Some Albany residents will remember me as a blogger on the Patch website in 2013-14. On that blog I tried to keep the community informed about the issue of the encampments in the city parkland on the Albany Bulb. I argued for offering housing assistance to the Bulb campers - and also for requiring those not seeking to move indoors to find new locations for their camps.
In July 2014, the City Council appointed me to the seat left vacant by the untimely death of Mayor Peggy Thomsen. I stopped posting on the Patch, which allows anonymous comments on blog posts, because of City staff concerns that a quorum of council members could enter into dialogue with one another in an unwitting violation of the Brown Act.
Now I am taking up blogging again. I hope to help keep Albany informed, and to share my views, about municipal government issues of interest.