At the hip

Happy New Year everyone.

This is definitely shaping up to be a “new year” and Mayor Trish Spencer has launched, out of the gate, with an agenda item to repeal the Del Monte project that was approved at the last City Council meeting.

So, just so we’re keeping clear tabs, here’s the nutshell.  Developer puts forth a project for the stalled out Del Monte project.  Neighbors object, citing lack of community input sometime early last year.  Neighbors get involved, create a community group (PLAN Alameda), apparently do a whole bunch of due diligence like polling of other uninvolved neighbors, etc.  The consensus goes from asking from a halt of the project (because of other neighbor input) to asking for key concessions for their livability.   Neighborhood group successfully agitates for bundled parking space (previously unbundled), a seat at the table for future Transportation related decisions, and ongoing parking surveys.   Outgoing Council amends project to remove City owned parcel from the equation and votes to approve.  This requires a second reading (although with no new information presented) and the outgoing Council approves.

Now, Trish Spencer — because she is the only person on the Council with the authority to place items on the agenda without having to go through the referral process first — places on the agenda an item to repeal that decision which had the hallmarks of everything that Alamedans say that they want when presented with development issues, input that actually makes a difference.

As an aside, I found it very interesting at the last meeting that one supporter of Trish Spencer spoke during the Del Monte project — and spoke against the Del Monte project — but made a point of distancing herself from PLAN.  Later, Councilmember Marilyn Ezzy-Ashcraft referenced that she had met with members of Alameda Citizens Taskforce (ACT) — a group whose members vocally supported Trish Spencer — who had also mentioned that PLAN did not speak for them.

Anyway, here’s why this vote is problematic.  First of all, this will inevitably lead to a developer lawsuit, TLC will probably sue (see SunCal lawsuit as reference).  Also, it may even spark the owner of Del Monte (Peter Wang) to file a lawsuit as well because the sale of this parcel depends on the development agreement going through.

The second problem is that this tells the community at large that certain community interests are more important than others.   In this case, it appears that an affirmative vote will tell groups like PLAN — who evidently stayed neutral during this election — that the groups that supported certain candidates will get consideration over groups that did not.  Which essentially is what was said by Trish Spencer.

The third problem is that developers will also reconsider ever doing business in Alameda again if this is the type of gamesmanship that Alameda City Council’s play with.  We already learned from Chief Operating Operating of Alameda Point, Jennifer Ott, that commercial developers find it very hard to want to invest in infrastructure right now.  I would imagine that approving and then repealing development agreements in the span of less than a month or whenever a new set of Councilmembers join the Council doesn’t engender confidence for businesses.

The fourth problem is that Peter Wang just might give up on actually trying to develop the building or find a developer to develop the building that he might just go the route of the red brick building and file to demolish the building.  After all, he’s spent decades trying to find a financially viable way of rehabilitating the building.  The TLC plan is the closest anyone has actually gotten, and if this Council votes to tank it, well, what do you do with a money losing asset?

The fifth problem, is that this whole agenda item without any documentation or supporting staff report sort of goes against everything that Trish Spencer has told us she believes in, which is more “transparency” in the form of more documentation, not less.  I can’t tell you the number of votes against agenda items at the School Board she made because she needed “more information.”   If you notice there’s also an agenda item during closed session about possible litigation, which, I can only imagine, is an agenda item to advise the City Council what the exposure is if the City Council decides to go down this route.

This vote is key because we’ll see where alliances lie based on this vote.  Word is that Frank Matarrese is trying to tell anyone that listens that he is not in an alliance with Trish Spencer.  If he votes with her on this one, I think it will be hard for him to later separate himself from Trish Spencer given how both their supporters have tied them so closely.