biggscity.com

The San Francisco Chronicle had a recent article warning that EBMUD might start water rationing
throughout the East Bay, even including Alameda. In past rationing periods the area west of the hills has usually been spared, and those customers east of the hills (where it tends to be a lot hotter, lawns are bigger and water consumption per resident is a lot higher) have born the brunt of the cut backs, resulting on horrible brown lawns.

More and more though, people are finally forsaking their lawns, and going natural.  The use of native plants in landscaping is on the rise, and I am proud to say that our very own Ploughshares Nursery has been playing an important roll in promoting the use of drought tolerant and native plants for landscaping.

Even water rationing and water use is controversial in Alameda. What isn’t controversial in Alameda?  Residents at Bayport who have tried to put in native plant landscaping have been blasted by their green lawn diehard neighbors for planting “weeds”.   A nice native landscape doesn’t have to look like a bunch of weeds though. Just ask some of the folks that have gardens featured in the upcoming Bay Friendly Garden Tour on April 27th and the Bring Back the Natives Tour on May 3rd and 4th.  Alameda gardens and Ploughshares Nursery are featured on both tours, and Ploughshares, along with other nurseries will be having a special sale on native plants.  A great chance to learn from the experts, and turn your garden into a water solution!

Shortly after starting my blog, I took off on vacation to Nepal, thus killing any momentum that didn’t really exist. I will spare you the long drawn out travelogue, except for one observation.  Nepal is going through some incredibly rough times - power is out for 8 hours of every, the wait in lines for gasoline or diesel can take up to 12 hours, they are trying to overcome the trauma of a revolutionary war that killed thousands over the past ten years, and they are gearing up for elections that could dramatically change the government.  The prevailing sentiment was summed up this way “in ten years Nepal will be really wonderful, or really bad.”

Coming back home after 3 weeks, I also found that life wasn’t looking as rosy in Alameda as it was when I left - a perfect storm of budget cuts in education, city financial woes at the golf course and with AP&T, a downturn in housing that threatens to scrap some development projects has made the near and long term future much murkier.   Luckily we are doing without a revolution(so far), but as in Nepal, I think it is now fair to say of Alameda that “in ten years it will be really wonderful, or really bad.”

One blog a week they said, when I was asked to start doing a blog - like an apple a day. Simple enough I thought. Hah!  I’ve easily written and trashed 20 blog postings the last few weeks but just didn’t find that something really worth talking about.  It’s a good thing no one is really reading this thing any way.

So the topic for todays post is all about civility, in light of tomorrow’s showdown with the lowdown on measure A.  Since the forum was first proposed, so much has happened that much of the interest has worn off.  What hasn’t stopped though is the mudslinging this issue always seems to incite.

Last month I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel discussing Alameda Point, along with David Howard among others. Although we were presented as speaking on opposite sides of the issue, I found that there were a lot of things we agreed on Howard was also proposing to modify measure A to allow additional housing out at Alameda Point. His method involved a state directed density bonus, my method involved a vote of the community. Regardless, we both talked about increasing the housing above the amount allowed by Measure A.

More importantly, we didn’t bite each others head off. We were able to discuss issues that are often contentious in an open engaging manner.   I hope that the forum tomorrow is able to do that as well. I have already seen the naysayers at alamedadailynews predicting a disaster. I believe that just like with their football predictions, they are wrong on this as well.

As for me, I won’t be there. A long planned, and highly anticipated vacation in Nepal takes priority.  Now that might be worth a blog post or two on my return!

Friday night I got to go to the organizing reception for Slow Food Alameda.  The Slow food movement started in Italy, and promotes the idea that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work.  Ample evidence that Alameda belongs in the movement was provided by some wonderful local “foodies”: Alameda Natural Grocery, Asena, Baron’s Meat, C’era Una Volta, Pappo and others.  Pappo even produced a pizza using leeks grown by the Alameda Point Collaborative’s Growing Youth Project.

My dog(who I believe already has one) told me I needed to get a blog, so here I am. The name of the blog was suggested by someone else.  I will not allow him to claim credit for it until I decide whether I like it or not.  When I think of Biggscity, I think of all the random thoughts, ideas, and comments, rolling around in my head, that may or may not resemble any reality in the world. So for the time being at least, Biggscity works.

I’m not sure what I will contribute to the dialog that hasn’t already been said, but I do know that there are times when I really think I have something to say, but don’t have someplace to say it.

For today though, I just want to say hello, glad to be here, and I look forward to talking about all things Alameda, and/or Biggscity.