The opening caps an unnecessarily contentious process for what amounted to replacing one grocery story with another one on the same site. There were no zoning issues. All that should have been required was a building permit—that was the only requirement for a similar store to open in San Ramon.
Of course, the name Walmart, despite its major big box facility less than a mile away, prompted the usual protests from labor unions and their elected allies. Former City Councilman Matt Sullivan objected and strung the project out to the maximum, despite it being an allowable use in the zoning code.
As a result, the store is opening more than eight months after the San Ramon store that had an identical set of issues—in other words, legally none.
The normally professional news operation at KTVU made embarrassing national news on Friday when morning anchor Tori Campbell read what the station thought were the names of the flight crew on Asiana Airlines flight 214 that crashed at San Francisco International a week ago Saturday. The flight was too slow and too low and clipped the edge of the runway. Amazingly, only three of the more than 300 people on board were killed.
Campbell, a San Ramon Valley resident who cut her news teeth at KKIQ here in the valley, read the teleprompter with the four names. One was profane—the others, bad jokes—although funny—the phonetic versions of two: "We too low; Something wrong."
The station said it had confirmed the information with the National Transportation Safety Board and both KTVU and the safety board have apologized for the error.
Asiana is said to be considering legal action—presumably cooler heads there will prevail and the airline will focus on taking care of the victims.
Nobody is sure what happened, but the airline and its flight crew appear, based upon the information to date, have much to answer for. Being distracted by a successful prank embarrassment of a news operation is just that—a distraction.
It's unfortunate that Campbell, a true pro, was the one who was caught in the error and subject to the social media world in such an unflattering light.
It was interesting that after the George Zimmerman verdict that the most damaging protests occurred in Oakland, a continent away from Sanford, Fla. The march clearly was pre-planned with printed posters, etc., but what was sad was the police department's decision not to engage vandals when they starting breaking windows and trashing a police car.
Apparently, avoiding a confrontation was a higher priority that protecting private property for the police.
