Vol. 12 No. 44August 1, 2013

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CONTENTSHOMETOWN NEWS . . . . 2

LOCAL HAPPENINGS . . 4

NIGHTLIFE . . . . . . . . . . 4

SPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

CLASSIFIED . . . . . . . . . 9

PUZZLES . . . . . . . . . . . 10

For breaking news and other content, visit

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HOMETOWNFire Wire page 2Police Blotter page 3

All the doings of Island safety and

law personnel

Alameda Sun Almanac

Date Rise SetToday 06:13 20:18August 2 06:13 20:17August 3 06:14 20:16August 4 06:15 20:15August 5 06:16 20:14August 6 06:17 20:13August 7 06:18 20:12

Alameda Sun

JoanAnn Radu-Sinaiko

Locally Owned, Community Oriented

ISLAND ARTSAWA Page 9Women artist group celebrates

two decades in town.

HOMETOWN NEWSSpace Out Page 10Summer campers get a taste of outer space from NASA.

HAPPY AIR FORCE DAY!

SPORTSWorld baseball Page 5

Alameda team to faceinternational competition.

PUZZLESCrossword Page 10Sharpen your pencils for that famed newspaper tradition.

Michele EllsonThe Alamedan

Alameda may be home to some of the toughest no-smoking rules in the country, but some are saying that the rules — which are sup-posed to protect the public from secondhand smoke — are failing to safeguard the public’s health as intended because they aren’t being enforced.

The rules ban smoking in most of the Island’s public places, a fact advertised on signs and window stickers in shop windows along Park and Webster streets. But some say that more enforcement is need-ed to get people to comply with the law, while others question whether it should have been put on the books without a stronger enforce-ment mechanism in place.

Assistant City Manager Alex Nguyen said the city has heard the same complaints from people who feel the ban isn’t working. But he said the city is doing every-thing it can to inform people they’re not allowed to smoke; the city has begun posting signs on light poles in places where smokers might be likely to light up and on the bench-es just installed on Park Street.

Nguyen said that he thinks it will take time for people to get the mes-sage that smoking is not allowed.

Smoking Ordinance Lacks Enforcement

Dennis Evanosky

Alameda Sun staff easily photographed people flouting the city’s smoking ban by lighting up in the Park Street Business District.

Commission Considers CorlissMural concept unveilled for Target

City Seeks Input on Point Plan

Sun Staff ReportsCity staff recently recommend-

ed that the City Council endorse an updated vision statement and planning guide for development at Alameda Point.

In addition staff is currently preparing an environmental impact report, a master infrastructure plan, as well as a zoning ordinance and General Plan amendment for the Point. These are scheduled for completion by next January.

Community members can get involved in the planning process and the review of the latest draft planning documents in a variety of ways:

Visit the city’s Alameda Point website (www.Alamedaca.gov/Alameda-Point) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/AlamedaNAS) to stay current with announce-ments and news.

Register for what the city calls “email blasts” of public notices and Alameda Point news by e-mailing AlamedaPoint@alamedaca.gov.

Follow the latest Alameda Point news on Twitter @AlamedaNAS.

Participate in the online sur-veys periodically posted on the Alameda Point website. Residents can use these surveys to voice their opinions on key planning issues concerning development at the Point.

In addition, Alamedans can attend public hearings about the Point where they can share their points of view. They can also share comments electronically by e-mail-ing AlamedaPoint@alamedaca.gov.

“Passing this ordinance, I believe, was a very progres-sive thing to do. But it doesn’t mean behavior changes overnight,” he said.

While Alameda police are charged with enforcing the law — a task they say they are undertaking — police brass and city staffers have said they expected private citizens to make sure it is followed. The law allows people to file civil suits against offenders, though Nguyen said none had been filed in Alameda since the ban went into effect.

“The law is complaint driven,” said city manager John Russo in a recent interview with the Alameda Sun. Still, police said they’re enforc-ing the ban and that they respond to smoking complaints, though they said there are limits to what they can do. Often times, when police do get a call that someone is smoking where they shouldn’t be, the evidence has burned up before they arrive.

“Patrol does enforce it when they do see it,” Detective Michael Ortega said. “We’ll deal with it just like any other violation, like (run-ning) a red light.”

Even so, police said that they don’t always issue citations to smokers when they catch them in the act. Tickets start at $100 for a first violation and can cost $500 for a third violation and beyond.

“It doesn’t always have to be a citation, but we educate the public on it,” Ortega said.

Police used some of the money from a tobacco enforcement grant

to conduct com-pliance checks on Park Street; five citations were issued. The depart-ment has received 118 complaints and issued 13 citations so far this year, Alameda Police Lt. Ted Horlbeck said,

though he said 82 of the complaints are the result of an “ongoing dis-pute” between two neighbors. None of the citations were issued as a result of neighbor complaints, he said.

But smokers aren’t the only scofflaws. Nguyen said he’s gotten complaints that some homeown-ers associations aren’t enforcing the new rules, and a reader point-ed out that Alameda South Shore Center still has ashtrays, which the law requires them to remove. Anil Bhagat, South Shore’s general manager, didn’t respond to a call seeking comment.

Perhaps one of the best-known hot spots for smokers is on city-owned property. The parking lot on Central Avenue in the heart of the Park Street Shopping District, has been identified as a spot where smokers light up. Cigarette butts littered the area when a reporter visited last week.

Despite the concerns, though, smokers are a rare sight in Alameda. Just 10 percent of Alameda County’s residents smoke, according to the American Lung Association. During a series of daytime visits and eve-ning visits to the Park Street and Webster Street shopping districts

Police said that they don’t always issue citations to smokers when they catch them in the act.

SMOKING: Page 12

Public Safety ReportsBriefs, updates on local incidents

Ekene Ikeme

DOA at Alameda PointAlameda fire crews were dis-

patched to Alameda Point Tuesday, July 30 on what was initially report-ed as a water rescue, but later determined to be a DOA.

The Alameda Fire Department (AFD) received a call from a ship docked at Pier 2 at 10:53 a.m. seek-ing medical help for a man aboard the vessel. Crewmembers said the man collapsed onboard the fleet ship, according to AFD Public Information Officer James Colburn.

When firefighters and paramed-ics arrived, they tried to resus-citate the man, but he was pro-nounced dead so fire authorities turned over the incident to police. Authorities are trying to determine what caused the man’s death, but said on Tuesday they do not sus-pect foul play as a cause of death.

“All indications point toward him dying from natural causes,” said Alameda Police Chief Paul Rolleri.

Nonetheless, the Alameda County Coroner’s Office said they would conduct an autopsy to deter-mine what caused the man’s death.

Police would not reveal the man’s name, but did say he was 35 years old. Alameda fire and police officials were on the scene, along with officials from the Alameda County Coroner’s office.

Firefighters battle electrical fire on Park Street

Alameda Firefighters extin-guished a fire at a two-story build-ing on the 1800 block of Park Street last Friday, July 26.

The Alameda Fire Department received reports of smoke coming from the two-story building that houses a business on the first floor and a residential unit on the sec-ond at around 8:43 a.m. Firefighters pulled pre-connected hose lines from the first-arriving engine, forced entry and attacked the fire while others searched for occu-pants and ventilated the building.

The fire was quickly extin-guished and confined to the second-floor living unit. A total of 26 firefighters responded. Investigators believe electrical problems caused the fire. The fire damage is estimated at $25,000 to the structure and $10,000 to its con-

tents. Alameda Police and Alameda Municipal Power assisted at the scene. Oakland Fire provided mutu-al aid companies to cover vacant Alameda fire stations.

There were no reported injuries.

Armed robber identified The armed robbery suspect

who was fatally shot by an off-duty Alameda County sheriff’s deputy Thursday, July 18, at an Alameda convenience store has been identi-fied as 42-year-old Laroy Brown of Oakland, according to Alameda police.

Police identified the suspect on Wednesday, July 24, after receiving confirmation of his identity. Brown and a second suspect allegedly entered the Bonfare Market at 1505 High St. at about 10:30 p.m. in an attempt to rob the store. The depu-ty, who happened to be at the store reading a magazine, confronted the two men, who were wearing masks. Police said the deputy feared for his safety and the safety of the store’s employees so he shot both suspects. Brown was killed while the second suspect escaped.

Alameda police still have not confirmed if the suspect they ques-tioned at Highland Hospital last Thursday is the second suspect, as of Tuesday, July 30.

Bonfare Market was reopened the next day on Friday, July 19. Bonfare’s owner, Kee Cheng, said the shooting was a shock to him as this was the first time in 30 years that a gun was fired in the store.

Man floating in bay identified as Alameda resident

Authorities in Marin County have identified a body found float-ing in the San Francisco Bay near San Rafael as Alameda resident Robert Murfee.

A person located the body in the city of Belvedere in Marin County while jogging shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday, July 16, near West Shore Road and San Rafael Avenue, according to Belvedere Police Chief Tricia Seyler. Investigators think he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge a day before he was found.

Tiburon fire Battalion Chief Mike Ayers said his Engine 11 crew helped retrieve the body from the bay and left it in the custody of Belvedere police.

Murfee was 51 years old.

Dennis EvanoskyIf the city’s Public Art

Commission approves, Catullus Corporation will spend about $87,000 of its $300,000 public art budget on a Troy Corliss design that focuses on Alameda Landing’s nautical history.

“This location held close ties to the ports in San Francisco and the establishment of the trans-continental railroad before it was acquired and developed by the U.S. Navy,” Corliss said.

Corliss’ design includes a map of the early town of “Encinal and Lands Adjacent” complete with Hibbard’s wharf jutting into today’s Oakland Estuary when the shoreline stood at the inter-section of Condor and Leviathan streets (today’s Clement Avenue and Grand Street).

In 1913 a dredging project cobbled a pair of small islands off Leviathan into Government Island (today’s Coast Guard Island).

Corliss points out that the original channel — the San Antonio slough that became the Oakland Estuary — as well as the tide lands and salt marshes where Alameda Landing is now situated “were of significant eco-

logical importance to the greater San Francisco Bay.

“The exact nature of this frag-ile shoreline and waterway can only be speculated on today,” Corliss stated in the description of his project.

The artist spilled the period map he chose onto a pair of gray ships. On one, the onlooker can trace the map from Alameda to North Oakland. A close look reveals the “Pleasant Valley Tract” on one ship — Oakland’s Pleasant Valley Road recalls the name today.

On the adjacent ship the map stretches to the Cameron Tract and beyond in today’s Dimond District — the Cameron Tract was near the heart of the dis-trict. The tract still houses the 1890’s German retirement home, the Altenheim.

Schooners, a sailing ships and paddlewheel boats reefed up with cargo dot the sky in Corliss’s creation — all serving as reminders of the Oakland Estuary’s maritime past.

Corliss displays this collage of our maritime past on tem-pered plate glass panels.

Contact Dennis Evanosky at editor@alamedasun.com.

Courtesy photo

A detail of this montage of nautical history could become a part of the public art at Alameda Landing.

Sun Staff ReportsLocal filmmaker Sarah Gerber’s

film The Way Back to Yarasquin will premiere 7 p.m., this evening, Aug. 1, at the Alameda Point Theater, 2751 Todd St. The film tells the cap-tivating story of Alameda resident Mayra Orellana-Powell, who grew up in the village of Santa Elena, Honduras. She experienced coffee-growing as a way of life, underly-

ing and represented in community, relationships and gratitude.

These cornerstones of life and coffee never left her as she went on to pursue an education and life in the U.S., and most recent-ly, to start a business, Catracha Coffee Company. The film follows Orellana-Powell’s journey to start-ing a small coffee business and her

Local Filmmaker Debuts Documentary

FILM: Page 12