News

While the voting tally isn’t final and her opponent won’t concede, Gayle McLaughlin is confident she’ll be the new mayor of Richmond. -more-

Builders of the hotel planned for the heart of downtown Berkeley want to build a 19-story building that at 205 feet would tower above the current reigning monarchs of the urban skyline, the Power Bar and Wells Fargo buildings. -more-

The Richmond City Council voted Nov. 14 to drop its membership in the Richmond Chamber of Commerce “to avoid potential civil or criminal penalties for using public resources to pay for memberships in organizations that participate in local political activities,” according to an e-mail from Richmond City Council-member Tom Butt. -more-

Despite promised lawsuits by the City of Berkeley and project neighbors, UC Regents voted Tuesday to approve a massive athletic training center along the western wall of Memorial Stadium. -more-

With the failure of Berkeley’s Measure I in this month’s general election, the East Bay battleground over the hotly-contested issue of condominium conversions shifts across the border into Oakland, and the attempt by a coalition of three councilmembers to change some of the provisions of that city’s condo law. -more-

Berkeley’s 30-year-old public police complaint process hung in the balance Tuesday as the city squared off against its police union in an Oakland courtroom. -more-

Four finalists have been named for the position of Berkeley’s director of Library Services, according to a Berkeley Public Library press statement. -more-

Community members and users of People’s Park are organizing a meeting on Sunday to plan how to defend the bulldozing of the berms, or mounds, on both ends of the Community Garden in the park. -more-

Late Tuesday night, after two years of contentious meetings in which environmentalists often clashed with property owners, the Berkeley City Council approved revisions to the Creeks Ordinance, 6-2-1, aimed at safeguarding the city’s many open and culverted waterways. -more-

On Thursday night Councilmember Laurie Capitelli sent a letter to the Planet regarding the just-passed Creeks ordinance which came too late to be added to this issue in full. -more-

The city’s short-term fiscal health—with about $800,000 more in anticipated annual revenue than forecast—and a possible long-term structural deficit were highlighted at a City Council workshop Tuesday. -more-

When Jannat Muhammad’s 7-year-old grandniece developed asthma back in 2000, Muhammad was pained but not surprised. After all, many of the child’s schoolmates at Verde Elementary in North Richmond were succumbing to the disease with numbing regulatory. -more-

Beating bandit sought -more-

Students, parents, educators and city officials gathered at Old City Hall Wednesday to bid farewell to School Board President Terry Doran, who is retiring after eight years on the board. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District thanked parents, teachers, students and community members for supporting Measure A at the School Board meeting on Wednesday. -more-

The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive received a $300,000 National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on Tuesday, which will help connect high school and college students to CineFiles, BAM/PFA's online database with thousands of historical documents related to film. -more-

Partisan politics is standing in the way of progress in California, according to new research released this week on the heels of startling Census numbers showing a deepening racial divide. -more-

As Democrats recaptured control of the House and Senate last week, Black Democrats won more than half of the 13 statewide offices they competed for while Black Republicans won none, debunking what the GOP had billed as “the year of the Black Republican.” -more-

After two years of meetings and hearings in which property owners often clashed with environmentalists, the Berkeley City Council approved a revised Creeks Ordinance (6-2-1) late Tuesday night aimed at safeguarding the city’s many open and culverted waterways. -more-

Despite promised lawsuits by the City of Berkeley and project neighbors, UC Regents voted Tuesday to approve a massive athletic training center along the western wall of Memorial Stadium. -more-

Gas masks, air filters and angry posters marked the Pacific Steel Casting protest rally on Saturday, which drew more than 250 protesters. -more-

UC Regents are scheduled to decide this morning (Tuesday) whether or not to approve the $112 million Student Athlete High Performance Center, a 142,000-square-foot building along the western wall of UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium. -more-

With the lion’s share of votes counted, Kriss Worthington has slightly widened his lead in the squeaker Berkeley City Council District 7 race, according to the Alameda County registrar of voters. In fact, all the winners increased their winning margins. -more-

The question for Alameda County election officials in the next few months is like a paraphrase of the old O’Jays song: “Now that we’ve got IRV, what are we gonna’ do with it?” -more-

Supporters and opponents of the proposed 148-unit Trader Joe’s Building on 1885 University Ave. turned out in full force at the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) meeting on Thursday. -more-

Councilmember Dona Spring quotes from an old Joni Mitchell song: -more-

Community members will have one more chance to weigh in at a public hearing tonight (Tuesday) on a proposed city law some praise for protecting creeks but one that others say would be costly to homeowners and restrict the use of their property. -more-

The Peralta Community College District will spend Measure A bond money on any of the broad range of projects that appeared on last June’s ballot, not just on the line item “Measure A Capital Projects” list, which currently appears on the district’s Department of General Services website. -more-

Loni Hancock came to Richmond Thursday night to visit the citizen panel she helped to create. -more-

Waskar Ari Chachaki is an ill-fated victim of the War on Terror. Born in the remote Andean highlands of Bolivia, by age 42 he had earned a Ph.D. from prestigious Georgetown University. Ari, the first member of the pre-Incan Aymara tribe with a doctorate in history from the United States, also helped establish eight indigenous organizations in Bolivia and Peru. He’s an expert in indigenous history, culture and political movements. -more-

Call her Madam. Madam Speaker, that is. -more-

Editor’s note: This article was published in the Nov. 10 issue, but did not run in its entirety. This is the complete article with updated vote totals. -more-

Berkeley School Board president Terry Doran will be retiring at the end of the BUSD meeting on Wednesday evening. -more-

It’s back to the vision thing Wednesday night for the citizens panel helping formulate a new plan for downtown Berkeley. -more-

The cities of Berkeley and Oakland teamed up Monday to host a one-stop service fair called Project Homeless Connect. -more-

SAN ELIZARIO, Texas—Residents of this hardscrabble town on the Mexican border are feeling jumpy and under siege. Since 9/11, border immigration enforcement and drug interdiction have been swept into the war on terror, with chilling effects. -more-