The San Leandro City Council no longer keeps minutes of its meetings. Anyone interested in what transpired has to listen through hours of recordings. There is no way to search through them either. San Leandro Bytes editor Mike Katz-Lacabe (who is currently running for City Council) sometimes tweets from the meetings. I’m going to start collecting his tweets to serve as the record the City Council does not want to keep. The tweets are slightly cleaned up for ease of reading.
Mayor Cassidy notes that San Leandro City Council voted to extend Measure Z (.25% sales tax) and increase to .5% mainly to fund roads.
San Leandro Town Hall meeting starts with update on Marina & Davis freeway overpass construction project. Summer 2015 ETA for completion.
Pile driving complete on San Leandro Marina overpass. Pile driving starts in August for Davis overpass: 7am to 3pm.
Question to CalTrans: Can you do something about timing of lights on Marina Blvd in San Leandro? Traffic there is horrible.
CalTrans response from Scott McCrank: We agree. We’re looking at it, but “only such green time that can be allotted.” We’re brainstorming…
San Leandro Town Hall meeting has nearly 60 attendees and about 15 City staff.
Police Chief reports that crime in San Leandro is down 7% from last year. Note that this matches regional trend.
Former San Leandro CM Howard Kerr supports increasing sales tax to 10% or more to fund more police, surveillance in streets, neighborhoods
San Leandro CMs Benny Lee, Jim Prola ,Diana Souza supported Measure Z in 2010 and support doubling
Commenter at San Leandro Town Hall: Look at cutting city government, including red light cameras, before increasing sales tax.
Dwight Pitcaithley at San Leandro Town Hall: Why aren’t voters being allowed to vote on the fate of the San Leandro Marina?
Mayor Cassidy responds to Pitcaithley: We don’t have a final plan for the San Leandro Marina yet. EIR is currently underway.
San Leandro Comm Dev Director Cynthia Battenberg notes that public wants boat harbor, but not enough to pay for it. From 11/2007 Godbe poll.
Leo West at San Leandro Town Hall: Measure Z was supposed to be a temporary tax & now it’s for 30 years. Says supporters of Measure Z lied.
Mayor Cassidy to West: We eliminated utility user tax rebate for large businesses. Spent money wisely. Doing same work with less staff.
Two more supporters of a boat harbor in San Leandro speak of a lack of vision, the marina as a gem in the Bay Area, & resident support.
Mayor Cassidy response to question from Justin Hutchison: City is working on free wifi in downtown San Leandro.
THANKS! Keep the tweets coming! Wipes out all of the BS that I had to sit thru at the last meeting I went to.
Hello Mike!
I’m drafting an argument against the Measure Z extension, and wondered if you would be interested in signing it with me, Michael Jacobowitz and perhaps one other concerned taxpayer. I will have a draft ready this evening and we can polish it up tomorrow. It must be filed with the City Clerk by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, August 11.
If you can provide me with your email address, I will add you to the list of authors, and you can suggest changes (or write a different argument entirely). We’ll all try to agree to the final draft before signing.
Give me a call at (510) 207-4423 or email me if you can help us get this paperwork filed.
Mike doesn’t usually check this blog, but I will pass your message to him.