Berkeley Mayor Stole Daily Californian Newspapers
UC Berkeley – Dec. 6, 2002
The Daily Californian and The California Patriot
Berkeley police said newly-inaugurated Mayor Tom Bates admitted he stole about 1,000 copies of the Nov. 4 issue of the Daily Californian in which the staff endorsed his opponent, former Mayor Shirley Dean. 90 percent of the newspapers were recovered in trash cans in UCB’s Sproul Plaza. Bates had previously denied any involvement in the theft.
“There is no question that tossing newspapers is absolutely inappropriate and unacceptable,” Bates said in a statement Dec. 5. “I apologize on behalf of myself and my supporters for our involvement in this activity.”
No other suspects have been named.
Four students, all members of the Berkeley College Republicans, reported to the Daily Californian and police they saw Bates collect and throw out the papers. According to the College Republicans, the Daily Cal did not identify Bates as a suspect or quote or identify the witnesses in following news stories because they are not members of Bates’ party, the Democratic Party, and were not deemed credible by Daily Cal editors.
“[The Daily Cal’s editor in chief] told us that we weren’t credible since we presumably had an ideological bias against Bates,” Berkelely College Republicans Treasurer Andrea Irvin said. “I’m agitated that the Daily Cal implied that just because I’m a Republican I would lie to further my own beliefs.”
The Republican Party did not have a candidate in the Berkeley mayoral race.
UC police concluded their investigation the first week of December and recommended the Alameda County District Attorney charge Bates with petty theft.
“Bates accepted responsibility for the whole thing,” UCB police Capt. Bill Cooper said. “[But] we don’t specifically have him saying ‘I did it.'”
Dean said if Bates is found guilty she will call for his resignation, however it is unlikely he will resign or be successfully recalled.
“He starts as damaged goods if he is going to show this kind of misjudgment in the campaign,” Berkeley political science Professor Bruce Cain said. “The odds are … unless he makes another misstep, the enthusiasm for a recall will diminish after six months.”
UC San Francisco Scientists Move to New Building
San Francisco – Dec. 6, 2002
UCSF Today
Nine hundred UC San Francisco researchers will begin a complicated move to the fifth floor of a new Mission Bay Campus building, Genentech Hall, next week. The first scientists and staff to begin the move starting Jan. 8 will be those working in Charlie Craik, Susan Miller, Tom James and Voelker Doetsch’s labs.
The task of moving the equipment for Genentech Hall’s 60 labs is so complicated it has its own relocation coordinator from Facilities Management, Tom Hochmuth. Thousands of pieces of laboratory and office equipment and supplies, from computers and fax machines to hazardous materials and electron microscopes that cost $100,000 just to move all need to be transferred.
Later this month, Hochmuth will begin pre-move-in meetings for faculty and staff who will make up the next wave of inhabitants of the building on the second and third floors. Although the meetings are time-consuming and difficult to schedule, Hochmuth said people have been taking the inconvenience in stride, “All the faculty and lab staff have been incredibly cooperative and supportive.”
