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(Black/White photo of me in front of Spreckels Mansion around 1998 wearing grandmother Lois Strickland’s dress. It's grandma's favorite photo of me today. She will be 90 on her next birthday. Photo by Tina Dauterman.)

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Published news advisory by Lurene Helzer, August 7, 2001, Bay City News, “Police Investigating Homicide in Pacific Heights.” This 1:36 a.m. brief advisory I wrote is about a homicide committed 3 blocks from my own 2001 address in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood.

My residence was small, but very quiet and safe. Apartments just one block west and two blocks north of me, however, when they existed, were generally far more expensive.

The address police gave was on Washington Street, next to the landmark Spreckels Mansion. The body was found in front of an apartment building late at night, though, so police could not yet provide information about the circumstances of the crime, or identity of the Asian, male victim. It could have been anything from a domestic dispute to a robbery.

This area is not much for crime and busted windows. The housing is for wealthier residents of the city, thus heavier with electronic security and the like. But an apartment building naturally tends to attract a variety of upper-middle class tenants and visitors. Having said that, I won’t guess what motivated the crime. I could only say it was not common for the area.

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Published news story by Lurene Helzer for Bay City News, June 6, 2001, “Cupertino Man Held on Attempted Kidnapping.” This small item is about an attempted sex assault involving a juvenile victim. It was typical because sex offenders pursue their targets in given areas, i.e., streets, parks, school athletic fields, juvenile crisis centers. This suspect was probably a street/park guy.

The thing that immediately stands out when reviewing the story in January of 2009, however, is the super-quick response by area law enforcement. It’s fantastic that local officials were that fast, but how was this rapidity possible in a large metropolitan area in 2001?

I don’t have precise detail, but I suspect part of the answer lies in the wealth devoted to policing Cupertino.

Cupertino is a wealthy community in the Silicon Valley. They can pay their law enforcement well, thus attracting and holding the police talent that other cities can’t afford. According to Wikipedia’s figures of early 2009, Cupertino’s median household income exceeded $100,000 in 2000 when I wrote this story. The population exceeded 50,000 residents. So, it’s not surprising that suspected stalkers are apprehended quickly.

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Published news advisories/updates by Lurene Helzer for Bay City News, June 14, 2001, “Metreon Shooting; Two Officers Injured”. This was a set of three advisories I put out from our office at Fox Plaza that morning. It regards a shooting late the previous Wednesday at the Sony Metreon in San Francisco’s downtown.

It was nearly 1 a.m. when I released the first advisory, and 4 a.m. when I wrote the third, more accurate and detailed story. The police and fire department officials gave slightly different versions of events because it was all they knew between 1 and 3 a.m. The first was based on word from a San Francisco Police spokesman. I was talking to him, likely, in the course of my usual duties around midnight.

It’s easy to quote police and fire officials, but as a reporter, you need to take a good look at that material before circulating it. Do the math in your head. Are the police making errors? Who will see this news and why? Is the public going to erupt in rage no matter what the facts?

To some extent, this is what we’re seeing for downtown Oakland today, in January of 2009; we see riots and destroyed commercial property because of serious errors by police. The public is not fully considered sometimes, or does not feel it’s being considered by local government agencies.

You saw an instantaneous revolt against law in 2009 Oakland. The revolt is over more than just one violent act, though. Oakland was a site of widespread criminal violence all through 2008. Oakland is starting 2009 the same way.

Back to this 2001 case in downtown San Francisco, you’re discussing violence on private property. It did not lead to riots, but you had a slight misunderstanding of events between various city employees in the first few hours. I was trying to get the story straight in the dead of night. The important task for the journalist is to cite addresses, names and times accurately.

Accurate reporting is key. All of these rules won’t apply with the foreign reporting, though. The source may be under no obligation whatever to speak truthfully. Riots go on every day. You triple-check facts, and possibly not report them at all. I am writing this on January 10, 2009, mind you, while hearing a mix of information and allegations out of the Mideast by partisans claiming to be journalists.

The thing is, you can’t let your information for the public get sloppy under any circumstance. It’s the rule to know everywhere and always.

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Published news advisory by Lurene Helzer for Bay City News, June 14, 2001, “East Palo Alto Double Homicide Wednesday Night”.

Like the story shown above, this regards a violent incident reported by law agencies early the morning of June 14, 2001. It involved what police were calling a double homicide. It was a married couple.

East Palo Alto was an unincorporated region of San Mateo County until 1987, but I still had to contact three different agencies for comment by 6:45 a.m. when I sent the story out to Bay City clients. News stories about the small city near Palo Alto are confusing. (This introduction to story had to be corrected on February 25, 2009 because East Palo Alto is now a city.)

For many reasons, these semi-attached, semi-serviced or unincorporated residential areas of counties are not big generators of public revenues, historically. They’re not average California cities. They are difficult to police. They are often discussed – if discussed at all -- as violent crime zones. They’ve been centers of both racial discrimination and racial controversy.

Washington D.C. is a similar case, but it is not, legally, an eastern version of North Richmond, CA or East Los Angeles, CA. Also, the District of Columbia’s status has changed slightly since 1960 with the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and is still in dispute in early 2009. Whatever the status, though, Washington D.C. does not have the same legal profile or history as superficially similar areas of California.

All of these residential areas have high rates of violent crime, but only the nation’s capital has a legal status specifically mentioned by the U.S. Constitution. The district was only meant to serve as a workplace for elected U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives and their staffs in the first place. When these residents of Washington vote, they do so as residents of whatever state “sent” them, not as residents of Washington D.C., per se. (Again, this is in debate, 2009.)

It’s confusing. The best way to explain some areas of the state is with a political cartoon. Imagine California’s 2009 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger drawn as he physically is today inside the editorial section of The Los Angeles Times. Beefy, rich, spectacular. In the cartoon, he represents international glamour combined with intellectual achievement; the great state of California!

Now, look down and see the governor’s right leg drawn as terribly damaged in the frame. That fictional leg is labeled “Unincorporated California.”

Of course, these were the good days when the story was written, the summer of 2001. Schwarzenegger was not yet serving as California’s governor. In early February of 2009, with the whole state financially busted, Mr. Schwarzenegger – poor guy -- is sketched as starving, selling beat-up tourist maps on Hollywood Boulevard.

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Published news story by Lurene Helzer for Bay City News, June 1, 2001, “Church Outbuilding Fire in San Pablo Thursday Night”. The church involved had been on the Contra Costa County parcel since 1864. What was happening in the U.S. when this church held its first worshippers? For one thing, California had only been a U.S. state for 14 years by 1864. California only became an American state after the Mexican-American War’s end in 1848.

When the church began services, the U.S. was still fighting its Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln was still the American president. The 16th president was assassinated April 15, 1865.

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Published news story by Lurene Helzer for Bay City News, June 9, 2001, "Police Responding to Gunshot Reports Find Marijuana". San Francisco Police found weapons and pot plants in the Visitacion Valley house. Neighbors called police the previous night reporting a sound of gunshots.

This story is brief, but being able to report residents of Visitacion Valley were reporting gunshots was the story in itself. In years past, neighbors would have been too terrified to assert themselves against neighborhood thugs. The police would not have been called, or might not have arrived promptly.

By the summer of 2001, though, you were seeing a new reality. In 1998, the Geneva Towers, which was a crime-infested housing project, was ripped down as it should have been a long time ago. Housing slowly took a more varied look. Instead of having a feared, inner-city, all-black, poverty-stricken, academically failing and isolated high-crime population, you had more of a Chinese, Vietnamese, Pacific Islander, Latino and African-American mix. Perhaps it was a more successful example of California redevelopment.

This area of San Francisco is still not the best. Public housing still rules, and the crime remains frightening, but it's safer in January of 2009 than it was in 1997.

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Published news story by Lurene Helzer for Bay City News, June 9, 2001, "U.S. Park Police Find Body in Tent Friday; Body at Presidio". I was not able to learn the identity of the man found dead by park police the previous Friday, but one can’t help considering the body’s elegant location. What a fancy place to die!

The Presidio is one of California’s most unusual and spectacular federal parks. It played many roles in history, beginning with 1776 when the Spanish used the land as a military site. Remember, California was not a U.S. state until 1850. It has a thick history.

Today, one can view the Golden Gate Bridge from this federally-protected area, or visit the Palace of Fine Arts or science-focused Exploratorium.

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Published news story by Lurene Helzer for Bay City News, June 13, 2001, "Man in Custody after Vallejo Negotiations; Refused to Comply”. What stands out about this 4:30 a.m. story is how much effort the Vallejo Police put into the ultimately-successful negotiations with suspect. He had his hostage. He allegedly had a rifle at her head. The hostage his stepdaughter.

I was not able to report in this story how long the suspect may have held the 26-year woman at gunpoint, but police said negotiations dragged on for several hours. The hostage-taker, police said, was a Polish immigrant. The man “may have law enforcement experience in Poland,” police spokesmen then surmised. The Vallejo Police Tactical Response Team [SWAT] participated.

The short story leaves one with questions in 2009. Why did Vallejo officials assume the unstable man had a background in police work from Poland? What kind of police work in Europe? Was the man bearing arms in Poland before 1989? After all, Poland was part of the Soviet Union’s Eastern Bloc of Europe. By all historical accounts, Poland was a dictatorial nightmare very nearly like the one fictionally described in George Orwell’s famous 1984. Poland was one of Eastern Europe’s more triumphant stories of the Cold War, yes, but no matter what the heroism in Cold War Poland, it was still a nightmare state.

295.

Published news advisories by Lurene Helzer for Bay City News regarding traffic and transportation, all brief: BART Reopens between Coliseum and Lake Merritt Stations, 6:15 a.m., Aug. 9, 2001; Traffic Blocked Northbound Lanes Golden Gate Bridge, 7:52 a.m., June 22, 2001; Update, Accident Cleared on Golden Gate Bridge, 8:00 a.m., June 22, 2001; Union City Police Ask Motorists to Avoid Section of Mission Blvd., 1:38 a.m., June 21, 2001; Accident on U.S. 101 at Great America Parkway, 5:27 a.m., July 7, 2001.

I only add these because they were normal news items. Trying to run a local newspaper, radio station or television station without accurately covering transportation is a good way to go out of business fast. It can make you laugh at times. You’ll be up at 3 a.m. listening to some foolish radio show about mummies supposedly hiding in Brazil. Then, you hear a quick station break. There’s traffic clogging the San Mateo Bridge. You then hear an advertisement for cold medicine this week at Walgreen’s on Market Street.

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Unpublished postcard by Lurene Helzer to Sharon and Harry Stafford, my mother and stepfather, June or July 1989, from Jerusalem, where I was a visiting student at The Hebrew University for one year. The postcard features photo of main commercial street in Jerusalem’s old city, which is still a popular business zone for Jerusalem’s Arab merchants, and popular buying spot for foreign tourists.

People often purchase hand-crafted Arab/Palestinian merchandise or dishware. They can get expensive clothing and linens, too. It’s a matter of personal budget and postal patience for most. That is, a tourist from England may decide to purchase a fine rug for a relative. He needs to wrap it decoratively, carefully pack it then send it securely to London. He needs confidence in its handlers. For this reason and others, the humble post office downtown will always be central to both Palestinian commercial stability and the world’s overall perception of Jerusalem.

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Published news story by Lurene Kathleen Helzer, February 7, 1994, East Bay Journal, “Berkeley bans new freeways”. Running alongside the story is a photo of California 580, the retrofitted structural support for it then in one section, by Photographer Chris Duffy. Alongside also is a text box with “earthquake preparedness tips” for local residents. The tips are about cooking, sanitation, tools and basic survival skills one may require after a large earthquake.

What the story is covering is Berkeley’s discouragement of poorly-planned transportation growth. They feared building on landfill. Landfill has the solidity of Jello. It's unsafe for major corridors.

The 1994 council was citing the Northridge quake in the Los Angeles region, which had occurred just weeks before. That measured 6.7 on the Richter scale and led to the collapse of not only several residential and parking structures, but rendered unusable several transportation routes. The major points damaged or wrecked were the Santa Monica Freeway, the Golden State Freeway, the Newhall Pass interchange of Interstate 5 and State Route 14.

Tragically, some of these areas had been rebuilt and strengthened after a 1971 Los Angeles earthquake, but it didn’t prevent the similar events of 1994. People in the East Bay, still rebuilding from 1991’s massive fire, were loading up on emergency supplies.

Not surprisingly, given the area of the country, Los Angeles, a movie about earthquakes came out in 1974 with Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and George Kennedy. We loved it. But did California’s leaders begin a new, more responsible era in structural design?

In some respects, yes. But there’s only so much you can do; freeways are like cigarettes, and there’s no such thing as a “safe” design. So, by February, Berkeley’s council was voting against new, elevated freeway sections.

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Published news story by Lurene Kathleen Helzer, October 1992, East Bay Journal, “Transamerica bows out”. There is no date on clipping, but I’m reasonably certain it was 1992 because of wording inside the story. The small item’s about a major insurer announcing it will refuse fire coverage in future for some areas of Oakland and Berkeley. Other areas of the immediate region were affected, too, as were some in Southern California. These were areas with expensive real estate, too.

At the time, Transamerica was the first major insurance company to announce such a commercial decision for the East Bay Hills. At the time I wrote it in 1992, it seemed at first glance that Transamerica was being unfair in its decision to abandon these areas. Many wondered, “Don’t people with expensive homes in the East Bay hills deserve fire insurance with Transamerica? The homeowners have the money, so what’s the problem?”

The problem for Oakland and Berkeley was risk. These expensive neighborhoods were full of non-native, flammable, blue-gum eucalyptus, Monterey pine, and acacia trees. The neighborhoods also had narrow roads. The fire trucks could hardly get in when flames were moderate. By the time whole blocks were burning in 1991, there wasn’t much the experts could do even if they had the rescue equipment right there. California was expected to enter its seventh year of drought in 1993, too. Berkeley’s Fire Chief Gary Cates discussed this clearly after the massive 1991 fire, and was sensitive about the entire issue. We had to carefully check our 1991-92 reporting for any insinuation toward rescue personnel of professional disregard. The journalist had to be careful.

What makes it worse is that various interests/property owners in area agree on little insofar as fire prevention goes. One group fights for the removal of dangerous trees, and the next group glorifies the random environmentalist who sits on the Berkeley tree for several months. The local media innocently, meekly mentions the first group, but loves the second.

So, to be truly fair in January of 2009, Transamerica was probably acting with some degree of prudence in 1992; there is no haven for even the mightiest insurers. Since 1992, Transamerica was swallowed by the Dutch Aegon NV. By October of 2008, that European company was forced to accept large cash injections – some 3 billion Euros -- from the Dutch government. Their stock at the moment, like many other companies of early 2009, is practically being used as kitty-box liner in Amsterdam.

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Published news story by Lurene Kathleen Helzer, date about October 25, 1992, The East Bay Journal, “Fire survivors flee burning apartment”. The 25-story apartment building, which was the site of the 1992 fire, is on Oakland’s Lake Merritt, which is the city’s estuary jewel.

It was the first wildlife refuge in the United States since it attracts a variety of birds through the year. It’s a popular area for walkers and joggers. It’s rather an exclusive neighborhood to rent or buy living space in Oakland, much like Nob Hill is in San Francisco.