While most of the Tuesday night crowd at Brennan’s were cheering the Red Sox, a half-dozen others huddled at a back table, brainstorming ways to save the venerable West Berkeley tavern. -more-

Long simmering anger burst into the open Wednesday night as anxious Richmond residents threw heated questions and charges at state officials and representatives of the firm planning a major residential development atop a Richmond toxic waste site. -more-

A near life-long Berkeley resident has gotten the nod to become the city’s next fire chief. -more-

Spanning 96,000 acres in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, the East Bay Regional Park District is the largest local park system in the country. But when its residents go to the polls on Tuesday, only those who live along the bay shore from San Pablo to Alameda will see a new park tax before them. -more-

Bruce McMurray’s home in the Berkeley hills is a testament to frugality. -more-

Berkeley election monitors effectively dismissed Wednesday a complaint filed against the Council of Neighborhood Associations (CNA), but failed to address the question of whether the group had violated Berkeley election law by mailing to non-members its newsletter urging the defeat of city tax measures. -more-

Architect Kava Massih unveiled the latest version of the new Berkeley Bowl planned for the southwest corner of Ninth Street and Heinz Avenue in West Berkeley, at a meeting Tuesday night for project neighbors. -more-

Last summer members of the City Council seemed ready to fight three citizen-initiated measures on the November ballot that would promote decriminalizing prostitution, liberalize medical pot laws and set up a board to protect trees. -more-

A Richmond City Council candidate has condemned two last-minute campaign flyers in that race as “eleventh-hour mudslinging” and “hit pieces” that have become “far too typical of Richmond politics” and “have nothing to do with issues that matter to Richmond residents.” -more-

Plans for a major UC Berkeley-sponsored hotel and convention center at the northeast corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street are moving forward, says Kevin Hufferd, UC Capital Projects senior planner. -more-

“I believe there ought to be a temporary worker card that allows a willing worker and a willing employer to mate up, so long as there’s not an American willing to do that job, to join up in order to be able to fulfill the employers’ needs.” —George Bush, presidential debate, Oct. 14, 2004 -more-

The physician charged with safeguarding the health of Contra Costa County residents issued a stinging rebuke Thursday of the bureaucratic turf battles he believes are compromising the Campus Bay toxic waste cleanup. -more-

Dreading the notion of sitting around Berkeley, filling the anxious hours until Nov. 3 by reading contradictory polls and phoning undecided voters in swing states, we decided to travel to Colorado and immerse ourselves in get-out-the-vote activities. -more-

Libya’s decision to junk its WMD program confirms that sanctions, not pre-emptive war in Iraq as George Bush claims, worked. Diplomatic pressures punctuated by stiff commercial and military sanctions convinced Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to take stock of Libya’s international isolation and brought him to the negotiating table. -more-

MEASURE Q -more-

Berkeley Police are investigating two shootings and a stabbing attack that took place this week, and are celebrating a raid on a South Berkeley drug house that netted cocaine, heroin, a 9 mm. semiautomatic pistol and three arrests. -more-

A reader from a local newsgroup takes issue with the assertion in last week’s column that Chief Richard Word’s tenure as Oakland Police Chief was a failure. Chief Word recently announced that he is resigning from that position. -more-

For nearly a hundred years, Berkeley has struggled to maintain its storm system of inlets, culverts and pipes that carry rain and other surface waters to our creeks and into the San Francisco Bay. Historically, our city has always placed a very low priority on the general maintenance and the annual repairs of the storm system. However, in 1992, there was a serious legislative move to fix Berkeley’s beleaguered storm system when voters authorized a new stormwater property assessment. -more-

Why is Measure B so important? -more-

Against a blue-green expanse of tiled stage and backdrop, a young couple, swimming goggles pushed back, dallies at the beach. He’s always thinking about—or hearing—music. She’s talking about the books she’s read, and can’t get the rhythm right when he asks her, “Will you remember my melody underwater?” -more-

FRIDAY, OCT. 29 -more-

After 22 years of weathering the elements at the Berkeley Marina Mall, Calliope, a sculpture by Berkeley artist Joseph Slusky has received a facelift. The 11-foot steel sculpture recently got a new paint job and had its dent repaired thanks to the money from the city’s Public Arts Program. -more-

FRIDAY, OCT. 29 -more-