Berkeley Fire Chief Reginald Garcia, 56, called it quits Thursday in an e-mail to his fellow firefighters, announcing that on Sept. 17 he’ll leave the office he’s held for the last seven years. -more-
Maudelle Shirek, the 93-year-old matriarch of Berkeley’s left, will face stiff competition from a former protégé this November when she seeks a tenth term on the City Council. -more-
In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the City of Berkeley does have the right to demand businesses at the marina pay their workers a living wage. -more-
Last Saturday, Assemblymember Loni Hancock, in partnership with the Greenbelt Alliance, the East Bay Community Foundation, AC Transit, and Caltrans, kicked off a public campaign/planning process whose goal is to make San Pablo Avenue, in Hancock’s words, “a world-class boulevard.” -more-
Notification is the lifeblood of community participation. On this score, the organizers of last Saturday’s community workshop on San Pablo Avenue revitalization had good intentions. They hoped to involve the community in the early stages of the project rather than, as is too often the case, bringing them in near the end when all the important decisions had already been made. Hence workshop organizers made a serious effort at community outreach, mailing out 510 letters to community-based organizations in or within a mile of San Pablo. -more-
After some discussion and parliamentary confusion, the Berkeley Housing Authority board Tuesday night passed both a budget and a reorganization plan proposed by the city housing director. In addition, the authority learned that it was in better financial shape than previously believed. -more-
The City Council Tuesday formally kicked off a drive to welcome UC Berkeley into its “tax paying family.” -more-
MIAMI—If José Miguel Pizarro has his way, he will recruit 30,000 Chileans as mercenaries to protect American companies under Pentagon contract to rebuild Iraq. And undoubtedly, within those ranks will be former members of death squads that tortured and murdered civilians when dictatorships ruled in Latin America. -more-
Sweeps and detentions of undocumented immigrants far from the Mexican border have sparked “hysteria,” “terror,” and “panic” in Southern California Latino communities, according to recent Spanish-language media headlines. -more-
Sisters Held in 1970 Killing of Berkeley Police Officer -more-
Council to Discuss Hotel Task Force Report -more-
Two of the G Street regulars sat on their plastic milk crates on a summer afternoon, sipped from their cans of Budweiser, and watched an old Buick pass by. The engine sputtered, the car lurched, then died. The driver got out, one of those tiny ball-pene hammers clutched in one fist. He hiked the hood, peered into the engine well for a moment, and then—with a big overhand swing—gave the engine block a mighty lick with the hammer. The driver closed the hood, got back in the car, started the motor, and pulled off. He went about a half a block before the engine sputtered, the car lurched, and then died again. The driver got out, lifted the hood, and gave the engine block another whack with the hammer. As the driver was getting back in the car, one of the streetside observers took a sip of beer, sucked his teeth, and muttered, “Lookit that ass-backwards son-of a bitch. He’ll never get it fixed, that way.” -more-
The funeral ceremony for ex-President Ronald Reagan had all the usual symbolic gestures that are now standard for departed presidents—the flag-draped casket with honor guard, the riderless horse with boots reversed, the later line of mourners underneath the Capitol Rotunda. Most of us have seen the ceremonies on television before. And there have always followed multi-page obituaries in the major newspapers recounting the political career and life story of the departed chief executive. -more-
In Berkeley, the community is hard pressed to make its voice heard on development issues, despite a few recent successes. So I’m sorry to report that on June 10, good process took a baby step backward at the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) Blood House hearing. But the improprieties were more subtle than usual, and perhaps arose as much from an atrophied understanding of public process as from bad intentions. -more-
Local coverage of the city’s budget over the past few months has increasingly targeted city employee salaries as the source of the city’s budget problems. An example of this appeared in the April 20-22 issue of the Daily Planet, where the “Citizens Budget Oversight Committee,” a self appointed committee, authored an article about grossly overpaid and benefited employees. This was presented as fact in a fictionalized account of a “typical” city employee and accounting expert. -more-
If you don’t have a serious religious ceremony to attend on the Summer Solstice—next Monday, June 21—but would still like to mark the longest day of the year with something special, head over to Oakland’s mortuary row for a unique musical event. Each year, dozens of musicians and singers assemble for the annual “Garden of Memory” concert in the venerable Chapel of the Chimes on Piedmont Avenue. -more-
There’s a storyteller loose on the stage at Berkeley Rep. People who have seen him perform 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com probably want to call him a comedian. Whatever… maybe it’s most accurate to think of Mike Daisey as something of a walking work-in-progress—a very funny and very polished work-in-progress. -more-
From Celtic fiddling to Brazilian samba, from Congolese song and dance to bluegrass and Cajun, a world of music awaits visitors to Telegraph Avenue Saturday and Sunday. -more-
Finally, we come to tomatoes. We know they will not do well in Berkeley. Tomatoes are simply the breath of summer, inevitable, irreplaceable, and so each year, we plant them like visionaries and reap them like sinners. -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-
It’s not traditional, or at least not a recent tradition, for competing publications to critique each other in print. In the glory days of the old Hearst chain, of course, wars between newspapers made life fun for readers. But the Daily Planet is not, as regular readers may have noticed, exactly a traditional community paper. We’re not shy about either praising or blaming other papers when the opportunity presents itself. -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-
