“Today, Housing Director Stephen Barton stepped down from his post,” Berkeley City Manager Phil Kamlarz wrote in an email to the mayor and City Council Tuesday. -more-
Rounds of applause punctuated occasionally by bouts of “boos”—enough to prompt a scolding from City Councilmember Laurie Capitelli—greeted varied proposals for Safeway’s planned North Shattuck Avenue makeover at a meeting Thursday evening at the Jewish Community Center. -more-
A retired Berkeley police officer was jailed Sunday night on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving after he allegedly struck and killed an elderly Berkeley woman on Solano Avenue. -more-
A Berkeley jazz school that has profited from tens of thousands of city dollars is remiss in hiring an almost all-white faculty, serves mostly white students and has engaged only a handful of African Americans for the Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival, say local African American musicians and supporters. -more-
A revived and newly energized movement to restore local control to the Oakland public schools held several hours of testimony from Oakland residents on Friday evening calling for an end to the state school takeover of Oakland Unified School District and a moratorium on school closures in the district until that time. -more-
A group of about 10 civic-minded residents turned out for a lightly publicized public hearing on the budget at the North Berkeley Senior Center Tuesday evening, hoping city staff would listen to their ideas. -more-
Berkeley was in the national headlines for weeks after the City Council approved a policy in December 2006 that requires local businesses to report to the city on their use of nanotechnology materials as well as guidelines for safety procedures and disposal of the substances. -more-
Everything was purple at LeConte Elementary School Friday. -more-
A group of about 10 College Republican counterprotesters came out Saturday to support the Woodfin Suite Hotel in Emeryville, as some 50 demonstrators—separated from the Republicans by a handful of Emeryville Police—condemned the hotel for what they said is the unjust firing of 12 employees and refusal to comply with the city’s Measure C. -more-
The former site of Flint Ink in West Berkeley went on the auction block Friday, but just who won remains a mystery. -more-
The Berkeley Board of Education will review the proposed solar project at Washington Elementary School for the third time Wednesday and vote on whether to approve $750,000 in funds from the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC) and $305,000 in PG&E funds. -more-
Two DAPAC meetings—both centering on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)—and a session of the Landmarks Preservation Commission mark the week’s major events in land use. -more-
SB1019 Peace Officer Records (Sen. Gloria Romero) -more-
They were singing along with the well-known Calypso tune, feet flying off the swimming pool floor and back again, weighted arms lifting high over their heads as they swayed to the rhythms pulsing from the boom box out across the water. -more-
No active faults lie beneath the site of the high-tech and highly expensive gym UC Berkeley hopes to build next to the landmarked Memorial Stadium. -more-
From David Gockley’s narrow point of view, the press release probably said it all in the first sentence: “After the final dress rehearsal for Don Giovanni, San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley, in consultation with Music Director Donald Runnicles and members of the artistic staff, made the decision that soprano Hope Briggs was not ultimately suited for the role of Donna Anna in this production.” -more-
Berkeley’s Shipyard has been granted a reprieve—but for some artists, it may have come too late. -more-
The citizen panel helping to chart the future of downtown Berkeley confronted the crucial questions of how high and how many, looking for answers that will shape the future face of the city center. -more-
In a lop-sided vote Wednesday night, DAPAC members voted to urge the City Council to declare downtown Berkeley a Priority Development Area (PDA). -more-
An Oakland School Board member has introduced a resolution calling for a moratorium on Oakland public school closures while the state remains in charge of the Oakland Unified School District. -more-
Major changes in AC transit bus service originally scheduled for June 3 have been postponed until June 24, according to district officials. -more-
The biggest weekend of the UC Berkeley move-out is over. Students have emptied their dorms for the summer. This year for the first time they had the option of dispensing their trash in allocated dumpsters instead of dumping it on the sidewalk. -more-
Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington criticized the library administration for announcing a process for selection of a new trustee—Trustee Laura Anderson’s eight-year term expires in October—without direction from a council-library committee established to create a new selection process. -more-
One might anticipate little tranquility at Monday evening’s Peace and Justice Commission meeting, when commissioners address an item placed on the agenda by Commissioner Elliot Cohen: -more-
The State of Black California will be the subject of a Saturday afternoon town hall meeting at Oakland City Hall hosted by Oakland Assemblymember Sandré Swanson. -more-
Money woes are forcing developers of the high-rise hotel and condo tower planned for the corner of Center Street and Shattuck Avenue to take another look at their project. -more-
On Wednesday we sent this letter to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ website and to East Bay Express editor Stephen Buel: -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District’s plans to demolish the original gymnasium building are wrongheaded, wasteful and contrary to the values held dear by Berkeley’s residents. The building, with its beautiful hardwood floors, classrooms, historic murals, and swimming pools, dates back to the beginnings of Berkeley High School and is worth preserving as a contribution to the school’s future. Many residents who use its warm water pool would not be able to function without the physical therapy it provides. -more-
From time to time we read news stories about nuclear non-proliferation but seldom does the media attend to the general risk involving the existence of these “doomsday weapons.” The reason the media avoids this angle may be similar to the reason New Orleaneans avoid talk about hurricanes yet to come and Californians don’t talk much about earthquakes. Precisely because it is inevitable, forecasting regional destruction is uncertain and media reports arouse unnecessary un-ease. A more likely reason is cowardice: analyzing the possibility of total extinction exposes the absolute futility of everything else. -more-
Personal attacks will not help make a point; rather, they dilute from the intention of making a larger point speak loudly. While Carmel Hara’s letter to the editor may be an isolated instance of a personal attack on Joanna Graham, sadly the pages of the Daily Planet continue to be used as a forum for assault on character rather than a place for intelligent discourse. I find a great opportunity within his letter to make a larger point. -more-
Sally Tarver’s commentary “People Injured in Pit Bull Attack” is an example of a justifiable emotional response to a distressing situation, transforming into a nasty personal attack. -more-
This is in response to the May 15 article by Judith Scherr, regarding earthquake retrofit standards in Berkeley. I am very happy the city is finally recognizing that a lack of standards has seriously compromised the safety of our community. However, I do not believe Ms. Scherr’s article sufficiently explored the consequence of this fact. -more-
This Memorial Day season we remember Berkeley’s fallen walkers. (It was called Remembrance Day in years gone by). Pedestrians killed on Berkeley streets by vehicle driver s nearly exceed all other killings, including murder. -more-
Elderberry is a bit more a tree than last column’s rose is, but we usually see it as a shrub: multi-trunked, relatively small. But the wonderful natural history writer Donald Culross Peattie called it a tree, and I’ve seen western pewee and other tree-nesting birds make themselves homes in tall specimens; that’s good enough for me. -more-
Here on the left coast, there’s such strong opposition to the war in Iraq that the May 24 Democratic capitulation to President Bush came as a shock. We thought that Dems won back control of Congress because of their opposition to the war, so we didn’t understand why they pulled the requirement for troop deployment timelines out of the military appropriations bill. Fortunately, this isn’t the last vote on the war; it’s merely another skirmish in an extended battle between Congressional Democrats and the warmonger-in-chief. -more-
One of the old lessons we are relearning through the Iraq war experience is that in any conflict, the faction which is less concerned about catastrophic consequences resulting from their actions has a decided advantage over the faction which has those worries. -more-
When Captain John Slater died in January 1908, a newspaper obituary declared him to have been “part owner in steamship companies with Captains Dudreau and Miles [sic]” and his family “among the largest property owners in the north end.” Slater’s employers were captains Boudrow and Mighell, owners of the California Shipping Company and residents of 1536 and 1533 Oxford Street, respectively. The writer of the obituary may have exaggerated Slater’s role within the Boudrow & Mighell company, just as Slater’s land holdings appear to have been inflated beyond their actual extent. -more-
It’s summer—a month from St. John’s Eve, but no longer quite the juvescence of the year—and time to take a deep breath. If you’re more organized than I am, as most humans are, you’ve got almost everything in the ground and watered and fertilized, at least sufficiently for the time being, and things are hinting at bearing fruit. -more-
Some things are always a bad idea. Karaoke with your boss, bell bottoms on chain driven motorcycles, long-haired thoracic surgeons or pesto-flavored ice-cream. -more-
A cellist strikes up in pizzicato as an older man, dressed in the fashion of the late ‘40s, shambles onstage at the Julia Morgan Center, gazing out above the audience as if down the road—or into the past. A crowd forms, staring at him—and disperses. A woman’s voice is heard, calling his name. “I’m tired to the death!” And Willy Loman, brilliantly rendered by Corey Fisher, is home again, in Traveling Jewish Theatre’s remarkable version of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. -more-
Leave it to the Shotgun Players to organize a posse to go after weeks 26, 27 and 30 of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’ monumental, year-long, nationwide collaborative theater project. -more-
The Daily Planet’s Justin DeFreitas swept two categories at the Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards Saturday night at Foster City’s Crowne Plaza Hotel. The contest is sponsored by the Peninsula Press Club. -more-
Elderberry is a bit more a tree than last column’s rose is, but we usually see it as a shrub: multi-trunked, relatively small. But the wonderful natural history writer Donald Culross Peattie called it a tree, and I’ve seen western pewee and other tree-nesting birds make themselves homes in tall specimens; that’s good enough for me. -more-
As part of an ongoing effort to print stories by East Bay residents, the Daily Planet invites readers to write about their experiences and perspectives on living healthy. Please e-mail your essays, no more than 800 words in length, to firstperson@berkeleydailyplanet.com. We will publish the best essays in upcoming issues. -more-
The Superfest International Disability Film Festival, the world’s longest running film festival dedicated to films by and about the disabled community, takes place this weekend at the Gaia Arts Center in downtown Berkeley. -more-
Bay Area percussionist and educator Babatunde Lea will host a benefit Monday with a stellar lineup of West Coast jazz musicians to raise money for medical treatment for his middle daughter, championship athlete Tanya Lazar-Lea. -more-
By KEN BULLOCK -more-
When Captain John Slater died in January 1908, a newspaper obituary declared him to have been “part owner in steamship companies with Captains Dudreau and Miles [sic]” and his family “among the largest property owners in the north end.” Slater’s employers were captains Boudrow and Mighell, owners of the California Shipping Company and residents of 1536 and 1533 Oxford Street, respectively. The writer of the obituary may have exaggerated Slater’s role within the Boudrow & Mighell company, just as Slater’s land holdings appear to have been inflated beyond their actual extent. -more-
It’s summer—a month from St. John’s Eve, but no longer quite the juvescence of the year—and time to take a deep breath. If you’re more organized than I am, as most humans are, you’ve got almost everything in the ground and watered and fertilized, at least sufficiently for the time being, and things are hinting at bearing fruit. -more-
Some things are always a bad idea. Karaoke with your boss, bell bottoms on chain driven motorcycles, long-haired thoracic surgeons or pesto-flavored ice-cream. -more-
