Kurt Brinkman Uses Oakland Tribune to Misinform Emeryville Residents

Former Mayor Spreads Misinformation

on Minimum Wage Debate

Obfuscation and Outright Falsehoods 

Former Emeryville mayor and multi-year Chamber of Commerce Board member Kurt Brinkman is using his position as a community leader to misinform the community in an opinion piece in the Oakland Tribune revealed in that newspaper's 'My Word' section this week.  Mr Brinkman, known to misinform and deceive the public while serving his five year term on the City Council in order to help the business community, told Tribune readers Wednesday the City Council is forgoing transparency and businesses are being left out of deliberations regarding a proposal to raise the minimum wage in Emeryville, a false statement.  Additionally, he says the Council's lack of intimate knowledge about small business is corrupting their judgement, rhetorically asking, "who on the Emeryville City Council has ever hired an employee, run a business or made payroll?", a dismissal of one Council member's 25 year proprietorship.

Mr Brinkman says he is concerned about Emeryville's small business and he tells the Tribune readers Emeryville's small businesses will not be given a phase-in period with the proposed wage increase, another patently false statement.  He also disregards the two City Hall public meetings held on this topic so far stating that the Council is turning a "deaf ear" on small business by conducting only one meeting.

Kurt Brinkman
Oakland small business 
owner has met a payroll 
for 18 years.

Also in the Tribune opinion piece, former Mayor Brinkman goes on to say Emeryville and other cities should not institute minimum wage laws on their own but instead defer to the State of California and its minimum wage, now pegged at $9 per hour.  He ventures Emeryville businesses will be "put out of business" or driven out of town, precisely the same charge he made as a Chamber of Commerce Board member in 2005 against the last minimum wage increase for Emeryville's hotel workers.  Mr Brinkman was part of a concerted $140,000 effort by the Chamber of Commerce to stop the wage increase for the hotel workers enacted as a result of the passage of the Emeryville ballot initiative Measure C.  At the time, Mr Brinkman and the Chamber assured residents the four  Emeryville hotels would go bankrupt or flee to Oakland or Berkeley as a result of the wage increase.  In the intervening years, Emeryville has approved the building of hotel number five, all paying their workers the higher wages, hardly the destruction of the hospitality industry Mr Brinkman predicted.   For his remarkable lack of prescience in the Measure C fight, Kurt Brinkman has steadfastly refused to comment.

The Tattler has long chronicled Mr Brinkman's ethical transgressions to further big business interests at the expense of Emeryville's small business on the dais at the Emeryville City Council.   In 2011, Councilman Brinkman joined colleague Nora Davis in an action to stop a citizen led initiative drive to remove Emeryville's infamous business tax cap, a law that makes small business pay a higher rate of taxes than big business in town.  The tax cap, still in place, forces Emeryville's small businesses to subsidize big businesses.

Councilman Scott Donahue
Emeryville small business
owner has met a payroll
for 25 years.

Last year, after voting to move Measures U&V (a pair of 'charter city' and real estate transfer tax initiatives) forward from the dais, Councilman Brinkman joined a failed $100,000 effort by the California Association of Realtors (CAR) to stop the Measures, stating Emeryville will effectively be destroyed if voters pass the Measures.  Mr Brinkman lent a hand to the Sacramento lobbying entity CAR by robo calling every Emeryville voter, a spiel that contained many factual errors and misleading tropes.

Current Councilman Scott Donahue took the opportunity to set the record straight regarding Mr Brinkman's erroneous comment about the Council's lack of business experience, "To answer Kurt's question, I've had a small business in Emeryville since 1990, employing over 20 people intermittently.  I've met my payroll obligations for my employees during all that time and I'm fully aware of the employee costs to small businesses" the Councilman said.

The public will get another chance (number three) to weigh in on this minimum wage proposal on April 7th at the regularly scheduled City Council meeting.

Councilman Brinkman's Swan Song

'We've Had Enough of Families & Bikes,
 Thank You'

Opinion
After five long years on the Emeryville City Council forwarding contentious policy, including a bait and switch drive he led to subvert a citizen ballot initiative to remove a regressive business tax cap, Councilman Kurt Brinkman finally stepped down Tuesday night.   But not before he took the chance to engage in one last incoherent Brinkmanesque diatribe:  "We talk about friendly family [sic] we also have to remember there's lots of people without families and they to need to feel like they're involved" the retiring Councilman said.  An interesting take given Emeryville has been building virtually nothing but housing for singles for years now leading to a crisis for the schools because of a lack of family friendly housing identified in the City's own documents.  

Young Council hopeful
Kurt Brinkman

The sentiments aired Tuesday night were in line with Councilman Brinkman's five years of failing to deliver on family friendly housing but they sounded funny coming seconds after a reading of a farewell Resolution penned by his fellow Council members extolling his work on the Council providing such housing.  
We're not sure which is more outrageous, Mr Brinkman's tone deaf comments warning Emeryville residents that the town must be made safe for singles or his colleague's insistence that Councilman Brinkman has worked diligently during his term to provide lots of family housing.
Tuesday's farewell served as a curious bookend to City Council candidate Brinkman's interview with The Secret News five years ago, wherein he explained he would be a family friendly Council member if elected, and that building family friendly housing is critical in Emeryville. 

Kurt went on to remind everyone that bicyclists are persona non grata in Emeryville, "We need to have a town where you can walk to work and walk home at night", again sentiments backed up by his (anti-bike) actions on the Council.  
While it would have been audacious, given his record, if Councilman Brinkman had stated bicycling should be an acceptable way of commuting to work in Emeryville along with walking, we find it bizarre that the Councilman, as he takes his leave, is so willing to have his final swan song be that 'we've had quite enough of bikes and families in Emeryville thank you'. 

Emeryville City Council: Two Seats Open

November Open Ballot

After last autumn's announcement that Councilwoman Jennifer West will step down at the end of her term and now the announcement that Councilman Kurt Brinkman will also not seek re-election means Emeryville voters will have a selection of candidates to consider for two open City Council seats this November, an unparalleled event in modern Emeryville history.  The election could bring a change to business as usual at City Hall; in the first time in more than 35 years and possibly since Emeryville's founding, there is no incumbent on the ballot.
Look to the Tattler for election news, analysis and opinion as Emeryville voters venture into never seen before territory, that rarest of rare events: full throated democracy with a wide open Emeryville City Council ballot.

Video courtesy of the Emeryville Property Owners Association

Councilwoman West: "Blackmailer"

Councilman Kurt Brinkman Accuses Colleague of Blackmail

Opinion

Blackmailer?  Or...

Oh Jennifer West, how could you?  We are so very shocked and disappointed!   After more than four years on the City Council, we thought we had come to know you as a decent and reasonable person.  Now we come to find out you're nothing but an unethical blackmailer.
Either that or your colleague, Councilman Kurt Brinkman is a retrograde buffoon making capricious accusations.

It's getting bad on the Emeryville City Council.
We haven't seen collegiality dip this low on the Council since the days of Councilman Ken Bukowski.

Buffoon.
We report, you decide.

Tuesday, Mr Brinkman accused Ms West of blackmail from the Council dais after she said she would have a hard time voting to hand over $21 million of City money to the School District to build the Center of 'Community' Life (ECCL) on San Pablo Avenue without assurances that a General Plan mandated bike/pedestrian path along the western edge of that project be built.   The Council voted in 2013 to order the School District to build the required path, and the District responded with a plan to build the path in 'phase two' of the ECCL project, a construction phase that even the School District itself admits may never happen.  Mr Brinkman who had voted with the minority in 2013 to amend Emeryville's General Plan to permanently eliminate the path, saw Ms West's attempts Tuesday to fund the path with Capital Improvement Fund money sooner rather than later (or ever) as unethical, "blackmail" he called it, a charge Councilwoman Nora Davis agreed with.
For her part, Ms West seemed baffled by the accusation from her colleague.  Afterwards she told the Tattler, "I'm trying to improve ECCL so we can be proud of it and to show how much we support bikes and pedestrians."
Where Kurt Brinkman levels the charge blackmail, some more reasonable people might call Ms West's action with regard to the ECCL bike/ped path as an entirely proper negotiation with her colleagues to fund something she finds valuable.

"The Tattler is Fox News.  The Tattler lied
when it reported I have voted to tear
down buildings in Emeryville" 

Councilman Brinkman it seems is going off the rails of late.  He's getting rather testy.  With his resignation at the end of his term in November announced last week,  Kurt granted an interview with the blog  E'Ville Eye wherein the accusations flowed freely.
He took pains to explain he never reads the Tattler but when he happened to read the May 22nd story condemning him for being part of the City Council majority responsible for demolishing old buildings in town, he was outraged.  He told the E'Ville Eye he hasn't ever voted to tear down any old buildings in Emeryville.  He held up his own home built in 1910 as proof; instead of tearing it down, "I restored it" he said.
Left unmentioned was his 2011 vote to tear down the City Hall defined "architecturally significant" turn of the century brick Golden Gate Key Building on San Pablo Avenue.  Or another early twentieth century brick building deemed architecturally and historically significant by City Hall at 3900 Adeline Street, now slated for demolition after Kurt voted to move forward with the wrecking ball last year.

3706 San Pablo Avenue
The site of the "architecturally significant"
former Golden Gate Key Building, circa 1915
"Well. I...uh...um...I don't like to tear down...
um...what I mean to say is...um...uh"- Kurt Brinkman

Councilman Brinkman told the E'Ville Eye that criticism of his policy prescriptions is something he accepts even though it amounts to "verbal diarrhea".  He saved the most venom for the most frequent critic of his policies; the Emeryville Tattler and its editor, reserving the epithet "the Rush Limbaugh of Emeryville" although he couldn't think of an instance where the Tattler had posted something untruthful.

But after Tuesday's performance and after Mr Brinkman deviously shut down a democratic citizen's grass roots ballot initiative meant to allow Emeryville voters to decide for themselves about removing the City's infamous Business Tax Cap in 2011, and reported by the Tattler, we have to ask, who's the real Rush Limbaugh here?    

Council Raises Red Flags: Unexpected $1.1 Million Contract for Center of 'Community' Life

Center of 'Community' Life Project Oversight Contract "Awful Expensive" 

Doubts Raised About Whole Project

The Emeryville City Council balked at a recent request for recommending the Emery School District sign a two year contract with a building firm for $1.1 million to oversee the Center of 'Community' Life (ECCL) construction project, a request that drew the ire of the Council members in general and venom from Councilman Kurt Brinkman.  The School District is partnering with the City on the controversial San Pablo Avenue school/community center project and the request at the April 22nd meeting was meant to provide backing for the selection of San Francisco based Swinerton Builders to serve as "owner's representative" for two years overseeing the work performed by chief ECCL builder Turner Construction.  With the January resignation of former District architect and ECCL project director Roy Miller, there is no one left to manage the multi million dollar project, necessitating the hiring of a construction oversight firm to represent the public's interests according to the School District.

The School District request seemed to confuse the Council at first, "We have not received enough information" Nora Davis said upon hearing the request as presented by City Manager Sabrina Landreth but after the $1.1 million price tag was revealed Councilman Brinkman was angered.  He noted he is in the construction trade in his personal life and the request was tantamount to "buying the accessories of a car without knowing what the car is going to cost".  Mr Brinkman was incredulous, "I thought Turner was going to carry the costs of oversight of this [ECCL] project" and "there's not enough teeth to make sure the taxpayers get what they want out of this project".  He added, "At a million dollars, [the Swinerton contract] seems awful expensive to me."

In May, the City of Emeryville is poised to throw in $21 million for its share of the ECCL project, but the $1.1 million Swinerton contract caused the formally supportive Councilman Brinkman to express doubts about the entire ECCL project, "I'm concerned and I don't fully understand what we're getting for our $21 million" he said.

The Council ultimately refused to resolve recommending the Swinerton contract.

Video courtesy of the Emeryville Property Owners Association

Will Emeryville Join the Rest of the Bay Area? Will Taxes Reflect Our Worth?

How Much Should We Charge Business to Operate in Our Town? 

Should There Be a Rational Basis?

Opinion
The City Council has been looking into raising revenue from lots of different sources recently after Sacramento two years took away the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency, formerly City Hall's main funding source.  Emeryville is left with drastically reduced revenue but the same old list of required maintenance expenditures and discretionary capital improvement projects.  It's caused the Council to think outside the box as far as new revenue is concerned.  What was formerly off limits for this Council majority; making businesses pay more including looking at raising developer impact fees the City charges, is now openly being bandied about.
These public investigations into our revenue streams has laid bare just how low taxes are for Emeryville business.  When it comes to revenue, Emeryville stands alone; business here pays far less than in neighboring cities.  It's the same story across the board: from the hotel occupancy tax to the business tax rate to the real estate transfer tax to impact fees and to outright give-a-ways like the business tax cap which allows the largest corporations in town to pay taxes at a much lower rate than smaller businesses do.  It's sort of a Robbin Hood in reverse thing going on.

"We should charge what 

the market will bare"

Make no mistake, this 'lower by orders of magnitude' taxation culture at City Hall is not an accident, it's not an oversight; it represents the will of this Council majority....at least up until now.
But besides being plain old bad public policy, this low tax thinking has no rational basis.  For rationality to be at play, there needs to be some evidentiary demonstrability in effect.  It needs to be measurable.  But there seems only to be vague and unsubstantiated ideas of the ambiguous benefits of low taxation for business driving the three person majority.  Republican Party folklore about Adam Smith's invisible hand seems to be the animate force guiding this.  The only thing missing are the normally ubiquitous 'trickle down' and 'all boats rising' memes being trotted out.

There's simply no good reason to charge so little.
A rational basis argument for how we can set business taxes in Emeryville would take into account what the prevailing rates are plus the value specifically we represent for business.  Value can be defined in numerous ways like location, access, crime, resident demographics, government services and the local neighborhood desirability in terms of restaurants and parks and the like.  The knee-jerk 'we must keep business taxes low' mantra takes none of this into account.  To set business taxes with these factors accounted for would be to levy taxes based on what the market will bare.  It represents a rational basis that businesses understands.  It's a basis we understand.  To put it simply, we should charge what we can get.  To charge any less is to give a gift of public money to business that's not warranted.

We charge far less than what Oakland charges.  There's something obviously wrong with that.

Another rational basis would be to take into account our 'positives' but charge a little less than what the market will bare.  This argument makes sense if we're trying to pump up the business sector in our town due to some previous deficit.  But it's hard to make this argument in Emeryville, being so laser focused on attracting business as we have been for the last 25 years or so.  The deficit we face can be found in livability, not attracting business.  Among the many metrics, Emeryville is below our neighbors in acres of parkland per resident; far below.  That's a manifestation of a livability deficit.

But what's impossible is to make a rational argument for what the Council majority has been doing until now: giving away the store.  Just watch Council Members Nora Davis and Kurt Brinkman especially.  They arrive at each Council meeting with a barely hidden agenda of 'how can I serve Emeryville business today?'  At almost every turn they devalue the commons to the benefit of business, especially big business. But the loss of funds at City Hall is getting existentially hazardous. The new paradigm of post Redevelopment is something they're clearly struggling with.  When the Council voted to look into raising the transfer tax on March 18, Mr Brinkman almost went out in a blaze of glory; voting NO to even consider allowing Emeryville residents to vote on the idea in November.  But the specter of a 4-1 vote on the Council dais, with Kurt Brinkman standing alone against democracy with this vote as he faces the electorate this fall, brought him back.  Councilwoman Davis to her credit seems to be taking the financial threat at City Hall more seriously; she's been a bit more pragmatic.

However, while we're busy comparing Emeryville's low business tax guiding principles to Adam Smith and what's going on in red states nation wide, we should consider how American worker's dramatic productivity gains over the last 30 years have not been matched in wage gains.  Indeed, wages have been flat or even falling despite labor's prodigious productivity rises.  We're still the wealthiest nation on Earth but the plutocrats have pocketed all the gains....done by design.
It's like what's happened to Emeryville during the same time period; as our desirability here dramatically increases, City Hall is stuck.  We're not benefiting; we can't seem to enjoy anything that we've worked for.  All the gains go to businesses...again, done by design.

It would appear a new majority on the Council is rising up and they're not willing to see the town sink.  They're at least now talking about securing enough revenue to keep us afloat.  So that's encouraging.  But as far as employing a rational basis for determining how to set business taxes in Emeryville, that would require a leopard changing its spots.  Rationality in business tax policy here is going to have to wait.  It's going to have to be imposed by us...at the ballot box...this November.  Kurt Brinkman will be seeking re-election and the idea of raising real estate transfer taxes will also be on the ballot.  We're going to have to make the right decisions amid the coming flurry of propaganda from the Chamber of Commerce.

City Council Moves 'Charter City' Idea Forward

Tonight the City Council voted unanimously to start a process that could lead to a November ballot initiative permitting voters to decide if Emeryville should become a charter city; an alternate style of municipal governance that increases local control at the expense of Sacramento.  The idea was first broached in January at the State of the City annual address by Mayor Jac Asher.  Mayor Asher says by becoming a charter city, Emeryville voters could decide if a real estate transfer tax should be imposed, offsetting the major loss of funds Emeryville has experienced in the wake of Sacramento rescinding the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency.

Even though all five Council members ultimately voted to instruct the City Staff to bring a specific charter city proposal for their consideration at a future meeting, Councilman Kurt Brinkman struggled with the idea at first, "The City has been run well with the current structure" he lamented.  Further, he added, if real estate transfer taxes are increased it would cause inequity, "It's not fair that renters don't have to pay this fee" he said.  Such a tax would be on the backs of residents Mr Brinkman said, albeit homeowners and only those selling their homes and leaving Emeryville.  The City Clerk noted home sales are a small percentage of real estate transfers in Emeryville (businesses being the lion's share) and if the people decide to raise the tax, it could be possible to craft a ballot initiative to carve out most homeowners by exempting properties less than a set amount.  The Council instructed the staff to present several specific proposals for their consideration at the future meeting.

Mayor Asher stressed the importance of getting our fiscal house in order after the demise of the Redevelopment Agency.   She stressed the fact that neighboring cities have become charter cities,  imposing transfer taxes to fill voids in their budgets after their redevelopment agencies were taken away.  Ms Asher called a transfer tax a "new economic tool" to help Emeryville move forward as our neighbors have done.

A Tale of Two Cities: Mayor Brinkman's Emeryville vs Mayor Asher's Emeryville

Two Different Mayors

Two Different Visions

One Placates Business, One Placates Residents

Opinion/ News Analysis
The last two Emeryville 'State of the City' annual addresses were quite different:
In 2013, when he was mayor, Kurt Brinkman said the solution to the town's woes was to keep business taxes low to help out the corporate sector....to attract and retain them.  If we help the businesses out, they'll help us out.  All boats will be lifted by a rising tide....a classic 'supply-side' trickle down argument.
This year Jac Asher is mayor and she says Emeryville is a town of ultra low business tax and we need to tax more, almost as much as our neighboring towns do so we can help out the residents like other towns do...we should build more parks, fix sidewalks and other amenities to attract and retain residents; even the vulnerable among us like families, the elderly and the poor.

It's easy to see how some residents can compare what's going on in Washington DC with our own Emeryville City Hall.  The same left wing/right wing dynamic is at play in both places.  One remarkable difference; while the two opposing sides in Washington deliver nothing but gridlock, here in Emeryville, it's the right wing that controls public policy.  That doesn't mean the left wing side has rolled over however.  They occasionally make their voices heard, sometimes to the consternation of the majority.  This year's State of the City address is one such moment.

The last two State of the City mayoral annual addresses, the 2013 speech by mayor Kurt Brinkman and the 2014 speech by mayor Jac Asher, serves to reveal the stark political divide in Emeryville.  And as in Washington, the cultural and political divide in Emeryville makes sense when one sees who the paymasters are; as in who's interests the decision makers are working.

The differences could hardly be more clear as the two competing visions are revealed in these back-to-back speeches (see the videos below).

Mayor Brinkman, despite his avuncular and personable style, uses his speech to proudly note how Emeryville has changed from a industrial city to what it is today; a mecca for corporations and a boon for developers.  He laments the end of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency and says that because of its demise, the City Council's charge is to placate business even more than it historically has.  Mayor Brinkman makes several shout outs to CEO's and business executives in the audience at the private by invitation Chamber of Commerce fundraising luncheon venue.  He notes that Emeryville is better than Oakland or Berkeley because "We make business happen here".  To make it happen more he says we need to strengthen City Hall's relationship with the Chamber of Commerce.  He says this will help close the gap in funding left over after the Redevelopment Agency but he doesn't show precisely how.

Mayor Asher, in contrast to Mayor Brinkman's exclusive venue gives her State of the City address at the people's hall; City Hall, free and open to all.  She notes that economic health should be linked to services for residents.  Mayor Asher acknowledges the loss of the Redevelopment Agency has meant a sharp drop off in revenue for the City and she shows how the problem isn't going to be fixed without a new revenue source. She makes a dramatic showing of how property taxes only make 6% of the revenues at City Hall and about how it's not really possible to bring in enough money from new business to even fund basic infrastructure properly.  She shows how changing the governing structure in Emeryville like other cities in the Bay Area have done,  by becoming a 'charter city',  will deliver the funds we need (see the Tattler story on this HERE).  She notes how City Hall should work for the residents and comport governance with a social justice perspective, "We talk quite a bit about attracting business in town but we also need to attract and retain people that live here.  In particular we need to work to keep those that are vulnerable close to resources: elderly, families with children and people living below the poverty line.  In short I want us to be a just city."

Videos courtesy of the Emeryville Property Owners Association:

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

Daily Cal: Mayor's Car Broken Into

From the Daily Cal:

Emeryville mayor’s car broken into

BY SARA GROSSMAN | SENIOR STAFF

Emeryville mayor Kurt Brinkman found himself in an all-too-familiar situation for many UC Berkeley students when his car was broken into Tuesday morning and his iPhone stolen.

Brinkman said he was grabbing a coffee at Peet’s in the Emeryville Public Market when he realized his car had been broken into. He said he parked where he did because it was in the view of a surveillance camera.

He was dismayed, however, to learn that the camera was out of order and hadn’t been working for the past week.

“It’s very upsetting that one, you have a camera, and two, the camera doesn’t work,” he said in a phone interview Friday.

Brinkman said he has filed a report with police, but there are no leads.

Automobile break-ins are the second-most-common crime in Berkeley. Some 99 incidents of car break-ins and thefts were reported in the city last year, according to information from the ASUC Office of the External Affairs Vice President.

Brinkman’s advice?

“Don’t leave anything exposed,” he said. “It’s probably the most important thing you can do.”

Sara Grossman is the executive news editor. Contact her at sgrossman@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @saragrossman.

Community Center's Operational Costs Shock City Council

Other Shoe Drops at Community Center

Massive New Costs to City Revealed

400% Increase in Operating Expenses
100% Increase in Maintenance Expenses
City's General Fund to be Put at Risk
$11 Million Gamble

After the smoke had cleared at last Tuesday evening's City Council meeting, the contentious Emeryville Center of Community Life had been transformed from a self-proclaimed fiscally prudent money saving school/community center project into a budget busting money pit festooned with poison pill hidden trap-doors ready to bankrupt City Hall.  Even long-time apologists for the project appeared stunned by the cascade of devastating numbers revealed.

Nora Davis
400% increase?!
We're supposed to be
LOWERING costs.

After waiting for years, the City's portion of the actual estimated operational costs of the Center of Community Life (ECCL) were finally revealed by the Staff leaving the majority of the City Council dumbfounded.  After having publicly pronounced "efficiencies" and "economies of scale" inherent in the new Center,  the revelations Tuesday made it clear these promises were never going to materialize and instead the project will actually increase the City's costs dramatically, the announcement of which drew loud exclamations from an incredulous Nora Davis, "The whole idea with this was to LOWER our costs" the Councilwoman said.

Under discussion was an agreement between the City of Emeryville and the Emery School District that would define many of the Center's operational arrangements. Known as a 'Memorandum of Understanding' (MOU) this would be the third such agreement in the ECCL design and development process, thus it is referred to as "MOU #3."

The City Staff Report revealed three major fiscal impacts if the City enters into MOU #3:

1. The agreement would require the City to make the District “whole” even if the City's former Redevelopment Agency's approximately $21 million is taken away by the State via pending litigation.
2. The City will assume significantly increased Operations and Maintenance costs for Community Services--the Staff Report estimates a cost increase of nearly 400%. 
3. The City will assume significantly increased annual allocation for Capital Replacement costs--estimated at a cost increase of over 100%.

$11 Million Gamble
The first point brought looks of dismay from the Council, as Staff explained that if the State Department of Finance succeeds in its efforts to challenge the City's ECCL contribution of approximately $21 million, then MOU #3 would still require the City to cover approximately $10-11 million of ECCL expenses.  The School District is in effect saying to the City, 'If you win your lawsuit, we want your money, and if you lose your lawsuit, we still want your money!'   Of course, the problem with this is the source of that $10 to $11 million is uncertain and would almost certainly jeopardize other projects on the City's Capital Improvements wish list.

Jac Asher
$20 million and we're 
NOT going to get 
our bike/ped path?

Mayor Kurt Brinkman appeared angered by the brazenness of the School District's new numbers, "The whole idea was the School District could run a leaner machine" he reminded Staff and the District employees attending.  Councilwoman Jac Asher also expressed dismay at the new numbers and she invoked an earlier revealed broken promise from the School District, "We shouldn't spend [more than] $20 million to not have a bike/pedestrian path" she reminded attendees, referring to the School District recalcitrance in building a required bike/ped path associated with the school/community center build out.

400% Increase
The basis of much of MOU #3 is a cost-sharing formula that has the District paying 71-74% and the City paying 26-29% of many expenses. In the case of the City's Youth Services this formula yielded a table on page 18 of the Staff Report that shows the City's current Recreation Center annual budget of $80,310 would, once housed at the new gold-plated ECCL, have to be increased to $319,279, an increase of 398%.  Jaws dropped on several Council members' faces, "We were supposed to SAVE money with maintenance and operating", said Council member Davis.

100% Increase
Finally, MOU #3 would require the City to set aside funds annually for major maintenance to the ECCL facilities. The Staff Report explains that currently, "the City contributes $386,500 per year to the Major Maintenance Fund for capital replacement for 139,755 square feet of public buildings and 44.21 acres of parks and open space."  The report continues, "It is anticipated that a like amount of money will need to be contributed on an annual basis for the City’s share of the capital replacement needs of the ECCL Project comprising 129,805 square feet of building space and 233,290 square feet of outdoor space."  That is, the City's annual major maintenance expenses are expected to double once the ECCL project is completed.

Kurt Brinkman
Does the School District
have any idea what
it's doing?

One other moment during the discussion brought the room to an eeiry silence. Mayor Brinkman asked City Staff whether the School District had sufficient funds to complete the project, wondering whether a final cost agreement was in place between the District and Turner Construction, "Does anybody have any idea what is the cost of the project?"  City Staff indicated that, to the best of their knowledge, the District was still in discussions with Turner and so this remained uncertain.   While the rest of the stunned room seemed to be quietly asking themselves whether the ECCL could be built at all, Mayor Brinkman noted that construction costs are currently rising and it would be good for the District to get this finalized, "With prices going up for construction, does the District have the money?" he asked.

The Staff promised to revisit the Council in September so a final MOU #3 agreement with the School District can be struck, "bring us back some better numbers" Councilwoman Davis warned.

Council Determines Pedestrian Path Unwarranted

General Plan Amended, Ped Path Removed

One Path Saved

The Emeryville City Council voted last Tuesday night to amend the City's new General Plan in order to remove a planned pedestrian path in east Emeryville but in the same evening they voted to stand by the General Plan and save another path in the same neighborhood, a move that surprised many including the mayor Kurt Brinkman.

  

EBI Pedestrian Path Deleted

The City Council revisited the two paths they claimed they did not want to delete from the General Plan two weeks ago.  The paths in question are one connecting 45th and 47th on the eastern property line of Escuela Bilingua Internacionale school (EBI) and one connecting 47th and 53rd on the western property line of the future site of the Emeryville Center for Community Life (ECCL).  The Council asked staff two weeks ago, to bring them amendments to the General Plan that would, in each case, move the paths to undetermined locations to the east instead of deleting them from the General Plan entirely.

In the intervening time between the meeting two weeks ago and last Tuesday, the Council lost its appetite for paths moved to the east.  The EBI path alternative considered would have continued Essex street northward through at least two private residences.  One resident that thought he might be affected showed up to ask what exactly the Council had in mind and whether they were planning on taking his property via eminent domain.  He expressed the view that a pedestrian path right between residences was not desirable.

The alternative design of the EBI path proposed by Planning Commissioner Sean Moss was not given serious consideration, although his recommendation to preserve the irrevocable 'offer of dedication' of the path property, already recorded against the title to EBI's property, found favor among a majority of the Council.   This would leave open the possibility that a path or other public use of that proposed path area could be made at any time in the future, even decades from now.

In a somewhat comical moment, EBI's attorney explained that the conditions of approval granted to EBI still require EBI to build the path no matter what the Council might do with respect to altering the General Plan.  Ultimately this means that there will be future public meetings discussing this path, because EBI will need to have those conditions altered and may negotiate to provide some other public benefit instead of the path.

In a 4-1 vote, Councilmember Jennifer West dissenting, the Council decided to simply delete the EBI path from the General Plan.

ECCL Bicycle/Pedestrian Path Survives

The ECCL path met a different fate. The alternative path location considered was a pedestrian-only path through the middle of the ECCL site, instead of the bicycle-pedestrian path that the General Plan calls for along the property's western border.  No one believed that this alternative path location was viable, and no modification of the current ECCL design was provided to show whether it could be accommodated.  No one was willing to make a motion to accept this alternative.

Councilmember Nora Davis then proposed that the Council simply delete the ECCL path from the General Plan.  

"What do we do now?"
Caught flat footed, Mayor Brinkman
seemed stunned after a majority
voted to save the ECCL path.  

 Mayor Kurt Brinkman agreed, both of them citing safety concerns regarding the path.  Council watchers will recall Ms Davis' warnings from the previous meeting of gang rapes being the inevitable outcome if the path were to be approved.  
Vice Mayor Jac Asher however highlighted a different safety concern, the large number of cars that are likely to envelope the ECCL site once the schools are consolidated there.  Ms Asher made reference to the tragic incident in 2001 in which an Anna Yates kindergartener was killed by a car during morning drop-off and argued that providing better bicycle and pedestrian connectivity around the site could actually contribute to safety rather than detract from it.  

Then, in a surprising vote, Councilmembers Atkin, West, and Asher voted against deleting the ECCL bicycle/pedestrian path from the General Plan. Mayor Kurt Brinkman responded with, "Well, what do we do now?"  
With no majority willing to move or delete the ECCL path, it simply remains in the General Plan.  
Director of Planning and Building, Charlie Bryant, then suggested to the Council that simply because a path is in the General Plan does not require it to be built today.  He suggested that the ECCL's various design components that might come before the Council could be approved even if they lacked this path, perhaps proposing that the path might be added years—or decades—down the road in "Phase 2" of the ECCL, if there ever is such a thing.

Council Votes Themselves Another Year in Office

Vladimir Putin is Here in Emeryville 

                                             (in spirit)

"I'm Putin!"

Opinion

"No, I'm Putin!"

"No, I'm Putin!"

"I'm Putin!"

It was suddenly very cold.  It seemed you could see your breath as people buttoned up their top coats and raised their collars against the chill.  A chimera wafted through Emeryville's City Hall on an icy breeze.  It was Vladimir Putin. You could FEEL his presence filling the council chambers.  As council members one by one unshackled themselves from the yoke of democracy and one by one voted themselves an extra year in power, it seemed Vladimir Putin, not one normally associated with demonstrative emotion, smiled just a little as he vanished quickly as he came, in a vortex, ethereal, rising up above the dais with only the sound of papers left gently rustling in the room.

And just like that, what Emeryville voters wanted, four years, suddenly became five.  Scarcely five minutes had passed.  An issue seemingly pugnacious and vexing ultimately was mechanical even mundane...cold, like Putin.  Citizens looked around...it was done.

Emeryville and Moscow; sister cities, if not in letter, certainly in spirit.

"I'm Putin!"

"No, I'm Putin!"

Council Moves To Lower Standards For Center Of Community Life

Project Advertised To Exceed Gold Standard, Now Dropped To State Minimum

The city council voted tonight to reduce the energy efficiency and green building standards for the Center of Community Life to the minimum allowable by State law but lower than the city's own minimum requirements.  In a 3-2 vote (West and Asher dissenting) the council signed off on the proposed schools and community center known as the Center of Community Life, to drop a previously touted LEED gold standard. 
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a voluntary consensus-based market-driven program that provides third party verification of green buildings.  With the council vote, the Center of Community Life, a project the City proudly calls "State of the Art", will now flout the City's own official goal to make all new major development LEED certified.

The LEED chart:
The Center of Community Life will be off the chart.

Emery School District architect Roy Miller told the council members that keeping to the LEED gold standard would cost more money and school programs would suffer as a result.  
The School District has not released the total amount of money Emeryville taxpayers will spend on the Center of Community Life but more than $5 million has been spent so far on "community engagement" and consultants it should be noted.

Dissenting council member Jac Asher expressed concerns that the broken promise of green building standards for the Center of Community Life represents "another compromise" and she lamented that there has been an overall erosion in the project, a "chipping away" she said.  She expressed worry that the project ultimately will not meet its vision, a sentiment shared by councilwoman Jennifer West.

Council member West expressed concern
energy savings won't be realized over the
next 34 years of the project, the length
of the bond term.

Council members Ruth Atkin, Nora Davis and Kurt Brinkman, the majority vote tonight, have been vocal in their support for LEED certified projects in Emeryville.
 City Hall has long touted its green bone fides.  A 'Green Business Program' has been initiated, giving certified green Emeryville businesses marketing support, helping them "communicate their dedication to the environment, their customers and the communities they serve" according to the city's website.

Parking Crisis In North Emeryville

After 25 Years Of Unfettered Development Residents Can't Find A Place To Park 

& Now They're Angry

Who Could Have Guessed This Would Happen?

Opinion

The Emeryville city council majority has welcomed a 25 year reign of unfettered development, a 'hands off developers' philosophy that has earned the town the reputation in the region of being extremely business friendly.  The council majority that enabled this pro-business culture have always denied any associated negative impacts for residents as they carried on with their 'what's-good-for-business-is-what's-good-for-Emeryville' agenda.  But those days may be coming to an end.

After  the Emeryville Property Owners Association (EPOA) recent town hall meeting on parking in the north Hollis Street area, there's no longer any way it can be denied: residents and now even small businesses that rely on street parking can no longer reliably find parking spaces... and they're angry.  It's been an increasing quality of life reduction for residents that promises to get worse as the council moves to start charging money for on street parking.

Where's The TDM?
The problem stems from the rampant rate of development over the last couple of decades combined with a lack of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) practices to mitigate the problems brought on by all the cars associated with the new development.  Transportation Demand management practices are paid for by the developers and they lower the use of cars generated by the development by expanding transportation alternatives, providing incentives and rewards for employees for undertaking alternative transportation, imposing full-cost pricing on automobile use and other such measures.  These measures have been considered best practice solutions for urban parking by city planners since the 1970's...except in Emeryville.
It should be noted that councilwoman Jennifer West has been calling for mandatory developer paid TDM measures over the last couple of years.

The city council majority has been adverse to asking for developers to provide any TDM measures as they have approved project after project.  Twenty five year Councilwoman Nora Davis and her friends on the council have historically characterized any such requirements as anti-business and therefore illegitimate.  The parking crisis has been built up over the years in this way.

It's valuable to identify those public servants who have contributed to this mess. In addition to Ms Davis, councilwoman Ruth Atkin has been a reliable YES vote for the developers over the years as has newcomer and now mayor Kurt Brinkman.  EPOA founder and 20 year former councilman Ken Bukowski also shares in the blame even as he now screams from the sidelines about the parking fiasco in north Emeryville. 

No TDM, No Parking
It must be stated clearly, had a different council majority been in power over the decades, a council interested in leadership without an overt pro-business ideology, the residents wouldn't be in this fix.  Residents that may feel compelled to shake their fists at businesses and all the cars they bring as they search for a parking spot or as they start to pay for parking should know the real culprit here....  it's because the council didn't force developers to mitigate the negative impacts their projects have on the limited supply of on street parking.

Any idiot can sit back at the dais and say YES to what developers request.  Without a newspaper in town, it's the easiest thing in the world for a city council member to do.
We look for an accountability moment as residents circle for parking and start paying for parking, beginning in north Emeryville and spreading out from there.  Bad public policy should have consequences.

Parkside Trees: Whatever Is Most Cost Effective?

Council Member Asher:

'Let's Do Whatever Is Most Cost Effective'

Council Members Davis & Brinkman:

'Let's Not'

Opinion
The Emeryville city council finally resolved the contentious Parkside tree issue last Tuesday night and their vote serves as a stand-in for all that ails our town; another reminder, as if you needed it, of who gets served by our City Hall and who gets left wanting.
Readers will remember the developer of the Parkside condominium project wants to cut down all the street trees surrounding the project site but residents rallied and convinced the council to change their earlier vote and save nine large mature trees along Stanford Street in what will be a future small park.  The council vote Tuesday was to save the nine trees but they specifically rejected saving them in the most cost effective manner.  Instead of saving the trees by just leaving them as they are, they opted instead to dig them up, place them in boxes and store them off site for a year or so until the park site is ready for replanting them.

Hope you like it-
it's going to cost you
a bundle.

The developer, Archstone Development Group expressed interest in cutting down all the trees as a way to save money...something or other about their profit.  But Council members Nora Davis and Kurt Brinkman suggested the developer's and the resident's desires both could be met by their plan to dig up and box the trees, a "good compromise" as Ms Davis called it.  The fact that Emeryville residents, not the developer would pay for digging up, boxing, storing and re-planting nine very large trees was left unmentioned Tuesday by the two council members.  It must have slippped their minds.

Council member Jac Asher had a better idea in mind; she motioned that Charlie Bryant, the Planning Director should determine which idea is the most cost effective; the save the trees where they are plan or the dig up and box the trees plan.  Mr Bryant would then oversee the more cost effective of the two.  Council member Ruth Atkin liked Ms Asher's motion and offered a second.  With mayor Jennifer West absent, the motion advanced where it died as a result of a NO vote from Nora Davis and Kurt Brinkman, the Broken Record Twins.

So now the city must pay to dig up the trees, store them and re-plant them because....well... Ms Davis and Mr Brinkman wouldn't say.  We think it has something to do with Archstone's desire for a greater profit.  It wouldn't be the first time for these two for this kind of vote and it won't likely be the last.

This harebrained tree idea of theirs is not a win-win...it's not a "good compromise"...it's just bad governance.  And once again the Broken Record Twins show us where their allegiance lays.

"Save the taxpayers
some money?"

"Not gunna do it!"

"No!"