Erase-her

Not content to just have laughably bad grammatical errors and nouns who verb, Stewart Chen is actually showing off the side we all know about him and another than we did not.

The side we did know was that the man really does not do a good job of understanding the political role in which he aspires. He does an okay job of pretending as though he does but he’s not as forthcoming as, say, a Paul B who outright told us that he’s learning on the campaign trail and, if elected, will use the dais as a cramming time. What we did not know is that Stewart Chen is not above a little “us vs them” type of campaigning to try and differentiate himself from his opponents.

Folks: in response to the endorsement questionnaire form the @APADCAC (API Dems), Candidate Stewart Chen erased the existence of trail-blazing East Bay Asian Leaders, while also erasing his highly qualified opponent Sarah Syed (also an API candidate).#alamtg #oakmtg #slmtg pic.twitter.com/5IEcrKNf9n

— John Knox White (Alameda City Councilmember) (@JKW4Alameda) October 3, 2022

A [blank] who [blanks]

"A Leader who leads" should maybe get "An Editor who edits" #alamtg

— Lauren Do (@laurendo) September 30, 2022

I don’t know what’s more embarrassing for Stewart Chen, the fact that he has a grammatical error on his mailer that is attributed to one of his big name backers.

Or the fact that the mailer is chock full of nothing speak that is supposed to feel comfortable but yet say absolutely nothing that could demonstrate that the candidate has any specific experience or knowledge about a regional bus system. I guess this is why people grow really cynical about this whole process of elections and endorsements because they’re based on quid pro quo and not on any meaningful qualifications or demonstrated interest (this is a term that is very relevant in our current college seeking process).

Making a contribution

There’s something about this campaign season which has felt a bit, lackluster. Maybe it’s COVID fatigue or political overload, I’m not sure why I’m feeling so “meh” about this City Council and Mayor race. Anyway, here are the summary sheets for the City Council candidates. Tony Daysog is running his same, low money campaign which, good for Tony Daysog for figuring out that if you run all the time and keep your name in the conversation it makes running a lot easier but most of his money is from himself which just goes back to the inherent problem of running for office in Alameda: only those who can afford to work for free can run and serve. Jim Oddie is leading the pack in fundraising. Hannah Groce is leading the pack in spending.

Zoning code switch

I read with great excitement the news that AB 2011 was signed by the Governor. AB 2011 (explainer here) is a law that makes it easier construct housing on parcels which are zoned commercial. But, honestly, it’s not really going to do much in Alameda unless someone decides to build 100% low income housing on one of the existing commercial sites because we don’t have a lot of sites which meets the base criteria for market rate housing and that is wide streets.

So everyone who complains about narrow streets but also hates new housing being built now you have something to love about street calming and road diets.

The trigger for AB 2011 is a parcels adjacency to a road with a minimum width of 70 feet. As you can imagine there are not a lot of roads in Alameda which are 70 feet or greater. The only parcels which *may* meet AB 2011 criteria are the Harbor Bay Shopping Center:

Children are our future?

I’ve been thinking a lot about college recently, probably because #1 daughter is a Junior and we’re actively entering in that process. If you want to know about yet another thing that NIMBYs have ruined: California students having plentiful and affordable college options. The LA Times had a piece about the absolute crisis around housing for UC students and how that’s the limiting factor in the number of students that the UCs can accept.

From the LA Times:

As most of the nine University of California undergraduate campuses start fall quarter this month, the state’s continuing college housing shortage has thrown thousands of students into crisis as need greatly outpaces supply. About 9,400 students systemwide were denied university housing this fall because of shortages — and some campuses are back to squeezing three students in a dorm room as a stopgap.

Some, like Chin, are living in vehicles. Aimen Imtiaz, a UC Irvine transfer student, said she has had emotional meltdowns — especially after losing hundreds of dollars to a scammer posing as a real estate agent. And some students who manage to find housing struggle to pay for it, working multiple jobs and taking out thousands of dollars in loans as a last resort.

Off balance

In case you were wondering who some of the other City Council candidates were supporting for Mayor here are two who made an appearance (and spoke) at Trish Spencer’s kick off last week.

This one wasn’t a surprise.

AUSD is my co-parent

The League of Women Voters hosted a candidate forum on Thursday night and it was, insightful. I have written about candidate Maria Elena Moreno Van Maren in the past and some of her public comments at the school board, her emails to the superintendent, as well as her comments in a Facebook forum about bringing back in person classes during the height of the pandemic. Suffice it to say, none of it was great. Also she never returned my email when I asked her about a report that she was wearing a “Moms for Liberty” shirt.

But given all the other red flags it should be of no surprise that when the moderator asked a question around the gender and sexuality curriculum and the support of the candidate, this was her response. Now, granted, English is not Maria Elena Moreno Van Maren’s first language and so I tried to tidy it up a bit so the not totally correct grammar should not be held against her, but it’s what is lurking in those words that is the concerning part.

One direction

So here’s a fun bit to end the week, Trish Spencer held her Mayoral kickoff yesterday on Bay Farm because, well, that was the one area of Alameda that Trish Spencer did really well in the last time she ran for Mayor against Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft. Combined with her defacto crowning by the Harbor Bay HOA aristocracy and, well, why wouldn’t she be concentrating her efforts on retaining the Bay Farm crowd. The choice to select a location which is technically city owned property is a choice in itself. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use publicly owned land for campaign purposes before but even if this is not okay it feels like no one cares.

Anyway, I found Trish Spencer’s newest tagline to be really interesting. “Correct Alameda’s Direction” It’s not too far from “Make Alameda Great Again” but that would have been too on the nose eh?

Council members, public speakers: same, same

I know I often wonder about the utility of Tony Daysog on the City Council. I often wonder why he wants to even be there considering that he abstains on as many votes as he can and seems to not fully understand what’s going on half the time, but it wasn’t until yesterday’s meeting until I understood that this man thinks that this job is something that it is not. The shame of it all is that some voters (not me) keep re-electing him to the City Council; a position that he clearly articulated that he does not understand on Tuesday night. So I don’t blame Tony Daysog for being a shitty City Council member, I blame the voters for being swayed by his every four years “aw shucks” routine.

I’m going to run these videos backwards because it’s important — if you don’t know this and you assume that Tony Daysog is correct, which you should never assume — to understand the actual legal position of the City Attorney is on this topic.

For those who don’t want to watch, here’s the important bit:

Given that the council broadly approves policies across the city, on balance, I think,
you would not be violating the charter by continuing this approach.

Running total

A few more over $1000 contributions reported since my last post on this. Bill Pai who was running but then pulled out gave $1000 to Trish Spencer’s campaign so now — for the next time he runs — we know exactly what sort of policies he would be aligned with: obstruction for the sake of obstruction. And certainly not someone who wants to make an “impact” on Alameda unless that impact is just to slow everything to a halt. Bottom line is with this contribution we know that Bill Pai is as extreme as Trish Spencer. Given Trish Spencer’s anti-business rhetoric against some of Alameda’s largest employers I’ll be surprised if the Chamber (who he did his leadership training through) will consider him the next time around.

The only two groups who received contributions so large they necessitated a special report to be filed: the Firefighters union and a Better Alameda: