Petition over-drive

The push back to the campaign to rename Godfrey Park is not at all surprising.  It wasn’t a question of if there was going to be pushback, it was a question of when.  And that pushback is coming now.

The great granddaughter of Milton Godfrey created a petition to ask that the park not be renamed because: reasons.  She also created a post on Alameda Peeps on Facebook that did not go as expected.

Eventually she deleted the post but not before admitting several things.

1. 1. If Milton Godfrey said the things that people are saying he said about Black people and wanting to keep Black shipyard workers out of Alameda then she would admit that was racist.
   2. When confronted with meeting minutes to show that Milton Godfrey was sitting on the City Council when the comments were recorded in the meeting minutes, she doubted the veracity of the meeting minutes.
   3. She did not believe that the timeline is correct due to her own research about “public housing projects” and when that occurred and when the quote was made.
   4. When pushed about why she believed that the quote was about public housing projects rather than housing in general, she shortly deleted her post.

 

It was truly odd to see someone who is questioning the research of others do such shoddy work herself.

You say you want a resolution

Okay folks, this one took me a bit of time but I wanted to compare the two resolutions about Racism as a Public Health Crisis/Emergency.  Just to rewind a bit: Jim Oddie and John Knox White had floated a resolution which would declare racism as a public health emergency.  That seemed to not sit well with a few members of the City Council who felt it may be encroaching on the work of the Council subcommittee tasked with figuring out the re-imaginging of public safety in Alameda.  It doesn’t but whatever.

So the Referral came back and instead of a resolution declaring racism a public health emergency instead a watered down racism as a public health crisis was passed with a majority and not unanimous. Some folks have been saying this new resolution is better, I say it is not.  

Rather than simply saying it’s not better, I did a comparison of both resolutions.  Again this took a while because, honestly, the language in the Crisis resolution is so vague and fuzzy that it was hard to understand who it was addressing some of the times.  The most interesting thing is, what was presented that night was that the Crisis resolution centered BIPOC voices more, but — if you read through it — it’s not stated anywhere.  Seriously, the resolved portions does not make a point to say that this process should center BIPOC voices, it’s simply not an issue that’s addressed anywhere.

Up to speed

Last week on Alameda Peeps someone posted an image from a new Alameda election specific website. It’s a very simple website which could benefit from some simple links that (1) explain the top level issue being compared and (2) sourcing on the symbol rating given to an individual candidate. Anyway, it’s great because it’s easy to understand and imminently shareable.

After that was posted City Council candidate Amos White was summoned to the thread and asked to clarify his positions on certain topic. I have screen grabbed his explanation because screen grabs are forever and editing happens. FYI, I did ask the moderators of Alameda Peeps for permission before posting this the redacted portions are the names of people who are not running for City Council and therefore didn’t volunteer to be in the public sphere.

Not her first rodeo

So for a bit of a chuckle, I found this on candidate Trish Spencer’s campaign filing from her 2018 Mayoral election run:

In probably the most puzzling #alamtg campaign contribution I’ve ever seen. From Trish Spencer’s 2018 Mayor run: pic.twitter.com/e5K3eZ0inP

— Lauren Do (@laurendo) July 30, 2020

Yes, you read that right.  Trish Spencer took money from Scotts Miracle Gro PAC.  Scotts. Miracle. Gro.  It’s not clear why but it’s definitely in the category of strange and unusual.

But what’s it’s the chuckle-y is what wasn’t found in the campaign filing database maintained by the City Clerk’s office.  That is Trish Spencer’s semi-annual campaign filings for her 2018 re-election campaign.   You see, if you still have money left in your campaign coffers you still need to file reports.

Can’t be bothered now

Just in case you weren’t quite positive if the language you are using to cape for A/26 is problematic and dogwhistle-y.   The answer is, “yes”:

If your talking points sound anything like this, maybe you want to rethink your position on the importance of keeping A/26 in Alameda’s charter.

The seeker

The other day, true to form, Councilmember Tony Daysog lobbed a topical grenade into various Alameda groups and then refuse to engage in a debate about what he posted which included two letters to the editor hugging tight to the need for A/26 to protect Victorian homes.

Of course, we all know that there are many other, stronger, policies in place that currently protect old “vintage” homes.  City staff put together a handy-dandy guide earlier this year but the main protection in Alameda is the Historic Preservation Ordinance which also created the Historic Advisory Board which created a first wall of protection over any structure built before 1942 and further protections for any structure designated a historic monument.

Then in response to a blast from the past capture I posted on Twitter, Tony Daysog posted this:

I knew Mrs. Johnsen. She and her husband Don were neighbors, as I grew up next door to them at 146 Santa Clara. Incredibly warm, thoughtful caring people. https://t.co/yxWtsoBCMM

— tony daysog (@tonydaysog) July 29, 2020

Candidate update 2

Add this to the “it just got interesting” files, the most recent City Council update (I’ll do one on the School Board separately) has some interesting additions to the list.  If this list grows and all these people qualify, I’m definitely pulling out the popcorn for the November 2020 campaign.

I see you’ve met Cynthia

You know that Geico commercial about HOAs?  It’s funny to those of us living in an HOA because it’s true.  Have I mentioned how much I dislike living in a community with an HOA?  The solution, I guess, is to find a non HOA home, but that would require moving and I really like my house.

But the problem with HOAs is that there is a tendency toward exclusion if you get just the right make up on your HOA Board.  There becomes talk about no trespassing signs, parking patrols, and “well-being committees” (because you can’t legally say that HOAs are doing anything about security) in order to keep order.  For those of us with a much more laissez-faire attitude toward being a neighborhood in a larger community it can be frustrating when we pick up our heads to pay attention to what out HOA is doing.

And HOAs have a lot of power over the community it controls, but with HOAs there comes a lot questions about whether communities with HOAs are duplicating the redlining or racial covenants of the past.  In 2019 there was a study out of UC Irvine about the rise of HOAs in the US.  From a post from the Kinder Institute for Urban Research out of Rice University:

Move fast, break things

After all the news coverage of the first day of the new COVID-19 testing site in Alameda a press release was sent out in the wee hours of the morning letting everyone know that the site was “paused temporarily”:

Alameda COVID-19 testing paused temporarily — CityHealth Urgent Care committed to quick reopening

More info about testing in Alameda and the Bay Area: https://t.co/n0ZGdTsZtj

Read the press release about pausing operations: https://t.co/VWKpakXqZm #alamtg

— City of Alameda (@CityofAlameda) July 23, 2020

Apparently there was some issue with liability insurance.

But, good news is they tested 1000 people on the first day even though they estimated their daily capacity at only 500 tests.

Hands off

I listened to the City Council meeting on Saturday night which was supposed to present to the City the plans on the re-imagining the police department and public safety in the city of Alameda and I have to say that I am concerned.

It feels a bit like the City Council subcommittee lost its way when coming up with that plan on what to do next.  I literally had to reopen the agenda item for the meeting from June 29 to recall what goal the City Council was trying to work toward.  That’s bad because it speaks to a lack of clarity and an opaqueness to the process which is already a difficult one to have from the start.  When you have speakers that night who express a lack of understanding about what the process is and these are people who want to see this move forward and succeed then you have clear failures of communication on what we should all be expecting.

So what was the result from Tuesday night?  Well, the result is that the City Council has essentially washed its hands of this entire process.  How so?  The subcommittee decided that it would be best that the steering committee and the resulting task forces be able to talk “freely” and so wanted to ensure that the groups were not bound by pesky open government laws like the Brown Act.  In order to do that the Council is not able to give any direction or guidance on this process at all.

I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in.

The City Council.  Your elected body who is supposed to represent you, the people, is unable to give ANY direction AT ALL otherwise it would fall under the Brown Act.