Posted 1/21—Berkeley Design Review Committee members gave a qualified thumbs up Thursday night to plans for a controversial and long-delayed condominium project on University Avenue. -more-
Posted 1/20—Concord, New Hampshire, Thursday, Jan. 3, 8:30 a.m., 4°F. It’s hard to believe we actually get votes and elect presidents this way—standing on street corners waving signs and yelling, driving miles and walking miles and missing three dozen people, talking to a dozen more who aren’t even slightly interested just so we can talk to one or two people who might possibly, with a lot more coaxing and contact, be persuaded to vote our way. -more-
Posted 1/19—While Albany is preparing to take an aggressive stand in opposition to aerial spaying intended to eradicate the light brown apple moth—epiphyas postvitattana—Berkeley has adopted a wait-and-see attitude. -more-
Faced with some two dozen irate small business owners, the Berkeley City Council reversed itself Tuesday, backing away from a December decision to charge bars, restaurants and liquor stores $467 each year to inspect for -more-
The mayors of Berkeley, Oakland and Emeryville, along with the UC Berkeley chancellor and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, met under the TV cameras’ glare in early December to unveil the East Bay Green Corridor Part-nership. -more-
Berkeley city officials turned thumbs down on a request by UC Berkeley officials to build yet another fence surrounding the tree-sitters encamped near Memorial Stadium. -more-
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums flipped the script in his first State of the City address Monday night—as the hip-hoppers like to say—focusing on policy recommendations for the coming year rather than on listing accomplishments for the old, and largely abandoning the rhetorical flourishes for which he is best known, replacing them with a more sober and businesslike recitation of details. -more-
Brandishing posters, placards and signs at the Berkeley Board of Education meeting Wednesday, more than 30 Berkeley High School teachers urged board members to construct the new classrooms approved for the high school by August. -more-
Rebuilding Berkeley’s therapeutic warm pool hit troubled waters Tuesday, when a City Council majority balked at expressing its intent to place a bond measure for the pool on the November ballot without first having details on operational costs. -more-
Last month, Berkeley lost one of the individuals who make Berkeley Berkeley. Robert “Bob” (to some) Kinzie Ewing passed on to the great atheistic beyond. He was 75. A Berkeley resident since 1957, Robert spent a quarter century among the “old men” at Peet’s on Vine and on “The Bench” at Fat Apples debating the Constitution, the press and human rights. -more-
Posted 1/17—Brandishing posters, placards and signs at the Berkeley Board of Education meeting Wednesday, more than 30 Berkeley High School teachers urged board members to construct the new classrooms approved for the high school by August. -more-
Posted 1/16/08—For many years the Bay Area-based Sunset Magazine, self-described “magazine of Western living,” has been sponsoring “idea houses” in partnership with builders and manufacturers. -more-
Posted 1/16/08—Faced with some two dozen upset small business owners, the Berkeley City Council reversed itself Tuesday, backing away from a December decision to charge bars, restaurants and liquor stores $467 each year to inspect for substandard conditions such as graffiti, sidewalk drinking, sales to minors and the like. -more-
Between November and April each year, as California newts migrate in large numbers across South Park Drive in Tilden Park, the road is closed to motor vehicles. As if on cue, these small brown and orange amphibians emerge from their summer homes and strut clumsily along the roadway. -more-
The corridor that stretches from Oakland to Richmond could become a vibrant, green version of Silicon Valley, attracting venture capital and federal dollars to support green industry and green jobs. -more-
Is Berkeley going dry? Dorothee Mitrani-Bell said there’s cause for concern in light of rising city regulatory and financial pressures. -more-
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) pollutes San Francisco Bay with illegal levels of metals and nitrogen compounds, charge environmentalists who have filed notice of their intention to sue. -more-
Troubled Oakland homeowners packed the floor and gallery of the Oakland City Council chambers Saturday morning to gather information from city, state, and national officials and private home counseling organizations on how to keep their dwellings from going into foreclosure. -more-
An unidentified gunman shot and killed a young Berkeley man early Saturday as he arrived outside the San Rafael club where a friend was celebrating her birthday. -more-
Bus drivers and mechanics from AC Transit’s Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 will hold a strike authorization vote on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, the first public indication of problems in contract negotiations between the 1,400 member local and the East Bay’s public bus agency. -more-
For women of a certain age, and residents of the Bay Area, “doing Fourth Street” is a favorite activity—almost a monthly ritual. -more-
Snowy egrets and coal-black cormorants roosting in trees—in Oakland? Hansel and Gretel along with the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, brought to life with a Magic Key—in Oakland? A Daimyo Oak Bonsai, in cultivation since Abraham Lincoln’s term as President—in Oakland? Venetian gondolas gliding across sparkling waters under fairy lights—in Oakland? Discover these wonders and more, in Oakland’s Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt. -more-
I have always enjoyed walking, so when I moved to Berkeley in 2004, I set out on foot right away to get to know my new home. -more-
One of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to start using Berkeley’s extensive network of pedestrian footpaths, ramps and stairways. They connect our hilly neighborhoods to commercial areas, Tilden Park, and public transportation and offer endless opportunities for leisurely hikes, scenic rambles, and fitness walks. -more-
How better to celebrate the new year than with a trip to the coast, not all the way to the Pacific, but just a few miles from home in the town of Alameda? With beaches, lawned picnic and playing areas and a scene-setting visitor center, it would be a challenge not to enjoy a day at Crown Memorial State Beach and Crab Cove! -more-
After spending the 1970s in North Beach and the 1980s in Berkeley, I moved into a house overlooking Mountain View Cemetery at the east end of Piedmont Avenue in North Oakland. -more-
Let’s build our dream candidate, shall we? Experienced, smart, African-American, from an immigrant family though born in the U.S.A., and female.....wouldn’t we all be proud to support that person, don’t we wish she were running this year? Well, folks, I’ve been there, done that, in 1972, no less. I was one of the core group (non-hierarchical, of course) who ran the Michigan primary campaign for Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, and it was a huge success: We got 5 percent of the vote. It was an enormously satisfying experience, right up until Richard Nixon was re-elected in a landslide vote. It’s all been downhill since then. -more-
“Last fall, Wolfgang Homburger wrote an opinion piece in the Berkeley Daily Planet attacking Bus Rapid Transit. Friends of BRT researched his claims and found that many of them were inaccurate. Unfortunately, the Berkeley Daily Planet failed to publish our response to Wolfgang Homburger, though it was much better researched than most of their opinion pieces—perhaps as a result of their bias against BRT.” -more-
On Thursday, Jan. 24, the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board will decide whether to allow the demolition of five sound rent-controlled housing units at 1923 Ninth St. and their replacement with condominiums. The case potentially represents a dangerous precedent in a city whose economic diversity depends on rent control, and whose single-family home prices have skyrocketed in recent years. The ZAB should follow San Francisco’s lead and only allow the demolition of sound rent-controlled housing when the units are replaced with new rent-controlled housing on-site, an outcome readily achievable at 1923 Ninth St. -more-
Appealing as Barack Obama’s politics of dialogue and inclusivity may be to the broader electorate, his non-confrontational rhetoric is troubling to some on the Left—people who are accustomed to having to do battle with corporate America for the reforms that will bring about economic and social justice. People like me. -more-
Two tragic pedestrian deaths in the past month emphasize how urgently the City of Berkeley needs a new approach to pedestrian safety. This new approach would rely on area-wide traffic calming, paid for by financial charges to drivers. Councilmember Capitelli’s appeal to the moral side of drivers is not enough to improve pedestrian safety in Berkeley. -more-
Opponents of Bus Rapid Transit complain about parking and traffic problems, but they ignore the fact that parking and traffic problems will increase whether BRT is built or not. They also ignore an issue that Berkeleyans overwhelmingly agree that we need to address: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. -more-
To make Berkeley the first pure green city in the planet, the City Council has to make all polluters compensate society for the damage caused by their pollution. The promotion of cleaner city vehicles, energy-efficient lighting, and “spare the air” days are very nice, but there is no good substitute for a comprehensive policy if we are to be serious about minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. -more-
Dispatches From the Edge is going to start off 2008 by revisiting two stories the column covered in 2007. -more-
It should come as a surprise to no one—should it?—that the issue of race resurfaced in the Democratic primary campaign as soon as that campaign dropped down I-95 from the snows of New Hampshire to the sandhills and seashores of South Carolina. However it tries to escape or pretend otherwise, the Palmetto State continues to live in the long shadow of the slaverytime plantations. -more-
For many years the Bay Area-based Sunset Magazine, self-described “magazine of Western living,” has been sponsoring “idea houses” in partnership with builders and manufacturers. -more-
A few years ago, Joe and I got a tour of Garvan Woodland Gardens, a newish botanical garden in Hot Springs, Arkansas, courtesy of Uncle Leonard and Aunt Evelyn. We were all toted around in a golf cart, and a docent told us about the origins and current state of the garden, about the plants and other features we were seeing. -more-
I’ve spent the last two months campaigning against Measure A. That’s the $300 million parcel tax on the Feb. 5 ballot which calls for Alameda County property owners to subsidize construction of a 12-story high-rise for Children’s Hospital Oakland, a private medical center serving northern California. -more-
I was interested to note that Kathleen Wong, who was (briefly) my editor at the late California Wild, has an article in the current Bay Nature about the California ground squirrel. It’s a nice summary of several decades’ work of research by Donald Owings and Richard Coss at UC Davis, who have discovered remarkable things about the relationship between ground squirrels and rattlesnakes. -more-
ReOrient, the annual festival of short plays about the Middle East, a production of Golden Thread, founded by Torange Yeghiazarian of Oakland, this year features performances by Berkeley favorite Julian Lopez-Morillas and Danielle Levin of Oakland. -more-
Jack Tucker of Richmond—theater critic, retired columnist for the Contra Costa Times, who the Guinness Book of Records named “Oldest Known Living Newspaper Columnist” in 2005—died Dec. 27, 93 years of age. -more-
For many years the Bay Area-based Sunset Magazine, self-described “magazine of Western living,” has been sponsoring “idea houses” in partnership with builders and manufacturers. -more-
A few years ago, Joe and I got a tour of Garvan Woodland Gardens, a newish botanical garden in Hot Springs, Arkansas, courtesy of Uncle Leonard and Aunt Evelyn. We were all toted around in a golf cart, and a docent told us about the origins and current state of the garden, about the plants and other features we were seeing. -more-
Theater’s just starting up after a hiatus that featured mainly holiday shows in December. After increasingly vigorous seasons over the past two years, it will be intriguing to see what Berkeley area stage companies have come up with to follow the wealth of productions in the immediate past. -more-
In December 2005, a group of women met to form Grandmothers Against the War, planning their first action—a Valentine’s Day 2006 rally and attempt to enlist at the Oakland Induction Center. -more-
At a lively press conference at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center in Chinatown Friday, Oakland East Bay Symphony music director and conductor Michael Morgan introduced San Francisco jazz composer, pianist and educator John Jang, whose piece “Chinese American Symphony” was commissioned by the symphony and will premiere at the symphony’s Sounds of China: Celebrating Chinese New Year concert Friday, Feb. 22, at the Paramount Theatre, along with music by Academy Award-winning Chinese composer Tan Dun, John Adams and Igor Stravinsky. -more-
I was interested to note that Kathleen Wong, who was (briefly) my editor at the late California Wild, has an article in the current Bay Nature about the California ground squirrel. It’s a nice summary of several decades’ work of research by Donald Owings and Richard Coss at UC Davis, who have discovered remarkable things about the relationship between ground squirrels and rattlesnakes. -more-
