It’s official. Parents and children at Willard Park need a Pied Piper. And fast. -more-

An Oakland City Councilmember said Saturday that the Chief of the Oakland Police Department has a plan to almost triple the number of police officers on Oakland streets at peak crime periods, but said that implementation of the plan is being delayed by Mayor Jerry Brown and City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente because of opposition from the Oakland Police Officers Association labor union. -more-

The West Berkeley Bowl marketplace will usher in significant and unavoidable traffic, a new report says. -more-

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) wants to get rolling on a rapid bus route through Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro. -more-

The City Council will begin its session tonight (Tuesday) at 5 p.m. with a workshop looking at what it might mean for Berkeley to join other cities to replace PG&E with a locally owned energy supplier. -more-

Richmond City Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin announced Sunday that she will run for mayor in the November elections. -more-

A provision in the No Child Left Behind Act could threaten the jobs of as many as 76 Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) para-professionals. -more-

The message of this year’s annual Muslim Awareness Week was even more urgent than in previous years. -more-

Despite reports that the Albany Waterfront Coalition (AWC) plans a counter-intitiative to oppose a ballot measure being circulated by environmentalists to block a proposed shopping mall at Golden Gate Fields, no such proposal is in the works, says the group’s spokesperson. -more-

Simulated gun, real heist -more-

Despite the patrician heritage and the family fortune, Otis Chandler liked to come off as an ordinary guy. But he wasn’t, and that’s why he’ll be missed. -more-

Hills home fire -more-

BANGKOK—Catherine Deneuve, grand dame of world cinema, sat serenely on stage at the International Bangkok Film Festival recently and declared her admiration for Asian films thusly: “I think Brokeback Mountain is something special.” -more-

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez declares that his country is in the forefront of a new “Bolivarian revolution” sweeping Latin America. -more-

Students Organizing for Justice in the Americas (SOJA) staged a rally on the UC Berkeley campus Wednesday clad in “Sweat-free UC” signs—and little else. -more-

It was with a small nod to irony that Willi Paul, a professional community builder, admitted he made a name for himself in Berkeley by splitting a community group in two. -more-

Foes of a proposed shopping mall at Albany’s Golden Gate Fields race track filed notice Monday that they’ll begin circulating an initiative that would temporarily halt waterfront development. -more-

Egrets, coots, cyclists, Frisbee players, rowers, bat rays, leopard sharks, rats, squirrels—Aquatic Park offers something for the many species who live or hang out there. -more-

If you’ve been out recently for a walk beside the large lagoon at Aquatic Park —especially around the little wharf that extends into the water on the east side— you may have been struck by a very distinct, very bad odor. -more-

In what is quickly becoming a running political soap opera, the ouster of Alameda County Medical Center trustee Gwen Sykes took a new turn this week when Sykes participated in this week’s trustee meeting, insisting that she was still one of the 11 board members. -more-

Some members of the Berkeley Fire Department may be operating with expired paramedic certification. -more-

Think “transportation” and you’ll probably imagine trains, buses, cars and such. But the city’s Pedestrian Master Plan is focused on a more elemental method of travel. -more-

The Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees unanimously approved a massive $390 million construction bond measure Tuesday night, voting to place the issue before area voters on the June ballot. -more-

The quasi-political operatives in the Berkeley mayor’s office placed their final salvo against Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance on the Internet on Friday night. For those who are interested, it can be found in the quaintly named Bates Update Update section of the city’s website. With attachments and appendixes, it’s much too long for citizens to read and comment on before the City Council votes tonight (Tuesday) to adopt it in principle; and anyway, rumor has it that Bates has the votes to do whatever he wants. City Hall insiders say that Capitelli, Anderson, Wozniak, Moore and Maio are in the bag. Doughty veteran Betty Olds is a long-time environmentalist and her own woman, so she might cast an independent vote at the last minute. Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring are the conscience of the council, though he sometimes votes with the majority if he knows his side is going down anyhow. She’s a tiger who votes her principles to the end. -more-

Several of our valued correspondents, some in this very issue, have written in to complain that the Daily Planet is taking ads from the Church of Scientology. One asks why we’re supporting that organization. Well, first of all, we’re not supporting them, they’re supporting us, in relatively minuscule proportions compared to our costs, it’s true, but still, they’re paying. Another refers to what he considers the harm Scientology might have done, and makes a comparison to cigarette ads, which he assumes we would turn down. We’ve never actually been offered cigarette ads, but yes, we’d probably turn them down. -more-

CASINOS -more-

I would like to thank the Daily Planet for two recent articles that included one of my favorite places in Berkeley—Berkeley Iceland. While I have no financial connection to Iceland or its owners, I do feel a strong connection with this uniquely Berkeley asset. As the father of one of those “...young girls laughing and skating...” that Marta Yamamoto wrote about in her South Berkeley exploration, I often tell people that Iceland is my second home—one that needs repair, but worth saving. -more-

On March 8, the Planning Commission takes up the proposed Berkeley Bowl project again. More traffic versus better access to groceries; loss of scarce industrial land versus jobs and tax revenue—these are the some of the tradeoffs under consideration. -more-

Hitler managed the Holocaust. He managed it so that in Germany everyone knew and no one knew. There would be worse news tomorrow. The wastes were picked up; the busses ran. Everyone knew, and didn’t know. It was happening. It happened. In his introduction to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer comments that Hitler was able to commit his high crimes and misdemeanors because the Germans were too torpid, too stupid, and too blind. -more-

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: We have recently received more than letters than we can possible print. Therefore the following letters appear only on our website. -more-

I believe that the real disease, the root causes for the imbalance around the Ashby BART station are two-fold—both due to the design of BART done 50 years ago. The first is the six-lane section of Adeline, like a freeway in the heart of a residential area with the disastrous angled intersection of Adeline and Ashby, which has plagued us for a long time, long before BART, and is all the more intractable because Ashby is a state highway, necessarily involving the State of California. Adeline and this inters ection contribute, more than anything else, to the unfriendly feeling of the area, particularly to pedestrians. The second is the damage incurred when healthy neighborhoods were destroyed for BART parking. There has been no attempt to repair any of that damage. -more-

Now that Assemblymember Hancock’s “Fair Elections and Clean Money” legislation (AB 583) has passed the Assembly and is on its way to the Senate, it’s time to get beyond the supporters’ slogans and hype and discuss the actual contents of this bill. -more-

This year I watch the 78th Academy Awards from the ninth floor, east wing of Oakland’s Kaiser Permanente Hospital. I sit in an ergonomically incorrect chair and crane my neck upward toward a small TV hanging from the ceiling. -more-

We get just enough sun in between the rains to keep us hoping, this time of year; just enough life showing in the trees and plants, wild and tame, to make us believe that there’s more to the world than cold and mud. The plums have blossomed and are starting to get down to summer’s business, unfurling their leaves to catch the sun of longer days. The buckeyes—just look at the bunch in the center strip on Sacramento south of University!—are spreading translucent green hands out to the plenty flowing from the sky. The sun itself, as the world turns our side to face it straight-on, begins to touch us with palpable energy. -more-

When two U.S. Marine helicopters recently went down off Djibouti, a tiny slice of desert at the entrance to the Red Sea, they exposed a low-profile program that has poured money and troops into a broad swath of northern Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic oceans, which encompasses some nine nations in the region. -more-

Extremis malis extrema remedia—from the Latin: literally “extreme remedies for extreme ills,” or the more familiar “desperate times call for desperate measures.” -more-

Who’s ready to try something new? Want to track wildlife, plant heirloom potatoes, cast your line in that perfect loop, team up with your favorite llama or discover the culture of the Tuibun Ohlone? Sound compelling? Read on. -more-

Rounding the bend from La Loma Avenue onto Le Conte Avenue on Berkeley’s Northside, the eye can’t miss a large brown-shingle structure in mid-block. Crowned by cascades of steep overlapping gables, this quintessentially Arts & Crafts building sports a curious appendage on its southeast corner: an octagonal turret with a domed roof previously covered with mosaics but now bare. -more-

Writing this column is going to be harder than usual. It’s no fun. I like talking about how people screw things up and sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s just exasperating but what I have to talk about today is genuinely tragic. Please bear with me because it’s extremely important. -more-

Some of us like plants from all over the world in out gardens. Some of us like native Californians. (Some of us, like me, mix them.) Some of us take that native thing to apparent extremes, and people like that have the perfect place in Berkeley: Native Here Nursery. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 7 -more-

The following is an excerpt from Richard Schwartz’s Earthquake Exodus, 1906: Berkeley Responds to the San Francisco Refugees. The Daily Planet will run three more excerpts in the coming weeks. -more-

We get just enough sun in between the rains to keep us hoping, this time of year; just enough life showing in the trees and plants, wild and tame, to make us believe that there’s more to the world than cold and mud. The plums have blossomed and are starting to get down to summer’s business, unfurling their leaves to catch the sun of longer days. The buckeyes—just look at the bunch in the center strip on Sacramento south of University!—are spreading translucent green hands out to the plenty flowing from the sky. The sun itself, as the world turns our side to face it straight-on, begins to touch us with palpable energy. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 7 -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 3 -more-

He may not look a day over 35 on the foil wrapper of the stale chocolate kugels that pay homage to the greatest musical genius the world has ever known, but Mozart turned 250 on Jan. 27 of this year. More to the point, although the wrapper his music comes in may seem hoary with age, the music wrapped inside has aged like fine wine, becoming fresher, younger and more delicious over the years. -more-

Seven Lears which opens tonight on the campus at Zellerbach Playhouse will close after next weekend. -more-

The Gem of the Ocean, the next-to-last play August Wilson wrote, is finishing a run at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater this coming weekend. -more-

Over the next few weeks, Pacific Film Archive is presenting two series dedicated to women. -more-

A spate of German-themed films has made and continues to make its way to Berkeley theaters, from last year’s Downfall, about the final days of Adolph Hitler, to current and upcoming releases such as Fateless, about the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Summer Storm, the story of a young German boy’s sexual awakening, and Before the Fall, a coming-of-age film set in one of Hitler’s schools for the elite. (Before the Fall will be reviewed in this space next week.) -more-

Who’s ready to try something new? Want to track wildlife, plant heirloom potatoes, cast your line in that perfect loop, team up with your favorite llama or discover the culture of the Tuibun Ohlone? Sound compelling? Read on. -more-

Rounding the bend from La Loma Avenue onto Le Conte Avenue on Berkeley’s Northside, the eye can’t miss a large brown-shingle structure in mid-block. Crowned by cascades of steep overlapping gables, this quintessentially Arts & Crafts building sports a curious appendage on its southeast corner: an octagonal turret with a domed roof previously covered with mosaics but now bare. -more-

Writing this column is going to be harder than usual. It’s no fun. I like talking about how people screw things up and sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s just exasperating but what I have to talk about today is genuinely tragic. Please bear with me because it’s extremely important. -more-

Some of us like plants from all over the world in out gardens. Some of us like native Californians. (Some of us, like me, mix them.) Some of us take that native thing to apparent extremes, and people like that have the perfect place in Berkeley: Native Here Nursery. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 3 -more-