Spooky…

Happy Halloween folks, please be careful out there tonight.  There will be lots of kiddo wandering around requesting sweets, so maybe sub 25 mph should be the norm for tonight.

But speaking of scary treats and by “treats” I mean totally unwelcome and unsolicited.  Yesterday A Better Alameda/Alameda Citizen Taskforce PAC (ABA/ACT PAC) decided that they needed to triple down on their Alameda Sun ad from the other week.  Just so we’re up to speed, Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft sent an email out to her supporters (or anyone who had signed up for her mailing list) to let them know about the lies in the ABA ad.

So ABA/ACT PAC felt as though they needed to respond in kind, because it wasn’t enough that they stand behind their lies they won’t defend it with any actual real proof, they just want to broadcast it just a little more widely.

Here’s the problem.  A lot of people who received the email did not sign up for ABA/ACT PAC’s mailing list.

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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.

National Horror Story: what Trumpism has wrought

Within just a few days.

The MAGAbomber:

On the Internet and in real life, Cesar Sayoc was not shy about broadcasting his support for Donald Trump and his contempt for those the president might consider enemies.

He plastered stickers across his white van — supportive of Trump — alongside images of the president’s critics with red targets over their faces and a large decal that read “CNN sucks.” On Twitter, the 56-year-old trafficked conspiracy theories and ranted about liberal billionaire George Soros, former president Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and others whose politics were out of line with his.

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:

Recall redo

At the last City Council meeting, Malia Vella was served — again — with recall papers.  Because Steve Slauson, candidate for Assembly, is nothing if not persistent.

The rationale on their petition to start the recall?  Improper handling of the City Manager Jill Keimach matter.  Vague enough for you?  I’m not sure which part they’re referring to but a lot of people on the City Council probably fit under that reasoning but some how only Malia Vella is the subject of this recall.

And since it’s a public document, I’m throwing it up here including the names of all the folks who signed the petition.  If they’re happy to sign to try to remove a City Councilmember under such a flimsy excuse, then they should be happy to make their participation in this farce known.   Because you choose to sign a petition and this one doesn’t even have some smarmy paid signature gathering lying to you in your face.

Eating your own

There’s an issue I’ve been watching unfold on Facebook since last week and I wasn’t sure if I should write about it to continue to give it oxygen or just leave it.  I decided to not leave it because it’s something that I’ve noticed about local (and national) politics.  Groups and people who should be aligned end up not being aligned because of some strange personality conflicts and eat their own.  Particularly when it comes to more progressive issues and groups.

Plus, it’s now been picked up by the East Bay Express.  While the EBX gives very general background on the actual emails, let me provide a little more background because the way it was summarized sounded like everyone involved worked for the school district and everyone involved was a party to the snark.

To provide some context this also involves some real piss poor technology skills as well.  In a nutshell: someone emailed a bunch of their friends about an email she received and added some snarky commentary.  That person them responded back with more snarky commentary.  Some people were just cced on the email and didn’t participate at all.  Some people were cced on the email who then promptly shared the emails with the people who were the subject of the snarky comments.

Unfortunately one of the snark makers is a current candidate for School Board: Anne McKereghan.  One snark maker is a teacher at AUSD.  Another snark maker is a well known community member in the world of school issues.  One person CCed, who didn’t participate in the discussion, is a district employee.

Uneasy listening

I only had a text version of the DA’s report but since Steven Tavares has the official copy, I thought I’d point you over to his site for the full version.

I’ll start out by pointing out, you can’t just accept one part of the report and discard the other section.  This is to preempt the cries of, “well they should just release the tape then.”  Because if you’re going to get all excited about the DA concluding that Jill Keimach rightly believed that the meeting she was heading into was going to involve bribery and extortion, then you have to give the same weight to the same DA’s report which concludes that nothing that they heard on the tape involved bribery and/or extortion.

So, with that, let’s break it down.

Leaks everywhere

Before we dive right into the specifics of the DA’s report around the whole Jill Keimach recording people without their permission thing.  Let’s talk a little bit about documents being leaked.   This is particularly relevant because of the Alameda Sun piece that seemed to think that the East Bay Express article about Trish Spencer’s two $50 checks was some how illegitimate because of how Steven Tavares received the information about the deposited checks.

Specifically:

According to Spencer, documents were somehow delivered to Tavares, not in the normal course of business via a Public Information Request. “There have only recently been Public Information Requests for these documents and staff has not yet responded,” she stated.

All hat, no cattle — the op-ed version

A few things are very clear about Trish Spencer’s recent op-ed in the Alameda Journal.  First: it’s obvious that she believes that Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft is her toughest competition and not Frank Matarrese.   The first step of “informative” bullet points goes directly after Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft and not Frank Matarrese.   Two: it’s a bit of a word salad and some people may not read it, but for those that do and do not understand Trish Spencer’s penchant for voting “no” on EVERYTHING, it will come off as reasonable.

When you look beyond the surface and consider the bullet points — particularly the points about how she never supported revenue generating mechanisms for the City to help with infrastructure costs and other city expenses —  her next few paragraphs about the unfunded liabilities and deferred maintenance ring very hollow.  While the City has had some windfalls in money in the form of the transfer tax increase (the work of another City Council and another Mayor which Trish Spencer probably would have voted against too) and huge property exchanges in the recent past, City Staff and this Council majority has been very strategic about using those one-time windfalls to help address these very issues.

Don’t look back in anger

I’m not a huge podcast listener, I realize I should be but I can’t seem to figure out the whole “how do I download this shit” thing on to my phone.  When I really need it I guess I’ll sort the whole thing out, but for the time being the only podcast that I’ve listened to recently has been Steven Tavares’s Steven Tavares is Angry podcast and mostly only when something specific to Alameda is on tap.

If you haven’t listened for the specific Alameda stuff you really should.  There are two podcasts in a row with Alameda specific stuff.  First was the episode when he talked about the Alameda Sun writing about his East Bay Express article (so meta).  The only thing that will make the whole thread better is if the Alameda Sun writes about his podcast referring to their article… It could be an endless referential loop and I’m here for it.