Plans for Ashby BART Project Continues After Grant Denial
Despite rumors to the contrary, the Ashby BART Task Force is very much alive—though in what form and to what ends remain open questions. -more-
Despite rumors to the contrary, the Ashby BART Task Force is very much alive—though in what form and to what ends remain open questions. -more-
It’s the end of an era for yet another independent Berkeley retailer. -more-
Will there be a new Berkeley Bowl market in West Berkeley or not? -more-
After almost two years of staff-management strife, a page has turned at the Berkeley Public Library: Wednesday evening the Board of Trustees announced the departure of the embattled library director and the appointment of an interim replacement. -more-
This is Part Two of a two-part series on tutoring. Part One ran in the June 6 issue. -more-
Berkeley Transportation Commissioner Rob Wrenn charged Wednesday night that “UC Berkeley uses the programs least likely to succeed” to reduce car use by students, faculty and staff. -more-
It’s official: a renewed parcel tax to support Berkeley’s public schools will go before voters this November. -more-
The California Health Facilities Financing Authority announced last week that Berkeley’s LifeLong Medical Care clinics will receive a $408,374 grant and the Berkeley Free Clinic will receive $35,264 out of the $40 million grant money issued statewide. -more-
When Berkeley Art Center Director Robbin Henderson came to the City Council, beret in hand, asking councilmembers to restore funding slashed three years ago, the unanimous body moved the question to the growing list of projects to be considered when the council puts together its final budget this month or next. -more-
A plan to put a $50-per-homeowner levy on the November ballot to upgrade the Berkeley’s 100-year-old storm drain system is water under the bridge, at least for now, says Councilmember Linda Maio. -more-
With the defeat of the library bond measure on Tuesday’s ballot, there will be no expansion at the West Berkeley Library. There will be no new space for computers or for kids to sit and read, no new room for the literacy program and its tutors, according to library officials. -more-
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-
A divided Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Thursday to approve a $13.25 million, three-year voting machine contract with Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, ending, for the present, the county’s relationship with controversial Diebold Election Systems. -more-
UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium joined the ranks of Berkeley’s landmarks Thursday by a unanimous vote of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). -more-
Thank you for Mr. Allen-Taylor’s stimulating review of Charles DeBose’s The Sociology of African-American Language. Not long ago I submitted a book review to a left leaning, youth oriented newspaper in San Francisco but was informed they don’t print book reviews. So thank you for encouraging us all to put our thinking caps on. -more-
Next year, the Berkeley Art Center hopes to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The Center, housed in a small gem of a Ratcliff building beside the creek in Live Oak Park, has been displaying the work of Berkeley artists since 1967. But the prospects for a 2007 celebration are far from certain. The more likely scenario is that Berkeley’s municipal art gallery will be forced to close down before its anniversary date arrives. Its budget has been shrinking every year and if the city cannot restore the grant for the coming year to the 2001 level, the Center will not be able to keep its doors open. -more-
A unhappy milestone has just passed. On May 31, our latest 15-year lease on Nexus from the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society expired. Although Nexus is attempting to negotiate with the Humane Society to purchase the property, the Humane Society had indicated they intended to place a metal fence around the vacated building on June 1. That fence did not go up on that date, but who knows about tomorrow? -more-
Last Wednesday night, I went to the school board’s public hearing to express my concern about how the superintendent’s proposed new parcel tax of over $19 million would be spent. -more-
Fifty years ago, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and public transportation, more specifically buses, became the stage from which the civil-rights movement was launched. The paradox is that today discrimination is alive and well in mass-transit bus service. In the Bay Area, for instance, a federal civil-rights lawsuit is pending in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, charging that the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (which plans and allocates the majority of funding for the area’s transit needs) supports a “separate and unequal transit system” that discriminates against poor transit riders of color. -more-
It is possible to build housing at Ashby BART to create a sizable neighborhood park, and to make the neighborhood more livable. Let me describe what could be done in a sketchy way, using approximate numbers. -more-
“He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher—the Wonder House as the natives called the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that ‘fire-breathing dragon,’ hold the Punjab; for the great green bronze piece is always first of the conqueror’s loot.” -more-
The job of the news media is supposed to be to report on the news as we find it. -more-
It’s a tough world for the seemingly fragile butterfly. -more-
In 1881, Irish-born playwright George H. Jessop wrote a minor comedy-drama titled Sam’l of Posen, the Commercial Drummer whose lead character, a shrewd Jewish peddler with a heart of gold, attains bourgeois respectability by means of little wiles interleaved with honesty. -more-
Although I am generally sympathetic with the varied plights of the home buyer, I have to admit, in all my curmugeonitude that I have no tears to shed for anyone in Berkeley that has to meet the requirement of our RECO ordinance. -more-
Broadway Terrace Nursery is a tad off my regular circuit, and it had been too long since I’d dropped in when I dashed there last Saturday. It was just before closing time—a good time to watch the staff get its collective mettle tested. I was as impressed as I’d been on the regrettably few occasions I’d visited before. -more-
Area governments say that 150,000 homes in the Bay Area are going to be uninhabitable after the Hayward Fault ruptures, the fault about which USGS seismologist Tom Brocher says, “It’s locked and loaded and ready to fire.” -more-
The good news is that Telegraph Avenue and the Southside commercial district are doing just fine. -more-
Three quarters of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world would finish if people were to put on the shoes of their adversaries and understood their point of view. -more-
Unless you’ve been living in a cave since 1979, you have undoubtedly seen the Mad Bluebird. It was captured by aspiring wildlife photographer Michael L. Smith on a cold February day in Maryland. The subject, a male eastern bluebird, feathers fluffed out, sits on a fence post glowering at the camera. The Mad Bluebird has been very good to Smith, enabling him to quit his day job as an electrician. Over 100,000 signed prints have been sold, and the image appears on calendars, coffee mugs, and all kinds of tchatchkes. The royalties by now must be considerable. -more-
This weekend as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the Herbst Theatre will feature tap dancer extraordinaire Savion Glover on Saturday and Latin saxophone and clarinet virtuoso Paquito D’Rivera on Sunday. -more-
In any of Shakespeare’s comedies, some of the “low” characters are usually referred to as clowns. In CalShake’s new production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, there’s a different generic term for funnymen and women: puppets. -more-
It’s a tough world for the seemingly fragile butterfly. -more-
In 1881, Irish-born playwright George H. Jessop wrote a minor comedy-drama titled Sam’l of Posen, the Commercial Drummer whose lead character, a shrewd Jewish peddler with a heart of gold, attains bourgeois respectability by means of little wiles interleaved with honesty. -more-
Although I am generally sympathetic with the varied plights of the home buyer, I have to admit, in all my curmugeonitude that I have no tears to shed for anyone in Berkeley that has to meet the requirement of our RECO ordinance. -more-
Broadway Terrace Nursery is a tad off my regular circuit, and it had been too long since I’d dropped in when I dashed there last Saturday. It was just before closing time—a good time to watch the staff get its collective mettle tested. I was as impressed as I’d been on the regrettably few occasions I’d visited before. -more-
Area governments say that 150,000 homes in the Bay Area are going to be uninhabitable after the Hayward Fault ruptures, the fault about which USGS seismologist Tom Brocher says, “It’s locked and loaded and ready to fire.” -more-
Joseph Wright as Malcolm Little, from the depths of a prison cell, sings, “You want the truth, but you don’t want to know,” as he contemplates his change from “country boy” newly arrived in Boston to “Detroit Red,” hustling the Harlem streets, on the verge of a conversion that will make him into Malcolm X. His is the powerful voice that will express African-American rage and hope as portrayed in Anthony Davis’ lucid and compelling opera X, based on Malcolm’s autobiography and performed by the Oakland Opera Theater through June 11 at the Oakland Metro Operahouse near Jack London Square. -more-
If you live anywhere near the inner city or have occasion to have business there, this may have happened to you. Walking down a street near dusk you meet a young African-American man, clothes sagging, walking toward you. As you get closer, you can hear him talking, and, although you can’t make out the words, it seems as if he may be signaling commands to one of his partners who may be behind you, or else he’s crazy and talking to himself. In either case, it doesn’t seem good. -more-
Unless you’ve been living in a cave since 1979, you have undoubtedly seen the Mad Bluebird. It was captured by aspiring wildlife photographer Michael L. Smith on a cold February day in Maryland. The subject, a male eastern bluebird, feathers fluffed out, sits on a fence post glowering at the camera. The Mad Bluebird has been very good to Smith, enabling him to quit his day job as an electrician. Over 100,000 signed prints have been sold, and the image appears on calendars, coffee mugs, and all kinds of tchatchkes. The royalties by now must be considerable. -more-