The Zoning Adjustments Board meets on Thursday May 12 for a public hearing on a controversial 170 unit apartment building at 1500 San Pablo Avenue between Cedar and Jones. The meeting starts at 7 PM at Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way; impacted neighbors as well as West Berkeley residents should attend this important meeting, as the project could set a precedent for San Pablo Avenue development. -more-

Northern and southern Europe come together in a not totally comfortable way in the design of the newly expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which will open on May 14 after a three-year closure. The new addition designed by Snøhetta, a firm which originated in Norway but now operates out of New York, is attached to and behind the original building designed by the Italian Swiss architect Mario Botta. -more-

A social media storm has broken out since Facebook and Twitter posted a photo of 16 young black women about to graduate from the US Military Academy posed on the steps of a West Point barracks, arms raised with clenched fists. -more-

More human remains have been discovered in Berkeley's Fourth Street area. They are assumed to date from the period when Ohlone Native Americans occupied the site, which includes a shell mound and other evidence of Native habitation. The Jamestown corporation, current owners of Spenger's restaurant who are engaged in developing additional shopping spaces at 1919 Fourth Street, issued the following statement:

“A second set of partial remains was found under the 4th Street sidewalk during excavation work. Upon identification, construction was stopped and the remains were removed by the archeological team under the supervision of the Ohlone Indian Tribe’s appointed representative, Andrew Galvan. Mr. Galvan is storing the remains and preparing them for reburial based on his own recommendations. Construction work continues in accordance with the recommendations of Mr. Galvan and with onsite monitoring by a professional archaeologist and Mr. Galvan’s team. We will continue to keep the community informed of any further developments.”

This discovery could also affect the development proposed across the street at 1900 Fourth Street by a corporation represented by former Berkeley Planning Director Mark Rhoades. Environmental review of that site in accordance with California Environmental Quality Act requirements is currently underway. No EIR was required by Berkeley's Planning Department for the work at 1919 Fourth, which some observers who have asked to remain anonymous now believe to have been an error. -more-

Roughly 50 students and workers rallied this afternoon at the University of California at Berkeley against planned layoffs and possible cuts to student services.

The protest started at noon at the Valley Life Sciences Building in the middle of the UC Berkeley campus and the group also protested outside of the Life Sciences Addition building. Other protesters handed out information to students on campus.

At the Life Sciences Addition Building, protesters rallied against the layoff of clerical worker Janette Reid, who has been with the university for nearly 33 years, Teamsters union representative Elise Magno-Jardinico said.

Reid is reportedly being let go because of a lack of money and a lack of work. -more-

On April 25, 2016, President Barack Obama announced that he would be dispatching 250 additional special operations troops to Syria—a six-fold increase in the US Special Forces on the ground inside Syria. When White House reporters asked State Department spokesperson John Kirby if this wasn't a breach of the president's promise not to put "boots on the ground" in the Middle East, Kirby denied that Obama had ever taken the "no boots" pledge.

"There was never this 'no boots on the ground,'" said Kirby. "I don't know where this keeps coming from."

Reporters were quick to remind Kirby that Obama had made the promise at least 16 times since 2013. Three examples:

August 30, 2013: "We're not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach."

September 10, 2013: "I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria."

September 7, 2014: "In Syria, the boots on the ground have to be Syrian." -more-

The May Issue of Street Spirit comes with an Award-winning Feature-length Film

Forget streaming and virtual reality. A new pilot project between Dogtown Redemption, a documentary about Oakland's shopping cart recyclers, and Street Spirit , the East Bay's homeless newspaper, promises to redefine the interactive media landscape. -more-

Alameda County Democratic Central Commitee: Brett Badelle, Floyd Huen, Kate Harrison, Vince Casalaina—and none of the incumbents, who will be identified as such on the Democratic ballot

State Senate: Sandré Swanson

U.S. Senate: Kamala Harris -more-

The sample ballots for the June primary have arrived, and with them this request from a reader:

“I wanted to ask you to consider maintaining a sidebar on the online Planet site with such things as your endorsements for the county central committee. I just received my sample ballot and was looking over it and realized that I can’t remember who are the right people.”

He’s not alone. But it's not as easy a task as you might think given our balky legacy software. And in one case we haven't quite decided.

The delegate endorsements are easy, discussed in full here. But in case that link doesn’t work for you, these are the reform candidates, people I know and like: Brett Badelle, Floyd Huen, Kate Harrison, Vince Casalaina—and none of the incumbents, who will be identified as such on the Democratic ballot.

It’s complicated, because you have to ask for the Democratic ballot in the first place to find them, and then you have to look way down at the bottom.

Other choices on that ballot that I recommend: Sandré Swanson for State Senator. He’s independent-minded, not beholden to any special interests, has an illustrious record in the state assembly. -more-

NOTE: This is my understanding of the facts in this situation. I called the City of Berkeley to verify this, but they refused to talk to me about it. If anyone at the City wants to dispute anything I have said here, I encourage them to discuss it with me.

The traffic signal at Durant Avenue and Bowditch Street was "upgraded" recently as part of the City of Berkeley's plan to "Work with AC Transit to upgrade the City’s traffic signal system to provide transit-priority operation". At the request of AC Transit, the Berkeley Transportation Division changed a safe intersection into a very dangerous place for pedestrians.

RUN FOR IT!

I tried to cross Durant at Bowditch around midnight a few days ago. Cars on Durant had a flashing yellow light, essentially a green light telling them to drive through the intersection without stopping.

Not wanting to be killed by a speeding car, I pushed the WALK button and waited for the WALK light, but it never came.

Someone at the Transportation Division seems to have programmed the signal to not give pedestrians the WALK light, and not give cars on Durant the red light, late at night.

In supposedly walkable Berkeley, the government chose to prioritize cars over people. And not just in a minor way, where we have to wait for a while for the WALK light. Instead, the Transportation Division now forces us to run across 3 lanes of speeding traffic in the dark every time we want to cross the street. -more-

The Berkeley Public Library, well-funded by book-loving Berkeley and staffed by outstanding experienced librarians, is not a luxury: it is as vital to the community as police and fire stations and public schools.

Why, then, are management and the Board of Library Trustees trying to fix what is not broken?

Library management and the Board of Library Trustees have recently—by fiat and on the sly—transformed a previously successful workplace of collegiality and professionalism into a hierarchical and centralized “command and control.” The result? Grievous harm to both the collections and the staff. It has also given birth of a group of Berkeley citizens called Library Advocate of Berkeley (savethebplbooks.org).

In 2015 two managers replaced the entire team of 28 professional librarians and performed a massive weeding of the library collection: 39,500 books were removed, 13,000 of which were irreplaceable last copies of books. The public was told that the criterion for discarding a book was that it had not been taken out for three years! With this as a criterion we are in danger of being left with a library of only current best-sellers.

The professional librarians who work directly with the public and the collections on a daily basis were locked out of the room and continue to be locked out of any collection responsibilities. The Library director, Jeff Scott, was blamed for the debacle and resigned. Unfortunately, nothing has changed. It seems he was just a convenient fall guy. -more-

The evening of May 11, the agenda of the Board of Library Trustees included a period of public commentary in which speakers were allotted a mere one minute each. This period was followed by commentaries by two union members, representing SEIU Local 1021 Maintenance Clerical Units; and Community Service and PTRLA Units, and opposing commentary by two members representing Public Employees Local #1. At issue was a vote of no confidence in the current collections manager signed by 56 library employees representing every library department. Although library employees represent 1% of SEIU membership, the library is responsible for 90% of SEIU complaints. Lawyers are now involved to the tune of $375.00 an hour. -more-

One of the complaints about Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy is that he doesn’t present detailed plans. On April 27th, he presented his foreign policy “plan” at Washington DC’s “Center for the National Interest.” It was standard conservative rhetoric. Fleshed out with “Trumpisms.” And lies. -more-

Aggressive,” “revanchist,” “swaggering”: These are just some of the adjectives the mainstream press and leading U.S. and European political figures are routinely inserting before the words “Russia,” or “Vladimir Putin.” It is a vocabulary most Americans have not seen or heard since the height of the Cold War. -more-

May is Older Americans Month. This year’s theme is Blaze a Trail. The National Council on Aging’s Administration for Community Living is collecting stories of older trailblazers. Which reminds me: On Wednesday, May 11 the Berkeley Library Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet at 6:15 PM, location unknown at this time (check www.savethebplbooks.org on May 10.) -more-

The dislike of, or prejudice against, Islam or Muslims (Islamophobia) is alive and well in the United States. The aftermath of September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and the ISIS directed and inspired attacks around the world, have given rise to a growing Islamophobia in this country fueled by the hate rhetoric by the GOP presidential candidates. -more-

It is now four years since the death of my father, Martin Richard Bragen. -more-

Inferno Theatre and their multidisciplinary collaborators from all over are staging the third annual Diasporas Festival all three evenings this weekend (8 p. m. Friday, 7 on Saturday and Sunday) at the South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview (entrance around the corner on Ellis), two blocks off Adeline/MLK, a few minutes' walk from Ashby BART. -more-

In mid-May the Pierre Bonnard exhibit “Painting Arcadia” closes at the Legion of Honor and the newly expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MOMA) opens to the public. Having just taken in both, I highly recommend the first show which closes Sunday May 15. But don’t rush to see the renovated MOMA; the crowds will be huge for a while, and the museum isn’t going anywhere. -more-

On Sunday, May 1, I attended the Opera Parallèle production of The Lighthouse, a 1979 opera by Peter Maxwell Davies. Based on a true story about lighthouse keepers who mysteriously disappeared in 1900, leaving no trace, from a lighthouse on Flannan Island in the Outer Hebrides, The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies is heavy on atmosphere but somewhat spare and chilling in musical terms. The orchestra offers an unusual mix of jangly out of tune piano, guitar, banjo, flexatone keyboard, blaring brass, strings, and exotic percussion. The music is jagged, often piercing, and the singing is largely declamatory. Three singers play the three lighthouse keepers. They seem to switch back and forth between the keepers who mysteriously disappeared, on one hand, and those who discovered that the original keepers had disappeared into thin air, or, possibly, into the sea. -more-

In a season-ending series of concerts honoring the 30^th anniversary of Nicholas McGegan’s tenure as Music Director, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performed works of Beethoven and Mendelssohn. I attended the Saturday evening concert, April 30, at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. While I don’t like to make a point of disagreeing with San Francisco Chronicle’s music critic, Joshua Kosman, I must say that I found an extreme lack of balance in Kosman’s review of this program, for he so over-weighted his praise for the Mendelssohn 2^nd Symphony, or Hymn of Praise, Op. 52, that he relegated the Beethoven works performed on this program to a mere afterthought at the end of his review. To my mind, Mendelssohn doesn’t deserve all that much praise for this uneven though impressive work, nor, to put it mildly, does Beethoven deserve to be so cavalierly treated, even for works that are relatively unfamiliar to us. -more-

As usual, the April 29 gathering at Berkeley's historic Fellowship Hall (at Cedar and Bonita) was an energizing experience for the activist community. Dozens of local action groups were represented at the "Active Hope: Going Forward" event but the main draws were Joanna Macy and Ray McGovern.

Among those assembled for an evening of music, potluck dining and discussion were members of Codepink, Berkeley Progressive Alliance, Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, Sunflower Alliance, No Fracking/No Nukes, Black Lives Matter, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, End Mass Incarceration, Sustainable Berkeley, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Occupy the Farm, Postal Banking, Move to Amend, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Save the East Bay Forest, and Stop Destruction of Ace Hardware. -more-