Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192, a union that represents 1,760 bus operators, mechanics, dispatchers, clerical and allied workers at AC Transit, rejected a labor contract proposed by AC Transit. AC Transit union employees have already twice rejected proposed labor agreements.

On Tuesday, AC Transit’s board of directors asked Gov. Jerry Brown to impose a 60-day cooling-off period to stop AC Transit workers from striking, according to a press release from AC Transit. In a letter to Brown, AC Transit said the proposed strike would “significantly endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.”

In early August, ATU Local 192 and AC Transit reached a tentative agreement on negotiations that included a wage increase of 9.5 percent over the next three years and monthly health care contributions of $70, $140 and $180, respectively, for each of the three years. However, the union rejected the contract.

“Like most Americans, our members lost substantial income during the great recession,” said ATU Local 192 President Yvonne Williams in an Oct. 2 press release by the union. “They are expressing concern about how this raise, after medical deductions, makes up for those past concessions.”

AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson said that AC Transit has not received any requests from the union to change its proposal. There are no negotiations scheduled at this time, but he said there may be “at some point.”

“They rejected the contract, but they haven’t gotten back to us on what’s wrong with it,” Johnson said. “We’re kind of in the dark here on how to proceed with negotiations.”

ATU Local 192 workers transport about 200,000 passengers a day in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Of that number, Johnson said about 60,000 are schoolchildren.

BART union employees also threatened to strike on Tuesday, but they postponed the strike after deciding to continue negotiations that day. If an agreement is not met between unions and BART management, BART workers could go on strike this week.

In that case, 400,000 daily BART commuters could be left without transportation, in addition to the potentially 200,000 AC Transit riders on Thursday.

Tara Hurley covers city news. Contact her at thurley@dailycal.org.

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The first quake, which struck at 1:07 a.m., caused weak to light shaking and no damage, according to preliminary reports from the U.S. Geological Survey. The second struck at 2:06 a.m., and the third came nine minutes later, according to the USGS. All three occurred at a depth of about seven kilometers.

The epicenters of all three earthquakes were just northeast of the UC Berkeley campus in Tilden Regional Park. Tuesday morning’s earthquakes come after a magnitude-3.0 earthquake that shook the area Oct. 6. That quake also had an epicenter in Tilden Park.

The first earthquake was felt as far away as Los Altos, Pleasanton and Daly City, according to the USGS website.

Megan Messerly is a news editor. Contact her at mmesserly@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @meganmesserly.

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Negotiations will continue tomorrow, but the possibility of another strike beginning Tuesday morning looms over the heads of Bay Area commuters. The postponement of a strike comes after Gov. Jerry Brown issued a 60-day cooling-off period, which ended Thursday night.

BART submitted its “last, best and final offer” at 4 p.m., an indication that no further negotiation is possible and a move that was rebuffed by some elected officials, including state Assemblymember Nancy Skinner.

“We want the trains to keep running, and we need both sides to keep talking to get there,” Skinner said. “So when BART management cut off negotiations today by putting forward a final offer at 4 p.m., we were disappointed, and we felt it did a lot of damage because it impeded progress.”

Gladys Rosario covers city news. Contact her at grosario@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @gladysrosario93.

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Michael Drummond/Senior Staff

More than 40,000 Bay Area residents took to Shattuck Avenue on Sunday in celebration of Berkeley’s second Sunday Streets event.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Shattuck Avenue closed to cars and welcomed pedestrians and cyclists instead. Between Haste and Rose streets, participants could engage in a variety of activities, including live art and salsa dancing, as well as watch various performance groups.

“It’s about getting people to experience their urban environment in a totally different way and appreciate Berkeley in a new way,” said Sunday Streets Berkeley director Emunah Hauser.

The event is organized by Livable Berkeley, a coalition which strives to make Berkeley a more sustainable place, and a few partner organizations. According to Hauser, more than 150 organizations and activity leaders, including several UC Berkeley clubs and organizations, participated in Sunday Streets.

Sunday Streets drew people not only from Berkeley but from surrounding cities as well.

“It’s a really special feeling to have so much of a main street shut down,” said Oakland resident Tina Marie. “People look at each other differently. You’re taking people in.”

Because the street was closed off, several bus lines scheduled detours and added temporary stops near University Avenue and Oxford Street.

For Berkeley resident Michael Marchant, the absence of cars created a safer environment for his children.

“We look forward to any of these events where they block off streets to cars,” he said. “It makes it easier as a parent if you don’t have to worry about traffic.”

Hauser said this year’s Sunday Streets had a larger focus on transportation outreach than last year’s. Bay Area Bike Share allowed people to test bikes, and goBerkeley, a pilot program aiming to improve transportation in the city, asked for feedback from residents about public amenities.

To focus on physical activity and active transportation, Livable Berkeley does not invite street vendors to set up booths. Instead, many stores along Shattuck set up tables themselves, providing free samples or selling smaller store items.

Belli Osteria, a restaurant which does not normally open on Sundays, set up a pasta-making demonstration. Its co-owner Damien Morrison said Sunday Streets increased the restaurant’s exposure.

While some businesses had lines out the door, others saw a decrease in customers.

“There are plenty of distractions, so probably not as many people want to hang out in the comic book store,” said Mike Courtright, an employee at Fantastic Comics. While Courtright saw some new faces in the store, he saw fewer of his regular customers.

Sunday Streets, however, does not come without cost for the event’s organizers. Hauser estimates the event cost about $65,000 this year.

Although fundraising and private sponsorship cover a large part of this cost, Berkeley City Council pledged in January to provide Sunday Streets about $59,000 to split between 2013 and 2014.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington predicts the council will continue funding the event for subsequent years. Still, he feels the city’s contribution is a little high.

“It’s unfortunate that the other longtime community events don’t get more funding,” Worthington said. “This event gets as much as 20 other city events, so there’s a degree of unfairness.”

But for Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, Sunday Streets is “money well spent.”

“Everything shouldn’t be business,” Capitelli said. “Sometimes we should just celebrate as a community, and that’s important.”

Contact Tahmina Achekzai at tachekzai@dailycal.org.

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Benny Grush/Staff

Although BART management and labor unions failed to reach an agreement Thursday night, union leadership agreed to extend talks through the weekend, narrowly averting what would have been this year’s second BART strike.

In early August, San Francisco County Superior Court granted Gov. Jerry Brown’s request for a 60-day “cooling-off” period that barred BART employees from striking. This expired at the end of Thursday. If the two sides had failed to reach an agreement by then, BART employees could have gone on strike Friday, disrupting more than 400,000 daily commuters.

Talks between BART and labor unions are set to resume at 10 a.m. Friday. If an agreement is not reached this weekend, the unions could strike as early as Monday.

Negotiations earlier this week were stalled by various stumbling blocks as the parties sought to come to a consensus and avoid a repeat of the summer’s BART strike, which lasted from July 1 to 5.

On Tuesday night, unions and BART management were “very close” to an agreement, according to Des Patten, a spokesperson from Service Employees International Union Local 1021. However, negotiations fell through after BART management said there had been a miscommunication.

“That was an unfortunate situation,” Patten said. “We just told them, ‘You were at this point, and that’s where we expected you to be’ and what we were ready to talk about.”

One of the main points of contention during recent negotiations was an offer from BART to increase pay by 10 percent over four years, which unions said was insufficient.

“There’s no such thing as a 10 percent raise, because you first subtract the amount of money that will be used to pay for the pension, and then you subtract the amount that will be paid for medical,” Patten said. The service employees union also made “significant changes” to its wage offer during negotiations, he added.

On Thursday afternoon, BART spokesperson Jim Allison said BART management planned to present a new offer that was “greater than that 10 percent over four years.”

Previously, the two sides unofficially agreed on a plan to reimburse employees 72 cents for every $1 they contribute toward their pensions. The unions and BART management entered Thursday’s negotiations with this agreement tentatively in place, Allison said.

Another major issue discussed this week was safety measures in the workplace for BART employees, such as insufficient lighting and overgrown brush along tracks.

“Some areas of the tunnels are extremely dark, and you can’t see very well — it’s a danger for employees,” Patten said. “If something goes wrong and (patrons) have to evacuate the train, it’s very dark, and people could stumble and fall.”

Throughout this week, the two sides made progress on smaller, nonmonetary issues, including work regulations, according to Patten.

News editor Megan Messerly contributed to this report.

Contact Jessie Lau at jlau@dailycal.org.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service determined Thursday evening that plans put forth by Foster Farms to immediately change its slaughtering and processing practices were sufficient to avoid shuttering the facilities.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 213 of the 278 reports of salmonella contraction during the outbreak came from California. The Food Safety and Inspection Service’s investigation began July 1, but some cases were reported as early as March. While the 42 percent hospitalization rate is double that of typical salmonella outbreaks, according to the CDC, there have been no reported deaths associated with the outbreak.

Dr. Tomas Aragon, the director of the Center for Infectious Diseases and Emergency Readiness at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said he was concerned by the relatively high rate of hospitalization for afflicted individuals.

Aragon speculated that this particular strain — or strains — is more pathogenic than typical ones, given that salmonella is usually self-limiting and that individuals with the infection usually recover without antibiotics. The salmonella linked to Foster Farms facilities has been uncommonly resistant to antibiotic treatment, according to the CDC.

No recall has been issued for the chicken products, and the investigation is ongoing. Aaron Lavallee, an administrator with the Food Safety and Inspection Service, explained that discerning which products were tainted with salmonella is the missing piece of the puzzle. Officials have yet to pinpoint whether those products are chicken breasts, thighs or something else altogether.

In letters sent to Foster Farms’ president, Ron Foster, on Oct. 7, food safety inspectors said multiple noncompliance records had been filed against the company before and during the outbreak, from January through September, regarding fecal material on animal carcasses.

Foster Farms has made various attempts to reassure the public on its website. Foster personally apologized to those afflicted with the foodborne illness, and the company reminded consumers that all raw meat must be properly handled and cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees to ensure safe consumption.

Cal Dining said that it does not use any Foster Farms products and that students with meal plans have no need to worry about the outbreak. Stores that do not vend Foster Farms chicken include Andronico’s Community Markets and Trader Joe’s, among others.

Costco will continue to sell Foster Farms poultry, according to Craig Wilson, the corporation’s vice president of food safety and quality assurance. Safeway representatives could not be reached for comment.

Contact Kimberly Veklerov at kveklerov@dailycal.org.

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Nathaniel Solley/Staff

In an effort to improve access to key business districts, the city of Berkeley will implement changes to its parking policies Tuesday.

The changes include varying meter rates based on the demand for parking in particular areas and raising time limits for street spots. The city seeks to address frustration over congestion and businesses’ concerns that customers don’t have enough time to shop.

Parking meters Downtown, in the Telegraph area and in the Elmwood district will use a demand-based pricing model, said Matthai Chakko, a spokesperson for the city.

“By increasing the price in the high-demand areas and then lowering (it) in places where parking is more ample, you hope to encourage people to be parking in different places and to not have as much congestion in one spot,” Chakko said.

Parking in popular areas near shopping destinations on Southside and Downtown will cost $2.25 per hour, while parking in less frequently used areas will cost $1.25 per hour, said Matt Nichols, principal transportation planner for the city.

Current parking rates across the city are $1.75 per hour Downtown and $1.50 per hour elsewhere, according to Nichols.

Elizabeth Deakin, a UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning and urban design who appeared before the City Council as long ago as 2006 to discuss demand-based pricing, emphasized the importance of promulgating information about the new prices and time limits. It could take several months for shoppers and visitors to adjust to the new system, she said.

“If it works well, it will be a little easier to find a parking space if you really want one and you’re willing to pay a little more,” Deakin said.

In the Elmwood district, near College and Ashby, one-hour street-parking limits will increase to three hours, with an increasing hourly rate.

That came as a relief to Melissa Hatheway, the director of marketing and communications for Rialto Cinemas, which operates a theater in Elmwood. Patrons often struggled to find sufficient parking for two- or two-and-a-half-hour films, she said.

“We’re delighted,” Hatheway said. “We’re hoping this parking solution takes off a layer of anxiety and stress from everybody so they (can) come and spend money.”

UC Berkeley senior Max Jason said he would pay more for parking if it resulted in longer time limits and better availability.

“When I’m going and driving around the city, it’s been pretty difficult (to find parking),” he said.

The new rates are the latest in a series of projects in a three-year transportation pilot program funded by federal and regional grants called goBerkeley, Chakko said.

Nichols said it is unclear how the program will affect city parking revenue, but officials will present a detailed revenue report to the City Council in March.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org.

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The TRUST Act, or the Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools Act, will prevent local law enforcement agencies from detaining undocumented individuals on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than 48 hours if they are eligible for release or have not committed a serious felony.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced the bill as a response to the Secure Communities federal program, which allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to screen detainees based on their immigration status by running their fingerprints through a federal database.

“While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead,” Brown said in a press release. “I’m not waiting.”

Last fall, Brown vetoed an earlier iteration of the law, requesting that certain types of serious crimes that were not part of that version, such as child abuse, be included in the list of serious felonies.

The law Brown signed had been amended to include the changes and is designed to  help rebuild trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement. According to the law, undocumented residents are less likely to cooperate with police when it “could result in deportation.”

Secure Communities has led to the deportation of more than 90,000 California residents — more than in any other state, according to data from the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

Last Tuesday, UC President Janet Napolitano, previously Secretary of Homeland Security, met with students who were part of the Statewide Multicultural Student Coalition, a universitywide group of undocumented students and their supporters that formed in response to her appointment.

At the meeting, Napolitano informed the students that she had discussed the TRUST Act with Brown, telling him she thought it would be “good for the state of California,” said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron.

Leti Volpp, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, said California should encourage legislation that recognizes immigrants as part of the community rather than removing them from it.

However, Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., raised concerns about public safety issues and how law enforcement officials would be able to arbitrarily determine which individuals will be subject to immigration enforcement.

“(The law would) force them to release people who should be left in custody,” Vaughan said.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, undocumented individuals accounted for 6.8 percent of California’s population and 9.7 percent of the state’s labor force in 2010.

There are about 200 undocumented students on campus as of 2012, according to Meng So, the campus’s first undocumented student program coordinator.

Volpp said she hopes the TRUST Act will “remove daily insecurities” for undocumented students in California.

Contact Jeff Landa at jlanda@dailycal.org.

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The legislation, known as Assembly Bill 484, will fully replace the current STAR testing system in the 2014-15 school year with a new statewide computerized exam that will assess students’ knowledge on an individual basis and the success of the new curriculum that many states are in the process of adopting nationwide.

“This is one of the most important and revolutionary changes to education policy, and California is the right state to lead the way,” said Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, who drafted the bill, in a press release.

The testing system — Measurement of Academic Performance and Progress — differs from STAR in style and content, according to Frank Worrell, a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education. Unlike STAR, which predominantly uses pencil and paper, MAPP is completely computer-based, allowing the test to adapt to the ability of the test-taker.

Worrell posed a hypothetical in which two students are given 10 questions and both students answer the first four questions correctly to explain how MAPP works.

“Then one student answers question five wrong, and the other answers it right,” Worrell said. “The first student will then get an easier question designed to figure out what that student doesn’t understand. The one who answers it right will get a more complex, challenging problem.”

Worrell added that the benefit of the test is “a more precise understanding of what students are learning and where their weaknesses are.”

MAPP also tests what students are learning in the classroom — namely, the new Common Core standard, which will be rolled out on a practice basis for some subjects in some grades for the 2013-14 school year.

The curriculum aims to make students think critically and conceptually, making them competitive for a globalized college and career environment, said Karen Hemphill, president of the Berkeley Unified School District School Board.

Hemphill added that the curriculum seeks to change the way schools teach English and mathematics. For mathematics, changes will help students gain a better conceptual understanding of arithmetic and algebra.

Meanwhile, English reading curriculums will feature less fiction. Hemphill estimates that students in middle school will read approximately 50 percent nonfiction, while high school students will read about 70 percent nonfiction.

While Hemphill said she was excited for the changes, she acknowledged there would be a districtwide learning curve as the new curriculum is implemented. To ease the transition, the district plans to host workshops for teachers and parents. It also plans to give intermediary tests this year to make sure students are prepared for next year’s MAPP.

Contact Savannah Luschei at sluschei@dailycal.org.

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The revised proposal, submitted by Councilmember Darryl Moore after public backlash against his original recommendation, dropped the motion to close the registry and instead suggested celebrating the registry’s 22-year anniversary by declaring Oct. 11 Marriage Equality Day.

The City Council established the Berkeley Domestic Partnership Registry in 1991 as a means of helping same-sex couples and opposite-sex unmarried couples obtain the same benefits as married couples.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington praised the adoption of the revised proposal, calling the original “one of the most grotesque, offensive and discriminating policies I have seen.”

The initial recommendation aimed to close the registry as a celebration of same-sex marriage becoming legal earlier this year. Moore, who drafted the proposal, wrote that the registry “only functions as a matter of ceremony” because same-sex marriages are recognized by the state.

But Worthington argued that the registry remains a necessity because both homosexual and heterosexual couples still use it if they choose not to marry. According to Worthington, California law allows homosexual couples to enter a domestic partnership at any legal age but forbids it for opposite-sex couples unless one partner is older than 62.

“If you’re gay, you can be a domestic partner at any age, but if you’re straight, you have to be over 62?” Worthington said. “This is not marriage equality.”

Worthington said the proposal to close the registry, which allows both heterosexual and homosexual couples to obtain a domestic partnership regardless of age, “offended me deeply.”

“In our celebration of a victory for the rights of the gay community, we can’t take away the rights of the straight community,” Worthington said

Other citizens and council members pointed to the popular use of the registry as a reason it should stay open. More than 1,000 couples have used the registry since its creation, including 15 after the legalization of same-sex marriage, according to Councilmember Jesse Arreguin.

“The registry is not just symbolic,” Arreguin said. “It’s important because it provides couples a variety of legal rights and protections, including medical insurance coverage and protection from eviction.”

Berkeley resident Steve Freedkin and his domestic partner are not a same-sex couple but rely on the legal benefits of the registry. Unwilling to get married while “friends in other states can’t,” Freedkin said the registry prevented his landlord from evicting his partner, a protection that would disappear if the registry were closed.

While Freedkin said he believed the proposal was motivated by good intentions, he said Moore didn’t seem “to have all the information” when proposing it.

To commemorate Marriage Equality Day, Moore and Worthington plan to officiate marriages at Old City Hall between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

“We’re going to have the party,” Worthington said. “We’re going to have the party without taking away anyone’s rights.”

Contact Savannah Luschei at sluschei@dailycal.org.

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