It was a busy, eclectic night at Berkeley City Hall Tuesday, with the Berkeley City Council moving forward on a range of issues, including changing the city’s condominium conversion mitigation fees, establishing citizen nuisance wood smoke abatement procedures, and raising recreation fees. -more-

Beneath the heated rhetoric and sharp divisions, one fact emerged from a Monday night meeting between Berkeley police, city officials and residents: The desire for a police force that is engaged with the community on a day-to-day basis. -more-

Wat Mongkolratanaram will be back Thursday at the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board meeting to request a use permit modification which will allow the 33-year old Buddhist temple to serve its disputed yet exceedingly popular Sunday brunch throughout the year. -more-

It’s called the case of the “Freshman Fridays” at Berkeley High: Seniors tossing eggs at ninth-graders when they leave school or sports practice, sometimes hitting them in the face. -more-

Berkeley police are conducting extra patrols in a south Berkeley neighborhood where there have been two more shooting incidents after two men were shot to death early Thursday, Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said tonight. -more-

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau kicked off the public phase of a $3 billion fund-raising drive Friday, seeking funds for scholarships, campus improvements, faculty salaries, research—and $600 million for buildings. -more-

Berkeley Planning Commission members, missing two of their most outspoken dissenters Wednesday night, boosted by 50 percent the number of 120-foot buildings to be included in the environmental study for the new downtown plan. -more-

Two men died in a blaze of gunfire on Derby Street early Thursday which left a 26-year-old Berkeley man dead along the curb and a 45-year-old Oakland man behind the wheel of his crashed car. -more-

Berkeley tree-sitters and their supporters returned Wednesday morning to the site of their 648-day vigil to reflect on their ultimately doomed battle to save the grove. -more-

Lawyers representing two civil liberties groups are preparing to wage a legal battle over the Long Haul raid, and other constitutional rights groups are paying close attention. -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-

On June 20, the residents of the California Hotel in Oakland received notice that they would be required to vacate the building by July 15. The 250 residents, many disabled, some with families, all low-income, were given three weeks’ notice that they would have to find new affordable housing. -more-

Some two dozen people, including street preachers, homeless advocates and union activists, came to Tuesday’s Berkeley City Council meeting, the first of the 2008-2009 session, to condemn proposed noise and use-of-sidewalks laws they said would limit free speech. -more-

On Sunday we took our grandkids to the Santa Cruz county fair in Watsonville, a cornucopia of old-fashioned delights and some new ones too. The animals proudly displayed by the 4-H club members who raised them are hands-down favorites, especially the competition for dressed-up goats, perhaps a unique specialty found only in Watsonville. It inevitably reminded some of the adults in the group of the recent lipstick-on-a-pig discussions in the national political arena. If you put a tutu on a goat, does that make her a ballerina, or is that a sexist question aimed at poking fun at Sarah Palin? -more-