Posted Thurs., Feb. 7—Neighbors say they are relieved: there won’t be a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and bar replacing the old Wright’s Garage at the corner of Ashby and College avenues. -more-
Posted Tue., Feb. 5—If the Berkeley City Council approves an item on the Feb. 12 council agenda, it will clarify city support for the troops—while continuing to condemn the war—and will rescind the part of the Jan. 29 council item that called the downtown Marine Recruiting Station “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” -more-
In a countdown to today’s Super Tuesday vote, Sen. Edward Kennedy was cheered Friday by thousands of Barack Obama supporters, who had queued up for blocks along Telegraph Avenue and crowded into the pews and aisles of Beebe Memorial Cathedral in Oakland to hear Kennedy speak on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidate. -more-
The World Can’t Wait ratcheted up the protests at the downtown Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center Friday, when three demonstrators dressed in orange jump suits to symbolize the garb worn by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay chained themselves to the recruiting center doors at 64 Shattuck Square. -more-
Five members of the People’s Park Community Advisory Board resigned last week after falling out with UC Berkeley officials over the university’s reluctance to sponsor an open competition to choose a new design as part of ongoing efforts to remodel the park. -more-
Richmond’s Design Review Board (DRB) voted to approve Chevron’s plans to upgrade its refinery, but before the vote was taken Thursday night, few folks had anything nice to say about the world’s seventh largest corporation. -more-
The first of the 184 trees slated for removal within two weeks on the Gill Tract at Buchanan Street and San Pablo Avenue was felled on Friday. -more-
Bill Huyett, Berkeley’s new superintendent of schools, began his first day in the district with the most tedious of tasks: moving in. -more-
Berkeley’s Housing Advisory Commission (HAC) meets Thursday night to weigh in on three critical housing issues now before the Planning Commission. -more-
Neighbors of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center are once again on the war path, this time over an e-mail which they said tipped off hospital employees about an annual traffic monitoring survey held last week. -more-
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposals to fix a projected $14 billion state budget deficit could cost Alameda County as much as a half a million dollars in borrowing costs alone and millions of dollars more in federal matching money, according to a veteran county supervisor. -more-
Advocates of single payer health insurance in California are saying that the collapse of the Nuñez-Perata-Schwarzenegger health care bill is a good thing and are moving forward with reviving their own single-payer legislation. -more-
Posted Mon., Feb. 4—Berkeley city manager for five years, Phil Kamlarz will get his first City Council evaluation tonight (Monday) in a special closed-door council session. -more-
Posted Sun., Feb. 3—Most of the public and literary appreciation for bare trees seems to come from wintry places like New England, but bonsai artists and fans and the landscape pruners who think along similar lines make a big deal of the “winter silhouette.” It’s one of the most refined criteria for judging a deciduous tree. -more-
Posted Sat., Feb. 2—Richmond’s Design Review Board (DRB) voted Thursday to approve Chevron’s plans to upgrade its refinery, but before the vote was taken, few folks had anything nice to say about the world’s seventh largest corporation. -more-
Posted Fri., Feb. 1—The World Can’t Wait ratcheted up the protests at the downtown Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center today (Friday), when three members, dressed in orange jump suits to symbolize the garb worn by the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, chained themselves to the recruiting center doors at 64 Shattuck Ave. -more-
It took more than two years for questions surrounding criminal activities in the Berkeley Police Department to reach the City Council, but when the Police Review Commission report on Evidence Theft was before them Tuesday evening, councilmember reactions were heated. -more-
Berkeley’s Traffic Bureau came across a few snarls on the city’s streets this week. Not all were caused by clogged lanes and reckless driving. -more-
The question of dedicating space—a parking space—for Code Pink’s weekly demonstrations in front of the downtown Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center (MRC) raised hackles at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, when Councilmember Gordon Wozniak likened the demonstrations there to protests at abortion clinics. -more-
At a rally that attracted some 50 supporters outside the Marine Recruiting Center in downtown Berkeley on Wednesday, the Regulating Military Recruiting Coalition launched a drive to collect 5,000 signatures for a ballot initiative aimed at regulating where public and private military recruiters can locate offices in Berkeley. -more-
When 60 Minutes tackled the FBI investigation of the mortgage implosion Sunday night, producers looked to Stockton, “ground zero for the current financial crisis and a microcosm of everything that went wrong.” -more-
The remnants of a red and yellow toy train mark the spot where the redwood building housing the King Child Development Center at 1939 Ward St. used to be. -more-
Superstars and locals are gearing up for “super-duper” Tuesday, Feb. 5. -more-
Of 20 commissions listed in Title 3 of the Berkeley city code, stipulations that declare the “City Council shall appoint one of its members to act as a liaison representative to the commission” are found in the statutes creating only three commissions: Aging, Planning and Zero Waste. -more-
The potentially volatile Oakland Unified School District teacher contract negotiations—in the midst of a state budget crisis and as the district transitions from state takeover to local control—bubbled to the surface Wednesday night when shouting Oakland teachers forced a brief but tense administrator-board meeting recess while demanding that their contract proposal presentation not be bumped down lower on the agenda. -more-
Saying that “the governor dropped a bombshell on the education community,” Oakland Unified School District interim Chief Financial Officer Leon Glaster painted a gloomy picture Wednesday night of the potential financial effects on OUSD of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed 10 percent across-the-board budget cuts. -more-
UC Berkeley this week revealed the companies picked to bid on a new $56 million law school building and called for an architect to plan major changes to Haas School of Business. -more-
Thanks to my advanced age, it’s very rare that I have to talk to or even see another human before 8 a.m. anymore (except of course my husband.) Which is how I like it. I’m awake early, but definitely not conversational. So I was very surprised to find myself at Peet’s on Domingo at about 7 on Monday morning, fully clothed and relatively alert. I was even wearing Norine’s scarf, a flamboyantly-flowered number which I inherited from my flamboyantly-redhaired friend Norine Smith, who never hesitated to leap into any political controversy whenever she felt that God was on her side, which was pretty much always. I wear it when I feel the spirit moving me to take action, which sadly is not too often these days. -more-
It’s down-to-the-wire time now. On Wednesday a substantial number of my California relatives and friends told me that they’d finally filled out their absentee ballots and sent them in. What were they waiting for? Well, like all the rest of us, they were still trying to decide who to vote for in the Democratic presidential primary. Here’s the refrain: “I’d like to vote for Edwards, but if Obama and Clinton are very close I’ll probably have to choose Obama instead.” Some—a few—mentioned Kucinich instead of Edwards. -more-
OUT OF CONTROL -more-
For 95 years, Children’s Hospital has cared for the children and families of this community. From day one, in 1912, our mission has been to serve any child, no matter the family’s ability to pay. We have never wavered from that mission. Over the years we have cared for hundreds of thousands of children. -more-
I’m a resident of North Oakland, and Ms. Roy’s comments in the Daily Planet regarding the expansion of Children’s Hospital are profoundly disturbing to me—not least since I’m also the sister of a little girl who died in childhood of a rare form of cancer that strikes only children (Wilmes’ tumor). Today, thankfully, almost all forms of children’s cancer are treatable. If my sister, Cathy, had been born just a few years later, chances are she’d be alive today. -more-
As a mother of a teenager, I am proud that Berkeley High School was the last high school in the nation to cave in to federal pressure and give students’ contact info to the military. Though the elected school board had voted to opt out, the school had to comply eventually to preserve federal funding. Parents may opt out, as I did, but signing up for college info opted us back in, so we are receiving deceptively seductive, glossy brochures that don’t mention that enlistees are trained to harden their hearts and kill, possibly torture, and may be killed. -more-
The Peralta Board of Trustees, faculty and staff urge voters to support Prop. 92, the Community College Initiative, which will appear on the Feb. 5 statewide ballot. Its passage is vital to our Peralta colleges—Alameda, Berkeley City, Laney, and Merritt—as well as to the 109 California community colleges and 2.5 million students. -more-
In her Children’s Hospital’s Expansion Tax Measure commentary, Joyce Roy concluded with a question: What are our community’s priorities? As an Oakland resident and child advocate, I am compelled to list a few: -more-
As Super Tuesday looms, mail boxes across California have been stuffed with slick fliers, plus a thick Voter Information Guide, about Propositions 94-97, which ask voters whether or not they approve new gaming compacts that would triple the slot machines—by 17,000—at the casinos of four Southern California tribes. I can imagine the head-scratching over the claims and counterclaims: Is so much gambling capacity healthy for the state? How big a tax windfall? How adequate the accounting safeguards? What kind of impact on poorer tribes? On the environment? Then my eye spied a paragraph by the legislative analyst about labor relations at the casinos. And on that, fellow citizens, I can shed some light. -more-
A great change is now happening, one that’s only now beginning to bubble up in the national consciousness, and this change is shaking our established institutions to their very roots. Yet this fact is barely registering among the so-called mainstream media, or for that matter, even the progressive one. Put simply, the old political definitions of left and right, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, are eroding away. They are indeed becoming irrelevant as the new concerns of this new Century trump the politics of the past. It’s now no longer the right against the left, but rather: “Wall Street against Main Street.” -more-
If you love the University of California, you may be interested in a study released Jan. 15 by the Center for Labor and Community Research, titled, “Failing California’s Communities: how UC’s low wages affect surrounding communities.” -more-
Today, “Super Tuesday,” millions of Americans will select either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for president. Both carry historic liberal values and are capable of doing an excellent job as president. The question voters will have to decide is not who can do the job “on day one”—they both can—but rather who would be the best fit for these tumultuous times. -more-
(Posted on Feb. 5, at 11:45 a.m.)—On several occasions since the war began in 2003, the Berkeley City Council has publicly and passionately stated its opposition to the war in Iraq. On January 29, 2008, the Berkeley City Council approved a series of recommendations intended to impede the recruiting activities of the downtown Berkeley Marine Corps office, which for many people in Berkeley has become a symbol of that war. -more-
Most of the public and literary appreciation for bare trees seems to come from wintry places like New England, but bonsai artists and fans and the landscape pruners who think along similar lines make a big deal of the “winter silhouette.” It’s one of the most refined criteria for judging a deciduous tree. -more-
Fighting Measures A and B on next Tuesday’s ballot has pushed me over the edge. I’ve lost weight, acquired more wrinkles and lost my sense of humor. Sometimes I don’t even speak in coherent sentences. I’ve put my clothes on inside out, forgotten to zip my fly, backed out of the driveway without looking left or right for oncoming traffic. -more-
I am a longtime supporter of public transportation, and have been so since my youth when I used to ride around Oakland on AC Transit, often getting off and walking the last 10 blocks home along East 14th only because I thought it extravagant to pay the extra 10 cents it used to cost to go past 73rd Avenue. I was born too late to ride on the old Key System, but I fell in love with light rail when I worked, for a time, in San Jose, and thereafter thought that its reintroduction into Oakland would help ease the city’s traffic and parking problems in our city, and might also help to reinvigorate the downtrodden parts of International Boulevard east of High Street as well as West Oakland’s floundering business and commercial districts. -more-
Some 10 years ago I was out in my backyard pulling up ivy. My next door neighbor was doing the same. As we both neared the fence he muttered, “Gardening in California—it’s all about killing things.” He was right. -more-
Speaking truth to power is all very well. Sometimes, though, I just lose my temper and feel the need to speak truth to cockamamie. -more-
Murphy must be in the contracting business. You know, the one who wrote that famous law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. He (or she, we’ve never met in the flesh, although I’ve fallen victim to his/her epistemology a time or two) was either a contractor or the client of one for enough time to codify the law and its corollaries. -more-
In gathering darkness from a storm—or in a dark prisoner’s cell—a disparate group of characters find themselves confronting fears over safety, security, their own behavior—primal fears. What’s in the darkness? A monster? Am I becoming a monster? -more-
Charles Wollenberg, history professor at Berkeley City College, will speak about his new book, Berkeley: A City in History, Friday at Mrs. Dalloway’s Books, 2904 College Ave., at 7:30 p.m., and on Monday at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave., at 7:30 p.m. He will also discuss the book at University Press Books on Bancroft Way on Feb. 14, at 5:30 p.m., at the San Francisco Public Library on March 5, at 6 p.m., and at the Berkeley Public Library on March 31, at 7 p.m. -more-
Most of the public and literary appreciation for bare trees seems to come from wintry places like New England, but bonsai artists and fans and the landscape pruners who think along similar lines make a big deal of the “winter silhouette.” It’s one of the most refined criteria for judging a deciduous tree. -more-
In the Jan. 29 issue, the article “Feds Say Teece Must Pay $12 Million for Tax Dodges” had an incomplete last sentence. The full sentence was: “Recipients of [David] Teece contributions include President George W. Bush, state Senator Don Perata, former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean and Berkeley Councilmember Gordon Wozniak.” -more-
The Oakland Magic Circle, the oldest independent magic club in the United States west of the Mississippi, is hosting its annual Installation Banquet and Show this coming Tuesday at the Bjornson Hall at 2258 MacArthur Blvd. -more-
Some 10 years ago I was out in my backyard pulling up ivy. My next door neighbor was doing the same. As we both neared the fence he muttered, “Gardening in California—it’s all about killing things.” He was right. -more-
Speaking truth to power is all very well. Sometimes, though, I just lose my temper and feel the need to speak truth to cockamamie. -more-
Murphy must be in the contracting business. You know, the one who wrote that famous law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. He (or she, we’ve never met in the flesh, although I’ve fallen victim to his/her epistemology a time or two) was either a contractor or the client of one for enough time to codify the law and its corollaries. -more-
