News

With a week to go before the Nov. 4 elections, candidates running for the Berkeley Board of Education turned the spotlight on the achievement gap at a debate organized by the Berkeley PTA Council at Willard Middle School on Monday. -more-

Berkeley planning commissioners have slated yet another special meeting for Wednesday night as they rush to finish their rewrite of the new Downtown Area Plan. -more-

Development-related contributions continue to pour into the coffers of candidates for next week’s Berkeley city council election, with Mayor Tom Bates in the lead both in total and sector-related contributions. -more-

When they first ran against each other in 2002, it was Berkeley’s epic political battle. Shirley Dean was the lightning-rod mayor and leader of the moderate-progressive political faction in a City Council and a city that were deeply divided along factional lines. Looking for a way to oust a political powerhouse, members of the opposing left-progressive faction recruited former state Assemblymember Tom Bates to run against Dean. -more-

Students at Berkeley’s Maybeck High School can move into new classrooms in St. John’s Presbyterian Church this spring, since the school received a relocation permit from city officials at a public meeting Thursday. -more-

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 45-day revision to the state budget gives the Berkeley Unified School District more revenue than what he proposed earlier this year, but leaves it with a minimal cost of living increase, district officials said Wednesday -more-

Berkeley developers are making a last-minute push to flood the coffers of Terry Doran as he battles to win the city council seat representing downtown Berkeley. -more-

Shay Black is an Irish musician who lives in Oakland just a few blocks from the Planet office on Shattuck. He has led an Irish music session in the nearby Starry Plough every Sunday for the last thirteen years. Recently, he's become a YouTube celebrity. Last month, a jolly video starring Shay was made at the Plough, posted on YouTube and now has 250,000 hits. It's a cover of a song originally written in Ireland which reclaims Barack Obama's Irish roots. Here's the first verse: -more-

Middle School is investigating three small fires that started in a couple of trash cans in the school’s restrooms and an open garbage area in the garden during school hours Wednesday, district officials said. -more-

If money is the mother’s milk of politics, as a legendary California Democrat once explained, then development is its cash cow. -more-

The four Berkeley Board of Education candidates will face off at a debate hosted by the Berkeley PTA Council at Willard Middle School on Monday night. -more-

Pink and green ceramic tiles—stacks of them—lay outside Berkeley High’s Community Theater last Thursday, waiting to be used to make a table honoring one of the school’s newest but most-loved teachers, who died from a heart attack in August while she was in the Phillipines on a Fulbright Scholarship. -more-

UC Berkeley police arrested one current and one former member of the Cal Bears football team on Monday in connection with the Sept. 30 break-in robbery of two students in their suite at the university’s Clark Kerr residential complex. -more-

Incumbent Laurie Capitelli represents District Five, covering central northern Berkeley, and is facing a difficult race in which his opponent, Sophie Hahn, has raised nearly twice as much campaign funding. -more-

In the battle to replace the late Dona Spring in the city’s fourth council district, only one of the four candidates in the running is a strongly pro-development advocate. -more-

Incumbents in two Berkeley council races didn’t raise a dime by the end of the Sept. 30 reporting period and only one candidate filed in opposition, leaving District Three’s Max Anderson without a foe. -more-

The Berkeley Rep announced last Thursday that it had raised $6,000 at the world premiere of Yellowjackets to help the Berkeley High School student newspaper, The Jacket, stay afloat. -more-

Berkeley’s oldest surviving public school will honor its past on Sunday to preserve its future. -more-

A Jefferson Elementary School third-grade teacher has resigned following allegations that she might have violated the separation of church and state by teaching creationism to her third-grade class, district officials said Friday. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District is scheduled to hold a meeting on Oct. 30 to update the community about the status of the sale of the Hillside School. -more-

MEASURE HH City Expenditures -more-

Family and friends were shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden death of Le Bateau Ivre restaurant owner Thomas Eddie Cooper the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 16. Even those closest to him will never fully understand the depth of depression which drove him to unexpectedly seek respite by taking his own life. It was a final moment of despair that does not define a rich and complicated life. -more-

Car thefts -more-

The Berkeley City Council went dabbling back in the condominium conversion waters this week, but for the third time this year came up with nothing definitive. The council has now decided to wait until the new year—and the arrival of new faces on the council itself—to revisit the issue. -more-

Though called a climate action plan, the document presented to Berkeley planning commissioners Wednesday night looked more like a developer’s dream. -more-