Back to basics

So as I mentioned on Friday, SunCal has submitted to the City another plan (which happens to be the same plan) with a new Development Agreement containing modifications to certain terms the City found objectionable.   This submission has now placed the next move firmly in the hands of the City to decide what they want to do next.

The complaints, to recap, with Measure B, in large part was in large part due to the appearance finality of the Development Agreement, the lack of ability of the City to negotiate terms, and the need for affirmative steps being taken by the developer only to amend portions of the Development Agreement.    This move now gives the City all the negotiating room it wants in order to scale the terms to its liking, so everyone should be behind the plan now?  Right?

After all, this is the plan that the Mayor, Councilmember Frank Matarrese, the Chamber of Commerce, etc and so forth have said that they like.   Now, they can negotiate the bejeezus out of this thing.

If you change your mind, I’m the first in line

In the continuing farce that is Alameda Point, after Councilmember Frank Matarrese’s announcement that he is now not in support of the Alameda Point Initiative even though he used to be in support of it, but now realizes that even though there really has been no new information released since the other day and when the Initiative first came out, he is now against it.

So, either Frank Matarrese and Beverly Johnson didn’t read the damn thing before they endorsed it, possible, but would be pretty embarrassing to admit or there is something a little more complex afoot.   Perhaps it has something to do with this mysterious other option that folks have been hinting at.

Get busy living or get busy dying

I’m big into parallels these days.   Perhaps because I’ve been listening to too much KQED (Pledge time!) or maybe because I’ve been thinking too much about Alameda issues, even more so than I usually do.    I have to say, to be perfectly honest, I was a little bugged by the announcement of the rebranding of the Alameda Point Initiative contest on my blog.   I’m not sure if the misspelling of my name bugged me more or if it was the whole idea of the contest.   Probably a little bit of both.   I mean seriously, my name is right there.  It’s not that difficult of a name.   But I digress.

As I was thinking more about the contest and the larger “discussion” surrounding the issue of Alameda Point so far and it struck me how little constructive criticism of the Alameda Point plan itself has been offered by a majority of the opponents.   The caveat is, of course, that there are notable exceptions of people actually doing good analysis of their objections of the problems with the initiative, but largely the critique has come from a purely emotional place.