Caltrans issued the following announcement about upcoming work on Interstate 80

Alameda and Contra Costa Counties –Caltrans has scheduled ramp closures on eastbound and westbound Interstate 80 for construction activities for the Interstate 80 Integrated Corridor Mobility Project.

· The eastbound I-80 Central Avenue on-ramp will be closed Monday night, May 13, and Tuesday night, May 14, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

· The eastbound I-80 Powell Street on-ramp will be closed Monday night, May 20, and Tuesday night, May 21, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

· The westbound I-80 Carlson On-ramp will be closed Monday night, May 20, and Tuesday night, May 21, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

· The eastbound I-80 Ashby Avenue on-ramp will be closed Wednesday, May 22 and Thursday, May 23, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

This work is weather dependent, and if delayed due to weather conditions will be rescheduled. Please drive cautiously through the construction zone and leave a safe traveling distance between your vehicle and the vehicle ahead of you. Please remember to “Slow for the Cone Zone.”

The I-80 Integrated Corridor Mobility project will provide safety improvements for the traveling public; mobility and efficiency during commute hours; automated, integrated technology to manage traffic efficiently; real-time traffic information for travelers; with tax dollars funding SMART solutions.

Follow us on Twitter @CaltransD4. Follow the project at #80ICM. For more information, please visit the webpage at http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/projects/80icm/

“In the Cupboard,” a poem that Evie Groch of El Cerrito wrote and entered in the San Mateo County Fair poetry contest, swept its division, winning first place and best of show.

In the Cupboard

On the table among the New Gamboge,

and Jasper Green.

We paint with broad strokes

and detailed attention

the broccoli heads and tangelos

slinking across the models’ table.

We remember to color wash

and suffer no distractions

Until the teacher opens the cupboard

to reach the empty yogurt containers

and I espy a pair of red and white stilettos –

stilettos with 4-inch heels, which rest perpendicularly

on the shelf and whisper for someone to set them free,

take them out and dance hard.

I cannot shift my eyes.

tangelo can.

– Evie Groch

Record Store Day was April 20 and El Cerrito had two locations celebrating. Both Down Home Music on San Pablo Avenue and Mod Lang on Fairmount Avenue sell vinyl records.
Among the selections available at Down Home is an album by The Goodtime Washboard (they added an extra member), an expanded version of The Goodtime Washboard Three, the trio of former UC Berkeley students who recorded the song “Oakland” 50 years ago this year. The song, a tongue-in-cheek salute to the city that isn’t San Francisco, received considerable airplay in the 1960s. The group even appeared with Bing Crosby on the ABC TV variety show “Hollywood Palace.”
As the lyrics go,
Now where did all the people go
when Frisco burned?
They all went to Oakland and
never returned.

The album available at Down Home is a later version, pressed 11 years after the original, but copies still sealed in shrinkwrap (we can’t call them “new” when they are almost 40 years old) are $9.98 each, a high price for 1974, but a bargain today.

A nice article on the Goodtime Washboard Three and the song that brought their greatest fame can be found here.

Incidentally, the GTW3 performed at the 50th anniversary party for Arhoolie Records, founded by Down Home Music owner Chris Strachwitz, and appear on the label’s anniversary box set.

In case you can’t wait and just want to hear the original version of the song, click here.

The latter day version is here:

Two of the major retail vacancies on San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito are former Safeway grocery stores.
We offer early and modern day views of both here.

Looking north on San Pablo Avenue about 1966. The Safeway store here closed when the chain moved to the new Moeser Lane center in 1970. You almost expect the tower sign to flash messages.

The same location in 2012. After Safeway left this building was home to fabric stores and Guitar Center.

Safeway at the Moeser Lane center in 1986, when Payless was a co-anchor, along with a small Jerry Lewis-franchised cinema. The center opened in 1970 and A.G.E. department store was supposed to open a location there, but it never materialized.

The Moeser Lane center as it looked on Sunday. Safeway is gone, as are most of the major tenants, except for CVS (successor to Payless.Rite-Aid, Longs) and O'Reilly Auto Parts.

This home stood for some time after the Home Depot was built and surrounded it with a parking lot.

The Home Depot store in El Cerrito opened in 1993 on the former Adachi Nursery property that was partially in El Cerrito and partially in Richmond. (The cities divide the sales tax from the warehouse store’s receipts.)
But Adachi wasn’t the only property owner on the site.
A 95-year-old homeowner who had a house on the site declined to sell and finally reached an agreement that his homesite on San Pablo Avenue, built about 80 years earlier, would be sold after he died. As a result, the large store operated in its initial days with a parking lot that surrounded the home.
There was also talk, noted in this article from our archives, that there might be the opportunity to relocate the home for use as a historical museum, a plan that was never realized.

Boy, we sure hope the rains won’t cancel today’s epic event announced late yesterday by the El Cerrito Trail Trekkers and the Hells Angels for April 1:

El Cerrito Trail Trekkers and the Hells Angels present…
April 1, 2013 Motorcycle Hill Race

Relive the glory of yesteryear when El Cerrito hosted tens of thousands of visitors gathering to watch champion motorcyclists race to the top of what we now call Motorcycle Hill.
This Monday, April 1st the hill will again come alive with the roar of motorcycles as Trail Trekkers join with members of the Hells Angels to recreate this event.
Bring your family, your ground cloths and picnic faire to Navellier and Blake Streets to watch this lively recreation.

Contributions are welcome. Donate to the El Cerrito Trail Trekkers and support events like this.

Thousands gather in the 1920s to cheer the El Cerrito motorcycle race.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8110/8610028543_7aa6d8e60b_m.jpg

The El Cerrito City Council will of its 2013-17 Strategic Plan when it meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 10900 San Pablo Ave., and is encouraging the community to attend and comment on the document.
As noted in earlier coverage, “The City Council wants a future of ethics and integrity, balanced budgets, lower crime rates and greater appreciation of diversity and is preparing a plan to achieve those goals and others…”
This announcement was issued by the city on Friday:

The final draft Strategic Plan includes a vision statement, mission statement, identified organizational values, goals, and related implementation strategies.
The April 2, 2013 El Cerrito City Council meeting agenda is online at: http://www.el-cerrito.org/index.aspx?NID=114
The final draft Strategic Plan and other background material are available online at www.elcerritostrategicplan.org.
You can watch the City Council meeting live on Comcast cable channel 28, streaming on the City’s webpage (go to Streaming Media) or listen on KECG 88.1 FM.

Madeleine Rogin has again made it into the next round of the Great American Teach-off, meaning she is still in the running for a $10,000 grant she can use for her kindergarten class at Prospect Sierra School in El Cerrito.
Read below about what she and the class plan to do with the grant and then take a moment to vote for her at http://kto6gato.maker.good.is/projects/7998?sort=623.

Thank you again for spreading the word about this contest – and for voting!
If you are able to update your readers about the contest this week, I would love people to know that our project is about teaching our students how to be global citizens by engaging in service projects both locally and globally.
The local project is the restoration of the Pacific Chorus Frog Habitat at Canyon Trail Park. Many people have been working for years to restore this habitat, a group of all volunteer El Cerrito residents meet there every Saturday morning to plant or weed or pick up trash. The Kindergarten at my school has a history of helping with this project. Every spring we raise tadpoles in our classroom and release them into the small pond at Canyon Trail Park. If we win the $10,000 grant we would be able to support this work on a much deeper level.

The global project is a partnership with Basic Services Primary School in Takoradi, Ghana, a school I’ve visited in the summer to volunteer. My daughters attended Kindergarten there this past summer. The school is in need of all the school supplies you can think of (from workbooks to pencil sharpeners to markers, etc.) With part of the money from the grant we could donate these supplies. They do have a computer center and we would use a portion of the grant to set them up with Skype so that our students could communicate with their students. Too often our children still think of Africa as the land with all the wild animals. They are shocked to learn that there are taxis and big buildings and elevators and schools a lot like ours. The focus of this project is on cross cultural communication and on building our students’ cultural competency skills – the ability to communicate across difference. Cultural competency is a skill set that is essential to educating our children in the 21st century, when they will be expected to be able to communicate with people from all around the globe.
Thank you again!
Madeleine

A Key System car on Arlington at Amherst in Kensington, 1947.

Rail service was once available to hillside residents of Berkeley and Kensington, as seen in this 1947 photo provided by El Cerrito train and history fanatic John Stashik shows.
The electric-powered trains ran from Kensington to Berkeley until service was replaced by a bus line a year later.

Judging from the comments made last week at the meeting on El Cerrito’s Climate Action Plan, there are folks who would love to see something similar in the hills today.

The West Contra Costa Science Fair has announced the results of this year’s competition:

The West Contra Costa Science Fair held an Awards Ceremony on Thursday, February 28, in the Knox Performing Arts Center. Dr. Donna Floyd, Interim Vice President of Contra Costa College, told the audience the first WCCSF was held 55 years ago on this site. Dr. Bruce Harter, Superintendent of the West Contra Costa Unified School District and former secondary science teacher, described some of the projects that caught his eye such as the one about texting on a keyboard vs. a flat screen and another on how to shut down WiFi. Dr. Mayra Padilla, Direct of STEM & METAS Program at Contra Costa College encouraged the students to look into the opportunities for high school students at CCC.
A total of 96 awards were presented to 85 students in grades 7 through 12 from eight West Contra Costa Unified schools: Crespi, DeJean, Helms, and Portola Junior High Schools; Mira Vista and Stewart K-8 Schools; as well as El Cerrito and Pinole Valley High Schools.
Of the 152 projects on display in the Gym Annex Room 40 from Monday, February 25, until just after the Awards Ceremony, 90% came from 7th and 8th graders. However, of the 10% that came from the high schools, 93% were winners of first- through fourth-places and special awards while only 51% of the 7th and 8th grade projects won the awards. There were no 9th grade projects.
Of the four categories, 57% of the projects were in Physical Science; 24% were in Biological Science; 16% in Behavioral Science and only 3% in Mathematics.
Portola Junior High students won the most awards with 29 garnered from the 32 projects submitted. Their awards included two 1st places, six 2nd places, eight 3rd places, ten 4th places and three special awards.
Overall there were 6 first-place winners, 14 second-place winners, 23 third-place winners, 42 fourth-place winners and 11 special awards.
The first-place winners also each received a Bio-Rad cash award: seventh-grader Colm Hayden (“Can Redwood Absorb and Release Fog?”) from Portola; seventh-grader Nicole Stokowski (“How Do Differences in Mass Affect Conservation of Angular Momentum?”) from Mira Vista; eighth-grader Jacqueline Rojas (“What Abilities Does Your Brain Have?”) from Helms; eighth-grader Nora Gest (“Which Nuts Have the Most Calories?”) from Portola; tenth-grader Andrew Brodsky (“The Effects of Barrel Size on Projectile Velocity”) from El Cerrito High;and eleventh-grader Sydney Gallion (“Natural Frequency and Length”) from El Cerrito High.
Other special awards included math puzzle books Dennis Claudio presented to the seventh-graders Minahil Khan (“Reverse the Multiplication”) and Paulo Del Rosario (“Switch or Stay?”) both from Crespi; as well as a book on graph theory presented to Mark Ohlmann (“Can You Run Out of Luck?”) from Pinole Valley High, The Hal Magarian Memorial Award went to seventh-grader Julia Walker (“Rosemary’s pH Preference”) from Portola Junior High. The Bill Tobin Award was given to Mark Ohlmann from Pinole Valley High.
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