Daily Archives: March 13, 2012
The Berkeley Wire: 03.13.12
UC Berkeley: five charged in baton-jabbing protest [Chronicle]
City to consider task force to combat sex trafficking [Daily Cal]
Injury accidents on Marin rise after safety fix [Patch]
Breaking down tonight’s girls’ BHS hoops match-up [Sac Bee]
Reviewed: Berkeley’s Gregoire [I want to eat something delicious]
Chancellor cites age as main reason for resignation [Daily Cal]
Berkeley’s Cleis Press benefits from ereader surge [WSJ]
Photo: View from the brickyard, by TJ Gehling/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.
Shop Talk: The ins and outs of Berkeley businesses
RIDING IN TANDEM Velo-Sport Bicycles at 1615 University Avenue has closed and been absorbed into Pro Wheels scooter shop at 1601 University. Pro Wheels confirms it is now working with Velo and selling bicycles along with scooters. [Hat-tip: EarlyMorningCoffee.]
MULTIPLE MAKEOVERS Safeway is to close its Solano Avenue store for six months in order to remodel. The store, at 1500 Solano across the border in Albany, serves the north Berkeley community. [Correction, 9:00pm: Safeway on Solano is not closing imminently. Plans for a complete rebuild will be coming before the City of Albany in the next month or so. A date for the start of construction has not been determined.] Safeway’s Shattuck Avenue store will close on Saturday March 17th for 5-6 months in order to undergo a makeover. (We apologize for the error in our reporting on the Safeway in Albany. Probably shows that we should stick to Berkeley and what we know!)
Community meeting called in wake of Berkeley shootings
Councilmember Darryl Moore is hosting a community meeting in the wake of two multiple shootings that took place in his Berkeley district this month, and members of one neighborhood are also organizing in an effort to improve safety locally.
On Friday March 2, three men were shot at around 6:21pm in the 2200 block of Bonar Street. The shootings came from a car that stopped near a group of at least five males standing outside, who may have been involved in a dice game. The three victims sustained non-life threatening injuries.
Two days later, at about 12:51 am on Sunday March 4, two suspects approached and shot at a group of about five men on 7th Street at Addison. BPD patrol officers responded and found the victims at Sixth and Bancroft Way as they were trying to leave the area. Three of the victims sustained gunshot wounds, none of which were deemed life threatening.
Both of the incidents are still under investigation by BPD. … Continue reading »
Few comments on Chief Meehan before Council session
Expectations that many members of the Berkeley community would turn up at the public comment part of a closed session of the City Council Monday night to express their views on the recent incident concerning Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan were not met.
Fewer than 20 people showed up at City Hall, and only a handful spoke ahead of a meeting called to discuss the appointment of a new city planning director and ongoing labor negotiations for city employees, including the police.
Chief Meehan’s self-described error of judgement in sending an officer to an Oakland Tribune reporter’s home in the early hours of Friday March 9 to demand changes to a story was not on the agenda. … Continue reading »
Cal Chancellor Birgeneau to step down by year end
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau announced today that he will step down from the chancellorship at the end of this calendar year. Birgeneau has been chancellor since September, 2004.
His term was dominated by both financial struggles, as state funding of the University of California system was steadily squeezed, and controversy over the handling of campus protests in recent years.
Birgeneau plans to return to his academic post in the Departments of Physics and Material Sciences and Engineering. In his message to the UC Berkeley community, he wrote that he hopes he has “at least one more truly significant physics/materials science experiment still to come in my academic career”. … Continue reading »
Preview: SF International Asian American Film Festival
The 30th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival is already under way, with screenings taking place in San Francisco, San Jose, and — as in years past — at our very own Pacific Film Archive. As usual, PFA will be screening some of the Festival’s most interesting and prestigious titles, and the week ahead offers a solid selection of documentaries and dramatic features, with fans of non-fiction cinema particularly well served.
Produced with the assistance of HBO, Iranian-born filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian’s Love Crimes of Kabul kicks things off at 9:00 pm on Wednesday, March 14th. The director’s previous film, Be Like Others, was an eye-opening and genuinely shocking look at the lives of gay Iranian men forced to undergo sex change operations in order to circumvent their homeland’s onerous morality laws. … Continue reading »
