InBerkeley

Sam Kruger stands in front of loaves of fresh bread

When I went to get fresh bread today at the Bread Garden, I was greeted by some distressing news: the longtime owner of the bakery has posted a sign saying he may be moving his operation out of town.

David Morris has been running the Bread Garden on Domingo near Ashby for 33 years, and it is a beloved anchor in the small row of shops that face the Claremont Hotel. When he opened in 1976, the Bread Garden was the only bakery in a 2 mile radius. Since then, bakeries have sprouted all over, supermarkets stock fresh bread, and even Peet’s next door has started to carry its own pastries. The result is a continued dip in sales, and Morris only sees the trend getting worse.

Morris has set a sign on the bakery counter explaining his declining sales and asking for help in finding a new community in which to  relocate. The requirements? That it be a coastal community in California without a bakery.

The move is not definite. If sales pick up, he may not move. Morris is asking his customers to buy pastries at the Bread Garden rather than Peet’s and their bread there rather than the supermarket, he might not move. Morris has set a December deadline for deciding.

Since Berkeley is filled with delicious places to eat and buy food, it’s easy to take those places for granted. While I shop regularly at the Bread Garden – my family particularly loves the cinnamon swirl and 19th century baguettes – I have just assumed that it will always be there.

Now I am not so sure.

Business, Food

We have a mail list for the back channel at InBerkeley.com, and from time to time a question comes up that requires research. If the question is interesting, my first impulse is: Write It Up!

Now, this is the result of 12-plus years as a blogger. I know my community loves interesting questions, and we have an informal approach on Scripting News that I’d like to port to InBerkeley.com.

So, in that spirit — here’s a question posed by my colleague Mark Haas.

Do Berkeley’s infamous speed bumps, traffic diverters and other traffic-related policies, like politically-motivated, too-low speed limits raise the city’s carbon footprint?

We just need a qualified author. Anyone know any traffic engineers, or perhaps someone at the UC Berkeley Institute for Transportation Studies? Other experts?

General

I just came across a helpful guide to making your garden bee friendly published by scientists at the Center for Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. The work is led by professor Gordon Frankie, who has been studying bees for three decades. In addition to the astounding information that little Berkeley is home to 81 different species of bee, I didn’t know that most bees we see here are non-social:

Unlike honey bees, most native California bees are non-social in habit, meaning they make individual nests. Limited knowledge exists about where these bees nest in urban environments, however, three general nesting habits are known of solitary native bees: The most common is the ground nesting habit, and probably 85% or more of species build their nests in some type of soil.

Students at the university’s journalism school have created a multimedia site based on Frankie’s work with some helpful instructional videos.

Photo by Maggz from Flickr

Green, UC Berkeley

In  November 2006, 81% of Berkeley voters endorsed ballot Measure G, which established an aggressive Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction target for the community – 80% by 2050 – and directed the City of Berkeley to develop a plan for achieving that target. The result was the Climate Action Plan.

Now, Mayor Tom Bates has just published his first blog post about the plan on Gas 2.0, and how, in partnership with City CarShare and Berkeley-based 3Prong Power, the city recently unveiled the nation’s first converted plug-in hybrid electric municipal fleet vehicle (PHEV). Bates also makes it clear that in order for the ‘Race for Electric Vehicles’ to be successful, we must approach this plan from a regional level.

Although not without its detractors, Berkeley’s plan is generally considered a good start, and we look forward to seeing more blog posts by Mayor Bates as new programs and partnerships get considered.

General