It’s not often that you see something _ a building, a street or a field named after a living person.

And that’s too bad.

On Tuesday night, the Berkeley City Council _ a board that the late Dona Spring was part of for 16 years _ voted to name the new planned animal shelter at 1 Bolivar Drive after Spring, who died in July at age 55 after a long-time battle with rheumatoid arthritis.

The honor is well deserved and her friends and family will certainly be honored. She defined what it meant to be an animal rights activist and animal lover.

Those who come to the shelter in the years to come will learn of Spring’s role in highlighting animal welfare problems and her work to solve them. They may learn that she was a vegan because of her heartfelt concern for the abuse and suffering of animals for food production   

And they may ever learn that she demanded that Berkeley’s adoptable animals not be euthanized.

Spring’s legend will live on in the form of her name on a building, but she will never know it.

It’s important to honor leaders while they are still living. If  the honest and true politicians and community leaders are going to continue to do good works, they should be honored _ in some way _ for it.

Last year, the council renamed Old City Hall in honor of longtime City Councilmember Maudelle Shirek. Shirek, who is in her 90s, retired from politics four years ago, but was able to see the building that will forever bear her name. What an honor.  

In Oakland, the plaza at City Hall is named for Frank H. Ogawa, the first Asian American elected to the City Council and a man who championed the importance of Asian Pacific American representation and participation in politics.

He died in 1994 after a battle with cancer. Several years later, Oakland renamed the plaza in his honor.

There is also the question of when it’s appropriate to name a building or street after a politician.

 In 2002, longtime Alameda Mayor Ralph Appezzato, who was battling prostate cancer, shot himself in the head while his wife was out walking the dog. He was running for a seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors at the time of his death.

Shortly after, the Alameda City Council renamed Atlantic Avenue Ralph Appezzato Parkway. This sparked much talk on the Island about how the move was questionable because Appezzato was honored after taking his own life, which some consider a sin.

While Berkeley moves ahead with its’ plan to build the new animal shelter, funded in part from a 2002 $7.2 million bond measure, it’s important for city leaders to remember to recognize people for the work before it’s too late.

The driver had done something we’ve probably all done from time to time: he rolled through the stop sign, commonly referred to as a “Hollywood Stop” by police.

Smelling the odor of marijuana, Ledoux searched the 1994 Acura, turning up about eight grams of cocaine, 20 Percocet pills, 49 Oxycontin pills, a few pills of Ecstasy and a quarter pound of marijuana.  Police obtained a search warrant for his home in the 2200 block of Curtis Street in Berkeley, where they uncovered more drugs_ about a half pound of weed, marijuana cookies, a digital scale, more pills and lots of cash.

The drugs are worth between $5,000 to $8,000 on the street, said police spokesman Officer Andrew Frankel.

Two brothers, Michael Fikaris, 25, and Nicholas Fikaris, 22, were arrested for a number of drug charges, including possession of drugs for sale. Michael Fikaris, the driver, was driving on an expired license and the car was towed.

Both men were jailed.

Ledoux has been on the force less than two years.

“It’s a big hit for (him),” Frankel said. “We’re all very proud of him.”

Ledoux downplayed the arrest. “I’m just out there trying to make the community safer one care stop at a time.”

 

CodePink is shuttering its East Bay office on Solano Avenue but anti-war group leaders say the fight to boot the U.S. Marine recruiting center from downtown Berkeley is far from over.

“(The office) is very hard to maintain in this economic climate. Also, I had a 10-year lease and the lease is over and I’m not renewing it. It’s too much of a financial strain,’’ said CodePink’s Zanne Sam Joi, who ran an antique business from the site at 1248 Solano Ave. until the Sept. 11 attacks when she converted it to a CodePink storefront office.

For more than a year, women from CodePink have been picketing weekly in front of the U.S. Marine recruiting center at 64 Shattuck Square in downtown Berkeley. They say the Marines are not welcome in liberal, anti-war Berkeley and it should shut its’ doors.

In January, the Berkeley City Council got involved when they called the U.S. Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” and granted CodePink a permit waiver and a free parking space in front of the Marine center for their weekly protests. The move angered people across the county, who flooded City Hall with 25,000 letters and e-mail.

To counter the CodePink protests, Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop organizations, members of the U.S. Marines and motorcycle clubs came from across the nation came to Berkeley to back the Marines.

The weekly Wednesday protests, that drew dozens at the height of the controversy, have dwindled to just a few people lately, and critics now believe that shutting the doors on the Solano Avenue office will be the end to their Marine center protests.

“The fact of the matter is they are out of money. CodePink is running red,” said Melanie Morgan, the head of Move America Forward. “They can’t generate the excitement because the election is far more interesting. It really is amusing that they said they would sit there every day until they ran the Marines out of town and yet they are the ones closing their doors.”

U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Pauline L. Franklin said the Marines have no plans to leave the Berkeley office.

The center’s lease runs through December 2009, subject to termination if the government cannot provide funding, Franklin has said.

Even without the Albany office, CodePink officials said they will continue to protest the Marines and their recruiting of young people. “We’ve been there and we intend to be there until they leave,” said Joi. “We would like to relocate our offices where they are.”

CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said the organization will have a better idea of their strategy after next week’s election. “We’ve been putting energy into the election and getting peaceful candidates that have the fortitude to promote peace,” she said.

CodePink is having a going out of business sale from noon until 7 p.m. today and Thursday at the storefront at 1248 Solano Ave., in Albany. The group is selling office furniture, display cabinets, tschotkes, outdoor furniture andf CodePink memorabilia and merchandise.

But in Berkeley, home of one of the original biofuel stations and a place where city cars run on biodiesel and there are plenty of hydrogen powered buses, it shouldn’t be hard to find a green and clean method of transportation.

Tours of green businesses, restaurants, housing, energy innovators, service providers, entertainment venues and manufacturers will take place between Nov. 8 and 17. The tours will provide a chance to meet business leaders face to face and see how green businesses operate.

The tours are open to the public and will take place in partnership with the San Francisco Green Festival. Organizers said the East Bay _ known as the Green Corridor _ has been a hub for green and clean businesses and the  alternative energy movement for decades. 

Organizers of the tours said the epicenter, Berkeley, has been home to some of the most pioneering businesses and organizations in the country, including Global Exchange, Clif Bar, Chez Panisse restaurant, the Ecology Center, The Biofuel Oasis, Sun Power Corp, and Urban Ore. For questions about the tours or to register, e-mail Marissa LaManga, the owner of Rasa Travel at marissa@studiorasa.org or 510-704-0379.

The tours are supported by the City of Berkeley; The Ecology Center, Alameda County Green Business Program; The Berkeley Convention and Visitors Bureau, Berkeley Chamber of Commerce; Emeryville Chamber of Commerce; The Sustainable Business Alliance.

The money was collected from audience members at the theater’s showing of the play “Yellowjackets,” which was  set around the halls of Berkeley High School and written by former school newspaper reporter Itamar Moses, now a 31-year-old New York playwright.

Theater officials will present the money from the Save the Jacket fund on Sunday night after the final performance of the play.

“We’re so proud of our patrons and so glad that we could be of help to local teens,” said Susan Medak, managing director of Berkeley Rep. “After each performance of our current show, the audience has been encouraged to help Save The Jacket through old-fashioned civic engagement: by putting donations in a coffee can on their way out of the theatre.”

Because of the infusion of money, the paper will stay afloat at least next year. It takes between $16,000 and $18,000 annually to publish the student-run newspaper, which is printed on Fridays twice a month, said business manager Stephanie Ratcliff, a senior who got involved with managing subscriptions, advertisements and other business matters this year.

The newspaper, which includes news and features about campus life, entertainment, news about local and national affairs, sports, opinion articles and photos, has been around for more than 50 years and is widely read by the student body, Ratcliff said.

It’s not surprising that the Jacket is struggling. More than 6,000 print journalists have lost their jobs in recent months, and newspaper circulation and advertising revenue are declining. Print advertising revenue in 2007 dropped 9.4 percent to $42 billion compared with the year before, according to figures from the Newspaper Association of America. That is the biggest plunge since 1950, the association reported.

For more information, or to help, call Berkeley Rep at 510-647-2900.

Dave Weinstein isn’t a candidate. Quite the contrary _ he’s spent the last 20 years as a reporter and editor for daily newspapers, including doing freelance writing for that one across the pond that the Oakland Tribune competes with. We don’t hold that against him.

In fact, Weinstein gets some cyber ink today because in his new book “It Came From Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed the World,” he tells folks about topics that have nothing to do with traffic circles, downtown density bonuses or affordable housing.

And that’s a good thing.  

Did you know that public radio, California cuisine, the lie detector, the atomic bomb and the hot tub were all invented in Berkeley?

In his new book, Weinstein shows  readers (with words and pictures) why J. Stitt Wilson, Berkeley’s first Socialist mayor, may have had a good point when he said “Any kind of day in Berkeley seems sweeter than the best day anywhere else.”

We asked Weinstein what possessed him to write more than 200 pages about the quirky city?

“The book began as a suggestion from my publisher, Gibbs Smith, who’d been talking to Andy Ross, (former)owner of Cody’s, about how a good, lively history of Berkeley with lots of pictures would do well,” Weinstein tells us.

“That Berkeley is far from being a place apart from the rest of America, a strange People’s Republic that the rest of America can safely ignore. Berkeley is not only an archetypal American city that grew up with many of the travails common to American cities — it is a model American city, representing much that is best in America: religion as a force for social justice, participatory democracy, the rights of the individual over the power of the bureaucracy, a love for nature and efforts to live in harmony with nature.’’

Since reporting the so-called tension between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel students at Cal, leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have denounced allegations by Zionist student group Tikvah that its members were responsible for recent incidents of anti-Semitic hate graffiti on campus.

The Oakland Tribune made several attempts to contact members of SJP before it first reported the situation.

Organizer Yaman Salahi SJP sent letters of solidarity to some Jewish leaders on campus, and said that SJP’s Jewish members were also offended by the vandalism, some depicting swastikas and stars of David with equal signs.

“Had anybody from Tikvah attempted to approach members of our organization, they would have been met with an immediate condemnation of the act, its message, as well as an opportunity to clarify where we stand and why,” Salahi said.

Kifah Shah, an SJP member and student senator says the organization’s criticism of Israeli policy is not related to religion, but student senator and Tikvah member Jon Moghtader says the way SJP expresses their views is sometimes perceived as anti-Semitic.

To no avail, Tikvah has urged Cal’s chancellor and dean of students to create guidelines that would lessen confusion between free speech and hate speech.

“The chancellor should condemn any and all hate speech which creates an unsafe climate for students on campus,” Shah says. “But the chancellor should not stifle debate on campus by marginalizing students or organizations who have a certain set of political beliefs.”

In the last few weeks, there have been at least four incidents of hate graffiti and vandalism on the Cal campus or nearby, Gabe Weiner, a former Cal student and campus coordinator for Israel Peace Initiative, told our reporter.

Weiner said swastikas and Jewish symbols were written on a poster promoting Israel-Palestine peace that was on a bus shelter next to the Eshleman Hall, the student government building. The vandalism occurred last month during a student senate meeting at which Israel was discussed, students have said.

Police have taken a report, but so far no arrests have been made in connection with defacing the poster, which was part of a campaign to humanize Israeli issues by Bluestar PR.

Just last week, an inflammatory anti-Israel statement was discovered on The Star of David Bridge on West Campus, in addition to other cases of hate graffiti and anti-Semitic drawings on bus shelter posters.

Campus police are investigating the incidents and Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau sent out a campus wide e-mail condemning the vandalism and calling it an “anti-Semitic obscenity.”

According to John Moghtader, 20, the student senator who spoke about Israel during the meeting the night the bus shelter sign was vandalized, the Israel-Palestine conflict has been dividing students at Cal since he was a freshman.

Moghtader says there is a certain pro-Palestine group on campus that he suspects is responsible for the vandalism, due to their alleged history of publicly comparing Nazis and Jews. He said that group is Students for Justice in Palestine.

“They have a pattern of tying in anti-Semitism with supposed criticism of Israeli policy,” he says.

No representatives from this group were available for comment.

According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, comparing Nazis and Jews is hate speech.

Moghtader says he has grown ttired of Cal administrators treating anti-Semitic hate speech as an opportunity for dialogue rather than discipline.

But isn’t that always the way at Cal?

A new kind of fall shopping spree 

We’ve all heard stories about the not-so smart criminals. There’s dozens of Web sites devoted to stories of stupid crooks who get caught doing things even stupider than committing crimes. In fact, here is a Web site that has conveniently compiled the “Top 10 Stupid Criminals of 2007″ http://www.neatorama.com/2007/12/18/the-top-ten-stupid-criminals-of-2007/

Berkeley has its’ fair share of dim criminals and a few of them were out this past weekend.

On Sunday morning, Officer Tom Jeremiason was called to the 2000 block of San Pablo Avenue for a report of an alarm activation at the Fashion 4 Less store.  When he arrived at the store, he found one of the plate glass windows broken. Jeremiason checked further and found a man leaving through the window with an arm full of clothing. Jeremiason questioned Walter Kirby, a 40-year-old homeless man, about his shopping spree and here’s what he said, `I saw the window open and went inside to get some pants, shirts and socks.’ Kirby may not have broken the window himself but he was arrested for burglary and possession of a crack pipe. Looks like he’ll be wearing an orange jail jumpsuit instead of his new duds at least for a while.

Bank robbery 101: Put on your disguise somewhere other than in front of the bank

This past Friday night Officers Frank Landrum and Jeff Shannon, members of what is commonly referred to around the station as Berkeley’s “Elite Bicycle Unit,”  were sent to investigate a report of suspicious people outside the Mechanics Bank at 2301 Shattuck Ave. Seems an alert citizen had seen the men putting on bandannas and dark colored hoodies outside the bank and thought, `Hmmm… that doesn’t look quite right and called police,’ said Officer Andrew Frankel.

Arriving on the scene, the bike cops found two men hiding in the bushes outside the bank and another guy casing the bank. 

As Landrum and Shannon approached the suspects, they took off on foot. A short chase ensued with police detaining two of the suspects near the scene and a third hiding in a parking garage.  The suspects were armed with a knife, a replica of a handgun, a ski mask and a duffel bag.  Police said the three, a 13-and-14-year-old from Oakland, and Clyde Anderson, 18 of Oakland, admitted to planning a bank robbery. They were all arrested for attemped robbery, resisting arrest, conspiracy and minors violating laws. 

The David Brower Center, a green building named in honor of Brower, the first president of the Sierra Club, has been awarded a $1 million challenge grant from The Kresge Foundation.

The grant will be given to the Brower Center when it raises its final $2.4 million to support its $30 million capital campaign, center officials said.

The center is slated to open in May 2009.

This grant is among the largest gifts center has received to build its four-story, 50,000 square foot building, which will be used for environmental education and social change organizations and programs.

“The awarding of this grant salutes your efforts to improve conditions and advance opportunities in your community,” said Rip Rapson, president of The Kresge Foundation in a statement. Kresge is a private, $3.9 billion foundation. “We must partner with nonprofit organizations such as yours if we are to pursue our grant-making vision. You enable our work as much as we try to enable yours.”

In addition to housing offices of environmental and progressive organizations, the center will have a 180-seat theatre, an art gallery, meeting rooms and an organic restaurant. The public will be able to utilize many of the spaces and attend exhibitions, events and programs year-round, said executive director Amy Tobin.

To date, more than 80 donors have pledged gifts to center. Major contributors include Peter K. Buckley, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, and the Lewis Foundation, which all donated $1 million or more to the project.

Using recycled building materials and energy-saving technologies, the center will be a model of sustainability with a photovoltaic roof, green architecture, earth-friendly retailers and organizations.