We’ve reported here before that there was a real disconnect brewing between the current Alameda City Council plus staff and the master builder of the Point, Sun Cal.

In the wake of today’s news about a federal lawsuit Sun Cal is now filing against the city, an apology for total understatement seems warranted.

I have to assume that Sun Cal ran their press release by attorneys before sending it out.  Yet it claims that the acting city manager Ann Marie Gallant “Torpedoed” the project, right in the headline.  It goes on to assert that she did it so that she and others could, and I quote, “…put themselves in charge of a multi-year multi-million dollar project, despite having no development experience or expertise, so they can perpetuate themselves in public office and receive remuneration for “services rendered” indefinitely.”

Wow.  That’s quite an accusation and it will be quite the interesting legal dance going forward, I’m sure.  It’s certainly not the kind of accusation one’s attorneys let go out without being able to back it up.  Again, wow.

And if anyone has any doubt that this atomic bomb of a suit (and that release) was lawyer previewed and approved, just go back and look at the word “remuneration.”  Lawyers sometimes seem to bill by the syllable, so nobody outside the legal profession uses such a word when “coin,” or “money,” or “cash”  or “bread,” etc, etc would do just fine.

The other interesting development in today’s glowing mushroom cloud of news is Sun Cal’s roster of Gallant’s previous short and seemingly rocky stints in other towns.  This will require some more digging from yours truly here at Truth, Lies and Urban Growth because it’s just to juicy to wait for the wheels of justice to grind it out to us.

Meanwhile, if there is a bright spot in the melt down at city hall, it is that those of us who want to see higher quality-of-life focused planning (pedestrian and transit friendly, integrated uses, housing over shops and the like), have a chance to regroup and move our case forward with our neighbors.  Most of us seemed to like the Calthorpe plan, but enough of our neighbors were not on board that I believe more dialog would be helpful.

On the downside, you and I are going to be the ones who pay for city hall’s legal bills between now and then. 

A potentially complicating factor for the City of Alameda in defending itself it the policy of destroying city emails after 30 days, although the California Secretary of State’s guidelines say preserve a minimum of two years.  It is a generally accepted practice to preserve all forms of correspondence for two years, but city hall claims their servers can’t handle saving information beyond the 30 days.  Gmail can save anyone and everyone years worth of emails and not even charge you for it… I’ve also heard the argument that emails are “drafts” and therefore do not require records retention. 

Come on, City of Alameda. I’m not buying this excuse. Why are they really deleting emails? What is there to cover up?