Once Popular 'Coffee With the City Manger' Program Suspended
Emeryville Citizens Used to Be Able to Speak Directly With Their City Manager Under the Program
No Longer
Emeryville’s new City Manager, La Tanya Bellow announced she would not be re-starting the former citizen engaging ‘Coffee With the City Manager’ program after having pondering over it during the first 100 days of her job as city manager. The democratically minded program was discontinued in 2020 because of Covid but before that, the popular program enabled normal citizens to engage face to face with the most powerful government official at their City Hall. Ms Bellow told the Tattler that while she has shuttered the Coffee Program indefinitely, she is not necessarily averse to someday re-starting it. She did not say why she would not meet with citizens through the program.
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| Emeryville City Manager La Tanya Bellow Not a fan of transparency or citizen engagement. |
The government in Emeryville has long made proclamations regarding the inclusionary and democratic existential nature of City Hall and they proved it in 2014 when the popular program was initiated under former City Manager Sabrina Landreth. Under the program, citizens could just drop by without making an appointment and speak freely with the city manager in the city manager’s office during the three hour period once a month.
Despite ending the once a month citizen engagement, Ms Bellow, who makes $315,0000 per year, has made statements touting her approachability for regular people. Before her hiring in January, she told the City Council she was a “committed public servant” who could be counted on to lead Emeryville’s government “with transparency, with integrity and with collaboration…with the members of this community”. That may have been what she was thinking at the time but after settling in at her Park Avenue corner office, apparently she seems to have had a re-think.
Lack of accountability has a long tradition at Emeryville City Hall. Before the democratically minded City Manager Landreth, Emeryville’s City Manager John Flores, for years, regularly scheduled closed-to-the-public meetings in the city manager's office with the Chamber of Commerce board president, every Monday morning at 9:00 to discuss anything that the Chamber, a private corporation, wanted to discuss. The Chamber of Commerce, who received large amounts of money and favors from City Hall, likely discussed that and more at these regularly scheduled private meetings in the City Manager’s office.
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| Former City Manager Sabrina Landreth She had a democratic view of government. She liked to hear from regular citizens. |
Although the secretive John Flores was not fond of that idea and he refused it, the democratically inclined Sabrina Landreth agreed with the Tattler and she began the program that ultimately became very popular with Emeryville citizens. Notably, the Emeryville Police Department initiated its own "Coffee With a Cop' program patterned after the success of the city manager program, building it into their 'community policing' policy. EPD still continues on the popular program.
The Coffee With the City Manager Program continued until Covid and the manager at the time, the former Paul Buddenhagen, did not restart it after Covid had passed, regardless of citizen requests. Ms Bellow continues on with the refusal, despite all her highfalutin citizen engagement rhetoric.
After she was hired, the Tattler inquired about Coffee With the City Manager and Ms Bellow indicated she would decide and make an announcement about it in the “first 100 days” of her administration. Announcing her refusal to re-start the program, she assured the Tattler she is “focused on meeting the community where they are to foster a more inclusive and responsive dialogue” after noting that her contact with the Tattler was a violation of the City Attorney’s order that no government officials may communicate with the Tattler in any way. “I am making this one time exception” she said.
Maybe she has closed down the program because she doesn't want to speak with the Tattler.
ReplyDeleteThat very well could be.
DeleteIt is a little odd that former city manager Paul Buddenhagen now serves as the city manager of Berkeley, and his replacement, LaTanya Bellow, previously served as Berkeley's assistant city manager. Equally curious is that Mr. Buddenhagen served as Berkeley deputy city manager until he left for the Emeryville position, which he held for just over 18 months. Perhaps the city leadership should look to candidates other than Berkeley for positions in the future. No one seems to want to stay in Emeryville for more than a few years.
ReplyDeleteShe refuses to say why she won’t bring back this legacy program and her refusal answers why she won’t bring it back. She doesn’t do well directly answering resident’s questions. It probably makes her uncomfortable. She should not have the job she has.
ReplyDeleteShe's "focused on meeting the community where they are to foster a more inclusive and responsive dialogue”, she says. Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that. She's not going to meet with us anywhere anytime. She's a lying bureaucrat who's afraid of the people she's supposed to serve.
ReplyDeleteI agree with these negative commenters here even though I don't share their hostile tone. I can't imagine why the city manager can't host these meetings with ordinary citizens. Her refusal to tell us why is disturbing. I hope she sees the error of her ways.
ReplyDeleteSheer disappointment!!
ReplyDeleteShe doesn't want to mix with the commoners. Maybe we're not as good or smart as she is.
ReplyDeleteWow, $315,000 a year. That means she’s being paid $22 per resident. Why so much? Now that’s a story. If Oakland paid that much, she’d be making nearly 10 million a year. Emeryville is a mess.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of accountability, I heard you had a permanent restraining order slapped against you. Are you going to appeal it? Is there anything The E’ville Eye published that you refute?
ReplyDeleteOf course, Mr Anonymous, I refute many things Rob posted on his blog about that….it’s the E’ville Eye after all…. lot’s of inaccuracies and lies over there. Rob should consider getting both sides of the stories he writes. I mean, if he wants to call himself a journalist. He didn't interview me for his story about me. That's what a journalist would have done. That's how we do it here at the Tattler.....get both sides. It's journalism 101.
DeleteThe Tattler will do stories on the hearing you reference of course. Right now I’m waiting on public records requests I’ve filed with the City of Emeryville….so it will likely take some time (hopefully not eight months like the City Attorney took last time I requested public documents). I WILL get the documents though, even if I have to sue the City to get them like I threatened to do last time. Here’s the story that documented the eight month wait: https://emeryvilletattler.blogspot.com/2024/09/tattler-forced-to-lawyer-up-to-get.html
Meanwhile, what do you think of the current story of the City Manager saying NO to citizen engagement?
BTW: Rob gets treated with kid gloves by the government in Emeryville vs the Tattler. I am constantly threatening to sue to get them to obey the California Public Records Act. They refuse because they don't like the Tattler. They don't like the Tattler because we write stories about what they're doing they would rather not be made public. If we didn't do stories they didn't like, they would treat us like how they treat Rob. We understand this. This is what happens in the presence of a free press and a small town government. I've never met a government official that likes a story that is critical of their job performance. I don't break the law but the Tattler brings Emeryville City Hall hatred and that's to be expected. Power doesn't like the truth spoken to it: it's axiomatic.
DeleteI went to one of the coffee with the city manager events a few years ago. The city manager provided coffee and pastries and it was very pleasant. There were about 8-10 residents there and everybody was well behaved but some did ask blunt questions because of inadequacies they experienced in Emeryville. I remember the city manager listened took notes and promised to get back with those people. All in all it was a very positive experience. Emeryville should not cancel this valuable program.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. I also went to a couple of the coffees and I think your description is accurate. It’s shocking that the City of Emeryville and its City Manager can’t see the community building value in this.
DeleteTo the extent that this City Manager might have warm feelings about the value of citizen engagement in their government, there is something overriding that she is not letting on. Clearly the positives of meeting with and listening to average citizens is no match against the negatives of meeting us, in her mind. Given that interacting with the public is in her job description, she should go beyond any carefully managed and choreographed public events she hints she will hold and instead, in the spirit of democracy and to honor her pledge to work for the people of Emeryville, open the doors to the people’s hall for the people.