Stop, Drop and Roll

16 May 2007 | Alameda City Council, Alameda Community Development Forum | John Knox White

Don’t get me wrong, last night was HUGE, and I mean in a good way!

The council put to rest the idea that they were fearful of public discussions about important planning and development issues. They more than approved, they encouraged the Planning Board to hold a forum on Measure A and not to limit it to discussion about the city’s housing element.
Good for them. It is about time. As of 2:15 am, the water is not lapping at my front door. The island’s not sinking.And bravo/brava for Alamedans! While the factual accuracy of some of the Keep Measure A supporters left a lot to be desired, the tone of the meeting was downright cordial, dare I say: “Civil.” There’s hope for us all.
With 37 public speakers, not including the appellants or planning board members, pro-discussion speakers outnumbered Measure-A-or-the-highway speakers 23 – 15. By the logic of one of last night’s speakers, that means everyone is for talking about amending Measure A. (Though I’m sure there’s an escape clause in this law of logic that says meeting turnout only works when people are speaking in support of measure a.)

As an admitted “discusser” myself, I have to say the council discussion got off on the right foot when the city attorney made it clear that the Planning Board (PB) had not overstepped its authority in the least in its actions. But the discussion took a turn into bizarro-world from there.

Once it was established that the PB had acted appropriately, council member Tam recommended adding 3 of the appellants to the subcommittee (that’s a number equal to the number of PB members already on the subcommittee). After council member deHaan announced he would vote to uphold the appeal because there was no time in the PB schedule to hold forums right now and he thought the council should hold discussions on the all-encompassing aspects of development in Alameda, the discussion quickly returned to adding appellants to the subcommittee (technically, we learned, once non-board members are added to the subcommittee it ceases to become a subcommittee and becomes an Ad Hoc committee).

Eventually, the council voted unanimously to deny the appeal and affirm the Planning Board decision, with the addition of 3 appellants. Even deHaan who had said he was going to vote to uphold the appeal, voted to deny.
So here’s the funky thing. The council was clear that they had faith in the PB members on the committee. However, because there were doubts raised by some people who professed to have “proof on tape” that these members wanted to get rid of measure a, thereby indicating a bias against measure a, the council chose to put three VERY biased people on the ad hoc committee. But what about other interested groups? The League of Women Voters who have a terrific history of facilitating discussions on community issues of interest? Or H.O.M.E.S., the counterpart to the appellants—even to the point of using actual facts when discussing their points of view! Like I said “Bizzaro-world.” (I just hope it is not a trend, I’d hate to see ExxonMobil executives sitting on the Climate Change task force, just because they filed a complaint and accused people of bias.)

In a perfect world, everyone will see this as an olive branch to say “look, we feel many viewpoints are important, and while we think that the original subcommittee would create a perfectly great meeting structure, we’re showing you our commitment to public dialogue by including your specific voices.” However, I’ve already started the clock ticking down to when we hear about how “the planning board was so out of control, the city council had to appoint “citizens of Alameda” to their subcommittee, just to keep it fair!” (Someday, somebody will explain to me how it is that appointment to a board or commission leads to the revocation of ones citizenship. Until they do, I’ll just have to accept it, because I keep hearing it, so it must be true.)