Posted Mon., March 24—Oakland School Board member Greg Hodge filed a motion with the Superior Court today (Monday), asking that the court reverse the Oakland City Clerk’s decision to keep him off the June 3 ballot for the District 3 Oakland City Council race. -more-
Posted Sat., March 22—Corinne "Corie" Calfee will fill the seat on the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board left vacant by the resignation of Chris Kavanagh, Jay Kelekian, rent board executive director, said Friday. -more-
Posted Fri., March 21—Workers, residents and small business owners gathered Thursday night to hear planners and labor activists offer evidence and arguments for exercising restraint in making any zoning changes in West Berkeley. -more-
In the space of two days, UC Berkeley unveiled plans for a provocative new museum on Center Street, and a noted university landscape architect revealed his vision for the Center Street landscape it will face. -more-
Calling for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, participants in daylong events in Berkeley marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War on Wednesday with protests at the downtown Marine Recruiting Center and a rally in Civic Center Park. -more-
Flying in the face of his hosts’ concerns regarding demonstrations at the Marine Recruiting Center, Mayor Tom Bates spoke out about his opposition to the war in Iraq and support for peaceful demonstrations. The speech was delivered Tuesday at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon where the mayor was the featured speaker. -more-
Berkeley May Sue State of California -more-
One of the most highly anticipated Oakland election battles in years may have been knocked off the ballot when veteran District 3 Oakland School Board member Greg Hodge came up one qualifying signature short to run in the June 3 race for Oakland City Council. -more-
San Francisco police arrested ten UC students who chained themselves to the doors of the UCSF Mission Bay community center Wednesday morning in an attempt to prevent the UC Board of Regents from meeting. -more-
The embattled AC Transit District is considering its fifth fare change in the last 13 years, with a possible increase in adult fares of as much as 25 cents and increases to the youth and senior passes coming as early as this summer. -more-
The city’s Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) unanimously approved last week the demolition of the 83-year-old building housing the Wesley Foundation Student Center on Bancroft Way to construct a four-story mixed-use structure with a religious assembly space, a library, six residential units and group-living space. -more-
Friends Protecting Berkeley’s Resources—the local group which sued the Berkeley Unified School District for an inadequate environmental impact report on the demolition of the gymnasium and warm-water pool within its Berkeley High School South of Bancroft Master Plan area—met with school district officials and community members Saturday to discuss the adaptive reuse of the Berkeley High Old Gym and the warm-water pool to settle the lawsuit. -more-
Lawyers for both sides in the legal battle over UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium projects got in their last licks in a Hayward courtroom Thursday afternoon. -more-
Registered nurses at Berkeley’s Alta Bates Summit and Herrick Hospitals are walking out this morning (Friday) for a 10-day strike against the Sutter hospital chain. -more-
It’s called the stock market, and that’s what the past few days have been like on Wall Street. Go easy on yourself if you have no idea what is going on and who is responsible for it. Sure, you’ve heard lots of people talking about “market meltdown” and “major banking crisis,” but how did we get to a worldwide financial crisis so quickly? It seems like only yesterday that Berkeley’s 1920s shingle houses were flying off brokers’ shelves for a paltry million each. And sure, a lot of people got mortgages that they couldn’t really afford. But the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression? -more-
With an economy in partial meltdown and three in five Americans predicting a severe depression of several years’ duration, what can any economic expert predict about the likelihood of new construction in downtown Berkeley? -more-
Posted Thurs., March 20—Registered nurses at Berkeley’s Alta Bates Summit and Herrick Hospitals are walking out Friday for a 10-day strike against the Sutter hospital chain. -more-
Posted Thurs., March 20—Calling for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, participants in daylong events in Berkeley marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War on Wednesday with protests at the downtown Marine Recruiting Center and a rally in Civic Center Park. -more-
Posted Wed., March 19—San Francisco police arrested 10 UC students who chained themselves to the doors of the UCSF Mission Bay community center this morning (Wednesday) in an attempt to prevent the UC Board of Regents from meeting. -more-
Posted Wed., March 19—Flying in the face of his hosts' concerns regarding demonstrations at the Marine Recruiting Center, Mayor Tom Bates spoke out about his opposition to the War in Iraq and support for peaceful demonstrations. The speech was delivered Tuesday at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon where the mayor was the featured speaker. -more-
Posted Wed., March 19—One of the most highly anticipated Oakland election battles in years may have been knocked off the ballot when veteran District 3 Oakland School Board member Greg Hodge came up one signature short of qualifying to run in the June 3 race for the Oakland City Council. -more-
Posted Tue., March 18—The embattled AC Transit District is considering its fifth fare change in the last 13 years, with a possible increase in adult fares of as much as 25 cents and increases to the youth and senior passes coming as early as this summer. -more-
Fifty-five teachers and counselors in the Berkeley Unified School District received pink slips over the weekend notifying them of anticipated layoffs in face of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to slash state education funds by $4.6 billion. -more-
Candidates in the hotly contested Democratic primary race to succeed Loni Hancock as District 14 Assemblymember are relying upon distinctly different fund-raising strategies, with a Richmond City councilmember dividing his contributions almost evenly between individual and business or labor group donors and Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington and Berkeley physician Phil Polakoff taking 98 percent of their donations from individuals, but with the majority of Worthington’s donations coming from inside District 14 and the majority of Polakoff’s coming from outside. -more-
World War II veteran Selwyn Jones, 86, told the Police Review Commission at Thursday’s public hearing on the Berkeley Police Department’s response to recent demonstrations that he’d been pushed to the ground by police during a recent protest at the Marine Recruiting Station. -more-
UC Berkeley’s local tree-sitter Michael Schuck—who calls himself Fresh—climbed down from his leafy perch outside Wheeler Hall Friday and was promptly arrested by university police for trespassing. He was issued a citation and released later that day. -more-
Two Code Pink members who entered the Marine Recruiting Center at 64 Shattuck Square Friday and asked its officers to leave were arrested by Berkeley police for trespassing on private property. -more-
The question of how to approach matters of peace and justice took center stage at the March 11 Berkeley City Council meeting. At the meeting the council also looked at a new report on pedestrian safety, asked staff to write a graywater permit process and more. -more-
A number of events were held last weekend leading up to the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War—among them a demonstration at the Richmond Chevron refinery, where two dozen protesters were arrested, a rally in Walnut Creek and a town meeting with Rep. Barbara Lee in Oakland. -more-
Objections from the Berkeley Landmarks Commission and the Elmwood-Claremont Neighborhood Association over the Berkeley Unified School District’s proposal to paint John Muir Elementary School blue and green forced the Berkeley Board of Education to reject the proposed colors and stick to its original scheme instead. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District’s student assignment system was once again challenged by Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) Monday when the Sacramento-based right-wing public interest litigation firm appealed an April 2007 court decision which had ruled in favor of the district. -more-
Berkeley High Lady Jackets were soundly defeated by Long Beach Poly 55-31 Saturday in the state CIF Basketball Championship Div. I game at Arco Stadium in Sacramento. -more-
Court hearings are slated this week in two major Berkeley land disputes, one involving the university and the other the so-called Trader Joe’s building. -more-
It’s the vernal equinox again, sometimes called the first day of spring, and it’s the new year for those whose ancestors lived in places which were part of ancient Persia. That’s always seemed to me to be a better time to celebrate the new year than January, often cold and nasty, even better than the lunar new year as observed by many Asians, when the weather can also be dicey. By March 21 or so, no matter where you live in the northern hemisphere, some birds will be courting and some flowers will be blooming. (Of course in New England, where I lived for two miserable years, it has been known to snow again in May, but never mind.) -more-
On Oxford Street these days a massive pile of concrete and steel is starting to take shape. It’s already impossible to look past it to see the hills above to the east or a slice of ocean to the west. It comes right up to the sidewalk on the corner, leaving no room for a patch of green to refresh pedestrians. When the two buildings on the site are completed to the planned heights, that stretch of Oxford will become a canyon. -more-
As your new superintendent I have enjoyed meeting many of you as I have gone to schools and attended events in my first month on the job. Unfortunately, I come to the district in the middle of a state budget crisis caused by insufficient revenue. -more-
On March 12 my husband and I paid for our dinner at a remarkable place where the dinners are usually free. Every day the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Room serves an average of approximately 1,000 hot meals to people who would otherwise go hungry. That evening its large, sparkling white space was transformed for the celebration of two ongoing accomplishments: 70 years of St. Vincent de Paul’s devoted service in Alameda County and the beginning of their Kitchen of Champions job training program. The tables were set with the royal blue and white of St. Vincent de Paul and decked with yellow rose petals and votive candles. Quietly, without extensive publicity or social flourishes, a profoundly affirmative statement was being made by an extended community that cares deeply about our East Bay cities and is determined to address their problems. -more-
I write from a sense of immediacy, I write from a sense of continued need, and I write from a sense of both frustration and anger. Once again, after a 30-year history of underfunding of our public schools in the state of California, a governor is proposing massive cuts and reductions in the state’s contribution to local public schools. Since between 70 and 80 percent of any local school district’s funding comes directly from Sacramento, this potential loss is of major concern to the school and wider community. In a time of escalating utility costs, fuel, salaries, books, materials and supplies, the Governor has proposed a 0 perent cost of living adjustment (COLA) for 2008-09, as well as massive cuts in school funding. For a local perspective on the real price districts will pay, we are estimating that Berkeley Unified School District will lose between $3.7 and $4.5 million in the next school year! These potential cuts will impact every school and every program in Berkeley Unified. It is important for the public to know that there are no good nor easy choices for the school board to make with possible reductions in revenue that are this deep. -more-
Berkeley is fortunate to have the opportunity to support Wilma Chan, rated the most progressive California assemblymember, for state senator this coming June, in our District 9. The March 17 Daily Planet article indicated that Wilma Chan has raised almost all of her campaign donations from individual voters and citizens, which is exactly what we, in Berkeley, expect from clean, progressive candidates. On the other hand, I was shocked at the Loni Hancock-Tom Bates political machine’s campaign donations. A huge portion of Hancock’s donations came from developers who want special treatment by Hancock and Bates, corporate interests, and gambling interests such as Point Molate LLC, which wants to build a major casino on our proposed East Bay State Shoreline Park. -more-
The 20/20 Vision is a public declaration that sets a goal for the elimination of the “achievement gap” by the year 2020. 2020 is the year when our children who entered kindergarten in September 2007 are scheduled to graduate from Berkeley High School. United In Action (UIA), a multiethnic community coalition in Berkeley, conceived the declaration. It poses a challenging question: “On that graduation day in 2020, will we be able to beam with pride at our success?” -more-
Since my childhood, the Berkeley Marina has been a place of sanctuary and reflection for my wandering mind and feet. As a child I went to birthday parties there, flew kites on windy days, and rolled down the big hills with my hermana. It was a place of infinite beauty, with a panoramic view of the bay area and a sunset that no words could be tailored for. Before we’d leave, my father would always calm us to take a moment and appreciate our place in the universe. We would breathe in deep, feel the setting sun against our faces, and stare at the horizon with a humbling appreciation for the world we often forget is bigger than ourselves. To this day, I still frequent the Berkeley Marina and César Chávez Park, and am always met with the same feelings of reflection and awe during my peaceful visits. -more-
Becky O’Malley’s savaging of Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez (Editorial, March 10) is singularly unfair. Pollit’s editorial hit piece, which O’Malley cites, explicitly states that “Ralph Nader has a perfect right to run for president.” -more-
In her autobiography, Living History, Senator Hillary Clinton portrays herself as an advocate for children, a defender of women and human rights. In fact, the Clintons have a long history of sacrificing the rights, even the lives of children, for political expediency. It is time to set the record straight. -more-
Daily Planet Executive Editor O’Malley and many of the readers of this newspaper have been affected with a dangerous infection of the mind recently identified as the “anti-Nader” virus. This virus was created by leaders of the Demopublican Party after the narrow victory of their candidate Al Gore in the 2000 presidential selection. When Republican Party apparatchiks and Cuban-American thugs barged into the Dade County elections office and forced a stop to a recount, when winning candidate Gore refused to call for a full recount, when tens of thousands of Floridians and New Mexicans of color were deliberately prevented from voting, when the Supreme Court unconstitutionally intervened to steal the election in a bloodless coup d’etat, these so-called “leaders” did nothing to defend the constitution or the right to vote. -more-
My mother’s older relatives lived through the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, an event that has no parallel in our times. One of the favorite family stories was passed down from one of her uncles, Theodore (always called Uncle Thee with a soft-sound on the “th”), who walked about in downtown San Francisco an hour or so after the quake through streets littered with overturned carriages and dead dray horses and fallen bricks, the surrounding wooden buildings just beginning to be licked by the flames that would later engulf and destroy much of the city. It must have been a scene reminiscent of hell, and indicative of God’s vengeance on a sinful humanity. So reminiscent and indicative, in fact, that Uncle Thee said that when he met up with a white fellow walking numbly through the same chaotic streets, the white fellow rushed up to him, dropped to his knees, hugged his arms around Uncle Thee’s legs, and shouted, “Save me, brother! O, save me!” -more-
When Berkeley boosters publicized the city circa 1905, they invariably pointed to the 1700 block of Le Roy Avenue as their shining example. Situated one block to the north of the UC campus, the short stretch between Le Conte Avenue and Ridge Road boasted two of Berkeley’s most opulent and ballyhooed residences: the Volney D. Moody house, known as “Weltevreden,” and the Allen G. Freeman house, “Allanoke.” Each was designed by a fashionable architect (A.C. Schweinfurth and Ernest Coxhead, respectively) and was clad in clinker brick-a material popular with Arts and Crafts builders. -more-
I do have a modest talent for growing things. The catch is that what grows isn’t always what I had in mind. -more-
I crawled out from underneath someone’s house the other day and placed in the hands of a brow-knit homeowner, a pithy black rock. Before she could form the words for what she could not quite specify, I said “Coal … Anthracite, I think” (as though I know anything about coal). Since she continued to bear that befuddled look, I explained that I’d been under the house and that there, near the furnace, I’d found a few of these black shiny artifacts of geophysics. -more-
The March 11 Mississippi primaries signaled the end of the second of four acts in the competition for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Act I began on Jan. 5 with the Iowa caucuses and ended on Jan. 26 with the South Carolina primary, where the race was winnowed down to Sens. Clinton and Obama. Act II began on Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, and plodded on for five weeks. Act III begins with the Pennsylvania primary on April 22 and ends on June 3 or possibly later if Florida and Michigan have to revote. Act IV will be the convention beginning Aug. 25, where the nominee will be selected. -more-
On the median strip under the BART tracks along Martin Luther King Jr. Way, just a few blocks past the city line and into Oakland, there lives a flowering quince I’ve always thought of as The Brave Little Toaster. Aside from the fact that it’s nothing like a toaster at all, I find the name apt. -more-
The village flirt tosses aside the book of the romance of Tristan and Isolde she has been reading aloud, flippantly singing, “If only I knew that recipe” for the famous love potion, as the chorus of peasants idling in the piazza picks up the refrain—and her forlorn, would-be suitor Nemorino, who’s caught the storybook as if it was the garter flung after a wedding, finds himself in the same predicament. -more-
Helvetica—a Greek tragedy? No, a typeface. Who would think of making a documentary film about a typeface? And who would attribute political significance to a font? Well, the writers of this 80-minute film did. -more-
With just a few exceptions, when we talk about an Orson Welles film we talk about a tangled mess of topics all at once. We talk about the film as it exists and the film as it might have been; we talk about intentions and motivations, disagreements and compromises, edits and changes; we talk about artistic integrity versus commercial considerations, about the rights of the artist contrasted with the rights of studios, stockholders, producers and distributors. -more-
"What Orson always said about his career,” Richard Connema reminisced about working on Macbeth with Orson Welles at Republic Studios in 1946, “was that when he came out with Citizen Kane, he was a big shot and everybody gave him Christmas presents. During the making of The Magnificent Ambersons, they still gave him presents. But the next year, after he got back from Brazil and with all the problems with the release of Ambersons, nobody gave him presents.” -more-
When Berkeley boosters publicized the city circa 1905, they invariably pointed to the 1700 block of Le Roy Avenue as their shining example. Situated one block to the north of the UC campus, the short stretch between Le Conte Avenue and Ridge Road boasted two of Berkeley’s most opulent and ballyhooed residences: the Volney D. Moody house, known as “Weltevreden,” and the Allen G. Freeman house, “Allanoke.” Each was designed by a fashionable architect (A.C. Schweinfurth and Ernest Coxhead, respectively) and was clad in clinker brick-a material popular with Arts and Crafts builders. -more-
I do have a modest talent for growing things. The catch is that what grows isn’t always what I had in mind. -more-
I crawled out from underneath someone’s house the other day and placed in the hands of a brow-knit homeowner, a pithy black rock. Before she could form the words for what she could not quite specify, I said “Coal … Anthracite, I think” (as though I know anything about coal). Since she continued to bear that befuddled look, I explained that I’d been under the house and that there, near the furnace, I’d found a few of these black shiny artifacts of geophysics. -more-
Coming down the escalator at El Cerrito BART last Wednesday afternoon, I heard jazz. It sounded live, but musicians were nowhere in sight. Had BART started piping music into its stations along with its public safety and elevator messages? Out in front of the station, the surprising source of the music appeared: Five young people—three saxophonists, a trumpeter and a drummer—were swinging away. -more-
Since she died in 1978, if people now know of Malvina Reynolds at all it’s mostly as the writer of “Little Boxes” and “What Have They Done to the Rain,” among many memorable progressive and children’s songs. Even here, during her lifetime, she was known mainly from afar as The Singing Grandmother of Berkeley, a screechy fountain of song for noble, poorly funded causes. Few looked beneath this action-costume of a quirky, homegrown Superhero to recognize the astute sociologist and cornucopia of life-affirming spirit at work within. -more-
On the median strip under the BART tracks along Martin Luther King Jr. Way, just a few blocks past the city line and into Oakland, there lives a flowering quince I’ve always thought of as The Brave Little Toaster. Aside from the fact that it’s nothing like a toaster at all, I find the name apt. -more-
