Lost in the thrill of it all

Yes, yes I know we just finished an election but is it ever too early to talk about what happens in four years when Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft is termed out? The answer is no it’s never too early.

I just wanted to quickly go over the results of the Statement of Vote which has the votes broken out by precinct and whether they are Election Day or Mail votes. If you couldn’t guess the Election Day vote share is very small compared to the vote by mail votes. Election Day votes are also the only place where Trish Spencer managed to beat Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft because, unlike their first match up, Trish Spencer couldn’t even win Bay Farm precincts outright this time. She lost every single precinct.

Every.

Single.

Precinct.

I mean, we shouldn’t have been surprised given the vote spread. But I’m old enough to remember when people suggested that Frank Matarrese in the race pulled votes away from Trish Spencer who would have won if not for the inclusion of Frank Matarrese on the ballot. There were only four precincts where Trish Spencer managed to beat Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft in the Election Day votes alone. It wasn’t a lot of votes but they were very small victories for Trish Spencer. And by small I mean it was a total of 302 votes overall for Trish Spencer in those Election Day precincts.

Stay mad

I think I’ve mentioned that I HIGHLY enjoy the online PRA logging system, so I thought it would be fun to see what was requested while I was gone. It was generally pretty quiet, even folks weaponizing PRAs need to take a break for the holidays after all but I found this request which was quickly dispatched hilarious:

Literally staff opened up this request, said, “nope not our thing” and closed the request real quick.

I’m assuming that the requestor either is part of the Fake Ass Dems leadership or connected to the organization and that’s concerning because they don’t seem to understand the rules around campaign activities and either just wanted to have this PRA as a placeholder to point to or are just really bad at the whole being political thing.

What did I miss

This is also not going to be specifically Alameda related but one thing I completely missed about the US was the wall to wall 24 hour news cycle. Particularly during the speaker of the House votes. Even CNN internationally is different that US CNN, they actually talk about news from all over the world and it’s definitely not US-centric.

But folks, the one time when I wanted every pundit out there talking about what the hell was going on in an infinite loop was when vote after vote was being taken and the Republicans were in complete disarray and you could see, in real time, Kevin McCarthy negotiating all of his power as Speaker of the House away.

Anyway, it’s going to take me a few days to get ramped back up into Alameda specific news. But I see that some commenters didn’t make it their New Year’s Resolution to learn how to Google better or bone up on their reading comprehension.

Stay dry today folks.

How you going?

I’m back, folks!

To make a long story short, we took a nice long trip over the holidays so this won’t be specifically Alameda related but wanted to share about one specific incident that really cemented the the weakness of the United States and that’s around….

Healthcare.

We have been traveling, mostly around Australasia. My husband had the misfortune of breaking his wrist while on vacation. The good news is that it was broken in Australia so we got to experience some of that public health care system that we’re all told isn’t that great because of long waits in line, etc and so forth. Naturally we had to go to the emergency room and, honestly, having been to a Kaiser ER and urgent care previously for both my kids cutting their chins in nearly identical places years apart, the wait wasn’t any longer than what I experienced at a private hospital.

And the care, wow.

So, apparently in Australia they have this device that does not currently exist in the US, it’s colloquially called the “green whistle” which we had no idea what this was. The ER nurse was explaining that my husband would be getting this device and that he would self administer and then the nurse and doctor would manipulate his wrist into place. When I was talking to a a very nice couple in the recovery area because they sent me out of the room because the noises would be “disturbing” the couple asked if he’d be getting “the whistle.” I responded that he was but that I had no idea what this was because we don’t have anything like this in America. Their immediate answer was, “it’s the best” and then explained that it was almost like laughing gas but it helps with pain management.

See you next year

Kids are out for the holidays starting yesterday, so I’ll see you next year.

I have more of the 1965 Alameda Sun articles I want to post and will try to squeeze them in between all the regular posts.

Blast from the past: an open letter

This is the letter that, I think, based on context that was posted in the Alameda Times Star earlier and caused a huge brouhaha in Alameda. Someone around during that time let me know. This is, of course, still 1965. I don’t think this was a common sentiment at that time, as we’ve seen from past letters posted here, and there was a belief back then as there is still now that you just need to “work harder” to overcome systemic inequities.

Blast from the past: “Alameda does not have low cost housing”

This is a great piece of reporting which details exactly the struggle around the Estuary Housing project. The Housing Authority had allowed the homes to become further and further degraded and then wanted to demolish because they put no money into it. Of course it was easy to decide to displace the residents of Estuary Housing because they were largely non white and the Chairman had already expressed his opinions about Black people and their lack of motivation to improve themselves like the lady in the letter yesterday.

You’re gonna miss him when he’s gone

I wanted to take a small break among all of the blast from the past goodness to make sure that I recognized a real special member of this Alameda community. Today is the last day that John Knox White will be sitting on that City Council dais and Alameda’s City Council will be a lesser body without his presense.

Yes, I can feel some of you rolling your eyes but I can also feel a lot more of you nodding your heads in agreement so suck it eye rollers.

There have been few members of the City Council, at least in my recent memory, who has understood each and every issue that has come before the Council and didn’t bog down the meetings with useless questions. He respected the professional opinion of staff but, when necessary, pushed back when something didn’t make sense. These push backs were never part of an elaborate “gotcha” to try to trip up staff but to make sure that the decisions being made were in the best interest of Alamedans.

Most importantly of all he advocated for policy for the benefit of all Alamedans, particularly those that have never been actively engaged in the decision making process at the local governance level. That speaks to a real commitment to service and inclusion that many speak about but few actually live up to that promise when it’s time to take those votes.

So, thank you John Knox White for being so wonky, geeky, and giving this city your all. We didn’t deserve you, but you definitely deserve this much needed break.

Blast from the past: saying the quiet part out loud

From December 1965, essentially what people were probably saying behind their closed doors but this lady was willing to say publicly. Of course we now know (well some of us) about how many entitlements are given (and still given) to white folks and middle class folks that were not available to Black people. The pull yourself up by your bootstraps trope was particularly more laughable given that the Civil Rights Act had just been signed a year before.

Blast from the past: “nice” people

Also from December 1965, this is a letter which is, sort of, the problem that we have today. We want to think the best of people that they’re doing what is in the best interest of people (in this case the Housing Authority) even in the face of obvious and naked racism from the chairman of the Housing Authority. This is the 1965 version of a plea for civility when one side of the political aisle doesn’t think that election results are valid if they don’t win.