From Maudelle Shirek’s roots in the soil of Jefferson, Ark., to the former vice mayor’s seat on the city hall dais, the legacy of the 96-year-old “conscience of the council” and radical civil rights and human rights activist will live in a mural commissioned by the city and created by local artists Daniel Galvez and Mildred Howard. -more-

The ongoing tensions among factions in the struggle over the Berkeley’s evolving landscape surfaced again last week in a joint meeting of two city panels, but the meeting ended in a lopsided 17-2 vote supporting a proposed chapter spelling out the role to be played by historic preservation in Berkeley’s future downtown for the new plan. It had been drafted by a joint subcommitee composed of members of Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and of the Downtown Area Plan Commission (DAPAC). Members of the full DAPAC then met with the full LPC to discuss the proposal. -more-

Federal officials will announce today whether or not a coalition of UC Berkeley-affiliated labs will capture a $125 million grant to fund a new biofuel lab. -more-

To protect the community, Berkeley police officers carry guns, drive vehicles at high speeds, arrest suspects and take control of their property, including money and illicit drugs. -more-

The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce’s political action arm, Business for Better Government, files its campaign statements with the County of Alameda rather than the city. -more-

More than a year after local voters approved the Peralta Community College District’s Facilities Bond Measure A, authorizing the four-college district to issue some $390 million in bonds, a citizens’ oversight committee required by that measure has yet to organize itself, has yet to meet, and has not yet been fully formed. -more-

A new class of 15 students began the semester at the Bread Project at the Berkeley Adult School (BAS) Monday. In the first hour, this group of future bakers learned to differentiate between ounces and pounds, a few new vocabulary words for use in the kitchen, and, most importantly, they learned about Lucie Buchbinder. -more-

The Oakland Unified School District state administrator’s office is reporting this week that political intervention by State Senator Don Perata and State Superintendent Jack O’Connell with the state architect’s office has speeded up approval of construction plans for the partially burned Peralta Elementary School in North Oakland. -more-

A man’s decomposing body was retrieved from the bay near the pier at the Berkeley Marina at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, the Alameda County coroner’s office reported. -more-

Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communication staff will be back at the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) meeting Thursday to request a use permit for 11 cell phone antennas atop the UC Storage building at 2721 Shattuck Ave. following a second remand from the Berkeley City Council. -more-

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), the hottest ticket on the Berkeley transportation horizon, is up for discussion again tonight (Tuesday). -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education will be meeting at the Old City Hall at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday to renew contracts and agreements before they break for summer this year. -more-

PRO-MASS TRANSIT, -more-

Parking in the Elmwood hangs by a tenuous thread. The proposed retail complex to be housed at the old Wright’s Garage near Ashby and College will have no on-site parking, and the only requirement owner John Gordon must meet is to try to provide parking. He doesn’t even have to try very hard! -more-

Our community, in particular, South Berkeley, is experiencing a gnawing anxiety about the apparently unstoppable will of Verizon/Nextel to install throughout South Berkeley a cell phone antenna net. This is an expression used in the cell phone industry and now also part of the accepted and incorporated lingo of our city planning department staff. -more-

The supporters of closed borders and deportations are not a fringe minority. Millions—including a majority of “liberal” elected officials like our California senators—favor the policy of walling off the United States at the Southern border. I visited the border last month. I talked with a few of the people deported from the Sonora desert of Arizona. I saw the bottoms of their feet torn to shreds after walking day and night in the desert sun and sand, and heard of beatings and humiliation at the hands of the private militarized Wackenhut company under contract with Homeland Security. Eight people were known to have died in the desert during four days I was there. One of the men we talked with was a San Francisco chef who had had to return home to the Yucatan for family affairs. Another was a peasant woman from Morelos the soles of whose feet I had to cut off because they were just dead separated skin. She cannot survive in Mexico because U.S. imports have financially ruined Mexico’s peasant agricultural base. Is this the kind of investment that letter writer Robert Gable believes will help get the Mexican economy back on its feet—the dumping of subsidized surplus US corn and other commodities on the Mexican market under NAFTA? -more-

Just outside the City Council chamber in the Maudelle Shirek Building (formerly Old City Hall) stands a large table. When the council is meeting, that’s where you can find copies of its agenda. Last Tuesday evening, you could find something else there as well: copies of a two-sided sheet entitled “City of Berkeley/Welcome to Your Council Meeting.” -more-

In the sixth month of the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, the race has narrowed to New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama. The latest Gallup Poll shows Obama and Clinton in a statistical dead heat, with John Edwards a distant fourth, behind Al Gore—an undeclared candidate. Public perception of Clinton and Obama is strikingly different: Hillary has much higher unfavorable ratings than does Barack. Obama and Clinton are very different people; which one of them carries the day, at the Denver Democratic convention in August of 2008, will hinge on which campaign is best able to utilize the unique strengths of their candidate. -more-

It began with a phone call: Jean Moss, a Berkeley reader, had an odd nest that had fallen from a Cecile Bruner rosebush. She suspected it was some kind of hummingbird nest, because she had seen a female hummer hanging around it acting territorial. But what she described sounded more like a bushtit nest, bag-shaped with a small entrance hole near the top. Curious, I arranged to stop by and take a look at it. -more-