Archive for September, 2008
Don’t Tread on Me
One [more] small step
The Governor signs an anti-sprawl, anti-greenhouse gas bill aimed at encouraging better land-use around the state.
Alameda shopping: On- or off- Island?
This week’s Life on the Island, the column I write for the Alameda Journal is about last week’s Alameda City Council decision to let the plans for an Orchard Supply Hardware at Towne Centre continue. I know there’s not universal support for the store because many who opposed it went before City Council to [...]
Children’s Hospital benefit Saturday
Alameda’s event season continues with the 12th annual Moonlight Monte Carlo, a benefit for Children’s Hospital & Research Center in Oakland. It’s this Saturday, October 4 from 5:30 p.m. to midnight at the Albert H. DeWitt Officers’ Club, 641 W. Redline Ave. on the base.
Tickets for the black tie-optional event, which will include dancing, a buffet dinner, a live and silent auction and dealer tables, are $75 each. Blossom Garden of Alameda, the volunteer auxiliary putting on this shindig, is also accepting donations for the hospital.
The event is sponsored by Perforce Software, Eventbrite.com and McGuire and Hester. To register, click here.
Ferry Finale
The Governor finally signed SB1093 yesterday, the Water Emergency Transportation Authority bill. SB1093 was a clean up bill that rectifies many of the problems with the original ridiculous bill that was secretly rushed through the State Senate in four days.
Point cleanup battles continue
The citizen board in charge of overseeing the cleanup of Alameda Point has a few bones to pick with the Navy over its proposed plan for clearing the old landfill in the northwest corner of the old base.
Okay. Let’s see if we can get this straight.
The Restoration Advisory Board and the City Council (sitting as the Alameda Reuse and Redevelopment Authority) were worried about the Navy’s original plan to cover the old landfill site with a few feet of dirt and call it a day, because they didn’t know what, precisely, was in the ground there and whether it might seep into the Bay if the ground eroded or if there was an earthquake (did we mention this landfill was built right on the Bay?). Specifically, they were worried that there might be drums filled with waste in the ground. So about a year ago, the Navy hired a contractor to check it out.
Guess what they didn’t find? Waste drums, or any of the household waste that you’d expect to be in a landfill. But the surprises didn’t end there. Even though they said they weren’t going to try to figure out what kind of contamination might exist out there, the Navy checked the soil for radioactivity. And guess what they did find: Soil that had as much as 12 and 13 times the normal background level of radiological material. (The landfill waste, they’re now guessing, was trucked to another spot on the base when the runways were built out there.)
The soil the Navy’s contractor dug up – speculation is that it was contaminated by radium painted onto aircraft dials – was trucked off to special dumps in Texas and Utah. But under its current designs for the site, according to this report drafted by a consultant for the city, the Navy wants to dig up what it left behind, dump and cover it up about 200 feet from the shoreline. (They’ve even thoughtfully included a rock-and-plastic rodent barrier to protect the rats and ground squirrels who might dig around out there. Awwwww.)
Now, the folks at the RAB have some concerns about this proposal. They’re still worried about earthquake effects – most notably, sand boils that could shoot toxic soil up to the surface when the ground liquefies. They’re also concerned about global warming, which over the next century could cause a good portion of the base to flood. And then there’s developer SunCal’s initial proposal to turn the site back into Bay wetlands. (Can’t wait to take the kids and the dog out there!)
They want the Navy to try to figure out what’s there before it decides on a cleanup plan for the site. The council, meanwhile, has said it would really like to see the Navy truck the rest of the soil off site. The Navy has approved $20 million for the cleanup; the council at one point estimated cleaning up the old landfill site could cost as much as $92 million.
According to the consultant’s report, the Navy has said that since it stopped using the landfill a good 20 years before regulations governing military landfill cleanups were put in place, it’s not bound by rules requiring a more thorough cleanup. They’re slated to have a draft cleanup plan for the landfill site by the end of October.
The council, sitting as the ARRA, will talk about this at its meeting Wednesday night at City Hall. The meeting starts at 7. Incidentally, the report about what the Navy dug up out there is here.
Stop the Presses
Seriously.
The alternate title for this post is: What’s the Buzz?
As if having three newspapers, one magazine, an “award winning daily newspaper,” and an ever growing list of hyper local blogs weren’t enough, Alameda now has yet another newspaper to add to recycling bin (both literal and virtual).
The Harbor Bay Club is putting out their own [...]
Stark opposes bailout bill
In case you missed it, the House of Representatives narrowly voted down a $700 billion package to bail out the nation’s financial system, the Associated Press is reporting. Our man in Washington, Pete Stark, opposed the bill. Here’s what he had to say:
“Madam Speaker, I rise today to oppose H.R. 3997, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. “President Bush tells us that we face unparalleled financial doom if this $700 billion bailout is not approved today. He and his Treasury Secretary – a former Wall Street fat cat – tell us that we have reached the point of “crisis.” That is a familiar line from this President. It sounds like the disastrous rush to war in Iraq and the subsequent stampede to enact the Patriot Act. As I opposed the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, I stand in opposition to his latest rush to judgment.
“We are not in a sudden crisis. It has been building over the past 8 years of the Bush Administration. Lax oversight of the financial industry ballooned into a house of cards.
“Homeowners throughout the country have seen property values decline as their mortgage rates adjusted upward. As a result, millions of people across our country have already lost their homes to foreclosure and many more are on the way.
“It is easy to blame consumers for purchasing homes they couldn’t afford. However, these consumers weren’t informed of the extreme risk they were assuming. Creative financiers invented a market for these risky mortgages and preyed upon consumers by peddling the American dream of homeownership to make that market flourish.
“While those were poor choices by consumers, they pale in comparison to the irresponsible bets made on Wall Street. These mortgages and their declining collateral values are the root of this financial crisis.
“We now face a choice. President Bush tells us we must inject $700 billion into this market to avoid a total meltdown. He and Secretary Paulson say it is the only answer. Many economists – who don’t have a financial stake in Wall Street or an 8-year record of bad decisions – tell us it isn’t the only choice. An option would be to assist homeowners with their mortgage payments. By making sure these mortgages remain viable, the market should stabilize.
“The bill before us today is basically the same three-page Wall Street give away first put forth by President Bush. The fig leaf adjustments are not enough to outweigh the fact that no one knows if this bill is what’s needed. I’m not willing to make a $700 billion gamble that President Bush is right after 8 years of seeing all that he’s done wrong.”
More to come …
Monday profile: Joyce Craig
Joyce Craig has a lot of history with Haight School. Not only has she taught at the school for 23 years, but she was a student there too. And she’s not the only one: Both her mother and her grandmother went to Haight. “I have pretty strong roots here,” said Craig, who grew up around the corner from the school. “I don’t think I would be as happy anywhere else as I am here.”
In addition to teaching third grade, Craig has set up a science lab in her classroom for kindergarten through third grades to use each week. And she teaches an after-school science program for grades four and five. And she’s established a garden lab. Perhaps, then, it’s no wonder that PBS noticed her. She’ll be featured on the public television station’s Quest program, in an episode about science in the schools to be aired sometime in October.
So you were the third generation of your family to attend Henry Haight?
My mother went to school here K-8, and then they moved to Orinda. And then my grandma attended here. They came down through Canada and they landed here, and she attended grades 4 through 8.
Why did you decide to come back to teach there?
My grandmother told me when I was applying for jobs, ‘Well dear, there’s only one place you need to apply, and that’s Haight School.’ I applied to a lot of places, and this was the only place I needed to apply. She was right.
What’s it like teaching at the same school you attended?
It’s really quite different because this isn’t the building I attended. It was really hard at the start when I was working as a colleague with teachers who had been my teachers. All of a sudden you find yourself a colleague to these people, and it was first name, instead of Mister or Miss. I had one teacher who told me – it was my first year of teaching – she told me halfway through the year that I could call her by her first name. The first thing I did when I got home was to call my mom (to tell her), ‘Miss Williams said I could call her by her first name. She asked what is it, and I said, ‘I don’t know, but I can call her by it.’ It was quite a change.
It’s gotten much gentler. It used to be a very tough school. I see the kids as being much more gentle now than perhaps they were when I was here. I think that has to do with not having grades 6, 7 and 8 anymore.
So you were recently featured on PBS?
We’re going to be. The Quest program on PBS came in. They’re doing a series on science in the schools. So they videotaped in here, they did an interview with me and they videotaped my setting up the science materials. On the second day they came in and videotaped my kids doing the garden lab with the garden lab teacher, and then doing science with me. It’s supposed to air at the end of October, we don’t have an exact date yet.
Tell us about your efforts to bring science into the classroom.
I’m underhandedly trying to make sure science gets taught at all the grade levels. Most of the K-3s are working on the physical sciences. There’s also the garden lab, so we get life science through that as well. We have a garden out back behind the portables where we’re growing vegetables and things.
You also run an after-school science program for fourth and fifth graders?
It’s every Tuesday for an hour after school. It’s only for 20 students. I sent out the applications and by 8:15 the next morning, I had a waiting list.
Look who’s popular
A look at Alameda’s Mayoral elections from 1970-present.
