Berkeley—which really did not need any more bad news on the budget front this fiscal year—got it anyway with the surprise, sudden, and stunning announcement this week that the almost universally respected Paul Navazio was resigning as Budget Manager at the end of January to become the Finance Director for the city of Davis. -more-

FRIDAY, JAN. 9 -more-

City Councilmember Gordon Wozniak’s op-ed piece “Rush to IRV Ballot Raises Troubling Questions” (Daily Planet, Dec. 26-29) is full of factual errors and misleading statements. It also ignores one of the strongest arguments for Instant Runoff Voting: IRV offers voters a stronger voice. Under our current system, many people are afraid to vote for their first choice in candidates when that candidate is not one of the frontrunners. They are afraid their vote will be “thrown away,” or that their alternative candidate will be a “spoiler.” So, voters hold their noses and vote for the lesser of two evils. When that candidate wins, s/he claims “I must implement the platform I ran on.” But, with traditional single vote elections, it is unclear how many voters actually agree with the platform. -more-

When early music scholar and performer Eileen Hadidian was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994, the longtime East Bay resident used the music she loved most to help herself through difficult times. -more-

FRIDAY, JAN. 9 -more-

It’s wet out there. It’s mud time, mushroom time, the Season of the Newt. -more-

With the announcement Monday that Avenue Books would soon close its doors forever, a visitor to Elmwood’s only bookstore discovers an atmosphere that feels like a wake. -more-

Editors, Daily Planet: -more-

While Berkeley public access television is now available to a world-wide audience, that doesn’t mean it’s ready for prime time. -more-

A 44-year old Berkeley peace activist detained and jailed in the Occupied West Bank for participating in a New Year Eve’s protest over the construction of Israel’s new “security fence” was freed on bail Thursday morning after nine days in a Ministry of the Interior detention center in Khadera, north of Tel Aviv. -more-

BERKELEY HIGH LIBRARY -more-

“I get ideas, I start things, but then I don’t know what to do with them. I’m not a good administrator. It’s a serious fault,” said Zoia Horn, looking down apologetically. -more-

A world-renowned Berkeley landscape architect has paired with a relatively unknown City of New York employee to win the competition to design the memorial for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. -more-

Heavy rains over the holiday break left a number of teachers and students at Malcolm X Arts and Academic magnet school without classrooms after water from the surrounding area came spilling into the annex building, forcing a major cleanup and renovation that will keep ground-floor rooms closed until the Tuesday after Martin Luther King Day. -more-

Immigrant communities and their news media were quick to respond to the implementation this week of a program that fingerprints and photographs most foreign visitors upon entry to the United States. -more-

Among European foreign correspondents based in the United States there is an uproar. Returning from their homelands after their end-of-the-year vacations, for the first time in history many had the unsavory experience of being asked at the border to provide their fingerprints and their pictures. -more-

Planners Discuss UC Hotel -more-

New Chancellor Search -more-

Meat Cleaver Attack -more-

Bay Area hospitals have issued an urgent call for blood donors after regional supplies fell so low that a San Francisco hospital was forced to delay open heart surgery Tuesday. -more-

Randolph Ward came to the Greater Mandana Action Coalition meeting the other night and patted his own back as the guy who’s had the courage and the cojones to make the “tough choices” to reform the Oakland Unified School District, adding more than a minor implication that Oakland school stewards in the recent past have not displayed such leadership. Wrong on both counts, Mr. Ward. But we’ll get back to that point in a bit. -more-

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-

TUESDAY, JAN. 6 -more-

Editors, Daily Planet: -more-

OAKLAND—Walking unsteadily across a city rooftop, 26-year-old Wilson Barriga Posada holds an eight-foot radio tower in his arms. -more-

TUESDAY, JAN. 6 -more-

Editors, Daily Planet: -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-

NEIGHBORHOOD ANTENNAE -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-

Shattered Glass at Amoeba -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-

California now ranks dead last in the country in per capita arts spending, at three cents per person, according to the most recent report from the almost-extinct California Arts Council. Last year, the 27-year-old Arts Council was decimated by a 94 percent budget cut from the Legislature and the governor. This situation is deeply ironic in a state which owes so much to the entertainment industry, which in turn has always relied on the talent produced by California’s formerly excellent arts education program, especially since so many of our political leaders, including the current governor, came from that industry. -more-

Holiday gatherings offer a chance to meet new people and find out what’s going on outside of Berkeley. Christmas cards and phone calls from distant friends are another way to get a window on the rest of the world. What I’ve learned this year is that planning issues and answers (or lack of answers) are remarkably similar throughout the country. From a farm friend back east: “We are still enjoying central Pennsylvania although there has been a great spurt of building around here—condominiums and McMansions going up with great abandon on some of the best farmland in the East. Progress marches on! It can’t be any crazier than California, though.” A young friend brought her brother from a midwestern university town to a Christmas party. He’s chair of his local historic preservation organization, and he reports that privately developed high-rise apartments are rapidly displacing the charming turn-of-the-century frame houses that sheltered generations of students with low rents. His major complaint is that easily disproved “affordability” criteria have been used as political cover for buildings which soon turn into high-priced market rate rentals. As a devoted progressive Democratic party activist, he’s particularly unhappy that his recently elected Democratic mayor has turned out to be in the developers’ pocket. Closer to home, some residents of an older East Bay exurb, who call themselves “democratic socialists;” complain that in their town trees are being cut down and potential parkland converted to apartments in the name of “saving the wilderness.” They still believe in what now seems to be an old-fashioned slogan, “think globally, act locally,” and they don’t think that filling up their local open space will prevent tenants of the new developments from moving to condominiums and McMansions on formerly rural lands as soon as they can afford it. Any of this sound familiar? -more-