Some useful links and good resources...

• alamedanet.net: community events, updates, links, weather, more
• Identity Theft: 10 ways to Prevent It
• Selling Your Home (IRS info)
• City of Alameda: Find out about facilities available to rent for your special event, Alameda Parks and Recreation events and classes, city calendar, city departments and contacts, employment...much more!
• Alameda Chamber of Commerce
• Schools: test scores, explanations
• Recycling: Recycling ideas, exact times, drop off dates, and exact locations, your neighborhood once-per-year pick up schedule.
• household-hazwaste.org
• Alameda Art Center: Alameda's newest local artist showcase and it's terrific.
• The Altarena Playhouse: has had some terrific shows recently. I bought season tickets and we've had a blast. The theatre-in-the-round has wonderful talent and direction. And if you want to get tickets online they've got an easy to use website.
• Alameda Museum lectures: For membership call 521-1233. For lecture info call 748-0796. Meetings are held at the Alameda Museum, 2324 Alameda Ave. Arrive early and see the exhibits and gift shop. Non-members pay $5. Lectures start at 7 pm.
• Alameda Power and Telecom: Call 748-3930 to see if TV cable and/or internet cable is available in your neighborhood.

Resources about Alameda schools

• School Wise Press
• Alameda Education Foundation
• Alamedans for Better Schools
• Great Schools - The Parent's Guide to K-12 Sucuss
• Mike McMahon - A very proactive member of the Alameda School Board
• For Alameda school rankings and growth reports from the States Academic Performance Index (API)
• For School Accountability Report Cards (a detailed report on each Alameda school)
• For school attendance zones click on district map and view at 200%. Or call the AUDS Office of Student Services 510-337-7071
• For questions about enrollment policies call the Office of Student Services - 510-337-7175.
• For info about other Alameda County school districts see Alameda County Office of Education
• What to know about California education issues?

More Alameda Factoids and Tidbits!

• "Alameda is an island in San Francisco Bay anchored off the coast of Oakland" (described by the late Carl Schumacher, renown yacht designer and husband to Marilyn Schumacher)
• Alameda is accessed via 4 drawbridges, 1 bike/pedestrian drawbridge, and 2 tubes that go under the Alameda estuary.
• The estuary may more appropriately be called a "sound" but oh, well.
• Long time Alamedans pronounce Versailles Street not Versigh, but Versales.
• Long time Alamedans pronounce Verdi Street not Vehrday but Verdee.
• Neptune Beach on Alameda's southwest side was known as "Coney Island West"
• Alameda means "A public promenade bordered by trees."
• Encinal (the name of a major street, a high school, and various businesses in Alameda) means "A grove or forest of evergreen Oak trees."
• Alameda was a peninsula before it was dredged and became an island in 1902.
• Alameda's Aeolian Yacht Club was founded in 1906 and remains in its original site, the east end of Alameda on San Leandro Bay.
• Alameda's Encinal Yacht Club is the 3rd oldest yacht club on San Francisco Bay.
• Alameda has the most boat docking slips on the west coast, north of Santa Barbara.
• What is now called Alameda Point was once home to the Alameda Naval Air Station commencing in 1938. It employed 3600 officers and 29,000 enlisted military personnel and thousands of civilian personnel at the height of its operation in 1945. The base was closed in 1996.
• Part of Alameda, Bay Farm Island (area code 94502), is not an island, and never has been, but started out as rich farmland.
• The 1800 acres of Bay Farm Island were joined to Alameda via bridge in 1874. But at high tide only 300 acres were dry.
• Alameda's Fernside District was the first tract development in Alameda in the 1920's featuring predominantly Mediterranean style homes.
• Alameda's Gold Coast was a summer haven for many San Franciscans who built large summer homes as an alternative to living in San Francisco's fog.
• Rimming the edges of the Gold Coast are numerous original and very small beach cottages, used today as single family homes.
• "Nebraska by the Bay" is a marketing description used by Marilyn Schumacher throughout her real estate career when selling Alameda's lovely West End.
• Alameda has a weekly Farmers Market on Tuesdays from 9-1pm which has expanded to evenings 4-7pm on Thursdays in the summer months.
• Free concerts are given once per month on Friday evenings in June, July, and August at Alameda's west end Crab Cove Park.
• Wind-surfing and kite-surfing have one of the bay's best locations on Alameda's south shore beaches.
• Free concerts are given once per month on Saturday afternoons in June, July, and August at Bay Farm Island's Harbor Bay Landing Shopping Center.
• The Alameda pedestrian and bike drawbridge is the only one of its kind in the United States, completed in 1995 at a cost of 3.5 million dollars.
• Alameda started a ferry system in 1878. Ferries came back into service to Alameda after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
• In 1878 Alameda had an efficient commuter train line, known as the "Red Line", that ran the length of the island well into the 20th century.
• Alameda started the first municipal electric company in1887 and continues to provide electricity to residents at a lower rate than PG&E. Known now as Alameda Power and Telecom, it also offers cable TV and high speed cable internet access.
• Alameda has the highest concentration of Victorians west of the Mississippi.
• Until the mid 1990's Alameda had its own cargo train, The Alameda Belt Line, which started in 1924.
• Alameda's Carnegie Library was one of the first three libraries funded by Andrew Carnegie in 1899.
• The birthplace of Skippy Peanut Butter was Alameda in 1932 and it was manufactured here until 1974.