News

Less than a day after an Oakland judge refused to order the eviction of protesters at the Memorial Stadium tree-in, UC Berkeley police staged a pre-dawn raid Friday, evicting supporters of the tree-dwellers and leveling their encampment. -more-

The battle between developers and Berkeley preservationists appears to be headed back to the ballot box. -more-

Black Oak Books is up for sale and could close as soon as this summer if no buyer is found. -more-

After months of conflict with Berkeley’s Zoning Ordinance and some neighbors, the Milo Foundation has decided to close the doors at its 1575 Solano Ave. pet adoption store on June 1 and move to another location. -more-

With a tentative date for a hearing on an injunction to impose a freeze on UC Berkeley construction plans at Memorial Stadium set for Jan. 23, attorneys were negotiating Thursday to define terms for an interim agreement. -more-

The war over Berkeley’s architectural legacy, waged at the polls in November and in the current referendum effort, continues on another front in the struggle to create a new downtown plan. -more-

Acting Alameda County Registrar of Voters Dave Macdonald, who led the county through the June and November elections that included the implementation of the new scanned paper-ballot voting system, has been named the county’s permanent registrar by the county board of supervisors. -more-

A leading California hotelier will unveil plans Feb. 1 to transform the ailing Shattuck Hotel into a“three or four star” accommodation, reports city Planning Manager Mark Rhoades. -more-

The Live Oak Coordinices Creek Neighborhood Association will be holding a community meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 17, at the Live Oak Park Recreation Center to develop a neighborhood alternative to the North Shattuck Plaza plan. -more-

More than four years after Oakland voters overwhelmingly passed the $198 million Measure DD water and recreation bond, Oakland city officials are learning a truism: Spending city money can sometimes be far more difficult than obtaining it. -more-

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-

Pole to head -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-