The Berkeley Board of Education will vote Wednesday on whether the city should proceed with an environmental review of plans to expand and improve the city’s pools. 

City officials and the Berkeley Board of Education joined forces last year to create a citywide pools draft master plan which would help them get an idea about which public swimming pools and aquatic programs need to be upgraded or replaced. 

A task force was formed in September and last month, after more than a dozen meetings and three public workshops, the draft master plan was finalized. The plan contains the task force’s preferred option as well as two alternatives. 

After reviewing at least 18 different pool sites owned by the city, the school district and a private entity—East Bay Iceland—the task force recommended keeping pools at Willard and King Middle schools and West Campus. 

West Campus would have a 2,790-square-foot indoor warm water pool and a 3,150-square-foot outdoor recreation pool. The King pool would be expanded to 25 yards by 25 meters.  

The proposed warm pool is similar in size to the current warm water pool at the Berkeley High School Old Gym, which is slated for demolition in 2010 to make room for the school’s educational and athletic needs. 

Often described as a lifeline for the disabled East Bay community, the warm water pool has hundreds of supporters who have lobbied the city and the school district for years to save what they consider a valuable community resource. 

Both the West Campus and the Willard recreational pools will also have water features in which children can play. 

All three pools can be easily accommodated within their existing boundaries, according to a report by the district’s Facilities Director Lew Jones. The fencing at the north end of West Campus would be straightened out to add about 10 feet to the current pool.  

The price tag for the project is nearly $30 million, with $20.3 million going toward West Campus. The King and Willard pools will cost $4.8 and $4 million respectively. 

Two alternative options were also approved by the task force, both of which include a smaller warm pool and no recreational pool at West Campus. Constructions costs for the alternatives would fall between $16 and $18 million. 

Jones told the Daily Planet that the board will decide at the meeting whether it would be appropriate for city officials to go ahead and hire a California Environmental Quality Act analyst who would examine the preferred option and the two alternatives. 

“There will be no decision about whether there is a good plan or a bad plan,” Jones said. “We want to study the most complicated plan. The environmental review will help to decide which plan will happen.” 

Jones said the task force had started with a large number of sites for the warm pool, including the Berkeley Iceland and the old Hillside school property, but had eventually narrowed it down to four or five. 

“When we made the first cut, a whole group of sites fell off the table pretty quickly,” he said. “We didn’t want to shut people out, so we looked at all the possibilities.” 

The pools task force will present their report to the school board at 9 p.m., Jones said, and follow up with an even more detailed presentation to the Berkeley City Council April 21. 

“I expect there will be quite a bit of dialogue about the preferred option at the council level,” he said. 

The council is scheduled to vote on whether to proceed with the environmental analysis on May 5. 

Depending on the outcome, the city will hire a consultant for the job. 

Jones said that it could take up to a year to decide the exact scale and size of the warm water pool.  

He said the City Council would have to vote on the plan in February or March of next year in order for it make it onto the June 2010 ballot. 

Jones said the school district was presuming that under a new plan, all the pools would be run by the city. Currently the district pays utility bills for the warm water pool and covers part of the cost for the West Campus pool. The city covers the rest of the costs for the West Campus pool and all of the expenses King and Willard pools. 

“If the school district needs to use the pool, we will make an arrangement with the city about the number of days and hours,” Jones said. “It just makes sense to have one clean budget instead of multiple budgets.” 

In his report to the board, Jones remarks that the current economic crisis will make it a challenge for the city to “absorb any new operational costs,” explaining that all the plans, and especially the alternatives, were developed with capital costs and operating costs in mind. City officials have said from the beginning that they need a plan which will be cost-neutral to the city’s general fund. Jones’ report says that this goal has been met in each plan “to varying degrees, depending upon the hours of use.” 

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board last week postponed discussion on whether the Gaia Building was adhering to its use permit in order to give its owners, Equity Residential, a month to negotiate leasing terms with the Marsh Theater. The zoning board will resume the discussion May 14. 

Gaia’s permit mandates that a certain amount of cultural activities take place at building’s ground-floor Gaia Arts Center in return for two more stories above what the city’s zoning law normally allows. 

Originally the Gaia Bookstore was set to move into the 10,000-square-foot space, but the store went out of business before construction was completed in 2004. 

Later attempts to find suitable cultural use for the space were unsuccessful. 

In 2007, Equity bought the Gaia Building from local real estate developer Patrick Kennedy, who rents out Gaia Arts for various events, including weddings, bar mitzvahs and parties, which some argue abuses the “cultural use” requirement. 

Last fall, the zoning board agreed, under a request from Equity, to give the landlords six months to hire a consulting firm to prepare and implement a marketing plan for Gaia Arts. 

Berkeley Deputy Planner Wendy Cosin did not elaborate on the report at the meeting because the board voted to continue the discussion. 

Prepared by management consultant Niloofar Nouri, the report compares Gaia Arts with similar venues in the Bay Area and evaluates the amount of space potential tenants would require. The report is based on 19 interviews, informal conversations, an online survey, and site visits and tours. 

Nouri represented Kennedy in the redevelopment of the former Act I & II Theater on Center Street, a project approved by the zoning board last year. 

The Daily Planet was unable to reach Nouri for comment before press time. 

In her report, Nouri says that many Bay Area cultural organizations and theater groups are clueless about the Gaia Building’s existence and are misinformed about its history. 

She adds that despite the high concentration of cultural nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area, most are seeking smaller mixed-use office and rehearsal space. 

“In the case of the rare theater companies whose performances have limited cast and set requirements,” the report states, “the economics of the space make it infeasible to lease.” 

A company must have an annual budget of $300,000 to rent Gaia on a permanent basis, the report says, and organizations with similar budgets already have dedicated theater spaces and are committed to stay there based on arrangements for city subsidies and a strong relationship with their audience.  

The report also talks about the current economic crisis, which has made it difficult for the creative and performing arts to flourish and receive grants and endowments. 

Average monthly expenses for Gaia Arts come to $18,881, which includes $7,500 in rent and around $10,000 in part-time staff. 

The report recommends extensive outreach to Bay Area cultural nonprofits likely to rent the space or revising the use permit to include mixed-use office and rehearsal space instead of a performance-event space. 

Another option, the report says, would be to lease the space, as well as that occupied by Anna’s Jazz Island, another ground-floor tenant at Gaia Arts, to the same tenant, which it suggests would settle disputes arising from noise and other issues. 

Cosin also informed the board about two out-of-control teen parties that took place at Gaia Arts in the last six months, one of which ended with gunshots. 

Both events attracted between 250 and 300 people, she said, and resulted in police action and neighboring businesses closing early to avoid unruly crowds. 

Cosin told the board that Kennedy had agreed not to hold any more teen dance or music events at the venue.  

“We don’t see any imminent problems,” she said. “If a theater company takes over, then these problems are unlikely to happen.” 

The Marsh Theater has held performances at the Gaia Building in the past. Theater officials did not return calls for comment Monday. 

In the past, Cosin said, the city has closed down businesses due to rowdy behavior. 

Berkeley’s municipal code allows the zoning board to hold a public hearing for an abatement procedure that would give city officials more control over out-of-control parties at the Gaia Building. 

Board member Terry Doran said that it would be premature to have a discussion on “nuisance abatement” without finding out how the negotiations with the Marsh Theater went.

A Berkeley-based environmental group is suing the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, alleging that the agency violated the California Public Records Act by denying access to Pacific Steel Casting’s Odor Control Plan. 

The lawsuit, filed in the San Francisco Superior Court on April 6 by the Healthy Air Coalition, seeks to “compel the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to disclose specific public records, and to void unlawful ‘guidelines’ adopted by the air district that delay, interfere with, and prevent prompt release of certain records, all brought under the Public Records Act.” 

Environmental activists, community organizers and Berkeley citizens have for years pressured the air district to ask Pacific Steel—located at Second and Gilman streets—to control what they say are odors and toxic emissions harmful to human health. 

Carole Marasovic, a spokesperson for the Healthy Air Coalition, said she hoped the lawsuit would force BAAQMD to release the Odor Control Plan to the community. Pacific Steel submitted the plan to the air district in October 2008 after being cited for multiple air-quality violations. 

The Oakland-based First Amendment Project, the coalition’s lawyers, claim that BAAQMD denied all requests by the Healthy Air Coalition, private citizens and governmental agencies for a copy of the Odor Management Plan on the grounds that it contained trade secrets, and that BAAQMD instead invited Pacific Steel to file a lawsuit against BAAQMD to prevent release of any part of the plan. 

BAAQMD Director of Communications Lisa Fasano said the plan the air district had received from Pacific Steel had “trade secrets” marked on it. When trade secrets are identified as such, Fasano said, the air district goes back to the company and informs them that they have a certain amount of time to respond as to whether the company would like to release the information to the public. If the company fails to respond within the given time frame, the air district can go ahead and release the information. 

In this particular case, Fasano said, Pacific Steel declined to make the information public. 

“We told that to the Healthy Air Coalition,” Fasano said. 

Fasano added that BAAQMD was also being sued by Pacific Steel Casting to prevent the air district from releasing the Odor Control Plan. 

“It’s now in the hands of the court to decide whether the information is a trade secret or not,” she said of Pacific Steel’s lawsuit. “The air district does not make that determination.” 

The Healthy Air Coalition contends that the community has a right to know about the steel foundry’s air emissions and its plans to control them. Coalition spokesperson Marasovic said BAAQMD’s “anti-consumer and corporate-biased guidelines,” under which they “invited Pacific Steel” to sue them to prevent releasing the report, was a violation of the Public Records Act. 

“They have shirked their responsibility,” she said. “BAAQMD was established to protect residents from unhealthy air quality. Yet it is BAAQMD who has made it difficult for the community to obtain information about these odors and emissions, information intended to be public under the California Public Records Act. It is BAAQMD that has forced us to challenge their guidelines to protect the rights of all citizens seeking public information regarding corporate polluters.” 

Fasano said she could not immediately comment on whether the air district had guidelines under which it had asked Pacific Steel to sue them. 

“I don’t have the answer to that question right now,” she told the Daily Planet Friday afternoon. “I think the issue in the Healthy Air Coalition lawsuit is whether or not we can withhold the documents.” 

The Berkeley Alliance for Homeless Animals Coalition will receive $474,200 on April 23 for winning the Maddie’s Fund Lifesaving Award. 

The award, given by Maddie’s Fund and the Pet Rescue Foundation, a family foundation funded by Workday and PeopleSoft, will help the coalition to care for hundreds of homeless animals. 

The coalition consists of the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, the City of Berkeley’s Animal Care Services and Home At Last, a Berkeley-based rescue organization. 

The Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society will receive $200,240, Berkeley Animal Care Services will receive $176,320 and Home at Last Animal Rescue will receive $97,440.  

The coalition was formed when the East Bay Humane Society submitted the application for the award last August on behalf of all three groups. 

Katherine S. O'Donnell, director of development and communications at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, said the award would help the shelter weather the economic downturn. 

“Our plan is to save as many animals’ lives as possible within our means,” she said. “The award money provides us the necessary support, but we will also need to rely on private donations.” 

The organization, located at 2700 Ninth St., closed its veterinary hospital to the public Feb. 1 due to financial losses and is focusing its effort on caring for its shelter animals. Its funding comes from adoption fees, private donations and grants. 

Jill Posener, a member of the city’s Citizens Humane Commission, praised the East Bay Humane Society for taking the lead in applying for the award. 

“I think they did a great job,” Posener said. 

Kate O’Connor, manager of Berkeley Animal Care Services, said she was very excited about the award, which she said would go toward building the new Berkeley Animal Shelter on the northern end of Aquatic Park. 

“I am very appreciative of it,” O’Connor said. “The first thing that popped in my mind is that we could use it for the new shelter.” She said that even with a capital fundraising campaign the shelter’s construction fund is short by about $1 million. 

O’Connor said the shelter is caring for 20 percent more animals compared with this time last year. It can cost between $500 to $1,000 to take care of old, injured or sick animals. Daily costs for every rescue is about $15, and many of them stay as long as six months. 

Both the East Bay Humane Society and Home At Last take a lot of animals from the city shelter. 

Posener said that the city’s animal shelter could have used the money in various ways if it wasn't facing a construction budget shortfall. 

“I am very happy,” Posener said. “But it’s disappointing that in the longer term we don’t get to use the money for programs. Instead we have to use it for bricks and mortar. If we were not in bad financial straits it could have been used for education programs, additional spay and neuter sessions and broadening our outreach. It could also have been used to address staff shortage—the shelter has been having to close because of the lack of staff.” 

Posener said the funding shortage for the new building was so severe that city officials, in order to reduce expenses, were considering eliminating kennels, medical facilities and the “green element” from its design. 

A bond measure approved by Berkeley voters is providing $7.2 million for the new animal shelter, and the city manager’s office is contributing another $1 million, she said, adding that the amount still wasn’t enough to buy or finish construction on a property of a suitable scale. 

The shelter plans to move from 2013 Second St. to the old “Helmet Building” at 1 Bolivar Drive, Posener said, which was previously used by the Berkeley Fire Department, and also as a treatment center. 

“It will probably be two years before the new shelter is up and running,” she said. “The old building there hasn’t been demolished yet.” 

Home At Last, which does not have an office and instead has volunteers working from home, will be using the award money to pay off bills and save the rest, said Traude Buckland, the group’s treasurer. 

“With the economy the way it is, it’s nice to get a little extra, and nice to get the recognition,” Buckland said. 

Buckland said her group had been instrumental in getting the euthanasia rates at the Berkeley Animal Shelter down to less than 15 percent. Seven years ago the rate was 60 percent. 

The Berkeley Animal Shelter currently has the lowest euthanasia percentage than any municipal shelter in California, Posener said. 

Cats and dogs rescued by Home At Last are cared for at foster homes until they get adopted, which happens through their website or mobile adoptions every Saturday at Fourth Street and the first Sunday of every month at PetCo in El Cerrito. 

Buckland said the coalition would have to report annual animal rescue and adoption numbers for three years to Maddie’s Fund after winning the award.

UC Berkeley announced Tuesday, April 7 that the school had received a record number of applications for the 2009-2010 academic year and has accepted nearly 13,000 students to its fall freshman class. 

According to the university, 48,640 students applied to be incoming freshmen and 26.6 percent were accepted. The number is up slightly from last year when 26.1 percent of freshman applicants were accepted. 

While some University of California campuses have had to reduce freshman enrollment in response to budget cuts, UC Berkeley’s target enrollment has remained the same as last year—about 4,300 students for the fall and another 950 for the spring semester, according to the university. 

Although more students already enrolled at the university have become eligible for financial aid, new applications for financial aid do not appear to reflect the current economic downturn, according to the financial aid office. 

Accepted students have until May 1 to decide whether to enroll at the university. 

About 20 UC Berkeley students marched through campus Wednesday, April 8, to protest the school’s admissions process, which they claim has denied acceptance to qualified minority applicants. 

The university announced Tuesday that black, Latino and American Indian students make up only 17 percent of the 13,000 students who have been accepted into the fall semester’s incoming freshman class, the same percentage of minority students the university accepted last year. 

The number of minority students that were accepted remained the same despite a rising number of qualified minority applicants, according to Ronald Cruz, a UC Berkeley law student and an organizer with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. 

Cruz also pointed out that the California Department of Education has reported that Latino students will make up the majority of kindergarten through 12th grade students in the state by the 2009-2010 school year. Minority students currently make up 44 percent of students graduating high school, Cruz said. 

Protesters are claiming that the university is “discriminating against Latina/o, black and Native American students by imposing a ceiling on the number of underrepresented minority students they admit,” Cruz said. 

“There is absolutely no ceiling for any type of student based on ethnicity—either in policy or in practice,” Assistant Vice Chancellor and Director of Undergraduate Admissions for UC Berkeley Walter Robinson said. 

Admissions are based on a comprehensive review of applicants in the context of the opportunities that have been made available to them, Robinson said. Gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation is not considered during the application process. 

The university had an affirmative action policy until 1996 when voters passed Proposition 209, which amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, gender or ethnicity. 

Before Proposition 209, the university accepted twice as many minority students than it currently accepts, according to Robinson. 

He said if the school were legally allowed to recruit students based on their race or ethnicity, he would, and he would be an advocate for a public policy change that would truly level the playing field and close the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students. 

Proposition 209 has, however, made it impossible for the university to influence the racial or ethnic makeup of the student body, Robinson said. 

He said that one of the unintended consequences of the proposition has, in effect, been to eliminate the university’s ability to look at someone in the totality of who they are. 

As a black man himself, Robinson said it was extremely difficult to be accused of participating in an admissions process that excluded people based on race. 

“We don’t admit students because they are the exception,” Robinson said. “We admit them because they are among the best and the brightest in the country. Do we want more? Of course we do. Who wouldn’t?” 

Berkeley Unified School District is set to receive a healthy chunk of change next month. 

The district is going to get its share of $44 million in federal stimulus funds that the Obama administration made available April 1 to states and schools for education reform, district officials said. 

The funds will go mainly to special education and toward helping socioeconomically disadvantaged students. 

Of the $1 billion released to California, Berkeley will receive $1,732,000 for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) program and $697,596 in Title I funds, which target students performing poorly in elementary and middle schools. 

Together the amounts make up the first 50 percent of Berkeley’s share of the IDEA and Title I funds, which the district will have to spend over the next two years. The district will receive the remainder in the fall. 

The State Department of Education called the funds a one-time increase for the IDEA and Title I programs, explaining that “the Obama administration had made it clear that the funding should be used for short-term investments that have the potential for long-term benefits rather than for expenditures that cannot be sustained once the recovery funds are expended.” 

“The IDEA money will be used to offset increasing costs,” Berkeley Unified Superintendent Bill Huyett said. “Even if we get it next month, we can’t spend it all right away. The government has been very clear about that.” 

Huyett said special education expenses were rising at a much faster pace than the cost of living. 

Oakland Unified will receive an estimated $13 million, Fremont will receive $6 million and Albany Unified $446,000. IDEA funds were allocated to districts on the basis of their enrollment numbers, Huyett said. 

State educators indicated that the money could be used to purchase state-of-the-art assistive technology devices, find jobs for disabled youth, and provide intensive district-wide professional development for special education and regular education teachers to improve student performance. 

Special education expenses for Berkeley Unified reach $13 million annually, the superintendent said, most of which comes from the general fund. 

He said that although the federal funds could be used to thwart increasing expenditure, they would not eliminate the district’s $8 million budget deficit or prevent layoffs. 

The district issued more than 130 preliminary layoff notices to teachers last month because of state budget cuts, but has been able to rescind half of them, Huyett said. 

Huyett said that he was hopeful that the State Stabilization Fund—which makes up a big chunk of the recently released stimulus money—would offset the budget cuts and layoffs. 

States will have to apply to the federal government for their share of the $32.6 billion of the stabilization fund, which represents two-thirds of the stimulus money handed out. 

This includes $27 billion to save jobs and improve K-12 and higher education and a separate $6 billion in a Government Services Fund to pay for education, public safety or other government services. 

“We have been told that that states will get the money within two weeks of applying for it,” Huyett said. “But we don’t know how much it is or how it’s going to be allocated to the schools. We will find out more about that in May. Until then we will still have budget problems.” 

Two-thirds of the stabilization money will be released in May and one-third between July and October, he said. 

At a April 1 meeting organized by Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Sheila Jordan, superintendents from several Alameda County school districts discussed implementation of the stimulus money with state department officials. 

“The stimulus money is supposed to be a bridge,” Jordan said. “Some of this money is for maintenance and effort and some of it can be used for the budget cuts. A certain amount has to be set aside for creating new projects and jobs. The goals are somewhat conflicting since one way of creating jobs is to keep the old ones, which is hard to do at this time. So there are a lot of confusing messages.” 

As for U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s announcement to state governors that school districts would have to release new information about student performance to the federal government in exchange of stimulus money, Jordan said that would not be a problem in California. 

“We are already working on those issues,” she said. “One of our goals as educators is to broaden the way we look at accountability. It’s imperative that students have reading and writing skills and an idea of the world around them—civic engagement, history and arts and music. We are actively working on increasing our limited assessment model now, but until that happens, an assessment model is already in place.” 

Berkeley didn’t make the list of schools selected last week for outdoor air quality monitoring by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and a local environmental group isn’t happy about the omission. 

Mothers and Others for Measuring Metals in the Air (MOMMA), a group of parents and concerned citizens, has been pushing for the testing of emissions near local schools ever since a USA Today story last December identified three Berkeley schools in the top 1 percent of the country’s most at-risk sites for exposure to harmful chemicals.  

All three schools—Black Pine Circle School, Via Center and Nihaus School—are located close to Pacific Steel Casting in West Berkeley, which neighbors and environmental activists have singled out as the primary source behind the pollutants in the report. 

Neighbors have complained for decades about a burned copper-like smell from the steel plant, citing it as the cause of respiratory and heart problems. 

In response to the charges, Pacific Steel officials said the company should not be singled out for the problems, given the schools’ proximity to a large freeway and other industries. 

Concerned citizens and parents of students who attend the Berkeley schools named in the USA Today report organized public meetings, created mailing lists and pressured the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for more information and air-quality testing. 

In a March 31 e-mail to the Berkeley community, EPA officials said recent media reports questioning air quality surrounding schools near large industrial facilities had prompted them “to swiftly investigate and monitor the air for specific chemicals at selected schools across the nation.” 

The agency announced that it had selected 62 schools in 22 states for the monitoring—the first program of its kind—but that Berkeley schools had not been included. 

Of the four California schools to be selected, the only Bay Area school that made the list was Stevens Creek Elementary School in Cupertino, which will be tested for the carcinogen Hexavalent Chromium. 

MOMMA co-founder Pear Michaels said she was disappointed that Berkeley schools did not make the list. 

“We are all so angry,” she said. “There are so many children living in West Berkeley, going to school there—and yet it’s an issue that hasn’t been taken seriously.” 

Michaels, who lives within a mile of Pacific Steel, said that her 3-year-old daughter developed respiratory problems a year after they moved to the neighborhood. 

“We find EPA’s decision very confusing,” she said, adding that MOMMA was circulating a petition seeking immediate testing of the air near Pacific Steel for manganese, nickel, chromium and other heavy metals. “I don’t understand why they can’t go and place an air monitor near these schools. This issue is not going to go away just because the city and the air district want it to. We are going to take it to the state level—all the way to Sen. Barbara Boxer’s office if we have to.” 

Maggi Liftik, another MOMMA member, said she was frustrated by the news. 

“A lot of parents had been hopeful that Berkeley schools would be on the list because some of them tested so poorly in the original USA Today study,” she said. “Some of the schools had even been contacted, and that really got their hopes up. But the regulatory agencies have dropped the ball on what should be tested. We want some real answers to what our children are breathing.” 

Mike Bandrowski, chief of the Air Toxics, Radiation, and Indoor Air Office for EPA Region 9, said the schools had been selected based on USA Today’s results, EPA’s screening analyses using the National Air Toxics Assessment, and previous monitoring conducted by state, tribal, and local air pollution control agencies. 

Bandrowski said that although the EPA had considered the “strong response” from Berkeley residents advocating air monitoring around Pacific Steel, Berkeley schools had not been included for several reasons. 

The EPA’s initial screening analysis, he said, did not place Berkeley’s air toxics levels among the highest levels nationally, even considering their proximity to a major freeway. The EPA will spend more than $2 million to sample air quality, focusing on schools near large industries and urban areas, where toxic emissions come from a mix of large and small industries, cars, trucks and other sources. Bandrowski said the sampling would take into account mobile air sources, which the USA Today study did not consider.  

“When we did our own assessment, Berkeley schools didn’t show up high on the list,” he said, explaining that the agency was only looking at the top 62 schools identified through the screening. “However, the EPA is still aware of the issues surrounding Pacific Steel Casting and we are working with the community to resolve them.” 

Another factor, Bandrowski said, was ongoing monitoring and health studies that were being done to identify toxic emissions from Pacific Steel Casting. 

He referred to an October 2008 health risk assessment released under California’s Hotspots Information and Assessment Act, which did not predict significant air toxics impacts at nearby schools. 

Bandrowski also pointed to an air toxics monitoring system set up by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District at Sixth and Camelia streets in Berkeley, which is located within 1,000 feet of the source. 

“So there is already comprehensive monitoring in place,” he said. “The information the EPA would have got out from the short, 60-day air monitoring at the schools would have been less information than what the community is already getting.” 

“We may decide to do a second round of testing in the future,” Bandrowski said. “But we don’t know for certain if that’s going to happen.” 

The City of Berkeley is expecting a small amount of budget relief this month—$289,000 in refunds for overcharges on office supplies by Office Depot. In a memo this week from City Manager Phil Kamlarz to Mayor Tom Bates and the Berkeley City Council, Bates said Office Depot had agreed to refund the money by April 17. 

“During the first term of this agreement,” Kamlarz wrote in his memo, “there was a lack of attention to the management of our account,” and that conttributed to the overcharges. Kamlarz said his office will monitor the remaining three months of the Office Depot contract on a quarterly basis “to ensure compliance with the terms” of the original bid. 

The three-year, $550,000-a-year contract with Office Depot ends in June of this year, but in his memo Kamlarz said the city’s finance department intends to exercise the city’s option to extend the contract through June of 2010. 

The revelation about the Office Depot overcharges were first made to the City Council last October by Diane Griffin, president of Radston’s Office Plus supply store of Hercules and a member of the board of directors of the National Office Products Alliance. Griffin, whose company had bid on the city contract won by Office Depot, submitted a 100-page analysis to the city on her own initiative, documenting her allegations that Office Depot had overcharged the city. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who helped Griffin get some of the city documents that helped confirm the allegations, said by telephone this week that Berkeley “owes [Griffin] a lot of gratitude. Who would have figured all of [the overcharges] out without her assistance?” Worthington already scheduled City Council consideration of a city honor for Griffin for the April 21 council meeting prior to receiving information about the Office Depot reimbursement. 

The Berkeley Planning Commission sees the Central Berkeley of the future as a thicket of tall buildings covering the maximum possible area, but many of the members of the public who spoke at Monday’s hearing on the commission’s proposed Downtown Area plan found the vision alarming.  

The meeting paved the way for the commission’s final two meetings on its proposal for radical revision of the draft submitted by the citizens’ Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) before the final decision goes to the Berkeley City Council. Even a substitute planning commissioner at the hearing who had been in the minority on DAPAC when the final comprise draft passed expressed his doubts about the Planning Commission’s new version.  

Two temporary appointments were sitting in Monday night, Dorothy Walker filling in for missing Chair David Stoloff and Will Travis for Commissioner Victoria Eisen. 

Travis, a planner who serves as director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and Walker, a retired UC Berkeley development executive, had both been members of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC). 

Travis, who chaired the 21-member citizen panel, and Walker were part of the DAPAC minority that called for more and bigger buildings than the majority was willing to accept. But even Travis revealed himself as a critic of the Planning Commission’s rewrite of the DAPAC plan during Monday night’s meeting. 

At issue was a point neighborhood activist Stephen Wollmer had repeated time and again to commissioners during their rewrite of the DAPAC plan—the notion that spreading high-rise development outside the downtown core violated the rationale for expanding the area covered by the new plan in comparison to its 1990 predecessor. 

“The whole idea was to create a transition zone” in order to minimize the impacts of high-rises on surrounding residential neighborhoods, Wollmer told commissioners repeatedly. 

“The whole notion of enlargement of the downtown was a very good idea because it allowed for a transition to surrounding areas,” Travis told his temporary commission colleagues Monday night. “I think the whole notion of spreading taller buildings into that area is not a sound direction,” he concluded. 

The penultimate decision on all decisions about the city’s downtown area plan is up to the Berkeley City Council, though UC Berkeley has veto power, thanks to the settlement agreement that ended a city lawsuit challenging the university’s Long Range Development Plan 2020, which calls for adding 850,000 square feet of tax-exempt off-campus university buildings to the downtown area. 

While the settlement requires the City Council to adopt a downtown plan and its accompanying environmental impact report (EIR) by May 26, city Planning and Development Director Dan Marks told the commissioner on April 1 that the city is asking the university for a two-month extension—which he said the city is likely to get. 

That delay will give councilmembers time to reconcile the two versions of the plan before them—the Planning Commission rewrite and the DAPAC original—without incurring cuts in the mitigation payments that the city is supposed to get from the university to offset some of its development agenda’s impacts on city infrastructure and services. 

Another bombshell? 

Marks and Matt Taecker, the planner hired with the help of university funds to work on the plan, dropped another surprise on the commissioners Monday night when they said they’ll come back to the commission April 15 with changes to the city’s General Plan that will be needed to accommodate the downtown plan. 

“At the next meeting we will have a complete list of all the General Plan amendments,” Marks said, including changes in the plan’s policy T-35, adopted by the city after a hotly contested battle, which aims to force drivers out of their cars and onto alternative modes of transit. 

Commissioner Gene Poschman, himself a DAPAC veteran, said T-35 “was one of the most important parts of the General Plan,” and the idea of changing it had never been brought before the commission. 

That section was adopted over the strong objections of the Downtown Berkeley Association, which has been pushing commissioners for policies that ensure no parking is lost and which has already won a vote watering down DAPAC’s call for a pedestrian plaza on Center Street between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street. 

“We’ll bring you all the changes and you’ll have to act on it,” Marks said. 

But Marks said a requirement for parking was needed to implement the plan’s policies, which would allow developers to eliminate mandated parking in exchange for payment of an in-lieu fee to fund parking structures. 

Comments  

Most of Monday night’s meeting was given over to comments from the public, starting with Carrie Olson, chief operating officer of MoveOn.org and a member of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. 

Olson said she was “dismayed by the Planning Commission proposal that would severely disrupt the balance” between new development and the downtown’s historic character, which she said had been better protected in the DAPAC version. 

She described the plan’s land-use chapter as “a very ominous proposal that sadly fails to take into account the impacts of the state density bonus law.” 

Wollmer said many parts of the DAPAC plan had been changed significantly “and I don’t think for the better,” and agreed with Olson that density bonus law requirements could lead to even bigger structures that would appear to be allowed by the commission’s revised plan. 

“The theme of the plan seems to be ‘Build, Baby, Build,’” said Austene Hall, a preservation advocate who had filled in for commissioner Patti Dacey at the April 1 commission meeting. 

Hall said downtown Berkeley could meet the plan’s proposed goal of 5,000 new residents by more modest development at appropriate downtown locations rather than through the addition of significant numbers of new high-rises. 

Another critic who came from DAPAC’s ranks was environmentalist and Sierra Club activist Juliet Lamont, appointed by the same councilmember who named Will Travis chair—Mayor Tom Bates. 

Lamont and Travis had formed two opposing poles during DAPAC’s two-year life, with Lamont on the prevailing side. 

Lamont began with a declaration of support for the original DAPAC plan, which has been endorsed by the Sierra Club and which she described as a “community vision put together to think about how our community develops,” without caving in to market demands and constraints. 

“We have seen what happens nationally and internationally when we start to think like that,” she said.  

The commission draft, she said, would lead to polarization “and will lead me to oppose it, when I was in favor of more density in return for all the good things we could get.”  

Other critics of the commission’s revisions included: 

• Martha Nicoloff, who quoted a PG&E expert who said the only truly energy-efficient buildings are wood-frame structures of 50 feet or less with windows that open. 

• Nancy Holland, who charged commissioners with abandoning DAPAC’s compromises and creating a new plan “that gives special interests what they want.” 

• Miranda Ewell, a Berkeley resident who predicted “a howl of protest in the city” if the commission’s draft is adopted. 

• Merrilee Mitchell, who began, “Yep, I’m mad tonight,” then laid into the commission for what she called “a lack of sunshine” in a plan that she said “would give UC lots of access and we’re not going to have any.” 

Supporters 

Fans of the commission revisions were fewer in number and came primarily from the development and business communities. 

Deborah Badhia, executive director of the Downtown Berkeley Association, said the board supported the revisions, though the group wanted stronger language limiting support for the Center Street plaza to a feasibility study. 

“Our vision for the downtown is an active downtown with more residents to create a thriving cultural context,” she said, adding that Shattuck Avenue street fronts within two blocks of the downtown BART plaza should be specifically preserved for retail stores.  

Ariel Rabin, a member of the Downtown Business Improvement District Advisory Board and a member of a family that owns buildings on Shattuck and Telegraph avenues, said he came to “strongly support the plan in its current form.” 

Alan Tobey, a member of both Livable Berkeley, the city’s leading “smart growth” advocacy group, and the Sierra Club, said the commission’s draft embodied the right strategies to fight global warming. 

Tobey said he couldn’t support DAPAC’s version “because of the climate context,” which he said that plan failed to address. 

Livable Berkeley Executive Director Erin Rhoades offered her support for the commission’s draft, which she called “a great leap forward from the 1990 plan” and “the best way for our city to address the biggest issue of our day, global warming.” 

Her spouse, former city planning manager Mark Rhoades, is now in the private development sector. 

More support came from Tony Bruzzone, president of Berkeley Design Advocates, another smart-growth advocacy group. 

“I want to thank you for the great improvement in the plan,” he said, praising the commissioners for eliminating restrictions on building mass. 

Labor’s voice  

Several members of UNITE HERE! Local 2850, the hotel workers union, came out to urge commissioners to make sure the plan provided for livable wage jobs for their colleagues who would be working at the two new, 225-foot hotels called for by the plan. 

Nischit Hegde, a Local 2850 activist, said she was concerned that the plan gave the hotels special treatment by allowing them greater height than any other buildings spelled out in the plan. 

“While we recognize that hotels give a lot in fees to the city, they also have great impacts, including toxins, fumes and other impacts on infrastructure. 

“We ask that hotels actually earn their allowances rather than just be entitled to them,” she said. 

At least five members of her union came to the microphone to argue for union jobs, citing the benefits membership had brought to their own lives. 

Next moves 

The commission gets its next-to-last shot at the plan next week at its April 15 session, when it is scheduled to make any last-minute changes and adopt its final draft. 

One more session will be required to consider the plan’s environmental impact report. 

While the end of the downtown plan rewrite could mean commissioners may be able to drop their weekly meeting schedule and resume their traditional practice of two meetings a month, they still have a full plate, including their ongoing project to rewrite West Berkeley zoning, a revision of the city’s General Plan Housing Element and, perhaps, finally some work on the long-delayed South Berkeley Plan.

On a recent warm spring evening, the streets of downtown Berkeley were sparsely populated—unusual for a Friday night. 

A small but steady stream of people could be seen trickling in and out of Shattuck Avenue’s bars, restaurants and cafes—Angeline’s was packed, and so was Thalassa—but few window shoppers.  

For a long time now Berkeley’s downtown hasn’t been bringing in the kind of foot traffic usually generated by retail shops—a fact city officials acknowledge but counter with the claim that the downtown is fast emerging as an arts, entertainment and dining destination. 

However, Berkeley Economic Development Manager Michael Caplan is quick to point out that this doesn’t mean retail has taken a backseat. 

On the contrary, the city of Berkeley has embraced an aggressive campaign to make downtown retail space more attractive to merchants, expediting design review for minor zoning issues, approving building permit fee deferrals for development, and considering modification of the zoning ordinance to help restaurants, quick-service joints, department stores and grocery stores set up shop more quickly. 

“There’s not a whole lot of retail expanding in downtown Berkeley,” said City Councilmember Jesse Arreguin, whose district includes downtown. “There are very few businesses here that provide the goods and services we need to make the downtown a retail destination and neighborhood-oriented commercial district. That’s why it’s important to attract new businesses and create more foot traffic.” 

The city’s Office of Economic Development reports downtown vacancy rates for ground-floor retail space in the first quarter of 2009 to be at 15.11 percent, slightly lower than the 16.20 percent recorded a year ago, but higher than the Fourth Street, North Shattuck and Telegraph Avenue shopping districts. 

Caplan attributes the decrease to the few new stores opening over the last year, but admits that the city is having a problem finding retailers for some of the larger vacancies which make up a sizable chunk of Shattuck. 

“It’s not just Berkeley, there’s a broader change happening in the economy,” he said. “Not a whole lot of retail is interested in moving into large spaces right now. However, a lot of smaller spaces still have people looking at them. There’s always some discussion. It’s never quiet.” 

A quick survey of the number of vacant spaces on Shattuck carried out by the Planet and Arreguin April 3 revealed 15 vacant storefronts in the nine-block span between University Avenue and Dwight Way. 

This includes at least five retail spaces where a frozen yogurt shop, a bakery, a restaurant and other sundry businesses are slated to move in, vacancies the Office of Economic Development said they also considered during their own survey. 

Arreguin said vacancies on prominent corners and locations were making the problem more obvious. 

Ross clothing store, Cody’s Books, Cold Stone Creamery and Shoe Pavilion, all of which occupied large spaces in the downtown, have either left town or gone out of business, adding to the list of longstanding vacancies in the area. 

Caplan said that Ross’s departure alone had spiked the vacancy rate from 13 percent in the last quarter of 2007 to 16 percent in the beginning of 2008. 

“Not a whole lot of large stores are looking for 30,000 square feet of space spread across two stories,” he said, referring to the department store’s former quarters. “Am I surprised by it? No. Do I think it will eventually be leased? Yes.” 

Of the two vacancies on Shattuck Square, Caplan said 91 Shattuck Square had already been scooped up by a bakery. 

“That’s the kind of thing I am talking about,” he said. “There are a lot of small spaces that have been leased but just haven’t had people move in yet. So all we are seeing is cardboard and paper pastings on the windows.” 

Some vacant storefronts have art or pottery by local artists and Berkeley High School students displayed on them, an effort put together by the Berkeley Downtown Association and the city’s Civic Arts Commission to make empty store windows look “more friendly.” 

A 6,000-square-foot space in the former Act I & II Theater on Center Street, which the zoning board approved last year for restaurant use, and which local developer Patrick Kennedy is remodelling, is currently sitting empty. 

“That kind of a space can be hard to lease at a time like this,” said Caplan. “It’s very high quality and there’s not much money floating around right now. But it’s a major investment by Kennedy to make it more desirable, and when the market is right, it will lease easily.” 

Caplan attributed the vacancies to a tightening credit market, high rents and the overall economic downturn, adding that he was confident that eventually things would take a turn for the better at the end of the year. 

“Downturn is in a transition and has been for a while,” he said. “We are constantly thinking of how we can improve the tenant mix.” 

The Berkeley Planning Commission’s draft Downtown Plan—which seeks to revitalize the city’s downtown center and is pending approval from council—states that despite its traditional “main street character, with buildings built to the edge of the sidewalk, windowed storefronts... eclectic mix of buildings, variety of places to eat, shows to see, a great library, a widely used YMCA,” and an internationally renowned university right next door, “many people—including many Berkeley residents—are disappointed in today’s downtown.” 

The document describes how citizens reminisce about a vibrant, “family-friendly” downtown that had existed through the 1980s, which makes them nostalgic for Edy’s Ice Cream, the Hinks department store, JC Penney’s, the Blue and Gold Market, Morrison Jewelers and Tupper & Reed music, which were core to the community’s daily needs, and not simply places to grab a quick bite or a movie. 

It says that although creating the “old downtown” in present-day economic conditions will be virtually impossible, bringing back the old energy will not. 

Arreguin said that he hoped the city’s short-term efforts to help retailers would pave the way for a better downtown. 

“We are just making it simpler for retail to move in,” said Steve Ross, the city’s planning manager, of the accelerated design review process. “If someone wants to change their sign or make a minor alteration to their shop window, we don’t want to hold them up.” 

Mid-term goals to improve the flagging retail environment include revising the zoning code to reflect the yet-to be approved Downtown Area Plan and crafting a comprehensive parking strategy. 

Janet Winter, who has co-owned Games of Berkeley on Shattuck with her husband for the past eight years, blamed the vacancies primarily on high rent and shoplifting. 

“Merchants are just tired of dealing with that stuff,” she said. “We have people who come in on a semi-regular basis to steal certain things, like for instance a deck of cards. Then there’s the rent—it’s so high that most small businesses can’t afford to open up. When the economy was strong, rental prices were high. Now that the economy is weak, rental prices are still high. The landlords think they can sit on it and that the market will come back. They don’t understand our problem.” 

Ito Ripsteen, a partner with Gordon Commercial, which owns much of the retail space downtown, said that for the right kind of tenant, “rent would not a problem.” 

The average cost of leasing space downtown ranges between $3 to $4 per square foot, he said. 

Ripsteen said that his company was breaking down larger floor spaces into smaller portions in an effort to make leasing more flexible. 

“There’s not a lot of large soft goods stores that want to move downtown,” he said. “Clothing stores want to move to Telegraph, because they want to have that synergy with students. We have more offices downtown though because it’s cheaper than Oakland.” 

Caplan said that he was hopeful that with new developments such as the Shattuck Hotel, the Arpeggio condos, Freight and Salvage and Trader Joe’s coming to Berkeley in the next year, there would be more activity in the downtown. 

However, Arreguin said that he was not sure whether development alone would help create more retail. 

“Yes, it’s true, there are a lot of projects slated to be completed, but we don’t know if that’s going to improve the retail environment,” he said. “I don’t think anyone knows for sure at this point.” 

Starting next year, Berkeley Unified School District’s food services program will have to pay for itself, but district officials say they won’t let finances undermine quality. 

Ever since chef Ann Cooper took the helm of the district’s nutrition services department three and a half years ago with the help of a grant from the Chez Panisse Foundation, she has worked to make the program healthier and self-sustaining by increasing student participation. 

At a Berkeley Board of Education meeting last week, Cooper, who is leaving in June for Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District, told BUSD officials how far the program has come. 

“One of the things that I told you last year, that we have really managed to do finally, now that all the infrastructure is in place, is to raise the meal count, and we have,” a beaming Cooper announced. “That has been our major push because raising participation is how we can raise our budget, and the budget we have is balanced.” 

Cooper’s projected budget for 2009-10 shows that the district will no longer be contributing money to food services in 2009-10 from its general fund. 

In 2006-07 the district gave $742,743 to the program. In 2007-08, the amount went down substantially to $217,723 before rising slightly to $300,000 this year. 

“Our plan is not to impact the general fund at all next year,” district Superintendent Bill Huyett told the Daily Planet after the meeting. “There will be a reduction in some staff and we are proposing a small increase in meal costs. We will have to continue to increase the number of students eating lunch. If it doesn’t break even, we will work on the fiscal end of it. We won’t compromise on quality.” 

Cooper said that for the program to become budget-neutral, it was imperative to have a certain number of kids eating lunch at school every day. 

Currently, middle and elementary schoolers can choose to bring lunch from home or eat lunches served at school. 

Students at open-campus Berkeley High School have other options—dozens of cheap fast-food restaurants right down the street. Just 10 percent of Berkeley High students eat school-provided lunches. 

But Cooper explained that the problem wasn’t “one school or the other—we have to increase the number in general.” 

Cooper, along with district Nutrition Services Manager Marney Posey and Executive Chef Bonnie Christensen, has been putting up banners, writing to parents and attending PTA meetings for the last few months to get the word out about the lunch program. 

She said that she would be able to talk more about the results of the outreach in May. 

“We have been in the newspaper, gone on the radio—done everything we could to promote the program,” she said. “And our numbers show we have done a good job.” 

Cooper said that the new Dining Commons at King Middle School—which replaced the aging facility at Jefferson Elementary School as the district’s central kitchen last fall—was now serving between 7,500 and 8,000 meals. 

“The numbers are significantly up since I came,” she said. “And the food is probably some of the best we have ever made. Last year we were serving canned pinto beans. Now we are cooking all beans from scratch because we have the equipment. That saves us money.” 

Cooper said that after she leaves in the summer, Posey, Christensen and the rest of her team would carry on her work. 

“I have the utmost confidence in them,” she said. “The program is sustainable and systemic now that the budget is neutral.” 

Referring to a three-year budget comparison submitted to the district, Cooper said the district’s total meal count had gone up from 1 million in 2006-07 to 1.7 million this year. 

“We are continuing to see growth,” she said, explaining that the total number of free, reduced and paid lunch meals is up 7 percent from this time last year. That number is projected to grow by 3 percent in 2009-10. 

Initial results from a three-year survey conducted by UC Berkeley’s Center for Weight and Health show that among schools participating in Berkeley’s School Lunch Initiative, students who ate lunch at school consumed more than three times as many vegetables as children who brought lunch from home. 

Cooper acknowledged that while revenue had increased from $3 million in 2006-07 to $3.5 million this year, food costs had gone up disproportionately. 

The district spent close to $1.5 million this year compared with $1 million dollars last year on food purchases, but is expected to reduce costs by 3 percent in 2009-10. 

Personnel expenses for the district’s nutrition services department increased from $1.6 million in 2006-07 to $1.9 million this year, something Cooper attributed to a retroactive pay adjustment for 2007-08.  

Staffing costs for next year are estimated to be $1.8 million. 

“We are trying to figure out ways to bring additional revenue for the department,” Cooper told the board. She is proposing an increase in lunch prices in 2009-10, which would see meals at elementary, middle and high schools increase by 25 or 50 cents. 

Cooper also said the program has contacted a camp about the possibility of providing meals during the summer. 

Community leaders, labor rights activists and garment workers from Central America urged Berkeley city officials to pass a sweatshop-free ordinance at a Tuesday press conference at Old City Hall. 

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington said that he would be co-sponsoring, along with councilmembers Max Anderson and Jesse Arreguin, a sweatshop-free ordinance at the April 21 City Council meeting. 

The event was part of a week-long West Coast tour where human rights and labor organizations called on cities to join and support the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium, which would end tax dollar support for sweatshop abuses and establish ethical standards for U.S. businesses. 

Although 39 cities in the country, including San Francisco, have adopted sweatshop-free ordinances, Berkeley has yet to pass one despite joining the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium in July 2007. 

The city’s Peace and Justice Commission collaborated with numerous city officials and the Commission on Labor over the past three years to write an ordinance which was rejected by the City Council a year ago. 

“Sadly, Berkeley is way behind on this issue than other cities,” Worthington said at the press conference. “It’s long overdue for the City of Berkeley to put our money where our mouths are.” 

He said that although the ordinance is scheduled to appear before the council in three weeks, it still may not pass. 

“We as city officials have a moral responsibility to make sure that the goods that we are purchasing with taxpayer dollars do not support unfair labor practices,” said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin. “Doing business with companies that engage in sweatshop practices does not reflect the values of the citizens of Berkeley.” 

Elizabeth Gutierrez spoke about her experience working under unjust labor conditions at a Honduras factory. 

“Why is it that workers are paid only 10 cents when the products are sold for $25 or $35?” she asked. “Workers work long days but don’t have any right to organize. We have problems with our lungs and our backs.” 

Describing her 12-hour work days and unbearable daily production goals, Gutierrez said she hoped “cities would step up to support good jobs.” 

Rapfael Izirarry, who works for Propper International in Puerto Rico, which contracts with the United States for military uniforms, said he and fellow employees were organizing to improve conditions in their factory. He said sweat-free policies adopted by cities would protect the rights of workers by improving salaries and benefits. 

Berkeley’s proposed ordinance seeks to ensure that garments and other equipment, materials, supplies and services “procured by the City of Berkeley, its agencies or its employees through contracts, purchase orders or voucher programs, be produced in workplaces free of sweatshop conditions.” 

“To those who contend that the ordinance is but a symbolic resolution, we tell them that the workers who just spoke are not symbols, they are real people, and this is real life,” said Labor Commissioner Igor Tregub, a longtime advocate for the ordinance. 

“The intent of this ordinance is not to close down factories but to help vendors with which the city does business to take steps to get into compliance, and to award contracts to the most responsible but not necessarily the lowest bidder.”

Starting April 25, the Berkeley Farmers’ Market will be the first in the nation to eliminate the use of plastic bags and packaging from its three weekly markets. 

Ben Feldman, program manager of the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, said that the move was in step with the markets’ zero-waste campaign which aims to reduce and recycle plastic materials and to recycle and compost all waste products generated at the markets. 

“Plastic is a serious problem in our environment,” he said. “It’s pervasive and finds a way into waterways, killing animals which eat the plastic. We decided to take a proactive step to reduce waste by eliminating plastic bags and packets.” 

Feldman said that customers were being encouraged to bring their own bags during their shopping trips to the markets or buy the markets’ compostable starch-based bags made from GMO-free corn. 

Other farmers’ markets in the country have banned either plastic bags or packaging. 

The Farmer’s Market in Boulder, Col. was the first in the nation to initiate a zero-waste campaign.  

The Monterey Farmers’ Market has phased out plastic bags, but not plastic packaging. 

Closer to home, the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market is working to phase out plastic bags.  

In conjunction with Berkeley’s Earth Day Celebration, the Saturday, April 25 market will hold a zero-waste event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. 

The sun did not quite cooperate, hiding behind a screen of low clouds and spatters of rain. But a crowd that was alternately enthusiastic, happy and contemplative still greeted the dawn at Berkeley’s Cesar Chavez Park Wednesday, April 8, with sing-ing, prayer and introspection in the local incarnation of Birkat HaChammah, the Blessing of the Sun ceremony that comes every 28 years in Jewish tradition.  

The event was one of many such gatherings held around the world, from Israel to New York to the shores of Lake Michigan to Berkeley.  

Perhaps 200 people gathered locally, led by Rabbi David Cooper of Oakland’s Kehilla Community Synagogue, in a ceremony that alternated ancient blessings and songs in Hebrew, Psalms, and more contemporary material including group renditions of “Here Comes the Sun,” “Morning Has Broken,” and a spirited chorus of “Happy Birthday, Dear Sun!”  

“I lift my gaze toward the mountains; from where will come my help? It comes from the Eternal Source, creator of heavens and earth,” participants re-cited from Psalm 121.  

“Believe it or not, the sun has just come over the hills,” Cooper said around 7:00 p.m. as the crowd looked to the east where the thin spire of the Campanile rose below the scudding overcast. Bits of pink cloud briefly gleamed high over  

the Bay to the west,  

as the morning light increased.  

“The Jewish practices are to remind us of the deepest things,” said Rabbi Daniel  

Lev who helped lead the ceremony and  

also participated in a Berkeley Birkat Ha-Chammah gathering 28 years ago. “That sun is coming and dispelling the darkness all of us feel.”  

As a bit of rain fell across the hilltop, Cooper said, “Let’s take the day and the night, the dry and the wet, and be really appreciative of the fact we’re here at all.”  

Meanwhile, across town, a cherished local secular ritual was coincidentally resuming the same morning.  

After several weeks of closure for remodeling, the original branch of Peet’s Coffee and Tea at Walnut and Vine streets reopened at 6 a.m. in a renovated and expanded facility.  

Within a few minutes of opening, still in the predawn darkness, two elderly regulars were deep in coffee and conversation, a customer quietly worked on his laptop computer at a corner table, two mournful looking dogs stood outside awaiting the return of their human companions, and a steady trickle of people dropped in to get their take-out morning coffee. A celebratory gathering for the reopening took place at 7 a.m.  

The facility includes a deep side room set up as something of a shrine to deceased founder Alfred Peet, with photographs, framed newspaper articles, testimonials, a poem, a world map of coffee-growing regions, an an-tique coffee roaster and, at the far end, a secondary shrine consisting of two clean, elegant, new restrooms for customers.  

An oval plaque low on the outside wall by the entrance outlines the history of the business and its place in local history.  

Steven Finacom wrote about the background of the Blessing of the Sun tradition in the April 2 edition of the Daily Planet. He helped write the new historical plaque at Peet’s, though he’s not a regular coffee drinker. 

Directors of a regional agency voted to build a new pier south of the Berkeley Marina fishing pier to serve as the hub for a new ferry service. 

The five directors of the Water Emergency Transit Authority (WETA) voted unanimously April 2 to build the pier and revamp the parking lot at H’s Lordships restaurant to accommodate commuters. 

John Sindzinski, WETA’s planning and development manager, said work will begin immediately on a final environmental impact report (EIR) that will focus solely on the site. 

The vote came less that 24 hours after Sindzinski was grilled by members of the Berkeley Planning Commission. 

During the April 1 session, Dan Marks, the city’s planning and development director, said WETA couldn’t build at the site without city approval. 

But Sindzinski didn’t agree. “That will be an interesting issue,” he said Friday. 

“Ultimately they have to come to us to get permission to build on city property,” Marks had told planning commissioners Wednesday. “They are not the University of California.” 

“So it will be up to us, the Planning  

Commission,” said commissioner Gene Poschman. 

“Is that correct?” asked Harry Pollack, acting commission chair and a land-use attorney in private practice. 

“I’m not positive,” Sindzinski told them. “We’re researching that.” 

Sindzinski said Friday that a variety of public agencies will have to sign off on the final plans, including the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Regional Water Quality Control Board. 

“We’re anxious to work with anybody who has concerns,” he said. 

One former public official told planning commissioners that he believed the draft EIR was “fatally flawed and cannot be used to support any decisions, much less conclude that the site is superior.” 

James McGrath retired as environmental manager for the Port of Oakland and is currently president of U.S. Windsurfing, a national membership organization and vice president of the San Francisco Boardsailing Association. 

McGrath charged that the draft EIR was invalid for a number of reasons, including its failure to consider existing recreational uses at the site, which he said is protected by the city’s master plan for the marina. 

The Berkeley Waterfront Commission also had objections to the site, which it said would “have significant negative impacts on tenants, waterfront users and berthers,” according to a letter to WETA from City Manager Phil Kamlarz. 

The draft EIR had considered four sites, including two adjacent to Golden Gate Fields that Sindzinski rejected out of hand because of jurisdictional conflicts with East Shore State Park. 

That left two sites at Berkeley Marina, including a site inside the marina adjacent to the Doubletree Hotel, which was rejected because of “vehement” objections from the hotel, Hornblower Cruises and marina users, but primarily because WETA couldn’t afford to pay the city for the cost of revenues lost from berthing slips that would have to be removed to make way for the pier. 

To make way for the 400 parking spaces at the fishing pier site, the existing parking lot adjacent to the restaurant would be revamped, and the earth berm to the west leveled to accommodate additional spaces. 

Sindzinski said his agency will seek additional public and agency comments for the final EIR, which will be ready by late summer or early fall for a final review period before adoption. 

The California Court of Appeal upheld the Berkeley City Council’s decision to revoke U-Haul’s use permit for its San Pablo Avenue location. 

City officials announced the March 30 decision Friday, April 3, to the press and City Council members. 

The council revoked U-Haul’s permit in October 2007. City documents indicate that the council declared the truck-rental business a nuisance after taking into account years of formal complaints charging the company with violating city law by parking more trucks on its lot than permitted and by allowing customers to park trucks in the neighborhood when returning vehicles after business hours. 

An investigation conducted by the city in 2006 revealed that U-Haul was “consistently parking as many as 30 of its vehicles on neighborhood streets adjacent to its property (sometimes blocking crosswalks or fire hydrants), and that it consistently had between 40 to 50 trucks on its property in violation of the permit’s 20-truck restriction.” 

U-Haul, the nation’s largest renter of trucks and trailers, appealed the city’s decision to the Superior Court in October, but the judge ruled in the city’s favor at that time. 

In May 2008, the company sued the city for a second time, arguing that it should be allowed to stay open on environmental and civil rights grounds. 

But once again the courts sided with the city, explaining that the appellant had repeatedly violated the city’s permit and failed to address neighbors’ concerns in an appropriate manner, using “public rights of way for staging, and thereby expanded its business operations beyond the property in a manner contrary to the terms and conditions of the use permit.” 

In an e-mail to city councilmembers Friday, Acting City Attorney Zach Cowan praised Deputy City Attorney Laura McKinney, who handled the case, for doing “an excellent job.” 

“[I]n fact the decision was handed down only two days after oral argument, which is as fast as it gets, and indicates that based on the briefing and argument, the court felt the appeal had absolutely no merit,” Cowan wrote. “We hope that this decision, once it is final, will speed up resolution of the city’s case against U-Haul.” 

Cowan also mentioned in his e-mail that the U.S. District Court last week dismissed what the city “suspects was a companion case,” Lewis v. City of Berkeley. 

The plaintiff in this case alleged that “the revocation of U-Haul’s use permit was part (the main part, apparently) of an alleged pattern of discriminatory practices by the city against African Americans.” 

Cowan said the court dismissed the case for failing to “allege any facts that stated a claim.”

Berkeley is standing in a long line of city and state governments for federal stimulus money, but City Manager Phil Kamlarz calls the situation “a mess on the federal side,” and it will probably take some time to sort out exactly how much money the city can apply for or actually receive. 

Last February, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, allocating some $787 billion in funds to help stimulate the country’s economy and pull it out of the current recession. Some of the money will automatically go to cities like Berkeley on a formula basis; other must be applied for by competitive bidding. While some ARRA money has already been earmarked, large amounts of it are still without guidelines for local governments to use in their applications. 

Various federal websites list the City of Berkeley as in line for $1.33 million in Homeless Prevention Fund Formula allocations under ARRA, and another $166,000 to the Berkeley Housing Authority for public housing grants. 

The city has scheduled a public hearing for 7 p.m. on April 21 in the City Council chambers on Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG) monies currently being given out through the recovery act. The CDBG money is specifically available for “housing-related activities, improvement of public/community facilities, public services, and planning and administration,” according to the city notice for the hearing. 

Also in the works is another $871,000 in CDBG money that Kamlarz said the city has already applied for, despite the fact that there are currently “no guidelines” for the money because the federal government has only “a couple of weeks” to allocate the money and the city must obligate it “within 120 days.” Kamlarz said the city submitted an ARRA application for a jobs program last Friday, even though there were no written guidelines to go by, “because we didn’t want to miss out on summer jobs for our youth.” 

The city manager said that all of the jurisdictions competing for the money “are in the same place”—trying to sort out the confusion. 

Last month, as part of a call from the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency (ACCMA) for stimulus-fund applications in one of the few early instances when detailed guidelines were available, the Berkeley City Council approved an application for $1.6 million in ARRA grants for reconstructing the pavement on University Avenue between San Pablo Avenue and Sacramento Street. Berkeley projects spending $361,000 out of its own capital improvement fund to complete the $1.98 million project. 

Kamlarz said in some areas of ARRA, Berkeley is clearly not competitive. “There is money to mitigate the problem of foreclosures, for example,” the city manager said, “but there are not many foreclosures in Berkeley.” In other areas, where the threshold of the individual program budget may be too high for Berkeley to compete, Kamlarz said the city is looking into cooperating with other jurisdictions to submit grants for region-wide programs. 

Meanwhile, in a report issued to the City Council by the city manager’s office in mid-March, city staff said that Berkeley is also in line for other ARRA funding. That includes: 

• Weatherization Assistance. Funds will be distributed through individual states and can be spent to provide “direct weatherization assistance to low-income residents and for workforce development.” As of mid-March, California had not yet completed program guidelines. 

• Training and Employment Services. Funds will be distributed through formula grants, most likely—in California—through the county Workforce Investment Boards. 

• Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants. While the program itself was approved by Congress in 2007, money was not made available until the ARRA was passed. The Department of Energy has not yet issued guidelines. 

• COPS funding and Byrne JAG grants to go for various law enforcement activities. This money will be available in formula grants to each jurisdiction, including Berkeley, as well as additional money in competitive bids. 

• Health Information Technology to facilitate the computerization of health records. Berkeley’s Health Department is potentially eligible for such funds, whose guidelines for distribution have not been finalized. 

• Prevention and Wellness Fund. No guidelines on how this money will be distributed, though such guidelines are expected sometime in May. The Health Department is potentially eligible to apply and receive these grants. 

The report said that some ARRA funding will go directly to nonprofits, such as Head Start and Early Start programs, and indicated that city staff will be working with the federal government and nonprofit agencies “where possible to maximize [the] total community benefit” to Berkeley residents.

Pacific Ethanol, a partner with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in developing a pilot plant to turn plant fiber into fuel, may be heading for bankruptcy court. 

Warnings of the possible Chapter 11 filing were included in federal financial filings. 

The firm, chaired by former California Secretary of State William L. Jones, is deep in debt and unable to meet its loan obligations, according to filings with the federal Security and Exchange Commission. 

The Sacramento-based firm has partnered with LBNL’s Emeryville-based Joint Bioenergy Institute to develop a cellulosic ethanol plant in Broadman, Ore., with the help of a $24.3 million grant from the Department of Energy, the agency which founded JBEI with an initial $135 million grant. 

The ethanol firm reported operating losses of $193 million for 2008, and a net loss of $147 million, a ten-fold increase from the losses reported a year earlier. 

The firm’s stock has plunged, and it had delayed filing its report for the fourth quarter of 2008 until Thursday, April 2. 

Unable to meet loan obligations due March 31 to a variety of lenders, Pacific Ethanol received extensions only after Jones and CEO Neil M. Koehler made unsecured loans to the company of $2 million. 

The quarterly report wasn’t filed until the loan extensions had been signed. 

Among the companies owed are Wachovia Capital Financial Corporation, Amarillo National Bank, and the New York branches of WestLB AG, Cooperative Centrale Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank BA, Rabobank Nederland, and Banco Santander Central Hispano S.A. 

The company had been unable to meet the federal deadline for filing its annual and fourth-quarter reports, telling the SEC, “The Company was unable to file . . . in a timely manner without unreasonable effort or expense because management needs additional time to complete its procedures associated with the Annual Report.” 

The annual report was finally filed March 31. 

JBEI, headed by UC Berkeley bioengineer Jay Keasling, is seeking to develop patented microbes that will transform plant fibers into fuel, but the Oregon plant would use existing technology patented by BioGasohol ApS, a Danish company. 

Pacific Ethanol has been hit by a succession of crises, and has closed two 60-million-gallon-a-year plants in Stockton, Calif., and Burley, Idaho, as well as a 40-million-gallon plant in Madera. The company continues to operate a non-cellulosic refinery in Oregon and holds a minority interest in a still-operating plant in Colorado. 

Keasling and Pacific Ethanol have both protested pending state regulations that would force biofuel manufacturers to calculate the impacts of their fuels on land use. 

Critics, who refer to ethanol and similar products as agrofuels, have charged that growing plants to fuel cars, trucks, trains and plants will increase pressures on farmlands and drive prices up, creating a cascade of negative impacts in Third World countries where fuel crops will be grown. 

Biofuel boosters contend the calculations sought by the California Air Resources Board would yield a false picture of impacts, overshadowing the benefits the fuels might bring. 

JBEI is one of two plants-into-fuels projects now under way in Berkeley. Even larger is the $500 million Energy Biosciences Institute, funded by BP (formerly British Petroleum) and operating under the joint auspices of LBNL, UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. 

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will speak at the University of California at Berkeley tonight. 

University officials say Johnson-Sirleaf will discuss her country’s struggle for peace and justice as part of a series hosted by the university’s Human Rights Center called “Bearing Witness to Atrocity: A MacArthur Symposium on International Criminal Justice.” 

Johnson-Sirleaf’s address will be moderated by author and journalist Adam Hochschild. 

Dubbed the “Iron Lady,” Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is Africa’s first elected female head of state. 

After growing up in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, she traveled to the U.S. in 1961 and studied at the University of Colorado and Harvard University. 

She served a brief stint as Liberia’s minister of finance before launching a three-decade political career in which she frequently contested Liberia’s presidential frontrunners. 

In the 1980s, she was imprisoned for challenging the country’s military regime. Twice she escaped into exile, during which time she served as director of the United Nations Development Program for Africa. In 2005, she ran for president of Liberia against former soccer star George Weah, and won. 

Johnson-Sirleaf’s address will be from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, April 9, at the Chevron Auditorium at International House at 2299 Piedmont Ave.

With creditors clamoring in the wings and unhappy with plans to sell off Golden Gate Fields and other key assets of troubled Magna Entertainment, the company agreed Friday, April 3, to delay a key court hearing until April 20. 

Creditors have challenged Magna’s plans to sell the assets to a sister company through a so-called “stalking horse bid.” Magna Entertainment is North America’s largest owner of horse race venues and has been plagued by massive debts. 

According to court filings, the company has debts of $959 million with assets worth about $1 billion in an uncertain real estate market. 

Bloomberg.com, the leading financial news service, reported that Magna agreed Friday afternoon to hire a restructuring officer and to add new members to its board of directors during a hearing in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware. 

The company, which was stricken from the rolls of both the NASDAQ and Toronto stock exchanges, is in bankruptcy actions on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. 

The company had proposed to sell some of its key assets to sister company MI Developments, which had raised the ire of major investors. 

Both companies are controlled by Canadian auto parts magnate Frank Stronach. 

An attorney for BART said in an April 3 legal filing that the shooting death of Oscar Grant at the hands of BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland on New Year’s Day was “a tragic error” and Grant’s own actions contributed to the tragedy. 

Responding to a $50 million lawsuit filed against BART by attorney John Burris on March 2 on behalf of Grant’s family in the wake of the man’s death at the Fruitvale BART station, BART attorney Dale Allen said the transit agency admits Grant was shot in the back but denies the officers were unprovoked when they tried to detain Grant. 

In a phone interview, Allen said witness accounts indicate that Grant, a 22-year-old Hayward man who had a criminal record, was involved in a fight on a BART train that caused the transit agency to send Mehserle and other officers to the Fruitvale station to quell the disturbance. 

Allen said officers were justified in pulling Grant from the train because witnesses had identified him as being involved in the fight and he also believes officers were justified in using force to detain Grant because he was resisting arrest. 

“There was a reason for officers to use force, but the amount of force is in question,” Allen said. 

Allen said there was no reason for Mehserle to shoot Grant, but he said the officer “made a terrible mistake” in firing his gun instead of a Taser in his effort to subdue Grant. 

Allen said more than six witnesses have said that after Mehserle shot Grant there was “surprise on Mehserle’s face,” indicating they think the officer didn’t mean to shoot Grant. 

Allen said he’s hoping that the lawsuit can go to mediation so it can be resolved before it goes to trial. 

Burris said there have been conversations about mediation but nothing has been determined. 

Burris hasn’t reviewed Allen’s answer, but he said he firmly believes Grant’s civil rights were violated in the incident. 

Mehserle, 27, resigned from the BART police force the week after the incident and has been charged with murder. He will have a preliminary examination May 18.

The City of Berkeley currently has four department head vacancies, all of which are to be filled by the city manager “effective upon affirmative vote of five members of the [City] Council,” according to the Berkeley City Charter. 

This week, the Daily Planet sat down with City Manager Phil Kamlarz to get an update on the status of the vacancies. 

Police Chief 

Current Status of Position: Still being filled by Chief of Police Douglas Hambleton, who announced his retirement in mid-March effective this summer. 

Period of Vacancy: None. 

Current Status of New Hiring: A national search is being conducted by the CPS Human Resource Services of Sacramento and Washington, D.C. In the final process, the city will operate a community panel to review the final candidates, which will include members of the community, the affected unions, and the Berkeley Police Review Commission. That was the same process used by the city when it hired Hambleton as chief in March 2005. Kamlarz hopes to have a recommendation to the council by July 14, the last day before the council’s summer break. 

Notes: Kamlarz says that police chief hiring is currently “very competitive” in the Bay Area, with seven vacancies. San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto, South San Francisco, San Leandro, and the University of California are all currently looking to replace their police chiefs. 

City Attorney 

Current Status of Position: Manuela Albuquerque, the longest-serving city attorney in Berkeley history, retired effective Nov. 30, 2007. Albuquerque had served in that position 26 years. The position is currently being filled by Zach Cowan as acting city attorney. Cowan has been a member of the city attorney’s office since 1993 and was appointed assistant city attorney in 1994. 

Period of Vacancy: 17 months. 

Current Status of New Hiring: A national search is being conducted by CPS Human Resource Services. There will be no community review process involved. Kamlarz hopes to have a recommendation to the council by July 14. 

Notes: In 2007, Cowan told the Daily Cal that he would be interested in the permanent position, and Kamlarz told the Daily Cal, “He’s a very capable attorney (and) I have a lot of confidence in his abilities.” Kamlarz added, “Of course he’ll be considered (for the permanent position).” In 2008, Mayor Tom Bates was exploring the possibility of moving to a council-selected city attorney so that the city attorney “would be directly accountable to the council.” That would require a ballot measure to change the City Charter. Bates also said in 2008 that he was asking Kamlarz to allow the council to pick between Kamlarz’ top two choices. No word yet if that process will be followed. 

Housing Director 

Current Status of Position: Berkeley Housing Director Stephen Barton resigned in June 2007. Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna managed the Housing Department in the immediate aftermath. Jane Micallef was named acting housing director by Kamlarz in March of 2008. 

Period of Vacancy: 23 months. 

Current Status of New Hiring: The city manager says the Berkeley Housing Department is currently being reorganized. The Berkeley Housing Authority is no longer a part of the Housing Department. The city manager’s office has proposed changing the emphasis of the department to half housing and half community services and social programs relating to housing, which are not currently part of the Housing Department’s mandate. Some of the housing-related social services are proposed to be moved over from the City of Berkeley Health Department, which would then concentrate primarily on health and mental services. The reorganization proposals will be part of Kamlarz’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year. If the council agrees to these proposals, the hiring of the new housing director under the new department guidelines would then proceed.  

City Clerk 

Current Status of Position: After a medical-related leave, City Clerk Pamyla Means resigned in May 2008. Kamlarz then named former Deputy City Clerk Deanna Despain as acting city clerk. 

Period of Vacancy: 9 months. 

Current Status of New Hiring: Kamlarz has no timetable for hiring a permanent city clerk. He says that he “hopes to bring some recommendations to the council soon.

Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board will take up the long-standing issue of whether the Gaia Building in downtown Berkeley is conforming to its use permit. 

In September, the board tried to determine whether the building was in violation of a condition of its original use permit which required the cultural activities to take place in the space in exchange for two extra stories above what area zoning ordinarily allows.  

The board gave give Equity Residential, the building’s owners, six months to hire a marketing firm to promote the Gaia Arts Center for cultural events.  

Planning staff are scheduled to present a report on Equity’s marketing efforts at the Thursday meeting, and will also inform the board about Gaia Arts’ activities, including the number of cultural events and police incidents in the past six months.  

According to the staff report, Equity is “discussing arrangements for a resident theater group to take over use and management of the facility,” therefore prompting staff to advise the board to postpone the discussion by a month. 

The report also provides an update on two recent out-of-control parties that took place at the building, and recommends that a public hearing be scheduled for abatement proceedings. 

The splendid novelist Walter Mosley was in town last week to read from his new book. He’s a smart and entertaining talker as well as a fine writer, and he had a big audience in the palm of his hand at Oakland’s First Congregational Church for more than an hour, just answering questions about his work. He’s a man in his late fifties who rejoices in having been raised in Los Angeles by a Jewish mother and an African-American father, in a time when there weren’t many guys on the street with that ethnic combination. Not surprising in Oakland, several of his questions were about that dual perspective. 

His home in the late ’50s and early ’60s, he said, was on the black side of a big street in western L.A. that divided the African-American neighborhood from the Jewish neighborhood. When he was a boy on a bike, he went from time to time over to the home of a Jewish aunty for a good Jewish meal. Never, he said, did he escape being stopped, as soon as he crossed the line, by a policeman asking what a dark-skinned kid like him was doing in a white neighborhood. He chuckled as he told that story—clearly his way of dealing with life’s indignities has been to laugh at them, a strategy which has been used to advantage on both sides of his family for generations.  

His speaking style manages to combine the best of both worlds: long jokes told as Milton Berle and other old borscht belt guys might have told them, mixed with the kind of wise-ass street dialogues which have been bread-and-butter for African-American comics. But he was deadly serious too, under the banter, with a clear understanding of the huge burdens both of his peoples had experienced.  

A questioner asked if he talked differently with black people and white people. He thought that one over for a minute or two, then told a story. He said that at the time the twin towers went down on 9/11, he’d been living in an apartment across the street from the World Trade Center. Everyone he’d ever known called him up that week to ask how he’d made out. The difference, he said, is that his white friends were shocked and surprised that such a thing could have happened. Not his black friends, though, he said. They all avowed that it was bound to happen sometime, given U.S. policy toward the third world—all of them said that, not just a few cynics. That’s the great perceptual divide. 

Ward Churchill, even though he’s a white man, was fired from his tenured academic job for suggesting a similar interpretation of the event. Intemperate language attributing shared culpability for America’s foreign policy sins to the victims of the attack didn’t do him any good, either, but even so a court last week reversed his firing. 

In today’s opinion section you can see a number of examples of the reaction many people have had to hearing some bad news: that many people of color in this country hate the police. Possibly the folks who write these letters, presumably my white brothers and sisters, would prefer to pretend that this is not the case. They expect the media to protect their ignorance for them. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way around here. 

Often such people confuse explanation with endorsement. The writer of last week’s commentary which so enraged several of this week’s correspondents devoted most of his effort to explaining why it is that so many African-Americans have good reasons to fear the police. His account was not hugely different from Mosley’s boyhood story in its essence—there’s probably not a black man in this country who hasn’t been unfairly and inappropriately detained and questioned by the police somewhere, not just once but several times. And—surprise—they’re angry about it. 

Is that a justification for shooting to kill when the police stop you, as Lovelle Mixon did? Of course not. Mixon seems to have been a guy who made many bad choices in his short life, but understanding how he got there that day is key to preventing future tragedies. 

It’s interesting that among the five or six complaints the paper received about running that commentary was one left in my voicemail box by the fellow who calls from time to time to accuse me of anti-Semitism in vile and vulgar language. He seemed to equate printing a black man’s grievances against the police with his own misguided characterization of printing complaints from Jews and non-Jews about the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza as anti-Semitism. It’s easy enough to dismiss him as just another ignorant boob, but his brand of tone-deafness is also sometimes displayed by people with more civil manners.  

A young woman reporter at “J. The Jewish Weekly” wrote a short piece recently about a public relations guy with extremist politics who thinks he’s helping Israel by persuading Planet advertisers to cancel. It was reasonably “fair and balanced,” even though she didn’t manage to get around to talking to anyone at the Planet before her deadline. For her pains, she got critical letters from readers essentially asking how a nice Jewish girl could whitewash such an obviously anti-Semitic rag. Like many reporters these days, she has a blog, so she was able to post a response admitting her sympathy for such extremists.  

“Personally, I’m a firm believer in the First Amendment. I wouldn’t be able to do my job as a journalist without it. But it is my Jewish identity that takes precedence when analyzing this situation,” she says.  

She recalled her anguish upon seeing anti-Israel signs when she covered a pro-Palestinian demonstration, and said “I definitely understand more where [the extremists are] coming from. That, for me, is the first step toward an appreciation for their fight.” 

Let’s hope it’s the first and last. She has better choices. 

I myself regard the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, as my own identity, my American identity, my own heritage. I imagine she’s entitled to make the same claim.  

And that’s why she should embrace defense of free speech as a key part of her own American Jewish identity, created by Jewish heroes and heroines who’ve been the backbone of the progressive press and organizations like the ACLU for generations. The pantheon includes many names too numerous to list here: Bella Abzug, Nat Hentoff, Erwin Knoll, Victor Navasky and our own late lamented Michael Rossman are just a few that come immediately to mind. Walter Mosley in particular provides an excellent example of someone who’s managed to forge his own unique identity from the best aspects of his double heritage. It would be a real shame if a young reporter chose as a role model a two-bit flack who’s devoting his career to trying to close down a newspaper which prints letters he disagrees with, instead of the many Jewish Americans who have left her a legacy to be proud of. 

BERKELEYTHINK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kristina Bormann’s letter regarding the vandalism at the Marine Recruiting Center, truly encapsulates “berkeleythink”: “I have the political and moral high ground, thus my actions are not only warranted, but above the law.” 

Jeffrey L. Suits 

Kensington 

• 

RIDICULOUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I grew up in San Francisco during the 1950s and ’60s. I occasionally visit Bay Area newspapers’ opinion pages to see what people are talking about “back home.” 

People in Berkeley have always been different—even when I lived in The City, Berkeley was a little off the wall. I read in the April 1 letters to the editor what should have been an April Fool’s joke. One letter writer justifies a cowardly vandalism attack on the Marine Recruiter office (which cost the landlord to repair) and another letter blaming the deaths of four Oakland policemen on the distribution of wealth. 

I can accept that Berkeley is the center of liberal America, but come on people, justifying attacks on the men and women who protect your rights is ridiculous. 

It brings to mind the mindless statement from a Code Pink member in front of the Marine Recruiter office. She stated that if there was no military there would be no war. When asked if we didn’t have police would there be no crime, her ridiculous Berkeley response was, “Yes, potentially.” 

Tom Cavallero 

Auburn 

• 

MIXON HAD A CHOICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I disagree with J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s remarks in his column about the recent police killings in Oakland. He indicates that Mr. Mixon may have acted as he did because he did not wish to return to prison. However, if he did not wish to return to prison, why did he violate his probation and buy weapons and possibly engage in other illegal activities? He had a choice to make. 

I think the issue we need to confront is the proliferation of weapons, both legal and illegal. Instead of focusing on the Oakland police, we should focus on the power of the National Rifle Association, the easy access to weapons, as well as the disregard for human lives in our society, both at home and overseas. 

Ilse M. Eden 

• 

MORAL RELATIVISM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It has been said that “Denial is not just a river in Egypt,” and in Oakland that is providential fact. The appalling, tragic and indeed senseless murder by a parolee of four Oakland police officers is the incarnation of evil to a degree rarely matched anywhere. To the civilized world it is mortification personified.  

Still, it comes as no surprise that there are those among us in Oakland who willfully obscure the facts in their odd and vain attempt to assign context and a perverse, illogical rationalization for murder. Minds so deluded by the culture of irresponsible behavior, convenience before discipline and willful indifference to the concept of absolute right and wrong can be easily manipulated into the most confounding and pathological perversion.  

Thus the ridiculous distortions of truth that have found their way into the public forums. People devoid of logic and afflicted by such a profound lack of maturity and objectivity can distort and demean reality in ways that responsible adults would find unconscionable. It isn’t just the fools parading for the thug murderer in the streets of East Oakland but the allegedly responsible citizens who can assign a justification for cowardly, selfish slaughter. It sickens and saddens me to realize that in Oakland at least the world is tilting so badly that it is almost off its axis. The perversity of thought and action in Oakland is astonishing. Moral relativism leads to the undoing of civilization. 

Jonathan C. Breault 

Oakland 

• 

INFLAMMATORY AND ABSURD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What an inflammatory, absurd commentary by Joseph Anderson (“The Karmic Justice of Lovelle Mixon’s Act,” April 2). To refer to the deaths of four public servants as “karmic justice” is perverse. Clearly not only is Mr. Anderson willing to engage in hyperbolic generalities, but he has a grievous misunderstanding of the concept of karma as well. He will persuade no one that black citizens of Oakland suffer from racial injustice because no one “sitting on the fence” will be able to look past his palpable hatred for police officers. But then this probably is not his intention. He is merely content to light a match and toss it into the flames of human suffering.  

S. Linder 

• 

NO STANDARDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Are there no editorial standards at the Berkeley Daily Planet? Is it really considered acceptable or constructive to glorify Lovelle Mixon, a man who rapes 12-year-olds and shoots police officers while they do their jobs responsibly? Is there no editor who knows enough history to know that the police of this and any other country do not come out of “white slave patrols,” whatever that might be? Does no one see the value in correcting the implication that it was the Oakland Police Department who shot Oscar Grant? 

There is a coherent argument to be made regarding the role of the police in some neighborhoods and situations. There are a great many critiques to be made of the Oakland Police Department and its management. Unfortunately, Joseph Anderson’s commentary sets those efforts back through his haphazard pack of outdated stereotypes and generalizations. Would he really say this to the three widows left behind? Does he know those officers were people, too? 

By choosing to run the piece, the Daily Planet exercises an editorial choice. I hope it is considered more carefully in the future. It’s just bad journalism to print blatantly incorrect and misleading assertions. It’s shameful to give a soapbox to a man so twisted by his own prejudice that he will forgive for raping minors in order to condone his murders. 

Seth Katz 

Maureen Logan 

Oakland 

• 

MEN AND MONSTERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have spent a third of my 50 years in State and federal prisons. I was one of the bad guys, as hard as it is for some to believe. My crimes were fraud related. I wasn’t a violent offender, but I spent seven or more years in max and medium security prisons. In my life I’ve known a few Mixons—prisons are chock full of them and should be. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s column suggesting that Mixon was being unfairly judged on tentative DNA tests, and a commentary by Joseph Anderson, stating that the murder of four police officers was justified, payback, an eye for an eye, are glaring examples of people who don’t get it. I’ve walked among the Lovelle Mixons of the world, both in and out of prison. Guess what? They need to be in prison. Society really does need to be protected from these predatory men. I’ve seen these guys in action. In prison they prey on the weak, and they do the same on the streets. Apologists cry out, “It’s societies fault, the justice system’s fault, it’s white America’s fault, poverty did it.” Then there are the folks who can barely conceal their satisfaction, the idea that karma exacted a price for past and present wrongs. They not only excuse the killer, they blame the victim.  

Let me be really clear here, Lovelle Mixon decided to kill to avoid accountability, period. A human being who can willfully take a life to avoid accountability, to avoid a possible six- or 12-month parole violation, that type of person is called a sociopath. Now multiply that one life by four and you have a monster. These same clowns who suggest Mixon is some kind of victim, or worse yet, a martyr, would quickly brand him a monster if his violence had directly touched their own lives. It’s easy to have such high sensibility when you are observing from afar. After all the cops weren’t their family, their people. I’m an unemployed ex-convict. Race no longer is an advantage for me. I get just as many doors slammed in my face as a black ex-con. With millions of honest, non-felons unemployed, a guy like me doesn’t stand a chance competing for a position. It’s a given that the honest square guy will get the job, and really it’s only fair, right? You pay a price when you decide to willingly break the laws of society. You make a conscious decision, and that decision comes with a price. That’s how it should be, it’s fair.  

As an ex-con you have choices to make. You can man up, walk a straight line, or you can continue to be a criminal. I chose the former, Lovelle Mixon chose the latter. He was a predator, a killer, most likely a rapist, and in the end he is as close to a monster as humanly possible. Just ask the widows, the children, friends, family, and fellow officers of the four cops he killed in an effort to avoid accountability.  

Mark Smith 

Kansas City, MO 

• 

A KARMICALLY JUSTIFIED  

MULTIPLE HOMICIDE? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have a bad feeling about Joseph Anderson’s April 2 commentary. Anderson wants the violence to continue and is in fact excited about death in a very unhealthy way. In a well-ordered society he would be in a straitjacket in a mental hospital. As it is, he is going out of his way to get cops killed. That is insane. 

Lovelle Mixon was garbage. He was a rapist and a dangerous addict who would have created much more heartbreak if he hadn’t been mercifully killed by the fifth cop. To write an article like this and attempt to make him heroic is a sick and a disgraceful action directed at the volatile young African community which is desperate for peace. This commentary by Anderson is malicious mischief and will cause more murder and heartache. I think that Mr. Anderson must know this, somewhere deep in his stone cold heart. I am aghast that Becky O’Malley would publish this and I am saddened at her seeming need to stir things up in a town whose citizens want peace. Shame on you, Becky, and shame on you, Joseph. If you want excitement, learn to play a musical instrument.  

Mic Jordan 

• 

KINDERGARTNER’S DEATH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hopefully by now the bus that brings the children to daycare can drive that remaining block and let them off in the lot at Clark Kerr, rather than requiring groups of children to cross a dangerous street. The school should have seen to this from the start. Even the most experienced and conscious care provider could not have prevented a 5-year-old from breaking hand lock with another 5-year-old in a group. Is it possible to get the present status on this? 

Autumn Dann 

• 

THE MEDIA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After reading Richard Brenneman’s April 2 article, “Another Rough Month for The Mainstream Media,” I was astonished to see how many Bay Area newspapers fell under the ownership of so few publishers. However, in reflection, this is not so amazing since most, if not all, of the Bay Area newsrooms and their editors were all a member of the same clique of liberal opinion, and took their news feed from the Old Gray Lady (New York Times) and other “progressive” sources. The ironic denouement comes pitting the newsrooms, the editorial staffs, and the unions against the management, who championed the “progressive” cause. The Marxist cause of progressive newspapers now threatens to devour them from within. Nations with only one news source are usually touted as tyrannies. However, most people still associate America with diversity and freedom even though America’s newspapers are void of both. I believe journalists are in the business to “make a difference,” but can there really be a difference when all the newspapers publish the same “news” and carry the same “opinions”? 

A solution may lie in reviewing the common political paradigm of the editorial newsrooms for the sake of the profession. If you achieve your political objective as a clique of progressives, do you really serve the cause of journalism, which is to deliver to the pubic information where facts are separate from opinion? Aside from “Do you care?”, would the public not be served best by competition from journals with competing points of view? Would you buy a newspaper if it always had an opinion contrary to what you were thinking? Where would you go for news and opinion if all you had to read were clones of the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page? Don’t people buy newspapers so they can refer to them often, which one cannot do if they just listen to or see it on TV? 

Is anybody stirring the pot up in Berkeley? It’s a stagnation of thought. Is anyone challenging progressive opinion on the local front, or is a newspaper just supposed to rubber-stamp popular opinion? 

John May 

San Jose 

• 

WEST BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In these economic hard times, the City of Berkeley scrambles to meet the costs of its overpaid bureaucracy by increasing parking fees and fines and by taxing residents for services that a municipal government should be expected to provide. Downtown business revenue is drying up because commerce is conducted in shopping malls, not downtown. And where are the malls? Emeryville, Albany, and El Cerrito. Where are Target and Berkeley Toyota? In Albany! 

Meanwhile the entire area of West Berkeley is kept in general disuse by the West Berkeley Plan, an outdated 16-year-old code designed to protect the low-rent status of artisans and small manufacturers. It is irrational to protect a small class of businesses at the expense of the general citizenry. Those small manufacturers and artisans who have a viable market will survive. For those who don’t, there are rural enclaves that will welcome art and craft colonies at low rents.  

West Berkeley must be opened to much broader revenue-enhancing use: car dealerships and big-box retail near the freeway interchanges at Ashby, University and Gilman, and new technology and commerce through much of the area. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The financial predicament of the Berkeley Unified School District’s lunch program could be easily solved by closing the high school campus at lunch for ninth and 10th grade students and redefining off-campus lunch as an earned privilege for 11th and 12th grade students. The true cost to the community of an open campus in both dollars and sense includes increased truancy, lost ADA from the state, increased police staffing costs responding to crime, higher rates of drug and alcohol use during the school day, negative impact on downtown economy...the list goes on. When will the adults in Berkeley make good decisions benefiting pro-social youth development? As it stands now we are supporting administrators who are afraid to make sound decisions because they don’t want to hear the youth whine and protest. What about expecting youth to be a part of the solution? 

Laura Menard 

• 

DEFENSE BUDGET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On April 6, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proposed a bold Defense budget that cuts spending. 

I support the scaling back of a variety of programs including missile defense, the F-22 and the DDG-1000 destroyer. There are further cuts that could be made, but I support the effort to try to start turning the priorities around at the Pentagon. 

Investing in mass transit and education creates twice as many jobs as investing in the military. 

Zanne deJanvier 

• 

DENSITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Congratulations to Albert Sukoff for both correcting Richard Brenneman’s misuse of population statistics and for providing a sensible perspective on the benefits of density in creating a vibrant community. The challenge, as he points out, is accommodating more people without creating a proportional increase in automobile traffic. The city’s policy of concentrating new residential development in the downtown and along major transit corridors is intended to do just that. 

Steve Meyers 

• 

SCHMENSITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his April 2 commentary, “Density, Schmensity,” my old friend Albert Sukoff makes a good point about population density. How you define the area being described does make a difference. He claims Berkeley’s density “would drop in half” if we added “Tilden Park” to total city area, but no matter how I do the math I can’t come close to “half” the census bureau density for Berkeley of 9,822 persons per square mile. Even if I could, the proper definition is Tilden Regional Park, and since Kensington, El Cerrito, and Orinda also abut the park and their residents also pay for it and enjoy its space, it doesn’t belong to Berkeley. If we take the 2000 population of the abutting communities to pro-rate each community’s share, Berkeley could be said to “own” 69 percent of the park area. Calculated this way Berkeley would have a density of 8,084 persons per square mile—a drop, yes, but nowhere near “half.” To get to half of the census bureau density Albert would have to add the bureau’s count of Berkeley’s “water area” plus 100 percent of Tilden. But then to be consistent, wouldn’t he have to recalculate the density of Manhattan Island to include half of the Hudson and East rivers?  

Census data is always fun to parse. For example if you check the census data for the zip code in Berkeley where Albert lives, the density is 5,357 persons per square mile. In zip code 94703, which bears the brunt of our current City Council’s development approvals, such as the Trader Joe’s project, the density is 14,980 persons per square mile, almost three times as high.  

I don’t know enough about Albert’s New Jersey examples to do more than note that he doesn’t mention the city where he grew up (density: 3,570 persons per square mile). Does he know the Los Angeles suburbs he cites? Wild horses could not drag me back to most of them, but I do kind of like Hermosa Beach, which he says has “over 13,000 persons per square mile.” It’s right next to Manhattan Beach, where I grew up and where residential real estate prices are about 15 percent higher. On the other side of Manhattan Beach are an oil refinery and a power plant; Hermosa’s other neighbor is a yacht harbor. Manhattan’s beachfront is indistinguishable from Hermosa’s. So why the difference in values? Manhattan’s density is 8,614 persons per square mile. Maybe, schmaybe, there’s something to density after all, something that even realtors can appreciate. 

Christopher Adams 

• 

TOBACCO AND RODEO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Tobacco causes more deaths in the United States than HIV, illegal drugs, alcohol, motor vehicles injuries, suicides and murders combined.” 

A recent report by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration showed a 30 percent increase in the rate of smokeless tobacco use among boys aged 12 to 17 from 2002 to 2007. This includes snuff and chewing tobacco.  

The use of such products increases the risk of oral cancer as well as heart disease, stroke and emphysema. It leads to nicotine addiction just like cigarette smoking. I should know—tobacco has killed about half my family. 

How is it, then, that U.S. Smokeless Tobacco is the principal sponsor of Hayward’s Rowell Ranch Rodeo in May? Animal cruelty aside, this hardly fits in with rodeo’s “wholesome family entertainment” image. 

Those concerned should contact the Rodeo Committee and the Hayward Area Recreation & Parks District (HARD) at 1099 E Street, Hayward, CA , 94541.  

Eric Mills 

Action for Animals 

Oakland 

• 

CONSCIOUS EFFORT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A massive National Cancer Institute study in a recent issue of Archives of Internal Medicine corroborates dozens of earlier findings linking meat consumption with premature deaths and reaffirms the role of lifestyle in determining our life expectancy. 

The 10-year study of 545,653 Americans found that those consuming the equivalent of a small hamburger were 33 percent more likely to die, mostly from heart disease and cancer, than those who ate the least meat. 

Last October, a study of 16,000 people in 52 countries, published by the American Heart Association, found that a “western” diet of meat, fried foods, and salty snacks raised the risk of heart attacks by 35 percent. Conversely, a diet rich in fruits and vegetables reduced heart attack risk by 30 percent. A 24-year study of 88,517 female nurses, published in last April’s Archives of Internal Medicine found that those who ate lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, reduced their risk of heart attack and stroke by 24 and 18 percent, respectively. 

A landmark review of 7,000 diet and health reports, released in the fall of 2007 by the World Cancer Research Fund, found a “convincing” link between consumption of meat and an elevated risk of colon cancer, as well as a “likely” link with cancers of the lung, stomach, pancreas, esophagus, prostate, and uterus. 

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly we condemn regulatory authorities for traces of toxins in our food or water, while ignoring the much larger dietary health threat of animal products. 

Jeff Garner 

Walnut Creek 

• 

PUBLIC NOTICING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

More visibility for vacancies on public bodies is clearly appropriate and needed. 

Whatever happened to public noticing of meetings of city agencies and of vacancies on such important bodies as the Housing Authority boards, the Housing Advisory Commission, Commissions on Aging and on Disability? The mayor’s office lady informs that noticing now consists of a reference in the City Council agenda. Apparently, mention in his newsletter is also considered public noticing.  

How many persons qualified to fill the reconstituted Berkeley Housing Authority board’s several vacancies have known and are going to know in a timely, affirmative fashion of their existence? (Calls to the BHA get a recording; messages left requesting “closing date[s],” etc., are not returned.) One wonders how many potential candidates for the library board’s recent vacancy were enabled to know of its existence in a timely, affirmative fashion. 

Law dictionaries’ definitions of the verb “to notice”: “to give legal notice to, and or of, the public or persons affected, usually by publication in a newspaper of general circulation.” Public notice is a formal official announcement in a newspaper or prominent place where everyone can know about something that is going to happen. (In the dim past, noticing included “box” notices published in the Berkeley Daily Planet.)  

Scheduling of all meetings of city agencies and bodies should be provided in a timely fashion that enables posting on the city’s own website Community Calendar as well as the Daily Planet’s Community Calendar. 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

• 

UNIQUE NOUN PRICING SYSTEM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The subject matter of recent letters brought to mind a revenue scheme to keep the Planet in our newsstands. While speech is indeed free, the printed word costs money. In the Planet’s marketplace of ideas it should be possible to defray costs by monetizing popular terms. Google has made a fortune using a similar concept in their AdWords system. 

Rather than bidding for placement as with Google, every backgammon player should be familiar with the patent-free concept of upping the stakes via the doubling die. Unlike the die, we’d use linear pricing where each unique noun becomes more expensive based on its popularity. First use of a noun costs nothing, second use adds 10 cents, third adds 20 cents, fourth adds 30 cents, and so on. This makes a single-use noun free, otherwise the total noun cost is evenly split. This promotes the minority voice and appeals to the socialist ideal of dividing costs evenly. 

How will this work in practice? For the letters column of March 26 the most popular noun and 10th most common word (of 1,721 unique lowercase terms) was “israel” with 76 uses (stemming rules applied). That calculates to $292.60 or $3.85 for each use. The second most frequent noun, “jew,” is used 30 times or $1.55 per use. The third noun is “planet” with 21 uses. (My suggestion is to make this one free to support your brand.) Fourth, “people” at 19 x $1. And so on with subsequent nouns “sinkinson,” “state,” “anti-semitism,” etc.  

Applied to the letters as a whole, this simple process yields over $700. While someone could game the system with incorrect spelling, I believe this scheme is self-policing because no one wants to look like a fool in print. 

John Vinopal 

• 

GRAFFITI PROBLEMS  

IN BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What does it take to get graffiti abated on commercial property in your neighborhood? It turns out, constant communication on the behalf of the neighbors—in fact, a year’s worth. Berkeley needs a better solution to this increasing blight. Studies have proven that lack of remediation contributes to increased tagging and graffiti. Property owners and managers must share our mutual interest in making commercial corridors appear as conductive and inviting to potential business owners and customers. Property littered with graffiti detracts from the quality of life for all around it. 

Neighbors rejoiced this past Friday as they succeeded in getting a property manager to repaint a commercial property that has blighted our neighborhood for over 18 months. All of our efforts were finally rewarded. The newly painted façade did wonders to lessen the blighted appearance of the area. How long will it look fresh? With the property owner’s diligence maintaining the property, hopefully a long time. Neighbors have volunteered to help with that effort. 

To all who had a hand in helping resolve this neighborhood issue, thank you. This of course, is not the end, but the beginning. Taggers have a habit of returning. Let’s all do our part to spot and discourage new graffiti—like stowing your garbage receptacles as soon as possible after pick-ups and cleaning up any tagging promptly. Repaint defaced property quickly when it occurs and encourage our city’s government to take stronger action against the vandals and negligent property owners. 

These are our neighborhoods. This is our quality of life that is affected. These are our children who are currently receiving the message that graffiti and blighted properties are acceptable. Show them you care. Possible solutions that were presented at our recent local neighborhood meeting included having the city providing graffiti artists a venue to display their art within an appropriate context and starting groups of interested neighbors (Graffiti Squads) who would volunteer to remediate local tagging. Attendance included our district representative, City of Berkeley’s Supervisor for Code Enforcement and the President of the Solano Avenue Association. These efforts and others can make a big difference to our community. 

Alesia Connelly 

and Jane Tierney 

On behalf of the Solano Avenue  

Neighborhood Association 

While Berkeley has a proud tradition of progressive politics and social justice initiatives, our public high school continues to practice tracking, inequity, and an educational experience which is so much less than it could be. The recent spate of attacks hurled at a redesign proposal and at the small schools shows that some elements of our community will go to great lengths to prevent even modest reforms. While I could make point-by-point refutations of the shoddy and non-existent statistics that underlie the claims made by these people, I think it would be better to reiterate some of the fundamental principles that have guided small schools development at the high school. 

Curriculum integration 

Small schools are conceived as learning communities which keep the same cohort of students and teachers together through the years. Classes are usually organized around a central theme or sometimes a possible career path (though plenty of students go in different directions after graduation)—and teachers collaborate closely so that content and skills are taught in an integrated way across curriculum and with a rational articulation of learning through the years. Small schools do not have smaller class size—all students have the same student to teacher ratio set by the district. The idea behind small schools is not to insist on one particular type of pedagogy or instruction. And small schools are not a panacea for all problems in education. But they do create the scale of organization that encourages flexibility and innovation. 

Equity 

Our district has been criticized over the years for continuing to reproduce the racial disadvantaging that African American and Latino students face. Sticking to the status quo means sticking to the practices that have shamed us—as seen in the documentary School Colors and in the exhaustive UC report led by Professor Pedro Noguera known as the Diversity Project. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) accreditation had one major critique of BHS—the segregation and achievement gap—and they pointed to small schools as one area where this was being addressed successfully. Extensive research shows the benefit of small schools (check out, for instance http://www.smallschoolsworkshop.org) but let me highlight some elements from my own experience working in small schools at Berkeley High for eleven years. 

Creating community, addressing social and emotional needs 

Small schools are better set up to pay attention to the social and emotional needs of young people in this crucial period of transition to adulthood. Because these schools are a defined, diverse group of students and teachers, the teachers know the students personally much better, the students know each other better, and thus each student is known well and pushed hard—they feel that someone knows their problems and cares about their success. Small schools create advisory and other structures for students to explore their identity and plan future direction. They create projects and traditions which are rites of passage for young people. They develop interdisciplinary field trips and community connections that take advantage of the vast cultural resources of our Bay Area.  

Small schools facilitate the creation of community. Students learn better, more deeply, when they care about their classmates and they construct knowledge with others. Small schools put into practice the promise of diversity offered by our complex community—allowing students to cross borders in social and academic domains. They help students care about their education, commit to the work of the class, and take initiative to go beyond basic textbook learning. 

Rigorous, powerful learning 

Small schools foster critical thinking—encouraging students to take on complex projects, to think outside the box, to work in groups and to value the success of all, and to always ask the next questions: What is the evidence? According to whom? To what end? And why does it matter? Small schools are involved with authentic assessment—measuring real achievement, not just filling in bubbles. Students carry out project based learning, portfolio reflection, and performance reviews. This encourages much more powerful, long-lasting learning. (For more on assessment issues, see an earlier piece in the June 19, 2008 edition of the Daily Planet.)  

The small schools have helped countless students who would otherwise have dropped out and given countless others a way to chart a future they can pursue successfully. They are also academically rigorous and committed to high standards. As one recent graduate wrote: “Our society, even Berkeley High alone, is incredibly diverse and in order for it to function, people of different backgrounds with different experiences need to know how to relate and live and work together. Personally, CAS absolutely prepared me for college. I am currently at Barnard College of Columbia University and I feel that my CAS education prepared me for the in-depth discussions in my classes as well as simply for academic success.” And another argued, “I’m a person who does not like sitting in a classroom or taking tests, even CAS strained me, but CAS gave me the room and the support to discover myself, my talents, my path and now I am a recognized spoken word artist/poet, and am teaching young performance artists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison while working on my undergraduate degree—all on a full scholarship.” 

Staff morale and professionalism 

Small schools build collegiality among staff, allowing teachers to break from the isolation of the single classroom. While Berkeley attracts many young, brilliant teachers who imagine they will be working in a progressive and innovative district, we lose something like 30 percent of our high school teachers every year—who report they are frustrated, isolated, and feel like failures. Small schools support and encourage teacher success, retention, and morale. 

Let’s not let the default model, which reproduces segregation and tracking, be the best Berkeley can deliver. Small schools should not be left by the school board and administration to fend for themselves, having to defend their work left and right from a barrage of attacks. Instead, we should begin to make Berkeley a model of powerful, engaged education for all students. 

Former Berkeley High teacher Rick Ayers is an adjunct professor of education at the University of San Francisco.

In response to Joe Eaton’s March 19 column, “Restoration at the Berkeley Meadow”: There is no restoration at the meadow. There is instead a development. The original area was under the sea, which was, as you say, filled with refuse. 

But you deceive your readers by not saying that a wonderful wilderness grew over the landfill, which so many of us who have lived in the East Bay enjoyed for more than a generation. 

Then one day, a few years ago, it was, through bullying and back-room politics and with complete disregard for the general public, taken over and turned into the private property of a special interest group that included the names you mention, along with Norman La Force, Robert Cheasty, Arthur Feinstein and others whose names I don’t know, 

It was a vital wilderness with plenty of birds and other wildlife where UC students and school kids would come for field studies and where everyone was welcome to enjoy the wonders of what we call nature, which was a huge blessing in this age when such wilderness was becoming more and more rare. 

But those, whom you accept and support, fenced it and clear-cut it and now develop at taxpayers’ expense into a private garden where no one is allowed. 

Yes, they have left in it an ugly fenced-in narrow path for public use, but no one uses this except as a short cut from West Frontage to Marina Boulevard. 

In actual fact there are less birds there, including raptors, than before the clear-cut and the fence. Gone are the flocks of blackbirds and finches and who knows what other birds, and gone too are the rabbits and other rodents and the hawks who would feed on them, and gone of course are the fields of fennel and lace and so many other plants that you call “weeds.” 

Who are you to call anything a weed? Who are you to talk about “non-native” life? You and I and those you support are as non-native as most of California and indeed the planet, which is ever-changing and evolving. 

A self-supporting ecosystem grew in that landfill that was as free as the air we breathe, and the birds and the other wildlife and the rest of us were perfectly happy with sit until those you support came in and fenced it with signs that read, “Do not enter, Restricted Property.” 

In the meantime you write your column as if all this is perfectly acceptable, never once mentioning the loss of not only the wildlife but the freedom of people to enjoy it. 

There is no justifiable reason for that area, as huge as it is, to be fenced and restricted, including the baloney about dogs which was just an excuse for the takeover. 

That young and innocent wilderness could have remained as free and open as the one in Tilden and the UC Study Area in the Canyon, instead it has become as much a private property as that which has already taken over so much of the state and the country. 

It seems you pride yourself as a lover of nature, but you write for a community newspaper, and in doing so you are also part of a community, and you have as much responsibility to it as anyone else. Your silence regarding this subject is the same as that of any other that stands by passively while an outrage is committed. 

Pete Najarian is a Berkeley resident.

After puzzling over the “newsrack correction notices” littering downtown, I finally extracted copies of last week’s East Bay Express and Daily Planet, where I learned the full story of the city’s War on Newsracks. 

Yikes. Apparently some city staff members—notably, one Code Enforcement Supervisor Gregory Daniel—are determined that we make fools of ourselves all over again. I urge you all to stop this from happening. 

The city manager clearly has the administrative (“ministerial”) authority to indefinitely suspend Mr. Daniel’s sudden threats against newsrack owners. I urge City Manager Kamlarz to exercise that authority immediately. The underlying ordinance has apparently been on the books for 10 years, without ever being enforced. So there’s clearly no hurry to begin enforcement. 

As for the elusive ordinance itself, the City Council has the authority to permanently repeal it. I urge them to do so promptly. Berkeley survived fine without a Nice Newsracks Ordinance until 1999, and we’ve survived another 10 years without its ever being enforced. This law’s very existence seems to invite highly selective enforcement, at best. At worst, it threatens to bankrupt struggling publishers, and to thoroughly humiliate the city. Can we please just get rid of it? 

The Express article wasn’t shy about asking two questions that are probably on the minds of the council’s other constituents: With newspapers, large and small, either closing or threatened, why is Berkeley staff suddenly choosing now to add to their woes? And, for a city whose founding and modern identities were each forged around the free exchange of ideas, what is the logic of squeezing publishers? 

To those two, I’ll add two more questions: When did a newsrack—in whatever state of disrepair—ever harm anyone? And with an economic disaster trickling down to Berkeley households—not to mention people without roofs over their heads—what nitwit decided that beautifying newsracks should suddenly become a priority for city staff? 

If anyone can make a case that the city should be wasting time on this nonsense, then funds or in-kind resources should be flowing in the exact opposite direction. Instead of fining publishers who have already become the victims of vandals and vigilantes, the city should be subsidizing the repair of their newsracks. 

Thanks to the manager and council for considering this request to act promptly to prevent further harm to publishers who have already been victimized by taggers and vigilantes. 

Michael Katz is a Berkeley writer.

As a human rights lawyer and former professor, I think it is necessary to add three facts to the story about the Spanish judge considering indicting six Bush administration officials for violating international law. 

First: the Convention Against Torture is not only against torture. The full title of the treaty is the International Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Water boarding is clearly degrading treatment, and cruel, even if Yoo and Bybee can argue that it is not torture. 

The United Nations General Assembly that adopted the Convention Against Torture included lawyers and political leaders. They knew it was important to define illegal acts to cover the range of procedures followed by officials conducting interrogations all over the world. 

In the United States, we don’t just say the First Amendment protects free speech. We include the other words in the Amendment—freedom of association and freedom of assembly. Police officers can not argue that they were not violating freedom of speech when they arrested a peaceful non-speaker at a rally. 

Second: as a signatory to the Convention Against Torture, the United States is required, and made a commitment, to make periodic reports to the U.N. Committee Against Torture every four years, to attend the meetings when the Committee discusses the U.S. report. They agreed to respond to the Concluding Observations of the Committee listing actions the government should take before the next report. And the U.S. agreed to publicize the text of the treaty and the Committee actions. 

Under Bush-Cheney, as under Clinton, the United States filed its reports very late, and largely ignored the Concluding Observations of the Committee. 

There is a penalty for such actions, or refusals to act, by the United States government. Resentment against U.S. policies grows abroad, where there is much more coverage of actions of the Committee Against Torture. And today interrogating officers in the United States are not being trained to limit their actions to those not prohibited under the treaty and its interpretations by the Committee. 

Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, working for peace law and human rights in Berkeley since 1965, learned very directly the importance of working with U.N. committees under treaties ratified by the United States. When we sent Judge Claudia Morcom (ret.) of Detroit to Geneva in 2005, she raised questions about discriminatory treatment of Katrina victims with the U.N. Human Rights Committee that administers the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, another treaty we have ratified. The U.S. should have mentioned this problem in its report. After being questioned by Committee members, U.S. government officials later came back with statements that more money was being sent and there would be an investigation of charges of discrimination in rescue operations. 

MCLI convinced the City of Berkeley to make the reports required under the Torture Convention and two other human rights treaties the U.S. has ratified. This has heightened awareness of these rights at City Hall. 

Third: every person has a right to human dignity under the U.N. Charter preamble. It is spelled out in each of the three human rights treaties the United States has ratified. We need to make this right as well known as the right to freedom of speech and religion, to habeas corpus, and to civil rights. MCLI’s new booklet, Undoing the Bush-Cheney Legacy: A Tool Kit for Lawyers and Activists describes the many recent U.S. laws that violate this concept. Our website for further information is www.mcli.org. 

Ann Fagan Ginger is executive director of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute.

The March 19 edition of the Daily Planet contained three letters to the editor criticizing the proposal for an express lane on Telegraph Avenue. Two of these letters were from Oakland, and the third was from India. No one from Berkeley wrote in to criticize the express lane! So I think the proposal has passed its first real test of public acceptance within Berkeley. I encourage anyone in Berkeley, and especially anyone who lives or works in the neighborhoods surrounding Telegraph, to write in with any criticism they might have about the proposal. 

Oakland residents David Vartanoff and Steve Revell raised the issue of the effect of the express lane on neighborhoods, an issue that people in Berkeley have been trying to raise about Bus Rapid Transit for months. While I suspect that the express lane would improve North Oakland by reducing congestion, I believe that any project which transforms a major street should require the approval of each neighborhood it impacts. I would not want to force an express lane onto any neighborhood that didn’t want it, which, I am proud to say, sets me apart from AC Transit. Fortunately, the express lane could be built in sections, it does not need to extend all the way from Berkeley to San Leandro to be a useful transportation improvement. 

I would like to respond to some of the detailed statements made in the letters, to clarify the express lane proposal and to back up my claim that it would be a better choice than BRT. 

The express lane would not be another freeway. The existing speed limits of 25 and 30 mph would be retained, so traffic would not move any faster than it currently does. The underpasses would allow the traffic in the express lane to move continuously at the speed limit, which would move cars, trucks, and buses into and out of Berkeley in a shorter period of time. Also, the express lane would not carry through traffic like the freeway. The vehicles in the express lane would be the same vehicles that are currently on Telegraph, people traveling to and from local homes, schools, and businesses. The express lane would pull vehicles from the right hand lanes of Telegraph, simplifying parking and reducing collisions between bicyclists and vehicles. The AC Transit 1R bus could drive in the express lane to avoid traffic lights, then merge into the right hand lane to pick up and drop off passengers at the curb. 

The express lane appears to be in a similar price range as BRT. Although it can be very expensive to build vehicle underpasses and pedestrian bridges, BRT is also extremely expensive. People tend to assume that, because BRT won’t really accomplish much, it won’t be expensive, but they are wrong. Cost estimates for BRT range up to $400 million, an amazing amount of money to spend on a bus lane that might have to be removed in a few years to ease congestion. If that money was spent on the express lane, future generations of bus passengers and automobile drivers could both benefit from reduced congestion. 

The express lane would benefit public transit and the environment. Riding the bus into and out of Berkeley would be faster with the express lane than with BRT. Cars and trucks would spend less time stuck in traffic, reducing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. AC Transit has stated publicly that BRT might benefit the environment if a large number of people stopped driving their cars to ride the 1R bus, but the flaw in this thinking is that bus travel is much less convenient that car travel. So much so, that just making car travel a little less convenient on Telegraph will not convince drivers to ride the bus instead. Even if Telegraph is closed down to two lanes, driving a car will still be a lot more convenient than riding the 1R bus. The express lane proposal reflects the reality that cars are not going to magically disappear, and treats them in a responsible manner. 

Moving smog from Telegraph Avenue into residential neighborhoods is not an improvement. David Vartanoff seems to feel that his neighborhood is somehow more important than mine, that he should have the right to simply move a problem from his street onto mine. Steve Revell seems to feel that my neighborhood should be sacrificed to satisfy his desire to live in a fantasy world, where moving a car from one street to another reduces its carbon emissions. People in my neighborhood are just as concerned about the environment as people anywhere else, we just don’t want to “wreck another neighborhood” to learn the obvious lesson that cars produce just as much carbon on College Avenue as they do on Telegraph Avenue. 

The express lane is still a new proposal, and needs to be refined based on feedback from the people who live and work in the neighborhoods. It is a community driven project addressing the real needs of the people whose lives it will affect, rather than something forced on us by a bunch of overpaid and out of touch bureaucrats. Instead of playing off one group of people against another group, sacrificing one neighborhood’s way of life for the improvement of another neighborhood, it is an opportunity to improve all neighborhoods and all forms of travel on Telegraph, for pedestrians, bicycles, buses, cars, and trucks. 

Russ Tilleman is a Berkeley resident.

On March 20 on the eve of the traditional Iranian New Year, President Obama offered the Iranians a “new beginning,” but acknowledged three decades of strained relations between the United States and Iran. Iran’s supreme leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei rebuffed this overture. Here’s a bit of background. 

In November 2002, my wife and I took a 16-day tour of Iran. We visited Tehran, Shiraz, Kerman, Yazd, Esfahan, Persepolis, and Bam. (Tragically, Bam was severely damaged a year later in an earthquake.) We walked around without fear; everyone was extremely friendly and curious about us and about America. We have found in our many travels that it is U.S. foreign policy, not individual Americans that many foreigners object to. Why did we visit Iran? Because there are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, representing about 27 percent of the world’s population. This means that one in four persons is a follower of Islam. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Thus, we feel it is important to try to understand this religion and countries with a Muslim majority, especially since this is the world’s current hotspot. We have visited Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, and Indonesia, as well as Israel.  

Not all Muslims are Arabs and not all Arabs are Muslims. Only about 13 percent of practicing Muslims are Arab. Iranians prefer not like to be calleds Arabs. They are Persians. The word “Iran” comes from the word “Aryan.” The Persian language is Indo-European; it is barely related to Arabic. About half of Iran’s estimated 65 million people are Persian. One fourth are Turks. Eight percent are Gilanis and Mazandaranis; 7 percent are Kurds; and the rest are Arabs, Lurs, Beluchis and Turkmens. Only 58 percent speak Persian or Farsi; 26 percent speak some sort of a Turkish dialect. And presently there are thousands of Afghan refugees in the country. Persia was the first superpower of the ancient world. It started in the 7th Century B.C. as a small southern province named Parsa (now Fars). Hence the names Persia and Farsi. 

Ninety-nine percent of Iran’s population is Muslim, of which 80 percent are Shiites and about 19 percent are Sunnis. The remaining 1 percent are Christians, Jews, Bahais, and Zoroastrians. The Shiites believe that Ali, Mohammad’s first cousin and son-in-law, succeeded Mohammad at his death in AD 632, because that’s what the Prophet decreed. The Sunnis believe that after the Prophet died, the leader must be selected in the pre-Islamic way, i.e., through consensus among the community’s elders, and do not recognize Ali as the Prophet’s successor. Although Shiites are the majority in Iran, they make up a minority in the rest of the Muslim world. 

By looking at a map, it is clear that Iran is strategically located in the Middle East. It is the only land bridge between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Iran shares borders with Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. It is one of the few countries whose borders were not carved out by European colonial powers. It is considered the intellectual giant of the region. It has 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves and has the second largest natural gas reserves. After oil, the major exports are carpets and pistacchio nuts.  

In 1979, Iran’s monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and replaced with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989), the leader of the revolution. The Islamic Revolution is still ongoing, trying to balance Islamic principles with democratic principles.  

Why does Iran consider the United States its enemy? Among our crimes are formenting a military coup that restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne and bolstering him with millions of dollars in arms; tilting toward Iraq in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war; shooting down a civilian Iran passenger plane in 1988, killing all 290 passengers (the warship’s commander was not punished; he was given the Legion of Merit); favoring Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and in 1995 imposing a total embargo on dealings with Iran by U.S. companies, including blocking much needed loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. (While there is an official embargo, trade between the United States and Iran did skyrocket in 2008.) 

Of course, the United States cannot forget the 1979 seizing of the American embassy in Tehran and the holding of Americans hostage followed by the ill-fated attempt to rescue them. In addition, Iran is suspected of complicity in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut killing more than 60 people; and later that year, bombing a U.S. military compound killing 241 American servicemen; supporting the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah; aiding “terrorist” activity in the current Iraq war; and finally U.S. concern about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons.  

However, Iran can no longer blame an American conspiracy for every ill faced by the country. Most Iranians don’t buy this anymore. The country’s economic system is extremely inefficient largely because of corruption and mismanagement. Eighty percent of the economy is controlled by the government. The constitution mandates that the economy be managed according to Islamic principles, but nobody seems to know what that means. The population of the country is about 70 million with two-thirds of the population under 30. The unemployment rate for the 15 to 24 age group is 24.6 percent. This age group is too young to remember the Shah or the Islamic Revolution. They want more freedom and more fun.  

I agree that President Obama must attempt sincere diplomacy with Iran. After all, this is much more productive than sabre-rattling. But with all this historical baggage, the task will not be an easy one.  

Ralph E. Stone is a retired Bay Area attorney. 

As an Oaklander watching the memorial services for the four slain Oakland police officers, I was astonished and disturbed when Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums did not speak at the service. I could not imagine a situation where the entire nation is watching and law enforcement officers are attending in force yet the Mayor of the City in mourning does not speak. I later came to understand that several of the officers’ families requested that the Mayor not participate in the ceremony and that the Mayor honored their wishes. It was disappointing to learn that such a request was made. 

At a time of such public tragedy, it is unfortunate that the families and or members of the Department would encourage and condone such a public humiliation of the Mayor. After all, this was a public event, paid for with public funds attended by thousands many of whom came from across the country to pay respect for their fellow officers. To expressly preclude the Mayor, whose eloquence is unmatched, from speaking was essentially a public slap in the face. How could this happen, particularly when comments from family, friends and fellow officers stated how much the fallen officers loved being Oakland police officers. 

I can only imagine that the men must have expressed their discontent with the Mayor’s policies toward the Department. Notwithstanding such expressions, this was truly a time for healing and not for carrying out political and personal vendettas. The better angels in those families and their advisors should have ensured that this is a time for healing, and that everyone in the City, especially the Mayor should be embraced. 

This public slight was even more pronounced when state-wide political leaders such as Attorney General Jerry Brown, and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer were given prominent speaking roles during the ceremony yet Oakland’s highest ranking public officials, the Mayor and Congresswoman Barbara Lee did not speak.  

To add insult to injury, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the Chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus, was present on the platform yet she also did not speak, nor was she even acknowledged. To their credit both the Mayor and the Congresswoman stayed for the entire ceremony. 

The memorial service was a fine tribute to the officers’ who lost their lives while working for the people of Oakland. Of course the planners of the event were certainly entitled to have the ceremony of their choice, particularly if it was paid for with private funds; but to the extent that public funds were being utilized there should have been acknowledgment of the City’s leaders who made it possible. 

This was a golden opportunity to bridge the gap between the Oakland police department, the community and Oakland public officials, particularly at a time when everyone in the city is feeling the pain of this tragedy. Ron Dellums is Oakland’s Mayor in both the good and bad times and he should have been allowed to bring greetings and to express his thoughts on behalf of the residents of Oakland. Unfortunately this was a lost opportunity. 

John Burris is an Oakland attorney.

When the full story is finally told, and though not likely freely admitted by many, deep within the spiritual thinking of numerous African Americans, an emotional candle will be lit in the memory of Lovelle Mixon, the man who, in a horrific shootout in which he was finally killed, shot five Oakland police officers, four of whom have died. They will then say to themselves, “But for the grace of God I could have been he.” 

Mixon, whom family and friends say was not a monster, “he didn’t walk up and down the street killing people,” was by many accounts a marginally normal person in African American neighborhoods. But the truth of the matter is, Lovelle Mixon, who, police say, is suspected of an earlier killing and rape, represented the man to whom society had given almost nothing, the man of whom society expected nothing. Lovelle Mixon was America’s worst nightmare—the black man with nothing to lose. 

The line between those of us who have something to lose and those of us who don’t is tenuous at best. In many cases the line of separation is almost invisible. Virtually every African American has a family member or knows someone who has been to jail or prison, or remains there today. There are no economic boundaries to this truth. Is there one African American oriented church located in the black communities that doesn’t have a ministry that outreaches to the incarcerated? Likely no. 

The day before the East Oakland shootout this writer was on the phone talking to a long time friend whose husband had been released last year from Angola prison after serving 25 years. Louisiana paroled him to California where he landed a job with a CalTrans program for parolees. 

Too bad Mixon, who had been trying to get a job, wasn’t guided toward that program. But chances are it wouldn’t have done any good. 

Even though African Americans are just 13 percent of the population, we currently comprise 50 percent of the U.S. prison population. Many might say this is because during the 1990s President Clinton enacted draconian drug laws that unfairly were weighted against blacks. Although this situation has always existed, the criminally lopsided racial disparities of those who are sent to prison were widely existent as far back as the era of slavery. In the early 19th century in several states that outlawed slavery blacks made up 50 percent of those who were incarcerated. 

What this should signal to those who are paying attention is that the U.S. doesn’t have a clue when it comes to creating racial equality. 

Everything that has resulted from the civil rights movement, up to and including the limited efforts at affirmative action, in actuality is little more than window dressing. Many have benefited but a huge and growing black and Latino underclass simmers. 

Despite the rapid influx of immigrating cultures in recent decades, the U.S. mostly still conforms to the example of the apple. At the apple’s core exists the historic white/black dichotomy. Around the core revolves the more recently arrived or peripheral cultures. 

It is for this reason that in America the issue of race is almost always a significant factor in every significant issue, from the destruction of the economy to March Madness. 

With all due respect and sympathy to the survivors of the fallen it has to be noted the deceased officers, all white, lived in Tracy, Danville, Concord and Castro Valley. The white officers, who on a daily basis, travel from mostly white America to patrol black and Latino America is not a unique situation. Anyone who has seen the film, The Battle of Algiers, will immediately recognize the situation for what it is: occupation. 

It’s the same in most U.S. cities. It’s true in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and most definitely, perhaps especially, given its unwarranted progressive reputation, Berkeley. 

Of course in all similar situations it’s never just an issue of color—nor is it just an issue of an occupation force keeping their booted heels on the necks of the oppressed. Because within the dialectics of progressive philosophy it’s a time-honored truism that capitalism tends to turn its opposites into itself. 

Thus it has become that in a multitude of circumstances blacks often have become the oppressors of blacks—regardless of whether they belong to the local police agencies or Crips and Bloods type criminal organizations. In some cases, as has been alleged in regards to several elements of the Oakland Police Department, the line between paramilitary and criminal agencies has become vague, perhaps even disappeared. 

It is believed in some quarters that an investigation into the possible blurring of distinction between some members of the Oakland Police Department and criminal formations in the city is what led to the assassination of Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey. 

All of the media, all the local and state political classes will come together to honor the murdered police officers as heroic defenders of the state. There will be great and emotional public displays of grief. Bagpipes will be ubiquitous as California’s paramilitary organizations gather to honor their fallen comrades. 

The bagpipes, played at the funeral of all police and fire department funerals in the US indicate it is those agencies through which the Irish were allowed entrance into the U.S. middle class 200 hundred years ago—a privilege not extended to African Americans in any numbers until just one generation ago. 

But for those who experience the daily tactics and attitudes of the paramilitary occupation forces, distrust and questions will remain. 

The Oscar Grant demonstrations, in protest of his New Year’s Day shooting by a BART police officer, should continue. 

Jean Damu is an East Bay resident.

The light brown apple moth (LBAM) aerial pesticide spray that threatened the Bay Area last year shocked many local residents into awareness of the risks of exposure to mass pesticide applications and has inspired Assemblymember Sandré R. Swanson (D-Oakland) to introduce the Clean Air for Children, Seniors, and Working Families Act (AB 622).  

While the fight over the safety, necessity, and fiscal waste of the LBAM program continues, we write as health care professionals to urge your support of AB 622, which creates a large aerial pesticide spray safety zone around areas where those who are most sensitive to pesticide exposure congregate: schools, hospitals, day care centers, residential care homes, senior centers, residential areas, and farm labor camps. 

Aerial spraying is an outdated, inefficient practice that poses unacceptable exposure risks. Multiple scientific and government sources including the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment estimate that about 40 percent of an aerial pesticide application leaves the “target area” and that less than 1 percent actually reaches the “target pest.” 

Airborne pesticide exposure is responsible for acute poisonings and for chronic illnesses including asthma, cancer, neurological disorders, birth defects, miscarriages, and other reproductive effects. The Environmental Working Group’s 2004 “10 Americans” study found 287 industrial chemicals in umbilical cord blood, including numerous pesticides, for example DDT, which was banned more than 30 years ago. Our children cannot wait for us to take action on their behalf. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emphasizes that children are at a greater risk from pesticide exposure for many reasons, including that “[c]hildren's internal organs are still developing and maturing and their enzymatic, metabolic, and immune systems may provide less natural protection than those of an adult” and that toxic exposure during critical periods in children’s development can permanently alter the way their bodies function. Furthermore, when exposed to aerial spray, children receive a larger dose: pound for pound, they breathe more pesticide-contaminated air than an adult. 

The elderly and those already ill are especially susceptible to adverse effects from pesticide exposure because of the extra vulnerability of their respiratory systems, their lower immune function, and their inability to break down and eliminate toxic substances from their bodies. Even basic texts for pest control applicators note the extra risks to these sensitive populations and urge caution when pesticide applications cover areas occupied by children, the elderly, or the sick. 

And farm workers and their families who live adjacent to agricultural fields that are regularly sprayed are at very high risk for the cumulative effects of pesticide exposure. 

AB 622 aims to protect all of these most vulnerable populations by establishing a more than three-mile aerial spray safety zone around sensitive sites so that people in those areas can live, work, and go to school without fear of pesticide exposure. 

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) reports the numbers of people poisoned by aerial pesticide spray exposure annually. However, these numbers represent only reported incidents of acute poisoning; they do not account for the long-term effects of pesticide exposure, such as cancer and birth defects. And there is likely significant underreporting as DPR itself acknowledged in a 2007 Consensus Statement on the LBAM spray: “DPR’s surveillance system, like others, under detects pesticide illnesses for various reasons, including that pesticide illnesses may mimic other illnesses and that physicians and patients may not ascribe symptoms to pesticide exposure.” 

Scientists at the Pesticide Action Network estimate that the real number of Californians whose health is affected by aerial pesticide spraying is anywhere from 10 to 100 times greater than DPR reports, which means that tens of thousands of people are likely affected annually. 

What kinds of health effects are we talking about? 

A previously healthy 11-month-old baby developed life-threatening respiratory problems after the LBAM aerial spray over his home in Monterey County last year and spent his first birthday in the hospital. He remains on asthma medication today. 

A Fresno County mother was aerially sprayed by a crop duster while walking to the grocery store with her two-week-old baby, who developed asthma; the mother developed a high fever and rash. 

These are two of the thousands of children and families who will be protected by AB 622 from aerial pesticide exposures during their daily activities at home and at school. 

Already a strong coalition including the California Nurses Association, United Farm Workers, and Healthy Child, Healthy World has spoken out in support of AB 622. We face stiff opposition from wealthy industrial agriculture and chemical companies. Don’t let special interests hijack this attempt to protect our health. We must stop toxic spraying over our communities forever. 

Robert Lieber, RN, works in infant critical care and is a member of the Albany City Council. Lynn Elliott-Harding, RN, is a psychiatric nurse in private practice in Oakland and is the mother of a child with asthma. 

These days when I’m not sad or angry because something else vital is lost or threatened, I tend to feel grateful. After all we live in a paid off house, I retired last June, and while life is hardly bon-bons on the couch, any or all of five days a week I can exercise and laugh at Senior Aqua Aerobics at the West Campus City pool with the rest of us aging polar bears and our wonderful Fearless Leader, Yassir. 

But of course—you knew this was coming—Berkeley’s aquatics programs and facilities are about to face major change. In the coming weeks, after consultants and a Pools Task Force spent a gazillion hours (and more than a few bucks) in research and eye-glazing meetings, the City Council will be presented with some “options.” It’s intended that one will be chosen to become a bond issue for the June, 2010 ballot, which will propose badly needed renovations and upgrades at the three outdoor neighborhood pools (King, Willard, and West Campus.) 

The Warm Pool quandary 

But the gorilla in the locker room, and the main reason it has come to this, is the dilemma of the “Warm Pool,” heated to 92 degrees (about ten degrees more than your average public pool), serving people with a wide range of ages, disabilities and needs, and located for decades in the Berkeley High gymnasium building. Most pool regulars—who suffer with a wide range of debilitating conditions from severe chronic pain to auto-immune diseases, congenital illnesses and more—see the pool as a lifeline.  

Often it is the only therapy that offers them even partial relief. Dona Spring, the profoundly disabled longtime District Four Council representative who died last year, was a regular user, and of all her many causes, keeping a warm pool in Berkeley may have been the closest to her heart. (Incidentally, the “warm” pool at the YMCA is 86 degrees—not high enough for most Warm Pool users.) 

This group has advocated many times to save their treasured facility from various threats. Several years ago—before the BUSD decided to tear down and rebuild the gym complex—Berkeleyans voted to spend some $3.4 million to upgrade and retrofit the pool, and many thought the problem might be solved. But it didn’t work out that way. The money could be spent only at the BHS location, and after years of back-and-forth with the City, the School Board finally said the building was coming down and the pool had to be relocated. 

The question was, where to? Turned out West Campus was the best choice. But to keep costs down—remember, the economy is in free-fall—the task force scrapped an earlier, more expensive option that would have pleased both Warm Poolers and the West Campus neighborhood, in favor of two that would repair the outdoor pool (though not open it until revenue is found) and dramatically reduce the size of the new Warm Pool.  

And there’s the rub. Warm Pool people know how important the size is, because much of the time the pool is open, there is both individual and group or class use, and the 1400 square foot proposal simply wouldn’t be big enough to accommodate both. 

Could there be a solution?  

I think the answer is yes. If the BUSD would offer a modest number of additional square feet to the north of the site, the new Warm Pool would get big enough to really work, as the current one does. So far, I’m told district representatives have said they would offer only the exact current footprint that two City pools occupy at the site, and this mandates a Warm Pool half the size that’s needed. The users are demoralized and many are not eager to work to pass such a bond. 

Though not on the Pools Task Force, I’ve attended many meetings and I’m writing this mainly because I believe we as a community owe those who need it so badly a warm pool that will serve their needs. Like curb cuts and accessible buildings, simply put, it’s a moral obligation. And it would be a fitting memorial to both Dona Spring and Fred Lupke (a wheelchair-bound activist and Warm Pool user who was struck and killed by a car a few years ago.)  

Of course, we know that the School Board’s main mission is to meet the needs of Berkeley youngsters, and that they’ve suffered tight budgets and many cuts ever since Proposition 13 passed in 1979. Yet I doubt such a small but vital offer would compromise their goals significantly—and it would make such a big difference for this crucial community service. 

That would leave the question of meeting the aquatic needs of the (underserved) West Campus neighborhood. I think it’s possible that the Warm Pool itself could do part of the job—especially swim lessons for young children, who might welcome the 92 degree temperature. And possibly more.  

Regarding opening the West Campus outdoor pool again, if Richmond has raised millions (public money, private donations, grants, etc.) to renovate and re-open their Plunge—and they have—surely Berkeleyans can tackle this problem.  

Yes, we’re facing hard times. But it is also a time of “Yes, we can.”  

I know I’m willing to be part of that solution. I hope you’ll join me.  

Donna Mickleson  

I was both amused and appalled by Mr. Sukoff’s statement in his April 2 commentary that “There is no reason Berkeley could not comfortably house 150,000 or even 200,0000 people and be a more interesting and dynamic place as a result.”  

To begin with, the 1955 Berkeley Master Plan’s goal of 150,000 - 200,000 citizens that Mr. Sukoff approvingly cites was based on two unsustainable assumptions.  

First that Berkeley’s then current family structure and land use pattern could and would continue unchanged, and secondly we would be able to increase our land area by filling in San Francisco Bay and extending the city’s borders to a line halfway between the Berkeley Marina and Treasure Island.  

In making his case that Berkeley has failed to “live” up to its ‘manifest destiny’ of becoming more urban, Mr. Sukoff makes the most elementary of errors by using the Census Department’s American Community Survey data without having noticed the survey is “limited to the household population and excludes the population living in institutions, college dormitories, and other group quarters.”  

It is impossible to discuss Berkeley’s density using a data source that excludes the multitudes of UC dorm dwellers. The “almost a quarter” decrease in population Mr. Sukoff bemoans simply does not exist except in his mind—Berkeley’s only statistically significant population decrease was the 11 percent decline between 1970 and 1980 when the tail end of the baby-boom generation finally left home, caused by and reflected in the demographically significant decrease in the number of persons per household over the same period. 

More seriously, in his cheerleading for a doubling Berkeley’s density, Mr. Sukoff fails to engage in the serious ongoing discussion of who lives in Berkeley today and who will be able to live here in the future. Berkeley is beginning its required update of the Housing Element of its General Plan (today’s version of the above mentioned Master Plan). 

I urge all who are concerned with how Berkeley plans for our present and future population to attend upcoming meetings and contribute their voices to the conversation lest Mr. Sukoff his ilk succeed in sacrificing our city on the altar of “Smart Growth.” The next informational Housing Element meeting is at 7 p.m. on April 16 at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Background material on the plan can be found at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=23512. 

Simply allowing more density by granting additional development ‘rights’ to landowners and developers so they can build yet more market-rate housing with a few crumbs thrown to parks and poor people will only accelerate the already rapid gentrification of Berkeley. A strategy of removing any remaining constraints on growth in the Downtown has been the driving force behind the Planning Commission’s perversion of the citizen drafted Downtown Area Plan that attempted to establish a balance between development rights and community wide benefits.  

Over the years Berkeley’s citizenry has responded to such big-city pretensions by our political leaders and the business interests they serve with initiatives and movements to democratically re-take control of our community’s destiny. Our successes include preserving our shoreline for recreation and the environment, retaining affordable housing through rent control, preserving the livability of our residential and commercial neighborhoods through initiatives limiting out-of-scale development and capitalism’s impulse to “creative destruction,” and most recently retaining by referendum our landmark ordinance from a gutting by development interests and their political allies. I urge Berkeley citizens to stay involved and informed—the future is upon us. 

Stephen Wollmer is a Berkeley resident.

Afghanistan is a gatherer of metaphors: “crossroads of Asia,” “graveyard of empires,” and the “Great Game,” to name a few, although it might be more accurate to think of it as a Rubik’s Cube, that frustrating puzzle of intersecting blocks that only works when everything fits perfectly. The trick for the Obama administration is to figure out how to solve the puzzle in a time frame rapidly squeezed by events both internal and external to that war-torn central Asian nation. 

At first glance, the decision to send 21,000 more U.S. troops into a conflict that has dragged on for almost 30 years seems to combine equal parts illusion and amnesia—illusion that the soldiers could make a difference, amnesia in trying something that already failed disastrously in 2005. But then, Afghanistan seems to have a deranging effect on its occupiers.  

Way back in the spring of 2005, British Lt. Gen. David Richards, then commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in southern Afghanistan, told a press conference in Khandahar that quadrupling the number of allied troops in Helmand Province would spell the end for the Taliban. Three years later Helmand is unarguably the most dangerous province in the country. 

As former British Foreign Service officer Rory Stewart argues, “when the decision to increase the number of troops in 2005 was made, there was no insurgency.” Indeed, it was the surge—and the civilian casualties which accompanied it—that ignited the current resistance movement. Back then the Taliban controlled 54 percent of the country. Today that figure is 72 percent and rising. In February, Taliban soldiers attacked Kabul, killing scores of people and besieging several government buildings. 

The illusion is that adding 21,000 troops to the 38,000 U.S. soldiers and 50,000 NATO soldiers could possibly make a difference. The United States, with 500,000 soldiers, could not prevail in Vietnam, a country of 67,000 square miles and 19 million people. Afghanistan has half again that population and 250,000 square miles of some of the planet’s most unforgiving terrain.  

As Brig. Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith, Britain’s top military officer in Afghanistan, bluntly told the Sunday Times, “We’re not going to win this war.” 

So, has the madness that seems to seize Afghanistan’s invaders infected the White House? Maybe not. 

First, if Obama were serious about a military victory in Afghanistan he would have sent 40,000 troops, not 17,000 combat troops and 4,000 trainers. The former figure—which the administration initially discussed—would fulfill the Pentagon’s formula of soldiers-to-population counterinsurgency strategy, although that is an illusion in its own way.  

Second, unlike the Bush administration, the White House has invited Iran to join a regional conference on the war, and the president has hinted that he is open to talking with the Taliban. Neither of these moves suggests the administration is only thinking in terms of a military “victory” in Afghanistan. 

In a sense the administration has little choice.  

The price tag alone should give the White House pause. According to the Congressional Research Service, Afghanistan has cost $173 billion and is on track to eventually cost $1 trillion.  

And, increasingly, the United States is on its own. In recent NATO meetings in Krakow, Poland, the Europeans made it clear that they would not join a “surge,” despite pleas by British Defense Secretary John Hutton and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Polls show a substantial majority of Germans, British, French and Italians are opposed to sending any more troops to Afghanistan. 

The United States is also facing trouble among its regional allies.  

The 2005 surge not only revitalized the Taliban, it spread the war to Pakistan and created the Pakistani Taliban that has driven the Pakistan Army out of the Swat Valley and most of the Northwest Territory and Tribal Regions. This border war has killed some 1,500 Pakistani soldiers, innumerable civilians, and cost Islamabad at least $34 billion. With the country’s economic system collapsing—inflation is rampant, unemployment skyrocketing, and the International Monetary Fund is currently keeping Pakistan afloat—aiding the U.S. war on terrorism is deeply unpopular. According to polls, 89 percent of the Pakistani population opposes it. 

The war has also ratcheted up tensions between Pakistan and India. India has deployed its paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Patrol in Afghanistan to protect its road-building projects from Taliban attacks. But for the Pakistanis, their traditional enemy now has troops on both borders. Indian and Pakistan have fought three wars since the 1947 partition of the two countries, and India is currently in the middle of a major expansion of its military.  

An agreement with the Bush administration allowing New Delhi to bypass the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty may ignite a nuclear arms race between the two countries, a race which neither can afford and which will measurably increase the possibility of nuclear war in South Asia. Both countries came perilously close to one in 1999.  

The right-wing Hindu fundamentalist BJP, jockeying for position in the upcoming Indian elections, has called for a military retaliation, including the blockade of the port of Karachi, for the recent attack on Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants.  

In the meantime, the political situation within Afghanistan is growing increasingly unstable. President Harmid Karzai, once the darling of Western powers, has come under intense criticism for his regime’s widespread corruption, and there is open talk by the United States and NATO about not backing him in upcoming elections. Karzai has responded by blaming the U.S. and NATO for a 40 percent increases in civilian casualties and is threatening direct talks with the Taliban. Elections are set for August. 

And, ominously for the allies, a poll of Afghans shows a significant rise in anti-occupation sentiment, with a majority now supporting a negotiated end to the war, even if that means a coalition government that includes the Taliban. 

While Afghanistan looks increasingly unstable, the Taliban appear to be getting their act together. According to Saeed Shah of the McClatchy newspapers, Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has forged an alliance with the fractious Pakistan Taliban that will direct the power of both organizations toward fighting “the occupation forces inside of Afghanistan.” 

The pact declares a truce on attacks against “the Pakistan security forces” and “fellow Muslims in the tribal areas and elsewhere in Pakistan,” which Omar says are “harming the war against the United States and NATO forces.” 

According to retired Pakistani General Talat Masood, the pact is the reason for the recent truce in the Swat Valley and an end to the fighting in Bajaur Province in the Tribal Territories. In turn, the Pakistani Army has made it clear it has no intention of invading Waziristan, generally thought of as ground zero for the Taliban. 

However, recent attacks in Lahore and other parts of Pakistan indicate that not all of the Pakistani Taliban are on board. 

With NATO falling away, regional allies at each other’s throats, growing turmoil inside of Afghanistan, and the Taliban uniting, it is truly a “lions, and tigers and bears, oh my” moment for the Obama administration.  

But manipulated just right, the puzzle is solvable. 

For instance, while the Taliban have united to fight, Mullah Omar—through Saudi Arabian King Abdullah—also made a peace offering that no longer requires the western forces to withdraw before opening talks. The plan proposes setting a timetable for withdrawal, forming a “consensus government,” and consolidating the Taliban forces into a national army. 

The inclusion of Iran in an upcoming conference on Afghanistan draws in a key regional player that the Bush administration deliberately kept out of the process.  

To make all the cubes fit together, the Obama administration will have to recognize that the United States is only one player at the table, and that the interests of other parties, both inside and outside Afghanistan, must be given equal weight. It will also need to revisit the Bush administration’s ill-advised nuclear agreement with New Delhi, which not only increases tensions in the region, but also threatens to unravel a critically important international nuclear treaty. 

What it must avoid are an aggressive military surge like the one in 2005 that will only further destabilize Afghanistan and the dead-end tactic of refusing to talk to people you don’t agree with.

We’ve talked before about the phenomenon of what we call “yard-dog journalism,” that practice of all the dogs (or journalists, or columnists, or newspapers) on the block taking up the howling after someone walks by on the street, even though that person has done nothing peculiar, and may have passed that exact same way with no response many times before. But this time, after one of the dogs starts howling, all the others join in the clamor. Ask the last one exactly what triggered his barking this time and, if he could talk, he’d tell you “Damned if I know. All the other dogs was barking, that’s why, so I figured there must be a reason.” 

And so we have four separate local columnists taking up the story of the dissing of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums at the funeral of the four fallen Oakland Police officers, all of them—predictably—from the point of view that it is Mr. Dellums who was somehow to blame for the whole debacle. 

If you missed the story—and it’s hard to see how you could—Mr. Dellums was asked not to speak at the funeral at the request of at least one of the families of the officers. It has also been reported that one of the officers themselves may have also left instructions that Mr. Dellums not be allowed to speak if the officer were to be killed in the line of duty. And there was also some involvement in the affair by the Oakland Police Officers Association, the police union, though how deeply OPOA’s leaders’ hands were in this is not known. But actual reporting on the details have been so sparse that it’s difficult to tell from the published accounts exactly who was responsible for the disinvitation of Mr. Dellums. 

Anyhow, that hasn’t stopped our local columnists from colummenting. 

On March 29, San Francisco Chronicle political gossip columnists Philip Matier and Andrew Ross wrote that “it’s no secret that Dellums—who is often long on rhetoric and short on action—is not held in high regard among some members of the Oakland PD.” 

Meanwhile, in explaining why Mr. Dellums was asked not to speak at the funeral, Mr. Matier and Mr. Ross continued: “It didn’t help that after the March 21 killings Dellums was a no-show for several hours, before finally holding a short press conference—while others, including state Attorney General and ex-Mayor Jerry Brown and East Oakland City Council members Larry Reid and Desley Brooks, spent hours with shell-shocked cops at police union headquarters.” 

That was followed two days later by the Chronicle’s East Bay columnist, Chip Johnson, writing that “Friday’s decision [to exclude Mr. Dellums] was made in deference to the officers’ last wishes and with the support of their colleagues, but also served as a no-confidence vote from rank-and-file officers.” 

Was the decision to exclude Mr. Dellums the sentiment of the rank-and-file officers of the Oakland Police Department? Perhaps that’s true, perhaps not, but Mr. Johnson offered no evidence of that other than his own assertion. 

Mr. Johnson then went on to say that “Dellums arrived at the police officers’ union hall five hours after the shooting. A councilmember said the mayor—by his own inaction—has become ‘irrelevant’ and of no use.” 

Was Mr. Dellums “inactive” in the hours immediately following the MacArthur shootings of the four police officers? More on that in a moment. 

The Chronicle contributions to this discussion were followed on April 4 by Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune columnist Tammerlin Drummond, who wrote that “police sources told me” that Dellums was asked not to speak because “no one wanted to run the risk that Dellums would botch the men’s names—like he did with the name of another police officer at his funeral service last summer.” 

That stemmed from the fact that Mr. Dellums reportedly misstated the name and rank of Oakland Police Lieutenant Derrick Norfleet, who committed suicide last summer. 

This new assertion, that the real reason that Mr. Dellums was dissed was because he might misstate a name, was picked up the next day by Robert Gammon of the East Bay Express, who repeated it in a blog entry entitled “Dellums Too Incompetent to Speak At Funeral.” 

A public official like Mr. Dellums makes hundreds of statements and speeches in a year, and the fact that he once misstated a name in one of those public addresses is hardly a judgment of competence or incompetence. On March 18 of this year, for example, in its “corrections” column, the East Bay Express wrote that the paper’s “March 11 article ‘Separate and Unequal at Berkeley’s Small Schools’ included several errors. Student Body President Ronald Pernell was incorrectly identified as Ronald Purnell. Berkeley High Jacket editor Megan Winkelman was incorrectly identified as Megan Coleman. PTA President Mark van Krieken was identified as Mark Van Kriegan and incorrectly referred to as a supporter of small schools.” Does the inclusion of “several errors” in a story make the East Bay Express “incompetent?” No, only human. But apparently the paper has adopted a different standard for the mayor of Oakland. 

Meanwhile, in her April 4 article, Ms. Drummond gave more assertions about Mr. Dellums’ actions immediately following the MacArthur shootings: “For several hours after the shootings,” Ms. Drummond wrote, “Dellums was missing in action. He didn’t show up at the police substation at Eastmont Mall—blocks from the scene of the first shooting—for a police briefing. Councilwoman Desley Brooks, D-Eastmont-Seminary—the shootings occurred in her district—was there. So was Councilman Larry Reid, D-Elmhurst-East Oakland, who represents the neighboring district. 

“Nor did Dellums go to Highland Hospital where the wounded officers were taken for treatment. Or to any of the shooting scenes. The city’s top elected official was nowhere to be found. Dellums did not surface until much later at the Oakland Police Officer’s Association downtown where grieving, dazed officers had gathered along with city officials and a police chaplain. How on earth could Dellums have thought that monitoring a tragedy of this magnitude by telephone was the right thing to do?” 

Putting all of these columnist accounts together, you have Mr. Matier and Mr. Ross saying that Mr. Dellums was a “no-show” for “several hours” after the shootings, and only then to attend a press conference. Ms. Drummond also puts the vague term “much later” as the mayor’s arrival at the OPOA headquarters, while Mr. Johnson pegged that arrival time as “five hours.” Other than that, the three columnists all agree that Mr. Dellums did nothing in the hours immediately after the MacArthur shootings. 

But is that true? It’s hard to tell from the columnists’ accounts, since they simply assert these things as fact, without indicating a named source—either an individual or a newspaper account—from where they came. So just for my own curiosity, I called the mayor’s office to find out their account of those frantic hours on the afternoon of March 21 following the news of the police shootings. Their chronology, put together by the notes and reminiscences of three separate staff members: 

1:22 p.m. (approximately)—The mayor was notified about the shootings of the first two officers, Mark Dunakin and John Hege, through an alert sent out to key city personnel by the Fire Department. Sometime shortly afterwards, the mayor was in telephone communication with Acting Police Chief Howard Jordan, who briefed him on what was known of the situation at the time, and told him to “stand by” to receive further information as it came in. During the approximately two-hour manhunt for the shooter that followed, the mayor’s staff said that Mr. Dellums and City Manager Dan Lindheim were “in the communication loop” about the transpiring events. 

3:30 p.m (approximately)—SWAT Officers Dan Sakai and Erv Romans and Lovelle Mixon were all shot at a gunbattle in a 74th Avenue apartment where Mr. Mixon had been hiding. 

4 p.m. (approximately): Mr. Jordan briefed Mr. Dellums, Mr. Lindheim, and other key city officials by the telephone about the end of the search for the MacArthur Boulevard shooter, including the resulting gunbattle. The briefing lasted approximately 15 minutes. At that time, three of the officers were already dead and one, Mr. Hege, was at Highland Hospital in critical condition. During the call, Mr. Dellums told Mr. Jordan that he wanted to talk with the families of the fallen officers as well as the rank and file officers of the Oakland Police Department. Mr. Jordan informed the mayor that the next of kin of all of the officers had not yet been informed. Sometime during the briefing, Mr. Dellums told Mr. Jordan that he would “take his cue from the acting chief” as to when it would be appropriate for the mayor to speak with the families and the rank-and-file officers. Mr. Jordan told Mr. Dellums that the mayor should go to the Oakland Police Officers Association downtown Oakland headquarters, where officers were gathering and grief counseling was being implemented. It was at the Acting Police Chief’s recommendation that Mr. Dellums did not visit the hospital where Mr. Hege was still fighting for his life. 

4:30 p.m. (approximately)—Mr. Jordan held a preliminary press briefing at the OPD Eastmont Station about the events of the day. 

5:15 p.m. (approximately)—Mr. Dellums arrived at the OPOA headquarters and stayed for approximately one and and a half to two hours, speaking with rank and file officers. 

8 p.m. (approximately)—Mr. Dellums went to the OPD headquarters for a briefing in preparation for a 9 p.m. final press conference on the day’s events. 

Using that chronology, let’s go back, briefly, over the columnists’ assertions about Mr. Dellums’ actions on the day of the shootings. 

The assertion by Mr. Matier and Mr. Ross that Mr. Dellums appeared briefly at a press conference—while other officials were “spending hours” with officers at OPOA headquarters—appears to be simply untrue. That’s also the case for Mr. Johnson’s assertion of a “five-hour” delay in the mayor’s arrival at OPOA. Mr. Dellums arrived at OPOA headquarters approximately an hour after he was briefed by Mr. Jordan on the end of the day’s shootings. 

For her part, Ms. Drummond avoids outright misstatements of fact, but her contentions of what the mayor should have done seem odd. She implies, for example, that monitoring the situation by telephone was somehow improper, and that Mr. Dellums was derelict by not visiting the shooting scenes. Visiting the shooting scenes when, and to do what, for God’s sake? During the two-hour manhunt for the shooter, it would have been criminal interference for the mayor to come up to MacArthur and 73rd. There would have been nothing for him to do, no way for him to help, and his presence would have distracted officers and command staff from the job at hand. That, presumably, was why the mayor chose to monitor the events by telephone, which seems the prudent, proper, and normal course for an elected leader to have followed in these days of modern communications. Immediately following the shootings in the 74th Avenue apartment and the end of the hunt, the entire area of the MacArthur Boulevard and 74th Avenue shootings was a crime scene and off limits to anyone not processing evidence. The mayor did show up at the shooting scene, three days later, to participate in the touching, Tuesday evening memorial services, at the time when it was the most appropriate. Mr. Dellums’ actions on the day of the MacArthur shootings appear to have been prudent and proper, and did our city proud. Criticism of the mayor is always in order but, as they say out here in the Deep East Oakland, I wonder why these columnists keep hatin’ on him, so? 

Note: This is my 300th UnderCurrents column for the Berkeley Daily Planet. Thanks to the paper and all my readers for making this continuing long run possible. 

If I were one of Those Kids These Days and had a working laptop with WiFi, or an iPhone and faster fingers, I could’ve filed this closer to last week’s deadline. It would’ve been live from Alta Bates’ lovely and relaxing Emergency Department. As it is, I’m seizing the moment to declare myself a late casualty of Dutch elm disease. 

My street, like a few others in Berkeley, is lined with mulberry trees of the cultivar “Fruitless” or its moral equivalent. “Fruitless” is a male clone, produced by rooting twigs with male-only flowers on them. Mulberries in general have both sexes of flowers—unlike, say, hollies that have either male or female flowers on any one tree, so you need a female tree if you want berries—but each flower isn’t “perfect” or bisexual. Mulberry fruit, produced by female flowers, is delicious, hard to buy because it doesn’t ship well, and juicy: “messy” in landscaping parlance.  

I grew up with a fruiting mulberry in the neighborhood back in Pennsylvania. Our mothers hated it; we considered it our friend, clubhouse, snack bar, wonder of the world. I’ll admit to bias. 

In a slow wave after the turn of the last century, the grand elms that had graced American cities began dying of Dutch elm disease. There are still a few left, even here in Berkeley. Street trees are absolutely an advantage to cities, in terms of good old-fashioned civic pride as well as tangible health and conservation benefits. We quantify those these days, and people have accumulated hard data to back up their liking for trees in the city.  

The scramble was on to find something to replace the dying civic trees, and the techno-optimistic 1950s were just the decade to start Doing It Right. “Non-messy” trees were ideal: so easy, so advanced, so scientific! Except for the scientific part. Seizing the jargon of physics has crippled all sorts of fields, even as it has streamlined grant-writing. Nothing, as it turns out, is really all that rocketshaped. 

I’ll leave the analogies between messy gooey fluid-scattering females and neat self-contained non-cyclic males to the reader’s imagination.  

Mulberries are wind-pollinated, with small, relatively inconspicuous flowers, not those floozy accoutrements flaunted by, oh, magnolias and plums and horsechestnuts. They’re independent of bees and flies and birds for pollination; they toss their sperm packets promiscuously into the wind. 

Have you ever seen a pollen grain under a serious microscope? They tend to physical jaggediness, to cling to whatever receptive ovary they land on. More to the point, they’re proteins. Allergens, as opposed to mere irritants or other poisons, have something in common with their victims, something that triggers our immunity responses as if they were fellow biological beings. They’re organic. Our bodies think they can kill us. 

And they can, but of course indirectly.  

I’ve been living on this street for nearly 15 years, which would seem to be my personal sensitization window. I’m sitting around, as of this writing, with an arterial-blood pPO2 below 44. The combination of 20th-century landscape horticulture and 21st-century medical referral speeds just might kill me. 

Interesting times. 

I met a very nice fellow the other day. A composer. Funny how homeowners end up being something other than just…homeowners. Neat guy, writes music for films, TV, corporate films and the like. He also had the composure of a musician, smooth and philosophical. Good thing for all those involved in selling him this house, because let me tell you, it would be very easy to be acrimonious considering the experience he’s had.  

Seems the guy just bought a house way up in the hills. Must have cost a wee bit, too. Very stylish, lots of room, views to die for, and all those things that conspire to create the oh-so-modern manse. I nearly expected to see Hef lounging before the fireplace with a few bunnies. 

About a day after the musician moved into the house, there was a bit of rain, and he noticed paint sheets scrunching up on the wall downstairs from the entryway. Then water started dripping through the ceiling. Oh my! It’s not supposed to rain inside the house! He started by doing the right thing and removing some of the sheetrock from where the water was dribbling in. (This does two things: It makes it possible to examine the area where the leak is occurring and it helps to lower the atmospheric moisture level in the space, thus decreasing the growth of funguses that eat wood and all the pulpy stuff we build houses with these days.) 

He called me up and after a short while we found the leak. Funny, it was inside the door. He’d looked for several hours and run hoses all over the place and couldn’t get it to leak. Ah, but we inspectors have the magic of hindsight working for us. I’d seen my share of leaks that began their soppy work only after a windstorm blew water under the door. We both did the happy dance (his being more subtle and artistic than mine). 

Now as entertaining as all of this stuff is, it’s not what I want to talk about. It’s the porch itself. It wasn’t why he’d called me over, but when I walked down to the front door, my face turned white. The staircase—five or six steps—had solid walls all around, except for the front door, which I will refer to as “the drain.”  

Oh, there was an actual drain in this swimming pool of an entryway, but it was small and half- clogged with caulk and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t identify. When the dog drops his gooey tennis ball, it rolls into the unscreened drain. (That’s where drains are, you know, at the bottom of the incline, just waiting to take in a gooey tennis ball.) Then the next rainfall can easily put four feet of water right against the doorway—glug glug). But not to worry. The door doesn’t hold water all that well, so it will just drain right into the house to meet you when you get back from Maui, all tanned and relaxed. 

It got worse. From the front entry, the house was virtually all downstairs—one of those hillside beauties where you park on top and walk down to the living room and down some more to the bedroom. Glug, glug, glug. Oh. My. God.  

Now don’t get me wrong. The entire calamity had not happened—but hey, misery lies in wait just around the corner, does it not? So here’s what I had to say to our friend the musician: Please, oh please, add a “secondary drain.” It’s not the only thing I recommended, but it was the absolute priority. The porch’s plywood was rotting away and this damage extended back toward the exterior porch quite some distance. Since the porch would have to be ripped up and replaced anyway, I strongly advised him to install a secondary drain when he put the porch back together.  

Now what is a secondary drain? Is it just another drain? No, it’s different in a couple of respects. To answer the question, let’s get up on your flat roof. If you have a flat roof with some short (or not so short) walls, called parapets, around the edge, you have… a swimming pool—just like our friend’s entryway.  

I see these all the time. They’re everywhere. The code books demand (and good builders provide) secondary drains on these roofs. Secondary drains are elevated somewhat above the main drain. This often means that they are up on the parapet wall a few inches above the drain in the roof surface or the “scupper” in the bottom of the parapet wall.  

This placement means two things. First it means that nothing is going to readily clog this drain because it’s above the roof surface—things can’t fall into a hole that’s up on a wall. It also means that it will be clear and unused until that fateful day when the main drain clogs and the swimming pool starts to fill up. 

When we put these life-saving secondary drains in, we should not use a downspout. This may sound odd, but there’s a very good reason for it. When the secondary drain starts to discharge, it means that something is very wrong, so we don’t want it going about its business in a quiet, friendly way. We want it to splash on the neighbor’s house, or knock a trash can lid onto the cat. It should announce itself. Although I’ve never seen it, every secondary drain should have a set of wind chimes dangling from the spout, just to heighten the effect. You want to take notice and get up there and clear Drain Number One as soon as you can, because a flat roof with parapet walls can amass hundreds or even thousands of gallons of water when the drain clogs up. 

So, that’s what I would like our musical fellow to have—a porch with a drain, and one more drain for good measure. That secondary drain could easily prevent $100,000 worth of damage if the next surfing junket goes on long enough. 

There’s another message embedded in this experience, one that is a little harder to see but just as vital: Looking at houses is a tricky business. If you have a list of things to check, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. Sometimes you need to back up, cross the street and just stare at the thing until it hits you. I never know what “it” is going to be, but if I slow down a little it often becomes apparent. There are no books for these things, but my clever clients often pick them out without any building education whatsoever. So when you’re looking at your house, or a new house, or a friend’s house, take a minute to sit down and look. You might just find yourself turning white and saying, “Oh. My. God.”

THURSDAY, APRIL 9 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet” Guided tour at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

“How to Dig a Hole” Films by UC Berkeley students at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Story Hour in the Library featuring novelist Vendela Vida, at 5 p.m. at 190 Doe Library, UC campus. 643-0397. 

Richard Schwartz will discuss stories from his book “Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley" which took place in the North Berkeley area, at 7 p.m. at Black Oak Books,1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. 

D.A. Powell reads from his new collection of poems “Chronic” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Truth Be Told Spoken word with Rico Pabon at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5. 849-2568.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

UC Berkeley’s The Movement Spring Showcase Thurs. and Fri. at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Young People's Performing Arts Center, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8 in advance from ucb.movement.showcase@gmail.com 

Dead Guise at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Kalman Balogh Gypsy Cimbolam Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Country Joe’s Open Mic with singer/songwriter Jo D’Anna at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donation $5-$10. 841-4824. 

The Crooked Roads Band, The Z-Train Electric Band, In Rare Form at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

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

FRIDAY, APRIL 10 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Miss Julie” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m., at 2081 Addison St. to May 10. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. auroratheatre.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 

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 

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 

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 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Fiber 2009” Group show. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Exhibition runs to May 3. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

“Above Ground” Works by Jacqueline Neuwirth Krayna opens at the Albany Community Center, Foyer Gallery, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany. 524-9283. 

“Young At Art” Paintings by Molly Greenberg. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Red Oak Realty, 2099 Pleasant Valley Ave., Oakland. 292-2000. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Mahmood Mamdani describes “Saviours and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror” at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Cost is $5-$10. berkeleyarts.org 

Charles Blackwell, Selene Steese, and Bob Booker will read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave., a little north of Hearst, in Berkeley, as part of the Last Word Reading Series. There is also an open reading. 841-6374. 

Mary Roach reads from “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sciennce and Sex” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

UC Berkeley’s The Movement Spring Showcase at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Young People's Performing Arts Center, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8 in advance from ucb.movement.showcase@gmail.com 

Teslim at Utunes Coffe House at 8 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$18. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Womansong Circle An evening of participatory singing for women, with guest artist Annie Patterson, co-author of “Rise Up Singing” at 7:15 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Small Assembly Room, 2345 Channing St., at Dana. Suggested donation $15-$20, no one turned away. www.betsyrosemusic.org 

Beausoliel at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Salvadora Galan, flamenco guitarist and singer, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Ed Neumeister at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Alex Calatuyud’s Brasil! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $115. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Zulu Spear, The Palmwine Boys at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Happy Clams, Yard Sale at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Naomi and the Courteous Rudeboys at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

East Bay Funk and Soul Revue at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8. 548-1159.  

Will Blades Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 11 

CHILDREN  

Family Film Series “Ever After” Cinderella with a strong woman and no magic Sat. and Sun. at noon at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College Ave. at Ashby. Tickets are $4. 433-9730. 

Maggie the Clown, 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 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry and the Planet with Camille Dungy, Robert Haas, Brenda Hillman and many others at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“The New BAM/PFA Facility” with architect Toyo Ito at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC campus. Free, tickets available at 6 p.m. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Barbara Claire Freeman, Alice Jones, and Nguyen Do will read their poems from the latest Parthenon West Review at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320, pdtevents@gmail.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

UC Berkeley Danceworx Spring Showcase at 8 p.m. at The Julia Morgan Young People’s Performing Arts Center, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8-$10. dwxshowcasecoord@gmail.com 

Grupo Falso Baiano at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Faye Carol & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Trio Garufa, Argentine tango at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Tango lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

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

Gateswingers Jazz Band, at 7:30 p.m. at 33 Revolutions Record Shop amd Cafe,10086 San Pablo Ave. at Central, El Cerrito. 898-1836.  

Taylor Eigsti, solo piano, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

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

The China Cats, Pat Nevins Acoustic Trio at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Jinx Jones Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Grayceon, Mammatus, Giant, Tides 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, APRIL 12 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra “Bach to Bach” at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Free. www.sfchamberorchestra.org 

Berkeley New Music Project at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Tickets are $5-$15. 642-9988.  

Carlos Oliveira’s Brazilian Opus, featuring Harvey Wainapel, at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Kickin’ the Mule, featuring Freddie Hughes, at 5 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

MONDAY, APRIL 13 

FILM 

Buddhism, Meditation and Film: “Momento” with a lecture by Robert Sharf at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Pioneering Women in Architecture in Northern California: Contemporaries of Julia Morgan” with Inge Horton at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 883-9710. 

“I’ll Replace You: Outsourcing Everyday Life” with Jennifer and Kevin McCoy discussing their multi-media artworks at 7:30 p.m. at 160 Kroeber Hall, UC campus. Sponsored by Berkeley Center for New Media. 642-0635. 

“Michael Pollan’s ‘The Botany of Desire’ Persepectives from the Arts, Humanisites and Sciences” at 4 p.m. in the Lipman Room, Barrows Hall, 8th Flr, UC campus. Free. 

Nancy Selvin, ceramic artist will show slides and discuss the influences that have shaped her as an artist, at 12:30 p.m. at the Brown Bag Speaker’s Forum at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 16. 

Randall Sexton will talk about his art experiences and do an oil painting demonstration of a still life subject for the meeting of El Cerrito Art Association at 7:30 p.m. in the Garden Room of El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane.  

TUESDAY, APRIL 14 

FILM 

“From Today Until Tomorrow” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Barbara Tomash, Nona Caspers, Jesse Nissim and Molly Albracht will read at as part of April National Poetry Month series at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. pdtevents@gmail.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alexander String Quartet “Classical Treasures” at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $12.50-$25. 525-5211. www.berkeleychamberperform.org 

Gator Beat at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Lyric Escape: Paintings by Lawrence Ferlinghetti” Opens at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., and runs through May 10. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

FILM 

“High School” with lecture by Marilyn Fabe at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Andy Goldworthy: Rivers and Tides” hosted by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, at 7 p.m. in the Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC campus. Free. 643-9670. http://townsendcenter. 

berkeley.edu 

“From Riches to Rags: Hollywood and the New Deal: Gabriel over the White House” Introduced by Gray Brechin, founding scholar for California’s Living New Deal Project at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Achitecture Tour of the Oakland Museum of California, building and grounds at 1 p.m. at 1000 Oak at 10th, Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“If Gardens are the Answer, What is the Question?” with author Rebecca Solnit at 4 p.m. in the Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC campus. Hosted by the Townsend Center for the Humanities. http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/publicworld_solnit.shtm 

Judith Orloff describes “Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Cost is $5-$10. berkeleyarts.org 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with University Gospel Chorus at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Ben Marcato and his Mondo Combo at noon at Oakland City Center, 12th and Broadway.  

Ian Carey Quartet 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 

Karabali 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.  

Kurt Ribak Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 16 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet” Guided tour at 112:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

Berkeley Filmmakers Screening Series “Ripe for Change” with director Emilo Omori at 7 p.m. at Zaentz Media Center, 2600 Tenth St. Reservations required. reservations@berkeleyfilmscreening.com 

“Reefer Madness” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

National Poetry Month Showcase a multi-generational poetry conversation featuring Coptic poet Matthew Shenoda at 7:30pm at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave Tickets are $5-$10. www.myspace.com/poetryforthepeople 

Poetry Flash with Julie Carr, Carol Snow and Brian Teare at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Michelle Goldberg on “The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World” at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $5-$10. berkeleyarts.org 

Maria Laurino reads from “Old World Daughter, New World Mother” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

7th Street Sound, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $TBA. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Dave Mathews Birthday Blast with Tony Lindsay at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Beat Beat Whisper, The Porchsteps, All My Pretty Ones at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

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

FRIDAY, APRIL 17 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Miss Julie” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m., at 2081 Addison St. to May 10. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” at Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St. through May 15. Tickets are $33-$71. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.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 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Saint Joan” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through May 10. Tickets are $11-$18. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

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 

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 

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 

EXHIBITIONS 

“You, Me, and Everyone We Know” Group show of nineteen contemporary artists. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Alphonse Berber Gallery, 2546 Bancroft Way. 649-9492. alphonseberber.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony “Russian Easter Overture” at 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, Oakland. 444-0801. www.oebs.org 

Harpsichord and Organ Music of the Italian Renaissance before 1550 at 8 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Avenue, Albany. Free, suggested donation $10. 525-1716. 

Berkeley Dance Project 2009 “Equal Footing” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m., through April 26, at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC campus. Tickets are $10-$15. 642-8827. tdps.berkeley.edu 

David Glass pianist, composer will perform works from “Beginning the Journey” at 7:30 p.m. at Arlington Community Church52 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Tickets are $15. 526-9146.  

Angela Dean-Baham in concert at 7:30 p.m. at Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland. Donations at the door. 544-8910. 

Orquesta La Moderna Tradicíon at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mz. Dee’s Blues Revival at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $12-$15. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

Sambada with Mucho Axé at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Belle Monroe & the Brewglass Boys at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The California Honeydrops at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

One+ at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 597-0795. 

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

“420 Bash” with Planting Seeds, Lavish Green, Space Monkey Gangstas at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Tres Mojo at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 18 

CHILDREN  

Celebration of Children’s Literature with authors, illustrators, costumed characters, storytelling and activities from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Tolman Hall, UC campus. http://gse/berkeley.edu/childlit.html 

Opera Piccola “Magic Journeys” An interactive performance for all ages at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Fallon, Oakland. Suggesd donation $5-$25. 482-0967, ext. 303. 

“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 

Active Arts Theatre for Young Audiences “Alice in Wonderland” a circus adaptation Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. TIckets are $14-$18. 296-4433. activeartstheatre.org 

Dana Smith and his Dog Lacey, 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 

Guy Gash and his Sharp Five Jazz Band at 2 p.m. at Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Spring Has Sprung” Group art show. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Expresions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. www.expressionsgallery.org 

RAC Artist Members’ Showcase Artists’ reception at 2 p.m. at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., at 25th St., Richmond. Exhibition closes May 16. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet” Guided tour at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm and Muse with poet Julia Vinograd at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice and Rose. 527-9753. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

University Symphony Orchestra at 11 a.m. at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Tickets are not required. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra “Handel’s Wicked Queen” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are Tickets are $30-$72. 415-392-4400. www.philharmonia.org 

UC Berkeley’s Cal Taiko “Nagare” Spring 2009 Showcase at 8 p.m. at The Julia Morgan Young People's Performing Arts Center, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $7-$10. www.juliamorgan.org 

“Partisans Armed with Music: Songs of Holocaust Musicians” at 8:30 p.m. at Chochmat Ha Lev, 2251 Prince St. Tickets are $8-$12 at the door. 704-9687. 

Rajeev Taranath Hindustani classical music on the sarod at 8 p.m. at Mills College Concert Hall, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $6-$12. 430-2025. 

La Peña Community Chorus at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Zydeco Flames at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Moment’s Notice improvised music, dance, and theater at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 8th St. Tickets are $8-$15. 992-6295. 

Mike Sweetland & A Lot of People at 1 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Palm Wine Boys at 8 p.m. at Wisteria Ways, Rockridge, Oakland. Not wheelchair accessible. Cost is $15-$20. Reservations required. info@WisteriaWays.org 

Tangria Jazz Group at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

The Folk Collection at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Melanie O’Reilly at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

“A Night of Free Jazz, Folk, and Experimental Music” with Country Joe McDonald at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. 841-4824. www.bfuu.org 

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

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

Shiela G & the Jazz Riffs at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 597-0795. 

Reality Playthings improvisation with Frank Moore at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St., Oakland. fmoore@eroplay.com 

Casey Nell and the Norway Rats, Bonfire Madigan at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

SUNDAY, APRIL 19 

THEATER 

Queer On Their Feet – An Evening of Stand Up Comedy and Improv at 1 and 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., off Arlington at Moeser/Terrace. Tickets are $10-$20. brownpapertickets.com  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Up Against the Wall: Berkeley Posters from the 1960s” Opening reception at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Historical Society, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. Exhibit runs to Sept. 26. 848-0181.  

“Touching the Land” Contemporary Aboriginal art from Australia. Opening reception at 4 p.m. at Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, 2301 Vine St. Exhibition runs through May 22. 707-762-3296. 

“Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

“Routine Pleasures” with Jean-Paul Gorin in person at 2 p.m. at 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 “Wild River” Introduced by Charlotte Brody, program director of Green for All, at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Marcuse & Remmel: A New Approach” with Woody Minor at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2001 Santa Clara Ave., Alameda. Cost is $5. Sponsored by Alameda Architectural Preservation Society. 986-9232. www.alameda-preservation.org 

Egyptology Lecture “Sunset - the End of the Amarna Period” with Dr. Aidan Dodson, Bristol University at 2:30 p.m. at Barrows Hall, Room 20, Barrow Lane and Bancroft Way, UC campus. 415-664-4767. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Dances and Songs of Remembrance, Resistance, and Hope” A tribute to the memory of those who died in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, with Ruth Botchan and Yale Strom and Elizabeth Schwartz, at 5 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 Eighth St. #13A, at Dwight. Tickets are $12-$25, reservations recommended. 848-4878. www.berkeleymovingarts.com 

Howard Kadis, French, German and English music from the 16th century at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Tickets are $12-$15. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra “Handel’s Wicked Queen” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are Tickets are $30-$72. 415-392-4400. www.philharmonia.org 

The Pinderhughes, 17- year old pianist, Samora, and 13-year old flautist, Elena, at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Flamenco Open Stage with Adela Clara at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Trumpetsupergroup at 4:30 p.m. and riff-raff at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

108, Pulling Teeth, Lewd Acts, Skin Like Iron at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $8. 525-9926. 

In a Spartan apartment in a rundown section of London, a middle-aged entrepreneur surprises his ex-lover, a 30-ish schoolteacher, with a visit. They haven’t spoken in years. But tonight they’ll speak out a great deal—in declarations and in exchanges; as reunion, stalemate or farewell; to regain some sort of footing with each other, or in denunciation of each other. 

This thumbnail sketch of the basic situation of David Hare’s Skylight, Shotgun’s new production at the Ashby Stage, directed by founder Patrick Dooley, sounds like any number of indifferent melodramas—soap operas, even. 

But Hare is committed socially as a writer. He uses this tale of confrontation after a break-up and long absence following an intense (and extra-marital) affair as a way into a social conversation during a time exhausted of any but the most programmatic and clichéd discourse, fanning up the coals of desire, frustration and loneliness to bring the political squarely back into living, emotional dialogue—that dialogue reopening a discussion shut down through exhaustion, entropy . A nice irony: words of passion, recrimination, incomprehension carrying more public meaning for being the utmost in the personal—uttered, and contended with, in private. 

Tom Sergeant (John Mercer), a self-made restaurateur, shows up unannounced to see Kyra Hollis (Emily Jordan), his driver sitting downstairs in his car. “You arrived like a goddamned storm trooper!” Kyra declares. She had once worked for Tom, lived with his family—and abruptly left when Tom’s wife discovered their involvement. “When you have something worked out in your own mind, and the balance is changed, you no longer believe your own story,” she says. “And that is the moment to leave.” 

Now Tom’s wife is dead. (The title refers to the skylight above her bed in the house of glass Tom took her to in the country, to let in as much light and nature as possible.) “She became quite mystic,” Tom says. “I don’t mean to sound cruel, but it became bloody well difficult for me ... I gave her everything, but I felt frustrated ... When you grieve, there are no shortcuts. You suffer, that’s what you do.” 

The two get into it in every way. Kyra chides Tom: “You don’t value happiness, because you always want more.” And Tom, the blue-collar boy made good, shoots back that she’s a prig, “a seaside solicitor’s daughter” who is “building a bunker,” duplicating the isolation of her father, a cat person who left his money to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. When Kyra describes her “addiction” to listening to people talking on the bus, Tom accuses her of living in a bubble, seeking escape by expending great effort to move into a poor neighborhood when everybody there is trying to get out. This is the way everybody lives, Kyra replies. “You used to know that.” 

With her self-described addiction to listening, Kyra is the perfect interlocutor—and the motor of the considerable action that underlies and oozes from the dialogue in this absorbing play. “Theater” has practically the same etymology as “theory”—and these two characters try out on each other in this little room all the voiced and unvoiced realizations and suppositions they live by. 

Mercer and Jordan are very much each other’s match, reminding chronic Shotgunners of another Anglo stand-off betwixt the two, in Mrs. Warren’s Profession (directed by Susannah Martin, whose staging of Pinter’s Old Times is being presented across town by TheatreFIRST—a nice juxtaposition). That show was one of the best, most pointed things Shotgun has staged in recent years; Skylight is its latter-day complement.  

Besides Mercer’s bluff presence and Jordan’s ability to shift gears emotionally, signaling—or provoking—the changes of mood and action of the play, Carl Horvick-Thomas (who was memorable in UC Berkeley’s production of The Bacchae, directed by Barbara Oliver last year) opens the show as Tom’s intense 18-year-old son Edward in one rather edgy mode, later revealing yet another, brighter, more magnanimous moment in a dreary, snowy ’90s London slum. Like in a Buñuel film, there’s a lot of talk by a restaurateur and an ex-waitress about food—even some preemptory cooking onstage. But it sits on the plate while the air turns blue with just that talk, from hungry souls. It’s only at the end, in a marvelous, quiet coup-de-theatre, that Tom’s invitation to Kyra to drop by one of his restaurants (“It’s almost as good as eating at home”) comes full circle, with something more than wistfulness for the past or hope for the future, but the bounty of the present, something of both upper and lower social worlds to be shared: “Let’s eat!” 

SKYLIGHT 

Presented at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 5 p.m. Sundays through April 26 by Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. $25. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org. 

“Oh, you know Harold. All the plays are the same: Menace in a room!” 

John Calder, the pioneering independent publisher, repeated what the best-known of his authors said with affectionate wit about the manuscript which another former Calderbooks writer had sent him for criticism. Samuel Beckett was twitting Harold Pinter over his stock-in-trade, metaphysical chamber plays, written a bit like a contemporary—and English—Strindberg, with dialogue syncopated by Beckett’s brand of tangible pauses and silences. 

While it’s true that the shadows that creep into the pauses provide a vague, menacing sense of dread (Who are these people, really? What do they really mean?), what’s left out of the usual equation that types Pinter’s plays is the strange, loopy hilarity that builds up—or explodes—from the exchanges, Strindbergian monologues (when another’s listening) and occasional soliloquies. Pinter constructs them for his characters out of what sometimes sound like disjointed banalities from several overlapping, mutually oblivious conversations. (Calder says Pinter spent his apprenticeship eavesdropping in tearooms, itself a banal situation worthy of one of his characters in one of his rooms in one of his plays.) 

In Old Times, which TheatreFIRST is producing at the Gaia Center, on Allston Way off Shattuck, the situation is the simplest—and most piquant. Deeley and Kate (Peter Callender and Julia McNeal) wait in their converted farmhouse home for the arrival, from Italy, of Anna (Zehra Berkman), Kate’s old friend—her best, her only friend. (“If you have one of anything, you can’t say the best.” “Incomparable!”) 

The Q & A, the gentle domestic inquisition that goes on between husband and wife, one languorous, the other puzzled, is broken by the immediacy of sparkling, ebullient Anna, pouring out images of the past, of their youth together. The three dance verbally, just missing the toes. “Yes, it’s quite silent here, normally. You can hear the sea, sometimes, if you listen, carefully.” 

There are games, a certain amount of joshing and light provocation. And the monologues—soliloquies, even. In the pauses, it’s not the sea, but the unfulfilled desires and hesitancies of the present that flow in, almost audible, between reminiscences. 

They tear off a popular song or two out of that past. Anna warbles “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” All kinds of meaning is inflected in these snatches of melody, drifting away into nonmeaning. “They don’t make them like that anymore,” Deeley agrees with himself. Kate is more and more diffident, though roused to smiles by Anna, sidelong glances of irritation by Deeley’s joking. “My head is quite thick. I have it on.” Her eyes are pools, taking it all in, seeming happy, then anxious. Anna’s eyes are vivacious, ever-expectant. And Deeley is masculine, dynamic ... but what’s his trajectory? “I’d say you eat very well up there on those cliffs ... I know Sicily, just slightly, just slightly.” 

Anna goes over their past. Kate assents, vaguely: “I was interested in the arts, but I can’t remember now which ones they were.”  

The audience laughs at these half-familiar absurdities. And the pauses, the shadows grow longer in the room, like unstated, unanswered questions, opening up oblique, clashing perspectives like a Mannerist painting. 

(In ancient atomic theory—which already sounds oxymoronic—the random swerve of a particle in a hail of atoms, “Clinamen,” is the element of spontaneity which makes everything happen; the incalculable. The swerves, to left or right, in Pinter’s stream of conversational and expository verbiage, merely emphasize the emptiness of the center. The phrases are either pumped up, overwrought, or flat, recited. To pursue the analogy into modern physics, Pinter’s world, reflected in this room, isn’t Einsteinian relativity, but loaded with quanta, with entropy constantly lurking in the wings.) 

Then, in a shift, transference in the midst of ambiguity, Deeley’s sure he knew Anna back when. Meanwhile, Kate’s in the bath. Anna isn’t sure. Not now. The funny, constantly changing chatter dies down to something inferential, almost elegaic at times. The loss of the past? Its rebirth in wishful thinking and seemingly idle talk, altering the present? The seriousness hovering throughout strikes, a deep chord, yet jangled: “It was me. It was my skirt. I remember your look. Very well.” 

Susannah Martin—and the designers (Dale Altvater, Chris Houton, Rebecca Redmond, Leah McKibbon, Jennifer Stukey)—do well by Old Times, balancing movement and stasis, the sally and the pose, finding a stylization that’s not the empty, guilty inactivity too many productions of Pinter bottom out in. She’s done well by TheatreFIRST, as have her actors—Peter Callender, one of the distinctive presences and voices in the Bay Area; Julia McNeal, who shows both poise and vulnerability; and Zehra Berkman, in perhaps her best, and most challenging, appearance to date. They’re up to the challenge of Pinter’s seeming randomness, that proves to be a non-Euclidean geometry of the stage, proving Aristotle’s old saw, “Drama is the most rational kind of poetry.” 

Clive Chafer, co-founder of TheatreFIRST, who produced Old Times, opened the show by introducing Michael Storm, longtime local actor, as the troupe’s new artistic director—and Storm announced that TheatreFIRST is hoping to secure a new home in Oakland for its 16th year, where (at Mills College, then in Old Oakland) it was that city’s only resident theater company.  

OLD TIMES 

8 pm Wednesday-Saturday through April 18 at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. $23-28 (half-price for those under the age of 25). 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com.

Mysterious diptychs, called Messengers, by Eva Bovenzi are currently on view at the Flora Lawson Hewlitt Library of the Graduate Theological Union. 

These paintings consist of two rectangular canvases which are connected to form an irregular perpendicular composition in three quarters. The absence of the fourth makes for the vitality of the distinct structure in these works. The absent canvas helps to engage the viewer to become a participant in the work.  

Prior to this series Bovenzi had an exhibition of flowers, leaves, tree branches and tangles which was entitled “Silence Matters.” It was the space between the objects—what Zen calls “MA”—which was the motif. We think of the meaningful pauses in Mozart’s compositions, to say nothing of John Cage’s “silences.” In his essay “Art as Form and Reality,” the political theorist Herbert Marcuse pointed out that “the way in which a story is told, the structure and selectiveness of verse and prose, that which is not said or not represented, and yet is present...these are some of the aspects of Form which remove, dissociate, alienate the oeuvre from reality and makes its own reality.” In other words, create the story or painting as a work of art, separate from the actual world. The great sculptor Auguste Rodin made the famous statue, St. John the Baptist, but he later created a similar figure, called Walking Man (1905), which is the figure without head and arms, and is all the more powerful for its fragmentary structure, conveying the sheer force of movement and the high drama of the act of walking.  

These Messenger paintings also evoke the image of the Annunciation. On a trip to Italy, Bovenzi was deeply affected by the trecentro and quattrocentro paintings. She might well have seen Simone Martini’s Annunciation of the 1330s, which Bovenzi would have seen in the Uffizi in Florence. Here Gabriel’s wings, resembling the colors of pheasant wings, become manifest to the Virgin who seems to recoil when receiving the Word. There is also Fra Angelico’s Annunciation in the convent of San Marco in Florence, with the multi-colored wings of the messenger saluting Mary, who is in a receptive attitude in this fresco. Unlike many artists who, now, do work which is disconnected from tradition, Bovenzi has been able to create authentic painting precisely because she is aware of her patrimony (if this word is permissible for an artist who has been active in the feminist movement since the 1970s).  

Bovenzi also speaks with admiration of modernists, of Max Beckmann, Marsden Hartley and Philip, and Guston and, significantly points to the paintings by Giorgio Morandi in which the quiet intervals between the bottles and jars give such serenity and mystery to his natura mortis. And especially Eva Hesse, whose fiberglass pieces, both strong and vulnerable, hang from the wall with indeterminate spaces between the units. 

The wings of the Messengers shimmer in rainbow colors. In 1997 Bovenzi went to a butterfly farm in Ecuador and was delighted to see the tremendous variety of colors not only in the grown lepidoptera, but also in the metallic gold of the cocoons. In many of these paintings a glowing blue is dominant, but there are various grays and metallic silver. And with all the circles, straight directional lines and elipses, the Messengers also evoke old navigational and celestial maps, that charted the known as well as the unknown and yet-to-be discovered places, just as the making of the art itself is a matter of exploration. 

MESSENGERS 

Dyptychs by Eva Bovenzi, on display in the Graduate Theological Union’s Flora Lawson Hewlitt Gallery through June 15. 2400 Ridge Road. 649-2400. www.gtu.edu.

Mark Jackson, who directed Strindberg’s Miss Julie, opening tonight at the Aurora, and David Graves, who composed the music for the production, first met in 2003, when both were in residence for five weeks at the Djerassi Foundation retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  

Jackson, a popular Bay Area playwright (The Death of Meyerhold and The Forest Wars) and stage director, recalls Graves’ “quartets, with a variety of classical and contemporary sounds” and his ambient music project, “several CD players put out in a redwood canyon; from in front, you couldn’t see where the music was coming from. It had a magical feeling.” 

Graves, who has just completed two seasons of writing commissioned pieces for Berkeley Symphony’s Under Construction project, says he remembers “vividly, Mark and a few others coming down in sheets to an old cattle barn, where there are studios, to spook us as a joke. The barn was supposed to be haunted. He later asked me what I was doing, and I told him I’d never written a string quartet before. He looked at it on the page, asked how the software worked. At that point, we started to talk about each others’ work.” 

It was a busy and exciting time for both artists. “At the time, I had just started writing classical orchestration,” said Graves. “Until 2002, I never really wrote out music. Like a lot of other self-trained musicians, I learned by ear. I took a [San Francisco] City College class, learned to write on staff paper. At Djerassi, I wrote a symphony—I’d never worked on one before—with a goofy idea: The Dewey Decimal Symphony, using the numbers of the topics in the library to generate sequences. I composed on that and submitted it to a Berkeley Symphony competition, where it got an honorable mention. Kent Nagano said he wanted to hang onto the score.” 

Graves also heard about what Jackson was doing. “At the seven o’clock dinners every night, the artists are encouraged to talk, and that’s where I first caught wind of The Forest Wars and The Death of Meyerhold, which Mark was writing then. He was excited, writing plays like nobody’s business. He had the opportunity—the time—to become prolific.” 

After a stint studying at the San Francisco Conservatory, and being accepted as a fellow with Under Construction, Graves had a chance to catch up with Jackson last year when he and his wife put up German actors in town for a play Jackson staged at the San Francisco International Arts Festival. 

Last August, Jackson sent Graves an e-mail, asking if he would be interested in collaborating on the Aurora production. Jackson talked about some of his initial impressions of Strindberg’s masterpiece. “Tom [Ross, Aurora artistic director] and I were talking about different ideas. My mind kept going back to a few images, like a cleaver stuck in a table, and a thick branch with a hawk on it. There’s talk in the play about the hero being a hawk. That’s not used in the show, but [set designer Guilio Peroni’s] upside-down tree [above the table onstage] is better than a tree with a hawk, which would’ve been too literal. Working with Dave, it made sense to use string instrumentation, with one foot in the period of the play, one foot in today, like with the costuming.” 

“In September, we started talking,” Jackson continued. “I told him about seeing the play as a love story, a mix of the tragic with the hopeful. The key to that was in choosing Helen Cooper’s translation. In some translations, after Miss Julie and Jean have gone offstage with each other, the stage directions when they come back have her distressed, wringing her hands. In another, she’s clapping her hands! What if it wasn’t so bad after all? They’re both passionate; some part of them is drawn to each other. Opposites attract. What makes it a tragedy is they share a connection, but ultimately don’t connect.” 

Graves recounted playing a few examples for Jackson on his keyboard: “At the time I didn’t know the instrumentation.” Later, he worked with Alisa Rose at the San Francisco Conservatory, “who has played violin since 3 and fiddle since 5” to “walk through different styles for the barn dance, laying down idiomatic phrases—Swedish, not Irish! She said it’d be fun to play.” Graves also composed for viola and cello for other incidental pieces. “We went into the studio Dec. 19. In a three- or four-hour session, we had the music, then tweaked it in rehearsal.”  

“Mark expressed himself in emotional, not musical, terms,” Graves recalled. “The players would change the accent, the tempo. He would talk the same way to the actors and the lighting designer, trying to bring across multiple levels in a single line: ‘We need tragic and we need sad. We’ve got tragic, but not sad. We need both.’ Well over half of what I first came up with got turned down. But a great deal of what he was talking to me about in September became part of the production. And I really enjoyed seeing him work with the actors. He had a positive way with everybody.” 

Jackson, who has preferred to work with sound designers from the first rehearsal, whenever possible, has worked just twice before with composers, other times with musicians. His mentor in Meyerholdian Bio-Mechanics, Evgeny Bagdanov, would “make the comparison of acting and music—of acting as music. Bio-Mechanical exercises are even called etudes. He’d ask, when we’d be doing them, ‘What is your music?’ It always feels that way to me. Miss Julie is like a chamber piece, a trio for three actors. All the other elements have to function, too. Lights, timing—the ensemble of theatrical elements that impact storytelling. And in some choices, where do we need silence? To take things away? My role as a director is like a conductor’s: hearing the right chords—and discords.” 

MISS JULIE 

8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and at 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays through May 10 at the  

Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St. $40-$42. 

843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org.

I met a very nice fellow the other day. A composer. Funny how homeowners end up being something other than just…homeowners. Neat guy, writes music for films, TV, corporate films and the like. He also had the composure of a musician, smooth and philosophical. Good thing for all those involved in selling him this house, because let me tell you, it would be very easy to be acrimonious considering the experience he’s had.  

Seems the guy just bought a house way up in the hills. Must have cost a wee bit, too. Very stylish, lots of room, views to die for, and all those things that conspire to create the oh-so-modern manse. I nearly expected to see Hef lounging before the fireplace with a few bunnies. 

About a day after the musician moved into the house, there was a bit of rain, and he noticed paint sheets scrunching up on the wall downstairs from the entryway. Then water started dripping through the ceiling. Oh my! It’s not supposed to rain inside the house! He started by doing the right thing and removing some of the sheetrock from where the water was dribbling in. (This does two things: It makes it possible to examine the area where the leak is occurring and it helps to lower the atmospheric moisture level in the space, thus decreasing the growth of funguses that eat wood and all the pulpy stuff we build houses with these days.) 

He called me up and after a short while we found the leak. Funny, it was inside the door. He’d looked for several hours and run hoses all over the place and couldn’t get it to leak. Ah, but we inspectors have the magic of hindsight working for us. I’d seen my share of leaks that began their soppy work only after a windstorm blew water under the door. We both did the happy dance (his being more subtle and artistic than mine). 

Now as entertaining as all of this stuff is, it’s not what I want to talk about. It’s the porch itself. It wasn’t why he’d called me over, but when I walked down to the front door, my face turned white. The staircase—five or six steps—had solid walls all around, except for the front door, which I will refer to as “the drain.”  

Oh, there was an actual drain in this swimming pool of an entryway, but it was small and half- clogged with caulk and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t identify. When the dog drops his gooey tennis ball, it rolls into the unscreened drain. (That’s where drains are, you know, at the bottom of the incline, just waiting to take in a gooey tennis ball.) Then the next rainfall can easily put four feet of water right against the doorway—glug glug). But not to worry. The door doesn’t hold water all that well, so it will just drain right into the house to meet you when you get back from Maui, all tanned and relaxed. 

It got worse. From the front entry, the house was virtually all downstairs—one of those hillside beauties where you park on top and walk down to the living room and down some more to the bedroom. Glug, glug, glug. Oh. My. God.  

Now don’t get me wrong. The entire calamity had not happened—but hey, misery lies in wait just around the corner, does it not? So here’s what I had to say to our friend the musician: Please, oh please, add a “secondary drain.” It’s not the only thing I recommended, but it was the absolute priority. The porch’s plywood was rotting away and this damage extended back toward the exterior porch quite some distance. Since the porch would have to be ripped up and replaced anyway, I strongly advised him to install a secondary drain when he put the porch back together.  

Now what is a secondary drain? Is it just another drain? No, it’s different in a couple of respects. To answer the question, let’s get up on your flat roof. If you have a flat roof with some short (or not so short) walls, called parapets, around the edge, you have… a swimming pool—just like our friend’s entryway.  

I see these all the time. They’re everywhere. The code books demand (and good builders provide) secondary drains on these roofs. Secondary drains are elevated somewhat above the main drain. This often means that they are up on the parapet wall a few inches above the drain in the roof surface or the “scupper” in the bottom of the parapet wall.  

This placement means two things. First it means that nothing is going to readily clog this drain because it’s above the roof surface—things can’t fall into a hole that’s up on a wall. It also means that it will be clear and unused until that fateful day when the main drain clogs and the swimming pool starts to fill up. 

When we put these life-saving secondary drains in, we should not use a downspout. This may sound odd, but there’s a very good reason for it. When the secondary drain starts to discharge, it means that something is very wrong, so we don’t want it going about its business in a quiet, friendly way. We want it to splash on the neighbor’s house, or knock a trash can lid onto the cat. It should announce itself. Although I’ve never seen it, every secondary drain should have a set of wind chimes dangling from the spout, just to heighten the effect. You want to take notice and get up there and clear Drain Number One as soon as you can, because a flat roof with parapet walls can amass hundreds or even thousands of gallons of water when the drain clogs up. 

So, that’s what I would like our musical fellow to have—a porch with a drain, and one more drain for good measure. That secondary drain could easily prevent $100,000 worth of damage if the next surfing junket goes on long enough. 

There’s another message embedded in this experience, one that is a little harder to see but just as vital: Looking at houses is a tricky business. If you have a list of things to check, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. Sometimes you need to back up, cross the street and just stare at the thing until it hits you. I never know what “it” is going to be, but if I slow down a little it often becomes apparent. There are no books for these things, but my clever clients often pick them out without any building education whatsoever. So when you’re looking at your house, or a new house, or a friend’s house, take a minute to sit down and look. You might just find yourself turning white and saying, “Oh. My. God.”

THURSDAY, APRIL 9 

Berkeley Hunger and Homelessness Conference from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at Pauley Ballroom at MLK Student Union Bldg, UC campus. Free, food donations encouraged. Hosted by Cal Berkeley Habitat for Humanity, Suitcase Clinic, and CalPIRG. 

“Abolish Corporate Personhood” An organizing meeting at 7 p.m. at 2105 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., between Center and Addison, in the building shared with East Bay Cohousing Clubhouse. 705-1432. 

“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 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Claremont Resort, Horizon Ballroom, 41 Tunnel Rd.. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com 

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 

FRIDAY, APRIL 10 

“Stop the Violence Prayer Walk” Meet at 11:45 a.m. at Lutheran Church of the Cross, 1744 University Ave. Sponsored by Pacific School of Religion and Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action. 849-8239. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Gail Feldman Sustainable Energy Program, City of Berkeley, on “Berkeley’s Solar Energy Project: Leading the Nation through Creative Strategies.” 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 Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Fri. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 11 

Berkeley Historical Society Spring Walking Tour “Rose Walk and Tamalpais Road” led by John Underhill, from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. For reservations and starting point call 848-0181. 

Spring Egg Hunt Extravaganza in Willard Park, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. with egg hunts for 1 to 7 years olds, and a treasure hunt for 8-10 year olds. Egg Hunt times begin with 2 years and under at 10:30 a.m. 981-5157. 

Old-Fashioned Egg Hunt with bunnies and games from noon to 3 p.m. at the Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. Tickets are $2-$5, or $12 for the whole family. 562-0328. www.dunsmuir.org 

El Cerrito’s Annual Egg Hunt at 10 a.m., sharp, at Arlington Park, 1120 Arlington Blvd., El Cerrito. 559-7000. www.el-cerrito.org 

American Rhododendron Society Annual Show and Sale from noon to 4 p.m. at Lakeside Garden Club, 666 Bellevue, Oakland. Flower show viewing from 10 a.m. to noon. 223-0443. 

Friends of the El Cerrito Library Book Sale from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 6510 Stockton St., El Cerrito. www.ccclib.org 

Arts at St. Alban’s: Visual Arts with Reena Burton A multi-disciplinary series for children, ages 5 to 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  

Preschool Storytime, including crafts and finger plays at 11 a.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720 ext. 16. 

“Red Highways: A Liberal’s Journey into the Heartland–Implications for the Obama Administration” with journalist, author and political commentator Rose Aguilar, at 7 p.m. at the Alameda Free Library, 1550 Oak St., Alameda. Suggested donation $5. www.alamedaforum.org 

“Grieving is a Revolutionary Act” Seminary of the Street and First Congregational Church of Oakland present a “funeral for the empire” at 7 p.m. at 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. www.seminaryofthestreet.org 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 10 a.m. to noon at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

Life Goes On Foundation “Comedy Jam” Benefit Show at 7 p.m. at The Bayside Pavilion, 2203 Mariner Square Loop, Alameda. All proceeds will go to raise funds for spinal cord injuries and promote non-violence. www.lifegoesonfoundation.org 

Beginning Meditation from 8 to 9:15 a.m. at 3654 Grand Ave., Oakland. 834-COZY. 

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, APRIL 12 

Little Farm Open House Come grind some corn to feed the chickens, pet a bunny, groom a goat or help out in the Kids Garden, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Toddler Nature Walk Little ones and their grown up friends explore the meadows and trails, from 10:30 to 11:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Rabbit Rendevous Come meet the rascally rabbits at the Little Farm and learn about lagomorphs, from 11 a.m. to noon at the Little Farm, at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Old Time Radio East Bay Collectors and listeners gather to enjoy shows together at 4 p.m. at a private home in Richmond. For more information email DavidinBerkeley at Yahoo.com. 

Personal Theology Seminars with Cathleen Cox on “Why Jesus Matters” at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

“Green Sunday” with Tom Athanasiou on “Global Justice or Climate Catastrophe” at 5 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland. 

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

Tibetan Buddhism with Judy Rasmussen on “Blessings on the Wind: The Tibetan Prayer Flag” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 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, APRIL 13 

Quit Smoking Class from 5:30 to 8:3o p.m. at theNorth Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave.Hypnosis available to assist in quitting smoking. Free, but please pre-register. 981-5330. QuitNow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Teaching Overseas in the Peace Corps Returned volunteers share their stories and slides at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

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. 

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. 

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 

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 

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. asiecker@sbcglobal 

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. 

TUESDAY, APRIL 14 

Tilden Mini-Rangers Hiking, conservation and nature-based activities for ages 8-12. Dress to ramble and get dirty. From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

“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 

California Colloquium on Water “Converting Concrete Channels in Urban Setting into Natural Creeks and Streams: The 50-Year Plan” with Mitch Avalon, Deputy Public Works Director of Contra Costa County, at 5:30 p.m. at Goldman School of Public Policy, room 250, 2607 Heasrt Ave. www.lib.berkeley.edu/ 

WRCA/ccow 

Take Back the Night Silent March with sign making and candlelight, starting on Sproul Plaza of the UC Berkeley campus from 5 to 7 p.m. geneq.berkeley.edu 

“Adventures in Nepal and India” with Molly McCahan at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Classroom Safari Wild Animal Show for ages 4 and up at 6:30 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Kensington. Free, but reservations required. 524-3043. 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

Assoc. for Women in Science, East Bay Chapter meets at 6:30 p.m. at Jupiter, upstairs, 2181 Shattuck Ave.  

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 

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. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

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

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. 

Bridge for beginners from 12:30 to 2:15 p.m., all others 12:30 to 4 p.m. Sing-A-Long at 2:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

Rhythm Tap Exercise Class Tues. at 5 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. Donation $2. 548-9840. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll look for signs of spring, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

“If Gardens are the Answer, What is the Question?” a lecture by author Rebecca Solnit 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. http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu 

“The Crash Course” Part 3. 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 

Foreclosure Prevention Wed. from 6 to 8 p.m. through May 20 at The HomeOwnership Center, 3301 East 12th St., Suite 201, Oakland. To register call 535-6943. homeownership@unitycouncil.org 

“Eat To Live, Don't Live To Eat!” at 6:30 p.m. at Wellness Center 828 San Pablo Ave, Suite 115, Albany. 

Confused by Computers? Novice computer users can get one-on-one assistance from noon to 1:45 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. Sign up for an appointment at the reference desk or call 526-3720 ext. 5. 

“Avoiding the Money Step” Learn how to do things for yourself, rather than paying people to do them for you, at 6:30 p.m. at the Claremont Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave.  

“Travel Health Resources Online” Learn how to stay healthy on the road, at 6 p.m. at West Auditorium, Oakland Main Library, 125 14th St. at Oak. 238-3136. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at URS Corporation, Suite 800, 1333 Broadwa, Oakland. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com 

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

Theraputic Recreation at the Berkeley Warm Pool, Wed. at 3:30 p.m. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Warm Pool, 2245 Milvia St. Cost is $4-$5. Bring a towel. 632-9369. 

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. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 16 

Walkers age 50+ Discovering Albany and North Berkeley Small Gardens Meet at 9 a.m. at Albany Sneior Center, 843 Masonic. Free, but numbers limited. Register at Albany Senior Center. 524-9122. 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll look for signs of spring, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Community Meeting on Berkeley’s Housing Needs at 7 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. 981-7416.  

“The Falcons of San Francisco and San Jose City Hall” with Glenn Stewart, conservation biologist, at 7 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 843-2222. 

Marine Mammals of the California Coast through Deep Time with Dr. Nick Pyenson at 12:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Jews, Arabs, and Government Officials: Power Relations Inside Israel Today” with Israeli author David Wesley at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar and Bonita sts. 548-3048.  

Take Back the Night Rally and reception with guest speakers, music, prose, poetry, and an open mic from 5 to 8 p.m. at Sproul Plaza, UC campus. geneq.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley High School Red and Golden Girls Annual Reunion Luncheon at the Berkeley City Club. Women who graduated from BHS fifty or more years ago are eligible to attend. 526-3619. 

8th Annual Master Hsuan Hua Memorial Lecture “In Search of an Authentic Buddhism: Voices from Ancient Texts, Calls from the Modern World” at 7 p.m. at the Graduate Theological Union’s Chapel of the Great Commission, 1798 Scenic Ave. Free and open to the public. 848-9788.  

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, at noon 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 

Free Meditation Class Tues and Thurs. at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarians, 2nd flr., 1606 Bonita Ave. 931-7742. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 17 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Brian Williams, Founder and CEO of the Red Panda Network on “In Search of the Red Panda” 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.  

“Show and Tell” Bring a found object, a poem, a memory, or something you have created and share why it inspires you, at 6 p.m. at Mercury 20 Gallery, 25 Grand Ave. at Broadway, Oakland. mercurytwenty@gmail.com 

Faith into Action Conference Empowering African American families and communities through community organizing, Fri. and Sat. at Beebe Memorial Church, 3900 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 639-1444.  

“Compassionate Violence, Torture and Warfare in the Bodhisattva Ideal” with Prof. Steve Jenkins, Humbolt State Univ., at 5 p.m. at Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. RSVP to 809-1444. 

“Cinema Dreaming: In the Mood for Love” at 7 p.m. at The Dream Institute, 1672 University at McGee. Cost is $10. 845-1767. http://dream-institute.org 

Demonstrate for Peace! Bring your signs and determination from 2 to 4 p.m. at Acton and University aves.  

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 18 

People’s Park 40th Anniversary “Acoustic Music and Park Action Day” from noon until dark, with performances by Little Boy Blue, Human Wine, Little B & J, Hungry Theater, Corey the Comedian, Fuck'n Buckaroos, John the Baker, and others. 390-0830. www.peoplespark.org 

Berkeley Historical Society Spring Walking Tour “The Radical Sixties and People’s Park” led by Dale Smith, from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. For reservations and starting point call 848-0181. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers: Improved and Impassible Paths Theme Walk The walk will cover many paths improved in recent years by BPWA. We will also pass by and look at several not-yet-improved paths to show how much is involved in building the new paths. This walk is moderately strenuous, come prepared for a lot of ups and downs, interspersed with some flat stretches. Meet at 10 a.m. at the fountain across from new hills Fire Station #7, 3000 Shasta Rd., 1/2 block from Grizzly Peak Blvd. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Native Plant Restoration from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline, Oakland. Located near Arrowhead Marsh, this site is a great place to bird-gaze while getting your hands dirty. Enter the park from Swan Way and follow the road to the end parking lot. Then look for the wooden observation platform adjacent to Arrowhead Marsh. jrobinson@goldengateaudubon.org 

Edith Coliver Festival of Cultures with dance, drama, food and exhibits, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. 642-9461. 

Celebration of Children’s Literature with authors, illustrators, costumed characters, storytelling and activities from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Tolman Hall, UC campus. http://gse/berkeley.edu/childlit.html 

Cal Day on the UC Berkeley Campus with tours, lectures, performances and more. For a schedulae of activities see calday.berkeley.edu 

Home Front Youth Corps Celebration of the completion of a new video about he WWII home front produced by Richmond youth, at 5 p.m. at the Seaver Gallery, Richmond Museum of History, 400 Nevin Ave., Richmond. Free. 232-5050. 

Spring Open House at The Crucible with an art show and information on classes in glassworking, bronze casting, ceramics, fire performance and the Youth Hyphy Bike class, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 1260 7th St., Oakland. www.thecrucible.org 

Earth Day at Chabot with activities including solar cars, vacuum chambers, glitter globe and more from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Chabot Space & Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $10.95-$14.95. www.chabotspace.org 

Homebuyers Education from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at The HomeOwnership Center, 3301 East 12th St., Suite 201, Oakland. To register call 535-6943. homeownership@unitycouncil.org 

California Writers Club “Yes, Grammar Can Be Fun” with Janis Bell, author of “Clean Well-Lighted Sentences” at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square, 98 Brioadway, Oakland. 272-0120. www.berkeleywritersclub.com  

Weekend with John Sherman Sat. from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. and Sun. from 1 to 5:30 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. Free, but registration required for Sun. workshop. www.riverganga.org 

Beginning Internet Class “How to Google or Search the Web” at 10 a.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. Free, but call to sign up 526-7512. 

Small Animal Adoption Fair with Earth Day activities from 1 to 5 p.m. at RabbitEARS, 377 Colusa Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. 

Arroyo Viejo Creek Work Day Help clean up the creek at the Oakland Zoo, from 9 a.m. to noon. All ages welcome. 632-9525, ext. 207. 

Shortest Triathlon Ever Join a 100-yard swim, a 2.5 mile bike ride and a 2.1 mile run to benefit Emeryville School District’s Health and Fitness programs, at 6:30 a.m. at City Hall, 1333 Park Ave., Emeryville. Cost is $35-$55, $1 for Emeryville students. To register see www.sportsdrs.com 

“Write for your Life: Victories and Defeats and How they Shaped my Life” A workshop with Beth Glick-Rieman from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Cost is $40, bring bag lunch. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Preschool Storytime, including crafts and finger plays at 11 a.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720 ext. 16. 

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 

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 19 

Golden Gate Audubon Bird Walk from 9 a.m. to noon at Martin Luther King, Jr. Shoreline, Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland to look for passerines and lingering over-wintering waterfowl and shorebirds, some coming into breeding plumage. Tides will be favorable for spotting the resident Clapper Rail, Virginia Rail, and Sora. Bring a scope if you have one. Beginners welcome. Take Hwy 880 towards the Oakland Airport. Exit at Hegenberger Road, going south. Turn right on Edgewater Drive and continue to end of road. Turn left at the Garretson Point parking lot. We will start at Damon Marsh and end at Arrowhead Marsh. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

Nature Crafts for Early Educators Learn to make easy crafts that reinforce concepts in nature from noon to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Bring a bag lunch. Cost is $20-$22. Regitrstion required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Paddle Demo Day at San Pablo Reservior at 10 a.m. for REI members and noon for the general public. For information see www.rei.com/paddledemo 

Earth Day at the Oakland Zoo with activities for families including learning about animals, recycling, and environmental organizations, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 9777 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. Bring a used cell phone to recycle, and receive a free train ride. Cost is $5-$12. 632-9525. 

“Constantine's Sword” James Carroll’s documentary on the history of Christianity and the U.S. government’s complicity in militarism and war, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Cost is $5-$10. 841-4824. www.bfuu.org 

Personal Theology Seminars with Rabbi Harry Manhoff on “Little Known Facts and Other Trivia about the Passover” at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Beginning Meditation from 8 to 9:15 a.m. at 3654 Grand Ave., Oakland. 834-COZY. 

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 

Tibetan Buddhism with Olivia Hurd on “Meditations to Open the Heart” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 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 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., April 9, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5356.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., April 9, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7430.  

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., April 13, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Planning Commission meets Wed., April 15, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7416. 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., April 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., April 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7061.  

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., April 16, at 7 p.m. at the James Kenney Recreation Center, 8th & Virginia. 981-7418.