I realize that for the most part, you guys are not nearly as excited about it as I am. In fact, when I asked about it on my reader survey last August, a full three quarters of you responded that you were just not interested in Twitter. I gotta say, folks – you really should give it another try.

Creating a Twitter account is wicked easy. And if you don’t feel like you have anything to say, you don’t have to write anything. Just read! Twitter is a news junkie’s fantasy.

As long as you follow interesting people, you are constantly learning all sorts of interesting things. You can stay current on local events by following institutions and organizations like the Oakland Museum, Oakland Public Library, East Bay Regional Park District, Chabot Space and Science Center, Oakland Zoo, Oakland Running Festival, Jack London Square, Walk Oakland, Bike Oakland, Children’s Fairyland, and so on. Twitter is also great for keeping up with headlines. Many news sources post to twitter with a link to the story every time they put up something new. So if you always want to be current about what’s new on The Oakbook or InOakland without constantly reloading the site – well, Twitter can help you with that, too.

But the reason I really love Twitter is because of how much more enjoyable it makes going to meetings. I spend a lot of time sitting through public meetings, and if it’s at all possible, I try to tweet what’s going on. I decided to start tweeting Oakland meetings last Spring after finding myself completely captivated by the awesome State budget twitter coverage from Sacramento journalists KQED_CapNotes, CapitolAlert, capitolweekly, ShaneGoldmacher, and kyamamura. I love being able to keep up with what’s going on at meetings I can’t be at via Twitter – the newspaper the next day is great for a condensed summary of the important stuff that happened, but with Twitter, you get the added fun of being able to experience the flavor of the meeting, and also maybe learn about some of the amusing, but relatively unimportant stuff that goes on – the sort of thing nobody is ever going to write an article about. Plus, writing about it makes being at these meetings way more fun, especially when you’re there by yourself.

While there’s always room for improvement, I have to say I’m pretty impressed with our burgeoning Oakland meeting Twitter corps. In addition to my tweets, you can also get great Oakland meeting coverage from OaklandBecks, Jawnie, das88, MaxAllstadt, and dto510, all of whom make a habit of letting the Twittersphere know what’s going on at the City Council, AC Transit, BART, Planning Commission, Public Ethics Commission, or wherever else they happen to be.

Anyway, to give you all a sense of what you’ve been missing, I thought it might be nice to share the play by play of yesterday’s MTC meeting from Twitter. Here we go:

das88: About to head to MTC meeting. No to the OAC boondoggle – Don’t trust BART with $70 million. We won’t even get any magic beans for the money

OaklandBecks: At rally for justice and jobs outside mtc. Great tunout but even larger turnout of pro oac protestors across the street.

das88: #oakmtg Unions outfront of Mtc chanting for jobs now. They don’t seem to realize that $70M for transit saves more Union jobs. Stop layoffs.

StreetsblogSF: Transit advocates http://yfrog.com/32mhbj

StreetsblogSF: Transit advocates at MTC being drowned out by approx 100 construction unionists

StreetsblogSF: Construction union workers http://yfrog.com/3ns8poj

StreetsblogSF: West span Bay Bridge bike path supporters http://yfrog.com/3l24kicj

OaklandBecks: The seen at mtc is a bit surreal and very inspiring.

OaklandBecks: Mtc main room filled to capacity. Overflow room also full. They’re trying to set up audio in cafeteria.

das88: Standing behind Carol Ward Allen and Kerry Hammil at the MTC #oakmtg

das88: That’s literally not figuratively

MaxAllstadt: @das88 AWKward.

StreetsblogSF: Meeting & overflow rooms beyond capacity. Already chippy back and forth between chair Haggerty and public http://yfrog.com/4fwyecj

Vsmoothe: MTC/BATA meeting crazy packed. Overflow room beyond full, more overflow in cafeteria also full. Yikes. #mtcmtg

transbay: Groundhog Day comes early this year — at MTC again for another stimulus dollars showdown. Utter madness here.

OaklandBecks: Bike advocates for bay bridge very organized, wearing bright green stickers saying bridge the gap. Lots of nice hand made signs too

TransForm_Alert: MTC auditorium is at overfill capacity. Carpenters continue to believe OAC is worth fighting for.

das88: Bay Area Toll Auth (BATA) mtg beginning to disuss toll schedule

TransForm_Alert: bata staff is describing new bridge toll rates- to do seismic work on bridges.

das88: BATA recommend $5 regular toll w/congestion pricing on Bay Bridge addor minus $1 #oakmtg

TransForm_Alert: mtc’s leg analysis says can’t use revenue from the new toll increases on bike access. bikers are here to get mtc to get that authority.

TransForm_Alert: sen. hancock is introducing a bill to enable bike access on the west span of the bay bridge.

das88: #oakmtg BAa chair says W. Bikeline not germane to today’s discussion

das88: #oakmtg Tom Bates concurs saying we need to find funding first

TransForm_Alert: many speakers support higher tolls, just not for them.

das88: Recreation fisher says axel toll increase should only apply to commerecial vehicles so his kids can fish instead of play video games #oakmtg

das88: 2nd casual carpooler speaker bummed that carpools will have to pay some toll (it is proposed to be half)

das88: #oakmtg I believe though casual carpool started when toll was only $2

TransForm_Alert: daly proposes two dollars instead of two-fifty for carpools. bates seconds.

TransForm_Alert: lempert and mckenzie urge not changing rates without looking at revenue impact.

TransForm_Alert: original motion to adopt staff recommendation passes–congestion pricing is coming to the bay!

TransForm_Alert: heminger says that all revenue will be committed to seismic retrofit.

Vsmoothe: Commissioner: Can toll increase sunset once bridges are paid for? E. Director: No, never sunset, we will need more toll hikes also. #mtcmtg

StreetsblogSF: Bay Area Toll Authority unanimously approved toll increase with congestion pricing and carpool charge of $2.50.

StreetsblogSF: Commishes ask for further study of carpool rate to be sure new toll won’t discourage casual carpooling

TransForm_Alert: oac item commences…

Vsmoothe: Read MTC Exec. Director’s recommendation re: Airport Connector here: http://is.gd/7atfU (He says go for it.) #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Heminger says OAC is like Groundhog Day, going back over and over again. Yeah, advocates feel like that too.

TransForm_Alert: heminger acknowleges that staff recommendation was released only twelve hrs ago, even though they got a letter from fta on jan fifteenth.

TransForm_Alert: there is a big risk to accepting option of fta conditional award of arra funds, the region could lode seventy million dollars.

TransForm_Alert: will mtc commissioners take a gamble on bart doing a good and quick job of equity analysis?

TransForm_Alert: heminger notes that other federal funds could be at risk, in addition to arra funds.

TransForm_Alert: heminger: two options take the risk on the oac or put the money to the projects id’ed when commission had doubts about oac last year.

OaklandBecks: Heminger says risk of losing $70 million in stimulus funds is “manageable” but not insignificant.

TransForm_Alert: mtc recommends giving bart until feb sixteenth…..

TransForm_Alert: mtc thinks that over the next two weeks bart and fta can work on the outline of work to be done- no commitment from fta or bart on this.

Vsmoothe: ED: People using the Airport Connector will all be rich, since they can afford airplane tickets. Therefore, $12 fare has no impact. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: ED: Once a bid is accepted, too late to discuss alternatives. (BTW, BART was repeatedly asked to study alternatives & refused.) #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Heminger – risk of reallocating funds to transit agencies is OAC would lose other fed funds and bid would be lost. Would that be so bad?

OaklandBecks: Heminger – safest course of action is to redirect funds today. (crowd claps) But I don’t think it’s the best course. (others clap)

das88: The mayor in the house at MTC #oakmtg

OaklandBecks: Damn. Dellums about to speak. Why is it this issue he chooses to speak up? Why not spend time on something that will help Oakland?

TransForm_Alert: mayor dellums speaks in favor of the oac, but with conditions and takes civil rights seriously.

OaklandBecks: Oh wait – Dellums brings up issues he had raised about fares and local hire, which BART has not answered. Says he takes civ rights seriously

TransForm_Alert: dellums supports use of civil rights complaints to change institutions- our goal in filing the complaint.

OaklandBecks: Dellums – I met with Sec of Transportation. Said he believes BART wants to resolve matters, but FTA has to have open dialog.

Vsmoothe: Mayor: One thing I’ve learned about Washington DC is that they don’t do things on “rigid timeframes.” Let’s talk and hug it out. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: If you’re stuck at home or work, you don’t have to miss out on the exciting MTC action. Audio feed here: http://is.gd/7ayGS #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Why do pro-OAC folks think it makes the project sound good to say they couldn’t build it after trying for 20 years? #mtcmtg

StreetsblogSF: BART GM Dugger testifies that BART is committed to resolving Title VI deficiencies. Says she’s concerned as child of Civil Rights era

TransForm_Alert: bart general manager dugger says fta audit identified deficiencies.

TransForm_Alert: bart bd director carol ward allen cites two-thousand job figure that bart’s been referencing, though bart’s report to fta cited six hundred.

OaklandBecks: Carol Ward Allen offended that opponents used Title VI to stop project. If BART had considered equity arguments, we wouldn’t have had to.

Vsmoothe: Bart Dir Carol Ward Allen says again OAC will create 2500-5000 jobs. Not according to any of BART’s documents! #mtcmtg

TransForm_Alert: ward allen also said she was offended that anyone would use civil rights claim against the project.

OaklandBecks: Scott Haggerty not allowing OAC opponents to yield time, but allowed proponents to. 30 opponents wanted to yield – would have saved time.

Vsmoothe: @dto510 They say FTA’s issues are a “technicality.”

Vsmoothe: Pro-OAC exceeds speaker time, gets cut off. Response? “Please, just 5 more minutes.” #mtcmtg

TransForm_Alert: finally, speakers talking about risks and ability to protect transit jobs and prevent layoffs.

TransForm_Alert: stuart cohen of transform emphasizes huge risk to region in losing money.

TransForm_Alert: bart bd director joel keller of contra costa speaks for the oac. don’t like what your bart bd reps think? let them know!

OaklandBecks: Genesis has done an incredible job turning out their members to many meetings against OAC. They are a force to be reckoned with!

OaklandBecks: Great photos from @Streetsblogsf of the MTC meeting and protests that preceded it: http://bit.ly/aLmPrC

OaklandBecks: Speakers keep reminding Haggerty that they would have ceded time (and saved time) if he had allowed them to.

Vsmoothe: Speaker: Want to remind everyone what City we’re in – “this is not Vegas, baby!” No time to gamble! #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker: I have not yet heard any arguments that OAC will benefit the public. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker, cont: Yes, OAC will put some people to work. But so would digging a hole and filling it back in. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker: BART has cut the public out of these discussions and refused to bring them to the table. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Pro-OAC Speaker: Look around the room at all these OAC contractors, most of them don’t live in Oakland! #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Haggerty is no fun! Now he’s telling people not to clap so loudly because his throat is getting sore yelling over them.

OaklandBecks: John Knox White asks for same deference as Haggerty gave to proponents, and Haggerty (sounding annoyed) said, just speak.

OaklandBecks: It’s great that SF Muni & bike advocates are speaking out against OAC. They realize that the OAC is taking funds from the whole region.

OaklandBecks: @transbay speaking – Reminds MTC that Muni carries more riders a day than OAC will carry in a year.

OaklandBecks: @Vsmoothe speaking – Transit agencies (including BART) facing devastating service cuts and fare increases. Use $ to save service.

OaklandBecks: @Vsmoothe asks commissioners to remember those who are transit dependent (like her) when they decide.

Vsmoothe: Speaker: You can’t accurately evaluate the risk without action plan from BART. We’ve been here before, how many times do we do this? #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: MTC blowing through speaker cards a lot faster now – many people had to leave, couldn’t wait 3 hours to speak. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker: BART today claims 5,000 jobs, but their own EIR and documents say 200-300 jobs. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker: We laid out FTA requirements to you last Spring, BART said that they did it, now FTA says they haven’t. Not a surprise! #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker: Disingenuous for BART to put construction workers on the line. If BART wanted to make jobs, they would have done analysis before.

Vsmoothe: Speaker: Cuts on the way for VTA are devastating, terrifying. Jobs and lives hang in the balance. Please don’t risk the money. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Joel Ramos from TransForm: I was a half hour late to MTC mtg because Muni broke down. These funds could prevent things like that.

Vsmoothe: Speaker: There is too much risk in staff’s recommendation. If BART makes a mistake way down the line, region will lose money. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker: There will be a huge black mark on MTC if the Bay Area loses this money. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Speaker representing Nat Ford from SF MTA. Not taking position on OAC but saying reallocation of funds would help Muni.

Vsmoothe: Speaker: Cards have been dealt, but can’t be seen yet. You don’t know if you have 13 or 21. Not smart to make a $70 million bet. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Speaker – BART’s slogan “Taking BART to airport saves you time and money.” Won’t be true once the OAC is built.

TransForm_Alert: atu- transit workers-call for union workers not to work against each other- don’t take jobs from one to give to the other.

Vsmoothe: Speaker: BART has had decades to get this right, why expect something phenomenal from them in the next 20 days? #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Public comment on OAC is over! #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Um, I will tweet Commission discussion as it goes on, but am listening in overflow room, so I can’t see who is saying what. #mtcmtg

TransForm_Alert: spering (solano) proposed to have bart move on developing a corrective action plan and bring it back at a special mtg on feb 17. kinsey 2nd.

OaklandBecks: Motion to go with option one of giving BART until Feb 16 to comply with FTA requests, and to schedule special MTC mtg for Feb 17.

Vsmoothe: Motion: keep $70m assigned to OAC, but reprogram money to transit agencies if FTA doesn’t approve action plan by mid-Feb. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: It looks like they’re going to go with option 1, so put Feburary 17 MTC mtg on your calendar and try now to get off of work.

Vsmoothe: Commissioner: People supporting & opposing OAC have not changed over the years. Do we continue to support this project? Yes! #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Commissioner Glover totally wrong, saying vast majority of people in district support this project and people complaining don’t live there.

Vsmoothe: Commissioner: I hear 10 to 1 from people in area that they support project. Opponents are from outside. That’s not true, of course. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Commissioner Kinsey – it’s impossible for us to allow this $ to leave the region. I hope he remembers that comment on the 17th.

Vsmoothe: Com. Kinsey: Can’t let money get away from region. Support motion for special meeting later to consider BART action plan. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Commissioner talks about devastating situation with unemployment in building trades. What about devastating situation with transit budgets?

Vsmoothe: Commissioner: This project is a “significant way” to address 30% unemployment rate among building trades. Will make 1000s of jobs. #mtcmtg

TransForm_Alert: chris daly (sf) argues against risk and for prudent handling of public dollars, citing muni, bart, ac transit shortfalls.

OaklandBecks: Commissioner Daley – one of the biggest risk takers (him) in the region is going to argue against taking this risk.

Vsmoothe: Com Daly: This is taxpayer money, and we have a responsibility to administer the people’s money as prudently as possible. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Com Daly: We let AC Transit cannabalize $35m for a smart project that should happen because they’re dying. Was right decision. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Daly gets it. Listing all the terrible budget situations transit situations are in. AC Transit had to shift $ from BRT because it’s so dire.

OaklandBecks: Daly – Most of you who have been promised jobs on this project, you won’t.

Vsmoothe: Com Daly: Feel really bad for people promised jobs from OAC, and expect jobs. Know from experience the jobs won’t materialize. #mtcmtg

TransForm_Alert: daly raises the question of whether mtc can make sure bart adheres to civil rights requirements.

Vsmoothe: Com Daly: If we approve BART’s action plan, how are we going to ensure BART follows it? Will ED set up camp in BART office? #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: Com Daly: Every agency is looking at increasing fares and decreasing service. We could stem the tide. This is bad policy! #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Daly – President announcing spending freeze tonight. There’s going to be no help from Sacramento. We’re on our own.

StreetsblogSF: MTC Commissioner Chris Daly: not enough votes to stop funding of OAC http://bit.ly/b04Kua

OaklandBecks: Comm Bates – If we can’t stop OAC, we should keep $ in the region. Staff’s rec is prudent, but I’d prefer we give $ to transit agencies.

Vsmoothe: Commissioner: ARRA money isn’t there to save existing jobs from going away, only there to make new jobs. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Commissioners saying we should use same energy as at MTC in Sac. Of course that assumes none of us are pushing for transit $ in Sac.

OaklandBecks: Comm Tissier – We need to not have blind faith in this project. But also, FTA needs to act in good faith.

Vsmoothe: Commissioner: FTA needs to be good faith participant, this info came very late. #mtcmtg

Vsmoothe: FTA requirements have existed for very long time. MTC & BART were warned they were out of compliance last year, ignored complaints. #mtcmtg

TransForm_Alert: Cortese (Santa Clara County, rep’ing ABAG) and others argued against putting these funds to transit, saying they’d be gone quickly.

Vsmoothe: Com Cortese: Not fiscally responsible to give money to local transit agencies, more responsible to give it to OAC. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Heminger admits that there’s a risk that by mid-February, there might not be enough time to have FTA approve reallocation of $.

Vsmoothe: Com Lempert: If we had guarantee that $70m would give jobs to all unemployed people here, I would give it to them in a heartbeat. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Comm Lempert – if there was assurance that unemployed people here would get jobs, I’d say we should give the money to do that.

OaklandBecks: Comm Lempert – if BART has to lower fares, would project still be financially sustainable? (Not that it ever was.)

Vsmoothe: Com Lempert: We have no guarantee about the jobs. What if FTA says lower the fare? Will BART be back asking us for more $$$? #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: Lempert – this is very risky and having an action at that late of date is too big a risk. Wants to reallocate funds immediately.

Vsmoothe: Com Lempert: Every time this project has come before us, there has been a problem. The risk of sticking with it is too great. #mtcmtg

TransForm_Alert: mackenzie (sonoma) asks mtc staff about the impacts on jobs of not funding oac

TransForm_Alert: heminger (mtc) says many transit agencied would use the funds for preventative maintenance and preventing layoffs.

OaklandBecks: Woo! Another commissioner joining Daly, Bates, and Lempert in supporting reallocating funds immediately because it’s too risky.

OaklandBecks: OMG! Halstead also voting against the motion. That’s 5 commissioners against it – the most we’ve had so far at MTC.

Vsmoothe: Com Halsted & one who’s name I missed join Daly, Bates, and Lempert in saying OAC risk is too big – give $$ to transit agencies. #mtcmtg

theoverheadwire: @Vsmoothe How many do we need????

Vsmoothe: @theoverheadwire More than 5. There are 19 Commissioners. Not all are here, but 5 is not enough.

MaxAllstadt: Sound like the MTC is gonna vote the wrong way again. What’s the next step?

TransForm_Alert: Bates, Daly, Lempert, Halsted, and MacKenzie opposed continuing effort to direct ARRA funds to OAC.

OaklandBecks: @Vsmoothe Just looked it up – Jake MacKenzie from Sonoma is the other one who is opposing the motion.

MaxAllstadt: Scott Haggerty says “one of the greatest things is being able to speak” but he cuts off opponents, lets allies go overtime. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: Com Haggerty: Money should not go to transit agencies now, doing that does nothing to help future generations.

OaklandBecks: @MaxAllstadt Ugh, Haggerty makes me so mad! Who cares about a legacy project when it’s going to be a BAD legacy?

OaklandBecks: Comm Haggerty – I don’t respect people who just want to dump $ into transit agencies to help them survive for a few more months.

Vsmoothe: Com Haggerty: We must fund OAC for our children. Nobody thinks of my kids in school, we must leave them something. #mtcmtg

MaxAllstadt: OMG is Haggerty faking being on the verge of tears? It sounds like it.

TransForm_Alert:
Haggerty delivered an impassioned commentary likening the OAC to the depression-era legacy of the Golden Gate Bridge-something for our kids.

MaxAllstadt: Haggerty, you are going to leave your kids something: Debt. Debt. and more Debt.

dto510: @OaklandBecksSo, he thinks we should just give up on transit, and have nothing but over-subsidized BART? Oh, wait, that is what he thinks.

TransForm_Alert: Motion passed 11-5 to give BART 2 weeks to develop a “corrective action plan” to outline how they would meet Civil Rights requirements.

Vsmoothe: Motion passes 11-5. BART has until mid-February to get action plan approved by FTA, MTC will consider action plan at that point. #mtcmtg

OaklandBecks: MTC approves motion to wait until February 16th. 11 yeses-5 nos

OaklandBecks: Speaker at public comment telling MTC they need to do better with audio at well attended mtgs – should have audio outside or in lobby.

StreetsblogSF: MTC votes 11-5 to support Oakland Airport connector, assuming BART gets FTA civil rights approval. Special meeting on 2/16 for follow up

StreetsblogSF: No votes were Daly Lempert Halstead McKinzie Bates

OaklandBecks: @StreetsblogSF Slight correction – the motion stated that the meeting will be on February 17th.

TransForm_Alert: Feb. 17: special MTC meeting to review BART corrective action plan and see how feasible it will be and what kind of risk it represents.

das88: Wonder which state is going to get our $70M ARRA money after BART flubs the Title 6 response.

If you found that a little hard to follow, that’s okay, don’t let it scare you. When originally posted, those all went up over a five hour period, so it was less overwhelming. Twitter works best when you’re getting the updates in real(ish) time, not the next day when you already know what happened in the end. If you want a good summary of what the outcome of the meeting was and what it means, I strongly suggest you read today’s excellent post on Transbay Blog about it.

And I hope to see some of you guys on Twitter soon!

Since then, project staff have been developing a set of alternative development scenarios to present to the public for feedback. From these, the community will select a preferred alternative, which will then be studied and assessed further. All alternatives are designed with a specific goal of creating a major retail destination along Broadway between 23rd Street and 580.

For planning purposes, the area has been broken up into two parts – the area south of 27th Street, the “Valdez Triange,” and the area north of 27th Street, called, less imaginatively, the “North End.” See below.

In all of alternatives, major retail efforts are concentrated in the Valdez Triangle, accompanied by a mix of residential units, a hotel, and lots and lots of parking. North End alternatives imagine a larger format style of retail, plus at least some residential use and a medical office space component. In general, the Plan locates taller buildings and more density in the Valdez Triangle area.

This is an important moment for the Broadway planning effort, so if you’re at all interested in this neighborhood, I strongly encourage you to attend the meeting, where you will be able to find out more about the plans yourself. For those who can’t make it, I hope that the alternatives information will be on the project website soon, so you can also check it out. But really, go if you can. This is the likely the point where you will be able to have the most concrete influence in shaping what we ultimately decide this stretch of town is going to look like in the future (unless, of course, you’re against having retail there, I suppose. In that case, it’s pretty much too late). The meeting will take place tomorrow, Thursday, January 28th from 6 to 8 PM at the First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway. I hope to see you there!

There’s really not a ton more for me to say about the Specific Plan without documents to refer you guys to, but I don’t want to just put up an event announcement either. So while we’re waiting for Thursday’s meeting, let’s talk about something else being planned in this part of town – the new Alta Bates/Summit hospital rebuild! It’s more exciting than it sounds.

So, quickly. State law requires that all hospitals soon must meet significantly higher seismic safety standards by 2015. (Kaiser is in the process of doing this now as well.) The Alta Bates Summit Medical Center wants to accomplish this by building an 11-story, 230,000 sf new hospital plus a new 7-story parking garage. It would look like this:

If you want more information than that, you can read the project description section (PDF) of the Draft EIR. (The whole thing is handily online, and broken up into sections.)

So, the Draft EIR came to the Planning Commission last week, and while it wasn’t exactly the night’s big fireworks item (I’ll get to that one later this week, I promise!), it did generate more comment than I expected it too. I guess I should know better by now. There’s no such thing as a non-controversial big project in Oakland. (Oh, except for those SWIG skyscrapers on the Lake, which for some reason nobody cares about.)

So first, there was a doctor and a nurse from Alta Bates who got up and went on and on about how great the new hospital and facility is going to be for the doctors and the patients, who are apparently all crammed in there too tight right now, and will all be like a zillion times better off in these awesome new rooms they’ve designed.

I don’t know anything about hospital rooms, and I’ve never been to the Summit ER, so I really have no way of knowing if the current room situation is as inadequate as they say or not. I have no reason to doubt their assessment. Still, their comments did strike me as really bizarrely enthusiastic about the new rooms and also oddly defensive, so I guess at that point I should have figured that there someone out there against these great new rooms, and a few minutes later, I got to learn who.

This guy from the California Nurse’s Association got up and complained forcefully that the new hospital, although twice the size of the old facility, will have 36 fewer beds than the existing facility. I guess because these great new rooms take up a lot of space? Then he started complaining about some kind of lab that Alta Bates was closing somewhere else and Kaiser was closing at their Oakland hospital and how now this facility would have all the traffic from it – I don’t know, I couldn’t really follow that part. And then about how Alta Bates is reducing beds all over California and it really was a little much and didn’t seem that relevant to the discussion at hand. I mean, like I said, I don’t know anything at all about hospitals, so maybe the dude has a legitimate point. I’m just saying he didn’t do a very effective job of making his case. It sounded kind of nuts.

The Commissioners totally did not care about this bed dispute. Well, I suppose that’s not exactly fair. It’s entirely possible they were all deeply concerned about the number of beds and special design of the rooms, but held their tongues for now, because they didn’t think the issue was relevant to the Draft EIR, because it’s not. What they were concerned about was – can you guess? Traffic! The City of Oakland requires Alta Bates to design a Transportation Demand Management program, and so of course Alta Bates is going to do one, and the Commission was basically like “Yeah, watch out. You’d better do a good job on that, we’ll be watching closely.” And also asked for more study of how to enhance bike/ped and bus access.

Also controversial is the proposed removal of this historic building – 418 30th Street (PDF), currently used as medical office space. Personally, I don’t find this building anywhere near so exciting as some people seem to, and it wouldn’t bother me very much if it were to go away (I really think preservationists in this town would get a lot more sympathy from the general public if they had higher standards about what we should be preserving.) But I also don’t see any point in demolishing it if it isn’t necessary, and it kind of doesn’t sound like it really is.

Anyway, two speakers showed up to advocate for saving 418 30th Street, although one of them seemed a lot more interested in how much she dislikes the whole concept of the hospital rebuild than how much she cared about the historic building:

Already the campus, Alta Bates is already 20 point something acres. So we’re really concerned about, you know, how big can you go? And why is this big bigness, so, so, why is this being so emphasized?

She did kind of hilariously suggest a bribe of sorts – apparently, she’d be okay with Alta Bates buying the empty Courthouse Athletic Club property on Telegraph, moving the building from 418 30th Street to there, and turning it into a new Preservation Park. Hey, it can’t hurt to ask, I guess. The Commission was a lot more receptive to the concerns about 418 30th Street than they were about the beds, at least.

Okay, that’s enough hospital talk for now. If you’ve got comments on the Draft EIR, you have until 4 PM on February 3rd to submit them – contact information is here (PDF). Oh, and I think you’ve got a chance to complain about the historic building on February 8th, when the Draft EIR goes in front of the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board (6 PM), but I’m not 100% sure on that since the agenda isn’t posted yet. Perhaps one of my readers more familiar with LPAB goings-on than I am can confirm that?

It’s an interesting contrast to the basically non-existent media outrage when District 1 Councilmember Jane Brunner blocked then-Mayor Jerry Brown’s appointment over Charles Hargrave to the Planning Commission because of his stated position on abortion. All four items basically boil down to the same argument – Hoopes shouldn’t be punished for his vote on Prop 8, and also, he’s old, so give the guy a break.

Give me a break. These four pieces attack the advocates lobbying against Hoopes’s appointment as “intolerant,” while fundamentally misrepresenting their arguments and dismissing their efforts as “hysterical,” “mean-spirited” “petty vengeance.”

It’s true, everyone has a Constitutional right to speech. But when one exercises that right, one also must accept that speech may come with consequences. And when one chooses to exercise that right by spending more money than I make in an entire year trying to take away rights from people, it’s possible that one of those consequences might be that those same people, in turn, just might decide that they no longer want to be represented by you.

You see, another thing that the aforementioned members of the media don’t appear to grasp is that, unlike political speech, there is no right to retain a seat on the Paramount Board, just because you happen to have been around for a long time. Those advocating for Hoopes’s re-appointment act like he’s being stripped of something he’s entitled to. What-EVER. Representing Oakland on a public body and making decisions about how public resources are run is a privilege, and it’s a privilege that should belong to people who represent the values of the community, not to people who campaign to institutionalize discrimination against its members.

Nobody is attempting to punish anyone for a vote. A vote is something you make in private. And nobody is trying to stifle free speech. What people are doing is using their own right of free speech to say very clearly that they don’t want to be represented by someone who played a significant role in writing discrimination specifically against them into the State Constitution. The only question is really whether the rest of this community thinks their rights are important enough to say they agree.

So, do we? Do our elected officials? Apparently, certain local columnists don’t. Frankly, I find that obscene. Jesus, people! We have a Constitution! It says that the law has to treat everyone the same! Nobody should be expected to “tolerate” being represented by someone who tries to take away their right to be treated equally. And I find it absolutely appalling to sit and read the local press attacking people for refusing to do so.

I applaud the equal rights activists leading the charge against Mr. Hoopes’s appointment. They aren’t stifling anyone else’s rights, they’re standing up for their own, and I sincerely hope they win. I think they will. After all, I sat and watched the Mayor speak about the importance of the battle for marriage equality a year and a half ago when he conducted the first gay weddings at City Hall. He spoke movingly and with deep passion about how this is a battle for civil rights just as important as the ones he fought many years ago, and a continuation of that work. If he meant any of the things he said, I know he will understand their position and see the necessity of this fight, regardless of how many local media outlets fail to.

But not me. We haven’t won anything yet. In fact, the region is now running the risk of losing entirely $70 million in stimulus funds for public transit.

This fight isn’t over until after Wednesday’s MTC meeting, when the Commission will vote on whether to gamble $70 million of regional stimulus funds on BART’s ability to comply in a timely and cooperative manner with Federal mandates or to put the money back into system preservation, saving jobs and preventing transit service cuts throughout the region. You might think, given BART’s historical inability to deliver anything in a timely manner, and given the extremely strident wording of the FTA’s letter (PDF), which really couldn’t be any more clear that keeping the money assigned to the Airport Connector is a very bad idea, that this is a no brainer, and that it’s totally obvious the Commission is going to reprogram the money. Of course, if you do think that, I’m guessing you haven’t been to too many MTC meetings.

Let’s back up for a second and take a look at how we got here. You’re all familiar by now with the history of the OAC, so we’ll skip over that part. On June 12, 2009, Public Advocates filed a request (PDF) for BART’s equity analysis on the Oakland Airport Connector. The analysis in question is required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which basically says that you’re not supposed to spend Federal money in a way that has discriminatory impacts on minority and low income populations. The FTA requires an analysis (PDF) of Title VI compliance for all transit projects receiving Federal funding. BART responded to the request (PDF) by attaching a section of the project’s ancient EIR that handily failed to address any of the equity issues mandated by the FTA.

After BART responded to requests for the Title VI analysis basically by saying “go to hell, screw you, we’ll do whatever we want,” Public Advocates (with others) filed a complaint with the FTA over BART’s failure to require with the baseline requirements for Federal funding. It wasn’t just advocacy groups who were concerned about equity issues related to the Airport Connector. In October, the Oakland City Council offered their support for the project, contingent on three BART meeting three conditions (all of which BART proceeded to completely ignore), including an analysis of fare affordability. Then, in November, the FTA announced (PDF) that after reviewing the complaint, they felt it necessary to review BART’s Title VI compliance, not just with respect to the Airport Connector, but of the entire BART system.

In December, before they had actually secured all the Federal money they needed to finance the project (in addition to the $70 million in ARRA funds, BART is also depending on a $150 million Federal loan and a $25 million Federal grant), the BART Board of Directors voted to award a contract to build the Connector. The company they choose had the lowest bid (although the low bid did not come in under projections, as BART had repeatedly assured everyone all the bids would), and also the slowest technology. The cable driven system will actually run slower than the existing AirBART bus.

Which brings us pretty much to where we are today. The FTA, after conducting their Title VI compliance review, has now informed BART (PDF) that they have not complied with Title VI requirements with respect to the Airport Connector, and that before they can recieve any Federal funds for the project, they must complete a study that addresses the following:

• analyze whether the Oakland Airport Connectors benefits and associated service impacts will have a discriminatory impact

• A policy for what constitutes a “major service change”

• the impacts of the major service change according to a specified procedure, including route changes and span of service

• an analysis of what alternative modes of transit are available for people affected by the service expansion and reductions, including the travel time and cost of the current route compared to the cost to the rider of the alternative

• documented evidence of steps taken to seek out and consider the viewpoints of minority and low-income populations in the course of developing the policy on major service changes

After completing the analysis as outlined, BART must submit a plan to mitigate adverse impacts. All of this must be completed to the FTA’s satsifaction by March 5. When and if the FTA approves BART’s mitigation plan, they will not allow BART to have any of their money until the mitigation plan is completed. If, at any point in this process, BART misses even one of its deadlines (which, given BART’s history, is virtually guaranteed), they will no longer be eligible to recieve the $70 million in stimulus funds.

Now, there is a hard Federal deadline for the obligation of those stimulus funds. That deadline is the aforementioned March 5th. The FTA’s letter is very clear that they do not think it is likely that BART will be able to meet the deadline. BART, perpetually in denial, sent out a press release saying of course they can, and then made up a bunch of lies about how they had held all these public meetings and done so much outreach about the Airport Connector in minority communities. Of course, if the FTA reviews any of the tapes of all the public hearings held on the Airport Connector over the entirety of 2009, they will hear hours and hours and hours of testimony from the publi about how the Airport Connector’s fare is completely unaffordable and how horrible it is that bus lines in poor communities that people depend on the get to work and school are getting cut in order to fund this piece of blingfrastructure. So based on BART’s letter, I guess they’re just counting on the FTA to not do their homework? It seems like a bad bet to me.

Which brings us to Wednesday’s meeting. The MTC has two choices. First, to reassign the $70 million in stimulus funding away from the Airport Connector and into system preservation for all Bay Area transit agencies (including BART). This influx of cash would go a long way to preventing or delaying the service cuts planned by almost all local transit agencies, including Muni and AC Transit. The other choice is to keep the funds assigned to the Airport Connector and cross our fingers that BART will be able to make its March 5th deadline (and not screw anything up afterwards either). If the MTC keeps the funds with BART, and BART makes any mistakes, the entire $70 million will leave the Bay Area permanently.

Even if you ignore the fact that the redirection of the $70 million to system preservation among local agencies will save more jobs than the entire OAC project will create, this decision should be a no brainer. The risk of just throwing away $70 million in stimulus funds is too high. First, it makes the MTC look like incompetent morons, and undoubtedly will render us ill poised to recieve competitive grants in the future. Second, the impacts of losing the money are just too devastating to justify.

And this is where you come in. You can help prevent this disaster. If you happen to have Wednesday morning free, you can come down to the MTC meeting and tell the Commission that you want them to redirect the funds. But more importantly, you can send an e-mail to the Commission right now, urging them to do the right thing, and not gamble $70 million of regional money on the fast action of a historically slow, dishonest, and unresponsive agency.

Transform has set up a simple form you can use to contact the MTC about this issue. PLEASE GO FILL IT OUT! The MTC needs to hear that the public is not supportive of this gamble.

That’s not to say that there’s nobody in town aggressively following local issues and trying to make a difference right here at home. Oakland is blessed with a fair number of people who have been doing so for many years, and I am proud to know many of them. But it’s undeniable that when you start watching or attending lots of local meetings, you pretty quickly get used to seeing all the same set of faces over and over and over again.

I’ve always thought that part of the problem is that even once someone does decide they want to work to help get Oakland back on the right track, they aren’t sure how to even go about getting involved. I am working with Becks and dto510 on a project that I hope will help address that problem at least a little bit, and hopefully I’ll be able to say more about that soon. But if you’ve been finding yourself increasingly angry and frustrated with the direction our local institutions have been taking (and I know, from reading all these comments, that many of you are), and you think you’re ready to do something about it, you don’t have to wait for me to help you out. Today, I’d like to highlight two local groups that can help you get involved, each of which conveniently has an upcoming opportunity to participate.

First, if you aren’t already a member of the League of Women Voters, I strongly recommend you join today. The League is a wonderful organization devoted to voter education and good government advocacy – work that is absolutely essential to any well functioning democracy. The League isn’t out there campaigning against taxes or for candidates or things that necessarily seem particularly sexy and exciting. But they are out there, working hard to make your government work better – their tireless advocacy for improved citywide records management is just one example. The League also sponsors monthly educational discussions about local issues, and it just so happens they’ve got one coming up on Monday!

I know a lot of you guys are interested in OUSD issues, and I often get requests from readers to write more about them. I’m not going to do that. I think that OUSD issues are really important, but I also understand that, like the City and the transit agencies I try to follow, they are also very complex. I’m pushing my limits of what I can reasonably handle just trying to keep up with the issues I already cover, and there is simply no way that I would have the time to give the school district coverage of a quality I’m comfortable with. (If you are looking for education coverage, BTW, you can find it in the Oakland Tribune, Tribune education reporter Katy Murphy’s blog The Education Report, The Oakbook, and the Great Oakland Public Schools blog.)

Anyway, for those of you are concerned about how OUSD is going to be dealing with their current funding crisis, I highly recommend attending this month’s League of Women Voters Hot Topics meeting, which will be devoted to a discussion of OUSD and the School Board. They describe it as follows:

The excellence of Oakland’s schools directly ties into the health of our city. Youth who graduate from high school with skills to continue their educations, fill jobs, and contribute to their neighborhoods will not be adding to our national reputation as a top-tier crime scene. What is the role of our school board in promoting OUSD student achievement? How does our school board support effective principals and teachers and personalized learning environments for OUSD students? LWVO invites its members and the larger community to attend this gathering. School Director and LWVO member Jody London will join us in a discussion of issues.

Education geeks should mark their calendars for the event – next Monday, January 26th, 6:30 to 8 PM at the Redwood Heights Community Center (3883 Aliso Avenue).

Even though they’ve been around like 1/100th the amount of time the League has, if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably familiar with Make Oakland Better Now! a newer, somewhat more aggressive, good government advocacy organization formed this summer. At a meeting earlier held this month at City Hall, MOB Now! invited Oakland voters to hear a presentation from budget director Cheryl Taylor about Oakland’s budget situation and options, then hosted a lively discussion among attendees about what the City Council should be doing to address the deficit. The Council will be making a decision on how to close the remaining $9 million of the City’s FY 2009-10 expected deficit in a few weeks, and, well, there aren’t a lot of options left.

There’s no doubt at this point that whatever balancing measures get taken, they’re going to be unpleasant. But which of a series of distasteful choices should the Council go with? MOB Now! founders, not content to just sit around and complain from home about being unhappy with whatever cuts get made, are determined to make a strong push for the adoption of their budget positions – whatever those end up being.

And that’s where you come in. Make Oakland Better Now! has posted an online survey soliciting feedback from Oakland residents on what type of budget reductions they think the City should be making. Eliminate Neighborhood Service Coordinators? Eliminate services for seniors and the disabled? Get rid of the Neighborhood Law Corps? Stop funding the Oakland Museum? Close the Oaklanders Assistance Center? And if there were to be a tax on the ballot, what would you want the money to go to? Police? Fire? Human services?

Like I said, none of the options are pretty. But these are the choices we have to make, so you might as well hold your nose and decide which one you hate the least. So go, take the survey now, and help MOB Now! put together their budget position. And if you decide you’d like to help them advocate for that position once they get it together, well, contact them and let them now. I’m sure they’d be thrilled with all the help they can get.

I realize that’s probably a silly sounding thing to say, but I really do. I go to a lot of public meetings, way more than anyone probably should, and frankly, sometimes I get kind of sick of it. The seating is often cramped and really uncomfortable, and seems intentionally laid out to make you feel unwelcome. For many bodies the acoustics are just awful, and in general people tend to drone on and on and on about things that are actually pretty boring, and more and more lately, I find myself just dreading the idea of having to drag myself to yet another one.

But not AC Transit! Believe it or not, I actually look forward to sitting through those. They have an excellent, spacious Boardroom with great sightlines. They have more than enough seating to accommodate the audience almost all the time, and their chairs are very cushy and comfortable. There isn’t so much public comment that meetings drag on forever, even when something is controversial. What public comment they do get almost always falls into one of two categories: informed, thoughtful, and interesting or completely insane, and therefore hilarious. Very rarely does someone show up and just say something totally boring. Plus, there’s an outlet right next to where I like to sit.

Since hardly anyone goes to these meetings, I don’t have to constantly shush the chatterboxes sitting near me or deal with people asking me lots of questions, both of which happen all the time at the City Council, making it hard to keep up with what’s actually happening at the meeting. Also unlike the City Council, the Board discussions are really pleasant to listen to. All the Directors generally have smart things to say (well, the ones who speak, anyway), tend to be informed about what they’re voting on, and seem to understand that their agency exists to provide service to the public, and is not, in fact, simply a ridiculously expensive employment program. That’s not to say that I agree with everything the Board does or that I think they always make the right decisions, but you have a significantly better shot at arriving at a good decision when you’re at least starting from the right place. Plus, several of the Directors a pretty witty. A little dose of humor goes a long way to making long meetings about depressing subjects more endurable. And even when you read the agenda and think everything they’re talking about sounds like it’s going to be completely mind numbing, it usually turns out to be really fascinating once you’re there.

Anyway. One interesting thing on tonight’s agenda (PDF) is the idea of placing a new parcel tax (PDF) on the November ballot, which would bring the agency an extra $14 million a year. Now AC Transit (and all local transit agencies, for that matter), is in a pretty dire situation, and decisions on the State level may soon make things even worse. If they are going to continue providing even a minimally acceptable level of service, they will have to find some kind of stable funding source. So I certainly understand why they would want to do a new parcel tax.

On the other hand, AC Transit has gone to that well an awful lot in the relatively recent past, passing parcel taxes in 2002 ($24/year), 2004 (another $24/year), and 2008 (another $48/year). Despite the best efforts of some of our local media outlets, voters do seem to like AC Transit quite a bit – Measure VV passed in November 2008 with a 72% yes vote, which is crazy high. And a poll conducted in December suggests that a new $48/year parcel tax should enjoy a similar amount of support. That would raise the total parcel tax going to AC Transit from $96 per year to $144 per year.

While the poll results are encouraging, I have to wonder a little bit about how willing people are actually going to be to vote for another tax come November. I mean, there’s pretty much no way this is going to be the only one on the ballot.

Elsewhere on the AC Transit meeting agenda, there’s a rare bit of bright news about BRT. Sort of, anyway. I mean, it’s not really news, I guess, but AC Transit is applying for (PDF) this new urban circulator FTA grant to buy buses for the BRT line (hybrid buses, FYI). As you may recall, there is currently some question about the available funding for the BRT project, particularly now that the agency has sacrificed $35 million in funds previously earmarked for BRT to prevent some pretty drastic service cuts. So any new possibility for money = exciting!

Also, apparently getting these new buses would also make BRT cheaper, somehow. From the agenda report (PDF):

The multi-door feature of the proposed buses will reduce the cost of the BRT by $10 to $15 million because it will help reduce impacts at intersections associated with the busway and stations, and may allow the use of “dual platforms”, allowing both directions of the BRT route to use a single platform. This is due to the multi-side door feature that allows loading and alighting from either side of the bus.

So…maybe someone can help me out with this one a little bit. Perhaps I just had too many glasses of wine last night and am being really slow, but I don’t really get this doors on both of the bus thing. Wouldn’t that mean people are getting out into the middle of the street? I’m so confused.

Update: A reader very kindly explained the buses with doors on both sides thing to me. As I suspected, I was being an idiot. Anyway, here’s the reasoning:

In most situations, having doors on both sides is to allow, at each stop, the use of either side. Usually, both sides are not used simultaneously, but having the options of both sides allows for much for efficient and effective routing. For example, along a BRT route, for some segments of the route, with dedicated left-hand lane and new specialized Stations, the BRT vehicles could board on the left hand side at a mid-street station location. If the vehicles have left-hand doors, then the station can be to the left of the travel lane, and vehicles in both directions could potentially use the same center-street station (rather than having to build two stops/stations, each to the right of the dedicated lane in each direction). This also reduces vehicles having to swerve to get to the right placement for the boarding.

Then, when that same BRT vehicle stops at a different part of the route, which uses the right-hand lane, (e.g. on 20th st Uptown Transit Center), then they can use the right-hand doors for that part. This allows flexible route and station design. In some cases, with a specific design, you could use both sides, but even if you are only using one side at each stop, having both options allows for a routing that will provide faster/smoother service.

In some locations, with a specified station/stop design, all doors could be used. For example, the Eastmont transit center, is one example that could be setup for boarding from both sides.

Yeah…nobody will getting out of the bus in the middle of the street.

One of the issues raised as part of budget discussions earlier this year was the cost of providing free parking in City garages to City employees. Parking spaces occupied by staff are parking spaces not available to the general public. Since we charge to park in the garages, every time we give away a parking space to staff for free, we are losing potential revenue that would come from having paying drivers occupy those spaces.

In order to minimize the lost revenue, the Committee today considered a proposal that would clearly define which City employees are eligible to receive free parking. I thought this was a good idea when they talked about it before, but after reading the list, I have a hard time seeing the point of any of this. Here’s the list of who would get free parking spaces under the plan:

• City Council: two spaces for Councilmembers (one on-street and one in the garage), plus two spaces each for staff
• Mayor: one space, plus seven spaces for staff
• City Auditor: one space, plus two spaces for staff
• City Attorney: one space, plus seven spaces for staff
• City Administrator: one space, plus five spaces for staff
• City Clerk: one space, plus one space for staff
• Agency Directors and Department Heads: one space
• Deputy and Assistant Directors: one space
• “Employees who are required to use their vehicles in the performance of assigned duties or whose work assignments regularly require that they work late hours”: one space, granted on a case-by-case basis by the City Administrator
• “Employees needing parking on a seasonal basis for the duration of time where there is a need to work late/irregular hours”: one space after 5 PM while they’re working late, granted on a case-by-case basis by the City Administrator

Staff estimates that this will free up a total of 33 parking spaces in the garage, bringing the City around $60,000 extra per year, which is, as District 4 Councilmember Jean Quan noted, “significantly less” money that the Council had expected to get out of the policy change.

The discussion started out strong, with District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan asking why the hell the report (PDF) didn’t even mention what all this free parking costs the City. WORD. Then she asked why we aren’t talking about providing monthly transit passes for employees, if we are, as we claim to be, a “transit first” city. Again, WORD.

Assistant City Administrator Marianna Marysheva-Martinez answered that with the combined total of around 200 city employees receiving free parking, we’re looking at a potential total of “just under $400,000 a year in foregone revenue.” Which, obviously. Parking is expensive. But also, WOAH. You would think that a figure like that would get everyone on that Committee pretty worked up and wanting to rethink this whole free parking thing. After all, they all know perfectly well just how staggering the budget cuts they’re going to have to make in just a few weeks are, and $400,000 is kind of a fortune.

Hahahaha! Committee members mostly expressed concerns about the categories of free parking where the City Administrator gets discretion in authorizing the privileges. In the end, they addressed the problem by requesting an annual report of how many people are getting free parking, so they can make sure the discretion isn’t being abused. Way to completely miss the point, which should be why the hell are we giving free parking to anyone? Reserved spaces in the garage, sure. I have zero problem with that. But the rationale behind saying that people shouldn’t have to pay for those spaces, just like everyone else who rents a monthly space, well, it’s just completely beyond me.

What discussion there was of transit alternatives was equally disappointing. I assumed, God knows why, when the phrase “transit pass” first came up, that they were talking about exploring an EasyPass program with AC Transit. No. Instead, the idea that got floated was that since a parking space could be rented for roughly $150 a month and a monthly transit pass costs $90 a month (which is wrong, BTW. AC Transit monthly bus passes cost $80), we could potentially save $60 per person by offering just the employees who were getting free parking the option of taking a monthly pass instead. Holy brain-dead inefficiency.

The Committee suggested we should go do a survey of all the people getting free parking to see if they were even interested in trading the space for a transit pass. Jean Quan suggested that we consider broadening the eligibility for a transit pass to everyone who receives an auto allowance as well, and staff said they would take a look at what other cities are doing and return with a report on the City’s options in March.

What other cities, like Alameda and Berkeley, and other local institutions, like Mills College, the Peralta Colleges, and UC Berkeley do not do is go to the AC Transit ticket office and buy off the shelf monthly passes for employees who elect to take them. They participate in AC Transit’s EasyPass program. With EasyPass, all employees are offered unlimited AC Transit passes loaded on TransLink cards. The cost per employee of the program is unique to every situation, but is based on pricing matrix where the City of Oakland, would, at most, be paying an annual per employee cost less than what the City seems to think it would cost to buy a pass each month.

Personally, I think it’s a no brainer that the City, which loves to bill itself as being so incredibly green and environmentally friendly, is beyond overdue for doing EasyPass. I understand, however, that reasonable people might argue that we can’t afford to start it right now, because it would cost money. I’m not unsympathetic to that argument, and if it doesn’t work out right now because of the budget, well, I wouldn’t think that’s the end of the world either. But I find it mind boggling that no one at the meeting even brought it up as an option. And whether we offer a transit option of any sort or not, there is simply no excuse for sacrificing this level of potential revenue by letting so damn many (or any) people park in the City’s garages for free.

During January, Oaklanders will have seven – that’s right, seven chances to weigh in on their preferred route design and stop locations.

BRT is a big deal, and not just for bus riders. In a must-read post today on Future Oakland, dto510 explains how this project represents a once in a lifetime opportunity to turn two of Oakland’s major thoroughfares into a bona fide complete street:

Next week, the City of Oakland will begin a series of public meetings about a Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) to create a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line crossing the entire city. BRT has been debated for a decade in the East Bay, and its key feature, exclusive bus lanes, has been the source of some consternation among residents in Berkeley and parts of Oakland. But since the City Councils of Berkeley, San Leandro and Oakland voted to move forward with BRT on Telegraph Ave and International Blvd in 2000, BRT has been an abstract concept. No more. Oakland planners have unveiled a proposal to create a fully-fledged complete street stretching 17 miles across the East Bay, substantially redesigned for pedestrian and bicycle use in addition to bus lanes. Crosswalks, sidewalk bulb-outs, streetlights, and bicycle lanes will complement a world-class transit system, with the potential to transform the heart of the East Bay.

The term “Complete Street” is used to refer to a street that is improved for all modes of transit: motorized, bicycle, and pedestrian. In Oakland, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans and their associated policies provide compliance with the CA Complete Streets Act of 2008, but there are no concrete plans to add bike lanes or substantial pedestrian improvements to the entirety of Telegraph Avenue and International Blvd. The BRT plan drawn up by Oakland planners and engineers, formally if confusingly known as Oakland’s Locally Preferred Alternative, would make far-reaching and large-scale improvements to those streets, an opportunity unique in the city today.

It only gets better from there. Go read it now!

If you’re not up to speed on the concept of BRT yet – well, you can get caught up by reading through my archives or perusing the City’s BRT page, and AC Transit’s as well. You can get an idea of what it would be like riding the new route from the image below, which illustrates Oakland’s proposed preferred route and stop locations:

_{Click to enlarge}

But the absolute best way to get your questions answered about BRT is to attend one of these meetings. Here’s the schedule:

• Monday, January 11th, 6-8 PM
  Fruitvale Senior Center
  3301 E. 12th Street, Ste. 201

• Tuesday, January 12th, 6-8 PM
  Eastside Arts Alliance
  2277 International Boulevard

• Thursday, January 21st, 6-8 PM
  East Oakland Youth Development Center
  8200 International Boulevard

• Tuesday, January 26th, 6-8 PM
  Faith Presbyterian Church
  420 49th Street

• Wednesday, January 27th, 11 AM – 1 PM
  Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 2
  1 Frank Ogawa Plaza

• Wednesday, January 27th, 5-7 PM
  Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 4
  1 Frank Ogawa Plaza

• Thursday, January 28th, 6-8 PM
  St. Louis Bertrand Church
  1410 100th Avenue

With so many options, surely everyone can find space in their calendar for at least one of them! And before you go, make sure you read dto510’s blog about BRT.

• Bad Press from Defending Measure Y (February 18, 2009)

  When I picked up the paper and read the East Bay Express article about the Measure Y lawsuit last winter, it was like bizarro world. I always have this idea in my head of reporters always wanting to take any possible opportunity to make the City look bad. So when a citizen, say, sues the City over illegal use of tax revenues and wins, I have a pretty clear picture of the type of story I expect to read about it. Certainly not one where the reporter calls the citizen a “gadfly” and “busybody,” gets all the details of the law and lawsuit wrong, and says the City should be commended for knowingly ignoring the law!

  I feel bad for Marleen Sacks. There is no good outcome for her lawsuit. I mean, she wins, victory for the taxpayers, oh, and the budget problem gets even worse! (I understand Marleen has a settlement in mind that she feels would be fair but not hurt the taxpayers so much, but I don’t know any details about that so if she wants to get into it, then she can, if she doesn’t want to or can’t, okay too – the point of that last sentence is not to be against her, is all I’m trying to say.) But then, what else is she supposed to do? If nobody does anything when the City just ignores the requirements of the taxes they ask people to pass, then the City will just keep doing it. That sort of behavior needs to have consequences or it will never stop.

  Going back and reading newspapers from when Measure Y was on the ballot is infuriating. In op-eds and letters to the editor, opponents of the Measure keep saying the same things – we won’t get the officers they’re promising, they’ll use the money for other things, this isn’t enough money to cover the costs for the officers, and so on. All these things came true. And then you read the responses from Councilmembers, like Jean Quan, saying oh no, they’re wrong, Measure Y is the best, it’s perfect, everyone will get everything they were promised, blah blah blah. And then you watch Public Safety Committee meetings now and get to watch Jean Quan say that it was never enough money to cover recruitment, or all the equipment, or even all the officers, and that they knew that when they passed it. It’s terrible!

  Anyway, I am glad Marleen has a blog, because her response to the story was just totally awesome:

  Me, a political gadfly? Hardly. I’ve only been to one City Council meeting in my life. I’ve had no involvement in Oakland politics, ever, with the exception of this lawsuit. If every concerned citizen who stands up for their rights, and the rights of their neighbors, is a “gadfly,” then I guess that’s me.

  Gammon claims I am pushing for a “strict interpretation of Measure Y.” No, I’m pushing for the City to follow the law, i.e. what the voters intended. The voters intended that we get 64 additional police officers, increase the size of the force, with the purpose of decreasing crime. That’s not what we got. What we got was a slush fund that the City felt it could dip into for whatever it felt like, like paying for the academy training expenses of Deborah Edgerly’s daughter, who flunked four times.

  Way to set the record straight, Marleen.

• 40th Street Underpass Improvements Fall Short from JAMMI Blog (February 22, 2009)

  If you’ve ever had anything to do with one of these community planning processes, in Oakland or I’m sure any other city, you know how stark the differences between promises and reality often are. That doesn’t make it any less sad or disappointing the next time around, though. In this post, JAMMI Journalist recalls the work that went into a community plan for streetscape improvements in his neighborhood, and then takes a look at what ended up happening:

  On January 21, 2004, community members voted on the priority of 17 individually implementable projects. The final design plan was presented to the community on February 18 of that year. It tantalized neighbors with visions of tiled walls, beacons shining into the sky, trees and plantings, colored lights extending across the ceiling of the underpass and washing its walls. CEDA staff managed to secure grant funding to realize some of the ideas. Five years later, what has actually been delivered?

  The answer? Not much yet.

• A Better Oakland…for Mark from BearFlagBlue (March 25, 2009)

  This post is from a Livermore-based blog about State politics, but there was no way I could leave it off this list.

  After four Oakland police officers were killed in March, I put up a news links round-up because I figured people would want to leave comments about it, but didn’t plan on writing anything about it myself. One of the weird things about being a blogger is that people expect you to always have something to say about everything. But when something so horrible happens, lots of people struggle for words, and I am definitely one of them. All day on Sunday, people kept asking me what I was going to write, and I was just like, how can I possibly say anything? I don’t know these men, I don’t know their families, I have no more insight into this than any other random person. After all, my blog is about policy, not tragedy.

  After enough people insisted that I really had to write about it, no matter how uncomfortable I felt, I spent a couple of hours trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t come across as insensitive or stupid. I felt okay about what I ended up coming up with, but I never managed to shake the nagging sense that it was just not my place to say anything about it at all.

  This post, on the other hand, OMG, this is exactly the sort of person who you want to hear from and story you want to hear when something like that happens. The post is about how one of the officers, Mark Dunakin, had been a counselor at blogger Sean Mykael’s Boy Scout summer camps, and how grateful Mykael was to him for his work there:

  Some of the fondest memories of my life are from that camp…and I have to think much of the credit for that goes to people like Stan & Mark. These were guys that were 16, 17, 18 years old and some even older. They could have been spending their summers doing anything; out partying away the days with their friends or backpacking through Europe after college, or who knows what, anything. Instead, what these guys chose to do was to spend their summers with us, a bunch of dorky nervous kids, many of whom were away from home for the first time and scared. Within hours of arrival at camp though, much of that anxiousness would give way to curiosity & excitement as these crazy characters we would be spending the next week with, began to introduce themselves. We’d go on to spend the next week learning more than we ever had and having more fun than ever doing it.

  Sob. Sob.

• Oakland government woes reflected in Uptown parking proposal from Future Oakland (April 29, 2009)

  As tempting as it may be to blame bonehead policy decisions on the City Council just being clueless, there’s usually a lot more behind bad decisions than just legislative idiocy (that doesn’t get them off the hook, of course). In this post, dto510 skillfully demonstrates how the deep disfunction of various aspects of City government all came together to bring us the infamous new surface parking lot at 19th and Telegraph proposal:

  While advocates were clearly outlobbied at the City Council yesterday and I find the Community and Economic Development Committee’s pro-parking decision as frustrating as everyone else, I see how the city came to this decision. It’s not just that the CED Committeemembers decided, for whatever reason, that they love parking and don’t understand its pedestrian impact, but also contributing to this result are the structural flaws that beset Oakland’s government in general. It’s the poor performance of the Redevelopment Agency, the deeply flawed labor contract, and the city’s lack of transportation planning that lead the city to push for parking lots instead of better solutions.

  It doesn’t paint a pretty picture of City Hall, but it is a great read.

• Guns and Lockdowns from Being Light Skinded (June 12, 2009)

  How often do you think about how one deals with a school lockdown? For me, it was one of those subjects that had never even crossed my mind. Inspired by a heart-wrenching middle-school graduate speech, this former Oakland school teacher spells out the ugly realities our students face:

  Then there are the logistical problems. The doors only lock from the outside, so you (the teacher) has to open the door and go in the hall to lock it – which is not ideal if you’ve just heard that there’s a man with a gun running through said hall. I used to keep my door locked and just make everyone knock on it when I was in the portable classroom all exposed out on the yard. The principals always got made at me, and I always did it anyway, after the first lockdown.

  Then, you have a bunch of freaked out kids who have no idea what is going on and all need to do two things immediately: call their moms to make sure their moms aren’t dead, and pee. We resorted to having kids pee in the sink a couple of times during long lockdowns – I had a blanket that someone would hold up and I cleaned the sink really well after. And I’d pass around the cell phone while we tried to keep doing school in the dark.

  Needless to say, it’s an eye opening story.

• Home buyers are having a rough time in the East Bay from A Piece of the Pie (June 17, 2009)

  I can barely keep up with the rent on my four hundred square foot, falling apart apartment, so I’m clearly not going to be looking to buy a house anytime soon. Still, I always thought that if I did have any money, now would be the perfect time to do it, with the real estate market down so much. And while it may still be a great time to buy, this post from local realtor Farrah Wilder made me realize that it’s not quite so easy as you would think from reading the papers:

  What I’m seeing is a market that looks something like a room full of a hundred hungry dogs roaming around waiting for scraps and then five scraps are dropped in that are immediately pounced on the biggest and strongest dogs. In other words, there are a lot of buyers and their agents all looking for homes in the same neighborhood and price ranges. Good, and not so good, homes are securing multiple offers in a matter of hours (I heard of one home that had 50 offers after being on the market a short time.). FHA buyers, buyers who are low balling (submitting offers well below asking or comps) and buyers who cannot or will not write offers with very attractive terms are losing out over and over again. FHA buyers and other buyers who are using special assistance programs are unfortunately having a very rough time. Bank owners (and even some non-bank owners) are notorious for preferring non-FHA or cash offers in a multiple offer situation. They’ll even select cash or conventional offers that are tens of thousands of dollars (ie $40,000) lower than the FHA offers.

  Wilder does a fantastic job breaking down the realities of the home buying process in Oakland. I’d be lost without her blog.

• Jay Ento…Telling it like it is…or was from Our Oakland: Eastside Stories (June 26, 2009)

  Eastside Stories is a wonderful community storytelling project that will be part of the public art in the new East Oakland Community Library. A video pod inside the library will showcase recorded stories, music, and other visual art from community members. The project’s website archives interviews with East Oakland residents about their lives in and memories of the neighborhood, which will ultimately become part of this video archive.

  In this video, one resident talks about how she remembers the neighborhood from her youth, describing a vibrant community where the streets filled with families and fresh fruit:

  73rd and East 14th was anything you wanted. There was like, a men’s clothing store. There were two pharmacies right on the corner. Our neighborhood doctor was in that building with the pharmacy on this side. There was a cleaners. There was a roller rink, so we could go roller skating, where…I don’t know if it’s an old furniture store, I don’t know what it is now, but that’s where we could go roller skating. There was a little tiny library across the street from the roller rink, which is now, I guess, the Martin Luther King library at Lockwood School. So we had everything that we needed right there. It didn’t take a whole lot to make us happy back in those days. Just the simple little things.

  I think back to this story every time I find myself in this area now. It’s really heartbreaking to think about what a different place it was, really not all that long ago.

• All About Auto Row from City Homestead (July 8, 2009)

  I adore Oakland history. When I don’t have any meetings to go to on a Wednesday or Thursday night (the nights the Main library is open late), I like to go sit in the Newspapers & Magazines Room and read through old local papers on microfilm. I found this hilarious article in the Chronicle from like 1950 or something once that was about a strike at Fairyland, which somehow involved midgets. I can’t remember the details, though.

  Anyway, one of my favorite things is when other Oakland bloggers sit down and do some crazy amount of research on neighborhood history and write about it, and in this post, Artmeis did an incredible job of exactly that. She keeps apologizing for the post not being detailed enough, and while I would have happily read two or three or five times as many words, it’s both fascinating and engagingly written, start to finish:

  As Oakland’s population soared in the 1920s through the post-war years, so did Auto Row, as new dealers filled in along Upper Broadway south to Grand and north to West MacArthur Boulevard (the Moss Avenue). Many of the auto-related repair and supply shops that opened up in between the dealerships and along the side streets are still in business today, many incarnations later. Many of the residential areas adjacent to Auto Row also developed in the 1910s and 20s, so there were hundreds of new residents in the surrounding neighborhoods. Mosswood Park, which the City had purchased in 1907, was also extensively developed during this period to include new recreational facilities, ampitheaters, and other community spaces at the northern edge of Auto Row. (Sadly, several of these were later demolished to make room for I-580).

  Reading this post, I learned a ton of things I had no idea about before (Academy Hill!), and hopefully, most of you will too.

• East Oakland Always Dissed and Dismissed from 38th Notes

  A couple of months ago, I attended one of the many events at which new Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts related the story of his life and decision to come work here in Oakland. It’s a good story, and he’s an engaging speaker, but after hearing it like six times, I started to get a little bored. The questions (although he never seems to leave much time for people to ask them) were always the far more interesting part of these events to me.

  At this particular event, someone complained about all the negative attention Oakland gets in the media. The speaker said something along the lines of, “I live in Glenview and I don’t think it’s fair how the papers always refer to murders as happening in ‘Oakland,’ rather than in ‘East Oakland’ or ‘West Oakland’ or “98th and Bancroft’ or wherever. Can you please tell the press to start referring to crimes in Oakland by the neighborhoods they happen in, so it stops ruining the whole city’s reputation?”

  The Chief didn’t hesitate for a second. He just said no, straight off. It was a while ago and I didn’t write it down, so I won’t remember exact, but it was something along the lines of “I do not want to segmentize this city. Everyone in Oakland needs to own Oakland’s problems, because if we break the city up into good and bad pieces, the people in the good parts won’t feel like it’s their responsibility to do anything to fix it.” It was a whole lot more eloquently stated than that, but I decided right then that I loved Chief Batts. Then, a few weeks later, I read on Oakland Seen’s Facebook page that the Chief was now directing the media to say the address or intersection and not the City name, and I was kind of broken hearted. But then I didn’t remember getting any notice about that (although I get a lot of e-mail, it’s entirely possible I missed it) and the papers still seem to say things happened in Oakland, not like, Dag Hammarskjold or whatever. So who knows what’s going on with that.

  Anyway, this blog, which I really loved, has pretty much the same point, which is that if people who don’t live in East Oakland are all worked up about the City’s reputation and crime and so on, then they need to start caring about what goes on out there:

  Tammerlin Drummond made some compelling points in the Tribune yesterday about how the city fails to reach out to East Oakland. While areas like the Dimond and Laurel are experiencing mini-renaissances, Deep East Oakland (DEO) doesn’t even have a decent grocery store. No, the MacArthur corridor from Eastmont to San Leandro isn’t the best neighborhood, but it’s part of our city. It also happens to be a part of our city that carries an inordinate amount of Oakland’s poor reputation. And yet, many die-hard Oaklanders just read about its crime in the newspaper and shit on it from afar.

  East Oakland isn’t all bad, contrary to popular belief, but it is struggling…a lot.

  I probably should have used this chance to highlight something arts related from 38th Notes, because Coolhand Luke and his crew cover that subject so incredibly well, but I just liked what this post had to say so much, I couldn’t leave it off the list.

• The Neverending Garbage from We Fight Blight (July 24, 2009)

  We Fight Blight had some really wonderful and extensive coverage of a battle over a new neighborhood liquor store this fall, andjustalways really stuck in my head. Trying to improve this city, particularly if your efforts involve in any way working with the city, it can be – well, a lot like banging your head repeatedly into a very hard wall forever. And sometimes you get so frustrated, and so tired and just…angry.

  I thought this post captured those feelings perfectly:

  You’ve got to love Oakland. It is the place that people love to trash…literally. Just take a look around at the streets of Oakland. What do you see? Neverending garbage…literally. Cans, bottles, cigarette boxes, bags of fast food leftovers, condoms, candy wrappers, drug packages, and buckets of human waste. Yes, even human waste. Who dumps all of that stuff — Oaklanders.

  Neverending garbage. That’s just how it feels sometimes.

• The Rise and Fall of Oakland’s Art Murmur from Dish a Day (September 27, 2009)

  Ah, the Art Murmur. I don’t really go so much anymore, because I’m usually so tired by Friday that I can’t stand the idea of doing anything involving crowds or noise or whatever at night. But it’s a fun thing to do if you have the energy.

  This post, however, is not the glowing review of the Art Murmur that one usually reads. Instead, blogger a laments how the event lost its vibrancy in the process of trying to become fully legal:

  As the summer progressed there arrived vendors of tamales, vegan and vegetarian burritos, hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pie, cake, cookies, and even a man with a cooler who would sell a shot of whiskey and a beer. Because of expensive and restrictive regulations in American, all of this was technically illegal. And that’s were the problem started.

  Last month Art Murmur just wasn’t what it used to be. The street seemed confined to a smaller area by the presence of traffic cones, many vendors were simply absent, and most troubling, there were hired security goons shouting at people for drinking on the street. My friends and i did a double take at this for isn’t Oakland the ideal place to drink on the street? My much looked forward to shot and a beer was nowhere to be found. Sadly we just found the nearest hardware store so we could huff some paint in a bag inside the provided outhouse.

  Naturally, we can’t just say it’s okay for everyone to run around selling their backyard moonshine on the street. There are sensible reasons for requiring permitting and health inspections and the like. But it’s undeniable that bureaucracy and creative energy don’t always make the greatest couple. This post does a good job capturing how delicate the balance between legitimacy and fun can be.

Click through and read them, folks. They’re all amazing. And you’ve got another set to look forward to later in the week.

Here’s the background. Instant Runoff Voting, or, more properly, Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), is an election system in which there are no primaries, only a single general election. Under our current municipal system, we have primaries in June, and then if any candidate gets 50% of the vote plus one vote, they win outright and there is no runoff. If nobody reaches that threshold, then there is a runoff and people vote between the two top place primary finishers in the general election in November.

Under IRV, everyone gets elected in November. This is done by having voters rank their first choice, second choice, third choice (and so on) candidates on their ballot. If someone gets 50% of first choice votes, they win. If no one gets 50% of first choice votes, then second choice voters get counted and so on. Becks laid it all out in a blog post earlier this year with a sample ballot and everything.

As far as I’m concerned, IRV is an idiotic system designed to make leftists feel less guilty about voting for fringe candidates. Data collected by IRV advocates, and used to “prove” that IRV is great, shows that the system not understood and disliked (PDF) by minorities, poor people, people who don’t speak English, and people with low educational attainment at rates that should, frankly, horrify anyone who cares even a little bit about equitable voting systems. There are plenty of other ways to have November-only elections and get the voter participation gains IRV advocates are so worked up over without using such a ridiculously complicated system. We could do like some other cities do and just have November elections anyway, and require a lower threshold, like 40% to win outright, and only have run-offs on the rare occasions when nobody manages to beat it. Wev.

In case I haven’t made it clear yet, I hate IRV. I voted against Measure O, the Charter amendment Oakland voters adopted (with 69% approval) in 2006 that says we are going to do our elections using IRV from now on. And I was happy that we weren’t able to do it two years ago because we didn’t have the machines.

But now, we do have the machines. They have been certified by the Secretary of State (PDF), the County ROV is ready to use them, the Secretary of State has outlined the voter education campaign we’re required to conduct before we use them, the City Attorney has issued an opinion (PDF) that says, yes, morons, the Charter mandates that we use them, and all that’s left is the final go-ahead from the Council, which, frankly, should be a formality at this point.

Alas, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case. Over at Living in the O, Becks has posted a letter, sent from District 5 Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente to certain community groups, asking them to oppose the adoption of IRV for this year’s Oakland election, because using the system is going to cost us too much money.

IRV supporters have delusionally insisted all along that the system is going to save us all this money. Ooh, big surprise, that’s not true! It’s going to be really expensive to use IRV in the November election (PDF), it’s going to be expensive to educate voters, and since we’re almost definitely going to have some tax measures on the June ballot, we’re not going to realize any savings from not having a June election anyway. None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention.

But, unfortunately, it doesn’t matter that IRV sucks and is expensive. Voters voted to do it. The Charter now says we have to do it. That means we have to do it. This isn’t fucking rocket science. We vote on things so that citizens can make decisions. You don’t get to pick and choose which of their decisions you like. Geez.

If we’re not going to follow the Charter and do IRV because it’s expensive, why not just ignore all the other expensive things the Charter mandates too? The Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, a charter-mandated set-aside of a hefty portion of General Funds that go to youth oriented non-profits, is expensive too. Why not just buy ourselves another $12 million by not funding that either? Where does it end?

You don’t get a pass on ignoring voter mandates just because you don’t like them, and you don’t get a pass because you have a budget crisis either, and Oakland residents should contact their Councilmembers today, or come to the meeting tonight (7 PM, City Hall) and let the Council know in no uncertain terms that they expect the City to adopt IRV for this year’s election, as explicitly mandated by the City Charter and Measure O.

Here are the Council e-mail addresses, in case you don’t have them:

Rebecca Kaplan, At-large: RKaplan@oaklandnet.com; Jane Brunner, District 1: JBrunner@oaklandnet.com; Pat Kernighan, District 2: PKernighan@oaklandnet.com; Nancy Nadel, District 3: NNadel@oaklandnet.com; Jean Quan, District 4: JQuan@oaklandnet.com; Ignacio De La Fuente, District 5: IDeLaFuente@oaklandnet.com; Desley Brooks, District 6: DBrooks@oaklandnet.com; Larry Reid, District 7: LReid@oaklandnet.com

Oh, and if you’re curious about why this matters, aside from some abstract commitment to obeying the will of the voters (though that should really be enough), here is a worst-case scenario of what could happen if we don’t do IRV this year. Someone sues us over not doing IRV. This will not stop the June election, because there it’s too late. The June election happens anyway. We lose the lawsuit. Our election is invalidated. We are plunged into constitutional crisis and also have to do another election later with IRV and spend even more money anyway. Yeah, have fun with that!

Hope to see some of you guys at Council tonight!