John Bauters Era Ends: a Consequential Council Member Retires

 The End of the 'Bauters Era'

Housing Development Corporations Benefited Tremendously Under Bauters But

Residents Saw Little Benefit, Mostly Rising Problems

John Bauters stepped down from the Emeryville City Council December 10th as a necessary result of him choosing to run a campaign for Alameda County Supervisor.  That race ended in a November 5th loss and finished an eight year political career for the undisputed leader of Emeryville.  

Stripped of power and now just a private citizen, it's a good time to reflect on John Bauters’ tenure as our leader; the man who for better or worse, ran the ‘Bauters Era’ for our town.

First running a losing campaign for the City Council as a conservative in 2014, Bauters tried again as a progressive in 2016 and won after having received the endorsement of the popular center left residential activist group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE).  After taking office, he quickly repositioned himself as a conservative in the mold of his mentor, the former leader of Emeryville, Nora Davis.  Both Ms Davis and Mr Bauters unabashedly led Emeryville by embracing a top down, pro-corporate, private sector deregulation governing philosophy.  For Council member Davis it was a pro-development-of-any-kind philosophy and for Council member Bauters it was a pro-housing developer philosophy.  Both leaders took a hands off approach to corporate developers seeking profit maximization in our town.  As a result, with Ms Davis in control, Emeryville delivered three major suburban style auto-centric shopping malls and the giant campus closed to the public Pixar while Mr Bauters delivered the ubiquitous seen-one-you've-seen-them-all rental apartment blocks.  Notably, John differed from Councilwoman Davis insofar as he likes to ride his bike.

Emeryville's Homelessness During the Bauters Era
Numbers of Individuals
79% drop since 2019 but 31% increase since 2016.
He only told  Alameda County voters about his 
2019-2024 numbers, failing to tell about 
his 2016-17 numbers.
Source: Alameda County '24 PIT count

Flowing from this pro-developer epistemological polity, many of the things people in Emeryville like have been delegated to second tier status; things like creating new parks, creating housing for families, locally serving storefront retail and creating a city of homeowners versus renters.  Because housing developers would have to pay for them, these are things developers don’t want and as a result, these are things not delivered on Mr Bauters’ watch.  For the record, Bauters himself says he’s a YIMBY Council member.  The San Fransisco Chronicle agreed, as revealed in their story where they called our Councilman “The most YIMBY mayor in the most YIMBY city in California”. 

There were some positive things Council member Bauters brought.  He is a very effective speaker and able to effectively galvanize people when he needs to.  Early in his first term, Bauters staged community building citizen appreciation events at the Council meetings where individual citizens would be called up to the podium and awarded plaques of appreciation from the City of Emeryville for their public good works.  He pushed through a taxpayer funded $50 million affordable housing bond to try to ameliorate the gentrifying effects of all the market rate luxury apartments developers like to build.  But conspicuously, it has just been all-rental apartments, all the time.

A good way to recount the adverse effects of the Bauters Era on those living here is to simply tally the most egregious negativity he delivered:

1)   He rolled back the wages of the poorest working poor among us when he rolled back our minimum wage.

2)  He said NO to any new parks until there is enough rental housing built (but he has refused to tell us how much housing we need).  

3)  Going against our General Plan, he transformed Emeryville from a city of homeowners into a city of renters.

4)  Siding with the corporate Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) developer lobbying group YIMBY, he has moved against local control of our housing policy in order to hand it over to corporations.

5)  After turning us into a city of renters, he has stopped all attempts to empower renters seeking rent stabilization or rent control (because developers are against it).

6)  After agreeing to allow a code of ethics law for Emeryville, he has said NO to allowing an independent ethics commission to ensure the new law is not politicized and applied fairly and equitably.

7)  As chair of the Budget and Governance Committee for eight consecutive years, he failed due diligence and brought the worst budget deficit in Emeryville history.

8)  In order to facilitate a proposed all-rental housing project, the ill fated 700’ tall ‘Onni Tower’, he proposed a roll back two of Emeryville’s new ordinances meant to ameliorate the ill effects of developer greed: the tower separation ordinance and the unit mix ordinance. 

9)  After pushing through a Council resolution to support Ukraine from Russian aggression, he said NO to a call for a Gaza ceasefire resolution.

10)  He intervened and stopped our democratic mayoral rotation in order to take a second term for himself, stating he is needed because of his budget expertise (and then he blow up the deficit).

Homelessness in Emeryville
as candidate John Bauters reported
it to the voters. 
He did a great job he said.
But something critical is missing
from this narrative.

After suffering through all this corporatist anti-resident Bauters Era politics, Emeryville residents watched as candidate Bauters in November told Alameda County residents he had reduced homelessness in Emeryville by 79%.  The un-cherry picked facts reveal he INCREASED homelessness in Emeryville by 31% over the course of his tenure on our Council.  Bauters only told about homelessness dropping since 2019, skipping over the previous four years of homelessness increasing while he was in command.  The rest of Alameda County also followed the same trend: homelessness went down recently after having increased previously.  In this way, homelessness in Emeryville is not unique in the Bay Area.  But that was not something Mr Bauters wanted to tell.  Further, homelessness in Emeryville is much lower than neighboring Oakland because the police here roust them out before they get a chance to set up an encampment, a policy highlighted by the Tattler in a series of articles in 2022, an inconvenient fact for candidate Bauters.

Perhaps the most disturbing development at the Council in the Bauters Era is the new zero accountability, zero transparency culture.  Like Council members Courtney Welch and Sukhdeep Kaur after him, Bauters refused to answer questions from his constituents (if the questions are tough).  He refused to answer emails, texts or calls.  Adding to this, he refused to hold press conferences, and as a result, the people never got any accountability from him.  Mr Bauters, seeking bigger political office after Emeryville, protected his brand and his narrative at all costs, eschewing any negativity that could rub off on him were he to have engaged with his constituents or the press.  So far Courtney Welch is following this same path. Notably, Nora Davis did not see her role as a public servant like Bauters and Welch do: Council member Davis took questions and comments from all comers; a tradition of public accountability that sadly has died with Bauters.

Emeryville has the unfortunate distinction that it regularly falls victim to a ‘strongman’ culture at City Hall.  After the fall of the criminally corrupt John LaCoste era of the 70’s, Emeryville has had three multi-year leaders.  Two of the three have been pro-corporate, pro-developer conservatives.  The three have been Nora Davis, conservative, 25 years in power (four in the wilderness), Jac Asher, progressive, 5 years in power followed by Bauters, conservative, eight years in power.  Council member Bauters has groomed the conservative, pro-developer Courtney Welch to be our new leader but it is not clear during this interregnum period if that will become our continuing illiberal future.  

Over the last 38 years, other than the few short years with a progressive in power, conservative politics here have resulted in a corporate retail chain store and traffic clogged city with the fewest acres of parks per resident of any town in the Bay Area.  Emeryville is the largest town without a library in the Bay Area, it has the lowest percentage of families of any town in the East Bay, and the highest rate of renters over homeowners in the East Bay.  Emeryville’s renter residents live alone and cut off from a community due to the auto centric nature of our town.  At 1.8 people per housing unit, Emeryville has the lowest number of people per housing unit in the East Bay.  In a town like this, without an engaged citizenry, it’s not surprising Emeryville has the second worse school district in the East Bay.  This is the legacy of the Bauters Era.

Former Emeryville City Council member
John Bauters
2016-2024
Back in 2026?

Council Member Ends Hunger Strike: Petition Goal for Ethics Commission Met

 Ending Hunger Strike after 1000 Signatures From Community Members,

Priforce Forces Council Majority's Hand

Community Weighs In, 

Ball Now in Council Colleague's Court

Council member Kalimah Priforce ended his ten day hunger strike yesterday after an online petition in support of an Emeryville ethics commission showed more than 1000 signatures, the number he said he would need to end the strike.  The change.org petition, 1049 signatures strong at the time of this story's posting, is meant for Emeryville residents and surrounding neighbors to show their displeasure at the Emeryville City Council for refusing an independent ethics commission to be implemented to compliment the existing Code of Ethics.  

The fear, publicly expressed by the City Manager and the City Attorney when the Code of Ethics was certified in September 2023, is that without an ethics commission working to enforce the Code of Ethics, the City Council would be the enforcement arm for the ordinance and they would be tempted to politicize or weaponize it.  That fear has been well founded with the recent censure and sanction of Council member Priforce by the four other Council members even while they have refused to hold Council member Courtney Welch to account using the same Code of Ethics.  For an elected political body majority to use a law as a cudgel against a political enemy while holding themselves free from constraint by the same law is a classic polarization or weaponization that an ethics commission would not allow. 

Council Member Priforce
Last night he ate food for the 
first time in ten days.

 

The petition is designed to force the City Council’s hand, owing to the fact that the Council majority has thus far steadfastly refused to allow an independent ethics commission.   New Mayor David Mourra, when voting to certify the Code of Ethics in 2023, hinted he would be amenable to the formation of a commission at a later date, “The Code of Ethics is a good first step” he said as the Council prepared to vote on the new law. Offering a motion for a Council vote, Mr Mourra left an independent ethics commission out, at least at the outset,  “Lets take this first step and adopt this and see how things go”, he told his colleagues. Since then however, Mr Mourra has hardened his position against the idea of an ethics commission as have Council members Welch and Kaur, against a damning documented violation of the Code by Courtney Welch in September.  

The signatures collected in support of an independent ethics commission will be either taken up by the City Council as an impetuous to establish a commission by fiat or the incipient citizen activist neighborhood group Emery Rising will move forward with a ballot initiative for Emeryville voters to decide, says Council member Priforce.  

Mr Priforce told the Tattler, "As a Black man in America, I was born censured and sanctioned. The solipsistic behaviors of my council colleagues have proven the unchecked power distance that exists between City Hall and the people of Emeryville. This petitioned victory was about Emery Rising bringing the fight back to the people and letting them decide if Emeryville should remain stuck in the shadows of being the rottenest city or if an independent public ethics commission should be part of a future that unites us with a hope that moves us forward."  Conjuring a Star Wars meme, Priforce called the signature petition and looming ballot initiative,  "A New Hope".

Coming off the hunger strike, Council member Priforce reports that he is in good spirits but weak and only eating very sparingly for the time being upon the advice of his doctor.

This is what the petition website looked like at 9:00 last night.

Biggest Deficit in Emeryville History: Bauters Blames Planning Commission

 Eight Years as Chair of the Budget Committee, John Bauters Owns Emeryville's $11.8 Million Deficit

But

Planning Commission is Blamed

Mayor Welch Too Serves On the Budget Committee, Lies to Voters

The City of Emeryville has gone public with the fact it has an $11.8 million budget deficit, the worst in Emeryville history, as reported by paid consultant Brian Moura in a recent address to the City Council.  It was such an embarrassing announcement for outgoing City Council member John Bauters, the eight year Chair of the Budget and Governance Committee, that seeking a scapegoat, he blamed the Planning Commission at the November 19th City Council meeting.

Mr Moura who is unrelated to Emeryville’s vice mayor David Mourra, told the Council “In terms of this fiscal year, 2024-’25, we’re projecting an $11.8 million shortfall with a decline of revenues of $5.5 million and an increase in expenses of $6.3 million”.  An outsider expert looking in, Mr Moura said reduced development fees from what was expected drove the shortfall because  “a major component of your [Emeryville’s] revenue picture” come from such fees.  Specifically, many life science/biotech firms that had expressed interest in building lab space in Emeryville failed to materialize and with the fall out came a loss in expected revenue that would have been generated from all the fees associated with the biotech building boom.

Scooter King Emeryville City Council Member
John Bauters
He offered a boatload of taxpayer money to host
an electric scooter race in Emeryville in 2023.

Immediately upon the finish of the report delivered by the consultant, eyes turned to John Bauters, who has been the Chair of the Budget and Governance Committee for eight consecutive years.  Mr Bauters wasted no time in shifting blame, he acknowledged that all the bio-tech development fees had been put in Emeryville’s fiscal health basket but he said he wasn’t responsible.  Rather, Bauters said it is the Planning Commission that is to blame.  He said they never should have approved all the bio-tech projects developers had been proposing over the last few years, supply outpacing demand.  “Developers respond to the market and they bring [their proposals] to the Planning Commission where it gets reviewed”, Bauters said.  He went on to falsely claim the City Council (with him as mayor) doesn’t have the final say for such projects. “Rarely does it [development decisions] touch the City Council. The Council doesn't go around telling property owners ‘you should build life sciences or apartment buildings” he said, despite the fact that’s exactly what happens.  After Council member Kalimah Priforce told the assembled crowd City Council leadership is responsible for the budget fiasco and that the City should not be spending money it doesn’t have hoping against hope for big fat developer fees to balance the budget.  Mr Bauters was hearing none of that fiscally prudent talk from Mr Priforce and he doubled down on his shifting the blame to the Planning Commission, “Leadership should only take responsibility for how it budgets the City [not how the City is developed]”, he said, reversing eight years of his activism developing the city, specifically with bio-tech projects (and apartment towers).

Courtney Welch Lied to the Voters About the Budget
Photo of one of Mayor Welch's re-election flyers
She's on our Budget Committee so she knows this is false.

Council member Priforce pushed back against the excuses being proffered by the many term mayor Bauters, stating, “The leadership has to own this”.  Mr Priforce noted how the Berkeley City Council and the Oakland City Council have both listened to the developers selling bio-tech and that it is revisionist and false history for the person most responsible for this to claim he wasn’t listening as well.  All three cities built out their bio-tech sectors vigorously over the last several years, contributing to the glut in the market.  

For her part, Mayor Welch, who is the other council member on the Budget and Governance Committee, said Priforce was wrong to be blaming anyone for the historic $11.8 million deficit hole.  Ms Welch it should be noted, during her November re-election fight, told voters she should be returned to the Council because she was so assiduously watching the budget, she’s maintaining a “financial solvency city” she said on one of her campaign flyers, a claim she knew to be false when she said it.

Adding insult to injury, Councilman Bauters threw in an extra $10,000 for the taxpayers to pay, at a last minute parting grudge shot at Mr Priforce when he added the provision to print and mail to every Emeryville household, a bogus censuring and sanctioning of Mr Priforce done at his last Council meeting.  Mr Bauters didn’t say how the $10,000 in public money would be raised to help him in his personal vendetta against Council member Priforce and none of the other three Council members that voted to spend the money provided an answer to that.  Presumably it will just be added to the $11.8 million City Hall deficit, already pegged at more than $140 for every resident.  The addition of the $10,000 mailer personal vendetta against Mr Priforce as it turned out, was John Bauters last act as an Emeryville City Council member as he retires on Tuesday.

Mayor Bauters two years ago, pushed forward a city wide City of Emeryville scooter race that would have cost about $1.5 million, some coming from public coffers, with vague promises of garnering some revenue but also "raising Emeryville's visibility" he said at the time.  The sponsor of the race event pulled out before Emeryville could write the check.

Also noteworthy, in 2022, Mayor Bauters claimed to be an expert at budgeting and finance and with fiscal expertise needed at the mayor level, he said he needed to be re-appointed mayor, skipping Council member Scott Donahue whose turn it was to be mayor.  Council member Donahue was said to not be as knowledgeable about how to keep the City in good fiscal health as Mr Bauters, an assertion that set against the departing of Bauters and his $11.8 million deficit he's leaving us, now seems like hubris.

November 19th City Council meeting is below:  Budget discussion starts at 1:44:24.  The first announcement of the $11.8 million deficit occurs at 1:46:32.

https://www.youtube.com/live/o7OntshGbR0?si=ZdNb3A7VeS5As7qO

People Power: We Can Demand Equal Treatment of All Citizens at City Hall

 

Emeryville Needs An Ethics Commission

Your Signature Will Force the City Council to Be Accountable Under the Law

The City Council majority has shown us they cannot be trusted with being the sole arbiter for Emeryville’s Code of Ethics.  They were warned by the City Attorney and the City Manager to resist the temptation to politicize and weaponize the new law and that’s exactly what they have done.  They are using the Code of Ethics to go after political enemies while they leave themselves unaccountable and untouchable.   They have put themselves above the law.

They have censured and sanctioned the dissenter on the Council, Kalimah Priforce, but they refuse to investigate the violations of the Code by Council member Courtney Welch.  It is NOT the opinion of the Tattler that Ms Welch has violated the Code, the City Attorney (who wrote the law) says she violated it.  But they WILL NOT hold her to account.

The government that investigates itself will find they’ve done nothing wrong without independent oversight.  That’s what Emeryville now desperately needs: an independent ethics commission (like other cities).  The ethics commission will serve as a check and balance to City Council overreach.  This Council majority has shown itself to be too political to handle the kind of capability unchecked power gives them.  People of Emeryville and the surrounding community: Let’s check their power.

Please sign the petition to form an independent ethics commission to serve as a backstop for Emeryville’s Code of Ethics.  Sign and do your part to make Emeryville more democratic. 

Sign the petition HERE

 https://www.change.org/p/establish-public-ethics-oversight-in-emeryville-california

Priforce Recall Invoked Amid Council Bombast and Theatrics

Retaliation on Display at the City Council Chambers

Bauters Directs Recall Friends to Emeryville

Right Wing Billionaire Forces Threaten Priforce Recall

Priforce Begins Hunger Strike:

Independent Ethics Commission Demanded

In an unprecedented action Tuesday night, the ‘Gang of Four’ City Council majority voted to censure and sanction their colleague Kalimah Priforce for alleged violations of Emeryville’s Code of Ethics after another ‘gang of four’ non-residents at the meeting announced their plans to initiate a recall campaign against the beleaguered Councilman.  The recall Priforce announcement was brought by the wealthy Piedmont resident Chris Moore, in attendance last night, as well as three of his associates, all who helped run the November recall campaigns against the Alameda County DA and the Mayor of Oakland.  Noteworthy too was the final curtain call from the retiring Council member John Bauters who made his last official act as an Emeryville City Council member to modify the vote for censure/sanction by adding a directive to the City Clerk to produce, print and mail to every Emeryville household, the text of the Priforce censure/sanction resolution.  The cost to the taxpayers for the non-required anti-Priforce mailers will be in excess of $10,000.

Council Member Kalimah Priforce
He got a check up before his hunger strike
for an independent ethics commission.

Councilman Priforce sees the event as a major distraction with unintended consequences for Emeryville, “To keep me from fulfilling my campaign promises to make our city safer, economically healthier, and help our residents, workers, and small businesses stay in Emeryville - they orchestrated this censure and sanction meeting in hopes that their political theater would make them look good. It did the opposite. It exposed them.”

Trying to refocus the community, Mr Priforce has announced he has begun a hunger strike against the refusal of his colleagues to set up an independent ethics commission.  The City Manager, the City Attorney and (ironically) even John Bauters warned against the weaponization of the Code of Ethics, an eventuality that’s now out of the barn. An ethics commission would be a moderating force against the kind of abuse that the Council is now engaging in but Mr Bauters and Mayor Welch have both said they will not allow any ethics commission.  Exasperated at the Council’s refusal, Mr Priforce announced his hunger strike last night: “After the meeting, I launched my hunger strike to bring a thousand signatures to our Emery Rising online petition for an independent public ethics commission: CHANGE.ORG/EMERYRISING.  Each day of this hunger strike will be a day that gets us closer to ending entrenched corruption in Emeryville.”

Piedmont resident Chris Moore
He directed the recall of DA Pamela Price
and helped with the Sheng Thao recall.

The nascent recall of Mr Priforce by these out of town conservatives would likely be controlled by Chris Moore, the man behind the splashy Alameda County November recalls.   Mr Moore, who used his copious fundraising skills to attract billionaires to chip in, served as the campaign manager for the recall of District Attorney Pamela Price and also he was on the team working to recall Mayor Sheng Thao.  Those campaigns were funded by a billionaire hedge fund manager, real estate lobbying groups like YIMBY, Cryptocurrency gazzilionaire Jesse Polack and other corporate groups.  Mr Moore’s associate, San Francisco resident Ed Escobar, warned Mr Priforce his recall is coming and it will be done by him and his colleagues that led the successful recalls earlier.  “As you know, we’re quite capable in that department.  We are the recallers and we get results”, he told Council member Priforce at Tuesday's meeting.  He told the Tattler money will not be an obstacle in recalling Priforce, hinting at a lopsided battle against voters in little Emeryville.  With Mr Priforce's term up in two years, any recall would need to start quickly because voters are  harder to win over for a recall the closer it is to an election.  On that score, Mr Priforce has not said whether he will seek re-election. 

Addressing the descent of wealthy right wing friends of John Bauters into Emeryville, come to bring Emeryville to heel, Council member Priforce was not amused.  He indicated the current trajectory of the Council majority is disturbing and will not be good for average citizens, “The politics of bigotry utilized by members of our Council has invited MAGA to our city’s front doorstep and that welcome mat will lead to an increase in gentrifying forces that will fundamentally change the nature of our city.” he said.

San Francisco resident Edward Escobar
"We're the recallers and we get results."

Mr Bauters, who will be retiring from politics on December 10th, lashed out at his long time nemesis Councilman Priforce, adding the last minute flourish of the mailers that will cost more than $10,000 for Emeryville taxpayers.  Mr Bauters, who has been the chair of the Budget and Governance Committee for eight years, drove Emeryville into insolvency with an $11.8 million deficit this year, the largest deficit in Emeryville history.  With no way to finance the parting shot at Councilman Priforce, the $10,000 spent on the anti-Priforce mailers will be added to Emeryville’s $11.8 million hole.  The theatrics of the vacating Bauters drew condemnation from Mr Priforce, “John Bauters believes in fiscal austerity for the rest of us, but practices wasteful spending for himself. Having taxpayers expense his personal vendetta against the Black man that helped foil his county supervisor prospects isn’t fiscally conservative or pragmatic, it's petty and unethical.” he told the Tatter.

Recall van taken before the November 5th
election:  The same tech bro billionaires that 
supported the recalls supported Bauters' election.

Why do conservatives and corporate Democrats like 
John Bauters if he's the progressive he says he is?

Breaking News Priforce Censored/Sanctioned

 Breaking News

In a room full of Council member Priforce supporters tonight the Emeryville City Council voted 4-1 (Priforce dissenting)  to censure and sanction Council member Priforce. Story to follow.