A campaign season that began with the possibility of a major overhaul of the Oakland City Council’s old guard ended quietly in the status quo early Wednesday morning, as two incumbent Councilmembers avoided run-offs against what had been expected to be stiff opposition, and two others easily swamped their opponents. -more-

The champagne was flowing last night at victory parties for Nancy Skinner, elected to the State Assembly with 46.8 percent of the vote and Assemblymember Loni Hancock, elected to the State Senate with 56.5 percent of the vote. -more-

The city has closed a lot on the 1400 block of Derby Street, across the street from a day care center, because of potentially dangerous levels of arsenic. -more-

University of California service employees, working for 10 months without a contract, have scrapped plans to walk off the job for two days this week and are back at the bargaining table. -more-

Is Berkeley being railroaded? -more-

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Berkeley Unified School District officials said they uncovered an athletic fundraising scam on Friday, when a resident of Glenview in Oakland called to report that a young man was going door to door saying he was raising money for the Berkeley High School baseball team to visit Maui. -more-

Berkeley resident Nathaniel Curtis Freeman, 19, who was charged with murdering Maceo Smith on Durant Avenue on May 13, did not enter a plea as he was scheduled to do at the Alameda County Superior Court today (Friday). -more-

Berkeley planning commissioners voted 8-1 Wednesday to approve a key legal document that paves the way for construction of a long-delayed 24-unit condominium building at 2701 Shattuck Ave. -more-

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums proposed $14.4 million in cuts to the City of Oakland budget this week to offset a projected $15 million deficit in the next fiscal year, including calling for the closing down of non-essential city services for 12 days each year. -more-

While UC Berkeley’s new downtown museum may attract praise from architecture critics, downward-directed thumbs may come from those already frustrated with the hunt for downtown parking. -more-

With some 30 cities and 80 organizations on record opposing the state agriculture department’s plan to spray coastal cities and the Bay Area to eradicate the light brown apple moth (LBAM), one city is bucking the trend. Reedley, a Fresno County agricultural community of around 24,000, has stepped up to support the state. -more-

Zanne Joi, organizer for Code Pink, was arrested this afternoon (Thursday) on charges of trespassing, battery on an officer and resisting arrest at the downtown Marine Recruiting Center. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education took an in-depth look at Berkeley Unified’s 2007 Academic Performance Index (API) rankings at the school board meeting Wednesday. -more-

A 29-year-old Berkeley man was shot and killed Wednesday night as he stood on a sidewalk near the corner of California and Tyler streets. -more-

Oakland City Council incumbents running for re-election are taking in campaign donations from individuals who regularly require City Council approval for the business they do with the City of Oakland. While the practice is, for the most part, not illegal, it violates the spirit of the 1997 Oakland Campaign Reform Act, which sought to prevent a connection between City Council decisions and campaign donations to city councilmembers running for re-election. -more-

In the tightly contested June 3 races for the Oakland City Council, incumbent councilmembers are predictably winning the important fund-raising battles, with 5th District Councilmember and Council President Ignacio De La Fuente leading the way. -more-

The questions posed to Senate and Assembly candidates at Tuesday evening’s forum presented by the Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action came from real life. -more-

What seemed like typical lunch-time ruckus to visitors at Berkeley High School last week was in fact an act of solidarity with immigrants across the nation. -more-

A massive manhunt scoured the Berkeley hills Friday afternoon as officers closed Highway 13 along Tunnel Road while they searched for the men who carjacked a San Ramon man in Oakland. -more-

An early riser at 5:30 on Wednesday morning thought he’d spotted a thief in the act of committing a crime which is the subject of legislation that has passed the state Assembly and is now headed for the Senate. He saw a man loading many copies of newspapers from distribution boxes on College Avenue near Ashby into a pickup truck, and he called the Berkeley Police Department with a full description of the man and the truck, complete with license number. -more-

Described as friendly, brilliant and bright-eyed—and at the same time as scary and cult-like—six LaRouche Democrats are running for Alameda County Democratic Central Committee (ACDCC) slots. -more-

In a move that closely resembled past efforts to thwart cell phone antennas from being located in Berkeley, the city’s Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) did not approve a permit for T-Mobile to construct a new wireless telecommunications facility on the roof of an Affordable Housing Associates-owned multistoried building at 1725 University Ave. -more-

AC Transit bus district directors took their first steps last week toward a possible fare increase this fall, holding a public hearing on the issue May 21 at Oakland City Hall. -more-

The Berkeley Sea Scout leader who was arrested in December for the alleged sexual abuse of his charges was hit with still more counts on Friday. -more-

Thousands of patient care and service workers for the University of California system announced Friday they plan to strike as soon as June 2 because they feel their wages just don’t cut it. -more-

Berkeley firefighters found themselves facing two structure fires that erupted within minutes of each other Sunday afternoon, reported Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong. -more-

The masked takeover bandit dubbed “The Lone Gunman” has pulled off at least two more armed robberies in Berkeley, police announced. -more-

The University of California Board of Regents Tuesday signed off on the environmental impact reports on two controversial buildings at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. -more-

Construction of the Berkeley Unified School District’s $10 million transportation facility at Sixth Street is scheduled to begin Monday, according to district officials. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District is a step closer to relocating its administrative offices from the seismically unsafe Old City Hall building on 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way to the southwest portion of the West Campus, between Curtis and Browning streets. -more-

The curtain went up on the Downtown Area Plan’s second act Wednesday night, with a sharply divided Planning Commission headed for a rewrite. -more-

The California Department of Education (CDE) has retracted its statement that state school suspension data, which revealed that Berkeley’s Willard Middle School had one of the highest violent-suspension rates in the Bay Area last year, was inaccurate. In an article in the May 22 Planet, CDE information officer Tina Jung told the Planet the suspension data published in the San Francisco Chronicle on May 19 was “incorrect.” Jung said in an e-mail, “We should not have attested that the data used by the [Chronicle] reporter was inaccurate, only that CDE cannot verify its accuracy.” -more-

If you sometimes read the Planet online (and we hope you do) you will have seen our new experimental web-only feature, The Editor’s Back Fence. It’s a collection of items too small or too silly to dignify with print, and will appear randomly at the executive editor’s pleasure. Of course it has another goal, to motivate readers to check out the really-Daily-online Planet each and every day so that they don’t miss anything. This week I answered a teacher’s complaint that our education reporter didn’t talk to a school principal for a story she did. That’s one of those “thank you for asking” questions, and you can see the full reply online. But it also served the purpose of opening up a larger topic that can’t be addressed too often or too seriously. -more-

State Senate District 9: Wilma Chan -more-

LAST MINUTE ELECTION UPDATES -more-

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A DISAPPOINTED PROGRESSIVE -more-

There was a time in the misty, not-too-distant past, when Sacramento’s Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA ) was passed along directly to their Teachers and Classified Staff. No More. -more-

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A group of well-intentioned individuals (North Oakland Cohousing) with a laudatory goal—creation of a cohousing community in the heart of Oakland’s Temescal District—partners with local entrepreneurs of several controversial projects. They enter a marriage of convenience with a high-density/multistory advocacy group. -more-

Our state and our cities and counties are again in grave peril. At the November 2006 general election hugely harmful Proposition 90 failed by just a slim margin. Now the same greedy special interests are back with something even worse: Proposition 98. And they’ve cleverly timed it for the June 3 primary when (because the presidential-preference contest got moved earlier) voter turnout may be woefully low. -more-

Time is definitely not the thing that flies when you are living in a tree. Birds fly, to be sure, and squirrels and insects, too, and—thanks to the people on the ground below—your food flies up to you on ropes, but time passes incrementally, governed by the rhythms of nature. Sunlight, moonlight, stars, rain, wind, and the changing seasons become your clock. It has been almost one and a half years since tree sitters first occupied the threatened trees in Memorial Stadium oak grove on Piedmont Avenue, and they are still up there. They are a visible example of the concern that many in our community feel about the fate of this special natural place. -more-

Presidential campaign reporting wallows in the language of competitive sports, especially racing: who’s ahead, who’s losing ground, who dropped out. Political analysts, like Las Vegas odds makers, deploy their assessment of strengths and weakness in attempts to predict the outcome—“If the election were held today, so-and-so would be the winner.” The normal perspective of analysts and reporters is from outside and above the fray. What does the current presidential race look like from below, from the gutter? -more-

At the end of the May 20 Council meeting, Linda Maio recused herself on a Max Anderson motion which calls for a moratorium on cell antenna applications in the city. Maio did not explain her action. However, her husband has for many years been a tenant of developer Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy owns UC Storage. And UC Storage is the site where Kennedy would like to rent cell phone antenna space to the telecommunications industry for over $200,000 a year. -more-

One of the most compelling visions for Berkeley’s parks included in Louise Mozingo and Marcia McNally’s study, is the early 20th century proposal that parks be part of an integrated system of large and small open spaces linked together along the natural creek channels from the hills to the bay. Underlying this vision is the seemingly revolutionary idea that natural open space would be the primary infrastructure used to define the physical form of the built environment. A century ago as this city was being formed, an enlightened thinker imagined an urban structural system for this place with nature and the built environment deliberately and dynamically balanced. And it could occur throughout the city, with all citizens having equal access to open spaces. -more-

In a May 16 editorial on his department’s plan to eradicate the light brown apple moth (LBAM) by aerial spray and other means, California Agriculture Secretary A. G. Kawamura ac-cuses those who oppose the LBAM program of spreading “misinformation” and urges us all to rely on “sound science” and to “draw the line” on “exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims” that cause “unwarranted fear.” (www.california progressreport.com/2008/05/california_secr_6.html.) -more-

City of Berkeley decisionmakers would like us to believe that circumstances beyond their control have forced them to consider new tax and bond measures for the November ballot. At the council’s May 6 budget workshop, City Manager Phil Kamlarz and Budget Manager Tracy Vesely blamed Berkeley’s fiscal crisis on Prop. 13, the real estate downturn and Sacramento’s past and possible future raids on municipal treasuries, while praising the council for its wisdom and foresight. Councilmembers returned the compliment. -more-

As the primary season grinds to a close, many Democrats expect a decisive victory in the November general election and look forward to four years of a Democratic president working with a partisan Congress. What isn’t being discussed is the possible end of the conservative era. The smashing defeat of John McCain and the Republican Party should signal that Americans reject the inept conservative ideology that’s dominated U.S. politics for 28 years. -more-

I thought that last week’s column had completed my discussion of the “Safe Streets And Neighborhoods Act of 2008”—the proposed ballot initiative that would increase Oakland’s police force by 272 officers to a total of 1075—and Mayor Ron Dellums’ counter-proposal of a property tax increase initiative to increase OPD’s strength by 50 to 803. -more-

Among the fortune seekers lured to northern California by the Gold Rush, the Jewish contingent was small but significant. Jewish immigrants would go on to play an important role in the economic and cultural development of the Bay Area, and Berkeley was no exception. Although early accounts rarely discuss Berkeley’s Jewish community, some members figured among the young town’s prominent citizens. -more-

Marriage is a mixed bag and no matter what anyone tells you, you will never find the perfect man or woman (assuming those two cover your range of preferences) to spend the rest of your life cooking vegan casseroles beside. Everyone has a truckload of unnerving habits, indefensible opinions and inexcusable friends. Everyone. That gorgeous guy or gal you see at the water cooler each day. Them too. Once you get closer enough to anyone, you soon find out that they pick their teeth, that they have some troubling disease or that they’ve never actually read a book. So how do we choose mates? We figure out what’s most important to us and try our best to ignore the rest, in the knowledge that around the corner the grass is actually brown and dying. This is the truth. Therefore, it’s important to decide what you really care about the most. What issues are strongest for you. What attracts you most and what you can bear. Buying houses is no different (you knew I’d get around to this, right?) -more-

The northbound phalaropes passed through a few weeks ago. We saw them at the Hayward Regional Shoreline, a couple hundred at least, spinning around like little feathered tops in one of the fenced ponds. Every few minutes a portion of the flock, seized by some apprehension, would take off, circle, and touch down on the water again. -more-

THURSDAY, MAY 29 -more-

The world is full of hope. But not for us,” Franz Kafka once replied to someone who questioned the “hopelessness” of his stories. -more-

When I first became a jazz fan (short for fanatic) in high school, I saw European classical music as the enemy. The 19th century composers were easily characterized as a pack of pretentious, highfalutin, hoity-toity, high-hat, pompous, stuffy, overstuffed, snobby, snooty, effete and elitist fuddy-duds, not to mention being middlebrow, bourgeois, sententious and musically platitudinous, to boot; instigators of gargantuan aggregations of performers intoning their vast musical stories full of profound meanings, all of which reeked of the academy and salon and smelled of the lamp. -more-

Poets James Schevill and Luis Garcia, both Berkeley natives, will be joined by Clemens Starck from the Oregon coast range to read at Moe’s Books on Telegraph, 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 2, as part of the Monday At Moe’s series. Admission will be free. -more-

The dressing of the stage—Ashby Stage, that is—says it all in advance of curtain. With a platform that makes the audience feel savagely ringside or fashionably rampside; a long counter below the apron with microphones set for a panel, backed by a sextet at the ready; a bank of fans as a wall behind—it’s clear the epic poem of Anglo-Saxon academe is to be subjected to a deconstruction via The Media, Big Time Wrestling and Vegas floor shows ... alliterative Beowulf has finally arrived. A little unkempt, with a sweep of gore-matted hair, in the carefully dishevelled, talking head-laden, close-up world of the early 21st century, replete with Rabbit’s Foot Mead for sale outside (sweet, but not cloying) to swill while said hero waxes grandiloquent. -more-

Among the fortune seekers lured to northern California by the Gold Rush, the Jewish contingent was small but significant. Jewish immigrants would go on to play an important role in the economic and cultural development of the Bay Area, and Berkeley was no exception. Although early accounts rarely discuss Berkeley’s Jewish community, some members figured among the young town’s prominent citizens. -more-

Marriage is a mixed bag and no matter what anyone tells you, you will never find the perfect man or woman (assuming those two cover your range of preferences) to spend the rest of your life cooking vegan casseroles beside. Everyone has a truckload of unnerving habits, indefensible opinions and inexcusable friends. Everyone. That gorgeous guy or gal you see at the water cooler each day. Them too. Once you get closer enough to anyone, you soon find out that they pick their teeth, that they have some troubling disease or that they’ve never actually read a book. So how do we choose mates? We figure out what’s most important to us and try our best to ignore the rest, in the knowledge that around the corner the grass is actually brown and dying. This is the truth. Therefore, it’s important to decide what you really care about the most. What issues are strongest for you. What attracts you most and what you can bear. Buying houses is no different (you knew I’d get around to this, right?) -more-

The northbound phalaropes passed through a few weeks ago. We saw them at the Hayward Regional Shoreline, a couple hundred at least, spinning around like little feathered tops in one of the fenced ponds. Every few minutes a portion of the flock, seized by some apprehension, would take off, circle, and touch down on the water again. -more-

THURSDAY, MAY 29 -more-