I didn’t go up to Telegraph Tuesday to find mellow—to watch flowers bursting out in carefully tended gardens at People’s Park, to hear merchants talking happily about businesses growing or to watch the moms and dads with kids in tow join students and graying elders moving in and out of shops. -more-
The hysteria of Cody’s closing having subsided, merchants and city officials have had time to evaluate what’s caused customers to frequent Telegraph Avenue less often. Chain stores going belly up, high rents and city bureaucracy are among the problems cited. -more-
The year 2007 will go down as the year downtown Berkeley’s biggest developments passed into the hands of some of America’s biggest corporations. -more-
Mark Rhoades, Colossus of Berkeley? -more-
There will be no pitter-patter of tiny feet at St. Joseph the Worker School this fall. No giggles or hushed whispers along its long winding corridors. -more-
At first glance, the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) showed a point gain over last year in the 2007 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program released by State Superintendent Jack O’Connell Wednesday. -more-
A California tribunal handed an unqualified defeat this week to Ray Chamberlin and his lawsuit challenging the reconfiguration of Marin Avenue by Berkeley and Albany. -more-
A fight between community activists and real estate developers partnered with a cellular phone carrier is shaping up in Point Richmond. The point of contention is a recently installed high-power cellular phone antenna array on an apartment complex on a hilltop at 260 Water Street in Point Richmond, disguised by an orange-painted flat case which is visible from far away. -more-
UC Berkeley issued a final call for bids today (Friday) on the building designed to house the $500 million alternative fuel project funded by a British oil company. -more-
Armed with trash bags, notepads and pens, thirty teens walked the streets of Southwest Berkeley Wednesday to protest rising violence in the neighborhood and to bridge divisions within the community. -more-
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to landmark three of the buildings at the UC Berkeley Extension Laguna Street Campus at the San Francisco City Hall Tuesday. -more-
With their deadline fast approaching, eight Berkeley citizen-policymakers are setting the stage for an almost certain showdown over the fate of old buildings in the new downtown. -more-
With Oakland Unified school board president David Kakishiba calling his district’s financial situation “precarious,” the newly-empowered OUSD school board issued a sharp criticism last week of the district’s fiscal condition under state receivership, directing state-appointed administrator Dr. Kimberly Statham to adopt a new five-year financial recovery plan to put OUSD’s fiscal house in order. -more-
The attorney for the man accused of murdering journalist Chauncey Bailey two weeks ago claimed today that his client is innocent and was ordered by a Your Black Muslim Bakery associate, in the presence of Oakland police, to take the fall for the shooting incident. -more-
Hatem Bazian of UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, Phyllis Bennis of the Institute of Policy Studies, and Sandy Tolan of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and author of “The Lemon Tree” will highlight a weekend conference entitled “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: Voices We Need to Hear.” -more-
As federal budget priorities starve urban America, the outcome has been predictable: rising murder rates from Newark, New Jersey to Oakland, California, and virtually no low-income African-American or Latino neighborhood has been spared. Who is to blame for this problem? According to the media, it is the nation’s black mayors. From the New York Times castigating Mayor Booker in Newark to the San Francisco Chronicle’s absurd attack on Oakland’s Ron Dellums, the message is clear: black mayors, not the white elite in Washington D.C., are failing to serve the needs of minority communities. Where is our Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak out against such nonsense? -more-
Eclectic Building Plan Certain to Stir Up Plenty of Free Speech -more-
University of California President and UC Berkeley Physics Professor Robert Dynes announced his resignation Monday as head of the nation’s leading public university system. -more-
Reorganization Hurts Native American Repatriation Efforts, Critics Say -more-
There’s a new kind of campaign at Berkeley City Hall. It aims to tap Berkeley’s best and brightest young minds to solve problems in the city. -more-
Charges and countercharges are flying between workers locked out by the owners of West Berkeley’s Metro Lighting. -more-
Media News Group—the chain has captured a near-monopoly of the East Bay newspaper world—busted its newsroom union Monday. -more-
The Oakland Unified School Board is preparing to discuss and take action on a proposed censure resolution against Board member Chris Dobbins at a special meeting to be held later this month, but the date of the special meeting and the form the resolution will take have not yet been released to the public. -more-
The daughter of former South African President Nelson Mandela will speak this Thursday afternoon at Contra Costa College, keynoting a summit conference calling for a continuation of the street peace legacy of the late Stanley Tookie Williams. Maki Mandela, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Amherst College in Massachusetts, is the child of Nelson Mandela and his first wife, Evelyn Ntoko. -more-
Hearing on Blood House Postponed -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: The death of Chauncey Bailey highlights how deadly the news business can be. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) monitors the killings of journalists all over the world. Since they began tracking these deaths in 1992, CPJ found that on average more than three journalists are killed every month in the line of duty. Seven out of 10 of the murdered journalists were killed in direct retaliation to the stories they have done. Abi Wright is the communications director for the Committee to Protect Journalists. She spoke to Sandip Roy on the New America Media radio show UpFront. -more-
Recently I read a novel in which the heroine “rose” from a hammock to greet a visitor. The author must surely have lacked the hammock experience, that necessary adjunct to the life of the gardener, for one can roll out of a hammock, but I defy anyone to rise from it without putting a foot through the mesh. -more-
I think I’ve discovered an effective way to stave off Alzheimer’s. Tacked on to the tasks of solving New York Times crossword puzzles, learning ballroom dancing, and attending repeated sessions of Conversational Spanish, I’ve begun attending an improvisation class at Berkeley Repertory’s School of Theatre. -more-
First, let me vaccinate myself: “The left is ... easily distracted, currently by the phantasm of impeachment. Why all this clamor to launch a proceeding surely destined to fail, aimed at a duo who will be out of the White House in 16 months? Pursue them for war crimes after they’ve stepped down. Mount an international campaign of the sort that has Henry Kissinger worrying at airports that there might be a lawyer with a writ standing next to the man with the limo sign. Right now the impeachment campaign is a distraction from the war and the paramount importance of ending it.” -more-
There’s been a lot of hoo-hah lately, including some in these pages, about the recent airing in the Matier-Ross gossip column of the old rumor that Berkeley Rent Control Board member Chris Kavanagh is seldom seen in the Dwight Way apartment which he rents, and that in fact he might really “live” in a charming cottage in Rockridge, just over the border in Oakland. Why the ironic quotes around “live”? -more-
In his latest attack on AC Transit’s planned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service, Doug Buckwald (Planet Aug. 14) once again misstates the facts, this time claiming that the environmental impact report (EIR) for BRT “shows” that BRT will not lead “many people at all” to shift from driving to taking the bus. -more-
Mark Twain is supposed to have said “never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” I have followed that adage for most of my career, choosing not to respond to articles and editorials in newspapers, and especially not the Daily Planet, which has shown antipathy for my department, my staff and my profession. Despite my concern with the forum, as the director of Planning and Development for the city, I feel compelled to respond to Ms. O’Malley’s editorials of Aug. 7 and 10 and Mr. Wollmer’s commentary of Aug. 10. -more-
In an unusual expression of outrage, a coalition of psychologists will stage a rally outside the annual convention of the American Psychological Association at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Friday, Aug. 17, at 4 p.m. -more-
When I was editing books for a major, Washington D.C.-based environmental organization, there was always a chapter on public process. The basic process is that participants work together in small groups and then report back to the whole group. It operates on the principle that community members’ coming together to discuss the issues and develop consensus results in good community decisions. -more-
On July 23, Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton called for the formation of a three-judge panel to develop recommendations to address the issue of overcrowding in California state prisons. The formation of the panel is essentially a no confidence vote in AB 900, the band-aid approach put forward by Gov. Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature. The legislation primarily calls for the construction of the 53,000 new jail cells. Judge Karlton has been widely quoted as saying “From all that presently appears, new beds will not alleviate this problem but will aggravate it.” -more-
You’re gone now, it looks like for good. That’s a shame, at least for me personally. Let me explain. -more-
President Bush is promoting the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, but why? Kosovo has been under the administration of the United Nations. The Kosovars, as ethnic Albanians, seek to be an independent country, while the Serbs consider Kosovo to be an important part of their history and territory. Do the Kosovars have a natural right to independence? The answer becomes clear when we realize that countries and nationalities have no natural rights. All natural rights are inherent in individual persons. Each human being has the moral right to be sovereign, to be independent of the mastership of any other person. -more-
Charles Siegel and Steve Geller certainly respond promptly and with great vigor to anyone who suggests that there might be flaws in the massive and expensive Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal put forward by AC Transit. The problem is, these two men usually shed more dust than light on the issues involved. In their separate letters in last Tuesday’s issue of the Daily Planet (August 7), they both ignore two essential facts: First, there has not been any city forum held to debate the issue of the approval of the BRT proposal, nor has there been any decision by our City Council on this matter. Mr. Geller’s and Mr. Siegel’s efforts to assist groups like the Transportation Commission in squelching public debate on this important issue are profoundly undemocratic. They are just as guilty as the Transportation Commission in perpetrating the falsehood that BRT is a “done deal”—a cynical strategy intended to hoodwink the opposition into accepting the program. Second, it is AC Transit’s own study (the Draft Environmental Impact Report) that shows that BRT will not motivate many people at all to shift from driving cars to riding the bus. Therefore, Mr. Siegel and Mr. Geller should be criticizing AC Transit for failing to provide a better alternative to automobile transportation—rather than leveling their contempt and disdain at citizens who are struggling to find transportation choices that work. -more-
When President George W. Bush announced the formation of a military command for Africa (AFRICOM) this past February, it came as no surprise to the Heritage Foundation. The powerful right-wing organization designed it. -more-
Three years ago, I wrote a column about a friend of mine, Frank, whose family has been living across from mine in the same flatlands neighborhood for more than 30 years. With my family having moved here before the U.S. entry into World War II, our two families are, by far, the longest continuous residents on this block, by far. -more-
The bridge in my mouth was bad. The engineer of the bridge was a dentist in a hurry who had already busted a cap in my mouth... so to speak. (one of his crowns had failed ). So I didn’t want to go back to him. Besides, the bad bridge had cost $1,500 back in 1999, and I couldn’t face another dentist who would now charge gangsta prices of $3,000 and up. -more-
As it’s almost planting time (for leisurely values of “almost”) I’ll talk about how to pick your posies. Some of us are on-the-ball enough to do all our planting from seeds and/or divisions and cuttings of our own, but most of us are the sort of people who keep nurseries in business by letting them do the early stuff. -more-
Every once in a while I meet someone who reinvigorates my excitement about what I do. This encounter reminds me that remodeling is not so much a business as it is a passion for a lot of people like me. -more-
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-
Goat Hall Productions, normally housed in a theater on Potrero Hill (also known as Goat Hill), is presenting two premieres at Oakland Metro Theater in Jack London Square during August 23-26. -more-
California Poet Laureate Al Young and well-known novelist and screenwriter Barry Gifford, both Berkeley residents, will read together in a felicitous doubleheader at Moe’s Books on Telegraph Ave. this coming Monday, August 20, at 7:30 p.m. as part of the Mondays at Moe’s series coordinated by Owen Hill. -more-
Abbas Kiarostami is known primarily as an innovative filmmaker and the Pacific Film Archive is currently presenting a retrospective of his films. The inventive confluence of documentation and fiction has produced a new direction in cinema, prompting Werner Herzog to assert,”We are living in the era of Kiarostami but don’t know it yet.” In addition to working as a film director, the Iranian artist is also a writer, a poet, an editor, screen writer and photographer. -more-
As it’s almost planting time (for leisurely values of “almost”) I’ll talk about how to pick your posies. Some of us are on-the-ball enough to do all our planting from seeds and/or divisions and cuttings of our own, but most of us are the sort of people who keep nurseries in business by letting them do the early stuff. -more-
Every once in a while I meet someone who reinvigorates my excitement about what I do. This encounter reminds me that remodeling is not so much a business as it is a passion for a lot of people like me. -more-
All this web of deceit was woven to win you, proof of my devotion.” So speaks Princess Leonide of Sparta (Stacy Ross), free of her disguise as a man and decked out in royal—and feminine—splendor, to Prince Agis (Jud Williford), son of a monarch whose throne was usurped by Leonide’s uncle, and object of her much, but never directly, professed devotion. -more-
I’ve been around plenty, and ‘around’ wasn’t pretty ...” So intones a hard-boiled chorus girl with a beautiful visage, who teams up with “a cop too tough to be crooked” in Cornell Woolrich’s celebrated noir thriller, Angel Face, originally published in the pulp mag Black Mask, and now translated onstage by Word For Word in their inimitable combo of acting and self-narration, at Theater Artaud in San Francisco’s Mission District, through Sept. 3. -more-
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-
In the Aug. 7 article “AC Transit Directors Approve Bus Transfer” concerning the sale of 16 existing NABI buses owned by AC Transit in exchange for the purchase of new Van Hool buses, we wrote that AC Transit board member Rebecca Kaplan said that she had switched her vote from abstaining to approval this time “only because FEMA is waiting for the buses in New Orleans for the Katrina victims, and they are really needed down there.” -more-
