The most sought-after confidential document in recent Berkeley history is now public, but debate continues over an agreement which added a layer of secrecy to recent settlement talks between the City of Berkeley and the University of California. -more-
One week after the contentious and narrowly rejected petition to change the name of Jefferson Elementary School split both the Berkeley School Board and the Berkeley community in general, the board voted unanimously Wednesday night to rescind the district’s school renaming policy until a new policy can be worked out. -more-
Berkeley’s strong lead in the competition for the first new ferry terminal in the East Bay weakened this week with an announcement from Toyota Motors. -more-
The Alameda County Medical Center—the only option for Berkeley’s 10,000 uninsured—continues to run up deficits despite a $70 million county bail-out last year, according to a recently-released report from the Alameda County Grand Jury. The report lays the blame on the center’s board of trustees. -more-
What’s in a name? -more-
Members of the Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA) don’t like what they see happening with parking in the city center—there’s less of it all the time in an era of expanding development hoping for a commercial revival. -more-
Bus drivers and custodians, classified employees, and supervisory personnel represented by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21 all received 3.2 percent pay-and-benefits package increases from the Berkeley Unified School District next year, while teachers and administrators received total compensation raises of 2.1 percent. -more-
For newspaper fans who would rather browse through a paper than a website, the world just got a whole lot smaller. -more-
After a stormy beginning, members of the citizen’s group appointed to advise the state on toxic waste issues at Richmond’s Campus Bay said Thursday night that they want a bigger role. -more-
AC Transit reached a deal with its largest union Friday on a two-year contract that gives its 1,800 bus drivers and mechanics a 3 percent raise. -more-
Shortly after her election as student director on the Berkeley Unified School Board last year, Berkeley High’s Lily Dorman-Colby outlined an ambitious plan to mobilize students against unpopular board decisions. “I want to be a politician,” she told the Berkeley Daily Planet’s Matthew Artz. “I want to change the world.” In addition, the senior wrestler announced that she was going to put a stop to the board’s habit of extending meetings late into the night. -more-
The controversial radio devices coming to Berkeley this August won’t be arriving in San Francisco anytime soon. -more-
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Citizen participation in Berkeley public life is under attack. Some of the assaults are blatant—most egregiously, the secret settlement with UC that the City Council approved on a 6-3 vote on May 25. The deal cuts citizens out of planning for downtown Berkeley, while effectively giving the Regents a veto over the future of our city center. -more-
When my mother was 14 years old, she and her three sisters combined the contents of their piggy banks and bought my grandmother an overstuffed, flower-print covered chaise longue. They envisioned their mother lying like a starlet on this piece of furniture, dressed in a sleek satin smoking gown, a slim black cigarette holder in one hand, and a full martini glass in the other. In reality, Grandma spent most of her time in front of a hot stove, cooking my grandfather medium rare steaks, an apron around her waist, a cigarette butt between her lips. She didn’t have time to recline leisurely on the chaise longue, and so it sat abandoned in her bedroom, covered not in cast-off silk and satin negligees, but my grandfather’s dirty underwear. -more-
I have a 7-year-old who just finished her second year at Jefferson Elementary. And I’m a parent who has been wholly uninvolved in matters concerning the school’s proposed name change (from Jefferson to Sequoia) and in its ensuing controversy; uninvolved that is, until now. -more-
Underlying the dispute over the name change of Jefferson school are issues that divide and tear at the heart of the Berkeley community. While I think the School Board should have honored the vote in a demonstration of democracy, at the same time, the idea of a name change is merely symbolic and risks continued avoidance of the real issues. My suggestion is: Let’s get real. Literally. Let’s look at the real history, the real issues. How about Berkeley being the first school district in the country to design a slavery curriculum, not just as part of African American studies but as part of world history and current events? -more-
The tragedy playing out at the Drayage building today was set up when the city quietly dumped the Arts and Crafts Ordinance protections covering the building until the rezoning of West Berkeley in 1998. -more-
The front page of Berkeley Daily Planet of June 28 shows the picture of a few Iranians who are protesting the recent presidential election in Iran. They are holding a flag that belonged to Shah’s regime. You might know that Shah of Iran was brought to power by a CIA coup d’etat in the 1950s. He was a U.S. lackey for more than 25 years who oppressed his own people. Also in the picture, a protester is holding a poster of a man who is the leader of a group officially declared as a terrorist group by the U.S.; although it is presently supported by the White House and the CIA. Thus, I have no doubt that the Iranian men in the photo are just a mouthpiece for the CIA and neocons. -more-
It is no secret that the University of California at Berkeley plans to play a major role in nanotechnology research. But what the university has kept under covers is that its research in nanotechnology is much more advanced than most people think. For the past few months, the university has conducted an “off the books” nanotechnology experiment on the Berkeley City Council, and the results are in: Attempts to shrink the brains and cajones of the City Council were overwhelmingly effective! -more-
As you may know, Iran has a new president. Mr. Ahmadi-nejhad (also known as “Darwin’s missing link”) an ultra right and fairly unknown candidate was supposedly elected to the office in a run-off election just a few days ago. -more-
The Busker’s Opera, which stopped oh so briefly here at Zellerbach before going on tour, was not only vivid and exhilarating. It was one of those specific moments that open like a cone far beyond this time and place, that reveal its center and invoke the world. From the indelible first images of the Busker, spilling out his empty tin cans on to the stage, drumming on them, the empty box, and even his own drumsticks, his long silky hair, swinging and rippling, designer and director Robert Lepage’s version of John Gay’s The Busker’s Opera celebrates and castigates the culture—ours; and uses the culture’s own idiom to do so. The first few pieces drive the rock/rap/hip-hop style to passionate intensity. Ultimately savvy about theater, show business, manners, politics, and the human psyche, the work is marvelous and it is mad. -more-
A film festival today, Tuesday, July 5 in San Francisco marks the beginning of LaborFest, a month-long celebration of working people and a commemoration of the 1934 general strike, when the businesses of San Francisco shut down in support of the striking dockworkers. -more-
We have a few legendary Europeans around town, some of them lined up on Blake Street just east of San Pablo Avenue, and currently all dressed up. They’re European beech trees, Fagus sylvatica, and quite a few of them are the copper variety, Fagus purpurea or Fagus sylvatica atropunicea depending on how old your information source is. Their leaves are deep burgundy, like a purple-leaf plum’s; you can tell them from plums by their smooth silvery bark, their larger size, and their fruit—beechnuts! (In no way does that fruit resemble chewing gum or baby food, and if that doesn’t make sense to you, ask someone older.) -more-
A $2 million major alarm fire gutted the Berkeley Repertory Theater’s 1230 Fifth St. workshop Thursday night despite the best efforts of Berkeley and Albany firefighters. -more-
After Board President Nancy Riddle recused herself because of a potential financial conflict, the Berkeley Unified School District unanimously approved a scaled-down version of the West Campus development plan at the board’s Wednesday night meeting. -more-
BART’s two biggest unions responded angrily Thursday to management’s latest offer, which union officials said BART gave to the press before they submitted it to union negotiators. -more-
In a rare display of unanimity, Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) Monday rejected both its own and the Planning Commission’s revisions to the city’s landmarks ordinance, calling instead for an outside expert to aid in drafting a new proposal. -more-
With Sen. Diane Feinstein’s bill to rescind the special legal status granted on Casino San Pablo and the abandonment of a second casino project in Oakland, the East Bay casino gamble is looking riskier by the day. -more-
Now into its fourth month, the tenant-landlord standoff at an illegal West Berkeley warehouse appears to be heading for court. -more-
Red light runners beware. Drivers now face a minimum $331 citation when caught on camera running a red light at the three intersections where Berkeley recently installed cameras. -more-
With Trustee Nicky Gonzalez Yuen providing the lone but spirited dissent, Peralta Trustees agreed Tuesday night to a modified Hewlett-Packard study and assessment of the community college district’s information technology operations. -more-
The City Council proclaimed Tuesday Tracy Vesely Day in Berkeley in honor of the city’s budget director. -more-
“If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution,” Emma Goldman famously said. Norine Smith danced her way through many of the revolutions of the last 50 years and had a fine time of it. She came from a quintessential San Francisco Irish background, born in 1938 as number four of six kids of Cornelius (Connie) and Nora Smith, both immigrants from Ireland, and raised in the outer Sunset District. She went to all-girl Mercy High School in the late ‘50s, then on to UC Berkeley where she majored in mathematics, which few women did in those days. She always said she chose math because she noticed that she was the only woman in her math classes, and she wanted to do things that women weren’t allowed to do. A tall, striking redhead, she worked a bit as a model while she was in school. After graduation in 1960 she entered the new field of computer programming, where she worked throughout her professional life. Norine was very proud of having run her own business as a computer contractor for major corporations in a period when few women ran their own businesses, even fewer of them in the high tech world. -more-
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Mary Berg, programmer and member of the KPFA Local Station Board, has informed the Daily Planet that she believes KPFA’s program council is a decision-making body. She told the Planet that she is strongly opposed to the idea that it should be advisory only. She said she agrees with the People’s Radio Group on that point. “Programming decisions should be made by the Program Council working with a program director, if there is one. They should not be left to the station manager,” Berg said, adding that she disagreed with a Program Council decision to move “Democracy Now!” to 7 a.m. “because in my opinion it was poorly thought out and poorly planned, not because the Program Council didn’t have the right to make it. That’s why people who were friends have ostracized me.” -more-
This past June 18, I participated in “Healing in the Heart of Richmond,” a day-long event held at the New Faith Cathedral, sponsored in part by Contra Costa Health Services, Survivors of Murder Victims, Inc. and Stand! Against Domestic Violence. We gathered in downtown Richmond to provide a forum for families who had lost members to violence and for individuals who had been violently abused. We listened as they shared their stories, ate healthy food together and then broke up into various healing workshops including poetry, drumming, massage, art and lamentations. At the end of the day, we all came together in the church sanctuary to light candles and say a prayer for peace in the city. The following day, two more young men were shot down and killed. Two more have died of gunshot wounds since then. As of this writing, 19 people have been murdered in Richmond this year. -more-
We began last week’s column discussing Berkeley resident Michael Larrick’s opposition to the petition to change the name of Berkeley’s Jefferson Elementary School, outlined in Mr. Larrick’s April 19 Berkeley Daily Planet commentary in which he wrote that “Black Americans and their leaders would be far better served if they would address the real problems in black education instead of the superficial and misleading issue of the name of a school.” (Advocates of the Jefferson name change—who were black, white, Native American, and other variations, by the way—said they didn’t want the school named after Thomas Jefferson because of Jefferson’s lifelong status as a man who personally kept Africans in slavery.) -more-
Wouldn’t it be great if the government could close the budget deficit while reducing crime rates? What could be the solution to making America safer? Believe it or not, the decriminalization of illegal drugs could do this and more. When drugs became outlawed, an illegal drug market was set up. There are many very dangerous drugs that are legal, such as alcohol and tobacco, while other drugs are not. As a result of making drugs illegal, much money is spent annually on drug law enforcement. Drug-related crime is a pressing issue that needs to be looked at seriously and decriminalization of drugs should be considered a possible solution. -more-
On Monday night, June 27, at least for a brief and shining hour, Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission became an anarchist organization. -more-
“Monsieurs, pardon me; if I may have a word with an officer in charge? There’s been a mistake.” -more-
From the Elkhorn Slough Overlook I watch the sunlight reflecting off the estuary waters, the glistening mudflats and the steep, corrugated roof of the open barn. To the north is the North Marsh rookery, home to nesting egrets and herons. Surrounding me are tall, multicolored native grasses amid the colors of wildflowers. Most distinct are the sounds—a soft cacophony of birdcalls and songs, almost joyful. A vision of nature. -more-
Wow. How often do you see John Conyers, Maxine Waters, Richard Pombo, Richard Sensenbrenner, Molly Ivins and Debra Saunders playing on the same team? For those of you who have been on vacation the last five years, that’s two best-of-bunch Democratic congresspersons, two out-to-lunch Republican same, and two columnists, both good writers but one wrong on most things we care about. The issue that brought them all together, and fast? The recent Supreme Court decision that it’s fine for local government to take your house and give it to developers. Paul Glusman has already noted in these pages how judges can be all over the map these days, and that’s part of the explanation, but there’s more. -more-
With onlookers clapping in approval, the City Council passed a budget Tuesday that slashed city jobs and services, but provided enough money for the library to reopen its doors on Sundays. -more-
