I’m even more than four-and-a-half

When I had heard about the shift in the birthday cutoff date for new Kindergartners, I have to admit I freaked out a little.     Not for #1 daughter because her birthday is in the early part of the year, but for #2 son, I was getting a little freaked out.   I had always envisioned both kids going to school together and so the notion that #2 would be held back a whole year because he had the misfortune to be born after the cut off date was too much for me to handle.   So I actively started looking at private schools for a while even though I had always envisioned both kids going to public schools.

Then I talked to some folks including an admissions director for a private school who pointed out that most private schools have similar and often more strict cut off dates for Kindergarten entry.    Then I calmed down a little more and found out that there would be slowly rolling back that date so, for example this year the birthday cut off is December 2.   For 2012-2012 entry, the birthday cutoff is November 1.  For 2013-2014 the birthday cutoff is October 1, and the new rule will be fully implemented in 2014-2015 when the cutoff will be September 1.

It’s magnetic

Yesterday an update on the proposed magnet schools was sent out by the Superintendent’s office in advance of tonight’s school board meeting.  Final proposals are due on Thursday, but so far there are six proposals on the table as “innovative programs and magnet schools” and they are:

1. 21st Century Learning at Bay Farm
2. Math, Science, Technology with Integration of Music at Earhart
3. K-2 Family Support at Earhart
4. 6-12 School at Encinal
5. Global Education Through the Arts (magnet school)
6. School of Sustainability, Arts, and Science (magnet school)

From the proposals it looks like the Arts magnet would be housed at Washington Elementary and the Sustainability one would be housed at Wood Middle school.

Target, trees, and trucks

Tonight, the Planning Board is actually going to be discussing three super exciting topics, the first is the new design for the Alameda Landing site, which I wrote about previously here.   Just to recap, the design is much better than the one that Catellus had reproduced for their leasing brochure and is marginally better than the 2007 design but there are a few design issues the accompany big box stores like Target that I hope will be addressed.

The best thing is that the new team from a newly liberated from under the ProLogis umbrella should be present at the meeting so I hope there will be a grilling of timelines and when Catellus intends to break ground on Alameda Landing since this project is literally taking forever.

The Planning Board will also be taking up the topic of the Master Street Tree Plan which the felling of the Park Street trees brought back into the spotlight.   My guess is that moving forward, the streetscape exemption will probably be taken of the list of exempted noticing requirements, unless the design review for the streetscape explicitly points out that healthy trees will be removed as part of the streetscape process.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of the 99% and related occupy whatever you want these days, I found this hysterically funny in light of my recent acceptance of my hyper tiger mom-ness:

High Expectations Asian Father says

Worth the click, I promise! See you all on Monday!

No merit badges

Yesterday the City put out a press release that was promptly tweeted by many was the news that the California Emergency Medical Services Authority had cleared several Alameda Fire Department paramedics of any alleged violations.   While it doesn’t appear that anyone has taken credit for filing the complaint against the AFD paramedics with the EMSA, it sounds a lot like some of the allegations that were filed by the not really a group but a group, the “small unaffiliated group” that has been watchdogging the AFD of late.   The most recent complaint they have generally lodged was that Alameda Fire Chief Mike D’Orazi was unqualified for the position.   Despite the protestations that they were all about having a “fact based discussion” when confronted with facts, the discussion sort of fizzled out.

Built to suit

This post is actually written in advance of watching last night’s Planning Board meeting, but So, I thought I was going crazy when I saw Michele Ellson and Dixie Jordan of Alameda Patch’s posts about the Planning Board meeting that I had missed talking about the agenda items before the meeting.  Turns out, the meeting was not last night, but rather will be next week, so you still have time to weigh in on the issue!

I wanted to point out somethings I really liked and things I hope to see improved in the design of Alameda Landing’s retail space.

As I posted in early October the rendering for the retail portion was really uninspiring for the leasing packet that was floating out there.   It was pretty, not to mince words, crappy.   It had a really strip mall-y sort of feel, which is fine, but definitely not what was promised by Catellus all those years ago.

This new rendering is a whole lot better, in fact, it may just be better than the 2007 design which had serious problems with some side walk issues.

That’s so impasse

Both Eve Pearlman, Susan Davis,  and Michele Ellson covered the news that the recent negotiations between the School Board and the teachers’ union, AEA, has reached an impasse.   From the Alameda Journal:

Alameda Unified’s general counsel, Danielle Houck, asked the state’s Public Employee Relations Board on Nov. 8 to declare an impasse and appoint a mediator to help the district and its teachers reach a resolution on class size issues.

“We are hopeful that with the assistance of a mediator we can reach a fiscally responsible agreement with our teachers that is good for both students and teachers,” Superintendent Kirsten Vital said in a news release.

We like sportz

As part of the City Council meeting on Tuesday, there was a Council Referral by Mayor Marie Gilmore to ask staff to look at alternatives to the Ron Cowan land swap, the point was that if (and hopefully when) the Ron Cowan land swap eventually dies, there are some alternatives on the table to make sure that there is some sort of solution for the Golf Course moving forward.

Certainly the whole Kemper taking over has not resulted in an optimal deal for the City.    A lot of the capital dollars that they promised when they were selected has not really materialized, but honestly, the RFP when they were selected was so ridiculously structured that they probably didn’t even realize what they were promising anyway.

However, apparently despite the lack of natural support that Ron Cowan thought would be forthcoming from youth sports lovers everywhere, only in the 11th hour has the Alameda Youth Sports Coalition decided to come off the sidelines to declare this deal a win-win for the City, Ron Cowan, and youth sports.

Smoke break

I’ve been thinking a lot about the non-smoking ordinance which was adopted in whole at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.   My first, very basic instinct is to slow clap and cheer, because honestly, I find smoking to be one of the nastiest habits ever.    I loathe the two corridors at South Shore, you know the one I’m talking about, between Safeway and Trader Joe’s and right by the Starbucks, where people just smoke and it’s like running a gauntlet to get through the cigarette smoke.     Almost as much, I despise the area around Peets with clear “No Smoking” signs that are generally filled with cigarette smokers right off Park Street.

I sort of understand why people would take issue with the ban on smoking in condo units.   After all these are private units, privately owned that have their own homeowner’s associations that can generally dictate what you can and can’t do if you live in that homeowner’s association.   Anyone who has lived in a place with a homeowner’s association will know that homeowner’s associations can pretty much regulate against perfectly legal things, like having a clothing line for drying clothes outdoors and things like that.   So while I get the City Council’s point, I think that people’s private property rights should have some sort of weight in the policy even though cigarette smoke is one of those things that don’t understand boundaries and does not limit itself to the smoker’s unit alone.   But smoking in general seems like a selfishly bad habit, so it’s clear that those smokers probably don’t care.

Taking root

The City has uploaded yet another survey — yes you will have survey fatigue one of these days  from all the input requested from the City — but this one is about the Park Street Trees and came as a result of the public meeting last week.

The survey asks you about your general preference for a certain type of tree instead of asking what sorts of trees you like.   Probably the best way to do it given that most people probably aren’t that well versed in what certain varieties look like all year long.   I mean, I can tell you that I like the way Gingkos look when they are in their beautiful yellow stage, but I can’t necessarily recall what they look like when they are bare of all leaves.