The Tattler queried the four Emeryville City Council candidates running in the November 4th election on topics of the day and all four responded. We asked five questions of each candidate and readers wishing background information on each question may preview the primer HERE. We will present each survey respondent every other day or so in alphabetical order. Emeryville voters will select two from the four. Third up in the cue is candidate Scott Donahue.
Candidate's website: HERE
Scott Donahue: Candidate for City Council
1) Will
you vote for, support and/or endorse Measures U&V? Yes or no
please. If yes why and if no why not?
I
will vote "yes" on both Measures U and V. I enthusiastically support
both measures because they will enable our city to create capital funds for
infrastructure - - crucial to our growing city. With the loss of our Emeryville Redevelopment Agency, this tax is needed to keep our city going strong.
The
sole purpose of the charter city Measure U is to provide a legal mechanism
that would allow the voters to pass a property transfer tax, Measure
V. This transfer tax, is 20 percent less than Berkeley and
Oakland and will keep our city very attractive to future business and development. Don't
let the National Association of Realtors scare you with their upcoming
anti-Emeryville no on U and V campaign.
2) Do
you support Emeryville’s Pedestrian/Bicycle Plan as it pertains to the Horton
Street Bike Boulevard? Would you weaken the Plan or would you defend
it as it is?
I strongly support
Emeryville's Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan overall, including maintaining Horton
Street as a bike boulevard. I helped craft the plan, having spent more
than 10 years on the City's Bicycle and Pedestrian
Advisory Committee. It is a balanced plan and addresses the needs of all stakeholders.
The
plan calls for traffic calming on Horton Street. This street is our main
north-south bicycling Street through our city. It needs a slower traffic speed
then Hollis Street or San Pablo Avenue to be safe for bicyclists. Horton Street is getting
regional vehicular traffic looking to avoid Interstate 80 and this is starting to
endanger our bicyclists and pedestrians. Our bicycle plan provides a variety of
street designs to keep this route safe for all users. I have advocated that we
should use grant money we received for this purpose to try some designs that
will slow automobile traffic. These will be temporary structures installed on
Horton Street which we will study the effects on traffic and safety. If it
proves successful and we like the results, we can make these structures
permanent.
3) In
the future, how should the City guarantee independently owned and locally
serving (non-formula) retail associated with residential and commercial development
projects, if at all?
Our
city has wisely specified a certain amount of commercial space designed for
retail as a part of new residential developments. What it has not done is
create a way for much needed independently owned, locally serving retail to
thrive in our residential neighborhoods. We should require developers
to structure rental agreements that provide for subsidies and other
support to help smaller, locally serving businesses to
succeed.
4) How
do you define family friendly housing for Emeryville? How do we get
it? How much is needed?
Successful
family friendly housing is housing that allows families to put down
roots in Emeryville. We can do this by providing incentives
to developers to provide affordable and adequate space, good design
and public space. Brooklyn NY, a very dense and family friendly urban area, has
many homes and apartments with small private backyards that provide critical outdoor
space for children to play, while being in a safe environment where they can be closely supervised by their parents. Permitting apartments or condos to be built above these
ground-level spaces would be the developer incentive to build these town home family
oriented units. Parking could be provided in an adjoining structure.
Our
supply of family friendly housing is not sufficient to meet the minimum needs of
our school district, which is forced to recruit students from outside of
Emeryville.
5) Should
the City actively encourage residents to enter into Community Benefits
Agreements (CBA) with large development projects? How?
Emeryville
needs to do a better job educating its residents about Community Benefits
Agreements. These agreements allow residents to get directly
involved in requesting and managing community benefits of
new development projects in the city. By encouraging residents to enter
into a Community Benefits Agreement with large developers, we will help
address the needs of our neighborhoods. At no cost to our city, we can reap the same neighborhood improving benefits of what larger cities create in their precincts, neighborhood councils and urban political districts and
this will create better neighborhoods (and a more actively engaged citizenry) here in Emeryville.
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