I’m lovin’ it, bringing a McDonalds lab to Edgewood Plaza, where Fresh Market is slip sliding away.
The New York Times had a big story Sunday about McDonalds re-tooling itself under the leadership of a youngish, hippish Brit named Easterbrook. Did you know that their customers are the world’s largest consumers of Apples (the ones that grow on tree, were prominent in Milton “Paradise Lost”)? Did you know that they sell more chicken than cow? And they are revolutionist the produce business by swearing off antibiotics?
So why not have hipster Palo Altans as beta-testers for the new Mickey D?
Or, let SAP Labs HAHAhaus (grand opening March 17, 4 p.m to 8 p.m.) have Edgewood Plaza and get Lincoln Center Jazz West with PA-Native Jason Olaine to take over the historic and beloved Varsity Theater? (Stuff of dreams, I know).
I am literally sending this to Peter Pau of Sand Hill Properties. (and Chop Keenen, and Jim Baer, and Elizabeth Wong.And John McNellis)
I ate at McDonalds just last week, on my way to Independence High, to watch St. Francis v. Sacred Heart. If this fries, I will waive any finders fee.
Helen Sung, among glad tidings, also sends respect for master trumpet player Clark Terry, who passed away last month at 94.
All Music Guide lists him with 2,827 credits and 144 as a leader discography.
Among the long list of things I did not realize, he was also in the Tonight Show band(when it was in New York), so maybe I was listening to him without knowing. He was from St. Louis, originally.
(Claire Daly,more known as a bass clarinet side person than leader, composer or singer, sang this same song, originally recorded by Stevie Wonder, at Art 21 Gallery, on the corner of Hamilton and Alma, very near the tracks, in summer, 2007, part of a music series I produced there. I name-checked the song following the lead of Michele Dauber, who quoted some Whitman, on today’s Palo Alto Weekly dialogue board and web site).
and1: it’s actually by Ron Miller, written for Stevie in 1970 and among other covers is by Joan Baez:
Heaven help the child who never had a home,
Heaven help the girl who walks the street alone
Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall,
Heaven help us all.
andand: I admit it took me this long to go back and read Michele Dauber’s suggestion, of a Whitman group of verses, from 1899. And I admit I cannot wrap my brain around it, the Wonder comes much easier. I took these verses, as a dose, a potion not a poison, as Paracelsus would have:
We mourn the old, the young untimely drawn to thee,
The fair, the strong, the good, the capable,
The household wreck’d, the husband and the wife, the engulfed forger
in his forge,
The corpses in the whelming waters and the mud,
I’m asking you for one hour of your time tonight to help save the homes of 400 Palo Altans.
The Buena Vista Mobile Home Park is in danger of being shut down. Not only is it the last mobile home park in Palo Alto, it’s also home to 400 low-income Palo Alto residents. In January, the County set aside $8 million dollars in affordable housing funds to help find a solution that allows the residents to stay in their homes and to preserve the site for affordable housing.
Last week, the Palo Alto City Manager conditionally matched that $8 million with City funds. Tremendous news, but it’s important that we both thank the City for this critical first step and ask for the Council’s continued support.
That’s why I would like you to join your neighbors and me TONIGHT, Monday, March 9 at 5:30pm at Palo Alto City Hall as we rally to save the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park.
Let’s thank the City, and encourage the City Council to ratify the funding at the earliest appropriate opportunity.
For more information, see the flyer below or visit our event page.
Hope to see you there,
P.S. The pizza’s on me!
edit to add: I called over to Delia at Pizza Chicago, across the street from BV to see if by chance Joe Simitian our pizza popi had placed a large order, on the size of 20 pies, and she said not to her knowledge. I had actually written about this before, government pizza, not to be confused with the Van Buskirk-ian “stale popcorn”/”state popcorn”. I am suggesting that our man Simi choose wisely in his pizza order. Something like this:
The Fridge, by Pizza Chicago
Mor ego the pint, I am trying to wrap my brain around what is actually happening at BV. Not to be a cynic, but is Joe Simitian the leading mover and shaker here trying to broker the deal, the way I have been saying at least since the fall the public sector ought do, or is he merely ensuring a fat profit for Jisser. Fair question, given the recent rout of the real estate interests here. I hardly know Joe, or Simi. (does anyone actually call him Simi?) He approached me after the campaign event at Etz Chayim and said I did a good job, (appreciated). I had approached him at his booth at the Los Altos Farmers market and suggested that the GJR of 6/14 indicated a leadership problem, and one that he could capitalize on, and show us the way (I was being serious, non-cynical and not ironic, although people have their doubt. As you say, you can fool some people some time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. And I’m not sure if Simitian endorsed 4 or 5 people in the campaign; based on his enthusiasm that one night, I wondered if he was kinda hinting that I should kiss that ring and ask for his name).
I was sussing around earlier my own email archive to try to document what I’ve said about BV. I believe I was among the most vocal in favor of trying to broker a public-led solution. for instance, as part of my application to the Sierra Club endorsement process, they asked and I stated that I think there should be a brokered solution. (Meanwhile, City Attorney Molly Stump had initiated a gag on candidates, and I openly defied that, thru a group email and other places. Aram James, a private attorney, even forwarded an on-point refutation of her stance: candidates cannot be gagged by leadership or staff during an election cycle).
I was not endorsed by Winter Dellanbach, the leader of the BV tenants, but I certainly dropped her name during the campaign. I was asked, at the panel at City Hall, “what do you think about BV?” and my reply was “we should talk to Winter — I pointed her out, in the audience — “she has the answers.”
I’ve been saying privately and maybe here on Plastic Alto that its a criticism of our superficial horse-race campaign season that a natural outcome of the campaign, with 10 candidates seeking 5 Palo Alto council seats, should have been a resolution of the case. Scott Herhold last month lauded Joe Simi; today I just added my two cents:
I’ve been saying publicly since at least August, 2014 that leadership i.e. public sector should broker a deal to be rid of the bad actor and greedy current ownership, which is in place relatively short-time (although that fact is mis-reported, even by the Merc) and bought in well-aware of the pro-tenant covenant. Kudos to Joe for going all in here.
I lump together as birds of a feather three local debates: on Buena Vista, on Maybell and now on Stevenson House. Or as the pepperoni, sausage and cheese on my pizza, of social consciousness, of affordable housing, of tenants rights. Is there a pizza called The Saul Alinsky?
and1: Delia said that KJ the manager will be in at 3. Maybe we could come up with an ongoing Pizza for BV campaign, or a pie called Chicago Freedom Movement.
My basic stance is that Jisser bought it (from his family) for about $10M, in 1999 or so, A liberal bank found by the current tenants’ advocates offered to help the renters become owners, lending them bona fide $15 M to buy the owner out, he refused, saying if we the people only upzone him beyond the 4.5 acres at 15 units per acre, his land will be worth $20 M or more. So the $8 M each from City and County low income earmarks gives him his $20m+, right? Meanwhile, the Samantha Weigel of the San Mateo Daily Journal says that a foreign based entity bought a luxury apartment building with 111-units there for $73.6 M, and that a proposed 599-unit project in Hayward Park sold for $67 M, and DivCoWest spent $130 M to bury 210,000 square foot fully leased office complex on Concar, home to SalesForce. Or, as I say, the commercial real estate industry just here in Palo Alto is a billon dollar entity, and highly motivated so it is nearly impossible to regulate. (Our civic budget is more like $150 M, with about $10 to regulate builders, yet staff sometimes acts, it is a fair observance, like they work for the builders not we the people, and there is a bit of a revolving door, see Steve Emslie).
this is like the little peppers or parmesan dry cheese you shake on your pie, after-market: yes, in October under title “Palo Alto Pizza Democracy” I noted that when council was vetting Planning commish candidates they were served New York Pizza and I said that they should have served something better like Pizza Chicago. Then I addended that the City Manager office was having pizza office hours at six or so places, including both of the aforementioned, and some pretty good stuff.
I texted Rachel Garlin to tell her that Paul Freeman in the Merc and affiliates reviews favorably her new release “Wink at July” and says it’s “warm and wonderful..” which for a text message is an adequate review of a review but here in the infinite and plastic and ever-expanding blogosphere I am going full-freeman:
Garlin, who grew up in Berkeley and now lives in San Francisco with her wife and two young boys, has impressively made the transition from teacher to troubadour. The singer-songwriter’s new album is warm and wonderful. Poetic lyrics and pleasing melodies, combined with Garlin’s appealing vocals, make this album difficult to resist. She paints vivid pictures and tells intriguing stories. Highlights include the rhythmic “This Winding Road” and “Spin,” as well as the winsome “Flying Together.” “Wink at July” will be released on iTunes April 21. Pre-orders are available now. Garlin plays San Francisco’s Viracocha, March 14.
Meanwhile i notice Rachel has a pr-consultant Wendy something who also once worked on Archers of Loaf. I thought I am the only person who loves AOL and Rachel Garlin!
I also have more photos to post both from her sneak preview show in Menlo Park and her big todo in Sf. I have a two-shot of she and Julia Wolf 4-handing the piano.
I actually have live photos of Eiko the twister at Rockage the event, a month ago, with DJ Coco dressed in an Eiko costume
Balloon art by Eiko Okura
and1: compare “let’s play two” (Ernie Banksism) with “IKO IKO” Meters/Dead dealio.
andand: it would be pretty funny if because of this post someone consufes DJ Coco with Dr. John, who say dis:
The song was written and recorded back in the early 1950s by a New Orleans singer named James Crawford who worked under the name of Sugar Boy & the Cane Cutters. It was recorded in the 1960s by the Dixie Cups for Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller’s Red Bird Records, but the format we’re following here is Sugar Boy’s original. Also in the group were Professor Longhair on piano, Jake Myles, Big Boy Myles, Irv Bannister on guitar, and Eugene ‘Bones’ Jones on drums. The group was also known as the Chipaka Shaweez. The song was originally called ‘Jockamo,’ and it has a lot of Creole patois in it. Jockamo means ‘jester’ in the old myth. It is Mardi Gras music, and the Shaweez was one of many Mardi Gras groups who dressed up in far out Indian costumes and came on as Indian tribes. The tribes used to hang out on Claiborne Avenue and used to get juiced up there getting ready to perform and ‘second line’ in their own special style during Mardi Gras. That’s dead and gone because there’s a freeway where those grounds used to be. The tribes were like social clubs who lived all year for Mardi Gras, getting their costumes together. Many of them were musicians, gamblers, hustlers and pimps.
Today I am shedding up on “low income housing tax credit” sometimes referred to as “lie-tech” or “lit-C”. Dig? I have a list of 31 TLA three-letter acronyms on the topic. And since this is a music column, it brings to mind RZA and Wu Tang Clan. There was also a band in SF on Prawn Song Records called Alphabet soup.
First, the meal, your acronyms. (Then, the dessert, the music):
AFR applicable federal rate
AHIC Affordable Housing Investors Council
AMI area median income
ASC accounting standards codification
CFR Code of Federal Regulations
CRA Community Reinvestment Act
DDA difficult development area
EITF Emerging Issues Task Force
FASB Federal Accounting Standards Board
FHA Federal Housing Administration
FSA federal savings association
GP general partner
HCA housing credit agency
HCDA Housing and Community Development Act of 1974
HERA Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 HOLA Home Owners Loan Act of 1933
HR House of Representatives
HTC historic tax credits
HUD U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development IRC Internal Revenue Code
until this moment RZA probably thought HUD was a movie
IRS Internal Revenue Service
LIHTClow-income housing tax credit
LLC limited liability company
LP limited partner
PHA public housing authority
PWI public welfare investment
QAP qualified allocation plan
QCT qualified census tract
RETC renewable energy tax credits
USC U.S. Code
RZA (pronounced “risa” like “the son also risa” the hemmingway joint) is Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, 45, from Brownsville, where they probably have a fair amount of Section 42 housing. I question it here, and for the elderly. Diggs?
Will it take a “samurai showdown” between The Residentialists and the Pro Developer Establishment, to shed a little light on Stevenson House deal?
edit to add: I admit, I am kind of frontin’ regarding Hip Hop. I don’t actually know Hip Hop as I do speed metal or skronk, for instance. I have to crib on the internet to distinguish RZA from GZA or Ol’ Dirty Bastard; I am more like a Michael Franti kind of guy. Although at Gunn in the championship years, we were early adopters of Sugar Hill Gang, during warmups. Anyhow, it turns out that Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, RZA, spend formative years not in Brooklyn but Hill District of Pittsburgh, working his pop’s convenience store; maybe Hill District of Pittsburgh is a better place, compared to Stevenson House or South Palo Alto, for Low Income Housing Tax Credit investments. Here’s a little sumpin sumpin on that area:
In 1996, the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP) was awarded a $26.6 million grant to redevelop the 460-unit HOPE VI complex called Bedford Dwellings. Working with the Hill CDC, the Bedford Resident Council and the City of Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), and HACP selected McCormack Baron Salazar, the developer of Crawford Square, to redevelop the Bedford site.
This development aimed to remove blight and to replace the dilapidated apartments with units designed as townhouses that blended in with the existing architecture of the surrounding neighborhood. Based on input from the residents’ desire to not be relocated more than once, the final redevelopment plan was implemented in phases.
Also in the late 90s came the redevelopment of the former Allequippa Terrace – a 1940s-era public housing complex. The first phase was completed in 2003 with 639 townhouses, about 70 percent of them low-income housing; a sub-phase was completed in 2010 which included 86 housing units.
The $90 million second phase will result in nearly 450 townhomes and apartments — the majority market-rate — office, retail and recreational spaces.
These Hope VI housing developments: Crawford Square, Bedford Hill and Oak Hill, have brought more economic diversity to the neighborhood. However, displacement of existing residents has been a major concern. The Greater Hill District Master plan outlines anti-displacement strategies to assure that current residents are able to enjoy the redevelopment of their neighborhood.
Bingo: Feel me this: anti displacement stragies (ADS?) Maybe we needs, at the very least, not just to “pull” the proposal, unlucky number 7 from tomorrow’s consent calendar, we need to add an ADS, an “anti-displacement strategy”. Yo. Word.
and1: or and3:
1) What is the history of LIHTC in Palo Alto?
2) What is the history, anywhere, of LIHTC for seniors?
3) What are comparable Stewart Company LIHTC, in San Francisco.
This looks like mere shark bait; we are using these 120 seniors to lure in these “savvy investors”.
Announcing: The RZAdentialists. We got game. We got teeth.
two hours later: I’ve got 20 other things to work on, and have posted twice since this, but circling back to the Stevenson case, I am re-reading the CMR and took these notes: 1) a for-profit entity managing a non profit seems to violate the PC ordinance, which specifies that Stevenson project is a non profit, period.
2) “an interpretation of the PC ordinance is required” see also our two hour discussion of the term “building envelope”
3) “which would continue”, the senior housing emphasis, with the changes, but for how long? typical LIHTC projects have sunsets, meaning that after 15 or 30 years it could revert to market rate.
4) CMR report references “a for profit entity that pays taxes must own the project” but here they are forming an entity to AVOID paying taxes. Seems contrived.
5) see also CMR 3176 — I have not seen, (dated 11/5/2012 see the link) but searching it sends me to:
6) CMR #4606 from April, 2014, i.e. recent relevant history, 4/7/14 regarding a TEFRA hearing that was posted in Weekly by advertisement in March, 2014. $23 M from CMFA California Municipal Finance Authority. If a public hearing was necessary for a bond issuance (which I am presuming failed? or what?) why is consent calendar sufficient here? As cited in the published notice of March 21, 2014 in the Palo Alto Weekly, the public hearing is simply an opportunity for all interested persons to speak or to submit written comments concerning the proposal to issue the debt and the nature or location of the facility to be financed; however there is no formal obligation on the part of the borrower or the Council to respond to any specific comments made during the hearing or submitted in writing.
7) was there a TEFRA hearing? And why wasn’t that recent history referenced in this weeks staff report?
8) TEFRA is Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1983
9) the current staff report, that is flawed and should not be approved without pulling, says that the house was built in 1968 “and now requires renovation”. More true is that, according to the staff report in 2012, the City of Palo Alto no fewer than nine times, between 1991 and 2012 has allocated funds totaling $1.2 for maintenance at Stevenson.
I had forgotten, but, besides the doubles of 1960 Topps Minnie Minoso that I am fixing to trade Gerardo for a haircut (or two?), as I inspect my manifest of the 76 cards I had in that binder, there were two older, and rarer and assuredly more tradeworthy Minnie, and that I if Cooperation did not had elevated our Orestes fellow former South Sider, to the pantheon with the Mays, Aaron, Koufax, Feller, Greenberg, Cy Young and “the purloined Gehrig.”
1954 Redman Orestes Minoso aka Minnie:
If you only have 2 cards from a set, like the 1953 Topps, 11 years before I was born and 19 years before I recall watching baseball and buying packs, its a good synecdoche to have Minnie Minoso and Enos Slaughter, “Country” as compared to “Cuba”, known I picked up somewhere along the way for a Mad Dash around the bases to win the 1946 Series for…wait for it..the Cards:
1952 Redman Yogi Berra
I was a Giants fan from 1970 or so on, but would have picked up somewhere some respect for the Dodgers, especially during the integration era and the value of a card, I would have spied at these trade shows, circa 1975-1978, of a Pee Wee Reese:
1953 Redman Pee Wee Reese, Brooklyn
Likewise or more to the point I would have read about Bobby Thomson and the shot heard round the world; he died in 2010 at 86.
1949 Remar Billy Martin of Oakland Oaks, of PCL, putout by bread company:
The oldest modern era bubble gum card in my set is or was a 1949 Bowman Bob Feller:
1951 was the start of the Topps dynasty and that year featured smallish cards you, people older than me but younger than my dad, could play a game with; here, getting dealt a Warren Spahn is a “ball”:
Phillies star hurler Robin Roberts (who might have been on the mound when eventual newscaster of same name was born, in 1960) was elected to the Hall of Fame, after 286 wins and 2,000+ strikeouts, a 7-time All Star, in 1976 or during the time that I was reading Baseball Digest and going to card shows, influencing this purchase decision:
1952 Topps
Meanwhile I might have seen batting champ Tiger George Kell on the also rans on the Hall of Fame balloting, although he was not inducted until The Veterans’ Committee i 1983, after I had stopped being active in the hobby. My cards sat in my parents’ house during college. Steve Cohen and I went to an occasional show in the late 1980s. I would think most of the increase in value for the hobby or industry as a whole occurred during my collecting years, or between 1975 and 1990. Kell:
A timeline:
First national broadcast of color television The Roses Parade, 1954;
I was born, 1964.
I bought this card, a 1955 Bowman Willie Mays, with “Color TV” stylings, in 1974 or so;
February, 1, 2008, about 7 years ago, it and everything else on this page disappears from the house I was renting in Barron Park.
This is probably my favorite baseball card, all time.
later that day, at new Starbucks at Edgewood, near closing, first day of daylight savings…
1954 Topps Ted Williams
1954 Topps Duke Snider
1954 Topps Duke Snider
I had three 1956 Topps in that set, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson (my only Jackie Robinson) and a Roger Craig (some people call it a rookie card; I sent mine to him while he was the Giants skipper and asked him to pass on word to Mike Remlinger that he was the only guy with “Wah Hoo Wah” and “Humm Baby” on his side):
this is not my actual card
1959 Topps but in so-so shape:
I lost 7 Mayses all in, or all out, but at least I have several more from the sixties and seventies, 1963 thru 1972. It was the PSA article about “Mays sets” that inspired this bad body.
Here’s a better image
1959 Topps Sandy Koufax
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 