Monthly Archives: September 2011
The Berkeley Wire: 09.30.11
Berkeley prepares for influx of electric cars [Berkeley Voice]
3% of Berkeley high- and middle-schoolers unvaccinated [Daily Cal]
Berkeley Lab finalist sites push for deal [SF Business Times]
Relocating tenants for repairs may soon cost more for landlords [Patch]
Cal-Berkeley, Harvard favorites in rowing regatta [NewsOK]
City considers retrofits for seismically unsafe buildings [Daily Cal]
Jazz quartet pitches in for Berkeley Jazzschool [Berkeley Voice]
Habitot recognizes pre-school teachers with awards [Habitot]
Photo by Tracey Taylor.
Berkeleyside says thank you to our wonderful advertisers
Berkeleyside would like to take a minute to express its gratitude to our current advertisers:
Amoeba Music, Aurora Theater, Berkeley Public Library, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Institute, Berkwood Hedge School, Bernardo Lopez Garden Design & Installation, Buy Local Berkeley, Carolyn Jones at The Grubb Company, Focal Point, Gather, The Grubb Company, Hotel Shattuck Plaza/Five Restaurant, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Moe’s Books, Park Day School, Pasta Bene, Photo Laboratory, Telegraph Avenue Business District, Tom Miller & Friends Lawyers, Continue reading »
Cal students file redistricting proposal with the city
The campaign to create at least one student-majority district in Berkeley reached a milestone today when a group of student leaders submitted their detailed redistricting proposal to the city clerk.
“We need the city to know that the student community is a legitimate community of interest,” said Joey Freeman, external affairs vice president for the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC), the student government. “Student issues are community issues.”
“We haven’t had adequate representation of students in Berkeley for over 25 years,” said Vishalli Loomba, President of ASUC.
Freeman acknowledged that today’s proposal is non-compliant with the city charter. The 1986 measure that created Berkeley’s districts — and the amended city charter that resulted — has three requirements: no boundary changes can unseat an existing councilmember, the boundaries need to adhere as closely as possible to the 1986 boundaries, and the districts should be equal in population. Today’s proposal fails on the first two criteria.
The Bread Project: Cooking up a future for people in need
Pat Van Valkenburgh is the kind of person that The Bread Project hopes to help. A stay-at-home mom who home-schooled her two children until they attended Berkeley High School, Van Valkenburgh desperately needed a job when her construction worker husband became unemployed. Since she enjoyed cooking, she thought the nonprofit’s nine-week café training program, which focuses on basic kitchen, food service, and barista skills, was a good fit and would help her find a job in the restaurant industry.
Van Valkenburgh didn’t have to look far for work: she was snapped up by the organization to manage the café it runs out of the Berkeley Adult School, where the program for low-income job seekers, started by Susan Phillips and Lucie Buchbinder in 2000, has been housed since 2003.
The part-time gig has made all the difference during tough economic times; Van Valkenburgh’s family has held on to their home and health insurance. (Both her kids, who attended the Academic Choice School at BHS, currently study at local community colleges and intend to transfer to UC.) … Continue reading »
Berkeley offers free bike helmets to all residents — really
The City of Berkeley is giving free bicycle/multi-use helmets to any Berkeley resident who wants one. No catch.
All you need to do to claim a helmet is turn up at the City of Berkeley Public Health Division at 1947 Center Street, on the 2nd Floor. Office hours are from 9am-5pm. No appointment necessary. The initiative to give out helmets is sponsored by the City of Berkeley Injury Prevention and Chronic Disease Prevention Program and the California Office of Traffic Safety, … Continue reading »
The Berkeley Wire: 09.29.11
Some Berkeley students turned away under whooping cough vaccination rules [Berkeley Voice]
Silke Otto-Knapp at BAM: Stage-inspired art seems to move [Chronicle]
In Berkeley: the boy who would be a girl [Daily Mail]
Cal mourns those who died over the past year [News Center]
UC Berkeley sees rise in hate crimes in 2010 [Daily Cal]
Bobcat is released in Tilden Park after rehabilitation [Berkeley Voice]
A life in stitches: Rachel Herron at Mrs Dalloway’s Sunday [Chronicle]
City considers proposal that could raise cost of drunk driving [Daily Cal]
Jose-Luis Orozco: Latin children’s music at La Peňa [Chronicle]
Photo by Ira Serkes/Berkeleyside Flickr pool
What Berkeley’s median home price buys you this fall
Berkeley is something of a law unto itself when it comes to home prices and the robustness of its real estate market. The presence of a world-class university in the the city bolsters property values to a certain extent. The inherent attraction of the place helps too.
The median home price for Berkeley in July was $644,500, up from $600,000 for the same time last year, according to DataQuick. This compares to $590,000 in Albany, $505,000 in Alameda, and $220,000 in Oakland. A total of 82 homes sold in Berkeley in July, 19 of them in the 94708 zip area.
So what does $644,500 get you in our fair city?
Well, you might prefer to have some cash in hand (assuming you have that median price money to begin with), and opt for the 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom Craftsman bungalow at 1735 Madera Street in the Monterey Market neighborhood, which is pending sale on an asking price of $629,000. Among its attributes: a 6,000+ sq ft lot, original details, a private rear deck and an 88/100 Walk Score. … Continue reading »
More than $100m needed for parks, rec and waterfront
At a special session of the Berkeley City Council Tuesday night, the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront department presented $100.5 million in infrastructure capital needs.
“I’m one of those who has been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the resources we’re going to have to come up with one way or another,” said councilmember Max Anderson, in response to the presentation.
However daunting the $100 million worth of requirements discussed on Tuesday seemed, City Manager Phil Kamlarz said that the total capital requirement for the city’s responsibilities was likely to be around $500 million. The City Council will have a series of workshops over the next three months to review all the needs, followed by a citizen poll in the first half of 2012 to help provide guidance on priorities for the city. Kamlarz told the council that every $1 million in a bond measure means a cost of roughly $2 a year for the average homeowner in Berkeley.
Since the narrow failure of the pools bond measure in 2010, pools advocates have been regrouping to find a way to reopen Willard Pool and finance much-needed improvements to the other pools. But in Tuesday night’s presentation, the capital requirement for pools was at best the third largest amount. … Continue reading »
Rapid growth of cannabis collective raises concern
In the 21 months since it opened, the 40 Acres Medical Marijuana Growers Collective has seen its membership jump to more than 7,000 people, making it one of the fastest growing and largest cannabis businesses in Berkeley.
From a set of rooms located above the Albatross pub on San Pablo Avenue, 40 Acres has become more than just a place where people can obtain and consume medical cannabis. Started by African-Americans, run by African-Americans, 40 Acres aims to bring diversity to the medical cannabis movement and use the rapidly growing industry as a way to open up opportunities for the poor and disenfranchised.
The leaders of the collective actively reach out to marginalized young adults and encourage them to enter the group’s training program, where they can learn the nuts and bolts of bud tending, cultivation, patient intake methods, and how to assess product.
“There is a population of kids, high school dropouts, who are coming to us to learn,” said Toya Groves, a director and one of the four co-founders of the group. “This is a way the unemployable become employable.” … Continue reading »
The It List: Oakland Gospel Choir, pianist Michael Wolff
In the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, the glorious harmonies on stage flow directly from the harmonious vibe off the bandstand.
Maintaining smooth sailing in any creative endeavor involving 55 people is no easy feat.
After a quarter century, however, the ensemble has learned a little something about coexistence and how to gracefully elide fundamental differences. A shared sense of devotion to the spiritually charged African-American art form is the force that seamlessly melds a multi-generational cast representing an array of races, religions and creeds.
A few ground rules help too.
“We agree to disagree on things. It sounds easy, but it’s not,” says the choir’s founding director, Terrance Kelly, who leads the ensemble Sunday at Freight & Salvage in a concert celebrating release of the “Hear My Prayer,” the OIGC’s fifth album. … Continue reading »
