Though a week has passed since corporate executives announced the upcoming closing of the downtown Berkeley Eddie Bauer store, the reasons for the move still aren’t clear—at least to the public. -more-
OAKLAND—Walking unsteadily across a city rooftop, 26-year-old Wilson Barriga Posada holds an eight-foot radio tower in his arms. -more-
A compromise designed to increase public parking spaces at Library Gardens—a massive housing development slated to replace a downtown parking garage—appears to have stalled, and the project is now set to go before the city’s Zoning Adjustment Board with just 11 spaces set aside for the public. -more-
The late Fred Lupke spent a great deal of his time and energy in the last two years of his life opposing the Library Gardens development, primarily because of the negative effect he knew it would have on the Berkeley Public Library, an institution he loved and used all the time. -more-
Austrian immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger’s victory in the recent recall election is one the highest profile immigrant success stories in California’s history. Yet immigrant success has been an important contributor to the state’s economic and cultural vitality since long before Schwarzenegger ascension. -more-
Showing equal amounts of disdain for, impatience with, and incredulity at the arguments of Berkeley activist-attorney Rick Young, Alameda County Superior Court Judge James Richman late last week denied Young’s petition to amend or delete the ballot arguments against Berkeley’s Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) measure. -more-
Veteran Berkeley technology reporter Henry Norr has reached a settlement with the San Francisco Chronicle, which suspended him last April, ostensibly for participating in protests before the Iraq invasion started. -more-
More than 130 people opened their hearts and their wallets during an emotional fundraiser for the earthquake-devastated city of Bam at a jam-packed Santa Fe Bistro Sunday night. -more-
In one ill-chosen, offhand remark on New Year’s Day, President Bush undercut the immediate possibility of improved relations with Iran, savaging the efforts of his own State Department. -more-
“What brought you to the United States?” I asked Irit as she stood in my kitchen, drinking a Diet Coke. My nephew Bryce ran into the room laughing, grabbed onto the back of my knees and hid from my neighbor, five-year-old Clyesha, who was chasing him while holding a new doll swathed in a pink blanket. Clyesha had on pajamas decorated with green and red dancing reindeers. On her feet was a pair of fuzzy bedroom slippers. -more-
An Alameda County Superior Court judge has ordered a quick turnaround in the Beretta unsafe pistol lawsuit, with jury selection in a new trial to begin in Oakland this week. -more-
Whether you’re dining out on piping hot naan or sampling masala paste for your homemade Indian dish, wherever you live in the Bay Area, it’s all but assured that almost every ingredient made a pit stop at a saffron-scented warehouse in West Berkeley. -more-
Growing up in Calcutta, high holidays meant not turkey or ham, but fish. -more-
President Bush likes to say diversity is America’s greatest strength. But when it comes to schools seeking a passing grade under the landmark education law he championed, a diverse student body can be a school district’s greatest liability, according to a study released by Berkeley-based Policy Analysis for California Education. -more-
“David Ireland: The Way Things Are” gives an in-depth look at the work of one of the West Coast’s foremost artists. Although his work has been seen at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Washington’s Hirshhorn Museum, as well as in Rome, Zurich, Madrid and Kyoto, this is the first retrospective for the 77-year-old multi-talented artist. -more-
Members of Berkeley’s Persian community met this week to organize a Sunday evening dinner to raise cash and collect medical supplies for relief efforts in ancient city of Bam, Iran, where Friday’s 6.7 earthquake left at least 30,000 dead and thousands more injured and homeless. -more-
If someone were to, say, set up a catapult in the Berkeley Hills and lob a rock down on the streets of the city every few months, the police in Berkeley would do their best to arrest that person before someone was killed. Yet, a situation with a similar risk to life and property exists on one of our streets, and the city has been repeatedly notified of it but will do nothing about it at all (or next to nothing, but I'll get to that.) There is an old, diseased elm tree standing on Tacoma Avenue near the corner of Colusa. The tree is falling down in sections. Every few months it drops a branch. Some of the branches fall from a height of perhaps 50 feet. It happened a year ago, the branch only hit asphalt, and the city came out and cleared the branch out of the street. Luckily, nobody was injured. Then on Oct. 25, it happened again. This time the branch crushed the hood and fenders of an automobile (as it happens, my automobile.) The force was so great that when the hood was pushed down upon the engine block by the impact of the branch, a bolt punched right through the hood. The damage cost more than $1,800 to repair. If the branch had hit a person instead of an inanimate object, that person would have been grievously injured or killed. -more-
Though a state Administrative Law Judge upheld the finding that a well-known Berkeley construction company “willfully” exposed both workers and the public to asbestos during a Hayward building demolition last year, a lawyer for the company is hailing the decision as a partial victory. -more-
As our new governor makes the state’s fiscal crisis worse by cutting the vehicle license fee, and as he reneges on promises not to cut education, don’t blame me or my fellow Berkeleyans. -more-
Transbay BART commuters still smarting over the new 10 percent fare hikes can take solace at some good news: Starting next month, timed transfers return to the 12th Street/Oakland and MacArthur stations. -more-
At exactly midnight on Christmas Eve, somebody took out the main cable box on our street with small arms fire, I think, perhaps as an East Oakland-type of commentary on the continually descending quality of Comcast’s programming. We tend to be blunt and plain-spoken out this way. -more-
So we’ve got a second baby waiting in the wings, just paddling around in that ever more cramped fetal health spa, waiting for his call-up to the big leagues. In fact, by the time you read this, he may already be here, or, if it turns out to be a busy decade for Berkeley-related news, he may already be a teenager. In these waning days of relative calm the second most important conversation around our house (after “Do you think we’ll go absolutely bat-poop insane raising two babies under a year old in a crappy student apartment?”) is about what we ought to name the new addition. -more-
The Christmas shopping season fortunes of Berkeley’s independent merchants proved as varied as the inventories of the shops and stands that line city boulevards, according to interviews with shopkeepers. -more-
During the dedication of the Lucretia Edwards Shoreline Park in Richmond last October, 300 guests listened as a succession of politicians praised the park’s 87-year-old namesake for her 50 years of relentless advocacy for open space. -more-
and
The March Issue and
The February Issue and
The January Issue and
The December Issue and
The November Issue and
The bit old October Issue
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