A Bay Area-based government program set up to promote the building of low-income housing has instead legally issued a substantial percentage of its low-cost bond financing to high-end apartment construction, according to documents on the agency’s website. It calls into question why an agency program whose self-declared purpose is “to deal with the increasing shortage of affordable housing” has ended up funneling so much potential low-cost financing into housing that is clearly not low-cost. -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 13 -more-

CLOSE THE LOOPHOLES -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 13 -more-

The owners of the Claremont Resort and Spa announced on Thursday that they have an agreement to sell the fabled hotel to an Orlando-based real estate investment trust. -more-

Single-payer health care is an idea whose time has come. According to a Harvard Medical School study published Feb. 9 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of physicians favor single-payer national health insurance, far more than support managed care (10 percent) or fee-for-service care (26 percent). Despite this high level of support (including most members of such establishment organizations as the American Medical Association and the Massachusetts Medical Society), only a little over half (51.9 percent) of physicians were aware that their fellow doctors support single-payer national health insurance. -more-

After 20 years in Berkeley schools, Kay Sims, special education teacher at Washington Elementary, has mastered the gentlest techniques for making children behave. -more-

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South Berkeley neighbors are starving for a pizza restaurant. But a Berkeley zoning ordinance is keeping ovens cold and espresso machines on ice at Spud’s, a trendy pizzeria planned for the corner of Alcatraz Avenue and Adeline Street. -more-

Faced with a lawsuit by Sprint Communications if the proposed new North Berkeley Sprint cellphone communications facility is not approved by the Berkeley City Council, the council blinked, took a step back, and gave itself another week to make its long-awaited decision on the controversial application. If the city council fails to take action next week, the Zoning Adjustment Board’s earlier approval of the project will automatically go into effect. -more-

By a 7-0-2 vote, the Berkeley Planning Commission accepted the proposed 25-member UC Hotel Complex Task Force Wednesday night, despite grumbling by some commission members that the entire commission should have picked the task force members from scratch or that the task force wasn’t even necessary at all. Planning Commissioner Jerome Wiggins, one of two commissioners to abstain on the acceptance vote, complained that the task force did not contain any residents of South Berkeley. Commissioners added an amendment leaving open the possibility of adding more members. -more-

Attempted Bank Robbery -more-

Last year was not a year of garden variety corporate wrongdoing. No, the sheer variety, reach and intricacy of corporate schemes, scandal and crimes were spellbinding. Not an easy year to pick the 10 worst companies, for sure. -more-

Thirty UC Berkeley graduate students are back in the running for a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship thanks to the intervention of the board that oversees the foreign study program. -more-

They call themselves bloggers—creators of weblogs, otherwise known as blogs—and they’re realizing the writer’s age-old dream of instantaneous publication to a worldwide audience. -more-

“Berkeley Cougars Blue, Gold and White, we’re here to take it all the way!” were the words that helped cheer the Berkeley Cougars cheerleading squad (part of the Berkeley Cougars youth football league) right into a national cheerleading competition held this past weekend in Las Vegas. -more-

Berkeley has blocked the start of construction on a permanent home for Vista College—more than 30 years in the making—due to a parking dispute with the Peralta Community College District. -more-

Berkeley has blocked the start of construction on a permanent home for Vista College—more than 30 years in the making—due to a parking dispute with the Peralta Community College District. -more-

My parents moved to an all-white East Oakland neighborhood in 1941, during the war. My father was a shipyard worker at Mare Island, and later an Oakland firefighter. Afterwards, my parents built a grocery store, which they operated for more than 40 years. Still, my parents were (and this must be said with lowered voice, and a narrowed glance, and one hand cupping the mouth) niggers, and in 1941, many white folks were still not quite certain what niggers would amount to or whether they might bring down the neighborhood. And so, in 1941, several of the good white folks got together and tried to keep the real estate agent from selling a home to my parents. They failed. In fact, other black folks followed, many of them first-time homebuyers who also joined the Oakland Fire Department. Discouraged, the good white folks emptied our East Oakland neighborhood, moving to San Leandro and San Lorenzo, or across the foothills to the then-almost wilderness valley of eastern Contra Costa County. And that’s how our part of East Oakland came to be mostly black, with a later flavoring of Latino. -more-

RACIAL CRITERIA -more-

Cecilia Bartoli’s first concert in Berkeley in 1991 was to a half-empty Hertz Hall. Since then she has rocketed to superstardom (commanding fees of $60,000 to $80,000) and is second only to Pavarotti as a successful classical recording artist. Her Vivaldi recording sold over 500,000 CDs—a phenomenal number for a classical disc of unfamiliar music. In the rock world that would be equivalent to a triple platinum album. Her Gluck Aria album was a comparable worldwide bestseller. -more-

“If a life of wine, women and song becomes too much, give up the singing.” -more-

A new gourmet food court will soon occupy the empty space at 1509 Shattuck Avenue that has sat empty for almost two years after the Dale Sanford electronics store moved out. The project, which will house take-out spin-offs of some of Berkeley’s more well-known restaurants, is meant to bolster business and add another touch of flavor to an area well known for its food. -more-

February weekends may be chilly, gloomy, and gray in the Bay Area. But even if you don’t have the time or the means to jet off to Hawaii for a respite, you can still find some tropical magic only a bridge away from Berkeley at the San Francisco Orchid Society’s 2004 Pacific Orchid Exposition, Feb. 19-22. -more-

It’s hard to leave this event without at least one orchid. If you’re going to buy, here are some basic tips: -more-

In an abrupt about-face, developers of the largest housing complex ever planned for the city center have agreed to build 124 underground public parking spaces to partially offset the loss of the Kittredge Garage. -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 10 -more-

Perhaps you saw my sign reading “City of Berkeley: Hands Off My Equity!” and “It's the Disclosure Stupid—First-Time Homebuyers Assistance Program is a Predatory Loan!” during the last city council session. I was voicing indignation at the silence of city government to questions about deceptive lending practices perpetrated within the former Berkeley program entitled First-Time Homebuyers Assistance Program, wherein 29 West Berkeley first-time homebuyers unwittingly handed the city a blank check to the equity accrued in their homes. Only now is the city admitting that these loans are investments, and also not the assistance they purport to be. -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 10 -more-

After recently agreeing to discontinue a shirt many found anti-Semitic, the Urban Outfitters clothing store on Bancroft Way is in the spotlight again after introducing a shirt that reads, “Voting is for old people.” -more-

CORRECTION -more-

Friday was a tear-filled day at Berkeley High. Tissue boxes lined the steps to the Community Theater where students—some slumped against the building, their faces cupped in their hands—gathered to mourn the passing of classmate Nic Rotolo. -more-

After a week’s vacation, the city council returns tonight (Tuesday, Feb. 11) to its continuing task of closing a projected $10 million shortfall in the upcoming city budget. City Manager Phil Kamlarz has set up a series of 5 p.m. non-voting working sessions on various aspects of the budget, scheduled to continue through the end of March. -more-

Berkeley resident and convicted child molester Kenneth Parnell was convicted Monday on charges of trying to buy a 4-year-old boy. -more-

There may still be a glimmer of hope for the 30 UC Berkeley graduate students denied consideration for prestigious Fulbright-Hayes fellowships when their applications were mailed after the competition’s deadline. -more-

Ronald White, 45, of Berkeley was arraigned in an Oakland courthouse yesterday on three counts of carjacking and three counts of kidnapping for robbery. He was referred to a public defender and denied bail, said Deputy District Attorney Mike Nieto. -more-

Whether Kevin Cooper is ultimately put to death in San Quentin State Prison or not, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has missed a historic and unique opportunity to mount the bully pulpit to enlighten and lead. -more-

It’s hard for most people to get their brains around a $521 billion deficit. Most of us have a hard enough time envisioning a million dollars, let alone a billion—which is, of course, a thousand million. Try to think about 521 thousand million dollars—which is next year’s budget deficit—and your mind just closes down. A kind of numbness sets in. -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a report on the New California Media association’s first national poll of Latino reaction to Bush’s immigration proposals. The public opinion survey was sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation and conducted by Bendixen and Associates. -more-

The rapid rise of John Kerry’s presidential campaign is causing grave concern in the Republican Party’s upper management. Although GOP. leaders denigrate him as a “Massachusetts liberal,” invoking doom-laden memories of Michael Dukakis, such glib chatter only provides a temporary relief from their worries. -more-

When my computer crashed last week I did what I always do in the face of calamity, which is to immediately admit defeat and then begin to mope nobly. When my previous computer crashed a year ago I hired a geek to extract the information from the hard drive and then I threw the entire thing away. No computer, no crash. -more-

When the subject is book publishers, “small” rarely means “insignificant.” Try “independent” and “adventurous”—vital terms in an era when most big publishers have become conformist corporate citizens. -more-

What happens when two expert female humorists get together and collaborate? Hilarity! -more-

A female Berkeley High student tried to jump to her death at school Tuesday, according to police. The student was not seriously injured and was taken to a local hospital, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Kevin Schofield, who didn’t have further details at press time of what police have classified as an attemped suicide. -more-

The most startling thing about Berkeley breweries is how many have disappeared. In the 1990s, entrepreneurial beer fans believed that beer and micro-brewing was a quicker route to success than learning the intricacies of winemaking and distribution. As with books, distribution was the key. -more-

Here’s a really radical thought. How about voting for John Edwards in the presidential primary? -more-

On Saturday, one of those brilliant northern California sunlit February days, I went along on a downtown walking tour sponsored by the Planning Commission’s task force on UC’s hotel proposal. A couple of the participants gave a mini-lecture on the elegant moderne printing plant on Oxford (threatened with demolition), where the U.N. charter was printed and David Brower met his wife. The historic tidbits in their account whetted the appetite of one of my fellow walkers, a young man recently graduated from Boalt who has enthusiastically taken up the Berkeley activist tradition. “Why,” he said, “are there no walking tours of famous historic sites from the ‘60s and ‘70s, like the place where Patty Hearst was kidnapped?” -more-