Alex Mousouris/Staff

A BART strike has once again been averted — this time until Oct. 10 — following a court-ordered cooling-off period requested by Gov. Jerry Brown and granted Sunday.

The order, given by a San Francisco Superior Court judge, will last 60 days and is intended to alleviate some of the pressure that has characterized negotiations between BART workers and administrators in recent weeks.

The order states that BART unions are now forbidden from striking because a strike, or even the threat of a strike, poses public health and safety risks.

BART unions and administrators are expected to continue negotiations during the cooling-off period in hopes that a contract can be settled before the period expires. If the Oct. 10 deadline passes, BART unions will be authorized to strike, as the governor can only call for one cooling-off period.

“BART is grateful San Francisco Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow has granted Governor Brown’s request for a 60 day cooling off period, ensuring BART trains will continue to run while the District seeks fair and financially sustainable contract agreements with its unions,” said BART spokesperson Rick Rice in a statement.

The injunction follows a seven-day cooling-off period ordered by Brown last Sunday while an appointed board investigated the facts and positions of parties in the dispute.

The board’s report, published Saturday, found that a strike by BART workers — like the four-day strike in July — would cause “significant harm to the public’s health, safety, and welfare.”

“Were the unions to strike at the end of the 7-day cooling off period, the resulting increased congestion would result in an increase in traffic accidents,” the report states. “It would also result in slower response times by emergency personnel responding to those accidents, as well as other public emergencies.”

The report also notes that the parties involved in the dispute are still far from an agreement.

“The parties do not agree on the magnitude of the gap in their respective economic proposals,” the report states. “Other specific unresolved issues are the unions’ proposals for increased workplace safety measures and BART’s proposals for increased rights regarding workforce management.”

Jacob Brown is a news editor. Contact him at jbrown@dailycal.org.

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Pol Rebaque/Staff

“Cloyne Court — Silence in an insane world,” wrote famous composer Ernest Bloch in Cloyne Court Hotel’s guestbook in 1944.

With 149 UC Berkeley residents during the school year and a reputation for hosting well-attended parties, the student housing cooperative now commonly referred to simply as “Cloyne” is, for many, no longer thought of as the tranquil oasis Bloch described.

Current house garden manager Ariel Cherbowsky has recently set out to restore what Cherbowsky’s manifesto called Cloyne’s “naturalistic charisma” by calling for residents to become involved in its garden. In his recently released 50-page work, titled “A Guide to Growing Cloyne Court Community Garden: A Hopeful Manifesto,” Cherbowsky makes a history-based critique of a current culture that he sees as being harmful to the land it occupies and outlines an idealistic vision for the cooperative’s future.

Cherbowsky’s manifesto begins 300 years ago with the land use of the Huchiun Ohlone tribe of Native Americans, tracing history through Spanish missions and subsequent European land speculating.

“It is actually a pretty solid piece of scholarship,” said Cherbowsky’s friend and current Cloyne resident Jake Rosen.

In the manifesto, Cherbowsky discusses maps and architectural reports, interprets logos and provides psychological diagnoses, developing a narrative that laments the spiritual loss of a land battered by what the manifesto calls the “trash of the intoxicated and the tossed junk of the inconsiderate.”

Cherbowsky, whose mother is a plant ecologist and father is a psychotherapist, has long been interested in how human relationships and ideas affect local ecology.

When Cherbowsky moved into Cloyne, he was inspired by the expansive space of the property but quickly encountered a major obstacle — the garden he saw potential for cultivating was directly adjacent to the paved courtyard, the primary site of Cloyne’s parties and social events.

As Cherbowsky swept up the broken glass and trash from Cloyne’s courtyard for his weekly co-op work shift, he began to think about the state of the house’s relationship to the land it was built on.

When Cherbowsky became co-manager of Cloyne’s garden in spring 2012, he began to investigate the role the garden played historically in the house’s culture and think of how the garden might reshape it in the future.

Ru Apt, a garden manager at Kingman Hall, a neighboring co-op a block away from Cloyne, reflected on the importance of a cooperative housing garden in maintaining larger groups’ values.

“The garden adds to the house’s image as sustainable, connected to the earth and mindful about food production,” Apt said.

Cherbowsky said that he couldn’t properly approach gardening in Cloyne without understanding the history of the way the land had been shaped in the past. He started to research old maps, journals, photographs and history books, in addition to sources as diverse as a student-created video ethnography from the 1990s “cloynarchy” era and a thesis on pre-Spanish Bay Area ecology.

“I want people to have conversations about how the land has changed so that we can transition to talking about how we want to interact with and influence our present-day landscapes,” Cherbowsky said.

Some house members disagree with Cherbowsky’s view that Cloyne’s parties are destructive to the property. Cloyne’s current social manager, Monica Finc, says that what she called Cloyne’s “party culture” is an integral part of the house, fostering a sense of unity that can be difficult to find in a large residence.

While Cherbowsky’s manifesto is filled with pictures of the trash-covered soil in Cloyne’s garden, it also depicts some of the natural beauty of the trees and plants that are thriving there.

In order to encourage positive additions to Cloyne’s natural landscape, Cherbowsky has passed a request through the house’s council to create funding for a system of land grants. Anyone from the house or surrounding community is invited to submit an application requesting funding, materials and land for gardening projects to take place within the property.

“Ari’s manifesto is a great example of the sort of member involvement that the coops thrive on,” wrote Graham Stanley, the live-in facilities manager at Cloyne, in an email.

Cherbowsky says he hopes that through his project, residents of Cloyne and the surrounding community will be encouraged to try to understand the history of the land they live on and feel empowered to shape it.

“It isn’t the only perspective,” Cherbowsky said, “but I have weaved together these stories in a way I thought would move people to become interested in how this land has come to its current form.”

Contact Micah Fry at mfry@dailycal.org

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Workers say the numbers point to understaffing, as they often must work overtime and through breaks to care for patients and complete other essential tasks.

UCSF nurse Erin Carrera, a representative for the California Nurses Association, said that most instances of overtime occur when there are not enough staff members, nurses have not finished their patient-care work or a replacement has not arrived to relieve them.

“We’re nurses,” Carrera said. “We’re not going to walk away from our patients because we don’t have a release.”

Out of nearly 15,000 nurses employed by the UC system in 2012, nearly 13,000 earned some amount of overtime, according to a UC payroll report published July 31. The payroll report also shows that 235 of the 270 ultrasound technologists and 485 of the 547 radiology technologists employed by the system earn overtime. These ratios have remained somewhat consistent since 2010 and 2011.

UC spokesperson Dianne Klein said that overtime is a necessary part of providing adequate health care services and that staff members are well-compensated for overtime work.

Nurses working overtime are typically compensated at a rate of 1.5 times their regular salary, according to the nurses’ contract. The contract also stipulates that overtime cannot be mandatory except during university-declared emergencies.

“Effective medical care means that staff must be flexible and willing to work overtime in the event of emergencies,” Klein said in an email. “I believe you’ll find that the majority of our medical center employees – dedicated professionals – enjoy their jobs and consider UC a great place to work.”

Overtime work is voluntary for many workers, but UC San Diego MRI technologist Richard Smith said that the UC system can say it is voluntary because they know someone will do the work. Smith said that he and his co-workers each work seven to 25 hours of overtime every week in order to fulfill patient-care needs.

“Someone has to step up and say ‘I’ll do the overtime’ and take care of the patients,” Smith said.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents more than 12,000 patient-care workers, has claimed that many UC medical centers are experiencing understaffing and has cited staffing levels as a major reason for recent strikes. The union has been in contract negotiations with the UC system since 2012.

“There is far more use of overtime,” said AFSCME spokesperson Todd Stenhouse. “UC’s policy has been to demand that health care workers do more with less.”

Tim Thrush, vice president of patient care at AFSCME and diagnostic sonographer at UCSF, said that patient-care workers have to work overtime in order to care for every patient that management books.

According to Klein, however, the number of health care staff members employed by the UC system increased from 2008 to 2013, with the number of patient-care technical workers increasing by about 13 percent and the number of health care professional staff members increasing by about 35 percent. Service staff represented by AFSCME increased by less than 1 percent.

“Our medical centers operate in a highly regulated environment and if we had unsafe staffing levels, we simply would not be allowed to operate,” Klein said in an email.

Stenhouse said the UC system should convert its per diem workers, who receive no guaranteed benefits, to its career staff. He added that there is a need for enforceable levels of safe staffing and a committee to ensure safe staffing ratios are maintained.

Contact Sohan Shah at sshah@dailycal.org.

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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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Brian Ly/Staff

Dojo Dog, one of the three food trucks forced to vacate their operations at the intersection of Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue last December because of construction on campus, opened at a new location at Bancroft Way and College Avenue Thursday.

Dojo Dog owners Michael Koh, a UC Berkeley alumnus,  and Jason Chou said they felt comfortable opening at the new location following a July 24 report by the Berkeley city manager stating that all three vendors may reapply for permits for their original locations once construction concludes.

“Just having that chance, instead of being shut out completely, we felt like we got what we wanted, so we just thought we would open up,” Chou said.

Although the report says that all three vendors can reapply for their old locations, it states that reconstruction of the MLK Jr. Student Union and the AC Transit stop at the intersection will cause major changes to pedestrian traffic, requiring city staff members to re-evaluate the area before they make any final food truck decisions.

Dojo Dog has also lowered its prices since moving, but Chou said that was something they were planning on doing prior to being shut down.

“Definitely, being shut down impacted us negatively, with eight months of having to still pay a bulk of our costs just to stay legal,” Chou said. “We still had to pay a commissary fee, we still had to pay insurance, we had to throw out all our inventory.”

Chou said that while the new location does not seem to have as much foot traffic as the old location, he is excited for the school year to begin and more people to be on campus so they can enjoy delicious food at a fair price.

“We got into this business because we love this community, and a lot of our staff are part of this school community in particular,” Chou said. “We wanted to start this kind of a food truck because we thought it was something that would bring a lot of joy to people.”

Contact Chase Schweitzer at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

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The law will fix student loan interest rates to the 10-year U.S. Treasury note instead of using the current arbitrary formula. It will also establish interest rate ceilings and lock interest rates for the loan’s lifetime. In the process, interest rates will be slashed for the upcoming 2013-14 academic year, with undergraduate rates reduced from 6.8 percent to 3.86 percent.

The law will also retroactively apply to loans taken out after July 1, when interest rates on federal Stafford loans doubled after Congress failed to prevent the expiration of subsidies. Stafford loan interest rates subsequently doubled from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. The legislation is projected to provide $25 billion in debt relief for students in the next five years.

During the past month, legislators from both parties have tried to address both short-term problems stemming from the expiration of the subsidies and long-term problems such as the national trend of increasing student debt and its effects on the economy.

The final bill passed focuses mainly on the short-term problem of interest rates, and some leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives have questioned the long-term effectiveness of this solution.

“The bill helps reduce costs to students and families, but it does not solve the long-term student debt crisis,” said bill proponent Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., in a press release.

UC officials and students also worry that loan debt may become unsustainable when economic conditions improve and Treasury bill rates start to increase.

“In the long term, accounting for inflation, loans will become more expensive for prospective Berkeley students,” said Rachelle Feldman, director of the UC Berkeley Financial Aid and Scholarships Office.

She suggested variable interest-rate loans and income-sensitive repayment programs as changes to the student aid program, as they would better adapt to changing economic conditions.

Alex Lee, a senior at UC Berkeley, has relied heavily on federal Stafford loans since he started college and will continue to do so. He said that he has no way of paying for college other than loans.

“I’m essentially at the mercy of the student loan system,” Lee said. “Once I get out, I’m pretty much screwed.”

Undergraduate loans for the coming year will drop to 3.86 percent, and graduate student rates will be 5.41 percent. PLUS loans, which are offered to graduate students and the parents of undergraduates, will drop to 6.41 percent. All of these rates will be lower than the current fixed rates of 6.8 percent for Stafford loans and 7.9 percent for PLUS loans.

The bill will also establish rate caps to prevent student loans from becoming too expensive — 8.25 percent for undergraduates, 9.5 percent for graduate students and 10.5 percent for PLUS loans.

Contact Dennis Vidal at dvidal@dailycal.org.

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Janet Yellen, vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and a professor emerita at UC Berkeley, is one of two individuals currently being considered by President Barack Obama to replace Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve.

Yellen is a professor emerita of economics at Haas School of Business, and if appointed, she would be both the first female and first UC Berkeley professor to serve as chair of the Fed.

Larry Summers, who was previously U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, director of the National Economic Council and president of Harvard University, is also being considered. Obama is expected to select either Yellen or Summers for the position at the end of August.

Yellen received her doctorate in economics from Yale University in 1971 and began her career at UC Berkeley in 1980 as a macroeconomics professor at the Haas school. In 1985 and 1988, Yellen received the school’s Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“Janet was always a phenomenal teacher — partly because she worked very, very hard at it,” said David Levine, an economics professor at the business school, whom Yellen mentored. “She thought about literally every word she would say. As she has moved up in government, this level of thoughtfulness and reflection has always been increasingly important — and as a high official of the Federal Reserve system, where literally, the placement of a comma can move the markets.”

Yellen’s experience working at the Fed includes serving as a member of its board of governors and as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She was also chair of Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

While Yellen and Summers rival each other in academic and government experience, their economic values are on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

Yellen advocates economic regulation, supports the usage of stimulus plans to boost the economy and is expected to continue Bernanke’s policies if appointed. Summers supports policies of economic deregulation, but following the economic crisis of 2008, he has openly stated that he wants more regulation of Wall Street transactions.

Although Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, acknowledges that Yellen and Summers have “tremendous ideological differences,” he said they would both know how to handle the responsibilities of the Fed, like knowing when to ease up on monetary expansion.

Campus economics professor Brad DeLong, who worked with Summers as deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury when Summers was treasury secretary, enthusiastically supported Yellen’s appointment but has been vocal about his preference for Summers for the position.

“Larry Summers has an edge as the most creative thinker likely to successfully think outside the box should outside-the-box thinking be called for, and least likely to bind himself to an institutional consensus past its sell-by date,” DeLong wrote in a New York Times article.

Andrew Rose, an economics professor at the Haas school, has known Yellen for 28 years and says that Yellen is very persuasive, easily forms a consensus and is very calm and collected.

“One of the gripes about her is that it isn’t clear how well she will respond to a crisis, but we went through the Loma Prieta earthquake together in Barrows Hall,” Rose said.  “We really both thought that the building was going to collapse, but she stayed quite calm during the earthquake, which is a pretty impressive thing.”

Brady also believes that if Yellen is appointed to the chair position, her well-developed inner circle will allow her to transition smoothly into the position.

Contact Sophie Mattson at smattson@dailycal.org.

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Wilcox will replace Jane Close Conoley, the interim chancellor, who replaced former chancellor Timothy White in December after White left to become chancellor of the California State University system. Wilcox was announced as nominee for the position on July 25.

While Wilcox’s appointment was approved in a unanimous vote, both Gov. Jerry Brown  and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke out against his compensation package, which includes an annual base salary of $354,000 — an increase of $29,000, or 8.9 percent, from White’s salary.

Brown expressed concerns that Wilcox would receive an increase in salary from the previous chancellor and voted against the compensation package. In November, Brown also opposed an increase in compensation for UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, citing concern with the university’s cost structure and the need for public administrators to exhibit the spirit of “servant leadership.”

Despite Brown’s opposition, the regents approved the compensation package.

UC President Mark Yudof expressed confidence that Wilcox would excel as chancellor.

“Kim Wilcox brings to the University of California distinctive expertise and interests that will serve the Riverside campus and the larger community exceedingly well,” Yudof said.

Bruce Varner, chair of the Board of Regents, served on the search committee and also expressed support of Wilcox.

“Kim Wilcox emerged as the top choice from an outstanding group of candidates,” Varner said. “He has everything it takes to be not only a strong leader and advocate for students, faculty and staff on campus but also a positive force for the larger community.”

Wilcox will begin his position as chancellor of UC Riverside on Aug. 19.

“I’m humbled and honored and excited about this chance,” Wilcox said. “Every university can become better, and great universities can become greater, and that’s what I see happening at the University of California, Riverside.”

Wilcox has served as provost and executive vice president of Michigan State University since 2005. He previously served as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas from 2002 to 2005 and as president and CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents from 1999 to 2002.

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Nathaniel Solley/Staff

About a dozen protesters continue to occupy the steps and facade of the Berkeley post office despite ongoing requests from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to move off of the post office’s property.

Protesters have been occupying the space for nearly two weeks in a last-ditch effort to prevent the sale of the post office to private developers. The investigators, federal agents dedicated to enforcing Postal Service regulation, warned protesters verbally and provided them with the service’s rules governing conduct on Postal Service property on Friday. Agents have not attempted to forcefully remove the protesters but continue to monitor the scene.

Currently, the protest is being held by four or five activists handing out pamphlets and talking to passers-by as well as a few loiterers who say they will remain despite the threat of law enforcement.

“They’ve threatened to remove us, but we’re still holding our positions and staying there around the clock,” said Mike Wilson of Strike Debt Bay Area, an advocacy group that is organizing the protest.

Augustine Ruiz, a regional Postal Service spokesperson, said that he was concerned that the protest was impeding customers from entering and exiting the facility safely and expressed further concern regarding reported vandalism. Ruiz said that the Postal Service would enforce safety regulation but not stop the protest itself.

“There’s nothing wrong with public congregation, and there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, as long as they’re doing it peacefully,” Ruiz said. “We’re not arguing the fact that they have a right to do what they’re doing — we’re saying there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.”

William Rogers, acting city manager for the city of Berkeley, wrote in a memo on Saturday that Berkeley Police Department will not intervene unless a threat to public safety arises during enforcement action by Postal Service police.

A rally is planned for Saturday, when protesters will march between FedEx, UPS and UC Berkeley’s Blum Center, demonstrating against companies and individuals who are involved in the sale. Protesters cite FedEx and UPS as prospective buyers and allege that Richard Blum — who is chair of the board of CBRE, the corporate real estate company brokering the sale — could make a personal profit if the post office is sold.

Contact Simon Greenhill at sgreenhill@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @simondgreenhill.

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Anthony Bongco/File

An AC Transit workers’ union and the AC Transit board came to a three-year contract agreement late Tuesday evening, about an hour before the union had threatened to go on strike.

After working for several months, the union’s negotiations committee reached a tentative agreement with the AC Transit Board that saved about 181,000 daily riders from having to find alternative modes of transportation. Negotiations resolved disagreements over health care premiums and salary increases that required financial compromises from both parties.

“I wanted a contract that was fair to the ATU workers,” said Sharon Cornu, a spokesperson for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192. “I think this contract reflects that.”

The agreement settled on a 9.5 percent wage increase for workers over the next three years. Originally, employees sought a 9.75 percent increase, and the transit agency was offering 9 percent.

“Wages have not kept up with the cost of living in the Bay Area,” said Yvonne Williams, president of ATU Local 192. “We’ve been behind for quite a while. But it’s an improvement, and we do need that improvement.”

In the last year of the previous contract, which expired June 30, workers had to allocate 3 percent of their salaries toward health care. Now, workers will pay the monthly flat rates of $70, $140 and $180 for the next three years, respectively. The union originally wanted $135 for the second year, and the board asked for $145.

Although the union had received previous salary increases, the money was allocated toward health care. However, there will now be in a net increase even after part of workers’ salaries is spent on health care.

Despite the agreements over health care and salaries, Cornu and several AC Transit bus drivers said that the lack of scheduled restroom and lunch breaks needs to be addressed.

“It’s probably the No. 1 safety issue,” said Drayland Davis, who has been an AC Transit bus driver for the past 15 years. “You try to run to the bathroom, and that’s only if you reach the end of your route early.”

According to Williams, the issue will be on the directors’ agenda next meeting.

Just last Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown intervened to prevent another BART strike with a seven-day injunction against work stoppage. This incident, in conjunction with the BART strike on July 1, has made many Bay Area riders uncertain about finding transportation in the past month.

“We did not take the possibility of withholding service from public lightly,” Williams said. “That was more stressful than the negotiations process.”

The agreement will be presented to union members shortly, with a simple majority vote needed for ratification.

“I was quite pleased with the fact that this thing went with a whole of respect and relatively very little anger,” said Christian Peeples, who is on the AC Transit Board.

Contact Mary Zhou at mzhou@dailycal.org

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