While the voting tally isn’t final and her opponent won’t concede, Gayle McLaughlin is confident she’ll be the new mayor of Richmond. -more-

Builders of the hotel planned for the heart of downtown Berkeley want to build a 19-story building that at 205 feet would tower above the current reigning monarchs of the urban skyline, the Power Bar and Wells Fargo buildings. -more-

The Richmond City Council voted Nov. 14 to drop its membership in the Richmond Chamber of Commerce “to avoid potential civil or criminal penalties for using public resources to pay for memberships in organizations that participate in local political activities,” according to an e-mail from Richmond City Council-member Tom Butt. -more-

Despite promised lawsuits by the City of Berkeley and project neighbors, UC Regents voted Tuesday to approve a massive athletic training center along the western wall of Memorial Stadium. -more-

With the failure of Berkeley’s Measure I in this month’s general election, the East Bay battleground over the hotly-contested issue of condominium conversions shifts across the border into Oakland, and the attempt by a coalition of three councilmembers to change some of the provisions of that city’s condo law. -more-

Berkeley’s 30-year-old public police complaint process hung in the balance Tuesday as the city squared off against its police union in an Oakland courtroom. -more-

Four finalists have been named for the position of Berkeley’s director of Library Services, according to a Berkeley Public Library press statement. -more-

Community members and users of People’s Park are organizing a meeting on Sunday to plan how to defend the bulldozing of the berms, or mounds, on both ends of the Community Garden in the park. -more-

Late Tuesday night, after two years of contentious meetings in which environmentalists often clashed with property owners, the Berkeley City Council approved revisions to the Creeks Ordinance, 6-2-1, aimed at safeguarding the city’s many open and culverted waterways. -more-

On Thursday night Councilmember Laurie Capitelli sent a letter to the Planet regarding the just-passed Creeks ordinance which came too late to be added to this issue in full. -more-

The city’s short-term fiscal health—with about $800,000 more in anticipated annual revenue than forecast—and a possible long-term structural deficit were highlighted at a City Council workshop Tuesday. -more-

When Jannat Muhammad’s 7-year-old grandniece developed asthma back in 2000, Muhammad was pained but not surprised. After all, many of the child’s schoolmates at Verde Elementary in North Richmond were succumbing to the disease with numbing regulatory. -more-

Beating bandit sought -more-

Students, parents, educators and city officials gathered at Old City Hall Wednesday to bid farewell to School Board President Terry Doran, who is retiring after eight years on the board. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District thanked parents, teachers, students and community members for supporting Measure A at the School Board meeting on Wednesday. -more-

The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive received a $300,000 National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on Tuesday, which will help connect high school and college students to CineFiles, BAM/PFA's online database with thousands of historical documents related to film. -more-

Partisan politics is standing in the way of progress in California, according to new research released this week on the heels of startling Census numbers showing a deepening racial divide. -more-

As Democrats recaptured control of the House and Senate last week, Black Democrats won more than half of the 13 statewide offices they competed for while Black Republicans won none, debunking what the GOP had billed as “the year of the Black Republican.” -more-

BIASED COVERAGE -more-

Will operation of the Berkeley Public Library (BPL) be outsourced to a private, for-profit agency? Will the next library director be another pro-RFID autocrat with little respect for staff and the public? The signs for a good outcome look cloudy, because the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) search for a new director is using a bad process, the wrong people, and a search firm whose principals are active advocates of outsourcing library operations from top to bottom. -more-

Pleased as I am with Ms. Pelosi’s accession to power and gratified as I am by her warm ties to the Jewish community, as reported recently in your newspaper, I am less encouraged by her obeisance to the Israel-right-or-wrong stance of AIPAC. -more-

“The past is prologue,” wrote William Shakespeare. -more-

The university recently unveiled its plan to bulldoze the berms (mounds) on either side of the Community Garden in People’s Park. In an effort to allow police to see through the park without getting out of their cars, they want to sacrifice the natural boundary that separates the park from traffic and city bustle. People’s Park, already much less green space than we need in such a populated area, is an important refuge for our collective psyches to reconnect with nature. -more-

“We need to wait until after election time to see if we can get any changes to the law, meanwhile, we will do what we can under existing conditions.” -more-

On Monday, Nov. 6, I witnessed an encounter between a Berkeley policeman and two women that culminated in what I considered unnecessary and brutal violence. This encounter demonstrated very rapidly how the thin veneer of civilized behavior that we are all so dependent on can disappear so quickly, that we are left with a sense of helplessness and impotence. -more-

Those of us who live on Southside of the UC campus see what being homeless is at first hand, every day. We may walk by and look elsewhere; sometimes we become involved. Always we know that official and private poses of indifference are symptoms of something terribly wrong with our society. -more-

It would be easy for Democrats to become a bit heady what with the newly won House and Senate seats and all. But before getting too carried away, I would suggest that the “Blue” party take stock and ask themselves some serious questions, namely; who are we and what are we doing here? -more-

Three years ago, when the United States invaded Iraq, I put up a map of that country on my wall—as the old-timers used to do in other wars—so I could follow the course of the battles. I also bought two or three Middle Eastern history books, so that I might have a better knowledge of that part of the world, and a better understanding of the ancient racial, ethnic, and religious conflicts that we—America—had now thrust ourselves into. -more-

Editor’s note: This article appeared on openDemocracy.net prior to Thursday’s vote in the House for majority leader -more-

The Church of the Good Shepherd, situated on the corner of Ninth Street and Hearst Avenue, was one of the first nine structures designated City of Berkeley Landmarks on Dec. 15, 1975. It is the oldest church building standing in Berkeley, as well as the oldest in continuous use by its founding congregation in the entire East Bay. -more-

I thrashed myself but good last weekend, just doing a little lightweight gardening. -more-

Before I ever look for a single foundation bolt there are a always a few other questions I always have about the building I’m looking at. Of course, I’m talking about earthquake readiness or seismic stability or whatever term-du-jour we’re currently using. -more-

The films of Agnes Varda and her husband Jacques Demy could not be more different. -more-