Revenue Numbers From Contested Real Estate Tax Reveal $3.4 Million Boon For City Hall

Real Estate Transfer Tax Rains Money 

on Emeryville

Emeryville's general fund received $3.4 million in calendar year 2015 under a new real estate transfer tax voted in by the electorate in November of 2014 according City Hall, an amount far exceeding what the City has hauled in during any other year for these transactions.  The tax, called the Real Property Transfer Tax (RPTT), was dramatically increased when Emeryville voters passed 2014's Measures U&V that transformed the town into a 'charter city' that enabled the revenue increase on real estate transfers and was panned in the run up to the election by the business community and outside lobbying groups including the powerful Sacramento based California Association of Realtors.

Councilwoman
Jac Asher
Urged passage of the
real estate transfer tax
in spite of dire warnings
from Sacramento lobbyists. 

The formerly cash strapped Emeryville took in a $3,397595 windfall for 2015, the first full year of transfer taxes at the new rate which became effective on January 1st, 2015 the City announced last week.  This compares to calendar year 2014 under the old tax rate when the City took in just $475,001 despite a vigorous real estate churn.  Before Emeryville voters approved the switch, real estate taxes were charged at the rate of 55 cents per $1000 of value, the maximum a 'General Law' city can charge versus unlimited but set at $12 by the City Council now that Emeryville is a 'Charter City'.  By comparison, one real estate transfer last year, the sale of Emery Tech on Hollis Street, netted City Hall's coffers more than a million dollars alone.

Supporters of the Charter City Initiative, including its chief backer and progenitor Councilwoman Jac Asher, told voters before the November 2014 election much revenue could be gained by raising the tax rate and the numbers released last week tend to vindicate Ms Asher.
Emeryville had stood alone as a general law city among its charter city neighbors Ms Asher reminded voters and the City Hall had left some $21 million on the table with its former anemic 55 cent rate over the last few years.

Jason Crouch
Real estate salesman
and former Chair of the
Emeryville Chamber of Commerce:
If Emeryville voters approve
this real estate transfer fee,
"It's the beginning of the end
for Emeryville". 

The NO on Measures U&V side said passage of the Charter City Initiative and the increasing of the real estate transfer tax would bring a domino effect of general business failure and real estate collapse to Emeryville, even possible bankruptcy for City Hall.  Former Chamber of Commerce Chair Jason Crouch posited himself as point man for the NO on Measures U&V and he hosted public forums warning of the dire consequences to befall Emeryville if the voters said yes to the higher tax rate even though at $12 per $1000, the new rate is still lower than what Berkeley or Oakland charges.  "It will be the beginning of the end for the Emeryville we know and love" the Vallejo resident said.

Voters soundly rejected incessant pleadings in the 2014 election from the NO side in the form of volumes of mailers from portions of the Emeryville business community and especially the California Real Estate Association who dumped more than $85,000 to defeat the two measures.

The money from the new tax, more than $300 for every woman, man and child in Emeryville, pays for among other things, sidewalk repair, park maintenance, street maintenance, landscaping and other needed infrastructure work.

Follow the Money: Emeryville's November Election Draws Sacramento Lobbying Group

Out-Of-Town Real Estate Interests Set Up Political Committee for Emeryville Election

Statewide Realtor Association Money Dump 
Special Moneyed Interests Work to Nix Local Control

Follow the Money; first in a series

The Tattler introduces a new feature for the 2014 election season: Follow the Money. 

This election cycle is shaping up to be very expensive and very far-flung with lots of money from out-of-town interests pouring into the city.  We plan on digging out and exposing this money from people and organizations we don’t know that are trying to change our town to their liking.  These unfamiliar individuals and interest groups may effect our November elections with all their spending in Emeryville but the Tattler is going to make sure that while they assert their influence, we’re going to expose who they are. 

Click on the 'Follow the Money' label at the bottom of this story or use the search bar to review the entire Follow the Money series.

Emeryville residents, get ready to get "IMPACed".
That being a big money dump from the California Association of Realtors political action committee to fight against a November election over local control of the town.
IMPAC, Issues Mobilization Political Action Committee, is the political action arm of the Sacramento based statewide Realtors Association, the State's top real estate lobbying group.
The issue at hand are two Emeryville ballot initiatives, both brought by unanimous consent of our City Council for a vote by the citizens November 4th; one being Measure U the Charter City Initiative, a local control initiative and the other Measure V, an initiative to establish a real estate transfer fee, the same fee charged by neighboring cities Alameda, Oakland and Berkeley.

The committee set up to fight both initiatives is calling itself "Citizens to Preserve Emeryville" and lists its Treasurer and Vice Treasurer as hailing from Sacramento and Oakland respectively.  The bank for  Citizens to Preserve Emeryville is in Roseville California.

Emeryville Chamber
of Commerce Vice Chair
Jason Crouch
His backing of the Realtors
subverted the will
of the Chamber. 

A check of the filing documents shows IMPAC has kicked off the spending on the Emeryville ballot initiatives with an initial drop of $20,000.  An extra $5,000 in "interboard solicitations" was also approved to fight Emeryville, IMPAC records showed.  With nearly unlimited resources available at the 160,000 member California Association of Realtors, more money could follow as the anti-Emeryville local control campaign progresses.

Chamber of Commerce's Interests Hijacked
The drama of the California Association of Realtors pushing their weight around Emeryville is further heightened by the unseemly spectacle of the Vice Chair of the Emeryville Chamber of Commerce, Vallejo resident Jason Crouch, hijacking the Chamber's wishes by joining the fight against U&V.  The Board of the Chamber of Commerce has voted to join with the City of Emeryville and endorse both Measures but Mr Crouch signed his name and he included his Vice Chair position on the Chamber Board to the ballot measure arguments against U&V.  
The ballot measure arguments for and against will be in the official Voters Guide printed by Alameda County appearing in voter's mailboxes later this month.

The Sacramento real estate group's chief argument against the charter city initiative (a municipal governance model referred to as 'local rule' or 'home rule') is that it will allow Emeryville citizens themselves to decide many functions of governance that Sacramento now dictates with Emeryville as a 'general law' city.  The actual vote in November will only give Emeryville residents local rule to the extent that they decide whether to initiate a real estate transfer fee.  As it stands now Emeryville misses out on the funds from these transfers that our neighboring cities collect.

The City Council has noted with the demise of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency, an entity that formerly entailed 90% of the town, fully half of the city budget has been lost.  Infrastructure, parks, maintenance--the things City Hall builds for residents to retain the quality of life will be increasingly out of reach.  Further it should be noted that Sacramento gets to change the rules on general law cities moving forward.  That's what happened when the Redevelopment Agency was eliminated.  Without the local control that the charter city designation brings, Emeryville won't have a right to collect the same fees as the neighbors, putting our budget at risk.

Some are speculating the California Association of Realtors sees Emeryville's local control vote in November as potentially a landmark case, spurring other general law cities in California to became charter cities.

City Attorney Again Subverts City Council on Charter City Initiative

Council Rebukes City Attorney Biddle: Insubordinate 

After Emeryville City Attorney Mike Biddle was publicly chastised by the City Council May 6th for failing to produce suitable language for Emeryville voters to consider in November regarding the 'charter city' ballot initiative the Council is pursuing, they again sharply rebuked Mr Biddle last Tuesday for again failing to follow the same directive. Councilwoman Nora Davis, the City Attorney's strongest defender on the Council summed up the frustration she and her colleagues were feeling when she warned Mr Biddle, "You're not listening to what the five of us are saying."
  
The Council voted unanimously in April to bring to the voters the idea that the governing structure of the city be changed from what it is now, a 'general law' city, a structure that mostly defers to Sacramento rule, to a 'charter' city, a structure that allows for more home rule or local control.   The Council wants voters to also decide if they want to capture a real estate transfer tax to make up for lost revenue in the wake of the demise of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency two years ago.  The ballot initiative would increase real estate transfer taxes to $12 per $1000 assessed valuation, the same as Alameda but less than neighboring cities Oakland and Berkeley.
The Council wants to write a short and focused charter so as not to confuse the voters in November but also because the focus of the proposed charter is narrow.  The idea is to retain all the provisions of our current structure save the imposition of the real estate transfer tax.  They indicated they are pursuing charter status because a real estate transfer tax is not legal under the provisions of general law city mandates.  A charter city is free to let the citizens vote to impose a real estate transfer tax.

On Tuesday, Mr Biddle again failed to present a short and focused charter, standing by his previously released 12 page document.  In so doing Mr Biddle subverted a direct order by an exasperated and  unanimous Council on May 6th after first being told at an April 22nd Council meeting.  Instead of facing an angry Council by himself this time, the City Attorney brought in a colleague attorney paid at the taxpayers expense, Manuela Albuquerque who backed up Mr Biddle's claim that a short and focused charter is impossible.  However examples of seven different California city's charters were included in the Council's packet as Mayor Jac Asher had previously requested be presented at Tuesday's meeting.  All seven of the charters are under two pages long as opposed to the 12 pages produced by Mr Biddle, the shortest he can make it he says.
Ms Asher expressed exasperation at the on-going recalcitrance of the City Attorney, "I don't understand it" she said from the dias.

Mr Biddle's hired attorney is the same Manuela Albuquerque he hired to fight off the unsuccessful 2011 Emeryville Measure F  ballot initiative that sought to fire him.

After the strong rebuke from the Council, Ms Albuquerque apologized for the "misunderstanding" Tuesday.  Mr Biddle told the Council he would try to appease them for the June 3rd meeting.

All five Council members for a third time told the City Attorney to come back to them with a short charter for the next meeting.  Ms Davis warned Mr Biddle, who serves at the pleasure of the City Council, against any further insubordination; "We trump" she said tersely.

City Attorney Rebuffs City Council on Charter City Directive

City Council Chastises City Attorney

on Charter City Text

Emeryville City Attorney Mike Biddle drew strong reactions from Council members at last Tuesday's City Council meeting as they heard him explain he could not produce a short and focused ballot initiative text to forward to Emeryville voters this November as he had been so directed by them.  Mr Biddle's presentation, produced during the two weeks before Tuesday's meeting, was revealed to be 12 pages of dense legal verbiage.  It was as concise as he could make it he told the Council members.
At the previous meeting the City Attorney had been directed, in a unanimous Council vote, to pattern Emeryville's proposed Charter City initiative on that of neighboring city's charters, some only a few paragraphs long.
The Charter City initiative is being forwarded to Emeryville voters by the City Council in hopes of enacting a real estate transfer tax in response to a critical loss of revenue for City Hall after the Redevelopment Agency was shut down by Sacramento two years ago.  The City Manager has shown how City Hall no longer has the funding to properly maintain the infrastructure already in place in

Emeryville City Attorney Mike Biddle
Chastised by City Council

Emeryville.

Emeryville is currently a 'general law' city, a legal construct that gives more power over local matters to Sacramento.  A charter city conversely gives more power to the local voters and would, in the case of what the Emeryville City Council is directing in a November election, enable them (the voters) to OK a transfer tax, something not legal for general law cities.

The City Council was adamant that the language for the Charter City initiative be "short and focused" as Councilwoman Nora Davis indicated.  Mr Biddle was directed to draw up language for the voters approval in November that would make it clear that the current laws guiding the City would remain unchanged but that a real estate transfer tax be initiated at a rate of $14 per $1000 of assessed valuation, two dollars less than the existing transfer taxes of Oakland and Berkeley.  Emeryville now only gets $.55 per $1000, the legal maximum for general law cities.
The Council told the City Attorney they wanted the initiative to be as short as some neighboring cities have done because a long and arcane text in the voter guide would unnecessarily confuse voters and would likely draw NO votes based on ignorance.   Mr Biddle explained Tuesday that he had heard what the Council had directed him to do but he felt compelled to "add some meat" to the spare template language proffered by the Council after he conferred with colleagues.
Mayor Jac Asher summed up the Council's frustration with the City Attorney, "This will look like 12 pages of change [to the voters]" she said.

The Council instructed City Attorney Biddle to go back and bring them a much shorter text, regardless of his reservations.