By Riya Bhattacharjee -more-

By J. Douglas -more-

Jim Hynes, assistant to the city manager, has told the Daily Planet that the city is not considering baiting the rats in Willard Park at this moment. “We have an integrated pest control policy according to which we have to look at the least toxic way of getting rid of the rats,” he said. Presently the city is only setting traps to catch the rodents at Willard Park. -more-

By SUZANNE LA BARRE -more-

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) meets this Wednesday at 7 p.m. to examine current land use conditions and policy in downtown Berkeley. -more-

Proponents, opponents and concerned citizens have their last chance Wednesday to speak out on the report the Bureau of Indians Affairs (BIA) will consider when they decide whether or not to allow a casino in North Richmond. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education will consider funneling $800,000 into developing an open East Campus/ Derby Street field tomorrow. -more-

Local anti-war activists, who say government agencies collected data on their meetings, demonstrations and events, filed suit last week to force the Department of Defense to disclose the contents of documents it has on file. -more-

The Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District will hold public hearings next Wednesday, March 22, on bus and service changes in North Alameda and West Contra Costa counties. -more-

Strangers saved the lives of Annette Herskovits and her sister in occupied France almost a half-century ago. -more-

A drive to put the four college Peralta Community College District in the forefront of the Bay Area’s environmental movement was kicked off last week with a one-day mini-conference at Laney College in Oakland. -more-

Worried about the impending earthquake in the Berkeley area? There has been a series of lectures at Stanford and at UC Berkeley for the centennial of the 1906 earthquake. Kathleen Tierney spoke March 1 on “Preparedness for catastrophic and near-catastrophic events: Issues and challenges in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.” Professor Tierney is director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, professor of sociology, author of works on hazards and disasters, and a member of many committees on disaster research. Her appearances on NPR and PBS discussing catastrophe planning can be found on the Internet. -more-

Add this to your list of things to worry about: Native California earthworms. Like many native California creatures, they’re not doing well. -more-

Bad week for cooks -more-

More kidnap info -more-

In the past three years Iraqi guerrillas worked with al Qaeda fighters, or Arab Afghans, in attacking U.S. occupation forces and undermining the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government. There are now reports in Arab media, however, that al Qaeda fighters are leaving Iraq because the resistance has turned against them. -more-

It starts like any other lo-fi college radio production. -more-

Berkeley’s decision to cut off subsidies to the Sea Scouts because they refused to guarantee they wouldn’t discriminate against gays and atheists was perfectly legal, a unanimous California Supreme Court ruled Thursday. -more-

State officials have ordered extensive new tests at Richmond’s Campus Bay, looking for radiation, dioxin, asbestos, hexavalent chromium, cyanide, methyl mercury and other hazardous substances. -more-

Faced with the impossibility of purchasing electronic touch-screen voting machines that meet federal, state, and county guidelines in time for the June primary election, the Alameda County Registrar’s office has come up with a novel solution: paper ballots. -more-

The City of Berkeley has announced that the Willard Park Tot-Lot will be closed from March 9 to March 17 in order to bring the park’s current rat infestation under control. -more-

While Councilmember Laurie Capitelli lauded the proposal for a new Landmarks Preservation Ordinance which was approved by the City Council Tuesday night, saying it will give people more power to preserve their neighborhoods, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, argued that the revised law will open the door for “a whole bunch of developers who want to steamroll over historic resources.” -more-

Progress on the West Berkeley Bowl project has stalled due to a case of mistaken identity—of a traffic report. -more-

With a shiny red truck and neon green T-shirts, protesters descended on the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) office Wednesday to demand fair contracts for teachers. -more-

With University of California officials announcing plans to appeal this week’s professional fee hike lawsuit loss in Superior Court in San Francisco, attorneys for the victorious students are already looking ahead to a second lawsuit now making its way through the courts. -more-

Berkeley School Board members at Wednesday’s meeting were in favor of introducing a fire science curriculum at Berkeley High School. -more-

A school parcel tax is likely to grace the ballot this November, as the Berkeley Unified District (BUSD) struggles to offset a projected $19 million deficit. -more-

A plan that would allow Berkeley residents to pull the plug on PG&E, with its nuclear power plant and investor-driven mindset—and replace it with a community-owned power provider—may be too good to be true, some city officials say. -more-

Directors of the East Bay Regional Parks will meet this afternoon (Tuesday) to pick one of the six finalists to fill the seat left empty by the death of Jean Siri, who represented Ward 1. -more-

Berkeley voters approved instant runoff voting (IRV) with a 72 percent vote two years ago. Advocates came to Tuesday night’s council meeting to lobby the lawmakers to make it happen. -more-

Concerns about the possible presence of radioactive waste at the Campus Bay site in south Richmond have prompted the state to order new tests for the controversial site. -more-

Arson arrest -more-

Lately we’ve been privileged to get some short letters from Pat Cody, someone who has always been in the forefront of doing what needs to be done around here. She founded Cody’s Books with her husband Fred, the first bookstore in the Bay Area if not in the country to feature quality paperback books and to stay open for those of us who needed a reading fix late at night. My memory is that the original Cody’s, on the north side of campus, was open 24 hours a day, but that might be an exaggeration. -more-

FAST FOOD TAX -more-

I am a BART bike theft victim. Both my wife and I bike to the North Berkeley BART station every day. Between us, we have had no fewer than four occasions over the past 18 months where our property was stolen from this BART station. Three of the four incidents involved the entire bike getting stolen, the fourth was a seat and rear tire. We do what we can to avoid these situations; we use thick Kryptonite U-Locks, and lock both the front wheel and the frame to the bike rack. We promptly upgraded to Kryptonite’s new locking system after the Bic pen loophole was publicized. We even make an extra effort to lock our bikes within view of the station agent’s booth whenever possible. It makes no difference. Three of four times, the bikes were stolen in broad daylight, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Bike thieves have taken to using car jacks to pry open Kryptonite locks. I can tell you as a victim, this method works very well. -more-

We couldn’t help but notice that just a few weeks after Joe Eaton’s Daily Planet piece on barn owls in Berkeley, there have been two front page stories—March 7 and March 10—about the rat infestation in Willard Park. -more-

In the obfuscation facts about Pacific Steel Casting’s (PSC) toxic air emissions, the City of Berkeley has a fine partner with Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). While Berkeley continues its history of favoring commercial interests over our health, PSC’s flagrant emission violations have become the norm. -more-

SWEATSHOP LABOR -more-

David Wilson, in his Feb. 28 letter, supports the conversion of rental units to condos, as a way of improving the opportunity for home ownership, reducing the rental vacancy rate, and rehabilitating dilapidated rent-controlled units. -more-

There is a move afoot for Berkeley to weaken its restrictions on the conversion of rental apartments to condominiums. This would be the worst possible move for the city’s future. We need only look at San Francisco and New York City to see how condo conversions displace elderly and long-term tenants, gentrify neighborhoods, and ultimately destroy a city’s economic diversity. -more-

We of Anna’s Jazz Island were excited to move into downtown Berkeley where there has been a push to create a vital Arts District. We were thrilled to be part of a genuine arts center, with a live theater, arts organizations and our jazz venue—10,000 square feet of cultural use. The Gaia Building has a mission for cultural use that originated in a “cultural density bonus” agreement made between the developer, Patrick Kennedy, and the city. In this current real estate market, new downtown cultural spaces can come into being only with such agreements. After lots of community discussion, our Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) voted to give Mr. Kennedy two extra floors of apartments from which he generates extra revenue. In exchange, ZAB also voted, and he agreed, that he would place the ground floor in cultural use and that he would divide the huge mezzanine into four spaces for arts organizations. Anna’s Jazz Island opened in late May of 2005; we use only 15 percent of all the promised cultural use space. -more-

My friend Taffy called me Tuesday night to tell me Dana Reeve had died. “Get a pedicure,” she said. “You need to do something for yourself. Don’t let life pass you by.” -more-

Today is Osama bin Laden’s birthday, his 49th. A good time to consider the strange similarities between the world’s most notorious fugitive and the president of the United States. -more-

Opportunities either mishandled or long left neglected during the Jerry Brown administration are now rapidly catching up with the mayor, threatening to give him a rocky send-off on his way out of Oakland’s door. (If you don’t get the pun, ask somebody.) -more-

Although the closest I’ve been to Nepal is the Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park, I’ve come to like Nepalese food—at least as represented by Kathmandu on Solano Avenue and Little Nepal on Cortland Street in San Francisco. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 -more-

You can buy a toy helicopter at the Dollar Store, but Ten Red Hen Productions has beaten that price and delivered the goods in the form of The 99-cent Miss Saigon at the Willard Middle School Metalshop Theater, with much, much more (although the program c over displays a tiny ‘copter propelled by big chopsticks into a wide-open mouth as its proud logo). -more-

This year’s SFJAZZ Spring Season 2006, which jumps the gun on spring this Friday, March 17 and continues through June 17, offers nearly 50 imaginatively conceived programs in venues all over San Francisco. The events take place at beautiful locations like the Palace of the Legion of Honor’s Florence Gould Theatre where admission to the museum is included in the ticket price, Grace Cathedral, the War Memorial Opera House, the Masonic Center, the Great American Music Hall, the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, and Herbst Theatre with its magnificent autumnal (thus Herbst) murals by Sir Frank Brangwyn. Besides straight ahead musical performances that range through mainstream, New Orleans, avant-garde, Latin, African and Bulgarian music, there are also classes, pre-concert talks, jam sessions, films and cartoons that can broaden and enhance the experience of the music. The following eight shows are just the cream of a consistently great festival: -more-

A passion for beauty impels Changming Meng to create his ink paintings on paper, 20 of which are on view in the public areas of UC’s Institute of East Asian Studies through March 24. The overall effects of these expressive reductive works—in the artist’s 51st solo exhibition!—are twofold. They free viewers of their preconceptions, cleansing their eyes and spirits, and they nourish them with a fresh energy, not just for confronting art, but life, as well. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 -more-

If you thought America’s victory over Germany in World War II was only a political/militaristic one, check out Before The Fall, opening today (Friday) at Landmark’s Act 1&2 theater in downtown Berkeley. Apparenty we won the culture war, too. The film may be German, made with German actors speaking the German language, but it is a purely American film, from the opening shots down to the score’s final notes. -more-

The 21st annual Berkeley Jewish Music Festival got off to a sizzling start last Saturday with a soul-stirring concert by the New Orleans Klezmer All Stars at Oakland’s First Congregational Church. -more-

End the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs! Yes, they mean it and no, they don’t lack a sense of humor. They’re serious, not solemn. Their website features a gallery of pruning atrocities, and some are hilarious. -more-

If you missed the Jazzschool’s 2004 benefit concert featuring the Heath Brothers, you missed a major jazz event. The music went from great to unforgettable when 81-year-old bassist Percy Heath, who died last April 28, sat down to pluck out unaccompanied piccolo bass solos on Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite,” Fats Navarro’s “Nostalgia” and the Johnny Green/Edward Heyman standard “Out of Nowhere.” It was like hearing cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich performing with the lyricism, grace and inspiration of an improvising jazz musician. -more-

Although the closest I’ve been to Nepal is the Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park, I’ve come to like Nepalese food—at least as represented by Kathmandu on Solano Avenue and Little Nepal on Cortland Street in San Francisco. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 -more-

Once again, cheapness costs lives. This time it has to do with the skyrocketing cost of copper in the 1960s. If you’re my age, which I’m not going to reveal, you may remember when copper shot way up around 1965. Metal futures were all the rage and wire makers were freaking big time. Nobody wanted to pay twice the price for wire, but buildings had to be built, added onto or rewired. -more-