A well-connected Berkeley toxics consultant and developer has teamed with Donald Rumsfeld’s predecessor as secretary of defense and a landless Native American tribe to float a proposal to build a casino and 1000-room four-hotel complex on Point Molate in Richmond. -more-

Ninety percent of 800 workers who voted at the Alta Bates Summit Medical center rejected a recent contract offer by the hospital late last week, locking the two sides back into heated negotiations that have been ongoing since before the workers’ contract expired at the end of May. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District has three business days to come up with $41,000 or else it risks losing a vital sponsor for a program that teaches students the splendors of urban gardening. -more-

The Landmarks Commission designated three new Berkeley landmarks Monday night, but admirers of only one of the buildings (the Ace Hardware store on University Avenue) will be able to rest comfortably with that fact. The remaining two landmark sites are on UC Berkeley-owned property earmarked for possible demolition for the proposed downtown university-owned hotel, conference center and museums complex. -more-

Mayor Tom Bates Tuesday proposed a temporary reprieve for some community nonprofits slated for budget cuts in hopes that come November Berkeley voters will bail them out indefinitely. -more-

As part of our ongoing series of Planet editorials which annoy proponents of major and minor religions, we’d like to share with our readers a press release which we received this week from the United Methodist Communications Office of Public Information in Nashville. Here’s the headline: “Crawford Pastor Leaving Bush Back Yard for Iraq; United Methodist Clergyman To Serve as Military Chaplain.” -more-