Opinion

Have you ever had the feeling you’re sitting up on a hill observing two high-speed trains headed towards one another on intersecting tracks, with a collision all but inevitable? That’s the picture we’re getting of the ongoing interaction between Berkeleyans eager to preserve the city’s historic buildings and those who’d like to tear some of them down in order to make way for “progress,” variously defined as mall-type chain stores, lots of condos downtown, big new hotels or lebensraum for UC expansion. -more-

A divided Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Thursday to approve a $13.25 million, three-year voting machine contract with Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, ending, for the present, the county’s relationship with controversial Diebold Election Systems. -more-

PUBLIC LIBRARY -more-

I have a particular fondness for the Berkeley Bowl. I fought the chair of the Zoning Adjustments Board and the mayor when they tried to approve a MacFrugal’s Bargain Closeouts at the Bowl’s current Oregon site a decade ago. The neighborhood, reeling from the closing of their Safeway, begged the city not to allow anything but a grocery store. Staff responded by commissioning a $25,000 report that “proved” no grocery store would ever be profitable there! -more-

Well let’s stand up and cheer! The Berkeley Bowl maybe withdrawing it’s application to build a new store in West Berkeley. No fresh organic produce, no great prices, no community meeting rooms, no food court, no quality shopping for West Berkeley. -more-

I thought I’d never encounter another community as gleefully contentious on an endless cornucopia of issues as the City of Berkeley. -more-

The Berkeley Daily Planet published an article about the administrative problems at the Berkeley YMCA, noting that I had been expelled for writing a series of memos about problems there. The article noted efforts on the part of the Y administration to disrupt efforts to unionize workers. This alone, characterizes the administration at the Berkeley Y, and should give the City of Berkeley concern about supporting this organization. -more-

At the so-called “Downtown” Berkeley YMCA suspended member Scott Prosterman’s abysmal but utterly unsurprising below par experience is, I can personally attest, par for the course—as is the absent or empty response members typically receive from the organization’s administration to their most compelling cares and concerns! -more-

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Thank you for Mr. Allen-Taylor’s stimulating review of Charles DeBose’s The Sociology of African-American Language. Not long ago I submitted a book review to a left leaning, youth oriented newspaper in San Francisco but was informed they don’t print book reviews. So thank you for encouraging us all to put our thinking caps on. -more-

Next year, the Berkeley Art Center hopes to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The Center, housed in a small gem of a Ratcliff building beside the creek in Live Oak Park, has been displaying the work of Berkeley artists since 1967. But the prospects for a 2007 celebration are far from certain. The more likely scenario is that Berkeley’s municipal art gallery will be forced to close down before its anniversary date arrives. Its budget has been shrinking every year and if the city cannot restore the grant for the coming year to the 2001 level, the Center will not be able to keep its doors open. -more-

A unhappy milestone has just passed. On May 31, our latest 15-year lease on Nexus from the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society expired. Although Nexus is attempting to negotiate with the Humane Society to purchase the property, the Humane Society had indicated they intended to place a metal fence around the vacated building on June 1. That fence did not go up on that date, but who knows about tomorrow? -more-