Editor’s Note: This is a first-person account, written at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, of the fire that broke out Monday night at 3045 Shattuck Ave. The structure has been known by the nickname “the Flying Cottage” ever since the owner raised a one-story house above two additional stories nearly three years ago. The city shut down the project mid-construction because the owner had not received the necessary permits for such a project and the property has sat vacant and boarded up since. -more-

Blaming big chain and Internet booksellers, as well as a lack of help from the city, Andy Ross, owner and president of Cody’s Books, Inc., has announced he’s shutting down Cody’s oldest store on Telegraph Avenue in July. -more-

Neighbors of a new building on Telegraph Avenue will be raising concerns about a proposed 44-seat Quiznos restaurant at 3095 Telegraph Ave. at the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) meeting on Thursday. -more-

The half-billion-dollar set of projects planned around California Memorial Stadium carry “unavoidable significant impacts” in at least 14 areas, according to a draft environmental impact report (EIR) released Monday. -more-

Aurelia River has worked six years at the Shattuck Cinema in downtown Berkeley, with a 50-cent increase in salary during that time, going from $6.75 to $7.25 an hour for almost full-time work. She earns no benefits. -more-

On the heels of multiple protests—some clothing-optional—UC has agreed to revise its sweatshop policy, UC Berkeley student activists announced Tuesday. -more-

A meeting last week on development in downtown Berkeley was closed to the public. -more-

The dense, five-story project at University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way that Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) member Bob Allen dubbed “the Trader Joe’s Building” is back on ZAB’s agenda Thursday night. -more-

There are two days to go before the Zoning Adjustments Board is scheduled to render a verdict on use permits for the West Berkeley Bowl project, but at a special meeting late last week, board members indicated they still have a number of concerns. -more-

A statewide education revolt is growing against the agency that accredits California community colleges in part because of recent actions the agency has taken against the Peralta and the Compton Community College Districts. -more-

A former Berkeley resident alleges in a lawsuit filed in federal court two weeks ago that a Union City police detective chased him, tackled him, then punched him repeatedly after he broke the mirror of the officer’s personal vehicle, while dodging the vehicle that was about to hit him. -more-

A 12-member board will outline the plans for a major development at the Ashby BART parking lot, according to an announcement released late Friday. -more-

The American Kennel Club is howling about a law some members of the Citizens Humane Commission are proposing that would mandate the spaying and neutering of most Berkeley pit bulls, a breed overrepresented in the city’s animal shelter. -more-

Landmarks Preservation Commissioners looked at the latest draft of Mayor Tom Bates’ revision of the city’s landmarks ordinance and scheduled a special May 25 meeting to address their concerns. -more-

LOS ANGELES — Immigrant rights leaders have repeatedly and with great pride compared the movement for humane immigration reform to the great civil rights battles of the 1960s. They have cited the Poor Peoples March in 1968, the high esteem that Cesar Chavez held for Dr. Martin Luther King, and the unequivocal support that top civil rights leaders and the Congressional Black Caucus has given to immigrant rights as solid models of black and brown cooperation. Yet, despite these public pronouncements, there has been no sustained movement to build any real coalitions with blacks on the immigration issue. -more-

CAN’T DO THAT HERE -more-

SAN FRANCISCO—At this week’s “Dia Sin Inmigrantes/Day Without Immigrants” march in San Francisco, I saw a beautiful, exciting and hopeful vision of the future of this country. -more-

Absent for over 15 years, Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) has finally made a return to the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board. The steel mill is requesting modification of their use permit No. 8957 for operating one of their three facilities on Second Street. A privately owned West Berkeley company, PSC has the distinction of being the city’s biggest stationary air polluter. This fact is also reflected in its long history of neighborhood conflicts, odor nuisance complaints, and abatement orders. -more-

At the recent community workshop on the Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza redesign plan, an anonymous leaflet was distributed that is full of factual errors and misinformation about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service, which AC Transit is planning for Telegraph Avenue, the Southside and Downtown Berkeley. -more-

The Planning Commission and City Council will soon be considering recommendations regarding revisions to the Creeks Ordinance. When property owners affected by the Creeks Ordinance were informed that it would be virtually impossible to rebuild their homes if they were destroyed, more than 600 attended the City Council meeting to express their outrage. It turns out that this is core issue for those directly affected by the Creeks Ordinance but also for almost everyone else in Berkeley. -more-

The current alignment of Strawberry Creek is well known, and its future location is up to the community. Frank Greenspan’s April 25 letter to the editor suggests that there is some public confusion regarding the current status of the Strawberry Creek and proposals to daylight it. The creek presently enters a five-by-six-foot arched box culvert as it leaves campus at Oxford Street. The culvert jogs diagonally under buildings to Allston Way, runs down Allston Way to near the post office, cuts diagonally under the YMCA to the Center Street side of City Hall, and diagonally crosses the northwest corner of Civic Center Park to Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The culvert runs in perfectly straight segments, whereas the natural channel did not. Thus, the existing culvert is already a “realignment” of the creek. -more-

How un-Berkeley can you be? Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilmembers Darryl Moore, Laurie Capitelli and Gordon Wozniak offered one possible answer to that question last Tuesday when they indicated support for a proposal to allow developers to convert landscaped rear yards into parking lots with no public notice, no public hearing, and no possibility of appeal by neighbors. -more-

Jerry Brown is running for attorney general for the same reason he ran for mayor of Oakland in 1998: “I don’t know what to do with myself when I am not running for office.” Soon after he became mayor, he looked for the next office to run for without an incumbent. He had his eye on Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat until she decided not to step down. So then he focused on the attorney general’s office. -more-

Twelve years ago my husband had an accident that left him a C-4 quadriplegic, paralyzed below the shoulders. After two nights in Highland Hospital he was transferred to the Neurology Department at the Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City. While there, nurses from India, Sumatra and Sunnyvale cared for him. Ten days later he was sent to the Kaiser rehab center in Vallejo. He came under the supervision of a Pakistani doctor. The therapists who moved his arms and legs and taught me how to get him in and out of his new wheelchair were students enrolled in a nearby physical therapy school. They were from Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. Filipino nurses gave Ralph his pills, took his temperature, and recorded his vital signs. The assistants who bathed Ralph, emptied his urine bag, and shifted him from his left side onto his right were African-Americans. -more-

I’ve seen only a handful of bobcats in my life, most of them in or around Point Reyes and the Marin Headlands. My one East Bay encounter was about a decade ago, while heading out to Briones Regional Park on a spring morning. The cat was crossing Bear Creek Road near the reservoir, not being in a particular hurry about it. The first reaction in such sightings tends to be “funny-looking dog,” and then you notice the pointed ears and the abbreviated tail. -more-