• using water for decorative ponds, lakes and fountains except those that recycle the water
• washing vehicles with hoses that do not contain shutoff nozzles
• washing sidewalks, patios and similar hard surfaces
• irrigating outdoors on consecutive days or more than three days a week (EBMUD recommends watering in the evening or before dawn)
• lawn or garden watering that results in excessive runoff
• sewer and hydrant flushing and washing streets with potable (drinking)water supplied by EBMUD except for essential purposes
• the use of potable water for construction if alternatives are available
• the use of potable water for soil compaction and dust control when another source is available

And coming in two weeks (July 8^th), the EBMUD Board will be voting on pricing to help encourage the better use of water. The proposed pricing, raises all water rates by 10%. It also sets a goal of reducing water usage by 10% compared to the three-year average of each individual household. Failure to meet this 10% reduction will result in a $2 per unit (a unit is 748 gallons) penalty.

Does that strike you as fair? No matter what past usage is, you’ll be penalized if you don’t reduce your household’s water usage by 10%? This isn’t a personal problem, sd&r’s household recently made some decisions that has significantly reduced our water use, but it was only about 18 months ago, and therefore our three year average is high enough that we’d have to start leaving a sprinkler running all night to be penalized. So this isn’t a rant about my not wanting to pay a penalty.

According to the SF Chronicle, residences West of the hills in EBMUD’s district use 221 gallons of water per day while residences East of the hills use 500. It’s unclear these numbers include multifamily units which use a lot less water per unit because of the shared common spaces, (I’m not arguing for/against multifamily, just pointing out a lack of clarity in the numbers). Don’t these numbers seem to jump out at you? East of the Hills, households use nearly 2.5 times as much water. Which means that those households who use a lot more water will be able to avoid penalties much easier than households that are currently saving water.

There are still numbers to be crunched, but I’m still wondering why the pricing is set up to actually favor households that have wasted water for the last three years, and penalize households who have kept their usage under the average for their area? Yes, households that use less than 100 gallons of water a day will see no increase in rates (this is encouraging.

A household that hosed down their sidewalk everyday and ran their sprinklers on their lawn every day will be able to cut down on their usage easily (while maintaining their lawn, etc) in order to avoid the penalty. A household that installed a drought resistant garden and was mindful of their water usage will have to actually effect real change in their lifestyle in order to avoid these prices.

One argument in support of the EBMUD proposal is that the penalties are small and therefore not meaningful to these low-water households. But then what’s the point? And why even send out the message that past performance and decision-making counts for nothing when push comes to shove (Ant and the Grasshopper anyone?).

The argument, made by some board members, against treating all households the same is that households come in all shapes and sizes, therefore it wouldn’t be fair to compare a single person household to one with eight people. And yet, the exemption for 100 gallon a day households does just that, sets an arbitrary number and exempts any households that meet it. I’m unclear who this is fair in one instance, but not in another.

There are many viewpoints to be heard around this issue, which could become a West vs. East issue, there are two weeks left to have the discussion.           

Let your voice be heard, you can use EBMUD.Directors@gmail.com to contact all of the directors or visit EBMUD.com and send emails to each director individually. Doug Linney is the elected Director for Alameda. (DLinney@ebmud.com)

only outlaws will be children? (no wait, that didn’t work). All I can say is “Wow!” or is that “WTF?” I get my emphatic three-letter “W” words mixed up.

The council must have been in quite a hurry to get to the budget last night because that’s the only excuse I can come up for how the council could got into a discussion on banning skateboarding in a parking garage (not a terrible idea) and vote unanimously to ban bkes, skateboards, scooters and ALL muscular powered vehicles [edited due to non-clarity as to the inclusion of scooters and the exact wording regarding muscular powered vehicles. While the council discussion included discussions of scooters, it is possible that scooters may fall under the category of “toys” and not be included in this change. As mentioned below in the comments, it appears that trikes will not be banned by this change] from all city parks unless the city puts up signs saying it’s “permitted.”

That’s right, every child under the age of 12 are slated to become criminals as soon as they enter Alameda’s parks on their trikes, scooters, skateboards, etc. People can no longer ride bikes slowly through the park on the way to the playground. Kids and adults interested in using any form of skateboard or scooter should stick to the city sidewalks. Period.

When my son heard this, he got out of bed to tell me that he thought it was ridiculous (I think I was ranting on the phone!). It’s so cute when the lowercase sd+r’s get worked up about city policy!

The council actually discussed this without a single dissenting word. Not one person said, “Are we sure that banning bikes and scooters from the parks is a good idea?” The City Attorney made a small attempt to point out the lack of necessity in making this change based on the fact that the current ordinance has been problem free for ages, but no one was going to hear her.

The mayor, a newbie bicyclist, actually said she feels that people should expect that the norm is that biking and skateboarding and scootering are not allowed in public spaces. And that the city should have to go out of their way to grant approval for these activities.

Not once did anyone justify this needed ban. No one talked about complaints about bikes in the parks, or skateboards, or scooters. Just “hey let’s ban ‘em!” met with a resounding “hell yeah!” with possibly a “yeehaw!” tossed in for good measure.

Apparently, there’s a HUGE concern about the number of signs it’s going to take to ban scootering in the city’s parks, even though until today, it was perfectly legal to do ride them in the parks. This was discussed! They actually talked about how putting up all these signs banning bikes and skateboards and scooters would create a visual mess. So let’s just ban it outright and put up a few “scooters “ok”” signs in select parks.

Not that this wasn’t draconian enough, but the Mayor also asked city staff to see if the park’s department staff (meaning the teens and on-site staff who work in the parks) could be deputized to actually write tickets to offending people. Because the police aren’t going to have the time to give out all the tickets that are going to need to be handed out once this law goes into effect. You’re not dreaming and I’m not kidding.

Not too sound like a grouchy bike advocate, but I can’t ignore the sheer irony at the fact that both Rittler, Leydecker and Lincoln parks allow people to drive their cars in them so that people can avoid shlepping things an extra 50-70 feet, but by golly, we’ve got to stop people biking. They might annoy someone!

And if that weren’t enough, what’s with bringing forward an issue about skateboards in the parking garage and turning around and tacking on a bunch of prohibitions that weren’t mentioned in the staff report? I don’t want to suggest that this may have violated the Brown Act, but it’s definitely dancing along a thin line. I don’t believe that anyone came to the meeting with the intention of making these changes, I think they were spur of the moment and that’s why they should have been brought back to another meeting. (For goodness sake, the staff report specifically said that the police can ticket skateboarders in the garage for loitering and tresspassing. There was no rush needed.)

My memory is that changes to the city’s Municipal Code need to go through a second reading before becoming adopted. But at this point, I wouldn’t bet money on what my memory tells me. (please, someone who knows something, correct me!)

In the spirit of children’s entertainment, I’ll suggest the council call for a “do over” and bring this back whether a second reading is called for or not.

Like I said, I’m going to chalk this one up to “bigger things on their mind” and hope they see the light of reason quickly and bring back language that addresses the actual concerns that they want to address. Those concerns are reckless riding (just like reckless driving). A family riding through Washington Park to get to the playground should be (and currently is) able to slowly cruise the wide paths to the playground. The issue is a few people riding like idiots and making like uncomfortable for walkers and families, so write the code to reflect that. If there are parks that need to ban skateboarding and biking all together, then make that decision in a public meeting.

This is another recent example of rushing an issue that involves bicycling/alternative modes and coming up with a bad product unnecessarily. These issues need to slow down and be discussed. Family friendly towns don’t start banning skateboarding, scootering and biking in parks without public input.

Write the council at: alamedacitycouncil@gmail.com

[Updated: June 22 to clarify and correct the post on the position of trikes and scooters (as noted in the comments section]

No person shall play baseball, football, hockey or tennis upon any street, lane or alley in the City or upon any vacant lot or premises having an area of less than one hundred (100’) feet in length and one hundred (100’) feet in width.

Basketball, Frisbee, Rugby, Jai Alai, heck even curling are allowed in the street, but think about throwing the pig skin around, or hitting a tennis ball back and forth and your breaking the law (actually, you’re thinking about breaking the law).

This isn’t some uptight HOA “no basketball hoops” rule, it’s the city’s municipal code. And one can only imagine whose car got dinged by a football to make the city feel the need to enact this rule. But a glimpse into how these things come into being will be seen tomorrow night at the city council meeting on the consent calendar (Item 4-I). Read the whole item.

The item is about a request to expand the municipal code to allow the PD to issue tickets to kids riding skateboards in the parking garage, something they can already do by citing them for loitering and or trespassing. From the staff report:

While the Police Department could cite many of these juveniles for loitering or trespassing upon City property, there is no Alameda Municipal Code section that allows the department to enforce riding of skateboards and other coaster devices within the parking garage or on any municipal owned or leased property, buildings or structures.

So there are a couple of questions that should probably be discussed (they are not raised in the staff report) and they are:

1) What is being gained by adding this new language to the AMC?

The staff report specifically says that these scofflaws (aka teenagers) can already be charged. Why the need to more specifically regulate this behavior? It appears that the issue is not skateboarding but improper use of the parking garage. Does adding this to the AMC mean that all of a sudden teens will know that they are not suppose to do it? No.

2) Are these provisions getting too broad?

So let’s dovetail this with one of my big pet peeves about the Cineplex/Parking Garage projects. Bike Parking. The AMC currently says:

It shall be unlawful when and where posted for any person to operate or ride a bicycle, or skateboard, propelled wholly or in part by muscular power within or upon any public park, playground, or school property in the City or parking lot, parking structure owned or leased by the City. [proposed addition in bold italics]

The proposed change is so broad that it will now be possible to criminalize bicyclists riding to the bike parking in the new garage which (in a really bad decision) was placed at the far end of the bottom ramp of the garage. They won’t be able to ride to the bike racks located behind Tucker’s Ice Cream in the municipal lot across from the Theater either. This goes well beyond the staff reports stated concern of skateboarding in the garage.

3) Do we have the police staffing to be spending on increased enforcement of this issue?

Before the Cineplex opened, an issue came to the council regarding the removal of parking in front of the theater and the need to create a non-traffic lane for traffic to drive in. In response to concerns raised by myself and others regarding safety issues that would be created by this arrangement, APD promised to aggressively enforce laws such as not using the bike lanes to pull around cars turning left onto Oak and not allowing drop offs at the theater to block the bike lanes.

To date, I have yet to see one person ticketed for any of these actions in this area, not even a friendly “keep it moving” when officers were out in front. But I have witnessed both of these behaviors numerous times (and I’m not just hanging out to see if it happens, so it must be happening frequently). If the city isn’t able to enforce issues that the council was told would be aggressively enforced, do we need to be adding to the long list of “don’t”s in the city Municipal Code?

Yes the APD is receiving numerous complaints about “juveniles in the Civic Center Parking Structure,” but do we need more regulation on this issue? And I can’t figure out why the number of calls received for this issue go back 7 weeks before the theater opened (and the garage began to get used). There were a ton of kids skateboarding back when the garage opened, but I haven’t seen them much lately. Is it possible that this has died down now that people are parking in the garage?

There are plenty of vehicle infractions on the books that occur nearly every minute in the Park Street area, just sit at Park and Central for a few minutes, and we are not pursuing these. Why the need to add this new crime?

The only reason that we should be looking at this is if there is some large liability issue that arises if the AMC doesn’t contain this language. And if this is the case, the staff report needs to be much clearer about the need and intent.

We’ve already outlawed the time-honored (and loved) activities of football and stickball on our neighborhood streets (and small vacant lots! Cause by golly, those lots should just be vacant). If the city needs to increase the language about skateboarding in the parking structure, then write a new item in the municipal code that is specific to the parking garage and be done with it.

As written, this proposal has the potential to do more harm than good.

On a related note, the Bicycle Master Plan update will be reviewed tonight at City Hall Rm. 360 at 7pm).

• It’s amazing how the meetings that are covering most important issues in town tend to be the least well attended and this workshop was no exception (quick, amusing aside: at the city’s first budget workshop, the sole member of the public at the meeting fell asleep and literally began snoring loudly from the front row.)
• There were four members of the public, three city staffers and 2 council subcommittee members in attendance.
• The charter amendment process is threefold:
  • A proposal to make small clean up changes (changing the His/Him’s to more gender neutral language, consistency, etc.)
  • A proposal for “substantive” changes, which are really not all that substantive and include adding language to include language requiring the City Auditor be a CPA and the City Treasurer a Chartered Financial Ananlyst or a Certified Financial Planner Certified Financial Advisor. These are clearly more than just clean up language, but they are not going to blow the lid off of things. (I was tempted to suggest that the language also require that future people elected to these positions be either named Kevin, or willing to be called Kevin—the current representatives of these spots are known as the two Kevins (Kearney and Kennedy)).

The one really substantive discussion is around whether to allow the city manager, in an emergency situation, to issue a no-bid contract in an amount over $75,000 in order to move quickly on an issue of an extreme time-sensitive nature. (Currently, an emergency meeting of the council must be called and a vote of four members attained). There are two proposals on this issue: One would allow the city manager to just issue the contract. The second would allow him/her to do so, but the contract would not be valid until it was ratified by the council at a later meeting.

It’s an interesting discussion, and really swings around the idea of a “once every ten years” type situation. I’ll say that the discussion at the workshop changed my mind from “yeah, it would make sense to give that limited authority to the City Manager” to “Since this is so rare, the language should support it remaining a rare occurrence.” Mission creep seems to be one of the unwritten rules of power, and while I’m sure the current office holders would never abuse the increase in power, one could see the definition of “emergency” broadening over the years as the people in the city manager position change.

• • Lastly, there are the “things we’ll discuss next year” items, which include all the major issue that have been discussed, like whether the council should ge given the authority to hire/fire department heads, should the councilmembers be paid more, etc.

The items that were highlighted as being held for discussion really all fall into one category (except maybe the proposed board appointment changes), they all start questioning/changing/affecting the very nature of the current form of city government that Alameda has: City Council/City Manager. This is going to be really interesting discussion as I think there’s a lot of confusion as to how our current City Administrative structure works (actually, I’d say that I “know” that there’s a lot of confusion).

• Councilmembers Gilmore and Tam did a great job of discussing the issues and why the suggested changes were being looked at.
• It’s unfortunate that more people weren’t at this (or other) meetings on the topic.
• This will be heading to the ballot (most likely) in November. Now’s the time to give input on the suggestions, add new ones, etc.
• I think now would be a good time to look at which boards/commissions are in the charter and which are not and ask ourselves “why” on each one. Why would (or wouldn’t) we want to have to get voter approval to disband Board X (or Commission X). It seems to be a mish-mash, and no one seems to know why some of the Boards that are in the charter are in there. I don’t have a feeling one way or another, but it would seem that this is the time to look at it.

Have a great weekend, happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.

[Updated: 9:54am for accuracy]

On Wednesday, the ARRA (city council sitting as a redevelopment agency) heard a report on a bill moving through congress sponsored by Duncan Hunter. Now I’m not a big fan of Hunter’s, but the city has a lobbyist working on issues surrounding the Alameda Point transfer. (paid for by SunCal who is required by contract to expend money on the project each quarter at the city’s behest.)

The issue is this, the current deal that has been negotiated with the Navy was done by a consortium of single family home builders, it was written by the developers to meet their direct needs, specifically that none of the residences that they build would be anything besides SFH. (Take a look at the PDC, they have put SFHs on every available plot of land that they could). As a part of this deal, the city, via the developer, is on the hook for $108 million for the Alameda Point land (if they build all ~1700 houses in the PDC) AND then $75,000 per unit for each unit over that.

On top of that they city is requiring 25% of the housing to be subisdized, which adds further costs to each market rate house. The combination of these two factors (but mainly the $75K) makes the building of any additional housing units highly unfeasible.

Which brings us to Duncan Hunter’s bill, which includes language that would set up a three-tiered agreement for the transfer of Alameda Point:

1. SunCal and the US Navy would have until mid-2009 to renegotiate a new agreement for the Point.
2. If no agreement is reached, the Navy will accept $10 million PLUS 12% of any net profits from the development that is created.
3. In the instance that neither #1 or #2 is attainable, then the US Navy will give the land to the City to auction off and the City and the Navy will share in the proceeds (City 20%/Navy 80%) and the city will have some decision power in who is chosen.

This is a necessary process to redefine for the city, because right now, the Alameda Point agreement is one that was written for another time, to benefit a different company (one of the problems of past council’s abdicating its proactive oversight of the process and allowing the developer to drive the process towards its own specific needs in order to avoid dealing with contentious issues like Measure A, but that’s another story entirely).

The current (and most likely only possible) master developer has said that the city’s PDC is unbuildable. And so, this proposal will allow the city and the developer the flexibility of building a more community driven (and yes possibly more “new” developer driven) plan. It gives flexibility where it’s needed. It allows SunCal to walk away and not leave the city wondering where the process is headed. It’s a big development for Alameda, and appears to be a very positive one.

It will be interesting to see if our Congressional Delegation will support this as it’s offered by Rep. Hunter who is not exactly aligned with Stark, Boxer and Feinstein.

On a completely unrelated note: Huge props to fellow Alamedans.com bloggers Michele Ellson and Eve Pearlman for their solid, fact-based, coverage of the unfolding Measure H ballot count. Their professional work over the last few days has been a joy to follow and has kept many of us informed as to what is happening at the Registrar of Voters. Their work shows the power of blogs to provide important information on critical issues. Information that has not been available, in a reliable fashion, in the past.

The good news is that Prop 98 failed and Obama was able to claim the Democratic nomination. The bad, clearly, that Measure H failed by 115 votes and Wilma Chan lost. There will be time to look at this another time.

Tonight, the ARRA (Alameda Reuse and Redevelopment Association), aka City Council—yet another public body that supposedly nobody votes for but looks exactly like our city council—will be discussing major changes to the Exclusive Negotiating Agreement between the city and SunCal.

SunCal has an agreement with a new financial partner, D.E. Shaw, and is interesed in setting up a new development entity as a partnership with them. Under the terms of the existing deal, the city has the right to approve any partners and partnerships. What’s interesting is that the existing deal also give SunCal the right to keep this deal confidential and only share it with the city’s economic consultant, Economic & Planning Systems (EPS), which they have done. So the ARRA will be discussing provisions that must be in place withing this new entity, and EPS will make sure that they are while the city and SunCal work out the deal.

Essentially, the city is insisting that:

1. SunCal retain responsibility of day-to-day management of the entity.
2. SunCal maintain a 15% equity share in the relationship.
3. SunCal cannot be removed from the new entity, except for cause like default on the ENA.
4. An initial $10 million be given to the new entity to fund all of its obligations.
5. SunCal retains decision making authority (except for major decisions).
6. Protect the new entity from going into default based on othe business agreements the two partners have in other projects.

EPS has reviewed the proposed agreement and has found that the term sheet does not meet the following two provisions: requirement of an equity share (B), putting forth a minimum financial commitment (D).

What this means to Alameda?

As long as SunCal and DE Shaw can come to terms of agreement on items B & D, the city will most likely approve the new partnership and this new entity will have the financing to move the Alameda Point project forward. SunCal’s business model has always been to set up each development as a separate entity with separate financing, and so the financial problems it is facing on projects in Bakersfield and Albuquerque, are much more muted than they would be if they were self financing and their stock started tumbling.

Word is that given its location, Alameda Point has a high level of interest both within SunCal and within the financial markets. It’s not some far flung slumburb that taking a major hit in the real estate turmoil. If the city and SunCal can come to terms on these items, it would seem that the project will begin moving ahead this summer with public meetings before Labor Day.

Tomorrow: developments at the national level? 

Big week in Alameda. Voting today (anyone want to make predictions on Measure H? I pessimistically thinking misses passing by 250 votes. But only if people who support it don’t go out and vote today. No matter what happens, KASE has run a really good campaign, it won’t be a reflection on their work. Thanks to all the KASE volunteers for their hard work).

Tonight, the CIC/City Council—you know, the city’s redevelopment agency that nobody votes for, but somehow looks exactly like the city council we do vote for, genetic sciences appear to have come a long way—the Council will vote on amending the Alameda Landing agreement with Palmtree Acquisition Corp (PAC), aka Catellus. The impetus for the change is that the city has figured out a way to get the Peralta College District to swap land the city needs to build the Willie Stargell Avenue of their dreams.

The College has not been interested in selling the land outright, but they are interested in acquiring some land that’s now available in Marina Village and the City has agreed to help make the swap happen (as in get PAC/Catellus to buy the land and then they swap it for the college land needed for Stargell).

As luck (or fate, or whatever) would have it, this is happening years earlier than anyone had planned, and PAC/Catellus is not really wanting to spend the money. Their project is, if not in a tailspin, is at least losing traction and fishtailing all over (just to mix metaphors for a second), and PAC/Catellus is not interested in expending money on a project that has the possibility of going South on them. The project is moving forward in spirit and Catellus is working to keep Clif Bar a part of the project.

Catellus is responsible for making the Stargell Ave project work, but doesn’t want ot take the risk at such an uncertain time. Therefore the agreement that is coming forth tonight changes the schedule for purchasing the land for the Stargell project, which shouldn’t, but good, cost the city any additional money (there are interest payments that the city could have to pay if things go South). In return, PAC/Catellus is asking for a three year extension on the project in order to give them time to complete the project (a likely indication of how this project is moving forward).

This amendment will have the effect of pushing the project completion date out to 2025. (At which time everyone reading this blog will be bemoaning the fact that they should be collectiong their Social Security benefits and wondering why we didn’t just listen to President Bush way back in 2007—Ok, none of that’s really going to happen, most of us  won’t have qualified yet, we’ll have another 10 years before we are unable to collect our social security).

The Alameda Landing project doesn’t move forward very far without the Stargell component, so now is the time if the city wants to move forward. After having fix the big water leak out in the project area, and paying to remove the MV Faithful at city expense, the question will be is the City Council/CIC in the mood to extend the project or do they feel that they are giving and giving and giving in their attempts to keep this project moving. In the end, the council probably has to grant the extension to the contract, it’s not as if the current schedule is holding anyone to anything and the Stargell/Marina Village land swap gets both the college and the city something that they are interested in.

Tomorrow, big things rolling at Alameda Point. 

The Senate race between Hancock and Chan has been odd to say the least. And not that strange, State Senator Don Perata has been at the center of it! For about two months, both Hancock and Chan listed Perata as an endorser. Each campaign claimed to have his endorsement (and the endoresments of Mayor Beverly Johnson and School Board Member Tracey Jensen…Jensen’s endorsement of Chan appeared to be from an earlier election, but Chan’s campaign claimed to have confirmed Johnson’s support and calls to the Mayor from BAPolitix and other East Bay political reporters went unreturned.) About two weeks ago, letters were sent to Chan from Johnson and Oakland School Boardmember Alice Spearman renouncing their endorsements (more on that at the now defunct BAPolitix).

Word is that Spearman almost immediately disavowed the letter and backed her endorsement of Chan claiming that she had not sent the letter. Johnson, according to this report, acknowledged her letter.

So it’s all cleared up…right?

Except that Perata sent a letter out on Wednesday endorsing Chan. And Alameda City Councilmember Lena Tam spoke with him personally in confirming his intent. The letter, sent to Oakland voters said “I want to set the record straight” (the rest of the letter is below). Since dual endorsements aren’t unusual, apparently he was just clarifying his position….until yesterday when I got a robo-call from Don Perata who wanted to “set the record straight” that he was endorsing Hancock.

Something funky is afoot.

The unfortunate thing is that in the end whether Chan or Hancock are elected, we’ll end up with a solid legislator in the Senate represeting our District. Given Chan’s overwhelmingly more successful tenure in the Assembly (Chan pased over 4 times as many bills as Hancock did, not to mention Chan was elected Assembly Majority Leader), I have to think that Chan will be the stronger leader.

On Measure H, I support it wholeheartedly. The schools will be providing less services next year if it doesn’t pass. I’ll let other’s bicker about ADA vs. COLA, the fact of the matter is that costs go up every year and if the schools budget doesn’t adjust, LESS is the result. We’ve had enough “Less” for $120 a year, Alameda property residential owners should support this, as a four year tax, I would hope that a large majority of commercial property owners will support it as well, yes some will be hit harder than others. But I hear that one Park Street landowner will be hit with $25,000 a year and is supporting it. I haven’t been able to personally confirm it, so I’ll leave his name out of it at this point.

Democrats will be voting on the County Council, I’m still doing my homework here, but Jim Oddie, co-president of the Alameda Democratic Club deserves our support for the great work he’s done. (Perhaps members can write in with other suggestions?).

For Judge, I’ve only ever heard good things about Dennis Hiyashi and will be supporting him as well.

The big State Propositions (98 & 99) are difficult. 98 is a sop to big property owners and is so broadly written as to create a lot of potential (intended but hidden) problems down the road. Prop 99 is a poison pill. It addresses a problem that doesn’t exist in California. (Private residences being taken by eminent domain and given to private developers).

It is such an emotional issue that it was placed on the ballot in the hopes it would pass and therefore remove this specific issue from the political weaponry of those trying to block all land-use planning (including issues like Measure A).

I don’t like voting for unnecessary laws, it’s a bit ridiculous and they tend to have unintended consequences, but in this case I’m holding my nose and voting politically. If we can remove this issue by taking it off the table, we can move on to more important things that having to fend of Prop 98’s year after year.

So ignoring the single candidate races here’s the brief rundown:

State Senate: Wilma Chan

County Committee (Democrats only): James H. Oddie

Superior Court Judge: Dennis Hiyashi

County Board of Education: no recommendation….yet

Prop 98: NO

Prop 99: Yes (could go either way)

Measure F: Yes

Measure H: Yes

A friend of mine does a great job writing up California Elections, I highly recommend checking out his site: http://caelections.blogspot.com/

Vote early!

Perata’s Endorsement of Chan:

I would imaging that it must be difficult to have been so passionate and so convinced of all the terrible things that were going to happen only to find that the thing opens and people, including some major critics, come out gushing over the project. (Caveat before you jump down my e-throat: this isn’t an in-your-face statement, it’s a thought about what’s happening. And yes, those who are concerned about the financial viability still have a few years to be proven correct, I’m only thinking about the constant “the restoration is only partial and it’s going to be a disaster” and “the traffic will choke downtown and kill our tiny town” and “the size of the project will dwarf all of downtown Alameda.” Aside to the caveat: I too miss seeing Twin Towers church, but I don’t think the new view is bad either, just different.)

Back to the point: I bring up the theater only because all of a sudden some of its major detractors (anonymous and named) have popped back up to start slinging highly ironic accusations against Lauren Do who’s blog has singlehandedly changed public discourse in Alameda over the past three years.

One thing is clear about online discourse, it tends to be slightly more spirited, more emotional, and yes, sometimes more snarky than print media. I’d be a total hypocrite (rather than just the partial one that I am) if I tried and claim that I haven’t added my own brand of snark to the process at times, so I’m not taking the high ground here. What is disappointing is the lack of self-awareness in the attacks that are being lobbed, and the extreme narrow focus within them.

Commenter “AD” wrote in on this post:

Why does Lauren Do start every discussion of a position she disagrees with with a character assassination and a warped summary? Is it because once she’s marked the target it’s easy for the foot soldiers to attack? This targeted flogging of select individuals has got to be transparent enough by now.

…Unfortunately, floggers like Lauren Do have made it a goal to effectively blast any middle ground where sides can meet. To what end, Lauren?

And quickly followed this up by derisively comparing Lauren to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. You can read AD’s rundown of the character assassination s/he alludes to here.

It appears that AD, who has added zero to the conversations taking place on Lauren’s site except to attack Lauren over the last week, can find something negative in just about anything when s/he puts his/her mind to it, apparently critiquing a publicly posted piece in opposition to Measure H is going negative on his character. Puh-lease!

Mr. Smith’s piece was not a “hey, we should look into whether there are redundancies that can save the district money” it was specifically “Hey, the district (admin and BOE) are making stuff up about having to cut core educational pieces and therefore you should vote against Measure H.” It was the point in the Alameda Journal’s Point/Counterpoint last Friday. And as mentioned in Lauren’s critique of it, it made broad statements about the uselessness of Administrators and suggested they were outdated and that we should move into a 21st century model where administrators are gone, just like the horse and buggy.

If Mr. Smith was interested in a discussion of ideas, he might have spent a little time researching his concerns and presented them with information that backed them up. He did not. He decided to ask vague, leading questions that specifically called into question the need for school administrators.

Apparently, in AD’s world, and indeed in the world of a large majority of posters on ADN as well as the overly inquisitive David’s of the internet, asking questions that make accusations without backing them up and then claiming “I’m just inquisitive” is meaningful public dialog. It’s not. Asking questions and expecting others to do the work to prove you right is not only lazy, it’s extremely disingenuous. If you think that there are issues with redundancy in the administration, point to some examples and then back them up with an actual accounting of what work these people do and how it could be done so easily by less people.

Just having a hunch that the administration is bloated and could be cut, thereby eliminating the need for a parcel tax is not meaningful. It’s the follow-through on that hunch that is meaningful.

But what’s even more ridiculous about AD’s attacks on Lauren (and I mean beyond the lack of self-awareness of how the complaints might apply to AD as well) is the silence s/he continues to have when others, whom s/he seems to agree with, engage in similar or worse activities. Heck, I haven’t seen one letter to ADN admonishing the letter writers there (or the head blogmeister for that matter) for the frequent stream of personal attacks on members of the Alameda Community. Apparently, Lauren Do is the only writer in town who is required to hold herself to a saintly level of high minded perfection while AD and the rest of the world are free to sling whatever snark they feel makes their case.

Lastly, AD’s defense of David Howard’s accusations about AEF and Ron Mooney are outrageous in their hypocrisy, not least because s/he admits that s/he doesn’t know whether they were right or wrong or even what they were:

What happened to David Howard when he stated (rightly or wrongly, I really don’t know) that some parents at Washington school had questions about getting money from AEF equally, or representation on the AEF board or something like that? He got eaten. Did we ever find out what the questions were, were the concerns valid, and why the parents were discontented? No.

Doesn’t this sum things up well? “I have no idea what this was all about, but I have a strong opinion about it and I’ll use it to hammer Lauren and anyone else about it.”

The issue for which Mr. Howard was criticized was specifically his continuous vilifying of specific people in town (Ron Mooney, Brooke Briggance, Helen Sause, myself, etc.) and doing so with vague statements and misrepresentations of facts. You know, like when he accused me of defaulting on my mortgage and therefore being open to bribery and kickbacks on the TC. I hate to break it to AD, but if Mr. Howard is the primary case for people who are treated unfairly in this world, s/he has a very weak case. The list of accusations and questions that Mr. Howard has been correct on is very short (I’m sure I could come up with something if I think long enough). A person doesn’t get to run around making false statement, bogus question and unfounded accusations about people and entities and then get to demand credibility in the public discourse. Wait I’ll correct that. Freedom of speech does give them the right to demand it, but if they expect it, well then I question their logic skills.

Credibility also comes from how one handles themselves in the public discourse. AD comes out firing caustic missiles while decrying Lauren (and other’s) rhetorical method, it doesn’t lend itself to a credible critique. Had AD actually been interested in critiquing Lauren’s style, rather than just scoring political points, perhaps a dispassionate defense of Mr. Smith and pointing out of the unfair parts of Lauren’s post would have actually made the point. Instead, we’re left with standard internet flaming…

</rant>

Approaching the Alameda Theater, a delivery truck was blocking the bike lane…I thought “where was the intense enforcement I keep hearing about?” as I passed the truck, people were milling about. I stopped (I’m a sucker for rubbernecking), saw theater operator Kyle Connor walking across the street looking hurried but also measured as he took in the sight, obviously trying to figure out what it all meant.

A good 8-10′ gash has been ripped into the revamped theater awning by the Pepsi Truck, demolishing the corner of the awning. I’m pretty sure that not even Alameda’s most accomplished conspiracy theorists could say this was anything other than terrible driving.