News

The Berkeley City Council and Board of Library Trustees will meet in a special closed session on Wednesday, June 7, to consider threatened litigation by attorney Jonathan Siegel on behalf of Library Director Jackie Griffin. This announcement was received by the Planet at 5:41 a.m. on June 6, too late to include in our Tuesday edition. The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. in the sixth floor Conference Room, 2180 Milvia St. The meeting will begin with a Public Comment Session. -more-

The Berkeley City Council last month asked for the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission to analyze a proposal to place public financing for the mayor’s office on the November ballot. But the council directive has been stalled by City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque, who says her office has insufficient time to prepare the ballot measure. -more-

Christina Paniagua’s daughter, a fifth-grader at Jefferson Elementary School in Oakland, needed extra help with reading, so Paniagua attended a school fair to find out about free private tutoring services available on-campus. -more-

A small revision of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) appears headed to the November ballot: supporters turned in 3,200 signatures on Monday. -more-

Although Berkeley voters called for Instant Runoff Voting when they passed Measure I in March 2004 by 72 percent, IRV will not happen in 2006, according to City Clerk Sara Cox. -more-

The annual senior streaking tradition at Berkeley High School nearly went awry Monday when students descended upon the school ready to flaunt skin, only to find out the doors were locked. -more-

UC Berkeley’s plans for a high-rise hotel and conference center in downtown Berkeley are moving closer to reality, a university official said Monday. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education is expected to finalize language Wednesday for a renewed parcel tax measure that would supply Berkeley schools with an estimated $19.6 million a year. -more-

The Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) is slated to reconsider a use permit for a vacant site on University Avenue that allows Toyota of Berkeley to operate an automobile sales and service facility. -more-

The committee helping formulate the new downtown plan will hold a joint meeting with the city Transportation Commission Wednesday. -more-

Disabled People Outside Project activist Dan McMullen was informed last week that he could either pay $10,000 in bail money or face arrest for violating an earlier probation by getting arrested at People’s Park on April 30. -more-

KABUL, Afghanistan—I am writing this in my apartment in one of the “posh” new buildings constructed in 2004 near downtown Kabul. The shiny structure is five stories tall with tinted windows. My roommate and I pay $300 a month in rent, the going price in such buildings. Few locals can afford such relative luxury—a civil servant's salary is just $50 a month. And this is no Trump Towers. -more-

Berkeley City Clerk Sara Cox said that if voters’ names do not appear on the voters’ list at the polling place where they believe they are registered, they have the right to ask for a provisional ballot. -more-

Candidates for office in Berkeley are required to pay a $150 filing fee when they take out nomination papers. However, in lieu of paying the fee, they can collect signatures. -more-

Rape suspect arrested -more-

Caltrans last week denied the city of Berkeley’s request for a $120,000 grant to fund a transportation plan to be used in shaping the development of a project that would feature about 300 units of housing over commercial space and parking at the Ashby Bart Station. -more-

Stop that initiative or we’ll sue, an attorney for Golden Gate Fields has warned Albany officials. Citizens for the Albany Shoreline (CAS) filed the initiative in question, an attempt to stop shoreline development, with Albany City Clerk Jacqueline Bucholz on May 16. -more-

The City Council on Tuesday approved the Creek Task Force (CTF) recommendations that ease current building restrictions, but still would require various permits and environmental analyses to build or remodel near creeks. -more-

Graduation season is fast approaching, but more than 40,000 students statewide, including about 200 in Berkeley, still have not passed the high school exit exam. -more-

Members of the Nexus Institute were still occupying their rented West Berkeley home Thursday, the day after the deadline had passed for them to leave. -more-

A federal court judge last week ordered the Department of Defense to expedite a Freedom of Information request made by the ACLU of Northern California on behalf of UC Berkeley Stop the War Coalition and UC Santa Cruz Students Against the War. -more-

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) and the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held a joint meeting Wednesday, and the topic du jour was architectural preservation. -more-

L. A. Wood has filed an appeal to the Zoning Adjustments Board’s (ZAB) decision to modify a use permit that allows Pacific Steel Casting to construct odor pollution reducing facilities. -more-

The “opt-out” notification high school military recruiter bill co-sponsored by Bay Area Assemblymembers Loni Hancock and Sally Lieber has moved on to the California State Senate, but solid Republican opposition and lack of full Democratic support mean that the bill continues to have little chance of surviving a possible gubernatorial veto. -more-

Two self-professed gang members were wounded in a drive-by shooting in South Berkeley Monday night—and neither one is talking to police. -more-

With Alameda County Supervisors coming down to the wire on a decision for the purchase of a permanent new voting system, local voting activists are hoping for what they call an “interim solution” that will not commit the county past the November elections. -more-

Officials from Alameda County, the Albany Chamber of Commerce as well as Albany residents and small businesses got together at the Albany City Hall Tuesday to talk trash. -more-

Even though the end of the school year is approaching, it’s not too late for local teenagers to find summer activities. -more-

“People think Berkeley is different, that we don’t have undocumented people,” says Belen Pulido-Martinez, organizer with BOCA, Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action, a nonprofit dedicated to giving voice to people from communities with little power. -more-

About a dozen Berkeley residents filed into Council Chambers last Thursday to urge the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) to reject a proposal for new wireless facilities at a local Catholic church. The board took heed. -more-

Stuck up -more-