Tonight's Alameda City Council is the last scheduled before the coming election, so it's the last time for the three newcomer candidates for City Council to participate in the Morning Bun's "challenge."

Volunteers will again be helping me to review the video recording and written correspondence. For any of the three council candidates who speaks live in-person or by Zoom, we'll clip out the audio and video. Or for any who email in a public comment, we'll copy out their text. And we'll share with this blog's readers later this week.

In the meantime, for those wonder what's on the agenda tonight, here's some light commentary from yours truly:

CARP and ZWIP

The main agenda item lists two opaque acronyms.

CARP refers to the "Climate Action and Resiliency Plan":

Alameda's CARP was adopted in 2019 with the goal of equitably reducing the City of Alameda's (City) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving net zero carbon emissions.

And ZWIP refers to "Zero Waste Implementation Plan":

The ZWIP provided a set of recommendations and guidance for the City to achieve its goal of zero waste: 89% diversion by 2020

Tonight's agenda item is a study session about updating both the CARP and ZWIP documents. There is no action that will be taken with a vote tonight.

Behind these plans, acronyms, and documents is a bigger question: For how many years, decades, or hopefully even longer do we plan to collectively live here on our planet and here in Alameda?

Consider Adoption of Resolution Supporting the Free and Safe Passage of Whales, Sea Turtles, and Other Marine Animals in Alameda’s Coastal Waters and the State of California’s Vision Zero
Target of Zero Mortality for Whales and Sea Turtles

Recall one of Councilmember Trish Herrerra Spencer's tactics: adding items to the agenda.

At the end of tonight's agenda is a referral that she added.

The attached correspondence packet shows an Oakland-based non-profit staffer first directly emailing Councilmember Herrera Spencer, emailing her again directly after she had a phone call with him, and then finally emailing the entire council in favor of "a Whale Safe City Resolution."

This is often the way change happens — through one or a small number of councilmembers. There's nothing wrong about these mechanics.

At the same time, one wonders how Councilmember Herrera Spencer will use this as a "fig leaf" to claim that she is an "environmentalist" — while she nips, tucks, and opposes the CARP and related climate efforts across the city, as well as opposes Vision Zero for humans.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, each time Councilmember Herrera Spencer (and also Vice Mayor Tony Daysog) vote against climate-change mitigations, infrastructure improvements, and traffic safety improvements I'm going to keep asking: For how many years do we plan to collectively live here in Alameda?

Staffing

There are multiple agenda items related to how the city manages and compensates its staff, including a closed session negotiation with the International Association of Firefighters Local 689 (IAFF) and Alameda Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA); a closed session performance evaluation of the City Manager; and a letter of understanding with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245 "adjusting [the] system operator classification work schedule."

This blog isn't going to get into how the City of Alameda's negotiates with its unionized employees or how it evaluates its leaders.

But I will use these agenda items as an occasion to say a "thank you" to city staff.

Oftentimes this blog drills down into specific agenda items, specific topics, specific attachments... and I try to put my finger on a place of policy or practice that in my mind is calling out for improvement. However, readers would be mistaken if they came away from this blog with the impression that all topics of city business are calling out for improvement. By and large, the City of Alameda in recent years is effectively working on behalf of the many residents, businesses, property-owners, and stakeholders of Alameda. No doubt the city could do better, and no doubt that not everyone would agree with me on the exact ways in which the city could or should change. Still, our elected leaders as well as aspiring leaders have a huge benefit of being advised by skilled staff and then having their decisions carried out by skilled staff. Much more often than not, our elected leaders can vote to accept the consent calendar, read and listen to public comment, provide input on the regular agenda items, and vote as informed by the staff recommendation — and trust that the overall result of this process is positively serving the city and its wide-ranging constituents. Thank you to the staff who help to make all of this happen.