tl;dr summary: It's time for the three newcomer candidates for City Council to each take stock of their campaigns to-date, to think privately and honestly, to chat with their key supporters, also for those key supporters to chat with each other — and it's time for one of the three newcomer candidates to decide to step aside and help campaign for the other two. Mainstream voters (myself included) want two clear options to support and to vote for.

For voters against preparing Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island for climate change and against reducing our collective contributions toward global warming, how to use their two votes for Alameda City Council on the November ballot is clear: voting for the pair of Stephen Slauson and Trish Herrera Spencer.

At last weekend's LWV/Alameda Post council candidate forum, Slauson ranted against the very concept of human-caused changes to our climate. Herrera Spencer's opposition is more subtle but even more damning: She regularly votes against the city's Climate Action and Resiliency Plan, she spikes any efforts to fund and fix Bay Farm or Alameda Island's specific sea-level problems, and she stymies and demeans city staff who are professionally tasked with bringing potential solutions to our elected leadership.

But what about us voters who hope to live on Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island for many years to come? What about us voters who own our houses or rent here and want to know that future king tides combined with heavy rains won't intrude into our houses and apartments and street intersections? What about us voters who genuinely care about doing our part to reduce our collective greenhouse gas emissions, particularly our emissions that are produced less out of specific need and more out of inertia?

As the ballot currently stands, we each get to individually decide how to allocate our two votes to three candidates who believe strongly in repairing Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island and collectively doing our parts to address climate change.

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The same pattern applies to many other pressing local issues on which there is mainstream consensus — from housing to renter protections to homelessness solutions to public safety to traffic safety — I just use climate change as an example in order to keep this blog post tighter.

So who should we vote for?

The mainstream governing coalitions of Alameda don't know. They all endorsed different subsets of those three candidates. I thought about drawing many Venn diagrams to convey the confusion of this patchwork pattern of endorsements... but instead of describing the current political landscape, this blog post is about how that landscape should change.

It's time for quick assessments and a decision

It's time for the three newcomer candidates to each take stock of their campaigns to-date, to think privately and honestly, to chat with their backers, also for those key backers to chat with each other — and it's time for one of the three newcomer candidates to immediately step aside and help campaign for the other two.

Those of us who care about climate change — and every other mainstream issue in Alameda — should be encouraged to vote for exactly two candidates for Alameda City Council. Not this confusing set of three options.

Does this blog know which of the newcomer candidates should drop out? No.

Each of the three has a unique angle and a unique voice. Each of the candidates has taken a risk and put in effort. All three have participated so far in the "Morning Bun Challenge" in one way or another. Stepping aside is a choice to be made based on the candidate's self-assessments and conversations with their key supporters.

Don't call me. Call each other.

If one newcomer candidate offers to step aside, figure out how they can play a part in making this election a success. Figure out how they can have a meaningful ongoing role in Alameda politics.

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If that meaningful role involves a turn on the Transportation Commission, I will step down to create a vacancy. Seriously. I will gladly give up this role (an appointed volunteer role) so that one of the three newcomer candidate who steps aside from the Council race can have a public forum through which to use their voice to serve the city. All three newcomer candidates have demonstrated a commitment to systematically improving traffic safety.

The path from Alameda Transportation Commission to City Council has been successfully traversed before. It may take that candidate a few more years than rolling the dice on this November's ballot. Still, it could be a meaningful path for one of those newcomer candidates who decides right now to step aside and support the other two.

As I just wrote: Don't call me — call each other. But do know that I'm putting skin in the game if you all can figure it out amongst yourselves.

Polling results

On Thursday, East Bay Insiders published some results of polling about the Alameda City Council race. (My understanding is that the journalist who runs EB Insiders does so as his career, so I will honor his paywall and not quote it at length on this free blog, which is just my hobby.) The results are probably from the survey that this blog discussed in September. There are two key findings:

The incumbent running for reelection is viewed extremely unfavorably. A clear majority of "higher information" voters of all stripes strongly want to vote against Councilmember Herrera Spencer.
But at the time of the survey, the candidates for City Council were all found to be polling within the margin of error of each other.

These results suggest that the most likely outcome on the current trajectory is that the toxic incumbent wins re-election based on name recognition by "lower information" voters and that one of the newcomer candidate wins based on a combination of chance and whatever door-to-door and online campaigning they are accomplishing since the date of that survey.

This blog genuinely believes that the three newcomer candidates each offers something compelling to voters. But the reality is that as voters, we only get to cast two votes.

All of us who want to vote for a future of climate-change preparations (and every other mainstream issue from housing to renter protections to homelessness solutions to public safety to traffic safety) — whether we're highly engaged or just going to tune in to look at key endorsements right before the election day — want to know how to concentrate our two votes on two reasonable council candidates who we can collectively get onto the next Alameda City Council.