VCNA Enters Its Fourth Year

By Christopher Johnson, VCNA President

With the year 2000 well underway, and spring just around the corner, your VCNA steering committee is already hard at work, planning activities and addressing ongoing issues of local importance. More impressively, VCNA is entering its fourth year of service to over 300 households in the Vicente and Alvarado neighborhoods! We are planning and hoping for a very successful year.

VCNA’s main purpose is to improve neighborhood safety and quality of life for area residents. It provides a forum for residents to come together to address key issues of common concern, including fire safety, emergency response, disaster preparedness, neighborhood beautification, and traffic. Over the years, VCNA has gained the respect of local governmental officials and agencies, and is often represented on issues of regional interest.

Each year, VCNA organizes certain regular activities, including an "Earth Day" cleanup of neighborhood paths and walkways, and a late-summer neighborhood meeting and potluck, where residents get to socialize and meet key city officials. Additionally, VCNA publishes and distributes the Vicente Canyon Voice several times a year.

But VCNA serves the neighborhood in other ways too. For example, last year, our members played a major role in persuading the City of Oakland to keep Fire Station 7 funded and operating year round. VCNA also took on an ambitious brush-clearing program in Oakland’s beautiful, but not maintained, John Garber Park (see the article by Barry Miller on the same subject). And VCNA was well represented, and spoke with a strong voice, in meetings between CalTrans, the City of Berkeley and others, about traffic issues on Tunnel Road, and in particular, the new Claremont Hotel signal.

Most of the planning and organizing is done by the steering committee, which meets on a monthly basis and is open to neighborhood residents. Participation is completely voluntary and can be quite rewarding. We encourage you to get involved! If you would like to attend a steering committee meeting or want to find out about other ways to participate, please call Chris Johnson at (510) 848-4580 or Louise Miller at (510) 848-5203.

By Susan Mattmann

Considering the natural volatility of our area, the VCNA is interested in organizing neighborhood first aid classes. The thinking is that not only would trained neighbors be crucial in the event of a disaster (we won’t necessarily be able to count on emergency services), they'd be valuable as well for the everyday emergencies that may befall our families and friends. And there’s the additional advantage of getting to know those who live around us. These classes would not replace CORE training (see article in this newsletter), but rather augment its first aid section and be an opportunity for those who will not be taking CORE to get some training.

Some preliminary research has revealed that there are instructors who will come to our site and teach anywhere from 4 - 18+ people. The classes tend to be about four hours long and range in price from $25. - $65 per person. As for places to meet, Kaiser school is one possibility.

But before going to the community at large, we thought first of exploring what our neighborhood might have to offer: Is there anyone out there interested and qualified, for love or for money, in teaching a first aid class to your neighbors? Is anyone interested in hosting a class in your home?

Depending on the amount of interest, there could be anything from a single class at one venue, to several, at different locations. A benefit of being able to offer several classes distributed throughout the neighborhood would be that we could take these classes with those who live near us -- the ones we would most likely help, or need help from, in an emergency.

Those interested in teaching, hosting or taking a first aid class can contact me by email (smattmann@mac.com), telephone (540-0716), or mail (43 Eucalyptus Path, Berkeley, CA. 94705). To get the ball rolling, I would like to offer to host a class at my house.

By Bill McClung

The VCNA Steering Committee and several neighbors have agreed to adopt the beautiful piece of public land at the bottom of Willow Walk at Alvarado Road.

Willow Walk at Alvarado Road

This area has received intermittent attention from nearby residents, the VCNA, the Conservation Corp, and the City of Berkeley in recent years. Long ago, someone did some handsome stone work along the stairway and along the creek, where a pond edge was formed and the stream flow shaped until it goes under the sidewalk at Alvarado.

Our idea is to see if a few neighbors can maintain and improve this public space, possibly as a model for similar work on Neighborhood Greens elsewhere in Berkeley and Oakland. It is a weedy and disturbed site, but possessed of many attractive features: tall redwood trees near the back, two large willow trees, the stream

(which has some water through most of very year), a pond that can be restored, large rocks, and the well-shaped stairway next to the little creek.

On Saturday March 11 we had a visit from Charli Danielsen, who runs the Native Here Nursery in Tilden Park for the Bay Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, and Loni Gray, who is interested in the idea of neighborhood commons in Berkeley. We learned there were very few native plants on the site, but much to appreciate nevertheless.

Exactly what we will do to enhance the area remains to unfold as some of us spend more time there and begin to make decisions. Nora Smiriga, Joan Quay, and I are the beginning team and we are going to start by working for an hour or at 10 a.m. for a few Sunday mornings to see if we can get a routine going.

If you would like to join us, please do so. We would like to make the most of this neighborhood commons.

Charli Danielsen discussing plants with Nora Smiriga, Joan Quay, and Loni Gray along Willow Walk

By Louise Miller

Come join your neighbors in the annual neighborhood cleanup on Saturday, April 22, from 9 a.m. to noon. This year we will once again focus on clearing and cleaning some of the wonderful footpaths that run between the streets - Willow Walk Sunset Trail, Eucalyptus Path, and Vicente Path. In addition we will be clearing debris in John Garber Park and beginning restoration of the Willow Walk/Alvarado Open Space. Volunteers should meet at the sign-in table located at the top of the Willow Walk steps at Alvarado Road (near 277 Alvarado). There will be coffee, drinks, and bagels for participants. Bring gloves, rakes, shovels, tarps (for hauling cuttings), or weed whackers. Contact Louise Miller at 848-5203 or lmiller460@aol.com if you have any questions. Information on Earth Day activities in the Greater Bay Area can be found at www.bayareaearthday.net.

By Mark Seligman

With the Loma Prieta quake and the Oakland Hills Fire behind us and the Big One lurking, we Vicente Canyon neighbors have seen the writing on the wall, and seen it again. Emergency preparedness is just the most basic sanity here.

To facilitate preparations citywide, the City of Oakland has formed Citizens of Oakland Respond to Emergencies, or CORE, supervised by the Office of Emergency Services and the City of Oakland Fire Services Agency.

The organization offers a series of preparedness classes: CORE 1 is a lecture, at which a Home and Family Preparedness Manual is distributed and discussed. (A CORE 1 class was last held in Vicente Canyon on December 1, 1999, with 13 participants. Additional sessions will be announced soon.) CORE 2 is more active, with a simulated emergency in which participants practice organizing a neighborhood, putting out small fires, and jacking up debris to rescue trapped victims. A session will be organized for this spring. A CORE 3 session, including more extensive first-aid training, will be held during the summer.

Contact Mark Seligman via seligman@psn.net or (510) 843-7401 to sign up for any of these classes. Do it! While no organization can meet all our emergency preparedness needs, Oakland has given us a CORE around which to build.

By Barry Miller

Come celebrate the first weekend of spring by joining your neighbors in the first Garber Park cleanup of the new year. Last Fall's efforts to clear away brush and debris along the Park's Alvarado Road frontage were very successful and enhanced both the natural beauty and the safety of a small part of the park. The winter's rains have produced a bounty of new spring growth on the slopes, and it's now time to resume our restoration and vegetation management efforts.

For newcomers to the area, Garber Park is a 14-acre conservation area on the steep slopes between Claremont Avenue and Alvarado Road. Although the City of Oakland owns the park, public maintenance is scant and much of the park is overgrown with fire-prone vegetation. About a dozen volunteers have been working to selectively thin the vegetation close to the homes along Alvarado and Evergreen. We have also discussed longer-term projects such as the restoration of overgrown trails within the park.

The next clean up is scheduled for Saturday morning, March 25, from 10 AM to 1 PM. Wear work boots, old clothes, garden gloves, and poison-oak "repellent", and bring yard implements such as rakes and hedge clippers. Interested volunteers should meet at the Alvarado frontage, at the sharp curve between the 800 and 900 blocks. Contact Barry Miller at 845-2404 for more information.

By David Kessler

The Bay Area’s burgeoning population has driven home prices through the ceiling, and pushed zoning and planning issues into prominence. Moving this booming population around has propelled transportation management into parallel crises. VCNA has been working for safer and saner transport on both the local and the regional level. The joint Berkeley-Oakland study group, which emerged from the Hotel light installation, has focused on "doable" changes. The bright "Santa Rosa" crosswalk at Brookside and Claremont will be, we hope, the first of many. Assembly member Dion Aroner is working on funding. Other improvements in the offing include updated signage to steer traffic away from Tunnel Road and instead toward new quick freeway routes; doctoring the intersection of the Uplands and Tunnel to enhance safety; increasing hours of rush hour restricted parking on eastbound on Ashby between Claremont and Domingo; and seriously exploring the possibility of a crosswalk at the top of Tunnel, to make it possible for pedestrians to cross that street and as well as to enhance safety for bicyclists. The group’s next meeting is scheduled for 7 PM on Wednesday, May 17^th at the Claremont.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission held a public hearing about the ongoing Caldecott Corridor Study at Kaiser School on March 1. The material presented is to be made available on their website: http://www.mtc.dst.ca.us/. The most controversial proposal included in their Caldecott corridor study is a contemplated fourth bore of the tunnel. Speakers argued eloquently on both sides of this issue. Important points made included calls for better use of and investment in public transit, and the creation of a central authority with broad control over the essentially autonomous pieces of the public transit scene. Should the boring proceed, the need to assess the impact of construction on our neighborhoods and to minimize the environmental damage (of both construction and the increased traffic volume) were emphasized. County Supervisor Keith Carson closed the meeting with words to the effect that no decision had yet been made, but his assertion was met with considerable skepticism.

We need to make sure that the burdens of traffic are equitably distributed, and that the long-range transportation needs of the Bay Area are met in environmentally sound but convenient and sensible ways. Our participation in these planning groups preserves the hope that expression of neighborhood concerns will engender sound solutions. Please get in touch with us if you want more information or wish to become involved.

By Morton MacDonald

Raymond Ickes (Alvarado near Bridge) was a remarkable man who died a few weeks ago. No wonder his obit ran a dozen inches in the Chron, with is Interior Secretary father, Raymond’s command of two Indian languages, ex-President of APL, Natomas, etc. But the neighborhood should remember him for what wasn’t mentioned: he spearheaded the (unsuccessful) fight against the demise of the Key System electric trolleys which ran between the local tennis courts to SF. Whether he was right or not about the conspiracy is moot now, as the ex-lawyer might say.

Stanley and Opal Hiller lived on Tunnel Rd. (two above Vicente), and I loved their invitations to swim there. Stanley was an unconventional, prolific inventor/businessman. He had devices to husk coconuts in the Philippines, and did the plans of the WW1 "aeroplane" dubbed "Early Bird," recalled Inez Prater, their caterer from 1953 who still works for Barbara Smith (Vicente) and others. Stanley talked of using his (eventual) Hiller Highlands as a way to entice the phone and utility companies to combine their wires and conduits in a single, buried enclosure -- this before anything was undergrounded, let alone combined. No wonder his son Stanley Jr., still in John Muir School, would arrive occasionally in a homemade motorized go-cart, which evolved, you might say, into the Hiller Aircraft Co. (Hillercopter, remember?).

Have you always thought people who lived on or near Eucalyptus Path were likely creative? Barney Barnhardt, UC Prof. of Speech, spoke out very publicly against the Japanese internment when it was not usual to say this. His empathy was evident when he initiated the idea of driving my son and me to our first Boy Scout meeting, which could have been a bit intimidating to a sub-teenager.

Prof. Vincent Duckles live just in front of Barney on Eucalyptus. He was UC Prof. of Musicology, who also played violin and bass, benefiting the neighborhood cognoscenti with jam sessions at his home each weekend. It attracted artists, local or not, and these guests brought food, instruments, and snacks occurred around midnight, with dancing. Arthur and Murial Formicelli (Alvarado) introduced me to all this a few times. People came and went, but the music went on.

Carl Hulen occupied a small house just off Eucalyptus on Sunset Trail, and as Prof. of Geology/Mining at O.K., he made a welcome dinner guest at my parents’ house. He reported seeing flying saucers--not to authorities but to us and to the airline pilots whom he called to the window to also view, and the top execs of Fortune mining firms with whom he traveled in small planes, etc. He thought them Russian after plotting the path of public sightings. He was gone for long periods of time that he wouldn’t discuss, and after WW2 we learned that he’d been in Tibet trying to find where the Germans in WW1 were searching for uranium--long before the atom bomb was conceived (or was it?).

This column needs some infusion of anecdotes and local history from you all -- well, even a few would help! -- Or we’ll be through with this. Please submit your memories.

Mort is a lifelong resident of our neighborhood.

The Vicente Canyon Voice is published by the Vicente Canyon Neighborhood Association. The following neighbors comprise the Association's Steering Committee: Chris Johnson - President, Louise Miller - Vice President, David Kessler, Georgia Wright, Bill McClung, Matt Morse, Susan Mattmann, Jeannie Cecka, Deborah Lesser, and Ann Smulka.

We welcome your involvement in the group. For more information, contact Chris at 848-4580 or Louise at 848-5203.