City of Emeryville Retaliates Against Tattler

City Hall Removes Tattler Bulletin Board in an Act of Apparent Retaliation

Community Services Director Can't Elucidate City's Policy on Removal

Acting on a complaint from a single person, the City of Emeryville has removed a bulletin board adjacent to a public sidewalk placed by the Tattler for the dissemination of information in the public interest.  Lasting barely two weeks at the corner of Horton and Sherwin street, the Community Bulletin Board was removed despite a plethora of other encroachments into the public easement throughout the city that have received public complaint yet remain standing.  

Community Services Director
Pedro Jimenez
He is responsible for encroachments 
on Emeryville property but he
can't or won't explain how he decides
who is golden and who is an outcast. 
Who's encroachment gets to stay
and who's gets removed.

Pressed for clarity on the law in this matter, the City of Emeryville has so far refused to explain the process for how private encroachments into public space can be removed, leaving the City exposed to credible charges of retaliation against those in disfavor at City Hall.

Favoritism

Director of Community Services and Assistant City Manager Pedro Jimenez told the Tattler the Community Bulletin Board, that extended seven inches into the public easement, was not placed there with permission and that it had received a citizen complaint.  Those two metrics are all it took for the City to remove it, he said and that’s what the Public Works Department promptly did.  However Mr Jimenez refused to elaborate on how numerous other privately owned things installed on Emeryville public property without permission, including two so called ‘little libraries’ and at least one other community bulletin board, have been able to remain despite citizen complaints.  Notable is the fact that two former City Council members have installed their personal property in the public easement without permission and the City has allowed them to stand.  Nonetheless, Mr Jimenez is adamant the law in Emeryville on this is not arbitrary or capricious and there's no culture of favoritism helping popular people nor one of retaliation against unpopular people, including the Tattler, a well known and long standing critic of City Hall.

Retaliation

The Former Community Bulletin Board
It stood seven inches into the public
easement but after it received a citizen
complaint from a Tattler hater,
it was removed in three days.

The City of Emeryville received a complaint against the Tattler's Community Bulletin Board and within three business days the Public Works Department had removed it.  That's very quick public service considering how long they take to fill potholes dangerous to bikes.  Some could argue that the three day rapid response is indicative of a City Hall that is not appreciative of the Emeryville Tattler and all its stories exposing the dysfunction at City Hall, especially when it is compared with the six weeks the City has so far taken (and still not removed), the public encroachments elsewhere in the City that have received complaints.  The asymmetry of response reveals an Emeryville City Hall that feels it is OK to retaliate against critics.

Explaining that the public, including critics of City Hall, “should be treated fairly and equitably”, Pedro Jimenez failed to explain the discrepancies between the Community Bulletin Board encroachment done by the Tattler and the other encroachments done by other people including former City Council members.  He said the City only needs two conditions be met to remove a private encroachment on the City’s property: if it was placed without permission and if the City received a complaint about it.  But when he was reminded of all the other private encroachments throughout Emeryville that have met those two criteria, Mr Jimenez said the City will “look into them”.  That was six weeks ago.  Questioned repeatedly, he refused to say what other metrics would be considered as the City ‘looks into it’.  This is a violation of the government’s requirement to treat everyone equally under the law and the City of Emeryville is thus found lacking.

A Different Community 
Bulletin Board
In the Triangle neighborhood, it stands
11 inches into the public easement but
despite citizen complaint, it gets
to stay.  The City won't say why.

The City of Emeryville made a choice to remove the Tattler Community Bulletin Board three days after receiving the citizen complaint.  There is no law stating it had to be removed using complaints or whatever metrics the City claims to be powerless against.  One only needs to note the other encroachments throughout the city to see proof of that.  We’re not sure why the City of Emeryville, who is on record claiming to desire sidewalk vitality and public engagement would be so quick to remove something that brought that to the neighborhood other than the obvious.  

The opposite of people engaging in the public commons is them cocooning in their homes, not using the sidewalks, not being active in their government, not being democratically engaged.  Community bulletin boards help make the public commons more vital and active and help engage people into the community; all things Emeryville City Hall and the City Council claim to want.    They could have allowed the Community Bulletin Board to stay but other unacknowledged forces were in play.  This is obviously simple retaliation against a free press that delivers the truth to the people of Emeryville, thirteen years running….a truth that our local government is sometimes not as good as they say they are.  

The Community Bulletin Board is censored and removed but the Tattler won’t be.

Emeryville Planning Director and former City
Councilwoman Dianne Martinez, without permission, 
put this private encroachment on public
property and the City has received citizen
complaint against it.  It gets to stay says Pedro.

Former City Councilman Scott Donahue 
placed this encroachment into City property without
permission.  It attracts graffiti, extends 14 inches into
the public easement, received citizen complaint against
it and it also gets to stay.