Soaring construction costs and tight money have forced the developers of the two David Brower Center projects to alter their plans, while forcing the city to up its direct subsidy of the project to $6.2 million. -more-
Foes of the new Landmarks Preservation Ordinance have the signatures they need to block the law from taking effect, said Laurie Bright, the man doing the counting. -more-
Spaceship Earth, that 175-ton sculpture that made an aborted effort to land in Berkeley, has died a premature death in Georgia, giving headline writers and bloggers everywhere endless occasions for schadenfreude. -more-
Dan Sicular, spokesperson for an unincorporated group of football fans calling themselves “Save Tightwad Hill!”, announced late Monday that attorney Susan Brandt Hawley has filed in California Superior Court in Alameda County on their behalf to require the UC Regents to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act by doing adequate study and mitigation of the proposed UC Berkeley Memorial Stadium expansion. Their petition charges that “substantial new seating approved on the east side of the stadium would restrict views and thereby substantially alter the use of the unique cultural landscape known as Tightwad Hill.” It says that the hill “is located 100 feet above the stadium and provides panoramic views of the football field” and that “generations of football fans since the mid-1920s” have gathered there to watch Cal Bear games. -more-
The City of Oakland put several of its many moods and faces on full display for the inauguration of its 48th mayor on Monday, with a rowdy City Council reorganization meeting that ended in spirited boos and catcalls from the audience, an onstage, interfaith, hand-holding prayer featuring representatives of many of the city’s widely diverse ethnic and religious communities, and ending with the usual and expected rousing and uplifting speech by the new mayor himself, Ron Dellums. -more-
Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) weighed in on the side of the tree-in protesters at Memorial Stadium Thursday, urging the preservation of a grove threatened by university building plans. -more-
For the Berkeley Unified School District, 2006 was a very good year. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District was back in session on Monday after winter break. Elementary, middle and Berkeley High School students started classes Monday. -more-
Second Derby Field Community Meeting -more-
The Zoning Adjustments Board returns to session on Thursday to hear requests by Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communications for use permits to construct a new wireless telecommunications facility that will host eighteen cell phone antennas and related equipment atop the UC Storage building at 2721 Shattuck Ave. -more-
A Few Prominent Businesses Abandoned Berkeley in 2006 -more-
Planning Commissioners will vote Wednesday on a last, crucial legal step to transform what was once the site of one of Berkeley’s more notorious brothels into a 15-unit condo complex. -more-
Donning gas masks to protest against emissions from Pacific Steel Casting, risking arrest to save the People’s Park free box, organizing the city’s first ever international food festival and cooking up civic participation through a website were some of the ways in which Berkeleyans took control in 2006. -more-
From just the smell of their breath or the look on their faces, Karl Smith could tell which of his students at Dejean Middle School in West Contra Costa County were doing poorly in school. -more-
Froilan Chan-Liongco didn’t hear the explosion that incinerated his clothes and left him with second and third degree burns on the lower part of his body. As a welder at Romic Environmental Technologies’ hazardous waste recycling facility in East Palo Alto for 16 years, he’d seen his fair share of chemical fires at work, but this one caught him by surprise. -more-
Backers of a failed initiative to save Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) will learn next week if they can block a rival ordinance—at least until voters have their say. -more-
Four die-hard protesters, shaken but not stirred, ended 2006 encamped among the branches of a grove of grand old trees threatened by the city’s biggest developer. -more-
Berkeley developers clocked up big wins in 2006, defeating a ballot measure designed to save Berkeley’s Landmark Preser-vation Ordinance and winning approval of projects destined to change the city’s face. -more-
Enhanced fire and police protection, housing development, safeguards for creeks and an advisory measure to impeach President George Walker Bush are among the accomplishments City Councilmembers cite for 2006. -more-
While several local long-term labor disputes ended happily for workers in 2006—Berkeley Honda, Alta Bates/Summit and Claremont Resort & Spa employees signed contracts after protracted struggles—workers at the Shattuck Cinema, Doubletree Hotel, UC Berkeley and the Woodfin Suite Hotel will continue to fight for better pay, benefits and working conditions in 2007. -more-
2006 was not the year that California or Berkeley checked the power the purse has to skew elections. -more-
2006 was not a good year for Berkeley cops or for those who monitor them. -more-
One of the four tree-sitters protesting the planned demolition of a grove of Coastal Live Oaks at the UC Berkeley Campus landed in new accommodations Wednesday—City Jail. -more-
For some East Bay developers, 2006 was the year of the environmentalist. -more-
Richmond Mayor-elect Gayle McLaughlin, the upset winner in a three-way race, becomes the nation’s first Green Party mayor in a city with a population greater than 100,000 in ceremonies Tuesday night. -more-
One of the biggest East Bay political stories of 2006—the proposed sale of the Oakland Unified School District downtown properties—was reported first in the Berkeley Daily Planet. -more-
The four-college Peralta Community College District began the year in the last stages of construction of the newly-named Berkeley City College, with controversy over its last series of construction bonds, and with plans to present a new set of facilities bonds. The year ended with Berkeley City College built, occupied, and with controversy swirling over district bond measures. -more-
A month ago, proponents and opponents of a nearly eight-year dispute over playing field construction at East Campus met and came to an agreement on a single plan: the Curvy Derby plan. -more-
Apartment fires—one caused by a forgotten pan, the other by a forgotten cigarette—ruined the holiday plans of several Berkeley residents, reports Berkeley Fire Marshal Gil Dong. -more-
It was a crushingly hot summer day in Chicago. The kind of day that Chicagoans believe only they are privy to. The kind of day where the sidewalks exhale hot air, steps are uncertain, thinking woozy. -more-
From here it looks like a triumph of “Framing”—that’s the name given by my old friend George Lakoff to a political technique which is part of what we used to call “marketing” in the software industry. I’m referring to the iconic image of the new speaker of the House on the podium surrounded by small children. There were a few cynical cluck-clucks in the Planet newsroom, but in the living rooms of parents and grandparents across the country it brought tears to not a few eyes. An early version of same was Ronald Reagan shown against a background of American flags, but the framing of Nancy Pelosi was much better: dynamic and heartwarming, all at the same time. -more-
New Yorkers, bless their hearts, love to believe that what happens in their city is unique—that they’re somehow exempt from the inexorable laws that govern the universe. The truth is that often bad things happen elsewhere first, but eventually even New York is vulnerable. The elegant writer Adam Gopnik has a piece in this week’s New Yorker magazine’s Talk of the Town section which highlights the grim homogenization which other parts of the country have already undergone, but is just now taking over in Gotham City. He spent several past years in Paris, so he’s now looking at New York with a fresh eye, and he doesn’t like much of what he sees. -more-
The mayor’s new “Landmarks Preservation Ordinance,” which is more like a Demolition Ordinance, is deeply flawed and should be repealed by the referendum process. -more-
Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace Not Apartheid paints a disturbing picture: of a state, Israel, that has consistently violated international law in its pursuit of territorial expansion at the expense of an indigenous population. A life-long friend of the Israeli people and the mediator of Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt, Carter is like a wise elder statesman who performs an intervention and tells an alcoholic in no uncertain terms, “It’s time to end this addiction, for your own benefit as well as for your family and friends.” Only in this case, the addiction is not to alcohol, but to colonization. -more-
For the year in Editorial Cartoons see the pdf's of pages 14 and 15, available on our web site. -more-
The articles and letters printed recently on housing in the Berkeley Daily Planet reflect misunderstanding and confusion about the need to plan for housing locally and region-wide, the state-driven Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process, and the state mandated role of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) in this planning process. -more-
As the Planet has reported, the project at 1885 University Ave. was tentatively approved by the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) at its Dec. 14 meeting and is scheduled for a final vote on Jan. 11 (note there will be no further public hearing). Had I stayed on ZAB, the project would not have been approved as currently proposed, but my council member dismissed me and saw fit to appoint a pro-development person to the board, who found the project more to his liking than I ever had. -more-
Washington, D.C.: On Jan. 4 at 1:44 p.m. (EST), Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives. Besides the historic significance, what difference will this make in American politics? A lot, I believe. -more-
It was going to be a long night. I was spending some time during the holidays with my friend Karen and a group of people I barely knew, including two hard-of-hearing 91-year-olds. There was a lot of shouting and repetition at the dinner table. -more-
Picture a winter’s day 30 years ago. Even in lousy weather you couldn’t wait to get outside. Explore the neighborhood, build a fort, climb a tree, head down to the pond for crawdads; you knew the limits of your adventures but they extended beyond your door. On weekends, family outings ventured into the hills or along the coast and lasted an entire day. Hiking, wildlife viewing, building castles in the sand, being outdoors in nature, giving free reign to your imagination. -more-
I went trolling through my photo files, looking for a good shot of a willow for this column. It took forever to find one—and as you can see, it’s not a beauty shot, but a short horrow show, a big tree split by last year’s windstorms. I found lots of other willows, but always lurking in foreground corners of something more spectacular: fall color on a big-leaf maple, or a sway of gray pines across a creekbed. -more-
Each year Dispatches From the Edge gives its annual IDBIAART (I Don’t Believe I Am Actually Reading This) Awards for the past year. The following are the Awards for 2006. -more-
Late in the summer of 1864, shortly after his combined federal armies of the West entered Georgia’s largest and most important city, General William Sherman sent a telegram to President Abraham Lincoln with a brief message included. “Atlanta is ours,” Mr. Sherman said, “and fairly won.” -more-
I’m always afraid to start talking about the practice of home inspection, fearing that it will seem self-serving but hey, I can serve myself! Actually, I think this sort of discussion is valuable and I wouldn’t try to waste your time if it weren’t. I never fail in my awareness that a column becomes birdcage liner pretty darned quick when it doesn’t provide something of worth. -more-
Oh boy, did I get a great Yule present. Joe gave me a copy of the new edition of Lester Rowntree’s classic Hardy Californians. If no one gave you one, remedy that immediately. -more-
Wesley K. Robinson died on Dec. 27 at the age of 80. Wes was a key figure in the East Bay arts scene over the past 35 years for his promotion of music and theater events. Wes was renowned for focusing on the freshness and originality of the music and passion of its artists rather than the commercial appeal. -more-
The stage for 43 Plays for 43 Presidents, Rough & Tumble’s show at LaVal’s Subterranean, is dressed a little like a quiz show, with a “Quotation” sign that lights up when somebody says something that a real player in history actually, originally said—and in fact the audience gets a little of the feel of being packed into an old-fashioned TV studio for a live broadcast show, in the days when there wasn’t much difference between show genres—games and quizzes being mixed together with comic and variety acts. -more-
Picture a winter’s day 30 years ago. Even in lousy weather you couldn’t wait to get outside. Explore the neighborhood, build a fort, climb a tree, head down to the pond for crawdads; you knew the limits of your adventures but they extended beyond your door. On weekends, family outings ventured into the hills or along the coast and lasted an entire day. Hiking, wildlife viewing, building castles in the sand, being outdoors in nature, giving free reign to your imagination. -more-
I went trolling through my photo files, looking for a good shot of a willow for this column. It took forever to find one—and as you can see, it’s not a beauty shot, but a short horrow show, a big tree split by last year’s windstorms. I found lots of other willows, but always lurking in foreground corners of something more spectacular: fall color on a big-leaf maple, or a sway of gray pines across a creekbed. -more-
NEW SHOW AT BERKELEY ART CENTER -more-
Based on a novel by Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil, opening today at the Albany Twin, tells a mannered and melodramatic tale. The actors are great—Edward Norton and Naomi Watts deliver fine performances as a couple navigating the difficult terrain of both their young marriage and of cholera-ravaged rural China—but it’s just not enough to carry the weight of a burdensome drama. -more-
The dawn of a new year, as I reflect on the stage performances of 2006 ... if the old holiday adage is true, that good things come in small packages, it’s particularly true of theater in the East Bay. Last year held a few welcome surprises, and they were mostly on the boards trod by small companies. -more-
“Don’t switch the groove up at the beginning of the solo,” says Oakland saxophonist Howard Wiley across the studio to his drummer, Sly Randolph, then counts out a cue for the rest of the ensemble of singers and instrumentalists. -more-
I’m always afraid to start talking about the practice of home inspection, fearing that it will seem self-serving but hey, I can serve myself! Actually, I think this sort of discussion is valuable and I wouldn’t try to waste your time if it weren’t. I never fail in my awareness that a column becomes birdcage liner pretty darned quick when it doesn’t provide something of worth. -more-
Oh boy, did I get a great Yule present. Joe gave me a copy of the new edition of Lester Rowntree’s classic Hardy Californians. If no one gave you one, remedy that immediately. -more-
