Bowing to public and legislative pressure, state officials Monday agreed to a change in jurisdiction over the toxic cleanup of Campus Bay, the South Richmond site where developers hope to build a condo project atop a hazardous waste dump. -more-
California Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials -more-
According to close observers of the Albany City Council race, voters sent a clear message last week by electing two new members who oppose large-scale waterfront development. -more-
The architects of a proposed ferry service from Berkeley to San Francisco unveiled their ridership study Saturday, saying that the Berkeley Marina is emerging as the leading site for the service. -more-
When the final gavel falls at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, a 21-foot high pedestrian footbridge could be coming to Hearst Avenue, new building guidelines could be in place on University Avenue, an architecturally significant cottage could be set for an expansion and a blueprint for revising the city’s 15-year-old creek law could be on the way for all of Berkeley. -more-
Two statewide organizations that advocate for a transparent political process are split over whether a request for Berkeley city councilmembers to vote on budgetary priorities in private violates state law. -more-
Faced with a still-precarious city budget situation and uncertainty over the direction of city waterfront development, Richmond voters last Tuesday re-elected virtually the same City Council that created the situation, with one notable exception: newcomer Gayle McLaughlin. -more-
The owner of an Oregon Street property where one UC student collapsed and later died—and where several student tenants were later arrested on drug dealing and illegal weapons charges—has called a meeting with neighbors of the property to hear their concerns about the incident. -more-
Battling bids for Point Molate, a choice piece of city-owned waterfront property sought by two rival suitors, will once again confront the Richmond City Council Tuesday. -more-
Members of Berkeley’s Planning Commission are scheduled to discuss two controversial issues Wednesday—revisions to the city Landmarks Ordinance and proposed changes to commercial parking regulations—and may discuss a third. -more-
After my husband’s accident, when he was transferred to Kaiser’s Redwood City Neurology Department, I was told not to leave valuables in his room. I was warned again when Ralph was sent to Kaiser’s Vallejo Rehabilitation Center. -more-
10:25 a.m. Cinnamon calls. She has hepatitis C and diabetes. She is hard of hearing, and lives in a coffin size space above a garage. She is worried about whether she will be able to get a real apartment with her five cats. She also is having a problem with a raccoon who is stealing the cat food. The raccoon is very aggressive and even climbs up the ladder into her loft. She is also worried about her daughter, who lives in Sacramento and was busted for amphetamines. She will be out of jail in December, but will come out without anything. She has lost custody of her children and will be homeless. Cinnamon called just to say hello and to hear a kind voice. -more-
The exit polls that showed a sweeping victory for Sen. Kerry on Nov. 2 were right. Unfortunately, the 2004 presidential election was cleanly stolen by Bush & Co. How, you say? With the help of Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and SAIC, four interlocked secretive right-wing electronic voting machine manufacturers. We have entrusted the most important election task, that of actually counting and tabulating the vote totals to extremist organizations with secret proprietary vote-counting computer software with no auditable paper trail for hand recounts. How very convenient, how very clean, how very slick and with all the evidence of election rigging is buried deep on their computer hard drives. -more-
7 a.m. on election morning found me trudging through the frozen streets of Boulder, Colo. to the county Democratic headquarters. Twelve hours later, having dispatched hundreds of volunteers to Boulder and the surrounding counties, I helped shut down the office and then gleefully proceeded to the “victory” party. I thought we had won; the information we received during the day suggested that Kerry would carry Colorado and win overall. -more-
Berkeley, what are we seeing about ourselves this morning? Many of us woke up this morning feeling a deep depression about the state of our country, especially as we absorbed the vast numbers of people who supported the arrogant, self-serving, mean spiri ted leadership of our president. I, like many others in Berkeley, felt marginalized in my perspectives about everything from international policy and national priorities to individual and social concerns. But when I look at my own community, I see some of the same trends that I see in the national results. I am heart sick at the defeat of Measures J, K, L and M—which would have paid for youth programs, libraries, police, fire and other front-line services. In the decision to save those of us who might hav e had to spend a few hundred dollars a year, from having to spend those dollars, I see a community that is trying to “protect” individuals at the cost of our commonwealth. Sound familiar? -more-
Like at least half the nation, I woke up Nov. 3 stunned with the dreadful news that Kerry had conceded Ohio and Bush had somehow managed to carry the nation despite extensive organizing and united efforts by the left to change the course of our country. Leaving Ohio on the long trek home to Berkeley, the Kerry/Edwards lawn signs were tattered along the side of the Ronald Reagan highway here in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my Mazda wore its “Nothing Accomplished” bumper-sticker as a badge of defiance. Despite our failure to carry Southern Ohio, there are tremendously important lessons to extract from the past few weeks of our Get Out The Vote efforts, and we need to begin planning now to make the 2006 mid-terms a true turning point for our country. -more-
It has all the makings of a party: chips, pizza, beer, bourbon, a projection screen and an amp. The mood, however, is dour at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Public Policy. -more-
Now that the election is over, there is sure to be a push from the White House to abolish the scourge of the 2004 election season—political 527 groups. Doing this, however, would be a serious mistake. -more-
On Sept. 24 the Daily Planet published my letter wondering why the Berkeley Planning Department’s website no longer lists notices of decision (NODs) resulting from the recent approval or disapproval of use permits by the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB). The department’s website has a heading, “Current Development Projects, Notices of Decision and City Council Appeals,” but neither NODs nor appeals to the City Council are actually posted. -more-
Some 20 members of Neighbors on Urban Creeks attended the Oct. 19 City Council meeting determined to maintain our positive stance of preserving the environmental benefits of creeks without conflict with the reasonable enjoyment of our private property. We were hopeful of a supportive council response to the over 600 people who signed our petition, and the more than 125 people who subsequently sent in letters emphasizing that the task of revising the Ordinance should be given to the Planning Commission. We also had support for our position from nationally known planning and legal authorities who pointed out that the Creeks Ordinance involved land use issues and that legally they must be reviewed by the Planning Commission and from city staff. -more-
Mayor Bates’ proposals for (once again) more taxes to soothe the budgetary woes of the city have gone down in flames, and his response is, “I don’t think people fully understood what they were doing when they opposed taxes (Daily Planet, Nov. 5-8 p.18.).” Of course not. We’re all uneducated boobs in the city electorate who don’t know what’s best for us and who are unable to appreciate the magnitude of the goodness and mercy that our local government bestows upon us. I feel bad that I am such an ungrateful slob. I stay up at night worrying about such character defects. I even have asked for divine guidance to help me to understand what I am doing when I vote on local issues, but apparently it did not help my comprehension. I am so sorry I failed Mayor Bates and all his minions. -more-
The 20th annual Film Arts Foundation Festival Of Independent Cinema screens this weekend, Friday through Sunday, at San Francisco’s Roxie Cinema and Castro Theater, following a Thursday night gala at The Mighty Nightclub in the Design District. The festival features narrative, art, experimental and documentary films from around the world—including several by Berkeley and other East Bay filmmakers. -more-
Somehow I had missed, until just recently, the fact that skunks are no longer considered part of the weasel family. Skunks are now in the skunk family, and have been since 1997. Nobody tells me these things. -more-
When the freshly elected Berkeley City Council convenes next month it will have three new members and one unenviable challenge. -more-
Race, which formed a quiet subtext to the Berkeley School Board elections, bubbled over the surface this week as a representative of presumed defeated candidate Karen Hemphill charged that “that Berkeley showed its true colors” on election day. -more-
Several thousand votes likely remain uncounted in Berkeley after an unprecedented surge in last minute voter registrations left nearly 5,000 residents off of the voter rolls. -more-
Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commissioners Monday approved plans for a pair of duplexes in the city’s newest landmarked historic neighborhood, ending a long and grueling battle. -more-
A new citizen seeking to cast her first vote and her husband screamed, yelled and threatened to call the police before they were allowed to cast their ballots at the YWCA polling station Tuesday. -more-
On an election day when Republicans painted most of the country red, Berkeley called it an early night. -more-
In the aftermath of the victory of Oakland’s safety Measure Y, supporters were calling it the result of a “measured, reasonable compromise” while progressive opponents said they lost because of defections from organizations and politicians “we would have expected to be fighting on our side.” -more-
Measure K, one of the most heated issues this year in El Cerrito, went the way most thought it would, passing with 6,427 votes, or 65.3 percent. -more-
The heated battle over the cleanup and development of the heavily polluted South Richmond site of a chemical manufacturing complex heads to a higher venue Saturday. -more-
On Tuesday the Berkeley Daily Planet had its first hearing in Alameda Superior Court concerning the unsealing of records filed in a class action lawsuit brought against California Wal-Mart stores. -more-
An Alameda County Coroner’s office toxicology report has revealed that UC Berkeley senior Patrick McCann had illegal drugs in his system when he died under mysterious circumstances two weeks ago, but there is no evidence yet as to what may have caused his death. -more-
As a social anthropologist I observed the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the rise of powerful, close-knit circles that filled the leadership vacuum and seized large chunks of state-owned wealth. These exclusive groups resemble the neoconserv ative or “neocon” core of 10 or so players who helped push the United States into Iraq. The rise of this neocon power circle—and its continued prominence within and without the second-term Bush administration—signals troubling changes in American governin g and policymaking. -more-
After two shootings, one serious, and a series of four vehicle arsons in seven days along a three-block stretch of Harmon Street in South Berkeley, police are declining to say if the crimes are related. -more-
http://www.jfdefreitas.com/?path=/00__Latest%20Work¯ -more-
On Tuesday evening, as actual vote tallies in the presidential race began coming in, television commentators immediately noted that there was a marked difference between the actual vote tallies and the projected vote tallies as worked out in the exit pol ls. The exit polls were being conducted outside of voting booths across the country by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International in a national election pool jointly sponsored by the Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, and the three broadcast television ne tworks. -more-
Some people do it for civic duty. The pay certainly doesn’t attract any but the most desperate or the most dedicated. Retired seniors accept the $80 for a 14-hour day (minus a one-hour break) as pin money for being useful. -more-
It is traditional for the losing candidate in a presidential race to give a concession speech thanking his or her supporters, and calling on them to join together with those who did not vote the same way. John Kerry followed that tradition in his concess ion speech, but as one of his supporters, here is some of what I would have liked to hear him say: -more-
Berkeley, what are we seeing about ourselves this morning? Many of us woke up this morning feeling a deep depression about the state of our country, especially as we absorbed the vast numbers of people who supported the arrogant, self-serving, mean spiri ted leadership of our president. I, like many others in Berkeley, felt marginalized in my perspectives about everything from international policy and national priorities to individual and social concerns. But when I look at my own community, I see some of the same trends that I see in the national results. I am heart sick at the defeat of Measures J, K, L and M—which would have paid for youth programs, libraries, police, fire and other front-line services. In the decision to save those of us who might hav e had to spend a few hundred dollars a year, from having to spend those dollars, I see a community that is trying to “protect” individuals at the cost of our commonwealth. Sound familiar? -more-
On Election Day, Berkeley voters trounced five ballot measures put forth by our political establishment (mayor, City Council, city manager, city labor unions, and various vested and invested friends of). Four of these (Measures J, K, L, and M) would have resulted in direct tax increases upon an already overtaxed population. The fifth (Measure H) was an indirect tax increase, since it would have committed the city to creating a $1,800,000 fund for political candidates. -more-
On a narrow, winding country lane in the lower Berkeley hills stands an empty house, described affectionately by its neighbors as the Jensen Cottage. It is one of the most famous homes designed by the distinguished mid-century architect William W. Wurster. And Wurster Hall, the building that houses the College of Environmental Design on the UC Berkeley campus, is named after this famous architect. -more-
Long ago in England, in a bizarre BBC interview, an ancient Irish countryman with a voice from a J.M. Synge play was expressing his low opinion of architecture. Asked about St. Paul’s Cathedral, he opined that, “All buildings are ugly, but some are uglier than others.” Fifty years later I feel somewhat the same about the “built environment” of Berkeley, particularly the new crop of downtown apartments squeezed into landlocked “opportunity sites.” -more-
As usual, our readers are doing a great job of analyzing the local election results in these pages, and we really don’t need to add much. We have just a few observations on the stylistic issues which affected the campaigns for local taxes. Our front page election night photos said it all. They were taken by a photographer who doesn’t cover city politics, didn’t necessarily know the names and numbers of the players, and just shot what he saw. In the Measure B victory photo we saw a bunch of happy parents lifting apple slices to toast their victory. Among them were fathers Dan Lindheim and Larry Gordon, who darn near drove us at the Planet crazy with a steady stream of letters, commentary pieces and “informational” phone calls. Voters who were paying any attention at all to local elections couldn’t miss the message; if they didn’t catch it in the Planet, they could have seen the hundreds of signs on their neighbors’ lawns around town. Good job, guys. -more-
A friend has a post-election analysis: “I’m disgusted and fed up with the working class in this country. They sold out their own self interest for the right to yell ‘faggot’ out of their pick-ups.” She’s got a point. About half of the American electorate has once again distinguished itself by preferring snake oil to vitamins—not the first time this has happened historically, not even the first time in my lifetime, but it’s always disheartening to see this self-destructive behavior in action. -more-
