Thanks, everybody, for sitting through a week of delayed posts while I travel. (Plus some sporadic technical glitches, which my web host hopes they can resolve this weekend.) As your reward, you get … the same Friday roundup you get every week! Don’t you feel special.
- As the Oakland A’s owners turn up the heat on move threats in advance of next Tuesday’s Oakland city council hearing on their $855 million stadium subsidy plan, team president Dave Kaval has been scrambling for more nice things to say about Las Vegas now that there are no more Stanley Cup playoff games to tweet from. The latest: Tweeting a photo of himself standing next to (I think) a giant Elon Musk drill bit and calling his tour of Musk’s Boring Loop in Vegas the “future of transportation,” which is a great opportunity to remind everyone that it’s a one-lane tunnel for Teslas to drive really slowly in and not the future of anything at all. Also that we should all probably stop taking Kaval’s tweets seriously, lest it lead to serious analysis of the synergies of locating a baseball stadium near Billy Idol’s Vegas residency.
- Opponents of the A’s plan are also turning up the heat, with protesters gathering outside the A’s offices on Wednesday to call for the team ownership to be held to affordable housing rules and to provide $1.5 million a year in money to aid anyone displaced by the project, while a former port commissioners penned an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle saying the project should be tweaked to reduce any adverse traffic or other impacts on nearby Chinatown. Both of which are reasonable requests, though neither would be nearly as important to Oakland residents as whether that $855 million changes hands — one of the big problems with community benefits agreements, as we’ve discussed previously, is that they end up being just a way for subsidy recipients to buy off opposition with a small cut of their boodle, so we’ll have to see how this plays out.
- Also next Tuesday, the Anaheim city council will be conducting a public discussion on whether the city’s sale of stadium land to Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno may have been illegal, as the California Department of Housing and Community Development warned back in April. There is no way I’m livetweeting or liveblogging or liveanythinging two cities’ council hearings in one day, and anyway this doesn’t appear to be an official public hearing that gets streamed online because it’s not on the council calendar, but if anyone finds a link to video, feel free to post it here in comments.
- Pensacola has agreed to give $2 million to the Blue Wahoos for stadium upgrades in exchange for a ten-year lease extension, which team owner Quint Studer calls “a win-win” because the Wahoos pay around $700,000 a year in rent — this is definitely an argument you should try with your landlord! The renovation will in part be paid for by diverting nearly $1 million that had been set aside for pedestrian improvements and bike lanes on downtown Reus Street, so everybody in Pensacola, try not to get hit by any cars for the next couple of years, it’s for the good of moving the minor-league team’s bullpens, doncha know.
- Wichita Wind Surge CEO Jordan Kobritz says his team could use a share of the Minor League Baseball Relief Act’s proposed $550 million in bailout money because when the 2020 season was canceled, “a lot of clubs, including us, lived off lines of credit.” Plus, you know, that $518,000 in PPP money you got, don’t forget to mention that, Jordan.
- I think I’m going to stop linking to mindless boostery zero-evidence articles about how much sports teams do for their local economies, because I don’t want to reward them with clicks, but suffice to say they’re still happening: If you really want to find one, search for the quote “We’re a champ city man, this is Champa Bay!” by someone who is only identified as a “fan.” #deathofjournalism
That’s not even that big of a drill bit. The Boring Company’s tunnels are tiny compared to the tunnels we already knew how to bore.
For all of TBC’s big talk, they haven’t demonstrated in any way, shape, or form the ability to tunnel faster or cheaper than other companies when you account for the fact that their tunnels are much smaller and much less complex than say metro tunnels. The whole thing is such a huge grift.
I don’t mind diverting money from bike lanes. Bike advocates are very politically organized but represent a very small group of people. I am fine with bike trails etc for recreation but when people propose it as a regular transportation alternative to cars and expect that space on the road be devoted to them it gets annoying. They make it out as if its how someone who can’t afford a car can get to work but its really Brett going to Crossfit
Well-to-do white people comprise 98.73% of urban bike lane advocates. According to my research.
I’d be happy if the bicycle riders here in Austin didn’t constantly violate traffic laws and then scream bloody murder when they get run over…..
But the Cyclists of Last Resort are the ones that will benefit from the bike infrastructure more than the Tour de France wannabes living in the burbs.
The funny thing about bike lanes is that most cyclists (which I used to be among when I was younger) would far prefer their dedicated lanes to be as separated as possible from motorized traffic.
It is politicians who want to section off (often only with green paint) a portion of roads built for cars as bikes only. It combines all possible disadvantages for both cyclists and drivers, but theoretically is a lower cost option. Politicians trying to achieve something with as little effort as possible, and damn the risks.
LA, of all places, used to have miles and miles of dedicated and separate bike paths (often made of redwood, like practically everything in LA used to be before we took them all down so we could plant palm trees instead…).
We humans are strange.
Seconded. San Diego has undertaken a massive bike land program in downtown trying to push bikes as a legitimate transportation alternative removing parking and travel lanes from roads all over the city. The end result is less parking and increased traffic for those actually using the roads in cars while the “bike lanes” remain largely unused. Bikes are not a transport alternative for almost anyone, they’re a recreation tool for people with money to burn and too much time on their hands.
Anaheim City Council Meeting:
http://local.anaheim.net/docs_agend/questys_pub/30334/Agenda.html
See item number 20. Not in Public Hearing portion of the meeting. Means public may only speak to this item in Public Comments. Public comments are merely that, comments. No action maybe taken by City Council on public comments. Item 20 it conveniently buried in the Consent Agent which are discussed by City Council only. Items 3 – 18 maybe approved by one motion. Items 19 and 20 maybe approved, however, by separate motions.
http://local.anaheim.net/docs_agend/questys_pub/30334/30364/30366/30837/Documents.htm
Public has essentially been walled off from discussion of this item at the time it comes before and is discussed by City Council.
Oakland City Council Meeting:
https://oakland.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=878921&GUID=481DDEF0-9E90-403A-83C1-3CB1C6F64C97
See Item 2. Again, all comments to be made in Public Comments portion of City Council Meeting. However, per the Agenda, “Comments on all Action Items (Public Hearing portion of City Council Meeting) will be taken at this time.”
Public Hearing (actionable items) portion of the meeting immediately follows, with item 2 as very first item on agenda to be discussed by City Council.
https://oakland.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4959101&GUID=E687C19B-B6A4-433C-9A7F-023E98B60761
Which city do you believe operates with a more open government (wants your input on city matters)?
Note: Consent Agenda is merely that. Portion of City Council Meeting to be discussed and consent given by City Council. Public Hearing on the other hand is public. Public is granted input into actionable items by City Council.
In short, no need to cover Anaheim City Council Meeting on July 20th. Agenda was constructed so as approval by City Council is a given.
It’s just beautiful to see democracy in action, isn’t it?
I bet the councillors will be making masturbatory gestures under the table while the public are speaking. Or maybe they will stand up to make them. Could go either way.
And people argue why lobbying is a good thing.
This nation is not a democracy (a long narrative and not one had or wanted here).
When blaming a “pol,” one should properly stand in front of a mirror and point the finger at one’s self. They are us. Human. Flawed. A product of this society. Desirous of money and position. Using ways and means to acquire both. Delegate or trustee. Advocate or leader. Power. The greatest corrupter of them all. And we don’t own our words, deeds and actions. As do “pols.” Drowning in our own ignorance. Is it any surprise. We get what we deserve.