School District Moves to Deregulate Themselves Ahead of Parcel Tax Election

Oversight Committee Prepares to Decouple From Regulation;

Brown Act, Conflict of Interest Rules

Tomorrow night at the Emery school bond oversight committee meeting, the School District has prepared a suite of regulatory rollbacks to vote on that, up until now, has constrained the District including: laws governing conflicts of interest, the Brown Act open meetings law, reductions of the number of auditors for parcel taxes and bonds, and other burdensome regulations from their bond oversight committee.  The audacious deregulation gambit runs afoul of California law in some cases and begs the question of timing: With the Measure K parcel tax March 3rd plebiscite looming, why would the District be seeking this high visibility power grab disempowering ordinary citizens now? 

All told, the proposed deregulation promises to make it easier for District decision-makers to profit from their decisions, for developers to profit and to keep the public in the dark.
Those proposed changes can be seen in red here: http://emeryusd.k12.ca.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Packet_2.11.2020-1.pdf

Compendium of District Proposed Deregulation
On page 15 (of the entire committee pdf packet), the District is proposing removing the existing two-year moratorium on oversight committee members profiting from Emery school bonds.  Given that there is currently one member who is a developer (Josh Simon, more on him later) and another is a contractor, the roll back would permit them to approve a project, resign from the committee, then bid on the project.
The District thinks it’s better to allow the overseers to immediately move into bidding on projects and working for the District upon vacating their positions, a classic ‘good old boy’ network the two year moratorium rule is meant to stop.

On page 12, the District excludes the committee from the Brown Act.  While the removal of the Brown Act from the bylaws does not exempt the committee from the Act, as all government committees are beholden to the Brown Act, striking it from the bylaws does not make Emery Unified look good.

The District might be trying to exempt the committee by reducing the number of members needed for a quorum as they do on page 12.  The new rules propose that two members represent a quorum.  Under the Brown Act, anytime two members of the committee discussed the bonds, it would be a violation of the Act if not done at a public meeting.  It also allows a single member to decide issues during a meeting because of the abstention voting rules.

ECCL Citizen's Oversight Committee
Member Josh Simon
Formerly of Emeryville, Mr Simon
would benefit by the deregulation
proposal.  His development company
could bid on projects without
constraint from existing
conflict of interest rules.

Other changes throughout the update make it easier for quick opaque decisions.  Things like updating the bylaws become easier by removing the two-thirds requirement putting into the hands of any two members, or a quarter of the members.  The update removes the requirement for parents or seniors to be members. It leaves in “people with knowledge of facilities,” code for developers (page 11).

It should be noted that former School Board member and regional developer Josh Simon has been the consistent member of the oversight committee since he moved out of Emeryville.   He is about to be term-limited out because of state law.  It is an interesting coincidence that Mr Simon, the same person that pushed for the ECCL single school site, campaigned for the $95 million bond measure that built it, and has been on the oversight committee that fought against an audit, is now about to be set free for his company to bid on projects or surplus land from the District.  Some might say this sort of conflict is exactly what lawmakers had in mind when the rules constraining this were written.

The Superintendent of the Schools was called to comment on this deregulation vote tomorrow night, but she didn’t return calls.

Emeryville Mayor's Vote Exposes Conflict of Interest

Mayor Brinkman Refuses to Reveal Conflict

Material Interest Concealed

Emeryville's Mayor Kurt Brinkman misrepresented himself and may have run afoul of the law Tuesday night as he voted to require automatic fire extinguishing sprinkler systems in certain new and existing structures in Emeryville without notifying the City Attorney that his company, Intrepid Electronics, is in the business of fire sprinkler alarm installation in town.  Mr Brinkman, as Intrepid's CEO, has material interest in fire sprinkler alarm installation and he stands to profit from his vote, contrary to his denial at Tuesday's Council meeting.

City Council members are required to notify the City Attorney if there is a possible conflict of interest such as this and recuse themselves by declining to vote if the vote could conceivably net the Council member financial benefit.  Usually, city attorneys rule on the side of recusal if the vote is questionable or if there is even possible public perception of a conflict of interest.

Mayor Brinkman told a citizen at the meeting that he did not need to recuse himself because he is not in the fire sprinkler alarm business, a false statement according to his company's own website.  A phone call to Intrepid confirmed this, "Fire sprinkler alarms?  That's what we do" said 'Cody', an employee.

Mr Brinkman's vote, together with his colleagues, now makes it a requirement that new structures over 3000 square feet in Emeryville must be fitted with fire sprinklers (with alarms) and even with existing buildings, including single family detached homes and condos, if there is a renovation with an increase in value in excess of 50% of the replacement cost of the house or unit.

The mayor's company had previously been headquartered in Emeryville but he has subsequently moved to Oakland.  Intrepid continues to get a lot of Emeryville contracts according to the employee Cody.  Mayor Brinkman refused to comment to the Tattler other than to continue to allege his company doesn't install fire sprinkler alarms.

U-Tube video courtesy of the Emeryville Property Owners Association