The Week

An arson fire engulfed the house on the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Essex Street late Monday night. The property, known as the Flying Cottage had been the center of controversy over a proposed remodeling which raised the building to three stories.
An arson fire engulfed the house on the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Essex Street late Monday night. The property, known as the Flying Cottage had been the center of controversy over a proposed remodeling which raised the building to three stories.
 

News

Flash: No Jail Time for Former Berkeley Cop

By Judith Scherr
Friday May 12, 2006

Although former Berkeley Police Sgt. Cary Kent, who pleaded guilty to felony charges of grand theft and possession of heroin and methamphetamine was sentenced Friday to one year in county jail, he’ll do no time behind bars. Friday, Judge Don Clay offered the now-retired officer an “alternative” to jail. -more-


Flash: ZAB Approves EIR, Issues Permit for New Bowl in West Berkeley

By Richard Brenneman
Friday May 12, 2006

Zoning Adjustments Board members ruled on three controversial projects Thursday night, approving the environmental impact report and the permit that will enable construction of a new Berkeley Bowl at 920 Heinz Ave., denying a permit for a new Quizno’s sandwich shop and approving installation of a new odor-control system for Pacific Steel Casting, 1421 Second St. -more-


Arson Fires Strike South Berkeley

Judith Scherr
Friday May 12, 2006

A string of arson and suspicious fires has plagued a normally quiet South Berkeley neighborhood since Monday, causing jitters among residents in the area around Shattuck Avenue and the Ashby BART Station. -more-


Cody’s Books Turns the Page On Telegraph Avenue Era,

Judith Scherr
Friday May 12, 2006

In 1956 Pat and Fred Cody borrowed $5,000 and gave birth to the original Cody’s Books in an 18-by-29-foot shop on Euclid Ave. -more-


Sea Lion Attacks Three, Eludes Capture at Berkeley Marina

Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday May 12, 2006

On Wednesday afternoon a sea lion at the Berkeley Marina did more than just catch a ball on its nose and clap. -more-


First Person:

Anthony Cody
Friday May 12, 2006

It finally happened. -more-


West Berkeley Bowl Project Moves Closer to Approval

Suzanne La Barre
Friday May 12, 2006

The 91,060-square-foot project that promises to supply residents of West Berkeley with fresh, organic food won a victory Wednesday. -more-


Creeks Ordinance Revisions Move on to City Council

Suzanne La Barre
Friday May 12, 2006

Planning Commissioners voted to recommend changes to the city’s contentious Creeks Ordinance on Wednesday as devised by the ad-hoc Creeks Task Force. Or did they? -more-


GTU Students Lead Mother’s Day Protest of Iraq War

Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday May 12, 2006

“While some mothers will be receiving flowers on Mother’s Day, there will be those who will be in tears.” -more-


Local High School Students Await Judge’s Decision on Exit Exam

Suzanne La Barre
Friday May 12, 2006

High school seniors who have not passed the exit exam could score a reprieve today. -more-


Oakland Teachers OK Contract, Concerns Continue

Suzanne La Barre
Friday May 12, 2006

Oakland teachers approved a tentative contract agreement Wednesday, but union officials aren’t celebrating. -more-


Politicians Refuse to Cross UC Worker Picket Lines

Suzanne La Barre
Friday May 12, 2006

Political luminaries are refusing to cross a picket line at UC Berkeley graduation ceremonies this week. -more-


Gay Ice Skaters Agree to Settlement with Iceland

Judith Scherr
Friday May 12, 2006

Gay ice skaters Alan Lessik and John Manzon-Santos praised Wednesday’s mediated settlement of a lawsuit in which they charged a Berkeley Iceland employee with discrimination. -more-


Alameda County Medical Center Approves $23 Million in Budget Cuts

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday May 12, 2006

The Alameda County Medical Center moved this week to stop the budget bleeding at the county’s financially troubled hospital system, with trustees voting unanimously to approve more than $23 million in immediate budget reductions. -more-


Peralta Joins Groups Calling For Accreditation Reform in State

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday May 12, 2006

The Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees has joined the list of educational organizations calling for a change in the accreditation process for California community colleges. -more-


NEWS FLASH: First Person: Flying Cottage Inferno

By Anthony Cody
Tuesday May 09, 2006
Flying cottage engulfed in flames late Monday night.  Photograph by Anthony Cody

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-


NEWS FLASH: Cody's on Telegraph to Close

Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Fast-Food Plans for New Telegraph Avenue Building Alarm Neighbors

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


UC Releases EIR For New StadiumComplex

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Shattuck Cinema Workers Call For Union

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


UC Berkeley Adopts Revised Sweatshop Policy

By Suzanne La Barre
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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


Public, Press Excluded from Downtown Advisory Meeting

By Suzanne la Barre
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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


Trader Joe’s, Pacific Steel Casting on Crowded ZAB Agenda

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


ZAB to Decide on Bowl EIR, Use Permit

By Suzanne La Barre
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Accrediting Commission Provokes Critics After Compton Threats

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Suit Charges Berkeley Police with False Arrest, Battery

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Neighborhood Corporation Chooses Panel to Plan Ashby BART Village

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Berkeley Humane Commission Members Propose Mandatory Neutering of Pit Bulls

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


LPC to Convene Special Meeting on Law Changes

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


News Analysis: Immigrant Movement Must Reach Out to Blacks

By Jasmyne A. Channick and Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Minding the Kids While Minding the Store

Becky O'Malley
Friday May 12, 2006

At a birthday party for a 4-year-old recently, a youngish mother of my acquaintance, in between bouts of chasing her very active baby who was just learning to walk, wondered why no one had ever tried to figure out some good way for parents to work part-time at interesting and responsible jobs with future promise. Of course, I told her, we did try. But it didn’t work as easily as we might have hoped. Why? she asked. -more-


Planners, ZAB Rush to Approve Projects Before Recess

By Suzanne La Barre
Tuesday May 09, 2006

West Berkeley Bowl, Creeks at Planning Commission -more-


Cartoons

Correction

Friday May 12, 2006

Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday May 12, 2006

GREEN BERKELEY -more-


Commentary: Why I’m Running for Re-Election

Mayor Tom Bates
Friday May 12, 2006

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Planet has invited all the mayoral candidates to write a regular commentaries. Previous editions included contributions from Zelda Bronstein and Zachary RunningWolf. Of the officially declared candidates, only Richard Berkeley has yet to respond. -more-


Commentary: BUSD Maintenance Problems No Surprise

Yolanda Huang
Friday May 12, 2006

The fact that the Berkeley Unified School District’s maintenance department is in disarray and lacks accountability is not new. BUSD’s maintenance department has been functioning poorly state for over two decades. And more money isn’t the cure. And a new department organizational structure isn’t the cure. The problem is the continuing lack of a qualified, skilled head of maintenance, a continuing lack of a competent plan of action, and the continuing lack of a system of accountability to evaluate whether BUSD is getting the job done. -more-


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday May 09, 2006

CAN’T DO THAT HERE -more-


Commentary: On Being Black at a Latino March

By Van Jones New American Media
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Commentary: Pacific Steel Casting: ZAB ’em!

By L A Wood
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Commentary: Bus Rapid Transit Leaflet Misleading

By Rob Wrenn
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Commentary: Creekside Homeowners Need the Right to Rebuild

by Shirley Dean
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Commentary: Shedding Light on Strawberry Creek

By Gus Yates
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Commentary: Mayor May Be Swing Vote on Right to Pave

By Robert Lauriston
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Commentary: Why Is Jerry Brown Running Again?

By Joyce Roy
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Columns

Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Despite Stunning Success, China is a Troubled Dragon

Conn Hallinan
Friday May 12, 2006

The image of China in the Western press is less the dragon of the Celestial Kingdom than J.R. Tolkin’s Smaug, a beast of enormous strength and cunning, ravaging oil markets in Africa, copper ore in South America, and uranium deposits in Australia. “The world begins to feel the dragon’s breath on its back,” intones the Financial Times. -more-


Column: UnderCurrents: We Are All Immigrants, Legal or Illegal

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday May 12, 2006

Sometime in the late 1970s, I drove with a friend to visit her family home in Gramercy, a small Mississippi River town not far from New Orleans. Fate takes odd turns. I knew less about my own family history at the time, but I later learned that Gramercy is in St. James Parish, the Louisiana county that my father’s people stopped in for a time on their way from Senegambia to Oakland. -more-


Planning a Point Richmond Getaway

Marta Yamamoto
Friday May 12, 2006

Ever get that midweek feeling of wanting to escape up the coast? Spend some time near the water in a picturesque town? Walk past quaint cottages and historic buildings? Roam the landscape allowing your eyes and mind to expand across open space? Discover a café, deli or fine restaurant and treat your taste buds to new flavors? Even without the time needed to reach Mendocino, a solution for the midweek blues is close at hand. -more-


About the House: Finding the Right Way to Repair an Old Floor

Matt Cantor
Friday May 12, 2006

Dear Matt, -more-


Garden Variety: Fun With the California Rare Fruit Growers

Ron Sullivan
Friday May 12, 2006

It’s been way too long since I’ve gone to a meeting of California Rare Fruit Growers. There’s one such meeting tomorrow (Saturday May 13) in Walnut Creek that is weirdly tempting because it will feature Dr. Robert Raabe, whose approach to plant diseases is of the gleeful sort, which can be fun but rarely works well as a bedside manner for humans. -more-


Column: Confessions of a Desperate Housewife

By Susan Parker
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Wildfire and Freeways: Why Did the Bobcat Cross the Road?

By Joe Eaton Special to the Planet
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday May 12, 2006

FRIDAY, MAY 12 -more-


Arts: Bay Area’s American Bach Soloists Bring ‘The St. Matthew Passion’ to Berkeley

Ken Bullock
Friday May 12, 2006

When the American Bach Soloists take on the grandeur (and three-hour-plus extent) of The St. Matthew Passion at Saturday at the First Congregational Church, it will be with a somewhat different, more unified sense of that great work’s contemporary significance. -more-


Arts: Moving Pictures: Art and Artifice in ‘Lost City,’ ‘Art School Confidential’

Justin DeFreitas
Friday May 12, 2006

Actor, director, composer Andy Garcia’s The Lost City is billed as a love song to Garcia’s native Cuba, to the island as it existed before Fidel Castro’s revolution. The movie attempts to evoke a paradise lost, a land of music and dance and family destroyed by corruption and violence. -more-


Planning a Point Richmond Getaway

Marta Yamamoto
Friday May 12, 2006

Ever get that midweek feeling of wanting to escape up the coast? Spend some time near the water in a picturesque town? Walk past quaint cottages and historic buildings? Roam the landscape allowing your eyes and mind to expand across open space? Discover a café, deli or fine restaurant and treat your taste buds to new flavors? Even without the time needed to reach Mendocino, a solution for the midweek blues is close at hand. -more-


About the House: Finding the Right Way to Repair an Old Floor

Matt Cantor
Friday May 12, 2006

Dear Matt, -more-


Garden Variety: Fun With the California Rare Fruit Growers

Ron Sullivan
Friday May 12, 2006

It’s been way too long since I’ve gone to a meeting of California Rare Fruit Growers. There’s one such meeting tomorrow (Saturday May 13) in Walnut Creek that is weirdly tempting because it will feature Dr. Robert Raabe, whose approach to plant diseases is of the gleeful sort, which can be fun but rarely works well as a bedside manner for humans. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday May 12, 2006

FRIDAY, MAY 12 -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday May 09, 2006

TUESDAY, MAY 9 -more-


Arts: Subterranean Shakespeare Takes on ‘Richard III’

By Ken Bulock Special to the Planet
Tuesday May 09, 2006

“Now is the Winter of our Discontent,” rings out offstage, as silent Lady Anne (Tiffany Harrison) has laid at the audience’s feet the first of many forlorn coats that signify their absent—and murdered—wearers, and Subterranean Shakespeare’s production of The Bard’s Richard III gets underway at the Berkeley Art Center. -more-


Wildfire and Freeways: Why Did the Bobcat Cross the Road?

By Joe Eaton Special to the Planet
Tuesday May 09, 2006

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-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday May 09, 2006

TUESDAY, MAY 9 -more-