Breaking: City Council Majority Votes to Agendize Censure of Council Member Priforce

Breaking News:

Tonight at a special Emeryville City Council meeting, Mayor Courtney Welch moved to censure her colleague Kalimah Priforce for “numerous violations” of Emeryville’s new Code of Ethics to be voted on at a future City Council meeting.  The vote was 4-1 to agendize the item (Priforce dissenting).  

This is the first use of the Code of Ethics since it was certified by the City Council last year.

The Mayor did not describe what ethics violations she thinks Mr Priforce violated but even without any general description, her three colleagues voted to place the item on a future agenda.  None of the three Council members who voted with Ms Welch to agendize a censure, not David Mourra, John Bauters or Sukhdeep Kaur, publicly asked the Mayor what violations they were being asked to vote on, raising the specter of a possible private pre-discussion by Council members.  If such a discussion happened behind closed doors, that could constitute a Brown Act violation.  

The City Attorney, John Kennedy, gave a presentation to the City Council some months ago wherein he described that Council members or even City committee members are proscribed by the Code of Ethics; among the violations he listed is “calling people names” on social media.  Because the Mayor Courtney Welch (and Planning Commissioner Dianne Martinez) both violated this mandate, the Tattler submitted a complaint to the Council in October but they refused to hear it.  This fact plus tonight’s opaque misadventure shows how the new Code of Ethics has already been politicized by this Council majority.  The Tattler will report on how the Code of Ethics is being abused by the City Council in a future story.

Council member Priforce responded to the Council's action tonight, telling the Tattler, "None of this is a surprise to me or should be a surprise to anyone who has been following the hostility of this council towards me since before I took office with their collegiality pledge, the attacks I received on the evening I took office, and on multiple occasions they've attempted to silence or trivialize my presence on the council. They are afraid of my voice. They are afraid of the people's voice. It's not about me, it's about what I represent. So rather than laugh at their theatrics, I focused on the task at hand, support Calvin and Mia in their campaign to be our future council members and return city hall back into the hands of the people."