Francine Brevetti

Article Created: 06/30/2008 06:14:29 PM PDT

Leah Waarvik, back, follows her dog Emma during the search and rescue training for the Alameda…

OAKLAND — General contractor Leah Waarvik is walking in the woods with her partner, Emma. Emma hurries ahead in a state of excitement, searching and searching.

Once Emma, an Australian shepherd, finds her target, she turns around and runs back to Waarvik, with an exultant bark.

Waarvik is one of many California volunteers who have trained their dogs and had them certified for search-and-rescue missions.

While Waarvik said the work is rewarding, she has gone a step further by writing a book that instructs children how to stay safe when they are lost.

“I Sit and Stay” features Emma and several of her canine colleagues as the characters; Waarvik painted the illustrations. The pooches explain to children how to survive with the help of three simple and included tools: a pea whistle, a signal mirror and a plastic garbage bag for warmth and insulation.

On the training day, Waarvik and Emma are joining other volunteers in the woods behind the Chabot Space & Science Center for a regular training sessions.

The dogs look at it as a game. Training involves a person hiding in the brush; at an agreed-upon time a dog is released to find him or her. The dog’s companion follows as it goes prancing forward, sniffing and darting through the trees and undergrowth. Once a dog like Emma locates the human decoy, it barks, returns to the trainer and gets rewarded with treats.

Waarvik, 38, of Oakland, has been a search-and-rescue volunteer since 2002. She remembers the satisfaction of having retrieved lost and stricken people with the help of her hairy friend, such as the time last year when they were among those who found an Orinda woman who had fallen into a ravine. That’s what makes her contribution fulfilling, she said. She and Emma were also among the team that searched for homicide victim Nina Reiser, who went missing in Oakland in 2006, and whose body has not yet been found.

“We were called out three times over a period of the year for that mission,” Waarvik said.

But most often dog and human are called on to retrieve those suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s, who go out for walks and cannot find the way home.

For her book, Waarvik sought the help of “book shepherd” Cypress House, a Fort Bragg-based company that supports writers in self-publishing.

“Leah has a destination book, something you go to the store or online specifically to buy,” said Cypress House founder Cynthia Frank. “It has a lot of potential for schools, scouts and the PTA and potential for developmentally disabled children.”

The book and kit sell for $19.95. Visit www.isitandstay.com or www.getsiriuspress.com for details.

Waarvik said she hopes to write more books. She started a publishing house, Get Sirius Press, after the Dog Star in the Canis Major constellation, of course.

“I’d like to do a series of books aimed at children about public safety,” she said.

Search-and-rescue volunteers seem to have a shared enthusiasm. For many, their devotion carries them through enormous demands.

Bob Carlisle of Benicia has served the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department for years.

“It’s not unusual to be awakened at 11 p.m. or 1 o’clock in the morning to go on a mission,” he said.

Alameda County Deputy Sheriff Mark Collins says the sheriff’s department has 14 volunteers with dogs of different kinds of certifications. Waarvik volunteers for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department and is a member of the California Rescue Dog Association, which is called on by the state’s sheriff’s departments for search-and-rescue missions.

“The area scent dog is important when you do not have a scent article to start with,” Collins said.

Emma, 6, is an area scent dog. She is trained to work off leash to detect any human scent from 50 acres to 800 acres. A trailing dog, on the other hand, starts with a human scent specimen and searches for that individual. Then there are the dogs that search for cadavers.

“The canine division is one of the cornerstones of our team,” Collins said. “We’re very proud of them. They do this for free. They get awakened at night. They can be gone for days at their own personal expense.”

“As well as the vet bills,” Waarvik interjected.

If this new publishing venture doesn’t take off for her, she reasoned that she still has her contracting skills to fall back on.

When her dream of becoming a firefighter didn’t work out, she turned to volunteering in search-and-rescue as a way of contributing to public safety.

Today, Waarvik is a self-employed general contractor and a construction inspector for East Bay projects. She said the job allows her the flexibility to pursue her passion as a public-safety volunteer.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Waarvik resolved to become active in search-and-rescue and began researching several search-and-rescue agencies. She learned about the California Rescue Dog Association (www.carda.org), which focuses on wilderness and urban rescue. Next came finding the right dog. It had to be an Australian shepherd, Waarvik said, to replace her Australian shepherd Mika, who had died. But finding Emma was a problem because Australian shepherd puppies online kept getting purchased before she could adopt one. Finally, she acted fast enough to claim her current companion. Today, both Waarvik and Emma are CARDA-certified.

The association has 257 active members in the state. Both humans and dogs require between 18 and 24 months of training before they are mission-ready, said the association’s spokesman, David Trachtenberg.

Ron Owens’ mother died when he was going back to the penitentiary for the third time. So the last time he was paroled, on Aug. 8, 1993, he remembers, “the sun was shining, the birds were singing,” but it was the first time he did not have her support. He was 38 years old and didn’t know how to cope without her.

After he was released from San Quentin, “I got off at the BART station and slept under a window at City Hall for four days. I put my stuff under the bushes.”Years later, when he was working for then-Mayor Jerry Brown as a parolee re-entry coordinator, he had an office in City Hall with a window that looked out over that spot.

“I could look out and see the place where I slept,” he said.

Owens’ divorced parents weren’t aware that he was consorting with questionable people when he was a child. At 14, he had started to shoot up with dope. In high school, he was getting in trouble with the police. He was kicked out of all Oakland schools for assault, truancy, carrying weapons and selling a variety of drugs. A similarly chaotic adulthood followed.When he returned to Oakland from San Quentin in 1993, he says, he remembers feeling trapped. He didn’t want to return to his mother’s neighborhood nor his father’s where the “hot spots and crime spots” were with which he was so familiar.

He rode the bus all day almost every day for four days until he remembered an Oakland-based program called Allied Fellowship. Its outreach professionals regularly went to prisons to interview those about to be released and offer them services on the outside. During each of his incarcerations, its caseworkers promised they would have a bed waiting for him when he was released. Just as regularly, Owens would thumb his nose at them.But now he needed such a haven. He made his way to its offices on Aug. 26. But it took him a week to get admitted to their program because, he remembered, “Now they don’t believe me (that he was ready to reform), and I have to impress them.

“They tested him for drugs, and he passed as clean.”I went in there with my mind made up and decided to try and live straight for at least six months,” he said. He has been living straight for more than 15 years now.Under Mayor Dellums, Owens was put on the board for Measure Y, the city program aimed at reducing violence.

Today, Owens is coordinator for Second Chance Community Counseling Services, which offers parolees support for achieving sobriety, education, individual counseling and work experience in a supervised “clean and sober house”, Owens said.It has centers in Newark, San Leandro and Hayward. Second Chance is part of the Bay Area ServicesNetwork, part of statewide networks supported by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.Now he is one of those service providers that convenes recent parolees in the weekly Parole and Community Team meetings, which each recent parolee must attend.

Nattily dressed and strutting with confidence, Owens takes the stage before these 50-some parolees and says, “Welcome home.”He proceeds to deliver with revivalist fervor a litany of encouragements to his vulnerable audience, starting with a discussion of his own troubled past.”I used to be a hustler, but now I’m hustling legally,” he says with a broad grin.

Contact business writer Francine Brevetti at FBrevetti@bayareanewsgroup.com

STAFF WRITER

Article Created: 06/23/2008 12:03:14 AM PDT

Click photo to enlarge

Alphonso Baker looks away across from Volunteers of America in Oakland, Calif.

When a young African-American woman in her 30s was released from a penal institution in San Joaquin County in 2005 she knew she had to hit the ground running to look for employment.

“I knew I wouldn’t immediately find a job, but I had to see what was out there,” she said. “So I started volunteering with the elderly and disabled.

“The former inmate, who did not want her name used, had been convicted of embezzling from her employer, a financial institution, so she knew such a job was no longer open to her.

But she did find a pre-apprenticeship training program in the construction industry. She completed it and now is working in the construction industry in Oakland with great satisfaction.

Unfortunately, many would say she is an exception. An exception to the 3,000 inmates of California’s state prisons — not counting federal, county or city institutions — who return to Oakland yearly on parole.

While Oakland’s public, private and nonprofit institutions can be lauded for having created many programs to prepare the previously incarcerated to find their footing back in society and the work force, their resources aren’t equipped to meet the need, according to many experts in the field.

Most parolees are recidivists; they have been through the justice system more than once and most have been convicted of nonviolent crimes. They are rarely prepared for life outside when they emerge from San Quentin or other local penal institutions, according to many of the institutions that serve them. If they cannot find a way to re-enter the community — if they cannot find a place to stay, a job, an education and resolve their emotional and health problems — they usually return to their old way of life.

Seventy percent of recidivism comes from parole violations, said Junious Williams, chief executive officer of the Oakland community advocacy group Urban Strategies.

“Either they flunked a urine test or didn’t show up for parole, (or had) some sort of technical violation of their parole,” Williams said. “They are churning in and out of (San Quentin).

“With the right help, they could be saved from flowing back into San Quentin, he said. But it’s tough to keep people motivated.

Alphonso Baker, released in February at age 43, professed his commitment to changing his life around. He signed up with Peralta College to continue his education. Baker was intent on getting his GED and achieving computer literacy. He was enrolled as a resident of Volunteers of America’s program for returning parolees.

“I’m one of the blessed ones. I still have my health. I can change my life,” Baker said. Two months later his parole officer could no longer locate him.

Still, professionals in the field struggle to engender hope for this population’s recovery among those who control the purse strings.

Allyson West is the founder of nonprofit California Reentry, based in San Quentin. She supervises volunteers who help inmates prepare for leaving prison.

“We are treating these people as human garbage,” she said. “How about turning them into something else that makes sense? And they’re all fathers.”In 2004, Oakland voters agreed to tax their property $220 million over a 10-year period to reduce violence. Sixty percent of the funds from Measure Y support the hiring and training of police officers; the balance supports violence prevention programs.

Each fiscal year, the city collects about $20.8 million under Measure Y. Of that, almost $4 million supports the fire services; almost $10 million funds the police department; $6.4 million supports human services; and $703,000 goes to the administration and evaluation of Measure Y.

Meanwhile, $1.8 million goes to four local agencies that support reentering ex-offenders: Volunteers of America, Allen Temple Baptist Church, America Works and Youth Employment Program. These four organizations represent a fraction of the many providers in Oakland that offer a variety of residential services, job training, anger management skills and domestic violence prevention, advanced education and even job placement for the previously incarcerated.

Still, this is not enough for all the men and women returning every year, experts say. Mayor Ron Dellums’ public safety director, Lenore Anderson, said the city is trying to provide a liaison between sources of crime prevention and intervention on the one hand and the criminal justice system on the other.

“We are trying to improve conditions and chances for people who come out of jail,” she said. “Unquestionably there is a link between the recidivism rate in California and the failure for parts of the state to reduce crime and violence.

“That is why, sadly, so many of those who come back from prison return soon after. As part of this effort, Dellums created two new jobs: Anderson’s as public safety director, and a reentry employment specialist, Isaac Taggart. (Anderson, however, recently announced that she will leave her position at the end of this month after less than a year on the job.) Taggart’s job is to encourage more employers to hire the previously incarcerated. Lee Bowes is executive director of America Works, a profit-making organization that finds jobs for those considered unemployable, such as the formerly incarcerated, the disabled, and others.

America Works is based in New York and has a chapter in Oakland.Nationwide, 700,000 prisoners are released every year because of the mass incarcerations of the 1990s, Bowes said.”We’re throwing people in prison for minor offenses and they are serving longer terms,” she said.

“Eventually we’ve hit a wall. We can’t afford to lock any more up. But we aren’t enough educated as a country to see that there are better alternatives. And work is the best alternative. That way they are paying taxes and they are fathers to their children. Without a job, 70 percent return to prison.”

Those 700,000 released every year represent a third of the 2.3 million imprisoned nationwide. Nationally, each prisoner costs on average $40,000 a year for upkeep, she said. “They’re going to be coming home anyway, so it’s not going to help them to go back,” Bowes said. “Put that money into community support.”

Williams, of Urban Strategies, agrees. “We don’t have an infrastructure for managing reentering ex-offenders,” he said, even accounting for those who are employable.”There are community-based organizations, county and city agencies or law enforcement all over the place but there’s not a common place where we sit down over a plan and look at the numbers, figure out what’s working, what’s not working,” he said.

However, he said there’s been a breakthrough since the Alameda County Reentry Network was created in 2007 to study the needs of men and women released from prison.The network started with a task force to look at the health needs of previously incarcerated people and came up with a set of recommendations to policymakers and the community. They’ve mapped out the sources in the East Bay in order to keep track of duplicating services and bring coherence to them.

Next on their task list is sources of employment.Williams is rueful that “despite the governor’s rhetoric on investing in rehabilitation, the money didn’t come through in the state budget, and his administration decided to spend all that money instead on (building) prisons.” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed spending $8.3 billion for 53,000 new prison beds in California.But sad to say, even if the rehabilitative services were amply available, many parolees do not want or take the help offered them. Others who are desperate for jobs find that employers are loath to hire them.

Disappointed customers of Cody’s Books, Berkeley’s legendary bookstore, mill around the closed…

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• A Berkeley institution closes

BERKELEY — “Heartbreaking,” the owner said.

Revived once when on the verge of bankruptcy, Cody’s Books of Berkeley has closed for good. There is no evidence a savior will emerge — as one did before — to save the iconic retailer.

Hiroshi Kagawa, a bookstore owner and English books distributor in Japan, bought Cody’s Books in 2006 from owner Andy Ross to save it from bankruptcy. But on Friday, Kagawa wrote to founder Pat Cody to apologize for his inability to maintain the same level of support and announce the closure of the store, at 2201 Shattuck Ave.

“I could not protect Cody’s from the financial crisis it has faced over the past few years,” wrote Kagawa, who opened the Shattuck location April 1. “I have done my best and spent millions, but sadly I am unable to keep this landmark independent bookstore… open. Today, Cody’s will shut its doors … it is a heartbreaking moment to give this news.”

“General Manager Mindy Galoob said the reaction from the community has been overwhelming.” The e-mails are just pouring in. We here are collectively sad,” she said of the store’s 22 employees, all of whom lost their jobs.

Management had been trying to find sources of cash flow to keep Cody’s afloat during the summer when sales are typically low in the university town. “But one by one, things fell through,” Galoob said. Cody’s does not have any intention of pursuing commerce online, Galoob said. Anirvan Chatterjee, founder and chief executive officer of the literary search engine BookFinder.com, also in Berkeley, said he was saddened by the news.

“Cody’s was incredibly important to me in discovering large chunks of other worlds,” he said. Chatterjee said the bookstore offered a variety of titles, including specialty tomes. For instance, he said, they carried an array of books on disability studies. Chatterjee said Cody’s closure is another sign of challenges facing independent bookstores, which are seeing increased competition from online retailers and chain booksellers.

“Actually, about as many new independent bookstores are opening as are closing. But the new ones tend to be specialized,” said Chatterjee. “It’s harder to be an independent general bookstore.”

The venerable Berkeley bookstore was founded in 1956 by the Fred and Pat Cody on Euclid Avenue near UC Berkeley. In 1965, the Codys expanded and moved to what would become the store’s flagship location, at Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street. Fred and Pat Cody introduced in-store author readings as well as quality paperbacks. At the time, these were innovative ideas.

In 1977, the Codys sold the store, which by then had become an institution, to local businessman Andy Ross. Fred Cody died in 1983.

The store took risks. When Islamic extremists threatened author Salman Rushdie with death for his work “The Satanic Verses,” Cody’s featured him at a reading in 1989. The bookstore was damaged that February by a firebomb thrown through a window, but the store continued selling the novel.

Ross opened a branch of the bookstore at 1730 Fourth St. in Berkeley in 1997, and later expanded to a location on Stockton Street in Union Square in San Francisco.

But faced with declining revenues, Ross closed the Telegraph Avenue store in 2006. In 2007, he closed the San Francisco store. Deeply in debt, Ross sold Cody’s, which by then was down to its sole location on Fourth Street, to Kagawa in 2006. Kagawa moved the store’s location from the chic Fourth Street site to a smaller space on Shattuck Avenue, which opened April 1.

Reach Francine Brevetti at 510-208-6416 or fbrevetti@bayareanewsgroup.com.

By Francine Brevetti
Staff Writer

The first quarter total of exports through the Bay Area’s maritime ports jumped 32 percent over the same period last year. This is on top of a 19 percent growth in the last quarter of last year.

More specifically, the Port of Oakland maritime exports increased by 11 percent in the first quarter this year.

So while the national economy as a whole is suffering from a trade deficit, and the United States is buying more goods abroad than it is selling, the Bay Area’s first-quarter exports by sea diminished this region’s trade deficit by 6 percent to a two-year low of $5.6 billion, according to the Bay Area World Trade Center.

“West Coast ports are all seeing the trend of exports rising,” said Gay Joseph, maritime general manager at the Port of Oakland, “especially the port of Oakland, which has always been a predominantly export port.”

The growth in exports through the area’s maritime gateway has been most obvious in agricultural products. Products grown throughout the Delta and the Central Valley are transported by truck or train to the Port of Oakland, from which they are shipped to Asia or the South Pacific. So, many farmers and food producers are seeing gains from their foreign sales.

Wine headed for Asia from California vineyards has received a real break from the weakening greenback. Even though China slaps huge tariffs on imports, two local wineries say they have been well-rewarded in sending their product to that  country.

Walnut Creek-based Kevin Sherwood, founder of Diablo Dragon Winery in Lodi, just started exporting to China a year ago, with his company has been sending one 40-foot container there a month.

Despite the fact that the weak dollar has quadrupled his transportation costs, Sherwood said, the new currency reality “has been good for us.”

Sherwood would not quantify how much he is benefiting from his trade with China since the dollar has gone soft, but he did say that sending a container to China a year ago used to cost him $2,000. Today it costs $8,000, because the weaker dollar has inflated fuel costs.

He is also positioning his company to gain from the growing appreciation of Western food in China. He has set up a refrigeration logistics company in Shanghai to help funnel agricultural products from California.

Craig Watts, founder of Watts Winery in Lockeford, said his exports to China have increased 30 percent in the last year.

“The falling dollar is enhancing the entire wine market, because it is cutting out competition from Argentina and Chile,” Watts said. “In a recession, the guys that do better are farmers, because we are competing in the world market.”

California Rice Commission reports that the state’s rice is exported all over the world and what is exported to Asia goes through the Port of Oakland. Many factors affect the price of rice, including trade agreements, noted Tim Johnson, president and chief executive officer.

And while the weakening dollar has increased the price of rice in certain sectors, this profit is merely covering the increased production costs many farmers are facing.

Exports by air, however, are essentially flat, according to the Bay Area World Trade Center.

It’s not just vino, rice or apples helping the trade deficit. As the U.S. currency softens against the currencies of its trading partners, consumer demand slows as well, which also props up the region’s trade deficit, said John Haviland, principal and founder of Beacon economics.

By Francine Brevetti
Oakland Tribune

Bar pilots stand to earn about $450,000 this year, down slightly from what they made last year, according to association Business Director Kenny Levin.

Pay fluctuates depending on the amount of cargo that goes in and out of the Bay. The pilots association charges every vessel owner each time a pilot takes a vessel in or out of the Oakland estuary. And imports have been down.

“These guys earn it,” Levin said of the extremely stressful and dangerous profession.

But these pilots — of the 55 in the area only one is a woman — don’t get that money free and clear. They have to invest in the association when they join. The cost to join has fluctuated through the years.

When Capt. Tom Miller joined the bar pilots association 21 years ago, he had to pay $87,000. Today, shareholders pay more than $400,000, Levin said. The share varies based on the average pilot income of the previous three years and aspirants normally have to find ways to finance the cost of entry.

It’s not unlike buying into any other professional practice. Although, Levin said, “I don’t know of any physicians or attorneys who go to work wearing float coats and emergency locator beacons.”

Meanwhile, the training to become a bar pilot is long and arduous. All prospective bar pilots start mid-career after they’ve had significant maritime experience. Most have been educated at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo.

“The pinnacle of a maritime  career is becoming a pilot,” Levin said.

Bar pilots have to pass the Coast Guard training that requires sailing the 12 Coast Guard-designated areas of the Bay Area. They must be able to draw from memory these areas on a blank chart, recreating all the channels, depths, bridges and buoys. Furthermore, trainees must know the meaning of the lights and colors of all the buoys, which are color-coded to indicate the depth of the Bay.

If they pass that test, within the course of one to three years trainees must ride with every pilot to every dock from Monterey to Sacramento and Stockton, said Capt. Pat Molloy of the California State Pilots Commission.

“They must learn every route and experience every kind of ship, and we keep track,” Molloy said. “The minimum number of trips is 300.”

Molloy said a lot of people are attracted to this position but along the way candidates drop out or fail.

“We are hurting for bodies,” he said. “But until they qualify, we can’t license them.”

By Francine Brevetti
Oakland Tribune

On Nov. 7, 2007, the Cosco Busan, a 65,131-ton container ship, grazed against the base of the Bay Bridge, gashing its hull and spewing 58,000 tons of crude oil into the Bay. Substantial environmental damage resulted, including the deaths of thousands of birds, some of which were endangered species.

Capt. John Cota of Petaluma, licensed under the U.S. Coast Guard and a California-licensed ship pilot, was at the helm and charged as being responsible for the accident.

The federal attorney has accused Cota of two misdemeanors under the Clean Water Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act. He could be sentenced to a maximum of 18 months in federal prison and $115,000 in fines.

Cota also faces two felony charges of lying in Coast Guard annual medical reports, in 2006 and 2007. It has been revealed during investigations that he has been on prescription drugs for sleep apnea and has two DUI convictions. Both situations are grounds for losing his Coast Guard license.

He also is charged with acting in a negligent manner.

Attorney Jeff Borenstein said a motion to dismiss the charges will be entered July 18. If it does not proceed, a tentative trial date is set for Oct. 20.

The Coast Guard has suspended Cota’s federal license and the state pilot commission has suspended his state license, according to Capt. Pat Molloy of the state pilot commission. Both bodies are preparing to revoke Cota’s licenses.

Maritime attorneys have said that it  is rare for criminal charges to result from errors.