The city will pursue its lawsuit against the University of California. -more-
A closed-door Berkeley City Council session set for 5 p.m. today (Tuesday) could freeze the public out of the process and result in a deficient compromise settlement of the December 2006 City of Berkeley v. University of California lawsuit, Councilmembers Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington say. -more-
It was a decidedly mixed message for Oakland and Berkeley schools in the heavily anticipated Academic Performance Index scores released by the California Department of Education at mid-day Friday, with BUSD schools dropping 5 points overall (752 to 747) from 2006 to 2007, and OUSD schools gaining 7 points (651 to 658). -more-
Six new out-of-district students will be able to transfer to the Berkeley public schools this school year since the Alameda County Board of Education overturned the Berkeley Unified School District’s (BUSD) decision to deny them the transfers. -more-
Berkeley Rent Board Member Chris Kavanagh should “step down immediately” if he is not a legal resident of Berkeley, said a statement issued Friday by the Berkeley Green Party. -more-
For nearly six years after he got out of prison in 2000, 40-year-old Ernie Johnson kept coming up empty whenever he applied for a job. Even as he checked the “yes” box on job application forms that asked whether he had ever been convicted of a felony, he knew his chance of landing a job was slim to none. -more-
Volunteer extraordinaire John Stansfield passed away on Aug. 18 at the age of 79 from complications of pneumonia. He was the man to whom visitors and reporters alike would turn for answers at the Berkeley History Center. His enthusiasm about Berkeley’s history was absolutely contagious. -more-
Molly Fraker will join the Berkeley Public Education Foundation today (Tuesday) as its new executive director. -more-
The Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) will meet Thursday at a new time and with a new secretary. -more-
With support from two key East Bay representatives, State Senate President Don Perata’s SB67 sideshow 30-day car confiscation legislation easily passed the state assembly on a 74-0 vote last week. -more-
It began with a flimsy yellow ribbon and ended with a riot, two arrests and a courtroom hearing. -more-
Judge Barbara Miller ruled late Thursday that the chain-link fence at the UC stadium oak grove does not violate the preliminary injunction against any alteration at the site. -more-
The first day of the new school year went off without a hitch for Berkeley public schools Wednes-day. -more-
Oakland Unified School District board members were informed on Wednesday night that a $1.4 million district deficit in the adopted 2007-08 budget—which district officials had said had been whittled down from a projected $4.3 million deficit last June—was now up to $4.7 million in updated figures recently compiled by the district’s interim chief financial officer. -more-
The battle lines over just how much and how high new development should rise in downtown Berkeley are growing, with UC Berkeley weighing in on the side of greater density. -more-
The joint subcommitee of the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and the Downtown Area Planning Advisory Commission (DAPAC) met Monday to develop a final version of the Historic Preservation and Urban Design chapter which DAPAC is scheduled to consider this fall. -more-
Oakland Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s AB45 Oakland school bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on a 10-7 vote on Thursday afternoon, bringing the Oakland Unified School District a step closer to possible return to full local control. -more-
Each August, fans of many top-ranked college football teams sit down to scrutinize an all-important statistic. -more-
For openers, whining (or whinging, if you’re British). I very seldom try to take a whole week off, and even then I try to fill this space via e-mail if I can. In fact, the last time I tried this, I was in Oxford when the University of California at Berkeley suckered one of its devoted alumni into letting them off the hook on the City of Berkeley’s righteous lawsuit challenging just one of the university’s several mammoth expansion schemes which are proposed over the next 20 years. Planet reporters did a good job of covering the fireworks, but it would have been fun to see them close up. -more-
On Wednesday, Aug. 22, the Berkeley School Board voted to charge youth groups “only” $35 per hour to use the new field at East Campus. This is “only” 300 percent higher than what these groups currently pay to use other grass fields in Berkeley. To put this in perspective, if BHS baseball and softball teams were required to pay this same amount for the City of Berkeley fields that they use it would cost about $300-$400 per player per season, just for field costs. This would be on top of the expenses for uniforms, equipment, umpires, coaches, etc. -more-
I am a student at Berkeley City College and am quite distressed at the cost of books, especially the ones sold in the schools own bookstore, and one policy in particular which I feel is totally unfair: the buy-back and return policy. As students, we have seen the results of state budget cuts with fewer classes, the increase in fees and the painfully high cost of our textbooks, no teaching supplies and more, but to be ripped off by our own school is terrible. First, if I buy let’s say a $100 book and return it, still wrapped four days later the bookstore will pay me only $50 for it, then turn around and sell it again for $100 to the next unsuspecting student. That has got to be criminal, but what’s worse is returning your old textbooks. -more-
The question of Kitchen Democracy (KD) has emerged in an important way in Berkeley over the last few months; and we need to understand its potential impact on what we are trying to do. Kitchen Democracy is a website that purports to constitute a connection between citizens and city hall. -more-
I am so thankful to Dan Marks of the Berkeley Planning Department for pointing out how the planners know better than the citizens what is best for everyone. It is so relaxing just to be able to leave all the decisions to the professionals. Why should we criticize them for favoring big developers when only two or three of their 100 or so taxpayer-funded staff spends time on Big Projects? Of course the rest of them are busy handing out forms like the ones I filled out when I moved my law office from one office suite to another, asking how much food I would sell on the new premises and whether I planned to sell alcoholic beverages. One always has to watch for lawyers selling alcoholic beverages to minors in law offices close to the impressionable University of California students. I had, of course, thought that the admissions standards were too strict for the university to be accepting the kind of person who would walk into a law office looking to order a gin and tonic (and as yet, none have), but our city bureaucrats know better than we do about such things, and the best thing is to let them do their jobs (while envying them their health insurance.) -more-
Since the invasion of Iraq, in March of 2003, George W. Bush’s rationale for the occupation has continually shifted. On Aug. 22, the White House once again changed its criterion for success. As disturbing as this is, what’s more disturbing is the new justification: keep Iraq from becoming another Vietnam. -more-
Although you wouldn’t expect a book about metabolic ecology to be a page-turner, I found John Whitfield’s recent In the Beat of a Heart: Life, Energy, and the Unity of Nature engrossing. Whitfield, a British science journalist, explains how metabolism relates to size, volume, and surface area. Along the way, he looks at why bats outlive mice, whether humans are allotted a fixed number of heartbeats in their lifetime (astronaut Neil Armstrong said that if that was true, he was damned if he was going to waste any of his jogging), and the tragic fate of Tusko the elephant. -more-
This is a tale about politics, influence, money and murder. It began more than 40 years ago with a bloodletting so massive no one quite knows how many people died. Half a million? A million? Through four decades the story has left a trail of misery and terror. Last month it claimed four peasants, one of them a 27-year-old mother. -more-
If the items on the Crooks and Liars progressive blog are a bellwether of what a good portion of the nation is thinking and talking about, then for a brief period this week, at least, the nation turned its eyes on Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho. -more-
The address 2411-31 Russell St. in southeast Berkeley is a small cluster of mid-century townhouses on the edge of a fashionable neighborhood where stately brown shingle and period revival houses claim most of the curb appeal and attention. -more-
Containers for planting are limited only by your imagination—and a few realities, what plants need. -more-
The Europeans have had it all over us for some decades when it comes to energy efficiency. This might have something to do with a political attitude toward wasting energy or sheer economy. In any event, our European brothers and sisters are more inclined to pinch a BTU (that a British Thermal Unit for those of you new to the energy game). -more-
At the top of the hill for the Solano Stroll, C.Z. and the Bon Vivants will be pumping out Zydeco and Cajun music for listening and dancing. It’s the third time the popular group will do the Stroll, and as fiddler Catherine Matovich said, “It’s been more fun every time—and nicer up there at the top. People can dance, then go into Andronico’s for something to drink, to keep from passing out!” -more-
The only way to beat this thing ... is to leave nothing behind, nothing unsaid, nothing undone—use it all up! (But I’m scared to death!)” -more-
Although you wouldn’t expect a book about metabolic ecology to be a page-turner, I found John Whitfield’s recent In the Beat of a Heart: Life, Energy, and the Unity of Nature engrossing. Whitfield, a British science journalist, explains how metabolism relates to size, volume, and surface area. Along the way, he looks at why bats outlive mice, whether humans are allotted a fixed number of heartbeats in their lifetime (astronaut Neil Armstrong said that if that was true, he was damned if he was going to waste any of his jogging), and the tragic fate of Tusko the elephant. -more-
I’m dying! Bring in the gravediggers. Let the mourners come.” On a set out of a Gothic fairytale (designed by Kim A. Tolman)—a crypt with a crazy rose window above, a hovering eye and the Mona Lisa with her face half covered by a hand as she gazes out over the audience, a chessboard below as flooring—Saul Strange (David Usner, himself a skydiver) writhes on his seeming deathbed, rigged with parachute lines, in an upbeat final agony, attended by his family with painted faces (and occasionally a fantastic creature, a kind of celestial butoh drag queen, played by Kinji Hayashi). -more-
Time is running out to see a superb and fascinating photography exhibit at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. “Think While You Shoot!” a career-spanning retrospective of the tremendously varied body of work by Hungarian-born photographer Martin Munkacsi, runs through Sept. 16. -more-
The address 2411-31 Russell St. in southeast Berkeley is a small cluster of mid-century townhouses on the edge of a fashionable neighborhood where stately brown shingle and period revival houses claim most of the curb appeal and attention. -more-
Containers for planting are limited only by your imagination—and a few realities, what plants need. -more-
The Europeans have had it all over us for some decades when it comes to energy efficiency. This might have something to do with a political attitude toward wasting energy or sheer economy. In any event, our European brothers and sisters are more inclined to pinch a BTU (that a British Thermal Unit for those of you new to the energy game). -more-
