So Wonks Anonymous lives on a beautiful little island on the San Francisco Bay which would be really expensive if it were not for the fact that it is just next to Oakland. The island, Alameda, used to be the site of a naval air station which was shut down sometime in the last twenty years. Being a large unused piece of property very near San Francisco and Oakland the air station attracts developers like chum draws sharks.

Which would be fine for Wonks Anonymous, who is hardly against development, except that there is only one way off the West End of the Island. Which would be a four lane tunnel - two lanes each way - running under the bay and emptying onto the streets of Chinatown in Oakland. Until the recent slump reduced the commute traffic - are recessions god's answer to gridlock - this route was bumper to bumper in the morning several times a week. What should have been a five minute drive took a half hour to forty five minutes.

This still happens from about 2 to 3 PM on the first Sunday of the month when the Alameda Point Antique Fair - the finest in the known universe - breaks up.

So our city council figured that we should probably go easy on the development on account of the traffic and stuff and authorized 1,700 new housing units.

Which the developers did not like and, this being California, they did something about it. They have written up their dream development plan into an initiative, complete with maps and fine print. Wonks Anonymous has seen the thing and swears that his dissertation was shorter and easier to understand. Wonks Anonymous yields the floor to Carolyn Jones of the SF Comical:

Since the Navy left the sprawling base 12 years ago, no fewer than four developers have taken a stab at the project, which encompasses a third of the island and could potentially increase the city's population by 14 percent.

Now it appears the voters will get a say on the future of Alameda Point. The current developer, SunCal, began on Friday collecting signatures to place an initiative on the Nov. 3 ballot asking voters to waive density limits for the development, allowing SunCal to triple the number of housing units originally planned for the former base.

"We want to build denser housing on Alameda Point because it's the economically and environmentally correct thing to do," said Pat Keliher, SunCal's vice president of operations. "It's an amazing piece of property, and when the market starts to turn around Alameda Point could be an incredible community."

SunCal hopes to build more than 5,000 single-family homes, condominiums, live-work lofts, townhomes, senior and affordable housing units at the point, in addition to 3 million square feet of office and light industrial space.

But with the denser housing comes more open space. SunCal's plan includes 145 acres of parks, a 58-acre sports field complex and more than 20 miles of bicycle and walking trails. It also calls for $100 million in transit projects, including a new ferry terminal.

Which petitions are now being circulated about the city by hirelings who have been instructed to respond to all questions by saying: "It gives the people a chance to vote on it."

Wonks Anonymous wonders who is going to spring for the transit projects and speculates cynically that this will not really get people out of their cars and stop gridlock. But by the time that this happens the developers will have sold the houses and gone on to some other project.

California is a wonderful state. Anybody - anybody with several million dollars that is - can hire a staff of lawyers, publicity flacks and professional petition gathers and get whatever special interest legislation they want on the ballot. And, after a massive ad campaign and even more expenditure, they might even be able to pass the thing because why? Because we don't trust politicians, even when we voted for them, and we do trust slick ad campaigns that are light on substance and heavy on innuendo.

Wonks Anonymous does not know if the progressives, who gave us our initiative process to fight big business interests, are spinning in their graves. He hopes that they are.