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Alameda Sunwww.alamedasun.com
April 23, 2015
11
Virtual Reality
Technophiles
Meet Tonight
Courtesy photo
Students like these are looking for an opportunity to
stay with families in Alameda.
Exchange Program
Seeks Host Families
Sun Staff Reports
A dozen more host families
are needed in Alameda to host
exchange students from Spain. The
students arrive June 27 and depart
July 25. In total, 25 students will
visit Alameda this summer to participate in the EMY Program.
Students range in age from 13 to
17. The students will participate in
three excursions each week to places
like Great America, Alcatraz and an
Oakland A’s game, just to name a few.
Admission expenses and
ground transportation for the
excursions are paid for through
the program. Host families are
welcome to join any excursion at
a discounted rate. The students
come with full insurance and their
own spending money. Host families are asked to provide the students with their own beds.
For information, or to participate in this cultural experience, call
Jan Garcia at 749-7061 or 301-0779.
Sun Staff Reports
Senior-housing advisor and digital tech consultant for seniors, Linda
Jacobson is bringing virtual reality (VR) entrepreneurs and demonstrations to Alameda’s Rhythmix
Cultural Works to offer chances to
experience this evolving medium at
the East Bay Virtual Reality Meetup
Event set for tonight, Thursday,
April 23, form 7 to 9:30 p.m. Visitors
may try out the latest VR experiences and see presentations from business founders using VR to enhance
health and well-being.
“I’m fascinated by how VR can
be developed for therapeutic use by
people who are mobility-impaired
or mildly cognitively impaired,” said
Linda Jacobson, the event organizer.
“But this consumer technology is so
new, it’s not available to try in stores!”
Jacobson chose Rhythmix as
experiences in VR involve not just
technology, but expression, narrative and multi-disciplinary creativity.
Rhythmix Cultural Works is
located at 2513 Blanding Ave., in
Alameda. Tickets cost $20 or $10 for
undergrads. Find out more at www.
meetup.com/East-Bay-virtual-reality.
Coming Home Winners
Courtesy photo
H
enry Boeger, Dylan Wondolleck and Simon Boeger (left to right) represented
Encinal Yacht Club and swept the 2014-2015 BAYS Opti Series at the San
Francisco Yacht Club in Belvedere on April 12. The five-regatta series comprised 31 races. Henry won the Blue Fleet (ages 11-12) and was third overall.
Dylan won the White Fleet (10-under), and Simon won the Red Fleet (12-15) and
was first overall. This summer’s Bay Area Youth Sailing (BAYS) series kicks off in May
at Redwood City.
Letters: To the editor this week from concerned readers on various topics
Continued from page 8
homes compared to multiple-occupancy housing.
— Phil Tribuzio
They’re just kids
Editor:
I was pleased to read the letter
by Ryan Metcalf (“Baseball, Bullies
Not a Good Mix,” Apr. 16) about bullying by coaches in youth baseball
in Alameda. My family experienced
many of the same issues in this particular for-profit program. We are
rather perplexed as to why it seems
to be so popular right now. We can
only guess that it is because of the
pressure tactics employed by the
staff, which encourages the players
to look down on the Babe Ruth volunteer coaching system.
We have heard about inappropriate language and jokes about players made by the coaches (such as
about a player’s weight), about players being forced to spend most of a
practice running laps, or sent home
early, as punishment for not paying
attention, etc. Discipline is fine up to
a point, but these are just kids.
Youth baseball should be about
having fun and learning good
sportsmanship, not focused on
making a high-school or college
team. I don’t know Metcalf personally, but it must have taken some
courage to write his letter, so I
applaud him and hope his effort
will lead to changes.
— Russell Vernon
I disagree
Editor:
In response to (“Not Another
Make-Believe Traffic Remedy,” April
16), I’d like to say as an inaugural member of the Transportation
Commission (TC) and a frequent
observer and commenter at its
meetings, I could not disagree
more.
It reveals an unfortunate lack
of familiarity with how the TC
and the Alameda’s Public Works
Department function. This is not,
as claimed, just another study of
what the transportation “problem”
is. Instead, Councilman Daysog’s
goal is to design implementation
strategies that can be applied
throughout Alameda — not just in
one development area — that will
decrease auto traffic and make nonautomobile options safer, easier, and
more convenient. (This has never
been done on a citywide scale.)
The suggestion that “…They
(the TC members) are quite capable of suggesting updates to our
transportation element without
the help of a consultant,” severely
overestimates the capabilities and
resources of the voluntary and
advisory TC, which is still re-establishing itself after the years when
former Mayor Beverly Johnson
decimated its ranks by withholding appointments when vacancies
occurred. (Yes, her actions have
had long-term consequences: in
2009-2010, the TC lost its institutional memory, its continuity and
KITTEN SEASON IS HERE!
FAAS IS IN
NEED OF THE
FOLLOWING
ITEMS:
its culture of pushing the staff to
“think outside the box.”)
It might have been conceivable for the original TC members
— a once-in-a-generation group,
in my humble opinion — to do
what you propose: they served
eight years and developed a new
Transportation Master Plan, thanks
to a unified and assertive approach
to transportation planning that I
have rarely seen in 40 years of
advocacy work. To ask the existing
TC to accomplish a similar feat is
asking more than their advisory
role under the City Charter.
The city staff will manage the consultant’s contract and work closely
on the new plan(s), and the TC will
most certainly be heavily involved
— as it should be — in scoping the
goals of the contract and plan as well
as modifying its draft results.
The amount of time and effort
need to develop sound strategies
and implementation plans for city-
wide reductions in single-occupancy car trips is huge: this will
take many hours of community
meetings, worldwide research into
alternatives, and lots of creative
thinking to develop options that
will work for Alameda.
The already stretched city staff
cannot manage such a big project
on top of what they already do,
thanks to years of staff reductions,
so hiring an outside consultant to
develop a new community based
plan is the only way to accomplish
this new and laudable goal.
— Jon Spangler
Crab feed a success
Editor:
On behalf of Ken and Colleen
Arnerich and the 2015 baseball fundraising committee, we extend our
warm thanks and appreciation to
all who supported and attended
Alameda High School’s 13th Annual
Crab Feed & Auction fundraiser held
recently this year at Eagles Hall.
Special notes of appreciation go
to all of the businesses and individuals who supported this event
and especially to our corporate
sponsors: U.S. Bank, Perforce, Rich
Sherratt and one anonymous AHS
baseball lover, Harbor Bay Realty,
Rich Krinks, Summit Bank and
Kevin Kearney, C.P.A.
To our dedicated staff of baseball coaches and their families, the
many baseball players and their
families, we send out a heartfelt
“couldn’t do it without you.” And
to the baseball families who went
above and beyond to make this
event a success, an extra thanks for
stepping up to the plate.
For a complete list of this year’s
donors, team records, schedules
and game summaries, visit www.
hornetfootball.org/boosters.
— Debbi Nakahara, Vali Ebert
Event chairs, Alameda High
School Baseball Boosters
Sing Along with the Sacred Harp
Sun Staff Reports
The 11th Annual Golden Gate
Sacred Harp Singing hosted by the
Bay Area’s Sacred Harp Singing
Community will take place 9 a.m.
to 3:30 p.m. this Saturday, April 25
at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1323
Central Ave.
Everyone is invited to join the
day of fun and fulfilling sacred harp
singing and be a part of a uniquely
American musical tradition.
The event features participatory, non-instrumental, choral music
that anyone is invited to sing,
regardless of musical experience
or ability — there is no rehearsal
or performance, and admission is
free.
Also known as shape note singing, sacred harp is easy to learn.
The term shape note refers to a
style of musical notation that uses
triangles, ovals, squares and diamonds that allow even relatively
new singers to sing tunes at a first
reading.
The sacred harp is considered
to be the oldest continuous musical tradition in America today,
with tunes originating from prerevolutionary America as well as
contemporary additions. Interest
in sacred harp singing has surged
since the release of the AcademyAward winning film, Cold Mountain,
which featured sacred harp singing
in its soundtrack.
People from many traditions
enjoy this music for its power and
depth and to experience the sheer
enjoyment of singing together.
For more information, contact
Lindy Groening at 593-0019 or
lgroening@gmail.com.
Bill: For city hire falls on taxpayers
Continued from page 1
Royal Canin - Baby Cat
Instinctive Loaf in Sauce
Royal Canin Mother
& Baby Cat food
Friends of the Alameda Animal Shelter (FAAS)
1590 Fortmann Way, Alameda • (510) 337-8565
www.AlamedaAnimalShelter.org
HOURS: Wed: 11AM-7PM • Thurs-Sun 11AM-5PM
Ad paid for by anonymous donor
Serving the City of Alameda Since 1977
ANNUAL MEETING of the
ALAMEDA FOOD BANK
The public is invited to see the Alameda Food Bank’s
new board members approved.
May 18, 2015 at 6:30 p.m.
at 1900 Thau Way, Alameda.
For information, call 510-523-5850.
Alameda Food Bank provides nutritious food to low-income
Alamedans. To donate food or money or to receive services,
call: 523-5850 or visit www.alamedafoodbank.org
executives wanted to pay, emails
obtained by The Alamedan showed.
“The (chief resiliency officer)
model proposed by Alameda raises
concerns around salary; the longterm sustainability of resilience as
a practice; and the placement of
the CRO within the fire department
with a dotted line to the Mayor,”
100 Resilient Cities’ chief operating officer, Andrew Salkin, wrote to
Nguyen on March 10, 2014.
Nguyen, whose staff was
scrambling to address potential
job openings that would be created if Zombeck took the chief resiliency officer position, balked at
negotiating further with initiative
executives. Then-Fire Chief Mike
D’Orazi also had his hands full with
a second project: a community
paramedicine pilot project, which
launched in June 2014.
“At this point, we need to know
if you will fund the position that
we propose. If yes, we’ll be all-in
next week,” Nguyen, who told The
Alamedan the city didn’t want a
policy person to fill the role but
were instead seeking a grassroots
organizer — wrote in a March 11,
2014, email to Salkin the following
day. “If not, 100RC will move on
without Alameda.”
After losing the grant, city officials vowed to press forward with
their efforts to make Alameda more
resilient should disaster strike.
The fire department had already
restarted its disaster preparedness
program, and the city planned a luncheon to discuss efforts to make Alameda more resilient in May 2014, a
month and a half after announcing
the city had lost the grant.
In his report to the council,
Nguyen wrote that the city hopes
to initiate planning efforts this
spring and conduct community
and staff training over the summer, fall and winter; implementation and updates would be made
in April 2016. As part of the process, the city will update a hazard and risk assessment the federal government requires before
it will provide aid in the wake of
a disaster.
The report also says the city
will use its to-be-built emergency
operations center as a year-round
training center for resiliency efforts. The city has been criticized
for moving forward with the multimillion-dollar facility, which was
slated to be occupied by a single
fire department employee and used
only for occasional training and in
case of emergency.
“The new facility will serve two
primary functions. One, it will be
the emergency operations center,
the headquarters, for disaster response. Two, it will serve as the
city’s resiliency training center
year-round,” wrote Nguyen, who
dubbed the new facility an emergency operations center and city
resiliency training center.
Read more Alameda news at
www.thealamedan.org. Read how
the city lost the grant here: http://
thealamedan.org/news/specialreport-how-grant-was-lost.
THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF ALAMEDA
SINCE 1973 HAS BEEN DEDICATED
TO ANIMAL PROTECTION AND PET POPULATION CONTROL
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
to continue our financial assistance to the Alameda Animal Shelter,
our spay and neuter fund and our dedicated programs.
q $20 Individual Membership
q $100 Life Member
q $35 Supporting Member
q $______ A Donation Amount
Send to: H.S.A., P.O. Box 1571, Alameda, CA 94501
www.HSAlameda.org
Name ___________________ Address ______________________________
City _________________________________ Zip ______________________
H.S.A. is now offering FREE animal adoption for Alameda Veterans of the Armed
Services. We continue to offer FREE animal adoptions for Alameda Senior Citizens
living on low incomes. Animal adoptions provided at the Alameda Animal Shelter.
Checks payable to the Humane Society are tax-deductible. We are an all-volunteer 501 (c)(3) Non-Profit Organization