Berkeley’s bid to become the biofuel research capital of academic and corporate America scored another major advance Tuesday, winning funds to start a second lab major lab. -more-
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-
Sunday’s second Berkeley International Food Festival Sunday will celebrate the story of how a West Berkeley neighborhood overcame ethnic, racial and economic boundaries through food. -more-
A popular Albany physician and her two daughters were shot to death by her distraught husband in a secluded Tilden Park parking lot Monday night. He then turned the gun on himself. -more-
If anything, the week got worse. On Tuesday, I wrote a blog about the internet abuse of children, our disassociation from what happens right in front of our faces. I didn't know when I wrote it that I had witnessed the scene of an unimaginable horror the evening before. -more-
A packed council budget hearing at the Tuesday evening City Council meeting brought out people with requests ranging from homeless services to arts to emergency road access. -more-
When Mayor Tom Bates saw the crowd that had assembled at Tuesday’s Berkeley City Council meeting to address the question of development at the former site of Wright’s Garage—a commercial complex proposed by realtor John Gordon near the intersection of College and Ashby avenues and approved March 8 by the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB)—he asked why it was on the agenda at all. -more-
City Commissioners Jesse Arreguin and Steve Wollmer had been sent to address the Tuesday City Council meeting by the Rent Board and Housing Advisory Commission. -more-
In response to criticism that his administration has been relatively inactive in its first days, the office of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has released a report outlining its accomplishments and activities since the January inauguration. -more-
Chiori Santiago passed away on April 14, 2007 from kidney cancer. She will be missed dearly by her family and extended community of friends and colleagues. Chiori’s life was about sharing her great joy, love and wisdom of the many cultures, people and plants that make up our world. -more-
Only days before major changes in its lines and schedules are scheduled to take place, the AC Transit District has failed to put information signs on its bus stops up along stretches of one of the major streets being affected by the change. -more-
Pursuit of a pair of Oakland robbery suspects ended Wednesday in a Berkeley neighborhood with a bullet-punctuated car and foot chase of one man and the arrest of his woman companion, clad only in her birthday suit. -more-
Alameda County prosecutors have charged a member of UC Berkeley’s national championship 2007 rugby team for a May 5 beating that left another student with a broken jaw and brain injuries. -more-
In addition to the free Universal Breakfasts that Berkeley Unified will be serving children in the city all summer, the city will be treating them to free lunches. -more-
Using language that expressed reluctance, the Berkeley Board of Education unanimously approved a policy reversal to release student information to the military for recruitment to be eligible for federal education grants. -more-
Parents of children at LeConte’s Extended Day Care (EDC) came to the school board meeting Wednesday to protest the program’s move from a bungalow outside the school to a basement inside the building at 2241 Russell St. -more-
In the last few days we’ve heard about a lot of crime in the area near our South Berkeley office. Our neighborhood association has reported at least three nearby hold-ups in broad daylight, and a frequent correspondent in the adjacent Temescal area has sent us a letter (in this issue) about a frightening unprovoked assault on a pedestrian by a gang of young teens who didn’t even appear to be looking to rob the victim. -more-
Just a bit of weeping and gnashing of teeth accompanied the interrupted consummation of the apparent deal between local politicians and the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce last week. Mayor Bates and some council allies made a vigorous show of enacting new laws aimed at getting untidy people out of shopping districts, seemingly in return for the Chamber Political Action Commitee’s cash contributions to their re-election campaigns, but in the end nothing was enacted except concept statements, and everyone knows the devil’s in the details. -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-
A giant backyard redwood tree is felled on the summer solstice. Former California Gov. Ronald Reagan once was quoted as saying, “If you’ve seen one redwood tree, you’ve seen them all.” This was back in the 1960s, I believe, when there was a strong environmental movement to save many of the remaining pristine groves of the Coast redwood tree (Sequoia sempervirens) in Northern California from impending cutting. Thousands of acres of prime native habitat dominated by these towering giant trees were eventually saved. Several weeks ago one of my neighbors told me that a landowner several properties down the street had applied for a permit to cut down our local landmark redwood tree, which dominates our block. It is probably over one hundred feet high and is possibly one hundred years old. I called the telephone contact number on the public notice that was posted on the telephone pole and after leaving a couple of messages and waiting a couple of days (this is in Oakland, the city that seemingly has much trouble doing much of anything right and/or in a timely fashion…), and was told that, yes, the owner had applied for a tree-cutting permit because its roots were beginning to affect his duplex’s foundation. -more-
In this, the “Year of Health Care Reform” in California, it’s ironic that the governor in his May Revise would fail to fund a reimbursement rate increase for providers of some of the most cost-effective preventive health care in the state. The cost of such an increase—$24 million—is just a speck of the overall $104 billion state budget—especially compared to the cost of doing nothing. -more-
Although I sent an e-mail to all the Berkeley City Council members and the mayor, opposing the planned bar/restaurant at Ashby and College, it took your June 19 editorial dated to alert me to the stealth disregard of the Neighborhood Commercial Preservation Ordinance that citizens of the Elmwood worked tirelessly to get passed. The variance granted by the Zoning Adjustments Board, specifically so a watering hole can dispense hard liquor in a neighborhood that clearly opposes it, is more of the same that we are getting from the mayor and those who support his vision of asphalting all open spaces and denying the needs for parks and playgrounds in districts that need them. -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-
There are few areas in the world more entangled in historical deceit and betrayal than northern Iraq, where the British, the Ottomans, and the Americans have played a deadly game of political chess at the expense of the local Kurds. And now, because of a volatile brew of internal Iraqi and Turkish politics, coupled with the Bush administration’s clandestine war to destabilize and overthrow the Iranian government, the region threatens to explode into a full-scale regional war. -more-
My grandfather, Ellis Allen, Sr. I am told, spoke with a musical French accent, as did his sister, Aunt Isobel, who migrated with other Allen family members to Oakland at the end of the 19th century. I barely remember my grandfather and his accent, not at all, but that information does not now surprise me. My father’s people were from the Louisiana bayou country, St. James Parish, near New Orleans, where French was the predominant settler language for years until “the Americans came” and supplanted it with English. -more-
One of Berkeley’s most important and historic brown shingle homes—with Maybeck connections, too—is currently for sale at 2601 Derby Street. An Open House is scheduled from 2-4:30 p.m. this Sunday, June 24. -more-
We’ve driven past the place dozens of times on the way to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and it’s become a private landmark rather like San Quentin. But last week was the first time we’ve ever managed to get off I-580 and get our feet on the ground at Golden Gate Palms in Richmond. -more-
Ihate code books. Not code as in dot-dash-dot or SLWBT means I love you. I mean the building codes. -more-
One thing history has taught us about major earthquakes: houses that are correctly retrofitted survive intact. -more-
“If a working man can’t kill himself on a Sunday morning, we may as well have the Revolution at once!” Witty, barbed lines like these are almost thrown away in Jean Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon, as brilliantly translated by Christopher Fry, and charmingly produced at the Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond. -more-
There’s a row of owls glaring down at the audience in the theater at the Berkeley City Club. And the program for Bird in the Hand, Anne Galjour’s new play, directed by Ellen Sebastian Chang for Central Works, lists the various parts played by the four players (including Ms. Galjour), as well as the bird calls they perform during the course of the action. -more-
Hildegarde Flanner’s Wildfire: Berkeley, 1923 is a clear-eyed description of a natural disaster seen at close quarters; and, for Berkeleyans, an unforgettable picture of nature’s fury turned against us in our own homes. After reading it, even the greenest greenhorns will understand the dreadful power of wildfire and how rapidly it can consume a neighborhood. -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-
Michael S. Moore’s acrylic paintings at the Graduate Theological Union are images of landscapes as symbolic order. They are pictures of vast desert landscapes, of large empty spaces along the Nevada-Oregon border as well as of the Colorado plains. It would seem that the canvases are based on watercolors which are shown in display cases below the paintings. -more-
“Father! Father! I hopped off on a cloud ...”—and the figure in a sari (Sarah Meyerhoff), standing on the lawn at the Berkeley Art Center, seems to be sinking, as the voice of her Father, the god Indra (Thomas West), echoes up from the creek below, reassuring her as she descends to earth, in the first scene of Strindberg’s masterpiece, A Dream Play. -more-
Everyone talks about Harry Lime. He’s one of the most charismatic and cynical of movie villains, a cad who plays the people and police for suckers while justifying his crimes with glib insouciance. -more-
The Laurel Summer Solistice Music Festival, inspired by the Fete de la Musique, a solistice celebration initiated in France 25 years ago to bring people into the streets to hear and make music and now a worldwide phenomenon, celebrates its second anniversary this Saturday, 9 a.m.-10 p.m., in Oakland’s Laurel Village district. -more-
One of Berkeley’s most important and historic brown shingle homes—with Maybeck connections, too—is currently for sale at 2601 Derby Street. An Open House is scheduled from 2-4:30 p.m. this Sunday, June 24. -more-
We’ve driven past the place dozens of times on the way to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and it’s become a private landmark rather like San Quentin. But last week was the first time we’ve ever managed to get off I-580 and get our feet on the ground at Golden Gate Palms in Richmond. -more-
Ihate code books. Not code as in dot-dash-dot or SLWBT means I love you. I mean the building codes. -more-
One thing history has taught us about major earthquakes: houses that are correctly retrofitted survive intact. -more-
