I asked Gorelick about this in the comment section of his blog, however it appears that the comment has been moderated, another sign of an attempt to hide the truth and cast aspersions on others for his own misdeeds.

This comment has raised the ire of Gorelick and a couple of his supporters who have asked for a retraction. It’s a day late, but here it is: my statment that I left a comment on Gorelick’s site is true, I spent about 45 minutes writing the comment, which was along the lines of my Monday post, and asked him to bridge the gap between the reality of his actions and his 180-degree different statement about them. That comment did not appear on the website.

As Denise Lai has pointed out in the comments, Blogger (the blog site that Gorelick uses) is less than perfect. I’ve had issues with it in the past, so I’ll concur with her assessment that Blogger “sucks.” That said, in the past, the problems I have experienced have resulted in error messages, an inability to login to comment, etc. None of which occurred on Sunday. Still, it’s certainly possible that there was some new error that saw the comment whisked into the ether, never to be seen again.

Up until last Saturday, I would have said “whoops, my bad” and immediately adjusted my posted with a clarification. But given that on Sunday, Gorelick was caught making false statements in order to distance himself from his own actions, I find myself in a bind of needing to trust the word of someone who has now shown himself not to be trustworthy. This is not an easy thing to write/think. Up until Sunday, I never thought of Gorelick as someone who would deny his own actions in order to support his own perception, but Sunday’s post changed that.

So, it’s clearly possible that the disappearing comment was a technical aberration. In fact, I’m slightly inclined to believe it was, despite everything else. So let this post stand as a correction to my statement.

That said, the original point of Monday’s post remains intact, comment moderation or no, and if anything, this issue highlights the trouble that Gorelick has created for himself.

Gorelick has also asked me to post some other documents related to his campaign filings, I will be attempting to get those up later today or tomorrow as well.  I didn’t want anyone to think I was ignoring the request.

So over Labor Day weekend I decided to look at the numbers and see if I could parse out something a bit more meaningful in what they tell us about where the district has been heading. I’ll caveat the following with the acknowledgement that testing data like API is merely a single data point and not the be-all and end-all of metrics to critique school performance. Imperfect as they are, it’s not completely meaningless.

The first question I asked myself was about long-term trends. So I downloaded all the API info for the past twelve years only to find out that they didn’t report District-wide numbers in these datasets until 2003, so all the info below is from 2003-2011. First I did up a trend line chart of AUSD’s annual scores which show AUSD growing steadily over eight years.

AUSD API scores from 2003-2011

So the next question was, how does this compare to other Alameda County school disctricts. So I graphed all the districts that tested more than 1000 students. From 2003-2011, the graph shows AUSD gaining on every school district with higher API scores.

API Scores for all Alameda County School Districts with over 1000 students

But the graph is a bit busy because of the 15 school districts, so then I decided to look at the change in scores over eight years. AUSD had the second highest increase after Oakland Unified. This means that in terms of trends, AUSD had the second best increase in API scores in Alameda County for districts with more than 1000 kids.

So I asked, “What if AUSD had a really crummy testing year in 2003 which dropped their numbers significantly?” (a couple of the tiny districts have swings of over 150 points from year to year). To try and understand the ongoing changes, I looked at the annual four-year change (how much API’s had changed in the previous four years of each year 2003-06 in 2006, 2004-07 in 2007, etc). I assumed that four year snapshot would even out some of the annual up and down so that a really good, or really bad, year would wash out a bit. I then looked at the four-year average and AUSD still managed to have the second highest gain (second only to OUSD again).

The API data appears to be showing that AUSD is making good strides over the long-haul. But I was concerned that what these numbers might be showing is that AUSD is not doing well overall, and that it’s easy to make great strides when the school is underperforming with its population. So I looked at the API rankings for Alameda County in 2003 and compared them to the API rankings in 2011 and Alameda moved up from 8^th to 7^th in API rankings:

But probably more meaningfully, the gap in scores between AUSD and Piedmont Unified (PU?) went from 145 API points in 2003 to 88 in 2011.

All in all, the API scores appear to show AUSD getting better as a district, outperforming all districts but Oakland in terms of improvements, and having made substantial progress in closing the gap in API scores between the highest performing Alameda County District and AUSDs.

I’ll try and get the individual school information up shortly.

If you missed the parade, you can catch a summary here:

Boards, of which there are six,  are codified in the charter, meaning that any changes must be made by the voters, but commissions, of which there are ten, are merely defined in the municipal code, and so staff is, wisely, recommending that the council focus on efforts here.

Alameda has a problem with boards and commissions, namely, they work in isolation and the council is often in the dark about what they are doing. Commissions raison d’etre is to advise the council on issues, so if the council is unaware of the work that’s being done, you’re quickly into “if a tree falls in a forest…” territory.

Which brings us to the problem with the ongoing process to adjust the commissions in our town. While an improvement, the city has yet to hold one meeting to discuss commissions, what their role is, and how best they can meet the needs of the city and public. Look at tonight’s agenda, staff is bringing an item on reducing the number of commissioners and commissions to the council as a City Manager Communication, so that the council can give comments before staff draws up an ordinance. This is where updates are given, not substantive discussions of import.

Commission’s are not just “staff time-sucks,” however that is what this process has reduced them to. The entire goal is how little can the boards meet and how much staff time can be saved? Yes, that’s an important piece, but absent a discussion of what are the commissions goals, are they meeting them, and what do we need to do to make sure that they produce something worthwhile (it’s a post for another day, but the Transportation Commission has been so neutered that one wonders why staff would think six monthly meetings are necessary).

Staff’s recommendation is to rush an ordinance to the council by June 7, meaning zero public meetings until the decisions have been made. A highly ironic end-run around the public input process for determining the public input process. Here’s a suggestion for a slower process:

1. Put a hold on all new commission appointments, allowing, as the municipal code already does, people’s whose terms are runnign out to keep serving until a new appointment is made.
2. Direct staff to put together a policy, to be adopted by the council, on how public input processes should be designed
   1. Early input on the overall direction of a project of policy in the form of a workshop or scoping meeting
   2. Staff to design a recommendation
   3. Recommendation has a public hearing at the appropriate board/commission
   4. Council asked to adopt recommendation of the board/commission, with staff providing their own recommendation
3. Identify, based on the public input policy, what boards and commissions are needed, and what is the appropriate number of meetings for that board commission. (e.g. TC may only need to meet quarterly, but reserve the right to hold special meetings when projects come up that need comment)
4. Identify the proper number of members for a commission based on the input needed (The Transportation Commission should have a bike seat, a transit seat, a pedestrian seat, and a disabled seat, if you reduce it to five members, you’re basically limiting your input)
5. Bring to the council, a meaningful recommendation, that will probably have fewer commissions and less staff time than currently proposed, but that will result in actual work being accomplished and a more informed City Council.

Lastly, Exhibit two in the packet lists the hours currently spent in a year, and the hours that will be saved under the new plan. The council needs to be aware that the hours listed for the Transportation Commission appear to have some really odd assumptions in them, and that the actual time savings, based on the last two years of meetings, will be significantly less.

Over the past year, the City has held 8 TC meetings for a total of 9.2 hours, in order for City Staff to have spent 126 hours on the meeting (not counting the reported 398 prepartion hours),  14 public works staffers would have had to attend each meeting and that PW staff would have spent 50 hours per meeting. Anyone who’s looked at a TC agenda will also question how 400 hours could have been spent preparing for those meetings, very little of substance is presented. I think the assumptions are based on something else.

Even if the TC met 12 times in a year (I don’t believe that has ever happened) and each meeting was three hours long, you’d still need 3.5 staffers per meeting. and thirty hours of preparation per meeting (essentially one person working for an entire week). It’s a stretch.

Hopefully, the council will “provide direction” to staff to take a little more time and to come back with a proposal that is more fleshed out and agendized for a real discussion (prior to bringing forth an ordinance).

Cpt. Carnevale worked in Alameda since 1993, first at the Naval Air Station, and then joining the City Fire Department in 1997.  Until he went out on medical leave, he was the Captain at Firehouse 2 (at 635 Pacific).  He is survived by his wife of fifteen years, Liz, his 8 year old son, and many family and friends.

A memorial fund has been set up in lieu of flowers, food and other gifts. The Carnevales have requested a donation be made in Scott’s name to the Scott Carnevale Memorial Fund for cancer research.

Donate By Paypal: donations to “ScottCarnevaleMemorialFund@gmail.com”

Or by check:

Scott Carnevale Memorial Fund
Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
18 Miller Ave.
Mill Valley, CA 94941

The procession route , beginning at 9:30, is as follows:
Begin at Fire Station Four with apparatus staging on southbound Auginbaugh Way at Mecartney Road
Travel east bound on Mecartney Road
Turn left on Island Drive
Continue north on Island Dr,
Cross the Bay Farm Island Bridge, then right on Fernside Blvd
Turn left on Encinal Avenue
Continue on Encinal Avenue past Fire Station One to Grand Street
Turn right on Grand Street to Pacific Avenue at Fire Station Three
Turn left on Pacific Avenue to Fire Station Two
Continue on Pacific Avenue westbound
Turn left on Skyhawk St
Turn right on W Hornet Avenue

From the minute you type in the city’s new web address, www.cityofalamedaca.gov, you have to wonder what the web folks were thinking. While neither “AlamedaCA.gov” nor “CityofAlameda.gov” were taken, but heck, the decision was made to make the URL for the City as long a possible, because when it comes to ease of use, length matters.

But the hits keep on coming. Upon visiting the homepage, a least tern flies across the top of the screen, signaling that this $74,800, no-bid website, which is based on a marketing companies proprietary system, is more flash than substance.  From the generic photos the highlight the useless categories, to the lack of people of color featured in almost any photos (hello designers, new census says Alameda is only 56.9% white folk, but of course, this is the same no-bid company that surveyed Alameda business folks to ask if they like doing business in Alameda because of our “homogenous demographics”), to the useless categories that lead users to a maze of links, this website is a perfect example of the problems of the past 18 months.

This is the image from the “Business” section of the site:

It looks like a mobile phone add, of a video conferencing advertisement. Who, in their right mind, would think “Alameda” upon looking at that photo. Honestly, these people (Graphtek) did a branding survey before working on this project, and this is what they come up with?

But even more problematic than the aesthetic issues, are the information access issues. Say you want to find an old City Council agenda. On the old, admittedly terrible, City Website, you’d scroll to the “City Council” section and click on the poorly named “document archives” (it took me a while to realize that the “documents” in this section were the agendas and minutes (because you wouldn’t want to say “agendas and minutes” for some reason). In the new website, you conveniently do the following:

1. Go to the Homepage (hey look, a bird that flies!)
2. Figure out which of the eight categories might be the right one, is it “City Hall,” because that’s where the meetings are? or “residents” because that’s who cares about this stuff, or “Business,” because these meetings are the business of the City, or “About Alameda” because it’s information.  – Choose “City Hall”
3. When you get to the City Hall page, look around, and start wondering, “where might the agendas and minutes be?” and finally click on the “City Council” menu on the right-hand side of the screen under “in this section”
4. Now choose “Council Meetings” from the menu that expands
5. Now stop and be amazed that whoever designed this website thought that the most important information that anyone visiting this section of the site would want is the generic “order of business” for council meetings. Then, when you realize that you still can’t access the agendas and minutes, find the “Document Archives” which are conveniently located under “No Meeting Scheduled” (granted for 4 days every two weeks, this section will list a meeting that has been announced).
6. And finally, you arrive at the Agendas and Minutes (heads up, all of the documents disappeared yesterday, raising yet another question about why this site went live last week). By this point, it should be easy for you not to be surprised that the document archives have new, flashy search functions that clutter the top of the page, but don’t have links to the webcasts, like the old, clunky website. For those, you have to go to a different section of the site.

So the designers, and folks who approved their design, figured that taking 6 steps to get to some of the most important information the City’s site offers, is not big deal.

This is emblematic of a larger problem, and one that has been noted time and again. The new site adds next to nothing in the way of new functionality for folks. Sure there’s an RSS feed for headline news, but where are the feeds for agendas? These would allow anyone to subscribe, and receive, the agendas as soon as they are posted.

Why is there not a section for planning and building? I’ll guess that they are one of the most searched for departments. (Follow the same convoluted search as for agendas and minutes to find the planning department, apparently “residents” and “business” don’t have any need of the department). Seriously, go to the homepage, click on “residents” and ponder the information provided and the fact that this was one of eight priority categories (highlighted by a family running on a ocean beach with waves big enough to surf on).

And to draw this rant to a close, I’ll just bring this full-circle. If I were the Acting City Manager, I’d return the City to their original website and insist that Graphtek, whose proprietary system the new site is using, design a website that helps people navigate our city, not makes the place confusing and generic. Thanks to the new website, Alameda’s public face now reinforces the image of the island as generic, even stepford-like, to the outside world.

Maybe that’s why they made the URL CityofAlamedaCA, so that visitors could figure out where it is, since the website doesn’t do it.

Update: 10:51 – City’s website now has the City Council (and other bodies) agendas and minutes again

On Monday, the guest of the week will be announced and questions sought.  The In Alameda Blog crew will choose the best 3-5 questions (though guests are not limited to answering only 3-5) and we’ll get responses and post them on Friday.

Here’s the inaugural post: Officially Speaking: Marie Gilmore : Local: In Alameda.

One week on from the final vote count, I wanted to give a huge shout out to the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds (likely over 1000) of volunteers who helped make the effort such a success, even if the measure didn’t pass.

Rules are rules, and we knew them going in, so I won’t complain about Measure E just barely missing the 2/3 vote mark. But I’ll happily point out that the embarrassing and shameful, No on E campaign can’t be happy about their “victory.” First a little perspective on the vote.

Measure E got 2500 more Yes votes than Measure H did, but lost very little ground in the results. The APLUS campaign turned out voters at 2 to 1 to the no side, in the worst economy in generations, with a proposed parcel tax that was over twice the amount of the current one. There’s no shame in the effort that created this result. Volunteers need to hold their disappointed heads up high.

Put another way, more people voted “Yes on E” than voted No on Measure B, the Alameda Point ballot initiative. Just because it needs to be put in perspective, more people in Alameda voted to double their school parcel tax in order to support our schools than voted against what is being called “the greatest electoral loss in Alameda History.” What does this mean? It means that Alamedans support our schools, and are willing to pay to do it. Again, heads held high!

The coming months are going to be painful and the fractures are being seen. While I personally dreamed of being able to hand the reins of the District over to those who fought Measure E, saying “you’ve obviously got all the bright ideas, now it’s your turn.” I didn’t actually think that there were any real ideas from the opposition, just a republican-like “no!”

To this point, Board member Trish Herrera Spencer, the only Board member to oppose the parcel tax, is now surprised to find that the impacts are exactly what “Yes on E” supporters said they would be. Ms. Herrera Spencer is now stoking divisive east/west issues around school closures, rather than working to pull the community together on a path forward. This is not the path we should be following and I hope that School Supporters will temper their disappointment and avoid looking for blame in the tiny handful of people who funded the embarrassing and shameful Committee Against Measure E. It should be enough to know that while they managed to subvert the will of 66% of Alameda voters, they lost more than a little bit of their soul in doing so.

School supporters need to breath deep, accept the loss and come together to find a path forward for AUSD that doesn’t require dismantling our education system. Time and energy spent hating on “evil businesses” etc. while understandable, in terms of the frustration we all feel, is energy wasted. New bridges need to be built, the School Board is going to need support in the coming months as difficult decisions are made. We need to support our local businesses, just like we need to support our local schools.

Personally, I’m taking a couple of weeks off from thinking of schools and school policy. I think that there are thousands of folks who probably need a recharge of their batteries. I am heartened by the energy and enthusiasm that is flying around the internet. Alameda is blessed to have such an engaged, intelligent, compassionate community. Thanks to everyone who worked on the APLUS, Yes on E campaign, you were astounding and amazing, and I hope to have the privilege to work alongside you again soon.

As we head (thankfully) into the last weekend before Tuesday’s Measure B vote, I figured I’d layout why I’ll be voting “Yes.”

To me, Measure B is a choice between moving forward to develop a very good, sustainable (environmentally and economically) vision for Alameda Point. The question before us is, will we (the city) be able to see this vision come to fruition, and after much research and thought, I’ve decided that yes, we will.

No matter what path the city chooses to take, there will be risks and Alamedans will need to remain engaged in the process through to the end, Measure B is no different. The East Bay Express got it wrong in their endorsement, which for some reason decided to take shots at proponents, rather than clarify their position. Alamedans do not have to rely on the good-will of the developer to negotiate in good faith, they have to rely on their elected officials to negotiate in the best interest of the city. The same people who be involved in the same negotiations whether B passes or loses.

The financial arguments that are being used are “worst possible case” in the words of former Asst. City Manager David Brandt, who wrote the city’s election report, upon which much of the No on B talking points are based. Subsequent numbers are downright incorrect, outspoken critics can’t seem to find a number they can stick with, because every one they choose turns out to be wrong.

Measure B is a first step, not perfect, not what I would have written has I been in charge, but an OK first step that contains the protections the city needs to move forward in developing Alameda Point. It contains a vision supported by 4 city council members, the chamber of commerce, every media outlet that has made an endorsement and most community groups that have taken a public stance. It will be interesting to see if these individuals step up after the election and take control of the process to get this done, or not. I have very serious doubts.

At the end of the day, the city retains all the power it needs to make sure the project proceeds in the way that detractors claim it must. To quote from Renewed Hope’s “Doubtful Promises” report:

“If the initiative passes, the city’s only practical power to avoid environmental impacts would be to refuse to convey the property to a developer on a timeline required by the development agreement.”

SunCal has to come to the table and negotiate, or in the end, there’s no project for them to develop. The worst case scenario of Measure B is that we’re back where we started. Which is where we will be on Feb. 3 if it doesn’t pass.

High on that list is the less-than-tight rope walk that staff did in ignoring the controls that the City Council holds over this project after the vote, including the ability to keep the project from moving forward. I checked in with an expert on redevelopment law, former Assistant City Manager David Brandt, who re-confirmed to me that it’s the DDA that controls what happens to the development and not the DA.

The city’s presentation ignored this even in the face of direct questions from Boardmember Spencer about SunCal’s ability to transfer the land with no say from the City. The City said “yes,” but that’s not true.

The DA allows for the transfer of the development rights, but the land transfer will be handled in the DDA, where the ARRA (aka City Council) can, as they have in other land agreements, make sure that they have oversight in what happens to the land, including approvals of transfers.

Look the dirty little secret of this initiative is that it does not cut the City out of the process moving forward. The only way that could happen, again confirmed with David Brandt, who knows this process inside and out, is if the city sends a cardboard box in to negotiate with SunCal.

On February 3, the City Council (those who aren’t against everything) will have an opportunity to put their money where their mouths have been. Either the initiative passes, whereby the council needs to take control of this process and get it done, or it fails and the council needs to back up their “support for the plan” by using the final 5 months of the ENA to negotiate a deal.