Less than a day after an Oakland judge refused to order the eviction of protesters at the Memorial Stadium tree-in, UC Berkeley police staged a pre-dawn raid Friday, evicting supporters of the tree-dwellers and leveling their encampment. -more-

“No UC campus has paid its fair share for identified off-campus mitigation measures,” concludes a just-released report by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO). -more-

The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce took a stand endorsing various candidates and measures on the November 2006 ballot. City Councilmember Dona Spring says it’s fine for the organization to support candidates of its choice—but she objects to the city paying dues to the chamber and other organizations that make endorsements. -more-

With members of the Oakland Unified School District’s powerless advisory board of trustees renewing their call for an immediate return to local control of the Oakland schools, incoming Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums used the platform of the joint city-school inauguration at the Paramount Theater last week to issue his strongest statement to date on the subject. -more-

Carrying posters, placards and “No to Cell Phone Antennas” signs to the Zoning Adjustments Board meeting on Thursday, a group of South Berkeley residents questioned the need to construct a new wireless telecommunications facility that will host 18 cell phone antennas and related equipment atop the UC Storage Building at 2721 Shattuck Ave. -more-

Supporters of the warm water pool are getting ready to assert the importance of saving the pool, now located in Berkeley High School’s old gymnasium building, at the School Board meeting on Wednesday. -more-

The demand for new Berkeley housing embodied in tentative plans of regional government “boggles even the most ardent smart-growther’s mind,” Mark Rhoades warned last week. -more-

Today (Tuesday) at 5 p.m. a Police Review Commission subcommittee will take its first look at recommendations from the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the organization that reviewed how Berkeley Police deal with their drug evidence. -more-

Members of two city panels will gather Wednesday to discuss the fate of downtown Berkeley’s historic buildings. -more-

The newly reconstituted Peralta Board of Trustees faces an old controversy—facilities bond money spending—when it meets for the first time in the new year tonight (Tuesday) in the library of the College of Alameda. But one of the trustees who helped delay close to $15 million in Measure A material and equipment requests during a contentious December board meeting believes that the matter will now go more smoothly this time around. -more-

A second community meeting about the East Campus playing fields was held Thursday to give residents another chance to comment on the plan to possibly close Derby Street for the installation of a regulation-size high school baseball field and the proposal to keep the street open with the “curvy Derby plan,” which would bend the street to accomodate the field. -more-

Oakland’s original designation as the “Athens of the Pacific”—favorably comparing the city’s education system to that of the legendary Mediterranean civilization—was clearly somewhat different from Oakland Councilmember Jean Quan’s stated vision for a quality public school system. -more-

MODEST PROPOSAL -more-

Yesterday, Jan. 12, 2007, will long be remembered as one of the most ignominious days in the history of UC Berkeley politics. The day after the county court refused to immediately allow the university to send in the chain saws, exactly 40 days after the tree sitters began their protest, and on one of the coldest days of the year with freeze warnings and weather forecast for record or near record cold lows in the 20s and 30s for the coming night, the UCB administration sent in their own police force to remove the ground support for the Memorial Oak Grove tree sitters. -more-

The Warm Pool Committee has received a copy of the final environmental impact report (EIR) commissioned by the Berkeley Unified School District. It consists of the EIR issued in September, copies of responses to that EIR, and the School District’s answer to those responses. Needless to say, their position regarding the warm pool is literally beyond belief. Their attitude is expressed in the following quote: -more-

Kathleen Cha’s brief explanation of ABAG’s (Association of Bay Area Governments) proposal to Bay Area cities, that they must develop new multilevel and multifamily housing (for 634,000 new residents regionally, 4,200 in Berkeley by 2015) [BDP, 1/5/07], is responding to concerns in the pages of the Planet initiated by an earlier article on that subject [12/5/06]. Cha’s growth estimates remain unattributed; she does not suggest what plans for the future they represent. Indeed, ABAG’s webpage projects population increases of a million in the next 20 years, and a Chronicle article [12/15/06] puts it at 2 million. The Chronicle advises us to simply reconcile ourselves to becoming “high density cities.” -more-

I’ve gotten many kind and thoughtful letters since Ralph’s death, but none more poignant than the missive I recently received from Tim Murray, who once lived in the East Bay and was active in South Berkeley politics. -more-

Among other signs of impending geezerhood, I keep noticing that some birds that used to be common are harder and harder to find. I can remember winters when the bay seemed to be paved with surf scoters. -more-