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.

What a difference a Bay makes

On Wednesday, the Navy officially handed over Treasure Island to the City and County of San Francisco for future development.   From CBS 5:

Treasure Island is the last remaining piece of naval land to be turned over to the city; the others were the Presidio and the Hunters Point shipyard. About 10 percent of the city’s roughly 49 square miles lies within those three formal naval bases.

As part of the agreement, the city will make a guaranteed payment to the Navy of $55 million followed by an additional interim payment of $50 million.

…

The development plans for a new commercial town center and residential neighborhood include up to 100,000 square feet of new office space and 8,000 residential units. Historic structures on Treasure Island are also slated for rehabilitation.

More on the payment details from SF Gate:

The deal calls for the city to pay the Navy a guaranteed $55 million over 10 years. An additional $50 million payment would be activated if the private investors in the project get an 18 percent return.

If the project reaches a 22.5 percent profit margin, the Navy would get 35 percent of the net cash flow. The remaining 65 percent would be split between the city and the private development team, a partnership of Wilson Meany Sullivan; Lennar Urban; and Kenwood Investments, a firm formed by lobbyist and Democratic Party fundraiser Darius Anderson.

Adding fuel to the Fire Dept

As mentioned by folks who have reviewed Fire Chief David Kapler’s employment agreement, the agreement is silent on the issue of whether free gas via the City’s own service stations is included.    The option, was to select a City owned vehicle or take the car allowance stipend in the amount of $250 a month.   According to the City Clerk’s office, this is a copy of the offer letter, as there is no other contract, this serves as the employment agreement between Chief Kapler and the City.

Chief Kapler opted, at that time, to take the allowance:

You’re looking so fly inside your BMW

Yikes!   If you didn’t think things could get any worse at the City government level, think again.   Apparently when things get contentious amongst staff and the public becomes hyper aware of potential problems, issues come out of the woodwork.

Over at the Island, Michele Ellson has posted an excellent expose about Fire Chief David Kapler’s use of city resources — in this case, gas — for his personal benefit.    A brief summary, but reading the entire article is worth it, according to Michele E. a few eagle-eyed witnesses noticed the frequency with which the Fire Chief was filling up at official Fire Department service stations,  but it wasn’t just for his personal truck which was outfitted for official use, but his private BMW coupe.   On Saturday, these witnesses snapped photos of the Fire Chief, off duty, and filling up the BMW and snapped a photo of the gas log.