Page One

If there’s a single issue dominating the race for Albany’s vacant city council seats, it’s the now-you-see-them, not-you-don’t plans of a Canadian race track mogul and a Southern California shopping mall magnate for the city’s waterfront. 

While developer Rick Caruso announced he was giving up on Albany and looking for a new site elsewhere in the East Bay, the mall remains a hot issue in part because no one really believes Caruso has given up on one of the last remaining prime waterfront sites located next to a major freeway exit. 

The four candidates running for the two at-large seats are divided precisely across the fault lines that formed after Golden Gate Fields owner Magna Entertainment and megamall developer Caruso Affiliated Holdings unveiled plans for an upscale mall on the racetrack’s northwestern parking lot. 

While all four candidates are registered Democrats, the two who won the endorsement of the state and county party as well as Rep. Barbara Lee and Assemblymember Loni Hancock are running as the “Save Our Shoreline” anti-mall team of Marge Atkinson and Joanne Wile. 

Wile and Atkinson played leading roles in the signature drive that led to a fourth of Albany’s registered voters signing petitions to place an initiative on the November ballot that would have blocked the Magna/Caruso mall while creating a planning process to plot the future of waterfront lands. 

An Alameda County Superior Court judge voided the initiative because backers hadn’t conformed to all the public notice requirements before circulating their petitions. 

Their opponents are Caryl O’Keefe and Francesco Papalia, with Papalia the more outspoken of the two development advocates. 

Papalia, O’Keefe 

“When organizations whose constituency is outside of Albany are given the power to make decisions, all accountability is lost,” declares Papalia, a salesman with the Daniel Winkler & Associates real estate brokerage in Albany. 

Campaigning under the slogan “Albany First,” Papalia sees waterfront development as a means to reduce the proportionate share of the tax burden that falls on homeowners and a way of generating new revenues—through taxes and developer concessions—to fund schools, emergency services and parks. 

For Papalia the waterfront development issue is clear-cut: The Sierra Club is exerting massive pressure to restrict development not on a natural site, but on artificial bay fill in a move that would take away the city’s prime potential source of new tax revenues while forcing property taxes on the owners of residential property. 

“If the Sierra Club has its way, over 50 percent of the land in the city would be tax-exempt,” said Papalia, who charges that the club’s goal is the eventual closure of Golden Gate Fields and the site’s transformation into still more exempt parkland for which the overwhelming majority of users would not be Albany residents. “I will stand up to the Sierra Club at any cost,” he said. 

He said the lot where the mall was proposed was perfect for development because of declining attendance at the track because of off-track betting—which yields no revenue for the city unlike bets at races held at the track that are place by attendees in the stands. 

O’Keefe, who served for 35 years as an economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a member of the Albany Library Board, the Friends of Five Creeks and the Albany Waterfront Coalition. She charged that the Save Our Shoreline proposals would result in the loss of more than a half million dollars in property taxes to Albany schools, “and I can’t reconcile that with their statement that their proposals would not affect out schools.” 

She also faulted the slate for calling for a ban on waterfront development while at the same time calling for an open and democratic process to determine the fate of the shoreline, stands she said were contradictory. 

O’Keefe said the Albany City Council also needs candidates with a broader range of skills at dealing with the wide range of issues facing city government. 

“I see nothing in their campaign materials about streets, sewers, open space and the other problems that take up the majority of the council’s attention,” she said.  

Atkinson, Wile 

Atkinson said, “We decided to run as a slate because we both came out of Citizens for the Albany Shoreline (the group sponsoring the abortive initiative). I was chair and Joanne was on the executive committee. We share expenses, and that gives us double the impact.” 

Rather than a shopping mall close to the waterfront as the Magna/Caruso proposal sought, Wile said she and Atkinson favor new revenues raised through creation of a model “green” hotel closer to the freeway on track-owned land, and a program to encourage new alternative energy firms to locate on Cleveland Avenue. 

The impetus for the energy firms would come from legislation signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in August that calls for placing a million solar panels on the roofs of state houses, schools, public buildings, farms and businesses over the next 12 years. 

“We’re in an ideal location because of our proximity to UC Berkeley,” Wile said. 

Atkinson said she and Wile have complementary expertise and abilities. 

“Joanne has a background in public health and mental health and is very aware of environmental and health issue, and my forte has been more on community activism and connections in the Democratic Party,” she said. “We are both very concerned with the future of Solano and San Pablo avenues, we both have excellent relations with Loni Hancock and we both have a depth of contacts that will be very helpful for Albany.” 

Wile spent 10 years as Director of Community Services for the San Francisco Public Health Department and serves on the Albany Parks and Recreation Commission. Atkinson has taught in Albany schools for 16 years and has served as vice president of the Albany Teachers Association, president of the local chapter of the California School Employees Association and president of the Albany High School Site Council and is co-president of the Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville Democratic Club. 

“Albany needs to have a citizen-driven plan for the waterfront,” said Wile. The goal should be to plan for generations to come, using environmentally friendly practices for “developing effective ways to increase our tax base, revitalize our downtown and fund our school, library and emergency services.” 

Websites 

While O’Keefe and Papalia maintain separate web sites — carylokeefe4albany.com and albanyfirst.org — Wile and Atkinson maintain a joint site, www.saveourshorelineteam.com.