Comment: What’s the Point?
I had hoped to have an editorial for you this week that would tell you whether to vote for or against Measure B. But the truth is, I’ll be sitting this one out. Because it has become crystal clear to me that the city has decided that they’re going to do whatever they want on [...]
Comment: It’s a wondeful life
This past holiday season, I gave myself a gift: Some time to read about the world outside our little Island. For two weeks, I gorged on magazines that had been laying around the house for months, and on newspapers off- and online. I read about the ongoing machinations around health care reform, the underwear bomber [...]
Comment: The death of discourse
It was late into the night of September 16 when Iris Watson stepped to the podium. The management at Alameda Towne Centre was planning to bring an Orchard Supply Hardware store to fill the vacant Safeway building, and Watson, who owns Thomsen Garden Center, was concerned the hardware chain’s presence could hurt her business.
For the [...]
Comment: Firing up the fees
Last week the City Council, whose members are frustrated about what they consider a misuse of our public safety resources, discussed plans to start charging people for making non-emergency calls to the Fire Department.
The reasons they gave were compelling: Businesses that were the subject of repeat calls due to stuck elevators their owners failed to [...]
Comment: A note about Prop 8
Some of our readers checked in with us today to inquire about the pro-Proposition 8 ad that ran on the site. Up to this point we haven’t said too much about the state propositions because our focus is on Alameda. But based on the feedback, we feel the need to set a few things straight [...]
Comment: Us and them
Let me just start off by saying that I am grateful to live here in Alameda. But like most cities in California these days, we’ve got issues.
We are facing an ongoing fiscal crisis of almost Biblical proportions. We have some big choices to make about the development of Alameda Point, which encompasses a third of [...]
Comment: Not included
The furor over Warmington Homes’ request to move low-income housing it was supposed to build into its planned Grand Marina development to another site has exposed some sad and complicated truths about efforts to create developments that provide home ownership opportunities for all, regardless of income level.
To recap, the Planning Board agreed on June 23 [...]
Comment: The end of fun
A few weeks back we told you that in response to concerns about skateboarders in the new Civic Center Parking Structure, the City Council was considering a ban on skateboarding on city property. Imagine our surprise when Mayor Beverly Johnson, listing aesthetic concerns over the legally required posting of signs advertising the ban, suggested the [...]
Comment: Happy birthday, Prop 13!
While we’re all tearing each other to shreds over why we should or shouldn’t pay ten bucks a month to support our local schools, I choose to celebrate. Proposition 13, the state constitutional amendment that limits Californians’ property taxes, is 30 years old today!
Okay, so I’m kidding about the celebrating part. Because if there were [...]
Comment: A plea
Alamedans are a generous lot. It’s one of the many reasons I’m grateful to live here, and one of the many things that sets this Island apart from many other Bay Area communities. Alamedans are heavily invested in the strength of their community. And in that spirit I am asking you to invest in a [...]
Comment: Developing
It’s easy to get swept up in the promise of Alameda Point, with its acres upon acres of available land and stunning view of downtown San Francisco. But a closer look brings home some troubling realities: the rampant contamination and the young Bay mud and flood plain that cover a goodly portion of the land [...]
