In an abrupt about-face, developers of the largest housing complex ever planned for the city center have agreed to build 124 underground public parking spaces to partially offset the loss of the Kittredge Garage. -more-
Perhaps you saw my sign reading “City of Berkeley: Hands Off My Equity!” and “It's the Disclosure Stupid—First-Time Homebuyers Assistance Program is a Predatory Loan!” during the last city council session. I was voicing indignation at the silence of city government to questions about deceptive lending practices perpetrated within the former Berkeley program entitled First-Time Homebuyers Assistance Program, wherein 29 West Berkeley first-time homebuyers unwittingly handed the city a blank check to the equity accrued in their homes. Only now is the city admitting that these loans are investments, and also not the assistance they purport to be. -more-
After recently agreeing to discontinue a shirt many found anti-Semitic, the Urban Outfitters clothing store on Bancroft Way is in the spotlight again after introducing a shirt that reads, “Voting is for old people.” -more-
Friday was a tear-filled day at Berkeley High. Tissue boxes lined the steps to the Community Theater where students—some slumped against the building, their faces cupped in their hands—gathered to mourn the passing of classmate Nic Rotolo. -more-
After a week’s vacation, the city council returns tonight (Tuesday, Feb. 11) to its continuing task of closing a projected $10 million shortfall in the upcoming city budget. City Manager Phil Kamlarz has set up a series of 5 p.m. non-voting working sessions on various aspects of the budget, scheduled to continue through the end of March. -more-
Berkeley resident and convicted child molester Kenneth Parnell was convicted Monday on charges of trying to buy a 4-year-old boy. -more-
There may still be a glimmer of hope for the 30 UC Berkeley graduate students denied consideration for prestigious Fulbright-Hayes fellowships when their applications were mailed after the competition’s deadline. -more-
Ronald White, 45, of Berkeley was arraigned in an Oakland courthouse yesterday on three counts of carjacking and three counts of kidnapping for robbery. He was referred to a public defender and denied bail, said Deputy District Attorney Mike Nieto. -more-
Whether Kevin Cooper is ultimately put to death in San Quentin State Prison or not, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has missed a historic and unique opportunity to mount the bully pulpit to enlighten and lead. -more-
It’s hard for most people to get their brains around a $521 billion deficit. Most of us have a hard enough time envisioning a million dollars, let alone a billion—which is, of course, a thousand million. Try to think about 521 thousand million dollars—which is next year’s budget deficit—and your mind just closes down. A kind of numbness sets in. -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a report on the New California Media association’s first national poll of Latino reaction to Bush’s immigration proposals. The public opinion survey was sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation and conducted by Bendixen and Associates. -more-
The rapid rise of John Kerry’s presidential campaign is causing grave concern in the Republican Party’s upper management. Although GOP. leaders denigrate him as a “Massachusetts liberal,” invoking doom-laden memories of Michael Dukakis, such glib chatter only provides a temporary relief from their worries. -more-
When my computer crashed last week I did what I always do in the face of calamity, which is to immediately admit defeat and then begin to mope nobly. When my previous computer crashed a year ago I hired a geek to extract the information from the hard drive and then I threw the entire thing away. No computer, no crash. -more-
When the subject is book publishers, “small” rarely means “insignificant.” Try “independent” and “adventurous”—vital terms in an era when most big publishers have become conformist corporate citizens. -more-
What happens when two expert female humorists get together and collaborate? Hilarity! -more-
A female Berkeley High student tried to jump to her death at school Tuesday, according to police. The student was not seriously injured and was taken to a local hospital, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Kevin Schofield, who didn’t have further details at press time of what police have classified as an attemped suicide. -more-
The most startling thing about Berkeley breweries is how many have disappeared. In the 1990s, entrepreneurial beer fans believed that beer and micro-brewing was a quicker route to success than learning the intricacies of winemaking and distribution. As with books, distribution was the key. -more-
A deal has been all but completed to sell the 94-year-old Shattuck Hotel and turn it into short-term student housing for international students, said city officials and hotel employees. -more-
When word broke last week that the city’s largest free dinner, the Quarter Meal, will be reducing service and possibly closing, many wondered what further hits await Berkeley food programs already facing cuts in both city and private sector funding. -more-
The Claremont Resort and Spa—the East Bay’s premier resort—is up for sale. -more-
What is happening in Berkeley’s downtown core, who is in charge, what is the vision? Despite being a longtime civic activist, I have no coherent idea of what is going on downtown beyond a series of catch-as-catch-can projects of varying degrees of attractiveness and plausibility, and behind the loud noise of a downtown boosterism that evidently masks a lot of confusion. Having checked with other citizen activists and city officials who should be in the know about downtown, I am convinced that no one is minding the downtown shop or has any clear notion of what our downtown will be like in 2020. -more-
KPFA General Manager Gus Newport announced Monday that he’s stepping down after eight short months at the helm of the Bay Area’s best-known alternative radio station. Newport said personal commitments, including the need to be with his 91-year-old mother who lives in New York, contributed to the decision. -more-
Amid a testy debate that unlocked the door on one of the Berkeley Unified School District’s most sensitive issues—white flight—the school board Wednesday approved a plan to further integrate elementary schools despite warnings from one board member that it was picking an unnecessary legal fight. -more-
Carl Freire absolutely, positively has to be in Japan next year. But a botched pick-up by Federal Express has cost the UC Berkeley doctoral candidate and 29 of his colleagues their best shot at a prestigious fellowship allowing them to study abroad. -more-
Ignoring Mayor Tom Bates’ request to “hold off on the formal creation of a [UC Hotel Complex] task force for a month or so until a permit process is negotiated with the university,” a four-member planning commission subcommittee moved forward with the immediate creation of the UC Hotel Complex Task Force this week, including compiling a list of 24 members to be presented to the Berkeley Planning Commission at their Feb. 11 meeting and scheduling a Saturday morning walking tour of the proposed hotel site. -more-
Renewing the question of how much money Berkeley may be missing in so-called “escaped property fees and taxes” because of blind spots in its assessment program, the Berkeley Finance Administration has increased the taxable assessment of Patrick Kennedy’s controversial Gaia Building following a query from a former member of the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission. -more-
The Massachusetts Supreme Court advisory, stating that nothing short of marriage for same-sex couples would satisfy the state constitution, has sent legislators throughout the nation as well as President Bush scrambling to define marriage as between “one man and one woman.” -more-
Back in my other home, in South Carolina, there used to be a neighborhood woman who could predict the weather by the pain in her knee joints. I’ve never been able to do that, but lately I’ve been getting pretty good at predicting when an Oakland City Council election is coming up. When Henry Chang gets in the paper proposing some law about police or violence or something like that, it’s time to get ready to vote. -more-
The Actor’s Ensemble, Berkeley’s oldest theater group (they’ve been around for 47 years) is staging a version of Helen of Troy which thumbs its nose at the story that most of us have heard over the years. You know, that’s the one that claims that the Trojan War’s 10 year’s worth of slaughter exploded into history because King Menelaos’ wife, Helen, run off with the gorgeous Greek Prince, Paris. -more-
It’s been quite a year for voles. The evidence for this is indirect: high numbers of hawks, from the pastures of Point Reyes to the farmlands of Solano County. Word seems to get around that there’s a bumper crop of tasty rodents. -more-
Over the next several days, join EGRET's Park Guides in exploring Aquatic Park. All events last 90 minutes and begin outside the cabin in front of Middle Pond at the park’s southern entrance. -more-
“Look! This wasn’t here last week!” Mark Liolios shows visitors a strong green shoot on a willow trunk. Recent hand-clearing of tangled, sun blocking, ivy and brambles along the eastern edge of Berkeley’s Aquatic Park has encouraged the gnarled tree to vigorously re-sprout. -more-
On Saturday, one of those brilliant northern California sunlit February days, I went along on a downtown walking tour sponsored by the Planning Commission’s task force on UC’s hotel proposal. A couple of the participants gave a mini-lecture on the elegant moderne printing plant on Oxford (threatened with demolition), where the U.N. charter was printed and David Brower met his wife. The historic tidbits in their account whetted the appetite of one of my fellow walkers, a young man recently graduated from Boalt who has enthusiastically taken up the Berkeley activist tradition. “Why,” he said, “are there no walking tours of famous historic sites from the ‘60s and ‘70s, like the place where Patty Hearst was kidnapped?” -more-
A national cleaning chain settled a lawsuit last week that charged it with polluting Berkeley’s Strawberry Creek. -more-
