The Week

Despite overcast skies, hundreds gathered at Cesar Chavez Park on April 8 to join in the local incarnation of Birkat HaChammah, the Blessing of the Sun ceremony that comes every 28 years in Jewish tradition. See story, Page Three.
Steven Finacom
Despite overcast skies, hundreds gathered at Cesar Chavez Park on April 8 to join in the local incarnation of Birkat HaChammah, the Blessing of the Sun ceremony that comes every 28 years in Jewish tradition. See story, Page Three.
 

News

Pools Task Force Selects West Campus for Warm Pool Site; Plan Heads to School Board

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 14, 2009 - 05:50:00 PM

The Berkeley Board of Education will vote Wednesday on whether the city should proceed with an environmental review of plans to expand and improve the city’s pools. -more-


Zoning Board Postpones Gaia Permit Review to Allow Negotiations with Marsh Theater

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 10, 2009 - 04:59:00 PM

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board last week postponed discussion on whether the Gaia Building was adhering to its use permit in order to give its owners, Equity Residential, a month to negotiate leasing terms with the Marsh Theater. The zoning board will resume the discussion May 14. -more-


Environmental Watchdog Group Sues Air District

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 10, 2009 - 03:06:00 PM

A Berkeley-based environmental group is suing the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, alleging that the agency violated the California Public Records Act by denying access to Pacific Steel Casting’s Odor Control Plan. -more-


Award Will Help Animal Care Groups During Tough Times

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday April 09, 2009 - 01:20:00 PM

The Berkeley Alliance for Homeless Animals Coalition will receive $474,200 on April 23 for winning the Maddie’s Fund Lifesaving Award. -more-


UC Berkeley Receives Record Number of Applications; Students Demand Increase in Minority Admissions

Bay City News
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:44:00 PM

UC Berkeley announced Tuesday, April 7 that the school had received a record number of applications for the 2009-2010 academic year and has accepted nearly 13,000 students to its fall freshman class. -more-


School District to Receive $2.4 Million in Stimulus Funds

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:15:00 PM

Berkeley Unified School District is set to receive a healthy chunk of change next month. -more-


EPA Will Not Test Berkeley Air Quality

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:32:00 PM

Berkeley didn’t make the list of schools selected last week for outdoor air quality monitoring by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and a local environmental group isn’t happy about the omission. -more-


Office Depot to Reimburse City For Overcharges

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:33:00 PM

The City of Berkeley is expecting a small amount of budget relief this month—$289,000 in refunds for overcharges on office supplies by Office Depot. In a memo this week from City Manager Phil Kamlarz to Mayor Tom Bates and the Berkeley City Council, Bates said Office Depot had agreed to refund the money by April 17. -more-


Final Stretch for Berkeley’s Downtown Plan

By Richard Brenneman
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:33:00 PM

The Berkeley Planning Commission sees the Central Berkeley of the future as a thicket of tall buildings covering the maximum possible area, but many of the members of the public who spoke at Monday’s hearing on the commission’s proposed Downtown Area plan found the vision alarming. -more-


Downtown Retail Vacancy Rate Still High

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:34:00 PM
A street musician plays in front of the vacant site of the former Act I & II theater.

On a recent warm spring evening, the streets of downtown Berkeley were sparsely populated—unusual for a Friday night. -more-


School Lunch Program on Path to Sustainability

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:34:00 PM

Starting next year, Berkeley Unified School District’s food services program will have to pay for itself, but district officials say they won’t let finances undermine quality. -more-


City Council Urged to Adopt Sweatshop-Free Ordinance

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:52:00 PM
Activists and garment workers from Central America urged the city to adopt a sweatshop-free ordinance at a Tuesday press conference at Old City Hall.

Community leaders, labor rights activists and garment workers from Central America urged Berkeley city officials to pass a sweatshop-free ordinance at a Tuesday press conference at Old City Hall. -more-


Berkeley Farmers’ Market First in Nation to Ban Plastic Bags, Packaging

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:52:00 PM

Starting April 25, the Berkeley Farmers’ Market will be the first in the nation to eliminate the use of plastic bags and packaging from its three weekly markets. -more-


Morning in Berkeley

By Steven Finacom Special to the Planet
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:53:00 PM

The sun did not quite cooperate, hiding behind a screen of low clouds and spatters of rain. But a crowd that was alternately enthusiastic, happy and contemplative still greeted the dawn at Berkeley’s Cesar Chavez Park Wednesday, April 8, with sing-ing, prayer and introspection in the local incarnation of Birkat HaChammah, the Blessing of the Sun ceremony that comes every 28 years in Jewish tradition. -more-


Agency Chooses Fishing Pier for Berkeley Ferry Terminal

By Richard Brenneman
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:54:00 PM

Directors of a regional agency voted to build a new pier south of the Berkeley Marina fishing pier to serve as the hub for a new ferry service. -more-


Court Upholds Berkeley’s Decision To Revoke U-Haul Use Permit

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:54:00 PM

The California Court of Appeal upheld the Berkeley City Council’s decision to revoke U-Haul’s use permit for its San Pablo Avenue location. -more-


Berkeley in Long Line for Federal Stimulus Funds

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:57:00 PM

Berkeley is standing in a long line of city and state governments for federal stimulus money, but City Manager Phil Kamlarz calls the situation “a mess on the federal side,” and it will probably take some time to sort out exactly how much money the city can apply for or actually receive. -more-


LBNL Biofuel Partner Warns of Bankruptcy

By Richard Brennema
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:57:00 PM

Pacific Ethanol, a partner with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in developing a pilot plant to turn plant fiber into fuel, may be heading for bankruptcy court. -more-


Liberian President to Speak at UC Berkeley

Bay City News
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:58:00 PM

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will speak at the University of California at Berkeley tonight. -more-


Company Delays Sale of Golden Gate Fields

By Richard Brenneman
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:58:00 PM

With creditors clamoring in the wings and unhappy with plans to sell off Golden Gate Fields and other key assets of troubled Magna Entertainment, the company agreed Friday, April 3, to delay a key court hearing until April 20. -more-


Grant Death a ‘Tragic Error,’ BART Lawyer Tells Court

Bay City News
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:59:00 PM

An attorney for BART said in an April 3 legal filing that the shooting death of Oscar Grant at the hands of BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland on New Year’s Day was “a tragic error” and Grant’s own actions contributed to the tragedy. -more-


Berkeley Yet to Fill Four Department Head Vacancies

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:59:00 PM

The City of Berkeley currently has four department head vacancies, all of which are to be filled by the city manager “effective upon affirmative vote of five members of the [City] Council,” according to the Berkeley City Charter. -more-


Gaia Building Back Before Zoning Board

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:59:00 PM

Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board will take up the long-standing issue of whether the Gaia Building in downtown Berkeley is conforming to its use permit. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Knowing Who You Are, And Why

By Becky O'Malley
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:10:00 PM

The splendid novelist Walter Mosley was in town last week to read from his new book. He’s a smart and entertaining talker as well as a fine writer, and he had a big audience in the palm of his hand at Oakland’s First Congregational Church for more than an hour, just answering questions about his work. He’s a man in his late fifties who rejoices in having been raised in Los Angeles by a Jewish mother and an African-American father, in a time when there weren’t many guys on the street with that ethnic combination. Not surprising in Oakland, several of his questions were about that dual perspective. -more-


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:11:00 PM

BERKELEYTHINK -more-


Small Schools Represent Hope for Berkeley Students

By Rick Ayers
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:03:00 PM

While Berkeley has a proud tradition of progressive politics and social justice initiatives, our public high school continues to practice tracking, inequity, and an educational experience which is so much less than it could be. The recent spate of attacks hurled at a redesign proposal and at the small schools shows that some elements of our community will go to great lengths to prevent even modest reforms. While I could make point-by-point refutations of the shoddy and non-existent statistics that underlie the claims made by these people, I think it would be better to reiterate some of the fundamental principles that have guided small schools development at the high school. -more-


Development, Not Restoration, at the Berkeley Meadow

By Pete Najarian
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:05:00 PM

In response to Joe Eaton’s March 19 column, “Restoration at the Berkeley Meadow”: There is no restoration at the meadow. There is instead a development. The original area was under the sea, which was, as you say, filled with refuse. -more-


Berkeley’s War On Newsracks

By Michael Katz
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:05:00 PM

After puzzling over the “newsrack correction notices” littering downtown, I finally extracted copies of last week’s East Bay Express and Daily Planet, where I learned the full story of the city’s War on Newsracks. -more-


America’s Violations of International Law

By Ann Fagan Ginger
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:05:00 PM

As a human rights lawyer and former professor, I think it is necessary to add three facts to the story about the Spanish judge considering indicting six Bush administration officials for violating international law. -more-


The Express Lane and Bus Rapid Transit

By Russ Tilleman
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:06:00 PM

The March 19 edition of the Daily Planet contained three letters to the editor criticizing the proposal for an express lane on Telegraph Avenue. Two of these letters were from Oakland, and the third was from India. No one from Berkeley wrote in to criticize the express lane! So I think the proposal has passed its first real test of public acceptance within Berkeley. I encourage anyone in Berkeley, and especially anyone who lives or works in the neighborhoods surrounding Telegraph, to write in with any criticism they might have about the proposal. -more-


Some Background on U.S.-Iran Relations

By Ralph E. Stone
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:06:00 PM

On March 20 on the eve of the traditional Iranian New Year, President Obama offered the Iranians a “new beginning,” but acknowledged three decades of strained relations between the United States and Iran. Iran’s supreme leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei rebuffed this overture. Here’s a bit of background. -more-


A Lost Opportunity

Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:06:00 PM

As an Oaklander watching the memorial services for the four slain Oakland police officers, I was astonished and disturbed when Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums did not speak at the service. I could not imagine a situation where the entire nation is watching and law enforcement officers are attending in force yet the Mayor of the City in mourning does not speak. I later came to understand that several of the officers’ families requested that the Mayor not participate in the ceremony and that the Mayor honored their wishes. It was disappointing to learn that such a request was made. -more-


Black America and the Police

By Jean Damu
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:07:00 PM

When the full story is finally told, and though not likely freely admitted by many, deep within the spiritual thinking of numerous African Americans, an emotional candle will be lit in the memory of Lovelle Mixon, the man who, in a horrific shootout in which he was finally killed, shot five Oakland police officers, four of whom have died. They will then say to themselves, “But for the grace of God I could have been he.” -more-


Protect Our Most Vulnerable from Aerial Spraying

By Robert Lieber and Lynn Elliott-Harding
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:07:00 PM

The light brown apple moth (LBAM) aerial pesticide spray that threatened the Bay Area last year shocked many local residents into awareness of the risks of exposure to mass pesticide applications and has inspired Assemblymember Sandré R. Swanson (D-Oakland) to introduce the Clean Air for Children, Seniors, and Working Families Act (AB 622). -more-


Solving Berkeley’s Pool Puzzle

By Donna Mickleson
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:08:00 PM

These days when I’m not sad or angry because something else vital is lost or threatened, I tend to feel grateful. After all we live in a paid off house, I retired last June, and while life is hardly bon-bons on the couch, any or all of five days a week I can exercise and laugh at Senior Aqua Aerobics at the West Campus City pool with the rest of us aging polar bears and our wonderful Fearless Leader, Yassir. -more-


Debating Berkeley’s Plans for Growth

By Stephen Wollmer
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:08:00 PM

I was both amused and appalled by Mr. Sukoff’s statement in his April 2 commentary that “There is no reason Berkeley could not comfortably house 150,000 or even 200,0000 people and be a more interesting and dynamic place as a result.” -more-


Columns

Dispatches From the Edge: The Afghan Rubik’s Cube

By Conn Hallinan
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:59:00 PM

Afghanistan is a gatherer of metaphors: “crossroads of Asia,” “graveyard of empires,” and the “Great Game,” to name a few, although it might be more accurate to think of it as a Rubik’s Cube, that frustrating puzzle of intersecting blocks that only works when everything fits perfectly. The trick for the Obama administration is to figure out how to solve the puzzle in a time frame rapidly squeezed by events both internal and external to that war-torn central Asian nation. -more-


UnderCurrents: Yard Dog Journalism and Mayor Dellums

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:02:00 PM

We’ve talked before about the phenomenon of what we call “yard-dog journalism,” that practice of all the dogs (or journalists, or columnists, or newspapers) on the block taking up the howling after someone walks by on the street, even though that person has done nothing peculiar, and may have passed that exact same way with no response many times before. But this time, after one of the dogs starts howling, all the others join in the clamor. Ask the last one exactly what triggered his barking this time and, if he could talk, he’d tell you “Damned if I know. All the other dogs was barking, that’s why, so I figured there must be a reason.” -more-


Green Neighbors: Streamlined Half to Death: Me and the Mulberries

By Ron Sullivan
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:12:00 PM
All-male pollinating flowers on the mulberry in front of our place, as see from the front porch.

If I were one of Those Kids These Days and had a working laptop with WiFi, or an iPhone and faster fingers, I could’ve filed this closer to last week’s deadline. It would’ve been live from Alta Bates’ lovely and relaxing Emergency Department. As it is, I’m seizing the moment to declare myself a late casualty of Dutch elm disease. -more-


About the House: A Secondary Drain Can Save You a Great Deal of Pain

By Matt Cantor
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:12:00 PM

I met a very nice fellow the other day. A composer. Funny how homeowners end up being something other than just…homeowners. Neat guy, writes music for films, TV, corporate films and the like. He also had the composure of a musician, smooth and philosophical. Good thing for all those involved in selling him this house, because let me tell you, it would be very easy to be acrimonious considering the experience he’s had. -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:13:00 PM

THURSDAY, APRIL 9 -more-


‘Skylight’ Absorbing and Passionate

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:08:00 PM

In a Spartan apartment in a rundown section of London, a middle-aged entrepreneur surprises his ex-lover, a 30-ish schoolteacher, with a visit. They haven’t spoken in years. But tonight they’ll speak out a great deal—in declarations and in exchanges; as reunion, stalemate or farewell; to regain some sort of footing with each other, or in denunciation of each other. -more-


TheatreFIRST Does Well By Pinter With ‘Old Times’

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:10:00 PM

“Oh, you know Harold. All the plays are the same: Menace in a room!” -more-


Eva Bovenzi’s Cryptic, Mysterious ‘Messengers’

By Peter Selz Special to the Planet
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:11:00 PM

Mysterious diptychs, called Messengers, by Eva Bovenzi are currently on view at the Flora Lawson Hewlitt Library of the Graduate Theological Union. -more-


A Unique Collaboration on Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 07:11:00 PM

Mark Jackson, who directed Strindberg’s Miss Julie, opening tonight at the Aurora, and David Graves, who composed the music for the production, first met in 2003, when both were in residence for five weeks at the Djerassi Foundation retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains. -more-


About the House: A Secondary Drain Can Save You a Great Deal of Pain

By Matt Cantor
Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:12:00 PM

I met a very nice fellow the other day. A composer. Funny how homeowners end up being something other than just…homeowners. Neat guy, writes music for films, TV, corporate films and the like. He also had the composure of a musician, smooth and philosophical. Good thing for all those involved in selling him this house, because let me tell you, it would be very easy to be acrimonious considering the experience he’s had. -more-


Community Calendar

Wednesday April 08, 2009 - 06:15:00 PM

THURSDAY, APRIL 9 -more-