Ron Dellums, making things up. As usual.
July 21, 2008 by V Smoothe · 3 Comments
Probably the single that annoys me the most about Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is his habit of phrasing everything in these absurd, sweeping, hyperbolic statements. I don’t understand why he insists on doing it. Things can be good without being the best. Progress can be laudable without being unprecedented. The problem with using superlatives to describe every damn thing that you talk about is that most of the time, you’re going to be wrong. And there’s nothing I hate more than listening to people say things that are flat out not true.
And there’s no politician in Oakland who loves to say things that are just plain wrong than Ron Dellums. I’ve observed before that the Mayor appears to simply make up numbers off the top of his head when he speaks, just citing figures and “facts” that sound good to him, completely disregarding whether or not they bear any relationship to reality.
And so it was the other day, when I was listening to him talk, for reasons I didn’t entirely understand, about base reuse, and he proudly informed his audience that “Every study that has ever been done in this country” about base closures has demonstrated that after the base closure, the community has been economically enriched and more jobs were created than were ever supplied by the military base.
Why would anyone say such a thing? It’s just one of those statements that’s just patently, on its face, not true. “Every study that’s ever been done in this country”? Why!!!?? Why, why, why would you say that? No matter what you’re claiming, there’s going to be some study, done somewhere, sometime that says you’re wrong. But what’s even more annoying about Dellums’s assertion is that our very own EBASE released a report (PDF) on exactly that subject only a few weeks ago, and it says the opposite of what Dellums is claiming:
Replacing lost jobs with positions of equal or higher quality continues to challenge local reuse authorities. Civilian jobs on military bases tend to offer family-supporting wages with benefits, but new job creation fails to meet this standard. As shown in Table 1, at Fort Ord, none of the industries targeted in the reuse plan pay a basic family wage. At Norton, where the greatest job creation has occurred, the average wages of targeted industries fall just short of the basic family wage. Only McClellan’s reuse plans include jobs that exceed the basic family wage, but only for a portion of the jobs. In Oakland, where final decisions are yet to be made, reuse officials must choose between lower-paying retail jobs, or warehouse and logistics jobs that would pay higher wages and offer a more accessible career ladder.
Of the four decommissioned bases studied in the report, including our very own Oakland Army Base, only one has so far managed to create jobs in excess of those lost when the base closed. (Even this is confusing to me, since although the chart provided shows that 13,000 jobs have been created on the former Norton Air Force Base in San Bernadino, the section that discusses that base says “To date, the businesses at Alliance California have replaced early 70% of the total jobs lost.” Who knows.)
Dellums then went on to talk about the “wonderful process” going on in Oakland right now to pick a master developer for our very own Army Base, which I actually do agree has been moving along quite nicely since the fall, even if it did take us like 15 years to get here. But he had to ruin even that, by reiterating his mindless nonsense promise about how it’s going to create 10,000 jobs:
“Whatever development that comes there will generate 10,000 jobs.
Reality check. Each respondent to the RFQ included in their response the number of jobs their concept was expected to generate. These are the totals offered by the four finalists. AMB/CCG: 3,809. Federal: 4,050. First Industrial Realty: 2,600. Prologis: 7,920.
Please, please, please, for the sake of my sanity, Ron Dellums, STOP SAYING THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE I HATE IT SOOOO MUCH IT DRIVES ME CRAZY OMG!!!!!!!
Army Base at CED
July 9, 2008 by V Smoothe · 2 Comments
So CED yesterday about the Army Base wasn’t terribly exciting it terms of anything unexpected happening, although the lengthy public comment period was super entertaining.
A number of speakers showed up to protest that staff’s recommendation did not involve asking the RFP respondents to incorporate space for PCC Logistics in their final plans. PCC submitted a response (PDF!) to the City’s RFQ, asking for 14 acres on the Eastern Gateway, where they’re currently located, to basically keep doing what they’re doing - container freight, customs inspection, and so on. I particularly enjoyed this part of the meeting, not just because I think they’re totally right that we need to make sure these services are incorporated into the development plan, but also because I got to hear people say “efficient ancillary maritime support services” over and over and over again, which has now replaced “environmental remediation” as my absolute favorite phrase. Efficient ancillary maritime support services. Don’t you just love the way it rolls off your tongue? Read more
Army Base, quickly
July 8, 2008 by V Smoothe · 36 Comments
Aah, I had so wanted to write a whole bunch of posts about the Army Base last week before the item came to Community and Economic Development Committee (CED) today, but I just couldn’t find the time, and while I still hope to get to it later this week, I wanted to say something before the meeting.
Okay, so when we last visited the Army Base question, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums wanted what he referred to as a “vision-based” development strategy for the Army Base, which basically involved asking developers to come up with a plan that would incorporate like every conceivable use on the land. In one of their better moments last year, CED wisely rejected the recommended “Mixed-Use Oakland” plan, dismissing the “vision” with one of my favorite lines from Jane Brunner ever, “This isn’t a vision. It’s a list.” Henry Chang had had enough, and awesomely suggested that we just wash our hands of this neverending saga and just sell all the land to the Port, and then use the money for like, affordable housing, or whatever. Read more
Worth reading this weekend
April 6, 2008 by V Smoothe · 14 Comments
- Becks sounds the alarm about a new Berkeley initiative to halt BRT:
Regardless of any issues one may have with AC Transit’s current BRT proposal, this is just bad planning. This initiative would mean that anytime the City wanted to convert lanes to transit-only lanes, the decision would have to be made by the Berkeley electorate. Even if the dedicated bus lane only extended one block into Berkeley from Oakland or another neighboring city, Berkeley residents would have the final say. Projects could be held up for months or even years if an election wasn’t approaching (I don’t see the city holding special elections for this issue).
What do SKS Investments, Ron Dellums, and the Wayans Brothers all have in common?
April 2, 2008 by V Smoothe · 9 Comments
They all break their promises to Oakland. Read more
Who wants the Army Base?
October 25, 2007 by V Smoothe · Leave a Comment
So a couple people have asked me about the unsolicited proposals for the Army Base, and even though they could just click through to the staff report listing them, I’ve decided to copy the list here for the benefit of the curious, yet lazy.
These are all unsolicited proposals submitted to the City while either the Wayans Brothers ENA or the previous ENA, with Opus West, was in effect. Read more
This isn’t a vision - it’s a list.
October 24, 2007 by V Smoothe · 2 Comments
So the exciting news about the Army Base is that it looks like pretty much everyone (except Ron Dellums) is on the same page. Nancy Nadel, who I’m thrilled to agree with for once, told the Committee that she liked to Eco-Oakland option the best, and that she wanted to see the land used for maritime support services so that they could move out of West Oakland. She’s completely right - trucking companies and recycling centers belong next to the Port, not next to somebody’s house. She also noted almost everything in the “vision” (except for logistics) could locate somewhere else in Oakland, but this is the only suitable place to stick Port support. Read more
What makes sense for the Army Base?
October 23, 2007 by V Smoothe · Leave a Comment
This afternoon, the Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will consider several options for development of the former Oakland Army Base, which I wrote about for Novometro today. The Trib also has a story on the matter.
Working on the article over the weekend, I was able to answer all my questions about Dellums’s 10,000 jobs plan. Unfortunately, the answers were pretty disappointing. The key to my confusion was realizing that the Trib was wrong in saying he called for industrial development - the recommended proposal that anticipates 8,300 jobs rests on a large number of retail positions, as well as the construction of office towers as high as 30 stories on the West Gateway, which is, well…stupid. Read more
Ron Dellums’s Town Hall - 10,000 jobs on the army base? Huh?
October 15, 2007 by V Smoothe · 5 Comments
Okay, so I was going to attend Saturday’s town hall, but then I decided that making myself huevos rancheros and sampling my brand new Hangar One limited edition Chipotle vodka in a bloody mary before all the tomatoes are gone sounded like a more fun way to spend a Saturday morning than listening to people yell at Dellums about crime.
But now I’m kicking myself, because the newspaper reports of something Dellums said are totally befuddling to me. Read more
