News

UC Berkeley professor and former cabinet officer Robert Reich must be feeling prophetic today, since the warning he issued about the use of a university’s good name to greenwash an oil industry giant has just cost Stanford $2.5 million. -more-

Fix Moldy Condos First, Say Residents -more-

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board voted 6-3 to approve the controversial Wright’s Garage project at 2629-2635 Ashby Ave. on Thursday. -more-

Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board members are divided about whether it is appropriate to use public comments from the website KitchenDemocracy.org to justify approval of the reuse of Wright’s Garage building at 2629-2635 Ashby Ave. -more-

At tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting, city staff will ask the community concerned with Pacific Steel Casting emissions to wait until a health risk assessment based on known emissions is published in mid-April to ask for further studies and hearings. -more-

The citizen planners shaping the new plan for downtown Berkeley are preparing to face a major decision about the city center’s streetscape. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education will meet Wednesday to approve the Berkeley Unified School District’s (BUSD) 2007 Summer School Program. -more-

Late Monday, Berkeley High School Principal Jim Slemp reported that he was feeling better but that he was still hurting following an accident on his bike. -more-

When the City Council passed a resolution in December favorable to the Gaia building owner, councilmembers thought they had dodged a bullet. They were still under fire, however. -more-

Berkeley residents can weigh in with their concerns about the major expansion planned at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory during a 7 p.m. hearing Wednesday. -more-

At the March 8 meeting called by Wareham to show off its proposed transit cente-commercial-laboratory project, some 50 community members showed up—as well as two Wareham attorneys, a Wareham architect, a public relations consultant and a couple of helpers to operate the power point display. An Emeryville Police officer was stationed near the door. -more-

Since they are something of a dying breed and I’m someone who grew up in Berkeley in the ‘60s and ‘70s, I seem to have hippies on the brain not infrequently. -more-

Steve Cho, a Korean owner of a liquor store in the Pic-Union/Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles and a member of the U.S. National Guard, likes to listen to Spanish music and is currently learning Spanish. He admits, however, that there is hardly any communication between Koreans and Latinos. Others say the separation runs even deeper. -more-

After a camping hiatus of over ten years, here I sit, reclining in a canvas chair overlooking Wild Plum Creek, the Sierra Buttes rising as sentinels above me. After my children had grown, I’d sworn off camping. What am I doing here? -more-

Dated but not forgotten: This is the story of 16 seniors who have called South Berkeley home at different times in the last century. -more-

Sustainable Berkeley, the mostly city-funded grouping of public and private individuals and institutions, promises to lead the local fight against global warming and at the same time “brand” Berkeley as the country’s leading green city. -more-

Critics who say UC Berkeley shouldn’t taken $500 million from a British oil company to develop alternative energy espouse an “abhorrent” attitude and threaten academic freedom, declared Chancellor Robert Birgeneau Thursday. -more-

It has come to this: The North Shattuck Association (NSA), the North Shattuck Plaza Inc. (NSPI) and the Live Oak Codornices Creek Neighborhood Association (LOCCNA) have agreed to appoint representatives to a newly formed committee that will help move the disputed $3.5 million North Shattuck plaza in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto forward. -more-

Presented with three significant documents—recommendations on UC Berkeley downtown developments, ground-floor uses and a proposed economic development package—citizen planners held off any final action Wednesday. -more-

The University Press Building—UC Berkeley’s doomed downtown landmark—will be granted one last fling before the wrecking ball comes. -more-

Though the UC Berkeley’s massive Memorial Stadium-area expansion plans have been stalled by a court order, the university is moving forward with a seismic study. -more-

The month-old administration of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums did something this week that the predecessor administration of Jerry Brown failed to do in eight years of office, hold a full-blown City Hall press conference to which all media was invited and questions were raised and answered with equal access to all areas of the press. -more-

“The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.” -more-

A little over a month after Oakland city officials were blamed for allowing a sideshow-abatement state law to lapse, the California legislature is quietly moving to reinstate the law on an “urgency” basis. -more-

When can Berkeley police infiltrate political groups? What is the local police role when a government spy agency asks them for help? -more-

San Francisco-based MKThink Group presented an initial needs assessment plan for People’s Park to the park’s Advisory Board on Monday. -more-

What excites Willard Middle School eighth grader Naima Yi most about attending Berkeley High next year is its visual arts program, something the thirteen-year-old described as “super awesome.” -more-