Some stories are impossible to write as an objective reporter. -more-

Between Mayor Tom Bates’ State of the City address, a motion on the controversial Ashby BART housing project and a hearing on the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, Berkeley’s City Council will have its hands full tonight (Tuesday). -more-

Steve Barton, Berkeley’s housing director, said, “It’s probably the most complicated financial structure ever put together for a non-profit development in Berkeley, and quite possibly the most complicated for any Berkeley project.” -more-

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California is demanding information from the U.S. military about a report of spying on UC students who have protested the Iraq war. -more-

Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commissioners issued a scathing review of plans for the Prince Hall Arms, a four-story, 42-unit senior citizen residential and commercial building planned for 3132 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. -more-

Investigators seized more than 30,000 electronic child pornography images when they searched the locker last month of a Berkeley firefighter who is now being held in Santa Rita jail in lieu of $1 million in bail, said the prosecutor handling his case. -more-

Berkeley officers are investigating two different shooting reports that occurred during the predawn hours Sunday. -more-

-more-

Hit, run, burn -more-

Planning commissioners will face a full agenda when they meet Wednesday night, while the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) faces a fairly light slate Thursday. -more-

To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-

TRIBUNE REPORTER -more-

Since I have had experience with redevelopment projects, I have been asked to discuss redevelopment and the current Ashby BART station proposal now before you. Frankly, this task is impossible because the Caltrans grant application which the City Council voted to support on Dec. 13, 2005 is in direct opposition to what the grant’s major proponents are saying it means. Let’s look at three areas as examples: -more-

I urge the City Council to vote against Mayor Bates’ proposal to alter the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, or LPO. (This is item 17 on their Feb. 7 agenda.) Among many good reasons to oppose the mayor’s proposal, let me emphasize two. -more-

There are a number of people in this community, who are taking a pretty hard line position regarding the Ashby BART planning proposal submitted to CalTrans by Max Anderson, Ed Church and the city, particularly Mayor Tom Bates. This group of hardliners includes, among others, the ad hoc steering committee, a group of people who volunteered to keep working on this issue following the large community meeting that many of you attended, and myself. -more-

It is 1963. Americans across the South—white activists, black ministers and plenty of ordinary folks—are rising up against segregation, against the hypocrisy of separate but equal. They are sitting-in at lunch counters, fighting for the right to vote, the right to earn equal wages, the right to live in decent homes and send their children to good schools. -more-

Last week I went out to the Legion of Honor to see the show “After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006: Rephotographing the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.” The exhibit pairs archival pictures of a devastated San Francisco with shots of today’s city taken from the same viewpoints. As I contemplated the stunning contrasts between the ruined townscape and the reconstructed one, I began to think about the different ways we perceive radical urban change. -more-

Michele booked some friends and me into an all-inclusive Jamaican resort—one of those places where you can kill yourself doing activities, drink yourself to death, or eat until you can’t move. I chose the former, though I did some of the latter as well. -more-

I’ve spent lots of time, breath, and column inches here and elsewhere in the past telling people how not to kill their trees. Don’t top trees; don’t hack away most of their limbs; don’t leave stubs; don’t hire inept bozos who do any of the above. Don’t plant them in the wrong place, or too deeply. Don’t irrigate native live oaks. Don’t let the base of the trunk get smothered in soil or mulch. -more-