The City Council is holding a “special” meeting tonight, for what purpose you may be asking? Well, there manages to be several items on the agenda for tonight, but the only one that really requires immediate attention is the item that made for a fair amount of drama at the last City Council meeting. That’s right, the bond issue.
After the back and forth between the City Council, Interim City Manager, suited guys, and the public, the City Council voted to move forward with the plan to refinance the bonds for Harbor Bay and Marina Village. But now, the item is already back up for a revision.
According to the staff report, the bond rating is lower than the financial advisors anticipated so City Staff and the “co-financial advisors” have decided to allow for two series of bond, a senior and subordinate series. The staff report claims that this will allow for a better rating for “a portion of the bonds” so that the combined interest rates for all the bonds will be less than the interest rates if they sold the bonds in one series. Did you get all that?
I doubt that the discussion will be nearly as interesting as last time, but hopefully the “co-financial advisors” can explain as to why this is necessary.
But more interestingly is the Council Referral that made its way on to this “Special” agenda. The Mayor is attempting to bring the Campaign Finance Reform ordinance back to the City Council to make a decision on the ordinance. As reported by Michele Ellson, the Council voted 3-2 to allow the Sunshine Task Force to take a stab at determining which issues were important to incorporate into the Campaign Finance Reform ordinance to actually address issues that have arisen in Alameda identified as problems with past campaigns.
The reasoning the Mayor is using to bring this item back is that she is claiming that because Gretchen Lipow, Doug deHaan’s appointee to the Sunshine Task Force doesn’t think that the Sunshine Task Force is the proper venue for this, that the City Council should reconsider this issue once more.
Even though the other three City Council members (Lena Tam, Marie Gilmore, and Frank Matarrese) all expressed that they felt this issue was rushed and would be an unfair advantage to sitting City Council members, I don’t necessarily think that the threat of one member of the Sunshine Task Force quitting is a compelling reason to change a vote.
Personally, I found this quote by the Mayor (captured by Michele E.) that night to be particularly ironic:
“Anybody opposed? Me, because I don’t like the implementation date,” Johnson said as she took the vote. “So we have no campaign finance reform until sometime after January 1, 2011.”
This is an elected official who has had one term on the City Council (4 years) and two terms as our Mayor (8 years). In the span of 12 years there hasn’t been adequate time to craft a well drafted Campaign Finance Reform ordinance. But now she is upset because others are concerned that it might unfairly benefit incumbents running for re-election and want to wait so as to not hand-tie potential opponents and want to wait until after the election so that the playing field is level moving forward.
Forgive me if I am unmoved by the Mayor’s sudden insistence on the need for campaign reform at this very second.
Let’s have a meeting to review the ICM’s performance in DHSI, in Alameda to date, and her ability to bring business into town and help the City’s financials. I saw we got Ross back and a couple of yogurt shops. And no furloughs and no decrease in any salaries of highly paid officials.
Comment by DRM — June 24, 2010 @ 2:41 pm
DRM,
Your suggestion that there be a performance review of the ICM shows that you are a shill for Suncal.
Or yogurt shops.
Probably both.
Comment by And stay off my lawn! — June 24, 2010 @ 3:22 pm