Appeal of Landmarks Preservation Commission Notice of Decision

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Berkeley City Council
October 24, 2006

Re: Appeal of Landmarks Preservation Commission Notice of Decision dated August 3, 2006 for 1 Cyclotron Road, also known as Building 51 or the Bevatron

Dear City Council:
This appeal is being filed based upon an objection to the NOD and a process that has allowed staff to corrupt the Notice of Decision (NOD) for the Bevatron by the improper inclusion of additional language into the recommendation.
Please consider:

The landmark for the Bevatron was conducted over many months with much citizen participation. Many differences arose during the process on how to landmark the Bevatron. This caused some delay until a compromise was reached on the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in August 2006. At that time, a majority of the commission chose to landmark the site. They also elected to include a statement in the NOD about the Bevatron/Building 51; specifically, it is being listed on California Resources Register and is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Most importantly, the NOD, as reflected in the public record of August 3, 2006, should be limited to the proposed NOD and left intact without the added language (bolded) in WHEREAS, No. II & No. IV. (See below.).

It is because the Landmark process is a legal process, that the requirement to properly record the decision is critical.
The alteration of the NOD after the commission’s rendered decision, violates the legal rules of the process. Simply stated, the NOD should follow the motion verbatim as passed by the LPC on August 3, 2006, and no more

The legal process does not afford any person, even city staff, the right or discretion to add to the Notice of Decision after it has been voted on by the LPC and prior to being approved by council. . It is requested that the proposed added language of the NOD, as reflected above, be removed for Landmark NOD for the Bevatron, Building 51.

 

The following is a public accounting of the misrepresentations and illegal actions taken by the City of Berkeley to accommodate the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and their intent to destroy the Bevatron, a City of Berkeley landmark of the highest order. The Bevatron history of Nobel prizes now bears this legacy of deceit.

DRAFT NOD Bevatron
I. WHEREAS, consistent with Section 3.24.110.A,4, the Bevatron, Building 51, completed in 1954 after a design by the San Francisco architectural firm of Masten and Hurd, was designed as a purpose-specific structure to house the accelerator magnet, machines, controls, and shielding; and

II. WHEREAS, consistent with Section 3.24.110.A.4, the Bevatron “machine,” designed by engineer William Brobeck and staff, had educational and historical value as it was the largest, highest-energy accelerator in the world when it opened in 1954 at the University of California Radiation Laboratory, although it no longer exists as a complete or functional apparatus, because substantial portions have been transferred to other locations and other larger accelerators have since been constructed and continue as fully functional "machines"; and

III. WHEREAS, the Bevatron, Building 51, allowed various individuals to carry out experiments that led to their receiving several Nobel Prizes; and

IV. WHEREAS, the Commission acknowledges that the Bevatron, Building 51, no longer possesses full integrity of its architecture, equipment and purpose, but determines that the site of the Bevatron, #1 Cyclotron Road, nevertheless merits designation as a City of Berkeley Landmark for the reasons set forth below:

1. Consistent with Section 3.24.110.A.4, the Bevatron site has educational and historical value due to the distinguished research conducted at the facility, which directly resulted in the award of two Nobel Prizes to University of California Radiation Laboratory (UCRL) scientists and which indirectly contributed to the award of two Nobel Prizes to scientists from other universities.

2. Chamberlain & Sergre Nobel Prize 1959
A team of UCRL scientists led by physicists Owen Chamberlain and Emilio Sergre, using three magnetic quadrupole lenses to focus antiprotons onto electronic counters – scintillation counters and Cherenkov counters – found clear evidence of a negatively charged particle with exactly the same mass as a proton - the antiproton - and were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1959 for their experiment.

3. Alvarez Nobel Prize 1968
In 1968, UCRL scientist Luis Alvarez won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chambers and data analysis (In 1952, Donald Glaser invented the bubble chamber at the University of Michigan – for which he won the 1960 Nobel Prize) 4. Indirect connection to LBNL Bevatron: Lee
Yang Nobel Prize 1957

Scientists at the Bevatron made experimental observations of subatomic particles K mesons that contributed significantly to the theory of parity nonconservation – that parity does not hold in some cases. Tsung-Dao Lee (Columbia University) and Chen Ning (“Frank”) Yang (Princeton University) later won the 1957 Nobel Prize for their theory of parity nonconservation.

5. Indirect connection to LBNL Bevatron: Gell-Mann Nobel Prize 1969
Berkeley emulsion groups contributed to Murray Gell-Mann’s identification of so-called strange particles. UCRL physicists Sheldon Glashow and George Kalbfleisch discovered a new elementary particle, the Y*1, that provided important confirmation of Murray Gell-Mann’s theory of the Eightfold Way. Gell-Mann, a Cal Tech physicist, won the 1969 Nobel Prize for the Theory of Strangeness and the Eightfold Way.

V. WHEREAS, the Bevatron, #1 Cyclotron Road, is listed on the California Historic Resources Register and has been determined eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic PLACES (correspondence dated 5 December 1995 from Cherilyn Widell, California State Historic Preservation Officer, to Anthony Adduci, DOE/Oak/NEPA Compliance Officer, Department of Energy, Oakland Operations Office); and

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Bevatron site, located at #1 Cyclotron Road on the grounds of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, is hereby designated a City of Berkeley Landmark.

BE IT FURTHER RSOLVED, that, the Landmarks Preservation Commission of the City of Berkeley recommends that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory commemorate the Bevatron, its scientists and the experiments and discoveries carried out there through a publicly accessible display of a substantial nature retaining such elements of the Bevatron as may adequately recount the history of the facility and the Nobel Prize winning experiments which gave it its reputation including at least the Bevatron model currently housed in the facility and such material and architectural artifacts as may be determined pertinent and that no other elements or artifacts, beyond those included in the display, be identified for retention on the Bevatron site and that the Laboratory has expressed concurrence with this finding.

BE IT FURTHER AND FINALLY RESOLVED, that the Landmarks Preservation Commission of the City of Berkeley recommends, in light of the fact that the City has no regulatory authority over the development sites and buildings at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that if at some future date the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory should succeed in removing the Bevatron, Building 51 and Building 51A, any City of Berkeley review of the design for its replacement should be carried out in accordance with the rules then in place for general structures at the Lab, notwithstanding any designation of this structure now being made by the Landmarks Preservation Commission
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It should also be noted that the landmark NOD contains several typos. The WHEREAS No. V should read…listed on the California Historic Resources Register and is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. (See WHEREAS No. V.) Also, please note the misspelling (twice) of Emilio Segrè. (It is not Sergre`)
In fairness to this Berkeley landmark and legal public process we, the petitioners of the application, respectfully request that that the NOD be corrected to reflect the public record and the original NOD.

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