While the marathon City Council meeting focused largely on the rental crisis in town (see story on this page), the 10-and-one-half hour session that began with a closed session at 5:30 p.m. and recessed at 3:59 a.m. covered other topics. These included two that touched on Alameda Point. 

Councilmembers first met in closed session to hear updates on negotiations with various employee organizations, including those that represent non-sworn employees of the police department, electrical workers and managers. 

Matt Davis then addressed the Council to alert the community of the 1,200 additional private jets that will fly into the Bay Area for the Super Bowl on Feb. 5. Davis said that between 400 and 500 of these planes will fly into Oakland International Airport. It’s possible that President Barack Obama will also fly into one of the Bay Area airports that weekend as he may attend the Super Bowl. Davis told the Council that he has been working with city staff to mitigate the effects the air traffic might have on Alameda, especially on Bay Farm Island.  

The City Council also approved a four-year lease with rights to four five-year extensions to Google, Inc. for use of Building 400A on West Tower Avenue, just west of the hangars along Seaplane Lagoon. This marks an extension of Google’s presence on Alameda Point. The Internet giant owns Makani Power, which has had a presence on the Point since 2006 and which Google acquired in 2014. The Alameda Sun will cover this story in more detail in next week’s edition. 

As part of the consent calendar, the Council took one more step in cleaning up Alameda Point. It awarded a contract that totaled $601,700 to Asbestos Management Group of California, Inc. “for the demolition, clean-up and disposal of 16 vacant residential structures on Orion Avenue, Stardust Place, and Pearl Harbor Road.”

The money to pay for the project will come from the city’s Base Reuse Fund. According to city staff, this fund has $2 million of available unreserved funds on its books — sufficient to cover the cost of this project. 

City staff does not anticipate any money from the General Fund would be necessary to cover the cost of demolishing these buildings that once housed enlisted Navy personnel and their families.