Warm water pool users got a look at what the proposed warm water pool at the Berkeley Unified School District’s Milvia Street site would look like on Wednesday at the Disability Commission meeting.  

The preliminary design, presented by ELS Architects, was generally welcomed by the commission as well as pool users. There was, however, one big problem: The site has no parking. 

“There is absolutely no space for it,” said ELS architect Ed Nolen, as he explained the design during Wednesday’s meeting. 

Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna said that school district parking could not be used. “They already have a parking deficit,” she said. 

ELS was hired by the city to develop a design for the relocation of the Berkeley warm water pool after the school district approved the Berkeley High School South of Bancroft Master Plan in January, which proposed demolishing the Berkeley High old gym and its warm pool in order to build classrooms and sports facilities. The plan provided for the option for city use of part of the Milvia Street property to rebuild the pool. 

Although the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) landmarked both the old gym and the warm pool last Thursday, the school district, which is not legally bound by local landmark laws, proposes to go ahead with the demolition. 

A contingent of warm pool users have opposed the demolition of the 83-year-old gym, which houses the pool, but have said they are open to alternatives if the school district tears it down. 

The proposed design, put together with input from the Warm Water Pool Task Force, is a one-story, 12,000-square-foot structure which includes a pool, deck space, lockers and equipment storage rooms. 

Berkeley residents approved a $3.25 million ballot measure in 2000 to reconstruct, renovate, repair and improve the existing warm water pool facilities. Caronna said the most recent cost estimate for pool construction was $8.4 million. 

“Depending on what the school district does, it could cost $2 million to purchase the site from them,” she said. 

Disability Commissioner Madelyn Stelmach, who was absent from the meeting, said that lack of parking was a big drawback. 

“I want to look at how to maximize making the warm pool a reality,” she wrote in a letter. “I believe any option for the warm pool will require additional funds through a bond measure. The way to improve the chances of a two-thirds voter approval is to broaden our interest base and join with those advocating an ‘aquatics center and/or refurbishing of the local pools’ ... I would encourage everyone to consider applying this plan to various settings and not just stick to the parking lot site.” 

Warm pool users said that parking problems would prevent the idea from becoming a reality. 

“Parking as an afterthought is totally illogical,” said Gary Marquard, a pool user. “It’s really more important than anything else. At present we have 18 designated parking spots which are restricted to after-school hours.” 

“As part of the negotiation with the school district, whether we purchase the land or use it, we need to discuss parking,” said John Rosenbrach, Berkeley’s warm water pool project manager. 

Disability Commissioner Dmitri Belser told the Planet that it was important to look at other sites where the pool could be relocated. 

“I just don’t know how realistic it [the proposed plan] is,” he said. “I don’t know whether it is sustainable or whether a two-thirds bond measure will help pass it. We should look at lots of different options instead of just focusing on this one answer which may not even be the answer.” 

According to Nolen, the proposed pool would be one-and-a-half times the size of the current pool, which is 75-feet long and 37-feet wide. 

“We listened to what pool users had to say about the pool,” said ELS architect David Petta. “Depth and water temperature was a big issue. We looked at a number of different options and we decided that one pool which merges the uses of two pools together is better than two different pools. We twisted and turned the design in almost every way we could and we finally settled on this plan.” 

The proposed pool entrance is on the Milvia Street side since it is a strong bicycle street.  

Water temperature would be between 94 and 95 degrees and there would be a shallow as well as a deep end. An aerobics class for kids and adults would also double up as an area to socialize. Pool steps would be wide enough for people to sit on them, and a typical pool-lift and a dry ramp would help the physically challenged with pool access. 

Petta said that it was important to build a non-corrosive structure and one that could be easily ventilated. The facility with its high ceilings and window space would help to bring in light and fresh air. The proposed plan has six individual showers and two dressing rooms for private or assisted dressing.  

“We also want it to be energy efficient,” Petta said. “Something that would leave a green footprint. The final step of the report would be to put a number to it, do a little more work on the elevations and deliver it to the city council in September. The council and the public can then decide what they what to do with it.” 

Rosenbrach added that the ballot measure would go before Berkeley voters in November 2008. “Bidding and construction would take a couple of years,” he said. “The pool will be operational in 2010.”

The public hearing at the Tuesday night City Council meeting was supposed to focus on whether the council should uphold or overturn a commission’s landmark designation of the 1939 art deco structure that houses Berkeley Iceland at Derby and Milvia streets. 

But the public in attendance, mostly members or allies of a new nonprofit corporation Save Berkeley Iceland, testified less about the site’s architectural features and more about the need to save what one supporter called a “community jewel” as a space to skate. 

Even the potential developer of the site, Ali Kashani, president of Oakland-based Memar Properties, and his supporters focused in on issues outside the question of landmarking the property, talking about the nature of the project he is proposing, that he said would include affordable housing units (required by law) and a partnership with the YMCA to consolidate its scattered programs for young low-income children. 

The council voted unanimously to delay a vote on the question, instead setting a special meeting next Tuesday at 6 p.m. for that purpose. Councilmember Gordon Wozniak said he hoped that during the week rink owner East Bay Iceland would meet with Save Berkeley Iceland supporters to carve out a mutually satisfactory agreement. 

But in a Wednesday morning phone interview, Kashani said Save Berkeley Iceland’s participation is no longer an option because he has a “binding purchase agreement” with East Bay Iceland. That agreement precludes the owners from entering into discussions with a third party, he said. 

Kashani said his proposal includes building townhouses, either rental or condominiums, and partnering with the YMCA. It is premature to talk about how a landmark designation would affect his plan to purchase the site, he said, noting there is an “inspection period” during which he can decide if he wants to move forward with the purchase. 

The stated purpose of the hearing was for the council to decide whether to uphold the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s (LPC) designation of Iceland as a landmark. The commission’s designation specifically calls for maintaining the exterior walls of the structure as well as the grass berms, which are the mounds in front of the building. 

“They don’t care about saving any more of the building than we do, unless it can be used for an ice rink,” Jay Wescott, general manager of East Bay Iceland, told the council.  

Only the west exterior wall of the building merits landmark status, Wescott said. Saving other exterior walls and the berm would make the building “unappealing to another buyer,” he said. 

While underscoring the belief that the historic site should get landmark status, Save Berkeley Iceland proponents did not deny their overriding motivation was to save the structure for ice skating. 

Tom Killilea, executive director of Save Berkeley Iceland, told the council, “It’s become apparent that the real purpose of this hearing is not strictly just a designation as a landmark of Berkeley Iceland, a historic site that is more than an ice rink. The result of your decision will determine whether Berkeley has a chance to hold onto a public commons that few other cities in this area can brag of.”  

Killilea pointed to a financial plan he had distributed to the council, showing that a nonprofit would be able to make the facility work financially, whereas a for-profit organization could not. 

Under new nonprofit management, Killilea said the facility would be more than a skating rink, adding features to become the heart of a community recreation district, partnering with the YMCA, the city’s recreation department and the schools, whose new ball fields are being built across the street. 

In a similar vein, Fran Gallati, president and chief executive officer of the Berkeley-Albany YMCA, told the council his organization was approached by Kashani. 

”He gave us an opportunity to meet our objectives at the Y,” Gallati said, explaining that the YMCA works with 500 Head Start and Early Head Start children at a number of centers. The Iceland location would give the YMCA “an opportunity to consolidate all of our sites in South Berkeley, decrease the management overhead, and improve our ability to attract and retain and pay better teachers, which is really going to make a difference with these kids.” 

While much of the discussion was on the future use of the site, speakers at the public hearing also addressed the question at hand: whether the council should overturn the Landmark Preservation Commission’s decision to designation the site as a historic landmark. 

Supporting East Bay Iceland, Mark Holbert, preservation architect and Berkeley resident, called for preservation uniquely of the building’s western façade. Requiring preservation of more than that would be “a punitive act to force a single use,” he said. 

In its designation, the LPC said the berms have a function as insulation, and included them in elements of the site to be preserved, but Holbert disagreed: “There is no evidence to support the findings that the berms are an example of the use of earth-sheltered construction,” he said. “The technique is called ‘cut and fill,’ [and] offers no more thermal value than the earth below any building.” 

Jill Korte, a member of the LPC, told the council that the structure has a “high level of integrity.” 

She said the structure is “essentially unaltered,” which is why eventual alterations should come in the context of an environmental review. (A site designated as a landmark can be demolished or altered, but requires extensive review before that can take place.) 

Leslie Emmington Jones, also an LPC commissioner, said the building represents a time when, despite the Depression of the 1930s, the Berkeley community came together to privately fund the rink for community use. “It’s a magnificent temple to public participation and public architecture,” she said.

Elmwood neighbors and merchants lost their bid to overturn zoning board approval of a proposed retail development at College and Ashby avenues at the City Council Tuesday. Opponents say the proposal for stores, a gym and large restaurant-bar is too big for the small shopping district. 

Despite their loss at council, opponents promise to challenge the development elsewhere, possibly in the courts or on the streets—or both. 

In other council business, councilmembers held a public hearing on Iceland (see accompanying story), heard a report on setting standards and fees for alcohol outlets, modified the condominium conversion law (a workshop will be held in the fall), approved a contract with the YMCA to subsidize city employee memberships, raised fees to keep up with costs for sewers, planning, animal adoption, the marina and more. 

Wright’s Garage 

The council failed to schedule a public hearing on the appeal of zoning board approval of a retail project that would re-use the former Wright’s Garage at College and Ashby avenues. 

The proposed restaurant-bar that could become one of the city’s largest full-service restaurants has brought neighbors and merchants out to council meetings since June 12 in an attempt to convince the council to hold a formal public hearing on the project with the aim of eventually reversing zoning board approvals. 

Tuesday’s vote, consistent with previous council votes, was 4-2-1 in favor of holding the public hearing, with Councilmembers Linda Maio, Dona Spring, Max Anderson and Kriss Worthington voting in support of the hearing and Councilmember Darryl Moore abstaining. Five votes are required to hold the hearing; Councilmembers Gordon Wozniak and Laurie Capitelli both recused themselves from the vote. 

Similar to previous meetings, dozens of people, mostly from the Elmwood Neighborhood and Elmwood Merchants’ associations, lined up at the council mic to speak about the concerns they have with the proposed project, particularly focusing on the restaurant-bar, which they say would be too large for the small district where there is already too much traffic and inadequate parking.  

In contrast to previous meetings that drew few neighbors in support of the project, several nearby residents spoke in favor of the development. 

Fred Norton lives near the proposed project on Hillegass Avenue and said that he and his wife moved to the neighborhood especially so that they could walk to shopping and restaurants. 

“Nine out of 10 people on my street support the development as Mr. [John] Gordon proposed it,” he said. 

In a phone interview Thursday morning, Raymond Barglow of the Elmwood Neighborhood Association said that the neighbors are not giving up their fight to have the project scaled down.  

The neighborhood is considering three possible strategies, he said: one is an attempt to contest the restaurant’s application for a liquor license, another is holding a regular neighborhood picket of the site, and a third would be a lawsuit, which could be based on various elements included in the Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) approvals.  

The suit might contest the ZAB’s use of KitchenDemocracy.com as a measure of neighborhood and merchant support, Barglow said. Kitchen Democracy is a hills-based web site to which individuals can submit their opinions about specific city-related matters.  

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who contributed $3,000 from his council fund for Kitchen Democracy, expressed his support for the development in a statement posted on the site, which Wozniak consistently uses to express his views. 

Councilmembers are expected to keep open minds on projects that might come before them; Wozniak had to recuse himself from participating in a vote on the project, because of his statement on Kitchen Democracy. 

The Zoning Adjustment Board’s use of Kitchen Democracy as a measure of public support is noted in the March 8 ZAB findings: “The zoning board decision states that the bar-restaurant is unique to the area, because it would include a ‘bar/lounge or gathering area.’ This type of restaurant facility is not currently provided in the district. Neighborhood and community support of a restaurant use is evidenced by the positive polling results posted on KitchenDemocracy.com.” 

In a recent letter to the mayor and council, 24-year Elmwood resident Richard B. Spohn, an attorney and former state director of consumer affairs, condemned ZAB’s use of the website, contending it is more like a blog or a chat room than a gauge of public opinion. 

The Elmwood zoning ordinance requires evidence of neighborhood and merchant support, Spohn said. 

“Who of the affected neighborhood merchants or residents know about this chat room?” he wrote of Kitchen Democracy. “When in the process of assessing resident and merchant support in the neighborhood did the ZAB declare that this chat room would be the dispositive gauge of support? Only after-the-fact, in the Findings and Recommendations, after the process at the ZAB had ended. This is an abuse of administrative and democratic processes. It is an abuse of administrative discretion. It entails a delegation of public responsibility that is impermissible and it fatally flaws the outcome.” 

Spohn goes on to say “This is a stunningly invalid foundation for the project, a serious misrepresentation and a disservice to the processes of governance of the city of Berkeley.” 

Alcohol Addressed 

Binge drinking around the campus, loitering and drug sales around liquor stores and sales to minors in restaurants were signaled out as some of the reasons the city needs operating standards for alcohol outlets—liquor stores, grocery stores and restaurants. 

At the beginning of the year, the City Council approved the concept of establishing standards and fees to pay for inspections of the outlets. At Tuesday’s meeting, Assistant City Attorney Zach Cowan came to the council to report on his work on the ordinance and ask for council input. The ordinance will be presented to council for a vote in the fall. 

Cowan said inspection costs would be about $150,000 and asked the council for feedback on how it would want the fee schedule to work—should all alcohol outlets, including restaurants, be assessed? Should there be penalties for those outlets that do not pass inspections? Should there be fines levied above inspection costs?  

Funds from fines could be used for education on alcohol-related issues and detox programs, councilmembers said. 

Among the standards suggested by Cowan were keeping windows clear so that one can see inside a store, quick removal of graffiti, adequate lighting, refusing to sell to customers who create a public nuisance and not allowing loitering inside stores where alcohol is sold. 

For problematic outlets, other conditions may be required, such as video surveillance and enrollment in a supplementary inspection program. 

Some councilmembers did not want restaurants to pay an inspection fee, but most thought it was fair, especially, as Councilmember Dona Spring said, because many restaurants regularly serve underage patrons; some wanted to be sure that fees would be equitable and that small businesses would not be overcharged; several stated their agreement with staff that reinspection fees should escalate for violators, while for the first violation they said the fee should be relatively small. 

Staff will meet with owners of alcohol outlets and community members and write an ordinance, which should be back before the council in the fall.

The UC Regents are scheduled to approve two key environmental documents Monday, setting the stage for a major expansion at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

The most significant is the environmental impact report (EIR) for the lab’s master plan for the next 18 years. The two other environmental documents pave the way for demolishing the Bevatron and building a 25,000-square-foot guest house for visiting experts and researchers. 

First on the agenda of the board’s Committee on Grounds and Buildings Monday meeting is the final draft of the lab’s Long Range Development Plan 2025 (LRDP). 

Calling for 884,000 square feet of new buildings and up to 500 new parking spaces and 860 new employees, the document also spells out the planned demolition of 272,000 square feet of existing buildings. 

While the regents will vote on a full EIR for the LRDP, the documents for the guest house consist of an environmental initial study coupled with the declaration of no significant environmental impacts. 

Construction on the guest house, a $10.9 million hotel-style building with 73 beds in 60 rooms, could begin in December, with completion planned for March, 2009. 

A third environmental document has been completed by the lab, but isn’t on the agenda—the final EIR on demolition of the lab’s Building 51 and the Bevatron, the world’s first large-scale atomic particle accelerator. 

All three documents are posted at the lab’s website, www.lbl.gov/Community/env-rev-docs.html, and the full LRDP EIR is posted at ww.lbl.gov/Community/LRDP/index.html. 

The committee meeting is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. on the UC Santa Barbara campus. 

Comments, responses 

A large part of the LRDP final EIR is composed of critical comments from the city, community organizations and members of the public concerned about the impact of both the lab’s massive expansion and its cumulative effects when added to UC Berkeley’s own plans for the nearby southeast campus. 

One issue complicating site development is the presence of toxic compounds in the soil and groundwater created by past activities at the lab.  

Listed contaminants include volatile and semivolatile organic compounds, “very small amounts of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons,” hazardous metals and tritium, a radioactive isotope of the gaseous element hydrogen. 

In response to concerns by the East Bay Municipal Utility District about possible exposures during installation of underground utilities at the site, the document promises that all the contamination sites are documented, and precautionary measures would reduce any possible exposures to less than significant levels. 

The document contains two letters outlining City of Berkeley concerns: a 29-page summary from City Manager Phil Kamlarz and a nine-page letter from Public Works Transportation Division Principal Planner Matt Nichols detailing the specifics of city transportation concerns. 

One overarching city concern is having to deal with two separate LRDPs involving developments with concentrated impacts on one finite area of the city. 

A city lawsuit is already underway and linked with actions filed by neighbors and environmentalists challenging the regents’ adoption of the final EIR for the university’s Southeast Campus Integrated Projects, which will add another third-of-a-million square feet of construction immediately downhill from the lab. 

While the lab’s EIR insists the lab and the university are separate entities, the city has raised questions, and the lab acknowledges that both UC Berkeley and the lab—a U.S. Department of Energy complex operated under contract by UC—share staff and some of the same facilities. The lab also owns two buildings on campus, the Calvin and Donner labs. 

But lab officials insist that two separate LRDPs are appropriate, and contend that nothing in the California Environmental Quality Act says otherwise. 

Multiple concerns 

Some of the questions raised by the city concern one site designated as a city landmark and buildings considered eligible for landmark status. 

The Bevatron building, which housed the world’s first large-scale particle accelerator, was rejected as a landmark by Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, but commissioners did give recognition to the site itself. Two other buildings considered candidates were already covered in the lab’s existing LRDP 2006, lab officials contend. 

As for the city’s questions about the lab’s impacts on a potential designated cultural landscape, the report contends that developments will respect the landscape and protect views to the maximum extent possible. 

While the report acknowledged the city’s contention that a catastrophic earthquake could lead to prolonged road closures, it said that “LBNL has in place policies and procedures” to maintain staff health and safety and “manage traffic through the hill site.” 

The university rejected outright the city’s contention that “significantly increasing the population in a high-geologic hazard area cannot be mitigated to a less than significant level solely through engineering.” 

As for the city’s plea for the lab to adopt the precautionary principle, the DEIR states following existing laws and regulations are adequate mitigations. 

Declaring the lab isn’t covered by the city’s Manufactured Nanoparticle Disclosure Ordinance, which requires reports on facilities making or using the microscopic technology, the lab “intends to provide on-going information of interest to the City in regard to the Lab’s work” in the nano realm. 

While acknowledging new programs will lead to significant increases in the amounts of dangerous materials stored and created on site, the lab contends existing rules and laws cover the dangers. 

Response to concerns over nanotech in a letter from Pamela Shivola, the EIR replied that the lab has safely worked with nano-sized bacteria and viruses. 

Responding to her concerns about the BP-funded Energy Biosciences Institute, which will be included in the Helios Building described in the EIR, the document states that a separate, full environmental review will be prepared for that building. The structure will also be built so that it won’t disturb an existing underground plume of tritium in the area, according to the LRDP EIR. 

Other worries 

In responses to concerns that the large number of faults in the lab area might trigger quakes, the report contends that the only likely surface rupture would come from the Hayward Fault itself, which is located south of the lab buildings, offering reports by the state Geological Survey as support. 

Several hundred area residents signed petitions from the Preserve the Strawberry Creek Watershed Alliance, which has called for a moratorium on building in the canyon and warned of the reported dangers of nanotech. 

Among the measures urged by the Sierra Club were: Leaving stands of trees intact and preserving the natural corridor of Strawberry Creek (a plea seconded by the Urban Creeks Council); minimizing truck traffic during construction by relocating excavated topsoil locally; using biodiesel-powered new construction equipment; shifting research toward peaceful uses of technology; disallowing any net gain in parking, and installation of a funicular railway to reduce car use. 

Gene Bernardi, a frequent lab critic, offered the simplest solution: Close it down, clean up the toxics and let the radioactivity decay in place. 

Ignacio Chapela, a UC Berkeley microbial biologist and an outspoken critic of the BP project, decried the lab’s increasing emphasis on creating genetically modified organisms in search of new fuel sources—research he said would created transgenic organisms which threatened “the entire canyon and the city and bay below.”  

Chapela also said construction of the new buildings would interfere with the use of the canyon and environs for teaching by university faculty. 

The report rejected his worries about genetically modified organisms, and said his concerns about the use of the canyon for teaching weren’t relevant to the EIR itself. 

Significant Error 

One obvious error in the document came in a response to a letter from Wendy Markel, president of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.  

Joining with the Berkeley Planning and Landmarks Preservation commissions plea to locate development elsewhere than in the hills, Markel asked what university property in Richmond could serve as an alternate location. 

“Is any of the university property in Richmond contaminated?”” she asked. 

In response, the EIR noted that the university’s Richmond Field Station “has a history of soil and groundwater contamination,” adding that “UC Berkeley is working with the California Regional Water Quality Control Board to implement a cleanup and restoration plan” for the site and adjacent marshland. 

In fact, the water board was ousted from its oversight of the field station two years ago after community protests and intervention by the Richmond City Council and Assemblymember Loni Hancock. 

The site is currently under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, which recently issued letters declaring that the university had illicitly disposed of thousands of truckloads of contaminated soil when the water board was in charge. 

The university had argued against a change of oversight agencies, with two officials insisting the school had been doing an adequate job.

Few people who’ve encountered him are indifferent to Mark Rhoades, whose departure was announced this week by city Planning and Development Director Dan Marks. 

He becomes the third senior city staffer to resign in recent weeks, following the departures of Transportation Manager Peter Hillier and Housing Director Steve Barton. His resignation becomes effective Aug. 10. 

Praised by Marks as a passionate and dedicated planner and hailed by developer Evan McDonald as “a good planner” who “will be sorely missed,” Rhoades had equally vocal critics. 

To Art Goldberg, he was a “duplicitous insect,” a dubious honorific Rhoades has been known to joke about, and neighborhood activist Sharon Hudson responded to the announcement with “Oh great, and when does the party start?” 

“We will really miss his institutional knowledge, his passion about Berkeley and his passion about planning,” said Marks. 

A sometimes controversial figure who has clashed with neighborhood activists over large-scale development projects, Rhoades has spent nearly a decade on city staff and had just received a 10 percent pay boost. 

As of July 1, Rhoades was drawing an annual salary of $133,308, according to David W. Hodgkins, the city’s Director of Human Resources.  

Rhoades combined both the current and zoning aspects of the planning department along with future planning, uniting two previous positions. Marks said he didn’t know if a new employee would fill both roles. 

Though he’d known about the departure for several days, Planning Director Dan Marks said the news had come as a shock. 

In his letter to city staff, Marks said Rhoades said “he came to this decision with great difficulty after concluding that he needed to pursue employment opportunities that allowed him to spend more time with his young family.” 

Rhoades took leave after the recent birth of his second child, and since his return, the planner has talked frequently about his family and their importance to him. 

While Marks said he couldn’t confirm a report spreading along the city grapevine that Rhoades would be working on projects with developer Ali Kashani, the developer said, “Mark is talking to several people about his options and talking to me.” 

A photographer of flowers and a budding connoisseur of wines—with the help of sometimes adversary and Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman—Berkeley’s departing Planning Manager is also a self-described “change agent.” 

It was Goldberg who characterized Rhoades as “the duplicitous insect who runs the Zoning Department (a subdivision of planning) and who specializes in keeping neighbors in the dark” in a June 6, 2003 letter to the Daily Planet. 

While Marks noted that Rhoades was one of the younger members of his staff, Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman quipped that the planning manager was likely to retire because of old age: “They say one year of working in Berkeley is like eight years any place else.” 

Asked for a comment about Rhoades’ departure, Poschman would offered only that “It’s a bit poignant. Let’s leave it at that.” 

Another Berkeley political veteran, former Mayor Shirley Dean, said simply, “I’m not going to comment. It’s been some years since I’ve worked with him, and I’ll leave the comments up to people with more recent experience.” 

Steve Wollmer of PlanBerkeley.org and a neighbor of the so-called “Trader Joe’s project” at 1885 University Ave., a massive mixed-use project with apartments built over a grocery store, was less charitable. 

“He changed the ground rules for development in Berkeley. He interpreted the Zoning Ordinance in new and original ways. He’s done so much damage to the city, and now he’s going to be on the other side,” Wollmer said. “Although his heart was probably in the right place, his head was on backwards.” 

The 1885 University project is up for final consideration by the City Council Monday night, and Wollmer has raised the threat of a lawsuit if the building is approved as proposed by developers Evan McDonald and partner Chris Hudson. 

Marks said Rhoades’ departure “will be a great loss to the City of Berkeley. The department is in much better shape than when he took over four years ago.” 

Rhoades had played a major role in shaping the planning department and in bringing in new staff, Marks said. “He was a great guy to work with, and I’m going to miss him.” 

An advocate of so-called Smart Growth projects that favor concentrating development in mixed-use projects that create higher-density housing over ground-floor retail spaces along commercial corridors, he had found himself frequently at odds with neighbors who saw the projects as threats to the character of their neighborhoods. 

Will Travis, chair of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, called Rhoades “the ultimate professional,” and said his resignation “will be a big loss to the city.” 

Travis said he had always found Rhoades very helpful and constructive, and said much of the criticism came because “one of the challenges of working for the City of Berkeley is that there are a lot of policies, rules and regulations, and when Mark finds that a project meets all the policies, rules and regulations, he feels it should be approved. 

“I think a lot of people in Berkeley” feel the policies, rules and regulations mean projects should not be approved, Travis said. 

Sharon Hudson, who often found herself at odds with Rhoades, was less charitable, charging that the planner’s “arrogance, duplicity, and personal planning agenda cost the City of Berkeley and its citizens hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold misery every year.” 

She said, “Under cover of public service, Mr. Rhoades skillfully manipulated the rules to benefit favored developers, and destroyed the trust between the citizens and their government. This is an opportunity for Dan Marks to honor his own good staff and the rest of Berkeley by replacing Mr. Rhoades with a public servant who respects the community, the truth, and the law.” 

“He’s a true believer in smart growth, and he has hired many smart growth advocates at city hall,” said City Councilmember Dona Spring. “Their impact will reverberate for years to come. The question is: should a planning staff member be such a strong advocate for one aspect of development, one which is not shared by the impacted neighborhoods?” 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak offered a different perspective. “I will miss him. We’ll lose a lot of institutional knowledge.” 

Wozniak described Rhoades as “a very good public servant who worked very hard. I’m very sorry to hear he’s leaving. I’m impressed by some of the younger planners, but Mark’s departure will leave a very big hole. 

“It seems like a lot of people are leaving lately,” the councilmember added. 

Marie Bowman said she’s glad to see the planner’s departure. “Hopefully the city will get someone who’s a good listener and doesn’t seek to impose his own personal philosophy. I’m not surprised to hear he’s talking to Ali Kashani.” 

A veteran activist with the Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations, Bowman served on the city’s committee that studied the controversial density bonus awarded to developers in return for creating affordable apartments and condos. “We met for two years, then submitted our results. Mark was supposed to put it together, but instead he’s bottled it up. I suspect that’s because the developers won’t like it.” 

Darrell de Tienne, a San Franciscan who often represents developers in shepherding their projects through the Berkeley bureaucracy, said he’d sometimes had disagreements with Rhoades. 

As the representative for office builder and operator Wareham Development and the developers of the soon-to-be built nine-story-plus Berkeley Arpeggio condo tower on Center Street, de Tienne said many of the conflicts resulted from city policies. 

“I hear he’s going over to the private sector, so now he’ll get to see what the other side is like for a while,” de Tienne said. 

Rhoades didn’t return calls for comment.

Officials from Oakland’s privately operated Children’s Hospital got an hourlong angry lecture from all five Alameda County Supervisors on Tuesday morning after supervisors learned that Children’s has begun circulating petitions to put a $24 parcel tax increase on the February ballot to help finance the building of a new hospital. 

The problem? If passed, the measure would add to the bonded indebtedness of Alameda County, possibly jeopardizing the ability of the county to finance the retrofit of its own hospital, Highland.  

Supervisors said they resented the fact that neither they nor other county officials had been consulted before the petitions were put out on the street, making it appear that they were against medical services for children by now raising questions about the bond measure.  

Petition signatures were being solicited over the weekend throughout Alameda County, including the Alameda County Fair in its last two days, by the private petition signature gathering company Scott Petition Management.  

Board of Supervisors President Scott Haggerty suggested that the hospital withdraw the petitions, submit them to the Alameda County counsel’s office for redrafting, and ask the county itself to sponsor the referendum. Hospital officials said they would consider the suggestions, but made no commitments. 

Harold Davis, chairman of Children’s board of directors, apologized on behalf of his board for the hospital’s failure to involve the county in advance, saying, “There was no malice intended on our part. If there is any ill-feeling that results from this, we hope we are able to heal them. We’re in the healing business, after all.” 

And a contrite Children’s Hospital President and CEO Frank Tiedemann also tried to mollify the supervisors, saying, “I apologize if we have not communicated well. We do a good job running a hospital, but not so well in the political process. We know you have serious questions, and we will try to give them serious responses.” 

Tiedemann said that the financing problem came when Children’s determined it needed to expand its capacity to meet the area’s growing need in pediatric care, and “it was a shock to find out how expensive it would be.” 

Tiedemann put the financing of the new facility at $600 million, with $75 million from a 2004 state bond, $98 million projected from an upcoming 2008 state bond, and $100 million to $150 million in projected private sources, “leaving us short.” 

That did little to hold off the supervisors’ fire, even after Supervisor Keith Carson noted that it was Davis who had originally brought him into politics, and particularly after Tiedemann insisted that he had earlier sent a letter to all five supervisors announcing the bond measure, a letter that all five supervisors said they never received. 

Accusing Children’s Hospital of “hitching a ride on Alameda County’s debt capacity,” Carson said that “there is written language in the bond measure that entangles the county in this measure, legally and financially. If anyone thinks they didn’t have to sit down with us early on to discuss this, I don’t understand. This is arrogance. We’ve got deep concerns. Deep concerns.” 

Carson said that he set up a meeting with Children’s officials nearly three weeks ago after Haggerty learned about the petitions second hand and wrote Tiedemann, asking for an explanation. Haggerty said that Tiedemann never answered that letter. 

“At that meeting, we expressed our concerns,” Carson said, “and we were told that the petitions would be held off until those concerns were addressed. Two days later, I heard that the petitions were being circulated.” 

Carson noted that the petition did not include language that the bond money, when collected, could only be spent by Children’s to rebuild a hospital in Oakland or Alameda County, even though he said that petition gatherers in Oakland were telling potential signers that “the bond measure will ensure that Children’s Hospital will stay in Oakland.” 

Carson also criticized the fact that the ballot measure language would not prevent Children’s from using the money to build a “scaled-down version” of the hospital smaller than the current facility. 

“What caught me off guard is that this has been going on for a long while and we were not made aware of it,” Haggerty told Tiedemann. “I don’t know how you can involve the county in incurring this level of debt without bringing us to the table. This is not about the fine work that Children’s Hospital is doing. Everybody on this board appreciates that and acknowledges that and supports that. Let’s not make this about the children. We get it. We spend millions on the needs of children in this county. It’s about process. It’s about not coming to us in advance. I don’t know how you operate like this.”  

Both Supervisor Nate Miley and Alameda County Counsel Richard Winnie said they had concerns about the legality of some of the language in the proposed bond measure, and its ability to withstand a possible legal challenge either from the county or from private citizens. 

“I’ve got major concerns about this,” Miley said, “and I can’t support this bond measure until these legal issues are resolved.” 

Miley said that among other problems with the petition language, it called for the taxes in the measure to be collected by the county assessor, even though the Alameda County charter gives that authority not to the assessor, but to the auditor and the tax collector. 

“Are you trying to change our charter?” Miley asked.  

That error alone, the supervisor said, could cause the bond measure to be declared invalid by a judge following the election. 

Winnie said he has sent hospital officials a letter asking them to resolve six of those legal issues, and suggested that any meeting between his office and hospital officials to try and resolve the issue be held off until that letter is answered and those legal issues are addressed. 

“The ball is in their court now,” Winnie said.

Oakland City Attorney John Russo filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court Thursday to seek a court order compelling Waste Management of Alameda County to collect garbage that has piled up since it locked out its employees on July 2. 

Joining Russo at a news conference at City Hall that also was attended by six City Council members, Mayor Ron Dellums said uncollected garbage, recycling materials and compost “poses a clear and compelling health and safety issue,” citing potential contamination from flies and rats. 

A spokeswoman for Waste Management of Alameda County said Thursday 

that Oakland’s lawsuit was “unnecessary” because the company has already restored weekly residential garbage, yard waste and commercial waste collection services. 

Company spokeswoman Jennifer Andrews said Waste Management also  

will resume regular curbside recycling services Monday. 

“We’ve increased the number of temporary workers and are back to  

100 percent” service levels, Andrews said. 

Russo said the city has received more than 1,000 emails and phone calls from residents complaining about uncollected trash. 

He said, “We are entirely within our contract rights and California state law to demand this health and safety issue be addressed immediately. We have a duty to protect Oakland’s people and businesses. This situation has gone on long enough.” 

Russo said the city filed suit only after many formal and informal talks over ten days failed to resolve the problem. 

In the East Bay, Waste Management serves Albany, Emeryville, Oakland, Hayward, Newark, Livermore, the Castro Valley Sanitary District, Oro Loma Sanitary District in parts of San Leandro and San Lorenzo, San Ramon and unincorporated Alameda County. 

Talks for a new contract with more than 500 employees who work in the East Bay began in March. Waste Management said it locked out the employees because it feared they would go on strike. 

The company and union representatives met with a federal mediator Monday but didn’t make any progress. 

Waste Management said that it has restored full service, but City Councilwoman Jean Quan said “garbage is still not being picked up.” 

Russo said there will be a court hearing Monday on the city’s bid to get an injunction against Waste Management. 

But he said the city will drop or at least postpone its litigation if it’s convinced Waste Management has truly restored full service. 

“This is not a lawsuit I want to win—it’s a problem I want to solve,” Russo said.

Demolition of UC Berkeley’s Earl Warren Hall—an architectural tribute to the late California governor and U.S. Supreme Court chief justice—could begin as early as next month. 

Because the building housed radiological equipment and experiments for the School of Public Health, the university is looking for a company with skills in handling radioactive materials to aid in the demolition. 

According to the Request for Qualifications posted at the university’s Capital  

Projects website, demolition will begin in late August and be completed in October. 

The 80,000-square-foot building is one of the most visible to Berkeley residents, located on the crescent that faces Oxford Street at the main entrance to the campus. 

The edifice that will rise in its place, shown by university officials to the Berkeley Planning Commission last July, is a 200,000-square-foot, $160 million structure that will rise to just over 100 feet above the landscape. 

The new building will house molecular biology labs focusing on infectious diseases, degenerative diseases of the nervous system and cancer biology. Plans also call for a stem cell research facility. 

A magnetic resonance imaging facility for charting the course of human experiments is also in the plans. 

And while the old building was labeled for a jurist who did more than any other individual to advance the cause of civil rights in the nation’s legal system, its successor will be named for an industrial tycoon and high school dropout. 

The Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences derives is name from the Hong Kong real estate developer, container port magnate and cell phone entrepreneur who gave the university $40 million to help fund the project. 

He was named the world’s ninth richest person by Forbes Magazine Tuesday for his estimated net worth of $23 billion, up from last year’s 10th place and an $18.8 billion purse. 

The public health school itself will relocate just off campus, in a building that will replace the old state Department of Health Services complex on the east side of Shattuck Avenue between Hearst Avenue and Berkeley Way. 

Radiological consultants have until the end of the month to submit their qualifications. 

The building was formally dedicated by then Chancellor Clark Kerr in 1955, one year after Warren read out his decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, the case that declared segregated public schools unconstitutional.

The Berkeley City Council will hold a public hearing Monday to consider an appeal regarding the decision by the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) to approve the Trader Joe’s project at 1885 University Ave. 

The special council meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther KIng Jr. Way. 

ZAB voted 5-3-1 in December to approve the controversial five-story project plan, which includes 148 apartments, 14,390 square feet of retail space, 109 tenant and 48 commercial parking spaces and two truck-loading spaces at the corner of University and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

A group of neighbors were concerned about the size of the project, how the density bonus would be applied, parking and traffic issues and alcohol sales. 

Those in favor of the project said that it would reduce the number of daily car trips by a large margin and provide much-needed affordable housing in Berkeley.  

At a Jan. 11 meeting, ZAB voted to modify an existing condition on parking according to language supplied by area resident Stephen Wollmer. The modified condition states that the “residents of the project shall not be permitted to participate in the City’s Residential Parking Permit program.”  

The board also approved a use permit for beer and wine sales at Trader Joe’s, independent of the Alcohol and Beverage Control (ABC) license. 

Wollmer filed an appeal on Feb. 2 on behalf of Neighbors for a Livable Berkeley Way against ZAB’s decision to approve the proposed project and called upon City Council to minimize the  

project’s detriment to the citizens of Berkeley. 

The proposed project has been before ZAB for nine hearings and before the Design Review Committee for five. 

In a letter to the Planet, Wollmer called the proposed project “detrimental and blatantly illegal” and said it failed to conform to state law. 

Additionally, he stated: 

• It is 20,000 square feet and 25 units larger than the Zoning Ordinance allows and state law requires. 

• It ignores the Zoning Ordinance development standards for building height and setbacks. 

• Its size and design elements cause significant detriment to the surrounding neighborhood. 

• Its retail tenant will cause traffic and parking chaos in an already congested area, impacts far beyond those foreseen by a deeply flawed transportation study. 

• It sets a dangerous precedent for the city by granting density bonus units reserved by state law for affordable housing to subsidize a commercial use, here for Trader Joe’s parking lot, and conceivably in the next project for any commercial use an applicant may propose and the ZAB determines that the city needs or wants.

DAPAC members, with less than five months to finish their work on a downtown plan, are picking up the pace—scheduling two meetings in the coming week. 

The first session of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee starts at 7 p.m. Monday, opening with a recap of the group’s second public workshop, held June 16. 

Members will then tackle the nuts-and-bolts issue of drafting the individual chapters of the document, which was mandated in the settlement of a city lawsuit challenging the university’s plans for development through 2020. 

In a joint memo to committee members, Chair Will Travis, and Planning Director Mark Rhoades, Matt Taecker, the planner hired to help draft the new plan, wrote that the committee will offer neither specific implementation strategies nor detailed background statements; those will come later, under direction of the Planning Commission. 

The memo lists proposed committees for six chapters, chosen from volunteers, along with proposed dates for the two meetings slated for the preparation of the chapters. 

Following their discussion of the mechanics of drafting, members will then move on to discuss two central issues of any plan: streets and open space and land-use policies and alternatives. 

Wednesday night’s meeting begins at the same time and continues the discussion of land-use policies, along with any of the other chapters that members want to discuss. 

Both meetings will be held in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Next up on DAPAC’s agenda will be a meeting of its Transportation Subcommittee on Monday, July 23, at the same time and place. 

That agenda includes four primary topics: the role of the panel in drafting the plan’s accessibility chapter, recommendations for transportation policies, with separate discussions on bicycle policies and a possible extension of the Ohlone Greenway to the UC Berkeley campus.

In the past week, there have been two arson attempts at the Berkeley Mental Health Center at 2640 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The first attempt was on Saturday, July 7, and the second was on Monday, July 9.  

The first incident took place at 11:51 p.m. on Saturday night via an unknown liquid accelerant. There was minor damage to the side door on the Derby Street side of the facility. No suspect information was recovered. 

The second incident occurred late Monday night. A person was seen running away from the facility. They used a liquid similar to the one used on Saturday night to ignite flames in three separate areas outside the office. An extensive search was done after the incident but to no avail, said Lt. Wesley Hester, spokesperson for the Berkeley Police Department.  

Police released a suspect description: a black female with a light complexion, wearing light gray sweat top and pants, a headdress, and riding a skateboard, possibly with a backpack.

By Riya Bhattacharjee 

Berkeley will be one of 20 Bay Area stops for a bone marrow donor drive this weekend to help former UC Berkeley student Vinay Chakravarthy in his fight against leukemia. 

Vinay, a Fremont native, is a resident in orthopedics at Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts. He was recently diagnosed with life threatening leukemia which can only be treated by a bone marrow transplant.  

A graduate of Kennedy High School, Vinay completed his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley and went on to pursue medicine at Boston University. 

The quest to save Vinay’s life spread beyond his family when South Asians living in the Bay Area took up the search for a bone marrow match as a challenge. 

Vinay’s diagnosis also helped to highlight the dire shortage of bone marrow donors within the South Asian community. 

According to a statement released by Team Vinay, the group of South Asians who have come together to help Vinay, statistics from the National Marrow Donor Registry indicate that out of 6.6 million donors, only 100,000 are of South Asian origin. 

Drive volunteers have urged people of South Asian origin to join in an effort to build the South Asian marrow donor registry, which could one day save lives of friends and family. 

Community members plan to hold 200 bone marrow drives in over ten states across the country after the Mega Drive. More than 13,000 people have been registered so far. 

For Vinay, 28, the fight goes on. In his most recent posting on his website www.helpvinay.org, he wrote: 

“Instead of getting depressed and down on my situation I figure this is the time we all take a deep breath and decide what our future holds for us. We can give up or we can keep going.” 

Bone Marrow Drive 

Healthy individuals, particularly of South Asian origin, between the ages of 18-60 may volunteer to be marrow donors.  

Participants should be willing to donate to anyone who needs a transplant if a match is found.  

The procedure to register is less than a minute and not invasive, just a simple cheek swab.  

July 14, 1 p.m.-5 p.m. and July 15, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., ISKCON, 2334 Stuart St., 649-8619. See www.helpvinay.org for more information. 

Berkeley Planning Manager Mark Rhoades is headed for the private sector, the third high level city official to vacate his position in city government. 

His resignation, announced today (Tuesday, July 10) follows the earlier resignations of Transportation Manager Peter Hillier and Housing Director Steve Barton. 

Though he’d known about the departure for several days, Planning Director Dan Marks said the news had come as a shock to him. 

“We will really miss his institutional knowledge, his passion about Berkeley and his passion about planning,” said Marks. 

A sometimes-controversial figure who has clashed with neighborhood activists over large-scale development projects, Rhoades has spent nearly a decade on city staff and had recently received a 10 percent pay boost. 

While Marks noted that Rhoades, who turns 40 this year, was one of his younger staff member, Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman quipped that the planning manager was likely retiring because of old age: “The say one year of working in Berkeley is like eight years anyplace else.” 

Rhoades had combined both the current and zoning aspects of the planning department along with future planning, uniting two previous positions. Marks said he didn’t know if a new employee would fill both roles. 

In his letter to city staff, Marks said Rhoades said, “He came to this decision with great difficulty after concluding that he needed to pursue employment opportunities that allowed him to spend more time with his young family.”

Tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting will look at holding public hearings on landmarking Iceland, an ice skating rink at Milvia and Derby streets, and allowing a commercial development at College and Ashby avenues. 

The Iceland owner is appealing the Landmark Preservation Commission’s decision to designate the ice rink as a landmark, arguing that the building does not meet landmark criteria.  

The Elmwood Merchants and Elmwood Neighborhood associations are appealing the Zoning Adjustments Board’s support for the proposed commercial development, saying plans for a large bar-restaurant are out-of-scale with the small retail area. 

Also on the agenda for tonight’s meeting are modifications of the city’s laws regulating condominium conversion, hearings on city fee increases, using permeable pavement for city projects and more. The regular 7 p.m. meeting will be preceded by a closed-door session in which the council will be asked to confirm the city manager’s appointment of Acting Finance Director Robert Hicks to the permanent finance director position and to meeting with staff negotiating police and fire contracts. 

The public can comment before the executive session. 

Iceland 

The landmarks commission voted in April to designate the 1939 facility as a landmark, saying it is the oldest and largest ice skating rink in Northern California and pointing to its “representation of interesting aspects of the social and cultural history of Berkeley,” such as being larger than an Olympic-sized rink and having served as the site for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1947, as well as being used by various skating clubs including the 76-year-old St. Moritz Club and the University Figure Skating Club.  

The designation specifies elements of the structure to be preserved, including the exterior wall surfaces and the two ticket offices.  

Oakland land-use attorney Rena Rickles, representing Richard Zamboni, president of East Bay Iceland Inc., wrote in the letter appealing the landmarks designation that the decision was made in order “to force a specific use inside a private building.” 

Rickles further wrote: “The landmarks designation process should not be lightly manipulated as it was here to serve other ends. On public policy and legal grounds the Notice of Decision designating Iceland as a Landmark should be vacated and overturned.” 

Wright’s Garage 

Granting new use permits for a remodelled building at the corner of Ashby at College, popularly called “Wright’s Garage” after the business which was the previous tenant, is opposed by neighbors and merchants who say the project, especially a proposed restaurant-bar, will attract traffic to the area, which cannot be accommodated by currently available parking. 

The proposal, approved by the zoning board in March, is appearing on the council agenda for one month, giving proponents time to defend their project and opponents the opportunity to convince the council to hold a public hearing on the development. Advocates of the appeal hope a formal hearing will lead to the council to overturn the zoning board’s approvals or, alternatively, to send the project back to the zoning board for further consideration. 

The discussion around the project took a new twist after the June 26 council meeting. The developer’s attorney, Harry Pollack of Pollack & Davis, LLP, wrote City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque on June 29, asking her to prevent Councilmember Dona Spring from voting on the issue. 

Pollack quoted Spring saying at the June 26 meeting “with strong emotion in her voice” that “’this project stinks to high heaven.’” Given that she has strong feelings on the question, Pollack reasoned, she would not be able to keep an open mind and vote rationally on the project. 

He compared Spring’s comments to Councilmember Gordon Wozniak’s statements posted on a hills-based web site, Kitchen Democracy, giving his reasons for supporting the project and encouraging people to weigh in on the web site with their support. Because of those statements, Wozniak has been advised by the city attorney’s office to recuse himself from council discussions on the question and from the vote. 

Albuquerque, however, in a July 5 response to the Pollack letter, said that when the item came on to the council agenda it became appropriate for Spring and others to voice their opinions. 

“Councilmember Wozniak’s comments were made on a Kitchen Democracy web site, not at a council meeting, before he had an opportunity to consider the record of any proceedings,” she wrote. “Had he made it clear that his position was a preliminary one and that he would await a review of all the evidence before making a final decision, even that comment would have not resulted in his recusal.” 

Albuquerque contrasted Wozniak’s comments to Spring’s, saying Spring’s statements, unlike Wozniak’s, were “made in the context of the council’s decision on the Wright’s Garage appeal.” 

Condo conversion law cleanup 

The purpose of the condominium conversion law is to ensure that when an apartment is converted to a condo, the city gets funds from the developer to replenish its low-income housing stock. 

The law limits the number of conversions to 100 but while there are more than 100 applicants on the list to be converted, the conversion process has hit a bottleneck.  

Tonight the council will find two condo conversion items on its consent calendar—items on this part of the agenda are approved without discussion unless a councilmember pulls the issue for discussion on the action calendar. These items will address some, but not all, of the issues holding up conversion, according to Jesse Arreguin, a Housing Advisory Commission member, chair of the Rent Stabilization Board and aide to Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

A proposal by planning staff would amend the section of the condo conversion law that states that the affordable housing mitigation fee for a unit that is being converted to a condo will be capped at 12.5 percent, whether the unit is vacant or occupied, as long as the owner agrees to specified limits on rent increases for all current tenants within that building at the time of conversion.  

A second and separate proposal, put forward by Worthington, clarifies the language of the condo ordinance, saying that conversion will be prohibited for 10 years for no-fault evictions (such as owner move-ins—already covered by the law—or Ellis Act evictions in which the landlord goes out of the rental business). 

Worthington’s proposal says enacting it “increases protections for tenants and creates a disincentive for evictions in order to convert a building to condominiums.”  

Arreguin said the clarifications will help implementation of the law, but another impediment is yet to be addressed by council. That is the difficulties owners face with building inspectors “who come in at the last minute,” requiring owners to make unexpected improvements in their properties.  

Planning, housing and city attorney staff have been meeting to help design a better process, he said.  

A council workshop on condominium conversion that was to be held this month will instead be held in the fall. 

Other items the council will address include: 

• A $254,500 one-year contract with the YWCA to subsidize low-cost city staff memberships, which is part of the city employee benefit package. 

• Setting a public hearing for July 31, in which members of the Elmwood Business Improvement Area can weigh in on continuing the BIA. 

• Encouraging use of permeable surfaces on city projects. 

• Allocating $1.4 million to purchase fuel for city vehicles for a year. 

• Cconsidering a draft ordinance to establish operating standards for alcohol outlets and inspection fees for enforcement. 

The council will hold a series of public hearings on increases for: 

• Rental Housing Safety Program fees. 

• Planning department fees. 

• Adoption fees for rabbits, poultry, small rodents, birds and exotic animals. 

• Marina fees. 

• Parks and recreation facility and program fees. 

• Refuse fees.  

The council meeting is at 7 p.m. in the Maudelle Shirek Building, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, televised on cable Channel 33, broadcast on KPFB 89.3 and streamed at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agendaindex.htm. 

Although the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted 5-4 to landmark the Berkeley High School (BHS) Old Gym at 1920 Allston Way Thursday, the Berkeley Unified School District will move ahead with its demolition plans. 

The school district is not bound legally by local landmark laws, said school board president John Selawsky. 

“This does not change our plans for what we feel the high school needs,” he said. “There are lots of ways to honor an architect, a building and a style apart from landmarking it. The Old Gym does not fit our needs. We need more open space and more classrooms. Nothing landmarked can change that.” 

The BHS South of Bancroft Master Plan includes demolition of the Old Gym and the warm water pool and redevelopment of the site with classrooms and a physical education building. 

The commission had previously failed to reach a consensus at the June 7 meeting, with a motion to declare the 85-year-old gym a landmark failing on a 4-3-1 vote. 

According to Carey & Co., the architecture hired by the school district to evaluate the historical merits of the Old Gym and warm water pool at Milvia Street and Bancroft Way, both structures qualify for the National Register of Historic Places. 

The evaluation stated that the Old Gym was “representative of important advancements in structural engineering, namely, the early seismic retrofit of public school buildings.” 

Built in 1922, the Old Gym was designed by William Hays. According to the Carey & Co. report, the original building consisted of a two-story central gymnasium with a two-story classroom section on the east and a swimming pool on the west connected by a low one-story portion.  

Two units were added in 1929, one on the south identical with the original and one on the north, designed by architect Walter H. Ratcliff, Jr. The building’s appearance changed when it underwent seismic reconstruction in 1936. 

“It has good bones,” Berkeley resident Janice Thomas told the commissioners. “It needs to be revitalized and cleaned up.” 

“Although it meets the criteria for landmarking, it didn’t provide good space,” school district spokesperson Mark Coplan said at the meeting. “It was poorly planned and there was no way of getting disabled athletes up to the gyms on the second floor.” 

Commissioner Fran Packard said that landmarking the structure would “compound the complexity” of the school district’s South of Bancroft plan. 

“It just doesn’t serve the overall purpose of Berkeley High,” she said. 

“Public interest has nothing to do with landmarking,” said landmarks commissioner Carrie Olsen. “We are here to say whether it is historic or not. I think it’s worth preserving. It’s a stupid thing to demolish a building, I have said it before and I’ll say it again. In 1960, they wanted to tear down Jefferson Elementary School. The school district has a policy of deferred maintenance: let’s make it so ugly that we have to tear it down. I know the school district is not bound by landmarking but it is the right thing to do at the right time.” 

“It’s not about nostalgia,” said commissioner Steven Winkel. “It’s not about landmarking it because the warm water pool exists there. It’s because it meets the criteria. The information that was in the EIR says that the building is a historic resource. The external building has some damage done to it, but it has some cultural significance as well.” 

The Warm Water Pool Task Force is currently working with the city to identify alternate locations for the pool. A proposed design will be presented at the disability commission meeting at the North Berkeley Senior Center Wednesday. 

1505 Shattuck Ave. 

The LPC approved a use permit and an application to demolish a one-story commercial building and build a new 4,820-square-foot, two-story, mixed-use building in the historic Squires Block in North Berkeley. 

A few area residents had said that 1505 Shattuck Ave. was a historic structure which shouldn’t be demolished, while its owner Allen Connolly had cited a former landmarks commission decision to refute its right to protection. 

Other buildings at the site include a single-story commercial building at 2106-08 Vine St., a two-story commercial building at 2100 Vine St. (Earthly Goods) and a single-story storage building, which would be demolished as part of the project. 

The landmarks commission cited its own decision Thursday to approve the demolition application. The commission designated all of the Squires Block as a city structure of merit in March 2004, while indicating in particular that the buildings at 2100 and 2106-08 Vine St. were of historic interest, but not the one at 1505 Shattuck Ave. 

“When we landmarked the Squires Block, we were clear to say that 1505 Shattuck could come down,” said Olsen. “I am very happy with what I see. However, I would challenge you to come up with something interesting for the gate as we are tired of seeing that awful jingling gate there for so long.”

Sunday was a day of envisioning the future of People’s Park. 

While some park regulars basked in the sun or played a round of basketball, there were those who gathered inside the First Church of the Christ Scientist on Dwight Way to attend the first community workshop on the future programs and designs of this historic piece of land. 

Mark Miller, principal planner of San Francisco-based MKThink—the firm hired by UC Berkeley to plan improvements for People’s Park—brainstormed ideas with a group of 30 people who had turned up to share their thoughts. 

“The idea was to use role-playing to make people think from a different perspective,” said UC Berkeley Community Relations Director Irene Hegarty. “We had a good discussion and we will be able to get a better idea of what people want when the consultant’s report is out. We will probably have additional workshops to talk about concepts, especially in the fall when students are back from summer break.” 

Workshop attendees were split up into three groups with each person playing the role of a community member. Neighborhood residents became homeless, students turned into cops and People’s Park Committee Boardmember Lydia Gans took on the role of a local church worker. 

“This really helped a lot,” she said. “It engaged us to look at things from another point of view. I for one feel fine walking in the park. I am sad most people don’t feel that way.” 

Miller drew comparisons between People’s Park and other famous parks across the country. 

“We want to reference parks with similar issues,” he explained, showing the group clips from Manhattan’s Bryant Park. “The idea is to facilitate a conversation without undermining what works. To get people to meet each other.” 

Located behind the New York Public Library, Bryant Park is an urban oasis near the ever-bustling Times Square, which draws people of different age-groups with activities such as outdoor movies, festivals and even a free WiFi service. 

“Morningside Park near Columbia University also had issues between the local constituents and the university for a long time,” Miller said. 

“Lafayette Square (Old Man’s Park) in Oakland has a very active food service and engages with its homeless through the park itself. The neighborhood is in transition right now. Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco also has a very active performing arts and its proximity to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) attracts people from all over the world. Union Square in New York is a good example of a park trying to balance landscape with softscape. Remodeling it didn’t involve many physical changes but involved scheduling more activities.” 

Sunday’s workshop focused on activities at the park. Concerts, art shows, adopt-the-park days topped people’s wishlists. 

“The only thing my group came to a consensus about was a community center,” said Jackie Bort, a church member, who had been in Group One. “We want the park to be people-friendly.” 

“But I don’t want to see the park become a courtyard for profit,” said Andrea Pritchett, a member of Cop Watch. 

“I want to be able to sit in the park peacefully without the fear of police coming. I want more of a community environment. Where is the user development? It looks like everybody is a customer.” 

Dione Cota, neighbor, said that she didn’t feel very safe walking near the park. 

“Most women don’t,” she said. “Something needs to be done about that.”  

Vincent Casalaina, who said he had helped tear down the fence around the park in 1969, said he would like to see a lot more history in the park. 

“There’s no place to go to learn about it,” Casalaina, who is president of the Willard Neighborhood Association, said. 

“We want a place that will honor the citizens’ history,” quipped in Berkeley resident Martha Jones. “Something like a distinguished monument.” 

Naturalist Terri Compost, who gardens at the park, agreed. 

“What it needs is for us to be there as a community,” she said. “I am a little wary of stuff like, ‘we are going to cement it all.’”  

Most park users agreed that they wanted to see as little cement in the park as possible. 

Sharon Hudson, an immediate neighbor, said that it was important to have a balance of events at the park. 

“We can’t have too many noisy big events there,” she said. “People’s Park acts as a buffer between residents and a very active South Campus area. It’s a very valuable green space.” 

Park user and disabled people’s activist Dan McMullan said that the park suffered from negative propaganda. 

“If good people go to a place, then it gets the bad people out,” he said. “That’s what we want at the park.” 

Carlos Ponce, who lives right across from the park said the neighbors were constantly dealing with homeless problems. 

“It’s a lot of screaming, a lot of cursing,” he said. “People are living outside my window and shitting there. I cannot use the park when my friends come. They are terrified of going there. The students live there for three or four years and then they leave. But for us, it’s very stressful to live across the park like this year after year. I feel the neighbors have been very neglected.” 

People’s Park Advisory Committee board member Gianna Ranuzzi said she wanted more involvement on the part of the city. 

“I think the park should be for all of us,” said Doris Moskowitz, who owns Moe’s Books on Telegraph. 

“Moe’s needs the park, UC needs the park and the city needs the park. I am frustrated because sometimes it spills over. The drugs are a problem. I’d definitely like to see more women and children use the park.” 

Suggestions for improvement included better bathrooms, a needle exchange box and a bigger recreation center. 

“We found out that people agree more than they disagree,” Miller told the Planet. “But they are always fearful of change. They don’t want to be disregarded and disrespected. That’s why we are looking for alignment and vision that works with the history of the park and community preservation. We want to break down the stereotypes.”

California State Superintendent for Public Instruction Jack O’Connell came to Oakland on Monday to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) returning a portion of the Oakland Unified School District back to local control, telling a crowd of reporters, citizens, education activists, and politicians gathered at East Oakland’s Franklin Elementary School that “this is a big day for Oakland Unified. This is a new beginning for us. The district’s future looks brighter than ever before.” 

In a news release, the state superintendent added that “this is a crucial first step toward returning the Oakland school district to local control and realizing long-term financial recovery and continuing improvement in student achievement. Substantial and sustainable progress has been made in this particular area and I am pleased to see this first of five objectives successfully met.” 

Speaking at the press conference announcing the turnover, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums said, “My view has always been that we desperately need local control of the public schools. We should put forward every effort to return full local control.”  

Board President David Kakishiba called the turnover “clearly a big victory for the people of Oakland. This school board has always wanted an orderly, responsible, timely return of local control. The MOU and today’s actions demonstrate what we have been doing.” 

Kakishiba predicted that state audits “will soon affirm that we are ready for full return to local control. I hope that comes by the start of the next school year.” And Assemblymember Sandré Swanson (D-Oakland) said that “schools are supposed to be our greatest example of democracy, and we want to prove that here in Oakland.” 

The official turnover by O’Connell of the area of community relations and governance to the OUSD School Board comes just two days before a scheduled hearing before the Senate Education Committee on Swanson’s AB45 legislation that would take discretion for the return to local control out of the state superintendent’s hands entirely. 

But while Oakland politicians and education activists expressed satisfaction with the return of one area of school operations to the school board, it was still unclear exactly what this action would mean for day-to-day policy and decision-making at OUSD, and they made pointed statements that this was only the first step in an ultimate goal of return of full local control. 

The MOU—signed by O’Connell, his appointed district administrator Kimberly Statham, district School Board President David Kakishiba, and Board of Education Secretary Edgar Rakestraw in front of a lineup of elected officials that included Dellums, Assemblymembers Swanson and Loni Hancock, Oakland City Councilmember and former school board members Jean Quan, and several current school board members—immediately transfers authority over community relations and governance to the Oakland school board as defined by the state-financed Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), reducing the role of state administrator Statham in that area to a trustee with merely “stay and rescind authority” over any board decision that “may adversely impact the financial condition of the district.” 

Control over four other areas of school activity, as defined by FCMAT, will remain in the hands of O’Connell and Statham for the foreseeable future. Those include financial management, pupil achievement, facilities management, and personnel management. 

Earlier, the school board met in special session at district headquarters to ratify the MOU. 

The limited power transfer means that for the first time since the state takeover, Oakland school board members will be managing partners in the operation of the Oakland schools and will receive pay for their duties. The original SB39 law that authorized the state takeover in 2003 stripped the board of full power and pay. 

Following his announcement, O’Connell informed reporters that “I’m told that [OUSD] facilities are improving. I’m hopeful that this will be the next area in which we will sign an MOU to turn over control in the near future.” 

He refused to give a specific date or timetable for such a return. 

On Monday, O’Connell also did not speak directly during his announcement to what authority the school board will now have, and the MOU itself was distinctly vague on the matter. The MOU did not state the board’s new duties and powers directly, only saying that such authority is returned “over the 54 Professional Standards enumerated by FCMAT” in the Community Relations and Governance sections of its report on OUSD. 

But the 54 professional standards in the FCMAT OUSD document are not designed as outlines of duties, but are merely FCMAT’s assessments of board activities during the takeover years.  

One of those 54 FCMAT “professional standards,” for example, says merely that “Board spokespersons are skilled at public speaking and communication and are knowledgeable about district programs and issues.” Another says that “functional working relations are maintained among board members.” How those spell out the details of return of authority to the board is difficult to determine. 

At least one member of the local education community took a broader view of the turnover, saying that O’Connell’s actions appear to mean that the board will now have power over such things as opening or closing charter schools. 

Oakland Education Association President Betty Olsen-Jones cited the recent closing of the East Oakland Community High School, which State Administrator Statham did after a majority of the school board members voted to keep the school open. 

“Under the new situation, Dr. Statham would not make that decision if it directly went against a board vote,” Olsen-Jones said in an interview following O’Connell’s announcement. “That’s where I see this as being different.” 

But Olsen-Jones said that she was “a little bit skeptical” of O’Connell’s actions, saying that “if you went by the rules laid down by FCMAT, community relations and governance would have been returned to local control two years ago when FCMAT recommended it.” Olsen-Jones called the partial restoration “a small step. But not until we get back full control in all areas will the complete deed be done.” 

Asked by a reporter why it took two years to return community relations and governance to the Oakland school board after FCMAT’s recommendation, O’Connell said only that the turnover resulted from “ongoing discussions and negotiations” between himself, Statham, and the school board, “some of them difficult. We just recently came to an agreement.” 

School board member Greg Hodge, who has been critical of O’Connell’s actions during the takeover, said following the announcement that “two things changed” since FCMAT’s 2005 recommendation that he believes may have led to O’Connell’s belated decision to follow that recommendation. “Sandré Swanson introduced AB45,” Hodge said, “and the land sale got killed.” The “land sale” referred to a tentative deal O’Connell signed last year with an east coast developer to purchase and commercially develop 8.25 acres of central OUSD property, including the district administrative headquarters and five schools. A number of Oakland education activists have charged that the original Oakland school takeover may have been triggered by developer desires to seize that property. O’Connell dropped the land sale following intense opposition from Oakland activists and most Oakland politicians. 

Following the announcement, Assemblymember Swanson said that “the community should get a lot of credit for the state superintendent’s actions. They have been pushing very hard for a return to local control.” Swanson said that he will continue to press forward with his AB45 restoration of Oakland local school control bill, which has already passed the Assembly and will be heard this Wednesday morning in the Senate Education Committee.  

“My bill focuses on the process of return to local control, and makes that process more transparent,” Swanson said. “I’m pleased that the state superintendent is moving forward now to do it on his own. You can argue about the timing of his announcement, but it’s a good thing that it’s happening.” Swanson said that AB45, however, “will ensure that the process of return to local control in each of FCMAT’s five interest areas takes place in a more timely fashion, and will make it easier to take place in the future.” 

One of the nation’s rising stars of landscape architecture shared the stirrings of a vision for what could become a Berkeley civic showcase—the Center Street Plaza. 

Walter Hood, a professor and former chair of UC Berkeley’s Landscape Architecture Department as well as the head of his own design firm, presented ideas and listened to comments during a Monday afternoon meeting with a variety of civic activists and officials in the Gaia Building’s art center. 

“It interests me to create a great public space in downtown Berkeley,” Hood said. 

An architect whose works have been hailed by colleagues and by the New York Times, Hood has been retained at a fee of $150,000 by a group including Oakland resident Richard Register’s Ecocity Builders and Berkeley resident Elyce Judith to prepare what Berkeley’s planning director has called an “advocacy plan.” 

There’s no guarantee the city will adopt Hood’s plan, but city officials who turned out for Monday’s gathering seemed impressed that an architect of his stature would be offering a design at no cost to the city. 

With grants from the Mazer Foundation and several local donors, Hood will design an alternative vision for what has emerged as a central feature of two downtown planning efforts. 

Both the city UC Hotel Task Force and the current effort by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) have floated the notion of transforming the block of Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue into a visionary public space. 

Richard Register and Kirstin Miller of Ecocity Builders, advocates of the proposal to restore a stretch of Strawberry Creek as a centerpiece of a pedestrian plaza, introduced Hood at a gathering attended by Berkeley elected and appointed civic leadership. 

“I got involved with the Urban Creek Council very early on,” said Hood, an affable speaker hailed as a genius by DAPAC Chair Will Travis. 

A long-time East Bay resident, Hood said that one of the area’s most compelling features is the presence of the skyline of the hills, a constant feature that literally grounds the observer in relation to the landscape. 

“Out here, we are in this environment where the hills are visible,” he said, and the challenge of the design is to integrate the experience of the hills, the creek, the buildings, while tying in the transit features of the bus and BART plaza that anchor the block across Shattuck Avenue. 

“I am less into aesthetics than anything else,” he said. “If I can come back at the end of the day and see people doing something I didn’t expect, I know I’ve been successful.” 

While one of his most famous designs, in collaboration with Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuton, has been the landscape and gardens of San Francisco’s De Young Museum, it was his creation at Splash Pad Park in Oakland which has won kudos both from passersby and New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown. 

Hood said he hopes to create a space where public events can be held, while allowing each visitor—whether intentional or simply passing through—to find a space of his or her own. 

“It’s really encouraging to hear you,” said Juliet Lamont, a DAPAC member and environmentalist. “I’ve been following the evolution of your work over the years.” 

Lamont urged Hood to consider a theme which has emerged as the central element of the new downtown plan taking shape with DAPAC’s assistance—sustainability. 

Planning Commissioner David Stoloff, citing different handling of water in European cities he had visited, asked Hood if the architect would consider two alternatives, one a daylighted creek and the other a “water feature.” Hood said he would. 

As two examples, he cited the Aqua Palace in Rome, a monument to the source of the city’s water in Tivoli, and San Antonio, where the Rio Grande had been fully restored as a center of commerce. 

“It really resonates with me to create a great public space,” said DAPAC member and architect Jim Novosel. “I would love to hear Al Gore downtown rather than at Provo [Martin Luther King Civic Center] Park or Sproul Hall.” 

“I am just absolutely thrilled that you are bringing your genius to this problem,” said DAPAC Chair Travis, who asked Hood how he saw his relationship with DAPAC—which is charged with wrapping up its planning efforts by the end of November. 

Hood said that while he would be glad to work with DAPAC—just as he has already been meeting with city planning staff and hopes to meet soon with university planners and the designers of the art museum planned for the northwest corner of Oxford and Center streets. Hood said he would also be working autonomously as well. 

While some said they wanted a full restoration of the creek, created as a didactic tool, Hood said he hoped everyone would be open to the everyday implications of the design. “Sometimes it’s just nice to be in a place and have some sunshine,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just nice to go to your business and open up the doors and it’s clean outside.” 

Members of the public have the opportunity to meet with Hood during a morning symposium Friday at Berkeley City College, starting at 9 a.m.  

Also on hand will be the present and past mayors and the city manager of San Luis Obispo, another university town which has made a restored creek an anchoring feature of its revitalized city center. 

The day’s events also include a private catered lunch for members of the City Council and city commissions, followed by a tour of the project area and campus and a meeting with members of the downtown business community. 

The day will end with a 5 p.m. gathering atop the Gaia Building. 

Monday’s event drew a good turnout, including Mayor Tom Bates, City Councilmembers Dona Spring, Gordon Wozniak and Laurie Capitelli, as well as at least three members of the Planning Commission and four DAPAC members. 

Photograph by Richard Brenneman 

Walter Hood fielded questions from city officials and interested citizens after he described the beginnings of his vision for a new Center Street Plaza. He has been commissioned to prepare plans for a public space that could include a stretch of restored Strawberry Creek between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue if the block is closed to traffic as advocates hope.

A group of LeConte neighbors are planning to appeal an administrative use permit to construct an addition to a one-story two-unit building at 2516 Ellsworth St. at the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) meeting Thursday. 

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

The current building exists right on the border of a higher-density and a lower-density residential zone. 

Area residents are worried that the proposed building, which will become a dorm for UC Berkeley students, will produce noise, shadow and privacy impacts on the neighborhood.  

Applicant William Coburn Architects of Oakland wants to construct a 2,974-square-foot addition to an existing 903-square-foot one-story, two-unit building by expanding the footprint toward the rear yard and raising the existing house. The proposed expansion will increase the units from two to 14.  

The board will decide whether to set the issue for public hearing.  

Other items 

• The board will a hold a preliminary consideration of a use permit for the 1819 Fifth St. Pads Project.  

Applicants Liz Miranda and Timothy Rempel of Fifth Street have requested a permit to construct a mixed-use project which involves renovation and modification of an existing building at 1819 Fifth St., with four live-work units, 10 residential condominium units, 11 commercial units (7,298 square feet), 27 parking spaces and a new four-story construction. 

Although state laws mandate that the project should not receive more than a 15 percent density bonus, staff suggests that it should receive 35 percent. 

There is strong opposition from West Berkeley neighbors who have submitted a petition against the project. Area residents are concerned that the height and the mass of the proposed project will be out of character with the rest of the neighborhood. 

The Landmarks Preservation Commission is concerned about its impact on the Delaware Street Historic District. 

Staff recommends that the ZAB comment on the project’s bulk, mass and proposed concessions. 

• The board will vote on whether to approve a use permit to demolish an existing automotive repair shop and surface parking lot to construct a four-story, mixed-use building with 18 condominium dwelling units, 2,370 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and a 25-space parking garage at 2720 San Pablo Ave. 

Senior Rabbi Yoel Kahn gave his first service at Congregation Beth El Friday night, marking the first time the congregation has had an openly gay rabbi. 

“It went well,” said Kahn. “We had about 150 people in attendance. We also got a new prayer book. I think people are excited.” 

Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington, also openly gay, said he enjoyed the service. 

“It was more emotional than the average service since it was the first one,” noted Worthington. “He also invited members of the rabbi search committee up to join him.” 

The rabbi search committee had been meeting to find a new rabbi, due to the retirement of the previous one. 

Katherine Haynes Sanstad, president of Congregation Beth El and chair of the search committee, said that the choice to pick Kahn wasn’t difficult. She also noted that the committee unanimously voted to elect Kahn as senior rabbi. 

“We did an international search with candidates as far as Australia,” said Haynes Sanstad. “We wanted to find a person who had the skills to bring deep meaning to the traditions of Judaism and Beth El, and Rabbi Kahn was head and shoulders above all other applicants in that respect.” 

During the first two days at his post, there were two deaths in the congregation. 

“He has already hit the ground running and provided families with the grace and compassion they need in this hard time and has asked the community to do the same,” added Haynes Sanstad. 

Kahn, a native of the Bay Area, graduated with honors from UC Berkeley and went to Jerusalem to study at Hebrew University. He was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1985. Then, he returned to the Bay Area and completed his graduate studies, receiving his Ph.D. through the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He has been a rabbi for the past 22 years, eleven at the Congregation ShaAr Zahaz in San Francisco. 

When asked why he became a rabbi, Kahn responded, “I like Jewish stuff. I think that the Jewish spiritual tradition is connected to community and culture. I try to model and teach these traditions.” 

Rabbi Kahn and his partner Dan Bellm have been married for 25 years and have a 15-year-old son, Adam. 

“This is a man who has been involved in synagogue renewal for the past decade,” mentioned Haynes Sanstad. “He is incredibly gifted and talented.” 

Members of the public are invited to attend services on Friday nights at 6:15 p.m. and Saturday mornings at 10 a.m at Congregation Beth El at 1301 Oxford St. 

Waste Management of Alameda County and Teamsters Local 70, a union that represents drivers and equipment operators, aren’t making progress in negotiations of a new contract despite the company’s lockout of the union’s 481 members last Monday. The old contract expired June 30. 

The quarrel is over the new language proposed by Waste Management. Teamsters want to renew the previous contract for an additional five years, while Waste Management wants to include new language that increases the amount employees pay for healthcare, lessens the power and influence of unions, and establishes more stringent health and safety guidelines.  

In response to the disagreements, Waste Management has brought in 200 replacement workers from around the country. On their website, the company explains their position. 

“The company has tried for months to reach a new agreement with the union prior to the expiration of the old contract, without success,” according to the Waste Management of Alameda County website. “Waste Management of Alameda County has offered the Teamsters above-market wage and benefits increases that keep our employees among the highest paid in the industry. The company’s offer also provides for the highest level of safety standards, and ensures labor peace during the term of the contract.” 

Teamster Local 70’s Secretary-Treasurer Chuck Mack contends that the union will not strike, but says that it will not give in to company demands. 

“Our goal is to renew the old contract for another five years,” said Mack prior to a negotiation meeting with a federal negotiator yesterday. “We aren’t asking for anything new. We hope for the best today, but I haven’t seen any evidence that the company has changed its mind.” 

There have been 14 meetings between Waste Management and Teamsters Local 70, but no progress has been made. Union workers are furious with their employers and are asking for their jobs back. 

“I am not able to work,” said Tony Tedeschi, thirty-year employee of Waste Management. “I’ve had to file for unemployment for the first time in all these years. They’ve locked us out completely. I want to go back to work again. I’ve got bills to pay.” 

Additionally, Tedeschi accused the company of being hypocritical. 

“They’ve hired replacement drivers that are working unsafely,” said Tedeschi. “They aren’t wearing seat belts, they’re talking on their cell phones. In other words, the new workers are doing the same thing that the company says they want to stop, but they aren’t getting punished. In addition, they’re mixing green waste, recycling, and garbage. It’s all going to landfill.” 

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums said in a statement: “I understand the hardship this lock-out is creating for residents in Oakland. We’re pursuing every legal remedy, applying pressure on both sides to come to an agreement, and we’re looking at alternative ways to have the garbage collected.” 

Last week, the Central Labor Council of Alameda County, AFL-CIO granted picketline sanction to Teamsters Local 70 at Waste Management facilities around Alameda County. 

“The issue here is the right to honor picket lines and the right to collective bargaining,” said Sharon Cornu, executive secretary-treasurer of the 100,000-member AFL-CIO Labor Council, representing 130 local unions. “The company has been blowing smoke about a variety of side issues, while their real goal is to stop union brothers and sisters from supporting each other and bargaining good contracts. They picked the wrong place and the wrong members for this fight. Labor, community and political leaders are resolutely behind the workers from all three unions.” 

In a letter dated June 29, Waste Management threatened the Machinists Local Lodge 1546 with “permanent replacement” if they honored the Local 70 picket line, which would result in work stopping. 

Pickup complaints should be directed to the City of Oakland Recycling Hotline 238-SAVE (7283) for both garbage and recycling service issues.

Despite the crushing defeat of a police misconduct information bill late last month in the Assembly Public Safety Committee, a local American Civil Liberties Union director says that SB1019 is not dead in this Legislature, and “what we have been able to do to bring this bill so far at this point is remarkable.” 

Meanwhile, an official with the Oakland police watchdog organization PUEBLO said that she was “disappointed” in what she called the failure of local Assemblymember Sandré Swanson to actively intervene to support the bill. 

Assemblymember Sandré Swanson “owes his constituents an explanation as to why he buckled under,” said PUEBLO organizer Rashidah Grinage by telephone this week. 

Swanson’s office could not be reached in time to comment for this story. 

State Sen. Gloria Romero’s (D-Los Angeles) SB1019 would restore open police disciplinary hearings in cities and counties throughout California, which were closed to the public earlier this year following the State Supreme Court’s ruling in the Copley v. Superior Court case. Among the cities closing those police hearings were Oakland and Berkeley. 

But last month, in a hearing room which ACLU-Northern California Police Practices Policy Director Mark Schlosberg says was filled with more than 100 police union representatives, members of the Assembly Public Safety Committee refused Romero’s request to bring the bill to a vote. 

“We could have had Mother Theresa come and testify for the bill, there could have been the Second Coming, it wouldn’t have mattered,” Grinage said. “The committee members already had an agreement to sit on the bill. It was a cowardly action. They engineered it so that none of them would have to go on record.” 

“Unfortunately, most committee members were non-responsive,” to the testimony of bill supporters, Schlosberg said in a press statement. “Instead, committee members sided with the phalanx of police union lobbyists who repeated their mantra of the day: ‘SB 1019 will endanger officer safety and the safety of their families.’ This assertion—repeated by dozens of police union reps—was completely unchallenged by even a single member of the committee, including Assemblywoman Fiona Ma. Not a single Assembly member pointed out the obvious: that in the over 30 years of public oversight in California, there is not a single example of a police officer being physically harmed because of the public release of information about misconduct complaints and discipline. The vast majority of other states release more information to the public than California and the police associations have also failed to provide any similar examples from those states as well. The bill also has specific provisions that allow information to remain confidential where there are officer safety concerns.” 

Schlosberg later said by telephone that “any police accountability bill in Sacramento is an uphill fight” because of the power of police unions. “Since before the Rodney King beating, there hasn’t been any major reform in this area that has passed the Legislature and been signed into law.” 

But Schlosberg later said by telephone that “the worst-case scenario in this is a two-year bill. It’s already passed the Senate, so even if we can’t get it passed in the Assembly this year, we can bring it up in the Assembly next year without having to go through the Senate again.” 

Schlosberg said that activists have not given up the fight for this year. “The deadline for getting bills to the governor to sign is September. We’ve still got time.” 

For her part, Grinage says that “we haven’t thrown in the towel.” But if Romero’s bill passes, she believes it won’t be through the Assembly Public Safety Committee. 

“We saw what they were about,” she said. “There’s no need to try to bring it back to those folks. We’re now trying to get people to contact [Assembly Speaker Fabian] Nuñez to bring this directly to the floor of the Assembly for a vote, without passing through committee. The Speaker has the power to do this.” 

Grinage said that local progressive activists had been “counting on people like Swanson to do that, but it doesn’t appear that he is up to the task. Any number of citizens and organizations have contacted his office, asking for his support for SB1019. The Mayor of Oakland is supporting it. The Oakland Chief of Police is supporting it. The Oakland City Council is supporting it. But the most we could get out of Swanson’s office is that he will vote for it when it comes to the floor of the Assembly, when he knew full well that it wasn’t going to get out of committee. That’s not leadership.” 

“Ironically,” Grinage added, Oakland City Attorney John Russo, who Swanson beat in last year’s Democratic primary for the Assembly seat, “is supporting the bill, even though Swanson has the reputation of being the more progressive of the two. On this issue, at any rate, progressives would be better off if Russo was in office.” 

Toxics at two adjoining Richmond waterfront sites will dominate Thursday evening’s discussion of a citizen panel advising the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). 

Members of the Richmond Southeast Shoreline Area Community Advisory Group (CAG) are scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. in the Bermuda Room of the Richmond Convention Center, 203 Civic Center Plaza near the corner of Nevin and 25th streets. 

CAG members provide non-binding advice to DTSC officials supervising the cleanup of contaminated sites and is following efforts at Campus Bay and the adjacent UC Berkeley Richmond Field Station. 

Both tracts accumulated heavy loads of hazardous metals and organic toxins during their histories as sites of extensive chemical manufacturing—mercury-containing explosives at the university site and a host of chemicals at Campus Bay, for the century between 1897 and 1997 the location of a complex of chemical plants which produced everything from pesticides to fertilizers and sulfuric acid. 

Campus Bay is where plans for a 1,330-unit housing project were tabled after questions arose about the safety of the site and the nature of a major cleanup that took place between 2002 and 2004 while a similar effort was being conducted next door on the university property. 

On June 29, the DTSC ordered both the university and AstraZeneca, the last chemical manufacturer to own the Campus Bay site, to submit plans for proper handling of more than 3,000 truckloads of contaminated soil hauled from the field station to a massive disposal site at Campus Bay. 

DTSC alleges that not only was the soil improperly disposed of, but at least nine trucking companies lacked valid hazardous permits for at least part of the time they were hauling the earth.

When traveling through Costa Rica it’s best to emulate the sloth. Take it slow, very slow. Costa Rica requires maceration, allowing time for her to soak into your pores. On a recent visit I received sage advice from my guide, Luis Diego Soto: “Close your eyes and listen.” Listen to the voices of the forests, mountains, rivers and the life within. Listen to the voices of the people.  

I listened to what they all were saying about Costa Rica’s stewardship of her natural resources. 

With over 27 percent of land protected and preserved, Costa Rica has raised the bar as a model for conservation. In land the size of West Virginia exist 12 life zones and 5 percent of the earth’s flora and fauna, making Costa Rica one of earth’s most bio-diverse areas. From beautiful rain forests, volcanic mountain ranges, misty cloud forests, jungle rivers to mangrove swamps and vaulting canopy trees, life thrives. 

In Coter Lake’s rain forest, the sounds are those of water, drop by drop, working its way down through tiers of foliage, and the whine of the giant cicada. Here the nutrient-rich soil layer is thin, requiring flora to grab a foothold wherever possible. Every square inch becomes a habitat, nothing is wasted. One guanacaste tree, the national tree of Costa Rica, teems with life—red bromeliads, Sobralia orchids, mosses, ferns, blue sky vines and massive termite nests. 

Another sound is the “capi, capi” of the Maleku, indigenous people who are the guardians of the forest. Through Soto they explain, “Outside we are the same, two eyes, two ears, two arms, two feet. What sets us apart? What we believe in our hearts and think in our minds.” Through their crafts, like the soothing rain cylinder and balsa animal masks, they work to preserve their forest. 

Government regulations have aided conservation. Protected land is surveyed and catalogued, plant by plant. Permission must be granted even for the removal of one tree. Within Costa Rica, one acre of forest traps five tons of carbon dioxide and releases the same in oxygen. As an incentive, the government buys oxygen credits from individuals maintaining forests on private land. Quotas for visitors have also been set in the more popular parks and on trails within the parks. 

Monte Verde Biological Preserve is a primary cloud forest of diverse terrain, under intense humidity. Winds sweep across this land of miradors: in English, passages of windswept uninterrupted green, where there are no signs of human habitation as far as the eye can see. Listening here yields the joyful calls of birds, a symphony of song. Sharp eyes and Soto’s spotting scope reveals the amazing quetzal, emerald toucanet, screech owl and black guan. Ears tuned to the cellular might hear the aerial roots of the strangler fig as it surrounds and embraces an unwary ficus, slowly sapping its life and creating a latticed tree-structure of its own. 

While 50 percent of the population still makes a living from agriculture, over 186 protected areas have made tourism Costa Rica’s number-one industry. This has resulted in thousands of jobs as guides, drivers and in the service industries, as well as a dramatic rise in the value of land. My driver one day, Oscar, related the story of a convert to ecology. “There was a man who didn’t care about conservation; he wanted to cut the trees down in the quetzal forest. Now he saves the trees and leads groups to see the quetzal.” 

Tourism has its down sides, as is often the case when money competes with the environment. Some areas, like Quepos, have been overdeveloped, resulting in wall-to-wall hotels and strains on the water supply. Before quotas were set, Manuel Antonio National Park was overrun with beach enthusiasts whose lack of eco-interest contributed to wildlife like the white-faced capuchin and squirrel monkey becoming habituated to human food. But it’s all a balancing act. As Soto remarked, “The money collected at Manuel Antonio helps support less popular parks.”  

In the mangrove swamp I hear the sound of water lapping against tree roots: trees preventing erosion, helping to transform wet land to dry, trees whose roots create nurseries for crustaceans and fish as they filter salt. As the boat slowly glides, I observe the red, white and black mangrove forests, one of the most productive for removing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. I watch ibis, ringed kingfishers, a northern tree boa and a tiny fur-ball, the silky anteater. Then I hear a plop, a mangrove pod hitting the water, sinking to the bottom, imbedding itself in the silt, ready to grow roots and begin the cycle of life once again. 

Costa Rica’s paradise is not perfect, but it’s a work in progress in the right direction. By abolishing her army in 1948, Costa Rica has been able to channel financial power to her people—30 percent to education and another 30 percent to health care. Literacy is at 93 percent. The government subsidizes education and provides tuition-free technical training; unemployment is very low. 

There are many voices speaking in Costa Rica; their sounds fill the air. The richness of the wildlife fills your eyes. This small country on the path of conservation can easily fill your heart.

Arson 

At 11:51 p.m. on Saturday, someone called in to report that a small fire had been started at the entrance of the Berkeley Mental Health Center at Derby and MLK. Someone left an unknown accelerant at the door when the building was closed and damaged a portion of the entrance. No suspects have been identified. 

Spousal abuse 

On Saturday at 6:20 p.m., a man assaulted his wife, both in their 30s, on the 1500 block of Alcatraz Avenue. After the incident, the woman received an emergency protective order against her husband. No injuries were indicated in the report. 

Burglary 

At 10:12 p.m. on Friday, two Berkeley residents phoned the police to report that two laptops, a camera, and an MP3 player had been stolen from their home on the 2200 block of Haste. No suspects are in custody. 

Auto burglary via key 

At 11:30 a.m. on Friday, a car owner called in to report that their car had been broken into with a stolen key and their FasTrak transponder had been taken while they were parking at the Alta Bates Medical Center on Milvia at Dwight. Police believe that the suspect is a parking attendant, said Lt. Wes Hester, spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department. 

Paintball attack 

On Thursday at 12:21 p.m., a woman called in to report that she had been struck with a paintball gun on the 900 block of Shattuck. There are no suspects in this case. 

Double robberies 

On Thursday at midnight, two men and one woman were walking on the 2000 block of Shattuck, when they were stopped and robbed via gun. The suspects took cash, coupons, and a credit card. Six minutes later, at Durant and Shattuck, a man was stopped and robbed via strong arm. The suspects took his cell phone. Lt. Hester says that police believe that suspects performed both robberies due to the similar time and close proximity of the robberies.

President Bush increasingly inhabits a parallel universe. His Thursday press conference displayed a remarkable disconnect from the current thinking of most Americans and even of many elected officials in his own Republican party. Most Americans, from all parties, now understand that our main, our only, goal in Iraq is to get out, though there are still some differences of opinion as to the manner of our going. There has been approximately no progress toward the subsidiary goal of helping the indigenous Iraqis establish a civil society based on what in this country we call democratic values. Staying there longer won’t change much. It’s possible that immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces would exacerbate the factional war among Iraqis, but even that is not certain.  

One analysis of who’s fighting whom might show Sunni Moslems versus Shiite Moslems. Another—one which Bush appeared to believe on Thursday—would say that it’s us against al Qaeda, the same al Qaeda that destroyed the World Trade Center, possibly planned the failed bombings in the United Kingdom, and is now holed up on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. But al Qaeda is a Sunni group, and if the fight in Iraq is Sunnis vs. Shiites, why are we (or at least Senator Lieberman and his friends) also threatening to invade Iran, a Shiite country? You can almost excuse Dubya for not understanding the twisted logic here, but he is the president of the United States, after all, and in the old days presidents at least pretended to understand what was going on. 

The death of Lady Bird Johnson, a smart woman who usually understood what was going on, reminded us that her husband, a smart man who also understood what was going on, had enough of a sense of self-preservation to bail when we finally managed to show him that the Vietnam War was a mistake. George W. Bush is not so smart. In his press conference on Thursday he just looked like an old guy left behind by the passage of time, the last person to hear history crashing around his ears. 

The San Francisco Mime Troupe’s summer show, which I had the privilege of seeing in preview a couple of weeks ago, focuses on what has become a widely believed analysis: vice-president Dick Cheney is really running the government these days. The fact that Cheney double Ed Holmes is one of the group’s acting principals makes this an obvious winning choice, but political observers increasingly believe that Bush is nothing more than a figurehead, the last to know what’s really happening. It’s not just inside-the-Beltway knowledge any more that Cheney’s built-in defibrillator goes off frequently, causing him to experience the equivalent of a stun-gun hit, and Holmes captures this phenomenon to great comic advantage. (See him yourself this weekend at Cedar-Rose Park in Berkeley.)  

Not addressed in the play is what might happen if Cheney were to die or become incapacitated in one of these episodes. Would Congress regain control of the country, or would there be a military coup? The chance of Bush taking charge seems increasingly remote. SFMT plays traditionally evolve over the summer season, so we might find out later.  

Another theme in the show is the gradual enlightenment of a formerly hard-boiled investigative reporter who is recalled to service, aided by his romantic relationship with a gung-ho newbie. Even the torpid U.S. press does appear to have caught on that “victory or defeat” isn’t the theme for this war, as indeed it hasn’t been for any war the United States has been engaged in since the end of the previous century and the beginning of this one. Reporters at Bush’s Thursday press conference seemed finally to smell blood, even trying for a few follow-up questions when he ducked the first ones.  

It’s profoundly disconcerting for a Berkeley viewer to compare these press conferences to meetings of the Berkeley City Council. Nobody in Berkeley expects much of Bush, but we do hope for a certain amount of competence and familiarity with the problems on the table at the local level. Tuesday night’s council meeting did not inspire confidence.  

One of the items on the agenda was a review of the action of the Landmarks Preservation Committee recognizing the Iceland building as a local historic resource. It was supported by reams of expert testimony and a staff report that backed most elements of the decision, but councilmembers seemed eager to trump up some excuse for overturning the designation. They showed themselves to be willing victims of the usual developers’ propaganda maneuvers. 

An unholy alliance between developer Ali Kashani and the YMCA health club empire proposed a new project for the site, putting on a shameless parade of Head Start advocates as purported beneficiaries. Kashani, with even less finesse than his role model Patrick Kennedy, is obviously using Head Start the way Kennedy used the Gaia bookstore to get approval for the Gaia building and the Fine Arts Theater to get approval of the Fine Arts building, neither of which ended up as tenants in the end. And perhaps old-timers might remember that the YMCA was also supposed to be the excuse for the Golden Bear building, and that didn’t happen either.  

Councilmembers and the mayor were either genuinely or willfully ignorant of the fact that according to law they may only decide at this point whether Iceland meets standards for historic designation, not whether they might like a proposed replacement project. A historic building can always be demolished by council fiat, but that decision is for the future—it can’t be made now. Even City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque, who often acts as confused as her clients, seemed to understand this legal nicety, but she was unable or unwilling to explain it in any coherent way.  

Then there was the discussion of new permits for the Wright’s Garage building on Ashby at College. The mayor presided with his usual combination of apparent boredom and procedural oblivion, his main goal obviously getting home to bed. After devoting hours in the early part of the meeting to discussing the ins and outs of rules regulating the service of alcohol, Bates, Olds and Moore disingenuously refused to vote to hold a public hearing to address Elmwood concerns about putting a big new bar on a busy corner. Linda Maio did point out that holding a public hearing would give the council a lever to work on some sort of compromise, and Kriss Worthington suggested that the Zoning Adjustments Board should be asked to try one more time for a solution, but the three holdouts stuck to their guns despite pleas from residents and merchants.  

Why does any of this matter? How could it be compared to the ongoing travesty which the Bush administration has become?  

It’s almost obscene to compare resolution of local land use issues to the pressing need for ending the Iraq war, but the underlying theme which ties the two together continues to be the future of democratic government as we’ve known it. Just as the guy at the top national level doesn’t seem to know what’s going on, the top guy at the local level doesn’t seem to be following the ball most of the time (nor do most of his colleagues.) And neither guy seems to care at all any more about constituents’ opinions on matters of public interest, nor do most Berkeley councilmembers. That’s worrisome. 

A visit from our friend the journalism professor prompted many “whither newspapers” conversations around dinner tables last week. These were a continuation of earlier similar discussions with local friends about recent developments in what used to be called the corporate mass media. I say “used to be called” because as newspapers are increasingly the playthings of large corporate empires their influence on the masses seems to be diminishing.  

The Professor used to be a working reporter in the Bay Area before she moved into Midwestern academia, so the takeover of the Chronicle by the Hearst corporation and almost every other publication by Media News was especially noteworthy for her. A deathwatch blog is being maintained on the Chronicle web site as a tribute to axed reporters by their former colleagues. It’s sobering reading, the only way fans can find out whether their favorites are gone for good or just “on vacation.” A case could be made that it’s the best and the brightest who are leaving, possibly because they’re the ones who have other options. Some notable losses: Anna Badkhen, reporting on foreign news (she showed promise of being a worthy successor to the superb Frank Viviano, lost a few years ago in the Chronicle’s pre-Hearst decline); Marc Sandalow, who wrote clearly and authoritatively about what was going on in D.C. (despite my surprise at first seeing his byline, since I knew him in kindergarten); Patrick Hoge, who made a short but valiant stab at the Berkeley beat, one of the few Chron reporters who might have had a chance to get Berkeley right; and top editor Narda Zacchino, a pioneer in understanding and promoting the role of women in the newsroom. 

We talked to various friends who are still there about what the plan might be for running the paper with many fewer staffers, and they all told us there didn’t seem to be any plan that they could discern from their own vantage points. One mentioned the general modus operandi of Hearst papers these days: no hard news at all on the front page because that might alienate the post-literate reader.  

The new Hearst style is BIG photos with soft features at the top of the front page, he said, and that certainly describes recent Chronicles. The universal target of horrified dinner table Chron critics was the day the big story over the fold was that women don’t really talk more than men, a psychological research result that had come out at least three days previously and surprised no one anyway. A close second was “It’s going to be hot tomorrow!”—and it wasn’t, by the way. No star reporters or brilliant editors are needed for front pages like these.  

And while the Hearst Chronicle is busily engaged in chewing off its own leg, the Media News ring-around-the-bay becomes ever more homogenized. The news from the Berkeley City Council is now frequently supplied by one guy, a former gossip columnist who watches it on cable TV, and it’s often reprinted in several sister publications, for example, in the East Bay Daily Snooze, the “Berkeley” Voice (which with a different front page is also the Montclarion, the Albany Journal and many more), the Oakland Tribune, the Contra Costa Times, and even (why would they care?) the formerly excellent San Jose Mercury News. When the guy gets things wrong, as he sometimes does, his mistakes are amplified a thousand-fold by his corporate empire.  

A modest bit of good news is that the new owners of the East Bay Express, despite my previous skepticism, do seem to be on the up-and-up. The New Times chain’s characteristic snarky tone has all but vanished, along with the reporters who used it as a substitute for facts, and they’ve gotten an honest and sincere young man to write about what’s going on at the Berkeley City Council—he even shows up in person at the meetings.  

Why, one might justifiably wonder, do the proprietors of a competitive publication cheer this change? Well, we’re first and foremost 35-year residents who care a lot about what happens in Berkeley, the East Bay, the Bay Area and the whole big world outside of California. We continue to believe that the more people know about what’s going on, from whatever source, the better government will work. With the corporate dailies on the fast track to oblivion, alternative weeklies like the stellar Bay Guardian and a reconstitituted Express have an important job to do. 

And community newspapers like the Berkeley Daily Planet and a fast-dwindling list of others have an even greater responsibility. The ongoing shenanigans of local government are increasingly ignored by big corporate media. We do our best to keep our corner of the universe clean. Trying to keep track of everything going on in our home town and at least the major outrages in neighboring cities is a big job for our small staff, but there’s really no one else to do it. The alt-weeklies do short takes and long exposes, but by their nature they can’t report as well on the mid-range bread-and-butter stories. The Post papers have historically covered the African-American community in the East Bay, though they’re trying to broaden their focus. 

Jon Wiener, another professor (UC Irvine), has a generally excellent piece in the current Nation on the New Times, Inc., takeover of the L.A. Weekly. Most of the points he makes are spot-on, but one of them is a bit off from our perspective. 

He complains that “the New Times strategy is relentlessly local,” lamenting the virtual disappearance of references to the war in Iraq from the pages of the Weekly. He says “the paper focuses on what Tim Rutten, media columnist for the L.A. Times, calls ‘hyper-localism—it's the prevailing commercial wisdom regarding all newspapers.’ But there's plenty of evidence that L.A. readers are as interested in what’s going on in Baghdad as in Beverly Hills.” That’s as true in Berkeley as it is in L.A., but our readers and theirs do have some other choices for national and international news if they look for them.  

What they don’t have, increasingly, are any other choices to tell them what’s going on at home, in their own city, their neighborhood, and in their kids’ schools, and that counts too. And how local people are responding to what’s going on in Baghdad is just as important as what’s happening in Iraq, because at home is where stopping the war in Iraq will have to start. The Planet does offer Bob Burnett and Conn Hallinan and the fine reports from New America Media to provide national and international perspectives, but our main focus is on the news you can’t get anywhere else, the local news. We don’t consider ourself an alternative paper because increasingly there’s nothing to be alternative to—the local dailies died years ago. 

And doing our job as we see it, this is our cue to remind you one more time to keep a tight eye on the Berkeley City Council as they try to slip out of town to make their annual contribution to the earth’s carbon footprint. Their most egregious misdeeds traditionally take place during the last two or three council meetings before the summer recess, which nows stretches into mid-September. Keep your eye on the final innings in these ball games: the mayor’s proposed changes to the rules governing public comment, the council’s attempt to duck the controversy over the development on the Wright’s garage site in Elmwood, and the megaplex project which has been baited with a Trader Joe’s store on University. Remember, it will all be over, for good or ill, by the end of the month.  

OPINION AND NEWS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a Berkeleyan interested in the history and future of the city, I often read the Planet to understand local events not covered in other publications. I am willing to tolerate some opinion leaking into the news, but I felt that Gary Brechin’s piece in Friday’s issue laid it on a little thick. In an otherwise very interesting article about the historical and architectural legacy of our city, he blasts “free market fundamentalists whose economic flimflam...triumphed” over Roosevelt’s accomplishments. Now, I’m no free-market fundamentalist, but doesn’t this style of writing fit in better on the editorial page? 

Mark Abel 

• 

NOT BORING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Rose Green’s essay “The Aging Process Beyond Four Score and Ten” was insightful, clever and, contrary to the author’s statement, not boring at all. 

Nancy Ward 

• 

TELECOM TASK FORCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The City of Berkeley invested over $200,000 in a telecom task force that held public hearings, workshops and hired expert consultants that recommended that wireless was safe and needed in Berkeley. Citizens against antennas attended these meetings and were proven to be wrong by the good scientists who live and work in Berkeley. The records of the task force are on file. See Roger Miller at Parks and Rec. 

The City of San Francisco is now making wireless available to all citizens. They will not have a digital divide. Berkeley is keeping the folks who most need access to the network deprived of access because of a few people with bad science who come to midnight meetings of ZAP. 

I listened to the ZAP hearing. I must admit that Verizon did not do its best at the hearing and the 130 postcard responses were questionable, but I assume that they thought that a city that was home to one of the best universities in the world (and had reps on the City of Berkeley’s Telecom Task Force) would have 21st century thinking. 

Denying these antennas is denying your fire and police departments access to citizen calls. Ask them about the magnets they give to residents of Berkeley to reach emergency service. The magnets have a special cell number because 911 does not work! 

Sally Williams 

Former Chair, Berkeley Telecommunications Task Force 

• 

STADIUM PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There is a strange logic to Chancellor Birgeneau’s statement that the reason the Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC) is being built is “to get our athletes out of an unsafe structure” (the Memorial Stadium). If the stadium is unsafe, why does the university have anyone in such an “unsafe structure”? The university has said that 500 athletes and staff use the facility on a daily basis. Perhaps a bigger question is why does the university continue to endanger the lives of over 70,000 people during football games? The Hayward Fault runs through the center of the stadium from end zone to end zone. The elevated structure of the west side is on fill that was hydraulically placed 85 years ago. Engineering design standards for concrete structures are dramatically different today as a result of structural failures experienced in even moderate earthquakes. There were 42 people killed when the Cypress freeway collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Many more would have been killed if they hadn’t rushed home to watch the start of the World’s Series at Candlestick Park. No one died at Candlestick. It had been seismically retrofitted and was on solid ground. The Cypress structure, like Memorial Stadium, was on fill and employed obsolete engineering standards. A large magnitude earthquake could collapse Memorial Stadium resulting in the death of a number of people proportional to those using the stadium at the time of the event. 

Logically and morally the university should move the student athletes and staff to safe temporary facilities and proceed without delay to retrofit the stadium to make it safer. Temporary facilities have been found in other seismic retrofitting programs at the university. At least one season of football games will have to be held at some other stadium whenever the work is done. Why delay? The “Big One” could happen any time and seismologists have said such an event is overdue. 

Henrik Bull 

• 

UC LAWSUIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a Berkeley resident and taxpayer, I am frustrated that the City of Berkeley is continuing with its lawsuit against the university. With recent revisions to the stadium plan by the university, there will be no increase in parking spaces so the city’s lawsuit becomes moot. In addition, the university will be planting three trees (one of these as mature trees), for every tree removed. These trees only exist because the university planted them there in the first place. And while I like to avoid destroying nature as much as possible, planting three trees for every one lost will ultimately enhance the stadium and its environs. Given that a study proved that the new stadium buildings would not be on a fault line, there should be no legal issue delaying the construction and retrofit. The construction should begin as soon as possible to ensure the safety of all people who work at the Stadium and attend the sporting events at the facility. 

I hope the city will stop wasting its limited resources (I hear that it will be a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees) on this lawsuit.  

Karin Cooke 

• 

A FEW COMMENTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a 36-year resident of Berkeley, I would like to pass on the following comments to Mayor Bates. His impatience to end the council meeting Tuesday, June 10 obviously rattled members of the council and denied viewers of Cable Channel 33 from knowing the results of that final vote on the Wright’s Garage issue. One can only conclude that in his haste to end at 11 p.m., he throws respect to the winds, for his fellow members of the council, citizens in attendance, as well as those viewing the proceedings from their homes. Since the issue was placed last on the agenda, with unfair consequences, the frenetic action by the mayor was not the finest example of democracy in action. It was rather an unfortunate example of el brazo fuerte. 

R.J. Schwendinger 

• 

WIN-WIN IS BERKELEY’S LOSS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Maybe some of your readers will remember the Loni Hancock and Tom Bates election promises of creating win-win solutions for Berkeley. It is not working out that way. In fact, A win for the Hancock-Bates Political Machine is a real loss for Berkeley’s citizens, all of them. 

Simply take a gander at the new California Prison bill, SB900, that Loni Hancock quietly voted for. This new prison boondoggle allocates a whopping additional $8 billion to build more prisons that benefit the prison guards and nobody else in California. The Hancock-Bates machine will spend a fortune to incarcerate California’s minority populations, while our public schools are still severely underfunded. I guess that Loni Hancock must be running for another public office and expects the prison guards’ union to pay for her campaign. Loni Hancock should have insisted on changing SB900, to include sentencing reform, special consideration for first time women offenders, and significant money for rehabilitation. SB900 allows for only a ridiculous $700,000 for rehabilitation out of the whopping $8,000,000,000 for prison cells. Unfortunately Loni Hancock went along with the flock against Berkeley’s real interests. You can read a good article about this in the May 30 Oakland Tribune. 

This is exactly the same kind of immoral politics that Tom Bates is performing in Berkeley as our mayor. It was reported in the Daily Planet, shortly after the election, that half of Tom Bates’ largest political donations came from developers. The developers have paid for Bates and he is allowing them to build any development they want. He refuses to allow the citizens of Berkeley to have environmental impact reports (EIR). All other California cities allow their citizens to have EIRs for projects. These EIRs demonstrate the negative parking and traffic impacts that will be caused by any development. Then the city has the right to have the developer pay to mitigate these negative impacts. This is the type of good environmental development done all over California. The Bates-Hancock political machine refuses to allow Berkeley’s citizens to have these environmental protections. Loni Hancock and Tom Bates are environmental hypocrites. Berkeley ends up subsidizing the same developers who pay for Bates political campaigns. 

This week, the Hancock-Bates machine will allow another developer to build a large scale project in Berkeley without an EIR. This is the so-call Trader Joe’s project at the intersection of University Avenue and MLK Way. It will cause massive traffic and parking problems. Bates will make sure that the developer does not have to pay to mitigate these problems. You, the citizens of Berkeley, will pay. In fact, The sole owner of Trader Joe’s is a German billionaire. You will be subsidizing him. There are plenty of good places to put a Trader Joe’s in Berkeley, such as the now-empty Longs Drugs at the corner of University and San Pablo avenues. It has plenty of on-site parking and easy access from three directions. 

Now, I finally understand the Loni Hancock and Tom Bates win-win promise. Loni Hancock wins, Tom Bates wins, the prison guards win, and all the local developers, who contribute to their campaigns, win. You, the citizens of Berkeley, lose. 

Barry Wofsy 

Milvia-Martin Luther King Alliance 

• 

HAL CARLSTAD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kudos and thanks to the June 19 Daily Planet story by C. Jones regarding my friend and Berkeley Teachers’ Union/AFL-CIO, colleague since 1967. For those of you who haven’t heard, a huge Memorial Service will be held this Sunday, July 15 at 2:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in Berkeley, with a reception following at the Berkeley Fellowship of UUs (BFUU.org) at Cedar and Bonita streets at 4:30 p.m. 

Hal, 12 others and myself were nicknamed “The Chadwick 13” and have the T-shirts to prove it—police were called by the National Board of Pacifica and Hal was arrested in the first wave, June 21, 1999, the first of a string of dozens of arrests. Cynthia Johnson, Hal’s partner of 12 years, and I were arrested in the second wave, later that day. We had pro bono lawyers and the trespassing lawsuit was dropped just days before the scheduled jury trial. During those summer months Hal gave tireless volunteer hours mostly at his BFUU for strategy/support meetings with anyone who showed up. Hal was a gentle yet ardent spokesperson for the “KPFA Struggles.” 

Hal’s commitment to peaceful non-violent protest was evident as the many times he and the late Father Bill O’Donnell (of St. Joseph’s Church) vigilled at San Quentin against the California Death Penalty along with former pastor of BFUU, Rev. Paul Sawyer, now retired and living in Southern California. 

Hal’s personal advice to me about my home, garden, adult disabled son, activism in general and walking-one’s-talk in particular is something I shall miss. His family and friends will undoubtedly carry on his proud populist-like traditions. I remember a ballroom dancing class my late husband Bert and I took with Hal and a dozen Berkeley folks. He could often be seen dancing at Ashkenaz. He was active for many years in Coop-Camp Sierra. 

As a retired teacher and school librarian myself the Dr. Seuss quote comes to mind: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened!” Hal Carlstad: Presente! 

Sylvia P. Scherzer 

Albany 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We’ve heard a lot about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in this letters section—from people like me who are promoting the project (because we want fewer cars on the roads), and people like Mary Oram who would like to kill the project (because they want to keep car lanes and abundant parking). But we’ve heard nothing from the people who really are the key to the success of the BRT. I’d like to see a letter here which reads something like: “Fellow environmentally-concerned residents of Berkeley: I now drive alone in my SUV to my job on the UC campus. When the BRT starts running, I plan to leave my SUV at home and ride the nice new bus to work.” In Berkeley, is this kind of person only a fictional character, from the imagination of transit advocates? 

Steve Geller 

• 

CORPORATE MEDIA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Let me tell you why I appreciated your editorial regarding shortcomings of the “corporate news media.”  

I settled in Berkeley 50 years ago and although I moved away when I retired I didn’t move very far and I still think of Berkeley as home.  

I bought a four-bedroom house in south Berkeley from the owner in 1959 for $4,000 and this, for me, encapsulates the enormity of the changes that have taken place.  

Back then I could chose from five daily newspapers: The Berkeley Gazette, the Oakland Tribune, and three from San Francisco— the Examiner, the Call-Bulletin, and the Chronicle. Newspaper such as yours didn’t exist. Only the Chronicle survives, a cover for numerous slick inserts, advertising vehicle for Macy’s and a journalist-weakened skeleton of its former self. Joan Ryan and Ruth Rosen are gone while Debbie Saunders survives. “They’ve cut down all the trees and left only the monkeys.”  

Turn to television and “corporate news media” is little short of insidious—bland entertainment and advertising bits disguised as news. 

Your editorial introduced several modalities—hard, soft, homogenized and hyper-localized news. But in substantive terms most of what’s available is manipulative, insipid and mendacious—not news at all but soft propaganda. Which makes your “at home” coverage all the more refreshing. Thank you. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

• 

EVICTING DISABLED, ELDERLY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Are the new housing commissioners going to be held legally liable for Berkeley’s rush to evict its disabled and elderly? This is being accomplished by forcing huge, illegal rent jackups only on to the disabled and elderly, a clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. By not spreading any possible financial burden equally to all Section 8 households, so no one can be evicted, the city is breaking state, municipal and federal laws. The City Council, city manager, and city attorney will probably be named in at least one of the three investigations of Berkeley Housing misuse of funds. Approximately l,000 disabled and elderly are still facing $60 and $50 a month rent raises plus extra utilities burdens that no other, even able-bodied Berkeley citizens are asked to shoulder. Today Berkeley is ushering in the most shameful and largest homelessness wave in its history Approximately l,000 people living in 750 homes are being torn from their homes as we speak. The Rent Board and Center for Independent Living are strangely silent on this Sec. 8 matter. Because they haven’t come for your home yet is no guarantee that lawlessness will not continue to prevail. The laws that Berkeley is breaking will be obviously no protection to you either. What does dragging citizens from their homes remind you of while others silently stand by?  

Gaylen Stuart-Black 

Berkeley Citizens for Fair Housing  

• 

TRADER JOE’S PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I write this letter with a resigned heart, as I know that in many ways the decision to approve the project currently under consideration for 1950 MLK has already received tacit approval. It received such approval when the developers continuously submitted designs that blatantly violated the zoning code and yet were not given clear direction from the Planning staff to reduce the height, increase open space, and seriously review the traffic impact on the community. It received this tacit approval when a prominent member of the ZAB was removed just prior to voting on this project, after voicing concerns publicly that echoed the sentiment of many Berkeley residents. It received this tacit approval when it became known as the “Trader Joe’s” project, as if the rigorous use permit review to approve a high volume grocery and liquor store was merely a formality obstructing improved quality of life for our downtown. 

This project claims a right to many zoning code and use permit waivers by virtue of it’s proximity to downtown, while not actually being located in the downtown. Like a raging inferno it allows downtown development standards to jump the fire break and leap across the street to threaten a quiet residential neighborhood which features a variety of historical buildings, modest rental cottages and single family dwellings. This project epitomizes why we have zoning codes, which are intended to soften the transition between high density mixed use housing and the lower density neighborhoods which abut them. Sadly, those zoning codes have not been enforced in this situation. 

As much as we all want to see a decline in automobile use in Berkeley, the reality is that this Trader Joe’s location is going to contribute to huge traffic backups on MLK, as shoppers enter and exit the underground parking lot on Berkeley Way. Currently, the police, fire and ambulance services use both Hearst and MLK extensively as alternate routes to Shattuck and University avenues. I predict that many Berkeley hills residents will drive to Trader Joe’s on a regular basis, and that MLK north of University will be even more choked with vehicles every weekday afternoon. This grocery store would be an asset for downtown, but not in this location. I hope the mayor and council consider the long-term implications for all of Berkeley when they make their decision about this project, which violates our zoning codes, will cause extensive traffic congestion, and throws a quiet residential neighborhood into the shadow of a downtown behemoth. I urge them to send this one back to the drawing board. 

Kristin Leimkuhler 

• 

IMPACT ON SENIOR CENTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am concerned that the proposed Trader Joe’s at University Avenue and Martin Luther King will have an extremely negative impact on the North Berkeley Senior Center. Eight street parking places will be eliminated and shoppers at Trader Joe’s will use much of the existing street parking. 

At the present time, many seniors as well as students of Berkeley Adult School do not use the Center because of transportation and parking problems. Medical personnel, entertainers and others who offer programs at the Center find parking difficult. The problem will be greatly exacerbated by the planned Trader Joe’s. Approximately 200-plus seniors and students use the center every day. There are 15 parking spaces in the lot behind the Center, two permanently designated for Meals on Wheels vans and two for seniors with handicap placards. A fair number of seniors are disabled, partially sighted, frail and elderly. 

I have heard it is anticipated shoppers at the planned store will bike and walk in. I don’t think this is realistic. I shop at El Cerrito Trader Joe’s where there are acres of free parking and shoppers pour out with loaded grocery carts. I suggest we ask Trader Joe’s for their projections for the University Avenue/Martin Luther King site. I respectfully request the mayor and council put the considerable talents and good will of Berkeley city government to work on finding a solution to repairing the current accessibility problems of the center, as well as anticipating the negative impact this Trader Joe’s might have on the senior and student community.  

Catherine Willis 

• 

DETRIMENTAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The proposed development at the corner of MLK and University Avenue violates both Berkeley’s Zoning law and the Strategic Avenue Plan, yet somehow is still under consideration. Citizens of Berkeley expect fair and even handed enforcement of zoning laws. Neighbors close to this proposed project have voiced objections and in my view have a right to see the law enforced fairly. 

The proposed project is obviously detrimental to both neighbors and the city’s character overall—it is too big, too bulky, it would increase population density, increase traffic, increase parking problems. 

It is not that I dislike Trader Joe’s in particular, but this location is a bad choice for any high-density development due to its effects on neighbors. What is so bad about keeping the present building with its modest density use and satisfactory parking for customers?  

Selective enforcement of the law, meaning exceptions granted to the detriment of the less politically powerful, is a sine qua non of corrupt government. In the interest of at least giving the appearance of not being corrupt, I hope the mayor and council will do everything within their ability to stop this project by enforcing the zoning laws. 

Walter H Wood 

• 

DOG PROBLEM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We are facing a dog problem in Berkeley. During summer we run a summer program for school-age children. In some neighborhoods we find our that our neighbors forget to leash their dogs and blithely bring their dogs into the schoolyard. Some children get scared and shout for help. The other day I was walking to my school and found two large dogs running alongside without a leash. I was in a hurry to get to work. I requested the owner to mind her pets but she pretended not to hear. I had to cross the street to the farther sidewalk to make it safely to my destination. That same day some other dogs were running loose on the sidewalk and after a while a man walked into the schoolyard with two dogs. A few scared children climbed up on the picnic table and shouted for help. I wonder if Berkeley has a city ordinance to stop pet owners from compromising the safety of pedestrians and of school children on a school playground.  

Romila Khanna 

Albany 

• 

NEGATIVE ADVERTISING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One of the kinds of pamphleteering I have done is tell persons going to a movie what I think of that movie. I did this with the movie titled Mr. Brooks. 

I printed 200 copies of my statement (titled “Mr. Brooks is a Very Bad Film”), folded them with my folding machine, made two sandwich boards and went back to the theater, where I stood in front and handed out leaflets. 

It was a great success. Some of the employees of the theater came out to get copies. I am certain that the producer of the movie got a copy of my leaflet.  

A week later when the movie was shown at a theater near my home, I tried a different tactic. I made up another sandwich board and parked my car as near to the theater as I could, the three signs on it so that passersby could see them. I just sat in the car and watched. I changed two of the signs so they were seen by more persons. People driving by, passengers in buses, and persons on the sidewalk saw my signs. One lady took my picture. 

Just before the movie was to start, I took one of the signs and stood near the entrance to the theater. Several persons asked me why I didn’t like the movie. A few said they had read the reviews and would not see the movie. 

While I was there, very few persons bought tickets. 

Again, the employees of the theater took notice of my efforts.  

I believe this is one of the first times my pamphleteering has been used by persons who have seen a movie and made an effort to tell others about it. 

Charles L. Smith 

Those of us who advocate “smart growth”—siting new and denser housing near jobs, academic centers, services, etc., and on transit corridors—have a responsibility to help ensure that such developments are assets, not detriments, to their neighborhoods.  

On Monday, July 16, the Berkeley City Council will hold a public hearing to consider the largest mixed-use project ever proposed outside downtown. One hundred forty-eight units of housing and a Trader Joe’s market are proposed for the vast (by midtown Berkeley standards) site now adorned by Kragen Auto Parts, its long-vacant neighbors, and their parking lot. In its prior incarnation as the U-Save Market, this was the setting for Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” as well as the subject of a swell Robert Bechtle painting called ’60 Chevies. No, I’m not proposing another landmark designation. It’s hard to imagination a development that wouldn’t improve this site. Or is it?  

The proposed development has substantial virtues. It addresses significant housing and retail needs. Kirk Peterson’s historicist design goes a long way toward achieving a congenial aesthetic interface with the neighborhood and has improved profoundly over earlier versions. But even the City Council should have little trouble discerning that this one has a way to go before it enhances, rather than encumbers, its site. 

The council should get a big clue to the proposal’s corpulence from the fact that squeezing it in would require major alterations to all three adjacent streets as well as a whopping three variances from our Zoning Ordinance. The streets would see alterations at the University-MLK intersection, a new stoplight at MLK and Berkeley Way, removal of all on-street parking on MLK between University and Hearst as well as several spaces on Berkeley Way, and—at neighbors’ insistence—installation of a full traffic barrier across Berkeley Way west of the site. The proposal exceeds our zoning’s 50-foot height limit and is five stories high where four are allowed.  

Could anyone—say a smart growth zealot who’s a regular Trader Joe’s shopper—believe that 48 TJ parking spaces could be adequate? Remind that innocent that because the project removes 10 on-street spaces, the net gain in new spaces for TJ would be a grand 38, while well-used on-street parking for the North Berkeley Senior Center, for neighboring businesses, and for nearby residents would disappear. The San Francisco Trader Joe’s at Masonic and Geary, with many more than 48 spaces, suffers strangling backups due to inadequate parking.  

The design provides only a single entrance/exit for TJ’s lot (Andronico’s, Monterey Market, Berkeley Bowl, etc., all have at least two) and turns rational planning on its head by situating that access on Berkeley Way, the only one of the site’s three bounding streets that is solidly residential. The design isolates a little Victorian house on the TJ side of the Berkeley Way traffic barrier and spews the full deluge of TJ traffic just a few feet from that house’s driveway. Berkeley Way neighbors also get the entrance and trash room for 64 of the project’s households.  

At least some of these impacts are avoidable. If the residential entrance and trash room were consolidated with their counterparts on the MLK edge of the building, the traffic barrier could be moved east of the little house on Berkeley Way, preserving its connection with its neighborhood. The project would force the removal of all on-street parking on MLK but lacks an off-street vehicle port for resident drop-offs and deliveries on that busy block. There is space for such a port if the design loses a small retail space at the corner of MLK and Berkeley Way.  

The ticking time-bomb embodied in this proposal is its request for 25 more housing units than are required by state law or permitted by Berkeley’s Zoning Ordinance, with no increase in the number of affordable units. Planning becomes meaningless if legislated standards are ignored when a developer requests it and a compliant staff accedes. It makes cynics of those good citizens who have invested their time in setting those standards and encourages the kind of knee-jerk resistance to change that thwarts and delays good proposals. 

There is no doubt that the job of accomplishing large-scale infill development is difficult. And in a world suffocating under suburban sprawl and a rapidly degenerating atmosphere, there should be no doubt that it is important. Those who do that job and the public officials who guide them will serve our communities best if they insist on projects that will make all of us smart growth advocates. If we want community support for new development, that development must support our community, respecting the comfort, safety, and amenities that make that community livable.  

The City Council hearing on this project will be Monday, July 16, at 7 PM, at Old City Hall, 2134 MLK Jr. Way. Citizens can write the Council via e-mail care of clerk@ci.berkeley.ca.us. 

Rob Browning is a Berkeley resident and business owner in the University/MLK neighborhood. 

Anything that helps “Save Iceland” and specifically reopen it ASAP, including its landmarking, is on the mark and hopefully neither a day late nor a penny short. 

Everything that Berkeley the town and gown most prides itself on—diversity, love of developing our youth of today into national and international leaders of tomorrow, peace and harmony, physical exercise in a sport and art, getting young people off of the streets, employing them (as staff), walking or briefly driving to a central location... Iceland is all of that. I cannot bear to use the past tense, as the myriad of children I brought there several times a week for many years are still heartbroken, as am I. 

We all loved to skate there, we loved the staff, we loved the disco weekends, we loved the classes and summer camps, we loved the holiday celebrations, all of it. In the many years we skated there, we saw nothing but peace and love. The biggest battle was bragging rights over who skated the best, and Alphonzo, a wonderful early 20-something role model to all the kids, always won hands down. 

We burned hundreds of thousands of calories; the bottom line was really a slender bottom as opposed to the childhood obesity and early preventable chronic disease epidemic we as a nation now face. What the city and university missed “grokking” were the intangibles: How could we have let Iceland close? Is that the freedom of the marketplace, or is it that we merely give lip service to the values we say we hold most dear toward our young people, including UC Berkeley students, who loved late night “curling”—a game played without iceskates and brooms on the ice or something like that—and the UC hockey team so ably led by Cyril, who also voluntarily trained any kid who wanted to learn the fundamentals of ice hockey. 

And let’s not forget the mostly young female staff of instructors, both group and one on one. I saw them take innumerable kids who clung to the side of the rink and couldn’t fathom how they could ever even glide unassisted and turn them into unbelievable graceful whizzes, boys and girls, in less than a year. 

The grown-ups in the St. Moritz skate club would come over to me and offer to teach me tricks, nuances, moves, exercises and more as I made my way around the ice, remembering the self-taught few things I could do from my childhood that were now clumsy and rusty lurchings compared to the kids I saw blossom from their classes and lessons. Marlene had been skating for 16 years and shared all of her knowledge with me as just one person on ice to another. I have seldom met as many gracious and as graceful people as the new friends I made at Iceland. I am sure the constant coterie of parents knitting, reading and clucking their little charges forward to the ice from the cafeteria, at which point the teachers would take charge, still miss each other and the Saturday morning group classes that seemed to stretch on all day as open skate took over. And please don’t forget the birthday parties that took over the cafeteria and still left room for onlookers to be offered homemade refreshments. I have to admit, even a less than healthy Cup of Noodles never tasted as good as at Iceland, after a sweat-inducing one or two hour skate to pop music. 

Bring back Iceland now so we can be true to who we think we are, if there is a civic “we” left. And if you or your family have never been there, ask someone who has, and you will get a feel and flavor of what you are missing. Again, hopefully it is not too late. If we landmark it, we can reopen it. If we reopen it, the staff will come back. If the staff comes back, the old and new skaters will be very happy. How difficult can this be in a town with a university that both pride themselves on a totally can-do attitude? 

Iceland is our Hogwarts; let’s all work to bring it back. 

Wendy Schlesinger is chairman of the Gardens on Wheels Association, dedicated to preventing and reversing childhood obesity.

It comes with a $400 million dollar bill 

And empty seats they’ll never fill. 

It’ll give us the cut-through traffic blues 

And much less parking to use. 

Merchants are even starting to frown 

In fear of business leaving town. 

Diesel smoke will be dispersed 

That’s bound to make your asthma worse. 

You like big trees? They might meet their doom 

‘Cause private bus lanes need lots of room. 

What’s this impending calamity? 

A transit boondoggle named BRT. 

If you haven’t heard of it, it’s no surprise— 

It’s hardly been publicized, 

‘Cause it’s better to finish all your plans 

Before the public makes its demands. 

One needn’t ever be too endearing 

When practicing social engineering. 

Is this the best way to move people fast? 

It’s the fossil-fuel technology of the past! 

A diesel dinosaur roaring to and fro, 

AC Transit’s braggadocio. 

BRT actually won’t make people drive cars any less— 

There are too many needs it doesn’t address 

And too many places it doesn’t go, 

So new ridership will barely grow. 

And it may even foul up your bus commute 

Because they’ll put fewer stops along the route. 

You see, stops just slow up the buses’ speed— 

Passengers are a big nuisance, indeed. 

And after all this, BART will still be quicker, 

Plus everyone knows their seat cushions are thicker. 

AC Transit could get more folks on the bus 

By making transfers less onerous. 

Proof-of-payment would sure save time, 

And we’d all prefer a bit less grime. 

And if they really want to make riders cheer 

Those Van Hool buses should disappear! 

The ride is so rough and the seats so high, 

Tough luck if you’re no longer young and spry. 

You’ll be bounced and jounced and thrown around 

As you lunge for a handhold that’s nowhere to be found, 

And no matter how many folks get cracks in their spine 

Those are the buses they’ll use for the BRT line. 

Don’t bother complaining—they just don’t care! 

And I hope you know BRT won’t help clear the air. 

Oh, you’ve heard it’ll reduce greenhouses gases? 

Nope—the EIR here shows failures, not passes. 

Their big diesel buses will spew out plenty of soot, 

Most of all near the spots where the stations are put. 

So who’s behind this dim-witted plan? 

Regional agencies who claim they can 

Issue commands by royal decree 

To massively increase our density. 

That’s what’s really going on here, 

But they don’t want that to reach your ear. 

Top-down backroom planning is IN 

And we citizens take it on the chin 

As developers take out huge new loans 

For “Transit-Oriented Development zones,” 

Where zoning laws can be ignored 

And condos that are multiple-floored 

Rise ten, fifteen, twenty stories tall 

‘Til our quality of life shrinks to nothing at all. 

And what of the neighbors who’ll suffer these ills? 

Why, let them all move to the Berkeley hills! 

BRT suits UC, there is no doubt 

So they can build even bigger and further out, 

Until they take over the entire East Bay 

And drive every last family away. 

Smart Growth groupies, too, have begun to drool 

Hoping BRT will cement their rule. 

And they’ll all march together with fierce intent 

On the road to redevelopment. 

What about us—do we have any rights? 

Are we nothing but opportunity sites? 

Will we let these arrogant zealots steal 

Our future in a backroom deal? 

For far too long, we’ve been left in the cold 

While our democracy is bought and sold— 

It’s our human rights we must redeem 

So let’s tell this unelected regime 

Of ABAG and ACCMA and MTC 

And our self-serving University:  

Your plans to grow forevermore 

Frighten us to our very core. 

Nature always trumps human pride— 

Unending growth is suicide. 

And when Mother Nature issues her decrees, 

They really bring you to your knees! 

We must keep Berkeley truly livable; 

Failure would just be unforgivable. 

If we don’t want our neighborhoods destroyed 

All our voices must be employed— 

So hands off our homes and shops 

This is where the mad bus stops. 

We’re not gonna take this BRT guff; 

This time we’ve really had ENOUGH. 

(ABAG is the Association of Bay Area Governments. ACCMA is the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency. MTC is the Metropolitan Transit Commission.) 

Doug Buckwald is a longtime Berkeley resident who regularly rides AC Transit, BART, and SF Muni.

Some mornings my 18-year-old son tells me his dreams. “I dreamt I got some new multi-vitamins, and that I was locked up in a glass deli case,” he says matter-of-factly. He unscrews the cap from one of his orange prescription pill bottles while he talks. His eyes look guarded. He looks tired. 

I take my coffee from the microwave and blow on it. The steam on my face feels good. It seems I always have dark circles under my eyes lately. Nowadays I hardly ever sleep through the night without waking up at least once—I wake up sweating, I wake from a dream, I wake up worried. Not about war or global warming or our country’s corrupt leaders, but about other things, the little things that comprise my days. Why won’t anyone publish my newest essay? Does my 10-year-old daughter really need her own cellphone? Will I ever want another boyfriend? How come my electric bill is so high? Will my son try to kill himself again? 

In my family, it sometimes seems like my son and I are bonded by our moodiness; our need for validation. I used to take antidepressants. They helped take the edge of things, but they also made me feel kind of flat all the time, so I stopped.  

“Happiness is a choice,” a friend said to me recently—a sort of simplistic, New Age-y concept I’ve been thinking about ever since. I imagine a metaphorical switch being flipped; suddenly all my money worries and other stressors dissipate like fog lifting. 

Last year my son’s depression took a serious turn when his suicidal thoughts became more than ideation. Luckily his attempt was unsuccessful. Now, he takes multiple medications to help balance his shifting moods, which are far more volatile than mine ever were. 

This year I celebrated my 50th birthday a few weeks before he turned 18, and I am only now realizing the significance of these major birthdays falling within a month of each other. As I approach the second half-century of my life with a rather jaded viewpoint—keeping my head above water emotionally, but not exactly swimming in enthusiasm, my son is just starting to test the waters. The medications he’s on are keeping him stable, yet I find myself both afraid of where he’d be without them, and hopeful he won’t need to be on them for years to come.  

My 10-year-old daughter comes from an entirely different gene pool than my son or me—she’s adopted. Early in the morning she’s always the first one up. She tosses clothes around her room before deciding on her outfit for the day, then grabs herself some fruit or a bagel for breakfast. On some days she’ll even deliver me a hot mug of coffee in bed. (My part-time and freelance gigs occasionally allow me the luxury of sleeping in.) “I love you, Mom,” she’ll say before hurrying out the door to her bus stop. “You’re the best,” I tell her sincerely. Her always-sunny spirit is the antithesis to my son’s dark side; her lively social life the opposite of my quiet, predictable one.  

Some days I let the coffee grow cold on my bedside table and fall back sleep. 

Happiness is a choice. If only it were that easy. I thought about that again after I finally rolled out of bed at ten this morning and reheated my cold coffee. (My son, between semesters at Berkeley City College now, will sleep even later if I let him.)  

When he’s finally up he tells me his dream and then I tell him mine, an equally weird one. After he swallows his medications I say off-handedly, “Happiness is a choice, you know.”  

“Bullshit,” he says. 

I’d dreamt I was being stalked by a short, heavy stranger. I don’t know what he was planning to do to me, but every time he got too close, I couldn’t breathe. 

I finished my coffee and started to write this story. I wonder if I’ll feel happier if it gets published.  

OPEN CALL FOR ESSAYS 

Healthy Living 

As part of an ongoing effort to print stories by East Bay residents, the Daily Planet invites readers to write about their experiences and perspectives on living healthy. Please e-mail your essays, no more than 800 words, to firstperson@berkeleydailyplanet.com. We will publish the best essays in upcoming issues.

AUG. 6 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Sixty-one years ago, on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atom bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On Aug. 6, 2007 people from around the globe will mark that date to remember that dark day and to remind us all of the continuing efforts of governments to design and develop nuclear weapons in the service of endless war. Presently, Livermore Lab has designed the first new nuke in a Bush administration initiative to re-design and rebuild every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, under the so-called “Reliable Replacement Warhead” program. By taking action this Aug. 6 we will honor the civilian population of Japan whose lives were destroyed in the most abominable way, and will say “Never Again.”  

We will stand in solidarity with all victims of war. We will rededicate our lives to peace and work to prevent our government from developing new nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. 

Please gather with me at Vasco Road and Patterson Pass Road at 7:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 6 and march to the gates of the lab at 9 a.m. Or contact Tri-Valley CAREs at (925) 443-7148 or www.trivalleycares.org for more information. 

Loulena Miles 

• 

BUS RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Once again, Mary Oram makes the transparently false claim that Bus Rapid Transit will slow emergency vehicles: “[W]hat will happen when they come up behind a BRT bus? The express lanes will be separated from the regular traffic lanes by a curb. Unless they jump the curb, there will be no way to get around the BRT bus when it stops to pick up or discharge passengers.” In reality, there will be two express bus lanes next to each other. If a bus is stopped in one of those lanes, the emergency vehicle can simply pull into the other one to pass the stopped bus. We have all seen emergency vehicles stuck in traffic on Telegraph Avenue, and that will not happen when there are reserved lanes for buses and emergency vehicles. 

Oram also claims that it will be dangerous to cross “with two high-speed lanes in the middle.” But there will not be a continuous stream of traffic in these bus lanes. There will be plenty of gaps when it is perfectly safe to cross. With slower traffic in the two car lanes and relatively little traffic in the two bus lanes, it will obviously be safer to cross than it is now, with four lanes of aggressive traffic. 

And Oram claims that BRT will remove parking that businesses rely on for their customers. She apparently doesn’t know that AC Transit will mitigate loss of parking. As I remember, in locations where more than 85 percent of parking is occupied, they will provide two replacement spaces for each space they remove. Where parking is now tight, it will be easier. 

Charles Siegel 

• 

TRADER JOE’S PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the proposed Trader Joe’s project at MLK and University: Would city officials be so willing to embrace the project if it was for a Safeway rather than a Trader Joe’s? Would they be so willing to ignore the obvious traffic congestion/chaos and parking nightmare that such a project would generate? Would they be so willing to ignore the significant detriment that it would cause to the surrounding neighborhood? 

Before it’s too late, city officials need to wake up to the fact that the Trader Joe’s project is a bad idea.  

Debbie Dritz 

• 

OVERDEVELOPMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I noticed that neighbors of the proposed development at the Kragen Auto site on University Avenue have called on Mayor Bates to honor his 2003 pledge to follow the principles of the University Avenue Plan, which was developed with the input of many diverse stakeholders to prevent the negative impacts of overdevelopment along that street. This poses an interesting question: What pledges has Mayor Bates kept to protect neighborhood quality of life in Berkeley? Lord knows, he certainly made enough of them during his two campaigns and his series of neighborhood meetings. Heck, we should make it a contest. Okay, I will give a prize to anybody who comes up with any pledge that Tom has kept to protect the quality of life in our residential areas. There is only one rule to this contest: both you and the Mayor must agree that the pledge was kept. Let the competition begin! Your reward? A can of Pledge, of course. Which will probably come in handy—the winning entry may have quite a bit of dust on it. 

Doug Buckwald 

• 

UC’S TOXIC SOIL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks from all of us concerned with our land and water to Richard Brenneman for his astounding reporting of the thousands of truckloads of toxic soil in Richmond and for Sherry Padgett and Loni Hancock for their dedication and action.  

This terrible issue would never have gotten these results without the digging and commitment of your talented reporter who knows how to make words work, We are grateful for the follow-up of those who know how to make change happen. Just in time to stop the dangers from affecting all of us.  

The time has come for UC to consider how they can make a difference. How can they work with and join the community and stop the divisiveness. Make the world “better” in Berkeley and on the Bay. Its time for action that makes us all safer, healthier, more productive and changes things for the better for generations to come. The time is now. Write on, Richard.  

Stevanne Auerbach 

• 

MAXWELL FIELD GARAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Don’t be fooled by the recent UC offer to downsize the garage under the Maxwell Field (Daily Planet, July 3). The offer came on the heels of Chancellor Birgeneau’s annual meeting with the Staff Assembly Committee at which, in his opening remarks, he mused about why the city would waste all that money (on a lawsuit) because, as he stated in typical UC arrogance, “the sports facility is only delayed. It will be built.” Ignoring the issues, Birgeneau dismissed critics by claiming there is only one reason for the project; “to get our athletes out of an unsafe structure.” 

Appealing to our sympathies, he used “safety” to obfuscate the real issues; traffic, night-light pollution, the views from Strawberry Canyon, the reduced landscape, the trees. Besides, I work in another of UC’s “unsafe structures,” the Edwards Track, built of concrete pillars that may fall in the next quake, but I guess a bunch of gardeners are a lower priority than a bunch of marketable footballers. 

Hank Chapot 

• 

NUCLEAR ENERGY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m not sure how far I would trust Peter Fowler’s conclusion that nuclear energy is “...the only way to produce necessary levels of energy in an emission-free manner...,” when he precedes that conclusion with the comment, “...burning biofuels does little to curb global CO2 emissions because it is, like gasoline, a hydrocarbon.” (Letters, July 3.) 

While the whole biofuels issue does require much study and analysis before we leap to them as a solution to our transportation fuel problems, their CO2 “emissions,” that is, the impact on global warming due simply to burning the fuel, would be very beneficial because the carbon in biofuels is taken from CO2 in the atmosphere by the plants going into the biofuel. That is, considered in isolation, the burning of biofuels is a closed cycle in which there is no net addition of carbon to the atmosphere. 

In contrast, burning hydrocarbons extracted from deep in the earth removes carbon from it’s condition of sequestration in the petroleum (where it has been for millions of years and where most of it would stay if we didn’t extract it), and turns it into CO2, thus adding to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. 

Determination of the relative atmospheric CO2 contribution of biofuels and fossil fuels requires careful analysis of the complete production cycle of both types of fuels, not simply an observation that carbon is present in both fuels. Thus, the fuels and fertilizers used to produce the biofuels (which the new industry-funded research institute at UC will be attempting to minimize or avoid altogether) have to be included in the balance.  

This observation does not imply my support for the industry-funded institute at UC. In earlier periods in our history we would have taxed the companies making such gargantuan profits and applied that tax money to both heavily subsidized higher education (I think I paid about $63 per semester when I started in engineering at UC Berkeley) AND to setting up such research institutes completely independent of industry influence and control—a far superior system in my opinion to the one we have allowed to evolve from “tax revolts” that leave the money and influence in the hands of the corporations and graduates saddled with enormous debts. 

Regarding nuclear energy being the only solution: Is Peter proposing a solution for the United States alone (and a few select allies) or for the entire world’s energy problems? Note that our current “leaders” are (possibly pretending to be) freaking out over Iran (and N. Korea) attempting to develop nuclear energy to the extent of sending three carrier battle groups into the very confined waters just off Iran’s waters and issuing multiple veiled and not so veiled threats of the use of nuclear weapons if Iran doesn’t stop its development efforts. I invite Peter to flesh out his proposal that the United States should rely heavily on nuclear energy and explain to us how we could go that route while threatening other states who we don’t like at that moment in history with annihilation if they attempt to do the same thing. 

Armin Wright 

Oakland 

• 

IRAQ WAR’S TOLL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As the Senate prepares this week to debate the Iraq war during hearings on the military authorization bill, it is appropriate to remind ourselves of the heavy toll our Iraq invasion and occupation has exacted on the nation’s psyche. The following statistics tell a sobering story. As of July 8, the Iraq war has exacted 3,605 U.S. military deaths, and through July 4, 26,558 wounded. A 2006 study, “The Human Cost of the War,” published in the British medical journal The Lancet estimates that since the U.S. invasion in March 2003 through July 2006, there have been 654,964 “excess deaths” of Iraqis due to the war, or put another way, 2.5 percent of Iraq’s population have died above what would have occurred without conflict. In addition, it is estimated that 2 million Iraqis have been displaced inside the country and another 2.2 million have sought shelter in neighboring countries. Finally, the Iraq war costs to date exceed $441.3 billion. Here’s what we have achieved in Iraq: a civil war; a fertile ground for future terrorists; and the world’s condemnation. Isn’t it time to end the Iraq misadventure and support our troops by bringing them home now? 

Ralph E. Stone 

San Francisco 

• 

GUNS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Before Robert Clear issues ad hominem attacks on others for alleged dishonesty and stat juggling, he should take a look in the mirror. 

In a nation of an estimated 100 million gun owners out of over 300 million people the estimated deterrence of several million individuals from criminal acts is an entirely reasonable assumption. He knows full well that a great many people who deter crime do not report it to the police because there has been no crime precisely because of deterrence. 

Clear knows that the 500,000 figure he cites are only the reported incidents, again precisely my point. Eight hundred accidental deaths from guns in a country of over 300 million is a totally insignificant figure, much less than drownings, food poisoning, industrial accidents, automobile mishaps and suicides. His citation of a “study” of four mishaps per one successful self-defense attempt is inherently unbelievable on its face.  

States where citizens are allowed to carry arms have shown a decrease in crime. A criminal is much more likely to attack someone he believes is disarmed. As for youth gangs, sale of weapons has always been illegal and Clear knows this. Somehow it never deters these punks. 

Clear has the statist assumption that people are unfit to own weapons and the state is the solution to all problems. This is the essence of modern collectivist liberalism in all its intellectual bankruptcy. 

Michael P. Hardesty 

• 

GAZA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Jim Harris, in criticizing me, makes a reasonable point. He indicates that I should not speak for Worthington in saying that he now regrets his support for the Rachel Corrie resolution. Indeed, if I misspoke, Worthington can use this space to correct me. Harris also believes that I should not single out Linda Maio. There is some unfairness in condemning Maio, and not Dona Spring. But Spring will probably never face the voters again, and certainly does not seek the mayor’s office. That’s why I focus on Maio, the only other current member of the City Council besides Worthington and Spring who voted for Corrie. But Harris is also being unfair when he fails to identify himself as ISM’s local representative. It was his organization which sent Corrie to guard the Hamas smuggling tunnels. Further, the one time I met with Harris he expressed his desire for the destruction of Israel and its replacement by an Arab state.  

Tracie De Angelis Salim sympathizes with Gazans on several grounds. Yes, the area is overpopulated. But Gazans have the highest, or almost the highest, birthrate in the world. Why is that Israel’s fault? Second grounds: Gazans have no ready access to other countries. They actually have three borders, one with Israel, one with Egypt, and one to the open sea. Israel rightly restricts entry and exit through its border. Gaza, as ruled by Hamas, is in a declared state of war with Israel. Hardly a day goes by without Gazans rocketing Israeli towns and villages. The amazing thing is that Israel still allows food, medicine, electricity, and water through to a state with which it is at war. Israel even treats wounded Gazan gunmen in its state of the art hospitals. Go figure. 

De Angelis Salim feels that I am condescending when I state that the women of Gaza will now be required to take up the veil. I love freedom. My concern for Gazan women is not that they wear a veil, but that will be forced to wear a veil. Palestine is a largely secular society. But the choice to be secular will now be taken from Gazan women. It may be that one cleric or another condemns female genital mutilation, but that has no more effect upon Hamas than, say, the sermons of some Unitarian minister would have on Pat Robertson. The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot, has supported female genital mutilation. 

John Gertz 

• 

EDWARDS’ HAIRCUT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The national election is more than 15 months away, but already the political scene is getting heated, or, actually, quite nasty! For one thing, it’s become evident that we won’t be voting for candidates on the strength of their platforms—what they stand for—but rather how many millions of campaign funds they’ve raked in. 

Ah, but then there’s the big issue—John Edwards’ haircut. Believe me, this is high drama, folks! Now we all recognize that Mr. Edwards has a splendid head of hair: thick, luxuriant brown with not a trace of grey. (Hmm—I wonder.) Oh, yes, millions of American men would kill for that hair. But, the startling revelation that those haircuts cost $500 raised quite a few eyebrows. Then came the really damaging news that the haircuts actually came to about $1,250, given that the stylist charged for air travel and hotel costs. It seems that Joseph Torrenueva, the stylist, is quite a sensitive chap. He took sharp exception to Edwards’ casual referral to him as “that guy.” Says Mr. Torrenueva, “When he called me ‘that guy’, that hit my ears. It hurt.” One has to sympathize with the man. 

Now, if all of this hasn’t been bad enough, what about the Republican YouTube video in which Mr. Edwards is shown combing and patting his hair while the song “I Feel Pretty” from “West Side Story” is played in the background? 

Oh, John, John—in light of the fact that poverty is your signature issue in this election, couldn’t you have settled for Super Cuts? 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

The U.S. Supreme Court, likely to be controlled by reactionaries for a generation, will be one of George Bush’s many unfortunate lingering legacies. The Oakland City Planning Commission will be Jerry Brown’s. While Brown has been yanked by the chain of his ambition back to Sacramento, all of Brown’s appointees, nearly a year into the Dellums’ mayorship, still run the Planning Commission. (Planet readers may be unfamiliar with the Oakland model, where—unlike Berkeley—the mayor makes all the appointments to the planning commission and landmarks board.) 

It is true, as Planet writer J. Douglas Allen-Taylor has noted and a Dellums’ staffer confirmed, the mayor has chosen two appointees to the Planning Commission, but they may be months away from being seated. The City Council takes a month and a half summer break and must give formal approval to appointments—meanwhile, the commission goes on meeting through most of the summer. A Planning Commission with the equivalent of two Sandra Day-O’Connors and five Clarence Thomases is cold comfort to most residents of Oakland. 

Dubbed the Approval Commission for good reason, the commissioners have yet to find a condo project they don’t like (the plug was pulled from above on the controversial West Oakland industrial rezoning Pacific Pipe project.) They follow staff directives and give variances out like candy. It is also true, as Allen-Taylor noted, that a process is underway to update the zoning throughout the city, something that should have been done when the general plan was approved in the late ’90s. But then the general plan update was itself decades overdue... Updating the zoning has been no godsend either. Temescal has received the dubious distinction of being one of the first areas where the process has been started. Despite overwhelming support for height limits of 45 feet on Telegraph and Shattuck, staff has recommended and the Planning Commission/City Council will likely approve limits of 55 feet (or even higher) by simply building underground parking, “affordability”—all considered community benefits deserving of extra stories. 

The Planning Commission has routinely approved one massive condo project after another. The latest in Temescal, a five-story 33 unit condo project, is slated for a hearing July 18. The mother of all Temescal projects so far—a 115-unit, six-story behemoth where the Global Video store now resides at 51st and Telegraph—is nearing a Planning Commission hearing and expected approval. 

The new coalition group, STAND, has appealed the 4801 Shattuck project, in which all of the buildings between Shattuck and the dying-on-the-vine Gate 48 condos will be demolished, for a solid five-story wall of 44 condos butting up to Gate 48. (Appeals of commission approvals to the City Council cost $710; “smaller” projects first considered by the zoning administrator can only be appealed to the commission—the last recourse is litigation.) 

During all of the controversy over the zoning update and the myriad condo projects, the Planning Commission has been, to a person, unsympathetic and critical of neighbor’s concerns. One commissioner in particular, Suzie Lee, married to and “business administrator” of the architectural firm of Yui Hay Lee, has a stump speech in which she opines about the employees in her office desperate to buy houses, for whom these condos are a blessing, and lectures opponents of projects to “adjust to change.” $400,000-$600,000 condos are not affordable housing. Her speeches remind me of the scene in Interview with the Vampire, in which the poor victim is soothingly told to just settle back and enjoy. 

All of the commissioners have adopted the smart growth rhetoric of lively, dense streetscapes, “urban vitality,” and transit corridors so well served by mass transit and walk-to-retail that cars are superfluous. 

What a unexpected shock, then, for even such a cynic as myself, to learn from public records just where these commissioners determining the new face of the city choose to live themselves. 

All are homeowners, some owning more than one, in a city where the majority of the citizens are renters. All live in single family homes, despite their fondness for density. Only one, Colbruno, lives anywhere near mass transit, on Moss Avenue, near the border with the City of Piedmont. None live in the flatlands of West, East, or North Oakland. Only one lives below MacArthur, the only black member, Paul Garrison, owner of two houses in the tony Haddon Hill neighborhood. Doug Boxer (yes, the son of Barbara Boxer and rumored to be politically ambitious—Planning Commission as stepping stone) lives in an exclusive area of Trestle Glen so quiet that even the leaves didn’t dare rustle the day we drove by. Nary a pedestrian or vehicle in sight—so much for urban vitality. 

The officious, wanly smiling chair of the commission, lawyer Anne Mudge and the most vociferous Smart-Growther, Michael Lighty, an employee of a progressive union, live high in the hills, Mudge in Montclair and Lighty just off Skyline Blvd. on the edge of Huckleberry Botanic Regional Reserve. Zayas-Mart lives in the hills overlooking Mountain. View Cemetery and Lee lives in the wooded Oakmore area off Park, close to the Montclair Golf course. All will be driving their cars to Planning Commission meetings and to work. 

Whatever their rhetoric, one might reasonably conclude they were defending their in-perpetuity-low-density neighborhoods by increasing it elsewhere. 

But the “smart growth” Planning Commission whose members live almost exclusively in the hills in large single family homes is, in some sense, the legacy of Brown, who prominently maintains (and perhaps lives in) a loft in the old Sears Building on a still gritty part of Telegraph Avenue. This proves Brown can talk the talk, encourage those with spotty memories to still think he’s KPFA Jerry, but given his purposeful choice of commissioners, he never intended to walk the walk. 

Robert Brokl is a member of STAND. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent the official position of STAND.

Thousands of Palestinians are stranded in Egypt, waiting to return home to the Gaza Strip. Among them is Husam El Nounou, who has been there three weeks, unable to join his wife and three children and return to his work at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), the Strip’s principal provider of mental health services.  

Gaza’s borders have been sealed since June 8. No food, medicine, people, or commercial goods can reach the 1.4 million Gazans, almost half of whom are under the age of 15. 

El Nounou toured the Bay Area with Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, an American-born Israeli and member of Israel’s Rabbis for Human Rights, speaking on “What peace could look like.” 

I talked with him over dinner in Oakland, on his way from Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s office to an Oakland synagogue. Husam, a short man with a round face and gentle brown eyes, described the constant flights over Gaza by Israeli helicopters and drones, regular Israeli shelling and bombing, the increasing salinity of well water; of families with barely enough to eat, and unpaid health care workers—the effects of the blockade imposed by Israel and the United States in response to the victory of Hamas in the January 2006 elections. 

Husam tells of driving with his 7-year-old son when a shell struck with terrifying noise about 100 feet ahead. Husam tried to calm his son, but in the following days, the child showed signs of post-traumatic stress—clinging to his parents, sleeping poorly, and refusing to eat. After a week, he came back from school and said: “Dad, I want to be a martyr.” Distraught, Husam said: “Son, it is good to die for one’s country. But it is much better to live for it.” 

All Gazans have witnessed or experienced at least one traumatic episode — the death of a parent or friend, a home demolished, . . . and, most hurtful for children, seeing Israeli soldiers beat or humiliate their parents and understanding that their parents cannot protect them. Over 40 percent of Gaza’s children show signs of exposure to extreme stress—bedwetting, apathy, extreme anxiety, and nightmares.  

At night, Israeli aircraft fly low over Gaza and break the sound barrier, causing deafening thunder and shaking buildings—sometimes repeated an hour later. Children, violently awakened, scream and cry. Husam describes feeling the heart of his youngest child beating wildly, as he and his wife can only hold and reassure their children.  

Gaza’s Mental Health Program and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel have asked the Israeli High Court to order the sonic booms stopped as they violate human rights. The Court ordered the booms stopped until they made their decision, but the Air Force resumed the practice a month later, and when questioned by the Court, simply denied doing it. The booms continue. 

At Kehilla synagogue, Husam described the situation in Gaza, where, since Israel’s disengagement in September 2005, closures and destruction of infrastructure by the Israelis Forces have practically brought the economy to a halt, and 80 percent of the citizens live in deep poverty and depend on international food aid. 

Rabbi Milgrom talked of his work with Jahalin Bedouins. Expelled from the Negev Desert after Israel’s founding, they resettled east of Jerusalem—but now Israel plans to destroy their villages as it completes a ring of settlements around Jerusalem; this will stop the growth of East Jerusalem and cut the West Bank into disconnected pieces. 

Since September 2000, more than 5,000 homes have been destroyed in Gaza and the West Bank, leaving 50,000 homeless. Israel claims the demolitions are security measures, but Milgrom explained they are in fact collective punishment and a way to make room for more settlements and the separation Wall. 

Israelis willfully blind themselves to all this, Milgrom said, citing Jeremiah: “When you learn of the devastation, your ears will ring.” 

Destroying a house is like an earthquake, el Nounou explained. People wander stunned; they go to schools and mosques to find a place to stay. Most often, the IDF does not leave time for people to gather their belongings. 

The people of Gaza voted for Hamas to defy the West and to get rid of Fatah, the corrupt ruling party. This exercise of their democratic rights was met with a devastating embargo. Poverty, impotence, and hopelessness push young people into the arms of extremists.  

In mid-June, Milgrom returned to Israel and el Nounou flew to Egypt and traveled to the Rafah crossing, the only way Palestinians can go to and from Gaza. Hamas had just seized power in Gaza after fights with Fatah. Last February, Hamas and Fatah reached an agreement about a unity government—the Mecca accords, brokered in Mecca by the Saudis, were cheered by thousands of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. But the U.S. and Israel, openly unsatisfied, kept stoking the fires of civil war by funding and arming Fatah security forces. 

Eyad el Sarraj, the psychiatrist heading GCMHP, himself an opponent of Hamas, tells of a meeting involving Palestinians with U.S. deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams last year. The Palestinians argued for engagement with Hamas, rather than confrontation, as the way to peace. Abrams insisted that Hamas must be pushed out, without regard to the disastrous consequences the Palestinians warned him about. 

Hamas’ participation in elections itself showed that it is tired of armed struggle. Hamas’ Ismaïl Haniyeh, the elected Palestinian Prime Minister, told the French daily “Le Figaro”: “We promise to respect all past agreements signed by the Palestinian Authority. We wish for the creation of a Palestinian state in the 1967 boundaries, that is, in Gaza, the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as capital. We wish for a reciprocal, global, and simultaneous truce with Israel to be put in place.” 

Severing Gaza from the West Bank was probably what former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his successor Ehud Olmert have had in mind all along. Many commentators in the Israeli press now are pleased about the strategic benefits to Israel of the “three-state” rather than “two-state” solution. 

Meanwhile, 6,000 Palestinians, including the elderly, ill, and children, are stuck at the Rafah crossing under the burning sun, with little water or food. El Nounou wrote on June 25: “I feel very upset for a special reason that my daughter will have surgery on her eye today… She called me yesterday and said: ‘Dad, do not be worried, I will be OK.’ … but when I finished with her, I cried a lot. I hope the crossing will open soon and I will be again with my family.” 

Protest letters can be sent to addresses given on http://toibillboard.info/addresss.rtf. Also contact your Congress members. 

Annette Herskovits is a Berkeley resident. 

The story goes something like this: While discussing his living will, the man tells his wife that he prefers not to exist in a vegetative state, dependent on a machine and taking fluids from a bottle. His wife moves from her chair, unplugs the television, and throws out all of his beer.  

I’m not a beer person but otherwise the joke hits close to home. I hate the television the way an addict hates heroin but can’t stop inserting the needle. I watch it for hours on end, good programs and bad, silly and serious. I’ve watched “Seinfeld” episodes so many times I can lip sync the dialogue. I may not know for certain any more whether my giggles over Kramer’s antics are spontaneous or part of the ritual.  

I’m very good at watching television. I can stand, sit, lie down, and even run on a treadmill or do sit-ups while keeping my eyes glued to the screen. I can eat a meal, time my microwave popcorn with the advertisement, visit the bathroom, and still not miss a minute of “Law and Order.” And I could beat Shane to the draw with my remote, pressing the mute button and re-holstering before he could get a shot off.  

Television is my entertainment, my companion, my stuporific. It numbs my brain and allows escape from my worries. It saves me the inconvenience of finding a creative outlet. Next to my television are stacks of books I’ve meant to read, if only I could find the time. I intended to learn the guitar this past winter, and there it sits, waiting for my attention in another corner of the bedroom. If only there were more hours in the day.  

I occasionally learn something from the history channel, or engage my adrenal gland in a good adventure, but by and large the experience is more similar to the empty calories of cotton candy; i.e., I have nothing to show for my time. If I were put in suspended animation for an hour instead of immersing myself in an episode of “ER,” I expect an analysis of my brain wave activity would be no different.  

Obviously, looking for new and growth-inspiring experiences is not an essential element for me with my entertainment. “Why do I watch TV,” is probably a good question to start pondering. I know better, that’s the truly pathetic thing. With the exception of this moment of lucidity, courtesy of a self-imposed assignment to write about something that impacts on my progress toward “living healthy,” I am sure I would remain in total denial. I elevated this topic on my list of possibles when I realized I had allowed the television to keep me from completing an essay on a more interesting subject before I grow another year older. This domino in the line toward true healthy living must fall first, apparently.  

Writing about my television habit, which I truly hate in my heart-of-hearts, is probably the most candid I’ll ever be with myself about this issue. Although I could quit cold turkey, I rather doubt that I will, at this point in time anyway, but it doesn’t take much reflection to realize I could make serious headway if I were more discriminating. Maybe cutting out the re-runs would be a good first step on the 12-step program. The reward would be several hours a week of found time to accomplish things that would be truly fulfilling. I could write a book. I could spend more time chastising my son for spending too much time on the computer... 

OPEN CALL FOR ESSAYS 

Healthy Living 

As part of an ongoing effort to print stories by East Bay residents, the Daily Planet invites readers to write about their experiences and perspectives on living healthy. Please e-mail your essays, no more than 800 words, to firstperson@berkeleydailyplanet.com. We will publish the best essays in upcoming issues.

We continue to have odd and inexplicable gaps in our ability to discuss race and racism in an adult way in this country. 

Watch the Turner News Network (TNT) broadcasts of National Basketball Association games, and you’ll see pre-game and halftime banter between anchor Ernie Johnson (White) and color analysts (no pun intended) Kenny Smith (African-American) and Charles Barkley (African-American) that manages to throw in running jokes about race that manage to offend few, if any, of the multiracial viewing audience. 

The same is true for the Fox Sports Network’s “Best Damn Sports Show, Period,” which features a cast that is usually equally divided between whites and folks of color who bring in issues of race, from time to time, in their discussions as if it is not a dirty subject to be stuck between the pages of an old magazine that you read, by yourself, while sitting on the toilet. 

Strangely, though, turn on the average boxing match, and you begin to see the strain of our attempts to appear to be color-blind in the midst of a multi-colored world. Commentators sometimes talk about particular attributes that they believe are applicable to Mexican or Latin fighters, but put one of those Mexican fighters in a ring with an African-American opponent, both with red trunks on, and those same commentators will only be able to identify who they are talking about by bringing out the 25-pound version of the American Heritage Dictionary to find the 300 various shades of red, all to keep from saying “Hernandez is the Mexican kid and Sanders is the black guy.” 

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why it’s such a problem for them to say it. 

Same thing is true for many post-civil rights era newspaper articles, which often seem to go out of their way to mention race. 

That appears to be the case in an otherwise excellent article on the Waste Management sanitation workers lockout in the Chronicle on Thursday (“Waste Deep: Collection Erratic” by reporters Henry K. Lee, Justin Berton, Joe Garofoli, and David R. Baker). The article presents facts that tend to show that Waste Management’s replacement workers are favoring some neighborhoods over others in their pickup. The problem is the interesting way the reports describe, or don’t describe, those neighborhoods. 

“Tidy East Bay neighborhoods where garbage service is provided by the company that has locked out its drivers were still tidy Wednesday,” the article begins, “something that couldn’t be said for some scruffier areas where pickups were days overdue.” 

The “scruffier” neighborhoods, we later learn, are the Fruitvale, East Oakland and West Oakland, we learn, while the “tidy” neighborhoods are Albany, Emeryville, Livermore, San Ramon, Castro Valley, and the “largely middle-class Temescal and Montclair parts of Oakland.” The reporters also describe the neighborhoods as “poorer” or “wealthier,” but never tell us what is immediately in the minds of many readers, that while there are a lot of people of color in the “tidy” neighborhoods, the “scruffier” neighborhoods pointed out in the article are largely African-American or Latino, or both. 

The income levels of the neighborhoods are mentioned for the obvious reasons, the Chronicle and the reporters making the point that since Waste Management does not have enough replacement workers to fully serve its entire area, the company appears to be favoring the wealthy over the poor in making the decision over which pickup areas will be left out. Montclair Village Shopping Center mentions having its garbage continue to be picked up twice a week, while sections of West Oakland and the East Oakland flats had no weekly pickups at all. 

“This is about money and power and clout,” the article quoted one Albany resident as saying. “Look around this neighborhood. There’s Wall Street Journals on the doorsteps here. I’m just guessing that if the people in charge of picking up the garbage are going to decide where not to pick it up, it’s going to be in neighborhoods where people don’t vote, they don’t complain and they don’t have clout.” 

Could the Chronicle reporters find no one who might also suggest that the dumpsters in the fourplexes around 98th Avenue and Bancroft were not being picked up because the area is both low-income and black? 

But despite all our efforts to push it to the background, race and racism—particularly anti-black and anti-Latino racism—continues to be a simmering, boiling, volatile issue in the Bay Area and beyond, living just under the surface of all of our issues, threatening at any moment to—like the dream deferred in the Langston Hughes poem—to burst out and explode. 

That was the case at this week’s Oakland City Council Community and Economic Development Committee meeting during a discussion about small and minority-owned business subcontracts with the Fox Oakland restoration project. 

As reported in the Thursday Tribune (“Tempers Flare As Oakland Officials Nearly Go To Blows”), Darrel Carey, the president of the East Bay Small Business Council, criticized developer Phil Tagami for what Carey described as minimal efforts to make sure small and minority-owned businesses got those subcontracts. 

Tagami denied the allegations, and when he later stalked out of the meeting saying that “this is a shakedown!” Carey accused him of shaking down and stealing from Oakland for years, and followed him outside the hearing room. Councilmember Larry Reid had to run behind the two men and hold Carey off while Tagami stormed away from Ogawa Plaza. 

I haven’t studied the report that was submitted with the Community and Economic Development Committee item and I haven’t had the chance to talk with either Carey or Tagami, so I can’t say, yet, how much of these particular allegations are true. 

But I can say that in the post-Proposition 209 days—Prop. 209 being the 1996 California voter initiative Constitutional amendment that outlawed “Discrimination or Preferential Treatment by State and Other Public Entities”—many East Bay public entities have complained that they have been largely unable to steer a fair portion of their contract dollars to representative numbers of their own constituents, many of whom are either Latino or African-American. And that has caused a growing anger and resentment in areas of the Latino and African-American communities, as well as frustration among city and school officials. 

That has been most apparent at the Peralta Community College District, which is charged, in part, with preparing a large Latino and African-American student population for the job market, but which cannot force companies receiving millions of dollars in contracts from the district to hire those Latino and African-American students once those students have graduated from Peralta. 

Raising the issue repeatedly in the last several years, Peralta trustees have been told by the companies and Peralta’s own diversity hiring consultants that there are many, convoluted reasons why this is so, but the bottom line is that too many black and Latino Oakland youth remain unemployed or underemployed, while tax money raised from Oakland residents goes east of the hills or across the bay to employ workers living in those communities. 

You may argue whether this is right or wrong, that’s your choice. We ought to be having that argument…ummm…discussion. But do you think that because this rarely gets framed as a discrimination-against-black or discrimination-against-Latino issue in the local newspapers or the television stations that these black or Latino kids, or their parents, aren’t noticing? 

We continue to have odd and inexplicable gaps in our ability to discuss race and racism in an adult way in this country. 

Many are paying for those gaps right now. Many more will pay, before it’s all over. And before it’s through, my guess is that will probably be on a less-discriminatory nature than we’re currently seeing. 

Around the turn of the 20th century, Berkeley was promoted as a City of Homes. In 1905, the Conference Committee of the Improvement Clubs of Berkeley, California published an illustrated booklet bearing this title and featuring various private residences. But the concept of home would soon change. The San Francisco earthquake and fire brought a flood of refugees into the East Bay, and many real-estate entrepreneurs quickly rolled up their sleeves to meet the housing demand. 

Alongside a record number of new single-family homes built from 1906 on, large apartment buildings appeared for the first time. These were usually elegant structures offering the latest amenities, such as steam heat, hot water on demand, modern kitchens and bathrooms, and space-saving wall beds. 

On May 19, 1906, barely a month after the earthquake, the Oakland Tribune published a drawing of an enormous new apartment building with the following caption: 

The new Stevens apartment house for Berkeley […] covers a space of 60 x 240 running from street to street with large open space on each side for sun and light. There will be thirty-six apartments of three rooms and store room and bath each, all fitted with folding beds built in and new kitchen improvements and everything that can be done for the comfort of the tenants in the way of labor-saving contrivances. 

The hot water system is the one used for heating and supplying of water at all times. There are two stacks of fireproof and earthquake-proof chimneys; radiators are placed in each room and bath, instead of mantels. Gas and electric heaters are in the kitchen and bath rooms. The whole building will be a model of its kind. The frame is to be made with continuous posts from foundation to roof. The floors to be unusually well fastened to same and the floor to be diagonally braced as well as doubled, so as to fully provide against any jar by earthquake. 

The walls and floors are of slow-burning construction. There will be a large public dining room on the first floor with kitchen store rooms, laundry, etc., complete; also here are situated the big furnaces that supply the building. They are to be built from fireproof vaults of reinforced concrete. Newsom & Newsom of 526 Larkin Street, San Francisco, are the architects. 

Three days earlier, the Berkeley Reporter provided additional details: 

An apartment house, which will cost in the neighborhood of $70,000 and will contain 155 rooms, is about to be erected by Mrs. A.C. Stevens, the well-known capitalist and enterprising woman of this city. […] The Lafayette will be the largest building of its kind in Berkeley […] the architects state that the structure is the longest for which they have ever drawn plans, outside of one erected at the [1894 San Francisco] Midwinter Fair. 

Mary Woodbury Stevens (1859–1945) was indeed an enterprising woman. The wife of Nova Scotian evangelist Ansley Chesley Stevens (1856–1936), she was a major landowner in Berkeley. In 1907, when the Lafayette Apartments were under construction, Mrs. Stevens owned seven properties in town. The following year, her holdings had increased to a dozen. 

One wouldn’t think of a missionary’s wife as a capitalist, but Mary Stevens was born to money. A native of West Springfield, MA, Mary was the daughter of Edward W. Southworth, who with his brother Wells founded the Southworth Paper Company, which exists until today. The Southworths were descended from Constant Southworth, offspring of a long line of English knights. Constant, whose mother had married William Bradford, Governor and historian of the Plymouth Colony, came to Massachusetts in 1628 and would become one of its prominent citizens. 

The Southworth family valued education. Two of Mary’s brothers studied in Germany, one of them going on to study medicine. Two other brothers were students at Yale, where they were members of the powerful and secretive Order of Skull and Bones. Mary received her education at the exclusive Miss Porter’s School for Girls in Farmington, Conn. 

In 1893, Mary married Ansley Stevens, probably in Boston. The two appeared in Berkeley in 1902, and until 1910 lived at 2157–59 Addison Street, on the current site of University Hall’s parking lot. The house was torn down in the 1920s. 

When completed in 1907 or ’08, the Lafayette Apartments had two addresses: 2314 Haste St. and 2315 Dwight Way. Although the College Homestead Tract south of the campus had been substantially built up by the first decade of the 20th century, the block where the Lafayette was sited was an exception, having contained until then only one house—an early shingled residence fronting on Ellsworth Street. Until the mid-1920s, the lots around the Lafayette were vacant, fulfilling the early promise of “large open space on each side for sun and light.” 

The completed building was somewhat less elaborately ornamented than the sketch published in the Tribune. Between the drawing board and construction, the balustraded roof parapet and the pediments on the long lateral walls were discarded, leaving relatively plain elevations with four pairs of Corinthian pilasters. Two overblown façades, complete with pediments, gigantic mock Corinthian columns, and clumsy tiered balconies, were tacked onto the street elevations. The architects, Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom, were never known for restraint. The brothers are best remembered for having designed America’s most famous Queen Anne edifice, the extravagant (some say outlandish) Carson Mansion in Eureka. Not for nothing did Willis Polk dub them “the Gruesomes.” 

The Lafayette’s pastiche neoclassical elements were executed not in stone but in redwood, and the pizzazz wasn’t limited to the exterior. Inside, the building was finished in white pine and redwood paneling. Apartment doors were inlaid with translucent glass. A large, skylit rotunda with a spiral staircase occupied the center of the building, and hand-turned banisters adorned the stairs. 

Boasting the latest amenities, including a private telephone exchange, the Lafayette attracted desirable tenants: professionals, managers, merchants, clerical workers, and teachers, including the mother, sister, and brother of Berkeley Mayor Samuel C. Irving. Owners Mary and Ansley Stevens lived here from 1910 until 1915, when they disappeared from town, presumably to spread the gospel abroad. Eventually they settled in Oakland, where Mary purchased the Dunsmuir Apartments at 1515 Alice Street. Reverend Stevens was variously listed as superintendent of the Berkeley Free Bible & Tract Society and general superintendent of the East Bay District United Evangelistic Mission Association, the latter located at 594 31st Street. 

As late as 1924, Mrs. Stevens was still the owner of the Lafayette. Soon, her building would be flanked by four other large apartment houses, constructed in the vacant lots on either side. First came the Mira Monte at 2322 Haste St., which began advertising furnished and unfurnished apartments in January 1925. It was followed in January 1928 by the Elsmere at 2321 Dwight Way. The six-story Picardo Arms, 2491 Ellsworth St., opened in November 1928, and the nameless 2320 Haste St. was completed ten months later. 

All the newcomers were attractive, the most elegant of them being the Picardo Arms, designed by the prolific architect Herman Carl Baumann (1890–1960), who would soon create the Art Deco Bellevue-Staten on the shore of Lake Merritt. Having survived as a distinguished marker on the Southside, the Picardo Arms recently lost all its original windows to vinyl blight. 

Considerably less refined, the three-story Elsmere offered the newfangled attraction of a large cement courtyard with 22 individual garages. The 24 furnished apartments included Frigidaire refrigerators, Spark lid-top ranges, and Marshall & Stearns wall beds. In a novel cross-marketing maneuver, the manufacturers of these appliances and other contractors and suppliers associated with the Elsmere all took out ads on the same Tribune page that announced the opening of the building. 

The owner of the Elsmere was Louis Saroni, a well-known sugar wholesaler and former candy manufacturer. The son of German-Jewish immigrants, Saroni (1856–1936) relocated his business from San Francisco to Oakland in the wake of the 1906 earthquake. His son, Albert B. Saroni, married into the Zellerbach family and took over the sugar business, while the father invested in East Bay real estate. 

Whether before or after he built the Elsmere, Saroni acquired the Lafayette Apartments from Mary Stevens. He was already advanced in years, and the Depression no doubt contributed to the Lafayette’s state of neglect. In 1935, the building was in violation of several articles in the city code, and Saroni wanted it off his hands. The recently formed University of California Students’ Cooperative Association (UCSCA) signed an advantageous long-term lease and renamed the building Barrington Hall. The conversion from apartments to student co-op entailed removing the kitchens from 45 units and opening up the ground floor to create a lobby. 

World War II brought about a decline in male student enrollment, while housing was needed for the Richmond shipyard workers. In 1943, following much official pressure brought to bear on UCSCA, the U.S. Navy leased Barrington for five years. In December of that year, the Navy spent $76,000 to modernize the building and convert it back into apartments. In the process, all ornamentation was stripped away, leaving a plainly utilitarian structure. 

In 1948, while the building was still occupied by the Navy, the Saroni family offered to sell the residuum of Barrington Hall’s lease to the co-op (now USCA) for $16,000. This windfall enabled USCA to spend $15,000 on altering the building one more time, converting the apartments into co-op use. 

By the 1980s, Barrington Hall had become USCA’s most notorious co-op. Neighbors complained it was a “noisy, unsafe, unsanitary, rat trap.” After the San Francisco Chronicle focused its attention on heroin use at Barrington, USCA lost its insurance coverage. Subsequent investigation revealed that dozens of habitual heroin users and dealers lived in the house. Continuing trouble and a costly lawsuit finally led to the hall’s closure in 1990. 

The building has since been leased to a contractor who operates it as a rooming house called Evans Manor. While the four neighboring apartment buildings retain much of their original appearance, Evans Manor is a charmless hulk, albeit one redolent of glory in the hearts of old Barringtonians. 

Photograph: Daniella Thompson  

Located next to the Lafayette, the Elsmere at 2321 Dwight Way included built-in garages when it opened in 1928. 

I’ve talked about a couple of ethical aspects of gardening over the past two weeks: ethical suppliers and basic kindness to plants, the reason I don’t buy Arizona desert species for my shady, poorly drained Berkeley garden.  

But wait; there’s more!  

(Gardening can get to feeling like being a Catholic in the ‘50s: no matter what you do, it’s morally suspect. Some of us remember the “fault” of scrupulosity. If you’re too careful about never doing anything wrong, that’s wrong too. Think too much about this stuff, you’ll end up catatonic. A commenter on Twisty Faster’s ovular blog I Blame the Patriarchy countered paralytic perfectionism. One’s patriarchy footprint, like one’s carbon footprint, exists no matter what, but it’s useful to reduce its size. So stop fretting, start learning, and garden on.) 

What we plant and where we plant it matters also because of two almost-contradictory points.  

The first and most obvious is that we shouldn’t plant invasive exotics. Reams and volumes have been devoted to this point, but still the “really, this variety hasn’t been proven invasive yet” broom and “oh, it’s not so bad on the coast” pampas grass and German ivy and Algerian ivy and Japanese dodder—the yellow stuff that eats entire trees—gets sold and bought, and planted.  

Planting invasives is no more responsible than a night at the bathhouse without condoms. “Invasive” means wildland-invasive, not garden-invasive; the latter’s a mere inconvenience, though it is certainly reason for suspicion.  

More subtle is the idea that maybe we shouldn’t plant natives, either—if they’re close enough relatives of our native neighbors to interbreed with them, but distant enough in other ways to mess with the local gene pools. For example, California poppies from the south of the state might have heritable differences from those native here; we just haven’t noticed those differences yet.  

The wild strawberries native to Strawberry Creek are legendary for their taste, though I doubt there are any of the originals left there. Most of what you can buy (or find) is insipid. They look the same, though.  

Coastal wild California poppies look different to us, yellower than the straight-orange “standard” poppy. For all we know, northern and southern, or Contra Costa and Marin, or Berkeley hills and South Bay orange poppies might look different to, say, certain native bees; they might have markers visible only in the ultraviolet range. They might smell different to other olfactory receptors. It might matter. We don’t know.  

With that in mind, Native Here Nursery in Tilden Park labels its plants with their points of origin, in careful detail, sometimes as fine as the north side of some hill vs. the south side. If someday we find out that there are differences that matter, such plants will have kept their ancestry whole, ready for the future. 

Native Here Nursery 

101 Golf Course Road, Berkeley 

(510) 549-0211 

Fri.: 9 a.m.-noon; Sat. 10 a.m.-1 p.m. 

Tilden Park, across from the entrance to the Tilden Golf Coursewww.ebcnps.org/nativehere.html 

Twisty Faster 

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Daily Planet.

Do you know The Consultant’s Song? It goes: Maybe it’s this way, or maybe it’s that way and I get paid’O in either case’O. 

I’m a consultant of sorts and there is nothing more irksome to me than having to say, “I don’t know.” Now, I realize that this can be a true statement (and ‘No’ is a complete sentence, right) and can even be the most accurate assessment of my findings at some point but I just don’t like it. 

I get paid to provide answers and to try to fill in dark areas. So, when I’m forced to say, “Hey, I can’t see this and I don’t know if it’s good or bad,” it really bugs me. I feel like a cheat. Nevertheless, there are times when I just can’t see things that I’d really need to see in order to make meaningful statements about such-and-such a thing (say a drainage system). If someone had merely snapped a picture or two during the process and kept them around, the verification process would be so much easier. 

I get handed permits on a pretty regular basis and asked to draw some conclusion based on what these cards and forms say. Let me tell you, the data is pretty lean on permits and other municipal records. If there are stamped drawings, well, that’s a different matter. They’re a much better indicator, although there’s no way to be sure that things were done according to plans, and as you might suspect, it’s quite common for things to be anywhere from a little to way different from the plans.  

Now, show me a photo of an open trench bearing pipes, gravel and drainage-fabric and I can begin to say some things about what I’m looking at. Give me 10 photos of the same thing and it’s gets better. Show me a picture of the bubble on the level on the pipe in the trench and I’m all smiles. I’d be downright proud of the homeowner or builder and would sing it loudly. I’m no longer forced to say that I have no idea how well this “supposed” French drain is going to work. I can make a fair guess. 

Back in my remodeling days, I took a lot of pictures of jobs I worked on. These served multiple functions. Firstly, if the city inspector ever claimed to have not seen the inside of a wall we’d closed up, I could grab my file and show them a picture of what the rough plumbing and wiring in that wall looked like. This was always met with agreement and satisfaction (although I don’t recommend reliance on this). 

If we were trying to remember where we put a particular thing in a wall in a later phase of work (such as a pipe or wire), we could pull out the pictures. Clients loved the set of extra prints I’d lay on ‘em during or after work. It showed confidence on my part, gave them something to show their friends (doesn’t everyone like to look at remodels in progress?) and gave proof of the work when selling the house. I’m sure you can think of other cases in which these might prove tremendously valuable. 

As someone who sees things after the fact, I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me to be handed a file, filled with photos of the remodel I’m being asked to look at. My first assumption is that the builder or homeowner is thinking about the future. Most people seem only to be thinking about that day (or minute). But the act of photographing implies a larger mind-set. They’re also thinking about the next person, not just themselves. They’re including unmet friends in their process and helping the next person to manage what might be a difficult situation. If you know the layout of the drainage system, you may well be able to perform a repair without tearing the whole thing apart. If you have photos of where the pipes and wires were located in a wall, you might be able to make one small hole rather than tear out a wall of sheetrock. 

It’s many a day when I’m looking at a crawlspace filled with newly-placed plywood panels designed to protect the occupants from the shaking earth. Sadly, what’s behind these well-nailed panels is often critical and largely invisible. A set of photos of the bolting behind, say 3 or 4 of these would be enough to satisfy my inner curmudgeon on most days and will likely do the same for future buyers and many city officials. Again, the more photos the better. 

The cost of photos is very, very small. Today, I leave the house with two cameras. A really nice one that I keep hidden away for special stuff and a tiny, used, eBay, fixed-focus, Fuji with enough memory for 122 photos at 1/3 of a Meg (these make sharp 4x6 pictures). Now, I don’t care if you want to shoot film but, if you have a computer, you can store way more photos than you’ll ever need at almost no cost. There is NO excuse not to take pictures. The average remodel runs into many thousands of dollars. A disposable camera costs 5 bucks and might turn out to be a very important thing when they switch site inspector on you or when a buyer starts asking about what’s behind that wall or how deep you poured the concrete under the hot-tub. 

If you’re a homeowner working with a contractor, go take a bunch of pictures of the work every day when you come home. They’ll help if a dispute arises and provide good evidence of the work for the future. If you’re a builder, you’re missing out on one of the best marketing tactics known to woman or man by not photographing your work and keeping photos to show prospective clients. If you buy a little photo album and show before and after pictures of three of your jobs including all the bolting and wiring stuff that some people like to see, you can raise your rates. Photos are worth thousands of words. They’re also worth thousands of dollars when selling a house, sitting in court or selling your wares.  

Now, if you could just get the plumber to smile. 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.

At a retrofit seminar last weekend, I saw a photo of a braced chimney that had fallen in an earthquake, just like its un-braced neighbors.  

The point being made was that bracing a chimney is a waste of money—if you have a masonry chimney, you can pretty much count on it falling in a serious quake. 

So, you can spend a bunch of money and have it removed and replaced with a wood-framed chimney and metal flue, or you can make real sure that you are not outside under the chimney when it falls. 

If you’re there when the shaking starts, move to another spot!  

Wishing you a safe home and peace of mind.  

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service.  

Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.

How important is it that presidential candidates tell us whether or not they are Christians? For many Berkeley residents it’s not important at all; most of us feel that religious belief is a personal matter: what matters most is that candidates adhere to high ethical standards and honor the U.S. Constitution. But for many Americans, identifying as a Christian is shorthand for being on the “right” side. As a result, candidates for president are forced to talk about their Christian faith. 

This comes as no surprise, as the United States is an extremely religious country: According to the May 10 Gallup Poll 86 percent of Americans believe in God—only 6 percent “don’t believe.” Our religious terrain is dominated by Christians: the most recent Gallup Poll indicated that 75 percent describe Christianity as their “religious preference”—only 11 percent say they have “none.” A large percentage of U.S. Christians profess fundamentalist beliefs: 43 percent of Protestants describe themselves as “born-again or evangelical” Christians. Typically, they have dogmatic, conservative beliefs: the Bible is literally true; the end times are coming soon; and the United States must become a Christian nation. 

As George Bush’s popularity has waned, so has promotion of the concept that he is the anointed leader of the Christian nation: the notion that the United States functions better as a theocracy than it does as a democracy. Yet, a vast conservative Christian radio and television network has kept the Christian nation idea alive; they frequently declare that the Bible takes precedence over the Constitution. 

The Christian Nation concept drives a coterie of conservative Christian commentators such as James Robison. In his most recent column, Robison dissected comments made by Democratic Presidential candidates at the recent “faith forum.” He quoted John Edwards: “I also understand the distinction between my job as president of the United States [and] my responsibility to be respectful of and to embrace all faith beliefs.” Robison countered: “So while some candidates profess to be true Christians, they feel a responsibility to embrace Islam, Atheism, Scientology, the New Age movement and every other belief (or at least select portions of them). Their wisdom holds that their leadership role demands a dualistic split between attitudes and actions. They personally want moral legislation, as defined by most mainstream Christians, but feel duty-bound to not provide it.” Robison invoked “true Christian believer” imagery: the notion that real Christians don’t accept theological diversity; for them there is only one source of truth, the Bible. 

In his scathing 2004 critique of fundamentalism, “The End of Faith,” Sam Harris linked dogmatic religion and terrorism. Harris argued that the worst aspects of Islam—those that inspired the attacks of 9/11—are similar to the central tenets of ultra-conservative Christianity: there is one true religion; anyone who does not accept that religion is, by definition, an infidel; unbelievers will not get into heaven; and, for those who are shown the truth, the ends justify the means. Harris warned that unless the western world questions the core tenets of fundamentalist religions, we risk being swept into a global holy war fought with modern technology. 

The Feb. 20 Gallup Poll checked American attitudes about race, sex, age, and other factors. The most negative attitude concerned atheism: 53 percent of respondents indicated they “would not vote for” an atheist. Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised that Democratic as well as Republican candidates identify themselves as Christians; they don’t want to be seen as non-believers. 

However, there are two faces of American Christianity: the fundamentalist wing that hungers for a Christian nation and believes that anyone who respects the rights of non-Christians is an apostate; and the other, more tolerant wing. Speaking to the convention of the United Church of Christ on June 23, Barack Obama spoke from the tolerant, progressive Christian perspective. He declared that religion has a part to play in American politics but defined it as the role of inclusion: uniting Americans to deal with common problems such as poverty and environmental degradation. Obama observed, “Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together… Faith started being used to drive us apart. Faith got hijacked.” The junior senator from Illinois blamed this on “the so-called leaders of the Christian right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us.” He indicated that the religious right has “hijacked” faith and divided the country using wedge issues. 

Whoever the eventual Democratic and Republican presidential candidates turn out to be, there’s no doubt they’ll identify as a Christian. The critical question for American voters is what kind of a Christian they actually are: will the candidate be a fundamentalist Christian like Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback or will they be a progressive Christian like Barack Obama? They both proclaim their faith, but one has a closed, theocratic view that challenges democracy, while the other has an open, inclusive view that strengthens it. That’s a critical distinction in terms of protecting democracy and religious diversity. 

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

It isn’t always easy to keep a giant sequoia / Big Tree / Sequoiadendron giganteum thriving down here near sea level. (It isn’t always easy even to talk about the species without someone’s caviling about whatever common name is current.) I’ve known at least two that were cut down locally, and one that just doesn’t look happy. There’s a nice row of them along the main road through Tilden Park, though, just past the regional Parks Botanic Garden, for easy viewing as you pass. You can get up close and personal with the species in the Bot Garden too, and reassure yourself about identification—they’re labeled—and compare them with coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens.  

Keeping even mighty things alive in a hostile climate is often a matter of failing and maybe trying again. Certainly the bloom of American utopias of many sorts over the 19th and early 20th centuries has faded, maybe to seed, maybe just to footnotes after a brief flush of possibility.  

Sometimes even their marks have been willfully erased. How many of us knew that the biggest tree in the world used to be called the Karl Marx Tree? 

The Kaweah Colony, a socialist community founded in 1884, laid out a number of timber claims near their planned headquarters in the Three Rivers area. Because most members lived at the time in San Francisco (with others in associated clubs as far away as Boston), some alert officials thought they smelled fraud of the sort that timber corporations had perpetrated using individuals as fronts for homesteading claims and public land use.  

The claims, supposed to be the foundation of Kaweah’s prosperity, were held up pending investigation. The colony foundered within half a decade, partly on economics and bad planning, partly on the rock of government (and corporate-interest) hostility.  

The land claims finally fizzled when the Sequoiadendron groves became Sequoia (speaking of misnomers) National Park and the surrounding forest became national forest lands. The Feds never made any restitution to the claimants, though a Congressional investigation recommended it.  

Karl Marx’s tree got the name that stuck, “General Sherman,” in 1879, by some accounts as part of an attempt to “heal the nation’s wounds” after the Civil War; a great many of the trees in the park were named then after prominent military figures. Naming the biggest after the total-war practitioner Sherman rather than, say, Lincoln or even Grant (who do have barely-smaller trees named for them in the park) might seem rather abrasive for that purpose.  

Naturalist Asa Gray had seen the big trees in that decade, and had doubts about this sort of naming: “Whether it be the man or the tree that is honored in the connection, probably either would live as long, in fame and in memory, without it.” 

Certainly the trees don’t care. 

Photograph: Ron Sullivan  

Even a little Big Tree is a big tree. Broader spread, stouter trunk, more massive foliage, needles in rounded thready clusters, not flat sprays like coastal redwoods’.  

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Green Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section.  

FRIDAY, JULY 13 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “All in the Timing” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $12. 525-1620.  

Altarena Playhouse “Oh My Godmother” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Bosoms and Neglect” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., SUn. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 22. Tickets are $38. 843-4822.  

California Shakespeare Theater “Man and Superman” by George Bernard Shaw at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through July 29. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Central Works “Bird in the Hand” Thurs-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 29. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Meet Me in St. Louis” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. in July at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Aug. 4. 524-9132. 

Crowded Fire Theater “Anna Bella Eema” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. through July 15. Tickets are $10-$20. 415-439-2456.  

Impact Theatre “Impact Briefs 8: Sinfully Delicious” Thurs.-Sat. through July 21 at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Masquers Playhouse “Ring Round the Moon” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through July 14. Tickets are $15. 232-4031.  

Woodminster Summer Musicals “West Side Story” at 8 p.m. through July 22 at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland. Tickets are $23-$36. 531-9597.  

EXHIBITIONS 

National Juried Fine Craft Exhibition Opening reception at 6 p.m. at the ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Exhibit runs through Aug. 18. 843-2527. 

Paola Pastore “Reverse Collages” Reception at 2 p.m. at Alta Galleria, 2980 College Avenue, #4. 421-1255. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Donna Lane and Judy Juanita read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave., at Hearst. 841-6374. 

Hailey Lind reads from “Brush with Death” at 7 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 228-3207.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ariel String Quartet perform music of Haydn, Dvorak, Suprynowicz, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremon, at Ashby. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-1228. giorgigallery.com 

“Home Sweet Home” A musical exploring the themes of grief and loss. Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Mahea Uchiyama Center for International Dance, 729 Heinz St., #4. Tickets are $8-$12. Not suitable for children under 13. homesweethometickets@yahoo.com 

The Hipnotic Blues Band with Eldridge “Big Cat” Tolefree and Tia Caroll, at 5:30 p.m. at Park Place at Washington Ave., Point Richmond. Free. www. 

pointrichmond.com/prmusic/ 

Lost Legends, Freddie Roulette at 9:30 p.m. at Baltic Sq. Pub, 135 Park Place, Pt. Richmond. 235-2532. 

Alfonso Maya, Mexican trova, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Sylvia Cuenca Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Jazzschool Summer Youth Program Concert at 6:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Free. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Phenomenauts, Maldroid, The Struts, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Patrick Bernard Concert” ancient mantra and dance at 8 p.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. Tickets are $20. 496-6047. 

Anton Schwartz, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Hawaiian Generations: George & Keoki Kahumoku, Dennis & David Kamakahi at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Nomadics, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Mushroom, Bart Davenport, Ruthann Friedman at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Radio Suicide, The Michetons, Fight Me Juliet at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Embrace the End, Spires, Times of Despiration at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

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

Destino Wolf at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Jane Moheit at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 14 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Moshi Moshi! Bridging Cultures through Art” Japanese and American art inspired by cross cultural influences. Reception at 3 p.m. at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond, and runs through Aug. 10. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“Tsunami Affected Lives: Moving Beyond Disaster” Photographs by Adrienne Miller Opening party at 3 p.m. at La Peña. Exhibit runs to Aug. 31. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Dance Elixer “Land” A multi-media installation and performance at 3 p.m. at Oakland Art Gallery, 199 Kahn’s Alley at the Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. 637-0395.  

Huichol Indian Yarn Paintings Exhibition from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Gathering Tribes, 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038. 

“The Wrong Friends” Sculpture and drawings by Charlie Milgrim and “tropicalismo” works by Cassandra Auker, opening reception at 7 p.m. at The Gallery of Urban Art, 1746 13th St., Oakland. 910-1833. 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose St. 415-285-1717.  

Women’s Will “Romeo and Juliet” Sat. and Sun. at 1 p.m. in John Hinkle Park. 420-0813.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“From War to Peace: An Offering of Poetry and Music to Soothe a Suffering World” with Jan Dederick, Elisabeth Eliassen, Jeremy Cohne and others at 7 p.m. at 1300 Grand St., Alameda. Sponsored by the Alameda Public Affairs Forum and the Alameda Chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives. Free, donations accepted. www.alamedaforum.org 

Bay Street Arts and Music Festival with live music and children’s activities Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Bay St., Emeryville. 655-4002.  

Dana Lyons, singer-songwriter at 7:30 p.m. at Green City Gallery, 1950 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8-$12. Benefit for Bay Localize. www.baylocalize.org 

Dekapitator, Fueled by Fire, Hatchet at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10-$12. 763-1146.  

Orquestra Karabali, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Gateswingers Jazz Band, traditional jazz at 8 p.m. at Central Perk, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 558-7375.  

Gail Dobson & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Friends of the Old Puppy at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $10. 558-0881. 

Samba Ngo at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054.  

Mere Ours and Kate Isenberg at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Captain Seahorse at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Sisters Morales at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Misner & Smith, Americana, bluegrass, folk, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

George Cotsirilos Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Michelle Pliner at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

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

Jimbo Trout and the Fishpeople, SecondsOnEnd, Howdy at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Never Healed, 86 Mentality, Set to Explode at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JULY 15 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Bridge to Sakai: Japanese Arts and Crafts of Today” Part of the Berkeley/Sakai Sister City cultural exchange. Artist reception at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893.  

“Near and Far” Photographs by Doug Donaldson. Artist reception at 4 p.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany.  

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose St. 415-285-1717.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lisa Margonelli on “Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline” A special event at 5 p.m. at Bridgeway Gas Station, Ashby and Claremont. 704-8222. 

Thomas Perry reads from his new suspense novel “Silence” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Sylvia Gretchen, translator on “Now That I Come to Die” by 14th cent. Tibetatan Master Longchenpa at 6 p.m. at Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Place. 843-6812. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Jazz with Melvin Butts at 3 p.m., The History of Jazz with Randy Moore at 4:30 p.m. at Open Jam Session at 5 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Golden Gate Branch, 5606 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 597-5023. 

Jazz at the Chimes with Slammin’, all-body band, at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10. 228-3218. 

Music for Soprano and Friends at 3 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Church, 2220 Cedar St. at Spruce. 848-1755. 

Dance Theatre Arts of Hayward “Putting It Together” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $12-$15. 581-4780. 

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

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

Rita Hosking and Cousin Jack at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Sam Goldsmith Ensemble at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Shivoham, Kirtan rhythms, at 3 and 6 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20. 525-5054.  

Ellis Island Old World Folk Band at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Redhouse, The Waco Kid, Prismatica at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146.  

MONDAY, JULY 16 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alan Bern reads from his poetry at at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Ellen Klages reads from her new novel “Portable Childhoods” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express with Leah Steinberg at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Dazzling Divas, sopranos Eliza O’Malley, Pamela Connelly and Tara Generalovich and mezzo soprano Kathleen Moss at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Peter Apfelbaum Sextet at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. 

Samba Mapangala at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. 

TUESDAY, JULY 17 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Burdened Dreams” Paintings and sculpture by Marty McCorkle and Victoria Skirpa opens at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcott Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Storytellers Bob and Liz tell tales for all ages at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Diana Abu-Jaber reads from her new novel “Origin” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jeffrey Broussard & The Creole Cowboys at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

George Costileros Trio at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

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

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18 

FILM 

International Latino Film Festival “Barrio Cuba” at 7 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6555. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Matthew Rothschild, editor and publisher of The Progressive reads from his new book “You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression” at 7 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Samantha Schoech and Lisa Taggart, editors, read from “The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty and Body Image” at 7:30 p.m. at Diesel, 5433 College Ave., Oakland. 653-9965. 

Ellen Sussman describes “Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Café Poetry with Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

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

Bernard Anderson & The Old School Band at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Buxter Hoot’n at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mikie Lee and Amber at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

The Energy Trio, funky jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Lower Class Brats, Career Soldiers, The Ghouls at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $7. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Marc Carey at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 19 

THEATER  

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 7 p.m. at Montclair Ball Field, 6300 Moraga Ave., Montclair. 415-285-1717. www.sfmt.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Women by Women: The Dynamic Feminine Aspect” works by Jennifer Downey and Susan Matthews. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Office Building Atrium, 1515 Clay St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to Aug. 31. 622-8190. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Shipibo-Conibo Song Cloths from the Amazon” A lecture at 7 p.m. at Gathering Tribes, 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038. 

Poetry Flash with Luis Garcia and Maurice Kenny at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Bruce Riordan on “Global Warming Impacts on the Bay Area” a slideshow and lecture at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Jason Roberts describes “A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveller” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Lloyd Gregory at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

“Voices in the Virtual World” Oaktown Creativity Center House Choir at 8 p.m. at 447 25th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5-$10. 568-6920. 

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

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

Therese Brewitz at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Brian Kenney-Fresno, 20 Minute Loop, Midline Errors at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Eleggua, percussion from Venezuela with African roots, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mose Allison Trio at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Promising “more song-and-dance than a Bush Administration press conference,” the San Francisco Mime Troupe will be Making a Killing this weekend, for free, at Cedar Rose Park, a block from Cedar and Chestnut Streets. 

The tale that will unfold under the open skies follows two Army newspaper reporters assigned to grind out a puff piece on an Army-funded hospital in Iraq. What they find, when the facts unravel, is “corruption, death, music and mayhem,” as Dick and Condi cook the intelligence back in D.C.—and a military-industrial-cum-Neo-Con cabal block any fact-finding on the ground in Iraq. 

The Mime Troupe is celebrating its 48th summer in the parks with this play by Michael Gene Sullivan (with Jon Brooks), whose adaptation of Orwell’s 1984 has been touring nationally and internationally, staged by film actor Tim Robbins for L.A.’s Actors Gang. There’s a two-and-a-half minute YouTube segment on the Troupe’s website (sfmt.org). Directed by Ellen Callas, with music and lyrics by Pat Moran, the cast features old favorites like the author, Velina Brown, Victor Toman, Ed Holmes, Lisa Hori-Garcia and Kevin Ralston. 

Other local performances will include Thursday, July 17, at the Montclair Ballfield (music at 6:30 p.m.); Sunday afternoon, July 22, at Oakland’s Mosswood Park; Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 8 and 9, at Lakeside Park on Lake Merritt (music at 6:30 p.m.); and back to Berkeley for Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 11-12, in Live Oak Park. For more information, see www.sfmt.org.

It has been 35 years since the Berkeley Museum brought New York’s Museum of Modern Art exhibition, “Sculpture of Matisse,” to the Bay Area. The current show as SFMOMA permits us to re-examine the great painter’s three-dimensional work. The museum’s press release speaks of his “sculptural masterpieces.” 

It was in painting, however, that Matisse created magnificent masterpieces. The show brought his Blue Nude (1907) from Baltimore to compare it with the bronze Reclining Nude of the same year. The painting is a 20th century Odalisque. But unlike its classic predecessors, this figure is sensuously contorted and its exaggerated physical features, outlined in heavy blue lines, reveal the painter’s intense feeling for the subject as well as his sense of physical structure. 

In 1907 also the painter made the exquisite small bronze, Reclining Nude 1 (Aurora) with even greater distortions of the body. Later he recalled: “I took up sculpture because what interested me in painting was clarification of my ideas, I changed my method, and worked in clay in order to have a rest from painting, in which I had done absolutely all I could for the time being. That is to say it was done for the purpose of organization, to put order into my feelings and to find a style to suit me, Whe I found it in sculpture, it helped my painting.”  

Among his later works in sculpture is the series of low reliefs, the Backs, in which the artist made his most important contributions to modern sculpture. Produced over a period of 21 years (1909-30), it shows a progression in concentration on the essential formal structure. 

Starting with a fairly realistic version that was still modeled in the manner of Rodin, Matisse progressively simplified the figure, so that in Back ulnone the woman’s long hair acts as a division between two columns in this monumental work. Nevertheless, the planar character and its balance and order shows that this work was done with the sensibility of a painter, who mastered drawing with pen, pencil or cut paper, as well as sculpture to infuse new ideas into his work as a magnificent painter.  

In great contrast to Matisse’s modernist sculpture, the museum shows work by the post-modern German artist Felix Schramm, whose Collider, 18 feet high and 35 feet long cuts across two galleries. Made of drywall, wood and paint, it ruptures the museum space. The viewer has to move under, through and around the piece to take it all in. 

The work is in the Dada tradition (yes, Dada has become a tradition now) and deals with disorder and destruction. It immediately reminds the viewer of the transgressive work of the 1970s by Gordon Matta-Clark, which was seen in a retrospective at the Whitney Museum this spring, but is not mentioned in the brochure of the Schramm exhibition.  

Matta-Clark actually hacked into existing walls and floors of derelict buildings and eventually split a house apart. Whereas Schramm devastates the pristine white cube of the museum gallery, the more radical earlier artist operated entirely outside the traditional framework. 

It would seem that in the 1970s a more radical approach to art (as to politics) was within reach.  

MATISSE: PAINTER AS SCULPTOR 

June 8 - Sept. 16  

NEW WORK: FELIX SCHRAMM 

June 28-Sept. 30 

Photograph Courtesy Baltimore Museum of Art, the Cone Collection  

Reclining Nude I (Aurora), 1907, by Henri Matisse.

This Friday Trinity Lyric Opera opens its second season with Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land at its new home in the Castro Valley Center for the Arts.  

The Tender Land—a title taken from its love duet between a wandering laborer and a Midwestern farm girl—is aptly named. For this work is a perceptive and nostalgic look at the lives of the common man and woman at a moment in American history. Inspired by James Agee and Walker Evans’ book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a photographic record of Southern sharecroppers during the Depression, Copland and his librettist shifted the opera’s focus to a Midwestern family during the 1930s.  

The opera opens with Ma Moss singing of the cares of keeping a family together with two bits of metal—her needle and thimble. Her daughter Laurie graduates the following day and she will be the first in the family to finish high school. The story centers on the conflict that Laurie’s growing up brings those who love her. For the Moss family is conservative, hard working and impoverished, filled with fears of loss and the outside world. Laurie’s need to be free is in opposition to her family’s integrity. 

The Tender Land was never a huge success, and most of Copland’s statements about the opera seem apologetic. In a 1980 NPR interview he commented: “I don’t think the libretto was that fascinating from a theatrical standpoint.” The opera was meant “not for the Met but for lyric theater with more modest pretensions.” 

In his autobiographical writings, Copland seems to fault the music for lack of complexity: Tender Land “is not the kind of work to be pulled apart for study of its counterpoint and harmony ... The music is very plain, with a colloquial flavor, mostly diatonic and orchestrated simply.” 

Copland, who was never comfortable with the operatic form and referred to it as “la forme fatale,” missed the strengths of his own achievement—and the strengths of his librettist, his then-partner, dancer and painter Erik Johns, writing under the pseudonym of Horace Everett.  

The straightforward story in which the dreaded and feared never become realized—no one dies of tuberculosis or flings herself from the rooftops—is written in American vernacular, but not without lyrical elegance: 

The sun is coming up as though I’ve never seen it rise before.  

The day is bright and clear.  

The door I just came through has opened on a new place, a new earth. 

But the libretto’s greatest virtue lies in the ease with which it allowed Copland to set the words into a continuous lyrical flow containing both his characteristic tunefulness and an orchestral expansiveness woven with subtle dynamics and harmonies. This largeness in the music reflects the original quality of Evans’ photos and brings to the opera that sense of unending time and space intrinsic to the American heartland. Johns described The Tender Land as “in the nature of an operatic tone poem.” 

Copland was also able to weave the characters’ complexities into his music—from the quiet opening phrases, during which Laurie’s sister plays with her dolly and through which shimmer the long rays of sunlight on prairie life, to the dissonant moments when Laurie, having risen before dawn to escape with Martin, realizes that she must change her life on her own. 

During the rehearsal on Tuesday, I saw that Trinity Lyric Opera made several excellent decisions for this production. First of all, the singers are wonderful. Marnie Breckenridge makes an exquisite Laurie, her purity of voice is ideal for the innocent girl, and her acting is superb. She is supported by equally fine singers: mezzo-soprano Valentina Ozinski as Ma Moss, tenor Wesley Rogers as Martin, baritone Brian Leerhuber as Top, and bass Kirk Eichelberger as Grandpa, among others. 

Further, director Olivia Stapp has staged this opera with great sensitivity. The actors’ movements flow as naturally as the music, and her understated approach never lapses into the cute or folksy but rather imbues the opera with a kind of graciousness that respects the characters’ struggles.  

But perhaps the most interesting artistic choice was the use of Evans’ photos. Projected at the sides of the stage, these beautiful black-and-white photographs not only describe the Depression-era world of the opera, they make an incisive statement about American attachment to the land. For in the faces of the beleaguered poor, what shows is not only duress but a kind of openness—a landscape of vastness that is reflected in fields of corn, a kettle, a spool of thread, and that becomes iconic in the pale blue-eyed gaze of a young boy. 

Whatever Copland may have felt about his opera, this is a production worth seeing. It isn’t saturated with excessive emotions, but it is tender. And in being so it reaches into the heart in ways that we seldom have the opportunity to experience.  

THE TENDER LAND 

Presented by Trinity Lyric Opera at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 14; Tuesday, July 17 and Friday July 20; and at 2 p.m. Sunday July 22. Maestro John Kendall Bailey gives a talk one hour prior to each performance.  

Castro Valley Center for the Arts 

19501 Redwood Road, Castro Valley. 

Easily accessible by freeway and BART.  

$10-$40, bargain matinee seats available for Sunday matinee. www.trinitylyricopera.org. 

It’s a perverse world that lets the name of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami remain obscure to the vast Western film-going public. He is considered by many to among the three or four greatest artists in cinema today, the creative force behind some of the most thoughtful and compelling films of the past 25 years. 

Pacific Film Archive and Berkeley Art Museum are celebrating his career with an exhibition of his work entitled “Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker,” consisting of screenings of his movies at PFA and an exhibition of his photography at BAM. The films series runs through Aug. 30; the photography exhibit is on view through Sept. 23.  

Much of Kiarostami’s cinema consists of contemplative, intelligent films that probe into the thoughts and souls of his characters, using non-professional actors selected for their faces and for their innate character. He began his career making documentaries about the lives of children in Iran, later fusing documentary work with fiction in the creation of dynamic hybrid films. But it was with 1999’s Taste of Cherry that Kiarostami firmly cemented his international reputation, becoming the first Iranian filmmaker to win the Palme d’or at the Cannes film festival.  

Taste of Cherry, showing Aug. 11, is a slow, meditative film about a man, Mr. Badii, trolling through the outskirts of Tehran in search of someone to help him committ suicide. He has dug a hole in a dusty mountainside and intends to take an overdose of sleeping pills and settle into the pit one night, never to wake up. But he worries that he might survive, and so he goes looking for someone who will agree to check on him in the morning and either rescue or bury him. 

The film consists primarily of Badii driving around Tehran in his beat-up Range Rover, scanning the faces of work-soliciting day laborers, of scroungers and hitchhikers and passersby, looking for a sympathetic and competent assistant. He finds three prospects along the way: a young soldier, a middle-aged seminarian, and an aging taxidermist. Badii engages in long discussions with each as they drive along, contemplating life and death and trying to persuade them to help him. 

It is a thoughtful tale infused with philosophical dialogue and simple symbolic devices. We never learn the secret of Badii’s despair, for it is irrelevant. What Kiarostami is really aiming for is allegory. Badii, in the form of his passengers, is taken from youth through old age, from fear and naiveté to religious conviction to aged wisdom and practicality. All the while the truck slowly navigates meandering, desolate roads on its way up the mountain. 

The film closes with an ambiguous shot of Badii withdrawing into the hole, closing his eyes and receding into darkness as a storm gathers above him. Kiarostami gives no signal as to whether Badii lives or dies, and some critics have questioned this decision. But there really is no other appropriate conclusion; the ending can only be ambiguous, as this is not simply the story of Badii’s suicide attempt but a discussion of suicide in general, and specifically in a religious society that forbids it. It is likewise just as much a story about the passengers that share Badii’s Range Rover and the ways in which his plan forces them to confront their own beliefs and values, as well as an invitation to ponder such thoughts ourselves, thereby making us complicit in the exercise. “I believe in a cinema which gives more possibilities and more time to its viewer,” Kiarostami told film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, “a half-fabricated cinema, an unfinished cinema that is completed by the creative spirit of the viewer, [so that] all of a sudden we have a hundred films.”  

There has always been a contingent of directors who have fought against the inherent passivity of the cinematic experience. Live theater requires audience participation in the suspension of disbelief in the face of fabricated sets, as well as the necessity of response via laughter or applause. In its golden age in the 1930s and ’40s, radio, the so-called “theater of the mind,” enlisted the imagination of the listener to fill in the gaps left by the lack of visuals. Even silent film required the use of that imagination, requiring audiences to imagine voices and sound effects to accompany the action on the screen.  

But full-color, sound-era cinema supplies nearly all that is necessary, and thus the experience requires far less of the viewer. Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry instead asks the audience to take part, to contemplate the value of life, the nature of suicide, and the search for meaning in the face of despair.  

But what critics of the film have found most baffling about it is the coda which follows Badii’s ambiguous fate. After 890 minutes of meditative imagery and philosophic discussion, the appearance of behind-the-scenes footage is jarring. We see the lead actor passing a cigarette to Kiarostami, technicians positioning microphones, and a group of soldiers from an early scene in the film are given the OK to call it a day and relax. At first it may seem like an ironic distancing measure, a shallow gesture to simply remind the audience that, after all, it’s just a movie. But the coda is far more compelling and profound than that, for it serves as a life-affirming counterpoint to the bleakness that preceded it.  

The presence of soldiers in the shot recalls Badii’s earlier reminiscence about his military service, where he met his closest friends and took part in a group dynamic, as opposed to the action of the film, in which he is largely alone, and never in the company of more than one person at a time. What Kiarostami shows us with this final scene is the reality behind the story of Badii—that filmmaking is a communal experience, consisting of comrades taking pleasure in community, in art, in craft, and in the simple act of lounging together in the grass, with shots of the soldiers taking a break from their soldiering, enjoying each other’s company beneath blooming trees and clear skies. Yet all this takes place to the strains of Louis Armstrong’s recording of “St. James Infirmary,” a song about impending death. It is a gentle reminder, an endorsement of the views of Badii’s final passenger, that simple moments are what defines a life. “Would you give up the taste of cherries?” he had asked Badii, and here Kiarostami gives us that taste, demonstrating in effect that there is much to be appreciated in this life if one is willing to reach for it, and than even a despairing conversation along a dusty road in a beat-up Range Rover is an experience not to be missed. 

ABBAS KIAROSTAMI:  

IMAGE MAKER 

Through Aug. 30 at Pacific Film archive; through Sept. 23 at Berkeley Art Museum. www.bampfa.edu.  

Photograph: Homayoun Ershadi as Mr. Badii in Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Berkeley was promoted as a City of Homes. In 1905, the Conference Committee of the Improvement Clubs of Berkeley, California published an illustrated booklet bearing this title and featuring various private residences. But the concept of home would soon change. The San Francisco earthquake and fire brought a flood of refugees into the East Bay, and many real-estate entrepreneurs quickly rolled up their sleeves to meet the housing demand. 

Alongside a record number of new single-family homes built from 1906 on, large apartment buildings appeared for the first time. These were usually elegant structures offering the latest amenities, such as steam heat, hot water on demand, modern kitchens and bathrooms, and space-saving wall beds. 

On May 19, 1906, barely a month after the earthquake, the Oakland Tribune published a drawing of an enormous new apartment building with the following caption: 

The new Stevens apartment house for Berkeley […] covers a space of 60 x 240 running from street to street with large open space on each side for sun and light. There will be thirty-six apartments of three rooms and store room and bath each, all fitted with folding beds built in and new kitchen improvements and everything that can be done for the comfort of the tenants in the way of labor-saving contrivances. 

The hot water system is the one used for heating and supplying of water at all times. There are two stacks of fireproof and earthquake-proof chimneys; radiators are placed in each room and bath, instead of mantels. Gas and electric heaters are in the kitchen and bath rooms. The whole building will be a model of its kind. The frame is to be made with continuous posts from foundation to roof. The floors to be unusually well fastened to same and the floor to be diagonally braced as well as doubled, so as to fully provide against any jar by earthquake. 

The walls and floors are of slow-burning construction. There will be a large public dining room on the first floor with kitchen store rooms, laundry, etc., complete; also here are situated the big furnaces that supply the building. They are to be built from fireproof vaults of reinforced concrete. Newsom & Newsom of 526 Larkin Street, San Francisco, are the architects. 

Three days earlier, the Berkeley Reporter provided additional details: 

An apartment house, which will cost in the neighborhood of $70,000 and will contain 155 rooms, is about to be erected by Mrs. A.C. Stevens, the well-known capitalist and enterprising woman of this city. […] The Lafayette will be the largest building of its kind in Berkeley […] the architects state that the structure is the longest for which they have ever drawn plans, outside of one erected at the [1894 San Francisco] Midwinter Fair. 

Mary Woodbury Stevens (1859–1945) was indeed an enterprising woman. The wife of Nova Scotian evangelist Ansley Chesley Stevens (1856–1936), she was a major landowner in Berkeley. In 1907, when the Lafayette Apartments were under construction, Mrs. Stevens owned seven properties in town. The following year, her holdings had increased to a dozen. 

One wouldn’t think of a missionary’s wife as a capitalist, but Mary Stevens was born to money. A native of West Springfield, MA, Mary was the daughter of Edward W. Southworth, who with his brother Wells founded the Southworth Paper Company, which exists until today. The Southworths were descended from Constant Southworth, offspring of a long line of English knights. Constant, whose mother had married William Bradford, Governor and historian of the Plymouth Colony, came to Massachusetts in 1628 and would become one of its prominent citizens. 

The Southworth family valued education. Two of Mary’s brothers studied in Germany, one of them going on to study medicine. Two other brothers were students at Yale, where they were members of the powerful and secretive Order of Skull and Bones. Mary received her education at the exclusive Miss Porter’s School for Girls in Farmington, Conn. 

In 1893, Mary married Ansley Stevens, probably in Boston. The two appeared in Berkeley in 1902, and until 1910 lived at 2157–59 Addison Street, on the current site of University Hall’s parking lot. The house was torn down in the 1920s. 

When completed in 1907 or ’08, the Lafayette Apartments had two addresses: 2314 Haste St. and 2315 Dwight Way. Although the College Homestead Tract south of the campus had been substantially built up by the first decade of the 20th century, the block where the Lafayette was sited was an exception, having contained until then only one house—an early shingled residence fronting on Ellsworth Street. Until the mid-1920s, the lots around the Lafayette were vacant, fulfilling the early promise of “large open space on each side for sun and light.” 

The completed building was somewhat less elaborately ornamented than the sketch published in the Tribune. Between the drawing board and construction, the balustraded roof parapet and the pediments on the long lateral walls were discarded, leaving relatively plain elevations with four pairs of Corinthian pilasters. Two overblown façades, complete with pediments, gigantic mock Corinthian columns, and clumsy tiered balconies, were tacked onto the street elevations. The architects, Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom, were never known for restraint. The brothers are best remembered for having designed America’s most famous Queen Anne edifice, the extravagant (some say outlandish) Carson Mansion in Eureka. Not for nothing did Willis Polk dub them “the Gruesomes.” 

The Lafayette’s pastiche neoclassical elements were executed not in stone but in redwood, and the pizzazz wasn’t limited to the exterior. Inside, the building was finished in white pine and redwood paneling. Apartment doors were inlaid with translucent glass. A large, skylit rotunda with a spiral staircase occupied the center of the building, and hand-turned banisters adorned the stairs. 

Boasting the latest amenities, including a private telephone exchange, the Lafayette attracted desirable tenants: professionals, managers, merchants, clerical workers, and teachers, including the mother, sister, and brother of Berkeley Mayor Samuel C. Irving. Owners Mary and Ansley Stevens lived here from 1910 until 1915, when they disappeared from town, presumably to spread the gospel abroad. Eventually they settled in Oakland, where Mary purchased the Dunsmuir Apartments at 1515 Alice Street. Reverend Stevens was variously listed as superintendent of the Berkeley Free Bible & Tract Society and general superintendent of the East Bay District United Evangelistic Mission Association, the latter located at 594 31st Street. 

As late as 1924, Mrs. Stevens was still the owner of the Lafayette. Soon, her building would be flanked by four other large apartment houses, constructed in the vacant lots on either side. First came the Mira Monte at 2322 Haste St., which began advertising furnished and unfurnished apartments in January 1925. It was followed in January 1928 by the Elsmere at 2321 Dwight Way. The six-story Picardo Arms, 2491 Ellsworth St., opened in November 1928, and the nameless 2320 Haste St. was completed ten months later. 

All the newcomers were attractive, the most elegant of them being the Picardo Arms, designed by the prolific architect Herman Carl Baumann (1890–1960), who would soon create the Art Deco Bellevue-Staten on the shore of Lake Merritt. Having survived as a distinguished marker on the Southside, the Picardo Arms recently lost all its original windows to vinyl blight. 

Considerably less refined, the three-story Elsmere offered the newfangled attraction of a large cement courtyard with 22 individual garages. The 24 furnished apartments included Frigidaire refrigerators, Spark lid-top ranges, and Marshall & Stearns wall beds. In a novel cross-marketing maneuver, the manufacturers of these appliances and other contractors and suppliers associated with the Elsmere all took out ads on the same Tribune page that announced the opening of the building. 

The owner of the Elsmere was Louis Saroni, a well-known sugar wholesaler and former candy manufacturer. The son of German-Jewish immigrants, Saroni (1856–1936) relocated his business from San Francisco to Oakland in the wake of the 1906 earthquake. His son, Albert B. Saroni, married into the Zellerbach family and took over the sugar business, while the father invested in East Bay real estate. 

Whether before or after he built the Elsmere, Saroni acquired the Lafayette Apartments from Mary Stevens. He was already advanced in years, and the Depression no doubt contributed to the Lafayette’s state of neglect. In 1935, the building was in violation of several articles in the city code, and Saroni wanted it off his hands. The recently formed University of California Students’ Cooperative Association (UCSCA) signed an advantageous long-term lease and renamed the building Barrington Hall. The conversion from apartments to student co-op entailed removing the kitchens from 45 units and opening up the ground floor to create a lobby. 

World War II brought about a decline in male student enrollment, while housing was needed for the Richmond shipyard workers. In 1943, following much official pressure brought to bear on UCSCA, the U.S. Navy leased Barrington for five years. In December of that year, the Navy spent $76,000 to modernize the building and convert it back into apartments. In the process, all ornamentation was stripped away, leaving a plainly utilitarian structure. 

In 1948, while the building was still occupied by the Navy, the Saroni family offered to sell the residuum of Barrington Hall’s lease to the co-op (now USCA) for $16,000. This windfall enabled USCA to spend $15,000 on altering the building one more time, converting the apartments into co-op use. 

By the 1980s, Barrington Hall had become USCA’s most notorious co-op. Neighbors complained it was a “noisy, unsafe, unsanitary, rat trap.” After the San Francisco Chronicle focused its attention on heroin use at Barrington, USCA lost its insurance coverage. Subsequent investigation revealed that dozens of habitual heroin users and dealers lived in the house. Continuing trouble and a costly lawsuit finally led to the hall’s closure in 1990. 

The building has since been leased to a contractor who operates it as a rooming house called Evans Manor. While the four neighboring apartment buildings retain much of their original appearance, Evans Manor is a charmless hulk, albeit one redolent of glory in the hearts of old Barringtonians. 

Photograph: Daniella Thompson  

Located next to the Lafayette, the Elsmere at 2321 Dwight Way included built-in garages when it opened in 1928. 

I’ve talked about a couple of ethical aspects of gardening over the past two weeks: ethical suppliers and basic kindness to plants, the reason I don’t buy Arizona desert species for my shady, poorly drained Berkeley garden.  

But wait; there’s more!  

(Gardening can get to feeling like being a Catholic in the ‘50s: no matter what you do, it’s morally suspect. Some of us remember the “fault” of scrupulosity. If you’re too careful about never doing anything wrong, that’s wrong too. Think too much about this stuff, you’ll end up catatonic. A commenter on Twisty Faster’s ovular blog I Blame the Patriarchy countered paralytic perfectionism. One’s patriarchy footprint, like one’s carbon footprint, exists no matter what, but it’s useful to reduce its size. So stop fretting, start learning, and garden on.) 

What we plant and where we plant it matters also because of two almost-contradictory points.  

The first and most obvious is that we shouldn’t plant invasive exotics. Reams and volumes have been devoted to this point, but still the “really, this variety hasn’t been proven invasive yet” broom and “oh, it’s not so bad on the coast” pampas grass and German ivy and Algerian ivy and Japanese dodder—the yellow stuff that eats entire trees—gets sold and bought, and planted.  

Planting invasives is no more responsible than a night at the bathhouse without condoms. “Invasive” means wildland-invasive, not garden-invasive; the latter’s a mere inconvenience, though it is certainly reason for suspicion.  

More subtle is the idea that maybe we shouldn’t plant natives, either—if they’re close enough relatives of our native neighbors to interbreed with them, but distant enough in other ways to mess with the local gene pools. For example, California poppies from the south of the state might have heritable differences from those native here; we just haven’t noticed those differences yet.  

The wild strawberries native to Strawberry Creek are legendary for their taste, though I doubt there are any of the originals left there. Most of what you can buy (or find) is insipid. They look the same, though.  

Coastal wild California poppies look different to us, yellower than the straight-orange “standard” poppy. For all we know, northern and southern, or Contra Costa and Marin, or Berkeley hills and South Bay orange poppies might look different to, say, certain native bees; they might have markers visible only in the ultraviolet range. They might smell different to other olfactory receptors. It might matter. We don’t know.  

With that in mind, Native Here Nursery in Tilden Park labels its plants with their points of origin, in careful detail, sometimes as fine as the north side of some hill vs. the south side. If someday we find out that there are differences that matter, such plants will have kept their ancestry whole, ready for the future. 

Native Here Nursery 

101 Golf Course Road, Berkeley 

(510) 549-0211 

Fri.: 9 a.m.-noon; Sat. 10 a.m.-1 p.m. 

Tilden Park, across from the entrance to the Tilden Golf Coursewww.ebcnps.org/nativehere.html 

Twisty Faster 

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Daily Planet.

Do you know The Consultant’s Song? It goes: Maybe it’s this way, or maybe it’s that way and I get paid’O in either case’O. 

I’m a consultant of sorts and there is nothing more irksome to me than having to say, “I don’t know.” Now, I realize that this can be a true statement (and ‘No’ is a complete sentence, right) and can even be the most accurate assessment of my findings at some point but I just don’t like it. 

I get paid to provide answers and to try to fill in dark areas. So, when I’m forced to say, “Hey, I can’t see this and I don’t know if it’s good or bad,” it really bugs me. I feel like a cheat. Nevertheless, there are times when I just can’t see things that I’d really need to see in order to make meaningful statements about such-and-such a thing (say a drainage system). If someone had merely snapped a picture or two during the process and kept them around, the verification process would be so much easier. 

I get handed permits on a pretty regular basis and asked to draw some conclusion based on what these cards and forms say. Let me tell you, the data is pretty lean on permits and other municipal records. If there are stamped drawings, well, that’s a different matter. They’re a much better indicator, although there’s no way to be sure that things were done according to plans, and as you might suspect, it’s quite common for things to be anywhere from a little to way different from the plans.  

Now, show me a photo of an open trench bearing pipes, gravel and drainage-fabric and I can begin to say some things about what I’m looking at. Give me 10 photos of the same thing and it’s gets better. Show me a picture of the bubble on the level on the pipe in the trench and I’m all smiles. I’d be downright proud of the homeowner or builder and would sing it loudly. I’m no longer forced to say that I have no idea how well this “supposed” French drain is going to work. I can make a fair guess. 

Back in my remodeling days, I took a lot of pictures of jobs I worked on. These served multiple functions. Firstly, if the city inspector ever claimed to have not seen the inside of a wall we’d closed up, I could grab my file and show them a picture of what the rough plumbing and wiring in that wall looked like. This was always met with agreement and satisfaction (although I don’t recommend reliance on this). 

If we were trying to remember where we put a particular thing in a wall in a later phase of work (such as a pipe or wire), we could pull out the pictures. Clients loved the set of extra prints I’d lay on ‘em during or after work. It showed confidence on my part, gave them something to show their friends (doesn’t everyone like to look at remodels in progress?) and gave proof of the work when selling the house. I’m sure you can think of other cases in which these might prove tremendously valuable. 

As someone who sees things after the fact, I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me to be handed a file, filled with photos of the remodel I’m being asked to look at. My first assumption is that the builder or homeowner is thinking about the future. Most people seem only to be thinking about that day (or minute). But the act of photographing implies a larger mind-set. They’re also thinking about the next person, not just themselves. They’re including unmet friends in their process and helping the next person to manage what might be a difficult situation. If you know the layout of the drainage system, you may well be able to perform a repair without tearing the whole thing apart. If you have photos of where the pipes and wires were located in a wall, you might be able to make one small hole rather than tear out a wall of sheetrock. 

It’s many a day when I’m looking at a crawlspace filled with newly-placed plywood panels designed to protect the occupants from the shaking earth. Sadly, what’s behind these well-nailed panels is often critical and largely invisible. A set of photos of the bolting behind, say 3 or 4 of these would be enough to satisfy my inner curmudgeon on most days and will likely do the same for future buyers and many city officials. Again, the more photos the better. 

The cost of photos is very, very small. Today, I leave the house with two cameras. A really nice one that I keep hidden away for special stuff and a tiny, used, eBay, fixed-focus, Fuji with enough memory for 122 photos at 1/3 of a Meg (these make sharp 4x6 pictures). Now, I don’t care if you want to shoot film but, if you have a computer, you can store way more photos than you’ll ever need at almost no cost. There is NO excuse not to take pictures. The average remodel runs into many thousands of dollars. A disposable camera costs 5 bucks and might turn out to be a very important thing when they switch site inspector on you or when a buyer starts asking about what’s behind that wall or how deep you poured the concrete under the hot-tub. 

If you’re a homeowner working with a contractor, go take a bunch of pictures of the work every day when you come home. They’ll help if a dispute arises and provide good evidence of the work for the future. If you’re a builder, you’re missing out on one of the best marketing tactics known to woman or man by not photographing your work and keeping photos to show prospective clients. If you buy a little photo album and show before and after pictures of three of your jobs including all the bolting and wiring stuff that some people like to see, you can raise your rates. Photos are worth thousands of words. They’re also worth thousands of dollars when selling a house, sitting in court or selling your wares.  

Now, if you could just get the plumber to smile. 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.

At a retrofit seminar last weekend, I saw a photo of a braced chimney that had fallen in an earthquake, just like its un-braced neighbors.  

The point being made was that bracing a chimney is a waste of money—if you have a masonry chimney, you can pretty much count on it falling in a serious quake. 

So, you can spend a bunch of money and have it removed and replaced with a wood-framed chimney and metal flue, or you can make real sure that you are not outside under the chimney when it falls. 

If you’re there when the shaking starts, move to another spot!  

Wishing you a safe home and peace of mind.  

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service.  

Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.

FRIDAY, JULY 13 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

“The San Luis Obispo Experience and A New Vision for Center Street” with a delegation from an Luis Obispo speaking on their Mission Street project, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium. 419-0850. 

Fundraiser for the Free Gaza Movement with Paul Larudee at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitaruian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. Donation $10-$100, no one turned away. 236-5388. 

International Working Class Film Festival with class struggle films from Australia at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

CopWatch Conference, Fri. eve. through Sun. at Laney College, Oakland. For details see www.copwatchconference.org 

“The Jewish Chicken Ranchers of Petaluma” A documentary at 7 p.m. at The The Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at Alcatraz, Oakland. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 2000 Shattuck Ave. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com Code: CITYOFBERKELEY.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253.  

SATURDAY, JULY 14 

Peach Tasting, including other stone fruits from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. and MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. 

Open the Farm Meet and greet the animals at the Little Farm as you help the farmer with morning chores, at 9 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 6-9 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Feast for the Beasts Come to the Oakland Zoo at 9 a.m. for breakfast for the whole family. Bring apples, grapes, lettuce and carrots for the animals. Cost is $6. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Vegetarian Cooking Class “Burgers & Backyard Bites” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro, Oakland. Cost is $45 plus $5 materials fee. Registration required. 531-COOK. www.compassionatecooks.com 

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. 

The Great War Society meets to discuss “French War Aims in WWI” with Robert Denison, at 10:30 a.m. at 640 Arlington Ave. 527-7118. 

Family Sundown Safari at 5 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo. A hands-on program for children 3 and up to explore the Valley Children’s Zoo. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

Succulents for Bay Area Gardens at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave., off 7th St. 644-2351. 

Preschool Storytime for 3 to 5-year-olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext. 17. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

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, JULY 15 

Bay to Barkers Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society’s annual dog walk/run, including many activities for canines from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Registration is $25 in advance, $30 on the day of the event. 845-7735, ext. 13. www.berkeleyhumane.org 

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

Fun on the Farm Day Sing traditional songs, help grind corn and see how wool is turned into yarn from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

The Red Oak Victory Ship Pancake Breakfast from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on board the ship. Take Hwy 580 to Richmond and exit at Canal Blvd. Cost is $6, children under 6 free. 526-7377. 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m.at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby & Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Bike Tour of the Port of Oakland on a leisurely 5-mile ride. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance to the Oakland Museum of California. Reservations required. 238-3514.  

Parent-Child Self-Protection Workshop on everyday safety skills from 10 a.m. to noon in Berkeley. Cost is $60, no one turned away. Location details upon registration. 831-426-4407. 

East Bay Atheists will show the documentary “Jesus Camp” at 1:30 p.m. in the 3rd flr meeting room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 222-7580. 

Homemade Pet Foods from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Kensington Farmers’ Market, 303 Arlington, behind ACE Hardware.  

Social Action Forum with Eric Moon of the American Friends Service Committee at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “the Four Catalysts of Being” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JULY 16 

“The Wells Fargo History Museum, 1852 to the Present” a Brown Bag Lunch with curator Anne Hall at 12:30 p.m. at the Edith Stone Room, Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Community and Student Anti-War Group Come to an organizing meeting at 7 p.m. at Café Med, Telegraph Ave. to plan the upcoming concert-peace rally at Peoples Park in the middle of September and other fall activities. 658-1451. www.peoplesparkcommunity.org 

Sing-a-long Circles in the Oak Grove from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the threatened Oak Grove in front of Memorial Stadium, Piedmont Ave., just north of Bancroft. 658-9178. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the West Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, UC Campus To schedule an appointmento to www.BeADonor.com (Code: UCB). 

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

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

Drop in Knitting Class at the Albany Library Work on your own project or make pet blankets and children’s hats to be donated to charity organizations. Yarn and needles provided for donated items. At 3:30 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

TUESDAY, JULY 17 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Arrowhead Marsh at the Martin Luther King Regional Shoreline. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

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. For information and to register call 525-2233.  

The Pit Stop: Peaches & Barbecue at the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers’ Market from 3 to 7 p.m. at Derby St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org/bfm  

Prospective Parenting for the LGBT Community at 6:30 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 415-981-1960. stephanie@ourfamily.org 

Feng Shui Your Mind with Maureen Raytis, acupuncturist, and Jill Lebeau, psychotherapist at 7 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

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. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. 

Tuesday Documentaries at 7 p.m. at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Donation of $5 benefits the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. 665-0305. 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 1247 Marin Ave. 524-9122.  

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 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, JULY 18 

South Berkeley Assessment of Library Needs with Noll & Tam Architects who have been hired to investigate possible spaces for the library at the Ed Roberts Campus, at Board of Library Trustees meeting at 7 p.m. at South Branch Library, 1901 Russell Street at MLK, Jr., Way. 981-6107. 

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 

“You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression” with Matthew Rothschild, editor and publisher of The Progressive, at 7 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698.  

Harry Potter Jeopardy Children up to the age of 15 can show off thie\\eir Harry Potter knowledge at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

Family Math and Science Night for children aged 7-10 and their families at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

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

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

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JULY 19 

Tilden Mini-Rangers Hiking, conservation and nature-based activities for ages 8-12. Dress to ramble and get dirty. From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Summer Family Film Festival Children’s film at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 3rd flr., 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

“Global Warming Impacts on the Bay Area” a slideshow and lecture with Bruce Riordan at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways Bookstore, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Estate Planning Essentials for the LGBT Community at 6:30 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 415-981-1960.  

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755.  

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline. nam 

aste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Mon. July 16, at 7 p.m. for a public hearing on Trader Joe’s/Kragen development and demolition permit for 2701 Shattuck. 981-6900. 

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Mon. July 16 and Wed., July 18, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Tues., July 17, at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers. 981-6900.  

City Council meets Tues., July 17, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., July 18, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6601. 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., July 18, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5344.  

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., July 19, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

Commission on Labor meets Thurs., July 19, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7550.  

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., July 19, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7010.  

Tuesday’s review of Crowded Fire Theater Company’s Anna Bella Eema at Ashby Stage mistakenly attributed last year’s production of The Typographer’s Dream to Crowded Fire. The play was actually produced by Encore Theatre and remounted at Ashby Stage in association with Shotgun Players.

TUESDAY, JULY 10 

CHILDREN 

Gary Lapow, singer and songwriter, performs for children and their families at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext 17. 

Los Mapaches Local Latin American youth ensemble performs music from the Andes at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Dance Elixer “Land” A multi-media installation and performance at 12:15 and 5:15 p.m., Tues.-Fri., Sat. at 3 p.m. at Oakland Art Gallery, 199 Kahn’s Alley at the Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. 637-0395. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Freight and Salvage Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $4.50-$5.50. 548-1761. 

Barbara Quick re-creates eighteenth century Venice in “Vivaldi’s Virgins” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Hipnotic Blues Band featuring Eldridge “Big Cat” Tolefree and Tia Carroll at 5:30 p.m. at Park Place at Washington Ave., Point Richmond. Free. www.pointrichmond.com/prmusic/ 

WomenSing perform works including including Raichl’s “Amours,” Jeffers’ “Indian Singing,” and selections from Carter, Larsen and more at 7:30 p.m. at Valley Center for the Performing Arts, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. 925-254-6254. 

Creole Belles at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

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

Ellen Honert at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jim Campilongo at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $6-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

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

WEDNESDAY, JULY 11 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Bridge to Sakai: Japanese Arts and Crafts of Today” Part of the Berkeley/Sakai Sister City cultural exchange, on display at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893. www.berkeleysrtcenter.org 

“Art for Humanity” Art work on addressing the world’s most pressing problems at the Addison Street Windows Gallery through Aug. 25.  

“Suddenly Summer” A group show by East Bay women artists. Reception at 6 p.m. at Royal Ground Gallery, 2058 Mountain Blvd., Montclair, Oakland.  

“Yosemite: Art of an American Icon” Reception and presentation to benefit the Yosemite National Institutes, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Tickets are $50. 415-332-5776, ext. 10. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Dave Zirin introduces “Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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 

Echo Beach at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $11. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Naomi & The Courteous Bude Boays, Renee Asteria, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054.  

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

John Richardson Band with John Shinnick and Hudson Bunce at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Limpopo at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

John Santos Quintet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 12 

EXHIBITIONS 

Residency Projects Part II Works by Packard Jennings, Scott Kildall and Stephanie Syjuco. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Headtrip” An exhibition of portraits by 26 artists. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at Barbara Anderson Gallery, 2243 Fifth St. 848-3822. 

“Summer Solos” Works by Yvette Molina, Chelsea Pegram and Amanda Williams. Artist talk at 6 p.m. at Pro Arts, 550 Second St., Oakland. 763-9425. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Andrea Hollander Budy and Kathleen Lynch at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Deborah Siegel introduces “Sisterhood Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Conversations on Art with Faith Powell on the representation of the dinner table and its trimmings in the context of Jewish art, at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950. 

Glenn Kurtz reads from “Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bolero y Mas Trio at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

“Voices in the Virtual World” Grant Gardner, jazz guitarist and Jonathan Segel, at 8 p.m. at Oaktown Creativity Center, 447 25th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5-$10. 568-6920. 

Rani Arbor & Daisy Mayhem at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Fourtet CD release party at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Whiskey Brothers, bluegrass, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Okay, ChinaTown Bakeries, Beatbeat Whisper at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. 

The Bake Sale 2.0, hip hop at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$7. 849-2568.  

Matt Lucas Experience at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Jane Moheit at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200. 

FRIDAY, JULY 13 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “All in the Timing” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Altarena Playhouse “Oh My Godmother” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Bosoms and Neglect” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., SUn. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 22. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “Man and Superman” by George Bernard Shaw at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through July 29. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Central Works “Bird in the Hand” Thurs-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 29. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Meet Me in St. Louis” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. in July at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Aug. 4. 524-9132. 

Crowded Fire Theater “Anna Bella Eema” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. through July 15. Tickets are $10-$20. 415-439-2456. www.crowdedfire.org 

Impact Theatre “Impact Briefs 8: Sinfully Delicious” Thurs.-Sat. through July 21 at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Masquers Playhouse “Ring Round the Moon” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through July 14. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Woodminster Summer Musicals “West Side Story” at 8 p.m. through July 22 at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland. Tickets are $23-$36. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

National Juried Fine Craft Exhibition Opening reception at 6 p.m. at the ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Exhibit runs through Aug. 18. 843-2527. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Donna Lane and Judy Juanita read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave., at Hearst. 841-6374. 

Hailey Lind reads from “Brush with Death” at 7 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 228-3207.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ariel String Quartet perform music of Haydn, Dvorak, Suprynowicz, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremon, at Ashby. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-1228. giorgigallery.com 

“Home Sweet Home” A musical exploring the themes of grief and loss. Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Mahea Uchiyama Center for International Dance, 729 Heinz St., #4. Tickets are $8-$12. Not suitable for children under 13. homesweethometickets@yahoo.com 

The Hipnotic Blues Band with Eldridge “Big Cat” Tolefree and Tia Caroll, at 5:30 p.m. at Park Place at Washington Ave., Point Richmond. Free. www. 

pointrichmond.com/prmusic/ 

Lost Legends, Freddie Roulette at 9:30 p.m. at Baltic Sq. Pub, 135 Park Place, Pt. Richmond. 235-2532. 

Alfonso Maya, Mexican trova, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Sylvia Cuenca Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Jazzschool Summer Youth Program Concert at 6:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Free. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Phenomenauts, Maldroid, The Struts, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Patrick Bernard Concert” ancient mantra and dance at 8 p.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. TIckets are $20. 496-6047. 

Anton Schwartz, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Hawaiian Generations: George & Keoki Kahumoku, Dennis & David Kamakahi at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Nomadics, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Mushroom, Bart Davenport, Ruthann Friedman at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Radio Suicide, The Michetons, Fight Me Juliet at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Embrace the End, Spires, Times of Despiration at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

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

Destino Wolf at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Jane Moheit at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 14 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Moshi Moshi! Bridging Cultures through Art” Japanese and American art inspired by cross cultural influences. Reception at 3 p.m. at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond, and runs through Aug. 10. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“Tsunami Affected Lives: Moving Beyond Disaster” Photographs by Adrienne Miller Opening party at 3 p.m. at La Peña. Exhibit runs to Aug. 31. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Dance Elixer “Land” A multi-media installation and performance at 3 p.m. at Oakland Art Gallery, 199 Kahn’s Alley at the Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. 637-0395.  

Huichol Indian Yarn Paintings Exhibition from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Gathering Tribes, 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038. 

“The Wrong Friends” Sculpture and drawings by Charlie Milgrim and “tropicalismo” works by Cassandra Auker, opening reception at 7 p.m. at The Gallery of Urban Art, 1746 13th St., Oakland. 910-1833. 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose St. 415-285-1717.  

Women’s Will “Romeo and Juliet” Sat. and Sun. at 1 p.m. in John Hinkle Park. 420-0813.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“From War to Peace: An Offering of Poetry and Music to Soothe a Suffering World” with Jan Dederick, Elisabeth Eliassen, Jeremy Cohne and others at 7 p.m. at 1300 Grand St., Alameda. Sponsored by the Alameda Public Affairs Forum and the Alameda Chapter of the Netwrok of Spiritual Progressives. Free, donations accepted. www.alamedaforum.org 

Bay Street Arts and Music Festival with live music and children’s activities Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Bay St., Emeryville. 655-4002.  

Dana Lyons, singer-songwriter at 7:30 p.m. at Green City Gallery, 1950 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8-$12. Benefit for Bay Localize. www.baylocalize.org 

Dekapitator, Fueled by Fire, Hatchet at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10-$12. 763-1146.  

Orquestra Karabali, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Gateswingers Jazz Band, traditional jazz at 8 p.m. at Central Perk, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 558-7375.  

Gail Dobson & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Samba Ngo at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054.  

Mere Ours and Kate Isenberg at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Captain Seahorse at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Sisters Morales at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Misner & Smith, Americana, bluegrass, folk, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

George Cotsirilos Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Michelle Pliner at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

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

Jimbo Trout and the Fishpeople, SecondsOnEnd, Howdy at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Never Healed, 86 Mentality, Set to Explode at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JULY 15 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Bridge to Sakai: Japanese Arts and Crafts of Today” Part of the Berkeley/Sakai Sister City cultural exchange. Artist reception at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893.  

“Near and Far” Photographs by Doug Donaldson. Artist reception at 4 p.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany.  

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose St. 415-285-1717.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lisa Margonelli on “Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline” A special event at 5 p.m. at Bridgeway Gas Station, Ashby and Claremont. 704-8222. 

Thomas Perry reads from his new suspense novel “Silence” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Jazz with Melvin Butts at 3 p.m., The History of Jazz with Randy Moore at 4:30 p.m. at Open Jam Session at 5 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Golden Gate Branch, 5606 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 597-5023. 

Jazz at the Chimes with Slammin’, all-body band, at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10. 228-3218. 

Music for Soprano and Friends at 3 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Church, 2220 Cedar St. at Spruce. 848-1755. 

Dance Theatre Arts of Hayward “Putting It Together” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $12-$15. 581-4780. 

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

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

Rita Hosking and Cousin Jack at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Sam Goldsmith Ensemble at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Shivoham, Kirtan rhythms, at 3 and 6 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20. 525-5054.  

Ellis Island Old World Folk Band at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Redhouse, The Waco Kid, Prismatica at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146.  

MONDAY, JULY 16 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alan Bern reads from his poetry at at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Ellen Klages reads from her new novel “Portable Childoods” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express with Leah Steinberg at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Dazzling Divas, sopranos Eliza O’Malley, Pamela Connelly and Tara Generalovich and mezzo soprano Kathleen Moss at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Peter Apfelbaum Sextet at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. 

Samba Mapangala at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. 

ARIEL STRING QUARTET AT GIORGI GALLERY 

Ariel String Quartet will perform music by Hayden, Dvorak, and Berkeley composer Clark Suprynowicz, whose opera, Chrysalis, staged by Berkeley Opera, was an outstanding show last year, on Friday, July 13, at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. (near Ashby). $15/$12. 848-1228. giorgigallery.com. 

KALA GALLERY SHOWS ‘RESIDENCY PROJECTS’ 

The Kala Gallery will present the second of its three-part exhibition series, “Residency Projects,” featuring work by Packard Jennings, Scott Kildall and Stephanie Syjuco on Thursday, July 12, with an opening reception, 6-8 p.m. The show continues through August 18.  

Kala Fellowships are awarded annually to eight artists working in installation, video, digital media, printmaking, and book arts. Fellowship artists come from various countries for an up-to-six-month residency followed by an exhibition of their new work. The gallery is at1060 Heinz Ave. For more information, call 549-2977 or see www.kala.org.

On a platform, three women sit, facing the audience. They don’t budge from their chairs until practically the end of the show, yet there’s a choreography, in Lisa D’Amour’s Anna Bella Eema, as directed by Rebecca Novick for Crowded Fire Theater Company at the Ashby Stage, and the three actors (Cassie Beck, Danielle Levin and Julie Kurtz) provide a rhythmic soundscape as well, with voice, simple musical instruments (a finger piano) and various ordinary objects as noisemakers.  

The story they enact—Beck and Levin as mother and daughter telling the audience their experiences and memories, while Kurtz plays both a speechless creature (“mud girl”) and other characters that crop up in the two narratives—at times seems like Erskine Caldwell plus The Brothers Grimm. 

Set in a trailer park that’s due for demolition to make way for the interstate, Anna Bella Eema is a kind of binocular view of a hippie mother (Irene, played by Beck), overstuffed with fantasy and fable from old books, endeavoring to (as a friend once put it) “circumvent the world,” while in a parable of oncoming puberty, her precocious 10-year-old, Anna Bella (played by Levin) makes a double, Anna Bella Eema (Kurtz) and tries to explore, in ways fantastic and ordinary, the world beyond her shut-in mother and their decrepit motor home. 

Each monologue of the narrative is supported by the sounds (sometimes in unison or syncopated) and gestures of the other two. Irene weaves in and out of fantasy, practically delusional at times, while Anna Bella, in a long-term dreamstate, brought on by an injury, makes a shamanistic—and humorous—journey among the animal spirits her mother hazes in and out of in her own schitzy state. 

There’s a grace and confidence in the ensemble work of the three women, and Kurtz shows a real talent for mimicry and humor, also lending an offbeat accent to what’s otherwise often close to a metronomic swipe in the somewhat Expressionistic effects of rhythm. 

This Expressionism of sound and gesture amplifies the hybrid fairytale quality, and sometimes feeds back. The devices get to be a little Disney-ish, too, illustrating a narrative with sounds and gestures that merely mimic or duplicate what the words have already said. And the very frontal orientation of the cast addressing the audience through monologues supported by sounds and action by the rest of the ensemble is strangely reminiscent of The Typographer’s Dream, Crowded Fire’s production of a very different kind of play by a different playwright at the Ashby Stage last year, staged as a panel discussion—three actors facing forward ... and, one by one, talking. 

D’Amour’s script resembles other neo-Gothic tales of recent times, though her humor is a signature.  

But what most spectators will probably go away with from Crowded Fire’s production is the ambient sense of the gestures and sounds the trio of women make, almost rooted to the wooden platform at Ashby Stage. 

ANNA BELLA EEMA 

Presented by Crowded Fire Theater at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturdayand at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Ashby Stage,  

1901 Ashby Ave. $10-$20.  

(415) 439-2456. www.crowdedfire.org.

In today’s fully wired world of digital video and handheld viewing devices, it may be difficult to fathom a time when the moving picture was itself a revolutionary technology. In the first few decades of the 20th century, as the new medium was developed and perfected, it brought with it a radical cultural shift, bringing images from all over the world to neighborhood theaters. 

The cinema essentially held a monopoly on mass entertainment, for this was before television brought the moving image into the home, and even before radio, which first brought the immediacy of live news and entertainment into the living room in the 1930s.  

It was likewise before commercial aviation, a time when travel was more daunting, more arduous, and less accessible to the working class. Thus cinema provided a unique and engaging portal to the world for many who might not otherwise venture beyond regional borders. 

The 12th annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival, running this weekend at the Castro Theater, is a portal of its own, taking audiences back to a time when film was establishing itself as the dominant art form of the new century. The festival’s mission is to showcase the art of silent film as it was meant to be seen, with quality prints presented at proper projection speeds and accompanied by period-appropriate live music. 

In those early years, cinema, despite the tiredness of the cliché, was a new and universal language. Photography in newspapers and magazines could provide a glimpse of other cultures and other lives, but moving pictures, captured in faraway lands and projected on a screen, brought vivid images of a life beyond: clouds of dust kicked up by wagon trains moving west; waves unfolding on distant shores; the gleam of moonlight on cobblestones in a European village; the very ways in which people moved and lived throughout the world. It was a time when cinema was simpler in means yet just as rich in content, relying almost exclusively on image and motion to convey plot and import.  

It was the lack of dialogue in fact which lent the movies much of their universal appeal, establishing film as a visual language that would be undermined once the images began to talk. For along with the advent of synchronized sound came the cultural barrier of language, a gap bridged only by such awkward translation devices such as dubbing, the falsity of which created a visual-verbal dissonance, and subtitling, which detracted from cinema’s impact by drawing the eye away from the image. Silent film instead relied on intertitles, an imperfect device to be sure, but one which at least had the virtue of separating the printed words from the image, leaving the visuals untouched and undiluted. And translation was simply a matter of replacing the title cards as a film crossed international borders. 

This year’s festival presents something of the international appeal and range of silent-era cinema by bringing together an eclectic selection of films. The festival kicks off Friday with a mainstream American studio production, The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg. This is Germany by way of MGM, with big Hollywood stars Norma Shearer and Ramon Novarro directed with continental flare by the great Ernst Lubitsch. 

Continuing with the international theme, Saturday will feature an afternoon screening of Maciste, an Italian classic that the festival’s programmers—Executive Director Stacey Wisnia and Artistic Director Steve Salmons—came across at the Pordenone Silent Festival in Italy. This was the first in a series of Maciste films starring Barolomeo Pagan as a heroic strong man rescuing damsels in distress. Sunday’s screenings include “Retour De Flamme” (“Saved From the Flames”), a program of early rarities by French cinema pioneers, presented, with his own piano accompaniment, by Parisian film collector Serge Bromberg, and The Cottage on Dartmoor, a British “psycho-noir” by director Anthony Asquith. 

Another aspect of the Silent Film Festival’s mission is to educate its audience about the preservation and restoration of our rapidly disappearing cinematic heritage. Thus for the second year the festival is hosting “Amazing Tales from the Archives,” a free Sunday morning presentation on the effort to preserve that history. The program is the brainchild of Wisnia, who, despite the skepticism of her colleagues, thought last year’s presentation might draw a decent crowd. All were surprised when the turnout nearly filled the Castro’s main floor. This year’s program will focus on “peripheral” films—trailers, newsreels and shorts—and on obsolete formats, such as 28-millimeter, a format originally sold for use in homes and schools. Many 28mm films shorts will be screened throughout the festival, including travelogues, educational films and short comedies, even one of Harold Lloyd’s rarely screened “Lonesome Luke” films. 

Though Wisnia and Salmons’ tastes may skew toward the lesser-known films from the era, they make an effort to fill a range of genres, from comedy to drama, from blockbuster studio productions to quieter, more experimental work, from star-studded large-scale productions to forgotten gems by actors and directors nearly lost to film history. Other films on the menu include:  

• Valley of the Giants, a drama set amid the towering redwoods of the Sierra Nevada, featuring nearly forgotten actor Milton Sills.  

• Beggars of Life, a follow-up to last year’s screening of Pandora’s Box, featuring the legendary flapper-vixen Louise Brooks. This time Brooks takes a radically different role, spending most of the film attired in men’s clothes in a story of hobos riding the rails in Depression-era America. 

• The Godless Girl, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, one of the greatest showmen to take up film. His films were spectacles, full of melodrama and hysteria, and, more often than not, a steady stream of vice, usually denounced toward the end of the film to accommodate censors.  

• Miss Lulu Brett, by William DeMille, a successful Broadway playwright and accomplished film director whose work was often overshadowed by that of his younger, brasher, more ostentatious brother. Miss Lulu Brett is considered his best film, based a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Zona Gale. William takes a quieter, humbler approach than his more famous brother, telling a tale of a small-town girl stuck as a servant in her sister’s household while looking for a path toward a happier and more meaningful life.  

• Camille, a distinctive and innovative Warner Bros. production starring Alla Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino. 

• And every festival includes at least one program focusing on the silent era’s comic masters. This year spotlights producer Hal Roach, screening four short comedies from Roach Studio stalwarts like Charley Chase and the Our Gang ragamuffins. 

SAN FRANCISCO  

SILENT FILM FESTIVAL 

Friday, July 13 through Sunday, July 15 at the Castro Theater, 429 Castro St., San Francisco. (925) 275-9005. www.silentfilm.org. 

Photograph: Doris Kenyon and Milton Sills in Valley of the Giants (1927).

It isn’t always easy to keep a giant sequoia / Big Tree / Sequoiadendron giganteum thriving down here near sea level. (It isn’t always easy even to talk about the species without someone’s caviling about whatever common name is current.) I’ve known at least two that were cut down locally, and one that just doesn’t look happy. There’s a nice row of them along the main road through Tilden Park, though, just past the regional Parks Botanic Garden, for easy viewing as you pass. You can get up close and personal with the species in the Bot Garden too, and reassure yourself about identification—they’re labeled—and compare them with coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens.  

Keeping even mighty things alive in a hostile climate is often a matter of failing and maybe trying again. Certainly the bloom of American utopias of many sorts over the 19th and early 20th centuries has faded, maybe to seed, maybe just to footnotes after a brief flush of possibility.  

Sometimes even their marks have been willfully erased. How many of us knew that the biggest tree in the world used to be called the Karl Marx Tree? 

The Kaweah Colony, a socialist community founded in 1884, laid out a number of timber claims near their planned headquarters in the Three Rivers area. Because most members lived at the time in San Francisco (with others in associated clubs as far away as Boston), some alert officials thought they smelled fraud of the sort that timber corporations had perpetrated using individuals as fronts for homesteading claims and public land use.  

The claims, supposed to be the foundation of Kaweah’s prosperity, were held up pending investigation. The colony foundered within half a decade, partly on economics and bad planning, partly on the rock of government (and corporate-interest) hostility.  

The land claims finally fizzled when the Sequoiadendron groves became Sequoia (speaking of misnomers) National Park and the surrounding forest became national forest lands. The Feds never made any restitution to the claimants, though a Congressional investigation recommended it.  

Karl Marx’s tree got the name that stuck, “General Sherman,” in 1879, by some accounts as part of an attempt to “heal the nation’s wounds” after the Civil War; a great many of the trees in the park were named then after prominent military figures. Naming the biggest after the total-war practitioner Sherman rather than, say, Lincoln or even Grant (who do have barely-smaller trees named for them in the park) might seem rather abrasive for that purpose.  

Naturalist Asa Gray had seen the big trees in that decade, and had doubts about this sort of naming: “Whether it be the man or the tree that is honored in the connection, probably either would live as long, in fame and in memory, without it.” 

Certainly the trees don’t care. 

Photograph: Ron Sullivan  

Even a little Big Tree is a big tree. Broader spread, stouter trunk, more massive foliage, needles in rounded thready clusters, not flat sprays like coastal redwoods’.  

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Green Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section.  

TUESDAY, JULY 10 

Bus Rapid Transit: Focus on Downtown Berkeley Community Workshop at the Transit Subcommittee meeting of the Transportation Commission at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7010. 

Tuesday Documentaries at 7 p.m. at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Donation of $5 benefits the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. 665-0305. 

Baby-friendly Book Club Bring your baby, and your love of books at 10 a.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

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

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Brandywine Realty, 2101 Webster St., Ste. 600, Oakland. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com (Code: BRANDYWINEREALTY) 

Free Diabetes Screening Come find out if you might have diabetes with our free screening test and make sure not to eat or drink anything for 8 hours beforehand, from 8:45 to 1:30 a.m. at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, 200 Grand Ave. 981-5332. 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 1247 Marin Ave. 524-9122.  

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 11 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland uptown to the Lake to discover Art Deco landmarks. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of the Paramount Theater at 2025 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

A Talk with Al Haber, the founder of S.D.S. will speak of the reformed S.D.S. as well as a history of Berkeley's Long Haul and doing peace work in Israel/Palestine at 7 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. www.thelonghaul.org 

“Tani O, Who Are You?” with Nigerian Chief Priest Elebuibon Akinyemi on Ifa wisdom at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.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. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JULY 12 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Samuel Merritt Bechtel Room, 400 Hawthorne St., Oakland. To schedule and appointment go to www.BeADonor.com (Code: SMC) 

CoHousing Slide Show on cohousing principles and the new cohousing development in Grass Valley, at 7 p.m. at 1250 Addison St, Suite 113. 849-2063. 

“A Shorts Guide to Israel” Three short films at 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $6-$8. 848-0237. 

Adult Self-Protection Workshop on everyday safety skills from 10 a.m. to noon in Berkeley. Cost is $105, no one turned away. Location details upon registration. 831-426-4407. 

Cope with Creativity Workshop on “Write to Connect with Grief” at 6:30 p.m. at 4401 Howe St., Oakland. To register call 888-755-7855, ext. 4241. 

FRIDAY, JULY 13 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

“The San Luis Obispo Experience and A New Vision for Center Street” with a delegation from an Luis Obispo speaking on their Mission Street project, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium. 419-0850. 

International Working Class Film Festival with class struggle films from Australia at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

“The Jewish Chicken Ranchers of Petaluma” A documentary at 7 p.m. at The The Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at Alcatraz, Oakland. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 2000 Shattuck Ave. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com Code: CITYOFBERKELEY.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253.  

SATURDAY, JULY 14 

Peach Tasting, including other stone fruits from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. and MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. 

Open the Farm Meet and greet the animals at the Little Farm as you help the farmer with morning chores, at 9 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 6-9 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Feast for the Beasts Come to the Oakland Zoo at 9 a.m. for breakfast for the whole family. Bring apples, grapes, lettuce and carrots for the animals. Cost is $6. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Vegetarian Cooking Class “Burgers & Backyard Bites” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro, Oakland. Cost is $45 plus $5 materials fee. Registration required. 531-COOK. www.compassionatecooks.com 

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. 

The Great War Society meets to discuss “French War Aims in WWI” with Robert Denison, at 10:30 a.m. at 640 Arlington Ave. 527-7118. 

Family Sundown Safari at 5 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo. A hands-on program for children 3 and up to explore the Valley Children’s Zoo. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

Succulents for Bay Area Gardens at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave., off 7th St. 644-2351. 

Preschool Storytime for 3 to 5-year-olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext. 17. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

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, JULY 15 

Bay to Barkers Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society’s annual dog walk/run, including many activities for canines from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Registration is $25 in advance, $30 on the day of the event. 845-7735, ext. 13. www.berkeleyhumane.org 

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Fun on the Farm Day Sing traditional songs, help grind corn and see how wool is turned into yarn from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

The Red Oak Victory Ship Pancake Breakfast from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on board the ship. Take Hwy 580 to Richmond and exit at Canal Blvd. Cost is $6, children under 6 free. 526-7377. 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m.at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby & Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Bike Tour of the Port of Oakland on a leisurely 5-mile ride. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance to the Oakland Museum of California. Reservations required. 238-3514.  

Parent-Child Self-Protection Workshop on everyday safety skills from 10 a.m. to noon in Berkeley. Cost is $60, no one turned away. Location details upon registration. 831-426-4407. 

East Bay Atheists will show the documentary “Jesus Camp” at 1:30 p.m. in the 3rd flr meeting room, Perkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 222-7580. 

Homemade Pet Foods from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Kensington Farmers’ Market, 303 Arlington, behind ACE Hardware.  

Social Action Forum with Eric Moon of the American Friends Service Committee at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “the Four Catalysts of Being” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, JULY 16 

“The Wells Fargo History Museum, 1852 to the Present” a Brown Bag Lunch with curator Anne Hall at 12:30 p.m. at the Edith Stone Room, Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the West Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, UC Campus To schedule an appointmento to www.BeADonor.com (Code: UCB). 

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

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

Drop in Knitting Class at the Albany Library Work on your own project or make pet blankets and children’s hats to be donated to charity organizations. Yarn and needles provided for donated items. At 3:30 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., July 11, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., July 11, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., July 11, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., July 11, at the South Berkeley Senior Cente., 981-4950.  

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Thurs. July 12, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche, 644-6128 ext. 113.  

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs. July 12 , at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5428. 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., July 12,, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5356.  

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., July 12, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6406.  

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., July 12 , at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., July 12, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.