City, UC Clash Over Payment for Services
Playing host to UC Berkeley costs the city $10.9 million a year—nearly the same amount as the city’s current budget deficit—according to a recently released city-commissioned fiscal impact analysis. -more-
Playing host to UC Berkeley costs the city $10.9 million a year—nearly the same amount as the city’s current budget deficit—according to a recently released city-commissioned fiscal impact analysis. -more-
The next move in the struggle over Berkeley’s troubled Blood House may be a physical move from its present location. -more-
After temporarily being saved from total elimination, the UC Institute for Labor and Employment (ILE) is on the chopping block again as part of what institute employees say is an attack on labor rights and the interests of working people across California. -more-
Youth was served Sunday when progressives nominated their slate of four candidates for the Rent Stabilization Board who promise to keep the board decidedly pro-tenant and a spring board for politically active UC students. -more-
The students might have gone home for the summer, but concerns about UC Berkeley will be front and center at tonight’s (Tuesday, June 15) City Council meeting. -more-
Berkeley Police are asking the public to help them identify and apprehend the two men who abducted a woman pedestrian last Wednesday and forced her into a car where she was raped, then dropped off in Oakland. -more-
SAN FRANCISCO—In the 1980s, as a Nicaraguan child, I had dreams of Presidente Reagan dying of a heart attack in the middle of a speech. I thought his death would bring the war to an end. Then there would be no more low-flying “black birds” (spy planes) breaking the sound barrier several times a day during school hours. -more-
BUENOS AIRES—In April, approximately 150,000 Argentines filled the streets of downtown Buenos Aires in one of the country’s largest demonstrations since democracy was restored 20 years ago. The organizer did not belong to any of the county’s internationally renowned human rights groups, however. Juan Carlos Blumberg was virtually unknown until the murder of his 23-year-old son Axel, the latest casualty in Argentina’s growing crime wave. -more-
When Patrick Kennedy rose to address Zoning Assessment Board members about the Blood House during ZAB’s regular meeting last week, David Blake took advantage of the controversial developer’s presence to ask Kennedy about the long-empty “cultural use space” in the Gaia Building on Allston Way. -more-
In most countries it is recognized as one of the world’s most powerful organizations. This spring, it is celebrating its 100th anniversary with pomp and circumstance, including photo exhibitions, emotive tributes and a flurry of press attention. -more-
My father left for work at dawn, wearing dungarees and a blue button-down cotton workshirt. On his feet he wore heavy woolen white socks and brown scuffed round-toed boots. He walked fast with a slight bend forward across the front yard and driveway and entered a nearby red barn. That is how he began every day, for more than 40 years—sprinting across grass and gravel to an outbuilding where he raised rodents for a living. -more-
“Our class is run like a college studio with college-level projects, medium, and materials,” Cragmont Elementary School art teacher Joe McClain explained. He was busy readying the classroom for the third and fourth graders who were about to appear. In hi s Bermuda shorts and abstract art t-shirt he hurried around the room, which was colorfully jumbled with student art, easels and supplies, throwing me information along the way. -more-
Berkeley has always supported the protection of the natural habitat for wildlife and creeks. Now others are joining the fight to preserve our open spaces and creeks. Friends of Garrity Creek are fighting a proposed 40-home development that will destroy 1 0 beautiful acres and threaten Garrity Creek that is fed by two natural springs at it’s headwaters and ends when it flows into the San Pablo Bay. The proposed subdivision is SD 01 8533 and is on very steep land behind Hilltop Drive in El Sobrante. -more-
Editors, Daily Planet: -more-
A coincidence, raising some eyebrows and concerns in musical circles: -more-
Americans struggle each generation with the political, social, and economic issues and impacts of immigration. When these often divisive debates occur, it is worth recalling the experiences of previous eras of immigration. -more-
We don’t get many mule deer in my current neighborhood. But some years back, when I lived in a rickety in-law apartment near the Berkeley Rose Garden, they—along with the raccoons, skunks, and possums—were regulars. They would bed down in the ivy-covered gully below the house, or placidly consume the few things we had managed to grow in the garden (a challenge at best, since it had the kind of drainage you would expect from a former fishpond.) Mostly they were does, sometimes with fawns in tow. Bucks wer e rarer—more circumspect around people, maybe—but a few showed up from time to time. I would admire their racks from a discreet distance, and wonder about the whole antler thing. -more-
A well-connected Berkeley toxics consultant and developer has teamed with Donald Rumsfeld’s predecessor as secretary of defense and a landless Native American tribe to float a proposal to build a casino and 1000-room four-hotel complex on Point Molate in Richmond. -more-
Ninety percent of 800 workers who voted at the Alta Bates Summit Medical center rejected a recent contract offer by the hospital late last week, locking the two sides back into heated negotiations that have been ongoing since before the workers’ contract expired at the end of May. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District has three business days to come up with $41,000 or else it risks losing a vital sponsor for a program that teaches students the splendors of urban gardening. -more-
The Landmarks Commission designated three new Berkeley landmarks Monday night, but admirers of only one of the buildings (the Ace Hardware store on University Avenue) will be able to rest comfortably with that fact. The remaining two landmark sites are on UC Berkeley-owned property earmarked for possible demolition for the proposed downtown university-owned hotel, conference center and museums complex. -more-
Mayor Tom Bates Tuesday proposed a temporary reprieve for some community nonprofits slated for budget cuts in hopes that come November Berkeley voters will bail them out indefinitely. -more-
The Planning Commission decided Wednesday it wasn’t ready to rezone University Avenue after all. -more-
In some towns high school graduates are greeted with a new car or a family barbecue. This year in Berkeley the class of 2004 will stare out on a small army of voter registration volunteers. -more-
Anthrax Scare at Oakland Children’s Hospital Research Institute -more-
Berkeley Shooting Leads to Chase, Crash -more-
Shortly after two Latino students were shot and wounded in a terrifying, daylight drive-by shooting at Oakland’s Castlemont High School, the Oakland Tribune interviewed Oakland City Councilmember Larry Reid, who had hurried to the scene. -more-
Everyone has heard about the human rights violations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But how many are aware of even deadlier human rights violations on our southern border? What is happening along our border with Mexico is policy directed from the highest levels of government and blame cannot be shifted to low-level soldiers. Victims have included babies and young children, not terrorists. Those killed have been seeking jobs or family reunification. -more-
It’s never nice to open up a newspaper and read a spiteful piece by an angry critic. But as a published author and photographer for nearly 30 years, I’ve had my share of bad reviews. So Bob Brokl’s commentary piece (”Nexus Artist Blasts Animal Shelter Decision,” Daily Planet, June 4-7) wasn’t a new experience for me, but it has left an especially nasty taste, as the critic is someone I had considered an ally, with common goals. -more-
The Wilde Irish Productions theater group is back at the Berkeley City Club with another sterling production—Irish, of course. This time it is Patricia Burke Brogan’s heartbreaking—maybe the word should be “horrifying”—internationally known drama, Eclipsed. -more-
Weekly public concerts from a rustic outdoor bandstand and al fresco family picnics on a park lawn on a sunny afternoon might seem most traditionally the stuff of Middle America rather than the Bay Area. But at San Francisco’s Stern Grove they are the essence of a local tradition you can enjoy every summer. -more-
After 9/11, two signs appeared in the windows of many East Bay homes. One said “Hate-Free Community,” the other, “Justice not Vengeance.” A third, urging “No War in Iraq,” was widely displayed after March 2003. All three came from Inkworks Press in West Berkeley. Inkworks is a print shop with a mission summed up by two words on the cover of its brochure: “Progressive Printing.” By “progressive,” Inkworks means not only what gets produced, but how the work gets done. The press is a collective—a union shop owned and operated by the people who work there. -more-
Pack the car. It’s time for another getaway, along country roads, through quiet towns, heading toward the spectacular Sonoma Coast. Allow time to sample, to browse, to walk, and at the end of the day, to relax and picnic on the beach. -more-
Last November, the Daily Planet got a phoned-in tip that six members of the Richmond City Council had taken part in a meeting, “over wine and cheese,” with people the caller identified as “Las Vegas types,” with the subject matter being the possibility of turning Point Molate over to casino gambling interests with Native American connections. The tipster, who identified himself as a rank-and-file environmentalist, said he’d heard a guy talking about the meeting in a bar, and that he loved Point Molate’s natural and historical splendors and was outraged at the idea of putting a casino there. -more-
As part of our ongoing series of Planet editorials which annoy proponents of major and minor religions, we’d like to share with our readers a press release which we received this week from the United Methodist Communications Office of Public Information in Nashville. Here’s the headline: “Crawford Pastor Leaving Bush Back Yard for Iraq; United Methodist Clergyman To Serve as Military Chaplain.” -more-