The Oxford Street parking lot was closed and bulldozed Monday morning, April 2. That night, nearby businesses had little business. The lot is the site of plans to build a residential housing project (called Oxford Plaza) and environmental center named in honor of the late activist David Brower. -more-

The Berkeley Housing Authority has paid rent on at least 15 units where tenants are dead—as much as two years of rent on the deceased, failed to inspect units where substandard conditions exist, and allowed ineligible family members to “inherit” a unit ahead of others on the waiting list. -more-

Poised to reaffirm its status as a city of refuge for immigrants at tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting, councilmembers are likely to debate the format of the proposal—ordinance or resolution—while supporting the concept of Berkeley as a sanctuary city, a designation made first in 1971 and again in 1986. -more-

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to Berkeley Friday, declaring that market forces would solve one of the greatest issues in global warming. -more-

By Judith Scherr -more-

It was good news/bad news in the Bay Area media world last week. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education will vote Wednesday on whether to approve $750,000 in funds from the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC) and $305,000 in PG&E funds to complete a solar project for Washington Elementary School. -more-

Mayor Tom Bates has added to and clarified some elements in his Public Commons for Everyone Initiative proposal, which the City Council will be asked to address tonight (Tuesday). -more-

Berkeley High School named Cheryl Draper as its new girls’ basketball coach Monday. Draper replaced Gene Nakamura two weeks ago and her team will play their first basketball game in November. -more-

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) will once again hear the appeal of an administrative use permit on Thursday that would allow construction at a single-family residential building at 2008 Virginia St. -more-

Nationally known African-American talk show host Tavis Smiley brought his Road to Health Wellness Expo to the Oakland Convention Center recently, with hundreds of residents turning out to the downtown facility on May 11 and 12 to hear presentations on various aspects of healthy living, sample food and products, and get free medical testing by representatives of local health clinics and medical facilities. -more-

West Berkeley’s been the top planning controversy in the news in the last couple of weeks. On the southern flank, yet another edgy, vibrant artists’ colony is being pushed out, this one The Shipyard, a prominent contributor to the annual Burning Man extravaganza. On the north, speculators seem to have big plans for the approximately 5 acre home of the former Cal Ink company, once a central player in a small industry. In 1999 Cal Ink (now owned by Michigan’s Flint Ink) was the oldest factory in Berkeley operating at its original location. If information about their plans gleaned from the internet by Public Eye columnist Zelda Bronstein is reliable, some developers might be hoping to parlay the Berkeley City Council’s authorization for the addition of a zoning overlay for auto dealerships into much, much more. -more-

On May 10, the office of Mayor Tom Bates sent out a press release to announce that seven new board members have been chosen for the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA), as part of the effort to salvage the embattled agency from a HUD takeover, and to keep it under local Berkeley control. -more-

I should disclose up front that I do not generally agree with the points of view of the Daily Planet’s editorials. I find many of the editorials offensive, frankly. I was not surprised, therefore, as I read through the May 18 editorial (“Rude, Crude and in Your Face”), to find myself thinking: “What planet is Mrs. O’Malley living on?” -more-

Jonathan Wornick may be an unpleasant human being but he’s not a loose cannon. He’s a Zionist ideologue, doing the job to which he has been assigned: to keep the Peace and Justice Commission from functioning. -more-

It’s been a crappy year for wildflowers, but a great one for roses. When I mistook something for a startling pink tree and then realized it was a ‘Cecile Brunner’ rose climbing fifteen feet up a utility-pole guywire, and then did the same double-take for the same cultivar climbing a tree on Sacramento Avenue, I decided to write about roses this week. -more-

TUESDAY, MAY 22 -more-

SONGS AND POEMS OF BERTOLT BRECHT -more-

In a swirl of scenes that quickly alternate between darkness and light, at first very different in what they show, then interpenetrating, Just Theater stages the Bay Area premiere of Berkeley native Anne Washburn’s “text about message,” I Have Loved Strangers, for just three more performances, through Saturday. -more-