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Show Notes:Jeff Gould walks and talks with 2024 city council candidate Thushan Amarasiriwardena on the streets of Alameda about his affection for our city and where his career in AI, other tech is taking him. We touch on Thushan's ideas around the potential abundance thinking holds, his run for council, housing development at the former Svendsons Marine site on Clement street and related transportation issues. Alameda's Climate Action and Resilience Plan (CARP) and the proposed construction of the Pacific Fusion nuclear research reactor project at Alameda Point also prompts an interesting exchange of views on energy issues..
Jeff Gould:Hello, Alameda. This is Jeff Gould, one of the founding members of Island City Beat. I'm here with Tushan Amarasuriwardena . Did I get that right?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah, you got that right.
Jeff Gould:And we're having a conversation as we walk the streets of Alameda. So Tushan, can you talk about yourself?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:So yeah, I'm Tushan. I've been living here since 2017. Fell in love with Alameda on the July 4. That was like my first real experience of it. We came for running the race before the parade, and by the time I hit Grand, I was like, holy moly, this my place.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Not only because of the beautiful homes, but it was it felt like a New England town, which is where I grew up in the sense of like half of Alameda was in the parade and the other half was watching it. And it was just like this Lake Wobegon kind of moment of like, oh, this is a real community. But before that, born in Sri Lanka, moved to The States when I was nine months old, lived in North Carolina for a bit until we till I grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, which is a great, beautiful college town and ultimately, went back to school in North Carolina and had a range of jobs including being a journalist at the Globe to making my own startup and then joining Google and then most recently serving in the White House's technology arm in the Biden administration.
Jeff Gould:Can you elaborate a little more on your startup?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah. We used to make apps for kids when the iPad came out. They weren't games. Our company was called Launchpad Toys. And the thing about toys is they're open ended.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:They're vessels for kids to tell their own stories. And that was the sort of the angle that we were going after. Toontastic, our our main app was essentially motion capture for kids. They could move their characters on screen. It recorded their voice and actions and made essentially the easiest animation tool ever.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And I think 5,000,000 cartoons were made. It was it was just super cool to do.
Jeff Gould:Yeah. So you're using your family as the guinea pigs.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I did that was before I had kids. Actually, I haven't let my kids play with it Yet.
Jeff Gould:Yeah. Let's see. So I I saw you at the No Kings demonstration. Yes. Recently, and I was there because I thought I needed to be.
Jeff Gould:What were your motivations for going to that?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Think for a huge degree, was for my kids to see that how this system works. I don't like, there wasn't any like overt framing for my kids. I just wanted them to see the understanding of people coming out, fighting for something they believe in. That was actually my primary goal. But at a personal level, yeah, I was there for the same reason 3,000 other Alameda were there, which is
Jeff Gould:3,000 strong
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:3,000 strong Alameda, which what is a huge portion of Alameda. But but my belief is that, like, this this country is clearly going in a direction antithetical to what what it was founded on, which is that we I'll let that truck go by. That that word country for the people, by the people, not by any one person, and that our decision making is made together, not alone by one. And unfortunately, very much feels like we were heading in the wrong direction.
Jeff Gould:I would agree with that. And I think all 3,000 people that were there would agree.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah.
Jeff Gould:Okay, now my understanding is that a lot of your thought is based on the concept of abundance.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah.
Jeff Gould:Can you talk about that?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Right. I would say that book Abundance that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson recently released resonated pretty strongly with me and I think a lot of my friends here in Alameda actually, in the sense of how are we living in the strongest nation humanity's ever seen and one of the strongest cities or regions that humanity's ever seen. And yet we have a litany of problems. Know, like when yesterday I was in Oakland and I think from a just a humanistic perspective, seeing the gap of the life that people like us are able to live and people just a couple 100 yards away are living is like not is just morally not okay. And I think I think that stems from some root issues of us not being able to make the things we need at the scale we need them and at the speed we need them.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:That I think government is a huge way of making that happen and that I would love to see it be more effective. And I'll frame this as like I served in the federal government for nine months. Most of my time was at the IRS as part of The US Digital Service trying to aid our ability to collect the revenues that we need to fund the things that make this nation great. Ultimately technology is a huge part of it, but it's also like our inability to actually agree as a group or even focus as a group towards those challenges is I think one of the more critical things.
Jeff Gould:Yeah. So it's kind of rather like follow the money kind of.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Maybe it's more like, maybe the lens I would put is what are the impediments that we have to do the things that I think everyone agrees we should have, which is like, everyone should be able to find a place to live in the places that they want to live, that they should be able to be, have the food on the table and to be able to work and have that dignity and maybe even more, like have the luxuries of great parks and schools are not a luxury, but great schools. I think maybe what I saw in my time in federal government was like, we made it very hard to go do those things because a lot of sliced, well meaning ideas, when you pile them together, really leads to inability to take action.
Jeff Gould:Yeah, so the collective values have to align with our humanity.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah, our ability to yeah, yeah, yeah .
Jeff Gould:Too many times, the idea of follow the money means, you know, I got mine and, you know, I'm happy.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Right, right.
Jeff Gould:Rather than, you know, everybody gets a share of the pie.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Right, exactly. Yep.
Jeff Gould:Okay, that's a good way of thinking about abundance.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Or maybe one other lens I'd say is like, I think a lot of our problems come from fighting over the little. And if we can make more of it, then those fights don't happen. I mean, there are some natural constraints land and things like that, but I think where we're about to walk, actually where we're walking right now, these are new houses built in the past eight years. We're on Mulberry Street right now.
Jeff Gould:The old on one side and the new on the other.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I know a lot of people who live in these and this used to be an old warehouse from what I can tell on Google Street View. It is now a couple 100 people, families, young kids that are like thriving in Alameda. And it took will to make that happen. This was a contentious project. It's the one across the street that we're about to get to Clement Street.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Again, contentious project.
Jeff Gould:That's very dense housing.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah. But, you know, when you meet the people who, like, again, my kids have a lot of friends that now live in these places. Like when you meet them it's like how can we not have them here in Alameda is my view.
Jeff Gould:Yeah, well along with that increased density comes problems with transportation. This Street Clement that we're on now has a huge bike lane. And you know, the idea that the city has is to get out of your car and get on your e bike or your regular bike. Yep. You know, that's better for the environment. It's but then there's the access to the island itself.
Jeff Gould:And what are the improvements being done there? There there's kind of an incomplete plan in a way. How do you think that should be approached?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah.
Jeff Gould:Transportation issues around more density. Right.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I I think density allows a couple things. One, density allows the ability to invest in public transportation, for example. That is the only way it works. And so when we add more people now, are able to ensure that our public transit is not only funded but used and used to a degree that everyone wants to keep funding it. So I think that's one lens.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I think here's another good example is, like, these projects aren't just adding people to our town. They're adding value to our town. The one that we're walking right next to, they built a $30,000,000 seawall and parks here that are reflecting the city's need to adapt to climate change, for example. All these houses to our left, for example, aren't paying for that seat wall. So like that's an added benefit, but they also paid for this bike lane to happen.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And I think when you have stuff like this, start inviting people to go try alternative modes of transportation. I am not comfortable. I would never be comfortable with my kids riding this street without this bike lane but now we do. I mean that's me out of my car and you go to the point I think you have another good example. That new ferry terminal again paid by all that development.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:That's something that all Alameden's get to use. And while it may not mean another car bridge, I don't think any like, I don't think that's ever gonna happen because we've tried that. Oakland doesn't want it either. So we're gonna have to move through alternative ways. And so and I think we are addressing it through through things like building ferry terminals and things like that.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And one last thing on that point, I used to be able to remember the stat off the top of my head, but when you look at the CARP plan, the city's CARP plan, which is the Climate Action Resiliency Plan, if I remember those They looked at the vehicle miles traveled in Alameda and it's gone down, which to me is a signal that these alternative modes of transit are working. And in that same period, the population has gone up. So even though more people are coming to the island, we're actually seeing less car usage in the past years. And now that large part of it probably is because work from home, but it's a reality that we can say is actually happening.
Jeff Gould:Okay. Okay. So the the CARP plan addresses climate action as well as resiliency. Yeah. For example, the Seawall you pointed out attached to this development here.
Jeff Gould:What's it? What's your feelings about the CARP? Is it enough? Is it adequate to address the problem we're facing?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I think it's a compass and would I I don't think it's enough in the sense of I think we are at a grave danger as a planet towards where we're heading in things. And in the sense that I think it, we are pushed towards more concrete methods of measuring our progress and setting goals. I think that that's great. To know most of our problems at this point tend to be from vehicle emissions in Alameda because of our how we power our town. I think that's like been a really good change with our clean energy.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And of course, we could get that better. But I think I think what I would love to see is is probably like more myopic focus on this this is our problem let's attack that quite quite hard on on how do we get our emissions our vehicle emissions down
Jeff Gould:Right, and you know in the case of incentives for electric vehicles
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yes.
Jeff Gould:We're doing some of that. Addressing multi-family properties and providing an avenue for those occupants, those tenants to go electric in their transportation has been pretty poor.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah.
Jeff Gould:That's one of the areas that needs a lot of improvement.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Exactly. You mentioned those rebates. When I looked at it, I can't remember the specific number, but when I looked at the numbers of people actually taking advantage of those rebates, it was dishearteningly low. It's very low, yes.
Jeff Gould:And part of that is there's too many hoops.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yes, exactly. Right, right.
Jeff Gould:Regulations to qualify for such incentives are daunting, you know, for people. That needs to change.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Right. And I would say like, to bring that back to the like abundance thinking is that that's one of the questions that are like, what what are the impediments that we ourselves are putting in front of ourselves to hitting our goals? Exactly. If we wanna see more people in electric cars, let's make that goal very myopically simple. It's like, is the tipping point that gets someone over?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And only that is maybe a lens to do. It. I guess I'm of the belief that we should take a portfolio based approach to how we do energy. I think one thing that you we haven't really directly talked about this, but I've been paying attention to how you've been framing it, which I think you're for a decentralized grid is what I'm sensing.
Jeff Gould:Yeah, that's, I was just gonna talk about that. The amount of capital that this Pacific Fusion project sucks up is for a very centralized power production concept versus say you putting solar panels on your roof. Right. And using the energy from those for your purposes. We need to do both.
Jeff Gould:Yeah. That's obvious.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yep.
Jeff Gould:But there are forces in our midst that are saying, you know, the bankers, the energy industry, they're saying no, you can't do that. We're the ones that provide the service to you. You cannot say, you know, I'm making my own.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah.
Jeff Gould:That's not that's not energy democracy. You know, it's not a distributed power production grid. And granted that idea means that they'll be a lot of investments in managing that, that type of fine grained grid.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah.
Jeff Gould:But those investments need to be made. And they're not they're not being made, for whatever reason. And then, you know, this pacific fusion project comes in and they want to sort of maintain that idea of a centralized power system. So I think we need both.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah, I think we need both, but maybe I also think that our insatiable appetite for energy means that what, even if we're like, maybe homes could be powered by this energy, sorry, But as we-
Jeff Gould:Rooftop solar.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Right, rooftop solar. But as we get into more energy intensive things like AI or even things like just clean metal foundries and things like that just require crap ton of energy that just a solar would not be able to do.
Jeff Gould:Hydrogen production is another one.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And so let alone like I think if we find these solutions like cheap clean energy we can live in a world where we start doing things that for example desalinating water at degrees that can solve some of our water problems in the Central Valley for example or things along those lines right like we will come up with new uses that open more doors and and we'll have some down downstream effects too, negative ones. I'm not going to deny that either.
Jeff Gould:There's a lot of industrial uses that justify a more centralized power production paradigm. Well, I do I disagree that fusion is cheap. Yeah. everybody I talk to says it's gonna be very expensive.
Jeff Gould:This is a one or two billion dollar project. They've started out at 2 now they're about down to 1 but and there's hazards involved. Tritium being one of them. Some of the materials used around the reactor to confine the neutrons will become radioactive. That will be considered waste, but not as dirty as the material from a fission reactor.
Jeff Gould:Nevertheless, it needs to be disposed of or stewarded so that it doesn't cause more problems like additional cancers or other issues. You know, there's just a basket of problems that they're going to have to work on.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And I think that's the art of science and engineering .
Jeff Gould:Anyway, let's move on to housing. In Alameda. Island City Beat recently did a interview with Doug Biggs of Alameda Point Collaborative regarding the wellness center over on McKay Street near Crab Cove, which is slated to open in March. Yep. Next year.
Jeff Gould:What are your feelings about that?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I think I'm so glad that that project is progressing and that's definitely been in my timeline of here in Alameda is seeing that being debated to soon to be opened. And from what I can see from the street is like, it's a beautiful building. It's adding value to our community in the sense of like, those empty buildings were not, but also it's adding value to actually helping people. I think that's a moral thing that we are obligated to do.
Jeff Gould:And yeah, now the firefighters that deal with homeless individuals that are sick have some place to take these people.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Exactly. I don't think we should be outsourcing those problems. Like, and maybe that's not even the right word, problem. It's more, this is something that is part of the system of Alameda and we have to tackle it here. And I, like what I've seen out of Alameda Point Collaborative is that they've been more innovative on things of like how to do these programs.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And let's talk about innovation beyond Pacific Fusion. Like if we can show new ways of tackling these issues that others can learn from that, I think that's great.
Jeff Gould:Yeah. Well, with a lot of community input.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah.
Jeff Gould:There, Doug Biggs did tours of the facility, you know, during the period where it was a proposed project. And it was very transparent, you know, that was sort of like the model for it.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Right.
Jeff Gould:And I think everything that APC does is like that. That's something that we need more of in the city.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Indeed. I mean, I don't want to discount the concerns that the residents nearby did. Then to note, this is not happening in my neighborhood. And I know that makes me abstracted enough that like, who am I to say this, right? Yet, here's what I know generally about things, or here's what I feel is generally about things is that things are rarely delivered as good as what it was promised and things are rarely as bad as what people feared. And so it's just truism of both sides, but my, you know, we put in this, I think they call it the bottle parcel near Target on that road over there, some transitionary housing as well.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And I know that was an issue for neighbors there. To the degree that I've heard issues about it since it's come in, it's not maybe to major veracity of like, oh, this this is so negatively affecting a neighborhood.
Jeff Gould:Well, I live on the on the West End. I've been there since 1988. So I've seen neighborhoods go up and down.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah.
Jeff Gould:And right now, I think things are pretty good. Yeah. Well, I don't think there's a lot of crime in Alameda compared to the era when the Navy was in town, for instance. And, you know, to be criticizing this kind of project like that, based on, you know, the potential increase of crime, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.
Jeff Gould:It doesn't really hold up. Yeah. Reality doesn't go along with it right now.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Right.
Jeff Gould:That may change, you know, who knows? But I don't know where we're headed. Yeah. With our federal government the way it is, but I don't think Alameda's going to fall off the end of the earth. No.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Think one notion about supportive housing that I was like, we have definitely concentrated it on one end of town. Mean, there's the women's shelter that's not too far from where we just started walking, but think great cities are the ones that where it's like this beautiful, mix of economic levels industry and residential and to retail. And so the notion of like, we should make sure that no one area is taking only certain kinds of things.
Jeff Gould:Granted
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:like when it comes to industry, things like The Point and the neighborhood that we're about to start walking in seem more sense for places like that. But on net, like you want a diversified portfolio across neighborhoods.
Jeff Gould:Yeah, I agree. That's one of the reasons I moved to the West End Of Alameda because it's always been very diverse. I remember many years ago, I live on Buena Vista and the sun sets at the West End Of Of Buena Vista. So the sun just beams right up the street At a certain time of the year.
Jeff Gould:And one day, this is a dead end we had to work. One day there was this young woman walking in African dress, African attire, very colorful and bright. And the sun was just beaming. And it was just so beautiful.
Jeff Gould:Those kinds of things just give me hope to see that diversity. Other people feel differently. I Don't know.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I don't get I don't empathize at that point. Yeah. If you don't, you don't see the joy in that.
Jeff Gould:Right. Okay, so. So what role do you see the techie culture playing in a transformation to a diverse, clean energy, hopeful world.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Are you saying I'm a techie? Is that what you're saying?
Jeff Gould:You come from that backround background. I don't.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I can only talk to myself and maybe like the vibes I feel from fellow peers, which is as a career, I've been a product manager most recently. And a product manager is this person that is in a technical organization always, that is in many ways, the voice of the user is the in house, but they're also the sieve of editorial lens on things. And that means like how we, what resources do we apply to it? What problems are we gonna prioritize? How are we gonna schedule this?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Which might sound more project management, but I would more frame it as really like, it is an editorial lens on things. And I think the best things in life are editorial. I think the three of us are really into art and the notion of like what is art but something that just says something has a voice and a point of view. And as you both know, I'm very interested in governments, both what I just recently did for work and to some extent still doing, but also I ran for local office here.
Jeff Gould:City Council.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:For city council, yeah. And I think that kind of thinking would be useful.
Jeff Gould:It's an organizing tool.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah, it's an organizing tool. Yeah. And I think it brings us different lenses than maybe typically you see in government right now. I mean, but what does that viscerally mean? I think means lensing on like, are the outcomes we wanna see?
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:What are the outcomes we don't wanna see and shaping things towards those outcomes. Now you can say that of anyone in office or in government. So like, I don't wanna say that's not happening, but I also think like there's another lens that technology people tend to have, which is that technology is a tool that we can use to deliver like outsized outcomes. Like they're like a fulcrum and lever to give more power towards the little might that you do have with the resources.
Jeff Gould:More transparency. Yeah.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:And so.
Jeff Gould:That would be good if it provided more transparency for the process.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah. When you say that, that where where do you think we're in? Where in these city orgs do you see lack of transparency?
Jeff Gould:Well, we mentioned the CARP earlier. Yeah. Climate Action Resiliency Plan. I think there's some issues with transparency in that. Okay.
Jeff Gould:They're not being honest about some of the inventories that they're presenting.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Okay.
Jeff Gould:They're leaning heavily on resilience, rather than action that would mitigate climate change. Resilience being more seawalls and, you know, defensive actions rather than going on the offense and presenting an example of climate action. Yeah.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:I'd love to add some other point, dig in on on some of those transparency things would be good. Going ahead. Yeah. But maybe add another point, like, we look at a document together or something, it's would love to feel out that problem.
Jeff Gould:It needs work. That's one of the ways that we can develop Alameda as a better place. You know, more input, more disclosure. Anyway, it's been a pleasure to speak with you Thushan. We'll wrap it up for now.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Alright. Thank You
Jeff Gould:Thank you for being on Island City Beat.
Thusham Amarasiriwardena:Yeah. Thank you for the conversation. Really, really appreciate it.
Jeff Gould:So this is Jeff Gould signing off from Island City Beat.