Safeway will unveil the latest design for its College Avenue store April 29 at the Claremont Hotel in Oakland, even as neighbors complain that they are being left out in the cold. 

The supermarket chain’s latest proposal comes in the wake of a long series of public meetings held to discuss community concerns about the scale of the proposed expansion and its threat to local independent businesses. 

In an e-mail to College Avenue neighbors today, Elisabeth Jewel of Aroner, Jewel and Ellis, the consultants hired by Safeway to do community outreach, said that “updated and modified plans” for a new store and retail space at College and Claremont would be shown at the meeting. 

“Come take a look at what we are planning for you in a new, light-filled, energy-efficient building with lots of free parking for everyone,” wrote Jewel, who is on vacation and did not return calls for comment. 

Safeway's plans to remodel the existing 25,000-square-foot location met with loud opposition at a community meeting at the Peralta Elementary School last June, prompting company officials to arrange a series of “stakeholders meetings” to arrive at a consensus about the size, scale and design of a new store and accompanying small shops. 

Facilitated by Pamela Hopkins, managing partner of Berkeley-based ENACT Global Consulting, the meetings saw representatives from the Rockridge Community Planning Council, the Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association, the Rockridge District Association, Concerned Neighbors of College Avenue Safeway and College Avenue merchants discuss and debate the proposed design with Safeway officials. 

Susan Shawl of Concerned Neighbors, a group opposing Safeway’s expansion plans, said that she had been disappointed by these meetings. 

“Safeway said they wanted to listen to us but they are totally stonewalling us now,” said Shawl, adding that the grocery chain had not yet rescheduled the last stakeholders meeting that was supposed to take place Dec. 10. 

Esperanza Greenwood, director of public affairs and government relations for Safeway’s Northern California division, did not return calls by the Planet's Tuesday deadline.  

“Independent stakeholders have not had any word about this process ending,” Shawl said. “We really wanted to work with Safeway. We are not against them. If this was Whole foods, we would have done the same. It’s nothing personal—it has to do with out-of-scale development in a residential neighborhood.” 

More than two weeks after the fifth meeting on Oct. 22, Jewel sent the stakeholders an e-mail saying that Safeway had hired a new architect, Ken Lowney, for the project. 

Last April Safeway replaced architect Kirk Peterson with San Francisco-based MCG Architects. 

“After the most recent stakeholders meeting last November, the Safeway team decided to take a deep breath and evaluate next steps,” Jewel said. 

“We recommitted ourselves to taking the time needed to come up with the best-designed proposal we could—even if that meant delaying coming back to the stakeholders and community members with a new plan.” 

Lowney, Jewel said, would bring decades of experience to the project, having designed markets, offices and mixed-use developments all over the Bay Area, including converting the old Cadillac dealership on Harrison Street in Oakland into a Whole Foods store. 

“Safeway is confident that this local architecture firm can deliver a store that will be successful for Safeway while honoring the long-established values of College Avenue, Oakland," Jewel said. “Ken is fortunate to have a detailed record of your comments and concerns expressed during each stakeholder meeting and in your many e-mails. He will use this record to inform the design, taking into account the unique needs and perspectives of neighbors, merchants, residents and many others who care very deeply about this neighborhood.” 

Lowney is scheduled to meet with a neighborhood architects group Wednesday to discuss the design. 

Shawl said Safeway had not discussed any details about the store’s design during the stakeholders’ meetings, spending time mainly on less important things, such as bicycle racks and landscaping. 

“We asked them what their bottom line was as far as size at the first meeting and they came back with a bunch of flowery words with nothing about the size,” Shawl said. “Some people think this was a waste of time. I am not sure whether it was or wasn’t but am disappointed at the way Safeway ignored neighborhood opinion.” 

Safeway officials said at earlier meetings that they would like to convert the building into a "lifestyle store," a concept that involves softer lighting, sleek modern counters and shelves and earthier tones for the walls and floors. 

They have defended their need to expand by pointing to the stores lack of a full-service meat counter, extensive organic produce section and flower shop—services some neighbors contend are already present across the street at the smaller niche shops. 

“I am very frustrated. All these meetings didn’t seem to have resulted in anything,” said Stuart Flashman, chair of the Rockridge Community Planning Council, which opposed the scale of the project. 

“I wish they would listen to the community first. Maybe the meetings were not heading in the direction they wanted, so they dropped it.” 

Shawl said she would still go to the meeting at the Claremont Hotel to see the new plans. 

“Of course I am going to be there,” she said. 

Safeway plans to submit a formal application to the City of Oakland to begin the entitlement process after the meeting. 

Safeway will be displaying the new drawings and architectural renderings for the College Avenue neighborhood store from 7-9 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, at the Claremont Hotel on Ashby Avenue. Neighbors are encouraged to walk to the meeting if possible. Parking will be available from 6:30-9:30 p.m. 

In 2008, reports Paper Cuts, a weblog that tracks U.S. newspaper closings and staff reductions cost, the country’s papers lost at least 15,859 jobs. 

So it’s an ominous sign for 2009 that cutbacks in the year’s first three months are nearly half of the total for all of last year. (See http://graphicdesignr.net/papercuts) 

As of early Tuesday afternoon, March 31, the website was reporting at least 7,562 newspaper positions have vanished so far in 2009, a year in which major newsrooms have shut down their presses, including Denver’s Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And that number had risen by 237 in the previous four hours. 

Another longstanding luminary in the American media constellation has largely abandoned print. The Christian Science Monitor printed its last weekday edition Friday, March 27, and now appears online daily and in print once a month. 

March came in lion-like and has shown no sheepish qualities, mauling media companies by the day. 

In Michigan, the 174-year-old Ann Arbor News announced March 23 that it will cease daily publication and be reincarnated under a new corporate ownership as a twice-weekly paper with a daily online presence. 

Reporters and other employees of the New York Times learned March 25 that they would either have to take a 5 percent across-the-board pay cut and 10 days of unpaid leave or face up to 70 newsroom layoffs. 

That was on top of 100 business operations workers who were handed their pink slips as the same time, and not counting the 2008 total payroll reductions of 1,364 positions, according to a story in the paper’s March 26 edition. 

One major reason for the layoffs was made clear in an announcement that same day from the Newspaper Association of America, which cited a 20.6 percent drop in advertising revenues for the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with the same period a year earlier.  

The ensuing layoffs have struck at more than 300 papers so far this year, with the 2009 total of publications certain to top the 428 chalked up by Paper Cuts last year. 

Between last year and this, the blog also counts more than 120 newspapers which have vanished, or like the San Francisco-based AsianWeek, migrated to an online-only existence. 

Closer to home, MediaNews, the corporate parent of most Bay Area newspapers, won major concessions from its newsroom unions in March, with layoffs, mandatory unpaid leave and pay concessions all thrown into the mix. 

The Media Workers Guild also announced March 24 that it had agreed to drop plans for a merger of the union’s East Bay chapter with the San Jose unit, a move which would have given the union greater bargaining power and restored a separation the chain had won after it bought the Mercury News and Contra Costa Times and unseated the union’s East Bay membership. 

The privately held, Denver-based company also won agreement from Moody’s, a bond rating service, to stop listing MediaNews bond issues, which Moody’s had just downgraded to a lower status on the junk scale. 

A large chuck of the junk-rated paper is held by the Bay Area’s other major publisher, Hearst, which is also privately held. 

The Hearst Corporation has also won similar concessions from employees to those won by publisher Dean Singleton for his own Bay Area papers—which include the Oakland Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Alameda Times-Star, Fremont Argus, Hayward Daily Review, Marin Independent Journal, Milpitas Post, Vallejo Times-Herald and the Pleasanton Tri-Valley Herald. 

The Hearst employee concessions, approved by Media Guild members in a March 13 vote, followed the company’s repeated threats to close the paper unless unions knuckled under. 

The media mayhem hasn’t been restricted to the mainstream media. 

In California, the crisis has brought about the March 26 closing of Los Angeles CityBeat, a respected alternative weekly. 

Additionally, during 2008 at least 10 California newspapers reduced the number of days they print and distribute editions each week, according to a March 29 Associated Press story. 

Both the San Mateo Daily News and the Palo Alto Daily News dropped one printing day a week, while the San Francisco Examiner cut back free home delivery days to twice a week while still replenishing news racks with daily editions. 

The Mercury News is also following suit—at least in part—by eliminating all but Sunday delivery to subscribers in San Francisco and other communities outside the metropolitan San Jose area. 

Sunday papers will still be delivered, and subscribers can sign up for paid online-only subscriptions to the daily edition. 

According to a letter from the paper’s circulation department mailed to subscribers in the affected areas, “Economic factors force us to focus our delivery resources on our local market, so this change is being made on all subscription deliveries in this region.” 

Online access to the paper’s website may retreat behind a pay wall, the letter indicates, apparently reversing the paper’s May 18, 1998, announcement of free Internet access for all. The paper had previously restricted access to paid subscribers. 

California’s largest newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, is one of the two major stars in the Tribune Company’s newspaper constellation. The chain is based in Chicago and named for the flagship Chicago Tribune. 

The company, controlled by real estate magnate Sam Zell—who is also Berkeley’s biggest landlord—had filed for bankruptcy in December. Now its major Chicago rival, Sun-Times Media Group, has taken the same course, filing in Delaware bankruptcy court Tuesday, March 31. 

The last three suspects in a home-invasion robbery and torture case in the Berkeley hills last month have turned themselves in, Berkeley police spokesman Andrew Frankel said today. 

There were a total of eight suspects in the incident in the 600 block of Santa Barbara Road in the hour-long incident that began at 8:20 p.m. on Feb. 24. Five suspects had been arrested previously. 

Frankel said brothers Vern Town Saelee, 21, and Vern Sio Saelee, 18, of Fairfield, as well as 24-year-old Chiew Chian Saeturn of Fairfield surrendered to Berkeley police detectives in Fairfield at 9 p.m. Monday. 

Frankel said detectives had served a search warrant at a residence in the 5600 block of Alameda Street in El Cerrito earlier on Monday and although the suspects weren’t found at that time police believe the constant pressure they placed on the suspects proved to be too much. 

“They were tired of running,” Frankel said. 

A male and a female were bound, pistol-whipped and carved on with kitchen knives in the brutal home invasion robbery. 

The victims were taken to a local hospital where they were treated and released, Frankel said. 

Three suspects, Buk Khansuwong, a 46-year-old Richmond man, Tien Vo, a 29-year-old San Pablo woman, and a 16-year-old boy from Richmond, were arrested in early March. 

A fourth suspect, 18-year-old Anthony Ray Douglas of Richmond, surrendered at the Richmond Police Department on March 18 and a fifth suspect, another 16-year-old Richmond boy, was arrested last week. 

Frankel said police believe the suspects chose the victims at random. 

He said the suspects have been charged with torture, which carries a life in prison term upon conviction, as well as home invasion, which carries up to six years in state prison. 

The Saelee brothers and Saeturn are expected to be arraigned in Alameda County Superior Court on Thursday, according to Frankel. The first five suspects have already made their initial court appearances.

“Determination” was the word-of-the-day at Malcolm X Elementary School Monday, the eve of Cesar Chavez’s 82nd birthday. 

First-graders raked and sifted compost in the school garden as part of Berkeley Unified School District’s week-long celebration of the legacy of the Mexican civil rights activist. 

Although Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in California, K-12 schools remain open. Most schools recognize Chavez through service, teaching students to honor his spirit of hard work and unity. 

All 16 Berkeley public schools have programs lined up for Tuesday, including special classroom projects, Latino speakers, parades and strawberry giveaways. Teachers will regale students with stories of Chavez’s efforts on behalf of farm workers and his campaign to abolish the use of pesticides in the growing of table grapes. 

At Malcolm X, students told each other stories about Chavez during a gardening class. 

“Let’s see, did you learn anything about this special man....” Even before Rivka Mason, the school’s gardening teacher, could finish her sentence, a tiny hand shot up. 

“Cesar Chavez?,” asked Fay Reuber, a first-grader. “He helped our country because he wanted to stop brown people from getting hurt while they were picking grapes. The grapes had pesticides and their hands started bleeding.” 

“And if he didn’t do that, we would probably be eating grapes with pesticides,” classmate Samantha Myers chimed in. “Pesticides are poison.” 

Though students may have stumbled a bit in piecing together the fragments of Chavez’s life, it was easy to see they were having fun in the process. 

“There are four different parts to Cesaar Chavez,” Mason said. “Courage, service, freedom and determination. Today we will learn about determination—can someone tell me what it means?” 

“To terminate something?” asked a 6-year-old with a puzzled look on his face. 

“It’s when you do something you want to do and don’t give up,” said Fay, getting a nod of approval from Mason. 

“Farm work is tough," said Mason. "The farmers had to bend over to harvest the strawberries in the sun. They called it the diablo, or the devil. In honor of Cesar Chavez, we are going to be sifting compost for half a minute more than we do every day. We are going to be determined.” 

As the day progressed students studied “bugology” (Mason’s word for the study of centipedes and roly-polys), harvested dragon carrots and made a snack for themselves from celery, broccoli and lettuce grown in the school garden. 

While working on the Cesar Chavez strawberry bed, the students were momentarily distracted by a helicopter flying overhead. 

“They are making sure we are using the electricity right,” said first-grader Owen Hayden-Joiner, looking up. 

“They are making sure we teaching kids about Cesar Chavez,” said Mason smiling.

State budget cuts will force Berkeley Unified School District to cut more than $1 million from its adult education program. 

February's state budget compromise slashed a significant percentage of the program's categorical funding. The cuts will reduce adult education funds by 15 percent this year and by 20 percent in the 2009-2010 academic year, threatening services offered to 2,000 senior, at-risk youth and disabled students who attend Berkeley Adult School to learn a trade or complete their high school education.  

“These are heavy cuts,” District Superintendent Bill Huyett said Friday. “Adult education was one of the losers in the new budget—20 percent is a large cut. You can’t just trim around the edges with that kind of a cut. You have to make significant reductions to services.” 

In a unanimous vote Wednesday, the Berkeley Board of Education allowed the district to dip into the adult education program’s reserves to help offset the nearly $750,000 shortage it faces this year.  

The district will take $718,827 from the reserve funds. 

Berkeley Adult School Principal Margaret Kirkpatrick said the school has about $900,000 stored away from last year’s budget that is being used to preserve programs and teaching positions this year. 

“Rather than close classes and fire people, we are spending money from our reserves to carry on the services until the end of the year,” she said. “Some schools had to make drastic changes in February. We are one of the lucky schools. The cuts are a huge concern for the adult school, but we are lucky that the board supports adult education. We are looking to be much more creative next year to save money.” 

Huyett said his Budget Advisory Committee will meet this week to find ways to tackle the $1 million deficit the adult school faces next year. 

“We don’t know what the reductions are going to be in,” Huyett said Friday. “My staff is still weighing in on that.” 

Huyett said that besides taking $8 million from the school district over the next two years, the state budget cuts affect Tier III programs in the district, which include adult education, school improvement and deferred maintenance. 

“There is nothing you can cut this year from the adult school,” he said. “They are spending their reserves, so we won’t see any effects on their program this year. Next year, however, they will have to cut programs. We are working on a plan to hold on to the core programs.” 

Superintendent Huyett said school districts may opt to cut funding for Tier III programs entirely in order to transfer dollars to the general fund. 

“And some districts are doing that right now,” he said. “They no longer have adult education programs.” 

Principal Kirkpatrick said the school is prioritizing to save four programs for next year: English as a second language, which makes up the largest group of students; vocational training, such as nursing and pharmacy; high school diploma courses; and continuing services for adults. 

Established in 1891, the Berkeley Adult School offers free or subsidized classes at its San Pablo Avenue campus and at various other locations around the East Bay. The school graduates between 80 and 100 students with a high school diploma each year. 

The school is known for collaborating with the nonprofit Bread Project, which trains students to be self-sufficient and find competitive jobs in the culinary industry. Since 2001, the Bread Project has trained 621 individuals, some of whom previously had trouble finding employment because of homelessness, lack of prior work experience, limited English fluency or criminal records. 

“I am astonished that the state is doing something like this at a time when people need more resources to get a job in a challenging economy,” Kirkpatrick said. “We are anticipating many more calls about our services in the next few months, but I don’t know if we will have the resources to support more students.” 

A two-hour power outage dimmed the lights for 7,393 Berkeley residents and businesses Thursday night, starting at 10 p.m. and ending just before midnight. 

Pacific Gas & Electric East Bay media liaison Tamar Sarkissian said the outage was caused by an equipment failure and darkened most of downtown Berkeley and nearby residences. 

The last customer was back on line by 11:50 p.m., she said. 

Loss of power darkened at least one theater, where Daily Planet drama critic Ken Bullock reports that he and other theatergoers discovered that the old adage about the play going on isn’t always accurate.

Citing a sudden rise in accidents involving Berkeley Unified School District students, Superintendent Bill Huyett announced at the Berkeley Board of Education meeting Wednesday that the district would work with traffic safety groups to educate children about bicycle and pedestrian safety issues. 

The district met with the Safe Routes to School Alameda County Partnership program Thursday afternoon to discuss ways to initiate a traffic safety campaign in the public schools. 

District spokesperson Mark Coplan said that in addition to the two kindergartners injured in automobile collisions within a month—including 5-year-old Zachary Michael Cruz of LeConte Elementary School, who was struck and killed by a truck Feb. 27—three more Berkeley public school students had been involved in accidents on their way to school. 

The most recent accident happened Monday, March 23, when a Jefferson Elementary School student was walking to school with her mother and younger sister and was hit by a car while she was in the crosswalk at Cedar and Acton streets. 

“The driver said that he had not seen her because the sun had blinded his eyes,” Coplan said. 

The student suffered minor bruises, according to Coplan, and was rushed to the hospital by her mother and Jefferson Principal Maggie Riddle. The girl is already back at school. 

Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Officer Andrew Frankel said that a report on the incident wasn’t available as of Thursday. 

On March 13, a man was dropping off his nephew, a Malcolm X kindergartner, on Ellis Street, right across from where school buses park, when the child collided with a moving car belonging to a woman who was dropping her granddaughter off at school, he said. “He ran into the car instead of the car running into him, so he wasn’t injured,” Coplan said. “But he was extremely shook up and his mother took him home.” 

On Jan. 30, the same day another Malcolm X kindergartner was hit by a Toyota 4 Runner when she darted into the crosswalk at Ashby and Ellis streets after hearing the morning school bell, an eighth grader was seriously injured while riding her bike to Berkeley High School. Coplan said the girl was struck by a car and taken to Children’s Hospital in Oakland. 

“Her injuries were pretty serious and she still hasn’t returned to school,” Coplan said. “I understand she had to undergo operations and is going through a lot of physical therapy. Since this happened out of school hours we didn’t get any information about it until much later.” 

Neither Coplan nor Berkeley police were able to provide information about the location of the incident or the nature of her injuries. 

“I think the number of accidents we have had in such a short time is startling,” Coplan said, echoing Superintendent Huyett’s remarks at the meeting. “From talking to transportation officials and organizations ... these numbers are a surprise, but the real surprise is that it’s not happening more often. We’ve heard that near misses and potential accidents occur a lot around drop-off and pick-up locations at schools.” 

Farid Javandel, the city’s transportation manager, said the Berkeley City Council had just approved a grant application that would award the city around $1 million to carry out traffic improvements, including installing flashing lights at Ashby and Ellis to warn drivers of pedestrians. 

“A cluster of accidents is always alarming,” Javandel said. “It brings the issues to the forefront. Whether these are statistically important, that will take some time to pan out.” 

He added that transportation officials were also in the process of updating the City of Berkeley’s bike and pedestrian plan, which includes upgrades to ADA ramps and crosswalks, among other things. 

“Drivers should also remember to watch out and yield at crosswalks—they need to see if people are approaching,” he said. “Children often act in an unpredictable manner. You definitely have to be very aware of the environment as a driver. It’s very important to keep a safe speed limit.” 

Berkeley recently received a grant through the city’s Health and Human Services Department that helped to purchase seven permanent speed-feedback signs. 

The City Council approved specific locations at the last council meeting based on recommendations by transportation officials. 

Susan Silber, education coordinator for Safe Routes to Schools, said that Berkeley Unified was eager to launch the traffic safety campaign as soon as possible. 

“The district is ultra concerned about the number of accidents that have been occurring,” she said. “The superintendent got in touch with me and wants to do a campaign about traffic safety and about getting drivers more aware, especially around kids and schools. We want to make sure that every school in the district is taking advantage of Safe Routes to Schools. We have been working in some schools but not all schools—not all parents want to volunteer with us.” 

Safe Routes to Schools is currently at nine of the 11 Berkeley public elementary schools. 

Silber said that a survey of how students traveled to the elementary schools showed a vast majority were either driven to school or took a school bus. About 10 percent walked and about 2 percent biked. 

“Berkeley Unified has a zoning plan, so most students don’t go to neighborhood schools,” she said, referring to the district’s student placement system, which assigns students from three geographic attendance zones in the city. 

“They want to diversify their schools so that you can send students from all across town,” she said. “Diversity is great, but unfortunately most kids don’t end up in schools in their neighborhood.” 

Coplan said that at the high school, which doesn’t have school buses, at least 500 to 1,000 students get dropped off by their parents. Others use public transit, BART or walk, and a very small number of students—about 200—drive themselves to school. 

He said that the majority of the students in elementary and middle schools who didn’t take the school bus were driven to school by their parents. 

The district’s transportation division is also taking steps to minimize accidents, Coplan said. 

“The good news is that everybody is looking at safety first, everybody wants to do something about it,” he said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced the appointment of Paul D. Seeman of Berkeley to a judgeship on the Alameda County Superior Court bench. 

Seeman, 54, has served as a court commissioner for the Alameda County Superior Court since 2004 and previously served as a referee pro tem for the county’s Juvenile Court from 1991 to 2004. 

From 1990 to 1991, Seeman worked as a deputy county counsel for the Alameda County Counsel’s Office and from 1980 to 2004 he was a sole practitioner. 

Seeman earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law and his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz. 

Seeman, who is a Democrat, fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Bonnie Sabraw. 

His salary will be $178,789 annually.

Planning commissioners are scheduled to complete their final revisions to the Downtown Area Plan during their meeting Wednesday night, April 1. 

Commissioners have been revising the original version of the new plan, prepared by a committee formed of two appointees from each of the city’s nine councilmembers and three planning commissioners. 

The commission’s draft raises both the numbers and the heights of high-rises allowed by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee’s draft and expands the boundaries where they can be built. 

Commissioners had indicated a willingness to expand the high-rise zone still further, but were hampered by staff advice that expansion could require a new environmental review that would push the deadline for approval beyond the limit set in a legal agreement between the city and UC Berkeley. 

The draft plan before the commission also includes a map listing proposed study areas that could be reviewed by the City Council if the council wishes to expand the boundaries after adopting the plan at its May 26 meeting. 

The council must adopt a plan by that date or risk losing some of the funding mandated in the settlement of a lawsuit the city filed to challenge the university’s long-range development plans through 2020. 

Both the DAPAC and the commission’s versions will go to the City Council, which can adopt either version or combine elements of the two—a difficult task given the short time available. 

Both versions of the plan are available at the city’s website at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=10828. 

Wednesday night’s meeting starts at 6 p.m., an hour earlier than usual, to accommodate a presentation on proposed ferry terminal locations at the Berkeley Marina. 

The Water Emergency Transit Authority (WETA) is asking the commission to provide comments for inclusion on the proposal to establish a terminal at one of two sites in the marina. 

The meeting agenda, with links to documents on both the plan and the ferry site, may be found at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentPrint.aspx?id=36608. 

The session starts at 6 p.m. in the first floor main meeting room of the North Berkeley Senior center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

City planning staff have dropped a bombshell on anxious West Berkeley activists: a proposal that would double the height of new buildings and potentially open the area to office complexes. 

The staff proposal, if enacted without changes, could mean a West Berkeley skyline studded with 90-foot-tall office towers—a host of buildings as tall as the area’s currently dominant high-rise, the Fantasy Records Building. 

Even some of the more developer-friendly commissioners had questions after Assistant Planner Claudine Asbagh presented the concepts, which are the latest round of a City Council-mandated effort to ease development rules in the only part of the city zoned for light industry and manufacturing. 

The area in question lies roughly between the city’s northern and southern boundaries and between the eastern side of San Pablo Avenue and Interstate 80. Development rules for the area were spelled out in the West Berkeley Plan, which was adopted by the city 16 years ago. 

The council’s directive to ease zoning alarmed some of the area’s small manufacturers, who range from makers of scientific glassware to an assortment of green businesses, including the owners of Inkworks and Urban Ore. 

Staff proposals target not only the handful of large sites specified in the 1993 plan, but would provide a new development procedure for all sites that are either three acres or more or comprise a full city block. The revised master use permit (MUP) process would allow developers to develop sites incrementally and alter use configurations as tenants change and expand. 

UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have their sights set on West Berkeley as the home of startup labs and businesses generated by the inventions of their scientists, a focus backed by Mayor Tom Bates, who is promoting the area as part of the “Green Corridor” first proposed by UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau in a meeting of mayors at his official residence. 

One powerful voice of support for more flexible zoning rules is Wareham Properties, the area’s largest developer and dominant landlord of high-tech facilities and landlord to UCB facilities in both Berkeley and Emeryville. Wareham is currently the owner of the Fantasy building. 

Chris Barlow, a Wareham principal, has been a regular at Planning Commission meetings on West Berkeley, and was present again at the latest session, Wednesday, March 25, where staff put forth their latest and most controversial set of proposals. 

Barlow is a strong advocate of the revised MUP, while members of West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies (WEBAIC) say they have strong reservations. 

WEBAIC members turned out in force Wednesday night to register their concerns at the latest staff proposal, one which could radically alter the shape, skyline and economics of the last area of the city to welcome their businesses and members of the city’s endangered arts community. 

Bernard Marszalek of Inkworks, a West Berkeley printer that uses recycled paper and environmentally friendly inks, said the staff proposal to double the floor of lot area ratios for new construction would mean “millions of square feet” of additional development. 

Another concern, he said was the notion of possible waivers of parking requirements for new construction. 

“Traffic is a real issue, and so are greenhouse gasses,” Marszalek said. “Doubling the density of development the way they want is just ridiculous.” 

Barlow said he also wants the city to reject any thought of drafting a regional environmental impact report (EIR) that would evaluate the cumulative impacts of new development on streets the city has already acknowledged could hit gridlock within the next decade. 

But developers weren’t united in opposition to the regional review of traffic and air quality impacts of development. Darrel de Tienne, who spoke as a representative of Douglas Herst, owner of one of the area’s largest sites, said he favored the broader, “programmatic” EIR. 

Mark Gorrell, of the Ecology Center, said “it was fascinating to hear how staff wants to protect West Berkeley by having people come in, cut it up and change it.” 

The staff proposal would also allow developers to turn MUP properties into office parks, if the city’s Zoning Adjustments Board agreed—opening the area to a use specifically banned in the existing MUP. 

“This would mean we’re rewriting the whole plan,” said commissioner Patti Dacey. 

George Beier, who was sitting in for absent commissioner Harry Pollack, said he needed to see more information on possible sites as well as estimates of the impact of parking if waivers were granted. “I would like to see who the real winners and losers are in all this,” he said. 

Commissioner Victoria Eisen asked if offices would be allowed only as part of manufacturing or industrial uses. “I would like that clarified,” she said. 

“It’s discretionary,” Asbagh said. “It goes before ZAB and it’s appealable, but, yes, if ZAB approves 100 percent offices on the site, it’s a possibility.” 

Another concern for some WEBAIC members came from a Barlow plea to the city to include “a workable but practical definition of artisan and artist” to apply to any protections given for artisan space in the regulations. 

“We strongly believe this category should reflect those who earn their living from art and than any privileges should be tied to a requirement to regularly produce a portfolio of work that would be peer-reviewed.” 

That notion drew eye rolls from one member of the audience and a scowl from Rick Auerbach, who is WEBAIC’s staff member. 

Staff will report back to the commission with more details when the proposal comes before the commission in May, following an additional meeting with West Berkeley stakeholders.  

Magna means “big” in Latin, but the adjective doesn’t apply to the value of Magna Entertainment Corporation—which has dropped to pennies a share—nor to its annual financial report. 

In fact, announced North America’s largest owners of horse racing tracks, there won’t be annual report at all for last year. 

Preparation would be too costly for a company currently engaged in bankruptcy action on both side of the U.S.-Canadian border. 

Magna, which owns Golden Gate Fields in Albany, made the announcement in a notice released Wednesday afternoon, March 26. 

Magna announced that “the expense and effort involved in complying with annual and quarterly reporting requirements cannot, in the opinion of the company, be justified in light of MEC’s current and operational financial situation.” 

Magna will be auctioning off a portifolio of properties, including the Albany track, though it has created a so-called “stalking horse bid” to acquire them on behalf of a sister company. 

Both the NASDAQ stock exchange in the United States and the Toronto Stock Exchange to the north have stricken the company’s shares from their listings. 

More information on the bankrupotcies is available at the corporate website at www.magnaent.com/restructuring.

A letter to the editor in last month’s Jacket, Berkeley High’s bi-monthly student newspaper, questioning grading practices at the high school, has created much controversy and prompted Berkeley Unified School District officials to look into adopting a consensus for grading procedures. 

The letter, written by Berkeley High School science teachers Amy Hansen, Matt McHugh and Evy Kavaler, alleges that administrators, counselors and lead teachers at some of Berkeley High’s small schools pressure teachers in the large schools to change students’ poor grades so as not to interfere with college admissions. 

Students from Berkeley High’s four small schools—Communication Arts and Sciences (CAS), Community Partnerships Academy (CPA), Arts and Humanities Academy (AHA) and the School of Social Justice and Ecology (SSJE)—currently take science classes from teachers in the two large schools, Academic Choice (AC) and International Baccalaureate (IB). 

Hansen, McHugh and Kavaler allege in their letter that in some of the small schools, “students can even have their transcripts changed to reflect a passing grade in a course for which they were never enrolled. 

“For example, students in the small school Arts and Humanities Academy (AHA) enrolled in Honors Human Anatomy who find themselves in academic trouble can receive a ‘C’ in Integrated Science instead of their true failing grade,” the letter’s authors charge. “Aside from being improper, perhaps even illegal, this practice of changing transcripts is dishonest and unethical. Our mission is to educate, and a grade is supposed to represent mastery of a particular body of knowledge.” 

District officials, state educators and Berkeley High teachers have had mixed reactions to the allegations. 

Berkeley Unified Superintendent Bill Huyett told the Daily Planet that the district would facilitate a dialogue between the science department and the small schools regarding instructional practices and procedures at Berkeley High. 

“We will work with the science teachers on looking at the concerns about students and the curriculum that they take and the procedure for courses on their transcripts,” he said. “We are going to help to form a consensus on the practice done at the school.” 

As for the charge that some teachers were changing students’ transcripts to reflect a passing grade for a course they had never signed up for, Huyett said, “that practice needs to be reviewed before it can be accepted.” 

“There was a lot of overreaction on some people’s part,” he said. “When you have several small schools, there is bound to be philosophical differences. You need to work that out—the district and the school will work together to establish a coherent program that can be clearly explained.” 

Berkeley High was supposed to host the first discussion Tuesday, with help from the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools, but the event was canceled because of a scheduling problem, participants said. 

Calls to Acting Principal Maggie Heredia-Peltz for comment were not returned. 

Larry Birch, director of professional services for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, said that, in a situation like this, the local school district is responsible for conducting a review of its grade-granting procedures. 

“What did the failing grade mean and did the student learn enough to have a passing grade for a course they did not enroll for? How do you evaluate what a student has learned?” he asked. “If there was a policy that allowed that in the district, then that’s OK. But if someone says ‘let’s just do this,’ then it’s a problem.” 

Berkeley Board of Education Member John Selawsky said that communication between teachers is the best way to address differences in grading. 

“It’s not something that’s out of whack in most educational practices,” he said. “I don’t believe it’s happening on a large scale at the high school—all the teacher has to say is ‘No.’ If it’s happening on an individual scale, I would prefer the school to handle the issue themselves. They need to find out what’s going on. If allegations continue to arise, then at that point it becomes our [the School Board’s] issue.” 

Phil Halpern, lead teacher at CAS, denied the allegations about grade changes. 

“CAS does not engage in that practice. I can’t comment on any other teachers’ practices,” he said. “We all have an obligation to constantly reconsider our practices—it’s not a small school big–school issue. The suggestion that ethical corruption occurs in small schools is both wrong and offensive.” 

Halpern said he was surprised that the three teachers had not sent him the letter or discussed their concerns with him or the Berkeley High School Governance Council before sending it to the Jacket. 

AHA counselor Teri Goodman rebuked the grade-pressuring allegations with her own letter, explaining that although teachers had heard about such instances, her impression was that “it was infrequent and quickly and firmly dealt with when discovered. 

“This concern about grade pressuring has existed since long before the small schools were created, and to suggest that this is developing out of the small schools is indeed insidious,” Goodman said in her letter. “As the AHA counselor, when one of my students is doing poorly in a class, any communication I have with the teacher is around helping the student figure out how to be more successful as a student and is never about giving them a grade they have not earned.” 

Hansen, who has taught at Berkeley High for two years, told the Planet that she had become aware of this practice last spring when she heard a conversation about giving passing grades to a student who was struggling. 

“The teacher said that ‘a student was not doing well in chemistry, so we are going to give him a ‘C’ in physical science,” she said. “I was surprised kids were going to get passing grades for courses they had not taken at all. That’s when it came to my attention that the small schools were doing it. I talked to other people and they knew it was going on.” 

Hansen said that she e-mailed her concerns to Berkeley High faculty and administration and Huyett around Jan. 18, but that by the time she received a response from the high school principal, Jim Slemp, and the superintendent, the letter was already on its way to the Jacket. 

The Jacket published the letter in its Feb. 27 edition along with a rebuttal from Halpern and an accompanying report by its staff writers on the issue. 

“There has been a disturbing shift in the culture of Berkeley High School over the past several years in which college admission has become the primary goal of students; academic preparedness has become secondary at best,” the letter says. “This shift has not been inadvertent or circumstantial, but a deliberate and defended philosophy of our current administration that has reached a crisis point and is undermining our fundamental mission to educate our students.” 

The letter also alleged that teachers dropped students from difficult classes early in the semester if they sensed that the student would not perform well. 

It charged that administrators failed to “assign consequences” to students who were caught cheating on exams and forced teachers to withdraw “classroom consequences for cheating in order to protect students’ transcripts.” 

Hansen attributed the alleged practices to “great pressure all over the school to make sure that kids graduate and get into college.” 

“When the administration sets that target and the teachers see their students fail to achieve those expectations, then the pressure sets in,” she said. “College rules over proficiency, mastery and learning. One would expect academic mastery from students and college would follow, but if you skip a step, it leads to misuse of our charge, and our charge is to educate. College should be a natural outgrowth of that.” 

Halpern defended the small schools by saying that their goal was to help all students to succeed, irrespective of their social, economic or racial backgrounds. 

“The accusation that small schools are inflating grades because we don’t care about education, but only college admission, is outrageous,” he said. “We are being accused of throwing pixie dust into the eyes of admissions officers who are paid to assess a wide variety of students. They can recognize well-educated kids, everybody knows that.” 

Kavaler, who has taught at Berkeley High for 17 years, said that when a teacher had approached her for a grade change in the past, she had refused. 

“I don’t think Berkeley High is the only school in the country where this is happening,” she said. “I have noticed it for many years—I even spoke about it with people at the school. But I like to focus my time on teaching and not trying to decide whether teachers are doing right or wrong. The school should do that.” 

Kavaler said she was happy that the superintendent had agreed to put together a series of discussions to address the issue. 

“I think it’s a great start for Berkeley High,” she said. “We need to sit down and talk about standards and what can be done.” 

Halpern said that the letter had proved to be detrimental to the morale of many teachers. 

“It was very divisive and had a negative effect on student learning,” he said. “Most teachers are pretty burned out from it.” 

McHugh said in an e-mail that he stood by the concerns raised in the letter, but “regretted the fact that so many hardworking teachers had felt personally offended by it.” 

“The concerns we raised focus on policies of our administration; they were intended to be directed toward our administration and must be addressed by our administration,” he said. 

Rick Ayers, a former Berkeley High teacher who was involved in starting the smalls schools, called every assertion in the letter an outrage. 

“People are very nice about it,” he said. “The school district has been getting teachers together for 10 years to talk. I don’t think people need to talk nice at this point. [The letter] has shattered every friendly discourse possible.” 

About 15 teachers showed up for a lunchtime conversation coordinated by Halpern following the publication of the letter. 

“The majority of teachers wanted to talk about teaching and learning,” he said. “A minority of teachers wanted to talk about difficult topics, such as ethics and grading practices. However, I would like to start with less controversial and more classroom-focused topics as a means to rebuild trust in teachers—to support those difficult conversations. The district’s efforts to hold these discussions comes at a point when the science teachers have already divided the staff. We need to engage in some community rebuilding.

With almost a complete lack of controversy or public dissent, the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved a staff recommendation Tuesday night that will raise most parking citation fines $5 across the board, but significantly higher on University of California football game days. 

The reason for the lack of controversy? The $5 increase is due to recent state legislative action to relieve California’s budget crisis, and all but 50 cents per violation of the increase will pass directly through to the state treasury. 

“I think it’s unfortunate that the state, sort of in the middle of the night, would basically just rip off $4.50 from every parking ticket in the state of California,” Mayor Tom Bates said at Tuesday night’s meeting. “It’s pretty unconscionable. They don’t want to raise taxes. They don’t want to even raise fees. What they do is back-door, and take the money and run. But I don’t think we have much choice. The choice is to cut our budget, but I don’t think we’re prepared to do that.” 

Other councilmembers appear-ed glum about the dilemma, with Councilmember Gordon Wozniak saying that he was “not enthusiastic about raising parking tickets” while making the motion to approve the increases. 

Under the city’s new parking citation schedule, which goes into effect May 1, the fine for parking in a posted no-parking zone, for example, will rise from $51 to $56, a 10 percent increase, while the fine for parking overtime at a two-hour meter will rise from $30 to $35, a 12 percent increase. 

A dollar and a half of the parking ticket pass-through to the state has actually been in effect since January 2003, but the city staff report on the item said that “Berkeley and other cities were not aware of nor were remitting [to the state] the existing $1.50.” With the added $3 pass-through just passed by the Legislature, the report said that, without the city increases, the total $4.50 per ticket payment to the state would result in a $1.35 million loss annually to Berkeley’s budget. 

The report also said that the 50-cent increase recommended for the Berkeley parking fine request over the total $4.50 state increase was needed because the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which will receive the per ticket money, “only processes payments in whole dollar amounts.” The staff report said that the extra 50 cents would be used for “increased program costs” and to “help offset other [city of Berkeley] General Fund revenue losses.” 

Meanwhile, college football game day violations will rise as high as 114 percent, however, with stopping in a bicycle zone in the designated “football Saturday parking enforcement area” rising from $33 to $71, and parking overtime at a pay station in the same area rising from $36 to $53. The staff report for the football day increases did not cite any increased problems encountered on football day or a need for more city revenue, but said only that the increases were needed because “the violations listed for Football Days are currently higher by inconsistent amounts or proportions than general fines for the same violations.” 

While no one from the public spoke against the parking fine increases at Tuesday’s regular City Council meeting, a large majority of citizens responding to Councilmember Wozniak’s Peak. Democracy. com online forums were in opposition. Berkeley resident Jonathan Wornick wrote that “parking fines should not be a major source of revenue—they should serve to keep parking spaces available. Higher parking costs and fines only keep more people away from spending money in Berkeley.” And Neil Getz said that he would support the increase “only if the increase is temporary, expiring at the expiration of the state’s mandate.” 

Other City Council action 

The council approved 7-2 a staff recommendation to defer up to $200,000 in permit fees for selected new developments and substantial building remodels (Mayor Tom Bates, Linda Maio, Darryl Moore, Max Anderson Laurie Capitelli, Susan Wengraf, Gordon Wozniak yes, Jesse Arreguin and Kriss Worthington no). City Manager Phil Kamlarz said he would consider both revenue generation and job creation as his office’s criteria for granting the deferrals, which he said were needed because companies often ran into cash-flow problems because they could not get bank loans approved without city permits, and they could not get the permits because they did not have the money from the banks to pay for them. Kamlarz also said that two companies—the Berkeley YMCA and Metro Lighting—have recently asked for permit fee deferrals from the city for proposed construction projects, which were not specifically permitted under existing city policy but could be granted on an individual basis by the City Council. Under the new policy, the city will withhold city occupying permits for any finished projects which have not paid back the deferred fees, and the city manager’s office will make monthly reports to the council on the fee deferrals program. Worthington, saying that he was worried that larger developers would take advantage of the deferrals, argued that the deferrals should be specified for small businesses only, but the council defeated his substitute motion to allow the $200,000 deferral for small businesses and limiting the amount to $100,000 for larger companies. 

The council also approved, on a 5-0-1 vote, a recommendation for the city Housing Department to move forward with a $9 per unit, $4.50 per room fee increase proposal to help finance the city’s Rental Housing Safety Program (Moore, Anderson, Worthington, Bates, Arreguin yes, Wozniak abstain, Maio, Capitelli, and Wengraf recused because they are rental housing property owners affected by the outcome). The fee increases are intended, in part, to speed up the city’s inspections of gas heaters in rental housing property. The Housing Department will bring its recommendation back for decision at the May 19 council meeting. 

Berkeley City Manager Phil Kamlarz said Tuesday night that his office has asked for the return of more than a quarter of a million dollars Berkeley claims it is owed by office supply giant Office Depot. But to get the money, Kamlarz and the city are going to have to stand in a long line of government officials from around the country. 

Local and state governments from California to Florida, site of Office Depot’s corporate headquarters, are claiming similar charges against the company. 

Last week, the Daily Planet reported a charge by Berkeley City Finance Director Robert Hicks that Office Depot company had overcharged the city by as much as $250,000 during the course of a three-year, $550,000-a-year contract to provide miscellaneous office supplies and recycled copy paper to the city. Hicks began an investigation of the overcharge after the Berkeley City Council was approached by Radston’s Office Plus President Diane Griffin, who said her analysis of city records showed that Office Depot was giving Berkeley less than the 55 percent discount on certain items promised in its contract. 

Griffin, a member of the board of directors of the National Office Products Alliance (NOPA), estimated that the Office Depot overcharges were accumulating at a rate of $8,000 a month, and in a March 21 San Francisco Business Times article, Hicks estimated the overcharges at $262,000. 

NOPA has been conducting what amounts to a national campaign against alleged overcharges in some of Office Depot’s government office supply contracts. In a statement released to Reuters earlier this year, the association’s chairperson, Bob Chilton, said, “NOPA continues to advocate for more, not less, competition that includes independent small businesses in our industry, with consistent multiple contract awards to ensure there is ongoing, daily competition for government business.” 

Office Depot neither admits nor denies Berkeley’s allegations. In an e-mail response to the Daily Planet’s query, Jason Shockley, senior manager of public relations for Office Depot, said that “We are aware of these allegations and Office Depot intends to fully cooperate with any audit conducted by the City of Berkeley, as we do with all government and regulatory agencies. Office Depot is committed to pricing integrity, and we consistently work with our customers to ensure we are providing the best service and the greatest value possible.” 

An Internet search shows that Office Depot has had a long string of government audits and charges to cooperate with in recent years. Among them: 

• Following a state audit last year, Office Depot agreed to reimburse the state of California $2.5 million for overcharges incurred during a two-year period of $57 million in state office supply purchases. 

• A 2008 North Carolina state audit concluded that Office Depot had overcharged North Carolina state agencies by more than $294,000 over a six-month period. Among the charges in the state audit was that the company inflated base retail prices on the bid so that it would look like it was offering a higher discount than it actually was, included unauthorized items in shipments during the course of the contract, and switched brands so that the value of the products shipped to North Carolina was less than what was contracted and paid for. In a prepared news release, North Carolina State Auditor Leslie Merritt said that “There are numerous reports that Office Depot has engaged in a pattern of overcharging and violating state contracts in Georgia, California, Nebraska, Florida, and now North Carolina.” 

• Last year, Nebraska State Auditor Mike Foley found that Office Depot overcharged the state as much as 400 percent ($1.06 for staples that were supposed to be bought for 21 cents, for example) on purchased items included in the state’s $3 million per year, three-year contract with the company.  

• Also in 2008, the state of Georgia terminated its $40 million per year office supply contract with Office Depot over charges by state officials that the company “repeatedly overcharged and mispriced items for state employees,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

• Earlier this year, the Missouri attorney general’s office began an investigation into allegations that Office Depot had overcharged government agencies, nonprofit agencies and charitable groups in that state by using “bait-and-switch” tactics. 

.

The Parkway Theater is dark once again. Oakland’s beloved neighborhood movie theater shut its doors Sunday, March 22, possibly for good. 

The economic downturn and a dispute with the building’s owners have taken their toll on the theater, already operating on tight margins. With food vendors unable to cut prices and the landlords unable or unwilling to negotiate, the Fischers felt they had no choice but to close the doors. 

“It’s the economy,” said Catherine. “It’s hard. Vendors are squeezed. There’s not a whole lot of wiggle room to negotiate anymore. They’re no longer in a position to be flexible.” 

The Fischers took over the long-dormant theater in 1997, and it quickly developed a loyal clientele, helping to revitalize a neighborhood that had seen more than its share of hard times. Their goal was to establish an inexpensive, twice-a-week entertainment option for working families. They filled the theater’s two screening rooms with deep, comfortable couches and began serving pub food and alcohol in addition to the usual concession stand staples. 

Over the years the Parkway gained a sizable following—from 20-something hipsters to working families and seniors—with a variety of unique programming decisions. The theater screened everything from classics to second-run films, Hollywood blockbusters to small independent fare, B movies and vintage schlock to high-minded art films and documentaries. Frequent midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show attracted a significant following, as did such family-friendly features as the Baby Brigade, a night set aside for families to bring small children along. 

“What hurts most is [having to leave] the neighborhood,” Catherine told the Daily Planet. “All the businesses here—we came up together.” 

In 2006, the Fischers’ company, Speakeasy Theaters, expanded by assuming operation of the newly restored Cerrito Theater, duplicating many of the Parkway’s most notable attributes in that city’s quieter, more residential environment.  

Some have suggested that the Parkway suffered in part due to competition from its sister theater. Kyle Fischer, in a videotaped message that preceded each screening during the theater’s final days, seemed to confirm that theory. “We probably overextended ourselves a bit,” he said. 

The Cerrito Theater will remain open and as many Parkway employees as possible will be transferred there. 

“We’re keeping as many as we can,” Catherine said. “We can’t keep everybody, and that’s awful, but I don’t know what else to do.” 

The Fischers had struggled with the Parkway for a couple of years, but the hard times suddenly hit harder, and over the past few months they found themselves struggling to stay afloat from week to week. A decision had to be made, and it had to be made quickly. Raising ticket prices wasn’t an option; the film studios take a percentage of total sales, so it would take a hefty increase to see a meaningful rise in revenue. Besides, such a price hike, Catherine said, would undermine the theater’s ethos. 

“We didn’t want to become a $12-a-ticket movie theater,” Catherine said. 

As to be expected, considering the theater’s devoted following, there has been an outpouring of sympathy and support. 

“It’s been sad and wonderful,” Catherine said, but she isn’t counting on a final-reel rescue. “We’ve heard from people who say, ‘I’d be willing to pay more,’ but everybody is squeezed. We’re all squeezed ... But if it’s a question between going to a movie and feeding my kids, I’m going to feed my kids. And so should you.” 

Within a day of the theater’s e-mail announcement of its impending closure, Oakland resident Tony Deweese had joined with three other theater patrons—Peter Prato, Darren Hawk and Evan Hamilton—in setting up a Facebook page to rally community support and start generating ideas to save or revive the Parkway. The group quickly racked up more than 3,000 members. 

Prato, a 29-year-old New York transplant, had lived in the neighborhood for several years but felt he had yet to fully engage with the community. The demise of the Parkway was enough to stir him to action. 

“We’re using a technology infrastructure to create a community infrastructure [that can] address concerns and help move the community forward positively,” Prato said.  

Prato hopes “to see the community move ahead proactively” rather than take a wait-and-see approach. “I want a stronger, better neighborhood,” he said. 

District 2 Oakland City Councilmember Pat Kernighan posted a response to the situation on a neighborhood listserv that was re-posted on the Facebook page.  

“The closing of the Parkway Theater is a blow to the neighborhood and to the cultural fabric of the whole city,” Kernighan wrote. “I’ve heard from many concerned residents who want to understand what’s going on and whether the city can help. Without disclosing confidential information of local business owners, there has been a breakdown in the relationship between the owners of the theater business and the owners of the building. I spent many hours mediating between the parties during the past two years, but it was unsuccessful. The parties are now in litigation, and I believe their relationship is irreparable.” 

The Facebook group facilitators staged a farewell celebration in front of the theater on closing day and passed around a petition to document community support for the theater. The Facebook group invites concerned community members to participate in a follow-up meeting at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 29, at Rooz Cafe on Park Boulevard near the theater. 

Final days 

At 6:45 p.m. Friday, March 20, the line outside the theater wound around the corner and into the Kragen parking lot next door. Most were buying tickets for the 7 p.m. showing of Revolutionary Road, but others had shown up early to get tickets for later screenings of The Wrestler and Let the Right One In, certain that the lines would only grow longer. (And they did—by 9 p.m. there were nearly 100 people waiting outside to purchase tickets.) As patrons chattered about the theater’s imminent demise, a fire engine returning from a call turned from East 19th onto Park Boulevard. The firefighter at the wheel pumped his fist out the window, picked up the CB and boomed, “Save the Parkway! Save the Parkway!” to the cheering crowd. 

Inside, the theater was as busy as ever, with long lines at the concession stand and harried wait staff rushing from kitchen to theater, delivering food and drinks to moviegoers. 

“I’ve never seen it so full,” said one patron upon slipping into a back-row seat of the theater’s balcony screening room. “This is the first time I’ve sat in the nosebleed seats,” said another, “and the last.” 

Once the lights dimmed the screen gave way to one of the theater’s trademark, low-fi video introductions, with the Fischers and their two children sitting before the camera to offer their customers an explanation. 

After briefly recapping their history with the theater, Kyle admitted that though the recession didn’t help, the theater has been suffering through tough times for a couple of years.  

“It hasn’t just been a couple of months we’ve had to withstand,” said Catherine. “We’ve weathered a couple months here, a couple months there before—there’s been an ebb and flow. But this has been, as you all know, a lot more than a couple of months.” 

Credit got tight, Kyle said. Vendors who would once extend two months’ worth of credit could now afford only two weeks. 

“We tried to renegotiate with our landlords, and they were not interested in renegotiating,” he said. “We didn’t always have a great relationship with our landlords. Somebody purchased the building about six or seven years ago, and we never really got on well.” 

“We’ll try the best we can to figure out some way to get the Parkway going again,” Kyle said. “We’re going to do the best that we can, if we can’t get back into the Parkway, to help our landlords find somebody who can. Because this community does not need a vacant Parkway Theater. We know what that was like.” 

Speakeasy Theaters:  

www.picturepubpizza.com 

Facebook group: www.iliketheparkway.com

A federal judge has ordered a halt to work on a $113 million computer lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), saying UC officials may have tried to evade federal environmental law.  

U.S. District Judge William H. Alsup handed down a 20-page preliminary injunction Wednes-day, March 18, siding with Save Strawberry Canyon, a Berkeley citizen’s group formed to challenge the university’s building plans along the canyon.  

His action halts any work at the site of the proposed Compu-tational Research and Theory (CRT) building until after a September trial in his San Francisco courtroom.  

“This order enjoins defendants from entering any contract or undertaking any action, without prior approval of the court, that will disturb the land itself pending a determination of the merits,” the judge wrote in his order.  

Alsup said the university could continue with its planning work on the building, which was approved last May by the UC Board of Regents.  

Michael Lozeau, the environmental attorney who represents the citizen group, said he was pleased with the court’s ruling, and for recognizing that “the university was playing it both ways.”  

The key issue for the federal judge was whether or not the university was attempting to skirt the National Environmental Protection Act by conducting only a state-level environmental impact review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  

Alsup’s ruling parses the complex relationship between the university and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), a relationship certain to grow more complex with the appointment of Steven Chu as head of the federal agency. Chu headed LBNL before becoming the first science Nobel Laureate to lead the Energy Department,  

Alsup ruled that despite the claims of UC Berkeley officials and the DOE that the lab is “a UC-owned building on UC-owned land,” Lozeau’s clients have “created a substantial question regarding whether the federal government exercised decision-making authority and control over the project.”  

While university and lab officials repeatedly told the public that the building was being built to house the DOE’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), UC attorney John Lynn Smith argued that the supercomputer facility was only a “prospective tenant,” since no agreement committed the feds to locate the facility there.  

The center is currently housed in a leased former bank building in downtown Oakland.  

Alsup ruled that “the record indicates one of the university’s primary purposes for the CRT project was to house DOE’s computation centers,” with the building “designed with consideration of the needs of DOE computer systems,” and with DOE involvement and ongoing “great interest” in the facility.  

“Considering all of this evidence, this order finds that [Save Strawberry Canyon] has identified ‘serious questions’ of whether or not the CRT is a federal action.” Alsup wrote.  

He also rejected a defense argument which contended that National Environmental Protection Act review didn’t matter, since CEQA “is NEPA with teeth.”  

If the project is determined to serve federal needs, NEPA review would be required, since the law was passed by Congress to ensure the federal government would “‘have available and carefully consider’ the information that Congress wished for it to consider in order to appropriately plan and coordinate federal policy,” Alsup wrote.  

Smith argued that the suit was simply a third attempt by the plaintiffs “to force the university to construct the CRT facility far away from LBNL and the UCB campus at UC’s Richmond Field Station.”  

Named as defendants in the action for the DOE were the secretary of Energy, LBNL’s director and the members of the Board of Regents.  

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is one of three national labs UC Berkeley operates under contract with the DOE, and it receives 77 percent of its funding from the DOE, with another eight percent from the National Institutes of Health, the judge wrote.  

The CRT is part of a major construction program at the lab, with another project also the subject of a lawsuit—the so-called Helios Building, which would house research conducted under the $500 million synthetic-fuels research project funded by British oil giant BP.  

Save Strawberry Canyon has filed a parallel action against the Helios project, represented in that case by Stephan Volker.  

The group includes several well-known Berkeley activists, including Save the Bay co-founder Sylvia McLaughlin, Lesley Emmington, Janice Thomas and former Mayor Shirley Dean.

The Planning Commission rejected a suggestion from one of its own that would have scaled down Shattuck Avenue development along the thoroughfare’s southern stretch in the new downtown planning area.  

Teresa Clarke, a commissioner who works for nonprofit developer Affordable Housing Associates, urged her colleagues at the March 18 meeting to limit maximum heights along the eastern side of Shattuck midblock between Durant Avenue and Channing Way and the plan’s southern boundary at Dwight Way.  

“The Fine Arts Building is 65 feet, and it feels really good, really appropriate. But 85 feet is too big,” she said during the March 18 meeting.  

But reducing height by two stories from the 85 feet allowed in the commission’s draft Downtown Area Plan wouldn’t be supportive of the city’s Climate Action Plan, said Commission Chair David Stoloff, himself a retired planner. “We should not overconstrain” density, he said. “That would be going backward.”  

Commissioner and architect Jim Novosel backed Clarke’s proposal, as did two of the commission’s non-development-sector members, Patti Dacey and Gene Poschman. But the majority in a straw poll felt otherwise.  

Commissioners did agree to a slight reduction in the southern limits of the plan’s core area where the tallest buildings could rise—a pair of 225-foot hotels and four 180-footers.  

While the area for the highest-rises in the commission’s earlier draft extended from midblock between University Avenue and Addison Street on the north to Kittredge Street along the western side of Shattuck and along the eastern side to a point midblock between Durant and Channing, a commission majority said they would limit the height to 120 feet from a point a half-block south of Kittredge to midway between Durant and Channing.  

Plans to push the taller buildings north of University Avenue have been shelved for the moment, with the commission hamstrung by its adoption of limits that were included in the plan’s draft environmental impact review.  

Commissioners will be voting later on a call for the City Council to approve a study that would expand the tall building zone, provided the city has funding to cover costs of an additional environment review.

Berkeley’s Washington ties grew stronger with the March 20 announcement in Washington by President Barack Obama that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has picked Steve Koonin as undersecretary for science. 

As chief scientist for British oil giant BP, Koonin had overseen the company’s $500 million research grant headquartered at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). 

Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics who served as lab director at the time Berkeley was successfully applying for and implementing the grant, now oversees the nation’s energy policies, in which plant-derived fuels are expected to play a major role. 

Koonin, an outspoken scientist who came to BP from the California Institute of Technology, oversaw the inauguration of the Berkeley-based, BP-funded Energy Biosciences Institute. 

Chu played a critical role in winning the grant for a consortium consisting of LBNL, UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. 

According to the DOE press release announcing the appointment, Koonin, who holds a doctorate from MIT, “has served on numerous advisory bodies for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy and its various national laboratories. Koonin’s research interests have included theoretical and computational physics, as well as global environmental science.” 

A sometimes controversial figure, Koonin had refuted statements by EBI head Chris Somerville that the program was aimed only at developing crops on marginal farmlands east of the Mississippi. 

The BP scientist accompanied EBI scientists to a gathering of the U.S. Energy Association two years ago, where he said, “If you look at a picture of the globe ... it’s pretty easy to see where the green parts are, and those are the places where one would perhaps optimally grow feedstocks.”

Challenger Sophie Hahn outspent Laurie Capitelli in the battle for the Berkeley City Council’s District 5 seat, shelling out $57,896.17 to the incumbent’s $43,023.05. 

While the challenger raised more money overall, the incumbent raised five times as much money from the sector that dominates many Berkeley political contests: land use. One of every four dollars Capitelli raised came from land-use-related donors, compared with one dollar in every 25 raised by Hahn. 

Capitelli won the hotly contested election, with 4,299 votes to Hahn’s 3,897. That gives the challenger a cost per vote of $14.86, compared with Capitelli’s $10.01. 

Those cost-per-vote sums are much greater than the amounts spent in the mayoral race, where incumbent Tom Bates spent $2.37 for each of his votes, while former Mayor Shirley Dean expended $1.79 for each of her 20,188 votes. 

Campaign contribution reports filed earlier in the campaign had given Capitelli at least $6,325 from individuals with a financial interest in development and the sale of real estate, accounting for 35.2 percent of his donors.  

The final filings, with $5,200 in land-use- sector donations, bring the total amount of identifiable contributions from people and groups involved in the development and sale of property to $11,425. 

Among the contributors to Capitelli listed in his final campaign filings are these individuals with land-use-sector occupations: 

• Grace Bishop, an El Cerrito real estate broker, $100. 

• Kimberly Miller, a member of Capitelli’s Red Oak Realty, $200. 

• Mamood Moktari, another Red Oak staff member, $50. 

• Peter Damm, also of Red Oak, gave a second $100 contribution. 

• Arlene Leonoff of Red Oak added $100 to a previous donation of $49. 

• William Davis, an attorney who is a partner of land-use lawyer and Berkeley Planning Commisioner Harry Pollack, $250. 

• Harry Pollack added $150 to his previous $100 donation. 

• Dawn Malatesta, a loan processor for MPR Financial and an East Bay mortgage broker, $100. 

• California real Estate PAC on behalf of the Berkeley Association of Realtors, $250. 

• Martin H. Dodd, a Berkeley real estate lawyer, gave $100 on top of a previous $150. 

• Cindy Chang, spouse of Berkeley developer Chris Hudson, $250. 

• Evan McDonald, Hudson’s partner, $250. 

• Developer Patrick Kennedy, $250. 

• Kennedy’s spouse, Julie, $250. 

• Berkeley real estate investor Soheyl Modaressi, $250. 

• Architect and Planning Commissioner Jim Novosel, $250. 

• Michael St. John, a property management consultant, $100. 

• Designer/builder Dennis Cohen, $200. 

• Contractor Matthew Friedman, $100. 

• West Berkeley developer Doug Herst, $250. 

• Carolyn Herst, spouse of the West Berkeley developer, $250. 

• Caleb Dardick, a publicist who represents developers, added $150 to a previous $100 contribution. 

• Contractor David Hart, $250. 

• Architect Charles Kahn, $100. 

• Contractor Martin Kaufman, $250. 

• David Ruegg of Rue Ell Enterprises, real estate developers, $250. 

• Robert Ellsworth, Ruegg’s partner, $250. 

• Dena Belzer, an economic consultant on planning issues, $100. 

• Peter Calthorpe, a private sector urban planner, $200. 

• Alexandra Crisafulli of Millstein & Associates real estate, $100. 

• Steve Yoshimura of Nakamura Realty gave $50 to augment a previous contribution of $100. 

• Capitelli also lent himself $8,000. 

The incumbent’s campaign also featured a paid campaign manager, Jill Martinucci, his staff aide as a councilmember, who was paid $4,000 in the final filing period. 

Hahn donors 

Hahn, the challenger, drew only a small amount from the land-use sector. 

The challenger’s earlier reports included at least $2,000 of land-use-sector contributors, or 6.5 percent of her total campaign war chest as of Sept. 30. 

The final filing boosts her total from people who profit from property and its development to $2,300. 

Hahn takes the prize for having the most powerfully connected donor. While technically not in the development game and only a minor donor, Martin Friedman, of Credit Suisse, and formerly head of mergers and acquisition for Novartis Pharma, chipped in with $50. 

She recorded only three contributions from folks with identifiable land-use-sector vocations, including: 

• Nancy Hendrickson, an engineer for CH2M Hill, $100. 

• Real estate law specialist Pamela Lakey, $100. 

• Mary Murtagh, of nonprofit housing developers EAH, $100. 

Like Capitelli, Hahn also retained one full-time campaign worker, Ashley Conrad, who was paid $4,027.50 during the final filing period. 

Workers are busy putting the finishing touches on downtown Berkeley’s two newest buildings, the David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza.  

Tenants have already moved into Oxford Plaza—the city’s newest and largest affordable housing structure—while next door to the north, workers are polishing off the last details of the Brower Center, the city’s greenest building, named for the Berkeley native who is ranked as one of the founders of the modern environmental movement. 

And beneath the two structures just across Oxford Street from the UC Berkeley campus, the public is already parking in the underground lot built to replace the surface parking demolished to make way for the new bulidings. The lot’s 99 spaces replace most of the 130 spaces of the surface lot, but parking is pricier, with the old $2 flat charge after 5 p.m. doubled to four bucks. 

The parking structure is open from 8 a.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays. Rates range from $1 for an hour to $3 for two hours and $15 for five, with a $25 charge for events like football and basketball games and graduations. 

New residents began moving into Oxford Plaza last month. The building will house 97 tenants selected from a lottery that attracted more than 3,400 applicants, according to Resources for Community Development (RCD), the project’s non-profit developer. 

Oxford Plaza is unusual for Berkeley affordable housing projects in that it offers a range of units, ranging from studios to three-bedroom units. Maximum incomes for eligible tenants range from $12,060 for individuals to $51,660 for families of four. 

Based on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, RCD has built more than 1,500 affordable apartments since the company was chartered in 1984. They will welcome the public to a grand opening at the building on June 11. 

Brower Center  

The Brower Center will be Berkeley’s greenest building, as befits a structure built in honor of its namesake. Its unusual nature is apparent from the swooshing framework that tops the structure like a flamboyant crown. 

In addition to shading the building’s upper floors, the structure also supports arrays of photovoltaic panels that power the center’s low-energy lighting, elevators and other electrical and electronic hardware. 

The building already has one tenant, center Executive Director Amy Tobin, who moved into her office March 11. 

The center has been built to specifications that Tobin says are certain to win the highest rating under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System. 

“Usually, green building designers think about the bigger elements, but in this building, we have thought about all of it,” Tobin said. 

Everything from the carpeting—made with recycled components and itself fully recyclable and donated by the manufacturer, Interface—to the dark flecks in the center’s concrete—bits of slag left over from the steel smelting process—are testaments to the builder’s commitment to embody Brower’s aspirations. 

The building is structured around two basic concepts, with the upstairs providing offices (hopefully all for environmental organizations) while the ground floor is dedicated to community events, with a theater and a restaurant—Terrain—that will specialize in locally produced foods. 

The colorful wood evident on many of the walls is Plyboo, a form of plywood made from readily grown bamboo, while the wall fabrics were selected from non-toxic materials that don’t generate off-gassing. 

And even the windows are green in the most old-fashioned sense: They open, bringing in fresh air. 

Another unique feature of the building is a rainwater capture system that stores the runoff in cisterns beneath the building for use in flushing the toilets—but not the urinals in the men’s’ rooms, which are the first waterless devices of their kind to be installed in the city. 

Throughout the building, sensors register when someone walks into an empty room and turns on the lights, while the upper floor sensors also turn off the lights when they detect enough illumination so that they’re not needed. 

“The offices are healthy for people, which isn’t always the case for offices nonprofits can afford,” she said. 

The building offers no parking for its tenants, who are expected to take public transit, bike or walk to work, and for cyclists, there are showers to freshen up after strenuous rides. 

Members of the public are invited to a free open house from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, May 10, two days after a Friday evening $20-per-person housewarming party.

The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce has removed CEO Ted Garrett from office and is seeking a new candidate for the position, chamber officials announced last week.  

Jonathan DeYoe, chair of the chamber’s board of directors and head of DeYoe Wealth Management in Berkeley, did not provide any specifics about Garrett’s dismissal except to say that “he was let go.”  

“There were some things he was really really good at and some things he wasn’t so good at, so we needed someone else to carry on the work,” DeYoe said. “He was really good at outreach—one of the things we loved about Ted is that he was able to connect with the community really well. He shook things up a bit. So that was not a problem at all. That was good stuff.”  

Garrett, who lives in Berkeley, directed all queries to DeYoe.  

Rose Garden Inn owner Kevin Allen has been named interim CEO. Allen declined to comment on Garrett’s dismissal.  

In an e-mail sent to chamber members Wednesday, March 18, the executive board said the organization’s new mission statement, crafted in 2008, would focus on helping local businesses prosper during a tough economy, making it imperative for the chamber to launch a search for a new CEO who would help meet those goals.  

“The position must be filled with a dynamic and strong candidate,” the e-mail said. “With an enthusiastic and active executive board, rising membership, solid financial strength, and our newly stated roadmap objectives, we must appoint an excellent candidate to lead the chamber as we evolve into a more forceful and active presence.”  

Roland Peterson, a member of the chamber’s executive board and chair of the Telegraph Improvement Business District, said Garrett was hired in July 2007 to bring a much needed boost to the chamber’s flagging membership.  

“The chamber board was looking for someone with a little bit of energy and enthusiasm to build up the membership,” said Peterson.  

Rachel Rupert, who served as CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce for 19 years, retired in 2007, prompting the chamber to search for a new leader.  

Garrett had previously served as the executive director for several downtown associations and business improvement districts in San Diego, Oceanside and Los Altos.  

The hiring of Garrett followed on the heels of a controversy surrounding the chamber’s political action committee (PAC), which filed its November 2006 municipal election contribution statements with Alameda County instead of the City of Berkeley.  

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission had advised the city and the PAC’s attorneys that the committee should file its campaign contribution statements with the city.  

The PAC dissolved in 2007 after spending more than $100,000 in the 2006 election to re-elect Mayor Tom Bates, to defeat Measure J (the Landmark Preservation Ordinance), and to try to unseat councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring.  

Garrett focused on improving the membership at the chamber, reaching out to new businesses.  

“He was pretty successful at it the first year—more successful than I thought,” Peterson said. “Things had leveled off to a certain extent, at least that’s what I feel, and I give Ted a certain amount of credit for that.”  

As for meeting the expectations of the chamber’s new goals, Peterson said that the organization was working hard to make its presence more prominent in the city.  

“We would like to become a resource for new businesses to get started,” he said. “Usually they have to jump through a lot of hoops in the city when they first move here. We would like to make things easier for them.”  

DeYoe said the chamber would try to become more involved in the Berkeley City Council meetings and provide advice to business owners, among other things.  

“Three years ago the chamber was kind of quiet,” he said. “We did have a presence in a lot of places, but we want to have an even greater presence. We want to become a positive influence on the community.”  

Deborah Badhia, executive director of the Downtown Berkeley Association, said that the chamber had the potential to become a tremendous resource for businesses all over the city.  

“I look forward to the chamber hiring a new person who will work as an ally for the business community,” she said.  

According to the e-mail sent out by the chamber, a search committee has already been formed to find a new CEO within the next several months who “would act as a diplomatic yet forceful spokesperson for the newly adopted mission statement, identify key strategic partners and communicate clearly with members, partners, businesses, city staff and elected officials to establish a clear dialogue and goals to further accountability and progress.”  

The new CEO will continue to focus on expanding membership, developing fundraising sources and support existing businesses, the letter said.  

“He has to be a spokesperson for the chamber as well as keep everything running—finances as well as staff,” Allen said. “I am really excited to get this chance and hope to serve for two to three months. Once we find the right person, I will hand the reins over to him and teach him the ropes of the job.”

The Zoning Adjustments Board is asking Berkeley’s Thai temple to keep the noise down. 

At its March 12 meeting, the zoning board voted 6-3 to formally approve a Buddhist shrine and year-round Sunday food service at Wat Mongkolratanaram, but imposed a number of conditions on its use permit to ensure that the neighborhood is not negatively affected by traffic, litter and noise. The board had previously put pressure on the temple to reduce its weekend brunch hours and the number of visitors it attracts. 

Neighbors had complained at previous board meetings that the temple’s outdoor food fairs at 1911 Russell St. were interfering with their quality of life, prompting zoning officials to investigate the temple’s original use permit, which restricted festivities to just three times a year. 

Zoning Board Member Bob Allen, who voted with the minority, said at the meeting that he had come across huge crowds, amplified music and snarled traffic during a recent Sunday afternoon visit to the temple, which he said had been hosting a funeral service at the time. 

“The place was jam-packed at 3 p.m. and had a worse crowd than the food service,” he said. “We are allowing them to build a new temple but are not setting any standards about what kind of public functions may or may not take place there. We have bowed enough to the temple’s wishes ... If you lived right across from it, you couldn’t sit inside your house and do anything without headphones on.” 

Board Member Jesse Anthony argued that, although adhering to the law was important, the board had to be careful about imposing restrictions that could endanger the temple’s existence. 

“I have lived 74 years and I have never heard of a church, when they have a funeral, deciding how many people can attend the funeral,” he said. “I don’t think we need to go that far. It might be some noise sometime, but people can give up a few hours for people who want to visit a shrine.” 

Allen pointed out that the new use permit states that the project would not be detrimental to the peace of the neighborhood. 

“Most funeral services are indoors, and PA systems are indoors, and it doesn’t have any impact on the neighborhood,” Allen said. “Here we are bringing hundreds of people into the neighborhood—how can that not be detrimental to the peace of the neighborhood?” 

Greg Powell, the city’s senior planner for the project, told the board that the temple’s original 1993 use permit prohibited the use of amplified speakers during festivities. The original permit specifically said that the temple would be “responsible for assuring that the noise generated by services and celebrations on site do not exceed decibel levels set by the City of Berkeley’s noise ordinance.” 

“This has been incorporated into the new application,” Powell said, and could be used for future enforcement. 

Board Member Michael Alvarez-Cohen, citing the temple’s history of violating its food-service permit, asked the city’s Planning Department staff whether it was possible to find out whether the temple’s use of amplified sound was out of compliance with the standards set by the city with respect to religious practices. 

Steve Ross, the city’s principal planner, said Berkeley allows amplified sound only seven times a year with a special use permit. 

“We would have a hard time regulating religious practices, but as for whether it’s a detriment to the surrounding property, we can look at that impact,” Ross said. 

The board approved a motion directing planning staff to send a letter informing the Thai temple about amplification limits in the city by drawing attention to the conditions outlined in the original use permit. 

The letter will also ask the temple to post signs on Martin Luther King Jr. Way informing visitors that parking is available in a lot near the Berkeley Bowl market, so that drivers don’t block neighbors’ driveways.

The United States Marine Corps Officer Selection Office in downtown Berkeley came under attack once again last week, when a group of vandals broke the building’s windows with sledgehammers and splashed them with red paint.  

Officers at the recruiting center at 64 Shattuck Square were not able to say whether the incident was related to protests taking place throughout the rest of the country on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war.  

Berkeley Police Department spokesperson, Officer Andrew Frankel, said the police received a call at 8:54 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18, from an eyewitness who reported that three suspects were breaking the Marine Corps office’s plate-glass windows and splashing them with red paint.  

Eyewitnesses saw the suspects leave the scene immediately after the crime, Frankel said. Berkeley police officers combed the neighborhood for suspects and talked to eyewitnesses but were unable to find the culprits.  

However, an hour later, police officers arrested a man on an unrelated warrant whom they consider a “person of interest” in the incident.  

Frankel said the man was a Berkeley resident but declined to release his name and age, as the incident is still under investigation.  

Captain John-Paul Wheatcroft, who has been in charge of the Marine recruiting center since Captain Richard Lund left about a year ago, confirmed that the office had been vandalized but directed all queries to Staff Sergeant Matt Deboard.  

Deboard said that, according to eyewitness accounts, a group of vandals attacked the recruiting station around 8 p.m., hitting its windows with sledgehammers and “slopping gooey thick red paint on them.”  

He said police arrived immediately after they were called.  

“We boarded up the windows as best as we could to prevent further damage,” he said. “The landlord is in the process of cleaning them up. He is paying for it.”  

Deboard said nobody was present at the office when it was vandalized.  

The Berkeley Marine recruiting center was catapulted into the national and international limelight in September 2007, when the antiwar group Code Pink first rallied outside its office in an attempt to drive the recruiters out of town.  

The Marines responded that they would stay in Berkeley as long as they had a valid lease.  

In January 2008, the Berkeley City Council came under heavy criticism when it called the downtown Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.”  

The council rescinded its statement in February, explaining that while it continued to oppose the war in Iraq, it respected the men and women of the U.S. military.

Oakland Police have arrested two young men who robbed four students at gunpoint at Oakland Technological High School Tuesday morning, March 24. 

In a letter e-mailed to the school community, Oakland Tech Principal Sheilagh Andujar said that, although the incident had been “extremely disturbing,” nobody was injured, and the situation was diffused quickly. 

Located at 4351 Broadway Ave., Oakland Tech is one of six comprehensive public high school campuses in Oakland. Run by the Oakland Unified School District, the school gets students from several neighborhoods, including Oakland Chinatown, Rockridge and Temescal. 

Andujar said in her letter that two young men unaffiliated with Oakland Tech entered the school around 8 a.m.  

One of the men was carrying a gun, which was not in plain view. The two suspects later used the weapon to threaten four students to give up their possessions. 

Responding immediately to a distress call from a teacher, campus security was able to track the two men as they left the campus, passing on the information to Oakland police, who were able to arrest both suspects. 

The pair are currently in the custody of the Oakland Police Department.  

Law enforcement officials are investigating the situation along with the school and district administrations. 

Calls to the Oakland Police Department spokesperson for comment were not returned immediately. 

Andujar said in her e-mail that school staff and police checked on students following the incident.  

“Certainly some people were shaken by the incident, which is only natural, but I was extremely impressed by the composure both students and staff exhibited throughout the day and the cohesive response I witnessed in the Tech community,” said Oakland Unified spokesperson Troy Flint. “There was no real sense of panic, and, after the incident was addressed, school continued in relatively normal fashion.” 

Crisis counselors were also available on site throughout the day to provide additional support. 

“We are already working with law enforcement and the Tech community to continue to assess safety threats and promote school safety,” Andujar’s e-mail said. “As you know, we are a community at Oakland Tech and we welcome suggestions and comments with respect to this situation and all opportunities for improvement at our school. In the meantime, please know that my door is open and that we at Oakland Tech take this event and all matters affecting student safety with the utmost seriousness.” 

Flint said that although he did not have ready figures for the number of robberies that have occurred at Oakland Tech or Oakland Unified in the past, “Tech, while not without incident, is generally regarded as a safe campus.” 

“[It’s] a fact that staff members reaffirmed at a faculty meeting today,” he said. “That said, we as a district can certainly do more to improve school security generally and with respect to the specific situation on the Tech campus.” 

Security on campus had been beefed up following the incident, Flint said. 

“There was extra police presence throughout the day, and staff was asked to be especially alert,” he said. “In addition, we have begun the process of a threat assessment to determine potential security gaps or flaws in protocol. It’s extremely likely this will result in some changes that constrict campus access to a certain degree, but specific determinations have not been made at this time.” 

Authorities have directed the community to contact OUSD’s anonymous Tip Line at 532-4867 with any information that might suggest students or staff may be in danger. 

An Alameda County Superior Court judge raised the bail for Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield, charged with murdering UC Berkeley nuclear engineering student Chris Wootton last May, to $2.5 million at a bail motion hearing at the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse, Tuesday, March 24. 

Judge Morris Jacobson had set the original bail amount at $2 million at an earlier hearing on Feb. 1, after acknowledging that Hoeft-Edenfield posed a threat to the community and a flight risk. 

Jacobson had explained that the excessive amount would ensure that the family and friends of Hoeft-Edenfield, who helped to raise it, would see that he showed up at his pretrial hearing later that month. 

Hoeft-Edenfield’s private attorney, Yolanda Huang, had asked the judge to set the bail at $60,000, indicating that a higher amount would make it impossible for his family to raise the amount. 

Although Hoeft-Edenfield’s pretrial hearing was scheduled for Monday, March 23, Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Stacie Pettigrew said the judge had canceled the hearing and asked the attorneys to appear for a bail motion hearing Tuesday. 

Pettigrew said that Huang had asked Jacobson to review the $2 million bail amount, explaining that it was too high, but that the judge had increased it by half a million. 

Hoeft-Edenfield’s next court hearing is scheduled for Monday, March 30. 

The NASDAQ stock exchange formally announced Wednesday, March 25, that it was delisting the stock of Magna Entertainment Corp. 

It is the final action in a process that began with suspension of the shares last week, when the exchange announced it would be removing the company from its listings.  

Owner of the largest share of America’s horse racing venues, including Albany’s Golden Gate Fields, Magna has sought the protection of bankruptcy courts in the United States and Canada. 

The Toronto Stock Exchange had already delisted the stock, and NASDAQ had suspended trading in Magna Shares March 16. 

Troubled by financial woes that plague the sport of kings, Magna has struggled to survive. While shares had traded for $154.20 in November, 2005, and at $198 in January, 2002, the stock had plummeted to pennies a share by the time trading was halted. 

The Albany track and several other corporate holdings are heading for the auction block, though a sister company has announced it will try to buy the assets.

Jack’s cocktail 

Firefighters rushed to the Jack in the Box at 2197 San Pablo Ave. Tuesday night, March 24, summoned by a 911 call reporting that the building was ablaze. 

But instead of finding the structure fully involved—firefighter lingo for an all-consuming inferno—they found the last remnants of dying flames rising feebly from the rooftop. 

Still, the cause was sinister enough. Someone had hurled a Molotov cocktail in an apparent attempt to burn down the eatery, said Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong. 

“We found evidence of a glass beer bottle with a wick in it,” he said. 

Firefighters located the restaurant manager, who accompanied them inside the building, where they found no evidence that the flames had penetrated the roof. 

“There was very little damage,” said the deputy chief. “But because a restaurant was involved, we notified the city’s environmental health department,” which will conduct a follow-up inspection. 

The building sustained only minimal damage from the flames, he said. 

Fuel spill 

Earlier Tuesday—2 a.m. to be precise—firefighters were called to westbound Interstate 80 between Gilman Street and University Avenue after a non-injury collision between a tractor-trailer rig and a passenger car spilled diesel fuel onto the roadway. 

The spill of about 100 gallons forced closure of all westbound lanes while Berkeley firefighters contained the spill and crews from CalTrans and the California Highway Patrol handled the actual cleanup. 

“We determined there had been no spread to the  

waters of Aquatic Park or the western frontage road,” said Deputy Chief Dong. 

Self-reported 

It was a Berkeley firefighter who reported the week’s other significant incident, smelling smoke on the way back to the station Monday afternoon, March 23, after rescuing a hapless Berkeley resident who’d been stuck in an elevator in the 2400 block of Waring Street. 

“They drove around the block looking for the source, and when they got to the corner of Dwight Way and Piedmont Avenue, they saw smoke coming from the window of an apartment building,” said Deputy Chief Dong. 

After calling for more firefighters, the crew entered the building to find heavy flames in the bedroom of one apartment, with the flames spreading to the unit above. 

By the time they had controlled the blaze, the flames had caused about $20,000 in damages to the building and another $5,000 in losses to the contents. 

“Two tenants found lodging with family or friends,” said the deputy chief. 

The cause of the blaze remains under investigation. “It wasn’t easy to pin down right away, because there were so many heat sources,” he said. 

Helping out 

Berkeley firefighters will be lending a hand to their colleagues in Oakland, Friday, March 27, helping to cover the city to the south while Oakland firefighters join with their colleagues in blue at services for the four police officers slain by a wanted felon. 

“We’re working with other agencies and the Oakland Fire Department to provide coverage of the city. 

The service begins at 11 a.m. in Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum Way, with the doors opening two hours earlier. 

The event will draw officers from across the country, some attending a private view Thursday evening open only to family members and fellow officers. 

More information on the event is posted at the Oakland Police Officers’ Association website, www.opoa.org.

Dorothy-Ann Sloan, a resident of Berkeley for more than six decades, passed away March 5. She was born in 1925 in the small town of Yale, Oklahoma, and raised there through the economic depression of the 1930s. At the height of World War II, she moved with her parents and brother to the West Coast and eventually Berkeley. Soon after, Dorothy-Ann enrolled at the University of California and went on to receive both an associate arts degree in 1945, and a bachelor of arts degree in 1953. She was also recognized as an honor student. 

Since her early days in Oklahoma, Dorothy-Ann had always loved song, dance and the theater, interests that she carried throughout her life. While at UC Berkeley, she also pursued her passion for writing and eventually landed a job as a food-and-fashion copy editor for the Oakland Tribune. She said that was where she acquired the nickname Deede. 

Those who had the opportunity to know Deede will attest to the fact that she was a woman of strong character, one who formed and held her own opinions and possessed the intellectual ability to defend them. This characteristic did not lessen in anyway the kindness of her nature. Deede gave so much of her time and energy to others. She was a special friend to animals and took in many a stray cat. 

Perhaps Deede is best remembered for her extensive legacy of community involvement and activism. Known for her special organizational abilities, she worked tirelessly as an advocate and volunteer. These activities began with her first days in Berkeley when she assisted with the American Red Cross.  

Few have a record of public service to match Deede’s. She contributed her time and talent at the North Berkeley Senior Center for more than a quarter of a century to promote its activities and growth including the Retired Seniors Volunteer Program, Meals on Wheels, and the Coffee Bar.  

As president of the Gray Panthers, Deede pursued one of her greatest passions, that of social justice. She actively championed fair labor practices and living wage policies, marched with seniors at the state capital and walked local picket lines. She was an acknowledged supporter of Oakland’s Children’s Hospital and lobbied for improvements in healthcare for all.  

Some will remember seeing her, the slender, 5-foot-2, blue-eyed polling volunteer and elections precinct inspector at the Number 2 fire station where she served for more than two decades. 

In her high school valedictorian speech Deede said, “In life there are, of course, hellos and good-byes.” She said we must move on but never forget where we have been or those who we have embraced. Truly, Deede’s gift of friendship has warmed many hearts. The memory of her kindness, caring nature and special smile will remind us how fortunate we have been to have known her.  

The life of Deede Sloan will be honored and celebrated on Sunday, March 29, at the North Berkeley Senior Center from 1 to 5 p.m. Those who knew her are encouraged to attend and share their stories. 

A Southern lady arrived in Berkeley via Memphis in 1961, with three children, and her first husband, Dr. Marvin Wolff. She still wore hats, donned gloves, and left calling cards when making social visits. She spent several months complaining about Berkeley before she realized that coming here was her own freedom ride. 

She was born in New Orleans on March 11, 1931, the third of four children of Hermina (Big Mimi) Ochs and Dr. Dan Silverman. Some of the family heritage came from Polish Jews, reputed to have been bounty hunters (mercenaries), recruited from Europe during the Civil War. After landing near Washington, D.C., they were said to have gone to the theater, just in time to catch the assassination of Lincoln. They never reported for “duty,” as they never stopped moving until they reached the Bayou County of southwest Louisiana. 

Big Mimi’s heritage was from Alsace: the immigration goal of these French-speakers was Louisiana. Lise’s mother was a housewife, but her husband, Dan, said Mimi’s raison d’être was interest in other people’s stories, a trait Lise believed she inherited from her 19th-century mother (born in 1899). 

Her father, Dan, practiced as a gastro-enterologist in that semi-tropical paradise for parasites, New Orleans. But his greatest life experience was as a doctor in the U.S. Expeditionary Force to France in World War II. He cared for villagers as well as troops and served as translator—which made Lise laugh, as Dan’s Cajun French was barely intelligible, even in Louisiana. 

Lise went to Newman School in New Orleans, graduating in 1948. She was a fair student, far more involved in her social life. Years later, at reunions, old swains would still look goggle-eyed at her. She want on to Hollins College in Virginia, but left before obtaining her degree, in order to marry Marvin. She did get her B.A. in history at UC Berkeley in 1965. She intended to get a doctorate in history, but was infuriated at being told that women with children were accepted only for masters’ degrees. 

Thus, her illustrious career in social work began. She graduate UC Berkeley School of Social Work in 1967, then had a succession of clinical jobs, several of which she was fired from for complaining about unfairnesses. While working at the city of Berkeley clinic, she met psychiatrist Neal Blumenfeld, and her historical arc took another jump. Lise and Marvin had divorced, and she and Neal married in 1976, a “trip” that just ended. 

She was a founding member, in 1973, of a therapy collective, East Bay Clinic for Psychotherapy. She was the “bones” of the group, just as she later was eulogized as the “bones” of the Institute for Clinical Social Work. Her leadership style was “Lise”—she didn’t want to tell anyone what to do, but she wanted them to do the right things anyhow. She had some difficulty bringing spouse Dr. Neal into line. When the clinic folded in 1985 she was ready to go. 

In the meantime she pursued her interest in public mental health, enrolling in the UC Berkeley MPH program, where she received her degree in 1982. She moved right along, next enrolling in the Institute for Clinical Social Work—now the Sanville Institute—where she received her doctorate in 1984, for a study of her Hollins College classmates, seen 20 years down the line. Interviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 9, 1986, Lise explained that her research idea occurred to her sitting on a Baja beach before her trip to the class reunion. 

She continued working with the institute in varying roles until her recent death. She did everything from throwing great convocation parties to chairing the board of directors to serving as founding editor of the institute newsletter. 

She presented the 2007 Lukton Lecture at the Sanville Institute, based on her research on California social workers aged 70 years and older. These findings were presented for Lise by Dr. Samoan Barish, at the Psychoanalysis in Social Work Conference in New York City in February 2009. 

On the side, Lise became an activist in the neighborhood preservation movement. When her and Neal’s 1880s office building was under attack from predatory developers, they community-organized, door to door—and finally succeeded in establishing the Sisterna Historic District—for which, who else, Lise wrote the establishing document, of 50-plus pages, now in the Berkeley Public Library. 

Her oncologist, in a recent highly technical report, began: “this delightful lady.” He didn’t know her well enough to add: “with a razor sharp, yet gentle, wit and mind.” 

A fifth suspect in a Berkeley hills home-invasion robbery and torture case from February turned himself in to Richmond police, Berkeley police spokesman Andrew Frankel confirmed Tuesday, March 24. 

Anthony Ray Douglas, an 18-year-old Richmond resident, surrendered at the Richmond Police Department in the evening on Wednesday, March 18, police said. 

Buk Khansuwong, a 46-year-old Richmond man, Tien Vo, a 29-year-old San Pablo woman, and a 16-year-old boy from Richmond, have also been arrested in connection with the case. 

Police are continuing to search for three outstanding suspects: Chiew Chian Saeturn, 24, Vern Town Saelee, 21, and Vern Sio Saelee, 18, all Fairfield residents, Frankel said. 

The eight suspects are believed to be responsible for the Feb. 24 incident, in which two victims were bound, pistol-whipped and carved on with kitchen knives, Frankel said. 

The victims were taken to a local hospital where they were treated and released, he said. 

Frankel said the suspects still at large should be considered “armed and highly dangerous.” 

Photos of the suspects were published in the March 19 edition of the Daily Planet.  

Bay Area Crime Stoppers is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to arrests in the case. 

Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the suspects should call Berkeley’s robbery detail at 981-5742. 

People who want to remain anonymous may call Bay Area Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS.

Eras nearly forgotten, episodes well remembered, the highlights of neighborhoods throughout town, and the coming “green” future are all part of the panoply of history presented by the spring 2009 Berkeley Historical Society walking tour series. 

The tours begin this Saturday, March 28, with a walk led by Burl Willes, expert and author on the Elmwood neighborhood and other aspects of local history. This has one of the most intriguing titles ever for a Berkeley Historical Society tour, “Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek and her Claremont-Elmwood Neighborhood.”  

On the walk Willis will explain how banker and Elmwood resident Frederick L. Lipman arranged for the wife of the Chinese Generalissimo to rent, then buy, a house in the neighborhood, breaking the restrictive covenants which had limited home ownership to whites only. 

Willis, who seems to knows everyone in the Elmwood after his many years of residence there, has even enlisted Lipman’s daughter to help with the tour, which will also visit with notable Elmwood resident, Seymour Fromer, who helped found both the Oakland Museum and the Magnes Museum, the latter an Elmwood landmark.  

Willes will also talk about “Big Alma,” Mrs. Alma de Brettville Spreckels, and why she was in the Claremont every day. The walk will head down the Palm Court Steps to visit a craftsman house by Leola Hall, before ending in the garden of what Willes calls the Elmwood’s “newest old house.” 

Saturday April 11, long-time Berkeley Historical Society volunteer John Underhill leads a tour of “ Rose Walk and Tamalpais Road” touching on history, architecture, and geology. 

The walk will stop in at Codornices Park, pass Berryman Reservoir, and Rose Walk, as well as other features of Mason-McDuffie’s “Must Beautiful Upland Residence Park.” This is one of Berkeley’s most interesting and pleasant walking districts, and the walk should be fine physical and historical exercise, with a knowledgeable guide. 

“The Radical Sixties and People’s Park” is the theme of the next tour on Saturday, April 18, led by historical society boardmember Dale Smith through the South Campus district. 

The tour falls one day before the 40th anniversary of the “Bloody Thursday” People’s Park riot in 1969, one of the events of that tumultuous era that had a national impact.  

Many physical reminders of the 1960s and 70s in Berkeley remain in that neighborhood, including People’s Park itself. 

Saturday, May 2, the tour schedule heads north to “The Northern End of the Santa Fe Right-of-Way” led by local community gardening expert and activist Bebo Turman. 

The Right-of-Way is the old route of the railroad through north and central Berkeley, now converted in places to linear parks, and in other spots still awaiting civic development. Parks, community gardens, and schools will be visited along the walk, and refreshments will be served at the conclusion of the tour. 

The final regular tour in the spring series, “Berkeley Woods,” is a reprise of Paul Grunland’s excursion through one of Berkeley’s new neighborhoods, the Berkeley Woods subdivision annexed to the city from Contra Costa County in 1958. Grunland, a Berkeley resident since the 1930s, knows the hills subdivisions and their history backwards and forwards. 

Ridgeline residences of “Berkeley Woods” lie between Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Tilden Park, and cover the former sites of several important plant nurseries. The tour will also stop at the grounds of the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, one of the few religious schools in Berkeley that is not part of the cluster on “Holy Hill.” 

Because of the hilly walking routes and/or steep staircases along the routes, the Berkeley Woods and Rose Walk tours are not wheelchair accessible.  

Those who purchase tickets for at least three of the four regular tours can go for free on a bonus tour, Saturday June 13. 

“How Green Is My Downtown” is the theme, taking in the new David Brower Center, the adjacent Oxford Plaza affordable housing complex, and including a visit with landscape architect Walter Hood who has been hired by a community group to design a plan for a green concourse along Center Street between Shattuck and Oxford. 

All tours begin at 10 a.m. and last until noon. Tickets are $8 for Berkeley Historical Society members, $10 general. A “season pass” for members is $30.  

Reservations are required; those with reservations will be notified by the tour organizers where to gather to start the tour. 

For reservations, call the Berkeley History Center at 848-0181.  

You can mail checks for reservations, payable to the Berkeley Historical Society at P.O. Box 1190, Berkeley, CA 94701. 

For this Saturday’s tour, call to ask if space is still available and to add your name to the list. The History Center, at 1931 Center St., is generally open and staffed Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 1-4 p.m.  

After my March 12 Daily Planet article on spring garden shows, tours, and sales in the Bay Area, readers have suggested a mention of some additional events taking place from this weekend through May. 

Fourth Annual Mountain View Cemetery Tulip Extravaganza 

Mountain View Cemetery—designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and final resting place of many notable Berkeleyans—hosts this event in its Tower Chapel. More than two dozen local “florists, garden clubs, and college floral design classes,” including several from Berkeley, have created flower arrangements featuring tulips. The event includes a “daily floral arrangement demonstration” and the cemetery grounds should also have beds of tulips in bloom. 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, March 27 through Sunday, March 29. Free. (Not far from Berkeley, at the top end of Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue.) www.mountainviewcemetery.org/tulip.html. 

Macy’s Flower Show 

The main Macy’s department store complex on Union Square in San Francisco has an annual flower show, where displays are set out both in the show windows along Stockton Street and O’Farrell Street and inside amidst the goods for sale.  

This year, the 63rd annual event, the theme is “A Bohemian Garden.” That’s Bohemian as in Czechoslovakian. The displays include “an enchanted forest of manzanita, oak, maple and eucalyptus (and) a creek through the center aisle,” and go beyond flowers with promised “jewel encrusted eggs, butterfly rainbows, peek-a-boo fairies, richly colored peacocks and twinkling fireflies.” 

Of course the purpose is to lure you there to buy consumer goods at department store prices, but what’s to prevent you from looking at the flowers with credit card or wallet firmly tucked away?  

“Slightly used” flowers and plants from the displays will be sold off in Union Square as a fundraiser from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, April 19. 

April 3-18, San Francisco.  

Annual Wildflower Show, Oakland Museum of California 

UC’s Botanical Garden, Jepson Herbarium, and the California Native Plant Society bring hundreds of fresh-cut native California wildflowers to the Museum for temporary display in the galleries. Specimens are labeled for identification. 

May 2 and 3. Museum admission required. www.museumca.org. 

Merritt College Horticulture Club Spring Plant Sale 

The sale takes place in the demonstration gardens at the Merritt College campus in the Oakland Hills, and has always included a nice array of plants at quite reasonable prices. It also benefits a well-regarded community college program. The sale features “Mediterranean, California natives, bamboo, vegetable starts.”  

9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 9. 12500 Campus Drive, Oakland. 436-2418. Free.  

Flower Show Update 

We went to the San Francisco Flower & Garden show last week, and while the new venue at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds doesn’t have the spectacular surroundings or size of the old settings—Fort Mason, then the Cow Palace—it was still worth attending, with a solid array of plant and garden product vendors on hand. 

The show was on the verge of ending forever, but several vendors said they were told during the show that likely buyers have been found. The website now announces there will be a 2010 show. (This year’s show also saw union picketing over wage issues). www.gardenshow.com. 

It wasn’t despair, exactly, but it was with a feeling akin to despair that I watched the clueless City Council majority on Tuesday night enthusiastically endorse a program to make loans to wannabe developers who couldn’t even come up with the standard city permit fees to get their projects started.  

I believe the graceless term in the Economic Development Department’s report was “backfill”—that is to say, the city covers the developer’s permit fees until he, presumably, gets his act together. I’m not quite sure what the discussion was, however, because the city’s streaming video conked out just as the first irate citizen started speaking, and by the time I’d found the audio stream from KPFB the tiny wedge of public comment was over. And I’m trying hard to resist paranoid impulses, but it would have been easy to attach some significance to the fact that the video tanked just as said citizen seemed to be starting to complain about a similar loan made to the notorious Patrick Kennedy, which turned out to be mighty hard to collect. 

I know, I know, they’ll promise to pay the city when the money comes in. But to an outside observer the city looks a lot like the mortgage brokers who touted the merits of sub-prime loans to impecunious buyers, and got a lot of people in over their heads with no way to pay back the money. It’s been done before, e.g., for Kennedy, with council approval, but now city staff wants to be able to waive permit fees for all comers without even asking council.  

Here’s how the scheme was pitched in the council agenda: 

To “grant the City Manager authority to defer up to $200,000 in building, plumbing, electrical and mechanical permit fees for new development projects and substantial remodels on a case-by-case basis after staff analysis determines that such deferral will facilitate project implementation and that the project will provide substantial economic benefit to the City through tax base development, job creation/retention or by other measure as determined by the City Manager.” 

Sounds reasonable, moderate even. But the only two astute councilmembers, Worthington and Arreguin, just happened to notice that the actual language drafted by staff for council adoption didn’t mention any $200,000 per project limit, nor did it recite any standards for the staff analysis of “substantial economic benefit,” nor did it set any limit for how much city money could be used overall for these subsidies. The two tried valiantly to get the proposed ordinance amended to apply only to small businesses and nonprofits, and to include per-project and overall caps, but the heavy hammer of the chair slammed the measure through without the controlling additions.  

The mayor finally came out of the closet with a remarkable statement that he wanted any kind of development, big, small, whatever, he didn’t care. Does this mean that when Wal-Mart wants to come to town we’ll even front the fees for them? Perhaps. 

A particularly pathetic part of the meager councilmembers’ discussion was provided by Councilmember Capitelli, who said he’d been trying for two years, each time a development was approved, to persuade city staff to supply supporting documentation that would show how it benefited the city economically, which he was sure would be possible. Well, the sad truth is that many developments provide no benefit to the city of Berkeley whatsoever. Most construction jobs, for example, go to workers who commute in cars from distant suburbs. That would be easy for staff to document, but of course they’d rather not.  

Ever since Proposition 13 passed, adding new residents who require new services has usually meant adding more cost than benefit to city budgets, in Berkeley and everywhere else. That’s been documented again and again. And when these unsuccessful buildings end up being sold to the University of California, like the Golden Bear, they come off the tax rolls altogether, though of course they’re still connected to our overstressed sewer system. 

Planning Department salaries are supposed to be funded by permit fees, so when development slows down, staff should be laid off, but this won’t happen if fees are “backfilled” from the general fund. And what happens if the developer can’t pay the city back? A $200,000 advance would cover fees for a $10 million project, but the other $9,800,000 might be hard to find in this economy. What are our remedies if the project goes bankrupt, as at least one San Pablo Avenue building has? 

Watching this travesty was particularly disheartening when I contrasted it with the other Berkeley city meeting I attended this week. A letter from the city’s code enforcement officer said that the city manager wanted a meeting with all newspaper publishers operating in the city of Berkeley about the “adverse impact of non-compliant newsracks in the city’s commercial districts.” He further said that, commencing on April 7, “routine enforcement” would begin, with penalties at $250 per violation per day, and $500 per day per violation for “dangerous newsracks.”  

For small businesses like ours, that’s a major threat, so we hopped to. The publisher and I, principals in a mom-and-pop small business, went to the meeting ourselves, as did Steve Buel, the owner/editor/circulation manager of the other free weekly in the East Bay, the Express. The big guys were there too, experienced distribution managers for the many Media News papers, the Chronicle and the New York Times, among others.  

The city sent its code enforcement manager, a burly blunt-spoken guy we’ll call Mr. Stick. To play the good cop role, there was a pleasant apologetic assistant city manager we’ll call Ms. Carrot. Ms. Carrot led off the meeting by suggesting that we should all just make nice. She said that if the papers would just voluntarily fix all their boxes and get rid of all the graffiti on them there would be no problemo.  

The Media News guy pointed out that all the other cities he worked in, including San Francisco, notified papers by e-mail when boxes were broken, and he fixed them promptly when asked. Why couldn’t Berkeley do the same thing, instead of just pasting easily removed stickers on offending boxes as they do now? After all, he pointed out, the city ordinance technically requires 30-day notice to publishers before penalties are assessed. 

Too expensive, said Ms. Carrot. Didn’t we know the city was short of money? She was sure that papers had “more substantial resources” than the city. Pretty clearly, she doesn’t read the papers herself, or she’d know how silly that sounded, given the parlous state of the news biz these days. 

The Express had a real reporter at the meeting, Robert Gammon, who’s done a good job in their current issue of documenting the potential effect of strict enforcement on his company. He notes in his piece that “the Express could be slapped with fines of up to $60,000 a day, which works out to about $22 million a year.” He quotes his editor, Buel: “Suffice it to say that that far surpasses our annual revenues.”  

The Planet’s figures are comparable. Of course we’ll fix “dangerous” boxes as soon as we hear about them, but we can’t promise that all boxes at all times will be graffiti-free—we just can’t afford that. And even after an extensive dialogue at the meeting, Mr. Stick was not willing to back down from the April 7 deadline, though Ms. Carrot was wringing her hands.  

City officials appear to be willing to turn over what could be millions of dollars in uncollected building permit fees to any and all developers—so perhaps they think they can squeeze the money out of newspapers instead. Or maybe they’re not trying to get money from us, but instead are trying to get rid of us. If so, the plan just might succeed.  

Steve Buel told Gammon that if the city follows through with its threats, the Express would have no choice but to remove all of its newsracks from Berkeley streets. The Planet’s in the same boat.  

Is that what the city of Berkeley wants? Perhaps.  

City officials, both politicians and staff, have no reason to love the press. The city manager’s recent raise was roundly criticized here and in the Media News papers, and the mayor’s relationship with newspapers has historically been dicey. A crackdown on newspaper boxes would be even more effective than throwing away a few papers, wouldn’t it? We’ll wait and see what happens on April 7. 

MARCH 19 EDITORIAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding your March 19 editorial: I support what you wrote 100 percent. It is sad that some people are so afraid of opposing views that they try to kill the messenger. Keep up your good work. 

Richard Phelps  

Oakland 

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SPLENDID ELABORATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Congratulations on the March 19 editorial (“An Open Letter to Our Advertisers and Readers”), a splendid elaboration of the situation the paper faces regarding accusations of anti-Semitism.  

I heartily applaud your paper for its staunch support of fair, open discussion despite knowing that such a stance will lead to an inevitable flood of indignant, angry protests. 

Many thanks for your courageous efforts to foster open discussion, an essential element for any vibrant democracy. 

Edith Cacciatore 

Novato 

• 

WELL DONE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Well done to the Berkeley Daily Planet for standing up to the Zionist bullies! 

Indeed, one of the main tricks the Zionists use is to call people who criticize Israel “anti-Semitic,” which is kind of funny these days when so many Jewish people are appalled at Israel’s actions, and are speaking out against Israeli atrocities. A Jewish organization called International Anti-Zionist Network (IJSN) is calling for an alliance between Jews and Muslims against Zionism. Should we call them “anti-Semitic” too? 

And, of course, most of the Israelis aren’t Semites at all, they came from Eastern Europe, while it is the Palestinians who are the Semites, so that makes the charges of anti-Semitism even more silly. 

Jane Chesterman 

San Rafael 

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FAIR IS FAIR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Unless I’m mistaken, when the U.N. established Israel, all the Arab countries attacked the newly declared state. They took areas of Jerusalem which included the Wailing Wall, and would not let Jews pray there. Israel still existed, so Arabs attacked again but were defeated and the areas of Jerusalem taken back by Israel. Arabs were free to worship at the great Mosque however, built over the site of Israel’s Ancient Temple. The 1967 war, Israel defeated Syria, Egypt, and other Arab countries, taking some of the West Bank, Golen Heights, and Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza voluntarily, and were rewarded with rocket attacks. Now the Arab countries want Israel to go back to the old boundaries which existed before 1967. OK, let’s insist that Israel give back that territory. Let us also insist that the U.S.give back California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to the Mexicans. Fair is fair. 

Harry Gans 

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IN SUPPORT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just read your letter referencing undo pressure being placed on advertisers by an individual or small group of individuals who feel the Daily Planet has been anti-Israel. I have many thoughts on the matter: 

First, I am Jewish, and the positions your paper has taken (or positions of individuals you have printed) on Israel do not outrage me. I moved to Berkeley two years ago and tend to be left of center politically and with regard to Israel (which might make me just about in the center politically for a Berkeley resident!). I have seen far more expression of outrage over certain Israeli positions and actions here than I did in my former state of residence, Pennsylvania. I agree with some of the criticism, disagree with some. My attitude basically is live and let live as far as these positions go (if those in the middle east could adopt that attitude maybe none of this would be an issue). So, the individual you mentioned does not speak for this Jew. 

My second point I address to advertisers. Do not be afraid to advertise in the Daily Planet. For every person who would scare you into withholding your advertisement, there are many more like me whose view of your business would be enhanced. I love reading the Planet. Berkeley would be a lesser place without it. We all need to support the paper, businesses and individuals. You don’t have to agree with everything the paper reports to support its existence. 

My last point I address to the O’Malleys. I am tempted to say, “Why the hell do you want this headache?” but will try to put it in a more positive way: Thank you for hanging in there and taking on the challenge. You are making the world a better place and it is appreciated by many. 

Dan Alpert 

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ISRAEL’S CONTRIBUTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Raphael Retner reminds us of a vast number of impressive, even miraculous, contributions to humanity “that Israel is giving to the world...in science, medicine, communications, security.” I like to think, also, that these creators of such life-saving and life-enhancing technologies are surely too busy to be involved in the destructive political policies of their country. But I can’t help but wonder if Israel, and probably their equal in technological-advances, the U.S., are saving more lives than are being destroyed by them militarily?  

Gerta Farber 

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BLINDED SUPPORTERS AND APOLOGISTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your open letter in response to Mr. Israel/Zionist defender, and his gang, is what this country needs to combat such a reversed psychology, of their real racism, that stems from such threats of blackmail in it ugliest forms. They have used these tactics for too long, its time for some one to shut them up. You have made me proud! 

M. Deeb 

Los Angeles 

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VOICE OF REASON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Finally your newspaper has a voice of reason. I must tell you, I love pot as well as the next guy but the commentaries I hear from your people I wonder if you’re all on crack or acid (Do they still do that?). Mr. Rettner’s piece was remarkable, truthful and just. I can certainly understand being for the underdog, however, your readers must understand that the Palestinians to this day still have the total destruction and elimination of Israel in their charter.  

Israel’s territorial integrity has been challenged on a daily basis. Terrorists lobby rockets into her lands from Hezbollah in the north to Hamas in the south. Your readers, inexperienced as they may be in Mideast affairs, need to remember the United Nations divided the land of Palestine in 1948 into Israel and Palestine. The Jews accepted their small portion, the Arabs did not. Not only did the Arabs not accept Jews on what they consider “sacred, Muslim lands,” they, a total of 7 Arab countries, attacked the newly formed Jewish state the very same day of its inception. And the 7 Arab countries with populations in the millions and more heavily armed, lost to the infinitely smaller 600,000.00 Jews who were poorly armed.  

Let’s move on. Israel was further attacked in 1967 and 1973, the latter being on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, when nearly the whole country was at prayer in Synagogue. Yet again, the enemy was rebuffed. West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza, ever hear of the spoils of war? It’s not uncommon and has been around since the beginning of man. 

Your readers must also be made aware that there has NEVER been an independent, self-governing country called Palestine. Never! Jews and Arabs have lived there side by side for millennia. Palestine was ruled by the British Mandate, the Ottoman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Romans, and prior to that, it was “Israel.” Furthermore, there has never been a people called “Palestinians” prior to the 1960’s. The local people were all just called “Arabs.” 

Israel has absorbed Jews from throughout northern Africa, Yemen, the Middle Eastern Arab countries, all of which they were expelled from with little more than the shirts on their backs, immediately after the formation of Israel. They have taken in tens of thousands of the black, Ethiopian Jews who were persecuted by violence and starvation, the Jews (Bene Israel) of the Indian sub-continent, millions of the Jews of Europe after the holocaust, the Jews of the former Soviet Union. The only country in the world to do so in reference to their population. Now, Israel is a haven for refugees from Uganda and the Sudan. All making their way through Egypt to Israel and safety. 

So let’s get one things straight. If you are disaffected with Israel out of ignorance, educate yourself. If you are disaffected with Israel and are knowledgeable of the history of the region and peoples, then call it what it is, “anti-Semitism.”  

Micah David Ehrich 

Tarzana, Calif. 

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THANKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Just want to thank you for your editorial about criticism of Israel and free speech.  

Bernadette Wombacher 

• 

REPLY TO BRILL, GANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The March 19 letters by Harry Brill and Harry Gans propagandizing for Israel and defending AIPAC and the Israel lobby deserve a reply. 

The often repeated fiction that Israel is a democracy has been thoroughly trashed by British journalist Jonathan Cook in his book Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State. The notion that the United States-Israel relationship is “symbiotic” is also greatly exaggerated. That relationship can best be described as parasitic. The amount of U.S. taxpayers’ money being transferred to Israel is obscene. Keeping the total sum from the American public is also obscene. A 2002 study commissioned by the U.S. Army War College and reported in the Christian Science Monitor estimated that since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. That is more than $55 billion a year. Included in this figure are not only the vast amounts of direct and indirect aid, often voted by Congress without a roll call, but also the loss to our treasury from the tax-exempt donations by American Zionists to Israeli causes. Americans should be outraged that contributions by American citizens and U.S. based organizations to Israel’s colonial settler enterprises and even to the Israeli army are treated as charitable donations and are tax-exempt.  

To suggest that Israel’s lucrative arm sales to despicable regimes like the former apartheid government of South Africa or Latin American dictatorships serves American interests is ridiculous.  

Mr. Brill cannot possibly be serious when he equated the activities of American Zionists on behalf of a foreign government with the actions of the Cuban lobby. The Israel “lobby” contains individuals and groups pretending to do lobbying or advocacy, but act more like an organized crime syndicate. How many other lobbies spy on the United States? Remember Pentagon analyst Jonathan Pollard, AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, and former U.S. Army employee Ben-ami Kadish? How many lobbyists support stealing U.S. military technology for Israel to sell to our potential adversaries? Which lobby works relentlessly to undermine our laws, including the Arms Export Control Act and the 1976 Symington Amendment? These, Mr. Brill, are not legitimate lobbying activities. As Ambassador Charles Freeman wrote in his recent statement. “The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.” Let me add to that the repugnant practice of callously charging “anti-Semitism” in order to silence and intimidate anyone who dares to examine what Israel is doing with our money to the detriment of our security and national interest. 

Hassan Fouda 

Kensington 

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ABSURD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I received a letter from “East Bay Citizens for Journalistic Responsibility” [aka Jim Sinkinson] quoting stories or editorials from your paper. I am a strong critic of Israeli policy regarding Palestine, and have taken heat for it as well. I applaud your courage to maintain a free press where a variety of opinions can be heard. I am also concerned about actual anti-Semitism and general stupidity. I assume you have seen Mr. Sinkinson’s letter. The quotes did seem quite absurd. One for instance, equated the non-violence of Jesus with suicide bombers. What was their context? Were these opinions by others? I assume you have had equally vitriolic letters from an Israeli point of view? We do advertise in your paper every once in a while, and most of our folks read the paper.  

Pastor Max Lynn 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

• 

BOYCOT OF ISRAELI GOODS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bravo to Raphael Rettner (“If You’re Going to Boycott Israel, Do it Properly!”, March 19 for pointing out all the wonderful products and medicines that have originated from and are produced within the state of Israel. I found his thoroughness of research quite impressive, and very convincing. Almost. 

But there was a whole lot he left out. He wants to justify the wonder and necessity of Israeli products as if there were no strings attached, which there are. And he takes several pot shots at those who support the boycotts. He said we are “ticked off at Israel and in love with the Palestinians.” We are not merely ticked off, but are determined to change its ways—a system of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, subjugation and mass slaughter of innocents, kidnapping and torture, among others—and boycotts are a tool by which to accomplish this change. 

He sarcastically says we are in love with the Palestinians, but in fact we hold high the ideal principles of justice and equality. Boycotts were an important key to ending apartheid in South Africa, and many believe it is applicable to this situation, which has been characterized even by some South Africans as being worse than the conditions that they were subjected to. 

Finally, he boldly states that we support terrorists, a charge often spewed by the pro-Israel right. But does this imply that Palestinians are terrorists? How would readers respond if someone wrote a letter stating that Jews are terrorists? And his charge that we can “vilify and demonize the state of Israel” wholly misses the point of the boycott campaign, which seeks to bring an end to Israel’s errant policies and actions, as I have already stated. 

Robert Kanter 

Emeryville 

• 

CONN HALLINAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing to object to Jim Sinkinson’s characterization of Conn Hallinan as “crossing into anti-Semitism.” Anti-Semitism surely exists and decent people are obliged to acknowledge that reality and confront its manifestations. But Sinkinson and many others play some very dangerous tricks with that reality. 

They dissolve some distinct realities into each other: the State of Israel, the ideology of Zionism, and the character of Israel as a Jewish state. Further, they associate criticism of any of these with an attack on the Jewish people. 

Now I think that Sinkinson should not simply assert that Hallinan has crossed the line into anti-Semitism, he should point out exactly where he thinks that the crossover has occurred. That way, we all will be able to judge and discuss. 

But I fear that Sinkinson is not the sort who does that kind of specific criticism. Rather, his organization FLAME is content with vilifying those who criticize Israel on any account. 

The idea of Conn Hallinan being anti-Semitic is simply absurd. But it is a cruel charge. If Sinkinson is capable of shame, he should be ashamed. 

Jack Kurzweil 

• 

LUCKY TO HAVE HIM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been reading articles and commentaries by Conn Hallinan for many years. The Berkeley Daily Planet is lucky to have a writer of his experience and knowledge. His comments about the Middle East have been particularly perceptive. He wrote an article exposing the real reason for the U.S. raid on Syria in October 2008, for example, that was far more perceptive than all the Washington reporters who accepted the Pentagon spin. I later went to Syria to investigate the incident for CBC Radio (Canada). Hallinan’s analysis was spot on. The U.S. invaded a sovereign country, conducted a botched raid against a non-existent “terrorist,” and the Pentagon later covered up the incident. 

That’s why it is extremely upsetting to hear about the unfounded charges that Hallinan is anti-Semitic. I’ve never seen anything anti-Semitic in his writings. Unfortunately, that’s the common charge against anyone who criticizes the policies of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. I know. Critics try to accuse me of anti-Semitism, but when they find out I’m Jewish, they hurl the epithet “self-hating Jew.” Apparently, critics must be one or the other. 

I hope Conn Hallinan continues his good work with the full support of the Berkeley Daily Planet and its readers. 

Reese Erlich 

Foreign Correspondent 

Author, The Iran Agenda 

• 

CHEAP SHOT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was dismayed to read a letter by a Jim Sinkinson suggesting that the writings of Planet columnist Conn Hallinan cross the line into the realm of anti-Semitism. 

Anti-Semitism is an ideology of hatred and prejudice toward particular ethnic and religious groups (the term usually refers to Jews alone but could also apply to other “Semites”). Hallinan’s writings are about international relations and military affairs. I read his columns because I can’t read such analysis anywhere else. The Planet, indeed, is not the Chronicle or the New York Times, which are also worth reading, for the very different content they present. 

Disclosure: I also read Hallinan’s columns because he’s been my friend since we taught journalism and commuted together to UC Santa Cruz in the 1980s and 1990s. Then and since, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with him about hundreds of issues, personal and political. We’ve often talked about U.S. and Israeli policy, about anti-Semitism, Zionism, anti-Zionism. (I was, in the past, an academic expert on right-wing social movements.) 

There are real anti-Semites in the world. Mostly they congregate on the far-right. Some few are found among the left. It does no one any good to conflate factual reporting and sharp critique of the policies and actions of the government of Israel with hatred toward Jews. Overuse of the charge of “anti-Semite” makes it difficult for researchers on anti-Semitism to be taken seriously when the real thing rears its head.  

It’s a cheap shot and simply beyond chutzpah to even hint about whether Hallinan’s an anti-Semite. 

I also should disclose that I advertised regularly for my law office in the Planet in 2006-08 and stopped only because of insufficient reader response, not because of the Planet’s unique content. I had nothing but cordial dealings with this newspaper. It’s appalling that anyone would raise a threat against Planet advertisers at a time when newspapers of all stripes are an endangered species. I urge advertisers to ignore intimidation tactics and trust that potential clients and customers are concerned with quality service, not with name-calling and smear campaigns. 

Sara Diamond 

• 

IDEOLOGUES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Imperialism, National Socialism, Communism, Zionism, Catholicism, Capitalism, Colonialism, Jihadism, Protestantism, Racism, Elitism… The high court of a hundred years of history has found each of these blueprints for social engineering guilty on multiple counts of all nameable crimes against humanity and its sister freedom. Yet a steady rain of dicta have fallen on these pages of late whose sole purpose seem to be to re-inform me (dare I employ “re-educate”?) as to which of these ideological failures is the more infamous!? May I submit that the nigh-on billion victims of these creeds and their acolytes lie insensate to these foolish notions. 

Today, the smudge pots of the “isim-ists” are yet on full burn at endless hours to keep the pesky truth from their hateful orchards. Is it the Russians, or Georgians who are the real culprits? Hamas or Israel who murder the innocent? The U.S. or Al Quaeda who are the true war criminals? The same fog of malevolence is as palpable as it was in 1914, 1939, 1950, 1965, 2001 and so on and so on… If freedom, the true liberty we so espouse here is to ever rise from the filth of human history, then I believe only one “ism” will suffice: individualism. 

No economic system, no religion, no country, no philosophy or system of government is worth more than a single human being. It is this glorious flame encoded in our founding codices which lends its hope and light to so many around the world, no matter how often we turn our backs on it. So please, remember this before diving into another orgy of divisive harangues and back biting diatribes before we have to dig ourselves out from the dust and ashes of another hundred years of sin. 

Roger McCracken 

El Cerrito 

• 

THE COLLAPSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What’s the problem about folks not understanding whats going on? In a nut shell, my research now indicates what has brought us to our economic collapse. Listen closely: hedge funds, sold short, and derivative contracts which were leveraged and put into arbitrage price differential accounts,and then, were subject to call options (and bond futures), which unfortunately failed to meet commodity market expectations, then became “put options” which weren’t excercised due to pre-payment pricing models which were over the counter and thus “clearing house” futures became unsustainable. It’s just that simple!  

Robert Blau 

• 

DOWNTOWN BART INCIDENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Planet’s story doesn’t quite add up. In fact, reporter Riya Bhattacharjee and her editors fail to center on the heart of the story. 

Uppermost in any reader’s mind is the question of the BART cop response. The BART report, according to the story, names three men and a woman as assailants (“four men,” say the Planet’s witnesses); yet “two suspects were detained on the platform but were released.” Were these two of the four? Were any of the four arrested? Charged? 

Where is the reporting? This story wasn’t rushed into print: it appears March 19, eight days after the incident. On the evening it appears, there’s a planning conclave at the UC student union on the Oscar Grant “murder,” and the TV stations show the day’s “No justice, no BART” demonstrations. 

The “victim refused to . . . identify the suspects,” so they were released? A full-on four-on-one assault is characterized by the BART police as an attempt to rob a cell phone? Passengers run in panic from the beat-down but the BART folks, the ones with the sidearms and tasers, can’t find witnesses for their “suspects”? 

There is a story here, which begins before the Oscar Grant shooting. I can’t be alone in wishing that the last standing local paper would cover it. 

M. Hall 

EDITOR’S NOTE: We reported all the information we could get, though much of it is contradictory and incomplete. Investigating officers obviously did not speak to the eyewitnesses our reporter spoke with, and those eyewitnesses were cleary reluctant to get involved. The victim refused to identify any suspects, which means no charges were filed and no one was arrested.  

Lt. Gary Cagaanan of the BART police told the Daily Planet that the department does not follow up on incidents where the victim refuses to identify suspects. 

“It’s not a closed case, but if the victim doesn’t cooperate with the police it’s usually put on the back burner,” he said. 

• 

65 DAYS INTO FIRST 100 DAYS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many people took umbrage last November when Ralph Nader said, “But his [Obama’s]choice, basically, is whether he is going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.” 

Ralph Nader might have used a controversial term; however, it is becoming evident (bailing out the banks with taxpayer money, taking single-payer healthcare off the table, continuing to fund the bloated military budget) that Barack Obama is president for the giant corporations rather than president for the people of this country. 

Nader was prescient when many were drinking Kool-Aid. 

Aki Tanaka 

Oakland  

• 

TWO QUESTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Is there any possibility that the Marine Corps Recruiting Center vandalized itself to gain purchase in the public opinion war for the hearts and minds of the easily duped? It is really hard to believe that men wearing masks and carrying sledgehammers would not be noticed and detained unless they had a very well-organized plan. The city has cameras around there for traffic surveillance and there just might be evidence available as to who these people were. This smells strongly of the work of provocateurs. It is certainly not Code Pink’s way of working and seems more like those biker gangs who swarmed the area when Rush Limbaugh got them all stirred up.  

The absence of police bicycle patrols in the area has been quite obvious of late. Is there any reason why persons in the downtown area waiting for transit are being shorted the police protection which they are paying for? Citizens are having to intervene in confrontations in ever increasing numbers to protect each other because of the absence of police presence in the downtown transit center which is drawing an increasing dangerous fringe element.  

Mic Jordan 

• 

CONDOLENCES TO CRUZ FAMILY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The tragedy of young Zachary Cruz’s death has left many of us in the community devastated. We didn’t need to know this little boy personally to mourn his loss which occurred in a crosswalk, at a three-way intersection with stop signs well known for drivers to roll through. 

My heartfelt condolences to the Cruz family and all of his friends and school mates who are missing him beyond belief. Words fail when I think of the agony that Zachary’s entire family is experiencing. I am so sorry for the loss of your precious baby boy. 

As parents, we never in a million years imagine that when we send our children to school and after-school care that they won’t ever be coming home. People can point out different and possibly safer routes for school groups to walk (which absolutely have merit), but the truth is, that far, far too many drivers are absolutely distracted by cell phone usage while driving. Combine this with being in a hurry and stuck in slow traffic “hampered” by stop signs, and drivers become impatient and careless. If you are paying attention while driving, and stop fully at stop signs, pedestrians will not get hit. It’s as simple as that. I’m not referring to Darwin award winning jaywalkers as they receive little sympathy from me, but when a child walking with a group is hit in a crosswalk it is apparent that the driver was not paying complete attention to people/children at and around the three way intersection. 

As a (formerly) impatient Berkeley driver, I know how driving around the campus can be absolutely maddening at times. Endless pedestrians not paying attention to cars, cross streets in oblivion only in tune with their iPods and cellphones. Very rarely do they seem to look both directions before crossing. 

This tragic accident has made me acutely more aware of pedestrians, especially children on bikes. This last month I have made considerable effort to be a more careful and conscientious driver, letting people cross the street and driving a little slower. I’m trying not to feel so impatient when in my car, and am learning how to let those that insist on going first, have their right of way. It’s not always easy, however when I think of the possible consequences, it becomes less difficult. 

S. Kabella 

• 

POPULATON AND GROWTH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In a recent Reader Commentaries’ article Jane Powell eloquently commented about how overpopulation and unlimited growth are the root causes of the “problems that plague our planet.” We wish it were that simple. There is a reason that regional agencies like the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and local governments are engaged in environmental discussions about sustainability. Our ongoing concern is how do we protect our planet in the context of the Bay Area and provide for the basic needs of residents today, as well as for those to come.  

Providing a basic quality of life means having access to affordable housing and jobs while protecting the environment with clean air and water. As for housing, throughout the state and region we continue to lag in meeting the need to have an adequate amount of housing accessible for all income levels. The regional housing need numbers mandated by the state that were referenced in the article, which are issued every five to seven years to local jurisdictions, are goals to be planned for, and necessary to just making a dent in increased housing need. 

However, meeting the housing need is only one dimension of concerted regional and local government efforts to coordinate and integrate all land use and transportation planning with water and air quality and other environmental preservation efforts. That’s what the initiatives on Focused Growth, Complete Communities, Smart Growth, Green Buildings, and Green Businesses from ABAG and other regional agencies are all about. This is not just a population growth numbers game, but a serious commitment to achieve sustainability and protect our planet.  

Rose Jacobs Gibson 

ABAG President and San Mateo County Supervisor 

• 

TURTLES? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Today when I visited the City Hall at 2180 Milvia I found, on display inside it, several big sculpted turtles. Because I follow civic issues rather closely, I understand these sculptures will someday be moved to the fountain area in the nearby park. But many people visiting the city offices won’t know that. 

So they may assume the turtles are to symbolize the pace of city bureaucracy. 

John English 

AWESOME JOB  

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been following this recent uproar about your readers’ alleged views on Israel, Jim Sinkinson, the various op-ed pieces, and your March 19 editorial that claims to speak for the entire staff condemning Mr. Sinkinson’s tactics with much interest and I have some serious problems with your presentation of the issues. 

First, thanks to Raphael Rettner for his thoughtful and well documented letter on the current leafletting at Berkeley Bowl and Israel’s contribution to the worlds of medicine, technology, and education. Great work Raphael. 

Secondly, I have know Jim Sinkinson personally for many years and your descriptions of him defy everything I know about him. Yes, he is an avid supporter of Israel, as am I. I read his letters as well as his letter to your advertisers and I do not see a threat anywhere, nor do I see him state that he speaks for the Jewish population of Berkeley. He makes many worthwhile points, the most obvious one being that you would never allow the Ku Klux Clan or other racist groups to banter on about their racist idealogies in the Planet. It would be disgusting as well as a very poor journalistic decision to do so. 

To describe Jim Sinkinson as a fanatical right-winger is ludicrous at best and an absolute falsehood at worse. What does that even mean? That one doesn’t support a two-state solution to the problem between Israel and the Palestinian territorities? Bear in mind, Israel returned the Gaza strip to the Palestineans in 2005 and the Palestineans are worse off than ever and the Israelis live in constant danger. Rocket attacks by Hamas continue to terrorize Israeli citizens. What is your more moderate solution? Is it the same as local self-hating Jew Joanna Graham, who suggests Israel could become like South Africa with Jews in the minority ruled by the Palestinians? Not gonna happen as long as any Israeli is still alive. Surely you do not advocate that none survive. Or perhaps Ms. Graham’s agreement with Charles Freeman that the pro-Israel lobby is responsible for him withdrawing his name from consideration when there were U.S. senators as well as Nancy Pelosi and Chinese dissidents who encouraged Obama to reconsider. Good for all of them, including FLAME for lobbying our elected leaders to be mindful of the issues that are important to the electorate. 

Or do you concur with Rinna B. Flohr who repeatedly makes jokes about Mr. Sinkinson “sinking” the Planet or advertisors? Not funny, Ms. Flohr, and in very poor taste. Where did Mr. Sinkinson threaten to take down the Planet or any of its advertisers? And what would your reaction be if the Planet ran an op-ed piece by some racist that African Americans cause their own problems and people are racist because blacks are of inferior intelligence? A disgusting suggestion and one that would not and should not be tolerated by any decent human being or publication. Yet, you and others accuse the so-called right-wing Jewish lobby of suppressing free speech and perpetuating right-wing Israeli politics that oppress the poor defenseless Palestinians who are proud of their own children who kill themselves as long as they take Jews with them. Of course the Palestinians will be rewarded with 72 virgins and the Jews, well, I believe they will reside as virtuous souls in the kingdom of God. We’re talking about students, mothers, children as well as Americans on vacations or studying abroad and for this “crime against humanity,” their lives are brutally destroyed and their families suffer forever. 

I totally support free speech and am against censorship and I am confident that Mr. Sinkinson is as well. We do want people to be able to separate the truth from lies about Israel and to that end, Mr. Sinkinson is doing an awesome job. 

Susan Sholin 

A few days ago I had the pleasure of taking three Italian men from Parma to view some community gardens and a school garden. They were in Berkeley to see what the Bay Area does with its trash, as they are opposing their city council’s desires to build a large incinerator. As fathers of small children, they are concerned about their health, as well as the health of the planet. They were impressed to see our recycling efforts, and learned that our garden trimmings and food scraps are recycled into rich compost, which is then dug into gardens all across town. Although the United States has only 23 incinerators left still working (and none has been built in the past 15 years), Italy has 50 incinerators, and 50 more proposed! Italians have just begun to organize to fight the incinerator owners and the Mafia, who run all the trash collections in Sicily and much of the rest of Italy.  

Why does Berkeley have the Recycling Center and not an incinerator? For decades, trash was deposited in the landfill just north of the Marina. I remember our friend, Charles O’Laughlin, driving a bulldozer in 1979, pushing around trash to form sloping, rolling hills. Anything that could be recycled was sorted by volunteers, who were the beginning of the Urban Ore group, which is still serving us well in its facility near Ashby Ave.  

In 1984, Berkeley residents voted down the proposal to build a large incinerator to handle our trash, in favor of a major Recycling Center, and in 1973, the Ecology Center started a curbside-recycling-pickup program, the first in the nation. By 1991 the landfill was completely sealed and vented for methane gas; soon afterward, the Cesar Chavez Park was opened to the public and their dogs! Italy is home to the Slow Food Movement, but my friends from Parma were amazed and excited about what they saw happening in the waste/recycling/compost programs in our city and state. Most Italians want to burn their trash in incinerators for the minimal energy. My friends were delighted to hear that our new President has come out publicly for “zero waste.” 

There will be a Compost-Giveaway at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday, March 28, from 9 a.m. to 3p.m. Bring two buckets or one large trash bag to shovel your compost into. Dig it into your garden! The Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative delivers this city compost to any school or community garden that requests it, in a rented dump truck, once a month. 

All of our nine community gardens have the maximum number of gardeners, and each one has a long waiting list of 20 people or more. (The Gardening Collaborative is working with Rails to Trails Conservancy, Berkeley Partners for Parks, and the city of Berkeley to develop the Sante Fe right-of-way into paths and community gardens or other green spaces.) 

As I write this article, President Obama has just announced that they are breaking ground today for a vegetable garden on the White House lawn: how terrific is that! Families are finding the cost of food going up, and it is more enjoyable and healthy to grow your own vegetables and fruits. In interviews I have made recently of community garden plot owners, I have found a wide range of plants grown, and two gardeners said their health problems were greatly helped by being in the garden among friends and by eating the organic vegetables they grew. 

Julia Child used to say “Bon appetit!” but we in Berkeley like to also say “Happy gardening!” 

Beebo Turman is a Berkeley resident.

As an Oakland-based preservationist, I’ve always been amazed by the political savvy of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA), of which I’m a member. The organization even defeated the gutting of Berkeley’s landmark ordinance in the recent election. 

How then to explain BAHA’s clueless field trip/pilgrimage to the brand new “architectural gem,” Cathedral of Christ the Light, at Lake Merritt on April 3? 

The site itself is preservation sacred ground—where Maybeck’s Herrera Buick Showroom once stood. Its callous demolition sparked Oakland’s nascent preservation stirrings, much like the destruction of Penn Station jump-started a national preservation movement. 

The local diocese’s role in the demolition of two historic Oakland churches and the still unfolding role o the Catholic church in the battle over Prop. 8 cause me to think BAHA’s outing should have been to the reopened Oakland Fox Theater instead. BAHA cabin fever trumping savvy? 

Many of us worked to save the two earthquake-damaged churches, St. Francis de Sales Cathedral and Sacred Heart Church. Sacred Heart was a magnificent Romanesque building, and the congregation resisted mightily its demolition. Attorney Susan Brandt-Hawley took the fight to the Court of Appeal, arguing against the powerful downtown law firm the diocese hired. That stretch of MLK Jr. Way is forever diminished by its removal, and I personally feel the loss every time I pass by, shuddering at the stucco box that replaced it. 

There was less of an organized effort to save de Sales—then (pre-“uptown”) in a hardscrabble part of downtown. Church elders had no interest in continuing the archdiocese’s site there. In both cases, the church leaders invoked their social mission of helping the poor and needy to argue against spending any money to fix their broken buildings. Hard then to explain the tens of millions spent on the new cathedral, which initially had a brand-name architect, Santiago Calatrava, as its chosen designer. His glassy, open concept remained. 

Equally upsetting has been the role of the church in overturning same-sex marriage laws with the passage of Prop. 8. The gay-owned Bay Area Reporter (you can pick it up at the Bowl) has been doing an admirable job following the money trail of prejudice supporting Prop. 8 and examining the role of the Mormon and Catholic churches. The latest March 19 issue details the $1.4 million “Yes on 8” contribution from the tax-exempt 501(c)(8) Knights of Columbus, the largest total contribution from a single organization to the campaign. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops contributed $200,000. The Nov. 9 Chronicle reported the key role Archbishop George Niederhauer played, reaching out to Mormon church leaders he’d met in Salt Lake City to join forces supporting Prop 8. The effect of priests urging a vote for Prop. 8 from the pulpit two days before the election surely was also a factor—exit polls placed Catholic voters in California at 30 percent of all voters, and 64 percent supported Prop. 8. 

To those BAHA members keen to check out the new sparking edifice on the lake (why, according to the NY Times, it’s even an economic development engine partnered with the new Whole Foods!), perhaps they’ll not forget the role church fathers played in demolishing historic churches in Oakland and taking away civil and legal rights of gay couples. 

Robert Brokl is a North Oakland resident.

I have been thinking for days about a response to the editorial cartoon featured in the March 5-11 issue of the Berkeley Daily Planet about the Skirt Rally that took place on UC Berkeley’s campus. 

One can get lost in the speedy momentum of life, and I eventually did. Because of my jobs as a student and an intern, I kept pushing the idea of responding to the side, making it more of an idea rather than an act.  

But I finally realized that this response is necessary. 

It is necessary because the content of that cartoon needs to be addressed. It is necessary because the discussion on sex and violence needs to continue. It is necessary for this article to serve as a reminder to everyone that mentalities and actions need to change. 

In the cartoon image, womyn are wearing skirts and holding protest signs; among them is a man, but he does not exist in the image in a display of solidarity. His hand looks as if it is ready to lift up the skirt of the womyn he is next to. A thought bubble exposing his thoughts hovers above his head: “They call this a protest?!” 

So, to answer the character and the artist’s question: YES, it was a protest. In fact, the protest continues. 

Once again, our “behavior” for wearing those skirts was not an invitation or an opportunity. It is everyone’s right to wear whatever she or he wants, whether going to class during the day or coming home from a social event at night. Period. Womyn’s skirt-wearing should not gain any attention at all. It is the act of violence associated with these skirts that deserves to be scrutinized and discussed. Even if every single womyn at Berkeley and elsewhere were to stop wearing skirts (good luck getting me to stop!), sexual violence would still occur. It is obvious that wearing pants is not the best solution, or even a solution at all.  

The skirt rally was not only a protest, but a conversation starter as well. It is not until we acknowledge violence that we can even begin to address the problem and call ourselves to action. So I demand that we all start talking about the real issue—sexual violence—and not what people are wearing. 

One event on UC Berkeley’s campus that helps to continue the conversation is its annual “Take Back the Night” event, which will take place on April 16, 2009. It exists as a reminder to end the silence as well as acknowledge how sexual violence has impacted us as individuals as well as within our community. A portion of the event is open-mic when people are encouraged to share their stories during the candlelight/flower vigil. This helps to put names and faces to those in our lives who have experienced something that unfortunately is extremely pervasive. 

No community is immune to this type of violence.  

Sexual violence does not happen only at frat parties on a Saturday night or walking home from them. It happens at co-ops, in the workplace and inside our homes from people we know. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey in 2000, about 25 percent of women said they were raped or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, a cohabiting partner or a date in their lifetimes. 

That is why I had decided to turn this “idea of responding” into an actual response. Hopefully more responses will occur, appropriate action will be taken and the way we look at sexual violence will be transformed: from a focus on the victim or survivor to the real issue of sexual violence itself. 

Betty Green is a senior in Peace and Conflict Studies at UC Berkeley, and SHAPE Finance Coordinator, Advocate & Peer Educator, Gender EquityResource Center.

When four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, Rep. Barbara Lee wasted no time before speaking out. The very next day—on a Sunday, no less—she issued not one but two press releases expressing condolences to the victims’ families and support for their colleagues. The following day she took to the floor of the House and for more than six minutes paid tribute to these “fallen heroes,” as she put it. The press statements promptly appeared on her official website, and a video clip of her remarks to the House was posted to her YouTube channel. 

Unfortunately, she wasn’t nearly as quick to respond to some other recent incidents of violence that have concerned many of her constituents: 

• Oscar Grant. After the BART police murdered Oscar Grant III at the Fruitvale station, Lee made no public statement about the incident for more than a week. Only after hundreds of her constituents had taken to the streets to express their outrage—not only at the killing, but also at the establishment’s demonstrable indifference to it—did she issue a statement declaring that her “thoughts and prayers are with the family of Oscar Grant as they grieve the loss of their loved one.” 

Even then, she and her staff don’t seem to have made much of an effort to get her statement out. They didn’t even bother to post it on her website—as of March 25, it’s still not there—and the only place Google finds the text is in a Bay Area News Group blog, not even in the Oakland Tribune or other East Bay papers. (On Jan. 14 Lee issued another statement saying she was “pleased” at the arrest of former officer Johannes Mehserle. That one did make it to her website.) 

• Gaza. As I detailed in the Jan. 22 issue of this publication, Lee was similarly reticent about the U.S.-funded Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip. She refused to join Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Lynne Woolsey, and John Conyers, among others, in sponsoring a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza. She didn’t issue a statement of her own about the onslaught until it had raged for 20 days and upwards of 1,200 Palestinians, including more than 400 children, had been killed. 

Even at the time there was plenty of evidence about the brutality of the Israeli attack, and by now it has been amply documented by international and Israeli human-rights groups, European and Israeli newspapers, and now even Israeli soldiers who participated. Top UN officials, progressive leaders around the world, even several American Jewish organizations have condemned what Israel did and continues to do in Gaza. Lee still hasn’t. 

• Tristan Anderson. On Friday, March 13, Oakland resident and well-known activist Tristan Anderson was critically injured in the West Bank village of Ni’lin, when he was hit in the forehead by a high-velocity tear-gas canister fired by an Israeli soldier. The incident occurred at the end of Ni’lin’s weekly demonstration against the construction of Israel’s Apartheid Wall, which will make a quarter of the village’s land inaccessible to its farmers. (That’s a quarter of what’s left—over the last 61 years Ni’lin has already lost more than 80 percent of its original area to Israeli landgrabbing.) 

By all accounts Tristan was simply standing quietly, with his Jewish girlfriend, and taking pictures when he was shot. Israeli soldiers fired more tear gas at the Palestinian medics trying to rescue him, then blocked the ambulance transporting him for at least 15 minutes. When he finally made it to an Israeli hospital, doctors had to remove parts of his right frontal lobe. Almost two weeks later, he remains there in critical condition. 

A few days after the shooting, I called Lee’s Oakland office to urge her to speak out—not just about the injury to one of her constituents, but also about the lethal weaponry and violent tactics Israel routinely unleashes on Palestinian demonstrators, however nonviolent they may be. (Since the 4,750 residents of Ni’lin began their weekly demonstrations last summer, the Israelis have shot and killed four of them, including a 10-year old; on the same day Tristan was hurt, a resident was hit in the leg with live ammunition, and five non-violent demonstrators were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets at the nearby village of Bil’in; three more demonstrators, including two Americans, were injured at Bil’in a week later; and so on, ad nauseam.) 

I also pointed out that when an Israeli bulldozer killed Rachel Corrie in 2003, her Congressman, Brian Baird, made a public appearance with her parents just three days after her death, in which he described himself as a “strong supporter of Israel,” but called Rachel’s death “profoundly troubling,” demanded that people be “held accountable,” and pledged to introduce a resolution in the House calling for the State Department to undertake a “thorough and comprehensive” investigation. 

I know that many other friends of Tristan and of Palestine also called or wrote to Lee’s offices. After a week without a substantive response, some of us let it be known that we would be raising these issues at an appearance Lee has scheduled at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco (12 noon on Friday, March 27), as well as at several upcoming readings from her recently published autobiography (Renegade for Peace and Justice: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me) at local bookstores. 

Whether that’s what did the trick, I can’t say, but this past Tuesday—11 days after Tristan was shot—the following statement finally appeared on Lee’s website: 

“My thoughts and prayers remain with Tristan Anderson and his family as he continues to recover from the tragic injuries. The day after this horrible incident, I conveyed my concern to the State Department and have asked for a complete report and ongoing updates about the incident. I remain very concerned about Tristan’s case and will continue to press for answers about this tragic incident.” 

I appreciate Lee’s concern, and I’m sure Tristan’s family and personal friends do, too. But for someone who calls herself a “renegade for peace and justice,” her statement was pretty namby-pamby. After all, as a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, as well as of the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, she’s in a position to do more than just express concern. 

For starters, for example, she could call for cutting off the $3 billion plus the U.S. spends annually on military assistance to Israel, on the grounds of its repeated violations of the Arms Export Control Act, a U.S. law that requires governments that receive weapons from the United States to use them only for legitimate self-defense. How about proposing that that money be redirected to low-income housing or child-care support or drug treatment programs here at home?  

More broadly, as someone who boasts in her autobiography of her role (as an aide to then-Rep. Ron Dellums) in pushing through the Congressa policy of sanctions and divestment from South Africa, she could have announced her intention to lead the struggle for similar penalties on Israel, until it agrees to a just peace with the Palestinians. 

Of course, all this is sheer fantasy, at least for now. But if her constituents make it clear to Ms. Lee that we expect her to speak out as promptly and forthrightly about attacks on civilians—at home and abroad—as she does about the murder of police officers, maybe we can drag her back to her progressive roots. 

Henry Norr can be reached at henry@ norr.com.

By Paul Kamen 

Water Emergency Transit Authority (WETA) staff has indicated its intention to recommend a site between the Municipal Fishing Pier and Hs. Lordships restaurant for the new Berkeley ferry terminal. 

The Gilman and Buchanan sites appear to be entirely off the table. It also appears unlikely that the Doubletree site, even if reconfigured to reduce cost and take advantage of existing infrastructure, will be reconsidered. 

The reality at this point in time is that if we want a ferry, we will have to find a way to make it work at the fishing pier site. 

It’s all about parking. As now shown in the draft EIS/EIR, parking demand would create significant and serious negative impacts on a long list of recreational, commercial and public service activities. WETA failed to recognize competing parking interests and has not yet proposed a viable alternative to its unrealistic concept of a controlled ferry-only parking area. With free parking nearby, controlled ferry parking necessarily results in either ferry parking overflow or new parking restrictions in surrounding lots, either of which will seriously interfere with existing use and access patterns. 

Absent the provision of a large number of new parking spaces, a successful ferry service will have serious negative impacts on: 

• Fishing pier access 

• Shorebird Nature Center classes and summer camp 

• Adventure Playground 

• Kayak and Windsurfer launch site access 

• Cal Sailing Club sailing lessons, open house events and youth program 

• Cal Adventures classes and youth program 

• Berkeley Racing Canoe Center access and youth program 

• Pegasus Project youth program 

• Restaurant customers (Skates, Hs. Lordships) 

• Charter fishing boat passengers 

• Bait shop customers 

• Berkeley Yacht Club 

• Private boat berthers on docks J through O 

All of these uses, except arguably the last five, have strong public access and community service components. Reduced access to nearby parking would constitute a serious loss in value to West Berkeley and the waterfront community. 

I can see three ways to effectively mitigate or avoid these impacts: 

1. WETA builds a big parking structure at the terminal. Probably 200–300 spaces required. At a (low) estimate of $30K/ space, that’s $6M-$9M for a multi-level structure. This is almost certainly too expensive to be feasible, and would en-counter serious opposition related to view and wind obstruction. 

2. Price the ferry service to reflect actual operating costs, and reduce the projected level of service to correspond to the reduced ridership. High ticket price, low operating subsidy, and fewer ferry trips per day. This is more along the lines of a “boutique” service. Ridership remains modest, parking demand probably around 200 spaces, well within existing weekday capacity. 

This also has the desirable attribute of not wasting too much public money on an inefficient transportation mode, yet still offers the “quality of life” benefit of the ferry option. On the downside, it would be more difficult for WETA to justify the large investment in terminal construction if fewer passengers are served. 

3. Bus-only access. This is the new idea. There have been experiments with “bus-only” ferries in other regions, whereby buses drive onto a car ferry but there is very limited walk-on access. This obviously requires a different type of vessel, generally larger than contemplated by WETA for the Berkeley route. However, the functional equivalent of “bus only” can be achieved in a passenger ferry simply by controlling boarding access at the terminal. 

It works like this: Only passengers coming off the feeder bus are allowed to board the ferry. With no pedestrian access, all ferry passengers come by bus. The last stop before the terminal could be on the other side of the freeway. No parking issues, no traffic issues, no impacts other than several buses arriving for each ferry departure. As a side benefit, other public-serving activities at the marina would be assisted, rather than impaired, by the greatly expanded bus service. 

The marina is uniquely suited to this arrangement because relatively few local residents would be deprived of access due to this boarding restriction. 

There are several variations of this scheme that would also work. For example, the subsidized ferry fare could be included in the bus fare, paid on boarding the bus ($5, for example). The transfer from bus to ferry is quick and efficient with no additional farebox or turnstile. However, a pedestrian boarding the ferry who did not come from the feeder bus would be assumed to have parked near the terminal. The fare for a non-bus ferry passenger would be set to include a market-rate parking fee ($15, for example). So the option of driving to the terminal still exists, but those passengers pay a market rate, set at whatever it takes to keep the parking demand within the “no-significant impact” limits of the existing parking resource. 

Another possible modification: Passengers on bicycles get in at the subsided bus-passenger rate, or less. 

Here’s the best part: The bus-only scheme does more than avoid all the negative impacts of excessive parking demand. It also shifts WETA resources to the feeder bus system, which improves local transportation service to many Berkeley residents who are not taking the ferry. 

For example: Three feeder routes could supply each ferry departure, as follows: 

The Ashby route: Down Ashby, Ashby BART, 7th/6th to U. Ave. and the marina. 

The Campus/U. Ave route: Down Cyclotron, through the U.C. Campus, Downtown Berkeley BART, U. Ave. to the marina. 

The Shasta/Cedar route: Shasta and Grizzly Peak, Down Shasta, Cedar, North Berkeley BART, 6th, U. Ave. to the marina. 

These three routes would provide badly needed frequent east-west feeder service to our three BART stations as well as to the ferry terminal. Some of the funding might come from AC Transit, but WETA appears to be the relatively deeper pocket these days, and this is one way to use a portion of the WETA RM-2 tollbooth revenue for something more useful than a ferry service 

Dates to keep in mind: 

April 1: WETA staff at Berkeley Planning Commission meeting. 

April 2: WETA board meeting, final site selection. (http://www.WaterTransit.org) 

May 5: WETA appears before the Berkeley City Council to present the results of the environmental process. 

Fall 2009: WETA circulates final environmental document after FTA approval. 

November 2009: WETA and FTA adopt final EIR/EIS. 

Paul Kamen is a naval architect who lives in Berkeley. 

Below the thunder of the upper deep; 

Far far beneath in the abysmal sea… 

The Kraken Sleepeth 

—Alfred Tennyson 

In Nordic mythology, the Kraken was a huge beast that lay in wait for ships that braved the restless North Atlantic, rising from the “abysmal” depths to wrap its great arms around the unwary or the over bold, pulling them down to its lair. As economies from the Baltic to Spain and from Ireland to Austria self-destruct, the Kraken metaphor may be an apt one for a crisis whose first victim was Iceland. 

The saga of Iceland’s fall, from what Reuters called “One of the richest countries in the world per capita” to flat broke, is a tale that begins in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher dismantled governmental and financial checks and balances, privatized everything that wasn’t nailed down, and turned the world’s economy into an enormous Ponzi scheme with promises of wealth that would make Las Vegas blush. 

Tapping into the sea of high-risk credit scams that floated the housing bubble, tiny Iceland—whose major export was cod—turned itself into a financial giant whose banks were worth 900 times more than the island nation’s gross domestic product. Icelanders bought townhouses in New York, imported expensive cars and lured back ex-patriots to cash in at the casino. 

Such hubris stirred the Kraken. 

Last month Icelanders were defaulting on car loans, unemployment was surging, and the country was in hock to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose standard formula for accepting its loans is the systematic savaging of education, health care, and social welfare programs. Iceland’s richest man, Asgeir Johannesson—who made out like a bandit over the past five years—runs a supermarket chain whose symbol is a cross-eyed pig, which suggests that while the northern gods may be vengeful, they have a sense of humor. 

Iceland was just the first victim, an hors d’oeuvre for the beast. There are lots of others. The first to fall were smaller countries on the periphery—Latvia, Estonia, and Ireland—but the leviathans too soon felt the Kraken’s tentacles. Germany’s export industry, the heart of its powerful economy, is off by 21 percent. France’s growth rate is projected to be minus 2 percent. Spain’s unemployment rate is 14 percent, and 22 percent in the country’s hard-hit south. Sweden’s industrial output in down 22.9 percent. Ukraine, an industrial giant with 46 million people, will see its economy shrink 6 percent. A $16.5 billion loan from the IMF is temporarily keeping the country solvent, but its foreign debts alone are $105 billion.  

England—whose Thatcher and Tony Blair share the blame for waking the Kraken in the first place—is a basket case. Its economy is projected to shrink 3 percent, and over two million are out of work. And because the Tories and Labor alike cut social welfare programs over the past 25 years, the jobless only get about $85 a week. As a result, every seven minutes a person in Britain loses his or her home.  

Virtually no country in Europe remains unscathed, although the worst hit are those like Hungry, Latvia, and Austria that bought into the myth that the economy was a never-ending cornucopia.  

Austrian banks shoveled loans into Eastern Europe, up to 60 percent of them in foreign currency. When the crisis came, countries like Hungary and Latvia found themselves trying to pay back loans in expensive Euros, Swiss Francs, and dollars, while their own currencies were tanking. Austria now finds itself holding $371 billion in debts, almost equal to the country’s annual GDP. Unemployment has jumped 23.7 percent.  

The newer members of the European Union (EU), including most of the countries that were formerly part of the Soviet bloc, soon found that, when the going got tough, it was every man for himself. When Hungary recently asked its fellow EU members for a bailout, it got heaved overboard. Indeed, the EU’s 27-member crew seems less concerned with fighting off the Kraken than with each saving itself, ready to turn on one another at the drop of a currency.  

Madrid has launched a “buy Spanish” campaign, London is touting “British jobs for British workers,” and the French president is urging French carmakers to invest at home, not elsewhere in the EU. When the water reaches the quarterdeck, free markets go a glimmering. 

The Obama administration is pushing the Europeans to ante up a lot more cash for a bailout, but EU members are balking. “We don’t think we need to draw up new stimulus packages, and I’m supported on that by German industry,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Financial Times. 

The Europeans, on the other hand, are demanding that the Americans accept global regulation of finance, because many in the EU blame the lack of such regulation for the current crisis. So far, however, Washington is resisting.  

“The global economic crisis is relentlessly laying bare the EU’s flaws and limitations,” says former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. “Without common economic and financial policies…the cohesion of [the] European monetary union and the EU—indeed, their very existence—will be in unprecedented danger.”  

The combination of internal European squabbling—some of it fed by old fashioned panic—and differences with the Americans over regulation, means that besides pumping some money into the IMF, little is likely to come out of the upcoming Group of 20 meetings set for April 2 in London. The G20 is composed of developed and emerging countries. 

As bad as things are in Europe, at least the region has some safety nets for its people, including mostly free medical care, low-cost education, and social services that will blunt the worst aspects of the crisis. The same cannot be said for the United States.  

The worst hit, of course, will be the world’s poor, the hundreds of millions of people in places like Africa and South Asia who currently eke out a marginal existence on a dollar or two a day, and who bear none of the blame for bringing on the world-wide economic crisis. The Kraken will make short work of them. 

According to UNESCO’s Kevin Watkins, “With the slowdown in growth in 2009, we estimate that the average income of the 391 million Africans living on less than $1.25 a day will take a 20 percent hit. When you convert economic growth effect into human cost, the picture looks even grimmer. Best estimates point to an increasing infant mortality of somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 yearly.” 

Not that the poor or the recently-made-poor are going quietly. A demonstration in Iceland drew 7,000 people, the equivalent of seven million in the United States. A march and rally in Ireland drew 120,000—a little over three percent of the population—and Waterford Crystal workers took over their plant. Similar demonstrations have taken place in Russia, Latvia, Ukraine, France, and Greece. As the crisis deepens, so has the anger of those who will bear most its weight.  

In John Wyndham’s 1950’s science fiction novel, The Kraken Wakes, aliens, using the sea as their refuge, paralyze the world. But governments, caught up in the Cold War, are more interested in fighting one another than resisting the invasion. The “Kraken” is finally destroyed when the poor residents of a fishing village overcome their terror and assault the creatures with crowbars and axes. Their example spreads and the invasion is finally defeated. 

Demonstrators alone will not overcome the current crisis, but they can demand that governments act in the interests of their people, not those of Goldman Sachs and AIG. Yes, the banks have to be saved, but the most effective way to do that is to nationalize them, and in a way that the people with the crowbars and axes have a say over how their money is spent.  

According to the Asian Development Bank, the recession has cost the global economy $50 trillion. That is a figure straight out of the darkest nightmare one can imagine. 

The G20—particularly the Germans and the Chinese—should bite the bullet and beef up the bailouts. They must also reinstate the checks and balances on credit, capital and banking that have been systematically dismantled over the years. And they must ensure that the most vulnerable be protected. 

If greed, selfishness and timidity triumph, the Kraken waits.

I am not one who believes in the phenomenon of “senseless” killings. All killings make “sense,” if, by that term, we are separating it from having “justification.” A killing makes “sense” when we understand the reasons for it, however rational or irrational those reasons might be. What we usually call “senseless” is merely something we do not have enough information about to make “sense” of. 

And that is what we are left with, in the aftermath of Saturday’s deadly shootings near 73rd and MacArthur in the shadow of Leona Heights in the foothills of Deep East Oakland—trying to make “sense” of something about which we have little or no direct information. 

We can all make guesses, but we will never know for certain what was going through Lovelle Mixon’s mind in the brief moments before he opened fire on the first two Oakland Police motorcycle officers—John Hege and Sergeant Mark Dunakin—following a traffic stop. And so Oakland remains more divided than it was four days ago over the issue of the police and the city’s street violence, with the bloody MacArthur shootings tending to justify conclusions we had already drawn. 

That means that there will probably be no lessons learned from the MacArthur shootings, and that, more than anything else, will make them “senseless.” 

But a neighbor gives it a try. 

We are sitting around on the porch, talking in the waning hours of the day, as older black men tend to do, and he said he thought it was a case of a young man not wanting to go back into the horrors of the state prison system. 

“I ain’t trying to excuse what he did,” my neighbor said. “But he told his family he wasn’t going back to prison. And anybody ain’t been to prison, they don’t got no idea what it’s like. There’s things go on there every day you can’t talk about, and there ain’t no place to run from it. Some of these youngsters probably feel it’s better to go out in 10 minutes out here on the streets than to go back into prison for 10 years, and you dying every day.” 

The contention that Mr. Mixon did not want to go back to prison—and that possibly being his motivation—came from a Monday San Francisco Chronicle article by Demian Bulwa (“Gunman Had Spent Years In and Out of Prison”) and a companion article by Bulwa and fellow Chronicle reporter Jaxon Van Derberken (“Family’s Account of Oakland Parolee Who Killed the Four Officers”) that attempted not to excuse but to explain the meaning behind the shootings. 

The articles noted that Mr. Mixon’s grandmother’s East Oakland home, where he stayed until recently, is in one of the city’s high-crime neighborhoods, and that “Mixon’s family has seen its share of tragedy. One of Mixon’s younger sisters, 24-year-old Enjoli Mixon, lost her right eye in a shooting in May 2002 that killed one of her friends. A cousin, 15-year-old Derrick Mixon, was shot and killed in Oakland in July 2008.” A ninth-grade dropout, Mr. Mixon spent seven years in custody, some of them in Corcoran State Prison, after pleading guilty to armed robbery, and was out on parole from that offense. Enjoli Mixon, the sister who lost her eye in another shooting, said in one of the articles, almost plaintively, that her brother was “not a monster. I don’t want people to think he’s a monster. He’s just not. He’s just not.” And the Chronicle quoted Mr. Mixon’s grandmother, reflecting the duality of the reaction to the killings that went across many Oakland neighborhoods, as saying that the family was “crushed that this happened. Our hearts and prayers go out to the officers’ families . . . This shouldn’t have happened.” 

Whatever one may think of Mr. Mixon himself, his family members certainly don’t sound like monsters but rather people caught in this web of tragedy. 

Although, as we said, we will never know for certain the exact steps that led to the MacArthur shootings, we can draw some speculations from the published accounts. 

We know that Mr. Mixon had broken parole, and there may have been a no-bail warrant for his arrest. In addition, on Tuesday, the Chronicle published a story in which they indicated that the day before the Saturday shootings, Oakland police had linked Mr. Mixon to a rape earlier this year. We also know that he had a handgun in his possession in the car that he was driving when he was stopped by Officer Dunakin. It would be safe to surmise—from the available information—that neither Officer Dunakin nor Officer Hege, who drove up sometime during the stop, knew any of these facts; they did not appear to have taken the type of offensive and defensive actions that police would normally adopt under such circumstances. 

More than once I have seen a single patrol officer in East Oakland make a traffic stop and then detain and handcuff a driver, all without backup. But more often, I’ve seen officers conduct a defensive-minded, two-officer vehicle stop, with one officer going to the driver’s side door to interact with the driver while the other stood somewhat to the right of the rear passenger door, so that the backup officer could both watch the interior of the vehicle from a different angle as well prevent the sort of quick double-shooting that Mr. Mixon affected on Saturday. 

Assuming that Officer Dunakin ran the car’s license plate through his computer before he pulled Mr. Mixon over, we can also assume that the officer detected nothing seriously amiss with the car itself. A Monday Oakland Tribune article said that the officer may have stopped Mr. Mixon only for an expired auto registration, and that “Mixon’s picture [may have been] on the [driver’s] license [he gave to the officer], but the number for the license belonged to another person.” 

The question is, if Mr. Mixon went to the length of altering a driver’s license to mask his identity while driving, why didn’t he play out the string of his deception on the hope that the officers would be fully deceived and let him go with a fix-it ticket? Why did he choose to open fire on the two officers? 

That is the answer, of course, that we will never know, as Mr. Mixon took it with him to his grave. 

But we can assume that Mr. Mixon was fully aware that in recent years, Oakland police officers rarely give simple fix-it tickets to 27-year-old African-American men driving in the depths of East Oakland. Instead, in this part of town at least, OPD is more likely to detain and do a thorough search of both the driver and the vehicle, even for what is characterized as a “routine traffic stop.” 

Many news accounts indicated that Saturday’s shootings occurred close to the Eastmont police substation. What they did not say was that the shootings happened within a handful of blocks of the Bancroft-side lower parking lot at Eastmont Mall, where 10 years ago, Oakland police broke up the off-street, late-night sideshows of young African-American drivers that had taken to congregating there. The sideshows then moved for a time over to the Pac ’N’ Save parking lot on Hegenberger Road, but police eventually broke those up as well, driving the sideshows into the streets and turning them into a roaring, rolling weekend phenomenon that at times threatened to overwhelm both the neighborhoods and the police department itself. 

Operation Impact—the practice of flooding certain Oakland streets with officers from various jurisdictions and doing massive law-enforcement-by-auto-stop—was first instituted in the early 2000s to attack one of the city’s wave of murders. But when the murder rate subsided, the operation was moved over to combat the sideshows. 

Eventually, Oakland officially designated broad sections of Deep East Oakland as something they called a “sideshow zone,” in which the practice of massive auto stops were periodically instituted, primarily by Oakland police officers only, but sometimes buttressed by the California Highway Patrol. In these operations, police target certain classes of vehicles to stop and check for violations. (Though the police have never given a detailed description of what types of vehicles get stopped in the operations, it only takes a few times driving up and down International Boulevard or Bancroft or Foothill or MacArthur to see that the targets are young African-Americans or Latinos.) A visual search of the interior of the car is done to look for possible illegalities in plain sight, while a license check is done on every occupant of the vehicle to look for outstanding warrants or evidence of someone on parole. The finding of any of these elements then triggers a handcuffed detention of the occupants and a full vehicle search. In the reports on the earlier Operation Impact sweeps, OPD officials boasted of the numbers of auto tows and traffic tickets that were given out during these activities, using the relatively few instances of confiscated drugs or illegal weapons to justify the entire activity. 

From the OPD or Highway Patrol sweeps, which still occur periodically in Deep East Oakland, the practice of law-enforcement-by-auto-stop has evolved in this area of the city into general practice. (While these stops have been confused with DUI checkpoints in the media they are distinct from that activity, targeting young drivers of color in general, rather than evidence of impairment due to drug use or alcohol consumption.) 

For several years, there have been complaints about the effect of these widespread, indiscriminant detentions and auto searches by OPD officers triggered simply by auto stops, the focus being on the effect on the young African-American and Latino drivers. 

And some observers—myself included—have concluded that in the growing tensions on Oakland’s streets and the presence of so many individuals riding around with things or conditions to hide, eventually this practice would lead to violent confrontations between police and the occupants of vehicles stopped for minor transgressions. It is possible that this may have been one contributing factor that led to Saturday’s shootings at 74th and MacArthur. 

Does this mean I am writing to “justify” the shootings of the first two officers, or that I am saying that those particular officers brought this on themselves? No, although I am sure that there are some in this community who will try to twist my words and meaning to try to make it appear so. I’ll take that risk. Because in hearing and reading—in the wake of Saturday’s tragedy—all of the talk of heightened crackdowns on Oakland’s many parolees simply because they share the condition of parolee with Lovelle Mixon, it is important—in fact, it is critical—to point out the possibility that it may have been Oakland’s past indiscriminant crackdowns that helped bring about this tragedy in the first place. 

But then, of course, we will probably never know.

When I was about 10 years old, something odd began happening in my neighborhood. The houses around the corner on Brisban Street started getting seriously flooded backyards, then basements, when we had serious rains. This was unprecedented enough that many of our neighbors had finished their basements into rec rooms, guest rooms, serious workshops.  

Spring Creek (“The Crick” to us) ran parallel to that block, and took a mild swerve that put its bed maybe 20 feet from the lot boundaries. There was enough slope and enough floodplain that until then, not even the wettest storms had driven creek water farther than a few feet over the banks.  

But a few years after my parents had taken a deep breath and a 30-year mortgage, a building boom had begun upstream. Lawnton and Rutherford and the unincorporated bits of Swatara Township became neighborhoods and proto-malls, and schools and churches joined in the paving binge. Penny Day, a straightforward student fundraising contest—a phenomenon as Catholic as Bingo, I suspect—paid to pave our playground and stripe it for both parking and basketball. We were proud of it: Progress. 

When the floods happened, one year and then a couple of years later and then repeatedly, I remember my mother shaking her head, waving eastward, and asking rhetorically, “Well, didn’t they know what would happen when they paved all that ground out there?”  

Mom wasn’t a hydrologist or even a farm kid, and I don’t think the word “ecologist” had been invented in the ’50s. It was just a perfectly obvious thing, and I saw it immediately: water runs off paving fast instead of soaking in. Duh.  

One of the scary parts of growing up is realizing that the people in charge aren’t any smarter than you are, and have less foresight than your worker-bee parents.  

Fifty years later, here we are again. Lately some people have realized that just getting water to run Somewhere Else isn’t a solution, that maybe concrete isn’t the perfect surface everywhere, that there’s more to water than piping it away. Some radicals are ripping out pavement to plant school gardens or parks. Some are looking into the compromise of permeable paving.  

Creek restorationists seem to be at the vanguard of this sane thinking. Like anyone on the front lines, they have casualties, and the Baxter Creek restoration at Richmond’s Booker T. Anderson Park was one of them. (See the Planet’s March 6 Green Neighbors column.) Fortunately, Lisa Owens Viani was still keeping an eye on her project, and called a stakeholders’ meeting to extract promises that the city, whose crew had destroyed the creek’s planted understory, would re-plant and maintain it.  

Similar stories have come in from all over the country, of city or campus maintenance crews’ clearcutting native plants along restored or original streambanks. The same thing is happening with chaparral, and with forest understory, as both are designated “fire hazards.” Between fire and water, it seems some people are determined to sterilize the world in the name of protection.  

Anyone who’s taken antibiotics knows what happens when you sterilize your guts. How observant do we have to be to realize that we have working biological systems all around us as well as within, and that we “simplify” them, smooth them out at out peril? 

Or is that the question? 

More next week.

In some sort of way, the society is divided up into two groups. Those that can fix things and those that have to negotiate with the first group to get the fixing done. If you’re tired of wheedling with false compliments, baking cookies and standing there while forcing an adoring expression as Harold lights the water heater after the gas has gone out, I’m here to help (and I can’t see you, so you can stick your tongue out and make a face and finish by burning this paper). 

This really is something everyone needs to know how to do, and while diagrams are quite helpful in such cases, we won’t need them because this is really fairly simple. By the way, a lot of people don’t know how to light their water heater. 

Your water heater has a control box on the front of it. Now get down on the floor, bring a flashlight and take a close look. If you are actually going to light the water heater (you could do this if you’re feeling adventurous) bring a “wand-style” lighter—one of these lighters that has a trigger and a nose that is several inches long. These enable you to put the flame deep inside something without putting your hand all the way in there. For this job, it’s almost a must. If you don’t have this, you’ll either need very small hands and a match or regular lighter OR some long matches that cost a lot of money. I really like the wand lighters. I would suggest that you get one and keep it near the water heater (tape it to the wall nearby). 

Take a look at the controller on the front of the water heater. It has a large dial that lets you set the temperature of the water. Interestingly, water heaters don’t know how hot their water is, so you can’t set a specific temperature. There are too many variables to allow them to do this, so they just offer a relative scale from Vacation (not heating at all) to low to hot to hotter. If the water is too hot or too cold, you just turn the knob a little in the direction you want and test the water in an hour to see if you’re happy with the new setting. It may take a few days to get it where you want it. And be careful: scalding is not uncommon. 

The control box with the big dial (the thermostat) also has a dial (usually on top) that says On, Pilot and Off, as you turn the dial to various settings. Find the mark that lines up with the selection. This will be lined up with the On setting when you approach a working water heater. If you turn the dial to the Pilot position, you will note that you can then depress an adjacent button that was blocked in the On or Off position. That’s the pilot override button. Sometimes, the whole On, Pilot, Off button depresses when it’s in the Pilot position. You’ll have to look and explore. Don’t be afraid. Some very dumb folks have mastered this (Harold, for instance) and you’re pretty smart.  

The point of finding and pushing this part down is that this is the secret to relighting the water heater. 

When the water heater pilot goes out (let’s say the gas gets turned off for a short while) it is designed to shut itself off and prevent more gas from coming out. This keeps your house from blowing up (good idea, right?). So, in order to relight the pilot light (a little flame that is always on so that when the burner comes on, it will immediately begin to burn and not allow for a gas build-up and potential explosion), we have to “override” the feature that turns the gas off when the pilot goes out. That’s what the button is for. But, you may ask, what keeps the gas on when I let go of the button? The answer is electricity from an amazing little device called a “thermocouple.” 

If you will look inside the burner compartment of your water heater (you need to get down on the floor in some cases because it’s right at the bottom of your water heater) you will find three things. A large disk-shaped burner with a large shiny metal tube that feeds to it from the control box and two small devices that are mounted on a metal clip on your side of the burner. These two parts are the pilot jet (nothing more than a small gas tub ending with a shaped piece of metal where the pilot gas will burn) and the thermocouple. The thermocouple (they also used to be called co-generators) is a little probe that is placed right in the path of the pilot flame and when it is heated, it sends a tiny current back via a wire (look for the wire, it’s right next to the small gas tube for the pilot light) to the control box.  

So now we know all the players. Here’s the play. If the pilot has gone out, you will open the door or doors that cover the burner compartment at the bottom of the water heater (smell and be sure that there isn’t gas coming out just as you would with your stove). Keep your face away from the working area. 

Turn the dial to Pilot. Push the button or dial down and you should be able to hear at little bit of gas coming out of the pilot jet. Light it with your lighter right away and keep the button pushed down. You will need to keep the button pushed down for at least half a minute. If you release the button after 30 seconds and the pilot goes out, your thermocouple may be getting old and run down (like me) and may need to be heated for a longer period. Try a full minute. I’ve found cases where it took three minutes or more. If it’s getting to be longer than that, the generating capacity of your thermocouple may be shot and you may need to replace it (time for a plumber). 

What’s happening when you hold the button down is that you are warming the thermocouple, which, in turn, sends a tiny current to the controller, saying that gas should be allowed to flow. When you let off the button, the flame keeps the thermocouple talking and we’re in business. The thermocouple is also telling the controller that when the water gets cold, it’s OK to open the big valve and allow the burner to come one (because it knows that the pilot is going and that it will light the gas right away when it comes on). 

When you’re done, close the door or doors to the burner compartment and open the champagne. You’re amazing.  

Now, some exceptions and other cool things. There are modern water heaters that are sealed off at the bottom and do not let you get inside with your lighter. Not to worry, they have little sparkers that reside inside the compartment right next to the burner. There are “piezo-electric” and use a quartz crystal to generate a spark when you push a button that is right next to the control-box. These are small buttons and you have to look for them but they are readily discernible once you’ve spotted them. When you push the button, you’ll hear them click inside the combustion chamber. By the way, these sealed “FVIR” water heaters are safer in your garage where gasoline fumes may accrue at floor level. 

The last thing (and this is like a present because you’re so amazing) is that you now know how to light many other gas devices that also use a “pilot-safety” device (something that uses a thermocouple to be sure that the pilot is actually lit). Your old furnace may have exactly the same configuration and a very similar control box with the burner simply having a different shape (not a disk shape). Many floor furnaces have a pilot safety device on them (or added as an upgrade). Wall furnaces are most the same as this too. 

Go look at all your gas devices. Crawl underneath, get down on the floor, move the old boxes away and see what you now can do. Are you cool or what!? 

ASK MATT 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net. 

THURSDAY, MARCH 26 

THEATER 

PEN Oakland “4 X 4 Plays” staged readings of new works by local playwrights, Thurs. and Fri. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Tickets are $7-$10. 681-5652. www.penoakland.org 

FILM 

“Wholphin” A quarterly DVD magazine with short movies, documentaries and uncategorizable films at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Steve Fainaru, Washington Post correspondent and author of “Big Boy Rules: America’s Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq” at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Di Goldene Pave” Yiddish Muse and Mystery with Lenka Lichtenberg at 1 p.m. at JCC East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $12-$15. 800-838-3006.  

“The Miracle of the Negro Spiritual” An evening of lecture and song with Prof. Lucy Kinchen, soloists and The Lucy Kinchen Chorale at 7 p.m. at Laney College, Room G189. 

Santa Ferenc, Hungarian Gypsy music, at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Anais Mitchell at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Alex Calatayud’s Brasil and Farewell Party at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

TAARKA, Elephant Revival at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

The Bluegrass Revolution at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

FRIDAY, MARCH 27 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Gypsy” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through April 5. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Berkeley Rep “Crime and Punishment” at 2025 Addison St., through Mar. 29. Tickets are $27-$71. 647-2949. berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group “Mrs. Streeter” Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2:30 and 8 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St., through April 25. Tickets are $15-$20. 925-812-2787. www.blackrepertorygroup.com 

Brookside Rep “Basha Rubenchek from Minsk, Comrade of Petaluma” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, through May 3. Tickets are $19-$24. www.BrooksideRep.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Nine (The Musical)” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through March 28. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Destiny Arts “Dreaming Awake” Movement theater work created by young artists Fri. and Sat. at 7:30 p.m. through April 5, at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Cost is $12-$20. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Masquers Playhouse “The Last Five Years” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, and runs through May 2. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

“Memories and Dreams of the Twentieth Century: stories and a couple of songs” A one-man show by Michael Brown, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Da Silva Ukulele Co., 2547 8th St., Suite 28, in the Sawtooth Bldg., through April 4. Suggested donation $15. 868-3280. 

PEN Oakland “4 X 4 Plays” staged readings of new works by local playwrights, at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Tickets are $7-$10. 681-5652.  

Shotgun Players “Skylight” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., though April 26. Tickets are $25. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Sun & Moon Ensemble “Twobird” Fri.-Sun at 8 p.m. through March 29 at the South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview St., at Ellis. Tickets are $10-$25 sliding scale. 800- 838-3006. www.sunandmoonensemble.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Descent” Photographs by Peter Tonningsen on display until May 1 at A Different Day Gallery, 1233 Solano Ave., Albany. 868-4904. 

FILM 

“Iron Jawed Angels” A fictionalized account of the young activists in the women’s suffrage movement at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Church 1600 Sacramento at Cedar St. 524-4112. www.berkeleyfriendschurch.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Blair Kilpatrick reads from “Accordian Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Blues & Jazz Benefit” with Rhonda Benin & Company, Dave Matthews Blues Band, Beverly Johnson and others in a benefit for Berkeley Food and Housing Project, at 6 pm. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $30. 649-4965, ext. 312. www.bfhp.org 

Whitworth Symphony Orchestra performs Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 and other selections at 8 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, 2407 Dana St. Free, donations accepted. 509-777-3280. 

Opera Piccola Youth Performance at 7 p.m. at Oakland Technical High School Auditorium, 4351 Broadway, Oakland. Donations accepted. www.opera-piccola.org 

Que viva el canto/Songs of Chile with Eduardo Peralta at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Blue Turtle Seduction, Seah Hodge & High Heat at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Escalay, middle-eastern jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$18. proartsgallery.org  

Claudia Schmidt at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

The Botticellis, Winters Fall, Belly of the Whale at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

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

Terrence Brewer Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Monophonics & Grease Taps at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $6-$8. 548-1159.  

Lynne Smith, Vickie Hopper Claudia Russell at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 597-0795. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 28 

CHILDREN  

East Bay Children’s Theatre “That’s Our Snow White” at 1 and 3 p.m. at The James Moore Theater, Oakland Museum, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Tickets are $10. www.childrens-theatre.org 

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

Owen Baker Flynn “Act in a Box” Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Go Figure” Works interpreting the human form by Prabin Badhia, Bernice Gross and Gail Machlis. Reception at 7 p.m. at 4th Street Studio, 1717D 4th St. www.fourthstreetstudio.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Conrgresswoman Barbara Lee will read from her memoir “Renegade for Peace and Justice” and discuss her political career at 3 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. pdtevents@gmail.com 

Rhythm & Muse Young Writers’ Night, with Maurisha and Michelle Williams, Terry Taplin, Anthony Atlas, Poetry Thomas & others, at 7 p.m. at 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice and Rose Sts. 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Gamelan Sekar Jaya 30th Anniversary Benefit with auction, Balinese music and performance from 1 to 6 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, Durant Ave. Cost is $25. 655-1227. 

Los Cenzontles, Mexican-American Roots band, at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Pellejo Seco, Cuban, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$13. 849-2568.  

Mal Sharpe’s Gumbo Band at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ.  

Baba Ken & the Afro-Groove Connexion at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Kenny “Blue” Ray at 8:30 p.m. at Bobby G’s, 2072 University Ave.  

Take the Stage at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $8.50-$9.50. 548-1761.  

Mitch Green at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845- 

Roger Rocha and the Goldenhearts at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. 

Hali Hammer and Khadejah Waverly at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 597-0795. 

Or, the Whale, The Flagpoles, Strix Vega at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Patrick Wolff Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Dan Potthast, Davenpport Totem at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $8. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 29 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Congresswoman Barbara Lee on her new book “Renegade for Peace & Justice” at 1 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, 98 Broadway, Jack London Square, Oakland. 272-0120. 

Andrea Mock, spoken word performance at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera 30th Anniversary Celebration Concert with soprano Ruth Ann Swenson, at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley. Tickets are $48-$58. www.berkeleyopera.org 

Jewish Music Festival Family Day with activities and performances from 11 a.m., dance party at 4 p.m. at JCC East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $7-$20. 800-838-3006. www.jewishmusicfestival.org 

Namâd Ensemble, Ossyan (Rebellion), Persian Classical Concert at 7 p.m. at The Julia Morgan Young People’s Performing Arts Center, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $30. 823-5990.  

“Requiem” by Gabriel Faure at 2 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway, Oakland. 444-3555.  

Berkeley Unified School District’s Performing Arts Showcase at 1 p.m. in Berkeley Community Theater at Berkeley High School. 644-6320. 

Joshua Moshier & Andre Bush at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Bandworks at 1 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054.  

Mary Jensen at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373.  

Duck Baker at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

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

MONDAY, MARCH 30 

EXHIBITIONS 

“RE/FORMATIONS: Disability, Women and Sculpture” opens at the National Institute of Art & Disabilities, 551 23rd St., Richmond, and runs through May 11. 620-0290.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bloch Lecture: Steven Feld on “Jazz Cosmopolitanism: A View from Acra, Ghana” at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Tickets not required. 642-4864. 

“Where the Girls Are: Women Artists, Science and Tech” with Marcia Tanner at 7:30 p.m. at 160 Kroeber Hall, UC campus. Free. bcnm.berkeley.edu 

Bill Berkson reads from “Portrait and Dream: New & Selected Poems” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Classical at the Freight in celebration of Mendelssohn’s 200th Birthday at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $8.50-$9.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

TUESDAY, MARCH 31 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Walter Mosley, crime writer and creator of Easy Rawlins, at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$13. www.kpfa.org 

Germaine Greer on “Shakespeare’s Wife” at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Farallon Recorder Quartet at 7:30 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Tickets are $15-$20. 559-4670. farallonrecorderquartet.com 

Bandworks at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Kelly Park at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet” opens at the Berkeley Art Museum. Curator’s talk with Lucinda Barnes at 12:15 p.m. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“As the World Turns: The World of the 1890s” Staged tableaux of garments, linens and laces in everyday setting, opens at the Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles, 3163 Adeline St. 843-7178. lacismuseum.org 

“Flowers Revealed” Photographs by Karen Preuss at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 2nd flr., 101 Eighth St., Oakland, through April 30. 817-5773. 

FILM 

“The Spirit of the Beehive” at 3 p.m. and “Wild Boys of the Road” at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

From Riches to Rags: Hollywood and the New Deal “Our Daily Bread” Introduced by Eric Rauchway, author of The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

“Sacred Music of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” with recordings presented by UC Prof. of Middle Eastern Studies, Martin Schwartz; and a live performance by cantor Richard Kaplan at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 951 The Alameda. Free. 526-3805.  

Dazzling Divas, opera, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. www.lebateauivre.net 

The Big Cheese & Jive Rats at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

The Northside Band at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Mike Marshall & Darol Anger with Vasen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $32.50-$33.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

THURSDAY, APRIL 2 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet” Converstaion with ecologist Gretchen Daily and Artist Iñgo Manglano-Ovalle at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Catherine Ramirez in conversation with Jose Saldivar on her new book “The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory” 6 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

Holloway Poetry Series with Cyrus Console at 6:30 p.m. in the Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall, UC campus. http://holloway.english.berkeley.edu 

Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza of Culture Clash read from their new anthology “Oh Wild West” at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Rubber Soldiers Revue with The Rowan Brothers and David Gans at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

3rd “Not-A-Seder” Passover Cabaret at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave.Free. Hosted by the Progressive Jewish Alliance. 

Bill Evans & Megan Lynch at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Luce Band, Annie Bacon and her O-Shen, The Wicked Oysters at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082  

Dave Stein Hub-Bub at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

FRIDAY, APRIL 3 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Gypsy” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through April 5. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Black Repertory Group “Mrs. Streeter” Fri. at 8 .m., Sat. at 2:30 and 8 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St., through April 25. Tickets are $15-$20. 925-812-2787. www.blackrepertorygroup.com 

Brookside Rep “Basha Rubenchek from Minsk, Comrade of Petaluma” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, through May 3. Tickets are $19-$24. www.BrooksideRep.org 

Destiny Arts “Dreaming Awake” Movement theater work created by young artists Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7:30 p.m., and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Cost is $12-$20. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Masquers Playhouse “The Last Five Years” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, and runs through May 2. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

“Memories and Dreams of the Twentieth Century: stories and a couple of songs” A one-man show by Michael Brown, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Da Silva Ukulele Co., 2547 8th St., Suite 28, in the Sawtooth Bldg., through April 4. Suggested donation $15. 868-3280. 

Round Belly Theatre Co. “Twelfth Night” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. Subterranean Art House, 2179 Bancroft Way. Suggested donation $8-$10. 415-728-5975. 

Shotgun Players “Skylight” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., though April 26. Tickets are $25. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Descent” Photographs by Peter Tonningsen. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at A Different Day Gallery, 1233 Solano Ave. Albany. 868-4904. 

“Earth Days” Works by Tyrell Collins, Ralph Singer, and John Wood. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 Twenty-fifth St., Oakland. oakopolis@gmail.com 

“Intersectionality of Sisters” Panel discussion and poetry at 5:30 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. 465-8928. 

“Myth Magic Mystery: Art of the Inner Worlds” Group show. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at The Red Door Gallery and Collective in the Warehouse, 416 26th St., Oakland. 292-7061. 

“Confluence” Painting and sculpture by Margaret Chavigny and Laura van Duren. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Mercury 20 Gallery, 25 Grand Ave. at Broadway, Oakland. 701-4620. www.mercurytwenty.com  

“Modality Room” Installation by Renee Gertler. Reception at 7 p.m. at Blankspace, 6608 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 547-6608. www.blankspacegallery.com 

“Beyond the Studio: Community Collaborations” Community-based Public Art Projects and Final Exhibition through April 5 at Work-in-Progress Gallery, John F. Kennedy University’s Arts Annex, 2956 San Pablo Ave., 2nd Flr. 486-8118. 

FILM 

“An American in Paris” at 7 p.m. at the Paramount, 2025 Boradway. Tickets are $5. Box office opens at 6 p.m.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Teen Poetry Slam Semi-Finals with eighteen semi-finalists from across the Bay Area, Fri. and Sat. at 7 p.m. at The Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $6-$10. 800-828-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Friday Noon Concert with Dept. of Music students at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

“Cal Band Spring Showcase” a variety of acts from rock bands to dances to comedy skits at 7:30 p.m. at Haas Pavilion, UC campus. Tickets are $5-$10. 642-3436. tickets.berkeley.edu.  

San Francisco City Chorus “Spring Rhapsody” choral works from the Romantic Period at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $18-$25. 415-701-7664. www.sfcitychorus.org 

Sergio Caputo Quartet at 8 p.m. at 155 Dwinelle Hall, UC campus. Free.  

Bill Crossman, First Fridays Free Jazz and Improv at 7:30 p.m. at OPC Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Cost is $5, free for ages 16 and under. 836-4649. 

Clifton Burton’s Upside Down & Backwards at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Phenomenauts, Peelander-Z, The Secretions, Tabaltix at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mark Hummel with Jerry Zybach at 9 p.m. at Bobby G’s, 2072 University Ave.  

Bob Frank with John Murray & the Lansky Brothers at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Beth Nielsen Chapman, singer/songwriter, at 8 p.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way, at 6th. Cost is $15-$25. 486-8700. www.rudramandir.com  

Marcus Shelby Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Lloyd Family Players, Alex-Lee, The Rad Girls at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

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

Danny Torres & Friends at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 597-0795. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 4 

CHILDREN  

John Weaver, storyteller, Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $7. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

“Orca, The First Whale” A puppet show based on a tale from Native Americans in the Northwest, at 11 a.m., and 2 and 4 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $7. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

Arts at St. Alban’s Storytelling and Music with Joyce Parry Moore and Jack Hayes, a multi-disciplinary series for children, ages 5-10. Parents invited. From 10 to 11:30 a.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Free, donations accepted. To register call 525-1716. info@st-albans-albany.org  

EXHIBITIONS 

“RE/FORMATIONS: Disability, Women and Sculpture” Opening reception at 2 p.m. at the National Institute of Art & Disabilities, 551 23rd St., Richmond. Exhibition runs through May 11. 620-0290. www.niadart.org 

THEATER 

Stone Soup Improv Comedy at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $7-$10. www.stonesoupimprov.com 

TheatreFIRST “Old Times” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way, through April 18. Tickets are $23-$28. 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Teen Poetry Slam Semi-Finals with eighteen semi-finalists from across the Bay Area at 7 p.m. at The Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $6-$10. 800-828-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Poetry Reading with Ariana Reines at 7 p.m. at Alphonse Berber Gallery, 2546 Bancroft Way. 649-9492. 

Benito M. Vergara, Jr. on “Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City” at 3:30 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. www.asiabookcenter.com 

Bay Area Poets Coalition open reading from 3 to 5 pm. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street. 527-9905. 

Thaddeus Rutkowski on “Tetched: A Novel in Fractals” at 7 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. www.asiabookcenter.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Gloria” Combined Choirs and Symphony at 8 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Road, Kensington. Suggested donation $15-$20, no one turned away for lack of funds. 525-0302, ext. 309. www.uucb.org 

American Bach Soloists at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, at Dana. Pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10-$44. 800-838-3006. americanbach.org 

Yolanda Rhodes, jazz standards, arias, spirituals and art songs, at 8 p.m. at Trrinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. 

San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir “Tonight My Heart Sings” at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Alameda, 2001 Santa Clara at Chestnut, Alameda. Suggested donation $10-$15, children under 13, free. 522-1477. www.AlamedaChurch.com 

Las Bomberas de la Bahía at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Steve Freund at 8:30 p.m. at Bobby G’s, 2072 University Ave.  

Beat Box Showcase with The Vowel Movement and others at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Sotaque Baiano at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

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

Disappear Incompletely and Kapowski at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Zarate Pollace Brazillian Band at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

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

Celu Hamer & Friends at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 597-0795. 

Mitch Marcus Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Berkeley Guitar Festival with Michto Pelo, George Cole and Vive le Jazz, The Terrence Brewer Group at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

SUNDAY, APRIL 5 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Prints and Posters” Reception at 5:30 p.m. p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Sale and auction runs through April 12. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“The Lyrical Line: Embracing All & Flowing” Works by Salma Arastu on display from 2 to 5 p.m. at Numi Tea Gardens, 2230 Livingston St., Oakland. 261-1315. 

FILM 

African Diaspora Film Society “Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun” at 2 p.m. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $5. 814-2400. 

Earth Dance Film Festival at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th, Oakland. For ticket information call 701-4019. www.earthdancefilms.com 

From Riches to Rags: Hollywood and the New Deal “Wild Boys of the Road” Introduced by Harvey Smith, board member of the National New Deal Preservation Association, at 6 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

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

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Diane di Prima, Maichael McClure and David Meltzer at 3 p.m. at Diesel, 5433 College Ave., Oakland. 653-9965. 

Small Press Distribution Poetry Blow-Out with readings by Clark Coolidge, Norma Cole, Graham Foust, Tennessee Reed and many others, from noon to 4 p.m. at 1341 7th St. at Gilman. 524-1668. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pocket Opera “La Favorita” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $20-$37. 415-346-7805. www.pocketopera.org 

Moira Smiley & VOCO at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is 18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Fiesta de Marimba with Ana Nitmas and Ixim Tinamit at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $12-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

California Coast Music Camp Spring Dance at 4 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $$15-$25. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Clairdee at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

In a back room of an historic Lorin District church, the man in the yellow rubber apron sharpens his knife, intoning in the low light, “In my hometown, everybody knows that everybody had to work in the chicken factory or the prison—and I’ve been in both....” 

The portentous words contrast with the speaker’s easygoing manner, and again with his air of constant activity. So Michael McCamish spins out his one-man storytelling show, Twobird, at the old South Berkeley Community Church, doing a stint of recollection, both offhanded and mesmerizing, of the Tennessee roots of his protagonist, Malcolm Bruce. 

It’s a solo show, but the name of the presenter, Sun & Moon Ensemble, tells what really goes on during the show as well as behind it. McCamish’s yarn ravels out in the portraits he tells and enacts: Malcolm’s shattered namesake grandfather, called a war hero for surviving the Bataan Death March and POW camp, but who doesn’t even leave a footprint when he slips away and disappears; his father, a fire-eating Scots-Irish preacher, thundering out a sermon like the Reverend Ian Paisley; Uncle Ed, schoolyard bully grown up to be the toughest prison guard; his elegant and ghostly mother, appearing in dreams; his mentor Vidar, a wayward and worldly-wise musician living in the woods outside the segregated town; Mae Bella, the traveling jazz lady, niece of his black “mammy,” whom he falls for; even a skittering, finally high-steppin’ chicken, hatched from the blanket McCamish bursts out from, a ruff of feathers around his neck like an amulet. 

McCamish is a one-man ensemble, sketching his characters with stylized gestures and body language. (He was a student of Eugenio Barba of Denmark’s Odin Teatret—but a longtime social worker, too.) He fills out the cast of his story with a languorously elegant masked dance as the dream apparition of Malcolm’s mother and a romantic and funny pas-de-deux with an expressive puppet standing in as Mae Bella.  

McCamish, who moved to the neighborhood over a year ago, has been practicing at the church, developing the show for months with director Maria Lexa, who founded Sun & Moon in San Francisco eight years ago on returning after two decades in European theater, giving another facet of meaning to “ensemble.” 

But integral to the show in every sense are lighting designer Allen Willner, the half-dozen artists who came up with the costumes, masks and puppets (including chicken shadow puppets), and the musical duo who shade, underline and accent every movement and moment with the sounds of flutes, electric guitar, harmonium, drums and a slew of percussion instruments and voices—singer and multi-instrumentalist Nils Frykdahl and drummer Chuck Squier (who collaborated on set and program art). 

Twobird explores both the dark and idyllic sides of coming of age in a Southern town, a while back. The mood seems deceptively simple, but manages many happy surprises in the midst of not-so-happy moments of alienation, crimes of passion and familial grief. Twobird is also capable of pulling humor and good sense out of uplift—Malcolm seeming to soar above his factory bondage, only to crash, waking up in chicken shit, and learning you have to “take it step by step by step.” 

The show’s leisurely pacing eases the story along, making 90 minutes paradoxically short. Afterwards, as part of Sun & Moon’s partnering with the church, there’s a tasty meal available—real Southern fried chicken, appropriately, with good sides, dessert, lemonade and iced tea—for a nominal sum that benefits the congregation’s youth programs, a chance to sit down convivially with fellow spectators and the Ensemble for a bite and a chat—a perfect close to a seamless evening of real storytelling theater. 

TWOBIRD 

Presented by Sun & Moon Productions at 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday at South Berkeley Community Church (Fairview at Ellis). Tickets: $10-25 sliding scale. (800) 838-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com. 

Information: (415) 282-4331. sunandmoonensemble.org.

Do you feel like you’re reliving the 1930s Great Depression? Compare and contrast the nature of economic hardship and social and political unrest then and now, through a short film series in April at UC Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive. 

“Americans sought relief from the grim reality of the Depression in movie palaces supplied with escapist fare, but studio heads and stars, like everyone else, were not neutral about ‘that man in the White House’ and his policies,” historian Gray Brechin writes in the program notes introducing the series, which focuses on Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. 

Titled “From Riches to Rags: Hollywood and the New Deal,” the series includes four main films and five short subjects, filmed and produced between 1930 and 1960.  

Curated by PFA’s Steve Seid, it ranges from documentaries to government films to fictional dramas. “Each evening of the series a notable activist or historian will redirect the themes and issues of each film toward the present, so that we may reflect upon our newest of New Deals,” says Seid. 

The series begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 1 with Our Daily Bread, King Vidor’s 1934 parable of a “penniless urban couple” moving to a derelict farm and organizing a utopian “cooperative community.” Followed by The Plow That Broke The Plains (Pare Lorentz, 1936), a “melodrama of nature” and the Dust Bowl. Introduced by Eric Rauchway, author of The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction.  

Wild Boys of the Road is the main feature at 8 p.m. Sunday, April 5. It’s a 1933 drama of juvenile hoboes who, without economic prospects, wandered the country. It is paired with the short, We Work Again, a promotional film of the Works Progress Administration and its impact on African-American communities. Introduced by Harvey Smith, board member of the National New Deal Preservation Association.  

The main attraction at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 15 is 1933’s Gabriel Over the White House, the story of a Hoover-like president who experiences a conversion of sorts following an accident, and sets out to “rid the nation of racketeering, eliminate unemployment…promote world peace,” while also suspending Congress and assuming dictatorial national powers. Two shorts follow, one of them a 1944 cartoon made for Roosevelt’s fourth re-election campaign. Introduced by Berkeley resident Gray Brechin, founding scholar for California’s Living New Deal Project. 

The program concludes with a 6 p.m. screening Sunday, April 19, of Elia Kazan’s Wild River, in which a family resists relocation by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The “rural drama is colored by a subtle sorrow, perhaps knowing that when the floodgates of progress are opened they wash away the good along with the bad,” writes Seid. The Columbia, a 1941 promotional short, precedes the main film. Introduced by Charlotte Brody, program director of Oakland based environmental activist organization Green for All, and preceded by live music of the Depression performed by East Bay band, Jugology. 

FROM RICHES TO RAGS:  

HOLLYWOOD AND THE NEW DEAL 

Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way. $5.50-$9.50. 642-1124. bampfa.berkeley.edu.

Gamelan Sekar Jaya, the East Bay’s 50-member ensemble of musicians and dancers specializing in the Indonesian performing arts of Bali, will celebrate their 30th anniversary with a benefit celebration Saturday at the Berkeley City Club, featuring music and dance, and both a silent and an open auction of Asian artworks, followed by a raffle.  

Entertainment at the event will be performed by Gong Kebyar, Sekar Jaya’s 26-member ensemble, playing an excerpt of Legong, a traditional gamelan piece, and the dancing of eight year-old Iu Dewa Ayu Larrasanti. I Dewa Putu Berata, founder of Bali’s Cudamani gamelan ensemble, will be guest artist. I Dewa Putu Berata is guest music director for Sekar Jaya’s current season.  

“The group was born in Berkeley,” said artistic director Wayne Vitale, “with the original plan being for a six week workshop—and it’s still going. Since that time, there’s been a freer flow of people, artists and ideas between Bali and the rest of the world—and we see ourselves like a sister city, as a direct conduit for artistic exchange.” 

Larry Reed, founder of ShadowLight Productions, reminisced: “We all came out of the old Center for World Music, at one point housed in the Julia Morgan Center, with composers like Steve Reich coming through. Rachel Cooper, now at the Asia Society in New York, and Michael Tenzer, now teaching in Vancouver, bought the gamelan and started the workshop. We collaborated over the years on many things, the biggest being Kawit Legong, the origin of the little girl dance in a dream, at Zellerbach. Their key to success has always been having great guest artists to look up to. And they do a good job, always rejuvenating themselves. There are original members playing with the group, and their children ... a wonderful community gamelan. And it’s high level musicianship, not just a little amateur club.”  

Sekar Jaya is itself composed of several kinds of gamelan orchestras and dancers, which often play in various combinations. Besides Gong Kebyar, the orchestras include Gamelan Angklung, Gamelan Gender Wayang, Gamelan Jegog and Gamelan Joged. Each orchestra is made up of bronze metallophones and/or bamboo marimbas, combined with tuned gongs, drums and flutes.  

Sekar Jaya has presented more than 400 concerts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, toured Bali five times, sponsored extended Bay Area residencies for over 40 Balinese artists and presided over the creation of more than 60 new music and dance works by both Balinese and American artists and collaborated with Bay Area groups and performers like the Oakland East Bay Symphony, Chitresh Das Dance Company (North Indian Kathak), Larry Reed’s ShadowLight Productions (shadow-shows and puppetry) and the Club Foot Orchestra (accompanying the 1935 silent film LEGONG: DANCE OF THE VIRGINS live, now available on DVD through Milestone). Sekar Jaya has also offered educational outreach in Berkeley through CalPerformance’s SchoolTime, in Oakland through the Oakland Youth Chorus/Music in the Schools program, as well as regionally through AYPAL (Asian Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership), Young Audiences and the Foothill College Arts Alliance. Ongoing workshops and classes in music and dance are offered at Sekar Jaya’s El Cerrito center and other locations. 

Sekar Jaya will celebrate its anniversary with three performances, May 22-24, at Cowell Theatre in San Francisco’s Ft. Mason Center, as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, featuring the world premiere of the entire suite for gamelan by I Dewa Putu Berata, SERASI. Early bird discount tickets are available through March 31. (800) 838-3006 or www.sfiaf.org. 

Gamelan Sekar Jaya 

30th anniversary benefit  

1-6 p.m. Saturday  

Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., Admission: $25.  

655-1227 or www.gsj.org  

Two local organizations, Oakland PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists), a branch of PEN USA and internationally, and Berkeley’s Subterranean Shakespeare, will be presenting staged play readings in the coming week. 

PEN (co-sponsored by the Daily Planet) will present 4x4 Plays—Under Burning White Sky by Boadiba; The Murder of Mother Mike by Clare Ortalda; Jack in Ghost-Town by Gerald Nicosia and Bathroom Graffiti Queen by Opal Palmer Adisa, tonight and Friday. 

Subterranean Shakespeare will present The Bard’s King John Monday at the Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship to kick off an unusual series of all Shakespeare’s histories, performed in historical order, followed by the rest of the plays in the Shakespearean canon, as well as an evening of sonnets and a panel discussion on the playwright—and a concert of Shakespearean and Elizabethan songs—wrapping up early next year. 

“Imagine a place without phonebooks/where if you call the operator/An echo answers/Imagine a place where you have to jump out of a car/And flag somebody down/To ask for somebody else’s phone number ...” Boadiba sways and moves her arms elegantly, singing, dancing, intoning her Creole piece about Haiti, “Flung from the slingshot of the Bermuda Triangle,” with Vodou invocations. Clare Ortalda’s The Murder of Mother Mike, the most playlike of the pieces, and the most humorous, has Teasha Gable as a Young Woman learning the bitter lesson of how to say the simplest, most common coin of “words [that can] bully, heal and perhaps kill,” assisted by Ayodele “Wordslanger” Nzinga, Shubhra Prakash and Andrew Leslie. Anyone who had to learn, conscientiously, to smile and say polite, banal things will smile again—or shudder—at the result. Gerald Nicosia, well-known for his journalistic and historical work on Jack Kerouac, in Jack in Ghost-Town crowds in a great deal in a few minutes, with Kerouac in middle age, an alcoholic, remembering his youth and the friends he made famous—Allen Ginsberg (Andrew Leslie), Neal Cassady (Lucas Buckman)—and the women in his life. Perhaps the best moments are Old Jack (Chuck Heinrichs) arguing with his conventional wife while his French-Canadian mother (never seen) pounds on the wall, bedridden in the next room; he speaks to his dead little brother Gerard (Caleb Alexander)—and Young Jack (Ashley Jeffrey) knocks on the door. With Gigi Benson, Joseph Ehling, Amanda Rawnsley and Elaine Pinto, directed by Hal Gelb. And in Bathroom Graffiti Queen, poet-storyteller Opal Palmer Adisa creates a sardonic character out of a kind of roving reporter of a bag lady (Ayodele Nzinga again), “the Dear Abby of the Women’s Lavatory,” looking for her lost daughter and reading what a slew of other women, from a church lady to a hip young thing (all played by Teasha Gable), have scribbled in the stall, with tart advice following.  

Carla Blank, who directed three of the four, Gelb, and producers Kim McMillon and Clare Ortalda for PEN deserve much credit for a diverse evening of moods and exclamations coming from all over. 

“Nobody’s done Shakespeare’s whole canon since Theatre Bay Area, about 10, 11 years ago,” remarked Geoff Pond of subterranean Shakespeare, about the plan to cover The Bard’s canon over the next year in five-week series. “We used to call them Shakespeare Intensives ... This year, we had no main production, so thought we’d do them all! It’s the 20th anniversary, since Stanley Spenger started SubShakes at LaVal’s, and we thought we’d do it in the Fireside Room at the Unitarian fellowship—very informal, comfortable--to celebrate. Then have a panel with some of the scholars on our board, an evening of the sonnets—and a concert, based on our CD and shows of a few years back, SHAKESPEARE’S GREATEST HITS. The CD’s still available!” 

After King John, Richard II (with Spenger as Richard) will be staged April 6; April 13 will see Henry IV part I; part II on April 20; with Henry V on April 27. The following five-week series start on May 11 (with Hamlet), June 29 (with Henry VI part I)—then after asummer break, resume Sept. 14, with titles to be announced.  

4x4 Plays—Under Burning White Sky by Boadiba; The Murder of Mother Mike by Clare Ortalda; Jack in Ghost-Town by Gerald Nicosia and Bathroom Graffiti Queen by Opal Palmer Adisa 

Oakland PEN 

Thursday, March 26, and Friday, March 27, at 8 p.m. 

Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck Ave. 

Tickets $7-10  

King John  

Subterranean Shakespeare 

7:30 p.m., Monday, March 30 

Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship 

1924 Cedar St. 

Tickets $8, call 276-3871

In some sort of way, the society is divided up into two groups. Those that can fix things and those that have to negotiate with the first group to get the fixing done. If you’re tired of wheedling with false compliments, baking cookies and standing there while forcing an adoring expression as Harold lights the water heater after the gas has gone out, I’m here to help (and I can’t see you, so you can stick your tongue out and make a face and finish by burning this paper). 

This really is something everyone needs to know how to do, and while diagrams are quite helpful in such cases, we won’t need them because this is really fairly simple. By the way, a lot of people don’t know how to light their water heater. 

Your water heater has a control box on the front of it. Now get down on the floor, bring a flashlight and take a close look. If you are actually going to light the water heater (you could do this if you’re feeling adventurous) bring a “wand-style” lighter—one of these lighters that has a trigger and a nose that is several inches long. These enable you to put the flame deep inside something without putting your hand all the way in there. For this job, it’s almost a must. If you don’t have this, you’ll either need very small hands and a match or regular lighter OR some long matches that cost a lot of money. I really like the wand lighters. I would suggest that you get one and keep it near the water heater (tape it to the wall nearby). 

Take a look at the controller on the front of the water heater. It has a large dial that lets you set the temperature of the water. Interestingly, water heaters don’t know how hot their water is, so you can’t set a specific temperature. There are too many variables to allow them to do this, so they just offer a relative scale from Vacation (not heating at all) to low to hot to hotter. If the water is too hot or too cold, you just turn the knob a little in the direction you want and test the water in an hour to see if you’re happy with the new setting. It may take a few days to get it where you want it. And be careful: scalding is not uncommon. 

The control box with the big dial (the thermostat) also has a dial (usually on top) that says On, Pilot and Off, as you turn the dial to various settings. Find the mark that lines up with the selection. This will be lined up with the On setting when you approach a working water heater. If you turn the dial to the Pilot position, you will note that you can then depress an adjacent button that was blocked in the On or Off position. That’s the pilot override button. Sometimes, the whole On, Pilot, Off button depresses when it’s in the Pilot position. You’ll have to look and explore. Don’t be afraid. Some very dumb folks have mastered this (Harold, for instance) and you’re pretty smart.  

The point of finding and pushing this part down is that this is the secret to relighting the water heater. 

When the water heater pilot goes out (let’s say the gas gets turned off for a short while) it is designed to shut itself off and prevent more gas from coming out. This keeps your house from blowing up (good idea, right?). So, in order to relight the pilot light (a little flame that is always on so that when the burner comes on, it will immediately begin to burn and not allow for a gas build-up and potential explosion), we have to “override” the feature that turns the gas off when the pilot goes out. That’s what the button is for. But, you may ask, what keeps the gas on when I let go of the button? The answer is electricity from an amazing little device called a “thermocouple.” 

If you will look inside the burner compartment of your water heater (you need to get down on the floor in some cases because it’s right at the bottom of your water heater) you will find three things. A large disk-shaped burner with a large shiny metal tube that feeds to it from the control box and two small devices that are mounted on a metal clip on your side of the burner. These two parts are the pilot jet (nothing more than a small gas tub ending with a shaped piece of metal where the pilot gas will burn) and the thermocouple. The thermocouple (they also used to be called co-generators) is a little probe that is placed right in the path of the pilot flame and when it is heated, it sends a tiny current back via a wire (look for the wire, it’s right next to the small gas tube for the pilot light) to the control box.  

So now we know all the players. Here’s the play. If the pilot has gone out, you will open the door or doors that cover the burner compartment at the bottom of the water heater (smell and be sure that there isn’t gas coming out just as you would with your stove). Keep your face away from the working area. 

Turn the dial to Pilot. Push the button or dial down and you should be able to hear at little bit of gas coming out of the pilot jet. Light it with your lighter right away and keep the button pushed down. You will need to keep the button pushed down for at least half a minute. If you release the button after 30 seconds and the pilot goes out, your thermocouple may be getting old and run down (like me) and may need to be heated for a longer period. Try a full minute. I’ve found cases where it took three minutes or more. If it’s getting to be longer than that, the generating capacity of your thermocouple may be shot and you may need to replace it (time for a plumber). 

What’s happening when you hold the button down is that you are warming the thermocouple, which, in turn, sends a tiny current to the controller, saying that gas should be allowed to flow. When you let off the button, the flame keeps the thermocouple talking and we’re in business. The thermocouple is also telling the controller that when the water gets cold, it’s OK to open the big valve and allow the burner to come one (because it knows that the pilot is going and that it will light the gas right away when it comes on). 

When you’re done, close the door or doors to the burner compartment and open the champagne. You’re amazing.  

Now, some exceptions and other cool things. There are modern water heaters that are sealed off at the bottom and do not let you get inside with your lighter. Not to worry, they have little sparkers that reside inside the compartment right next to the burner. There are “piezo-electric” and use a quartz crystal to generate a spark when you push a button that is right next to the control-box. These are small buttons and you have to look for them but they are readily discernible once you’ve spotted them. When you push the button, you’ll hear them click inside the combustion chamber. By the way, these sealed “FVIR” water heaters are safer in your garage where gasoline fumes may accrue at floor level. 

The last thing (and this is like a present because you’re so amazing) is that you now know how to light many other gas devices that also use a “pilot-safety” device (something that uses a thermocouple to be sure that the pilot is actually lit). Your old furnace may have exactly the same configuration and a very similar control box with the burner simply having a different shape (not a disk shape). Many floor furnaces have a pilot safety device on them (or added as an upgrade). Wall furnaces are most the same as this too. 

Go look at all your gas devices. Crawl underneath, get down on the floor, move the old boxes away and see what you now can do. Are you cool or what!? 

ASK MATT 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net. 

THURSDAY, MARCH 26 

Eco-Access An exploratory nature adventure for people with developmental disabilities. Meet at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Climate Change and Central Berkeley” a panel discussion hosted by Councilmember Jesse Arreguín at 7 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-7140. 

“Welcome to Yanayo” A documentary about an impoverished village in Bolivia at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. With an art auction and entertainment. Donation $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Cesar Chavez Commemoration Film “Immokalee USA” on a migrant farming community in Florida at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

“Immigration Reform: Issues & Implications for Our Community” An ACLU presentation at 7 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, Madeline F. Whittlesey Community Room, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6561. www.acluberkeley.org 

“Big Boy Rules: America’s Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq” with Steve Fainaru, Washington Post correspondent at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

“Rosie and the Railroaders” A celebration of trains for ages 3 and up at 3:30 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, North Branch and 7 p.m. at West Branch. 981-6100. 

Tilden Nature Area Docent Training from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fee. is $35. For an application or information call 544-3260. www.ebparks.org 

East Bay Assoc. for Women in Science “Finding Work in Tough Times” with Toby Freedman at 7 p.m. at Novartis, Room 4.104, 4560 Horton St., Emeryville. All welcome. Cost is $5-$10. 

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, Thurs. at noon and Sun. at 1 p.m. to oppose UC weapons labs contracts. 848-8055. 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Free Meditation Class at 7 p.m. every Tues. and Thurs. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarians, 2nd flr. , 1606 Bonita Ave. at Cedar. 931-7742. 

Buddhist Class on Shikan Meditation at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar at Bonita, through May 28. http://caltendai.org 

“Four Actions to Resolve Conflict Inside & Out” at 7:15 p.m. at Center for Transformative Change, 2584 Martin Luther King Jr Way. RSVP to register@transformativechange.org 

FRIDAY, MARCH 27 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Allan Solomonow, Jewish Pacifist, AFSC, “The Most Recent Violent Conflict of Israel vs Hamas in Gaza” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $15, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 524-7468. www.citycommonsclub.org 

Berkeley Food and Housing Poject “Blues & Jazz Benefit” with dinner and entertainment at 6 pm. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $30-$40. 649-4965, ext. 312.  

“The New American Olive Oil” profiles of artisan producers with author Fran Gage at 5:30 p.m. at The Pasta Shop, 1786 Fourth St. 250-6004. 

“27 Days of Change: Practice Period” Opening ceremony at 6:30 p.m. at Center for Transformative Change, 2548 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Register at www.27daysofchange.com 

Jewish Humanist Forum Dr. Joel Crohn talks about “Tom, Dick, or Haim: Jewish Women and Intermarriage” at 8 p.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. at Masonic in Albany. Shabbat service at 7 p.m. 428-1492. www.kolhadash.org 

“Jewish Life: Where Do I Fit?” at 6:15 p.m. at Jewish Gateways, 409 Liberty St., El Cerrito. Cost is potluck dish or $7. 559-8140. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Three Beats for Nothing Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Fri. at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst at MLK. 655-8863.  

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Fri. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 28 

Berkeley Historical Society Spring Walking Tour “Mme. Chaing Kai-Shek and her Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood” led by Burl Willis, from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. For reservations and starting point call 848-0181. 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Compost Give-Away from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK. Bring your own container, two large buckets or large garbage bags. 543-3333. 

Vegetarian Cooking Class: Demystifying Tofu and Tempeh from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $55, plus $5 food and material fee. Advance registration required. 531-COOK. www.compassionatecooks.com 

“What is Microfinance?” with Dana Whitaker with photographs and stories from her book, “Transforming Lives $40 at a Time,” and Gail Uilkema of the Lantern Project, and Hava Maloku, at 2 p.m. at the Rockridge Branch Library, 5366 College Ave., Oakland. Co-sponsored by AAUW Oakland-Piedmont Branch. Free. 531-4275. 

Foreclosure Help, Information and Counselling for Contra Costa County homeowners from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Richmond Recreation Center, 323o Macdonald Ave. Bring your loan documents. For infromation see www.ci.richmond.ca.us/ForeclosureHelp 

“9/11 Blueprint for Truth” with architect Richard Gage at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. 841-4824. 

Arts at St. Alban’s: Drama with Patrick Moore A multi-disciplinary series for children, ages 5 to 10, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at St. Alban's Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Free, donations accepted. To register call 525-1716. info@st-albans-albany.org  

Know Your Rights Training Do you know what your rights are if you're questioned by the police? Join Berkeley Copwatch for a free training from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. www.berkeleycopwatch.org 

“Our Oakland: Eastside Stories” Community Storytelling Day from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the shared campus of ACORN Woodland Elementary School and EnCompass Academy, corner of Rusdale St. and 81st. Ave, East Oakland. Pre-registration required. adapinkston@gmail.com, 350-7492. 

Super Smash Brothers Video Game Tournament benefit for Berkeley High students’ trip to Washington DC. at 6:30 p.m. at Eudemonia at 2154 University Ave.  

“Rosie and the Railroaders” A celebration of trains for ages 3 and up at 10:30 a.m. at Berkeley Public Library, Claremont Branch. 981-6100. 

“Bookmaking with Recycled Materials” Learn coptic binding for scrapbooks, blank books and journals. All materials provided. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15. Advanced registration required. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

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.  

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 29 

“Miya of the Quiet Strength” Screening of the documentary on the life of Miya Rodolfo-Sioson at 2 p.m. at El Cerrito Speakeasy, 10070 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $6. miyafilm.com 

Jewish Music Festival Family Day with activities and performances from 11 a.m., dance party at 4 p.m. at JCC East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $7-$20. 800-838-3006. www.jewishmusicfestival.org 

Garden Chores for Children Lend a hand for some seeding and weeding in the Kids Garden. Each child will go home with a seedling to nurture. For ages 3 to 5 with a parent at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Point Pinole Potpourri A 3.5 mile stroll to search for early flowers and enjoy bay views, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Bring a lunch. For meeting place call 525-2233. 

Berkeley Hiking Club: Sugarloaf Ridge State Park Meet at Shattuck Ave. and Berkeley Way at 8:30 a.m. for a 6.8 mile hike with 1500’ elevation gain. Rain cancels. Riders and drivers please call leader. 237-3206. 

“Vivir” A documentary about young adults in Richmond/San Pablo who are brought together by their love of music at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$10, sliding scale. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Seder Made Simple” How to host a fun and festive Passover celebration from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Jewish Gateways, 409 Liberty St., El Cerrito. Free, but RSVP required. 559-8140. www.jewishgateways.org 

Personal Theology Seminars with Natalie DaSilva on “Mindful Parenting: The Practice of Bringing a Mindful Presence to Parenting” at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

“Sacred Text Revealed: The Oral Torah—Moral Evolution in the Talmud” taught by Rabbi Dean Kertesz, at 10:15 a.m. at Temple Beth Hillel, 801 Park Central, Richmond. 223-2560. www.templebethhillelrichmond.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Dave Abercrombie on “Achieving All Goals” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

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

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 2 to 6 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Also on Thurs. from 2 to 6 p.m. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

MONDAY, MARCH 30 

Community Workshop for Grants from the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund at 7 p.m. in Room B, North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. Please RSVP to calpartnershipfund@ 

berkeley.edu 

“The Hidden Life of Bay Area Wildflowers” with Ken Lavin at at 10:30 a.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak sts., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Quit Smoking Class from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. Free. Hypnosis available to assist in quitting smoking. Please pre-register. 981-5330. QuitNow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

“Where the Girls Are: Women Artists, Science, and Tech” with Marcia Tanner at 7:30 p.m. at 160 Kroeber Hall, UC campus. Sponsored by Berkeley Center for New Media/Art Techonology & Culture Colloquium. http://bcnm.berkeley.edu  

East Bay Track Club for girls and boys ages 3-15 meets Mon. at 6 p.m. at Berkeley High School track field. Free. 776-7451. 

Community Yoga Class 10 a.m. at James Kenney Parks and Rec. Center at Virginia and 8th. Seniors and beginners welcome. Cost is $6. 207-4501. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

Small-Business Counseling Free one-hour one-on-one counseling to help you start and run your small business with a volunteer from Service Core of Retired Executives, Mon. evenings by appointment at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. For appointment call 981-6148. www.eastbayscore.org 

Three Beats for Nothing South Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Mon. at 3 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, Ellis at Ashby. 655-8863.  

ASUC Student Legal Clinic provides free legal research and case intake. Drop-in hours Mon.-Thurs. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. anfd Fri. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., UC campus. 642-9986. asuclegalclinic@gmail.com 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group, for people 60 years and over, meets at 9:45 a.m. at Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave, Albany. Cost is $3.  

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

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth from 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

TUESDAY, MARCH 31 

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 Middle Harbor Regional Shoreline. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 544-3265. 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about amphibians, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We will explore spring ponds from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m.. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Conscientious Projector Film Series “Unrepentant” The story of Kevin Annett and Canadian indigenous human rights abuses at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Kevin will be present. Suggested donation $10. 841-4824.  

National Nutrition Month Cooking Demonstrations at 2:30 p.m. with Leif Hedendal and 4:30 p.m. with Christine Manoux at the Tuesday Farmers’ Market, Derby St. at MLK. 548-3333. 

“Growing Sustainability in a Low-Carbon World” Speaker series sponsored by Inst. for Urban and Regional Development at 5:15 at Wurster Hall, UC campus. http://iurd.berkeley.edu 

Hillside Club Book Lust Salon meets to discuss “Shakespeare’s Wife” with Germaine Greer at 7:30 p.m. at 2286 Cedar St. Non-member donation $5. 845-4870. www.hillsideclub.org/booklust 

“Financial Fitness” A five-week series on Tues. from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at The HomeOwnership Center, 3301 East 12th St., Suite 201, Oakland. To register call 535-6943. homeownership@unitycouncil.org. 

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

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

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Improv Acting Class Play fun games that unleash your imagination, creativity, and confidence. Meets 6 p.m., Tues. at YWCA, 2600 Bancroft Way. Beginners welcome. Cost is $10. BerkeleyImprov.com 

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Come use our tools as well as receive help with performing repairs free of charge. Youth classes available. Tues., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577.  

Wheelchair Yoga at 4:30 p.m., Family Yoga on Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at Niroga Center for Healing, 1808 University Ave. between MLK Way and Grant St. All classes by donation. 704-1330. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Ceramics Class Learn hand building techniques to make decorative and functional items, Tues. at 9:30 a.m. at St. John's Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Free, materials and firing charges only. 525-5497. 

Rhythm Tap Exercise Class Tues. at 5 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. Donation $2. 548-9840. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1 

Berkeley Technology Academy Career Educational Fair with information on educational and career options other than the traditional four-year college and university route, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Berkeley Technology Academy, 2701 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Free and open to all. 644-6159. 

The 20th Anniversary Outstanding Woman of Berkeley Awards at 6 p.m. at the City of Berkeley’s Commission on the Status or Women meeting, North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-5347. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers: Holy Hill Theme Walk As a thematic companion to her tour of churches in central Berkeley, Barbara Robben will lead this Easter exploration of the paths and institutions of Holy Hill. Meet at 10 a.m. at Scenic Ave. at the intersection of LeConte and Ridge. 528-3246.  

“In An Age of Depoliticization” a lecture by Chinese political theorist Wang Hui and hosted by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, at 4 p.m. in the Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC campus. Free. 643-9670.  

Native Plant Nursery Workday from 1 to 3 p.m. at the MLK Jr. Shoreline, Oakland. Help plant 8,000 native seedlings at this shoreline park, including California poppy, western goldenrod, California bee plant and sticky monkey flower that will showcase beautiful flowers and provide habitat and food resources for pollinators and other animals. 452-9261 ext. 119.  

UNA East Bay Chapter Book Club meets at noon to discuss “Chasing the Flame: Sergio de Mello and the Fight to Save the World” by Samantha Power at noon at United Nations Association East Bay Center, 1403B Addison St. Bring a bag lunch. 849-1752. unaeastbay@sbcglobal.net 

Foreclosure Prevention A six-week class that meets Wed. at 6 p.m. at the The HomeOwnership Center, 3301 East 12th St., Suite 201, Oakland. To register call 535-6943. homeownership@unitycouncil.org. 

“The Crash Course” Part 1. A documentary on the consequenses of having a monetary system that must grow tied to an energy system that can’t grow, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“Primitive Skills for Wilderness Survival” A presentation covering boatbuilding, fire-making and more at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

East Bay Innovation Group meets to discuss financially informed agile software development at 6 p.m. at RHI, 1999 Harrison St., Suite 1100. Oakland. Cost is $10 for non-members. to register see www.ebig.org 

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

Theraputic Recreation at the Berkeley Warm Pool, Wed. at 3:30 p.m. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Warm Pool, 2245 Milvia St. Cost is $4-$5. Bring a towel. 632-9369. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

Berkeley CopWatch Drop-in office hours from 6 to 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 2 

Toy Testing Clinic offered by the Center for Environmental Health which recently found high levels of lead in children’s jewelry and other products at stores such as Wal-Mart and Target. CEH is offering free testing to help parents in the Bay area know if their children’s toys are safe. New toys that test positive for lead at a clinic may be eligible for cash exchange, up to $25 for the first toy, $10 for second toy. From 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center, Dept. of Pediatrics, 11th Floor Conference Room, 3505 Broadway, Oakland. 752-7397. www.ceh.org 

Shorebird Migration A Thurs. evening class with Sun. field trips on the migration and reproduction strategies of shorebirds, reviews worldwide shorebird taxonomy, and identification issues of our local shorebirds. Held at the Oakland Museum of California. Cost is $70. Registration required. 843-2222. www.wingbeats.org 

“Four Actions to Resolve Conflict Inside & Out” at 7:15 p.m. at Center for Transformative Change, 2584 Martin Luther King Jr Way. RSVP to register@transformativechange.org 

3rd “Not-A-Seder” Passover Cabaret at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave.Free. Hosted by the Progressive Jewish Alliance. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Holy Names Univ., Brennan Lounge, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Kaiser Center Lobby, 300 Lakeside Dr., Oakland. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com 

Improv Acting Class Play fun games that unleash your imagination, creativity, and confidence. Meets 6:45 p.m., Thurs. at YWCA, 2600 Bancroft Way. Beginners welcome. Improv perfromance class at 8:15 p.m. Cost is $10. BerkeleyImprov.com 

“High Power Laser Therapy: A New Advancement in the Treatment of Neuropathy” with Colle Hunt, Jr. at 1 p.m. at Seventh Day Adventist Church at 278 Grand Ave., Oakland. 653-8625. 

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, Thurs. at noon and Sun. at 1 p.m. to oppose UC weapons labs contracts. 848-8055. 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Buddhist Class on Shikan Meditation at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar at Bonita, through May 28. http://caltendai.org 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, APRIL 3 

Golden Gate Audubon Soicety Walk Around Jewel Lake in Tilden Park. Meet at 8:30 a.m. at the parking lot at the north end of Central Park Dr. for a one-mile, two-hour-plus stroll through this lush riparian area. Breeding birds are returning, and we may be treated to some wonderful bird song. Heavy April showers cancels. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Richard C. Boly, National Security Affairs Fellow, Hoover Institution, on “Promoting Entrepreneurship as US Foreign POlicy: Good for Business & and Our Image.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $15, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 524-7468. www.citycommonsclub.org 

Ferment Change A celebration of urban agriculture, food justice, fermented food and community. A benefit for City Slicker Farms in West Oakland, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall,390 27th St., Oakland. Cost is $10-$30, no on turned away. fermentchange.wordpress.com 

“NASA 100 Hours of Astronomy” free viewing through the telescopes Fri. and Sat. from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. at Chabot Space & Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. www.chabotspace.org 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Waste Management, Large Training Room, 172 98th Ave., Oakland. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com 

April Fool’s Weekend At Playland-Not-At-The-Beach Celebrate April Fools with our crew of professional jokesters, play pranks and get them played on you from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fri. and Sat. at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach, 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $5-$10. 592-3002. www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Three Beats for Nothing Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Fri. at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst at MLK. 655-8863. asiecker@sbcglobal 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Fri. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 4 

Sustainable Gardening Class for Children Have fun getting your hands dirty and come away with seeds & ideas for your garden. For ages 4-9 and their parents from 10 a.m. to noon, rain or shine, at East Bay Waldorf School, 3800 Clark Rd., El Sobrante. Cost is $10 per family. Call to reserve a space, 223-3570, ext. 2101. 

Creating Year-Round Edible Gardens Learn how to garden care, reducing chores and using as few resources, from water to fertilizer, as possible. This hands-on workshop will offer vegetable gardening basics including: soil preparation, when and what to plant for our local climate, companion planting and pest control, plus creative ways to use your bountiful harvest. Seeds, catalogs, regional food source information, and other handouts will be provided. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Ploughshares Nursery, 2701 Main St., at the old naval base, Alameda. Register online. www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=625 

“Spring Blooming Perennials and Shrubs” a talk by Aerin Moore, at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

“Afghanistan: What is A Progressive Solution?” discussion led by Conn Hallinan at 10 a.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. between Alcatraz and 66th, Oakland. 595-7417. 

Wildcat Summer Camp Open House A preview of games and activities from the summer from 1 to 4 p.m. at East Bay Waldorf School, 3800 Clark Rd., El Sobrante. 223-3570. www.eastbaywaldorf.org 

Artists’ Marketing Workshop “How To Find and Keep Collectors” from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru St., Alameda. Cost is $15 members, $25 non-members. 523-6957. info@frankbettecenter.org 

Arts at St. Alban’s Storytelling and Music with Joyce Parry Moore and Jack Hayes, a multi-disciplinary series for children, ages 5-10. Parents invited. From 10 to 11:30 a.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Free, donations accepted. To register call 525-1716. info@st-albans-albany.org  

“David Ramadanoff, This is Your YPSO Life” A night at the movies celebrating David’s 20 years as music director, at 7:30 p.m. at Auctions by the Bay Theater, 2700 Saratoga St., Alameda. Tickets are $10-$15. RSVP to 849-9776. 

Preschool Storytime, including crafts and finger plays at 11 a.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720 ext. 16. 

Passover Celebration for Young Children at 10:30 a.m. at Jewish Gateways, 409 Liberty St., El Cerrito. Free. 559-8140. www.jewishgateways.org  

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

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 5 

A Peak Hike Join a vigorous 3-mile nature hike to Wildcat Peak for a view of the Bay and beyond, from 10 a.m. to noon. Bring water and snack. Call for meeting place. 525-2233. 

Spring Spiders Learn about the life of a spider, then explore the meadow for wolf spiders, jumping spiders, crab spiders and more, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

East Bay Tracking Club meets every first Sunday of the month in the East Bay to share tracking, survival, wilderness, nature awareness and naturalist skills from 8:30 a.m. to noon at Seabreeze Market, University Ave. and Frontage Rd. To subscribe to the group email eastbaytrackers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com  

Berkeley Hiking Club goes to Muir Woods Meet at Shattuck Ave. and Berkeley Way at 8:30 a.m. or meet at Mountain Home at 9:30 a.m. We will hike a variety of trails at a moderate pace for approx 7-8 miles. Rain cancels. 654-3148. 

Eggstravaganza: The Wonder of Eggs A family exploration event from 1 to 4 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Naturally-Dyed Easter Eggs” A workshop to introduce children to natural dyes from 1 to 2 p.m. at UC Botnical Garden. Cost is $15-$20. Registreation required. 643-2755. 

Berkeley Rep Family Series “Fools, Clowns and Jesters” from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Nevo Education Center, 2071 Addison St. Free, but bring a book to donate to a school library. 647-2973. 

“Pesach for Preschoolers” for children ages 2-5 and their grown-ups from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at . Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. Learn with your child about the joy and meaning of the Passover holiday and enjoy an age-appropriate model seder. Cost is $18 per family. Pre-registration required. 547-2424, ext. 100. www.KehillaSynagogue.org 

Personal Theology Seminars with Beth Glick-Rieman on “The Scared Scriptures and How they Shaped my Life” at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

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

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

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 2 to 6 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Also on Thurs. from 2 to 6 p.m. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs., March 26, at 5 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5217.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., March 26, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7430.  

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., April 1,at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. 981-5502.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs., April 2, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7429.  

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., April 2, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7460.