Caltrans last week denied the city of Berkeley’s request for a $120,000 grant to fund a transportation plan to be used in shaping the development of a project that would feature about 300 units of housing over commercial space and parking at the Ashby Bart Station. -more-

Stop that initiative or we’ll sue, an attorney for Golden Gate Fields has warned Albany officials. Citizens for the Albany Shoreline (CAS) filed the initiative in question, an attempt to stop shoreline development, with Albany City Clerk Jacqueline Bucholz on May 16. -more-

The City Council on Tuesday approved the Creek Task Force (CTF) recommendations that ease current building restrictions, but still would require various permits and environmental analyses to build or remodel near creeks. -more-

Graduation season is fast approaching, but more than 40,000 students statewide, including about 200 in Berkeley, still have not passed the high school exit exam. -more-

Members of the Nexus Institute were still occupying their rented West Berkeley home Thursday, the day after the deadline had passed for them to leave. -more-

A federal court judge last week ordered the Department of Defense to expedite a Freedom of Information request made by the ACLU of Northern California on behalf of UC Berkeley Stop the War Coalition and UC Santa Cruz Students Against the War. -more-

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) and the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held a joint meeting Wednesday, and the topic du jour was architectural preservation. -more-

L. A. Wood has filed an appeal to the Zoning Adjustments Board’s (ZAB) decision to modify a use permit that allows Pacific Steel Casting to construct odor pollution reducing facilities. -more-

The “opt-out” notification high school military recruiter bill co-sponsored by Bay Area Assemblymembers Loni Hancock and Sally Lieber has moved on to the California State Senate, but solid Republican opposition and lack of full Democratic support mean that the bill continues to have little chance of surviving a possible gubernatorial veto. -more-

Two self-professed gang members were wounded in a drive-by shooting in South Berkeley Monday night—and neither one is talking to police. -more-

With Alameda County Supervisors coming down to the wire on a decision for the purchase of a permanent new voting system, local voting activists are hoping for what they call an “interim solution” that will not commit the county past the November elections. -more-

Officials from Alameda County, the Albany Chamber of Commerce as well as Albany residents and small businesses got together at the Albany City Hall Tuesday to talk trash. -more-

Even though the end of the school year is approaching, it’s not too late for local teenagers to find summer activities. -more-

“People think Berkeley is different, that we don’t have undocumented people,” says Belen Pulido-Martinez, organizer with BOCA, Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action, a nonprofit dedicated to giving voice to people from communities with little power. -more-

About a dozen Berkeley residents filed into Council Chambers last Thursday to urge the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) to reject a proposal for new wireless facilities at a local Catholic church. The board took heed. -more-

Stuck up -more-

IGNACIO -more-

In the wake of the news of the upcoming closing of Cody’s bookstore, people are acting like something that has been happening for over twenty years is suddenly a “crisis.” This is not necessarily good. As useful as “crises” are in finally focusing attention on their causes, it is equally important to focus on controlling their consequences. Crises always energize those with ideological or self-interested agendas, which they advance as panaceas for the problem at hand. -more-

Here are some thoughts on each of the nine items that were part of the Telegraph Avenue assistance package passed on May 23 by the Berkeley City Council: -more-

Ron Dellums is running for mayor of Oakland at a time when the people of Oakland are desperate for a change in leadership. The Board of Education has lost control of its own schools,the education of our own children. Under its current president, Ignacio De La Fuente, the City Council cannot even protect the safety of its own citizens. The security of life and limb is the first test of government, and De La Fuente has failed the test. He talks tough, he postures. But Oakland now has one of the highest murder rates of any city in the U.S., triple the national average. Our city is the crime capital of California, and entire sections of Oakland live in fear. Forty-six residents have been murdered in three months. -more-

“Spell it!” demanded the young redhead, eyes glaring, hands on narrow hips. -more-

We didn’t do anything about it when it happened the first time and so, perhaps, that is why it has happened again . . . a high-speed police chase, supposedly from an East Oakland “sideshow,” ending in the death of innocent bystanders. Saturday night, it happened on 90th and MacArthur Boulevard. -more-

It’s unlikely that the producers of the documentary An Inconvenient Truth thought that they were producing a sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. But it’s impossible to see this 96-minute film about Al Gore’s single-handed fight to educate America about the dangers of global climate change and not wonder how different things would be if he had won in 2000. -more-

It never ceases to amaze me what madness the media and the legal community have created out of a little thing like mold. -more-

One of my favorite places to look for—or just look at—esoteric, obscure, clever, or kinky garden tools is Hida Japanese Tools on San Pablo, across from REI and a few doors down from Ashkenaz. -more-