A controversial City Council rule that Councilmember Kriss Worthington called the “largest restraint to free speech in Berkeley history” could be history itself shortly after a public hearing at tonight’s (Tuesday, April 20) City Council meeting. -more-

Tonight (Tuesday, April 20) is public hearing night for the Berkeley City Council. Aside from the much-anticipated hearing on ex parte communications (see accompanying story, above), residents will also get a chance to weigh in directly on proposals for the allocation of public housing funds, a new police youth service counselor, higher park fees, a new parking rate plan for the Center Street garage, and the first of several fee hikes targeted at closing the city’s $10 million deficit. -more-

As Tibetan hunger strikers moved into their sixteenth day in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York, a small group of Bay Area residents turned out Saturday in downtown Berkeley to show their support by staging their own one-day strike. -more-

Fed up with what they say is more than 25 years of strewn trash, raucous parties and a plague of vermin, 22 neighbors earlier this month filed small claims court suits totaling $110,000 against Le Chateau, UC Berkeley’s most notorious student housing cooperative. -more-

In the upcoming weeks, UC Berkeley officials will be meeting to finalize changes to the student code of conduct that could prevent students from having legal representatives during on-campus hearings. The potential change in policy leaves many students worried about their due process rights on a campus well-known for civil unrest. -more-

Student commission captures honor -more-

Road Rage Leads to Berkeley Shooting -more-

When the air raid sirens shatter Berkeley’s daytime calm this Thursday and next, don’t worry. It’s only a test. -more-

TUESDAY, APRIL 20 -more-

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Recently, after two decades of living in the East Bay, I finally got on a sailboat and cruised out beyond the Berkeley Municipal Pier. My friend Martin had bought a 17-foot dingy complete with two sails and some life jackets. He invited me on his maiden voyage through the jetties of the Berkeley Marina. I was hooked. -more-

Tonight (April 20) the City Council has the chance to moderate Berkeley’s extreme rule prohibiting any communication between citizens and council members on land-use permitting matters, and bring Berkeley into line with practices that generally prevail throughout California. For many years the council has operated under its self-imposed rule that categorically forbids councilmembers “to discuss with any member of the public the facts of any [land use application] which may probably be the subject of public hearings by the City Council.” -more-

Unlike the City of Berkeley powers that be, the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry understands the financial plight of the middle class and is seeking to reduce its tax burden. -more-

Some of Berkeley’s roots are grand structures built by wealthy people, people with the leisure and capital to chart grand designs through their acreage, and whose praises are sung by architects and historians alike. -more-

NATIONS AT WAR -more-

Due to a production error, a word was omitted from Merrilie Mitchell’s letter (“Mean to the Extreme,” Daily Planet, April 16-19). The sentence should have read “And [Shirley] Dean is honest—amazing— considering our political leaders who ‘speak with forked toungue.’”0 -more-

A recently-revealed account of the founding of People’s Park, the south-of-campus former political battleground which celebrates its 35th birthday today as the archetype of ‘60s radicalism, alleges that it actually came into being not as an anti-war or free-space protest but because two lovers wanted a place to carry on their secret tryst. -more-

It seems a little unfair that so many reviewers and their ilk have blown the best joke of them all in Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s hilarious new production The Mystery of Irma Vep. -more-

TUESDAY, APRIL 20 -more-

Is it just me, or are there more Nuttall’s woodpeckers in the Berkeley flatlands than there used to be? Maybe I’d just been missing them—my battered copy of Joseph Grinnell and Margaret Wythe’s Directory to the Bird-Life of the San Francisco Bay Region, published in 1927, lists the species as resident in Berkeley. But there was a time when most of the woodpeckers I saw here were downies, and spotting a Nuttall’s was a rare event. -more-

TUESDAY, APRIL 20 -more-