The Week

Marching to ReNew Orleans: 
          Clint Baker’s Brass Band marched in downtown Berkeley Friday as part of the Berkeley Public Library’s ReNew Orleans Jazz Festival. The festival began Thursday with two showings of a new film, New Orleans Music in Exile, depicting the lives of New Orleans musicians since Katrina. Photograph by Judith Scherr
Marching to ReNew Orleans: Clint Baker’s Brass Band marched in downtown Berkeley Friday as part of the Berkeley Public Library’s ReNew Orleans Jazz Festival. The festival began Thursday with two showings of a new film, New Orleans Music in Exile, depicting the lives of New Orleans musicians since Katrina. Photograph by Judith Scherr
 

News

Flash: West Berkeley Bowl Wins Approval

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday June 13, 2006

At around 12:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, the Berkeley City Council approved the West Berkeley Bowl project by a vote of 6-0-3 with Councilmembers Max Anderson, Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington abstaining. -more-


Magnes Museum Buys Historic Armstrong College Building

By Suzanne La Barre
Tuesday June 13, 2006

The Judah L. Magnes Museum is in escrow to purchase the historic Armstrong College building in downtown Berkeley, sources said Monday. -more-


OUSD Confirms Real Estate Negotiations

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday June 13, 2006

The state-appointed administrator of the Oakland Unified School District has confirmed that negotiations have begun with a developer over the sale or lease of prime Lake Merritt area land owned by the district, including the Paul Robeson Building administrative headquarters and several operating schools. -more-


Save Telegraph Event Draws Ideas, Concerns

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday June 13, 2006

The question of how to save Cody’s Books and rescue Telegraph Avenue brought a standing-room-only crowd of property and business owners, residents, street vendors, students and street people to Trinity United Methodist Church Thursday. -more-


Kitchen Democracy Cooks Up Civic Participation

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday June 13, 2006

They call themselves “the Kitcheneers.” -more-


Rick Ayers Bids Goodbye To Berkeley High School

By Suzanne La Barre
Tuesday June 13, 2006

Rick Ayers is a mild-mannered, genial guy, just shy of 60, with an affinity for travel, opera and Greek tragedy. He is also, according to students at Berkeley High School, the Community Arts and Sciences Original Gangsta’. -more-


Council to Discuss Yard Parking, Bowl, Budget

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday June 13, 2006

The question of whether property owners should be allowed to put parking on side or back yards “by right”—with a simple across-the-counter permit—or whether they should have to obtain Administrative Use Permits, which kicks in a process to alert neighbors of a project, is among the more thorny questions before the City Council tonight (Tuesday). -more-


Revised Transit Fee Program Before Planning Commission

By Suzanne La Barre
Tuesday June 13, 2006

Attempting to balance Berkeley’s ever-mounting gridlock with smart economic growth, the Planning Commission will consider a program that charges transit fees for future development projects. -more-


BHS Rowers Win Medals in National Youth Championship

Tuesday June 13, 2006

The Berkeley High School Men’s Lightweight 4+ boat powered its way to a gold medal at the U.S. Rowing National Youth Championship in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Sunday. -more-


Track Takes Legal Action to Block Albany Initiative

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday June 13, 2006

Though foes of a planned mall at Golden Gate Fields collected enough signatures to qualify an initiative for the November ballot, the race track’s owners have filed a legal challenge. -more-


Police Blotter

Tuesday June 13, 2006

There’s no Police Blotter today because the Berkeley Police Department didn’t return calls from the Daily Planet. -more-


Fire Department Log

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday June 13, 2006

Candles again -more-


Plans for Ashby BART Project Continues After Grant Denial

By Richard Brenneman
Friday June 09, 2006

Despite rumors to the contrary, the Ashby BART Task Force is very much alive—though in what form and to what ends remain open questions. -more-


Radstons Quits After 98 Years in Berkeley

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday June 09, 2006

It’s the end of an era for yet another independent Berkeley retailer. -more-


West Berkeley Bowl Faces Mounting Challenges

By Richard Brenneman
Friday June 09, 2006

Will there be a new Berkeley Bowl market in West Berkeley or not? -more-


Trustees Dismiss Library Head Griffin

By Judith Scherr
Friday June 09, 2006

After almost two years of staff-management strife, a page has turned at the Berkeley Public Library: Wednesday evening the Board of Trustees announced the departure of the embattled library director and the appointment of an interim replacement. -more-


Public School Tutoring Industy Lacks Accountability, Students

By Suzanne La Barre
Friday June 09, 2006

This is Part Two of a two-part series on tutoring. Part One ran in the June 6 issue. -more-


Downtown Planners Tackle Transportation, UC Polices

By Richard Brenneman
Friday June 09, 2006

Berkeley Transportation Commissioner Rob Wrenn charged Wednesday night that “UC Berkeley uses the programs least likely to succeed” to reduce car use by students, faculty and staff. -more-


Voters to Decide Fate of BUSD Parcel Tax in November

By Suzanne La Barre
Friday June 09, 2006

It’s official: a renewed parcel tax to support Berkeley’s public schools will go before voters this November. -more-


Berkeley Health Clinics Awarded State Grants

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday June 09, 2006

The California Health Facilities Financing Authority announced last week that Berkeley’s LifeLong Medical Care clinics will receive a $408,374 grant and the Berkeley Free Clinic will receive $35,264 out of the $40 million grant money issued statewide. -more-


Berkeley Art Center Hopes For More City Support

By Judith Scherr
Friday June 09, 2006

When Berkeley Art Center Director Robbin Henderson came to the City Council, beret in hand, asking councilmembers to restore funding slashed three years ago, the unanimous body moved the question to the growing list of projects to be considered when the council puts together its final budget this month or next. -more-


Storm Drain Tax Off City Council Agenda for Now

By Judith Scherr
Friday June 09, 2006

A plan to put a $50-per-homeowner levy on the November ballot to upgrade the Berkeley’s 100-year-old storm drain system is water under the bridge, at least for now, says Councilmember Linda Maio. -more-


Libraries Lament Prop. 81 Defeat

By Judith Scherr
Friday June 09, 2006

With the defeat of the library bond measure on Tuesday’s ballot, there will be no expansion at the West Berkeley Library. There will be no new space for computers or for kids to sit and read, no new room for the literacy program and its tutors, according to library officials. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Turning a Deaf Ear to the People’s Voice

By Becky O’Malley
Tuesday June 13, 2006

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-


County Supes Approve Sequoia Voting Contract

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday June 09, 2006

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 Comment

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday June 13, 2006

PUBLIC LIBRARY -more-


Commentary: Bowling for Dollars: A Rush to Judgment

By Dave Blake
Tuesday June 13, 2006

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-


Commentary: Is the West Berkeley Bowl Dead?

By Steven Donaldson
Tuesday June 13, 2006

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-


Commentary: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

By Sonja Fitz
Tuesday June 13, 2006

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


Commentary: Administrative Crisis and Defamation at the Berkeley YMCA

By H. Scott Prosterman
Tuesday June 13, 2006

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-


Commentary: Denial is Epidemic at the Berkeley YMCA

By Joseph Covino Jr
Tuesday June 13, 2006

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-


Letters to the Editor

Friday June 09, 2006

-more-


Commentary: Sources of African-American Culture a Conundrum

By Jean Damu
Friday June 09, 2006

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-


Commentary: Art Center Needs More Money to Stay Open for 40th Anniversary

By Kathleen Kahn
Friday June 09, 2006

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-


Commentary: Eviction Threat Imperils Nexus Building

By Robert Brokl
Friday June 09, 2006

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-


Columns

Column: The Public Eye: Campaign 2006: Sweet 16 Congressional Races

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday June 13, 2006

Democrats appear to be gaining momentum in their bid to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans. According to veteran D.C. prognosticator, Charlie Cook, there are now 46 House seats in play. -more-


Column: Contributing to the Democratic Process

By Susan Parker
Tuesday June 13, 2006

My friend Ronnie Caplane ran for Assembly representing Oakland’s 16th District. -more-


The Bottlebrush Tree: Cheerful Aussie Ragamuffin

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday June 13, 2006

Bottlebrush trees are one of the bright, amusing notes on our streets, sporting those funny flowers shaped like, yes, bottlebrushes with perky little green-leaf tufts at their ends. They’re tough and not pest-prone, and easy enough to find in nurseries. Their hard little leaves and shreddy bark give them a ragamuffin air to match the spiky inflorescences. The red flowers attract birds—hummingbirds of course, but I’ve seen a stray Cape May warbler, a nectar-seeker in winter, using them too. -more-


Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Afghanistan and the Ghost of Kipling’s ‘Kim’

By Conn Hallinan
Friday June 09, 2006

“He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher—the Wonder House as the natives called the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that ‘fire-breathing dragon,’ hold the Punjab; for the great green bronze piece is always first of the conqueror’s loot.” -more-


Column: Undercurrents: Reporting on Alameda County’s Election ‘Delay’

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday June 09, 2006

The job of the news media is supposed to be to report on the news as we find it. -more-


Film Details the World of Wild Butterflies

By Steven Finacom
Friday June 09, 2006

It’s a tough world for the seemingly fragile butterfly. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: Maurice Curtis Brought Brief Splendor to Berkeley

By Daniella Thompson
Friday June 09, 2006

In 1881, Irish-born playwright George H. Jessop wrote a minor comedy-drama titled Sam’l of Posen, the Commercial Drummer whose lead character, a shrewd Jewish peddler with a heart of gold, attains bourgeois respectability by means of little wiles interleaved with honesty. -more-


About the House: Global Warming Begins (and Ends) at Home

By Matt Cantor
Friday June 09, 2006

Although I am generally sympathetic with the varied plights of the home buyer, I have to admit, in all my curmugeonitude that I have no tears to shed for anyone in Berkeley that has to meet the requirement of our RECO ordinance. -more-


Garden Variety: The Jewel Box Dazzle of Broadway Terrace Nursery

By Ron Sullivan
Friday June 09, 2006

Broadway Terrace Nursery is a tad off my regular circuit, and it had been too long since I’d dropped in when I dashed there last Saturday. It was just before closing time—a good time to watch the staff get its collective mettle tested. I was as impressed as I’d been on the regrettably few occasions I’d visited before. -more-


Quake Tip of the Week: Will Your Home Survive?

By Larry Guillot
Friday June 09, 2006

Area governments say that 150,000 homes in the Bay Area are going to be uninhabitable after the Hayward Fault ruptures, the fault about which USGS seismologist Tom Brocher says, “It’s locked and loaded and ready to fire.” -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday June 13, 2006

TUESDAY, JUNE 13 -more-


West Coast Premiere for ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’

By Jaime Robles, Special to the Planet
Tuesday June 13, 2006

The Trinity Lyric Opera company will perform the West Coast premiere of The Pilgrim’s Progress this weekend at the Dean Lesher Regional Arts Center in Walnut Creek. -more-


Freight & Salvage Coffee House Celebrates Its 38th Anniversary

By Galen Babb, Special to the Planet
Tuesday June 13, 2006

The Bottlebrush Tree: Cheerful Aussie Ragamuffin

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday June 13, 2006

Bottlebrush trees are one of the bright, amusing notes on our streets, sporting those funny flowers shaped like, yes, bottlebrushes with perky little green-leaf tufts at their ends. They’re tough and not pest-prone, and easy enough to find in nurseries. Their hard little leaves and shreddy bark give them a ragamuffin air to match the spiky inflorescences. The red flowers attract birds—hummingbirds of course, but I’ve seen a stray Cape May warbler, a nectar-seeker in winter, using them too. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday June 13, 2006

TUESDAY, JUNE 13 -more-


Arts Calendar

Friday June 09, 2006

FRIDAY, JUNE 9 -more-


Savion Glover, D’Rivera at SF Jazz Festival This Weekend

By Ira Steingroot
Friday June 09, 2006

This weekend as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the Herbst Theatre will feature tap dancer extraordinaire Savion Glover on Saturday and Latin saxophone and clarinet virtuoso Paquito D’Rivera on Sunday. -more-


CalShake’s Presents ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’

By Ken Bullock
Friday June 09, 2006

In any of Shakespeare’s comedies, some of the “low” characters are usually referred to as clowns. In CalShake’s new production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, there’s a different generic term for funnymen and women: puppets. -more-


Film Details the World of Wild Butterflies

By Steven Finacom
Friday June 09, 2006

It’s a tough world for the seemingly fragile butterfly. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: Maurice Curtis Brought Brief Splendor to Berkeley

By Daniella Thompson
Friday June 09, 2006

In 1881, Irish-born playwright George H. Jessop wrote a minor comedy-drama titled Sam’l of Posen, the Commercial Drummer whose lead character, a shrewd Jewish peddler with a heart of gold, attains bourgeois respectability by means of little wiles interleaved with honesty. -more-


About the House: Global Warming Begins (and Ends) at Home

By Matt Cantor
Friday June 09, 2006

Although I am generally sympathetic with the varied plights of the home buyer, I have to admit, in all my curmugeonitude that I have no tears to shed for anyone in Berkeley that has to meet the requirement of our RECO ordinance. -more-


Garden Variety: The Jewel Box Dazzle of Broadway Terrace Nursery

By Ron Sullivan
Friday June 09, 2006

Broadway Terrace Nursery is a tad off my regular circuit, and it had been too long since I’d dropped in when I dashed there last Saturday. It was just before closing time—a good time to watch the staff get its collective mettle tested. I was as impressed as I’d been on the regrettably few occasions I’d visited before. -more-


Quake Tip of the Week: Will Your Home Survive?

By Larry Guillot
Friday June 09, 2006

Area governments say that 150,000 homes in the Bay Area are going to be uninhabitable after the Hayward Fault ruptures, the fault about which USGS seismologist Tom Brocher says, “It’s locked and loaded and ready to fire.” -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday June 09, 2006

FRIDAY, JUNE 9 -more-