City Throws in the Towel on Graffiti Tags

 The City of Emeryville and PG&E Celebrates 'Junior' and Hundreds of His Friends

Commentary

By Brian Donahue

A couple of months ago a few graffiti tags appeared on the wall of the PG&E building on Holden Street.  Citizen complaints were received by the City who is required by statute to let the owner of the building know about it and to remind the owner they are required by law to remove the tags.  Despite numerous complaints over many weeks, PG&E refuses to remove the tags and because graffiti is self propagating, one tagger’s efforts are repeated by another and another, now the whole building is covered and it is spreading to neighboring buildings. 

This could be a primer in how not to conduct public policy.

For years Emeryville did a pretty good job combatting graffiti (the CVS building notwithstanding) but now the process seems to be broken.  We don’t know the precise reason for the dysfunction but the City of Emeryville doesn’t seem capable of handling a problem like graffiti removal anymore.  Tellingly, the police report to us that the City has informed PG&E about the problem but they have so far rebuffed any directives from the City to fix the problem. In frustration, we offered to do it ourselves.  We said we will voluntarily paint over the tags free of charge but later, the police told us they spoke with PG&E and they said they will sue anybody that tries to paint over the graffiti tags on their building. The police, for their part, say they will arrest anyone who tries to paint over the PG&E graffiti tags if they catch them in the act.

PG&E will not obey Emeryville’s graffiti law and they will not let us do what they refuse to do.  That lets us know all we need to know about the lack of community mindedness of this giant corporation in our town.

But then something changed.  The police informed PG&E that the Tattler knows about their lawsuit threat. Quickly, PG&E told the police to inform us that they have had a change of heart.  Now apparently they will not sue anybody that tries to paint over the graffiti on their building, and they want us to know that.  

So now we know PG&E doesn’t care about our laws but they do care about bad press. 

City Hall, PG&E and the Police Department: all are here to make sure we can’t have a nice place to live anymore.  So we’re expecting more tags…..and more and more and more.  Graffiti tags everywhere is what you get with the civic dysfunction that embodies the new Emeryville.  

This is not the kind of thing that's solvable anymore,
says the City of Emeryville.
‘Junior’ wants us to know he was here
and who are we to take that away from him?

UPDATE: Today 1/6/25 workers from PG&E painted over the graffiti.  Problem solved!

The Tattler Delivers to the People of Emeryville, a Choice in the Governance of Their Schools

 The Tattler Brings You 

An Election!

Emeryville Citizens Will Be Able To Vote For School Board This Year Because of the Tattler

Commentary

By Tattler Editor Brian Donahue

I’ve lived in Emeryville for 42 years and during that time, the citizens here have been able to vote for their school board only a few times.  Usually, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters does not hold an election in Emeryville because nobody seems to want to run for the school board position if incumbents are running, which they almost always are.  This year is different.  Because I decided to run, there will be an election and the people get to have their say about who runs their schools, a rare occurrence in Emeryville history.  Insularity is the thing at Emery Unified School District, democracy, generally not well-received.

How individuals rise up and become new Emery School Board members is by appointment by the Board rather than by election by the people.  It’s all legal. Insularity is locked in at Emery.

Here’s how it works in six steps:

1)  A Board member tells their colleagues they want to resign before their term is up.

2)  The rest of the Board appoints a favored replacement for a short term (until the next election).

3)  The appointed new Board member announces they are running as an incumbent in the next election, benefiting from the incumbent advantage.

4)  Nobody rises up to challenge because of the well known incumbent advantage.

5)  The County Registrar of Voters does not hold an election.

6)  The friend, newly appointed by the Board, gets to be on the Board for a full new term (unless they too quit early) without ever facing Emeryville voters.

This year I threw a monkey wrench into all that.  

Here’s how I forced an election this year:

1)  The two incumbents indicated they were going to run for re-election to the two seats in contention.

2)  I waited until two days before the deadline to see if anybody registered to challenge the two incumbents (which I hoped for but doubted would happen).

3)  Sure enough, nobody registered to challenge the two incumbents.

4)  I quickly registered, thereby forcing an election.

5)  The incumbent, Kimberly Solis, who was herself earlier appointed to the Board, withdrew her registration to run for re-election.  She obviously was waiting to resign until right after winning a second term with no election, enabling the Board to appoint her replacement (until I messed that up).  Her withdrawal forced step 6 to happen.

6)  The Alameda County Registrar extended the deadline to register by one week as they legally are required to do when this happens.

7)  During the extended registration period, with two seats up and only one incumbent, a new challenger who wants the seat and who would be good at it (Elsie Joyce Lee), quickly registered.  Democracy flowered.

8)  The Board quickly found a favored replacement to run for the open seat against Elsie Lee (and I); the Board's choice is the husband of an existing Board member (who will get something close to an incumbent advantage in the election with the whole Board’s endorsement). 

Elsie Joyce Lee was not going to run for the Board until she saw a seat open without an incumbent. As a result, now there are four people running for two seats; one a straight incumbent, one, the husband (a near incumbent who may not get the full incumbent advantage), Elsie Lee and I.  This brings the possibility of the rarest of things, a new face and new ideas at Emery Unified, vetted by the people instead of the School Board.  

Seeing how Ms Lee, a very good candidate for any school board, is trying for the one open seat against two competitors (me and the husband of the existing Board member), I will make an announcement about this soon.

Emery schools are terribly run, just as they have been for years.  We’re the second worst school district in Alameda County (more on that in a future Tattler story).  At the same time, Emery is the best funded school district by far, in the county.  To be second from the bottom and at the top for funding means the management is terrible.  The culture that enables this terrible condition at Emery to continue for decade after decade is the cynical insularity promulgated by the School Board, their friends and family members.  A real election with the people of Emeryville deciding, could be the beginning of much needed change.  

Punch to the Face Heralds New Era of Political Violence in Emeryville

Tattler Editor Physically Assaulted by John Bauters’ Supporter 

Emeryville's Children's Harvest Festival Site of Political Violence

Unprovoked Attack Draws Yawns From Team Bauters

Commentry

By Brian Donahue

A friend and supporter of candidate for political office John Bauters, assaulted me without provocation last week as I was asking Mr Bauters a question at an Emeryville public event.  The assault came in the form of a punch to the face because the Tattler has been covering Councilman Bauters’ campaign for Alameda County Supervisor and the assailant doesn’t like the news the Tattler has been reporting.  It is the first example of political violence we know of in modern Emeryville history.

The Incident

Please review the video of the incident below.

Mr Bauters set up a tent to talk to voters and distribute campaign literature at Emeryville’s annual Harvest Festival at Huchiun Park on Sherwin Street October 5th.  The punch came less than one minute after I sat down to ask the Councilman a question for a potential Tattler story.  I wanted to ask him why, at an earlier public event in Berkeley, he had called his colleague on the City Council, Kalimah Priforce, a name that involves an expletive (he called him a “shitbag liar”).  

At first, Bauters said he didn’t recall calling Council member Priforce a name, and so I realized I needed to use the actual profanity, to jog his memory.   Because a man, the assailant with two young children, was standing under the Bauters tent and within earshot, I turned to him and told him I was going to quote back the profanity to Mr Bauters and for the sake of his children, I would give him ample time to move a few feet away for five seconds.  The assailant told me not to use the word in front of his children and he didn’t step away.  He told me I had to censor my speech.  I told him NO and I reminded him he could step back for a moment but instead, he menacingly ordered me to “stand up”.  I stood up and turned the camera to the man and told him his children were not in the camera frame.  Bauters, realizing his friend was about to turn to violence, called him by his first name and told him not to do it.  But his friend was not controllable.   He set down his child from his shoulders and punched me in the face.  I saw the punch coming and blocked it, turning it into a glancing blow but the kinetic force was enough to drive me backwards into my chair, which flipped over.  Then I tripped backwards over the chair and landed on the asphalt on my elbow, injuring it.

Writhing in pain on the ground and tangled up in the chair, the assailant verbally taunted me in front of his children he was seconds before trying to protect against hearing profanity, “Did that fucking hurt?” he said to me.   Because I did not defend myself against the small, 5’-9”, 150 pound man’s attack, there was no more violence.  Council member Bauters, who was standing six feet from me, did not offer me any assistance or help me to my feet, nor did any other of his political supporters standing or sitting under the tent.  The assailant did not apologize for his actions. 

The police were summoned as well as an ambulance.  The Emeryville police viewed the video and I pressed charges on the assailant who will appear before an Alameda County judge in December.  I was treated by medical EMTs.  My elbow is still injured.      

                                  

The Assailant

The Assailant 
Private school director.
He believes his calling is to treat
people with "respect and kindness".

The assailant, who lives in Oakland with his wife and children are long time friends and supporters of John Bauters’ political career.  He gave the Emeryville Council member $500 for his re-election campaign in 2019.  In 2023, when it was mostly Republicans clamoring for Alameda County DA Pamela Price to be recalled, the Bauters supporter gave $100 to the effort.  

On a popular social media site, the assailant prominently posted a photograph of himself and his two children.  The Tattler has blanked out the faces of his children for purposes of this story.  After punching me in the face and taunting me, the assailant said, “Don’t threaten my children”.

  At no time did I threaten his children as the video shows; as a matter of fact, I went out of my way to protect his children.  It was this violent man himself that (psychologically) harmed his own children.

The assailant is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at an expensive Berkeley international private school where he is tasked with serving as an “ambassador for the larger community”.  The school claims their commitment to the community is to “interact with respect and kindness with everyone in our community.”

He is also the principle at an eponymous local insurance agency that is listed with $5 million revenue.

Political Violence

Amid ever increasing political violence around the nation, it was probably only a matter of time before it came to Emeryville.  Council member Bauters himself has been instrumental in changing the politics in Emeryville, leading a turn away from accountability, transparency and democratic inclusion.  This has come in the form of not answering emails, texts or phone calls of his constituents as well as a refusal to hold press conferences, all meant to keep his 'brand' untarnished, something not possible for a real politician in a true democracy.  The Mayor Courtney Welch and Council member Sukhdeep Kaur have also taken up this Bautersian ‘shield of darkness’ political tactic.  The total narrative control Bauters has birthed in Emeryville means constituents who ask him tough questions will find themselves frozen out.  The press as well.  In fact, the whole reason I seek to get questions answered at public events from these undemocratically minded Council members is that is the only time they can be approached and be subject to a question about their policies. 

The violence brought this condemnation from
Council member Priforce.  The rest of the Council
members refused to comment on it. Maybe they think 
political violence is no big deal?

With political violence spilling out of red states a lack of accountability from a politician, born of a binary narrative that the community is made up of good (supportive) people and bad (unsupportive) people, can lead to violence here.  What Mr Bauters and his Council followers are doing can rive the community into warring camps and ultimately, political violence.  Strong leadership is what’s needed to stop political violence.  But it also requires the whole community to be on board.  Sarah Birch, Professor of Political Science at King’s College London and author of Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order says “A community that will tolerate violence will get violence. A community that does not tolerate violence is much less likely to have violence.”   

Emeryville citizens can put aside political differences and collectively refuse political violence, but it will take saying NO to it.  Greater American political dysfunction of the violent kind is creeping into Emeryville.  Because what may have been seen as abstract and foreign in the recent past can now be seen in actual fists impacting actual faces.   We have learned it can happen here.

The video of the incident may be viewed HERE.

Lifted from his social media account, the assailant 
posted this picture of himself with his two children.
We blocked out their faces out of respect for them.
He punched a man in the face, unprovoked, in front
of his own children. Lifetime memories were made.