Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Council Moves Sharply Against Emeryville Residents

July 19, 2011: Democracy Dies At City Hall
City Council: Emeryville Citizens Are Too Stupid To Decide For Themselves

We Are The Law, Says Council
Tonight, the Emeryville city council revealed the months of City Hall backroom dealing with Pixar and other large businesses has paid off handsomely for the business community.  In a shocking and brazenly undemocratic vote,  tonight the city council moved to protect Pixar's interests and voted to disallow the citizens a ballot initiative in November whether the infamous business licence tax cap should be eliminated as they previously said they would.  Pixar, which would have seen a tax hike up to normal Bay Area rates with a tax cap removal had publicly threatened the city with "rancor" if they did not get their way.  It's unknown what they told decision makers in the closed room meetings at City Hall.

In another startling anti-democratic move, the council tonight also voted to disallow the citizens to decide for themselves whether the City Attorney should be replaced.  Council member Ken Bukowski warned his colleagues that the petition to place the decision on the November ballot was in the process of being certified by the County Registrar of Voters but the rest of the council moved forward anyway to head off a citizen vote in November.

The Tattler will be covering this remarkable anti-democratic turn of events in coming days as we uncover more facts.

5 comments:

  1. We shouldn't have to just take this. We need to fight back, this is really too much even for Emeryville.

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  2. Residents of Emeryville, you have been asleep and in your dream-like state picked-clean. There is no democracy in this town. The majority of the council, city and staff are morally corrupt and without integrity.

    Emeryville Council was bullied and threatened by a Disney Pixar lawyer, Bob Cantor and other business entities. They threatened mayhem both publically and in back room deals. At last night’s city council meeting Cantor again threatened the city. Don’t start adding-up what the city has given to Cantor free! No charge for the chamber's offices, money for the chamber newspaper, a ten-thousand here, a thirty-thousand there and pretty soon over the years a lot of money. And here he is dumping all over the council. At a national level the Chamber of Commerce has always been bereft of any moral standing, and there is no difference at the city level.

    It does not matter how you look at it, the residents are left to pay off the city's indebtedness. The bonds: the enormous debt from abusing the redevelopment agency’s mandates are left solely on the shoulders of the residents, and the corporations walk away with so much money they just don’t know where to hide it all. It is obscene.

    I laughed as I watched the pledge of allegiance, hands on heart and spouting words of patriotism. The reality is there is no caring for the nation, the city or the state. Mouthing words of platitudes, letting the country and our city be destroyed. We are a microcosm of the nation and we are being destroyed through greed and stupidness.

    The Ballot--the staff had already written up the new version "in anticipation" of the change of mind of the council members.

    And the Bukowski ballot for addressing concerns regarding the city attorney, well that will not go anywhere—stopped by the council members even though over 700 residents’ signatures were collected. Now that’s democracy at work—let’s here it for Emeryville!

    The madness of it all. As someone said last night, the corporations should pay. When will the state investigate this seedy little hamlet? ms

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  3. Somebody is going to start begging for their current positions soon enough.

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  4. SO GLAD I don't live in Emeryville...

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