The vote was 6-2, with IDLF (“I Don’t Like Fun”) and “No-Way” Nadel the only ones shaking their heads. The $750,000 working agreement with LSA Associates is now official, with the provision that the City not be on the hook for the balance should progress be halted for any reason. A huge cheer went up in the chambers when City Council President Jane Brunner announced the item’s passage, by far the largest emotional outburst of the evening.
Afterwords, we retired to Cafe Van Kleef on Telegraph (near 17th) and drank ourselves delirious. Good times.
As I write this, the video hasn’t been posted, but it will be at http://oakland.legistar.com/calendar.aspx (link opens a new window).
Hunh. Weird. Sorry for the delay in this getting published — I guess we have a user category where posts need to be approved before being published. Probably want to change that.
Nadel is likely to be off of the City Council by January 2013. DLF may be gone even sooner, whether he takes the rumored job with Jerry in Sacto or not…many folks around City Hall have observed that Ignacio has basically checked out already. Depending on the timing, future Council votes on land acquisition, infrastructure funding, eminent domain, etc. could take place with a very different Council makeup.
this is a good thing, right?
Irrespective of a ballpark, to my thinking Nadel’s departure would be a good thing all around, since she’s a remarkably ineffective legislator, choosing almost always to eschew compromise and coalition building in favor of sighing about how everyone else is wrong as she votes on the losing side. She has served her district poorly IMHO.
DLF’s more complicated. when he was engaged, he was quite effective at garnering votes to pass projects…much of the credit for Jerry Brown’s initiatives getting legislative support goes to Ignacio. OTOH, he’s never been shy about putting the interests of friends above those of the citizenry. And as note, in the last year he’s basically stopped showing up much of the time.
On a ballpark alone, yeah, those two being replaced certainly couldn’t hurt, and could very well help.