The City of Berkeley will not get a Caltrans Community-based Transit Planning Grant to plan a large condo development for the west parking lot of the Ashby BART station. Winning cities were posted on the Caltrans web site late Friday afternoon, and Berkeley was not among them. -more-
Responding to a package of proposals aimed at shoring up struggling businesses on Telegraph Avenue—more police, social services, better marketing, upgraded facades, brighter lighting, faster permitting and a new green machine to scrub the sidewalks—Marc Weinstein, owner of Amoeba Music, shared a unique perspective on the Avenue’s economic downturn at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. -more-
Tempers flared and jeers erupted Monday night at the first public meeting of the task force outlining the scope of a major private development on public land. -more-
A group of Laney College students received an unpleasant surprise in the mail earlier this month: a notice that because of budget problems, the Laney College Children’s Center was closing its infant and toddler day care program effective the end of this school year. -more-
Andrew Martinez’s funeral was Thursday, but a memorial will be held Saturday at 1 p.m. in People’s Park. -more-
Students are set to vote in the Berkeley High School elections Wednesday, but a communications snafu is casting a shadow over the democratic process. -more-
More than 200 Spanish-speaking parents and students received calls from Berkeley schools late last month, urging students to attend school May 1 or suffer consequences. -more-
Public financing of election campaigns is one way to shield public officials from the influence of big money. But when the question of placing a measure on Berkeley’s November ballot calling for public financing for all local elected offices came before the City Council Tuesday, councilmembers hesitated. -more-
A recent Stanford grad, Christian Pecaut, 25, is ready to change the world. He wants to start as Berkeley’s next mayor. -more-
Willa Klug Baum, an internationally respected oral historian, passed away on May 18, 2006, following back surgery. Her pioneering work in oral history methodology and interview techniques served as the foundation for the establishment and growth of oral history as a unique academic discipline. -more-
At 99, Ruby Harmon still insists on a slice of crispy bacon, grits, and coffee for breakfast everyday. Her face breaks into a smile—a million tiny creases—when I ask her why. -more-
After serving as a curator at the Berkeley Art Museum since September 2005, Chris Gilbert abruptly resigned because of rising conflicts with museum administrators over his controversial project “Now Time: Media Along the Path of the Bolivarian Process,” part two of which is currently showing at the UC Berkeley museum. -more-
With a lease set to expire on a seismically unsound building, Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) officials are pushing to relocate district headquarters. -more-
A federal civil jury in Oakland has rejected claims that the Peralta Community College District practiced reverse discrimination, gender discrimination, and retaliation when it failed to renew the contract of John Garmon, the former president of Vista Community College in Berkeley. -more-
Andrew Martinez, who as a 19-year-old UC Berkeley undergraduate created national news in November 1992 for getting suspended from the university for attending class in little more than a pair of sandals and a backback, was found unconscious in his Santa Clara County jail cell at 11:19 p.m. on Wednesday and declared dead early Thursday. -more-
Some 60 self-identified political progressives got together on Saturday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall to try to turn an 18-page draft document into a progressive platform. It was a tightly run meeting, but only half of the draft was covered, so the convention will reconvene June 3. -more-
A bill now pending in the state Legislature would end the bonuses that enable larger apartment buildings and condominium complexes to get even larger—but developers say it would end infill development in cities like Berkeley. -more-
Converting rented apartments to condominiums is on the agenda again today (Tuesday). Last week the council reinstated a lapsed condominium conversion ordinance, which caps allowable conversion at 100 units each year and sets a conversion fee at 12.5 percent of the selling price. -more-
A Catholic church and a moving and storage warehouse could be the latest recipients of wireless telecommunications facilities in Berkeley. -more-
Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) members will meet Thursday to discuss a revised ordinance proposed by Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli. -more-
An abandoned three-mile stretch of railroad right-of-way in Richmond will begin its conversion into a community walking and biking trail Thursday. -more-
Councilmember Linda Maio dropped her ’94 Honda EX station wagon off at Berkeley Honda for a routine checkup Friday, signaling the end of the council’s longstanding boycott against the dealership. -more-
When I was a child, Memorial Day was called Decoration Day. It functioned as a paler Midwestern version of Mexico’s colorful Dia de Los Muertos, a day for the dead. We went out to a big cemetery where several deceased family members were buried—our family plot included the grave of my uncle who had died not long before in World War II—and actually decorated the graves, or at least straightened them up. We helped clear away the weeds which had accumulated since the last winter, ran around a bit, and thought as much as children can about what it means to be dead. -more-
On Monday two UC Berkeley professors, Raymond Seed and Robert Bea, professors of civil and environmental engineering, presented the findings of an independent investigation team of 36 engineers and scientists from around the nation which they led in studying why the levees in New Orleans failed after Hurricane Katrina. Previous reports, including one from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seemed to indicate that the failure of the levees was more or less inevitable, given the severity of the storm. But this independent team, whose members (except for a few graduate students) were working pro bono, free in the public interest, had a different take on what went wrong. Which turned out to be almost everything…. -more-
On May 15 the City Council voted in favor of a “Del Norte Marijuana Dispensary Zone,” without a public hearing or local presence. Oakland’s “Oaksterdam” district and Richmond’s Pot Shops have shown how hard it is to help chronic pain sufferers while evading potential damage to “society.” Top quality cannabis can cost more than gold. If legalized, it could be grown as easily as, say, basil. The sick clamor for “at cost” medical use attracts idealists, profiteers and attorneys. Drug companies devise new methods for medical “inhaling.” Tobacco and liquor interests ponder ways on how not to be cut out of potential profits. The State and federal legal standoff is unlikely to be resolved soon. The broader pros and cons of legalization are well beyond being a local matter. -more-
“Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!” Nowhere else in Shakespeare are the elemental forces of nature so much in sync with primal human passions as in this tragedy of two dysfunctional families and a kingdom coming apart at the seams. -more-
As the general election for Oakland mayor approaches, the San Francisco Chronicle is working hard to elect Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente and to defeat his chief rival, former Congressmember Ron Dellums. -more-
Clean is a film about picking up the pieces and putting them back together, about kicking a drug habit, about winning back the love of one’s child, about forgiveness and compassion, and almost every other road-to-redemption cliché you can think of. And yet somehow it succeeds. -more-
After a year and a half of listening to many perspectives and extensive deliberations, the Creeks Task Force (CTF) has carefully crafted a set of recommendations to revise the Creeks Ordinance that respects private property owners’ interests and protects the natural environment. (See www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ planning/landuse/creeks). The CTF Recommendations are now before the City Council. -more-
Pacific Film Archive’s “A Theater Near You” series is a showcase for films that don’t make it to your local megaplex. This week PFA is featuring an encore screening of Baby Face, the notorious 1933 Pre-Code film that for decades was only seen in a heavily censored version. A negative of the original version was discovered in 2004 and the restored film has been circulating for about a year in advance of its upcoming DVD release. -more-
The “David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza,” intended to replace the city-owned parking lot at Oxford Street and Allston Way, recently received a key City Council endorsement. That’s noteworthy because this six-story development embodies admirable environmental and housing-equity goals. -more-
Columnist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor is to be commended for devoting attention to the situation in the Oakland schools. It is unfortunate that he did not take the trouble to check his facts and ask for comments from the people directly involved before committing his thoughts to print. His grand conspiracy theory, in which the Oakland schools crisis was just a pretext for an alleged land grab, would not have survived performance of these basic journalistic obligations. -more-
Several articles in the press over the past year, most recently in the May 9 Daily Planet, have called continuing attention to the “mismanagement” of the Berkeley Public Library. I write, as chair of the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT), to inform the community that the library remains a vital, vibrant community institution with a dedicated staff and a focus on serving the needs of the public. The library is on sound fiscal footing, within the limits of our budget. Comprehensive planning for the next several years has been instituted and community feedback is being sought on a variety of proposed initiatives. -more-
Four years ago, thanks to the generosity of the Berkeley community, the beautifully renovated Central Library opened its doors to great celebration. The local and national press praised the project and library workers were justifiably proud of our involvement. -more-
The so called “problem” with illegal immigration from southern countries, Mexico the source of most pressure, is so much larger than that Mexican workers make less and are under employed and want jobs and better pay in the United States. Sure, the simple minded among us clamor for unworkable punitive measures, police state enforcement and punishment, and solid walls at the borders. This is not merely a border state issue or their responsibility to resolve. The news article, “Cheaper China taking business away from Mexico” (San Francisco Chronicle, April 2006), tells of the larger picture from the view of Mexican workers and factory operators in relation to Chinese competition. -more-
I am the child of immigrants who came to the United States in 1910, at the height of the great European immigration. During World War II, my mother aided illegal Jewish immigrants who were escaping Hitler’s Germany. I as a child remember these traumatized people who were smuggled over the border from Mexico. One six-foot-tall woman was curled up in half a gas tank to get across the border, while others described their experiences under the Nazis--sterilization, and I saw the fingers with pulled out finger nails. These Jewish refugees in dire need were denied visas to the United States. -more-
Anyone who thinks the Bush administration is too far down in the polls to even contemplate attacking Iran should consider the following developments: -more-
Transportation—the stepchild of public issues—has suddenly resurfaced as a concern in certain Oakland political circles. -more-
It’s not at all strange for a bus half-filled with important local officials to roll through the streets of a California city, pointing out tracts and plots and buildings along the way. It is unusual when the other half of the bus is filled with longtime city residents and community activists, and the purpose of the tour is not so much to plot the city’s future as it is to make sure its past is understood. -more-
It’s a warm, breezy spring day. I’m sitting in the courtyard at Espresso Roma, lunching on a terrific spinach-mushroom frittata and watching the world of Elmwood pass by. Inside laptops silently hum while lattes are sipped. Though my meter is ticking I’m in no hurry to move. Once here, why would I want to leave? -more-
In the 1880s and ‘90s, few East Bay architects were as fashionable as Alfred Washington Pattiani (1855–1935). Italian name notwithstanding, Pattiani, who was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, was descended from a well-to-do German family. His paternal grandfather, Alois Fahrnbacher of Landshut, Bavaria, was a tobacco manufacturer, commercial court assessor, and a member of the Bavarian parliament. -more-
A friend of mine has a bassist living upstairs who is still working out the chords to In a Gadda Da Vida after living there for about 12 years. My friend is a patient person but she’s begun to exhibit something of a tick and often looks dolefully into space for long periods of time, returning from her reverie only when the music has stopped for some short spell. -more-
I rarely venture into my garden with constructive intent but without my Felco pruners and my hori-hori. Most of the time those hand tools are enough because I have a very small garden. Sometimes, though, I need to do something that requires two hands and a bigger tool, and I have my favorites among those too. -more-
I read in the paper a review of a new book entitled My Mother’s Wedding Dress: The Life and Afterlife of Clothes. Justine Picardie, former features editor of British Vogue, has penned a memoir on “how clothes express our personality and style, and also provide a view of how we live and what has passed.” -more-
In September 1999, then-Texas Gov. George Bush told an audience during the New Hampshire presidential primary, “English-only would mean to people, ‘Me, not you.’” The few times during his White House tenure Bush has seen moves to restrict the use of non-English languages by government agencies, the president didn’t budge from that position. -more-
Although I’m a Southerner by birth and upbringing, I’ve never handled a snake in a religious context. Our church didn’t even use tambourines. All I know of the spiritual side of snake-handling comes from books like Dennis Covington’s memoir Salvation on Sand Mountain and Weston LaBarre’s more scholarly They Shall Take up Serpents. -more-
It’s not at all strange for a bus half-filled with important local officials to roll through the streets of a California city, pointing out tracts and plots and buildings along the way. It is unusual when the other half of the bus is filled with longtime city residents and community activists, and the purpose of the tour is not so much to plot the city’s future as it is to make sure its past is understood. -more-
It’s a warm, breezy spring day. I’m sitting in the courtyard at Espresso Roma, lunching on a terrific spinach-mushroom frittata and watching the world of Elmwood pass by. Inside laptops silently hum while lattes are sipped. Though my meter is ticking I’m in no hurry to move. Once here, why would I want to leave? -more-
In the 1880s and ‘90s, few East Bay architects were as fashionable as Alfred Washington Pattiani (1855–1935). Italian name notwithstanding, Pattiani, who was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, was descended from a well-to-do German family. His paternal grandfather, Alois Fahrnbacher of Landshut, Bavaria, was a tobacco manufacturer, commercial court assessor, and a member of the Bavarian parliament. -more-
A friend of mine has a bassist living upstairs who is still working out the chords to In a Gadda Da Vida after living there for about 12 years. My friend is a patient person but she’s begun to exhibit something of a tick and often looks dolefully into space for long periods of time, returning from her reverie only when the music has stopped for some short spell. -more-
I rarely venture into my garden with constructive intent but without my Felco pruners and my hori-hori. Most of the time those hand tools are enough because I have a very small garden. Sometimes, though, I need to do something that requires two hands and a bigger tool, and I have my favorites among those too. -more-
What if the animal kingdom, in all its vast diversity, filed a class action suit against humanity, for its presumption at designating itself as steward of all the beasts of the world, hunting and domesticating them? -more-
Although I’m a Southerner by birth and upbringing, I’ve never handled a snake in a religious context. Our church didn’t even use tambourines. All I know of the spiritual side of snake-handling comes from books like Dennis Covington’s memoir Salvation on Sand Mountain and Weston LaBarre’s more scholarly They Shall Take up Serpents. -more-
