Posted Sat., April 19—Pacific Steel Casting’s appeal of a small claims court decision which went against the company in November began this week, and is expected to go on for the next two months, a spokesperson for the steel foundry told the Planet Friday. -more-
Drivers who park at Berkeley’s pay-and-display parking meters could soon be shelling out money until 10 p.m. if Mayor Tom Bates and two city councilmembers have their way. -more-
A county judge has rejected the contentions of a legal challenge by Berkeley homeowners to the approval of the so-called “Trader Joe’s” building in downtown Berkeley, paving the way for construction. -more-
The race to succeed Don Perata as the Senator from California’s 9th State Senate District—already one of the feistiest of the campaign season—got a little testier last week as former 16th District Assemblymem-ber Wilma Chan traded direct mail and e-mail charges with her opponent, current 14th District Assembly-member Loni Hancock. -more-
Despite requests from citizens to postpone the public hearing on the Berkeley city attorney’s draft sunshine ordinance—designed to provide citizens with greater access to local government—the City Council Agenda Committee refrained from rescheduling it. -more-
California Student Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) members joined UC Berkeley faculty and the Associated Students of the University of California on the steps of the Martin Luther King Student Union Tuesday to demand open textbooks in colleges across United States. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District rescinded 35 of the 55 potential layoff notices it sent out to teachers and counselors last month in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut $4.8 billion from the state education -more-
A Berkeley woman who admitted murdering her 9-year-old son will spend at least nine years in prison, under terms of a plea bargain announced Wednesday. -more-
Rejected by the mayor and the Berkeley City Council’s agenda committee Monday, competing proposals for a new city density bonus ordinance are back on the schedule for Tuesday night’s meeting. -more-
On Wednesday afternoon the State Assembly’s Agriculture Committee heard four bills and one resolution concerning the State’s plan to eradicate the light brown apple moth (LBAM) by aerial-spraying the Bay Area and Central Coast counties with a pesticide called CheckMate. -more-
Berkeley’s landmark Wells Fargo Building has been sold to a company owned by the heirs to the Hills Brothers Coffee fortune. -more-
Posted Wed., April 16—A Berkeley woman who admitted murdering her 9-year-old son will spend at least eight years in prison under terms of a plea bargain announced Wednesday. -more-
Posted Wed., April 16—The Berkeley Unified School District rescinded 38 of the 60 potential layoff notices it sent out to teachers and counselors last month in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut $4.8 billion from the state education budget. -more-
While laughter at a funeral might seem incongruous, then so was Jay Walter. Speaker after speaker described a man both outrageously public and exceedingly private. -more-
Results from testing water collected from the Berkeley Aquatic Park last week after a sewage spill showed no contamination, city officials told the Planet Monday. -more-
A week after the newly empowered Oakland School Board announced that they had made their choice for an interim superintendent, controversy over the move continued to simmer. -more-
A week after the newly empowered Oakland School Board announced that they had made their choice for an interim superintendent, controversy over the move continued to simmer. -more-
In the 400 years since the first slavery ships docked on the Virginia coast, the African-American Freedom Movement has raised up a continuing series of larger-than-life leaders—Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X. But arguably the most talented of that group, but perhaps the least appreciated, remembered, or studied, is the man whose 110th birthday anniversary is being celebrated this month—Paul Robeson. -more-
Jupiter Beerhouse and Restaurant’s proposed expansion into adjacent Café Panini would replace the cafe, zoning officials told the Planet Monday. -more-
Berkeley’s City Council Monday spurned a Planning Commission proposal to have a city density bonus law in place in the event Proposition 98 passes in the statewide June 3 election. -more-
Construction begins Wednesday on the new guest house at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. -more-
Berkeley Technology Academy’s (B-Tech) hour-long discussion on youth violence with Barrios Unidos co-founder Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez Friday was the first of many events the school hopes to host for its Latino students, who make up 45 percent of the school’s population. -more-
A prosecutor told jurors today that they should convict Christopher Hollis of murder for firing shots that killed his close friend Meleia Willis-Starbuck, a popular Berkeley High School graduate and Dartmouth College student. -more-
A red Pontiac Firebird collided head on with a Berkeley public school bus carrying five students from John Muir Elementary School at 3:50 p.m. Friday. -more-
As Earth Day approaches, Berkeley’s ever-growing Earth Day celebration is scheduled to take place this Saturday in newly-renovated Martin Luther King Park, right between the two city halls, Old and New, and next to the Farmers’ Market. It’s a perfect location to consider a few facts about sustainability, today’s buzz word for doing whatever we can not to harm Mother Earth any more than we already have. -more-
Sunshining (making public) city government in Berkeley has been a long and daunting task. Sometime in early 2001-2003 Kriss Worthington held a series of public meetings to begin the process of writing a sunshine ordinance for Berkeley and its citizens. This effort was followed up with the city staff drafting an ordinance. Consensus could not be found, but in March of 2007, Mayor Bates called a special council meeting to hear from the community and a panel of four people considered to be experts in sunshine laws on its reactions to staff draft no. 24. -more-
As Hillary Clinton continues to wage vicious attacks on likely Democratic nominee Barack Obama, many have suggested that John McCain now has a good chance to win the November election. But political reality says otherwise. Consider that in 2004, when the economy was not a national problem and public opinion remained almost equally divided on Iraq, a relatively weak Democratic presidential candidate came within 50,000-100,000 votes in Ohio from defeating a Republican incumbent benefiting from an unprecedented turnout of conservative voters. Ohio will go to the Democrats in 2008, as will Colorado, Iowa, and likely Virginia, three states Bush won in 2004. John McCain is on the wrong side of both Iraq and the economy, and there is no chance that voters will elect a candidate who will implement George W. Bush’s third term. -more-
Standing at the corner of Vine on Saturday morning, I look south down a vibrant Shattuck Avenue thronging with pedestrians. They fill the sidewalks and spill out across busy traffic to claim and use the grass median strip (illegal though that is.) That so many people risk tickets and traffic to create a 21st Century town square illustrates once more the deep human need for shared public spaces. Then I turn around to look north towards Rose Street. I see a perplexing expanse of impermeable asphalt and concrete, starkly contrasting with the view to the south. -more-
It is past time for the city of Berkeley to complete its long-delayed civic improvements in the North Shattuck commercial district. Approximately eight years ago, after intensive community involvement, a program of modest, incremental, civic improvements was created and approved by the community and the city council. That program became stalled when Planning Commission member David Stoloff initiated his “grand” North Shattuck Plaza plan. Mr. Stoloff’s scheme is dead, but the problems remain. Among those is the necessary redesign of the intersection at Shattuck Avenue and Vine Street. -more-
The recent disclosure of a memo by Boalt Law School faculty member John Yoo has given that school and the University of California itself a long overdue public relations nightmare. “Overdue” because quite enough was known about Yoo’s role in justifying the Bush regime’s claims to the dictatorial powers it has taken that a small group of concerned citizens held a weekly vigil outside his class several years ago. That vigil was almost entirely ignored by faculty and students too hurried or plugged in to their iPods to pause or take a leaflet let alone join. When Fernando Botero’s horrific paintings of torture came to Doe Library, few faculty members on panels organized to discuss them mentioned that the man largely responsible for the atrocities Botero depicted is a campus colleague. But when the New York Times published an editorial (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune on April 5) with the clause “Yoo, who inexplicably teaches law at the University of California,” mud finally stuck to Alma Mater’s teflon robes, and the administration had to act. -more-
The small number of Bus Rapid Transit supporters (one third or less of those who spoke) who showed up at the Planning Commission public hearing on BRT on April 9 spent much of their time urging the commission to endorse a “preferred alternative” route for BRT so AC Transit can move ahead with finalizing the environmental impact report on the project. -more-
No matter how you look at it, Barak Obama’s March 18 speech on race was a Category 5 news event; it did for political reporting what Katrina did for disaster reporting. It lacked the ugly pictures but it generated a comparable multitude of comments buoyed by passion and collectively covering every conceivable aspect, from the super-sublime to the hyper-ridiculous. On the left it was rated breathtaking, historic, momentous, from the center it was deemed provocative, memorable, moving and conservatives tagged it hypocritical, duplicitous, deceptive. Titled “A More Perfect Union,” the speech arrived in the aftermath of a hurricane of publicity about the passionate preachments of a man of God, Obama’s pastor, but the devastation that came later was entirely an act of man, as was Katrina’s. -more-
Running for elected office—especially for local elected office—can be an extraordinarily stressful time, as candidates struggle to get their messages heard and understood amidst the general cacophony. -more-
John Albert Marshall (1868-1924), commonly known as J.A., was a small and hot-tempered man. In 1906 he had two brushes with the law—one as a recalcitrant witness for the defense, threatening to thrash a much larger prosecuting attorney, the other when he was convicted of battery after pummeling John Koch, owner of a delicatessen at 2520 Bancroft Way. -more-
So I was licking nectar off the base of an orchid blossom the other night ... See?That’s why people keep pets, in which category I place houseplants. Most of us don’t live the wildlands any more, which of course is why they’re still “wildlands,” and there’s all this unpredictable, unrepeatable, unmediated experience we don’t get to have every minute of every day. -more-
As you go for that morning jog ( You are jogging every morning, right? Immediately after that low-fat, lemon, poppy-seed, caramel muffin and the soy latte) you probably note amidst the quiet and still of the neighborhood that there are little puffs of smoke that come from the tops of every house and business. -more-
Who was it who said that anyone who isn’t outraged just hasn’t been paying attention? -more-
Red means War,” said Harriet March Page of Goat Hall’s San Francisco Cabaret Opera to explain “The Red Horse,” the title of the second concert in the series Horsewomen of the Apocalypse, featuring all female vocalists Saturday at St. Gregory’s Church in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill. -more-
Poet Robert Hass won a Pulitzer prize last week for his most recent collection Time and Materials, a book that also won the National Book Award last year. -more-
First Run Features has released three provocative films on DVD that delve into the complex consciousness of the German people. From the atrocities of the Holocaust to the repressive post-war socialist government of East Germany, these films offer fascinating glimpses of artists and historians struggling to come to terms with their nation’s past while battling forces—in the form of both the government and the people—who would rather keep such horrors hidden. -more-
John Albert Marshall (1868-1924), commonly known as J.A., was a small and hot-tempered man. In 1906 he had two brushes with the law—one as a recalcitrant witness for the defense, threatening to thrash a much larger prosecuting attorney, the other when he was convicted of battery after pummeling John Koch, owner of a delicatessen at 2520 Bancroft Way. -more-
So I was licking nectar off the base of an orchid blossom the other night ... See?That’s why people keep pets, in which category I place houseplants. Most of us don’t live the wildlands any more, which of course is why they’re still “wildlands,” and there’s all this unpredictable, unrepeatable, unmediated experience we don’t get to have every minute of every day. -more-
As you go for that morning jog ( You are jogging every morning, right? Immediately after that low-fat, lemon, poppy-seed, caramel muffin and the soy latte) you probably note amidst the quiet and still of the neighborhood that there are little puffs of smoke that come from the tops of every house and business. -more-
It is wonderful and exciting that many businesses are waking up to the fact that “going green” can make a lot of green ($$, that is). It is not so wonderful that a whole bunch of products that claim to be green are actually far from good. -more-
World agriculture appears to be approaching a crossroads. The globalized economy has placed a series of conflicting demands on the 1.5 billion hectares of croplands. -more-
A friend who works for Solano County said that the Anna’s hummingbird nesting in her office courtyard was being harassed by county employees who’d been sticking their noses and cameras rather literally into the nest and even bending the branch it’s on down, for closer looks. The hummingbird has been tenacious but she’s clearly agitated, and diverting her even occasionally from feeding the newly hatched chicks endangers them. -more-
Here is the end of meaning; here is loss beyond comprehension.” A former queen—only the day before, queen of a great city—finds herself and her entourage of young women captives after their home has been overwhelmed by stealth, burned and demolished. Before they are taken away to a new life as slaves, as chattel in a foreign land, there are confrontations with other women that would seem to define, or refine, the terms of their grievous situation. -more-
Who was it who said that anyone who isn’t outraged just hasn’t been paying attention? -more-
Are you wanting to do more this year to live “green”? Looking for simple yet meaningful ways to be part of the solution? -more-
Arms—in Berkeley? -more-
