The Berkeley City Council upheld a commission vote Tuesday evening to landmark a 1939 ice skating rink, an act supporters of the nonprofit corporation Save Berkeley Iceland hope will facilitate the group’s purchase of the site and pave the way to reopening the facility for ice skating. -more-
If the City Council decides to uphold a commission designation of Berkeley Iceland as a landmark, it could put a crimp in development plans for a housing/childcare project, while breathing new life into the plans of a nonprofit corporation to re-open the now-shuttered 68-year- old ice skating rink. -more-
Berkeley residents have until Aug. 10 to express their concerns about the environmental review of zoning ordinance and General Plan amendments to open up West Berkeley to car dealerships. -more-
An auditor’s report released late Monday morning says Berkeley police and city workers mismanaged asset forfeiture accounts, which could have caused the city to lose the uninsured funds or allowed the money to be misused or embezzled—neither of which happened, according to the audit. While the council and public did not receive a copy of the audit on asset forfeiture funds until late Monday morning, the council will be asked to approve the report and its suggested remedies at tonight’s (Tuesday) council meeting. -more-
Threatened by citizens considering a lawsuit to force state-mandated public participation in city meetings, Mayor Tom Bates has been experimenting since the fall with a variety of rules aimed at increasing opportunities for public comment at council meetings. -more-
The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) set the appeal of an administrative use permit to construct an addition to a one-story, two-unit building at 2516 Ellsworth St. for a public hearing Thursday. -more-
West Berkeley-based Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) is scheduled to release its health risk assessment report (HRA) to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Monday. -more-
Warnings of criminal penalties, charges of intimidation and ousters of worried UC Berkeley workers and concerns about radioactive contamination dominated discussions about two polluted southeast Richmond sites Thursday. -more-
Oakland Assemblymember Sandré Swanson modified his AB45 Oakland Unified School District local control bill again last Wednesday, giving back more powers to State Superintendent Jack O’Connell over when state control of the Oakland schools will end and winning, in return, key Republican support and passage in the California State Senate Education Committee. -more-
Two teenagers were arrested Friday on charges of shooting a gun at passing vehicles on the 2600 block of California Street. -more-
The San Francisco Preservation Consortium appealed the San Francisco Planning Commission’s decision not to landmark the UC Berkeley Extension Laguna Street campus last week. -more-
Warm water pool users got a look at what the proposed warm water pool at the Berkeley Unified School District’s Milvia Street site would look like on Wednesday at the Disability Commission meeting. -more-
The public hearing at the Tuesday night City Council meeting was supposed to focus on whether the council should uphold or overturn a commission’s landmark designation of the 1939 art deco structure that houses Berkeley Iceland at Derby and Milvia streets. -more-
Elmwood neighbors and merchants lost their bid to overturn zoning board approval of a proposed retail development at College and Ashby avenues at the City Council Tuesday. Opponents say the proposal for stores, a gym and large restaurant-bar is too big for the small shopping district. -more-
The UC Regents are scheduled to approve two key environmental documents Monday, setting the stage for a major expansion at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. -more-
Few people who’ve encountered him are indifferent to Mark Rhoades, whose departure was announced this week by city Planning and Development Director Dan Marks. -more-
Officials from Oakland’s privately operated Children’s Hospital got an hourlong angry lecture from all five Alameda County Supervisors on Tuesday morning after supervisors learned that Children’s has begun circulating petitions to put a $24 parcel tax increase on the February ballot to help finance the building of a new hospital. -more-
Oakland City Attorney John Russo filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court Thursday to seek a court order compelling Waste Management of Alameda County to collect garbage that has piled up since it locked out its employees on July 2. -more-
Demolition of UC Berkeley’s Earl Warren Hall—an architectural tribute to the late California governor and U.S. Supreme Court chief justice—could begin as early as next month. -more-
The Berkeley City Council will hold a public hearing Monday to consider an appeal regarding the decision by the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) to approve the Trader Joe’s project at 1885 University Ave. -more-
DAPAC members, with less than five months to finish their work on a downtown plan, are picking up the pace—scheduling two meetings in the coming week. -more-
In the past week, there have been two arson attempts at the Berkeley Mental Health Center at 2640 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The first attempt was on Saturday, July 7, and the second was on Monday, July 9. -more-
By Riya Bhattacharjee -more-
"Public Commons for Everyone.” Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? The slogan, adopted by Mayor Bates for his re-run of the anti-panhandling ordinance which he’d supported once before, was probably coined by his house flack Cisco DeVries, formerly of San Francisco’s Staton & Hughes political public relations firm. It acquired Orwellian overtones when it became clear that the Bates ordinance’s real purpose was to keep unattractive persons away from the public commons, particularly from shopping districts. But the council approved it, in concept at least. -more-
President Bush increasingly inhabits a parallel universe. His Thursday press conference displayed a remarkable disconnect from the current thinking of most Americans and even of many elected officials in his own Republican party. Most Americans, from all parties, now understand that our main, our only, goal in Iraq is to get out, though there are still some differences of opinion as to the manner of our going. There has been approximately no progress toward the subsidiary goal of helping the indigenous Iraqis establish a civil society based on what in this country we call democratic values. Staying there longer won’t change much. It’s possible that immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces would exacerbate the factional war among Iraqis, but even that is not certain. -more-
On Tuesday July 17, the City Council will take up the issue of how public comment at Council meetings is structured. We will be deciding who gets to address the Council and how long they will get to speak. -more-
I attended the hearings on the landmark designation for Iceland, our jewel in the heart of Berkeley. Those wishing to preserve Iceland spoke spiritedly on behalf of this well-loved asset—and they were brilliant. They paid tribute with eloquence and soul. -more-
One of my favorite songs from long ago begins “Why, oh why, oh why oh why did I ever leave Ohio?” -more-
These essential questions are being raised more and more often, at least in California, and several local authors and filmmakers have addressed them recently in illuminating ways. -more-
As the psychedelic ’60s morphed into the sour reality of the ’70s, many a dazed survivor was struck with the revelation that there was more to life than sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. For some, a search for enlightenment led to Buddhism, which had a particular appeal for Jewish hippie intellectual lefties—such as a fair percentage of my pals. Picking up on this trend, a local stand-up comic, Darryl Henriques, did a shtick where he inhabited the persona of the Swami from Miami, chief guru of the Bu-ish religion. -more-
Those of us who advocate “smart growth”—siting new and denser housing near jobs, academic centers, services, etc., and on transit corridors—have a responsibility to help ensure that such developments are assets, not detriments, to their neighborhoods. -more-
Anything that helps “Save Iceland” and specifically reopen it ASAP, including its landmarking, is on the mark and hopefully neither a day late nor a penny short. -more-
It comes with a $400 million dollar bill -more-
Some mornings my 18-year-old son tells me his dreams. “I dreamt I got some new multi-vitamins, and that I was locked up in a glass deli case,” he says matter-of-factly. He unscrews the cap from one of his orange prescription pill bottles while he talks. His eyes look guarded. He looks tired. -more-
The week before the Fourth of July we were up at Lassen Volcanic National Park watching the traffic at Hat Lake. The place was jumping. -more-
We continue to have odd and inexplicable gaps in our ability to discuss race and racism in an adult way in this country. -more-
Around the turn of the 20th century, Berkeley was promoted as a City of Homes. In 1905, the Conference Committee of the Improvement Clubs of Berkeley, California published an illustrated booklet bearing this title and featuring various private residences. But the concept of home would soon change. The San Francisco earthquake and fire brought a flood of refugees into the East Bay, and many real-estate entrepreneurs quickly rolled up their sleeves to meet the housing demand. -more-
I’ve talked about a couple of ethical aspects of gardening over the past two weeks: ethical suppliers and basic kindness to plants, the reason I don’t buy Arizona desert species for my shady, poorly drained Berkeley garden. -more-
Do you know The Consultant’s Song? It goes: Maybe it’s this way, or maybe it’s that way and I get paid’O in either case’O. -more-
At a retrofit seminar last weekend, I saw a photo of a braced chimney that had fallen in an earthquake, just like its un-braced neighbors. -more-
For the last two weeks, Maestro George Cleve has been teasing Mozart aficionados with hints of what they can expect at this year’s upcoming 33rd Annual Midsummer Mozart Festival. -more-
To the strains of “Makin’ Whoopie,” the Impact Briefs 8: Sinfully Delicious ensemble (Steve Budd, Elissa Dunn, Leon Goertzen, Jon Lutz and Monica Coretes Viharo) hits the stage with a round-robin confession, disguised as a survey: The Last Sinful Thing You’ve Done—ran over a frog, poked a badger with a spoon, talked to my ex under an assumed name, shoplifted an onion, mooned the Pope, touched myself and thought of Prince Gomovilas, had a secret orgasm onstage (“Just now?”) ... and the humor gets equally bad in proportion to the sins. -more-
The week before the Fourth of July we were up at Lassen Volcanic National Park watching the traffic at Hat Lake. The place was jumping. -more-
Promising “more song-and-dance than a Bush Administration press conference,” the San Francisco Mime Troupe will be Making a Killing this weekend, for free, at Cedar Rose Park, a block from Cedar and Chestnut Streets. -more-
It has been 35 years since the Berkeley Museum brought New York’s Museum of Modern Art exhibition, “Sculpture of Matisse,” to the Bay Area. The current show as SFMOMA permits us to re-examine the great painter’s three-dimensional work. The museum’s press release speaks of his “sculptural masterpieces.” -more-
This Friday Trinity Lyric Opera opens its second season with Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land at its new home in the Castro Valley Center for the Arts. -more-
It’s a perverse world that lets the name of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami remain obscure to the vast Western film-going public. He is considered by many to among the three or four greatest artists in cinema today, the creative force behind some of the most thoughtful and compelling films of the past 25 years. -more-
Around the turn of the 20th century, Berkeley was promoted as a City of Homes. In 1905, the Conference Committee of the Improvement Clubs of Berkeley, California published an illustrated booklet bearing this title and featuring various private residences. But the concept of home would soon change. The San Francisco earthquake and fire brought a flood of refugees into the East Bay, and many real-estate entrepreneurs quickly rolled up their sleeves to meet the housing demand. -more-
I’ve talked about a couple of ethical aspects of gardening over the past two weeks: ethical suppliers and basic kindness to plants, the reason I don’t buy Arizona desert species for my shady, poorly drained Berkeley garden. -more-
Do you know The Consultant’s Song? It goes: Maybe it’s this way, or maybe it’s that way and I get paid’O in either case’O. -more-
At a retrofit seminar last weekend, I saw a photo of a braced chimney that had fallen in an earthquake, just like its un-braced neighbors. -more-
Tuesday’s review of Crowded Fire Theater Company’s Anna Bella Eema at Ashby Stage mistakenly attributed last year’s production of The Typographer’s Dream to Crowded Fire. The play was actually produced by Encore Theatre and remounted at Ashby Stage in association with Shotgun Players. -more-
