Marc Albert,  Berkeley Voice, June 18, 1998

Activist lauded for raising awareness

Community activist L A Wood was officially recognized for his achievements by the Public Works Department at their quarterly meeting last week, receiving a plaque honoring him for raising environmental awareness in city government. The honor is a turnaround for Wood, who claims to be the victim of ill-will from some members of the Public Works Commission.

"The commission is very, very wary of the community around the corp yard," he said.

On a tour of Public Works' Corporation Yard at Acton and Allston streets several years ago, Wood captured a Public Works crew on video dumping a street sweeping truck's load into a storm sewer. The incident, and Wood's video footage caused an uproar amongst bureaucrats and activists,

"A public works director from Marin wrote me and said he showed my movie to all the guys on the crew and told them, "hey, you don't want to be a star in a film like this," Wood said.

Wood began watching and documenting Public Works practices when he moved into his Bancroft Avenue home, and developed some management ideas of his own.

"I made them more conscious of their environmental contamination and the need to clean up," he said. Another idea wood mentioned-alternative fuels-is taking shape. City Manager James Keene won City Council approval last week to operate a compressed natural gas fueling station at the Transfer Station, Natural gas burns cleaner than gasoline.

Berkeley was granted $263,00 9 by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to purchase vehicles powered by natural gas which will replace gasoline powered ones. The filling station to be run by Trillium USA will exist mainly for city vehicles. The station will pay no rent, and will charge set rates. Private vehicles getting natural gas from the station will pay a three-cent a gallon surcharge to the city.

Wood says he fought for and won a stop sign, preventing what he described as speeding city vehicles on their way downtown. "They are still grappling with the same problems when they moved here in 1916 auto use in the city.

Wood pointing out that Berkeley operates a fleet of 500 vehicles."What they fuel and where they fuel it, I asked that question, where do the trucks go... they thought they were saving money by not filling up at private stations, but they are wasting time and gas fueling up at the corp yard."

Some city vehicles are now stored and fueled near the Transfer Station on 2nd Street. Wood favors studying de-centralizing the corp yard, because he said having vehicle close to where they are needed may save gasoline. However, with the soaring costs of realestate, the idea may not be well received.

Wood recently produced a short video chronicling shifting challenges the Public Works Department has faced throughout the century. Wood praised the 1929 placement of a hand operated gas pump with an electric one. The new pump, though expensive, saved 3 worker-hours a day, freeing up employees for other tasks. Wood also identified the redesign of trucks as another example of increasing worker productivity.

Wood encouraged rank and file involvement in decision making on equipment purchases. Wood said it made sense to solicit input about reliability and performance from those using the machines.