The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth - Erasmus

California education is at a crossroads. Voters were prevented from going to the ballot box to decide whether current tax rates would be extended to protect education and other vital services. We're hearing news of more devastating cuts to our district and districts throughout California. To a certain extent, Alameda is in a better position than many other districts as we were able to pass Measure A and avoid devastating cuts. In a conversation with AUSD Board Member, Mike McMahon he stated " .. failure to pass the tax extensions will put us back to square one."

As difficult as it is to hear that about our district, the cuts being discussed will be devastating to many of our neighboring cities, especially Oakland and Hayward, as well as districts throughout the state. It has been said we could see up to 1/3 of California School Districts placed on the State Watch due to fiscal challenges, the first step towards receivership.

There is good news, tax revenues improved at an unexpected rate demonstrating a possible sign of recovery. However, this one time event is being used as an argument the extensions are unnecessary and critical services will be protected through current legislative protections. And what do you think will happen if cuts are required, thousands of lost jobs in our state putting stress on an already fragile economy. The circle begins again.

So what can we do. We can act! I've contacted my State Assemblymen and Senator as well as the Speaker of the Assembly thanking them for their continued fight for education and asking them to continue to do everything in their power to prevent any additional erosion to education. I also called the Governor's office doing the same adding, as a voter, I was far more concerned he continued to work with legislators to protect school funding than I was about my ability to vote on tax extensions.

So now I'm asking you to do the same. Please e-mail or phone your elected officials and let them know ensuring quality education for our youth is the most important job we have entrusted them with. For those in Alameda, I've provided the contact information of your elected officials below. Those in other districts can visit http://www.smartvoter,org/ to obtain your legislator information. It's quick and easy and you will be glad you've done something to save education in California.

As I've always said, if you don't have a voice you don't get a voice. So speak up!!

Assemblyman Sandre Swanson  sandre@sandreSwanson.org  916-319-2016
Senator Loni Hancock   Senator.Hancock@sen.ca.gov   916-651-4009
Speaker of the Assembly, John A Perez assemblymember.john.perez@asm.ca.gov  916-319-2046
Governor Jerry Brown  http://www.govmail.com/  916-445-2841

My world is shrinking .... and I love it!

Although I may wish my reference was to my waistline, it's actually about one of the many things that make Alameda a remarkable place to live.


Before arriving in Alameda I lived in the South Bay, growing up in Mountain View and then on to San Jose. The lay of the land was quite different in the neighborhoods I resided in especially when you compare them to the great island we live in today. Most of the time there were no corner stores, neighborhood coffee shops or local restaurants close to where we lived. If you wanted to go anywhere, you jumped in the car and drove. One area I lived in was close to stores, but nothing personal, it was all chains no personality.

Then we arrived in Alameda. Initially we lived on the west end of town, our floating home was under construction and we didn't have a kitchen for months. So what did we do, we headed out the front door and walked to Chevy's, Larry and Della's (before the fire) and of course Pasta Pelican - ...hmmm, my earlier comment about my waistline is starting to make more sense! We quickly settled into a new hair salon, About Beauty, and could take a quick trip to the store - or Baskin Robbins - with ease simply by heading to Marina Village, by foot! .
Five years later we became landlubbers moving into our current home on Encinal between High Street and Fernside. For a while I would actually drive "all the way to the other end of the island" - how comical is that statement - but it wasn't long before I discovered Kim's Nails, Katie's Hair Design and Cafe Au Lait, not to mention the Encinal Market! I was back on foot again. Not only that, we were now close enough to really enjoy Park St on a regular basis, Woo Hoo, more restaurants!! Not to mention the movie theater, Tuckers Ice Cream, Peet's and Starbucks with that occasional glorious trip to Sumbody. When I need something special, it's a trip to Daisy's, 3 Wishes or Books Inc.

About a year or so ago, a friend asked what our favorite restaurant was and I listed off a handful of local spots; Asena, La Penca Azul (you know, La Pinata!), Bugermeister, Linguini's, when she stopped and said "No, I meant off the island!" I stopped, thought about it and finally realized I couldn't remember the last time we left Alameda. On one hand it seemed criminal seeming that we can reach San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland in no time at all. But the bottom line is, I love my neighborhood, my Park St, my South Shore and my West End. I love bumping onto people I know giving a quick hello or a fast update on the latest news. I'll take that over a trip in the car any day of the week!

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Tonight marks the end of the first quarter of 2011. I'll be analyzing the sales data for the last 90 days in comparison with the same period last year. Stay tuned to see if the Alameda real estate market is continuing on its path of improvement. One thing I can tell you is the number of properties in contract has increased almost 20% since Measure A passed on March 8th. Lets hope that's a sign of more good things to come!

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Alameda is an amazing community!

Please indulge me with this weeks post. Its been a while since my last writing as I've been a little busy with this thing we call Measure A. As the campaign kicked into full gear, something had to give, and my Blog was it. So now I find I just need to say a few things before moving on .. and I promise I will!

Serving as Fundraising Chair for Alameda SOS will go down as one of the most incredible experiences in my life. From the very beginning, when Alamedans packed the School Board meeting pleading with the Board of Education to give a Parcel Tax one more try, vowing to support and do the work necessary to pass a Measure to maintain quality education in Alameda to the very end, standing in a jam packed Tucker's celebrating the glorious news - Measure A passes! - I witnessed remarkable acts of understanding, compromise, giving and perseverance.

When I state hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of Alamedans were behind the construction, financing, campaigning and passing of Measure A, I am not exaggerating. The time given by volunteers attending numerous meetings, knocking on doors, calling from phone banks surpassed anything this community has ever seen. These same volunteers, and many others, opened up there checkbooks to ensure our community didn't fail our children. The in pouring of contributions was astounding, t-shirts, buttons and wristbands were purchased by the hundreds, tickets were bought for events and some of the youngest Alamedans set up Lemonade Stands so they could help too!

Throughout the campaign there were those who did everything possible to turn this into a public mud wrestling event. However, the communication network developed to keep everyone informed, in touch and involved helped all of us hang tough, stay focused on what was important and ensured we got the job at hand done and done with dignity.

Without taking anything away form all those who worked so hard to pass Measure A, it would be hard felt to imagine us having had the opportunity to fight for our schools if not for the work done by the School Board, in particular President Ron Mooney, and the district led by Superintendent Kirsten Vital. I can only begin to imagine the total number of meetings held with members of our community, residents and business owners, sharing information, concerns and ideas on our communities, schools. The result, a Measure that balances the communities responsibilities and benefits, the "reasonable compromise" AUSD set out to achieve from the very beginning.

Anyone who knows me, knows I love being right. I've always said Alameda was an amazing place to live, so thanks to all for proving me right!!

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So where do we go from here? Not to worry, there are still many ways to help support our schools.

Mark your calendar and join the Alameda Education Foundation on April 29th for the annual Salute to Education This year we'll gather at Rock Wall Winery as we recognize the teachers, staff and volunteers who make Alameda schools so special, as well as community volunteers and local businesses who support our schools.

Several PTA's have annual fundraising events coming up; Edison and Otis Annual Auctions and Night at the A's for Washington and Edison

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You may be asking why a Real Estate Blogger is going on and on and on about schools.

Personally, I believe education is the backbone of our society. We must do all we can to ensure our students receive the highest quality education we can proivide. I can't teach, but I can advocate!

Professionally it is my opinion, and the findings of both the National and Califorina Association of Realtors, schools are an intricate part of any community.  Buyers will seek out and pay more for homes located in communities with high quality schools. Therefore, anything I can do to help Support Alameda Schools benefits me, my clients and our community.

It just doesn't get any better than that!

You asked for it!

Earlier this week, I tweeted about 56 classrooms adopted so far this school year through the Alameda Education Foundation's Adopt-A-Classroom program, that's $28,000 in teachers hands for direct classroom support! I received a response from Medablog asking if I would blog about the program, so here you go!

The Adopt-A-Classroom program was originally developed by a  Bank of Alameda committee headed up by Steve Andrews. Their idea was simple, set up a program where local businesses can make contributions directly to the classroom to support our local students, teachers and schools. One issue arose; can the donations be tax deductible? The committee contacted AEF to see if they would be interested in partnering with the project, and thus the Adopt-A-Classroom program was born!

So exactly what is the Adopt-A-Classroom program and how does it work. Few realize almost all teachers spend their own money on classroom supplies. Per the AEF website - According to the National Education Association “Status of the American Public School Teacher 2001 survey”, the national average that teachers spend each year on supplies for their classroom is $443 with teachers in the West averaging $539 annually. (http://www.nea.org/home/2233.htm page 64 of PDF).  The program was designed to provide financial relief to teachers while allowing them the freedom to purchase exactly what was needed in the classroom without waiting (and hoping) for district approval.

To adopt a classroom donors complete an Alameda Education Adopt-A-Classroom Information and Application form and forward with a $500.00 check to PO Box 1363, Alameda CA 94501. The donors may select the teacher, program and/or school they would like to adopt when completing the form. Often parents and grandparents will select the classrooms their children attend. However, many local residents and business people leave the selection to AEF. When this occurs, adoptions are distributed to classrooms based on a random selection ranked by need. This allows teachers throughout the district to benefit from this very valuable grant program.

As President of AEF, one of the greatest pleasures I had was visiting the classroom and distributing grants to teachers. Quite often the teacher had no idea their classroom had been selected, so when the principal and I would walk in, we were often greeted with a look of confusion even concern. By the time we were finished the looks were usually more along the lines of joy and shock. Some teachers would become so overwhelmed by the gesture they would be unable to hold back the tears. Of course, equally as fun was watching the student reactions. Typically the younger students would shout out things like 'Yay, more books" whereas "Pizza Party" was the call of action from many middle and high school classes. So I should add, each teacher is required to complete a form advising the Foundation how the funds were used within the classroom, needless to say, Pizza and Ice Cream parties are not allowed, sorry kids!!

One final note of importance; donations to this program are not charged an administrative fee allowing 100% of the funds to go directly to the classroom. There is a great deal of work required to organize presentations including scheduling time with the schools, preparing and framing classroom certificates and processing the check and related paperwork including donor thank you. If you would like to support this program but the $500 contribution for the direct adoption is not in your budget, please consider making a general donation to the Foundation. This will help support the cost it takes to keep this program strong!

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Okay, how about a little real estate information! As you may recall, I summarized my review of this summer's real estate market on October 18. We'd had a stable but relatively slow market with sales volume down approximately 28%. Well, I'm not sure I can explain it, but over the past few weeks we've seen our market make a bit of a move. In the past two weeks the number of homes pending - currently in contract with an accepted offer - increased twenty percent!

Digging into the details a bit, seventy percent of the properties pending are detached homes, fifteen percent other residential properties and the final fifteen percent residential income and commercial. After removing the two commercial properties, the average list price is approximately $570,000, $600,000 if you look at detached homes alone.

Of course list price is not sales price so we'll need to wait for a few more weeks to see if the average sales price remains stable. My hunch is buyers finally decided to take advantage of the low rates available to them, but we'll need to see how things work themselves out.

If you're thinking about buying in the next 6 -9 months, my colleague, Justine Francis, and I will be holding a seminar "Why Would You Buy Now", Please join us Saturday, November 20 at 9: 30 am at the High Street Station and find out why this may just be the perfect time to buy a home! Refreshments will be provided and you may win the door prize! Stay tuned for more details!!

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If you're looking for a little Halloween fun, head over to Rooster's Roadhouse Saturday night at 7:30. For a mere $10.00 fee you can celebrate to the tunes of Old Coal, Spill the Wine and West of High. Band earnings will be contributed to Alameda SOS Show up in costume and you'll receive an adult Halloween treat!

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Finally, there are many key races to be determined Tuesday. As most of you know, I've spent the last six years actively working on behalf of our schools, teachers and students.  Maintaining quality education and providing the necessary financial support for our schools is my top priority. As such, I have publicly endorsed Mike McMahon and Margie Sherratt for School Board and Tracy Jensen for City Council and would like to take this last opportunity to ask you to consider these highly qualified candidates for office.


That's it for now!  Hope you have a safe and spooky Halloween!!