Mayor Martinez: Lying & Science Denialism Rates a D-

 Mayor Dianne Martinez

Continuing our tradition of looking back on each year-long mayorship of the rotating Emeryville City Council members/cum mayors, with Dianne Martinez now moving aside to make way for John Bauters, we take this opportunity to look back on Mayor Martinez’s tenure as Emeryville's highest elected official.  The Tattler continues with the tradition of these mayoral wrap-ups; the assignment of letter grades for each mayor—and to that end, we report Dianne Martinez has received a D- for her efforts as our mayor.

Opinion

Emeryville Mayor in 2021
Dianne Martinez

A glaring piece of bad politics came last June 15th when the Council majority voted to cut down the people’s street trees at the Sherwin Williams development site at the request of Lennar Development Corporation, Mayor Martinez leading the charge.  Before her June 15th vote, she also had voted to kill the same trees in a losing bid in 2019.  Ms Martinez, hoping people had forgotten, appallingly attempted to rewrite history when she announced at the June meeting she had been in favor of saving the trees in 2019.  “I was on the side of doing everything we could [to save the trees] but now, I’m on the side of (having the healthiest and most vibrant trees on Horton Street), she said, parroting the developer’s talking points.  Ms Martinez’s colleague, the former Councilman Christian Patz, at the same June 15th meeting told the assembled crowd that the developer had presented no new information from the 2019 Council vote (when the trees were saved).  The Mayor, undaunted, then voted to kill the trees again after happily announcing that the developer had gone behind the back of the Council and gotten permission from the staff regardless and so any vote to save the trees would just be a wasted protest vote.  This was the politics of the public be damned at its most cynical.

In addition to her terrible vote in June, before the voting and before hearing her colleagues openly deliberate on the matter, Mayor Martinez stated that she had already made up her mind to kill the trees, attempting to unfairly coerce her colleagues into voting with her.  She announced, “Let me indicate for you how I’m going to vote tonight”  (see video at 33:40) without letting the other Council members have their say in a fair and open manner.  In so doing, Mayor Martinez worked to close down open and meaningful Council debate.  All City Council members are supposed to listen to what the others say before deciding.  They should come to meetings with an open mind.  They are actually paid to have an open mind in matters of public policy.

Lying Mixed With Science Denialism

Shockingly, Mayor Martinez later denied she ever made the “Let me indicate for you…” announcement.  It’s not as if these meetings are not recorded and on the City’s website for all to see.  So we're not sure what she thinks she's doing with this.

The dreadful behavior exhibited around the June 15th Council decision is added to Ms Martinez’s blanket rejection of scientifically collected housing data by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) of which Emeryville is a dues paying member.  Mayor Martinez continued to vote to give developers a free pass, increasing their negotiating strength with her constantly stated position that Emeryville needs more (market rate) housing.  Her housing claims exactly mirror developers' and are in direct contradiction to ABAG who reports that our town is far ahead of our housing mandate every measuring period.  The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on this, to Ms Martinez's dismay.

The lone Emeryville City Council member who utterly rejects ABAG’s housing data, “I think the ABAG recommendations are too low”  she told the Tattler in 2018, Ms Martinez refuses to tell the people how she knows that or how much housing Emeryville should have.  This position of hers means she is not working to leverage Emeryville’s value when developers come knocking with their housing project proposals.  If we are always desperate for more housing, we'll let developers have their way with us, leading to less livability for existing residents in the negotiations.  

And that leads us into another area of bad policy from Mayor Martinez: Emeryville’s lack of action on delivering more parks to our worst-city-in-the-Bay-Area park acreage to resident ratio.  Emeryville added zero new park acreage during her term (and only one acre during her entire City Council term of seven years despite the City adding more than 2000 new residents during that time).

For all these reasons (especially lying to the people) plus a lack of action for bike transportation and no action on getting a public library like she promised (see question #10) , Mayor Martinez gets a D- .  Not a fail, but almost.

Vice Mayor Donahue Skipped Over for Mayor

 Council Colleagues Deny Vice Mayor the Mayoralty

Loss of Confidence in his Abilities Cited

Not To Be Mayor Scott Donahue
His colleagues expressed a
loss of confidence in him.

Mayor Dianne Martinez announced at the December 7th City Council meeting “It is with a heavy heart and for the health of the City...” she would join with three of her colleagues in stopping Vice Mayor Scott Donahue from becoming mayor as he was set to do Tuesday night.  Losing Ms Martinez's support spelled doom for the Vice Mayor’s mayoral prospects who fully expected to be voted in as mayor as is the customary tradition in Emeryville.  Instead it was Council member John Bauters who got the nod Tuesday evening when his colleagues voted for him to become the next mayor.

In what was likely an example of cultural groupthink 'go along to get along', newly elected Courtney Welch, who had been sworn in as a Council member only moments before, joined in with the vote to elevate Councilman Bauters and to stop the Vice Mayor, having had no relationship with Mr Donahue at all.    

The vote represented a rare but not unheard of skipping of a Council member in line successionally to be elevated as mayor.  After initially expressing interest in and lobbying for the mayor position, Vice Mayor Donahue ultimately joined with his colleagues in what turned out to be a unanimous 5-0 vote for Mr Bauters.  Councilwoman Ally Medina was selected as the new vice mayor, also in a unanimous 5-0 vote.  

Normally, each Council member gets a turn as mayor for a year after serving for a year as vice mayor.  Only a few times has the line of mayoral succession been upset before.

Emeryville's New Mayor
John Bauters

Tuesday night, looming budgetary problems seemed to be on the Council’s mind and that was cited as the primary reason for the vote for Mr Bauters.  Councilwoman Medina, who expressed a lack of confidence in Mr Donahue’s abilities, nominated Mr Bauters after she said next year will be very difficult to balance the budget, invoking an impending structural budget crisis.  “We’ll likely need a revenue generating ballot measure during the mid term year” she said, adding “Our city will be best served stewarded by a member of Council who has spent years diving into these [budgetary] details”.  She praised Mr Bauters’ fiscal expertise as she forwarded his name, skipping Mr Donahue.  

Skipping fellow Council members’ their due to serve as mayor is not unprecedented but it has been rare in Emeryville over the decades.  It has historically happened when a Council member angered or embarrassed their colleagues.  In the 1990’s Council member Greg Harper, the lone progressive on a very conservative council at the time, was denied his turn as mayor as was former council member Ken Bukowski later, who fell out of favor among his colleagues after a damning New York Times article about his illicit drug use.  Forming an alliance, once, a Council member was skipped in order to help a different and vulnerable colleague who needed the perceived gravitas the mayoralty provides to assist him for the following November election.

Mr Bauters will serve as mayor for one year followed by Ms Medina....unless there's more ruffled feathers and another kerfuffle in the Council chambers next December. 

Sherwin Williams Project: Violation of Public Trust on Labor Rights

 City of Emeryville Screws Construction Workers at Sherwin Williams Site

Dirty Double Deal as Workers Paid Substandard Wages in Our Name

News Analysis/Opinion

Conspicuous on Horton Street at the Sherwin Williams construction site recently is a large three dimensional representation of veiled black death and a huge thumbs down sign among other signs decrying unfair labor practices.  It's an embarrassment for our town as workers very visibly demonstrate a labor dispute with two sub-contracting firms building the Sherwin Williams project, something the City of Emeryville promised would not happen when this project was approved.  The two  firms, Steelwave Development and Lusardi Construction, have been cited by the demonstrating union workers at the project site over the last few weeks as reneging on the promise that the project be constructed with prevailing union wages that the City of Emeryville had guaranteed. 

The fact that the Sherwin Williams project, the largest construction project in years in Emeryville, is being built in violation of the agreement and so hurting workers in the community is bad for labor of course but the breach of trust violates the City's word as far as the local citizens are concerned too.  The people of Emeryville were promised this project would not be built by oppressing the workers building it.  Had we been told substandard wages would be paid by the subcontractors, we might well have protested this project.  But the City of Emeryville wanted this project to be built and so to get us on board, they assured us this would not happen.  They bought community peace with the assurance the workers would be paid prevailing union wages.  

Now we come to find out it was all a sham by the City of Emeryville.  This Sherwin Williams project is being constructed at the expense of local workers and its being done in our name.  

We admonish the two firms, Steelwave LLC and Lusardi Construction for screwing their workers in our city of course.  But these are profit driven corporations who can be counted on to always do what they think they can get away with as they seek to maximize their profits.  Corporations lie, cheat and steal as far as the law allows; that's to be expected.  So as far as their honor goes, we appeal to them to do the right thing.   But we're not holding our breath they're going to anything but continue to screw their workers as long as they feel they can get away with it.  And they know they can get away with it in a push over pro-development city like Emeryville.

All the parties concerned; Steelwave LLC, Lusardi Construction, the general contractor Lennar Development and Mayor Dianne Martinez as well as the City of Emeryville refused to comment on this.  We expect silence from the contractors but the City of Emeryville has to behave in a transparent manner.   This is public policy.  We want to know what City Hall is going to do about this.

We're calling out the City of Emeryville for this dirty double deal, screwing workers in our name.  We say the City has to make this right.  They made their promise to us, the resident citizens of this town, and now they have to step in and fix this.   

A city that loves developers is willing to screw workers. 
Emeryville promised us this wouldn't happen as long as we supported this project.