The Curious Incidents of Trish & Bryan in the Night-Time
Tony Thurmond is exploring a run for guv; Lateefah Simon posts another strong finance report
CITY NEWS
ALAMEDA
—QUEEN OF NOPE—Alameda Councilmember Trish Herrera Spencer’s mercurial voting patterns continued on Wednesday night. Without explanation, Spencer voted no on two consent calendar items.
—She registered opposition to accepting $1.4 million in federal funds for stormwater bioretention areas at three roundabouts in Alameda. That’s really a vote against bicycle mobility and maybe green paint on the street.
—Spencer then voted against a two-week extension of an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement for the West Midway Project, a large housing development at Alameda Point. That’s obviously a vote against new housing in Alameda.
—Later, Spencer criticized the city’s new Guaranteed Basic Income pilot program. “This is absolutely a very extreme experiment,” she said, and not an appropriate use of taxpayers’ funds to give money to only 150 households out of 18,000 eligible residents.
—In a comment that evoked one of Spencer’s most infamous quotes, she wondered out loud whether parklets are misnamed. A parklet is like a park. Anybody can use them, she asserted. (She was actually right on this one.)
—Famously, Spencer once opposed a senior wellness center in Alameda and defended NIMBY neighbors living at an apartment building next door. She argued the tenants couldn’t be NIMBYs because they didn’t have a backyard.
—WILMA CHAN COMPLAINT—A potential lawsuit against the City of Alameda by the children of the late Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan appears still a possibility. The Alameda City Council again discussed in closed session on Wednesday “significant exposure to litigation” resulting from the complaint.
—No definitive action was reported out of closed session on Wednesday evening other than unanimous support of the council for an unspecified direction to its counsel.
—Chan was killed by a motorist in 2021 while walking her dog in Alameda. The city has witnessed a number of accidents and fatalities involving pedestrians. Last year, Alameda renamed Constitution Way as Wilma Chan Way and the county added her name to Oakland’s Highland Hospital.
SAN LEANDRO
—BY THE HANDBOOK—In early 2022, San Leandro Councilmember Bryan Azevedo caused quite stir when blew up during a council meeting after being rebuffed in his efforts to be appointed to the ceremonial position of vice mayor. He was also running for mayor.
—The council had long followed an unwritten rule that councilmembers running for re-election or mayor were out of the running for vice mayor.
—On Monday, the council is putting the rule in writing, adding it to its councilmembers’ handbook. In addition, the new language prohibits a councilmember from running for mayor after receiving the vice mayor moniker.
—The new handbook includes language from the City Charter that strictly prohibits council interference in the duties of the city manager. The impetus for the latter entry may have been related to the item below.👇
—GARBAGE CONTRACT—San Leandro’s garbage contract with Alameda County Industries (ACI) expires in 2025. But like other East Bay cities in the same situation, San Leandro is beginning the Request for Referral process early. An RFP for garbage services could go out this month. An RFP for post-collection services, such as recycling and composting, could be posted shortly after.
—The recycling component and problematic meetings between San Leandro Councilmember Bryan Azevedo and California Waste Solutions, Oakland’s recycling vendor, continue to worries city staff about the potential for a conflict of interest.
—A year ago, I reported that during Azevedo’s mayoral campaign, he posted photos of meetings between him and the owners of California Waste Solutions. Azevedo also received campaign donations last year from the Duong family, owners of California Waste Solutions.
—Monday’s presentation to the council includes a slide reinforcing that a councilmember cannot meet with a potential garbage contractor alone, but must also include the mayor or another councilmember.
—As an aside, David Duong, CEO of California Waste Solutions, contributed $9,100 to California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s 2026 re-election campaign on June 30.
—INSIDE ‘DRO BASEBALL—Controversial San Leandro and South County landlord Tom Silva said on the Season 3 premiere of The Marinade with Lee Thomas, published today, that he and a landlords group were able to undermine the San Leandro City Council’s pro-renters majority.
Download episodes of The Marinade with Lee Thomas, a podcast about San Leandro politics and BBQ, on Apple Podcasts below.
—The Bay Area Homeowners Network, a group of mostly Asian American small property owners, successfully lobbied San Leandro Councilmembers Xouhoa Bowen and Fred Simon to rescind the city’s eviction moratorium extension last June, Silva said.
—“They were even able to get through to [Councilmember] Victor Aguilar and got him to change,” Silva said of the tenants advocate who ultimately voted to end the moratorium extension after just three months on the books.
—Bowen and Simon, along with Councilmember Bryan Azevedo switched their votes from three months earlier, leading to a 6-1 vote to end the moratorium prior to the new February 2024 deadline.
—In addition, Silva said the various eviction moratoriums in the East Bay actually aided landlords in that it focused often conflicting landlords groups toward a common cause and helped pool resources.
—“I’m going to give you some inside baseball. People tend to think as landlords as a homogeneous bunch when we’re actually very, very, very diverse,” Silva said. “The moratorium broke down silos between all these organizations.”
—This played out at the Alameda County Board of Supervisors meetings, Oakland and San Leandro council meetings for most of this year. In all three cases, extended moratoriums were either rescinded or will wind down by summer’s end.
ELECTION 2024
GOVERNOR
—EXAMINING A GUV RUN—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, a former East Bay assemblymember, filed a Statement of Organization Recipient Committee on Thursday for California governor in 2026.
—Thurmond will be termed out of the Department of Education in 2026, but his intent with this filing doesn’t necessarily mean he’s running for the open guv seat in three years. Statewide officers often create campaign committees as placeholders for their next move in politics.
—Thurmond, though, told KTVU that he’s definitely exploring a run for governor.
—He would be running in a gubernatorial camapign that is already in full-effect. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis is in the race and already raising money. Alameda’s Betty Yee also announced, and most believe State Attorney General Rob Bonta will eventually join the race.
12TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
—RAINING MONEY—Lateefah Simon is solidifying her frontrunner status in the Oakland-Alameda-Berkeley 12th Congressional District with another big fundraising haul.
—Simon announced her campaign raised $300,000 in the last three months. She reported $300,000 in the first quarter of this year. That amount represented just the first month after announcing her candidacy.
U.S. SENATE
—LEE ON UNINCORPORATED AREAS—Barbara Lee continued her U.S. Senate campaign’s tour of the Central Valley on Thursday. Lee visited unincorporated Poplar in Tulare County and told the largely Latino enclave that as senator, “no community will be left behind.”
—“Californians in unincorporated areas—many of whom are farmworkers—face housing, environmental, and immigration injustices that are all too often ignored by people in power,” Lee wrote on social media.
—Such sentiment, however, has rarely been applied by Lee to the large unincorporated areas in Alameda County just outside the borders of her congressional district that struggle with poverty, crumbling infrastructure and, in some cases, lacking sidewalks.
OAKLAND CITY COUCIL
—ALL ABOARD—Oakland At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan already has a challenger in 2024. Selika Thomas, an unknown, filed a Statement of Organization Recipient Committee last week with the county.
—Kaplan has served the influential at-large council seat since 2008. Between running for re-election, mayor, and last year for county supervisor, Kaplan has appeared in every two-year election cycle, except for 2018. While mayoral and supervisorial campaigns have proven to be difficult, Kaplan is undefeated in the at-large seat, going 4-0.
—MONEY FOR NOTHING—The Hayward Demos Democratic Club, a chartered Alameda County Democratic club, increased its cash by $300, according to its mid-year finance reports. That’s because two candidates from last year’s elections did not cash their checks.
—What’s worse, according to notes jotted down within the report, East Bay Regional Park District Board Director Dennis Waespi “tore up” his $100 check, and Alameda County District Attorney candidate Terry Wiley never cashed the $200 check from the club because it was “not needed” and was later “destroyed.”
