Google has updated the satellite images for its ubiquitous maps service (but has not yet fixed all of its known errors). The photographs above Hercules must be from sometime this past summer or early fall, but no earlier than August. Some new additions are worth highlighting.
The excavation for Sycamore North, known to nearby residents as [...]

Tuesday’s City Council meeting — 7pm at City Hall — packs a punch…

Additional tree cutting at Duck Pond Park (there will be virtually no Eucalyptus trees left standing). Cost: $39k.
Continue to outsource police dispatch services to Pinole. Cost: $420k.
Eliminate left turn from Lucky on Sycamore Avenue. Cost: $23k.
Loan to Bio-Rad for tenant improvements. Cost: $2m.
Lighting [...]

The latest design of Duck Pond Park will be discussed at tonight’s Community and Library Services Commission meeting — 7pm at City Hall. The elements of the park have been refined since the previous design was released and commented on, most notably, the horseshoe pits have been relocated away from the adjacent sidewalk along Sycamore [...]

The planned removal of dead and at-risk eucalyptus trees is underway at the future Duck Pond Park. It is now possible to see the lower half of the slope. (Is there a name for this hill? Eucalyptus Hill?) The existing trees at the rear of the property (behind the hill) will remain, although those fallen [...]

The City Council will vote to rezone the live-works along Railroad Avenue to allow additional uses at Tuesday’s meeting — 7pm at City Hall. Other items on the agenda…

Apply for $6m in Federal grant funds for the Intermodal Station.
Documentation services for the environmental clean-up of the Corporation Yard. Cost: $41.7k.
Dead tree removal at Duck Pond [...]

The capital improvement spending plan that is being approved at tonight’s City Council meeting is in concept only, so dates of construction are estimates at best (dependent upon funding mechanisms, regulatory filings and the economy), but the outline of what to come is certainly exciting…

$7.8m to build the rail and ferry terminal over the next [...]

An editorial in the Contra Costa Times argues that the City Manager should do a better job informing the City Council (however, I contend that Duck Pond Park — which is a community park, not a “park for ducks;” it is just a name — is a great investment, regardless of its stature on the [...]

Monday’s meeting on the fate of Duck Pond Park was interesting. Here is what I remember…

The designers were looking for resident and committee input and have the plans finalized for the Community Update this April.
The park is planned to be passive and complement the children’s park (Frog Pad Park) and the future playing fields [...]

An agenda I’m used to seeing — chock-full of goodies — returns for Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting — 7pm @ City Hall — some of which comes under the guise of the Redevelopment Agency…

Design of Duck Pond Park and preliminary design of Sycamore Park. Cost: $253k.
Renovate Community Swim Center. Cost: $200k.
Professional services related to [...]

The City will be hosting a community meeting to gather ideas and thoughts about the future Dock Pond Park (also known as the scourge of the Wall Street Journal) planned for the space currently vacant on the southern side of Sycamore Avenue across from Frog Pad Park and the municipal yard. The meeting is scheduled [...]

With all of this talk, it’d be nice if the stimulus at least became a reality, else we’d have ourselves a major letdown…
‘Pork’ projects all about jobs, Hercules says
By Tom Lochner
Hercules is accustomed to receiving kudos in the national media for its “New Urbanism”-inspired planning philosophy. But lately the Dynamic City has been skewered over [...]

The letter to the editor…
The Dec. 14 Times “The Eye on the East Bay” column contained information about Hercules projects submitted in response to a request from the U.S. Conference of Mayors for “Ready-to-Go” projects.
The list was based upon the Hercules Capital Improvement Program list for projects that could go to construction in the next [...]

The Hercules pork story brought on a somewhat contrite press release and letter to the editor from the City, followed-up by a report in the Eye…
ANNALS OF PORK, PART II
By Tom Lochner
Hercules officials took umbrage at recent editorials in the national press deriding as “pork” a list of “Ready-to-Go” infrastructure projects in 427 cities, submitted [...]

Thanks to one snide comment in a Wall Street Journal editorial (courtesy of an unreasonable Reason editor), local papers across the country have begun to pile-on the news that the City of Hercules has requested $2.5 million in infrastructure stimulus spending for its “ready-to-go” Waterfront Duck Pond Park.
First, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: “Among other things on [...]