As Berkeley as things could be

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jan 2, 2006 | by Kristin Bender, STAFF WRITER

BERKELEY

FROM city budget cuts that took firetrucks out of service, to the slaying of an Ivy League student, to a visit by Prince Charles, there was rarely a dull moment in Berkeley in 2005.

The year started off with city leaders making a last-minute pitch to UC regents to postpone considering a plan that would guide campus development for the next 15 years.

City leaders worried that 2.2 million square feet of classroom, office and research space, 1,800 new parking spaces and a bounty of student housing would crowd residents, tax city services and impact everyone's quality of life.

The city eventually sued the university

over the 2020 Long-Range Development Plan but settled the suit when the university agreed to double its annual payments to Berkeley to $1.2 million and scale back parking spaces. Both sides said they were pleased with the agreement.

Early 2005 brought a new police chief to the department. Capt. Doug-

las Hambleton, a 29-year veteran, became the new leader of the force, replacing retiring Chief Roy Meisner. Throughout the year, there were other changes in the department, including the promotion of police spokesman Officer Joe Okies to sergeant.

Police were kept busy during the early months of 2005, when the city's first homicide was logged. Mary "Maria" King, a 49-year-old homeless woman, died in February after being severely beaten by a group of men with whom she had been arguing. The assailants later were arrested and charged in the crime.

The second -- and last -- homicide of the year was recorded July 17 when 19-year-old Meleia Willis-Starbuck, a Berkeley High School graduate who was attending Dartmouth College, was gunned down on College Avenue. Her good friend Christopher Hollis, 22, later was arrested and charged with murder.

Hollis is awaiting trial along with Chris-

topher Wilson, who police say drove the getaway car. People were deeply saddened by the woman's slaying, and hundreds attended her funeral, and scores of people left mementos at a makeshift street memorial.

Willis-Starbuck was not the only victim of a violent crime in Berkeley in 2005. In March, a 16-year-old Oakland girl randomly slashed the throat of a Berkeley hills woman as she walked near the Berkeley Rose garden with her husband.

Marilyn Webster later was convicted ofthe crime and sent to a California Youth Authority facility for a three-month mental health evaluation. She returns to juvenile court in early 2006 to hear her final sentence.

The past year brought challenges to city firefighters as well.

To balance the budget, the City Council in June trimmed more than $8 million from its fiscal 2006-07 budget, voting to take at least two of the city's seven fire engines out of service on a rotating, daily basis.

The council later reversed its decision, voting to close no more than one company at any given time and keep the Berkeley hills fire station open around the clock until the end of fire season.

And in June, the school board voted against the wishes of the Jefferson Elementary School community, declining to change the name of the school because it was named after Thomas Jefferson, who was a slave owner. The drive to change the name of the school was started two years ago by three Jefferson employees who felt the name was offensive.

At UC Berkeley, officials this year unveiled plans for a

$100 million to $125 million Memorial Stadium face-lift, which will include a "high-performance" student athletic center to be constructed along the stadium's western wall.

The 132,500-square-foot, two-story facility will include a weight room and locker facilities, a sports medicine center, offices for coaches and a study center and meeting spaces. Construction could start as early as next December, with the stadium ready for the 2008 football season.

Also at UC Berkeley this year, booze was banned at Greek social events following a hazing incident and other problems with fraternities and sororities. In April, a 19-year-old Pi Kappa Phi pledge was shot with a BB gun 30 times in the chest and arms in what was later determined to be a hazing by members of the fraternity.

In May, 75 police officers were called to an emergency docking area at Jack London Square in Oakland after a group of revelers aboard a Kappa Alpha Psi party boat were fighting and extremely intoxicated. The ban on booze was lifted later, but the university now is requiring all new students to complete an online alcohol- awareness course.

UC Berkeley students also made news when Le Chateau, a troubled student cooperative, was shut down temporarily after neighbors won in small claims court. Neighbors sued following years of noise, garbage and vandalism complaints they say went largely unaddressed. Le Chateau later was renamed and opened to graduate students.

Of course Berkeley wouldn't be Berkeley without a few quirky, funny and unusual happenings.

In June, Berkeley gardener Karl Reeh was up in arms over a tree- nabbing. Someone stole his 6-foot-tall bald cypress from a traffic circle, where Reeh had planted it, leaving a ransom note in its place.