I do not think it means what you think it means…

I thought that John Knox White’s characterization of Rin Kelly’s piece in the East Bay Express as the “perfect Rorshach test for Alameda Point” was rather brilliant.   There has been a bit of a consistent hum from some folks snarking over the lack of reaction from “the blogs” over Rin K.’s piece as though it was some big “A HA!” moment that proved their theories right.   Personally, as I mentioned on In Alameda, I thought that Rin K. did a really excellent job on her piece, minus the title and subtitle which always has to be a little sexy to pull in the readers, particularly the readership the East Bay Express caters to.   Oh and the characterization of the hand push as a shove was a bit sensational too, but no biggie.

While some people think that the quotes in the article prop up the message they have been saying all along, contextually, there really is no there there, quote wise that is.   All of the quotes by either David Brandt or Ann Marie Gallant talk about the issues in very general terms. 

About last LWV meeting…

Before word starts circulating around the Alameda grapevine in that awful form of telephone that ends up attributing statements to someone that they didn’t say, here’s the nutshellish version.   For those that haven’t ended up on the tail end of e-mail forwards or Google alerts, essentially rumors have circulated that the City Council is going to be modifying the Alameda Point Initiative to get it on the November ballot.

So this part Saturday while the rest of us was out enjoying (or sweating in) the heat of summer, the Alameda League of Women Voters were cooped up inside Otaez for its annual meeting.   One of the things that they were scheduled to discuss was the Alameda Point Initiative and what position, if any, the League should take on the issue.  The recommendation that the subcommittee came up with and that was adopted by the League Board — because at the time they adopted it in May the assumption was the the Initiative would be submitted for the November 2009 election — was to not take a position on the issue because there would not be sufficient time to review the Initiative and put it to a vote for the larger membership.    Rather the subcommittee made a recommendation to make a focused educational effort by providing analysis of the Initiative, host public meetings, etc…   Basically to do what the League is known for doing which is to provide information in a non partisan manner.

Internal conflict

It’s taken me a while to get around to writing about the fire on Bay Farm because it’s such a delicate subject and when that is combined with the whole initiative the Firefighters want to place on the ballot even though our budget is in a precarious state, I wanted to wait for a few more details.    And now given that there was a second fire in Alameda in less than a week — I always had the feeling that structure fires were pretty few and far between — the Fire Department issues has jumped up in prominence.

At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, the Fire Chief gave a run down of what all went down.  According to the Fire Chief for a normal response, this is what type of equipment and staff would be dispatched:

• Three Engines
• Two Trucks
• One Ambulance
• One Battalion Chief
• 18 staff on site

The response that night:

• Four Engines (because one truck was busy)
• Two trucks (the busy truck became available)
• AMR dispatched (because ambulance was busy)
• One Battalion Chief
• 21 staff on site

Election speculation

The group Protect the Point* has put out a press release asking us all to ignore the “spin from the developer and the supporters of this initiative” and instead look at the facts of what SunCal delaying submittal of their signatures actually means.    Technically, the reasons outlined by Protect the Point (”potential legal challenges, “stanch, organized community opposition”) aren’t “facts”  but rather assumptions and conjecture about why SunCal decided to wait until 2010 to go to the ballot.

What makes this Protect the Point press release notable is this section which says:

…Because these signatures were gathered for a regularly scheduled election, SunCal would need to start over to call an “early 2010 election” as they stated in their press release. The next possible election after November without gathering signatures to call a special election is June 2010…

8,083

As scooped by John Knox White yesterday on In Alameda, SunCal will be waiting until early 2010 to put the Initiative on the ballot as opposed to this November.   Here is text of the full press release sent out by SunCal yesterday evening:

Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative Collects Sufficient Voter Signatures

Targets Early 2010 Election for Voters to Decide Future of Alameda Point

Alameda, Calif. (June 15, 2009) – Supporters of the plan to rehabilitate and reuse the Navy’s former air station in Alameda are targeting an early 2010 election to place the Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative before voters.

The citywide voter initiative to clean up and reuse the old military base kicked off in March 2009 when the initiative language was submitted to the City of Alameda. Since then, more than enough signatures have been collected to place the initiative on the ballot – a total of 8,083 valid voter signatures.

Stormin’ Mormons

An article was published in Time to talk about the larger issue of the emergence of people of the Mormon faith as a political force to be reckoned with.   The example that leads off the entire article strikes close to home.   Highlights:

Last November, Jay Pimentel began hearing that people in his neighborhood were receiving letters about him. Pimentel lives in Alameda, Calif., a small, liberal-leaning community hanging off Oakland into the San Francisco Bay. Pimentel, who is a Mormon, had supported Proposition 8, the ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage. And that made him a target. “Dear Neighbor,” the letter began, “Our neighbors, Colleen and Jay Pimentel” — and it gave their address — “contributed $1,500.00 to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign. NEIGHBORS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THEIR NEIGHBORS’ CHOICES.” The note accused the Pimentels of “obsessing about same-sex marriage.” It listed a variety of local causes that recipients should support — “unlike the Pimentels.”…

It wasn’t me

It appears that whoever hired the big guns to send a letter out to the City Attorney regarding the Alameda Point Initiative isn’t willing to come out and own it.   In fact, groups that were virtually waving the letter around the other day are now pulling a Shaggy and denying involvement with the letter.

While Peter Hegarty is reporting that:

…[Lawyer Dana] Sack is allied with Protect the Point, a community group against the SunCal plan…

Both Protect the Point and Action Alameda/Save our City Alameda are saying to Michele Ellson, “it wasn’t me”:

…Sack wouldn’t tell me who he is working for (”She asked me not to”); representatives of Action Alameda/Save Our City Alameda and Protect the Point both told me they didn’t retain him…

Every move you make

Piggybacking on the report done on the Fire Department, the City tasked the same outfit to assess the Police Department as well.   What was striking, other than the recommendations to consider basically handing over the animal shelter portion of the Police Department to a non profit agency to run, or partnering with other jurisdictions to help cut costs (p. 58) and closing the jail to use the county one (p. 59) — was the reaction from the Police Officers Association.

JKW made a note of this on an In Alameda post relying on a quote secured by Michelle Ellson at the Island:

…Alameda Police Sgt. Joe McNiff, who heads the department’s police officers association, said he was heartened by the glowing review the report’s authors gave the department.

He said that while he’s not thrilled about the loss of promotional opportunities for the department’s officers, he understands the financial position the city is in and he’s hopeful the department can regain some of the positions it has lost when the economy turns around.

“We understand that with the city going through the financial mess they’re going through right now, we are trying to help them work through it the best that we can,” McNiff said…

SunCal never promised us a rose garden, part 2

Continued from Part 1…

Jean Sweeney goes on to say in her letter to multiple editors (thanks to David B. for the Alameda Journal redirect)

Do you notice that the Alameda Point Master Plan is not one of the Applicable Rules? The Master Plan has no enforceable effect. It has big promises and pretty pictures but not enforceable.

See, here is where we get into a pure terminology issue. Just to clarify initially, the Applicable Rules that SunCal is bound by under the Development Agreement (p. 4 – 5) are:

• The City Charter of the City of Alameda on the Election Date, as modified by the Initiative Approvals…
• The General Plan of the City on the Election Date, including the new Alameda Point Community Plan and other modifications made by the Initiative Approvals…
• The Alameda Point Specific Plan…
• The Zoning Ordinance (i.e., Chapter XXX of the Alameda Municipal Code) of the City on the Election Date, as modified by the Initiative Approvals…
• All other provisions of the Alameda Municipal Code and other rules regulations, ordinances and policies of City applicable to development of the Property on the Election Date, as the same may be modified by the Initiative Approvals.

SunCal never promised us a rose garden, part 1

But they did promise us a Sports Complex.

Before I get started, first off, the City has produced its Alameda Point Development Initative Election Reportas directed by the City Council.   More on that document later, it’s about 39 pages and supposedly breaks down the SunCal Initiative into easy to understand plain language bits.  I don’t want to get too in-depth about it because I have been sitting on this particular post for a while and want get to it.  

Last week, Jean Sweeney submitted a letter to Alameda Daily News that was chockful of, um, information that isn’t quite true. I don’t think she deliberately was trying to misrepresent what is in the SunCal Development Agreement, but I found some inaccuracies in her letter. The letter has since disappeared off of ADN, but it is screen capped below.