Monday, May 21, 2012
Albany Patch welcomes guest columns and letters to the editor via albany@patch.com. Click "Keep me posted" below for email updates related to future stories about the Gill Tract.
[Editor's Note: Follow Albany Patch on Twitter for updates. See all the background on Occupy the Farm on Albany Patch.] On May 15, James Mink wrote on Albany Patch about the frustration of trying – across thousands of comments on multiple threads – “to put an issue to bed successfully.” To help address that need, below is a FAQ to enable PATCH’ers to find substantiated facts easily. Much of the cited information is on the City of Albany’s website. Feedback and suggestions to this FAQ are welcome: The goals are accuracy and objectivity. 1) What and where is the Gill Tract? Land currently referred to as the Gill Tract is about 10 acres in the northeast corner of UC Berkeley property in Albany. It’s bounded by Buchanan/Marin to the …
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Gill Tract
1050 San Pablo Ave, Albany, CA
/articles/column-2012-uc-gill-tract-and-university-village-faq
1848730
/locations/7062938
Friday, May 18, 2012
Click the "Keep me posted" button below this story for an email alert when we write about Solano Avenue.
[Editor's Note: Louie Jauregui, owner of Solano Copy Center wrote to let us know that he is retiring. The shop, which has operated on Solano Avenue for nearly a quarter-century, will close on May 24. Read more about Anna and Louie here.] My daughter Anna and I are very grateful to our friends of Albany, Kensington, Berkeley, Richmond, El Cerrito and Emeryville, for the amazing support we received during the almost 24 years we were in business. I must say that our journey throughout these years has definitely not been a "sentence," but a joyful experience. We enjoyed all the people we served and will miss everyone. I have chosen to retire while I am still healthy and able to join my wife Anita who, six years ago, retired from 33 years of …
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Solano Copy Center
1185 Solano Ave, Albany, CA
/articles/column-solano-copy-center-bids-adieu-to-the-avenue
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/locations/7047579
Albany Patch welcomes guest columns and letters to the editor. See all the Gill Tract stories on Albany Patch at http://patch.com/bvbHo. Click the "Keep me posted" button below for updates about this story.
[Editor's Note: James Mink shared this letter to the City Council related to two agenda items set for Monday. Albany Patch welcomes guest columns and letters to the editor. Email albany@patch.com with your contribution.] Dear Council members, Because I will be unable to attend the City Council meeting next Monday, May 21 due to a prior commitment, I wanted to write to you with my thoughts regarding proposed Resolution No. 2012-34, which is listed as Item No. 8-1 on the Agenda. Resolution No. 2012-34 would have the Council urge the University “to establish a space on the Gill Tract where the Albany schools and community can participate in gardening education and/or farming.” While this language seems unobjectionable on its face, by …
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Albany Patch welcomes guest columns and letters to the editor. See all the Gill Tract stories on Albany Patch at http://patch.com/bvbHo.
There has been a lot of discussion on The Patch about whether Albany welcomes or rejects the Occupy the Farm protest. I'd like a place where we Albanyans can actually just weigh in. I propose this space as a safe place to say whether you support the Farm of the Occupy the Farm movement, or whether you'd like the Farm to dismantle and leave for good. I hereby promise to respect Albany residents who disagree with me. I hope others will follow this lead. Mostly I'm just curious. I don't think we have any real power in this forum to keep or change anything, as the real powers lie elsewhere. (Please, no commenting on that; I admit in advance I could be wrong; let's keep comments to a simple support or do not support.) I'd just like to get a …
37.885706
-122.297486
Gill Tract
1050 San Pablo Ave, Albany, CA
/articles/letter-a-safe-survey-for-albany-residents-only-on-occupy-the-farm
1848730
/locations/7051486
Albany Patch welcomes guest columns and letters to the editor. Steve Pisani shared his reflections with us on Wednesday. See all the Gill Tract stories on Albany Patch at http://patch.com/bvbHo.
Follow Albany Patch on Twitter for updates. More information is available via #occupythefarm on Twitter. See all the background on Occupy the Farm on Albany Patch. The first round of Occupy Albany mostly wasn’t about fat cats on Wall Street or police or banks in some town’s downtown. It wasn’t even about foreclosed homes. On April 22, a group of urban farmers and decaffeinated anarchists hopped a cyclone fence and took up residence on some of the last few acres of good farmlands in the Each Bay. They renamed the lot “The Farm,” set up camp, and started tilling the ground. Their website refers to them as The Gill Tract Farmers’ Collective. The Farm is a sliver of USDA-class-one agricultural dirt. It is part of the 104-acre Gill Tract, …
37.885706
-122.297486
Gill Tract
1050 San Pablo Ave, Albany, CA
/articles/column-digging-the-farm-round-one-ends-round-two-begins
1848730
/locations/7040326
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
This letter to the editor comes from a reader seeking some local cycling knowledge. Send your letters and guest columns to albany@patch.com.
[Editor's Note: Albany Patch would love your 300-word letters to the editor. Learn more here.] With summer coming I would love to hear how Albany bike riders get safely to the bike path along the Berkeley waterfront. Last time we went there we biked over the 80 overpass andalong the bulb, sneaking through a cut in the fence to ride across the Golden Gate Fields parking lot to eventually find the path. There are no signs of any kind that I could see. My god: There must be a better way to get there. Albany, how does your family bike riders get to the path?
Monday, May 14, 2012
This statement was released at 1:14 a.m. Monday. Click the "Keep me posted" button below this story for updates on the Gill Tract occupation.
The Gill Tract Farmers Collective has broken down camp and moved it off the plot of Class I agricultural soil and outside the gates of the Gill Tract. The only thing standing in the way of the Gill Tract scientists from conducting their research is UC's own barricades and police.* Last week current Gill Tract scientists Miguel Altieri and Sarah Hake and former Gill Tract scientist and professor emeritus Andrew Gutierrez attempted to access the land. They were denied access by a UCPD officer who stated the only person authorized entrance was the dean of UC's College of Natural Resources, Keith Gilles. We will continue to maintain access to the plot so that the farmers and community can continue caring for the crops. We intend to coexist …
37.885706
-122.297486
Gill Tract
1050 San Pablo Ave, Albany, CA
/articles/column-only-uc-barricades-police-stand-in-way-of-gill-tract-scientists-research
1848730
/locations/7002920
Albany Patch welcomes guest columns and letters to the editor via albany@patch.com. Click the "Keep me posted" button below for updates about the Albany Aquatic Center.
I was thrilled when the Albany Pool opened this spring until I saw the paltry number of hours for family recreation swim during week. During Albany Unified School District’s (AUSD) spring break, I planned to take my kids several times. But there were only two hours all week when we could go. I contacted Pool Director Amanda Garcia who told me there would be more weekday hours this spring. However, the spring schedule has only 5.5 hours. And furthermore, because we are Late-Birds (about half of AUSD kids in grades 1-3 are released at 3:05 p.m.), we are unable to take advantage of the 3.5 hours that take place in the afternoon when my kids are still in school. So that means there are still only 2 hours during the week when we can swim. The …
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Albany Aquatic Center
Portland Ave & Pomona Ave, Albany, CA
/articles/column-albany-pool-offers-limited-hours-for-young-kids-of-ausd
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/locations/7002988
Here's our latest contest in our Readers' Choice series. Poll votes, reviews and comments below this piece will all factor into our selection, to be announced Friday. Click "Keep me posted" for an email update.
One of Solano Avenue's newest businesses, As You Wish Frozen Yogurt, has already made quite a splash on the avenue, sweeping the competition to win last week's contest in the category of "Favorite Outdoor Seating Spot." Congratulations, As You Wish! ** Here's our latest contest in our Readers' Choice series. Poll votes, stars and reviews, and comments below this piece all will factor in to our selection, to be announced Friday. Click "Keep me posted" below for an email update when we post Readers' Choice items in the future. (Miss the last winner, in the "favorite flower shop" category? Read about it here.) So tell us: Where's your favorite spot for dining, or drinking, al fresco? Click on the links to rate a business on its Directory …
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Click the "Keep me posted" button below for an alert about new items on this topic. See all the Gill Tract stories on Albany Patch at http://patch.com/bvbHo. This following post resulted from a conversation with Gopal Dayaneni today.
[Editor's Note: Gopal Dayaneni of Occupy the Farm shared these statements, during a phone conversation with us, just before 11 a.m. Albany Patch is heading into the meeting hosted by the university about the future of urban farming and research at the Gill Tract, and will provide more information afterward.] We are removing the encampments. We don't need the encampment to assert the right and responsibility to tend the crops. We don't need to camp here .... We're leaving all the things that are appropriate to farming. We've been discussing it over the last day or so. We made that decision this morning. We're now executing it. We're still doing our events today. We're creating access points. We're building a slide for kids to get in. We …
David
12:10 pm on Monday, May 21, 2012
Clarifications to #12 & #13 - For the project to proceed as proposed by UC, many things are still required, I don't know the order of what goes when: - City Council needs to certify the Environmental Impact Report and defend that decision in court if it is challenged, - Re-zoning the entire area for commercial, current zoning allows for 15,000 sf of retail, UC wants 85,000 sf of retail, - A PUD … more ›