Rediscovered evidence of Native American burials at the site of UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium—omitted in university environmental documents—raises new questions about the future of the oak grove beside the stadium where the university is planning a massive building project. -more-

Four months after it was formed by the Oakland City Council to make recommendations for a comprehensive inclusionary zoning ordinance for the city and two weeks after its final report was supposed to be due, members of the City of Oakland Inclusionary Housing Blue Rib-bon Commission met for the first time Thursday evening under attack from tenant advocates and under pressure from councilmembers to complete an ambitious agenda before the summer council break. -more-

Next week is Timothy Burroughs’ last week as program officer for a nonprofit that works with cities to address global warming. March 5 will be his first day with Sustainable Berkeley, a collaboration among the city, university, nonprofits and business groups aimed at “keep[ing] Berkeley a national environmental leader.” -more-

Talk of “opportunity sites,” parking spaces and height limits occupied Tuesday’s meeting of a subcommittee hammering out what may become key elements of Berkeley’s plans for the downtown’s future. -more-

Smiles and tears marked the memorial of Berkeley High School Vice Principal denise brown at the Berkeley Community Theater Thursday. -more-

The Berkeley school board will meet Wednesday to approve a resolution honoring Berkeley Vice Principal denise brown and declaring Feb. 15 as denise brown day. brown died Feb. 2 following complications from knee surgery. -more-

A documentary film and public forum on the history and reuse of the 5.8-acre historic UC Berkeley Extension campus at 55 Laguna St. in San Francisco will be held on Saturday. -more-

Planning commissioners last week heard Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) plans for long-range growth and amended the city’s controversial soft-story ordinance. -more-

While Emeryville voters passed Measure C—the living wage ordinance for hotel workers—in November 2005 the City Council didn’t write the final regulations until last week, when they put into place rules on worker complaints. -more-

The Zoning Adjustments Board will hear the request for a use permit modification by the City of Berkeley Mental Health and Human Services to change the hours of operation of the Health and Human Services mobile crisis team at 2433 Channing Way from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. to 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. -more-

OPEN LETTER TO CAL -more-

The following is an excerpt from Kofi Annan’s final address to the UN Security Council on the Middle East, on December 12, 2006. It appeared in this form in the New York Review of Books for February 15, 2007. -more-

The David Brower Center/Oxford Plaza project, which is two months away from breaking ground in downtown Berkeley, is an excellent project despite the misleading claims being made by opponents of affordable housing who are trying to derail the project. -more-

Former Clinton Secretary of State Robert Reich has recently deplored Berkeley’s housing gentrification rush and its unfortunate, un-Berkeley like homogenizing effects (Jan. 30, “The Private Eye”). -more-

In the parlor/dining room of a sleazy boardinghouse, two patterns of wallpaper at war with each other, the day’s just beginning with a husband’s diffidence over a tabloid and a wife’s incessant, skewed platitudes (almost malapropisms) from the Pullman kitchen: is the news good, is the weather nice? -more-

There’s new evidence that the Bush Administration’s “abstinence only” approach to sex education is not proving effective at preventing unwanted pregnancies or the spread of sexually transmitted disease. -more-

Friends invited me to go to India with them and I gave their offer serious consideration. They’re experienced travelers, spending five to six weeks a year on foreign soil, often in places off the beaten track, difficult, and obscure. But at the last minute I opted to stay home. Running around the subcontinent, though no doubt fun, would be fiscally irresponsible. I’ve got new priorities and responsibilities, bills pending and not much income. I need time to adjust to this weird, wretched state of widowhood. -more-

Along with all the flowering plums, acacias, and magnolias, a few native trees and shrubs are late-winter bloomers. Most, like the manzanitas and flowering currants, are on the shrubby side. But coast or wavyleaf silk-tassel (Garrya elliptica) is a bona fide tree up to 30 feet high, showy in its own way, and amenable to planting as an ornamental. There’s a particularly handsome silk-tassel specimen on the University Avenue median strip. -more-