Despite pleas and arguments for an appeal of the city’s lawsuit against the university by an overflow crowd last Thursday evening in the Berkeley City Council Chambers, the council went behind closed doors and “decided not to take action,” according to Mayor Tom Bates, who reported the action to the public. -more-

The legal battle over the grove where tree-sitters and a now-threatened injunction have stymied UC Berkeley’s growth plans has entered a new forum—minus, for now, one litigant. -more-

The public doesn’t know exactly what the Berkeley City Council voted on at last Thursday’s closed-door session. And it doesn’t know how each elected official voted. -more-

Disability rights advocates in wheelchairs held a protest Tuesday in front of the downtown Berkeley McDonald’s at University and Shattuck avenues, against what they said was unlawful discrimination against three of its disabled employees. -more-

Books and furniture belonging to Cody’s Books, which closed its doors for good on June 20 after 52 years due to dwindling sales, will be sold next week to pay off a Uniform Commercial Code lien in favor of Summit Bank, according to Mindy Galoob, the store’s former general manager. -more-

It’s almost August, laid-back vacation time for some. But for candidates for local offices, it’s time to sharpen elbows and dust off the cleats. -more-

On Sunday, a group of self-identified progressives will select five candidates to form a slate to fill the five vacancies on the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board. -more-

The ground floor of the Fine Arts Building on Shattuck Avenue—built on the former site of Berkeley Fine Arts Cinema, which evolved from the historic Cinema Theatre, showcasing repertory films from all over the world—was approved to be converted to medical office space by the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board last week. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District will hold a public meeting Wednesday to discuss the latest design for new classrooms and athletic facilities on the south side of the Berkeley High campus. The district proposes to replace the landmarked Old Gym on Milvia Street, which houses the warm water pool, as outlined in the South of Bancroft Master Plan. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District at a public meeting on Monday is scheduled to unveil a plan to rehabilitate West Campus before taking it to the Berkeley Board of Education later in the month. -more-

The 82 percent graduation rate for the Berkeley Unified School District in 2006–07 is higher than the state level (79.5 percent) but lower than the county level (84 percent), according to data released by the California Department of Education Tuesday as required by federal No Child Left Behind standards. -more-

Last Friday, 450 students finished classes for summer school at Berkeley High School (BHS). While most of BHS’s 3,200 students have already been enjoying summer for the last month, many kids have been diligently attending school to receive credit for courses that they either failed or failed to take during regularly scheduled school. -more-

What determines under what circumstances—and how energetically—the California Democratic Party intervenes in contested Democratic primaries? -more-

The effort to change West Berkeley zoning regulations has produced an unusual show of amity after an initially tense confrontation between city staff and neighborhood activists. -more-

A rash of robberies in the past week brings Berkeley to a total of 50 this month, up from 25 in July 2007. -more-

I’ve smoked cigarettes for 52 years, which is pushing my luck. Statistically, I should have been dead six years ago. -more-

My wife and I were visiting England when the Labor Party suffered its resounding defeat in the municipal elections held on May Day. Labor’s debacle may offer lessons for us and our own politicians. -more-

Peter Mutnick was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. So he sued UC Berkeley and the city all the way to the Supreme Court. He died peacefully last week in the Oncology Unit at Alta Bates at the age of 59. He was a frequent contributor to the Daily Planet’s opinion pages. -more-

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CODY’S REPLACEMENT -more-

AC Transit began displaying a proto-type Van Hool 40-foot, two-door, low-aisle bus in June. After a few mechanical fixes, it is now ready for the rubber to hit the road. And they have prepared a survey for riders. -more-

I believe that actions taken by the City Council during its July 24 closed session are in violation of the Brown Act, California’s “sunshine” law. The City Council needs to take action immediately to correct that violation and put in place a procedure that enhances the public’s right to know information vital to their comments regarding subjects to be discussed in closed sessions. -more-

As reported in the Berkeley Daily Planet, no city official will disclose which members of the Berkeley City Council supported or opposed the possible appeal of what may be the city’s most controversial court loss this year. -more-

Last Thursday night, the Berkeley City Council threw its citizens out of the lifeboat again—this time in a special closed council meeting called by the mayor to decide whether or not the city would appeal Judge Barbara Miller’s recent ruling in the Memorial Stadium oak grove case. The city decided not to appeal, thus also tossing overboard the quarter million dollars it has already invested in the case. Not only that, the City Council appears to have violated the Brown Act in the process, and may be about to give up all rights to any future court challenges to the university’s legally questionable plans for the reconstruction of Memorial Stadium. This goes beyond simple sell-out and ventures into the realm of serious civic misconduct. -more-

I have not written to the Daily Planet often in the past few years because the current state of our city is so depressing that I don’t know where to start. But the passing of Dona Spring has made me start thinking again of all the work that needs to be done. -more-

As predicted, Judge Miller’s decision enabled the university to “find” their way out of it, with minimal environmental commitments. (Those promises about stadium use, etc., should be recorded as were the UC commitments when they acquired the blind school for Clark Kerr.) I am a bit surprised that she (to use the Planet’s phrase) sliced and diced the costs; that is her discretion and proves, as does her final order, that she really believed that UC won the case as originally decided. -more-

I’ve had the honor and pleasure of being able to participate in the oak grove tree-sit for the last 600-plus days. I’ve had the opportunity to meet members of my community who feel the same way I do about the state of the world, the state of our country, and the state of our city. I’ve been able to see and experience how “police state” and “fascism”—words that I usually associate with some other country in some other time period—are actually a lot closer to home that I thought. The UC Berkeley Police Department, however unprofessional and unreasonable they have been, I now see are quite predictably acting in service of their chancellor and UC Regent masters. -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first installment of a two-part commentary. The second will run in the coming weeks. -more-

They say that a loss is an opportunity for gain and that a trial simply fuels the flames of passion. In my case, I have seen what struggle looks like firsthand, in the form of undergoing a forced eviction due to circumstances beyond my control. -more-

Why are Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn writing opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons? It’s a good question and the reasons are worth thinking about. -more-

The question of the day in the American presidential race appears to be: Why is Barack Obama not further ahead of John McCain, given the current political climate and recent developments? -more-

Years ago, probably while watching a bird or watching for a bird, I saw a dandelion move. Not a breeze-driven sway, but a sort of convulsive shudder. And then it slowly retracted into the ground. It was like watching one of those nature-documentary time-lapse sequences in reverse. Then I realized a pocket gopher must be at work. -more-

Years ago, when my girls were little, I began to realize that the world, my world really, was partitioned up into two distinct groups. People that had kids and those who didn’t. Now that I had found myself in the former group I slowly started to see some underlying differences between people in the two groups. These are, of course, generalities and there are lots of exceptions but it is clear that those who carry the unflagging responsibility for other people are altered by the process and forced, as I certainly was, to grow up. This is, naturally a very broad statement and I think can only be seen in relative terms. -more-