Amir Hassan, a 9-year-old Emerson elementary school student is dead, his mother has been hospitalized, and detectives are focusing their investigations on her, police said. -more-
The hands putting up the brightly colored rainbows, hearts and flowers on the walls of the library at Emerson Elementary School Thursday belonged to teachers, friends and classmates of Amir Hassan, the fourth-grader who was found dead inside his Shattuck Avenue apartment Wednesday morning. -more-
With a smile and a soupçon of praise for the legal talent arrayed before her, Judge Barbara J. Miller retired to her chambers Thursday afternoon to ponder the fate of UC Berkeley’s stadium area development plans. -more-
While the city’s appraiser said the air rights over a rebuilt City Center Garage is worth $850,000, a developer planning a building adjacent to the garage valued the rights the developer would buy at $22,250. -more-
Alta Bates/Summit nurses and their supporters were walking the picket line Thursday in the second day of what the California Nurse’s Association calls “the biggest RN strike this decade.” -more-
A widely publicized recent poll that reportedly showed that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is losing support among “likely Oakland voters” was not intended as a poll on success or failure of the Dellums administration, was never intended for release to the public, and the organization which commissioned it is now conducting an internal investigation to see how its results got released to political columnists Phil Matier and Andy Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle. -more-
On Monday, Oct. 1, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier & Ross reported selected results of the David Binder poll concerning Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums. -more-
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums meets with North Oakland residents this Saturday, holding a city charter-mandated community town hall meeting from 10 a.m. to noon at the Peralta Elementary School, 460 63rd St. -more-
UC Berkeley plans a major overhaul of landmarked Bowles Hall, and they’re looking for an architect to show how to do it. -more-
Visitors to Berkeley High School will now have to show photo identification to enter the campus. -more-
The Binational Health Week, organized locally by the Berkeley Organizing Congregation for Action (BOCA), starts today (Friday) to promote mental health and physical fitness in the city. -more-
Soon oh very soon, we’re going to change this world. -more-
Some Berkeley school board members expressed concern that Berkeley High School (BHS) did not meet the benchmark for the 2007 Academic Performance Index (API) scores. -more-
A student at Emerson Elementary School in Berkeley is dead, his mother has been hospitalized, and police are questioning her as the suspect in the boy’s death. -more-
Native Americans and their supporters rallied on the UC Berkeley campus Friday, demanding that the university return the remains of Indian ancestors so that they can be buried according to custom. -more-
The question of public comment at council meetings is back before the council today (Tuesday), with Mayor Tom Bates adding greater opportunity for public comment than in earlier iterations of his plan, but not enough to satisfy SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Organized for Library Defense), the organization that had threatened to sue the city for skirting the state’s open meeting laws with inadequate opportunities for the public to speak at public meetings. -more-
Anti-tobacco advocate Stan Glantz spoke about tobacco money and tainted research at the University of California at last Tuesday’s Talkin’ Tobacco De-Cal class at UC Berkeley. -more-
While the reaction to AC Transit’s ambitious Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal has not stirred up the sort of public controversy in Oakland and San Leandro that it has in Berkeley, interviews with city officials show that the transit district may have a way to go before the development of a BRT plan will win approval in those cities as well. -more-
Unable to defeat Tom Bates in a challenge at the polls last year, Berkeley tree-sitter Zachary Running Wolf launched a second campaign Monday, this one aimed at a recall election to unseat the mayor. -more-
Registered nurses plan to walk off their jobs at two Berkeley hospitals in Berkeley starting at 7 a.m. Wednesday as the start of a two-day job action. -more-
The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) holds its 43rd meeting next week, with the topic a perennial hot button issue: the role of historic buildings in tomorrow’s downtown cityscape. -more-
When Nicole Sawaya steps into place as Pacifica Radio’s executive director—part-time in mid-November and full-time in December—she’ll have a couple of things that former executive director Greg Guma wished he’d had: one is a unanimous board solidly behind him and the second is a multi-year contract. -more-
Berkeley developers Ruegg & Ellsworth will ask the city zoning board for a permit to construct a 34,158-square-foot, five-story building with 44 apartments, 18 parking spaces and retail space at 2526 Durant Ave. after moving the historic Blood House from the site to 2508 Regent St. -more-
The Berkeley Board of Education will appoint six students to the city’s youth commission at Wednesday’s school board meeting out of the 13 that have applied to the district. -more-
When Native America Calling—a live, daily call-in radio program based in Albuquerque, N.M.—started more than 12 years ago, they had a hard time gaining people’s trust. -more-
This is one of the most stressful parts of the year for seniors at Berkeley High School. This is the time where first semester grades really count, this is the time where the idea of college hits you. This is the time where everything you do will make a difference for the next four years of your life. -more-
Just before the turn of the last century, the United States entered into a war with Spain which was to cost the lives of more than 4,000 Americans and many more Cubans. Spaniards and residents of the Philippines, and which would lead to decades of colonial domination by the United States. It is generally conceded that a major factor which precipitated the entry of this country into the Spanish-American war was the role of what was called “the yellow press,” the sensationalist newspapers which with lurid headlines and passionate front page editorializing whipped up a popular frenzy against Spain. The Hearst newspaper empire played a major role in this effort, which was a guaranteed circulation builder in those days. -more-
At a concert on Sunday night we encountered a friend in the seat behind us who has been active on multiple city commissions for many years. I asked him if I’d missed anything, since I’d been in Pasadena over the weekend. He said he didn’t know, because he’d been out of town too. I asked if it was a vacation. “It was outside of Berkeley,” he said. “That’s all it takes to make it a vacation.” But at intermission time I spotted him chatting with another commissioner, and threatened jokingly to bust them for a violation of the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law. -more-
Two pieces of e-mail arrived in my inbox on Sunday. One was about the recently-launched effort to recall Mayor Tom Bates. It asked “What is Tom Bates doing wrong?” The second was for an Oct. 15 benefit for the Elmwood Neighborhood Association, which is suing the city for its approval of the huge restaur-ant and bar complex at the old Wright’s Garage. I couldn’t help but laugh, because this e-mail had so simply answered the question posed by the first. If Tom Bates had been doing his job, ordinary people wouldn’t have to sue our city to get justice. They wouldn’t have to stage benefits when a letter to the mayor would have sufficed. -more-
As Halcyon Neighborhood Association (HNA) celebrates its 15th anniversary, we’d like to share with the larger community the principles that have allowed us to achieve so much in our corner of south Berkeley. -more-
Last May, in my daughter’s Berkeley High School music class, a fellow classmate, Herbert, walked out the door with my daughter’s laptop computer, iPod, Timbuktu bag and cell phone. The other students said, “Oh, he is always stealing.” She saved for a year working at the Pacific Center and back stage at school to buy the laptop; I am a single mom. The teacher witnessed it and reported it to the school security guard. -more-
A far-reaching attack on the zoning protections of West Berkeley is being contrived by a small group of developers and real estate brokers. It is coming at us disguised as a either a new West Berkeley Business Improvement District (BID) or a Community Benefits District (CBD), which the organizers would control and use to lobby for zoning changes to gentrify the industrial areas. This lobbying would be financed by taxes collected from the many West Berkeley businesses and residents opposed to their goals. That’s the cleverest part of their plan: it makes the potential victims pay for it. And they’ve already gotten $10,000 from the city to organize it. The group behind it calls themselves the West Berkeley Business Alliance (WBBA), but their organization does not in any way represent industries, artisans and artists, which make up the majority of businesses in that area. -more-
I couldn’t help being shaken by the “accidental death” of Carol Ann Gotbaum, in a holding cell at a Phoenix airport. From what I can gather, she acted in an erratic and irate manner, a similar manner to a mentally ill person in crisis. It brought back memories of friends and acquaintances who are mentally ill and who died either while being restrained or in some other way because of the illness. -more-
On Monday, a cardboard sign in the window of the Halal Market on San Pablo at University announced that it was closing. -more-
Bush administration neo-conservatives, allied with a group of U.S. senators, appear to have successfully torpedoed the upcoming Bush administration-sponsored Middle East peace conference. Initially billed as a gathering that would propel Israel and the Palestinians toward a “final-status” agreement, the November conference’s goals have now been reduced to little more than establishing a “set of principles” as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it. -more-
When the Berkeley Planning Department proposed last January to re-zone the West Berkeley properties occupied by Urban Ore and the city’s transfer station—two of northern Alameda County’s recycling hubs—for auto dealerships, it might have seemed that the bureau had exhausted its capacity to dream up bizarre land use schemes. That impression was dispelled last Wednesday evening, as senior planner Matt Taecker presented the Downtown Area Planning Advisory Committee (DAPAC—sounds like daypack) with a vision of a high-rise downtown as surreal as the notion of replacing Berkeley’s major recycling facilities with auto dealers. -more-
It was a couple of throwaway sentences deep into the second page of an Oakland Tribune murder arrest story, so innocuous that if you read it, you probably hardly noticed. And that’s what makes it so insidious, why it should make us worried, and why the police practice involved ought to be brought to a halt. -more-
2206 Jefferson Ave. in central Berkeley is a charming enigma of an old Berkeley house. Precisely when it was built and how it arrived where it is are matters of some mystery. -more-
Some promising plant sales and garden events will happen over the next couple of weeks. One thing to remember about plant sales: Most of them accept payment by cash or check only, as it’s not feasible for them to set up a credit-card facility for such infrequent events. So remember your checkbook along with your walking shoes and some cartons or recycling boxes to tote your plants. -more-
For those of you who’ve been reading this column for some time, you know that I have what might be called a conflicted relationship with the building codes. Basically they bug me. I’m glad they’re there but they still bug me. -more-
For a couple of decades at least, Joe and I have lurked around a few of the little stands of the weed Nicotiana glauca, tree tobacco, that are scattered along Del Puerto Canyon Road just east of I5. Short lurks are part of our usual spring day-trip itinerary along that route from Del Puerto Canyon to Mines Road because we might see Costa’s hummingbirds feeding on the tall shrubs’ tubular yellow flowers, and who knows what other hummers might show up while they’re migrating? -more-
Singer and actor Nicholas Bearde, longtime Rockridge resident, one of Bobby McFerrin’s original (and ongoing) Voicestra vocalists and a favorite at Bay Area clubs and parties, will record his third CD live, performing at Yoshi’s Jazzhouse in Jack London Square Tuesday evening. -more-
Cinema 16 is a UK company bringing greater visibility to the short film through a series of DVD releases showcasing some of the best works in the form. -more-
Sergio Leone is often thought of as an ironic and humorous filmmaker, a mischievous genre deconstructionist. But though his films have plenty of humor and wit and mischief, they also contain great beauty and depth and insight. Though he may have worked most famously in a genre largely considered pulp—the Western—but Leone was one of the great cinematic artists. -more-
Greg Brockbank, who plays Dick Cheney in By George, It’s War!, composer Dale Polissar’s new satirical musical comedy about the Bush administration, says he tries to put a “tough, Republican look” on his face while swinging his golf club in the Bohemian Grove during the number “The Republican Men’s Chorus” as the group sings, “We’re just hard-working, regular guys trying to make an honest buck; and if we have to poke our fingers in a few people’s eyes, and cut a few throats, what the fuck?” -more-
2206 Jefferson Ave. in central Berkeley is a charming enigma of an old Berkeley house. Precisely when it was built and how it arrived where it is are matters of some mystery. -more-
Some promising plant sales and garden events will happen over the next couple of weeks. One thing to remember about plant sales: Most of them accept payment by cash or check only, as it’s not feasible for them to set up a credit-card facility for such infrequent events. So remember your checkbook along with your walking shoes and some cartons or recycling boxes to tote your plants. -more-
For those of you who’ve been reading this column for some time, you know that I have what might be called a conflicted relationship with the building codes. Basically they bug me. I’m glad they’re there but they still bug me. -more-
When the Bunraku (National Puppet Theater of Japan) begins a performance—as they will this Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. in Zellerbach Hall, for the first time since 1983—a particular kind of magic takes over. -more-
Featuring Richard Roundtree—“Shaft” on the silver screen—and TV star Viveca A. Fox in her theatrical debut, Whatever She Wants, a romantic comedy by Je’Caryous Johnson, is onstage this week, Thursday through Sunday, at the Paramount Theater in Oakland. -more-
For a couple of decades at least, Joe and I have lurked around a few of the little stands of the weed Nicotiana glauca, tree tobacco, that are scattered along Del Puerto Canyon Road just east of I5. Short lurks are part of our usual spring day-trip itinerary along that route from Del Puerto Canyon to Mines Road because we might see Costa’s hummingbirds feeding on the tall shrubs’ tubular yellow flowers, and who knows what other hummers might show up while they’re migrating? -more-
