News

The business of building is still booming, at least for the moment, in the heart of downtown Berkeley. -more-

Cody’s Books, which closed down forever on June 20 and is currently in the process of liquidating all its assets, will not provide any books or refunds to customers with store credit, according to company officials. -more-

City Manager Phil Kamlarz talks about belt-tightening and eliminating vacant positions in these hard budget times. Still, city workers-many of them, at least-won't be dining on bread and water, according to reports received by the Daily Planet. -more-

Berkeley has long had a law mandating skateboarders to helmets and other protective gear, but it has been ignored, largely due to enforcement limitations. -more-

Nolo Press, which has operated out of a renovated clock factory in West Berkeley for the last 30 years, plans to move from its location at Ninth Street and might relocate from Berkeley altogether, company officials said Friday. -more-

Peace activists have taken a page from the book of Budweiser and—in addition to using the web and other modern means—are spreading their message by old fashioned billboard advertising. -more-

Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks has filed a defamation lawsuit against the San Francisco Chronicle and its East Bay columnist, Chip Johnson, over an item written about her by Johnson in a June 24 column. The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Oakland on Tuesday, alleges that the June 24 column item “began a campaign [by Chip Johnson] to smear and defame the reputation of Desley Brooks.” -more-

The ongoing struggle over the shape of Berkeley’s future skyline gained a higher profile during a lengthy session of the city Planning Commission on Wednesday night. -more-

Visitors, business travelers and international students at UC Berkeley might be able to soon stay in the city for up to a year without having to worry about signing leases or dealing with fussy landlords. -more-

Despite pleas and arguments for an appeal of the city’s lawsuit against the university by an overflow crowd last Thursday evening in the Berkeley City Council Chambers, the council went behind closed doors and “decided not to take action,” according to Mayor Tom Bates, who reported the action to the public. -more-

The legal battle over the grove where tree-sitters and a now-threatened injunction have stymied UC Berkeley’s growth plans has entered a new forum—minus, for now, one litigant. -more-

The public doesn’t know exactly what the Berkeley City Council voted on at last Thursday’s closed-door session. And it doesn’t know how each elected official voted. -more-

Disability rights advocates in wheelchairs held a protest Tuesday in front of the downtown Berkeley McDonald’s at University and Shattuck avenues, against what they said was unlawful discrimination against three of its disabled employees. -more-

Books and furniture belonging to Cody’s Books, which closed its doors for good on June 20 after 52 years due to dwindling sales, will be sold next week to pay off a Uniform Commercial Code lien in favor of Summit Bank, according to Mindy Galoob, the store’s former general manager. -more-

It’s almost August, laid-back vacation time for some. But for candidates for local offices, it’s time to sharpen elbows and dust off the cleats. -more-

On Sunday, a group of self-identified progressives will select five candidates to form a slate to fill the five vacancies on the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board. -more-

The ground floor of the Fine Arts Building on Shattuck Avenue—built on the former site of Berkeley Fine Arts Cinema, which evolved from the historic Cinema Theatre, showcasing repertory films from all over the world—was approved to be converted to medical office space by the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board last week. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District will hold a public meeting Wednesday to discuss the latest design for new classrooms and athletic facilities on the south side of the Berkeley High campus. The district proposes to replace the landmarked Old Gym on Milvia Street, which houses the warm water pool, as outlined in the South of Bancroft Master Plan. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District at a public meeting on Monday is scheduled to unveil a plan to rehabilitate West Campus before taking it to the Berkeley Board of Education later in the month. -more-

The 82 percent graduation rate for the Berkeley Unified School District in 2006–07 is higher than the state level (79.5 percent) but lower than the county level (84 percent), according to data released by the California Department of Education Tuesday as required by federal No Child Left Behind standards. -more-

Last Friday, 450 students finished classes for summer school at Berkeley High School (BHS). While most of BHS’s 3,200 students have already been enjoying summer for the last month, many kids have been diligently attending school to receive credit for courses that they either failed or failed to take during regularly scheduled school. -more-

What determines under what circumstances—and how energetically—the California Democratic Party intervenes in contested Democratic primaries? -more-

The effort to change West Berkeley zoning regulations has produced an unusual show of amity after an initially tense confrontation between city staff and neighborhood activists. -more-

A rash of robberies in the past week brings Berkeley to a total of 50 this month, up from 25 in July 2007. -more-

I’ve smoked cigarettes for 52 years, which is pushing my luck. Statistically, I should have been dead six years ago. -more-

My wife and I were visiting England when the Labor Party suffered its resounding defeat in the municipal elections held on May Day. Labor’s debacle may offer lessons for us and our own politicians. -more-

Peter Mutnick was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. So he sued UC Berkeley and the city all the way to the Supreme Court. He died peacefully last week in the Oncology Unit at Alta Bates at the age of 59. He was a frequent contributor to the Daily Planet’s opinion pages. -more-