What’s the Matter Here
There’s a saying in Journalism. One is an exception, Two is a coincidence, Three is a trend.
After the shooting death on Halloween of Iko, the Encinal High School student, spontaneous showings of compassion and community support broke out. Newspapers seem to love to talk about communities being “in shock,” and Alameda certain fit that to a tee. People showed up at a vigil in Washington Park lighting 1000 candles. We were one community.
But just like after 9/11, it wasn’t long before the tragedy was being used for political reasons that have nothing (and I mean not one tiny connection) to do with it.
When David Kirwin wrote, the day after the shooting:
Another murder in Alameda lends more credible evidence that violence and criminal behavior do accompany increasing density. All ye who sucked the kool-aid from the asshole of high density can try to tell the parents of our local student that the increasing crime & violence accompanying our increasing density did not kill their little girl; that instead it was a bullet that killed her at Washington Park’s play structure…I’ll say she was killed by the “big johnson of growth”…What a bunch of f’ing suck-ass uber-growth addicts!…Too blind, too stupid or too greedy to read the writing on the wall….When will you be satisfied that enough damage has been done to our community?
I was willing to write it off as delirium brought on by absolute shock. Completely inappropriate, but not worth the paper it wasn’t printed on.
Two weeks later (11/14), Don Roberts and Pat Bail were talking on the Don Roberts show about the case (praise for the cops) and then veered into discussion about measure A. Pat had this nugget to pass on during a discussion about measure A and why it should not be changed:
One of the reasons we have all of these Victorians broken up into multiple units is the result of WWII and the impact of the community growing like that and all of these little house in back of big houses and on and on. And do we really want to impact our community further into that degree. And I don’t think people want to. I think people want to live their life in a reasonable way. And I think they want to be able to let their children go to Washington Park and hang out and it be safe. And know that this community is able to handle what we have and that we can control…um…the amount of crime we have in town with the police force we already have in town…
Now. a number of people had placed bets on whether Pat and Don would venture into the “Iko’s death was caused by density” territory. I bet strongly that there was no way they’d be so tactless. I went with my gut that as cynical as I think they are, they couldn’t possibly delve into the depths that is using the senseless death of a beloved teenager to make a point about a city planning issue. I was wrong, and it creeps me out.
Again, I decided not to touch it, maybe it was a comment tat slipped out, poorly spoken, unintended….a coincidence.
But then, came yesterday’s (12/5) wonderful blog posting on the Alameda Daily News (in this season O. Henry, can we all just pause a second and enjoy the irony that is this website name). David Howard, who is busy running around town with his “third way” of development and pitching himself as a reasonable voice in the discussion around Alameda Point, writes in about yet another “report” from Action Alameda (more on this later). In the midst of the post, he drops this lovely tidbit:
Building too much housing at Alameda Point will place extraordinary demands on our City’s tax base, while shifting tax revenues out of the general fund and into the redevelopment agency. Already, “redevelopment” in Alameda has $1.2 billion worth of taxable properties under it’s control, and has amassed $285 million in debt, tens of millions of which can be attributed to the downtown parking garage. In the past three years alone, roughly $30 million dollars in tax payer money has been re-directed away from the general fund and basic city services, and into the redevelopment agency. Could some of that money have funded extra patrol officers in Washington Park on Halloween night, when the 15-year old girl was shot and killed? Possibly. And Alameda Point has barely started yet.
It’s possible that building the theater killed Iko! See! And if we move forward in developing Alameda Point, it’s possible that more children will have to die! We’ll leave aside that this comment assumes that the cops could have stopped this random act. We’ll ignore all the totally incorrect assumptions. Nobody is blaming this on the cops or on a lack of cops, except obviously, Action Alameda.
OR…they are using this tragedy to pound their drums against what they see is big bad redevelopment or why measure A is the greatest measure in the history of the world (“protecting your children from marauding teens since 1973!”). You decide.
This trend is incredible in it audacity and insensitivity. It besmirches the memory of Iko, who by all accounts was a happy, caring teen who was well-liked. There are times when connecting the dots between seemingly unconnected issues (like response to wildfires in California and the CA National Guard who are in Iraq). But when there are no dots to connect, it’s a cynical political ploy that the perpetrators should be embarrassed by.
Iko’s death should be a reminder of the fragility of life, the randomness of the human existence, and above all a tragedy first for her family, her friends and her immediate community and secondly a great loss to the community of Alameda. It shouldn’t be twisted to make spurious political points.
My heart goes out to Iko’s family. I know that many people in our community have stepped up to help Iko highlighting that the greater good is actually alive and well in our fair city.
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