments are disproportionally borne by relatively few citizens. The closer you live to the campus, the worse off you are.  

Even so, the oak grove issue has galvanized attention and support from across the city. So, on Thursday night, there was a massive show of support in favor of the appeal. I was profoundly inspired by the turnout of people who lined up out the door to speak at the special council session. They showed the council and the community the diverse nature of our coalition, consisting of an impressive variety of people and groups from across Berkeley. We should all be proud of the work we have done just to get all these individuals to work together this way. This is in the great tradition of democracy.  

In spite of a massive turnout, the city completely disregarded our views. This is consistent with many other recent local issues that had similar significant shows of concern at council—but were decided in defiance of the overwhelming sentiments of the community. It seems the city wants to manage us, rather than represent our views.  

But this time, the situation is even more disturbing, because the city acted in a completely deceptive and manipulative manner. On Thursday, hours before the special session was to begin, the city council received a letter from UC Berkeley vice chancellor Nathan Brostrom—but the city did not did not divulge the contents of this letter to the public before or during the meeting. Yet, this very same letter was a primary topic that was considered in the closed session. So, the City Council prevented the citizens from being aware of significant information that would impact the decision about the appeal, and thus prevented them from commenting on it. Without a doubt, Mayor Bates took these steps intentionally to curtail the democratic participation of the very people he is supposed to serve. 

In short, Thursday night the mayor and our city council stole democracy from us. 

As they listened to us speak, one after the other, with impassioned and well-reasoned arguments, they were just waiting for us to finish so that they could talk about something else. I think this is completely inappropriate, and shows how far from authentic citizen involvement in decision-making we are now. And right here in Berkeley, no less, the city with an international reputation for citizen participation in civic affairs. This reputation is no longer deserved—what we have here is the outward form of democracy, without the substance. It is sham democracy.  

It apparently was against the law what they did, too—a direct violation of the Brown Act. I have been told that, at the very least, they should have had copies of the letter available at the meeting, and should have allowed the public to know about them and view them. Also, this is just common decency. Furthermore, after the closed session was concluded, Mayor Bates offered a brief summary of the contents of the UC letter to reporters at a small press conference, but then refused their requests for copies of it—even though he was standing right near a copy machine. That is certainly one way to make sure that news reports are censored so that they are biased in your favor. Is this really how we want our city officials to behave? 

Please read the letter from Nathan Brostrom, vice chancellor of administration at UC Berkeley. Here is the link . It is mostly composed of recycled statements from an earlier, widely discredited “settlement offer” UC Berkeley made before the initial hearing in the case, but with a few new vague and equally meaningless things added. One consistent theme throughout is this: Nothing is guaranteed at all, and most of the concessions are merely offers to delay certain objectionable aspects of the SCIP projects until some later date. Also, readers should bear in mind this advice as they peruse the document: UC Berkeley officials are known for saying things that sound vaguely good, but when you read carefully you discover that what they are really saying is exactly the opposite of what they want you to think they are saying. It is diabolical. 

But the last paragraph is the most revealing. It strongly suggests that a deal had been worked out in advance of the meeting, in which the city agreed “not to file an appeal to the current litigation and not to file any future legal challenge to the Memorial Stadium project.” To me, because this offer was taken seriously by our city council, it shows that they are far more interested in representing the interests of UC Berkeley than they are in representing us, the people of Berkeley. 

Also, the letter clearly gives the lie to the so-called mediation efforts that the university has been crowing about. They never intended any true cooperation with the community. These meetings were scheduled only to further the university's specious claims that they are "cooperating with the community" and "working with the neighbors." Nonsense. All along, they were preparing to try to cut a deal with the city that would leave the residents out of the process. 

No wonder the mayor did not reveal this letter before the meeting. He did not want the public to offer intelligent comments about it. By keeping it secret from us, he was able to present it to the council in closed session as a reasonable document—instead of the ridiculous, disingenuous, shameful thing it really is. 

There must be consequences to this action. If we let behavior like this stand unopposed, we have given up control of our own city. I, for one, am not ready to do that. 

All of us in the coalition to save the oaks should recognize the importance of the work we are doing. Besides revealing the value of this special urban woodland and these magnificent trees to the world, we are revealing the profoundly undemocratic nature of our own city government. 

Doug Buckwald is director of Save the Oaks. He believes that authentic cooperation is essential to resolving the important issues facing our city regarding university activities and expansion. 

Dean Metzger (July 17) and other opponents of a Bus Rapid Transit plan that would employ dedicated lanes, continue to quote the project’s obsolescent draft environmental report (DEIR) as if it’s holy writ, and as if everything preliminarily mentioned therein will inevitably come to pass. But this stance ignores the first word in the title: The 15-month-old DEIR is indeed merely a first draft that attempts to generally describe the project, but inevitably does so in a way that all interested parties know is incomplete at best and sometimes even misleading.  

For example, the DEIR describes as an alternative the conversion of the upper four blocks of Telegraph to a transit-only mall—an idea that was swiftly discardedbased on near-universal opposition. As with any complex project, it is the gathering of public comment and community discussion that in the end lets us have a more adequate, more targeted and more accurate description in the final environmental document. We should await it eagerly rather than fear it—unless the full facts threaten to undermine our predetermined positions.  

Friends of BRT, myself included, have never said or thought that the final EIR will show “there would be no environmental improvements from this project,” as Metzger wrote EIRs focus on “impacts,” not “improvements,” and are written with the intention of describing all potential environmental adverse consequences along with their potential mitigations—not just the potential problems but also how we can deal with them. So we will see in the final EIR, for example, a commitment that AC Transit has publicly made: to mitigate any loss of parking along upper Telegraph in Berkeley by providing replacement parking in the same area. That’s a likely outcome that BRT opponents fail even to acknowledge as a possibility—and it’s evidence that potential BRT adverse impacts have potential solutions that can make the project more acceptable.  

Other now-acknowledged deficiencies will also be addressed in the final document. For example, at the time of writing the DEIR was not required by the California Environmental Quality Act to analyze the impact of the project on our greenhouse gas generation. We are promised this will be thoroughly discussed in the final document. Many other sketchy treatments in the DEIR will have full attention in the FEIR.  

Therefore, if BRT opponents really want to inform the public about the project in a way that helps us decide its fate, they should join most other citizens in helping to complete a fair, comprehensive and accurate final EIR. That requires that the City Council choose a “local preferred alternative” that can be fully described in the FEIR. Only then will we know what the actual BRT project will be—an outcome BRT opponents apparently fear to see in public. Instead, they want to kill the project now, rather than let the full evidence come out before we reach a verdict.  

Opponents cling to the DEIR because it’s the most negative description of the BRT project we will ever see—primarily because mitigations were not yet addressed for most potential impacts. Citizens with any concern for fairness and an honest decision will joining us in awaiting a much more adequate environmental document that will help us decide, based on facts rather than on fears, exactly what we should decide to build.  

Finally, Mr. Metzger includes one comment that’s just flat-out ridiculous: “Once the final EIR is released, it will likely be approved in the form of the draft, and no mitigations will be required.” No major public project has ever been approved based on the verbatim EIR draft without mitigations, and none ever will be. It’s the crafting of those community mitigations that should be our focus now, not the truly uninformed assumption that the worst possible unmitigated project will inevitably come to pass.  

We need not fear learning the whole truth about BRT—unless that truth seems likely to disprove our prematurely drawn conclusions in opposition.  

Alan Tobey has been a Berkeley resident since 1970.

I just finished reading Ms. Scherr’s “article” on the new Berkeley Hosts program, and felt immediately compelled to write. 

In doing her background research for the article, Ms. Scherr has proven careless at best, purposely misleading at worst. I will leave it to your readers to make the decision as to which. 

In spite of referencing “an organization” that performed services similar to the Berkeley Hosts, Ms. Scherr neglected to either name that organization or attempt to contact anyone in that agency for history, background or a quote for this story. 

Allow me to correct the record. The Berkeley Boosters Police Activities League is the unnamed agency that proudly operated the Berkeley Guides program for a period of 10 years—at the behest of the City of Berkeley, it should be noted. The Berkeley Boosters PAL has a 25-year history of providing high quality youth development and public safety based programs in partnership with the Berkeley Police Department. We have enjoyed the support of four mayors and city councils, received three Governor’s Awards for Crime Prevention, and count many of Berkeley’s finest business, community and civic leaders among our financial supporters, volunteers and in-kind donors. The Berkeley Boosters, founded by Ove Wittstock, a Telegraph Avenue merchant that understood the very issues the Berkeley Hosts are attempting to address, and which the Berkeley Guides successfully dealt with for many years, have long had a collaborative, partnering spirit guiding our work, and was the foundation for the Berkeley Guides’ ability to establish positive relationships with every segment of the downtown community. 

Roland Peterson, whom I respect and admire for his longstanding commitment to the needs of Telegraph Avenue merchants as well as his history of service to the City of Berkeley at large, was incorrect in his assumption that the Berkeley Guides did not know “what the laws” are. In fact, since the Berkeley Guides actually had police radios that connected them directly with our emergency communications center, they had to undergo extensive training from the Police Department in everything from report writing, to radio codes, to applicable loitering, trespassing, assault and other relevant public safety laws. 

The Berkeley Guides’ mission, however, never included any types of arrest responsibilities. They were to serve as a bridge between the public, the businesses of downtown and visitors, shoppers, homeless and panhandlers. The relationships that they developed allowed them to defuse situations that could have gotten volatile had someone other than they intervened. They did, at the same time, however, assist in a number of arrests of violent criminals and have a number of commendations on file from various police officers and chiefs regarding their role not only in the apprehension of suspects, but also for their role in testifying in court against many of them. 

The Berkeley Guides had the support and respect not only of merchants and street vendors whom they served to help protect, but also of the young Berkeley High students they interacted with, the homeless people whom they also served, the police they partnered with and the public with whom they interacted. While city leaders decided in lean budget years to do away with the funding for this worthwhile program, I am pleased to see that they are committed to bringing a version of it back to the downtown and Telegraph, where such support is badly needed. It should not, however, detract from the very noteworthy and respected work of the Berkeley Guides under the auspices of the Berkeley Boosters. Shame on Ms. Scherr for missing such an obvious connection in her story. 

David W. Manson, Jr. is on the Berkeley Boosters Police Activities League’s Board of Directors.

Sen. Barack Obama’s recent trip to Iraq is an excellent time to ask where we are in Iraq both militarily and economically. First, let’s be clear, the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq was and is about seizing and controlling its major oil fields. Those who still believe otherwise haven’t been paying attention. (By the way, an invasion to seize natural resources is illegal under the Geneva Conventions.) Thus, it would seem to be the responsibility of the United States to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure. We broke it. We should fix it. Remember, Saddam Hussein’s regime paid $9 billion to Kuwait in reparations for its 1990 invasion. The ill-advised Iraq adventure so far has cost the United States 4,125 dead and 30,324 wounded and $538.6 billion. In addition, thousands of Iraqi civilians have died or been displaced by the war.  

Instead of fixing the breakage it caused, the United States is attempting to force Iraq to sign no-bid contracts giving 75 percent of about half of its known oil reserves to a few Western oil companies with Iraq retaining 25 percent. The U.S. government has even provided advisors to help draft these no-bid contracts. 

Why, we ask, shouldn’t Iraq have 100 percent control of its oil? No new oil fields need be developed; they are already in production. Why is Iraq different from other countries emerging from colonial rule? Because, so the argument goes, Iraq lost much of its technology through years of sanctions followed by a U.S.-led invasion and occupation. Therefore, Iraq needs to start producing oil to pay for reconstruction, which billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to Western firms have failed to accomplish. And, of course, Iraq is now such a risky place to operate that the oil companies must be paid more to induce them to invest. Thus, the years of sanctions, the invasion, and now the occupation of Iraq has created the argument for its continued pillage. Of course, the planned long-term U.S. occupation of Iraq will ensure the no-bid contracts are enforced. In other words, we broke it so now we own it or will own it. 

Iraq does not need to continue or create more fast and easy markets for ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, at al, but, rather needs to assert its sovereignty to achieve success on its own terms. The United States must stop using Iraq as a cash cow.  

Fortunately, there are some signs that Iraq is grabbing hold of its own destiny. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki now wants U.S. troops out of Iraq “as soon as possilbe.” The Iraq government is also having second thoughts about entering into long-term no-bid contracts with a few Western oil companies. Now the plan is to limit no-bid service contracts to one year to be paid in cash, rather than a percentage of oil profits. Without a U.S. in-country presence, perhaps Iraq will begin to rebuild the country with profits from its own oil.  

Sen. Obama talks of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq within sixteen months. Then on to Afghanistan, where everyone agrees more support is needed for reconstruction and security. President Obama will have his work cut out for him. 

Ralph E. Stone is a San Francisco resident.

Here is a news flash for those who don’t think land use issues are important: They are important! For example, in the Southside neighborhood, the university has recently added hundreds of new living spaces for students in residence halls and apartments. This has dramatically increased the percentage of students living in this area. The problem is that students are usually transient and have little interest or incentive to maintain—let alone improve—the quality of life for all residents. 

To illustrate my point, I offer this little story: Last Saturday night, around midnight, I was returning home after a late-night shopping trip to the grocery store. I was exhausted. After I parked my car, I began lugging several heavy bags full of groceries up the sidewalk towards the entrance to my apartment building. As I slowly made my way up the street, a group of about seven or eight students rounded the corner and headed down the sidewalk towards me. They were obviously heavily intoxicated, weaving and stumbling on their way, and laughing and shouting to friends across the street. As they passed my building, one young man reached out quite deliberately and pushed the garbage container over, spilling its contents onto the sidewalk and into the street. This clever prank really impressed his companions, who immediately broke out in laughter. The group continued heading my way, walking four abreast down the sidewalk. They lurched right up to me, and I was literally forced to step off the concrete sidewalk into the dirt or they would have barreled right into me and knocked me over. 

Well, this was too much. I asked them in an even tone of voice, “Would one of you please go back and put the garbage can back up on the sidewalk? I live here, and I really don’t need this mess.” The only response I got was from one young man, who chimed up, “It was an accident.” This was followed by an eruption of laughter from the others. Big fun! Not appreciating this response, I asked again as they walked away down the street, “Hey, could one of you please put the garbage can back and pick up the trash?” This time, one young man stopped, turned around to face me through glazed eyes, and said, “Hey man, we’re college students. You can’t really expect us to do that, you know.” Indeed. 

The problem, to put it simply, is one of predictable group behavior. If you put enough young students together and mix in alcohol liberally, they will act in disruptive ways. That’s exactly the environment that land use decisions in the Southside have created. And if you think the incident I described is in any way unusual, you are mistaken. Just ask any long-term resident of the Southside and you will hear many similar stories, and most are worse than this one. 

In fact, many of the students who reside here now are very direct in expressing their opinions about their new home. They feel a sense of entitlement, and seem to believe that nobody has the right to tell them what to do. They have told me and many of my neighbors that this is a “student district” and if we don’t like it, we should move. When we ask them for simple courtesy or ask them to obey established local ordinances, they are far more likely to tell us “fuck you” than to cooperate. It is quite astonishing, actually. During the past 28 years I have lived here, I have never seen as much outright selfish and disrespectful behavior from Cal students. It is epidemic. Where did they learn that this behavior is acceptable? 

UC Berkeley officials just revealed their plans to build even more high-density student housing, this time in massive five-story structures on the site of the Anna Head parking lot just north of People’s Park. Apparently, these units will be filled with students one day, because student enrollment continues its meteoric rise unabated. This years’ new undergraduate class set a new enrollment record, in continued defiance of past agreements between the university and the city to reduce and cap student enrollment. This population increase will certainly compound the problems I have mentioned. 

In response to these difficulties, there have been some recent efforts to improve student behavior in the Southside, notably by the Chancellor’s Task Force on Student Neighbor Relations, on which I serve as a neighborhood representative. While there have been some improvements, unfortunately, this group seems too interested in coddling students to be truly effective in causing them to demonstrate greater social responsibility. 

Coincidentally, I have just learned that the city council is considering spending $200,000 to try to change behavior problems in our business district, in order to improve shoppers’ experiences on Shattuck and Telegraph Avenue. This money would go towards putting “hosts” on our city streets to monitor and intercede in certain activities that can be objectionable, including public intoxication, disturbing the peace, blocking the sidewalks, and others. It should be noted that these very same activities, when performed by college students in the Southside, are allowed to take place most nights without any response at all by the city or university. In particular, on football game days and nights, this hypocrisy is showcased, as the entire Southside becomes a virtual drunken student street party. 

One last point: Some civic leaders in Berkeley have suggested that we ought to significantly increase student participation in our local government. While there have been a handful of UC students who have had the interest, intellect, and diligence to participate in civic affairs and make positive contributions, these individuals have been few and far between. Mostly, students are here to get a diploma and engage in an interesting social life—and anything that makes it easier for them to meet their own limited goals, they support. They therefore generally do not have the breadth of experience nor the willingness to consider other perspectives that are essential for effective leadership. Sad to say, most of the students in the Southside seem quite pleased that the area is turning into a virtual huge dormitory for the university, and is becoming increasingly intolerable for other residents who live here.  

We all need to agree about some basic standards for living with our neighbors—and these standards should not apply to certain groups and leave others unaffected. If we fail to do this, we will allow conflicts to continue and exacerbate that continually drain our time and resources, and ultimately may change the character of our city itself. 

Doug Buckwald is a Cal graduate and a long-term resident of Berkeley.

In a July 17 front-page article in the San Francisco Chronicle, a poll on the public’s views on action and attitude over gas prices showed that Californians’ attitudes are changing to be more receptive to nuclear energy and offshore drilling indicating that big oil and energy companies are getting their way even here. They are backing away from taking the action, given much publicity by some of those companies, of finding energy alternatives, perhaps now even underplaying various government agencies from working on alternatives, especially hydrogen. This may backfire on them and the United States as Chinese investigators have recently reported a catalyst to generate hydrogen from water using the sun’s energy. BP has been conning the UC Berkeley and other universities with big bucks for biofuels that got debunked in the April 7 Time cover article “The Clean Energy Myth.”  

Unfortunately the G-8 meeting still got little done except an impossible emissions-cut projection that more oil use obviously will not help with.  

Surprisingly, one big oil honcho, T. Boone Pickens, has now announced plans for putting up the biggest windmill operation in Texas supposedly at a cost of $4.3 billion. That’s one action that Californians should be pushing its politicians to go for, as Arnie is kind of adrift in verbiage with little real action for getting California green. And several other catalysts besides the Chinese one have been reported so some public attitude towards forcing the federal government to perhaps set up a corporation for hydrogen generation may be needed to get action here. Big coal, oil and energy are not going to move much to get hydrogen as company profits are going to shrink horrendously with having water and sun energy as the raw materials, meaning huge investments in raw material leases supply systems and processing plants are down the drain. So Californians need to change their attitudes to get action on alternative energy, namely for windmills and hydrogen, and tell their various government representatives to move on these actions.  

On July 18, Al Gore was widely reported on calling for all electric energy to be generated without fossil fuels. Unfortunately, that does nothing to actually reduce the 35 percent and growing overload of GHGs, mainly carbon dioxide, that is already causing melting of glaciers and raising of ocean acidity destroying corals. I point to my letters and commentaries in the Daily Planet(Feb. 19 and April 11), where I outline a pyrolysis program for using organic wastes to get some energy, while stopping the GHG re-emitting that occurs naturally from the biodegradation of the wastes and getting the big added benefit that all germs, toxics and drugs are destroyed. At the G-8 meeting, considerable noise was made for improving world health with nary a mention of the role that organic wastes play as the major cause of world health problems via the water pollution from the casual dumping of ever-expanding amounts of such wastes. The public needs to wake up to the never ending mess that is organic wastes, to which an extremely beneficial process, pyrolysis, can be applied. In a July 13 op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, J. Brinkley, noted foreign policy correspondent formerly at the New York Times, wrote about the Naples’ Trash Crisis indicating that some health and environmental problems are being seen including contamination of buffalo mozzarella.  

We cannot get control of global warming by cutting emissions alone as that just maintains the level of the overload of carbon dioxide to continue the effects include damage to corals and associated marine communities. The emissions cutting projected in G-8 proposals still means adding some more GHGs, just at a slower rate, to be slowing the worsening of warming. And more glowing news about biofuelishness has recently come out with no one recognizing that any type of fermentation to get fuel is just recycling carbon dioxide from the overload without removing any.  

Fermentations give off uselessly a great deal of energy and that gas before obtaining the fuel component, while pyrolysis of organic matter, be it with wastes or some wood crop, would have almost all carbon either converted to inert charcoal or useable organic chemicals with very little GHG emissions. If some fuel gets burned to fire pyrolysis, the heated gases and charcoal formed are used to generate electricity.  

Some people are still claiming that the carbon dioxide overload is not triggering global warming, but I don’t think any one would claim that something other than organic wastes and their mishandling and outright dumping in the environment are the leading cause of water pollution leading to most health problems in less developed countries. We need action and attitude on getting world-wide attention to the organic waste mess and the pyrolysis cure for it. To rephrase an old adage: Waste Not, Want Not, Warm Not, Water-pollute Not.  

James Singmaster is a Fremont resident.

I just celebrated my fourth wedding anniversary with the most incredible woman. When our relationship began six years ago, I knew that she was the woman that I had spent a lifetime looking for. I knew from that moment, and so did she. 

As wonderful as that relationship was, as committed to each other as we became; nothing compared to that day in June when we became husband and wife. The simple act of giving ourselves to each other before 300 of our family and friends changed things. When we walked back up that isle to sign our wedding license, we began an incredible journey that has only gotten better with time. We love being married; it is the greatest gift we have been able to give to each other. 

The one blemish in my own wedded bliss has been to see people whom I know and love, as well as millions of others, denied the same right in their own relationships, because of sexual orientation. I find it difficult to enjoy my own marriage without feeling some responsibility to stand up for the rights of everyone to enjoy the same benefits of marriage that I do. In an effort to make some kind of statement, I have carried a sticker on my camera bag for these past four years that says, “We ALL Deserve the FREEDOM TO MARRY.” I believe that if I am to enjoy my own freedom to marry, I must stand up to defend the rights of others to do the same. The sticker makes me feel good; but now the time has come to act. 

In all honesty, I must state that I see no difference between a straight and a gay relationship to begin with, and I celebrate any couple who find mutual love. You do not have to share that viewpoint in order to agree to the fundamental question of equal rights for all. Regardless of how you may feel about gay or lesbian relationships, if you fully appreciate the joy that your right to marriage brings to you, you have to ask yourself if you have the right to deny the same right to others. 

I don’t have to go back too far in history to find a time that Analuisa and I would have had a difficult time finding a church that would marry us because she is Mexican and I am white. It would be wrong to deny any couple, who desire the sanctity of marriage because of their race or religion, and it would be wrong to do so because of their sexual orientation. I am proud to belong to a church that shares this belief, and a congregation who are also committed to stopping Measure 8 in November. This is simply a question of equal rights for all, fortunately the California courts have confirmed this, and as a result wedding bells have been ringing steadily for same sex marriages in most parts of California for the past month. 

There is an effort to strip the right to marriage from couples in the gay and lesbian community. The initiative to pass a constitutional amendment, intended to ban marriage for same-sex couples in California, has qualified for the November ballot. The initiative attempts to amend the California constitution to only recognize marriages “between a man and a woman.” 

I believe that it is important for happily married couples to stand up and declare that we do not have any exclusive rights to the sacred right to marry. I believe that we have a responsibility to stand up and join the No on Measure 8 campaign (sign up to volunteer at http://www.equalityforall.com), working together to support the right of any couple who want to share their lives together, through the bond of marriage. I will volunteer for my first shift phone banking for No on Measure 8 this week, and I encourage you to do the same. I see it as an opportunity to honor my own marriage, reflect on just how much joy it brings to me, and to stand up for what’s right. Please join the No on Measure 8 campaign now, so that we can protect the right to marry in November. 

Mark Coplan is a Berkeley resident and a Deacon at St. John’s Presbyterian Church

After recently reaching the advanced age of 60, I was surprised to find that I still harbored some naive schoolboy notions. For instance, I still have this silly idea that we elect fellow citizens to carry out various tasks for which we may not have the expertise or time. I further assume there is a tacit agreement that these public employees would represent and advance the interests of their employers. This simplistic notion still forms my working definition of government. 

So whatever happened in Berkeley? The proposals conjured up by our putative representatives almost never address my concerns or desires and they are rarely things I want to spend my tax dollars on. Curiously, the citizens seem to have little control over what projects are funded or even the future of their community. Indeed it appears to me that our “representatives” are more interested in inflicting their own political/social agendas upon us than addressing the needs and interests of those who write their paychecks. 

Almost every issue of the Daily Planet has at least one article about the latest misguided and ill-conceived exploits of the City of Berkeley that infuriates me. For instance: Why was Provo Park renamed and why was it recently remodeled? The old name and the expansive green lawn worked for me. Can it be that concrete is the city’s interpretation of the green solution? How much did this project cost? Who designed the skateboard park? Who built it and who screwed it up? That agency or contractor should pay for correcting the inadequacies, not the Berkeley taxpayers.  

Who ordered installation of the cameras appearing at so many of our intersections? Do you know there are about 17 devices at the intersection of University Avenue and Sixth Street? I’m certain their presence is more about revenue than public safety. A $300-plus fine for what might possibly have been an innocent mistake says to me the city is becoming ever more desperate to relieve us of even more of our hard-earned money. Do you really want the city image that is created by Berkeley’s parking enforcement Gestapo? I can’t believe we actually pay for their abuse. The City of Berkeley seemed to get along just fine a few years ago when most of the meters had been stolen or were dysfunctional. Who initiates the increases in parking fines? I don’t have any say in those decisions and yet they affect me directly and negatively. Is it really essential to have so many signs and banners that increase visual pollution and sensory overload?  

The Planet has frequent articles regarding Berkeley’s infamous Master Plan and various building projects going on about town. Did you ever notice the condition of our streets and sidewalks? How is it that nearby communities such as Walnut Creek and Concord, with similar tax rates and traffic loads, appear to keep their streets in good repair? Perhaps the city thinks eliminating street maintenance will eliminate automobile use!  

My wife had a stroke about three years ago and gets around town by electric scooter. To drive along Milvia from our house to the downtown post office, for instance, there are several spots where she actually has to drive in the street or over people’s lawns because the sidewalk is impassable. Many of the ramps that transition from street to sidewalk have steps that could have serious consequences for wheelchairs with small diameter wheels. There is an upwelling of at least six inches in a sidewalk near our house that has existed for over 15 years! Several years ago an elderly neighbor tripped on a two-inch step in the sidewalk and struck her head. It took the city three years to repair that sidewalk!  

Do you really believe an organization that cannot attend to basic needs such as maintaining safe streets and sidewalks is capable of formulating a workable master plan for our city? 

There is another matter that I remain confused about. I think I would be correct in saying that nearly every person living within the Berkeley city limits lives in a house, apartment, dorm, loft, etc. According to my simple definition of government, it should be these residents whose interests the public employees are concerned with. So why do the city planners spend so much time and therefore money (ours) on new housing projects? More housing merely increases the already excessive congestion, adds to pollution and generally decreases the quality of life of the people they supposedly represent. And these new housing units are for occupants who don’t even live here yet! They neither vote in Berkeley elections nor pay city taxes, so why are our employees so concerned with them? Funds from the fed? Why not build a city that doesn’t depend upon federal money and therefore would be better able to chart its own course? 

I believe it was one of the councilmembers who said last summer the Master Plan, “should have a green face.” Does she really believe that increasing Berkeley’s population, given all the attendant negative consequences, constitutes a “green” policy? Perhaps she was thinking of that other green—you know, the color of money. 

Tom Cloutier is a Berkeley resident.

I had hoped that KPFA’s "FriendRaiser" was going to be an improvement from the “Alternative Home Shopping Network." (Fundraising by recording speeches and public affairs programs, playing a teaser portion to get our interest, and then “selling” them as a “gift” for our donations.) The tragedy in this methodology is that the vast majority of KPFA’s audience is denied these programs unless they buy them.  Which means that low-income listeners are “priced out” of access and the information won’t get broad dissemination in our broadcast area, which I believe is the main reason for KPFA to exist. 

Please support the station. Just don’t buy the things they are selling and tell them to play them when they happen, for all to hear. That is, after all, KPFA’s mission. 

Instead of being a community free speech station that records events to promptly play them back for all to hear, they are recorded and held to create scarcity so they can be sold. Much like the oil companies withholding production so they can raise the price of gas. How friendly is this? 

In the spirit of Pacifica it would seem that an honest direct approach to fundraising would be best. However, that would require honesty, transparency and accountability from a management that doesn’t practice these principles. The current interim general manager (IGM), an ex officio member of the Local Station Board (LSB), referred to the bylaws at one of the few LSB meetings she attended last year as “your bylaws," (what would Freud have to say about that “slip”), and the current Interim Program Director (IPD), wrote in an e-mail in 2004 that “the bylaws are a disaster." 

This “FriendRaiser” exposes their negative attitude toward the Listener Democracy embodied in our bylaws. Management sent out six suggested mini-plugs and 17 bullet points for the use on air during the FriendRaiser. Nowhere in this five pages of single spaced material is there any mention that your donation of $25 or more will make you a voting member for LSB elections or any mention of our democratic governance.  

Hear is a pitch from the Morning Show, Oct. 10, 2003, when the first election was coming up and management (different IGM representing same small group’s interests) hadn’t completely decided that they were against listener involvement in governance:  “…if you give us $25 right now that will qualify you for a vote in the upcoming station board elections, our attempt to democratize this network, something unprecedented in this country. You can be a part of that by subscribing right now;  $25 qualifies you for that ….”  Despite management’s clear intent to leave it out of the FriendRaiser, and everything at the station that they can, as detailed below, a few programmers have mentioned it in passing. Thank you. 

One of the Bullet Points was to let listeners know that as a $60 “friend” you would get programs by Jim Hightower, the “God is Great” debate, Naomi Klein, etc. None of these have ever been played for all to hear! Except the teaser portions! 

Management’s defacto gag rule on the LSB and democratic governance is demonstrated in many ways. They and their LSB supporters, previously KPFAForword, and now Concerned Listeners (CL) desired to let the LSB Show disappear a couple of years ago and I took it upon myself to make sure that didn’t happen. Since I have left the LSB a few shows have not been produced. Seldom does the LSB Show get much, if any, on air promotion. It is often not mentioned on the website list of upcoming programs. On a few occasions when the LSB Show landed during a fund drive it was preempted despite my offer to have the show do fundraising with our audience. The preempted show times were given to members of the previously secret management strategy group exposed by Brian Edwards-Tiekert’s infamous e-mail that suggested,  “dismantling the LSB” and the Karl Rove practice  “how do we make our enemies own the problems that are to come?" Perfect examples of anti-transparency and avoiding accountability! Why do you think KPFA doesn’t have a wide open call-in talk show? 

The following people were in that group that was discussing “dismantling the LSB” and blaming all the problems on their enemies: current IGM Lemlem Rijio, IPD Sasha Lilley, LSB Treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert, and two CL folks from that group are on the Pacifica National Board (PNB), Bonnie Simmons and Chair of the PNB, Sherry Gendelman. 

The LSB meetings generally don’t get the bylaws required multiple prime time on-air notices. At a KPFA Peace Awards event, shortly after the 2006 LSB election, there was no mention of the LSB or the just completed election. Management only invited their LSB supporters, despite publicly promising to invite the entire LSB, after not doing so the previous year.  La Varn Williams (LSB and PNB treasurer) and I (chair of the LSB) were not invited. We were allowed to attend when they didn’t have enough people and made an announcement about it a couple days before the event. 

Management has eliminated democratic centers of power at the station. The Program Council (PC), made up of listeners, staff, LSB members and management, used to have democratic decision making power regarding new programs and review of old programs. When Sasha Lilley was appointed IPD, she eliminated the PC power over programming. That power had been in effect for several years and had been confirmed by an LSB motion in May 2004 at the same time the LSB voted to support the PC’s decision to move Democracy Now! to prime time, 7-8 a.m. and move the morning show  to 8-10. I believe that those two decisions mark the time where this management group consolidated their anti-listener democracy attitude. Their group wanted total control of the program grid! They have also refused to recognize the Unpaid Staff Organization, (200-plus unpaid staff members) despite a vote by both the LSB and the PNB to recognize it. 

Richard Phelps is a former chair of the KPFA Local Station Board. 

I am writing regarding our developable legal lot at 2 Panoramic Place, Panoramic Hill, Berkeley. We understand that the Berkeley City Council may enact a residential development moratorium in the Panoramic Hill Area that targets our property. 

I must bring to your attention that if this moratorium is enacted, it will have an extremely negative impact on my family. A moratorium of this nature would fall very, very heavily on our shoulders and, as examined in paragraphs below, will not solve the important issues facing residents in this area of Berkeley. If this moratorium is enacted, all legal lot owners would essentially have this major property asset frozen for up to two years. We would not be able to freely use, sell or even refinance our property under the cloud of a moratorium. Our specific lot must be refinanced or sold in the next year and a half. If this moratorium were enacted, we would not be able to refinance or even sell our property and will surely lose this major asset. We would therefore suffer very negative financial consequences as a direct result of this proposed moratorium.  

Imagine this happening to your family. 

We ask that the city please consider the following: 

1) A moratorium on the development of a handful of legal lots in this area will not solve the infrastructure issues that have been facing this area of Berkeley for decades. 

From the City of Berkeley's own account, there are currently around 215 developed Berkeley properties (probably more) and 12 undeveloped legal lots (probably fewer, because a good proportion of these lots are open spaces adjacent to existing homes that will never be developed) on the Berkeley side of Panoramic Hill. Assuming that there are indeed 12 developable lots, if all of these legal lots were developed tomorrow, that would be less than a 6 percent increase in infrastructure usage (sewer, fire access, etc.). Actually, the maximum usage increase if every single legal lot were developed tomorrow for single-family residential use would be considerably less than 6 percent, taking into consideration two important factors: 

• The current ES-R zoning restriction greatly limits the size of any new home built, while there was little or no building size limitation when most existing homes in this area were built. 

• Many existing homeowners are currently ignoring area zoning ordinances with illegal nonconforming multifamily dwellings and/or illegal rooming houses. Preventing or delaying development of this very small number of legal lots in this area would: 

• Cause major financial devastation for these families. 

• Not significantly address the important issues facing residents in this area. 

• Prevent resolution and improvement of certain current infrastructure and fire safety problems facing residents in this area (e.g. fire access, see below). 

2) Fire access issues would in fact be improved by the development of specific legal lots. Therefore, this moratorium would have the effect of making this area of Berkeley less safe. 

In regard to the serious issue of fire prevention access in this area, we and other families have proposed and been granted approval by the Berkeley Fire Department permission to improve fire access as a condition for development of our homes. In our specific case, we would improve, at our own expense, a portion of the Jordan Fire Trail (due east of our lot) as a requirement for residential development of our property and to fulfill fire access issues. Improvement of this portion of the Jordan Fire Trail would not only improve fire truck access to our property, but would also enhance fire access to other residents on Panoramic Hill. In fact, our property is the first reached by the Jordan Fire Trail, therefore, our property is one of the most fire accessible properties on Panoramic Hill. 

We propose that, as a requirement for development of these few remaining legal lots, owners be required to improve fire access in some significant manner to gain building permits. As these few remaining legal lots are developed, all residents on Panoramic Hill would benefit by increased fire prevention access. Therefore, a moratorium preventing development of these legal lots will actually prevent some resolution of these important fire prevention access issues by not permitting improvements of the current threat that Panoramic Hill residents face. 

3) Sewer upgrade issues should be the responsibility of all property owners in this area. 

Sewer improvement has been a long-standing issue in this area and should be addressed by all parties. I think all would agree that this issue should not fall on the shoulders and be the responsibility of only a very few property owners who are in the process of developing single-family homes in this area. Preventing development of these few remaining legal lots will not address this problem. We have paid our taxes on this property and we think it only fair that all residents be responsible for such basic and essential city infrastructure improvements. We would hope that the city would work out a reasonable solution to this issue as soon as possible, and not place this burden on a few families by preventing these families from freely using their property. I am confident that many solutions exist to significantly address these issues facing this area of Berkeley. We offer one solution below. 

4) Enforce current zoning restrictions in this area to alleviate infrastructure burdens, as other Bay Area cities have so successfully done. 

I have recently been informed by the Berkeley city planning office that a significant number of Panoramic Hill area residents are abusing current zoning ordinances, such as harboring illegal nonconforming multifamily dwellings or illegal rooming houses. Enforcing current zoning rules and regulation is an addressable solution that would have a major impact in addressing many issues facing this area. If Berkeley would simply enforce current zoning restrictions (as other cities have successfully done, such as San Francisco), there would be no need to prevent a few families from freely and legally using their property. 

5) The City of Berkeley should examine each property individually regarding possible development. 

We understand that other lots in this area may or may not have unique issues related to development. Our lot is on a relatively gentle sloop, would not block Bay views of adjacent homes, and is the first property reached by the Jordan Fire Trail. Therefore, our property is arguably one of the most fire accessible properties on Panoramic Hill. Our lot is also at the dead end of Panoramic Place. Therefore, staging of building materials and other burdens for residential site development would be greatly reduced or nonexistent to current residents.  Recently, a prospective buyer of our property was discouraged (we hope only temporarily) from purchasing our property once a Berkeley city planning official reported the potential of a residential development moratorium in the Panoramic Hill area. 

To rectify this situation, we ask that we be granted a written exemption from this moratorium by the city so that we can freely use our property. This action by the city would justly restore our basic property rights. 

  There certainly are fundamental city infrastructure issues in this area of Berkeley that have needed attention for quite some time--possibly decades. However, it is grossly unfair that a very, very small percentage of families who own legal, developable lots would somehow be entirely responsible for addressing these improvement issues. We strongly suspect that a small handful of current homeowners on Panoramic Hill are actually using these very addressable issues as a smoke screen issue to prevent individual families from freely using their property under current zoning regulations. If certain residents want to secure open space in this area, they or the City of Berkeley should make reasonable offers to purchase these properties. We ask that you not let a few highly vocal individuals hamper this process of addressing these important issues that face this area of Berkeley.  

Again, this moratorium will not address these important issues facing Panoramic Hill, and, in certain cases, such as fire access, will actually prevent resolution. We offer two major solutions that will have a significant impact on these important issues facing this area: 

1. Require fire access improvements as a condition of granting building permits on existing developable legal lots, and 

2. Enforce existing zoning restrictions already on the books. 

David Gilley and his family own a developable lot at 2 Panoramic Place. 

BERKELEY COMMUNITY MEDIA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One of Dona Spring’s final efforts was to help rescue Berkeley Community Media from an attempt by its landlord, the Berkeley Unified School District, to convert the Bay Area’s second largest public access TV facility into a “dedicated” high school classroom.  

When Dona discovered that architectural plans had already been approved before a public hearing could be held to examine community impact she moved quickly to alert her allies on the council and school board and the plans were subsequently changed preserving community access to city owned media resources for the immediate future.  

George Coates 

• 

WWDD? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a tribute to Dona Spring, when you are faced with a choice, say to yourself, “What would Dona have done?” And if once in a while you follow her lead, a little bit of Dona lives. No one can replace her. No one can even come close, but in her memory let us be a little more principled and try a little harder to make Berkeley the place she worked for with such dedication.  

Bonnie Hughes 

• 

DONA SPRING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I loved Dona Spring the first time I met her. I saw a strong light in her eyes that profoundly moved me. Dona was beautiful even when she was angry at Mayor Tom Bates and her other fellow members on the City Council when they voted against the principled resolutions she and Kriss Worthington championed. She held her own ground. She was an enlightened goddess, a sage and saint. She was a defender for the most vulnerable, needy, oppressed, the disabled and the homeless. It pained me to witness how much she and Kriss Worthington struggled for the city of Berkeley to uphold a strong commitment to human rights. It is easy now to say how much we loved Dona Spring but to show that love means action. Yes, let us mourn, but to honor her we must organize and thusly heal from our sad loss. Our mayor and the City Council need to do a lot more to honor the city’s long commitment to human rights, such as the need to house the poor. Like Dona, they of our City Council and we the people of Berkeley need to more to firmly confront UC Berkeley on saving the oak grove trees (as called for by city ordinance), the human rights of the tree-sit protesters to truly adequate food and water provisions and the right to public access to our city sidewalks. Like Jesus Christ overturning the tables of the moneychangers at the Temple, Councilmember Dona Spring often confronted the corrupt greed of the powerful who gained profit at the expense of the common folk and the greens and its creature dwellers (all of Divine Creation). She was our familia.  

Diane Villanueva 

• 

RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Especially at this time, a few words about the hell that is rheumatoid arthritis seem appropriate. RA is a chronic disease, mainly characterized by inflammation of the lining, or synovium, of the joints. It can lead to long-term joint damage, resulting in chronic pain, loss of function and disability. RA differs from osteoarthritis, the arthritis that often accompanies old age. RA can affect body parts besides joints, e. g. eyes, mouth and lungs. RA is an autoimmune disease, meaning it results from one’s immune system attacking the body’s own tissues. Its cause is uncertain. Genes, environment and hormones may contribute.  

Of the 1.3 million Americans affected, two to three times as many women as men have the disease, according to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Why, you may ask (as you should), has there not been significant headway in curing RA? 

There is hope for tomorrow, as researchers begin to apply new technologies such as stem cell transplantation and novel imaging techniques. (Stem cells have the capacity to differentiate into specific cell types, which gives them the potential to change damaged tissue in which they are placed.) 

There are numerous RA-related websites. I suggest MedlinePlus which is available in Spanish and provides interactive contact. A “service of the U. S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health,” it can be found at www. nlm. nih. gov/medlineplus/rheumatoidarthritis. html#cat57.  

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

• 

UNDERSTANDING SATIRE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just received my copy of the New Yorker with the controversial cover showing Sen. Obama wearing a turban and long robe, Ms. Obama with an AK-47 rifle slung over her shoulder, and the couple giving each other a fist bump, and a photo of Osama bin Laden hanging on the wall. I must take issue with the criticism of the cover. For quite some time the cowardly among us have been spreading disinformation and misinformation about Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama. We’ve heard him called that “boy,” “magic negro,” “Osama” instead of “Obama,” a Muslim, equating Muslim with terrorist, and so on. If you repeat these whispers and lies often enough, people will begin to believe them or at least have second thoughts about the target of these remarks. What the New Yorker has done is taken these whispers and lies and co-opted them by saying: “Is this what you mean?” Don’t you see the irony? 

Ralph E. Stone 

San Francisco 

• 

SOS MINISTRIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Larry Rosenbaum, the head of SOS Ministries, claims that “a small minority” of people have a problem with “the content and not the decibel level. “You’re lying again, Larry. And I don’t think Jesus takes kindly to people who lie in His name. It’s true that any group that comes out proseletyzing on a street corner about politics, religion, race, or any other sensitive subject, will find plenty of people who don’t like the content. But that’s not the issue. And it never was. (Though having to listen to that no-talent on the guitar play the same five songs week after week after week does leave something to be desired, content-wise.) You can come out here and preach on a soapbox (sans amplification) and no one will try to shut you down. Christian groups, in fact, have been doing that for years. The issue is the amplification. And the fact that you’re a public nuisance. And the community—the overwhelming majority of the community—is trying to rally its forces to do something about this nuisance.  

“There’s a few people that don’t like us. It’s the message they don’t like.” You’re lying again, Larry. I’ve had hundreds of people complain to me about your group just over the last few months. I’ve had hundreds of people sign my petition. You must be too busy talking, and not busy enough listening, Larry. Have you asked my friend who lives across the street in the apartment building on Telegraph directly facing your amplified performance? (I doubt it.) She says the sound echoes throughout her apartment for hours on Saturday, non-stop. She can barely think straight thanks to your racket.  

Larry goes on to claim it’s a “free speech issue.” You’re lying again, Larry. This isn’t a free speech issue. It never was. You have to pay for your permit for amplified sound. This is paid speech, not free speech. With all sorts of limitations and restrictions on it already. And these restrictions don’t come about by some fascist dictator that wants to crunch your righteous freedom (sorry, Lar, you make a pi-poor martyr), but by the entire community who comes together and tries to decide what kind of environment we want to live and work in.  

And by the way, Larry, there is plenty of support for Christianity in Berkeley. Haven’t you noticed all the churches? (Or does only your lunk-headed version of Christianity count?) In fact, Christianity is probably the most popular religion in Berkeley. Myself? My father is a Methodist minister. I support the right of all religions. Even the obnoxious, noisy ones like yours.  

Ace Backwords 

• 

FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT  

BRT EMISSIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dean Metzger, the prime sponsor of the anti-BRT initiative claimed in a discussion on KPFA that BRT would not provide much reduction of greenhouse gases. However, AC Transit’s website directly contradicts his erroneous claim: 

“BRT reduces auto travel by 9,300 single trips per day, 21,000 miles per day and reduce fuel consumption by 690 gallons per day. These reductions also lead to reduced emissions and greenhouse gases.  

“C02 (Carbon Dioxide) emissions by 18,400 pounds per day” or 6,700,000 pounds per year! However, “The figures presented relate to the reduction of auto trips only, and do not include emissions from BRT bus trips.” 

To include the BRT trips operating at 10-12 minutes interval and down to five minutes during peak periods, the total daily trips will be around 220 and will emitting about what 440 cars would. Therefore the CO2 emissions reduction including buses would roughly be 94 percent of the 18,400 pounds per day or 6,313,000 pounds per year.  

Furthermore, since the buses will be operating on exclusive lanes at faster uniform speed without delays from traffic congestion, the bus emissions will be even less. Also, it is certain that AC Transit will be replacing the clean diesel-powered buses in the near future with even cleaner buses such as hybrids or possibly with zero-emitting hydrogen-powered buses a few years after the BRT is fully implemented, which would be no sooner than six years from now.  

If 81 percents of Berkeley citizens are committed to supporting the Carbon Reduction Plan, we should seriously consider that transportation produces 50 percent of our emissions. With the belabored Carbon Reduction legislation being proposed, it will be difficult to reach Berkeley’s reduction goals without coordinated individual lifestyle changes.  

Roy Nakadegawa 

• 

THE N WORD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

OK, let’s agree with what J. Douglas Allen-Taylor says in his UnderCurrents column. Jesse Jackson still does not have the right to use the N-word. He is a minister and Allen-Taylor’s column, posted days after it was revealed, simply ignores that aspect of his whispered conversation.  

Allen-Taylor must think it’s proper language too. I don’t, and I do not like the derogatory “F” word used to describe myself or used by other gay friends and associates. Ignore Jackson’s words if you must; but to me, there is a lot more going on.  

Roy Brown 

• 

LET’S FIX BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I love Berkeley. Berkeley has been good to my family and I’d like to think I’ve been good to it. My dad moved there in the ‘60s. My mom in the ‘70s. I was born at Alta Bates, as were my brother and sister. My brother, sister, and I have all lived in Berkeley for years at different times. My wife lived in Berkeley. As did her mother and father decades back.  

So, you can imagine my frustration at seeing Berkeley’s current condition. Roads, falling apart. The downtown, crumbling. Businesses, fleeing. Education system, in shambles. These are tough times for us all, but I trust the Berkeley City Council to work on behalf of all Berkleyans to solve the problems that they all face.  

I feel it is important to focus city resources on important problems and not focus them on leer important problems. I speak, in specific, about the Cal gymnasium project. And look, I don’t know too much about the court case. It is very confusing; I’m no lawyer. My vague understanding is that, going in, all the City Council could accomplish was a delay. Just a delay.  

What I do know strongly is that the City Council could help return Berkeley to one of the finest cities in our country. We could be the leaders in the modern environmental movement. Berkeley’s potential is unlimited. But when Berkeley is facing all these naive problems, the council needs to efficiently distribute its resources to biggest problems first. Is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money for a judge to tell us that Cal had it right 98 percent of the time the most efficient means of spending Berkeley’s limited taxpayer resources? I might not know a lot about the court case, but I know the answer to that question is a resounding no.  

And is spending hundreds of thousands more to lose at another court level, the most prudent distribution of city resources? I again feel strongly the answer is no. This is not about saving 40 lovely trees. This is not about protecting a sacred grove. This is about ensuring limited city resources focus on Berkeley’s biggest problems first. I call on the City Council to use its taxpayer money to work to put stores back on Shattuck Avenue, to fix potholes all across Berkeley, to improve facilities at all levels of the Berkeley public school system.  

Council, I call on you to end this lawsuit by not joining in any appeal. Please, focus city resources where they matter most. We all love Berkeley; let’s get to fixing it. Let’s make Berkeley the utopia we all know it can be. Let’s return Berkeley to its prior glory! 

T. Nathanial Hook  

San Francisco 

• 

AC TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In order to be a barely adequate transit system, AC Transit must arrive on time, have enough routes to serve the entire service area at about quarter-mile intervals, and operate enough hours to get passengers to their destinations and back. Any new ideas that compromise those core necessities needs to be rethought.  

I am fully in favor of taking steps to get the buses running faster and more frequently, but not at the expense of their continuing to serve all the neighborhoods (although routes may need to be reconfigured from time to time), nor at the expense of reducing hours of service. If people cannot use the bus to do all their traveling within the area, they have no incentive to get rid of their cars, and if you have a car, you find yourself using it, even if a bus is available.  

The BRT concept puts the cart before the horse. It may become necessary someday for buses to have a dedicated lane, but it certainly is not now. Even the so-called rapid buses are delayed more by passenger boarding problems than by traffic problems. The odd configuration of the seats in the Van Hool buses, and the fact that the driver has to leave the cab to operate the lift only makes them worse.  

If AC transit wants to make improvements, they need to see the system from the point of view of the users. No matter how popular the Van Hool is in Europe, it doesn’t cut it in this area. I saw how the Van Hool is used in Paris, and there are two whopping differences. First, they have almost no seats, like a New York subway car. Secondly, they do not provide for disabled passengers, except that the jump seats are reserved for seniors.  

I am not at all suggesting that the seats be configured like the European coaches. The cultures are different, so our buses need to reflect our culture. Americans like to keep a greater distance from strangers when face to face, so half the facing seats go unused while people crowd into the aisles. Also, I don’t know who decided it was a good idea to have seniors climb up onto raised seats, but trust me, it is not.  

I wonder what happened to the Bus Riders’ Union. The union could conduct a real rider survey, asking the questions that the riders actually want to be asked and making sure the sample truly reflected the entire composition of the community, and publishing the results in general circulation pre so that everyone could see them.  

I resent the implication that anyone who is opposed to BRT or the Van Hools does not want the bus service to be improved. Many riders just don’t think the BRT concept or the Van Hool buses are an improvement.  

Marcella Murphy 

• 

POVERTY IN GAY SOCIETY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Pacific Center here in Berkeley has to make an effort to reach out to those who are queer and poor. A “Center for Human Growth,” as it proclaims to be, should extend a communal welcome to everyone, not just those who have a little something-something in their wallets.  

If the Pacific Center really cares about the poor, it will hook up with the Suitcase Clinic (or some-such organization) and work out a way to offer a safe-space once a week for homeless and quasi-homeless (or otherwise downtrodden) queer people to gather, talk about problems, get a free meal, et cetera.  

For the oldest queer community center in the Bay Area to omit an entire segment of queer society is disgusting. There is no excuse for it.  

Living on the street is not easy to do as a queer person. You have to be more closeted than in “mainstream” society, it can be harder to meet other queer people for friendships or dating, there is more exposure to drug and alcohol abuse, and so forth.  

I don’t want to just merely pick on the Pacific Center (and by extension its elite 20-somethings program called “X-20s”). After all, Pride ‘08 came and went. So how many queer people reading this letter went out on Pride Weekend and gave a homeless person a meal, a shirt, first aid kit, or even a smile? Or did Pride extend to only those who “made something of themselves”? 

There needs to be great change for the queer community in Berkeley (and the Bay Area in general); there needs to be more compassion, more humanity. And what better place for that change to start than at the Pacific Center? 

Nathan Pitts 

• 

NOT A FAILURE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

San Francisco’s own Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, was interviewed on CNN last week (July 17) and when asked about the president’s criticism of Congress called Bush “…a total failure.”  

She was wrong. Bush has succeeded in lying this nation into an unprovoked war, in authorizing warrantless wiretaps and retroactively immunizing telecommunications companies, in approving torture, denying due process. It now appears that he will succeed in evading accountability for these and other “high crimes and misdemeanors.”  

Failure is in the eye of the beholder.  

Marvin Chachere  

San Pablo 

• 

HAD ENOUGH! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here we go again! The Oakland City Council voted to place a measure in November to institute a parcel tax increase to boost the police force. I agree with Mr. De La Fuente asking us to reject the tax increase. City Hall needs to get a grip and manage the affairs of the City without wasting anymore of the taxpayers’ money.  

Is anyone surprised at the latest revelation that Oakland’s budget deficit is on course to more than triple the $15 million shortfall that Deborah Edgerly figured in the City’s current spending plan, according to new projections obtained by the Chronicle? 

Almost daily there is yet another revelation regarding the mismanagement of the city’s affairs by incompetent administrators. If it were not for journalists like Chip Johnson, Matier and Ross, Courtney Ruby, Kelly Rayburn or Christopher Heredia we would not learn what is really going on at City Hall. Mr. De La Fuente is the only one who has stepped out of his comfort zone and expressed the outrage we all feel at the mismanagement and lack of accountability that prevails at Oakland City Hall.  

No more taxes. We’ve had enough.  

Tori Thompson 

Oakland 

• 

STIFLE THE URGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have little doubt that Chuck Siegel’s recent characterization of smart-growth opponents as “anti-environmentalists” will generate an angry counterattack, and—as happens so often in Berkeley—an important discussion will degenerate into name-calling. As I see it, a big part of the problem is that the two sides have each created a caricature of the other.  

The smart-growth advocates (of which I am one) often fail to see that many of those who denounce the development plans and policies of Mayor Bates and city planning staff are not against the basic idea of having a moderate increase in density in the downtown and along major transit corridors. Most of these people supported the very same DAPAC downtown plan that Chuck argues for in his piece. And many of them would support the mixed-use projects along University, Shattuck and San Pablo if those projects were less intrusive on the surrounding neighborhoods.  

At the same time, many smart-growth opponents fail to see that well-designed urban development can promote successful human-scale neighborhoods that will allow Berkeley to begin the transition away from a car-dependent way of moving around. They want good bus service, but not the population density needed to make it viable. And some of them seem to wish that Berkeley could stay like it is, despite the fact that California’s population is growing by leaps and bounds and Berkeley is one of the most desirable places to live.  

If both sides could stifle the urge to denounce the other, perhaps a space could emerge for some fruitful dialogue.  

Steve Meyers 

• 

THE BRT OPPOSITION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A few readers responded to my op-ed about “Berkeley’s Anti-Environmentalist Movement” by giving the reasons that they are against Bus Rapid Transit. They missed the point of my article, which was about development issues as much as about transit, and which criticized people who are against all of the changes in urban design that environmentalists agree are needed to deal with global warming.  

My article said very clearly: “They come up with a long list of excuses for opposing each project, but when you see the same people leading the opposition to one thing after another, it becomes clear that they are simply against everything.” 

The most transparent excuse for opposing BRT, one that we have heard over and over again, is: “I am an environmentalist who supports public transportation, but I support a better project than this one.” Then they go on to support Rapid Bus Plus, which would leave buses stuck in traffic. Or they go on to support more service, more eco-passes, or more shuttle buses, which do not conflict with BRT, which I would also support if there were funding for them, but which will not happen because there is no funding.  

They use this as an excuse to oppose BRT, which can be built soon, which will speed up bus service enough to shift 9,300 trips per day from cars to buses, and which will (according to recently released figures) reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6,700,000 pounds per year.  

At least 98 percent of BRT opponents have never come forward in the past to support any public transportation projects that could actually be implemented. They have suddenly become born-again supporters of public transportation, now that they can use it as an excuse for opposing BRT.  

Charles Siegel 

• 

HERITAGE BOOKSTORES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley’s recent editorial, “Could Cody’s Rise Again?” has inspired me, an alumnus of UC Berkeley living across the world in India, and having re-visited Berkeley in 2006, to support whole heartedly the initiative O’Malley has taken to revive Cody’s Books. She needs to be congratulated for holding discussions with the various stakeholders, including the citizens of Berkeley. I am confident that with a positive approach, this renowned bookstore will re-open soon.  

Keppler’s, which faced a similar situation and was closed briefly, has been re-opened with a new outlook. Exactly in the same way, Cody’s has to be replanned to meet the requirements of the need of present-day book lovers, particularly as a community bookstore, where there must be adequate space for the whole family, so that the children and the parents can spend time in their niche without being disturbed. There must be an ambient and relaxed atmosphere with cozy seating where you can help yourself to coffee, tea and cold drinks. As an architect, I am planning such facilities for the new and renovated bookstores that are being set up in India. Oxford Books in India has a chain of such stores, with such facilities for the whole family in major cities around the country.  

The bookstores such as Cody’s and Keppler’s need to be preserved not only because they are loved by the people, but because they are heritage institutions as well, and they need to be preserved and maintained; they are as important as the landmark buildings. The City Council should come forward to support the positive approach initiated by the Daily Planet.  

Jane Jacob, in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, has practically pleaded for preserving such heritage bookstores and the corner grocery and drug stores in order to preserve the identities of cities, since the images of stores and landmark buildings can be easily visualized and identified with a particular city. She even mentioned that since these stores are managed by people who are well known to the local people, at times of emergency the local people take the help of these store owners.  

As a newcomer to Berkeley, when I started my graduate course, I would visualize the images of Cal Book Store (which has already been closed), Rex’s Drug Store, Cody’s Books, Blondie’s Pizza, and of course the International House (where I stayed) in order to find my bearing when I was lost. Easily identifiable images are quickly stored are in our memory.  

It is expected the citizens, business community of Berkeley and the Bay Area will come forward to raise the resources required to re-open Cody’s Books soon.  

Krishna P. Bhattacharjee  

• 

TOO LATE FOR A CHANGE? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

How fortunate many of us felt when we saw that someone as courageous and inspiring as Barack Obama had secured the Democratic nomination for president over the compromised and calculating political ambitions of Hillary Clinton. Now that Obama has become Hillary Clinton, um, is it too late to change our vote to Dennis Kucinich? 

Doug Buckwald 

• 

HOUSING ATOP THE  

NEW SAFEWAY? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The old, ugly Safeway building on Shattuck Avenue in North Berkeley is about to be re-built. Finally! We’ll have a worthy competitor to expensive Andronico’s! 

What else could we get from this developmental change in our neighborhood? Could we possibly have affordable, accessible housing as part of this new construction? Affordable, accessible homes? In our own city? Is this a wonderful dream? What if there were apartments above the new Safeway supermarket? They would certainly be close to shopping! They would certainly be close to bus lines! They would certainly use less energy to heat than single-family houses! 

Berkeley needs apartments for more people: apartments that are accessible, affordable and energy-efficient—apartments that people can live in without needing to drive their cars (or even needing to own a car). And where can we build such apartments? The Safeway site is a perfect location.  

Safeway has said that it would consider a housing component to their rebuilding project if the community wants it. Housing coupled with a better Safeway is a good community-strengthening idea. Please let me know if you agree by sending me an e-mail: david@stoloff. com. If enough people care, we may persuade Safeway to build something other than just a bigger store.  

David Stoloff 

• 

SAFEWAY ROBBERY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a resident of Ashby Place and witnessed a robbery at Safeway on Claremont and College on Monday night, July 7. When I returned to the store, I learned it was a successful robbery where the two thieves netted $900 and fled. I had just left the store after buying my groceries when two African-American youth approached the clerk behind the register. One had a shirt or cloth covering his face. I looked around for security and instinctively said to myself “I’ve got to get out of here, this looks dangerous.” I wondered, “Is this really happening, that I am in the presence of a robbery?” Moments later the boys fled the store and ran down the street.  

Most of all, I feared for my safety and wanted to get home as quickly as possible, not get involved in any way. Tonight, the clerk and security guard described how one of the guys shoved a pistol into the clerk’s ribs and demanded money from the drawer. Of course, they are taught to hand it over rather than endanger their own lives or the lives of patrons.  

Are we to tolerate this madness? Is this the society we want to live in, where one segment pays for food while another must steal for rent, or meals or a god-forsaken drug habit? Where is the social responsibility that says enough is enough? Instead, what I see are numb reactions with business as usual. The clerk and security guard continue their shifts. The robbery tallies as just one more crime statistic. No one cares.  

Would a parent allow a child to continue with deviant behavior or would he redirect that behavior? Where is society to step in as parents to take responsibility for our wayward children? We cannot turn away, because it only will get worse. Yes, people will steal, no matter what the security or hidden cameras, but society can be proactive.  

As a social work student in the MSW program at CSU East Bay at Concord, I am studying cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. The strategy of “positive reinforcement” applies here. Opportunities for advancement, as in education and jobs with positive role models offer incentives for growth. Without these opportunities for people to project into their future, we in conscious, hip, laid-back Rockridge, California may end up with a bullet in our backs.  

Mark Solomons 

• 

PANORAMIC HILL MORATORIUM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I own 2 Panoramic Place with my husband. It is a beautiful lot which sits at the end of Panoramic Place and butts up against the Jordan fire. I am writing to you with a sense of incredulity and outrage that the City Council would even consider a moratorium on building on Panoramic Hill. A moratorium of this nature would be financially devastating to me and my family.  

Is the council aware of the rippling effect this decision will have on me and my family? With a moratorium in place, our property is useless to us. Do they realize this means major financial ruin and hardship for my family? Our son is dealing with multiple health problems, and we had counted on our property to help us during this difficult time.  

Who is behind this movement to gut the rights of property owners? Perhaps neighbors who wish to enjoy our property as open space adjacent to their property? Neighbors who are in violation of city code themselves? 

The Panoramic Hill Neighborhood Association is a small group of people on a mission to stop people from using their properties (note the struggles of the owner of 161 Panoramic Way). This group will say anything and use any means at their disposal (including fear mongering) to stop others from freely using their property. They get to use their property, some as illegal non-conforming multi-family dwellings and/or illegal rooming houses, but we can’t even build a modest-sized, single-family house on ours? 

Because this moratorium would make it impossible for us to use our property as we have every right to use it, then the least the city can do is buy it from us. Barring that, we ask that we be granted a written exemption from this moratorium by the city so that we can freely use our property. This action by the city would justly restore our basic property rights.  

I can’t believe that anybody, least of all the leaders of Berkeley, would knowingly inflict this much distress on a middle-class family just trying to get by. I can believe that the Panoramic Hill Neighborhood Association would act this heartlessly, which is why I am appealing to the mayor and the City Council to please consider their vote on this issue. Please consider the effect it will have on me and my family, and please vote your conscience.  

Grace Gillies 

EDITOR’S NOTE: A commentary by the Gillies family on this same topic is posted on our website, www.berkeleydailyplanet.com. 

• 

SLANTED GROVE COVERAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please stop writing slanted and biased stories that sound ridiculous and one-sided. 

Your coverage of Cal’s efforts to create a great facility for student athletes, the university family, the community, the Bay Area and the general public overall has been horrible. 

Please remember what you once learned about journalistic integrity! 

Please report facts clearly. Please keep your opinions to your opinion page. I respect your right to have opinions. I understand that your target audience is the 1 percent of Bay Area residents that agree with your executive editor.  

But don’t you think it is irresponsible to say that your opinion is “news”? 

Cal will get the project built. The protesters are crazy and law breakers and they just want to have some fun at the expense of thousands of students who are now without scholarship money because of the costs from their stunts.  

Please at least report the “news” fairly! 

Anthony Wirth 

BIG PIG AND THE OAK GROVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Once upon a time there was a big pig who wanted to cut down an 85-year-old oak grove to build an athletic training center. The grove was part of a design by a justly famous landscape architect and is located next to a dilapidated football stadium that sits directly on top of a major earthquake fault. 

The big pig didn’t care what preservationists thought. The big pig didn’t care what the project’s neighbors thought. The big pig didn’t care about a city law forbidding destruction of this kind of endangered oaks trees or even a state law against building this close to an earthquake fault. 

The big pig didn’t care about what the City Council, ecologists, or Native Americans thought. The big pig didn’t even care about the oak grove being dedicated to the veterans of World War I. 

A judge has ruled mostly in favor of the big pig, although because of the state law the big pig may never be able to repair the football stadium. The big pig should perhaps think hard about the following question: Just because something is legal, does that make it right? 

After the judge’s ruling, the chief propagandist for the big pig said, “In the wake of this long and difficult litigation, we also look forward to working with our neighbors and the city on building a strong, collaborative relationship to address a broad spectrum of shared interests.” Those naive enough to believe him might want to consider the purchase of a certain bridge in Brooklyn. 

Michael Fullerton 

• 

AT RISK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While I sympathize with the mother who resented her child being labeled, unfortunately all adolescents in our area are at risk. I believe she is doing the right things in trying to get her children through the high-risk years, by encouraging them to volunteer, by giving them autonomy, etc. The fact is that random violence could take any of them, the lure of alcohol or other addictions could tempt any of them, and all the sick adult abuses in our society (drunk driving, etc.) could harm any of them. Keeping children isolated and “protected” from the larger community does not decrease risk, it merely limits the sources of risk. So, I applaud her and her children and their friends for doing what they can to improve life in Berkeley, for their courage in engaging with the world, but I hope she is realistic in knowing that there are no guarantees in raising children.  

Teddy Knight 

• 

WARM POOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On July 21 the school board approved a resolution to work with the City of Berkeley to relocate the warm water pool in the old gym on the Berkeley High campus. This poorly worded resolution sounds harmless, but it will further delay construction of much needed and already paid for classrooms for Berkeley High School. 

Kudos to Karen Hemphill for pointing out that it is illegal to declare the high school’s parking lot on Milvia Street (a site considered for the warm water pool) a surplus property. She was also the only school board member who asked why the old gym could not be demolished while the bleacher construction was going on, so that Berkeley High could begin to build the classrooms that should have been built five years ago. 

Ms. Hemphill’s comments showed conviction that the school board’s mission is to educate its students and not further personal political careers. Thank you Ms. Hemphill for your intelligence and integrity. The rest of the school board must stop relinquishing control of school district property to the City of Berkeley. 

Mayor Bates was too busy ignoring the inconvenient truths brought up by Ms. Hemphill to consider their import. His petulant behavior in promising to take the tennis courts (aka the BHS parking lot) for the warm water pool group was an embarrassment. He made no mention of the crowded conditions at Berkeley High, or the fact that teachers would have to pay for parking if the City of Berkeley took their parking lot, or the fact that declaring the parking lot surplus property is illegal. 

Anyone who thinks our Board of Education should act in the best interests of its students should bring this message home to our school board and our mayor. Mr. Bates apparently believes he can grab Berkeley High School property for small groups of people when thousands of students and their teachers are cramped like rats in lab cages. Mayor Bates claims to support reducing the achievement gap in our public schools, yet at the same time he obstructs Berkeley High School’s attempts to finally build the classrooms Berkeley citizens will be paying for until 2026. 

Maureen Burke 

• 

DONA SPRING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dona Spring was a great person and a great councilmember. She went out of her way to encourage and support fresh faces and familiar faces alike to get involved in local politics and activism. I’ll miss her calm insight and her principled stands. 

We should respond to her sudden passing by electing people who are as inspiring, skillful, progressive, and honest as Dona to her seat and to every city office that is on November’s ballot. 

Jesse Townley 

Five weeks after Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, the parameters of the 2008 presidential contest have been established. The battle will be waged in roughly 33 states and cost more than a billion dollars. The central issues will be gas prices, the economy, and Iraq. And, despite John McCain’s ineptness as a candidate, the race will be disturbingly close. 

Over the past 30 days, Obama has consistently led McCain by an average of five points in tracking polls: Obama hasn’t garnered more than 50 percent of the vote and McCain hasn’t topped 46. During this same period, McCain’s campaign has continuously made mistakes. Their blunders have varied in severity from McCain and his advisors suggesting that America’s financial woes are psychological—that we’ve become a nation of “whiners”—to the Arizona senator confusing Shiites with Sunnis. The only period when McCain avoided gaffes was during his ill-advised trip to Colombia and Mexico when he dropped out of sight. 

Since he won the Republican nomination in March, McCain’s campaign has raised less money than Obama. McCain’s candidacy has had no unifying focus other than his sacrifice as a Vietnam-era POW. Moreover, a recent poll found registered Republicans have less enthusiasm for their nominee than Democrats do for Obama. Considering all these factors, why is the race so close? 

There are two possible explanations. One is that the Obama campaign suffers from its own ineptness. Certainly they have yet to capitalize on McCain’s inherent weaknesses. When Phil Gramm, McCain’s principal financial adviser, described Americans as “whiners” because of their complaints about the economy, Obama referred to this in one speech and then let it drop; many observers felt the Illinois senator should have hammered McCain with the whiner remark, as well as his contention that our current financial woes are psychological. Since the Iowa primary, pundits have frequently complained that Obama lacks the killer instinct because he often fails to take advantage of his opponents’ gaffes—a characteristic that led New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to label him “Obambi.” 

Of course, Obama may appear lackadaisical because his advisers want him to bash McCain later, during the presidential debates, when more Americans are paying attention to the election. Or Obama may be waiting until he selects a vice-presidential running mate and give him or her the task of attacking the Arizona senator. Or Obama may reason that if he stays positive, while his opponent descends into churlishness, voters will inevitably reject McCain. Whatever the thinking of the Obama campaign may be, it would be a disastrous mistake to assume that because of his inept campaign McCain is going to disappear. Or that he is any less ruthless an opponent than was George Bush. 

What we know about the Arizona senator should make every Obama supporter nervous. John McCain is the prototypical “good old boy.” That’s good old white boy. He has positioned himself to represent both the Republican mainstream and its racist fringe. With his attacks on Obama’s character, McCain implies the Illinois senator doesn’t have “the right stuff” while McCain does because he’s sacrificed for his country—and has white skin. 

Despite his reputation as a “maverick” and “straight talker,” John McCain fits the mold of Bush-era Republicans willing to say and do anything to win. Over the last eight years he’s changed his position frequently. While it’s easy to dismiss many of his flip-flops as a calculated move to the right, some of his recent blunders had a more distressing flavor, suggesting McCain’s memory has failed to the extent he can no longer be trusted to speak extemporaneously—he’s liable to say anything. 

Nonetheless, McCain and Bush share more than similar attitudes about oil, the economy, and Iraq; they now have the same political philosophy. In 2000, it was George Bush who fooled the press and the nation by promising to be “a uniter not a divider,” an environmentalist, and America’s first MBA president who would restore dignity and honor to the White House. Now it’s McCain who’s repackaging himself as conciliator, environmentalist, and reformer; McCain who’s trying to dupe Americans. 

The Arizona senator has gotten away with so many campaign mistakes and outright lies because he has a long history of cultivating the mainstream media. Correspondents covering his campaign behave like groveling sycophants and typically ignore McCain gaffes and position changes. Many political writers are fans of big John and consistently give him the benefit of the doubt. On a 2006 episode of Hardball, host Chris Matthews explained why journalists constantly give McCain a break, “because he served in Vietnam, and a lot of us didn’t.” 

Despite his maladroit campaign and his association with an unpopular president, John McCain remains a formidable candidate. By retooling himself as a staunch conservative he’s retained the core of the Republican Party. By cleverly coded messages he’s picked up the racist vote. By manufacturing an image as a “maverick” and “reformer,” he’s attracted independents. And, he’s seduced key members of the mainstream media. McCain isn’t going away. He could win. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.

Water rationing strikes terror into the heart of the gardener. How on earth can one conserve water and maintain healthy plants? 

Recently I bumped into a gardening acquaintance who urged me to address this imminent problem. “Tell us what we should do!” she wailed. “I don’t know!” I wailed back.  

She went on to say that in spite of her underground irrigation system, installed at great expense, her plants were dying. Clearly there was a leak. She had it fixed eventually, at a cost of time, money, water and plants. 

As I listened to this story I realized I did have something to say. First of all, gardeners routinely tend to overwater. Watering is one of those things that tweaks our conscience. Like a religious ritual, it has to be done right or something awful will happen. So we overdo it, for safety. If it costs a lot, so much the better will we feel. 

Experts reinforce this by telling us that long, deep watering is crucial to plants’ health, regardless of the size of their roots. 

The truth is that many shrubs and trees will come through a hot dry summer with no ill effects and no water, even fuchsias if the water table is high. Mulching helps to minimize surface evaporation, retain moisture and regulate soil temperature. 

Secondly, irrigation systems of all kinds are expensive to install, fiddly to maintain, and constant in their capacity to break down. Unless one is farming acres, irrigation systems are a waste of time, money and water. Underground systems are particularly heinous. How can one tell if individual plants are having their water needs met in appropriate amounts?  

As for systems that are computer operated, computers can not tap a barometer, watch a weather forecast, or look up the National Weather Service, all of which help the human gardener to decide when and how much to water. 

One even sees automatic sprinkler systems operating during the rainy season. Municipal groundsmen are as guilty of allowing this as are private property owners. 

Irrigation systems often spurt water at the leaves of plants. Many plants are vulnerable to water-borne diseases, mold, mildew, viruses and blight. Their leaves should never be watered, just the roots. 

Irrigation systems love to water sidewalks. 

Are soaker hoses a solution? These lie on the ground curving around plants, attached to a regular hose at one end. The gardener turns on the tap at the other end of the hose and goes indoors for breakfast. Are we approaching the root of the problem here? Are we seeking quick solutions at the expense of common sense and a little energy? Soaker hoses can fail to deliver just as devastatingly as other irrigation systems. One authority gives them one year before they clog. I can confirm that, in my raspberry patch. Leaves turned crisp and brown in spite of what I wrongly assumed was soaking. 

There is one solution that is foolproof, and it will separate the dedicated gardener from the ornamentalist who would rather go to the gym than get down and dirty with a shovel. That solution is to hold the regular hose and direct the flow of water by hand, making sure it is going exactly where it is needed, neither too little nor too much. A soft mulch of organic materials (never newspaper or plastic) will help to retain water around vegetables as well as shrubs. If a sapling fruit tree needs water for its first two summers, the hose can be left to run for five minutes or so about a foot or two from the trunk, and then moved until all four main points of the compass have received the same amount. Test the soil a week later. If it is still moist 8-12 inches down, it does not yet need more. 

We all want our gardens to be lush and beautiful, but Berkeley isn’t the tropics. Every summer is drought time in this climate. And if we lose some ornamentals to genuine drought, we can replant with natives that have adapted to no summer rain. 

Sooner or later the rains will return, and someone will wail, what can one do about garden floods? I don’t know…. 

To understand the political maneuvering currently going on in Oakland, one has to take into account two events. The first is the possible pending federal indictment of State Senator Don Perata. The second is the upcoming 2010 Oakland mayoral election. These two elements certainly don’t fully explain everything, but leaving them out of your equations will leave you hopelessly confused. 

Of course, the epic battle—involving two of the three most powerful and savvy East Bay politicians of the past several decades—would have Mayor Ron Dellums being challenged by Mr. Perata for re-election to a mayoral second term. (The third most powerful and savvy East Bay politician, if you haven’t already guessed, is California Attorney General Jerry Brown.) 

But a Dellums vs. Perata campaign, as compelling political theater as it would be, is certainly not a certainty. 

For one thing, Mr. Dellums has not yet revealed whether he intends to run for a second four-year term. This is not just the absence of a formal announcement—which would obviously be premature at this stage—but also the absence of a signal to many of his close political allies and associates, one way or the other, of his future political plans. If Mr. Dellums knows at this point what he’s going to do, he’s not yet ready to tell. 

For his part, Mr. Perata has given off signals over the past several years that one of his goals is to run for mayor of Oakland, and 2010 would be the logical year for such a run, with Mr. Perata term-limited out of the California State Senate at the end of this year, Barbara Lee holding a virtual lock on the 9th congressional district seat, and no practical prospects of moving into any of the more coveted statewide electoral positions. 

A possible federal criminal indictment, however, would certainly put up a detour on Mr. Perata’s road to the Oakland mayor’s office, so let’s examine that for a second. 

For several years, federal investigators and a federal grand jury have been looking into allegations of corruption and kickbacks surrounding Mr. Perata’s state Senate office, resulting in federal law enforcement interviews of several East Bay officials, as well as search warrants instituted against Mr. Perata, members of his family, and some of his business and political associates. Reporter Robert Gammon of the East Bay Express, who has followed this story closely, has written that inside sources believe indictments in the investigation are imminent. That has led to a round of widespread speculation in the media about the possibility of the indictments, as well as a growing opinion in Oakland that the indictments will soon happen. 

There are several possible scenarios on how this could play out. 

If Mr. Gammon’s sources are wrong, and indictments do not immediately come in the federal Perata investigation, and the grand jury inquiry itself either comes to a deliberate end or gradually peters out, the entire affair might serve to Mr. Perata’s political advantage. He would be able to declare that his business and political affairs have been looked into closely by federal authorities, who could find no case for wrongdoing. 

The same would be true if Mr. Perata were indicted, but the indictments were quickly—by early 2009—thrown out by a federal judge. 

In either of these cases, a potential Perata run for Oakland mayor in 2010 would be little affected. Several media outlets would continue to run stories about allegations of Perata corruption, but local media outlets have been running stories of allegations of Perata corruption for years, with little demonstrable effect on the senator’s local political standing. 

What would kill Mr. Perata’s chances to run in the 2010 mayoral election would be a trial following a grand jury indictment. Any such criminal case and trial would probably be a complicated affair, taking up most of 2009, at best (from Mr. Perata’s point of view), and beyond, at worst. Even if he were acquitted, the acquittal would almost certainly come too late for Mr. Perata to run a winnable race for mayor in 2010. Under those circumstances, he almost certainly wouldn’t run at all. 

All of the above doesn’t completely knock out a Dellums vs. Perata mayoral race two years from now, but it certainly puts such a race in the “less likely” category. 

The possibility of an upcoming Perata public corruption trial may—and I stress the word may—be one explanation for the sudden Oakland City Hall interest in ethics investigations and legislation, something that does not seem to be fully explained by the Deborah Edgerly affair. Ms. Edgerly, you may remember, came under fire last month after an incident in which she briefly intervened while Oakland police were towing an automobile driven by her nephew. After it was learned that the nephew was one of the persons arrested 10 days later in the “Operation Nutcracker” busts of several individuals police identified as the “Acorn gang,” allegations began surfacing in the media that Ms. Edgerly may have “interfered” in a police investigation. Ms. Edgerly was initially allowed by Mayor Ron Dellums to announce her pending retirement, then suspended by the mayor, then fired after she reportedly refused to go along with a deal to limit her oversight of the police department during the last month of her tenure. 

Ms. Edgerly’s firing might have ended the affair—other than the reported law enforcement investigation into her involvement with her nephew’s arrest, an investigation which has been widely reported but never yet confirmed by any law enforcement agency. But the incident immediately aroused cries among some city officials about charges of nepotism (the preferential hiring of relatives) against Ms. Edgerly, and a coalition of City Hall officials—including Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, Councilmember Pat Kernighan, City Attorney John Russo, and City Auditor Courtney Ruby—began a well-publicized campaign to clean up Oakland ethics. 

All of this may be well-intentioned. It may be a political response to the Edgerly affair, which touched a nerve in Oakland. Or it may—and, again, I stress the word “may”—be an attempt by some of the office-holding participants, at least, to be on record as ethics champions when and if a Perata indictment comes down. It wouldn’t surprise me, since I’m never surprised when politicians act like, well, politicians. 

Meanwhile, if a Dellums vs. Perata mayoral race in 2010 has become less likely, who else might run? 

Myself, I wouldn’t count out Mr. De La Fuente, who has already run twice for the position (he came in a distant fourth in 1998, and second in 2006). Normally a double loss for a political office tags a politician with a “loser” label that can’t be shaken, but that may not be the case for Mr. De La Fuente. His losses were to two of the three most powerful East Bay politicians mentioned above (Jerry Brown and Ron Dellums), and in his 2006 loss he came close to throwing the race into a November runoff. His position as council president gives him a powerful platform on City of Oakland affairs, and so Mr. De La Fuente remains a possible mayoral contender in 2010. To contend, of course, he must maintain his council president position—which is not a foregone conclusion if Rebecca Kaplan wins the at-large City Council seat runoff in November—and must stay clear of any backwash from the possible public ethics indictment of Mr. Perata. 

Another possible mayoral candidate is Councilmember Jean Quan. In the runup to the filing for the at-large council seat this spring—being vacated by Councilmember Henry Chang—there was considerable rumor that Ms. Quan was considering running for the citywide council position as a stepping stone to the 2010 mayoral election. Whether the rumors of consideration were true or not—Ms. Quan did not run for Mr. Chang’s seat—it certainly generated a lot of discussion about the possibility of a Mayor Quan in Oakland. Ms. Quan is a relentless campaigner, and if she were able to combine any of the elements of the Perata fundraising and political endorsement machine with the powerful Asian-American fundraising network (most recently utilized by Assemblymember Wilma Chan in her unsuccessful attempt to succeed Mr. Perata in his Senate seat), Ms. Quan would be a serious contender for the mayoral position. 

Meanwhile, with no indication yet from Mr. Dellums of interest in running for re-election in two years, Mr. Dellums’ supporters are already looking around for a possible successor to lead the progressive/multicultural/African-American coalition that Mr. Dellums rode to victory in 2006. 

One possibility is 16th District Assemblymember Sandré Swanson, who was elected to his position in 2006 in a tough campaign against City Attorney John Russo, and then got no opposition in this year’s Democratic primary in running for re-election. Mr. Swanson is one of those rare politicians who has exceeded the expectations of his supporters. During the 2006 campaign, he promised to do something about bringing back local control to the Oakland Unified School District, which was put under state control in 2003. Probably only Mr. Swanson knew that he would keep that promise with such vigor—introducing OUSD local control legislation only moments after his swearing in for his Assembly position—or so successfully (local school leaders give Mr. Swanson full credit for being one of the main reasons why OUSD is now on the road back to local control). Mr. Swanson is currently one of the most popular politicians in Oakland, and would be the odds-on favorite to win the mayoral seat in 2010 if he could be induced to run, and if Mr. Dellums and Mr. Perata were not in the picture. While anything is possible, a Swanson 2010 mayoral campaign seems unlikely at this point. If Mr. Swanson stayed in the state Assembly for his full three terms, he would be on track for a powerful Assembly leadership position—possibly even Assembly speaker—for the 2011–12 session. Hard to see why he would give that up for the more difficult job of Oakland mayor. But, as I said, anything is possible. 

Another possibility—as well as another longshot—as a 2010 successor to the Dellums coalition would be Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. Mr. Carson once had higher political ambitions—running unsuccessfully in the race that initially put Mr. Perata in his state Senate seat—but has since settled down comfortably in his supervisor seat. It is as much a safe seat for Mr. Carson as any political office can be, and, on the county board, he makes decisions on some of the most important social issues of our time, including health care and incarceration. My guess is, it would take a lot to get him to run for mayor. 

Finally, there was an interesting Oakland political development last week. In the mail came an impressive Larry Tramutola-produced four-color campaign brochure, put out by the John Russo for Oakland City Attorney campaign, featuring the city attorney’s Neighborhood Law Corps and two campaign-style photos of Mr. Russo. What made it more interesting is that Mr. Russo was unopposed for re-election for the Oakland city attorney’s seat and, um, the election was held last month. Folks close to Mr. Russo insist he has no designs on the Oakland mayoral race in 2010. But there’s no such thing as a campaign brochure in a vacuum. It needs a campaign, for something. As I said, interesting. 

A rabid bat was found on July 15 in the Sonoma-Hopkins Triangle area of North Berkeley. According to Manuel Ramirez of the Environmental Health Division of the city’s Health and Human Services Department, it was identified as a California myotis, a common western bat species. 

Ramirez said his agency gets about one rabid bat report each year. Environmental Health staff have been going door to door in the neighborhood and distributing fliers to residents. 

“We want to make sure the public is aware of the need to take precautions,” he said. “We advise people not to touch or allow children or pets to come in contact with bats or other wild animals. If they see an animal acting in a peculiar way, they should call Animal Control at 981-6600. They should also ensure that their dogs and cats have the required rabies vaccinations.” 

In addition to bats, most carnivorous animals—skunks, ferrets, raccoons, coyotes, foxes, dogs, and cats—are susceptible to the incurable disease. So is the occasional horse. According to Ramirez, most of Berkeley’s rabid-animal incidents involve skunks. Rodents (squirrels, rats, and mice), rabbits, and opossums are unlikely to be carriers. 

Peculiar behavior might include daytime activity by nocturnal creatures like bats and skunks, staggering, or aggressive reactions to humans. Grounded bats should also be considered suspect. A bat with rabies is likely to be passive, although it may bite in self-defense. 

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that bats were implicated in almost half of U.S. rabies cases in humans, dogs in just under a third. But the incidence of bat-transmitted rabies is low, with only 48 confirmed cases in the last 55 years. The most recent human fatality in California occurred in September 2003, when a 66-year-old Trinity County man died six weeks after having been bitten by an unidentified bat. 

Rabies researchers consider the California myotis one of the three North American bat species most likely to carry rabies, along with the Mexican free-tailed bat and the big brown bat. It occurs far beyond California’s borders, through most of the American West. One of our smallest bats, the California myotis sometimes roosts in groups of up to 25 but is never as gregarious as the Mexican free-tailed. These bats hide out in crevices in buildings and under the bark of trees. Unlike other, more site-faithful species, they use the nearest available roost after their nightly round of insect-hunting. 

As a precaution, Environmental Health recommends bat-proofing homes and other buildings to prevent incursions, by caulking or screening openings larger than a quarter inch by a half inch, especially at roof level. The CDC suggests the use of chimney caps and draft guards under attic doors, and ensuring that all doors close tightly. Bat exclusion is best done in winter to avoid sealing in flightless young bats. 

Bats have their defenders, including Austin-based Bat Conservation International, the leading bat-advocacy group. On its website, BCI claims that dog attacks kill more humans every year than bat-borne rabies does in a decade, and that bee stings cause far more human fatalities than bats do. Putting up a bat house to attract the creatures is said to be statistically “safer than owning a dog or planting flowers.”  

BCI also points out that bats are the primary predators of insects that spread diseases and ravage crops and forests, to the tune of billions of dollars annually. Many species are declining because of habitat loss, and a mysterious disease called White-Nose Syndrome has been killing off hibernating bats in the Northeast. 

The recent rabid-bat detection is reason for precaution but not for panic. Just keep an eye on your kids and pets, and call the pros if a bat turns up in your house or on your lawn. 

On Feb. 4, 1904, the San Francisco Call published the following obituary: 

FAMOUS SOLDIER DEAD 

Captain McCleave, Major of California’s First Cavalry, Expires. 

BERKELEY, Feb 3.—Captain William McCleave, U.S.A., retired, passed away to-night at his home, 1515 Walnut street, at the ripe age of 81 years. 

Captain McCleave was born in the north of Ireland of Scotch-Irish parents, came to the United States to make his future and to California during the gold days to make his fortune. When the war between the States broke out he remained true to his adopted country and was the organizer of the First California Volunteer Cavalry. That cavalry regiment was not a complete organization and he took it into the war with a major’s commission. Later the contingent became a complete regiment and he was made its colonel and served in Texas with it. 

When the Civil War closed he entered the regular army and was in the Eighth Cavalry as a captain, in which organization Lieutenant General S.B.M. Young and Lieutenant General Adna R. Chaffee were both captains with him. He served on the frontier with General Miles and the famous Kit Carson and made an honorable reputation for himself. He was wounded in several Indian campaigns and in 1879 retired with the rank of captain. 

The deceased leaves a family, every male member of which except one is in the United States army, the one exception being Dr. Thomas McCleave of Berkeley. The others are Captain Robert McCleave, Lieutenant Edward McCleave and Private William McCleave. His widow, Mary Cook [Crooke] McCleave, and one daughter, Annie McCleave, also survive him. The funeral will take place on Friday morning at 11 o’clock from the home under the auspices of Berkeley Lodge of Masons, Lookout Mountain Post G.A.R. and the Loyal Legion, of all of which he was a member. Interment will be in the national cemetery at the Presidio. 

The early years of William A. McCleave’s life are shrouded in mystery, since the old soldier steadfastly refused to divulge details of his youth in Ireland. McCleave’s great-granddaughter, Judy Laws, relates that William immigrated alone to America in 1850, after having lost his wife and child to the great Irish famine. He disembarked at South Pier, Manhattan, and never looked back. When asked by his children and grandchildren why he had left Ireland, he always replied, “For good and sufficient reason,” snapping his mouth shut. 

Having crossed the continent to southern California, in October 1850 McCleave enlisted in Company K, First Dragoons, under the command of Captain James H. Carleton. In those early army days, his conduct could be unruly. In his book Kit Carson and the Indians, Thomas W. Dunlay relates that in 1853, McCleave and another dragoon “got seriously drunk at Las Vegas, New Mexico, and the Irishman defied the captain’s orders, saber in hand. Subdued, he was forced to walk to Fort Union tied behind a wagon.” Early insubordination notwithstanding, by 1860, after ten years of service, McCleave had proven his worth and was promoted to First Sergeant.  

In June 1861, now a former dragoon, McCleave was entrusted with delivering 31 Mediterranean camels from Fort Tejon to the Los Angeles Quartermaster Depot. The camels were part of a herd of 75 imported in the mid-1850s with the idea of providing cheap transportation in arid regions. They were never properly handled, and the experiment proved a fiasco. Three years later, the government would auction them off at a loss in Benicia, but for close to two months in the summer of 1861, McCleave was their chief herder in Los Angeles.  

While he was minding the camels, the Civil War broke out. Immediately after the first battle of Bull Run on July 24, 1861, the U.S. War Department authorized the formation of one regiment of California infantry and five companies of cavalry to guard the Overland Mail Route from Carson Valley to Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie. In early August, James Carleton—about to become Colonel of the First California Infantry—talked McCleave into accepting a commission as Captain of Company A in the First California Volunteer Cavalry.  

McCleave’s exploits in the Civil War are widely documented. In the fall of 1861, he established Camp Carleton near San Bernardino. The First California Cavalry was the first unit to advance into Arizona, and McCleave’s company led the advance. On March 6, 1862, McCleave and a detachment of 9 men were searching for Carleton’s dispatcher at the Pima Villages, west of Tucson. Having left most of the escort at a water hole, McCleave and two of his men knocked on the door of Ammi White, a Union sympathizer who operated a mill and trading post there. Unbeknown to McCleave, Captain Sherod Hunter of the Texas Mounted Rifles and his company had got there first and taken White prisoner. They now surprised and captured McCleave and his party. According to the Records of California Men in the War of the Rebellion, 1861 to 1867, published by the State Office in 1890, “After his capture, Captain McCleave proposed to Captain Hunter that he should be released, and allowed to fight his whole company with his nine men, which offer Hunter declined.” 

His escort was quickly paroled and transferred to another company, but McCleave was kept prisoner and sent on to Mesilla and later to El Paso. Upon hearing of his capture, Carleton said, “A whole staff could not compensate for the loss of McCleave.” Companies were dispatched to rescue him, but he remained in captivity for four months, until the California column reached the Rio Grande and taken Fort Thorn. On July 6, 1862, McCleave was exchanged for two Confederate Lieutenants. He returned his $582.50 back pay, arguing that he hadn’t earned it. Three days later, while en route to Fort Craig for supplies with two wagons, his small party was attacked by 60 or 70 Navajos. They lived to tell about it. 

On Jan. 12, 1863, Captain McCleave and a company of 20 confronted a party of Apaches at Piños Altos Mines, killing eleven. Five days later, McCleave was a major, commanding the three companies of the First California Cavalry, routing an Apache rancheria. In February, he established Fort West, north of Silver City, NM. 

In March 1863, a detachment under Major McCleave pursued a band of Gila Apaches who had run off 60 horses of the public herd at Fort West, NM. Twenty-eight Apaches were killed, and most of the horses were recaptured, along with many Indian horses. In November 1864, McCleave took part in an expedition under Colonel Kit Carson, attacking and destroying a Kiowa village of about 150 lodges. In his report, Carson mentioned McCleave first among the officers deserving the highest praise.  

By 1865, McCleave was commander of Fort Sumner, N.M. He was mustered out of the California Volunteers with a brevet to lieutenant colonel on October 19, 1866, already commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Cavalry. He was made first lieutenant in 1867 and captain in 1869. 

The U.S. census of 1870 listed William McCleave, 47, at Fort Stanton, N.M. Two years later, he married Mary Crooke (1844-1923), an Irish immigrant. Before McCleave retired in 1879, the couple produced four children—two born in New Mexico, one in Texas, and one in Missouri. Two more were born in Berkeley, where the family settled in 1879. 

They purchased four lots in the Antisell Villa Lots tract, subdivided five years earlier by Thomas M. Antisell, an attorney and real-estate agent who lived nearby (several years later, he would become a well-known piano manufacturer). 

On two of the lots, at 1515 Walnut St., the McCleaves built a large Italianate house. The retired captain briefly entered into the real estate business with John T. Morrison, but before long he was appointed commandant of the Veterans’ Home of California in Yountville (Mary and the children remained in Berkeley). 

In 1891, the McCleaves began construction of two rental houses on the remaining vacant lots directly behind their residence. These houses faced Oxford Street, a few doors north of Captain Boudrow’s house. They were constructed in the Queen Anne style that was the fashion of the day, and completed in 1892. The builder was Berkeley contractor George Embury. 

Thomas Crooke McCleave, the eldest of the McCleave children, attended Cooper Medical College (precursor of the Stanford University School of Medicine), graduating in 1896. Three years later he married Kitty Dobbins, daughter of Presbyterian minister and bookseller Hugh H. Dobbins. The other three McCleave sons went into the Army, while their sister Annie married Augustus F. Dannemiller, another officer, and mothered a second military dynasty. The sixth sibling, Mary, a teacher at Whittier School, died in 1903, six months after her marriage to UC astronomer Russell Tracy Crawford. 

Following the death of William McCleave in 1904, his widow began a peripatetic life, rotating among her children’s far-flung military posts. In 1908, Dr. McCleave, a noted milk sanitarian, built himself a shingled Arts & Crafts house at the top of Garber Street, in an enclave known as Monte Rosa Terrace. His house was one of a row of three designed by his good friend, George Taylor Plowman (1869-1932), who had assisted Daniel H. Burnham with construction for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago before coming to Berkeley to serve as the University’s Superintendent of Architecture under John Galen Howard. Plowman’s own house stood two doors down, at 2830 Garber Street. 

Mary McCleave died on board ship in 1923, returning from a visit to the Dannemillers in Honolulu. By the mid-1920s, the McCleave home on Walnut Street had given way to an apartment building, but the two rental houses on Oxford St. survived through subdivision. 1510 Oxford St., which served as a boarding house for a number of years, was purchased in 1994 and meticulously restored over the past two years. It was the recipient of a BAHA Preservation Award in 2008. 

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

There is, for me, no virtue greater than kindness. The world suffers for an inadequacy of this greatest of dispositions and today the world is a little more deficient for the loss of our friend Paul, who knew kindness as both student and teacher. 

Paul Mickiewicz was a mere 63 when he left this plane of existence (he would have said it that way, a very ethereal spirit, Paul) on the 12th of July. I will miss him very much, and I'm not alone. 

Paul leaves behind a life rambunctious in music (he played clarinet and sax), sailing and the repair of chimneys. A friend pointed out that all these things manipulate or rely upon the wind—I liked that.  

Paul was a bit like wind himself, so it’s no surprise that he was attracted to windy things. Paul wafted and occasionally flitted, as his extremely active and beautiful mind drew him from atom to mountain to galaxy. “Renaissance man” is not an inappropriate term for this lover of science and psychology. A psych grad from San Diego State and a former doctoral candidate here at Berkeley, he began college when, accepted to Rutgers, at the tender age of 16!  

The word “beatnik” keeps rolling up for me as I think of Paul’s life. Though Paul attended Woodstock with his buddy Ed Bergman in the summer of 1969, I will always consider him more a Beat in the model of Jack Kerouac, searching the road for some holy grail of freedom and deep purpose. This Merry Prankster even found himself a big yellow school bus that same year and ran an ad in the Village Voice exhorting fellow wanderers to come West for the promised new enlightenment (did we find it?). 

In 1984 Paul met Tansy Mattingly, a similarly psychedelic Berkeleyite. They married two years later (Marriage in Berkeley?) and, in 1988, brought forth the hope of the future in their child Miranda. Miranda was exploring Peru when she got the rotten news this last week. 

Leslie Prince, a criminal defense attorney in Solano County, shared near 10 years of Paul’s life in recent years. Leslie remembers Paul as a true free spirit and person of gentleness rarely seen in men. Paul was never afraid to cry or be touched by beauty. Paul also played a big role in the lives of Richard and Robin, her two children. 

Paul is described by many friends as something of a rebel (albeit a very quiet one) but always with a purpose. Though he played classical clarinet (with the Kensington Symphony Orchestra for 22 years as well as the Piedmont Light Opera, the Berkeley Opera and most recently with the New Millennium Strings), he was something of a risk-taker and a political dissident. His friend Lisa described the environment he created for a tiny Miranda and her tiny friends as something of a nightmare of the risk-averse including an indoor trapeze, ropes to swing by and just a wee bit o’ chaos. Naturally, kids loved it, as they surely did Paul. 

Bob Hood remembered the concrete hot tub at their house on Parker Street and the many bohemian soirees that I could not illustrate else surely fail the censors. Suffice it to say that Paul created a playground for adults and children leaving a mark that will not soon dull in the minds of those lucky enough to partake. 

Paul may be best remembered as chimney repairman extraordinaire, but the word is that Paul could fix anything. I, for one, sent hundreds of folks his way over the last two decades and I know I’m not alone in this. Paul managed thousands of repairs over the years despite a rather appalling case of Psoriatic Arthritis that had contorted his hands to the point where their utility was devastated and pain was a daily affair. The saxophones (yes, he played that too) finally had to go last year as a result and Tansy’s son, Abraham was a grateful recipient of at least one of these. 

Paul wasn’t always the best at returning a phone call but Paul was never a businessman. Poets don’t do voice-mail. 

He did have the rare gift for inventing the cheap fix and often resolved a chimney problem at a fraction of his competitor’s rates by simply rethinking the matter. He gave wonderful tutorials and anyone who ever heard Paul describe the building of a fire was the wiser and more gleeful for it. He was fun, smart and a genuinely nice man. 

In addition to daughter Miranda, former partners Tansy Mattingly and Lesley Prince as well as Leslie’s children, Robin and Richard, Paul leaves behind a sister, Susan Mickiewicz who will remember Paul as an uplifting and positive older brother who possessed the rare ability to play. 

For those who wish to share in a celebration of Paul’s life, an evening of remembrance will be held Sunday July 27, from 5-8 p.m. at the Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito.(510) 235-3646. Words or food can be brought to share. 

Donations can be made to the Kensington Symphony Orchestra (1335 Carlotta Ave., Berkeley 94703) in lieu of flowers. 

MONDAY, JULY 28 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Clay Eals discusses “Steve Goodman: Facing the Music” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Virago Theatre Company: Visions and Voices Play Reading Series at 7 p.m. at Crosstown Community Center, 1303 High St.. Alameda. Cost is $10. www.viragotheatre.org 

Poetry Express with Bradley Buchanan from Cal State Sacramento, and Alcie Templeton at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Downtown Jam Session with Glen Pearson at 7 p.m. at Ed Kelly Hall, Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Cost is $5. www.opcmucsic.org 

East Bay Blues Revue Benefit at 7:30 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, JULY 29 

THEATER 

Youth Musical Theater Company, “Into the Woods” Tues.-Thurs. at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8-$18. 800-838-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com  

FILM 

United Artists: 90 Years “Sweet Smell of Success” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Residency Projects Part 3” Works by Katsutoshi Yuasa and Richard T. Walker. Artists’ talk at 7 p.m. at Kala Art Insitute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Motordude Zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 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 

Hugh Masekela at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22. 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, JULY 30 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Summertime Visions” New works by Toby Tover-Krein on display at C'era Una Volta, 1332 Park St., at Redwood Square, Alameda, through Sept. 23. 769-4828. www.ceraunavolta.us 

FILM 

The Long View: A Celebration of Widescreen “Days of the Eclipse” 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 

Jess Winfield reads from his novel “My Name is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Shakespeare” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

“Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula” with author Jules Evens, at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Sounds at Oakland City Center with Eldridge “Big Cat” Tolefree, blues, at noon at 12th and Broadway, Oakland.  

Christopher Almada Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Rick and Yolanda at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. www.lebateauivre.net 

Orion’s Joy of Jazz with Pete Yellin, Craig Browning and Orion Edmondson at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Ric and Yolanda at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. www.lebateauivre.net 

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Karabali 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.  

Flowtilla at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Hugh Masekela at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 31 

FILM 

Hecho por México: The Films of Gabriel Figueroa “Days of Autumn” at 6:30 p.m. and “Macario” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Wendy Lesser examines the intersections between life and art in “Room for Doubt, Except in Regard to Mark Morris” at 7:30 p.m. at JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Annie Barrows reads from “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Country Joe McDonald Open Mic Night at 7 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. 843-0662. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Midsummer Mozart Festival Piano Recital with Nikolai Demidenko, at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley. For ticket information call 415-627-9141. www.midsummermozart.org 

AileyCamp “...ism” Young dancers from Alvin Ailey’s summer program perform at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Kaz George Group at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station, Shattuck at Center St. 

Sean Hodge with High Heat at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Richard Baskin Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Jake Blackshear Quartet, The Bridge Crawl, Settledown at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Saul Kaye, Jewish blues, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Fred O’dell and the Broken Arrows at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

The Django Festival with Dorado Schmidt and Larry Coryell at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 1 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “The Matchmaker” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., through Aug. 16. Tickets are $10-$12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Altarena Playhouse “Hay Fever” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 9. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Central Works “Midsummer/4” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through Aug. 24. Tickets are $20. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Kiss Me Kate” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through Aug. 3. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Subterranean Shakespeare “The Merry Wives of Windsor” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at The Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., through Aug. 9. Tickets are $12-$17. For reservations call 276-3871.  

The Wild Party Performances Fri.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Black Repertory Group, 3201 Adeline St. 652-2120 BWLEM@aol.com  

EXHIBITIONS 

“East Bay Regional Parks Wildlife: Past & Present” Photographs by Jeff Robinson on display at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park, through Aug. 30. Closed Mondays. 525-2233. 

“Present Tension” Works by Jerry Carniglia, Judith Foosaner and Ann Weber. Reception at 6 p.m. at Chandra Cerrito Contemporaty, 25 Grand Ave., upper level, Oakland. www.chandracerrito.com 

“Cycles in Nature” Sculpture using materials found in the natural world by Deborah Yaffe. Reception at 7 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 25th St., Oakland. Open Sat. from 2 to 5 p.m. 663-6920. 

“Rooted in the Bay Area” Works by Makhael Banut. Reception at 7 p.m. at The Compound Gallery, 6604 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. Exhibition runs to Aug. 12. 655-9019. thecompoundgallery.com 

“Accordion Dreams” Paintings by Julie Alvarado and “Slipping (Into Something)” paintings by Kathleen King. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Mercury 20 Gallery, 25 Grand Ave., Oakland. 701-4620. www.mercurytwenty.com 

“home bound” Mixed media paintings by dj whelan. Artist reception at 5 p.m. at Awaken Cafe, 414 14th St., Oakland. 836-2058. info@awakencafe.com  

“Toasting the End of Capitalism” Collage and photography by Maria Gilardin. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at NoneSuch Space, 2865 Broadway at 29th Street, 2nd fl., Oakland. 650-224-3108. annskinnerjones@yahoo.com 

FILM 

ITVS Community Cinema “Chicago 10” A documentary directed by Brent Morgan at 6:30 p.m., followed by discussion, at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Part of the Port Huron Project 5. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Sunset Cinema “Paperback Dreams” the story of two independent bookstores, at 7:30 p.m. in the garden of the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St. 238-2022. 

The Dark Cinema of David Goodis “Dark Passage” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Studio One Reading Series with Jaarrod Roland and Kaya Oakes at 7:30 p.m. at Studio One, 365 45th St. at Broadway, Oakland. Suggested donation $3-$15. 597-5027. 

Noelle Oxenhandler reads from her memoir “The Wishing Year: A House, A Man, My Soul” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Birdlegg and the Tight Fit Blues Band at 5 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

The Black Diamond Band, rhythm and blues, at 5 p.m. outdoors at Broadway at Water St., Jack London Square, Oakland. at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Glenn Miller Orchestra at 8 p.m. aborad the USS Hornet at Pier 3, Alameda. Tickets are $45-$95. 521-8448, ext. 282. www.hornetevents.com 

Alfredo Naranjo y El Guajeo, from Venezuela, at9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $16-$18. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Grace and Julian at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Grace Woods Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

A Tribute to Utah Phillips with Rebecca Riots and Hally Hammer at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10 and up. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Claudia Russell & the Folk Unlimited Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Emith, Mary Redente Duo at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Pat Nevin’s Ragged Glory in a benefit for the Jerry Day Foundation, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Slick 46, Harrington Saints, Leif Erickson at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

The P-PL at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Shawn Brown, R&B, at 9 p.m. at Maxwell’s, 341 13th St., Oakland. Cost is $10. 839-6169. 

The Django Festival with Dorado Schmitt and Larry Coryell at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $16-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 2 

CHILDREN  

Sandi & Stevie Sing Bug Songs at 2 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. For ages 3 and up. 524-3043.  

Puppet Show “The Adventures of Peer Gynt” Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m., 2 and 4 p.m. and “Aesop’s Fables” at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

Saturday Stories: “The Foolish Tortoise” Listen to the story, then create an art project related to the story, at 1 p.m. at The Museum of Children’s Art, 538 9th St., Oakland. 465-8770. www.mocha.org 

THEATER 

Port Huron Project 5: The Liberation of Our People a reenactment of the 1969 speech by Angela Davis at 6 p.m. at the original site of DeFremery Park, 1651 Adeline St., West Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Red State” at 2 p.m. at Willard Park. Free, donations accepted. 415-285-1717. www.sfmt.org 

Shotgun Players “Ubu for President” An adaptation of the plays of Alfred Jarry, Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkel Park, Southampton Ave., off the Arlington, through Sept. 14. Free, donations accepted. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Stone Soup Improv at 8 p.m. at Temescal Art Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph. Cost is $6-$9. 415-430-5698. info@stonesoupimprov.com 

Prism Stage “The W. Kamu Bell Curve” Sat. and Sun. at 8 p.m. at Pro Arts, 550 Second St., Oakland, through Aug.10. Tickets are $15-$20. 848-0237. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Wildlife Photography of Jeff Robinson” A slide show of wildlife photographs from around the world at 2 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

FILM 

The Dark Cinema of David Goodis “Shoot the Piano Player” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Sat.-Sat. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. All Fesitval Pass is $225. Group rates and specials for students and seniors are available. 925-275-9490. www.sfjff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Port Huron Project 5: The Liberation of Our People A reenactment of the 1969 Angela Davis speech at deFremery Park, 1651 Adeline St., between 16th and 17th St., Oakland. Sponsored by the Oakland Museum of California. 238-2200. 

Bay Area Poets Coalition open reading, 3 to 5 p.m., at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street, not in Lodge parking lot. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Duo Amaranto, in a concert honoring Julie Winkelstein, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 16. 

Glenn Miller Orchestra at 8 p.m. aboard the USS Hornet at Pier 3, Alameda. Tickets are $45-$95. 521-8448, ext. 282. www.hornetevents.com 

Gateswingers Jazz Band at 8 p.m. at 33 Revolutions Record Shop and Cafe, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

Mariachi Monumental de México de Juan Reyes at 8:30 p.m., panel discussion at 7:30 p.m., at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Frankye Kelly & Her Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Phenomenauts with Kepi Ghoulie Electric, Vic Ruggiero and The Secretions, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $110-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Anna Laube, Garrick Davis at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Geroid O’hAllmhurain & Barbara Magone at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kyle Athayde, trumpet, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Planet Loop at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Izabella, Sugar Shack at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Portraits of Past, Yaphet Kotto, La Quiete at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $10. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 3 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Red State” at 2 p.m. at Willard Park. Free, donations accepted. 415-285-1717. www.sfmt.org 

FILM 

United Artists: 90 Years “Broken Blossoms” at 5 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Municipal Band at 1 p.m. at the Lakeside Park Bandstand. Bring your beach chair and picnic. 339-2818. 

Kaz George Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Ron Thompson at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Kapalakiko Hawaiian Band, Regina Wells at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Tamar Sella and Shynell Blanson, vocalists, at 4:30 p.m. and Michael Coleman, Nick Lyons Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10 for each concert. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Po’ Girl at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Krum Bums, Verbal Abuse, Peligro Social at 4 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Mari Mark’s works, presently seen in a fine installation by Nicolas Ukranic at the Graduate Theological Union Library, are luminous encaustic paintings. Some are heavily textured, others reveal their smooth wax surface. Some are translucent, others appear opaque. They are open to free association by the viewer. They may suggest clouds, sand, rippling water, ploughed earth, heavy fog—everything from mountain ranges and deep canyons to bee hives and fingerprints. They can also evoke a sense of turmoil as well as a feeling of peace. A special luminosity seems to emerge from the material and the process employed by the artist. 

Many viewers want to know how a certain work of art was made, which is often quite irrelevant. In fact artists frequently do not wish to reveal the process. In Mari Marks’ encaustics the process is an essential part of the work. 

The paintings and studies were created by a slow, labor-intensive process using the organic materials of the earth itself. Marks begins each work by placing four to six layers of natural beeswax on her support. She then adds several additional layers of natural or pigmented beeswax, after which, using an engraving tool or scraper and powdered graphite, she engraves the desired pattern—rough or smooth deep or shallow—into the work, which is completed by the artist, placing it with slow hand movement under a heated lamp.  

Mari Marks studied life drawing with Richard Diebenkorn, when the latter taught at the University of Illinois, and, later with Elizabeth Murray. Over the years she has explored textured figurative work, made symbolic constructions and patterned nature paintings, until she arrived at her unique encaustics. Although she does not belong to any group or category, her work can be seen as related to Process Art, an international movement in which the creative process was the essential element of the work. These would include Joseph Beuys’ pieces, dealing with the experience of survival, Agnes Denes’ early Conceptual work, Richard Serra’s splashed lead sculptures, Evas Hesse’s serialized fiberglass works and Bruce Nauman’s linguistic games. Where Marks differs significantly from these works, called “Eccentric Abstractions” at the time, is that her art is palpably solid and the result of slow sequential operations. We are reminded of Alfred Whitehead’s saying that “Process and existence pre-suppose each other.” 

VARIATIONS: MARKS IN TIME 

Through Sept. 3 at the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ride Road. 649-2500. www.gtu.edu.

A young couple, forced to part, goes through mutual recriminations, put right by a knowing maidservant: “Give me your hands.” At the protest, “I don’t see much point in it,” she replies, “There hasn’t been much point in the past five minutes. Remember you’re in love.” And they do. 

There’s a lot of point to any few minutes of Moliere’s masterpiece, Tartuffe, but also much pure comedy and many transparent, purely theatrical vignettes like this moment of breathing space in a dense theatrical outpouring that can go from archly humorous delicacy to rough-and-tumble slapstick in a second. Sherri Young, founder of the African-American Shakespeare (and newly appointed to San Francisco’s Arts Commission) nicely directs her cast in Charles Edward Pogue’s choice new translation of the classic that played the court of the Sun King. 

“A less than pious con man bamboozles a well-to-do gentleman out of his fortune and his family.” Pogue’s script, besides filling that satiric bill, also brings in dark social circumstances in the background the necessarily discrete original only hinted at. “In these late civil troubles, I lost myself and my way,” apologizes Orgon, the duped gentleman, to his wife. “With countrymen and friends turning on each other, even the king went a little mad, and in the aftermath I felt a madness of my own.” And so turned to the con man, posing as holy, for religious solice. 

Orgon, played as something of a vain huggy-bear of a husband and father, trying to assert a passive-aggressive authority through his infatuation with the phony preacher Tartuffe, is presented well by Abbie Rhone, an old trouper, who tries to navigate around his unbelieving family—unbelieving in Tartuffe and in Orgon’s puffed-up discipleship. In Nicole Brewer’s Elmire, a lady of both gravity and passion, he’s more than met his match—as has Tartuffe—in the uproarious scene of a false seduction that almost backfires. “Prepare for ecstacy, Madame!” cries the monkish rake, while Orgon cringes in self-disgust under the parlor table. 

There are about a dozen players on stage, and all acquit themselves well, following the lead of the script in combining well-to-do airs with domestic tantrums. Of all in the household, the quick-tongued maidservant, Dorine, as played by Belinda Sullivan (whose voice is familiar from Larry Reed’s ShadowLight shows), strikes just the right note, truly Moliere, in light of America, and can whine, yell, or do a slow burn. 

That “Bible-thumping blackguard,” as Orgon’s son, Damis (a rambunctious Keita Jones) puts it, sad-eyed but grinning Vernon Medearis as Tartuffe, in clerical collar and tunic with crucifix, whether ordering Dorine to clean his flagellator or endeavoring to clean Orgon’s clock, does it with lewd deliciousness (“a delightfully deviant performance”), whether in tears and groveling on the floor, or crooning spirituals, as if to himself. 

The supporting players do well, too—even a small, but crucial role, Monsieur Loyal, the bailiff, is deftly handled with sly humor by Federico Edwards, unctious snapping open his frockcoat to serve a writ. 

Ari Fulton’s costumes are both sumptuous and straightforward, matching Paul Riley’s drawing room set.  

“The snake fancies my lady,” Dorine says, aside, after Tartuffe has employed his handkerchief to “conceal that heaving bosom of yours!” The hypocrite casts his net of reverse psychology wide, but can’t conceal his own depravity, in the end only using it as pious confession on the rebound. “Rhythmically comic”—and completely theatrical! Everything a pretense, a performance with an audience in mind, onstage or off—“a sin is only a sin when it’s known”—and Tartuffe’s impersonation of piety drives Elmire to duplicity, too, staging the fake seduction for a private viewing. As Dorine exclaims, “Ma-DAM !” 

TARTUFFE 

8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 3 at the and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton St., San Francisco. 

"Nudity can be a beautiful thing, Clara.” “Blimey! Perhaps me being a dresser has spoiled my eye for it!” 

When each member of an English family of artists invites a guest to come down from London for the weekend, the entertainment ranges from group parlor games, which quickly break down into furtive pairs escaping the group, to breast-baring conversations in those pairings, only reinforcing what Clara, the old backstage dresser standing in as housemaid, declares: when you’ve seen a lot of it backstage, somehow the onstage presentation loses its luster.  

But here it’s inverted: When what the guests have seen on stage is pressed upon them as being from the heart, the thrill of the first night begins to pale a little. 

Noel Coward’s 1920s comedy, Hay Fever, an ensemble show if ever there was one, is put on with panache at Altarena Playhouse, with a cast of nine—four ravenous and infighting family members and four increasingly gun-shy weekenders, plus the redoubtable Clara—directed by artistic director Frederick Chacon, all of them working together to make the pieces fit in a hilarious jigsaw puzzle of a pristine day in the country reflected in a sideshow mirror. 

Coward’s extraordinary ear for the offbeat foibles of casual speech sets up a field of simultaneous attractions and repulsions, each little particle starting out sparse, innocuous, if eccentric, in motion, then fusing with other innocent-sounding gaffes to gain a mass and specific gravity that bend light.  

At the center is the lady of the house, and formerly of playhouses everywhere, Judith Bliss (in a wonderful show of professional duplicity by Donna Turner—Judith’s duplicity, I mean). In yet another lull between bidding farewell to her public and another triumphant return to the boards, Judith seeks out single spectators and unwilling, but hypnotized, chamber audiences wherever she can find them, soaking in the praise, giving herself to her lucky public—then taking herself away. The poses she strikes are alone worth the price of admission—that is, unless you’re one of the unfortunates who must endure them close up, expected to applaud. 

Her two grown, yet quarreling, children, Sorel and Simon (Hannah Ward and William Irons) throw her lines or pelt her with distainful rejoinders. Judith’s husband and father to the spoiled brood, David Bliss (a fishy-eyed Englishman, as Fred Sharkey drolly plays him), is mostly upstairs, “undergoing a novel,” as Ezra Pound put it a few years before Hay Fever. And the guests, as if hand-picked to clash with the Bliss house denizens and each other, include a diplomat (Timothy Beagley), a morose little “flapper” (Jill Seagrave), a catty young lady of society (Lisa Price) and a passive-aggressive athlete (Aaron Pewtherer). 

Before long, the family members—when not reading each other out—have skipped out on their own guest to take up with another, only to be replaced by another predatory Bliss householder, eager to court, or hold court. “Do you suppose they know they’re mad?” a guest finally asks in dismay. “No,” replies the diplomat, “People never do.” 

The timing of the ensemble becomes as complicated in its own way as a Busby Berkeley floorshow. There’s a mathematical precision to Sir Noel’s survey of giddy imprecision. There are a few hilarious in-the-parlor musical numbers, all for extra-musical purpose, excepting the topper, when Clara, the temperamental dresser and maid, does a nice, perfectly offkey and meter-dumb “Tea for Two,” accompanied by the teacart, as she tidies up after the mayhem. 

With Judith leaping about from one heart-rending pose to another like an epileptic Isadora, no wonder a guest finally remarks, “Every time I open my mouth, I’ve been mowed down by theatrical effect!”  

“Her sense of the theater is always fatal.”  

But if Judith always steals the scene, nobody gets the final word, as the family coagulates into a happy, quarrelsome mass, with David reading them his finished novel (to constant interruption) as the guests give the slip. The closest to an explanation of the whole charade is perhaps that given by David, concerning his own: “The only reason I’ve been annoying is that I want to see things as they are at first, then to pretend to see them as they aren’t.” 

HAY FEVER 

Through Aug. 9 at the Altarena Playhouse 

1409 High St., Alameda. $17-$20.  

523-1553. www.alterena.org

Uh-one, uh-two ...” Not Lawrence Welk but Sir John Falstaff—or is that Geoffrey Pond of Subterranean Shakespeare in the outlandish tie and suspenders?—gives the downbeat, and accompanied by the unlikely tinkle of a toy piano, launches into “This Guy’s in Love With You,” with female chorus, to open Subterranean Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor in “new vaudeville” style, as directed by Katya Rivera, at the Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park. 

“If not, I’ll just ... die!” Mopping his visage with handkerchief, Sir John profusely thanks the audience, and then the fun begins, with perhaps Shakespeare’s most clown-heavy comedy sporting a gaggle of tackily accoutered funnymen to send up romance while unwittingly fostering it. 

Then the intrepid crew takes the low road with this least-honored of The Bard’s comedies, full of slapstick and silliness but following its delectible flights of language rather than the set-up of story and plot, letting that— characterization and the rest—issue from the intoxicating idiom as it spouts forth. 

There are dangers in doing it this way. The play, even judiciously cut as it is, runs o’er hill and dale, and it’s easy to lose the dynamics, accent and tone of the exquisite verbal flow—and once that’s gone, the rest follows suit. “It’s a real potpourri,” Pond said later, out of character but fondling his tie, “We wanted to play it quick.” 

The excellent duo sitting in as orchestra—Hal Hughes and Kevin Moore on aforesaid toy ivories, fiddle, kazoo, slide and train whistle and on guitars—adds a lot of tone and accent to the relentless comic outpourings. 

The ladies—Alexaendrai Bond and Rebecca Pingee as Mistresses Page and Ford—play it up as they trick Sir John into a nighttime tryst, sporting antlers, to take it out of him, as a band of mock witches and warlocks proceeds to do on cue. 

“Have you no suit against my knight, my guest cavaliero?” The troupe resembles a greasy print of lost Picasso saltimbanques in Bessie Delucchi’s’s costume buffoonery. Maggie Tenenbaum, in pink fishnets and green top with garish miniature parasol and squeaky voice, is Anne Page, courted by ardent Fenton (Caspar Brun) on a scooter, the true love interest, the one that gets away. She doubles in a rakish hat, assisting Mistress Quickly (Jean Forsman) in keeping the pub in an uproar of wine-bibbers and sack topers. 

“Methinks you speak preposterously, sir.” The revved-up braggadocio collides with trickery to produce nothing but folly by friction, whether with Falstaff hid among the linens in a laundry basket or Dr. Caius (Keith Jefferds) and Evans (Jim Colgan) tiptoeing into a fencing match. “Well, thou art a Hector of grief, my boy.” Stuart Hall as the nose-y Ford, disguised as Brook, and slicked-up Catz Forsman as Page are scheming husbands, Paul Shepard and Joseph Talley as Shallow and Slender are the old paying insipid court to the young, and Scott Lettieri essays a few of Falstaff’s hapless routines. 

With the gulling of Sir John, and a marriage (though not the one contracted) to certify it comic, the play ends with a touch of that bittersweet air that drifts above the verbal gales of Shakespeare’s choicest drolleries: “What cannot be eschewed, must be embraced.” 

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 

8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. $12-$17. 276-3871.

In August of 2006, Illinois Senator Barack Obama embarked on a diplomatic trip to Africa. Along the way, he made his first visit in 14 years to Kenya, birthplace of his father. Thousands turned out to see the would-be president wherever he went, and to his credit Obama sought to make the most of it, using every appearance to draw attention to the issues of the region.  

The trip was documented in a film called Senator Obama Goes to Africa. First Run Features recently released the film on DVD.  

A diplomatic trip is just that: a chance to hobnob and kibbitz with the people, with dignitaries and politicians. It’s a series of speeches and photo-ops, and for the most part that’s all this film manages to capture. As we’ve seen in the ensuing two years, Obama and his staff know how to stage-manage his appearances, how to harness the excitement he inspires, and this documentary captures that clearly if a little too faithfully. We see crowds cheering their son of a native son, we hear Africans opining on the greatness of the man and the impact of his presence, and then we see the man himself, in press conferences and one-on-one interviews, underlining for us once again his sincerity, his graciousness, his humility. The film comes across more as a campaign commercial than a documentary. 

There is only one voice that manages to break the hagiographic spell. Ellis Close, contributing editor to Newsweek, is the only talking head in the picture who expresses anything resembling a dissenting voice. Close goes beyond the press-release rhetoric and flatly states the political underpinnings of the trip, namely Obama’s need to establish a foreign-policy credential. That’s not exactly earth-shattering insight, but it provides some much-needed perspective on the event, helping to ground this otherwise giddy portrait in the world of politics. Close is essentially the only voice in the film that manages to puncture the Prodigal Son storyline with a bit of reality, pointing out the political benefits of the positions Obama adopts on his journey in an effort to establish credibility in the eyes of not only his African hosts, but for those back in the States as well. The film would have been greatly enhanced had it sought out more such voices, for the resulting portrait would have been a fuller, more revealing document about a candidate and a man who is far more interesting than his carefully crafted public image would suggest.

On Feb. 4, 1904, the San Francisco Call published the following obituary: 

FAMOUS SOLDIER DEAD 

Captain McCleave, Major of California’s First Cavalry, Expires. 

BERKELEY, Feb 3.—Captain William McCleave, U.S.A., retired, passed away to-night at his home, 1515 Walnut street, at the ripe age of 81 years. 

Captain McCleave was born in the north of Ireland of Scotch-Irish parents, came to the United States to make his future and to California during the gold days to make his fortune. When the war between the States broke out he remained true to his adopted country and was the organizer of the First California Volunteer Cavalry. That cavalry regiment was not a complete organization and he took it into the war with a major’s commission. Later the contingent became a complete regiment and he was made its colonel and served in Texas with it. 

When the Civil War closed he entered the regular army and was in the Eighth Cavalry as a captain, in which organization Lieutenant General S.B.M. Young and Lieutenant General Adna R. Chaffee were both captains with him. He served on the frontier with General Miles and the famous Kit Carson and made an honorable reputation for himself. He was wounded in several Indian campaigns and in 1879 retired with the rank of captain. 

The deceased leaves a family, every male member of which except one is in the United States army, the one exception being Dr. Thomas McCleave of Berkeley. The others are Captain Robert McCleave, Lieutenant Edward McCleave and Private William McCleave. His widow, Mary Cook [Crooke] McCleave, and one daughter, Annie McCleave, also survive him. The funeral will take place on Friday morning at 11 o’clock from the home under the auspices of Berkeley Lodge of Masons, Lookout Mountain Post G.A.R. and the Loyal Legion, of all of which he was a member. Interment will be in the national cemetery at the Presidio. 

The early years of William A. McCleave’s life are shrouded in mystery, since the old soldier steadfastly refused to divulge details of his youth in Ireland. McCleave’s great-granddaughter, Judy Laws, relates that William immigrated alone to America in 1850, after having lost his wife and child to the great Irish famine. He disembarked at South Pier, Manhattan, and never looked back. When asked by his children and grandchildren why he had left Ireland, he always replied, “For good and sufficient reason,” snapping his mouth shut. 

Having crossed the continent to southern California, in October 1850 McCleave enlisted in Company K, First Dragoons, under the command of Captain James H. Carleton. In those early army days, his conduct could be unruly. In his book Kit Carson and the Indians, Thomas W. Dunlay relates that in 1853, McCleave and another dragoon “got seriously drunk at Las Vegas, New Mexico, and the Irishman defied the captain’s orders, saber in hand. Subdued, he was forced to walk to Fort Union tied behind a wagon.” Early insubordination notwithstanding, by 1860, after ten years of service, McCleave had proven his worth and was promoted to First Sergeant.  

In June 1861, now a former dragoon, McCleave was entrusted with delivering 31 Mediterranean camels from Fort Tejon to the Los Angeles Quartermaster Depot. The camels were part of a herd of 75 imported in the mid-1850s with the idea of providing cheap transportation in arid regions. They were never properly handled, and the experiment proved a fiasco. Three years later, the government would auction them off at a loss in Benicia, but for close to two months in the summer of 1861, McCleave was their chief herder in Los Angeles.  

While he was minding the camels, the Civil War broke out. Immediately after the first battle of Bull Run on July 24, 1861, the U.S. War Department authorized the formation of one regiment of California infantry and five companies of cavalry to guard the Overland Mail Route from Carson Valley to Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie. In early August, James Carleton—about to become Colonel of the First California Infantry—talked McCleave into accepting a commission as Captain of Company A in the First California Volunteer Cavalry.  

McCleave’s exploits in the Civil War are widely documented. In the fall of 1861, he established Camp Carleton near San Bernardino. The First California Cavalry was the first unit to advance into Arizona, and McCleave’s company led the advance. On March 6, 1862, McCleave and a detachment of 9 men were searching for Carleton’s dispatcher at the Pima Villages, west of Tucson. Having left most of the escort at a water hole, McCleave and two of his men knocked on the door of Ammi White, a Union sympathizer who operated a mill and trading post there. Unbeknown to McCleave, Captain Sherod Hunter of the Texas Mounted Rifles and his company had got there first and taken White prisoner. They now surprised and captured McCleave and his party. According to the Records of California Men in the War of the Rebellion, 1861 to 1867, published by the State Office in 1890, “After his capture, Captain McCleave proposed to Captain Hunter that he should be released, and allowed to fight his whole company with his nine men, which offer Hunter declined.” 

His escort was quickly paroled and transferred to another company, but McCleave was kept prisoner and sent on to Mesilla and later to El Paso. Upon hearing of his capture, Carleton said, “A whole staff could not compensate for the loss of McCleave.” Companies were dispatched to rescue him, but he remained in captivity for four months, until the California column reached the Rio Grande and taken Fort Thorn. On July 6, 1862, McCleave was exchanged for two Confederate Lieutenants. He returned his $582.50 back pay, arguing that he hadn’t earned it. Three days later, while en route to Fort Craig for supplies with two wagons, his small party was attacked by 60 or 70 Navajos. They lived to tell about it. 

On Jan. 12, 1863, Captain McCleave and a company of 20 confronted a party of Apaches at Piños Altos Mines, killing eleven. Five days later, McCleave was a major, commanding the three companies of the First California Cavalry, routing an Apache rancheria. In February, he established Fort West, north of Silver City, NM. 

In March 1863, a detachment under Major McCleave pursued a band of Gila Apaches who had run off 60 horses of the public herd at Fort West, NM. Twenty-eight Apaches were killed, and most of the horses were recaptured, along with many Indian horses. In November 1864, McCleave took part in an expedition under Colonel Kit Carson, attacking and destroying a Kiowa village of about 150 lodges. In his report, Carson mentioned McCleave first among the officers deserving the highest praise.  

By 1865, McCleave was commander of Fort Sumner, N.M. He was mustered out of the California Volunteers with a brevet to lieutenant colonel on October 19, 1866, already commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Cavalry. He was made first lieutenant in 1867 and captain in 1869. 

The U.S. census of 1870 listed William McCleave, 47, at Fort Stanton, N.M. Two years later, he married Mary Crooke (1844-1923), an Irish immigrant. Before McCleave retired in 1879, the couple produced four children—two born in New Mexico, one in Texas, and one in Missouri. Two more were born in Berkeley, where the family settled in 1879. 

They purchased four lots in the Antisell Villa Lots tract, subdivided five years earlier by Thomas M. Antisell, an attorney and real-estate agent who lived nearby (several years later, he would become a well-known piano manufacturer). 

On two of the lots, at 1515 Walnut St., the McCleaves built a large Italianate house. The retired captain briefly entered into the real estate business with John T. Morrison, but before long he was appointed commandant of the Veterans’ Home of California in Yountville (Mary and the children remained in Berkeley). 

In 1891, the McCleaves began construction of two rental houses on the remaining vacant lots directly behind their residence. These houses faced Oxford Street, a few doors north of Captain Boudrow’s house. They were constructed in the Queen Anne style that was the fashion of the day, and completed in 1892. The builder was Berkeley contractor George Embury. 

Thomas Crooke McCleave, the eldest of the McCleave children, attended Cooper Medical College (precursor of the Stanford University School of Medicine), graduating in 1896. Three years later he married Kitty Dobbins, daughter of Presbyterian minister and bookseller Hugh H. Dobbins. The other three McCleave sons went into the Army, while their sister Annie married Augustus F. Dannemiller, another officer, and mothered a second military dynasty. The sixth sibling, Mary, a teacher at Whittier School, died in 1903, six months after her marriage to UC astronomer Russell Tracy Crawford. 

Following the death of William McCleave in 1904, his widow began a peripatetic life, rotating among her children’s far-flung military posts. In 1908, Dr. McCleave, a noted milk sanitarian, built himself a shingled Arts & Crafts house at the top of Garber Street, in an enclave known as Monte Rosa Terrace. His house was one of a row of three designed by his good friend, George Taylor Plowman (1869-1932), who had assisted Daniel H. Burnham with construction for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago before coming to Berkeley to serve as the University’s Superintendent of Architecture under John Galen Howard. Plowman’s own house stood two doors down, at 2830 Garber Street. 

Mary McCleave died on board ship in 1923, returning from a visit to the Dannemillers in Honolulu. By the mid-1920s, the McCleave home on Walnut Street had given way to an apartment building, but the two rental houses on Oxford St. survived through subdivision. 1510 Oxford St., which served as a boarding house for a number of years, was purchased in 1994 and meticulously restored over the past two years. It was the recipient of a BAHA Preservation Award in 2008. 

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

There is, for me, no virtue greater than kindness. The world suffers for an inadequacy of this greatest of dispositions and today the world is a little more deficient for the loss of our friend Paul, who knew kindness as both student and teacher. 

Paul Mickiewicz was a mere 63 when he left this plane of existence (he would have said it that way, a very ethereal spirit, Paul) on the 12th of July. I will miss him very much, and I'm not alone. 

Paul leaves behind a life rambunctious in music (he played clarinet and sax), sailing and the repair of chimneys. A friend pointed out that all these things manipulate or rely upon the wind—I liked that.  

Paul was a bit like wind himself, so it’s no surprise that he was attracted to windy things. Paul wafted and occasionally flitted, as his extremely active and beautiful mind drew him from atom to mountain to galaxy. “Renaissance man” is not an inappropriate term for this lover of science and psychology. A psych grad from San Diego State and a former doctoral candidate here at Berkeley, he began college when, accepted to Rutgers, at the tender age of 16!  

The word “beatnik” keeps rolling up for me as I think of Paul’s life. Though Paul attended Woodstock with his buddy Ed Bergman in the summer of 1969, I will always consider him more a Beat in the model of Jack Kerouac, searching the road for some holy grail of freedom and deep purpose. This Merry Prankster even found himself a big yellow school bus that same year and ran an ad in the Village Voice exhorting fellow wanderers to come West for the promised new enlightenment (did we find it?). 

In 1984 Paul met Tansy Mattingly, a similarly psychedelic Berkeleyite. They married two years later (Marriage in Berkeley?) and, in 1988, brought forth the hope of the future in their child Miranda. Miranda was exploring Peru when she got the rotten news this last week. 

Leslie Prince, a criminal defense attorney in Solano County, shared near 10 years of Paul’s life in recent years. Leslie remembers Paul as a true free spirit and person of gentleness rarely seen in men. Paul was never afraid to cry or be touched by beauty. Paul also played a big role in the lives of Richard and Robin, her two children. 

Paul is described by many friends as something of a rebel (albeit a very quiet one) but always with a purpose. Though he played classical clarinet (with the Kensington Symphony Orchestra for 22 years as well as the Piedmont Light Opera, the Berkeley Opera and most recently with the New Millennium Strings), he was something of a risk-taker and a political dissident. His friend Lisa described the environment he created for a tiny Miranda and her tiny friends as something of a nightmare of the risk-averse including an indoor trapeze, ropes to swing by and just a wee bit o’ chaos. Naturally, kids loved it, as they surely did Paul. 

Bob Hood remembered the concrete hot tub at their house on Parker Street and the many bohemian soirees that I could not illustrate else surely fail the censors. Suffice it to say that Paul created a playground for adults and children leaving a mark that will not soon dull in the minds of those lucky enough to partake. 

Paul may be best remembered as chimney repairman extraordinaire, but the word is that Paul could fix anything. I, for one, sent hundreds of folks his way over the last two decades and I know I’m not alone in this. Paul managed thousands of repairs over the years despite a rather appalling case of Psoriatic Arthritis that had contorted his hands to the point where their utility was devastated and pain was a daily affair. The saxophones (yes, he played that too) finally had to go last year as a result and Tansy’s son, Abraham was a grateful recipient of at least one of these. 

Paul wasn’t always the best at returning a phone call but Paul was never a businessman. Poets don’t do voice-mail. 

He did have the rare gift for inventing the cheap fix and often resolved a chimney problem at a fraction of his competitor’s rates by simply rethinking the matter. He gave wonderful tutorials and anyone who ever heard Paul describe the building of a fire was the wiser and more gleeful for it. He was fun, smart and a genuinely nice man. 

In addition to daughter Miranda, former partners Tansy Mattingly and Lesley Prince as well as Leslie’s children, Robin and Richard, Paul leaves behind a sister, Susan Mickiewicz who will remember Paul as an uplifting and positive older brother who possessed the rare ability to play. 

For those who wish to share in a celebration of Paul’s life, an evening of remembrance will be held Sunday July 27, from 5-8 p.m. at the Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito.(510) 235-3646. Words or food can be brought to share. 

Donations can be made to the Kensington Symphony Orchestra (1335 Carlotta Ave., Berkeley 94703) in lieu of flowers. 

MONDAY, JULY 28 

Underwater Week at Habitot Children’s Museum at 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $7-$8. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

Kensington Library Book Club meets to discuss “Persuasion” by Jane Austin at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Pacific Boychoir Music Day Camp, Mon.-Fri., for boys ages 5-9 at 410 Alcatraz Ave. 652-4722. www.pacificboychoiracadey.org 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group, for people 60 years and over, meets at 9:45 a.m. at Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave, Albany. Cost is $3.  

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 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. from 3 to 7 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

TUESDAY, JULY 29 

Diabetes Screening Drop in anytime between 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. at Savo Island Community Room, 2017 Stuart St. Do not eat or drink anything for 8 hours, with the exception of water, before the test. 981-5367. 

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 Briones Regional Park. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Little Farm Open House Join the naturalists and farm docents in crafts, songs and fun educational activities to learn about the farm, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Peach Tasting including nectarines, plums, pluots, and apricots, from 2 to 7 p.m. at the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Derby St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

“Away With All Gods” Discussion group meets to discuss pages 96-119 of the book by Bob Avakian at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

Green Living Project: Africa 2008 A mulitmedia presentation with Rob Holmes at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

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. 

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.  

Yarn Wranglers Come knit and crochet at 6:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

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 

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 Masonic Ave., Albany. 524-9122. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 30 

“Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula” with author Jules Evens at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

Summer Board Game Days from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

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. 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. 

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 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

Berkeley CopWatch Drop-in office hours from 6 to 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, JULY 31 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets at 7:30 a.m. at Au Coquelet, 2000 University Ave. Flammia@gmail.com 

Diabetes Screening Drop in anytime between 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. at Savo Island Community Room, 2017 Stuart St. Do not eat or drink anything for 8 hours, with the exception of water, before the test. 981-5367. 

“Growing Food, Growing Community: Food Access Through Urban Gardens” A panel discussion of the ideas and projects of the late Karl Linn at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Teen Book Cub meets to celebrate Harry Potter’s birthday at 4 p.m. at the Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue at Ashby. 981-6107.  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Three Beats for Nothing South Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Thurs. at 10 a.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, Ellis at Ashby. 655-8863. asiecker@sbcglobal 

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 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 1 

“A World Beyond Violence” CA 2008 U.S. Dept. of Peace Conference at UC Berkeley, Fri.-Sun. Keynote speaker Marianne Williamson at Wheeler auditorium. Conference cost $105. Call regarding sliding scale tickets. 527-6062. 

Introduction to Pilates at 10:30 a.m. at Elephant Pharm, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Fearless Meditation I at 7 p.m. at Center for Urban Peace, 2584 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Sliding scale fee $20-$30. 549-3733, ext. 3.  

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. 

Three Beats for Nothing Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Fri. at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst at MLK. 655-8863. asiecker@sbcglobal 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 2 

Summertime at the Ponds Learn about life in the ponds, then use nets to investigate this dynamic habitat, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Wildlife Photography of Jeff Robinson” A slide show of wildlife photographs from around the world at 2 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historic Park” Hear National Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin share the overlooked stories and contributions of the “Rosies” and other Americans on the Home Front during World War II, at 2 p.m. at Dimond Library, 3565 Fruitvale Ave, Oakland. 531-4275.  

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour: The Civil War at Mountain View Meet at 10 a.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. info@oaklandheritage.org 

Got a problem in the garden? Want expert advice on watering, plant selection, lawn care, or pest management? Visit the master gardener booth from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center Street between ML King and Milvia. 639-1275. 

Nature Detectives at the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center Discover the fascinating world of arthropods by exploring our channels, meeting a resident crab in our touch tank, and making a craft to take home. For 3 to 5 year olds and their caregivers, at 11 a.m. at 901 Breakwater Ave., Hayward. Cost is $5, registration required. 670-7270. 

US Tennis Association Girls’ 18 National Championship Aug. 2-10 at the Berkeley Tennis Club and the Claremont Resort, Tunnel Rd. at Domingo. www.USTAgirls.org  

Summer Board Game Days from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

LakeFest 08 A festival along Lakeshore Ave. in Oakalnd Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 834-9198. www.oaklandevents.net 

Port Huron Project 5: The Liberation of Our People a reenactment of the 1969 speech by Angela Davis at 6 p.m. at the original site of DeFremery Park, 1651 Adeline St., West Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Free Meditation Workshop at noon at 7th Heaven Yoga Studio, 2820 7th St. 665-4300. 

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, AUGUST 3 

Berkeley Rent Board Nominating Convention Help nominate a progressive rent board slate for the November election, at 4 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Donation $3-$10, no one turned away. 549-0534. 

Lazarex Cancer Foundation “Hope in Motion” 5/10 K Walk/Run, at 8 a.m. at Lake Merritt, 568 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $30-$35. 925-820-4517. www.lazarexfoundation.org 

Trash to Treasure at the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center. Get some creative reuse ideas as we turn our old and/or ripped pants into a small pillow, from 12:30 to 2 p.m. at 4901 Breakwater Ave., Hayward. 670-7270. 

Social Action Forum with Antonio Medrano on his work in Mexico for Amnesty International at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensigton. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to do a safety inspection, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring your bike and tools. 527-4140. 

Yoga and Meditation at 9:15 a.m. at Elephant Pharm, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

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. 

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. Also on Fri. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

ONGOING 

Summer Lunch For Kids & Teens from June 16 to August 15 Meal sites are located at various schools and community centers throughout Oakland and Alameda County. For information call 800-870-3663 for a meal site near you or visit www.summerlunch.org To make a donation see www.accfb.org  

Contra Costa Chorale is accepting new singers. Rehearsals begin August 25, at 7:15 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navallier Street, El Cerrito. 527-2026. www.ccchorale.org 

School Backpack Collection Drive Drop off new or gently used backpacks at Spenger’s, 1919 Fourth St.,during August, for a $10 dining certificate. Backpacks will be distributed by the Berkeley Boosters/Police Activities League. 845-7771. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Mental Health Commission meets Wed., July 24 , at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., July 24, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7410. 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., July 28, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5158.  

Zero Waste Commission meets Mon., July 28, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. 981-6368.