CHARLIE KNOX, Benicia’s former director of Community Development, a position that became unfunded prior to the adoption of the new city budget, has joined the Planning Center’s Berkeley office as a principal in comprehensive planning.

Knox has more than 25 years of planning experience in both the public and private sector. In Benicia, he was involved in the development of the city’s Climate Action Plan and the construction of the municipal photovoltaic array project.

He has been a consultant in San Luis Obispo and other Bay Area cities, and has been the planning director for San Miguel County in Colorado.

The Planning Center is an award-winning comprehensive planning firm that provides services in transportation, form-based zoning code, urban design, site planning, open space design, environmental regulation and compliance issues and other areas for cities and other governmental agencies, school districts, corporations, nonprofit organizations and developers throughout the state.

BOTTG to be recognized for golden anniversary

Benicia Old Town Theatre Group will be recognized Sept. 8 at the Solano County Arty Awards for its 50 years of producing volunteer-based community theater in the B.D.E.S. Hall, 140 West J St., publicist Dyanne Vojvoda said.

She called BOTTG “a training ground for aspiring performers and theater artisans,” and said since its founding in 1964 BOTTG has produced more than 100 shows, “an innovative mix of comedies, dramas and musicals.”

“Onstage success can often be judged by backstage support, and we at the BOTTG consider ourselves blessed by the numerous volunteers who have made our journey possible over these many wonderful years,” Vojvoda said.

Ice cream company’s app download helps honey bees

An ice cream company’s two-minute timer is helping honey bees at the University of California-Davis.

Häagen-Dazs has a free concerto timer app customers can download on iPhones or iPads; they point the device at the lid of the brand’s ice cream and listen to a two-minute concerto until the ice cream is softened, or “tempered.”

Two minutes is perfect for allowing the ice cream to soften, ice cream specialists at the company said. The application uses Bach Inventions No. 14, performed by a violinist and cellist, to help consumers time the tempering, or softening, of ice cream, gelato, sorbet and frozen yogurt.

“Unlike other augmented reality apps, the Concerto Timer app integrates detailed 3D Kinect and video data,” Cady Behles, brand manager, said.

For every download of the concerto timer, Häagen-Dazs will donate $5 toward UC-Davis bee research, up to $75,000.

The company said it is supporting the Davis research because about 50 percent of Haagen-Dazs flavors depend on honey bees, and because the two have had a long partnership.

Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is a half-acre garden planted in 2009 next to UC-Davis’s Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, and funded Haagen-Dazs postdoctoral Fellow Michelle Flenniken, an insect virus researcher who now is research assistant professor at the Montana State University Department of Plant Sciences.

The Benicia Herald’s weekly Benicia Business Beat column is an opportunity for local businesses and companies to tell our readers about such news as moves, grand openings, awards, promotion of employees, staff changes and changes in goods and services.

The Benicia Herald also appreciates area companies’ advertising patronage. For advertising services, call 707-745-0733 or email adsbenicia@yahoo.com.

—Donna Beth Weilenman

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