News

The “Mothball Fleet” is in the news, and on a government agency agenda, once again.

The San Francisco Bay Region of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board will have an opportunity Feb. 10 to discuss the lawsuit between Arc Ecology and the U.S. Maritime Administration about maintaining the Reserve Fleet in Suisun Bay.

The suit is one of several items the board has put on the closed session portion of its agenda.more...

Edge of Darkness is a gritty noir thriller that marks Mel Gibson’s return as a leading man for the first time in six years.  Regardless of whether you’ve forgiven him for his drunken anti-Semitic rant or not the million-dollar question is: does he still have the chops to lead a film? Yes he does. Gibson’s return is a dark one, as he plays Boston police Detective Thomas Craven investigating the murder of his daughter (Bojana Novakovic). It’s supposed that Craven was the intended target.  Craven doesn’t buy it and begins to investigate.more...

Good Stuff Guitar, a music store on Main Street, has won Blues Music Store of the Year by the Bay Area Blues Society (BABS) and the City of Oakland.

Proprietor Danny White said this week he plans to attend the BABS West Coast Blues Hall of Fame and Awards show at the end of March to pick up his award.

“I had nothing to do with it, I was just notified I had won,” White said. “I guess it’s because I do a lot in the blues community, my customers nominated me.”more...

The leashed German Shepherd was lying peacefully on the ground as his owner chatted with an acquaintance in front of Starbucks, said an eyewitness, when an elderly pedestrian passed closely behind the owner, briefly brushing against him as she made her way into the cross walk at Main and Estudillo Streets.

The woman was carrying a KQED tote bag, and the handle was around her wrist, described the eyewitness. Suddenly the dog sprang up and chomped down on the bag, pulling the 72-year-old woman down on the ground in the middle of the crosswalk.more...

Tonight’s meeting of the Park, Recreation, Marina and Cultural Commission (PRMCC) will focus mainly on the ongoing Measure H projects, as well as a few issues surrounding Hidden Lakes Park. At the top of the agenda, however, is a scheduled presentation regarding a possible sports complex at the Zocchi property.

Since 2008, after the City bought the 6.7-acre parcel of land located across the train tracks from the Intermodal Amtrak station, several suggestions have been aired at City Council meetings for the property’s temporary and long-term use. more...

Gail Uilkema, Martinez’ representative to the County Board of Supervisors, said yesterday her office was inundated over the past two weeks with opposition missives to a recent bid to change the name of Mt. Diablo.

Renewing his failed 2005 bid to change the mountain’s name because Mt. Diablo is “profane and derogatory,” Oakley resident Arthur Mijares petitioned the Board of Supervisors and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names this month to consider renaming the mountain, and among his suggestions for a new name is Mt. Reagan, after the late U.S. president.more...

Many films are imaginative, but few dive in head first with gusto. Luckily for us the ever-eccentric style of director Terry Gilliam comes out in force in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Gilliam loads this morality tale with his quirky and impish flare. It’s a feast for both the eyes and the mind as Gilliam takes you to places you didn’t know you’d imagine. It’s an odd, soulfully fantastical journey with plenty of humor and delightful devilry. It’s Gilliam’s imagination unchained and it truly is one of the most unique films I’ve seen in a good while. more...

The steel railroad bridge crossing high above Alhambra Avenue is known to local train buffs as both the Muir Trestle and Alhambra Trestle. Owned and operated by BNSF Railway (formally known as the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation), the trestle has long been a recognizable Martinez landmark, and lately a conversation has resurfaced among local denizens about the trestle’s appearance.

Splotched with large patches of rust in between its fading gray paint, the structure is in need of a face-lift. more...

THURSDAY — Martinez residents who habitually tune into the public radio station KQED have been scratching their heads over the past week. Instead of finding the News Hour or All Things Considered at 88.1 on the FM dial, programs such as Walk with the King and Searching the Scriptures, sermons from Sacramento’s KEAR, “A Worldwide Christian Ministry,” emanated from their radios instead.more...