Bay

Berkeley's alt-weekly dedicated its May 31 cover story to the chain ownership of local dailies, but acknowledged its own corporate ownership in an accompanying piece by John Raeside, who edited the paper for 24 years. (Raeside was also one of the weekly's owners before it was sold to New Times in 2001.) Looking at the "ongoing organizational narrative" of the Express, Raeside notes changes including the elimination of first-person journalism and the inclusion of "the greater East Bay into its editorial mix," but concludes that the paper "continues to rely on good writing and long-form journalism to tell this community's story." He also notes that Judith Moore, who recently passed away, was "in the first rank of the writers whose work has ever graced these pages."

In a May 24 East Bay Express article, Robert Gammon explored allegations of questionable behavior by Alameda County schools Superintendent Sheila Jordan. Two trustees of the Board of Education then notified Jordan by memo that they were concerned she might have misused county resources and would like to see relevant documents, the Web site InsideBayArea.com reports. The trustees told InsideBayArea that their inquiry "was prompted in part" by the East Bay Express article.

A Wednesday meeting of the Berkeley Police Review Commission was attended by protesters demanding an in-depth investigation into alleged misdeeds by Sgt. Cary Kent, according to the Berkeley Daily Planet. Kent was placed on administrative leave in January under suspicion of stealing drugs from police evidence, a fact that was made public in an April 5 East Bay Express article by Will Harper. Kent was first suspected because of poor hygiene and a tendency to fall asleep at his desk; a subsequent investigation of the drug vault showed "at least 181 evidence envelopes had been tampered with," Harper revealed. The Commission could not discuss the case at its Wednesday meeting because it was not on the agenda, although members of the public made statements during the comments period.