A surreptitious stalker slashed the robust rodent outside Berkeley Honda at high noon Thursday, briefly deflating the colorful symbol of striking union members. -more-

A publicly-financed election reform concept introduced two years ago to Berkeley voters by Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates—and soundly rejected by those voters in the 2004 election—has been reintroduced in the state Legislature by Assemblymember Loni Hancock, with Hancock’s chief of staff saying that “the time is now right” for the issue. -more-

January -more-

Planning commissioners will take a West Berkeley tour Saturday morning, looking at sites close to the freeway that could house car dealerships. -more-

The fate of a popular after-school tutoring program housed at a contaminated former chemical plant site dominated a Wednesday night meeting in Richmond. -more-

Once in a while the New Times chain allows a good article which doesn’t follow the company line of cowboy libertarianism to slip past the editors of one of its magazines. The latest East Bay Express has a piece that’s well worth a read, even though it could have benefited from the services of a fact-checker in spots. Writer Eliza Strickland has capably documented the sad fate of the much-publicized Fruitvale Transit Village, where not much in the way of retail commerce has managed to take root, despite attractive design and millions of dollars in government subsidy. It should be a lesson to everyone who has hallelujah’d for the gospel of smart growth, one of whose tenets is that we can bring back the apartments-cum-retail design that worked pretty well in the streetcar suburbs at the turn of the 20th century. -more-