The Berkeley Unified School District Board of Directors voted 3-2 Wednesday to kill a proposal to consider a regulation high school baseball field for its Derby Street properties. -more-
Amid news that Berkeley’s Volvo dealership, and the more than $100,000 in annual sales tax revenue it generates, is packing off to Emeryville, the City Council Tuesday debated how to attract new businesses. -more-
The Berkeley public schools Board of Directors voted unanimously Wednesday night to expel a Berkeley High School student for one year for bringing a gun on campus in her backpack last month. -more-
A career Berkeley cop will become the city’s next police chief. -more-
Bombs flew at Monday’s Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting, both literally and metaphorically. -more-
Library workers Wednesday railed against library trustees and a director who they said have ignored their concerns while cutting seven jobs. -more-
A formal demand by city officials that UC Berkeley adhere to its parking tax appears likely to send a second town-gown dispute to the courtroom. -more-
Planning Commissioners sang the praises of the proposed David Brower Center Wednesday night, but city planning staff wondered just how they could fit the complex into existing city zoning laws downtown. -more-
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—Brazil is scrambling to appear in control of the eco-conflict raging in the Amazon rainforest. After the assassination of 73-year-old environmentalist Dorothy Stang (an American and a nun), Brazil’s president has sought to make up, in weeks, for years of inertia on the Amazon issue. -more-
“The cities of the south shall be shut up, and none shall open them: Judah shall be carried away captive all of it, it shall be wholly carried away captive. Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north: where is the flock that was given th ee, thy beautiful flock?” Jeremiah 13:19-20 (King James Version) -more-
The March 4 Undercurrents column by J.Douglas Allen-Taylor (“When Objective Investigators Become Activists”) contains some serious mis-statements and factual errors that require correction. -more-
Something important was missing from the recent exchange in the Daily Planet’s letters section about Office of Transportation Director Peter Hillier’s untimely departure from the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association’s Feb. 24 meeting on traffic and parking—namely, the “pointed questions,” as letter-writer Jerry Landis put it, that moved Mr. Hillier to declare that he had “been insulted” and to walk out. -more-
Jared Diamond, author of Pulitzer-Prize Winning book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Society, states unequivocally that one of the greatest risks humanity faces is clinging to recipes of the past that worked well for decades, but can no longer work under changed circumstances of the present and future. Collapse, his latest work, hints at a critical failing in the planning/design process in Berkeley. -more-
As a parent-member of the Academic Choice Design Team, I have an emphatic answer to School Boardmember Terry Doran’s question (Daily Planet, Feb. 18), “Does [Academic Choice] lead to a better Berkeley High School or a better Berkeley High School for some students?” Those of us associated with the program all believe that it will lead to a better Berkeley High for all students and are prepared to work to see that it does. A better Berkeley High, as Principal Jim Slemp has said repeatedly, is a Berkeley High that offers many excellent choices so that every student can find a program or school that meets their personal needs. Small schools are great places for some students and BHS is developing a variety of fine small schools. Do CAS and CP Academy make BHS a better school for all, or just for the 500 or so students in those two small schools combined? I’d say they make the whole school better, both because they offer a quality choice to students with specific interests and needs and because other, different programs can adapt and benefit from some of the things that those small schools do well, such as creating community to support students. -more-
Stained yellow teeth, wheezing fits, sudden cravings, bad breath, and eventual death. All symptoms of smoking. But look on the bright side, you won’t need any more cough drops. What a deal, for only as little as $165 per month, for an average smoker. The tobacco industry advertises in order to lure in its biggest target: youths between the ages of 10 and 20. Studies show that teenagers are heavily influenced by tobacco advertising. In 1998, surveys found that the tobacco industry was one of the top 10 advertisers in at least 18 countries. Eighty percent of the American advertising companies believe that tobacco advertising makes smoking more acceptable to youth. Every year the number of dollars the tobacco companies makes increases. Every year the tobacco company spends more trying to get youth to start smoking. The only warning given is the few lines of size five print: may be hazardous to your health. -more-
Berkeley High has produced a number of outstanding individuals over the years and Peter Wright is no exception. -more-
Octavio I. Romano, Ph.D., founder and senior editor of Tonatiuh-Quinto Sol Publications, and emeritus professor in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley, passed away on Feb. 26 in Berkeley at the age of 82. -more-
Thirty years ago an extended women’s music and arts performance program was a revolutionary idea; today it’s an expression of a community’s solidarity. -more-
Bittersweet, the new chocolate café on College Avenue, has a small sign but you can’t miss it. The smell of dark, rich chocolate emanates from its front door. -more-
Inspired by the need to pay for the school’s beloved drama program, the Parent Teacher Student Association at Malcolm X Arts and Academics Magnet School has come a long way from bake sales. -more-
A strongly worded audit report released last week charges that Berkeley’s parking enforcement has suffered a decline in production and morale, and officials have failed to safeguard parking meter money. -more-
Former East Bay Democratic Assemblymember Dion Aroner has become a lobbyist for a Canadian racing track firm which has teamed up with powerful Los Angeles developer and Republican Rick Caruso, intensifying their push for a massive “theme” mall on the Albany waterfront. -more-
A week after the Berkeley Unified School District board heard praises for its conversion plans for East Campus, a board director has asked for a new plan with a baseball diamond on the site, reigniting a long-standing controversy over the property and possible Derby Street closure. -more-
For several of her nearly 20 years in Berkeley Sara Holmes didn’t know there was ever a fountain at the Arlington Traffic Circle. But now that it’s back, she can’t take her eyes off of it. -more-
With the West Berkeley Plan up for reconsideration this year, the fate of Berkeley’s industrial core hangs in the balance. -more-
An Oakland education activist was physically removed by a bodyguard from a San Francisco press conference called by State Superintendent of Instruction Jack O’Connell Monday morning when he tried to deliver a letter asking the Superintendent to meet with Oakland residents over the operation of the Oakland Unified School District. -more-
Albany City Councilmember Robert Leiber said that Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, Dion Aroner’s predecessor in the state Assembly, told him that he wants a hotel built on part of the Golden Gate Fields property within Berkeley city limits, something the mayor denies. -more-
East Bay Assemblymember Loni Hancock’s urban casino legislation is within two weeks of completion, and other, similar measures are nearing introduction into the state Senate. -more-
Berkeley residents got their first official chance to weigh in on the conversion of Berkeley Unified School District’s sprawling West Campus properties last week when developers hired by the district held their first community meeting. -more-
Is the “Coalition of the Willing” unraveling in Iraq? The recent shooting by U.S. troops of kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and her rescuer Nicola Calipari is raising suspicion that the coalition’s operations in Iraq are slipping into disarray. Moreover, the incident has driven deeper the wedge between Washington and its reluctant European allies. -more-
New Yorker regular Malcolm Gladwell has written a new book about instantaneous decision-making called Blink. The title would provide an apt characterization for the presidency of George W. Bush, whose actions often are based on little more than his gut-feelings. -more-
In the spirit of Susan Orlean’s recent “Lost Dog” piece in The New Yorker, I feel compelled to tell my own lost dog story. Actually I have two, a bonus for the reader, extra credit for me. -more-
Being a forensic clinical psychologist who has chosen to work, at Atascadero State Hospital, with “Sexually Violent Predators,” as well as other mentally disordered forensic patients, I have counted on the CalPers retirement to make up the core of my retirement planning. I chose to work with the forensic population for the simple reason that I found it interesting to work with mentally disordered criminal offenders and especially with the “Sexually Violent Predators,” who have been committed. I wanted to work with a group of people for whom many professionals find it difficult to provide treatment. I have found existential meaning in this work because 1) I am helping to assess whether or not these people are safe to return to the community; and, 2) I am helping people who otherwise would be pushed to the absolute margins of society and perhaps re-offend due to their social alienation. Ultimately, I have wanted to provide treatment to these folks so that in some small way I can contribute to the safety of my state. -more-
I spent four hours at the City Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 18, enjoying watching democracy in action. The issue was the reconfiguration of Marin Avenue, which I oppose. -more-
They’re back! -more-
The Shotgun Players is running a new translation (Tom Hoover’s) of Albert Camus’ The Just (Les Justes) at the Ashby Stage. The program’s studded with quotations, not only from Camus, but also from Shakespeare, Thoreau, Emerson, emphasizing zeal for justice, such as Emerson’s “Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.” The play explores that zeal which gives birth to revolutionaries—and the courage necessary for them to act. -more-
While we’re waiting for the first delicate ash-tree leaves to unfurl, and their later-rising neighbors to follow their example, I’m going to talk about why trees in a city are a good thing, and why we should think long and hard before cutting down a healthy one. -more-
The controversial proposal to develop Laney College and Peralta Community College District lands surfaced briefly and then resubmerged this week, when an item appeared on the Peralta Board of Trustees closed agenda to discuss “real estate negotiations” between Chancellor Elihu Harris and developer Alan Dones, but no report on the negotiations was given to the public in open session. -more-
The BUSD board Wednesday accepted a Second Interim Financial Report on the district’s 2004-05 budget that continued BUSD’s “qualified” budget status and discussed the district teachers’ work-to-rule slowdown over a contract dispute. -more-
Oops. The Daily Planet’s reporter caught me trying to suppress a giggle or two as I watched last week’s meeting of the Planning Commission’s subcommittee on the Landmark Preservation Ordinance revisions. It’s true, the spectacle of Planning Department staff grappling with arcane concepts like “integrity” from the specialized world of historic resource preservation can look pretty silly to anyone who knows anything about what they’re trying to talk about. -more-
