Berkeley Unified School District is set to receive a healthy chunk of change next month. -more-

Berkeley didn’t make the list of schools selected last week for outdoor air quality monitoring by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and a local environmental group isn’t happy about the omission. -more-

The City of Berkeley is expecting a small amount of budget relief this month—$289,000 in refunds for overcharges on office supplies by Office Depot. In a memo this week from City Manager Phil Kamlarz to Mayor Tom Bates and the Berkeley City Council, Bates said Office Depot had agreed to refund the money by April 17. -more-

The Berkeley Planning Commission sees the Central Berkeley of the future as a thicket of tall buildings covering the maximum possible area, but many of the members of the public who spoke at Monday’s hearing on the commission’s proposed Downtown Area plan found the vision alarming. -more-

On a recent warm spring evening, the streets of downtown Berkeley were sparsely populated—unusual for a Friday night. -more-

The splendid novelist Walter Mosley was in town last week to read from his new book. He’s a smart and entertaining talker as well as a fine writer, and he had a big audience in the palm of his hand at Oakland’s First Congregational Church for more than an hour, just answering questions about his work. He’s a man in his late fifties who rejoices in having been raised in Los Angeles by a Jewish mother and an African-American father, in a time when there weren’t many guys on the street with that ethnic combination. Not surprising in Oakland, several of his questions were about that dual perspective. -more-