This past weekend I held my 23rd Town Hall meeting at the Hampton Inn on Bay Farm Island. I hold these monthly meetings in order to meet with you face-to-face, answer questions, address concerns and update you on local government issues.

The theme of this month’s Town Hall meeting was, “Alameda Point” and the journey forward. Among the first questions was why did the residents of Alameda vote against SunCal and Measure B? There were many reasons discussed, from being against the land use plan in the initiative, not liking the number of houses, concerns over traffic, financial risk to the City, or a vote against SunCal, were to name a few.

As I mentioned in October, I could not support Measure B because of a few different reasons; the $200 million cap on the promised public amenities was far short of the $300 – 375 million cost as estimated by our Public Works Department. There was little likelihood of reducing the Navy’s $108 million price tag with this developer plan. The instability of tax increment financing left a potential for a $185 million gap and SunCal had failed to sign a project labor agreement to help put our local trades people back to work.

Now that we are past the election, I am more convinced than ever that “No is not good enough” and we need to move forward with a plan that works for Alameda. Alameda will honor its negotiating agreement with SunCal regardless of who develops the base. And whether it’s a private developer, a non-profit community development corporation, a privately or federally financed, or a mixture of approaches, I want to achieve the following:

Replace jobs that vanished when the Base closed by creating a diverse business community
Clean up as much of the contamination as possible to reduce risk to Alamedans and the Bay

Environment
Create new public open spaces, parks and wetlands
Establish new neighborhoods carefully planned to minimize traffic and built “green” using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient
Incorporate forward thinking components like alternative energy generation and urban farming into the development
Bring the Veteran’s Administration National Columbarium and medical facilities to Alameda Point

Aside from Alameda Point, there was an interesting perspective noted in an article written about the length of the last Council meeting and the value of meeting that goes until 2 or 3 am. This certainly gave me something to think about next time midnight rolls around and a motion is needed to keep the meeting going past that time. My concern is that meaningful interaction by members of both the council and the public diminishes severely after midnight.