Saying the university’s “compromise” plan to settle city and community lawsuits over building a new athletic facility next to the football stadium was inadequate, the City Council voted 7-1-1 in closed session Tuesday to turn down a settlement offer and move ahead to trial. -more-

Michele Lawrence’s golf clubs ride along with her in the back of her silver 2004 Volkswagen station wagon wherever she goes. -more-

The Planning Commission on Wednesday voted to drastically scale back a proposal to rezone parts of West Berkeley to allow car dealerships, appeasing critics who said the plan would displace recycling and building businesses by raising property values in the rezoned areas. -more-

A few Southwest Berkeley residents concerned about a proposed Community Benefits District (CBD)—an area where property owners will be taxed for particular services—called a meeting at the end of August to ask their neighbors what they think of the plan. -more-

Pedestrian pathways, high towers and hotels dominated the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) meeting Tuesday as landscape architects, urban planners and UC Berkeley officials fielded questions from city commissioners and community members about their vision for a better downtown. -more-

Parimal “Perry” Patel of Palo Alto-based BPR Properties told DAPAC Monday about a plan to renovate the Shattuck Hotel and expand the building to house 320 rooms, part of which involves the construction of a new tower at the rear end of the historic building. -more-

Christopher Hollis smiled and laughed in court today as prosecutors added another charge in a case in which he faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in state prison on charges that he murdered his close friend Meleia Willis-Starbuck in Berkeley two years ago. -more-

Officials of Children’s Hospital an-nounced plans this week to rebuild their aging hospital facility in Oakland, but whether the hospital will actually be built inside the city limits, and whether the announcement will settle the hospital’s dispute with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors over a proposed property tax increase ballot initiative, remains to be seen. -more-

Business for Better Government, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee, should file its campaign disclosure forms in Berkeley and not with Alameda County as it has done since 2002, an Aug. 15 letter from the state Fair Political Practices Commission says. -more-

Two major pieces of Berkeley property have changed hands, the Hotel Durant at 2600 Durant Ave. and the Berkeley Tower, a seven-story office building at 2015 Shattuck Ave. -more-

Berkeley High senior Rio Bauce was sworn in by Alameda County Superior Court Judge John True as the new student school board representative Wednesday. -more-

A spokesperson for the proposed Wayans Brothers Oakland Army Base project says that despite the impression being given in some local media outlets, the Wayans Brothers are “absolutely committed to Oakland” and their Army Base proposal is not dead but is only being modified. -more-

When the UC Berkeley vs. Tennessee football game concluded Saturday and 72,500 fans poured out of Memorial Stadium, John Brandt of Davis found himself in what he called a “dangerous situation,” with gates on the west side of Memorial Stadium off-limits. -more-

Berkeley High School football practice was noisy and chaotic. The field was shared with the woman’s field hockey team, a jogger circling the perimeter and random groups of children throwing footballs. -more-

By Steven Finacom -more-

A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE -more-

On Tuesday, Sept. 4, I attended the public comment before the City Council on the university’s proposed Memorial Stadium athletic center and other interrelated projects. Opponents of the university project outnumbered supporters by two or three to one. But the repeated misuse of the word “cooperation” by supporters of the UC project during that event compels me to comment. -more-

For over two years, SuperBOLD and the First Amendment Project have been working towards a more democratic public comment procedure in Berkeley. In April 2006 the First Amendment Project threatened a lawsuit if the city did not discontinue the use of a lottery for choosing speakers at public meetings. The lottery denied some persons willing to speak the right to do so. It also resulted in some agenda items not being addressed by the public. -more-

Did Israel know that its settlement policies in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were illegal? Yes, according to a senior legal official who warned the Labor government of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in September 1967, “that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” -more-

State Sen. Don Perata’s SB67 sideshow vehicle tow bill passed in the Senate this week with no dissenting votes, not surprisingly, and now goes to the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for consideration. It will not be surprising if Mr. Schwarzenegger signs it and thus propels it back into law, but it will be sad if he does. Fluidly, easily, without so much as a whimper of complaint from the usual civil liberties lobbies, California lops off a branch of the tree of Constitutional protections—the right of a citizen to due process before the seizure of property. But since the sideshows are so unpopular and the sideshow participants voiceless and unrepresented, we hardly think it matters, and wonder why this columnist—alone amongst all other sources—continues to make a fuss about it. -more-

A hundred years ago, a sizable population of refugees from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire made the East Bay its permanent home. Among the new arrivals were many Italian families, a good number of whom settled in West Berkeley. -more-

Watering plants in containers is both easier and harder than it seems. Everyone has a vice about this, generally a tendency to either overwater or underwater. (If your tendency either way is impossible to reform, you might consider underwater plants. Go on over to Albany Aquarium on San Pablo Avenue just north of Solano and have a look at some nicely planted tanks first.) -more-

Everybody has a little internal list of least favorite ways to die. Some of these are rational, but mostly they’re derived from some fantasy, childhood experience or errant datum we’ve chanced upon. Perhaps we were children and heard an awful story. Maybe we encountered saw someone killed in a movie—lots of those, aren’t there?! Perhaps it was simply a story related by a friend. Regardless of the source we all have these. -more-