UC police located missing Rice University student Matthew Wilson in Dwinelle Hall on the UC Berkeley campus tonight (Wednesday), and are investigating him for theft of university property, according to the Berkeley Police Department and UC Berkeley police. 

Wilson -- a computer science junior at Rice -- was last seen by his roommate inside his off campus apartment building in Houston on December 14.  

His disappearance caught the attention of national media and prompted several non-profit groups to search for him. 

Wilson’s 2004 silver Dodge Neon was found parked on the street in a West Berkeley neighborhood in June.  

Police discovered Wilson’s clothes, some food and identity-change literature with his fingerprints on them in the car.  

Authorities did not rule out the possibility that Wilson, 21, might have left home on his own accord. 

Wilson’s mother flew to the Bay Area recently to conduct a search for him in collaboration with a Pleasanton-based search and recovery group. 

Although sightings of Wilson were reported in People’s Park and a few other places in Berkeley, police were not able to locate him. 

Officer Mitch Celaya, spokesperson for the UC Police Department, told the Planet that university police officers had come across Wilson after business hours in a classroom at Dwinelle. 

"We identified him as the missing Texas student and contacted Berkeley police to let them know we had located him," Celaya said 

“We allowed them to interrogate him. They want to hold him for psychological evaluation. As soon as the evaluation is complete we will bring him back and continue our investigation.” 

Wilson is currently being held at the Berkeley Police Department. 

Celaya said Wilson had been found just before 7 p.m. in the classroom with his computer hooked to a video utility box. 

“We have a criminal case against him for possession of stolen university utilities,’ he said. 

According to a press release from the Berkeley Police Department, Wilson was dressed in a black t-shirt, black jeans and black athletic shoes.  

He had short hair and no beard and was wearing wire framed glasses. 

Rice University and Wilson’s family have been notified, police said. 

Berkeley police said a detective was interviewing Wilson to find out what he has been doing for the past 8 months. 

Contra Costa County Public Health Director Wendel Brunner and three state officials will present a draft public health assessment of Richmond’s Campus Bay site during a public meeting Thursday night. 

Brunner and Dr. Rick Kreutzer, chief of Environmental Health Investigations Branch of the California Department of Health Services (DHS) and DHS chemist Dr. Marilyn Underwood will make their presentation to the community group advising the state on toxic sites cleanup in southeast Richmond.  

Campus Bay is the site planned for private development atop a buried mountain of spoils from a century of chemical manufacturing that took place on the site. 

The Community Advisory group advising the state Department of Toxic Substances Control—which is overseeing cleanup operations at the site—will meet starting at 6:30 p.m. in city council chambers at the temporary city hall, 1401 Marina Way South. 

CAG and community members urged the state to look into the adverse health impacts that may have arisen during the plant’s operation and the subsequent and controversial cleanup under the aegis the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

A bomb scare forced evacuation of Bayer employees in West Berkeley Wednesday morning, ending only after the Berkeley bomb squad blasted a suspicious suitcase with water and found nothing but papers inside. 

Department spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said a Bayer security guard called police at 10:03 a.m. after a report of the case, which was left near the base of a light pole on Seventh and Parker Streets. 

“Bayer security evacuated several buildings closest to the case,” Sgt. Kusmiss said, and Berkeley officers blocked off Seventh Street in both directions while three members of the explosive ordinance detail donned their bomb suits and x-rayed the suitcase. 

Even though the x-rays didn’t indicate the presence of an explosive device, officers used a high-pressure water device to “disrupt” the case and its contents. 

“We don’t like to take any chances, and Bayer has some controversy in its history,” Sgt. Kusmiss said. 

Once the water had done its job, officers “determined there was no explosive material,” she said. 

Traffic was resumed as officers cleared the scene at 1:41 a.m. and Bayer employees were allowed to return to their jobs.

Four people who did not have 20 valid signatures on their nomination forms, as required by state law, were disqualified from running in Berkeley’s 2008 municipal elections Monday, city officials said. 

The deadline for filing nomination papers for Berkeley’s November 2008 municipal elections expired at 5 p.m. Friday but is extended to Wednesday for three offices whose incumbents are not running for re-election.  

Incumbent Jesse Arreguin—who is running for the late councilmember Dona Spring’s District 4 seat—will not be running for re-election to the Rent Stabilization Board.  

District 6 councilmember Betty Olds’ seat is also up for grabs since Olds is retiring after serving 15 years on the City Council.  

Three-term incumbent Joaquin Rivera opted out of a bid for re-election to the Berkeley Board of Education this year.  

Mark Numainville, acting deputy city clerk, told the Planet that several prospective candidates had been disqualified since their nomination papers lacked 20 valid signatures. Tree-sit supporter Zachary RunningWolf and 2008 UC Berkeley graduate Sam Alcabes, both of whom were hoping to run for mayor, and Mary Rose “Redwood Mary” Kaczorowski and Michael McBride, both of whom intended to run for City Council, have had to drop out of the race.  

“When you run for office you circulate a nomination paper on which you collect no more than 30 signatures,” he said. 

“20 of those must be registered voters.” 

Mayor  

RunningWolf had only 18 valid signatures on his nomination form and Alcabes 19, which disqualified the two of them from the mayoral race. 

Denis McComb also dropped out of the race Friday when he did not turn in his nomination papers, leaving incumbent Mayor Tom Bates and and former mayor Shirley Dean still running. 

District 2  

Two-term incumbent Councilmember Darryl Moore is running for re-election this year against Jon Crowder. 

Michael McBride, who filed nomination papers Friday, was disqualified on Monday when the registrar’s office determined he had only 18 valid signatures on his nomination form. 

District 3  

Incumbent Councilmember Max Anderson is running unchallenged for his District 3 seat.  

District 4  

Mary Rose “Redwood Mary” Kaczorowski was disqualified from the District 4 race because she had only 17 valid signatures.  

Attorney Jerry Threet dropped out of the District 4 race Friday, leaving current rent board chair and Kriss Worthington aide Jesse Arreguin, former school board president and retiree Terry Doran, local activists LA Wood and Asa Dodsworth, and N’Dji Jockin to battle in a crowded race for a council seat formerly occupied by Dona Spring.  

District 5  

Attorney and King Middle School PTA president Sophie Hahn will be the only person appearing on the ballot to oppose incumbent realtor Laurie Capitelli. Jason Ira Majid dropped out of the race Friday.  

School Board  

Berkeley Unified School District parent Priscilla Myrick joined the race for school board director last week after turning in her nomination papers along with School Board President John Selawsky and Berkeley High parent Beatriz Levya-Cutler Friday.  

District 6, school and rent board candidates have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to file their nomination forms.  

While Berkeley has been going through a highly public confrontation over expansion of its University of California campus, a similar dispute has ended in Santa Cruz. 

Both disputes featured litigation by outraged citizens, joined by local governments worried about the impacts of growth on city citizens and services. 

And in both cases, tree-sitters took to the branches in protest of specific projects and have vowed to stay aloft, regardless of any real or prospective settlements on the ground below. 

But while city governments have signed off on both settlements—the Berkeley accord resulting in the ongoing downtown planning process still underway—citizen litigants in Berkeley aren't signing off, unlike their counterparts to the south. 

UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal hailed the settlement in a written statement Saturday as a “historic agreement” reached by the campus, the UC Board of Regents, the Santa Cruz city and county governments, the Coalition to Limit University Expansion (CLUE) and 11 citizens who had signed on as individual litigants. 

Blumenthal said he expected all parties to sign off this week. 

“The agreement is good for the campus and good for Santa Cruz,” he said, allowing the university “to meet its mission of teaching, research and public service. . .and includes mutually enforceable measures to address traffic impacts, conserve water, and provide housing for new students.” 

Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty hailed the agreement as a major victory for local government and the public, and praised Blumenthal for spending thousands of hours personally in negotiation with the litigants. 

“It all boils down to housing, water and traffic,” said the mayor.  

Among the terms of the settlement are: 

• The university agreed to house two-thirds of all new enrollments on campus, and “if they don’t, they have to stop growing,” Coonerty said, a feature of the settlement that is better than any previous agreement between a UC campus and its host city. “In other agreements, the university merely promises to make its best effort. Here, if they don’t, they have to stop growing.” 

• Water-use and traffic impacts had been major sore points with the city and county, in part because when the university located in the city in 1966, it received contracts that allowed them unlimited water use and no limits on traffic, the mayor said. 

In the settlement, the university agreed to cut back water use by 30 million gallons a year and to pay a water systems development surcharge for every 85,000 gallons above the reduced figure. The city will receive about $12 million in payments for water system infrastructure improvements, and another $4 million in related water use payments, he said. 

• The university also agreed to pay a traffic impact fee for each additional car trip generated up to 3,900 new trips, with the fee tripling for each new trip above the limit. The university will also pay more than $500,000 for development of alternative transit. 

• Another significant aspect of the agreement is a requirement that the university will have to submit all its applications for sewer and water services for the north campus area to the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), and if the university moves against LAFCO’s findings the city, county and citizen litigants are free to take legal action. 

Tim Fitzmaurice, a writing instructor at the university and a former city councilmember who is again running for that office, said he is reserving comment on the settlement until he has had more time to review the terms. 

Calls to the Santa Cruz city attorney’s office and the university’s public information office requesting copies of the settlement were not returned by the time this article was ready for posting on the Daily Planet website. 

Tree-sitters wary 

In his statement celebrating the settlement, Blumenthal said the accord would enable the campus to “proceed with construction of the important Biomedical Sciences building.” 

It was plans to build that structure at the site of an existing grove of redwoods that had sparked Santa Cruz tree-sitters to take to the branches last Nov. 7, said Jennifer Charles, media representative for the Santa Cruz tree-sitters. 

But the approach of campus police in that city has, with one notable exception, been gentler than that taken by their counterparts on the Berkeley campus, she said. 

And while the Berkeley campus won a Superior Court injunction legally barring anyone from aiding or joining in the protest in the grove west of Memorial Stadium, in Santa Cruz only six people are barred from the redwood grove, each of them by name. None of those actually occupying the branches were named, thanks to the anonymity they have been able to maintain. 

Charles had been one of those initially named, “but I won my lawsuit against the university and I am allowed to be anywhere” in the grove of redwoods on Science Hill that the protest seeks to protect, she said. 

The southern tree-sit is also of shorter duration, beginning on last Nov. 7 while the Berkeley protest was 619 days old as of Monday. 

The Santa Cruz protests have resulted in far fewer arrests than in Berkeley. “The last one I can recall was in January,” Charles said, when campus officers pepper-sprayed supporters who were trying to resupply the tree-sitters. In December, campus authorities said individuals with their faces covered by bandanas in Santa Cruz sliced tires of vehicles used by the commercial arborist firm from Watsonville hired by both campuses in their efforts to isolate the protesters. 

In Berkeley, one tree-sit supporter was arrested Thursday after he refused an order by campus police the leave the median strip dividing Piedmont Avenue west of the stadium, said Zachary Running Wolf, who was the first to take to the branches on the day of the Big Game in 2006. 

Berkeley suits 

While the litigation battles in Santa Cruz may be nearing an end, two separate tracks of legal action are underway that target Berkeley’s expansion plans. 

In the highest-profile case, lawyers for the Panoramic Hill Association, the California Oak Foundation and a group of Berkeley citizens are appealing an Alameda County Superior Court ruling that could clear the way for construction of the four-level gym and office complex the university plans for the site now occupied by the stadium grove. 

That lawsuit targets the university’s Southeast Campus Integrated Projects agenda which includes the gym, renovations and expansion of the stadium itself and an underground parking facility planned for the eastern side of Piedmont, along with other construction projects on the western side. 

(See the accompanying story, “Court Says Appeal Must Wait for Final Trial Court Judgment; Injunction in Place At Least Until Aug. 25”) 

The second suit targets the university’s Long Range Development Plan 2020. 

The city, originally a party to the litigation, settled, but another citizens group—Berkeleyans for a Livable University Environment—is appealing the case to the Court of Appeal. 

An argument on that case has been set for Aug. 19. Among the litigants in that action is Anne Wagley, calendar and arts editor at the Daily Planet. 

Median challenge 

Meanwhile campus police are continuing their gradual territorial expansion aimed at reducing the footprint of the Berkeley tree-sit supporters. 

After requests to City of Berkeley police and administrators asking them to evict supporters from the Piedmont Avenue median strip, campus police have begun to force them out, said Running Wolf. 

The supporters initially occupied the grove itself, until the university surrounded the site with first one, and then two chain-link fences, topped with barbed wire. 

The university then extended its perimeter, blocking off the sidewalk on the eastern side of Piedmont between International House and Maxwell Family Field. 

The move against the median follows declarations by university spokesperson Dan Mogulof charging that faculty, students and groundskeepers were tired of cleaning up feces and that police were concerned sleeping protesters might roll over from the sloping median into traffic and be hit by passing cars. 

While Berkeley police said they weren’t interested in enforcing the law that gave them authority to clear the median, they also stated on the record that “we have the authority to do what needed to be done,” Mogulof said Monday. 

But while each perimeter move put supporters farther from the tree-sitters, expanding the perimeter simply makes it easier to breach said Running Wolf, who added that “we can get in there anytime we want.”  

More than 100 local activists, city officials and community members—some in wheelchairs—paid homage to Dona Spring, one of Berkeley’s most beloved public figures, at a memorial gathering at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park Sunday. 

Those who spoke at the afternoon event remembered not just Councilmember Spring’s intelligence, compassion and wit but also stories they had previously not shared with anyone. 

Spring, 55, died due to complications from rheumatoid arthritis on July 13. Her council seat will remain vacant until the November municipal elections. 

Dona’s mother, Paula Althoff, remembered her as an avid skier during her high school days in Grand Lake, Colorado, where the majestic Rockies and the open prairies inspired her life-long love of the outdoors. Spring, her mother said, was an “all-American girl” —a good student and a prize-winning athlete. 

Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Linda Maio remembered the spunky visionary behind the city’s I-80 pedestrian bridge, her numerous cutting-edge City Council items, her commitment to her constituents and her attention to detail. Spring, they said, was an environmentalist who was “truly green” before it was trendy; a progressive who was “unabashedly spiritual before it was admitted in polite company that progressives could be spiritual.” 

Little-known facts about Spring’s battle with rheumatoid arthritis came to light when her partner Dennis Walton recounted the time she almost died in March 2006 and lost the use of one of her eyes. 

“She was hanging on for dear life from then on,” Walton said. “In the theater of pain, Dona was an accomplished actress.” 

Walton’s brief speech brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience, some of whom wore pink—Spring’s favorite color. 

“When Dona was born, I thought she was the cutest little baby,” Althoff said. “She loved animals—the kittens, the dogs, the puppies that we had over the years. Someone once traced our family tree all the way back to mayor Dick Whittington of London, who had a cat. It might benefit anyone in their quest for political office to go to the animal shelter and pick up a cat or a dog.” 

The audience broke into laughter and applause at the last sentence. 

“But most of all she loved the City of Berkeley with its climate of free speech and the political activism,” Althoff said. “I was proud of her five successful campaigns for the District 4 City Council seat. She once took a controversial political stand for which she received a death threat. But I think she was right.” 

Spring was elected to the City Council in 1993. She was re-elected in November 2006 with 71 percent of the vote. 

In a statement honoring Spring, Congresswoman Barbara Lee described her as the epitome of Berkeley’s activism, defending the disabled, the downtrodden and the meek. 

“She was undaunted by big power,” Maio said. “It didn’t matter to her what power it was. We all knew how courageous she was. When Dona started fighting for the I-80 bridge, I thought it would never happen but she doggedly pursued it until one day I was present at the groundbreaking.” 

Spring’s close friends and acquaintances at the memorial included San Francisco supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, Berkeley Board of Education President John Selawsky, her campaign treasurer Sara Shumer and the many caregivers without whom she could not have survived every day. 

“For the past 27 years, I have had the great privilege to be Dona’s companion and primary caregiver but in recent years it would not have been possible without a team of caregivers,” Walton acknowledged. “Dona did not want the public to know of her pain. She was becoming increasingly quadriplegic but could still remember names and faces to an uncanny detail. She would tell me ‘could you call so and so and tell them such and such at this number’ even if she hadn’t met the person in 10 years. She loved life to the fullest and although she had many fears, she refused to let any of those stop her. Of course she was not perfect, no saint is.” 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz announced during the event that Mayor Tom Bates—who was absent—had decided to name Berkeley’s animal shelter after Spring. 

“Dona dreamt big but also dealt with the day-to-day stuff,” said Kamlarz, who spoke on behalf of city staff. 

“She probably had more requests for neighborhood services than any other councilmember in the city, whether it was traffic disputes or taking care of services for the elderly and the disabled. Today we finally have a site for the city’s animal shelter because of her.” 

The ceremony concluded with the rendition of “Amazing Grace” by Spring's friend Anna de Leon. 

The Second District Court of Appeal reversed itself and ruled Friday that parents in California had the right to homeschool their children even if they lacked teaching credentials under state law. 

The 44-page page ruling declared that “California statutes permit homeschooling as a species of private school education.” 

The court ruled Feb. 28 that the state’s compulsory education law mandated that parents send their children to a public or private school or have them taught by credentialed teachers at home, alarming thousands of parents who homeschool their children and creating an outcry among homeschooling advocates. 

“I am pleased that the courts have clarified the right of California parents to homeschool their children,” state schools chief Jack O’Connell said in a statement Friday. 

“I have respected the right of parents to make educational decisions they feel are in the best interest of their children. As head of California’s public school system, it would be my wish that all children attend public school, but I understand that a traditional public school environment may not be the right setting for each and every child. I would point out that within California’s education system there are many options available, from independent study to charter schools to non-classroom-based programs.” 

O’Connell added that he recognized and understood the consternation that the earlier court ruling caused for many parents and associations involved in homeschooling.  

“It is my hope that today’s ruling will allay many of those fears and resolve much of the confusion,” he said. “I also appreciate the caution and concern taken by the court to protect children when their safety becomes an issue.” 

Berkeley Board of Education President John Selawsky said he was not surprised by the decision. 

“I expected that’s what the courts would rule,” he said. “That’s all I can say at this point.” 

Selawsky said there were a number of parents in Berkeley who homeschooled their children, and some of them signed up with Berkeley Unified and followed its curriculum. 

Parents can homeschool children by enrolling them in a home study program through a local school district or charter school which then assigns a teacher to supervise the child.  

Those with credentials can teach their children at home and those without teaching credentials can opt to start their own private school or enroll them in an already established private school.  

Diane Flynn Keith, director of Bay Area-based Homefires, an online resource for parents who homeschool their kids, said she was delighted by the news. 

Keith homeschooled both her sons for 16 years by starting her own private school and now advises parents about how to teach their children at home. 

“I pulled my first son out of first grade to homeschool him because I thought it would be better for him than the school system,” she said. “I was not satisfied by how business was being conducted at his private school. And my younger son never went to school.” 

Keith said she was delighted by the ruling. 

“It leaves homeschooling exactly where it belongs—that is, legal in the state of California without any kind of restraint or interference form the government. I am a little disappointed the ruling said there should be some kind of legislation to define homeschooling. In doing that, regulations and restrictions might impede parents from teaching kids in the best possible way.” 

Currently homeschooling is not defined in the California Education Code. 

Keith said there were a number of homeschool groups near Berkeley, such as the Alameda Oakland Home Learners, the Baywood Learning Center in the Oakland Hills and Nurture Explorers of the East Bay. 

Kristen Olmes with the Alameda Oakland Home Learners told the Planet she had homeschooled all three of her children for 10 years. 

“My youngest son is 16 now and is going to join community college,” Olmes said. 

AC Transit says it wants to get community feedback on the re-engineered Van Hool buses soon to go out on local routes, but the timing of the district’s public input process appears to make it unlikely that any suggestions or criticisms will come in time to have much effect on the buses’ manufacture. 

In a controversial deal that was widely reported in the Daily Planet last year, AC Transit is buying 66 modified 30- and 40-foot buses from the Belgian-based Van Hool company, partly in connection with a complicated arrangement in which the district is selling off 16 early-retired buses manufactured by North American Bus Industries (NABI). 

The new buses have several design changes from the current Van Hool buses being operated by the district, put in place after the district received widespread criticism of the Van Hools’ original design. 

A prototype of the new 40-footers was delivered to AC Transit in mid-June, and the district made the new bus available for community inspection and walk-throughs at its June 11 board meeting. But the prototype has been largely invisible since then, with staff members telling reporters in late June that there were no plans in place at the time to display the prototype in other parts of the community, or to put it in service on any of the district’s bus lines so that riders could see the changes. 

The prototype delivery and beginning of bus manufacturing had originally been scheduled for April. 

At Wednesday night’s AC Transit board meeting, staff members said that the prototype 40-foot Van Hool was now being put in operation on the district’s 51 line exclusively. That line runs from downtown Oakland to downtown Berkeley on Broadway and College Avenue. AC Transit Marketing and Communications Director Jamie Levin said that the bus would also be available for public inspection in August at two locations in Berkeley. 

Also on Wednesday night, AC Transit staff introduced a three-page “Rider Survey” brochure on the new 40-foot buses in connection with the prototype public viewing and 51 line operation. The survey asks riders to rate the new Van Hool bus on a 5-1 scale (from “I like it very much” to “I dislike it very much”) on various exterior and interior aspects. 

General Manager Rick Fernandez said that the first five buses could be delivered to AC Transit as early as Aug. 25, with the remainder of the order coming from Belgium in staggered three week intervals. 

After board members Elsa Ortiz, Rebecca Kaplan, and Rocky Fernandez (not to be confused with General Manager Rick Fernandez) questioned staff on the timing of the bus manufacture and delivery and the district rider surveys, board president Chris Peeples estimated that one-half of the order would be either delivered or in the midst of shipping by the projected mid-September completion of the surveys. 

That raised the question of the purpose of the survey, which was supposed to give the district feedback in time for possible modifications of the new 40-footers while they are still in manufacture. 

General Manager Fernandez defended the timing of the survey, saying that any possible changes could be made by AC Transit itself after delivery, or by Van Hool’s North American distributor, ABC Company of Minnesota. 

Fernandez also minimized the possibility of any possible changes in the buses’ manufacture, saying that “we have already made a lot of changes in the design of this bus in response to community concerns,” and that “when we made the bus buy [last year], we said we’d have a prototype, but very few changes could be made afterwards.” Fernandez also said that the district has already received verbal comments on the new bus, and that “everything has been positive.” 

In the discussions over the contract last year, Fernandez had made it plain to board members that once the prototype was completed, structural changes to the buses would be impossible, and that only a limited modification of seating arrangements or other interior design could be done.  

The board briefly considered delaying the manufacture and delivery until the rider surveys could be completed, but later approved the current delivery schedule on a 6-0-1 vote, with Kaplan abstaining. Kaplan said that she didn’t think it was an issue of how many structural changes to the manufacture the bus makers could do at this late date, but rather “a public participation issue.” 

When AC Transit put its prototype new 40-foot Van Hool bus on display last June, staff members seemed more intent on blaming changes on the district’s most frequent critic than on explaining the new design to passengers. 

During the June 11 AC Transit Board meeting, residents were allowed to walk through the prototype to review the changes, with staff members available to answer questions. 

But when one older man asked why the fold-down, side-facing seats in the front of the bus were so low, saying that it was difficult for senior riders to get up and down in the seats, AC Marketing and Communications Director Jamie Levin suggested that he should “ask Joyce Roy. She’s responsible for the changes.” 

The staff member continued that “I guarantee she won’t like this bus, either,” adding that “she’s been wrong on everything so far.” 

Roy, a retired architect and local public transit advocate, has been a frequent and persistent critic of the Van Hools at board meetings. In 2004, she lost a race for the AC Transit Board to current Ward 2 Director Greg Harper. She is running against board chair Chris Peeples in the November election for the at-large board seat. 

Several board and staff members have acknowledged at district board meetings that many of the changes in the new 40-foot Van Hools were made at Roy’s suggestion. 

Some of the major inside changes between the original 40-foot Van Hools and the new buses now in manufacture: 

Original 40-footers: 

33 Seats 

Motor in the back 

All back seats have step-ups to reach them 

10 seats face backwards 

New 40-footers: 

35 Seats 

Motor in the middle 

Final back seats have no step-ups 

7 seats face backwards 

New 40-footers have a wider wheel base than the originals. Drivers had cited the smaller wheel base as a major problem in the originals, making the ride less steady, and making it harder for the bus to go around sharp corners. 

Kalpna Mistry, a global studies teacher at Berkeley International High School, died from natural causes Monday, Aug. 4 while on a Fulbright Scholarship to the Philippines. 

A website created by Mistry’s family, “In Memory of Kalpna Mistry,” informs visitors that she received immediate medical assistance and was accompanied by close friends from her teaching program when she passed away. 

“We are still uncovering the details of what happened, and are in the process of getting Kalpna home,” a message from her relatives said. 

“She accomplished so much and touched so many lives in the short time she was with us. We are so proud of her and will miss her tremendously. She had a gift of connecting with everyone, and was dedicated to making a difference in the world. Kalpna was committed to education for all, and was an exceptional teacher at Berkeley High School, where she inspired hundreds of students. Kalpna’s free spirit, giving nature and unmatched wit will be greatly missed.” 

Mistry’s funeral services are scheduled for Saturday, 1 p.m. at the Spangler Mortuary, Los Altos Chapel at 399 South San Antonio Road in Los Altos. 

Mistry, 28, taught freshman global studies in the recently accredited International Baccalaureate program at Berkeley High. 

The daughter of Amratlal and Ramaben Mistry, Mistry was born in Redwood City, Calif. on June 13, 1980 and grew up in Mountain View with her parents, her grandparents Kunverben and the late Dalpatbhai Mistry, and her two sisters, Raakhee and Priya.  

A graduate of Mountain View High School in June, Kalpana pursued a bachelor’s degree in social welfare and international development studies from UC Berkeley, graduating in 2003. 

She married her best friend and childhood sweetheart Sidarth Khoshoo in 2005. In 2007 she received a master’s degree in education from Harvard University, and started teaching at Berkeley High’s International School later that year.  

After completing her first year at the International School last year, Mistry received the Fulbright-Hays Scholarship to study in the Philippines. 

“Kalpna’s passion for education began in high school,” Mistry’s sister Priya told the Daily Planet in an e-mail. 

“She was a student of the world, and strongly believed in immersing herself into new cultures. Through her experiences with programs such as Amigos Mexico, India Education Abroad, and the Philippines Fulbright-Hays scholarship, she became a force for social justice.” 

In an e-mail to the Berkeley High community, Principal Jim Slemp offered his condolences. 

“Our esteemed colleague Kalpna Mistry passed away this past week and will be sorely missed,” he wrote. “She will be remembered by her dedication to education, her deep love of her students and great intellect.” 

Slemp’s e-mail informed the community that counselors from the Berkeley High School Health Center would be available at 664-6965, and that the school was planning a memorial service after summer break. 

An outpouring of messages started pouring in from students, family and friends on a Facebook page dedicated to Mistry once the news of her death spread. 

“I was fortunate to teach across the hall from Kalpna at Berkeley High,” wrote Rebecca Emily Martin on Aug. 4. 

“Whether it was bringing in food for her students to teach about a new culture, organizing a class Kiva loan or talking about curriculum with us teachers, Kalpna constantly impressed and inspired me. She was a rock star teacher, highly regarded among her colleagues and students, and a cherished friend. My thoughts and prayers go out to her family.” 

One of Mistry’s students, Scotty Colombo, described her as “kind and reliable.” 

“Well, at one point I was failing that class and she met with me and my mom and set me up with a folder in her classroom where I could put all my work and I pulled my grade up to a C rather quickly,” he told the Planet. 

“She was very creative in how we were to do our assignments. She was also very helpful, and I feel she genuinely made me a better learner.” 

Another Berkeley High student, Sasha Jacobs, wrote that “Ms. Mistry was the only teacher who has ever really believed in me.”  

Liz Farmer, a childhood friend, reminisced on Facebook about “Kupu.” 

“I’m still grappling with this news, as I’m sure you all are,” she wrote. 

“It’s just so hard to believe, it’s devastating. Kalpna was one of my best friends growing up. Kalpna had such a huge influence on me in ways I’m sure she didn’t even know. In sixth grade she convinced me to try out for the volleyball team—a sport I immediately fell in love with and continue to play today. Her kindness, generosity and honest-to-God care for those in need throughout the world showed me what it is to be compassionate. And her unassuming brilliance showed me what it is to be humble yet push myself beyond what I think I’m capable of.” 

The Mistry’s family is requesting donations instead of flowers and have asked people to contribute to the Kalpna Mistry Memorial Fund at Berkeley High School Development Group. Tax deductible donations can be addressed to: BHSDG — Kalpna Mistry Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 519, Berkeley, CA 9470. Please write “Kalpna Mistry Memorial Fund” in the purpose field. For more information on BHSDG, call 464-1181 or visit www.bhsdg.org. 

Three state appellate court justices said Thursday that it is too soon for them to hear the plaintiffs’ appeal challenging the trial court decision on UC Berkeley’s plans for Memorial Stadium and the adjacent grove The ruling leaves an injunction barring construction and demolition of the grove in place at least until after a hearing later this month.  

Presiding Justice William R. McGuiness of Division Three of the court’s First District was joined in the ruling by Associate Justices Peter J. Siggins and Martin J. Jenkins 

Michael Lozeau, attorney for the Panoramic Hill Association, and Stephan Volker for the California Oak Foundation had filed an appeal challenging the July 25 ruling by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller. 

The judge ruled largely in favor of the university’s plans, though rejecting the university’s claim that it is exempt from the state law governing construction on earthquake faults and its theory of how the law’s economic limitations on additions and renovations to the stadium should be calculated. 

The appellate ruling said that while Miller issued three rulings and a document she called a “judgment“, she has not yet issued the final judgment which would end her jurisdiction over the case and allow an appeal, because she gave the university until Aug. 21 to file a supplemental filing with her court.. The preliminary injunction therefore will remain in effect at least until August 25, when the trial court will consider the plaintiffs’ motion to vacate its judgment and to grant a new trial.  

“Between Michael and myself, we will exercise every option to keep it in place,” Volker said. 

That hearing, possibly the last while Miller still exercises jurisdiction over the case, comes just five days before the Cal Bears host their first home game at the stadium against Michigan State University. 

“We will continue to do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of the campus community, the people at the game and the people in the trees,” said Dan Mogulof, the university’s executive public affairs director. 

Parents, teachers and athletic coaches crowded inside the Berkeley High School library Wednesday for their first look at the Berkeley Unified School District’s new design for classrooms and sports facilities to replace the landmarked Old Gym on Milvia Street. 

The design, district officials said, is consistent with the one outlined in the South of Bancroft Master Plan and mimics certain elements from the Berkeley High campus. 

It is scheduled to go to the Berkeley Board of Education for approval on Aug. 20. 

The district also plans to build a new stadium which will replace the old bleachers and upgrade the current softball field to regulation size. 

Some parents expressed concern about the proposed bleachers, which they suggested should be built at an adequate height to allow them to view the games properly. 

“We want to bring the south of campus in conformance with the northern part,” said Jose Vilar of Emeryville-based Baker Vilar Architects, the firm hired by the district to design the project. 

Vilar said one of the goals of the project was to build a sports quad which would be used for physical education, basketball, and pre- and post-game activities. 

The new athletic facility will have seating, athletic offices, training rooms, ticket sales, coaches’ offices and replace the old bleachers, he said. 

The three-story classroom building—which will have 15 classrooms—and one-story gym will replace the Old Gym, he said.  

The new gym building will have a 7,100-square-foot regular gym and a 3,238-square-foot “soft” gym.  

The three-story building will have five classrooms on the ground floor—near the entrance—along with the gyms, six classrooms and fitness center equipment on the second floor and four classroom on the third floor with a view of San Francisco and the bay. 

Some Berkeley High teachers are currently holding classes in portables at Washington Elementary because of a severe space crunch. 

“The school district is adding 10 classrooms as we speak,” said district Superintendent Bill Huyett, referring to the six new portables and four classrooms that were being renovated. “We will also be reviewing classroom needs every year. We want the community to know that we will have enough classrooms between now and when the construction for the new classroom building starts.” 

The building’s windows resemble those of the Old Gym, Vilar said. 

“We are trying to locate the new classrooms as close as possible to the other academic buildings and provide access through the quad,” he said.  

Slemp told parents that the Donahue Gym, which is around 10,000 square feet, would continue to function even after the new gyms were built. 

“The key piece here is a philosophical commitment to have a clean space that is well maintained bringing the whole community to the campus,” Slemp said. 

“The whole project is going to be seismically retrofitted, energy efficient and accessible.” 

Vilar stressed that landscaping inside the campus and along Bancroft Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way was an important part of the project. 

“There will be ornamental fences and trees along Milvia,” he said. “The fences along MLK and Channing Way will have a four to five foot setback that will make the streets look better. We want to create a visually pleasing campus setting.” 

Vilar said the new classroom building does not represent any particular architectural style. 

“We are trying to match the way the school looks right now to unify the design,” he said, adding that he had taken the yellow columns from the high school’s swimming pool and used it in the proposed design. 

The new stadium is scheduled to be built between April 2010 and June 2011, Lew Jones, the district’s director of facilities 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, he added.  

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.  

The district has no funds to build the new classroom building, Jones said. 

Berkeley Unified passed a resolution recently to work with the city to relocate the warm water pool from the Old Gym to an appropriate location.  

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 find a new site for the warm pool. 

The new project proposes to take away the current parking inside the campus. 

“There will be a place to drop off students but no parking inside the campus,” said Slemp. “And being downtown, parking will certainly be an issue.” 

With only one day left for candidates to file for the November elections, online filing records at the offices of the Alameda and Contra Costa Registrar of Voters indicate that not many have yet taken the plunge.  

In the most anticipated local race, Alameda County Social Services Agency Civil Rights Analyst Darleen Brooks, the sister of Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks, has yet to take out filing papers against incumbent Peralta Community College Marcie Hodge, despite the fact that Brooks had earlier signaled her intention to run and held at least one fundraising event earlier this year. 

Alameda–Contra Costa Transit District 

Three seats on the board are up for re-election: At Large and Wards 1 and 2. 

In the At Large race, incumbent and Board President Chris Peeples and challenger Joyce Roy, a retired Oakland architect and transportation advocate, have both taken out filing papers but have yet to turn them in. 

That is the same situation in Ward 1 (Emeryville, Piedmont and portions of Berkeley and Oakland), where incumbent and former Emeryville Mayor Greg Harper has taken out filing papers along with challengers James Muhammad and Will D. Scott. Oakland paralegal Muhammad is going for the AC Transit trifecta. In 2004, he came in a distant third against Peeples (69.3 percent to 9.8 percent) for one At Large seat; in 2006, he was overwhelmed by Rebecca Kaplan (82.3 percent to 16.9 percent) for the other At Large seat. No information could be obtained about Scott by deadline. 

In Ward 1 (El Sobrante, San Pablo, Richmond, Albany and Kensington), no challengers have yet surfaced against incumbent employment specialist Joe Wallace of Richmond, who has taken out filing papers in Contra Costa County but has not yet turned them in. 

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). 

In Ward 3 (Piedmont, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Kensington, and a portion of Berkeley, Oakland, Castro Valley and Hayward), no challengers have yet surfaced against incumbent Bob Franklin, who has taken out filing papers but not yet turned them in. 

In Ward 7 (Albany, Richmond, Emeryville, San Pablo, and El Cerrito and a portion of Berkeley, Oakland, El Sobrante and San Francisco), incumbent Lynette Sweet has qualified for the ballot, but no challengers have surfaced as yet. 

East Bay Municipal Utility District 

Two seats are up for re-election on the EBMUD Board.  

In Ward 5 (Alameda and San Lorenzo as well as West Oakland and the Oakland Airport Area and a portion of San Leandro), incumbent Doug Linney has taken out filing papers but has not yet turned them in, as is the case with challengers Susi Ostlund and Alameda City Councilmember Lena Tam. 

In Ward 6 (East Oakland south of Park Blvd/5th Avenue to the San Leandro boundary) incumbent William Patterson has qualified for the November ballot, while potential challenger Bob Feinbaum, an environmental executive, has taken out filing papers but not yet turned them in. 

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.  

In Area 1 (Alameda and a portion of Oakland), incumbent Bill Withrow has qualified for the ballot, with no challengers. 

In Area 2 (portions of Oakland), incumbent Marcie Hodge may face a challenge from community activist Marlon McWilson. Neither candidate has yet turned in filing papers. 

In Area 4 (Albany, Emeryville, and portions of Berkeley), incumbent Nicky Gonzalez Yuen has qualified for the ballot with no challengers as yet. That is the same situation for Area 6 (portions of Berkeley and Oakland) and incumbent Cy Gulassa.

Tad Patzek bid his farewell to Berkeley Saturday, launching a final, stinging attack on the university’s half-billion-dollar-partnership to turn plants into fuels. 

Because of favorable coverage given to the claims of biofuel boosters, “it is widely believed that two plus two is twenty-two,” he said. “But there are some scientists who still believe that two plus two is equal to four.” 

Organized by the California Agricultural Leadership Foundation’s Washington., D.C., exchange fellowship program, the program also featured Berkeley’s most prominent biofuel booster, Chris Somerville, who heads the $500 million research program funded by BP (formerly British Petroleum), along with a corporate ethanol advocate who is partnered with the university and another UC Berkeley scientist who makes hydrogen from algae. 

Formerly a professor of geoengineering at UC Berkeley, Patzek becomes chair of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering on Sept. 1. 

Political engagement comes easily to Patzek, who was a Solidarity activist in his native Poland before coming to the United States on a Fulbright fellowship. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1990. 

Somerville, who comes to Berkeley by way of Stanford and the Carnegie Institution, said the agenda of the BP-funded Energy Bioscience Institute (EBI) “is entirely driven by climate change” and the search for “options for decarbonizing energy.” 

EBI, which encompasses UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will also explore ways to harvest Canadian tar sands and projects other than its main emphasis, which is harvesting fuels from cellulose, the tough fiber that makes plant walls, rather than the sugars and oils used for the current crop of fuels. 

But Patzek said the intensified push for plant-based fuels “will result in huge destruction of ecological diversity and biosystems that are vital to the survival of humanity” at the same time that per capita food production and crop yield are declining, accompanied by a global hyperinflation of food prices. 

“Food staple production is not keeping up with population supply,” he said. 

Somerville said that EBI research will focus on developing crops for planting “on more than a billion acres of agricultural land that has been abandoned,” with U.S. production concentrated in eastern coastal states. 

For the moment, Somerville said, “we’re not advocating anything. Our goal is to understand” the processes for conversion of cellulose into fuel, thanks to the financial support of a company that, he said, controls about five percent of the world’s energy supply.  

But Patzek said, “If I were to make a pitch for something, I would urging a pitch for photovoltaics,” technology that converts sunlight to electricity, rather than plants in fuels. 

Doug Dickson is vice president of Pacific Ethanol, a company which has partnered with the Emeryville-based Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) to develop a pilot cellulosic ethanol plant. 

JBEI is a U.S. Department of Energy–funded partnership of Cal, UC Davis and the UCB–run energy department labs devoted solely to biofuels. The program is headed by UC Berkeley’s Jay Keasling, an early organizer of the EBI funding application. DOE has awarded JBEI and the company $25 million to develop the plant to transform poplar trees into fuel in partnership with a Dutch company. 

Dickson also touted his firm’s efforts to create a “cornplex,” harvesting the nutrients in corn as cattle feed while transforming the remaining fiber into fuels. 

“Our effort focuses on a different biofuel,” said Anastasios Melis, a professor of plant and microbial biology at UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources. 

Melis and his colleagues are harvesting hydrogen generated by photosynthesis of Chlamydomonas algae, which generate the gas within water-filled clear polyethylene tubes as large as a meter in diameter. 

As currently developed, a 20-mile wide strip from San Francisco to Los Angeles could generate enough hydrogen to meet all the nation’s electrical needs. 

But Patzek said that the proposals to transform biomass—living plants—into fuels “show complete disregard of the environment, the earth’s ecosystems and how much we can take from our environment, a process, he said “which is driving the destruction of the planet. 

“I am the petroleum engineer here,” he said. I am the ‘dirty’ guy.” But, he said, while all approaches to satisfying humanity’s energy hunger are destructive, “there are things that we can do that are less damaging.” 

But Patzek was in the minority, and the Berkeley biofuel boom continues, minus the presence of one of its most eloquent critics. But Patzek has left an extensive range of papers focusing on critique of biofuels at his Berkeley website, http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/MyBiofuelPapersTop.htm.

If Mayor Ron Dellums is losing popularity in Oakland, as has been suggested by recent polling data, it wasn’t apparent in this week’s National Night Out events in the city. 

City staff members have estimated that there were 380 Night Out events in Oakland this year, up from last year’s 315. In the events, neighborhoods around the country sponsor evening block parties in an effort to take back their streets from violence and criminal elements. 

With a rolling entourage that included Police Chief Wayne Tucker, Re-Entry Employment Specialist Isaac Taggart, and several city staff members—but pointedly not his usual personal bodyguards—Dellums visited four evening events in Oakland’s flatlands communities, where he chatted with citizens one-on-one, responding to questions and concerns about the city’s nagging crime and violence problem. 

Significantly, as if the mayor were a national celebrity rather than a political figure, many residents lined up to have pictures taken with Dellums with everything from SLR Nikons to cellphone cameras. 

In the parking lot of JJ’s Fish & Chicken off of International Boulevard in East Oakland, one giggling young woman shouted out “thanks for being our mayor” to Dellums after a brief conversation. A line of older residents, many of them from the nearby Allen Temple Arms senior citizen facility and many in wheelchairs, beamed at the mayor and gave him words of encouragement as he talked with them briefly and shook hands with them, one by one. 

At 30th and West streets on the West Oakland-North Oakland borderline, where a group of children were playing a lively game of ping-pong in the middle of the street, he told residents that he was familiar with their neighborhood, pointing out that his uncle, the late labor leader C.L. Dellums, used to live down the block. 

After residents told the mayor and the chief that three recent shootings had taken place near the spot where the night out event was being held, Tucker told one resident that he remembered the neighborhood from his boyhood, “but it’s changed a lot since then.” 

And at San Antonio Park along 19th Avenue, after a pleased event organizer greeted the Dellums entourage with the shout, “Oh my God, I didn’t know we were going to have so many celebrities,” the mayor spoke briefly in Spanish to a predominantly Latino crowd, telling them later in English that “I studied Spanish a long time ago, and I remember only a little.” 

Translated by mayoral executive assistant Marisol Lopez, one woman earlier explained to the mayor how she had to intervene in the park several days before after gang members had accosted two youngsters, believing them to be members of a rival gang. The woman said that the incident was defused, but she worried about the ongoing violence in the San Antonio Park neighborhood stemming from gang rivalries. 

The mayor gave no speeches during his two-hour tour, generally speaking individually and quietly with residents while Tucker and mayoral staff members circulated through the crowd, passing out cards, giving out information, or taking down the names of residents who requested personal assistance. 

If nothing else, the mayor’s reception showed that despite months of pounding in the press and from political opponents, his popularity remains undimmed among many residents and in many Oakland neighborhoods. 

But all was not positive. 

A young white woman, Beck Stroud, who said she moved with her partner to the 31st and West Street neighborhood six years ago “because we couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco,” asked Dellums, “Why haven’t you delivered on your promise to have walking cops in our neighborhood?”  

Stroud said that young neighborhood residents are being badgered by drug dealers, who crowd the entrances of locations like the local Boys And Girls Club and neighborhood grocery stores, soliciting youngsters as they enter. 

A neighbor pointed out that uniformed officers now do foot patrol a block away from Stroud’s residence, and Dellums told Stroud that his drive to fully staff the Oakland Police Department uniformed patrol by the end of this year would free up more officers to walk more foot patrols. But she later told a reporter that she considered his answer “political mumbo jumbo. I just want politicians to do what they promised, that’s all.” 

Dellums had planned to visit two hills night out events along with the flatlands events, but a North Oakland hills stop was canceled before the tour started, and a visit to the Glenview community was abruptly canceled as well—without explanation—while the entourage was en route. 

The business of building is still booming, at least for the mo-ment, in the heart of downtown Berkeley. 

Four major projects are currently underway downtown, and several others are on the drawing boards. 

One of them, the nine-story, 145-unit condo mid-rise named the Berkeley Arpeggio, is precisely the kind of building a city-funded economic feasibility study said can’t happen under current market conditions and building codes. 

It also includes one considerably sized public amenity in the form of 10,000 square feet of rehearsal and performance space to be operated under the aegis of the Berkeley Repertory Theater. 

The long-delayed structure once known as the Seagate building will provide both market-rate and lower-priced condo units, the latter considered another improbability in today’s economy. 

Questioned during Wednesday night’s Planning Commission meeting, Matt Taecker—the staffer hired by the city to ramrod the new downtown plan—said that the Arpeggio works only because the property had been assembled long before. 

But Jim Novosel, an architect and planning commissioner who questioned the study, said other buildings now rising in the Bay Area also challenge the study’s assumptions. 

Oxford Plaza, Brower 

Taecker has said that one project now underway in Berkeley, the six-story, 97-unit Oxford Plaza affordable housing complex along Fulton Street, near the corner of Kittredge Street, works because it’s a subsidized project built by a nonprofit. 

The building’s apartments are for low-income tenants, including units of up to three bedrooms for larger families—very difficult to find for those who earn as little as 20 percent of the area’s median income. 

Dan Sawislak, executive director of project developer Resources for Community Development (RCD), said the structure is about half complete, with marketing of the units to begin on Aug. 18 and with an Oct. 1 deadline for submitting applications. Tenants who meet the necessary qualifications will be selected by lottery and will be able to move in when the building opens in February, Sawislak said. 

The RCD executive said his company is also seeking commercial tenants to occupy ground-floor spaces in the building. 

The underground parking garage, which covers the site once occupied by the city’s Oxford parking lot, has already been completed and hasn’t experienced any water leaks, he said. 

The garage is also under the David Brower Center, a “green” building going up adjacent to Oxford Plaza. 

That 50,000-square-foot building will house a gallery and restaurant on the ground floor, as well as an auditorium and theater, with office space for nonprofits on the floors above. For more information, see www.browercenter.org/node/19. 

While the grand opening is slated for next May, tenants will begin moving in during March, said Amy Tobin, the center’s executive director. The building’s only commercial tenant will be Back to Earth, a seven-year-old business that will provide dine-in and take-out locally produced organic food as well as catering. 

Earth Island Institute, the last organization founded by the building’s namesake, will be one of the tenants, along with International Rivers (formerly International Rivers Network) and the Center for Eco-literacy. 

The Brower Center is also negotiating a lease with the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

The building is on track to qualify for a Platinum rating—the highest available—from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, Tobin said. 

Another major new downtown construction is the new home for Freight & Salvage, which is giving a multimillion-dollar renovation and rebuild to its new quarters at 2020 Addison St. Housed in the shell of a 70-year-old historic building, the new 18,000-square-foot venue will have a 440-seat performance space and an additional venue with seating for up to 70, as well as a restaurant and six classrooms. 

For more information, see www.thefreight.org/newhome.html. 

Height issue 

The city’s economic consultants, Dena Belzer of Berkeley’s Strategic Economics group and Hixson & Associates, an Oakland development consulting firm, contend that current cost factors block any non-subsidized construction between 85 and 180 feet high. 

Key is the cost of the building core, which includes elevators, as well as additional costs imposed by fire and building codes for safety reasons on buildings in that height range. 

The consultants contend that projects cited by commissioners that are being built at intermediate heights are viable only because of subsidies. 

Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman called the report an “infeasibility study,” and two of his fellow planning commissioners said projects already underway in Berkeley refute its basic assumptions. 

But city staff and proponents of downtown high-rises cite the study’s conclusions to justify a call for 180-foot “point towers” downtown. 

Meanwhile, the Arpeggio building is rising in the city center; proof, Commissioner Jim Novosel said, that refutes the central contention of the controversial study. 

One building that would rise well above the consultants’ designated viability height would be the Berkeley Charles Hotel, Conference Center & Residences—a 205-foot-high complex that is to rise at the northeast corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street. 

While the building wouldn’t be owned by UC Berkeley, it was the university that has pushed for the project, contending it needs a first-class hotel in the city to accommodate visitors to conference and campus events. 

After a lengthy negotiation process, the university selected as its developer Carpenter & Co. of Cambridge, Mass. The 110-year old firm develops and operates hotels, retail and mixed-use projects and owns a golf club on Martha’s Vineyard. 

While the university had stressed the need for hotel rooms and meeting space, all of the building’s uppermost floors would be devoted to condos. 

The project’s status remains in question, with the latest entry on its website a November 2006 presentation to the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC). 

Calls to the Massachusetts developer weren’t returned, and Jennifer McDougall, the university’s planner handling downtown issues, referred a reporter to Berkeley publicist Caleb Dardick, who is representing the developer. He hadn’t called back by deadline. 

But Dan Marks, Berkeley’s planning and development director, said the project is still alive, though complicated by the economic downturn, as well as other factors.  

“Clearly, there is a horrendous set of economic issues,” he said. “They’re still pursuing it on a lot of different levels.” 

Among the complications are the difficulties inherent in negotiating a complex land deal that involves two property owners—the university and Bank of America—as well as the city. 

“Changes in the condo market have also clearly affected the project,” Marks said. “But I am still fairly confident the project is going to move forward.” 

Other projects 

The would-be project’s next-door neighbor to the east would be another university project, the proposed new Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive structure designed by Toyo Ito, a Japanese architect renowned for his highly individualistic creations, each a unique creation. The university has already issued a call for contractors for the project. 

Another high-rise is also in the preliminary planning stages at the Shattuck Hotel, where a major internal remake could be paving the way for another high-rise suite and condo tower—a project given a thumbs up by DAPAC in their proposed limits on new downtown construction heights. 

Trader Joe’s strikes oil  

Yet another building is underway at the downtown periphery—the controversial “Trader Joe’s building” at the northwest corner of the University Avenue/Martin Luther King Jr. Way intersection. 

Construction was halted for about 10 days but resumed at the end of last week after the discovery of three underground oil tanks and areas of contaminated soil delayed construction at the site where the five-story apartment complex is slated to rise, with the grocery outlet as its commercial anchor. 

Meridith Lear, the city’s hazardous waste manager while Nabil Al Hadithy is on vacation, said the city and the developer were aware of the possibility of both the tanks and the soil. 

“We knew there was a likelihood they would find something,” she said, given the site’s history as the home of a gas station. 

Surface contamination had been cleaned up years earlier under state oversight. With the most recent discoveries, Lear said, “We made sure the tanks were properly removed and that the soil was properly disposed of.”

The University of California released its annual employee compensation report last week, reporting both the base pay and gross pay, as well as overtime pay, of its 170,000 employees. UC Berkeley has 21,836 employees. 

Robert Birgeneau, UC Berkeley chancellor, is not the high earner at UC Berkeley, making $430,000 last year. He is, however, the highest paid chancellor in the UC system. The second highest paid chancellor is Michel Drake of UC Irvine, making $387,000 last year.  

Garnering top honors in the earnings division was UC Berkeley head football coach Jeff Tedford, who made $2,831,653.50 in the past year. Other head coaches at UC Berkeley made salaries ranging from $39,000, the salary of UC Berkeley men’s head swim coach Mike Bottom, to $998,000, the salary of UC Berkeley head basketball coach Ben Braun, who was fired by the university in March due to an unsuccessful basketball season.  

Victoria Harrison, UC Berkeley chief of police, who was re-hired in July after getting a $2.1 million severance package and a promise of $552,000 over 10 years following her previous retirement, received $192,048.88 in calendar year 2007.  

Annette Spicuzza, chief of police at UC Davis, received only $$134,463 last year. The highest paid police chief in the UC system is Pamela Roskowski, UC San Francisco, who made $177,750 last year.  

Daniel Mogulof, UC Berkeley spokes-person, famous for delivering sound bites about the tree-sitters, earned $155,861.55 in the past year. Controversial UC Berkeley law school professor John Choon Yoo earned a little over $202,692.19 last year.  

“The largest source of our income is from the state,” said University of California Office of the President spokesperson Paul Schwartz, who earned a little over $104,000 last year. “Other sources of money are federal grants and contracts, student tuition fees, medical center fees, and private donations. The compensation money comes from a wide variety of sources.” 

While typically, the employee compensation report is released in the fall, this year’s report was released in the summer. Schwartz maintains that future years’ reports will be released in the spring, around March, for efficiency. 

“We are moving from fiscal-year data to calendar-year data to align with end-year tax reports and the senior positions compensation report,” remarked Schwartz. “We will be doing this also in the future.”

UC Berkeley seems to be telling the Berkeley City Council one thing about its construction plans at Memorial Stadium while telling something different to the state Court of Appeal. 

The university, which an-nounced to the Berkeley City Council on July 24 that it now intends to combine work on Memorial Stadium with the adjacent Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC), said in papers a week later with the state Court of Appeal that stadium work would follow gym construction. 

In the court filing, attorneys for the UC Board of Regents also asked for a $28.6 million bond from the citizens and groups challenging their construction plans in the southeastern quadrant of the campus—or a mere $14.3 million if the court sets an expedited 10-month schedule that includes a review by the state Supreme Court. 

But Stephan Volker, attorney for the California Oak Foun-dation, said that “in my 34 years as a lawyer I have never seen a court impose a bond on behalf of a public institution to be paid by citizens seeking a court review of its actions.” 

Imposing high bonds, he said, “would slam the door on citizens seeking to have the courts review the actions of a public agency.” 

Perhaps the most interesting part of the 77-page document filed with the court’s First Appellate District is this sentence: “The trial court found that the University was not required, at this point, to determine the cost of Phases 2 and 3 of the Stadium project—which will proceed only after both the Center’s construction and action by The Regents on Phases 2 and 3.”  

But in his letter to the City Council a week earlier, Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom wrote that the university has developed a new construction and finance plan in which “construction of the second phase”—the western half of the stadium—“would overlap with the construction of the SAHPC and would result in completion of this phase by the 2012 football season.” 

Because the university wouldn’t be able to house stadium occupants in the new gym as originally planned for the second phase of work, simultaneous construction “would impose additional costs because of the need for surge space for Stadium occupants for an extended period,” Brostrom wrote the council. 

Dan Mogulof, the university executive director of public affairs, said that the appeals brief focuses on action already approved by the UC Board of Regents, while the letter is about an offer to the city that hasn’t been approved by the board. 

Michael Kelly of the Panoramic Hill Association, one of the plaintiffs in the litigation, said he was surprised that the university would tell the city one thing while representing the opposite to the city. 

Kelly said imposition of the maximum bond sought by the university, should the court continue to bar construction until the outcome of the appeal, would ensure that construction moved forward—something that he said could still have an adverse outcome for the school. 

“In the real world, it’s very common for projects to go forward while they’re being appealed, but that would involve the risk that a year from now the court might find additional things wrong, and the university would be forced to stop construction and tear down part of what they’ve built,” he said. 

The impacts could be worse for the California Oak Foundation, another of the plaintiffs, for once the trees had been axed, there would be no way to restore them. 

“For a city already short of open space in its developed area, it would be very sad to lose those trees,” Kelly said. 

Of 139 trees at the site, 48 would be preserved under the university’s construction plans, with only two of the four trees that pre-date stadium construction in 1923 remaining. 

“Forget the money,” said Janet Cobb, president of the California Oak Foundation. “Forget their punishing attitude. I wake up in the middle of the night and ask myself, Will the university be able to find its creativity and a way to preserve these trees, which we planted as a memorial to those who lost their lives in World War I?” 

The foundation doesn’t oppose building a center for the athletes: “We just ask, couldn’t they walk a few more feet” from their gym to the stadium?  

Mogulof said the offer to overlap the two phases of construction was in response to a request by the city, and he said that while the university would prefer to follow the sequential process already adopted by the board, the alternative was spelled out in a June declaration by Vice Chancellor Ed Denton to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller. 

In the event the city approves the university’s offer, Mogulof said, the university would evaluate the potential traffic impacts and prepare a supplemental environmental review if needed. 

Appeal issues 

In its court filing, the university contends that Judge Miller’s dissolution of the injunction on July 22 “shifts the balance of equities.” 

In their filing, university attorneys Paul D. Fogel and Dennis Peter Maio argued either for a denial of the plaintiff’s request for a writ staying Miller’s ruling because their client has been “too long saddled with the continuing earthquake safety risk and the escalating costs of further delaying construction,” which they said would “cost the university $1,430,000 a month in construction and security costs, including $22 a day for security” on top of $11 million already incurred. 

Assuming the appeal will take the median time of 20 months or 512 days, they wrote, additional costs to the university due to construction delays would reach $28.6 million, or the amount of the bond the regents contend “would be appropriate” unless the court allows for the 10-month expedited briefing, where the regents contend the $14.3 million bond would suffice. 

They declared that the university had prevailed on all but two minor points. The university resolved one set of issues relating to the California Environmental Quality Act by agreeing to abandon plans to hold an additional seven annual high- capacity events at the stadium, after Miller ruled the regents had erroneously adopted an environmental impact report (EIR) which declared that impacts of those events couldn’t be reckoned.  

But the university’s biggest potential legal hit came from Miller’s finding that, contrary to the university’s contention, the University of California is bound by the regulations spelled out in the Alquist-Priolo Act, which governs construction within 50 feet of active earthquake faults. 

“The regents did not violate Alquist-Priolo because it is not subject to the statute in the first place,” the lawyers declared in their appellate filing, and “is confident it could persuade this Court” of that if the appeal moves forward. 

Even if it is subject to the law, the university contends it didn’t violate it, because the regents properly found the gym wasn’t an addition or alteration because, in part, Vice Chancellor Denton said it was designed “to be a stand-alone building,” a contention they say is backed by substantial evidence. 

The more problematic issue is the stadium’s dollar value, a figure that sets limits on how much the regents can spend on renovations—a key feature of the second two phases of planned construction. 

While Judge Miller agreed with the plaintiffs that the value should be set at what the structure would fetch “as is” on the current market, the university charges that the value should be set at its replacement cost if built up to current code. 

The university has set a replacement value of $593 million, which was presented by the university to the regents before the EIR was certified. 

While Miller ruled the university hadn’t selected the proper method of valuation, “it became moot when the University complied with the writ and removed the grade beam” and other elements the judge had cited. The beam was an addition below ground level along the stadium’s western wall, which the university said was needed to support the structure during excavations for the gym, which will be built below the level of the stadium’s base. 

During their discussion of Alquist-Priolo, the attorneys wrote that Miller had held “that the University was not required, at this point, to determine the cost of Phases 2 and 3 of the Stadium project—which will proceed only after both the Center’s construction and action by The Regents on Phases 2 and 3.” 

Brostrom’s letter also raises questions about another contention raised in the university’s appellate filings. 

In the court papers, the university contends prompt construction is needed because, otherwise, women athletes would continue to be forced to change into and out of their athletic garb inside their cars, a barrier to compliance with federal law that mandates equality of treatment for men and women athletes. 

But Brostrom’s letter states that so-called “surge space” can be found to accommodate all athletes under the financing plan that would allow for simultaneous construction. 

Meanwhile, another hearing is scheduled for Judge Miller’s court on Tuesday, on whether a shoring and tieback system linking to the stadium site during gym construction is a stadium alteration, and whether it exceeds 50 percent of the stadium’s value.

City Manager Phil Kamlarz talks about belt-tightening and eliminating vacant positions in these hard budget times. Still, city workers—many of them, at least—won’t be dining on bread and water, according to reports received by the Daily Planet. 

The Planet has been informed by several people, who won’t permit their names to be revealed since the contract is not yet  

public, that the contract rati- 

fied by the Service Employees International Union gives the 950 workers a 5 percent salary hike the first year of a four-year contract, a 2 percent increase the second year, a 2.5 percent increase the third year, and two different 2 percent increases the fourth year. Moreover, there’s a bonus 3 percent the second year for employees who have worked for the city for 25 years or more. Deputy City Manager Christine Daniel refused to comment on the SEIU contract, other than to say that the city has the revenue to pay for the raises. 

The contract won’t go into effect until it’s approved by the City Council when councilmembers come back from their two-month summer break in September.  

While managers are not part of SEIU and are still at the bargaining table, they typically get the same raises as SEIU workers. Under these terms, City Manager Phil Kamlarz, who now earns $207,564 per year, would end up in four years with a salary of almost $250,000.) 

Barbara Gilbert, a resident who scrutinizes the budget and is often critical of expenditures, told the Planet she was surprised at the 14 percent police and fire raises approved earlier in the year and now was surprised to hear about similar pay hikes for other staff.  

“In general, I’m kind of stunned at the fire and police contracts,” Gilbert said, underscoring the decline of city sales tax and transfer tax. 

“There’s nothing left for the infrastructure,” she said, accusing Berkeley of being a “two-bit” city trying to act like San Francisco. 

Several of those who spoke anonymously to the Planet criticized the way pay raises are made.  

Needed employees are being cut back, said one critic, pointing in particular to a fee-generating housing inspector slot that is one of about eight vacant positions that would be eliminated.  

Another believes that it is unfair to give the same rate of salary increase to people earning vastly different salaries. A health analyst earning more than $80,000 annually would get 5 percent more in September, as would a library aide earning $33,000, if the council approves the contract. 

One commentator suggested giving increases of the same dollar amount to all employees, eliminating the large differential between well paid and more poorly paid workers. 

“It’s really disgusting that the people at the top are getting so much more,” said another.

A memorial service for former councilmember Dona Spring, who died July 13, will be held from 2-4 p.m. Sunday at Civic Center Park (Martin Luther King Jr. Way, between Center Street and Allston Way). Seating at the memorial service is park-style, so those who attend are asked to bring blankets or folding chairs. Wheelchair users will be given priority for the paved areas in front. 

Everyone is invited afterwards to the North Berkeley Senior Center (1901 Hearst St.) from 4-8 p.m. to celebrate Councilmember Spring’s life by sharing food, music, and their memories and feelings about her. Guests are also invited to see a recent documentary about her life. 

“Councilmember Spring represented District 4 on the Berkeley City Council for 15 years, and served the Berkeley community for much longer,” said City Manager Phil Kamlarz in a statement. “With her passing, we lose a true public servant who was devoted to her district and to Berkeley. She was a passionate advocate on behalf of her constituents, her city and the people of all walks of life who she cared so deeply about. Her focus, her energy and her commitment have set a high standard for community service, and she will be missed.” 

Declaration of an annual “Burma Day” was Councilmember Dona Spring’s last major piece of successful legislation. The city will celebrate “Burma Day” at 8 a.m. Friday, Aug. 8, with the raising of the Burmese flag in Civic Center Park to recognize the struggles of the Burmese people and commemorate the 20th anniversary of their uprising.

If a proposal by the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission is approved by the City Council in September, Berkeley residents will have to wait longer for senior citizen discounts for some city programs. 

At a public meeting last week, the commission approved recommending fee increases to the council for several programs at the city’s parks but voted against increasing the current $2 swimming rates for youth by 50 cents, with the caveat that the age for senior rates be increased from 55 to 65, city officials said. 

“All those people who thought they would get in when they were 55 will now have to wait 10 years more,” said Lisa Stephens, a parks and recreation commissioner. “I voted no because they decided to change the senior citizen age without notifying the public.” 

Scott Ferris, the city’s youth services and recreation manager, said the fee increase was due to an increase in expenditures. 

“There has been a 9 percent increase in general fund and camp-related programs,” he said, adding that adoption of the proposed fees would produce approximately $230,400 in additional revenue. 

Ferris said that around $107,520 would offset the expected $131,000 annual fee associated with the Recreation Division’s new online registration system, $38,400 would fund possible general fund utility charges and $84,480 would pay for code compliance and other issues at Echo Lake and Tuolumne camps. 

Stephens said she understood why the commission was approving the fee increases. 

“I don’t question the principle behind it because, without funding from somewhere else, there isn’t really any other choice,” Stephens said. “Without the fee increase the parks department will not be able to continue with the programs.” 

The commission also recommended increasing rates from $27 to $40 for park room rentals, which Stephens said might be unaffordable for a lot of groups. 

According to Ferris, the current fees of $27 per hour for renting park rooms to youth, seniors and the disabled failed to cover costs. 

“A minimum of $40 must be charged in order to recover what it costs to rent the facility,” Ferris said. “However, the rate of renting our arts room is staying at the flat fee of $80, so this will be more affordable. We are currently expanding a lot of our facilities.” 

The commission’s recommendation also says that picnic spots at Codornices and Live Oak parks will now cost $55 for four hours—a $12 increase from the old rate. 

“Our staff found that other agencies were charging an average of $72 for picnic areas with similar capacities and amenities,” Ferris said. “We proposed the fee increase to more closely align with the value and popularity of these larger picnic sites.” 

The city charges $160 daily for special events—regardless of the number of people involved—but might start charging according to the number of participants if the council approves the commission’s recommendations. 

The fee increase would also open up scholarships, Ferris said, and allow unlimited discounts to qualifying low-income youth applicants.  

“Currently only one discount is offered annually for camp programs,” Ferris said. “But now you can apply for youth and family scholarships.”

The Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission will decide whether to designate the childhood home of noted writer and environmentalist David Brower as a city landmark at a public meeting today (Thursday). 

Located at 2232-34 Haste St., the site contains two houses that were divided into multiple rental units in the early part of the 20th century. It was occupied by three generations of the Brower family through the early 1960s. 

Brower himself lived there from 1916—according to the landmark application—from the age of 4 into his late 20s. 

The commission will also consider landmarking a towering redwood on the front yard of the property, which—according to the application—Brower planted in 1941. 

The property is leased out as apartments by Lakireddy B. Reddy of Berkeley-based Reddy Realty. 

Historian and Planet contributor Steve Finacom and long-time Willard neighbor and retired planner John English spent many hours researching and drafting the landmark application. 

In an e-mail to the LeConte neighborhood, Finacom described the property as a “good example—perhaps one of the best—in Berkeley of a previously overlooked house directly associated with a nationally known person or issue.” 

Built in 1887 by A. H. Broad, the front house is a wooden two-story Queen Anne Victorian with a gabled roof. The main facade, which faces north toward Haste, is asymmetrically arranged, which is typical of houses built in this era, the application states. 

The rear house, built in 1904, is a two-story wood frame gabled roof structure with an attic. 

It is said that when Brower was growing up there, he played with his friends on Haste and also visited the UC Berkeley campus. 

Brower, a future mountaineer, wrote about making his first “mountain climb” on Founder’s Rock at Hearst and Gayley Road, and counted exploring the Strawberry Creek channels on the UC Berkeley campus among his first wilderness experiences. 

A graduate of Willard Junior High and Berkeley High School, Brower delivered papers for the Berkeley Daily Gazette and worked at Western Union for a summer as a teenager. In 1929, while working at a valve factory in Emeryville, Brower enrolled at the University of California, dropping out in 1931 after losing interest in “formal classwork.” 

He went on to work as a salesman for a candy company in San Francisco and did odd jobs at the Yosemite National Park and Curry Company. Brower joined the Sierra Club in 1933 and went on to become the first editor of the club’s newsletter, the Yodeler. 

After working for the University of California Press and fighting in World War II with the 10th Mountain Division, he became the first executive director of the Sierra Club in 1952. He was fired 17 years ago “at the climax of a struggle over the direction of the organization,” according to the application. 

The application states that the property’s significance arises from its association with A. H. Broad, one of Berkeley’s first elected government leaders and an active participant in the early structuring and governmental, cultural, social and economic development of the community, and from Brower, “arguably Berkeley’s best known ‘native son’ and a figure of international import in the political and environmental movements of the second half of the 20th century.” 

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

Visitors, business travelers and international students at UC Berkeley might soon be able to stay in the city for up to a year without having to worry about signing leases or dealing with fussy landlords. 

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board last week approved a use permit for a 68-room extended-stay hotel in downtown Berkeley. It will be located in a five-story building at 2136 Center St. previously approved for condos. 

The hotel will be the first in the city to cater to travelers looking to extend their stay in Berkeley for more than a few days, according to Berkeley-based Iranian-born developer Soheyl Modarressi, who owns the property. 

Modarressi, who is president of the Oxford Development Group, developed Epicurious Garden, located in the Gourmet Ghetto on North Shattuck, over a period of three years. 

According to him, the hotel would “serve an unmet demand for extended stay accommodations within the city.” 

“There are no extended stays in Berkeley,” he told the zoning board at a public meeting last week. “People who want to stay for a month are going to Emeryville and Richmond ... Extended stay is a new idea and it’s important to get it done before the market shifts again. The banks are being conservative with loans right now.” 

According to a staff report, Modarressi had a difficult time securing funds for the proposed project because of the “recent dramatic decline in the real estate and financial market.” 

Modarressi said the hotel rooms would be upscale luxury units with maid service. 

Hotel amenities would include furnished studios and one-bedroom units with bathrooms, but, unlike a typical hotel room, each unit would come with a fully equipped kitchen, which guests would be responsible for cleaning. 

“We expect our clients to stay from two weeks to four or five months,” he said. 

According to the staff report, “visitors would typically stay an average of one to six weeks, but have the option of staying up to a year to accommodate the needs of corporate relocations, extended work relocations, visiting researchers, faculty and family of UC Berkeley students.” 

Located on Center between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street, the proposed project—on a 23,017-square-foot site—is close to the downtown BART and the UC Berkeley campus. 

The site is now a 36-spot parking lot facing Oxford Lane, and the new hotel will be located behind the two-story historic Thomas Block building. 

It is also close to the Brower Center, located on the southwest corner of Allston Way and Oxford, and to the Arpeggio mixed-use project, located on the north side of Center Street west of Shattuck Avenue, which are both under construction. 

UC Berkeley is also designing a new art museum at the northwest corner of Oxford and Center. 

The zoning board approved two separate use permits for the extended-stay hotel—as a tourist hotel and a residential hotel—since it was a slightly different concept, zoning officials said. 

“It’s more like a residence inn,” zoning secretary Steve Ross told the Planet. “It has a slightly different use than residential or tourist hotels. So we required two different use permits to define it. Tourist hotels are limited to shorter stays whereas residential hotels allow for a slightly longer stay. Since the units in this building were already designed as dwelling units, the hotel rooms have a little kitchenette and a wet bar to make the stay more comfortable.” 

According to the staff report, “extended stay hotels offer flexibility to those clients who may require accommodations for greater than the 14 days allowed in the tourist hotel and would like the full amenities provided in a home, but do not wish to enter into long-term lease agreements in the rental housing market due to the limited duration of their stay.” 

The city’s municipal code defines a tourist hotel room “as one with an occupancy not to exceed 14 consecutive days,” and a residential hotel room is defined as “one to be used, designed or intended to be used for a period of 14 consecutive days or more. 

The city currently doesn’t have a separate use permit for extended-stay hotels. 

The city would also get transit occupancy taxes from the tourist hotel use, Ross said.

The ongoing struggle over the shape of Berkeley’s future skyline gained a higher profile during a lengthy session of the city Planning Commission last week. 

At issue was the question of how many tall buildings—and what heights—should be included in the environmental impact review for the city’s new Downtown Area Plan (DAP). 

The battle over building heights pits “smart growth” advocates against neighborhood activists, with the lines sharply drawn during the two years that the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) spent drafting the plan, which is now before the commission for review before it moves to the council—and UC Berkeley—for final approval. 

Smart growth advocates want dense housing built near urban transit hubs, with high-rises close to work, as a proposed solution to greenhouse gases generated by commuters who drive from distant suburbs. 

But neighborhood activists, allied with preservationists and some environmentalists, won a DAPAC vote that rejected a plan repeatedly proposed by staff and backed by committee Chair Will Travis: to concentrate new housing in so-called point towers built in the city center. 

Two members of the DAPAC minority—Travis and retired UC Berkeley development executive Dorothy Walker—urged commissioners to include, respectively, eight or ten of the 180-foot high-rises in the environmental study. 

But environmentalist Juliet Lamont, a member of the DAPAC majority, said benefits from high-rises were marginal at even the most optimistic projections. “If someone said we would start to get benefits at 30 stories, would we do that?” she asked. 

But Travis said, “I believe the staff has allowed [DAPAC’s] political compromise to get in the way of providing the thorough professional analysis that is truly needed.” 

Walker urged the commission to extend the core area open to high rises “along the entire length of Shattuck and University avenues. Your decisions require that you take the long view beyond the horizons of our current population.” 

But Jesse Arreguin, chair of the city’s Housing Advisory Commission and a candidate for the downtown City Council seat, said he was surprised to see the point towers brought back “as part of the discussion of the environmental impact report.” 

He said he was dismayed to see a feasibility report commissioned by the city at the Planning Commission’s request—though specifically voted down earlier by DAPAC—which suggests cutting in-lieu fees paid by developers to fund public housing in exchange for building all- 

market-rate condo high-rises. 

“Is it important that we cut some deal and let developers have luxury condos, or that we really have affordable housing?” Arreguin asked. 

“This is not about empowering developers, but increasing the livability of downtown,” said developer Ali Kashani, who said the downtown “has suffered for 30 years from tweak-and-twist adjustments.” 

Kashani said the DAPAC plan wouldn’t work, because “the compromises were wrong,” as was the staff proposal to limit the 180-foot buildings to a single pair. 

Deborah Badhia, executive director of the Downtown Berkeley Association, said her organization wants to see both more housing density and greater employment intensity downtown. 

When it came time for the commissioners to weigh in, the first vote of the evening called for the EIR not to include a study that featured the downzoning of the ex-panded downtown area’s single-family residential areas, which are in neighborhoods zoned for higher density R-4 apartments. 

The motion by commissioner and attorney Harry Pollack carried on a 5-4 vote, joined by David Stoloff, City Council candidate Susan Wengraf, Larry Gurley and Chair James Samuels. 

But a second motion, which would have extended the DAPAC plan’s downtown core base height of 85-feet along either side of Shattuck Avenue on the two-and-a-half-block stretch between Dwight Way—the southern limit of the new planning area—and midway on the block between Channing Way and Durant Avenue, failed on a 4-5 vote, with Wengraf joining Roia Ferrazares, James Novosel, Jason Overman (filling in for Patti Dacey) and Gene Poschman. 

Gurley switched sides to join with the others in a vote to keep the southern stretch of Shattuck at its present 65-foot height limit. 

The third vote was on the most controversial subject: point towers and other tall buildings in the city center. 

Both the existing and DAPAC plans contain central core areas where denser development is allowed, though the new plan extends the boundaries of the older core. 

Overman said his biggest concern was that the staff proposal contradicted the work of DAPAC. “Are we showing proper deference to what has really been a thorough public process?” he asked. 

Poschman said he wanted to “get back to the basics of what I call the infeasibility study,” which ruled out the possibility of high-rise apartments and left open only the possibility of million-dollar condos. “The question is, who’s going to live here?” 

He questioned a decision he said would favor housing for the well-to-do, who would be unlikely to give up “their two or three cars” at the expense of inclusionary housing for those of lower incomes and other amenities DAPAC wanted to fund with developer fees. 

In the end, commissioners voted on a compromise proposal from Novosel and Stoloff, who are frequent opponents on many commission votes. 

Under their proposal, the EIR study would include four of the 180-foot point towers in the older, smaller core area, plus four 120-foot buildings—rejected by the feasibility study as economically unviable—in the larger new core. 

Samuels wanted a study that would have included eight of the 180-footers, and the final vote was 6-3 in favor of the compromise, with Ferrazares, Poschman and Overman opposing. 

While none of Wednesday night’s votes are binding on the commission for its proposed revisions to the plan, which will go to the council along with DAPAC’s original proposal in late December or early January, any significant changes could result in the need for revisions to the final EIR, which will go to the council for adoption with that body’s final plan revisions by late May.

Peace activists have taken a page from the book of Budweiser and—in addition to using the web and other modern means—are spreading their message by old-fashioned billboard advertising.  

“Silence + Torture = complicity,” says the billboard above Round Table Pizza on University Avenue near Milvia Street, its orange background evocative of the Abu Ghraib prisoner jumpsuits. 

That billboard is not exactly what activists had envisioned. They wanted an image of a torture victim and the words “Fire John Yoo” with a link to firejohnyoo.org, said Giovanni Jackson, of the Fire John Yoo Coalition. 

The coalition is made up of the World Can’t Wait, the Coalition for an Ethical American Psychological Association, Act Against Torture, the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute and individuals such as Elliot Cohen from the Peace and Justice Commission and Gray Brechin, noted author and UC Berkeley geography professor. 

They thought that at the $500 per month billboard rent, they could craft the message as they saw fit. 

However, billboard companies, it appears, get to control the message. CBS Outdoor, which owns the billboard, turned down the originally proposed “Fire John Yoo” billboard but accepted the other, Jackson said. 

CBS Outdoor did not return Planet calls or e-mails for an explanation. 

John Yoo is the UC Berkeley law professor who, when working for the Bush administration, wrote documents that many people—the National Lawyers Guild among them—say laid the foundation for the rationalization of prisoner torture that has taken place in Iraq. 

On the evening of July 31, a group of young people stood on the University Avenue median, displaying a large “Fire John Yoo” banner. They got positive “honks” from cars going by, though it’s not clear if the drivers linked the banner to the billboard above. 

Elliot Cohen of the Peace and Justice Commission came out to support those holding the banner. He told the Planet that his commission had passed a resolution on July 7 calling on the university to investigate Yoo and to demand that classes required for graduation taught by Yoo also be taught by another professor, so that students would not be forced to study with Yoo. 

The resolution will go to the City Council in September. 

In a phone interview Friday, Brechin told the Planet he has worked to fire John Yoo for several years, demonstrating outside Yoo’s classroom and at Sproul Plaza. He said he was disappointed that the university faculty and students don’t seem bothered by Yoo’s presence on campus. 

The university’s silence on the question of Yoo makes it complicit with torture, Brechin said. 

The dean of Boalt Hall has refused to take up the issue of firing Yoo. “He said his hands are tied,” Brechin said. [See Dean Christopher Edley Jr.’s letter at www. law.berkeley.edu/news/2008/edley041008. 

html, in which he points to academic freedom among the reasons for not firing Yoo.] 

Brechin said Edley argued that Yoo would have to be convicted of a criminal act to be fired, but, said Brechin, “the federal courts are so corrupted, so politicized, that won’t happen.” 

For more information see firejohn yoo.org.

Cody’s Books, which closed down forever on June 20 and is currently in the process of liquidating all its assets, will not provide any books or refunds to customers with store credit, according to company officials. 

Books and furniture belonging to Cody’s will be sold this week to pay off a Uniform Commercial Code lien to Summit Bank. 

Mindy Galoob, the store’s former general manager, told the Planet that the bank will be conducting the lien-foreclosure sale of its collateral today (Thursday), and the store premises will be returned to the landlord later in the week. 

Cody’s landlord, San Francisco-based Townsend I LLC and Townsend II LLC, put up a three-day notice to pay rent or quit outside the Shattuck Avenue bookstore on July 25. The notice claimed the store owed $6,877.88 (for June 1 to July 31) in rent.  

Robert Kidd, the attorney representing the corporation’s current owner, IBC Publishing, told the Planet Wednesday that the bookstore was not declaring bankruptcy and would not be repaying its creditors, which included a number of schools, libraries and public agencies. 

Following the story, several readers called the Planet inquiring whether they could exchange store credit for books. 

“Cody’s Books regrets to advise you that the collapse of its business will make it impossible to honor any of its gift certificates or gift cards,” the statement said. “While Cody’s is currently in the process of liquidating its assets, it anticipates that all of the resulting proceeds will be turned over to its secured creditors, and that none of these proceeds will be available to make refunds to you or other holders of gift certificates/gift cards.” 

Cody’s, which closed its flagship store on Telegraph Avenue and branches in Fourth Street and San Francisco in recent years, moved to Shattuck Avenue in April after the rent for its Fourth Street location almost tripled. It closed down two months later due to dwindling sales.

Berkeley has long had a law mandating skateboarders to wear helmets and other protective gear, but it has been ignored, largely due to enforcement limitations. 

But the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is stepping up efforts to provide effective enforcement to change that. 

At a meeting last week, Scott Ferris, manager of the city’s Recreation Division, presented the Parks and Recreation Commission with a report outlining costs for additional staff who would enforce helmets at the 18,000-square-foot Berkeley Skate Park on Fifth and Harrison streets. 

The city, Ferris said, adopted state law that requires all skate park users to wear a helmet, elbow pads and knee pads, before it opened the Berkeley Skate Park in 2003. If they don’t, they can be cited. 

The law also requires the city to post signs informing people about wearing helmets. 

“When some commissioners toured the Berkeley Skate Park on June 28 they were concerned that most skateboarders were not wearing helmets or other safety equipment,” Ferris told the Planet. “Questions were raised about liability for the city and about the safety of park users. The report gives an idea about how much it would cost to bring in more staff to enforce [wearing] helmets.” 

The city spends $69,000 on monitoring the park two to four hours every day and running skateboard camps, lessons, contests and movie nights. 

Additional staffing could cost the city anything between $209,917 and $247,555, Ferris said. The park is open every day, 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. 

“The majority of the users don’t wear helmets,” Ferris said. “Some of the younger kids do. The Berkeley Skate Park is the busiest skate park in the East Bay. It’s not uncommon for the park to have over 200 skaters per day and have 40 or more skaters in the park at any given time.” 

Ferris said park staff recommend but don’t require participants to wear protective gear. “Right now we don’t do anything if park users don’t listen to us,” he said. 

Lisa Caronna, deputy city manager and former parks and recreation director, said that, although she was not aware of any serious injuries at the park, it was “clearly in the best interest of the city to enforce the rules.” 

“I have heard of one kid fracturing his forearm when I was director,” she said. “Clearly the rules say you have to wear helmets, and we expect people to wear them.” 

When the park first opened, safety concerns led the city to fund part-time staff who monitored the park 18 to 20 hours every week to enforce state law, informing the police in case of illegal activities and calling the authorities when someone was injured, the report from Ferris stated. 

“Police often ticketed skaters who did not comply with the state law, but this resulted in numerous complaints from participants and parents and resulted in hostile conflicts between the police, city staff and skate park users,” Ferris said. 

A recommendation from the Parks and Recreation Commission to the City Council to stop enforcing the law followed in October 2005, but no action was taken. 

Complaints from parents and park users forced the Berkeley police to stop issuing tickets to skateboarders for not wearing safety gear, the report said, and the absence of police backup and sporadic staffing made it increasingly difficult for park staff to enforce state law and remove BMX bikes . 

“Staff would try to remove skaters from the park who did not comply with the regulations,” Ferris said. “The results were mixed. Many skaters would simply wait outside the park and come back when the staff person’s two-hour shift was over, or just ignore staff altogether.” 

Ferris said the Berkeley Skate Park over the next two years turned into a “rogue park,” which was soon “plagued by drug use, BMX bikers and many older skate park attendees who often threatened or intimidated younger skaters.” 

Parents and skaters started complaining to the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department, and the majority of the complaints centered around the BMX bikes in the park which often collided with skaters, the report said. 

Ferris said the Berkeley Police Department stepped up enforcement at the park over the last 16 months, assisting staff in removing bikers from the site. 

“We don’t have the money to police skateboarders,” Lisa Stephens, a parks and recreation commissioner, told the Planet. “The amount of money we are putting into it is a quarter of what is required to staff it. It would be nice if skateboarders got together and enforced the helmet rule on their own. Right now with the lack of funds in the city, we are in a tough spot.” 

Stephens said BMX bikes in the skate park were also a big problem. 

“The skate park is not designed for them,” she said. “Having skateboarders and bikes together is not a safe situation. It would take one serious injury to shut the place down.” 

Berkeley High graduates Dylan Carlone and Bantu Zuhir both said they did not wear helmets at the skate park. 

“It’s obvious that everybody is falling, but I don’t understand why people don’t see that and start wearing helmets,” Dylan, 18, said. “It’s more of a ‘cool’ thing’ I guess. Helmets are not cool. I remember when they started giving tickets, people just sat down or stopped skateboarding. But now no one tells me to wear my helmet anymore, so I don’t.” 

Bantu, who has been using the skate park for the last four years, said enforcing helmets at the park made sense because of its many ramps and slopes. 

“I like how they have a sign saying, ‘Skate at Your Own Risk,’” he said. “I used to wear a helmet when I was younger. But a helmet is a big bulky thing that just gets in your way, so I don’t wear it anymore.”

Nolo Press, which has operated out of a renovated clock factory in West Berkeley for the last 30 years, plans to move from its location at Ninth Street and might relocate from Berkeley altogether, company officials said. 

The company has lost its lease, and the building’s current owners—the Genn family—have put the property on the market, Bob Dubow, Nolo’s chief financial officer, told the Planet. 

Dubow added that Nolo had outgrown the 20,000-square-foot two-story brick building at 950 Parker St. and was looking for a bigger space. 

Nolo, which, according to its website, is the nation’s oldest provider of legal information for consumers and small businesses, has been in Berkeley since 1971, and its staff has grown to more than 100 legal editors, software developers, customer service representatives, salespeople, web developers and others since then. 

“We might possibly leave Berkeley,” Dubow said. “We have been in this building for 30 years and in business in Berkeley for 37 years, but the building is being sold, and we are in a kind of a strange situation. We are not in a lease right now, and we are also pushing the boundaries for the building. The owner is selling the building and doesn’t want a long-term lease in place.” 

Dubow, a graduate of UC Berkeley, also wrote for the student newspaper, The Daily Californian, a stint he said got him interested in the publishing business. 

He said Nolo had no idea who the new owner might be or when the building would be sold. 

“The Genn family have been really great partners,” he said. “This is a great old building. We started out as a tiny bookstore in a 500-square-foot space and have grown to 20,000 square feet.” 

Tom Genn, who developed the old warehouse building into offices, passed away two years ago. 

Nolo is looking for a suitable location between Oakland and Richmond. 

“At first we felt a little pressure to move, but we found there was not much action on buying the property, so we are taking things at a leisurely pace,” Dubow said. “We have only seen a couple of buildings in Oakland, and we haven’t seen one in Berkeley that made sense. We are looking for a facility that is big enough and affordable, and there don’t seem to be too many of those available in the city. We really like being in Berkeley and want to stay here, but chances are less than half that we will be in Berkeley.” 

Headed by Ralph “Jake” Warner, Nolo specializes in books, forms and software on a wide range of legal issues, including wills, estate planning, retirement, elder care, personal finance, taxes, housing, real estate, divorce and child custody. 

According to historical information on Nolo’s website, Warner was a legal-aid lawyer serving low-income families in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s. 

Frustration over a complicated legal system that was overly expensive for average working Americans led Warner and a few of his colleagues to begin writing do-it-yourself legal guides. 

Rejections by numerous publishers led Warner and his colleagues to publish their own books, and the advent of personal computers also allowed the development of software. 

When the Internet arrived, Nolo created a website that offered free information and resources to people. 

Nolo, Dubow said, had started toying with the idea of moving three years ago when it ran out of space in the old building and rented additional space in the warehouse next door. 

Although there is no timeline for moving, Dubow said the company would probably relocate in the early part of 2009. 

“Of course, we could be forced out, someone could buy it and give us a a 30-day notice, but we are in a good relationship with the current landlords and hopefully that won’t happen,” he said. 

Dubow added that the area around Ninth Street was undergoing a lot of development. 

The Fantasy Records building owned by Wareham Development on Tenth Street-—right across from Nolo’s offices—has seen a lot of development in recent years, with one of the most recent being the construction of a child-care center for Disney Pixar employees. 

The city’s Zoning Adjustments Board also approved a use permit for Bayer Healthcare in June, giving the pharmaceutical giant the green light to move some of its administrative offices into 921 Parker, a space zoned specifically for industrial use.  

Farther down the street, the new Berkeley Bowl is also under construction. 

“The area is quite hot right now,” he said. “Possibly that’s why the owner wants to sell it, or maybe they were at that point in their life when they just decided to sell.” 

The property is listed for sale on the website of commercial property consultants Colliers International for $3,990,000. 

The owners of the property could not be reached for comment Friday.

More than 30 West Berkeley residents supported the Berkeley Unified School District’s plans to refurbish the old Bonar Street red-brick building at West Campus at a community meeting Monday. The district plans to use the building as its new headquarters. 

The district uses the seismically unsafe Old City Hall at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way for its central staff and board meetings but will lose its lease with the City of Berkeley next year. 

The Berkeley Board of Education is scheduled to approve either the rehabilitation or prefabricated modulars, which would be located at the south end of the parking lot, on Sept. 10. 

“We will make an administrative recommendation for one,” district Superintendent Bill Huyett said. “You can probably tell from our enthusiasm which way we are leaning, but we just haven’t made up our minds yet.” 

If the board decides on rehabilitation, it will look at whether to enhance the site with landscaping and/or to refurbish the old cafeteria, district officials said. 

Lew Jones, facilities director for Berkeley Unified, said the district would present the board with a dollar amount for rehabilitation on Aug. 20. The project would be funded by bond funds for capital improvements for the district. 

“We want to get some last minute feedback from the community,” said Huyett, acknowledging that the design was created after neighbors complained about the modulars. “In working with the architects and Lew, we have found many advantages to using the larger building and having everything in one building plan. We have a design with and without advanced landscaping here today—the landscaping is an add-on cost.” 

Jones estimated that the landscaping would cost around $80,000. 

Huyett said that although refurbishing would be more expensive than modulars—estimated at around $8 million—it had a lot more advantages. 

Rebecca Hayden with Emeryville-based Baker Vilar Architects presented the design for the three-story 36,000-square-foot Bonar building to the public, in particular the site and floor plans. 

“There are a number of improvements we would have to do, especially to make it accessible,” she said. “We have to make it accessible to wheelchairs by putting in a ramp. Parking for the offices will be in the existing parking lot.” 

Fire alarms and elevators would also have to be put in to make the building comply with the Division of the State Architect’s accessibility standards, Jones said. 

The building would be separated from the auditorium, Hayden said, and the first floor would have most of the public offices, the Berkeley Public Education Foundation, human resources and four classrooms for the Berkeley Adult School. 

The second floor would mainly have business, human resources and personnel offices, and the third floor would be slated for offices for education services and the superintendent. 

“Of course we will be refurbishing the interiors, putting in new bathroom lights and seismically retrofitting the building,” Hayden said. 

She added that the exterior of the building, which has a brick facade, will be painted and the old glass windows will be replaced by new ones. The district is also considering the possibility of installing sunshades. 

“One of the things the district has a need for is conferences and board meetings,” Hayden said. “So we took a look at refurbishing the 3,400-square-foot old cafeteria building, which can be used as a board room, [or for] conferencing or teacher training.” 

Huyett said the remodeled cafeteria would be available for community meetings.  

“The city also has an interest: to find a room for council meetings,” Jones said. 

City Council meetings are currently held at the council chambers in Old City Hall. 

Hayden also discussed a plan to landscape the Bonar Street frontage with drought-tolerant native plants, minimize the chain-link fences on the property, and construct bio-swales in the parking lot that would collect rainwater. 

“We also want to plant redwoods on the south end to screen the parking from the neighbors,” she said. “Overall improvements such as changing gates and fences would make the campus more attractive.” 

Although the majority of neighbors present said they were in favor of landscaping, Thomas Towey, CEO of Oakland-based Komorous-Towey Architects and a West Berkeley neighbor, issued a caveat about the new design. 

“My big concern is it has more nice things than the modulars, but my bigger fear is that the board will not have the money to do all of it, and it will go back to the modulars,” he said. “There should be a really, really bare-bones scheme. I think there should be no new sunshades on that building.”

Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks filed a defamation lawsuit last week against the San Francisco Chronicle and its East Bay columnist, Chip Johnson, over an item written about her by Johnson in a June 24 column.  

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Oakland on July 29, alleges that the June 24 column item “began a campaign [by Chip Johnson] to smear and defame the reputation of Desley Brooks.” 

Brooks is being represented by Oakland attorney Wayne Johnson. 

In the June 24 column, Johnson gave a list of what he said were instances where recently ousted Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly “intervened on behalf of a co-worker, friend or family member, police sources say.” In that list of instances, Johnson wrote that “two years ago, nothing was done when allegations of illegal kickbacks were raised against District Six City Councilwoman Desley Brooks, another of Edgerly’s allies, after police investigators linked bank deposits made by the mother of one of Brooks’ employees to several personal checks for $1,200 written to Brooks (exactly half the employee’s paycheck).” 

In an interview held this week after the lawsuit was filed, Brooks denied the allegation in the June 24 Chip Johnson column, but said she could make no other comment about the details of the lawsuit. “I’m in litigation mode.” 

Johnson was closed-mouthed as well. 

“Why would I comment on a lawsuit that’s ongoing?” Johnson said by telephone. “I couldn’t do that.” 

Neither the Chronicle nor Johnson has yet filed an answer with the court to the Brooks lawsuit. 

While Brooks would not talk about the lawsuit details, she talked freely about the reasons she was bringing it. “I think it’s reprehensible that the Chronicle feels it can trash and tarnish people’s reputations without factual basis,” the councilmember said. “I will never get my name fully back, but there’s got to be greater accountability in the media. When I was coming up, good journalists reported the facts; they didn’t make them up. But now, reporters are more likely to make things up. They’re reporting subjectively, not objectively. And the people can’t distinguish between the two. They’re taking what goes in the paper as gospel.” 

The lawsuit asks for no stated dollar amount from the Chronicle and Johnson, only undefined “compensatory” and “exemplary” damages. 

Brooks said that following the publication of the June 24 column, she contacted Chronicle officials and asked them to retract the item, but she said they refused. 

Johnson refused in his telephone interview to comment on the original column item.  

The way it was written, it’s not clear exactly what the columnist intended to allege or insinuate about Brooks. Some confusing points: Who was the Brooks employee mentioned? Who was supposed to have written the “several personal checks” to Brooks? How were the checks “linked” to deposits to the employee’s mother’s bank account? And which “police investigators”—and from what agency—had done the linking? 

The Johnson column may have been intended to refer to allegations made against Brooks beginning in August 2005, when the Oakland Tribune said the Alameda County District Attorney’s office was investigating charges that Brooks had taken “kickbacks.” 

“Although District Attorney Tom Orloff declined to discuss the matter,” the Tribune reported in the 2005 story, “the sources confirmed his investigators are looking into whether Christen Tucker, Brooks’ former council aide and the daughter of her boyfriend, Frank Tucker, gave some of her pay to the council member.” The Tribune also reported that “[Christen] Tucker’s paychecks were deposited by the city into an account jointly held by her and her father, records show.” 

A review of local newspaper articles about the allegations in 2005 and 2006 did not reveal any mention of specific-amount personal checks made to Brooks, so that if the Chip Johnson June 24 2008 item referred to Tucker, it is not clear where the columnist got the information about checks. 

In addition, sources close to the Tucker family said that Tucker’s mother died several years before the alleged 2005 kickback activity was supposed to have taken place. 

In 2006, Oakland resident Harold Jackson filed a complaint against Brooks with the Oakland Public Ethics Commission in part over an allegation that Tucker had lived out of state part of the time she was supposed to have been working for Brooks. The Ethics Commission dismissed the complaint on the grounds that it had no jurisdiction to conduct further investigation to determine whether the allegations had occurred, as well as that the matter was being investigated by the District Attorney’s office. 

Brooks repeatedly denied the original allegations made in 2005-06, and no charges ever resulted from the District Attorney office’s investigation. 

Brooks said in this week’s interview that her biggest regret about the allegations was the effect it was having on Tucker. 

“I ran for office accepting the hits I might take in the public and the press,” Brooks said, “but staff members only come on board because they need a job, or want to help in the public sector. For the rest of her life, when someone ‘googles’ Christen Tucker on the internet, these allegations will be the first things that come up. There’s no way to clear her name, and she’ll never get free of that. And that’s not right.”

Igor Tregub, 23, a recent UC Berkeley graduate, was the top vote-getter at a convention this week to pick five progressive candidates to run on as a slate for the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board. 

The Rent Board oversees enforcement of Berkeley’s rent control ordinance. Its staff, which includes two lawyers, explains the law to both tenants and landlords, collects registration fees (now $170 per unit), calculates rent adjustments, helps tenants find a lawyer in eviction cases, and keeps track of Berkeley units under rent control. 

Tregub, now an engineer at the Department of Energy in Livermore, got 149 votes in a weighted voting system. 

Judy Shelton, an artist and activist in tenant causes, got 140 votes. 

Jesse Townley, secretary of the Berkeley Green Party and an advocate for disabled people, got 134 votes. 

Attorney Jack Harrison, incumbent vice-chair of the Rent Board, got 132 votes. 

Nicole Drake, an aide to Councilmember Linda Maio and vice-chair of the Housing Advisory Committee, got 101 votes. The winning five candidates will run on a Save Affordable Housing slate in the November elections. 

Bob Evans, an outspoken and sometimes controversial eviction defense lawyer and a former board member, got 78 votes. 

The vote-counting system, being used for the first time, is somewhat like instant-runoff voting, in which voters rank candidates by order of preference. It is meant to measure any level of support a candidate gets. If Evans had gotten enough end-of-the ballot votes and Nicole Drake hadn’t, Evans would have moved into fifth place. 

But Dave Blake, a board member who oversaw the counting, said that when it became clear there weren’t enough ballots left to change the outcome, the counting was suspended. 

Evans can appeal. “I don’t have enough information to say yay or nay,” he said.  

The vote-counting also was suspended due to counters’ exhaustion. 

Normally a computer would be used to process such a heavy load of calculations, but there’s no way a roomful of Berkeley progressives would let a computer anywhere near a ballot. 

The counting started at 6:30 p.m. and went to 9 p.m., when the custodian at the North Berkeley Senior Center, where the convention was held, kicked everyone out. It moved to the Au Coquelet cafe down the street, where it finally ended about an hour later. 

Representatives of the candidates watched the counting with a dwindling number of other observers for as long as they could stand it. 

Tregub, the top vote-getter, openly acknowledged packing the convention with UC students. It wasn’t the first time a candidate had tried to pack the audience with supporters. 

“I did it myself,” said Jesse Arrequin, a former student board member who has resigned to run for the late Dona Spring’s District 4 City Council seat in November. “This is a very common practice at these conventions, and people are used to it.” 

Tregub said his group had compiled a list of 66 people ready to vote for him. Between 30 and 50 of them showed up. 

“In the past there has been a strong anti-student bias,” Tregub said. “This year I saw bias not emanating from candidates but just a few individuals.” 

Complaints about student candidates typically center on their lack of experience in rent-control matters and that they are using the board for practice in governmental affairs. 

Trebug’s experience with rent-control involves two instances of making landlords pay interest on security deposits and an eviction. 

Regardless of who is on the board, the Rent Board staff, operating out of a walk-in office at 2125 Milvia St., plugs steadily along, bound by numerous laws and rules. 

A graph of the history of registration fees in the board’s 2007-2008 budget is a smooth, slowly ascending line, unaffected by the time Berkeley landlords were in control of the board or when vacancy decontrol was passed by the state legislature in the 1990s, allowing landlords to charge any rent they want on empty or new apartments.  

Blake called this mostly a result of good management. Speaking at the convention, Vice Chair Harrison reported a new trend—foreclosures on buildings that have tenants in them. 

“Yes, it’s here,” Harrison said. “It’s probably the most dangerous issue.” 

Later, Harrison said the Rent Board so far has sent notices to 16 tenants living in buildings under foreclosure, advising them to contact the Rent Board about where to send their rent. 

“If they give it to anybody, somebody can just put it in their pocket,” he said. “As soon as we get involved they back away.” 

Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) workers across the Bay Area held protests outside DMV offices on Monday to protest Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to reduce state worker wages to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour from the California minimum wage of $8 per hour. 

SEIU Local 1000, a union that represents DMV workers, Corrections Department workers and emergency personnel, organized the actions in Oakland, San Jose, Concord, San Mateo, Vacaville, Salinas and Capitola in response to an executive order signed by Schwarzenegger last week to reduce pay and terminate 10,000 workers.  

The governor said he is basing his decision on a 2003 ruling by the California Supreme Court, White v. Davis, which held that when there is no budget in place, the state is required to pay its workers the federal minimum wage, or, if they work overtime, their full salaries plus minimum wage. 

Shortly before noon at the Oakland Claremont office, a dozen DMV workers held signs, chanting slogans such as “We Can’t Survive on $6.55.” Many said they feared home foreclosures and an inability to pay bills. 

“They need to give us a fair salary,” said Kathy Shipp, who has worked at the Oakland Claremont DMV branch for three years. “I’m not going to be able to pay my bills. It makes me very angry. There are a lot of hardworking people here, and Arnold just doesn’t care about us. Our hours have been shortened, people are getting laid off, and, most of all, customers are getting upset.” 

John Krumm, a DMV field representative who works at the San Francisco office and who is also a member of the bargaining team, says that he has already noticed longer waiting times at the DMV. 

“Before these proposed budget cuts and layoff notices took place, the waiting time was an hour or less,” remarked Krumm. “When I went in to work on Friday, the average wait time was over three hours. In addition, we can’t take walk-in appointments after 3 p.m. anymore. This is not good news for the DMV or the public.” 

Some DMV workers fear for their health, due to the threat of cuts in medical benefits by the governor’s budget proposal. 

“We need to have our medical benefits,” said Barbara Scott, a single mother in Oakland, who has worked at the DMV for five years as a phone operator. “People who have kids need to have a fair salary and health insurance. I want people to know that we really can’t survive on $6.55 an hour.” 

Krumm said that the morale of DMV employees is down, and many are venting their frustration toward the governor and the State of California. 

“I feel very much used,” Krumm said. “I work very hard for the state. I think Arnold is playing a power game with the state legislature. Every single employee is being affected. There are many in the area who are very angry.” 

Michelle Freeman, a four-year employee of the DMV, thinks that the DMV employees should begin a strike. 

“We are very limited in the things we can do,” said Freeman. “Right now, we are protesting during our lunch breaks, but we could also strike. I think we should strike, in fact. It is pissing me off that the governor is proposing this. I come all the way from Antioch. The price of gas is up. If I only get $6.55 per hour, I can expect to go into home foreclosure, become bankrupt, and not be able to pay any of my bills … We mean business.” 

The governor said his actions are necessary and legal in a statement distributed to the media last week. 

“Today I am exercising my executive authority to avoid a full-blown crisis and keep our state moving forward,” Schwar-zenegger said. “This is not an action I take lightly, but we do not have a budget, and as governor, I have a responsibility to make sure our state has enough money to pay its bills.” 

Following the governor’s action, SEIU Local 1000 filed three court actions to stop the government’s executive order: one in Sacramento County Superior Court to stop the layoffs, another as an unfair labor practices complaint with the state Public Employee Relations Board regarding the legality of cutting salaries to federal minimum wage, and a third to hold the state accountable for paying 8,000–9,000 laid-off state employees who haven’t been paid yet. 

“We feel that we are being jerked around,” said Jim Zamora, media spokesman for SEIU Local 1000. “This is no way to run a state or a business. We want the governor to work with the legislature to pass a budget and keep California running.”

On your left! Slow Food, coming up fast. A movement once associated with European elites will be convening in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend, bringing an advertised 50,000 devotees along to celebrate the virtues of thinking globally but eating locally.  

The centerpiece of the event will be a strip of little round planters billed as a “victory garden”—a nostagic evocation of The Greatest Generation’s attempt to have food self-sufficiency during World War II—plopped down right in the middle of the lollipop tree arcades that delimit San Francisco City Hall’s Beaux Arts promenade.  

I almost remember the victory garden in our urban St. Louis neighborhood, where we had both backyards and streetcars, an increasingly rare combination of amenities. I think it was in the vacant lot at the corner, which after the war was over became an exciting unstructured play space for neighborhood kids. 

My mother, now almost 93, remembers it better. They grew tomatoes and “something in the ground, maybe carrots.” She says “it really didn’t work very well,” though it was fun. 

Here’s Willow Rosenthal, who runs City Slicker Farms in Oakland, expounding on the victory garden dream on the Slow Food Nation Convention’s website, slowfoodnation.org:  

“So what are the possibilities in San Francisco? Because of our long growing season in the Bay Area, intensive urban agriculture can provide from one to three pounds of produce per square foot per year. Each person consumes approximately 300 pounds of fruits and vegetables per year. That means a space of 10’x10’ to 20’x20’ (100-300 square feet of growing space, not counting paths) would be needed to grow ALL of the fruits and vegetables for each person. 

“An average San Francisco backyard (25x40), if cultivated intensively could grow all of the fruits and vegetables for one person. A goal of growing 20-40 percent of the fruits and vegetables consumed in San Francisco could be achieved through a combination of backyard gardening, community gardening, school gardens and increasing urban agriculture on currently unused municipal land (if we assume each household has five members that means the backyard could grow 20 percent of the household food needs; since not all households will grow food, add to that other urban farming lands).” 

Just do the numbers: sounds lovely, doesn’t it? I’m ready for it myself. I don’t have a backyard as such, but I do have four tomato plants growing on a flat roof. 

But there’s a catch, a big one. The commendable push to get you to eat food grown near home, especially in your city backyard, is likely to run smack up against another equally Greenish cause, urban infill. For at least 10 years backyards and their proprietors have been the target of scorn by some of those who want to preserve farms in, for example, Brentwood.  

One of the endorsers of the upcoming Slow Show is Greenbelt Alliance, whose bread-and-butter for the last eight or 10 years has been endorsing—for a consideration, of course—the kind of development optimistically labelled Smart Growth. And the Smart-Growthers’ favorite derogatory epithet is N.I.M.B.Y.: Not In My—yes—Backyard.  

Greenbelt Alliance has a whole division devoted to endorsements, with an archive listing all of the building projects they’ve blessed since 2000. It’s sobering reading, for those who follow urban issues. The now infamous Oak-to-Ninth project in Oakland, target of various lawsuits by environmentalists and preservationists, is on there, for example. 

And then there’s the project listed from 2001 as “Patrick Kennedy’s Jubilee Courtyard Apartments” at 2700 San Pablo in Berkeley. For a brisk history of how that one got started, complete with an assortment of political fast footwork, check out Will Harper’s 2001 Eastbay Express story, www.eastbayexpress.com/news/the_kennedy_touch__one_case_study_in_berkeley_development/Content?oid=282364 . 

His tale ends with Kennedy deriding the concerns of neighbor Howie Muir: “As far as Kennedy is concerned, the only reason Muir objects to the four-story project is that it will block his view of the Marin Headlands. ‘It’s classic NIMBYism,’ he says.” 

With many twists and turns, the project was eventually approved, and Howie Muir moved up to the Sierras, disappointed in Berkeley. Kennedy’s approved entitlements for 2700 San Pablo were sold to new owners and a different and even uglier building—now condos instead of affordable rentals—was eventually built. 

Fast forward to 2008. Gale Garcia brought Planet readers up to date in a July letter: 

“Newspaper ads for the condos began in December 2007 with a catchy new project name: ‘Avenue West is just steps away from the shops and restaurants of Berkeley’s exciting Left Bank!’ When I attended an open house tour, only two units seemed to be complete.  

“In late February 2008, mechanics’ liens against the property began appearing at the Alameda County Recorder’s Office, eventually totaling 49 liens filed. The amount still owed to contractors is approximately $1,036,468.  

“The two completed units at 2700 San Pablo, 210 and 406, were advertised vigorously until early May, when advertising ceased. Number of condominium sales recorded: zero. Property transfer tax added to city coffers: zero.  

“On June 2 a Notice of Default was filed at the Recorder’s Office. The construction loan of approximately $9.5 million appears to be in arrears.  

“What will become of ‘Avenue West’—a featureless stucco box in financial trouble? It’s difficult to imagine someone buying and completing it—there’s no sign of a thriving rental market on San Pablo Avenue, and the market for new condos is dead.” 

In other words, the green-washed project turned brown, and then died. And another open space is gone. 

The problem is that it’s all too easy for all of us to march in different directions, all flying our personal green flags. Plausible-sounding plans to fill up every remaining open space in our already developed urban areas could mean that there will be nowhere left to put our victory gardens. The lovely Spiral Gardens plot on Martin Luther King, for example, is now a parking lot and will soon be a building site. 

A few years ago we attended an intimate benefit brunch to raise funds for the late Karl Linn, an urban gardener who, according to his memorial website, “spent the last 44 years of his life guiding the transformation of abandoned vacant lots and drab institutional settings into vibrant community spaces.” The hostess, a prominent local politician, saw no apparent irony in the fact that all the other invited guests except for us were developers (and generous campaign contributors, including the omnipresent Kennedy) who spent their lives transforming abandoned vacant lots and vibrant community spaces into drab condominium complexes.  

If the “locavore” idea is to get any major traction, its proponents will have to come to terms with the prospect that city back yards, front yards and vacant lots are becoming endangered species, just like family farms. If residents on streets like Berkeley Way which parallel arterials like University have their yards shaded out by megaplexes like the Trader Joe’s building, they won’t be able to grow many tomatoes. Preserving the last remaining green spaces in already dense places like San Francisco and Berkeley must become part of the “eat local” agenda. 

—Becky O’Malley

TAXPAYER REVOLT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Every election year, Berkeley's city government asks its taxpayers to vote for additional taxes. But if Berkeley stopped diverting its income from existing tax revenues to pay for exorbitant employee/staff salaries (many of which exceed $100,000 per year), yearly increases, very generous health benefits, and excessive retirement packages, including pensions of at least 90 percent of salaries (what other employers are so extravagant?), to reasonable levels, what actual new taxes would really be needed? 

Although taxes may be necessary, they should not be assessed to make up for mismanagement of assets. Thus, until Berkeley's city government proves they have dramatically reduced, not increased, employee/staff salaries, benefits, and retirement packages (except for those lowest paid employees) to reasonable levels, Berkeley taxpayers should vote no across the board to all new taxes. 

Steve Mackouse 

• 

TAX SUGGESTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The governor's proposal for increasing sales tax should be redirected to increasing taxes on gasoline and other fuels as we have just gone through the dollar-plus per gallon rise in gas prices without being really distressed. So a 10-cent per gallon increase in taxes on fuels would not be felt very much and would be designated to cover all programs associated with roads and public transportation. That would free up for other programs money that is now taken from the general tax revenues to underwrite much of the public transportation costs. The increased fuel tax funds could also be used to speed up road improvements, especially bridge replacements to avoid the Minnesota collapse scenario, which would create jobs for construction workers laid off by the housing downturn. Those workers would no longer be drawing unemployment and would be making money and paying taxes while being involved in work benefiting the state. One cent of the increase might be designated to rehabilitating public housing projects to again generate jobs for construction workers and get some decent housing for low-income families.  

James Singmaster 

• 

THEN AND NOW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Aren't the similarities ironic? Fortunately there are important differences. 

Back in the last century, the wealthy group of white male UC Regents decided to cut down a grove of old oaks next to a waterfall, dig a large hole, and culvert the stream in order to build a huge stadium. There was much opposition from both the UC community and the Berkeley community. The university paid no attention to complaints, calling them “selfish,” planned the stadium in Strawberry Canyon, and then declared in the 1923 Blue and Gold (Volume 49, page 42): “Surrounded by the natural beauties of Strawberry Canyon, the stadium will be a monument which every Californian will be proud to have a part in the building.” (See Susan Cerny’s two-part Daily Planet article, beginning Sept. 2, 2003.)  

UC had already worked on plans for a stadium at a different site. The stadium was planned for a two-block area located east of Oxford Street between Allston and Bancroft just south of Strawberry Creek, where today the sports facility complex now stands. But the site at the mouth of Strawberry Canyon was chosen. Berkeley architect Robert Ratcliff told me back in the late 1980s that his father, architect Walter Ratcliff, told him that one of the UC Regents had idle mining equipment and that the Strawberry Canyon site would put that equipment to work. Walter Ratcliff had reason to know because he had worked on the plans for the stadium at the site not on top of the Hayward Fault. 

Now, in the 21st century, the UC Regents have decided to cut down a grove of old oaks to dig a large hole in order to build an underground bunker for athletes. I doubt that any of the current UC Regents has idle mining equipment that will be put to work, but it is obvious that profits from televised football games, donations from Bear Backers, and higher priced tickets make money again the motivation. UC does not care if views are ruined. They do not care if the congestion and noise is untolerable to the many who live in the area. They do not care if safety is seriously compromised. After all, they are the largest corporation in the state of California, with their own section of the California Constitution. They have license to do almost anything they want, the public be damned. 

The differences are: the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the Alquist-Priolo Act and a community that has continually funded two lawsuits.  

Ann Reid Slaby 

• 

LOCAVORE ZONING ALREADY IN PLACE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ms. O'Malley's Aug. 8 editorial on the apparent inverse relationship between local food and local development projects (one desirable, the other always evil) really reaches an odd conclusion: that continuing to allow future commercial real estate projects in Berkeley is somehow a threat to our food supply. Apparently all our backyards and lawns—undoubtedly the ultimate potential locavore food resource—are going to be made unusable for planting organic veggies because of commercial developments elsewhere in town. 

However, she seems to have forgotten that we have a General Plan and a zoning ordinance—designed to segregate different uses in different parts of Berkeley. Those of us living in residential zones on lots with small plantable spaces are enabled for those uses by residential zoning, while commercial zones have permitted uses that generally don't include urban agriculture. 

That's all to the good. While parts of People's Park sometimes go in locavore directions, it's unlikely that the nearby long-vacant lot at Haste and Telegraph will ever be designated an official "Farms? In Berkeley?" zone. Its favored use is for mixed-use development, providing retail and some housing for residents who may not need cars to be good consuming locavores. And while we might ape San Francisco and plant a few token veggies on median strips like University or Telegraph, doing so would have only educational value for our local diets. We should indeed be growing more of our own—but the enemy is usually our own inertia rather than somebody who wants to build a four-plex in a zone where it's allowed. 

Yes, there will always be some local issues between neighbors, where one resident's desired sunlight (or view) is compromised by another's building or future plans. (The fact that the zoning-district boundaries on some major streets are only half a block deep guarantees more future conflicts than we would have had with more visionary planning decades ago.) But that's one good reason why we have a Zoning Adjustments Board—so that particular adverse consequences can be identified, and hopefully mitigated, well in advance of building. Even Ms, O'Malley's poster-boy example of evil encroachment on solar access, the Trader Joe's building, was modified in the permitting process to lessen its impact (e.g., shadows to the north will not reach across Berkeley Way). 

So never fear, R-1 gardeners selling your super-local produce to Chez Panisse a bag at a time. Your solar access—and pride of locavore production—are both safe from other citizens who merely wish to build commercial buildings where the zoning ordinance allows it. 

Alan Tobey 

• 

IN HONOR OF DONA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One aspect of Berkeley’s beloved late Green councilmember Dona Spring’s work which so many of us appreciated was her devotion to clean and fair government. Dona also felt that the city was deficient in providing resources for aquatic activities options: swimming pools and the like. I propose to the City of Berkeley that it redouble its up to now fruitless efforts to find the $25 million recently defrauded by Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) employees (a heist seemingly all but forgotten by city "leaders") and make good use of some of these funds by creating a lasting tribute to Dona that will benefit the people of Berkeley on the many hot days to come as global warming trends take hold. Former City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque referred to the aforementioned BHA fraud as the worst in any city department in 20 years. It would be more than appropriate to utilize recovered BHA embezzlement in the service of financing a Dona Spring Memorial Aquatic Project perhaps? 

Diane Villanueva 

• 

DOWNTOWN SIDEWALKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Downtown Berkeley sidewalks are filthy! The black spots look like obscenities spit out by the Free Speech Movement class of '65! Business owners! Clean up your *$*%* front yards!  

JC Pence 

• 

WHAT ABOUT CARTER? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

OK, so President Clinton will get to play a role at the convention. But what about the other president, the one who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize? What role has been scripted for President Jimmy Carter? If no role, why not? 

Irving Gershenberg 

• 

JUDGE MILLER NOT A LAWFUL JUDGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Readers should know that those claiming judicial "authority" in the UC Memorial Stadium oak grove dispute have been exposed as poseurs; thus, de facto. California's Constitution does not allow an attorney (member of the State Bar), to retain his or her membership "while holding office as a judge of a court of record." (Article VI., Section 9.) 

Repeating this prohibition, the state's Business and Professions Code also does not allow members of the State Bar to retain their memberships when holding office as "justices and judges of courts of record during their continuance in office." (Section 6002.) 

Nevertheless, so-called "Judge" Barbara Jane Miller is clearly listed as a "member" on the website of her labor union (the California State Bar), as "Number 83819". (!) The website states rather blatantly that: "This person is currently serving as a judge of a court of record and is not considered a member of the State Bar while in office. (See Constitution of California. Article VI, Section 9.)" 

But, dear Reader: Article VI, Section 9's prohibition is stated above. Do such "judges" now demand that citizens of California adhere to every jot and tittle of the law, yet "not consider" that the law applies equally to them? (The words "arrogant" and "imperious" come to mind.) 

The law IS clear. Both so-called "Judge" Richard Overton Keller (Bar "Number 40890", who issued the "injunction" against the tree sitters and those "aiding and abetting them"), and "Judge" Barbara J. Miller (who issued the recent "judgment" in favor of the people's (?) university in opposition to the laws and preferences of the people of Berkeley), are—in defiance of California law—currently "holding office as a judge of a court of record." 

The attorneys ostensibly working toward the preservation of the oak grove should have demanded that the purported "judges" recuse themselves. Their "injunction" and "judgment" are VOID, ab initio (from the beginning); the plaintiffs were Coram non Judice (in presence of a person not a judge). This is obvious, from the lawful reasons cited above. 

Conclusion: The university has no lawful authority to proceed with the stadium project. 

Arthur Stopes, III 

Director, Center for Unalienable Rights Education 

• 

ANIMAL RIGHTS AND THE STATE FAIR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The California State Fair begins Aug. 15 and runs through Sept. 1. Some animal welfare issues remain unresolved at CALEXPO. 

At the 2004 State Fair, a rodeo bull suffered a broken back when struck by a mechanical contraption called the "Cowboy Teeter-totter." Euthanized? No, the animal was simply trucked off to the Flying U Rodeo's Marysville ranch, where he was shot to death the next day. Not acceptable! Ever since, animal protectionists have been pressuring CALEXPO to adopt an immediate, on-site euthanasia policy for fatally injured rodeo animals, as so determined by the attending veterinarian. Seems little to ask. Reportedly, county and city animal control officers will monitor this year's rodeo, and they have the authority to confiscate injured animals. 

At the 2007 State Fair, two Mexican fighting bulls escaped their pen, knocked a heroic security guard into a coma, broke her ribs, trampled a horse, and nearly trampled a bunch of kids. These animals were to be used in yet another nonsensical event called "Bull Poker," in which four or five cowboys sit around a card table, and bear the brunt of the charging bull. Last man sitting wins the jackpot. A man was killed in this event at a Kentucky rodeo recently, and his widow and three orphans are suing the fairgrounds for millions. Both of these events should be banned outright, of course, for the protection of animals and cowboys alike. Neither is sanctioned by the PRCA. 

On Aug. 16 and 17, the fair features two nights of "Bull Fest" (6:45-7:45 p.m.), with six bull rides, plus the inane and dangerous "Cowboy Poker" event. Please contact CALEXPO to express your concerns: Norbert Bartosik, CEO (genmgr@calexpo.com); Board of Directors, Marko Mlikotin, Chair (calexpoboard@calexpo.com),(916) 263-3000. 

Eric Mills 

Action for Animals 

Oakland  

• 

WHAT’S IN A NAME? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have some questions about the group Berkeleyans for Cal. Their official name seems to be Berkeleyans for Cal Athletics—that’s what it says on their website, anyway. But at the last City Council meeting, the representatives of this group used the shorter name. Did they take the word “athletics” off to hide the fact that their organization’s sole purpose is to support building training facilities and rebuilding Memorial Stadium on top of an earthquake fault? That is clear from their website, too. 

Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, rather than truncating the group’s name, they should have lengthened it—to “Berkeleyans for Cal Athletics on Top of Earthquake Faults.” That says it all, don’t you think? 

Doug Buckwald 

• 

HAUNTED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am still haunted by the image of a little girl, not over age 6, undoubtedly on her first two-wheeler, peddling frantically and unsteadily in the middle of Colby Street in Oakland, trying to keep up with her family. It was a spring-like Sunday, and luckily no moving cars were in sight, unlike that usually busy street. Her brother, perhaps 8 years old, was on his small bike, a few feet ahead. Mother and father were on their respective bikes ahead of both. I watched in shock as the parents never turned to check on the safety of these two children, even when the adults turned right at the far end of this block!  

I have long been incredulous that children, too young for a driver’s license, are allowed to ride a bike in our streets, competing with automobiles! The lawmakers seem to feel that pedestrians are in more danger from sidewalk bicyclers, than these children are in the streets. 

I am aware that unthinking bike-riders can be a danger on the sidewalks, when they do not alert walkers of their presence, or move too fast. I have been told that warning devices on bikes are not required because it is assumed that the riders will use their voices to warn others! I have come close to such collisions several times, when the bicyclists behind me assumed I would not vary my steps, and gave me no warning. 

In a perfect world, we would have bike lanes everywhere. Until then, we need to change our laws in a few inexpensive ways. Because we apparently can't trust parents to know when street-riding will endanger the lives of their children, streets must be limited to drivers or bicyclists of legal driving age! Bicycles must have warning devices, preferably a standard sound, identifiable to bikes only. Sidewalk-riders need to be educated and responsible about warning pedestrians and about safe riding limits. 

But I am certain that medical and funeral costs of auto-bike collisions far outweigh that of bike-people accidents! 

Gerta Farber 

• 

DONA’S GLOW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The sky’s brilliant glowing at sunset’s end and later 

Seemed to linger beyond reasonable possibility, 

Mirroring Dona’s life 

Celebrated today in the afternoon by friends, lovers, cohorts, and citizens. 

We gathered to acknowledge her accomplishments, achievement and wisdom 

Continuing with more words 

In the attempt to ease our mutual pain from her passing; 

Altogether, unfortunately another equally unlikely occurrence 

Considering the amount of grief we share for the spectacular person she was. 

And so, left now under the fall of night... 

The big dipper in the northwest, rising stars and other constellations, 

Mindful and soulful we remain, awaiting a new day’s arrival, 

Yet further, unending appreciation for a life so precious and full 

With consciousness, activity, kindness and humor. 

Charles A. Pappas 

• 

AN OPINIONATED SOLUTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If all countries in this world were to come together and negotiate peace amongst each other instead of spending billions of dollars on nuclear weaponry and warfare, there would be enough money to feed all human beings on this planet and clean up the ghettos. 

Jonathan Orbiculus 

(Inspired by Food Not Bombs) 

WINDFALL PROFITS ARE THEFT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Quarter after quarter, and year after year, the oil companies post record profits that are higher than ever before. If they were just passing the high cost of crude oil on to the consumer, their profits would be constant. No, they are squeezing us for excessive profits simply because they can. 

Sure, this hurts us consumers. It is also wrecking havoc on our country’s economy. And still, they receive billions in tax breaks. These must stop. Instead, the oily companies should pay a windfall-profits tax. Let’s use their profits to fund solar and wind energy alternatives. Then we could drive plug-in electric cars with no carbon footprint on the environment. 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

• 

McDONALD’S FIRINGS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ve been a regular patron of McDonald’s restaurant in Berkeley over the past 20 or more years, always aiming for a table at the window where I’ve spent happy hours sipping coffee, reading a newspaper or simply watching the passing parade on Shattuck Avenue. 

In all those years I’ve had ample opportunity to observe Susan Hanks, who was recently dismissed by McDonald’s after 26 years of faithful service. Granted that Susan is developmentally disabled, this didn’t affect her work one whit. Clearly, Susan loved her job—loved it with a passion. She wiped tables and chairs with gusto, stacked trays, picked up trash from the floor and pushed a broom, all with lightning speed. If I tried to engage her in conversation, she made it clear she was there to work—not to chat. Never mind that we had been neighbors in the Elmwood District at one time. 

It pains me to think what this cruel dismissal has meant to someone so dedicated to her job. Could McDonald’s not have waited until Susan and the two other employee retired? Are we to assume that this restaurant will now recruit only graduate students and Ph.D.’s to clean tables and pick up trash? I suggest they consider that Safeway stores have successfully hired developmentally disabled workers for many years. 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

ANOTHER VIEW OF CIVIL WAR HERO McCLEAVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the East Bay Then and Now article entitled “Civil War Hero Established a Military Dynasty,” the exploits of Captain William McCleave during the Civil War are described. Several incidents involved battles between the California Volunteers and Indian tribes in Texas and New Mexico. I have a different perspective on his actions there. For example, Captain McCleave and the infamous Kit Carson attacked a Kiowa village of 150 lodges and killed many men, women and children. For this, Kit Carson named him as the officer “deserving highest praise.” 

He may have led an honorable and productive life in Berkeley, but his actions against many Indian tribes and individuals during the Civil War do not make him a hero.  

What is ironic is that he left Ireland during the famine that resulted from English policies that favored the rights of the large landowners over the farmers who worked the land. So he and his family and many thousands others were driven from Ireland because of a government policy. Then he comes to the United States and attacks Native Americans who also are trying to protect their ancestral lands and families against a military machine. 

For me the irony is two-fold. My ancestors were driven from their ancestral lands in Scotland in the early 1800s so that large English landowners could use their land to graze sheep for the lucrative wool markets of England. In many cases the families were forced off their land and their houses burned to the ground. My Irish ancestors came to the United States, like Wm McCleave, because they were starving, due to a potato famine and English policy. I wonder why he thought that attacking Kiowa and Comanche villages was honorable, but starving in Ireland was not. 

He may have been a hero to some, but not to me and many of my friends and relatives. 

Will Galeson 

• 

BURMA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

China is a major trade partner, major arms supplier and major defender of the junta in the international arena, especially in the United Nations Security Council. The military junta in Burma is still in power to this day, despite strong and continuous resistance by the people of Burma, because of China’s support. China has provided billions of dollars in weapons, used its veto power at the UN Security Council to paralyze peaceful efforts at change, and unilaterally undermined diplomatic efforts to free the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners. 

The Olympics begin on Aug. 8—the 20th anniversary of Burma’s largest national democratic uprising, when millions bravely marched through the streets, and nearly toppled the military regime if they had not been brutally massacred. 

The people of Burma are continually calling for a protection of freedom and human rights and an end to attacks against ethnic minorities. China however continues to send weapons and funds to the Burmese dictatorship, allowing attacks against civilians to continue. 

Human rights activists inside Burma have called on people around the world to not watch the Olympic ceremonies because of China’s support for the Burmese military. You can still support the athletes in what they do, support the Chinese people, and support the games for what they stand for, but don’t support the Chinese government’s policies. 

Don Irwin 

Oakland 

• 

WHAT IS THE PENALTY? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the event of an earthquake on the Hayward Fault could the university be held liable for any injuries or deaths occurring at or near the (new) sports facility cum stadium given that a reasonable person could (and many have) foreseen such an occurrence and other building options were readily available? Given the likelihood of such an occurrence, would the lack of an adequate disaster plan and evacuation proceeding constitute simple negligence or rise to the level of willful and intentional disregard of human safety and life? Will the liability for any such an event be restricted to the university or can it be extended to any donors, trustees or public officials who knowingly supported the venture despite its risks? Or will the taxpayers be saddled with any liabilities that may occur? 

Should the university be liable to the city for any infrastructure damage or public safety costs caused by the project? Should not users of the facility as well as people who live and work nearby be adequately warned of the dangers and likelihood of a major quake? Would warning labels printed (like on cigarette packages) on tickets along with postings in the area be adequate or should users and property buyers be required to sign documents assuming the risk? Should disaster plans be posted at all entrances and exits to the complex? Should half-time disaster drills become a normal part of every game? 

At what point does potential risk outweigh potential gain? Should not safety be a primary consideration in the creation of any educational facility? Is a sports facility at that location necessary for the diffusion of knowledge? When and how can an institution be judged guilty of betraying a public trust? What is the penalty for that? 

Joanne Kowalski 

• 

THREE CHEERS FOR THE PLANET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Our great City of Berkeley is known worldwide for its outstanding progressiveness. When Mike and Becky O’Malley purchased the Daily Planet, they created an amazing newspaper that represents that unique, distinguishing quality. No other publication has now, or ever, done that important job. Without getting too maudlin: Three big Berkeley cheers for the O’Malleys! 

Robert Blau 

• 

ON SMOKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A “friend of mine” who is a former smoker (he quit again, just this morning), remembered an incident on Telegraph Avenue, near the Med. He was directed as far from its entrance as possible. Fair enough, I say. 

Standing at the edge of the street where bike riders were exposed to his exhalations (and car exhaust), “he” uttered to a fellow fumer, “We’re pushed to the curb with the junkies and pigeons. Oh. Sorry—you don’t look like a pigeon.” 

I’ve stopped referring to tobacco addiction as a habit. Not many years ago, there was a running ad in a local paper which read: “Be paid to ridicule smokers.” Had that ad been about alcoholics, there would have been quite a negative response from readers. The medical condition of alcoholism has been upgraded to a disease. Remember when those who suffered that affliction were considered by more people as losers and bums? 

Pedestrians are not addicted to car exhaust, nor to the noise they produce. 

If only the mass availability of tobacco had been prevented, especially the most toxic form: cigarettes. 

Ove Ofteness 

• 

FEVERFEW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Soon there won’t be any place in public to smoke. After all, smoking in public makes everyone downwind smoke, too. It’s not as unobtrusive as snuff or chaw, after all. It makes the rest of us do the drug, too. A little help for you, Al, and Michael, and other self-loathing smokers: Feverfew. This bitter (God’s way of preventing overdosing?) relative of tansy and chrysanthemum contains chemicals called parthenols which do the same thing to your capillaries as nicotine. This gets rid of the dreaded withdrawal migraine. Nicotine’s stimulant and anti-depressant affects can be replaced by coffee or tea or chocolate or even guarana, none of which have to be set on fire to tickle the brain and enrage passing crazed bicyclists. Can’t find Feverfew? It grows like a weed in this area, freely self-seeding and coming back from mild frosts readily. E-mail me for a plant or two or five. No more dragon breath, please.  

Linus Hollis 

• 

GIVE IT UP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Al Winslow’s article “Not A Time To Be A Smoker” illustrates the lengths to which a smoker must go to avoid persecution. I feel bad for those poor addicted people. But smoke—any kind of smoke—causes me to cough and constantly clear my throat. Everyone’s right to clean air trumps any perceived right to smoke. 

It is clear that both smokers and second-hand smokers are at risk for a number of diseases and cancers. It’s no wonder, because cigarettes contain a high number of toxic chemicals. 

Smoking organic tobacco and papers still takes its toll on the lungs because of fine particulates, as well as the dioxin that rains down on all crops, whether organic or not. 

Research in the scientific journal Archives of Environmental Health has shown that cigarettes deliver high levels of dioxins that are comparable to those coming out of incinerator stacks. Dioxins are linked to a very wide range of diseases and cancers, some of which have negative effects on the human endocrine system. This makes dioxin an endocrine disruptor, causing inappropriate quantity of hormones—too much, too little or none at all—that affect nearly every bodily function from reproduction and development to memory and body temperature regulation. 

But there are many other toxic chemicals involved in smoking. Alternative ingredients can take the place of real tobacco including but not limited to: loblolly pine cellulose; paper manufacturing waste; agricultural waste; timber products waste; municipal paper waste; and food processing waste. The chlorine-bleached paper it’s typically wrapped in is a source of dioxins. If that isn’t enough then there are radioactive phosphate tobacco fertilizers (Polonium 210); burn accelerants; a wide range of sugars and artificial sweeteners; an abundance of chemicals used in commercial farming; and residue from 400 pesticides registered for use with tobacco. 

To continue smoking is to continue one’s self abuse. But please don’t do it around others who did not specifically give permission to smoke nearby. I wish the author and all smokers the will to stop. But just give it up Al. (Please.) 

Paul Goettlich 

• 

GAY MARRIAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his July 31 letter, Ben Padilla attempts to justify his opposition to gay marriage on both historical and biblical grounds. He states that the “personal writings” of our “Founding Fathers” make it clear that they were theists and believed in “the God of the Bible.” Probably true, but in their wisdom they set aside their personal beliefs to create a constitution which forbids “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Bible, like other ancient religious scripts, is a collection of opinion and superstition set forth by pedants whose views, in their time, were surely as bigoted as those of Mr. Padilla, and it has no place in state policy. His own distaste for homosexuality is made vivid by his revulsion at public gay displays. As to his contention that homosexuality is “physically harmful” and damaging to the spirit, I wonder what has so severely damaged his. The glory of democracy is that we all may decide for ourselves what is good for us, or not. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

NO ON PROPOSTION 8 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Our California Constitution—the law of our land—should guarantee the same freedoms and rights to everyone. No one group should be singled out to be treated differently. However, Proposition 8 would deny gay and lesbian couples these freedoms and rights. Regardless of how you feel about this issue, the freedom to marry is fundamental to our society, just like the freedoms of religion and speech. The government has no business telling people who can and cannot get married. Just like government has no business telling us what to read, watch on TV or do in our private lives. We don’t need Prop. 8; we don’t need more government in our lives. 

Will Weiner 

• 

GOOD SAMARITANS IN  

BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Twice in the past couple of months strangers have come to help when I’ve toppled over in my electric scooters (two different ones, and the falls were for two different reasons). 

The more recent event was this past Thursday on Haste Street, where some clown was parked in a driveway, narrowing the already narrow sidewalk. Scooter and I went over sideways, with the scooter’s falling on top of my leg and pinning me. Fortunately, my service dog managed to steer clear of me. I called for help and four people showed up. The first was a man who kept saying, “I love you, I’m coming to help you,” as he piled his packages near a wall. The second, third and fourth were an occupational therapist who undoubtedly works at the Herrick Campus, a FedEx deliveryman and a man in scrubs who could have been anything from a neurosurgeon to a janitor. The first man got the scooter off me. The occupational therapist helped me sit up and lent me her handkerchief, and the FedEx man and the man in scrubs got the scooter upright. 

The earlier event was scary enough that I had a bystander (who’d been all the way across Shattuck) come running across to offer help. Since I’d landed on my head I was concerned about a head injury, so I asked the guy to call 911. Our paramedics are wonderful. They’re kind, gentle and very well trained. And they had me sitting up and standing up in a very short time. 

And both times, I found myself thinking how glad I am that I moved to Berkeley, lo these many years ago, because it’s a place where people do pay attention when others need help. The purpose of this letter is to say thank you to everyone who helped me and made sure I was OK. 

And for the occupational therapist, I’m going to return your handkerchief, cleaned of blood and as fresh and soft as when you offered it to me. 

Joann Lee 

• 

SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Over two weeks ago, Dan Mogulof, executive director of UC Berkeley’s Office of Public Affairs, criticized Becky O’Malley’s editorial for its “personal animus.” As yet, you have remained undefended, until now. How does the spokesman for an organization employing for two months the tactic of starving the young people in the oaks dare to claim the higher ground? And even offer a sarcastic lecture in his July letter to the editor? It is UC who has handled the theater of the last year and a half so poorly, so arrogantly considering the amount of neighborhood and citywide opposition to their athletic project. How often do you see Shirley Dean and Betty Olds climbing trees? Of course, remember Dona Spring’s appearance at the tree-sit and unanswered plea for reason (food for the protestors)? However this turns out, UC and Mogulof have without a doubt behaved shamefully with unnecessary disrespect to its neighbors and the citizens of Berkeley. 

Charles Pappas  

• 

SURLY CYCLISTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There is graffiti on the wall at Milva and Channing which says “cars are assholes.” In Berkeley it barely raises an eyebrow; if it does you may have chuckled. I no longer drive, but I do walk all over Berkeley. In the past three years I have been hit three times, I have been screamed at, sworn at, and spit upon—not by car drivers but by bicyclists. I’m not speaking about thugs from the lower rungs of society, I’m speaking of UC Berkeley students, 30-something parents towing their toddler buggy, workers heading to their jobs, and younger students heading to classes or parks. 

The City of Berkeley speaks of their master plan for the community, a plan in which they reduce the number of cars and provide incentive for the use of public transport, bikes, foot traffic as alternate ways of moving from place to place. I am all for better living and reducing our dependency on oil and gas by reducing the use of cars, but not if there is no incentive for the police department to enforce public safety. 

I’ll put this simply: If you are on wheels you are not a pedestrian and do not belong on a sidewalk. Twice I have been hit in a marked crosswalk (once while pushing a stroller) by a cyclist who blew through a stop sign. Both times, they did not apologize; they just admonished me for not getting out of their way. Once I was hit on a sidewalk because I would not give way after they had shouted “on your left!” 

I see cyclists on the sidewalk all over Berkeley, even on designated bicycle boulevards: Milva, Virginia and Ninth Street. I see cyclists ride against the flow of traffic so they can see cars. I see cyclists ignore traffic lights and street signs. I see people decide they’re cyclists until confronted by a red light and then suddenly they become a pedestrian, hoping the curb and turning abruptly to ride through the pedestrian crosswalk; wobbling into pedestrians crossing the street. And then, most disheartening of all, I see the Berkeley police force make the choice to stop a jaywalker downtown and ignore the bicyclist wobbling into the elderly woman with a cane in front of Tullys and the main BART station entrance; within 20 feet of the blue and white sign which says “Walk your bike on the sidewalk.” 

What I would like to see is more effort made by all of us to remember that our safety and well-being is tied to the safety and well being of those around us. If you want respect for your chosen mode of transportation, than you need to respect others around you, regardless of their mode of transportation. I would like to see Berkeley step up to the plate and realize that just because you have plans that limit and reduce the use of cars in the city, that does not mean you have reduced threats to public safety. I’d like to see the laws of public safety applied uniformly and safely—not just in the tourist areas or the business districts. We residents, who suffer and endure harassment and injury due to the carelessness or ignorance of bicyclists, deserve the support and protection of the law enforcement and the city government. 

Meri Liston 

• 

PIEDMONT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a gardener at UC Berkeley. I write to point out that in my experience, the university has 20 or 30 full-time houseless residents sleeping in the creekbed, under the bridges and behind the buildings all over campus that they do nothing about. They ignore these resident homeless persons, only occasionally sending gardeners out to clean up the camping spots and unlawfully throw away people’s possessions, and now all of a sudden they are upset about the tree-sitter support folks sleeping in the median? 

Hank Chapot 

Oakland 

• 

ANTI-APPEAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In her most recent editorial, Becky O’Malley slams the City Council’s failure to appeal the court decision on the Student Athlete High Performance Center as undemocratic, describing the public session as “by my count...about 50 or 60 pro-appeal, with just two or three con.” Actually, 10 speakers urged the council not to appeal. Becky further claims not to know about the existence of a “silent majority in opposition” even though signed petitions, Kitchen Democracy polls, calls and e-mails to councilmembers, and letters to the Daily Planet demonstrate clearly that a sizable segment of the community does not want the litigation to continue. 

O’Malley says that these opponents of the appeal are “too busy or too self-important perhaps to show up in person.” It’s true that many are busy—working, supporting their families, having dinner with their kids, paying their taxes. They also vote. The speakers in opposition to the appeal are long-time residents of Berkeley, and two of the speakers represented the Chamber of Commerce and the business community. Unlike many of the tree-sitter supports, they are here for the long term, they care deeply about their community, and they will vote in November. The day city policy is set by a nose count of who is able to pack the council chamber and jeer the loudest will be a dark day for democracy. 

Sandy Bails 

• 

THE UNWASHED MASSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I take exception to Sherman Boyson’s description (Letters, July 31) of the oak grove preservationists who attended the July 24 City Council meeting as “unwashed thugs.” I was amongst that group of “tree supporters,” and I hereby proclaim that my personal hygiene is beyond reproach! Of course, I cannot speak for the other attendees (be they pro- or anti-tree), nor can I attest to their state of washedness...or lack thereof. Apparently, there was some sort of body-cleanliness meter in operation at City Hall that evening, that provided Boyson the compiled data he required to reach his “unshowered” conclusions. Or maybe he just made it up. 

All I know for sure is that meeting was attended to overflowing by a wide cross section of Berkeley citizens, including a former Berkeley mayor, a variety of educators, UC students, doctors, lawyers, community leaders, business owners and elder environmentalists. A neatly dressed young woman with a child in her arms, spoke with great clarity, eloquence, passion and reason as she implored the city council to vote for a continuation of the lawsuit. She was typical of the vast majority who spoke that evening. Such a well informed, civic conscious and concerned citizenry, hardly deserves to be referred to as “unwashed thugs.” 

The handful of attendees expressing a pro-university or anti-appeal view, were indeed at times met with moans and groans of disapproval, not completely unexpected in such an emotionally charged atmosphere, and less than I have heard at prior council meetings addressing other subjects. And, contrary to Boyson’s paranoid and hysterical fantasies, certainly no one at any time was ever “shouted down” or prevented from fully expressing their views. That is simply a lie. 

While the tree-sitters and their supporters have engaged in a deliberate and prolonged campaign of non-violent civil disobedience, I have observed tree-sitters abused and endangered. Each night I see them tortured with sleep deprivation techniques. I have seen peaceful supporters pushed to the ground and injured by UC police. Yes, I have observed truly violent and genuinely thuggish behavior, and it has all come courtesy of the university. 

Boyson’s letter describing that July 24 council meeting is so preposterous, that I am in doubt of his actual attendance. If he indeed was there, then by his own description he must be a “misfit” with “nothing else to do in his life.” To remedy this situation, first I would suggest that he get a job. Perhaps gainful employment would help dilute and divert his cowardly fear of those of us who would dare challenge his revered power structures...such as UC. Next, a good long shower might inspire him to come up with a rationale to support his views. With an actual rationale, cheap personal attacks might not be necessary. 

I still stand patiently waiting for someone, anyone to provide me a rational reason as to why the university is so bound and determined to destroy a sacred and environmentally valuable and irreplaceable grove of oaks to build their gym. Why not just respectfully build it elsewhere...somewhere that makes the community happier and the athletes safer? Any explanations? Mr. Boyson? 

Kevin Moore 

• 

SIGNIFYING NOTHING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On July 31 I got an e-mail from a friend saying he was surprised to see that I was supporting Susan Wengraf’s candidacy for the District 5 council seat. I was surprised by his message, since I hadn’t endorsed Wengraf and don’t plan to do so.  

Then I remembered that Susan and I had run into each other at a recent council meeting. She’d asked me to sign her signature-in-lieu-of-filing-fee form, and I’d done so. That gesture in no way constituted an endorsement. By signing Wengraf’s form, I merely helped her avoid paying the full $150 fee that the city charges would-be candidates for municipal office. The city clerk knocks off a dollar for each signature of a registered Berkeley voter. It’s a weird—and, for both candidates and the clerk’s staff (who have to validate every signature), an annoyingly time-consuming—procedure. I think it ought to be struck from the city’s election rules.  

I wondered how my friend knew that I’d signed Wengraf’s form. It must be in the Planet, I thought. Sure enough, the paper’s July 31 issue included an article by Judith Scherr that reviewed the names on the signature-in-lieu-of-filing fee forms submitted so far (the deadline to file is Aug. 8). Scherr had picked out my name, among others, from the 186 signatories on Wengraf’s form.  

Reading Scherr’s piece, I could see how my friend got the mistaken idea that I was supporting Wengraf. “These signatures,” wrote Scherr, “are not formal endorsements—registered Berkeley voters can sign any number of signature-in-lieu papers. Still, a glance at the lists of signatures gives some clues to who the candidates’ friends are—in politics and life.”  

Hardly. More often—and certainly in the case at hand—a signature just bears witness to a chance encounter between politically active Berkeleyans. Nothing more. 

Zelda Bronstein 

• 

CURBING CRIME 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Voters approved Measure Y to curb crime in Oakland. However, Measure Y also funds services for the large number of parolees who are released to Oakland every year. The city estimates that 3,000 are returned to the area annually. In fact, Alameda County, site of Oakland, received nearly 50 percent more new parolees per capita than Los Angeles County in 2005, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Oakland, the state’s eighth-largest city, is home to a large population of parolees, who account for approximately 50 percent of the crimes committed there.  

“You certainly see folks who are either on probation or coming out of prison on parole at great risk of committing violent crimes or being victims of violent crime,” said Lenore Anderson, the city’s safety director. 

It’s not surprising that Oakland had the highest rate of violent crime of any large city in California last year: 190.5 incidents for every 10,000 people, according to a Times analysis of recently released FBI data. That’s nearly two and a half times the rate in Los Angeles. 

There were 1,066 more rapes, robberies, murders and aggravated assaults in Oakland last year than in San Francisco, which has nearly twice the population. Oakland’s violent crime rate jumped 34.1 percent between 2005 and 2006 and 38 percent between 2003 and 2006. 

We need to challenge the disproportionate number of parolees allowed to be released in Oakland if we are going to curb crime. 

Tori Thompson 

Oakland 

• 

DONA SPRING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dona Spring was a giant of ethics and nurturance. It is sad as a big chunk of warm humanity is gone. She was like a gushing spring of pure, sweet water. 

Richard List 

• 

SALES TAX INCREASE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushes for a sales tax hike—a one-cent increase for three years would help end the budget impasse and deficit. 

The GOP’s response: “We continue to be opposed to broad-based rate increases especially in the face of a weak economy,” says Roger Niello. 

“There you go again.” A few anti-tax Republicans continue to force their flawed and warped ideology on millions of Californians—deficits and fiscal instability be damned. 

Ron Lowe 

Nevada City

As reported in the Berkeley Daily Planet, no city official will disclose which members of the Berkeley City Council supported or opposed the possible appeal of what may be the city’s most controversial court loss this year. 

The council met in closed session for more than two hours last Thursday to consider its options, and afterward all that Mayor Tom Bates would say was that it would have taken five votes of approval for the city to appeal a recent judge’s decision allowing UC Berkeley, contrary to the city’s policy, to remove dozens of trees next to its Memorial Stadium to make room for a planned athletic training center. And there weren’t five votes, he said. 

Beyond that neither he nor anyone else would clarify who, if anyone, favored appeal, who opposed it or whether anyone even made a motion on the matter. 

Upon a challenge to the council by former mayor Shirley Dean—who is hoping to regain the office from Bates in the November election—to be more forthcoming, no member would comment and the city attorney said that the council did not decide either for or against appeal. 

The Brown Act states that “Approval given to its legal counsel to . . . seek or refrain from seeking appellate review or relief” constitutes one kind of “action taken in closed session” that must be reported, together with the “vote or abstention of every member present.” Moreover the act states: 

As used in this chapter, “action taken” means a collective decision made by a majority of the members of a legislative body, a collective commitment or promise by a majority of the members of a legislative body to make a positive or a negative decision, or an actual vote by a majority of the members of a legislative body when sitting as a body or entity, upon a motion, proposal, resolution, order or ordinance. 

It seems evident that the Legislature wanted every “collective decision” reported, even if “negative,” once there is a “motion” or “proposal.” The City Council’s position, apparently based on the city attorney’s advice, is that this evident accountability thrust can be dodged simply by avoiding a vote. Avoiding a vote, according to this rationale, excuses the council from even explaining who if anyone favored appeal, who argued against and who simply kept silent. 

That this is not consistent with the Brown Act is suggested by three points. 

First, when inaction on a clear governmental option has great consequences, the decision-maker(s) solely vested with authority to act cannot avoid accountability by claiming not to have made a decision. A governor or a court declining to intervene in the execution of a prisoner can hardly insist that no decision was made. Members of a Sacramento legislative committee refusing to give a bill even a courtesy motion cannot plausibly insist they are not responsible for the measure’s death. Recently it was revealed that the White House, presented last December with an e-mail from the Environmental Protection Agency with a proposed regulation of greenhouse gases as pollutants, avoided engaging with the matter by returning the e-mail unopened. Not even the president’s staunchest partisans would deny that, whatever the legal viability of this maneuver, it could not be defended in the political sphere as neutral. The choice to take no action is not action, but it is a decision. 

Second, the very purpose of the Brown Act has always been, as its preamble first declared 55 years ago, political accountability: “The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.” A self-imposed vow of silence about how members dealt with a matter of heated public controversy mocks this legislative intent, especially when disclosure would have no prejudicial effect on the city’s position in a litigated matter. What it would do is allow constituents who want to see an appeal—the city still has about two months to file such a notice with the court—to know which anti-appeal members of the council need to be converted. Such an exposure of litigation decisions to popular persuasion or pressure is typically repugnant to the attorneys in charge, of course, but the Brown Act does not authorize the total blackout on lawsuit-related communications to and from the public that the attorneys would find most convenient. And even if it did, there remains the First Amendment right to petition. 

Third, speaking of constitutional considerations, the Brown Act language requiring disclosure of closed session decisions is, under Proposition 59 of 2004 (amending Article I of the California Constitution), one of those statutes that “shall be broadly construed if it furthers the people’s right of access” to the meetings of public bodies such as city councils. The Brown Act provision on closed session action reporting does not make the disclosure obligation dependent on whether there was a formal vote or not, or on the form used to present a proposal for action, or whether the result was a positive or negative decision. In the light of Proposition 59, should the Brown Act language be understood to allow a local body to keep silent—and thus insulate members from either personal accountability or informed persuasion—about who made what motion(s), who provided a second and who, instead of voting No, deprived the proposal of oxygen by simply refusing to vote? 

This contrived secrecy may help those who don’t want their positions known, but it needn’t hinder those who do. 

The Brown Act forbids members of local bodies from taking it upon themselves to reveal publicly the specifics of just who said what in closed session, assuming that the discussion was lawfully confidential in the first place. But no law prevents a member from telling the public his or her position on a matter discussed in closed session, so long as that disclosure does not reveal what the member learned from being present in the discussion. Any member of the Berkeley City Council, that is, is free to say something like, “I’ll let the others speak for themselves, but here’s how I’d like to see the appeal issue resolved—and here’s why.” 

As the U.S. Supreme Court has said, “The role that elected officials play in our society makes it all the more imperative that they be allowed freely to express themselves on matters of current public importance” (Wood v. Georgia, 370 U.S. 375, 1960). 

Terry Francke is general counsel for Californians Aware, a center for public forum rights. 

BROWN ACT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Shirley Dean thinks the City Council violated the Brown Act when it failed to take action in closed session to appeal the court’s decision on the Student Athlete High Performance Center but then did not report in public the vote of individual City Council members (Daily Planet Opinion, July 31). Her logic is that “by any account, taking no action is still an action.” Apparently, there is a difference of opinion, since the same issue of the Planet contains an article by Judith Scherr who did some homework and talked to the city’s attorney as well as the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition. They both concur this was not a violation of the Brown Act. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Through a misdirected e-mail the Daily Planet learned that this letter originated with UC Berkeley public relations official Irene Hegarty, and that someone else was asked to sign it by a UC faculty member and Berkeley resident who supports the gymnasium development, in order to conceal Ms. Hegarty’s role in drafting it. We are aware that there are organized letter-writing campaigns on both sides of this issue, but we believe that a deliberate attempt to conceal the university’s role in this endeavor is a dishonest act not appropriate for a great public institution.

AC Transit began displaying a proto-type Van Hool 40-foot, two-door, low-aisle bus in June. After a few mechanical fixes, it is now ready for the rubber to hit the road. And they have prepared a survey for riders. 

But, it seems, from Item 7 on this Wednesday’s AC Transit Board agenda, which talks about the buses’ delivery schedule, it is already a done deal! So before it has been road tested and the survey completed, they are being fabricated in Belgium! And without a true test—a rider comparison to an American true low-floor bus that does not require people to step up to seats on pedestals or ride backwards. 

And the board does not even know how much they cost! At the April 4, 2007 board meeting, the general manager stated that they would cost $400,000 each “including delivery and sales tax.” Since then, the board has approved adding air-conditioning at the cost of about $16,000. So it seems to be about $416,000/bus, but have they seen an invoice? The order is for 50 buses even though only eight 40-foot buses are due for replacement. And with little or no increases in local ridership, why would more buses be needed? 

So these 50 unneeded buses would cost $20.8 million—about what they say their budget gap is! 

All the buses should be air-conditioned. Every new one and, since AC Transit receives generous federal funds for preventative maintenance, they can retrofit existing buses. In fact, Cal-OSHA has cited AC Transit for violation of their heat illness standards. Heat inside buses can be as high as 107 particularly in the Hayward area. Hearings on this are continuing. 

AC Transit has been on a bus-buying binge since its “special partnership” began with Van Hool in 2002. It has driven their decisions. While other agencies are buying diesel electric hybrid buses to cut down on fuel costs, air pollution and greenhouse gases, AC Transit has continued to buy diesel buses because Van Hool does not make hybrid buses. Van Hool is in the driver’s seat in the “special partnership.” 

After years of pressure, particularly from me, this proto-type 40-foot, two-door bus is inching closer to the American low-floor design. But it is too little, too late. They managed to get more seats at floor level but because of the awkward location of the engine in the middle of the bus, people in wheelchairs are relegated to the left over space opposite the motor. This makes accessing the space more difficult and their vision blocked by the motor. And if there are two wheelchairs, one has to ride backwards and passengers have to exit between them. 

If more 40-foot buses are really needed, why not go for the real deal instead of a pale imitation and stop sending jobs overseas! An American true low-floor bus places equipment under a low mezzanine level in the rear instead of in the middle of the bus and they have no seats facing backwards or on pedestals. And they cost about $75,000 less! 

Another waste of public funds is the fuel cell program. While most bus agencies with fuel cell programs are cutting back or eliminating them because they are very expensive and ineffective, AC Transit is expanding theirs. Presently it consists of three Van Hool fuel cell buses that keep breaking down. And the hydrogen for them is produced from natural gas, a by-product of which is methane gas, one of the worse greenhouse gases. In spite of this experience, AC Transit has ordered eight more Van Hool fuel cell buses at $3 million each! That $24 million could have purchased 48 American low-floor diesel hybrid electric buses with up to 100 percent federal funding. According to the AC Transit staff member who manages funding, the Van Hool buses are paid for with operating funds, which are then back-filled with federal preventative maintenance funds. But, she insists, all the federal funds for preventative maintenance are used for maintenance! Amazing! 

On the November ballot, AC Transit will be asking for an extension on their parcel tax with an increase of a mere $4/month, the cost of a gallon of gas. As a candidate for the Board, I would like to see that pass and it requires 67 percent. This order of 50 unnecessary buses is a test for the board. The ballot statement reads, in part, “To preserve affordable local public transportation that allows seniors and people with disabilities to remain independent ……and all money staying local.” If the board votes for these untested buses that make bus riding difficult for “seniors and people with disabilities” and sends funds overseas, will voters trust them with their money? 

I am going to try hard to convince voters to vote for the parcel tax by informing them that there are now three on the board, including Greg Harper, that are questioning the Van Hool partnership and if I am elected there will be four. And on a seven-member board it takes four to tango. But it would certainly help if the present board would do the right thing NOW! 

Joyce Roy is the Reform candidate for the at-large seat on the AC Transit board.

Although the focus in the court room and the press has been on the significance of a beautiful stand of coastal live oaks west of Memorial Stadium, lawsuits filed by the City of Berkeley and the Panoramic Hill Association have, from day one, also been directed toward public safety and quality of life (traffic) impacts from the entirety of projects officially named the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP).  

Not just a training center and office complex, the proposed SCIP development has included, and still includes, the stadium retrofit and renovation, a 911 vehicle underground parking structure, a new building between the law school and business school, and other changes to the area. Squeezing in 400,000 additional gross square feet of development and adding seven capacity events (62,000 people multiplied by seven events equals 434,000 people) at this hazardous, poorly accessed location is also part of the project description.  

Not only does the active Hayward Fault run the length of the stadium; and not only is the stadium subject to liquefaction by being built on fill—adding to the seismic hazards list, the fault also cuts through one of the few north-south arterial thoroughfares—Gayley Road—at the base of the wildfire-prone Berkeley hills.  

In other words, the lawsuits have not just been about the athletic training center and office complex, but about impacts from seven projects which together constitute the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects, so named by the university itself. Now, it seems, ironically enough, the judge has ruled that the projects are separate enough that the university can go ahead with Phase One of their three phase project and build the Student Athletic High Performance Center.  

Defying common sense, or at least at odds with an “integrated” approach to planning the various SCIP projects, the judge ruled that the university does not need to determine if renovating and retrofitting the stadium is even feasible. In other words, it is OK for the university to go ahead and build the athletic center even though there is no proof or evidence that the stadium can be retrofitted and renovated while complying with the Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Hazard Zoning Act.  

The stadium is clearly and unequivocally divided from end to end by the Hayward Fault. Thus, it will be subject to the earthquake law in ways that the athletic training center—located just shy of the fault zone—was not.  

In this metric, it is not just that people want the stadium to be retrofitted before the fancy athletic center is built. They want to know if it is even possible to retrofit the stadium before the athletic center is built. If it is not, then the project objectives are not met. If it is not, there is no reason for building the athletic center anywhere near the stadium and especially no practical justification for destroying an oak grove.  

Still ahead in Phase 2 is the battle over the valuation of the stadium. Per earthquake fault zoning law, if “alterations or additions” exceed 50 percent the valuation of the stadium, the project would not be in compliance with Alquist-Priolo.  

Already UC development allies and some sports fans are positioning for the next phase of the stadium battle. For one, the university has made an offer to the city contingent on the city’s decision “not to file an appeal to the current litigation and not to file any future legal challenge to the Memorial Stadium project.” The offer is hardly worth giving up the city’s legal standing. 

The offer includes planting “three trees for every one removed,” which would probably be done under any circumstances. The university also offers to conduct a review of alternative parking lots, which seems disingenuous at best: The $10,000 per parking space cost of building a four-level underground parking lot near, if not on top of, the Hayward Fault would probably not pencil out. There is nothing in this offer which should compel the city to back off. 

In the background, hard core Bear Backers are trying to figure out ways to do an end-run around the pesky earthquake law. Among these schemes is to get the state Legislature to change the law so as to exempt Memorial Stadium from Alquist-Priolo. (http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=166&f=1419&t=2661510&p=1) 

For good reason, the university does not want the city to appeal and would like for other plaintiffs to back off too. Hence, the offer.  

The university not only uses carrots to persuade their foes but also sticks. Trying to dissuade the remaining plaintiffs from appealing the project, the plaintiffs might be required to post a prohibitively expensive bond ($28 million) to pay the costs of delaying the project. Without the city’s involvement, the university may fell the other plaintiffs just as surely as they plan to fell the trees.  

In the meantime, nervous but undaunted, the Panoramic Hill Association and California Oak Foundation appeals are going forward. The city could also stay the course and protect its investment. They still have time to file. As land use attorney Antonio Rossman wrote in a July 25 letter to the Daily Planet, “You don’t bring a case like this without expecting that your victory will need to come on appeal.” I remain hopeful the city will come to their senses.  

Janice Thomas is a Panoramic Hill resident and co-founder of Save Strawberry Canyon.

Two three years from now, looking back at this upcoming election, with an Obama or McCain in the White House, how might we tell if their promise of change has, or is being, fulfilled? Yes, here during the summer of 2008, awaiting election day, we have been promised change, and change we do desire. But what that change might consist of remains elusive, vague. What we do have, and in abundance, is rhetoric, the promise of change. Of course, we know for certain, come Jan. 20, one kind of change that we will surely get is the departure of President Bush. But if that is all, if nothing else, noting substantial changes, then will we still be content to say that change indeed has occurred? 

For me, no! What follows is my very short list of what must occur (not all, but some of what must happen, and my list is really a lot longer than this) in the international sector, for me to be content, for me to be able to say, two to three years from now, that our 2009 newly inaugurated president has indeed fulfilled a promise and delivered change. I suggest that each of us create his/her own list and now make it available to all candidates. 

1. Renounce the Imperial Presidency, ensure that no action in the international sector is taken without first obtaining the approval of Congress. 

2. Reduce/dismantle dramatically the number of military bases/outposts that we maintain around the globe. We currently have a military presence in at least 150 countries including large scale deployments in over 20 of them. Few of these bases are for fighting wars, most are manifestations of imperialism, showplaces of American power. No U.S. military bases to be left in Iraq after 2010. 

3. Terminate all “status of forces” agreements with countries in which U.S. military forces are stationed or operate; allow crimes committed abroad to be adjudicated by local courts. 

4. Recognize the legitimacy of all governments elected in free/fair contests—start by recognizing Hamas as the legitimate government of the Palestinian people. 

5. Emphasize human rights concerns by terminating support—militarily and economically—of governments that oppress women and/or resident minorities, governments such as those currently in power in Saudi Arabia, Uzbaqkistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc. 

6. Recognize and adhere to the authority of the World Court. 

7. Stop financing the sale of military equipment via the World Bank, IMF, U.S. Department of Defense loans or “gifts” to other countries; drop all subsidies to U.S. arms producers. 

8. Cut off the flow of money that finances the various secret intelligence agencies maintained by the Pentagon and other agencies of government. 

Irving Gershenberg is a Berkeley resident.

It is not widely known that a new, updated seismic hazard evaluation method has been adopted by UC Berkeley as their new standard for review of their construction projects. This state-of-the-art evaluation methodology, developed by URS (a major engineering and consulting firm based in San Francisco), is detailed in the firm’s report, “Updated Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Evaluation and Development of Seismic Design Ground Motions.” It uses the latest data and research about fault hazards to predict building motions and possible damage during any major earthquake. 

The university repeatedly claims that the Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC), planned to be constructed at the site of the Memorial Stadium oak grove, is designed to withstand expected ground motion in case of an earthquake on the Hayward fault. However, because the design of the proposed athletic center was completed before UC adopted the new standards, it is unknown whether or not the proposed structure would meet the updated standards. And not only that, the change that UC Berkeley planners made in the construction process—the elimination of the concrete beam intended to reinforce the west wall of Memorial Stadium during the excavation right beside it—has also apparently not been subjected to review under the new standard. 

Construction plans for the SAHPC, based on the out-of-date ground motion data, were almost entirely complete in July, 2007. However, on March 17, 2008, UC Berkeley’s Seismic Review Committee (SRC) “decided that the URS report should be the basis for seismic ground motion criteria for the Campus and LBNL.” At the time, this body recommended that the campus “review project-specific recommendations by structural and geotechnical consultants on the application of these basic criteria to individual projects.” In other words, they decided that the updated information should be used to review building plans because it is a better predictor of likely damage to buildings. This would seem to be the prudent course of action to follow. 

UC Berkeley officials claim repeatedly that safety is their top priority concerning this project. If that is true, it seems reasonable to assume that they would be anxious to utilize the latest and best data available to plan and construct their new athletic facility, located right near an active earthquake fault. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case—instead, they seem to be trying to push the project through regardless of the new safety standards. 

The design plans for the SAHPC were approved by the Regents Committee on Grounds and Buildings in a special meeting on December 5, 2006. At this meeting, the chair asked how structural safety is determined when a building is constructed on or near a fault. Vice Chancellor Ed Denton responded that “a performance-based design method is used that allows expected ground motion to be determined. Each element of the structure is then designed to withstand it. The campus has developed ground motion spectra for the entire campus. All its facilities are designed to the highest level of seismic resistance using the latest technology.” Because a higher level of data is now available to make such determinations, this representation may no longer be valid in terms of the SAHPC. Since updated seismic ground motion criteria now exist, the project-specific recommendations by structural and geotechnical consultants must now be updated and then reviewed by the Seismic Review Committee. In addition, it seems necessary for the Regents as a whole to reconsider these plans to see if the safety concerns are adequately resolved. 

Also, before the Regents Committee on Grounds and Buildings voted to approve the SAHPC project, they were informed (in the environmental impact report) that “Planning and construction of the Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC) facility are the first phase of the project to make seismic corrections and improvements to California Memorial Stadium… The SAHPC begins seismic strengthening of the base of the existing west wall of the stadium…” Seismic strengthening of the stadium was to be accomplished in part by the “grade beam.” This strengthening of the stadium wall was included in the project from its inception right up until June 27, 2008—at which time the university dropped the grade beam in order to avoid the requirement to comply with Alquist-Priolo earthquake safety laws. If they had kept the grade beam in the project, the university would have been forced to establish a value for Memorial Stadium, which may prohibit them from retrofitting the stadium structure at all. They appear to want to hide the reality of the increasingly questionable plans to rebuild the stadium until they have forced the athletic center project through. 

UC Berkeley has already admitted that its own structural engineers stated that proceeding without the grade beam would “not be prudent.” The elimination of the grade beam should now be reviewed by the Seismic Review Committee in the context of the updated campus seismic ground motion report to see if it is indeed “not prudent” to proceed without it. 

In its September 27, 2005 meeting, the Seismic Review Committee specified that the project review of the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP) be “return(ed) to SRC at appropriate intervals.” Because its last review was on July 12, 2007, the updated URS report and the elimination of the grade beam require that the project be returned to the Seismic Review Committee now. Additionally, the Regents were told, prior to voting, that “the project has also been reviewed by the UC Berkeley Seismic Review Committee, with independent structural review conducted at each stage of project development.” This supports additional independent structural review at this time, including peer review, given new updated seismic ground motion criteria and given the elimination of the grade beam. 

Furthermore, the substantial changes in the circumstances under which the project would be implemented and changes in the project itself call for an additional environmental impact report hearing and review. Before the hearing, all peer reviews, structural and geotechnical reports, and Seismic Review Committee determinations must be publicly reported to assure that the public is fully informed about these critical safety issues. 

The university is a place of learning. It has learned some valuable new information about earthquake safety in relation to its current plans to build a four-story athletic center and office complex right beside a crumbling, fault-bisected stadium. Will it choose a responsible course of action and put the new information to use? We hope so, because lives are at risk. The university has an obligation to the students, faculty, staff, employees, and the public who would use these facilities to insure that all possible steps have been taken to protect their safety. 

Scott Wachenheim is a former Berkeley public school teacher. Doug Buckwald is the director of Save the Oaks and a 28-year Berkeley resident.

On July 30 I witnessed the Planning Commission’s session regarding the Downtown Area Plan. The meeting was distressingly chaotic and it seems that at times some participants got confused.  

But it appears that amid the chaos, key parties managed to pull a really fast one. 

The agenda’s main item was called “Building Height and Envelope Assumptions for DAP Draft EIR.” Certain commissioners piously declared that this was merely about what upper parameters of potential impact the EIR analysis should address, and that the evening’s decisions weren’t at all about whether the plan per se should fill out those parameters. But actually, the results may be a stark preview of how the commission majority will eventually vote on the plan itself. 

Remember that the plan that the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) recommended in its November 2007 report was a carefully balanced package based on two years of very hard work and debate by that diversely representative committee. DAPAC’s final vote to adopt the report was 17-to-4 (with the only nays being Terry Doran, Jim Samuels, Dorothy Walker, and Erin Rhoades). 

However, the Planning Commission on July 30 evidently decided that what the draft EIR treats as “the project” will not consistently match DAPAC’s recommendations but, instead, will depart from them in two major ways: building heights in the core area and zoning in most of the residential areas. Each of these drastic departures was approved by a 5-4 vote. 

For the core area the DAPAC report had recommended a general height limit of 85 feet (for non-UC properties) but with the following exceptions (only one of which could be an office building): two hotel towers up to 225 feet high, four buildings of up to 100 feet, and four buildings of up to 120 feet. But the EIR parameters voted by the Planning Commission depart from that by changing the four 100-foot structures to four 120-foot ones—and changing the four 120-foot structures to four 180-foot ones (though these would need to be within the present Downtown Plan’s smaller but already sizable “core”). 

This means that downtown Berkeley could get not only two very tall hotel towers but also four new structures somewhat taller than the Gaia Building plus four new structures about as high as the Wells Fargo Building. Hello, Manhattan? 

This much potential change in the skyline could—among other effects such as on views and solar access—induce land speculation and development pressure that would threaten the survival of many of downtown’s historic buildings. 

The discussion even seemed to leave it unclear how many of the new high-rises could be for offices, and whether or not there’d be any specific limit on how wide a tower could be. 

As for residential areas, the DAPAC report had recommended that the large sections which are presently zoned R-4 should be downzoned to R-3. But the Planning Commission on July 30 said the draft EIR should assume the R-4 zoning remains. 

Keeping the presently quite extensive R-4 zoning could, among other impacts, endanger the affected areas’ many historic houses. I admit it may indeed be wise for the draft EIR to include looking at hypothetical maximum-impact upper parameters. But this doesn’t at all mean that such upper limits should be an integral part of what the draft EIR treats as “the project.” 

A draft EIR’s description of “the project” doesn’t preclude decision-makers from suitably altering it later during the review process. In this case, in all fairness, the initial working definition of “the project” should consistently match DAPAC’s recommendations. 

By instead evidently requiring the draft EIR’s “project” to embody the above-described major departures from what DAPAC had recommended, the Planning Commission majority has distinctly given those changes a leg up. This is because “the project” will be focused on by the EIR—and will tend to get perceived as what’s preferred. 

If “the project” is defined as apparently was decided on July 30, then the draft EIR should also pose a clear “alternative” that does consistently match DAPAC’s recommendations. And it should evaluate this alternative in sufficient detail—including both quantitative analyses and visual simulations—to enable truly fair and serious comparison between it and “the project.” 

Unfortunately, there’s no assurance that the draft EIR will pose such an alternative. And I fear that even if it does, the option may be given just the scarcely even cursory assessment that all too often is all that EIRs’ “alternatives” really get. 

John English is a longtime fan of downtown Berkeley and has been closely following the Downtown Area Plan process.. 

Recent revelations about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) support the reservations expressed by critics. The extent of the harm this entrepreneurial free-for-all threatens to do to our community goes beyond the imaginings of early naysayers. Ever since David Stoloff’s hand was stayed from surreptitiously giving the Ashby BART parking lot to his developer pals there have been continuous attempts upon Berkeley’s buildings and rights of way: Laurie Capitelli’s recent assault on North Berkeley at Shattuck and Rose, stymied for now by people who live and work there; the Southside plan—a monumental script for inconvenience and pedestrian and bicycle un-safety. But that won’t happen for some time if at all. 

BRT is bigger than you think. Its pattern follows the national trend that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe in World War II, famously named the military/industrial complex. Eisenhower (a Republican dedicated to preserving the Constitution) said government and private industries are determined to feed the war machine at the expense of all else and would ruin this country and the world if not checked by an alert citizenry. Constant wars started by the American government and paid for by our money given to private contractors are well on the way to doing just that. “Our” government only serves our interests if we insist, loudly and continuously, through intelligent use of the ballot and constant activism that it do so. (Even then it very frequently does not.) The real war is not sequestered abroad; it is fought within our borders against those who value money more than people and see the majority of citizens merely as means to their self-enrichment.  

Sadly, this is not a ludicrous comparison. The same institutionalized unwisdom has steadily eroded the quality of life in Berkeley: a municipal/financial complex. The city government facilitates exploitation of our environment and common lands by speculators without regard to citizens’ wishes. Large scale plans are hatched in back rooms, refined, then partially revealed with minimum fanfare to fly under the public’s radar. And financiers and developers at city hall don’t labor under the legal requirements theoretically imposed on lobbyists in Washington, D.C. If you think government should be directed by the public it serves, then local government and publicly paid organizations operating without public oversight, input, or consent are cause for serious concern. In the case of BRT, the City of Berkeley and Alameda County Transit exhibit an historic level of disinterest in what the public thinks or wants. 

The special interest group Friends of BRT tells us that BRT is the only solution to a problem that doesn’t exist: the “need” for faster bus transit. To swallow this fallacy we would have to ignore the largest elephant in the room since George Bush’s intellect: there is already the bus! Despite AC Transit’s service cuts the bus takes us nearly anywhere we want to go in reasonable time. Improvements are needed in outlying areas such as East Oakland. Getting to Oakland from Berkeley and vice versa is a snap. We do not need to wreck Telegraph Avenue or destroy the neighborhoods and businesses that surround it. (If this last is news to you keep reading.) 

Like the war machine, AC Transit’s and City of Berkeley’s interest in BRT is money—not the welfare and convenience of people and business that line the bus route. That’s Money with a capital M: hundreds of millions of dollars. AC Transit has needed money since general manager Rick Fernandez took control in 2003. He has grabbed every goodie he can for himself, including a $400,000 “loan” to buy a house and over 100 trips to Europe for himself and his favorites. There is no believable pretext for their globe trotting. The exclusive American distributor of Van Hool buses, ABC Company, Headquartered in Minnesota, maintains a location in Garden Grove, Calif., that distributes parts and offers technical services and advice as well as sales. The trips to Belgium, Paris, and Rome by Ferdandez and friends have not been necessary to acquire busses from this foreign supplier. 

Fernandez’ allegiance to Van Hool has lead him to squander millions on high-priced buses from abroad that are unsafe and costlier to maintain than American-made buses preferred by riders and drivers. AC Transit’s boss does not dispute the East Bay Express’ report that he continued charging purchases to his dead wife’s credit cards months after she passed away. Giving this man control over hundreds of millions of dollars is like giving Bart Simpson a grenade launcher. Look out! 

The City of Berkeley has handed hundreds of taxable properties to un-taxable UC. But downsizing city revenues has not deterred record-breaking salaries and gold-plated retirements paid to high-level city managers. Berkeley needs cash and lots of it. But giving the city government more money without fixing the structural problems that place every developer before any citizen will not stop the best-paid city government in the nation from scuttling the warm pool and the skating rink and allowing developers to block out the sky and destroy our last remaining open spaces. 

“Policy-makers” care nothing for the residents and businesses along Telegraph Avenue. Not only does BRT mean turning Telegraph into an un-bike-able traffic nightmare; it also means large scale re-development under the rubric of turning Telegraph into a ‘transit corridor’: goodies for developers, fees for the city, and “closed” signs for existing businesses, many of which are likely to be replaced by corporate chains that duct money out and away from the local economy. (See details at: www.lookingglassphoto.com/TelegraphBRT.html) 

No one in their right mind wants to live amidst this nightmare. That is why thousands of residents and business owners in the neighborhoods lining Telegraph are screaming bloody murder. 

Glen Kohler is a Berkeley resident.  

Once upon a time, John McCain merited his reputation as a maverick politician, a “truth teller.” Reporters fought to get on his campaign bus, “the straight talk express,” because they expected to hear the Arizona senator spew uncensored opinions on a variety of subjects. Alas, those days are over. Three months from the presidential election, McCain has decided his only hope of besting Barack Obama is to wage a negative campaign. Get on board the trash talk express. 

Polls consistently indicate that voters are focused on five issues: the economy, energy prices, Iraq, healthcare, and terrorism. The same surveys show Senator McCain—mired in dogmatic conservatism and fatally associated with President Bush—has a big problem: with the possible exception of terrorism, Americans judge the Arizona senator as less able to deal with these problems. They see Obama as a better fit for these troubled times. 

McCain is desperate. Less than 100 days before the presidential election, he has decided his only chance to win is to go negative, to attack his opponent at every opportunity. These assaults have occurred in McCain speeches, campaign advertisements and “independent expenditure” ads. Broadly speaking, these commercials have had three themes: Obama is a flip-flopper, negative, and determined to “lose” the war in Iraq. 

The flip-flopper ad began running on July 23, sponsored by “Let Freedom Ring.” It’s similar to a McCain web ad, words that focus on Obama’s apparent reversal on public financing for his campaign. The “Let Freedom Ring” ad also accuses Obama of reversing his positions on Iraq and handguns. 

These ads misstate Obama’s position on public financing, handguns, and Iraq. And they blithely ignore a larger truth: it’s Senator McCain who has made the largest number of policy reversals. It’s McCain who deserves opprobrium for changing his position to further his political fortunes: as two of many examples, McCain once argued against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, now he supports them; McCain once supported affirmative action, now he’s against it. 

In speeches and commercials, McCain accuses Obama of offering no positive solutions to America’s problems. A McCain web ad labels the Illinois senator “Dr. No,” saying he is against off-shore drilling, a gas-tax holiday, and unconditional support for new nuclear power plants. The ad goes further and falsely states that Obama is against “innovation” and “the electric car.” McCain’s campaign lies by suggesting that Obama has offered no solutions to America’s energy problems. (The RNC has run a similar ad.) 

This tack both misstates Obama’s position and overstates the reality of McCain’s. Obama has a detailed position on energy that emphasizes a omnibus national initiative to reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels. McCain has no strategic perspective, but instead offers voters a handful of gimmicks: a gas tax holiday that probably wouldn’t reduce gas prices; the promise of new nuclear plants that would take decades to deploy and produce electricity at the same cost as that produced from wind farms, which are far easier to build; and drilling off-shore, a strategy that would take more than a decade to produce uncertain results. (After McCain reversed his position on offshore drilling, his campaign received more than $1 million in contributions from oil executives.) 

On July 25, McCain broadened his “Dr. No” theme, slamming Obama for his alleged audacity of hopelessness. McCain argued the Illinois Senator has no positive ideas about energy and the economy, and lacks a strategy to “win” the war in Iraq. On July 22, McCain told a New Hampshire crowd, “It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” This scurrilous charge was followed by another negative TV ad where McCain accused Obama of voting against funding for the troops and of neglecting to visit wounded soldiers in order to go to the gym, comments repudiated by the Washington Post. 

As we consider John McCain’s recent advertisements and public statements, what’s clear is that with less than 100 days before the presidential election, the Republican nominee has decided he holds a losing hand. Carrying President Bush as a millstone around his neck, and with policy positions that are out of step with the attitudes of ordinary Americans, McCain has grown desperate and made yet another flip-flop: he’s abandoned his pledge to wage a positive campaign. 

Now boarding, on track 2008, John McCain’s trash talk express. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.

It is understandable why there is considerable anxiety and antsyness amongst the Democratic Party faithful as we enter summer’s doggish days. We have, after all, seen this played out twice before in recent elections—a lead beginning to slip away in a presidential race in which all the stars seemed lined up for a Democratic win. In both instances—2000 and again in 2004—the Democratic candidates were done in by a combination of their own mistakes and a Republican manipulation of electoral rules to disenfranchise key Democratic constituencies as well as playing upon the shallowest instincts of the electorate (as well as, of course, the help of a Supreme Court largely picked by one of the candidate’s Daddies). Thus went Gore. Thus went Kerry. Thus goes Obama? 

This time, the faithful ought to have a bit more faith. 

There is no doubt that the conservative fringe—and the Republican mainstream, whenever they can get by with it—will continue to mine in America’s meanest and silliest streaks. And there is no doubt that the Barack Obama campaign—and Mr. Obama himself—will continue to make mistakes. We all do. The difference between 2008 and the previous two elections, I believe, is that the Obama campaign has the benefit of those earlier Democratic defeats from which to gain lessons. In addition, this is a campaign—and a candidate—who has demonstrated an ability both to anticipate the pitfalls and to quickly pivot from its own mistakes and setbacks and move forward. 

We appear to have forgotten, after all, that a year ago, a Hillary Clinton victory in the Democratic primaries seemed an inevitability, certainly far more of a certainty than a McCain victory in the fall appears today. 

Mr. Obama is an extraordinary candidate, and he has proven that he has assembled an exceptionally talented and smart campaign team around him. This does not mean I am predicting an Obama victory. I’ve lost contact with my root doctor friend back in McBeth, South Carolina, so I no longer do predictions. It is simply an observation that I believe the Obama campaign has thought many of these things through in advance, has recognized many of the traps being set for him, and is reacting as nimbly as it can to avoid them. 

A recent example. 

Conventional wisdom—the kind you hear on the street or on the television news talk shows—has it that the McCain camp baited the Obama campaign into making race an issue in the campaign—an issue Mr. Obama cannot win on—and that the resulting exchange over the “celeb” ad and the “dollar bill” quote was a stumble and a negative for the Obama campaign. 

I offer a different analysis. 

It is true—for any number of reasons—that Mr. Obama cannot win on the race issue. For the most obvious, he already has committed about the largest percentage of the African-American vote he is going to get, and any interjection of race in the campaign is likely to cost him some measure of white support (the issue of Latino and Asian-American votes is too complicated to go into in the context of this column). 

The opposite, of course, is true. The interjection of race into the campaign helps Mr. McCain—by drawing off potential white voters from Mr. Obama—but only so long as the McCain campaign is not seen as stirring the racial pot. If Mr. McCain’s hands are seen overtly guiding any race-based attacks against Mr. Obama, he runs a danger of provoking a backlash that will push wavering white votes in Mr. Obama’s direction, rather than pulling them away from the Demo-crat. 

In the race-based campaign exchange over the last couple of weeks, both candidates and campaigns got burned, though neither fatally. But it was clear that the established media, the alternative media, and the netroots would jump on any future campaign race-baiting with all four paws. 

The Obama campaign benefits from having the issue of race removed (as much as possible) from the election. The McCain campaign benefits from having race as a subtext, but only to the extent that the McCain campaign is not tied to introducing that issue. 

Who, then, do you think, brothers and sisters of the congregation, benefited the most from the recent racial exchanges within the presidential campaigns, and—if you think it was the Obama campaign—what makes you believe that it was accidental and simply dumb luck? 

One suggestion might be that it was the Obama campaign that baited the McCain campaign into entering the racial briar patch, rather than vice versa, and did it early enough that it might neutralize the race issue—as much as possible—for the bulk of the fall campaign. 

Using that theory, let’s take a second look at the events surrounding the recent introduction of race-baiting charges in the presidential campaign. 

On June 20, CNN reported that at a fundraiser that day in Jacksonville, Florida, Mr. Obama told supporters that “we know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. Did I mention he’s black?” 

Wolf Blitzer said at the time he thought the remark would “get some buzz out there.” It didn’t. 

But 10 days later, in three campaign stops in Missouri, Mr. Obama pounded on the same theme (though leaving out the overt “black” reference), saying in Springfield, for example, that “nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills. You know, he’s risky. That’s essentially the argument they’re making.” 

This time the McCain campaign took the bait, with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis firing back that “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.” 

The Obama campaign initially denied that Mr. Obama’s statement had anything to do with race, with spokesperson Robert Gibbs saying, incredibly, that “What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn’t get here after spending decades in Washington,” Gibbs said. “There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene. He was referring to the fact that he didn’t come into the race with the history of others. It is not about race.” 

Well, you’d have to be pretty dense to believe that Mr. Obama’s dollar bill comment referred to anything but his race. 

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign was releasing its now-famous “celeb” ad, castigating Mr. Obama as an empty celebrity without the credentials necessary to lead the nation, and plugging in fleeting pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as supposedly similar empty celebrities. 

Many observers immediately began giving the McCain “celeb” ad the “racist” tag, with the New York Times editorial board posting on its “The Blog” board on July 31 that Mr. McCain “has embarked on a bare-knuckled barrage of negative advertising aimed at belittling Mr. Obama. The most recent ad compares the presumptive Democratic nominee for president to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton—suggesting to voters that he’s nothing more than a bubble-headed, publicity-seeking celebrity. The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.” 

The comparison between the 2008 Obama “celeb” ad and the 2006 Harold Ford ad was, quite simply, wrong. 

The comment referred to the 2006 United States Senate race in Tennessee between Republican Bob Corker and Harold Ford Jr., but the comparisons were way off base. In the 2006 anti-Ford ad put out by the Republican National Committee, a grinning young white woman appears unclothed from the shoulders up—suggesting she is naked—and saying first that “I met Harold Ford at a Playboy party,” and then ending the ad by winking into the camera while pretending she is talking to Mr. Ford on the phone, saying, “Harold, call me.” In the state that was the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan (Pulaski, Tennessee, 1865), the image of an African-American man “consorting” with a white woman was deliberately designed to play into anti-black racist prejudices. The ad referenced an earlier, widely publicized newspaper item in which Mr. Ford had been spotted at the 2005 Playboy Superbowl party in Jacksonville, Florida, which was presumably teeming with buxom young (white) Playboy bunnies. 

By contrast, the “celeb” ad was not tied in to any allegation of Obama affairs with white women (there has never been an allegation, to my knowledge, that he has been unfaithful to his wife), the Spears and Hilton images were fleeting and demonstrably unsexual (considering the many sexual images of the two women to choose from), and a good case could be made that if you wanted to choose images of American figures who would be immediately recognized as “bad” celebrity images, who would you pick besides Ms. Spears and Ms. Hilton? 

Meanwhile, in an Aug. 1 interview with Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, Mr. Obama was continuing to deny that his original “dollar bill” comment referred to race. “There was nobody [at the Missouri rallies] who thought at all that I was trying to inject race in this,” Mr. Obama said. “What this has become I think is a typical pattern from the McCain campaign, whether it’s Paris Hilton or Britney or this phony allegation that I wouldn’t visit troops. They seem to be focused on a negative campaign…” 

On the same day, however, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod finally admitted—though a little obliquely—that Mr. Obama’s original “dollar bill” comments may have had a racial twist to them, telling Good Morning America that Mr. Obama’s comments meant that “He’s not from central casting when it comes to candidates for president of the United States. He’s new to Washington. [And] yes, he’s African-American.” 

By that time, of course, political observers were arguing back and forth in every forum they could find as to who had initially interjected race into the campaign, Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain. Both candidates were stung and bloodied by the exchange, with neither one accruing any advantage over the other. In one way, this was like the new rules in track, where the first false start is attributed to the entire field of runners, regardless of who is at fault, while the runner who false starts thereafter is scratched from the race. 

If either Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain brings up the issue of race again in this campaign—either overtly or covertly—he is likely to suffer a media and popular backlash. 

Again, I submit to you—which campaign does that benefit the most?

I’m gratified to see that the History Channel is branching out into prehistory, with a new series on the evolution of various organs and systems. They started off last week with the eye and did a reasonable job, although the program was shamelessly vertebrate-centric: no mention of the remarkable eyes of the mantis shrimp, or the sophisticated camera eye of the octopus, so much like our own. (Richard Dawkins says eyes have evolved independently at least 40 times in the animal kingdom; no hope of covering all that in an hour, less commercials.) 

But there was a nice segment on the compound eye, starting with the pioneering trilobites and their calcite lenses. And I can’t quarrel with the choice of the dragonfly as a living exemplar of this evolutionary pathway. 

Dragonflies show up early in the insect fossil record looking pretty much as they do today, except for scale. Remember the coal swamp diorama in the California Academy of Science’s Hall of Life through Time, in which a dragonfly with a two-foot wingspan hovered above a millipede the size of a Volkswagen? The oxygen-rich atmosphere of the Carboniferous Period may have allowed insects and other arthropods to attain larger sizes than ever before, or since. 

It would be a mistake to consider dragonflies primitive, though. Compared with other early insects, like the lumpish springtails and scuttling silverfish, dragonflies are elegant monuments to the shaping force of natural selection. Science writer Colin Tudge calls them “glorious aerial predators, like bats or swifts or peregrines.”  

They’re fine-tuned for the pursuit of other insects on the wing. 

A dragonfly’s eye is an integral part of that package of adaptations. Like the compound eyes of other insects (and most crustaceans and a few other arthropods), it’s composed of a multitude of tiny units called ommatidia, each equipped with a cornea, a lens, and photoreceptor cells that distinguish brightness and color. Up to 30,000 ommatidia are packed into each of a dragonfly’s eyes; a honeybee has only 4,500. A zone of specialized facets serves as the equivalent of the fovea in the vertebrate eye, enhancing visual acuity. 

Somehow the dragonfly’s minuscule brain integrates all the incoming images, with simultaneous processing allowing it to track rapidly moving targets. The compound eyes wrap around the insect’s head, sometimes meeting at the top, providing a 360 degree field of vision. Dragonflies not only see all the colors we can; they can also see into the ultraviolet and detect polarized light, which they use to home in on ponds. 

I supposed it was inevitable that someone would try to build a dragonfly eye. It was done a couple of years ago at UC Berkeley, in fact, by Luke Lee of the Bioengineering Department’s Bio-Poets (Biomolecular Polymer Opto-Electronic Technology and Science) project. His pinhead-sized creation has 8,370 crystalline ommatidia, each linked by a microscopic length of plastic to a retina-like detector. It can detect multidirectional light signals and rapid movement. Possible applications, according to Dr. Lee, include covert surveillance devices. Thanks. Just what we needed. 

You would think the compound eyes would provide all the visual information a dragonfly would reasonably want. But no. It also has three simple eyes, the two lateral and single median ocelli. Scientists at the Australian National University in Canberra have been trying to figure out what they’re good for, beyond sensing general light levels. In the median ocellus, at least, the photoceptors feed into neurons that travel down the dragonfly’s neck to its motor centers. Bypassing the brain enables near-instantaneous physical responses to visual stimuli. The whole system seems to work as a flight stabilizer. 

Spinoffs from this research may include better designs for robotic microaerial vehicles. It should not come as a surprise that the work was partially funded by the U.S. Air Force. 

I don’t want to sound like a Luddite here, but this kind of thing can make you just a tad ambivalent about bioengineering. Yes, it’s extremely cool to be able to understand how dragonfly eyes and other complex natural mechanisms work. Yes, it’s an achievement to be able to mimic their function with manmade devices. But I wish we could do something with our knowledge of dragonfly optics other than building a better robotic spy plane. 

On April 30, 1906, Chief of Police August Vollmer observed an aged woman receiving supplies at the YMCA headquarters, where refugees of the San Francisco earthquake and fire were given food and clothing. Vollmer identified her as Honora Bentley, a well-to-do West Berkeley property owner who lived in apparent poverty at 2439 Ninth Street. 

For years, Mrs. Bentley’s neighbors believed her to be poor, until a series of bizarre lawsuits and countersuits, beginning in August 1904 and extensively covered in the press, revealed her to be the owner of a considerable estate, rumored to be worth $60,000. Consequently, even before she was arrested by Vollmer, Honora Bentley was a well-known character, whom newspaper accounts described as notorious and eccentric. The news of her arrest spread far and wide through the Associated Press. 

Mrs. Bentley was taken into custody, charged with obtaining goods under false pretenses, and brought before Justice of the Peace Robert Edgar, who ordered her held on $1,000 bail. She spent three days in the county jail, until bail (a mere $100, according to the San Francisco Call) was posted on May 3. Coming up for trial on June 25, the case took a new turn. Represented by attorney Frank L. Rawson, Mrs. Bentley entered a plea of not guilty and demanded a jury trial.  

Rawson claimed that his client had not been identified as the woman who obtained the goods from the relief committee and asked that the case be dismissed for lack of evidence. Prosecutor Hugh Goodfellow agreed, since Miss Barr of the relief committee could not positively identify Mrs. Bentley as the woman to whom she gave clothes. The case was dismissed. 

Precious little is known about the long life of Honora Bentley, but no doubt it was a life beset with hardship and pain. It may have been the Irish famine that brought her to America. She lost her first husband while still in her thirties, bore ten children, raised most of them by herself, and outlived all but a few. Yet somehow she managed to become a woman of means. 

Long before she became Mrs. Bentley, Honora was Mrs. Townsend. Born in 1830 in Northern Ireland, she came to America in 1852. Her marriage to Edward Townsend, an English-born laborer her age, may have taken place in the New World. By 1853, the couple was living in California and bringing their first child into the world. The 1860 federal census found them in San Francisco with four daughters aged 7 to 2 and real estate valued at $500. Ten years later, Edward apparently dead, Honora had at home five children aged 18 to 2, and the value of her real estate had climbed to $10,000. 

In 1886, Honora made her first Berkeley investment, purchasing lots 22, 23, and 24 in Block 106 of the Sisterna Tract, along Fifth Street between Addison St. and Allston Way. At the time, there were only three houses on the block. The most valuable, built in 1879 on Sixth St., 150 feet north of Allston Way, belonged to lumberman Edward F. Niehaus, co-proprietor of the West Berkeley Planing Mill. On Allston Way lived laborer Hans Holgerson and his wife Ann, in a modest home sold to them by the Sisternas in 1881. The oldest house on the block belonged to the Chilean tanner Juan Velasco, who built it on lot 24 in 1877. This Italianate house became the property of Honora Townsend, along with the two adjacent lots she purchased in 1886. It survives at 2109 Fifth St. 

Mrs. Townsend did not move to Berkeley immediately. In 1889, she was listed in the San Francisco directory as a widow living at 2118 Jones St. By then, all her children had reached majority and either left home or were close to doing so. Honora was absent from the 1890 San Francisco directory, indicating that she may have moved to Berkeley in that year. It is certain that she wasted no time in increasing her West Berkeley holdings. By 1892, when she made her first appearance in the Berkeley directory, she had built two additional houses nearby. One, in the Queen Anne style, went up on lot 22 and still stands at 2117 Fifth Street. The other, considerably more expensive and long since demolished, was constructed on the west side of Sixth Street between University Avenue and Bristol Street (now Hearst Avenue). 

Around 1896, Honora married one Henry Bentley, who came to live with her at 2117 Fifth St. Three years later, the couple switched their residence to a modest cottage at 2439 Ninth St., yielding the Fifth Street home to Honora’s daughter Emma Kidd (born c. 1862) and her husband William, a stevedore. The Ninth St. cottage had been built in 1891 by Charles A. Bailey, one of the largest landowners in Berkeley (in 1889 Bailey was the third wealthiest individual taxpayer in Berkeley, surpassed only by James McGee and Francis K. Shattuck). 

Honora’s marriage to Bentley was short-lived as her husband, doubtlessly at least as old as she was, died soon after the move. The 1900 U.S. census found Honora a 69-year-old widow, living alone on Ninth Street, six of her ten children dead. She apparently found solitary living difficult, for soon enough she invited a man to live with her. He was James Fitzpatrick, an octogenarian who listed his profession as engineer in the 1903 city directory, where he was listed for the first time as resident at 2439 Ninth St. 

Fitzpatrick apparently did some odd jobs for Honora, including rent collection. Their relationship soured in the spring of 1904, when Fitzpatrick described himself as Mrs. Bentley’s contract husband. When this claim reached Honora’s ears, she moved back to 2117 Fifth St. and ordered him out of the Ninth Street house. In retaliation, he brought suit against her to recover $1,200 on an alleged promissory note and an additional $750 for services rendered. On August 23, Mrs. Bentley was in court to state that the note was a fraud (she had once signed what she thought was a receipt for $12 so that Fitzpatrick could collect some rent for her) and that he had been paid in full for all his services before she left him. 

Fitzpatrick then laid claim to the Ninth St. house, and in the fall of 1904, Mrs. Bentley headed him off by deeding all her West Berkeley properties to her daughter, Margaret Curtis (born c. 1860), and to her attorney, David Mitchell, as tenants in common. Fitzpatrick made the next move, procuring from her by force a signed document clearing himself and defaming attorney Mitchell. “There are many sensational features in connection with this litigation which may be revealed in court, but not elsewhere,” the Oakland Tribune quoted Mitchell as saying, “Mrs. Bentley tells me that in the last week she attempted three times to secure a warrant for Fitzpatrick’s arrest in Judge Quinn’s court in connection with this latest attack upon her but that each time Fitzpatrick has intercepted her.” 

Mitchell further claimed that he had letters showing that Fitzpatrick had been trying to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Lund, an aged and wealthy Berkeley woman. This move apparently prompted some negotiations, and on Oct. 20, the couple appeared together before Judge Edgar, Fitzpatrick announcing that they had resolved their differences. Honora said nothing. Her troubles were just beginning. 

In September 1905, Honora was sued by house mover William P. Grant for $229.80. In response, she asserted that she had authorized him to make repairs for $100, that “he has twisted the house and wrenched it so badly that the roof leaks and it is uninhabitable,” that he had not completed the work, all of which was not worth more than $150, that she had offered to pay him $150 but he had refused. 

Less than three months later, attorney David Mitchell was arrested for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl he had lured into his office. Honora promptly hired attorney Frank Rawson and accused Mitchell of having embezzled from her $2,500 in cash and $10,000 in real estate, leaving her destitute. Rawson announced he would take steps to prevent Mitchell from using her property to secure his release on the assault charge. 

Within two weeks, Honora’s daughter Emma was arrested for throwing sticks and stones through the front-room windows of their neighbors, the Welch family of 2111 Fifth St., and verbally abusing their teenage daughter. Emma pleaded guilty before Judge Edgar and, apparently unable to pay a fine, was sentenced to ten days in the county jail. 

Fitzpatrick meanwhile holed himself up at 2439 Ninth St. and posted a warning on the door: “There is a mesheen behind this doare to kill aney on opening the saim. Trifel not and keep out of here for the present. Don’t trifel with this doare.” From his jail cell, Mitchell waged war with Fitzpatrick over ownership of the property. Their wrangle was soon rendered immaterial. Judge Harris ordered Fitzpatrick ejected from the property, and the Sheriff’s deputies removed his belongings to the street. On Jan. 11, 1906, Rawson filed deeds conveying all the properties back to Mrs. Bentley. The same day, Fitzpatrick returned to the house and applied a match in several places, but neighbors who had seen him leave extinguished the flames. Charged with arson, Fitzpatrick was confined in a cell adjoining Mitchell’s, and the two frequently engaged in abusive disputes. 

Mitchell was found guilty of the assault charge and sentenced in July 1906 to six years at San Quentin, but two retrials kept him in the county jail until Dec. 1907, when he was released on insufficient evidence. During his two years in jail, he had become an expert cook. 

Honora Townsend Bentley died in 1910, leaving property worth $20,000. After her death, her house at 2439 Ninth St. was occupied by the Kidds and Margaret Curtis. William Kidd was still working as a stevedore, while Margaret was listed as a seamstress in that year’s census record. Although living under one roof, the two sisters were not in accord. In July, Emma secured a citation ordering Margaret to appear in the probate court and explain why, as administratrix of the estate, she refused to hand over $5,000 left to Emma in the will. 

The sisters soon disappeared from Berkeley. Only the three Victorian houses in West Berkeley stand as a reminder of the notorious Honora Townsend Bentley. 

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

The weather has been so nice lately. I always tell myself that when it finally gets nice, I’ll get out and finish my arbor. My poor neighbors have to look at that thing all year, and you’d think that with what I know about construction, I’d just get it done, but Noooo. I just want to loll around the house looking for more 1 point snacks and watching YouTube. 

As I drive down the street it’s clear that I’m not alone. Most people’s houses need all sorts of work but without some terrific incentive there are always ten million other things that draw our attention and energy (not to mention time and money). So most of us approach our houses from a reactive stance rather than a proactive stance, putting out fires as they begin to smoke or flicker.  

Kristi, a recent client of mine, works for the Feds investigating very large financial institutions. She told me that like homeowners, even these huge entities tend to be reactive rather than proactive. Why am I not surprised? She uses this proactive vs. reactive question as a test to be passed or failed in the back of her mind as she looks over the spread-sheets of this or that behemoth. I wonder how many of us would pass the test. 

With homes, being reactive is surely a nominal requisite but being proactive has such huge rewards that I feel duty-bound to weave a specific argument for it. Let’s start with major hazards and then work down toward simple issues of longevity. 

Being proactive about fire isn’t easy or pretty, but it’s my opinion that this is the most important kind of prophylaxis there is for the homeowner. Not only does fire destroy the home, but it’s also my personal least favorite way to die (not that I’ve died that many ways). 

With fire, there are two issues: prevention and escape. While prevention is prudent, I’d sooner start with escape as the first area of investigation and action. The proactive person has taken the time to decide how they (and their family) will exit the house if fire comes from any of several directions. They will also have smoke alarms (the term detector is being abandoned in the current codes in favor of alarm, to my fervent accord) in lots of places as a way of giving themselves loads of time for escape. Smoke alarms are so implausibly cheap that there is scarcely a reason not to have one in every room that has its own door and at least one on each level of the house in a hallway.  

Next is the matter of escape. People often seem to have notions about how they will escape that are super-hero unrealistic. Breaking a window to get out of a room when said room is filled with smoke is not a realistic plan. Windows that open easily and doors that don’t require keys for escape are vital, and there is no excuse for not having both. If you’re in a house filled to the rafters with flammable books, magazines and junk, think about what it will be like in a fire. Most of all, be sure that you can move freely and directly to the outside from everywhere you spend time, especially where you sleep. 

Once you’ve tackled the matter of alarms and escape, you can settle down to fire prevention. If you have an ancient wiring system, have an expert look at it. About 10 percent of all fires are electrically based, and that’s allowing for cigarettes, kitchen fires and all the more common sources that I can’t help you with. I will say that a lot of smokers are now keeping their smoking outside the home, which I consider courageous and shrewd. 

Keeping a fire extinguisher near the stove is pretty smart, and checking to see if it’s charged on a regular basis is smarter. A recent favorite of mine on the fire front has been dryer vents. These need to be cleaned out regularly, especially when they’re long. Have you ever cleaned out your entire dryer vent? Most people will have to confess that they have not. Proactive means putting this on the calendar for Labor Day weekend every year. I’m looking for an obscure Jewish holiday for mine (Tisha B’Av is just around the corner for you holiday watchers). 

Have your heating system examined once a year. Furnaces and heaters of all kinds cause fires, and a short viewing by an expert might easily I.D. a fire hazard that has been missed before or developed anew. For more ideas on fire prevention, call your local fire department. Once they’ve overcome the shock that you’re interested in their help, you’ll find that they offer a range of inspection services. 

Proactive people not only know that an earthquake is looming for those of us who live near the Hayward Fault, but also know that changes in their homes are necessary. While a majority of homes in our fair city of Berkeley have had some retrofitting completed, the majority of that work is insufficient or ill-concieved. Being reactive to earthquakes is potentially expensive and maybe worse. Simply put, if you haven’t talked to a seismic retrofitting expert, do it. The cost of retrofitting many houses is often less than $10K, and I believe that many houses will experience hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage when these tectonic hills commence to pitch and heave. Insurance may be wise but I’d always start by getting physical. And while they are somewhat controversial, I continue to recommend automatic gas shutoff devices. They’re cheap and may prevent the fires that earthquakes are so adept at starting. 

Now to some more mundane aspects of proactivity. If I’m trying to get myself to cry, I know two thing that work well. First is The English Patient and second is driving past a few formerly regal Victorians that have begun to molt their corbels, spandrels and brackets. Most houses need only two things to prevent failure of the structure in this way; paint and roofing. For the lack of these two things (and, of course, their little familiars, caulk, flashing and trim) many houses slowly buckle, delaminate, leak and rot. Conversely, the house that has been kept well battened down with a few thousand dollars worth of paint and shingles may last a hundred years longer. 

I like to keep things simple and lists short so I’ll stop here. The summer is still warm and beckoning and the days long enough for fun and the occasional fix-it job. I might make some progress on the arbor. We’ll see. As for you, what will you do? There is always time to be reactive to be sure. The question is whether you will make the time for just a short while this summer to become proactive. 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 7 

FILM 

The Dark Cinema of David Goodis “Nightfall” at 6:30 p.m., “The Burglar” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” The film adaptation of the book by Hunter S. Thomson at 9:15 p.m. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. A portion of the ticket price goes towards supporting the California Food and Justice Coalition. 704-0245, jessicabell@cafoodjustice.org, www.foodsecurity.org/california 

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, through Sat. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. All Festival Pass is $225. Group rates and specials for students and seniors are available. 925-275-9490. www.sfjff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Meg Waite Clayton reads from her second novel “The Wednesday Sisters” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Rafaela G. Castro reads from “Provocaciones: Letters from the Prettiest Girl in Arvi” at 7 p.m. at Rebecca’s Books, 3268 Adeline St. 852-4768. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jazzschool Student Vocal Showcase at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station, Shattuck at Center St. 

Clinton Fearon at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ledward Kaapana & Mike Kaawa at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzalicious at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Owen Roberts, The Ben Benkert Trio at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Noche de Maestros with Marcelo Ledesma from Buenos Aires at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Fleeting Trance at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Selector: Zeugmatic at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8 

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 

Stage Door Conservatory Teens on Stage “Anything Goes” Fri.-Sat. at 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2460 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20 at the door. 521-6250. 

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.  

Woodminster Summer Musicals ”Seussical” a musical based on the works of Dr. Seuss, Fri.-Sun. at 8 p.m., at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland. through Aug. 17. Tickets are $23-$38. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“888 Pieces of We” A photo memoir by Keba Armand Konte Reception at 8:08 p.m. at Oakland Art Gallery, 199 Kahn’s Alley, Oakland. 637-0395. www.oaklandartgallery.org 

“Our Quiet Earthquake” Mixed media works by Aunia Kahn. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Eclectix, 7523 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito. Exhibition runs through Aug. 31. www.eclectixgallery.com 

“New City Scenes and Landscapes” Paintings by Jerome Carlin on display at Caffe 817, 817 Washington St., Oakland to Aug. 14. 271-7965. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Adam David Miller and Rita Flores Bogaert will read at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave. 841-6374. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bobby Young Project, old school rock, at 5 p.m. outdoors at Broadway at Water St., Jack London Square, Oakland.  

Point Richmond Summer Music with Rock Soup Ramblers and Houston Jones, at 5:30 p.m. outdoors at Park Place in downtown Point Richmond. www.pointrichmond.com 

Ben Bolt, guitar, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. at Arch. Cost is $10-$15. 845-1350. www.hillsideclub.org/concerts 

University Summer Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Sliding scale donation at the door. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Marvin Sanders, flute, Lena Lubotsky, piano perform works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Debussy, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $10. 848-1228. www.giorgigallery.com 

Jon Fromer, CD release concert at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

David Hunter Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Jack Pollard & His Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Marley’s Ghost at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Antioquia, Last Legal Music at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Drumm Workshop at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $8-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Greenmountain with members of Hamsa Lila will play sacred world dance music at 9:30 p.m. at Numi Tea Garden, 2230 Livingston St., Oakland. Donation $5-$10. 

Little Muddy at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Oh Shasta, Amy Meyers at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

The Free Peoples, Burglars Wine at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

The Dave Matthews Blues Band at 8:30 p.m. at Royal Oak Pub (formerly Baltic), 135 Park Place, Point Richmond. 232-5678. 

Say Bok Gwai, La Grita, Colectivo Error 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. 

Red, R&B, at 9 p.m. at Maxwell’s, 341 13th St., Oakland. Cost is $10. 839-6169. 

3rd Date at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 9 

CHILDREN  

Puppet Show “The Adventures of Peer Gynt” Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m., 2 and 4 p.m. and “Harvest at the Lake” Native American Stories at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

THEATER 

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 

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. 

FILM 

“Sisters of ‘77” Archival film of the struggles and triumphs of the equal rights movement at 2 p.m. at the Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave. Sponsored by Oakland Eastbay NOW, AAUW-Oakland-Piedmont Branch and Alameda County Commission on Status of Women. 251-0559. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Dreams in Metaphor” Black and white photographs by Moja Ma’at. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St. Exhibition runs through Aug. 30. 644-1400. www.photolaboratory.com 

Auto Erotica “It’s All About The Car” A group show by Phillip Hall, Bill Silveira and Laurell True. Opening party at 6 p.m. at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland. Exhibition runs to Sept. 6. 535-1702. info@floatcenter.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Barbara Quick reads from her novel “Vivaldi’s Virgins” with musical accompaniment on the cello by Tessa Seymour, at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

University Summer Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Sliding scale donation at the door. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Global Voices of Resistance Benefit for La Guinera Community Center in Cuba, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Carmen Jones at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Bongo Love at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Drum workshop at 8:30 p.m., bring your own drum. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Ari Chersky Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Mike Zawitowski, Laura Zucker at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

High Country at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kurt Ribak Jazz Group at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Charlie Wilson’s War at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

The Sleepy Alligators, Seconds on End, in a tribute to Jerry Garcia at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Attitude Adjustment, Part Time Christians, Zombie Holocaust at 7 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $8. 525-9926. 

Yellowjackets with Mike Stern at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $26. 238-9200.  

SUNDAY, AUGUST 10 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Fire & Flora” Hand-built ceramic vessels by Will Johnson and landscape paintings by Karen LeGault. Artists reception at 2 p.m. at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave. Exhibition runs through Sept. 4. 204-1667.  

Samplings 2008: A Festival of Textiles with demonstrations of quilting, lace-making, needlepoint, knitting, spinning and more, from noon to 4 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Free. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Architecture Tour of the Oakland Museum of California Meet by the Admissions Desk on the second level at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Free. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

Arte Poetica, The Dream Poetry Team at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Fat Man, Little Boy, and the Mushroom Cloud” Poets reflect on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at 6:30 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. Admission is free, donations encouraged. 

“The Music of the Word” The Petaluma Poetry Walk Anthology celebration and reading at 3:30 p.m. at Rebecca’s Books, 3268 Adeline St. 852-4768. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Americana Unplugged: Homespun Rowdy at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Trio Mopme at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Redwing at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Café Bellie at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jesse Scheinin Group at 4:30 p.m. Nebula Explosion at 5:30 p.m. and Christine Donaldson at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Australian Bebop Ragas at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Peter Blood & Annie Patterson, editors of “Rise Up Singing” at 7 p.m. at Friends Meeting House, Walnut and Vine. Donation $15, no one turned away.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 11 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Express with Adam David Miller 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 

The Eddie Gale Band featuring Kidd Jordan, Dick Griffin, Marcus Shelby, William Parker and Joe Hodge at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 12 

FILM 

“The Judge and The General” A documentary co-directed by Berkeley filmmaker Elizabeth Farnsworth and Chilean producer/director Patricio Lanfranco, about justice in Chile, at 6:45 and 9 p.m. at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College Ave. at Ashby. Tickets are $7-$9.50. 433-9730. www.rialtocinemas.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Freight and Salvage Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $4.50-$5.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tri Tip Trio 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 

Dwele at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdaysat 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Sounds at Oakland City Center with Le Jazz Hot, Gypsy jazz, at noon at 12th and Broadway, Oakland.  

Rob Schneiderman Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Alexandre Cadarso and Javier Blanco, music from Galicia, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Swing Fever at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Don Coffin and Paul Ellis, Irish and Italian songs, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. www.lebateauivre.net 

Pacific Manouche at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

“Vakaranga Venharetare” Women of the Spirits with Jenny Muchumi and Patience Chaitezvi at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mikie Lee and Amber at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Dwele at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14 

FILM 

Oakland International Black LGBT Film Festival through Sun. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. For details of films see www.clubrimshot.com/filmfestival.html 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Dora Sorell, holocaust survivor and author of “Tell the Children” talks at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 the Alameda. 981-6250. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Marcus Shelby Trio at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station, Shattuck at Center St. 

David Rovics, radical and progressive songs at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Tickets are $15 at the door. 528-4941. 

JBill at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Loading Zone at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Anna Estrada & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com  

Scott Amendola with the Gyan Riley Trio at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Spanish Harlem Orchestra at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $24-$28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15 

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  

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 

Crowded Fire Theater Company “The Listener” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Aug. 31. Tickets are $15-$25. 415-433-1235. crowdedfire.org 

Woodminster Summer Musicals ”Seussical” a musical based on the works of Dr. Seuss, Fri.-Sun. at 8 p.m., at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland. through Aug. 17. Tickets are $23-$38. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Kwatro-Kantos” Works by the Filipino Collective on display to Sept. 13 at 21 Grand, 416 25th St., at Broadway, Oakland. 444-7263. www.kwatro-kantos.com 

FILM 

“Fellini's 8 1/2” View and discuss the archetypal, mythic, and depth psychological dimensions of this film at 7 p.m. at The Dream Institute, 1672 University. Cost is $10-$12. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Paces “The Tristan Codas” Poetry and dance at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Donations benefit Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893. www.berkeleysrtcenter.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Amigos, Latin rock, at 5 p.m. outdoors at Broadway at Water St., Jack London Square, Oakland.  

Pacific Coast Jazz on the Green at 6 p.m. in the gardens of the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. 238-2022. www.museumca.org  

Conjunto Los Pochos, Conjunto Romero at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Panel discussion at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

E. W. Wainwright’s African Roots of Jazz at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Steve Lucky & the Rhumba Bums at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. East Coast Swing lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Phil Marsh at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Christmas, Members of Thizz, Thizz Latin, hip-hop benefit for CopWatch at 8 p.m. at 3228 Adeline St. Cost is $5-$10. berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com 

Small Guitarmen, Jessica Rice at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Desario, Whitey on the Moon, Bye Bye Blackbirds, California indie pop, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Killing the Dream, Risen, Resist the Right 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. 

Rhythm Doctors at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16 

CHILDREN  

Puppet Show “The Adventures of Peer Gynt” Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m., 2 and 4 p.m. and “The Girl Who Lost Her Smile” at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

THEATER 

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 

Prism Stage “The W. Kamu Bell Curve” Sat. and Sun. at 8 p.m. at JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St., through Aug.24. Tickets are $15-$20. 848-0237. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Communication Gap” Works by Angie Brown, Crystal Morey, Jake Gabel, Nancy Bach, Patrick Renner and Amanda Jayne Kennedy, opens at The Compound Gallery, 6604 San Pablo Ave., Oakland, and runs through Sept. 7. 655-9019. www.thecompoundgallery.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Cool Mash-Up Youth Speaks female spoken word artists from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Rhythm & Muse with spoken word performer Paradise and horn player The Ambassador of Trouts at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice and Rose . 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Los Boleros, Afro-Cuban Latin band, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

V-Note at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Barry Melton Band, Nick Gravenites Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Mark Fromm, Erika Wright Band at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Crooked Jades at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jonathan Stein Experiment at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Fred Frith, Matthias Bossi, Shazad Ismally Duo, improv rock, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Patrick Wolff Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Rich White Males, Regal Beagle, Idiot Box 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. 

Spanish Harlem Orchestra at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $24-$28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

The Men’s Story Project, exploring masculinity through spoken word, monlogues, music and dance, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $12-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

San Francisco Renaissance Voices at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20 at the door. 684-7563. 

The Edlos at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

In Jazz We Trust at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Ahimsa, Indian fusion, at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Pete Madsen at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Americana Unplugged: Dark Hollow Band at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Household Items with the Jordan Wardlaw Band at 7 p.m. at Mama Buzz Cafe. 465-4073. www.mamabuzzcafe.com 

Jyoti Kala Mandir, College of Indian Classical Arts, “Devi: Mystic Goddess” at 5 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $12-$18. 486-9851. www.jyotikalamandir.org  

Kamau Bell dances around the stage at Pro Arts, a little bit like a boxer in the ring, but he’s smiling. And exercising the audience and himself: “Call me an Obvious Ethnic. We all are ethnic; some of us are obvious.”  

His solo show, The W. Kamau Bell Curve, billing itself as “Ending Racism in About an Hour,” is running next Saturday and Sunday night at the Oakland gallery off Jack London Square.  

Bell complains about the euphemisms for race: “African-American is inaccurate ... and it took all the rhythm out. Can you hear James Brown sing, ‘Say it loud, I’m African-American and I’m proud’? It’s associated with words like ‘the defendant,’ ‘sickle cell anemia’ ... Black is the coolest color; think of vampires, and Johnny Cash.” 

Bell later quotes Quincy Jones: “Laughter is the soul saying Yes!” A stand-up comic, who teaches a class in San Francisco on performance, Bell hA worked up his solo show over the past year, performed it for 14 weeks in San Francisco, and now brings it to the East Bay. 

(It was originally booked for two weekends each at Pro Arts and the East Bay Jewish Community Center in Berkeley, but the JCC abruptly canceled both runs the day before opening last week, after laying off its programming staff, apparently for budgetary reasons. Bell’s producers, Bruce Pachtman and Lisa Marie Rollins, assisted by Ilya Tovbis, former JCC director of programming, stepped in to restore the Pro Arts booking. Tickets are again available at Brown Paper Tickets, although many who received refunds after the JCC cancelLation are still unaware of the show’s continuance.)  

Bell’s solo show incorporates material from his stand-up act, but it’s “more real than stand-up, with a longer pace between punchlines. It’s an adult conversation with the audience. Not so much scatological as talking about the issues, not selling out the point for a joke. I can take that luxury in a solo act. Otherwise, you usually don’t have that until you’re famous.” 

A case in point—and the perfect example—is a story Bell avers “couldn’t be done in stand-up,” with different moods and twists and turns, about meeting his girlfriend’s Sicilian grandfather, who spurns him, but getting coaxed into coming to Thanksgiving at the grandparents’ home—and bringing a sweet potato pie for dessert, thinking he would be the only black person there.  

“It’s the emotional heart of the show,” Bell commented, “and that’s why you need a director for solo performance. Mine, Martha Rynberg, told me I should use it after I told it to her, just as an anecdote. Audiences respond to it emotionally right off. Stories like that never succeed in stand-up.” 

In this way, Bell marks himself off from most other comedians as a humorist, with “a sense of the opposite, what you find instead of what you expect to find,” as playwright Luigi Pirandello put it. And with his sense of “responding to the crowd as in a conversation,” his routines on race take a different tack than most comedians’ one-liners or diatribes. 

“The best audience is mixed across all lines,” he says. “That way everybody has to listen as individuals. Sometimes I don’t know how to deal with the material, but—whether the audience knows it or not—I’m discovering my angle in front of you. My show changes every night, and I reserve the right to make it up, to talk it out in front of you.” 

The W. Kamau Bell Curve uses visuals, too. A slide show of quotes as varied as “I Come From Shock” (Muhammed Ali), “I’d rather play a maid than be one” (Hattie McDaniel) and “Oops!” (Martin Luther King) play across the screen before the show. Later, Bell shows some demographic charts from a Forbes “Ten Best Places to Live” article about Indiana, and compares them to—Oakland. “Nobody talks about the positives of Oakland.”  

Bell also projects pictures, one a photo of himself as a kid, grimacing, in a torn T-shirt, imitating the Incredible Hulk. “My mother just sent it to me!” He celebrates the actor who played the Hulk as one of “The five white guys who did the most for black people.” 

Bell, whose mother taught at Stanford (where she was initially denied a degree in the then-unrecognized field of African-American Literature), grew up in the Bay Area. Between weekends at Pro Arts, he’s been back East to direct a play (I [Heart] Hamas) by one of his students, Jennifer Jajeh, for the New York Fringe Festival, and will direct another show, Love, Humiliation and Karaoke this fall at San Francisco’s Stagewerx. 

THE W. KAMAU BELL CURVE 

8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Prism Stage, Pro Arts, 550 Second St., Oakland.  

$15-$20. 848-0237.

Cries of “Hornstrumpot!” and “By my green candle!” mingle strangely with the savage shrieks of warring pom-pom girls and feel-good admonitions to “send your energy” in the Shotgun Players’ Ubu for President. The play is Shotgun’s offering for their annual free outdoor theater extraganza at John Hinkel Park, and it coincides nicely with election season as the group confabulates the specter of Alfred Jarry’s seminal avant-garde play, Ubu Roi, with a bunch of ghost images from the media.  

Following the basic plotline of Jarry’s unique blend of human puppet show, Shakespeare parody and Symbolist sublimation, Josh Costello (who has directed for the Magic in San Francisco, as well as the Crucible in Oakland, and was Impact’s first artistic director in Berkeley) has written a broad burlesque of contemporary popular culture.  

Directed by Shotgun founder Patrick Dooley, the episodes from the original Ubu cut with skit-like inserts play like sketch comedy. The songs (lyrics by Dave Garrett, musical direction by Dave Malloy, just off Beowulf and late of Clown Bible) are from any grade school collection of patriotic anthems and American folksongs. The lyrics are warped to convey the silliness of the singers, cartoonish characters who have taken over the animation studio. 

From the entrance of Ma and Pa Ubu (Carla Pantoja with a yard-tall hot pink beehive hairdo and kit-kat dark glasses, Dave Garrett with Ubu’s signature stomach-level spiral and a French revolutionary red cap) as spectators, sitting down in lawnchairs, the Ubus are portrayed as trailer trash churls, versus the rather bourgeois King (Gary Grossman), who steps down to run against Ubu for president, and his monstrously suburbanite Princess (prince in the original) of a daughter (Casi Maggio), who takes up the royalist opposition after Ubu steps on the King’s foot and assassinates him (the original burlesqued Macbeth).  

There’s also a cloyingly feel-good candidate, Ming Jamal Wounded Knee (or Eagle) Goldstein (Sung Min Park), who canvasses the audience before the show begins. There’s a Debraining Machine, but no voting machines. By the concluding song, the action and characters have stretched every which way over the landscape like Silly Putty. 

The show’s not supposed to be more than inspired by Jarry, but it’s a good moment to say something about the man who influenced both Picasso and Miro, whom Antonin Artaud named his own theater company after, and whose creations captivated pop artists like Frank Zappa and of course avant-rock band Pere Ubu.  

Out of a schoolboy puppet show that slagged a pompous teacher, Jarry realized a sublimely rapacious character, whose absurd self-absorption and obliviousness attains metaphysical heights.  

From the opening expletive, “Merde!” to the wholesale slaughter of nobility and peasant alike by the Debraining Machine, the play devours itself as gluttonous Ubu shamelessly aggrandizes himself. W. B. Yeats, who was present at the opening night riot (a century-long tradition at Parisian avant-garde events), called it a harbinger of “the Savage God.” 

Jarry was a Breton, in the line of other dramatists of Celtic extraction (preceded by Victor Hugo and Villiers De L’Isle-Adam with his proto-Ubu, Tribulat Bonhomet; followed by John Synge, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw and Ramon Del Valle-Inclan from Galicia), all of whom drew what would later be called characters of alienation (or defamiliarization) from a time-honored Celtic routine of pompous self-parody and obliviousness, king and jester at once. 

Through this deadpan, everyone becomes implicated. “A Celt can never laugh at himself,” said Oliver St. John Gogarty (whom Joyce dragooned as “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan” to introduce Ulysses). Or never laugh at himself alone, a self-caricature in a world of grotesques. 

Dave Garrett and Carla Pantoja seem to be up to the meta-Freudian ferocities of the Ubu ménage, but they portray them as genial louts with attitude. Post- 

cracker barrel populism replaces a bloated cultural parody, the Romantics’ overwrought version of Shakespeare as an assault vehicle. The rest isn’t silence, more like MAD TV. 

Jarry turned theater inside out with a humorous reign of terror and banality, cut with delirious flights of imagination: “Clichés are the armature of the Absolute.”  

Andre Gide recorded how he took on Ubu as his public persona in The Coutnerfeiters and his journals. The Mime Troupe, under R. G. Davis, made political hay of Ubu in the ’60s; now, the Shotgun Players, in the spirit of fun, make a joyful noise instead. 

UBU FOR PRESIDENT 

4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Sept. 14 at John Hinkle Park, Southampton Avenue, off The Arlington.  

Free (donations accepted).  

841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org.

A centennial retrospective of an artist’s work is not unusual. That the artist is still living at the time is fairly unusual. But it’s truly rare for the celebrated artist to be living, working in full swing and an acknowledged master of his art—as is Manoel de Oliveira, the great Portuguese film director, whose career began in the late silent era, and who will be 100 on Dec. 12. 

Pacific Film Archive will begin an Oliveira retrospective of 19 features and four shorts (including his first film from 1931, the silent short Douro, Working River) of his 50-some films, this Saturday at 6:30 p.m. with Voyage to the Beginning of the World (1997), with Marcello Mastroianni (in his last film appearance) as Oliveira (while Oliveira plays Mastroianni’s driver). 

On Sunday at 5 p.m. his first feature, Aniki-Bobo (1942), will be shown with a short from 1963, The Hunt. Next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. will see Oliveira’s second feature, Rite of Spring (1963), the documentary-like reenactment of a small town’s passion play and the first of various films Oliveira based on theater and, later, novels. 

Oliveira madeonly a few short documentaries in the 20 years between features, in great part due to his undisguised opposition to the Salazar “Estado Novo” dictatorship (1932–74), based more on humanistic than political concerns.  

His career took off with his third feature, the Buñuelian The Past and the Present (1972), inaugurating a tetralogy of “frustrated love,” with his first great masterpiece (released in his 70th year), Doomed Love (1978) and later the stunning Francisca (1981), the from the former work, the other from the life of 19th century Portuguese novelist Camilo Castel Branco. 

“What other great filmmaker made his masterpiece after his 80th birthday?” asked director Fernando Lopes, referring to Oliveira’s Abraham’s Valley (1993, based in part on Madame Bovary, which will end the retrospective on Sept. 28), when he accompanied Oliveira to the 1994 San Francisco International Film Festival to receive the Kurosawa Award.  

Since that time, Oliveira has made over half his output, at least a film a year, like A Talking Picture (from 2003, perhaps  

a response to 9/11, with Catherine Deneuve, Irene Pappas and John Malkovitch) and Belle Toujours (updating Buñuel’s story, nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar for 2006, with Michel Piccoli and Bulle Ogier). 

An acting student who was inspired at 20 to direct by Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin: Symphony of a City, and later by Soviet film montage, Oliveira created his own signature style, “palimpsestic ... a reflective and self-reflexive discourse” (Randal Johnson), unfolds as his career continues to progress.  

This true stylization, which eschews naturalism for a peculiar kind of direct address (“Each film must be finished by the spectators”), is his own interpretation (as Fernando Lopes put it) of Portugal’s national sentiment: that elusive thing, “saudade.” Often translated as nostalgia, saudade may be more a sense of what did happen—or could have happened—as recollected in the present and projected into the future.  

Oliveira recently placed the genesis of his sensibilities as an artist working in film, “the synthesis of all art forms,” in the reflections he made when he was sidelined from film and managing his family’s vineyards, on “the simplicity of old Greek tragedies, the realism of the Renaissance.”

Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, and filmmaker Masaou Yamamoto will show a documentary film-in-progress on the Longest Walk 2, a walk across America for the environment, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Longest Walk for Native American rights. Banks will speak, tell stories and play drums in a performance on the theme with dancer/choreographer Mary Sano and pianist/songwriter Tony Chapman. 7 p.m. Tues. Aug. 12 at the Mary Sano Studio of Duncan Dance, 245 Fifth St. #314, San Francisco. (415) 357-1817 or info@duncandance.org $10-15.

On April 30, 1906, Chief of Police August Vollmer observed an aged woman receiving supplies at the YMCA headquarters, where refugees of the San Francisco earthquake and fire were given food and clothing. Vollmer identified her as Honora Bentley, a well-to-do West Berkeley property owner who lived in apparent poverty at 2439 Ninth Street. 

For years, Mrs. Bentley’s neighbors believed her to be poor, until a series of bizarre lawsuits and countersuits, beginning in August 1904 and extensively covered in the press, revealed her to be the owner of a considerable estate, rumored to be worth $60,000. Consequently, even before she was arrested by Vollmer, Honora Bentley was a well-known character, whom newspaper accounts described as notorious and eccentric. The news of her arrest spread far and wide through the Associated Press. 

Mrs. Bentley was taken into custody, charged with obtaining goods under false pretenses, and brought before Justice of the Peace Robert Edgar, who ordered her held on $1,000 bail. She spent three days in the county jail, until bail (a mere $100, according to the San Francisco Call) was posted on May 3. Coming up for trial on June 25, the case took a new turn. Represented by attorney Frank L. Rawson, Mrs. Bentley entered a plea of not guilty and demanded a jury trial.  

Rawson claimed that his client had not been identified as the woman who obtained the goods from the relief committee and asked that the case be dismissed for lack of evidence. Prosecutor Hugh Goodfellow agreed, since Miss Barr of the relief committee could not positively identify Mrs. Bentley as the woman to whom she gave clothes. The case was dismissed. 

Precious little is known about the long life of Honora Bentley, but no doubt it was a life beset with hardship and pain. It may have been the Irish famine that brought her to America. She lost her first husband while still in her thirties, bore ten children, raised most of them by herself, and outlived all but a few. Yet somehow she managed to become a woman of means. 

Long before she became Mrs. Bentley, Honora was Mrs. Townsend. Born in 1830 in Northern Ireland, she came to America in 1852. Her marriage to Edward Townsend, an English-born laborer her age, may have taken place in the New World. By 1853, the couple was living in California and bringing their first child into the world. The 1860 federal census found them in San Francisco with four daughters aged 7 to 2 and real estate valued at $500. Ten years later, Edward apparently dead, Honora had at home five children aged 18 to 2, and the value of her real estate had climbed to $10,000. 

In 1886, Honora made her first Berkeley investment, purchasing lots 22, 23, and 24 in Block 106 of the Sisterna Tract, along Fifth Street between Addison St. and Allston Way. At the time, there were only three houses on the block. The most valuable, built in 1879 on Sixth St., 150 feet north of Allston Way, belonged to lumberman Edward F. Niehaus, co-proprietor of the West Berkeley Planing Mill. On Allston Way lived laborer Hans Holgerson and his wife Ann, in a modest home sold to them by the Sisternas in 1881. The oldest house on the block belonged to the Chilean tanner Juan Velasco, who built it on lot 24 in 1877. This Italianate house became the property of Honora Townsend, along with the two adjacent lots she purchased in 1886. It survives at 2109 Fifth St. 

Mrs. Townsend did not move to Berkeley immediately. In 1889, she was listed in the San Francisco directory as a widow living at 2118 Jones St. By then, all her children had reached majority and either left home or were close to doing so. Honora was absent from the 1890 San Francisco directory, indicating that she may have moved to Berkeley in that year. It is certain that she wasted no time in increasing her West Berkeley holdings. By 1892, when she made her first appearance in the Berkeley directory, she had built two additional houses nearby. One, in the Queen Anne style, went up on lot 22 and still stands at 2117 Fifth Street. The other, considerably more expensive and long since demolished, was constructed on the west side of Sixth Street between University Avenue and Bristol Street (now Hearst Avenue). 

Around 1896, Honora married one Henry Bentley, who came to live with her at 2117 Fifth St. Three years later, the couple switched their residence to a modest cottage at 2439 Ninth St., yielding the Fifth Street home to Honora’s daughter Emma Kidd (born c. 1862) and her husband William, a stevedore. The Ninth St. cottage had been built in 1891 by Charles A. Bailey, one of the largest landowners in Berkeley (in 1889 Bailey was the third wealthiest individual taxpayer in Berkeley, surpassed only by James McGee and Francis K. Shattuck). 

Honora’s marriage to Bentley was short-lived as her husband, doubtlessly at least as old as she was, died soon after the move. The 1900 U.S. census found Honora a 69-year-old widow, living alone on Ninth Street, six of her ten children dead. She apparently found solitary living difficult, for soon enough she invited a man to live with her. He was James Fitzpatrick, an octogenarian who listed his profession as engineer in the 1903 city directory, where he was listed for the first time as resident at 2439 Ninth St. 

Fitzpatrick apparently did some odd jobs for Honora, including rent collection. Their relationship soured in the spring of 1904, when Fitzpatrick described himself as Mrs. Bentley’s contract husband. When this claim reached Honora’s ears, she moved back to 2117 Fifth St. and ordered him out of the Ninth Street house. In retaliation, he brought suit against her to recover $1,200 on an alleged promissory note and an additional $750 for services rendered. On August 23, Mrs. Bentley was in court to state that the note was a fraud (she had once signed what she thought was a receipt for $12 so that Fitzpatrick could collect some rent for her) and that he had been paid in full for all his services before she left him. 

Fitzpatrick then laid claim to the Ninth St. house, and in the fall of 1904, Mrs. Bentley headed him off by deeding all her West Berkeley properties to her daughter, Margaret Curtis (born c. 1860), and to her attorney, David Mitchell, as tenants in common. Fitzpatrick made the next move, procuring from her by force a signed document clearing himself and defaming attorney Mitchell. “There are many sensational features in connection with this litigation which may be revealed in court, but not elsewhere,” the Oakland Tribune quoted Mitchell as saying, “Mrs. Bentley tells me that in the last week she attempted three times to secure a warrant for Fitzpatrick’s arrest in Judge Quinn’s court in connection with this latest attack upon her but that each time Fitzpatrick has intercepted her.” 

Mitchell further claimed that he had letters showing that Fitzpatrick had been trying to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Lund, an aged and wealthy Berkeley woman. This move apparently prompted some negotiations, and on Oct. 20, the couple appeared together before Judge Edgar, Fitzpatrick announcing that they had resolved their differences. Honora said nothing. Her troubles were just beginning. 

In September 1905, Honora was sued by house mover William P. Grant for $229.80. In response, she asserted that she had authorized him to make repairs for $100, that “he has twisted the house and wrenched it so badly that the roof leaks and it is uninhabitable,” that he had not completed the work, all of which was not worth more than $150, that she had offered to pay him $150 but he had refused. 

Less than three months later, attorney David Mitchell was arrested for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl he had lured into his office. Honora promptly hired attorney Frank Rawson and accused Mitchell of having embezzled from her $2,500 in cash and $10,000 in real estate, leaving her destitute. Rawson announced he would take steps to prevent Mitchell from using her property to secure his release on the assault charge. 

Within two weeks, Honora’s daughter Emma was arrested for throwing sticks and stones through the front-room windows of their neighbors, the Welch family of 2111 Fifth St., and verbally abusing their teenage daughter. Emma pleaded guilty before Judge Edgar and, apparently unable to pay a fine, was sentenced to ten days in the county jail. 

Fitzpatrick meanwhile holed himself up at 2439 Ninth St. and posted a warning on the door: “There is a mesheen behind this doare to kill aney on opening the saim. Trifel not and keep out of here for the present. Don’t trifel with this doare.” From his jail cell, Mitchell waged war with Fitzpatrick over ownership of the property. Their wrangle was soon rendered immaterial. Judge Harris ordered Fitzpatrick ejected from the property, and the Sheriff’s deputies removed his belongings to the street. On Jan. 11, 1906, Rawson filed deeds conveying all the properties back to Mrs. Bentley. The same day, Fitzpatrick returned to the house and applied a match in several places, but neighbors who had seen him leave extinguished the flames. Charged with arson, Fitzpatrick was confined in a cell adjoining Mitchell’s, and the two frequently engaged in abusive disputes. 

Mitchell was found guilty of the assault charge and sentenced in July 1906 to six years at San Quentin, but two retrials kept him in the county jail until Dec. 1907, when he was released on insufficient evidence. During his two years in jail, he had become an expert cook. 

Honora Townsend Bentley died in 1910, leaving property worth $20,000. After her death, her house at 2439 Ninth St. was occupied by the Kidds and Margaret Curtis. William Kidd was still working as a stevedore, while Margaret was listed as a seamstress in that year’s census record. Although living under one roof, the two sisters were not in accord. In July, Emma secured a citation ordering Margaret to appear in the probate court and explain why, as administratrix of the estate, she refused to hand over $5,000 left to Emma in the will. 

The sisters soon disappeared from Berkeley. Only the three Victorian houses in West Berkeley stand as a reminder of the notorious Honora Townsend Bentley. 

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

The weather has been so nice lately. I always tell myself that when it finally gets nice, I’ll get out and finish my arbor. My poor neighbors have to look at that thing all year, and you’d think that with what I know about construction, I’d just get it done, but Noooo. I just want to loll around the house looking for more 1 point snacks and watching YouTube. 

As I drive down the street it’s clear that I’m not alone. Most people’s houses need all sorts of work but without some terrific incentive there are always ten million other things that draw our attention and energy (not to mention time and money). So most of us approach our houses from a reactive stance rather than a proactive stance, putting out fires as they begin to smoke or flicker.  

Kristi, a recent client of mine, works for the Feds investigating very large financial institutions. She told me that like homeowners, even these huge entities tend to be reactive rather than proactive. Why am I not surprised? She uses this proactive vs. reactive question as a test to be passed or failed in the back of her mind as she looks over the spread-sheets of this or that behemoth. I wonder how many of us would pass the test. 

With homes, being reactive is surely a nominal requisite but being proactive has such huge rewards that I feel duty-bound to weave a specific argument for it. Let’s start with major hazards and then work down toward simple issues of longevity. 

Being proactive about fire isn’t easy or pretty, but it’s my opinion that this is the most important kind of prophylaxis there is for the homeowner. Not only does fire destroy the home, but it’s also my personal least favorite way to die (not that I’ve died that many ways). 

With fire, there are two issues: prevention and escape. While prevention is prudent, I’d sooner start with escape as the first area of investigation and action. The proactive person has taken the time to decide how they (and their family) will exit the house if fire comes from any of several directions. They will also have smoke alarms (the term detector is being abandoned in the current codes in favor of alarm, to my fervent accord) in lots of places as a way of giving themselves loads of time for escape. Smoke alarms are so implausibly cheap that there is scarcely a reason not to have one in every room that has its own door and at least one on each level of the house in a hallway.  

Next is the matter of escape. People often seem to have notions about how they will escape that are super-hero unrealistic. Breaking a window to get out of a room when said room is filled with smoke is not a realistic plan. Windows that open easily and doors that don’t require keys for escape are vital, and there is no excuse for not having both. If you’re in a house filled to the rafters with flammable books, magazines and junk, think about what it will be like in a fire. Most of all, be sure that you can move freely and directly to the outside from everywhere you spend time, especially where you sleep. 

Once you’ve tackled the matter of alarms and escape, you can settle down to fire prevention. If you have an ancient wiring system, have an expert look at it. About 10 percent of all fires are electrically based, and that’s allowing for cigarettes, kitchen fires and all the more common sources that I can’t help you with. I will say that a lot of smokers are now keeping their smoking outside the home, which I consider courageous and shrewd. 

Keeping a fire extinguisher near the stove is pretty smart, and checking to see if it’s charged on a regular basis is smarter. A recent favorite of mine on the fire front has been dryer vents. These need to be cleaned out regularly, especially when they’re long. Have you ever cleaned out your entire dryer vent? Most people will have to confess that they have not. Proactive means putting this on the calendar for Labor Day weekend every year. I’m looking for an obscure Jewish holiday for mine (Tisha B’Av is just around the corner for you holiday watchers). 

Have your heating system examined once a year. Furnaces and heaters of all kinds cause fires, and a short viewing by an expert might easily I.D. a fire hazard that has been missed before or developed anew. For more ideas on fire prevention, call your local fire department. Once they’ve overcome the shock that you’re interested in their help, you’ll find that they offer a range of inspection services. 

Proactive people not only know that an earthquake is looming for those of us who live near the Hayward Fault, but also know that changes in their homes are necessary. While a majority of homes in our fair city of Berkeley have had some retrofitting completed, the majority of that work is insufficient or ill-concieved. Being reactive to earthquakes is potentially expensive and maybe worse. Simply put, if you haven’t talked to a seismic retrofitting expert, do it. The cost of retrofitting many houses is often less than $10K, and I believe that many houses will experience hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage when these tectonic hills commence to pitch and heave. Insurance may be wise but I’d always start by getting physical. And while they are somewhat controversial, I continue to recommend automatic gas shutoff devices. They’re cheap and may prevent the fires that earthquakes are so adept at starting. 

Now to some more mundane aspects of proactivity. If I’m trying to get myself to cry, I know two thing that work well. First is The English Patient and second is driving past a few formerly regal Victorians that have begun to molt their corbels, spandrels and brackets. Most houses need only two things to prevent failure of the structure in this way; paint and roofing. For the lack of these two things (and, of course, their little familiars, caulk, flashing and trim) many houses slowly buckle, delaminate, leak and rot. Conversely, the house that has been kept well battened down with a few thousand dollars worth of paint and shingles may last a hundred years longer. 

I like to keep things simple and lists short so I’ll stop here. The summer is still warm and beckoning and the days long enough for fun and the occasional fix-it job. I might make some progress on the arbor. We’ll see. As for you, what will you do? There is always time to be reactive to be sure. The question is whether you will make the time for just a short while this summer to become proactive. 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 7 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll study reptiles, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

“A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy for the U.S.” Discussion with Nia Robinson, Director, Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative; J. Andrew Hoerner, Director, Sustainable Economics, Redefining Progress at noon at Trans Pacific Center, 1000 Broadway, Suite 109, Room 4, Oakland. 444-3041 ext. 316. communications@rprogress.org  

People’s Park Celebration Planning Meeting at 7 p.m. at Café Med. peoplesparkcommunity@yahoogroups.com 

“Obama: New Day for Black People or New Face on Same Setup?” A presentation by Sunsara Taylor at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196.  

An Afternoon of Board Games for children of all ages at 3 p.m. at the West Side Branch Library, 135 Washington Ave., Richmond. 620-6567. 

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.  

Emergency Preparedness For Older Adults & Caregivers at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 745-1499. 

Portrait Drawing Classes every Thurs. at 12:30 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. at Ashby Ave. 981-5170. 

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

Healing Yoga for High Blood Pressure at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharm, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755.  

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8 

Berkeley Burma Day with Burmese Flag Raising Ceremony at 7:45 a.m., flag raising at 8:08 a.m. at Berkeley City Hall, 2180 Milvia St.  

“The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Became a War on American Ideals” with New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10. 848-3696. www.brownpapertickets.com/event/38919  

“Nagasaki, Hiroshima & Uranium-238” A discussion with “R” Addison at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. 841-4824. www.bfuu.org 

Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve Faire, Fri. from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. , and Sat. from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. with tours of the Preserve’s historic, natural and scenic features. www.mareislandpreserve.org 

Introduction to Pilates at 10:30 a.m. at Elephant Pharm, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Summer Outdoor Movie Series “Mostly Martha” at 8:30 p.m. at Charles Chocolates, 6529 Hollis St, Emeryville. Free. Bring a chair or blanket. 652-4412, ext. 311. 

“What is Jewish Mysticism?” at 6:15 p.m. at JGate near El Cerrito Plaza and BART station. RSVP to get directions and food assignment for pot-luck. 559-8140. rabbibridget@jewishgateways.org 

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 at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst at MLK. 655-8863.  

SATURDAY, AUGUST 9 

Peace Lantern Festival from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Berkeley’s Aquatic Park, near the pedestrian footbridge over I-580. Please RSVP to Lanterns2008@progressiveportal.org, 595-4626. www. 

progressiveportal.org/lanterns 

Native Medicinal Plants of California We will explore many of the plants used in Western American herbalism, with a focus on historical as well as modern use, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Regional Parks Botanic Garden. Cost is $30-$35. Bring lunch. To enroll call 841-8732.  

Annual Tomato Tasting and the Bay Area Homegrown Tomato Show-Off from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Saturday Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. Seed from the tomatoes will be processed and saved for the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library and made available to other local gardeners. 548-3333.  

Bugs in the Sun Hunt for bugs with nets, pooters and shaking shrubs, for all ages, from 10:30 a.m. to noon, at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Nature Hike around Jewel Lake Learn about the nature through jokes and stories, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Meet at Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Enlivening Soil Using Organic Fertilizers with Carl Rosato of Woodleaf Farms from 10 a.m. to 1 pm. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15, no one turned away. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Restoration Project on Oakland’s Shoreline Help remove non-native vegetation and promote the health of recently planted native plants from 9 a.m. to noon at Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland. Part of Save The Bay’s ongoing wetland restoration projects with the East Bay Regional Park District. 452-9261 ext. 119, bayevents@saveSFbay.org, www.savesfbay.org/bayevents  

East Bay Cohousing An all-day bus tour will visit six cohousing communities in the Bay area: Temescal Commons, Temescal Creek Cohousing and Swan’s Market Cohousing in Oakland, Berkeley Cohousing and Doyle Street Cohousing in Emeryville. Cost is $95. Register online. 834-7399, tours@cohousing.orgwww.cohousing.org/tours 

Where Glen Echo Creek Meets Lake Merritt A walking tour sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Meet at 10 a.m. at Lakeside Dr. and Madison St., near Barbary Lane at the Lake Merritt Hotel. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

“Sisters of ‘77” Archival film of the struggles and triumphs of the equal rights movement at 2 p.m. at the Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave. Sponsored by Oakland Eastbay NOW, AAUW-Oakland-Piedmont Branch and Alameda County Commission on Status of Women. 251-0559. 

The East Bay Chapter of The Great War Society meets at 10:30 a.m. at the South Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, 1901 Russell St. at MLK. Stephen McClaughlin will speak on Revolution in the Baltic Fleet. For information, call 527-7118. 

Walk the Line & Connect to the Home Front Walk the line of history and the keel of a victory ship, and learn about the men and women who contributed to victory on the home front during World War II, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. followed by optional 45 min. Bay Trail stroll. Meet park ranger at memorial by main parking lot at Rosie the Riveter Memorial, Marina Bay Park, Melville and Regatta, Richmond. 232-5050. www.nps.gov/rori/ 

All Hands on Deck: Building the Ships that Kept Democracy Afloat Learn about the 747 ships built at the Kaiser shipyards and the people that built them, from 2 to 3 p.m. at Historic Shipyard No. 3, 1337 Canal Blvd., Berth 6A, Richmond. Park outside SS Red Oak Victory gate. 232-5050. Directions to shipyard 237-2933. www.ssredoakvictory.com/contact.htm 

Teacher Appreciation Day with raffle prizes and a 512MB Flash Drive giveaway for the first 200 teachers from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Staples, 2352 Shattuck Ave. www.staples.com/teacherday 

“Scene on the Strait” Art and Environmental Festival Sat. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sun. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Marinez Regional Shoreline. Proceeds support the Carquinez Regional Environmental Education Center. 787-9772. www.CREECyouth.org 

Lead-Safety for Remodeling, Repair & Painting of Older Homes A HUD and EPA approved one-day course, recommended for remodelers, renovators, painters and maintenance workers doing painting and minor repairs, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program Main Office, 2000 Embarcadero, #300, Oakland. Free to owners, and their employed maintenance crews, of residential properties built before 1978 in Alameda, Berkeley, Emeryville or Oakland. Class fee for all others is $130. 567-8280. www.aclppp.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. 

Reuse Workshop: Prayer Flags based on the traditional Tibetan prayer flag. Bring your own favorite article of clothing, blanket or other fabric to make your prayer flag. From 2 to 5 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 25th St., Oakland. 663-6920. 

Free Meditation Workshop at noon at 7th Heaven Yoga Studio, 2820 7th St. 665-4300. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at East Bay Bible Church, 11200 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. 

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.  

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 10 

Community Celebration of the Extraordinary Life of Dona Spring at 2 p.m. at Civic Center Park. 981-7140. 

Circle of Concern Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorial at 1 p.m. on the West Lawn, UC Campus, Oxford St., near University.  

Soil Food Web II: Compost Tea Learn how to make high quality compost tea at home, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Eco-House, 1305 Hopkins St. Cost is $15, no one turned away. Please call to pre-register. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Trails Challenge: Tilden Wildcat Loop An even-paced 7-mile hike, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. through the watershed. Bring lunch and lots of water. Hiking poles are advised. Call for meeting place. 525-2233. 

Woodminster & the Abbey A tour of Jaoquin Miller’s homeand hilly walk of the Woodminster Cascade sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Meet at 10 a.m. at The Abby, corner of Sanborn and Joaquin Miller Roads. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

“Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Nuclear Age” Sunday Service on effects of living in the age of nuclear weapons at 10:30 at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St at Bonita. 841-4824. www.bfuu.org  

Social Action Forum with Alan Solomonow of the American Friends Service committee on Israeli-Palestinian relations at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensigton. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

“Keep Green with Untapped Water” A workshop on how to limit water use, use grey water and rain water to lower your water bill and keep your plants alive in the coming era of water shortages from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $40. 525-7610. www.bldgeductr.org/shortclasses 

Weeding at Huckleberry Regional Preserve Keep periwinkle and cape ivy out of Huckleberry Regional Preserve. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the parking lot on Skyline Blvd. short distance north of Snake Rd. Bring water, gloves, and tools for light weeding. janetg24@excite.com, www.ebparks.org/files/EBRPD_files/brochure/huck_map.pdf 

Samplings 2008: A Festival of Textiles with demonstrations of quilting, lace-making, needlepoint, knitting, spinning and more, from noon to 4 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Free. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

Architecture Tour of the Oakland Museum of California Meet by the Admissions Desk on the second level at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Free. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

Yoga and Meditation at 9:15 a.m. at Elephant Pharm, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Bob Byrne on “Finding the Courage to Love” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

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 

MONDAY, AUGUST 11 

Butterfly Basics Learn how a caterpillar changes into a butterfly at 10:30 a.m. at the Bayview Branch of the Richmond Public Library, 5100 Harnett Ave. 620-6566. 

“Lead-Safe Painting & Remodeling” Learn to detect and remedy lead hazards in the home to prevent lead poisoning from 6 to 8 p.m. at Lakeview Library, 550 El Embarcadero, Oakland. Register by phone or download registration form from website. Free. 567-8280. www.aclppp.org/homeown.htm 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at West Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. 

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, AUGUST 12 

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 Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Poles for Hiking Trekking & Walking at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring your bike and tools. 527-4140. 

“The Judge and The General” A documentary co-directed by Berkeley filmmaker Elizabeth Farnsworth and Chilean producer/director Patricio Lanfranco, about justice in Chile, at 6:45 and 9 p.m. at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College Ave. at Ashby. Tickets are $7-$9.50. 433-9730. www.rialtocinemas.com 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advanced sign-up is required; please call 594-5165.  

Discussion on Revolution: China and Mao Tse Tung at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

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 

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 

Yarn Wranglers Come knit and crochet at 6:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

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, AUGUST 13 

Conscientious Projector Film Series “Amazing Grace” A film on William Wilberforce, a repentent slavetrader, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita, a block east of MLK Jr. Way. 841-4824. www.bfuu.org 

“The Power of Nightmares” Part II A BBC documentary on the Islamists and the Neo-cons, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

Grief Workshop “Yoga: Moving Through Grief” at 6:30 p.m. at Pathways, 333 Hegenberger Rd., Suite 700, Oakland. Free. 613-2092. 

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. 

Spanish Conversation Classes every Wed. and Thurs. at 9:30 a.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. All levels welcome. Ongoing enrollment. 981-5190. 

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, AUGUST 14 

Introduction to Urban Permaculture A talk by local permaculture designers from the Ecological Division of Merritt College’s Landscape Horticulture Department on what is possible in a city, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

Photography Night with Harold Davis, author of Photoblog 2.0, at 7 p.m. at Expression College for Digital Arts, 6601 Shellmound Street, Emeryville. http://ebmug.org 

An Afternoon of Board Games for children of all ages at 3 p.m. at the Bayview Branch of the Richmond Public Library, 5100 Harnett Ave. 620-6566. 

Oakland International Black LGBT Film Festival through Sun. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. FOr details of films see www.clubrimshot.com/filmfestival.html 

Toastmasters Berkeley Communicators meets at 7:30 a.m. at Au Coquelet, 2000 University Ave. Rob.Flammia@gmail.com 

“Obama: Best Hope or Deadly Trap?” A presentation by Sunsara Taylor at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196.  

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 3 to 5 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advanced sign-up is required; please call 594-5165.  

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 

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15 

Iraq Moratorium Day and Vigil to Protest the War from 2 to 4 p.m. at the corners of University & Acton. Sponsored by Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenant’s Assoc & Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

“SB 840: The Promise and Politics of Single-Payer Health Care” A discussion with current and future Assemblymembers on how we can help win real health care reform, at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland, between Telegraph and Broadway. 415-695-7891. 

Conscientious Projector Film Series “Swing Kids” A film about young people in Nazi Germany who resisted Hitler and danced the swing at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. 841-4824. www.bfuu.org 

Berkeley City College Welcome Back to College Day from 10 a.m . to 2 p.m. Aone-stop center for registration, financial aid, and counseling for new and returning Berkeley City College students. 981-2858. 

Introduction to Pilates at 10:30 a.m. at Elephant Pharm, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

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 16 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Path-a-thon Meet at Live Oak Park, Shattuck Ave. between Rose and Eunice to explore three different routes, returning to the park for a BYO picnic lunch. The difficult walk departs at 9:45 a.m., the moderate walk departs at 10:15 a.m., and the eassier walk departs at 11:15 a.m.. 528-3246. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Introduction to Permaculture Design Workshop on ecological landscape design basics, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost is $10-$15. Registration required. Call 548-2220, ext. 233. erc@ecologycenter.org 

Vegetarian Cooking Class on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Cuisine Learn to make braised figs, muhummara, polenta with mushrooms, falafel burgers and more from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $50, plus $5 food and material fee. Advance registration required. 531-COOK. www.compassionatecooks.com 

Rail Meets Water: Then and Now A walking tour of Middle Harbor Shoreline Park sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Meet at 10 a.m. in the parking lot of the park, off of 7th St. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

CopWatch Know Your Rights Training from 2 to 5 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com 

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. 

Marsh-kateers! An adventure hike for 6-8 year olds and their caregivers to investigate the native and non-native plants that call the salt marsh their home, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center, 4901 Breakwater Ave., Hayward. Cost is $6, registration required. 670-7270.  

Family Art Workshop: Fantasy Cityscape Build a model city from a variety of materials from 1 to 4 p.m. at The Museum of Children’s Art, 538 9th St., Oakland. Cost is $7 per child, adults free. 465-8770. www.mocha.org 

Walk the Line & Connect to the Home Front Walk the line of history and the keel of a victory ship, and learn about the men and women who contributed to victory on the home front during World War II, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. followed by optional 45 min. Bay Trail stroll. Meet park ranger at memorial by main parking lot at Rosie the Riveter Memorial, Marina Bay Park, Melville and Regatta, Richmond. 232-5050. www.nps.gov/rori/ 

All Hands on Deck: Building the Ships that Kept Democracy Afloat Learn about the 747 ships built at the Kaiser shipyards and the people that built them, from 2 to 3 p.m. at Historic Shipyard No. 3, 1337 Canal Blvd., Berth 6A, Richmond. Park outside SS Red Oak Victory gate. 232-5050. Directions to shipyard 237-2933. www.ssredoakvictory.com/contact.htm 

Prevent Back to School Colds and Flu at 10:30 a.m. at Elephant Pharm, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Summer Board Game Days from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

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. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. info@eastbaylabyrinthproject.org  

Creek Care Workday at Wildcat Creek from 10 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot off Richmond Pkwy. between Gertrude Ave. and Pittsburg Ave. Sponsored by Golden Gate Audubon Society and East Bay Parks. 919-5873, 525-2233. 

Trails Challenge: Landfill Loop Discover life on the urban fringe where Wildcat Canyon meets San Pablo Bay on a 3-mile level hike along the Bay Trail from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Call for meeting place. 525-2233. 

South Prescott & Seventh St. A walking tour of West Oakland’ Bay View Homestead Tract, sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Wesst Oakland BART Station, 5th St. at Center. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Junior Naturalists Discover Amazing Amphibians Explore the mysterious world of salamanders, toads, and frogs from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center, 4901 Breakwater Ave., Hayward. Cost is $8, registration required. 670-7270.  

Youth Spirit Artwork’s Silent Auction of “Art Chairs” created by homeless and low-income youth involved in an interfaith urban arts jobs training program, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Lake Merritt Boat House, 568 Bellevue Ave., Lakeside Park along Lake Merritt, Oakland. 282-0396. 

How to Plan and Build a Nanofarm Participants will draw up a simple plot plan of their garden, identify zones for perpetual edibles, learn the basics of soil preparation, and more, from 1 to 4 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. Cost is $50. 643-2755 ext. 03.  

”Information Warrior: Taking a Stand in an ‘Anti-terrorist’ Climate” Sunday Service with Josh Wolf at 10:30 a.m. at Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St at Bonita. 841-4824. www.bfuu.org  

East Bay Atheists meets to discuss how active Atheists should be about their Atheism, at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Main Library, 3rd Floor Meeting Room, 2090 Kittredge St. eastbayatheists.org 

Discussion on the New Constitution of the RCP, USA at 6:30 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. www.revolutionbooks.org 

Yoga and Meditation at 9:15 a.m. at Elephant Pharm, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring your bike and tools. 527-4140. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Hugh Joswick on “Knowing Mind” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

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 

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 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Aug. 7, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs., Aug. 7, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7419.  

Commission on Labor meets Wed., Aug. 12, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7550.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Aug. 14, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7410.