UC Berkeley is hosting a discussion on Wednesday about the proposed development of the Anna Head parking lot site for student housing.  

The buildings planned for the Anna Head property, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, have generated controversy in the city. The dorm project is part of UC Berkeley’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan. 

The discussion will take place at 7 p.m. in the Unit 2 Residence Hall Recreation Room, one level below the courtyard, on Haste Street between College Avenue and Bowditch Street.  

According to the university, the discussion was scheduled as a response to community members who requested opportunities to provide input to campus projects during the conceptual planning stage.  

In the public invitation to the event, the Emily Marthinsen, UC Berkeley assistant vice chancellor of Physical and Environmental Planning Facilities Services, wrote, “Our conversation with you will mirror conversations with campus stakeholders. We want to hear your ideas about the site to help inform the definition and development of the project.” 

John English, a retired city planner, sent an e-mail to friends of “various issues and concerns that need to be raised on (and after!) Wednesday” about the plan. They include the potential impacts the student housing building will have on the historic Anna Head structure, parking and traffic concerns, architectural and landscape design issues, how to ensure meaningful public input, the loss of trees, and the relationship to nearby People’s Park, among other concerns. 

Berkeley police said today that they have a person of interest and a vehicle of interest in connection with seven daytime "window-smash"burglaries, and one attempted burglary, at homes in northwest and north central Berkeley in the last 10 days. 

Police spokesman Andrew Frankel said the person of interest is a white female about 30 to 36 years old who is about 5 feet 6 inches tall with long straight black or dark brown hair. 

A community member who saw the woman said she was wearing a trench coat and had a "weathered" appearance, according to Frankel. 

He said the vehicle of interest is a gray, GMC-style van with a bicycle rack on the back. 

Frankel said police don't know at this point if the woman is actually responsible for any of the burglaries or if she had any accomplices. 

However, detectives are attributing the burglaries to the same suspect or suspects, he said. 

The burglaries have occurred between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., apparently because the suspects think there's a good chance the occupants will be gone, Frankel said. 

The suspects generally have taken items that are easy to hide and easy to carry, such as laptop computers and iPods, according to Frankel. 

He said Berkeley police are reminding people to take crime prevention measures such as being alert and aware of activity around their homes and neighborhoods, locking all their windows and doors and not allowing anyone in their home that they do not know or have not hired or screened. 

Frankel said people should report any suspicious people or activities, especially anything that matches the person and vehicle of interest. 

In addition, Frankel said people should get to know their elderly neighbors and pay attention to any unusual activity in or around their homes. 

He said people should call the Berkeley Police Department's non-emergency line at (510) 981-5900 if they notice any suspicious individuals or activity. 

Frankel said that to report crimes in progress, people should call 911 from a landline or (510) 981-5911 from their cell phone. 

Berkeley’s Malcolm X Arts and Academics Magnet, an elementary school that integrates art and academics, has been awarded the Title One Academic Achievement award for 2008-2009. 

The award honors 200 Title I-funded California schools that show academic growth for two or more years or significantly close the achievement gap. Schools must have an Academic Performance Index (API) score above its category’s median score, have met their API goals for the past two years, and show strong API growth for at least one of its socioeconomically disadvantage subgroups. 

For the staff and parents of Malcolm X, the award recognizes years of dedication to improving education for all students. 

“We’ve been working on our mission to close the achievement gap for a good three years of focus on it,” said Cheryl Chinn, principal of Malcolm X. 

“The award is for schools that really improve their performance with economically disadvantaged students,” said Michael Maschuh, chair of the school’s site governance council. “What makes Malcolm X’s achievement remarkable is that economically disadvantaged students have made really significant academic progress alongside their peers in other subgroups. The success of the disadvantaged students has not come at the expense of other students; instead, all kids are thriving together.” 

The school developed a three-pronged strategic plan that focused on monitoring and assessing underperforming students, strong intervention programs to help students before they fall behind, and teacher collaboration and professional development. 

“One is not isolated from the others,” Chinn said. “You have to have each piece.” 

In a program called Project Connect, Malcolm X teachers target four students functioning below their grade level for twice weekly after-school tutoring and additional help. The school also has a program designed to help disadvantaged first-graders meet their reading goals. Additionally, parents are required to attend Saturday workshops focused on helping their children reach academic success. 

The school has employed training from the Foundation for Comprehensive Early Learning Literacy and Extended Literacy Learning, which provides literacy-based continual professional development for teachers. The program targets new teachers but offers on-going professional development for all staff members. 

Kathy Burns, a parent of Malcolm X students and former member of the school’s site governance council, credited the dedication of the staff to programs like Project Connect as the key to the school’s success.  

“I think it was a very concerted effort among the teachers to try and track the underperforming students,” she said. 

Although Chinn emphasized that all of the approaches working in tandem led to the school’s success, Maschuh, Burns and other parents identify Chinn’s leadership as a driving force in reaching its goals. 

The elementary school has worked carefully to spread its funding and attention across its art programs and its academic intervention programs, balancing the needs of both gifted and struggling children. 

“The visual and performing arts provide learning opportunities that enhance classroom teaching, and enable delivery of education to multiple and diverse learning styles among the student population,” Maschuh said. “The Malcolm X school community appreciates and supports this combination of arts and academics in education, which is yet another reason for the school’s strong performance.” 

Although the award offers no financial bonuses, the symbolic value of the recognition is sufficient reward for the members of a diverse school community. 

“I think the gratification that we’re achieving our goal of closing the achievement gap is enough to keep us working hard,” Chinn said. 

Recipients of the award will be honored at an award ceremony and banquet in Orange County on April 28, 2009. 

Berkeley’s largest private development site—8.2 acres adjacent to Aquatic Park—is coming on the market, and the owners want the city to ease the rules. 

Their target market would be startup companies created to commercialize technology developed at UC Berkeley and the lab that gave the United States its Secretary of Energy. 

James B. Bohar, a development executive with international brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield, recently told planning commissioners that the owners are looking for “flexibility,” a word so polarizing it had led the city planning staff to drop it from the title of their look at a change in zoning rules for West Berkeley. 

The site, bounded by Bolivar Drive on the west and the Union Pacific right of way between Aquatic Park between Addison Street and Bancroft Way, is owned by a family which has hired the brokerage to analyze and market the property. 

“We have been able to release the potential of this wonderful marquee property,” Bohar told commissioners, describing development as “a powerful new opportunity you must support.” 

“We met with the technology transfer people at Haas [School of Business] two weeks ago, and we heard that there were 20 companies in play. We heard that they would take off for Silicon Valley or Alameda because of the difficulty of the entitlement process here,” Bohar told the planning commission. 

“Incubators are risky and costly,” he said, and best “thrive as part of a large, dense business park.” 

UC Berkeley had planned to create a business park at its Richmond Field Station, but plans were shelved in part because of delays caused by the forced implementation of a new cleanup regime to remove hazardous waste from the site. 

The site has been home to American Soil & Stone Products Inc., which still stores materials at the site though its main operations have moved to Richmond and San Rafael. 

Bohar said the property has been owned by members of the Jones family since 1978, and his firm has been retained to develop a proposal for putting the property on the market. 

Despite the market collapse and chaos in the financial sector, “now’s a good time for a very large project, because it will take a long time to study the options and then put it on the market.” 

Once a proposal is assembled, more time will be needed while the developer goes through the entitlement process, winning all the governmental permissions needed before the first shovel of earth can be turned. 

“We are a marketing company, and we are now doing the research to determine what will be the optimal development,” he said, looking at needs, market conditions and what the city itself would like to get out of the site. 

“We want to know what the real opportunities are,” he told planning commissioners. “What are the transportation issues? What kind of companies would be interested?” 

He said he was looking to have “a much more informed marketing package in February.” 

Berkeley’s newest planning commissioner, Dorothy Walker, is an unabashed fan of the word “flexibility,” which had raised such concerns among West Berkeley’s artists and artisans that “West Berkeley Project” replaced “West Berkeley Flexibility” as the title of their work on a proposed zoning update. 

Walker, a former university development executive and a member of the strongly pro-development minority of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, recently told her colleagues that it was time for a new West Berkeley Plan, something not even city staff has been willing to propose. 

Introduction of the Jones property into the mix, a site already marked out by the city staff as a key West Berkeley development property, dovetails with the City Council-directed effort to loosen zoning restrictions in the city’s only sector zoning for light industry and manufacturing. 

Rick Auerbach, who works for WEBAIC, the West Berkeley Alliance of Artists and Industrial Companies, has been leading the effort to retain the existing plan’s protections for artists and for the industries which he said are as major source of living wage for the cities. 

West Berkeley is the local focus of the East Bay Green Corridor initiative by mayors to attract so-called green businesses, including companies capitalizing on technology developed at the university and its affiliated national labs. 

“I went to a Green Corridor meeting up at the university recently, and at the end of the day, there weren’t that many companies, and they were very small,” Auerbach said. 

WEBAIC hasn’t looked at the Jones family property in detail, he said, other than to note that there are other businesses than American Soil which occupy parts of the property. 

And then there’s the unspoken question: Just how much development is likely, even with the most flexible of standards, given the current state of the economy? 

The last UC Santa Cruz treesitter surrendered to campus police Saturday, moments before a chainsaw-wielding crew began to level the redwood grove they had occupied for 402 days. 

“We knew they were getting ready for an extraction, so we had been preparing,” said Jennifer Charles, who had been the designated media contact for the protest. 

In the end, when “about 90 police in riot gear” and the commercial tree-cutters appeared Saturday morning, only one treesitter was left in the branches, Charles said. He came down of his own volition, to be promptly booked on charges of trespassing, disturbing the peace and violation of a court order, she said. 

The tree-clearing crew cleared the last platforms occupied by the treesitters and then set to work felling 48 century-old redwoods and 11 oaks on the site designated for construction of a new biomedical facility. 

The tree-clearing crews didn’t need to resort to the scaffolding used to clear the last redwood at UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium, where a longer arboreal occupation ended Sept. 9 after police were able to mount a structure that reached to within a dozen feet of the top of that groves tallest redwood. 

Charles said the protest, mounted in opposition to plans in the Santa Cruz campus Long Range Development, didn’t end with the treesit on Science Hill and the arrest of Scott Poshian the moment his feet touched earth Saturday. 

“We’re all going to continue fighting together to prevent the expansion in our own different ways,” she said. 

The university’s plans will be going to the Local Agency Formation Commission in the spring. 

The university’s announcement Saturday was terse, beginning: “Construction preparation activities began earlier this morning on the Science Hill site that will be home to the new Biomedical Sciences building 

Neighborhood opponents of West Berkeley's Pacific Steel Casting went one-for-two in Alameda County Superior Court legal decisions on Friday, with one judge overturning a previous Berkeley Small Claims Court ruling in favor of several PSC neighbors and, in a separate action, a second judge ruling that a class action lawsuit against the steel foundry can go forward. 

In the appeal from the Small Claims Court decision, Judge Jacqueline Tabor overruled a November 2007 ruling, which had awarded $35,000 in damages to a group of West Berkeley neighbors who sued Pacific Steel Casting last year. In a terse, one paragraph judgment that did not explain the reasons for her decision, Taber ordered plaintiff Thomas McGuire, a PSC neighbor, to pay Pacific Steel $85 in court costs. 

In the class action lawsuit filed in the name of Berkeley resident Rosie Lee Evans, Judge Bonnie Sabraw largely denied outright a motion by Pacific Steel Casting's attorneys to have the case either thrown out entirely or possible punishments weakened, giving Berkeley attorney Tim Rumberger until mid-January to amend the original complaint. The judge's ruling only allows the case to go forward, and is not an indication of whether the judge will ultimately rule in favor of the neighbors or Pacific Steel. 

According to Rumberger's office in a story reported last April in the Daily Planet, the class action lawsuit is seeking an injunction to require the foundry to "reduce its off-site toxic emissions impact to safe levels or relocate from this neighborhood," and demands a "compensation to the thousands of neighbors affected daily by the noxious odors and toxins."  

Pacific Steel attorneys have not yet filed a formal answer to the original complaint, seeking instead to have the case thrown out of court. 

Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustment’s Board delayed approval of developer Ali Kashani’s five-story condo project at the corner of Ashby and San Pablo avenues on Thursday. 

The decision came after Steven Wollmer, a land use activist, pointed to problem in the wording of the proposed use permit's handling of the project’s affordable housing units. 

The 98-unit, five-story project is being developed by Kashani and his partner Mark Rhoades, formerly the city’s land use planning manager. 

Board members also approved a three-story office building at 1906 Shattuck Ave., demolition of the former Twin Castle diner at 3020 San Pablo Ave., and a beer and wine sales and tasting permit for 2949 College Ave. 

The board also approved architect Kava Massih’s request to build a 777-square-foot quick service restaurant with outdoor seating at 1326 10th St., the site of a former nursery. 

The man residents of downtown Berkeley elected to represent their district on the city council came to the planning commission Wednesday night to make a request. 

The commissioners turned him down on a 5-3 vote, then voted 6-2 to end the ban on new fast food outlets in the city center. 

Jesse Arreguin, who was elected to the city council in November after the death of popular District 4 Councilmember Dona Spring, the original author of the moratorium ordinance, urged commissioners to hold off on a vote on ending the ban until he had a chance to meet with stakeholders in his district. 

“This is not a time-sensitive issue,” he said. 

Arreguin said he believed ending the moratorium was a good idea, but he said he wanted more time to consider the underlying issues which had led to imposition of the moratorium a decade ago. 

Neither the Downtown Berkeley Association, which has pushed for lifting the ban, nor city Economic Development Director Michael Caplan objected to the delay, he said. 

Arreguin said problems with definitions in the zoning code could bar some potentially desirable businesses while allowing others that weren’t. Commissioner James Novosel said, “If we lifted the moratorium you could still work out those issues. Why not lift it now and you can come back” to the commission with proposed changes? 

If the commission did decide to lift the moratorium, Arreguin said, he wanted the issue put on the calendar for a future meeting to address the questions, but “why not delay action a few weeks so we can actually talk to the interested parties?”  

“I’d like to point out that only one other person showed up to talk about it,” responded chair James Samuels. 

When Gene Poschman, Spring’s appointee to the commission, suggested continuing the hearing to allow Arreguin time to conduct his meetings, commissioner Harry Pollack immediately moved to close the hearing, getting a second from Dorothy Walker. 

“The middle of December is a lousy time to have a hearing and expect merchants to come,” he said. Poschman too said he had talked to Caplan, who had agreed that the existing definitions needed clarification. 

But chair James Samuels said he would vote to lift the moratorium, declaring that if the commission wants to ban any uses, the ban should apply city-wide. 

Dorothy Walker, the commission’s newest member, said the commission had already spent too much time on “a small issue” and that Arreguin should come back to the commission when he had specific proposals. 

During the public hearing that preceded the commission’s vote, Downtown Berkeley Association Executive Director Deborah Badhia and developer/broker John Gordon asked the commission to end the moratorium, while only Merilee Mitchell spoke in favor of Arreguin’s request. 

While Poschman and colleague Patti Dacey urged the commission to continue the hearing to allow Arreguin the time he sought, only Roia Ferrazares joined them on the vote, which failed 5-3. Ferrazares then joined with the 6-2 majority on the vote to end the moratorium. 

President-elect Barack Obama has picked Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director Steven Chu as the nation’s new Secretary of Energy, according to the Associated Press and numerous broadcast and wire service accounts. 

LBNL spokesperson Dan Krotz offered only a “no comment” Wednesday afternoon. 

Under Chu’s leadership, the lab and UC Berkeley have partnered with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to land a $500 million BP contract to develop plant-based fuels to replace petroleum on the nation’s highways and air lanes. 

Obama has close ties to the university in Illinois, the state he represented in the U.S. Senate. 

Chu, who shared a Nobel Prize in physics 11 years ago, was named director of LBNL four years ago. The lab operates under the aegis of the department he will reportedly head.  

Another LBNL scientist, Dan Kammen, has been serving as a green technology adviser to the president-elect, and Kammen has been critical of the use of ethanol. 

Chris Somerville, the bioengineer who heads the BP-funded Energy Biosciences Institute, has said that the program at Cal and Illinois is seeking to develop new fuels that more closely resemble gasoline than ethanol. 

Ignacio Chapela, a UC Berkeley biologist, has been a critic of the BP program. Chu’s selection for the nation’s top energy post would be “a triumph of P.R.,” Chapela said. “He is a person with deep conflicts of interest and commitment, who has shown he will not listen to a diversity of opinion.” 

Academic critics of biofuels—which they prefer to call agrofuels—say that plantations of patented crops grown in Third World countries are a poor solution to the nation’s energy problems. 

Daewoo, a Korean corporate giant, announced last month that it had negotiated a lease for one million acres of land on Madagascar—half that island’s arable soil—to plant palms and grain crops to create biofuels. 

LBNL’s Kammen himself dispatched researchers to India and Africa in search of potential fuel crops as the first field program of the EBI research effort. 

Chu’s Nobel was shared with two colleagues at Bell Labs, where they had developed techniques to cool and trap atoms with lasers. He left Bell for Stanford’s physics department, where he was working when he was picked to head LBNL. 

The physicist himself is overseas and was unavailable for comment. He is scheduled to be back at his post on the hill Monday.

With two new faces on the dais, the Berkeley City Council returned to an old subject Monday night: international affairs. The council approved a compromise proposal calling for federal prosecution of UC Berkeley Boalt Hall Law Professor John Yoo for supporting torture by the Bush administration. 

The decision came after a powerful emotional appeal by Councilmember Max Ander-son, who said he had witnessed torture firsthand during his service in the Vietnam War. 

The council meeting, held a day before its usual Tuesday meeting day so that it wouldn’t conflict with the Islamic holiday of Eid al Adha, marked the first official appearance of newly elected councilmembers Jesse Arreguin (District 4) and Susan Wengraf (District 6). Arreguin and Wengraf replaced longtime council veterans Dona Spring, who passed away earlier this year, and Betty Olds, who chose not to run for re-election. Olds appeared briefly in the audience at Monday’s overtime, four-and-a-half-hour meeting, smiling broadly as someone reminded her that, for the first time in years, she could go home early without waiting for adjournment. 

Arreguin admitted before the meeting that he was “nervous” about his first council session but later participated extensively in several debates. Wengraf also spoke on several issues. 

But it was back to old businness for the council, which has long believed that one of its mandates is to give its opinion on controversial national and international issues. 

The subject in this case was UC Berkeley professor John Yoo who, as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Bush administration, is described by the National Lawyers Guild as “the author for several memoranda that provided legal cover for officials in the Bush administration, CIA and Pentagon to ignore domestic and international laws that prohibit torture in interrogating military detainees.” 

A proposal on the agenda from Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission for the council to go on record recommending several actions against Yoo brought out a large contingent of citizens in support of such action, two of them in orange prison-style jumpsuits and black hoods imitating the dress of the torture victims at Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison, several of them shouting comments from the audience at councilmembers who offered dissenting opinion.  

The disruptions grew so tense that an angered Mayor Tom Bates threatened at one point that “you guys are all going to be cleared out of the room if you don’t cool it,” pointing to one particularly noisy spectator and asking, “Could someone constrain that woman?”  

Later in the meeting, after another round of shouting from the audience, the mayor declared that “one more outburst and I’ll adjourn the meeting, and we’ll forget about all of this.” 

During public comment period, a long string of speakers came to the microphone to condemn Yoo and his actions, calling him a “torture general” and a “cheerleader for torture.” One woman called him a “domestic enemy against the Constitution.” 

In its original proposal, the Peace and Justice Commission asked for a recommendation that charges of war crimes be brought against Yoo and that students at Boalt Law School be given the option of taking required classes from a professor other than Yoo. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington brought the law school option as a separate motion, but after several councilmembers—including Mayor Bates and Gordon Wozniak—indicated they considered this an improper interference in the law school’s operations, Worthington withdrew the proposal, saying “because it’s obviously going to lose, I’d like to bring it back at a later point rather than have it defeated.” 

The council passed a three-part modified alternative proposal recommended by Bates and Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli and Linda Maio on three separate near-unanimous votes. The first section of the proposal reaffirmed a March 2007 City Council resolution calling for the war crimes prosecutions of Yoo, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee for their support of the Bush administration’s torture policies. The second section called for the termination of Yoo from his position with UC in the event of his conviction of human rights violations, while the third called for the removal of Bybee as U.S. Federal Judge for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals if he is convicted. 

Wozniak abstained on the first two portions, and voted yes on the third. All other councilmembers and the mayor voted yes for all three sections. 

Several councilmembers and public speakers indicated that because Yoo’s actions in writing the memos happened during his tenure in the federal government and not in his capacity as a university professor, those memos should not be protected by the doctrine of academic freedom.  

“He didn’t just get a soapbox or make a speech,” Councilmember Anderson said. “He took a material involvement in the deaths and torture of an untold number of people. There are broken bodies, broken spirits, and a broken trust that he wrought by his actions.” 

With tears streaming down his face and his voice choking, Anderson spoke to a council chamber that grew silent for the only time during the Yoo debate. 

“I’ve seen people tortured,” he said. “It’s not an academic exercise for me.” 

Afterward, Anderson received a standing ovation from the audience. 

Other matters 

In other action Monday night, the council passed on the opportunity--for the second time—to either uphold the Zoning Adjustments Board’s approval of a new T-Mobile Wireless facility at 1725 University Ave. or to set a council hearing on a citizen appeal of that decision. If the council fails to take any action on the appeal at next Tuesday’s meeting, the ZAB approval will automatically go into effect. 

Councilmember Linda Maio, who has been called to testify in a lawsuit challenging city approval of a cell phone antenna facility at the UC Storage building at 2721 Shattuck Ave., recused herself from the T-Mobile vote. But Arreguin, who has been verbally advised by the city attorney that he must recuse himself from an appeal to the council of any decision he participated in while a board member of ZAB (a situation that would apply to the T-Mobile appeal), said that he would absent himself from the dais during the debate but would not formally recuse himself unless he was given a written opinion to that effect from the City Attorney’s Office. 

In other business Monday night, the council changed the term of the council vice president—essentially the city’s vice mayor—from a rotating three-month position to a fixed one-year term, and then unanimously (Maio abstaining) chose Linda Maio for the first term. 

With a growing national recession and state legislators and the governor stalled in Sacramento over solutions to California’s looming projected $28 billion two-year budget deficit, Berkeley city officials are predictably warning that the city is in for uncertain economic times. 

“The national and regional economic problems that are now regular news stories will impact Berkeley both now and in the years to come,” City Manager Phil Kamlarz and City Budget Manager Tracy Vesely said Monday in a report to the City Council on the First Quarter Budget Update and Economic Impacts on the City’s Budget.  

“We have witnessed a turn in the nation’s economy these past 18 months—recently culminating with the failure of the financial sector. The dramatic and rapid decline in the last three months has left us reeling, as we have witnessed a historic financial and banking crisis nationally and internationally—with no certain solution in sight.” 

In response, Kamlarz says, “We are not planning for any further cuts for [the 2008–09] budget unless more state cuts are announced,” and his office is already working on contingency plans to freeze new hiring, if needed, to avoid layoffs, and to begin the process of “setting priorities for city services” in the event such services have to be reduced. 

There is some relatively good news for the city. Reported projected increases in the cost of the state’s retirement fund—PERS—are not expected to be felt in Berkeley or other cities until 2012. 

Meanwhile, projections for this fiscal year’s city general fund revenue are being adjusted downward by $2 million so far, with property transfer tax revenue down 46 percent from this time last year and sales tax revenue down 2.3 percent. 

“We were expecting the housing bubble to burst, but not to this extent,” Kamlarz said in a media briefing Monday morning, hours before he presented the same information in a special 5 p.m. City Council budget update session. The city manager added that “the words right now are volatility and uncertainty, as well as caution on our part until we see the first-quarter returns.” 

Berkeley’s two largest revenue producers—restaurants and car sales—have been particularly hard hit by the recession, with city officials estimating that business is down as much as 25 to 30 percent. But Kamlarz said that, because tax collections lag behind the actual sales, “we haven’t really seen the effect of that yet.” 

Despite the fact that the city’s two largest employers—the university and Bayer Corporation—have not had cutbacks caused by the current recession, Kamlarz said that “Berkeley is not immune to the events that are happening around us. It’s affecting us in ways we never imagined.” 

One of those ways, the city manager said, was in recycling. With what Kamlarz called “the collapse of the recyclables market,” the price for turned-in recyclables recently dropped from $200 a ton to $20 a ton. 

“What is pretty amazing is how quickly things have been shifting over the past 30 days,” Budget Manager Tracy Vesely told reporters, reflecting how swiftly the national economy has collapsed. 

California legislators were meeting in special session this week to figure out ways to close an estimated $11.2 billion gap in the current 2008–09 state budget, a situation left over from the stopgap, patchwork budget that was passed last summer only to give the state the authority to keep programs running and pay its bills and workers. State budget analysts are widely projecting at least another $17 billion shortfall in the 2009–10 state budget, which legislators will take up early next year and which comes due for passage next July. 

At the suggestion of city budget officials, the Berkeley City Council set aside a $1.8 million contingency fund in this year’s budget to meet possible funding hits from the state. That contingency has already been eaten up by cuts in the original state 2008–09 budget, including losses to Berkeley of $1.26 million in mental health and public health money, $134,000 for redevelopment, and $317,000 for state mandate reimbursements. 

What worries Kamlarz and other city officials is the likelihood that at least some of the projected state shortfall in both the 2008–09 and 2009–10 budgets will be passed on to city governments, in many cases without advance warning. 

Cities like Berkeley normally get a monthly remittance fee from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, for example. Last October, however, the city simply got a notice from the DMV indicating a zero balance. 

“We all thought that was a mistake,” Budget Manager Veseley said. “But when we contacted the DMV, we found out that the remittance had been wiped out by increases in ‘administrative costs.’ We hadn’t known anything about those increases until we got the notices.” 

City officials are expecting to present detailed figures on the actual performance of Berkeley’s first-quarter budget, as well as suggestions for budget cuts if such become necessary, at the City Council meeting scheduled for early February.

After a daylong workshop spent honing the original proposal, the BHS Governance Council passed a redesign plan Tuesday that would put students on a new class schedule and incorporate an advisory curriculum into the school day.  

The plan will be presented to the School Board in January. 

As the council passed it, the new schedule includes alternating days, with every Monday as a late-start day for teacher professional development. Under the new block schedule, students would take half of their classes in four 90-minute periods on “gold days” and the other half on “red days.”  

Every student would have an advisory and a “student support community access” (SSCA) period incorporated into his or her schedule. Students would take six to eight classes, at least three per day, while teachers would teach six classes, including advisory/ SSCA, and have one preparation period per day. 

The new plan, designed to close the achievement gap and help at-risk students, would vastly alter the current school schedule of seven 55-minute class periods per day. Supporters of the redesign say that the current schedule, under which students take at least six classes per day and have homework for every class every night, leaves at-risk and minority students far behind and puts too much pressure on students with limited time.  

The new plan creates a longer instruction period and more time to do homework, as well as personal and professional support during the advisory period. 

To make room for the advisory and SSCA period, and to allow for teacher preparation and professional development, instructional minutes would be reduced by approximately 22 percent. (This number may be reduced slightly under the council’s new plan.)  

Nearly 30 community members and teachers appeared to speak for or against the proposal, some advocating the need for change and others condemning the council’s lack of transparency. All comments referred to the original plan proposed by the redesign committee, not to the refined plan passed by the council. 

Two community forums were held before Tuesday’s meeting, but the public had little role in reshaping or approving the design. 

Speaking in favor of the plan, Carol Dorf, a BHS math teacher and the parent of a seventh-grader, said, “It’s not just the raw minutes, it’s how we’re present with our students.” 

The teachers who spoke argued overwhelmingly in favor of the plan, claiming that extended periods, additional preparation minutes and professional development workshops would allow them to help students who need it most. Many of those in favor of the plan reminded listeners of Berkeley progressive politics to call for a change in how the achievement gap is addressed. 

Those against the plan spoke primarily against the council’s poor development process and the problem of initiating a school-wide change to help only a few hundred students. The overall reduction of instruction time could hurt students taking Advanced Placement courses, which have a nationally mandated curriculum. The new schedule could also negatively affect extracurricular activities like orchestra and the yearbook, which benefit from daily meetings and the additional period offered by zero hour, eliminated under the new plan. 

“We have 3,000 students: why do we get one-size-fits-all reform plans?” asked one parent. 

Others say that a sweeping change like this will not solve the fundamental issue of racial achievement gaps. 

“My opposition to this plan is not because I don’t think there is a problem,” another BHS parent said. “Systematic change doesn’t solve the exact problem. This is a big social issue that Berkeley High can only have a percentage solution for.” 

The governance council attempted to address concerns by slightly altering the new schedule. Under the original plan, advisory was held in a separate 30-minute period that all students attended simultaneously. The SSCA period, a required but undefined class during which students “receive guidance and support to increase their academic performance and/or to be involved with the community,” was a separate 90-minute class fit into the individual student’s schedule.  

After revisions, advisory and SSCA will fall in the same 90-minute period, preventing students from having excessive unstructured time. This revision also ensures that students receive advisor guidance during the SSCA period. It also slightly increases instructional minutes over the year. 

The new plan has problems of its own, however. This change prevents students from having the same advisor for four years. Because advisory and SSCA would be held during multiple periods, at any given time hundreds of students would have potential free time to roam around the campus. Advisors would have more control over how much time is spent in advisory or SSCA, which means that some students could receive far less counsel than others. 

Additionally, the advisory curriculum will not be developed until April 2009. The public will have no input after the general plan has been passed and therefore no part in developing the actual program. 

Principal Jim Slemp said that all the changes made on Tuesday and additional details about the SSCA/advisory period will be presented in early January. The governance council will meet again at that time to finalize the wording of the proposal to be sent to the school board. 

The governance council—comprised of five elected students, five school-elected parents, four teachers and the principal—is typically charged with allocating some school funds and setting the academic plan for the school. The redesign is being devised as part of the school’s federally-funded Smaller Learning Community grant. 

Although two council members proposed delaying the vote until January to allow the revised plan to be presented to the public, the remaining members declined the delay. Every member who did not abstain voted yes to passing the proposal on to the school board. Slemp declined to name individual members with their votes, saying that any decision made would be made as a unified body. 

The council’s next challenge will be marketing the plan to the public. 

“This is step one: we’re going to have to advocate for the decisions we’ve made,” Slemp said. 

The final decision on the new schedule will be made by the school board in mid-January. 

To view a copy of the original, unaltered Berkeley High redesign plan visit www.bhsacademicchoice.com.

When city staff drew the boundaries for the new Downtown Area Plan (DAP), they made a mistake that planning commissioners are now faced with resolving. 

By the time last Wednesday’s meeting ended, commissioners had again opted for taller buildings than those picked by a citizen planning task force. 

The southeast corner of the new district managed to swallow up the northwest corner of the district covered by the Southside Plan, which has different development standards than those proposed by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC). 

Commissioners are doing their own rewrite of the committee’s plan, with both documents headed to the City Council, which must adopt a final version by late May or risk losing some of the university funding negotiated in the settlement. 

Matt Taecker, the planner hired to work on the DAP, said DAPAC’s plan differs from the Southside Plan in mandating maximum building heights, including all developer bonuses for adding affordable housing and other amenities. The Southside plan only specifies base heights, to which bonuses can be added. 

Taecker recommended that commissioners opt for a 65-foot maximum, equivalent to a five-story building with commercial space on the ground floor. 

The primary focus was on the north edge of Dwight Way between Fulton Street and Shattuck Avenue, which includes a stretch of World War II vintage fourplexes, while across the street are the “mixed-use vestiges of Dwight Station,” developed in the days when rail lines ran down city streets. 

Retired planner John English, speaking during the public comment period, urged preservation of four-plexes as “good affordable housing.”  

“Those fourplexes are dilapidated and we should just write them off,” said commissioner James Novosel, an architect. “I like mixed use along Dwight,” he said, urging its inclusion into the so-called corridor buffer zoning district, which allows for taller structures. 

“One of the things we talked about over and over on DAPAC was making sure the corridor buffer had a lot less impact on the adjacent residential neighborhoods,” said commissioner and former DAPAC member Patti Dacey. In exchange, the committee had agreed to greater height and density in the downtown core. 

The fourplexes, she said, “are rent-controlled and very inexpensive.” 

Commissioner Gene Poschman urged restraint because “there are a great many unresolved issues, including building 65-foot buildings directly across from the lower mixed-use buildings on the south side of Dwight. The commission majority indicated they favored a taller north side, with a maximum of five stories including all possible bonuses.

Changed designs for the new lab building to house the half-billion-dollar BP–funded Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) have forced Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to launch a new environmental impact review. 

EBI programs will focus on developing genetically modified organisms and plant crops to provide a new generation of transportation fuels, called biofuels by supporters and agrofuels by critics, who fear the program will led to further corporate colonization of the Third World. 

The Helios Building has been redesigned with a lower profile (from a four- and five-story original to a three- and four-story revision), an extended footprint and a reduction in overall floor space from the original 160,000 square feet to 144,000. 

The proposed location has been shifted as well, from the original rectangular site directly facing the lab’s Molecular Foundry to a more serpentine footprint extended to the southeast and facing Building 62. 

Stephan Volker, who represented Friends of Strawberry Canyon in a lawsuit that challenged both the earlier project’s EIR and the UC Board of Regents approval of the project, said Tuesday that the change of plans might be an improvement over the project he had challenged in court. 

Volker represented Save Strawberry Canyon, a nonprofit organization whose membership includes Berkeley residents Sylvia McLaughlin, Lesley Emmington, Janice Thomas, Hank Gehman and former mayor Shirley Dean. 

While LBNL officials have denied that the lawsuit forced a change in plans, Volker said, “We do believe the case forced the university to resubmit a design that addresses some of our concerns.” 

Save Strawberry Canyon withdrew the lawsuit after the plans were withdrawn, “though we reserved the right to submit a motion for recovery of litigation costs,” he said. 

Volker said his clients fear that environmental devastation in the canyon will dramatically increase as the university and the federally backed lab look for room to expand. 

A public scoping session to gather concerns to be addressed in the new EIR will be conducted Jan. 7 between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

The notice is available at the LBNL website at http://www.lbl.gov/Community/Helios/documents/index.html

Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) members will decide the fate of two buildings on San Pablo Avenue on Thursday. 

The bigger of the two projects is a 98-unit, five-story condo project at the southeast corner of San Pablo and Ashby avenues, while the smaller is the demolition of the nearby building that once housed the late and much-lamented fast-food eatery Twin Castle Express. 

The plans also include 114 parking spaces. 

The condo project is being developed by Ali Kashani and former Berkeley city planning official Mark Rhoades, who have teamed up to form Citycentric Investments. 

Property owner for the site is R.B. Tech Center, a San Francisco-based limited partnership, which purchased the 0.78-acre site from the Podesta Family Trust of Santa Cruz two years ago for $3.42 million. 

Joseph D. Blum, the “B” in the partnership and its legal representative, is president of Rawson, Blum & Leon of San Francisco, a major West Coast infill developer that once did business as Terranomics, Inc. 

The project site at 1200 Ashby is currently a vacant lot. 

The project would include 7,700 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, and the developers are seeking an on-site liquor permit for sale of spirits at a restaurant, which would include up to 2,000 square feet of floor-space, not including the sidewalk seating R.B. is requesting. 

The developers also want permission for commercial tenants to operate their businesses between 6 a.m. and midnight. 

The project would be the second new condo construction in the area. Another recently completed building at 2700 San Pablo was forced into receivership before any units could be sold. That building will be auctioned off next Tuesday on the courthouse steps in Oakland. 

Board members are also scheduled to vote for demolition of the building that once housed Twin Castle Express, a popular and uniquely eclectic fast-food eatery at 3020 San Pablo, catercorner to the southwest from the site of the condo project. 

The property, which has been listed on the market, includes permits that would allow a buyer to build a four-story, 29-unit apartment or condo building, including 1,600 square feet of ground floor commercial space. 

Since the restaurant moved out, the building has been targeted by vandals, and the permit sought by Yerba Buena Builders of San Francisco would allow the company to demolish the building as an attractive nuisance. 

The agenda and a listing of other items scheduled for discussion are available online at http://www.cityofberkeley.info/ WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=30628. 

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers on the second floor of 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, long-time advocate for disability rights, died at 10:45 a.m. December 3, at Highland Hospital, with her brother Renato at her side. Miya was being treated for inflammatory breast cancer. She was 40 years old. 

In November 1991 Miya was about to graduate with high honors from the Global Studies program of the University of Iowa. She worked as a temp for the university’s Grievance Officer in the Academic Affairs Office.  

Gang Lu, a new Ph.D., un-happy because he was denied a major dissertation prize, en-tered the office on November 1 and shot the Grievance Officer and Miya. She was the only person not on his hit list, and the last of the six people he shot before turning the gun on himself.  

She was the sole survivor of the shooting, living for more than 17 years afterward. As a result of her injuries, she became a quadriplegic.  

In 1996 she and Renato joined their mother Sonya in Berkeley. There she was well-known and admired as an active and successful champion for people with disabilities and a fighter against injustice. She sat on the Berkeley Commission on Disability from 1998 to 2006, serving as chair for part of that period. 

In 2002 she was hired by the nonprofit organization Swift USA. She was the program coordinator for foreign ex-change high school students, matching them with local host families and organizing tours, until the cancer diagnosed in May 2007 rendered her unable to perform her duties. 

Miya was noted for her humility, compassion, wry humor, gentle disposition and warm personality. She avoided dwelling on the circumstances that resulted in her disability, focusing instead on the present and moving forward. 

She will long be remembered in Berkeley by those who benefited from her work as well as her family and many friends. Kelley Kolberg, Miya’s morning attendant, said of her, “My job with Miya was one of the best I’ve ever had. I’ve never known a more remarkable person, not to mention great friend.” 

A documentary about Miya will come out in early 2009.  

For the trailer, go to http:// web.me.com/juliendaniel/ Miya_of_the_quiet_strength/ Welcome.html 

In lieu of flowers, please donate to Miya’s favorite charity, Whirlwind Wheelchair International, http:// www. whirlwindwheelchair. org/, or to the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation, www.ibcresearch.org. 

Looking up at the wall of photos overhead, Sal Vaca said, “We want our participants to be able to come in and see someone they know, someone who looks like them.” 

“He’s doing a terrific job,” said Jeff Ritterman, the top vote-getter in last month’s race for three City Council seats. 

Vaca directs Richmond’s municipal Employment and Training Department and the Richmond Workforce Investment Board, and supervises 15 employment and training programs. 

The program Ritterman singled out for special praise during a recent visit was RichmondBUILDS, an 18-month-old 10-week program that provides basic construction skills and training in rooftop solar systems installation . 

Graduates of the program meet the qualifications for union apprenticeship programs, paving the way to solid skills and good wages. 

By early November, the program already had a waiting list of 70 for its January class, Vaca said, and the City of Berkeley had sent 11 residents for training during the year, paying $3,000 each. Classes are free for Richmond residents. 

“All we require are eighth-grade reading and math skills and that participants either have a high school diploma or a GED or they are close to getting one,” he said. 

The city itself has granted graduates credit for six months’ work experience, and Vaca said, “We want to build direct connections to the high school to make training available to juniors and seniors. 

The program holds three training sessions a year, at a cost of about $175,000 each. Successful graduates receive a bonus on graduation, Vaca said, “a complete tool set worth about $500.” 

The program is proving an effective source of jobs, with a placement rate for graduates of 90 percent, and an average starting wage of $18 an hour. “Our retention rate is about 85 percent at six months,” he said. 

“With a $2 million investment, he could graduate about 200 Richmond people a year,” said Ritterman. He could also start a program with high school students who could learn home energy construction. “But we need a strong improvement to push for that ... We want to make RichmondBUILDS the premiere green jobs training anywhere. We want to nail it down. We need to develop a grassroots movement that’s unstoppable. It’s a program that offers green jobs, not jail.” 

Green jobs, which make homes more energy efficient and provides solar power, may prove more resilient in times of economic hardship. This makes the program a good choice as a beneficiary of some of the revenues that the city will receive from the new business tax approved by Richmond voters last month when they passed Measure T. 

“If you had $20 million to invest in the community, where would you put it?” said Ritterman. “We will probably need to create a community-wide process to talk about it.” 

Even without an expansion of funds, Vaca said he plans to expand the solar construction program by another two weeks, for a total of five. 

One outspoken supporter is labor activist Chuck Carpenter, who also serves as chairman of the Contra Costa Democratic Party and site coordinator for the Contra Costa College Career Advancement Academy. 

“We are talking about direct entry for graduates into apprenticeships,” he said. “Major firms like Overaa Construction hire them,” he said. 

“We’re going to paint the whole world green, but this is the first step,” said graduate Rickey Thigpen, who now works for Oakland-based GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit with the mission “to empower communities in need by providing renewable energy and energy efficiency services, equipment and training.” 

That seven-year-old program seeks to bring solar and energy efficient technology to low-income home owners, and it offers its own training programs in renewable energy technologies. 

“RichmondBUILDS has shown me a lot of things I didn’t know about,” said trainee Kapris Jones. “They’ve really helped me out, and now I’m going to be an assistant to the superintendent on a construction site.” 

Ritterman is the program’s biggest fan and an outspoken admirer of Vaca’s. 

“He’s a real asset to the community,” said the councilmember. “He’s the son of farmworkers, and he went on to graduate with high honors from San Jose State.” The program even drew accolades from music network MTV, which featured it in a September video available online at http://vote2008.thetakeaway.org/2008/09/19/california-richmond-fights-back-with-solar. 

The program’s own page at the city website is at: http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/index.asp?NID=1243.

Berkeley’s biggest landlord is having trouble with one of his other businesses: the Tribune Company, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other media, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. 

Sam Zell, who engineered the takeover of the Tribune Company, also controls Equity Residential, which bought the Gaia Building and six other Berkeley apartment projects from developer Patrick Kennedy and UC Berkeley professor/developer David Teece. 

In a press release last Wednesday, Zell blamed the bankruptcy on a “perfect storm—a precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy coupled with a credit crisis that makes it extremely difficult to support our debt.” 

The housing firm is not affected by the newspaper company’s troubles. 

Both the real estate market and the newspaper business had fallen on hard times since the Chicago developer made his purchases, though he managed to leverage his media empire by financing on the backs of employees, who have subsequently been repeatedly downsized. 

Zell’s purchase of the Tribune Company also included Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs, but they are not part of the filing submitted in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. 

The Chapter 11 filing allows the company to remain in business while it undergoes restructuring. 

The filing lists $7.6 billion in assets and $13 billion in liabilities, with most of the latter generated by Zell’s takeover. 

Some of the debt holders are companies which themselves have been hard hit in the banking industry turmoil, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. 

The purchase was leveraged through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, which left the plan holding the shares but Zell in control. 

Sometimes known as “the Gravedancer” for his history of buying up troubled companies and turning them around, Zell has been called the gravedigger by some Tribune Company employees. 

Zell leveraged his takeover of the company with a $225 million promissory note and $90 million in warrants that committed him to buying 40 percent of the company stock from the ESOP in the future. 

Creditors forced the bankruptcy filing by refusing to refinance existing loans, according to several media accounts. 

In a letter to L.A. Times readers Monday afternoon, publisher Eddy Hartenstein said, “The decision to restructure our debt was predicated by the dramatic and unexpected operating conditions we've encountered this year. We have experienced the perfect storm—a precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy has coupled with a credit crisis making it extremely difficult to support our debt. All of our major advertising categories have been dramatically impacted.” 

Massive downsizings have hit newspapers across the country, including the East Bay, where publisher Dean Singleton’s Bay Area News Group—East Bay has downsized repeatedly, leaving some of his smaller papers with a third of the editorial staff they had before the layoffs began. More layoffs are reportedly in the offing. 

In the years since 9/11, newspapers have witnessed declines in circulation and advertising, with readership and ad rates plummeting since the recession began last December. 

Journalists have created websites with names like “Newspaper Death Watch,” “Paper Cuts” and “Fading to Black” to chart the collapse of the industry. 

The decline in ad rates has also impacted the Internet, including the sites created by print media as refuges from their dwindling paper incarnation.  

Zell’s financial plight also figured in the indictment of Illinois Gov. Rod J. Blagojevich, who demanded the firing of several members of the Chicago Tribune editorial staff as his price for helping the company with financial assistance in its efforts to unload a key asset, Wrigley Field. 

Sale of the legendary field and the Cubs are two cash-raising options for the embattled publisher. 

The writers had produced editorials critical of the governor, and federal wiretaps captured Blagojevich telling a deputy governor that Zell should be told either “Fire those fuckers” or face the loss of state aid for the stadium sale. 

The most sensational charges in the indictment didn’t involve Zell or his papers, but the gubernatorial appointment of a new senator to fill the impending vacancy left by Barack Obama’s elevation to the White House. 

A Senate seat, the wiretaps recorded the governor as saying, “is a fucking valuable thing, you don’t give it away for nothing.” 

Blagojevich and Chief of Staff John Harris were the only figures indicted.

The Berkeley Council of Classified Employees members have received a pay hike from the Berkeley Unified School District but have yet to reach an agreement over their contract, union President Paula Phillips said last week. 

More than 150 classified district employees, frustrated at the lack of progress in negotiations with the district, rallied at the district’s headquarters at Old City Hall in September, demanding a cost-of-living increase to keep up with rising food and housing prices. 

District officials defended the delay by pointing to the belated release of the state budget by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Phillips said that the district agreed to raise the union’s Cost of Living Adjustment by 1 percent, an amount that will kick in beginning Nov. 1. 

Classified employees, which do not include teachers, will receive a 4.32 percent increase for the 2007–08 school year and a 1 percent increase for the 2008–09 school year, union officials said. 

“We’ve reached an agreement on a cost-of-living adjustment for our members, whose wages have remained frozen since the 2006–07 school year,” Phillips said. “Our members voted overwhelmingly to accept the offer in October. Unfortunately, the district has chosen to hold up ratification of our contract ... As a result our members continue to work without a contract.” 

Berkeley Board of Education President John Selawsky said one area of contention remaining is how union members who were overpaid by mistake would repay the district. “We [the district and BCCE] have not come to an agreement over overpayment and repayment of errors,” he said. “That’s not necessarily a contractual issue.” 

Phillips said that the union had not signed off on the new contract because it did not agree with language about overpayment. 

“If the district overpays our member by $500 and our member only makes $500, it takes the whole check away from them,” she said. “The current language gives the district the right to take wages away from our members without notifying them, even though there is language in our contract that states that the district must notify employees before doing this. The problem is the district doesn’t notify employees all the time.” 

Phillips said the union had filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state against the district over this issue. Selawsky said that the current contractual provisions on overpayment were not much different from those in other school districts. 

Lisa Udell, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources, said that Berkeley Unified and BCCE were at an impasse over their contract negotiations and were working with a mediator to resolve outstanding concerns. “There is one article in the contract they wish to discontinue,” Udell said. “We hope to reach a positive resolution soon.” 

“I spoke with one of our members today who unfortunately received an overpayment during the month of October,” Phillips said. “The district did not issue a pay warrant for this member nor did it notify him that he would not be receiving a check in November. It is for this very reason that we want the language in our contract removed.” 

Teacher contracts 

While Berkeley Unified has reached an agreement with International Union of Operating Engineers Local 39, the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers Local 21 and the Union of Berkeley Administrators over their contracts, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers is still waiting for the district to renew its contract. 

Dozens of teachers rallied outside their schools in October to demand that the district, among other things, adopt a revenue-sharing formula, which would ensure that when the district receives a revenue boost, teachers would be given their fair share.  

BFT President Cathy Campbell said that the union was in negotiations with the district and it was likely that a contract would not be approved until February.

Nolo Press, which calls itself the nation’s oldest publisher of legal information for nonlawyers, will remain at its current location in West Berkeley following a decision by the business’s landlord, the Genn family, not to sell the property. 

The Planet reported in August that Nolo, located at 950 Parker St., was looking at relocating from Berkeley to Oakland after the Genns decided to put the property on the market, following the death of their patriarch Tom Genn. 

Ralph “Jake” Warner, Nolo’s publisher and co-founder, told the Planet Thursday that the company will be signing a new lease with its landlord and staying on in the revamped clock factory it has called home for the last three decades. 

“We were looking for another building and found one in North Oakland and were getting ready to move in when everything came together magically,” Warner said, adding that a month after the story appeared in the Planet, the Genns decided not to sell. “We were delighted. The economic contraction was hitting and now we can hold onto the building. Moving 100 people would have caused a huge disruption.” 

Nolo, which started out of a small “hippie courtyard” on Sacramento Street in 1971, was formed by New York native Warner and family law attorney Charles Ed Sherman, after the two decided to do something to help ordinary citizens who couldn’t afford to hire lawyers get easy access to legal information. 

After graduating from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in 1966, Warner worked as a legal aid lawyer for three years. 

“During that time I realized that the vast majority of the middle class can’t pay legal fees, but they need the information,” he said. “I wrote my first two Nolo books in the Berkeley Public Library, and Cody’s Books was the first bookstore to carry our books. So it means a lot for us to be able to remain in Berkeley.” 

In 1971, Sherman wrote “How to Do Your Own Divorce,” a 100-page self-help guide, which drew the ire of many lawyers but led to record sales. 

The business moved to Parker and Ninth streets in 1978 and shared space with architects and artists, eventually taking over the entire warehouse. 

Nolo overcame a big challenge in 1999 when it emerged victorious after a two-year struggle against the Texas Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee—a committee of the Texas Supreme Court—which investigated the company, and other self-help legal publishers, for allegedly practicing law without a license. 

The committee decided to drop the investigation after the Texas Legislature enacted HR 1507, which exempts websites and textbooks from such accusations, provided they state that their products are not substitutes for advice from lawyers. 

Over the years, Nolo, whose name is derived from the legal phrase nolo contendere, which stands for “it will not be disputed,” turned into a thriving enterprise with a loyal following who prefer the company’s do-it-yourself books, software, online legal forms and eProducts to paying exorbitant attorney’s fees when it comes to seeking help on divorces, bankruptcies and other legal issues. 

Today, despite its share of tough times due to the slowing economy, the company continues to thrive, reporting higher individual sales than last year. 

Books dealing with bankruptcy are practically flying off the shelf, Warner said, describing them as “recession proof,” and an overwhelming number of people are flocking to Nolo’s WillMaker software program. 

“Books on Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies are very popular, as are those on foreclosures and credit reports,” he said. “I think the state of the economy has turned our WillMaker into a best-seller. People have suddenly realized that the meltdown in real estate and the stock market has thrown their wills out of whack. So they want to do a new one.” 

Nolo is currently having a massive sale at its store to celebrate its new lease. 

Reflecting on the precarious state of the publishing industry, Warner said that Nolo has not been as badly hit as some of the big publishing houses on the East Coast, because of its readiness to accept the digital age as early as 1995, which allowed it to evolve from a traditional book publisher to one that had content readily available online as well as in print. 

“There’s a long-term trend in publishing—it’s not a growth business,” Warner said. “Many publishers waited way too long to move to the Internet. The average publishing company is facing a 30 to 40 percent drop in sales. People are buying more and more stuff on Amazon. Nolo is not a traditional publisher in that sense. We sold $3 million worth of books directly to customers on our website. Few publishers sell books on their website even today. We license our content to dozens of organizations, such as General Electric and Chase. Even our books have discs in the back.” 

Nolo recorded a total of $5 million in online book sales alone this year, including those on amazon.com.  

The company is, however, holding off on plans to expand at the moment, in the face of what Warner described as the “economic tsunami” and poor retail climate. 

Booksellers across the country, including Barnes & Noble and Borders, are cutting inventory and bracing for a weak Christmas shopping season. 

On Dec. 3, reports about the book industry’s cost-cutting measures to trim expenses painted a grim scenario, with Random House announcing a major reorganization to cut costs and Simon & Schuster laying off 35 people. 

“The advantage of being in California is that we were more involved in the digital movement from the first day,” Warner said. “Because of our proximity to Silicon Valley we could see that this was where the future lay. We realized the trend before the New York publishers did. Businesses can build up tradition, but when the paradigm switches, that can hold you back.” 

For more information on Nolo visit www.nolo.com 

The Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission said Thursday it was unable to comment on the nomination of the Donald and Helen Olsen House to the National Register of Historic Places because the application is not complete. 

Commissioners said that the lack of pictures in the application made it difficult for them to gauge the importance of the building, which is in the Modernist style. 

The applicants, UC Berkeley architecture students Kate Lyndon, Jaclyn Dab, and Tiffany Monk and Bruce Judd, principal at the San Francisco-based architecture firm Architecture Resources Group, were not at the meeting. 

The city’s Landmarks Commission is required to review the nomination and prepare a report on whether or not the property, in its opinion, meets the criteria for the National Register. 

“In order for us to pass a judgment, we need information,” said Commissioner Carrie Olson. “Not only is the application poorly written but, if it is forwarded to the National Register, it will prevent it from being designated.” 

Located at 771 San Diego Road, the Olsen House was built in the 1950s by architect Donald Olsen. Olsen was one of the three architecture faculty members at UC Berkeley who designed Wurster Hall, which houses the university’s College of Environmental Design and Architecture Department. 

The applicants claim in the nomination that, because of its style, setting and materials, the Donald and Helen Olsen House should be considered one of the several architecturally significant Modernist houses in Berkeley today and that it stands out because of its “Miesian ideals.” 

Some commissioners said that it was not clear to them what the Miesian ideals were, since the application lacked specific information about them. 

“We didn’t get enough information for somebody even knowledgeable about the house to justify why it should be on the National Register,” said landmarks Chair Steve Winkle. “Personally I think the house merits serious discussion, but right now we have insufficient information to make a recommendation.” 

Olson said that the house was significant in the sense that it was one of several glass houses built in mid-century and bears a resemblance to the Philip Johnson Glass House, an important example of Modernist architecture preservation. 

“Essentially the Olsen House is a Glass House on poles,” she said after the meeting.  

The State Historical Resources Commission is scheduled to take up the application on Jan. 27, 2009.

Planning commissioners struggled last Wednesday with the fate of West Berkeley in a session that raised more questions than answers. 

The City Council has tasked the nine-member body with working out new policies to-ward the only area of the city to provide a haven for both manufacturing and Berkeley’s dwindling population of artists and craft workers. 

Eager for businesses that will generate more jobs and tax revenues and told by UC Berkeley officials that high-tech start-up companies may be forced to locate elsewhere if rules aren’t relaxed, city officials have faced resistance from those who feel most threatened. 

The irony is perhaps best captured in the conflict between the “green collar” jobs widely promoted in the city-commissioned study by UCSF urban studies Professor Raquel Pinderhughes and the pressure from campus and major land-owners to ease the way for high-tech companies. 

In a city that prides itself on greenness, exemplified by the jobs touted by Pinderhughes and the alliance of West Berkeley Artisans and Industr- ial Companies (WEBAIC), the city government is emerging as the champion of those equipped with another kind of green, the folding kind designed to fit into wallets. High-tech green, the kind associated with labs that can cost $1,000 a square foot and more to build, is pitted against green-collar green, which uses much less expensive facilities. 

One example of green-collar green is Urban Ore, which has built a business on recycling castoffs from construction and upgrading programs. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the ultimate high-tech tenant in West Berkeley. 

High-tech green often requires advanced degrees, while green-collar jobs are geared toward those with less education, including men and women struggling to emerge from poverty. 

John Curl, Rick Auerbach and others from WEBAIC have argued for policies that respect the existing community of companies and workers, who they say could be priced out of their last toehold in the city. 

Developers like Wareham Properties and Doug Herst, who owns the old Peerless Lighting plant property, are pushing for rules that will make it easier for them to build to suit the needs of agrofuel labs and high-tech startups. 

High-tech typically requires new construction, giving an immediate boost to municipal tax coffers in the form of permit fees and new taxes, while green tech jobs can often be housed in existing buildings that could continue under their existing tax-capped values, thanks to Proposition 13, which limits tax increases to 2 percent a year and allows reassessment only when buildings are sold or extensively remodeled. 

Looming over the whole issue are the threat of economic collapse and the question of whether any rule changes would result in any new construction. 

Any changes would effect the existing West Berkeley Plan, but only one commissioner—former UC Berkeley development executive Dorothy Walker, sitting in the seat of Susan Wengraf, whom voters elevated to the City Council last month—proposed scrapping the current plan at the meeting. 

Walker also repeatedly resurrected a term that planning staff had dropped because of the concerns it had raised among the artists and green-collar folks: “flexibility.” 

After Auerbach and others voiced their fears, Principal Planner Alex Amoroso changed the title of the staff effort from “West Berkeley Flexibility” to the more neutral “West Berkeley Project.” Amoroso also began the ongoing meetings with three groups of stakeholders:  

• Property owners, developers and large scale manufacturers; 

• Artisans, recyclers and small industries and manufacturers, and 

• A subcommittee of the city’s West Berkeley Project Area Committee. 

Child care 

Just how complex the issues before the commission have become was readily apparent at the meeting, when commissioners were able to make it through only three of the six topics Amoroso had raised for discussion, forcing delay of consideration of the others until January. 

First up was child care, and the questions of where and how it should be allowed in West Berkeley’s manufacturing (M) zone—and, if so, whether as a stand-alone business or only as an incidental use by an existing business. 

Commissioner Patti Dacey said she was concerned about impacts to the health of young children who might be exposed to dusts, plant emissions and exhaust fumes from the nearby freeway. 

“In Berkeley we talk about the precautionary principle,” she said. “Children are much more influenced by noise, and the closer to freeways they are, the greater their chances of getting asthma.” 

The exposure of employees’ children to dust from a nearby cement plant, Amoroso acknowledged, had been the chief reason athletic snack-maker Clif-Bar had planned to move out of the city. 

Commissioner Gene Poschman said that, because planning commissioners “know less about child care than anybody else,” he wanted to know about relevant state regulations, practices in other cities and the actual demand for facilities in the area. 

“There are a huge number of questions,” he said.  

“It sounds to me that what you’re proposing is that, as the level of use in the M zone increases, you increase the level of review,” said Chair James Samuels. 

“That’s essentially what we’re proposing,” Amoroso replied. 

“We don’t need to be experts about child care,” said Commissioner Harry Pollack. “The state comes up with the regulations.” 

The real question for the commission, he said, was that if a company wants to provide in-house child care, “do we want to allow it, and, if we do, what are the standards of review.” 

“Incidental child care doesn’t have to be on-site,” said commissioner Larry Gurley. “Manufacturing companies could provide child care outside of the M district but within a short distance from work.” 

What about Bayer, the area’s largest employer? asked Commissioner James Novosel. 

Darrell DeTienne, a consultant who often works with West Berkeley developers, said the firm planned to create a facility outside its plant but within the manufacturing and light industrial (MULI) district. 

To make child care profitable, he said, operators needed to be able to take in a mix of children, since caring only for infants was more expensive. 

So should companies be able to open their child care to children whose parents work at other companies? asked Gurley. 

“I can’t respond,” said Amoroso. 

“It’s in the city’s interest to have child care associated with employment as much as possible,” said Walker. “It’s a very worthy goal. The issue here is, do we trust the state standards?” If so, she said, “then we should be as flexible as possible.” 

Dacey said she wanted both to see the state regulations and to hear from the city’s own health officer. 

Commissioner Roia Ferrazares said, “I am very dubious if it’s appropriate to have it, even as ancillary use in the manufacturing district. We should not be in the business of putting children at risk.” 

Amoroso promised to come back both with the state regulations and with a report from the city’s health office. 

Other issues  

Next up was mini-storage, facilities that allow residents to stow their extra stuff in rented facilities to unclutter their dwelling spaces. 

The problem, Amoroso said, was that mini-storage units provide very little revenue to the city and few jobs while tying up valuable land that could be used for businesses that generate much higher revenue for the city and create more and better jobs. 

While some stakeholders wanted to eliminate them, other wanted merely to block creation of any more and to mandate additional uses on the sites. 

“Our focus is on keeping them from expanding,” Amoroso said, adding that the business is “very profitable for the owners.” 

Walker said she preferred a policy that barred mini-storage unless it was part of a multi-story development, citing the UC Storage facility on Shattuck Avenue as an example. 

“I’m not sure it’s in the city’s interest to provide storage for Berkeley residents,” said Gurley, who said facilities were available nearby in other communities. 

“We can’t outright deny the use in the city,” Amoroso said. 

Don’t deny the use, suggested Poschman. Just don’t allow any more. 

Pollack suggested increasing fees to give owners an incentive to find other uses, and, when the discussion ended, that was the policy Amoroso was left to explore. 

The last issue was quickly disposed of: so-called incidental retail. 

A manufacturer in the MULI zone can sell some of what it makes on-site, but only if it does it from the day it opens. Under current regulations, no change of use is allowed. 

Commissioners quickly agreed that existing businesses should be allowed to do the same, under the same conditions that apply to new construction, limiting retail space to 10 percent of the building. 

The debate is certain to continue, with some of the thorniest issues ahead. 

The city’s website on the project, which features a variety of reports and map on the issues facing the commission, is at: http://www.cityofberkeley. info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=10764 

The Green Collar Jobs report is at http://bss.sfsu.edu/raquelrp/documents/v13FullReport.pdf  

To end the age of waste is the message of Urban Ore, a Berkeley institution, the business that represents the ultimate in salvaging just about everything and turning it into something that can be used. On a three acre spread just off Ashby and Seventh Street, Urban Ore has a most amazing assortment of stuff—hundreds of doors, windows, bathtubs, books, dishes, hardware, sometimes a piano or two, “collectibles” and all sorts of oddities large and small.  

Dan Knapp, who still owns and runs the company at 900 Murray St., started it in 1980 with two partners. They were “just a bunch of scavengers at the dump,” he says. But “we were not your usual scavengers. A couple of activists from Berkeley and there was me - I’m a former college professor. I was testing some theories.” His field of study was sociology—but not the sociology most of us are familiar with. At the time it was called ‘action sociology,’ now it has broadened into ‘public sociology.’ The “dump” he is talking about was actually a series of landfills that were operating all along the edge of the bay.  

His theory had to do with the concept of zero waste, “the idea that we should not be land filling anything. Everything that goes into the landfill is a resource that ought to be conserved.” From spending a lot of time at the landfill watching everything that was brought out and dumped, he accumulated enough information to develop a plan to virtually eliminate waste. With that they established Urban Ore.  

That was less than 30 years ago and few people questioned how and where, let alone if, dumps should be operated. Some of us remember going out and scavenging at our local dump. I have a wonderful, cozy armchair that originally came from there. It’s been reupholstered three times and still occupies pride of place in my living room. Eventually when the dumps were filled to capacity they were covered with dirt and landfills created. Nobody even questioned the presence of toxic materials that might be buried there. Today, the garbage business, now called waste management, urges us to sort our waste which they promise to recycle or compost. 

Dan is the sole owner now with 38 dedicated employees carrying out their mission to end the age of waste. That message is printed on every receipt they hand to their customers. 

“We handle almost anything that’s reusable and a lot of things that are recyclable,” he explains. “Basically what we do is we put it back into commerce. He insists that just about everything can be reused or recycled—or if it can’t, it can be banned or redesigned.  

Urban Ore is unique in that it combines in one location both a kind of general store where people can buy all sorts of used items, and a building materials yard. The items come from three sources. They have their own crew who go to the Berkeley transfer station (at 2nd and Gilman) every day to pick up anything that can be used or recycled. Then there are the “outside traders” who have a truck and go out to and pick up loads of items that are being discarded. But by far the biggest source is from individual people bringing in things—all sorts of things. There are some things they cannot deal with, but, Dan says, “of the stuff we accept (almost) 98 percent is returned to beneficial reuse or recycling.”  

Handling the vast amount and variety of materials that come in is an awesome process. Over the years Dan has developed a system which enables him to treat “everything as a commodity not as a waste.” Take windows, for example. There are always hundred of all shapes and sizes in the yard for reuse by builders and remodelers. But those that aren’t sold after a time have to be culled out and disposed of. He explains that the glass is collected in a 10 yard debris box which weighs about 10 tons when it’s full. The entire box is then hauled to another location where it is ultimately made into fiberglass. Bottle glass is treated differently—it is sent where it can be made back into bottles. Porcelain is sent to be crushed and made into aggregate. All this, while involving a lot of work, is economical and ecological.  

“If we sent the same ten yard box of glass or broken porcelain to the transfer station not only would it be wasted but it would cost us $1,150 to dump it. So instead we pay a guy with a truck a couple hundred dollars to haul it down to Hayward or San Leandro and in the case of the window glass we get paid for it ... (and) we’re saving about 800 bucks.”  

Metal is another big and even more complex item. “We do a lot of hand separation which is something that makes us very different from a lot of recycling places. Not very many that are as labor intensive as we are. So we produce a lot of jobs in relation to our output. I think we’re the biggest recycling employer in Berkeley.” And, he adds, his employees get good pay and benefits.  

Urban Ore has had to move several times since it was started and the moves are extremely complicated and expensive. The problem has always been finding an acceptable location for an enterprise like this. Dan insists that, “the biggest problem for right now is that we don’t have secure access to land and we’re a utility. We need to be seen more as a utility not so much like just a hippy enterprise—a place where things that people discard can be handled.”  

As people become increasingly committed to the concept of recycling and reducing waste, Dan Knapp with all his experience with Urban Ore is a man to pay attention to.  

And the store might be a good place to check out for interesting and inexpensive holiday shopping. 

If you engage the world, by 50 or so something changes. 

A poet said something like: 

You seek and keep on seeking 

Until you return to where you started 

And see it for the first time. 

And you start writing newspaper stories, of all things, about the undercurrents of things. 

And you have conversations with bright University of California students. 

Curtis Tamm, a maker of avant-garde films, asked: “Are you afraid of getting old?” 

“I’m afraid of not doing it right,” I said. 

Generally, I talk about levels of perception and Curtis talks about levels of growth. I’m 66 and he’s 21. 

“Do you remember the moment you became conscious?” I asked, meaning the moment an infant becomes aware it is in a world. 

“Lately, every year I think I have become conscious,” he said. 

I talk about writing in freestanding modules with internal connections, and he talks about the failure of conventional movies as an art form. “The narrative form is dead.” Film has to come at you all at once, he seemed to be saying. 

We found neither of us eats much, because eating is annoying. 

We talk about how women have about twice as many information receptors in their heads as men and whether this accounts for “women’s intuition.” 

We think the brain is able to rewire itself. 

Curtis called me at dawn to get me to talk on film. At a faraway spot, he set up avant-garde-looking filming equipment and aimed it at an elevated BART track. The morning rush hour provided a steady supply of passing BART trains. 

I talked for about an hour while he moved stuff around. 

The resulting film shows me talking about things like taking LSD, while the image of a BART train speeds through my head.

Without music life would be a mistake.  

—Friedrich Nietzsche 

How did my love of music get started? I have an early memory of Mama rocking in her chair, baby on her lap, singing, “Ole Mista Frog … out for a ride … sword and pistol by his side, uh huh.” But Daddy wouldn’t know a note if it bit him. Mama’s uncle Manuel played music in New Orleans around the time jazz was born, I’m told, and her three youngest brothers liked showing off their good voices. Ted, the youngest, immortalized his sweet tenor on a self- produced 45 rpm, “Father Faustina Sings,” and when the spirit moves me I can reproduce uncle James’s belting rendition of the Negro work-song, “Water Boy! Where is you hidin’?” 

I played clarinet in elementary and high school. In my senior year (1944–45) in New Orleans I taught myself alto sax, joined the Musicians Union and played at dances with The Rhythm Playboys led by Dookey Chase for $10 a gig. We opened with the stock arrangement of Glen Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” and closed with “Sweet Lorraine” because Dookey’s girlfriend was named Lorraine. In between, Warren Bell did mesmerizing riffs on his amplified guitar. Three gigs on Mardi Gras earned me enough money to buy my first suit, with dollars to spare.  

This was not l’art pour l’art; it was music for a reason, it was music I liked but not the music I came to love. The music I love is music that in my time was wrongly referred to as serious or classical to distinguish it from properly named popular music.  

The music I love, not the music I grew up with, has charms “to soften Rocks and bend a knotted Oak” (Congreve, 1697). 

II 

How deep was my love? A few evenings back I was watching a football game on TV, and during a timeout, I surfed the channels, as is my wont, and happened upon a PBS broadcast of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, visually and audibly enhanced, with Leonard Bernstein conducting. I was enraptured, carried away and never clicked back to the game. 

Now, I’ve heard Beethoven’s great Choral Symphony a million times and each time I am enthralled. Hearing and seeing Bernstein, his wrinkled face, eyes closed, ecstatically reflecting moment by moment the majestic, sweet sounds, crashing sounds, soaring melodies of Beethoven’s masterwork is transcendent. Indeed, the pleasure I get from such music takes me out of myself, shuts down sensations and replaces them with something like religious joy; it is a pleasure second only to sex (and being now in the second year of my ninth decade I’ve found music more enduring and its pleasure increases, as sex’s does not, with repetition and age).  

The rapture induced by music, unlike painting and sculpture, needs memory to work its ineffable magic. Sounds flow continuously like water in a stream. The sound I hear at each instant has no meaning unless memory blends it with preceding sounds and imagination conjures sounds yet to come. 

New technology digitizes music and thus creates the illusion of continuity the way cinema creates the illusion of motion – a single frame (or digit) is incomprehensible without the ones before and after. Thus, music is time dependent, actualized in the mind of the listener. This is the reason, I believe, that composers repeat musical phrases. Music by the French composer Poulenc (1899–1963), for example, is a parody of de capo; each figure is followed by its duplicate, a carbon copy, like an echo. Once, at a performance by the San Francisco Symphony I tried to count the number of times the first bars of The Hymn to Joy were repeated; I got up to eight before I lost track. 

Music is all too often referred to as a universal language, an analogy that is misleading because it is only half right. Music communicates but not to the cognitive aspects of our being; it speaks to our emotions and while it arouses feelings it does not communicate knowledge nor does it encourage or precipitate violence. I can think of few sounds more militaristic than the Grand March from Aida, Act two; it awakens bellicosity but carries such stirring triumphal beauty as to sooth the savage breast.  

In summary, music is a source of almost visceral pleasure needing the mind’s attention powers to unite its precious ephemeral sounds. 

Return now to the question I started with. As best I can remember my real love of music (love of real music?) started when, together with my older and younger brothers, I listened to Bell Telephone Hour Monday night radio broadcasts and got swept away by the wonderful voices of Jan Pierce, Robert Merrill, Licia Albanese, Lily Pons and others. This was different from music at home and also from music I could play. I had no idea what those clear and powerful voices were singing about and it didn’t matter, not in the least. Had I inherited a capacity to love this stuff?  

III 

Finally, I must mourn briefly on the status of music in our brave new world. We have universal public education traceable, mutatis mutandis and with effort, to the trivium and quadrivium of the Middle Ages. Today’s curriculum in particular has kept pace with knowledge and although three subject from the quadrivium—Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy/Cosmology—survive in one form or another, Music has been pushed to the sidelines; music is now extra-curricular. 

If you want to pursue your love of music in school you must submit to voluntary detention—stay after school as if you’re being punished for bad behavior. And of course every time there is budget shortfall music programs are sacrificed. 

The place of music outside of school explains, in part, its scholastic neglect. Society at large treats music as an enhancement, a decoration, an embellishment, something you can do without but may enjoy if you have enough money and leisure. This is not only wrong-headed, it is a calamity!  

Music is not unessential, a fringe, an extra; it is the food of love, coincident with life; without it the soul starves, humanity is crippled. Although not as necessary as food, music (not just my kind but all kinds—spirituals, jazz, swing, folk ballads, rap and reggae, etc.) is nevertheless as integral a part of life as speech. 

Marvin Chachere is a San Pablo resident.

Yes, it’s something big to worry about. This week’s announcement of the imminent bankruptcies of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, not to mention other papers owned by super-capitalist Sam Zell, is giving newspaper fans everywhere a lot to think about. Even here. 

Now, some of Sam’s problems are of his own making. When he “bought” these papers, he borrowed bigtime against his holdings and employee stock funds, and now that advertising sales are off he hasn’t got enough revenue to pay off these creditors. His press release invoked the trendy image of the perfect storm, but it was partly a storm he created. 

“A precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy have coupled with a credit crisis, making it extremely difficult to support our debt. All of our major advertising categories have been dramatically impacted,” he said. What he meant is that he ignored the weather forecasts, went out without an umbrella, and now affects surprise that he’s been drenched.  

Still, he’s right that newspaper revenues are way, way down, and it would be foolish not to notice this. It’s even true here at the Planet. 

When we “bought” the assets (some old computers, some steelcase desks, two months remaining on a lease and a pretty good name) of this paper, six years ago this week, we had fond hopes of eventually breaking even on our investment. We knew enough about the declining newspaper market, even then, not to hope unrealistically to make a profit, or to sell the business for an inflated price. (Oh, we’d love to say that Sam Zell and Rupert Murdoch and Dean Singleton have been engaged in a bidding war to buy the Planet and borrow vast sums against it, and that we heroically refused to sell on behalf of the good burghers of Berkeley, but no one would believe that.) 

The paper has become a critical success, winning a loyal core of readers and many prizes. We took this job on because we believed that for a democracy to function effectively people need to know what’s going on, and now we’re even more convinced that ordinary papers-for-profit can no longer do the job of telling them.  

A radio story yesterday featured some journalism prof at USC calling the L.A. Times “the only public forum that Los Angeles has”—it’s certainly true that if citizens can’t engage in rational civil discourse in print, all that’s left is shouting at one another over the radio. Some have high hopes for the Internet, but a quick glance at the quality of the reader comments on sfgate.com will disabuse you of that fantasy. 

We’ve recently been engaged in a thorough review of the numbers around here. We’re not borrowers by nature, so we haven’t borrowed any money, just spent what we could afford after selling a profitable software company. That has added up to an annual subsidy which has remained surprisingly consistent over the time we’ve been here.  

Advertising revenues were up for a while, but so were expenses in that same period. We managed to cut expenses as we experienced the same “precipitous decline in revenues” that swamped Sam Zell, but that just kept our net subsidy the same.  

We haven’t laid anyone off, but we haven’t filled vacancies as they arose. No one’s had a raise for a long time now. We’ve expanded our Web presence, though the same amount of reporting time is needed to produce news stories online. We’ve cut back to one print issue a week—that saved just a bit of money, but a lot of wear and tear on the executive editor and the publisher.  

The wear and tear factor is a major reason that we’ve been reviewing the situation recently. We’re hale and hearty now, but no one’s immortal. If this paper is to continue to serve this community, it’s long past time for us to think about how to make it self-sustaining without our own contributed labor or even our financial subsidy. We’re by no means fabulously rich, and we’ve spent enough money by now that prudence and the larger economy require us to significantly reduce our contribution.  

What are the alternatives? 

It all depends on whether the people of Berkeley really want to have an independent newspaper. We’ve already asked those who do to subscribe, though it’s an odd notion for a free paper, and we’ve had a pretty good response in the $10/month category.  

Now, however, we’re thinking that we ought to move toward the kind of model familiar from public broadcasting and arts organizations—that we ought to look not only for subscribers, but for supporters who are willing to give larger sums, and for sponsorships from commercial and non-commercial organizations that go beyond ordinary advertising.  

Getting there will take some work. The Berkeley Daily Planet is currently a limited liability corporation, not a non-profit, so donors can’t get a tax deduction for their contribution. We could sell shares in the not-really-for-any-profit LLC to people who want tax losses, in theory, but that’s legally complicated.  

As far as we’re aware, there’s no newspaper now in a community like Berkeley which is supported by its readers rather than by advertising. Subscriptions have long since stopped paying for newspapers. Even the New York Times has been forced to raise cash by taking a loan on its headquarters building. 

We could, with effort, develop a model for a sustainable community newspaper which could be replicated elsewhere, at least in cities like this with a high proportion of educated and engaged residents. Papers in Palo Alto and Santa Cruz are experiencing similar problems. It might be possible to get grants to work on a pilot project of this nature. 

Among other ideas, we’d like to expand our public presence in the community beyond its current footprint, showcasing to full advantage the benefits of having a real community news source.  

The debate between Berkeley’s mayoral candidates which the Planet sponsored was a big standing-room-only success. We learned then that people are hungry for live interaction of all kinds. After the first of the year we plan to invite the mayor and the councilmembers to “Question Time” forums, modeled on the debates of the same name in the British Parliament.  

We also think that the East Bay needs more interesting public lectures and author talks to fill the void left by Cody’s demise. We can leverage our reputation among our readers and our excellent access to print publicity, but organizing such events will also take plenty of volunteer public participation. We’d like to tap the creative energy which abounds in this area. 

As a first step, we’re hoping to put together a group of advisors, wise people respected in the community, who can help us make the right decisions about how to get to a sustainable publically-supported business model as soon as possible. Let us know if you’d like to be part of all this excitement. 

NEW SECRETARY OF ENERGY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Richard Brenneman's recent story on the reported selection of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director Steven Chu as the nation’s new secretary of energy was remarkably one-sided. Instead of describing how Dr. Chu has forcefully made the case for the urgent need to tackle climate change, and his promotion of a broad range of research on technologies that could provide alternatives to fossil fuels, Brenneman quoted a critic of the biofuels research effort that is one of the approaches that may be part of a strategy to reduce use of fossil fuels. Apparently he feels that good reporting doesn't require presenting views other than the one that he himself agrees with (as has been evident in his reporting). 

The nation is fortunate to have someone with Dr. Chu's vision and drive as secretary of energy, and the people of Berkeley deserve a better profile of him than what we read in the Daily Planet. 

Steve Meyers 

• 

OBAMA, CHU BLAZE GRASS-OIL TOGETHER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Progressives have a new foe: Barack Obama. After the environmentalist group Save Strawberry Canyon declares victory over the scale of LBNL's Helios building, Obama rewarded LBNL director Steven Chu, naming him secretary of energy.  

Sadly UC-BP’s Helios may continue, just smaller. The largest corporate-university deal in history, UC Berkeley and BP want to mar and pollute Strawberry Canyon with a monstrous temple dedicated to unintelligent business and scientific decisions. The Helios building begins with intentional deception; it has nothing to do with the sun and solar energy. A main thrust is actually to do research that would increase oil production. Helios will also try to dupe the masses by reviving the “clean coal” myth. It also focuses on genetically engineered switch grass, as opposed to a wide variety of natural (undesigned) or recycled biomasses. Though the U.S. will use the majority of this biofuel, it will be grown in developing countries after we cut down more of their forests. BP has its hands in Iraq; what would stop switch grass related conflicts? 

What of Berkeley's trees? The original plans for Helios didn’t meet environmental standards, but Steven Chu, Robert Birgeneau, and the UC Board of Regents (aka the Legion of Doom) tried to move forward anyway. The only things that stopped UC from breaking the law, and stopped Chu from being director of an illegally and immorally constructed lab, were a rag tag team of canyon defenders and their lawsuit.  

If Obama had been president during the past couple of years, and Helios being integral to his energy policy, would things have been different? How would Obama have handled protesters (the BP Bears, Stop UC-BP and others) who rallied on campus against BP and its Helios? 

Oh, you remember the talk of the Bevatron pulverization? That's right, Obama gave the secretary of energy position to someone who wants to haul debris including Cobalt 60, Cesium 137, and Europium 154, asbestos, lead, mercury, PCBs, and chlorinated VOCs through the city, past residences, in uncovered trucks.  

No, we can’t succeed through shifty corporate deals, giving bad projects cute names, relying on production overseas, ignoring human rights, and by refusing to severely use less energy per American. The next administration must understand that if we are going to overhaul our energy plan, we must overhaul our values, communities, and relationship to nature.  

Nathan Pitts 

• 

BERKELEY HIGH REDESIGN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In critical care units the term "triage" is often used. A triage system is implemented in a critical care unit when there are more patient admissions than available beds. Patients determined to be safe enough to transfer to lower levels of care are transferred so as to be able to give priority to those who need more attention. If there were enough resources available at all times, triaging would not be necessary. Comparably, if there was no achievement gap and no at-risk students at Berkeley High School, a redesign plan would not be needed. Those speaking out against the redesign plan and the idea of "initiating a school wide change to help only a few hundred students" (Daily Planet, Dec. 11) have perhaps not been in a situation where stepping back and letting the more critically ill people—or in this case the more at-risk students—be the priority. Is it possible that some Berkeley High parents are only supportive of progressive politics when their own children are not effected?  

Felicity Blau 

• 

WEST BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Planning Commissioner Larry Gurley said the following about the West Berkeley area: "I'm not sure it's in the city's interest to provide storage for Berkeley residents." Perhaps instead of trying to decide what is best for the rest of us, planning commissioners can trust the people involved—those that care the most about storage in West Berkeley. People in Berkeley want to pay to store their stuff in this city, and the owners want to make money providing that storage. Conclusion? Very clearly in the best interest of Berkeley residents as both sides benefit, and (as is very important in this city) their transactions have few, if any, negative externalities. Using land for mini-storage may not bring in as much revenue to the city, but increased city revenue is not the goal of land-use decisions.  

Furthermore, Mr. Gurley and others on the commission need to be reminded that the city of Berkeley is not a singular entity to be pleased, only an amalgamation of all its residents, each with different desires and ideas of what is best. Allowing some to be happy and to conduct storage business without having to fork over tax dollars should be a desirable thing. Lastly, I hope all land use controllers appreciate why this attitude towards planning engenders tremendous dislike towards them. You want to allow certain types of businesses and activities that conform to your idea of what Berkeley should be without regard to the large (but unseen) costs your meddling imposes on all Berkeley residents. 

Damian Bickett 

• 

2700 SAN PABLO AVE. 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Chuck Heinricks suggested that the city buy the failed condo project at 2700 San Pablo Ave. for housing police. That’s a good idea, though maybe too late. When the property went into default this summer, I suggested to Councilmember Darryl Moore that the city purchase it for employees, especially first responders. We’re really going to be in trouble after the next big earthquake because so many of our firefighters and police live out of town. 

In Britain it is usual for towns to own and operate housing as well as parking garages, sport complexes, and other communal facilities. Instead of giving away so many development rights to private companies for the building of more big yuppie dormitories, we could create some attractive and affordable family-sized housing for city employees. 

For financing, the city could tap the enormous equity of older property owners who might be willing to pool their wealth for a stake in new housing development.  

Toni Mester 

• 

CAMEJO: FEET OF CLAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Now that Peter Camejo is stone-dead, buried, lionized and memorialized, can we discuss his legacy?  

I always said Peter was a good candidate and spokesperson. I worked with him on two of his vanity projects, the Progressive Alliance of Alameda County in 1993 (a $20,000-plus failure) and his first run for governor in 2001 (a wash). I walked away thinking, "What a pompous, self-involved blowhard." So my animus is well-earned.  

But I kept my opinions to myself. When a friend complained bitterly about the poor return on her investments at Progressive Assets Management, I ignored it because I had nothing to invest. And when Peter rallied his acolytes and initiated the divisive purge known as the "Greens for Democracy and Independence," GDI (another failure), and began to target fellow greens with his Stalinist attacks, I still withheld my opinion. When he died and all the flowers started to drop, I was told it was in bad taste to criticize him. But I think it is a perfect time to share my distaste for this self-appointed egotistical millionaire political poseur.  

I can't think of another white male leader during my entire history with the Green Party (since 1989) who has done more damage, both state-wide and nationally, than Peter Camejo.  

As for all those mystical superlatives, what would you expect? The only people at the memorial were his fans and supporters. Peter's detractors, among whom I count myself, stayed away. 

Hank Chapot 

Oakland 

• 

'ASSISTED LIVING'? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Recently I noticed a tiny woman (I'll call her Caregiver) standing at the curb in the middle of a block of a major Berkeley thoroughfare. She was managing a wheelchair occupied by a silent elderly man (I'll call him Patient.) When I passed their way again, about half an hour or so later, they were both still there, waiting. I thought they must be waiting for a family member who has been delayed; maybe they don't have a cell phone. 

A taxi pulled up and parked on the opposite side of the street . Cars, trucks, emergency vehicles, motorcycles, buses flew by as the driver sat there glaring. Finally, a taxi appeared at the curb where the couple waited. It was obvious that Patient was unable to get into the back seat and needed access to the front passenger seat. Caregiver managed to get him out of the wheelchair and into the front seat. She then hauled the wheelchair off the curb and around to the back of the taxi, where with no assistance from anybody she strained to lift it into the taxi trunk. I could see on her face the effort required. She returned to the front passenger side to buckle the patient's seat-belt and then got into the back of this public service vehicle. And away they went. 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

• 

MIDDLE EAST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

For me and to many others, our opposition to President Carter's statements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not stem solely from his criticism of the Israeli government, but from the fact that he chastises only one side. I am hard pressed to find any statement of his taking the Palestinians—politicians and terrorists alike—to task for their actions. Many of us are saddened by discriminatory actions taken by the Israeli government and by strains of racism which permeate some—but hardly all—of Israeli society. And we are appalled not only by the actions of the Hebron settlers last week, but by the IDF's refusal to take immediate action to halt these outrages. 

So when I and other members of San Francisco Voice for Israel counterprotest against groups we consider to be Israel-bashers (as we did against Bay Area Women in Black at the Ashby Flea Market last Sunday), we are there solely to support the right of Israel to exist in peace, as a Jewish state, within secure boundaries. We have a limited mission statement, because once we go beyond this narrow focus there are too many opposing opinions for us to agree on anything without alienating many of our members and supporters. And when we stand in opposition to larger groups, as we did at the annual AIPAIC dinner in San Francisco this week, it's for the same reason and, even more so, to counter even more radical groups who declare that Israel has no right to exist. 

The Daily Planet seems to have fallen into the same trap that many of these anti-Israel protesters have found themselves—stating only one side of the case. Trying to find a way out of this morass is impossible when you have only one eye to guide you. Without a balanced approach to this quagmire, any effort at peace is doomed to failure. 

Marshall E. Schwartz 

Oakland 

• 

CARTER AND OBAMA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Joanne Kowalsky (Commentary, Dec. 11) fails to zero in on why Obama didn’t give former President Carter a speaking role at the Democratic Convention. Obama didn’t give Carter a speaking role not because of Jewish lobby opposition or because Obama doesn’t respect Carter’s policies or humanitarian efforts. No, Obama didn’t give Carter a speaking role because Carter as President was very bad for the Party. Carter took a Democratic Party enjoying an extraordinarily steep rise in popularity beginning in 1974 and ran it into the ground. Carter failed to include various coalitions of the party in his government. Too many Carter appointees were from his native state of Georgia and not enough from other regions. Hence, he was challenged by the very influential Senator Kennedy in the Democratic primaries of 1980. Plus, Carter was ineffective. His time as President was one of high inflation and high unemployment. Thus, Carter was ousted from power by the 1980 49-state landslide victory of Republican Ronald Reagan. As a future President who wants to serve two terms and to be an effective president, President-elect Barack Obama can ill afford to too closely associate himself with Jimmy Carter.  

Nathaniel Hardin 

El Cerrito 

• 

GREED TRUMPS HEALTH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last summer the Congress passed and the president signed the Consumer Product Safety Commission Improvement Act which set a strong lead limit and banned the use of plastic softeners called phthalates in toys and other products designed for children and sold after Feb. 10, 2009. Phthalates are endocrine disruptors and hormone mimics. They have been linked to birth defects, early puberty in girls, deformities of the reproductive tract in male infants, and cancer. Did that solve the problem? Apparently not. The Consumer Product Safety Commission's legal council has decided to reinterpret the intent of the Act to allow retailers to continue selling toxic toys until their back stock is sold, which may be long after Feb. 10. Greed apparently trumps health. 

Allowing greed to endanger these precious children is a violation of moral principles, common decency, and good sense. The CPSC should be called back to its mission to protect consumers. Christmas should not be an occasion for a child to receive a present that may permanently damage health. 

Joe Magruder 

• 

A THOUSAND SHOCKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

By the time Barack Hussein Obama is sworn into office he will have had 11 weeks to get his personnel in place, just barely enough time to assemble several hundred skilled people into a ship tight and sufficiently seaworthy to stay afloat and on course in a sea of troubles. The storms raging at home and abroad were created by eight years of incompetence, greed, neglect and insolence. The accumulated virulence, however, is unprecedented and so the new president’s ability to calm the seas will necessarily be an experimental endeavor.  

Meanwhile, everyone who can talk or write, including those in the punditry and in academia, has advice: put this person in the wheelhouse, avoid this guy, be careful not to steer here or to run with the wind, too fast or too slow, be bold, be circumspect, etc., etc. 

When the jubilant inaugural celebration ends we can be sure of one thing: the 44th presidency will set out on an “enterprise of great pitch and moment…” What we do not know is whether the course he takes is the one we hoped for when we voted for him.'' 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

• 

CONSERVATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In an age where humans are increasingly disconnected from the natural environment, it is more pressing than ever to protect what remains of America’s pristine forest areas under the Roadless Conservation Rule. It is important to remember that although most of us carry out our daily lives in urban concrete jungles, a vast and rugged wilderness is part of a truly unique American cultural heritage. The Roadless areas Conservation Rule was passed by the U.S. Forest Service in 2001 in order to protect that last remaining areas of our national forest system that are truly “wild”—those areas that are completely free from road building and logging. This area makes up approximately 58.5 million acres of national forest, and is home to 1,600 threatened or endangered plant and animal species. Unfortunately, in the following 8 years the Bush administration has done all it could to rollback the protection offered by the rule. This has been compounded by the efforts of big business, particularly the mining and lumber industries, which have filed 9 lawsuits against the rule. With the new Obama administration we now have a fresh opportunity to make sure this important legislation is respected and upheld, but we as ordinary citizens have the responsibility to let those in power know that this issue is important to us. 

Rebecca Huyck 

• 

OUR DEADLIEST EXPORT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Associated Press recently reported that the Mexican "war on drugs" has resulted in more than 8,000 deaths in the last three years, with about 5,376 in this year alone. Those murdered include judges, police, witnesses, journalists, and innocent citizens. There is a growing perception among Mexicans that the government is losing the war against these well-armed drug cartels. However, little is said about the source of the weapons used in these killings.  

For the period Oct. 1, 2004 to Sept. 30, 2007, weapons found discarded at shootings in Mexico or confiscated from the drug cartels were traced to 15 states. Texas sellers were the source of 2,085 weapons. California was runner-up with 1,006. Texas and California together are the source of more than the combined total of weapons from the other 13 states. An untold number of guns couldn't be traced or are still in the hands of the drug cartels. The illicit drugs flow north and the weapons flow south. Under Mexico's strict regulations, it is against the law to own or sell armor-piercing penetrating assault rifles and semiautomatic pistols. But they are legally available in sporting goods stores and gun shows in the United States where straw men buy them and then they are smuggled into Mexico. And weapons are easy to purchase in the U.S.  

Now, U.S. law only requires that dealers run an instant FBI background check to make sure the potential buyer has no felony convictions, is a U.S. citizen, and then require the buyer to sign a form attesting that the weapon is not for someone else. We have heard the old canard that "people, not guns, kill people." Actually, it is people with guns that kill the most people. Obviously, the United States and Mexico must place more emphasis on catching gunrunners and tightening and enforcing the laws regarding the sale and purchase of weapons in the U.S.  

Ralph E. Stone 

San Francisco 

• 

STATE GOP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

GOP tactics are putting the whole state at risk. A handful of Republican legislators are trying to force their flawed and suspect anti-tax doctrine on tens of millions of Californians causing a financial earthquake. Who are these unsavory culprits and obstructionists? State Assembly and Senate members Mike Villines, Dave Cogdill, Dave Cox, Roger Niello, Ted Gaines, Kevin Jeffries and Rick Keane are GOP leaders holding the state hostage. 

Why doesn't fellow Republican and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger call the members of his party to task? 

Maybe it is the apathetic Californian citizenry and their ho-hum attitude that is adding fuel to this crisis. Will it take the loss of basic services to finally get the public off their easy chairs and say enough is enough to this GOP minority that is holding the state at bay? 

Ron Lowe 

Nevada City 

NO SECRET AGREEMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your Dec. 4 editorial inaccurately states that I inadvertently disclosed a “secret” agreement pertaining to a telecommunication facility application. When a member of the Planning Commission asked for information about litigation against the city (GTE Mobilenet of California Limited Partnership, d/b/a Verizon Wireless v. City of Berkeley) on Oct. 15, I stated that I was not familiar with the settlement agreement and didn’t know whether it was a public document. It is public and I attached it to the Nov. 5 commission staff report. Your editorial implies that the city was trying to hide something, which is not correct. The City Council reviews the details of proposed settlement of litigation prior to approval, and when such an agreement is finalized it is a public document. City Council approval was on May 12. 

Wendy Cosin 

Deputy Planning Director 

• 

SAN PABLO CONDOS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Now maybe the City Council and the Zoning Adjustments Board will start listening to the disgruntled “citizen vigilantes” when they object to these monster buildings. The real estate bust may save Berkeley in the nick of time from becoming the high rise atrocity that some of our elected officials envision. Neighbors do not want huge buildings next to the neighborhoods and those living on the so-called corridors don’t want them either. There are better ways to provide affordable housing. Berkeley used to be such a lovely town but currently the downtown is a dirty dead zone and the neighborhoods are being over shadowed by sky scrapers. Listen to the people! 

Constance Wiggins 

• 

MORE ON SAN PABLO CONDOS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s no great surprise that the condos at 2700 San Pablo Ave. are being auctioned off. Who wants to live on a busy street when many similar units have been built on more quiet, and perceptually safer, streets in nearby Emeryville? 

What if the City of Berkeley bought the building and sold the units, at attractive rates, to members of the Berkeley police force, to live in? 

Right now, the racial mix of police in South Berkeley seems to lean towards Caucasian and Asian—not very sensible in a predominately African-American neighborhood. But even if the mix was different, most police don’t live in the city anyway, and certainly not on the Southside. They are essentially hired mercenaries, and too often act like it. Small wonder the police are greatly distrusted in this neighborhood. If they lived here they would have a stake in the place and get to know the residents much better, building trust and cooperation on both sides. 

There are plenty of young cops in Berkeley. A nice starter condo and a beat on the Southside would be a great way to break into “serving and protecting” the public—and an excellent investment for the city on many levels.  

Chuck Heinrichs 

• 

LANDMARKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the Dec. 4 Daily Planet, Riya Bhattacharjee reports the nomination of the Olsen house at 771 San Diego Road to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. I continue to wonder at the efforts of landmarkers to cite any structure of passing interest that may be 50 years old. While it may be a useful exercise for architecture students to identify interesting homes, the nomination seems misplaced.  

The house “epitomizes the international style made popular by architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier...” But of course it was not designed by one of those men but by the owner, Donald Olsen, a local architect of considerable merit. It is a rectangular block, cantilevered on steel pipes, perhaps pleasing in its simplicity, but no more engaging visually than the adjacent homes at 767 or 775 San Diego. It is across the street from John Hinkle Park, the birthplace of a 1970s theater project, once called the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, which then grew into the California Shakespeare Festival in Orinda. In walking past the Olsen house and through the park, I noticed that the park is defaced with patches of orange plastic webbing where the wooden handrails have broken. A really useful preservation project might be the rebuilding of those railings. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

BP-UCB SONG AND DANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Dec. 3 San Francisco Chronicle reports the opening of the Joint BioEnergy Inst. for useless research to just recycle carbon dioxide with not one molecule of that gas on balance being removed from the 35 percent and growing overload of that gas in the atmosphere. Behind all the gobbledygook of cellulose breakdown and fermentation values there is only a recycling of carbon dioxide with no effect on reducing GHG levels in the atmosphere. Since several papers in Science indicate that crops grown and harvested on less than yearly cycles may result in soil-trapped plant residuals getting sped up in their biodegradation to emit that gas, biofuels may overall actually be adding more of that gas to the atmosphere instead of removing some. No one at the institute dares to discuss that biofuels will only at best not make global warming get worse and will not admit that we have to find a way to actually remove some of the overload of that gas from the atmosphere to actually slow melting of ice packs, perhaps even reverse it. 

I have had several letters published here and elsewhere pointing to the massive messes of organic wastes and sewage on the globe that under present handling are allowed to biodegrade to needlessly be reemitting GHGs as some methane and nitrogen oxides go off with much carbon dioxide. A pyrolysis process applied to those messes would convert perhaps 50 percent of the carbon to inert charcoal and destroy all germs, drugs and most toxics in the messes to greatly reduce costs for maintaining dumps and chances for those hazards getting into water systems. Such pollution into water systems is already a problem as EPA is holding this month a conference on risks of drugs in drinking water, so the public better wake up to these messes before they get out of hand. I wonder if people in Berkeley or anywhere like the idea of those hazards showing up in drinking water, especially when a way to destroy them is available and could be developed as a huge green job program.  

James Singmaster 

Fremont 

• 

LEGISLATIVE DATABASE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Legislative Counsel of California collects important data about bills introduced in California and how our legislators vote, but the public is not allowed access to this data in a database format, which would facilitate searching, analysis, and more transparency. 

This makes no sense since the public paid to assemble this information, and has the right to discover the relationship between donations and voting records. 

MAPLight.org and the California First Amendment Rights Coalition are suing the Legislative Counsel to give the public access to this data in electronic database format. The state needs to wake up to its public responsibility for public access. 

Tom Miller 

• 

PERFECT HARMONY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last evening KQED aired one of its most popular programs, “Black and White Night,” featuring Roy Orbison and friends. Produced at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles by the singer himself in l987 (a year before his untimely death), this marvelous program is shown once or twice a year, and I watch it every single time. 

Orbison, who by all reports was a warm, greatly admired performer, in addition to being a fine singer, surrounded himself with talented musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Jackson Brown and singers Bonnie Raitt and K.D. Lang. I can honestly state I don’t know of any show boasting so much energy, enthusiasm and sheer joy. Indeed, the exuberance emanating from this 90-minute program is so infectious it reaches out to its audience, filling them with the same rapture (admittedly a somewhat exaggerated term). 

While watching last evening’s program, I reflected on Barack Obama’s new carefully and wisely appointed cabinet. (I see eyebrows go up at this rather unlikely analogy). But I’d point out that we have every reason to believe that these new appointees will assume their tasks with the same energy and enthusiasm as the above-mentioned musicians and in doing so will bring harmony and optimism to Washington, something sadly lacking after eight dismal years! 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

RE-STRIPING SHATTUCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last Saturday night, Dec. 6, at about 9:30 p.m., a man in a wheelchair was crossing Shattuck west on Prince Street and was struck by a speeding car and thrown 20 feet. The reason: because the recently paved street did not have an obvious crossing lane striped on the new asphalt. There was a paltry attempt to indicate a pedestrian crossing lane by using a spray can, it would seem. This was dangerously inadequate and probably led to the accident. This is a popular intersection which serves the Starry Plough and La Peña. It would seem appropriate, considering the danger, that action be taken to properly stripe the intersection immediately and that road-bed flashers be installed. 

Robert Blau 

• 

STATE TAX RATES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

During the recent campaign Nancy Skinner sent out a flyer proposing changes in California’s tax rates. She promised to fight for an oil severance tax, a commercial property tax, restoration of higher rates for incomes over $400,000, and a 1 percent increase in corporate taxes in order to end our budget deficits and to prevent unnecessary suffering in our state. (Wisely, she did not call for ending tax limits on residential property—Prop. 13—or restoring the vehicle tax. These are suicidal measures for tax reformers: the voters have rejected them decisively.)  

I agree with her proposals. But there is no chance they will be enacted as long as the law requires a two-thirds majority to pass a budget and right-wing Republicans control enough votes to thwart the majority. 

The Democratic Party needs to dedicate itself to two projects: repealing the constitutional amendment that requires a two-thirds majority to pass the budget and reducing the number of Republicans in the legislature. 

Repeal of the two-thirds majority should be on the ballot in every election until the public really understands it and connects it with potholes, crowded classrooms, and closed emergency rooms. 

The most toxic Republican legislators should be deliberately targeted in every election, just as Richard Pombo was three years ago. Their records should be an issue every time they run. Democrats should act as partisans and destroy them, just as the Republicans did Gray Davis. It is long past time to stop playing bean bag. 

Nancy, you pledged “to fight to prevent the budget from being balanced on the backs of our children and those who can least afford it.” Will you step up and begin the real fight? 

Phil McArdle 

• 

MID-YEAR SPENDING PLAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Under the mid-year spending plan devised by the mayor’s office, San Francisco will see the elimination of some nursing positions in jails, the day care center for the elderly at Laguna Honda Hospital, a program that teams social workers with homeless people and other frequent users of San Francisco General Hospital, and $5.3 million in mental health services. 

The cuts to mentally ill and homeless programs and other public health programs will save $33 million in this mid-year spending plan. Yet the cost to human beings who utilize mental health services, those homeless men, women and families will be devastating. 

When will our local government begin to treat the lives of the most vulnerable of our constituency as sacrosanct? Please send and e-mail to the mayor of San Francisco (Gavin.Newsom@SFGOV.org) and express your disappointment in the heinous budget act. 

Believe me, going to the opera will take on a whole new meaning in San Francisco. 

James Shaye Keys  

• 

RESPONSE TO THE RESPONSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My recent commentary, “Taps for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade,” must have nicked a primary artery in Lawrence Jarach’s cerebral cortex to have unleashed such a fury of historical revisionism. Saddening, though, to realize that American McCarthyites will follow the Lincolns into their very graves, spewing their Rush Limbaugh-driven bile on the sod over their corpses. 

Jarach—aside from his distortions—descends into a lot of just plain sillyisms: insinuating that I was asking for special care for Ted Veltfort at Kaiser Hospital when I was merely talking to a doctor about her remarkable patient; contorting himself over whether the Lincolns were a “battalion” or a “brigade” and how many heads need to be counted to make up each appellation; insisting that the Lincolns weren’t really “volunteers” since they could not “leave the fronts” when they wanted; dismissing Franco’s critical military support from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy as something that “was not guaranteed”; mislabeling Milt Wolff, the last commanding officer of the Lincolns in Spain, as a “commissar.” Is this is the stuff of critical historical analysis? 

Another McCarthyite chestnut Jarach pulled from the ashes is the outright lie regarding the death of Oliver Law, the first black commander of the Lincolns. There is abundant first person evidence that Law died in combat. The racist canard that he “was shot by his own men” was based on a novel written about that period and has long been discredited by responsible historians. 

Were there communists in the Lincoln Battalion? Certainly! In the 1930s many Americans were not satisfied with the two-party system’s tepid response to the excesses of capitalism that created the Great Depression. Communist and Socialist candidates were on the ballot in local, state and federal elections throughout the country. It was not illegal to vote for a Communist at that time. Further, after waxing long about the “Communist domination” of the Lincolns, Jarach then contradicts himself by admitting that the Lincolns “were considered too politically unreliable” to participate in the Communist-led government’s suppression of other revolutionary groups in Spain. So they were not Stalinist dupes after all?  

The purpose of my article was not to explore the multiple political complexities of the Spanish Civil War, nor to ignore the heroic revolutionary achievements of the Anarchist collectives. That is another story. My article is merely a homage to the idealistic young American men and women who risked their lives in an uphill battle for freedom and justice in another land. 

Don Santina 

• 

HYPERBOLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Conn Hallinan made some good observations, but also made a few comments that may have preached to the anti-war choir in Berkeley, like saying the recent U.S. philosophy has led to several “ruinous wars.” But I suggest this is hyperbole and stupid hyperbole at that. Any war could be called ruinous. Even dinky wars like Grenada much less the Revolutionary War or the Six Day War could be called ruinous. And this nonsense about the U.S. not having the right to act unilaterally or preemptively is nonsense too. Wasn’t the Revolutionary War preemptive? And I suggest it was the American people’s prerogative to do so and that it was a just war, in at least my opinion. And it is obvious you do not think much of Elliott Abrams, which is OK, but you might consider that Rahm Emanuel was President-elect Obama’s first hire and that was no accidental message to Israel what his intentions are and I assure you that Rahm Emmanuel will be much less diplomatic when it comes to Israel than Elliot Abrams is. 

Steve Pardee 

• 

A MIDEAST EDUCATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

John Gertz responds to my letter with disbelief that anyone would dare to call him a racist, yet he shows a complete lack of awareness as to the nature of his prejudices. Allow me to give him a bit of education.  

Gertz said about a photograph of a group of people at “a demonstration” (not a meeting of the members of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network) that they “do not look classically Jewish.” This obviously means that the people he saw in the photo, if they identify as Jewish, weren’t Ashkenazi. Ashkenazi supremacism outside of the State of Israel might be excused as generally unconscious. Within the State of Israel, however, there is at least some official awareness of the non-Ashkenazi near-majority.  

Allow me to quote three examples of the racist attitudes of Zionists in the 1940s, the 1960s, and the 1990s (all quoted in We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden History of Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands, by Rachel Shabi). A Zionist reporting from Baghdad states: “This material [potential immigrants] is not the material of Europe… They can be made into ‘human beings’…” Former Prime Minister Ben Gurion states that migrants from Arab lands are “without a trace of Jewish or human education,” and that “We are duty bound to fight against the spirit of the Levant [at that point the majority of Israelis were from the Levant]…and preserve the authentic Jewish values as they crystallized in the [European] Diaspora.” And a children’s book for third-graders produced by the Israeli Ministry for Education and Culture relates, in the voice of a girl from Hungary: “One day a little boy appeared in our alley. This boy was darker and thinner than any of the children I had known until then… He would go from house to house shouting…in a strange accent, a bit Arabic, a bit Hebrew, something unclear. All the neighbors closed their doors to him… All the people spoke against him. They said he was an Arab, that he was in disguise… Mum double-locked the door at night.”  

These are not examples of what Gertz calls the “culture shock” of the European founders of the State of Israel, an unexpected exposure to a different culture; they are deep-seated prejudices that have been a part of the Zionist project from its inception, and that continue to permeate the relations between Jews in the State of Israel. The hatred and bigotry expressed toward Israel’s Arab citizens and those under its occupation are of course exponentially worse.  

Saying that “Arab Jews are fully integrated into Israel now” is both ridiculous and patently false. That’s like saying that racism in the United States has ended now that Obama has been elected president; wishful thinking at best, demonstrably false optimism at worst.  

Dunash Labrat 

• 

CRY ME A RIVER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So John Gertz is upset that someone has called him a racist. The poor fellow. John Gertz, who plays whack-a-mole with the Mideast, slapping down with charges of anti-Semitism anyone who stands up to disagree with him on Israel. John Gertz, who believes views that disagree with his own should not be published. John Gertz, who accuses the Daily Planet of bias against Israel though they publish every mean-spirited tirade he can muster against those who disagree with him. John Gertz, who casts all Palestinians into the same mold, as bomb-throwing, Israel-hating terrorists. Cry me a river, John Gertz. 

Steve Reichner 

Oakland 

We share the excitement of “change,” but to have real change we have to start with ourselves, in our own home, yard, block, community, and city. When we look around we may see clutter, litter, and a mess. Research shows that when people see a mess, they tend to make more of a mess. People must take seriously their responsibility for litter, and not depend on politicians, sanitation workers, street sweepers, or anyone else to clean up the mess they make.  

We can start today to show appreciation for our city, which is beautiful, but far from perfect. We are thankful we live here, and we can each make a difference. We may have noticed that getting started is a challenge, but once we are involved we feel good. We all can, with a little effort, actually solve the problems of clutter, debris, and littering. The results would be a city we are all proud to live in.  

It’s costly now in time, effort, negative impressions on us and our visitors, and, even worse, a poor example to our children. If we each do our part, we are being not only good citizens, but also creating a healthier community and feeling happier. It’s a good time to start to make a resolution to be a “change agent.”  

Beyond our own actions, have you noticed that the problems of a dirty community seem to be created by the same people? Maybe you already recognize someone who fits one or more of the following descriptions. If so, please pass on the words “One Neat City!” before these folks bury all of us in their debris and neglect. The cost to clean up after them seems to have grown beyond our capacity to handle it. Here are some of the folks observed: 

• The Smokers: They pollute the air and flick their cigarette butts into the streets while walking or driving. If people are old enough to smoke, aren’t they old enough to clean up after themselves and place their butts in a receptacle? 

• The Wrappers: They are the ones who leave leftover food, wrappers, and bags on sidewalks, marking a messy path as they go along, like “Hansel and Gretel,” but no wolves are in sight to tidy up. So remind them (students and adults) to leave debris in a nearby receptacle. Mom does not follow us around anymore cleaning up the mess.  

• The Papertrailers: These folks leave a legacy of newspapers, junk mail, and discarded calendars, ignoring the precious few signs saying, “Do Not Litter!” Let’s stop littering our streets with calendars of the past year, as this does nothing but cause a huge mess and deplete the coffers of an already strained city budget to repair the damage. There is a better way to dispose of paper inside the office.  

• The Poopers: These are the folks with pets who do not understand there is a $100 fine for not using a “pooper scooper” and cleaning up after their pet. These culprits are usually found in and around parks, on the street, and in other places where folks are relaxing, sitting, and trying to enjoy eating lunch. Leaving pet debris is not a good way to care for your pet. And it’s more than just pet debris. This includes bodily functions like spitting on sidewalks and other human wastes that are better handled in the bathroom. Some use public bathrooms, but do not leave them clean for the next person. Public bathrooms must be maintained as a public necessity and respected as such.  

• The Graffitiers: These are the ersatz “artists” who destroy the pleasure of riding a bus, trolley, walking along the street, or viewing any wall within the city. Young people need more outlets for art and find new and worthy constructive ways to express themselves. Tasteless graffiti turns the walls of the city into a distorted gallery of depression, not delight.  

• The Busters: These folks seem to find gratification in destroying bus stops. When viewed alongside the ubiquitous graffiti, the destroyed shelters make visitors wonder how anyone can live in chaos and unhealthy conditions. 

• The Blockers: These folks refuse to recycle their garbage, bottles, cans, and paper at home, which contributing to the expanding crisis at the city’s dump. They block the progress everyone else is trying to make to save the environment before we are buried alive in our garbage. 

• The Watchers: These are the silent ones who see someone make a mess, or add to the clutter, but keep their mouths shut. (Know anyone who fits this category?)  

• The Streetlivers: This is a huge problem, for these folks and for the well-being of everyone. We see humans before our eyes on our streets starving, ragged, and homeless, yet we pass them by. People must be able to live somewhere, but they must not be living on the sidewalks or in doorways. These conditions are unhealthy and inhuman for them and for everyone. We do not allow dogs to roam the street alone and hungry as they do in other countries and we must find solutions that really work. These people need food, clothes, counseling, showers, and a place to get a phone message from a prospective employer or family or a friend who can help. They can be part of the solution of getting the streets clean, if they are capable of working. “Homeless” is a problem that needs to be solved. 

We need a real “City Corps” to get our community and city to shine again. Or are we just too callous, self absorbed, and lacking in basic human instincts to give a damn? It’s time to take some responsibility for the mess we are in, because no mayor, councilmember, president, Congress, nor anyone else is going to make a difference on our block. It’s time for each of us to take on our own mess and turn the problem around in our own neighborhood, in front of our home or apartment building, and on the street where we live. If help is needed, let’s find out who can work with us and then together help solve the problem. But let’s get the problems fixed.  

Let’s start again to make this one very special city, let’s change America now in our own community before the next visitor comes in from yet one more country and laughs at the disarray they see. “Seedy,” one visitor from Montreal said the other night over coffee at a café on Telegraph Avenue and I felt ashamed for all of us. Let’s make a difference before we all lose this one great place to live, work, visit, and enjoy! This could be a clean community again if we only try. Yes we can! 

Stevanne Auerbach is a writer and Berkeley resident.  

The Berkeley Public Library has formally requested an exemption from the requirements of the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act and the Oppressive States Compliance Resolution so it can sign a contract with 3M for maintenance of the library’s radio-frequency identification (RFID) self-checkout system.  

The 3M company reportedly took over sales and servicing of the library’s Checkpoint equipment earlier this year—and 3M reportedly refused to sign standard City of Berkeley forms stating that it does not engage in “work for nuclear weapons” and does not work with states defined by the city as oppressive. 

The Library’s request was heard at the Dec. 1 meeting of the Peace and Justice Commission. Due to the inadequacy of the library’s proposal, the commission tabled the matter until its Jan. 5, 2009 meeting. 

Nine members of the public were present to ask the commission to vote against any waiver, despite short notice and the just-concluded Thanksgiving weekend. Speakers included representatives of Code Pink, SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense), the Library Users Association, and the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarians. Several speakers suggested use of bar codes as an alternative to the present RFID system, as they are widely used, inexpensive, and continue to be attached to the library’s materials. 

The library proposes to enter into a three-year contract, with an option for two single-year extensions, with 3M for the purchase of maintenance services and materials pertaining to the existing RFID self check-out system. The library estimates the fiscal year 2009 cost to be $70,000 for “increased equipment failure as a result of aging equipment [only three years old!] as well as ongoing costs of proprietary material…. This expense is projected to increase in future years as equipment nears its life cycle end.” 

The library’s exemption request is presented in a Nov. 10 letter to Peace and Justice Commission Chair, Robert Meola. (Councilmember Worthington reports this letter was not included in the Peace and Justice Commission packet he received.) In this letter it is stated that Checkpoint, the original contractor for the RFID self-checkout system, “partnered with and conferred upon 3M the exclusive worldwide rights as reseller and customer service provider of Checkpoint’s line of library inventory…. [A]s a consequence of this agreement . . . the library is obliged to contract with 3M.” The library then threatens that “should the library be compelled to engage a middleman vendor—for a limited selection of material only—costs would be expected to be substantially higher than a direct purchase through 3M.” By using a middleman, Berkeley’s taxpayers’ money would still end up supporting 3M, a company actually or potentially involved with nuclear weapons-related work and with oppressive states, meaning the Tibet Autonomous Region, Kham, and U-Tsang (Res. No. 59853 N.S.) 

The library and city sent representatives who indicated that Checkpoint had partnered with 3M in early 2008, well before the Checkpoint contract expired this June, 2008. Burning questions are: (1) Did Berkeley citizens end up indirectly supporting the nuclear industry in violation of its citizens mandated Nuclear Free Berkeley Act during the last months of the Checkpoint contract? (2) Why did the library wait for almost six months from the expiration of the contract to request being on the P&J agenda for Dec. 1 following the four-day Thanksgiving weekend? 

There are three criteria that must be considered for a waiver of the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act even to be considered. The library’s request did not provide sufficient information to consider these criteria which are: (1) “The intent and purpose of the act;” (2) “The availability of alternative services, goods, and equipment…;” and (3) “Quantifiable additional costs resulting from use of available alternatives.” The request for a waiver of the Oppressive States Compliance Resolution was not addressed by the Peace and Justice Commission or the members of the public who were unaware of the request or perhaps unfamiliar with the resolution. 

The intent and purpose of the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act is “to oppose the arms race” and “to minimize city contracts with … the nuclear weapons industry.” (Sec. 12.90.020, Purpose.) The library did not address how signing a contract with 3M would support this criterion. (2) The library did not provide an alternative, stating, “there is not another provider or services in regards to the installed Checkpoint proprietary system.” (3) Since the library did not provide an alternative, it also did not quantify additional costs for use of an alternative. 

SuperBOLD and others maintain there is an alternative that may well cost less than the current deteriorating RFID self-service checkout system, that is, the use of long-standing, reliable, and readily-available bar code technology. It is used by the vast majority of the more than 30,000 libraries in the United States—by contrast, only a few hundred use RFID. Bar code technology allows all of the features of self-service check-out and check-in, and the library could easily re-institute this approach. 

Rather than quantifying the costs of a bar code system, probably because the library could not show quantifiable additional costs for that system, interestingly the library suggested there would be additional costs that would occur through the 3M contract as the Checkpoint System “nears its life cycle end.” 

Did the Board of Library Trustees consider the life expectancy of RFID when they contracted with Checkpoint? Did they anticipate that there would be annual maintenance costs for which Checkpoint would charge $35,000 per year or know that Checkpoint was a proprietary system which could be “conferred” on another company which now asks a start-up price for maintenance of $70,000 for the first year—more than double the previous price—to keep the system alive for the last few years of its “life cycle”? 

If you do not want the City of Berkeley to violate the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act—a citizens’ initiative that citizens approved in 1986 by a massive 68 percent, or two-to-one margin—or do business with morally repugnant regimes, please write to the Peace and Justice Commission. Please also attend the Commission’s Monday, Jan. 5, 2009 meeting at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, at Hearst and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, and ask the commission to deny a waiver of the Nuclear Free Berkeley and the Oppressive States Compliance Resolution. We also suggest sending a copy of any letters to the City Council care of the city clerk, as the City Council has final say over whether a waiver is granted.  

Gene Bernardi and Peter Warfield are members of SuperBOLD, Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense. 

Controversial and costly changes are planned for Berkeley High School (BHS) as a way to help close the achievement gap. BHS administrators claim that the addition of advisories, block scheduling and another small school will improve standardized test scores and college preparedness for African American and Latino students. While the goal is laudable, the effectiveness of the proposed changes remains questionable at best. The BUSD Board should be critically assessing the costs of implementation of the reforms against a realistic appraisal of the benefits.  

These changes are part of a strategy advanced by Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES) to convert Berkeley High from a large comprehensive school to a mix of smaller learning communities. BayCES consultants assisted Berkeley High educators in developing the recently revealed high school redesign plan. One consequence of the redesign plan is a significant reduction in the time students will spend receiving academic instruction—up to 25 percent. BHS may not benefit from these changes, but BayCES will. According to the Smaller Learning Community grant proposal budget submitted to the U.S. Department of Education (USDE), BayCES and its partners stand to gain $865,000 in consulting fees.  

Next year Berkeley High administrators plan to rearrange the school day by instituting block scheduling (increasing class periods from 55 minutes to 90 minutes) and adding an advisory period. They also intend to add a new small school. These changes will make it even more difficult to manage the already cumbersome and ineffective high school bureaucracy. Teachers will need to re-tool their curricula, staff will need to be trained as “advisors,” teacher contracts will have to be renegotiated to compensate for the increased work load from 150 to 170 students, and many new classrooms will have to appear miraculously to accommodate the 160 advisory classes of 20 students each. Because the school day remains unchanged, time in academic subjects will be sacrificed to advisories and a “free” period for “student support and community access.”  

In February 2008, without approval of the School Board or the superintendent, BayCES submitted a grant application to USDE in the name of BUSD requesting Federal funds to finance these high school reforms. The reforms came with a $5.3 million price tag. USDE approved a grant for $1 million with the requirement that BUSD pony up the remaining $4.3 million from BUSD’s general fund and Berkeley’s parcel tax, Measure A.  

As a condition of the grant, USDE placed a requirement that the board give legal assurances to the Feds that the proposal will be fully funded and implemented. In August with very little public knowledge the board approved the conditions of the grant. Certainly few Berkeley residents are aware that none of the $1 million grant will actually go to Berkeley High classrooms. Instead, approximately $690,000 will go to outside contractors and the remainder will fund a portion of the teacher release time so teachers can receive instructional coaching from BayCES. Moreover, BayCES was paid $10,000 to write the grant proposal. To make matters even worse, when the School Board accepted the grant, they committed $4.3 million for the non-Federal share of the project cost from the school district’s own coffers. 

More money in consultants’ pockets 

In 2003 BayCES became a contractor to BUSD providing consulting services to create four small schools within Berkeley High. Their services were paid from a private one-time $1 million grant from the Gates Foundation that ran out in 2007. During 2008, BayCES was paid an additional $178,000 by BUSD for small schools coaching and consulting services out of the BUSD general fund, the California State School Site Discretionary Block Grant, and other sources.  

According to the USDE grant proposal budget, BayCES will receive $865,000 in consulting fees over the next five years. BayCES coaches are billed at a rate of $850 to $1,500 per day. Why Berkeley High administrators support paying outside contractors at a rate of $110 to $185 per hour when they pay beginning teachers $30 per hour is an issue the community may wish to explore.  

Illusory benefits 

According to the grant proposal, “anticipated project outcomes include improved standardized test scores and college preparedness for African American and Latino students.” The grant proposal claims that the combination of advisories, block scheduling and an additional small school will improve achievement for all students by 17 percentage points in English and 16 percentage points in math over current proficiency levels.  

No data has ever been produced to support the claim that advisories, block scheduling and the addition of another small school at BHS will have any positive effect on student achievement. In fact, reliable research indicates these measures are neutral at best and, in the case of block scheduling, can harm learning in foreign language, math and science classes. 

BHS small schools strategy shows declines in student achievement 

After five years of resources and effort, the creation of four small schools may have increased personalization for students and teachers in those schools. However, it has not produced any gains in student academic achievement. In fact, student achievement (as measured by percent of students proficient or above) at Berkeley High and in the four small schools (AHA, CAS, CPA, and SSJE) has declined in both English Language Arts (ELA) and math (see chart).  

BUSD has already been subject to $2.5 million in budget cuts this year and faces difficult mid-year cuts as well. Our schools can’t afford changes that incur real costs and provide illusory benefits. Tell our School Board it would be prudent and wise for them to rescind the commitment they made to the USDE in light of the economic deterioration of the last six weeks.  

(For USDE Smaller Learning Community Grant see BUSD website, Aug. 11, 2008 board packet.) 

Priscilla Myrick is a former chief financial officer and Berkeley High School Governance Council parent representative.  

The non-profit organization I work with, Berkeley Neighborhood Antena-Free Union (BNAFU), asks all Berkeley residents to join our cause this coming Tuesday evening, 7 p.m. at the Berkeley City Council meeting located at Old City Hall, 2134 MLK Jr. Blvd. On the agenda will be telecom demands for cell antennas at two more flatlands locations, the French Hotel in North Berkeley and 1725 University Avenue. 

The Verizon mega-antennas at UC Storage have been activated after three years of community struggle against Verizon Wireless, Patrick Kennedy, and the City of Berkeley. These antennas face directly into neighboring homes.  

Meanwhile, BNAFU continues its lawsuit against Verizon, Kennedy, and the City of Berkeley. This lawsuit is based on what we believe to have been an illegal City Council vote last November. At that time five City Council members voted to overturn the Berkeley Zoning Board’s decision opposing the Verizon antenna application for UC Storage. 

The effort to overturn the ZAB was supported by Linda Maio, who, with her husband, had been negotiating a real estate purchase with Patrick Kennedy, owner of UC Storage. Kennedy stands to earn thousands of dollars each month for renting his walls to Verizon. These facts suggest a conflict of interest on Linda Maio’s part. 

A picket line will assemble this Sunday morning from 10 a.m.-12 noon at the French Hotel to protest the Verizon antennas to be installed at that location next. 

BNAFU’s position is that our city must develop a city-wide antenna master plan now. We ask the City Council to reject any more cell antenna applications until the City develops a scientifically sound and community-friendly master plan for antenna placement and a city ordinance to back up this plan. At this point in the ongoing evolution of this issue, it has become clear that Berkeley needs to bring together a committee of experts in the field of geography, engineering, telecommunications, and health to establish such a plan and ordinance. And this is a perfectly feasible course of action for Berkeley to take. 

The rational for this action is the following: 

1. The recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision grants greater local control over antenna siting unless a cell phone company is being prohibited from serving its customers in Berkeley. This is not the case here. 

2. Local Verizon store employees have told us and shown us through their computer-generated maps that coverage in Berkeley’s flatlands receives these companies’ highest ratings for excellence. 

3. A primary role of the Council is to protect Berkeley citizens from unnecessary corporate intrusion in terms of negative health consequences and aesthetics. 

4. Cell antenna distribution has been very inequitable. Antennas are currently being installed solely on the basis of what cell companies tell the Council that the companies need to provide adequate customer service. Meanwhile, we customers and citizens are saying that our cell phones work fine, but our peace of mind is being threatened by mega-antennas pointing into our homes. 

5. Antenna placement decisions are not deploying the latest, safer, micro cell antenna technology. Use of this technology would make antenna distribution more equitable (i.e. not so concentrated in the Berkeley flatlands and less threatening to residents. 

6. Our current ordinance, according to Wendy Cosin, head of Berkeley’s cell antennas project, is probably legal at this point because of the recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. The city should stand behind our ordinance and not be intimidated by the Verizon lawsuit. 

You can find out more about our group and our effort at antennafree.com. 

Michael Barglow is a South Berkeley resident. 

The small minority of Berkeley residents who are die-hard opponents of Bus Rapid Transit have not changed after their overwhelming loss in the recent election, where Measure KK was defeated by a margin of more than three to one.  

The same familiar faces who always are there to oppose BRT showed up once again at AC Transit’s last board meeting. According to the Daily Planet’s report, they claimed that Measure KK was not really about BRT but about good government, and that Measure KK lost only because the opposition spent more money on their campaign. They even held up the anti-KK mailer with a picture of a polar bear on it, as if this somehow discredited the campaign against KK. 

Their claims make no sense. 

First, the supporters of measure KK themselves defined this vote as a referendum on AC Transit’s current BRT proposal. If you look at the letters and opinion pieces in the Daily Planet supporting KK, you will see that almost all of them are about the current AC Transit proposal and not about good government. As a supporter of public transportation, I found it exasperating that KK supporters constantly talked about this one BRT proposal and did not even mention that the initiative would have also made it harder to build any light rail or BRT project in the future. 

The voters overwhelmingly rejected this campaign against AC Transit’s proposal to build BRT on Telegraph Ave. 

Second, even if we ignore their campaign and just look at the text of the initiative, it is clear that the initiative would have done one thing: make it more difficult to convert automobile lanes into exclusive transit lanes. The anti-BRT crowd constantly harps on the problems that would be caused by converting a automobile lane into a transit lane, such as traffic congestion and loss of parking. They ignore the fact that AC Transit has promised to mitigate these problems. 

The voters overwhelming rejected their attempt to make it more difficult to convert lanes into exclusive transit lanes. 

Third, their talk about the amount of money spent on the campaign might have some merit if the results of the vote were close. But, in reality, they lost by a margin of more than three to one. If most Berkeley voters were against exclusive transit lanes, no amount of money would have influenced enough voters to create such a large landslide against Measure KK. 

The voters support better public transit, and the anti-transit crowd is just a small, conservative minority. In fact, they are not just a minority within Berkeley: the state has passed SB 375 to fight global warming by promoting transit and smart growth, and President-elect Obama has said that he wants to tie federal transportation funding to smart growth, showing that Berkeley’s anti-transit, anti-smart-growth crowd represents a conservative minority within California and within the United States as a whole. 

Fourth, I cannot understand the anti-transit crowd’s irrational aversion to polar bears. They seem to think that the polar-bear mailer was a distraction from the real issue, but in fact, global warming is the real issue, the biggest issue that we face in the coming century. The possible extinction of the polar bears is probably the most dramatic and best known symbol of the impact of global warming. There is consensus among environmentalists that we need to promote public transportation to combat global warming. It was perfectly appropriate to have a mailer saying that Measure KK would have interfered with Berkeley’s attempts to combat global warming by encouraging use of public transportation. 

The voters overwhelmingly rejected Measure KK because they are concerned about global warming. 

I think we all know that some people in Berkeley are against everything. If the angel Gabriel blew his trumpet and a voice came out of the heavens saying that the millennium has arrived and there will be one thousand years of peace and prosperity, there would be people in Berkeley who would react by saying: “I’m against it, because it might make it harder for me to find a parking space.” 

And those people would have familiar faces. They would be the same people that we always see at meetings speaking against Bus Rapid Transit. 

Charles Siegel is a Berkeley resident. 

As I watched the Obamadrama I was impressed by the number of connections Barack made to past presidents. President Clinton spoke at his nomination. Support from Ted and Caroline Kennedy promoted favorable comparisons to RFK and JFK. Many remarked on his similarities to FDR and Lincoln. And the Bushes showed the Obamas around the White House and gave them tips on living there. 

Through it all, though, I saw almost nothing about Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, who held office from 1977 to 1981. Although Carter, a Democrat, indicated early on that he (and his family) supported Obama, I saw almost no coverage of him campaigning for Obama, no shots of Carter and the candidate conferring or even shaking hands. And President Carter did not speak at the Democratic Convention. There was only a short video of his work in post Katrina New Orleans followed by a quick walk by he and his wife, Rosalynn, across the stage. They didn’t say a word. 

Carter has also been absent from Obama’s post-election world. The Obamas have not met with the Carters or sought their advice even when it would be logical to do so. The Carters’ daughter Amy, for instance, was 9 when they moved into the White House (she attended public school and had a cat.) More relevant, perhaps, is that Carter was elected during an energy crisis. While in office he established a Department of Energy and coordinated a national energy policy that attempted to reduce our reliance on oil, develop alternative energy sources and get Americans to practice conservation in their daily lives. And he practiced what he preached. He lowered the thermostat in the White House, wore sweaters and installed solar panels on the roof. During his presidency foreign oil imports were reduced by 50 percent. Many believe we would not have the magnitude of the problem we do today if his policies had been continued by subsequent administrations. 

While Carter may not have been a great president, given the quality of our nation’s recent leaders, he wasn’t bad. He was never accused of conspiracy, burglary, money laundering, election fraud, lying to congress, accepting bribes, circumventing U.S. embargoes, illegally surveilling political opponents or committing sexual indiscretions with a person not his spouse. 

And many of Carter’s policies during his administration were downright progressive by today’s standards. He established the Department of Education. In order for us to move swiftly in times of natural disasters, he made FEMA a free-standing and professionally run agency directly answerable to the President. He favored diplomacy in resolving international conflicts. He stood firmly for human rights and pressured dictators we supported to end abuses as well as those we opposed. He forged a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel and gave Panama back the canal. He was in favor of racial desegregation and expanding African-Americans’ rights. His was the first administration to meet with a group of gay rights activists. And even though he is an evangelical Christian, he understood the need for the separation of church and state. 

After leaving office 27 years ago Carter has continued working for humanitarian concerns and is the closest we have to an elder statesman. In 1981 he and Rosalynn founded The Carter Center, a not-for-profit NGO that works to advance human rights, promote democracy and alleviate unnecessary human suffering. He has traveled to over 130 countries to observe elections, conduct peace negotiations and improve global health. He is also a key figure in Habitat for Humanity. In 2002 President Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work “to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” He is one of The Elders, a group of former world leaders and prominent rights activists that was launched last year to celebrate Mandela’s 89th birthday and which has mediated in a number of international crises. 

I had been looking forward to hearing Carter speak at the convention and was puzzled when a “scheduling change” left him speechless and the video was played instead. Since not having a former president, particularly a healthy, active one, speak at a convention is a rather major slight I began watching the news and blogs to find out what was going on. 

I discovered the media to be quite silent on this topic, however. Not even rumors from unnamed sources made their way into the mainstream or even alternative media. The only place I saw it discussed at length was in the Israeli and U.S. Jewish news. From these I learned that according to a variety of sources Carter’s marginalization was brought about by pressure from pro-Israeli Jews who have been unhappy with his 2006 book accusing Israel of practicing apartheid against the Palestinians as well as with his continuing criticism of Israel’s 40-plus year military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. 

If this is true, if his criticism of Israel was the reason for sidelining Carter, I can’t help but feel that the Obamaites made a serious mistake. Carter was and is an honest and principled man who has accomplished much during his lifetime. He deserves some honor from his party. 

I am also uneasy about the Democrats lack of openness on their reasons for marginalizing Carter. This suggests they fear that if the truth were known it would alienate a significant portion of their base—perhaps not only the left leaning pro-Palestinian faction and the more moderate pro-Carter Democrats but also many of those Midwest America Firsters who believe that none of our country’s policies should be dictated by a foreign power. 

The silencing of Carter (as well as the silence about him) also plays into the Republican strategy. The right is already pushing the perception of Obama as the new Carter. It is in their interest to do so as Carter was a one-term president who came into office as an honest outsider after the debacle of Nixon at a time when the Republican party was in disarray. Four years later (brought together by their opposition to Carter) they successfully swept Reagan into office and heralded in their Golden Years. By making a Carter-Obama connection the Republicans keep alive the hope of doing this once again. And by pushing Carter far into the closet the Democrats send the message they have something to hide. This makes any misinformation the Republicans put out about Carter difficult to counter and ensures that any connection (real or allegorical) they can make between Carter and Obama will be to the detriment of the President Elect. 

By disrespecting President Carter the Democrats also miss a great opportunity. Carter, who still lives in a small town in Georgia, is an evangelical Christian who teaches Sunday School at his church. As a white, rural, faith based Southern populist he represents a kind of voter the Democrats have for so long failed to attract. Except for Carter’s 1976 election when he carried all the South but Virginia, the Democrats have not carried the region since the days of Lyndon Johnson. (Obama won only Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.) Using bridges like Carter could be key to turning this around. 

This past week Georgia Republican Senator Chambliss won the runoff election depriving the Democrats of a filibuster proof Senate. Gov. Palin campaigned vigorously for him. The 2012 campaign has already begun. 

On Nov. 23, an eloquent and moving memorial celebration for former Green Party of California gubernatorial candidate Peter Miguel Camejo was held at UC Berkeley’s International House. 

Featured speakers during the event included Ralph Nader (who tapped Peter to be his 2004 vice-presidential candidate), former San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzales, foreign diplomats, family, and several of Peter’s colleagues and friends from his 68-year life and career. 

In the aftermath of Peter’s memorial celebration it is important to recognize Peter’s critical contributions to the Green Party of California’s continuing development: Peter was perhaps single-handedly responsible for re-energizing and enabling the Green Party to become a viable third party political force in California’s electoral landscape. 

Peter’s watershed 2002 California gubernatorial campaign laid the foundation for the Green Party’s subsequent electoral successes at the local, municipal and county levels statewide over the last six years. 

In 2002, Peter received California’s highest third party vote total in 68 years—since 1934—capturing significant voter percentages in a dozen counties across Northern California, including 17 percent in Mendocino, 14 percent in Sonoma and 12 percent in both Santa Cruz and Marin among other counties. 

In San Francisco, Peter captured 15 percent of the city’s vote—placing second ahead of the Republican Party’s gubernatorial candidate—an unprecedented electoral accomplishment for a third party in San Francisco and California. 

Peter’s highly visible, energetic 2002 campaign subsequently led to his appearance on a televised gubernatorial candidate debate broadcast during the 2003 recall campaign against Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. Peter used his televised debate opportunity to articulate the Green Party’s core values and principles to a statewide audience of millions. 

Peter’s example and tireless party work served as an inspiration to potential Green Party candidates across California. Peter’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign was the precursor to the election—or near election—of several high profile Green Party candidates. 

Former Green Party San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzales successfully harnessed the voter energy precipitated by Peter’s gubernatorial run and nearly toppled Democrat Gavin Newsom during San Francisco’s 2003 razor-thin mayoral run-off election. 

Newsom found it necessary to recruit former president Bill Clinton to make a last-minute campaign appearance on Newsom’s behalf—and spend hundreds of thousands of extra dollars—to ward off Gonzales’ unexpectedly strong, electoral challenge. 

Perhaps the most significant Green Party election success following Peter’s run was Gayle McLaughlin’s 2006 upset victory for mayor of the City of Richmond, the first large California city over 100,000 citizens to elect a Green mayor. 

Ms. McLaughlin’s victory was all the more impressive given that she defeated a sitting Democratic Party incumbent mayor at the time. 

In 2004, inspired by Peter, Rebecca Kaplan, a Green Party candidate for Oakland City Council, received 44 percent of Oakland’s city-wide vote against incumbent Democrat Henry Chang. Kaplan’s 2004 campaign subsequently laid the foundation for her election victory this past Nov. 4 as Oakland’s at-large city councilmember-elect. 

Although Ms. Kaplan choose to relinquish her Green Party membership prior to her 2008 election, the fact remains that Ms. Kaplan—because of her Green Party connection—is potentially the most progressive and environmentally conscious official to have ever been elected to the Oakland City Council. Oakland’s long history of an entrenched, self-perpetuating political status quo has been punctured with Ms. Kaplan’s election. 

Meanwhile, another Oakland Green Party member, current KPFA Morning Show presenter Aimee Allison, nearly upset incumbent Oakland City Council Democrat Pat Kernighan in a closely contested 2006 race. Ms. Allison’s campaign brought together a diverse, broad-based coalition of citizens and activists that shook to the core Oakland’s entrenched political establishment. 

Since Peter’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Green Party candidates have been elected or re-elected to Supervisor or City Council seats in San Francisco, Santa Monica, Sabastopol, Sonoma, Fairfax, Arcata, and many other California municipalities. 

As of November, 2008 Green Party members held at least 53 elected offices across California at the local, municipal and county levels, including the mayors of Richmond, Sebastopol, Moraga and Marina. 

Along with recently deceased Green Party Berkeley City Councilmember Dona Spring, Peter was a giant in the party: a forceful presence who will be nearly irreplaceable for his political skills, passion and knowledge. 

One of the most important legacies shared by both Peter and Dona was their deep commitment to building and developing the Green Party of California. This is a project that all active Green Party members must renew and redouble in their personal and political efforts at all levels. Knowing Peter, he would appreciate this. 

Chris Kavanagh is a member and a former Central Councilmember of the Green Party of Alameda County,

The two-year long season of criticism of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums—some of it thoughtful and reasoned, some of it thoughtless and unreasonable—has tended to set an arbitrary standard and then judged the mayor against it. Is crime and violence in the city at a “reasonable” level, for example, or are there “enough” new retail outlets or employee-generating businesses being built in Oakland; is there enough “transparency” at City Hall, or is the mayor is putting the time and energy into his job that should be expected? 

Those seem fair and reasonable questions to ask. Most Oakland residents want crime and violence to come down and revenue and jobs to come up, most want to know more about what’s happening in our government so that we can judge its effectiveness and how our tax money is being spent, and most want our city officials to refrain from slacking off. 

The problem, of course, is in setting standards by which such judgments can be made. We don’t have to all agree on the standards—in fact, it is certain that we will not. But in the absence of some standard, even a self-identified one, criticism is reduced to mere carping. 

Mr. Dellums won the 2006 mayoral election in large part because of the enormous reputation he gained in Congress fighting (and many times leading) in such epic battles as the struggle to end the war in Vietnam or to destroy apartheid in South Africa. In many ways, the undertow of bewilderment and disappointment in some city circles over Mr. Dellums’ two-year mayoral administration stems from the mayor’s failure to repeat those successes on Oakland streets. How could the man who took on the Afrikaaners or the American military-industrial complex not be able to solve Oakland’s problems? That bewilderment and disappointment is what fuels the Dellums criticism and gives it life. 

It is fair to hold Mr. Dellums to a standard of performance and expectation (so long as such standards and expectations are reasonable and defined). However, because elections are an exercise in choice—you vote either for one candidate or the other—it also seems prudent to ask two questions in order to put the Oakland situation in perspective. 

First: would Oakland have been better off today if Mr. Dellums’ closest opponent, Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, had won the 2006 race? Second: rather than a possible second four-year Dellums term, would Oakland be better off if, as some of the mayor’s critics are beginning to loudly urge, Mr. De La Fuente’s political mentor, the now-former state Senate president, Don Perata, were to run and win the mayor’s seat in 2010? 

There are many areas in which to make such a judgment. Today, let us examine one of them. Whatever the criticism of Mr. Dellums as mayor, no one so far has accused him of practicing the politics of vindictiveness, letting vendettas against individuals get in the way of his policy decisions. Both Mr. Perata and Mr. De La Fuente are famous for such practices, and if either one were to become Oakland mayor, such practices would almost certainly form an integral part of the way they governed the city. 

For a recent example of the potential destructiveness such politics of vindictiveness and vendetta would bring to the city, you have only to look at Mr. De La Fuente’s recent attempt to redraw the criteria for council pay-go funds. 

Pay-go (short for “pay as you go”) is the $200,000 in city money the mayor and each of the eight Oakland councilmembers receive in order to pay for various city projects of their choice (the $200,000 figure was cut in half recently in the current budget crisis). When the funds were originally established under former City Manager Robert Bobb in the ’90s, they were tied exclusively to capital projects. Since that time, however, the source of the money has been changed from the capital bond fund to the general fund, and the guidelines for the expenditures were expanded beyond simply capital projects. It’s a small pot of money out of a large city budget that, within certain guidelines, can be used at the officeholder’s discretion. The money can be used to fund worthwhile projects in the city. It can also be used as a political slush fund, to help incumbent councilmembers or the mayor get or keep favor among their constituents and to beat off challengers to their council or mayoral seat. Or it can do both. Politics and money intertwine, so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate them. 

In early November, as part of his recent, loudly proclaimed efforts to “end corruption” in City Hall, Mr. De La Fuente proposed making changes to the criteria for pay-go-funded projects. “There has been continued confusion and concern about what types of expenditures are pay-go eligible and whether pay-go funds may be granted to private entities,” the council president wrote. To eliminate that confusion, Mr. De La Fuente proposed that the council adopt new pay-go guidelines that eliminated, among other things, use of the money for “food, clothing, (and) entertainment.” 

One of the pay-go projects that Mr. De La Fuente’s new criteria would have eliminated was the free outdoor concert series at East Oakland’s Arroyo Viejo Park, sponsored each year by 6th District Councilmember Desley Brooks. While Ms. Brooks does not pay for the concert performers out of pay-go, she does use the money to rent sound systems and to put up a portable stage for the events. 

For the past several years, I’ve written often about those concerts, summing up my feelings about them in an August column this year: “Three to four times a summer, for the past several years, Ms. Brooks has been holding free concerts at Arroyo Viejo Park at the far southern end of her council district. Arroyo sits in the middle of one of the roughest areas of Oakland, surrounded by one of the city’s most violent killing fields, the center of one of its drug trafficking hubs and close to the prostitute stroll between 73rd and 98th along International Boulevard. When they began, many people privately predicted that Ms. Brooks’ events would quickly end in violence, as did Mosswood Park’s Carijama some years before. They did not. … Whereas in the beginning, when the Brooks events first started, there was an uneasy anticipation of problems, now people come out with the expectation that they are going to have nothing but a good time, with no violence marring. … It is the first step in re-creating an East Oakland ‘community,’ where residents learn to trust each other and their ability to retake their streets and parks and schools and business districts, reclaiming them for community and family benefit. For those of us who believe that Oakland’s violent neighborhoods must be rehabilitated from within, by their own residents—rather than ‘pacified’ from without—it is a major step, a small, planted seed that has been steadily growing, to bear fruit in later years.” 

Were Mr. De La Fuente’s new criteria aimed specifically at pay-go projects sponsored by Ms. Brooks? Given the long and ongoing feud between the two councilmembers—beginning with Ms. Brooks’ failure to vote for Mr. De La Fuente as council president at her first council meeting, continuing through Mr. De La Fuente’s sponsorship of Peralta Trustee Marcie Hodge to run against Ms. Brooks for the 6th District Council seat in 2006—that seems an appropriate question to ask. And although most of Ms. Brooks’ pay-go projects would come under the new De La Fuente criteria, others of them—such as providing food and entertainment for volunteers to build children’s play structures in 6th District city parks—would also have been eliminated. 

In fact, after Ms. Brooks sent out an alert email for supporters to come to the November 18 council meeting where the pay-go issue was to be decided, Mr. De La Fuente appeared to acknowledge in a responsive e-mail that the new criteria were, at least in part, aimed at Ms. Brooks.  

“Some council members,” he wrote, “chose to use this General Fund Pay-go money to pay for entertainment, food, tent rentals, special events, DJs, to ‘create a festive atmosphere,’ and even hotel rooms. I think this practice is completely unacceptable. … Not only do Councilmember Brooks’ expenses not adhere to the original intent of the Pay-go program, they are also extremely expensive. … I fully support special events and festivals—but there are other means which council members can pay for these.” 

After a large number of citizens came out in support of Ms. Brooks’ pay-go projects, including the summer concert series, councilmembers rejected Mr. De La Fuente’s proposals on a voice vote. 

The disturbing part of this whole exercise, however, is that it came in the middle of a widely acknowledged crime and violence crisis in the city, in which both residents and city officials are scrambling to find a solution. That the council would consider gutting one solution—which involves little city money and works to permanently solve the problem on a long-term basis from within the community itself, rather than using the short-term solution of simply arresting more people—seems madness. This is particularly true in light of the fact that Mr. De La Fuente’s criteria for the pay-go money, rather than enhancing accountability, seemed entirely arbitrary. The new criteria would have, for example, continued to allow councilmembers to fund capital projects outside their own council district, something that Mr. De La Fuente openly acknowledged having done prior to the 2006 election, and something that critics at the November 18 meeting charged was done solely to enhance the council president’s run for mayor that year. 

There are many things for which to criticize Mayor Dellums. I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. But criticism must be balanced with an honest assessment. While we are criticizing the mayor for things we feel he has not done, we ought to also acknowledge that he has not appeared to let personal vendettas and political vindictiveness get in the way of policy decisions. Oakland has had far too much of that. I, for one, am glad that it seems to not be practiced in the mayor’s office, at least for the current term. 

When Barack Obama becomes the 44th president of the United States, he will face a daunting set of economic problems. Incoming presidents usually have a honeymoon period of 100 days when positive public sentiment insures passage of key components of their platform. Given a narrow window of Congressional bipartisanship, Obama’s economic priorities are clear. 

Fiscal stimulus 

With America in deep recession, our new president’s highest priority will be jumpstarting the economy, sending an electric shock into the market to motivate businesses and consumers to begin buying again. The issues are the size of the stimulus and its contents. 

Congress is considering a relief package in the range of $500 billion to place on Obama’s desk on Jan. 20. However, many economists believe more funds are required; they argue an effective stimulus will cost upwards of $1 trillion. 

Some elements of the pending plan have broad support: extension of unemployment insurance; expansion of food assistance for the disabled, elderly, and poor—currently 27.8 million individuals receive food stamps; and funds to prevent state cutbacks in critical safety-net programs such as Medicaid. 

There is also agreement that several million jobs need to be created.  

Obama talks about 2.5 million jobs but economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that a realistic number is more than five million. So far, three job-creation strategies have been proposed, all of which funnel dollars through states and municipalities. The first funds people, particularly teachers and medical personnel. Advocates argue that the most bang for the federal buck would come from a tight focus on education and healthcare. However, many analysts feel the scope of a people-intensive effort should extend beyond schools and hospitals to “first responders” in general, expand American domestic security by employing more fire, police, and public health professionals. 

The second strategy emphasizes infrastructure—repair of America’s bridges, dams, roads, and public facilities such as schools and hospitals. To be effective infrastructure projects would need to be run by local contractors, employ American workers, and focus on relatively low-tech repairs. (At this early stage, what aren’t required are massive high-tech infrastructure programs, such as building a high-speed rail line between New York and Boston, which would take too long to spur employment.) Advocates suggest a logical expansion of the initial infrastructure investment. Some funds could be allocated to “harden” defenses at facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack, such as chemical plants and shipping terminals. Many have proposed a large-scale energy-conservation initiative to weatherproof public buildings and install solar panels. A combination of these efforts would generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs. 

The third proposed strategy would generate additional “green jobs,” beyond the relatively modest efforts to make public facilities more energy efficient. While there is considerable public sentiment to eventually fund green projects, such as the construction of gigantic wind farms, there is no initiative that merits serious consideration during the first 100 days. 

Obviously, it makes no sense to focus on creation of new jobs and ignore the reality that the current economic decline threatens many existing jobs. Obama has promised to work with the beleaguered American auto industry to save as many jobs as possible. In addition, funneling money to states and municipalities will save many public sector jobs. 

Beginning Jan. 20, Obama needs to put Americans back to work. His challenge will be to do this fast enough to avoid further economic decline. 

Tax relief 

Candidate Obama promised a variety of tax cuts for working families and it’s likely that during the first 100 days Congress will enact these into law. Nonetheless, while middle-class tax cuts will have a psychological benefit—by indicating Obama’s intent to keep his campaign promises—they won’t stimulate the economy, as Americans will use the funds to pay down their debts. 

Mortgage relief 

Conspicuously missing from October’s $700 billion bailout package was homeowner relief; during 2009, roughly five million foreclosures are projected. While Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have taken sensible action to help troubled homeowners stay in their residences, other lenders have been slow to follow suit. Obama should take two actions: ask Congress to support legislation permitting bankrupt homeowners to have their mortgages lowered in court and endorse the plan developed by FDIC Chair Sheila Bair establishing a fund to refinance troubled mortgages and lower monthly payments. 

Recapitalizing financial institutions 

So far, Treasury Secretary Paulson’s use of the $700 billion bailout package has been remarkably cavalier. The Obama administration has to be hard-nosed about further relief for financial institutions: demand a greater equity stake and more stringent controls over spending—such as curtailment of dividend payments and executive bonuses. During Obama’s first 100 days in office, Congress will hold hearings about re-regulation of the financial service sector, but this is unlikely to produce legislation. 

By the middle of April, America will still be in recession. However, public confidence should improve if Obama takes forceful steps to provide relief. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.

The early November rains made me briefly hopeful, although that didn’t last long. They also seem to have faked out some of our local insects whose life cycles are keyed to changes in the weather. 

A few weeks ago I heard from one of the Save Strawberry Canyon folks that lady beetles (a more satisfactory name than ladybugs, or ladybirds) were swarming at the lower end of the canyon’s fire road, clustered on the dry stems of poison hemlock. She was surprised to see such an aggregation, but was told by a neighbor that this was an annual event. I was a little surprised too, having always considered this a Sierra phenomenon. 

But it turns out that lady beetle conventions of this kind are well-documented in the Coast Ranges as well. The species involved is the convergent lady beetle (Hippodamia convergens), so maybe we should call them convergences. How harmonic they are I couldn’t say. The beetles don’t seem to interact much; they all just show up simultaneously at the same spot.  

Sue Hubbell, in one of her wonderful insect essays collected in Broadsides from the Other Orders, says these gatherings are triggered by autumn rains. The lady beetles stay dormant through the cold wet months, rousing themselves and heading out for an aphid snack in February or March. I hope the false start of the rainy season hasn’t deranged their schedule too much. 

I’m less concerned about the fate of the termites that struck out to found new colonies after the recent rains. Those would be the western subterranean termite (Reticulotermes hesperus), the most destructive termite species in California according to the authoritative California Insects by emeritus UC professor Jerry Powell and the late Charles Hogue. In addition to the understructure of houses, R. hesperus damages fruit trees, grapevines, and the occasional potato. 

It appears that the first serious work on colony foundation in this species was done by Frances Weesner. At a time when female entomologists were uncommon, Weesner was associated with the UC entomology department in the 1940s and ‘50s. I don’t know whether she was a faculty member. She corresponded with a large network of pest control professionals, who would send her interesting things they had killed. 

Weesner kept careful track of emergences by the winged adult termites, or alates, around the Life Sciences Building for several consecutive years. Timing varied; most events were in October or November, with an outlying date of Aug. 29, 1951. The alates tended to take flight on the first clear day after a rainstorm, with colonies in warmer soil going first. Termite nests under buildings and pavement staged later emergences than those in an open courtyard. 

She reported that the winged termites often found a reception committee of hungry ants: “The ants are very active during emergence of the alates in the early fall and rapidly congregate around exit holes where they take a high toll of the alates.” If the ants got greedy and entered the diggings, the termite workers would seal the exit. 

Alates that successfully ran the ant gauntlet shed their wings and formed tandem pairs. Weesner didn’t say—and may not have known—whether mates from foreign colonies were favored. 

If a female lost her partner, she would assume an invitational posture and wait for another male. The pair, the incipient king and queen of a new dynasty, would wander around until they found a ready-made hole in the ground, which they then set out to enlarge. They never dug from the surface. 

Picking off her own supply of emergents, Weesner established colonies in her lab and monitored their progress. Her founding pairs waited from 13 to 36 hours before mating. Since females can store sperm for up to six months, she’d be all set for a while. A typical queen began her egg-laying career about a month after leaving her natal colony.  

Once workers began hatching, the colony was up and running. The soldier caste was slower to appear; in fact, only 18 of Weesner’s 2040 experimental colonies ever produced soldiers in the first six months of observation. 

I couldn’t find much more about western subterranean termites specifically. The genus Reticulotermes varies in social structure, from simple families with a monogamous founding pair to interconnected nests with inbreeding workers. (Unlike ants and bees, worker termites are not necessarily sterile.) Some species go through as many as eleven developmental stages and show a complex division of labor.  

Termites, unfortunately, have never found their E. O. Wilson or Karl Von Frisch. (There’s very little about them in the magisterial new volume by Wilson and Bert Holldobler, The Superorganism.) 

For a bunch of social cockroaches, they’ve done quite well for themselves, often at our expense. Formosan subterranean termites, for instance, have been blamed for weakening the New Orleans levees that gave way when Katrina struck. 

Few relationships in business or in life have the potential for spattered blood like the one held between contractor and client and it is for this reason that I would like to suggest some “rules of the road (sans rage)” for both contractor and client. While everyone likes to see themselves as being reasonable, thoughtful and fair, the truth is that we all have blind spots or simply become lazy. Watch drivers on any given day and you’ll see the proof. 

For the contractor, a few thoughts: 

Return calls: If you hang out a shingle, you’re making a commitment to reply to potential customers or those you’ve already worked with, within a day or so. I realize that this can be difficult and I’ve fallen down on this one myself but it says a lot about you and the profession. If you’re too busy to talk to the client right now, leave a message or make a brief call to say that you’re swamped and that you’ll try to get back to them soon. If you then take another week, your call will be welcome and you may just get the job. If it’s an old client with a problem or a question, you’ll have less steam to manage when you finally make time to come look at the leak.  

To the clients who never got that call back, try to keep in mind that small to midsize contractors have to wear too many hats (including secretary) and may be fantastic at the work and lousy at the phone call (or accounting, or employee management or...) 

Next, try to keep the jobsite neat and clean. There are few things that will initiate erosion of the relationship between Mrs. Jablonsky and her plumber faster than a mess in the bathroom, dust all around the house or tools strewn thoughtlessly about after all the guys have left. Taking time to clean up the site at the end of the day allows you to review your thoughts (have a pad and pen because you’ll realize you need a new blade, a new bit, you’re out of 2x4’s or those three inch screws you need) and leave your tools and materials neatly ready to greet you the next morning. It’s really nice to start the day in a clean workspace. It’s safer and you’ll move much faster but you’ll also find that your client will feel cared for, respected and generally grateful. This will surely manifest itself in more positive ways than I can enumerate. 

A nice easy trick for jobs that tend to generate dust (sanding, sheetrock installation, sawing) is to install a plastic barrier wall between the work area and the rest of the living space. Use medium thickness plastic sheeting and the painter’s blue tape to mount this on walls, ceilings and flooring. Then slice down the middle and install a sticky-back zipper (found at many lumber yards). If this is too constraining, you can cut a slot out at the bottom (with a piece of tape for resealing) for moving through and when you zip up.  

This will also be received by the client as a sign that you care as much about the happiness of the client as you do about the progress payment. In fact, you can care about the payment alone but if you demonstrate concern and thoughtfulness, you’ll still be well received for these measures. You don’t have to be a saint. 

Communicate, communicate, communicate. The single most frequent complaint I hear about people in construction isn’t that they weren’t cheap enough (you hear this before the work starts, not after). It is that they didn’t ask if the client liked the color before it went on the wall; which way the door should swing; where the light switch should be located; which way the flooring should run or what time they’ll be dropping by. We all have cell phones now so there’s no excuse except for the fact that the economy’s awful and we’re all overworked (which is valid but, hey, it usually just takes a minute). 

Now, that said, Mr. Jablonsky, Please, when Phil asks you which color you want, try to give him and answer and let him get on with his job. He may be hangin’ out at your house but he’s on the clock. We contractors often like to swing our jaws but we also fear for hurting our client’s feelings by starting to cut wood again, so we may kill another 10 minutes talking at several points during the day and lose an hour of work. If you’re paying time and materials (by the hour), this is fine but it’s good be sensitive to the need of the person working on a fixed bit (and paying that carpenter who’s so interesting) to get their work done and get home to the kids.  

This is a tough one, I know, but the better part of valor is to chat a little, shake a hand and then leave them to their work for most of the time, showing up occasionally to take a look and offer a cup of coffee.  

Coffee, hmm. Now that’s a nice way to say, “We appreciate that you showed up sober!” 

Mr. and Mrs. Jablonsky, you have no idea how bad it can get. I see a lot of bad work and I hear a lot of tales about contractors (or those who called themselves such) who couldn’t show up by 11 a.m., cut two boards straight or manage to drill a hole in the right place.  

The evidence is there for me at every inspection. If you have competent workers trying to do things right, responding to your emails, billing on a regular basis, consulting you as to the placement of the doorknob, you should light another stick of incense for Guan Yin, and find out which brand of coffee and doughnuts these men and women like. Further, expect mistakes as a part of the daily life of the job. If communication is clean and both parties feel respected, all mistakes can be addressed in the flow of work.  

This is true in all professions, though few surgeons will admit it. How mistakes get managed is a process that involves everyone. If you see mistakes, do the contractor (and yourself) a favor by pointing them out early and with as little scold as possible. It may take the form of a question. “Does this look right to you?,” “Perhaps this has been forgotten?” You might be wrong too so stay off the horse, else you might fall. If people are cordial, friendly and respectful, each “mistake” can become grist for improved design and may turn into something better than the simple mundane “correct” ‘version on the plans. No joke. This really happens. 

Lastly, to both parties but especially to the homeowners because this is all much newer to you than to the experienced contractor, take care of your self during the process. Most people have no idea how emotionally activating (if that sounds too psycho-babbly, let’s say exasperating) construction on or in their home can be. It doesn’t seem to make sense so we will tend to dismiss it as if it were telepathy or contacting the dead but the sort of irascibility that overcomes many clients is sub-reasonable. It’s reptilian and we don’t quite get what’s going on.  

Give yourself lots of breaks, extra sleep and other warm fuzzies during the remodeling or other trades-work, especially if your home is invaded for some time. If the kitchen is being worked on, eat out. Consider a short relocation or a long weekend away if it’s a longer job. By taking better care of our own emotional well being, we can then be our best selves when real problems arise and not fly off the handle (which is sure to make things better, right?) 

Frederick Buechner said that “Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.” 

We are all spiritual beings having a human experience. A construction project, as much as any human endeavor is a chance to be our best selves and to grow. Let us back away from the table of carnage, see the source of frustration within our selves and practice compassion with our contractors, our clients and everyone else. Bon appetite. 

The island of Catalina receives over a million visitors per year, but the vast majority of them go in summer and never set foot outside the principal town of Avalon. 

Twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide at its widest point, the island offers much more than day-tripper cotton candy and kitschy souvenirs. And if you go in winter, the place is all yours—especially if you choose to stay on the western and less frequented side of Catalina, where a half-mile isthmus separates two natural and scenic back-to-back harbors. 

The Isthmus village of Two Harbors, with a population of 200, caters to scuba divers, sport fishermen, and the yachters who anchor at the many picturesque coves lining the island’s West End. In winter, the coves are sparsely anchored, the summer camps closed, and the overall atmosphere even more tranquil than usual. 

Now is the best time for hikers to explore the island’s interior. Most of Catalina is mountainous, making the hot summer months less than ideal for tackling the interior on foot (for those not inclined to walk, Hummer tours offer a no-sweat option). In contrast, the island’s mild winter climate is ideal for long hikes, which is a good thing, since there aren’t many short hikes to be had at the West End. 

The Catalina Isthmus has been attracting people for over 7,000 years. Its first known inhabitants were the Gabrielino native islanders, who maintained a large village that was also the center of their religious activities. By the mid-19th century, smugglers and miners had replaced the indigenous population, who had been shipped off to the San Gabriel Mission (hence the name Gabrielino). 

During the Civil War, the Union Army maintained a small Isthmus garrison for nine months. Its barracks are now being used by the Isthmus Yacht Club. 

From 1846 until 1892, at least half a dozen private individuals owned Catalina in succession. With the exception of one hotel and a tent city in Avalon, the island remained undeveloped until the Banning brothers acquired it from the James Lick estate in 1892. The sons of General Phineas Banning, stagecoach king and developer of the Los Angeles harbor, William, Joseph, and Hancock Banning had been running a steamship line to Catalina since 1884. They purchased a controlling interest in the island with the intention of developing it as a resort and quickly introduced many attractions, including two dance pavilions, a bandstand, an aquarium, a Greek amphitheatre, an inclined railway from Avalon to Lover’s Cove, and a golf course. 

The Bannings built roads in the Island’s interior and installed the first telephone and wireless telegraph systems. They also offered fishing excursions, sightseeing by stagecoach, and glass-bottomed boat trips. 

While Avalon grew, the remote Isthmus—23 miles away by road, 13.4 miles by boat—remained a backwater. In 1910, the Bannings built themselves a summer house on a knoll overlooking the two harbors: Isthmus Cove on the lee side and Catalina Harbor on the ocean side. Originally clad in brown shingles and now painted white, the house retains many Arts & Crafts details. The long structure forms an extended C around three sides of a patio overhung with a pergola and enlivened by many plantings. At one end of the patio, the two-story living room and the adjacent sunroom command sweeping vistas to the north, west, and south. At the other end, a charming dining room faces Isthmus Cove. Between the two, a row of bedrooms opens onto the patio, their rear windows looking out on Catalina Harbor. 

When the Bannings traveled to the Isthmus, their stagecoach trips from Avalon lasted two days. Charles Frederick Holder, the naturalist who did more than anyone to turn Catalina into a big-game fishing mecca, described one of those stagecoach rides in his book The Channel Islands of California (1910): “One of the owners of the island, Captain William Banning, is probably the finest amateur six-in-hand driver in the United States; to see him handle his famous team on the island roads, or anywhere in California, is something worth while. I think the one experience at Santa Catalina Island that made the most lasting impression on me was the first ride down the mountain road with Captain Banning and his private six-in-hand when he ‘let them out.’ It was as near an aeroplane as anything could be, and I think we made the run down in about eighteen minutes.” 

In November 1915, a catastrophic fire devastated Avalon, destroying six hotels, most public amenities, and a good many homes. According to some reports, half the town was reduced to ashes, others say only a third of it burned. The damage amounted to more than $2 million. Determined to rebuild, the Bannings immediately began planning the construction of a new hotel. However, their resources were not up to the task of resurrecting the entire resort, and in 1919 they sold the island to a man with deeper pockets: chewing gum magnate William Wrigley. 

After the Bannings’ departure, their summer house underwent several reincarnations. During World War II, it served as the U.S. Coast Guard officers’ quarters. In the late 1950s, it was a private girls’ camp. Later the house metamorphosed into a hunting lodge, and later still into housing for employees of the Santa Catalina Island Company. Today it is called the Banning House Lodge and operated as an eleven-room bed-and-breakfast inn. 

Summer rates at the Banning House Lodge can be salty, but winter is a bargain, with a room for two going for $91 a night Sunday through Thursday ($141 on Friday & Saturday). No radio, TV, or telephone will disturb your peace unless you bring your own. Two Harbors has one restaurant-bar and one general store. During the winter season, there are five boats weekly from Long Beach via Avalon. A Safari Bus makes a daily run (weather permitting) between Two Harbors and Avalon. 

A variety of hikes is available, from the level West End Road, hugging the coastline, to the steep Silver Peak Trail, which ascends several summits of 1,500 feet or more. The rewards include not only breathtaking views but possible encounters with the beautiful and diminutive Catalina Island fox or with an American bison, not to mention several species of plants endemic to the island, like the gigantic Catalina Island buckwheat (aka St. Catherine’s Lace), the Catalina cherry, or the Catalina Island currant. 

And when it comes to sunsets and rainbows, I haven’t seen better. No wonder Catalina has been called “The Jewel in the Ocean” and “Fairyland.” 

Getting there 

Catalina Express 

(800) 481-3470 

www.catalinaexpress.com 

Where to stay 

Banning House Lodge 

Two Harbors 

(800) 626-1496 

http://www.visitcatalinaisland.com/twoHarbors/lodg_banningHouse.php 

Where to eat 

Harbor Reef  

Restaurant & Bar 

Two Harbors 

(310) 510-4215

THURSDAY, DEC. 11 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Fresh Work” Kala Artists’ Annual Exhibition Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Walls” Paintings by Joel Isaacson on contemporary social and political concerns, at Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Exhibition runs to Jan. 30. 649-2500. www.gtu.edu 

“Christmas and Other Colors” Paintings by Julie Ross at Britt Marie, 1369 Solano Ave. through Dec. 21. 527-0173. julierossart.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Story Hour in the Library with Sylvia Brownrigg reading from her latest novel “Morality Tale” at 5 p.m. in 190 Doe Library, UC Campus. 643-4715. storyhour.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

New Century Chamber Orchestra “Celebrate the Holidays” at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $32-$54. 415-357-1111. www.ncoo.org 

The Dance, Blake Williams, Spohia at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Three Decembers” An opera by Jake Heggie at 7:30 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $48-$86. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

“An Evening Down Under” with didjeridu artist, Stephen Kent at 7 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $10-$15. 665-0305.  

Kenny White at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Epicenter at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

College of Almeda Small Jazz Ensemble Winter Concert at 7 p.m. at 555 Ralph Appezzato Memorial Parkway, Alameda. Free. 748-2213. 

Funk Revival Orchestra, Snake Plissken Quintet, Kiyoshi Foster Group at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

The Sacred Profanities at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Chris Botti at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun., at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $24-$40. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, DEC. 12 

CHILDREN 

“Coppelia: The Doll with the Porcelain Eyes” Puppet Show at 2, 4 and 6 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “A Taffeta Christmas” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Dec. 21. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Berkeley High School and SHIFT Theatre “Madwoman of Chaillot” by Jean Giradoux, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Florence Schwimley Little Theater, 1929 Allston Way. Tickets are $6-$12.  

Berkeley Rep “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at 8 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St, through Dec. 14. Tickets are $13.50-$71. 647-2949. berkeleyrep.org 

Berkeley Rep “The Arabian Nights” Tues.-Sun. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through Jan. 4. Tickets are $27-$71. 647-2949. berkeleyrep.org 

“The Christmas Revels” A celebration of the Winter Solstice at 7:30 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 1 and 5 p.m. through Dec. 21 at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Dr., Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50. 452-8800. www.calrevels.org 

Impact Theatre “Tallgrass Gothic” Thurs.-Sat at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, to Dec. 20. Tickets are $10-$17. 464-4468. impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “Do I Hear a Waltz?” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Pt. Richmond, through Dec. 20. Tickets are $20. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

“Mi Bandera es la Tierra” written and performed by Nicolas Valdez and Maria Ibarra at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Shotgun Players “Macbeth” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Jan. 11. Tickets are $18-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Elevating Art” An eclectic winter showcase. Reception at 6 p.m. at Berkeley City College Raw Space Gallery, 2050 Center St. 526-1143. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

The Best of Actors Reading Writers short story readings by local actors, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Suggested donation $8-$15. 932-0214. 

Joe Shakarchi and Alice Templeton will read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave., a little north of Hearst, in Berkeley, as part of the Last Word Reading Series. There is also an open reading. 841-6374. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater “The Nutcracker” at 7 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $17-$23. 843-4689. berkeleyballet.org 

Sacred & Profane “All-Britten Holiday Concert” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $15-$20. www.sacredprofane.org 

“Three Decembers” An opera by Jake Heggie at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $48-$86. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

The Irrationals at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Steve Lucky & The Rhumba Bums at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. East Coast Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Al Stewart at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $29.50-$30.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The California Honeydrops, CD release party, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8-$10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Justin Ancheta at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Beep! Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Netta Brielle at 9 p.m. at Maxwell’s, 341 13th St., Oakland. Cost is $10.  

SATURDAY, DEC. 13 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Jerry Kennedy at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Tony Borders Puppets for 3-7 year olds at 10:30 a.m. at Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 981-6280. 

“Coppelia: The Doll with the Porcelain Eyes” Puppet show, Sat. and Sun. at 2, 4 and 6 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Letters from Noto, Living in Japan, 1955 to 1964” Photography of David Beckman. Opening reception at 1 p.m. at Alta Galleria, 2890 College Ave., Suite 4. 414-4485. www.altagalleria.com 

“Celebrate Diversity” New paintings by Rita Sklar, at Bucci’s, 6121 Hollis St., Emeryville, through Jan. 8. 531-1404. 

“Simply Divine” Opening reception at 6 pm. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. www.expressionsgallery.org 

THEATER 

Women’s Will “Holiday Memories” Sat. at at 7 p.m. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 420-0813. www.womanswill.org 

FILM 

“Ulzana’s Raid” with introduction by Adell Aldrich at 8:40 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Jewish Film Series “Every Time We Say Goodbye” at 7 p.m. at Temple Israel, 3183 Mecartney Rd., Alameda. Cost is $10. 522-9355. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Carolyn R. Crampton describes “Bunny Language or ‘Are You going to Eat That?’” at 2 p.m. at RabbitEars, 377 Colusa Ave. Kensington. 525-6155. 

The Best of Actors Reading Writers short story readings by local actors, at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Donation $8-$15. 932-0214. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater “The Nutcracker” at 2 and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $17-$23. 843-4689. berkeleyballet.org 

Winterberry Carollers “A Gaelic Christmas Choral Concert” at 3 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $8-$15. 800-838-3006. 

Oakland Youth Chorus “Let the Music Ring” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$25. www.oaklandyouthchorus.org 

Elizabeth-Baptista Gaston, flutist, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. www. 

trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Sacred & Profane “All-Britten Holiday Concert” at 8 p.m. at St. Leo’s Catholic Church, 176 Ridgeway Ave., Piedmont. Tickets are $15-$20. www.sacredprofane.org 

Destiny’s 20th Anniversary Extravaganza Performance “20 Years of Love in Action” featuring youth dance, theater and martial arts performers at 7 p.m. at McClymonds High School, 2607 Myrtle St., West Oakland. Tickets are $3-$10 sliding scale. 597-1619. www.destinyarts.org 

The Venezuelan Music Project at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $16-$18. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Miss Faye Carol Holiday Concert at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $18. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Kotoja, West African Highlife Band, Nigerian Brothers at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054.  

Cris Williamson with Vicki Randle and Julie Wolf at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761.  

Paul Manousos at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Polkacide, Gun and Doll Show, Carmichael & Las Frijolitas at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $9. 841-2082.  

Chris Botti at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun., at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $24-$40. 238-9200.  

Youth Brigade, Pressure Point, Troublemaker 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. 

SUNDAY, DEC. 14 

THEATER 

Women’s Will “Holiday Memories” at 4 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 420-0813. www.womanswill.org 

FILM 

Talk Cinema Berkeley Preview of new independent films with discussion afterwards at 10 a.m. at Albany Twin Theater, 1115 Solano Ave., Albany. Cost is $20. http://talkcinema.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Architecture Tour of the buildings and grounds designed by Kevin Roche and Dan Kiley at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Free Admission. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

All Star Reading Extavaganza with Michael Palmer, Lyn Hejinian, Rusty Morrison, Craig Perez and many others from 2 to 4 pm. at Small Press Distribution, 1341 7th St., at Gilman. 524-1668. 

Actors Reading Writers short story readings by local actors at 2 p.m. at at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 932-0214. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble “Voices in Peace VIII: Fire in the Air” at 4 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $17-$20, free for children under 12. 531-8714. www.vocisings.com 

Berkeley Ballet Theater “The Nutcracker” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $17-$23. 843-4689. berkeleyballet.org 

“Three Decembers” An opera by Jake Heggie at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $48-$86. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Oakland Civic Orchestra Holiday Concert at 4 p.m. at St Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. 238-7275. www.oaklandnet.com 

“We Have Seen his Star” African American Spirituals with the Oakland Bay Area Community Chorus at 4 p.m. at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, 2808 Lake Shore Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20. 451-1790. 

Under Construction: New Music Series with Berkeley Symphony at 7 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10. 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

Cris Williamson with Vicki Randle and Julie Wolf at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Babtunde Lea Sextet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

MONDAY, DEC. 15 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

PlayGround, short works from new and emerging playwrights at 8 p.m., pre-show discussion at 7 p.m., at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $15. 415-704-3177. www.PlayGround-sf.org 

Poetry Express with Go from 3rd Eye Collective at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

SoVoSo at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, DEC. 16 

CHILDREN 

“Coppelia: The Doll with the Porcelain Eyes” Puppet show at 2, 4 and 6 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre Company “The Coverlettes Cover Christmas” Mon.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. through Dec. 23 at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $23-$25. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lois Silverstein reads from “Curtain Rising” and “Idol” at 7 p.m. at 7:30 p.m. at JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10-$20, benefits Aquarian Minyan. 528-6725. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney 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 Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Christmas Jug Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Charlie Hunter Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 17 

CHILDREN 

Colibrí at 3:30 p.m. at the North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, 1170 The Alameda. 981-6250. 

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 

Classical at the Freight with the Sor Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $8.50-$9.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzalicious! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

La Peña Latin Jazz Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Whiskey Brothers, old-time and bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

La Verdad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Charlie Hunter Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, DEC. 18 

CHILDREN 

“Coppelia: The Doll with the Porcelain Eyes” Puppet show at 2, 4 and 6 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Crazy After All These Years” NIAD faculty art show. Performance at 6 p.m., artists’ presentation at 7 p.m. at Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of CA Office Bldg., Atrium, 1515 Clay St., Oakland. 622-8190. www.oaklandculturalarts.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley High School’s African American Dance Program “Breaking The Chains of the New Generation” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Community Theater. Tickets are $3-$10. 644-6120. BrownPaperTickets.com  

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Joana Carneiro, conductor, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus Tickets are $20-$60. 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

Oakland Ballet Company “Ron Guidi’s Nutcracker” at 10 a.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50. www.ticketmaster.com 

Caribbean Allstars at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Crooked Still at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kelly Park & Friends at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Chabela, music from the Latin American Songbook at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

I’m a People, The Jug Dealers, bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Beat Boxing Great Show with Soulati, Infinite, Syzygy, Eachbox and many others at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Diablo’s Dust at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Taj Mahal Trio at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, DEC. 19 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “A Taffeta Christmas” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Dec. 21. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre Company “The Coverlettes Cover Christmas” Mon.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. through Dec. 23 at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $23-$25. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “The Arabian Nights” Tues.-Sun. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through Jan. 4. Tickets are $27-$71. 647-2949. berkeleyrep.org 

“The Christmas Revels” A celebration of the Winter Solstice at 7:30 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 1 and 5 p.m. through Dec. 21 at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Dr., Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50. 452-8800. www.calrevels.org 

Impact Theatre “Tallgrass Gothic” Thurs.-Sat at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, to Dec. 20. Tickets are $10-$17. 464-4468. impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “Do I Hear a Waltz?” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Pt. Richmond, through Dec. 20. Tickets are $20. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Shotgun Players “Macbeth” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Jan. 11. Tickets are $18-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

The Best of Actors Reading Writers short story readings by local actors, at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Donation $8-$15. 932-0214. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater “The Nutcracker” at 7 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $17-$23. 843-4689. berkeleyballet.org 

Oakland Ballet Company “Ron Guidi’s Nutcracker” at 10 a.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50. www.ticketmaster.com 

Pacific Mozart Ensemble & Quartet San Francisco “Bruebeck & Brahms: Canticles and Love Songs” at 7:30 pm Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $15-$25. 848-8022. www.pacificmozart.org 

San Francisco Girls Chorus East Bay Holiday Concert at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $25. 415-863-1752. 

Vince Ho, organ and harpsichord at 8 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Suggested donation $10. 525-1716. 

Clarinet Thing at 8 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $10-$15. 845-1350. 

The Women's Antique Vocal Ensemble "Shepherds Arise!" Friday, December 19 at 8:00PM., Montclair Presbyterian Church, 5701 Thornhill Drive, Oakland. $15 General/$5 Students/Seniors. 233-1479. www.wavewomen.org 

Arab Orchestra of San Francisco at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Nathan Clevenger Group and Lisa Mezzacappa's Bait & Switch at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, Oakland. Tickets are $5-$10.  

Larry Vukovich Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic, Creole Belles at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Girlyman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$22.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Masahiro Nitta with Monsters of Shamisen at 8 p.m. at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave., ALameda. Tickets are $12-$15. 865-5060. www.rhythmix.org 

Plays Monk, ROVA Saxophone Quartet at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

D.I., Opressed Logic, Neighborhood Watch at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $8. 525-9926. 

Rhythm Doctors at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Dan K Harvest Holiday Bash at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Flowtilla at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Taj Mahal Trio at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Adesha at 9 p.m. at Maxwell’s, 341 13th St., Oakland. Cost is $15.  

SATURDAY, DEC. 20 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Fran Avni & Bonnie Lockhart at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

THEATER 

Berkeley Rep “Ennio” comedy and mime for the whole family at 2 and 8p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St, through Dec. 31. Tickets are $20-$45. 647-2949. berkeleyrep.org 

Berkeley Public Library’s Teen Playreaders “Bizarre Shorts” Short plays, monologues and musical numbers from Shakespeare to Sondheim to Stoppard, at 7:30 p.m. at the Willard Middle School Metal Shop Theater, 2425 Stuart St. at Telegraph. 981-6236. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

The Best of Actors Reading Writers short story readings by local actors, at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Donation $8-$15. 932-0214. 

Rhythm & Muse spoken word and music open mic series features Soul of Sparrow at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts., behind Live Oak Park. 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Amahl and the Night Visitors” and “Christmas Oratorio” at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $15-$20. 525-0302. 

Berkeley Ballet Theater “The Nutcracker” at 2 and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $17-$23. 843-4689. berkeleyballet.org 

Musae “Waitin’ for the Light to Shine” women’s vocal ensemble with the Menlo Brass Quintet at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $10-$25. www.musae.org 

Oakland Ballet Company “Ron Guidi’s Nutcracker” at 2 and 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50. www.ticketmaster.com 

“Pomegranates & Figs: A Feast of Jewish Music” featuring Nikitov & Teslim at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20-$32. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

The Function, hip-hop and soul, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Terrence Kelly with Ellen Hoffman, Annual Holiday Caroling at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

In Harmony’s Way at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Suzanna Smith at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Charlie Wilson’s War at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Blue Turtle Seduction, Feels Like Fire at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Taj Mahal Trio at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, DEC. 21 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

The Best of Actors Reading Writers short story readings by local actors, at 2 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Donation $8-$15. 932-0214. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Amahl and the Night Visitors” and “Christmas Oratorio” at 1 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $15-$20. 525-0302. 

Berkeley Ballet Theater “The Nutcracker” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $17-$23. 843-4689. berkeleyballet.org 

Vivaldi’s “Gloria” at 2 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 26th and Broadway, Oakland. Free.  

Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra “The Geography of Emotions” Selections of Opera Choruses with Marcelle Dronkers, soprano, and Richard Goodman, baritone at 4:30 p.m. at St. Joseph The Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free, donations greatly appreciated. 

Oakland Ballet Company “Ron Guidi’s Nutcracker” at 2 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50. www.ticketmaster.com 

San Francisco Choral Artists “Glorious Early Music” with the premier of Ted Allen’s “Earth’s Winter Song” at 4 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$28. 415-979-5779. www.sfca.org 

Joyful Noise Choir “Old and New Christmas Carols” at 5 p.m. at El Sobrante First United Methodist Church, 670 Appian Way, across from El Sobrante Post Office, El Sobrante. 223-0790. 

Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano “Fiesta Navidad” at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$38. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

The Sephardic Music Experience with vocalist Kat Parra at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $12-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Zoyres Wild Ferment! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Everyone Orchestra, Chris Haugen’s Seahorse Rodeo at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Trumpet Supergroup at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Debbie Faigenbaum “Stories from the Heart” at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Freight Holiday Revue hosted by Laurie Lewis at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Thrusting out aggressively at the audience seated for Mark Jackson’s retrofitted Macbeth at the Ashby Stage, a Shotgun production, is the much-discussed ramp, with a marble walkway, leading back to the proscenium, an iron-bound wall of fitted stone. Inside the arch, a shining, spangled throne room, replete with light-toned Viking-modern royal seat (set by Nina Ball, lit by Jon Tracy, Sarah Huddleston’s sound), where in a dreamlike sequence like a strange commercial, or an inspirational training video gone wrong, Macbeth himself will take the crown from the wakeful king he slays, murdering sleep twice over. 

But before these visualizations of what Jackson hints are the primal scenes underlying ambition, the stage displays itself, its light patina docile to the strains of burlesk music, all textured surface echoing bumps and grinds, not brooding or even anticipating the splashes of action and color across it. The signal for action will be the words, not ornamental, as when Banquo, strolling at night, wonders when it will rain—and his murderer leaps out, crying, “Let it come down!” 

That line was turned over for the title of a book, like many another Bardic tag (Ambrose Bierce’s horror tales, entitled Can Such Things Be?, also takes an exclamation from Macbeth), a novel by Paul Bowles, who once said his unsettling stories came from an imagined landscape, which the characters then emerged from. Mark Jackson seems to work analogously: the stage is dressed, music plays, the air is alight—and the actors people the setting, action fitting the arrangement of things, like the king’s assassination—often best when it’s a discrete, dreamlike image.  

Sometimes the image is less stylized than posed; the scene degenerates into analogy instead of making a tableau, showing a picture of “the pregnant moment.” Or a particular gambit, forcefully addressed, doesn’t follow through. Blythe Foster tumbles acrobatically onstage as Lady Macbeth, her entrance as a fashion-plate young socialite turned cheerleader, somersaulting with her husband’s letter of victory clutched like a telegram as she flips up her skirt to show her violet panties, stroking herself, on display. This gets an echo when she “faces” down her querulous husband—with a breast in his stunned mug—as she announces her resolve is so strong she’d dash her own nursing infant to pieces if she’d sworn to. But the swing seems checked; there’s no sense of follow-through later in the dread sleepwalking scene, which becomes more handwringing than rinsing. 

Shakespeare’s play—or the expectations it’s come to raise—is filled with pitfalls and cliches that have become Hallowe’en kitsch, clearly what Jackson hopes to avoid with a production plan that cancels the hoary gloom and imports brightness and youth. No coy mouthing of “The Scottish Play” to pussyfoot around the famous curse that dogs even its title. 

But strangely it is all that—stuff—in a left-handed way that serves as a heavy, baroque—even Breughel-esque—drapery, setting off the ambiguities that underlie the melodrama, the real stuff of imagining. The childless Lady M. swearing on her imaginary murder of an imaginary child; her husband later massacres the brood—“All my pretty ones!”—of his nemesis, MacDuff, “not of woman born,” but “untimely ripped from his mother’s womb”—the Lochinvar who rides in to quickly right the wrong with a swordstroke. 

“The Macbeths” are billed as a young, swinging, ambitious—and childless—couple, entertaining King Duncan with a cocktail party, flirtacious chatter and DJ music, before dispatching him abed. Brecht envisioned something parallel—the murderous couple of lesser nobility, poor, ambitious, young and passionately in love. 

“We are yet but young in deed.” Shakespeare’s ambiguities are hard to catch onstage. Herman Melville called The Bard’s truth like “a white doe, flying through the woodlands,” shyly peeking out from behind a tree. There’s the famous quip that three actors should play Macbeth: the upright young warrior who all but stumbles into regicide, the ruthless despot destroying friend and foe (and his beloved inciter) alike—and the jaded tyrant “who has tasted fine wine ... and lost that taste” but drinks down the cup, as Orson Welles summed it up. Craig Marker strikes a fine figure in the lead, capturing the energy and the stunned, puzzled quality of a man of action who realizes he’s lost his way, as well as something of the ruthlessness, finally ululating like a cornered beast, inviting his foes to bring it on. 

The men come off better, at least so far in production—Marker, Daniel Duque-Estrada’s Banquo, stout fellow John Mercer as both Duncan and Siward, Peter Ruocco’s MacDuff, Reid Davis as the ghastly funny Porter, Kevin Clarke’s Bloody Sergeant ... in a cast of 13 (that curse again?), there are just two women anyway, Zehra Berkman a single, composite Weird Sister, a ghoulish voyeur, doubling as a pregnant Lady MacDuff. One of Jackson’s conceits has the witches’ reprise not on the heath, but in the bedroom, with an orgasmic Lady M. taking on the outre’ prophetic shapes at the Weird Sister’s beck.  

With the fashions (from Foley & Bonny in El Cerrito, Valera Coble the costumer)—suits and ties, trenchcoats, attache cases (a fastidious killer flicks off a speck of gore)—it’s a little like The Man in the Grey Flannel Jerkin, corporate cut-throats... timely enough. Jackson scavenges bits and pieces from diverse genres to flesh out his anachronism; besides the text, a film noirish undertow is the darkest thing afoot. The clashing references make for funny line readings. With all the preening, there should be a bigger laugh on: “Then fly, false things, and mingle with the English epicures.” 

Macbeth 

8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday through Jan. 11 at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. $18-25; $30 runway seats; $50 New Years Eve show and celebration. 841-6500.  

shotgunplayers.org. 

Oakland’s Paramount Theatre opens up a wealth of holiday presents as its two resident companies, the Oakland Ballet Company and the Oakland East Bay Symphony premiere their annual shows for the season: the Symphony’s Let Us Break Bread Together, and Ronn Guidi’s celebrated Nutcracker. 

For Let Us Break Bread Together, the orchestra and conductor Michael Morgan will be joined by the Oakland Symphony Chorus, the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Mt. Eden High School Concert Choir, klezmer band Kugelplex and Latin roots group Los Cenzontles, Sunday at 4 p.m. 

The Nutcracker, with Oakland Ballet veterans and new dancers, accompanied by members of OEBS under Michael Morgan’s baton, runs for seven performances Dec. 18–24, including an All-Star matinee Nov. 20 with baseball great, former Oakland A’s manager Tony La Russa, Elaine La Russa, former 49er Jamie Williams, John Evans of KDFC radio and Frank Somerville of KTVU 2 TV. 

And this weekend only, there’s Ronn Guidi’s “Secret Nutcracker,” five performances with his students from Oakland Ballet Academy, at Regent’s Theatre, Holy Names University, Oakland. 

Michael Morgan talked about Let Us Break Bread Together, the Symphony’s popular holiday show of the past few seasons. “It’s kind of a compilation of various artistic directors. Even I don’t know exactly what it’ll be like until we do it. I’m seeing much for the first time!” 

What’s brand-new for this show is the collaboration of Los Cenzontles. “We’re adding an element to the past programs with this Mexican musical group, which has quite a following. They’re bringing dancers, who will dance in the aisles while Los Cenzontles plays from the stage—there are so many people on that stage! All three choirs are by now old hands. Maybe the most special thing about the show is the Mt. Eden Choir; it’s unlike any high school choir you’ve ever heard. Their conductor is such a good teacher; the level of training is just beyond any expectation. Everybody is really singing.” 

Morgan also spoke of the special feeling of the whole afternoon at the Paramount. 

“There’s a real atmosphere of sharing, almost like at a potluck. Everybody brings what they have to the table for everybody else to enjoy,” he said. “It’s not so much that all the groups are performing together as that we’re performing for each other—something you see so little of onstage.” 

Let Us Break Bread Together features performances of spirituals, classical and sacred music and other holiday favorites, including a few seasonal sing-alongs. Kugelplex adds some comic notes, last year coming up with a rendition of Rudolph’s Mitzvah. 

Oakland Ballet Company’s production of Ronn Guidi’s Nutcracker marks the third year this beloved adaptation has been presented again at the Paramount under Guidi’s direction since the original Oakland Ballet folded in 2006, 38 years after Guidi founded it and just seven years after his retirement. 

“The original company folding woke me up,” Guidi said. “It was my life work gone. But now I’m loving the opportunity to present dance again. This Nutcracker we’ve done since ‘72, and used to tour it all over the country.” 

Michael Morgan commented on what makes Guidi’s version special: “Some run through The Nutcracker as fast as they can. But not with Ronn’s. It’s different every day, and with every principal, every pair. I don’t do The Nutcracker anywhere else. Ronn’s the most in pure charm around. There’re glitzier, flashier versions—and of course there’s The Hard Nut, which has Mark Morris’ genius, and is hilarious. But they reinforce each other: the more you see Ronn’s Nutcracker, the funnier The Hard Nut gets, and seeing The Hard Nut brings out the charm in Ronn’s Nutcracker even more.” 

“Michael’s an old friend, great support and a devoted artist,” said Guidi. “Every performance has to have that living moment, and Michael always knows what each dancer needs.”  

The Paramount show presents 25 dancers, including veterans Jenna McClintock, Denise Roman-Schmalle, Gianna Davy and Omar Shabazz, plus featured dancers Claire Lewis, Maia Mileff, Mario Vitale Labrador and Diego Rivera Garcia.  

Commenting on the Ballet’s support for the Oakland Food Bank and Toys For Tots—each non-perishable food item or toy brought to the Paramount box office receives a 20 percent discount for adults or a $10 children’s ticket—Guidi said, “I didn’t exactly grow up in the flatlands, but down on MacArthur; I’m aware of everybody’s walk of life--and we have to do the walk!” 

Only a few years after coming out of retirement, starting his Ronn Guidi Performing Arts Foundation and resuscitating the Ballet and Academy, Guidi reflected on the state of the arts and the holidays.  

“At least the arts are still alive,” he said. “Historically, a culture without art implodes on itself. And every culture celebrated something this time of year. There’s something magical, and it can bring out the best in people.” 

Ronn Guidi’s  

‘Secret Nutcracker’  

8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 12; 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 13; 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 14. Regent’s Theatre, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakland.  

$20 at the door or call Oakland ballet academy: 530-7516. rgfpa.org. 

Let Us Break Bread Together  

4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 14 at the Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. $15-$40; under 18, $10. Ticketmaster.com or 625-8497. oebs.org. 

Nutcracker  

Dec. 18-23 at the Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. $15-50. (Dec. 18- 19: community matinees, all seats $20; tickets available at Paramount box office only.) 

465-6400. oaklandballet.org. 

Christmas Revels, “a theatrical celebration of the Winter Solistice,” with a dazzling array of the performing arts onstage at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Theater by Lake Merritt and community singing and line-dancing at the conclusion of the two acts of every show, has become a beloved holiday tradition in the 23 years California Revels has produced the annual event here. 

This year, Revels revisits a medieval European setting with a new staging of their 1995 The King and the Fool, featuring popular clown and comic actor Geoff Hoyle, a familiar face to longtime Revelers.  

Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Friday, and at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday afternoons, Dec. 12-14 and 19-21. 

Director David Parr talked about working with Geoff Hoyle, the Bay Area-based British performer, who (among other things) originated the role of Zazu in The Lion King on Broadway, clowned with Bill Irwin in The Pickle Family Circus and has performed as a featured artist on national and Bay Area stages from Cirque Du Soleil to Teatro ZinZanni and Berkeley Rep.  

“I think it’s the sixth time we’ve worked together, and it’s come full circle,” Parr said. “Geoff’s been visiting different iterations of the archetypal fool, like Arlecchino in our 2000 Commedia Dell ‘Arte Revels—and even in its more modern guises, like Victorian Music Hall and the Christmas Panto star Garibaldi last year. I can’t say enough good things about Geoff as a professional. They say a star brings up everybody and everything around him, and Geoff does that. He also shares with us a great love of everything the Revels experience is—which isn’t always easy to see from the inside.” 

In the new staging of The King and the Fool, Parr himself plays a king “this time around,” entertaining his court as the Yuletide’s coming on. A bell tolls, and it’s announced that a mysterious visitor is coming, whom the king must meet in combat. The king loses, and gives his regal powers to the fool. There’s a period of darkness, then a child confronts the mysterious visitor (a 16-foot knight puppet by Berkeley’s Annie Hallett) and rings a bell, revealing the real nature of the Black Knight: a skeleton, which the fool engages in a Danse Macabre.  

“We have light and dark, high and low, king and fool, order and discord—the idea that people have to undergo a period of dark leadership to emerge in the light,” Parr commented. “In the aftermath of the elections, there’s some play with the audience. I even seeded in a line or two about eight years of darkness.” 

Parr also mentioned a different political tradition embedded in a yuletide tradition from Ireland that’ll be enacted, “The Hunting of the Wren,” in which boys with sticks would walk door to door, and present householders with a dead wren in a cage. “Apparently, a wren, ‘the King of Birds,’ was startled by an Irish sneak attack on English forces, warning them, so the English won the battle. The wren represents the English king: the grim reality underlying a charming childhood song.” 

Parr then focused on Hoyle’s dance with the skeleton. “Patti Swanson originally wrote this for Geoff, at the Revels in Cambridge, where Larry Busoni did the part. The Danse Macabre, in which Geoff animates the skeleton as he dances with it, was deemed too long before, and cut. This time we trimmed it, a delicate process as he’s up there, creating it as he goes along. That he trusts me to help him shape it—that someone of his stature is still exploring, still discovering comedy—makes it an honor to be a part of his process.”  

Parr also noted that “the music has evolved, as the whole organization has, with a more medieval feel. Shura Kamin made some new arrangements. And Chris Caswell, the Celtic Harp maker in Albany, will be with us to play harp andearly instruments; there’ll be the Abbots Bromley dance and courtly dancing—and The Lord of the Dance, of course!—and mumming, guest artists in addition to the usual suspects, and both adult and children’s choruses. The children’s chorus is especially important; the whole show’s framed as a children’s story.” 

Talking about the continuing commercialization of the holidays, even in bad economic times like these, Parr said, “The Revels goes back to core values. When Father Christmas sings ‘May there be a pig in your poke, a pudding in your pot’ in the Mummers’ Song, it’s about bounty, awareness and appreciation of the bounty of the world around us—not shopping!” 

Christmas Revels 

7:30 p.m. Fridays and at 1 and 5 p.m. Saturday and Sundays through Dec.21 at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeshore Dr., Oakland. $15-50. 

452-8800. calrevels.org. 

Comedians were a dime a dozen in the days of silent film, but great comedians were precious and few. The judgment of history has left us maybe a half-dozen top-notch talents, and just a few of those names are much remembered today. Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd are the heavy hitters of course, the names that immediately come to mind, with perhaps Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, Charley Chase, and a few others lagging not so far behind in name recognition. Still others, like Laurel and Hardy, did well in silent films but are today best known for their sound work. 

But the name of Harry Langdon still languishes in relative obscurity. The consistency and quantity of his best work may not quite place him among the ranks of the big three, but he is awfully close. Or at least he would be, if his work was more widely seen and appreciated.  

For years, the three great films that marked his peak—The Strong Man (1926), Tramp Tramp Tramp (1926), and Long Pants (1927)—have been available on DVD in the form of a single disc from Kino entitled "Harry Langdon: The Forgotten Clown." His tenure at the top was brief, but with few other films readily available for viewing over the years, that meteoric streak across the comedy horizon was difficult to contextualize and fully comprehend. But hopefully a pair of recent DVD releases will help to resuscitate Langdon's reputation, presenting the bookends to that brief, shining moment—the rise and fall of a great clown.  

Kino has released the next two comedic features in Langdon's oeuvre, the films that mark the comedian's descent from his peak. And this disc, combined with the release earlier this year of All Day Entertainment's "Lost and Found: The Harry Langdon Collection," a four-disc set consisting primarily of Langdon's earlier films, finally establishes a body of work worthy of study and appreciation.  

Most of the discussion and commentary of Langdon's career stems from two sources: Walter Kerr's insightful analysis in his landmark book The Silent Clowns, and from the autobiography of director Frank Capra. Kerr, with his graceful prose and articulate deconstructions of the form, has become the de facto authority on the comedian, with virtually every discussion of Langdon centering on Kerr's distillation of the essence of the comedian's work. 

It was Kerr's view that Langdon "existed only in reference to the work of other comedians." The form had to exist already, and "with that form at hand—a sentence completely spelled out—Langdon could come along and, glancing demurely over his shoulder to make sure no one was looking, furtively brush in a comma." 

By 1926, Kerr wrote, audiences were well versed in the mechanics and traditions of screen comedy. The major comedians delighted viewers by their unique approaches to the form, by the idiosyncratic ways in which they both met and flouted those conventions. But Langdon more often than not simply defied those conventions altogether, usually by doing...nothing. In situations where another comedian would have leapt into action, or at least turned tail and run, Langdon just stood there. As the world moved around him, he stood watching and blinking, allowing us to observe the slow thought process that left him hilariously ineffectual. 

Kerr: "[L]angdon's special position as a piece of not quite necessary punctuation inserted into a long-since memorized sentence means that he remains, today, dependent on our memory of the sentence. It is not even enough to know the sentence. We must inhabit it, live in its syntax in the way we daily take in air, share its expectations because they are what we expect, if we are to grasp—and take delight in—the nuance that was Langdon. You would have to soak yourself in silent film comedy to the point where Lloyd seemed a neighbor again, Chaplin a constant visitor, Keaton so omnipresent that he could be treated as commonplace, and the form's structure as necessary as the roof over your head in order to join hands with Langdon once more and go swinging, fingers childishly interlocked, down the street. That sort of immersion can never really take place again, except perhaps among archivists, and we shall no doubt continue to have our troubles with Langdon. It seems likely, however, that our reacquaintance with silent film comedy is going to develop a good deal beyond what it is now; the closer we come to feeling reasonably at home in it, the larger will Langdon's decorative work—all miniature—loom." 

Kerr's analysis of Langdon's downfall is that the comedian lost control of the delicate ambiguity that defined his screen presence—the mercurial blend of man and child, of sexual adult and pre-sexual nymph. "The ambiguity dissolved," wrote Kerr, as Langdon no longer walked the line but stepped right over it, even going so far as to portray himself as an actual child, at one point peering out from a baby carriage. The character was no longer ambiguous and intriguing; it was grotesque and absurd. 

Frank Capra, on the other hand, was a bit less nuanced in his take. It was Capra's view that Langdon did not fully understand his own character, and that once he dispensed with the directors who had hitherto handled him—Capra among them—he was simply at a loss. Of course, Langdon had been a successful comedian for years in Vaudeville, and had even managed to carve out a space for his quiet comedy amid the bluster and bombast of the knockabout Sennett studio—all suggesting that Langdon had a very complete understanding of his talents. Despite Capra's self-aggrandizing tone, there may be some truth in his account. But the better explanation may be that Langdon, in his desire to establish himself as an independent man, as an auteur in the style of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, simply overreached. His understanding of his character was probably quite solid; it was more likely his inability to sustain a high level of quality while acting as writer, director, producer and star that did him in. And the fickleness of the audience must also be factored in; it is possible that the public simply lost interest in him, their fling with Langdon revealing itself as more of an infatuation than the sustained love affairs they experienced with Langdon's rivals. 

The All Day Entertainment set explores Langdon's evolution from Sennett slapstick to the comedian's full flowering as the curious man-child of 1926-1927. But it also includes a few films from Langdon's later years. Kino's initial release put the three best Langdon features on one disc. This second edition showcases the two rarely seen follow-up features. Three's a Crowd (1927) and The Chaser (1928) have been deemed by history to be lesser efforts, to have set in motion Langdon's steep decline, but now at least we can make up our own minds. 

And yet it's not an easy task, for as Kerr said, an appreciation for Langdon is predicated on a thorough understanding of the form as it existed in 1927; to understand Langdon, we must first steep ourselves in the idiom of silent comedy, in the quirks and mannerisms and formulae and framework of the great films of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, and the myriad other comedic talents of the day. There are worse forms of homework. 

Three's a Crowd. 1927. 61 minutes. 

The Chaser. 1928. 63 minutes.  

$24.95. www.kino.com. 

Lost and Found: The Harry Langdon Collection 

$39.95. www.alldayentertainment.com. 

Harry Langdon: The Forgotten Clown 

The Strong Man. 1926. 84 minutes. 

Tramp Tramp Tramp. 1926. 97 minutes. 

Long Pants. 1927. 88 minutes. 

$29.95. www.kino.com. 

Also new to DVD: 

The General 

Kino first released the comedies of Buster Keaton on DVD in a 10-disc set, "The Art of Buster Keaton," in 1995. The set contained all of Keaton's work as an independent filmmaker, from the moment he graduated from his apprenticeship with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in 1921 until just before signing a disastrous deal with MGM in 1929—all 19 two-reelers and all 10 features.  

Kino has decided it's time to update at least one of those releases, and has done so with Keaton's celebrated masterpiece The General, releasing the Civl War comedy in a two-disc set. 

This new version contains all the film-specific extras from the box set version, but contains a number of new features as well, not the least of which is a much-improved transfer of the film, taken from a 35mm print struck from the original camera negative. The result is an image that is cleaner, crisper and more detailed than any previous DVD release.  

But in terms of extra features, the major improvement is the inclusion of three scores for the film. Gradually DVD companies are realizing that the inclusion of multiple scores is the best way to provide value for silent film releases, allowing viewers the opportunity to experience the film several different ways. Some Kino releases have been marred by mediocre or inappropriate scoring, from the synthesizer-laden scores of some of their silent horror releases to the eclectic modern score on the company's version of Keaton's Sherlock Jr. These scores would be fine amid several alternatives, but to limit the viewer to just one option essentially dictates how the film must be experienced. And as viewers become more attuned to the history and tradition of silent film, they more likely to demand scores that are period-appropriate, using music and instrumentation authentic to the era in which the films were produced.  

The new release of The General addresses this by providing an orchestral score by Carl Davis and the Thames Silents Orchestra; a Wurlitzer score by Lee Erwin; and a second orchestral score by Robert Israel, taken from Kino's original DVD release. 

Other features include a tour the train itself, a tour of the filming locations by author John Bengston, "The Buster Express," a montage of Keaton's train gags throughout his career, and introductions to the film by Gloria Swanson and Orson Welles, taken from television presentations. 

The General. 1926. 78 minutes. $29.95. www.kino.com. 

The Last Laugh 

German director F.W. Murnau created some of the most celebrated films of the silent era —Nosferatu (1922), Faust (1926), Sunrise (1927), Tabu (1931). His work was varied, unique and highly influential. One his greatest achievements, The Last Laugh (1924), has just been re-released on DVD by Kino in a new two-disc set. 

The Last Laugh is one of the landmarks of German Expressionism, a tour de force of imagery and pathos. Emil Jannings plays a hotel doorman unceremoniously stripped of his position and uniform, robbing him of his primary source of pride and self-worth. He is demoted to washroom attendant, sentenced to spending his days passing out towels in a basement restroom. Jannings conveys the weight on the character's soul by transforming himself from a strapping, gregarious, barrell-chested blowhard to a forlorn and despairing old man, stoop-shouldered and plodding. 

The tale is famously told without the use of dialogue and intertitles, with Jannings and Murnau and photographer Karl Freund conveying plot and character entirely through acting, through direction, through camera movement and photographic effects.  

The film is more character study than narrative. Murnau, one of the exemplars of German Expressionism, uses the subjective camera to express the emotional state of the central character as he suffers defeat, humiliation, despair and, finally, resurrection. Lighting, angles and even set design are employed as metaphor: The hotel's revolving door, for instance, quietly echoes the doorman's plight, showing the speed and coldness with which a man can be swept into warmth and comfort or ushered quickly into coldness and gloom.  

Is a man's worth based on societal standing? Is his position more important than the man himself? To what extent is a man responsible for his own downfall? Murnau does not provide easy answers, and he does not oversimplify his tale by making the doorman a noble innocent. The porter himself was pompous and arrogant, when many are pleased to see him brought down a peg. His family and neighbors are contemptuous of him and snicker at the fallen man. Murnau does not give us villains and heroes, only humans, everyday people at work and at play in a universe that may be stylized in presentation but that remains remarkably real in its ambiguity and moral relativity.  

The ending of the film has always been disconcerting. Murnau finally gives us an intertitle after demonstrating for an hour and a half that intertitles aren't necessary, and then tacks on an upbeat conclusion. Is it a parody of the Hollywood happy ending? Is it a concession to an audience that just sat through so much bleakness? Is it an indulgence in fantasy, granting the character revenge and poetic justice, if only for a moment? A good argument can be made that Murnau should have simply let the film end a few minutes earlier. 

Kino's two-disc set comes with a 40-minute making-of documentary which sheds light on Murnau's techniques, including his highly effective use of forced perspective, which would also characterize his first American production, Sunrise. The film is accompanied by a new recording of Giusepppe Becce's original 1924 score. 

The Last Laugh. 1924. 90 minutes. $29.95. www.kino.com. 

Textual authenticity is a central issue in the work of Orson Welles. The director saw so many of his films altered in the editing room by his producers that only a few of his completed pictures can be said to represent his original intentions. 

This has made the prospect of releasing "restorations" of his films on DVD a bit complicated. Some of his films exist in multiple versions; some exist only in a single, bastardized version; and many of his films were never completed at all. 

Criterion set the standard for Welles releases a couple of years back with the company's three-disc set of Mr. Arkadin. There was no single version of that film that could be said to represent the director's original vision, so Criterion released all of them, including a "composite" version which attempted to recreate the film according to written evidence and best guesses as to the director's intent. None of these versions are the final word; Criterion simply put all the material out there for viewers to make of it what they will.  

Universal's new 50th anniversary edition of Touch of Evil follows this model, and the two-disc set is precisely the sort of release that is sorely needed for the Welles canon. Containing all three extant versions of the film, it provides an excellent perspective on the shape and scope of this 1958 noir masterpiece.  

Among the many Welles films that were altered and re-edited without his consent, Touch of Evil might be said to have fared the best, or perhaps suffered least. The studio-sanctioned version, released in 1958, was a lesser film than what Welles had intended, but studio interference could not subdue or destroy the power of Welles' imagery and narrative.  

However, years later, a longer cut was found, and for decades this version supplanted the original version, as it was believed to be at least slightly closer to Welles' intent.  

In 1998, Rialto released a new version, re-edited in accordance with a 58-page memo Welles sent to Universal after having previewed the studio's truncated version of his film. The restoration was not a "director's cut," for Welles never completed his own final cut before the studio removed him from the project. Nor was Welles' memo a plea to return entirely to his original design. Welles' memo took into account new footage shot by the studio without his involvement, dismissing some of it yet praising some of it as well. The memo was essentially an attempt at cooperation and diplomacy, saying to the studio, "Given what we have now, here's how we can make this a great picture." 

The restored version is, for the most part, a significant improvement. Welles' editing patterns were restored, including his elaborate cross-cutting between two story lines; the score and soundtrack were reshaped in accordance with his requests; and the credits were moved from the opening sequence to the end, offering an unobstructed view of one of the most spectacular opening shots ever filmed.  

Critics still found plenty wrong, suggesting that the pacing in the second half of the film was too slow. Some preferred one of the previous versions to the new, but until now the restoration was the only version available on DVD.  

To finally be able to see all three side by side, to compare the repercussions of every edit and adjustment, is a gift for Welles fans. Hopefully similar releases will follow, with multiple versions of his landmark works: Hamlet and Othello, both before and after their soundtracks were altered; The Stranger and Lady From Shanghai, with descriptions, stills, storyboards and shooting scripts to explain Welles' original visions for those films and how they were dramatically cut and reshaped by his producers; and perhaps one day someone will finally discover missing footage of The Magnificent Ambersons, and we may perhaps get an approximation of the masterpiece that might have been.  

Universal's Touch of Evil stands in contrast to Image Entertainment's release of Welles' unfinished opus, Don Quixote, which offers a 1992 recreation — a purely hypothetical one — of what Welles intended with this highly amorphous project.  

It is not Image's fault that so little of Welles' Quixote footage is available. The company has endeavored to present us with what is essentially the only available home video release of Quixote, and there is merit in that. But what's available is, unfortunately, a butchered and largely discredited restoration project undertaken by a one-time Welles associate who had nothing to do with this particular film. 

Don Quixote was indeed a quixotic adventure for Welles, a project he worked on for decades. He was questioned about it so often he threatened to release it under the title When Are You Going to Finish Don Quixote? It still isn't quite certain if he ever intended to finish Quixote. Writers and painters have works they keep for themselves, he once said; why not filmmakers?  

Shot independently and often on the fly over many years, Welles outlived the two principal actors—Francisco Reiguera and Akim Tamiroff—and in fact, never had a final script. The film was largely improvised, using available locations, actors and conditions to fashion his narrative.  

In 1992, Jess Franco, who served as an assistant to Welles on Chimes at Midnight, obtained as much Quixote footage as he could, re-recorded much of the dialogue and music, and edited the footage into something resembling a film. Though there are many excellent shots and scenes, and plenty of evidence of good performances and dialogue, the result is not the least bit impressive.  

The odds were against Franco, but indeed the odds were so bad that there was really no reason to go through with the project. Legal battles kept him from obtaining much of the footage, including perhaps the most arresting scene—available for viewing on YouTube—of Quixote in a movie theater, drawing his sword and stepping up to rescue a celluloid maiden by slashing the screen to ribbons. Without the film's most innovative and famous scene, how could any completed version claim relevance? 

But even without these omissions, the project should not have been attempted. After all, Welles himself claimed that he kept the footage scattered in various storage facilities to prevent a project like this one from being attempted without his consent. He didn't want some hack to try to assemble this, his most cherished and personal film, into some dim-witted, half-formed movie. His was a unique and idiosyncratic vision that could not be replicated, even with the best of intentions. 

One day perhaps this film too will be given a decent DVD release. Done properly, it would simply gather all the existing footage like a documentary, grouping scenes for clarity but otherwise with no attempt to structure it as a narrative. It wouldn't make for a great commercial success certainly, but rather it would present us with something of a historical document, allowing us to see Don Quixote as it exists — as a mass of footage lovingly shot but never fully edited. In other words, leave the incomplete film incomplete and let us imagine, as we must with so many of Welles' films, what might have been. 

Touch of Evil (1958) 

95 minutes / 109 minutes / 111 minutes. $26.99. 

Orson Welles' Don Quixote (1992) 

115 minutes. www.image-entertainment.com.  

Also new on DVD: 

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold 

John le Carré's best-selling novel was adapted to film in 1965. Directed by Martin Pitt and starring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom, the film, like its source, stood in stark contrast to the prevailing pop-culture image of espionage at the time: James Bond.  

The Bond series, with its camp style consisting of hi-tech gadgetry, debonair wit and scantily clad women, had established the spy's life as desirable and glamourous. Le Carré and Ritt, however, sought to expose the profession's seamy side, to capture its moral ambiguity and corrosiveness.  

The resulting film, though it had great impact on its day, does not hold up quite as well as its producers might have hoped. With its straw man much reduced in cultural import, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold no longer packs the punch it once did.  

The film is bookended with gripping scenes along Germany's east-west border, shot in beautiful black and white and employing light and shadow and tension and suspense to great effect. It opens at a security checkpoint as Burton waits for one of his secret agents to cross, arc lights and guns all pointed at the spook as he tries to inconspicuously make his way through. And the film closes with another border crossing, as two figures attempt to climb over the Berlin Wall, the night air filled with spotlights and sirens.  

In between, the blacks and whites of Oswald Morris' photography give way to a palette of gritty grays, as Burton wanders through a fog of alcoholism, double-dealing and doomed romance. But visual perfection cannot make up for a narrative that too often bogs down in so much chatter. Though the plot is intricate and will involve at least a few fascinating twists, the endless dialogue dilutes the viewer's interest more than arouses it. 

Criterion's two-disc set contains a number of extra features, including a documentary about le Carré and an interview, as well as archival interviews with Burton and Ritt. 

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965) 

112 minutes. $39.95. www.criterion.com. 

Few relationships in business or in life have the potential for spattered blood like the one held between contractor and client and it is for this reason that I would like to suggest some “rules of the road (sans rage)” for both contractor and client. While everyone likes to see themselves as being reasonable, thoughtful and fair, the truth is that we all have blind spots or simply become lazy. Watch drivers on any given day and you’ll see the proof. 

For the contractor, a few thoughts: 

Return calls: If you hang out a shingle, you’re making a commitment to reply to potential customers or those you’ve already worked with, within a day or so. I realize that this can be difficult and I’ve fallen down on this one myself but it says a lot about you and the profession. If you’re too busy to talk to the client right now, leave a message or make a brief call to say that you’re swamped and that you’ll try to get back to them soon. If you then take another week, your call will be welcome and you may just get the job. If it’s an old client with a problem or a question, you’ll have less steam to manage when you finally make time to come look at the leak.  

To the clients who never got that call back, try to keep in mind that small to midsize contractors have to wear too many hats (including secretary) and may be fantastic at the work and lousy at the phone call (or accounting, or employee management or...) 

Next, try to keep the jobsite neat and clean. There are few things that will initiate erosion of the relationship between Mrs. Jablonsky and her plumber faster than a mess in the bathroom, dust all around the house or tools strewn thoughtlessly about after all the guys have left. Taking time to clean up the site at the end of the day allows you to review your thoughts (have a pad and pen because you’ll realize you need a new blade, a new bit, you’re out of 2x4’s or those three inch screws you need) and leave your tools and materials neatly ready to greet you the next morning. It’s really nice to start the day in a clean workspace. It’s safer and you’ll move much faster but you’ll also find that your client will feel cared for, respected and generally grateful. This will surely manifest itself in more positive ways than I can enumerate. 

A nice easy trick for jobs that tend to generate dust (sanding, sheetrock installation, sawing) is to install a plastic barrier wall between the work area and the rest of the living space. Use medium thickness plastic sheeting and the painter’s blue tape to mount this on walls, ceilings and flooring. Then slice down the middle and install a sticky-back zipper (found at many lumber yards). If this is too constraining, you can cut a slot out at the bottom (with a piece of tape for resealing) for moving through and when you zip up.  

This will also be received by the client as a sign that you care as much about the happiness of the client as you do about the progress payment. In fact, you can care about the payment alone but if you demonstrate concern and thoughtfulness, you’ll still be well received for these measures. You don’t have to be a saint. 

Communicate, communicate, communicate. The single most frequent complaint I hear about people in construction isn’t that they weren’t cheap enough (you hear this before the work starts, not after). It is that they didn’t ask if the client liked the color before it went on the wall; which way the door should swing; where the light switch should be located; which way the flooring should run or what time they’ll be dropping by. We all have cell phones now so there’s no excuse except for the fact that the economy’s awful and we’re all overworked (which is valid but, hey, it usually just takes a minute). 

Now, that said, Mr. Jablonsky, Please, when Phil asks you which color you want, try to give him and answer and let him get on with his job. He may be hangin’ out at your house but he’s on the clock. We contractors often like to swing our jaws but we also fear for hurting our client’s feelings by starting to cut wood again, so we may kill another 10 minutes talking at several points during the day and lose an hour of work. If you’re paying time and materials (by the hour), this is fine but it’s good be sensitive to the need of the person working on a fixed bit (and paying that carpenter who’s so interesting) to get their work done and get home to the kids.  

This is a tough one, I know, but the better part of valor is to chat a little, shake a hand and then leave them to their work for most of the time, showing up occasionally to take a look and offer a cup of coffee.  

Coffee, hmm. Now that’s a nice way to say, “We appreciate that you showed up sober!” 

Mr. and Mrs. Jablonsky, you have no idea how bad it can get. I see a lot of bad work and I hear a lot of tales about contractors (or those who called themselves such) who couldn’t show up by 11 a.m., cut two boards straight or manage to drill a hole in the right place.  

The evidence is there for me at every inspection. If you have competent workers trying to do things right, responding to your emails, billing on a regular basis, consulting you as to the placement of the doorknob, you should light another stick of incense for Guan Yin, and find out which brand of coffee and doughnuts these men and women like. Further, expect mistakes as a part of the daily life of the job. If communication is clean and both parties feel respected, all mistakes can be addressed in the flow of work.  

This is true in all professions, though few surgeons will admit it. How mistakes get managed is a process that involves everyone. If you see mistakes, do the contractor (and yourself) a favor by pointing them out early and with as little scold as possible. It may take the form of a question. “Does this look right to you?,” “Perhaps this has been forgotten?” You might be wrong too so stay off the horse, else you might fall. If people are cordial, friendly and respectful, each “mistake” can become grist for improved design and may turn into something better than the simple mundane “correct” ‘version on the plans. No joke. This really happens. 

Lastly, to both parties but especially to the homeowners because this is all much newer to you than to the experienced contractor, take care of your self during the process. Most people have no idea how emotionally activating (if that sounds too psycho-babbly, let’s say exasperating) construction on or in their home can be. It doesn’t seem to make sense so we will tend to dismiss it as if it were telepathy or contacting the dead but the sort of irascibility that overcomes many clients is sub-reasonable. It’s reptilian and we don’t quite get what’s going on.  

Give yourself lots of breaks, extra sleep and other warm fuzzies during the remodeling or other trades-work, especially if your home is invaded for some time. If the kitchen is being worked on, eat out. Consider a short relocation or a long weekend away if it’s a longer job. By taking better care of our own emotional well being, we can then be our best selves when real problems arise and not fly off the handle (which is sure to make things better, right?) 

Frederick Buechner said that “Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.” 

We are all spiritual beings having a human experience. A construction project, as much as any human endeavor is a chance to be our best selves and to grow. Let us back away from the table of carnage, see the source of frustration within our selves and practice compassion with our contractors, our clients and everyone else. Bon appetite. 

The island of Catalina receives over a million visitors per year, but the vast majority of them go in summer and never set foot outside the principal town of Avalon. 

Twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide at its widest point, the island offers much more than day-tripper cotton candy and kitschy souvenirs. And if you go in winter, the place is all yours—especially if you choose to stay on the western and less frequented side of Catalina, where a half-mile isthmus separates two natural and scenic back-to-back harbors. 

The Isthmus village of Two Harbors, with a population of 200, caters to scuba divers, sport fishermen, and the yachters who anchor at the many picturesque coves lining the island’s West End. In winter, the coves are sparsely anchored, the summer camps closed, and the overall atmosphere even more tranquil than usual. 

Now is the best time for hikers to explore the island’s interior. Most of Catalina is mountainous, making the hot summer months less than ideal for tackling the interior on foot (for those not inclined to walk, Hummer tours offer a no-sweat option). In contrast, the island’s mild winter climate is ideal for long hikes, which is a good thing, since there aren’t many short hikes to be had at the West End. 

The Catalina Isthmus has been attracting people for over 7,000 years. Its first known inhabitants were the Gabrielino native islanders, who maintained a large village that was also the center of their religious activities. By the mid-19th century, smugglers and miners had replaced the indigenous population, who had been shipped off to the San Gabriel Mission (hence the name Gabrielino). 

During the Civil War, the Union Army maintained a small Isthmus garrison for nine months. Its barracks are now being used by the Isthmus Yacht Club. 

From 1846 until 1892, at least half a dozen private individuals owned Catalina in succession. With the exception of one hotel and a tent city in Avalon, the island remained undeveloped until the Banning brothers acquired it from the James Lick estate in 1892. The sons of General Phineas Banning, stagecoach king and developer of the Los Angeles harbor, William, Joseph, and Hancock Banning had been running a steamship line to Catalina since 1884. They purchased a controlling interest in the island with the intention of developing it as a resort and quickly introduced many attractions, including two dance pavilions, a bandstand, an aquarium, a Greek amphitheatre, an inclined railway from Avalon to Lover’s Cove, and a golf course. 

The Bannings built roads in the Island’s interior and installed the first telephone and wireless telegraph systems. They also offered fishing excursions, sightseeing by stagecoach, and glass-bottomed boat trips. 

While Avalon grew, the remote Isthmus—23 miles away by road, 13.4 miles by boat—remained a backwater. In 1910, the Bannings built themselves a summer house on a knoll overlooking the two harbors: Isthmus Cove on the lee side and Catalina Harbor on the ocean side. Originally clad in brown shingles and now painted white, the house retains many Arts & Crafts details. The long structure forms an extended C around three sides of a patio overhung with a pergola and enlivened by many plantings. At one end of the patio, the two-story living room and the adjacent sunroom command sweeping vistas to the north, west, and south. At the other end, a charming dining room faces Isthmus Cove. Between the two, a row of bedrooms opens onto the patio, their rear windows looking out on Catalina Harbor. 

When the Bannings traveled to the Isthmus, their stagecoach trips from Avalon lasted two days. Charles Frederick Holder, the naturalist who did more than anyone to turn Catalina into a big-game fishing mecca, described one of those stagecoach rides in his book The Channel Islands of California (1910): “One of the owners of the island, Captain William Banning, is probably the finest amateur six-in-hand driver in the United States; to see him handle his famous team on the island roads, or anywhere in California, is something worth while. I think the one experience at Santa Catalina Island that made the most lasting impression on me was the first ride down the mountain road with Captain Banning and his private six-in-hand when he ‘let them out.’ It was as near an aeroplane as anything could be, and I think we made the run down in about eighteen minutes.” 

In November 1915, a catastrophic fire devastated Avalon, destroying six hotels, most public amenities, and a good many homes. According to some reports, half the town was reduced to ashes, others say only a third of it burned. The damage amounted to more than $2 million. Determined to rebuild, the Bannings immediately began planning the construction of a new hotel. However, their resources were not up to the task of resurrecting the entire resort, and in 1919 they sold the island to a man with deeper pockets: chewing gum magnate William Wrigley. 

After the Bannings’ departure, their summer house underwent several reincarnations. During World War II, it served as the U.S. Coast Guard officers’ quarters. In the late 1950s, it was a private girls’ camp. Later the house metamorphosed into a hunting lodge, and later still into housing for employees of the Santa Catalina Island Company. Today it is called the Banning House Lodge and operated as an eleven-room bed-and-breakfast inn. 

Summer rates at the Banning House Lodge can be salty, but winter is a bargain, with a room for two going for $91 a night Sunday through Thursday ($141 on Friday & Saturday). No radio, TV, or telephone will disturb your peace unless you bring your own. Two Harbors has one restaurant-bar and one general store. During the winter season, there are five boats weekly from Long Beach via Avalon. A Safari Bus makes a daily run (weather permitting) between Two Harbors and Avalon. 

A variety of hikes is available, from the level West End Road, hugging the coastline, to the steep Silver Peak Trail, which ascends several summits of 1,500 feet or more. The rewards include not only breathtaking views but possible encounters with the beautiful and diminutive Catalina Island fox or with an American bison, not to mention several species of plants endemic to the island, like the gigantic Catalina Island buckwheat (aka St. Catherine’s Lace), the Catalina cherry, or the Catalina Island currant. 

And when it comes to sunsets and rainbows, I haven’t seen better. No wonder Catalina has been called “The Jewel in the Ocean” and “Fairyland.” 

Getting there 

Catalina Express 

(800) 481-3470 

www.catalinaexpress.com 

Where to stay 

Banning House Lodge 

Two Harbors 

(800) 626-1496 

http://www.visitcatalinaisland.com/twoHarbors/lodg_banningHouse.php 

Where to eat 

Harbor Reef  

Restaurant & Bar 

Two Harbors 

(310) 510-4215

THURSDAY, DEC. 11 

Santa’s Wonderland Thurs. though Sun. until Dec. 23 at 1809 Fourth St. Free. Donate socks filled with toiletries or an unwrapped book for the Children’s Learning Center at Harrison House Homeless Shelter. 644-3002.  

Introduction to Urban Permaculture Learn about what is possible in a city with members of Merritt College’s Landscape Horticulture Dept. at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Free. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, Thurs. at noon and Sun. at 1 p.m. to oppose UC weapons labs contracts. 848-8055. 

East Bay Mac Users Group with Howard Cohen of Timefold on “Terminal and the Unix shell under OS X” at 7 p.m. at Expression College for Digital Arts, 6601 Shellmound St. Emeryville. http://ebmug.org 

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.  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

FRIDAY, DEC. 12 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Leslie Kowalewski on “Infant Mortality in the United States.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 524-7468. www.citycommonsclub.org 

“It Will Be Magic” Alameda Holiday Home Tour candlelight preview at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $75. Benefits Alameda Family Services. Day tour on Sat. from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for $30-$35. 629-6208. alamedaholidayhometour.info 

Class Struggle Classics film series presents “Blue Collar” a 1978 film, starring Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel, depicting the deadend life of factory workers, at 7 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 595-7417. www.marxistlibr.org 

Womensong Circle An evening of participatory singing for women at 7:15 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, small assembly room, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Donation $15-$20. 525-7082. 

“What is Jewish Spirituality?” at 6:15 p.m. in El Cerrito. RSVP to Rabbi Bridget at 559-8140. 

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, DEC. 13 

Palestinian Hand-Crafted Gift Sale from noon to 6 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Benefit for Palestinian craftspeople & Middle East Children’s Alliance. 548-0542. meca@mecaforpeace.org.  

Holiday Crafts Fair at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market with live music, hot lunches and a variety of handcrafted gifts, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Civic Center Park, Center St. at MLK Jr. Way. 548-2220, ext. 227. www.ecologycenter.org 

Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair with over 200 street artists, merchants, community groups and entertainment, Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. between Dwight and Bancroft. 234-1013. 

Berkeley Open Studios Sat and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Dec. 21. 845-2612. www.berkeleyartisans.com 

ACCI Gallery Holiday Showcase from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Berkeley Potters Guild 38th Holiday Sale Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 73 Jones St. at Fourth St. www.berkeleypotters.com 

Heyday Holiday Book Sale from noon to 4 p.m., with a presentation by naturalist John Muir Laws at 2 p.m. at 1633 University Ave. 549-3564, ext. 376. www.heydaybooks.com 

El Cerrito’s Annual Holiday Pancake Breakfast with a visit from Santa and a puppet show, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane. Tickets are $8. 559-7000. 

The Crucible’s Annual Holiday Art Sale & Open House Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at The Crucible, 1260 Seventh Street, Oakland. 444-0919. www.thecrucible.org 

Point Isabel Weeding Party The broom stumps are beginning to sprout leaves that we’ll use the weed wrenches on and we’ve located a third ice plant infestation that we’d love to eliminate. Join us from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Point Isabel, El Cerrito. Please RSVP to 704-8628. kyotousa@sbcglobal.net 

Destiny’s 20th Anniversary Extravaganza Performance “20 Years of Love in Action” featuring youth dance, theater and martial arts performers at 7 p.m. at McClymonds High School, 2607 Myrtle St., West Oakland. Tickets are $3-$10 sliding scale. 597-1619. www.destinyarts.org 

Holiday Wreaths—Naturally Learn to make wreaths, garlands and other decorations using natural materials, from noon to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Please bring a small pair of hand clippers, and large flat box and a bag lunch. Cost is $25-$56. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Working with Wool Watch as the spinning wheel turns wool into yarn, try a drop spindle and create a felted holiday ornament, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Wrap it Up” Design handmade gift bags and wrapping paper, Sat. and Sun. from 1 to 4 p.m. at Museum of Children’s Art, 538 Ninth St., Suite 210, Oakland. Cost is $7. 456-8770. www.mocha.org 

“It Will Be Magic” Alameda Holiday Home Tour from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $30-$35, benefits Alameda Family Services. 629-6208. alamedaholidayhometour.info 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour of Berkeley High from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. For reservations and starting point call 848-0181. 

Vegetarian Cooking Class Healthful and Humane Holiday Cooking and Baking Learn to make warm lentil salad, grilled portabello mushrooms, purple potatoes and cashew cream, chocolate truffles 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 

“Paws and Claus” Santa visits the Oakland Zoo Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 9777 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Origami with Margot Wecksler Learn how to make stars at 2 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave, Albany. 526-3720, ext. 16. 

Edwardian Holidays Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate Weekends through Dec. 21 with costumed docents, festive trolley, live music, entertainment, cozy tea in the cottage, and Breakfast with Father Christmas, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Cost is $7-$12. For reservations call 925-275-9490. www.dunsmuir.org  

The 2nd Annual STW (Stanley Tookie Williams) Legacy Summit “What Is Really Happening on Death Row?” from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at Merritt College, Huey P. Newton/Bobby Seale Student Lounge, 12500 Campus Drive, Oakland. 434-3935. www.merritt.edu 

NAACP Berkeley Branch meeting at 1 p.m. at 2108 Russell St. 845-7416. 

The East Bay Chapter of The Great War Society will hold its monthly meeting at 10:30 a.m. at the Albany Veterans Memorial Bldg., 1325 Portland Ave., Albany. Robert Deward will present “Lawrence, Guirilla Pandemic & Iraq.” 526-4423. 

Cinema Dreaming “Busby Berkeley Bliss-Out” from 2 to 6 p.m. at The Dream Institute, 1672 University at McGee. Cost is $10-$12. 845-1767. 

Tree of Life Qi Gong Workout at 10 a.m. at 2929 Summit St., Ste. 103, Oakland. Cost is $15. 253-8120. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, DEC. 14 

Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair with over 200 street artists, merchants, community groups and entertainment, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. between Dwight and Bancroft. 234-1013. 

Waterside Workshops Sustainable Holiday Event and Toy Making Workshop Learn how to make your own wooden toy, or sew up a fleece hat to keep your ears warm from 2 to 5 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr. in Berkeley’s Aquatic Park. For all ages. Free. 644-2577 www.watersideworkshops.org 

Affordable Art Exhibition/Sale from 4 to 7 p.m., Sat.-Mon. from noon to 7 p.m. at The Compound Gallery, 6604 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 655-9019. www.thecompoundgallery.com 

The Crucible’s Annual Holiday Art Sale & Open House from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at The Crucible, 1260 Seventh Street, Oakland. 444-0919. www.thecrucible.org 

Winter Wanderland Hike Series An invigorating fast-paced hike from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. This week we will visit Point Pinole. Call for meeting place. Bring water, layered clothing and a snack to share. 525-2233. 

Little Farm Open House Come grind some corn to feed the chickens, pet a bunny or groom a goat, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the Little Farm at Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Community Multi-Traditional Holiday Sing-Along at 5 p.m. at GNC, 2138 Cedar St. www.downhomedancing.org 

Old Time Radio East Bay Collectors and listeners gather to enjoy shows together at 5 p.m. at a private home in Richmond. For more information email DavidinBerkeley -at- Yahoo.com 

East Bay Atheists’ Annual Solstice Party at 1:30 p.m. at Giovanni’s Restaurant, 2420 Shattuck Ave. 222-7580. eastbayatheists.org 

Chanukah Celebration for the Very Young with puppets, songs, menorah lighting and latkes, for ages 0-5 and their parents at 10:30 a.m. in El Cerrito. RSVP to Rabbi Bridget 559-8140. 

“Scientific Revolutions and Religion: The Einsteinian Revolution” with Prof. Bill Garrett at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

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 Elizabeth Cook on “The Stupa: Sacred Symbol of Enlightenment” 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 

MONDAY, DEC. 15 

Town Hall Meeting on the Berkeley Climate Action Plan hosted by Council Member Gordon Wozniak at 7 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. www.BerkeleyClimateAction.org. 

East Bay Track Club for girls and boys ages 3-15 meets Mon. at 6 p.m. at Berkeley High School track field. Free. 776-7451. 

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 

TUESDAY, DEC. 16 

Christmas Caroling at 6 p.m. in front of Sweet Dreams, 2921 College Ave. Song sheets provided. 

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. 

“Is there a Strategy for Making Revolution in the USA? Yes!” A discussion of RCP strategy at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Boffers and Board Games from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at Codornices Park, 1201 Euclid Ave. across from the Rose Garden, or 33 Revolutions Record Shop & Cafe, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito when bad weather. Free, but parental supervision required. 526-5985. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We 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. 

Caribbean Rhythms Dance Class begins at 5:30 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St., and meets every Tues. eve. Donations accepted for Community Rhythms Scholarship Fund. 548-9840. 

Yarn Wranglers Come knit and crochet at 6:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 17 

UC Student Housing on the Southside A community discussion on the proposed development of the Anna Head parking lot at 7 p.m. at the Unit #2 Dormitory Recreation Room, below the courtyard. 643-8677. hlampert@cp.berkeley.edu 

Pacific Boychoir Auditions for afterschool program for ages 5 to 18 from 4:15 to 6 p.m. at 410 Alcatraz Ave. To register for auditions call 652-4722. 

Bonita Hollow Writers Salon meets at 7 p.m. at Bonita Hollow, 1631 Bonita Ave. 266-2069. 

Simplicity Forum with a discussion on what we learned this year, and how to simplify next year at 6:30 p.m. at the Claremont Library, 2940 Benvenue. 

Red Cross Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. To sign up call 594-5165. 

“How I sold and bought a home in France” with Devin Daly at 7 p.m. at Au Coquelet Café, University at Milvia. RSVP to ddaly@oldworldfrance.com 

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. 

Jump Start Entrepreneurs Network meets at 8 a.m. at Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. at Alcactraz. Cost is $5-$6, includes breakfast. 899-8242.  

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, DEC. 18 

Holiday Crafts and Tree Trim for ages five and up from 3 to 5 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Larry Everest and Norman Solomon Debate “U.S. Foreign Policy and Opposing Wars during the Obama Presidency” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar and Bonita. Donation $5-$10 no one turned away. 495-5132. 

Santa’s Wonderland Thurs. though Sun. until Dec. 23 at 1809 Fourth St. Free. Donate socks filled with toiletries or an unwrapped book for the Children’s Learning Center at Harrison House Homeless Shelter. 644-3002.  

Toastmasters Berkeley Communicators meets at 7:30 a.m. at Au Coquelet, 2000 University Ave. Rob.Flammia@gmail.com 

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, Thurs. at noon and Sun. at 1 p.m. to oppose UC weapons labs contracts. 848-8055. 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

FRIDAY, DEC. 19 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Jeff Robinson, photographer on “Wildlife of Asia.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 524-7468. www.citycommonsclub.org 

Demonstrate for Peace! Bring your signs and determination to bring our troops home now and keep out of Iran, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Acton and University Aves. Sponsored by Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers, Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenants Association and the Iraq Moratorium. 841-4143. 

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. 

Kol Hadash Humanistic Judaism Chanukah Celebration at 6:30 p.m. at Albany Community Center, with a farewell party for Rabbi Jay. Please bring non-perishable food for the needy. For more info about the potluck email info@kolhadash.org 

SATURDAY, DEC. 20 

Women on Common Ground Holiday Decorations Join this annual workshop to make holiday decorations for the Women’s Drop-In Shelter and for yourself also, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Bring a small pair of hand-clippers and a bag lunch if you wish to join the afternoon solstice hike at 2 p.m. 525-2233. 

Holiday Crafts Fair at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market with live music, hot lunches and a variety of handcrafted gifts, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Civic Center Park, Center St. at MLK Jr. Way. 548-2220, ext. 227. www.ecologycenter.org 

Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair with over 200 street artists, merchants, community groups and entertainment, Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. between Dwight and Bancroft. 234-1013. 

Temescal Holiday Skate and Stroll from 1 to 5 p.m. at the outdoor skating rink at 49th and Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $3 for skating. 

Revolution Books Open House from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

Berkeley Open Studios Sat and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Dec. 21. 845-2612. www.berkeleyartisans.com 

“Paws and Claus” Santa visits the Oakland Zoo Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 9777 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

“Hanging Around” Create winter ornaments and decorations from 1 to 4 p.m. at Museum of Children’s Art, 538 Ninth St., Suite 210, Oakland. Cost is $7. 456-8770. www.mocha.org 

Edwardian Holidays Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate Weekends through Dec. 21 with costumed docents, festive trolley, live music, entertainment, cozy tea in the cottage, and Breakfast with Father Christmas, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Cost is $7-$12. For reservations call 925-275-9490. www.dunsmuir.org  

Pre-Winter Trash Clean-up of Ohlone Greenway from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Meet on Moeser and the Ohlone Greenway, behind Safeway in El Cerrito. Wear jacket, long sleeves, pants and closed toe shoes. For information contact 215-4353. 

“I Sit and Stay” Survival guide for children with author Leah Waarvik at 2 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Tree of Life Qi Gong Workout at 10 a.m. at 2929 Summit St., Ste. 103, Oakland. Cost is $15. 253-8120. 

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 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, DEC. 21 

Winter Solstice Celebration Learn the solstice’s cultural history on a short walk, then share seasonal stories, poems and music around the campfire from 1 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. For ages 5 and up. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Winter Solstice Gathering, led by Alan Gould, Lawrence Hall of Science, at 4:10 p.m. at the Interinm Solar Calendar, Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Dress warmly. www.solarcalendar.org 

Winter Solstice Labyrinth Walk from 6 to 8 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. info@eastbaylabyrinthproject.org  

Winter Solstice and Open Talent Show at 6 p.m. at The Deep Green Humanist Church, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, bring healthy potluck food to share, donations welcome. 451-5818.  

Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair with over 200 street artists, merchants, community groups and entertainment, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. between Dwight and Bancroft. 234-1013. 

Temescal Holiday Skate and Stroll from 1 to 5 p.m. at the outdoor skating rink at 49th and Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $3 for skating. 

“Home Sweet Home” Build candy cottages and cookie castles from 1 to 4 p.m. at Museum of Children’s Art, 538 Ninth St., Suite 210, Oakland. Cost is $7. 456-8770. www.mocha.org 

Kol Hadash Bagel Brunch with Prof. Bernard Rosen on “Why I am Not an Atheist” at 10 a.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin, Albany. Suggested donation $5. 525-2296. Programs@kolhadash.org  

Community Multi-Traditional Holiday Sing-Along at 5 p.m. at GNC, 2138 Cedar St. www.downhomedancing.org 

Community Menorah Lighting at 4 p.m. at Bay Street Emeryville Mall, across from Barnes & Noble. 540-5824. www.ChabadBerkeley.org 

Kehilla Chanukah Celebration at 4 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. Tickets are $10. www.KehillaSynagogue.org  

“Spiritual Perspectives for Independent Thinkers in a World of Paradox” with Jeremy Taylor at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

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. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., Dec. 11, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5356.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs., Dec. 11, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Dec. 11, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7410.  

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon., Dec. 15, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers. 981-7368. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

City Council meets Tues., Dec. 13, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., Dec. 18, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

ONGOING 

Help Low-wage Families with Their Taxes United Way’s Earn it! Keep It! Save It! needs Bay Area volunteers for its 7th annual free tax program. No previous experience necessary. Sign up at www.earnitkeepitsaveit.org