News

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was sent to the Planet on Friday evening by a veteran of the Free Speech Movement, using a pseudonym for reasons which will be obvious. -more-

Dedicating one traffic lane for fast buses for much of the 16 or so miles between San Leandro and downtown Berkeley will get people out of their polluting vehicles and into speedy, comfortable, ecological public transport, says the AC Transit Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal. -more-

Zachary Running Wolf, pointing to two little known UC documents, said that the university has admitted that the place where it plans to build its $125 million Student Athlete High Performance Center is a Native American burial ground. -more-

The Oakland Unified School District, struggling to regain local control after nearly five years of state receivership, was sent into turmoil at the end of last week with the abrupt and unexpected resignation announcement of State Administrator Kimberly Statham. -more-

Two civic bodies meet Wednesday to hash out transportation policies for Berkeley’s new downtown plan. -more-

Oakland City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee found themselves more divided this week than the council’s Blue Ribbon Housing Commission, with the committee’s four members—Chairperson Jane Brunner, City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, and Councilmembers Henry Chang and Larry Reid—voting to accept the commission’s 105-page report and pass it on to the full council, but without a recommendation. -more-

UC Regents are scheduled to vote Wednesday to approve a lease on an Emeryville building to house a federally funded $250 million biofuel program. -more-

Government health officials who contend there’s no evidence of toxic health threats to most workers at UC Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station (RFS) found themselves before a skeptical audience Thursday. -more-

A fire-starting burglar and a six-year-old with matches topped the recent hotspots for the Berkeley Fire Department. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) is investigating options to move its administrative staff to its West Campus location, according to school officials. -more-

Here’s looking at you kid: George Pauly, 74, founder of the “Tely Rep,” one of the last art-house cinemas on Telegraph Avenue’s “cinema row,” is dead. He died Aug. 27 at Summit Hospital after a two-month shoot-out with multiple organ failure. -more-

They sang, they spoke, they demanded, they were funny, serious—the group of some 100 people assembled by Code Pink at the Oakland Federal Building on Tuesday were doing whatever they could to tell the powers-that-be to stop funding the war in Iraq. -more-

Despite a number of residents urging the City Council to oppose it, councilmembers unanimously approved a $396,000 county-federal grant aimed at delivering customized transit information to people living near Telegraph Avenue, San Pablo Avenue and the Ashby Avenue BART Station. (Councilmember Max Anderson was absent.) -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education began the search for a new superintendent for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) Wednesday. -more-

Former Berkeley Housing Director Steve Barton, pressured to resign after what some say was a cursory investigation by the city attorney into problems at the Berkeley Housing Authority, was back before the City Council on Tuesday to accept a proclamation honoring him as a “stalwart and creative leader in achieving the city of Berkeley’s affordable housing mission.” -more-

Superior Court Judge Richard Keller Wednesday denied UC Berkeley’s request for a court order ending the tree-sit at Memorial Stadium. -more-

The owner of the proposed Muse Art House and Mint Cafe on Telegraph Avenue said that the project might be dead after a ruling by the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) Thursday. -more-

The laptop thief who stole eight laptops from eight customers at Cafe Strada on Bancroft Avenue on Sunday evening is still at large. -more-

The Berkeley Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union plans to protest this Saturday the lawsuit by Verizon Wireless against the City of Berkeley, an attempt to overturn the city’s protective ordinance regarding cell phone antennas. -more-

By Judith Scherr -more-