Neptune Pointe taken

Two days before Thanksgiving, the City put out this press release regarding the Neptune Pointe property:

Developer Drops Plans to Build Housing at Crab Cove
After months of negotiations, developer Tim Lewis Communities (TLC) has agreed to drop any plans to build housing at Crab Cove. On November 19, 2014, TLC withdrew its development application from the City of Alameda.

At the urging of Mayor Marie Gilmore, TLC pursued a resolution with the Federal Government which resulted in TLC giving up its interest in the property. “It was a long process, but it ultimately yielded a result that was in the best interest of the residents of Alameda, said Mayor Marie Gilmore.” I appreciate the steps TLC took to resolve this issue.”

FOCC the facts

In spite of the folks against the Wellness Center insisting the Measure WW explicitly said that the East Bay Regional Park District was going to expand Crab Cove using the FULL federal site, public records within EBRPD show that is not the case.   Even though lots and lots of people and entities have pointed out that Crab Cove has expanded via the one available lot that was subdivided from the whole Alameda luminaries including former Mayor Trish Spencer keep insisting the opposite.

So, let me lay out some agreed upon facts first.  Measure WW was on the ballot in 2008.  November 4, 2008 to be exact.

In 2006, two years before the ballot measure, EBRPD Land Acquisition Manager sent an email to EBRPD leadership with the information that the General Services Agency (GSA) aka the Federal government would be subdividing and selling off the property.  Yes.  She wrote “subdividing.”  Which means that before the ballot measure was voted on, EBRPD was aware of the subdivision and that any plans that they had for the expansion of Crab Cove would be for subdivided land and not the full parcel.

This ain’t it chief

On Friday, head ACT PACer/A Better Alameda-er Paul Foreman decided to push back against my, very correct, conclusion that ACT PAC/ABA published a whole passel of lies about Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft in order to prop up their candidate, Trish Spencer.

He left it as though it was some amazing mic drop, but didn’t realize how badly he fumbled the drop:

Lauren, Your allegation that our claim that Ms. Ashcraft voted for the rezoning of Crab Cove to medium density residential is 99% wrong. The 1 % right is that a more accurate description of the property we are referring to is Neptune Pointe/McKay Street.. However your are dead wrong that Ms. Ashcraft did not vote for it. She and John Knox White, along with every other member of the Planning Board, voted for it at a meeting of June 11, 2012. This decision was then confirmed by Council on July 3, 2012. See the City Manager report to Council at
http://alameda.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=983&meta_id=34407 or refer to the minutes of the June 11, 2012 Planning Board meeting.

Call it by its name

I guess A Better Alameda aka ACT PAC has abandoned all pretense that they are superior to all the other PACs.  From the crazy insert that went into the Alameda Sun last week with the faces of non endorsed candidates crossed out like some political hit list.   To this week, where they decide to go for out and out untruths when attempting to urge people to not vote for Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft.

Here’s the ad in the Alameda Sun:

Retaining parcel wall

You know what makes the Trish Spencer Council Referral even worse than its existence at all?  That Trish Spencer actually knows the answers to every vague assertion in that referral.   Apparently the City Council already had a document prepared for it by one of the city attorneys and then a fact sheet was put together to share to the community which Trish Spencer could have easily forwarded to her “constituents.”

In case you don’t want to click through here are some of the answers to some of the real bad information that has been circulating from folks like the Friends of Crab Cove who, evidently, don’t really care if they’re putting out bad information:

Didn’t Measure WW Require EBRPD to Acquire the Project Site?

No. Bond Measure WW was a 2008 ballot measure that authorized the East Bay Regional Park District to issue and sell up to $500,000,000 in bonds to complete the East Bay Regional Park District Master Plan for parklands and open space. Measure WW identified funds for the acquisition and development of surplus federal property adjacent to Crab Cove to expand and improve Crown Beach.

Kicking the can down McKay

Do you ever read something and then you get this really sick feeling in your stomach?  It’s the feeling you get when you realize that “Everyone Belongs Here” has a huge asterisk attached to it and that some people will literally do everything in their power to not support the most vulnerable members in our community.

Yeah, that’s how I felt when I read this Council Referral by Trish Spencer.  It feels like this is an attempt to stall out the process for APC’s Medical Respite and Wellness Center in order to allow the newly filed ballot initiative to wind its way through first.  In fact, she essentially says it right there in the text:

I would like Council to give direction to staff to obtain copies of all documents pertaining to the Settlement Agreement, and to the possible splitting or dividing of the parcel.  Staff should fully research the history of the parcel(s) in question, including a timeline of the events pertaining to the parcel purchased by EBRPD as well as the parcel to be conveyed to APC and representations by EBRPD to the public regarding which parcel(s) would be improved with Measure WW bond funds and which parcel(s) EBRPD intended to acquire from the federal government, to the extent staff is able to obtain such information.  I would like staff to provide this information to Council before it considers APC’s application for removal of the Government Overlay and amendment of the General Plan.  It is critical that Council, staff, and the community have clarity of the facts before any further decisions are made.

Go on and take it, take it all

Hat tip to vigi about this one, back to the saga of Neptune Point aka Crab Cove aka the land that EBRPD wants. Last year-ish the Feds filed a claim with the US District Court to condemn McKay Avenue which, ostensibly was under the control of the EBRPD, and so was holding up any sale of the Neptune Pointe land.

Well the decision is in from the US District Court and it is not good news for EBRPD. Of course all lower court decisions can be appealed, so it’s not clear if this is a legal battle that EBRPD and the State of California want to fight with the considerably deeper pockets of the Federal Government, but, stranger things have happened. The file is attached here and I have excerpted portions below:

If at first you don’t succeed

The City Council’s agenda next Tuesday has some interesting items on agenda. The first is an agenda item based on one of Frank Matarrese’s referrals.  The staff, based on direction from the City Council via this referral put together a resolution that enumerated what Frank Mattarrese had asked for which included a resolution that, essentially, was well, here’s now City Staff put it in their Staff Report:

Attached to this report is a draft Resolution “Supporting a Conveyance of the Surplus Federal Property on McKay Avenue for Park and Open Space Purposes.”  This draft Resolution, which was prepared with the help of EBRPD staff through its direct discussions with Mayor Spencer, will be sent to the General Services Administration, assuming that Council approves this action tonight.

Why ask why

I’m reposting this response I left in the comments from two new commenters who sort of hit the blog hard with lots of questions and then got a little more hung up on the “anonymous comments” tip than what they actually swung by to ask.  As a note for those that are new here or don’t remember, I don’t mind anonymous comments and in fact wrote a whole blog post about it five years ago.  To nutshell, anonymous comments are cool, just please try to stick with the same handle as much as possible.

From that blog post:

But on the other hand, the cost of putting full name behind your opinions can be very high, particularly when you are dealing with politics, and local politics are the worst.   While some people may decry “personal attacks”– whatever that is defined to be in that person’s mind — criticizing someone’s position on an issue or even flaming someone virtually is a far cry from some of the antics against folks who have been forthright enough to reveal their name in comments and on blogs.   Lawsuits, wikipedia entries, writing letters to donors (p.37) and then gloating about it, filing complaints with the FPPC, digging into people’s financial records and alleging ethics violations (p.86), threats of lawsuits (p. 99, 188, 121),publishing people’s personal information…those are the types of things that chill and destroy meaningful dialogue, not anonymous commenting.

And of course what also destroys meaningful dialogue is — even if done in jest — that people were considering this sort of thing:

I know a group of peoples which are trying to buy a house next to his and turn it into an1/2 way house , Nothing He will be able to say , it will definitely be an interesting time , Not in my neighborhood ……..

The person they are referring to is a sitting Planning Board member to whom, I’m guessing, the “group of peoples” disagrees with.  But I digress.

Bracing for impact

Tonight, City Council has the impact report for the Neptune Pointe/McKay Avenue ballot measure in its hot little hands and there’s nothing really shocking in it.  I imagine that anyone on the side of the ballot measure feels as though the possible impacts were overstated, but it’s not too alarmist.  For example I found this portion interesting when discussing the three possible ownership scenarios:

Even a Federal Government lessee is not required to obtain a permit from a city in compliance with local zoning ordinances. For instance, the United States Postal Service need not comply with local zoning regulations in construction of a post office on land owned or leased by the Federal Government

When I mentioned that the impact report was not overly alarmist, this was one of the points I was thinking about.  Using the Post Office as an example of a possible lessee was pretty benign, but a lessee doesn’t necessarily have to be a government agency.  It could be anyone, including, say, a private developer.   Of course the big hangup is the question about McKay Avenue itself as the whole condemnation thing is winding its way through the courts.