The Week

A shrine has been set up on the Ward Street porch where Anita Gay was shot and killed by a Berkeley police officer.
By Mike O'Malley
A shrine has been set up on the Ward Street porch where Anita Gay was shot and killed by a Berkeley police officer.
 

News

Police Officer Kills Berkeley Woman

From Bay City News and news reports
Friday February 15, 2008

Posted Mon. Feb 18, 2008--An officer responding to reports of a domestic disturbance at a south Berkeley apartment building Saturday night used deadly force on a woman who allegedly confronted the officer with a knife, according to the Berkeley Police Department. -more-


Children's Hospital Representatives Meet with North Oakland Neighbors; No Resolution in Sight

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 15, 2008

Posted Sun., Feb. 17—Representatives of Oakland’s Children’s Hospital and many of the hospital's North Oakland neighbors danced around each other at a North Oakland Senior Center community meeting for two hours last Wednesday night, with neither side seeming to be sure what music was being played, or even if the band had stopped altogether. -more-


Council Begins November Ballot Tax Measure Discussions

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 15, 2008

Posted Sat., Feb. 16—Pools, police, pipes, fire prevention, youth services: fulfilling city needs will take new funding—perhaps $30 million. And that greatly surpasses the dollars flowing into Berkeley’s coffers. -more-


Facing Cheers, Jeers, Council Softens Anti-Marine Stance

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 15, 2008
A Move America Forward supporter with an American flag and a veterans cap has a heated exchange with a vet from Veteran’s for Peace early Tuesday morning in Civic Center Park at the beginning of a day of debate over the war and the downtown Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley.

After being called “idiots,” thanked profusely, having their manners upbraided, told alternatively during a three-hour public hearing that they were unpatriotic and true patriots, the Berkeley City Council softened rhetoric of a Jan. 29 council item that would have had staff write the Marines, saying their recruiters are “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” in Berkeley. -more-


Heavy Police Presence Felt At City Hall Marine Protests

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 15, 2008
Police in riot gear stand in the middle of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, dividing the opposing protesters.

For a brief moment Tuesday, the warpaint and angry threats outside Maudelle Shirek Old City Hall gave way to sporadic bursts of festivity. -more-


Pacific Steel Workers Urge City to Defend Plant’s Presence in Berkeley

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 15, 2008

The angry cries of several hundred Pacific Steel workers eclipsed the sound of bullhorns and jeers from the pro- and anti-war demonstrators outside the Old City Hall Tuesday to hear the Berkeley City Council rescind their resolution on the Marine Recruiting Center. -more-


Council Drops ‘Insensitive’ Language, Refuses Apology

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 15, 2008

At around 1:15 a.m. Wednesday, a weary council passed a motion 7-2 which effectively reversed the council’s vote to tell the Marines they are “unwelcome intruders.” They refused, however, to issue an apology to the Marines. -more-


Oakland May Deadlock On Affordable Housing

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 15, 2008

One of the councilmembers most associated with the drive to increase affordable housing in Oakland believes that after more than a year, the council may be deadlocked on the issue and unable to make any changes. -more-


Density Bonus Fracas Flares at Planning Commission

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 15, 2008

A sharp schism between city staff and veterans of the panel charged with formulating policies for a new city density bonus law revealed itself at the Planning Commission Wednesday night. -more-


BRT, Parks, Southside Evoke Heated Response

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 15, 2008

Southside Berkeley residents came to the Planning Commission Wednesday to call for more parks and protest Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). -more-


Hamill Talks About Rumors of Running for Oakland Council

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 15, 2008

The longtime District One (North Oakland) representative on the Oakland Unified School District board confirmed that she is not running for re-election but denied rumors that she is running for the Oakland At-Large City Council seat. -more-


Council Nixes Preserving Property for Industrial Use

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 15, 2008

Rich Robbins of San Rafael-based Wareham Properties won one more victory at City Hall Tuesday, when the City Council voted 5-1-3 to demolish structures at Robbins’ property at 1050 Parker St. -more-


Fire Log

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 15, 2008

A Molotov cocktail hurled at a UC Berkeley fraternity forced the evacuation of 50 residents from the Sigma Pi house during the predawn hours Saturday. -more-


Web Update: Council Softens Language, Supports Protesters

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Posted Wed., Feb. 13—After being called “idiots,” thanked profusely, had their manners upbraided, told, during a three-hour public hearing they were unpatriotic and true patriots, the Berkeley City Council softened rhetoric of a Jan. 29 council item that would have had staff write the Marines, telling them their recruiters are “uninvited and unwelcome” in Berkeley. -more-


Native Americans Protest Grove Plans

By RICHARD BRENNEMAN
Tuesday February 12, 2008

As many as 300 Native Americans and their supporters marched on Sproul Plaza Monday morning after a gathering at the Memorial Stadium Grove. -more-


Council Action Fallout: Protests and Revisions

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Since voting Jan. 29 to support protests at the downtown Marine Recruiting Center and asking staff to write a letter telling the Marines they are “unwelcome intruders,” the Berkeley City Council has been skewered on-line and in print, excoriated in thousands of e-mails, and threatened by Republicans in Congress and state legislature with the loss of government funds. -more-


City Council Considers Public Commons Services

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday February 12, 2008

While most eyes on tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting will be on the council item that would rescind the Jan. 29 directive to staff to write the Marines and tell them they are unwelcome in Berkeley, the council has a full plate of other tasks before it. -more-


Police Official Says City Must Attack North Oakland Crime Problem

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday February 12, 2008

The captain of the newly formed Oakland Police Department Area One told North Oakland residents on Saturday that the rash of recent shootings in their community is the result of a turf war between the Ghost Town gang and the Acorn Gang of the Lower Bottom, and he intends to “plant the flag” in the Ghost Town section as an immediate step to abate the problem. -more-


Illegal Demolition Leads Preservationists to Question Ordinance

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday February 12, 2008

An illegal demolition of a building on University Avenue has made local preservationists question Berkeley’s demolition ordinance yet again. -more-


Neighbors Sue Over South Berkeley Cell Phone Towers

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday February 12, 2008

The Berkeley Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (BNAFU) filed a lawsuit in the Alameda County Superior Court last week to stop the installation of 11 cell phone antennas on top of UC Storage at 2721 Shattuck Ave. -more-


Density Bonus, Law School, Southside on Planning Agenda

Tuesday February 12, 2008

Planning Commissioners will weigh in Wednesday on building size rules and get their first look at a three-story building UC Berkeley plans for the courtyard adjacent to its law school. -more-


Opportunities to Engage With Israel-Palestine

Tuesday February 12, 2008

There are several opportunities in Berkeley this week to engage with the peace process in Israel-Palestine. -more-


Two Challengers to Face Off in OUSD Board Race

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday February 12, 2008

With at least two incumbent Oakland Unified School District board members choosing not to run for re-election this year, the OUSD board is guaranteed new faces just at the time it is regaining a measure of local control. -more-


Housing Commission Weighs in on Bonus Rules

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Housing Advisory Commissioners are weighing in on one of Berkeley’s hottest political potatoes, laws that grant developers bigger buildings in exchange for including affordable units. -more-


Kavanagh Resigns from Rent Stabilization Board

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Chris Kavanagh has stepped down from his seat on the Rent Stabilization Board, resigning retroactive to Feb. 1. -more-


Council Considers Whether Pacific Steel Constitutes a ‘Nuisance’

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday February 12, 2008

The Berkeley City Council will decide whether the odors from Pacific Steel Casting should be considered a nuisance during a meeting at the Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, today (Tuesday). -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Much Ado About Not Much In the End

By Becky O'Malley
Friday February 15, 2008

One benefit of being a woman of (or even over) a certain age is that you can be invisible when you want to be. Women sometimes complain that after they pass 55 no one notices them, which is often true, but the good news is that this phenomenon allows you to assume a “cloak of invisibility” worth of a Harry-Potterish heroine when you’d like to know what people are up to. Wearing nondescript clothes and not too stylish glasses, you can go anywhere and overhear anyone. -more-


Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

By Becky O’Malley
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Message to would-be politicians: watch out for e-mail. The time-hallowed practice of pitching part of your message to Interest Group A and another part to Interest Group B becomes very risky when just one Group A recipient who doesn’t like what your pitch letter promises can quickly forward it to all sorts of others who really don’t like it. -more-


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday February 15, 2008

RETRACTION REQUESTED -more-


Readers Respond to Council-Marine Recruiters Controversy

Friday February 15, 2008

The Planet is only printing letters from locals regarding the ruling on the Marine Recruitment Station. Some of these letters were sent prior to the Feb. 12 City Council meeting and thus do not reflect the council’s most recent ruling. -more-


Commentary: The Death of Sgt. Van Dale Todd

By Daniel Borgström
Friday February 15, 2008

Back in 1972, near the end of the Vietnam war, I was living in San Francisco, and my close friend, ex-Sgt. Van Dale Todd, a combat veteran of the 101st Airborne, lived next door in the same building, a Victorian on 29th Street. Sometimes Van would take a notion to hit the wall which separated our apartments with his fist and shout, “Who the fuck would join the Marine Corps?” I’d yell back, “Airborne sucks!” “The Marine Corps sucks!” Van’d shout. “Only two things come out of the sky,” I’d yell back again, “Bird shit and fools!” That was how we said good morning to each other. It was our ritualized greeting. -more-


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday February 12, 2008

EDITOR’S NOTE: Letters regarding the City Council resolution against the Marine Recruiting Station start on Page Eight. -more-


Bank Busts Began in Berkeley

By Steven Finacom
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Richard Brenneman’s Feb. 1 article on the Reagan-era Savings and Loan crisis details his 1980s research into the failure of a California S&L that made Stockton, in his words, “Ground Zero” of that financial collapse. He compares this to a recent “60 Minutes” piece focusing on Stockton as a present-day epicenter of the current real estate crisis. -more-


Children’s Hospital Campaign Was Deceitful

By Tony Paap
Tuesday February 12, 2008

The campaign by Children’s Hospital to access tax revenues to finance a major construction project, along with the manner in which it was run, was a disservice to the employees and physicians of the hospital, its patients, the hospital’s neighborhood, and the city of Oakland at large. While the campaign’s defeat may itself have marred the reputation of this distinguished hospital, the disservice lies in the fact the campaign was rife with prevarications and inaccuracies. -more-


Readers Weigh In On City Council vs. Marines Controversy

Tuesday February 12, 2008

MARINE RECRUITING -more-


Why Protesters Resisted Marine Recruiters

By Kenneth Thiesen
Tuesday February 12, 2008

The eyes of the world are on Berkeley due to recent actions by courageous demonstrators at the Marine recruiting office and the equally courageous actions of the Berkeley City Council which voted to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Square recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders." -more-


More Letters About the City-Marines Controversy

Tuesday February 12, 2008

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Planet is only printing letters from locals regarding the ruling on the Marine Recruitment Station. Signed letters from non-locals and letters addressed to third parties will be published on our website. Unsigned letters will not be published. -more-


Make Sure Your Valentine’s Roses Are Green

By Gar Smith
Tuesday February 12, 2008

It’s February 14 and you’ve just handed your sweetie a gorgeous bouquet of roses. Tears spring to her eyes and her cheeks begin to flush bright red. But wait: Is this love or just an allergic reaction? -more-


Columns

Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Challenging a Unipolar World

By Conn Hallinan
Friday February 15, 2008

One of the more interesting phenomena to emerge from the U.S. debacle in Iraq is the demise of the unipolar world that rose from the ashes of the Cold War. A short decade ago the U.S. was the most powerful political, economic and military force on the planet. Today its army is straining under the weight of an unpopular occupation, its economy is careening toward recession, and the only “allies” it can absolutely depend on in the United Nations are Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. -more-


Column: Undercurrents: A Proposal to Close the ‘Blue Gap’ Becomes a Political Struggle

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 15, 2008

We have come to an odd turn in Oakland’s Police and Crime and Politics novel, as if a master storyteller—Arthur Conan Doyle or Scott Turow, perhaps—has suddenly introduced an unexpected twist that makes the reader have to throw out many earlier assumptions, and even go back and revisit some of the first few chapters to see exactly how this spot was reached. We are in the middle of the story, now, so it is difficult to sort out all the narrative threads. I will do my best and if I err, forgive me, as this is being done as things are still developing, and new information is coming forth. -more-


Garden Variety: Deer Friendly in Fairfax

By Ron Sullivan
Friday February 15, 2008

O’Donnell’s Fairfax Nursery is an old favorite of mine, though I pass it maybe 20 times for every time I go in to visit. It’s right on one of our two usual routes to Point Reyes, though over the last five years or so it’s the route we take coming back and they’re often closed by that hour. Besides, on the way out we’re generally in a big fat hurry to go see some birds; on the way back, we’re tired and grouchy and unfit for civilized company. -more-


No Hiatus from the Hospital

By Susan Parker
Tuesday February 12, 2008

After Alameda County voters resoundingly rejected Measures A and B—the $300 million parcel tax to fund Children’s Hospital Oakland’s (CHO) dream tower—my neighbors and I figured we’d have some time to relax. Or at the very least catch up on the Hillary-Obama race. -more-


The Theater of Gentrification

By Zelda Bronstein
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Danny Hoch’s new solo, Taking Over, is having its world premiere at the Berkeley Rep. I saw the show in January, my interest piqued by the rave review in the Chronicle. But what got me to buy a $49 ticket was curiosity about the play’s treatment of gentrification. I knew that Hoch’s latest piece dramatized the recent, wrenching transformation of his Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. -more-


Hummingbird Mysteries: How They Make That Dive Noise

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday February 12, 2008

It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday February 15, 2008

FRIDAY, FEB. 15 -more-


The Theater: ‘Savage Arts” at the Marsh

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Friday February 15, 2008

Savage Arts, a solo piece written and performed by Berkeley playwright Sharon Eberhardt, which concerns an actual murder and trial that focused on witchcraft and Native American beliefs in 1930 Buffalo, N.Y., will have its final performances 8 p.m. tonight (Friday) and tomorrow night (Saturday) at The Marsh in San Francisco’s Mission District. -more-


Hope Briggs Brings ‘A Musical Valentine’ to Herbst Theatre

Friday February 15, 2008
Hope Briggs

Celebrated soprano Hope Briggs will return to the Bay Area for an intimate musical afternoon following rave reviews for starring roles in opera houses and recital halls throughout the U.S. and Europe. “A Musical Valentine” takes place on Sunday, Feb. 17, at 3 p.m. at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave. Tickets are $50, $40 and $25. Call City Box Office at (415)392-4400 or visit www.cityboxoffice.com. -more-


Garden Variety: Deer Friendly in Fairfax

By Ron Sullivan
Friday February 15, 2008

O’Donnell’s Fairfax Nursery is an old favorite of mine, though I pass it maybe 20 times for every time I go in to visit. It’s right on one of our two usual routes to Point Reyes, though over the last five years or so it’s the route we take coming back and they’re often closed by that hour. Besides, on the way out we’re generally in a big fat hurry to go see some birds; on the way back, we’re tired and grouchy and unfit for civilized company. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday February 15, 2008

FRIDAY, FEB. 15 -more-


First Person: The Story of a Gift

By Paul Brumbaum
Friday February 15, 2008

I am known by family and friends for my love of cooking. So it didn’t come as a huge surprise that I received as a Christmas gift this year a new kitchen gadget. This one was a handheld blender—sort of a “blender on a stick”—with which you can puree your soup by simply immersing the business end of the device into the soup pot. No more need to transfer the soup back and forth to a countertop blender! -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday February 12, 2008

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 -more-


Project Opera Stages Leoncavallo’s ‘Pagliacci’

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Pagliacci, Leoncavallo’s “gritty realism” classic of verismo opera, the tale of the fatal crossover between stage and real life in a troupe of carnival performers, will be performed by Project Opera, founded by musical director-conductor Robert Ashens, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights at the Hillside Club, on Cedar near Spruce, a venue associated with the beginnings and early years of Berkeley Opera—and one which has recently seen a diverse renaissance of concert programming. -more-


Historical Society Opens GAR Vet Group Records

By John Aronovici
Tuesday February 12, 2008

Items on Display at Berkeley Main Library -more-


Hummingbird Mysteries: How They Make That Dive Noise

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday February 12, 2008

It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday February 12, 2008

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 -more-