The smiles, gasps and cries of delight from the kindergartners sitting in their classroom at Washington Elementary School Tuesday morning were evidence of a morning well spent. -more-
For the city, it’s both too much and too little—too much building by UC Berkeley and too little consideration of its potentially profound impacts on the surrounding community. -more-
Mayor Tom Bates’ proposal to crack down on people engaged in “prolonged sitting” or yelling in public spaces near businesses got Berkeley City Council approval (5-2-1) in concept Tuesday night—and sharp condemnation from the several dozen residents who came to the meeting to demand that the council not criminalize homelessness and drug addiction. -more-
Berkeley City Counclimember Laurie Capitelli said an ordinance approved 6-3 Tuesday night to limit the time commissioners can serve on key commissions and to restrict service to just one of these commissions at a time is good government. -more-
The ghost of construction deals past stalked the Peralta Community College District trustees meeting this week, with a sometimes-bitter clash between trustees and district staff over a $9.7 million proposal to build a new physical education complex on the Laney College campus. -more-
Berkeley’s Planning Commission gained a new chair Wednesday night, when incumbent David Stoloff, elected in a controversial coup in February, resigned the post and declared James Samuels his replacement. -more-
The Berkeley Board of Education approved the 2007 Summer School Program on Wednesday. -more-
Physics was what 17-year-old Katy Forte had always wanted to pursue in college. That was until she started school at UC Berkeley last fall. -more-
On the fourth anniversary of the war on Iraq, people need to show their opposition to the war, says Phoebe Anne Sorgen, member of the city’s Peace and Justice Commission and active with Code Pink, among other organizations. -more-
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-
A young friend told me that she’d made the mistake of watching the city council on cable on Tuesday night. Her verdict? “Pathetic!” she said. “Most of the time they didn’t even seem to know what was going on.” Sadly, I agree. -more-
“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” How often in the reign of the current mayor will we find the opportunity to use that now-hackneyed quote from Lord Acton? Tomorrow’s Berkeley City Council agenda offers yet another one. It contains not one but at least two naked power grabs by Mayor Bates, aided and abetted by the so-called ‘moderate’ councilmembers and the sycophantic faction of ex-progressives who have joined them to create the new conservative majority on the city council. (Style note: when both “so-called” and single quotes are used, it means we think the word ‘moderate’ lost all meaning in Berkeley politics years ago, as did ‘progressive’.) -more-
There is a lot that’s troubling about the mayor’s “Public Commons For Every One Initiative,” beginning with the name. I really regret that new-speak has made its way from our nation’s capital to Berkeley. A more accurate name for this initiative would be the “Get Homeless People Off the Streets of Berkeley Initiative.” -more-
Weasel words and spin doctoring in Berkeley! A public commons is a place where people can sit, sleep, feed the geese, talk, and generally rub shoulders, dance, make music, and interact with all sorts of people. Putting laws in place which target the very people most in need of a relaxing space is the very opposite of “public” or “commons.” The old guys sitting on the park benches or on the barrels on the porch of a general store could be annoying, as could the chorus in a Greek play, but they were the essence of the public, the whole picture, the alternative views, the different values in life. -more-
Last June I attended an Oakland City Council meeting at which the would-be developer for the Oak to Ninth project was comparing the proposed development to other urban waterfront projects including Chicago’s Millennium Park. -more-
Luckily for our democracy, even in our nation’s darkest hours there have always been a courageous few willing to speak truth to power. They may start out as mavericks with powerful enemies out to silence them, but they often go on to become inadvertent heroes, as the rest of the country finally catches up. -more-
The Berkeley Independent Study program is an exemplary educational program that currently educates 140 high school students. However, because it is so well run, Berkeley Independent Study is rarely in the news. And like many quietly successful programs, Berkeley Independent Study is at risk of losing the essential element that lends to its success, its proximity to Berkeley High School. Located on Derby and Martin Luther King, it is a 10-minute walk to the main Berkeley High campus and it is immediately adjacent to the Alternative High School. -more-
Becky O’Malley’s March 2 editorial on Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article asks “Can we do anything to stop this insane plan from here?” Yes, as a matter of fact, there are many things each of us can do right here, right now to stop the Bush Regime’s plans to attack Iran and continue the Iraq war. Here in Berkeley we can live up to our heritage as leaders of progressive social movements. We can write to Congress, occupy offices of congresspeople, work for impeachment, and sue Cheney and Bush. Many people are doing these things; why not join them, take action, have hope, and read on? You’ll be happy you did something. -more-
Those who object to a new ferry terminal along the Albany or North Berkeley shoreline can relax. After last Thursday’s scoping session conducted by the Water Transit Authority, it appears that the two northern locations are likely to be ranked a distant third and fourth behind the other two candidate sites in the Berkeley Marina. The northern sites are Buchanan Street (really closer to Fleming Point next to the race racetrack’s underutilized north parking lot) and Gilman (really a little to the north of Gilman, across from the stables area). -more-
Sustainable Berkeley formed last year to help foster collaborations towards a more sustainable future across sectors in Berkeley. It offers a rare glimmer of hope that people from business, government, universities, and the community can work together towards common goals in spite of the many divisions, which continually prevent the success of such efforts. -more-
“It’s the same the whole world over -more-
One of the least likeable things about California State Senate President Don Perata is that even on issues where you support him in principle, the Oakland Democrat often does it in such a backhanded, underhanded, and throw-a-brick-and-hide-your-hand-handed kind of way that you end up having to oppose him because of the particularly unprincipled way he goes about trying to apply those principles. -more-
Guy Hyde Chick is the kind of name one doesn’t forget easily. In addition to its catchy concatenation of consonants, the name stands for one of Bernard Maybeck’s most famous houses. But what of the man who built the house? This shadowy figure, now all but forgotten, once played a visible role in Berkeley’s public life. -more-
Mr. Cantor, What do you think about lifting the shell of a house and building a new first floor under it? -more-
“Tell that guy I don’t board dogs, and I refuse to stay at somebody’s house and pet sit.” -more-
Most of Ron’s columns have featured street trees. I’m making an exception for Michelia doltsopa; the few specimens we know about are in private gardens and storefront planters. I would have passed off the one on our street as some odd magnolia, but she recognized it for what it was. One clue: the flowers are borne among the leaves rather than at the ends of the branches. -more-
MAGICIAN CHIN-CHIN IN EMERYVILLE -more-
Randy Weston—jazz pianist, composer, bandleader—turned 80 last year. Along with a few other generation be-boppers, such as Sonny Rollins, Hank Jones, Jimmy Heath and Benny Golson, he is one of the last survivors from the halcyon days of what was then being called modern jazz. -more-
Mozart purists should not expect Berkeley Opera’s new production, Seraglio, to have much resemblance to the renowned opera The Abduction From The Seraglio. Nothing in this rendition follows the original except the music. -more-
Phillip and Treat are orphans, abandoned by their father when little, bereaved by their mother’s more recent death. But they still constitute a kind of nuclear family, however abbreviated and dysfunctional: Treat’s the breadwinner, a petty criminal who watches out for his little brother by keeping the allergic couchpotato Phillip indoors in their North Philadelphia tenement row house, with windows shut, subsisting mostly on tuna sandwiches (Phillip’s a gourmand of mayonnaise). -more-
Guy Hyde Chick is the kind of name one doesn’t forget easily. In addition to its catchy concatenation of consonants, the name stands for one of Bernard Maybeck’s most famous houses. But what of the man who built the house? This shadowy figure, now all but forgotten, once played a visible role in Berkeley’s public life. -more-
Mr. Cantor, What do you think about lifting the shell of a house and building a new first floor under it? -more-
THE GREAT UNCLOTHED OAK GROVE -more-
There is no sound quite like that of an orchestra warming up before a performance. Even for the classical music novice, the scattered sounds of violins, tympani, cellos and brass running through a chaotic mesh of notes and rhythms is enough to build anticipation for what awaits, for the drama and emotive power of supreme musicianship. -more-
Most of Ron’s columns have featured street trees. I’m making an exception for Michelia doltsopa; the few specimens we know about are in private gardens and storefront planters. I would have passed off the one on our street as some odd magnolia, but she recognized it for what it was. One clue: the flowers are borne among the leaves rather than at the ends of the branches. -more-
