Survival of the unfittest

UPDATE BELOW, scroll down

So yesterday someone posted on my site a link to this address.  It is unclear if the person was truly tsk tsking the site or using it as a ruse to actually promote the site itself.   One commenter speculated that it is a SunCal job designed to “scare” Lawrence Berkeley Labs away from selected Alameda for its second site.   Another commenter revealed that the domain was registered via a proxy site which made identifying the owner a little more complicated.  And yet another commenter noticed that even though the email on the site read “info@unfitalameda.com” the hyperlink points to a TClifford@unfitalameda.com:

AUSD for you and me

Yesterday was the first day of school for number one daughter in the Blogging Bayport Alameda household.   We’re in the Ruby Bridges attendance zone and therefore are attending Ruby Bridges Elementary.   I have to say that so far in my limited experience with only a handful of staff and teachers at Ruby Bridges I love it.

Yesterday we watched as our daughter’s Kindergarten teacher masterfully handled children that were reluctant to participate right away.

I heard a rumor

As promised by City Manager John Russo, the City has, starting in September, made the agendas for the City Council meetings available ten days in advance of the meeting.     So the agenda for the  first meeting for September is already up and has been since last week which is a marked change.   John Knox White blogs a bit about it here and this is good news since it comes on the heels of the City posting the meeting agenda for the Special City Council meeting before the August break at the very last minute per state law for noticing special meetings.

One very interesting agenda item comes in the Council Referrals section from Councilmember Doug deHaan, which is:

There continues to be a complete lack of confidentiality inside of city hall regarding identification of applicants for posted positions. This occurred during the selection process of the City Manager, as well as the recent selection of the City Attorney. It is standard practice in the public and private sectors not to reveal applicant names for any position for which they wish to apply. Confidentiality must be upheld throughout all stages of the process, and particularly during the interview portion, thus not to jeopardize present employment of the applicant. However, the selection criteria and timeline used in this process must be transparent and open to the public.

Tangled in red tape

Last year around this time, two Alameda County agencies consolidated into one agency under the guise that it would create efficiency and eliminate duplication.  The Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority (ACTIA) and the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency (ACCMA) merged to form the Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC).   According to media out of ACTC they claim to have saved nearly $3 million and “presents greater detail to improve accountability and transparency.”

However, more recently Oakland Local has reported that the ACTC funded program Safe Routes to Schools has been temporarily suspended because of delays that apparently no one is taking responsibility for.  Highlights:

Unlike so many stories these days of transportation funding getting slashed, Alameda’s program is fully funded. After a series of local delays, the contract is slowly making its way through Caltrans. Now the only way Alameda County schools will start this month with its Safe Routes to Schools, or SR2S, programs intact is for Caltrans to issue a quick contracting decision that will release the funds.

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Lab partner

Now that all the community meetings have been completed for the wooing of Lawrence Berkeley Lab, I thought I would do a roundup of some of the accounts.   Of course there was Alameda’s, which happened first.   And while at first I thought that Alameda going first was a detriment to Alameda, reading some of the accounts of the other cities, it actually might have been a benefit.

Richmond, which has been widely agreed to be front runner in getting the second LBL campus, had an Alameda-esque positive rally to encourage LBL to select its city:

“Renaissance” was the watchword Thursday at a packed reception for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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The city hosted a kind of pep rally ahead the meeting with local performers, free food and a greeting line of young “police explorers” in uniform.

Having the ”police explorers” was a great calculated move since — say what you want about the particular site already carved out by LBL — Richmond in general has fought the reputation that there is a lot of crime in that town.  In 2010 it came in number 6 right behind Oakland in CQ Press’s City Crime Rankings.  Of course the caveat to those crime rankings, the FBI does warn against rankings like this.

Beautiful South Shore

A few weeks ago I tweeted this article:

Q&A with @ASouthShoreC 's Michael Phillips: goo.gl/J6AL8—
Lauren Do (@laurendo) August 10, 2011

Which generally I do to remind myself to write a full blog post about it at a later date, it’s take a while, but August is the perfect month given the City Council break.   If you all remember, months ago the improbable happened and Alameda Towne Center was sold to Jamestown Properties.   The best thing about this deal was that the transfer tax from the property sale was an unexpected windfall for the City of Alameda, also the new owners decided to change the name back to South Shore.

Skimp on the barbie

Can I just say that I am so glad that John Birdsall is back and writing for the East Bay Express?   He was easily one of the best things about the alt weekly.    About a month ago he wrote up a review for a barbecue joint in Berkeley which had some general history about his opinions on California barbecue.  Notwithstanding the reaming he received in the comments sections from the overzealous foodies that populate the internet these days attempting to show that they indeed know so much more than paid food writers, the piece was interesting and, to be honest, I like reading restaurant reviews as much as the next person.

However, the review about this barbecue restaurant made me sort of sad about Alameda’s barbecue restaurant scene which went from bright to rather grim.  At one point Alameda had no less than four operating barbecue restaurants: Great American Barbecue, Everett and Jones, Bonnie’s Southern Style Barbecue, and Ben’s Barbecue.   Now, only Great American Barbecue is left open, the other three have since closed.

Down the tube

Last week Jeff Cambra of Alameda Currents sent me this video he shot and edited of him riding his bike through the tube.  For those of us sitting in our cozy cars zipping through the tube, there is no way that we would ever be able to imagine — no matter how good our imagination is — just how truly icky the tube is.

Unfortunately WordPress does not allow embedding of Blip.tv videos, so while I would normally embed the video for you, I can’t.   So I urge you to please click through to the link to get an idea of how awful it is for bikes and pedestrians through the Tube.   For context the video is of Jeff C. riding from Oakland to Alameda.

Clarifications from the Chief

I wanted to draw attention to this for folks who may not have seen this.   Here’s the backstory.   About a week or so ago, commenter Denise Shelton wrote about an incident that happened involving her son’s young friend and the Alameda Police Department:

 From time to time, someone accuses the Alameda police for unfairly targeting black people. Singling them out to question because of their color. When I heard about these incidents, I always thought there must have been some reasonable explanation and that the race card was being played unfairly. Not anymore. My son attends Oakland School for the Arts. One of his best friends is a classmate who hails from Richmond and is black. This kid is skinny, good-looking, soft-spoken, unfailingly polite (he calls my husband “Sir”), and has the entire soundtrack to “Glee” on his Ipod. He dresses fashionably but not “ghetto”– his pants fit and are not around his knees. Now my son has previously roamed the streets of Alameda, alone and with other friends, sometimes late at night and never once had he been stopped for any reason. A couple of months ago, my son and this friend from school were walking along Fernside about 10 at night. They were detained by the police, questioned as to why they were there and what they were doing, had their names run through the computer and were released. They were told there had been burglaries in the area and they had to check everybody out. Okay. The boys were really upset but I told them the police were just doing their jobs, no harm done, calm down. Fine. This weekend, my son’s friend who has been a house guest of ours off and on over the summer was returning alone from a party late at night. He had a key to our house and had just inserted it in the lock when he was ordered to lie face down on the ground and handcuffed. The police said the car that was dropping him off looked like one that belonged to people who had been in a fight in the Lucky 13. He was detained until they could bring a witness to say he had not been involved. Now the biggest threat to society this kid poses is his love of show tunes and he’s handcuffed on the ground in front of my house with enough “5-0″ action to summon some of the neighbors. I was mortified that a guest in my home was subjected to this. The party he had been attending was a family and friends event, a send off to a classmate who was leaving to study dance in England. My son’s friend was not drunk or high. One of the reasons he hangs out here so much is because it’s not safe to walk the streets in many parts of Richmond, especially not for a kid who prefers Kristen Chenowith to Notorious BIG. Guess some people can’t feel safe anywhere, huh?

Definitely a troubling story, but about a week later, she posted this update after being contacted by a representative of APD:

Shuttling x-ing

I’ve been reflecting on the whole estuary crossing shuttle a bit more and what I think that some folks fail to realize is the benefit of a shuttle like this is exactly what a lot of folks have been asking for.   Getting people out of their cars benefits everyone.

What I think is pretty brilliant about the estuary crossing shuttle is that it is a direct connection from West Alameda to the BART station.  This aspect I think hasn’t been marketed enough.   For anyone who rides BART knows that the AC Transit route from Alameda takes you to the 12th Street BART station if you are looking for a direct ride.   This shuttle is a direct shot from West Alameda to Lake Merritt which is by far a closer BART station.   Shortening people’s commutes on public transportation makes public transportation a more viable option.