In advance of their eighth and final session today (Tuesday, April 27), members of the Planning Commission Task Force on the proposed downtown UC Hotel complex are looking over the first draft of the report they’ll give the City Council in early June. -more-
West Berkeley, the proposed nine-story Seagate Building and the need for more performance and exhibition space dominated audience concerns Saturday when Civic Arts Commissioners called for public comments on its proposals for the Cultural Element of the city’s General Plan. -more-
The people at Berkeley High think the newest addition to their school has a lot going for it. On Sunday they gathered to share their exuberance with the entire community. -more-
Berkeley voters will get some clues about the future state of the city’s financial affairs tonight (Tuesday, April 27) when the City Council considers an array of potential November ballot measures to help plug a $10 million budget deficit. In addition, the council is scheduled to take a first look at reforming the city’s campaign financing rules. -more-
Something like a close cousin, St. Joseph the Worker Church fits right into the heart of Berkeley. The church is a reflection of a community with a unique history and strong commitment to social justice and equality. -more-
Piano tuner Ben Treuhaft says he started sending pianos to Cuba in 1995 “as sort of an enema to [then-President Bill] Clinton’s Cuba policy, but somehow his Commerce Department gave their approval.” -more-
Every spring I head for Alamos, a pink-adobed, cobblestoned village tucked against the western slopes of the Sierra Madres in the state of Sonora, Mexico. It’s a pinprick spot on the map, located at the end of a narrow, two-lane road. The way to Alamos was paved in 1962. Before that it was just a rugged, pot-holed dirt track through miles and miles of high Sonoran desert. -more-
The increasing development by UC Berkeley beyond its traditional boundaries and its resulting encroachment on the city’s central business district and adjacent neighborhoods has been accelerating at an alarming rate. New and proposed construction will require untold additional city services, including fire and police protection as well as public works expenditures. -more-
El Cerrito’s City Council is putting the finishing touches on a new view ordinance. Will view-deprived property owners get to preserve and restore views via an ordinance “with teeth,” as in Tiburon? Or, will tree lovers achieve an ordinance geared to compromise, as in Berkeley? El Cerrito’s past ordinance implied a right to views. This worked when downhill neighbors read it the same way. But when tree owners dug in their heels, and disputes went for resolution to a “Tree Commission,” it showed the rules weren’t suited for a clear-cut court decision, pun intended. -more-
Fact: In the United States over 550,000 children are in foster care. Over 150,000 of them are awaiting adoptive placements. -more-
Saturday April 24 was a hot day for a garden makeover, or any other strenuous outdoor activity. But approximately 30 volunteers turned out to help transform the grounds of Chaparral House, a skilled nursing facility at Allston Way, under the auspices of Rebuilding Together. -more-
To Bolivian-born author Edmundo Paz Soldan, Berkeley is a magnifying glass through which he examines the world from which he came. -more-
The just-published Quick Index to the Origin of Berkeley’s Names delivers on the promise of its title, offering in 28 pages a definitive account of the reasons behind the names of the city’s streets, creeks, walks, paths and parks. -more-
A cascade of doubts over the Iraq war has been resurfacing in U.S. Latino media, coinciding with the recent announcement that Honduras will join Spain in withdrawing troops from Iraq amid escalating violence. -more-
I have a love/hate relationship with fruitless mulberry trees—in fact, I have a love/hate relationship with the individual outside my house. It shades a big south-facing window quite nicely in summer, then drops its leaves so we get some much-needed sun in winter. It gives me a bird’s-eye view of birds, when the local robins and finches and chickadees hang out in it, and it provides a customary perch for Himself, the Anna’s hummingbird that rules our front-porch feeder. When we’re lucky and get the right sequence of weather in fall, the whole street glows a glorious yellow, between the trees and their runway carpet of fallen leaves. It has a friendly, leafy presence, and aesthetically, the row of them on our street is one of the best things about it. -more-
Berkeley’s medical cannabis advocates issued a clear threat to the Berkeley City Council at last Tuesday night’s (April 20) regular meeting: If the council doesn’t pass Councilmember Kriss Worthington’s medical marijuana plant increase measure next week, the activists will go to the voters next November with a ballot initiative that would potentially make Berkeley the most pot-friendly city in California. -more-
Students from five student-run outreach and retention centers on the UC campus gathered in front of California Hall on Thursday afternoon to express their frustration over the state of recruitment and enrollment for minority students at the university, and to present a list of demands to correct what they feel is the problem. -more-
Without taking a formal vote Wednesday night, directors of the Berkeley Board of Education vaulted ahead of their superintendent and left no doubt that they will present voters with a November ballot initiative that could raise property taxes by as much as $12 million. -more-
Six months after losing their union election battle on a disputed 119-70 vote, Berkeley Bowl workers might still get union representation. -more-
Four years after it struck out in its bid to close a block of Derby Street to build a baseball field in South Berkeley, the Berkeley Unified School District is proposing a far more modest field of dreams. At least for now. -more-
The public gets one last chance Saturday to discuss the Civic Arts Commission’s proposed Arts and Culture Plan element for the city’s General Plan during a 4 to 6 p.m. session in the Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. -more-
What do the Fleshies, the Funky Nixons, the Fat Chance Belly Dance Troupe, the Willy Bologna Circus Show and the Chirgilchin Tuvan Throat Singers all have in common? -more-
The 25-member Berkeley Planning Commission task force charged with making recommendations about the proposed UC Berkeley hotel and museum complex holds its final meeting Tuesday. The meeting, which begins at 1 p.m., will be held in the second floor Sitka Spruce Room of the city Permit Service Center at 2120 Milvia St. -more-
Feds, Oakland Settle 1990 Earth First! Bombing Suit -more-
Alleged Sexual Batterer Arrested With Help of UC Police -more-
There is no textbook template for leadership in difficult times. Lincoln, we are told, suffered through doubt and depression throughout the years of the Civil War, walking the nighttime White House halls like a lanky wraith, agonizing over every decision and adverse turn of events. Truman, on the other hand, reportedly gathered all his facts in front of him, made up his mind, gave his orders, and slept in peace. Eisenhower, we are told, wrote in advance two short speeches to announce the events of the D-Day invasion of the French coast, to cover both possible outcomes. One of them—accepting personal responsibility for the defeat of the Allied forces at Normandy and the deaths of thousands of brave men—stayed in his pocket. Nixon sent Henry Kissinger in secret to China, ending the Cold War world as we heretofore knew it, breaking all our old assumptions with one swift blow like a hammer striking—cracking—shattering rock. Whether we agree with all of their actions or not, these men are remembered as firm, resolute American leaders when the time came for action, guideposts by which all future leaders might be measured. When told by one of his generals following the fall of Richmond that Lee was fleeing west with his command and “if the thing be pressed” the Army of Northern Virginia might be overrun and the long national nightmare brought to an end, Lincoln wrote back a simple, one-line note: “Let the thing be pressed.” One can almost hear the taking of the long breath, see the sad hounds-eyes’ slow blink, before the scratch of pen on paper. -more-
It’s been said that a political cartoon has about eight seconds to make its point before the reader moves on to other things. Therefore the cartoonist must communicate in a language consisting of symbols, caricatures and archetypes—figures and concepts that are easily and immediately recognizable. -more-
Berkeley’s beautiful creeks have been receiving a lot of attention lately. The good news includes the start of a million-dollar state-sponsored restoration program on lower Codornices Creek; the elimination of the sewage leaks that were contaminating Bla ckberry Creek as it runs past Thousand Oaks Elementary school; and the all-volunteer restoration project at Strawberry Creek Lodge that is the joy of its residents. -more-
What Berkeley’s Creek -more-
Friday, April 23—that is to say, tonight—Volti celebrates its 25th anniversary with a concert at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. Once known as the San Francisco Chamber Singers, Volti is one of the few professional vocal ensembles in the Bay Area that regularly presents contemporary repertoire (in fact, I count one other: Chanticleer). -more-
Aurora Theatre is presenting an impressively staged world premier of San Francisco playwright Cherylene Lee’s Antigone Falun Gong. Lee may well be remembered from TheatreWorks’ production last year of The Legacy Codes. -more-
Anyone who’s driven past Essex Street on Shattuck Avenue in South Berkeley in recent months has delighted in the stunning underwater scene emerging on the exterior walls of The Octopus’s Garden at 3039 N. Shattuck, Erin Janoff’s tropical fish and aquarium store. -more-
It wasn’t easy, but the Daily Planet managed to get an advance look at the Planning Commission’s agenda and packet for Wednesday. Among the items we noticed was a proposal from the planning director to raise fees on most planning and zoning permits by 10 percent “to cover higher cost-of-living, equity and fringe benefit rates.” Also, he wants to place a 15 percent surcharge on discretionary applications to pay for “the cost to maintain the General Plan and the Zoning Ordinance.” -more-
Looking across the bay from Berkeley to the drama around District Attorney Kamala Harris’s decision not to seek the death penalty for the young tough accused of killing an undercover San Francisco police officer, I am struck by how much times have changed, and at the same time how much things remain the same. A central argument of the early suffragists was that when women had the vote and were elected to public office their decisions would be more humane and thoughtful. From my perspective, Kamala Harris seems to embody that image of the woman as leader: humane, because she recognizes that nothing would be gained by executing a young person who seems to have acted without premeditation, using a weapon he should never have been able to buy, against a challenger that he may not even have known was a police officer; thoughtful, because seeking the death penalty would be an expensive and pointless symbolic gesture, since San Francisco (as well as Alameda County) juries almost never vote for death sentences. -more-
