Responding to the engine failure of two city trucks last year, city leaders in January scrapped its two-year-old program to power its fleet of nearly 200 trucks entirely on a derivative of vegetable oil. -more-
Berkeley’s era of budget deficits could be over by 2009, City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the City Council Tuesday. But to get out of the red, which the city has been in since 2003, Kamlarz is proposing a litany of cuts this year to close an $8.9 million deficit. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District settled a potentially embarrassing expulsion discrimination class action lawsuit this week, leaving Superintendent Michele Lawrence “pleased that we could reach an agreement” and plaintiffs’ representatives praising Lawrence and the district’s cooperation. -more-
After several weeks in which both sides maintained silence about contract mediation, the Berkeley Unified School District abruptly changed tactics this week, providing partial information on its latest offer to the Berkeley Federation of Teachers in an e-mail news release. -more-
Fifteen South Campus neighbors have won a $67,500 judgment against Le Chateau, a UC Berkeley student co-op they blame for years of strewn trash, late night noise and a plague of vermin. -more-
Patrick McCullough, the Oakland man who shot a 16-year-old boy in the arm during a fight outside his house last month, will not face criminal charges, Assistant District Attorney James Lee said Wednesday. -more-
Two young women slashed the throat of a 75-year-old Berkeley woman Wednesday evening as she and her husband strolled along Euclid Avenue past the Berkeley Rose Gardens. -more-
City officials have issued a formal call for a consultant to help reshape the streetscape and traffic flow around the Berkeley BART Plaza. -more-
Berkeley Unified School District Academic Performance Index (API) scores released this week by the California Department of Education contained “no surprises,” according to BUSD Superintendent Michele Lawrence, and show that district schools continue their placement in the mid-to-top level among California schools. -more-
California lawmakers took action against the genocide in Darfur Wednesday, aided by three East Bay teenagers who read written testimony submitted by U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee. -more-
Three new measures designed to control the spread of casinos took forward steps this week, including one federal law and two proposed amendments to the California Constitution. -more-
Berkeley’s program that allows city employees and residents to share city cars was named as one of 50 semifinalists for the Innovation in American Government Award. -more-
Major changes now being planned at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) include a major move off-campus and a step toward demolition of one of the facility’s major structure. -more-
When Alameda County progressives recently got wind of President Bush’s resubmission of seven federal judicial nominees previously rejected by the U.S. Senate for being too extreme, they did what many progressives all over the country did: They decided to party. -more-
A recent UnderCurrents column was linked in Mayor Jerry Brown’s new online blog (http://jerrybrown.typepad.com/), but do you think maybe this one was a mistake? -more-
While parked on Shattuck Avenue, sipping a latte and waiting for the Berkeley Public Library to open, I eyed two well-worn women as they ambled by, deep in conversation. One, with grayed-brown curls seeping out of her frayed knitted cap, clutched an overstuffed garbage bag to her side. She seemed quite intense as she spoke to her companion: “I think back in time to when things have disappeared and you’ve been drunk and you didn’t know you lost it…” -more-
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi didn’t wait for the result of the joint American-Italian probe into the killing of Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari, and the wounding of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, before announcing the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq. Combined with a hastily arranged Ukrainian departure and a planned Romanian retreat, Berlusconi’s announcement shatters the so-called Coalition of the Willing, rendering the Iraq occupation a de facto Anglo-American operation. -more-
Ann and Dean Metzger’s op-ed “Why UCB Should Follow the Lead Of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor” (Daily Planet, March 4-7) was very frustrating. It begins in the first two paragraphs by seeming to seek a middle ground in the present fight between the City of Berkeley and UC Berkeley by examining the relationship of Ann Arbor, Mich. to the University of Michigan (UM). After those two paragraphs though, the article takes a different tone, implying that UM bends over backwards for Ann Arbor and thereby implies that UCB should act likewise. Worse though than the articles faux-unbiased stance, is that it is based on a false premise. Namely that Ann Arbor and Berkeley are in similar situations. Having spent roughly four years living in both cities, I feel I am qualified to point out the failings in the Metzgers’ premise. -more-
Ann and Dean Metzger write in the March 4-7 Daily Planet that the University of Michigan has been “a partner in many capital improvement projects” in the city of Ann Arbor and that the University of California campus in Berkeley should follow Michigan’s lead. -more-
If you wanted to know what Jewish music sounds like, would you turn to a beatboxing hip-hop artist? An avant-garde string quartet? A master of ancient Middle Eastern musical traditions? -more-
Going into the foolsFURY Incubator/Shotgun Lab staging of Monster in the Dark is, in a number of ways, like walking in the dark. The publicity for the work-in-progress, playing Mondays and Tuesdays at the Ashby Stage, dwells on the theme, ‘what are you irrationally afraid of?’—and that the show is a work-in-progress, an exploration, and not much more than that. -more-
Poets David Gitin and Jack Marshall—both long involved with poetry in the Bay Area, and long acquainted with each other—will read their poems at 7:30 p.n. Monday, March 21 at Moe’s Books on Telegraph Avenue. -more-
Just as some city planners behave as though a brand new museum with no budget left for art, and a brand new library without librarians, are just fine, so some gardeners seem to think that a manicured garden without wildlife—often called pests—is also acceptable. This seems to be true of some environmentalists, too. -more-
When Berkeley’s only foster care and adoption agency learned that its office was seismically unsafe, it faced an uncomfortable choice: find money for repairs by May 2006 or face city fines. -more-
Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) members and planning commissioners both wrestled with the same subject last week, the incentives that let builders create larger structures in Berkeley than would otherwise be allowed. -more-
One day before the cutoff of local registration for Golden Gate Elementary Charter School in North Oakland, only 60 percent of students’ families had signed their children up to attend the new school. -more-
Berkeley Unified School District has been put on a list of 150 California school districts needing “program improvement.” -more-
The Berkeley Waterfront Commission rejected landing rights to Spaceship Earth in their bailiwick last week, leaving the 350,000-square-foot blue sphere still in search of a home. -more-
If you drive west on Center Street into the Shattuck Avenue intersection, you encountered two permanent signs reading “No Left Turn—Except Buses and Bicycles.” But because of Vista College construction on the next block of Center Street, you also encountered a temporary sign ahead saying “Road Closed Ahead.” -more-
Berkeley Design Review Committee will get its final look Thursday at plans for a four-story mixed-use condominium and retail project at 2700 San Pablo Ave. -more-
Fans and foes of East Bay casino proposals have had reasons both to celebrate and to fret in recent days. -more-
A vocal opponent of a plan to decrease the number of car lanes on Marin Avenue has filed suit against Berkeley and Albany to stop the project. -more-
After weeks of briefings on the city’s looming $7.5 million shortfall, Berkeley’s City Council today (Tuesday) will get its first look at next year’s proposed budget. -more-
San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board members will hear the latest developments at Richmond’s Campus Bay waterfront Wednesday morning in downtown Oakland. -more-
This week will mark the 36th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in which more than 560 men, women and children, all Vietnamese civilians, were murdered by soldiers of Company C of the U.S. Army 20th Division. -more-
In Michelle Carter’s Writing in the Public Context class at San Francisco State we are to listen for and write down overheard dialogue that intrigues us, or that we find mysterious, impenetrable, or loaded with hidden meaning. -more-
Big boss man, -more-
The Berkeley Creeks Task Force has now met five times. According to Planning Director Dan Marks, the task force will meet, at most, only 20 more times. If Berkeley's citizens want input on the final creeks legislation they would be wise to address the task force at the March 21 meeting, held at the North Berkeley Senior Center. This is currently the only remaining scheduled meeting specifically designated to take citizen input. -more-
In 1997 Oakland banned the use of pesticides on city-owned property. Since then, the city has made either two, a dozen, nine (according to an IPM document), or about half a dozen exemptions. It all depends on which day you hear Jean Quan or her policy analyst, Sue Piper, make their pesticide presentation. Bad news. Now there’s a push to employ herbicides in the hills, specifically Glyphosate (Roundup) and Triclopyr (Garlon). We urge people to speak up for alternatives to renewed dependence on toxics, the same old Monsanto snake oil. After pesticides have been applied, goat-herders wait a year plus another rainy season before they’ll let goats graze. Good move, as about 20 goats keeled over and died in the Spring of 1998, in the Carneros District of the Southern Sonoma Valley, immediately after drinking runoff from the neighbor wine grape grower’s vineyard. He is a user of Roundup, as well as other herbicides and other pesticides. Let’s not climb the toxic treadmill. Make weeding community service instead.. -more-
The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show takes place this week, replete with rare plants, elaborate and unusual display gardens with themes ranging from high concept to the horticultural equivalent of comfort food, and a myriad of garden-related products and services for sale. -more-
When successful Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo refused to testify before the 1947 House Committee On UnAmerican Activities, he became the stuff of legend—one of the Hollywood Ten, imprisoned for 11 months in 1950, condemned to the blacklist—and selling scripts through third-party “fronts.” -more-
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis said recently that jazz musicians are scared of playing John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. -more-
It’s not often that you see a bird that doesn’t match anything in the field guides—even in Sibley’s Bible of bird identification. But there it was, hanging out with a raft of overwintering common goldeneyes and Barrow’s goldeneyes at the Bayward end of Lake Merritt: a midsized duck with a dark head (showing a purple gloss when the sun hit it) and a backswept crest, a dark back, and pale sides with two vertical hash marks. -more-
This week, in honor of Women’s History Month, Berkeley’s Commission on the Status of Women recognized at its monthly meeting some “outstanding women in Berkeley who have contributed to making our community a better place to live,” in the words of the chair’s letter requesting nominations. One nice aspect of attending the event was getting a chance to put faces to people I’d previously known only as voicemail messages or e-mail addresses. In the audience as well as on the platform were many women who have been active in all sorts of important endeavors, and have told the Daily Planet about them. -more-
There was no editor’s column in this space last Friday because I was in Concord on Thursday, serving as a judge in the California Newspaper Publishers’ Association’s annual awards contest. Every paper that enters the competition is required to submit a judge for the regional entries, so I went. My assignment, with one colleague, was to review two categories: investigative/enterprise stories and environmental/“ag” reporting, both for less-than-daily papers above 25,000 circulation, the next group above the Daily Planet’s 2004 figures. Next year, we might be in this group, since our circulation is increasing. -more-
