Fire’s Damage Estimated at $1 Million -more-

A week after Nestle USA-owned PowerBar announced its move from Berkeley to Glendale, Calif., rival company ClifBar confirmed on Wednesday that it will be moving its Berkeley headquarters to Alameda, when the company’s current lease expires in July 2008. -more-

A Berkeley police patrol officer was suspended Wednesday, reportedly after a sting operation focusing on theft of evidence, the Daily Planet has learned. -more-

There seems to have been some confusion over the facts of the Condo Conversion Initiative, which will be before Berkeley voters on the Nov. 7 ballot. As a result, the city may be forced to hire outside attorneys to sue itself to correct possible errors. -more-

Broken Santa Rosa lights at the corner of Parker and Telegraph have been causing difficulties for blind people and other pedestrians. These lights, which are embedded in the roadway and activated by a push button, flash to notify drivers that pedestrians are coming and that they need to stop. On Tuesday morning, the Berkeley Office of Transportation was notified that the light at Parker and Telegraph streets wasn’t working. -more-

This week we got a phone call from a polite but persistent guy who asked to speak to the editor—that’s me. When I called him back, he identified himself as the owner of a restaurant which has been advertising once a week in our restaurant guide section, and he said he was so unhappy with the paper’s coverage of the Middle East that he was thinking of canceling his ad. Now, 60 bucks a week one way or the other (those little color ads are almost loss-leader cheap for the advertisers) won’t make or break the budget, so we really don’t have a strong financial interest in arguing with the guy, but I did make an effort to explain two principles to him. First, respectable newspapers don’t let advertisers dictate policy for the editorial section and second, we firmly believe that airing all opinions, even those we find extremely distasteful, is the best way to solve problems in the long run. I pointed out that the Planet didn’t “cover” the Middle East, but just allowed opinions on the news from that area to be printed as letters or commentary signed by the authors. I asked the restaurant owner if he ever read the European press on the Internet, or Ha’aretz, the Israeli paper, or even the New York Times on a regular basis. He said he didn’t. We had a civil discussion, but it was apparent he wasn’t persuaded. -more-