I will follow him

This one is marginally connected to Alameda, but interesting nonetheless.  On May 12, Josh Richman, blogging on Political Blotter, writes an entry about some funny business surrounding the candidacies of Loni Hancock and Wilma Chan, both seeking to win the democratic primary to eventually run for the seat Don Perata will be vacating due to term limits.   Here’s the short version: months ago it would appear according to both candidates’ website that Don Perata and a few others folks like our own mayor and a School Board member in Oakland had double endorsed both Loni Hancock and Wilma Chan.   More recently all three (and probably some others, I haven’t compared the lists side by side yet) decided that they no longer wanted to hedge their bets and have thrown their support behind the person who they assume is the “stonger” candidate.    After all, I suppose the logic is that there is no use in staying on a sinking ship.  

I am a little puzzled by Jeff Mitchell of BAPolitix’s take on the story though, who closed his summary by saying:

Turns out that Perata and Johnson and a school board member from Oakland actually endorsed just Hancock. Hmm … imagine that.

Better by design

This was a blip on the radar probably for most people who watched the City Council meeting last week, but I have to say that I found the resulting discussion by the Council a little puzzling and a little frustrating.   Here’s the background, as you all know — and of course some of you are excited about, others, not so much — the Alameda Theatre will be opening in a few short weeks.  The Police Department determined that there was a need to change the existing striping in front of the Alameda Theatre and the Cineplex in order to maintain a better traffic flow.   The exisiting space on Central in front of the Theatre currently are metered parking spots.   The PD would like there to be a passenger drop off zone immediately in front of the Alameda Theatre, before the passenger zone a yellow loading zone and finally the last few feet would be striped red.  

PB says nay

That’s right Village VI watchers, the Planning Board voted no on this project to change the zoning from Commercial/Industrial to Residential, which must have some developer-type folks fuming today and busily drawing up their appeal papers, which staff member Andrew Thomas mentioned at the end of the vote that it could be appealed in ten days. 

I would imagine the appeal papers were already drawn up prior to the meeting even happening.   Now I haven’t watched the whole meeting yet, just a small portion of the Planning Board members discussion, but short of a miracle turnaround in the housing market and an immense lapse in logic from the City Council, the Planning Board’s decision should be upheld by the City Council.

The sixth senseless

Tonight, at the Planning Board meeting, the PB will be the first to hear about the Harbor Village VIaka the latest Ron Cowan project plans.  For those that have been following both stories in the Alameda Sun and Journal, and previous articles from the East Bay Express and Alameda Journal, you will know that this is the proposal that requests a change in zoning from commercial/industrial to residential in order to build 104 new homes on Bay Farm Island.   According to the staff report, city staff have outlined four major reasons why the proposal should be denied:

• The noise environment on the site is not suitable for residential development.
• The City should maintain a consistent and clear policy regarding the need and importance of an adequate buffer between Alameda neighborhoods and the Oakland Airport.
• The City should maintain and preserve the integrity of the Harbor Bay Business Park for commercial, job-generating uses.
• The proposal does not provide significant housing, transportation or fiscal benefits to the community.

Show must go on

As my daughter would loudly proclaim, “ohhh noes!”  That was my first reaction when I read the Alameda Sun article about the most recent Central Cinema problems.   Highlights for those of you that have not yet read it:

Alameda’s Central Cinema, the plucky small-time independent operation, is $2,900 in arrears on its rent and will be evicted June 5 unless payment is made, according to a Notice to Pay or Quit taped to the movie theater’s door Tuesday.

…

“The landlord and I have had back and forth negotiations,” Haskett said. He said the notices could be a negotiating tactic.

The property’s owner, Dennis Keefe, said that Haskett had earlier declined an offer to renew his lease and had switched to a month-to-month arrangement based on anticipation of overwhelming competition from the downtown multiplex set to open later this month. “I don’t believe he wants to be here anymore,” Keefe said.

Bend and extend

Well this one snuck by really quietly but I think it’s rather important to mention.   The City Council on Tuesday night sitting as the Community Improvement Commission approved a letter of intent for a property exchange.   What does that all mean?  Basically, that the Willie Stargell Avenue Extension project will be moving forward.   One of the major hurdles for the extension was convincing the College of Alameda to give up a huge parcel of land in order to run the extension to Webster Street.   The Peralta Trustees determined that they would “gift” a right-of-way to the City and the parcel that the right of way would run through would also be gifted to the City in exchange for a different parcel.   Most notably, 860 Atlantic in Marina Village, for what is now an unused parcel of land running adjacent to Webster.  

There is a complicated bit of narrative in the staff report explaining how the trustees were able to make this exchange to the City, which composes of the Education Code allowing for the trustees to deed a right-of-way for roadway use to an entity without needing to go through a surplus property bid and then because of the ROW deed they are able to then transfer the property the ROW runs through to the same entity they have given the ROW to.  

The safe pick

Last night at the CIty Council meeting, the Mayor nominated Arthur Autorino to the Planning Board.   Remember Gina Mariani vacated her seat a long long long time ago and it’s taken months for the Mayor to finally make a decision about this, probably much to the relief of the rest of the Planning Board as they have been down a member for many months now.  Considering the kicking and screaming from Diane Coler-Dark when the initial list came out, I would definitely call Arthur A. the “safe pick” for the Mayor.  

I’m a tiny bit disappointed because I would have liked to see the drama unfold if someone less “acceptable” had been nominated for the sheer entertainment value alone.   But alas, we shall not be privvy to that sort of community theater.  

Doctor, lawyer, union chief

Tonight, at the City Council there will be some pretty big issues up for the Council to discuss.   The first was covered in brief by the Alameda Journal about the Green Building Ordinance.   Alameda is feeling left behind in its commitment to being more Kermit-like, plus they want to get in on a little of the funding — to the tune of $44K — from the Alameda County Waste Management Authority.   It’s unclear if the waste reduction portion is for the entire city of Alameda or just for the City of Alameda, the entity.  We are supposed to be at 75% of our waste not going to landfills by 2010 but currently we are only at 50%.   Our family recently purchased a deeply discounted composter from Alameda County’s Stop Waste program, I would normally link to the site, but it’s going all weird this morning, but I digress.

The next issue is the discussion about the Charter language cleanup item which will be on the November ballot.   The items for consideration are pretty benign, but it’s the upcoming items that will be more interesting and will require a lot more discussion by the City Council, and I would imagine, the public as well.   The few things that jump out are the two being proposed by Doug deHaan.   First is the issue of wanting to prevent any elected and currently sitting Federal, State, County, or local office to being either elected to any office or appointed to any board or commission created by the City Council or City Charter. 

That’s Harsch

At last week’s Planning Board meeting, the members were asked to approve the latest in extreme makeovers at Alameda Towne Centre.   This time the stone aggregate building that houses Mervyns would be the next in line, but it’s not Mervyns that will reap the benefit of the renovations, instead ATC will be filling that space in with a Kohl’s.   Now, I’ve never been to a Kohl’s before, so I had to rely on the Wikipedia article and what I’ve seen on TV to understand what type of store it is.  Appears to be not so dissimilar to a Mervyns or a TJMaxx even, although the Wikipedia article labels it a “department store.”   Evidently the leasing folks at Harsch seem to think Alamedans can’t get enough of these sort of stores. 

Channelling Whitney Houston

Tom Pavletic can blame Alameda’s school funding problem on a “management crisis”(1) and “mythical budget cuts”(2) but the in the end regardless of where cuts are made to make up for the potential funding shortfall, it’s going to affect Alameda students and to me that is unacceptable.   Whether cuts are made by eliminating all administrative positions or telling teachers to take a pay cut or by closing and consolidating schools — everything will end up affecting the kids.   So is the solution stonewall and say, “not my problem, take it to the state and find the funding equity there” or do we take a boot strap approach and say “what can I do to help?”  

Community members are stepping up all over the city to do their small part to help out during these difficult times.  It’s time for us all to step up and support our schools.   Let’s not give lip service to phrases like doing things “for the children” when we talk about issues like bus stop placement, development efforts in the city, traffic, etc… if we really aren’t going to think of the children when we have a chance to do something “for the children” and ensure that they have the best educational opportunity that we as a community can afford to provide to them.