A “mandate”, is neither a man nor a date, discuss

Big news from yesterday, in addition to the two other lawsuits SunCal has filed against the City of Alameda, there is now a third that was filed in Alameda County Superior Court.  They filed a Writ of Mandate, which essentially is a way for the court (if the plaintiff is successful) to tell the defendant to simply do something that they are supposed to do anyway.

Essentially SunCal contends that the City of Alameda, but specifically Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant (note, they spell her name incorrectly, adding an extra “e” to “Ann” throughout the document) has deliberately withheld records that were specifically requested under SunCal’s very extensive Public Records Act request.   And, of course, emails play a huge role in this and, yours truly, makes another cameo appearance much to my own chagrin.

How soon is now?

Here’s what I really liked about  Michele Ellson’s article Monday about Michael Colantuono’s latest letter to the Alameda County District Attorney.   This was a great example of journalism.  Somewhere along the years  journalism morphed from reporting the important facts into the need to report what “all sides” think.   Even if the “other side” is one cranky person sitting with a tin foil hat on and takes that contrary position on all issues.   It’s a journalist’s job to call bullshit when there is bullshit present and that’s exactly what Michele E. did in her article.

So the lead up to the letter Michele discusses in her article is that during Michael Colantuono’s performance at the “Special Meeting” to decide whether or not the City Council was going to authorize the City to file a civil lawsuit against Councilwoman Lena Tam, Michael Colantuono mentioned several times that he didn’t get one letter from John Keker, Lena Tam’s attorney.  And despite not having received it yet, but having received the letter from the District Attorney declining to move forward with the fruits of his investigation, he intended to spend more City money to send a response letter to John Keker’s final letter.

Undecided and it feels so good

Google has this great service called “Alerts” essentially you can tell them which people, place, or thing that you want to track for updated news items on the Internets and voila, they send them to your in-box.   One of my alerts is, naturally, “Alameda.” So I get a lot of random things about the Raiders (because their headquarters are in Alameda) and other places not Alameda, California related, but that’s okay because they are fairly easy to weed through.

This one popped up in my mailbox last night, the headline:

Survey of Alameda Voters Finds Bringing New Jobs to Alameda, City Spending, and Wasted Taxpayer Dollars as Top Election Issues

So I got excited.   Survey! This must be the infamous survey (not the Push Poll, the one before that) that people had been buzzing about.

You’re the inspiration

As I mentioned on Friday, I get quite a few anonymous tips sent to my email box.  Some things are easy to verify and a few key Public Records Requests will do the trick.    Others I sit and wonder what the heck I’m supposed to do with and realize that uncovering if said information were true and finding out if someone would be willing to step forward and verify the information, I would fricken win the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize in Alameda.   Unfortunately, given the nature of the information, it is unsurprising that no one is interested in speaking on record about these issues.   So while some folks tend to believe I throw up every random rumor I hear up in a post, in actuality I’m fairly judicious in what I decide to write about.

This item was easy, but what made it newsworthy — at least for me — is that I find it hilarious.  One of my sources told me that Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant has made a whole bunch of purchases for City Hall decor.   Specifically, motivational posters.   Yeah, you know the kind I’m talking about right?   Photos of some scene in nature with a buzz word below it like “Honor” or “Special Sauce” and some inspirational quotation that is supposed to make you want to work even harder at your job.    Even though what would probably make people want to work harder is being treated like they actually are respected human beings instead of some cheesy poster.

Fake or not?

A quick weekend post.   It has come to my attention that some people are claiming that others are “faking” their names in comments.   Here’s my policy on this.   You folks are all on the honor system.   I ask that you pick a handle and stick to it.   I’m not in love with people having multiple names, but I’m not going to take you to task either.

If someone is using your name, email me and let me know and I’ll take down the comment, but I’m not going to start taking down comments willy nilly because people have commenter’s remorse and no longer want to own their opinions and use someone else as the messenger to let me know that they didn’t write the comment.

Betcha by gotcha wow

I’ll admit it, I was actually away for past few days and apparently I missed a doozy of a City Council meeting.   The first indication was this post on Michele Ellson’s site which discussed her process when crafting her stories.

As an aside, since we are on the subject of how posts or stories are crafted, I wanted to address a few comments that commented on my post on endorsements and Frank Matarrese supporters saying that he is independent from unions, and therefore the candidate of choice for Mayor.  While I don’t hold myself to be a journalist or reporter in any way, shape, or form, much like a journalist I rely on certain sources for my information since it would be impossible for me to be everywhere all  the time.   There are some sources that I can rely on the material 100% and others that I fact check fairly thoroughly.   That information came from a source I trust thoroughly and folks can read it for what it is.   The level of believability, of course, comes from how much each reader trusts me.   Understandably some will trust me more than others and — as a blogger — I’m fine with that.

But back to the topic at hand.   Here’s essentially what happened.   During the City Council meeting, under Councilmember Marie Gilmore’s Council Referral item about getting an accounting of how much the whole Lena Tam investigation cost, there was a reference made by City Attorney Teresa Highsmith about the amounts that have been floating around about how much this has all cost the City.   Councilmember Lena Tam brought up this article, written by Michele Ellson prior to the meeting, and asked about the language attributed to the City Attorney in Michele Ellson’s article, specifically this part:

Fire department storm

I had this post in the hopper to run two weeks ago, but some other much bigger news cropped up and bam, this one got sidelined.   So this is back to the issue of Fire Chief David Kapler, currently on administrative leave, which means he is in employment limbo until someone does something.    The official statement from the City is fairly vague, citing “personnel issues” which means that they can’t talk about it.

The combination of media coverage over the gas thing and the Tahoe troubles, as well as emails from people who used to work with Chief Kapler, apparently was enough to make the City do something in the form of placing him on administrative leave, but I wonder how long it will be until we learn anything definitive.   Anyway, you did read that right though, folks that used to work with Chief Kapler have caught wind of the questions being raised here in Alameda and have started reaching out to folks.

So another interesting controversy that Chief Kapler was embroiled in involved his last position in Rochester, MN as the Fire Chief there.     The gist is this: the Rochester Fire Department received a grant from the federal government, a SAFER grant, to fund additional firefighter positions.    At the end of the interview and hiring process, two candidates sued for discrimination.   At the lower court level, the courts ruled in favor of the City.   On appeal, the Appellate Court reversed the ruling.   Right now, according to this blog posting, the ultimate decision is up in the air.

Election 2010

I’m a little late on starting up all the Campaign 2010 items, but better late than never!    Like in past election years I have created a round-up page to attempt to consolidate articles and news about candidates, as well as a matrix of endorsements that have been made by notable organizations or media.   If anyone knows about missing endorsements, send me an email or stick it in the comments section and I’ll update the page.

Plenty of endorsements already for the Mayor and City Council.  Not as many for School Board and even fewer for Bart Board.   I stuck the Bart on in this time because it’s a race I’m interested in purely because the incumbent, Carol Ward Allen, has run unopposed these last few elections and this year there’s actually a race and in appears that the big deciding issues will be (1) name recognition and (2) the Oakland Airport Connector decision.

Late 911 wears the late crown

A few other notable agenda items, in addition to the Council Referral on the Traffic Calming Toolbox, Councilmember Marie Gilmore has also requested in a Council Referral that the City Auditor, in this case Kearny of the two Kevins, perform an audit of all the records pertaining to the whole Tam-gate fiasco to figure out how much money was expended between legal fees, software purchases, employee time, etc. and so forth.

Additionally, as part of the referral  and in light of the decision made by the District Attorney’s office and the decision by the Council to not move forward with a civil suit that the contract with Michael Colantuono be closed out in order to put the whole business behind the City.

I recently put in a Public Records Request attempting to compile the same information, but if the City Auditor will be tasked with doing it, all the better because then I don’t have to pay the $0.10 per page for a copy of each record.

I keep forgettin’

So, I’ve just realize the downside of the whole Council Referral process.   It will be abused during campaign years to attempt to show potential voters how “proactive” a candidate is.

Case in point.   On Tuesday night’s agenda, Councilmember Frank Matarrese has placed for Council Referral:

This referral requests the following City Council consideration , discussion and action related to calming traffic on residential streets that have become overburdened, used as cut-throughs” or experiencing other traffic problems.

The goals he would like to see are:

(1) Address the example problem streets as a pilot
(2) Establish a toolbox of solutions for managing traffic on residential streets
(3) Set City Policy providing residents a process for bring these issues light

And you might be saying, why Lauren, that’s a fabulous idea, what’s your beef?   While I agree that traffic calming is a fabulous idea.   I love the idea.   I think it is fanfingtastic.

The only problem is that this has already been done.

Already.  Been.  Done.