Tag Archives: Kriss Worthington
Sequoia: Demolition imminent, tenants meet to complain
As demolition crews prepared to partially demolish the fire-ravaged building at 2441 Haste Street Monday afternoon, a group of former tenants of the building were planning to meet this evening to discuss securing settlements from the building’s owners and fixing damage from a fire which, they say, could have been prevented.
The demolition work will likely begin in earnest Tuesday. On Monday crews were doing the groundwork in advance of tearing parts of the structure down, including shoring up nearby retail spaces, putting protective matting on the sidewalks and removing parking meters.
Vehicle and pedestrian traffic is still restricted around the Telegraph-Haste intersection because of the danger posed by the unstable building, although cars can now take a left turn onto Telegraph if driving west on Haste. … Continue reading »
Are Blackberries best bet for Berkeley in emergencies?
On Tuesday, October 11th, at about 4:00 pm, a power outage in Berkeley shut down the downtown BART station and disabled the city’s computer system, which meant services and documents for elected officials, city agency staff, and city residents were inaccessible for several hours.
On the same day, owners of BlackBerries across the country — which includes all senior City of Berkeley personnel — were experiencing outages on their handheld devices after a system hardware glitch caused a backlog of data to build up in the European servers of Research In Motion, the makers of the BlackBerry.
Both incidents highlight Berkeley’s dependence on potentially unreliable technologies. They also underscore how vulnerable our city’s government might be in a state of emergency. … Continue reading »
Berkeley city: No truth to viral email predicting quake
UPDATE 4:07 pm: Genie Stowers, the professor who sent out the original email issued an apology this afternoon by email. Here it is:
Last week, I sent out an email to family and close friends and colleagues about recent earthquakes.
My intent was to pass on a message that they should take the occurrence of these recent earthquakes as an opportunity to make sure their earthquake kits and other emergency measures were up to date.
It is unfortunate that this email instead went viral and has caused great concern among many in the Berkeley area.
My message was not intended to be a commentary on earthquake science, on City of Berkeley preparedness, or on anything else except that folks should get ready. The message was intended to be, preparedness is good.
I apologize for what has happened and the concerns this caused. It was a mistake and I regret that it happened.
Genie Stowers
…………………………….
An email that has gone viral that predicts an imminent quake on the Hayward fault is causing widespread concern in Berkeley, but city officials say its premise is false.
The email, which began spreading on Friday, says that geologists have told Berkeley officials that the recent spate of small earthquakes suggest that there will be a 6.0 quake or higher on the Hayward Fault within the next two to three weeks.
City officials have not been specially briefed by geologists, and there is no way of predicting earthquakes, numerous city officials told Berkeleyside.
“I have not received any briefings,” said City Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “In addition, I do not believe that anyone knows how to predict the precise time an earthquake will happen on the Hayward fault. Thus, I would not give credence to such rumors.”
Here is the email that has gone viral:
“A student in my class tonight works in Berkeley City Hall and they have been getting briefings on the earthquakes recently in Berkeley on the Hayward Fault by geologists. … 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 »
City to consider suing owner of blighted Telegraph lot
The city of Berkeley may finally be getting fed up with the vacant, rat-infested lot on the northeast corner of Haste and Telegraph.
The City Council on Tuesday will consider filing a lawsuit against Ken Sarachan, the owner of the lot, to collect $500,000 in city liens on the property. The idea so delights City Councilman Kriss Worthington, who represents the area and who has long been frustrated by an empty space in such a prime commercial district, that he … Continue reading »
Cal leaders push to put student on Berkeley City Council
In the 15 years since Berkeley adopted City Council districts, no student has been elected to the post even though they make up a quarter of the population.
Now a coalition of UC Berkeley student leaders is aiming to change that.
The group hopes to put forward a plan that will reconfigure two City Council districts to make one with a super-majority of students. If that doesn’t work, the leaders may try and put a referendum before Berkeley voters to create a student-dominated district.
“Is this fair to the community?” said Joey Freeman, who as vice-president of external affairs for the Associated Students of the University of California is leading the redistricting effort. “You can make a very good argument there should be someone on the council representing the student interests.” … Continue reading »
Berkeley councilmembers celebrate Gay Pride Day
City of Berkeley councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Jesse Arreguin took part in Sunday’s Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco, riding in an open-top Mini with Worthington’s Legal Aide Alejandro Soto-Vigil at the wheel. The party also included Soto-Vigil’s son Checho, Kriss’s partner Marty Spence and city employee Lynn Riordon.
Berkeley does comedy, goes beyond hipsters and dudes
By Diana Arbas
It’s LGBT Pride Month, and downtown Berkeley’s coming out with a sense of humor.
The first ever Berkeley Gay Comedy Festival kicks off at The Marsh Berkeley on Saturday, June 11, and every adult — regardless of sexual orientation or hairstyle — is invited.
“Too often when you go to comedy nights you’re just going to see a certain demographic, certain age group, kind of just young white dudes,” said the Festival’s founder, Marga Gomez. But this festival is geared to people who like thoughtful, progressive comedy, she said.
A nationally celebrated comedian herself, Gomez is the force behind The Marsh’s 2011 stand-up comedy programming. Inclusiveness has always been her mission.
“The kind of comedy that I think people are used to seeing is … kind of very slacker, it’s hipster and it’s a trend,” she said.
Gomez tries to break that trend. “I have always aimed to make it inclusive for women comics and men comics, comics of every sexual orientation, trans comics. I just want great comics. There’s nothing like our show in the East Bay and probably anywhere,” Gomez said. … Continue reading »
A councilmember takes to Twitter, other officials lag
Councilmember Kriss Worthington took to the Twitterverse on Thursday, and he did so with a vengeance.
Worthington signed up for Twitter in the morning, and began sending out a steady stream of tweets. “Congratulations to Berkeley High RISE students (EBAYC) on filming immigration documentary “The Next Step,” was one tweet. “Pinkberry’s grand opening on Telegraph Avenue happening soon!” was another.
By evening he had sent out 15 messages to his nine followers (Two of whom are Berkeleyside reporters).
“I just signed up today,” said Worthington. “We won’t send out quite so many every day, but in a burst of enthusiasm we sent out a bunch today. We’ll sort of find a pace how much to send and how much to be humorous and how much to be serious. We’ll be working on that.”
(The “we” must mean his staff is helping with his tweets). … Continue reading »
