Telegraph Avenue neighbors and merchants packed a Planning Commission meeting Wednesday to protest proposals to speed up buses from downtown Berkeley all the way to San Leandro by eliminating some traffic lanes for motorists on Telegraph Avenue and turning the three northernmost blocks of the street into a car-free, bus-only pedestrian mall. -more-

FRIDAY, JAN. 30 -more-

REALITY CHECK -more-

THE OBVIOUS -more-

FRIDAY, JAN. 30 -more-

About 30 protesters withstood steady drizzle early Thursday morning, worried that once Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) completes its newest laboratory complex, far smaller, more dangerous particles could rain down on them. -more-

Chanting “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! M-T-O has got to go!”, an overflow crowd of city workers told the Berkeley City Council Tuesday night that a city manager’s mandatory time off (M-T-O) proposal to help close the budget gap wasn’t acceptable to the city’s non-public safety unions. -more-

A lawsuit filed early last week in San Francisco Superior Court by the Center for Environmental Health in North Oakland and another Bay Area activist organization could force the growing farmed salmon industry to radically change the way their product is raised. -more-

Instructors at UC Berkeley Extension’s English Language Program believe politics played a role in the university’s decision Monday to terminate the 31-year-old program. -more-

Tom Bates’ unsuccessful attempt to sabotage the Planning Commission task force on the university’s proposed hotel, which he himself had requested only two months earlier, was unfortunately all too typical of his political style. He can’t seem to remember that Berkeley’s form of government is a weak mayor model—he’s supposed to be not much more than a councilmember-at-large, with some ceremonial responsibilities, including chairing the council meetings, and a bigger staff. He might try to get the local voters to change that, following the lead of the two Big Bad Browns who became mayors of neighboring cities after serving in Sacramento. But at this point few would say that the Brown experiments worked very well for Oakland or San Francisco, so Bates’ chances of becoming a strong mayor don’t look good. -more-