Sureya Melkonian/Staff

High school students, teachers and administrators from eight cities gathered at UC Berkeley’s Alumni House last week for a three-day national summit for Y-PLAN, an initiative that invites youth to engage in city planning for struggling neighborhoods.

Participants from high schools in areas ranging from Richmond, Calif., to Tohoku, Japan shared their community projects with each other before working on the redevelopment of Telegraph Avenue. The event culminated in participants presenting their ideas to a panel of judges, including a representative from Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates’ office, UC Berkeley professor emeritus David Stern and Moe’s Bookstore owner Doris Moskowitz.

Deborah McKoy, director of the UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools, first created Y-PLAN as part of her dissertation when she completed her doctorate in educational policy at UC Berkeley. Y-PLAN stands for “Youth – Plan, Learn, Act, Now!” and is a five-step program that gives youth the opportunity to collaborate with each other and educators to present ideas for change to city officials.

“I was frustrated because we do so many school reforms that are great for adults but don’t make learning particularly relevant for kids,” McKoy said. “Y-PLAN is really about getting young people at the planning and policymaking table.”

Recent Richmond High School graduates Melissa Avalos and Jose Castillo presented ideas to integrate the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory campus into the Richmond Bay neighborhood as part of their high school senior project. Avalos introduced a farmers market to help diversify the community around the new Berkeley Lab campus, and Castillo worked on ways to make transportation efficient around the campus.

On Friday’s summit meeting, participants used Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue as a case study of an area that could benefit from redevelopment.

After a 45-minute visit to Telegraph and a 15-minute brainstorming session, small groups presented their findings to a panel of judges.

Some ideas that came out from the workshop included replacing the street’s uneven pavement with cobblestones, closing it to traffic during the weekends for festivities and replacing empty storefronts with artwork representative of Berkeley’s history.

Moskowitz said she was excited to see some of the ideas applied to Telegraph, which, in recent years has seen some of its businesses struggle financially.

“If teenagers really cared about this street, it could come back in a minute,” Moskowitz said.

Moskowitz said the ideas were judged not solely on their feasibility but also on the innovation and dedication behind them. All suggestions for Telegraph Avenue redevelopment will be sent to the mayor’s office for consideration.

“We’re incredibly grateful for all of the ideas and the time that the youths have provided to us,” said Sbeydeh Viveros-Banderas, senior aide to the mayor.

Contact Lydia Tuan at ltuan@dailycal.org.

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The campus is testing the platform during a three-month trial period that began July 8. The BlueJeans platform allows up to 25 people from around the world to communicate face-to-face over video from any wireless electronic device, including smartphones and tablets. It also connects to other videoconferencing applications, meaning Skype and Google Plus users can call each other for free via BlueJeans.

“Our goal is to make a video call as simple as a telephone call,” said BlueJeans CEO Krish Ramakrishnan over a BlueJeans face-to-face video call. “You can use it for whatever purpose you think you need to use it for.”

For the pilot period, UC Berkeley paid a small, fixed fee for students and faculty to test BlueJeans until Sept. 30. If the pilot period elicits a positive response from students and faculty, UC Berkeley will make plans to establish a permanent service deal.

Students may be able to attend and participate in lectures remotely with BlueJeans if they are not physically able to attend class and the instructor chooses to broadcast the class online.

“If you have a study group and can’t make it, you could still study with your friends online,” said Timothy Liu, a UC Berkeley alumnus who graduated in 2010. “I did do research at Cal, so I think it would be useful. More often than not, the professor is busier than the student, so remote collaboration might be helpful.”

Visiting professors who are unable to physically travel to UC Berkeley can also broadcast virtual lectures through BlueJeans, and students can view the lecture by logging into the virtual meeting room. Professors can also easily reach out to alumni for fundraising, and job interviews can be scheduled more easily and more frequently.

“You’re taking something that has always been done within the four walls of a room and making that more accessible,” Ramakrishnan said. “Two months ago, a researcher connected from Antarctica and showed off his research over BlueJeans.”

Users do not need to sign up or download an application to use the service. All they need is a Meeting ID and a passcode to join a meeting on the BlueJeans website. Signing up on the BlueJeans website is required, however, to host a meeting.

According to Ramakrishnan, BlueJeans exchanged a similar service with other universities, including Cornell, Yale, MIT and Carnegie Mellon universities, all of which have signed up for longer-term use of BlueJeans. Ramakrishnan said that executive MBA students at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania use BlueJeans to complete their group projects amid busy schedules.

Contact Lydia Tuan at ltuan@dailycal.org.

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The sign, which read “Pedestrians, bicycles, motor driven cycles prohibited,” was illegally removed and recently replaced, according to Pamela Embry, senior management analyst at the Berkeley city manager’s office.

Berkeley police confirmed the hit-and-run incident and are still looking for the suspect and a description of the vehicle. An officer discovered the victim’s body while driving on the overpass on patrol at 5:10 a.m. and called the Berkeley Fire Department for medical assistance.

The identity of the hit-and-run victim was revealed to be John Patrick Miller, a 46-year-old homeless man. Miller was identified Wednesday by the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau. No updates on the driver or a description of the vehicle have been made at this time.

Embry said city staff is working on adding supplemental directional signs to guide pedestrians toward the Interstate 80 bridge at the end of Addison Street.
According to Embry, there have been no reported collisions involving pedestrians near the overpass since 2007.

“While we cannot predict how all members of the public may act, all pedestrians, bicyclists and those using motor-driven cycles should not use the overcrossing,” Embry said.

Contact Lydia Tuan at ltuan@dailycal.org.

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According to a UCPD crime alert issued Thursday, the victims, a male and female who were both UC Berkeley students, were approached from behind by three male suspects who grabbed and removed the female victim’s backpack and attempted to remove the male victim’s backpack before fleeing the scene of the crime in a green 1994 Ford Explorer.

Berkeley police responded to screams and located the vehicle on University Avenue near Interstate 80, when the vehicle fled to North Oakland and prompted UCPD, Berkeley police and Oakland police to join in pursuit. The pursuit resulted in the arrest of two suspects: Jason Jeong, 18, who was driving the vehicle, as well as an unnamed 17-year-old.

Berkeley police are still searching for two remaining suspects, the first described as a black male, approximately 19 years of age, wearing dark clothing, and the second, a black male also wearing dark clothing.

UCPD reported that none of the victims were injured during the encounter.

The victim’s backpack was recovered, and the vehicle driven by the suspect was towed as evidence. UCPD detectives speculate that the robbery may be linked to previous armed robberies in Oakland and Berkeley, as police retrieved possessions allegedly stolen from other victims.

Contact Lydia Tuan at ltuan@dailycal.org.

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Yi Zhong/File

Scientists at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published research last Wednesday showing that a deficiency in vitamin D can accelerate premature bone aging by increasing the risk of fracture.

By examining bone structure and toughness, researchers concluded that a lack of vitamin D causes bones to prematurely age, as they are more brittle. The results of the research may lead to adapted treatment options for individuals with cases of vitamin D deficiency.

The body produces vitamin D when directly exposed to the sun, which is needed for bone growth and remodeling. Vitamin D can also be found in certain foods, such as fatty fish, beef liver, cheese and egg yolk.

The results of the research were published in an article entitled “Vitamin D Deficiency Induces Early Signs of Aging in Human Bone, Increasing the Risk of Fracture.” The research was conducted by scientists at UC Berkeley and scientists from the department of osteology and biomechanics at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany.

Robert Ritchie, a professor of materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley and a faculty senior scientist at the Berkeley lab, headed the Berkeley portion of the collaboration, while Bjorn Busse headed the German portion.

“We were able to show that biomechanical properties do not only change through a reduction of bone mass but also that the remaining bone shows effects of aging with losses of its quality and fracture resistance,” Busse wrote in an email.

The research team discovered that vitamin D deficiency increases the proneness to cracks from 22 to 31 percent. According to Ritchie, one in four men and two in four women over the age of 50 will experience a bone fracture in their remaining lifetime.

The risk of bone fracture — which can be fatal — increases dramatically as people age, especially in menopausal women.

Ritchie was able to discover bones deficient in vitamin D resembled bones of the elderly through his unique access to an extensive collection of bone sections taken from living and deceased persons.

“We were able to use our past experience in high resolution 3D to visualize the crack and were able to clearly observe the differences in interactions of the crack and microstructure,” said Hrishikesh Bale, who worked closely with Ritchie in the research, in an email.

Bale said that the research was conducted in the hope of eventually finding a treatment for affected bones and preventing fractures among older people.

According to Ritchie, the research was interdisciplinary in approach and utilized both engineering and medical knowledge.

“This kind of work represents a boundary between the physical and biological sciences,” Ritchie said. “There’s a lot to be gained by engineers getting involved in medicine.”

Contact Lydia Tuan at ltuan@dailycal.org.

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The board denied the appeal by the Bateman Neighborhood Association and South Berkeley residents in a vote of 5 to 4. Much of the controversy behind the permit included Starbucks’ bypass of the Telegraph Gardens’ parking requirements and the possibility of increased traffic congestion in surrounding residential areas.

According to Andrew Zall, Starbucks’ development manager, the new Starbucks on Telegraph will boast a LEED-certified approval and create 25 new jobs as well as provide full medical and dental benefits, tuition reimbursement and more for workers who work a minimum of 20 hours a week.

One of the issues discussed during the board meeting was the possibility that Starbucks will generate increased traffic and ruin the tranquility of the neighborhood.

“I am told there are times when it is difficult to get through the intersection,” said Michael Iida, owner of Mokka, an independent coffee shop on Telegraph. ”Increased complications from Starbucks would only make that situation worse.”

Iida says he is not worried about the competition that the new Starbucks will bring and says that Mokka stayed neutral in locals’ petition.

Jim Smith, a Berkeley resident who spoke at Thursday’s meeting, cited the lack of traffic impact analysis in consideration of issuing Starbucks its permits.

“The missing information is the number of customer car trips that would be generated by a Starbucks store and the frequency of these trips over a typical work day,” Smith told the Zoning Adjustments Board. “It’s a simple matter to collect and analyze the data.”

But Zall says that Starbucks evaluated the conditions of on-street parking on Telegraph and concluded that parking was “available at all times.”

According to Iida, commercial businesses are required to have one customer parking space for every 500 square feet, while quick-serve food places are required to have one customer parking space for every 300 square feet.

 “179 spaces are located within three blocks of the proposed store on Ashby, Telegraph and Webster,” Zall said. “There are always at least 52 spots available. There is more than enough parking to meet demand.”

According to Iida, the Telegraph Gardens project previously denied the permit for a Quizno’s and a laundromat to open — both because of parking issues.

“We found that many of our neighbors, the occupants of the medical building, agree and have signed petitions supporting our proposal for the new store,” Zall told the board at Thursday’s meeting. “More than 500 students and Berkeley residents have voiced support for the project.”

Contact Lydia Tuan at ltuan@dailycal.org.

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AC Transit provided 1,000 free one-year EasyPasses on Thursday for employees of small businesses in the Elmwood, Telegraph and Downtown areas to encourage them to take advantage of free public transit in order to increase the number of available on-street parking spaces for visitors and reduce Berkeley’s carbon footprint.

Until 2015, goBerkeley will test out a combination of carsharing, free transit passes and its new supply-and-demand pricing system for parking in efforts to alleviate traffic congestion and limited parking in business districts. The city received funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Climate Initiatives Program, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Federal Highway Administration to test its plans.

“We want to free up the spots to visitors in these commercial districts to bring in higher sales revenue,” said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin.

Part of the problem is that employees of businesses in select areas occupy a great number of on-street parking spots, leaving limited visitor parking, Arreguin said.

The program will partner with the city of Berkeley, MTC, UC Berkeley, AC Transit and public transit nonprofit organization TransForm, among others.

Ann Cheng, a program director at TransForm, says its goal is to get outside employers and employees to take advantage of Berkeley’s public transit options. With the dynamic pricing policy, parking rates will vary by time of day and location so that people can quickly find parking spaces in busier districts.

“The businesses are very supportive,” Cheng said. “I think it’s a really good sign when businesses understand the importance of helping visitors find parking.”

According to Cheng, TransForm’s goal is to increase street parking availability by 16 percent.

City CarShare, a Bay Area nonprofit car-sharing service, was also invited by the city to partner with goBerkeley and help provide more eco-friendly methods of transportation.

“The city of Berkeley is such a forward-thinking city in that it looks at the problem of car congestion and for other ways to get around while looking at sustainability,” said Anita Daley, marketing director of City CarShare.

Some community members have expressed concern surrounding specific aspects of the goBerkeley program. One controversial proposal involves extending metered parking time. Arreguin said that extending meter time would have a negative impact on businesses.

“Oakland did that a few years and there was a huge backlash from businesses and residents, and I think we will see that from the Berkeley community,” Arreguin said.

Contact Lydia Tuan at ltuan@dailycal.org.

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Sean Connors/Staff

Berkeley’s world-renowned gourmet restaurant Chez Panisse will reopen its doors Monday, almost four months after its building was damaged in a March 8 fire.

The fire, which damaged the restaurant’s electrical and plumbing systems, cost between $150,000 and $200,000 in repairs, temporarily closing the restaurant and forcing the cancellation of reservations. The fire was reported to have started under the front porch, burning the face of the restaurant.

“We had both porches taken off the building and had them rebuilt,” said general manager Jennifer Sherman. Other improvements include fire code upgrades to prevent future accidents as well as minor changes to the cafe menu, according to Sherman.

New architectural features of Chez Panisse include a gabled roof that replaced the previous flat roof and allows the upstairs cafe to look more open and connect to the downstairs dining room without steps. The building also features new stained glass windows and covers up metal supports with recycled wood.

General contractor Gene DeSmidt, who oversaw the design of the newly reconstructed Chez Panisse, calls the new style “a marriage between the (American) Craftsman style and Shinto.”

“It’s a new restaurant with the same feel inside,” DeSmidt said.

DeSmidt and Kip Mesirow, who designed the original Chez Panisse building 30 years ago, planned the new building from the ground up. DeSmidt said they worked quickly to reopen the restaurant and bring back the 120 employees who previously worked there.

“We’ve been going at lightning speed to get the new building done,” DeSmidt said. “Fifteen contractors were called in to work at one point.”

On Friday, the restaurant reopened for the day to host an annual spring fundraiser supporting The Edible Schoolyard Project, a nonprofit organization started in 1996 by Chez Panisse owner and executive chef Alice Waters. The fundraiser, which is hosted annually on the restaurant’s April anniversary, was delayed by the fire.

The Edible Schoolyard Project aims to educate children on the importance of healthy eating and environmental sustainability. It offers cooking and gardening lessons at public schools.

Prices for the fundraiser were set at $1,000 for each guest in the second-floor cafe during lunch and $2,500 for each guest in the restaurant’s main dining room during dinner, according to the Chez Panisse website. Music, dancing and wine accompanied the dining.

Contact Lydia Tuan at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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