The suspicious package (on the left) in North Berkeley has been rendered safe. Photo: Devin Taylor-McDonald
A suspicious package with radiation symbols on it brought out the bomb squad in North Berkeley on July 22 2015. Photo: Devin Taylor-McDonald
A suspicious package with radiation symbols on it brought out the bomb squad in North Berkeley on July 22 2015. Photo: Devin Taylor-McDonald

Conventional wisdom has it that summer is a slow news time.

Not so in Berkeley!

It’s been one thing after another this month — and Berkeleyside has kept delivering you the news, usually before anyone else, and often exclusively.

We need your help to continue to write these important local stories. (If you already support us, we salute you!)

A $10 monthly contribution comes out to just 33 cents a day! Is Berkeleyside worth 33 cents a day to you?

Here are just a handful of the more than 40 stories we reported in the past two weeks:

– Protesters get naked to save trees (you can imagine what that did to our readership numbers!)
– The sudden closure of the municipal pier (we broke the news, and also published a lovely photographic ‘ode’ to it)
– The equally abrupt shuttering of Pyramid Alehouse
– The continuing saga of book weeding at the Berkeley Public Library
– The shuffles at City Hall as a new city manager takes over
– The suspicious package investigated by the bomb squad that brought one neighborhood to a standstill
– A magnitude-4.0 quake in the wee hours of the night
– The manhunt for a ‘silver-toothed robber‘ who evaded police
– A tragic suicide at Tilden Little Farm
– An exclusive look at the latest housing project planned on Adeline Street
– The blooming of Trudy, the foul-smelling ‘corpse flower’
– A gorgeous piece on local letterpress legend David Lance Goines

How much of this might you have missed if it wasn’t for Berkeleyside?

Who else brings you this blend of daily breaking stories in your community, along with deep analysis of the institutions that underpin it, and feature stories to boot? Who else can you email, tweet, Facebook message or call when you have a pressing question about neighborhood issues and don’t want to wade through the city bureaucracy for an answer? (We know many people rely on us as we just blew past 20,000 followers on Twitter and 9,000 on Facebook!)

What’s more, everything Berkeleyside brings you is FREE.

Our tiny operation needs to sustain itself, however, which is why we are asking you to support Berkeleyside now with a monthly payment or a one-time contribution, if you don’t already.

Visit our Support page now to help Berkeleyside keep producing the news that matters to you and your community.

Thank you very much in advance!

Berkeleyside is Berkeley, California’s independently-owned local news site. Learn more about the Berkeleyside team. Questions? Email editors@berkeleyside.org.