News

While the Berkeley City Council was wrapping up its worksession on Tuesday evening, an audience was growing, news cameras were being set up, and a police presence was building in the small Council chambers. A protester's voice could be heard yelling over a megaphone outside the building. Compared to the usual empty-room meeting, this was an exciting scene. There were two hot-button issues on the agenda that drew national media coverage: item 26, supporting Pfc Bradley Manning and claiming him a hero, and item 27, urging Pacifica to reinstate KPFA's morning show. -more-

The Berkeley City Council listened to presentations on Tuesday night, first about the city's budget difficulties, and then about the progress of the 2020 Vision, one of the city's priority projects. Teresa Berkeley-Simmons, the city's budget manager, highlighted the problem of continually decreasing revenues and increasing expenses. Revenues are down $1.8 million for Fiscal Year 2011, and there is a $3 million deficit in the general fund, likely to have increased to $4 million by Fiscal Year 2013. Eighty full-time city employees will have been eliminated by the end of FY 2011, with more staff reductions expected for FY 2012, and staff are taking more and more furlough days. The city is expected to continue spending money on priority programs like the 2020 Vision, a collaboration with the Berkeley Unified School District, and was asked by two public speakers to prioritize retrofitting unsafe buildings and maintaining affordable housing. -more-

Nothing brightens the holiday season quite like an eviction.

This Monday afternoon, Mark Liolios, founder of the Aquatic Park Environmental Greening, Restoration, and Education Team (EGRET), locked up the Cabin, also known as the Model Boat Building, the structure he and his environmental stewardship group have been using as an interpretive center. The Berkeley Parks and Recreation Department had demanded that EGRET and its sponsoring organization Berkeley Partners for Parks accept the city’s terms for a lease on the building or vacate it by December 14. The city offered to provide a tool shed for the group’s use if the second option was chosen. -more-

Last Saturday afternoon I got a call asking if I was willing to take a survey about my opinion of local issues. I opt out of phone polls, except when they’re about local affairs—not because I think my responses are going to make more of a difference in the local context, but because I usually learn something about Berkeley politics that I wouldn’t know otherwise. So it was with this one, which turned out to be testing the waters of public opinion in preparation for Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s coming incursion into West Berkeley. -more-

When the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) comes to town, demonstrations are sure to follow and, on Monday night, December 13, Oakland was no exception. -more-

Sweeping into town on the mist of a warm London fog, the 27th Telegraph Ave. Holiday Street Fair may have taken a bite out of south side crime. -more-

On Saturday afternoon, more than 100 literary buffs descended on the Rockridge Library and squeezed their way into a crowded upstairs meeting room to celebrate the winners of PEN Oakland’s 2010 Josephine Miles Literary Awards. -more-

With the approach of the winter solstice on December 20, druids, stargazers and the science-minded are preparing to converge on “Berkeley’s Stonehenge” — the César Chávez Memorial Sundial, perched high atop a hill in the Berkeley Marina. The solstice officially begins at 23:38 Coordinated Universal Time on December 21 and, occurs at 3:38 PM Pacific Standard Time in the Bay Area but Chavez Memorial founder Santiago Casal explains: “We are holding [the ceremony on the 20^th] in order to experience the simultaneous full moonrise and inform people about the lunar eclipse later that night. ” -more-

On Thursday, December 16, Veterans for Peace and others will stage the largest veteran-led civil resistance to U.S. wars in recent history. After a rally at Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, many will engage in nonviolent civil resistance at the White House. -more-

The Bayer Group was listed as the most toxic company in the U.S. in the March 2010 release of the University of Massachusetts (UMass)’ Political Economy Resource Institute (PERI) “Toxic 100 Air Polluters’ Index”, which is a scorecard listing the 100 top air polluters in the U.S. based on chemical release data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s 2006 Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The TRI measures the weight in pounds of about 600 chemicals released into the air based on reports submitted annually by the facilities as required under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. The EPA Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics then uses the TRI data to assess the related human health risk based on three factors: -more-

The City of Berkeley has agreed to settle part of the lawsuit brought by Concerned Library Users (CLU) regarding inadequate environmental review of an ordinance facilitating public library demolitions. -more-

Members of the City of Berkeley Police Department (BPD) have made nine (9) arrests of robbery suspects citywide in recent days. The arrests were a result in part by a departmental focus that included crime analysis, increased communication and the use of additional BPD personnel to concentrate patrol in several areas of the city that were identified as locations where robberies have taken place. -more-

The second week in December was filled with festive holiday events and seasonal color in Berkeley. -more-