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?