The Week

Stephan Babuljak:
          Oakland Teachers Rally for New Contracts
           Susan DeNault, left, a retired Oakland Public school teacher of 25 years, now a substitute, cheers in support during a rally to encourage fair labor contracts between the district and its employees.
Stephan Babuljak: Oakland Teachers Rally for New Contracts Susan DeNault, left, a retired Oakland Public school teacher of 25 years, now a substitute, cheers in support during a rally to encourage fair labor contracts between the district and its employees.
 

News

State Supreme Court Backs Berkeley in Sea Scout Case By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Friday March 10, 2006

Berkeley’s decision to cut off subsidies to the Sea Scouts because they refused to guarantee they wouldn’t discriminate against gays and atheists was perfectly legal, a unanimous California Supreme Court ruled Thursday. -more-


State Officials Order Radiation Tests for Campus Bay Site By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Friday March 10, 2006

State officials have ordered extensive new tests at Richmond’s Campus Bay, looking for radiation, dioxin, asbestos, hexavalent chromium, cyanide, methyl mercury and other hazardous substances. -more-


County Opts For Paper Ballots for June Election By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Friday March 10, 2006

Faced with the impossibility of purchasing electronic touch-screen voting machines that meet federal, state, and county guidelines in time for the June primary election, the Alameda County Registrar’s office has come up with a novel solution: paper ballots. -more-


Willard Park Tot-Lot Closed By Riya Bhattacharjee

Friday March 10, 2006

The City of Berkeley has announced that the Willard Park Tot-Lot will be closed from March 9 to March 17 in order to bring the park’s current rat infestation under control. -more-


Landmarks Ordinance Draft Adds a Few Surprises By JUDITH SCHERR

Friday March 10, 2006

While Councilmember Laurie Capitelli lauded the proposal for a new Landmarks Preservation Ordinance which was approved by the City Council Tuesday night, saying it will give people more power to preserve their neighborhoods, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, argued that the revised law will open the door for “a whole bunch of developers who want to steamroll over historic resources.” -more-


Wrong Report Derails Berkeley Bowl Progress By SUZANNE LA BARRE

Friday March 10, 2006

Progress on the West Berkeley Bowl project has stalled due to a case of mistaken identity—of a traffic report. -more-


Oakland School Labor Talks to Resume Next Week By SUZANNE LA BARRE

Friday March 10, 2006

With a shiny red truck and neon green T-shirts, protesters descended on the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) office Wednesday to demand fair contracts for teachers. -more-


UC Students Look Toward Another Win In Fee Lawsuits By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Friday March 10, 2006

With University of California officials announcing plans to appeal this week’s professional fee hike lawsuit loss in Superior Court in San Francisco, attorneys for the victorious students are already looking ahead to a second lawsuit now making its way through the courts. -more-


School Board Favors Fire Science Curriculum for BHS Students By Riya Bhattacharjee

Friday March 10, 2006

Berkeley School Board members at Wednesday’s meeting were in favor of introducing a fire science curriculum at Berkeley High School. -more-


BUSD Considers Parcel Tax Measure By SUZANNE LA BARRE

Friday March 10, 2006

A school parcel tax is likely to grace the ballot this November, as the Berkeley Unified District (BUSD) struggles to offset a projected $19 million deficit. -more-


City Council Explores Cutting Ties to PG&E By JUDITH SCHERR

Friday March 10, 2006

A plan that would allow Berkeley residents to pull the plug on PG&E, with its nuclear power plant and investor-driven mindset—and replace it with a community-owned power provider—may be too good to be true, some city officials say. -more-


East Bay Parks Board to Fill Vacancy By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Friday March 10, 2006

Directors of the East Bay Regional Parks will meet this afternoon (Tuesday) to pick one of the six finalists to fill the seat left empty by the death of Jean Siri, who represented Ward 1. -more-


Implementation Urged for Instant Runoff Voting By JUDITH SCHERR

Friday March 10, 2006

Berkeley voters approved instant runoff voting (IRV) with a 72 percent vote two years ago. Advocates came to Tuesday night’s council meeting to lobby the lawmakers to make it happen. -more-


New Radiation Concerns Prompt Orders for More Campus Bay Testing By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Friday March 10, 2006

Concerns about the possible presence of radioactive waste at the Campus Bay site in south Richmond have prompted the state to order new tests for the controversial site. -more-


Police Blotter By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Friday March 10, 2006

Arson arrest -more-


Rodents Scare Parents Away From Willard Park Tot Lot By Riya Bhattacharjee

Tuesday March 07, 2006

It’s official. Parents and children at Willard Park need a Pied Piper. And fast. -more-


Oakland Police Plan Delayed By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Tuesday March 07, 2006

An Oakland City Councilmember said Saturday that the Chief of the Oakland Police Department has a plan to almost triple the number of police officers on Oakland streets at peak crime periods, but said that implementation of the plan is being delayed by Mayor Jerry Brown and City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente because of opposition from the Oakland Police Officers Association labor union. -more-


Public Hearing Revives Debate Over West Berkeley Bowl By SUZANNE LA BARRE

Tuesday March 07, 2006

The West Berkeley Bowl marketplace will usher in significant and unavoidable traffic, a new report says. -more-


Inter-City Rapid Bus Transit on the Fast Track By SUZANNE LA BARRE

Tuesday March 07, 2006

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) wants to get rolling on a rapid bus route through Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro. -more-


Council Takes on Landmarks Law, Instant Runoff Voting By JUDITH SCHERR

Tuesday March 07, 2006

The City Council will begin its session tonight (Tuesday) at 5 p.m. with a workshop looking at what it might mean for Berkeley to join other cities to replace PG&E with a locally owned energy supplier. -more-


McLaughlin Announces Run for Richmond Mayor By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday March 07, 2006

Richmond City Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin announced Sunday that she will run for mayor in the November elections. -more-


No Child Left Behind Act Threatens Professional Jobs By SUZANNE LA BARRE

Tuesday March 07, 2006

A provision in the No Child Left Behind Act could threaten the jobs of as many as 76 Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) para-professionals. -more-


UC Students Combat Muslim Stereotypes By JUDITH SCHERR

Tuesday March 07, 2006

The message of this year’s annual Muslim Awareness Week was even more urgent than in previous years. -more-


No Albany Counter-Initiative Planned, Says Measure Foe By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday March 07, 2006

Despite reports that the Albany Waterfront Coalition (AWC) plans a counter-intitiative to oppose a ballot measure being circulated by environmentalists to block a proposed shopping mall at Golden Gate Fields, no such proposal is in the works, says the group’s spokesperson. -more-


Police Blotter By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday March 07, 2006

Simulated gun, real heist -more-


First Person: Otis Chandler: A Publisher with a Conscience By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday March 07, 2006

Despite the patrician heritage and the family fortune, Otis Chandler liked to come off as an ordinary guy. But he wasn’t, and that’s why he’ll be missed. -more-


Fire Department Log By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday March 07, 2006

Hills home fire -more-


News Analysis: ‘Brokeback’ to ‘Kill Bill’: We’re All Asians Now By ANDREW LAM New American Media

Tuesday March 07, 2006

BANGKOK—Catherine Deneuve, grand dame of world cinema, sat serenely on stage at the International Bangkok Film Festival recently and declared her admiration for Asian films thusly: “I think Brokeback Mountain is something special.” -more-


News Analysis: The New Bolivarian Revolution in Latin America By TED VINCENT Special to the Planet

Tuesday March 07, 2006

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez declares that his country is in the forefront of a new “Bolivarian revolution” sweeping Latin America. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Do-It-Yourself Leadership By BECKY O'MALLEY

Friday March 10, 2006

Lately we’ve been privileged to get some short letters from Pat Cody, someone who has always been in the forefront of doing what needs to be done around here. She founded Cody’s Books with her husband Fred, the first bookstore in the Bay Area if not in the country to feature quality paperback books and to stay open for those of us who needed a reading fix late at night. My memory is that the original Cody’s, on the north side of campus, was open 24 hours a day, but that might be an exaggeration. -more-


Editorial: Berkeley’s Landmark Ordinance Hits the Soup By BECKY O'MALLEY

Tuesday March 07, 2006

The quasi-political operatives in the Berkeley mayor’s office placed their final salvo against Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance on the Internet on Friday night. For those who are interested, it can be found in the quaintly named Bates Update Update section of the city’s website. With attachments and appendixes, it’s much too long for citizens to read and comment on before the City Council votes tonight (Tuesday) to adopt it in principle; and anyway, rumor has it that Bates has the votes to do whatever he wants. City Hall insiders say that Capitelli, Anderson, Wozniak, Moore and Maio are in the bag. Doughty veteran Betty Olds is a long-time environmentalist and her own woman, so she might cast an independent vote at the last minute. Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring are the conscience of the council, though he sometimes votes with the majority if he knows his side is going down anyhow. She’s a tiger who votes her principles to the end. -more-


Cartoons

Correction

Friday March 10, 2006

Correction

Tuesday March 07, 2006

Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday March 10, 2006

SWEATSHOP LABOR -more-


Commentary: Renters’ Units Should Not Be Converted By SHARON HUDSON

Staff
Friday March 10, 2006

David Wilson, in his Feb. 28 letter, supports the conversion of rental units to condos, as a way of improving the opportunity for home ownership, reducing the rental vacancy rate, and rehabilitating dilapidated rent-controlled units. -more-


Commentary: Condo Conversions Bad for Berkeley By RANDY SHAW

Friday March 10, 2006

There is a move afoot for Berkeley to weaken its restrictions on the conversion of rental apartments to condominiums. This would be the worst possible move for the city’s future. We need only look at San Francisco and New York City to see how condo conversions displace elderly and long-term tenants, gentrify neighborhoods, and ultimately destroy a city’s economic diversity. -more-


Commentary: Will City Enforce Gaia Cultural Use? By ANNA DE LEON

Friday March 10, 2006

We of Anna’s Jazz Island were excited to move into downtown Berkeley where there has been a push to create a vital Arts District. We were thrilled to be part of a genuine arts center, with a live theater, arts organizations and our jazz venue—10,000 square feet of cultural use. The Gaia Building has a mission for cultural use that originated in a “cultural density bonus” agreement made between the developer, Patrick Kennedy, and the city. In this current real estate market, new downtown cultural spaces can come into being only with such agreements. After lots of community discussion, our Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) voted to give Mr. Kennedy two extra floors of apartments from which he generates extra revenue. In exchange, ZAB also voted, and he agreed, that he would place the ground floor in cultural use and that he would divide the huge mezzanine into four spaces for arts organizations. Anna’s Jazz Island opened in late May of 2005; we use only 15 percent of all the promised cultural use space. -more-


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday March 07, 2006

CASINOS -more-


Commentary: Thoughts on Iceland By Tom Killilea

Tuesday March 07, 2006

I would like to thank the Daily Planet for two recent articles that included one of my favorite places in Berkeley—Berkeley Iceland. While I have no financial connection to Iceland or its owners, I do feel a strong connection with this uniquely Berkeley asset. As the father of one of those “...young girls laughing and skating...” that Marta Yamamoto wrote about in her South Berkeley exploration, I often tell people that Iceland is my second home—one that needs repair, but worth saving. -more-


Commentary: Making a Better Berkeley Bowl By BETSY MORRIS

Tuesday March 07, 2006

On March 8, the Planning Commission takes up the proposed Berkeley Bowl project again. More traffic versus better access to groceries; loss of scarce industrial land versus jobs and tax revenue—these are the some of the tradeoffs under consideration. -more-


Commentary: Citizen Silence on Bush Regime Must End By Ariel Parkinson

Tuesday March 07, 2006

Hitler managed the Holocaust. He managed it so that in Germany everyone knew and no one knew. There would be worse news tomorrow. The wastes were picked up; the busses ran. Everyone knew, and didn’t know. It was happening. It happened. In his introduction to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer comments that Hitler was able to commit his high crimes and misdemeanors because the Germans were too torpid, too stupid, and too blind. -more-


Columns

Column: The Public Eye: The Striking Similarities Between Bin Laden and Bush By Bob Burnett

Friday March 10, 2006

Today is Osama bin Laden’s birthday, his 49th. A good time to consider the strange similarities between the world’s most notorious fugitive and the president of the United States. -more-


Column: Undercurrents: Brown’s Downtown Entertainment District Failure By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Friday March 10, 2006

Opportunities either mishandled or long left neglected during the Jerry Brown administration are now rapidly catching up with the mayor, threatening to give him a rocky send-off on his way out of Oakland’s door. (If you don’t get the pun, ask somebody.) -more-


Mount Everest Cooks Up Authentic Napalese Fare By B.J. CALURUS Special to the Planet

Friday March 10, 2006

Although the closest I’ve been to Nepal is the Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park, I’ve come to like Nepalese food—at least as represented by Kathmandu on Solano Avenue and Little Nepal on Cortland Street in San Francisco. -more-


Column: Watching the Academy Awards From Room 921 By Susan Parker

Tuesday March 07, 2006

This year I watch the 78th Academy Awards from the ninth floor, east wing of Oakland’s Kaiser Permanente Hospital. I sit in an ergonomically incorrect chair and crane my neck upward toward a small TV hanging from the ceiling. -more-


The Chemical Reactions of Spring Buds By RON SULLIVAN Special to the Planet

Tuesday March 07, 2006

We get just enough sun in between the rains to keep us hoping, this time of year; just enough life showing in the trees and plants, wild and tame, to make us believe that there’s more to the world than cold and mud. The plums have blossomed and are starting to get down to summer’s business, unfurling their leaves to catch the sun of longer days. The buckeyes—just look at the bunch in the center strip on Sacramento south of University!—are spreading translucent green hands out to the plenty flowing from the sky. The sun itself, as the world turns our side to face it straight-on, begins to touch us with palpable energy. -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday March 10, 2006

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 -more-


Moving Pictures: A Masterful Imitation of Hollywood Moviemaking By JUSTIN DeFREITAS

Friday March 10, 2006

If you thought America’s victory over Germany in World War II was only a political/militaristic one, check out Before The Fall, opening today (Friday) at Landmark’s Act 1&2 theater in downtown Berkeley. Apparenty we won the culture war, too. The film may be German, made with German actors speaking the German language, but it is a purely American film, from the opening shots down to the score’s final notes. -more-


Arts: Berkeley’s Jewish Music Festival Kicks Off By BEN FRANDZEL Special to the Planet

Friday March 10, 2006

The 21st annual Berkeley Jewish Music Festival got off to a sizzling start last Saturday with a soul-stirring concert by the New Orleans Klezmer All Stars at Oakland’s First Congregational Church. -more-


Garden Variety: Plant Amnesty Teaches Impacts of Bad Pruning By RON SULLIVAN

Friday March 10, 2006

End the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs! Yes, they mean it and no, they don’t lack a sense of humor. They’re serious, not solemn. Their website features a gallery of pruning atrocities, and some are hilarious. -more-


Jazzschool Benefit Features Prominent Stars By IRA STEINGROOT Special to the Planet

Friday March 10, 2006

If you missed the Jazzschool’s 2004 benefit concert featuring the Heath Brothers, you missed a major jazz event. The music went from great to unforgettable when 81-year-old bassist Percy Heath, who died last April 28, sat down to pluck out unaccompanied piccolo bass solos on Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite,” Fats Navarro’s “Nostalgia” and the Johnny Green/Edward Heyman standard “Out of Nowhere.” It was like hearing cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich performing with the lyricism, grace and inspiration of an improvising jazz musician. -more-


Mount Everest Cooks Up Authentic Napalese Fare By B.J. CALURUS Special to the Planet

Friday March 10, 2006

Although the closest I’ve been to Nepal is the Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park, I’ve come to like Nepalese food—at least as represented by Kathmandu on Solano Avenue and Little Nepal on Cortland Street in San Francisco. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday March 10, 2006

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 -more-


About the House The Dangers of Aluminum Wiring in Your Home By MATT CANTOR

Friday March 10, 2006

Once again, cheapness costs lives. This time it has to do with the skyrocketing cost of copper in the 1960s. If you’re my age, which I’m not going to reveal, you may remember when copper shot way up around 1965. Metal futures were all the rage and wire makers were freaking big time. Nobody wanted to pay twice the price for wire, but buildings had to be built, added onto or rewired. -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday March 07, 2006

TUESDAY, MARCH 7 -more-


Life in Berkeley on the Day of the Great Quake By RICHARD SCHWARTZ Special to the Planet

Tuesday March 07, 2006

The following is an excerpt from Richard Schwartz’s Earthquake Exodus, 1906: Berkeley Responds to the San Francisco Refugees. The Daily Planet will run three more excerpts in the coming weeks. -more-


The Chemical Reactions of Spring Buds By RON SULLIVAN Special to the Planet

Tuesday March 07, 2006

We get just enough sun in between the rains to keep us hoping, this time of year; just enough life showing in the trees and plants, wild and tame, to make us believe that there’s more to the world than cold and mud. The plums have blossomed and are starting to get down to summer’s business, unfurling their leaves to catch the sun of longer days. The buckeyes—just look at the bunch in the center strip on Sacramento south of University!—are spreading translucent green hands out to the plenty flowing from the sky. The sun itself, as the world turns our side to face it straight-on, begins to touch us with palpable energy. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday March 07, 2006

TUESDAY, MARCH 7 -more-