The City Council voted unanimously to table the motion to add 13 license plate readers throughout the city at its Feb. 6 meeting.
Councilmembers, along with several residents who spoke at the meeting, were concerned with how the information obtained from the license-plate-recognition systems would be used and who will get to see the information captured.
Writer Rasheed Shabazz led a Black History Month home tour last Saturday titled: “Early Black Pioneers of Alameda.” More than 30 local residents gathered at Lincoln Avenue and Grand Street for the two-hour walking tour of Alameda’s north shore, where the first pioneering Black Alamedans built their homes in the late 1800s.
According to Shabazz, the first Black families were drawn to California and settled in Alameda for both the pleasant climate and employment opportunities. Initially Blacks lived in Alameda only as laborers in the homes of White people.
An illegal “sideshow” took place last Saturday on the west side of Alameda Point’s Seaplane Lagoon, which is fast becoming the site of frequent sideshow activity. Tugboats were maneuvering the Maritime Ready Reserve Ship Keystone State as drivers spun out nearby.
In a heated competition that resulted in a head-to-head match up that went back and forth between the final two competitors, Academy of Alameda seventh grader Thomas McMuldren emerged victorious at the Alameda Spelling Bee last Saturday. The final duel with Adriana Argyriou, a fifth grader at Haight Elementary School, came down to the words “isthmus” and “rogue” which McMuldren spelled correctly to earn the 2018 title of Island’s Top Speller. (McMuldren finished second in the 2017 Bee.)
Alameda Island Poets’ monthly free reading Wednesday, Feb. 7, from 7 to 9 p.m., will celebrate Black History Month with local poets Amos White and Wanda Sabir.
White is an award-winning American haiku poet, author, producer, director and activist, recognized for his vivid literary imagery and breathless poetic interpretations. He has been published in several national and international reviews and anthologies.
