The Berkeley City Council adopted its two year-biennial budget Tuesday night, with the caveat—now becoming the standard refrain of the day—that the results of currently ongoing state budget action will mean that Berkeley will be tinkering with its finances into the fall. Since no one expects that the results of the Sacramento deliberations will be more money going back to local governments in California, this will mean that Berkeley’s budget adjustments will either be cutbacks or revenue increases, or some combination of the two. -more-

The Berkeley City Council took significantly more than a symbolic stand against international sweatshop labor Tuesday night, approving a Sweatshop Free Ordinance to limit the amount of city money going to companies that exploit their labor. -more-

Asa Dodsworth faces an ever-mounting pile of potential fines from the City of Berkeley. His crime? He says it’s front-yard gardening. -more-

In nearby Richmond, Garden Club activist Jayma Brown had raised concerns with city officials after she was told during a monthly neighborhood council meeting that the city had banned front-yard gardens. -more-

A pastor, a couple of community organizers and a group of parents, educators and students met at The Way Christian Center in Berkeley recently to discuss plans for a new charter school in the city. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education will seek input from Berkeley High School before crafting any policy seeking to reform its School Governance Council. -more-

News from Iran this week prompts reflections on the utility of violence as a solution to problems and questions about the ability of humans to govern themselves. On the first topic, it’s been all too easy to contemplate a simple solution to perceived potential threats if Iran ever managed to develop nuclear weapons: a pre-emptive attack. But after the world has seen a large percentage of Iranian citizens take to the street to protest what looked to them like a rigged election which their side might actually have won, it’s going to be hard to view Iran as a monolith which can be ethically stopped by broad military action. It seems that many Iranians are prisoners of their government and therefore can’t be held collectively responsible for, e.g., President Ahmadinejad’s intemperate statements about the Holocaust. -more-