An ordinance passed 5-4 March 13 that would have limited the number of years a person can sit on certain commissions and impose restrictions on the number of commissions on which a person can sit was rescinded 8-0-1 at Tuesday’s council meeting, with Councilmember Laurie Capitelli abstaining. -more-

On Saturday afternoon at Oakland City Hall, there was some R&B, some hip hop and jazz, and then there was Barack Obama. -more-

The Arpeggio—known in an earlier incarnation as the Seagate Building—will soon soar 120 feet into the Center Street skyline, its developers told a city panel last week. -more-

Berkeley Assemblymember Loni Hancock called out the big political guns on Saturday morning, with some of California’s top lawmakers to join her in an Oakland City Hall forum calling for reform of the state’s health care system. -more-

Downtown Berkeley has acquired a delightful new attraction: Kaleidoscope, the marvelous tapestry that was recently installed in the fourth-floor Story Room of the Berkeley Public Library. -more-

How many ways can a child experience an orchestra? Performing with it—as the “I am a Performer” concert at Washington Elementary School illustrated Friday morning—is one. -more-

Sunday was a beautiful Northern California spring day, sunny in the afternoon but not too hot for long walks out of doors. In San Francisco, as in many other cities, lots of people combined their desire to take walks with their commitment to putting a halt to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and judging by the pictures a good time was had by all. Peace marches in the springtime are an American tradition going back at least 40 years in our own subculture, and they have much to recommend them. Especially for those of us who lived in the Midwest 40 years ago, it was a genuine pleasure, in spite of the underlying reason, to go to Washington as the cherry trees were breaking into bloom and walk out of doors carrying signs and pushing the kids in strollers. And it eventually worked—Americans caught on to the waste and carnage in Vietnam and withdrew, though not nearly soon enough. -more-