October 8, 2010

Dear Mr. Spangler...

Dear Mr. Spangler,

Thank you for the welcome to Alameda. I've given your comments thoughtful consideration and here they are.

With all due respect - First, a quick Google search of your name and I can see you indeed have attended an impressive amount of council meetings.

Anyway, let's dissect your comments. You've been following since 1997. So chances are you don't have a preschooler or a grade-schooler that will be in said AUSD schools for the next 13 years. We potentially have differing opinions on how it should be run.

You mention "Mike McMahon is one of the dedicated school board trustees who has been minimizing the damage to AUSD students and their education due to state budget problems since he was first elected eight years ago." But you see sir, I don't want someone who "minimizes" anything. I want someone who PREVENTS it. Remember, I'm pretending to be CEO of Alameda and you don't get a second swing at the bat if you simply "minimized" for eight years. If someone else isn't pulling their weight on the Board, by all means, lets get some names and get some bat swinging started.

You state "governance and business are not the same activity and they require different skill sets". California - how's that working out for you? Oh wait, California is actually run by clowns like me who unknowingly sign petitions that lead to propositions that spring on the demise of the entire state (I'm looking at you Proposition 13). If we would actually let our honest, capable politicians do their jobs, maybe it would be slightly better. But I still don't think they are different skill sets. The skill set is being simply awesome and running/leading something better than anyone (Remember? If you're going to be a bear be a grizzly). You know how top executives can go from one company to a completely different one and still make it rock? That's the skill set.

So Mr. McMahon worked as an executive in a large retail chain so has business experience. You mean Mervyns? Aren't they bankrupt? From Wikipedia:

Mervyns was an American middle scale department store chain based in Hayward, California. It carried national brands of clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, and housewares. Many of the company's stores were found in shopping malls. Based on 2005 revenue, Mervyns was the eighty-third largest retailer in the United States.

In December 2006, Mervyns had 189 stores in 10 states. However, Mervyns closed all of their locations in Oregon and Washington by February 2007, reducing its store count to 177 stores in 7 states. The company said it closed underperforming locations that did not contribute to the company's success. In July 2008, Mervyns announced it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Three months later (October 17, 2008), the company announced that it would liquidate its assets through a Chapter 7 filing. On October 31, 2008, Mervyn's began the process of liquidating its entire inventory in an effort to repay its creditors, and, by December 31, 2008, all remaining locations were closed. Then, on February 11, 2009, the Morris family announced that they had bought back intellectual property as well as naming rights to the company, their hope being to relaunch as an internet-based enterprise.

I'm sure Mr. MacMahon was not responsible for its demise but that comment doesn't buy me the street cred I'm personally looking for. And don't worry, he's still on my "potential" list. I saw him during the Board's school closure meeting and he impressed me much more than at the candidate forum and I'm still leaning towards partnering "old ways" with "new ways". It's just a matter of which one.

Finally you say "You will sleep better at night if you vote for the best. I did, and I do." The problem is, I was sleeping just fine. Then I started worrying about my children's future. Now I don't sleep at all and had to dust off my old blog site to rant and rave at wee hours of the night.

So honestly, I do appreciate how respectful your comments were in trying to convince me otherwise. My writing style is somewhat sassy but please note that I am truly a nice, respectful person too. And I may still vote for Mr. MacMahon. I'm going to look into it further. Lack of sleep sometimes makes me cranky.

For politubing's sake, can't find a Mike MacMahon video, but here's an inspiring little diddy, I think this organization isn't doing much now but is somehow tied with CSBA.org. I'm not endorsing it, I just liked it...

Alameda City Manager Salary - Perspective

I need ambien...Anyway, I just read Action Alameda's post where they normalized the data reported by SF Chronicle on what City Managers get paid in the Bay area.

Personally, if someone is doing a kick-ass job, by all means, pay them what they're worth. What? Here's a perspective.

Palo Alto rocks. It is in so many ways a wonderful place to live. So much so, that I can't afford to live there. But that's OK. I'm not the jealous type. So their City Manager gets a $1.5 million dollar stipend for a home there (that the city gets back when he/she moves and sells it). Most would just be appalled and decry the evilness of the disparity. But look, if the City Manager is responsible for making Palo Alto the one place everyone wants to live and no one's home is decreasing in value and they have plenty of funds to cover city functions and one of the best school systems around, then it's fair. Pay the people what they're worth, period. Make them earn it, fire them if they suck, but it's OK to incentivize them and have all the weapons in your arsenal to get the best of the best. I want our City Manager to be actively recruited by Google. This is how America should work (oh pipe down Democrats, I'm a registered Democrat and voted for Barack.)

So, the chart is interesting. Alameda falls right around the middle. Alameda City Manager earns about $285K a year and there are about 74K of us. I'm not sure I agree with comparing it to purely population but whatever, I'm OK with this as long as the City Manager is killing it. I don't even know who that is actually (you see know why you're wasting your time reading this? I honestly don't matter much). I know something about an interim City Manager in place but I don't know the details.

So in my wee little blogosphere universe, I'm pretending to be CEO of Alameda (I'd be just a HORRIBLE CEO...), and this CEO wants her minions to be nothing but the A team. I want them going out there making every Bay Area resident just dying to get across our little bridge to get a glimpse of our heaven. Our houses are bigger than most of those in Palo Alto. We have a beach and boats. It takes us 20 minutes to get to the city on a scenic ferry ride. We have a freaking awesome view of the city. You want to be us. You want to live in our houses, shop in our shops and go to our schools because we are heaven on earth. Do what it takes, brand us that way, use all creative (but ethical) means of making every Alameda crazy proud to be here and never wanting to leave. Keep that hometown feel, that's great branding. Everyone wants to live on Birdwell Island (Clifford the Big Red Dog's home...that place is just dreamy). And keep the best and the brightest here too. The money will follow. And by all means, make it so random moms aren't compelled to blog about the city. In fact, during elections, people should forget there even is an election and there should be no one running because it's just running so swimmingly. Like we tell our kids - "If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly." I'm sure we stole that from some place but whatever.

My husband is right, Alameda is so focused on chiseling away at costs but costs are easy. You basically know what they're going to be and can only do so much to get them down. But the sky's the limit if you get creative on how to bring revenue into the city. You won't need to shut down an elementary school to save $304K (that number is ridiculous by the way, I won't get into why here). And all you die hard Alamedans that have been here 20+ years and don't want anything changing - wake up, 1/3 of the island left years ago along with its revenue. It already changed.

(And I'm not talking creative ways of getting revenue like lets fine responsible homeowner $1,500 right before Christmas for failing to get a permit for like-for-like replacement of her windows and do it by stopping the work while there were gaping holes in her house so of course we had to pay. Merry Christmas to you too Grinch. Yup, I'm still bitter. Like-for-like! Why would you need a permit for that? It's not a fire hazard??? Our licensed contractor had never heard of such a thing, paid for half of the fine and decided never to work in Alameda again.)

I'm talking creative revenue that thinks big and beautiful. That Farmer's Market you shut down here on Bay Farm a couple of weekends ago for failing to get their little license that takes 2 months? Don't make them pay $1.5K or whatever it was for their little permit. Make them pay a percentage of their profit and not a crazy amount but enough that makes it so that you want their Farmer's Market to succeed. That steady stream of revenue will be more than $1.5K I promise. I've yet to see a Farmer's Market that brings a town down. Maybe that's not legal, I don't know California is crazy.

Anyway, so that chart would have been even more interesting if it compared how much revenue the city generates. Fine if the City Manager makes x% of total revenue. If you base it just on population, poor little San Jose City Manager gets peanuts and should think about quitting soon. So $285K for a town that is running on red does sound like a lot, unless that person is going to be the next Mark Hurd (no I don't mean that little scandal, I mean, he got into HP, shook things up, took out dead weight and turned things around sometimes while being wildly unpopular).

Anyway, for Politubing sake, here is a snippet of Alameda's interim City Manager Mary Gallant talking about Chuck Corsica Golf Course. (Why 'interim', isn't the City Manager hired by the mayor? I'm not looking it up, I need to sleep)...

October 6, 2010

Candidates for Alameda School Board 2010

Tonight I attended a meeting at Earhardt school that presented five of the six candidates who are up of for election to Alameda's School Board in November 2010.  Or at least most of the meeting. Crazy insomnia has me up writing about this again. Here is my take...

First, dear candidates...this meeting was nothing less than an interview for your desired job. So what I'm looking for is someone who is prepared and qualified enough for me to offer him/her the position. The room had maybe between 100-200 people attending and I heard the mutterings "Oh, this is a full house". Really? Aren't there like over 70,000 Alamedans? Sure this was a Bay Farm forum but even then, guessing there are at least 7-10K Bay Farmians (hahhaha!). Point is, I'm willing to bet most of us lead fairly busy lives and don't pay close attention to this level of politics. For the most part, I've left your position blank when I've voted because I don't know who you are. So for me to actually come here what you have to say, well let's just say the adage "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" is spot on. I probably won't have time to research you any further than tonight. So I would expect nothing less than for you to dazzle me.

So who dazzled and who fizzled in my mind, let's go in order of this handy little sheet that was given out...


Randy Wrobel - The Rebel
At first Mr. Wrobel, you scared me with your initial presentation that you were against Measure E. I thought, "Oh no, he's here to just stir up trouble." But you know what, in the end, you were one of the candidates that impressed me the most. Mr. Wrobel is running on a platform that calls for us parents to take back control of our child's education and if needed, turn that energy and financing into opening up Alameda charter schools so that we are not dependent on state under-funding or crazy union sanctioned regulations. That sounds good to me.

A friend is suggesting I go see Waiting for Superman that pretty much talks about our existing messed up public school system and the inevitable change that is needed. Trust me, if you think public opinion about our existing school system is a passing fad, I think you're missing that we are in the midst of "the winds of change".

I also appreciated that he wasn't flat out against a parcel tax. His vision is getting a parcel tax approved that fits within the realistic abilities of most business owners here in Alameda while funding the schools for at least the immediate future. My take is he doesn't want giant parcel tax, just enough to get us through the crunch then spend the resources and time to figure out if there are indeed charter school options. As a vocal advocate of AlamedaSOS.org, this still sounds good to me. I don't want a Parcel Tax for the sake of plugging a hole. I want the zeal that is surrounding this to translate into real change.

So Mr. BPM consultant, I'll be looking for you to be able to action said plans. I was a BPM consultant in my time and made lots of pretty PowerPoint but had little practice actually getting things done, not to say that's you. The way I see it, there are 2 public hearings scheduled to discuss the Parcel Tax. Let's see if you are not too busy with the campaign and actually show up to these to help drive the consensus you'll need from lots of vocal groups. Oh, and do a little spell-checking next time you write up something that will be given to the general public that is deciding your future. (points deducted for pointing out my mispelling and grammar errors) Just sayin'...


Margie Sherratt - The Cheerleader
Impressive lady indeed. I heard something about Principal at Alameda High, teacher, counselor, District Administrator...you go girl. Why anyone would want to come out of retirement to take on another monumental task, let's just say I'm glad that we have you. You didn't overly dazzle me with responses to your questions but I like that you have experience from "the other side". I can see you partnering up with one of the renegade  board members and creating a nice checks and balances. The more I get to know public schooling, the more I'm appalled at how poorly it's run. One of my daughter's favorite, ridiculously talented, and ambitious young teachers (Ms. Bianka Hamil from Bay Farm Elementary), was let go this year because she was a first year teacher. Really? Because that's how I'd run my business for sure. Let's fire the gung-ho young workers since they have nothing on the stale-would-like-to-be-retired-soon alternatives. So you have that working against you. You're part of the system that I feel needs fixing. However, I know things just don't change on a dime and I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you could take your experience to spearhead a change that works within the confines of what we have today. Rome wasn't built in a day.

James Pruitt - The Comic
My favorite line of the night was when the question whether a candidate would need to preclude him/herself from making a decision on any specific school issues because of conflict of interest Mr. Pruitt responded "When I left Haight School, Lyndon B. Johnson was still president". HA! I like that you have experience with labor relations and building consensus, that seems important to me in this divisive atmosphere we're brewing. However, I wasn't feeling that you would have the ability to actually lead a board into consensus for a true renovation of the system. I get the feeling that especially us new Alamedans, we are really amped about a revolution,  not just a change. This town has ridiculous potential but moves like molasses in implementation of anything truly innovative. I'm skeptical you would foster that fast enough unfortunately.

Clay Pollard - The Class President
When we walked in the room my 4 year old (yup, couldn't pay a babysitter for this, sorry) piped up "Mommy, is that Barack Obama?" Now before you get riled up about the obviously racial remark, note that he doesn't think all black men are Barack. Only stately and impressive ones. I was definitely impressed by Mr. Pollard.

I like that he was the first to mention that we are building a sense of doomsday within Alameda that isn't helping anything. A good portion of my preschooler parents who will have their children starting Kindergarten next year are changing their minds about public and deciding on private institutions. The more kids go to private school, the less public funds there are for Alameda. With the degeneration of our public school system, comes the reduction in our housing prices. With less affluent families moving in, less sales dollars are generated for Alameda. Maybe that's not how it works but that's how I view it.

He mentioned the schools needed to be focused on the children and the academics and that we needed to find good alternatives for funding. Yup, yup and yup. He mentioned that we are tainting the reputation of Alameda and not doing enough to foster respect from the community about the capabilities of the Board and Alameda schools in general. He has home-schooled, private schooled and public schooled his own child. All options that constantly run through in my head. Would I want a successful business owner that has experience in these arenas running my Board? So far so good. His Parcel Tax plans calls for a fair tax that spans a shorter period, is accountable and line item specific and directed at maintaining minimum student/teacher ratios. Again I say yup. I'd rather my child attend less days (I can make those up with enrichment camps) versus having everyday be a struggle for attention. His written responses where the most eloquent and well thought out of all of the candidates. Now I'll be looking for Mr. Pollard to be involved in the upcoming Parcel Tax debates and put his plans into action as well.

Mike McMahon - The Incumbent
Ah Mr. McMahon. Was that smugness I detected in your demeanor? You do know this is your job interview right? You're running for a controversial third-term and yet you seemed at times bored at having to be present at all. Yes, I did agree with many of the points you made but sir, you did not impress mama-newbie here. Maybe I voted for you before, can't remember. You're probably great. You get extra points for having a Twitter account and following Bill Gates (but one deducted for not following me back). I know how elections go too, incumbents usually win. I would just ask that if re-elected, you take this as an opportunity to start a new job, not just continue the one you have. You have the experience that we would need to get plans into actions but do you have the ability to convey revolution, consensus and optimism? Your short answers to the written questions only solidified my thoughts that you were not serious about your commitment to the task. These are of course, my personal gut feelings so take them with a grain of salt. Good luck and please, I'm a parent of a student in one of your schools, do what it takes sir.

Sheri Palmer - The No Show
Well Ms. Palmer, I'm sure you had a perfectly good excuse not to attend your interview. The thing is, you need to interview to get the job. Also, in your written description you write "I am a parent of three daughters, 2 dogs and a parakeet"...blink, blink...OK, maybe our daughters know each other so I'll be kind but sorry, not getting my vote.

Points deducted from any candidate without a web site or Twitter account. What? Well sorry but I want a 2010 candidate using all out of the box technologies at your disposal.

Finally, because this is of course a "politubing" blog and online videos need to be a part of it, here's a great snippet from Bill Gates talking about America's public education....