Just as its balance sheets finally approach equilibrium, Berkeley Unified School District is losing its top numbers cruncher—the man universally credited with helping to erase a $6.5 million deficit and getting the district out of the red for the first time in three years. -more-

Anne Crowden, the beloved music teacher who founded the Crowden School in Berkeley in 1983, died Monday morning in her birthplace of Edinburgh, Scotland, of pancreatic cancer. She was 76. Berkeley composer John Adams, in a 1997 tribute, said that Crowden used “her enormous energy and powers of persuasion to create a place where children from all economic backgrounds could immerse themselves in music while enjoying the highest levels of academic schooling.” A violinist herself, passionate about chamber music, she started her school with eleven junior high school children in a church basement. -more-

Berkeley resident Karen Rose did not have to hire someone to accompany her to the voting booth during the March primary and read the ballot to her. With no one looking over her shoulder, Rose was able to vote without having to reveal to anyone else who she voted for. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 19 -more-

It was about a year ago, according to Ocean View Gardens tenant Desiree Lambert, that water began to drip from her living room ceiling whenever it rained. One day the drip from the weak spot turned into a pour. In December of 2003, the weight of the water sent plaster crashing onto her sofa, leaving a hole in her ceiling the size of a basketball. -more-

Berkeley’s mayor and eight city councilmembers, who all together spent a total of approximately $456,000 to get elected to their present terms, failed to reach a consensus Tuesday on presenting a ballot measure to voters that would shift at least some of those expenses to the public. -more-

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The City of Berkeley has issued a rabies alert after a bat infected with rabies was removed from the 2300 block of Warring Street on Monday. -more-

The terror attacks in Madrid have done more than put Europe on warning and shake up Spain’s politics. Because of deep historical and emotional ties to Madrid, the entire Spanish-speaking world now feels directly implicated in the 21st century dilemma of how to respond to terrorism. Struggling to make sense of the deadly bombing that struck the traditional heart of Hispanic culture, Spanish-language media on both sides of the Atlantic adopted their own typographical shorthand for the catastrophic event: 11-M. -more-

Editor’s Note: A 14-year-old Oakland, Calif., resident who’s father was shot to death interviews her friends about what they think causes all the violence in “Tha Town.” -more-

On Friday afternoon of last week, apparently without warning to Burbank administrators, workers from the Oakland Unified School District’s central office demolished a portable building and the mural that had decorated it for several years. The work was done in full view of students present for after-school activities. State Administrator Randolph Ward said later that the portable had long been scheduled for demolition, and its destruction had nothing to do with the possible pending closure school. -more-

The U.S. government just released the first trade figures for this year, showing a whopping $43.1 billion deficit for January – an all-time high. More than a quarter of that was with China, whose trade deficit with the United States expanded to $11.5 billion. During the normally staid annual Senate hearing March 9 on trade policy, Republican members pushed Robert Zoellich, the U.S. trade representative, to be tougher on China. That’s what a lot of Democrats want, too. Think again. -more-

San Francisco police are letting people know today that the downtown area may be subject to congestion and delays—particularly for drivers—due to anti-war protests starting Friday morning. -more-

UC Regent Ward Connerly deserves some mention, both for something he recently said, and for something about which he was pointedly silent. -more-

JEFFERSON SCHOOL -more-

It’s a firm belief of mine—and I can’t help but believe that my Berkeley neighbors share it as well—that people in neighborhoods other than where I hang out are as entitled to walk down their neighborhood streets in safety, as I am in my neighborhood. If that other neighborhood happens to be located in Kabul’s busy streets, or near Cambodia’s rice paddies, or in any of the thousands of neighborhoods in the 71 countries around the world where over 100 million landmines are buried, that doesn’t change my far-off neighbors’ entitlement to walk in safety. It’s just that in fact they can’t—and don’t—not in their neighborhood. -more-

IRV WITH PAPER BALLOTS -more-

The large mural, Berkeley—the City and Its People, which for more than 30 years has graced the City Council chamber, can now be seen in the fine Romare Bearden retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. -more-

For many generations, the Jewish musicians of Eastern Europe played the raucous, emotionally charged dance music called klezmer. They absorbed the Slavic, Gypsy and Turkish musical styles of their neighbors into their own music and invested their playing with a soulful intensity. This coming week, as the Berkeley Jewish Music Festival (BJMF) begins its annual celebration of Jewish music from around the world, the focus will be on klezmer, celebrating its passing from one generation to the next and its connection to Berkeley itself. -more-

Just like your family, houses are full of things that need annual (and sometimes more frequent) checkups. Gutters crack, septic tanks leak, and furnaces stop working. Keep the following list on hand to remind yourself which household appliances and fixtures you can check yourself, which need professional attention, and approximately how much you’ll have to spend on maintenance and repair. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 19 -more-

China Camp State Park at Marin County’s Point San Pedro is hidden a few miles behind the Frank Lloyd Wright Marin Civic Center and faces east across the southwestern tip of San Pablo Bay. Having passed the Marin Civic Center hundreds of times, I never even noticed the state’s brown directional sign to China Camp until last Sunday. -more-