Fire fighting

There were a few tidbits of information revealed at last week’s City Council meeting that has not really been highlighted as it stands in the shadows of the Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative date that was set.    During the meeting as justification for not voting for the February date, Councilmember Lena Tam noted that because of budget issues the City is looking at more job cuts, possible closing of City Hall (one day a week, think furlough), and the loss of an ambulance at the Bay Farm station.

Now, I’ve been a critic of the Firefighters ballot initiative, I don’t really believe in setting minimum staffing levels which doesn’t take into consideration the reality of the budget and even though I live the farthest from the Bay Farm fire station, taking an ambulance out of service is concerning.

I’ve been searchin’

John Knox White has an interesting post on his site about the Mayor dropping hints at a previous Chamber of Commerce meeting that she would like to change Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant from interim to permanent.

JKW brings up some good points about why we should slow down the meteoric rise from Interim Finance Director to Interim City Manager to Permanent City Manager, which include:

1. Not hired through a formal search process
2. Upcoming change in composition of City Council with election in November 2010
3. Our contract with the Interim City Manager has plenty of time left, we’re six months into a two year contract

All night long

The Planning Board will be considering expanding the time that trucks can make deliveries to Alameda Towne Centre.  Trader Joes, Big 5, Petco, Safeway, Walgreens, and Panera all want to be able to have trucks drop off deliveries to their store beginning as early at 6:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m.   In comparison, currently they are restricted to 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Kohl’s is also asking for the Planning Board to approve expanded hours so they can have those early bird and late night special sales where they practically throw their wares at you at super duper low low prices that you absolutely cannot resist!   Essentially what they want is to be able to open until midnight for 36 days per year during the holidays (Nov. 1 to Jan 1) and 1 day after Jan 1 for a “sales tax holiday.” And they want to be able to open early for those after Thanksgiving and Christmas sales rushes.

Hooray for ACLO

I know I don’t generally post on the weekends, but here’s a good one for folks that do check in on the weekends and have a hankering for some good showtunes…Denise Shelton the box office manager for the Alameda Civic Light Opera sent in this reminder that ACLO is has a great show, Broadway’s Greatest Moments at Kofman tonight at 8:00 p.m. and tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.:

As you know, this has been a tough year financially for many organizations. ACLO is no exception. This year we produced three critically acclaimed productions: “Ragtime”, “Annie”, and “Hair”; raised the funds to distribute 1000 tickets to “Annie” to needy families, and had our 13th successful internship program teaching valuable job skills to high school and college age students. The rent we pay to AUSD is a significant income for the school district. Ticket sales and donations, both private and corporate, however, have been seriously reduced by the current economy. This weekend we have two performances of “Broadway’s Greatest Moments” at Kofman Theater: tonight at 8 pm and tomorrow at 2 pm.

Ticket prices are $30 for seniors 65 and older and kids 17 and under, and $34.00 for adults.    And, if you mention “Blogging Bayport”, they’ll waive $3 at the door ticket fee.   Neat eh?

But if you can’t make it, if you can spare a few for this great organization that brings a bit of Broadway to the Island every season, you can make contributions  online at www.aclo.com or by sending a check to “ACLO, 875-A Island Drive, #292, Alameda, CA  94502.

A Target in site?

So, I had anticipated that the CIC meeting would have been up on the old video streaming on the City website yesterday to talk about what is going on at Alameda Landing, but for some strange reason the video is not up.   Instead the City re-posted an old Planning Board meeting and labelled it as November 4, 2009, when I’m pretty sure there was not a Planning Board meeting scheduled on Wednesday night.

AND…the regularly scheduled closed door ARRA meeting with SunCal was cancelled as well.

Weirdness.

You’re so very special

Okay, after watching Tuesday night’s meeting, I am convinced that the City and Council majority (Beverly Johnson, Frank Mataresse, and Doug deHaan) have screwed the pooch on this one.   The City Clerk and City Attorney were fixated on the two particular (or three actually) pieces of election code and convinced that the February date is the only option for the City to move forward with the Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative.

The problem last night was that the two Councilpeople who eventually voted against scheduling the election for the February date didn’t focus enough on the key issues here.  Everything was made so confusing and overly complex with trying to figure out if the Initiative was an ordinance or a charter measure that the reading of the ordinance election code law was deficient.

For arguments sake, let’s go with the City Attorney’s reading of the Initiative that it is an ordinance as opposed to a charter initiative.   I’m willing to say, yes, the Initiative is more ordinance than charter initiative since the City Attorney was insistent on pulling out from the Initiative Election Code 9217, which IS in the Initiative as to what happens if the Initiative is successful.

Rowena or Rebecca

Clearly I have not yet watched the City Council meeting yet.  I generally save that for the day after when I turn it on in the background while doing some work that allows for multitasking of that sort.   So instead, first a few feel good type notices.

First up!  CASA Alameda will be hosting a Town Hall tomorrow, 6:30 p.m. at Independence Plaza with the purpose to:

CELEBRATE the progress Alameda has made in the last year

CHALLENGE Alamedans to build on those successes and engage more of the community, and

CHAMPION some great Alamedans who have shown leadership locally and globally

Also, at the meeting will be Caitlin Grey, a Senior at Alameda High School, who was selected as one of only 16 U.S. students to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference this December in Copenhagen, Denmark.   She will be attending as the youth delegate for the Sierra Student Coalition.    However, she needs some help to offset the cost to attend the event and need to raise $2500 by December.   If you would like to help Caitlin, you can send checks made out to “Caitlin Grey” and mail them to 1422 Gibbons Drive, Alameda, CA 94501.   But she will be speaking at the Town Hall, great time to send a few ducats to help out an awesome Alameda youth.

And at the exact same time Alternatives in Action will be hosting its fall open house, in case you are interested in seeing what the program is all about.  They are located at the former Woodstock Elementary site.

And speaking of school type stuff, if you have not been checking out Susan Davis’s contributions to In Alameda, you really should.  She is doing a phenomenal job.  Her latest post about inter-district students (aka kids that don’t live in Alameda) is not to be missed.    She points out that the latest offering from the crack news team over at Action Alameda —  which asserts that the East End parents should be allowing more  inter-district students of color into their schools in order to prove to people that they aren’t racists — failed to provide the tidbit that inter-district students generally only fill seats where there is capacity to add additional kids.     And in the fairly recent past, given the skirmishes over lottery vs first-come-first-serve systems, the East End has not really had the capacity to accept additional inter-district students in order to, in the words of Action Alameda, “put their children where their mouth is.”

If you change your mind, I’m the first in line

In the continuing farce that is Alameda Point, after Councilmember Frank Matarrese’s announcement that he is now not in support of the Alameda Point Initiative even though he used to be in support of it, but now realizes that even though there really has been no new information released since the other day and when the Initiative first came out, he is now against it.

So, either Frank Matarrese and Beverly Johnson didn’t read the damn thing before they endorsed it, possible, but would be pretty embarrassing to admit or there is something a little more complex afoot.   Perhaps it has something to do with this mysterious other option that folks have been hinting at.

Election dysfunction

I hope everyone had a nice Halloween.   We had lots of trick o’ treaters, a lot of little witches and transformers.   Given the renewed popularity I was surprised some of the bigger kids who generally come out at the tail end of the trick or treating time weren’t dressed like vampires.   But all in all, a lot of fun.   A bit of bad news over the weekend given the huge oil spill, but I’m going to leave the talk about that to folks like Michele Ellson (and here) and Susan Davis who have been doing a wonderful job covering it so far.   Not because I don’t care, because I do, but talking about dead birds is depressing.

Also, according to news reports it looks like the Bay Bridge is still closed, which means — for me, at least — another long slog through the City after a ferry ride to the City.   At least the Ferry itself is a rather pleasant ride.

So the big news  is that the City Council will be voting on when to schedule the Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative.    The City Clerk has suggested that a special election be called in February to the tune of $235-325K.   According to the City Clerk, there has not been an indication that SunCal will pay for the special election and honestly, why should they?   It would seem a bit odd for a company to sponsor an election, if the City does not want to bear the cost of the special election then they need to schedule it during a general election.   I can’t imagine that the City will be deducting the cost of the Firefighters Initiative from the Fire Department budget whenever they eventually schedule that Initiative for an election, right?

Transference

The newest member to the In Alameda blogging team, Susan Davis, has a wonderful debut post with an appropriately Halloween themed flair.   It’s all about Halloween in Alameda, Alameda Unified School District Master Plan meetings, and out of district student transfers.

Excerpt:

In the ensuing decade, of course, I’ve learned that such xenophobia is not so rare on the island. Still, I was surprised to hear hints of it at the October 6th Master Plan community meeting held by AUSD. The topic had been potential cost-saving strategies for the district — including furloughs, changes in class-size reduction, and allowing off-island children to attend under-enrolled schools here. Following the presentation, Boardmember Trish Spencer explained that she thinks AUSD should stop accepting kids from the off the island, “because our parents don’t want their parcel taxes going to educate children who don’t live here.”