NEWS
STATE OF CITY Continued from Page 5
and the Pleasanton Hotel underwent major renovations with a number of new restaurants moving to Pleasanton. These include Handles Gastropub and others downtown, the Cheesecake Factory, P.F. Chang’s, Buckhorn Grill and an expanded California Pizza Kitchen at the mall, and the popular Hamburger Hamlet at Gateway Center, which is part of the new Safeway complex. Housing issues dominated much of the City Council’s business in 2010-11, Hosterman said, with task forces, commission and council members spending hundreds of hours in public meetings and hearings to meet court- and state-ordered mandates to provide more housing for low-to-moderate income families, so-called workforce housing. She recalled that once satisfied with a slow-growth strategy after the housing boom of the 1980s and early ’90s, voters approved a housing cap of 29,000 housing units in 1996 with the council slowing the pace of new building permits to 350 or less per year. Hosterman said that after Urban Habitat, an affordable housing coalition, successfully sued Pleasanton for failing to meet its fair share of needed housing, the council rescinded the housing cap and met the court’s order earlier this month, rezoning 73 acres for enough highdensity housing to accommodate another 3,200 residents. Even so, she worked hard during her two terms in office to make sure public amenities continued to improve with more parks put to use. These included the restoration and opening of the Alviso Adobe Community Park on Foothill Road, renovation of both the Amador Theater on Santa Rita Road and the Veterans Memorial Building downtown and, of course, the construction and opening of the $10 million Firehouse Arts Center, also downtown. An avid environmentalist, who cochairs the U.S. Council of Mayors’ Water Council, Hosterman also took credit for leading the adoption of a Climate Action Plan two weeks ago and, before that, the launch of a Solar Cities program to educate the public about the benefits of solar energy. Even electric vehicle charging stations were added to the environmental mix several months ago. “Who would have thought when I was elected mayor in 2004 that one day there would electric vehicle charging stations in downtown Pleasanton and at City Hall?” she asked. “As you can see, the work of your city continues, even in these challenging times,” Hosterman said. “It has been my greatest pleasure to serve as your mayor for the past eight years. I feel confident that at the end of my term, we today have a better, stronger and more self-sufficient Pleasanton than we had in 2004.” “We have been through a lot and learned a lot together,” she added. “Thank you for giving me this remarkable opportunity.” Because of term limits, Hosterman’s time as mayor ends next Dec. 4 when the winner of the Nov. 6 mayoral election will be sworn in to succeed her. N
Marchers will ‘Occupy’ Pleasanton, walk to Castlewood BY GLENN WOHLTMANN
Occupy Oakland is headed to Pleasanton to mark the second anniversary of the lockout of workers from Castlewood Country Club. Marchers will start at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at the corner of Main Street and Bernal Avenue and walk to the club on Castlewood Drive. The Occupy Oakland website says protesters “are planning on bringing tents and occupying an unclaimed area adjacent to the country club in protest of the inhumane treatment of the workers who have been locked out in a clear at-
tempt to break their union.” The group is also planning to stage a “mock counter protest” by the country club they label as the 1%. The group intends to make this a peaceful protest; its website notes that “the goal is to end the lockout and get the workers back to work, so all actions should keep strategy, discipline, and accountability in mind when considering tactics.” A protest in June led to the arrest of about 20 people for blocking Castlewood Drive in what organizers described as an act of civil disobedience. That protest drew
close to 100 demonstrators and nearly 50 police officers from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and Pleasanton. About 60 employees of the club — bartenders, kitchen helpers, waiters and other hourly full-time and part-time employees — were locked out of the country club on Feb. 25, 2010, in a dispute over health care costs. The sides on the lockout remain in the same stalemate they’ve been in for months. Originally, management offered a contract that would have to shift workers from a union-
sponsored health plan to one controlled by Castlewood. Monthly fees would jump from zero to $366.93 a month for single policies and to $739.08 for families. After months of talks, management offered to bring the workers back — as long as the club managers could fire or lay people off without taking seniority into consideration. A National Labor Relations Board hearing that could potentially resolve the case began in January and is expected to continue into March. N
Pleasanton WeeklyÊUÊFebruary 24, 2012ÊU Page 7