Before Berkeley introduced wheelchair-accessible taxis last summer, Patricia Berne’s world didn’t expand beyond a few blocks from a BART station. -more-
Opponents of the nine-story Seagate Building, already approved by the city for a half-block frontage along Center Street in downtown Berkeley, Thursday filed a 68-page appeal asking the City Council to halt the project. -more-
Have construction crews working in the polluted marsh at the edge of Richmond’s Campus Bay been operating in violation of city code? -more-
A six-month progress report released this week by the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) on the Berkeley Unified School District says that the district “continues to make good progress in five operational areas” of education management. -more-
Ask Nancy D. Waters, principal of John Muir Elementary School, how much her school focuses on music and “beep be diddly do wop wop wop” will be her reply. Or she might break out a riff on her baritone saxophone as she has been known to do at the school’s Monday-morning “singing and signing assemblies.” -more-
Already approved for construction by the city Zoning Adjustments Board, the proposed Ed Roberts Center for the disabled faces one more regulatory hurdle. -more-
Berkeley Police Chief Roy Meisner didn’t hand in his badge when he retired Dec. 30. -more-
On Wednesday, one day before Sen. Barbara Boxer decided to sign a Democratic challenge to Ohio’s electoral votes, a father/daughter pair from Berkeley marched into her Washington D.C. office and delivered a letter urging her to do just that. -more-
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a chance to mount an imaginative and energetic campaign to solve the state’s education crisis, but instead retreated to stale proposals in his State of the State Address on Jan. 5. -more-
Berkeley Iceland has received a 15-day extension to submit a plan to bring its 64-year-old skating rink up to code. -more-
Berkeley High School has produced a number of outstanding people over the years and Yule Caise is no exception. Graduating in 1982, and giving a commencement speech at the graduation, Yule attended Harvard University where he majored in visual and environmental studies. -more-
West Oakland Councilmember and mayoral candidate Nancy Nadel says she wants to use some of Oakland’s newly-passed Measure Y violence prevention money on something she calls “peacemaking circles.” Ms. Nadel says that a judge in Nogales, Ariz. has used the circles with couples involved in domestic violence, and that a training in the technique was attended early last year by OPD Lt. Lawrence Green of North Oakland, who, she reports, “thought it was very useful.” The technique is also apparently being used, with some success, in both Massachusetts and Minnesota. -more-
We live in an all-encompassing culture of fear, which affects what we read, watch on TV, and talk about—even sports, where for example, it’s no longer sufficient to run a marathon, now one must compete in a 100-mile scamper through the Colorado Rockies i n order to risk dying of a heart attack or being eaten by a bear. -more-
Kudos to Mayor Tom Bates for his forthright criticism of UC Berkeley’s environmental impact report. -more-
I and many other residents of Berkeley were thrilled to read Mayor Bates’ fightin’ words in response to the final version of UC Berkeley’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan and the accompanying environmental impact report. I suppose that the mayor would not stick his neck out so publicly without an expectation of City Council support. Yet one hesitates to congratulate the mayor or the council too quickly, since in previous encounters with the university, similar city blustering has been followed by rapid retreat with the city’s municipal tail tucked demurely between its little municipal legs. Undoubtedly the message UCB received from those prior encounters contributed greatly to the university’s current arrogance. Nonetheless, it looks like 2005 may bring meaningful and even courageous action against UC expansion, and we should wholeheartedly support our Mayor and City in their strong stand on our behalf. -more-
The Berkeley City Club, one of Berkeley’s great historic, architectural, and cultural edifices, opens its doors this month for a public event. -more-
Next time you hear someone rustling furtively in the bushes beside your house, just as night’s falling, check it out before you call the cops. It might be just me, frantically hunting snails to feed some shrews. -more-
The Seva Foundation, a Berkeley-based non-profit organization best-known for its work on international eye care medical programs and community development has been pressed into disaster relief because of the crisis surrounding the South Asia Tsunami. -more-
Mayor Tom Bates slammed UC Berkeley’s revised expansion plan released Monday and warned that Berkeley would likely resort to a lawsuit if the plan didn’t detail specific projects or exact locations where the university intends to build over the next fifteen years. -more-
Catherine Debose has experienced the best and worst of the pioneering effort in Berkeley to allow mental health patients to seek help from one another. -more-
Though the Saul Zaentz Film Center, Berkeley’s own little bit of Hollywood, will lay off all its employees Jan. 14, efforts are underway to find someone to pick up the reins. -more-
In the wake of a fiasco in which three of Chancellor Elihu Harris’ planning and development initiatives were abruptly canceled or put on hold, a newly-elected member of the Peralta Community College District’s Board of Trustees said that trustees need to end the practice of “instant voting” on land development and facilities proposals without proper study. -more-
Repeated problems over the past two weeks have forced operational changes and three temporary shutdowns during the latest round of cleanup operations at Campus Bay, where developer Russ Pitto hopes to build a 1,330-unit housing complex atop a mound of buried industrial waste. -more-
In the past ten years I have hired people to take care of my disabled husband who often have had physical and psychological problems of their own. I have employed manic depressives who could not get out of bed, sufferers of ADD who were too hopped up to follow instructions, illiterates who could not read labels on pill bottles. I once hired someone and neglected to find out if he could make a simple sandwich and a salad for Ralph. He couldn’t. Another man had spent so much time in prison, he was unable to figure out how to use the coffeemaker. Coffee and tea had always been served to him. -more-
An economic tsunami is rapidly approaching this land. Those of you in the national congress, as well as state and local leaders, who are going along with HUD housing cutbacks, as well as myriad other Bush & Co inequities, are contributing to the ever-mou nting waves headed our way. -more-
Those activist judges that President Bush warned us about have struck again! -more-
Not since 1929, the year that marked the beginning of the Great Depression, has wealth in the U.S. been so heavily concentrated among the richest 1 percent of the population. This trend towards economic inequality increased sharply in 1970, and since that time there has been an enormous shift in the distribution of national income from the working class to the wealthiest Americans. For every consecutive year between 1970 and 2000, the annual incomes of the richest 10 percent of Americans have risen, without exception, while the annual incomes of the bottom 90 percent have declined. Even more startling, however, is that this income shift went almost entirely to the richest 5 percent (annual incomes of $178,000 and above), with the richest 1 percent (annual incomes ranging from $384,000 to $777,000) seeing the greatest increase compared to all other income groups. This trend is likely to grow by leaps and bounds during Bush’s second term in office. -more-
Walking on water is not part of the normal human behavioral repertoire. But for some insects, it’s routine. Check out almost any pond or creek and you’ll see water striders, known to some as Jesus bugs, skating along the top with their cruciform shadows tracking them below. There’s a nice collective name for these creatures and others that exploit this liminal habitat: neuston, dwellers on the surface. -more-
To Richmond officials, it looked like a much-needed boost to an ailing city and a major source of new city revenues. -more-
The year just ending added some stellar landmarks to the city’s architectural pantheon, while triggering some feisty showdowns before the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). -more-
Proponents of Berkeley’s medical marijuana Measure R have filed a state lawsuit contesting the recount of the proposition. -more-
In Berkeley, a new year will mean the clock has struck midnight for more than a dozen community agencies dependent on city funds. -more-
In November’s election, Berkeley voters decisively rejected four City of Berkeley tax measures, while giving solid support to Measure B, a parcel tax for the schools. -more-
Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell refused to appear at a deposition on Monday, Dec. 27. The deposition was part of an election challenge lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court. Meanwhile John Kerry is reported to have filed a federal legal action aimed at preserving crucial recount evidence, which has been under GOP assault throughout the state. -more-
Bay Area social and political activists have scheduled two actions in the next few days in support of a pending Jan. 6 Congressional challenge of the Nov. 2 presidential election. -more-
Most Oaklanders—crossing racial, ethnic, age, community, and class differences—want a significant end to the murders in their city. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown—deep in his run for California attorney general in the election two years away—needs for it to appear that Oakland murders are ending. There is, you can guess, a significant difference between the two positions. -more-
We are parents of a current Oakland School for the Arts junior. She is a member of the first class to begin the school. Not only will we sign our letter, so as not to be speaking out anonymously, we can provide you with any number of parents you choose, who would like to be interviewed regarding specific information about the benefits their child has received from being at the school, and our hopes for other children who will benefit from the school in the future. -more-
While I share Brian Edwards-Tiekert’s frustration at KPFA’s messed-up elections (“Democracy Derailed at KPFA,” Daily Planet, Dec. 28-30), he has mischaracterized the issue as factional. I believe the real question is: What should the Local Station Board do under Pacifica’s bylaws in the case of an elections challenge to insure that the election is legally certified and the proper winners are legally seated? -more-
Alerted by the smell of burning clothes and plastic, residents of a home at 813 Addison St. called the Berkeley Fire Department after discovered their dryer ablaze. -more-
High on a bluff in the Marin Headlands, breathtaking views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific Ocean surround me in panoramic splendor. Fog drifts through the Golden Gate, the foghorn sounding its mournful call, and the wind blows through my hair and the trees. I breathe in the sea-scented air as I watch the play of light on the currents below. -more-
The citizens of Berkeley have shown, yet again, that they can’t be fooled by the army of lawyers and planners (including the local firm DCE) that the University of California has arrayed against them to support yet another grandiose expansion plan. Both City Hall and numerous individuals with sharp pencils and good educations (often courtesy of UC Berkeley) have dissected the environmental impact report supplied for the university’s long range development plan, and lambasted it both for what it contains and for what it doesn’t contain. What the report discloses is horrendous enough: many more square feet of building mass in undisclosed locations, accommodations for many more cars, and other manifestations of uncontrolled growth. But even worse is what it doesn’t disclose, for example the University’s plans for development of its toxic site at the former Richmond Field Station, rechristened Campus Bay for marketing purposes, and the future of Lawrence Berkeley Lab, dependent of course on whether the federal government decides to re-invest in UC management skills. -more-
News came over the weekend that Shirley Chisholm had died at 80. Obituaries quoted her chosen exit line, delivered as she left Washington after 14 years in Congress. “I’d like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts,” she said. “That’s how I’d like to be remembered.” And that is indeed how we remember Shirley Chisholm, as a person who had the guts to do what she believed was right, regardless of what other people thought she should be doing. She was the first African-American woman in Congress, and is still the only African-American woman—and the only woman—to seek the presidential nomination of a major party. -more-
This week we got a voice mail message directed to the “editor-in-chief” from a woman asking us for a public apology for running a “Kwanzaa commentary” that was deeply offensive. She said that we should have known it would be offensive, and that the author “Mr. McGruder” should be fired. I couldn’t remember running any Kwanzaa commentary—for a moment I thought one could have slipped by me in the readers’ contribution issue we published on Christmas Eve. And we don’t have anyone named McGruder working for us. -more-
