I had a dream I was locked outside your house

I’m trying really hard to care about the City Ventures project over on Clement Street, but am finding it difficult to get too excited about the project.  And I’m a big fan of infill development.  Maybe because it’s all faux Victorian looking.  Eh.

Meh.

The Clement Street side will have a sweet view of the Operational Support Center thing.

I think the project may be slightly overparked given the plethora of open spaces on Clement.   I feel like they are trying to appease any possible opposition by ticking off all the boxes of what people may get pissed about before it becomes an issue.

Barriers to entry

Once again, Trish Truth saves my aching fingers from typing up the comments offered by (at that time) Mayor-elect Trish Spencer at last Tuesday’s City Council meeting.  This was Part I of the three part meeting described here.

I’m not going to post the whole comment, just the part I’m going to address:

And then in regards to this plan[…]I really think that it is important to have a community discussion if we want very low and low income housing separated within its own building and the other building has the moderate below rate housing and the market rate housing.

I’m putting aside all the other comments about approving of the affordable housing development as part and parcel of the development agreement, it’s really quite sweet that Trish Spencer is worrying about the developer litigating because he wasn’t forced to submit plans for the affordable housing along with the market rate housing.

In your Transportation Element

During the second reading of Tuesday’s night’s meeting, Tony Daysog had, yet another, head scratching comment:

I can’t wait for our community to have this traffic/transit discussion because now we’re doing these TDMs as these projects here and there arise.  Alameda Point has its TDM, Alameda Landing has its TDM.  Northern Waterfront, Del Monte project has its TDM. And I do think that we have to be a lot more strategic in terms of planning.

Tony Daysog makes it sound as though Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plans are some bandage solution that is done in lieu of long term strategic planning.   It’s not.  Two years after Tony Daysog departed the City Council, the City started the process of updating the Transportation Element of the General Plan to talk about long term strategies, there’s a good overview about the Transportation Element EIR here.   The Transportation Element is the roadmap of sorts on how we tackle dealing with the inevitability of traffic in our City.  Maybe this is a part of the “discussion” that Tony Daysog wants to have, maybe it’s not, but it’s not clear that he understands the distinction.

The walker

On Friday morning news came out that on the evening of #hellastorm on Thursday, a pedestrian was struck by an AC Transit bus at the corner of Otis and Grand and killed.  A friend later informed me that the pedestrian was Sam Sause, a highly involved community member.

First I just want to say that my thoughts and prayers are with the Sause family during this difficult time.

You know too much

So I’d been saving this until after the election was over because I didn’t want to detract from the election. So at the Planning Board meeting last week, former City Council member Doug deHaan (who I am guessing is now seriously contemplating a run in 2016) decided to comment on the Del Monte project issue.  Remember this is someone who used to sit on the City Council and would have had plenty of training on conflict of interest and Brown Act laws etc.

He decided to chuck in this tidbit at the end of his public comment period.  Oh, by the way, did you know if you are a former City Council person you don’t have to pay attention to the time limit for public comment.  Yeah, you just get to keep going on and on and on.  True story.

So here’s the straight knowledge that he laid down before the Planning Board:

Round round get around

This comment is a really good one about the sad state of Alameda’s transit planning:

That said, and turning to serious objections, the transit planning could be a lot more ambitious and thought of at the city level. Emeryville set up its shuttle system. The aim should be to get existing residents, not just new ones, out of their cars and onto buses, bikes and ferries. It’s very doable. And you don’t need to get too many to have a big effect of traffic at peak times: the effect of the marginal driver is greater than that of the earlier one.

Right now, we are relying, heavily, on grants and new developments to fund alternatives to AC Transit to get folks in select areas on the West End through the tube to get to Bart.  Perhaps, if residents would like an Emery-Go-Around type public transportation option we should encourage existing retail corridors and shopping centers to put money into a pool along with these sub areas to create a Alameda-Go-Round that would be free (or have a small surcharge) for Alameda residents in general.

Cross Alameda Trail Mix

Also on the Transportation Commission agenda tonight (in addition to the Del Monte Transportation Demand Management plan) is the Cross Alameda Trail aka that strip of land that borders Appezatto Parkway that has been sitting there for years and being, mainly, used as a parking lot.

For a kick, this is why no one is ever 100% happy with ANY project in Alameda, even one that should be relatively straight forward like building a trail that is open space and super low impact.  In the compilation of the public comments about the plan here’s the section on benches:

You are what you eat

The City of Alameda, in a mission to promote its businesses, has put out a restaurant guide which is really cool and neat  BUT…it’s already outdated with numerous mistakes.

Look no further than the Asian section which doesn’t know how to handle crossover cuisine and just gets some thing really wrong:

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey

Map has been updated, thanks everyone!

Between you and me, I have been obsessed with the idea of having a Little Free Library ever since I had read about the whole concept.   Since I had first read about them, Alameda’s own number of Little Free Libraries has grown considerably.  Of course, even while obsessed with the idea of a Little Free Library I hadn’t at the time actually considered having one myself because (1) I’m not handy and (2) neither is my husband.   Anything involving woodworking would be an immediate pass.

But then I became obsessed with them again when I saw a pinterest board about unconventional Little Free Libraries and came across one that had been a newspaper vending box in its previous life.  And I thought to myself, self, you can totally spray paint a newspaper box can’t you?  And I answered, “of course!”   I set off to find myself a newspaper vending box and devoted hours and hours of searching on the Internet for one, but came up empty.   I would looking longingly at the ones around town and looked sad and neglected and wondered if anyone would miss that particular newspaper vending box.

I then moved on to various other ideas and as my husband saw me eyeing a huge outdoor hurricane lamp that I thought might be a candidate for my Little Free Library he asked me what I was going to do with that.  When I explained to him my Little Free Library idea he said that he would be able to help me build something.   And so I decided to share with him my dream project which I had dismissed early on as completely out of my scope of abilities: the TARDIS.  For folks that are not Doctor Who fans, it’s this.

Read it loud, read it proud

Squeee!   One of my favorite Alameda events is coming up really soon.   Oh by the way, if you haven’t yet gone through the process of signing your child up through Alameda Unified School District’s new online contact information portal you won’t be able to find out who their teacher is until they do.  At Ruby Bridges we were told that posting class lists on the windows are a big no no so you have to go into the office to find out your child’s teacher name and room number.  It’s kind of a pain, but I can see how, for security reasons, that they would want to keep that info largely confidential.  Although it makes it harder for besties to figure out if they’re in the same class together without parent intervention and coordination over texts.

Anyway, one of my favorite Alameda events is the banned book reading that the Alameda Free Library holds annually. So the week of September 21 through 27 the library will be hosting a read out at the main library. They would like to invite groups or individuals who are interested to sign up for a slot to read aloud from a book that has been challenged or banned somewhere for some reason.