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-
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-
The consultant who will help improve People’s Park in the coming months will be selected from a list of three finalists at a closed panel interview session on Friday (today). -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-
Councilmember Wozniak recently removed his appointee, Dean Metzger, from the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB). Since Mr. Wozniak has not publicly thanked Mr. Metzger for his ZAB service, I would like to do so—on behalf of many. In addition, Mr. Metzger has served his community on the Transportation Commission and through his neighborhood association (CENA), Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA), and Berkeleyans for a Livable University Environment (BLUE), among others. All these organizations and the city have profited greatly from his intelligence, integrity, and hard work. -more-
When the Democrats obtained a congressional majority in November’s midterm elections, it sent a message to the White House, and to all of America, that people are ready for change. Change in Iraq, change in the power of the presidency, change in foreign policy, and change in the way citizens are treated at home. But, in the throws of such a heated election, at least one important issue was left largely unaddressed—what America’s role should be in quelling the genocide in Darfur. -more-
As I move toward the conclusion of my first year as president of the Downtown Berkeley Association Board, I can look back with satisfaction on a number of partnerships we have formed in recent months which I think have made DBA increasingly influential as a molder of public policy in the downtown. One of the most important, I believe, has been the relationship we have crafted between the DBA and the group known as Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)—an innovative economic development organization.” -more-
After recently going through my first election cycle as chair of government affairs, I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the Great ’06 Berkeley Political Struggle. I recently finished reading 1776 and John Adams by David McCullough and Founding Brother’s: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph Ellis, and so was able to experience this election cycle in the context of political history. Then, as now, the political bickering and posturing began before and lasted long after the actual votes were counted. There is a major difference however, the bullhorns are much larger today. -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-
Walking around my old neighborhood—it is also my current neighborhood, as well, having returned to the place where I grew up—used to be a pleasure, but in recent years it has become something of an obstacle course, with most blocks having at least one car pulled up on the sidewalk, lengthways or crossways, blocking the way. -more-
Fundraising for the modern university is increasingly dependent on skyboxes and suchlike mammoth public structures where the golden deal can be clinched amid resplendent surroundings. But it wasn’t always so. There used to be a time when personal magnetism was enough to accomplish the goal. -more-
It has come to my attention that the hard freeze predicted (as I write this) for late this week is the first some of my fellow Berkeley denizens have experienced here. If it happened on time, you’re reading this in the Retrospectroscope, that scientific instrument that gives us 20-20 hindsight. Still, this might be useful. -more-
I am something of a purist when it comes to our older housing stock. Well actually, let me revise that. What I really am is a lover of old houses and all the bits of antiquity that inhabit our cities. Buildings, signage, concrete sidewalk stamps and vintage cars. -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-
ARIAS ABOUT MALCOLM IN HONOR OF RON -more-
Though Eve A. Ma traveled the world, she spends much of her time trying to bring that world back home to the rest of us. Ma is the entrepreneurial force behind Palomino Productions, a Berkeley-based company producing DVDs and television programs on the art of dance. -more-
Berkeley composer and retired UC Berkeley professor Olly Wilson’s Symphony No. 3, Hold On, which sets and responds to the old African-American spiritual of that name, celebrating its sense of spiritual tenacity and persistence, will be featured as George Thomson returns to the podium of the Berkeley Symphony, 8 p.m. this Sat. at Zellerbach Auditorium, with an eclectic program including Stravinsky’s Concertino for Twelve Instruments, Sibelius’ Violin Concerto and Matthew Locke’s Restoration era theater music for The Tempest. -more-
Silent film star Mary Pickford famously described director Ernst Lubitsch as a “director of doors,” a man more at home working with the choreography of entrances and exits than with actors and emotions. This acerbic remark, uttered in the awake of an ill-fated collaboration with the director on Rosita, his first American production, has a grain of truth but should be taken with a grain of salt as well. -more-
Fundraising for the modern university is increasingly dependent on skyboxes and suchlike mammoth public structures where the golden deal can be clinched amid resplendent surroundings. But it wasn’t always so. There used to be a time when personal magnetism was enough to accomplish the goal. -more-
It has come to my attention that the hard freeze predicted (as I write this) for late this week is the first some of my fellow Berkeley denizens have experienced here. If it happened on time, you’re reading this in the Retrospectroscope, that scientific instrument that gives us 20-20 hindsight. Still, this might be useful. -more-
I am something of a purist when it comes to our older housing stock. Well actually, let me revise that. What I really am is a lover of old houses and all the bits of antiquity that inhabit our cities. Buildings, signage, concrete sidewalk stamps and vintage cars. -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-
