A response to SunCal’s signature gathering process for their initiative on the November ballot has been a real whirlwind. It has been extremely amusing to watch the various accusations of “lies” given the majority don’t come anywhere near actual definition of a lie.
It seems that there is a small group of people who are upset at the signature gatherers not standing on street corners yelling, “will you sign this initiative to put measure a for the whole city on the ballot thereby ruining our small-town community.” So I was extremely surprised, when I heard the following acknowledgement in a pitch for the mythical industrial/open space only plan:
Apparently, the proposal heading toward the ballot will result in a higher level of environmental cleanup.
It will be a higher level of cleanup IF houses are built there. The ballot measure doesn’t guarantee that. Passing the ballot measure does overturn Measure A, explicitly.
And the higher level of cleanup that housing demands results in a vastly higher expense, funded by tax dollars. It also is not guaranteed to work, and indeed we won’t know if that very large gamble worked until we see 10 or 20 years of cancer & other health data from the Point’s lucky new residents. But let’s not allow 9 figure sums of cash to get in the way of a dream — it’s New Urbanism, so therefore it’s priceless (and unencumbered by any need for honesty).
Regarding the “amusing” statements re misrepresentation by signature gatherers — please see Jan Alt’s very reasonable and credible description of her experience w/ signature gatherers — at 2:58 in the video from the 4/21 Council meeting.
http://alameda.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=483
Sorry, it’s Jan Davis.