Riot Erupts Over Fencing In of UC Oak Grove
It began with a flimsy yellow ribbon and ended with a riot, two arrests and a courtroom hearing. -more-
It began with a flimsy yellow ribbon and ended with a riot, two arrests and a courtroom hearing. -more-
When Berkeley High starts on Wednesday, school officials are hoping there will be no need this year for “zoo time,” as the beginning-of-the-school-year pandemonium at Berkeley High is commonly known, with students clamoring for books, calendars and lockers. -more-
A group of Berkeley residents are questioning why the windows of a building at 1050 Parker St. are being dismantled prior to the building getting a demolition use permit from the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB). Demolition permits for any building over 40 years old in a commercial zone must first be reviewed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to determine whether it has any historic significance. -more-
Cell phone giant Verizon Wireless filed a lawsuit against the City of Berkeley in the Federal Court of Oakland last week for allegedly being in violation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. -more-
Can the once-promising political future of Oakland Unified School District board member Chris Dobbins survive the recent scandal and censure? To quote the most trite of answers: Only time will tell. -more-
Air monitors set up by a group of West Berkeley residents in May to detect emissions from Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) reveal high levels of toxic metals nickel and manganese. -more-
The Korean king kneels, hands clasped in a gesture of submission. Above him looms the Japanese empress, at the head of an armada and clad in full samurai armor with sword outstretched. His armies defeated and his lands occupied, the king swears his country’s eternal loyalty to the Japanese throne. -more-
Violence, selfishness and insults have skyrocketed on national television since the first year of the war on terror, my second-grade students at Rosa Parks Elementary in Berkeley found. -more-
Elmwood Hardware, a fixture-selling fixture of the Berkeley scene for 84 years, will close next month for extensive remodeling, said owner Tad Laird. -more-
Angel Bertha Elzy has been waiting for a house since 1983. -more-
A new kind of battle is brewing on Telegraph Avenue. Those who are leading the fight say it is not against religion, or against freedom of speech, but they contend that some religious speech on the street is just too loud. -more-
San Pablo Park—the West Berkeley recreation center that served as a social and sports mecca for East Bay African Americans in the heavily segregated years before World War II and became the symbol of Berkeley’s legendary ethic of ethnic diversity—turns 100 this month, and local officials and residents are honoring it this Saturday with a centennial celebration. -more-
Berkeley’s oldest tree-sitter, two Panoramic Hill residents, and two Berkeley landmark commissioners—one current, one former—have joined forces to file a legal challenge to expansion plans at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). -more-
Solemn-faced members of the Oakland Unified School District board gave fellow board member Chris Dobbins the severest possible reprimand on Wednesday night, voting 5-2 to censure him “in the strongest possible terms,” stripping him of committee assignments, and requesting his resignation for what the board called “unethical, unprofessional, and inappropriate conduct” regarding Dobbins’ contact with a 17-year-old district high school student. -more-
On Thursday, the Berkeley Fire Department (BFD) threw the 16 residents of UC Berkeley’s fraternity Kappa Sigma out of their house for violating several fire safety codes, including not replacing a dysfunctional sprinkler system. -more-
After outlining diversity and energy initiatives at his back-to-school press briefing Thursday, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau fended off top UC Regent Richard Blum’s criticism that the UC ten-campus system suffered from a “dysfunctional set of organizational structures, processes and policies.” -more-
The Berkeley Board of Education welcomed Javetta Robinson as the school district’s new deputy superintendent-chief financial officer at their first meeting after summer break Wednesday. -more-
The key document in the battle over the role of historic buildings in shaping the public face of tomorrow’s downtown will take definitive form Monday night. -more-
For many months, there was a bottle of champagne in our office refrigerator, being saved for the day Karl Rove was indicted. The donor wasn’t a member of the reporting staff, since they are expected to preserve the appearance of political neutrality, but I’m pretty sure that if and when Rove had actually been indicted everyone, including the reporters, would have accepted a celebratory glass with enthusiasm. It didn’t happen—Rove was allowed to slither off the scene without going to jail, an over-enthusiastic former sales manager popped the champagne cork for some petty triumph, and the focus shifted to Alberto Gonzales as villain-du-jour. (Meanwhile, the odious Rummy had also left the building.) -more-
Berkeley residents who get tired of being called NIMBYs and worse by the powers-that-be think they have problems. The artists and other denizens of West Berkeley who object to the new taxation scheme which the big property owners are trying to foist on the neighborhood they call home are currently getting the full treatment from those who think they know what’s best for the area: how to clean it up and make it all nicey-nice for the newly lucrative biotech labs and the high-end condos speculators are hoping to build near them. Their turf is also the target of city re-zoning efforts both spot (Berkeley Bowl) and far-reaching (auto dealership specials). They complain, with some justification, that their now-affordable housing and workspaces are being threatened by gentrification, that there’s obvious inequality in the way different contenders for West Berkeley space are being treated. -more-
The lyrics “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” have certainly been true in West Berkeley where foundry emissions and their noxious odors are a daily reminder of our local air quality crisis. Current levels of airborne chemicals and metal particulates have given zip code 94710 the shameful distinction of having some of the highest levels of asthma in the county. -more-
In a recent editorial, Becky O’Malley described “smart growth” as “the unproven theory that making already-developed urban areas ever denser will prevent sprawl into the hinterlands.” While this is often cited as a benefit of smart growth by its advocates, it is only one aspect of smart growth, and the least important from the perspective of Berkeley. -more-
On Aug. 22, Berkeley Housing Authority board members were scheduled to vote on a resolution to terminate it’s existing housing assistance waiting list. There was little to no advance warning that this was about to occur, and it caught the housing community by surprise. -more-
Last Friday the Oak-to-Ninth Referendum Committee held a rally in front of Oakland City Hall to mark the one-year anniversary of the turn-in of the 25,000 petition signatures requiring that the Oak-to-Ninth Development Agreement be put to a vote of the public. -more-
Becky O’Malley’s Aug. 10 editorial, “Planners Come and Go, But the Department Never Changes,” blamed departing city planner Mark Rhoades’ malodorous planning style on three factors: the loss of municipal revenues created by Proposition 13, policies set by Rhoades’ bosses, and the natural tendency of regulatory agencies to be hijacked by those they regulate. -more-
Is there such a thing as optimistic fatalism? I’m talking about artists in Berkeley, of course. Here are some observations that occur to me: Of course, nobody who is upstanding should be brutalized by a civil process into quitting their residence or business place—we all ought to demand civility and generosity towards artists in those proceedings and transactions which increasingly force them to relocate out of town. It is a sad period of time in the history of Berkeley. -more-
A closely-spaced motorcade of double-size Van Hool buses now trundles up and down Telegraph Avenue at all hours. I regularly observe the middle and Berkeley end of Bus Line No. 1 doing business on Telegraph and occasionally getting paint at Kelley-Moore at Telegraph and 42nd. Morning, noon, and night, I see an average range of six to 16 passengers occupying these cavernous vehicles. Telegraph Avenue in Oakland is in poor condition already. The greatest damage to city streets is done by buses, according to the paving engineer hired by City of Berkeley that I spoke to when North Shattuck Avenue was last repaved. And we all see how little budget there seems to be for street maintenance and repair in Berkeley and Oakland. Considering how much fuel is being consumed to deploy so many heavy buses to move so few passengers, BRT deserves a good deal more before-the-fact public disclosure and scrutiny than it has received. -more-
There is no “normal” left in Berkeley. Lethargy, a surfeit of political correctness, and confusion of common sense have led to its demise. I spend less time than I used to in community activism. It is not that the issues that plague South Berkeley have diminished in any way. My resignation comes from recognition that there are more individuals committed to defeating “normal” than I can battle. Conditions have changed little in the 11 years I’ve lived in Berkeley. The players change on both sides of the law, but the challenges remain. The dangers posed by the out-of-control illegal drug trade are still here. Shootouts are still commonplace in Beat 12. The focus of criminal activity in and around 1610 Oregon St. bleeds out—often literally—onto satellite sites, including other houses on the 1600 block Oregon Street; McGee Street (especially the four corners and the intersection of Oregon/McGee); the 1500 block of Oregon Street, with daily drug sales at the corner of Oregon/Sacramento and the apartments on the other side of Oregon; gunfire exchanges with residents of the Rosewood Apartments, on Russell and Oregon Street habitués; and now excursions onto Stuart Street as well. -more-
Long-time peace activist Brian Willson became an international symbol of nonviolent resistance when he was run over by a train carrying weapons to Central America at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, near Concord, California, on Sept. 1, 1987. Brian miraculously survived, but lost both his legs and received a severe head injury. A subsequent investigation revealed that the government train was speeding, that the military drivers could see him for over 650 feet, and that they never applied the brakes as the train ran over him. He had been sitting on the tracks in a widely publicized protest against U.S. military intervention in Central America.” (Excerpt from The Road to Transformation: A Conversation with Brian Willson, by John Dear). -more-
A birch is about as exotic as a banana here, and maybe they’re both ubiquitous in people’s front yards for similar nostalgic reasons—or maybe instead because they’re so outrageous when you know where you are. -more-
Berkeley residents have made two superb documentaries about the long-term impact of the war in Iraq: No End in Sight and Soldiers of Conscience. -more-
There was always something that seemed extraordinarily fortuitous about the supposed quick solving of the Chauncey Bailey murder case. -more-
We all need a sanity break from Berkeley every now and then, but not everyone can fly off to the Seychelles or to Switzerland when the urge to flee is upon us. -more-
Glenn Keator talked to the Merritt College Aesthetic Pruning Club’s annual symposium last week about planting in containers, and here are some of the things he said and evoked: -more-
By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor -more-
A birch is about as exotic as a banana here, and maybe they’re both ubiquitous in people’s front yards for similar nostalgic reasons—or maybe instead because they’re so outrageous when you know where you are. -more-
Due to overzealous use of the spell-checking function, the name of Pacific Film Archive house pianist Jon Mirsalis was inadvertently printed as Jon Misrules in an Aug. 24 story about avant-garde cinema. We regret the error. -more-
Entering the Ashby Stage for George Charbak’s TheaterInSearch production of the (very) ancient Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, the spectators see a seated, veiled figure, sculptural, atop a model ziggurat, surrounded by gaping masks of bearded Assyrians on the back walls, as strains of the oud (evocatively played by Larry Klein) resound through the hall. -more-
“We’ve been exporting democracy to other countries around the world—and maybe we ran out! ... a soupcon of democracy, as they like to say at Chez Panisse ... I’m a monologist—and democracy is a dialogue. At least!” -more-
A recent driving tour through the wilds of Northern California and Southern Oregon only reaffirmed what I already knew: that Bay Area cinephiles are lucky, especially in these dull summer months of big-budget drivel, to live in a place where film artistry is not only appreciated, but relatively plentiful. -more-
Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has always toyed with a minimalist aesthetic, an approach he derived from the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. It is a technique that calls for patience, both from the filmmaker and his audience, with long, meditative shots that allow characters and themes to gradually reveal themselves before the camera. -more-
We all need a sanity break from Berkeley every now and then, but not everyone can fly off to the Seychelles or to Switzerland when the urge to flee is upon us. -more-
Glenn Keator talked to the Merritt College Aesthetic Pruning Club’s annual symposium last week about planting in containers, and here are some of the things he said and evoked: -more-