Alameda’s Ballena Bay Yacht Club (BBYC) held an appreciation event Jan. 22 for more than 250 local U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) members who served without pay due to the government shutdown. An all-volunteer, non-profit organization, BBYC expected 250 to 300 active-duty members and USCG retirees, furloughed contractors and their families to attend.
Last Monday, the Planning Board held a public hearing to consider the revised plans for the construction of a four-story, 96-room Holiday Inn Express at 1825 Park St., on the southwest corner of Park Street and Clement Avenue. The site once housed the Ron Goode Toyota dealership, which changed hands and moved to Oakland in 2008. Scooter Importer currently occupies the site.
Novela Neurotechnologies, which recently opened its headquarters in Alameda’s Marina Village neighborhood, has developed brain implants to provide solutions in the medical field. The company spun off of research at Waterloo University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, that won a best microsystem design award in 2012.
Short-term goals for Novela include treatments for brain and nervous-system disorders including: epilepsy, Parkinson’s and depression.
Members of the Alameda NAACP Organizing Committee, the Coalition to Rename Haight and the Alameda Race Violence Task Force hosted a gathering and walk to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Monday. The assembly at Haight featured songs, readings from King’s works and poetry. Children in attendance introduced themselves and showed the audience the signs that they made for the occasion.
Those in attendance then marched down Santa Clara Avenue to City Hall to attend the program there. They chanted, “Two, four, six, eight, only love can conquer hate,” along the way.
Alameda is accepting the 21st century challenge to create a city that is healthy, inclusive and resilient. Some challenges the Island City faces include traffic, high housing costs, aging infrastructure and increasingly, the impacts of climate change. Alamedans have experienced three major wildfire smoke incidents in the last 15 months, including weeks of unhealthy air quality due to the recent Camp Fire. Less visibly, the San Francisco Bay is gradually rising, threatening our shoreline parks, businesses and homes.
