Columnists

Wild Neighbors: Developers Strike Back: Arrowhead Marsh at Risk Again

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday August 14, 2007

All our victories are temporary; all our defeats are permanent,” David Brower is supposed to have said. Case in point: Oakland’s Arrowhead Marsh, the crown jewel of the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Regional Park. Friends of Arrowhead were relieved in 2005 when the Lower Lake Rancheria Koi Nation dropped their plans for a casino complex next door to the marsh. Now the developers are back: this time it’s at least one, maybe two trucking terminals. -more-


Column: Undercurrents: The Speculation Over the Murder of Chauncey Bailey

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 10, 2007

The assassination of Oakland Post editor and long-time Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey on a daytime downtown Oakland street—now exactly one week ago, as of the time of this writing—is a test for Oakland, under a national spotlight. Some of us are passing it. Some of us are not doing so well. -more-


Column: The Public Eye: I’m Trying to Get On the Bus

By Zelda Bronstein
Friday August 10, 2007

I had my transit-oriented epiphany one morning in late May as I was making my way to a conference at the UC Student Union. I live in north Berkeley near the intersection of Solano and Colusa. Loathe to pay $20 to leave my car for six to eight hours in the city-owned Telegraph-Channing garage, I decided to look for a free space on a Northside street and walk from there to the conference. But as I motored through neighborhoods north of Cedar above Shattuck, my fantasized unregulated spot failed to materialize. Everywhere I looked, I saw two-hour parking signs. Time was wasting, and I was getting further and further from my final destination. I returned home, left my car in the driveway and, feeling both chastened and virtuous, caught the bus. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: Buyer Sought for Historic West Berkeley Church

By Daniella Thompson
Friday August 10, 2007

Westminster Presbyterian Church, which changed hands last year, is on the market again. The third landmark designated by the City of Berkeley, the church at 926 Hearst Ave. and Eighth Street is the second oldest in town, having been built in 1879—a year after the neighboring Church of the Good Shepherd went up. -more-


Garden Variety: Seize the Time, Pet the Kittens at Westbrae’s Paradise Pottery

By Ron Sullivan
Friday August 10, 2007

Now that Clay of the Land has gone out of business—the likable and savvy owners lost their lease to a developer, how novel—I guess I ought to mention other local marvelous discount pottery places. Here’s one to get to before the high-rise axe descends upon its lot, as there’s been a for sale placard there right from the start. -more-


About the House: Retrofitting a Lousy Foundation

By Matt Cantor
Friday August 10, 2007

We had a little shaker a few weeks ago and I was faced with the same series of encounters in the ensuing days that I’ve faced so often over the last 20 years. They tend to go something like “Hey, that was a pretty big quake we had the other day, eh? But you know, there weren’t any cracks in my walls or anything. Not as bad a Loma Prieta.” And I get started… “Well, the fact is that what we had the other day was tiny.” Then comes the math. “Did you know that a 7.2 on the Richter is roughly 30,000 times bigger than a 4.2 (the one we just had)”…faces go blank, people wander away wondering why they bothered talking to me in the first place. Maybe I’m just not a people person. Oh well, my kids love me. -more-


Quake Tip of the Week

By Larry Guillot
Friday August 10, 2007

Playing in the Traffic? -more-