UC Berkeley’s controversial plans to convert its historic six-acre Laguna Street extension campus in San Francisco into a private development featuring condominiums and a shopping center are moving forward. -more-
The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce PAC broke local campaign laws when it left its name and identification number off of a political mailer, but the omission was inadvertent, the city’s Fair Political Practices Commission ruled 6-0-1 on Thursday. -more-
With Oakland’s proposed new condominium conversion law set for a return to the Oakland City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee on Nov. 28, and then to the full council on Dec. 5, the issue is heating up among politicians and tenant groups in the city. -more-
Anyone attending the panel charged with producing a new downtown Berkeley plan on Wednesday night would have heard a lot of words and paper flying over a very short statement. -more-
Vacant office space in Berkeley is growing scarce, says commercial real estate broker John Gordon. -more-
The Library Board of Trustees huddled in closed session Saturday afternoon and evening to interview finalists for the director position. -more-
Users of People’s Park met Sunday to discuss the future of the berms which UC wants to remove on both ends of the Community Garden in the park. -more-
Nine people were elected to the KPFA Local Station Board using ranked choice voting, where voters rank candidates according to their preferences. -more-
Berkeley’s first and most nationally honored landmark, the First Church of Christ Scientist, is $118,000 richer this week, thanks to Internet voters. -more-
Jane Micallef’s name was spelled incorrectly in the Nov. 14 article “One-Stop Homeless Shelter Opens in Oakland.” -more-
LOS ANGELES—A couple of years ago Fox News duked it out with NBC to see which one would be the first to land and air a Simpson interview on the 10th anniversary of the murder case. So Fox’s latest Simpson media dance was not merely a cheap stunt by a network to cash in on the notoriety of a disgraced superstar turned double-murder defendant. The case punched and continues to punch every hot button in the book: race, class, celebrity and sports idolatry, domestic violence and especially tabloid sensationalism. -more-
When it’s past time for rising, cold wet noses find their way under the covers. They know all the drills, days set aside for work and non-work, time of day for meals, snacks and play. You’re always their best friend; warm eyes and wagging tail hold nothing back. Dogs can be loving, stubborn, a comfort and a trial and are usually all four. -more-
Trent Lott, the new Senate minority whip! At first glance it seemed the Republicans had gone completely cuckoo when they narrowly voted to elevate the once-disgraced senator from Mississippi to Republican second-in-command in the Senate. -more-
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-
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-
We drove to Sacramento on Sunday afternoon, through a dense tule fog which made seeing the road a dicey proposition. The fog lifted just as we came into town, and was still gone when we came back to the Bay Area. The trip seemed a bit like the current political perspective. -more-
We’ve gotten communications from a couple of supporters of winning candidates in the recent election who claim to be shocked at the decision of the Planet’s publishers to print extra copies of our record 44-page pre-election issue and distribute them door-to-door instead of just placing them in boxes for reader pickup. Both letter writers seemed to be charging that this distribution was part of a management plot to enhance the fortunes of particular candidates. There are a number of responses which should be made to such assertions—we’ll take them in no particular order. -more-
In his Nov. 14 commentary, “Why Measure J Lost,” Alan Tobey left out the elephant in the room. The “City Attorney’s Impartial Analysis of Measure J” in the county’s voter pamphlet was written by Zach Cowan, the author of the revisions designed to gut our Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, which Measure J would have continued. Is it surprising that the ballot language turned out to be hopelessly confusing to voters? -more-
At Berkeley Food & Housing Project, giving is the most important part of Thanksgiving. -more-
Initiatives and referenda are often viewed as the purest forms of democracy, removing issues from the control of fallible legislators and placing them directly before the electorate. (An initiative is newly drafted legislation submitted directly to voters; a referendum is a popular vote to overturn legislation already passed.) -more-
Will operation of the Berkeley Public Library (BPL) be outsourced to a private, for-profit agency? Will the next library director be another pro-RFID autocrat with little respect for staff and the public? The signs for a good outcome look cloudy, because the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) search for a new director is using a bad process, the wrong people, and a search firm whose principals are active advocates of outsourcing library operations from top to bottom. -more-
Pleased as I am with Ms. Pelosi’s accession to power and gratified as I am by her warm ties to the Jewish community, as reported recently in your newspaper, I am less encouraged by her obeisance to the Israel-right-or-wrong stance of AIPAC. -more-
“The past is prologue,” wrote William Shakespeare. -more-
The university recently unveiled its plan to bulldoze the berms (mounds) on either side of the Community Garden in People’s Park. In an effort to allow police to see through the park without getting out of their cars, they want to sacrifice the natural boundary that separates the park from traffic and city bustle. People’s Park, already much less green space than we need in such a populated area, is an important refuge for our collective psyches to reconnect with nature. -more-
“We need to wait until after election time to see if we can get any changes to the law, meanwhile, we will do what we can under existing conditions.” -more-
On Monday, Nov. 6, I witnessed an encounter between a Berkeley policeman and two women that culminated in what I considered unnecessary and brutal violence. This encounter demonstrated very rapidly how the thin veneer of civilized behavior that we are all so dependent on can disappear so quickly, that we are left with a sense of helplessness and impotence. -more-
Those of us who live on Southside of the UC campus see what being homeless is at first hand, every day. We may walk by and look elsewhere; sometimes we become involved. Always we know that official and private poses of indifference are symptoms of something terribly wrong with our society. -more-
An old friend sent me a free plane ticket to Phoenix, Arizona, and I went. Pam lives in Lexington, Kentucky, but she was attending a veterinary-chiropractic meeting at the Scottsdale Chaparral Suites, located not on the chaparral but along a six-lane boulevard lined with imported palm trees and newly constructed strip malls. -more-
You may have noticed last month that the Ig Nobel laureates for 2006 included Ivan Schwab, a professor of ophthalmology at UC Davis, recognized for his explanation of why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. -more-
It would be easy for Democrats to become a bit heady what with the newly won House and Senate seats and all. But before getting too carried away, I would suggest that the “Blue” party take stock and ask themselves some serious questions, namely; who are we and what are we doing here? -more-
Three years ago, when the United States invaded Iraq, I put up a map of that country on my wall—as the old-timers used to do in other wars—so I could follow the course of the battles. I also bought two or three Middle Eastern history books, so that I might have a better knowledge of that part of the world, and a better understanding of the ancient racial, ethnic, and religious conflicts that we—America—had now thrust ourselves into. -more-
Editor’s note: This article appeared on openDemocracy.net prior to Thursday’s vote in the House for majority leader -more-
The Church of the Good Shepherd, situated on the corner of Ninth Street and Hearst Avenue, was one of the first nine structures designated City of Berkeley Landmarks on Dec. 15, 1975. It is the oldest church building standing in Berkeley, as well as the oldest in continuous use by its founding congregation in the entire East Bay. -more-
I thrashed myself but good last weekend, just doing a little lightweight gardening. -more-
Before I ever look for a single foundation bolt there are a always a few other questions I always have about the building I’m looking at. Of course, I’m talking about earthquake readiness or seismic stability or whatever term-du-jour we’re currently using. -more-
MATINEE SCREENINGS TO BENEFIT SCHOOLS -more-
Eisa Davis—actor, playwright, singer and songwriter—has returned to her hometown, performing at Berkeley Rep as The Mother in rock singer Stew’s play, Passing Strange. Her own play, Bulrushers, about a visitor from Montgomery, Ala., to the Mendocino County town of Boonville on the eve of the Civil Rights Movement, will be produced next year by the Shotgun Players. -more-
As part of an extraordinary daily regimen for the theatrical palate, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays national theater project, which will run the 365 plays Parks wrote in 2002 over the coming year all around the country, was inaugurated in San Francisco last week—and will be continued throughout the year in the Bay Area, Weeks Two and Four produced by East Bay companies Woman’s Will and Ten Red Hen. -more-
You may have noticed last month that the Ig Nobel laureates for 2006 included Ivan Schwab, a professor of ophthalmology at UC Davis, recognized for his explanation of why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. -more-
PHOTOGRAPHING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT -more-
The San Francisco Symphony is taking a lighter turn for the Thanksgiving holiday, presenting guest conductor David Robertson leading the orchestra in a performance of Charlie Chaplin’s score to his 1931 film City Lights. -more-
In Ice Glen, Joan Ackerman’s play in its West Coast premiere at Aurora Theatre, the eccentric inhabitants of a country estate in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, circa 1919, are disturbed in the pursuit of their various autumnal tasks by the unannounced visit of a Boston editor, seeking to publish the poems of one of the denizens—who doesn’t want her poems published, or even memorized, by a stranger. -more-
Steve Anderson’s new documentary Fuck takes a thorough look at the most multi-faceted of expletives—at its murky, myth-laden origins, its many conjugations, its cathartic, emotive power as well as its power to offend. -more-
The films of Agnes Varda and her husband Jacques Demy could not be more different. -more-
The Church of the Good Shepherd, situated on the corner of Ninth Street and Hearst Avenue, was one of the first nine structures designated City of Berkeley Landmarks on Dec. 15, 1975. It is the oldest church building standing in Berkeley, as well as the oldest in continuous use by its founding congregation in the entire East Bay. -more-
I thrashed myself but good last weekend, just doing a little lightweight gardening. -more-
Before I ever look for a single foundation bolt there are a always a few other questions I always have about the building I’m looking at. Of course, I’m talking about earthquake readiness or seismic stability or whatever term-du-jour we’re currently using. -more-
