Stop, Drop and Roll

19 February 2008 | Alameda Community Development Forum, Measure A | John Knox White

Your prayers have been answered. This Saturday, (February 23^rd, Kofman Auditorium) the long discussed, oft-complained about, seldom-understood forum on Measure A and the Housing Element is here.

It only took 2-3 years for it to happen, the last year of which was the actual planning of it. It jumped through the hoops of council appeals and council review.

{quick aside here: it was explained to me that the “call for review” that Councilmember deHaan made was separate and different than the “appeal” of the planning board actions. In the appeal, seven formerly elected (or wannabe formerly elected) individuals said “we don’t want to talk about measure a” and “the planning board can’t decide to have forums on measure a” and the council said unanimously: “Yes they can, and nobody’s forcing you to talk about measure, just don’t go.”

While under the council review, deHaan asked the council to review the decision to talk about measure a and plan a public forum about a major planning issue and then voted to say that it was a good idea with the majority. Apparently, my conflating the two actions was unfair, and I apologize.}

During the discussion about having a forum, there was a lot of talk about needing Alamedans on the panel, and not just any Alamedans, the “right” ones. Yet when it came down to it, the self-proclaimed “right” ones, turned it down, and then complained that there were no Alamedans on the panel, except the ones that are, but they don’t count. Apparently there’s an approval process for being an Alamedan, and a few of the panelists neglected to go through the process, which I believe involves grapefruit, a sponge and some sort of Celtic runes. (I wasn’t allowed to go through it, so maybe I’m just bitter).

Anyway, many digressions. On to The Forum. It’s a long one. The forces of good sense one out and insisted that a single, seven hour forum would make more sense than a couple of shorter ones. It starts at 9:00am and ends at 4:00pm.

However, you don’t have to go to the whole thing! There are four distinct parts, which will make attending it a breeze:

Part I – Introductions and History 9:00 – 10:30am

Part II – Measure A and Housing 10:30 – 12:00pm

Part III – Measure A and Transportation 1 – 2:30pm

Part IV – Open Forum 2:30 – 4:00pm

Part IV is a time for anyone to give their thoughts and opinions (but only those thoughts and opinions by previously approved Alamedans will count). If you don’t want to listen, you can write your comments down and send them to the Planning Board and skip the last 90 minutes. The other three sections are broken up into easily digestible 90 minute sections. Just show up and enjoy. I believe the format is panelists make introductions, then spend time talking about a set of questions that they have been given previously.

The panelists they have are excellent. There are only one or two “gimmes.” I would assume, that given the quality of the speakers, each of the panels will be informative, provacative and in the end, show that there are many issues, trade-offs if you will, surrounding Measure A and that reasonable people can discuss them and weigh them and hold complex opinions on them….wait a minute, I think I just figured out why I failed the Alameda Approval Process.

See you there.