News Updates

People’s Park Treesit Ends With a Reprieve

By Richard Brenneman

Friday December 19, 2008

Berkeley’s latest treesit ended Thursday, the same day it began, when campus police signed a Christmas truce that spares—for the moment—two acacias in People’s Park. -more-

Berkeley Man’s Suicide Leads to Discovery of Body Buried Behind Wall

By Richard Brenneman

Friday December 19, 2008

The dramatic suicide of a Berkeley man late Monday afternoon led police to a second gruesome discovery two days later, a badly decomposed male corpse walled up inside the a first floor laundry room. -more-

News

Berkeley Schools Top Bad Air Quality List

By Kristin McFarland

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Last week’s USA Today report that placed three Berkeley schools in the first percentile of schools with bad air quality has activists, community members and school directors in an uproar. -more-

Neighbors Win One, Lose One in Legal Actions Against Pacific Steel

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Neighborhood opponents of West Berkeley’s Pacific Steel Casting went one-for-two in Alameda County Superior Court legal decisions on Friday, with one judge overturning a previous Berkeley Small Claims Court ruling in favor of several PSC neighbors and, in a separate action, a second judge ruling that a class-action lawsuit against the steel foundry can go forward. -more-

Church Burial Rights Gain Support in Berkeley

By Richard Brenneman

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Forget all that stuff about “godless Berkeley.” -more-

Council Fails to Act on Cell Phone Antenna Applications

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Berkeley City Council stumbled (again) on Tuesday over the vexing issue of expanding cell-phone tower facilities in the city, failing to decide on a Verizon Wireless application for 1540 Shattuck Ave. and failing for the third straight meeting to either grant a hearing or dismiss a similar appeal for ZAB approval of a T-Mobile facility at 1725 University Ave. -more-

Conference Calls for Strategies To End America’s Prison Cycle

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Nation of Islam Minister Christopher Muhammad of San Francisco speaks at Saturday’s Stanley “Tookie” Williams Legacy Summit while Bill Ayers looks on.

More than 300 ’60s and ’70s era radicals and students not born until the ’80s gathered at Oakland’s Merritt College on Saturday to honor a man executed by the State of California three years ago and to hear strategies to end the cycle of criminalization of American communities and the country’s re-volving prison door and the death penalty. -more-

Hillside School Neighbors Seek to Purchase Playground

By Kristin McFarland

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Zoning Board Approves Shattuck Offices, Delays Action on Kashani Condos

By Richard Brenneman

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Two Marina Sites Emerge for Ferry Terminal

By Richard Brenneman

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Fire Department Log

By Richard Brenneman

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Police Search for Three Men Involved in Pharmacy Burglary

Bay City News

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Shopping with Old Friends: A Day on Piedmont Avenue

By Anna Mindess Special to the Planet

Wednesday December 17, 2008

School Acknowleged for Closing Achievement Gap

By Kristin McFarland

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Prime West Berkeley Property Headed for the Marketplace

By Richard Brenneman

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Commission Votes to End Downtown’s Fast Food Moratorium

By Richard Brenneman

Wednesday December 17, 2008

UC Santa Cruz’s Redwood Grove Felled

By Richard Brenneman

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Window-Smashing Burglar Sought by Berkeley Police

Wednesday December 17, 2008

By Richard Brenneman

A private crime scene cleanup technician finishes donning his protective gear Thursday afternoon as he prepares to work on the Ashby Avenue room where police found a body buried behind a wall.

Editorials

Watching the Watchdogs: It’s Everyone’s Job

By Becky O’Malley

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Those of us who voted for President-elect Barack Obama (possibly 95 percent of the readers of this paper) are waiting for his arrival with the same eagerness that our children and grandchildren are waiting for Santa Claus. But like the children of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the anticipation we feel is tempered by a bit of anxiety: Perhaps instead of sugarplums we might get Ashes and Switches or lumps of coal in our stockings. -more-