Often long-term demographic and economic trends are an appropriate way to evaluate municipal needs and direction. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Oakland’s population and job base grew very quickly, at least partly because Generation X workers were attracted to the opportunities Oakland presented as a somewhat blank slate, during a period of widespread economic growth and falling crime rates. But there are new generations on the way, including the far larger Gen Y and the children of Gen X. Decisions made in Oakland today will shape the future of the city, because in five years a critical mass of the next generations will make residency decisions that will determine Oakland’s success for decades to come.

Gen Xers (those born between 1965 and 1980, peaking in 1971) are reaching forty and their biological clocks are ticking! Nobody can fail to notice that there are legions of pregnant women and infants in Oakland’s neighborhoods. In Rockridge, a children’s clothing store is closing, but a maternity / infant clothing store is opening (and Pretty Penny now stocks vintage maternity threads). Enrollment at many elementary schools is rising, leading to fights over placement at high-performing schools. In approximately five years, a critical mass of children will be entering schools. A safe environment and good schools, Oakland’s perennial problems, will once again become a critical priority for local households.

The children of the Baby Boom are known as Gen Y (aka The Millennials). Sources say they outnumber or are approximately the same size as the Baby Boom generation. Half of Gen Yers turned 18 in or before 2008, leading some pundits to credit them with Barack Obama’s victory. Much has been made of a “knowledge economy” in which highly mobile, well-educated workers choose where to live based on municipal amenities, and desirable locales succeed economically because of available talent. In approximately five years, a critical mass of educated workers will be choosing where to base their careers, and Oakland (if only because it’s in the center of the Bay Area) will be in the mix. The decisions Oakland makes in next several years will determine if the city can attract Generation Y as well as it attracted Generation X.

There are so many reasons to live in Oakland. The city is beautiful, the weather is perfect, the economy is usually stronger and more dynamic than the rest of the country’s, and Oaklanders’ diversity and creativity anchor a vibrant and exciting culture. But as Susan Gluss famously wrote, “if you can’t protect residents from random violence and crime, then it doesn’t matter how walkable a city is.” That might not be true for me or other people who are revitalizing downtown and neglected neighborhoods with new homes and new businesses, but families place more priority on safety. A young mother in the Dimond may be perfectly happy to raise an infant in an affordable apartment near the bus line, but she will look at her surrounding blocks much more warily when she sends her child off to school.

In five years, college-educated Generation Y members will be considering moving to Oakland, and will do so based on job opportunities, cultural benefits, and the availability of rental and entry-level housing. At the same time, legions of parents will be looking to enroll their children in Oakland’s public schools. If they cannot be assured of their child’s safety and scholarly success, proximity to Lake Merritt and fabulous restaurants will pale in comparison to the needs of their offspring, and they will leave.

Oakland is not going to see a new generation of leaders take power for at least four years, and of course municipal projects move in geologic time. On Monday, as Oakland’s first Gen X Councilmember takes the oath of office, the City Council will choose its leaders (and, more importantly, its Committee assignments the next day). It will be the Baby Boom leaders who have already been at the wheel for a decade who will make decisions in the next several years that will determine if a generation moves here, and if a generation grows up here.

This week, everyone but the Trib is making endorsements in the many competitive elections in Oakland and the East Bay. So, like Robert Kennedy, I thought Why not? Here are my endorsements for who will make decision affecting the future of Oakland, from a transit and Smart Growth perspective.

City Council District One: Jane Brunner

I have a lot of problems with Ms. Brunner, so this endorsement comes with serious caveats. I think that she is often illprepared for meetings, as V-Smoothe pointed out, and seems to vote however the last person who got to her wants her to vote, but her staff is not as scattered as she is. I’ve already decried using Inclusionary Zoning, a rare ideological split on the Council, as a litmus test, so I’ll forgive her decade-long quest to impose price caps on condos. The real housing issue is that District One builds no affordable housing, and very little entry-level housing. I grew up in Rockridge and I’ve been forced out by the lack of development! There are fewer apartments now than there were in 1987, when Market Hall opened, and no newly-built condos. Ms. Brunner has offered little leadership on development in Temescal, instead exacerbating the neighborhood’s battles by meddling in projects (with the full consent of the rest of the Council). However, Mr. McCullough has no position on development.

The hot issue is crime, but Ms. Brunner hasn’t been particularly worse than anyone else on the Council; unlike Jean Quan and Nancy Nadel, she’s not a ringleader of the anti-cops brigade. Her shameful refusal to condemn Black Uhuru’s slander of Mr. McCullough is disturbing, but she does listen to crime concerns and is belatedly pushing for the high-tech crime-reduction strategies championed by Sean Sullivan. Honestly, I don’t see Mr. McCullough offering much in the way of crime but attention. Unlike Sean Sullivan, he doesn’t have detailed plans or a clear policy direction. I think Mr. Pine has the same problem except that he talks about the number of police relentlessly. Mr. McCullough also has no support from other councilmembers or institutions so he would probably be an ineffective councilmember.

And effectiveness is exactly what Jane Brunner offers. IZ wouldn’t have a chance if it were pushed by Nancy Nadel, but Jane Brunner knows how to work the system. For her constituents she’s delivered bicycle lanes and bike parking, the only successful Measure DD project (Studio One), and a dog park at Mosswood (which Ms. Nadel took credit for). Her staff is involved in the negotiations with CalTrans over the Caldecott Tunnel, which is entirely appropriate. She makes noises about Smart Growth and will deliver the MacArthur BART project, even if has taken fifteen years. Without an experienced opponent with a clear alternative vision, Jane Brunner deserves reelection.

City Council District Three: Sean Sullivan

This is easy. V-Smoothe wrote an excellent essay entitled Nancy Nadel Has to Go. Now., and I have little to add. Sean Sullivan has impressed many people with his well-organized, aggressive campaign and positive, detailed vision for the future of the District (I’m part of his campaign). Greg Hodge barely got on the ballot, and has run an invisible campaign that is short on specifics. Sean Sullivan offers energetic, hands-on leadership at exactly the time Oakland needs it most, and his record delivering a multimillion-dollar youth center and effective violence prevention programs is the experience City Hall needs. He is endorsed by Desley Brooks and Pat Kernighan, the two swing votes on the Council who are also the most junior. The ranks of newer councilmembers, not beholden to the old power structure, deserve more members.

City Council District Five: Ignacio de la Fuente

Ignacio is the best member of the Oakland City Council. He is the most respectful and attentive to public speakers, his staff are the most open to new ideas and new activists, and he has been there for public transit and Smart Growth every time. He attempted to lobby the MTC for an East Bay HSR alignment (but was thwarted by Nadel), which is perhaps the biggest single transit issue of the decade. Under his leadership, Fruitvale has become a charming, thriving district. In the mid-nineties, when I lived in Rockridge, nobody thought of going to Fruitvale for dinner or shopping. Now many people do, and the Transit Village is a model for the entire region. Jingletown exists because of Ignacio’s vision of reclaiming industrial land and creating access to the waterfront. Even if his leading opponent wasn’t an inexperienced businessman with a checkered past, Ignacio de la Fuente would deserve reelection.

City Council Seven: Larry Reid

Larry Reid is good. He stands up for what’s right, not what’s politically correct, like with plastic bags or industrial zoning. He does a great job attracting retail and residential development to his economically depressed district. I hear his constituent services aren’t very good, but I don’t see Clifford Gilmore offering anything better. Running a terrible campaign doesn’t help matters. This is a great example of the Guardian’s endorsements revealing themselves to be utterly irrational.

City Council At-large: Clinton Killian

This is a crowded field but honestly the choice wasn’t that hard. Charles Pine is one-note and wouldn’t be effective on the Council. Frank Rose is awesome but he gives so much to the community without being on the Council, so I don’t think he really brings much to this particular role. Kerry Hamill doesn’t bother to campaign downtown at all, is nowhere on transportation and development (though the big developers love her for some reason), has no credibility on the crime issue that she’s pushing, and says annoying things that are obviously political, like we need fewer political staff, even though she is political staff (she was Don Perata’s Chief of Staff and is now a Policy Analyst for BART). Rebecca Kaplan is appealingly energetic, and says a lot of the right things, but she doesn’t really have a track record of clear positions. I need to know more about her.

Clinton Killian, despite some minor business troubles years back, offers a great mix of experience for the City Council. He’s been on the AC Transit Board, the Planning Commission, and serves on the Paramount Board. His commitment to downtown, smart growth, transportation and the arts is unquestionable, and those are my priorities. I also appreciate how he brings together two often-squabbling sectors of the business community, the mainstream businesses and the ethnic businesses. His campaign has a clear message and is well-targeted, and he has a great shot at the runoff despite being outspent. That’s a good sign.

School Board District One: Brian Rogers

Who cares that he’s a Republican? At least he has something to say about education that’s relevant. Jody London, who just oozes politician, managed to squeeze green-collar jobs, energy independence and Save The Bay into the School Board debate, and said that she had no position on charter schools but is against them. Her entire campaign appears to be based around the fact that Mr. Rogers is a Republican. I think the race is pretty clear-cut: Rogers represents reform, London the status quo. She’s endorsed by the outgoing Boardmember, the Teachers’ Union and all the usual suspects. Brian Rogers supports educational innovation and charters, involvement from business, and continuing the Expect Success reforms opposed by Jody London and the Teachers’ Union.

AD 14: Tony Thurmond

I agree with the Express, the Chronicle and the Trib that the Richmond Councilmember is best to represent the district, rather than a Berkeley politician. His resume, running a successful nonprofit serving at-risk youth, reminds me of Sean Sullivan. Kris Worthington and Nancy Skinner are awful, the perfect embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the Berkeley City Council (NIMBYism meets Communism). I worry that Phil Polakoff will take too many moderate North Oakland / Berkeley votes and hand the race to Nancy Skinner, unfortunately. No runoffs in a partisan primary! But if you live in this district, which I don’t, please vote Tony Thurmond.

State Senate: Wilma Chan

Since we’re all getting two pieces of mail a day about Loni Hancock and Wilma Chan, many people may have made up their minds. I think the mail itself is a pretty good way to judge the candidates: Ms. Chan has a clear argument, that she accomplished more when she was in the Assembly than Ms. Hancock did (that’s true). Ms. Hancock, on the other hand, is all over the place, bragging about big-time endorsements one day and then bashing Wilma Chan for not having enough endorsements the next. Her mailers are full of stupid quotes like “the courage to lead” and dumb photos of her staring over the Berkeley Marina or talking to college students. Anyway, this one is easy: Wilma Chan represented Oakland and Alameda, Loni Hancock Berkeley and points north. Gotta go with the home team.

Predictions:

City Council: all the incumbents win outright except Nancy Nadel. Nadel may be bested by Sean Sullivan, who has reached out to people his opponents haven’t contacted, and seems to have the momentum heading into the final weekend when the undecideds are making up their minds. As for the at-large, Rebecca Kaplan will make the runoff with either Hamill or Killian in second place.

School Board: Incumbents in D5 and D7, Olu in D3 (Jumoke Hodge will do as poorly as her husband, because they didn’t campaign very much). There will probably be a runoff in D1, since Tennessee Reed has some name recognition and Rogers and London seem to be dueling it out pretty evenly. Rogers has a clear message so he could win, though I may be overestimating the voters’ willingness to overlook party registration.

Assembly: Thurmond could make it, otherwise Skinner. Polakoff’s base is too narrow but he’s probably done lots of mailers. Thurmond’s mailers contain typos but the demographics are on his side (everyone else is from Berkeley, he’s from the other half of the district).

State Senate: Wilma Chan will pull it off. The endorsements Hancock’s touting aren’t going to matter all that much, since Ms. Chan has great name recognition. Ms. Hancock is a divisive figure in her own Assembly district, so she can’t count on her half of the Senate district serving as a base. Chan’s mailers have a clearer message, as I said before, and so are more effective. I guess we’ll see on June Third!

Normally, the June primary features races for City Council, School Board, and state offices including Assembly, and this year, State Senate. Proposition 93 will decide whether there is a competitive State Senate primary: Senator Don Perata may fail to extend limits on his term in office, opening up what will probably be nasty battle between Berkeley Assemblymember Loni Hancock and former Oakland Assemblymember (and Alameda Country Supervisor) Wilma Chan. Ms. Chan, once considered the frontrunner, has suffered from two years out of office and out of the media spotlight, while Ms. Hancock has made very successful efforts to get herself in front of every camera rolling in Oakland, miles from her Assembly District (whose only Oakland constituency is Rockridge and part of Temescal).

Of more interest to this blog’s readers is the upcoming City Council and School Board races. Several aspiring Council candidates were discussed in Tuesday’s Berkeley Daily Planet, with Nancy Nadel’s bid for a fourth term representing Downtown and West Oakland facing stiff challenge from at least two contenders, and Henry Chang’s likely decision not to run for reelection attracting a great deal of attention. Jane Brunner’s bid for a fourth term representing North Oakland is not likely to be without competition, as her annoyed constituents beg for a candidate. Districts One and Three will probably have open School Board seats, though that second-tier race is currently flying below the media’s radar screen. But when, exactly, will Oaklanders have the chance to decide their representatives?

NovoMetro reported recently that Instant Runoff Voting, the controversial system that has been used in San Francisco since 2004 (during which time not a single incumbent has been defeated), is not ready for implementation in Oakland due to CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertifying Alameda County’s new voting machines, equipped with software for IRV. Without the new machines, the elections will go forward in June, rather than November. However, a group of Councilmembers, egged on by Oakland’s shockingly pushy and partisan League of Women Voters, is expected to attempt to force the city to use IRV anyway. Without the new machines, Instant Runoff Voting would be tabulated with paper ballots, creating significant costs to the city and delaying results for several weeks. Though the Country Registrar of Voters and the City Clerk do not see this as an option (the City Clerk told the Rules Committee late last year that “there is nothing instant” about spending weeks tabulating paper ballots with IRV’s complex ranked-choice formula), Council insiders expect several Councilmembers to argue that this is the “voters’ will.” In fact, voters were sold IRV as a faster, cheaper electoral method, so spending weeks and tens of thousands of dollars on hand-counted paper ballots is not following their intent. Most displeasingly, this raises the specter of vulnerable incumbents (like Nancy Nadel) attempting to put off their reckoning with the voters.

We’ll find out next Tuesday, when the Council is scheduled to vote on a resolution delaying IRV until the voting machines can be certified. And though I try to stay out of national politics on this blog, I can’t resist a quick pitch for my presidential candidate:

Everyone sick and tired of Dellums, rather than spend energy on a recall effort, should bide their time and vote for Hillary. A Hillary Clinton administration would more likely than not include a Secretary Dellums.

* Yes, I’m referencing an obscene Turbonegro song.

Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor and OaklandSucks argue over whether or not West Oakland wants neighborhood improvement and greater public safety (otherwise known as gentrification). OaklandSucks points out that with rent control, there is no reason to fear higher home prices. JDAT calls him “anti-Black.”

The SF Weekly’s Matt Smith responds to an absurd Guardian article questioning the environmental benefit of high-rise housing. A consultant with Berkeley-based DC&E, who recommended the ridiculous office tower on the Army Base, said that urban residents are unable to grow their own food in apartments, so high-density housing isn’t environmentally-friendly.

OUSD Advisory Board President David Kakishiba, an anti-development activist, is in trouble over misleading fliers distributed to Fruitvale schools. They oppose an 810-unit housing development adjacent to the BART station, with the erroneous claim that it would somehow damage the new soccer field on the other side of the BART tracks from the project. In fact, the developers are pledging to support the maintenance of the field with condo fees, and will build a high-tech multimedia center to be used by surrounding schools. Mr. Kakishiba is subject to an ethics complaint over abusing his position on the school board to advance his anti-growth agenda.

Nancy Nadel was accused via an open email of trying “threaten” and “intimidate” a Jack London Square-area resident, apparently caused by her insensitive implication that his emails accusing the Council and mayor of hampering police work could be “libelous.” He responded by filing an ethics complaint and notifying the FBI’s corruption unit of her “inappropriate behavior.” Hey crazy citizen: there’s no federal law against being a bitch.

In a marathon session, the Oakland City Council heard hours of anti-war pontificating at the request of Councilmembers Brunner and Nadel, in order to pass a resolution against the War in Iran. A leading supporter of the resolution told the Council that their actions were doomed to irrelevance. The Council also debated Nancy Nadel’s smoking ban and passed it with significant exemptions, capping almost a year of public hearings on whether or not smokers should face fines for lighting up near a bus stop.

In real news, the City Council had some angry exchanges with the city’s planning staff, as I wrote about yesterday. Councilmember Brunner reminded staffer Alex Greenwood that the CED Committee entirely rejected the four “blueprints” for Army Base development and do not want to see them as the basis of an RFQ. He replied that the mayor wants them in. Ms. Brunner told him that if Dellums wants to come to the Council and defend a skyscraper on the Bay Bridge, he is welcome, but otherwise staff is to take direction from the Council.

Speaking of the City Council, President Pro Tem Jean Quan has told NovoMetro.com that she is beginning to explore a mayoral bid (in 2010). Meanwhile, superstar developer Phil Tagami denies over and over again that he is running for the City Council’s at-large seat next year, fueling speculation that he is in fact going to run. In addition to Henry Chang’s at-large seat, Jane Brunner and Nancy Nadel are up for reelection and likely to face opposition (unlike 2004, when both were unchallenged). I used to think Ms. Nadel was planning to retire, but her fetching new ‘do on Tuesday may indicate otherwise.

The Trib editorializes against returning local control to the Oakland school board. In the Berkeley Daily Planet, Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor responds, and Sandre Swanson responds in the Trib.

A letter to the Montclarion assails Dellums’ lack of vision, while strident Jerry Brown critic and Dellums supporter Ishmael Reed declares “The number one issue in Oakland is crime, and until that’s dealt with, all these visionary ideas should be set aside.”

Berkeley and Oakland are considering suing CalTrans over the EIR for the Caldecott tunnel bore.

The TransBay blog points out that retail is a great use for Broadway, while auto dealerships deserve the isolated, transit-inaccessible Army Base. Even Mr. Allen-Taylor seems to be tiring of the Wayanses’ broken promises.

An Oakland blogger is asking Dellums to cancel the city’s bottled-water contracts.

Everyone from BeyondChron to Chinatown condo-owners complain about Inclusionary Zoning.

An Oakland umbrella “progressive” group issues a City Council report card. Despite their support for IZ, Kernighan and Brunner still get Ds.

V Smoothe makes media-criticism hay from a widely-repeated error in a press release. Nobody seems to notice that the Chronicle erroneously asserted that the Franklin Square Wine Bar, by the owner of Luka’s, will be in Broadway Grand, instead of on Franklin Square (across the street).

In his September District Five newsletter (so far only available by email), City Council President Ignacio de la Fuente today at 4:30 announced a long-term, comprehensive public safety plan. It has three points:

1. Adding more community police on the streets by shifting sworn officers away from desk jobs, and setting-aside 10% of the redevelopment tax increment for public safety officers (and looking for more creative hiring bonuses). This is a sustainable source of tax revenue that will grow faster than the General Fund. It is similar to other set-asides, such as the primary source of local low- and moderate-income housing funds (25%) and the 10% OUSD pass-through.

2. “Install GPS capabilities in every police and city vehicle” to more efficiently manage the city’s fleet, saving time and fuel. He touts the benefits to public safety in neighborhoods and during times of natural disasters.

3. Aggressively promote economic development! He talks about the importance of jobs to providing for families and keeping kids off the street, and points to many trendy industries. But fundamentally, he advocates for an open, welcoming approach to business and development.

We must stop fear of economic growth in its tracks and instead welcome growth and development as a powerful tool to improve the quality of life for all Oaklanders. We stand at the cross roads; now is the time to act boldly and courageously. I ask the business community to stay committed to Oakland, and to continue to believe! This will be the ultimate path to winning peace on our streets. With a balanced approach to governance, accountability and policy making that values the role of private innovation, capital and partnerships, Oakland will be a strong vibrant, safe, and livable city.

I couldn’t have written it better myself! With Mayor Dellums asleep at the wheel, Ignacio is tackling the real issues by providing real solutions. Let’s see how his agenda is received by the administration and the rest of the Council.

Sandre Swanson says that returning school-board control of the OUSD is “the number one priority for my community.” He lives in Alameda. In Montclair and Grand Lake, the number one priority seems to be crime prevention.

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor offers his weekly defense of Dellums, while the Montclarion runs its weekly letter criticizing Dellums.

Upcoming: the Blue Ribbon Commission moves into the decision-making phase of their deliberations. The Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will hear a report from the commission next Tuesday; it will be the second time this year the Council has discussed Inclusionary Zoning.

Amie Fishman, the young director of East Bay Housing Organizations, stunned me when she welcomed inflated home prices in order to pay for her price-regulated condo lottery (IZ). Yesterday, she said the opposite when discussing condo conversions, talking about the need for inexpensive but market-rate rentals. Even worse, she and her cohorts repeatedly raised the spectre of rich San Franciscans moving here to take advantage of cheap condo conversions. Condo converters say that the vast majority of buyers are local, thought not necessarily Oakland, renters, preserving liquidity in the marketplace. Fishman said “we need to ensure that we are providing housing for Oaklanders.” Beyond the xenophobia of that statement (what’s wrong with Alamedans?), Ms. Fishman herself is a recent transplant to Oakland. Where’d she come from? You guessed it – San Francisco.

Unfortunately, hypocritical “housing” activists are giving the Blue Ribbon Commission an earful, confusing everyone with their misplaced statistics (poor people can’t afford the median home!) and wild accusations (gentrification is ruining the OUSD!). The BRC is gearing up to make final decisions in early June, at two weekend retreats. They don’t want the public to come, so let’s all go! They need to hear from more regular people. The commission is completely split on IZ, and are not going to come up with a compromise to pass with a supermajority. Given the stark analysis prepared for the city, it’s possible they’ll even reject the regressive and dangerous program. If they do not, landowners should ask for property tax reassessments based on regulatory hits to their values, which are delineated in the city report on IZ. Let’s see what the Council thinks of that.

In other news, the Chronicle wrote an ultra-bourgeois editorial complaining about “unsightly” billboards and dismissing the revenues they provide to important institutions like the Oakland Zoo as “pet projects.”

The Tribune had a long article about the Wayanses, which made me support their project less (and why did they earlier meet with Councilmembers Reid and Brooks? Neither represents the area or chairs the relevant committee). Keenan Ivory Wayans didn’t mention rollercoasters, emphasized retail and a hotel, and suggested housing construction, all of which are terribly inappropriate uses of isolated land. What’s the point of putting a hotel next to the Bay Bridge? There are hotels in SF. We need hotels downtown, by the airport, and in Rockridge. Even if I weren’t having second thoughts about the project, they have no need for special treatment. They will have a big leg up on the RFP alread. I look forward to seeing the proposals later this year!

Finally, I’d like to encourage political junkies (and who else is reading this?) to watch City Council meetings. Streaming video, if you don’t have cable, is available on KTOP’s website. If you missed Tuesday night, here are some highlights:

Sanjiv Handa blamed “problems with city’s website,” the lack of solving real issues, and general Council laziness (reflected in “the usual light number of people in the audience” and “the lightest meeting load in the country”) on councilmembers’ ambitions. “Ms. Quan, Mr. De la Fuente, want to run for mayor; Ms. Brunner for city attorney.”

There was no discussion, and not a single speaker, when the council endorsed AB45, that would transfer OUSD oversight from Jack O’Connell to FCMAT. Yesterday, the Assembly Appropriations Committee deferred action to later this month. See my last post for contact info for the committee.

Several councilmembers rambled during the discussion of the “city of refuge” extension. Jean Quan speculated about what would happen without migrant workers: “if we were to pay the true cost of producing those melons, they’d cost the same as in Japan… five dollars a pound.”

“As an American, I’m afraid there’s always bits of racism in me,” said Nancy Nadel. “I don’t see the encouragement of the immigrants to (transform) their countries,” she added. “There are people in this country who will not work for slave wages, and feel the immigrants are coming here to work for wages just because they’re higher than in their own country.” She concluded, while voting for the measure, that “we cannot just let everybody come to the United States and work here.”

Desley Brooks revealed that she used to be an INS prosecutor (and didn’t like it), and that she recently attended a Hillary Clinton fundraiser. She also pointed out that there are many European illegal immigrants, supporting the resolution’s call to extend Oakland’s offer of refuge from Central American political refugees to any and all immigrants.

Ms. Brooks brought up storefront churches, when discussing the expansion of the facade improvement program. “Storefront churches become problematic, and so they blight our commercial corridors. Each one of these places is a church, and we can’t do anything to uplift the area. Redevelopment law will allow us to … help churches upgrade their exteriors.”

Heny Chang thought additional money for architects and guidelines is unnecessary; he called it “red tape.” Brooks responded, saying the design review is “critical.” She’s right – poorly-designed storefronts are a major problem throughout the city. The Dimond District is a good example of how bad architecture can discourage merchants’ investment, and Old Oakland and Uptown owe no small part of their resurgances to large windows and handsome facades.

Even though Council meetings are very long and often deal with uninteresting issues, having the stream in the background is a great way to hear these sometimes-provactive statements.

This argument is playing out on other blogs. Should shrinking numbers of OUSD students and administrators continue to enjoy substandard facilities on the most valuable land in the city while empty middle schools litter North Oakland? Surely not. But many argue, like School Board President Kakishiba, that the land will be needed to house increasing numbers of students resulting from downtown development (he also argues that the district has no need for an infusion of $60m). With land at a premium (the district is offered $6m/acre), they say that the district won’t be able to build new schools when these students arrive. The district, of course, is in receivership partly due to shrinking enrollment (but mostly due to inept management).

At their last meeting, the powerless school board received a report (PDF!) analyzing planned 10K-area (i.e., downtown, Jack London Square, and Telegraph/Northgate) and O29 residential construction, forecasting that the number of public school students may increase by between 425 and 2800, depending on the yield (of students per-unit) and the number of Below Market Rate (BMR) homes required by proposed “affordability” mandates. The report, however, is based on several flawed assumptions, and ignores many important factors, which a critical reading of the study reveals.

The biggest problem with the study is its overly optimistic calculations of student yield. The yield of the 1700 market-rate units already built is 0.002 students/unit. Nonetheless, the study assumes 0.01, 0.03, and 0.1 ratios for its Low, Medium and High forecasts. Even the Low forecast is five times higher than the actual yield! That’s seriously flawed and goes without explanation (the report notes that high-rise versus mid-rise units have an impact on student yields, but future developments are more high-rise than the ones already built, so should have lower yields). Similarly, the yield for the lone new family-sized low-income development is 0.38, yet the Low, Medium and High forecasts assume 0.4, 0.4 and 0.7, all higher than the actual yield. In addition, it is likely that at least some portion of redevelopment area low-income housing funds will go to senior housing, further depressing yields. Recalculating the formulas with the empirical yields (so only the number of BMR units vary), but still ignoring senior housing, forecasts 301 to 845 new students, fewer than a third of those predicted by the study.

The number of BMR units is recognized by the study as the largest variable in the forecast for the number of students. Unfortunately, the authors misunderstand the proposed mandates. An entitlement is a binding contract between the city and the developer to construct a project. The crude price caps so popular in Marin and SF cannot be imposed after permission is already granted to construct. Therefore, of the 10,088 units listed in the study’s table (aside from O29, which has a provision for family-sized low-income units, and the OUSD development), only 3389 can be subject to new mandates, and that is only if they fail to secure entitlements before the ordinance is passed and its grace period expires (and every developer is scrambling to get an entitlement before Dellums takes office). So, basically only the TerraMark development would be subject to a mandate (and they would probably do a special deal negotiated with the community, like O29, rather than just following the ordinance). Thus, even with a 15% mandate (which is very much at the high end of what is likely to pass), only 765 units would be built (including O29), and probably far fewer.

As I have illustrated above, looking at the study’s statistics, the Low forecast (based on empirical student yields and a realistic assessment of low-income housing units) should be 201 students (or fewer), not 425, and the High estimate of 2736 is absurd (it assumes that the student yield of new market-rate housing units will be fifty times what it is currently!). In addition, the study assumes that the percentage of school-aged children attending charter schools will not rise, which is very unlikely as charter schools flourish. The study also asserts that parents in downtown developments will send their teens to McClymonds High School, which, frankly, they won’t. Finally, the report makes no mention of birth-rate demographics (which I expected to be the focus of the study): the Gen Y / Echo Boom generation is aging, and they are now mostly in high school and college. This suggests that the number of OUSD students will continue to fall, as they have for at least six years, regardless of how many units are built or how the City Council attempts to socially-engineer them.

The report’s conclusions are rather irrelevant anyway. New charter schools in the downtown area serve hundreds of students. The school district should be able to mimic their flexibility, and if the district cannot, that is yet another reason for parents to choose a charter school. There are tracts of land, in the DTO as well as Eastlake, that could be purchased for school expansion, despite what panicked board members claim. To pass up TerraMark’s tremendously lucrative offer based on flawed assumptions about potential future student enrollment (as the Trib advocated today) would be a serious mistake.