Berkeley residents will not get the opportunity to view the terms of a high stakes legal settlement with the University of California, university officials said. 

The university on Friday rejected a request from the City Council to waive a confidentiality agreement, signed at the city’s behest, and release the settlement deal before both sides vote on it this week. 

UC Berkeley Director of Community Relations Irene Hegarty said the university held that it was common practice for litigants not to release the terms of a settlement until it was approved by both parties. 

“From the university’s perspective the agreement isn’t final until the Regents approve it,” she said. 

Announcement of the settlement agreement could come as early as this week, said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. The City Council has scheduled a closed-door meeting Tuesday at 8:30 p.m., presumably to vote on the deal, and the UC Board of Regents Finance Committee has scheduled a closed-door review of the deal for Wednesday. 

“We expect the council will take it up Tuesday and then submit it to the Regents the following day,” Hegarty said. 

The deal could provide the framework for town-gown relations through 2020. In return for the city dropping its lawsuit over the university’s 15-year development plan, the university, which as a state institution is exempt from city taxes, has agreed to increase payments for city services. 

The city, which is eager for new revenue to close budget deficits, had reportedly asked for between $3 million and $5 million a year from the university, which countered with a proposal of $1.2 million. 

Councilmember Dona Spring has hinted that the proposed settlement is far closer to the university’s offer.  

A copy of the university’s settlement proposal to Mayor Tom Bates from December, obtained by the Daily Planet, showed that the university at the time offered the city $1.1 million a year, $350,000 for sewer service, $350,000 for fire service, $200,000 to fund joint transportation and pedestrian safety improvement projects and $200,000 to be spent at the chancellor’s discretion to benefit neighborhoods near the central campus. 

Mayor Bates replied that the offer was too low since Berkeley spent $2.1 million supplying the campus with sewer services and $2 million for fire services.  

Councilmember Worthington is continuing to push for the final settlement to be released publicly before the council’s final vote. 

“The amount of secrecy is absurd especially considering the public will presumably find out this week [after both sides approve the deal],” Worthington said. He added that both the university and the city attorney’s office have told him that not only is the settlement agreement confidential, but so are details of the confidentiality agreement. 

“That is preposterous,” said Worthington, who noted that at last week’s council meeting Mayor Bates expressed surprise that the deal must be kept confidential. 

“How can anyone commit the city to secrecy without telling the mayor or the City Council?” he asked. 

City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque told the council last week that after she discussed the issue with the council in private, the city entered into the agreement to prevent the university from using comments made at settlement discussions during a trial. 

Terry Francke, executive director of the open government organization Californians Aware, didn’t think the confidentiality agreement should prevent the city from releasing the contents of the proposed deal. 

“I don’t see any connection between keeping a city official from popping off about it and releasing the text of the proposed settlement for the public to know about,” he said. “All it seems to protect the city from is having residents tell the City Council what they think of the proposed settlement.”.”Y

Father George Crespin returned to the pulpit Sunday, two days after Oakland Diocese officials cleared him on charges that he sexually molested a boy more than 30 years ago. 

In a letter handed out to parishioners Sunday, Bishop of Oakland Allen Vigneron wrote that a diocese review board found the available evidence “insufficient to support the allegation made against Father Crespin.” 

Diocese officials were not available Monday to answer whether the accuser, whose identity the diocese has withheld, would have the opportunity to appeal the ruling. 

According to parishioners, Father Crespin, 69, told those at mass on Sunday that he was overwhelmed by their support and prayers. 

“It was just jubilation,” said Sharon Girard, who attended the mass. “We all believed in him. I never doubted him for a moment.” 

In February, the diocese placed Crespin on administrative leave while it investigated an accusation from a man who said Crespin sexually abused him in 1984, while Crespin was a priest at Our Lady of the Rosary in Union City. 

Crespin, who has been assigned to Berkeley’s St. Joseph the Worker since 1980, abruptly retired, but maintained his innocence in a letter that was given to parishioners earlier this year. 

“Since I know the person making this accusation, I am firmly convinced that this is being done to get money from the church,” he wrote. 

During the investigation, Father Crespin continued to live at the residence at St. Joseph and meet with parishioners, Girard said. In his new role as Pastor Emeritus, Crespin will continue to lead several services until a permanent replacement is found. 

Although, Crespin’s name has been cleared, the Oakland Diocese, which serves Alameda and parts of Contra Costa counties, as of February still had 44 pending cases of sexual misconduct against clergymen. In the case of Crespin, the charge was too dated for criminal charges to be filed, although if the accusation had been substantiated, the diocese could have been liable for monetary damages. 

Crespin, who was ordained in 1962, has served for 25 years at St. Joseph, which has been a hotbed of liberal Catholic theology. Like his longtime colleague and predecessor as pastor, Father Bill O’Donnell, Crespin championed the cause of the poor, and as the child of Mexican immigrants, he has been especially active with local Latino groups.

Reversing a decision by his predecessor, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau has granted tenure and retroactive pay to embattled Professor Ignacio Chapela. 

The action comes a month after Chapela filed suit against the University of California. 

“I don’t know what I will do next,” said Chapela, a biology professor. “This was a very shocking decision, but I’m glad that this small chapter in my story is over. This takes the tenure issue out of center stage and allows us to concentrate on the questions of the corruption of the university and how decisions are made.” 

The outspoken instructor has been a thorn in the side of the College of Natural Resources where he taught in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management until last December. 

Chapela took a lead role in challenging the 1998 $25 million five-year deal collaborative agreement between Swiss biotech giant Novartis—now renamed Syngenta—and his college, citing the potentials for conflicts of interest and corporate control of research. 

A study conducted last year by Michigan State University concluded that Chapela’s attack on the pact had played a major role in the denial of his tenure. 

In a written statement released Saturday, UC Berkeley spokesperson George Strait denied that Chapela’s attacks played any part in the original decision to deny tenure. If anything, he said, the criticisms may have actually worked in his favor—a point Chapela strongly contested.  

Chapela’s lawsuit, filed April 18 in Alameda County Superior Court by Oakland attorney Dan Siegel, cited three actions of alleged wrongful conduct by the university: discrimination on the basis of national origins (Chapela was born in Mexico); violation of the California Whistleblower Protection Act; and false representations by the university of the real grounds of “secret, de facto requirements for promotion.” 

The lawsuit didn’t seek specific monetary damages, but called for remuneration for lost wages, earnings and benefits, compensatory damages for humiliation, mental anguish and emotional distress and attorneys’ fees and costs of the action. 

Siegel hailed Birgeneau’s decision as “really great, a big victory for Ignacio and the people who have supported him. We didn’t even know it had gotten this far.” 

The chancellor’s decision also granted one of the demands in the lawsuit, granting him full pay as a tenured professor back to 2003. 

Siegel said he didn’t know what effect Birgeneau’s decision might have on the lawsuit. “I’ll have to have discussions with Ignacio,” he said. 

“I have to consult with my attorney,” Chapela said, “but the point must be made that the merit of my claims remains intact. It’s a meritorious lawsuit that can allow the public to know what happened. It would be a painful process to pursue it, but I feel a commitment to the public—though I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to continue.” 

In a prepared statement, the university denied that Chapela’s tenure had been denied for improper reasons. 

“The campus administration believes that the initial review of the case was fair and that there was no conflict of interest,” according to the statement. “This was a case in which reasonable reviewers can disagree, depending on how different elements are weighed.” 

The original denial of tenure was made despite widespread support from faculty in his own college, which voted 32 to 1 in favor of Chapela’s tenure in 2002. Their decision was ratified unanimously by an ad hoc tenure committee. 

The first decision to deny was reached by the campus Budget Committee in June, 2003, and reaffirmed that November.  

Former Chancellor Robert Berdahl issued the formal denial on Nov. 20, 2003 despite repeated recommendations for approval by his department chair and the college dean. 

The budget panel reported that it had decided against tenure based on controversial research by Chapela and graduate student Donald Quist reporting that strains of genetically modified corn had been found deep in the heartland of Mexico where the grain was adapted to cultivation and genetically modified crops were banned. 

The research, published in the November 2001 issue of the prestigious British journal Nature, resulted in a firestorm of controversy. 

One British website featured scathing critiques from “scientists” who turned out to be figments of a publicist’s imagination, while hostile letters poured into Nature, including one from a Berkeley colleague of Chapela’s. Nature responded with a partial retraction, the first in the journal’s history, but subsequent research has verified the presence of manmade genes. 

Marie Felde, director of media relations for the university, said that the recommendation to approve tenure was made on April 25 by a special six-member budget committee that didn’t include any of the nine-member panel that had voted against tenure. 

Chancellor Birgeneau reached the decision to grant tenure on May 17, and Chapela was informed of the decision on the following day by College of Natural Resources Dean Paul Ludden, a supporter. 

Chapela has emerged as perhaps the leading academic critic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and a champion of opponents of the increasing corporate control over the world’s food supply. 

He said he will begin consulting with colleagues in his college to begin working out a research program. Whatever he settles on, Chapela said, will include a focus on biotechnology and GMOs.

Berkeley is poised to become the third city in the nation to require companies that do business with the city to disclose any financial ties with slavery. 

Under the ordinance on the City Council’s Tuesday agenda, the city could void contracts with companies that failed to disclose information or disclosed false data about prior connections with slavery in the United States. The ordinance, which has been passed in Chicago and Richmond, would target big financial and insurance corporations. 

Also scheduled for Tuesday, the council will consider a host of other issues, including: 

• Recommending that the state allow cities to lower the voting age to 16. 

• Urging the county to reduce the number of birds killed at its wind energy sites. 

• Asking the city manager to preserve a city contract with a bicycle messenger company. 

• Lobbying the state to allow local environmentalists to oversee the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s cleanup of Strawberry Creek canyon. • Looking at a dispute over a proposal that neighbors say would super-size a house on Bancroft Way. 

“I think disclosure helps with the healing process [over slavery],” said Councilmember Darryl Moore who co-sponsored the proposal along with councilmembers Max Anderson and Dona Spring. “It helps educate the community that slavery was pervasive throughout the country.” 

Under the proposed law, most companies would have six months to disclose any past involvement with slavery. Insurance companies, which under a state law passed in 2000 are already required to divulge any links with slavery, would have 30 days to make disclosures. New vendors would have to complete the disclosure requirement at the time they sign the city contract. 

To ensure the filings are accurate, both the city and private individuals would be able to file lawsuits to enforce the ordinance. 

Following California’s lead, Chicago in 2002 became the first city ordering vendors to disclose any links to investment or collateral for loans of African Americans enslaved in the United States and living in the city. The law, designed to provide access to records for African Americans to one day seek compensation, forced JP Morgan Chase to disclose that predecessor companies had accepted 13,000 slaves as collateral on loans and took nearly all of them when the plantation owners defaulted.  

In response to the revelation, the corporation has set up a $5 million scholarship fund for African Americans.  

Councilmember Moore said he hoped the Berkeley ordinance might encourage other companies to follow JP Morgan Chase’s lead, but said it was possible that no Berkeley vendors would be affected. 

“I don’t anticipate there would be many banks in California that would have been around at that time,” he said.  

Teenager Vote 

After persistent lobbying from the city’s Youth Commission, the council is scheduled to vote on a proposal asking state lawmakers to allow cities to lower the voting age to 16, and prepare a ballot initiative to lower the voting age in Berkeley once the state acts. 

Robert Reynolds, a Berkeley High senior, has argued before the council that giving 16-year-olds the vote would help generate interest in politics among teens and make them reliable voters for the rest of their lives. 

Councilmember Moore, who is co-sponsoring the proposal with Councilmember Kriss Worthington, said he thought 16-year-olds should at least be able to vote for school board and public school bonds that affect the quality of their education. 

Dead Birds 

Angered over a state study that 4,700 birds are killed every year by the 6,000 twirling wind turbines at Alameda County’s Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, Councilmember Betty Olds is pushing the council to get involved. She wants Berkeley to press county lawmakers to require that wind energy companies find ways to reduce the number of bird deaths by half over the next three years. 

Next week the County Board of Supervisors has scheduled a hearing on the issue at the wind farms that dot the landscape off of I-580 in Livermore. Last year the Golden Gate Audubon Society, the Center for Biological Diversity and Californians for Renewable Energy urged the Board of Supervisors to deny new use permits to wind farm operators that didn’t take action to reduce bird deaths. The organization called for the companies to remove the deadliest brand of turbine and shut down all turbines during the four winter months when the farms produce less energy. 

Bike Messengers 

Councilembers Linda Maio, Anderson and Worthington are asking that the city renew its contract with the Berkeley-based bicycle messenger company Pedal Express to deliver inter-office letters as it had since 1998. Last April, citing that the service was no longer as valuable since city has consolidated its outlying offices downtown, city officials terminated Pedal Express’s contract for a savings of $26,250. 

Lab Cleanup 

With the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory set to clean contaminated soil and groundwater at its campus along the Strawberry Creek Watershed under the direction of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, councilmembers Spring and Worthington are asking the council to lobby the state regulators to establish a citizen advisory board. 

The proposed board would be charged with overseeing the lab’s cleanup effort and would consist of members from creek advocacy groups as well as Berkleyans for a Livable University Environment and the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste. Both of those groups have a history of opposing the university, which Councilmember Spring argued made them well suited for participation on an advisory board. 

“They’ve been active on these issues,” said Spring, adding that she thought the lab had a credibility gap between its statements and actions in protecting the environment.  

Unwanted Demolition 

The council will be asked to settle a dispute between the new owner of 1734 Bancroft Ave. and several neighbors. Residents have had qualms over the house for years, which was at times offered as a homeless encampment by the former owner, who died several years ago.  

Instead of spending an estimated $130,000 to repair the 1,315-square-foot home, the new owner, Christine Lee, whom Councilmember Spring said plans to sell the property, has received a permit to tear down the house and build a two-story, 2,531-square-foot house in its place. The plans have angered neighbors. 

William Taylor, a neighbor who filed an appeal to the permit, argued that the city’s Zoning Adjustment Board should not have issued the permit since the original building could have been renovated. “It is a bad precedent to allow such a structure to be demolished merely because a new owner wants to replace it with something bigger,” he wrote.  

Taylor added that the current home, which he wrote dates back to the turn of the 20th century, was consistent with the scale of buildings on the block, while the proposed house “is just a vertical box filling the property out to its limits.” 

Berkeley Land Use Planning Manager Mark Rhoades held that the ZAB could issue the demolition permit without a finding that the building could not be saved and that the ZAB had found that the project would not be detrimental to adjacent properties, the surrounding area or the neighborhood.?

The controversial Seagate Building, a nine-story condo-and-commercial project planned for Center Street, has been sold and renamed The Arpeggio of Berkeley. Construction is slated to begin this fall with completion two years later. 

According to the grant deed filed with the Alameda County Recorder’s office on May 18, Seagate Center Partners sold the project to SNK Captec Arpeggio, LLC, a joint venture corporation between an Arizona builder and a Michigan financial company. 

The same partnership is also involved in a 102-unit residential and ground floor commercial project in Emeryville, on the site of the bankrupt King Midas Card Club on San Pablo Avenue, with an adjoining 263-car parking structure. 

SNK Development, the Arizona half of the development team, has developed a serious of housing and commercial projects in the Bay Area, including: 

• The Franklin 88, an 88-unit condominium project in Oakland’s Chinatown. 

• The Allegro Loft Project, a 310-unit building at Third and Jackson streets in Oakland. 

• The Allegro, 312-apartment mixed use project at Jack London Square. 

• The Arioso, a 201-unit apartment complex in Cuppertino. 

• The Alborado, a 442-unit apartment complex in Fremont. 

Other projects are located in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California. 

The Phoenix-based firm has its own construction company and is also a wireless and cable television provider. 

“We are delighted to develop this first of its kind project in the City of Berkeley and look forward to working with Seagate and the Berkeley Repertory Theater to bring it to fruition,” said SNK CEO Hal Watson in a prepared statement released Monday afternoon. 

On the firm’s website, Watson reports that the company began with garden-style apartments but had shifted focus to urban infill projects. 

“Anticipating future market trends, we’re adopting innovative design and construction models that provide multi-family housing that’s relevant to demand,” he said. “We’ve started to investigate urban ethnic markets, where future population growth will be greatest.” 

Captec Financial Group, the financial partner, is based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and specializes in development and equipment financing and holds a portfolio of leased properties. Founded in 1981, the company owns or manages approximately $1 billion in assets, according to the corporate website. 

SNK Realty Group, an arm of SNK Development, joined with Captec last August to create to form SNK Opportunity Partners LLC. According to a Captec press release, the firm plans to develop a minimum of 15 new projects over a five-year span. The agreement spelled an end to SNK’s 14-year relationship with Kishimoto Building Group, the firm’s previous bankroller. 

Announcing the creation of the joint venture firm, Captec Chair Patrick L. Beach said the new firm “has the development talent and balance sheet to successfully build and manage many types of properties, including multi-family rental, condominiums and mixed use retail.” 

The Seagate project has proved a lightning rod for criticism in Berkeley, especially because its nine-story height is four stories more than permitted by the Downtown Plan. 

The building will house 149 condominium units in addition to 5,675 square feet of retail space as well as a large rehearsal space for the Berkeley Rep and 160 underground parking spaces. 

Seagate principal Mark Polite, who signed the grant deed transferring the property to SNK Captec, expressed his thanks in the SNK press release to the city, the Planning Department, the City Council and Mayor Tom Bates “for their support in approving The Arpeggio of Berkeley.”

Ozzie’s, the soda fountain at the former Elmwood Pharmacy, has been granted a one-month reprieve from its scheduled June 1 closing, said operator Michael Hogan. 

“We have an extra month so that I can review the leases and hopefully work out something that will enable us to stay in business,” said Hogan. 

Ozzie’s was the last Bay Area example of a once ubiquitous institution, the drugstore soda fountain, until Elmwood Pharmacy owner Victoria Carter closed her prescription drug business last year. 

Renamed Elmwood Health & Mercantile, the 2900 College Ave. business has been converted to a gift shop and over-the-counter medication business. 

Hogan said that a mediator will work with him and Carter in hopes of formulating a lease that both parties will find acceptable. 

Carter declined to comment for this article other than to say that she felt it necessary to raise the cost of the monthly lease because she hadn’t raised it in more than a year and during that time the cost of her master lease had increased. 

Berkeley’s Planning Commission could act on their proposed revisions to the city’s Landmark’s Preservation Ordinance as early as Wednesday night. 

City Councilmember Dona Spring said Mayor Tom Bates has been exerting pressure to weaken the ordinance, which provides protections for structures designated by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. 

“There’s been a familiar theme in the City Council Agenda Committee in which the mayor is pushing the city manager to get them through the Planning Commission as soon as possible,” Spring said. 

Spring said Bates wants the changes on the council’s agenda so they can be passed before the council goes on its summer recess at the end of July. 

A call to Bates’ office was not returned by deadline time. 

“He’s no fan of the Landmarks Ordinance,” said Spring. “He doesn’t like anything to interfere with development.” 

The ordinance is the only major action item on the Planning Commission agenda for the meeting that begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

The commission is also scheduled to appoint a formal subcommittee to work on procedures for implementing the controversial density bonus and inclusionary housing provisions of city code. 

ZAB revisits “Flying Cottage” 

The Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) has already named its own inclusionary/density bonus panel. 

ZAB meets Thursday night at 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, to consider, among other items, the “Flying Cottage” at 3045 Shattuck Ave. 

ZAB members have indicated little favor for the latest version of plans for the three-story structure, which consists of a former cottage raised atop a two-story plywood shell. 

The hearing will be focused on whether the structure complies with the city Zoning Ordinance. 

Also on the agenda are developer John DeClerq’s request for ZAB’s consent to his plea to modify noise reduction strictures at the Library Gardens project at 2020 Kittredge St., a hearing on a new home planned for 1143 Hillview Road and a cell phone company’s request to install a generator atop the Heinz Building at 2900 San Pablo Ave.

Plans for a new 800-acre North Oakland redevelopment district just south of the Berkeley border have been put on hold. 

Kathy Kleinbaum, project manager for the existing, smaller two-parcel redevelopment project that flanks the proposed new district, made the announcement in an e-mail to North Oakland activists. 

First District Councilmember Jane Brunner said Monday she had already asked for the proposal to be removed from the City Council’s agenda before the plan was presented to area residents on May 9. 

“When I learned about it, I said you can’t go forward without going to the community first,” Brunner said. “Redevelopment is a big deal and you can’t do it without engaging the community in a conversation.” 

Hundreds of concerned residents packed the North Oakland Senior Center on May 9 to hear project plans and register their opposition. 

In her e-mail, Kleinbaum said, “In response to the concerns raised by the community ... the Redevelopment Agency has suspended all action items relating to moving forward with the redevelopment plan amendment.” 

City officials had proposed merging the proposed new 800-acre district with the smaller 600-acre Broadway/MacArthur/ San Pablo Redevelopment Project. 

Kleinbaum said the proposed project had been pulled from the City Council agenda and the requests for proposals for various aspects of project development had been suspended. 

“Staff will only move forward with the proposed redevelopment plan amendment if there is clear community support in this area,” she wrote. 

The project had been fast-tracked for approval. Calls for proposals from consultants and others had been issued and interviews with candidates had already commenced well before the project was unveiled at the May 9 community meeting. 

Many of those who attended the session voiced fears that, despite assurances from Kleinbaum and others, the project might entail the eminent domain seizures of their homes. City officials promised that eminent domain would be only exercised against blighted commercial properties, but many speakers indicated they weren’t convinced. 

Others contended that the project area was anything but blighted—a necessary finding before redevelopment can be implemented. 

Brunner said that she considered creation of a redevelopment district because it was the easiest way to obtain funds for projects individual neighborhoods have been seeking. 

“Other council districts have redevelopment zones, so when they want to do, say, $500,000 in streetscape improvements they have a source of funding. That’s the only reason to consider creating a district,” Brunner said. 

The councilmember said that about a year and a half ago she had divided her district into seven areas and held meetings with community members to see what sort of projects they wanted in their neighborhoods. 

“San Pablo Avenue wanted lighting, Telegraph Avenue wanted streetscape improvements, Shattuck Avenue wanted frontage improvements at Bushrod Park and College Avenue wanted streetscape improvements and benches,” she said. “We were able to provide a little funding, about $50,000 each. But Telegraph Avenue alone was proposing between $1 million and $2 million in improvements, and the city simply doesn’t have that kind of money.” 

Brunner said, “If that’s what the community wants, the question becomes, how do we fund it? That’s when we began considering redevelopment.”  

Other sources of state and federal funding are highly competitive, pitting city against city and district against district. Redevelopment offers tax increment funding, drawing funds out of increased property values with the state making up on any losses to schools. 

The councilmember acknowledged that redevelopment has a troubled history, “and there’re lots of reasons to be concerned.” 

Before the proposal is reintroduced, Brunner said, there will be more discussions with community members. 

“There’s not going to be 100 percent consensus,” she said. “But in any case, there will be no eminent domain exercised against residential properties.”

Neighbors of Le Chateau, UC Berkeley’s most infamous student co-op, and the University Students Cooperative Association have reached a tentative settlement on the neighbor’s nuisance suit. 

Under the terms of the agreement, scheduled to be signed today (Tuesday), USCA would drop the appeal of a small claims court ruling in favor of the neighbors, and pay the 15 plaintiffs a total of $32,000. The settlement also stipulates that future disputes be settled by mediation, according to USCA Community Relations and Development Director Kathryn McCarthy. 

Two months ago, Small Claims Court Commissioner John Rantzman ordered the USCA to pay neighbors $63,250 for creating a nuisance at the corner of Hillegas and Parker streets. 

Since the ruling, the USCA has changed Le Chateau’s theme. Instead of housing undergraduate students, the co-op, when it reopens this fall, will house only graduate students, visiting scholars, post doctorate employees and reentry students. 

Six months after it was initially authorized by the outgoing Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees, Oakland developer Alan Dones’ proposed exclusive negotiation agreement for development of Laney College lands goes back to the board for final approval tonight (Tuesday). 

The appearance on tonight’s Peralta agenda follows escalating charges of racism and suggestions that the proposal has “the appearance of a backroom deal.” The proposed agreement also comes without Chancellor Elihu Harris’ recommendation. 

The Peralta Trustees meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the Peralta Administrative Headquarters, 333 East Eighth St. in Oakland. 

If approved by the trustees, Dones and his Strategic Urban Development Alliance (SUDA) will have exclusive rights for one year to develop a lease and development agreement for the Laney faculty-student parking lot on East Eighth Street and for district properties on East Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue that include the Peralta Administration Building, the International and Global Education Center, the Admissions and Records Headquarters, and Peralta’s Central Receiving Warehouse. 

In return, Dones will pay the district a $100,000 deposit and reimburse the district for up to $350,000 for the costs of putting together the plan. No money will be paid by Peralta to SUDA, and the agreement contains no promise that the district will give final approval to the lease and development agreement that SUDA eventually develops. 

The Peralta Federation of Teachers and other local union representatives are expected to oppose the Dones-Peralta agreement. In recent weeks, resolutions of opposition have also come from both the Peralta District Academic Senate and the Laney College Faculty Senate. 

The board vote on the Dones proposal is expected to be close. The Dones contract proposal initially came to the board last November, when trustees voted to authorize contract negotiations between Dones and Chancellor Harris. But Harris broke off negotiations after controversy mounted over the proposal, saying that he thought the proposal was “premature.” 

Three of the board members—President Bill Riley, Vice President Linda Handy, and Trustee Alona Clifton—voted to authorize the contract when it initially came before the board. Clifton is listed on the SUDA website as a “participant” in SUDA’s downtown Oakland Thomas L. Berkeley Square development project, and is the president of the North County Center for Self Sufficiency Corporation, which will eventually have its headquarters in that project. 

Because of her ties to Dones, opponents of the Dones proposal have attempted to force Clifton to recuse herself from the vote. Clifton says that neither she nor Peralta General Counsel Thuy Nguyen feel that Clifton has a conflict of interest on the Dones vote. 

With trustees Cy Gulassa, Nicky Gonzalez Yuen, and Bill Withrow expected to vote against the Dones proposal, lobbying has centered around Marcie Hodge. 

Peralta insiders say that race and charges of anti-black racism have been an underlying facet of the fierce lobbying debate on the contract, with Dones’ supporters charging that this contract is getting scrutiny that other, non-black Peralta contracts do not. Dones is African-American as are trustees Riley, Handy, Clifton, and Hodge. 

But while board Vice President Handy refused to comment on the race issue, she was quick to criticize opponents of the Dones proposal, charging that they are lying to the public in order to block the contract. 

“Faculty members and union representatives have been putting out lies,” Handy said. “Last week, union leaders were putting out information that we were going to build houses on the Laney athletic fields, even though the Laney athletic fields have nothing to do with the proposal.... I’m very disappointed and embarrassed at the shame this is going to cause the district.” 

In fact, the inclusion of the Laney athletic fields in the Dones proposal initially came from Dones himself, but he later said he had never intended commercial development of the fields. Dones said in a later interview that he was only interested in working with the Laney Athletic Department to “enhance the athletic use of the fields.”  

Handy dismissed the lack of a chancellor’s recommendation to the proposal, saying, “Elihu does not have a vote on the board. Seven trustees have a vote. He wasn’t hired to make those types of decisions. That’s our job.” 

Handy said that she favors the Dones proposal because “Peralta will keep possession of the land, with the possibility of adding some enhancements to our education mission, like the possibility of a small hospital on-site that will provide student training.” 

Trustee Nicky Gonzalez Yuen says his opposition to the Dones proposal centers on two concerns: the appearance of impropriety and hidden costs to the district. 

“I’m not making any accusations of illegalities,” Yuen said, “but it’s a matter of perception. There is the appearance of a backroom deal here, which we need to bend over backward to remove.” 

Yuen said he was concerned that Peralta will have to pay substantial costs for the Dones contract, even without paying SUDA for the plan. 

“The district is going to have to spend thousands of hours of staff time assisting in this proposal,” he said, “time that could be better used in the education of our students or in long-term planning by the district itself. This can only be a distraction and divisive to the mission of the district.” 

Yuen added that a “secondary cost to the district will be the cost to our reputation. If we approve this contract, we are potentially approving another no-bid contract. What we will lose is the public’s good will. So the reimbursement we are getting from Mr. Dones is not nearly adequate for the costs the district will ultimately bear.” 

** 

Highlights of the proposed exclusive negotiating agreement between the Peralta Community College District and Alan Dones’ Strategic Urban Development Alliance (SUDA), include: 

• Establishing a one-year negotiation period between the district and SUDA between May 2005 and May 2006. 

• SUDA will draft a Lease and Development Agreement and work with the district to determine the feasibility of the joint development of the property. 

• SUDA will conduct a market study, conduct Phase 1 environmental study if necessary, and prepare a development plan. 

• During the one-year negotiating period, the district will negotiate exclusively with SUDA concerning the long-term lease of the property. 

• SUDA will deposit $100,000 with the district upon approval of this exclusive negotiating agreement, and will pay all costs up to $450,000 incurred by the district in negotiating the terms of the lease and development agreement. 

The exclusive negotiating agreement does not bind the district to any long-term lease agreement with SUDA for the property. 

›

Almost three months after the Berkeley School Board killed a proposal to consider a regulation high school baseball field for its Derby Street properties, the proposal is back on the table. 

On Wednesday, the board will vote on whether to ask staff to prepare an administrative plan for the combined Berkeley Alternative High School and former Berkeley Adult School properties “detailing a closed Derby Street option.” 

Derby Street runs between the two district-owned properties on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and closing it is necessary to have enough space for a regulation high school baseball field. 

While the district owns both properties, closing Derby Street can only be done by the City Council. 

The BUSD Board meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Old City Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

If the board approves the development of a closed-Derby Street plan, it would come back before board directors in August. 

Board directors will also be asked to consider a plan by WLC Architects to temporarily develop the old Adult School portion of the properties while the Derby Street issue is debated. 

The plan originally contained a multipurpose athletic field, a baseball infield, batting cages, basketball courts, and a community area which included a garden and a toddlers playground. 

BUSD Director of Facilities Lew Jones is recommending that the proposed basketball courts be considered only as an alternate, and says that “if the board proceeds with a plan that keeps Derby Street open, more discussion will be needed about [the] community spaces before the uses could be finally determined.” 

During the March meeting which killed adding the closed Derby Street option on a 3-2 vote, Board President Nancy Riddle and Director Shirley Issel said that they voted against adding the option at that time for procedural reasons only, and left open the possibility that they might support a closed Derby development proposal in the future. 

Click here to view the latest work by Justin DeFreitas

WHERE? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There’s an obvious solution to the Oakland/Berkeley sculpture dilemma: Put the “Here” on the Oakland side so that Berkeley will be “There.” Berkeley can be very smug about this, because people driving past who think that they are there will actually be here. 

Robert Gable 

• 

PRETTY NEAT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Let me make my position clear from the outset of this letter: I am a long-time resident of Oakland and love my hometown dearly. I think the “Here/There” sculpture is pretty neat. I’m sure I don’t speak for all Oakland citizens but most of us here (or there as it were) have lived with the “there” for many years and also proclaim it from the rooftops (a flag atop the Tribune tower—and now Sears building) and in art (a huge colorful metal sculpture in downtown City Center), so its not a label we are offended by or find derogatory. 

I don’t know if Berkeley citizens are being offended for us, but this whole border sculpture seems a tempest in a teapot...and if they found it offensive and divisive, why didn’t they find it so before it was approved rather than just before it was to be installed? It seems like a pretty fun piece of art and I’m for big public art pieces. We don’t have enough of them. I hope the Berkeley City Council goes ahead and approves this project. 

Pamela Magnuson-Peddle 

• 

THE SHAFT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s outrageous that anyone in government would approve $50,000 to be spent on something like this. It’s bad enough that our so called artwork downtown consists we have a Giant Red Tuning Fork and a piece of something that looks like it’s covered in bird crap, do we really need this? How much additional money is it going to cost Berkeley taxpayers for round-the-clock security to protect this new artwork? Do we really want to drive a bigger wedge between Berkeley and Oakland? 

Since our Civic Arts Commission finds this so tongue-in-cheek, why don’t we just erect a $50,000 giant dildo at that intersection to symbolize the shaft that is being given to the tax-paying public in Berkeley by our Arts Commission and elected officials. 

Jim Hultman 

• 

INTERPRETATIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

With respect to the “Here/There” artwork on the Berkeley Oakland border, for purposes of property tax assessments, which is worth more, “here” or “there”? Let the local governments settle the dispute. I would like to offer a helpful suggestion. Instead of “Here/There,” the artwork on the Oakland Berkeley border should be changed by making it into an equilateral triangle with one point labeled “here,” the second point labeled “there,” and the third point labeled “everywhere.” All art is open to many varied interpretations stimulating discourse. This modest change brings to mind a few interpretations: 

• We are all one world. 

• A tribute to the Beatles 

• The hoped-for circulation of the Daily Planet. 

• The Republican view of the Bush mandate. 

• The Democratic reality of their waning power. 

• The neocon view of U.S. foreign policy. 

• The ego of this letter writer. 

It’s amazing how art will stimulate the mind. 

Paul M. Schwartz 

• 

RFID TECHNOLOGY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It seems to me that the discussion of RFID use by the Berkeley Public Library has been long on heat and short on light. There are some real issues, but if the letters to the editor are anything to go by, the issues don’t seem to be well understood and aren’t being effectively debated. In the interests of trying to move the level of the public debate up a notch or two, here are two Internet links I’ve found (using Google) that appear to offer useful information about RFID technology as applied to libraries. 

The first (www.cs.berkeley. edu/~dmolnar/library.pdf) is a scholarly paper from UC, very technical. If you aren’t an engineer, I recommend just reading the introductory paragraphs of each section, and even those can be tough. It does describe some possible ways that the RFID labels in books could be used to compromise privacy of library patrons. 

The second (www.VTLS.com/doucmens/privacy.pdf) is by people in the RFID industry, and thus has an obvious bias in favor of RFID use, but it gives an easy-to-understand description of the how the technology works and describes clearly how it is applied in libraries as well as warehouses and stores. So for anyone who is asking him/herself “What the heck is an RFID anyway?” this is a good paper to read first. One caveat, though: I would take the authors’ assertion that there is no way to read library-type RFIDs beyond 18 inches with a fair pinch of salt. I’ve read elsewhere that the read-range depends more on the reader than it does on the passive label - although the ranges being discussed were on the order of tens of feet, not miles. 

David Coolidge 

• 

MORE ON RFID 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been aware for some time that a new system is being introduced into the Berkeley Public Library. Each book will receive a sticker which will supposedly make checking books in and out and which will make books easier to find. It will also decrease time needed for the workers to check the books in and out. This system is called RFID. A large amount of money, $650,000, has been borrowed to pay for this system! 

In Berkeley, a huge change like this would ordinarily have been preceded by newspaper articles and by meetings where information was presented and feedback was requested. There would have been publicity given to the question of paying the cost of RFID. A decision would have been made, a positive decision followed support of a majority of Berkeley citizens. 

However, this decision seems to have been made by the person in charge of the Berkeley Public Library with no input from Berkeley citizens or library workers. Apparently library worker criticism has been followed by punishment. I have not met one Berkeley citizen who supports RFID. This huge and expensive decision seems to have been made by one person, the person in charge of the library. 

How could such a decision be overturned? Perhaps by the mayor of Berkeley. I am thinking of suggesting to him that he overturn the decision to have RFID added to the books in the Berkeley public Libraries. 

Julia Craig 

• 

LANDMARKS REFORM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are major problems with the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance and the Landmarks Commission. Carrie Olson’s recent letter in defense of the commission suggested that she is unaware of the problems. 

Many people who have been before the commission regale their friends with tales of its ineptitude. The problems I personally witnessed were meandering, pointless meetings that went to midnight and an absence of agreed-upon standards. I saw an inept, insensitive, and impractical commission. 

The Landmarks Commission has a major credibility problem. The commission’s credibility problem is sufficiently serious that ardent preservationists can and do find themselves in opposition to it. The commission needs to reform and become, as the saying goes, “user-friendly.” The commission needs to admit it’s in trouble. 

Sandy McCoy 

• 

BIKE TO WORK DAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hey, I wound up stuck in Donner Pass area with the storm this week—what happened with Thursday’s Bike to Work Day? There’s no coverage on your website of the planned Berkeley event that day (May 20). Was it called off due to the rains? I was hoping to ride with Mayor Bates, who missed last year’s event. I bet he missed this year’s too, if it even happened, as I got no response to my “will he or won’t he” message, e-mailed to the mayor’s office the prior Monday.  

Jim Doherty 

• 

HISTORY LESSON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is sad to find a young person so vituperative as is Christian Hartsock (“Busting the Filibuster,” May 20), especially when he has so little sense of history. It is the Republicans who are threatening to change the rules, not the Democrats who are breaking them. Mr. Hartsock seems unaware that when Republicans were the minority in Congress they made use of the filibuster to bar many Clinton judicial nominees from being approved. Bill Frist himself successfully filibustered against a Clinton appeals court nominee. Mr. Hartsock seems not to understand that the Founders were intent on protecting the interests of the minority—they never intended pure democracy, “mob-rule,” as some have called it, in our country. Thus, although Al Gore won the majority of votes in 2000, because of the intervention of the Republican-majority Supreme Court, the electoral college vote gave the presidency to the minority candidate, George Bush. 

Mr. Hartsock seems to be ignorant of the essential concepts of the balance of powers and separation of church and state to protect the interests of minorities in our country. The attack on the filibuster not only insults the history of our Congress, it shows the Republicans to be terribly short-sighted. No matter how much our recent elections have been corrupted, Republican rule will not continue indefinitely. 

Charlene Woodcock 

• 

OAKLAND SCHOOLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The 2002 revelation of the “largest school district deficit in state history” gave legal license for a state execution of the Oakland Public Schools body politic. State Administrator Randolph Ward has picked apart and isolated its political remains with his state conferred autocratic muscle.  

Ward is generally perceived as a grim reaper applying the killing touch to neighborhood schools, programs and district morale. The Oakland school’s politically dead are having out of political body experiences engaged in protests that once carried clout and now deliver a ghostly punch! Ward is more political ghost buster than union buster.  

Some teachers marched and chanted for Oakland’s “rich corporate businesses” to bail out Oakland’s fiscally mismanaged schools. There were no teacher chants, or whispers, for a district bailout from big teacher unions. The National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) compete for (teacher dues) market share and political influence. It is big teacher union businesses, not Oakland corporate businesses, that grab money from teacher pay checks. In Oakland it’s about 2 percent of average teacher pay, with one third of these union dues retained locally, by the Oakland Education Association (OEA) teacher union. The other two thirds get scooped up by OEA’s parent affiliates, CTA and NEA.  

Accusations of Ward’s union busting should be of less concern to Oakland teachers than his ongoing busting of their jobs and wages. In addition to “feeling their pain” big teacher union business should share some of it by declaring a debt free moratorium on Oakland teacher union dues until the state stops punishing them for fiscal mistakes they didn’t create and their unions can’t remedy or ameliorate. 

Big teacher unions’ temporary loss of Oakland teacher revenue wouldn’t seriously impact their mega flow of mandatory teacher dollars from other districts, while providing Oakland teachers more usable income. A pinch of dough from that cash flow could be diverted to maintain OEA’s measly budget, equal to one third of retained Oakland teacher union dues.  

Just think of it! Union brothers and sisters in richer school districts inadvertently helping their union brothers and sisters suffering the unjust consequences of fiscal mismanagement in a poor diverse urban school district! I need a Kleenex. 

John Willson  

Twenty-five year Oakland teacher and union representative 

• 

MISSING BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It was 1984 and I wasn’t about to graduate high school back here in Berea, Ohio. My oldest sister, Kerry and her boyfriend were, for one reason or another, living in Berkeley at the time.  

We were about to lose our house for non payment of property taxes so I had nowhere to go. I ended up moving to Berkeley for two months and have not recovered since. I miss the magical feeling in the air and the friendly people I would meet on my walks around College Avenue where I stayed. I imagine I looked at things differently through the eyes of an 18-year-old with his own problems back home but it was still such a wonderful experience. I remember the 49ers won the Super Bowl, the arsonist who set local dumpsters on fire, learning of People’s Park, taking the BART, walking my neighbor’s dog up in the Berkeley hills, the warm weather that would bring out the smell of eucalyptus, working at Round Table Pizza and hearing Chaka Khan’s hit “I Feel For You” on the radio. Speaking of music, whenever I hear a song back here that was popular while I was living in Berkeley a crazy feeling comes over me and I take a mini mental vacation for the remainder of the song. It’s funny how music can do that.  

By far, my most memorable experience was being caught up, quite literally, in the anti-apartheid rallies on Sproul Hall. I would walk my “StumpJumper” (mountain bike) up on the steps and watch people go by and soak up the local talents of the street performers. It seemed like one evening, out of the blue, a rally got underway and I was pulled right into it. I admit that I wasn’t the most socially conscious 18-year-old but I couldn’t help but to feel the mood of the moment and after getting the scoop from someone next to me I decided to chime in with the rest. Talk about culture shock. It felt so new and good to me to know a different way of thinking other than my own.  

Due to family matters I moved back to Ohio two months after I landed in Berkeley and I’ve been wanting to go back ever since and in the very least to vacation there. I’m a freelance photographer now (when it can pay some bills) and I’ve dreamed about the photos I’d take of a place where I once lived and walked the streets. Berkeley will forever be part of my identity even if I was only there for a couple of months because there’s an electrical current in the air and a rhythm to life in Berkeley that made every day special to me. 

I just wanted to share my little story with the Berkeley Daily Planet and wish you lucky people a wonderful day. Thanks. 

Kirby Kulow 

North Olmsted, OH 

• 

HERR DR. FRIST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Frankenstein is a story we’ve all heard before. It speaks to society’s obsession with “playing God” through science. Dr. Frankenstein is a misguided villain who creates life by accident and later regrets his decision. 

In Congress, we now have a Doctor Frist, who like Frankenstein, is trying to “play God” with the Judicial Branch. His intentions are not to merely to make appointments to the court, he really wants to use the courts to dictate social policy and control our lives. He hopes to create a judicial monster that he and his supporters can manipulate to do their evil bidding. 

As a doctor, Sen. Frist cannot be blamed for wanting to “play God.” It is, after all, a role he has been training for his whole life. However, he now seems to have cast aside the Hippocratic chains of medical ethics: “To never deliberately do harm to anyone for anyone else’s interest,” and has given himself a license to do harm to the U.S. Constitution and the American people. 

Like Frankenstein, Frist and his supporters, will not be happy with their judicial monster. It will eventually turn on them! In the movie, once the monster kills the doctor’s assistant, Fritz (similarity to “Frist” is coincidental, but ironic), the doctor, falls into a state of shock, and eventually joins the crowd of townspeople as they hunt down the monster to kill him. By trying to socially engineer the U.S. justice system, Frist and his assistants will eventually find it necessary to destroy the key tenet of American justice: its independence. 

Paul Page 

San Francisco 

• 

FAY STENDER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I agree with May 17 Brian Gluss’s proposal in the Daily Planet that Berkeley should have a “Fay Stender Day” to commemorate Fay Stender. She is a worthy honoree. 

However, I take strong issue with a statement in Mr. Gluss’s article, in which he says, speaking of Fay’s work for prisoners: “It was this work that ultimately got her killed. (There is no rational explanation for such evil acts.)” 

As usual, Berkeley tries to cover up the reality of her death. To quote an article in the June 1997 issue of Commentary magazine about what actually happened: “Around the same time, Fay Stender, Huey Newton’s former attorney, had become the target of a Panther vendetta for her refusal to smuggle a revolver into prison to help the gunman George Jackson escape. One day, a hit man arrived at her door, forced her to sign a ‘confession,’ shot her five times, and left her for dead. A year later, paralyzed and hiding from reprisal in Hong Kong, Stender took her own life.” 

Fay Stender devoted her life to defending the Black Panthers and similar radical groups. And how did they express their gratitude for a lifetime of sacrifice on her part, committing her brilliant mind to help their cause? They murdered her for not being revolutionary enough. 

I was personally involved in this case so I know more than can be revealed here, but I will affirm that Fay Stender was a good human being who did what she thought was the right thing. The villains in her death are the very same black revolutionary groups she naively tried to help. To say, as Mr. Gluss did, that “There is no rational explanation for such evil acts” is a self-deluded cop-out. There is a rational explanation: Revolutionary groups, then and now, lack any moral foundation and will always resort to violence, even against their own kind. 

Fay’s shooting was one of the turning points in Berkeley history. It was the night the dream died—the dream of racial brotherhood, the dream of a liberal utopia, the dream of socialist revolution. It was all revealed to be a cruel hoax, a fantasy world created by well-meaning dreamers unaware of real human nature. 

And it was not only a turning point for Berkeley, but for the entire Leftist movement in America, which disintegrated as those five shots rang out, never to be put back together again. 

Since that night, the Left has been based on a lie, and continues to be to this day. 

Joseph Daniel Johnston 

• 

TOWN-GOWN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I love Berkeley and I came from Texas A&M, and believe me, the way things go there is little negotiation between the university and College Station. Granted it is a small town but they get what they get, yet the city still gets the windfall of tax receipts from the 40,000 or so kids who attend. The university consists of hard people led by President Robert Gates, former director of Central Intelligence, and they have the presidential library of one of Berkeley’s arch enemies, President George H. W. Bush. In contrast we get Cal, whose sole purpose isn’t to run over people, as can be illustrated in that there was a competition to manage Los Alamos earlier this year and UT, Texas A&M, and some other non-factors all dropped out because there was no money in it, but for honor and prestige Cal stayed in. City of Berkeley, you do not know how lucky you are to be dealing with such genteel people. And I will withhold further opinion, but why don’t you start acting like grownups rather that running off to sue them? Have you seen how screwed up Memorial Stadium and the kids’ athletic facilities are? Do you realize what a positive impact getting the alums to come back to see the Bears beat Oregon and SC have on not just the university but the town? 

Steve Pardee 

• 

JEFFERSON SCHOOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What’s in a name? When referring to a person, a name is simply a means of identification. Associations and reasons a person is given the name depend on their parents’ choice and/or beliefs. Some Americans look to their heritage. Others look at books when choosing a name, while those looking to escape the past association with oppression and/or slavery look for names that reflects their ethnic group(s). The name “Jefferson” within itself means nothing. However the name of a Berkeley school is to be changed, or a discussion and vote are to take place over possible change. I’m wondering why. Slavery as I see it became an issue only for those who give reasons and believe them. The statement [by teacher Marguerite Talley-Hughes] “because that’s what was happening. . .etc” bothers me, because history tells many stories of that time period, as history will continue to do. That rationale from an educator is a wasted argument. The comments [from people at the meeting] in the eighth paragraph [of the article about it] should become the focal point, and may serve Berkeley in many ways.  

Charlene Matthews 

• 

YOUTH VOTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I would like to remind everyone that tonight (Tuesday) is the City Council meeting in which the council will look at the topic of youth voting and local choice in Berkeley. Please come at 2134 MLK Jr. Way at around 7:30 p.m. to help us. Bring a sign if you can and help us cheer for youth voting! For more information, visit our website at http://berkeley.youthrights.org or our national website at www.youthrights.org.  

Rio Bauce 

• 

FIRST LADY’S MISSION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

All signs suggest our federal system based on the separation of powers is undergoing a critical 21st century makeover. The legislature emits stinking fumes like an engine needing lubrication. The judiciary reels under the slings and arrows of outrageous activism. The executive branch works hard to perfect its talent for spinning fiction from fact: rewarding incompetence, covering bullshit with sugar-coatings of “democracy” and “freedom,” hiding death and outsourcing torture it can’t or won’t do… 

I wonder, in this triple-crippled period, why the first lady ventured into a hate-filled Middle East with a message of goodwill delivered in candid mode. Is she supposed to be the antidote to disaffection in the region? Does she represent the yin to match her husband’s yang? Or is she stepping onto the global stage to do for us what QE2 does when England needs a foreign Band-Aid?  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

After the city tax measures went down to defeat last fall, Tom Bates started talking about “re-inventing Berkeley government.” 

“Berkeley is … known throughout the world as a leader in social policy,” asserted a “Policy Brief” put out by the mayor’s office in January. “[W]e must also work to be just as well known for an effective government that has the trust of the people it serves.” In his Jan. 11 “priority setting speech,” Bates sounded the same theme. “During a time when people’s faith in progressivism and government is shaken,” he said, “we must … put our values to work and lead by example. ... We need to listen to our bosses—the voters of the city.”  

Tom Bates regards Berkeley voters as his bosses? The evidence of the last two and a half years says just the opposite.  

A few examples: In February 2003, barely three months after taking office, the mayor pressured the then Planning Commission chair (myself) to keep members of the public from directly engaging representatives of UC at an upcoming workshop on the Southside Plan. In a message left on my answering machine, Bates said that “it was inappropriate for outside parties”—meaning ordinary citizens—to “be in dialogue” with the University.  

In early 2004, having realized that, rather than shooting the breeze, the Planning Commission’s UC-Hotel Conference Center Task Force was going to make substantial recommendations to the City Council, the mayor asked that it be disbanded. In March 2004 he proposed changes to public comment that, the Daily Planet reported, “would significantly limit the ability of Berkeley citizens to present their views to City Council.” During this same period, Bates repeatedly held secret, illegal meetings with the developers of the code-busting, Seagate luxury high-rise.  

This March, out of the blue, the mayor revealed his intention to rezone Gilman Street and Ashby Avenue west of San Pablo Avenue for retail. That scheme has multiple conflicts with the city’s new General Plan, itself the product of an extensive public process.  

Now it appears that to expedite his plans for a commercialized west Gilman Street, Bates has extended his imperious sway over the Berkeley Unified School District. On May 12 BUSD Public Information Officer Mark Coplan told me that the mayor had blocked the BUSD’s plans for a much-needed new bus yard at 1325 Sixth St. until the district agreed to give up the site’s Gilman Street frontage for retail.  

How, you may ask, was this possible? Aren’t the city and the school district legally separate authorities? In fact, if a BUSD project is not primarily educational, then the city’s zoning laws take over. But nothing in city law, policy or precedent says that under such circumstances, the mayor takes over.  

An Oct. 22, 2004 letter to city planner Greg Powell from BUSD Director of Facilities Lew Jones recounts the school district’s efforts to build new facilities for its Transportation Department. The department is now housed on three separate, rented sites in the area. In 2000, the BUSD bought the 82,000 square foot parcel at 1325 Sixth St.  

“The City of Berkeley,” writes Jones, “requested that the District explore other alternatives to housing the facility at 1325 Sixth St. The mayor was a particular advocate for exhausting all possibilities, but we also met with the city manager and other city staff.” When it turned out that 1325 Sixth St. was the only appropriate site, “[t]he city”—i.e., the mayor—“requested that we build the facility to the south of the site and leave the north end (Gilman Street frontage) available for future development.” After spending several more months working to satisfy “the city,” the BUSD submitted its revised plans to the Zoning Department last November.  

The Zoning Department’s website indicates that the BUSD’s current application was deemed complete on Jan. 21. The site plan shows the buildings and staff/visitor parking lot set back 70 feet behind the Gilman Street property line. An April 18 memo from Coplan says that “approximately 8,800 square feet is being reserved at the Gilman Street site for retail use.”  

Mayor Bates did not return my calls regarding his involvement with 1325 Sixth St. But his chief of staff, Cisco de Vries, denied that his boss prevented the city from signing off on the Transportation Yard project until the Gilman Street frontage was reserved for retail. De Vries conceded that the mayor made it known to the BUSD that he would like to see commercial development there. The parcel is currently zoned for light industry.  

Consider, then, that the district is proposing to put light industrial uses—its warehouse, kitchen and Buildings and Grounds Department facilities—on the former Adult School site at West Campus, in the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood of modest single-family homes. Reasonably enough, West Campus neighbors would like at least some of those industrial uses moved to the 8,800-square-foot strip at 1325 Sixth St.  

Is it mere coincidence that on May 11 the School Board voted to ask Bates’ wife, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, to add Berkeley’s name to Assembly Bill 952, which exempts specified school districts from state laws governing the sale of their “surplus property?” That category could conceivably include the Gilman frontage at 1325 Sixth St. (as well as portions of West Campus).  

Irrational land use and back-room dealing aside, the episode raises issues of fiscal irresponsibility. “The ongoing rental costs required to pay for the three sites [now used for the BUSD buses] is financially crippling the district as we currently pay almost $500,000 per year rent,” wrote Jones last October. “In addition, as long as the district is renting the three sites, the city cannot collect all its taxes on either proposed site or on the rented sites.”  

Tom Bates owes the public a full explanation of his role in this mess, as well as a vow to stop overreaching his mayoral authority. For now, we have one more indication that he’s “re-inventing” Berkeley in the image of Willie Brown’s Sacramento.  

Just after I’d written a column about our friend Leroy contacting us from the beyond, but before it was published last week, I got a phone call from his sister, Cleo. 

“I’ve been thinking about you,” she said. 

“Funny that you would call just now, Cleo. I think Leroy’s been trying to contact us.” 

“How’s that?” she asked. 

“Every once in awhile our lights flicker on and off, and the woman who lives with us, Andrea, swears that it’s Leroy.” 

“I’m not surprised,” said Cleo. “He comes to visit me sometimes, too. He stands in the kitchen doorway and looks across the hall into my bedroom. I say to him, ‘Come on now Leroy, it’s time for you to go back where you came from.’” 

We were silent for a moment. 

“I miss my big brother everyday,” she said. “And especially on Sundays when he used to come for dinner.” 

“I remember.” 

“My daughter says he comes to visit her, too. He stands behind her and watches. She says to him, ‘Uncle Leroy, stop bothering me now,’ and he goes away.” 

“How are all your grandkids?” I asked. 

“They’re doin’ alright. Got one of my great grand babies here right now.” 

“Great grand children? How many do you have?” 

“I got me eight,” she answered. “Tamika’s twenty-one and Zack is six, and all the rest are in-between.” 

“Wow.” 

“Know all of their birthdays, too,” she added. 

“Have you been to the casinos lately?” I asked. 

“You know I have. Went just a few weeks ago. Won pretty good, too. I’m about ready to go back.” 

“Leroy would have been glad to know you won.” 

“Oh yeah. Leroy would’ve been the first in line to ask me for a loan.” She paused and laughed. “I’m tellin’ ya, Suzy, I miss him everyday.” 

“We do too.” 

“Jerry,” she said. “What about Leroy’s friend, Jerry? You hear from him?” 

“Yes, but we’re mad at him right now. You know how it goes, we like him, then he does something bad and we’re mad at him again. It’s back and forth, back and forth with Jerry.” 

“What he do this time?” 

“Stole a pot roast from our freezer.” 

“What?” 

“A pot roast.” 

“A pot roast?” 

“I’m afraid so.” 

“Suzy, I don’t hardly understand people these days. What’s he gonna do with a frozen pot roast? That man can’t cook, can he?” 

“Not a pot roast.” 

“I know you would’ve given it to him if he’d asked. What ails him, do you think?” 

“I don’t know,” I said. 

“Wait! Did Leroy come to see you before or after Jerry took the pot roast?” 

“After.” 

“Then Leroy probably wasn’t lookin’ for you.” 

“No?”  

“No,” she said with conviction. “He was lookin’ for Jerry to give him a piece of his mind.” 

“And then to eat some pot roast?” 

“No, baby. Leroy don’t like pot roast. He likes T-bone steaks cooked medium rare, and he likes my fried chicken and potato salad. Really now, I think he was comin’ for Jerry.” 

“Maybe so,” I said. 

“Next time he comes,” she instructed, “you send him over to Jerry’s. My brother didn’t go for that kinda stuff. He’ll set Jerry straight.” 

“I will,” I promised. 

“Well, I got to be goin’,” she said “I’ll give you a holler again soon.” 

“Thanks for calling Cleo. It’s good to hear your voice.” 

“Likewise,” said Cleo as she hung up the phone. 

I looked up at the chandelier in the dining room, Leroy’s preferred location in which to communicate.  

“We’re waitin’ on you Leroy,” I whispered.  

The lights stayed on. He must have been busy elsewhere. 

Middle School Arson 

An arson blaze just after midnight Monday caused about $1,000 in damage to construction materials at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, said Berkeley Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. 

The arsonist ignited a fire next to an acetylene w elding tank near construction materials at the 1781 Rose St. school. 

“Neighbors called to report an explosion and flames at 12:17 a.m.,” Orth said. “We dispatched three engines, a truck and an ambulance.” 

Firefighters arrived to find several small fires scattered among construction materials and quickly extinguished the flames. 

While there have been several arson fires at East Bay schools in recent weeks, Orth said they don’t appear to be related to the Berkeley fire. Investigators are, however, lookin g into possible links between Monday’s fire and a May 4 arson at Congregation Beth El that damaged a portable concrete mixer. Orth said he was waiting to review security tapes made at the school, which could help identify a suspect. 

Candles Ignite Dresse r 

Candles left burning and unattended early Sunday morning on a third floor apartment bedroom at 2918 Harper St. caused $3,000 in damage to a dresser and a wall before firefighters extinguished the blaze.›

North Aquatic Park Rape 

Police are seeking the public’s assistance in identifying the man who sexually assaulted and raped a 17-year-old woman in North Aquatic Park Saturday night. 

Berkeley police spokesman Officer Joe Okies said the attack began about 6 p.m. when the assailant grabbed the woman as she was walking in the park and dragged her into nearby bushes. The victim called police after she was released. 

“It appears to be an isolated case,” Okies said, “and detectives from the Sex Crimes Detail ar e currently pursuing investigative leads.” 

The department has assigned additional officers to patrol Aquatic Park and locate potential witnesses, he said. 

Anyone with information is requested to contact the Sex Crime unit at 981-5735 or e-mail tips to p olice@ci.berkeley.ca.us. Informants may remain anonymous. 

Pedestrian Beaten 

A call from the emergency room at Alta Bates Hospital alerted police to a three-person attack on a 24-year-old pedestrian in the 2900 block of San Pablo Avenue that occurred abo ut 4 a.m. Thursday. 

The victim reported that he was beaten by three suspects, all clad in dark clothing. 

Drunken Brandisher 

A 45-year-old woman was arrested by Berkeley police shortly after 11:30 a.m. Thursday after a 40-year-old woman reported that sh e had threatened her with a knife. 

Officers arrived on the scene to find the suspect still on the scene. In addition to arresting her for brandishing a deadly weapon, officers also charged her with being drunk in public, Okies said. 

BB-Gun Toting Studen t 

Officers arrested a student at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School Thursday afternoon after he reportedly brandished a BB-gun at another student. 

Backdoor Gunman 

A 31-year-old resident of the 2700 block of Ashby Avenue called police just after midnight Friday to report that someone had just knocked at his back door and threatened him with a pistol. 

The mysterious felon was gone by the time police arrived. 

Assault by Car 

Officers arrested a 49-year-old driver Saturday on charges of assault with a deadly weapon after he drove his car into a motorcyclist in the culmination of what police are calling an act of road rage. 

The 50-year-old victim was rushed to a local hospital, said Officer Okies. 

The incident apparently began on the Eastshore Freeway before ending at 7:17 p.m. in the 2900 block of San Pablo Avenue. The suspect was booked on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. 

Street Robbery 

Two men wearing T-shirts robbed a 23-year-old man near the corner of Parker and Ellsworth streets about 7:20 a.m. Sunday. 

Bizarre Theft 

Police investigating a theft report near the intersection of Durant Avenue and Fulton Street found themselves confronting a suspect armed with scissors and pepper spray. 

Once the suspect had been subdued, the 23-year-old was charged with one count each of theft, improper use of pepper spray, brandishing a deadly weapon and resisting arrest, said Officer Okies.

In February the City filed a lawsuit against the university over its Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) and its meaningless environmental impact report (EIR). The university plans to expand by 4000 full-time students (adding to Berkeley’s housing problems), 3500 faculty, staff, and visitors (adding to Berkeley’s traffic and parking problems), and 2.2 million square feet (built who-knows-where and creating who-knows-what problems). The city stated, correctly, that the LRDP/EIR “falls far short of providing adequate information, analysis, or mitigations for the tremendous burden this growth will place on our city.”  

The lawsuit, considered eminently winnable (and if so, free), was and is lauded by most informed observers, including city staff, local residents, the Sierra Club, students, and many others concerned about urban environmental degradation and fiscal impacts. The city set aside about $250,000 for the lawsuit, less than 1/1000 of one year’s city budget, and about 1/50 of the monetary cost of the university’s current annual unmitigated damages to the city.  

Since then the city, guided by the mayor, has been working on a “negotiated settlement” behind closed doors. Last time this happened, in 1990, a toothless, unenforceable backroom deal emerged and was enacted over citizen objections. That agreement gave a pittance to the city. Its only significant beneficial element was a promise by the university to reduce enrollment; instead UC promptly increased enrollment. 

This time, we hope the process will be a more democratic one. But we’re not off to a good start. It appears that the city attorney, unbeknownst to the mayor or the City Council, signed a confidentiality agreement under which UC must now give the council “permission” to release the settlement to the public, which is required for a transparent, democratic decision on this critical matter. Even though the university is apparently arrogant enough to withhold such permission, the City Council can and should inform UC that if permission is not forthcoming, the lawsuit will proceed. If the mayor, who publicly promised that there would be open discussion of the agreement before it is finalized, was serious about that promise, that is what the council will do.  

Meanwhile, Councilmember Wozniak, UC’s most ardent apologist, has stated that those who want public input into this process are “a few citizens who want to micromanage everything and look over our shoulders.” Mr. Wozniak lives securely outside the range of UC impacts, both existing and LRDP-related. Others can’t be so sanguine: more than 300 people and organizations wrote letters of concern about the LRDP, and 300 people voiced their concerns in public hearings. Over 20,000 Berkeleyans are directly impacted by UC detriments (not including those with tax impacts alone). Far fewer people are impacted by the “creeks” problem, but the City Council immediately set up a task force with a $100,000 budget to address that issue. Why is the city so much less concerned about the well-being of those who live close to the university, I wonder. 

Blind speculation about whether the city and/or mayor negotiated vigorously enough, or extracted a “good deal” from the overempowered UC bully, is less important than what happens next. Which is that the citizens—and yes, especially those most impacted and most knowledgeable—should be the ones to judge whether the proposed deal mitigates the damages of the LRDP enough to justify dropping the lawsuit. And for the citizens to make that decision, they must see the proposed settlement, have time to digest it, and have yet more time to let the City Council know their concerns. Will this occur, or do we live in a sham democracy in which elected officials hatch deals in the dark and only pretend to respond to the voices of the people? What occurs now will reveal the council’s true colors. 

Sharon Hudson is a political observer interested in land use issues. She has lived within five blocks of the university for 33 years. 

K

So far the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) dispute between the City of Berkeley and University of California has played out with commendable respect for the involved interests. The university published its draft environmental impact report (EIR), the city and community commented on it, and the university responded as it saw fit. The city, visualizing the University’s environmental shortcomings and their economic implications, challenged UC in court—ultimately seeking a better decision through litigation or negotiation. To their credit, the two parties then engaged in negotiations to resolve the city’s concerns by consensus if possible. I praise the city for calling UC’s bluff by commencing litigation that keeps the process open, just as I praise both parties for attempting to produce a final product now and not after years in court. 

To date I also praise the confidentiality that has attended the city-UC negotiations. Successful negotiation requires the contending parties to put aside legal positions and frankly discuss their underlying needs and interests; neither the courtroom nor the public meeting process allows for this frank discussion by those ultimately accountable for final resolution. 

But now that the negotiators appear to have produced a final proposal for decision by their respective principals—the City Council and UC Regents—confidentiality has run its course. In order that the final environmental decision comply with the principles of CEQA laid down over a generation of California jurisprudence, the publics of both City Council and Regents must be given their opportunity to review and comment on a proposed litigation settlement. 

The lesson I offer is an intensely personal one. Twenty years ago, representing Inyo County in its enduring Owens Valley water wars against Los Angeles, we faced this same issue: How can long-standing adversaries voluntarily resolve to put CEQA litigation aside, and still protect the rights of the greater public to participate in that outcome? Los Angeles insisted that Inyo agree to remove one issue from further litigation; the county felt powerless to object, despite our professional reservations. The court of appeal sternly rejected the litigants’ efforts to “privatize” the ultimate resolution of the CEQA dispute, in what remains the leading judicial instruction on the rules of CEQA settlement. Condemning “a fundamental misconception about the CEQA process -- … what might be aptly described as a CEQA turkey shoot,” the court held that “all of the participants in the CEQA process must have the opportunity to participate,” and the outcome cannot be fixed unless it is “open for public discussion and agency modification during the CEQA process.” The justices evaluated the litigating parties’ insensitivity to citizen involvement as “unseemly in an area where public confidence in the openness of the process is important.” 

Honoring this mandate, the city and UC must now allow the product of their negotiations to be tested by public review before the CEQA process is allowed to conclude by a termination of the city’s CEQA litigation. Not just because the courts have said so, but more fundamentally because behind that judicial mandate lies the reality and expectation that public review of a proposed settlement can make it better for all concerned. And it is not just the City Council and its public who will benefit; the Regents also have their public that should not be kept in the dark: members of the UC Berkeley community, the other campuses, and the other UC-host communities around the state, all of whom are vitally concerned with how UC resolves the environmental issues at its flagship campus. 

The open process may not be as orderly or predicable as the negotiators predict or desire at the moment. In the Owens Valley, before Inyo County could sign a series of peace treaties with Los Angeles, months of public hearings and review followed, and the Board of Supervisors courageous enough to pursue peace had to survive a recall attempt against them. While no one anticipates such a lengthy and demanding process here at home, in the end both Inyo and Los Angeles, and the substance of their agreement, emerged stronger having faced the test of involvement by the publics of both communities. 

Can the university’s and city’s lawyers see their way to this outcome? On the west wall of Boalt Hall is inscribed the advice to the 1925 Albany Law School graduating class: “You will study the wisdom of the past, for in a wilderness of conflicting counsels, a trail has there been blazed.” Discerning that trail for today’s Boalt students, Inyo v. Los Angeles forms part of the curriculum. The city appears to have gotten the message. Let us now hope that the university’s lawyers and Regents will also live up to the lessons taught in its law school. Release the proposed settlement for public review before either governing board votes on it. 

Antonio Rossmann has litigated or settled CEQA cases for more than 30 years, and teaches water resources and land use law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall. 

3

Terry Francke is right about the purpose of the Brown Act, as stated in its preamble: Government Code Section 54950. In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this State exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly. The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created. 

On the other hand, J. Stacey Sullivan is wrong when he says: “What Mr. Francke erroneously uses as legal authority for his disagreement with Antonio Rossman is what is known as ‘findings and declarations’ language, with which the Legislature makes general statements about the need for and intent of a statute. This language can be cited by a judge as persuasive or indicative of legislative intent, but it does not have the same force of law as the substantive provisions of the statute.” 

Mr. Sullivan seems to neglect the following substantive provision of the statute: 54953.7. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, legislative bodies of local agencies may impose requirements upon themselves which allow greater access to their meetings than prescribed by the minimal standards set forth in this chapter. This demonstrates that any attempt to use the Brown Act as an excuse for keeping information from the people is indeed turning it on its head. Everything in the Brown Act is a minimal standard of disclosure, not a maximal standard. 

Moreover, Mr. Sullivan seems to be trapped in a trap of his own making here. He describes Antonio Rossman as an eminent legal authority and suggests we should rely on his authority. Mr. Rossman is not an expert in the Brown Act, but he is an expert in land use law, and what he has said about this lawsuit in that regard is relevant. “At the moment, my sense is that the city has the advantage on the merits of the case,” Rossman said (54, Feb. 25). 

Dona Spring has expressed the concern that even with disclosure, the City Council would not be receptive to input from the public. Why? Because its legal advisers have soured it on the strength of its case. But its legal advisers have made a long string of obvious and preposterous legal errors. They have not earned the trust of the public or of the council. Is the legal staff just incompetent, or is something else going on? The legal staff seems to be a Trojan horse of neo-con legal philosophy that has invaded the City of Berkeley. 

The latest faux pas is now there for all the world to see, in the video of the 10 minutes just before the closed session council meeting on May 17 at 9 p.m. In response to questions from Councilmember Worthington and Mayor Bates, the city attorney declares that, in the past, statements made during settlement negotiations were used against the city in litigation and that for that reason the city requested and obtained the notorious “Confidentiality Agreement.” It is well known by all “eminent legal authorities” that the contents of settlement negotiations are strictly inadmissible (Evidence Code Sections 1152 and 1154), so if they were used against the city, it was only because of the incompetence of the city’s attorneys in failing to object to their use. As an excuse for the “Confidentiality Agreement,” the explanation of the city attorney is simply preposterous. 

On a more serious note, one may ask whether a confidentiality agreement is allowed by the Brown Act. J. Stacey Sullivan suggests that it is. He says, “In the case of the Brown Act, two of those substantive provisions authorize closed meetings to address pending litigation and settlement agreements (Government Code Secs. 54956.9 and 54957.1(a)(3)).” The following is the first code section cited by Sullivan: 54956.9. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to prevent a legislative body of a local agency, based on advice of its legal counsel, from holding a closed session to confer with, or receive advice from, its legal counsel regarding pending litigation when discussion in open session concerning those matters would prejudice the position of the local agency in the litigation. 

But again, disclosure of settlement offers cannot prejudice the position of the local agency in the litigation, because of Evidence Code Sections 1152 and 1154. The implied correlative is that this chapter can be construed to prevent a legislative body from holding a closed session in regard to matters that cannot by their very nature prejudice the position of the local agency in the litigation, such as the reporting of settlement offers and the statements made during settlement negotiations. That this is the correct interpretation is born out by the very next paragraph of the Brown Act: For purposes of this chapter, all expressions of the lawyer-client privilege other than those provided in this section are hereby abrogated. This section is the exclusive expression of the lawyer-client privilege for purposes of conducting closed-session meetings pursuant to this chapter. 

The following is the second code section cited by Sullivan: 54957.1.(a)(3)(A) If the legislative body accepts a settlement offer signed by the opposing party, the body shall report its acceptance and identify the substance of the agreement in open session at the public meeting during which the closed session is held. (B) If final approval rests with some other party to the litigation or with the court, then as soon as the settlement becomes final, and upon inquiry by any person, the local agency shall disclose the fact of that approval, and identify the substance of the agreement. 

It is the approval that may be done in closed session and thereafter disclosed. As for the agreement, the requirement is to “identify” the substance of the agreement that was approved. This actually implies that the various settlement offers have already been made public and need only be “identified.” It does not say that the settlement offers can be withheld until one of them is approved – it just does not say that, and one cannot take liberties in that direction, because it is opposed to the overall and consistently applied intent of the Brown Act. 

Conclusion: In Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG05199505, the “Confidentiality Agreement” pertaining to settlement negotiations is unlawful under the Brown Act. The mayor and City Council are hereby noticed. Please consider the following substantive provision of the Brown Act: 54959. Each member of a legislative body who attends a meeting of that legislative body where action is taken in violation of any provision of this chapter, and where the member intends to deprive the public of information to which the member knows or has reason to know the public is entitled under this chapter, is guilty of a misdemeanor.  

It may not be possible to rescind the “Confidentiality Agreement” under Civil Code Section 1689(b)(5), but it is possible and necessary to do immediately under Civil Code Section 1689(b)(6), which read as follows: Civil Code Section 1689 (b) A party to a contract may rescind the contract in the following cases: … (5) If the contract is unlawful for causes which do not appear in its terms or conditions, and the parties are not equally at fault. (6) If the public interest will be prejudiced by permitting the contract to stand. 

Peter Mutnick is a Berkeley resident.?

Toy instruments have been used in classical music for their humor and novelty effect at least since Father Angerer’s nineteenth century Toy Symphony (I know, until recently everyone thought it was by Leopold Mozart). Just the other day, in 1948, experime ntalist John Cage wrote a Suite for Toy Piano. 

Jazz, though, has a way of taking toy or novelty instruments and making them central to the creative act. It takes the word play in a more literal sense than the classical world has since the 18th century. T he saxophone, xylophone, plucked bass, and drum kit or traps (short for contraptions) have all been central to the history of the music while even the more unusual hot fountain pen, goofus, claviette, manzello and stritch have made their mark on jazz in t he hands of gifted performers like Adrian Rollini and Roland Kirk.  

Among these freaks and crotchets, few are played by a more select fraternity than the vibraphone, an electric xylophone with metal instead of wood bars and an adjustable, rotating vane in the resonating tube suspended below each bar that produces varying degrees of vibrato. It is this varying of the vibrato that gives each player a unique voice. It was invented in 1916, just a few years before Victor Theremin invented his first electric musical instrument. 

Vibes became a jazz instrument, and the first electric jazz instrument as well, when Louis Armstrong was making his classic recording of I’m Confessin’ that I Love You on July 21, 1930 backed by the Les Hite band. Louis noticed a vibr aphone (also known as a vibraharp) in the corner of the recording studio and suggested that Hite’s drummer play a brief, improvised opening to the tune on it. The drummer happened to be Lionel Hampton and his few introductory bars became the opening notes to one of the great jazz careers. I always picture him bursting out of Louis’ brain, mallets in hand, like a fully-armed Athene erupting out of the head of Zeus. 

As I said, it’s not like there have been a lot of great vibraphone players. The few masters of this electric glockenspiel include Hampton, the originator; trombonist Tyree Glenn, his inspired follower who doubled on vibes; Red Norvo, really a genius on xylophone who switched to vibes late in his career; Milt Jackson, the modernist and star solo ist of the Modern Jazz Quartet; Terry Gibbs, the mainstreamer; Cal Tjader, exponent of Latin jazz; and Bobby Hutcherson, the avant-gardist. Then there’s Gary Burton, perhaps the most original vibes player since Hamp.  

Burton, born in 1943, grew up in Indiana and taught himself to play the vibes. A virtual child prodigy, he made his first recordings at seventeen with country guitarists Chet Atkins and Hank Garland. He soon switched to jazz, working first with George Shearing and then with Stan Getz.  

In 1967, he left Getz to form his own first quartet with Larry Coryell, Steve Swallow and Bob Moses, who was soon replaced by the great Roy Haynes. Their albums, such as Lofty Fake Anagram, were among the first jazz-rock fusion recordings and this was two years before Miles’ Bitches Brew. Among his most interesting recordings from this period is Genuine Tong Funeral. Burton commissioned Carla Bley to compose the extended piece and it remains one of the classics of the fusion period.  

His influences include not only jazz, country, and rock, but tango and classical as well. Over the years, Burton has worked with Carla Bley, Stephane Grappelli, Pat Metheny and Astor Piazzolla among others. His early championing of Piazzolla helped bring the Argentinian nuevo t ango giant to the attention of an American audience. Their live 1986 recording together at Montreux, The New Tango, remains one of the highpoints of both their careers.  

For the last 38 years, Burton has recorded with some of the greatest musicians of our time in various ensembles, in duet, and even got a Grammy award for his 1971 solo album, Alone at Last. His album, Virtuosi, released in 2002, presents his unique improvisational approach to such classical composers as Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Scarlatti, Ravel and Barber, as well as Gershwin and rococo ragtime composer Zez Confrey. Generations, his latest album, features his current band and was released in April, 2004 on the Concord label. The group will soon record a second album which should be out lat er this year. 

Burton was the first to create complex solos using four mallets, but his virtuosity always takes a backseat to his shimmering lyricism. Although his breathtaking tone and melodicism have made him popular with New Age audiences, this is no f uzzy, air-headed musical cotton candy. At its core, Burton’s music rings out with the clarity, strength and emotional depth that are the hallmark of all great jazz. 

Gary Burton Generations Band, featuring guitarist/composer Julian Lage, pianist Vadim Ne selovskyi, bassist Luques Curtis and drummer James Williams, performs at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday at Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West in Oakland, 8 p.m. For more information, 238-9200.›?

Not long ago, a very wealthy American couple visited a beautiful little village in the south of France while on vacation. They loved what they saw—everything. So captivated were they with the little town that they extended their vacation seven days, giving them time to get to know the locals, until they were all on a first-name basis. During their stay one thought kept racing through their minds: “There must be a way that more people could come here and enjoy such a place!”  

While in the village, they dined on marvelous food freshly prepared at dozens of restaurants, each one wholly different from the next. The couple marveled at the sense of community and how much they felt at home there, though they lived thousands of miles away. And they saw dollar signs. 

Eventually the big corporation the couple headed bought the whole town, lock, stock and barrel. After a series of protests, their company bulldozed the entire village and built a theme park in its place, the main attraction a faux small town that very much resembled, on the surface, at least, the French village they decimated.  

Years later, the few remaining authentic downtowns in the East Bay also face the prospect of being replaced by facades that are actually big-box malls, all designed to give visitors the sense they are strolling around a real downtown—except, of course, for the parking lots with their acres of cars. 

However, in the East Bay there remains one authentic small town. It was not designed by developers from a thousand miles away, and instead of chain stores has mom and pop shops, modern boutiques, and some of the finest restaurants in the Bay Area. That little town is called Albany. 

Folks from around the Bay Area will have a chance to experience what it feels like to be a part of a real community again Sunday, June 5, during the fourth annual spring festival called “A Taste of Albany—A Small-Town Walkabout.” 

This culinary tour features tastes from 18 of the best restaurants in Albany, including: Fonda, Albany Bistro, Ruen Pair Thai Cuisine, Kathmandu Restaurant, Eunice Gourmet, Celadon/Teance Fine Teas, Walker’s Restaurant and Pie Shop, Cugini Pasta & Wood Fired Pizza, The Sophia Cafe, Jodie’s Restaurant and Barbecue, Thep Naaree Thai Cuisine, Zaytoon Steaks & Kabob House, The Sunny Side Cafe, Mother Nature’s Vegetarian Restaurant, Claypot Seafood Restaurant, Renee’s Place, Royal Ground Coffee Cafe, and the Solano Grill and Bar.  

Local independently-owned-and-operated businesses—such as Five Little Monkeys, Sweet Potatoes, Albany Bowl, Mary and Joe’s Sporting Goods, Matsu, Club Mallard, Casa Oaxaca—will be offering special promotions, freebees, or discounts for folks who have tickets. Artists will show their wares at an enchanting arts and crafts show dotting Solano Avenue... Ah but here’s another surprise. There will be no streets closed for this festival. Why? Because it is designed to help promote our local small businesses rather than feature professional vendors hawking hot dogs or deep fried tofu. 

Twelve bands will be performing everything from R&B to Dixieland, Reggae to Folk, Fusion, Funk and Jazz. Certain to rock a younger crowd’s world is Orixa, with their unique mix of Latin and funk-flavored rock. Performing on the same stage is Otis Goodnight, with jazz/funk/fusion, while in another spot in town, people can dance to salsa by the Martin Franco Band and Mucho Axé, or dig jazz/pop by the Mark Kay, or be moved by the soulful Quadraphonics, and many other terrific bands and performers. 

Jugglers and magicians will delight you as you enjoy tastes from 18 restaurants at two outdoor cafes, spots where you can actually sit down at a table and relax. Cold microbrews and fine wine will be available at both outdoor cafes, located on Solano and San Pablo Avenues. And there’s a Kid’s Town for the little ones. 

Two San Francisco-style cable cars will shuttle folks up and down Solano and San Pablo all afternoon—for free. And all the utensils, plates, cups, and napkins used at the Taste of Albany are completely compostable, made from corn and the stalks of sugar cane, meaning “A Taste of Albany” is a GREEN festival. 

Twenty percent of any profits will be donated by the Albany Chamber of Commerce to the Oakland Center for the Blind, and Victims of the South Asian Tsunami.  

Tickets are $20 in advance, and, if any are available, $25 June 5. You can purchase tickets from most participating restaurants, or on line at www.albanychamber.org. For more information call 525-1771. 

James Carter is the executive director of the Albany Chamber of Commerce. 

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TUESDAY, MAY 24 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

David Skibbins reads from his new mystery “Eight” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Carol Setters, author of “Kick Start: A Cosmic Biker Babe's Guide to Life” at 7 p.m. at Change Makers Books for Women, 6536 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 655-2405. 

Susann Cokal introduces her historical novel “Breath and Bones” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Clarinet Thing with Beth Custer, Ralph Carney, Ben Goldberg, Sheldon Brown, and Harvey Wainapel at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50- $18.50. 548-1761.  

Jug Free America, Orth at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Brian Kane, solo jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

7: ES-EL at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6-$7. 848-0886.  

Ah LaRocca at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 763-7711.  

Flutology at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

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

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 

THEATER 

Berkeley Rep, “Honour” opens at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. and runs through July 3. Tickets are $20-$39. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

FILM 

Berkeley High Annual Student Film Festival at 6 p.m. at Florence Schwimly Little Theater, Berkeley High Campus. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Martha O’Conner introduces “The Bitch Posse” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Jorge Emmanuel, Abe Ignacio and Helen Toribio discuss “The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit “Famous War Horses Played on the Organ” at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

Vechirka, an Ukranian party with Kitka at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Donations help to send the group to the Ukraine this summer. 444-0323. www.kitka.org 

Calvin Keys Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

Jug Free America at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Universal, salsa, at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Happy Turtle, jazz-funk-lounge at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Sonic Camouflage at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Free. 763-7711. www.cafevankleef.com 

Penny Lang & The Echo Hunters at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Anthony Wilson Nonet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, MAY 26 

CHILDREN 

Story Theater PLUS! With students from Redwood Day School and the College of Marin at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater. www.juliamorgan.org  

THEATER 

Subterranean Shakespeare “The Taming of the Shrew,” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park, through June 24. No show June 2. For reservations call 276-3871. 

FILM 

Latino Film Festival: “Oscar” in Spanish with subtitles at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alan Burdick introduces “Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Iain Boal, T.J. Clark Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts discuss “Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Word Beat Reading Series with Charles Curtis Blackwell and Phillip T. Nails at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Art Maxwell Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Benefit for the Family of George Robinson at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20, sliding scale. 525-5054.  

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

Mirror Image, Send for Help at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Jeremy Cohen and Dean Riley at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Tango #9 at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 763-7711.  

Piano Music by Tim Ross and Jack Kruscup, Thurs. and Fri. at 5 p.m. at the Kerr Dining Room, Faculty Club, UC Campus. Early Bird specials at $13.99. For reservations 540-5678.  

Gary Burton Generations Band at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, MAY 27 

THEATER 

Berkeley Repertory Theater “The People’s Temple” at the Roda Theater, through June 5. Tickets are $20-$55. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Honour” at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. through July 3. Tickets are $20-$39. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

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 

Subterranean Shakespeare “The Taming of the Shrew,” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park, through June 24. No show June 2. For reservations call 276-3871. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Sojourns” New works by Michael Shemchuk and Emily Payne. Reception at 6 p.m. at Cecile Moochnek Gallery, 1809-D Fourth St. Exhibition runs through June 26. 549-1018. www.cecilmoochneck.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

David Ewing Duncan describes “The Geneticist Who Played With My DNA: And Other Masterminds from the Frontiers of Biotech” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Audra McDonald, soprano, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Graham Richards, Peter Barshay at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Baby James, J. Meyers, Laila Tov at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5-$7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

Obatelo at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Afro-Muzika at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson with Comfort Mensah at 9 p.m. Cost is $11-13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Beth Waters and Larkin Gail at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Eddie From Ohio at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Vince Wallace Quintet at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 763-7711 www.cafevankleef.com 

Garrin Benfield and Cas Lucas at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10.  

Shanna Carlson Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Adrian West at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Two Foot Yard, Plays Monk at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

The Sick, The Hyper Kids, No Nothing Party at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Izum, funk, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Gary Burton Generations Band at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, MAY 28 

THEATER 

“Smug Shift” an evening of hip, underground comedy at 8:30 and 11 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave. Oakland. Cost is $7. 444-6174.  

The Conscious Cabaret “Scared Skitless” with Errol and Rochelle Alicia Strider, at 8 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Cost is $15-$25. 528-8844. unityberkeley.org 

“Requiem for a Friend” an intermedia performance ritual, directed by Antero Alli, Sat. and Sun. at 9 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. Cost is $10. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Living History and the Theater” with Leigh Fondakowski, playwright and director of “The People’s Temple” at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2015 Addison St. Free. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Bruce Lee’s Oakland Years: The Dragon and the Tiger” with authors Sid Campbell and Greglon Yimm Lee at 4 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 Unversity Ave. 548-2350. 

Pam Tent reads from “Midnight at the Palace: My Life as a Famous Cockette” at 7:30 p.m. at The Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Novello Quartet, a concert of Boccerini and Mozart at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $12-$18. 415-794-1100. www.novelloquartet.org 

Bay Area Youth Harp Ensemble with the Triskelea Harp Trio and The Pleiades Ensemble at 2 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen Church, 2005 Berryman. Donation $5-$15. 548-3326. 

Pacific Boychoir Academy presents its farewell tour concert at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 27th St. and Broadway. Tickets are $8. 452-4722. www.pacificboychoiracademy.org 

“Las Buenas Flamenquitas” with the Azahar Dance Foundation at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$17. 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Kurt Elling, piano and vocals, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $18-$32. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jason Marineau, Tina Marshall with the Ellen Hoffman Trio, at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Fred Randolph Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Bobs at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jose Seves at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Johnny Otis Living Tribute Band at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Sleep in Fame, Unjust, Re-Ignition at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Julie Kelly Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Hal Stein Quartet at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 763-7711. www.cafevankleef.com  

Barry Syska & Gentry Bronson at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Boom Bip, The Fog, Rapatron at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Chuck Steed, R&B funk, at 7 p.m. at Spuds, 3290 Adeline Ave. Cost is $7. 597-0795. 

Circu Mutante, Guire Doodate at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Times 4, with saxophonist Lincoln Adler, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, MAY 29 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Gabrielle Calvocoressi and C. Dale Young at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Distant Oaks, part of the series “Offerings” at 7 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. Suggested donation $10. 213-3122. 

Novello Quartet, a concert of Boccerini and Mozart at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. Tickets are $8-$10. 415-794-1100. www.novelloquartet.org 

Shakti Dance Company with Mythili Prakash in solo at 6:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $15-$20. 925-798-1300.  

Via Rio with Dave Bell, Ron Blanchard, Mike Golds and others at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Victor Mendoza, vibraphone, at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Death Breeds Sorrow at 4 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Mind Eraser, Say Goodbye at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, MAY 30 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Americana Unplugged: Tom Huebner at 4 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

TUESDAY, MAY 31 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “The Lost Generation” with filmmaker Jack Walsh at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Patricia Rain discusses “Vanilla: A Cultural History of the World’s Favorite Flavor and Fragrance” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Dylan Schaffer introduces his new mystery “I Right the Wrongs” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The People’s Jazz Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Randy Craig Trio at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Bill Frisell with Brian Blade & Sam Yahel at 8 and 10 p.m. through Thurs. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

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

Gary Rowe, solo jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

Alvarado Artists Group Show with works by Marilyn MacGregor, Barbara Werner, Joan Lakin Mikkelsen, Carla Dole and MJ Orcutt opens at the Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Michael Eric Dyson asks “Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $10. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sonic Camouflage at 8 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 763-7711 www.cafevankleef.com  

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

Paul Arnoldi at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Quimbobo, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.ô

The new tree planted at Malcolm X School last month is an alien here, but not an invasive species nor as troublesome as, say, blue gum eucalyptus; I’d call it a perfectly respectable city tree. It’s a northern red oak, native to the eastern part of the continent, and it will pay its biological dues here in due time, when it starts bearing acorns. There might be an organism or three willing to dine on its leaves, too. 

Our native oaks, especially our various species of evergreen live oaks, support lots of wildlife. That’s one reason people are so worried about Sudden Oak Death Syndrome—live oaks are keystone species in their ecosystems, supporting and sheltering a host of other organisms, some of whom support still more organisms and so on. That’s also true of many of the other plants also suffering from SODS. Our native deciduous oaks, like black oak, are also at risk and also nurture lots of other species. Another susceptible Californian, Shreve’s oak is a fairly close relative of the red oak at Malcolm X. It remains to be seen whether the so-named red oaks can die of it too; I’m crossing my fingers. 

The susceptibility of various plants to SODS is still a puzzle, and it’s possible that resistance to it is more a matter of individual plants than of species—that some live oaks, some black oaks, some tanoaks (not a “true” oak, but so far the main casualty) and so forth will be able to survive unscathed. The SODS organism has turned up in the eastern United States, though, so we might have a chance to find out. Our urban trees won’t be the only guinea pigs (to mash a metaphor) that get exposed to the stuff. 

(The stuff is Phytophthora ramorum, a “water mold”—not exactly a mold or fungus, but another clade entirely. The more you learn about biology, the weirder the world becomes.) 

Oaks might have the tools to cope. They’ve been fighting via chemical warfare for a long time. They, like tanoaks, are a major source of the tannin that we’ve used for centuries in processing things like leather; the trees “use” it and other chemicals to reduce their appeal to various bugs and other animals. Meanwhile, the animals, especially those bugs, have been evolving tolerances for the chemicals, and so on, ‘round and ‘round. The bigger critters, including us, have been working out ways to eat the nutritious acorns that the oaks make to feed the embryos tucked into them. 

The way we do it is often by food processing. Some oaks’ acorns reputedly are edible without it, but most require repeated leaching to get rid of nasty-tasting or even toxic stuff. After that, the acorn meal is high in protein and fats, and, in the right hands, even tasty. I’d put it somewhere between fufu and poi. 

People are fond of oaks, and love to name things and places for them. An oak woodland is a distinctive space. Oaks tend toward rounded forms and in great age they assume that squiggly branch structure that can make a menacing figure in dim light, all elbows and grimaces. They’re usually long-lived, with strong wood and wide branch angles, which makes for “champion” trees. An oak standing alone in a field has a great deal of presence, and a double file of middle-aged oaks running down a broad street gives us an instantly embraced, gracious feeling. Look at California Street north of Dwight for an example. 

Possibly their only vice—live and deciduous oaks both—is that they have inconspicuous little flowers that cast lots of pollen on the wind, making them prime allergens wherever they grow. We’ve just passed oak-pollen season here, and I’m relieved. 

Other than that, they tend to be good citizens, and the genus has enough species with different characters to fit into a number of urban niches. Besides, when they do die or need to be taken down, their wood makes decent lumber—and there are urban sawmills to use it. I’ll talk more about those as I tell more urban oak stories in the next few columns.

TUESDAY, MAY 24 

Morning Bird Walk in Wildcat Canyon Meet at 7 a.m. at the end of Lark Rd. off San Pablo Dam Rd. to look for grasshpper sparrows. 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. 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. Meets at 10 a.m. For information and to register call 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. For information call 525-2233. 

“Mount Rainier, the Alaska Range and Rescues” with Mike Gauthier, lead climbing ranger at Mount Rainier National Park, at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Free. 527-4140. 

“Modern History of Tibet: From 1905 to 1959” with Topden Tsering, formerly the editor of Tibetan Bulletin, 6 p.m. at Cornie Barbara Room, adjacent to Fellowship Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar.  

“It’s Payback Time: Strategies for Real Estate Investors” with Adam Weiss at 7 p.m. at Red Oak Realty, 2099 Pleasant Valley Ave., Oakland. Cost is $10, reservations required. 292-2009. 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. corner of Eunice. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

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

Kensington Library Renewal Project meeting to discuss the future of the Kensington Library at 7 p.m. at Kendington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Sing-Along every Tues. from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic. All ages welcome. 524-9122. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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 

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. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Community Discussion on Diversity at 7 p.m. in the Albany High School Library, 603 Key Route Blvd. Sponsored by Embracing Diversity Films and the Albany High School PTA. 527-1328. 

“Universal Health Care for California: The Next Steps” with Don Bechler on Senate Bill 840, at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 548-9696. 

“Drug Policies” a panel discussion with Dale Gieringer of NORML, Sgt. Robert Eastmand of the SF Police Dept. and Allen Hopper, ACLU Drug Law Reform Project at 7 p.m. at the Richmond Main Library Community Room, 325 Civic Center Drive. Sponsored by the ACLU. 558-0377. 

“The Oath” A film on the Kenyan Mau Mau Rebellion at 7:30 p.m., followed by discussion at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted.  

“20 Things People with Cancer Want You to Know” with Irene Marcos at 7 p.m. at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. Please RSVP to margo@wcrc.org 

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 

“Prevention of ADHD” with Bette Lamont at 7 p.m. at Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. Donation $10.  

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. Gamelan Sekar Jaya, 6485 Conlon Ave., El Cerrito. 237-6849. www.gsj.org 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes. 548-9840. 

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

Sing-Along every Wed. at 4:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MAY 26 

Morning Bird Walk in Briones Meet at 7 a.m. at the Bear Creek Rd. entrance to Briones to look for Lazuli Buntings. 525-2233. 

Public Hearing on Cleanup of Lawrence Berkeley Lab, sponsored by the State Dept. of Toxic Substances Control at 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7461.  

“Iraq and the Anti-War Movement” with Medea Benjamin, from Code Pink and Global Exchange, and Lincoln Malik, who was born in Iraq, worked with the resistance against Saddam, but opposed the US invasion at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. Sponsored by Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club of the East Bay and others.  

“Our Synthetic Sea” a documentary on the pollution of the Pacific Ocean by plastics at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. www.ecologycenter.org 

League of Women Voters Annual Meeting with Kathay Seng on “Rogue Redistricting: A National Redistricting Crisis?” at 4:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. http://lwvbae.org 

Older People United for elders over 75 meets at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Gray Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Are Your Children Afraid to Go to the Doctor?” A workshop for parents at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Oakland. To register call 658-7353. 

“Downsizing California: Should We Split Up the State?” with Tim Holt at 2 p.m. in the Community Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 981-6109. 

Lag B’Omer Picnic with Kosher barbeque, archery, astrobounce, from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Sponsored by Chabad of teh East Bay. 540-5824. 

FRIDAY, MAY 27 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Andrew E. Barshay, “Japanese POWs in the Gulag 1945-56” 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. 

Activism Series: Vital Issues of Our Time with Juliette Beck and Karmyn Johnson at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. Donation $5. 495-5132. 

Radio Camp Build an FM trasmitter and learn the fundamentals of micropower broadcasting in this 4-day workshop in Oakland. Class runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., May 27-30. Cost is $150-$200 sliding scale. For information and to register call 625-0314. www.freeradio.org 

“The Trouble with Music” with Mat Callahan at 7 p.m. AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St. Oakland. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

“Three Beats for Nothing” a small group meeting weekly at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice, mostly 16th century harmony. No charge. 655-8863, 843-7610. dann@netwiz.net 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 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. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

“The Making of a Humanistic Rabbi” with Rabbi Jay Heyman at 7:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Please bring finger dessert to share for Oneg, and non-perishable food for the needy. Sponsored by Kol Hadash. 428-1492. 

SATURDAY, MAY 28 

Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. along Salono Ave. 527-5358. www.solanoave.org  

Introduction to Residential Solar Learn how photovolactic systems work, what system would be right for your home and cost information. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Town Hall Meeting on Energy with Pratap Chatterjee, Jihan Gearon, Barbara Hale, Randy Hayes and others, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. Cost is $10. Sponsored by KPFA. www.kpfa.org 

Vegetarian Cooking Class: Six Quick Meals From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. Cost is $35. To register call 531-2665. www.compassionatecooks.com/reg.htm 

Women’s Poetry Reading at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Bring nature poetry of your own, or of others. 525-2233. 

Butterfly Garden Learn to identify the local species of butterflies and the plants that support them at 1 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 7-12 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. 

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/ 

walkingtours 

Bay Street Beat Arts & Music Festival Sat and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Bay St., Emeryville. Arts, crafts, food, music and children’s activity area. 655-4002. 

Power Tool Drag Racing from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Lawrence Hall of Science, Centennial Drive. Cost is $4.50-$8.50. 642-5132. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Junior Rangers of Tilden meets Sat. mornings at Tilden Nature Center. For more information call 525-2233. 

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 29 

Raising Chickens Learn about breeds, housing and eggs, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost is $10-$15. Call the Ecology Center for location 548-2220, ext. 233. 

On Membranous Wings Look for, collect, observe and release wasps, bees, ants and others and learn about the ecological roles they play, from 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Laurel Canyon Plant Hike Meet at 2 p.m at Tilden Nature Center for a plant survey. 525-2233. 

Military Voices Against Endless War & Occupation at 6 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Cost is $9-$15. 800-956-6917, ext. 710. www.notinourname.net/mv/ 

“Peace One Day” a documentary by British filmmaker Jeremy Gilley on meetings with the Dalai Lama, Shimon Peres, Amre Moussa and others at 7 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Donation $5. 627-0450. www.peaceoneday.org  

Kapla Skyscraper in Progress Watch as this tower is constructed of small building blocks, then demolished at 3:30 p.m. at the Lawrence Hall of Science, Centennial Drive. Cost is $4.50-$8.50. 642-5132. 

“Freaky Friday” the film at 11 a.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $5 at the door. www.juliamorgan.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Amdo and Abbe Blum on “The Six Realms of Existence” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MAY 30 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

Memorial Day Open House at Tilden Nature Center. Join us for a day of critters, crafts and creative fun from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 525-2233. 

Family Pond Study Meet backswimmers, waterboatmen and learn how they breathe, swim and feed underwater. at 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“The Weather Underground: History, Politics and Lessons” with Ron Jacobs, Dan Berger and former members, at 7 p.m. AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

Trivia Cafe at 6:30 p.m. at Ristorante Raphael 2132 Center St. 644-9500. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, MAY 31 

Morning Bird Walk in Tilden Park Meet at 10 a.m. at the Nature VCenter. 525-2233.  

Berkeley Marina Walk with the Solo Sierrans at 1:30 p.m. For information and reservations call Betsy, 620-9424. 

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. 

Green City Visions A conference on how to rebuild our human habitat to save the environment from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 1547 Lakeshore Drive, Oakland. Sponsored by Oakland’s Office of the Mayor and Ecocity Builders. http://ecocitybuilders.org/greencity 

Backpacking 101 Review the fundamentals of gear, water purification, bear-proofing food and first aid kit essentials at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Free. 527-4140. 

“Globalize Liberation” an evening of ideas and inspiration with Marina Sitrin, Elizabeth Martinez, and others at 7 p.m. AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St. Oakland. 208-1700. www.akpress.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. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

“Shavuot: A Meeting Point between Cyclical and Linear Time” with Avital Plan at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., May 24, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Budget Review Commission meets Wed., May 25, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7041. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/budget 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., May 25, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/civicarts 

Disaster Council meets Wed., May 25 at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. William Greulich, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Energy Commission meets Wed., May 25, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Planning Commission meets Wed., May 25 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 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., May 26 at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/zoningª

The 36-year-old Berkeley man accused of shooting a Berkeley police officer Tuesday morning will remain held without bail at Santa Rita Prison, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Winfred Scott ruled Thursday. 

At his arraignment hearing Thursday, Howard Street was animated, motioning to friends and family inside the courtroom, and demanding an opportunity to address the judge. 

Street said he had been in handcuffs since his arrest early Tuesday morning and denied outside contact. 

“I haven’t been able to make a phone call or nothing,” said Street, who was dressed in a red prison suit, his hands cuffed behind his back with five bailiffs standing behind him during the five-minute hearing. 

Judge Scott ordered Street to be assigned a public defender and returned to the courthouse today (Friday). 

Street, who has a criminal record dating back to 1987, was arraigned on charges of attempted murder of a police officer and possession of a firearm by a felon in connection with the shooting. Street was also arraigned on charges of first degree residential robbery, discharge of a firearm that resulted in great bodily injury, carjacking, and possession of a firearm by felon in connection with a home robbery in Oakland on May 5. Authorities did not give further details on the May 5 incident. 

After the hearing, Street’s mother, who declined to give her first name, maintained her son’s innocence. “I don’t believe he shot the policeman,” she said. 

A woman saying she was Street’s wife said she was able to talk to her husband only briefly since his arrest.  

During the hearing, Judge Scott read off a list of six prior felony convictions against Street, which included convictions for firearm possession by a felon, auto theft, escaping police custody and offering to sell drugs.  

Prosecutors charge that Street shot Berkeley Police Officer Darren Kacalek, 29, in the chest shortly after 2:36 a.m. near Fifth and Delaware streets Tuesday morning, as Kacalek, a three-year veteran of the department, tried to apprehend him. 

Kacalek, who was released from Highland Hospital Tuesday night, sustained a one-inch open wound in his chest and a small bruise on his heart, his mother Annette said by telephone from her home near Redding. 

The bullet ripped through Kacalek’s badge and bulletproof vest before becoming lodged in his chest.  

“He was pretty lucky,” Annette Kacalek said. “If the bullet hadn’t gone through the badge it probably would have done more damage.” 

She added that her son said the gunman fired a second bullet that narrowly missed his head. 

Okies said the early Tuesday morning incident that led to the shooting started when officers attempted to stop a black Mustang for vehicle code violations. The Mustang sped away east on University Avenue. Police did not give chase out of concern for public safety, Okies said, but when an officer spotted the car at Fifth and Delaware streets soon afterwards, the two occupants fled on foot, with officers following. 

Kacalek, who was called to help in the foot chase, caught up with Street. The two began to fight and Street fired his gun, Okies said. 

Police managed to stop Street near the scene, but the other occupant of the car remains at large, Okies said. Okies said he could not reveal additional deals about the incident because it was under investigation. 

Kacalek is due back at the hospital Friday for further evaluation, but is expected to recover fully and return to the force. 

Tuesday’s shooting was not the first for a member of the Kacalek family, which counts five law enforcement officials among its ranks. Kacalek’s uncle, a Fremont police officer, retired after he was shot in the neck in the line of duty many years ago, Annette Kacalek said. 

She learned of the shooting at around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday when Darren called her from the hospital. He told her he was all right and then handed the phone to his brother, a Highway Patrol officer, who told her Darren had been shot.  

“Since I had already heard Darren’s voice it didn’t freak me out as much,” she said. “Darren was kind of laughing, but I think he might have been on a lot of medication.” 

She said that despite the dangers of the work, she was not worried about her son returning to the force. 

“I give the boys to God,” she said. “I sleep fine because I know my boys are good and they’re out on American soil protecting us.” 

@

Under intense public pressure, the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to request that UC release it from a confidentiality agreement that has kept settlement talks over a town-gown legal dispute out of the public view. 

The council is requesting that the university allow it to publicly disclose the terms of a final settlement before both the city and the UC Board of Regents approve it. 

Although councilmembers have said that a deal is imminent, they did not announce that a final settlement had been reached at Tuesday’s closed door meeting.  

In February Berkeley sued UC over a 15-year development plan that it argued lacked sufficient detail and would spark a building boom without city oversight or effective measures to lessen the effects of the growing campus on surrounding neighborhoods.  

A deal would not only settle the lawsuit, but could also lay the framework for city-university relations through 2020. A key point of contention, especially with the city facing mounting budget deficits, is how much the university, which claims an exemption from local taxes and fees, should pay for municipal services like fire and sewers.  

City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque said after the vote Tuesday that she would immediately convey the council’s request to UC’s attorney. However, she said that the university had already rejected an informal request to waive the agreement. 

UC attorneys declined to return phone calls for this story.  

With rumors circulating that under the proposed settlement, UC would pay the city around the $1.2 million in fees they had offered in January rather than the $3 to $5 million the city was reportedly seeking, Councilmember Dona Spring warned residents that even if the deal was made public before a vote, the terms of an agreement would not be altered by public input. 

“I don’t want to give people illusions that bringing this for public comment is going to change anything,” she said. 

Albuquerque said the confidentiality agreement was signed at the city’s request to prevent the university from using comments made at settlement discussions during a trial. Noting that UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau had previously revealed comments made by Mayor Tom Bates in private talks, Albuquerque said, “For that reason we wanted to ensure that all discussions would be purely confidential.”  

According to Albuquerque, the agreement not only bars the council from commenting on negotiations or conversations made in private council meetings, but also prohibits it from releasing the university’s offer or any counter offer, as it would otherwise be permitted under state law. 

Councilmembers seemed surprised at the restrictions placed upon them. Mayor Bates said that he was “of the view that this should be public,” and Councilmember Kriss Worthington objected on the grounds that the council had not formally voted in favor of entering into the confidentiality agreement. 

When Albuquerque responded that it was discussed in closed session, Worthington accused her of violating the confidentiality rules. 

“It seems you’re doing what you’re telling the city not to do, describing what happened in closed session,” he said. 

Reports that the settlement might mirror UC’s public offer has increased pressure on the council to negotiate in public. “If the numbers rumored are true it doesn’t appear that we are getting a fair deal,” said Wendy Alfsen, a member of Berkelyans for a Livable University Environment. 

Becky O’Malley, the Daily Planet’s executive editor, urged the council to release any proposed agreement to the public and added that legal advisors had questioned whether the confidentiality agreement was as stringent as Albuquerque interpreted it. 

“I’ve never seen a confidentiality agreement that affirmatively prohibited public release before a formal vote,” said Antonio Rossmann, a law professor at Boalt Hall. He said that although it is common for public institutions to enter into a confidentiality agreement during litigation, once they feel they have a deal, “that has to be public. It would be just outrageous if the university did not allow for public review on [the deal] before it is voted on.” 

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Facing the loss of 115 jobs and the threat of no raises over the next four years, BART workers Wednesday took to the stations to marshal rider support before they head back to the negotiating table. 

“We can’t afford to lose any more workers,” said June, a station agent working at the Ashby BART Station. Noting that BART has proposed laying off 28 part-time agents this year on top of past cuts, she said, agents are increasingly unable to adequately serve riders. “It’s horrible. A lot of booths go unstaffed every day.” 

To help close a $53 million deficit, BART is considering a series of measures which would cut staff and raise fees. While proposals to increase ticket prices by 15 cents and charge up to $5 for parking have grabbed most of the headlines, employees argued that the loss of 115 jobs, about half of which are vacant, will make BART dirtier and less safe.  

“When you cut staff, but add new stations, things start slipping through the cracks,” said Bud Brandenberger, vice president of the BART chapter of SEIU Local 790, which represents custodial and maintenance workers. 

Mark Raudelunas, a mechanic said previous cutbacks had BART vehicles waiting for repairs. “We can’t repair all the equipment that’s breaking down now,” he said. “There’s a huge backlog.” 

BART Chief Spokesperson Linton Johnson countered that the proposed layoffs would not make conditions at BART less safe and that the transit agency was not cutting any police officer positions. 

Joining SEIU in handing out fliers at BART stations Wednesday were members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, which represents station agents and train operators. Officials from the two unions—BART’s largest—said they will endure the majority of this year’s proposed layoffs and have suffered the bulk of the 412 job cuts BART has made over the past three years. 

BART’s deficit stems mainly from falling revenues and increasing costs, according to General Manager Tom Margro. 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. The system currently serves an average of 310,00 riders every weekday, down from 335,000 in 2001. 

To control employee costs, BART has offered SEIU and ATU four-year contracts with no raises, higher health care contributions and a clause requiring that workers pay their own pension contributions, union officials said. The unions’ current contracts, which expire June 30, gave them 22 percent raises over four years. Despite being far apart at the negotiating table, union leaders said they didn’t plan to strike.  

Brandenberger called on BART to save money by cutting management positions and capital improvement projects. Johnson responded that of the 115 jobs on the chopping block, 23 belonged to non-union employees. He said that union jobs accounted for 80 percent of the proposed cuts while union workers were 91 percent of the workforce. 

“Managers are taking the hardest hit,” Johnson said.  

With fewer station agents and custodial staff, BART has lowered its standards for station cleanliness, Johnson said. He added that the agency’s policy was to make sure there was one station agent at every station, but not at every booth at stations that have more than one station agent booth. 

Even if the BART Board of Directors approves the job cuts and fee hikes before the July 1 deadline for passing next year’s budget, BART will still be $30 million in debt, Johnson said. On Thursday, the BART Board is scheduled to consider proposals to raise fees and charge for parking at stations throughout the system in Berkeley and Oakland. 

Johnson said that to increase revenue BART has studied putting ads on tickets and parking lots and installing televisions with paid programming in stations and trains. 

Asked about the union flier she had just received, BART rider Sandra Rowland of Lafayette said she sided with the workers. 

“I’ve been on a BART train that was stranded in the middle of the Caldecott BART tunnel,” she said. “I know we need to worry about safety factors.” 

While the University of Texas and the University of California arm to fight each other for a $60 million contract to run Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear weapons research and development facility, peace advocates say the competition is misdirected and the debate should focus instead on the danger of developing weapons of mass destruction.  

“The university, especially a public university, has no place contributing to the development of nuclear weapons,” said Chelsea Collonge, UC Berkeley student with the statewide Coalition to Demilitarize UC. “It undermines our academic integrity.”  

University participation sugarcoats the labs’ weapons work, creating a “fig leaf of academic respectability,” said Jackie Cabasso, executive director of Oakland-based Western States Legal Foundation.  

Nonetheless, UC and UT are putting together “dream teams.” UC will partner with San Francisco-based Bechtel National, Inc. BWX Technologies, Inc. of Lynchburg, Va., “the nation’s premier manager of complex, high-consequence nuclear and national security operations,” and Washington Group International, of Boise, Idaho, will also be part of the mix, according to a UC press statement. 

The University of Texas lineup includes major partner Lockheed Martin, with the possible collaboration of Texas A&M and other universities. Southern California-based defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corporation said it would also bid on the contract. 

UC’s ties to the Los Alamos, New Mexico lab were forged in 1943 when the lab was founded with a singular purpose—to create the atom bomb. Because of a series of highly publicized security lapses and management gaffes over the last few years, the Department of Energy, which owns the labs, announced in the spring of 2003 that lab management would go out to competitive bid.  

The university oversees two other labs: the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, founded in 1931, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, founded in 1952. Competitive bidding for LLNL management will take place next year. UC recently won a five-year contract to continue to run the Berkeley lab. 

Competitors Suit Up 

Underscoring that final bid specifications are not yet available and that until they are, the university will not make a final determination on whether it will vie for the contract, UC spokesperson Chris Harrington claimed that the UC-Bechtel team is the top contender. 

“University management brings strong science and technology work,” compatible with the university’s mission of contributing to the safety and security of the nation, he said, explaining that he could not detail the advantages of the UC-Bechtel partnership due to the nature of the competition. The team effort will be led by Michael R. Anatasio, now head of the Livermore labs. 

Bechtel National, Inc., the Bechtel division proposed to partner with UC, brings knowledge of national security, intelligence and defense to the partnership. BNI’s experience includes developing technologies to fight terrorism, monitoring the consequences of terrorist acts, designing emergency response programs, and training military and civilian responders, according to a UC press statement.  

While both Bechtel and UC spokespeople declined to quantify costs associated with preparing a bid, the UT Board of Regents voted to budget $1.2 million for preparing a proposal. Harrington said UC’s outlay would come from the lab’s budget, kept separate from other university funds. 

Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico was among those who have stood up to support the UC-Bechtel partnership. 

“The University of California has provided a solid science background to Los Alamos, as well as a highly regarded academic foundation,” he said in a statement. “By partnering with a group headed by Bechtel National, UC is bringing a strong management team with extensive experience managing challenging projects on board.” 

Asked to comment on the competition, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, chose to address only the question of reducing weaponry. 

“For me, the most critical issue is fundamentally changing U.S. nuclear weapons policies, and I will continue to work in Congress to end the development of nuclear weapons, to continue to reduce the size of our arsenal and to foster nonproliferation programs that will dismantle existing weapons and stop the spread of weapons technology,” she said in an e-mail. 

University of Texas Chancellor Mark Yudof said the UT-Lockheed team is the strongest.  

“For the first time since the creation of Los Alamos, the Department of Energy is challenging American industry and academia to come forward with their best guidance about how its vital work can be done better and more safely,” he said. “There may be industrial bidders who could do the job alone, but without access to the best minds in academia, they could not do it as well….We believe we have the winning combination.” 

Peace groups organize 

The bidders, however, face opposition from peace advocates in Texas, New Mexico and California. Pedro De La Torre, III, a graduating UT senior who speaks for UT Watch, a group opposing university involvement running the lab, said the university is getting into a “dysfunctional” situation where there are accidents and security breeches. “It would be taking on a liability.”  

It would be wrong for the university to be responsible for nuclear proliferation, when the U.S. should be reducing its nuclear stockpile, De La Torre said. 

“The existence of these weapons is a security threat,” he said. University Democrats, Icon Media and Peace Action Texas also oppose UT’s bid to run the lab. 

In California the Coalition to Demilitarize UC focuses its opposition, in part, on the university’s link with profit-making corporations. 

“The UC partnership with Bechtel, BWXT, and Washington International binds the university to industrial corporations that rely on the further militarization and nuclearization of our planet for their profit and power,” CDUC said in a press statement. Further, CDUC spokesperson Collonge said she fears, with the addition of Bechtel and the profit-making incentive, the lab will “design a whole new generation of weapons.” 

The statewide CDUC is working with UC Nuclear Free, Fiat Pax, Berkeley Watch, Tri-Valley CAREs, and coordinates with New Mexico-based Los Alamos Study Group and Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety to bring students to the UC Regents meeting in San Francisco on Wednesday, where the lab competition will be discussed. 

“It’s time to get UC out of the nuclear weapons business,” the CDUC statement advised. 

Harrington bristled at the implications. “The university is not in the weapons business,” he said. “It is in the business of managing three labs on behalf of the United States. Let’s not make it ‘weapons business.’”  

The labs’ charge goes “far beyond nuclear weapons work,” including cutting edge research on the Human Genome, HIV, anthrax and more, he added.  

Cabasso, whose organization, Western States Legal Foundation, recently issued a report, “Up For Sale: Bidding for Management of the Nuclear Weapons Labs” (www.wslfweb.org) said university work at the labs offers a cover for academicians to obfuscate their weapons work and “to tell themselves they are working at an institution of higher learning.” 

Pointing to corporate-run Sandia Labs, she said former director Paul Robinson was more straightforward, “proudly proclaiming” they were working on weapons of mass destruction. (Robinson left Sandia in April to help Lockheed prepare its bid to manage the Los Alamos lab with UT; Lockheed manages Sandia.) 

Pratap Chatterjee, author of Iraq, Inc. and program director at CorpWatch in Oakland, has studied Bechtel and agrees that the corporation is an expert in the nuclear weapons business. But, like Cabasso, Chatterjee says asking which competitor is best is missing the point. 

“Should we be doing nuclear testing at all? We should be shutting them down,” Chatterjee said. 

University equals transparency 

Harrington argued that university oversight of the labs creates transparency and a venue for public input. “The university is subject to open meeting laws,” he said. “We’re very transparent in what we do at the labs.”  

Chatterjee and Cabasso dispute this. Believing that the university is more transparent is part of the conventional wisdom, Cabasso said. “It hasn’t been true in the past 50 years. There’s an illusion of transparency, openness, but the ability to inform the public has been nil.” 

Public and private entities are either accountable or they are not, Chatterjee said. 

“The question is, is accountability enforceable?” he asked. “A government entity can be completely accountable or it can abuse human rights and rip off customers—a private entity can do so also.” 

There is the added potential that, with a private for-profit partner, the profit incentive will drive up costs without public scrutiny, Chatterjee said, noting, “Bechtel is a privately-held company. It does not have to reveal how much profit it makes….We have no idea what happens inside Bechtel.”  

Lockheed, a publicly-held corporation, might be “slightly more transparent,” Chatterjee said. 

Mike Kidder, spokesperson for Bechtel, said the transparency argument is a non sequitur. “Everyone is as transparent (as the next entity) and must meet the same requirements.” 

De La Torre of Texas says running the labs diminishes the university’s prestige and Michael Coffey of UC Nuclear Free agrees: “The university’s reputation is stained by that relationship (with nuclear weapons).”  

But spokespeople for both teams competing to manage the labs say just the opposite, citing duty to country as the primary reason for their involvement. UC manages the labs “as a public service,” Harrington said. 

Similarly, James R. Huffines, chairman of the UT Board of Regents argued: “The work of Los Alamos is fundamental to our national security. As one of the finest institutions in the country, we have a duty to pursue this proposal.” 

The UC Regents are scheduled to address the issue at their meeting Wed., 10 a.m., UCSF, 3333 California St., San Franscisco  

The fate of Berkeley’s many citizen commissions remains in question after the City Council Tuesday failed to reach a consensus on reducing the number of times city commissions will be able to meet. 

The council will debate the matter again June 21. 

With 44 citizen advisory bodies, Berkeley, per capita, is the unquestioned Bay Area commission king. Although supporters hail it as a model of representative democracy, some city officials, noting that city staff has been cut 10 percent over the past few years, say that staffing the monthly meetings has drained resources. 

Two months ago, City Manager Phil Kamlarz proposed reducing meetings for 23 commissions from 11 times a year to six or three times a year. As a compromise, Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Linda Maio last week proposed allowing some of those commissions to meet eight times a year and others to meet six times. 

To further soften the impact on commissions, Bates and Maio amended their proposal to grant those commissions proposed for eight meetings a year a ninth meeting and the opportunity to petition the city manager or the council for a tenth meeting. Commissions scheduled for six meetings a year would have the option to hold eight meetings, and petition for a ninth. 

Additionally, Bates and Maio agreed that the Humane Commission, Solid Waste Commission, Public Works Commission and the Commission on Disabilities could have a minimum of eight meetings a year, rather than six as originally proposed. 

The concessions were not enough to sway some councilmembers, who argued that the city should encourage greater citizen involvement at a time when national politics have left many feeling excluded. 

“When better financial times return, we’ll be stuck with a mindset of less participation,” said Councilmember Max Anderson, who called on the council to look for ways to reduce the burden on staff without cutting down commission meetings. 

Councilmembers Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington backed proposals made by various commissioners to have commission members or disinterested parties, such as university students, take meeting minutes to spare staff members. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz said the city couldn’t rely on volunteers to take meeting minutes or notice meetings because state law required a high level of consistency and if the volunteers failed to meet state standards the city could be held responsible. He estimated that his proposal would save about two full-time staff positions, and said he would begin work to estimate the savings from the Bates-Maio plan. 

Meanwhile councilmembers Laurie Capitelli and Gordon Wozniak wanted to further scale back commissions beyond the Bates and Maio plan. 

They proposed consolidating Public Works and Solid Waste into a single commission; the Energy Commission and the Community Environmental Advocacy Commission into another; as well as consolidating the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Waterfront Commission. 

Wozniak argued that by widening the scope of the commissions, the city would save time and attract more citizens to serve on them and follow their deliberations. 

Capitelli also proposed that the council close the loophole that allows some commissioners to serve more than eight consecutive years by resigning from the commission just before their term expires and then getting reappointed. He argued that the members with longer tenures tended to dominate meetings, “and discourage participation by other citizens.” 

The commission debate spilled over into a brief public hearing on the city’s proposed fiscal year 2006 budget. Of the 11 speakers, four argued against cutting commission meetings. Several speakers also used the forum to voice their opposition to radio tracking devices now being used on library books, while three members of SEIU, Local 535 argued against proposed job reductions. 

The council also agreed to further postpone adopting the Precautionary Principle ordinance, while the law’s chief backer, Councilmember Worthington, and city staff review proposed language in the ordinance. The law is designed to help the city make proactive environmentally sensitive decisions in purchasing, contracting and other activities. 

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A day before ballots went out to the Jefferson Elementary community to decide the fate of the school name, parents and teachers met at the West Berkeley school to discuss the controversial issue. 

Jefferson voters will have until May 26 to decide whether the school will continue to be named after the author of the Declaration of Independence or if the name will be changed to Sequoia. 

The name change has been proposed by Jefferson parents and teachers who believe that the former president’s connection to slavery—he owned slaves on his 18th century Virginia plantation—should disqualify him for honor in Berkeley. Those who support keeping the Jefferson name have said that while his participation in slavery should not be overlooked, it should not overshadow Jefferson’s accomplishments in laying down the foundation of American democracy. 

On Tuesday night, some 60 participants broke into small groups to debate the issue among themselves. The meeting was sponsored by the school’s oversight committee, and was facilitated by Carol Johnson of the Berkeley-based Equity Consulting Group. Two school board officers participated—President Nancy Riddle and Vice President Terry Doran—but the remainder of participants appeared to be people directly connected with the school. 

Jefferson Principal Betty Delaney said that the meeting “was designed to bring together divergent points of view.” 

It did, but with a volume of rhetoric distinctly lower than what has recently been playing out in letters-to-the-editor columns. 

In one of the groups, one man argued that “we should leave the name as it is, and then continue to have these types of discussions on race and the legacy of slavery. If we change the name to Sequoia, those discussions will end. America was founded on controversy. That’s how democracy advances, through controversy, and these types of discussions and struggles.” 

But a woman in the same group countered, “I don’t trust that the discussion will continue or that my point in the discussion will be heard. We don’t discuss slavery or race in our history books now, not really.” 

She also argued that “if the name remains Jefferson, people will not look on him as a controversial figure. They will see that as a confirmation that we see him as a hero. We don’t name schools after people we don’t respect. We don’t name schools after Hitler.” 

Several people commented that they wished that something like Tuesday night’s dialogue had been organized when the name-change controversy was first raised. 

“I think we would have had more information, and it would have set a better tone for the debate,” one woman said. 

The meeting began with presentations by representatives of the two opposing sides. 

Margeurite Talley-Hughes, a Jefferson Elementary teacher, said that Jefferson’s participation in slavery could not be explained away “because that’s what was happening during those times. George Washington refused to buy or sell slaves during his lifetime, and unlike Jefferson, upon his death, his slaves were freed. John Adams did not own slaves. Benjamin Franklin freed the few slaves that were in his possession, and then became president of the Philadelphia Abolition Society.” 

Talley-Hughes also read passages from Jefferson’s 1782 “Notes On Virginia,” in which he argued for the general inferiority of African-Americans in all things intellectual, also complaining of their alleged “disagreeable odor.” 

Supporters of the Jefferson name chose not to make a presentation themselves, but instead had UC Berkeley history professor Robin Einhorn make their case. 

But Einhorn appeared uncomfortable in the role, saying that “I’m not really here as a partisan” and “I’m not here to defend retaining his name.” 

Instead, Einhorn said she was speaking as a historian raising questions that the Jefferson Elementary community would have to answer for themselves.  

“The name Jefferson is shorthand to us for the sentiments expressed in the Declaration of Independence,” she said. “The question is, does it dishonor that sentiment to get rid of his name on the school? The historian’s view is that slavery is at the essence of America at its founding, and it is accurate to portray Jefferson as central to that essence. But saying that this portrayal of Jefferson is accurate does not necessarily mean that we should celebrate it.” 

BERLIN—On a calm spring day in Berlin recently, a horse with a dead-looking soldier on its back clopped across the cobblestones of a leafy neighborhood. The soldier wore a gas mask and slumped forward on the horse’s mane, or wobbled dangerously in the saddle.  

Berliners are used to unusual things, but this was bizarre. People scowled from cars and cafes. Kids ran excitedly behind the horse (”He’s not a puppet! He’s real!”), and the occasional homeless man walked up to give his opinion.  

The rider belonged to an “art-action” group called the Heavenly Four, which wanted to celebrate the defeat of Nazism with a dramatization of a satirical song by Bertolt Brecht. In “The Legend of the Dead Soldier,” an infantryman killed in World War I is dug up by a medical commission and sent back to the front.  

“He’s the soldier that Germans always dig up to send into another war,” said Michael Wildmoser, a tall young urban engineer from Bavaria who helped organize the event. “We want to warn against war in general.”  

Wildmoser and his friends belong to a lively wing of a debate in Germany over how to remember World War II that reaches far beyond the anniversary of V-E Day. The “Heavenly Four” name refers to the Allies who liberated Germans from Nazism on May 8, 1945, and “liberation” is the word used by any German who wants to admit the nation’s crimes and banish the ghost of Hitler.  

The point of the Heavenly Four’s event, in fact, was to counter a march in Berlin by the neo-Nazi NPD, which loathes the word “liberation.” The NPD tried to mount a parade in Berlin on May 8 to protest Allied “crimes” at the end of World War II. Berliners turned out in the thousands to squelch the parade; the NPD is even more alien to them than a dead soldier on horseback. Still, the party’s conscious (and increasingly successful) idea is to make Germans feel like victims again, the way they’d felt after World War I.  

This lunatic position would be easy to dismiss if the subject of wartime defeat weren’t so taboo in Germany. But the NPD speaks up, where other Germans don’t, about the firebombing of cities like Hamburg and Berlin and Dresden between 1943 and 1945.  

“I think we speak for a silent majority,” says the party’s chairman, Udo Voigt. “The current government wants to celebrate ‘liberation’ [from Nazism] on May 8, but many Germans don’t feel themselves liberated by the Allies ... So we say: ‘We’re not celebrating. Enough with the Cult of Guilt. There is no collective guilt.’”  

The problem with Voigt is that he speaks for a quiet, subterranean strain of German feeling. Not only civilians but whole segments of German civilization were incinerated in the firebombings; ancient cities like Dresden and Cologne were literally hollowed out. “The destruction of the city itself, with all its past as well as its present,” wrote the British poet Stephen Spender after visiting Cologne in 1948, “is like a reproach to the people who go on living there. The sermons in the stones of Germany preach nihilism.”  

Whether the Allies could have broken the Nazi machine by demolishing supply lines and oil refineries, instead of city centers, was a controversy even in Churchill’s time. Some excellent German writers, like the late W. G. Sebald, have started to mention it. The problem is to outline Germany’s loss without pretending to be victimized.  

Sebald points out that German literature, and to some extent German memory, draws a blank on the almost nuclear devastation left after the war. “The images of this horrifying chapter of our history have never really crossed the threshold of the national consciousness,” writes Sebald in his final book, “On the Natural History of Destruction.” “... I was not surprised when a teacher in Detmold told me ... that as a boy in the immediate postwar years he quite often saw photographs of the corpses lying in the streets after the firestorm brought out from under the counter of a Hamburg secondhand bookshop, to be fingered and examined in a way usually reserved for pornography.”  

The resurgence of parties like the NPD—which won 12 legislative seats in the eastern state of Saxony last fall, and keeps making offensive noises about a “German Holocaust” at the end of World War II—can be explained, in part, by this shameful silence. The extreme German right stands for national pride in a nation that has very little (still, after two generations).  

Most Germans will tell you they mistrust patriotism; they grew up with the idea that Americans rescued them from Hitler, and any contrary opinion still has a ring of disobedience, bitterness, ingratitude.  

“The majority of Germans today know, or so at least it is to be hoped,” writes Sebald, “that we actually provoked the annihilation of the cities in which we once lived. Scarcely anyone can now doubt that Air Marshall Göring would have wiped out London if his technical resources had allowed him to do so.”  

And that’s exactly the problem. Hitler had tried to erase a people; he would have gone on to erase London and Moscow and New York. And yet the towering moral shame still shadowing German pride is not enough to erase a collective, unspeakable grief.  

Michael Scott Moore is a novelist and reporter living in Berlin. His first novel, Too Much of Nothing, is out from Carroll & Graf.  

$

NEWSWEEK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The attack on Newsweek’s expose regarding interrogators’ denigration of the Muslim faith, like the earlier attack on CBS’ expose of the president’s military history, is surreal. Joe Garafoli places the wrong emphasis in his story. By caving in under attack both Newsweek and CBS played the role of pliant servants to government intimidation. Both stories were factually and technically true, yet CBS’ and Newsweek’s weak and defensive mea culpa conveyed the impression of fundamental factual error rather than the technical errors in sourcing they were guilty of. 

This reminds one of the strange guilty pleas by thousands in the Stalin purge trials and during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It also reminds us of the U.S. government’s current use of highly coercive interrogation techniques to make people say things the government wants to hear. It is not merely the treatment of the Koran that is on trial at the bar of world and Muslim public opinion just now, but the U.S. government’s denigration of human dignity. If the media is compliant it will enhance this dehumanizing death spiral and our nation will suffer every-growing anti-Americanism. Shooting the messenger (in this case Newsweek) is but the greatest absurdity.  

Marc Sapir 

• 

HERE/THERE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Wherefore Art? To put Berkeley in a doghouse similar to that in which Newsweek currently resides? I say revoke their artistic licenses. 

What we have here is one zeitgeist, not two platzgeister. Erect a sign that says “<—NEITHER MUCH NOW—>.” 

But then again, to solve two problems with one ivy-covered stone, why not ship half of UCB to Oakland. That might improve both cities. 

Raymond A. Chamberlin 

• 

NO THERE, HERE OR THERE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the proposed sculpture proclaiming “Here” to motorists entering Berkeley and “There” to those heading toward Oakland: At the rate we’re going, soon there won’t be any there here, either. 

Zelda Bronstein 

• 

RFID TECHNOLOGY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a Berkeley resident and taxpayer. I am appalled by the library spending more than half-million bucks on radio frequency identification tagging. There is no proof that this technology will work! The closest library that uses RFID is in Santa Clara; their multi-media is not tagged because effective RFID technology does not exist for this purpose. If Berkeley’s library gets tags for multi-media, as they are planning to, this technology will be brand-new and untested. Why should our library be the guinea pig? I have this message to the library trustees: “Stop experimenting with our tax dollars!!” The library’s primary priority should be re-opening on Sunday. Hold the director accountable for misuse of our money. 

C. Fourrie 

• 

UC LONG RANGE PLAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When the city challenged the environmental impact report of the UC Berkeley Long Range Development Plan, it was a statement that our city council cares about our quality of life and the environment. On behalf of the Sierra Club, I urge the council not to settle the current litigation against the University of California unless the settlement includes components that mitigate the traffic and air quality impacts of constructing between 1,800 and 2,300 commuter parking spaces. 

These parking spaces will generate significant traffic that will clog our streets, slow down AC Transit buses on major streets, and worsen our air. But there are transit alternatives that could accommodate UC growth without the negative impacts. Don’t settle for less. Settle for a plan that: 

• Reduces parking significantly, more than just a few hundred spaces. The parking is proposed to increase by twice the increase in faculty and staff headcount. Don’t settle for a plan that allows more than 1,000-1,300 spaces, which would maintain or reduce the current drive-alone rates to campus. 

• Requires as an environmental mitigation under CEQA that the university provide a universal transit pass for all employees in the form of a $1 million per year transit mitigation fund, subject to inflation or actual costs. 

This is more cost-effective than building additional parking, with either a 10 percent increase in parking fees or the capital program as the funding source. The current BearPass, while a slight improvement, comes far from realizing the potential of a universal pass like the Class Pass, which was successful reducing student drive-alone rates and encouraging transit use. Both AC Transit and BART directors have expressed willingness to develop such a program, which is justification to require that transit mitigation funds be set aside, with the requirement that UC actively seek a universal pass from both agencies. The joint city-UC TDM Study found that growth could be accommodated without building ANY parking by reducing drive-alone rates for faculty and staff from 50 percent to 45 percent. 

• Implements other TDM Measures suggested in past studies (move from offering monthly parking permits to daily parking permits; fund the Berkeley TRiP office; numerous other suggestions from the March 2001 Nelson/Nygaard study). 

Andy Katz 

Chair, Northern Alameda County Sierra Club 

• 

MORE ON UC PLAN 

I am writing in regards to the city’s negotiations with the UC Berkeley over the Long Range Development Plan (“Fighting Cal with a Rubber Banana,” Daily Planet editorial, May 13) 

I want to express my concern over the scope of these discussions as mentioned in recent media coverage. When the mayor first took his courageous stance to oppose the plan, I was optimistic that the issues of central concern to the student community would be remedied, despite UC’s railroading of this document.  

I want to commend the city for its efforts to speak out in the best interests of all of Berkeley and hopefully hold a firm line in future expansion. 

As a student, I personally support more university development. However, like most Berkeley residents, I firmly believe that such development must be effectively mitigated and that the local community must play a more direct role in the process.  

I strongly believe that the LRDP is flawed and needs revision. It does not comply with the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act. Specifically, it does not fully analyze impacts nor address them. Additionally, what alarms me the most is the massive increase in parking proposed in the plan. 

UC Berkeley’s transportation policy is poor. Instead of investing millions in building more parking it can also develop alternative transportation programs such as a free faculty/staff transit pass and a BART Class Pass program. However, a very select group of faculty dominates these decisions, and the rest of the campus and city suffer accordingly.  

Case in point, UC is proposing to substantially increase the student contribution to campus transit through the upcoming Class Pass vote. The rationale for this decision is because some faculty want to remove all non-parking funding and direct it to building more parking. 

This is not in the best interest of anyone in this town, and someone needs to stand up before its too late. The ASUC was actively involved in the LRDP planning process. They submitted written comments and attended most public meetings. However, like the city and the neighborhoods their voice was not heard, and the three years of opportunities resulted in what UC wanted, not what anyone else did. 

Because of this, it was my firm hope that the city would fight against this parking increase and other policies, such as the parking replacement policy. 

While I have no position on fiscal compensation for services, I think the city has a credible argument. But this has dominated the debate, and there are other issues of greater importance to Berkeley residents. 

I urge the mayor and councilmembers: Please do not forget about these concerns; please fight for a more safe and sustainable community. We are looking to your leadership to guide us through this process. Please don’t give up at $1.2 million, there is more at stake and we need an equitable and beneficial solution for everyone in Berkeley. 

Jesse Arreguin 

• 

SUPPORT AMTRAK USE 

The good news is that the City of Berkeley is finally upgrading Berkeley’s Amtrak train stop at the foot of University Avenue, including a platform, lighting and disabled access. The bad news is that it appears that most of the unrestricted parking spaces currently used by train riders will no longer be available after the city’s redevelopment plans are complete. 

Berkeley’s plan to eliminate all but six unrestricted parking spaces will discourage many train commuters from continuing to use the train, particularly in the dark during early morning and evening hours and in rainy weather. Berkeley is the only city on Amtrak’s Capital Corridor route between Oakland and Sacramento that has not recently built or renovated a station with a safe waiting area and provided sufficient parking for Amtrak patrons. The city of Davis, for example, renovated an old train station similar to Berkeley’s former station and maintains 160 free parking spaces.  

In contrast, Berkeley has chosen to abandon its former train station, to provide only a minimal platform stop and to reduce the already inadequate number of parking spaces for train riders. Berkeley should be doing more to promote Amtrak use. At the very least, Berkeley should reconsider its current plan to expand short-term parking for Fourth Street shoppers at the expense of parking access for Amtrak riders. 

Julien Mercier 

• 

THOMAS JEFFERSON 

One of the main reasons that we study history is so we can understand the past to assure that we make a positive change for our children’s future. At Jefferson School, every student, staff member, parent and guardian has a chance to take a stand that will publicly acknowledge the pain and suffering of millions of Africans through the institution of slavery by changing the name of our school. 

For many, the name Thomas Jefferson brings up the tenets of the Declaration of Independence and the phrase “all men are created equal…with certain unalienable rights…of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” While Jefferson is credited with contributing these words to the document, he returned home to 200 enslaved African people on whose back his future, and the future of America, was built. This fact alone outweighs the impact of his accomplishments. 

In naming a school after Thomas Jefferson, we bury the story of human suffering by glorifying a person who was the master of enslaved Africans for 65 years. As an white woman who is an ally in the fight against institutionalized racism, I am compelled to take a stand alongside the many people at my school who are personally offended by the name of Jefferson, and need the name to change. Jefferson’s visionary words are hollow and offensive if they are not put into practice 

Maggie Riddle, Teacher 

Jefferson School 

• 

RECYCLING ASSOCIATION 

Your readers might be interested in the recent newsletter of the Northern California Recycling Association (www.ncra.org) where the co-owner of Urban Ore is concerned about gentrifying West Berkeley removing the industrial (and increasingly reprocessing) base from the community (Will recyclables be like garbage?; everybody loves it when you pick them up but nobody likes it when you put them down). There’s also a piece written by Berkeley’s GAIA staffer Monica Wilson who is worried that since a third of California’s cities have failed to meet their 50 percent goal, will they all jump on some purported high-tech bandwagon to cook and zap their trash to keep the landfills clear. Good reading.  

Arthur Boone 

• 

RACIST POSTER 

It may be of interest to you to report a story about a racist poster that is currently on display at the Berkeley Shattuck Landmark Cinema. The poster is displayed by the concession stand in the glassed in area labeled “employee of the month.” The poster has a picture of a man and describes him as Babu the snake charmer who works for the theater performing snake charming shows, but was recently bitten by his snake well entertaining audiences. This caricature is totally inappropriate for a public venue like the theater and I found it ridiculous and offensive to see it on view. When I asked a worker at the theater about the poster they said it was just for fun. I sure wasn’t laughing, it is disgusting. So much for Berkeley being a place where different cultures are not stereotyped or discriminated against. It was only too ironic to walk out of Crash, a movie about racial intolerance and cultural misunderstandings, only to see this poster. The workers of the cinema should be ashamed. 

Jacqueline Gehring 

• 

MALCOLM X 

In honor of the birthday of Malcolm X, I would like to share a few observations from the time I heard Malcolm in San Francisco. It was in 1963 at the Fillmore Ballroom, which was then home of the Nation of Islam. The ushers escorted me and the four or five other whites to good seats up front.  

Malcolm came out with a two big tripods to put pictures on, and he carried a pointer. His discourse was in the even voice of your typical college lecturer, as opposed to the few flamboyant lecturers. His topic was the history of “how the Negro got in the position we are now.” He began by saying, “They accuse me of preaching race hate.” He paused, smiled and said, “I don’ t preach hate, I only tell the truth.” 

The lecture that followed focused upon the conditions of slavery and how those conditions twisted the minds of slave and slave master alike. It was the most impressively argued and detailed lecture on slavery I had ever heard, and the year before I was a teachers’ assistant for Kenneth Stampps’ UC Berkeley history course on the Old South, and the year before that I had been the reader for the course.  

Malcolm’s first visual aid was a blowup of an advertisement from a Southern newspaper, circa 1850. Three things were for sale: a mule, a cow and a Negro. The mule was advertised for twice the price of the human being, the cow for only slightly more. Malcolm pointed out the difference, looked intensely at the advertisement, stroked his chin and asked, “What kind of system can create such a monstrous set of values?” Then he turned to the audience to say, “And they accuse me of preaching racial hate. I only present the truth...” 

Other visual aids included pages from a manual on how to discipline slaves, and advertisements about runaways. I left the Fillmore curious to know how Malcolm X became such a thorough historian of that sick old world of American slavery. I found out that the Massachusetts prison where Malcolm served time in the early 1950s happened to be a prison where there was a very large library of abolitionist literature. The library was donated by the old Bostonian family the Peabodys, and the books and pamphlets were given as part of a program to see that prisoners got rehabilitation during their incarceration. I was told that Malcolm X devoured the library. 

We know that many things and many events went into the making of the world renown revolutionary, Malcolm X, and I wish more people knew of his expertise in history. 

Ted Vincent 

Upon discovering that my teenage daughter was writing an essay on William Golding’s seminal novel Lord of the Flies, I had her view the film version with me, a film that absolutely terrified me when I first saw it at about the age of 10. We watched it al ong with my 10-year-old son who couldn’t bear to watch the whole thing. “Why are they being so mean to him?” he cried, tears streaming down his face as he turned away from witnessing boys his own age stone pudgy, philosophical “Piggy” to death. 

When Lord of the Flies made its debut in 1954, it was hailed as not only superbly written but as a parable of the times. A large group of English boarding school boys is stranded on an uninhabited island. While they struggle to survive, two boys emerge as potential leaders. After Ralph, who uses reason and goodwill to convince the boys to elect him as leader wins in a democratic vote, His rival, Jack, uses fear and physical might to, in effect, steal the election by stealing the community fire and terrorizing all those who resist him into submission or death. Not only do the boys murder Piggy but they also, in a fear-induced frenzy, kill Simon, the weakest among them, who is also the only one to have seen the truth of the “beast” they are all so frightened of. “What if the beast is us?” he queries. No one hears him until it is too late. 

Is life a war? A continuous battle for domination not just over land and goods, but a nonstop competition for the allegiance of others’ thoughts, feelings and actions? Is the ego ever satisfied?  

On May 6, two teenagers at Hercules High School entered the boys’ bathroom and proceeded to brutally beat up 17-year-old Hassan Rahgozar, breaking his jaw and blackening his eyes. The attackers, 18-year-old non-student Eric Guillebeau and a 17-year-old who had already been suspended for beating Hassan two weeks before, were arrested and charged with felony battery charges. A fellow “student” stood by and videotaped the attack and then broadcast it on the Internet. 

The budding filmmaker was not charged with a crime. He was suspended, however, and may not be allowed to graduate with his class. Hassan will be placed at another school to “ensure his safety.” Why is his safety in jeopardy? He was the victim. Yet, it is anticipated that rathe r than being treated with the empathy and support he deserves, he had better be worried about castigation and retaliation. 

This incident reminded me of Sherrice Iverson. Remember her? Sherrice was 7 years old on May 25, 1997, when she was followed into t he bathroom of a Las Vegas casino by then-19-year-old Jeremy Strohmeyer. Strohmeyer cornered her in one of the stalls and began to rape the little girl. His best friend, former UC Berkeley engineering student David Cash, peeked over the stall, saw what St rohmeyer was up to and rather than rescue the little girl, went outside and sat on a bench for 24 minutes to give his buddy some space. After he raped Sherrice, Strohmeyer strangled her to death. While Strohmeyer is serving a life sentence for murder, Cas h was not charged with any crime. He was, instead, allowed to remain at UC Berkeley—where he was admitted based solely on his grades and SAT scores—and provided with security to boot. He expressed no remorse for Sherrice but rather sued his high school fo r not letting him into his prom and tried to sell his story to make money and attract girls. 

“My kid can beat up your honor student” the bumper sticker on the black truck ahead of me reads. I pass another driver, this time in a shiny white Mercedes compl ete with UC Alumnus decals, whose bumper sticker reads: “Honk—I’m re-loading.” I go home and my 10-year-old son is watching cartoons brimming with gratuitous violence—bullying, fighting and hysterical laughing at others’ misfortunes. I turn the station a nd see a young man in prison garb being interviewed by the mother of his victim, a teenaged girl he had kidnapped, sodomized and killed. The mother asks, “Why did you do it?” The convict pauses, looks down and then straight at her as he replies: “I wanted them all to remember my name.” Not interested in learning his name, I turn off the TV. My son is now on the computer, bobbing his head in rhythm to the theme song of one of his favorite wrestlers: “I lie, I cheat, I steal, I lie, I cheat, I steal… I don’t care if you don’t like me… everybody wants to fight me…” 

Violent behavior is not part of my son’s genetic make-up. I don’t want him to lose the sense of compassion he felt for Piggy and Simon. I think the capacity to feel for others is a good thing. Bu t, in a society bred of violence and greed, where the bad boys are made heroes—sung about and immortalized on TV, in films and now on the Internet—the cards are stacked against him.  

What’s a mother to do? I could use a little help out there. Think of it this way: The life you help save could be your own. 

o

As was earlier announced, here and elsewhere, Mayor Jerry Brown is proposing shutting down the Kaiser Convention Center as a “cost-saving” venture to “balance Oakland’s budget.” Noting in a “Budget Facts” document on the mayor’s proposed policy budget for fiscal year 2005-07 released by City Administrator Deborah A. Edgerly that we are looking at a $32 million shortfall in those years, we learn that in order to help close that shortfall, Mr. Brown proposed to “shut [the Convention Center’s] doors on Jan. 1, 2006, upon completion of existing contracts with community groups. This closure will eliminate the growing annual city subsidy to the facility of an estimated $0.4 million per year, and result in the elimination of 20 positions, mostly part-time.” 

That $0.4 million per year sounds like a lot, until you put it into some context. 

Oakland’s general fund is estimated to be $463 million in fiscal year 2006-07, with total spending on all funds projected to be more than $1 billion for that year. You can do the math yourself, but spending $400,000 a year to keep 20 people on the job, even part time, and to operate the city’s largest public venue—where we have things like our high school graduations and cultural events—seems something of a bargain. 

The proposed closing of the Kaiser Convention Center by Mr. Brown also appears a little odd, considering that at the same time, just across town, the mayor is pouring city money into the re-opening of another theater venue…the old Fox Oakland. The Fox—which has been abandoned for many years—sits in the same neighborhood as the Paramount Theater, which is open, but reportedly barely breaking even. Once, when downtown Oakland was booming, we could support two major theaters in the same area, but who among us believes that can happen now? Apparently Mr. Brown. Getting the costs on Oakland projects is always an iffy thing, but back in late 2003, the city auditor estimated it would cost $800,000 just for cleanup and testing of the Fox Oakland (twice the amount we spend each year for the fully operational Kaiser, along with its 20 part-time employees). Estimates of the actual cost of full renovation of the Fox run from $20 million to $70 million. All of that money is not projected to come from the City of Oakland budget but, like the Raiders Coliseum deal, Oaklanders have learned to be wary that they will be caught holding these considerably heavy bags. 

So why close the Kaiser because its costing $400,000 a year to operate while simultaneously sinking at least $800,000 in city money-with potential millions more to follow-into the Fox? Beats me. 

Closing the Kaiser Convention Center on the first of January also appears a little shortsighted, considering what’s about to happen along the Lake Merritt Channel between Lake Merritt proper and the estuary. As all observers of recent Oakland history know, the channel is due to be opened up with money approved by Oakland voters three years ago in the water bond Measure DD. In that same measure, Oaklanders voted to do away with that highway—like 12th Street-14th Street bypass between the lake and the convention center. Nobody at the present knows what the new configuration will look like, except that when it is finished, the Kaiser Convention Center will be accessible by pedestrian traffic from both Lake Merritt and lower 14th Street. Presumably Mr. Brown does not just want to close the center down, but he wants to sell it—either as a building intact, or for its land—to some willing developer, waiting in the wings. But waiting to sell the Kaiser after the Lake Merritt Channel renovations are actually done would make it a far more valuable property. Someone whose interests were in making more money for Oakland would wait. Of course, someone who wants to get a better deal for a developer would rush the sale through early. I’m not making any accusations about Mr. Brown, or anyone else. I’m just passing out observations. 

Still, I will note that the proposed sale of the Kaiser Convention Center—at a time when it would appear to be on the least favorable terms to the city—is very much in line with past Brown administration policies. 

Back in 2001-02, the Port Commission announced that it was losing money on some of its Jack London Square retail properties, and, because it just wasn’t in the business of losing money, decided that some of those properties needed to be sold. So the Port Commissioners divided up the JL Square properties, figuring out which ones were making a profit and which ones were losing money and—you guessed it!—sold the profitable properties (including the Barnes & Noble bookstore and the Spaghetti Factory) to a group called the Jack London Square Partners (Ellis Partners and James Falaschi), while keeping the unprofitable properties in the hands of the Port. Don’t take my word for it. You can look it up. 

The “oddity” of the Oakland Port Commission Jack London Square deal aside, we are rapidly passing into a new era of government, in which we are told that government must be operated like a business and, therefore, government cost centers must generate a “profit.” 

That is news to many older taxpayers, who grew up in an era when government programs were considered “services,” already paid for by our various taxes. 

And so, when we look at the Kaiser Convention Center, we do not look at its bottom line. We look at it as the place where we crossed the stage to get our high school diplomas. We look at it as the location of the annual city Holiday Festival, where our elementary school age sons and daughters sang carols marvelously off-key, and where the anticipated event-for children and parents alike-was “Dancing Santa” jumping out of his sleigh to break-it-down in a way no other Santa in no other city could do. We look at the countless expos and gospel concerts and dance performances over the years that could not be performed anywhere else because there was nowhere else big enough in the City of Oakland to accommodate them. 

We look at the Kaiser Convention Center as an Oakland treasure, one of the benefits of living and paying taxes in this city. With the Kaiser closed, where will Oaklanders go? Where will we find our cultural heart, once this one is lost? 

Close it? Sell it? This one doesn’t make any sense, at least for Oakland taxpayers and citizens, those of us who will stick around here after the Jerry Brown Train moves out of the station two years from now. 

"

Click here to view the latest work by Justin DeFreitas

Tom got lucky with a waitress 22 years ago, and the baby she had alone came out to California to see him. 

They had both wanted to meet each other. Neither of them had any money, so Tom’s old friends paid for bus tickets, cleaned off sofas, made lots of extra food, crossed their fingers, and helped it happen. 

When I say they had no money, I don’t mean because they were budgeting for a two-week vacation, or because they had their savings tied up in stocks. I mean Tom came 500 miles from where he was living in a garage, making what he could off odd jobs and drinking to stay steady, with only a few dollars on him. His 22-year-old daughter’s mom was moving from relative to relative on her way toward resettling near her aging parents about eight states away. Sarah, the daughter he’d never met, had no home, no job, and when her sandal strap broke we spent a solid 20 minutes in Wal-Mart trying to find wearable two-dollar footwear. 

Sarah was tall, smiled easily, and moved comfortably through the unfamiliar neighborhood her mother had often described to her. She knew where she could find a job back in the Midwest, she had an idea of the work that might interest her. She had her mother somewhere, her hopes, and her health. 

Tom, on the other hand, was not walking well, and couldn’t make it through the day without a drink. He’d spent a couple decades helping his aging mother through a long illness until her death. His own family’s affections for him were thin enough not to recognize the value of his years of care-giving, or the cost to him, a man who had no work history and was suddenly without a home, since they’d decided to sell the trailer he’d shared with his mother until she died. 

It takes courage to be 22 years old and go see a father you’ve never met before. It takes courage to jump on a bus, break out of your world, and meet the neighbors and friends who’d been the closest family your mother had when her own family failed her. 

It also takes courage to have no money, unsteady legs, failing hands that used to play as fluidly as Renbourn and Kottke, and welcome a daughter the world sees you as having failed into your heart. Tom put his arms around Sarah and told her how glad he was to meet her. He told her stories, played her songs, and made her feel as welcome as he could sitting in someone else’s home, a homeless man with nowhere to go and an addiction he could not disguise from a daughter he’d dreamed of someday meeting. 

Sarah and I had dinner with the man who was her mother’s birthing coach, a man who just stepped in because someone needed to, the way ordinary people sometimes become heroes. We talked and laughed and told stories, the way families at their best must be able to do. We took pictures with our arms around each other on the porch of the house where she was born. We walked her through the streets that had called to both her parents, and played her the music that had been the center of the world. 

One of us bought her a plane ticket when the visit was over, so she could avoid the long bus trip back to the Midwest. Another couple of us talked to Tom and calculated that his interest in going to a rehabilitation clinic was strong enough that it was worth kicking together the money. Maybe meeting his daughter helped motivate him, or maybe he just had no choice, but he’s there now, unraveling years of a hard habit. 

Tom got lucky with a waitress 22 years ago, but he got a lot luckier 22 years later, when a wind of fresh forgiveness circled through a small group of friends who couldn’t have known how much good making small gestures and smiling in the right places could do. Sarah, somewhere back in the Midwest, holding the photograph of all of us on the porch, probably thinks of us as family. And lucky for us, at least for a moment, we were. 

Computer Violence 

Police were called to an apartment at College Avenue and Channing Way Wednesday morning when an argument between two women became violent. According to Police Information Officer Joe Okies, one woman shoved a computer keyboard into another woman’s stomach. Police have not arrested the accused attacker. 

Phony Cops Rob Boy 

A 14-year-old boy walking along the 800 block of Tacoma Avenue was robbed by two men around 11 p.m. Tuesday, Officer Okies said. The two men at first told the boy they were police officers and once they stopped the boy ordered him to hand over cash. They remain at large. 

Reported Assault 

A resident on the 1700 block of San Pablo Avenue found her neighbor at the door late Wednesday evening with bruises on her face. The victim, a 21-year-old female, reported that she had been assaulted. The suspect, believed to be a 35-year-old male, has not been arrested. 

Macho Men 

Two construction workers working a building project on the 2100 block of Milvia Street came to blows, just before 9 a.m. Tuesday morning. Police were summoned, but made no arrests, Okies said. 

Unwelcomed Guest 

Police arrested a 19-year-old Berkeley man Tuesday afternoon at Berkeley High School, where he is not enrolled, after he got into a fight with a student. 

Graffiti Taggings 

Police received reports of separate graffiti taggings at 8:51 a.m. and 8:53 a.m. Monday. The first report was of vandalism to a building at Gilman and Tenth streets. The second came from a home on Summit Road where the vandal painted a “1” on the resident’s garage.›

In the debate over President Bush’s appeals court nominees, Democrats are kicking and screaming over the possibility that Republicans may seriously use their congressional majority to their advantage, and in so doing force Democrats to play by the rules and actually vote on the nominees.  

This Republican threat to eliminate the ability to filibuster judicial nominees (a move known as the “nuclear option”), is of course, in reaction to the Democrats’ feverish efforts to filibuster every single one of President Bush’s 52 appeals court nominees on the basis that they are unqualified right-wing extremists who have “deeply held beliefs.” 

As indicated by recent history, Democrats’ definition of an “extremist” must denote any religious person who doesn’t happen to favor redefining marriage, sanctioning fetal genocide and starving retarded hospital patients to death.  

Or, to really understand what all the fuss is about, let’s take a brief look at some of the “unqualified” nominees whom Democrats have thus far blocked with the filibuster.  

There is Judge Priscilla Owen, who is so unqualified that she graduated in the top of her class from Baylor Law School, earned the highest score on the Texas Bar Exam, received the highest rating from the liberal American Bar Association and was re-elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 2000 with 84 percent of the vote 

These credentials didn’t suffice for Senate Democrats, including Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein, who dismissed Owen as a “conservative extremist.” 

Hmm. Being a “conservative extremist” didn’t seem to prevent Owen from acquiring the support of three former Democratic judges on the Texas Supreme Court as well as a bipartisan group of 15 past presidents of the State Bar of Texas and being lauded by Former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John L. Hill, a Democrat, who gushed: “I can assert with confidence that [Owen’s] approach to judicial decision-making is restrained, that her opinions are fair and well-reasoned, and that her integrity is beyond reproach.” Indeed, the only trace of apparent “extremism” as it would be defined by liberals is the fact that Owen is a Sunday school teacher. 

Then there is “right-wing extremist” Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who is such a right-wing extremist that she received endorsements from such liberal publications as the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle as well as a bipartisan group of 16 California law professors, and was described by her judicial colleagues (Democrats and Republicans alike) as “a jurist who applies the law without favor, without bias and without an even hand.”  

On April 28, the New York Times lambasted Brown as “an extreme right-wing ideologue” and “a consistent enemy of minorities.” (Let’s just set aside for a moment the distracting paradox inherent in the concept of an “enemy of minorities” who is also an African-American.) 

Then, of course, there’s Alabama Chief Justice William H. Pryor, a devout Catholic whose chief defect according to Sen. Chuck Shumer is that Pryor (gasp!) has “deeply held beliefs.”  

Yes, you read it right. Not cocaine. Not adultery. Not Chappaquiddick. Judge Pryor’s principal unforgivable scandal is his unlawful possession of illicit “deeply held beliefs.” 

Nevermind that Pryor has shown obedience to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade precedent. Nevermind that he opposed a bill passed by the Alabama legislature which negated the precedent and ordered state prosecutors to comply with it. The mere fact that he personally opposes abortion in accordance to his Catholic beliefs deems him unfit. 

Proponents of the fight to preserve the filibuster include Sen. Robert Byrd, a former Klansman particularly familiar with using the filibuster (he used it against the Civil Rights Act of 1964), who took the issue to the Senate floor on Feb. 28, comparing in his speech Republican tactics on nominees to Hitler’s use of power in Nazi Germany.  

Also included is Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has vowed “to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president of the United States for any court – federal court in the United States.” Yes, the same Ted Kennedy who said on Jan. 28, 1998: “Nominees deserve a vote…The president and the Senate do not always agree. But we should resolve these disagreements by voting on these nominees—yes or no.”  

They also include Sen. Barack Obama, who on April 28, said: “It is ironic for me to have to speak out on behalf of a filibuster that for many years hampered the passage of civil rights law, often times by the way defended by some of the same folks who are now arguing that the filibuster is awful when it comes to judicial nominations.” 

Sigh. 

If nothing else, at least this issue has provided liberals another opportunity to resort to their brilliant method of pouring gas on the fire by turning any argument they can’t win into a racial dispute. But perhaps Obama has a point. After all, it’s not as if they have Robert Byrd on their side. Oh, wait… 

Democrats can whine all they want about the “rights of the minority.” But as long as they are the minority, it is up to Republicans whether or not the minority gets to have its way. If they are going to act like babies, let them. They do not, however, need to be allowed to interfere with the Senate’s responsibility to give the nominees a fair up-or-down vote. Yes, even if, God forbid, the nominees do have “deeply held beliefs.” 

Piedmont High School senior Christian Lee Hartsock is a screenwriter, videographer and political columnist.  

On May 2, the City of Berkeley Youth Commission voted 10-1-1 to approve a two-part proposal, recommending that the Berkeley City Council support state legislation to allow local choice in setting a voting age of 16 years or older and send the previously proposed ballot initiative back to the Youth Commission for them to hold a public hearing on the details of an amendment in Berkeley regarding lowering the voting age to 16, if and when the state permits such an action. 

The proposal put forth at Monday's meeting was drafted by members of the Berkeley High School Chapter of the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA-Berkeley). The National Youth Rights Association is an organization advocating for youth empowerment. This includes, but is not limited to lowering the voting age, lowering the drinking age, and eliminating the curfew.  

In March of 2004, a bill was introduced into the California State Senate by former State Senator John Vasconcellos (D-Silicon Valley) called SCA 19. This bill was originally intended to allow 14 and 15 year olds one-quarter of a vote and 16 and 17 year olds one-half of a vote. After passing two committees, it was amended to allow people 16 years of age and older to have a full vote. John Vasconcellos abandoned the bill after he discovered that he was short one vote to pass the last committee. If passed by the third committee, the bill would have gone to the floor of the Senate for approval. 

The voting age needs to be lowered for many reasons. One that resonates with many is that American teenagers contribute an estimated $9.7 billion per year in sales taxes alone to the economy, as well as millions of dollars a year in income taxes. However these youth who pay taxes have no say in how their own tax dollars are spent. Does this remind you of taxation without representation? 

Juveniles can be tried as adults in the criminal justice system. How can society treat youth as adults in terms of criminal punishment, but not let them act as an adult in society by giving them the right to vote? This is a double standard—youth can be given the same punishment as an adult in the court systems, but are severed from their personal beliefs when they wish to vote. 

Many conclude that youth are not educated enough to make informed decisions. This standard might be valid if it was applied to everyone. Senile people are not stripped of the right to vote. Nor are alcoholics, neurotics, or psychotics who live outside of hospitals robbed of the right to vote. Many youth are ready to vote in this day and age.  

Some have said that youth would vote just as their parents do. This is not necessarily true. Youth are just as influenced by people around them as adults are. It makes sense that people who you care about and care about you will tell you what they think about issues. Ultimately, though, it is one’s own decision as to what they vote on. 

If youth were given the right to vote, voter turnout would increase greatly because many new voters would register. Additionally, surveys have shown that youth increase their parent’s likelihood to vote. A program called Kids Voting USA started in the mid to late 1990s allowed children to vote in the actual polling stations where their parents voted. The study showed that 5-10 percent of adults who voted indicated that Kids Voting USA was a strong factor in their decision to vote. Not only will youth voting increase the number of voters, it also will encourage young people to get involved in politics early on, which can contribute to a lifetime interest in voting. 

We have made appointments with nearly every councilmember to discuss our proposed legislation. We also have meetings set up with Assemblywoman Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), Assemblyman Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo), and the Alameda County Field Representative for Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California). We are awaiting approval for an appointment with Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). 

For more information, please visit NYRA’s website at www.youthrights.org or visit NYRA-Berkeley’s website at http://berkeley.youthrights.org. 

This recommendation will be presented to the Berkeley City Council at their Tuesday, May 24 meeting (pending approval from the Agenda Committee) on 1234 Martin Luther King Jr. Way in the City Council Chambers at 7 p.m. I encourage you all to come support us and speak at the meeting. If nothing else, you can watch the council meeting on Berkeley TV Cable 33. 

Berkeley High School student Rio Bauce is a member of the City of Berkeley Youth Commission and treasurer of NYRA-Berkeley. 



Opening with a Puja, a ritual of blessing conducted by lamas, and closing with the sounds of Karma Moffett’s Long Horns, the 22nd annual Himalayan Fair transforms Live Oak Park this weekend into an open-air market for art, antiques and clothing, with foodstalls and traditional performing arts from Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia. 

Founded by Berkeley resident Arlene Blum, the first woman to climb Annapurna and author of Annapurna: A Woman’s Place (now available in a 20th anniversary edition from Sierra Club Press) the Himalayan Fair is meant to recreate “all the good things,” the sounds, the crafts, the food of a Nepalese marketplace, “and, in the process ... provide sponsorship for grassroots projects in the Himalayan countries.” 

Booths will display Tibetan silver jewelry and coral beads, Afghan coats, Pashmina and other finely-woven wool shawls, tribal dress of all kinds, as well as hand-woven and dyed Indian fabric, books, CDs of Central and South Asian music, statues and images of deities of various religions. 

Half a dozen foodstalls will provide Tibetan, Nepali, Indian and Afghani delicacies, from Momos to Masala Dosas to BBQ chicken kabobs, with spicy chai and cool yogurt lassi to drink and kulfi, Indian ice cream, for dessert. 

Barbara Framm, fair committee member, said the entertainment at the fair will range “from Mongolian throat singers to Classical dancers from the southern tip of India--and everything in between.” 

Highlights, Framm said, include Shabaz (formerly the Ali Khan Band), Bamboo Moon Express with Mindia Devi, Vendhana Dance Co. (Kathak) with a special guest artist from India, and Dhot Rhythms (from Berkeley) dancing the vigorous Panjabi Bhangra to drumming. Kalanjali Dances of India will perform Sunday, as well as Vishnu Tattva Das’ Odissi Vilas dance company. Local Tibetan and Nepalese community groups (TANC and NANC) and Global International Exchange Nepal will also provide music and dance from these Himalayan countries. 

“It’s just like a big party,” Framm said. “Everybody eating, listening to the music, strolling while looking at beautiful things on display ... people are sure to meet others they haven’t seen all year—a community of those who’ve been coming for 20 years.”  

Proceeds from the fair are donated to projects in the countries represented. Last year, over $31,000 went to over a dozen orphanages, schools, clinics, job-training programs and cultural services in South and Central Asia. The fair is put together by a part-volunteer effort of the local Tibetan and Nepali community. Last year, a Nepalese boy from an orphanage in Kham that receives support from fair proceeds came to participate, and to thank his benefactors. 

The fair is wheelchair accessible with facilities for the disabled. A free, decorated shuttlebus will run between North Berkeley BART and the Fair from noon, ending at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday. Sponsors for the Himalayan Fair include the City of Berkeley, Downtown Berkeley Association, North Shattuck Association and KPFA. 

As Katherine Kunhiraman puts it: “Continuous entertainment, blending professional and community groups—and almost the entirety of ticket sales go to grassroots organizations. This is the best deal in town. One dollar is a lot of rupees!” 

?

If Michael Moore represents the modern face of documentary filmmaking—in which the filmmaker doubles as star of the show, dominating the onscreen time with questions and commentary—then Smith College Master of Social Work candidate Lindsay Duckles must be the old school, where the filmmaker gets out of the way and lets the subject tell the story. 

I like the old school better. 

Duckles’ low-budget, half-hour, iBook-created documentary of a year-long student-organized struggle at Berkeley Alternative High School is part of the long tradition of Berkeley activist history because it concentrates on the most important element—the activists themselves. The film, Berkeley Alternative High School—The Struggle for Social Justice, debuted Thursday night at Berkeley Alternative High. 

The film, which was pared down from 40 hours of filmed footage, is broken into three parts that show a guiding storyteller’s hand that never gets in the way of the story. 

The first part are close-up interviews with Berkeley Alternative students, who talk of their feelings after learning that they were being excluded from Berkeley High extracurricular activities. 

“I didn’t understand,” the first student says, a thoughtful and articulate, dark-skinned African-American girl. “I was disappointed.” Her face fills the screen, and it is impossible to ignore, or forget. 

Later comes an angry male student who speaks of the rumor—later denied by BUSD Superintendent Michele Lawrence—that BAHS graduating seniors were going to be denied permission to participate in graduation at the Greek Theater with their BHS counterparts. 

“I want that,” he says, emphatically. “I want my family to see me walk across the stage and get my diploma. If I have to spend all year to fight that, I don’t care.” 

While another student talks of the Greek Theater graduation being “the real experience, and I want to experience it all,” the film shows still photos of past Greek Theater graduation exercises. 

The second part of the film shows a 2004 BAHS meeting, in which angry parents and teachers debate the meaning of the exclusion. 

But the highlight is shots from a pivotal January town hall meeting at the Alternative High, in which both parents and teachers confronted Superintendent Lawrence, and the superintendent tried to explain the district’s position and work out a compromise. 

The film ends with a speech at that meeting by outgoing BAHS principal Alex Palau, in which he outlined two historic visions for Berkeley Alternative, one which saw it as a dumping ground for problem students, another which viewed it as a small but equal partner in the city’s education mission. 

Following the meeting, talks between BAHS, BHS, and BUSD representatives resulted in an agreement that BAHS would continue to participate in all BHS extracurricular activities. 

Duckles, who grew up in Sonoma County and has family ties in Berkeley, appears to have lucked out in documenting the BAHS dispute. While interning at the Berkeley Mental Health Department and doing video therapy with BAHS students last fall, she approached BAHS Guidance Counselor Mercedes Sanders about a possible subject for a documentary to be turned in as a college project. 

Sanders, who had already been working with BAHS students about the problems with BHS, got Duckles involved early enough so that she was able to document the struggle from the beginning to end. The result is a rare piece of activist history: a documentary that does not rely upon retrospective, but unveils the events as they unfold. 

While Duckles has to return to Smith College this month, she is hoping that BAHS students will photograph their participation in the BHS graduation exercises, and that those photos will eventually be included in a final version of the film as its triumphant conclusion. 

Meanwhile, besides turning it in as a college project, Duckles said she is hoping to distribute the film to a wider audience, including possible showing by Berkeley Community Media and surrounding school districts. 

›

FRIDAY, MAY 20 

THEATER 

Berkeley Repertory Theater “The People’s Temple” at the Roda Theater, through June 5. Tickets are $20-$55. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

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 

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 

EXHIBITIONS 

Master of Fine Arts Exhibition opens at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way, and runs through June 19. 642-0808.  

“Smoke, Lilies, Jade” work by twelve local LGBT artists at Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. Reception at 6 p.m. Exhibition runs to June 30. 601-4040, ext. 111.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Youth Speaks: The Oakland School Slam at 7:30 p.m. at Malonga Casquelord Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. Cost is $3-$5. To participate, call 415-255-9035, ext. 18. Oaklandslam@youthspeaks.org 

Chuck Palahniuk reads from his new book “Haunted” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10, free wih purchase of the book. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

David Antin reads from his new work of free-form pieces “I Never Knew What Time It Was” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Kim Addonizio An evening of poetry from her workshops at 7 p.m. at Temescal Cafe, 4920 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 595-4102. 

Debra Grace Khattab, poet, at the Fellowship Café & Open Mic at 7:30 p.m. at Fellowship Hall, Cedar & Bonita Sts. Donation $5-$10.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater, “Barre to Bravura” at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $14-$18 at the door. www.berkeleyballetorg 

Nguyen Dance Company “Struggle to Survive: 30 Years Cry for My Country,” on the 30 year anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at the Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Tickets are $15. 415-336-3154. www.dannydancers.org 

Oakland Opera Theater, “White Darkness” at 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Sun. at 2 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway at Second St., through May 22. Tickets are $18-$32. www.oaklandopera.org 

Oakland East Bay Symphony with the Oakland Symphony Chorus at 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway. 625-8497. www.oebs.org 

Hideo Date at 8 p.m., Doug Arrington at 9 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Hip Hop Exchange Sin Fronteras at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Los Bros, Latin fusion at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9-$11. 525-5054.  

Blame Sally at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Moonrise with Lady Michal & Neal Hellman, acoustic pagan folk, at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10.  

Vince Wallace Quintet at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 763-7711.  

Dialectic, Maxwell Adams, The Sevenmillionaires at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Patty Larkin at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761.  

Morning Line, The Cowlicks, Joe Rathbone at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Ben Adams Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

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

Dick Hindman Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Brown Baggin’ at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

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

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

Meneguar, Gospel, Self-Employed Saviour at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Bill Evans Soulgrass at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $15-$26. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, MAY 21 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Fresh Paint” paintings done by students of Larry Robinson. Reception at 5 p.m. at Piedmont Lane Gallery, 4121 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 

THEATER 

“Requiem for a Friend” an intermedia performance ritual, directed by Antero Alli, Sat. and Sun. at 9 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. Cost is $10. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

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

Naomi Wolf reads from “The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from My Father on How to Live, Love, and See” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater, “Barre to Bravura” at 2 and 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $14-$18 at the door. www.berkeleyballetorg 

Trinity Chamber Concerts “Voci e Violini” at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. trinitychamberconcerts.com 

“Jazz with a French Twist” A benefit concert for St. Ambrose Church with Duo Gadjo and Anouman at 8 p.m. at 1145 Gilman St. Tickets are $10. 525-2620. 

Contra Costa Chorale with the New Millennium Strings Orchestra at 2 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury, El Cerrito. Tickets are $12-$15. Children under 16 free. 524-1861.  

American Bach Soloists “Sonic Tapestries” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Tickets are $20-$30. 415-621-7900. www.ameriacanbach.org 

Robin Gregory Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

West African Highlife Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson with Comfort Mensah at 9 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

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

Jinx Jones Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mitch Marcus Quintet at 9 p.m.. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 763-7711.  

Barefoot Nellies, bluegrass, at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10.  

Carl Nagin, flamenco, at 7 p.m. at Spuds, 3290 Adeline Ave. Cost is $7. 597-0795. 

Nerissa Nields at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Poor Bailey, Bordelo, Company Car at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Sheldon Brown Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. 

Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Conversation with the artists at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mercury Dimes, Wrangletown at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Loco Bloco Drum and Dance Ensemble at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Judy Wexler Quintet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Local Band Night with Bandalism, The Annoyance, The Heist at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MAY 22 

CHILDREN 

Music for People and Tingamajigs Concert An outdoor labyrinth of interactive instuments for the whole family from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $4-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Gary Laplow at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“From Isolation to Connection” works by artists with psychiatric disabilities opens at the Berkeley Art Center, through July 1. Reception from 2 to 4 p.m. 644-6893. 

THEATER 

“La Zapatera Prodigiosa” by Federico García Lorca, performed by students of College Prep at 7 p.m. at Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway, at Brookside, Oakland. Free. 652-0111. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Irreconcilable” gallery talk on the MFA Graduate Exhibition at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Poetry Flash with D. Nurkse, Jerry Ratch and Sherry Karver at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

UC Extension Student Reading at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater, “Barre to Bravura” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $14-$18 at the door. www.berkeleyballetorg 

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble “Listen to the Elements: Music of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire,” at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $15-$20 at the door. Children under 12 free. 531-8714. www.coolcommunity.org/voci  

CDQ Brazil at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

“From the Shtetl to La Scala” with soloist Heather Klein at 2 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org 

Memories in Red, Savage Machine, This May Never End at 4 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. All ages show. 848-0886.  

Americana Unplugged: Jimbo Trout & The Fish People at 4 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Peace Brigades International and Kid Beyond at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15-$25. 849-2568.  

Greta Matassa & Mimi Fox at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373.  

Songs of “Les Miserables” performed by the River City Theater Company at 2 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Loudon Wainwright III at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761.  

Flamenco Open Stage with Stephanie Neira and Grupo Sabores de Espana at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

MONDAY, MAY 23 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Exhibit A” Photographs by Mark and Michele Nelson. Reception at 7 p.m. at Lanesplitter Pub & Pizza, 2033 San Pablo Ave. 845-1652. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jim Leff introduces “The Chowhound’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Vicki Burns and Mark Little at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

West Coast Songwriters Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $5. 548-1761.  

Northgate High School Jazz Groups at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200.  

TUESDAY, MAY 24 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

David Skibbins reads from his new mystery “Eight” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Carol Setters, author of "Kick Start: A Cosmic Biker Babe's Guide to Life" at 7 p.m. at Change Makers Books for Women, 6536 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 655-2405. 

Susann Cokal introduces her historical novel “Breath and Bones” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Clarinet Thing with Beth Custer, Ralph Carney, Ben Goldberg, Sheldon Brown, and Harvey Wainapel at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50- $18.50. 548-1761.  

Jug Free America, Orth at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Brian Kane, solo jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

7: ES-EL at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6-$7. 848-0886.  

Ah LaRocca at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 763-7711.  

Flutology at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

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

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 

THEATER 

Berkeley Rep, “Honour” opens at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. and runs through July 3. Tickets are $20-$39. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

FILM 

Berkeley High Annual Student Film Festival at 6 p.m. at Florence Schwimly Little Theater, Berkeley High Campus. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Martha O’Conner introduces “The Bitch Posse” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Jorge Emmanuel, Abe Ignacio and Helen Toribio discuss “The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit “Famous War Horses Played on the Organ” at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

Vechirka, an Ukranian party with Kitka at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Donations help sent the group to the Ukraine this summer. 444-0323. www.kitka.org 

Calvin Keys Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

Jug Free America at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Universal, salsa, at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Happy Turtle, jazz-funk-lounge at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Sonic Camouflage at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Free. 763-7711. www.cafevankleef.com 

Penny Lang & The Echo Hunters at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Anthony Wilson Nonet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, MAY 26 

CHILDREN 

Story Theater PLUS! With students from Redwood Day School and the College of Marin at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater. www.juliamorgan.org  

THEATER 

Subterranean Shakespeare “The Taming of the Shrew,” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park, through June 24. No show June 2. For reservations call 276-3871. 

FILM 

Latino Film Festival: “Oscar” in Spanish with subtitles at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alan Burdick introduces “Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Iain Boal, T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts discuss “Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Word Beat Reading Series with Charles Curtis Blackwell and Phillip T. Nails at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Art Maxwell Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Benefit for the Family of George Robinson at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20, sliding scale. 525-5054.  

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

Mirror Image, Send for Help at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Jeremy Cohen and Dean Riley at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Tango #9 at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 763-7711.  

Piano Music by Tim Ross and Jack Kruscup, Thurs.-Fri. at 5 p.m. at the Faculty Club, UC Campus. Early Bird specials at $13.99. For reservations 540-5678.  

Gary Burton Generations Band at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

?

Whenever I travel the first thing I search out is a guided walking tour. It’s my favorite way to get up close and notice the details that lend character and uniqueness to a business district or neighborhood. When the visual is supplemented with interesting stories and pieces of history, the experience is magnified. 

From now through October, you can revisit or discover anew eight distinct areas around downtown Oakland: Old Oakland, City Center, Uptown to Lake Merritt, Preservation Park, Chinatown, Jack London Waterfront, Churches and Temples and New Era/New Politics. Sponsored by the Oakland Tours program, trained guides lead you on a 90-minute free walking tour. It’s a great opportunity to look into Oakland’s past, get acquainted with her present, and enjoy the contrast of an evolving skyline above historic landmarks and churches. 

To sample the program I selected two tours. I went to Preservation Park, an area I never knew existed, and revisited an old friend, the Jack London waterfront. 

Preservation Park is located on 13th Street at Martin Luther King Jr. Way, just one block from the looming Ronald Dellums Federal Building. One block and a hundred years separate these two distinctive elements of Oakland’s downtown. A recent Saturday found me outside cast stone pillars and a wrought iron gate bracketed by white roses, the entrance to Preservation Park. Here I joined tour guide Renata Combs for a fascinating walk and oral history back to a time when Oakland was the second largest waterfront city in California. 

Saved from the wrecking ball of the 980 freeway, Preservation Park now provides business space for nonprofits and small businesses. This lovely setting is definitely the place to go to work. 

Though smaller in scale, the tree-lined streets, curved, flower bedecked walkways and lush lawns mirror the landscapes of early neighborhoods. Low walls topped with iron and sturdy picket fences set the park’s boundaries. Inside there are five restored buildings in their original locations. The remaining eleven were relocated from the path of the freeway. In all they represent a 40-year window, 1870 to 1911, on Oakland’s architectural history from early Victorian and colonial revival to arts and craft. 

RCoombs is an experienced guide, evident from her storehouse of knowledge and her ease and enjoyment in her subject. She led the group around the park, discussing not only the buildings before us but also the families who lived there, their history and that of the times in which they lived.  

Inside the front gates, the Remillard home, built in 1887, is typical of the Queen Anne style, with its rounded shape, turrets and fish-scale shingles. As lovely as these Victorians may seem, Coombs pointed out that their construction was responsible for the destruction of most first growth redwood forests. Even knowing this, it was difficult not to admire the attractive tri-color scheme of pilgrim blue, slate gray and deep maroon. I also learned that the decorative trim of Victorians was added after purchase, being mass-produced in the United States—sort of like adding buttons and ribbons to a favorite dress. 

One focal point at the center of Preservation Park is the lovely Latham-Ducell fountain. Brought over from France, this cast iron edifice with the goddess Diana above spouting lion heads was in full operation on my visit. We walked around the corner to the First Unitarian Church, a state historic landmark. When built in 1861, in the masonry Romanesque style, it was the largest building in Oakland.  

Our final stop was the African-American Museum and Library, housed in one of the original public library buildings. It now houses an enormous reference library and archives on black history. In fact, this library is the meeting point for another Oakland tour, “New Era/New Politics.” 

Later I walked around “Old Oakland.” The themes of Preservation Park are repeated here in the cobbled sidewalks, tree-lined streets, vintage designed lamp-posts and brick buildings. The same vivid contrast also exists: the towering buildings of new Oakland dominate the skyline, but, surprisingly, do not deter from the charm of the past. Apparently there is room for both. 

In 1852, a wharf was needed to transport goods and lumber during the Gold Rush. Oakland filled that need. Today Jack London Square attracts residents and visitors alike to popular restaurants, shops and concerts. One recent weekday, missed connections with the tour guide resulted in my solo tour of the area and I counted myself lucky to be strolling under the sun, enjoying the crisp breeze and the attractive landscaping. 

I began my tour at the foot of Broadway and headed toward the bronze statue of a peripatetic Jack London, appearing ready to stroll down the wharf. The farmers’ market was in session so I enjoyed the colorful sights, appealing smells and sweet taste of spring cherries and apricots, while listening to the classical guitar of a street musician. 

More tributes to the wharf’s namesake center around Heinhold’s First and Last Chance Saloon, where the next stop for an overimbiber could be China. London’s White Fang and an attractive fountain modeled after a cascading mountain stream are next to the cabin from his Gold Rush experiences in the Yukon. I tried to pick out the original logs from the replicates in this semi-original structure. I couldn’t tell which were which. 

A holiday feeling prevailed as I passed restaurants with outdoor seating, tree-lined pathways, large concrete planters, thick green lawns and cobbled walkways. A large group awaited the arrival of the ferry while others seemed content to drift along just enjoying the day.  

I was sorry to have missed the historic narrative of the tour, but that was quickly remedied when I reached the U.S.S. Potomac, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “floating White House.” Inside the visitor center, I was fortunate to encounter Jerry Silsdorf, senior docent, who took me on a dockside tour and regaled me with stories of life aboard this famous yacht. There’s no stopping a history buff, and Jerry, like Coombs, could talk for much longer than the normal 45-minute tour. 

FDR had good cause to fear fire, so his 165-foot ship, built in 1934, is all steel. During the hot, sultry days of a Washington summer, he’d leave the actual White House behind, and conduct business aboard ship, among statesmen and even King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. 

We passed through the Main Salon, furnished elegantly but modestly with dining table and Oriental carpet. Historic photos lined the walls into the president’s stateroom and bath. All was designed to allow wheelchair access. A single photo of Eleanor, Roosevelt’s “eyes and ears,” adorned a chest.  

My favorite area was the afterdeck, furnished like a spacious outdoor veranda with built-in wide-cushioned seating that accommodated FDR. A rattan chest held supplies needed for cocktails and the president’s favored pastime—poker.  

The simplicity throughout was in contrast to what one would expect of a president’s residence, and I admired that most of all, as I did the smokestack converted into an elevator, where FDR used his strong upper body, along with pulleys, to travel between decks. Between the careful restoration and Jerry’s narrative, it wasn’t difficult to imagine the spirit of President Roosevelt out on the deck overlooking the water. 

As part of an excellent walking tour or on your own, Oakland has a lot to offer. The interesting combination of a revived past and a vibrant present is worth one or several visits to this close neighbor. Although I’ve lived in the East Bay for many years, I’m still surprised by the variety of places and information I have yet to uncover. And that’s a good thing. ?

FRIDAY, MAY 20 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with John Karam, on “Islam in Latin America” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925. 

“Robert F. Williams: Self-Defense, Self-Respect, and Self-Determination” a new audio documentary at 7 p.m. at First Unitarian Chuirch, 685 14th St. Donation $5-$25. 208-1700.www.akpress.org 

Kirtan, improvisational devotional chanting at 7:30 p.m. at 850 Talbot, at Solano, Albany. Donation $10. 526-9642. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

“Three Beats for Nothing” a small group meeting weekly at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice, mostly 16th century harmony. No charge. 655-8863, 843-7610.  

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. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169.  

SATURDAY, MAY 21 

Native Plant Walk in Strawberry Canyon Meet at 10 a.m. in the parking lot on the right on Centennial Road above the UC Stadium. Cost is $10-$15. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Pepperweed Pull Join Save the Bay, Friends of Strawberry Creek, and Friends of Five Creeks removing invasive perennial pepperweed, a threat to shorebird habitat, from Eastshore State Park at the mouth of Strawberry Creek, from 10 a.m. to noon. Meet at the cove west of Sea Breeze Deli, University Ave. just west of the I-880/580 Freeway. 848- 9358. www.fivecreeks.org 

Bay Friendly Gardening Design at 10 a.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr.. Bring your site plans. Free, but registration required at www.stopwaste.org 

Snaking Through the Hills Join us for a hike up the watershed to see where reptiles like to sun. Meet at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Strawberry Tasting at the Berkeley Farmer’s Market, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Center St. at MLK Jr. Way. Cooking demonstrations at 11 a.m. 548-3333.  

Barbara Lee Town Hall Meeting for Veterans to help access benefits and services from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany.  

United Nations Association UNICEF Center Open House from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 1403-B Addison St., with music, food, and door prizes. 849-1752. 

Barbara Lee Town Hall Meeting on “State of the African Diaspora” at 2 p.m. at Oakland City Council Chambers, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza. 393-6262. 

Longfellow Health Fair Health and nuitrition information, free health screenings, cooking demonstrations, food and student performances from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Longfellow Family Resource Center, Ward St. between Sacramento and California Sts. 644-6360. 

Rosa Parks Kids Carnival with entertainment, food, cake walk and silent auction from noon to 4 p.m. at the Rosa Parks School, 920 Allston Way.  

Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Himalayan arts, crafts, music and food. Cost is $8-$20. 869-3995. www.himalayanfair.net 

Journey to Tibet slide-show with Dorjee Tsewang at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park 644-6893. 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour of the Ashby Station neighborhood, from frog pond to flea market, led by Dale Smith, from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/ 

Growing Smart in Berkeley A tour of downtown Berkeley with Greenbelt Alliance. Reservations required. 415-255-3233.  

Walking Tour of Oakland City Center Meet at 10 a.m. in front Oakland City Hall at Frank Ogawa Plaza. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Rockridge Festival from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Claremont Middle School, 5750 College Ave., with performances, rummage sale, silent auction, arts marketplace and food. Benefits the Middle School Arts Program. To donate items call 420-7022. 

“Is the AFL-CIO Breaking Up?” join the Democratic Socialists of the East Bay for a discussion from 10 a.m. to noon at the Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., near Alcatraz. 415-789-8497. www.dsausa.org 

Family Violence Law Center Fundraiser at 6 p.m. at the Lake Merritt Hotel in Oakland. 208-0220. www.fvlc.org 

Community Party and Open House with children’s activities at Vara Healing Arts, at 850 Talbot, at Solano, Albany. Cost is $4-$7. 526-9642. 

Bay Area Story Telling Festival Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area. Tickets are $7-$11 for individual events, $31-$55 for the weekend. 869-4969. www.bayareastroytelling.org 

Loose Leash Dog Walking, a training session on city manners from 11 a.m. to noon at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Cost is $35. Reservations required. 525-6155. 

Walking for Prader-Willi Syndrome A fundraiser at 10:30 a.m. at Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Cost is $20 individual, $50 family. 800-400-9994. 

California Writers Club “Harnessing Your Dragons” to improve productivity and creativity with Jane Porter at 10 a.m. at Barnes and Noble, Jack London Square. 482-0265. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Girlstock with music, art and stories from 2 to 10 p.m. at at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class in Disaster First Aid from 9 a.m. to noon at 997 Cedar St., between 8th and 9th. To sign up call 981-5605. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes 

Historical and Botanical Tour of Chapel of the Chimes, a Julia Morgan landmark, at 10 a.m. at 4499 Piedmont Ave. at Pleasant Valley. Reservations required 228-3207. . 

SUNDAY, MAY 22 

Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Himalayan arts, crafts, music and food. Cost is $8-$20. 869-3995. www.himalayanfair.net 

Albany Festival of the Arts from noon to 8 p.m. at Memorial Park, 1331 Portland Ave., with music, theater, dance and poetry. Free.  

First Annual Taste of El Cerrito with food, wine, coffee and tea tasting at 5 p.m. at the El Cerrito Community Center, Moeser Lane at Asbury Ave. Cost is $10-$20. 

Dynamite History Walk in Point Pinole at 10 a.m. to discover the park preserved by dynamite. 525-2233. 

World Social Forum Report Back by representatives of the National Lawyers’ Guild, WILPF, ReclaimDemocracy, and others at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. Donation $5-$15.  

Music for People and Tingamajigs Concert An outdoor labyrinth of interactive instuments for the whole family from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $4-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Peralta Community Gardens Potluck at 4 p.m. at Peralta and Hopkins. Please bring food or drink to share. Rain cancels. 549-2455. 

“La Place du Marché” French market stalls with food, wine, and French products and raffle from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Ecole Bilingue, 1009 Heinz Ave. at Ninth St. Admission is $7, children under 12 free. 

Hands-On Bicycle Clinic from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Free. 527-4140. 

Memorial Service for Dr. Peter Louis Trier at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. 527-2279. 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations call 848-7800. 

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 

“Insights Received While Producing a Multimedia Experience: Reflections on the Tao” with Mike Bukay, nature photographer, at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Pema Gellek and Lama Palzang on “The Buddha’s Enlightenment” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MAY 23 

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.  

An Evening with Jon Carroll, SF Chronicle columnist at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $18, benefits Heart’s Leap School. 925-798-1300.  

Berkeley High School Site Council meets at 4:30 p.m. in the school library. bhssitecouncil@berkeley.k12.ca.us  

Adaptive Reuse in Los Angeles: A Model for Recycling Oakland’s Heritage? with Hamid Behdad, Director of the Adaptive Reuse Program, City of Los Angeles, at 6 p.m. in the Oakland City Council Chambers, City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Free and open to the public. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

“Got Stress?” A seminar on how to reduce it at 6:30 p.m. at Piedmont Ave. Branch Library, 160 41st St., Oakland. 597-5011. 

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. 

Philip Roth Book Club facilitated by Laura Bernell at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org 

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

Adoption in Interfaith Jewish Families at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10-$15. 839-2900, ext. 347. 

TUESDAY, MAY 24 

Morning Bird Walk in Wildcat Canyon Meet at 7 a.m. at the end of Lark Rd. off San Pablo Dam Rd. to look for grasshopper sparrows. 525-2233. 

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

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. Meets at 10 a.m. For information and to register call 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. 

“Mount Rainier, the Alaska Range and Rescues” with Mike Gauthier, lead climbing ranger at Mount Rainier National Park, at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Free. 527-4140. 

“Modern History of Tibet: From 1905 to 1959” with Topden Tsering, formerly the editor of Tibetan Bulletin, 6 p.m. at Cornie Barbara Room, adjacent to Fellowship Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar.  

“It’s Payback Time: Strategies for Real Estate Investors” with Adam Weiss at 7 p.m. at Red Oak Realty, 2099 Pleasant Valley Ave., Oakland. Cost is $10, reservations required. 292-2009. 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. corner of Eunice. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

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

Kensington Library Renewal Project meeting to discuss the future of the Kensington Library at 7 p.m. at Kendington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Sing-Along every Tues. from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic. All ages welcome. 524-9122. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz at 7:30 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. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 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 25 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. at the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours 

Community Discussion on Diversity at 7 p.m. in the Albany High School Library, 603 Key Route Blvd. Sponsored by Embracing Diversity Films and the Albany High School PTA. 527-1328. 

“Universal Health Care for California: The Next Steps” with Don Bechler on Senate Bill 840, at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 548-9696. 

“Drug Policies” a panel discussion with Dale Gieringer of NORML, Sgt. Robert Eastmand of the SF Police Dept. and Allen Hopper, ACLU Drug Law Reform Project at 7 p.m. at the Richmond Main Library Community Room, 325 Civic Center Drive. Sponsored by the ACLU. 558-0377. 

“The Oath” A film on the Kenyan Mau Mau Rebellion at 7:30 p.m., followed by discussion at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted.  

“20 Things People with Cancer Want You to Know” with Irene Marcos at 7 p.m. at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. Please RSVP to margo@wcrc.org 

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 

“Prevention of ADHD” with Bette Lamont at 7 p.m. at Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. Donation $10.  

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

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

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

Sing-Along every Wed. at 4:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MAY 26 

Morning Bird Walk in Briones Meet at 7 a.m. at the Bear Creek Rd. entrance to Briones to look for Lazuli Buntings. 525-2233. 

“Our Synthetic Sea” a documentary on the pollution of the Pacific Ocean by plastics at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220.  

Public Hearing on Cleanup of Lawrence Berkeley Lab, sponsored by the State Dept. of Toxic Substances Control at 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7461.  

“Iraq and the Anti-War Movement” with Medea Benjamin, of Code Pink and Global Exchange and Lincoln Malik, who was born in Iraq, worked with the resistance against Saddam, but opposed the US invasion at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. Sponsored by Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club of the East Bay and others.  

League of Women Voters Annual Meeting with Kathay Seng on “Rogue Redistricting: A National Redistricting Crisis?” at 4:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. http://lwvbae.org 

Lag B’Omer Picnic with Kosher barbeque, archery, astrobounce, from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Sponsored by Chabad of the East Bay. 540-5824. 

Older People United for elders over 75 meets at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Gray Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Are Your Children Afraid to Go to the Doctor?” A workshop for parents at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Oakland. To register call 658-7353. 

“Downsizing California: Should We Split Up the State?” with Tim Holt at 2 p.m. in the Community room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 981-6109. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., May 24, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Budget Review Commission meets Wed., May 25, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7041. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/budget 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., May 25, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/civicarts 

Disaster Council meets Wed., May 25 at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. William Greulich, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Energy Commission meets Wed., May 25, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Planning Commission meets Wed., May 25 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 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., May 26 at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/zoning  u

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today we are pleased to offer for your information a guest editorial, author unknown. It’s a cogent, well-written summary of why the City of Berkeley needs an adequate environmental impact report from the University of California before the university moves forward with its relentless desire to radically change the face of our city between now and 2020. Nothing’s changed—the points made in this piece, placed on the city’s website in February when the lawsuit was filed under the title “Fact Sheet,” are still valid.  

There is no reason the City Council should rush to concede anything to the university within the next month, or at least no reason which would benefit Berkeley citizens. There is also no reason that the public is being kept in the dark about the terms of the proposed agreement between the city and the university.  

Even worse, it now appears that the “confidentiality agreement” between the city and the university was not voted on by any elected officials, and perhaps was not even signed by the city manager. We’ve tried to find out who did sign it, but the Daily Planet’s California Public Records Act request to see the document was denied by City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque on dubious grounds.  

It would be unheard of in the business world, where I spent 18 years, for an attorney to purport to bind her clients by a confidentiality agreement like this without express authorization from her principals to do so. Any attorney trying to do something like this on behalf of any company I’ve ever worked with would have been summarily discharged.  

It’s no surprise that the University of California, having suckered some gullible operative claiming to represent the City of Berkeley into agreeing to keep the deal a secret, won’t let go now. That’s typical of the way the university treats Berkeley.  

What is somewhat of a surprise, and a disappointment, is that our City Council is allowing itself to be led around by the nose like this. Two and possibly three councilmembers seem to be showing courage in speaking for the public interest, but the rest of them seem to be falling for the specious legal arguments for secrecy that they’ve been fed. The public will, of course, have a chance to see the deal eventually, after it’s signed, sealed and delivered. The next chance to hold city councilmembers responsible for what they decide to do now will be in November of 2006. 

Here, from the anonymous author, is the “Fact Sheet” from the city’s website:  

Background 

The UC Berkeley campus is comprised of 12.1 million square feet of academic and support space and serves 31,800 students and 11,600 faculty and staff. The LRDP calls for major increases: 

• 2.2 million new square feet of academic, research and administrative space. 

• 4,000 additional full-time equivalent students. 

• Over 3,500 additional faculty, staff and visitors. 

• Up to 2,300 new parking spaces. 

• 2,600 new housing beds.  

Between March 2003 and January 2005, the city expressed its concerns about the LRDP to the university repeatedly in meetings with UC officials and staff, submitted hundreds of pages of information and comments, and repeatedly invited UC to have a serious discussion of how the city and UC could collaborate on planning for the affected areas of the city and mitigating the impacts of additional UC development. The university has not reciprocated. 

Physical Impacts 

This additional development will have a number of significant environmental impacts, notably increasing traffic congestion, but also on historic resources, storm water, aesthetics, and all of the other impacts that accompany major development. The university has offered no assurance that it will fully address all environmental impacts resulting from the LRDP. 

Fiscal Impacts 

The LRDP will put further stress on already strained city services. Unfortunately, university development also takes property off the tax rolls. The university is exempt from most taxes, assessments and fees. The current annual cost to the city of providing public services to the university is estimated at $13.5 million.  

Under the LRDP, the cost will rise by approximately $2 million. The EIR recognizes that the services provided by the city are tools for reducing environmental impacts, yet the university has not made any commitment to paying for these services as a way to mitigate the impacts resulting from the LRDP. As a result, the city will not be able to sustain the level of service needed and as those services are stretched, environmental impacts will result; from spills due to dilapidated sewer pipes and waste water systems, to deteriorating air quality as cars idle on grid-locked streets. 

Why the EIR is Inadequate 

• The LRDP and EIR contain no details about the actual development that will occur under the LRDP, or where it will occur. As a result, the EIR contains little useful information. However, the university intends to exempt projects from full environmental review (a process known as “tiering”), thus avoiding any real environmental evaluation of the projects that will be developed under it. 

• The university claimed in the LRDP and EIR that it had insufficient information to describe several specific projects, such as the Memorial Stadium renovation and Southeast Quadrant Academic Commons, even though those projects were in advanced stages of planning even as the EIR was being prepared. 

• The EIR did not evaluate the LRDP’s significant impacts on aesthetics, air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, geology, seismicity and soils, hazardous materials, hydrology and water quality, land use, noise, population and housing, public services, transportation and traffic, and utilities and service systems. It did this by treating certain significant impacts as if they did not rise to a level of significance, entirely ignoring the fact that certain aspects of the LRDP will have impacts; assuming that other impacts would be mitigated even though there was no evidence to this effect; relying on the city to mitigate certain impacts; and relying on purported mitigation measures that are unlikely to happen. 

• The EIR failed to take into account the cumulative impacts of developing the LRDP in conjunction with the forthcoming long range development plan for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). 

• The EIR did not examine a reasonable range of alternatives to the LRDP that would have reduced its impacts. 

In general, the EIR did not provide good faith, reasoned responses to the many comments the university received, on all of these issues, and others. 

The Regents’ approval of the LRDP was based on findings about the regional economic impacts of the university that entirely ignored its significant and uncompensated local costs. 

On the first of May we had the pleasure of dropping in at three homes on the Bringing Back the Natives garden tour which we learned about from Ron Sullivan’s article in these pages. This was not one of your elegant events featuring name architects and landscape designers which are staged, with pricey admission fees, for the benefit of good causes, though we’ve enjoyed some of those too. This one was more basic: just an outright public relations triumph designed to show anybody who’s interested what you can, yes, try at home. The three sites were in the Northeast Richmond flats, numbered streets not far from Barrett and San Pablo. The houses there are modest in scale, and the small gardens on flat city plots were designed and executed by the homeowners themselves. Showcasing native plants in luxuriant display, they demonstrated gardening with minimal water to attract butterflies and other wildlife to the city. That area is a fertile alluvial plain, better for gardening than hilltop view lots. Look at the web page bringingbackthenatives.net to get a glimpse of what they’re up to. 

I thought of these joyous gardens while reading Richard Brenneman’s article about the desire of some Oakland real estate interests to label areas in North Oakland and Temescal as “blighted” targets for redevelopment. The neighborhoods in question are not unlike the Richmond neighborhood where the native gardens are located: flat yards, small houses, nothing particularly fancy about many of them. But it’s possible for anyone with a bit of land to create personal paradises like the ones we saw on May 1, and in fact some in Oakland were on the tour.  

“Blight” is a relative term. One of the residents of the “blighted” area in Oakland is Denny Abrams, who created Berkeley’s spectacularly successful Fourth Street shopping area. I encountered him last Sunday at the jazz festival he sponsors every year for the benefit of Berkeley school music programs. He was fulminating about the stupidity embodied in redevelopment schemes over the years, and about this new one in particular. The Fourth Street area, in the wisdom of the people who controlled Berkeley in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, was slated to be leveled as part of a sterile industrial and office “park” which would have taken out much of West Berkeley.  

Public outcry over several years, often led by the activists who wrote Berkeley’s Landmark Preservation Ordinance and founded the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, saved the old Oceanview district, and Denny turned it into what is now the biggest producer of sales tax revenues in Berkeley. He said the city planners of the era thought Fourth Street would be a good site for an all-new racquetball club!  

Victory for the Berkeley Citizens Action slate was the new broom that put an end to these foolish plans. But it’s been hard to keep real estate speculators from setting off an endless barrage of bad ideas aimed at flatland neighborhoods with redevelopment as the weapon. Rising Bay Area home prices, even without redevelopment, already threaten the ability of average citizens to buy modest houses with room for a little garden in areas like North Oakland and Northeast Richmond. Yet it’s the existence of such homes in already developed cities that has prevented many people from migrating to former farmlands in areas like Fairfield and Tracy.  

The newest foolish fallacy that planners are trying to foist on city dwellers, akin to, and sometimes accompanied by, redevelopment, is the notion that it’s a good idea to build massive apartment buildings on major streets which happen to be right on top of viable existing urban neighborhoods. Adjacent city dwellers fear that their gardens will be robbed of sunlight by the shadow of these new buildings.  

And “affordable ownership” of a condo in a big box building, touted here by some recent correspondents, is a notoriously poor investment. Because big boxes are already overbuilt, rental vacancies are indeed up, and rents are down. Renters are better off continuing to rent and saving their money until they can afford to buy the small house with room for a little garden that they really want. Cities should not bail out speculators by helping them convert unappealing units to condos when rents drop. 

Continuing disappearance of space for urban community gardens is one more manifestation of short-sighted planning. To the avid redeveloper, vacant lots are more “blight.” But if the goal is to persuade people to go on living in cities, preserving room to garden should be a central strategy. Instead of being used to buy community garden space, however, redevelopment money is often used for pretentious and pointless street décor: fancy light standards, foolish banners and similar unusable money-wasters. 

Judging by the number of people who were at the meeting last week in North Oakland and their passionately negative speeches, redevelopment there may be an idea whose time has come and gone. Perhaps we don’t need to worry about it. But in case anyone in Oakland still thinks it might fly, local residents do seem to be ready to take the redevelopers on if they need to.  

—Becky O’Malley 

n