How many consultants does it take to brand a city?

Taking a break from Measure E stuff for today.   So someone pointed me to the fact that the City’s Alameda Point/SunCal updates website was designed and created by Graphtek, the same company that was selected to the tune of nearly $75K to brand the City of Alameda with a new identity and logo similar to the work they did for Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant in Desert Hot Springs.

So, I decided to ask for a copy of the contract for developing the SunCal updates website.   Instead of getting a copy of a contract for Graphtek, instead I received a copy for Rips Consulting, Inc.   The initial contract was for $39,000, but then was amended to$51,000.   But the SunCal website was not the entire scope of the contract, rather we are in for more branding folks!

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

As I posted the other day, the Committee Against Measure E (CAME)/Alamedans for Fair Taxation (AFT) have been using the kitchen sink approach during this campaign.   Not allowing facts or good analysis of data get in the way of their messaging that Measure E is just horrible and awful and will only serve the elitist East End families who — could all probably afford private schools for their children — instead have evil machinations to force all Alameda property owners to pay for THEIR kids in some twisted evil plot to make little old ladies lose their homes and send business to India.

One of the “facts” that came out of CAME/AFT’s campaign was the revelation that Alameda has the 2nd and 3rd highest Administrators and Services Staff per pupil.    Of course when one actually looks at the data, it was pretty clear that CAME/AFT simply read the chart incorrectly.   When eventually confronted with this by commenter Matt Parker, CAME/AFT quickly backpeddled and asked people to look at a different set of data:

Who’s Alameda?

In addition to the gem of a statement made by Edward Hirshberg at the last Alameda Democratic Club meeting, he said a lot of other things about how great business is and it is in fact business, and not schools, the create a wealthy community.   He goes on to say that if the cost of office space etc… keeps rising because of parcel taxes like this then businesses will simply choose to take their off shore their businesses because everything can be done over the internet these days.   He gives a few examples like a newspaper in Southern California sending their reporting to India or Indians designing wood frame houses in the snow even though they have never seen wood frame houses or snow.   Because I guess it doesn’t snow in India.

All I could think was,  I’m sure that the dude in India could design an awesome wood frame house, but personally, I would rather have some dude with actual experience in that particular environment to design my wood frame snow house for me.   But whatever.

CAME v. Board of Education

Playing fast and loose with data isn’t all that the folks over at the Committee Against Measure E (CAME) the anti parcel tax group does well.   Specious arguments are also at the forefront of the campaign against Measure E.    At the Alameda Democratic  Club meeting (many thanks for the video courtesy of Alameda Currents) CAME representative Edward Hirshberg and School Boardmember Ron Mooney went head to head in a debate about Measure E.

CAME’s argument that night was to focus on the business side of the world and how we have to keep commercial rates low by not imposing parcel taxes because we are competing with so many other cities around the world to fill office space.   That if office space is too high, that companies will opt to move their business to India in order to snatch up the cheap office space and labor.   But here is where the discussion took a really weird turn and it’s not even that Edward Hirshberg was even talking off the cuff at this point.   He was reading a prepared speech which makes it so much worse:

No comparison

One of the things that I am hopeful of is that with the passage of Measure E that Alameda children benefit by getting a really firm grasp on the basics of reading comprehension.

Because clearly some opponents to Measure E clearly have difficulty with that particular skill.

The Committee Against Measure E/Alamedans for Fair Taxation have been utilizing the “kitchen sink” approach to campaigning against Measure E.    They literally have been throwing every single argument against Measure E and the School District against the wall  in order to see what “sticks” in the public consciousness.    As commenter Oh The Irony mentioned, the most recent post that I have screen capped for your viewing pleasure, attempts to outrage the 39 fans of CAME/AFT on Facebook with this nugget:

Stir it up

Good news folks, AUSD along with other school district throughout California have filed a lawsuit against the State of California arguing that the funding mechanisms for public education are broken, but at the core of the argument is that California has not met its constitutional mandate to give California students equal access to public school education in a “system of common schools.”

Susan Davis at In Alameda broke the story early yesterday  morning and even more notably is the parent to one of the many plaintiffs who have joined together in this suit.   Critics of AUSD have long complained that the school district has not done enough to force Sacramento to do something about the inequitable funding levels from school district to school district.   But this is not a last minute reaction to Measure E critics.  Oh no.  This is something that has been in the works for years and has finally culminated into this collaborative effort.   School boardmember Mike McMahon has cataloged a timeline of events leading up to this lawsuit.

Rank and file

So does everyone remember when the opponents of Measure E were pointing fingers at APLUS (the pro Measure E committee) saying that they had failed to file campaign disclosure documents at the City Clerk’s office.  (full saga here)

Once all the dust settled everyone became compliant with the City Clerk’s office and filed all necessary forms everything was okay, right?   Everyone was going to file the appropriate disclosure forms then the deadline came, right?

Wrong.

The filing deadline for the first Pre Election filing was due on May 13.   Only APLUS has filed an election report so far.

So much for the “spirit of transparency.”

Where the sun don’t shine

Given how items like the Civic Center Vision Plan and the branding/website redesign has snuck up on the general public, it’s rather fortuitous that the next meeting for the Sunshine Task Force is tonight.   Given the lack of transparency by City staff with regards to some fairly important City related topics, if there is any question that the work being done by the Sunshine Task Force needs to continue, this is it.

Technically, this should be one of the last meetings for the Sunshine Task Force and during the update to the City Council it appeared as though there might be some push back from the Council about adding more meetings to complete the work.    It’s critical, given the budget cutbacks and how strapped the City is for money that there be some mechanism that allows the public to be aware of what is being spent and where that money is coming from.

Import/export

What makes the whole City branding survey and ensuing work so interesting is the connection that this has with our Interim City Manager, Ann Marie Gallant’s, work in the last city that she led before Alameda.

Let’s put aside the question of whether or not Alameda really needs rebranding for a minute.

So, back in the day when our ICM was the permanent City Manager of a little city called Desert Hot Springs in the Coachella Valley.   Desert Hot Springs is most notable for filing for bankruptcy some years ago (not during Ann Marie Gallant’s term) so you can sort of see why they would want to rebrand the City.    A company named Graphtek was hired to do the branding work according to this story in the Press Enterprise:

Also under discussion is a proposal for a new and radically different city seal and logo. Mike Cheley, CEO of Palm Desert-based Graphtek, unveiled last week a draft logo and seal featuring a water spurt framed by a desert plant, purple mountains and a golden sky.

As part of this effort, the city’s motto ended up being, “California’s Spa City,” it’s trademarked and everything.   For those interested, this was the original presentation by Graphtek with their process for the identity work.   The end result (see logo in the upper left hand corner) is a tad bit different than the initial design that was created.

Stakeholder, not nearly as delicious as it sounds

The Oxford English dictionary defines a “stakeholder” as

noun 1 an independent party with whom money or counters wagered are deposited. 2 a person with an interest or concern in something.

Except in Alameda where stakeholder appears to mean a fairly small, hand-selected group of people.   We saw hints of this around the Civic Center Vision plan where “stakeholders” were selected to be involved in the Visioning process, but the community at large was left out.   Now, apparently the City’s “identity” is not sufficiently marketable so the Interim City Manager has contracted with a consultant to the tune of $74,800 to create a new identity package for the City of Alameda.