KeepAlamedaFlat.com

I grew up in Alameda at the end of the dirt road that was then Madison St. I remember hot days when the water truck would come and sprinkle water in front our house to keep down the dust, and somewhere in my possession is a map we made of "the fill", an undeveloped chunk of land that is now Lincon School, which lay beyond the drainage ditch we called "the lagoon" flowed along what is now a part of Fernside Drive. It was a great place to be a child, a bit of wilderness with civilization always at hand.

That sense of wildness and saftey has stayed with me and is still the essential sprit of our city. Today the wildness comes to us from beyond the estuary as a bewildering diversity of cultures and ideas drawn to the Bay Area from around the world. It is exhilirating to be in a place of rapid change and unquenchable creativity, but it can be a little intimidating. Somehow Alameda remains a safe place from which to engage the world, not a refuge or a bunker but a solid rock of community values, on which we can build the lives we choose for ourselves and our families in whatever archetural style suits our fancy.