School District Peddles Overly Sunny Depictions of Community Center to Media

This is What a PR 'Puff' Piece Looks Like

In a recent article in a spin-off site of the popular on-line business magazine Fast Company called Co.EXIST, a seasoned reporter got buffaloed by the consultants designing the Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL) and reported a number of fawning but out-dated and inaccurate points about the ECCL design.  In the story entitled, "This Is What It Looks Like When a School Becomes A Community Hub" readers are gushingly told that the design will include "a 'faux creek,' space for gardens and bikes, solar panels, rooftop access, and a 24/7 public bikeway." Well, as it turns out, one out of five isn't bad.

Or maybe it is bad...

This is what it looks like when facts aren't checked.

Those paying closer attention to the ECCL project or engaged in what is known as "fact-checking" would know that the "faux creek" called for in our City's General Plan along the 53rd Street Greenway was just too darn expensive to include in the plans submitted to, and shot down by, the Planning Commission on July 25th.

At that Planning Commission meeting we were told that solar panels were under serious discussion, but still not a definite part of the ECCL plan.

Rooftop access is, so far as the Tattler knows, only planned in the 30-year distant "Phase 2" that most Emeryville residents will never live to see.

And that '24/7' public bikeway... well, from your lips to School District Architect Roy Miller's ears. Let's certainly hope so, but the District has been fighting tooth and nail to avoid building the bike/ped path called for in our General Plan for months now.

One also has to love the quotes provided by 'MKThunk', particularly the last praising the "programs" at the ECCL site, programs that have not yet been developed and that the public has asked the School District to prioritize over the mere buildings for some time now.

This is what it looks like when reporters
print what the government wants them to.