On the porch

So this has nothing to do with the Boys and Girls Club or Alameda Point or even Lesson 9.   Remember back in March of this year there was a house in the Gold Coast-y area (Bay Street to be exact).   The owners wanted to build a porch, some neighbors thought that it would detract from the aesthetics of the street.

By the way, both Marie Gilmore and Doug deHaan recused themselves from this vote because they live near the project.   Okay so maybe this will tie a little bit about to the B&G Club vote, while I do believe that sitting on the advisory board is not enough of a reason for the Mayor to have needed to recuse herself from the vote on adding the B&G Club to the Measure WW funding list, the notion that Councilmember Marie Gilmore would have to because her husband sits on the advisory board is absurd.    How far are we going to go down a six degrees of separation in order to not have a “whiff of impropriety”?   After all, Doug deHaan actually was a member of the Boys and Girls Club when he was a youth, should he have recused himself as well?   Or is a “no” vote indicative of someone’s ability separate their belief in a cause and their duty as a City Council person?

But I digress.

Say hello to my little friends

At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, proponents of the placing the Boys and Girls Club on the Measure WW list came out with guns ablazing.   Not only did they bring out the political heavy weights, folks didn’t mince a whole lot of words when it came to defending the B&G Club and defending their members and supporters to accusations that had been made publicly by opponents.

B&G Club supporter Nick Cabral took the opportunity to lambast folks who want to keep Alameda “back in the 1920s.”  And Judge Robert McGuiness talked about how he would never pass the “Alameda Test” and therefore isn’t going to try.   It was, all in all, worth watching if just for the unusual bunch of people who came out to support the B&G Club.   Because if you watch City Council meetings, you would know that, in general, it tends to be the same 20 or so faces that rotate in front of that podium.

Plenty of nothing

I just heard a tidbit of information the other day about the Sierra Club meeting to decide whether the club would vote whether to oppose the Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative or vote to be “actively neutral.”

At the meeting, the anti the Initiative side had two speakers taking questions to support their position.   One question that was asked had to do with the alternative scenario these two envisioned for Alameda Point should the Initiative fail.   Their answer?   Do nothing.   The base is too toxic and the infrastructure too far gone to have anything done with it.

While some opponents will insist on saying that they like the plan, just not the initiative as written, the fact is, the Development Agreement and all the other points of opposition — for some — is just a smokescreen to their real objection.  Development in general.

Pop quiz, hotshot

UPDATED BELOW, scroll…

So, I was going to talk about the Boys and Girls Club funding request (Item 6-C) which is coming up before the City Council tonight and being recommended to add to the list of projects to be considered for Measure WW funding.  Interestingly enough, the staff report doesn’t make a spelled out recommendation, only the description in the agenda does.   Anyway, the Interim City Manager is recommending approval.

The bigger news is that the Judge in Pacific Justice Institute case (Lesson 9, opt outs) has made a tentative ruling, you can see the complete tentative ruling on The Island, but here are highlights:

…the Court finds that the inclusion of an opt out right would weaken the implementation of those policies by school districts. The Court finds that measures designed to prevent or discourage discrimination and harassment based on a protected characteristic, and consistent with anti-discrimination/harassment policies created by state law, are entitled to substantial deference. The Court will not require a school district to enact procedures that weaken anti-discrimination and anti-harassment measures absent a compelling showing of legislative intent to require school districts to do so…

Say you, say me

Here’s what I am enjoying about the whole Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative.   Folks who generally wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about Development Agreements are suddenly so concerned about how the Development Agreement as presented in the Initiative itself is tantamount to a “giveaway” of epic proportions to SunCal.

The main points are, of course, captured in the ballot argument against the Initiative which were neatly bullet pointed for sound-byte-y ease and which I have addressed here.   The objections over the Development Agreement being included in the Initiative is that the City, had they had the ability to negotiate the Development Agreement, would never have put such terms in the Development Agreement that put the City in such a tough position.

Fee fi fo fum

So my latest project has been reading through the 2001 Citywide Development Fee Nexus Study.   Essentially this document was created so that the City could charge developers for the impact of their project on the City.   According to the state level legislation that controls, this type of Nexus Study has to be performed in order for a City to actually implement these fees.

I’ll go into some more detail some other time, but thought this would be interesting fodder for thought during this holiday weekend.   Remember how one of the big concerns was the fact that in the Development Agreement in the Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative there is the waiver of certain impact fees?   The contention made by opponents is that if the City was allowed to negotiate the Development Agreement, they would never, ever, ever allow such a thing to happen.

Except for the fact that they did.

Happy (early) Thanksgiving folks!

Things to be thankful about tomorrow…

• Your family probably won’t want to talk about Alameda politics so you get a one-day mental break from it
• Four-day weekend
• Pie

Let it B

And now we return you to “As Alameda turns”…  The latest ohmigod moment comes from first a letter sent by Mayor Beverly Johnson to the registrar of voters essentially saying that voters are too stupid to be able to sort out the difference between Measure A (the Charter law colloquially known as such which limits building housing units to a duplex or smaller) and Measure A the Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative.

I contacted the Registrar of Voters office yesterday at around 2:00 p.m. and as of that time they had not made a decision on whether or not to change it from Measure A to Measure B or something else (perhaps they’ll decide to go backwards starting from Measure Z?) but here’s a fun fact, apparently as I was on the phone with someone from the Registrar’s office after dialing through the main line and pressing a succession of numbers and listening to the really bad muzak while on hold, apparently Mayor Johnson was on the phone with the Registrar at that very moment.

Southern California comfort

Remember the Alameda Point  ”contingency plan” that has been kicked around by both the Interim City Manager and Councilmember Frank Matarrese, well this small news item in the Alameda Journal is a possible hint toward the direction in which some folks in the City and on the Council may want to head.    The Alameda Journal reports that both Frank Matarrese, Mayor Beverly Johnson, and someone from the City Manager’s office would be meeting with representatives from the City of Irvine to talk about Irvine’s plans to redevelop El Toro which was a Marine Air Station.

So brief background on the El Toro base, initial plans were to convert that air station into an airport.   Made sense because it essentially was the same type of use.  But some folks didn’t want that and passed a measure that essentially forbid the construction of an airport.  Then a few years later another measure was passed that would earmark a substantial portion of the land as a municipal park of a scope that was supposed to rival Central Park in New York and Balboa Park in San Diego.

Sierra missed

Normally I wouldn’t get involved in the private business of the executive committee of an advocacy organization, but since one of the members invited comment on the decision making process for the Sierra Club around the issue of the Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative, and invited members of the public to attend their meeting, it’s sort of fair game.

According to a comment made in early November, Bill Smith of the Sierra Club indicated that while the members ran the gamut from supportive, neutral, and opposed the Club has decided to only vote on two possible positions: “actively neutral” or “opposed.”   Declining to even consider a position of supportive for reasons unexplained.