SAN FRANCISCO—Head meat, intestines, mashed cow brains, and fish—that’s what keeps Taquería San Jose afloat in the mad river of taquerías, pupuserías, and fast food joints that compete for customers around the 24th Street BART station. “We have the best selection of fillings,” says owner David Velle. “Plus our salsas are good and our tortillas the highest quality.”

When Velle opened shop on Mission Street in 1980 he paid $500 a month in rent and his only neighborhood competitor was across the street at La Taquería.. Now, his rent has climbed to $7,000 a month and he competes with six other taquerías in the one-block radius around the BART stop. Two–one even seven years older than Velle’s—have been the longest surviving. El Farolito, open since 1982, is steps from the BART and known as a late-night destination, while La Taquería, which first appeared in 1973, is known for its quality and cleanliness.

No matter. In more than two decades in the Mission District’s taco wars, Velle estimates that 30 taquerías have come and gone. Staying in business, the survivors say, requires mastery of the subtleties that breed brand loyalty.

“I’m a meat person,” says Miguel Jara, who owns the Tijuana-style La Taquería. “We don’t do rice here.” Indeed, his $3.50 meat tacos are known for a lack of frills, including the no-bean, more meat option for an extra $1. Jara says he serves nothing but choice grade, which his staff rids of gristle. ”Commercial grade is cheaper, but this meat, you don’t even have to chew it,” he says.

Jara attributes La Taquería’s long run to customers who appreciate consistency. “You have to give the customer the exact same thing every time,” he says. When his customers try a new place, they return to La Taquería promising they’ll never go anywhere else.

“This place is rock solid consistent,” echoes 25-year La Taquería loyalist Chris Delucchi, gripping a chicken burrito with avocado. “Plus, you could eat the hot sauce by the spoonful it’s so good.”

Down the street, El Farolito caters to a more transient crowd; the one leaving the bars and looking for a place open until 4 a.m. It’s volume that counts here. “In terms of prices and volume of food, we top every taquería in the region,” says manager Santiago Lopez of the $1.95 tacos brimming with pinto beans. “Our burritos are huge,” he says and promises, “ You never cut down the food.”

But Velle at Taquería San Jose says that a steady price is the trick. You never raise the price, if you can help it, he says, because, “customers can just go across the street.” Velle heads up a taquería family—see a place with “alteña” in the name, and it’s likely one of his brothers owns it. Family and friends who helped with his initial investment still work the counter and grill.

Labor is occasionally a problem for Jara, who says that some of his employees rake in $20 an hour. “My cooks, my customers, they go off and start their own taquerías,” he says, “All these places, their owners came here, but they are just imitations. I was the first.”

But, in fact, it is La Cumbre, on 16th Street, that is widely considered the Mission’s first Taquería. “When I opened, they shut down for nine months,” says Jara, “when they opened again, they were serving the same thing as me.” Edward Duran, the son of La Cumbre’s founder, disagrees and says Jara “is a liar and you can tell him that.”

Duran says his father trained many a cook including the founders of the Chevy’s chain, who he says, “got his start here” at Le Cumbre.

But even in war, the taco battalions show camaraderie. Jara recalls waking up to a late-night call from a rival taquería owner who said he was in Las Vegas and needed money. “I didn’t ask what it was for. I didn’t want to know, I just sent it,” says Jara. And there was the time Taquería el Toro’s owner, a former customer of Jara’s, was driving down 18th Street, checking out his new Corvette in a window reflection, when he rear-ended a truck. “We all laughed about that one,” he says. “We don’t see each other too often, but we all know each other.”

SAN FRANCISCO — When Douglas Rich walked into his first classroom 11 years ago, he says it was “like something out of the movies.” Kids were throwing paper airplanes, running around the room. “One had jumped up and was hanging from the doorway,” he says. “It was funny.”

He lasted six years at Sanchez Elementary, a predominantly minority, predominately poor school with lousy test scores in San Francisco’s Castro district. The only one of nine new teachers to stay that long, he too moved—to second grade at Alamo Elementary, a high-performing, primarily white and Asian public school in the Richmond.

“It’s not the kids, it’s everything else,” says Rich. “Like one poor first grader was found locked in a men’s bathroom in a city park at 10 at night while his father was dealing drugs. They lack the basic things that we consider fundamental,” like parent support, health care, and a safe home, he says, “it’s too much for one person to take.”

Many, apparently, share his sentiment. As if it were a rule in the San Francisco Unified School District, experienced teachers migrate to the academically best-performing schools with the fewest poor, Latino, and African American students.

Currently, teachers at Sanchez have an average of 5.4 years of experience in the district, whereas at Alamo Elementary, they have 16.3. The district average for all teachers is 12 years.

This trend in teacher migration is national, and some Federal lawmakers are calling for Congress to address the unequal distribution of experienced teachers in any new version of No Child Left Behind. They say it should be among the factors measured to compare schools.

At present, the legislation measures “comparable” services between high- and low-poverty schools by denying Federal funds to districts until they distribute per pupil expenditures evenly across the district. Teacher salary, which is primarily based on a teacher’s level of experience and education, is currently excluded in the services that are compared. The salary difference is left out of per pupil spending measurements.

A 2005 report by EdTrust-West, a nonprofit educational research and advocacy group, calculated that nationally, spending within the same district could differ by as much as $3,200 per student because of differences in teacher salary. Sanchez Elementary, which already receives extra funding, would require an additional $92,009 a year to catch up with more affluent schools in the district, they said.

To address this “hidden spending gap,” Rep. George Miller (D-Ca), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, has written a draft of No Child Left Behind that includes teacher salary in the measured services. Districts would have to compensate schools with less experienced teachers. Schools could use the new money to retain experienced teachers or for bonuses to attract a higher caliber of teacher.

“Of course I want more experienced teachers,” says Katerina Palomares, principal of Cleveland Elementary in the Excelsior, which has six new teachers this year, three of them new to the profession. “We have turnover every year,” she says, “It’s stressful trying to find a good fit for the community and students.”

Cleveland tops EdTrust’s list of San Francisco elementary schools needing compensation, with an estimated $151,490. “I don’t know if more money would make a positive impact,” says Palomares.

Teacher retention is “about creating an environment where teachers feel like they’re making an impact with children,” says Raymond Isola, principal of Sanchez Elementary, who’s written academic papers on school disaffection, “When we’re talking about a community like this, there are incredible needs and less access to services.” Over the eight years he’s been at the school, Isola says, he’s worked to create a support network between teachers and make sure that they’re roles are clearly defined. “So if mental health services are needed, they’re there. If a kid doesn’t have health insurance, we have a nurse,” he says, “It’s important that the teacher know they’re not working alone.”

Rich thinks it took him four or five years to become a really good teacher. “I didn’t learn too much from my prep program at SF State,” he says, “certainly not the rocket science of actually teaching someone to read or write.” He’s not sure, however, that more money is a way to attract experienced teachers or improve struggling schools. At Sanchez, he says, “they got tons of money. Reduced and free lunch, a free nurse, literacy coach. It was all put to good use. But there’s a lot that’s out of your control. It’s just so hard.”

Seated in Alamo’s library, waiting to take yet another certification test, Rich’s passion flares when describing his commitment to diagnosing and treating dyslexia, something he’s certified to do. “I’d go back [to a school like Sanchez] as a reading specialist or learning pathologist,” he says, “but absolutely not back in the classroom. There’s only a certain amount of energy we’re allotted each day.”

OAKLAND– As two Burmese families build new lives in a green fourplex with red trim in West Oakland– leaving their past in a Thai refugee camp behind them– they have little doubt about the change they have experienced here.

“Here we have freedom,” said Kamal Ya, 27, who has lived here since June with his wife, Lokiya, 25, and their eight and seven-year-old daughters. “I don’t want to be involved in politics. I just want a better life for my children.”

The Yas are among the 13,896 Burmese refugees who have arrived in the United States in the last year from one of nine refugee camps in Thailand near the Myanmar border. Since the 1990s the refugees have resettled in the Bay Area, with some 100 settling here this year, according to Leslie Peterson, Deputy Director of the International Rescue Committee in San Francisco.

Kamal, then just a year old, fled Burma with his family for the Mae La Camp– a Thai refugee camp just five miles from the border–after a 1984 military raid of his village home in the state of Karen. That year, his family was among some 10,000 refugees who fled Burma–a country that has been called Myanmar since 1989.

“I don’t want to be involved in politics. I just want to have a better opportunity for my children,” said Kamal as he stood in the small kitchen wearing a plaid green sarong tied around his waist. When the Myanmar military raided the Mae La camp, which they did often, his family fled to the jungle. To demonstrate the military’s method, Kamal moved his right hand toward a purple number 17 on a soccer jersey he wore, as if pulling a trigger.

Anil Verma, 34, a Burmese man who moved to Oakland three years ago, translated for Kamal and also spoke of the military’s tactics. “They [the military] are ruling the country at gun point. In Burma there are no basic human rights,” said Verma, who spent 12 years in Thailand and India as a political organizer and now works as a case manager for Asian Pacific Psychological Services in Oakland, helping new refugees adjust to life here.

While Kamal lives downstairs with his wife and three children, his sister Issa and her family live upstairs. They too arrived in June.

“We can live an easy life here,” said Issa’s husband Ah Did dressed in a black T-shirt, denim shorts, and black flip-flops.

In the camp, the family, including children aged 2, 6 and 9, lived in a hut “larger than their apartment,” but Ah Did often re-built it after the storms–and getting education for their children was difficult.

“We came here for education,” said Ah Did who never attended school in the Mae La camp, but now takes English as a Second Language classes at the adult school in Oakland. “Our future will be bright.”

While Ah Did learns enough English to get “any job,” the family lives off financial assistance, food stamps, and clothing donations Verma collects from friends.

Leslie Peterson from the International Rescue Committee said refugees who have been in camps or otherwise displaced for most of their lives are likely to take longer to adapt to life here. But those who are “opened minded and realistic, who can take initiative and also be patient,” she said, will do best.

Issa and Ah Did’s eldest children, Zakiya, 9, and Menaisa, 6, are learning English at Santa Fe Elementary. Zakiya smiled and nodded when asked if he enjoyed school. He added that he liked his teacher. He’s funny, he said.

Just before dusk, the children and their cousins ran around the backyard with its clotheslines, small patch of grass, concrete, and a single overturned dining chair. They chased each other up wooden stairs to the wrought-iron-screened door of their apartment. Inside, white rice steamed in an electric pot on the counter.

Chewing a mouthful of rice, Harisa, 2, slid on pine-like pergo floors into the living room, her tiny gold hoop-earings shining. Her giggles echoed off the high ceilings.

“In the camps they are living without a tomorrow,” said Verma. “If they work hard here they can get whatever they want. They can change their lives.”

“Being here is like a dream,” he says. He pauses, and then chuckles. “I would never expect this would happen to me in my life.”

SAN FRANCISCO–Ba Shar seems adrift on a sea of his imagination, oblivious to the scenery that surrounds him. He is standing on the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time in his life, looking out at the San Francisco skyline. The bridge’s red cables loom over his head and a thin mist covers the silver water below. A slow smile spreads across his face as he seems to come to, waking up to his new reality.  

“Being here is like a dream,” he says. He pauses, and then chuckles. “I would never expect this would happen to me in my life.”

His journey began 13 years ago and has carried him from a small village in Burma to a Thai refugee camp to Oakland and this field trip to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Shar and the 13,900 other arrivals this year from Myanmar—the name the military gave Burma in 1989—represent a fraction of the refugees who have fled their homes in the nearly 50-year conflict between the military and the country’s ethnic minorities.

Their journey, says David Sein-Lwin, who left Myanmar in 1971 and today works with the newcomers, is dreamlike—filled with anxieties and expectations.

“When I first arrived, it was shocking because I had preconceptions from the movies,” Sein-Lwin said of his arrival in Pennsylvania. “I envisioned Indians and cowboys, “ he said. Instead, he found farms.

Shar expected to find a completely foreign land, but instead discovered a community of other refugees with stories similar to his own.

“I knew it would be a different country, a different culture,” he said, using Sein-Lwin as a translator. “But I found my own countrymen here, which made it a lot easier.”

These countrymen are Karen and Chin, the two largest ethnic minority groups in Myanmar. Many Karen and Chin people converted to Christianity before the government banned missionaries in 1964, according to Penny Edwards, a South and Southeastern Asian Studies professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in the cultural history of Cambodia and Myanmar.

In the past five months, the International Rescue Committee, a refugee advocacy organization, brought 110 Karen and Chin refugees to the Bay Area. The recent surge—the San Francisco organization has sponsored only 56 Burmese refugees in the last two years—is unrelated to the recent violence in Myanmar. Instead, it came after the Department of Homeland Security passed a waiver to the Patriot Act that granted many Karen and Chin refugees sanctuary in the United States, said Leslie Peterson, the deputy director of the San Francisco IRC. A clause in the Patriot Act bars anyone that provided “material support,” including housing, transportation or funds, to a terrorist organization from entering the United States as a refugee. In January the Department of Homeland Security waived this clause for armed wings of Karen and Chin resistance groups listed as terrorist organizations.

As they make new homes in the United States, these recent refugees can only watch the violence unfold in Myanmar.

“Right now we’re watching our country, which was one of the richest in the world, fall down to the bottom of the list,” Sein-Lwin said. “It’s very hard to watch when you can’t do anything about it.”

To accommodate the new refugees, the First Burmese Baptist Church of San Francisco, established in 1977 after the first wave of Burmese arrived, opened a sister church in Oakland. The latter helps the new arrivals adjust to life here using church funds and donations from inside and outside the church.

“We had a vision to start a new church in the East Bay,” said Lone Wah Lazum, the Oakland pastor. “This is an opportunity to reach out to people here, give assistance to people here, and also for these people to come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.”

For Shar, the church has also been a lifeline to education and work.

“When I moved here, I thought I would have a lot more difficulties,” said Shar on a recent Sunday after church. “But finding this place, being with my people, it made it better. Then I had a feeling that things would be OK.”

His connection to the church is clear. Shar disappeared after the service and arrived 10 minutes later wearing a bright blue parka given to him by the church.

“I had to go home because I forgot my favorite coat,” he said.

The story of the 45-year-old rice farmer’s quick flight out of Burma and then his long wait in one of the nine Thai refugee camps is typical, said Sein-Lwin.

Like others, Shar said, he was “caught in a tug of war” between the military that seized power in a 1962 coup and the Karen National Union.

When the military captured him, he knew he could be used to do the dangerous work of searching for landmines, so in 1984 he and two friends fled the military camp and ran for Thailand.

“We risked our lives, but we thought it was a good risk,” he said. “We were carrying ammunition and we just dumped it and ran for our lives.”

When Shar made it to the Maelah refugee camp on the Thailand border, he sent for his wife and mother-in-law.

“The camp is kind of like a prison,” he said. “You’re not allowed outside it, and there are security police looking, so if you’re caught they’ll send you back to Burma.”

Nonetheless, Shar tried to put together a life—working in construction for other refugees who traded with the villages outside, building his own home from woven leaves and bamboo and having four children, who attended a United Nations-run school. But the camp always felt unsafe.

“The military could raid at any time,” he said.

In early 2007, he heard the UN was accepting applications for refugee status, meaning Shar and his family could move to places like Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States.

“It didn’t matter where we went, as long as we escaped from refugee life,” he said.

The United States admission limits for East Asian refugees have been rising for the past five years, mostly because of the increasing number of Burmese refugees. Between 2001 and 2004, 22,500 East Asian refugees were allowed into the United States, compared to 28,000 for 2005 to 2006. Last year the ceiling was set at 11,000, but more than 15,600 East Asians were granted refugee status using a reserve pot. More than 13,900 of those refugees are Burmese.

“The opportunity to leave is like winning the lottery, so I had to go,” Shar said. “I knew that if I stayed, I would be a refugee forever. I’d have no hope, no freedom.”

A snag in Shar’s joy came quickly, however. Although his whole family would be allowed to leave, Shar and his three children would be sent to Oakland, while his wife and mother-in-law would go to Georgia. Shar’s mother-in-law was sick, so in order to get himself and his children out as quickly as possible, he applied separately from his wife and mother-in-law. Shar and his wife had different sponsors, which meant they were sent to different locations.

Shar and his children, ages 18, 16 and 14, left the refugee camp in July. His oldest daugher, 23, had left in June with her fiancé, who also filed a separate application. They are currently living in Virginia. Shar’s wife and her mother left at the end of September.

The San Francisco International Rescue Committee helped arrange a subsidized Oakland apartment, enrolled the family for food stamps and public school and gave Shar English lessons and help finding a job.

During his first week in Oakland, church members arrived on his doorstep with 50 pounds of rice and a gallon of cooking oil in tow and have continued to help with food, clothing, and education services. By mid-October, Shar was working at a jewelry factory in Oakland and had saved $312 for one-way tickets for his wife and mother-in-law.

After his initial adjustment, Shar is confident he will be able to succeed without assistance from his church and the IRC.

“Whatever other people do, I should be able to do,” he said with the stained smile of a man who spent much of his life chewing beetle nuts. “When I look at other immigrants and refugees, I see people have been able to improve their lives, so I believe I should be able to do that, too.”

Now Shar’s focus is on his children.

“For my future, I can’t do much, but my children can be more successful,” he said. “My main goal (in leaving the refugee camp) was to give them education”.

Sein-Lwin, who ended up in Pennsylvania and graduated from Penn State, says his own experience gives him faith that the newcomers will succeed.

“If you take any job, you can build on it,” he said. “You just need a job to get started. My parents look back at their lives now and say, wow, we’ve come a long way.”

The one-year anniversary of Berkeley’s momentous step toward reducing its greenhouse gas emissions has come and gone without much fanfare. But inside small city offices, tucked away in remote university laboratories, and even in the living rooms of community activists, ground-breaking actions are being taken —but not everyone is at ease with them.

City officials are on the verge on finalizing the details of a massive Climate Action Plan that could change the very nature of downtown Berkeley, as well as put a few dollars in the pockets of PG&E customers.

The exact outcomes are far from clear, but what is certain is that change is coming. That was guaranteed last November, when voters overwhelmingly approved Measure G, which set the lofty goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 80 percent by 2050 in Berkeley.

But while all agree that the environment is worth saving, many are divided about the best way to implement such a large-scale and somewhat vague plan.

The debate spans a wide and thorny divide including what actual benefits citizens might see on their monthly energy bill to which of the wide variety of energy saving solutions to implement and how.

But perhaps the biggest concern lies in how new city planning and transportation measures aimed at reducing dependence on fossil fuels could in fact have the negative effect of a densely populated downtown with high-rises, which some say could ruin Berkeley’s long standing ‘small town’ feel.

However, according to many of Berkley’s environmental experts and officials, citizens will have to embrace these types of changes sooner rather than later. At the same time, they assert that a shift toward more walkable communities where work, home and major transportation hubs are closer together and easily accessible will actually increase the quality of life for Berkeley citizens.

Amid some controversy and uncertainty, Measure G is largely being seen by many as a sign that Berkeley is ready to take the lead nationally and even globally in the mounting fight against global warming.

Since its passing, Measure G has invigorated the efforts of the city, the university, and community groups into an emerging and increasingly unified effort that will lead to a new and arguably improved Berkeley.

THE CITY LEADS THE WAY

In one of Berkeley’s most aggressive moves toward reaching its emission reduction goal, they added Timothy Burroughs to the city’s Energy and Sustainable Development department staff.

Burroughs is a highly sought after figure when it comes to coordinating massive ‘greening’ campaigns for cities across the country. He comes off a two-year stint with the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), an international association of over 700 local governments that is highly regarded for helping communities implement complicated sustainable development programs – the kind Berkeley will need to reach its ambitious 80 percent reduction target.

Armed with the expertise of Burroughs and an initial $100,000 earmarked from the city’s general coffers, Berkeley got off to an auspicious start. Prominent meetings with experts from environmental groups around the country were conducted, including the US Department of Energy, and the California Attorney General’s Office. Also, hundreds of citizens gave their input on the issue at a series of community action meetings over the past year.

“We did 13 different workshops all focused on providing an opportunity for Berkeley residents to participate in shaping local climate property. We had upwards of 500 distinct suggestions or ideas provided through this process,” said Burroughs.

The city’s Energy and Sustainable Development department, which consists of Burroughs and four other full-time staffers, is now synthesizing all the input and research and is meeting behind closed doors to develop the comprehensive Climate Action Plan that promises to outline both short-term and long-term goals for emissions reduction. The plan is due out by the end of the year for city council and citizen review.

“That is a big milestone,” said Burroughs. “What it will do we hope is really serve as an essential point of reference for looking at what is a roadmap for a community for achieving significant reductions in Greenhouse Gas emissions.”

The roadmap analogy is apt. The plan itself on paper won’t do anything but it will help wrangle all the programs and initiatives the city, local non-profits and UC Berkeley are already doing into one extensive framework for effecting the enormous changes that the city will have to make to severely halt its greenhouse emissions.

Berkeley believes that its push to go ‘green’ will help residents in unimagined ways – it will create jobs, improve traffic, clean the air and reduce consumer’s monthly energy bills.

The wheels are in motion on many of these efforts, including the new Bus Rapid Transit proposal, which is being touted as a quicker more efficient mass transit option aimed to draw commuters out of their cars. Also, a highly anticipated Solar Financing option is being developed by the city that intends to ease the large up-front costs for citizens interested in installing solar panels in their homes or businesses.

While there are high hopes for creating and implementing these types of innovative programs, Burroughs and his team are faced with the challenge of securing funds to sustain the massive 40 plus year campaign. Disturbing to some, Measure G states that the city doesn’t know how much the whole campaign will ultimately cost or how they will generate the crucial dollars to keep the plan afloat.

“Part of the action plan is looking for sustained funding that would enable us to implement the strategy and the plan, and that is an unanswered question right now,” said Timothy Burroughs.

THE UNIVERSITY – A VALUABLE RESOURCE

Just a few blocks east of Burroughs’ city office, in a rundown five-story building at UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering, a group of 25 graduate students sit around a conference table eating lunch and discussing renewable energy concepts.

The gathering is part of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) weekly lunch-in meetings headed by UC Berkeley professor and the lab’s founding director, Dan Kammen. While based on Berkeley’s campus, the laboratory is a one of a kind facility that focuses on designing, testing, and disseminating renewable energy systems all over the world.

Over the one-hour session, the young scientists casually discuss a sophisticated spreadsheet that breaks down the energy generated by photovoltaic solar panels into costs per kilowatt-hour. But what at first seems like a group of high-minded academics talking about intellectual energy theories is really a practical discussion about making solar energy an affordable and viable option for Berkeley citizens by next summer.

Under the umbrella of Measure G, the city of Berkeley recently approved the “Sustainable Energy Financing District” which will allow property owners to finance all up-front costs for solar installations and other energy efficiency improvements to their home or business. The plan is the first of its kind in the nation and will let citizens pay back the large up-front costs on their individual property tax bill in low installments over a 20-year period.

Kammen’s laboratory and his expertise has been specially recruited by Berkeley’s Energy and Sustainable Development department to act as a technical advisor to guide the city through the unchartered waters of solar financing.

“My group for example met last night at my house to develop a calculator so city officials could look at what the impact of this program would be. That is a tool that we will provide to the Berkeley energy office,” said Kammen.

Kammen also says that they are writing software, developing financial models and that there will be pilot homes from this program that people can tour by this summer.

Timothy Burroughs, the Berkeley official, works closely with Kammen and his lab, and he says that this financing element is essential to measure G’s success.

“The Solar Financing initiative is a component of the larger effort of achieving our greenhouse emissions reduction target. It has generated so much excitement, it is probably the most exciting new thing of the plan, it is one of the big missing components that enables us to go deeper into the programs that already exists,” said Burroughs.

The excitement around the program started nearly six months ago when the Mayor’s chief of staff, Cisco DeVries, came up with the financing idea. But the city’s challenge is taking the next step and proving to business and homeowners that accepting a large low-interest loan to go solar is in-fact a cost effective and viable option.

“I met with him (DeVries) today to go through these ideas and to help them make it a reality, said Stephen Portis, director of special projects for Kammen’s lab.

According to Portis, with the right tax incentives and rebates, some citizens who finance solar panels will not only be helping the environment but after a few years, be paying less a month than if they stayed with PG&E.

“We are helping them (the city) with a number of different issues from market analysis to economic modeling to looking at tax rebates, and other incentives associated with this type of program. We are helping them make this happen and hope to have this up and running by summer of next year,” said Portis

If the Berkeley lab working in correlation with the city can make this work, it will likely be replicated all over the state and the nation according to Dan Kammen. Calls and emails from city officials around world are already flooding the Mayor’s office.

NON-PROFITS – ON THE GROUND AND ROOFTOPS

What if you could buy your own green energy in the open market and not rely on PG&E’s largely nuclear and natural-gas generated power?

What would a diverse, urban neighborhood look like if every building’s unused rooftop were used to generate renewable resources, organic gardens and potable water systems?

These are the kinds of forward-thinking questions that environmental nonprofits are asking in the Bay Area like Bay Localize whose mission is to build self-reliant and sustainable communities, and to wean the bay off a fossil fuel-based economy.

Though they have no official connection to the city of Berkeley’s Energy and Sustainable Development department, Bay Localize communicates closely with Timothy Burroughs and other officials and strongly back their efforts.

“They are taking time to really hear from a lot of people,” said Kirsten Schwind, Programs Coordinator for the non-profit. “It’s going to be a big job in terms of how this is happening and its still something they are figuring out and I am pretty supportive of the process they’ve been using.”

But Bay Localize has innovative programs of its own to achieve a low-carbon future. For example, Schwind is one of the group’s coordinators for the Local Clean Energy Alliance of the East Bay, which aims to get citizens to take control over their energy purchasing power.

The project is based on the 2002 California law that allows cities or counties to become bulk energy purchasers for their residents, called Community Choice Aggregation. And Bay Localize is heading a large community outreach program to educate citizens about this widely unknown option. According to Schwind community support so far is high, and many are intrigued about the example being set just across the bay.

San Francisco took the definitive lead on this issue back in May of 2006 when Mayor Gavin Newson announced funding to launch the largest municipal alternative energy program proposed to date in the United States. Under the plan, San Francisco would acquire electric power from solar and wind sources and then sell it locally, giving San Franciscans the choice between city-generated or privately generated electricity.

Berkeley, Oakland and Emeryville are following suit, and already investigating the idea of pooling their purchasing power to obtain renewable energy for their residents. “It is a way that communities could choose their own source of power and are not stuck with the source of power that PG&E is supplying,” said Schwind.

PG&E’s energy breakdown is roughly 20 percent nuclear, 40 percent natural gas and less than 5 percent solar and wind but Bay Localize says residents can use their grid without using their power.

For communities with private utilities like PG&E, the electricity will still be delivered over existing wires owned, operated and maintained by the utility. The customer will see no difference in service and will continue to receive a single bill for electricity issued by and paid to the utility.

After setting in motion his plan, San Francisco Mayor Newsom boasted in a press release that, “Community Choice Aggregation has the potential to provide clean, reliable and reasonably priced energy to local consumers. It’s time that US cities step up to fill a leadership vacuum that exists in Washington DC and move aggressively toward expanding renewable energy.” Schwind points to San Francisco for inspiration and says if this catches on in the East Bay, it would certainly help Berkeley reach its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

Bay Localize’s campaigns don’t end there. They are also leading the way on utilizing all open spaces to fight against growing constraints on energy and water supplies.

They have just turned out an extensive report of their findings, called “Tapping the Potential of Urban Rooftops,” which shows the way for implementing rooftop gardens, renewable energy, and rainwater catchment systems.

“It actually quantifies the amount of food, water and electricity that we could produce on a 50-block area of Oakland,” said Schwind. Bay Localize calculates that they could produce 25 percent of that area’s current electricity demand, enough greens and vegetables to fulfill the USDA dietary requirements for the whole neighborhood and when natural rainfall isn’t enough, it could provide irrigation water for 83 percent of the buildings.

Schwind hopes that the new report can be a guide for other cities like Berkeley to tap into this vast resource.

CHALLENGES ARISE

Ultimately the simplest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to get people out of their cars.

Bay Localize is just one of many supporters of the contentious Bus Rapid Transit issue being proposed by AC Transit. Proponents claim that the plan will provide quicker and more efficient mass transit down Telegraph Avenue into neighboring Oakland and San Leandro. It aims to improve traffic conditions and make public transit attractive enough to get people out of their cars and in turn dramatically reduce Berkeley’s dependence on oil. The current plan, which has not yet been approved by the city council, would devote one lane of roadway on Telegraph exclusively for rapid buses, and eliminate one lane of traffic and one lane of parking in both directions.

Opponents argue that BRT will actually worsen traffic conditions. Scarier still to some of the plan’s foes, is that the BRT is just a harbinger of an overcrowded, metropolitan-like downtown that will crush Berkeley’s small-town feel.

“There are a number of very vocal community members that don’t want to see the downtown area change. They don’t want to see more high-rises built in the downtown area. It is a incredibly controversial,” said Burroughs.

But Burroughs says that compact growth, which means increasing the amount of residential building near transit such as the BRT or BART so that people live closer to where they work, is environmentally necessary.

“From a purely greenhouse gas emissions perspective, it certainly makes sense to have compact growth in areas where transit exists, where there is access to transit and access to jobs. But the community doesn’t only look at things through the prism of greenhouse gas emissions.”

This is certainly true for Carol Lipnick, a 27-year resident and owner of The Berkeley Hat Company on Telegraph Avenue. She contends that the BRT and compact growth could spell the end of businesses along Telegraph as well as the small town feel of Berkeley. Lipnick is quick to explain that she is not opposed to sensible mass transit and doing her part for the environment, but that the current BRT and “big pie-in-the-sky plans” are not the right answer.

“It’s rush hour, the buses are half empty and there is barely any traffic,” said Lipnick pointing toward Telegraph Avenue from outside her store.

“They (city officials) don’t really live here, they aren’t out here every day. They want to put up all these big buildings and pack people in, it has small town feel and they are going to kill it.”

Lipnick worries that businesses along Telegraph Avenue will be crippled and face possible bankruptcies due to new traffic congestion and lack of parking.

Thomas Cooper, the owner of the Drunken Boat restaurant on Telegraph Ave. and Carleton St., says that after 35 years, he is on the verge of going out of business and fears the worse. “I’m just trying to stay alive financially, we have a lot of elderly people coming in and without them being able to park nearby, we would be bankrupt and have to close,” said Cooper.

He asserts that beyond the Bus Rapid Transit issue, he doesn’t know much about Measure G or compact growth. He says he realizes cities need to expand to accommodate a growing population but that he can’t afford to campaign for or against anything at this point, as he spends most of his time looking to generate new business to keep afloat.

Lipnick on the other hand sticks to her guns and says as possible high-rises go up that it will change the quiet small town feel that attracted so many Berkeley citizens in the first place.

Kirsten Schwind at Bay Localize, who also lives in Berkeley, contends that we have to get away from the “not in my back yard” syndrome. “These are the responses we have to make, and each community has to make them and yes things change, Berkeley will change, that’s inevitable but I think these are positive changes that really tackle issues that we need to tackle. No community stays the same,” said Schwind.

Perhaps, beyond calculating solar energy cost benefits and weaning off fossil fuels, the most difficult thing Berkeley will have to address is changing the way our cities look and feel, along with changing the amount we drive, fly and consume.

“These are all issues we are all going to have to face,” said Kammen, who thinks these changes will actually improve quality of life in Berkeley. “But that is an ongoing discussion, its not something you solve or don’t solve in one meeting, it has to be a dialogue, between people proposing some of the new ideas like my group, city officials and the citizens of Berkeley.”

SAN FRANCISCO – Under a grey sky, standing beside the Chinese consulate, 19-year-old Kyaw Naing held a microphone to his lips as he led 200 protesters in repeated cries of “Free Burma” on a recent Friday afternoon. As he does at all such gatherings, the Burmese student wore a red sash wound around his head, in memory of the blood shed by protesters in his home country.

“This is a time when we need to stand-up because people are sacrificing their lives,” said Naing, who is one of 60 members of San Francisco City College’s Myanmar student group.

Naing, who grew-up in Rangoon, said he “was lucky” to get a student visa two years ago, and “absolutely cannot go back to Burma,” because he will be jailed or killed for his activism.

Naing is one of about 1,000 Burmese college students in the Bay Area’s 30,000 strong community. Like Naing, many have spent the last month publicly supporting family and friends in a country they still call Burma even though the country’s military changed its name to Myanmar in 1989. The local protests began after the military stepped-up attacks there. The protesters, who include Buddhist monks, want a peaceful end to the country’s longstanding military dictatorship.

The Friday demonstration here was held in front of San Francisco’s Chinese consulate to urge China, one of Myanmar’s economic supporters, to step in and help resolve the situation peacefully.

The support groups here have ignited and fortified a community of Burmese students that includes representatives from nearly every local college, with the majority at the more affordable community colleges. Almost all of them came here on student visas for greater educational opportunities. Parents back home, who would be considered rich by Myanmar standards, help them financially, said Nyunt Than, president of the Burmese American Democratic Alliance—a six-year-old San Francisco based group of activists working toward democracy and human rights in Burma.

This year alone, some 100 Burmese have arrived as immigrants or refugees in the Bay Area, said Than. He said Burmese began arriving in the Bay Area when the military took power in 1962 and the numbers increased in 1988 when the military dismantled the university system and began greater crackdowns on citizens protesting for democracy.

James Phyo, 27, an electrical engineering graduate student at San Jose State and president of the school’s Myanmar student group, said he left Burma three years ago, after the military forced him to go to the most remotely located university. Engineering students, Phyo said, are often politically active and known for “being the most courageous ones.”

Phyo, and his friend Nandi Kyaw Min, recently formed Bay Area Burmese Youth, to unify the many student activists living here. Said Phyo, “We have to stand together.”

Min, 28, lives in San Jose, and recently graduated from Webster University in St. Louis with an MBA in marketing. She said the group— so new that they have yet to elect officers— has about 100 members spread around the Bay Area.

“Now is the time,” said Min, to form the group. “We can’t leave them alone in Burma. We can’t let it go any longer.”

At the Friday protest, Min and five members of the youth group walked in a line, leading a crowd of 200 down Geary Street to the UN Plaza, carrying a banner that said “Peace for Burma Actions.” Directly behind them were crimson robed Burmese Buddhist monks, and behind them, other students and activists. The monks chanted words from a Buddhist prayer “may all people in the universe be happy, be peaceful, be tranquil.” It was the first time Min had met the others carrying the banner.

“We bonded because we share a common background and goal,” she said.

The goal of the group is “to promote awareness of our country, its situation and our culture,” said Phyo. “Because nobody here (Americans) knows what it is about or what’s going on.”

Jean Gale, 60, of Daly City, a board member for the Burmese American Democratic Alliance, said she is pleased to see the students standing-up for their home country.

“For so long it was just the same people speaking out for Burma. Now we are seeing young people active and we are very proud,” said Gale, who moved to the United States in 1989 and spoke to students at San Francisco City College on a recent Wednesday.

“We have to teach our children that we have voices here,” said Gale. “So we have to give voices to the people of Burma.”

As the Burmese youth in the Bay Area protest and organize, they are reminded of the freedom they have gained by moving to the United States.

James, a 19-year-old San Francisco city college student from Myanmar who asked that his full name not be used, said that recently a friend there, “just like him,” was severely beaten in Rangoon. The friend was trying to protect some monks protesting peacefully.

“If I stayed in Burma, I couldn’t have done anything for my country, “ said James who left his country a year ago. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Next row, what word?” says literacy coach Katherine Crawford as she snaps her fingers to keep the class in rhythm.

In yet another classroom, seventh-graders are working on a project about the culture of Chipman, an ethnically and economically diverse school of about 600 students.

ALAMEDA — Inside one classroom at Chipman Middle School, eighth-graders look for word clues and make plot predictions as the teacher reads a novel aloud. Just a few classroom doors away, another group of students chant vocabulary words — bite, bit, spark, and wait.

“Next row, what word?” says literacy coach Katherine Crawford as she snaps her fingers to keep the class in rhythm.

In yet another classroom, seventh-graders are working on a project about the culture of Chipman, an ethnically and economically diverse school of about 600 students.

Inside Chipman, there is a strong sense of community among students and faculty alike. And those who have worked with the school, including outside consultants, praise the ability of teachers and administrators to collaborate.

On paper, though, the school’s image is not so rosy. Chipman was under a state-mandated monitoring program for two years and is on probation under the federal No Child Left Behind Act because of low test scores.

But in an ongoing effort to improve literacy, the school is using a three-tiered program designed by Chipman teachers that has boosted student reading. The program combines an old method of dividing students by ability, but employs new curriculum to help them move to the next level.

State test results have shown some improvement since the program was implemented in 2003. The number of students reading at grade level and above has increased in all grades since then, from 27 percent to 35 percent for sixth-graders, 26 percent to 42 percent for seventh graders and 18 percent to 27 percent for eighth-graders.

But teachers and other education professionals say the changes have been more dramatic than what is captured in state scores.

“State tests are not always sensitive to the types of movement students are making,” said Cathy Spriggs, an outside teaching consultant who is working with Chipman staff.

For example, Crawford teaches students more than two grades below reading level using the Reach system, which addresses the very basics of reading, grammar and writing. Since 2003, the school went from having eight sections, or 160 students, of those classes to only one section of 20 today.

When students enter Chipman, they are assessed for literacy and are placed into the three types of classes — Reach for the lowest, strategic for those just below grade level and benchmark for those at or above grade level. Regardless of which level students are placed in, all classes are rigorous and fast-paced. Students are assessed every six weeks and can be moved up if they show improvement.

In the Reach classes, lessons are about the mechanics of reading. Classes start with students chanting a row of words aloud along with the vowel sounds used.

Students also read stories aloud, and they are encouraged to track their words with their fingers. If they make errors, everyone goes back up to the beginning of the paragraph.

Inside a strategic class, students read novels. The focus is on honing techniques such as using prior knowledge, looking for clues to decipher unfamiliar vocabulary or making predictions.

“It’s good. It’s a hard class and I get my work done,” said Markisha Johnson, an eighth-grader in a strategic class. “We’re learning the CLUE stuff, check for clues, link to prior knowledge, unveil predictions and examine the reader.”

Students at a seventh-grade benchmark class, where the focus is on social sciences, say that they are definitely challenged by the assignments. There are difficult words to learn as well as projects that put words into a larger context.


“It’s challenging in some ways, but most of the time, it’s fun,” said Antonio Denning, a student in the benchmark class.

Many students at Chipman have more than just school to worry about. Some students come from Coast Guard families that move often. And as many as 60 percent of students qualify for the free or reduced-price lunch programs, according to the state’s Department of Education database.

About 30 percent of students are classified as English Language learners. And it is one of the most diverse schools in the district with kids speaking Cantonese, Spanish, Farsi, among other languages.

“We start at such a deficit in terms of educating kids who come from poverty. As a result you’re always playing catch-up in a pretty dramatic way and that really starts to hit home in middle school,” said Carla Greathouse, who teaches strategic classes.

Today, Chipman is leading the way for Alameda Unified School District to take part in a new program with the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning called Fusion, which boosts reading comprehension and is designed to bring students from the basic reading level to proficient or advanced. The program is being used only in one other city in the country.

As a result, Chipman is getting more recognition for its reading accomplishments outside Alameda than inside, where people only pay attention to test scores, said former Principal Laurie McLachlan-Fry.

Spriggs said teachers at Chipman are constantly working to improve their practices, analyze their methods and continue to assess students carefully.

“This kind of collaborative culture and professionalism is something I haven’t seen in any schools in my 30 years in education,” Spriggs said. “They know how to work as a group to move forward.”

If it seems that “redevelopment” has been on the tip of the tongue of many of San Francisco’s political, community, and policy leaders for ages now, it’s because it has. In 1969, the Redevelopment Agency was brought in to help the city reinvigorate a portion of it’s struggling Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, and nearly 40 years later is still engaged in an arduous process with city officials and community members to bring the vision to fruition.

Redevelopment in the Bayview, despite it’s seemingly interminable history and potential to impact the economics, cultural identity, and political fabric of the city, remains a mystery to most casual observers. As one community organizer in the Bayview recently noted, “It’s hard to understand tax-increment financing. It’s hard to understand project boundaries and lines. It’s hard to really understand what’s happening.”

The history of redevelopment programs in the Bayview Hunters Point can be at least partially understood by a fluctuating push and pull of competing interests: business vs. environment, resident vs. city, high income vs. low income.

All of these dynamics are at play in the neighborhood’s most recent redevelopment logjam, involving Lennar Corporation and their housing development on the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, but it is the environmental issues which have taken center stage. On the one hand, residents and community groups say that a shipyard poisoned by years of use by the Navy is now poisoning them. City departments and Lennar spokespeople have countered that, while toxins in the soil do exist, they present no health risk. Ironically, the Precautionary Principle, a law enacted several years ago by the city to protect San Franciscans from environmental health hazards, is now being ignored by many of the same city officials that signed off on it. Their refusal to halt Lennar’s work, and take a closer look at the community’s concerns, has some Hunters Point residents questioning City Hall’s priorities.

Lennar Corporation

Lennar, a Fortune 500 company based out of Miami, is the second largest home developer in the nation in terms of revenue, which topped $13 billion as recently as 2005, according to Money Magazine. Operating in 17 states, they were able to turn a net profit of $1.35 billion that same year, and shareholders saw the company’s stock rise at an annual growth rate of 25 percent from 1995 – 2005.

More recently, however, the company has fallen upon hard times, due partly to a steep downturn in the real estate market. As reported in the North County Times last month, the Standard & Poor credit-rating agency downgraded the four largest homebuilding companies – including Lennar – to a non-investment grade, or “junk” status.

Adding to the company’s financial troubles are a slew of lawsuits filed over the last decade, which have begun to drive down investment and redirect profits to pay for legal defense fees. Three of those lawsuits have been filed in San Francisco over the last year alone. A review of past and current lawsuits filed against Lennar reveal a pattern of faulty construction, poor architectural planning, and discrimination against their own employees.

• In 1996, the New York Times reported that a Miami family’s backyard deteriorated into a large sunken hole, filled with construction debris, and murky brown water. The hole subsequently became a refuge for frogs, snakes, and insects, which plagued and frightened the family and their neighbors for months. Further excavations revealed that the homes had been built on a former dumpsite, and a lawsuit was filed against the developer, Lennar.

• The company faced a strikingly similar class-action lawsuit two years later, when they were accused of building homes on a trash landfill in Doral Sands, Miami.

• In 2001, Lennar was mandated to buy back large portions of an entire neighborhood in Arizona, after 44 homeowners in West Valley filed lawsuits accusing the company of negligence and fraud. The homeowners filed after their driveways and stucco walls began cracking. They pointed to shoddy construction work, and said Lennar knowingly constructed their homes on “expansive soil”, unfit to properly support a foundation.

• The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Lennar Homes of Arizona in 2003, alleging discriminatory practices by the company, on behalf of 40 employees.

• In 2006, Lennar was slapped with a bizarre wrongful-death lawsuit, when an appliance delivery man in Florida was electrocuted, trying to plug a dryer-hose into a vent at one of Lennar’s homes. Investigators revealed that the death was due to “faulty wiring”, which created an unexpected electrical surge throughout the building, even though power to the room had been turned off.

• According to recent reports in the SF Bay View, the company is currently being sued for faulty home construction in San Francisco’s South Beach neighborhood.

• Finally, last March in San Francisco, several Lennar employees filed a whistle-blower lawsuit, claiming they were reprimanded after advising the company and its subcontractors to halt their construction, in compliance with air quality standards set forth by the city’s Department of Public Health and Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The whistle-blowers contend that Lennar purposefully ignored high pollution warnings in order to reach construction deadlines, exposing workers and nearby residents to harmful toxins in the process.

“Lennar has a track record,” says Alicia Schwartz, a member of People Organized to Win Employment Rights. Schwartz’s work as an organizer for POWER in the Bayview has resulted in a familiarity with the controversies surrounding the company. “Their approach is, ‘We’re going to buy the shittiest land at the cheapest price, and we’re going to build and
build and build, and make money.’ They’re almost like a Wal-Mart. They do everything in-house. Why? Because it increases their profits.”

Even though most people are only now becoming aware of Lennar’s presence in San Francisco due to the lawsuits, they have been operating in the city for quite some time. According to a long-time employee of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, Lennar became a major player in the Bayview as far back as 1989, when the city unveiled its first concept plan to redevelop the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The plan – which is still being implemented today – called for a massive cleanup of the area, making way for a mix of new market rate and affordable housing, open public space along the waterfront, and a blend of commercial and existing industrial space.

“The whole fiasco with Lennar really did start before Gavin Newsom,” concurred Alicia Schwartz, “It started under Willie Brown, and essentially we all know Willie Brown is a deal maker, and more so than a politician, he’s been a business man. So, part of his ascendancy has been to make sweet deals, right? Lennar came in to San Francisco under those auspices.”

In addition to the environmental health concerns resulting from their work on the shipyard, community advocates have also taken umbrage at the fact that Lennar reneged on their original promise to include low-income housing as part of the development. “They come in, they get this deal because they say they’re going to build affordable rental housing,” explained Schwartz. “Then they go, ‘oh sorry, the market won’t support that, so what we’re going to do instead is build luxury condos, but we’re going to give you community benefits’. What community benefits?” Ironically, one of the three employees filing the whistle-blower lawsuit in San Francisco is Lennar’s Community Benefits Manager.

By 2005, designs for the shipyard came to include 1600 units of housing on what is known as Parcel A, and Lennar began preliminary work on those homes in 2006. When workers commenced putting shovel to ground, however, nearby residents began experiencing an increase in respiratory related illnesses. Over the next several months, those illnesses jump-started a community-driven campaign to halt Lennar’s work. Residents, community organizations, and local church leaders have since joined forces to argue that the symptoms are due to high levels of toxic chemicals – including asbestos and arsenic – which remain in the shipyard soil, despite cleanup work which was allegedly completed by the U.S. Navy in the 1990′s. When Lennar began grading the soil, residents say, it caused excessive amounts of dust to cloud the area, which includes homes and several schools within close range of the construction site.

The Official Response

Following months of well publicized complaints against the company’s Parcel A development (see “The Corporation That Ate San Francisco”, published in the SF Bay Guardian, 3/14/07), official action finally came from an unlikely source, the city’s Board of Education.

On September 25th, community members of the Bayview Hunters Point poured into the lobby of 555 Franklin Street, anticipating the start of the regularly scheduled school board meeting. Young students from Muslim University did their homework on the lobby floor, while their parents, local ministers, members of POWER, and other Bayview citizens waited for the meeting to commence. They arrived not to discuss the state of San Francisco’s schools, but to speak in support of a proposed resolution, calling for a halt to Lennar’s work at the shipyard.

Fearing the health of their students in Hunters Point was at risk, the school board felt compelled to step outside of their usual jurisdiction, and included the resolution as an agenda item. “We want to work together, with other city departments, with the community, and with Lennar, because we have a higher calling,” said board member Kim Shree-Maufas, who co-authored the resolution. “We have children who are being affected, and we care about their health and well-being.”

Throughout the course of the hourlong public comments, the school board heard from more than twenty Bayview residents who told of headaches, nosebleeds, and asthma attacks, which they attributed to the shipyard dust coming from Lennar’s work site.

“I stand here today, because my daughter has had different repiratory problems,” said Nina Donahue, a Bayview resident. “During her time at Malcolm X Elementary School (located next to the shipyard), doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong with her.” Donahue said she believed her daughter’s breathing problems coincided with the start of Lennar’s construction.

Following the testimonies, the school board voted unanimously in favor of passing the resolution. “I intended to abstain tonight, because it isn’t within our purview,” said school board member Hydra Mendoza. “I don’t want unbinding resolutions. I want actions that are binding.” However, Mendoza – herself a Bayview resident – felt compelled in the end to offer her vote of support.

Despite the symbolic nature of the resolution, anti-Lennar community advocates claimed a victory. “You are to be commended today,” said Christopher Muhammad, a minister with the Nation of Islam who has emerged as a strong voice in San Francisco’s African-American community. “You put forth a resolution that speaks to the soul of the Bayview Hunters Point. Lennar has conducted itself in a criminal way. Your resolution will go a long way in bringing this community some long deserved justice.”

At a follow-up press conference at City Hall in October, the same group of community members came together with supporters from the city’s Board of Supervisors (Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi – the Bayview’s supervisor Sophie Maxwell, was absent) in an attempt to draw media attention to the resolution.

Standing on the steps of City Hall, Bayview resident Adela Flores-Bolanos told of the “many asthma attacks, headaches, and nosebleeds” her son had experienced since Lennar started turning the soil. In her press release, she added that “The dust is literally 30 feet from our house, and we have been living in a toxic cloud for more than a year now.”

Following the press conference, the crowd moved their efforts inside City Hall, where they hoped to hand deliver a copy of the school board’s resolution to Mayor Gavin Newsom. Although the Mayor had entered his office just moments earlier, his door remained closed to the protesters. “He’s locking the door on us, and that’s symbolic,” said one protester waiting outside the office. Community organizer Alicia Shwartz pressured an aide who had been dispatched to deal with the crowd. “We have to know now, is he going to sit down with us?” The response was a let down for those gathered. “I can’t make decisions for the Mayor,” said the aide. “What I can commit to, is making sure he gets this message.”

If Newsom has gotten the message, he hasn’t mentioned anything about it publicly. Last month, the city’s Youth Commission entered the fray, aligning themselves with the Board of Education and supporting their call to halt Lennar’s work.

Preceding the school board vote, a similar resolution was presented to the Board of Supervisors on July 31, but was voted down by a slim margin. That vote was partially influenced by testimony from the city’s Department of Public Health chief, Dr. Mitch Katz. Katz has been at the receiving end of the protester’s scorn, for supporting studies which conclude the Lennar development poses no health risks. At the press conference, Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai challenged the DPH official’s assessment. “Lennar has a long and dirty track record. Mitch Katz has violated the city’s health code in saying that this level of exposure to dust is safe.”

The Precautionary Principle

A large portion of the opposition’s argument against Lennar rests on a key piece of local legislation, coined The Precautionary Principle. Passed by the Board of Supervisors and signed off by Willie Brown toward the end of his final term as mayor in 2003, the Precautionary Principle offers a new framework for creating laws that protect communities from environmental injustice. As Ruth Rosen explained in her editorial appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003, it is a matter of “better safe than sorry… The Precautionary Principle shifts the burden of proof. Rather than asking, ‘How much harm is allowable?’ it forces us to consider, ‘How little harm is possible?’ When science cannot yet fully establish a cause-and-effect relationship, but can provide reasonable evidence of harm, this principle urges us to take precautionary measures. In other words, if we wait until we’re absolutely certain, we’ve probably waited too long.”

Those wanting to stop Lennar’s construction say the number of residents close to the shipyard experiencing respiratory illnesses should be enough for the city to invoke the Precautionary Principle, and pull the plug on the Parcel A development until adequate environmental testing can be conducted.

That logic would appear to fit with the Precautionary Principle’s written language:

“Historically, environmentally harmful activities have only been stopped after they have manifested extreme environmental degradation or exposed people to harm. In the case of DDT, lead, and asbestos, for instance, regulatory action took place only after disaster had struck. The delay between first knowledge of harm and appropriate action to deal with it can be measured in human lives cut short… The public should be able to determine the range of alternatives examined and suggest specific reasonable alternatives…

Where threats of serious or irreversible damage to people or nature exist, lack of full scientific certainty about cause and effect shall not be viewed as sufficient reason for the City to postpone measures to prevent the degradation of the environment or protect the health of its citizens…”

“The Precautionary Principle has no teeth, as we’ve seen over the last few months,” said Schwartz. “Look, if you test, it alleviates any kind of struggle, so why are they so hesitant? It’s in Lennar’s interest, to clear their name. It’s in the Department of Public Health’s interest to regain credibility. Just do the test.”

According to the city and Lennar, tests have been done – showing no significant health risks to residents – and officials have been unwilling to look at evidence that would indicate otherwise.

Who’s Science?

“I can tell you with certainty that none of the work on this site has contributed to health problems in this area,” said Dr. Mitch Katz, who braved the podium at last September’s school board meeting. He left the stage to boos, but remained firm in his assessment. “My responsibility is to look at the science, and the answer is no. There is not a risk.”

Lennar has agreed with Dr.Katz, and even submitted a lengthy press release last summer, documenting a number of scientific findings that they claim prove their work on the shipyard does not pose a health risk to anyone. “I have yet to come across any credible scientist who has proven otherwise,” said Lance Ignon, a spokesperson for Lennar. “To blame Lennar is missing the point. It’s a distraction from the real public health issues in Bayview Hunters Point. You now have a very significant body of data which all conclude the same things. Then you have allegations which don’t hold up.”

“As a physician and scientist, I am deeply disturbed by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Health Director Mitchell Katz’ unethical perpetuation of lies and misinformation to further their medicolegal, financial and political conflict of interest in the dirty development of the Hunters Point Shipyard,” responded Dr.Ahimsa Sumchai in a recent Bay View article. In her writing, she also used the following quote from another doctor, Thomas Sinks, from the California Department of Health: “There was clear evidence levels of asbestos exceeded mandatory thresholds at both the fence line and in the community …The exposures did result in some increased risk to the community …The concentrations of dust could not be interpreted because of their (Lennar’s) sampling methods.”

Schwartz believes the inconsistency in expert opinion is due to a lack of uniformity between federal, state, and local agencies in determining what constitutes unsafe toxin levels. “The question becomes, what science? The World Health Organization says there are no safe levels of asbestos exposure. The National Cancer Institute says there are no safe levels. You’ve got the Federal EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) saying a certain level of asbestos exposure is safe. The California health department says there is no safe level of exposure. Then you’ve got the San Francisco DPH saying that 16,000 asbestos structures per cubic meter is acceptable. So which one do you go by?”

Article 31

While there is clearly a divergence of opinion when it comes to toxicity of the soil in the shipyard, activating the Precautionary Principle would appear to offer a temporary solution. So why won’t the city use it?

Some believe the answer lies in the marriage between big-business and politics in San Francisco. In particular, some believe Article 31 – made law by the Board of Supervisors and signed by Mayor Newsom in 2005 – creates a loophole which undermines the Precautionary Principle. “Under Article 31, the Health Department both polices and gets paid by Lennar,” wrote Sumchai.

Intended as a way to give DPH oversight of environmentally sensitive development projects in the city – and power to regulate contractors like Lennar – it also allows the health department to bill those developers for the cost of environmental reviews. In other words, Lennar gets to pay for it’s own health inspectors.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” said Schwartz. “It’s like entrusting a criminal to oversee their own trial. You already know what you’re going to get. Lennar pays the bills for the inspectors from the Department of Public Health. So you have to think, and you have to know, given that there’s a loophole there, of course someone’s going to take advantage of that. And when you’re given the opportunity to regulate yourself, it’s basically a wrap.”

Specifically, Article 31 places decision making power in the hands of the Director of the Department of Public Health, one of the reasons Dr. Mitch Katz’s position has been so highly scrutinized. Dr.Katz is one official who could, if he felt compelled to do so, bring a stop to Lennar’s work on Parcel A. Lennar’s soil-grading, however, has already been completed. All that’s left for them to do on this particular project is build the homes.

Future Scenarios

Nevertheless, Dr.Sumchai does not believe Bayview residents have seen the last of health risks resulting from Lennar’s operations in the area. Mayor Newsom is still attempting to sell the city on a plan which would convert much of the naval shipyard’s 430 acres to a new stadium site for the San Francisco 49ers by 2012. This despite the team’s preference to relocate to Santa Clara, and the shipyard’s designation as a federal “superfund” site.

“If the rest of the shipyard is transferred out of federal control and becomes the property of Lennar, a limited liability, private, non-governmental corporation, government oversight will become as dangerously secretive as it is now on Parcel A,” wrote Sumchai.

The efforts to stop Lennar and other potentially hazardous developments, however, face additional challenges, and not all of them come from forces outside the neighborhood.

Even community organizers opposed to Lennar recognize the catch-22 inherent in any conversation regarding redevelopment in Hunters Point. “Interests are complicated,” said Schwartz. “It’s not to say that, all working class people in the community are against Lennar. Some people are saying, ‘Look, it’s an opportunity, let’s just take it. We don’t always get opportunities.’ Other people are saying, ‘I want to be able to sleep in my house without hearing gunshots at night,’ and that’s legit. Other people are saying, ‘I have kids to feed, and I don’t want to have to rely on the government.’ I don’t blame anybody for that. In a neighborhood where you don’t have a grocery store, and the sewage comes up in your kitchen sink, and there’s an opportunity for you to live somewhere different, you want that. Anyone would want that. But the question becomes, once again, at what cost?”

City officials warn residents to expect to be without government help for at least five days after a major disaster. They expect neighborhood preparedness groups to take care of basic supplies and minor casualties while police and fire departments deal with acute emergencies. So the city gives emergency supply kits to neighborhood groups that have done the most training.

As a result, the bulk of emergency supplies and trained residents are in the most affluent parts of Berkeley, while the denser, lower income neighborhoods have been left with fewer resources. The four districts that represent North Berkeley and the hills areas have 23 supply kits, while the other four, in the flatlands, only have 11. South Berkeley’s District 3, which has a high number of rental and public housing units, still only has one kit, while the northeast hills’ District 6, which is largely single-family homes on narrow roads, has eight.

BERKELEY – When it comes to disaster preparedness in Berkeley, the haves get a definite edge over the have-nots.

City officials warn residents to expect to be without government help for at least five days after a major disaster. They expect neighborhood preparedness groups to take care of basic supplies and minor casualties while police and fire departments deal with acute emergencies. So the city gives emergency supply kits to neighborhood groups that have done the most training.

As a result, the bulk of emergency supplies and trained residents are in the most affluent parts of Berkeley, while the denser, lower income neighborhoods have been left with fewer resources. The four districts that represent North Berkeley and the hills areas have 23 supply kits, while the other four, in the flatlands, only have 11. South Berkeley’s District 3, which has a high number of rental and public housing units, still only has one kit, while the northeast hills’ District 6, which is largely single-family homes on narrow roads, has eight.

“When you’re hungry, or you’re at the bottom of the economic ladder, disaster preparedness is not going to be your first priority. It could be that you don’t have health care. In that case, are you going to go to a meeting about disaster preparedness or a meeting about health care?” said Andrew McComb, executive director for Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action, a coalition of 17 religious groups.

A 5.6 earthquake Oct. 30 in San Jose – the largest since the 1989 Loma Prieta temblor that killed more than 60 people and caused billions in damage – reminded Bay Area residents of the imminent dangers of living on fault lines. A major quake on the Hayward Fault, which runs under the Berkeley hills, is predicted to cause far greater death and destruction because of the heavily populated area. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there is a 27 percent chance that a 6.7 or greater quake will strike on the Hayward Fault before 2032.

While every city has a different system for handing out supplies, Berkeley has decided to make residents compete by showing their level of training and preparedness because it doesn’t have enough kits to go around. City officials say giving supplies to untrained groups would be wasteful.

“We don’t want to give them out unless they know how to use them,” said Dory Ehrlich, training program coordinator of the Office of Emergency Services.

Consequently, in 2003, only one neighborhood group in each of the eight Berkeley city council districts could get a large $11,000 emergency supply kit, which includes heavy equipment such as fire hoses and chainsaws. Neighborhood groups had to compete within their districts by showing a high standard of disaster readiness.

In 2006, groups, regardless of location, had to complete a series of nine steps to qualify for a smaller, $2,800 supply kit, which has fire suppression equipment, a 50-person medical kit, a 5000-watt generator, walkie-talkies, tools and protective gear such as hard hats and work gloves. The steps include establishing a group communication plan, conducting neighborhood hazard assessment tours, developing response teams and taking city-provided training classes.

The 20-year-old Bonnie Lane/Hilldale Avenue Neighborhood Group in North Berkeley’s well-to-do District 6 covers 45 households. Co-chair Pam Grossman says the addition of a city supply kit last year helped, though the group already had several supplies accumulated. With yearly dues, the group bought a generator, a chainsaw, tools, hoses, lamps, protective gear and medical supplies.

“I feel we’ve got just the right amount now,” she said.

Meanwhile, the 15-year-old Halcyon Neighborhood Association in South Berkeley also got one kit – to cover 850 households. Whether a neighborhood group covers dozens of blocks or three blocks, the city treats every group equally.

Ehrlich says she doesn’t really have an answer for how to balance the disparities; she just wishes more groups throughout the city were organized.

Neighboring cities have different solutions. Richmond and San Francisco provide hands-on trainings in specific neighborhoods, including low-income ones. Oakland also gives out emergency supply kits that neighborhood groups have to apply for. To qualify, groups not only have to demonstrate a certain level of training, but also must be of low or moderate income.

Some suggest the Berkeley process is backwards. Nancy Carleton, HNA co-chair and disaster preparedness coordinator, says having the supplies in hand helps organize neighborhood response teams, rather than the other way around.

“If it was a little bit easier to get one, it might increase people who participate,” Carleton said.

Ehrlich says the training program doesn’t have the resources to do special outreach to people in South and West Berkeley. The city’s Neighborhood Services Division has made some efforts to work with groups in those areas that are already organized, such as churches and Neighborhood Watch crime prevention groups. But they don’t focus specifically on readying these neighborhoods for disasters when residents have more pressing issues such as crime and education.

“Their priorities fall elsewhere,” said Angela Gallegos-Castillo, assistant city manager and Neighborhood Services liaison.

Kyomi Williams lives in South Berkeley’s District 3 with her two children, ages 4 and 6 weeks, and her 72-year-old grandmother. The 24-year-old Berkeley Adult School student says she has other things on her mind.

“Just trying to maintain a household and trying to have enough money coming in for the household, like rent is really high. We’re just barely making it around here,” Williams said.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington wants the city to organize emergency preparedness groups along with increasing Neighborhood Watch programs, especially in South and West Berkeley where crime is highest and Neighborhood Watch groups are relatively few.

He is optimistic that the disparity will only be temporary. He plans to propose funding to increase preparedness and Neighborhood Watch groups in January for the mid-year budget.

“It’s a proven model across the country that people that do Neighborhood Watch and disaster preparedness have good results of getting people to participate in low-income neighborhoods,” he said. “The city should be helping to form these groups.’’

“You can’t stay in bed all day,” Sandler tells himself.

Easier said than done. Sandler, a retired mail clerk, has multiple system atrophy, a rare, often misdiagnosed condition that stoops his thin shoulders, slurs his speech, warps his hands and gives him an awkward, shuffling gait. He lives in Berkeley with his brother, who cooks his meals – his favorite is grilled chicken- and does his laundry.

Sandler’s symptoms have not progressed as much as most with his condition, but he still finds it difficult to walk quickly or make himself understood. Never really loquacious, Sandler has dealt with his disability over the years by speaking less and less. Now, it’s hard to get him to answer a question in more than one or two words because, for longer sentences, he often has to repeat himself.

“It’s frustrating,” he said.

By Andrea V. Brambila

BERKELEY – Every morning, the first thing 60-year-old Mark Sandler thinks when he gets up is “do something.”

“You can’t stay in bed all day,” Sandler tells himself.

Easier said than done. Sandler, a retired mail clerk, has multiple system atrophy, a rare, often misdiagnosed condition that stoops his thin shoulders, slurs his speech, warps his hands and gives him an awkward, shuffling gait. He lives in Berkeley with his brother, who cooks his meals – his favorite is grilled chicken- and does his laundry.

Sandler’s symptoms have not progressed as much as most with his condition, but he still finds it difficult to walk quickly or make himself understood. Never really loquacious, Sandler has dealt with his disability over the years by speaking less and less. Now, it’s hard to get him to answer a question in more than one or two words because, for longer sentences, he often has to repeat himself.

“It’s frustrating,” he said.

Experts at the Shy-Drager Syndrome/Multiple System Atrophy Support Group’s recent annual meeting in Boston noted that the incidence of the disease is on the rise, from three out of every 100,000 people to four in recent years. Cause and cure for the disease remain elusive.

Don Summers, president of the support group, attributes the rise in cases to doctors’ greater familiarity with the disease, but says more awareness is needed.

“The doctors just don’t know our illness,” Summers said. His first wife died of the disease in 1997.

Multiple system atrophy is characterized by the progressive death of cells in the cerebellum and other parts of the brain. Consequently, signals that the brain normally sends to the body’s limbs never arrive.

Men are affected more than women. Symptoms usually begin at around age 55, though this can vary considerably. Thus far, there seems to be no genetic or viral cause. Those affected tend to lose their ability to walk, eat, speak – even sweat – in a very short time.

About 80 percent of people with multiple system atrophy are mistakenly diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. But the only definitive way to detect the illness for certain is through an autopsy, which shows the telltale cell loss in various parts of the brain and the presence of the protein synuclein in the brain tissue.

Consequently, patients spend their lives never being sure about what is causing their disability, but knowing that they can do nothing to stop its progression.

“A lot of us complain that people come up to us and see us not as people with disabilities, but identify us with our disability,” said Larry Sork, a friend of Sandler’s from a now-defunct local support group.

Although Sandler walks unassisted, his teetering steps sometimes attract stares. He says he doesn’t like the stares, so he does the only thing he can think of in response.

“I stare back,” he said.

Sandler first realized something was wrong 24 years ago when he could no longer lob a ball across a tennis court in Cleveland, where he grew up. Less than two weeks later, he had trouble walking and speaking clearly. Doctors diagnosed him with Parkinson’s.

He became depressed. He couldn’t get promoted from his position as a mail clerk at the U.S. Department of Defense accounting offices because his speech was too garbled for phone conversations.
Still, he hoped that a medication would be found to help him walk and speak normally again.

In 1978, Sandler moved to Berkeley after being transferred in his job. Five years later, his hopes were dashed. His medication for Parkinson’s had never worked. The consequent MRI and CT scans his doctors performed revealed why. Sandler did not have Parkinson’s disease, rather he had the signs of multiple system atrophy.

“I was a little bit angry that they hadn’t figured it out sooner,” he “I wanted them to get the right illness. I thought they’d get some medication that would help me.”

After researching treatment for his new diagnosis, Sandler lost hope that he would someday get better. Doctors said there were no medications to mitigate his symptoms and prescribed only physical therapy.

Once Sandler knew his disability would not disappear, he looked for and joined a support group for people with disabilities at a local church and started going on hiking trips with others like him.

At least twice a month, Sandler takes outings with Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program, which offers fitness activities for disabled people. Recently, he went on a trip to Blackie’s Pasture in Tiburon. The program has also taken trips to Sausalito and San Francisco. Sandler enjoys the exercise and spending time with friends.

“Exploring a new place together, we support each other. And I think Mark, like everyone else, enjoys that aspect of it,” said Lori Gray, a program coordinator and herself disabled.

Sandler is also an avid walker. He walks daily from his South Berkeley home to downtown, stopping along the way to read the San Francisco Chronicle or the Berkeley Daily Planet.

“Through exercise you’re challenging yourself, pushing yourself beyond what you’d normally do. That’s very beneficial for people with disabilities,” Gray said.

People with multiple system atrophy generally don’t live past 10 years after symptoms first appear, though life expectancy can vary widely among individuals. Sandler did not know this until told recently by a reporter. He said his doctors never mentioned it.

Nevertheless, he’s gone far beyond that limit by surviving for 24 years with his condition. Against all odds, his symptoms seem to have stabilized.

“I can still walk,” he said optimistically.

The fact that Sandler is both alive and functional mystifies Summers.

“I’d question that diagnosis,” he said. “Ten years functional after diagnosis is unheard of in the whole community.”

Sandler said it no longer bothers him that he doesn’t know exactly what he has.

Besides, he has other things on his mind. Though he retired after he was laid off because of Defense Department cuts four years ago, he has been actively trying to find a job. Right now he wants to get a part-time job at the Berkeley Public Library.

“It would be something different,” he said. “To have different things to do.”