Archive for July, 2008
College of Alameda prexy signing off
Well folks, it looks like the College of Alameda is going to be seeking a new president. Current prexy Cecilia Y.M. Cervantes has been named president of Hennepin Technical College in Minnesota. We’ve got calls in to College of Alameda, and we’ll update if we hear back from them. In the meantime, here’s a story [...]
The cherry on top
So what would the Alameda Power & Telecom mess ($33 million in bonds due next year, $43 million in interfund transfers owed by the telecom side to the electric side) be without a lawsuit to top it off?
Vectren Communication Services, the Evansville, Ind.-based company that did the initial construction of Alameda’s telecom system, has made [...]
Sustain us
The city’s brand-spanking-new Fiscal Sustainability Committee held its first meeting Tuesday night at City Hall West on the base. What’s that, you say? A group of the city’s finest fiscal minds (Treasurer Kevin Kennedy, who’s running this thing, compared them to the Justice League), brought together to try to figure out where the city is [...]
Island High fever
As promised, more than two dozen neighbors of the old Island High site confronted the Planning Board on Monday night over Warmington Homes’ proposal to put a 36-unit, low-income apartment complex there. They say 36 units is too much for the less-than-an-acre site, that its impacts to parking and nearby Edison School would be too [...]
Candidate info at your fingertips
Can’t wait until mid-August to find out who’s running – or thinking about running – for City Council, school board, and a veritable constellation of other city and county offices this November? Well, you’re in luck. The Alameda County Registrar of Voters has, on its website, running updates listing who has pulled and returned candidacy [...]
Planning fireworks
Last month, we told you that Warmington Homes asked the Planning Board if it would consider allowing the developer to pull some of the “affordable” homes it is required to build into its Grand Marina housing project in exchange for a low-income development on the old Island High site. Well, Warmington’s architect met with neighbors [...]
Your weekend: Yes, yes, yes, it’s a summer festival
So you made it through the Mayor’s Fourth of July Parade okay (minus the cuts and bruises from falling dead asleep on the side of the road somewhere around float 112). Now it’s time for Alameda’s other major summer rite: Park Street’s 24th annual Art & Wine Festival. So grab a glass of wine or [...]
Big garage sale fundraiser Saturday
Mielle Gonzalez’s ordeal began with a rash that lasted for months, her mother, Suzy Clement, says. Not long after she entered kindergarten, in 2007, she developed pain and weakness in her legs that became so severe she couldn’t walk up the stairs in her home, and would have to crawl to a piece of furniture [...]
My humble assessment
This past weekend, we got a letter from the county informing us that we were among the 44,000 or so lucky property owners in Alameda County getting a break on our taxes for the coming year. But my husband and I had to stop mid-end zone dance when we realized a kind of important fact: [...]
Dr. Robert Butts, 1956-2008
Sad news: Beloved Alameda pediatrician Dr. Robert Butts has died. Butts passed away Friday after a six-month struggle with pancreatic cancer. He was 52.
A native of Galesburg, Ill., Butts practiced in Alameda for over a decade and also worked at Children’s Hospital in Oakland. Friends, co-workers and patients remembered him as a man with a [...]
Rede-what now?
Last week we posted an item on the City Council’s plan to ask voters to okay an increase in the property transfer tax, and a fascinating debate over the value of the redevelopment process erupted in the comments section. (Does calling redevelopment fascinating make me a nerd? Wait, don’t answer that.) Here’s how redevelopment works: [...]
