Planning commissioners will devote another meeting tonight (Wednesday) to their own rewrite of the new downtown plan, including possible changes to a controversial report on building heights. -more-

UC Berkeley police, joined by federal and county law enforcement, raided the Long Haul Infoshop Aug. 27 in search of the source of threats to university researchers who experiment on animals. -more-

The administration of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums introduced its long-awaited public safety strategy to selected members of the Oakland public Thursday evening to a pointedly skeptical reaction, outlining an ambitious program in which each of Oakland’s neighborhood would be organized for citizen participation, work on local public safety problems would be filtered through area public safety coordinating councils made up of city officials, police representatives, and neighborhood groups, and a citywide public safety policy council would oversee city goals and strategies. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education last week unanimously approved a plan to put the historic Hillside School at 1581 Le Roy Ave. up for sale. -more-

Fresh from an almost two-month break, Berkeley City Council members will address a full agenda Tuesday, updating the noise ordinance, increasing city worker salaries, approving a 22-meeting annual council schedule, appointing a councilmember to the county Waste Authority, and doubling parking fines near campus on football days. There will be a public hearing on Mayor Tom Bates’ solar financing plan. -more-

West Campus neighbors won a major victory Wednesday night when the Berkeley Board of Education approved plans to rehabilitate the former Berkeley Adult School building on Bonar Street in order to relocate Berkeley Unified School District’s headquarters from the seismically unsafe Old City Hall at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. -more-

Oakland City Councilmember Nancy Nadel says that she was “very concerned” about charges made by Nation of Islam Oakland Mosque Minister Keith Muhammad about problems with this summer’s Oakland police “Operation Nutcracker” raids of the Acorn Housing Project, but says that police officials have assured her that the raids were properly conducted and have had the desired result. -more-

More than 150 workers from the Berkeley Council of Classified Employees (BCCE) and their supporters filled the Old City Hall lawn and chambers Wednesday to rally for contract renewals and demand pay raises for the Berkeley Unified School District’s classified unions. -more-

A spectacular early morning three-alarm fire visible from miles away demolished a Berkeley hills home Sunday and brought in crews from fire departments in Oakland, Albany, Alameda County and the East Bay Regional Parks District. -more-

An item in the Police Blotter in the Sept. 4 issue of the Planet incorrectly reported the location of a shooting. A shooting on the 2900 block of Sacramento Street on Sept. 2 did not occur at Johnson’s House of Style but at another address on that block. -more-

UC Berkeley brought out the chainsaws Friday, and by the time their engines went silent Tuesday, the Memorial Stadium grove was gone. -more-

Tuesday’s nine arrests—including the last four tree-sitters—cleared the ground, literally, for construction of the four-level gym and office complex that had been stalled for nearly two years by legal action. -more-

Buyer beware! An organization’s endorsement of a candidate or measure may not be as sound as the general public thinks—and in some cases, it may not be as meaningful as the organization itself would like it to be. -more-

It was cloudy in Berkeley Tuesday, so a small but dedicated group of people got together at the Lutheran Church of the Christ on University Avenue to make their own sunshine. -more-

When Maricruz Manzanarez isn’t mopping up at student dorms, she’s out fighting for her fellow University of California service workers across the state. -more-

It’s been an unpleasant few days around here. All weekend long, and for two days later the ominous drone of circling helicopters was heard at our house, as if we were in a war zone. University of California in its majesty was administering the coup de grace to the hapless romantics perched atop the skeleton of the lone redwood which temporarily survived the assault of the Monarch of the West. -more-