High Stakes Rancor at City/School Committee Threatens ECCL

School Board Members Langner, Vargas Seek to End Committee That Bridges Schools & Community

Ad Hoc Ploy Threatens Center of Community Life 

"You want to embarrass & shame us" said Langner 

News Analysis
As a consequence of deteriorating interpersonal relations, Emeryville’s two elected bodies, the City Council and the School Board voted to convene an ad hoc committee to explore ways to sever the ties that bind them at their regularly scheduled October City/School Committee meeting.  The move to part company, brought in response to pressure built up over three years between the two entities, comes on the heels of what turned out to be a contentious October 5th meeting after School Board members lashed out against the City Council.  A vote was taken to terminate the Committee that failed (7-2 Langner & Vargas voting aye) before the Committee unanimously voted to form the unnamed ad hoc group, presumably in order to placate the insurgents.   School Board member Bailey Langner announced to her colleagues before voting to breakup the committee, “It is my intention to come into this meeting and talk about limiting the scope of the relationship [between the School Board and the City Council]” meaning she was already intending on talking of termination even before the meeting turned sour. 

School Board Member
Bailey Langner
Voted to deep six the committee.
She made it clear, first and foremost
are her feelings.  Accountability
comes somewhere farther down the list.

The mutinous faction, consisting of the two School Board members plus the non-voting administrative staffer Superintendent John Rubio, if ultimately successful in torpedoing the City/Schools Committee, will bring to a close a very remarkable partnership that culminated in the building of the Center of Community Life, Emeryville's epic $200 million  aspirational civic project meant to bridge the community and the schools.  The present function of the committee is to continue running the ECCL to fulfill its promise to the community and the schools for the betterment of both.  

That charge as it turns out is quite unusual given widely applied State constraints mandating the independence of municipalities and school districts.  The City/School Committee was instrumental in getting landmark legislation (AB 1080) written with the help of Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner back in 2009 enabling the building of the ECCL.  The legislation of AB 1080 thread a needle in a field of Sacramento roadblocks to form such a collaborative effort.  

The breakup of this committee now could reverberate across the California political landscape were it to actually happen.

As it is, the unseemly spectacle rising at the Committee earmarks the end of the season of accommodation and comity between the two government elected bodies, a heretofore special and uplifting feather in Emeryville’s cap according to Ms Skinner, now a State Senator.

The bad blood between the two groups was evident at the meeting, Board member Langner complaining she feels disrespected by the City Council members.  At one point after Council members brought up disappointing academic numbers reflecting a failing of the School District (in the purview of the Committee), Ms Langner said her feelings were hurt by the airing of factual information about the District and that she feels “hostility” from the Council, “I do not feel that the City Council is a partner with the School District.  It feels like you want to bring up these topics in an attempt to embarrass and shame us”.  City Council member Ally Medina responded to Ms Langner’s affecting lament, “Your individual feelings are not important.  The children and the residents you were elected to represent are important.”  Ms Langner actually was appointed by the Board to replace a resigning Board member.  She faces the electorate next November.

School Board member Cruz Vargas
He's outraged, OUTRAGED the City Council
is talking about academic achievement at ECCL.
It makes him look bad and he voted to crash
the committee he's so angry about it.

Superintendent Rubio, an authoritarian figure big on secrecy according to teachers at the District and the progenitor of the rancor between the two groups, provided fuel and directed the School Board’s fire at the meeting.   Accusing City Council committee members, he pointed his finger, “I saw the Council members judging the School Board members for their actions” adding he finds unacceptable “the level of disrespect and unprofessionalism [sic] that occurs in our meetings.”  Those comments brought out Council member Christian Patz who said the non-voting staff member Rubio had stepped over the line with his didactic hyperbole, “I take a challenge for you to highlight good members and bad members.”  Mr Patz reminded the administrator,  "It is outside your role.” 

Council member Scott Donahue says the dust ups at the City/School Committee, no matter how rancorous won't likely result in the termination of the committee regardless of the wishes of Ms Langner, Mr Vargas or Mr Rubio.  He told the Tattler the Committee brings accountability and he believes the group will go on, “The City Council is ultimately responsible for protecting the public’s investment in this [ECCL] project.  The City/School Committee represents a necessary collaboration between the City and the School District”.  The Councilman finished, “It is vital to ECCL’s success.” 
 It would appear the School Board (at least two of them plus the Superintendent) will have to figure out how to conduct public policy without making things personal, the first job of any elected official.  In a Rodney King moment speaking to that, Council member John Bauters addressed his colleagues, exclaiming forlornly "It is really important for the City and the schools to find a way to get along."

The City/Schools Committee will meet in January to hash out details of the new ad hoc group they will look to as they consider throwing in the towel on bridging the community and the schools.  The public can look forward to accountability, their interests, taking a holiday at the School District and at City Hall if the towel is indeed thrown in.

Correction:  We originally reported the vote to end the City/School Committee was 8-2 against.  The actual vote was 7-2 against.  School Board member Bryynda Collins did not attend the meeting and therefore didn't vote.  We apologize  for the mistake. 

Emery School Superintendent
John Rubio

He works for the School Board.
Or do they work for him?  It's not clear.
He's supposed to serve a supporting role, 
not a voting member on the Committee.
But he acts like a Committee member.  

Cop in Schools Idea Causes Meltdown Between City Council & School Board Member

Cop on Campus?:

Rift Between City Council and School Board Member Opens

Board Member Vargas Makes a Power Play

Testy Exchanges at Meeting

Vargas to Subvert Will of the Council

In an impassioned imbroglio played out before the cameras on October 5th, Emery School Board member Cruz Vargas, citing student discipline problems at the ECCL campus, proposed to fellow members of the City/School Committee that a full time Emeryville police officer with the right to arrest students exhibiting behavior issues be provided and paid for by the City of Emeryville.  It was an idea that landed with a resounding thud but not before the City Council members present directed a strongly stated contradictory barrage at Mr Vargas leaving him pained but undaunted, pledging to take his idea on the road and go around the holders of the purse strings, straight to parents.  Surprisingly, the cost to the City for such an officer, likely more than $100,000 per year, was hardly even mentioned by the City Council members, concerned as they were over what they characterized as the inappropriateness of the whole thing.  

School Board member
Cruz Vargas
He's going over the City Council's heads
and take his cop in the school
show on the road.

The ‘cop in the school’ idea, called a ‘school resources officer’ (SRO), has many critics but regardless been used by some school districts to bring 'order'.  However, in schools with large numbers of black and brown children, it has been universally panned by pedagogical experts, social justice champions and those concerned with equity issues nation wide.  Police officers trained in arresting adults, thrust into an environment where normal adolescent behavior can be misconstrued as criminal activity, SROs have been credited with contributing to the oft referenced ‘school to prison pipeline’ especially for young African Americans, what Council member Christian Patz calls a “reframe to criminality”. 

Regardless of the popularity of SROs among law and order types, the City Council attendees at the meeting took their turns joining with member Patz soundly rejecting member Vargas’ SRO objective, notably Council member John Bauters who delivered a memorably devastating and indelible riposte from the dais (see link below).  Admonishing Mr Vargas’ claim the SRO would be good for the police as well as the children, Councilman Bauters countered that schools are “not a place for PR for police” adding, “When cops encounter children who are acting like children, their instinct in many cases its treat them with the training they know.”  He talked at length on the negative effects ‘over policing’ has on many African American children before he clarified that he is not anti-police, and specifically not anti Emeryville police he stressed.

Council member Ally Medina expressed concern over inequity resulting from the use of SROs that academic studies have shown.  Noting the lack of training police have in dealing with child psychology, a problem that in America skews against schools with high levels of minority students like Emery, Councilwoman Medina quoted such studies when she addressed member Vargas, “Suspension levels are higher for minority children in heavily secured schools” she said.

Council member Christian Patz told his colleagues member Vargas had not presented a cogent reason why a police officer is even needed at ECCL, noting a lack of complaints over student behavior issues and the large numbers of administrators and teachers on the campus that has a palliative effect on discipline, let alone any possible criminal behavior.  Mr Patz counted 13 administrators on campus making for a top heavy 1:53 admin to student ratio.  If teachers are added, that makes it a 1:14 ratio and if the entire adult staff on campus is added, then there is a 1:10 ratio with students, an extremely large percentage among school districts.  Besides the highly monitored effect this large number of adults watching over the children has on tamping down bad behavior, it is also a primary reason why Emery spends so much money per student, higher than all neighboring school districts it was noted.  Mr Patz reminded Mr Vargas of Emery's low suspension rates and high attendance numbers to further illustrate his point that an SRO is not needed.

"I don't know what it was in my remarks that 

led to the impression I had an open mind on this.  

I want to make it very clear; I'm opposed to it".

-Council member Christian Patz

With a recalcitrant Board member Cruz Vargas and an equally oppositional City Council, a testy exchange between the Council members and member Vargas ensued.  Despite a united front of the City Council against the SRO proposal, the five individuals Mr Vargas would have to sway to pay for it, he saw fit to counter attack, perhaps giving hint to his next move.  After warning them he would go directly to parents to force the issue he scolded the City Council, “I don’t appreciate this issue being politicized” he said adding with vituperative finish, “the majority of the people at this table are out of touch with the parents.”  
Driving his point, member Vargas said he had been to a PTO meeting and gleaned, “the vast majority of parents in the school” support his SRO idea to which Councilwoman Dianne Martinez, who’s husband was at that meeting fired back, “I don’t appreciate you speaking for me as a parent” after asking if he was sure about his “vast majority” deduction, she questioned him; “Are you extrapolating?”   Mr Vargas shot back that the Board supports his SRO idea prompting Mr Patz to inquire, “Are you speaking for the whole Board?”  After some retrenching speech by member Vargas when Board member Barbara Inch volunteered she is not in favor of the SRO idea, it was revealed the School Board had only voted to place the issue on a future agenda to discuss it.  Having caught Mr Vargas in the fabrication of Board support, Mr Patz pounced, “[Putting it on an agenda is] very different than saying the Board supports it. It says the Board supports talking about it”

To get his cop in the school idea funded, these are
the five people Cruz Vargas needs to convince. 
It's the same five he has gone to war with.

After the City Council members finally all had their say, none of it supportive of the SRO idea, member Vargas told everyone present he would hold a town hall type meeting about this and that he was happy the City Council was open to the idea of bringing a police officer to the ECCL campus and spending taxpayer money for it.  He thanked the Council for "having an open mind on this" and for their receptiveness for holding a town hall meeting.  Council member Christian Patz was incredulous upon hearing that, "I apologize, I don't know what it was in my remarks that led to the impression I had an open mind on this.  I want to make it very clear; I'm opposed to it" he said.  Council member John Bauters was less circumspect, "Not one Council member should have given the impression to you [that a police officer on the campus is a good idea]. It would be political adventure for you to hold some sort of meeting to do what we have told you is not of interest to us" he protested. 

The entire dramatic City/School Committee meeting may be viewed HERE.
John Bauter's historic speech within the meeting may be viewed HERE.

Emery Schools Drop Precipitously: Now Below Oakland Unified

Emery Ranks Last in East Bay

Three Straight Years of Lowering Test Scores 

Yields Second Worst District in Bay Area Status

Emery Unified School District is reeling after the State of California finally released last spring’s academic testing data, revealing its drop in its ranking to the lowest in the East Bay as test scores have fallen for the third straight year according to the annually conducted California Assessment of Student Progress and Performance (CAASPP).  The bad news for Emery was presaged by a ‘sneak peak’ in mid September when three year Emery Superintendent of the Schools John Rubio, pre-released some of the test score data, possibly with an eye to soften the blow of the precipitous drop in ranking as compared with neighboring school districts shown by the CAASPP report.

 Despite Superintendent Rubio’s attempt to spin the bad news, on his watch, academic performance at Emery has consistently dropped, records show.  

The data just released by Sacramento shows an Emery Unified School District in crisis academically.  The district has become the worst scoring in the East Bay, ranking now lower than districts it was above just four years ago including West Contra County, Pittsburg, San Leandro, Hayward and Oakland (who improved their scores last year).  A quick purview of districts throughout the entire Bay Area shows Emery as second only to Ravenswood Unified in East Palo Alto, a district that consistently ranks as among the lowest in the entire state.

The test score data was announced by City Council member Christian Patz at the City/Schools meeting on Wednesday at the ECCL campus.  Mr Patz made the announcement, which included a handout he furnished, as part of a point he was making as the district was pressing its case for installing a police officer at the ECCL campus, a tangent for that agenda item.  Mr Rubio had earlier, during agenda negotiations for the meeting,  refused to allow any CAASPP test data discussion as an agenda item for the Committee.  The Superintendent, who appeared visibly annoyed by Mr Patz’s action, nonetheless refused to answer Tattler questions about why the testing data should not be an agenda item for the Committee.  It should be noted that the City/Schools Committee, a liaison group consisting of all the elected officials of Emeryville (the City Council and the School Board), invests itself with helping provide "quality education" as one of its goals. 

Test score data, especially from a single year, is a problematic barometer to use to show the quality of education a school district offers.  Studies have consistently shown instead academic test scores show the relative affluence of the parents/guardians; poor children testing at lower rates due to a variety of factors unrelated to the school itself.  However, as test scores show the ranking of neighboring districts, especially when compared with those of similar socio/economic conditions, this data is useful to show a district's trend line in the education of its children.  Test score ranking clearly shows Emery falling after three years of Superintendent Rubio at the helm after a brief period of rising scores and higher ranking before Mr Rubio's term.
Superintendent Rubio's tenure has been a rancorous one marked by an ongoing battle with his teachers that has net the worst rate of teacher retention in the East Bay among other calamitous distractions as the Tattler has chronicled. 

Superintendent John Rubio's Legacy
Academic achievement has plunged at Emery since Mr Rubio
was hired at the start of the school year 2014.
Emery's ranking has fallen to last in the East Bay since 2013, 
the last year before Superintendent Rubio came on board. 

School Board President Insists NO Audit of ECCL Project

Rift Between City & School District

Audit Latest Imbroglio

The City Council has suggested the School District Board of Trustees audit Turner Construction, the builder of the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life in order to claw back some money the district might have overpaid for the building project but the Board President is demurring, indicating he is more inclined to try to get money out of its ECCL partner, the City of Emeryville instead.  It's part of a growing rift between the District and City Hall born out of differences in how to divide up cost overruns in the contentious schools/community center project.

The City/Schools Committee, consisting of the membership of the City Council and the School Board, met May 4th and the frosty relations were evident when Vice Mayor John Bauters suggested going to construction giant Turner, who has recently been indicted for bilking clients, to see if there may be recoverable costs to help offset the cost overruns of ECCL*.  The idea was embraced by the entire Council but Board President Merriam oddly said it would not be appropriate, a position he has held for quite some time even as he has refused to properly elaborate.
Mr Merriam joined with former Board President John Affeldt last summer in quashing an attempt to audit Turner, citing the existence of the Citizens Oversight Committee (COC) makes it unnecessary.

Emery School Board President
Donn Merriam
'Even though Turner Construction
has been caught overcharging 
clients, we must not audit them'.

Just two years ago the County of Santa Clara held Turner to task for cost overruns and delays.  Turner blamed the city for the issues.

Mr Merriam's odd assertion of no Turner audit brings into question who's interests he has at heart.  The ECCL budget went significantly over budget and is still not complete.  Board member Brynnda Collins, when expressing her support for a Turner audit, questioned the quality of the work stating, "Big chunks of metal (are) falling and almost hitting a teacher."  There have been multiple suggestions of design flaws like lack of storage, concrete poured too thin and poor drainage.

It is clear to many there are enough reasons for an audit.  City Council member Bauters stated it could find enough savings to cover the remaining $370,000 the district owes Turner.
Los Angeles Unified School District routinely audits projects.  It should be noted LAUSD is so large that they have a group that audits every project. Turner recently was found to have overcharged them $190,000 on a $98 million project, almost exactly the same size project as ECCL.

Conflict of Interest?
Clearly audits are done and effective tools to protect taxpayer funds.  Which leads back to the question, does Board President Merriam have a Turner connection in his work as an employee of the architecture firm of Deems Lewis Mckinley (DLM)?  A Tattler search of their projects and Turner's revealed no direct overlap.  However it did turn up a project that involved Swinerton Management and DLM.  Swinerton worked on the ECCL project and frequently partners with Turner.

South San Francisco Unified passed a large bond project and used Swinerton to manage the project.  DLM bid on and was chosen to do the work. It is not clear if the Emery Board President personally worked on the project but the appearance of impropriety is evident.  Of course, an elected official should not be in the position to have to chose between what is best for their constituents and their pocketbooks.

The School Board is scheduled to discuss auditing the ECCL project at their May 10th meeting and Mr Merriam should leave the room while this is being discussed.  If he stays in the room, he should disclose the firm's relationship with Swinerton and have the legal counsel provide guidance.  It should be noted President Merriam has been caught violating simple rules of transparency because he claimed he was unaware of the conflict.

*NOTE: Although Turner Construction is a 'primary partner' with Turner GROUP Construction, it was Turner GROUP Construction that was indicted for bilking it's clients.  Turner Construction, the builder of the ECCL wasn't indicted but they were found to be overcharging their clients as the story states.  The Tattler apologizes for the mix up.

Breaking News: New Delay at Center of 'Community' Life (Again)

High School Won't Be Ready 

City/Schools Committee Learns (for Third Time)

Unknown Where Students Will Be 

Come Spring 

Tonight a representative of Swinerton Builders, the paid liaison between the City of Emeryville and Emery School District and Turner Construction, the builder of the Center of 'Community' Life (ECCL) told the City/Schools Committee the high school under construction at the San Pablo Avenue site will now not likely be ready until fall 2016, the third announced delay for the school in recent months.  This most recent delay, coming a mere three weeks after the last announced delay, puts the high school part of the ECCL a year behind schedule.

Using cagey and indirect speech, John Baker, Swinerton's intermediary, said the school building would be "substantially" finished by March, a reversal from early October when he announced the only thing not completed at the high school by Turner would be the elevator but that would be ready by March.  Oakland Unified School District indicated at that time Emery Unified would not be permitted to rent Santa Fe after March since they plan a remodel of their school to ready it for their own students next fall.  As of now, it is unknown where Emery High School students will be going to school next spring but Superintendent Rubio told the City/Schools Committee tonight he was busy trying to convince Oakland to let Emery continue renting until the end of the school year early next summer.

The City and the School District have a $1.2 million contract with Swinerton Builders to represent the people's interest and to oversee Turner Construction.

The whole ECCL, high school, elementary school, pool and community center originally was supposed to be completed in 2015.

Emery School District & City Rolls Back Citizen Speech, Access to Their Government

Citizen Engagement Sharply Curtailed by City/Schools

The City of Emeryville and the Emery Unified School District joined forces last Wednesday to sharply curtail and restrict public access to their government by dramatically reducing citizen's rights at public meetings held by the two bodies.  The new regime of harsh restrictions came in a 'rules and procedures' update announced by the City and the School District February 26th.

Among the new restrictions at City/Schools Committee meetings:

• Citizens may not criticize the job performance of a specific Council member or School Board member, only the body as a whole. 
• No questions may be directed to any specific Council member or Board member.
• Citizen speaking time is reduced from 3 minutes to 2 minutes at the open 'public comments' section and reduced from 3 minutes to 1 minute for other items on the official agenda. 
• The Presiding Officer is empowered to allow certain citizens to speak longer if the officer so desires.
• Citizen speakers are required to identify themselves and give their place of residence, anonymous comments will no longer be allowed.
• Only "duly accredited" representatives of the press and other media will be permitted to remain and observe the continuing proceedings after the Presiding Officer clears the room for any reason. 

The new rules and procedures document also states the Presiding Officer shall prevent citizens "bullying" the City Council or the School Board members.

Some of the new rules announced for the City/Schools meetings were also attempted to be ensconced separately at the City Council meetings and the School Board meetings several years ago.  The City Attorney was forced to retract several rules after they were challenged by citizen activists.  At least two were determined to be illegal, those being the requirement for citizens to identify themselves and the prohibition against addressing a specific Council or Board member.

In addition to the above two bogus rules, Wednesday's other rules may similarly face citizen push-back and some may also be illegal.
For instance the arbitrary and suspect separation between "duly accredited"members of the press and those not accredited or recognized by the government almost certainly does not comport with the Constitution.  Other rules are clearly an attempt by the City and the District to quash citizen dissenters and appear arbitrary and capricious; the respective two and one minute speaking limits for some speakers with provisions to allow other speakers (that the government likes) unregulated speaking is such an attempt to stifle dissenters.  The prohibition against citizens 'bullying' their government representatives is notable in that the new rule turns the word bully on its head, the essential prerequisite imbalance of power having been reversed.  A bully is one who intimidates or abuses a weaker person(s), as when a government representative intimidates or abuses a citizen or group of citizens.  The reverse, when a powerless citizen becomes emboldened, what might be called bullying here, is commonly referred to as "speaking truth to power" in other less authoritarian quarters.

The City/Schools Committee is comprised of all five City Council members and all five School Board members.

Below is a posting of the relevant sections of the updated rules and procedures:

RULES OF PROCEDURE OF THE EMERYVILLE CITY/SCHOOL COMMITTEE

February 26, 2014 

2.0 GENERAL RULES
2.14 Preservation of Order:  The Presiding Officer shall preserve strict order and decorum, shall prevent threatening, bullying, or disruptive verbal attacks on the Emeryville City/School Committee members, staff, and/or citizens, confine debate to the item under discussion, and discourage demonstrations before the Emeryville City/School Committee such as applauding or “booing”. 

2.16 Authority to Clear Room Where Meeting Willfully Interrupted, Etc.:  Upon instructions by the Presiding Officer, the Chief of Police or his or her designee may be called for the purpose of removing any person who, in the Presiding Officer’s judgment, has violated the rules of conduct and has disrupted the meeting. In the event that any meeting is willfully interrupted by an individual, group or groups of persons so as to render the orderly conduct of such meeting infeasible and order cannot be restored by removal of the individual or individuals who are willfully interrupting the meeting, the Presiding Officer may order the meeting room cleared and continue in session.  Only matters appearing on the Agenda may be considered in such a session. Duly accredited representatives of the press or other news media, except those participating in the disturbance, shall be allowed to attend any session held pursuant to this section.  Nothing in this section shall prohibit the Presiding Officer from establishing a procedure for readmitting an individual or individuals not responsible for willfully disturbing the orderly conduct of the meeting. 

    

                                    B. The following shall apply for “Agenda Items”:

2. Before the Emeryville City/School Committee takes action on the item, if any action is contemplated, the Presiding Officer shall recognize those members of the public who have signaled their desire to address the Committee. Each person, once recognized by the Presiding Officer, shall approach in an orderly fashion, and state their name and city of residence for the record.  To assist with preparation of the minutes of the meeting, each person is asked to sign their name on a speakers list at the podium, but is not required to do so. 

5. All remarks on an Agenda Item shall be directed to the Presiding Officer and the Emeryville City/School Committee as a body and not to any particular member of the Emeryville City/School Committee, staff or member of the public. 

7. No question shall be asked of Emeryville City/School Committee Members, the City Manager, School Superintendent or staff except through the Presiding Officer.

C. The following shall apply for “Public Comments”:

3. Each speaker is limited to two (2) minutes for any comment during “Public Comments”. At the discretion of the Presiding Officer, the time allotted to an individual speaker may be further adjusted.

D. The following shall apply for any other portion of the Agenda:

2. Each speaker is limited to one (1) minute for any comment on any other portion of the Agenda. At the discretion of the Presiding Officer, the time allotted to an individual speaker may be further adjusted.

City/Schools Committee: Recipe For Disaster

We're in a Set of Pincers

Opinion
The Tattler has previously reported on the cruel irony that Emeryville taxpayers are being forced by the School District to pick up the tab for the major new school rebuild called the Center of 'Community' Life, a project that requires Emeryville to attract many new families with children for its success, while at the same time City Hall has for years been sabotaging any chance for that success by refusing to build housing for families.  It's cruel because of the hoodwinking and fleecing of the taxpayers and because of the short changing of the educational prospects of the children owing to the threatened viability of the schools.  The relationship between the two government agencies, Emeryville City Hall and Emery Unified School District, is dysfunctional yet symbiotic.

But while the Tattler has made much of this twisted relationship that virtually ensures failure of the new schools we're building, a greater overarching irony exists.  The much vaunted City/Schools Committee, a body made up of the City Council and the School Board members and set up by both elected bodies was specifically started with an eye towards avoiding problems like this from happening.  The idea of Emeryville's City/Schools Committee is to work collaboratively to avoid the sorts of problems that one would expect to arise when a complex project is undertaken jointly by two agencies traditionally separated by state law.

Most municipalities it should be noted don't have city/schools committees, mostly because of the state mandated firewall that is supposed to separate these two government agencies.  Emeryville is unusual in this regard.  Over the years elected officials here have made much of the close relationship between the Council and the School Board embodied by the Committee, touting its many supposed apparent virtues. The Tattler however has cautioned against the School Board cozying up to the Council by way of this Committee, pointing out a dangerous lack of independence for the School Board this relationship has brought.

But the problem here stems from the simple fact that the City Council majority is incapable of dropping its self imposed program to let developers call the shots in Emeryville, and as a direct result virtually no affordable family friendly housing has been built here in more than fifteen years.  Over those fifteen years, Emeryville's single and married without children population skyrocketed but the town actually lost families.  What we have built is a reputation for being friendly to developers, a quality proudly proclaimed by Emeryville's former City Manager Pat O'Keeffe, drawing criticism from city planners around the Bay Area.  In fact, city planners and even some council members themselves have called Emeryville's earlier decade of building nothing but lofts 'reckless' and 'irresponsible'.

Too Late
The legacy of using Emeryville's former Redevelopment Agency to partner with developers to build zero affordable family housing during the pre-recession housing building boom, a shocker ignored by the City /Schools Committee, now virtually guarantees failure of the Center of 'Community' Life.   And without the prodigious resources of the Redevelopment Agency, very little housing will be built going forward.  The little that is built will be done by the developers themselves, leaving City Hall pretty much out of the loop.  The time to have built affordable family friendly housing was when the Redevelopment Agency was extant.

How could the City/Schools Committee have gotten it so wrong?  It's a great irony, the city that proudly innovates and brings together two separate governmental agencies to work together for a common goal by forming the City/Schools Committee is the same city that has failed miserably at that goal.  For us, the residents, it's as if we were placed in a pincers of dysfunctional government; one side making us pay and the other ensuring failure.

Citizen's Oversight Chairman Resigns In Protest

Crisis at center of Center of Community Life:

Second Resignation At Oversight Committee

At Thursday night's City/School Committee meeting, the Chair of the
 Measure J Citizens' Oversight Committee, Emeryville resident and parent Brian Carver, indicated that he does not intend to seek an additional term on the Committee due to his
 having "lost faith" in the Center of Community Life project and in the School Board's
 management of it.

  The action makes the second such resignation in less than a year for the embattled Oversight Committee.

  

Mr Carver, an attorney and professor at Cal Berkeley's School of Information, gave his monthly report on Oversight Committee activities in
 which he described the Committee's continuing frustration with trying to
 work with the District Staff and Board on even mundane issues such as 
the structure of the Committee and member term lengths and also
 explained that his one-year term as Chair would be expiring making this 
his last report as Chair to the City School Committee.  



Schools Superintendent Debbra Lindo and Council member Nora Davis followed his
 monthly report by praising Mr Carver's work on the Committee over the last
 year, acknowledging the difficulty of the task.
  



Mr Carver then told the Committee that he had also
 prepared a public comment to express his own personal view of the last
 year's work of the Oversight Committee.  

At that point he told shocked attendees he would not be inclined to continue serving on 
the Oversight Committee because he had lost faith in the Center of Community Life project
 and in the District's handling of it. 

  

Mr Carver said he could not summarize a
 year's worth of issues but would highlight three:



First, he argued that the Board should have a clearly articulated
 long-term plan for all three of the School District properties, Emery High School, Anna
 Yates Elementary School, and the abandoned Ralph Hawley Middle School.  He added that it was “irresponsible” for 
the School Board not to clearly communicate to the public such plans for all
 three properties, instead of focusing $95 million  of bond
authorization that will take 20-40 years to pay off all on a single
 property.



Secondly, Mr Carver argued that the Board should be open to alternatives to 
the Kindergarten through 12^th grade co-location model that the Board favors. He explained that
 parents and a former school board president have repeatedly asked the
 District to seriously consider such alternatives but the District
 instead carries on blindly with a single-minded devotion to the K-12
 silver bullet.   Mr Carver argued that even if the K-12 model were 
educationally superior, which he disputed, he said that the finances 
and the space available “don't pencil out” and that the District would be 
better able to achieve its goals if they were not trying to cram
 everything onto the single High School site.



Lastly, he said that it should not be so hard to contribute one's
 opinions on what one would like to see in a future school and community 
center.  He said he has felt ostracized for expressing a different 
opinion than the District staff and Board.



He concluded by highlighting for the public what he thinks is a 
looming mistake on the horizon. He said that the District will likely
 soon finalize its decision to enter into a “lease-leaseback” arrangement 
with Turner Construction for the construction of the Center of Community Life, likening it 
to writing Turner one big check and hoping for the best.  Mr Carver argued
 that in this economy, the District should instead put the project out 
for competitive bidding, a process he said could save the District 
millions of dollars.



Later that same meeting the City/Schools Committee blithely approved the Center of Community Life’s
 conceptual design, placing K-12 and Community Services all on the High School 
site, without so much as a word in response from a school board or city 
council member to the (former) chairman of the Citizen’s Oversight Committee, Mr Carver's concerns.

Mr Carver's resignation in protest makes the second time for the Citizen's Oversight Committee; last September, committee member Shirley Enomoto resigned from her position in protest citing an unsupported and recalcitrant School Board.  Ms Enomoto was serving as the State mandated taxpayer's representative to the Oversight Committee.


Brian Carver lives in the Triangle neighborhood with his wife, council member Jac Asher and their two children who both attend Emeryville public schools.

School District Has "Backslid" Says City Council

School District Called To The Mat 

By Council

The Emery school board and the city council changed an earlier vote and unanimously granted $200,000 for consulting contractors to assist in a "change of culture" to implement programs associated with the Center of Community Life.  The money request was rebuffed vigorously at a contentious January meeting wherein city councilwoman Ruth Atkin admonished the School District for "going down the wrong direction".

The January request for $200,000 to pay the consultants, the National Equity Project and Partners In School Innovation, jarred council member Ruth Atkin; "If we still need culture change after 10 years, we're going down the wrong direction, we're not being effective" she said adding, "This sounds like the School District has seriously backslid."  Ms Atkin's colleagues chimed in expressing concern about the direction of the District.  Ms Atkin noted the money request seemed to represent a disturbing drift in District policy, "The scale has swung to 'process' from academic achievement" she lamented.

Before a shovelful of dirt has been taken, the $200,000 ultimately approved at the February City/Schools meeting will be added to the $2 million of Measure J bond money already spent on the Center of Community Life, a school/community center project to be built on San Pablo Avenue.
Emeryville voters passed Measure J in November 2010 to authorize $95 million in bonds to build the Center of Community Life but crashing assessed valuation in Emeryville has dropped the bonding capacity to $40 million.  District officials note $8 million was recently added by the federal government in the form of a low interest loan. The city's defunct Redevelopment Agency was to kick in an extra $25 million but those funds may now not be available, leaving just $48 million to build a project originally slated to cost $120 million.

Center Of Community Life Now Costs Only $65 Million

First It Cost $120 Million, Now It's Only $65 Million:

School District's Center Of Community Life Shifting Goalpost

News Analysis

New and vexing economic tribulations at the Emeryville School District is forging a new counter-intuitive meme, forwarded by officials, that would have citizens believe that it's cheaper to tear down the existing high school and build a whole new campus and community center there than it is to simply renovate Emeryville's schools.

Emeryville's assessed property valuation has markedly lowered in the last couple of years owing to the dismal state of the economy and that has drastically lowered the bonding capacity for the schools/community center building project known as the Emeryville Center of Community Life.  Undaunted, school district officials have moved forward, determined to build ECCL anyway, virtually unaffected by the bleak new economic reality.  This reality disconnect revealed itself at an October 19th Citizens Oversight Committee meeting when the School District reversed earlier predictions about the project's costs, inexplicably making it now cheaper to build the entire schools/community center project than to renovate the existing school buildings to minimum code compliance.

Slide from the July 2010 meeting 
showing the $68 million cost to do 
a code compliance only minimum 
renovation of the existing schools. 

At a July 2010 City/Schools Committee meeting, District architect Roy Miller told the decision maker attendees, made up of the city council and school board members, that the most minimal possible school renovations would cost a lot: $68 million.  As an alternate, Mr Miller said the School District could generate $95 million from the sale of Measure J school bonds (subsequently OKed by Emeryville voters in November 2010) and instead tear down the high school facility and build an entire new school, K-12 combining the elementary school, middle school and high school with a community center called the Center of Community Life for $95 million plus $25 million kicked in from the City of Emeryville's coffers for a total of $120 million.

After that pivotal July 2010 meeting, when the City/Schools Committee voted to move forward with the ECCL project and after the voters OKed the sale of the Measure J bonds in November of 2010, the worsening economy lowered Emeryville's bond saleability from $95 million to $40 million.
So $40 million plus the $25 million from the city totals $65 million.  The new fiscal realities presents the School District with the awkward scenario of explaining how a simple renovation of the three existing buildings could cost more than the total tear down and building of an entirely new suite of campus buildings; their preferred option.

Artist's rendering of the Center of Community Life:
Now officials say it can be built for only $65 million.

Unfazed by the slashing of bond money available for the project, the School District officials now say it can move forward with a smaller version of the ECCL project at $65 million.  The smaller version however still involves abandoning the existing Anna Yates Elementary School and co-locating it on the ECCL site on San Pablo Avenue.  Also unaffected by the reduced funds, School District officials say, is the building of the new community center.

District officials did not specify at the October 19th Citizens Oversight Committee meeting how the Center of Community Life is to be built at half the cost of previous estimates.

City/School District Bogus "Co-Location" Narrative

Measure J "Co-Location" Controversy-

 Voters Kept In The Dark:

Anna Yates School To Be Abandoned All Along

A recently released recording of government officials at an Emeryville City/Schools meeting in 2010 has revealed a stark counter narrative to what the same officials are now lockstep claiming is immutable; namely that Emeryville's elementary school must be abandoned.  As these Emeryville officials at City Hall and at the School District heat up what they call "community engagement", the shopping around of the voter approved $400 million Center of Community Life school bond, they have presented to residents a consensus among themselves that the popular Anna Yates Elementary School must be abandoned and the children moved to the proposed new school on San Pablo Avenue.  The July 2010 recording however reveals that these same leaders planned a strategy before the November Measure J school bond vote where the public could be tricked into thinking that there could be a real public debate about the fate of Anna Yates school if they were to vote for  Measure J. 

The Walking Dead: Anna Yates School  

Anna Yates Elementary School:
Taxpayers just last year spent
$9 million  to upgrade the facilities.

The one K-12 school idea, or "co-location" is now a fait accompli; locked in, if the politicians are to be believed, but before the citizens school bond November 2010 vote, they told voters that a YES vote on the bond would not mean that co-location is a sure thing.  Anna Yates school could remain open even if Measure J passed, they assured voters; its fate would be decided by the community in the "design phase" after passage of the Measure.  

Even though School Board member Josh Simon now parrots the narrative of his colleagues that co-location is necessary, at the 2010 meeting he joined his colleagues in the idea of allowing Anna Yates to continue on as an elementary school by stating, "Frankly, whether that safe quality education is in one site or several sites, we'll still be looking at that in the design phase, but it's going to cost $95 million [before financing and not including city money] regardless of how many sites."  Later in the meeting, a disturbing duplicity was revealed by the council members and school board members attending the meeting as they openly discussed how voters could be deceived by the Measure J bond language to hide their real motivations; to abandon Anna Yates Elementary School and force co-location of both Emeryville schools onto one San Pablo Avenue site; their real agenda.

Hidden Agenda

Mr Simon told his City/Schools Committee colleagues at the July 2010 meeting, "When we get to the actual language of the bond, the bond language doesn't actually refer to co-location of the school, although it's a goal of the School Board and it's mentioned in the resolution, the actual legislation that will be going to the voters does not mention it.  What it does include is some principles of community engagement, so that we are building into the actual legislation a community engagement process that will be voted on by the voters and that we will be, as a school board, held accountable to by our bond counsel.  We will not be able to get the financing without proceeding with this process."

Former Superintendent of the Schools, John Sugiyama concurred with Mr Simon that, when writing the bond language for the voter's perusal, it would be important to keep the co-location agenda hidden.  He told attendees, " Exhibit A1, which is the statutorily required bond project list. I think that it's, the comment I would make about this list, and again this list was developed by bond counsel with staff input, that the key here is to be specific enough to meet the intentions of the law but also at the same time to provide the flexibility so it doesn't lock the district into a specific action. So, a good example was, the co-location issue is not mentioned here anywhere in the resolution or in the project list, while that is a Board goal, that will be work that will be undertaken and studied in the context of the design process. So, we believe, the staff believes, that the bond project list, as it is currently worded, is reasonably clear enough so that the voter will know what the bond dollars will be expended for, but also provides the ability for community engagement and involvement to help in defining in more specific terms what the nature of that expenditure will look like."

The statements made at the July 2010 City/Schools meeting by Mr Sugiyama and Mr Simon are a part of the public record and should now enable any citizens that might want to save Anna Yates Elementary School, to put to rest any co-location insistence on the part of the politicians.  City and School District continue to solicit community input for what its worth, at the design sessions for the Center of Community Life.