Though Berkeley Police Tuesday were trumpeting the arrest of a former Black Panther as a key figure in Berkeley’s first cop killing, by the next morning the tone was considerably less triumphant. -more-
Ready or not, here come new zoning regulations for University Avenue. -more-
The City Council Tuesday breathed new life into a proposed Longs Drugs store downtown, but warned the national retailer that it wouldn’t get the alcohol permit it’s demanding unless it yielded to city demands for a substantial produce department and strict limits on the sale of beer and wine. -more-
A major residential and biotech research complex proposed for the Richmond waterfront has pitted a coalition of activists and neighbors against a developer who offers a healthy boost to the city’s stricken tax base. -more-
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl is on his way out. But according to UC officials, the university has still not chosen his replacement. -more-
The Berkeley Fire Department kicks off the start of its 100th birthday festivities with a Saturday open house at Station No. 6, 999 Cedar St. -more-
SAN FRANCISCO—“Accident or intentional?” asks the front page headline in El Bohemio News, a local Spanish-language weekly, about a deadly Honduran prison fire. The photo shows tattooed dead bodies lining a yard with police officers in blue jeans standing above them. -more-
President Bush implied that Iraq would be “free and self-governing” in his speech before the Army War College on May 24, 2004. But the speech is a thin fabric of insubstantial promises. None of the points are new, and all of the implied efforts have failed to date. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District named Glenston Thompson as its new Deputy Superintendent Tuesday. -more-
There may be a new revolution brewing in the Bay Area, but this time it’s taking place not in the streets but in the laboratories. Advocates of stem cell research suggest that we stand at the threshold of biomedical breakthroughs that may transform modern medicine. At the forefront of this effort are universities like Stanford and UCSF, and local companies like Geron. Stem cells hold promise for curing such devastating illnesses as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, juvenile diabetes, MS, ALS, paralysis, and some forms of cancer and heart disease. -more-
I couldn’t agree more with Max Anderson’s assessment of the ongoing national and local political sophistry (“Rent Board Chair Chides Control Foe’s ‘Rant,’” Daily Planet, May 25-27). His own contentious diatribe is a prime example of the same sophistry he so deliciously condemns. He takes John Koenigshofer to task for supposedly misleading that he is a “...landlord and realtor who works out of George Oram’s firm, one of Berkeley’s largest real estate interests.” Mr. Anderson wisecracks facetiously that “...perhaps modesty prevented Mr. Koenigshofer...” from such a revealing label. If Mr. Anderson were not so inept in his own “... Ashcroftesque invasion of privacy...” he would have revealed that Mr. Koenigshofer and this writer organized and held the first public call for Richard Nixon’s impeachment, in of all places, Yorba Linda, Cal. He would have revealed that Mr. Koenigshofer holds a degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, that he is an artist of considerable depth, a fabulous poet and an engaging storyteller. Mr. Anderson would have also revealed that Mr. Koenigshofer forsook an internship at A.C.T. as a playwright to attend to his dying mother. That he requires a hip replacement from decades of fence building, landscape construction and gardening that gave him the courage to purchase his first project with a couple of credit cards and an unflagging endurance. Perhaps Mr. Anderson’s own physicality and ailments is derived from his longtime position as “...chair of the Rent Stabilization Board,” or other supine endeavors. -more-
University Avenue is the most important traffic corridor in Berkeley. As such, decisions about its development should not be controlled by the opinions of highly vocal minorities with vested interests in the outcome of these decisions. Berkeley currently has an opportunity to make plans that will benefit all of its citizens, not just those individuals who are directly and immediately impacted by development along University Avenue. For these reasons, I urge the citizens of Berkeley to contact the Planning Commission, and urge them to adopt the recommendations of the University Avenue Strategic Plan. -more-
As a medical cannabis patient (quadriplegic) fortunate enough to have a doctor’s recommendation for the past five years, I feel compelled to comment on recent developments in our community regarding the cultivation and dispensing of medical marijuana. On April 27 our City Council unfortunately tabled proposed amendments to the previous 2001 medical cannabis initiative. Their lack of decision has prompted a voter initiative drive and the rights of patients like myself have been overlooked and ill-served. I believe this process can be avoided with reconsideration by the Berkeley City Council. -more-
The Traveling Jewish Theatre has come to Berkeley’s Julia Morgan Theater, bringing along with it Dybbuk—which is one chunk of a play—and two gifted actors. In the course of the evening Karine Koret and Keith Davis successfully play roles that run from a nice young couple happily celebrating the Sabbath together, to ones embodying possession by supernatural and terrifying spirits. In between they each portray a dazzling variety of ages and characters as well as an enormous emotional range. It is a very impressive pair of performances. -more-
Legumes are such an important partner of grains as a source of complete protein that one wonders how Europeans managed before the advent of foods from America. Although every continent seems to have indigenous legumes and pulses, Europe has only one bean, the fava or broad bean, Vicia faba. Historians have documented an increase in human populations in Europe after the arrival of beans from the Americas. These beans are often called French, having been introduced into Europe by French explorers in Canada. -more-
The exterminator receives a call to return to the scene of recent work. Upon arrival, he is confronted by the angry customer. -more-
At least four teachers will be transferred involuntarily from Rosa Parks Elementary School next year—and many more might follow them willingly—two months after more than three-quarters of the faculty signed a letter of no confidence in their principal. -more-
For a city whose downtown recently has been characterized more by empty storefronts than thriving shops, Longs Drugs offers Berkeley an enticing opportunity. -more-
A recent speech delivered by a UC Berkeley lecturer during an impromptu anti-war protest in San Francisco has set off a firestorm of criticism around the country, including death threats and calls for his removal from the university. -more-
Richard Register and other Berkeley proponents of daylighting Strawberry Creek have come to San Luis Obispo so often that they’re “becoming a new type of economic tourism,” quipped San Luis Obispo City Councilmember Kenneth Schwartz. -more-
The biggest news swirling around tonight’s (Tuesday, May 25) City Council meeting isn’t on the agenda. -more-
It was two in the afternoon and I was unloading groceries from my car. On the second trip out the front door I saw her rounding the corner and coming toward me: a small, waif-like woman dressed in flannel pajama bottoms and a bubble jacket. I knew what was coming. I was going to get nailed. -more-
On May 22, more than a quarter of the graduating class of Boalt Hall law students protested actions taken by Boalt law professor John Yoo during his tenure as deputy assistant attorney general for the Bush administration. In January, 2002, Professor Yoo authored a 42-page memo for the Department of Justice advising that the U.S. is not constrained by the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners captured in Afghanistan. The State Department vigorously opposed this position on several grounds, arguing that it could do great damage to our international standing and the legitimacy of our foreign policy. Subsequent events in both Iraq and Afghanistan and have borne out these concerns. -more-
Staff proposals for implementing the University Avenue Strategic Plan (UASP) are so confusing that the public, the commission, and even staff find it difficult to understand them, as is shown by each succeeding draft having additional mistakes and inconsistencies. The drafts have come so quickly that issues presented weeks ago have not been resolved, and have been buried by many new questions raised by the later revisions. Staff is pushing the commission to complete a final draft before the City Council recess in July, but neighbors and merchants are not convinced that the proposed zoning code changes will lead to the viable and vital University Avenue that the UASP promised. -more-
The season of political sophistry is well underway in Berkeley as it is across the nation. Evidence of this can be seen in John Koenigshofer’s less than rational, less than honest anti-rent control rant. The latest thoughtless tirade appeared on the op-ed page in the weekend edition of May 11-13. Mr. Koenigshofer signed his piece as “a Berkeley resident.” Perhaps modesty prevented Mr. Koenigshofer from revealing that he is a Berkeley landlord and realtor who works out of George Oram’s firm, one of Berkeley’s largest real estate interests. -more-
Jesse Arreguin recently wrote in this newspaper (Letters, Daily Planet, May 14-17) that “Costa Hawkins and excessive rent levels led to the lack of housing in Berkeley.” I doubt that Mr. Arreguin was living in Berkeley when rent control began in 1979, or that he has taken the time to study the history of this issue. -more-
Last week, San Francisco’s City Arts & Lectures offered a tantalizing twofer at Herbst Theatre: renowned urbanist Jane Jacobs was interviewed by Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for the New Yorker and, before that, for the New York Times. Jacobs, 88, lives in Toronto and seldom ventures into these parts. Not surprisingly, the event sold out. -more-
John King’s review of Jane Jacobs in the May 20 San Francisco Chronicle concluded with a swipe at the UC Hotel Task Force. -more-
For a nation created in part as a rebellion against corporate power, the United States has embraced the corporation to a degree unprecedented in history, enshrouding it with the protections Jefferson enshrined to shelter the individual from the undue intrusion of government. -more-
Sayre Van Young’s face and name are familiar to many Berkeley residents. For nearly four decades, she’s worked for the Berkeley Public Library, helping to answer the most common and esoteric questions posed at the reference desk. -more-
Melaleucas are blooming now; there’s a double row of Melaleuca linariifolia on Jefferson Street, on both sides of its intersection with Bancroft, and a nice row of them by the BART tracks on Masonic in Albany, among others. They look nifty in rows, with their profusion of tiny white flowers mounding the edges of the rounded crowns. One of their English names is “snow-in-summer,” a name shared with an easy herbaceous groundcover, Cerastium tomentosum. They look a little odd together, though, because they have such different color palettes: The tree is pale tan and slightly olive-ish green with creamy flowers, and the herb is silvery and cold white. -more-
The next Berkeley City Council race should be shaping up right about now. The first of a series of important dates for potential candidates is today, May 28. This is the first day to take out petitions to file as a candidate without paying a fee. Ordinarily, a candidate running for local office in the City of Berkeley is required to pay a filing fee of $150 at the time he or she takes out nomination papers. However, instead of paying all or part of the fee, a candidate can get signatures of support from up to 150 Berkeley registered voters. Each valid signature reduces the filing fee by $1. The city clerk’s office at City Hall (2180 Milvia St.) has the petition forms, which must be filed at least 15 days prior to the close of the nomination period, which closes Friday, August 6. Candidates who pay the fee can wait until then to file, though they also must collect some signatures to be eligible. The city clerk’s office has ample information on all this in the form of a pamphlet and on the city’s website. -more-
A famous Celtic bard once wrote: -more-
