With its $67 million Center Street campus construction project on schedule for completion in January 2006, Berkeley’s Vista Community College is planning a birthday bash this week to celebrate its 30th anniversary. -more-

Jubilee Restoration Inc., in response to a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) investigation into misuse of funds, released records last week showing that it spent federal grant money designated for a homeless youth outreach program to pay employees working for its housing development arm. -more-

A small but vocal group of demonstrators rallied for an hour in front of the KGO-TV offices in San Francisco on Monday morning, protesting what they called “media silence on 2004 election irregularities.” Demonstrators later marched to the San Francisco offices of United States Senator Barbara Boxer where organizers met with Boxer’s staff. -more-

A one-day strike at Berkeley’s Alta Bates Medical Center and 12 other Sutter Health hospitals in Northern California commencing at 6 a.m. Wednesday will cost strikers five days of pay. -more-

With battles still raging over new development in Berkeley, the three newly elected Berkeley City Councilmembers are facing plenty of scrutiny as they prepare to name members to commissions that have a big say on the future face of the city. -more-

The long weekend gave us the opportunity to spend a couple of days in what we still call “the country,” on the property where the publisher’s mother settled after she came to Santa Cruz as one of UCSC’s first faculty members. She called it “the ranch”—about 60 rocky acres, a fair portion of which is pretty much vertical, mostly covered with second growth redwoods and eucalypts planted at the turn of the 20th century. The driveway through the woods is about a mile long, rutted dirt with seven switchbacks, an easy ascent for the benefit of the horses who pulled wagonloads of supplies up to the summer camp operated by the owners at the time, but a challenge for automobiles. -more-