Karl Linn didn’t just build some of Berkeley’s most resplendent gardens, his friends say. He built communities. -more-

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau formally unveiled the university’s plans for a quarter of a billion dollars worth of privately funded new construction Thursday, prompting an angry response from Mayor Tom Bates. -more-

In a town that would relish a role as the intellectual antidote to the current Washington establishment, one well-heeled group intent on battling conservative policy wonks has set up shop on University Avenue. -more-

When the Greenlining Institute made its foray into Berkeley politics last year it was seeking to add to the city’s storied tradition as a national springboard for political innovation. -more-

Berkeley Unified School District’s superintendent and board directors, at Wednesday’s meeting, blasted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s education budget cuts, calling on constituents to write protest letters to the governor and legislators and promising further action. -more-

A state mediator brought in to facilitate the bargaining of a new union contract between the University of California and service workers has called off talks between the two sides, according to the chief negotiator for the union representing 7,300 service employees at the nine campuses. -more-

To state regulators, they’re Meade Street Operable Units 1 and 2; to Russ Pitto, they represent opportunities for long-term investments, and for state Assemblymember Loni Hancock, they represent everything that can go wrong with the regulatory process. -more-

Landmarks Preservation commissioners will consider a trio of controversial applications when they meet Monday night. -more-

Fellow councilmembers Tuesday forced Richmond Mayor Irma Anderson to shelve her plan for a Blue Ribbon Committee on Campus Bay, following the pleas of both project critics and developer Russ Pitto. -more-

Concluding that Berkeley’s public housing authority unfairly favors African Americans, federal regulators have suggested that the agency target other groups including UC Berkeley students. -more-

Click here to view the latest work by Justin DeFreitas -more-

WRITER FOR HIRE -more-

In recent years, with the active cooperation of its local elected officials, Oakland has become something of a constitutional rights experimental ground for California. The idea has been to implement laws of dubious constitutionality—applicable to Oakland and only Oakland—to see if they work, how they work, and, perhaps, if they can be gotten away with. And so, among other things, Oaklanders have endured (thanks to Mayor Jerry Brown) the suspension of certain state environmental protections under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that are available to every other California city. In addition, we’ve had Senator Don Perata’s Sideshow Red Queen Justice Car Seizure Act (called the U’Kendra Johnson law) in which the city is allowed to confiscate cars for 30 days solely on the word of a police officer—without a prior hearing—that someone had been spinning donuts in the car. One would think that like the villagers in the Frankenstein movies, Oaklanders would get fed up, storm the castle, and drive these legal monsters out. Why that hasn’t happened (yet) is a story for another day. -more-

Flashlight Robbery -more-

The recent defeat of every tax measure proposed by the City Council in the same election that Berkeley voters overwhelmingly approved tax increases to finance the school district and several state initiatives is evidence that a sufficient number of Berkeley voters are fed up with the way the City Council operates. Especially frustrating is the disregard for law and policy that the council shows by selling out our interest virtually every time developers present a plan. The Seagate project is a recent manifestation of this. Remember how opponents of the Height Initiative sought to demonize the Height Initiative’s supporters by calling them NIMBY’S who opposed affordable housing? Seagate is just the type of project the Height Initiative would have stopped, and anyone with perception can tell Seagate is primarily a luxury development. Despite that fact the City Council agreed to waive applicable city regulations, far beyond what state law required, in return for the few affordable units. It is a sad commentary that Kriss Worthington is the only member of the City Council who seemed to understand that disregard of the law by pro-development staff and the City Council was a major factor underlying much of the voter anger that defeated every single tax measure proposed by the City Council. -more-

Russell Schoch—longtime editor of the California Alumni Association’s magazine, the California Monthly—wrote in the December issue an “Editor’s Farewell” announcing his premature retirement. Had I read it more carefully at that time, I would have known that the essay was that of a man writing with a gun to his head. After 30 years of service to the award-winning magazine, Shoch was abruptly fired without warning by the CAA’s new Executive Director Randy Parent on Nov. 22. Parent terminated him without so much as a gold watch, let alone a farewell reception which would have given those of us who had worked for Schoch—and the many who admired the courage often needed to perform that service—the opportunity to express gratitude for all that he had done for the association and for the university. The Cal Monthly Editorial Advisory Committee was not informed that Parent intended to take this action in order to move the magazine in a radically different direction without consultation. In his belated Dec. 16 announcement to the CAA Board that Russell would be “leaving,” Mr. Parent said that they hadn’t always agreed, but that he was certain that Schoch “is a man of principle, integrity, and honor.” -more-

In a letter published in the Jan. 28-31 Daily Planet, a reader states that he “would be much more inclined to give some thought to the meetings between the mayor and Seagate developers if Zelda Bronstein’s name wasn’t associated with the story.” He asks: “Has anyone else noticed that Ms. Bronstein’s name appears regularly in news reports concerning opposition to development projects or requests for commercial expansion?” Having read in the Daily Cal that I oppose the West Berkeley Bowl, and knowing that I was against the expansion of Jeremy’s clothing store on College Avenue, he writes: “The Seagate project has gone through all the required levels of our city government checks and balances. Perhaps Ms. Bronstein could try and see that not all development is bad for our city....give it a rest!” -more-

Organizations and individuals dedicated to fellowship, the appreciation of nature, and other high ideals flourished in Berkeley in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, when locals provided much of the energy behind causes such as the Sierra Club. -more-

Over the stage of a tiled plaza, backed by a screen framed by flags of the Western Hemisphere—not so much draped as running together, a Rorschach test— are projected words of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, of how we’re the children of one America, out of different origins and different colored skins: “This dissimilarity is of the greatest significance.” -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 4 -more-

An elementary school with students dancing and banging on drums might seem to be begging for a strong dose of discipline. But at the Berkeley Arts Magnet school, where the drumming may be Afro-Cuban and the dance a Mexican folk number, the curriculum is based on what elsewhere might be chaos. -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 4 -more-