News

Berkeley planning commissioners will try once again Wednesday night to resolve their struggle with a new law that would allow up to 400 urns containing ashes of human remains to be interred on sites in the city. -more-

Despite ongoing budget challenges, the Berkeley Unified School District was able to end its 2008-09 financial year on a positive note. -more-

Bayer Healthcare announced Wednesday that they will remain in Berkeley, allaying fears of city officials who were alarmed at the prospect of losing the city’s largest private sector employer. -more-

Faculty from every University of California campus, including UC Berkeley, are planning to walk out on Sept. 24 “in solidarity with students and staff to protest the defunding of public education and the UC administration’s mishandling of the budget crisis, which has done disproportionate harm to students and low-paid employees,” according to an ad hoc website ucfacultywalkout.com, which has been set up to gather faculty endorsement signatures, numbering 750 at press time. -more-

With Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates opting to take a slower approach to resolving the issues over the Downtown Area Plan, the possibility has emerged that some of those issues may be worked out though citywide changes to Berkeley policies and ordinances. -more-

City of Berkeley Transporta-tion Department staff has released the city’s draft of a Locally Preferred Alternative to AC Transit’s proposed Bus Rapid Transit system, the East Bay bus agency’s ambitious but controversial plan to establish fast-moving, light-rail-like bus service along the current 1 and 1R lines between downtown San Leandro and downtown Berkeley. -more-

A half-dozen Marin County Sheriff’s deputies and a court-appointed Special Master armed with a search warrant hit a Berkeley marijuana clinic Tuesday but left empty-handed. -more-

Swine flu is alive and well at UC Berkeley, and so are the many students who have contracted the H1N1 influenza virus, reports campus Medical Director Brad Buchman. -more-

They are not your average teenagers. They have held M-16s as kids, watched suicide bombings from their backyards and grown up hearing the rumblings in the West Bank. -more-

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board last week hinted that unless Pacific Steel Casting addressed community concerns about odor and emissions effectively, it could be in trouble. -more-

California’s 2008-09 Accountability Progress Report released Tuesday shows that Berkeley Unified School District received an Academic Performance Index of 769, up 10 points from last year’s score, making steady progress toward the statewide target. -more-

Berkeley police arrested a homeless man in connection with a shooting at Martin Luther King Civic Center Park in downtown Berkeley Sept. 9. -more-

Berkeley organizations shouldn’t get their hopes up about any urned income in the new future. -more-

While the struggle over one of Berkeley’s newest landmarks has focused in part on a moment of national shame, for those who live there, a more crucial question is the fate of their rent-controlled apartments. -more-

Money could play an even more crucial role in Berkeley politics if members of the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission (FCPC) approves a proposal to raise contribution limits. -more-

Strong-arm robbery -more-

In the Sept. 10 story “Swanson Withdraws BART Oversight Bill,” the story indicates that Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s AB 1586 BART Police Oversight bill is being carried over by Swanson to next year’s legislative session. The word “withdraws” only referred to withdrawal from consideration this year. However, because the Planet story also referred to several community groups and individuals who were withdrawing their support for the BART Police Oversight bill, the story may have given the mistaken impression that Assemblymember Swanson was withdrawing his support for the bill as well. Assemblymember Swanson continues to support the BART Police Oversight bill. -more-

To clarify Richard Brenneman’s Sept. 10 article, “Agrofuel Lab Appears Twice on Regent’s Slate”:   -more-

Do you remember that first phone call from your eldest sister? “What are we going to do about Mom—she doesn’t want any help and she won’t move out of the house.” That call set the stage for the last years of your widowed mother’s life. She still lived in the house where you grew up, she’d had some recent falls and sometimes was a bit confused on the phone, but she was still involved with her Wednesday bridge club and tried to get out to church occasionally. Four of her friends died in the last three years—and so did your father. -more-

On Sept. 14, I joined the Mad as Hell Doctors for single-payer Health Care in Denver, part way into their national tour. I’m writing from one of the Care-a-Vans for single-payer Health Insurance. My partners today are Barbara Matthews from the University of Washington and Bob Seward a retired Oregon internist who worked for the VA and in private practice. We rotated drivers every couple of hours all day on the way to our single-payer event in Des Moines, that drew an incredibly energized crowd. The event in a church was organized by the Des Moines, IA Catholic Worker movement with support from four other churches. Asked to speak up as to why they were mad as hell, a near endless lineup of people from as young as teenagers to the elderly came forward and passionately told their brief stories, all video-recorded and to be found via www.madashelldoctors.com. The panel of docs was as moved by the audience and the Catholic Worker folks who have been arrested fighting the health insurance industry here as the audience was moved by the docs. The youngest arrestee came up and gave a beautiful plea for people to move their concern to a higher level of activism and involvement to protect their grandchildren’s futures. She was 10 or 11 years old and has been to a Washington, D.C. speakout for single-payer. -more-

Little more than a month after the Berkeley Daily Planet ran a front-page article on Erling Horn on the occasion of his 104th birthday, the miraculous life of this admirable man came to an end. After falling in his apartment and suffering a stroke, he was taken to Kaiser Hospital, never to return to the Berkeley Town House, where he had happily resided for many years, though missing his adored wife, Margaret, who passed away at age 91 in 2000. Fortunately, he had an adoring family who looked in on him frequently. His grandson, Jacques, lived across the hall and faithfully attended to his needs, as did his daughter, Maggie, when visiting from Canada. His son, Erling, Jr., former mayor of Lafayette, visited him regularly. -more-