At the Oct 15 City Council meeting, City Council held a study session regarding updates to the Climate Resiliency and Action Plan, as well as the Zero Waste Implementation Plan. Many staff members, consultants, city boards, and local advocates have been involved in preparing these plans, and many public commenters were lined up to add their thoughts. An intern would also be presenting about engaging Alameda youth in climate action.

Just as the Mayor asked for a motion to grant additional time for all the coming presentations, Vice Mayor Tony Daysog had an announcement to make: He would be recusing himself from the entire agenda item, all public comment, and all council deliberations.

You see, he lives near a city-owned public parking lot and one of the CARP slides mentioned that among the many places where the city is adding EV chargers in the coming years is in that very parking lot. So while he fully supports the CARP, this conflict would force him to leave the Council Chambers...

Here's the "good news": Vice Mayor Daysog must have actually cracked open the agenda packet in order to have found this specific detail about a specific parking lot:

And the facial expressions on other councilmembers as Daysog makes his announcement and departs Council Chambers are a hoot:

But I shouldn't joke too much about this. This isn't about personalities.

This is a demonstration that in his current elected role, Vice Mayor Daysog is not serving as an effective member of City Council or as an effective leader for Alameda.

That wasn't a reason to recuse — rather, this looks like a contrived excuse to get out of the room. You see, by staying in the room for this important agenda item, he could have risked offending someone... anyone.

If he spoke in support of the CARP, someone might ask him why he recently voted against giving voters to option to fund the actual climate resiliency infrastructure improvements called for in the CARP.

If he spoke against the CARP, someone might ask why he just tried running for Barbara Lee's seat in Congress as a "progressive" left wing candidate but now his actions on the City Council are hindering our collective plans to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

If he stayed in the room, he might feel obligated to support some sort of reactionary proposal by Councilmember Trish Herrera Spencer "as a courtesy."

So, toward his likely goal of running for Mayor in two years time when Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft is termed out, Tony Daysog is just going to keep on avoiding any topic where he thinks there's a non-zero chance someone will disagree in the slightest.

Most of us — including folks who have pretty different policy positions than I do — can likely all agree that this is not what elected leaders are elected to do.

If Vice Mayor Daysog isn't willing to make actual decisions on behalf of the almost 80,000 residents of Alameda, then he should step down from elected office and find a new hobby.