News

The easygoing truce that prevailed during much of the debate over downtown land-use policy blew apart Wednesday, fissuring along familiar fault lines. -more-

While Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee members have waged prolonged struggles over landmarks and tall buildings, they voted unanimously twice Monday night, approving two more chapters of the new downtown plan. -more-

Berkeley High School has dropped a plan to ask visitors to provide photo identification to enter the campus after some parents complained that it was unwelcoming and discriminatory. -more-

The law governing Berkeley’s condominium conversion, revised multiple times over some three decades, is likely to undergo more changes in the next month or so. -more-

A dozen protesters gathered Tuesday morning outside the building where UC Berkeley was celebrating its embrace of Dow Chemical. -more-

It was just a little rain three weeks ago, but enough to stop up a drain and cause flooding at the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library bookstore in city-owned Sather Gate Mall. -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is reprinted with permission from the San Francisco Bay Guardian. -more-

A group of South Berkeley neighbors will picket the Verizon Wireless store on 1109 University Ave. from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday to protest the company’s plans to install cell-phone antennas atop the UC Storage building at 2721 Shattuck Ave. -more-

Formerly incarcerated individuals will have the chance to learn how to clear up their criminal records and “put the past behind them” when Congressmember Barbara Lee and several East Bay officeholders and agencies host the third annual Clean Slate Summit this weekend. -more-

Robbery -more-

CHIANG MAI—The world needs to hear from Aung San Suu Kyi—even if it’s just a three-minute statement. -more-

… poco maestoso -more-

On Monday a Fremont judge granted an injunction that broadens his earlier order, which banished one named tree-sitter, to include all occupants of the trees, as well as to bar their supporters from the Memorial Stadium oak grove. -more-

The number of Berkeley homeowners and businesses with rooftop solar collectors could multiply in the next few years, if a complex financing proposal pans out. -more-

The citizens’ oversight committee for the Peralta Community College District Measure A facilities bonds, which has not issued required minutes or a report on its activities for the year and a half since the bond measure was passed, descended into something close to disarray this month with confusion over its membership. -more-

Point towers are out for downtown Berkeley and 10-story apartment buildings are in—or eight floors for office and commercial buildings. That’s the solid consensus emerging from Monday morning’s meeting of DAPAC’s Land Use subcommittee—the six-member panel tasked with writing the new downtown plan’s central chapter. -more-

Dow Chemical, the company whose very name sparked violent student protests during the Vietnam War era, is coming back to the UC Berkeley campus. -more-

On a typical foggy Friday morning, just before 10 a.m., mothers and a few grandmothers wheel their toddlers to the front of the West Branch Library, waiting for the doors of the library to open admitting them to the toddler story hour. Once inside, strollers are deposited along the short hallway into the community meeting room. -more-

Alameda County election officials are saying that letters sent out to county voters this week indicating the recipients were not registered by party was done by mistake, and no changes have been actually made to registered voters’ party affiliation. -more-

A group of LeConte neighbors turned up at the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) meeting Thursday to protest a proposed three-story second unit at 2837 Fulton St. that, they said, was out of character with the neighborhood and would have visual and shadow impacts on the adjacent LeConte Elementary schoolyard. -more-

The half-billion-dollar biofuel contract between a British oil company and UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), and the University of Illinois should be signed “within the next couple of weeks.” -more-

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) will vote on whether to nominate the Berkeley High School (BHS) Campus Historic District, at 1980 Allston Way, to the National Register of Historic places Thursday. -more-

Robbery -more-