So the rest of the endorsements/what I already voted for, I didn’t include everything, just the ones I felt strongly about.
Measure I (Alameda school bond): Yes.
It’s not gotten a whole lot of attention, but infrastructure issues at most Alameda school is definitely an issue. Not necessarily the school my kids attend, but every other school in Alameda is in dire need of some money to bring the schools up the the 20th century not just the 21st century. We expect huge things from our children in the future, we should be willing to give a little to make their learning experience not suck balls. Vote yes on Measure I.
Did everyone check out the video, interestingly enough the Mayor of Alameda, Marie Gilmore, is featured advocating for people to support local schools. A sitting School Board member running for Mayor is not. Go figure.
Measure BB: Yes
If everyone who complains about traffic votes for this measure that would be a good thing. Alameda itself has gotten a pretty healthy share of regional transportation dollars in the past to help out with different projects around the City. It would be a positive thing for Alamedans to continue to support regional transportation projects.
Bart Board: Lena Tam
I struggled with this one. Only because I think that Robert Raburn has done a pretty decent job. I wasn’t pleased with the Bart strikes and I think the whole negotiation process was pretty bungled. This one is purely a vote for local reasons. Lena Tam is from Alameda, lives here, and while she will represent a larger geographical area, she understands the challenges of Alameda’s relationship to Bart. Given the future development and the desire to mitigate single car trips, Alameda is going to rely on alternate forms of transportation, Bart included, and it would be a huge boon to Alameda to have someone with a deep understanding of Alameda’s issues as opposed to someone who cares, but their focus may be a little more spread. Therefore: Lena Tam. I found it highly ironic that the Green Party of Alameda County actually endorsed Lena Tam over Robert Raburn, because it was clear that whoever crafted the Alameda recommendations is not a fan of the existing City government, Lena Tam included. I imagine that person must have been seriously peeved over that pick.
Prop 1 (water treatment infrastructure): Yes.
After visiting Vietnam where we were scared by the travel nurse from eating anything uncooked but then the husband got sick anyway, I came home with a deep appreciation of water treatment systems in the United States. Clean water, it’s what makes our country great. So I’m particularly sensitive to the need for clean water to do, well, everything.
Prop 47 (felony to misdemeanor for drug and property crime offenses): Yes
Corrects a small part of the mistake that was the three strikes law. Redirects money that would be spent for incarceration to programs that could rehabilitate or keep offenses from happening in the first place.
Blogging Bayport Alameda 
Prop 1 is not about ‘Water Treatment’. In fact it is really unclear exactly what it is about at all. For those of us who opposed the Peripheral Canal during Brown’s first terms in office and defeated it in 1982 one can’t help being suspicious of any Water Bill presented by Brown. http://blog.sfgate.com/inthepeninsula/2014/10/29/prop-1-california-water-bond/
Comment by frank m — October 30, 2014 @ 7:10 am
Prop 1: water infrastructure bond.
Comment by Lauren Do — October 30, 2014 @ 7:18 am
Since Robert Raburn is clearly the superior and more experienced candidate for the BART Board District 4 seat, I was deeply dismayed at your (possibly uninformed?) endorsement of Lena Tam over Robert Raburn, who has served Alameda very well since 2010 as our BART Director.
Robert has always had strong ties to Alameda: he rides his bike here to the island once a week or more, supports local businesses, and–like Lena Tam–belongs to the League of Women Voters of Alameda. (Pat and Robert sold their car many years ago–he walks his talk.) Robert has not only supported but helped improve bike and transit connections between Alameda and BART.
In his first four years, Robert has made major changes in BART policies that serve Alamedans directly, such as keeping local stations in downtown Oakland and Fruitvale cleaner and better maintained, getting bikes allowed on all BART trains, adding bike stations and more bike parking, and improved efforts to combat bike theft at BART–just to name just a few. (He tried to stop the costly Oakland Airport Connector, but most of his board colleagues were unwilling to shelve that white elephant: about 80% of Alamedans seemed to agree with Raburn’s OAC position in 2010.)
The most important reason to vote for Robert Raburn is that he knows transportation and transit far better than any other candidate. Lena Tam, who is a a friend of mine and whom I deeply respect, simply does not have the decades of transportation experience that Raburn has. Robert is the most knowledgeable candidate in the race this year–just as he was in 2010, when he was first elected to the BART Board.
The BART Board needs more knowledgeable, progressive, pro-transit advocates like Robert Raburn to keep it moving towards more sustainable policies that will equip BART for its 21st-century mission and meet the challenges of increasing ridership and an aging, inadequate infrastructure. I hope you will RE-ELECT ROBERT RABURN to the BART Board.
Comment by Jon Spangler — October 30, 2014 @ 7:25 am
Yes. BART and the people need Raburn on the BART Board of Directors.
Comment by A Neighbor — October 30, 2014 @ 7:37 am
Jon: Both Lena Tam and Robert Raburn are great candidates. It really should be this difficult to select between the candidates offered as opposed to not really caring who gets elected. I laid out my rationale for voting for Lena Tam, it’s not “uninformed” just differs from your reasoning for voting for Robert Raburn. Fortunately, however the vote goes down, we will be well represented on the Bart Board.
Comment by Lauren Do — October 30, 2014 @ 7:38 am
Jon Spangler:
Raburn had the terrible misjudgment to support the public — the people who ride the trains and pay the fares and the taxes — over the BART unions during the strike and for that he must go. We need a leader like Tam on the board, who has proven her ironclad commitment to public sector employees who out-earn their taxpayers. Talk about commitment, she even betrayed the city to the firefighters’ union in the last go round! That is the committed leadership we need. I’m sure Raburn is a nice guy and maybe knows a thing or two, but we just can’t risk taking our boots off the public’s back.
Tam for BART!
Comment by Ambrose Bierce — October 30, 2014 @ 7:44 am
5: Lauren, you seemed to ignore Raburn’s clearly superior transportation expertise and experience compared to Lena Tam.
Yes, booth are terrific public servants–and both are friends of mine. Since Robert has actively supported Alameda’s transit and transportation priorities as BART Director, your “provincial” argument favoring Lena Tam is simply not supported by the facts on the record. (One example: Raburn was instrumental in making sure that Oakland officials made room for the Estuary Crossing Shuttle to have a good bus stop at the Lake Merritt BART station when they objected to losing parking spots.)
6: Well written, Mr. Bierce, but being anti-union as such is not such a good thing. (As I see it, both the BART unions and BART management need to learn how to build a more constructive 21st-century relationship without the dogged adherence to outdated animosities and dysfunctional behaviors.) Robert Raburn has consistently supported more constructive labor-management relationships and has worked–usually behind closed doors in his quiet way–to try and build bridges between the board, unionized employees, and managers. Blind allegiance to either BART’s unions or to past BART management practices is a recipe for continuing disaster for BART passengers.
RE-ELECT ROBERT RABURN TO THE BART BOARD!
http://www.insidebayarea.com/News/ci_26788729/Guest-commentary:-Reelecting-Raburn-to-the-BART-board-is-right-choice
Comment by Jon Spangler — October 30, 2014 @ 8:27 am
in this case, Jon Spangler’s wisdom is FAR SUPERIOR to that of Lauren DO-what-the-political-consultants-tell-her-to-say. Please don’t faint, Jon, but I do wholeheartedly support your choice and position. Jon Spangler, agree or disagree with him, is standing up for what he believes in: bicycles & mass transit that runs well for all. And he actually knows something about the subject. As I have said before, Lauren Do is certainly entitled to her opinion, after all, this is her blog. But I still don’t know much about her expertise in anything other than being a wife & mother living in Bayport.
Lauren Do does not seem to stand for anything other than Lena Tam’s right to hold elected office indefinitely, whether she is qualified for the position or not.
RE-ELECT ROBERT RAYBURN TO BART BOARD.
Comment by vigi — October 30, 2014 @ 9:21 am
“interestingly enough the Mayor of Alameda, Marie Gilmore, is featured advocating for people to support local schools” . No, Mayor Gilmore and everyone else in the video are advocating for people to support Measure I. To arrive at your conclusion, one must first buy the premise that Measure I actually “supports local schools”, not just more shenanigans from AUSD. None of the needs in this video are new. All of the needs in this video have been the subject of requests for more taxpayer money before. Nothing ever seems to get fixed to the satisfaction of the people asking for yet more money to fix it. Yet, despite all these dire problems, this video says Alameda has Great Schools!
Well, Alameda schools don’t need more money from me, then. Our schools are “great” enough, already. I have pressing needs of my own.
Comment by vigi — October 30, 2014 @ 10:00 am
Education doesn’t require tax money. That’s why your UC Berkeley degree wasn’t free, you paid for it all by yourself.
Comment by Ambrose Bierce — October 30, 2014 @ 10:06 am
Lena Tam’s experience and expertise make her well-suited to run for the Board of Directors of the East Bay Municipal Utility District, not the BART board. However, her employment at EBMUD probably precludes her from running for her own board of directors.
Robert Raburn has demonstrated expertise, shown activism, and produced results. He is exactly the type of civic-minded individual who should be elected (and re-elected) to public office. There is no reason that Lena Tam should be throwing the full weight of her decades of connections behind a campaign effort to unseat a dedicated public servant like Robert Raburn, other than the spitefulness of her union backers, and the need to remain in public office (any public office) to retain name recognition for a future run for higher office. There is no good reason – from the transit-riding and taxpaying public’s standpoint at least – to mount such a costly campaign to kick out a dedicated public servant like Raburn.
Comment by Richard Bangert — October 30, 2014 @ 11:07 am
Lauren, I happen to agree with you on Lena. I’m voting for Lena Tam for Bart. I met Raburn once at an AC Transit workshop and I wasn’t impressed. My first impression of him was that his loyalty is with Oakland, which is fine, but I believe having someone from Alameda would give us more of a voice in the region.
For years, Alameda has struggled to gain a voice in the region, and now this is our chance with Lena. Raburn has served us well with regards to parks, but parks is a local issue not a regional issue. Bart is an important regional transportation issue and for that we need a local voice on the Bart Board who has strong critical thinking skills, can communicate effectively, can collaborate and work well others, and can find creative solutions to our transportation issues. I believe Lena Tam is that person.
For me losing Lena Tam on the council is our loss, but having her voice and experience on the Bart Board would be our gain.
Comment by Karen Bey — October 30, 2014 @ 11:28 am
yeah Lauren, Frank’s point about water purity having nothing to do with Prop 1 is a good one. I’ve been listening to this one for months and I’m still in a quandary, but the ads talking about drought are truly stupid because nothing will be done in the short term. Detractors point to more damns. Environmentalists are split, so I’m going with Zeke Grader and fish lobby and voting no. People who are upset that Measure I does not spell out how the money will get spent should take heed on Prop 1.
Comment by MI — October 30, 2014 @ 11:29 am
#12 ” Raburn has served us well with regards to parks, but parks is a local issue not a regional issue”. I never knew that Rayburn had anything to do with Parks? He does have a PHD in Transportation and Urban Geography from UC Berkeley. http://www.bart.gov/about/bod/bodMembersDetail_04
Comment by frank m — October 30, 2014 @ 11:50 am
#10 = yes, well, if I wasn’t still paying off student loans I took out to attend UCLA & UCI medical school, I might have a bit of discretionary income to throw at AUSD.
And if health insurance premiums would just stop going up so fast, that would also help. VOTE YES ON 45 [NO on 46]. Keep Health Insurance Rates Down!
FYI = The largest spender on “NO” vote campaigns in this California election is that “Thriving” non-profit Kaiser Permanente:
From East Bay Express: Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, the insurance provider of the Oakland-based healthcare giant, has spent a whopping $18.9 million against Prop 45, making it the biggest spender in this year’s election)… The campaign to defeat Prop 45 — which has attracted the most money in California politics this year — has also received $18.9 million from WellPoint, a for-profit healthcare company; $12.5 million from Blue Shield of California, a San Francisco-based nonprofit health plan; and $5.5 million from Health Net, a Los Angeles-based healthcare company.
nice to know that our Kaiser premiums are being invested so wisely….[Wow.. if I forget to capitalize Kaiser, WordPress autocorrects it! ..Now that’s POWER & INFLUENCE!]
Comment by vigi — October 30, 2014 @ 12:08 pm
Frank, I thought I heard that Rayburn was one of the Friends of Crown Beach.
Comment by Karen Bey — October 30, 2014 @ 12:16 pm
He is our current BART Director. I don’t know anything else.
Comment by frank m — October 30, 2014 @ 12:22 pm
I could be wrong, but it would explain why the Friends are so passionately behind his candidacy. Well anyway, regarding the parks – we have Amy Woolridge at the Parks and Recs Department to ensure that we move forward with a rigorous parks and open space plan – and she’s doing a superb job.
We’ve got to start thinking much larger than local issues if we’re to solve some of our regional transportation issues and again – having Lena Tam on the Bart Board would give us a local voice on a regional board.
Lena Tam for Bart!
Comment by Karen Bey — October 30, 2014 @ 12:35 pm
For the third election in a row I am running a guessing game for outcomes for the election next Tuesday. You can enter guesses here: http://goo.gl/forms/Lk6gyWG78r
Comment by Mike McMahon (@MikeMcMahonAUSD) — October 30, 2014 @ 7:24 pm
With low interest rates and strong bond rating Alameda joins over 100 school districts in asking for local support to fix our aging schools. It is clear Governor Brown has no plans to have the State provide any assistance to local school districts. http://www.bondbuyer.com/news/regionalnews/california-schools-ask-for-11b-of-bonds-1067461-1.html
Comment by Mike McMahon (@MikeMcMahonAUSD) — October 30, 2014 @ 7:46 pm
# 20 I believe He said he would
interesting how politician make promise and are never accountable when they do not keep up with them .
Kind like the former school district boss who said school did not need the Navy ……..
Comment by Joel Rambaud — October 30, 2014 @ 8:06 pm
Vigi , there is an easy way out of students loans , it is called the Donald Trump way , get your finances in order , combine all these loan , refinance them and file for bankruptcy , might be immoral , this is how they all do it , leaving us with the empty bag …..Some of my former students have loan larger than the value of most Alameda houses , there is no way they will ever be able to repay them .
– I have helped some to get out of their loans .
– The USA is not interested in getting educated peoples , an educated person start to ask questions , they do not want that . Make no difference which party we are talking about.
Comment by Joel Rambaud — October 30, 2014 @ 8:14 pm
this is pre election fund raising for golden state leadership in Los Angeles boring for some interesting for other as it show who gave to golden state leadership up to $ 30 000 to trash Mr Matarrese .[PDF]
Recipient Committee – City of West Hollywood
http://www.weho.org/home/showdocument?id=15240
Mar 17, 2014 … 1525 S Sepulveda Blvd ll 101. Los Angeles, CA 90025. Harriett Ikenson 1ND Unemployed 200 .00 200 – 00 200 (P14). 0 3/1 6 /2 014.
Comment by Joel Rambaud — October 30, 2014 @ 8:57 pm
Now if you really want to know who is golden state leadership
Yes indeed another CPA company .
ONE SOURCE LA (HQ)
1525 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 101
Los Angeles, CA 90025, USA
Tel: +1.310.575.8833
Fax: +1.323.395.0519
emaii : insight@onesourcela.com
ONE SOURCE VC
760 Las Posas Road, Suite B-1
Camarillo, CA 93010, USA
Tel: +1.805.445.7121
Fax: +1.805.445.9071
ONE SOURCE IA
210 NE Delaware Ave., Suite 210
Ankeny, IA 50021, USA
Tel: +1.512.964.7786
Fax: +1.512.864.0038
Comment by Joel Rambaud — October 30, 2014 @ 9:15 pm