Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland-Berkeley) came to the Berkeley Technical Academy on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way along with a number of other public officials on Friday to announce that a group of nonprofit organizations would receive a $300,000 San Francisco Foundation grant “to promote civic unity and engagement” in West Berkeley. -more-

As Berkeley’s planning commissioners prepare for a public hearing on a plan to rezone two hunks of West Berkeley for car sales, embattled activists have questions. -more-

A residential development company founded by Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad purchased property owned by the state-operated Vallejo City Unified School District last year, raising questions about the relationship between Broad and his urban public education Broad Foundation as well as about the sale of property of school districts taken over by the State of California. -more-

An IT worker, a former Chamber of Commerce president, an NAACP activist, an advocate for the disabled, a former librarian and a former city councilmember are among the candidates vying for the Board of Library Trustees. -more-

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) will hear the request for a use permit to convert Walter Ratcliff’s landmark Fidelity Bank Building into a mixed use development Thursday. -more-

Peralta Community College District officials released their first comprehensive report last week on how much Measure A facilities bond money the district plans to spend on each of its four campuses, but quickly backtracked when trustees complained that the board had never authorized such an allocation plan. -more-

A 21-year-old Berkeley woman was fatally shot to death Saturday as she rode in a car heading north on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in North Oakland. -more-

A subcommittee of Berkeley’s Transportation Commission will meet with Southside residents tonight (Tuesday) to hear their concerns about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). -more-

Applause rang out in the City Council Chambers Tuesday as dozens of people, many sporting blue “Save Berkeley Iceland” shirts, cheered the 5-4 council vote to uphold a city commission’s decision to landmark the 67-year-old structure that houses the ice skating rink at Derby and Milvia streets. -more-

After repeated public hearings before the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB), the 1885 University Ave. project—which promises to bring Trader Joe’s to Berkeley—won a 5-3 victory at Council Monday night. -more-

The battle over the future of downtown Berkeley’s skyline took a new twist Wednesday when a group of Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) members offered their own proposal, sparking heated outbursts and a counterproposal. -more-

The last full City Council meeting before a long summer break ended with an angry exchange between Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Dona Spring over what Spring says is the mayor’s habit of cutting her and others off when they speak. -more-

Despite pleas from Berkeley city officials, the UC Regents Thursday voted unanimously to approve Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) 2025. -more-

The search for a builder to erect a $90.4 million, 140,000-square-foot, 300-office state-of-the art computing research center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is down to the short list. -more-

With a bill making its way through the state legislature that would take the state superintendent’s discretion out of the return to local control of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), the granting of limited local control in the nearby Vallejo Unified School District last week raises new questions about how objective the standards are for returning power to a school district once it has been taken over by the state. -more-

SOLANO AVENUE -more-

When I was young and newly minted and released into the world at large, I rented a room, board included, from an elderly woman. Our disparate reading matter at the breakfast table was united under the banner of the Times: the obituaries for her, the engagements for me. -more-

Community members celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Berkeley farmers market at their Tuesday location on the 1900 block of Derby Street with food, speakers and music. -more-

With rumors circulating throughout Frank Ogawa Plaza all day Tuesday that Oakland City Councilmembers were threatening to hold up votes on the Wayans brothers Army Base project to stop at least one of Mayor Ron Dellums’ proposed nominees to the Port Commission, Dellums abruptly withdrew his Port Commission nominees, and the council later unanimously approved a four-month exclusive negotiating agreement with the Wayans. -more-

Lt. Wes Hester, spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department, announced Thursday that bike cops will be out on an intermittent basis in South Berkeley as part of a plan for increased patrol in that area of the city. -more-

While staff at the new Berkeley Housing Authority says board meetings are posted on the city clerk's web site and city clerk staff thinks BHA meetings are posted on the housing authority website, a quick survey and several phone calls by the Daily Planet uncovered the fact that the meeting—scheduled for Monday, July 23 at 6 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St.—is posted on neither. -more-

1. Where were you born and where did you grow up, and how does that affect how you regard the issues in Berkeley and in your district? -more-

“After all I’ve seen, I still have joy.” Those words are from a gospel song, or perhaps a spiritual, that I heard once sung by the choir in an African-American church, and I’ve typed them out and posted them over my desk, just in case. They remind me that life has lots of unpleasant stuff in it, but joy is always an option. And on Sunday night Barbara Dane gave a packed house at Freight and Salvage a beautiful demonstration of how to live with joy all your life. -more-

“The world, Mma Ramotswe believed, was composed of big things and small things. The big things were written large, and one could not but be aware of them—wars, oppression, the familiar theft by the rich and the strong of the those simple things that the poor needed, those scraps which would make their life more bearable; this happened, and could make even the reading of the newspaper an exercise in sorrow. There were all those unkindnesses, palpable, daily, so easily avoidable; but one could not just think of those, thought Mma Ramotswe, or one would spend one’s time in tears—and the unkindnesses would continue. So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one’s own life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their own solution?” -more-

TRADER JOE’S -more-

Anybody who is unsure about the concept of social engineering should take note: there is an excellent opportunity to see it in action tonight (Tuesday) at the so-called “Community Workshop” on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), sponsored by our city’s Transportation Commission. The announcement for the event states that the commission “welcomes [our] participation,” and then instructs us to “come prepared to engage in a respectful, consensus-building process about the future of Bus Rapid Transit in Southside area of Berkeley.” That all sounds pretty good—after all, who could be against respectful dialog and consensus-building? Well, the members of the Transportation Commission, for starters. It turns out that they do not want any dialog about the most important issue regarding BRT: Do we think it is worth the tremendous disruption to our streets, homes, and businesses to have it here at all? Nor are they interested in the true nature of consensus-building, which involves an honest assessment of the range of community opinion at the very start of the process. -more-

To Mayor Tom Bates: -more-

For the past two years, I have expressed strong objections about the contractual relationship between the City of Berkeley (City of Berkeley) and the Berkeley YMCA. This has occurred in numerous e-mails and phone messages to Mayor Tom Bates, City Manager Phil Kamlarz and my council district representative, Linda Maio. Despite my creating a lengthy paper trail of objections to this contract, and aggressively following up to request involvement, the mayor, city manager and Ms. Maio chose not to inform me that the matter was up for discussion and renewal last June 30. I felt that was a deliberate effort to prevent my objections from being heard in a City Council meeting. Throughout the year since that time, I re-stated my objections in writing and phone calls to Bates, Kamlarz, Maio and the city clerk’s office. None of them informed me that this issue was scheduled for the agenda last week. In recent weeks, I specifically asked a Bates assistant, named Arianna, to inform me when the item was going to be discussed this year. She rudely told me that was not in her job description, and that finding out what was on the council agenda was my “problem” (as she phrased it). -more-

My mom was a nurse with a great disdain for doctors. All she wanted us to be was “healthy, happy children.” She reinforced that by feeding us carrots and broccoli—a few cinnamon sticks thrown in—instead of candy for snacks. -more-

BRT TO KAISER -more-

Amidst a packed crowd of cheering children and their adult allies, the Berkeley City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday night to uphold the landmark status of the historic Berkeley Iceland. The vote reflected an ideological split between those councilmembers (Gordon Wozniak, Betty Olds, Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring and Linda Maio), who recognized the building’s historic features and expressed excitement about future prospects for the site, and a group of bitter naysayers (Mayor Tom Bates, and Councilmembers Max Anderson, Laurie Capitelli and Darryl Moore) who predicted that Iceland would be overrun by rodents and become a public nuisance. This powerful demonstration of “people power” led Councilmember Olds to acknowledge that the coming together of such a diverse group might “scare” some people; the victory was a classic case of grassroots organizing overcoming big money real estate interests. -more-

South Branch library is on the Library Trustees’ fast track to being moved to the Ed Roberts Campus. Much money has already been spent on this project. Please come to the next Board of Library Trustees meeting. The meeting will be at South Branch Library, Russell and M.L.King Jr. Way on July 25 at 5 p.m. with public comment (you will have to sign a speaker card so please arrive a few minutes early). Your presence insures the democratic process. We are a group of South Berkeley residents who are opposed to the proposed move. We have called ourselves Save Our Library, (SOL). We believe that the proposal is being driven by political motives that have little to do with better serving South Berkeley residents. -more-

Ten years ago, I became concerned about the health of democracy in this country, especially at the local level. Lasting to midnight and beyond, City Hall meetings were often tyrannized by a noisy few who claimed to represent the will of the people. Democracy was a mess, and I felt obligated to use whatever skills I had to try to help. -more-

Last week in the West Bank Bedouin village, Arab al-Jahaleen, a 15-year-old boy named Khaled was killed by a speeding garbage truck. Khaled was on the edge of the road collecting scrap metal and other discarded materials useful in constructing the ramshackle homes his community lives in, when the driver struck and killed him. The road upon which he scrambled for these materials divides his village from the nearby Israeli dump. -more-

Last Monday’s Berkeley City Council approval of the Trader Joe’s project at the Kragens lot at University and MLK is not only a disaster for our near-downtown, but eminently livable neighborhood, but also poses a significant risk to every neighborhood in the City. To approve this project the City Council has adopted new ad hoc procedures to grant 25 additional units of unknown provenance to reward the developer Hudson McDonald for their promise of bringing Trader Joe’s to Berkeley. According to our city attorney, the City Council’s newly found power is entirely at their discretion—an extremely scary thought given the current composition of the Council. -more-

Fulfilling a New Year’s resolution to do more community activism, in January I accepted an invitation to join the City of Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. I am the token pedestrian. So when Bike to Work Month came along, and the committee needed to recruit novice cyclists for 511.org’s Team Bike Challenge, I was an easy target. -more-

For many of us on the left coast, President Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby was a non-event; we’ve grown blasé about Bush abuses. As a result, we shrug and say to the rest of the nation: What did you expect? You supported a conservative demagogue whose most notable “accomplishments” were a series of business failures. Why are you surprised that he’s become the worst president in modern history? Nonetheless, while it’s comforting to bask in self-righteousness, that won’t fix our common problem: Bush will be President for another 18 months and the immorality of the Bush administration infects us all. The president is a moral termite. -more-

The mimosas are blooming, and I’ll bring the orange juice if you’ll bring the champagne to toast them with that favorite brunch beverage—mimosas, of course. Looking at the current price of OJ, you might be getting a bargain. -more-

The rising tide of Afghan civilian deaths has opened a rift between the U.S. and NATO’s 37,000-member International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). According to NATO officials, the United States’ increasing use of air power has badly damaged support for the war in both Afghanistan and Europe. -more-

In my younger days, with more time on my hands but less patience, I used to try to figure out ways to make the water run out of the bathtub faster. Short of taking a hammer to the bottom of the tub, you can’t. It’s a mass-space-flow kind of thing. You can slow the water down or stop it back up altogether, I finally found, but you cannot speed up the water running out of the bathtub. -more-

“It’s a castle!” a friend said when I showed her a picture of the turreted Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Avenue in Berkeley. -more-

I ran into an old friend from hospital nursing days and we got together to go on about old times and friends—it’s amazing how many of them are still working where we’d met; they’re definitely made of tougher stuff than I am—and, surprise, about gardens. She’s got a rental house with a yard and a co-operative landlady and a pleasant garden already, and was looking for ways to make the place bloom more. -more-

The town council of Danville has passed an ordinance stating that, as of July 1, an automatic gas shut-off valve must be installed any time a permit is pulled for work of $10,000 or more. -more-

Like most people, I want to think of myself as a good person. Someone interested in the general welfare, democracy and wholesome values. But like most people, I have a bit of a dark streak. Mayhem is fun. Trouble is more interesting than smooth, well-oiled continuity. Admit it, you probably find earthquakes and plane crashes interesting. The whole news business is based on our fascination with things gone wrong (especially things gone terribly wrong). -more-

TUESDAY, JULY 24 -more-

Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco is celebrating the centennial of the founding of the California College of the Arts with a selection of paintings and sculptures by some of the institution’s faculty and student alumni whose works have appeared at the gallery during the past 30 years. No theme unites the works beyond the characteristics of vitality and grace. -more-

America’s prison construction boom is forging rapid change in small-town America, and small-town California is leading the pack. Prison Town, USA, a new documentary by Po Kutchins and Katie Galloway, shows the impact of a prison economy on Susanville, a Northern California town at the foot of the Sierras in Lassen County. When the last of its lumber mills closed down, Susanville faced an economic crisis and turned to the burgeoning prison industry for a panacea. The prisons promised employment and support for local businesses. But what Susanville got was far less, as the buy-local pledge was reneged, prison jobs brought unforeseen social problems, and the prisons themselves—three of them—dwarfed and began to consume the town that had opened its arms to them. The film shows at 10 p.m. today (Tuesday) on KQED as part “POV,” PBS’ acclaimed documentary series, now celebrating its 20-year anniversary. -more-

-more-

The mimosas are blooming, and I’ll bring the orange juice if you’ll bring the champagne to toast them with that favorite brunch beverage—mimosas, of course. Looking at the current price of OJ, you might be getting a bargain. -more-

TUESDAY, JULY 24 -more-

The July 17 article “OUSD Local Control Bill Gains Support” mistakenly indicated that that passage of the Oakland local school control bill, AB45, would have bearing on whether or not FCMAT reports in Oakland will continue. It does not. -more-

FRIDAY, JULY 20 -more-

These days, when the news is usually bad and often horrific, even resolute humanists may be reconsidering misanthropy. Before succumbing to cynicism, check out “Painting to Live,” the moving exhibit at UC Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies. -more-

Actors Ensemble—in their 50th year, Berkeley’s senior theater company—turns its attention to David Ives’ All in the Timing, short comedies that are like more developed sketch material, to show another facet of what a community theater can do very well, indeed, at Live Oak Theatre. -more-

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the first and largest of its kind, is now in its 27 year. “Independent Jewish cinema is an expanding, vibrant and surprising field, and our 54 films reflect that,” says Peter Stein, the festival’s executive director. -more-

As newlyweds working their way through college while living in the Elmwood in the late 1960s, my parents had little money to spare. The only forms of entertainment they could afford were the occasional game of Video Pong at Dream Fluff Donuts and a monthly visit to the Elmwood Theater. At the time it was an arthouse theater, and the eclectic programming opened up a whole new world of cinema to two young folks raised on Hollywood fare. -more-

Richard Denner, dubbed “the Berkeley Barb poet” by Max Scheer, a founder of that fabled ’60s publication, will read with Sonoma County Poet Laureate David Bromige 7:30 p.m. on Monday, July 23, at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. Admission is free. -more-

Dietrich and Piaf, La Chanson Intime (The Intimate Song), the story of two great stars and their friendship, with cabaret music and song, will be performed just this Sunday at 7 p.m. by the authors, Ellen Brooks as Piaf and Shannon Nicholson as Dietrich. The play will be at Altarena Theatre, 1409 High St. in Alameda, with music director and accordionist Deb Cimbellon, Armando Fox on piano and Ted Barker as announcer. Set just after World War II, when Piaf was in the Resistance and Dietrich was entertaining (and risking her life), the play expresses the sympathy between “two icons who both led intensely private lives.” Piaf, at whose first wedding Dietrich was matron of honor, died in 1963; Dietrich lived on for decades after. Tickets are $18-$20. Reservations recommended, 523-1553. -more-

“It’s a castle!” a friend said when I showed her a picture of the turreted Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Avenue in Berkeley. -more-

I ran into an old friend from hospital nursing days and we got together to go on about old times and friends—it’s amazing how many of them are still working where we’d met; they’re definitely made of tougher stuff than I am—and, surprise, about gardens. She’s got a rental house with a yard and a co-operative landlady and a pleasant garden already, and was looking for ways to make the place bloom more. -more-

The town council of Danville has passed an ordinance stating that, as of July 1, an automatic gas shut-off valve must be installed any time a permit is pulled for work of $10,000 or more. -more-

Like most people, I want to think of myself as a good person. Someone interested in the general welfare, democracy and wholesome values. But like most people, I have a bit of a dark streak. Mayhem is fun. Trouble is more interesting than smooth, well-oiled continuity. Admit it, you probably find earthquakes and plane crashes interesting. The whole news business is based on our fascination with things gone wrong (especially things gone terribly wrong). -more-

FRIDAY, JULY 20 -more-