News

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-

UC Berkeley’s CampusLink computer terminals, which provide free public Internet access at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union across from Sproul Plaza, were abruptly shut down by the university, CampusLink officials said Wednesday. -more-

Eugene Evans, the Berkeley Sea Scouts leader convicted of two counts of child molestation in July, was sentenced to a total of six years in state prison by an Alameda County Superior Court judge on Tuesday. -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-

Workers marched from Berkeley Technology Academy to school district headquarters last week to demand contract renewals and pay raises. -more-

West Campus neighbors won a major victory last week 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-

When is a cultural event not a cultural event? That seemed to be the dilemma the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board grappled with last week at a public meeting while reviewing whether the Gaia Building—now owned by real estate magnate and Tribune Co. proprietor Samuel Zell—was violating its use permit. -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-

The administration of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums introduced its long-awaited public safety strategy to selected members of the Oakland public last week to a pointedly skeptical reaction, outlining an ambitious program in which each of Oakland’s neighborhoods 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-

Both sides were claiming victory in a legal battle over Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s long range plans for building 980,000 square feet of new construction by 2026. -more-

Weekend fire demolishes Berkeley hills home -more-

Noted Berkeley neighborhoods, prominent parks and schools, and architectural masterpieces—both secular and spiritual—are all featured during the fall 2008 Berkeley Historical Walking Tour series, which begins Saturday, Sept. 27. -more-

An item in the Sept. 4 Police Blotter 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-