A group of voting rights activists—including nationally known labor leader Dolores Huerta—filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in San Francisco this week, seeking to halt the use of the Diebold paper trail electronic voting machines in California, but it is uncertain what affect it will have on electronic voting in Alameda County in the November elections and beyond. -more-

When Mayor Tom Bates ran for office against former mayor Shirley Dean four years ago, then-Planning Commission Chair Zelda Bronstein stood among his supporters. -more-

Wednesday BART services were disrupted for the second time around in two weeks when a bomb threat on a San Francisco-bound train at the 12th Street Oakland station resulted in services to all East Bay stations being cancelled for over an hour. -more-

The Willard Park tot lot will be officially reopening today (Friday) after remaining closed for two weeks in order to take care of rat infestation. -more-

Oakland teachers are one step closer to going on strike. -more-

On the agenda at Tuesday’s City Council meeting was a motion to ask the Berkeley School Board to add partial funding for a new warm pool at Berkeley High to the list of projects to be supported by the voters in a November parcel tax ballot measure. At the meeting, however, councilmembers argued that the addition could endanger the passage of the tax. -more-

The group chosen by the city to oversee development at the Ashby BART parking lot wants recruits for a task force panel to recommend projects to the city council. -more-

A $61 million project that will combine housing for the most disadvantaged, an environmental center, retail and underground parking got a set of approvals Tuesday, bringing the Oxford Plaza and David Brower Center proposed for Oxford Street and Allston Way closer to reality. The project was before both the Berkeley Redevelopment Agency and the Berkeley City Council, two bodies composed of the same elected councilmembers. -more-

Top state, county and city emergency services officials from the State of California and Alameda County met with senior officials from UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Vista College, the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) and Bayer Health care yesterday to discuss emergency preparedness coordination and communication plans in the event of a major disaster in Berkeley. -more-

When it comes to regulating local quarries, the city of Richmond is between a rock and a hard place. -more-

Faiza Al-Araji, a middle-class Iraqi woman, was able to pay her innocent son’s way out of jail last summer. That’s when she understood that she had to leave. With her husband and three sons, she went to Jordan, leaving behind the chaos and misery of the country of her birth. -more-

Though “balance” was the buzzword at Wednesday’s joint meeting between the Creeks Task Force and the Planning Commission, creeks faction wars were as heated as ever. -more-

The latest local public agency to be hit by the automated payroll blues is the Alameda County Medical Center. -more-

It’s a familiar story in Richmond. A developer wants to build expensive condos on what looks like a prime shoreline spot but there’s one catch. -more-

At the school board meeting on Wednesday, Paul Goodwin from Goodwin Simon Strategic Research presented board members and the public with the findings of the voter survey conducted to assess community support for reauthorizing the BSEP and Measure B of 2004 Special taxes which expire at the end of the 2006-07 school year. -more-

Commuters driving by Martin Luther KIng, Jr. Way and Oregon on Wednesday morning had a chance to smile and wave again, this time not at one pair of hands but thirty. -more-

The Albany City Council declined to tackle the White House Monday. -more-

Cycling bandit -more-

When Councilmember Laurie Capitelli introduced new elements to a draft Landmarks Preservation Ordinance at a council meeting earlier this month with no notice to the public, some community members cried foul. -more-

An agreement between the chief of the Oakland Police Department and the powerful Oakland Police Officers Association union to put more officers on Oakland’s streets at peak crime times delivers considerably fewer officers than first proposed by the chie f, and appears to do so at considerably greater cost. -more-

Something’s foul at the Alternative High School. -more-

The Gaia Building, the heart of one of Berkeley’s longest-running political and cultural dramas, is heading back for another look by the same city panel that approved its construction. -more-

Berkeley police made the biggest pot bust in the department’s recent history Wednesday, and they wanted people to know. -more-

The City Council meets tonight, Tuesday, first at 5:30 p.m. as the Redevelopment Agency, then at 7 p.m., in its regular role. -more-

Decision time is fast approaching for the hotly debated creeks ordinance, but Creeks Task Force members are still torn over how to regulate the city’s hidden waterways. -more-

At last Thursday’s Berkeley Transportation Commission meeting, the board unanimously passed a motion asking for a transportation services fee (TSF) to be approved by the City Council at its July 11 meeting. -more-

Aficionados of Himalayan cuisine can eat their hearts out tonight (Tuesday), knowing that they’re doing good by eating well. -more-

More than 75 percent of Berkeley voters would support a renewed school parcel tax, a new survey says. -more-

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2006 which was passed in February 2006 by Congress and signed by President Bush included language that essentially overturned the Rosales v. Thompson decision handed down by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The decision in Rosales broadened the eligibility criteria for federal foster care funding under Title IV-E, which enabled children to be found eligible for Title IV-E. -more-

Richmond-based robbers -more-

Car torched -more-

One of the few jokes I can remember is the one about the drunk who staggers from the bar to his car, only to realize that he’s dropped his keys somewhere. A friend comes across him two hours later, on his hands and knees under the lamppost on the corner. “Why are you still looking here?” the friend asks. “You must have dropped them nearer to the car.” The drunk responds that it’s too dark to see the keys on the ground near the car, which is why he’s still looking under the lamppost, where it’s easier to see. -more-

In this space on Friday we talked about how the major newspaper chains have been taken over by the Wall Street investment model, wherein profits must continually be maximized, and where papers and chains of papers have been dumped when profits dip to 19 percent. On Sunday night we attended a forum at the lately resuscitated Hillside Club, where the enterprising Sylvia Paull had convened a panel to discuss this proposition: -more-

URBAN LEGEND -more-

In recent years, academics and consultants have emphasized the critical importance of leadership to the success of government and business enterprises. Leadership conveys an image of military daring, while management has come to be viewed as a technical subject, of interest only to those who have not yet reached positions of leadership. This attitude fits well with the interests of politicians, who are unlikely to have management experience, but may feel well qualified to offer leadership. Moreover, attacks on the failings of government bureaucracy—real or imagined—resonate with voters. -more-

I have traveled to far-off places just to visit quaint waterfronts where industrial detritus is turned into quirky outdoor art and the artists live in cohesive communities that also welcome strangers and wayfarers. In these funky enclaves, artisans, bohemians, working-class artists, students, and professionals live comfortably on the leftovers of former times-where recycle and reuse come naturally and beautifully. How does this sort of “organic” development grow and can you still find it in Oakland? You’d better look quickly before it is gentrified, calcified, and homogenized away leaving no open spaces, no gathering places, no real studios or workshops-only darkened patches of private yards. -more-

BERKELEY UTOPIA -more-

The City of Berkeley, members of the city government, Anna De Leon, and Panoramic Interest have spent weeks, months, years, and thousands of your tax dollars debating and clarifying the issues of the Gaia Arts Center. In an attempt to bring controversy about the Gaia Arts Center back to city government, Ms. De Leon is using her status as an attorney, misinterpretation of the facts, and influential friends in the city government to encourage city planning officials and the ZAB to reexamine the Gaia Arts Center and modify zoning. -more-

A decade ago we led the successful community effort to rebuild the tot-lot at Thousand Oaks School Park in conjunction with the daylighting of Blackberry Creek. As Glen Kohler has stated (letter to the editor, Feb. 21), the daylighting project was a wrenching experience for our neighborhood. Replying to Kohler, Urban Creeks Council leader Carol Schemmerling (Feb. 28) wrote: “There were indeed, advocates and critics (after all this is Berkeley)…” -more-

Two weeks ago, some local residents spotted something truly special in Codornices Creek: a pair of adult steelhead trout—a federally listed threatened species—trying to build nests (“redds”) for their eggs. Fortunately, Friends of Five Creeks and the Urban Creeks Council were able to capture these spawning attempts on film for the first time ever on this creek (you can view the video clip at www.urbancreeks.org). -more-

On Tuesday afternoon coming back to the East Bay from San Francisco, the BART train stopped on the tracks just before the West Oakland station, and the driver got on the intercom to let us know that we were being delayed because of an earthquake. -more-

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go—downtown. -more-

What are those curiously attractive houses whose second floor, contained within a steeply pitched main gable roof, is far larger than the first floor? Why do we see them standing in clusters of two or three in Berkeley and Oakland but rarely elsewhere? -more-

I was visiting with a client today and got into one of those if/and/or discussions that soon feels like your brain is stuck in either molasses or honey (depending on whether the job will actually pay anything). One possible course of action involved changing a faucet, which would have eliminated a broken component and almost certainly have solved a problem involving the reluctant flow of hot water. The other solution would make someone happy but seemed for all the world like the wrong thing to do. -more-

We just returned from an excursion to a friend’s new townhouse in Vacaville. I won’t riff on her lament that she can’t find bulk olives or a decent farmers’ market or bookstore there, but I will say that the landscaping scares me a bit. Scared her, too, and then some: The week before closing on the new place, Alamo Creek and its local tributaries flooded her first floor and most of her neighbors’. She got off lightly though and the seller replaced the carpet with the tile she prefers. The block still rings with repair and construction noises, and piles of ruined wallboard and household stuff persist. -more-

In the three years I’ve attended San Francisco State as an MFA student, I’ve developed a consuming interest in the theater. Brian Thorstenson, whose play Shadow Crossing is now at the Berkeley City Club, was the first instructor to inspire me in the craft of playwriting. In his course, “Reading and Viewing Plays,” we read and saw half a dozen live performances, and watched several on tape. We analyzed and critiqued, then copied scenes from each play, put them into our own words and voices, and made them our stories. -more-

Once it’s reached adulthood a Monterey cypress is easy to recognize, though it takes wildly different shapes depending on whether it’s near the ocean shore, its native habitat, or inland even only a few miles. Its native habitat, in fact, is the very small section of coastland between Monterey and Point Lobos. If it were only there, it would be rare—and most likely endangered—just because its range would be so small. But it’s handsome and easy to grow from seed, so it’s in cultivation and part of human-made landscapes all over the world. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 24 -more-

Berkeley husband-and-wife filmmaking team Cliff Orloff and Olga Shalygin have taken several trips to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, and their most recent visit has resulted in a poignant film about the lives of Afghan women. Cut From Different Cloth: Burqas and Beliefs, a one-hour documentary, will air on PBS at 5 p.m. Sunday and again at 8 p.m. Thursday. -more-

Brian Jones seems all but forgotten these days, at least outside his native England. He founded the Rolling Stones, but they passed him by, leaving him to gather moss, or at least ingest a great deal of grass. -more-

In front of an enormous projection of the Bear Flag, alternately in full color and eerie x-ray blue, morphing into the view through the windshield of a fast superhighway, there’s a masked man seated onstage at “The Berkeley Rep of Alta California”—but he bears no resemblance to the masked man of the title, a kind of processed Latino Lone Ranger. This one’s not caped in black with black silk mask and mounted on a saddle. This figure’s in restraints, effaced (while a bitchy burlesque nurse tries to force m eds on him, then goes for the suppositories) mumbling “I’m the Wal-Mart price slasher! ... one man can start a revolution or recall a standing governor ...” And when a couple of Homeland Security-type spooks put him through whatever degree, demanding “Why did you threaten the governor? Who are you really?”, the man in a bind replies, “I’m bi-cultural, bi-curious and bipolar ... My California is now an endless series of strip malls ... I am Zorro! I must be Zorro! A muhajadeen Zorro! I have my own guitar flourish! There was a time when I was a normal Chicano ...” -more-

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go—downtown. -more-

What are those curiously attractive houses whose second floor, contained within a steeply pitched main gable roof, is far larger than the first floor? Why do we see them standing in clusters of two or three in Berkeley and Oakland but rarely elsewhere? -more-

I was visiting with a client today and got into one of those if/and/or discussions that soon feels like your brain is stuck in either molasses or honey (depending on whether the job will actually pay anything). One possible course of action involved changing a faucet, which would have eliminated a broken component and almost certainly have solved a problem involving the reluctant flow of hot water. The other solution would make someone happy but seemed for all the world like the wrong thing to do. -more-

We just returned from an excursion to a friend’s new townhouse in Vacaville. I won’t riff on her lament that she can’t find bulk olives or a decent farmers’ market or bookstore there, but I will say that the landscaping scares me a bit. Scared her, too, and then some: The week before closing on the new place, Alamo Creek and its local tributaries flooded her first floor and most of her neighbors’. She got off lightly though and the seller replaced the carpet with the tile she prefers. The block still rings with repair and construction noises, and piles of ruined wallboard and household stuff persist. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 24 -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 21 -more-

Once it’s reached adulthood a Monterey cypress is easy to recognize, though it takes wildly different shapes depending on whether it’s near the ocean shore, its native habitat, or inland even only a few miles. Its native habitat, in fact, is the very small section of coastland between Monterey and Point Lobos. If it were only there, it would be rare—and most likely endangered—just because its range would be so small. But it’s handsome and easy to grow from seed, so it’s in cultivation and part of human-made landscapes all over the world. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 21 -more-