Grander Marina homes

Buried on the CIC agenda is an item that would…wait for it…wait for it…

Authorize Warmington Homes to build more homes!

For all the folks out there that believed that the Interim City Manager’s tanking of the Alameda Point project actually meant that she might be “slow growth,” not so.    So the gist of this agenda item is to sell off a parcel of property owned by the City (it’s the City’s Corporation Yard and the Animal Shelter) to the Community Improvement Commission (technically still the City Council) and then the CIC would enter into an agreement with Warmington Homes to build 25-27 more homes in the general vicinity of their Grand Marina project.

According to the agenda item, only 8 of the houses have sold so far.

HMB: a cautionary tale

This is not Alameda specific, but rather an interesting lesson to be considered by local cities.    Remember the case of the developer in Half Moon Bay, Charles “Chop” Keenan?   Just a quick review of what went down with the Beachwood property from my last post in 2007 on the subject:

…developer buys land many years ago in Half Moon Bay where there were already tentatively approved plans to develop housing by the previous owner.   Developer is unable to develop due to City saying that the property now contains protected wetland.  Developer says City caused the wetlands.   Developer sues and wins a $38 million award.  City freaks out because that is nearly three times their annual budget.

Something I forgot to add was that the City — even while denying the developer the right to build on the property — continued to collect fees totaling up to $1 million for sewer work.

VA benefits

I know some folks are excited about the ARRA agenda item on the VA transfer.   But, you all realize that it’s not really much, right?    The agenda item is simply one to “adopt a resolution supporting the transfer from the Navy to the VA.”   It’s a largely ceremonial move because if the City of Alameda didn’t want to make the transfer happen, it’s not as though the City could actually do anything to halt a fed-to-fed land transfer.

But if folks want to get all excited about ceremonial resolutions, then who am I to rain on anyone’s parade?

Academy antics

On Monday, I had the pleasure of helping to open the brand new Academy of Alameda Middle School.   And by open, I mean, essentially stand around and figure out how I could be helpful to the staff and teachers at the Academy of Alameda.

I don’t know how many folks out there have Middle School aged children, but I do not.   I have little ones and I have been well out of Middle School for a long time so I had forgotten what Middle School really was all about.   Middle School is this strange incubator for kids transitioning between being kids and being young adults.   So you see kids that look as though they are ready for college (physically) and kids that look like they should be in the third grade (physically).

Back to business

August is almost over and the City Council, sitting as the ARRA is back to work on September 1st on the dot.

The biggie agenda item to watch is a presentation on “Alameda Point– Going Forward,” but right now there are no documents available to review in advance of the meeting.    Also there is a presentation on “Citywide Asset Management Strategy – Alameda Point Application” also without documents to review ahead of time.   I guess we’ll just be surprised when we are allowed to hear what City staff has planned next for Alameda Point.

Eternal sunshine of the task force’s mind

I know it’s sort of early to talk about it and I’ll probably write a reminder about it when the meeting gets closer, but I have to say I’m super excited about the next Sunshine Task Force meeting.   The Sunshine Task Force meeting to be held Saturday, September 11th from 1 – 4 p.m. at the Main Library.

But what makes this really interesting is that Terry Francke from CalAware will be the keynote speaker!   Terry Francke, if you all remember, is the head of a watchdog group whose mission is to ensure that the public’s access to government records is not blocked.  He’s also the person I emailed to get his read on the response that the City Attorney sent me regarding the 30 day deletion and draft policy for emails.

However, the main point of the meeting is to get comments on the draft Sunshine Ordinance which has been pulled together by the members of of Sunshine Task Force.

Call the wahmbulance!

I generally try to keep In Alameda issues on the In Alameda site and not have too much bleed over.   However, this was too funny not to share because I don’t know how much overlap there is between the two sites.

A few days ago, John Knox White posted a piece about some of the City meeting happenings on Wednesday night.   Essentially the piece was a critique about the Pedestrian Plan and the lack of real progress being made on the document and implementation guidelines.   Additionally, he noted that the Transportation Commission vacancies have not been filled by the Mayor.

So this was one of the responses by a current candidate for City Council:

And they’re off…the School Board version

Didn’t mean to neglect posting the School Board race candidate statements, but quite a kerfuffle erupted last week and this fell off my radar.   Now in alphabetical order, and thanks to Mike McMahon for retyping these, the school board candidates and their statements!

A side note: interestingly enough, both Mike McMahon and Sheri Palmer are not accepting donations for their campaign — it’s not immediately clear if any of the other candidates intend to run a “no-donation” campaign.

Survey says…?

Remember around May when the City’s hired consultant Graphtek put out the “survey” in order to begin the branding process for a new identity package of Alameda?   Well, I figured that three months was more than enough time to compile the results of an online survey.  After all, it wasn’t as though someone needed to tabulate a bunch of paper surveys.

So, I asked the City for a copy of the results.

Turns out, they don’t have them.

Car trouble

Remember how I said things couldn’t get much worse in Alameda City government life?   Well…I was mistaken.

Because of the exposure and media coverage over the whole Fire Chief gas thing, information about the Fire Chief’s past woes are coming to light.   Michele Ellson at the Island has covered the story here, but thanks to an anonymous email, I have copies of the articles for you all.   Excerpt from Michele’s post which gives the nutshell:

Kapler resigned as chief of the Tahoe-Douglas Fire Protection District in 1991 after allegations surfaced that he misused a department-owned vehicle. He was also accused by representatives of a casino and a builder of soliciting contributions in exchange for support on a construction project the owners of one casino sought to undertake and of a variance the other sought that would allow it to avoid installing sprinklers in a parking garage it planned to build, news reports issued at the time said. Kapler also came under fire for soliciting contributions including ski passes, a mountain bike and vacations for a program aimed at curbing department absenteeism, news reports showed.