Opinion: Give it Back, San Francisco – Let’s Make Alameda Whole

It’s always been rough for little Alameda to be so close to San Francisco.

We’re a peaceful island city, known for our tranquil lifestyle and endearing people. They’re the Behemoth on the Bay, known for their high housing costs and loud music festivals.

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But there’s one way that Frisco—as I’m now calling it—has gone too far. There are 38.91 acres of Alameda Island, on the outer edge of the former Alameda Naval Air Station, that somehow are the legal territory of San Fran.

My fellow Islanders, it’s time for us to draw a line in the sand, or at least in the rocky landfill. It’s time for us to rescue this castaway and make Alameda whole.

I learned about this plot of land from an episode of KQED’s Bay Curious ^[2]—it made me bay furious. In the 1950s the Navy extended the air station with landfill. Once they passed the high-tide mark, that new territory became legally San Francisco. Apparently, the City had generously drawn itself an eight-mile border around its land early in its history. This was possibly the last time they efficiently planned for growth.

What this means is that they’re treating a forgotten corner of Alameda Island like it’s Alcatraz Island or the Farallones. There’s a big difference, though. We’re not a prison, even if it sometimes feels that way when the Webster Tube gets blocked. And it’s not just seals and sea lions who live on Alameda—we also have human beings.

To be fair, there are a lot of seagulls over on SF’s tiny little corner of Alameda, with important colonies of least terns ^[3] and harbor seals ^[4] nearby. And the land itself is capped, meaning that the ground got polluted by the military, so is closed off to future development.

But on the flip side, that makes it probably the least valuable land in San Francisco’s portfolio. Something’s fishy here. Why not give it back to us?

There’s also the question of how well San Francisco manages the land. If a crime occurs, is SFPD gonna hop a ferry to come investigate? Will they brave the Bay Bridge in rush-hour traffic? Do they know where to catch the O transbay bus? I have my doubts, so I set out to learn just how carefully San Francisco City Hall is taking care of their patch of beautiful Alameda.

I crossed the bay and ran into Rafael Mandelman, the President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. I asked about his plans for this slice of Alameda. He pretended to be confused by the question.

Matt Dorsey is the District 6 supervisor, and he is the one who presumably represents the area.  I asked him next about his Alameda agenda, but he just laughed and hugged me. Nice guy, though more focused on his side of the bay than ours.

I even asked Mayor Daniel Lurie about the issue. He drove off without bothering to answer. (Full disclosure, he was just driving by, and couldn’t hear me, but he’s been in office for nearly two years and has yet to tackle the problem.)

If we treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves, here’s what the fix looks like: We need the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to vote to extend the county line by these 38.91 acres. Then we need the San Francisco Board to pass the same measure. Expect a 12-hour meeting with public comment. Maybe the NIMBYs and the YIMBYs can come together to agree that it just is not their backyard?

Once it passes, the mayor signs the bill, with the State Board of Equalization finalizing the tax status. The City of Alameda would take the final step by requesting that the Alameda Local Agency Formation Commission, the A-LAFCO, move the city boundaries.

There’s nothing funny about a LAFCO.

I get that this sounds like a process only a bored lawyer could love. But making Alameda Island whole is an issue that unifies all of us.

San Francisco Mayor Lurie’s famous slogan is “Let’s go, San Francisco.” I say yes, please. Go on back to San Francisco and leave Alameda Island here with us.

Shum Preston is a writer who escaped what he considers the harsh grasp of San Francisco to enjoy beautiful Alameda.