Berkeley Planning and Development Director Dan Marks unveiled the draft work program for the joint city/UC Berkeley Downtown Area Plan (DAP) at Monday night’s meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). -more-
Planning Commissioners made clear Wednesday that they want to take the lead as the city and UC Berkeley begin rewriting downtown zoning laws. -more-
Did George W. Bush steal America’s 2004 elections? -more-
With disaster preparedness suddenly on everyone’s minds, the Berkeley Unified School District published its District Emergency Response Plan in last week’s school board packet for the first time in what school officials called “many years.” -more-
Sensitive Data Said to be Uncompromised -more-
Bowing to pressure from a well-organized opposition, Oakland Vice Mayor Jane Brunner has withdrawn her plan to expand an existing redevelopment district to include 800 acres immediately south of the Berkeley border. -more-
Just 21 years old, Jesse Arreguin, a UC Berkeley senior and tenants’ rights advocate, has made a name for himself in Berkeley. -more-
The Berkeley City Council meets Tuesday at 7 p.m. Items on the agenda include: -more-
The Library Board of Trustees voted unanimously Wednesday to reopen the main branch of the public library on Sundays starting Sept. 25. -more-
Last Sunday night I stood with another reporter in the middle of the street in a neighborhood near downtown New Orleans. I had been sent to capture photographs of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, but at that moment all I could see in front of me was blackness, interrupted only by the occasional lights from a passing police car and the yellow glow from a nearby light run by a generator. -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Palo Alto Daily News is a free daily newspaper published by Knight-Ridder, which also publishes Berkeley’s East Bay Daily News. The East Bay paper uses the same “Town Talk” format found in its Palo Alto counterpart. -more-
Robert Purdy, 85, a World War II veteran, ex-P.O.W., hero, and activist, died in Berkeley on Sunday, Sept. 11 after a short illness. -more-
Christopher Wilson, the 20-year-old charged with murder in the death of his friend, Berkeley High graduate Meleia Willis-Starbuck, was given a three-week extension to enter a plea. -more-
Here’s the story of my attempt to virtually join the U.S. Army. -more-
Landmarks commissioners gave their blessing to Roy Nee’s plans for the venerable Shattuck Hotel on Monday, while casting a more critical eye at Darrell De Tienne’s plans for the former Durkee Famous Foods warehouse at 740 Heinz Avenue. -more-
Immigrant and civil rights activists have managed to get several key questions, including some from Berkeley attorney James Brosnahan, into the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts. The questions spotlight their growing concerns about the vulnerabilities of immigrants and ethnic minorities. -more-
In the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 17, 1862, a division of Confederate soldiers moved into place just south of a cornfield near where the Hagerstown Pike runs past a white, clapboard church on its way to the town of Sharpsburg, Md. Northeast of the Confederates, Union Major General Joseph Mansfield was getting his XII Corps into line facing a small forest. -more-
The traditions of community service and citizen participation have been at the heart of American civic culture since before the nation was founded. Historically, our greatest strength as a nation has been to be there for one another. Citizen participatio n has been the lifeblood of democracy. -more-
http://www.jfdefreitas.com/index.php?path=/00_Latest%20Work -more-
My teacher anxiety dreams started in mid-July, even though I retired in June. The dreams keep coming, warning me of my failings and of imminent disaster. Never mind that I will not ever have to step back in any classroom again. The dreams are vivid attacks on my confidence. They aren’t true nightmares, filled with chasing or falling, but they are enough to make the next day gloomy. -more-
You ever wonder what happens to sensational stories that hit the local media, get everybody talking for a few days, and then just drop off the face of the earth? How many times in these situations do you see a follow-up story—either in the media or in some government agency—to find out how much of the original story was true? And if we don’t have a follow-up, how much effect does the original story—true or not—have on city policies? -more-
Your brief Sept. 2 item on the ZAB subcommittee on 3045 Shattuck may have misled some readers to believe that the subcommittee’s purpose is to seek a compromise between neighbors and the developer, Christina Sun. In fact its purpose is simply to work with Ms. Sun’s architect to find a more attractive, less blocky, higher-quality design that she and ZAB would both find acceptable. -more-
I have seen New Orleans clinging to a tower. -more-
Can Berkeley elect and maintain a government worthy of our progressive ideals? Can we once again ignite a movement? -more-
“I ask you to remember: with used furniture, you cannot be emotional!” -more-
Arlene Blum, a chemist who contributed to the banning of three toxic chemicals, leader of mountaineering expeditions and founder of Berkeley’s annual Himalayan Fair, will appear at two local celebrations of her new book, Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life. -more-
Shortly after John Moriarty opened his Elmwood District jewelry shop nearly three decades ago, the two-block shopping district on College Avenue had a cobbler, pharmacy, gun store and the most restrictive business regulations in Berkeley. -more-
Plans for a strike at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center hospitals in Berkeley and Oakland were canceled Monday morning. -more-
Two Berkeley firefighters are back from emergency duty in hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, while a third remains on duty in New Orleans, following a dramatic rescue of a young girl. -more-
As families from the Gulf Coast continue arriving in the Bay Area, Berkeley began mobilizing Friday to provide hurricane victims with homes and services. -more-
With concerns over Berkeley High School’s Academic Choice program not quite the hot-button issue it was a year ago, elections to this year’s School Site Council (SSC) last week were decidedly less volatile than they were last September. -more-
Members of Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board approved the use permits that would allow construction of the David Brower Center on the city’s Oxford Street parking lot. -more-
If the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees were a college football team, we would be saying that “Peralta’s crop of rookie recruits enters its second season tonight with high hopes, after a tumultuous year filled with both fumbles and mastering team fundamentals.” -more-
Berkeley announced Monday that it has reduced emissions of greenhouse gases from city operations by 14 percent since 2002. -more-
In the last two weeks, getting ready for the Big One has suddenly engaged many Bay Area residents. With the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina serving as a heads-up, people are replenishing their stock of water, batteries, canned foodstuffs and first aid kits. Those who live in or frequent the Berkeley hills would do well to add another item to their earthquake preparedness lists: the recently published third edition of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association’s popular map of all city-owned footpaths and stairways. -more-
http://www.jfdefreitas.com/index.php?path=/00_Latest%20Work -more-
If we measured news coverage the way we measure hurricanes then Katrina’s Category 4 destruction of New Orleans would rate a Category 5. Everything imaginable and much that is not imaginable is said, repeated and illustrated. Print and electronic media stuff the public with countless graphic morsels of courage, fortitude, resilience, tenacity, evil, looting, anger, neglect, mendacity, incompetence, finger pointing and blame aplenty—a full rainbow of emotions, a microcosm of the American psyche, a mesmerizing surreal orgy of humanity in extremis. -more-
Friday morning, when they arrived at the opening plenary session of the first-ever Sierra Club convention held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, several thousand activists got a surprise. Instead of an address by Executive Director Carl Pope, they heard a rousing speech from former Vice President Al Gore. (The schedule change arose because Gore was to have given a speech to state insurance commissioners in New Orleans.) -more-
Washington, D.C.—As an in-tractable and hopeless war in Iraq continues, a nightmare famine in Darfur lingers, and a post-hurricane catastrophe scenario plays itself out at home along comes a campaign to initiate a United States cabinet-level Department of Peace (DOP). -more-
For a few days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the Bush White House doled out the sort of upbeat rhetoric with which it customarily responds to disasters that are at least partly of its own making. The public was advised by Vice President Cheney that “tremendous progress” was being made in Louisiana. On Sept. 2, the president told FEMA Director Michael Brown, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” -more-
Last Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of the death of my neighbor Mrs. Gerstine Scott. I think about her a great deal, but during this time of year she is especially on my mind. -more-
Marc Sapir’s op-ed in defense of KPFA’s General Manager Roy Campanella II (“Coup Crystallizes Inside KPFA—Again?” Aug. 19) abandons reasoned analysis for a one-sided polemic, riddled with errors and hyperbole. Sapir appears to be singularly misinformed about the facts of the disturbing labor dispute at KPFA—a conflict that should concern all who care about this crucial 56-year-old institution and the vitality of the left in the Bay Area and Central Valley. If Sapir had bothered to check his facts, instead of repeating Campanella’s spin almost verbatim, he would have found that he was being sold a bill of goods. -more-
This is the story of my foster child who I’ll call “Katrina.” Like many of the hurricane victims, she too has been jerked around by a bureaucratic system rife with finger-pointing and incompetence. -more-
As summer comes to a close, musicians from up and down the Pacific coast will converge on Berkeley for a series of shows at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, Jupiter, Ashkenaz and the downtown Saturday farmer’s market. -more-
The informal consensus among the plant folks I know is that we’re having an unusually early autumn. That might be true; that poor plum tree that hangs over our fence is bald already, and started dropping leaves in early August. It’s been badly stressed though, since it was butchered so ineptly last year, so I’d thought it was an exception. -more-
Looks like the jackals are already gathering in New Orleans, before the flood waters have been pumped away. The areas which took the worst of the flooding were the homes owned and rented by poor people, who have traditionally lived in the bottom lands of southern American cities, where the residents were subject to malaria, cholera and other hazards of life in swampland. Despite all the evidence that the Katrina disaster was made worse by disregarding environmental axioms about building in marshes, the speculators are clearly looking at the ravaged zones as one big building site, this time controlled by the right people. On the radio Thursday, a New Orleans economic development honcho was interviewed saying that from now on it was going to be a city for middle-class people, and another city employee rhapsodized about how new programs were going to turn all those poor folks middle class. (Tell me again about the rabbits, George….) -more-
The cover photo of this week’s issue of the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur shows an armored vehicle labeled “state police tactical unit,” manned by grim-faced booted and helmeted figures with clenched jaws, wearing dark glasses, and carrying big guns, staring straight ahead. In the lower right-hand corner, we see two middle-aged African-American women looking up at the truck. One, wearing a red floral muu-muu, hair in curlers, raises her arm in supplication to the men, who ignore her. The headline is stark: “L’Amérique mise a nu”—America laid bare (literally, nude). The sub-head says that “The hurricane reveals the fissures in the society of everyone for himself.” -more-
