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Additional mail-in ballots turned in to the Contra Costa County Clerk’s office in the March 3 incorporation election in Alamo pushed voter turnout numbers up to 65.9 percent.
Original figures released by Clerk Steve Weir’s office showed turnout at around 59 percent; since then, an additional 751 votes were added to the tally.
Official poll results posted on the clerk’s Web site showed a final vote of 4,456 Alamo residents (64.36 percent) voting against incorporation and 2,468 (35.64 percent) in favor.
By Geoff Gillette
Re the Alamo town vote the agents of fear triumph. I believe we will regret not incorporating when we end up bailing the county out of several years of bad labor contracts.
Dear Dolores,
The commentary by Steve Mason is a sincere misconception of the result of the incorporation election. Opponents’ campaigns did not impact the majority of NO voters and fear of the unknown was not the cause of AIM’s incorporation defeat. The core neighborhood voters that were >3500 no voters had studied incorporation and understood the advantages of a fully-defined, inclusive incorporation proposal. The issue was no such definition and inclusion was offered in the AIM incorporation proposal.
Alamo is a wealth of executive and professional talent very savvy in corporate start-up. AIM, with CCLAFCO’s insistence, failed such due diligence by capable voters.
Very surely, the majority in Alamo do not FEAR opportunity!! That majority does not invest in the unknown created by a poorly stated incorporation proposal.
Simple reality!
Hal
Vicki Koc and her proponents of Alamo Incorporation Movement (AIM) soundly failed to demonstrate that formation and operation of a contract-city, in tandem with County Board of Supervisors, was in the best interest of 16,700 citizens of Alamo.
I resent the claims by the “YES” group that we voted down incorporation due to FEAR! The AIM member’s constant statements regarding fear tactics really makes me angry. Comments like Steve’s – “the agents of fear triumph” NEED TO STOP!
The overwhelming majority of the citizens of Alamo revealed AIM’s patterns of half-truths and omissions of factual information to the citizens of this community, which did not promote their position on incorporation.
I completely agree with Hal when he states, “Alamo is a wealth of executive and professional talent very savvy in corporate start-up.” I have heard many supporters of incorporation say, “those opposed to incorporation were a group of the old guard in Alamo, using fear tactics.”
No, I am a citizen that felt your proposals were very poorly stated, and I am a 30 something executive not swayed by fear.
I believe the citizens of Alamo were fully informed when it came time to vote.
The overall plan was not well thought out. The funding available was inadequate regardless of the optimism expressed in the “bought and paid for” report. In the end, we would have received another level of bureaucrats, more petty politics and no meaningful benefits.
Dear Dolores,
TDW should invite Anthony and the very professional “next generation” in the Alamo region to explain the process of corporate start-up and due diligence that is usual and customary to all corporations including start-up of government corporations.
Such start-up begins with a Business Plan that states the opportunity as benefit to the investors (voters), defines the overall structure, provides in-depth view of operations, and budgets operational results in pro forma spreadsheets. With the CFA being a review document for CCLAFCO commissioners and not in any way such a Business Plan, it would be prudent for AIM proponents and opponents, as a minority, to understand the difference.
AS neighborhoods consider pursuing legislative and/or legal actions to set-aside the March 3 incorporation election, AIM proponents and opponents need to know why exclusion, lack of definition and lack of planning/budgeting offer such opportunity for set-aside.
Hal, as a community courtesy
At the risk of perpetuating a post-election dialog on incorporation that has been mostly ranting, I would hate for a couple of myths above to become established by repetition as truth.
The contract city model assumed in LAFCO’s fiscal study (or any form of city for that matter) would have been IN LIEU OF, not in tandem with, the Board of Supervisors.
The fiscal study referred to by the proponents of incorporation was LAFCO’s report, not AIM’s. LAFCO, who had no vested interest one way or the other in the results of the report, selected the consultant and directed preparation of the report. The only “bought and paid for” report on the horizon was the anonymous “report” directed by and paid for by incorporation opponents.
The format of analysis used by LAFCO to evaluate Alamo’s viability as an incorporated town is established largely by statute and is the basic format that has been used to evaluate every proposed incorporation in California for about the last two decades. Whether everyone agrees with it or not, it is a proven approach and it is objective. Any alternative financials conceived by AIM or anyone else would have been attacked as “self-serving” or “bought and paid for”.
As far as setting aside the results of this election, good luck with that.
Dear Dolores,
I enjoyed (just plain) Mike’s review and he might join me in wondering if someone beyond the <150 active proponents, opponents and accommodation media would like a turn at the MIKE? The majority of voters knew the history of incorporation a year before it was considered in an election.
Maybe that majority, or at least a few among them, would like to tell us what that history taught the majority and where are we going from here?
Enough (history) is quite enough, as Mike implied. A roadmap to community, as our future, is needed commentary.
Applause to all that shared their thoughts, but it is enough of us,
Hal
A community roadmap is the answer to where are we going from here. In our professional lives, we set corporate and personal roadmaps so we can plan our successes. With the capable talent for such roadmaps among the executive and professional residents in our region, we should be able to come together in creation of our community roadmap.
One can imagine a town government broadly approved by voters if only a community roadmap was the basis of the incorporation effort of the past two years. We certainly want a community roadmap in place and the majority as a community before we seek incorporation again in our Alamo region. As our counsel considers a set-aside for the March 3 incorporation election and a new inclusive incorporation proposal for voter consideration, we should be one majority in support of a community roadmap.
**commentary provide by Catherine, Alamo Ridge neighborhoods, Alamo community of neighborhoods**
Hal