With no end in sight to either the impasse in contract negotiations or the ongoing work-to-rule action, Berkeley teachers held an hour long demonstration in front of the Berkeley Unified School Administration Building Tuesday afternoon. 

Some 300 teachers and their supporters participated, many stretching in a solid line on the west side of Martin Luther King Jr. Way from the Public Safety Building to the bail bond office across Allston Way. 

A line of children stood on the Old City Hall steps, each holding a placard with letters that collectively spelled out “FAIR CONTRACT NOW.” Demonstrators blew whistles, chanted, and waved at passing motorists with signs that ranged from “Don’t Cut My Benefits And Call It A Pay Raise,” “$3,000,000 New To BUSD And Teachers Are Supposed To Take A Pay Cut?” and “Honk For Berkeley Teachers.” Many motorists honked in support. 

If the protracted contract dispute is wearing down the will of teachers, it didn’t show during the demonstration. Demonstrators smiled, joked and chatted with each other, and appeared decidedly upbeat. 

Members of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers have been working without a new contract for two years, and contract negotiations with district representatives are currently being handled through a state-appointed mediator. 

Since late February, many teachers have been conducting a work-to-rule slowdown in the district’s schools, refusing to do any non-compensated activity past their contracted work hours. 

Meanwhile, Berkeley Federation of Teachers president Barry Fike announced that teachers’ union members voted overwhelmingly this week to continue their work-to-rule action against his recommendation. 

Fike said that 70 percent of union members voted for the job action in a survey conducted by the union’s Executive Committee. He said 17 percent voted to continue work-to-rule in modified form, and 13 percent voted to end it. 

“I was very surprised by the vote,” Fike said. “The original purpose of work-to-rule when it was started two months ago was two-pronged: to raise awareness of our contract dispute, and to apply pressure on the district. I think it has served its purpose. As soon as we started work-to-rule, there was a remarkably different attitude and preparation for the mediation talks shown by the district administration. That was the first time real dollar concessions showed up on the table. Unfortunately, work-to-rule hasn’t had enough of an impact to bring about enough concessions for a contract agreement.” 

Fike said that he thought continuation of work-to-rule “was distracting us from what we need to prepare for a possible strike,” which he said could happen in the fall if negotiations ultimately break down. 

“I argued pretty strongly to end work-to-rule,” he said, “but this is a democratic organization, and we will follow the will of our members.” 

Another mediation session between the BUSD administration and BFT representatives is scheduled for Monday. Fike said work-to-rule could be rescinded by the union if there is significant progress in that session, but if not it is likely that the action will continue through the end of the school year.›

Eight years ago, in an act that Willard Middle School Vice Principal Thomas Orput calls a “total fiasco,” the Berkeley Unified School District painted over the Telegraph Avenue mural on the school gymnasium’s outside wall without contacting the artists. 

At the time, it was the largest mural in Berkeley, and only a small portion was able to be saved after community protests flooded the school district. 

This spring, the school must make a decision on a second mural, a 135-foot-long painting along the school’s Stuart Street Academic Building. And this time, the Willard administration says it wants to get it right. 

“We either have to restore the mural or we have to archive it and demolish it,” Orput said. “We can’t leave it the way it is.” 

The unnamed painting was designed by Chicano artist Malaquias Montoya in the 1970s. It was painted by Montoya, then a professor at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, and CCAC students, and was part of a project that completed 15 murals in Berkeley, Oakland, and on the CCAC campus itself. 

Montoya is now a professor in the Chicano Studies Department and Art Department of UC Davis, teaching courses on mural painting and surveys of Chicano art. 

Twelve feet tall at its upper end and 20 feet at its lower, the mural depicts a sweeping story of multicultural struggle, with heroic figures from different races and ethnicities massed together in scenes along mountains and fields, hands holding burning sunfires or calculations or reaching down to pull up the downtrodden. At what Orput calls the “dark end” of the piece, it descends into an apocalyptic vision of war and struggle, with dingy American, British, and Soviet Union flags, worker-warriors holding back snarling robot dogs on leashes, and a grinning, malevolent demon-face in the far corner. 

In a telephone interview, Montoya said that the themes of the mural were all developed out of the thoughts of Willard students. When the mural was commissioned by the school district, he said he asked the middle school to select a cross-section of students to meet with him and the CCAC artists. 

“We asked them what was important in their lives,” Montoya explained. “They talked about that atomic energy sign on the BART trains and how that scared them, and that’s why that symbol shows up in the mural. They talked about how bad television was, but how they were addicted to it. They talked about the battle of the superpowers—America and England and the Soviet Union at that time—so that’s where the flags came from.” 

The robot dogs, he said, actually grew out of mechanical birds, which the Willard students said were symbolic of evil. “The birds didn’t work in the piece,” he said. “At that time, those ‘transformer’ toys were big, and so we turned the mechanical birds into ‘transformer’ dogs.” 

Montoya said the images at what Orput calls the “dark end” of the piece were so controversial at the time the mural was conceived that the Willard principal at that time called him back in and protested that the students couldn’t have come up with those images. 

“So we met with the Willard students again and asked them if what we were depicting was accurate,” Montoya said. “They said it was.” 

The centerpiece of the Willard mural is a quote from Brazilian progressive education advocate Paolo Freire: “If children reared in an atmosphere of loneliness and oppression, children whose potency has been frustrated, do not manage during their youth to take the path of authentic rebellion, they will either drift into total indifference, alienated from reality by their authorities and the myths the latter have used to shape them, or they may engage in forms of destructive action.” 

Orput said he has no desire to wipe out the mural unless it’s absolutely necessary. “My mother was a middle school art teacher in Minnesota, and her thing was murals,” he said. “It’s my thing too.” He added that the Willard mural is “a very beautiful piece.” 

Orput said he particularly likes the inclusion of the quote from Freire, whom he studied during intern work in the Oakland public schools. “It’s a great reminder to teachers and kids of our multicultural world, and it’s a special reminder of teachers to keep their work relevant to the kids,” he said. 

It is also slowly disintegrating, and that is the problem. 

The mural was painted over concrete in a preservation process that the Vice Principal says was “not very good.” As a result, flakes of paint, some of them as large as quarters, have fallen off the facade in recent years. Orput says that the deterioration appears to be escalating. 

In addition, Orput says that the mural invites vandalism—a recent message marked over one of the figures reads “Reject CR And Get Disrespected”—and that because there is no protective coating over the original art, school personnel are often at a loss as to how to eliminate the graffiti without harming the mural. 

Another problem is that a portion of the mural covers archways over a sunken entranceway to the Academic Building, a popular spot for homeless. 

“I have great respect and sympathy for the homeless,” Orput says, “but this is not a good situation for our students. Often either myself or my staff have to get here before the kids to wake people up and to clear the area of needles and refuse and waste. We need to do something with the entranceway to prevent that, and that may have an impact on the mural.” 

Orput, who is in charge of Willard’s $3.4 million bond-financed renovation, says that before a decision is made whether to restore the mural or archive-and-demolish, he wants to cost out both options. He also wants to talk with directly with Montoya, as well as with the 8 student artists who worked on the project. 

“We definitely want their input,” Orput said. “We want to hear their opinion on what they think should be done.” 

Meanwhile, the archiving has already begun, with what Orput calls unexpected and spectacular success. 

While looking through old artifacts to be preserved when the school’s Administration Building is demolished this summer, the Vice Principal found cardboard tubes holding the original story board drawings for the mural. Also included with the story board were original notes on the project, apparently by Montoya. 

“The wall of the junior high school (like any wall), demands a mural which addresses specific, relevant issues,” he wrote. “We tried to find out what concerns the students have about issues that affect their lives, such as their opinions on education and current world events. ... We were impressed by the students’ awareness of global events and politics. ... In the final mural design, we have tried to incorporate the students input while offering hope and possibilities for their own personal contributions to the continuing struggle for peace.” 

Whatever happens to the original mural, he wants the story board to be preserved and displayed, both in digital form on the school’s website and possibly inside one of the school buildings as an original exhibit. 

Montoya called the discovery of his original working drawings and notes “pretty amazing.” He said he had been contacted by a Berkeley school official by telephone, and told the district was thinking of painting the mural over. 

“I told them it was their decision,” he said. “But every time you see a mural whitewashed over, it’s sad.” 

The artist said he was delighted that the final decision had not yet been made, and that Orput planned to talk with him and the student artists directly to get their input before moving forward. He said he had seen another of his Berkeley murals destroyed without his knowledge. 

“There was one we did on Telegraph Avenue at the old co-op in the ‘90s,” he said. “It depicted the Black Liberation Struggle. One day I was driving by, and it was just gone.” 

Since the time Montoya and Orput were interviewed for this article, they reported that they have communicated with each other, but said no decision has yet been made on the future of the Willard mural.›

When is the sale of a building not a sale, at least for property tax reasons?  

The question arose during last week’s heated discussion at the Zoning Adjustments Board over The Old Grove—the massive new housing-over-commercial project planned for University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

At one point during the discussion, Tom Hunt, a neighbor of the project, complained that the building would never be reassessed if sold in the future because it’s owned by a limited liability corporation (LLC). 

If true, an LLC would be an effective tool for avoiding any future reassessments. 

In an era when cash-starved local governments are laying off workers and cutting back services, cities and counties desperately need the increased revenues that come when property is reevaluated at the time of sale. 

When a reporter posed the question of whether a LLC provides an escape from reassessment to a representative of the State Board of Equalization (BOE), the answer was: “Depends.” 

The same question received different answers when posed to a leading tax attorney and the Alameda County Assessors office. All agreed, however, that the issue is far from simple. 

Anita Gore of the BOE said the answer depends on the nature of the sale. 

Citing the example of an LLC with five members each owning a 20 percent interest, she said the sale would trigger a reassessment if the property was sold to a single individual or if a legal entity making the purchase contained a member who owner more than 50 percent. 

“But if the sale was five individuals who again owned equal shares, there would be no reassessment,” she said. “And it took an hour’s discussion with our experts to arrive at that answer.”  

The LLC is a new creation historically, first enacted in Wyoming in 1977. It combines some of the features of a limited partnership with those of the corporation. 

For an investor, it offers unique protections from legal liability. If an officer of a traditional corporation is found liable for personal misconduct in corporate affairs, he or she may incur personal liability. But an LLC officer sued for misconduct in corporate affairs cannot be held personally liable and the most a litigant can receive is a charging order against the LLC, a document the Los Angeles Business Club calls “virtually worthless.” 

Berkeley’s best-known developers, Patrick Kennedy and David Teece, created LLCs to own each of their buildings that increasingly dominate the Berkeley landscape, and two of Kennedy’s former employees are doing the same for the massive two-building complex they plan at the site of Kragen Auto Parts on University Avenue. 

Thus, there’s a Gaia Building LLC, a Fine Arts Building LLC, a Bachenheimer Building LLC and so on. 

But a rising concern for local governments is just when does the sale of an LLC—or a significant change in ownership—amount to a transaction that would trigger a reassessment of property taxes. 

“The law is quite bizarre,” said Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the Sacramento-based California Tax Reform Association. “It’s really more loophole than tax.” 

Joseph G. De Angelis, a leading Sacramento County corporate and tax attorney, said that any time there is a change in corporate or LLC ownership of more than 50 percent, the new owners are legally obligated to report the change, triggering a reassessment. 

Brian Hitomi, Chief of Appraisal Services for the Alameda County Assessor’s office, said any change in the percentages of ownership among LLC members would trigger reassessment. 

“The owners are supposed to report,” said Hitomi, “and we are tracking percentages of ownership. But it’s based on self-reporting. Otherwise, there’s no way to know.” 

Gore said reassessments definitely kick in when there’s a 100 percent change in ownership, “but if it’s less, the answer may be different.” 

De Angelis cited the case of an LLC owned by three equal partners. Should one member sell out to another partner, the buyer would now own two-third’s of the corporation, theoretically triggering a reassessment. But should two partners buy out equal halves of the third owner’s interest, each of the owners would then hold exactly 50 percent of the LLC, not the “more than half” trigger that sets off a reassessment. 

Goldberg cited a notorious Napa County case where one huge winery—Gallo—bought out another—Martini—with all its vineyards and buildings without triggering a reassessment. 

“No one took more than 50 percent, so the entire sale of one large company to another took place with no change in ownership,” Goldberg said. “There are seminars for lawyers teaching them how to avoid reassessment.” 

That’s not the only complication, said De Angelis. In the real world, ownership changes often go unreported. “As a practical matter, the county may not see it, although the state has now put a box on the LLC tax return that asks if there’s been a change in ownership.” 

“We’re very reliant on the state informing us of changes of ownership,” said Hitomi of the county assessor’s office, “and there’s an effort going forward to seek these out more rigorously. The state is now looking for ownership changes throughout California so they can report to the counties.” 

If unreported changes are found that should have triggered reassessments, an eight-year statute of limitations sets a cap on how much back taxes counties can collect. 

The Legal Entity Ownership Program is a joint state effort by the Franchise Tax Board and the Board of Equalization, said Gore. 

“The Franchise Tax Boards gets the information, and they trade information with the county assessors,” she explained. “We have a form we send out.” 

De Angelis noted a second, structural reality that is also shifting the property tax burden onto homeowners and away from the business sector. 

“If I sell a house, there’s no doubt it will be reassessed, and the typical California homeowner buys a new house every five to seven years,” he said. “But businesses sell far less frequently.” 

So long as they remain under the same ownership, Proposition 13 limits business property assessments at the same 2 percent annual increase as residential property. 

As a result, the homeowner share of property tax revenues has been inching steadily upward. In 1986, homeowners contributed 32.4 percent of state property tax revenues, compared to 38 percent 15 years later. 

Two years ago, East Bay Assemblymember Loni Hancock authored legislation that would have mandated taxing at fair market value all nonresidential property not used for commercial agriculture. 

The proposal drew massive opposition from Republicans, business and industrial groups, apartment owners’ associations, and lobbyists for commercial interests. Faced with the realization that the bill couldn’t pass, Hancock allowed it to die. 

One bill now pending in the state senate would change the trigger mechanism for property tax reassessments. SB 17, by Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Montebello), would force a reevaluation whenever cumulative ownership changes of more than 50 percent occur. 

That legislation has roused considerable opposition, in part because the bill would affect publicly traded corporations whose stock often changes hands with considerable frequency. 

Goldberg—who worked closely with Loni Hancock on her failed legislation, said the change needed to happen constitutionally, just as Proposition 13—the source of most of local government’s current tax woes—occurred through a constitutional referendum. 

“As it stands, the underlying law today is ludicrous,” he said.›

Sequoia has beaten out second-place Ohlone and six other alternatives for the chance to replace the name of Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, according to the results of a school-wide vote. 

Jefferson Elementary School principal Betty Delaney reportedly described the vote as a “very close count.” 

The vote on the possible name change of the Ada Street school was proposed by parents and community activists who were concerned that the Berkeley school was named for a man who held slaves on his 18th century Virginia plantation. The issue has sparked controversy in Berkeley, with Jefferson supporters arguing that the nation’s third president should continue to be honored because of his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory from France, paving the way to make America an ocean-to-ocean empire. 

The first round of voting focused on choosing an alternative name to Jefferson. Sequoia won the first round over the names of Ohlone, Cesar Chavez, Ralph Bunche, Sojourner Truth, Florence McDonald (a former city councilmember), Peace, and Rose. 

A second round of voting by Jefferson Elementary parents, students, and staff—this one to decide whether to keep the Jefferson name or replace it with Sequoia —will be held during the week of May 23, with results expected to be reported shortly afterward. 

According to Berkeley Unified School District Public Information Office Mark Coplan, if the Jefferson Elementary community chooses Sequoia over Thomas Jefferson, the name change will most likely go to the BUSD Board for consideration in June.  

The Jefferson Elementary administration has planned a school community meeting for May 17, 6-8 p.m., to discuss the procedures for the final vote. 

Prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and Iraq have been hooded, isolated, humiliated, injured, made to feel hopeless and close to death. Mark Danner, UC Berkeley journalism professor, says such treatment is systemic, a flagrant violation of rules of war and morality and the fault of “policy makers in the department of justice, policy makers including Professor (John) Yoo, policy makers in the Department of Defense (and) policy makers in the White House.”  

On the other hand, John Yoo, Boalt Law School professor and former deputy assistant attorney general, argues that in today’s extraordinary war on terror, new rules of combat must apply.  

Yoo, Danner and Tom Farer, dean of the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, spoke on a panel Monday evening at the law school, moderated by Harry Kreisler, executive director of the Institute of International Studies.  

Yoo dismissed the well-publicized abuse in Iraq as isolated incidents, the work of rogue soldiers. “I think the real problem in Abu Ghraib is that we had sent in insufficient resources and we did not train people sufficiently,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but when there are large institutions, there are going to be people who violate the rules.”  

Yoo further argued that even in the U.S., there are police officers who don’t do their jobs properly. “That doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy.”  

In his presentation, Yoo didn’t dwell on Iraq, but laid out a carefully crafted theory from which emerges the permission for U.S. interrogators to go beyond normal restrictions of international rules of war to interrogate certain prisoners.  

Yoo’s theory is based on the idea that Sept. 11, 2001 prompted a “war” on terror. One doesn’t react to war as one does to a criminal act, he said. “If a nation-state, say the Soviet Union during the cold war, had carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in the exact same way, for the exact same purpose, would we have not considered that an act of war and considered ourselves in a state of war with the Soviet Union?” Yoo asked.  

And so, based on the assumption that the U.S. is at war with al Qaeda—a thesis with which Farer and Danner disagreed—various tactics must be employed. But they cannot be the same tactics as fighting a nation-state. The United States is battling an organization that has no territory, no defined population, one whose adherents wear no uniforms and have not signed the Geneva Conventions which dictate rules of war.  

“Does that not mean the War on Terror is unique?” Yoo asked the audience, as he would a jury. “Does that not require us to think about how we apply the laws of war?”  

By “laws of war,” Yoo meant the 1949 Geneva Conventions, written “to govern nation-state to nation-state conflict.” He argued that those laws cannot be applied strictly to terrorists, “the kind of enemy that was not anticipated by the people who drafted those rules.”  

Moreover, al Qaeda has violated two core principles of the Geneva Convention: one is that civilians should not be targeted and the second is that the members of the fighting force must distinguish themselves from civilians, generally by wearing uniforms.  

Therefore, because of the unique nature of al Qaeda, protections of the Geneva Conventions should not be applied to terrorist suspects, he argued. That means that unlike POWs, who are generally housed in barracks, terrorist suspects can be detained in individual cells. And while the Geneva Conventions say that there can be no consequence other than yelling—no reward or punishment—when a POW doesn’t answer an interrogator’s question, other rules apply to suspected terrorists.  

Prisoners cannot be tortured, however. The United States is still subject to the Convention against Torture, which prohibits torture under any circumstances.  

Yoo argued then that the situation calls for extraordinary tactics. “Can we use methods that do not rise to torture?” he asked. “Under the Geneva Convention system, as I understand it, all we can do is yell at people. So the question is, can the United States do anything that is more than yelling at people but falls short of torture?”  

The best way to stop future attacks on the United States is to get the terrorists’ plans by questioning al Qaeda members who have information, he said. New methods of questioning may need to be employed, ones which give more discretion to interrogators.  

In traditional warfare, Yoo argued, there is a body of knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. There is therefore no need to give discretion to decision-makers. But those who carry out the war against al-Qaeda have no established methods of war. Before Sept. 11, 2001 only a national state could have inflicted the kind of damage on the United States that al Qaeda did. 

“That new situation demands … that we give more discretion to decision-makers,” Yoo said, arguing that the U.S. is still learning to fight the War on Terror. “We’re still trying to figure that out.”  

Co-panelists disagreed with the premise on which Yoo built his argument—Tom Farer argued that the battle against terrorism is not a war and that it is not unique. A war on al-Qaeda is fighting a battle “that has no likely end,” he said. Historically there have been terrorists not unlike al Qaeda, such as the Basques in Spain and neo-fascists in Italy. Others countries have faced terrorists, but not as a war, he said. “We’re going to have to live with this.”  

Danner challenged Yoo’s contention that prisoner abuse in Iraq is an anomaly, an “animal house on the night shift.” Further, he excoriated Yoo and others for making policy that condones abuse in Guantánamo, then allowing those techniques, backed up by policy, to “migrate” to Iraq where prisoner abuse occurs regularly.  

“Torture, coercive methods of interrogation, cruel and inhuman treatment have become systematic in the war on terror and in particular in Iraq,” Danner said, adding, “I would remind you that Iraq is a nation-state. The Geneva Conventions supposedly do apply in Iraq.”  

To prove his point, Danner read from two reports in which, he said, “The word ‘systemic’ leaps out at you.”  

From the Taguba Report, Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade Danner read: “…between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police.” 

The report he read from the International Red Cross similarly exposes systemic abuse: “The ill-treatment … during interrogation was not systematic, except with regard to persons arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an ‘intelligence’ value. In these cases, persons deprived of their liberty supervised by the military intelligence were subjected to a variety of ill-treatment, ranging from insults and humiliation to both physical and psychological coercion that in some cases might amount to torture, in order to force them to cooperate with their interrogators. In certain cases, such as in Abu Ghraib military intelligence section, methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information.”  

Danner has included these and other reports of abuse as well as detainee depositions and policy papers and memos in his book, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror, (New York Review of Books).  

Danner follows what he calls a “chain of evidence” linking policy documents to abuse on the ground in Iraq.  

What he found there, according to one detainee’s deposition, was hooding for 72 hours—permitted sensory deprivation, Danner says—handcuffing a prisoner so that his hand was high above his head for seven or eight hours, a stress position, also permitted. The same prisoner was kept naked for days, beaten, jumped on, humiliated, sodomized, otherwise sexually abused and more. At one point, an interrogator came into the room and was watching.  

Investigative reports confirmed the detainee’s statement and also confirmed the presence of interrogators (military intelligence officers). “Once you get to military intelligence, you get to policy; once you get to policy, you get to policy makers. Once you get to policy makers, you are dealing with the power of people sitting in their offices,” Danner said.  

On Feb. 7, 2002, there is a memo to the White House, concluding that prisoners in Afghanistan are not subject to the Geneva conventions. Then there is the Bybee memo, also called the “torture memo,” of Aug. 1, 2002, which Danner said redefines torture to “something that causes pain equivalent of major organ failure or death.” Danner argues that one could probably do everything that was done to the detainee described above, without calling it torture. “Along with that document is a letter by Professor Yoo stating that torture of the al-Qaeda or the Taliban cannot be a war crime, because they are illegal combatants,” he added.  

From there Danner cited an April 4, 2003 report wherein the Department of Defense approved 35 interrogation methods to be used on detainees of the War on Terror including use of dogs to induce stress, forced shaving of beards, sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation and more. This document from the DOD “excerpts in very large part the so-called torture memo that Professor Yoo worked on.”  

Finally, as Danner explains in his book, Major General Geoffrey D. Miller, then commander of Guantánamo, visited Abu Ghraib in August 2003. “In General Miller’s visit, two paths meant to be kept separate in effect converge, and interrogation methods officially intended for use only on prisoners not protected by the Geneva Convention, like those in Guantánamo, ‘migrate’ to Iraq… and are employed on prisoners there who are entitled to such protection. At this writing, Major General Miller is commander of Abu Ghraib prison.”  

What, then, is the solution? Danner said he does not accept Yoo’s argument that more forceful interrogation of terror suspects is the answer.  

He argued instead that the best way to gather information is to build trust with Iraqis. Ultimately, “the answer to this war must be a political one,” Danner said. “In the words of Condoleezza Rice you have to convince young Muslims that they no longer have to drive airplanes into buildings in Manhattan and Washington.”  

A video of the panel is available at:  

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses/archive.html?prog=115&group=59 

After Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Board decided to raise landlord fees by 13 percent, the city’s leading landlord association is threatening to once again file suit. 

“We’re strongly considering litigation based on this act,” said Michael Wilson, president of the Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA).  

On Monday, the nine-member rent board unanimously approved an $18-a unit-fee increase for landlords, raising the annual landlord fees to $154 per unit. With roughly 18,600 units under rent control, the fee increase is anticipated to raise an additional $337,000 for the board. The rent board retains the option to pass on a portion or all of the fee increase to tenants. 

Alta Gerrey, a landlord who owns ten units, said that although the Rent Board provides useful services, such as rental data, the higher fees are too much and have made her consider selling her buildings. 

“I’d like to see where the money goes,” she said. 

For the past eight years, the rent board has angered landlords by decisions considered pro-tenant, and the BPOA has initiated several lawsuits against it. The rent board runs a roughly $3.2 million operation with about 20 employees, all paid for by landlord fees. 

While past lawsuits often challenged the rent board’s calculations in setting rent increases, the BPOA’s current complaint centers around how the board has allocated its money and resources. 

In March, at the city’s request, the Rent Board transferred $200,000 from a roughly $700,000 lawsuit settlement against the UC Berkeley’s AEPhi sorority to the city’s housing trust fund. The fund is used to leverage affordable housing projects. Also, as the number of rent board hearings has declined, rent board hearing commissioners have started working for the city’s housing authority. 

Wilson argues that under both circumstances the rent board has illegally transferred money and services paid for by landlord fees to city operations that should come from tax dollars. 

“They’re exceeding their charter authority by making unauthorized expenditures,” said Wilson, who is also an attorney. 

Rent Board Executive Director Jay Kelekian said that the Rent Board transferred the $200,000 to the housing trust fund only after it repaid its legal expenses and had reimbursed tenants the sorority had overcharged. 

“Board regulations say that when money from an overcharge is left unclaimed, the board is to give it to an affordable housing program operated by the city,” Kelekian said. 

As for loaning out hearing examiners, Kelekian and Housing Director Steve Barton confirmed that the Housing Authority is paying the rent board for the examiners’ time. “Rather than have the city go out and get an expensive contract for hearing cexaminers, it makes sense for them to use ours and pay us for the time,” Kelekian said. 

In addition, the BPOA found much to dislike about the rent board’s proposed budget, not the least of which Wilson said was that he didn’t receive a copy of it until the Friday night before Monday’s meeting, when Kelekian, Wilson’s neighbor, dropped one off at his house after work. 

Wilson questioned why the Rent Board would raise fees when it maintains reserves of roughly $300,000—about 10 percent of its total budget. The city maintains 6 percent reserves. 

Additionally, Wilson questioned why the Rent Board required a budget of approximately $3 million to regulate 18,600 rental units when San Francisco spent $4.3 million to regulate 179,000 units. Wilson also took aim at the Rent Board’s allocation of nearly $215,000 for community agencies. For years the program that has most infuriated landlords is an annual poetry slam, where competitors perform tenant-landlord themed spoken word poems for a cash prize. 

“They really find new and creative ways to spend the excess money they have,” Wilson said. 

Kelekian countered that the poetry slam costs about $500, provides outreach to young artists and gets “a ton of publicity,” including a write-up in the New York Times. He noted that the single biggest line-item increase in service expenses this year was to make it easier for landlords to pay their fees by credit card instead of by check. 

Kelekian further maintained that comparisons with San Francisco were unfair because San Francisco has a different ordinance that requires less paperwork. Since San Francisco’s law has never covered vacant units, it wasn’t affected by Costa-Hawkins, a state law passed in 1996 that outlawed a section of Berkeley’s ordinance that kept units under rent control even after tenants moved out. Since the law passed, Kelekian said, the Berkeley rent board must use different rules to track rents for different kinds of tenancies, adding to the organization’s bottom line. 

Changes like the Costa-Hawkins law force the rent board to maintain a high reserve, Kelekian said, because the board must be prepared to adapt to them. It has also had to accommodate to changes mandated by BPOA lawsuits, he said. The biggest registration fee increase—from $100 to $136—came in 1991, when a pro-landlord board raised fees after determining that the board needed a reserve so it wouldn’t be forced to borrow money from the city. 

Kelekian noted that since Costa Hawkins was passed, rent board staff positions have decreased from 26.6 full-time positions to 19.3 proposed for next year. As for other public agencies, Kelekian said, employee health and retirement benefits are driving up costs. Overall, employees account for 75 percent of the board’s expenses. 

“We’re running an efficient and frugal operation, but we’re not going to stop providing needed services,” he said. 

As long-running battles continue over two highly contaminated South Richmond sites—one owned by UC Berkeley—two new questions have surfaced: 

• Did a Richmond Chamber of Commerce official try to torpedo a leading cardiologist’s battles against toxic waste? 

• Are Richmond activists looking at the wrong solution for cleanups at the highly polluted Campus Bay and UC Berkeley Richmond Field Station sites? 

Jeffrey Ritterman, chief of cardiology for Kaiser Permanente in Richmond, is an outspoken foe of pesticide use in Contra Costa County and an early advocate of strengthening oversight at Campus Bay and the Field Station. 

Clad in his white medical jacket, the doctor has attended two demonstrations outside the entrances to the two South Richmond sites carrying a sign that reads “Richmond Doctor Says No To Toxins.” 

Chamber CEO Judith Morgan acknowledges sending an email to Kaiser questioning the use of the Kaiser name in a press release announcing the April 29 demonstration outside the entrances to Campus Bay and the Field Station. 

She said her only concern was the use of the Kaiser name in the press release. “I have tried on many occasions to get their support, and I know they have very strict policies about the use of their name.” 

But neither the press release nor the community flyer sponsored by Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development or the Richmond Progressive Alliance made any reference to Kaiser. Dr. Ritterman was mentioned by name in the press release, but not his affiliation. 

Sherry Padgett, who coordinated the protest on behalf of BARRD, said the only time she mentioned Kaiser was in an internal email, in which she said Kaiser doctors would be present in their white coats. 

“There was never any mention in the press release,” she said. 

In his final column to members as chairman of the chamber board in December, Mark Howe wrote that “[a]lthough the site has been responsibly cleaned up, at a cost of millions, we hear otherwise from media intent on selling newspapers, environmental groups, and local politicians opposed to the development.” 

Howe stressed the importance of the 1,330-unit housing complex proposed at Campus Bay to the Richmond Redevelopment Agency, and blamed criticism of a “lack of trust in Simeon and business in general.” 

Simeon Properties is one of two partners in Cherokee-Simeon Ventures, a special purpose corporation formed to develop restored Bay Area hazardous waste sites. 

Morgan said the column was written “before a lot of information came to light that wasn’t so positive.” 

Both Ritterman and Morgan say they don’t want to make a big deal about her action. 

“I guess the doctor in question was called on the carpet,” she said. Not so, said Ritterman. 

Meanwhile, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a resolution similar to the one already passed by the Richmond City Council on March 1 calling on the California Environmental Protection Agency to give the DTSC primary jurisdiction over both sites. 

The resolution, sponsored by Supervisor John Gioia—whose district includes Richmond—calls for the EPA to assign both sites to DTSC supervision. 

But Richmond City Councilmember Tom Butt has sounded a cautionary note about DTSC jurisdiction. 

“I submit that this excessive level of confidence in DTSC may not be the panacea advocates expect,” wrote Butt in an April 29 email to constituents. 

The councilmember cited the DTSC-supervised cleanup of property next to Seacliff Landing in Richmond where “the contractor proceeded to undertake a remediation project that bore little resemblance to the approved plan. 

“What was supposed to be a fill approximately two or three feet thick with an asphalt cap turned into a mountain many times that site—so large that it became known as the space alien landing pad because it allegedly could be seen from space.” 

The city was forced to cough up $500,000 to move the fill to the adjacent Point Portrero terminal “where it now reposes under a an asphalt cap and thousands of Hyundais and Kias.” 

The city has yet to recoup the funds it paid for the move.  

LaDonna Williams, executive director of People for Children’s Health and Environmental Justice, an organization based in Richmond and Vallejo, also sounded a cautionary note at the April 29 protest, recounting her experiences at Midway Village, a Daly City housing tract where she had lived with her children. In 1991, after she had moved from the area, news broke that the site had been contaminated by more than 350 known toxins. 

“Cal EPA and DTSC did a cover-up, not a cleanup,” she said. Her experiences led her to become a leading advocate of environmental justice, and she has traveled the country speaking out on environmental racism. 

Williams told demonstrators that neither the DTSC or the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board—which originally had jurisdiction over all of Campus Bay and retains jurisdiction at the UC Field Station—could be trusted. 

Both, she said, require constant monitoring by the public.›

Back in February, Ashawn Walker was smoking cigarettes, guzzling down soda, eating junk food and unbeknownst to her, two months pregnant. Now, with the help of a Berkeley program for African American moms-to-be, she’s drinking water, eating fruit, and keeping her distance from nicotine. 

“At first I wasn’t prepared to be a mom,” Walker said Wednesday at the office of Berkeley’s Black Mother Infant Health Program. “Now I want to make sure my baby is healthy.” 

When it comes to black infant health, Berkeley had a bad reputation. A city health disparity report released in 1999 found that 16 percent of children born to African American women suffered from low birth weight, compared to 4 percent for white women. The four-to-one ratio was the worst of 165 cities studied throughout the country, according to statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics. Washington, D.C. finished second worst with a ratio of 3.16. 

“It was a real eye opener,” said Vicki Alexander, director of Berkeley’s Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Program. She said that low birth weight correlates both to greater frequency of infant death, and to poor educational performance and school delinquency. 

In response to the grim statistics, the state in 2001 gave the city a $100,000 a year grant to start the Black Infant Health Program. Operated by two full-time staff members, the program provides social support for pregnant African American women over the age of 18. A separate city program focuses on younger women. 

“My experience over the years is that women will seek medical attention, but many do not have the family or social support,” said Program Coordinator Yvonne Lacey. “If we can fill that void, it can hopefully give them the self esteem to eat better and have a healthy, happy pregnancy.” Most of the participants are referred by other city-funded health agencies, she said, and many are unmarried and homeless. 

The backbone of the program is a weekly discussion group for pregnant mothers giving them instruction on how to deliver a healthy baby and care for their infant. For new moms, the program hosts monthly discussion groups. 

Outside the program’s South Berkeley office, program workers make home visits to ensure the women are doing well, drive them to doctor’s appointments, connect them with nurses, help them find jobs and housing if necessary, and sometimes out of their own pocket supply them with supermarket vouchers for food and diapers. 

“They don’t just talk about the pregnancy,” said Walker, who is due to give birth to a boy in September. “They talk to you about how to better yourself as well.” 

She said that program workers had helped her get into Alameda Beauty College and are trying to help her boyfriend find a job. 

Solvena Sampson, 29, the mother of a 2-year-old, said the program helped her get through an emotionally wrenching pregnancy. “My child’s father wasn’t there for me and they helped me get my anger out,” she said. “They don’t criticize you, they don’t judge you.” 

Under the terms of the grant, the program—one of 17 in the state—is only open to African Americans. While they do make referrals for women of other backgrounds, Romona Benson, a community health specialist, said part of the success of the group is its connection to the people it serves. 

“We’re just plain folks from the community,” she said. “We can knock down barriers for public health nurses to get in and give clients the service they need.” 

So far the program appears to be making a difference. The latest birth rate statistics, compiled in 2002, one year after the program began, showed that instances of low birth rates among African Americans in Berkeley had dropped to about 13 percent, according to Alexander. She added that city data showed that women who attended were less likely to deliver low birth weight babies.  

“To me this program is a gem,” she said. “It’s really proven its worth in terms of the low birth weight births it has prevented.” 

The key to preventing low birth weight babies, Benson said, is educating the women about how their habits can affect their baby’s health. “They haven’t been given the information before,” she said. “Their friend might have said, ‘girl, you shouldn’t drink,’ but they haven’t learned what alcohol actually does to their baby.” 

With an annual budget of $120,000, from the state grant and a city contribution, Lacy is hoping to get community members involved to boost the program’s offerings. A local resident has offered to form an exercise group, and Lacy wants to start a yoga class as well. 

As for Walker, she can’t wait to become a mom. “It’s going to be the most beautiful thing ever,” she said. “I’m so juiced.” 

Reports of an imminent soft landing for South Berkeley’s “Flying Cottage” have been greatly exaggerated, says Dave Blake.  

Blake said he and his colleagues on the ZAB find little to like in Christina Sun’s ungainly edifice at the southeast corner of Shattuck Avenue and Essex Street. 

While city staff told ZAB members last Thursday that the three-story height is suitable for the location, Blake said design and parking problems make it unlikely that approval will come any time soon—if ever. 

Blake, who also sits on the Design Review Committee (DRC) said that whatever the city staff approves is subject to review and appeal. 

The DRC had panned architect Andus Brandt’s proposal for revisions to the structure. Brandt came late to the project, after Sun’s previous designer had created the plywood-walled shell that now stands at the site, capped by the remnants of the cottage that once stood there. 

“We will insist that Sun either restore the building to what it was before, or that she puts up a decent design,” Blake said. 

The second issue is parking. While city staff had originally okayed the installation of two parking spaces at the rear of the structure, ZAB members made it clear they didn’t look favorably on the notion and directed Sun to find dedicated spaces elsewhere on private property. 

Sun’s announced to intent to use the ground floor for a cafe raises additional unanswered questions. The original structure housed a two-car garage, which was not replaced when the structure was raised. 

Robert Lauriston, who spoke for neighbors of the project, was misquoted in the Daily Planet’s story Tuesday. He did not challenge the right to build three-story structures along Shattuck Avenue, south of Ashby; he did challenge city staff’s contention that rear yard parking was also allowed by right—noting that lots were so small that finding required parking for mixed-use buildings would be impractical. 

The discussion of the project didn’t begin until ZAB members were into the seventh hour of a meeting that had started at 6 p.m. with the preview of a proposed development at University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Berkeley Police are investigating a Wednesday night fire at the Congregation Beth El building site as a possible hate crime, said police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Someone armed with a chemical accelerant started a fire behind the building now under construction at 1301 Oxford St. The flames damaged a portable concrete mixer, but firefighters responded before the blaze could spread to the nearby structure. 

Police have no suspects in the incident, said Officer Okies. 

Congregation member and former president Harry Pollack said there was no specific evidence that the fire was a hate crime. 

“Any time there’s arson at a religious institution, I assume the police investigate it as a possible hate crime,” he said. 

Pollack said the fire was spotted by a neighbor soon after it was set. 

“The fire department responded very quickly and we are grateful there was no damage to the building,” he said. 

With a draft plan in hand for the cleanup of contaminated soil and groundwater at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is calling for public input on the proposal. 

Details of the proposed cleanup effort and the history of contamination on the site are available online at www.dtsc.ca.gov/hazardouswaste/LBNL/index.html. 

The public comment period opened last week and will continue through June 8. 

A public hearing on the cleanup will be held on May 26 during the public comment period at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave., starting at 6 p.m. 

DTSC has identified 15 different areas of contamination on the LBNL grounds, of which two were decontaminated during the last two years. 

The DTSC plans don’t include radioactive decontamination, which falls under the purview of the U.S. Department of Energy. 

Surveys of the facility have uncovered a wide range of noxious substances in the soil and groundwater, including a variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), most notably solvents used in cleaning equipment. 

—

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitasö

• 

DIVISIVE SCULPTURE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Does anyone else consider the giant HERE/THERE sculpture going up on the Berkeley/Oakland border at Adeline St. to be divisive and inappropriate, especially in a location that is struggling to come together and solve cross-border community problems? And how much did Berkeley spend on this sculpture that could have gone to community groups? 

Anne Wagley 

• 

PRINTING CONTROVERSY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Over the last month or so I’ve read several letters by or about Rabbi Littman. I know nothing about the rape controversy except what I’ve read in the letters, and until reading a letter by David Herzstein Couch I had no thought to comment on the matter. Mr. Couch says he is a distant acquaintance of the Rabbi, whom he praises for responding “clearly and eloquently, with restraint.” He goes on to credit her version of events, though he admits having no first hand knowledge of what transpired, and ends the letter questioning if it is decent to print letters about the matter. 

I don’t know anything about what happened except what I read in the letters. I’m not crediting either those who wrote against the Rabbi, but I am not entirely convinced Rabbi Littman’s version is accurate. I read two of Rabbi Littman’s letters. In both letters she claimed to be misunderstood. In one letter she said she “resented” the writer, in another letter she accused another person of “character assassination.” Rabbi Litman’s letters, though perhaps not hostile, are very defensive, and did make me wonder if there was anything to the charges of her protractors. “Doth she protest too much?” I wondered. 

I don’t know the background of who said what, or what to believe, but my mother always used to say “the whole world can’t be wrong.” Maybe it applies here. Maybe not. But it’s at least worth thinking about.  

In his letter Mr. Couch ask the Daily Planet not to print such letters because they’re not entertaining. I beg to differ. It seems that a controversial statement about rape by a local religious leader who sits on a commission is something a community paper should cover. His statement that the commission is obscure is all the more reason why the public needs to hear what is going on. Whether or not the letters are accurate I have no idea, but the founders of this nation, Jefferson and Madison in particular, had great belief that by printing all viewpoints the truth was more likely to emerge then if we restricted the printing of viewpoints that Mr. Couch questions the decency of printing. I agree with Mr. Couch that there are many unanswered questions concerning this thing. But the truth is more likely to emerge by printing letters rather then keeping the public from learning about the controversy.  

Anne Reisse  

• 

KIDS SHORT-CHANGED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We love Berkeley teachers. Every one of our boys’ teachers at Malcolm X, Willard and now Berkeley High have been smart, dedicated and caring. We will always be grateful for the time, patience and love they have generously given them. Like 80 percent of Berkeley citizens, we voted for BSEP, bonds, parcel taxes you name it. If there was a pot of gold at the school district we say spend it on the teachers.  

But this “work to rule” strategy is wrong. It’s hurting our kids in the short-term and perhaps longer-term as well. Last week, the Malcolm X fifth graders performed their annual play, the culmination of long years of performing at this great school. But instead of strutting their stuff in the evening before a packed house of family members, the play started at 9AM in front of a handful of parents lucky enough to get some time off from work. It was just sad. The challenging homework assignments that used to come home demanding our fifth grader to stretch his writing and math skills have dwindled too. He’s happy about the easy workload, but we understand the long-term consequences. At Berkeley High, our son’s questions and requests for help with assignments in several classes have been denied with teachers citing “work to rule” as the reason. 

We know it must be very difficult for dedicated teachers to make these decisions that hurt their students. The desire to make more money for their own families is understandable and supported too.  

And that perhaps is the most puzzling piece of this debate. The union claims there are hidden caches of funds. But Berkeley voters know that the school district has been close to bankruptcy, and like every other district in the state, faces reduced future funding. The problem is not that voters, parents and even school board members aren’t in support of increased teacher compensation within a balanced budget. We are.  

The real problem is that there are just crumbs to negotiate over, and frankly that’s not the school board’s fault, nor the voters of Berkeley, nor our kids. That blame rests with an economy that went sour, and the state’s inability to manage their budget responsibly. 

If the Berkeley teachers union believes its strategy of holding students hostage with “work to rule” would help give them a bargaining edge or gain public support, they are wrong because it’s aimed at the wrong target. “Work to rule” won’t change a single vote in Sacramento to bring more money to Berkeley. But it will continue to hurt our kids.  

“Work to rule” has been an abject failure for everyone involved, and we respectfully ask Berkeley’s wonderful teachers to reconsider it. 

Felicity Bensch 

Dave Fogarty 

• 

SKATE PARK RULES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My name is Lester Mestas. I am a free lance photographer. My son and I were in Berkeley over the weekend attending the Robby Glantz Ice Hockey Clinic at Berkeley Iceland. During our off time we found the Harrison Skate Park. I was impressed with the layout. We live in Orangevale and often go to the Cummings Family skate park in Folsom, Ca near our house. Cummings is a monitored skate park. While at Harrison I took many pictures of various skaters doing jumps and one in particular stood out. If you would like to use it, you can as long as you mention I took it. 

On monday, a uniformed policewoman gave a round to the park and exited some skaters not wearing protective gear. It is amazing how many were not wearing any. In the picture I’m sending, the skater does not have any on. Though these skaters are very good, and it may seem unnecessary for them to wear this gear, the rules are posted on the gate. There can be a fine of $100.00 issued to anyone not wearing a helmut and both knee and elbow pads. 

I hope this can be of some human interest to your paper. 

Lester Mestas 

Orangevale 

• 

PRISONER ABUSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Daily, we are bombarded with stories about the “alleged” abuses at Abu Ghraib and our other “alleged” hidden war prisoner camps. President Bush and the Nation appears to be fixated on this abusive treatment of our war prisoners.  

We try and “pretend” that this display of abusive behavior by fellow Americans against another individual is “unexceptable” and “is not tolerated” by our leaders and fellow American citizens! This is the biggest two-faced act in the world!!! 

On a daily basis, inmates in our American prisons are physically abused, mentally abused, forcibally raped, medically neglected and in some cases even killed by the guards. Many of the horrendous stories are “covered-up”, but enough have been leaked to newspaper reporters who have written about these unsavory incidents. 

Where is the public outcry for these inmates? Why is our Nation allowing our American inmates to be treated so brutally and yet, very little is being done to correct this situation? It’s because we’re two-faced, we lie and “pretend” these atrocities do not exist. 

To admit to these atrocities means we’re no better than the countries we condemn for brutalizing their citizens and prisoners. It means we have to show our “true colors” and be accountable for the “violation of these inmate’s civil rights as well as their human rights”!! 

Become a “proud American” once again. Do something to end this mistreatment of our inmates. Join us in the “march for change” on August 13,2005 in Washington,D.C. at Lafayette Park. 

We, who are prisoner and human rights advocates are asking you to join us in demanding change. Our Nation should hold it’s head high instead  

of bowing in shame for the brutality we allow to exist in our prison system. Please come and raise your voice. Be heard! Let us add you and your family to our list of participants: journeyforjustice.org 

Beverly Bittner  

Oakland 

• 

WOODPECKER COMEBACK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is great news that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), a magnificent bird long presumed extinct, has recently been spotted in a swamp in southeastern Arkansas. In the last couple of decades, bird watchers and others have made reports of possibly sighting the Ivory-bill in swamps in Louisiana and also in some remote mountains of Cuba. Lets hope that birdwatchers can show some adult restraint and refrain from a massive invasion of the Arkansas nature preserve in an attempt to flush out and spot the Ivory-bill and thus add it to their “life list.” Let’s respect this shy and wary bird’s need for privacy and content ourselves with reading about its continued existence in newspapers and on the Internet.  

Some traditional folk names for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker include: Caip, Carpintero Real, Grand Pique-bois, Indian Hen, Ivory-bill, Kate, Kent, King of 

the Woodpeckers, King Woodchuck, Logcock, Log-god, Poule de Bois, Southern Giant Woodpecker, White-billed Woodpecker, Woodchuck and Woodcock.  

Incidentally, the Pileated Woodpecker (Dryacopus pileatus), which is the closest relative of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, can be seen in forested areas of California, the Pacific Northwest and eastern United States. The Pileated Woodpecker is slightly smaller than the Ivory-bill, with black-and-white coloring and also sports a brilliant red crest. All Pileateds have the red crest: males, females and juveniles. Its booming calls and drummings, which are usually heard in the spring, are unmistakable and are often the first sign that the bird is nearby. The Pileated is the largest woodpecker that most of us will ever see. Carpenter ants and wood-boring beetles are its main foods, which it obtains by hammering holes into dead trees. It also dines on wild fruits, in season. In severe climates, it fashions a large deep hole in a dead tree, which it then uses as its winter sleeping quarters.  

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

• 

FOUNTAIN MAINTENANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The recent flurry of letters about civic center fountain warrants some clarification. Several months back, the funding of civic center fountain came before the Parks and Recreation Commission. Our Commission voted against funding the fountain, not because of the construction costs which is covered by the bond and grants, but because of the high annual maintenance costs. The current design of the fountain has 400 plus gallons of standing water. Standing water is a magnet for bathing, for pranks, for bubbles. If foreign substances are put in the water, such as bubbles, all the water has to be drained and the fountain refilled. A low estimate of the annual yearly maintenance costs was $60,000. With the fountain next door to the high school, we could imagine, the types of pranks that would occur. 

The Parks and Recreation department just doesn’t have the funds to spend $60,000 a year to maintain one fountain. We are now drastically cutting back recreation programs for kids. We have had to propose closing all outdoor pools in Berkeley for 6 months. We have had to cut 11 positions in park maintenance and forestry over the last two years. It is for these reasons that we voted no on Civic Center Fountain, and why we have urged City Council to follow our recommendation. 

I appreciate that the City Manager’s staff was trying to meet what they felt were strong community priorities which included the civic center fountain. Unfortunately, what sank the issue was not the repair costs, it was the high cost of annual maintenance. 

I also respect the many years of work the Landmarks Commission has put in, reviewing very aspect of the civic center fountain design, and its advocacy for preserving design. Unfortunately, as long as the fountain remains an old fashion model with a large body of standing water, maintenance costs will be sky high. All modern fountain designs have eliminated the standing water. Water is sprayed out, and drains into a grate. This eliminates the attraction to put bubbles and other contaminants into the water. This dissuades bathers. This prevents accidental drownings. And with no standing water, such a fountain is much, much cheaper to maintain. 

So unfortunately, until a fairy comes loaded with cash, we can have purity of design and a dry non-functioning fountain. Or we can have a working fountain with the original design modified.  

Yolanda Huang 

Chair, Parks and Recreation Commission 

• 

TEACHER’S CONTRACTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing to express my support for Berkeley teachers in their efforts to get an acceptable contract. Like many parents, I have high expectations of my children’s teachers, and I know they work hard to educate our children. They are the most important factor in the quality of our children’s education. They deserve our support in their efforts to maintain acceptable income and benefits, and ensure that classroom sizes remain at a teachable level. Indeed I appreciate that they are sticking their necks out to get a cap on class sizes. This year and last, Jefferson had third, fourth and fifth graders in classes often exceeding 30 students.  

I do not like the work-to-rule action and I am worried about the impact should the teachers decide to strike. The superintendent and Board members should soften their hard-line position and offer the teachers a contract they can live with, so the teachers can focus on educating our children without this distraction. I do not ascribe to the belief that just because the District says it can’t afford to meet the teachers’ demands, it is so. The Union and District both have legal and financial analysts busy crunching numbers. I have no reason to think the Union’s are less competent than the District’s. And it’s certainly not in the teachers’ interest to seek a contract that will bankrupt the District. Our elected Board members just need to get their priorities in proper order – with teachers at the top.  

Let’s support our teachers. 

Robin Miller 

Jefferson parent, School Site Council Chair, and PTA member 

• 

AVAKIAN’S LEGACY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kriss Worthington wrote a nice editorial in your May 3-5 edition commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day. Oddly enough, a few pages earlier, he’s among the people inviting us to “celebrate” the release of Bob Avakian’s memoirs. Avakian is the Revolutionary Communist Party leader who thinks Stalin and Mao were wonderful, even though each of these gentlemen were responsible for more deaths than Hiter. I guess that for progressives of the Worthington type, the tens of millions of victims of leftist dictators deserved what they got. 

Alexander Shelepin 

• 

BETH EL PLANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It was about six years ago when Beth El project leaders Harry Pollack, Jim Samuels, and Michael Fajans first presented their plans for a new temple, school, and social hall to the neighbors. They said these plans were only “preliminary”. After many meetings, the plans had not changed. 

Then began the public meetings and letters to the Planning Commission, Landmarks Preservation Commission, and Zoning Adjustments Board which led everyone to the City Council and ultimately a mediated agreement. The plans for a parking lot over the creek was finally removed, and the Codornices Creek corridor along Berryman Path was preserved with the hope that the culverted creek could be opened someday. Three community gardening groups were removed after their lease had expired and over 90 percent of the trees were clear cut and construction began. And now you can see the results at 1301 Oxford. In addition to preservation of the Codornices Creek corridor, there was an agreement to a parking management plan that would address events of 150 people or more. Somehow this has been interpreted in the “preliminary” draft parking and traffic plan as addressing events with 200 people or more, and that these events are not to even include religious services.  

Although Mr. Pollack is unable to define what a religious service is, many neighbors wonder what is the building for, if not for religious events? The environmental impact study to which Mr. Pollack refers, which the neighborhood felt was flawed, is now about 5 years old. In that period of time, do you think the traffic and parking situation would have improved or gotten worse in this already densely built neighborhood? This is why parking and traffic concerns must be addressed now. 

Diane Tokugawa 

• 

ARMED VOLUNTEERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Pentagon reports a crisis in recruitment. They say that America will not be able to support a potential third war. 

There is an historical precedent which Rumsfeld might consider. During the last few months of the Third Reich, Germany faced a similar problem. To overcome the shortage, children and elderly men were asked to volunteer. The response was magnificent! 

Robert Blau 

• 

TRAFFIC CIRCLES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In Gary Herbertson’s letter to the Planet, he complained that cars that used to stop at stop signs where traffic circles have been installed “are now much more likely to glide through.” I have observed the same since circles were installed in the LeConte neighborhood a year ago. But this is one of the virtues of traffic circles. Cars can glide though (and cyclists, too, who rarely obey stop signs anyway). Studies by the Institute of Transportation Engineers have shown drastic reductions in right-angle and head-on collisions in yield-controlled intersections. All stop signs should be removed in favor of 4-way “Yield” signs, as common in France and Australia. Gradually, drivers will learn how to navigate these circles with safety and courtesy. I am more concerned about whether neighborhood volunteers will actually maintain the plantings in the circles or whether the circles will become a weed-infested display of passing enthusiasm. 

Robert Gable 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Balancing the design of a new home at 2615 Marin with the existing views of neighbors was a very difficult process for the ZAB. However, the Planet article incorrectly stated that I would not vote for the project at a reduced height. In fact, I stated that I would vote for the project at the newly proposed height, OR by an additional reduction of one or two feet. Through discussion, the ZAB decided to approve the height with a one foot reduction, protecting the uphill neighbor’s view of the Golden Gate bridge and the water below. 

Andy Katz 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mr. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor may be the most incisive columnist in the Bay Area. I read him avidly. However, his argumentation slipped up in his column  

on the state of Oakland schools (April 29-May 2, 2005). Reasoning from analogy is not sound argument. Mr. Allen-Taylor likens the state takeover of our  

schools to a thief, or a neighbor, taking your car and keeping it until he learns to drive it. A better analogy of the state to the school district would be parents taking back the family car after their teenage child has crashed it. 

Mark Tatz 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a parent of a student in the Berkeley Unified School System, I know that the most important component of a good education, is the classroom 

teacher. And when I was the PTA president for 4 years in both my children’s elementary and middle schools, I felt that my job was to provide support and assistance for teachers. Period. Therefore, I am very dismayed at the way in which the school district is handling its negotiations with the teachers.  

I do not consider the current teacher salaries to be high. I want to have teachers who can afford to live in Berkeley, and send their kids to schools in 

Berkeley. By having teachers participate in all aspects of our school system, it makes the schools better, and our community stronger. I want to have 

teachers who can focus on their students, not worry about health care bills. 

For those who say that everyone is experiencing cuts, I would ask that the district administrators lead by example with cuts to administrative salaries and benefits. If top salaries and benefits are good enough for administrators, then top salaries and benefits are good enough for teachers.  

It is time for the school board to be clear on its priorities. Without teachers, there will be no schools. There are almost 60 teaching positions and 6 

principal positions to fill. I have heard from teachers in other districts that they will not apply to Berkeley because the wages here are low. We taxpayers gave BUSD an extra $8.4 million last November. Part of that money can pay for the $2.1 million to improve the teachers’ compensation. 

Catherine Durand 

5.3 

Editors, DAILY PLANET: 

Several people have written your paper complaining about neighborhood traffic circles and their effect on pedestrian safety. As a board member of 

both California Walks and America Walks I have been active in investigating traffic control devices and their effect on pedestrian safety. 

The data is overwhelming that traffic circles improve the safety of both pedestrians and drivers. After studding hundreds on neighborhood traffic 

circles over several years in Portland and Washington State the Institute of Transportation Engineers have come to the conclusion that they reduce 

accidents 71 percent. They also reduce noise from intersections from 68db to 60db. Their benefit for pedestrians are first: they eliminate people running stop signs, second they reduce speeds of cars in the intersection.  

For pedestrians speed is critical for safety. At 20 mph a pedestrian who is hit by a car has a 5 percent probability of dying. At 30 mph a pedestrian has a 45 percent probability of dying if hit by a car. At 40mph the probability of being killed by a car increases to 80 percent. Traffic circles on average reduce speeds of cars in intersections from 34mph to 30mph. When they are designed right cars find the most comfortable speed to be around 17mph. This has the added advantage of decreasing the stopping distance for cars and it increases the probability that cars will yield to pedestrians. 

There are several studies now that also show an increase in home value where traffic calming slows traffic speeds. In Suisn City California, homes on 

streets with traffic calming sell for $5-15K more than home without traffic calming. 

If you care about pedestrian safety and your neighborhoods you will find traffic circles can be a welcome improvement. 

Marc Jensen 

Los Gatos 

In recent weeks both the San Francisco Chronicle and this newspaper have featured essays and letters lambasting the “arrogance” of UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s efforts to affirm the value of diversity, castigating black leaders and parenting skills a nd accusing blacks of using the “victim card” instead of acting more like Asians. And just how do Asians behave? 

I grew up in a well-manicured neighborhood in the Crenshaw section of Los Angeles nicknamed “Little Tokyo.” My brothers and I would run after the Japanese food truck ambling down our street, eager for seaweed wrapped rice balls and hot ginger snacks. I used chopsticks as easily as a fork and I knew how to say hello, thank you and count to ten in Japanese by the time I entered first grade. I al so experienced racism for the first time, not at the hands or from the mouths of white folks but delivered like a slap in the face from my Asian classmates at Coliseum Street Elementary School. 

I remember all of their faces, all of their names. The cruel taunting dished out by Joanne and her sidekick, Jodie. Hiroko, who invited me to her birthday party just so she could slam the door in my face. Jeanie’s mother, who refused to let me inside her house to play, saying I would track black magic into her carpet. I looked behind me all the way home to see if I was indeed leaving a dirty set of footprints behind. I remember the gangs of boys, often led by Danny, who would attack my brothers and steal their bicycles. They had none of the usual excuses. We were middle class, well-behaved and smart. I even skipped a grade. That only served to heighten the maltreatment. Years later I ran into one of my tormentors, Kenny. He asked me if I hated him and he apologized for his part in the relentless abuse. I felt his remorse. 

Most of my schoolmates’ parents and grandparents had spent time in the Japanese internment camps during WWII but nobody talked about it. Many came out determined to prove just how American they really were. In addition to fashioning themselves i nto model students and workers, another way to prove their loyalty to white America was to internalize racist attitudes and behaviors against black Americans. None of this prevents me from empathizing with Japanese Americans who suffered during those year s of legal but unjust treatment. The problem is that the compassion isn’t mutual.  

While many ethnic groups have suffered in this country, particularly Native Americans, the experience of the African American is unique. Millions of Africans were kidnappe d, sold, raped, tortured and murdered. Their languages, religions and families were destroyed. Our Founding Fathers participated in this travesty. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, along with thousands of other white men, fathered children with capt ive African women. Most of these encounters were rapes and most white men enslaved and sold their own children. It is the broken spirit of African Americans that we see manifested today in various self-destructive and anti-social behaviors. A broken spir it requires healing. But as long as Americans choose to remain ignorant of the true history of this country and acknowledge both the privileges and the pain born from the evils of racism and slavery, this country will never heal.  

Last night I attended a n awards ceremony for UC student service groups hosted by Chancellor Birgeneau. As he was leaving I introduced myself and told him that I was disturbed by some of the recent comments of affirmative action opponents and that I was working on a column about this issue. He paused thoughtfully and said only one thing to me before he turned away: “In the end, we have to think of other ways of judging people.”  

That, to me, is the bottom line. Who’s to say who are the “best and the brightest?” Test scores are only one measure. What does this country need? Students like those honored at the Cal Corps Public Service Center. Young people who are improving the environment and helping those in need rather than wasting time blaming and making unfair comparisons. When Asian and white kids fail, do we blame poor parenting? Their “leaders”? Too much TV? Bad genes? When Chancellor Birgeneau successfully pushed for more female representation at MIT did white women complain about quotas then? For a country that professes to be so religious and morally righteous, is anyone asking what Jesus would do? How about Moses? Buddha? Mohammed?  

The word “university” connotes inclusiveness, a bringing together of the whole. We need to learn how to value the individual differences w e all have. The Asian kids at my elementary school weren’t all bad. I also remember Sandy’s gentleness and Kathy’s kindness, Mark’s courage, Ricky’s good cheer and how Dennis always made me laugh. They were not one homogenous lump assigned race leaders, v alues, goals and shortcomings. 

Americans are afraid of racism. Afraid of how it might make them feel and what it might call upon them to give up. As long as we, as a nation, refuse to acknowledge and discuss racism in all of its manifestations, this country will never heal. In order for race to matter less, it has to matter less. And that’s not going to happen without some help from us all. 

f

Sorry to continue to be a bother about this, but I continue to be puzzled over the details of how Oakland’s schools got taken over by the state, and what needs to be done to get the schools back in Oakland’s hands. 

In last week’s column, we noted that State Senator Don Perata’s SB39—the 2003 legislation that authorized the state seizure of Oakland’s schools—gave a mandate for how the Oakland schools should be run during the takeover: “To the extent allowed by district finances, it is the intent of the Legislature that the [revised education program to be implemented by the state superintendent and his administrator] shall maintain the core educational reforms that have led to district-wide improvement[s]...” 

Does anyone ever actually look at these things after they are passed? 

Print that sentence out, tape it on the wall above your breakfast table, and then read (or re-read) Robert Gammon’s long and informative article in the April 27 East Bay Express on state-appointed administrator Randolph Ward’s overhaul of the Oakland Unified School District and its education programs. Rather than maintaining Oakland’s core educational reforms begun during the regime of former Superintendent Dennis Chaconas, as called for in the law that authorized his hiring, Mr. Ward has taken Oakland education in a completely different direction. His own? Financier and education-dabbler Eli Broad’s? It certainly ain’t what Oakland had decided we wanted, and which we’d been having success with until the bottom blew out of the budget. 

(In one of those revealing passages you sometimes find like a gold nugget in the midst of government documents, the State Superintendent’s multi-year fiscal recovery plan for Oakland released last week said—a little too eagerly, I think—that “OUSD’s current financial crisis creates an unprecedented opportunity to move beyond recovery to the old academically ineffective system to true renewal of the Oakland school system.” Renewal? And who’s to be the determinator of that?) 

Meanwhile, after two years were spent by his state-appointed school administrator doing things that SB39 didn’t authorize, like revamping the education program, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell came to Oakland Technical High School last month to tell Oaklanders why he was so late producing something that was specifically called for in the legislation: producing the multi-year plan for the Oakland system to get out of its fiscal difficulties. 

In his opening remarks to the packed audience in the Tech auditorium, Mr. O’Connell acknowledged that the plan was a long-time coming, but explained the delay. “We didn’t know the tremendous problems facing the district when we took over,” he said. “The problem was bigger than I thought.” 

Let us sit around the hot stove and ponder this statement for a moment, friends. 

In the years leading up to the 2003 state takeover of Oakland’s schools, no school district in the state was under more of a fiscal microscope than Oakland Unified. The state-organized Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) was hired in April of 1999 to look into Oakland Unified’s financial problems, and published a comprehensive fiscal assessment of the district later that year. Oakland’s school financial problems were then being monitored by the Alameda County Office of Education and the county office’s fiscal advisor, Pete Yasitis, who was later loaned to OUSD to oversee Oakland’s fiscal recovery. The next year, in fact, OUSD Superintendent Dennis Chaconas hired Yasitis away from ACOE to be his deputy superintendent in charge of fiscal affairs. (It was Yasitis, by the way, who wrote the unbalanced budget that bankrupted the Oakland school system and led to the state takeover, one of those “oddities” about this situation that has never been fully explained.) 

Then in October of 2002 (this time while her former fiscal deputy, Mr. Yasitis, was running Oakland Unified’s budget show) Alameda County School Superintendent Sheila Jordan again sent for FCMAT to oversee the Oakland’s school finances and the organization produced another series of comprehensive reports on the situation. And finally, in June of 2004, following the state takeover, the office of the California State Controller completed and published a comprehensive audit of Oakland Unified’s 2002-03 budget detailing the “problems facing the district” that Mr. O’Connell talked about at Tech. All of these are on top of the financial audit reports regularly issued by Oakland Unified’s own auditors. 

But ten months later, after a long period of state and county and local oversight and with comprehensive fiscal reports mounting, Mr. O’Connell came to Oakland and said that, frankly, he couldn’t produce a recovery plan sooner because he hadn’t known how bad things were. Didn’t he read the reports? 

It gets worse. 

In April of 2003, Oakland school officials traveled to Sacramento to testify before the Senate Education Committee to speak on Perata’s SB39 bill and the proposed state loan and school takeover. During the hearing, in answer to questions by Senators, Superintendent Dennis Chaconas and then-Oakland School Board President Greg Hodge tried to provide details on how Oakland got into its fiscal problems. Senate Education Committee Chairperson John Vasconcellos cut them off, saying “we’re not here to talk about that.” In fact, there has never been a state investigation-as opposed to an audit-of how Oakland’s school problems came to be, including what might be interesting testimony from the long-departed Mr. Yasitis (he retired from his job as OUSD’s fiscal director sometime before the residue hit the fan). If Mr. O’Connell didn’t know the true extent of the Oakland problem when the state legislature was considering handing the Oakland schools over to him in the spring of 2003, why didn’t he just drop by the Senate Education Committee hearings and ask somebody? 

Or then again, maybe the two-year delay in the release of the multi-year recovery plan was simply a stall for something else. 

In any event, Mr. O’Connell did come to Oakland last month, and released the long-awaited plan detailing how he and Mr. Ward will get Oakland Unified in good enough fiscal shape to turn it back over to Oakland. 

Someone from the audience asked him the obvious question: Can you give us a date certain as to when local control will return? 

“I wish I had a date,” Mr. O’Connell replied. “I don’t have a date. There are certain standards that have to be met.” And what are those standards? “The standards will be set by the county office of education and by our auditing agencies.” [The emphasis on the will be set are mine.] 

The problem is, try as I might, I can’t find the part in SB39 that mentions some sort of new standards for local control that need to be set in order to OUSD’s governing board to “regain all of its rights, duties, and powers.” The only such standards for return of local control that I can find are outlined in SECTION 5 (e) (6) of the law, which reads: “The Superintendent of Public Instruction concurs with the assessment of the administrator and FCMAT that future compliance by the Oakland Unified School District with the [FCMAT] improvement plan … and the [State Superintendent’s] multiyear financial recovery plan … is probable.” 

FCMAT’s updated Assessment and Recovery Plan mandated under the Oakland takeover law was completed and released in September of 2003. Mr. O’Connell came to Oakland last month with his multiyear recovery plan. Yet he still says that “certain standards” for the return of local control have yet to be set, standards that don’t seem to be called for in the law. 

Is Mr. O’Connell really searching around for these elusive “certain standards?” Or is the real problem that Mr. Ward’s overhaul of Oakland’s education program-another little item not called for in SB39-needs more time to be completed? 

I don’t have any answers to that one, friends. I’m just sitting around here, asking a couple of questions. Like I said, sorry to be a bother. 

›

Knife Flasher 

A 65-year-old man called police just after midnight Monday to report that a heavyset man had brandished a knife at him as he was walking in the 2000 block of Addison Street. 

The suspect had fled in a black car before police arrived. 

Moonlight Auto Supply 

Persons or persons unknown stole thousands of dollars worth of tires and wheels at McNevin Cadillac & Volkswagen at 1500 San Pablo Ave. sometime between Sunday night and early Monday morning. 

Smash and Dash 

Police are seeking two men who threw a can or bottle that smashed the rear window of a car driving along the 1500 block of Cedar Street shortly after 5 p.m. Monday. 

The pair had fled by the time police arrived, perhaps aware that by throwing at an occupied car they had escalated their crime from a misdemeanor vandalism to a felony. 

Meter Tampering Bust  

Police have finally nabbed one of the folks who’ve been vandalizing the city’s parking meters! 

Responding to a report at 11 a.m. Tuesday, officers arrived in the 2100 block of Allston Way to find the criminal in the process of robbing a meter. 

Taking their arrival as an affront, said meter bandit hot-footed himself away from the scene, setting off a spirited foot chase that finally came to an end on Milvia Street just south of Kittredge Street, said Officer Okies. 

Beyond the felony theft charge—mandated because of a prior conviction—the 32-year-old meter bandit was also charged with resisting arrest and probation violation.  

Sexual Battery 

A Berkeley woman called to report that a bicyclist had ridden up behind her and groped her while she was walking in the 2500 block of Hillegass Avenue about 11:15 Tuesday night. 

The suspect, described as a man in his forties wearing a baseball cap and a gray or brown jacket, was long gone when officers arrived. 

Marina Robberies 

A man wearing a dark trenchcoat confronted two customers in the parking lot of HS Lordship’s at the Berkeley Marina about 11:30 Tuesday night and relieved them of their wallets before fleeing in a white van. 

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Tim O’Brien was 21 years old when he was sent to fight in Vietnam. More than two decades later, he wrote the literary masterpiece The Things They Carried. The book describes a handful of soldiers in Vietnam, and the things they carried—a girlfriend’s panties, a Cherokee hunting hatchet, comic books, illustrated bibles, dope, cigarettes, condoms, photographs, chewing gum and so forth. For years, O’Brien carried inside him the things his fellow soldiers carried, before setting them down on the page.  

These days, soldiers carry gizmos. If O’Brien were to document the things soldiers carry today, he’d have to include a grip of technology. With digital cameras, laptops and MP3 player/recorders, today’s soldiers capture and convey the non-fiction, funny, tragic, bloody reality of war at the same time they experience it.  

My boy C-los, 18, is one such soldier. When I met him four years ago, he was a tall, lanky, shy kid addicted to smoking menthols and talking mess after whoopin’ the rest of us at the computer game Halo.  

Back then, he’d huddle beside me and his big brother Tear as we told small-time San Francisco graffiti war stories. These days, he does the telling, we do the huddling. He’s stationed in Mosul, Iraq and carries an automatic rifle, hella bullets, a pack of Newports, a special love for SF’s Mission District, a digi-cam, an MP3 player/recorder and a laptop loaded with music and a variety of mpeg music videos (Outkast’s Bombs Over Baghdad) and porn.  

Not to mention some of the greatest war photos I’ve ever seen. Half the guys in his platoon pack a digi-cam, and after missions, C-los downloads their photos. He has about two dozen missions from the point of view of a dozen soldiers.  

He also carries a special chunk of military jewelry, a powerful piece of metal dangling from his uniform. Known as a combat infantry badge, it’s much heavier than the modest couple ounces it weighs.  

“You become combat infantry the moment you get shot at,” C-los explains. He describes how the soldiers have a campfire ceremony that same night, capturing the gathering on their digital cameras.  

C-los’ first firefight lasted four hours. I ask him if he ever feels bad about killing people. “The ones I killed tried to kill me and my boys,” he answered. C-los says it’s about the man next to you.  

Some insurgents spray-paint graffiti threats on the walls to dishearten the troops. “We have our translators write graffiti right back,” C-los tells me. A tag battle in Iraq—how’s that for a graffiti war story? (You win, C-los).  

In the midst of it all, the troops make time to pose for goofy pictures, play Halo and sing their rendition of Lil John and the East Side Boyz’ “Get Low” in a fake Arabic accent. C-los opens iTunes to play me the track he recorded on his MP3 player. We laugh out loud for a while. Then C-los falls silent and stares blankly, straight ahead.  

“There’s one thing I regret,” he says. “I wish I would’ve finished high school. I’d have different friends, more money, a chance to go to college.”  

On his laptop, C-los opens one last picture. It’s a photograph of him, taken from behind, walking into a long, narrow corridor with high walls.  

“All you have do is shoot at me from above and that would be the end of me,” he says. “The funny thing is, I walk into situations like that every day. Sometimes, I look back and the wall behind me looks like shredded cheese, like in ‘Pulp Fiction.’”  

C-los packs his stuff away. He’s given me most of his last night home—not to mention a priceless library of his and his platoon’s digital documentation of the war.  

I give him a cholo handshake. He walks into his parents’ house, oil refinery smokestacks in the background. I know he’s anxious to return to Iraq. He says he wanted to be with his boys who need him. The last glimpse I get of my friend as he cuts into the doorway is of his desert fatigue pack. The gizmos inside stand as witnesses, bearing testimony to the things he and his friends have seen—and carried home with them.  

I pray for C-los all the time. I also tell his war stories.  

Josué Rojas is an editor for YO! Youth Outlook (www.youthoutlook.org), a magazine by and for Bay Area youths and a PNS project. To view photos from C-los and his platoon, see http://media.youthoutlook.org/flash/photo-essay/iraq-tttch/

I was sorry to read the public meeting of the Library Board of Trustees last Wednesday characterized as resembling a “high school pep rally.” I have attended public meetings when important issues that meant a great deal to the attendees, and this one was another good example of democracy in action. (In San Francisco Public Library during the fees for computer service fracas, in Oakland, when a Military Academy was foisted on the city despite the standing room only meetings and negative votes by Boards of Education of Oakland and Alameda County). The Berkeley Public Library Board of Trustees President, Laura Anderson quietly, but firmly determined that everyone who wanted to speak, would do so. Surely there were outcries, clapping and some booing, but all were heard. It was the substance, the sharing of information and concerns, the search for solutions that mattered more than the formal manners that often suppress what needs to be aired. 

Much information came from experienced staff members, some with great clarity, some even with eloquence. Passions ran high. The issues were serious: jobs were at stake; changes had been made that undermined years of devoted building of neighborhood branch services; librarians and other workers had felt that they were being treated like interchangeable machine parts with little respect given to their expertise and experience in the area of major decisions that would affect the library, its patrons and the Berkeley community. 

The unexpected defeat in November of the ballot measure that would have raised property taxes for the library was a shock. Berkeley for many years had fervently supported its libraries. Budget shortfalls caused the Director to propose layoffs, apparently “the second set of layoffs in 12 months” as mentioned in American Libraries (April 2005, p13). There have been some changes since then, some moneys have been found, but the frustration and resentment grew. 

Added to that was the commitment to a $650,000 investment in the “radio frequency identification device” (RFID) project that required much preparation. This new-to-libraries technology would allow patrons to charge out their books and eliminate long lines. It has been used to track cattle, prisoners, merchandise etc., only recently, libraries. A sad failing among librarians has been an attempt to emulate businesses. When businesses and industries create and adopt new technologies, they expect it will reap more profits by eliminating labor costs. Libraries are not, and were never meant to be businesses. Public libraries and librarians are part of our commitment to a democratic society that relies on informed citizens to participate in their own government. 

This new technology has not been adequately tested. In Eugene, OR, I saw, behind the scenes, the conveyer belt dropping books into specific bins for shelving. (That is the next step that can be expected). But some bins were overflowing. The books still have to be shelved, and in Berkeley library, it was indicated at the meeting, it has far too few shelvers. The expectation of even 90 percent self-charge-outs has not been realized in the few libraries that use RFID. Patrons need help.  

As with many technological devices, things go wrong and dependency on quick repairs if often illusory. Some weeks ago I phoned the BPL for a recorded musical composition only to be told the computer had been down for several days and although the librarian valiantly tried to find it, it was an impossible task since it could be in an anthology of many small pieces. With RFID the consequences could be a mountain of returned books that couldn’t be discharged, and therefore not shelved, or couldn’t be borrowed without resorting to paper and pencil? 

The very real concern for repetitive motion syndrome and the worker compensation costs that were used as one justification for the RFID project seemed to shrink as the only solution to a problem that might be dealt with in less dramatic and costly ways. Asking for staff participation in finding solutions might produce useful suggestions. 

Very disturbing is the danger to our privacy that this new technology presents. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Freedom Foundation are concerned and are wary about the devices. In our present climate of fear and government intimidation as evidenced by the USA Patriot Act, we do not want our libraries even as unwitting participants in surveillance and spying. 

As a retired librarian from public, university, school and special libraries and a long-term advocate and fighter for intellectual freedom I urge that we affirm our commitment to free, equal access to publicly-supported libraries and schools as essential learning centers for democratic living. That must include support for the librarians and teachers who touch and teach us throughout our lives.  

The City Council voted 5-4 to burn the West Berkeley Plan. It wasn’t worded like that, of course. On April 19, they approved funding to begin an “incremental” evaluation of the Plan by studying changing the zoning of Ashby and Gilman west of San Pablo from industrial to commercial, to bring in more sales tax revenue from regional retail.  

Think about that a minute. How is that an evaluation of the Plan? How do you evaluate a plan by studying how to turn it upside down? A plan has goals, policies, and implementation strategies. Ordinarily one would assume that the city would evaluate an area plan by looking at its goals and analyzing how well its policies and implementation strategies achieved them. The West Berkeley Plan’s central goal and land use policy are summed up in two sentences: “Maintaining a mix of uses within West Berkeley is the overriding goal of the West Berkeley Plan.” (P 34) “Preserving and supporting all of the elements of this vital mix of land uses is the central policy of the West Berkeley Plan.” (P. 17)  

But while they’re calling this pre-ordained zoning change an evaluation of the Plan, it’s really just a flimsy cover, a pretext, a disingenuous ploy to hide the truth that its proponents disagree with the goals of the West Berkeley Plan and are trying to overturn them. To them, West Berkeley is not a community to protect but a cash cow to milk. What the Council really funded was a move to dismantle the Plan piecemeal.  

The Plan recognizes that West Berkeley is a successful part of the city, not a blighted area. Because of this, “the Plan seeks to guide its evolution, rather than radically reshape it,” and “aims to guide and manage West Berkeley’s growth, so that growth does not overwhelm West Berkeley’s character.” Because developers were aggressively converting manufacturing buildings into other uses, and because industrial and arts and crafts spaces were deemed to be valuable but threatened community resources and essential parts of the mix, the Plan gave zoning protections to those uses.  

Converting lower Gilman and Ashby into regional shopping centers would be catastrophic. The strip malls would soon overwhelm the surrounding blocks, raising property values beyond current tenants’ reach, gentrifying the neighborhoods, and pushing out industries, arts and crafts, and small start-up businesses of every type that flourish today in the sanctuary of industrial zoning. The ensuing gentrification spiral would drive many creative people out of town, replace them with upscale consumerists, and quickly transform West Berkeley from the last funky affordable dynamic corner of town into just another facade of yuppieworld. 

That’s if their scheme is a success. But retail on Ashby and Gilman might not even be financially successful. What if they built their shopping malls and nobody came? What would attract that army of shoppers away from Emeryville, Albany, and El Cerrito? Where would they park? Parking structures would be required. What if two successful neighborhoods were sacrificed and there wasn’t even any payoff? Do the proponents of this proposal even care? Does the city really want to siphon off more shoppers away from Downtown, Solano, Telegraph, and College Ave. businesses? 

The pretext for this Mad Tea Party is that the West Berkeley Plan is supposed to be evaluated in 2005, and the planning director estimated that a full evaluation would probably cost two years of one full-time staff person’s time. He presented this “incremental” scheme as an on-the-cheap alternative. I’m not blaming the planning director, since this is really coming from Mayor Bates. 

If you can’t afford to do it right, wait until you can. This is much worse than doing nothing. 

But ignoring or undermining its own plans is standard procedure in Berkeley. They always pick and choose which parts to implement, and which parts are just window dressing. Over the years numerous Berkleyans have considered suing the city for not following its own plans. In other California cities, similar lawsuits have successfully blocked inappropriate development promoted by arrogant elected officials and planning staffs. However, Berkeley is a “charter” city, and the city attorney says that charter cities are exempt from lawsuits of this type. That’s right folks, the city solicits all this extensive community input into all of its plans, including the General Plan, but then doesn’t feel obliged to follow them.  

The West Berkeley Plan was truly a peoples’ plan. It was written by the West Berkeley community itself, in a process set up and guided by the planning commission. Every stakeholding sector participated and signed onto the final document. What a radical concept, a community actually making its own plan, with help from city government! Passed unanimously by Council. But the ink was barely dry when the Plan came under heavy attack by developers who wanted to convert industrial buildings into offices to exploit the dot-com boom. They railed against the West Berkeley Plan, and intensely lobbied elected officials and staff to ignore the industrial zoning. The foresight of the West Berkeley Plan was revealed during the dot-com bust when other cities which had jettisoned their industries and arts for uncontrolled office development had miles of empty office space while West Berkeley’s economy stayed strong and stable due to its maintaining a dynamic mix of uses. Then, after the office boom went bust, the developers shifted gear into the new development fad of converting industrial into retail and residential, which is where we’re at now. 

Contrary to what the mayor apparently thinks, the goals of the Plan remain valid and laudable today. Any evaluation should focus not on ways to undermine the goals, but on ways to improve implementation. 

My deepest thanks to Councilmembers Dona Spring, Linda Maio, Max Anderson, and Kriss Worthington for their votes against this sham evaluation and in support of the real West Berkeley Plan. 

Make no mistake about it: West Berkeley is under heavy siege, and the battle will intensify next fall, when the “incremental” evaluation begins popping up on the planning commission’s agenda. The saddest part of all is that the most right-wing clique in recent memory currently controls the commission, most of whom I expect to applaud this cynical ploy. Over a year ago commission chair Pollack distributed a memo claiming, “a key goal of the West Berkeley Plan is fostering the economic development of West Berkeley and maintaining West Berkeley as a primary source of tax revenues.” Pollack didn’t find that anywhere in the actual text of the Plan, but just made it up. He and other advocates of rapid gentrification make no bones about substituting their own goals for the people’s plan.  

If you care about maintaining diversity in Berkeley, get ready to come out and fight for it. 

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I would like to comment on the announcement of the publication of The Frontlines of Social Change: Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (Daily Planet, April 26-28). Not having read the book, I cannot say anything about its contents, but the subject of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War deserves something more than the glowing pro-Stalinist whitewash usually presented in such volumes—and in Brenneman’s puff piece. 

First off, while the Lincolns may have been “poorly armed,” that is certainly not true for the bulk of the International Brigades. Being organized by the Comintern, all the IB contingents, as well as the Communist-dominated Spanish Popular Army, got the best arms supplied by Stalin (and paid for at falsely inflated prices—see Gerald Howson’s “Arms for Spain”); it was the non-Stalinist militias that received substandard arms, when they received any at all. 

Second, it is only too true that the IBs “battled for the Spanish Republic.” Unfortunately, the Republic was not worth defending from a revolutionary or radical perspective. Made up of social democrats, liberals, and other anti-revolutionary forces—including the Spanish Communist Party—the Republic was a bulwark against the collectivization of industry and agriculture by the Spanish workers and peasants. The leaders of the Republic not only gave away the gold in the Bank of Spain to pay for Stalin’s so-called aid, but they also refused to consider granting Spanish Morocco its independence (which would most likely have undercut Franco’s Moroccan shock troops’ loyalty) because they didn’t want to upset the French and British colonialists (see Antony Beevor’s Spanish Civil War.) But the defense of the thoroughly corrupt and bourgeois Republic fit in perfectly with Stalin’s foreign policy of mollifying the bourgeois governments of France and Britain by showing no interest in revolution in Western Europe; Stalin’s plan was to form some kind of pseudo-antifascist alliance with France and Britain against Hitler’s Germany. That worked so well that Stalin and Hitler formed a pact in 1939. 

The Spanish workers and peasants revolution that began in 1936 as a result of the attempted clerico-militarist coup against the Republic was actively suppressed by the Republic and its Stalinist supporters (see Burnett Bolloten’s “The Spanish Civil War” and George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia”), just as the non-Leninist Russian workers, peasants, and soldiers soviets were crushed by the Bolsheviks eighteen years earlier (see Maurice Brinton’s “The Bolsheviks and Worker’s Control”). The intentions of the Lincolns and their allies and supporters may have been sincere in terms of deliciously vague phrases like “the cause of social justice,” but their first and overriding loyalty was to the Party and its bosses in Moscow. The show trials that started in the same year as the Spanish conflict, the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the military interventions in Eastern Europe just after the Second World War, the repression of the 

striking Berlin workers in 1953, the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution... the list of Marxist-Leninist duplicity, betrayal, and counter-revolution is long and brutal. Yet according to Brenneman—and presumably Bermack—it was only “after Soviet Premier Nikita Krushschev revealed the murderous crimes of Josef Stalin” that “many veterans [of the Lincoln Brigade] dropped out of the party.” As long as the amply documented counter-revolutionary misdeeds of “Uncle Joe” and his loyal gangsters remained unacknowledged by the Party, everything was fine, and “social justice” could continue to be executed. Whatever contributions to the betterment of humanity were made by Leninists and Stalinists throughout history were unintentional.  

Horizontal decision making and direct (i.e. non-representative, non-electoral) action are the forms that worker and peasant revolutionary self-organization have taken since at least the time of the Paris Commune. Such activity is always and necessarily anti-statist and anti-capitalist. Members of the anarchist mass movement in Spain (despite the stupidities of its self-appointed leaders who betrayed the most fundamental anarchist principle by joining the government) actively promoted this tradition by forming and aiding in the formation of industrial and agricultural collectives in areas where revolutionary self-organization was possible—that is, areas where the Spanish Republic was ignored. The Spanish Communists destroyed them as soon as they were strong enough militarily. So much for “social justice.” 

›

Angela Davis came back home to Berkeley for her birthday. No, not that Angela Davis, but her niece, Angela Eisa Davis, known as Eisa to her family, fans and friends. The former Berkeley High School graduate, class of 1988, left Berkeley for a degree at Harvard followed by an master’s of fine arts from the Actors Studio Drama School, in Manhattan. 

Eisa, who just celebrated her 34th birthday on Thursday, is here to perform in a hiphop play she wrote and stars in called Angela’s Mixtape, at La Peña this Saturday and Sunday evening, part of the 4th annual Hiphop Theater Festival currently touring the United States.  

Eisa’s character and identity was forged in the crucible of Berkeley, as a member of one of our country’s leading intellectual families—African-American families. Her mother was a Swarthmore graduate who received her law degree from Boalt, her aunt was the Black Panther Angela Davis, whom Eisa knows as a soft-voiced and affectionate woman. 

“This play, what I’m trying to do in the play is … a bridge between what it is that our parents tried to do, and are trying to do, and what it is that we’re doing,” she said.  

“Don’t get all Angela Davis on me,” is a phrase most people might understand, but for Eisa it’s a phrase she has had directed at her by people who don’t know her connection, and a phrase that has powerful resonance to her sense of self and place in the modern world. It’s a large load to carry but it’s also fertile soil to farm. Eisa’s artistic work, especially her plays, re-examines the historic record from an intimate and personal perspective.  

“I’m trying to achieve in all my work the whole concept of ‘Sankofa’— you have to return to your past and understand exactly what happened there in order to claim your future,” Eisa said. “That’s something that I’ve been doing in all of my work … trying to find what it is that my artistic elders have been up to and sort of seeing how it is that those lessons can be applied today. There’s so many contradictions in that but again, they’re just tools that you have to reshape in order to make them effective.”  

Although she returns to Berkeley regularly to see her family and friends, New York is now Eisa’s home. A surprising number of her Berkeley friends have moved to Eisa’s Brooklyn neighborhood, they jokingly refer to it as B-Town Canal. (B-Town is hiphop nomenclature for Berkeley.) 

“New York seems to be one of the few places where a lot people feel they can actually go from being here. It’s either you stay (in Berkeley) or you go to New York or Portugal,” she said laughing.  

Racism is a reducing agent that stains our culture and informs Eisa’s artistic work.  

“I grew up here at a time when we really were in a Utopia, that’s how I felt,” she said. “I could feel it, palpably, that everyone around me tried to create a world around me that was free of all these ‘isms.’ We were this Utopian experiment that was actually working. There was a sense of tribalism. We were different.  

“I think in a lot of ways I grew up really feeling as racism had been eradicated or at least abated in someway. Then going to the East Coast I discovered that wasn’t the case in the rest of the country.”  

Nor was it really eradicated in Berkeley.  

“Our society is (racist) and Berkeley, as much as we try to be the ‘People’s Republic’, of course, it’s systematic and it happens no matter what it is that we chose to do,” Eisa said. “This play is really looking at how thinking that we had resolved and trumped the issue of racism actually hid the racism that was always there and still is. That’s what the play gets into, how racism functions and how racism functioned at that time, underneath the umbrella of what was later, strategically called P.C.”  

Angela’s Mixtape plays Saturday and Sunday, May 7-8, 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Reservations are recommended. For details, call 849-2568 or see www.lapena.org/Cuentos/Cuentos.html. For more information about the Hiphop Theater Festival see www.hiphoptheaterfest.org.  

The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Musical Director Kent Nagano, will present the world premiere of Manzanar—An American Story, a semi-staged oratorio for orchestra, chorus and narrators, on Tuesday May 10 at Zellerbach Hall. 

Manzanar, perhaps the most notorious of the camps where Japanese-Americans were interned during the Second World War, features a text by playwright Philip Kan Gotanda that embodies the voices of internees and reflections from literature on freedom, set to the music of composers Naomi Sekiya, Jean-Pascal Beintus and David Benoit, and performed by soprano Elsa van den Heever and the San Francisco Girls Chorus, with guest narrators Dale Minami, Pat Suzuki, Kevin Starr, Wendy Tokuda, Rajiv Shah, and Sab Shinomo. 

The program also will present other composers’ “ruminations on freedom and existence,” including Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question,” and Beethoven’s Fidelio.  

The idea for Manzanar originated several years ago, when State Librarian Kevin Starr requested a new work for the 50th anniversary of the internment camps. It was organized through the California Civil Liberties Public Educational Program (partly funded and overseen by the State Library), as part of the reparations for the internment as approved by Congress, including projects funded over the past five years. Senator Daniel Inoue was project honorary co-chairman. 

For the project, Starr nominated Nagano, who said, “As for nearly all the Japanese-Americans of my generation, the Japanese internment camps directly affected my family, and the opportunity to explore this period in our history through a project that incorporates musical and narrative elements is compelling.”  

Nagano said he assembled “a team of internationally recognized artists ... asking them to bring a unique perspective ... to explore through the language of music not only the Japanese-American internment camp experience, but also the larger question, what it means to be an American ... their experiences will then serve as a touchstone for reflecting upon the tensions between liberty and security that continue to challenge us today.” 

Playwright Philip Kan Gotanda, also an independent filmmaker, was born in Stockton. One of the best-known Asian-American playwrights, this Guggenheim Fellow’s collected work, No More Cherry Blossoms, will be published later this year by the University of Washington Press. 

Composer Naomi Sekiya—herself an immigrant, whose music in the narrative covers the period from early Japanese immigration to WW II—was born in a village near Nikko, Japan. She studied music at UCLA and USC. Her work has received awards at international competitions and at the Ojai Festival in 2000. She is known for her guitar compositions, and has been composer-in-residence with the Berkeley Symphony. 

Composer Jean-Pascal Beintus—whose music for Manzanar covers from the time of internment up to present—was born in Toulouse, France. He has played double bass for Opera de Lyons, and has collaborated with the Berkeley Symphony since Kent Nagano first commissioned a work from him in 1998, most notably on “Luna Tree,” and “The Bremen Town Musicians.” 

Bakersfield native David Benoit, who contributes jazz and big band music integral to Japanese-American experience, is best-known for “smooth jazz,” like his Grammy-nominated album, Every Step of the Way. He has studied composition and film music, been the musical director of the Asia America Symphony in Southern California and has performed in concert with conductor Leonard Bernstein at Carnegie Hall.  

As part of the project, educational programs among 5th graders in Berkeley and Albany Public Schools have been carried out as part of the California historical curriculum, with multimedia presentations, visits by musicians, visual artists and internees. The 5th graders’ drawings are part of an installation by artist Flo Oy Wong, “1942 Luggage From Home To Camp,” in Zellerbach’s lobby. 

It was visual art, in the form of photography, that publicized the existence of the internment camps to a wider American public. Dorothea Lange’s photos of Manzanar, exhibited at the camp in 1944, raised controversy over the executive order that interned American citizens, and conditions at the camps. Ansel Adams’ pictures, originally titled “Born Free and Equal, the Story of Loyal Japanese Americans,” were exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1944 under the less controversial title, “Manzanar.” The book of 66 prints was finally published in 1994, under the original title. Adams donated his prints to the Library of Congress, on whose website they may be viewed online. 

›

FRIDAY, MAY 6 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, “Working,” inspired by Studs Terkel, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Through May 7. Tickets are $13-$15. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Aurora Theatre, “Blue/Orange” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m., 2081 Addison St. through May 15. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.aurora.theatre.org 

Berkeley High School, “A Chorus Line” Fri. and Sat at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $12 for adults, $6 for students at the door. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater “The People’s Temple” at the Roda Theater, through May 29. Tickets are $20-$55. 647-2949.  

Black Repertory Group “Bubbling Brown Sugar” the musical Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2:30 and 8 p.m. to May 14 at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $7-$15. 652-2120.   

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through May 21. Tickets are $12-$20. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Eastenders Repertory “A Knight's Escape” and “WWJD,” Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m., through May 15 at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $15-$18. 568-4118. 

Impact Briefs 7: “The How-To Show” Thu.-Sat at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through May 28. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

“Proof” by David Auburn, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through May 7 at The Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $13. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“What’s Hot in the Emerging Art Scene” a special show of emerging East Bay artists at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Door to Door” Collaborations with strangers by Jon Brumit opens at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Through May 27. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“Convection” A show of new works by Ellen Babcock. Reception at 5 p.m. at Atelier Gallery, 1812 Sixth St. Exhibition runs through May 27, by appointment only. 486-1485. www.ateliergalery.net 

FILM 

Berkeley Independent Festival of Digital Arts Opening Night Gala at 8 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Sponsored by Vista College. Tickets are $10-$20. 981-2818. www.ifdigitalarts.org 

Works from the Eisner Awards Competition, with artists in person, at 7 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Byron Katie talks about “I Need Your Love Is That True?” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $10. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

California Bach Society Warren Stewart’s Farewell Concert at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Pre-concert talk at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $10-$25. 415-262-0272. www.calbach.org 

Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988.  

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$20. 642-9988. 

Dick Hindman Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Cristo Cortés, gypsy flamenco singer, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The People and Alfred Howard & The K23 Orchestra at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054.  

Guru Garage, jazz funk at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Stairwell Sisters at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Adrian Gormley Quartet, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Otis Goodnight, Raw Deluxe at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8. 548-1159.  

Lua, a quartet of voices, percussion and strings at 6:30 p.m. at Café Valpariso, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 841-3800. 

The Herms, The Krose, Jack Killed Jill, punk, alt, indie rock at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7-$8. 848-0886.  

Casey Neill at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Jessica Neighbor & The Hood at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Itsawhale at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Kill the Dream, Die Young, Invictus Maneo at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Lee Ritenour & Friends at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square., through Sun. Cost is $15-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, MAY 7 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Rosie & The Railroaders at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

THEATER 

Rough and Tumble “The Devil is an Ass” by Ben Jonson at 7:30 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 601-1444. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Alvarado Artists Group Show with works by Kristen Jensen, Sally Smith, Ross Carlton and James and Gillian Servais at the Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Reception for the artists at 1 p.m. 848-1228.  

Akio Takamori, functional porcelain ceramics, at Trax Gallery, 1812 Fifth St. 540-8729. www.traxgallery.com 

FILM 

Berkeley Independent Festival of Digital Arts from noon to 9 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Sponsored by Vista College. Tickets are $5-$10. 981-2818. www.ifdigitalarts.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Investigative Journalism and ‘The People’s Temple’” at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2015 Addison St. Free. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Andrew Bacevich describes “The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War” at 2:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Hip-Hop Aesthetics in Theater at noon at La Peña Cultural Center. Free. 849-2568.  

Bay Area Poets Coalition open reading at 3 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street. Free. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Macbeth” by Verdi, with the UC Alumni Chorus at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater. Tickets are $15-$40. 841-1903. www.berkeleyopera.org 

Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra Duruflé “Requiem” at 8 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. free, donations accepted. www.bcco.org 

Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$20. 642-9988. 

Volti “Copeland’s American Landscape” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $8-$20. 415-771-3352. www.voltisf.org 

“Angela’s Mixtape” by Eisa Davis, a musical montage of her life growing up with activist aunt Angela Davis. Sat. and Sun. at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568, ext. 20. www.lapena.org  

Mother’s Day Gospel Concert featuring Pamela Adams at 5:30 p.m. at Miracles of Faith Community Church, 4335 Virginia Ave., Oakland. Donations benefit the American Breast Cancer Society. 326-6190. 

Del Sol String Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $7-$21. 415-831-5672. www.delsolquartet.com 

G.S. Sachdev and Swapan Chaudhuri, classical North Indian Ragas at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $23-$32. 415-259-8629. www.bansuri.net 

Robin Flower & Libby McLaren, celtic americana, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Big Skin at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Tempest, Sharon Night at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082.  

Mumbo Gumbo at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Viv Savage, The Morning Electric, Glasshour at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Braziu, Brazilian music, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Samantha Raven and friends at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Weber Iago Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Meli at 9:30 p.m. at Capoeira Arts Cafe, 2026 Addison St. Donation $6. 

Mark Holzinger, acoustic guitar at Spuds Pizzeria, corner of Alcatraz & Adeline. Cost is $7.  

Dick Conte Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Das Oath, Look Back and Laugh, Shook Ones at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Braziu with Feijoada Completa at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

SUNDAY, MAY 8 

CHILDREN  

Mother’s Day Concert with Mary Miche at 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Juan Sanchez at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

Kathy Kallick Mother’s Day Show at 1 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $7.50-$9.50. 548-1761. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Art of the Launch” an exhibition of graphic art, photographs and memorabilia relating to the 747 ships built at the Kaiser shipyards during WWII, at the Richmond Museum, 400 Nevin Ave. 235-7387. richmondmuseumofhistory.org 

“Sephardic Horizons” a tour with Judaica curator, Elayne Grossbard at 1:30 p.m., colloquium at 2 p.m. at Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Elizabeth Treadwell and Liz Waldner at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra featuring 14-year-old Jack Draper, clarinet, at 2:30 p.m. at Laney College Theater in Oakland. Donation $5. 663-3296. 

Steve Wedgwood, baritone, with Michelle Diaz, soprano, in an AIDS Benefit Recital at 4 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Donation. 526-3805. 

Gypsy Crossings featuring Biréli Lagrene and Taraf de Haidouks at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$42. 642-9988.  

Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra Duruflé “Requiem” at 4:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free, donations accepted. www.bcco.org 

California Revels A Mothers Day Tribute to All Mothers at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children. 925-798-1300.  

Eric & Suzy Thompson and the Thompson String Ticklers at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 

A Cappella Concert for Mother’s Day with a quartet from the Russian male chorus Slavyanka at 1:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200.  

NATyA “The Elements” Indian classical dance at 6 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $11-$15. 925-798-1300.  

Carlos Zialcita Jazztet at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

New Works for Jazz and Indian Dance at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

John Renbourn with Jacqui McShee at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761.  

MONDAY, MAY 9 

EXHIBITIONS 

Annual Quilt Show at the North Berkeley Public Library, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins, through May 21. 981-6250. 

“Punim: Our Spoken Treasures” An exhibit of photographs at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St., through June 7. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org 

FILM 

Buddhism and Film: “Words of My Perfect Teacher” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Josh Kornbluth reads from his new edition of “Red Diaper Baby” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

J. Othello introduces “The Soul of Rock & Roll: A History of African Americans in Rock Music” at 6:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express with John Rowe at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Walter Savage Strings ‘N Things at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, MAY 10 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Asra Nomani describes “Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $10. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Arthur Asa Berger introduces “The Kabbalah Killings: A Murder Mystery Introduction to Jewish Mysticism” at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin introduce “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

PEN West’s Annual Translation Event with Robert Alter, Robert Goldman and H. Mack Horton at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra “Manzanar: An American Story” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. Tickets are $22-$49. 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

Pacific Brass Quintet at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $20. 525-5211.  

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

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

Mike Lipskin at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Adam Evolve, Jon Roniger, americana, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Will Bernard Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $6-$10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Medea Benjamin talks about “Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam Team Competition at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryplough.com 

Café Poetry with Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with Ron McKean on the Rosales Organ at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. www.firstchurchoakland.org 

Berkeley Opera “Macbeth” by Verdi, with the UC Alumni Chorus at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater. Tickets are $15-$40. 841-1903. www.berkeleyopera.org 

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Anthony Paul & Mz Dee at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson with Nick & Shanna at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

ThaMuseMeant and Baby Gramps, ballads and progressive folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50-$17.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

SomethingFour at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Berkeley High Jazz at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

FRIDAY, MAY 6 

Holocaust Rememberance Day at noon at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr Way, featuring author Liz Rosner, Holocaust survivor Dora Sorrel, 2nd generation daughter Lisa Klug, and Patricia Whaley, viola, and Lola Fraknoi. 981-7170. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Leslie P. Peirce, Prof. UCB, on “Women in Islamic Society” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

Spring Plant Sale at The Edible Schoolyard with vegetables, flowers and perennials grown by the students of King Middle School. Fri. from 3:30 to 6 p.m. and Sat. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1781 Rose St. 558-1335.  

“The Ambassador” The documentary on John Negroponte, new Director of National Intelligence, and his alleged complicity in human rights abuses in Central America, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Donations accepted. 482-1062. 

“Rights, Liberties, and the Rules of Engagement“ The 9th Annual Travers Ethics Conference from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Lipman Room, 8th floor, Barrows Hall, UC Campus. Keynote Address “A New Paradigm for Confronting Terrorism” by Morton Halperin, Open Society Institute, at 11:15 a.m. http://ethics.berkeley.edu 

May Friendship Day at 9:30 a.m. at Berkeley Methodist United Church, 1710 Carleton St. Potluck lunch, following the program “Living in the Light: True Friends Are Salt and Light.” Sponsored by Church Women United, Berkeley-Albany Unit. 525-3284. 

Bob Avakian’s Memoir book release party at 7 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. 848-1196. 

The Deeksha Project Concentration Workshop at 7 p.m. at a West Berkeley location. Donations requested. For reservations and details call 453-0606. 

“Three Beats for Nothing” meets at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice, mostly 16th century harmony. 655-8863.  

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, MAY 7 

Sick Plant Clinic UC plant pathologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants from 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755.  

Work in the Garden at Tilden Nature Area from 2 to 4 p.m. Learn to identify local butterfly species as we prepare the garden for warmer weather. Bring gloves, or call if you need them. 525-2233. 

Edible Landscaping and Food Forests A visit to Wildheart Gardens, 463 61St. at Telegraph at 10 a.m. Cost is $10-$15, no one turned away. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

“Superior Performers for Summer-Dry Climates” with Susan Handjian and Chris Finch, water conservation horticulture specialists at 10 a.m. at the Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. 444-7645. www.bayfriendly.org 

Walking Tour of the Garden of Old Roses from 1 to 3 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $8-$12. 643-2755.  

Walking Tour of Oakland Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the courtyard fountain in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours 

Hidden Gems of Berkeley Bike Tour Meet at Halcyon Commons next to Prince Street, one block west of Telegraph at 10 a.m. to see unusual natural and domestic places, on a 6-7 mile ride. Bring a lunch, snack, and water, $4 to purchase the map (optional). Co-sponsored by Bicycle Friendly Berkeley Coalition, Livable Berkeley, and Berkeley Partners for Parks. 849-1969.  

“Water: The Next Crisis” with Laura Santina at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Gray Panthers Office, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

Public Read-In to Protest RFID We will read from Robert O’Harrow's book “No Place to Hide,” which discusses Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFIDs), privacy rights, and the proliferation of surveillance technology from 1 to 3 p.m. in front of the Main Library, Kittredge at Shattuck. Sponsored by BOLD (Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense) 415-568-5157. 

Bay Area Women in Black Mother’s Day Procession with giant puppets and theater, from noon to 1 p.m. at Lakeshore Ave., at Mandana in Oakland. www.bayareawomeninblack.org 

Spartacus Youth Forum on getting military recruiters off campus at 3 p.m. in 20 Barrows Hall, UC Campus. 839-0851. 

“Inside Out” Street Fair on Telegraph Ave. between Parker and Bancroft. 

Progressive Democrats of America East Bay Chapter meets at 1 p.m. at Temescal Library, 5205 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Panel discussion on the Health Care for All Californians Bill. 526-4632. 

East Bay Atheists meets from 2 to 5 p.m. with Dr. Marlene Winell on the process of recovering from religious fundamentalism at Berkeley’s Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd floor Meeting Room. 222-7580. eastbayatheists.org 

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.  

Free Emergency Preparedness Class in Fire Supression from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 997 Cedar St., between 8th and 9th. To sign up call 981-5605. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/fire/oes.html 

The Crucible’s Gala and Art Auction, with opera, fire dancing and fire sculptures at 6 p.m. in the Oakland Rotunda Bldg, Frank Ogawa Plaza. 444-0919. www.thecrucible.org 

“The Flute Player” a documentary about a young man who returns to Cambodia to confront his past as a child-soldier in the Khmer-Rouge army. At 1 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley in Kensington. Donation $7. 525-0302.  

YWCA Dance Performance with flamenco, bellydance, HipHop and more at 7 p.m. at 2600 Bancroft Way. 848-6370. 

Berkeley Potters Guild Annual Spring Show Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 731 Jones St. 524-7031. www.berkeleypotters.com 

Child Safety While Travelling at 11 a.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

Georgeva’s 30th Annual Mother’s Day Fashion Show at 6 p.m. at Best Western Inn, 920 University Ave. Tickets are $35-$50. www.georgeva.com 

SUNDAY, MAY 8 

Mother’s Day Pancake Breakfast on board The Red Oak Victory Ship in Richmond Harbor, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost is $6, children free. Take HY 580 towards San Rafael and exit at Canal Blvd., turn left and follow the signs to the ship. 237-2933. 

Mother’s Day Pond Plunge Discover the denizens of the deep with dip-nets and magnifiers from at 10:30 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. For ages 4 and up. Dress to get dirty and wet. 525-2233. 

Green Sunday “Indian Casinos in the East Bay ...Economic Boon or Social Disaster?” at 5 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 

Unselt Lecture: “The Brain on Plants” a lecture on medicinal plants with Dr. David Presti at 2 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Free, but registration required. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

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 

“Native American Spirituality and Healing Practices” with Hank “Waabeza” Adams at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

“Sacred Body, Sacred Landscapes” a chanting and movement workshop at 5 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $8-$12. 883-0600. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Why Meditate?” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MAY 9 

Musical Concert and Sing-A-Long at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Everyone welcome. 981-5190.  

Tea and Hike at Four Taste some of the finest teas from the Pacific Rim and South Asia and learn their natural and cultural history, followed by a short nature walk. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233.  

Elderhostel Program with Ann White at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Sponsored by the Friends of the Kensington Library. 524-3043.  

Home Buyer Assistance Information Session at 6 p.m. at 1504 Franklin St., Oakland. Sponsored by the Home Buyer Assistance Center. Reservations required. 832-6925, ext. 100. www.hbac.org 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60 years and over meets at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $2.50 with refreshments. 524-9122. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, MAY 10 

Morning Bird Walk Meet at 7 am. opposite the Pony Ride, Tilden Park, for a walk up the Gorge Trail. 525-2233. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Bird Walk along the Martin Luther King Shoreline to see the Clapper Rails and the elusive Burrowing Owl at 3:30 p.m. 525-2233. 

Mother’s Day Celebration with George Rider and Scrumbly from Stagebridge at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center. 

“The Continuing Battle to Restore the San Joaquin River” with Hamilton Candee, senior attorney at National Resources Defense Council at 5:30 p.m. in 105 North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Water Resources Center Archives. 642-2666. 

Small Business Class “Writing an Effective Business Plan” from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, Community Room, 2090 Kittredge St. Sponsored by the Small Business Network. Free but registration required. 981-6148. 

Discover the Benefits of Hiking Poles A lecture and demonstration with Jayah Faye Paley at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Israel Memorial Day at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org 

“Praises for the World” film of the concerts in Oakland in March and Nov. 2003 at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

Vision Screening for Toddlers at 10 a.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

“Just the Flax and Booster Foods” a free nutrition lecture by Ed Bauman, Director of Bauman College, at 5:30 p.m. at Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

Introductory Buddhist Meditation Class at 7 p.m. at Dzalandhara Buddhist Center, in Berkeley. Suggested donation $7-$10. For directions call 559-8183.www.kadampas.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints. 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. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:15 a.m. at Au Cocolait, 200 University Ave. at Milvia. For information call Robert Flammia 524-3765. 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. For reservations call 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours 

State Density Bonus Meeting on the implementation of this new law in Berkeley, with the Zoning Adjustments Board Sub-Committee at 4 p.m. in the City of Berkeley Planning Dept. 981-7484, 981-7410. 

Balinese Music & Dance Workshops Wed. evenings through June 8 at 7:30 p.m. in El Cerrito. Cost is $60 for all five classes, $15 per class. Registration required. 6485 Conlon Ave., El Cerrito. 237-6849. www.gsj.org 

“Mysterious Neighbors: The Chinese, The Japanese and The Jews in the SF Bay Area from the Gold Rush to the Present” with Fred Rosenbaum. Brown bag lunch at 11:30 a.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org 

May Day in Caracas 2005, a multi-media report back at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Poetry Writing Workshop with Alison Seevak at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Study Skills and Organization Workshop for Teens at 7 p.m. at Classroom Matters, 2607 7th Street, Suite E. Free. 540-8646. www.classroommatters.com 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Action St. 841-2174.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley BART Station. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MAY 12 

Hidden Lodges of Berkeley An illustrated lecture on the Le Conte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite, with Bonnie Johanna Gisel, Le Conte Lodge Curator, at 7:30 p.m. at Senior Hall, UC Campus. Cost is $10. 841-2241. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

Water Transit in Berkeley A joint workshop with the Berkeley Transportation and Waterfront Commissions and the SF Bay Water Transit Authority at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7010. 

West Campus Site Planning Meeting to review the Draft Master Plan at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria, 1222 University Ave. For information call 644-6066. www.berkeley.k12.ca.us 

“Playing Around in the Amazon Jungle” with Renata Meirelles and David Reeks on children’s culture in the Brazilian Amazon at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $-$10 sliding scale. Children welcome. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Grizzly Peak Flyfishers meets at 7 p.m at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave., with Rachel Andras, a Redding-based guide and fly fishing instructor, on fishing the upper Sacramento River and other Northern California waters. 547-8629. 

ONGOING 

Cross County Hybrid Car Rally May 9 to May 14, starting from Art’s Automotive, 2871 San Pablo Ave. to Saratoga Springs, New York. Art’s Automotive will verify tire pressure, hand out special logs to record your progress and place a special seal on your gas tank cover. At certain checkpoints your fuel mileage will be recorded before you refill your tank. You can chose any route you want as long as you arrive no later than noon May 14th in Saratoga Springs. Sponsored by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association and Autocareers.org Details available at the website www.TourdeSol.org  

Bike Chain Response is organizing an interfaith bike ride from the Nevada Test Site to Los Alamos National Laboratory, June 19 to July 17, to raise awareness of alternative modes of transportation and the tragedy of the nuclear weapons industry. 505-870-2-ASK. www.lovarchy.org/ride/ 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., May 9, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/city 

council/agenda-committee 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., May 9, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/landmarks 

City Council meets Tues., May 10, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www. 

ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., May 11, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Tasha Tervelon, 981-5347. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/women 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., May 11, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Don Brown, 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/disability 

Planning Commission meets Wed., May 11, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., May 11 at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/policereview 

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed. May 11, at 7 p.m. at 1901 Russell St., Jackie Y. Griffin, 981-6195. www.ci.ber- 

keley.ca.us/commissions/library 

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., May 11, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. Cliff Marchetti, 981-6740. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/waterfront 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs., May 12, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Angellique De Cloud, 981-5428. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., May 12, at 6:45 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.ber- 

keley.ca.us/commissions/health 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., May 12, at 6:45 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.ber- 

keley.ca.us/commissions/health 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., May 12, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., May 12, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/zoning  

A Berkeley-based bike messenger cooperative appears to be the latest organization to suffer from Berkeley’s budgetary woes. 

Hoping to save nearly $30,000 on its mailroom expenses, the city last month terminated its contract with Pedal Express to deliver inter-office mail to outlying city offices. The cooperative, formed in 1994 to haul packages up to 1,000 pounds, will continue to deliver commission packets for the city. 

Although the cut is miniscule compared to reductions scheduled for other organizations and programs as the city seeks to close an $8.9 million structural deficit, environmentalists, opposed to using cars for inter-office deliveries, have rallied behind the cooperative. 

“They’re not polluting the air and they’re not congesting the streets with cars,” said Marcy Greenhut of the city’s Transportation Commission. Councilmembers Linda Maio and Kriss Worthington have also both lobbied City Manager Phil Kamlarz to reconsider the cut. 

Facing a deficit in its mailroom fund of more than $30,000, Kamlarz said the city had no choice but to cut costs. “It was either going to be a mailroom person or Pedal Express,” he said. 

For Pedal Express the cut is potentially devastating. “We’re shrinking because of this,” said Barbara Murphy, a member of the five-person cooperative that counted on Berkeley inter-office deliveries for about a quarter of its business. Murphy added that Pedal Express also delivers inter-office mail for Emeryville and commission packets for Albany. 

One month before Berkeley terminated its contract, Pedal Express, at the city’s request, bid to run the city’s mailroom operations. Murphy said that the cooperative’s bids, which ran from $80,000 to $108,000, a year were rejected by the city in favor of keeping the mailroom staffed with city employees.  

Currently the mail clerk, classified as a Central Services Aide, makes roughly $40,000, according the city’s salary schedule posted on its website. There is also a half-time clerk at the mailroom. In the past year, Murphy said, Pedal Express had billed the city $26,000 to deliver inter-office mail to outlying offices. 

Kamlarz said the mailroom fund, funded by postage fees charged by the city to its departments, has been in the red for the past several years. “The costs are higher than they should be,” he said. 

Berkeley contracted with Pedal Express in 1994 to deliver commission packets. In 1998, when the city dispersed several of its departments while City Hall underwent a seismic retrofit, the cooperative began delivering interoffice mail. 

But with the consolidation of numerous departments into 1947 Center St. last year, Pedal Express has seen its business with the city decline, Murphy said. Until the city terminated its inter-office delivery contract last month, she said, Pedal Express delivered mail to outlying city offices like the Marina and corporation yard, while the city’s mail clerk delivered mail between downtown offices. 

Under the new system, the mail clerk, stationed at 1947 Center St., will deliver mail by car to outlying city offices. Kamlarz said he expected the mail clerk to deliver mail by foot to downtown offices, but Murphy said that has not been the standard practice. 

“He has always requested a car and has always received a car,” she said. “He even drives to the high school to pick up mail. We told the city that if they were going to be cutting Pedal Express, we’d like to see him have a less detrimental way of getting around.” 

›

They came. They saw. They scoffed. 

Zoning Adjustments Board members and neighbors had little good to say Thursday night about the Old Grove, a two-building, five-story 186-apartment complex proposed for the site of the mini-mall that now houses Kragen Auto Parts at 1695 University Ave. 

Berkeley developers Christopher Hudson and Evan McDonald presented their plans at a special preview session held before the regular ZAB meeting. It was their first appearance as independent developers following their split from the always controversial Patrick Kennedy.  

“You’ve exceeded the planning code in nine different areas, and I stopped counting the number of city policies the project doesn’t meet,” said ZAB member Bob Allen. “It would be a waste of your time to bring it to the Design Review Committee.” 

“Building A”—the larger of the two structures—“looks like a Ramada Inn,” said ZAB member Chris Tiedemann. Referring to comparisons provided by project neighbors with plans presented two years earlier, Tiedemann said “the new project looks like it’s on steroids.” 

“The design is overwhelming. It’s not going to work,” said ZAB member Dean Metzger. 

“We believe we can make it much more attractive,” Hudson said, “but we are not going to be constantly coming back to address the rules, which would become a circular process. The idea is to create class buildings that look like they’ve been around for a while.” 

Architect for the project is Kirk E. Peterson, whose best-known Berkeley designs were created for Kennedy’s Panoramic Interests—the Gaia Building at 2116 Allston Way and the Bachenheimer Building at 2119 University Ave. 

While his other two buildings might be taller, neither approaches the street front massing of the larger Old Grove building, which presents a block-long five-story frontage along Martin Luther King Jr. Way (formerly called Grove Street.) 

The smaller building, situated west of the main structure on Berkeley Way, reaches five stories at its apex, and residents of the residential street appeared at ZAB to complain that the structures would cast their homes into shadow.  

Parking Worries, Density 

Metzger said he was particularly worried about the plan’s inclusion of only 71 parking spaces in a complex with nearly 200 apartments and ground floor retail space as well. 

Further complicating the parking problems are city policies that will bar residents from applying for residential parking permits that would allow them to park on neighboring streets. 

Parking becomes even more problematic in light of the targeted residential population—working adults, and not the students who occupy the smaller units built by Hudson and McDonald during their long association with Kennedy. 

At the project’s inception, 1695 University Ave. was to have been another development of Kennedy’s Panoramic Interests, but the developer ceded the project to his former associates when they set out under their own flag. 

As with Kennedy’s projects, another lightning rod proved to be the city staff’s application of density bonus calculations in determining the mass and height of the project. 

“The density bonus has been abused,” said Metzger.  

“There’s a lot of disagreement among the board about the way the density bonus is being interpreted,” said Allen. “It does not state, in my opinion, that you can violate any and all zoning codes and still get two or three concessions—and you’ve asked for eight. I would like to see your project fit the spirit of the Berkeley zoning code and still get the most density bonus you can.” 

Member Rick Judd told the developers that “city staff has gone out of its way to be helpful to you.” 

Steve Wollmer and other neighbors have enlisted a powerful ally in their efforts to bring the project to more sedate dimensions. Oakland land use attorney Rena Rickles—who usually represents developers and builders—made the first of two Thursday evening appearances on the side of project critics. 

“We too would like to know the rules from the beginning, so that it doesn’t turn into an exhausting situation going from ZAB to the City Council and back,” Rickles said. “We’re very uncomfortable with the growth of the project,” noting that the average per unit size had grown by 20 percent from the last plans presented to ZAB. 

Rickles also challenged the city staff’s recommendation of reduced side yard setbacks along Berkeley Way. “The law is clear on its face and unambiguous, and not as recommended by city staff,” she said. 

Under plans endorsed by the staff, the smaller building would be built to within five feet of the Victorian home at 1838 Berkeley Way. 

Tom Hunt, whose home is just across the street from the project on Berkeley Way, voiced his concern for neighbors who live in the home. “This is a very large building up against a very small building. Their garden will be pretty much useless,” he said. Hunt also worried about shadows that will result in a loss of solar heat and light to his own home during the winter. 

Too Little Commercial? 

Wollmer also charged that the project violates city policy by limiting ground floor commercial use. “The city is losing sales tax revenue,” he said. ZAB member David Blake endorsed Wollmer’s concern. 

“It needs retail along MLK all the way to Berkeley Way,” said Chair Andy Katz. 

Rob Browning, an area resident with a small business on University in the same block, offered some historical perspective on the site, referring to its inspiration for Allen Ginsberg’s 1955 poem “A Supermarket in California,” written when a U-Save market stood on the spot, and Robert Bechtle’s choice of the locale for his 1971 painting “‘60 Chevy.” 

“Compared to this project, that lonely little strip mall begins to seem lovable,” Browning said. 

Peterson has styled himself a “19th Century” architect, but Hearst Avenue resident Travis Ritter said the project “wasn’t something Bernard Maybeck would have been happy to drive by.” Maybeck is Berkeley’s most celebrated turn-of-the-20th-Century architect. 

While no one opposed the project outright, and neighbors said they like the inclusion of apartments for low-income tenants, their key issues remained mass and parking. 

“Most people are still going to have cars, and the business customers will only exacerbate parking conditions, which are getting worse in this neighborhood,” said an Addison Street resident. 

Hillary Goldman, who lives on Grant Street, shared the parking worries. “I’m also concerned that you’re protégés of Patrick Kennedy,” she said. “I hope you’ll take this seriously.” 

Density Panel Formed 

The conversation kept coming back to the always thorny issue of the density bonus, which by city calculations allowed Hudson McDonald LLC a 35 percent bigger building for setting aside one fifth of their apartments for low-income tenants—raising the base project from 135 apartments by an additional 48. 

By the very end of Thursday night’s meeting at 1 a.m. Friday, ZAB members had voted to create a four member ad hoc subcommittee to look into the density bonus.›

After two hung juries punctuated by appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court, the third “pepper spray trial” finally brought resolution, with a victory of sorts, for the plaintiffs.  

At issue in the two week trial which ended last Thursday in federal court in San Francisco was police use of pepper spray. The police in the case were the Humboldt county sheriffs and the Eureka police and the plaintiffs eight young people engaged in civil disobedience protesting excessive logging of ancient redwood trees in northern California. This time the jury was unanimous in finding for the plaintiffs that the police used excessive force, but it awarded them only $1.00 each in damages. Compensation for the attorneys involved in this and the earlier proceedings can be expected to be a long process of applications and appeals. 

The plaintiffs were represented by a brilliant and dedicated team of lawyers including dynamic Tony Serra and soft spoken, fatherly looking Dennis Cunningham. In his opening statement Cunningham presented the background of the case to the jury. He explained that Pacific Lumber Company had been operating in Humboldt County for many years, practicing sustainable logging and enjoying good relations with the community. Then, in 1991, they were bought out in a hostile takeover by Maxxam Corp., a Texas based company owned by Charles Hurwitz, who was already notorious for his involvement in the savings and loan scandal. The logging operation looked like a way to squeeze out badly needed cash to cover his debts. Defying established standards of logging, plaintiffs claimed, Maxxam Corp. caused devastating effects on the environment and felled ancient redwood trees. 

When environmental activists began to organize, supporters came up from the Bay Area and beyond to participate in increasingly frequent protests. One of the plaintiffs, Berkeley/Oakland environmentalist Terri Compost, described “people in tree sits, and big demonstrations where a thousand people crossed the line and got arrested, and letter writing campaigns, and people trying to close down gates and set up blockades of people locked together.” There were different ways in which protesters locked themselves together. One method used metal tubes which they put their arms into and locked together with a pin. They could remove the pin from the inside if they wanted to free themselves but to take the devices apart from the outside required using a grinder to cut them loose.  

This was the procedure used by the police in a number of lockdowns but then in 1997 they took a different approach. They dipped Q-tips into liquid pepper spray, rubbed it in the eyes of the protesters to force them to unlock themselves, and videotaped the whole scene. They did this on three occasions, declaring that grinding would have been dangerous under the circumstances, an assertion that the plaintiffs insisted was not justified. 

Sitting in the courtroom and watching a video of the victims sitting helplessly while police pulled their heads back by the hair and dabbed the chemical in their eyes over their screams of protest was a gruesome experience. The jurors were clearly shaken, and the plaintiffs, who had experienced it and then had to watch it in the two preceding trials, had to suffer through it once more. The video demonstrated the plaintiffs’ charge that the police were inflicting punishment on them while they were clearly engaged in peaceful protest and were no threat to anyone.  

There were plenty of alternative ways to handle the situation, testified an expert witness. Anthony Bouza had been a policeman all his life, culminating his career as chief of police in Minneapolis. Since he retired he has written books and served as expert witness on police procedures. He described what he saw as a “classic case of police brutality” and several times used the term “grotesque abuse”.  

The defense took the position that the character of the protesters and the nature of the cause were irrelevant. Said defense counsel Nancy Delaney, “It is the job of law enforcement officers, when a property owner asks, to remove trespassers. It has nothing to do with their cause.”  

The cause, of course, was what it was all about for the plaintiffs. Spring Lundgren, who was only 17 at the time of her action, testified to her dismay at seeing the environmental damage caused by Maxxam. She described logging of the giant redwoods as “history being cut down.” Inspired by reading about people who had engaged in acts of civil disobedience, she reflected the views of all the protesters who suffered the pepper spray rather then unlock themselves, determined that their voices be heard. 

To be heard was the reason for going to court once again. Terri Compost says that “there are two very strong messages that are involved in this case. One is about police brutality and torture and what’s acceptable behavior of one human being to another. The other is [about] habitat destruction, the destroying of the natural ecosystems that sustain life, and the corporations that are stealing our futures.” 

After the verdict the plaintiffs spoke of their appreciation for the jurors, recognizing how enormously difficult it is to get a unanimous decision in a case involving police conduct. Plaintiff Sam Neuwirth said, “I think the results might seem to some people to lack enough punch because there were no damages but I thought about it a lot and realized how extraordinarily difficult it was for some of the jurors to swallow the fact that the police had been abusive.”  

Attorney Bob Bloom spoke for the lawyers when he explained to me that “it’s real hard to get every person in a group, in this case a group of eight jurors, to say that the police did the wrong thing. And in order to get to that point they had to compromise, it seems, on how much money the people would get. That’s what juries do all the time.” He is satisfied, he said. “This is a jury saying that this is excessive force. ... it’s not just Humboldt county (that) can’t do this. They can’t do this anywhere in the country.”  

South Berkeley’s “Flying Cottage,” the controversial three-story pop-up at 3045 Shattuck Ave., seems to be headed for a soft landing—with only a question of parking yet to be decided. 

City planning department officials told Zoning Adjustments Board members that they’ve have withdrawn their objections to owner Christine Sun’s building. 

Though neighbors were less than happy, Senior Planner Debbie Sanderson said the only issue remaining was whether or not Sun had remedied the nuisance issues that had halted the development last year. 

A court case had left the structure in limbo, a weathering and blue-shrouded hulk dominating the intersection of Shattuck and Emerson Street. 

Project foes sat patiently throughout Thursday’s seven-hour ZAB meeting, waiting their turn—which finally arrived around midnight. Architect Andus Brandt, representing Sun, bided his time buried in a black-jacketed book, The Assassinations. 

Sanderson said ZAB had no say over the design, nor of Sun’s right to build a three-story structure. 

Although Sun’s is the only full three-story building on Shattuck south of Ashby, Planning Manager Mark Rhoades said that because of the commercial zoning along the thoroughfare, any owner was entitled to build to that height. 

The nuisance issue revolved around Sun’s intended use for the building.  

“The staff issue was whether it was going to be used for a single-family group accommodation,” a status inferred from the first set of plans presented to the city. 

The new design calls for two separate apartments, one each on the second and third floors, with a ground floor restaurant. 

“It seems that the real current nuisance issue is not what has been done in the past or what may be done in the future, but that the building now sits unoccupied,” open to squatters and facing other hazards, said Brandt. 

Robert Lauriston, presenting a coalition of neighborhood residents, said two key issues had been raised: Whether the structure remains a nuisance and whether a use permit should be required for the additional height. 

“If you accept that three stories are allowed by right, you can expect it all along Shattuck and it was radically change the character of the existing neighborhoods,” he said. 

Despite the revised design, Lauriston said neighbors “are still concerned that Sun will use it as a group living accommodation.” 

Denise Brown, a dean of students at Berkeley High School, told ZAB that she lives “directly behind this monstrosity, which has taken away all light, sunshine and air” from her home. 

“The windows look directly down on my living room and my daughter’s bedroom. It’s truly a nuisance,” she said. 

Brown’s daughter, Sarah Real, told board members that she would be particularly uncomfortable about opening her bedroom drapes because the building’s two parking spaces were directly outside her bedroom. 

“This building towers hideously above the surrounding homes,” said Victoria Ortiz, who lives two doors south of the structure on Shattuck. 

“ZAB must not be swayed by the Planning Department, which once again supports a project detested by the neighbors who live around it,” she said. 

ZAB member Robert Allen said he was “very uncomfortable about approving a third story” which, while allowed by the zoning code, was obtained “by illegal means. I really don’t like voting on technicalities while we’re essentially saying the third floor is okay.” 

“My problem is that we can’t talk about design,” said member Dean Metzger, who added, “I still think it’s a nuisance.” 

ZAB members were also concerned about parking for the ground floor restaurant. 

While Brandt contended that by keeping the ground floor commercial square footage under 1150 square feet Sun was exempt from the need for off-street parking, that drew fire from Oakland attorney Rena Rickles, who appeared on behalf of the neighbors.  

“She’s already said it’s going to be a cafe, and cafes require three parking spaces. Where are they going to be?” asked the lawyer. 

“Arguing about parking proves the nuisance has been abated,” Brandt declared. “Staff guided us in the interpretation that they made allowing parking in the rear yard.” 

Rickles also pointed to the remaining 400 square foot ground floor space next to the restaurant which was marked on plans for tenant storage. 

The lawyer suggested that the space might actually be used by the restaurant, which would boost the restaurant’s square footage over Brandt’s no-parking-space limit as well. 

Rickles also noted that Brandt’s earlier plans had included a garage in the ground floor area instead of storage. “The applicant has destroyed parking space and then says ‘trust me’ about the 400 square feet.” 

Real’s concerns and Rickles’ conjectures clearly struck home with several ZAB members, and it was David Blake who moved to continue the hearing under May 12 with the proviso that Sun should find two off-street parking space near the project she could rent in perpetuity. 

“She has been waiting a long time,” Brandt responded, “and there’s not a simple answer. “She has been characterized as a horrible person,” he said while insisting she’s not.›

Electro-shock, unmuzzled dogs, extreme temperatures, sexual humiliation, sodomy—U.S. torture didn’t begin or end with the abuse portrayed in shocking photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib one year ago, nor has U.S. torture been restricted to prisons on foreign soil, according to speakers at Thursday’s Teach-in on Torture, sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies, Asian Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies departments.  

“The America of my imagination seems to have turned into a nightmare,” L. Ling-chi Wang, associate professor in the Ethnic Studies Department, told an audience of about 50 people at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in downtown Berkeley. “I see neither courage nor outrage in the halls of congress. I’ve seen no serious investigation into these practices. I’ve seen cover-ups, contempt for laws. I see hopelessness, helplessness among my colleagues.”  

Wang’s profound disappointment in the country where he chose to become a citizen more than three decades ago has not sapped his will to fight back. He co-coordinated the teach-in with Dr. Mark Sapir, a local physician, that began with a rally in the rain at Sproul Plaza.  

U.S. responsibility for torture didn’t start in Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan or Guantanamo, Carlos Mauricio told the 60 or so gathered under umbrellas. Tortured in his native El Salvador in the early 1980s, Mauricio said his captors were instructed in torture methods at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. He said his torture was similar to that endured by U.S. prisoners today.  

Torture at home was a theme repeated in afternoon and evening presentations and discussions. Erin Callahan, Western Regional director for Amnesty International, talked about police and prison guard abuse, citing Taser-gun deaths of a 4-year-old boy and 71-year old grandmother, sexual abuse of women locked up in U.S. prisons, and beatings and “locking up children 23-hours a day in the California Youth Authority.”  

On a similar note, Andrea Pritchett of Berkeley’s Copwatch said police abuse paved the way for acceptance of torture in Abu Ghraib. Instead of using dialogue, conversation and tactics of de-escalation, local police use pepper spray, the Taser gun and “pain compliance,” she said.  

The photos coming from Abu Ghraib were important in jarring officials and the public out of denial, just as the video of the Rodney King beating had done. However, just as police abuse was not confined to King, prisoner abuse did not begin and end in Abu Ghraib.  

Before Abu Ghraib, much documentation was submitted to the Bush administration and ignored, said Marjorie Cohn, National Lawyers Guild vice president. Documentation has come from Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, the UN Human Rights Commission and from the FBI itself.  

“In August, 2003, Rumsfeld approved physical coercion,” Cohn said.  

Instead of looking seriously into the allegations that abuse was ordered by the highest levels of government, low-level soldiers have been tried and convicted.  

“Human Rights Watch said Abu Ghraib was just the tip of the iceberg; it was not Lynndie England who authorized the use of guard dogs to terrorize the prisoners,” Cohn said. Still, England pled guilty to various charges and fellow soldier Charles Graner was convicted. This has reinforced the notion that the abuse was committed by a “few bad apples.”  

Hatem Bazian, lecturer in UC Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Department, said that’s not possible. Do you mean to say that the low-ranking officers at Abu Ghraib were doing this on their own, he asked rhetorically. Do you mean that “no one in the U.S. government knew that torture was taking place… that the president and (Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld didn’t know it was taking place? This is the ultimate level of hypocrisy. It’s time to come clean. If I give you a weapon, I am responsible.”  

Human Rights First, a group formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and the ACLU hope to hold higher-ups accountable and have filed lawsuits targeting Rumsfeld and others.  

Evidence includes 23,000 pages plaintiffs received through the Freedom of Information Act, even including evidence that “the FBI was complaining about torture in Guantanamo,” said Lucas Guttentag, lead lawyer in the suit, being brought on behalf of eight men alleging torture and abuse when they were imprisoned in Iraq and Afghanistan under Rumsfeld’s command. None of the eight, now released, were charged with a crime.  

The suit says Rumsfeld “authorized an abandonment of our nation’s inviolable and deep-rooted prohibition against torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees in U.S. military custody” and further charges that brutal and illegal interrogation techniques were personally approved by him.  

The lawsuit is based on prohibitions against torture in the Geneva Conventions and federal law. “Aside from international law, the constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment,” Guttentag said, also noting that the procedures were “in direct contraction to the Army Field Manual on interrogation,” which specifies prohibitions against food deprivation, electric shock and beating prisoners.  

“The U.S. has become the outlaw. We told other countries to abandon torture; now we are the perpetrators,” Guttentag said.  

Beyond lawsuits, the solution lies in communities working together to get the truth out.  

“The truth gets twisted so that we think we’re alone; people are molded into this ‘good German syndrome;’ they don’t know what to do,” Mark Sapir said.  

Participants shared thoughts on solutions:  

• Get city councils to pass resolutions against torture, as the SF Board of Supervisors did.  

• Take actions against corporations involved in torture, such as CACI (Consolidated Analysis Center) International which provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib.  

• Support legislation to suspend operation of the School of the Americas: HR1217.  

• Find community alternatives to police.  

• Join activists in the International Human Rights Initiative that sponsored the recent Attica to Abu Ghraib conference.  

Wang was disappointed but not daunted when he looked at the empty seats in the auditorium – only 120 or so people had come through the teach-in during the day. Still, he said he was going to continue to work with the 100 professors who had signed onto the call for the teach-in. They would meet and plan university courses on torture and its effects.  

Earlier in the day on campus, Ming Yang, third year engineering student, stood by an Asian Student Association table and chatted with friends while the rally took place about 100 yards away. Asked if he knew what it was about, Yang said he’d heard the word democracy a couple of times. “I don’t know if it’s pro or counter,” he said. “There are a bunch of rallies – I feel apathetic because they happen so often.”  

Yang had missed what Hatem Bazian said just moments before from the steps of Sproul Plaza: “You can’t check out; you can’t say, ‘I’m studying.’ You might be in Guantanamo; the degree you earn may not be worth anything. The university is part of the real world….We need to launch a challenge to this government.”  

›

For those whose exposure to hip hop and rap is the occasional video seen while flipping channels, or a gold-toothed face on a magazine at the supermarket checkout counter, the scene at Laney College this weekend would have been unrecognizable. Two rap legends showed up at the third annual Malcolm X Consciousness Conference with no entourages in sight, and an emphasis on think-think rather than bling-bling. 

Speaking in keynote addresses were Chuck D of the legendary Public Enemy and South Central LA’s Yo Yo, one of the first nationally recognized female rappers. Also speaking was Fred Hampton Jr., the son of the Black Panther Party leader killed by Chicago police in 1969. 

Bringing together black student activists from around California to trade ideas on a statewide program, the three-day event was sponsored by Club Knowledge, a four year old Laney-based African-American student organization, and was held to further the group’s goals of setting up a statewide coalition of Black student unions. 

With tracks like “Fight The Power,” “Fear Of A Black Planet,” and “Don’t Believe The Hype,” Chuck D’s Public Enemy is considered one of the founders of the consciousness-knowledge wing of the rap world, far different from its party wing or gangsta’ rap. In a rambling, two hour address on Sunday morning, Chuck D told conference participants his views on everything from personal responsibility to movement activism to the history of hip hop, as well as acknowledging Oakland’s Black Panther Party as one of the inspirations of his political thought. 

A good portion of his speech took dead aim against the violence plaguing black communities across the country, blaming, in part, the glorification of that violence by some hip hop artists and the people promoting them. “I was listening to a radio show,” he said “where the deejay was interviewing 50 Cent and the Game”—two popular gangsta’ rappers”—and making a joke about the number of their exit wounds. ‘So you been shot nine times, 50, and Game, you been shot only five. When you gonna’ catch up?’” He said that law enforcement officials investigate the deaths of hip hop artists with less vigor than the deaths of other celebrities, noting that “They tracked down [Donatella] Versace’s killer on a boat in the ocean, but they still haven’t found out who murdered Biggie [Smalls] and Tupac and Jam Master Jay [of Run DMC].” He also spoke on how the increasing violence in African-American communities is slowly squeezing out a grassroots intelligent response to Black America’s problems. 

“Twenty years ago, you had gang-bangers and athletes and college students hanging out together on the corners or in barber shops in the ‘hood,” he said, “and if somebody said something really ignorant—like ‘the sky is purple,’ or something like that—everybody would tell him to shut up. And if he got belligerent, he might even get an asswhipping. But nowadays, if someone says something ignorant on the corner, all the smart people shut up and don’t challenge him, because they’re afraid he might go to his car and come back with a 9 millimeter and wipe out the corner. So in the black neighborhoods, ignorance is allowed to go unchallenged, while intelligence has to keep quieter and quieter. That’s one of the reasons why you’re seeing so much ignorance coming out of our communities.” 

Chuck D said that growing up in Long Island, New York in 1968, he participated in the Free Breakfast Program sponsored by the Black Panther Party, and said that “I love Oakland because Oakland has gone against the grain so long.” He said the he was “fortunate to meet Huey P. Newton when he came to a Public Enemy show” in the Bay Area, and was in the midst of making preliminary arrangements for an association with Newton when the Black Panther Party founder was killed in West Oakland in 1989. 

But mostly, the rap artist, producer, and activist preached the politics of personal responsibility to the conference participants, urging them to get involved in local politics. “Instead of complaining about the lack of education or black youth getting thrown into jail, you better understand who’s on your school board or how your judges get elected,” he said. “Voting is as essential as washing your ass in the morning. It’s something you’re supposed to do. You shouldn’t get props for it. You should just do it.” 

Personal responsibility was also the Saturday afternoon message of Yolanda Whitaker, the 34-year-old rap artist who, at the age of 17 under the stage name Yo Yo, was doing rap-battles with NWA’s Ice Cube. 

“Back in the day, people were always asking Ice Cube if he was a role model and he’d say ‘no, that’s the parents’ responsibility,” Whitaker said. “When I was 18 I was saying the same thing.” She said that changed in the mid-90s when she realized that young black women were taking literally the famous lyrical suggestion—from the rapper’s 1991 track “You Can’t Play With My Yo Yo”—that they “carry gats [guns] in their purses.” Whitaker also gave props to Los Angeles-area Congressmember Maxine Waters, “who took an interest in hip hop artists, pulled us to the side, and educated us. She took us seriously. I love her to death.” Whitaker says she has since formed a group called the Intelligent Black Women’s Coalition, and is active in promoting positive changes in the South Central Los Angeles neighborhood where she grew up. She called upon participants to take responsibility for hip hop and its influence on the African-American community. “Hip hop is our culture. We can’t let them take our culture away from us,” she said. She urged participants to “contact radio and television stations to influence the types of songs and videos they play. Make them promote the positive aspects of hip hop.” 

Club Knowledge member Danae Martinez, a graduating Laney College student, said that the purpose of the organization “is to raise consciousness among African-American students.” She said the organization was founded on the Oakland campus four years ago, but has since “spread out to other colleges in the state as students have graduated and moved on.” The purpose of this weekend’s conference was to bring black student union members together from around the state “to unite around a common program,” and said that representatives came from as far away as Humboldt and Fullerton. She said that in the fall, the organization plans to convene a statewide meeting to work on a formal California coalition of black student unions.›

Barring further appeals, the long-running battle that has pitted neighbors against would-be neighbors in a contest over views from the Berkeley hills has come to an end. 

Zoning Adjustments Board members voted their own amendments Thursday to plans for the single-family residence David and Kelly Klopp Richmond hope to build at 2615 Marin Ave., a half block west of Grizzly Peak Boulevard. 

Over the course of the long-running dispute, said their attorney Rena Rickles, the Richmonds submitted several plan revisions but were unable to reach a compromise with neighbors, especially George and Daphne Kalmar, owners of a home at 2635 Marin, and Matthew White, who owns a house at 2633 Marin. 

The ensuing struggle employed more lawyers, a surveying firm and endless hours of city staff time and the efforts of both ZAB and the City Council. 

The project was back on the ZAB agenda Thursday on a remand from the council, who had rejected an earlier ZAB compromise reached last August, ruling against city staff recommendations, that had been appealed by the neighbors. 

The neighbors were concerned that the home would block their views of the Golden Gate Bridge, a point that had found considerable sympathy from Mayor Tom Bates when they appealed the earlier ZAB ruling to the city council. 

The council set two conditions in remanding the project back to ZAB, said planner Stephen Ford. First, the Richmonds couldn’t add additional height to the building in the future without an additional use permit, and second, that the upper story deck couldn’t be enclosed without yet another permit. 

The council also recommended dropping the roof height by another foot. 

The home’s third level is parking, dug into the hillside below the two residential levels. 

Further complicating the issue was the avowed intention of yet another neighbor to add height to a home that could largely obliterate the views from the Richmonds’ home. 

“It’s time to say enough is enough,” declared ZAB member Bob Allen. “I absolutely disagree with the mayor’s statement that we’re here to protect the views of people who were here first.” 

Allen noted that the lot the Richmonds bought had been vacant for years, available to neighbors who could have bought it to preserve their existing views. 

“These people have every right to build,” Allen said. “The Kalmars will still have a spectacular view, and most people in the city would be glad to have it.” 

Member Chris Tiedemann noted that ZAB had initially approved a roofline three feet higher than the one rejected by the city council, “but we have to respect the council remand.” In light of the council’s intention to protect Golden Gate views, she said, “the house has to be lowered.” 

“I think it was fair before,” said member Jesse Anthony. 

“The ordinance is always interpreted to protect the existing landowners’ views,” said member Dave Blake. “It’s an unfair ordinance, but that doesn’t give us the right to ignore it.” 

“Reasonable development on this lot means a reasonable view,” said member Rick Judd. “If they sink the house into the hillside, the Richmonds will lose their views faster than their uphill neighbors because their downhill neighbors have already announced their intent to build up.” 

While Chair Andy Katz said he would vote against dropping the height of the Richmonds’ home by a foot, when it came time for a vote he reversed his stand. 

In the end, ZAB voted for a permit that required a one-foot reduction in height, restrictions of future development on the front and rear of the structure and mandated a permit for any expansion in square footage, despite a city ordinance that allows homeowners a single by-right expansion of up to 499 square feet without a permit. 

When it came time for a vote, only members Blake, Carrie Sprague and Tiedemann voted no. 

Other Actions 

ZAB members voted unanimously to allow homeowner Bruce Nordmann to add two bedrooms onto his residence at 1737 Grant St. 

While the addition had sparked a lengthy discussion of by-right additions at the last ZAB meeting, the issue didn’t arise during discussions Thursday. And when the dust had settled, Nordmann was granted his addition by a unanimous vote, despite an appearance by City Councilmember Linda Maio, who owns an adjoining home. 

The thorny density bonus issue reared its ugly head during a discussion of the five-story residential condo and commercial complex planned for the site of the former Tune-Up Masters at 1698 University Ave. 

After ZAB had approved the project for 23 units, city staff completed a new density bonus analysis that entitled developer Avi Nevo’s Pacific Bay Investments to two more units. 

ZAB member Rick Judd asked fellow members to approve the two units, partly on the grounds that delays while the issue was resolved had resulted in higher construction costs as the price of materials rose. 

Member Chris Tiedemann endorsed Judd’s proposal. 

Dean Metzger said he was concerned with just how “affordable” condos would be that were priced for a “low income rate” of 120 percent of area median income (AMI) for a family of four. 

As finally approved over the dissenting votes of Metzger and Carrie Sprague, the project will include three condos available at 120 percent AMI and one at 90 percent.I

Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi Germany death camps, Berkeley will hold its third annual ceremony Friday to honor Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

This year’s featured speaker is Dora Sorrell, an Auschwitz survivor and Berkeley resident. Sorrel was born in Sighet, a village in Northern Romania. In 1944 the occupying Hungarian Fascist regime deported the entire Jewish population of the town to Auschwitz, where most of her family were murdered immediately.  

Sorrell and other inmates at Auschwitz were liberated on May 6, 1945, exactly 60 years before Friday’s commemoration. 

Recalling the day the Red Army entered Auschwitz, Sorrell has written, “It was a day of intense relief and strong emotions after all that hell…I wrote of my joy and happiness at living to see freedom and I cried out as I remembered what happened a year earlier and wondered who would be home waiting for me.” 

Shortly after her liberation, Sorrell returned to Romania. Later, she graduated from medical school, and ultimately immigrated to New York. Upon retirement, She wrote Tell the Children: Letters to Miriam, a book in the form of letters to her first granddaughter about her family, her experiences during the war and her losses from the Holocaust. 

Sorrell received national attention last year when she donated the $3,043 reparation check she received from the German government to aid refugees from the Darfur region of western Sudan. 

Also speaking Friday will be Liz Rosner, a Berkeley resident and the author of Speed of Light, a novel that addresses the effects of the Holocaust on the descendants of survivors. 

Patricia Whaley, a holocaust survivor and the principal viola for Symphony Silicon Valley, will provide music. 

Mayor Tom Bates will give the opening remarks, and Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who helped organize the event, will be in attendance. 

The commemoration will be held at noon in the City Council Chambers, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

A Berkeley police lieutenant who ordered officers to ticket motorists who honked in support of a late night union rally last summer did not abuse his discretion, a three-member panel of the Police Review Commission ruled Thursday. 

“It was an ungodly time of the night,” reasoned PRC Commissioner William White, a member of the panel that received several letters from neighbors praising the police action. “The police weren’t trying to stifle freedom of expression, they were just trying to keep the peace.” 

The plaintiff, Carol Harris, a 51-year-old Oakland woman who received a $143 ticket for unreasonable use of horn, said she was not disappointed by the verdict. 

“I wasn’t trying to be Joan of Arc,” she said. “I just needed to sit down with these people and talk to them and have my questions answered.” 

Harris was one of nearly 40 motorists police ticketed after 11 p.m. last Aug. 27. Lt. Wesley Hester has maintained that he ordered police to enforce the state vehicle code on honking in response to neighborhood complaints about noise from a union protest outside the Claremont Hotel that lasted 27-hours. 

The law permits drivers to honk their horns only to protect their safety. 

PRC commissioners said the late hour of the honking incidents led them to conclude that Hester had not abused his discretion. 

“If this had been between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. I probably would have taken a completely different view of it,” said PRC Commissioner and retired prosecutor Jack Radisch. “People in that area were complaining bitterly. Someone in a command position had to do something about it.” 

Nevertheless, Radisch did sympathize for Harris. “If I were in her position, I probably would have thought that it was a chickenshit ticket.”  

Harris, who chose not to fight the ticket in traffic court, maintained that her free speech rights had been violated. “I believe I became a protester when I honked my horn,” she said. 

Asked what she would do the next time, she drove by a protest in Berkeley she replied, “I don’t know. I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.”›

Just months before its new synagogue is set to debut, another rift has opened between Berkeley’s largest Jewish congregation and its soon-to-be neighbors. 

The Live Oak Codornices Creek Neighborhood Association has threatened to seek city intervention or possibly file a lawsuit should Congregation Beth-El implement its parking management plan. 

Neighbors insist the congregation’s latest proposal would make finding an on-street parking spot nearly impossible on days when the congregation is hosting an event. 

“Our opinion is that they haven’t met the terms of the agreement,” said LOCCNA member Alan Gould, referring to parking regulations spelled out in the congregation’s use permit. “If the terms have not been met the city shouldn’t allow them to occupy the building.” 

Harry Pollack, a congregation member and chair of Berkeley’s Planning Commission, said Beth-El’s parking plan abided by the conditions of the use permit, but that the congregation was open to further neighborhood input. 

Pollack was a leading player in the roughly 600-member congregation’s three-year struggle to overcome opposition to their move from their current home at the corner of Arch and Vine streets to 1301 Oxford St. The landmarked property was once the site of the Napoleon Bonaparte Byrne house, which burned down in 1985. Byrne’s farm in the mid-19th century was home to freed slaves who may have been Berkeley’s first African-American residents.  

Opponents charged that the 34,000 square foot synagogue and its proposed 32-space parking lot resting over a creek bed would increase traffic in a residential neighborhood and eliminate any hope of unearthing that section of Codornices Creek. An eleventh-hour settlement that moved the parking lot and scaled down the synagogue spared the City Council from having to rule on the project. 

The compromise was a parking plan requiring that for events of 150 people or more the congregation must employ “on-site valet parking and satellite parking or other effective techniques.” Beth-El’s latest draft parking plan, however, does not mention valet parking and proposes satellite lots only for events with more than 200 people. Also of concern to neighbors is that the congregation’s plan does not employ satellite lots for “religious services,” but would not specify what constitutes such a service. 

“That is completely outrageous,” Gould said. “There are very few things that they do there that could not be construed as a religious service. It is a synagogue.” 

He added that that the neighborhood’s biggest concerns were bar mitzvahs, because they happen frequently and tend to draw a lot of people. 

Pollack, saying the parking issue was premature for print considering that the synagogue isn’t scheduled to open until this summer, declined to discuss specifics of the plan with the Daily Planet, including the definition of a religious service. 

He noted that the project’s environmental impact report showed that contrary to the opinion of some residents, neighborhood streets were not filled with parked cars and wouldn’t be after the synagogue opens. 

Gould did credit the congregation for rehabilitating the section of Codornices Creek that runs through its new property. 

The congregation is already facing litigation from its new next-door neighbor, Dan McLoughlin. He filed suit last September charging that the congregation violated an agreement to keep the new building at least 20 feet from his property line. 

McLoughlin said a judge denied his motion for an injunction against the building project, but that he was proceding with the lawsuit. “They’re trying to wear me down, but I’m not going to let them do that,” he said.›

A participant in last Tuesday’s rally of City of Berkeley union employees has informed the Daily Planet that some employees attended during their regular break time, and that her division staggered attendance in order to keep their desks covered.  

A Planet photo caption said that employees took time off to attend.?

DOWNTOWN PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Zelda Bronstein (“Downtown Parking: Myths, Realities, Solutions,” April 26-28) raises several pertinent points regarding Berkeley’s downtown parking situation. 

For one, Ms. Bronstein notes that studies made since the closure of Hink’s garage show that the Center Garage—except for weekdays between noon and 3 p.m.—offers ample parking. Well, yes. Peak hours can be expected in any commercial area. But the difficulty of parking in downtown Berkeley during this prime period particularly affects restaurants which rely in part on lunchtime business. Lack of parking is a prime reason for people with their tax dollar revenues to go where they can easily find it for free without a long walk to their destination. (Let’s save the walking-for-health issue for another discussion.) The Albany portion of Solano Avenue and El Cerrito Plaza are nearby oases. (And, to mix problems here, both are noticeably more pleasant than downtown Berkeley with its entrenched dirt and degradation. Why should anyone endure parking hassles and costs when more attractive places are readily available? In fact, why, at this point when there is little that is unique or special in downtown Berkeley, make any effort to get there by any means—automobile or transit?) 

Ms. Bronstein is to be thanked for divulging the little-known fact that the first 15 minutes in Center Garage are still free. But, for too many people, 15 minutes to search for a parking space, walk to their destination, conduct business, return to and exit the garage is a virtual impossibility. Increasing the free period to 30 minutes would provide a realistic option. Even the reduced $1.50 rate for the first 60 minutes is not much incentive to shop, attend meetings, or dine in the downtown when many of these activities require more time. The 90-minute allowance that Ms. Bronstein suggested for curb parking would be helpful in Center Garage for the first 90 minutes at a reduced rate. 

Beyond the concerns that Ms. Bronstein addressed, there is another, more intransigent problem with Center Garage—namely, safety. Regardless of the time of day, the garage simply feels unsafe. With its dim lighting the garage is conducive to physical attacks. No restriction is placed on pedestrian entry; anyone can enter unseen from two streets, lie in wait, and assault even alert people. Further, the narrow driving lane provided for cars makes it hazardous to walk between one’s car and the exits. Drivers entering and leaving the ramps tend to swing wide and leave pedestrians little safe area. Often, steep steps or ramps must be used to reach an elevator. Yet not everyone can easily negotiate steps; walking on these ramps is risky and rightly discouraged. For safety reasons alone, Center Garage, regardless of available spaces, is not an option. 

In too many ways, downtown now is neither a desirable place to park nor, sadly, to be. 

Barbara Witte 

• 

TRAFFIC CIRCLES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The new calming circles, recently constructed on Allston Way and Addison Street, are a menace to life and limb. They are a peculiarity, unfamiliar especially to out of town drivers, which will cause crashes and pedestrian deaths and injuries. There has already been one crash into someone’s front lawn at Allston and Grant. 

The pedestrian markings, many octagonal, invite pedestrians who are interested in crossing across and side-to-side to remain in the street rather than going from corner to corner, making them vulnerable to injury by vehicles. On Addison, one calming circle has crosswalks on three sides, and a limit line on the fourth side. The limit line invites the pedestrian to stay inside it. The same limit line is an outer limit for cars traveling south to north. This is a sure invitation to a vehicle-to-pedestrian close encounter! Other crosswalks associated with the calming circles invite pedestrians to walk into unpaved planted areas, telephone poles, and a mail box. 

The newly erected pictograms on how to drive, while intelligible upon reflection, will provide little help to motorists who suddenly encounter these obstacles. Careful examination of the calming circles’ edges already show wheel scrapes indicating near disasters. 

Rip them all out now, or watch these pages for the fatal consequences of this misbegotten disimprovement.  

Robert Rush 

• 

SALK VACCINE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The recent celebration of the golden anniversary of the Salk oral vaccine should have been a realization of the failures of the past. There should be no celebration, only self-reflection and  commitment not to make the same mistakes once again. 

In 1987, Eva Snead, M.D. documented the Salk vaccine as being the indirect cause of AIDS in her report “AIDS-Immunization Related Syndrome.”  The African green monkeys used to develop the Salk vaccine were, in fact, contaminated with a virus called SV-40; a virus that went undetected.  SV-40 was then easily transmitted to  humans on a wide scale (Immunization: The Reality behind The Myth, Walene James, 1988). For those of us with already weakened immunity, SV-40 mutated into HIV, AIDS, leukemia, birth defects and more. 

Furthermore, if we look at the bell curve of all epidemic disease, we see that after reaching epidemic levels, they naturally fall on their own. Vaccinations are usually introduced during the height of an epidemic and as the numbers go down, we celebrate our actions and victories. This is the sad truth of the fallacy of the Salk vaccine. 

Michael Bauce 

• 

BATES’ PRIORITIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding your editorial April 29 “Electing A Pig In A Poke,” I disagree with your contention that Mayor Bates doesn’t have his priorities straight. During his administration I have attended many council meetings that have disability-related issues on the agenda. Each time, Mayor Bates and the council have heard the item early in the evening, respecting individuals’ mobility and public transportation needs. He has also been sensitive to school night schedules when agenda items relate to children and youth.  

As for electing individuals who you believe will always vote in the public interest—how would that be possible? Usually there are competing interests among the electorate (including between individuals who are often on the same side) on any given issue. Someone’s going to be disappointed. The dialog about Terry Schiavo’s fate is a good example.  

Susan Henderson 

• 

WAY OFF THE MARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Most Berkeleyans familiar with City Hall these days know that the Daily Planet editorial maligning Mayor Tom Bates is way off the mark. 

Few elected officials have dedicated as much time and energy to serving the disability community as Tom Bates has while in the Assembly and now at City Hall. 

He has been instrumental in making the Ed Roberts Campus, a socially progressive development dedicated to promoting independence for people with disabilities, a reality. Most recently, Mayor Bates helped the Ed Roberts Campus fend off a last-ditch effort by project opponents to derail the campus in the name of historic preservation. 

Further, over the past few years when members of the disability community have had an issue before the City Council, Mayor Bates has always shown great sensitivity to those of us who rely on public transportation by requesting himself to move our items up early in the agenda to ensure the widest participation by our community. 

We know that Tom Bates puts people first. 

Jan Garrett 

President, Ed Roberts Campus 

• 

VOTORS OR DONORS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your April 29 editorial raises once again the issue of whom politicians represent: the voters or their donors. In the last election Berkeley voters turned down a “clean money” proposal for public funding of elections. Perhaps the next time around voters will appreciate that “even in Berkeley” politicians can be influenced by money—and it’s better to pay campaign costs with our money than theirs. The cost per voter—about the same as going to the movies—would be an investment in democracy well worth the price. 

Tom Miller 

• 

PROGRESSIVES CAN  

BE PROUD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We find Becky O’Malley’s most recent editorial (“Electing a Pig in a Poke”) very off-the-mark. After discussing casinos, gambling and other off the subject issues the editorial then becomes an attack on Mayor Tom Bates declaring him a non-progressive because he and six other members of the Council voted to overturn the landmarking of Celia’s restaurant building.  

Three years ago, we joined with other progressives in the effort to draft Tom Bates to run for mayor of Berkeley. We feel that Berkeley is fortunate to have Tom as our Mayor and are pleased that he is putting his skills and energy to work on behalf of our city. If the Daily Planet wants to discuss Mayor Bates’ progressive credentials, it needs to addresses his record and votes on a range of social, environmental, and youth initiatives.  

Here are just a few of Mayor Bates’ accomplishments that have made us feel proud that he is Berkeley’s Mayor:  

• Project BUILD. A summer literacy and nutrition program for 1000 south and west Berkeley youth was started by Mayor Bates. Due to the city’s budget deficit, he is raising the nearly $100,000 cost of the program with private donations of money and materials.  

• Funding for Child Care Centers. When the state budget crisis cut off funding to the child care centers in Berkeley that serve low-income families, Mayor Bates guaranteed city funding until the state money was restored. This saved hundreds of Berkeley parents from having to choose between their jobs or taking care of their kids.  

• Because of Berkeley’s impressive commitment to services for youth, a major foundation named our city the best in the state when it comes to teen health.  

• Homeless Programs. Mayor Bates made good on his campaign promise, and spent 24 hours “homeless” on the streets of Berkeley. Since then, he has worked to improve homeless services, coordinate services with neighboring cities, and move funding into long-term housing and case management programs.  

• Environmental Programs. Mayor Bates initiated the Council requirement that all city buildings be built to green standards. Earlier this year, Berkeley became the first city in the nation to share city fleet vehicles with the public in an award-winning and innovative partnership with the non-profit City CarShare. Mayor Bates also proposed a unique $100 million clean energy fund partnership with Oakland and plans to move towards public power through “community choice aggregation.”  

• Housing Development. We support the hundreds of new housing units that have been approved by Mayor Bates and the City Council. Many of these units are the only opportunities for affordable ownership in Berkeley and many others are providing below market rentals. These units are also putting more housing on streets served by transit and in close proximity to Berkeley’s small businesses that need a strong customer base to thrive.  

We wanted to share these accomplishments with other readers of the Planet as information on programs like those described above don’t always reach the news pages. In these first two and a half years in office we feel that Mayor Bates has done an excellent job.  

Catherine Trimbur  

Matthew Hallinan  

Nancy Skinner,  

Mal Burnstein,  

• 

PROOF OF PAYMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Transit proof of payment (POP) fare systems, derided in recent letters, have been used in civilized countries for decades. Details vary. The general idea is that you buy a ticket before boarding the vehicle. A machine located either at the stop or on board stamps the ticket with the date and time. Inspectors occasionally walk through and ask to see everyone’s tickets. Anyone without a ticket or with one that has expired (time and date no longer valid) is fined an amount intended to discourage repeat offenses. 

POP sees use on buses, LRT, ferries, and commuter trains. Its primary objectives are to 

1. Improve service quality by minimizing the time spent stopped while passengers board and alight. 

2. Allow the operator (driver) to concentrate on driving without worrying about fare collection. 

3. Reduce operating cost by increasing the mileage driven and passengers carried during a driver shift. 

In other words, transit becomes faster, safer, and cheaper to produce. AC Transit deserves praise for planning ahead to implement these proven improvements. 

Robert R. Piper 

Berkeley Director of Transportation, 1976-78 

• 

MEGA MALL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I very much appreciate the Daily Planet’s coverage of the proposed mega mall at Golden Gate Fields. Albany residents should brace themselves for the coming PR offensive from Magna Entertainment (owners of Golden Gate Fields). No doubt the mall will solve all of our problems, fund the schools and not impact the existing businesses along Solano Avenue. But before we buy that line we need to remember back to Magna’s attempt to build a trackside casino by putting it on the statewide ballot, seeking to override city zoning controls. They spent millions on that one. Now they have brought in Rick Caruso, a big time Southern California developer, to pitch their new mall plan. (Don’t confuse it with the earlier mall plan they submitted for review and then withdrew so they could focus on passing the casino plan). You may have heard how Caruso’s now opened offices on Solano Avenue to push the mall. He’s even sent in the former PR guy/campaign manager for Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn to lead the “educational” effort. Aren’t we lucky! And don’t forget he’s hired former Assemblywoman Dion Aroner to do “community relations” for the mall plan.  

When they get done with their backroom efforts and decide to finally show the mall plan to the public, please take a minute to carefully consider the source of their claims. Developer Rick Caruso is a big time Republican donor. He raised a Million dollars for the re-election of George Bush. He loaned his jet to the Bush campaign. He even gave $250,000 to the group supporting Bush’s Social Security privatization plan. He spent a cool $1.4 million for a political campaign to push through his mall plans in Glendale late last year. Big league politics have come to Albany. Get ready for a slick sales job and remember to always consider the source.  

Next time you see an Albany city Councilmember be sure to ask them where they stand on the mall. If they tell you they haven’t decided yet, take that as meaning they will vote for the mall at the end of the process but don’t want to take the heat for their position until then. They all have had private briefings from the developer and since the original mall plan was propose four years ago they should have a pretty good idea where they stand by now.  

If all of this concerns you please join with the Citizens for the Albany Shoreline (CAS) to fight for the completion of the East Shore State Park (and to stop the mall).  

Brian Parker 

Albany 

• 

LEFTIST CRAPOLA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks to Carlton Jones and Marguerite Talley-Hughes for proving Michael Larrick’s point. Instead of stepping up to the plate and acknowledging the harmful culture of victimization that has severely retarded black progress in America, they spout the same old leftist crapola. If it wasn’t for Thomas Jefferson Talley-Hughes wouldn’t have a prayer of achieving the rights all of us have today. Jefferson and Company put in the Bill of Rights, not slaves. Naturally, Talley-Hughes doesn’t mention the salient fact that Africans were sold into slavery by their fellow Africans. Far from being tolerated by the United States Government for hundreds of years, the slave trade was outlawed by an Act of Congress in 1803, 27 years after the founding of the US. Then 60 years later US whites fought a bloody civil war that resulted in the abolition of slavery. The industrial wealth of the United States that created a modern society was not done by slaves. Slavery was an uneconomic and anti-capitalistic institution to the core. 

What about the incredible contribution of many Jews to the civil rights struggle? Their reward has been to endure black anti-semitism and the incredible solidarity of many black intellectuals with Islamic causes despite the fact that Arabs were among the top slave traders. All of this sanctioned by Islam including slavery in Saudi Arabia today. 

As for black leaders, Mr. Jones, there are several people routinely referred to as same: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc., and I do not recall any anguished letters from you protesting this. I’m afraid that true history has nothing to do with the culture of anti-white victimization promoted today. 

Michael P. Hardesty 

Oakland 

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitasî

If you are a Monty Python fan, you will remember the famous restaurant scene from The Meaning of Life. In it a fawning waiter begs his grossly over-weight client, who has just finished a meal of obscene proportions, to have “just one thin mint.” The diner’s gut is already strained to the breaking point, and when he finally ingests the mint, his body explodes. 

Unfortunately, America bears a remarkable resemblance to the diner in the Monty Python skit. On a daily basis we gobble up several times more petroleum than we produce. Our gluttonous appetite for oil has brought the economy to the breaking point. Will we come to our senses and realize that we must curb our oil addiction? Or will we have to “explode” first? 

In 1972 Donella and Dennis Meadows, together with Jorgen Randers and William Behrens, published The Limits to Growth, which analyzed the interrelated impacts of population growth, industrialization, malnutrition, environmental deterioration, and depletion of nonrenewable resources—in particular, oil. They predicted that the planet would reach its limits to growth within the next 100 years. The first crisis would be the world supply of oil, which they predicted would diminish around the year 2000. 

In the ‘50s, geologist M. King Hubbert coined the term, “peak oil,” to describe the tipping point at which petroleum supply reaches its maximum annual output. Total United States oil production reached its peak in the seventies. Now, the question is when the world supply will reach its zenith. 

Recently a number of academic papers have been published that forecast the peak year for world oil production. Most place this event in a time period between 2005 (Princeton Geologist Ken Deffeyes) and 2014 (Germany’s Deutsche Bank). Not surprisingly, the most optimistic projection—2037—comes from the Bush Administration’s forecasters at the Department of Energy. 

When peak oil will occur is more than an academic issue. It represents an important milestone for policy makers because it sets a “drop dead date” for our preparation for a time of oil scarcity. Experts believe that it will take at least 10 years for the economy to make the transition from oil to the various alternatives; the longer we wait to start this, the more extreme the economic turmoil will be.  

Nonetheless, the Bush administration believes that we can postpone our move away from an economy based upon cheap oil. Administration policy seems to be driven by Vice-President Cheney, who famously remarked, “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.” The Bushies are betting that their rosy estimate of the peak oil year is the correct one and, therefore, a petroleum crisis won’t happen on their shift. In their 2006 budget proposal, the administration actually cut funds for energy conservation. Next year they will phase out the tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle (and leave in place the write-off for a Hummer.) 

To fully grasp the consequences of the Bush administration irresponsibility, we need to consider what peak oil actually means: the U.S. is half way through a cycle that began in the early years of the nineteenth century, when crude oil literally bubbled out of the ground. Now, all the “easy” oil is gone: the reserves that remain are either relatively inaccessible, or in geological formations that are difficult to process. Much of the remaining oil is of poor quality.  

The United States is not alone in seeking this oil. Globalization has resulted in the industrialization of many countries and this has heightened the demand for carbon-based fuels. When America seeks to buy a barrel of oil, we are competing with China, the European Community, India, Japan, and others. 

After years of cheap oil, Americans are beginning to experience the combined effect of diminishing supplies of oil and increased demand. The price for a barrel of crude oil hovers near the all-time high of $58 and experts are talking about prices in the $75-105 range. The price for a gallon of gasoline will probably hit $3 this summer.  

Criticism of the Bush administration usually begins with its poor record at predicting future events. A prime example would, of course, be Iraq, where they promised that Iraqi oil production would pay for the occupation. The truth is that today’s Iraqi oil production is less than it was before the invasion and we have to import oil (1.7 million gallons of fuel per day) into Iraq in order to fuel the American occupation; as a result, the occupation has cost billions more than original estimates. No doubt, this inability to forecast will also be the lasting record of the Bush administration with regards to peak oil. 

History will judge George and company harshly because of their indifference to the looming oil crisis. Rather than lead the US away from its oil addiction, the president seems content to play the role of fawning waiter, approaching gluttonous America, begging, “Please sir, just one thin mint.” 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bburnett@comcast.net.?

Ralph needed a shower chair. The old one we’d purchased five years ago was broken. A wheel had fallen off and a metal support rod snapped. I had to get a new one ASAP.  

I called Kaiser’s Durable Medical Equipment Department and requested a chair. I was told it wasn’t covered by our health plan. I knew this was true from five years ago but I was hoping for a miracle. It seems unfair that a wheelchair-bound person who can’t take a shower unless he’s in a shower chair doesn’t have coverage for such an item. Ralph’s plan is through the University of California. Someone wasn’t thinking straight when they denied shower chairs to C-4 quadriplegics.  

I went to Johnston Medical Supply on Shattuck Avenue and looked at their shower chairs. The cheapest one available was $266 plus tax. Made of plastic with metal connecters and wheels, it would start to rust, just as our original one had, the moment we turned on the water. The all-plastic chairs had price tags of $600 and up. These were outside our budget. I bought the cheap chair.  

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized the chair I had purchased didn’t have footrests. We need a place to rest Ralph’s feet so they don’t drag on the floor when we push him to the bathroom. I returned to Johnston and ordered the footrests. They weren’t in stock but they would call us as soon as they came in.  

For a week we made do without footrests. It’s imperative that we keep Ralph clean. Otherwise sores develop that cause infections, which in turn can cause death. This is why we need a shower chair.  

The footrests arrived and we attached them to the chair. I relaxed, but not for long, A few weeks later Ralph’s specialized air mattress developed a leak. 

The air mattress is designed to prevent bedsores. Ralph’s helpers and I move him around in bed, and the air mattress, through some marvel of technology, keeps itself from pushing too hard against his skin. We’ve gone through several types of mattresses in the past eleven years, from water, to foam, to air. We weren’t given the okay for the very best mattress until a bedsore on Ralph’s buttocks required plastic surgery and over six months recovery time.  

I called the DME Supervisor. Her answering machine said it was Thursday, April 14. I looked at my calendar. It was Tuesday, April 19. Several rounds of missed messages from a DME coordinator left me with no choice but to call the supervisor again. It was Thursday, April 21. Her message said it was Tuesday April 19. She was getting closer to reality, but she wasn’t quite there. Finally, on Friday morning, April 22, I spoke to a real person. She listened to my concerns, took down our order, and told me Apria Health Care would deliver a new mattress that afternoon. A few hours later someone from Apria called to say there’d be a delivery made between 5 and 5:30 p.m.  

“We’ll need lead time,” I said to the caller. “It’ll take us 15 minutes to get my husband out of bed.” 

“I’ll contact you 30 minutes before arrival,” promised the Apria representative. 

At 9 p.m. the Apria deliveryman called. Andrea, Willie and I put Ralph in a sling, and raised him with a Hoyer lift. We turned his body around so he was facing the TV. Ralph watched the A’s versus the Angels in Anaheim while suspended above our dining room table.  

The deliveryman replaced the mattress and filled it with air. We lowered Ralph into bed, positioned him so that he could see the A’s win 4-3. I took a deep breath. It was 10 p.m., April 22. I was proud of our work, and pleased to know what day and time it was. Maybe the DME coordinator will get herself caught up by the time I call her again. ›

Electrical Blaze Damages Church 

An electrical fire caused an estimated $50,000 in damage to the General Assembly Church at 1521 Derby St. Saturday night. 

The call was raised to two alarms before the fire was extinguished, said Berkeley Fire Department Captain Gil Dong. 

The flames, which damaged a small area of the church near the baptismal font, resulted in an estimated $50,000 in damage.

Pistol Whipper Bust 

Berkeley Police arrested a 39-year-old man on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm after he allegedly pistol-whipped another 39-year-old near the corner of Curtis Street and Bancroft Way shortly before 4:35 a.m. Thursday, said police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Rat Pack Robbers 

Police arrested seven juveniles early Thursday evening after a strongarm “rat pack” attack on a 21-year-old pedestrian near the corner of Derby Street and College Avenue. 

Officer Okies said the victim was attacked and robbed of his backpack, cell phone and camera—all of which were recovered by the arresting officers. 

Belated Report 

A 30-year old man called Berkeley police Friday morning to report that he been robbed around 9 p.m. the previous night while he was walking near the corner of Adeline Street and Alcatraz Avenue. 

He told officers a 20-something robber clad in dark clothing and a brown baseball cap had relieved him of his wallet and cell phone. 

Stick Vs. Fist 

Police responding to a call about an assault with a deadly weapon at King Middle School in the 1700 block of Rose Street quickly discovered that the dispute in question pitted two students against each other, one armed with his fists, the other with a lacrosse stick. 

The suspects were quickly identified, but no arrests were made, said Officer Okies. 

Another Strong-Arm 

An alert customer of Ashkenaz spotted a 20-year-old strongarm robber attacking a 61-year-old man outside the popular San Pablo Avenue night spot Friday evening, and officers arrived in time to slap cuffs on the suspect and recover the victim’s cash. 

Gun-Toting Trio 

UC and Berkeley Police are seeking three suspects who robbed four pedestrians near the corner of Regent and Parker streets shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday. 

The trio was last seen southbound on Regent inside a dark-colored vehicle. One of them may have been wearing a navy Cal sweatshirt. 

Strongarm Snatch 

A strong-arm robber in his twenties approached a 47-year-old woman in the 2000 block of Woolsey Street about 10:30 Saturday night and forced her to surrender her purse. He was last seen fleeing southbound on Tremont Street, said Officer Okies. 

Car Knifed 

Police arrested a 19-year-old man at 1:35 a.m. Sunday on charges of brandishing a deadly weapon and making threats of grievous bodily harm and damage to property following a bizarre event in the 2300 block of Durant Avenue. 

“In the course of the attack, the suspect damaged the car with his knife,” said Officer Okies. Fortunately the fleshy object of his wrath escaped without injury. 

Gabitup Heist  

A middle-aged man wearing a Kangol cap robbed the Gabitup Wireless store at 3320 Adeline St. Sunday morning, making off with cash and personal belongings. 

Ski-Masked Robbers 

Two bandits wearing ski masks and packing heat robbed a young couple near the corner of Seventh and Addison streets early Saturday evening, making off with a pair of shoes, a jacket and other personal items. 

The victims, a 21-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man, were otherwise unharmed, said Officer Okies.›

In all of the arguing of which cuts to make and which projects to fund, it’s easy to lose sight of the long-range effects of cuts in service and in the commissions which oversee them.  

One perfect example is the Office of Emergency Services, currently part of the Berkeley Fire Department (BFD), and the Disaster Council. From chemical spills to radiological accidents to man-made attacks to hills fires to the impending earthquake on the Hayward Fault, the OES works hard to save as many of our lives as possible through preparation and planning.  

One year ago, the OES performed the following vital, life-saving tasks. It coordinated the free Community Emergency Response Training (CERT) classes, trained neighborhoods to fend for themselves after a disaster, and offered refresher courses for already-trained neighborhoods. It also provided long-term community coordination, like placing emergency supply caches in neighborhoods and helping residents fill those caches. OES applied for and received grants for Disaster Resistant Berkeley (which funded many of these items for years until the grant ended), and organized the city-wide Care and Shelter Plan. It ran disaster exercises involving many parts of city government, and helped create the Disaster Mitigation Plan, which is the framework for Berkeley’s disaster preparation. 

OES worked on individual projects to make our city safer, like convincing the school district to install emergency supplies at every school. It helped shape the successful Unreinforced Masonry (URM) program to retrofit many unsafe brick buildings, and joined with the Planning Department to push for a new Soft Story law to retrofit the many apartment buildings at risk of total collapse. The OES investigated various initiatives from the Disaster Council, like disaster-prep curriculum ideas for our schools, Citizen Corp federal funding, and preparing small businesses for recovery from a major disaster.  

By June of 2003, budget cuts had trimmed OES from four down to three full-time equivalencies (FTE), i.e. three full-time staffers: two analysts and their manager. One year later, there were 1.2 full-time equivalencies split between an analyst and the manager.  

While the three staffers were able to do most of the tasks above with the help of volunteers from the Disaster Council and off-duty firefighters, last year’s evisceration of OES rearranged its tasks as follows. 

OES coordinates the CERT classes, although the training is now split between community volunteers and firefighters. OES also coordinates the city-wide disaster exercises, does minor neighborhood outreach and retraining, and coordinates one-off projects. 

The Soft Story retrofit program, like the URM program before it, has been turned over to the Planning Department, while the neighborhood cache trainings and refresher trainings are available from the BFD by request only. The city-wide Care and Shelter Plan is taken on by Health and Human Services, although the exciting progress made over the past few years has slowed due to HHS’s own budget crunch. Applying for new disaster and homeland security grants, like the current Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant to improve fire evacuation routes in the Berkeley hills, has moved to the overburdened city manager’s office. Dedicated grant-hunting to fund the many disaster needs of the city from outside of the General Fund has essentially stopped. 

There are a number of vital tasks that have stopped completely because of the cut from three FTE to 1.2 FTE. Ended are all meaningful neighborhood trainings, as well as all outreach to new neighborhoods to become disaster-resistant. There is no effort to install new emergency supplies caches. This systemic evisceration means there’s no long-term community coordination that will allow us to learn to take care of vulnerable neighbors, minor structure fires, injuries, and shelter needs during short-term disasters (chemical spills, power outages) or during long-term disasters (earthquakes, radiological releases).  

Compounding last year’s reckless cost-cutting is this year’s budget proposal. The plan is to eliminate the OES manager position (currently it’s the .2 of the 1.2 FTE since the position also performs BFD fire prevention duties), and to have the sole remaining OES analyst split her job duties between OES and fire prevention. No word on what the exact fraction of FTE this staffer will devote to OES but one thing is for sure. The time allotted for the incredibly important tasks of the OES will be criminally insufficient.  

All of the facts in this article come directly from my notes of the last two years of Disaster Council meetings. We volunteer time beyond the regular meetings to work with the school district and to teach CERT classes. During regular meetings we receive expert reports from within the city (city manager, HHS, Planning, Toxic Management, BFD, Berkeley Police) and from without (American Red Cross, Easy Does It). We work closely with the remaining OES personnel offering feedback and ideas from our various areas of expertise. For instance, the engineer and the contractor who just joined the council are working on issues of transfer-tax funded home retrofits. While currently the OES can offer no support, we’re hoping that the Planning Department will be helpful in exploring this issue. Finally, this article and similar communication to the city’s residents and politicians offer everyone a glimpse of the life-and-death meaning behind this obscure budget line-item.  

The city should restore the OES as a functioning entity. For instance, here’s what would happen if the city restores the second analyst position, which trained and organized neighborhood disaster teams. Even if it was funded for one year, this action would mean dozens, perhaps hundreds more residents would be able to survive and help others survive, including the most vulnerable of our neighbors. This is the disaster prep equivalent of teaching a person to fish and thereby providing him with fish for a lifetime. Additionally, the city should not restrict the Disaster Council to quarterly meetings, especially when, with just 10 meetings/year, we add institutional memory and extra areas of expertise to the city’s knowledge base. 

Completely avoidable deaths, maimings, and property damage are the results of the penny-wise and pound-foolish approach of the past few budget cycles. I hope the current City Council chooses positive change instead of the damaging status quo when it comes to disaster funding.  

Jesse Townley is vice chair of the Disaster Council, as well as the former executive director of Easy Does It and former vice president of the EDI board of directors. He ran for Berkeley City Council in 2004. 



Last week the Daily Planet published an article by Zelda Bronstein regarding parking in Downtown Berkeley. Unlike Ms. Bronstein I am a resident of the downtown and I have worked downtown for the past nine years.  

When discussing an issue such as parking we need to keep the big picture in mind and remember what is our ultimate objective for the downtown. We want more retail businesses, we want to continue to build housing, and we want to help grow sales tax revenue for the city.  

Today’s perception of the downtown is that there are more empty store fronts that there are current retailers. In reality the vacancy rate of the downtown is less than 10 percent. The good news is that this percent is going to decrease over the next two years. With important store fronts such as the Gaia Building (Anna’s Jazz Island) and 2300 Shattuck/Bancroft (Longs Drugs) about to come online, they are setting the trend for what could become an influx of new and exciting retailers to the downtown. There are potential tenants currently looking at the Gateway and Eddie Bauer sites, the Kress Building, See’s Candy, Life Long Noodle, and the Fine Arts Building. We are on the cusp of seeing a dramatic change to the downtown’s retail base. It is truly exciting! 

The downtown is Berkeley’s fastest growing neighborhood. Last year Patrick Kennedy opened three new buildings (all at full occupancy) with over 400 new units. With new residential units in progress (Library Gardens and Avi Nevo’s Fulton/Channing Project) and more on the way (Seagate Properties, Tune Up Masters Site, and the David Brower building) we have more than 500 more units slated to be built. With this influx of new residents it has peaked the interest of potential new retailers.  

Finally, in order for Berkeley to start balancing its budget we need to grow our sales tax revenue. In a recent meeting held by the Office of Economic Development I was informed that the downtown supplies the city with one tenth of its overall sales tax revenue. By attracting more retailers to the downtown we can help grow this percentage and help improve the city’s overall budget.  

So how does this all relate to parking? Zelda argued that while short-term parking was hard to find long term garage parking was always available. Part of the reason it is so hard to find short term parking is because of “meter feeding.” With the new solar powered meters comes stronger parking enforcement. On any given day you can find two or three parking enforcers walking up and down Shattuck enforcing the one-hour rule. This is going to cause customers to realize that if they need to be in the downtown for longer than an hour they will need to use a garage. The second effect is to encourage business owners and employees of downtown businesses to use the garages. This will free up valuable short term parking for their customers and potential customers. How much business is lost each day because someone cannot find a short-term parking space? As more people come to the downtown (more retailers and more residents) we will find that the demand for long term parking is going to grow. I want to make sure that when that demand arises that we are ready to handle it.  

I have advocated for the Vista mitigation money to go towards rebuilding the Center Street Garage with an extra 200 spaces. If the city can find a way to finance the garage with only part of this money that is fine with me. I am also in favor of real time parking signage. I just want to make sure they have somewhere to point to.  

Raudel Wilson is manager of the Mechanics Bank, president of the Downtown Berkeley Association and a Zoning Adjustments Board commissioner.?

“Nazis are bad; nuns are good.” That was my friend’s synopsis of The Sound of Music. The sentence could just as easily summarize much of the popular 

sentiment about the Holocaust. This year as we reach the 60th anniversary of “liberation” and the end of the war, a deeper and more profound understanding could benefit our youth and all of us. 

As Holocaust survivors age it becomes even more important to listen, to learn, and to remember. We can not wait until the 70th or 75th anniversary, because far too m any survivors will no longer be with us. Most of us alive today were not even born yet, but that is all the more reason for us to listen, and treasure the Survivors who are still with us. 

Nazi genocidal policy killed six million Jews, and about five million others including: Gypsies, people with physical disabilities, lesbians and gays, the dissenting clergy, and other political enemies. While they killed a majority of Jews in Europe, they failed to completely annihilate any of their target groups. But we too have failed in eliminating the hatred and fear against each of their target groups. 

Even today, in the ostensibly progressive Bay Area, racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, classism, and anti-semitism persist. While overt prejudice and discriminati on is generally considered unacceptable in polite society, stereotypes persist and rear their ugly head in moments of conflict or passion, and in institutionalized patterns of exclusion. Asians, Latinos and African Americans are still too often underrepre sented in who gets hired, appointed and elected. In Berkeley itself, Jews have far too frequently been victims of hate crimes, as have people of color.  

Holocaust denial lectures and speeches have been given right here in Berkeley claiming that the holocaust did not happen. Holocaust Remembrance Day gives us an opportunity to stop and reflect, to remind ourselves that the horrors of the Holocaust did in fact happen, and to remember the suffering victims, the courage of the resistors, and to treasure the survivors, and to join in the chorus of hope and activism to say “Never again.” 

At noon on Friday, May 6 the City of Berkeley will officially commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day at the City Council Chambers at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The event is free and open to the public. 

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington represents Berkeley’s District 7.  

Is the Diebold Corporation, famous for hackable, paperless voting machines, trying to strangle election reform in Berkeley? Or are they merely greedy, lazy and incompetent? 

Either way it is Diebold which stands in the way of implementing Berkeley’s Measure I in favor of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which was passed by a margin of 72 percent in March of 2004.  

IRV, also known as preferential or ranked choice voting, allows us to rank our choices for mayor or City Council candidate. We could vote for three candidates for mayor, a first, a second and a third choice, so that if our first choice comes in last, then our second choice is counted. If that step does not produce a winner, then the next person on the bottom is eliminated until someone has captured 50 percent plus one. The runoff, in other words, is held instantly instead of six weeks later. 

There are three major advantages to IRV. First, by avoiding a second election, both the city and the candidates save a lot of money. Second, a separate runoff always attracts far fewer voters, and especially fewer poor and student voters, so that there is a chance that the winner of the runoff in December gets fewer votes than the original leader in November. Which is how “moderate” Shirley Dean beat “progressive” Don Jelinek in the mayor’s race of 1994. 

The most important advantage of preferential voting, however, is that it cures the disease of lesser evilism. You don’t have to vote for one of the big two—Jelinek to keep out Dean or vice versa. You can vote for whoever you want as your first choice, and then for the frontrunner in second place, which keeps out your main enemy just as effectively. Neither mainstream Democrats nor Republicans, however, are too happy about losing “their” voters to third parties, which may explain why State Senate Bill 596, which grants all California cities the right to choose IRV, has not been able to make it out of committee. 

But for us, wouldn’t it be great to be able to vote our hearts without fear? The big two wouldn’t be able to take us for granted. They would have to make alliances, or at least be polite, with the third and fourth party or candidate, which is exactly what has been happening in San Francisco. In fact in District 5 in the city’s last election, 18 candidates established a “candidates collaborative” which has resulted in long range neighborhood co-operation. And sometimes, Ms. 3 or Mr. 4 might actually win. 

So why do we still have to debate this issue, a year after it won decisively at the polls. Because Diebold, which owns the contract on voting machines for Alameda County, wants two million dollars to write IRV into their systems here. And in the age of Bush and Schwarzenegger, the county and the cities are carrying huge deficits. (San Leandro and Oakland have also approved preferential voting systems) But even if money were available, Diebold says that it isn’t going to get around to working on the problem for another year, which means that IRV will probably not be ready for the November 2006 city elections, two and a half years after the passage of Berkeley’s initiative.  

The problem with Diebold’s obstructionism, of course, is that there isn’t any problem. Instant runoff voting has been solved. San Francisco does it with great success, and British Columbia is voting about a variant of IRV next May 17. Computer codes for counting votes IRV-style are open source. Anyone can copy and use them for free. (If you want to check out this availability you can contact “The Open Voting Consortium” at www.Openvoting.org or “Elections Solutions” at www.Electionsolutions.com) 

It is possible that Diebold’s demand for $2 million constitutes an actionable breach of contract. When Alameda County first acquired the present touchscreen computers, the Diebold subsidiary GEMS wrote in their proposal that, “The AccuVote-TS can easily be programmed for preferential voting.” Would a jury find that this “easy” programming change was worth two million? Diebold has already had to pay out 2.6 million to Alameda and California to settle a false claims lawsuit. 

Diebold’s “pricing policy” is revealed in this internal e-mail which found its way into the “Baltimore Gazette” in December 2003: “ …they (the public) already bought the system. At this point they are just closing the barn door. Let’s just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts.” “Ken” (writer of the e-mail) later clarifies that he meant “out the yin-yang,” adding, “any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive.”  

On April 19 about 70 people were out protesting against Diebold in front of the Alameda County Office Building near Lake Merritt. None of the speakers could understand where the two million figure came from. Kenny Mostern, who headed Berkeley’s successful campaign for IRV, said that the Pacifica Radio election, which he also directed, was conducted by means of preferential voting for $55,000. Rodney Brooks, chief of staff for County Supervisor Keith Carson, called the $2 million “ridiculous.” The Berkeley City Council, according to Councilmember Kris Worthington, has hired a consultant, former City Clerk Sherry Kelly, to shepherd IRV through the county and state bureaucracies.  

Now is the time to pressure the five Alameda County Supervisors to act. Registrar Brad Clark, who was responsible for the original Diebold connection, and has done nothing to challenge their price estimate, is leaving Alameda County to go to work with the new Republican secretary of state. The supervisors could use our input about hiring a new registrar who will fight to uphold the will of the voters in Berkeley, San Leandro and Oakland. Keith Carson, whose district includes Berkeley, is leading the struggle to implement IRV. But the other supervisors are understandably more immediately concerned with the county’s 77 million dollar deficit.  

Citizens should contact the supervisors or the IRV in Alameda County Now! coalition at 665-5457 or Alamedacountyirv@gmail.com 

It is still possible for Berkeley to once again be a model of democratic participation. 

Laurence Schechtman is a Berkeley resident. 

›

To a packed audience that over flowed into the corridors of an embarrassingly small venue, Antanas Mockus, the innovative two-term mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, spoke April 15 at the conference on “Violence and the Americas,” hosted by the Center for Latin American Studies. His talk on “Law Enforcement and Citizenship Building” focused largely on enlisting collective social disapproval and participatory stake holding—instead of legal penalties—to help shape civic behavior. While obviously proud of the reduction in violence experienced in the unruly capital city during his tenure, the ever humble and self-mocking former mayor gave only a hint of how his creative strategies have empowered Bogotá’s 7 million inhabitants—and how these ideas might be applied to beleaguered urban areas here in the US. 

When I first arrived in Bogotá in December of 1995, the city was a metropolitan nightmare plagued by eternal traffic jams, truly hair-raising crime, choking pollution, ugly gray concrete devoid of greenery, thousands of street children, and more than anything else, a sense of despair and alienation that seemed to permeate everything. As corruption drained city coffers, cynicism, rampant tax evasion, and a general shirking of civic responsibility had become the norm. Few people spoke or even made eye contact on the streets, and people watched with resigned indifference as their fellow citizens fell prey to marauding gangs in broad daylight. It was a hardscrabble, dog-eat-dog kind of environment that to many residents seemed beyond hope. 

On my very first experience with Bogotá’s legendary traffic jams, a friend pointed to a group of youths milling about on the sidewalk, and calmly told me “those guys are about to rob someone.” Sure enough, in front of several hundred of us stuck in traffic, the three youths walked up to a choice vehicle, thrust a gun in the window, and casually walked—not ran—away with wallets and jewelry. Twenty minutes later, we were all still there stuck in the same spot, and the same group of guys were back to leisurely choose their next victims—all of this in front of a traffic cop who nervously looked the other way while the kids brazenly taunted him, weapons drawn. I can’t tell you how much paralysis that kind of daily violence induces in civic society.  

Fed up with the corrupt, status quo politicians from the ruling duopoly, and desperately seeking a way out of the chaos, the citizens of Bogotá turned the keys of city hall over to a diminutive professor of mathematics and philosophy with a reputation for honesty and eccentric antics. The then rector of the National University had been married in a circus tent, and had once gained the attention of an auditorium of unruly students by bending over and “mooning” them. For the jaded inhabitants of Bogotá, Mockus was the perfect anti-politician.  

I first became acquainted with Mr. Mockus when he appeared on my TV one morning, making an impassioned appeal to Bogotanos to give up their handguns. I watched with fascination as this nerdy, Amish looking fellow debated the single issue of gun control for nearly two hours, taking heated calls from citizens, respectfully acknowledging their fears and concerns while persuading them to his point of view. I was impressed that Colombian media would give an elected representative the space to dialogue with the citizenry like that, and was amazed as well that a politician would sit and answer uncensored questions at such length on just one issue. Compare that to the 30-second sound bites we typically get here in the U.S. on issues of great complexity, or to President Bush’s carefully orchestrated “town halls” on Social Security featuring obviously scripted questions from a handpicked crowd of party loyalists.  

In the coming months we were treated to some delightful street theater from Mr. Mockus. To raise awareness of civic responsibility, he dashed from one end of Bogotá to the other sporting a caped superhero outfit emblazoned with a large red “C” for “El Hombre Cívico”. Lots of people laughed, and more than a few were convinced he was absolutely crazy. But such antics made people think, and the laughter had the intended effect of slowly melting away the layers of cynicism that were corroding civic participation. Even the most skeptical and jaded Bogotanos thought to themselves that if the mayor was willing to make a public fool of himself, then at least they could do their small part to help make Bogotá a better place to live!  

Mayor Mockus went on to deploy hundreds of unarmed mimes to “enforce” traffic laws, showered on national TV to teach about water conservation, closed all city streets on some Sundays to bicyclists only, and gave the entire city over some designated nights to only women. Intuitively, he sees the mission of political leaders as collaborating with citizens to change entrenched and maladapted habits, to instill a sense of civic solidarity, to capture people’s imagination and sympathy through art and humor, and basically to always appeal to our better selves. “Enforcement” of the new terms of civic conduct was left not to men with guns, but largely to collective moral peer pressure.  

When I returned to Bogotá in summer of 2001, I thought I was in a different city. The traffic situation had improved dramatically, and parks had sprung up everywhere, even in the traditionally neglected, impoverished southern suburbs. There were hundreds of miles of bike paths and an innovative public transit corridor had just been inaugurated. But most of all, the pall of fear had dissipated; people had hope again, and were proud to be Bogotanos! On the street, they seemed so much more friendly and respectful towards one another, and much more relaxed. 

Most importantly, the homicide rate in Bogotá has plummeted by an astounding 70 percent. 

Towards the end of his presentation, Mockus underscored that the diminished violence was accomplished without the death penalty, and without expanding the prison population. With a touch of ironic humor, he pointed out that to follow the sophisticated American model, Colombia must build five times more prisons. The diplomatically subtle inference to the furious rate of prison construction going on here in California was not lost on the audience. At a time when we hold ourselves up as a model to be exported to the entire world, it might be that we are the ones who could learn from the experiences of our southern neighbors. We might also learn that nothing is hopeless, and that no one is irredeemable. 

Aaron Tukey is a former Columbia resident with a background in Latin American studies. 

LONDON—As U.S. and British forces entered Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and the Saddam Hussein regime crumbled, those who had been driven underground by Hussein’s rule began to breathe again. From Syria, Britain, Scandinavia and elsewhere, exiled trade union radicals began to make the long journey home.  

The first post-Saddam days saw a ferment of labor organizing. A general strike broke out in Basra, after the British troops tried to install a notorious ex-Baath Party leader as mayor. Within a month, the city already had a labor council bringing together many new unions.  

Among those who had resisted Hussein’s brutal dictatorship within Iraq was an oilfield technician, Hassan Juma’a Awad. A veteran of the Shiite uprising in southern Iraq of 1991, Juma’a had begun to speak openly about the bad conditions in the fields and refinery of the Southern Oil Company, where he’d worked for three decades. Following Hussein’s downfall he quickly became the most important labor leader in southern Iraq, and today is the biggest single obstacle to the Bush administration’s main goal for the occupation—the privatization of the country’s oil.  

Oil is Iraq’s lifeblood, and the southern fields produce 80 percent of it. That puts the hands of this workforce on the spigot controlling the country’s wealth. Like the oil workers in Iran who brought down the Shah in 1978, Iraq’s oil workers know their power, and have already used it to deal important defeats to the occupation regime.  

“Without organizing ourselves, we would have been unable to protect our industry, which we had been looking after for generations,” Juma’a Awad says. “It was our duty as Iraqi workers to protect the oil installations since they are the property of the Iraqi people, and we are sure that the U.S. and the international companies have come here to put their hands on the country’s oil reserves.”  

In fact, within just a few short months of Hussein’s fall, Southern Oil Company workers found themselves up against the best-connected U.S. corporation in Iraq—Halliburton—whose former CEO, Dick Cheney, is now U.S. vice president. As the occupation began its grinding course, KBR, the Halliburton construction subsidiary, showed up at the SOC facilities. Its no-bid contract with the U.S. Defense Department gave it a mandate to begin reconstruction and get the oil flowing again to tankers off the coast in the Persian Gulf. KBR hired a Kuwaiti subcontractor, Al Khoorafy, which stood ready to bring in hundreds of foreign employees to do the work.  

Faced with replacement of their jobs, in a city where unemployment soared to 70 percent, Juma’a Awad and his coworkers stood firm. They told KBR that if they brought in a single person, they would stop the oil installations completely. “Iraq will be reconstructed by Iraqis, we don’t need any foreign interference,” Jum’a said. At first KBR tried to cut a deal to split the jobs with Iraqis. But the oil workers refused to accept any outside help. Eventually, KBR brought in the reconstruction supplies on trucks, unloaded them, and left.  

The next challenge came in September 2003. The occupation administration issued Order 30, lowering the base wages for Iraq’s public sector workforce, including oil workers, from $60 to $35 per month. It also cut subsidies for food and housing.  

“We asked ourselves, how can it be that the workers in our industry would get $35 a month?” Juma’a Awad recalls. “The American administration wasn’t willing to cooperate with us, so we had a short strike. We managed to get the minimum salary up to 150,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $100. This was the beginning of our struggle to improve the income of oil workers.”  

The union effectively doubled the wages of many. Today, a laborer with 20 years experience earns about 420,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $300, a month. A chicken in the market costs about 1,500 dinars, or $1.  

The strike had other repercussions. In Basra’s power generation plants, workers threatened similar action and won increases as well. Not surprisingly, they asked Juma’a Awad to negotiate for them.  

“Now we have workers’ councils in 23 areas of southern Iraq, and represent over 23,000 workers,” Juma’a Awad says. “The occupying forces tried their best to stop us, because they saw this as a danger. They were aware that organized workers would have power.”  

Juma’a Awad says the occupying forces told the unions they had no legal right to represent oil workers. “We were elected by the workers. That’s the only kind of legitimacy we need,” he says.  

Like all Iraqi unions, the General Union of Oil Workers opposes the occupation. “We want the occupation to end immediately, and the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces,” he explains.  

While there might be security problems if the troops depart suddenly, Juma’a Awad says he’s not worried. “We are able to look after ourselves and our own security.”  

But privatization, he believes, is the largest threat. “This coming fight is more important even than the struggle against the occupation, since the U.S. is seeking to privatize all sectors of the Iraqi economy,” he says. In that fight, Juma’a Awad sees the current government, created as a result of the January elections, as an uncertain ally.  

“The next government should not only ensure the security of the Iraqi people, but also stop the privatization of industry. We oppose that very strongly, especially in oil. It is our industry. We don’t want a new colonization under the guise of privatization, with international companies taking control.”  

David Bacon is a freelance writer and photographer who writes regularly on labor and immigration issues. His latest book is “The Children of NAFTA” (University of California Press, 2004). ›

“The plain fact is that we are members one of another and that we are not living in accordance with the nature of things—That is, we are not living in accordance with the facts, if we think only our own thoughts, and sit nowhere ever except upon the lonesome throne of our own outlook,” University of California President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, told Berkeley students in 1907. 

“Hatred between men, hatred between classes, hatred between peoples, represents always this stubborn unwillingness to get over onto the other hilltop and see how the plain looks from there.” Although he would not have known it at the time, Wheeler’s remarks now seem most expressive of a Berkeley institution, International House, founded not long after his death. International House was one of three programs at American universities—Columbia, Berkeley, and Chicago—funded by Rockefeller gifts in the 1920s in an effort to bring American and foreign students together in the same residences and thus build international understanding and friendship. 

This is the 75th year since the August, 1930, opening of Berkeley’s “I House” building, which rises in an impressive and eclectically appropriate mixture of Spanish, Moorish, and Indian architectural influences at the peak of Bancroft Way, just beyond the southeast corner of the Berkeley campus. It stands as a substantive secular temple to human understanding, physically and programmatically multitudinous and splendid, an institution among institutions. 

Today, I House is so much a familiar part of Berkeley’s physical and cultural landscape that many people take it for granted, perhaps thinking of it in the same detached way they might regard some distinguished but only distantly acquainted relative—with a general sense of approval and goodwill, but with little interest in greater familiarity.  

That is a shame, since International House and its programs were radical for much of Berkeley in the 1930s and have since been witness to, or catalyst for, so much of what changed city, nation, and world in the 20th century. The questioning and removal of legal and social barriers based on racial prejudice. National and international conflicts, and their resolutions, whether tragic or inspiring. Efforts, still only part finished, to create campuses and communities of durable and harmonious diversity. I House continues to be of vital necessity in the 21st century.  

As part of an effort to make this remarkable Berkeley institution more understandable to both residents and the general public, I House, in 2004, produced a slim but powerful community memoir. Close Encounters Of A Cross-Cultural Kind presents both historical sketches of the founding of I House and key eras in the institution’s history, but is primarily a set of personal testimonials drawn from decades of speeches, letters, and statements from former residents staff, and visitors. Most of the recollections are Reader’s Digest short—the voices of more than 40 individuals are represented in about 100 pages—but they convey a powerful message. I House changes people for the better. The experience of living there, or even just visiting, opens eyes and minds, often in spite of the most daunting backdrops of age-old national and racial prejudices and stereotypes. 

Excerpts from the book provide ample evidence of personal change. Here, for example, is the account of an Armenian visitor whose parents were killed by Turks, becoming friends with the Turkish student who poured coffee in the dining room. A former American G.I. and a student from Japan, also an ex-soldier, are assigned as roommates immediately after World War II and learn to re-examine their stereotypes. An Iranian woman writes that “before September 11, some of my closest friends and spiritual soul mates were Americans, and after Sept. 11 they turned on me…Because I thought Americans hated me, I hated all Americans back with passion.” She rethinks these feelings only after she moves into I House and is assigned an American roommate from the deep South who proves different from all her negative expectations.  

An African-American resident describes how the open-minded attitudes of a roommate with mixed Caribbean and British ancestry change his own perspectives on issues “black and white.” “I discovered that when I refuse intercultural discourse, when I expect the worst from people, and when I limit myself and expect the same from others…then I become the racist.” A former student from Israel describes finds himself, in 1972, eating his first meal at I-House with residents from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt, as well as a Palestinian.  

“I had never before met an Arab, only seen them from afar through the hostile barbed-wire fence of a frontier,” he wrote. “I began to understand that the hatreds on which we had grown up were left far behind us, and that here at I House we could see one another as individuals, as people, as warm and caring human beings.” And a resident in the late 1980s recalls, “I remember students from round the world watching as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. I looked around me and realized how many of us at I House had taken down the walls within ourselves…Living there taught me more about politics than my graduate classes in political science.” 

While many of the writers in the Close Encounters anthology describe important transformations in their lives because of I House, their stories are rarely preachy or pontificating, and several contain wry humor. One American from New York writes of his Russian roommate, “the poetic drama of East and West together was tested at two o’clock in the morning, when Sergei would snore…” Other writers regretfully describe tensions with roommates and acquaintances early in their residency, missed opportunities for friendship, differences that they only later realized they could have avoided. 

But most of the accounts are uplifting. By the simple act of putting people with different backgrounds together in ordinary daily life, I House reshapes its residents. The cumulative impact cannot be inconsiderable. Since 1930, some 60,000 “I House alumni” have gone out into, or returned to, the world beyond Berkeley. They include seven Nobel Laureates, a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, two former Governors of California and thousands of others who have, in their individual way, spread I House ideals around the world. 

Many of those are Californians and others from the United States, since International House has, since its beginnings, intentionally mixed both domestic and foreign students. it’s not simply a residence and place for “others”, but for all of us. 

Close Encounters Of A Cross-Cultural Kind can be purchased through the International House Development Office for $11.95 plus $2 shipping. Proceeds go to the Annual Scholarship Fund. 

Send a check drawn on a U.S. bank payable to International House to International House Development Office, 2299 Piedmont Ave., Berkeley, CA 94720, or call 642-5128. If ordering by mail, be sure to include the address to which the book should be sent. 

I-House is in the midst of a series of events to celebrate the building’s 75th anniversary.  

Next up, this Thursday, May 5, is the annual Awards Gala, an evening event honoring actress Rita Moreno and Sybase CEO John Chen, and featuring foods selected by local restauranteur Narsai David. For further information on attending the Gala, call 642-4128. 

A 75th anniversary reunion follows in early June, and other events are planned for the Fall.  

For more information on I House and programs there, visit http://ihouse.berkeley.edu/. 

The Eastenders Repertory Company is back on the boards in the East Bay at the Ashby Stage, after producing last year’s One Hundred Years of Political Theater at the Eureka Theater across the Bridge, with the premiere of WWJD? Some Good Old Medieval Morality Play Motor Oil, by San Jose playwright Scott Munson, running alternately with Eastenders Founding Artistic Director Charles Polly’s new play, A Knight’s Escape. 

Among the first Bay Area companies that spearheaded the revival of repertory programming, The Eastenders stage plays of all kinds that seem to convey social messages, especially those that chime with contemporary situations. This current pair is no exception, and particularly timely. Of A Knight’s Escape, Charles Polly (who also directs) says, “It’s a story about invasion of privacy, agoraphobia, personal anxiety syndrome...a man who’s afraid of sirens, cars, helicopters,sounds that make him sweat; about taking on the problems of the world and how the media pushes that.” It’s “written in a surreal, nonlinear style ... and promises to keep audiences guessing right up to--and after--the play’s final, mystifying conclusion.” 

WWJD? takes a different tack, that of a burlesque morality play, with a hero (”instead of Everyman”) who begins as anything but anxious: Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Charles Mal de Mer. True to his name, the Fed Chairman is played with much motion and attendant queasiness by longtime Eastender Craig Dickerson,though it’s the audience, not Mal de Mer, that suffers that queasiness, hilariously, until Charles’s crise de conscience midway through the show. 

“We hope this play will bring you pleasure—it won’t give you happiness or political change,” says The Master (of the Revels? “A ruthless dictator,” Peter Matthews) introducing the multi-role actors. He sets the scene: “A cozy street in Washington, D. C.—where you’ll never live.” 

Mal de Mer clutches his high-end, dysfunctional existence like a trophy. The teenage daughter (Claire Martin), “embittered, angry, suicidal, in her teens,” rages at him: “You hate my music, you hate me, you hate my drug addiction!” To her father’s protesting “I do not!” she replies, “Well, I hate you! She settles down to her “afternoon blow,” delivered by butler Septimus (Craig Souza) in bulk, with a meat cleaver to cut the heap into lines. The wife (Veneita Porter) is “embittered, angry, suicidal, in her forties.” Mal de Mer asks her, “My dear, have you under-medicated yourself today? How many times have we talked about this?” His butler, whose father named his sons after Roman emperors from gladiator movies, drives him to his power lunch, mowing down innocent (and poor) bystanders (”Haven’t seen anything so amazing since David Copperfield on Pay-For-View!”)There he rolls, not in the hay, but on the floor of Mme. Kim’s (Venetia Porter again) elite restaurant (”the latest in Vietnamese macrobiotic steakhouses!”), with The Other Woman, Jennifer Jennifer (Michaela Greeley.) “I hate that word, ‘Mistress’ ... I prefer ‘Homewrecker’” he says. He picks up the check for a Siamese twin Elephant-Donkey D. C. Insider (Jeff Thompson and Peter Matthews) while Fatima (Sarah Korda) belly-dances. 

But his credit card’s maxxed—the chairman of the Fed doesn’t “get” cash. His limo won’t start. An Arab cabbie (again, Craig Souza) kicks him out into “Calcutta-On-The-Potomac,” where he hob-nobs in pantomime with the Underworldlings, even breaks crack with them.  

Then he has a vision out of John 3:16, the Lazarus story. He meets “Jesus of Norway” (”He looked like Jeffrey Hunter!”), and his life changes, irrevocably. Just before his speech to Congress, he’s heard to mumble, “Feed the poor!”  

Thus the acronym WWJD?--What Would Jesus Do? 

Dickerson’s spring-loaded walk and rapid-fire gestures and expressions delineate Mal de Mer, flailing a path through this vale of tears with plenty of wry laughter. Susan Edwards’ brisk direction expedites the antics of the cast, kaleidoscopically choreographed by Casey Dacanay. The actors all switch hats with ease, working well, especially in tandem. Dickerson is well paired with Souza and Greeley in particular. The farcical style is somewhere between a 3-D comic book and the original SF Mime Troupe’s pop-eyed, ersatz Commedia Dell’Arte. 

There are characters more and more grotesque as the tale unravels, culminating with the President (encore, Peter Matthews) in camouflage jacket and bright yellow bill cap catching wiffle-ball passes from his scrimmaging advisors. He intones “I’m in the plurality business; one lost sheep, more or less, doesn’t mean much ...” to his wayward Fed Chairman, who protests, “I don’t think Jesus cares how diversified our portfolio is!” However unexemplary an Imitation of Christ WWJD? proves to be, the audience has to agree with the wistful devotional phrase said with shaking head: “A guy like Him comes along once in a blue moon!” 

Eastenders Repertory Company presents WWJD? (alternating with A Knight’s Escape) Thursday-Sunday through May 15 at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. $15-18. 568-4118. 

›

Participants in a UC Berkeley “Words and Music” seminar led by composer William Bolcom, visiting Ernest Bloch lecturer in music, and poet (and UC professor) Robert Hass will present performances of their completed projects of what Bolcom has referred to as “the way words and music marry” in a Wed. May 4 afternoon reading and workshop, 2-5 p.m. at the recital hall in Morrison 125, and in a recital setting, incorporating more material (including electronic media), 8 p.m. Sat. May 14 at Berkeley Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT), 1750 Arch St. The performances are open to the public; admission is free. 

Meeting over the past semester, the weekly seminar has paired poets—mostly graduate students drawn from the English Department—with Ph.D. ca ndidates in composition from the Music Dept. to develop songs and other forms incorporating words and music, under the guidance of Bolcom, whose settings of William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience” won the Pulitzer Prize, and Hass, a past natio nal poet laureate. The seminar was sponsored by a grant from the UC Consortium for the Arts, which supports collaboration between artists, often from the different arts. 

At the Wednesday reading and workshop on May 4, musicians, singers and other perform ers, some seeing the work for the first time, will engage in an open workshop to engage with collaborative pieces by each of the seven poets and seven composers. Vocalists will include soprano Tara Generalovich, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Lane and baritone Zachary Gordin. Pianist LaDene Otsuki will accompany, along with other instrumentalists. 

The May 14 event will be more of a concert, with more diverse material from the seminar participants, including both acoustic and electronic compositions.  

“The goal was for four projects each, in different pairings between composers and poets, “ said composer and seminar participant Aaron Einbond, one of the organizers of the events. “One piece was to be in reverse process--that is, in classical music, the lyrics are composed first, followed by the music. In popular music, it’s usually the reverse. For my piece, I wrote a song in Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter style--obviously, influenced by Bill Bolcom’s presence. Joan Morris [Bolcom’s wife, collaborator and co-lecture r] sat in many times at the seminar and would interject the singer’s perspective. 

“After random pairings at the start, we formed alliances for the final project. These were real collaborations with real process—not just handing finished poems to a composer, who then writes the music. There was a nice back and forth—and considerable aesthetic diversity, both in the poems and music—and in the results of collaboration.” 

o

TUESDAY, MAY 3 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Challenging Wood – Beyond the Wooden Frame” a woodworking exhibit through May 26 at the June Steingart Art Galley, Laney College, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Reception from 5 to 8 p.m. 464-3586. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

David Rothenberg describes “Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

NoMeansNo at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Front Porch, The Trainwreck Riders, JD Buck, Jr. at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Lynne Arriale Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200.  

Lyrics Born at 6:30 p.m. in Lower Sproul Plaza, UC Campus. 

Duncan James, jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4 

FILM 

Fim 50: “The Saddest Music in the World” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rush Kidder talks about “Moral Courage” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Katy Turchin, poet, at 6:30 p.m. at at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Donations benefit battered women. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam Team Competition at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Holy Names University Chorus and Chamber Singers at 7:30 p.m. at 3500 Mountain Blvd. Tickets are $5-$15. 436-1130. 

Del Sol String Quartet at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $7-$21. 

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Yair Dalal, Holocaust Memorial Concert at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-15. 525-5054.  

Deepak Ram with Debopriyo Sarkar, Indian bansuri flute, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Whiskey Brothers at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

Stilleta, CD release, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7-$8. 848-0886.  

Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Fri. Cost is $8-$12. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, MAY 5 

EXHIBITIONS 

Alvarado Artists Group Show at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Reception at 6 p.m. 848-1228.  

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808.  

Earth Day Art created by Alameda County K-12 students is on display at 461 Ninth St., Oakland. Each piece of art in the Re-Create exhibit, sponsored by StopWaste.Org and the Museum of Children's Art, is made from recycled materials. Exhibition runs to May 21. 614-1699. 

THEATER 

“Ancestral Body Navegante,” spoken word performance by María Elena Fernandez at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568.  

FILM 

Festival Follies: “Words in Progress” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free screening. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems with student poets at 12:10 p.m. at Morrison Library in Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-0137.  

Robert Morris’s “Blind Time Drawings” Gallery talk with Eve Meltzer at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808.  

David Kirby discusses “Evidence of Harm—Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

John Markoff, introduces “What the Dormouse Said: How 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with Max Ventura and celebrating the release of David Lerner’s book, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985.  

Diane Kirsten, poet, at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988.  

Beth Custer Ensemble at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054.  

Red Riding Hood at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryplough.com 

Za’atar, Jewish music from Arab lands, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Danny Caron and John Wiitala at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Lee Ritenour & Friends at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square., through Sun. Cost is $15-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

David Siegel, Jenn August, Jason Miller, folk, at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10.  

FRIDAY, MAY 6 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, “Working,” inspired by Studs Terkel, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Through May 7. Tickets are $13-$15. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Aurora Theatre, “Blue/Orange” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m., 2081 Addison St. through May 15. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.aurora.theatre.org 

Berkeley High School, “A Chorus Line” Fri. and Sat at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $12 for adults, $6 for students at the door. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater “The People’s Temple” at the Roda Theater, through May 29. Tickets are $20-$55. 647-2949.  

Black Repertory Group “Bubbling Brown Sugar” the musical Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2:30 and 8 p.m. to May 14 at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $7-$15. 652-2120.   

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through May 21. Tickets are $12-$20. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Eastenders Repertory “A Knight's Escape” and “WWJD,” Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m., through May 15 at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $15-$18 available from 568-4118. 

Impact Briefs 7: “The How-To Show” Thu.-Sat at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through May 28. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

“Proof” by David Auburn, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through May 7 at The Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $13. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“What’s Hot in the Emerging Art Scene” a special show of emerging East Bay artists at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Door to Door” Collaborations with strangers by Jon Brumit opens at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Through May 27. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“Convection” A show of new works by Ellen Babcock. Reception at 5 p.m. at Atelier Gallery, 1812 Sixth St. Exhibition runs through May 27, by appointment only. 486-1485. www.ateliergalery.net 

FILM 

Berkeley Independent Festival of Digital Arts Opening Night Gala at 8 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Sponsored by Vista College. Tickets are $10-$20. 981-2818. www.ifdigitalarts.org 

Works from the Eisner Awards Competition, with artists in person, at 7 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Byron Katie talks about “I Need Your Love Is That True?” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $10. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

California Bach Society Warren Stewart’s Farewell Concert at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Pre-concert talk at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $10-$25. 415-262-0272. www.calbach.org 

Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988.  

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$20. 642-9988. 

Dick Hindman Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Cristo Cortés, gypsy flamenco singer, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The People and Alfred Howard & The K23 Orchestra at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Stairwell Sisters at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Adrian Gormley Quartet, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Lua, a quartet of voices, percussion and strings at 6:30 p.m. at Café Valpariso, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 841-3800. 

The Herms, The Krose, Jack Killed Jill, punk, alt, indie rock at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7-$8. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Casey Neill at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Jessica Neighbor & The Hood at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Itsawhale at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Kill the Dream, Die Young, Invictus Maneo at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Lee Ritenour & Friends at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square., through Sun. Cost is $15-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, MAY 7 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Rosie & The Railroaders at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

THEATER 

Rough and Tumble “The Devil is an Ass” by Ben Jonson at 7:30 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 601-1444. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Alvarado Artists Group Show with works by Kristen Jensen, Sally Smith, Ross Carlton and James and Gillian Servais at the Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Reception for the artists at 1 p.m. 848-1228.  

Akio Takamori, functional porcelain ceramics, at Trax Gallery, 1812 Fifth St. 540-8729. www.traxgallery.com 

FILM 

Berkeley Independent Festival of Digital Arts from noon to 9 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Sponsored by Vista College. Tickets are $5-$10. 981-2818. www.ifdigitalarts.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Investigative Journalism and ‘The People’s Temple’” at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2015 Addison St. Free. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Andrew Bacevich describes “The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War” at 2:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Hip-Hop Aesthetics in Theater at noon at La Peña Cultural Center. Free. 849-2568.  

Bay Area Poets Coalition open reading at 3 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street. Free. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Macbeth” by Verdi, with the UC Alumni Chorus at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater. Tickets are $15-$40. 841-1903. www.berkeleyopera.org 

Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra Duruflé “Requiem” at 8 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. free, donations accepted. www.bcco.org 

Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$20. 642-9988. 

Volti “Copeland’s American Landscape” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $8-$20. 415-771-3352. www.voltisf.org 

“Angela’s Mixtape” by Eisa Davis, a musical montage of her life growing up with activist aunt Angela Davis. Sat. and Sun. at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568, ext. 20. www.lapena.org  

Mother’s Day Gospel Concert featuring Pamela Adams at 5:30 p.m. at Miracles of Faith Community Church, 4335 Virginia Ave., Oakland. Donations benefit the American Breast Cancer Society. 326-6190. 

Del Sol String Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $7-$21. 415-831-5672. www.delsolquartet.com 

G.S. Sachdev and Swapan Chaudhuri, classical North Indian Ragas at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $23-$32. 415-259-8629. www.bansuri.net 

Robin Flower & Libby McLaren, celtic americana, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Tempest, Sharon Night at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Mumbo Gumbo at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Viv Savage, The Morning Electric, Glasshour at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Braziu, Brazilian music, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Samantha Raven and friends at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Weber Iago Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Meli at 9:30 p.m. at Capoeira Arts Cafe, 2026 Addison St. Donation $6. 

Mark Holzinger, acoustic guitar at Spuds Pizzeria, corner of Alcatraz & Adeline. Cost is $7.  

Dick Conte Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Das Oath, Look Back and Laugh, Shook Ones at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MAY 8 

CHILDREN  

Mother’s Day Concert with Mary Miche at 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Juan Sanchez at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

Kathy Kallick Mother’s Day Show at 1 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $7.50-$9.50. 548-1761. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Art of the Launch” an exhibition of graphic art, photographs and memorabilia relating to the 747 ships built at the Kaiser shipyards during WWII, at the Richmond Museum, 400 Nevin Ave. 235-7387. richmondmuseumofhistory.org 

“Sephardic Horizons” a tour with Judaica curator, Elayne Grossbard at 1:30 p.m., colloquium at 2 p.m. at Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Elizabeth Treadwell and Liz Waldner at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra featuring 14-year-old Jack Draper, clarinet, at 2:30 p.m. at Laney College Theater in Oakland. Donation $5. 663-3296. 

Steve Wedgwood, baritone, with Michelle Diaz, soprano, in an AIDS Benefit Recital at 4 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Donation. 526-3805. 

Gypsy Crossings featuring Biréli Lagrene and Taraf de Haidouks at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$42. 642-9988.  

Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra Duruflé “Requiem” at 4:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free, donations accepted. www.bcco.org 

California Revels A Mothers Day Tribute to All Mothers at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children. 925-798-1300.  

A Cappella Concert for Mother’s Day with a quartet from the Russian male chorus Slavyanka at 1:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200.  

NATyA “The Elements” Indian classical dance at 6 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $11-$15. 925-798-1300.  

Carlos Zialcita Jazztet at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

New Works for Jazz and Indian Dance at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

John Renbourn with Jacqui McShee at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. ª

Walking across the UC campus in mid-April, I noticed a couple of cliff swallows orbiting Hertz Hall and spotted a jug-shaped mud nest under the building’s eaves. I seem to recall a long-running battle between the swallows and the university’s maintenance crews which involved blasting the nests away with hoses. But the persistent birds keep coming back. 

There are places in the Coast Range, along Del Puerto Canyon Road and Corral Hollow Road, where you can still find cliff swallows nesting on cliffs. But, like barn swallows and chimney swifts, these birds have adapted readily to human structures: buildings, bridges, freeway underpasses, culverts. They’re a colonial species; some cliff swallow nest sites contain up to 3,700 pairs. 

Biologists have argued for years about the propensity of some birds to nest in large groups. Some claimed it was a matter of safety in numbers: Group size dilutes the risk of predation. This ties in with a phenomenon called the Fraser Darling Effect, after British ornithologist Sir Frank Fraser Darling, in which mating, egg-laying, and hatching is synchronized among birds in a colony. The timing is supposed to overwhelm potential predators with a flush of eggs and young and improve the odds that any given nesting pair will succeed in raising their family. In some birds, like yellow-billed magpies, breeding seems to be limited by a minimum colony size. 

A couple of decades back, the Israeli ecologist Amotz Zahavi countered this notion with his “information center” hypothesis: the idea that birds nest colonially to take advantage of their neighbors’ discovery of food sources. That seems a more likely explanation of coloniality in large birds like Old World vultures that are not vulnerable to predation. 

For the past 20 years, Charles and Mary Brown of the University of Tulsa have been testing these and other models of colonial behavior with culvert-nesting cliff swallows along the Platte River in Nebraska. As recounted in Charles Brown’s Swallow Summer, an engaging diary of field work, they’ve learned remarkable things about the costs and benefits of being social, and the strategies that the birds use to maximize their reproductive output.  

The Browns are convinced that cliff swallow colonies do function as information centers. The birds pay attention to what their neighbors bring back to the nest. A swallow coming home with a mouthful of insects has clearly hit pay dirt, and it’s a good idea to follow him or her on the next foray. They can also tell from flight behavior whether a bird is heading back to an insect swarm. 

But there’s a downside to colonial living. Cliff swallows have to cope with a host of ectoparasites, the worst being Oeciacus vicarius, the swallow bug, a relative of the bedbug that plagues humans. Over a thousand of these little bloodsuckers have been found in a single swallow nest. The larger the swallow colony, the worse the infestation. Swallow bugs and other pests clearly depress the birds’ reproductive success; the Browns found that experimentally fumigated colonies boomed as more swallows moved to the parasite-free location. 

That’s only one kind of parasitism, though. Cliff swallows are not the best of neighbors: “These little birds do rotten things to each other,” Brown says. Extra-pair copulations are frequent; males will attempt to mate with strange females as they gather mud for nest construction. Swallows will steal a neighbor’s nest material, both the wet mud that forms the nest and the grass that lines it. Intruders will even enter another pair’s nest and toss out the eggs. Nestlings plant themselves in a strange nest and intercept the owners’ food deliveries to their own chicks. And one of the first things the Browns discovered was that some swallows are brood parasites, like the infamous cuckoos and cowbirds. Early on they found two freshly laid eggs in the same nest on the same day, evidence that someone had been egg-dumping. They eventually figured that up to a quarter of the nests in the larger colonies were parasitized.  

Successful brood parasitism requires speed and stealth. One female managed to lay an egg in 15 seconds while the homeowners were fending off another intruder. Parasitic females time their visits to reduce the likelihood of bumping into the host female.  

Remarkably, the Browns found that some swallows picked up their own eggs in their beaks and moved them to a neighboring nest. They verified this by marking eggs and seeing which turned up in new nests, and eventually catching females in the act.  

Unlike cuckoos, parasitic female swallows also raise their own young in their own nests. By parasitizing their neighbors, they avoid putting all their eggs in one basket, hedging their bets against losses from predation, an excess of swallow bugs, or the collapse of the nest. They also seem able to assess the quality of the nests where they sneak in their eggs, choosing those with fewer bugs. The Browns found that annual and lifetime reproductive success—fitness, in the Darwinian sense of leaving the greatest number of descendants—was higher for parasitic females than for either hosts or nonparasitized birds. 

So swallows nesting in a large colony increase their risk of raising someone else’s offspring. The Browns’ most recent research shows that a cliff swallow’s choice of colony size has a genetic basis. They moved nestlings from small colonies to foster homes in large colonies and vice versa; when they matured, the birds followed the colony-size preference of their biological parents, not their foster parents. The sum of all those tradeoffs—information about food, insurance against predators, vulnerability to parasitic insects and to their own kind—is somehow encoded in a swallow’s genome, along with instructions for building their nests, migration routes between California (or Nebraska) and South America, and a taste for flying insects.

Wild rumors that the City of Berkeley is about to sell its citizens down the river have been sweeping the city ever since the University of California opened the discussion of what its future plans for growth might be. We’ve had anguished voicemail messages from citizens who’ve picked up crumbs of information ever since last fall. Neither the much trumpeted City of Berkeley lawsuit challenging U.C.’s environmental impact report on its latest Long Range Development Plan nor the city’s threats that it would finally begin to collect sewer and parking fees from the university assuaged these anxieties.  

Many of the concerned citizens have vivid memories of previous occasions when city officials made a loud fuss and then sold out to the university in return for small and unenforceable concessions. Cases in point: the compromised lawsuit over U.C.’s previous and fictitious LRDP; the morphing of the California School for the Deaf and Blind into U.C.’s Clark Kerr Campus; the toothless Memorandum of Understanding which purported to deal with the immense impacts of building Haas Pavilion. Long term residents have heard these siren songs before, and now they don’t trust them. Residents of other U.C. cities share the same concerns. 

These worries have come to a head since the closed meeting of the Berkeley City Council which took place on April 25. On the agenda were the E.I.R. lawsuit and the fee cases. (The council’s craven capitulation at their last regular meeting to U.C.’s plan to build an unsafe and ugly bridge over Hearst Street did nothing to reassure anyone.) No report came out of that closed meeting, and repeated questions to councilmembers who attended have produced no answers. They’ve been told by city staff that their lips must be sealed. This is clearly hard for councilmembers who believe in open government. It’s probably even more of a trial for those who have some reason to question the deals they might be offered, judging by the evident stress in their voices when they tell the press that they’re sorry they can’t talk to us.  

Here at the Planet we still believe in that hoary old chestnut “The People’s Right to Know.” We realize that to a signicant number of government officials it’s an obsolete slogan. 

In order to figure out what we should expect to find out about deals that are going down between City Hall and University Hall, we consulted an old friend, Antonio Rossman, who teaches land use law at U.C.’s own Boalt School of Law. He kindly emailed us back a few rules of thumb based on experience from his own practice, where he’s settled a number of complex CEQA cases for public agencies. 

Planet: Should the City Council really keep their discussions with the University secret from the public? 

Rossman: Some degree of confidentiality is appropriate and even necessary for two sides to reach a proposed settlement agreement to be submitted to their respective principals, and where appropriate, constituency. 

Planet: We’ve heard that council members are not even allowed to take written copies of proposed deals away from meetings. Is that fair? 

Rossman: It is not inappropriate for counsel to distribute confidential memoranda for discussion and then ask for them back before the executive session ends. That protects everyone, including the members themselves, from accusations of impropriety if confidential material is disclosed. The confidentiality should only be broken when there is consensus for release among the council and with the other negotiating party. It seems extraordinary, and probably inappropriate, on a matter of the LRDP’s complexity, controversy, and public interest, to ask council members to vote at once on a settlement proposal not previously disclosed to them. How long did it take the attorneys and negotiators to reach their proposal? Shouldn’t the decision makers have some time to reflect on it and discern not only what is there, but what is not there? 

Planet: When can the public find out what agreement is being proposed in their name? 

Rossman: On a matter of this much public interest, and in Berkeley’s political context, I would expect the proposed settlement to be made public for comment before finality. 

Planet: What if citizens don’t think they’re going to like the deal they’re handed? 

Rossman: Remedy for those who have vital interests that are being compromised against those interests: intervene at once in the superior court to ensure that the court holds a public hearing before settlement, and possibly litigate the case themselves. 

So there you have it. If you citizens want to preserve your right to know what kind of deal the city of Berkeley is making before the deal has gone down, you have the option of intervening. Go, right now, to the judge who is hearing the lawsuit, with your own attorney. Ask for a clear ruling that the proposed outcome (which could be a settlement or the city’s withdrawal of its suit) must be disclosed to the public before it is made final. Then, if it seems like a bad deal, you can carry the lawsuit forward on your own without the participation of the City of Berkeley.  

And of course, for those of you out there who still believe in representative government and who shy away from legal remedies, you can always call your councilmember and demand that any proposed deal be made public with enough lead time for adequate public comment before the council takes its ultimate final vote in an open meeting. As we’ve said before in this space, however, don’t hold your breath.  

Facing a $30 million deficit, BART is considering charging passengers up to $5 a day for parking, and the stations most likely to see parking fees are in Berkeley and Oakland. 

Last week the BART Board of Directors debated several parking fee proposals. One would charge fees at all of its lots. Another would only charge for parking at six lots, all located in Berkeley and Oakland: Ashby, North Berkeley, West Oakland, Rockridge, MacArthur and Lake Merritt. The board is also considering raising fees up to 15 cents a ride and scaling back senior and student discounts. 

BART General Manager Tom Margro said BART proposed charging for parking at the six lots because they were typically filled to capacity and the Berkeley City Council last year voted unanimously in favor of parking fees at BART stations in Berkeley. 

BART board member Bob Franklin, who represents part of Berkeley and supports parking fees, said the fee would open up more spaces for BART riders and make BART fares more equitable. Currently, he said, maintenance of each parking space costs BART about $1 a day. Most of the money for parking lot maintenance comes from fares paid by all passengers regardless of whether they park at BART or not. 

“Basically it’s an unfair subsidy given to drivers,” he said. Franklin also said that if parking fees are collected motorists who don’t use BART will be less likely to park in BART lots. 

The City Council has another incentive to encourage parking fees at Berkeley BART lots. The city contends that public agencies like BART and UC Berkeley are subject to the city’s ten percent parking tax. With 1,437 parking spaces in Berkeley, if BART charged $2 per space, Berkeley could net about $80,000 a year. 

However, like UC Berkeley, BART has disagreed with the city’s position. When Oakland asked BART to collect city parking taxes, BART lawyers argued that the agency was exempt from the tax, according to Carter Mau, BART’s manager of customer access.  

Franklin said he expected the board to pass parking fees of between $1 and $2 dollars for the Berkeley and Oakland stations, with a higher fee for West Oakland, where private parking garages charge $6 for daily parking. Currently BART charges $2 a day to park at Colma and Daly City and 25 cents to park at Lake Merritt. 

BART’s deficit stems mainly from falling revenues and increasing costs, Margro said. While sales tax revenues and ridership (BART’s two sources of income) have dropped over the past five years, employee salaries and benefits have increased. BART currently serves an average of 310,00 riders every weekday, down from 335,000 in 2001, Margro said. Adding to BART’s financial troubles, the agency has a $25 million unfunded liability for retiree medical benefits, he added. 

Enacting the maximum parking and fare hikes would generate about $4 million for the agency. To make up more of the shortfall, Margro has proposed cutting 115 positions, half of which are already vacant, he said. 

The board has until the end of June to pass a budget for the 2006 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Franklin said he expects the board to vote on a parking fee at its June 8 meeting.  

BART is not required to run a balanced budget. It last approved a budget with a deficit in 1995. Last year, BART closed a $40 million deficit with fare increases, budget cuts and the use of money that had been earmarked for capital projects. Previously the board approved a 3.7 percent fare increase set to go into effect in January. It will be the agency’s third fare increase since 2001.›

TUESDAY, MAY 3 

Mid-Day Meander on favorite trails for bird songs, ferns and flowers. Meet at 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Bird Walk at 3:30 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline to to try to find the elusive Burrowing Owl. 525-2233. 

Community Budget Workshop with City staff on the two-year City budget cycle which begins July 1, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 981-7004.  

Alvaro Vargas Llosa on “Liberty for Latin America” at 6:30 p.m. at the Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$35. For rservations call 632-1366. 

Vision Screening for Toddlers at 10 a.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

“Osteoporosis: Learn the Facts” with at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. Free. 526-7512.  

Berkeley Salon Discussion Group meets to discuss dreams from 7 to 9 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Please bring snacks and soft drinks to share. No peanuts please. 601-6690.     

Introductory Buddhist Meditation Class at 7 p.m. at Dzalandhara Buddhist Center, in Berkeley. Suggested donation $7-$10. For directions call 559-8183. www.kadampas.org 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Sing-A-Long every Tues. from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic. All ages welcome. 524-9122. 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. 

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. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll explore the nature area ponds from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Bilingual CPR Skills Workshop at 11 a.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

“The Nation’s Growing Fiscal Imbalance: Perspectives and Issues” with David M. Walker Comptroller General of the U.S. at 5 p.m. at Andersen Auditorium, Haas School of Business, UC Campus. 642-4670. http://gspp.berkeley.edu/  

“The Impact of the Central American Free Trade Agreement” with Eduardo Stein, VIce President of the Republic of Guatemala, at 4 p.m. in the Howard Room, Men’s Faculty Club, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

Circle K’s 25th Blood Drive with American Red Cross from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Thurs. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Pauley Ballroom, UC Campus.  

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation at 10 a.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed 594-5165. 

Healing Ourselves and the World through movement, visualization, artwork and writing from 7 to 9 p.m. at 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $15-25 sliding scale. 286-7915. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Action St. 841-2174.  

Berkeley School Volunteers Workshop for volunteers interested in helping in Berkeley Public Schools at 4 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Artify Ashby Muralist Group meets every Wed. from 5 to 8 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, to plan a new mural. 704-0803. 

Sing-Along every Wed. at 4:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil corner of Shattuck and Center at 6:30 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MAY 5 

Very Early Morning Bird Walk to hear the morning chorus. Meet at 5:30 a.m. at the Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll explore the nature area ponds from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Tilden Explorers An after school nature adventure for 5-7 year olds who may be accompanied by an adult. No younger siblings please. From 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“The Muslim World: Objects of Empire: Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Oil, Globalization, Torture, Human Rights, Democracy and Civilization” with Dr. Hatem Bazian, Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies, UCB, at 7 p.m. at 145 Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. 

Holocaust Remembrance Day with Dr. Tirza True Latimer at 6:30 p.m. at Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $4-$6. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

“Aging in America: The Years Ahead” a documentary with the director, Julie Winokur, in person at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Running Your Car on Ethanol with David Blume at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5-$25 sliding scale. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

East Bay Mac User Group meets from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Expression Center for New Media, 6601 Shellmound St.  

www.expression.edu 

FRIDAY, MAY 6 

Holocaust Rememberance Day at noon at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr Way, featuring author Liz Rosner, Holocaust survivor Dora Sorrel, 2nd generation daughter Lisa Klug, and Patricia Whaley, viola, and Lola Fraknoi. 981-7170. 

Spring Plant Sale at The Edible Schoolyard with vegetables, flowers and perennials grown by the students of King Middle School. Fri. from 3:30 to 6 p.m. and Sat. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1781 Rose St. 558-1335.  

“The Ambassador” The documentary on John Negroponte, new Director of National Intelligence, and his alleged complicity in human rights abuses in Central America, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Donations accepted. 482-1062. 

“Rights, Liberties, and the Rules of Engagement“ The 9th Annual Travers Ethics Conference from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Lipman Room, 8th floor, Barrows Hall, UC Campus. Keynote Address “A New Paradigm for Confronting Terrorism” by Morton Halperin, Open Society Institute, at 11:15 a.m. http://ethics.berkeley.edu 

May Friendship Day at 9:30 a.m. at Berkeley Methodist United Church, 1710 Carleton St. Potluck lunch, following the program “Living in the Light: True Friends Are Salt and Light.” Sponsored by Church Women United, Berkeley-Albany Unit. 525-3284. 

The Deeksha Project Concentration Workshop at 7 p.m. at a West Berkeley location. Donations requested. For reservations and details call 453-0606. 

“Three Beats for Nothing” meets at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice, mostly 16th century harmony. 655-8863.  

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, MAY 7 

Sick Plant Clinic UC plant pathologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants from 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755.  

Work in the Garden at Tilden Nature Area from 2 to 4 p.m. Learn to identify local butterfly species as we prepare the garden for warmer weather. Bring gloves, or call if you need them. 525-2233. 

Edible Landscaping and Food Forests A visit to Wildheart Gardens, 463 61St. at Telegraph at 10 a.m. Cost is $10-$15, no one turned away. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

“Superior Performers for Summer-Dry Climates” with Susan Handjian and Chris Finch, water conservation horticulture specialists at 10 a.m. at the Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. 444-7645. www.bayfriendly.org 

Walking Tour of the Garden of Old Roses from 1 to 3 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $8-$12. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Walking Tour of Oakland Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the courtyard fountain in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours 

“Water: The Next Crisis” with Laura Santina at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Gray Panthers Office, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Inside Out” Street Fair on Telegraph Ave. between Parker and Bancroft. 

Progressive Democrats of America East Bay Chapter meets at 1 p.m. at Temescal Library, 5205 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Panel discussion on the Health Care for All Californians Bill. 526-4632. 

East Bay Atheists meets from 2 to 5 p.m. with Dr. Marlene Winell on the process of recovering from religious fundamentalism at Berkeley’s Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd floor Meeting Room. 222-7580. eastbayatheists.org 

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.  

Free Emergency Preparedness Class in Fire Supression from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 997 Cedar St., between 8th and 9th. To sign up call 981-5605. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/fire/oes.html 

The Crucible’s Gala and Art Auction, with opera, fire dancing and fire sculptures at 6 p.m. in the Oakland Rotunda Bldg, Frank Ogawa Plaza. 444-0919. www.thecrucible.org 

“The Flute Player” a documentary about a young man who returns to Cambodia to confront his past as a child-soldier in the Khmer-Rouge army. At 1 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley in Kensington. Donation $7. 525-0302.  

YWCA Dance Performance with flamenco, bellydance, HipHop and more at 7 p.m. at 2600 Bancroft Way at Bowditch. 848-6370. 

Berkeley Potters Guild Annual Spring Show Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 731 Jones St. 524-7031. www.berkeleypotters.com 

Child Safety While Travelling at 11 a.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

Georgeva’s 30th Annual Mother’s Day Fashion Show at 6 p.m. at Best Western Inn, 920 University Ave. Tickets are $35-$50 at the door. www.georgeva.com 

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, MAY 8 

Mother's Day Pancake Breakfast on board The Red Oak Victory Ship in Richmond Harbor, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost is $6, children free. Take HY 580 towards San Rafael and exit at Canal Blvd., turn left and follow the signs to the ship. 237-2933. 

Mother’s Day Pond Plunge Discover the denizens of the deep with dip-nets and magnifiers from at 10:30 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. For ages 4 and up. Dress to get dirty and wet. 525-2233. 

Unselt Lecture: “The Brain on Plants” a lecture on medicinal plants with Dr. David Presti at 2 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Free, but registration required. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

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 

“Native American Spirituality and Healing Practices” with Hank “Waabeza” Adams at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

“Sacred Body, Sacred Landscapes” a chanting and movement workshop at 5 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $8-$12. 883-0600. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Why Meditate?” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MAY 9 

Musical Concert and Sing-A-Long at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Everyone welcome. 981-5190.  

Tea and Hike at Four Taste some of the finest teas from the Pacific Rim and South Asia and learn their natural and cultural history, followed by a short nature walk. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233.  

Elderhostel Program with Ann White at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Sponsored by the Friends of the Kensington Library. 524-3043.  

Home Buyer Assistance Information Session at 6 p.m. at 1504 Franklin St., Oakland. Sponsored by the Home Buyer Assistance Center. Reservations required. 832-6925, ext. 100. www.hbac.org 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60 years and over meets Mondays at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $2.50 with refreshments. 524-9122. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, MAY 10 

Morning Bird Walk Meet at 7 am. opposite the Pony Ride, Tilden Park, for a walk up the Gorge Trail. 525-2233. 

Bird Walk along the Martin Luther King Shoreline to see the Clapper Rails and the elusive Burrowing Owl at 3:30 p.m. 525-2233. 

Mother’s Day Celebration with George Rider and Scrumbly from Stagebridge at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center. 

“The Continuing Battle to Restore the San Joaquin River” with Hamilton Candee, senior attorney at National Resources Defense Council at 5:30 p.m. in 105 North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Water Resources Center Archives. 642-2666. 

Discover the Benefits of Hiking Poles A lecture and demonstration with Jayah Faye Paley at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Israel Memorial Day at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org 

“Praises for the World” film of the concerts in Oakland in March and Nov. 2003 at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

Vision Screening for Toddlers at 10 a.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

“Just the Flax and Booster Foods” a free nutrition lecture by Ed Bauman, Director of Bauman College, at 5:30 p.m. at Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

Introductory Buddhist Meditation Class at 7 p.m. at Dzalandhara Buddhist Center, in Berkeley. Suggested donation $7-$10. For directions call 559-8183.www.kadampas.org 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Sing-A-Long every Tues. from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic. All ages welcome. 524-9122. 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

ONGOING 

Cross County Hybrid Car Rally May 9 to May 14, starting from Art’s Automotive, 2871 San Pablo Ave. to Saratoga Springs, New York. Art’s Automotive will verify tire pressure, hand out special logs to record your progress and place a special seal on your gas tank cover. At certain checkpoints your fuel mileage will be recorded before you refill your tank. You can chose any route you want as long as you arrive no later than noon May 14th in Saratoga Springs. Sponsored by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association and Autocareers.org Details available at the website www.TourdeSol.org  

Bike Chain Response is organizing an interfaith bike ride from the Nevada Test Site to Los Alamos National Laboratory, June 19 to July 17, to raise awareness of alternative modes of transportation and the tragedy of the nuclear weapons industry. 505-870-2-ASK. www.lovarchy.org/ride/ 

CITY MEETINGS 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., May 5, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461. www.ci.ber 

keley.ca.us/commissions/environmentaladvisory 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., May 5 at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/housing 

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., May 5, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., May 9, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/city 

council/agenda-committee 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., May 9, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/landmarks