Berkeley City Council was set to decide tonight (Tuesday, Oct. 14) whether to present voters with three controversial ballot measures—possibly as soon as next March. If passed by the electorate, the proposed measures would profoundly alter the way elections are held in the city. -more-
Thirty years after a bunch of politically charged Irish-music-loving dreamers opened South Berkeley’s Starry Plough, Irish music night can still draw just about anyone from around town. -more-
Berkeley High School’s revolving administrative door spun again this month with the unexpected departure of Clare Davies, director of the school’s special education program, and Kenneth Purser, one of the school’s two deans—re-igniting concerns about stability at the 2,700-student school. -more-
This letter from the Berkeley Budget Oversight Committee was addressed to Mayor Bates, City Manager Weldon Rucker and City Council. -more-
Rosa Equihua knows how vital and precarious after-school programs are in Berkeley. As a working single mother who can’t be home when school lets out, she sends her two elementary school-aged daughters to the nonprofit Bahia Program. -more-
In the third (and what the mayor undoubtedly hopes is the last) act in Mayor Tom Bates’ Great Newspaper Theft drama, City Council will discuss at its regular meeting tonight (Tuesday, Oct. 14) an ordinance to ban the stealing of newspapers in the City of Berkeley. -more-
Pro-union shoppers at the Berkeley Bowl Sunday tied colorful balloons to their carts to show their support of workers who will be voting Oct. 30 on whether to certify the union many of them have been working tirelessly to organize since early May. -more-
Probably no creature native to North America has inspired more fear and awe than the Grizzly bear. -more-
Berkeley’s first American-era settlers arrived in 1853, which seems quite a long time ago. Yet this area had been chosen and shaped as a good place to live by others at a much earlier date—not 150, but at least 5,000, years ago. -more-
If you live in South Berkeley, chances are you’ve met Bill Bahou. For 22 years, he’s run Roxie’s Delicatessen on the corner of Shattuck and Ashby, serving quality, affordable sandwiches to one and all and offering a helping hand wherever he can. -more-
For many, the nightmare of trying to survive on low wage jobs just about anywhere in America remains just that, a nightmare. One person who’s lived to tell what it’s really like to try to live on a little over $5 an hour is journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” -more-
West Berkeley neighbors say they hope the recent police raid of a notorious drug den will finally clear the drug dealers and loiterers from a long-blighted intersection. -more-
On a recent afternoon at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center on Telegraph Avenue, Maria gets a tender embrace from Mary Tunison, the center’s executive director. -more-
As a tenant the proposal to increase homeowners taxes by $250 annually will cost me nothing, but I oppose it because it is wrong. It is wrong to scare Berkeley residents with polling questions threatening to cut off emergency services unless we agree to increase taxes. It is wrong because homeowners are not all rich, some struggle to get by or are dependent on fixed incomes. But mostly, it is wrong because it is unnecessary. -more-
In response to vocal concern about a rapidly rising crime rate in North Oakland neighborhoods, the chief of the Oakland Police Department admitted last week that his office “made a mistake” in diverting elite officers from North Oakland and West Oakland last summer. -more-
Let’s give a cheer for good old Arnie— -more-
Volunteer poll workers mistakenly barred a Daily Planet reporter from watching them handle data chips embedded with thousands of electronic votes shortly after the polls closed on election night. -more-
Berkeley librarians insist that embedding their books with a state-of-the-art monitoring device despised by privacy advocates will not grant Big Brother a glimpse at patron’s reading material. -more-
The nationwide Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary—otherwise known as BAMN—returned to UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza Wednesday to celebrate California’s decision to vote down Proposition 54. -more-
When Rush Limbaugh’s drug problem first surfaced in various website chatter, I was intrigued. When it made the evening news, I admit I felt a moment of joy. Limbaugh is the icon of brutish, cheap-shot conservatism and his entertaining style has spawned a vast legion of broadcast talkers even nastier than he. How could one not find some pleasure in his fall from grace? As we learned from the unmasking of other righteously destructive rightwingers, hypocrisy is their middle name. -more-
On Monday night the Oakland A’s played the Boston Red Sox in the final baseball game of their American League Division Series. A win moved them one step closer to a World Series title; a loss ended the season. It was a big game. I wondered if Oakland’s playoff fever stretched north to Berkeley. -more-
On the day after the recall election, a couple of my more politically-involved friends asked—in no small state of befuddlement—how Californians could simultaneously overwhelmingly defeat Proposition 54 and elect Arnold Schwarzenegger governor. -more-
In light of a continuing string of wheelchair pedestrian accidents, including Fred Lupke’s recent death, the Berkeley Commission on Disability’s subcommittee for transportation met Wednesday to draw up requests asking the city to revisit what they say are important safety measures proposed for the city’s general plan. -more-
While some Indian jewelry and saree stores are rumored to have taken off for Los Angeles and more lucrative markets, new Indian stores and restaurants are opening almost monthly on and around University Avenue. Indian Americans travel from San Jose, Fremont, Palo Alto, Yuba City, and even Los Angeles to shop here. -more-
How smoothly last Tuesday’s recall election went in the city of Berkeley depends upon which end of the process you observed. Poll workers reported a nearly flawless experience by voters using the Diebold touch-screen voting machines throughout the city. But there were glitches in the vote compiling process. -more-
I’d left the hot, dirty city in order to find peace and inspiration in the remote woods of northern Minnesota. A record number of young black men (97 and still counting) had been killed on the streets of Oakland during the past few months. There were drive-by shootings, drug deals gone askew, heavy gang activities. -more-
Tom Lehrer, the ideological mentor of my teenage years in the fifties, said that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He himself stopped performing in 1967, a long time ago now, and yet he is still regarded as a fountainhead of political wisdom by young people of a certain type who were raised in homes with old Tom Lehrer songbooks on the piano. The Onion, one of his spiritual descendants, interviewed him in May on the occasion of the release of his boxed CD set, which has been selling well. -more-
