Priforce Recall Invoked Amid Council Bombast and Theatrics

Retaliation on Display at the City Council Chambers

Bauters Directs Recall Friends to Emeryville

Right Wing Billionaire Forces Threaten Priforce Recall

Priforce Begins Hunger Strike:

Independent Ethics Commission Demanded

In an unprecedented action Tuesday night, the ‘Gang of Four’ City Council majority voted to censure and sanction their colleague Kalimah Priforce for alleged violations of Emeryville’s Code of Ethics after another ‘gang of four’ non-residents at the meeting announced their plans to initiate a recall campaign against the beleaguered Councilman.  The recall Priforce announcement was brought by the wealthy Piedmont resident Chris Moore, in attendance last night, as well as three of his associates, all who helped run the November recall campaigns against the Alameda County DA and the Mayor of Oakland.  Noteworthy too was the final curtain call from the retiring Council member John Bauters who made his last official act as an Emeryville City Council member to modify the vote for censure/sanction by adding a directive to the City Clerk to produce, print and mail to every Emeryville household, the text of the Priforce censure/sanction resolution.  The cost to the taxpayers for the non-required anti-Priforce mailers will be in excess of $10,000.

Council Member Kalimah Priforce
He got a check up before his hunger strike
for an independent ethics commission.

Councilman Priforce sees the event as a major distraction with unintended consequences for Emeryville, “To keep me from fulfilling my campaign promises to make our city safer, economically healthier, and help our residents, workers, and small businesses stay in Emeryville - they orchestrated this censure and sanction meeting in hopes that their political theater would make them look good. It did the opposite. It exposed them.”

Trying to refocus the community, Mr Priforce has announced he has begun a hunger strike against the refusal of his colleagues to set up an independent ethics commission.  The City Manager, the City Attorney and (ironically) even John Bauters warned against the weaponization of the Code of Ethics, an eventuality that’s now out of the barn. An ethics commission would be a moderating force against the kind of abuse that the Council is now engaging in but Mr Bauters and Mayor Welch have both said they will not allow any ethics commission.  Exasperated at the Council’s refusal, Mr Priforce announced his hunger strike last night: “After the meeting, I launched my hunger strike to bring a thousand signatures to our Emery Rising online petition for an independent public ethics commission: CHANGE.ORG/EMERYRISING.  Each day of this hunger strike will be a day that gets us closer to ending entrenched corruption in Emeryville.”

Piedmont resident Chris Moore
He directed the recall of DA Pamela Price
and helped with the Sheng Thao recall.

The nascent recall of Mr Priforce by these out of town conservatives would likely be controlled by Chris Moore, the man behind the splashy Alameda County November recalls.   Mr Moore, who used his copious fundraising skills to attract billionaires to chip in, served as the campaign manager for the recall of District Attorney Pamela Price and also he was on the team working to recall Mayor Sheng Thao.  Those campaigns were funded by a billionaire hedge fund manager, real estate lobbying groups like YIMBY, Cryptocurrency gazzilionaire Jesse Polack and other corporate groups.  Mr Moore’s associate, San Francisco resident Ed Escobar, warned Mr Priforce his recall is coming and it will be done by him and his colleagues that led the successful recalls earlier.  “As you know, we’re quite capable in that department.  We are the recallers and we get results”, he told Council member Priforce at Tuesday's meeting.  He told the Tattler money will not be an obstacle in recalling Priforce, hinting at a lopsided battle against voters in little Emeryville.  With Mr Priforce's term up in two years, any recall would need to start quickly because voters are  harder to win over for a recall the closer it is to an election.  On that score, Mr Priforce has not said whether he will seek re-election. 

Addressing the descent of wealthy right wing friends of John Bauters into Emeryville, come to bring Emeryville to heel, Council member Priforce was not amused.  He indicated the current trajectory of the Council majority is disturbing and will not be good for average citizens, “The politics of bigotry utilized by members of our Council has invited MAGA to our city’s front doorstep and that welcome mat will lead to an increase in gentrifying forces that will fundamentally change the nature of our city.” he said.

San Francisco resident Edward Escobar
"We're the recallers and we get results."

Mr Bauters, who will be retiring from politics on December 10th, lashed out at his long time nemesis Councilman Priforce, adding the last minute flourish of the mailers that will cost more than $10,000 for Emeryville taxpayers.  Mr Bauters, who has been the chair of the Budget and Governance Committee for eight years, drove Emeryville into insolvency with an $11.8 million deficit this year, the largest deficit in Emeryville history.  With no way to finance the parting shot at Councilman Priforce, the $10,000 spent on the anti-Priforce mailers will be added to Emeryville’s $11.8 million hole.  The theatrics of the vacating Bauters drew condemnation from Mr Priforce, “John Bauters believes in fiscal austerity for the rest of us, but practices wasteful spending for himself. Having taxpayers expense his personal vendetta against the Black man that helped foil his county supervisor prospects isn’t fiscally conservative or pragmatic, it's petty and unethical.” he told the Tatter.

Recall van taken before the November 5th
election:  The same tech bro billionaires that 
supported the recalls supported Bauters' election.

Why do conservatives and corporate Democrats like 
John Bauters if he's the progressive he says he is?

Breaking: Mayor Welch Releases Charges Against Council Member Priforce

Breaking News

Mayor Courtney Welch has finally released the charges she has been leveling at her colleague Council member Kalimah Priforce, for breaches of Emeryville’s Code of Ethics and Conduct to be voted on at a December 3rd City Council ‘special meeting’ at 6:30 pm.  Ms Welch, part of what’s being called the ‘Gang of Four’ Council members, is hoping Mr Priforce will be censured and even sanctioned for the charges.  For his part, Council member Priforce denies the charges.

Mayor Welch violated the Code of Ethics and Conduct herself when she went on a name calling rampage on her social media accounts against the editor of the Tattler, but the Gang of Four have steadfastly refused to bring the charges up for a vote.  Name calling on social media by Council members is expressly forbidden according to the City Attorney John Kennedy as it constitutes a violation of the Code.  The Code of Ethics and Conduct was written by Mr Kennedy and certified by a vote of the Council in September. 

The Gang of Four City Council members are Courtney Welch, David Mourra, John Bauters and Sukhdeep Kaur.  They are refusing to be held to account for their own violations of the Code of Ethics as they press charges of violations of the Code against Council member Priforce.

The Tattler will report the whole spectacle as it unfolds.

The City Council Resolution against Mr Priforce can be seen HERE.

https://www.scribd.com/document/795685615/The-Political-Lynching-of-Emeryville-Councilmember-Kalimah-Priforce-Dec-3-2024

Council Hypocrisy: Mayor Welch's Ethics Violation Ignored

Refusing Welch Charge, City Council Majority Politicizes Code of Ethics

Weaponizing the Code Against Political Enemies, Council Majority Uses New Law to Make Themselves Unaccountable

Welch Guilty But Cannot Be Touched

Meanwhile

Priforce To Be Brought Down

In September, after the City Council received a citizen complaint against the Mayor for violations of Emeryville's Code of Ethics described by the City Attorney, the Council majority chose to ignore it and instead they have taken up a complaint of their own against their colleague, Kalimah Priforce, for what the Mayor says are violations of the same Code.  This City Council politicizing of our Code of Ethics was predicted and warned against in 2023 by the City Manager, the City Attorney and ironically, Council member John Bauters who joined in at the time, cautioning the rest of the Council about “weaponizing” the Code as the Council prepared to certify it.  Council member Bauters is one of the gang of four Council members now weaponizing Emeryville's Code of Ethics.  Mayor Welch violated the Code by engaging in name calling against a citizen from her social media account, a specified prohibited act according to the City Attorney.
  

Mayor Courtney Welch
She is not constrained by the Code of Ethics
but her political enemy on the Council is.
It's an enviable amount of power she's
 been granted by her friends on the Council.

Emeryville citizens are now privy to antics at City Hall around this new law - they are going to see minority Council member Priforce censured by the Council for violating the Code of Ethics, but not the majoritarian Mayor Welch for doing the same thing; the very definition of politicizing.

The violations committed by Mayor Courtney Welch are direct and clearly identified by the City Attorney John Kennedy, author of the Code, but the charges against Council member Priforce have not yet been named by the Mayor, who brought the charges at the November 5th Council meeting to be followed through at the December 3rd Council meeting.  The City Council voted 4-1 (Priforce dissenting) to forward the Mayor's charges to censure Mr Priforce.  The charges against Mayor Welch on the other hand were brought by the editor of the Tattler and ignored by the Council majority, the favor of even an acknowledgement of receipt of the complaint, was not received. 

Council Majority Weaponizes New Law 

In September 2023 when the Council was voting to adopt the new law, then mayor John Bauters joined with the City Attorney and the City Manager, apprising his colleagues against the temptation to “weaponize” the new Code of Ethics in order to damage political opponents.  Mr Bauters told his colleagues, “The Code of Ethics is not intended to create winners and losers.”

The double standard exhibited by this behavior of the Council majority can be described as hypocritical and cynical but also it reveals a willingness to subvert and politicize the Code.  Council member Bauters is now himself complicit in the  politicized polarization of this law meant to rein in misconduct by the Council and other City officials.  Also complicit is Vice Mayor David Mourra,  Council member Sukhdeep Kaur and of course Mayor Courtney Welch.

This Council majority have succumbed to the allure of using the Code to hold a political adversary to account while at the same time refusing to be held to the same standard themselves; a clear politicization and weaponization of the new law. Without a check or a balance that could be gotten from an independent ethics commission as other cities have, Emeryville’s Code of Ethics has been revealed to be flawed law, flawed to the point that it is stoking discord, something the City Attorney specifically warned the Council against.

Mayor Welch Violates the Code

City Attorney Kennedy and City Manager Paul Buddenhagen produced an instructional video (see below) for the Council (and other City officials) to assist them in how to not violate the Code.  Mr Buddenhagen was explicit, “We don’t want this [Code of Ethics] to be weaponized.  We don’t want this to be a thing that initiates discord.”   

Mr Kennedy went on to describe exact prohibitions in the law violated by Courtney Welch against members of the public, “When they are acting in social media, they [the Council] are acting in their roll as a city official”, Mr Kennedy said in the training video.  He continued, “The Code of [Ethics and] Conduct is intended to show there is a certain threshold you have to follow here.  One is that you need to practice civility and decorum in discussion and debate.  So name calling, personal attacks, all of those things could potentially violate the Code.” (italics added)

The Code of Ethics is explicit and implicit in its description of unacceptable behavior like what the Mayor frequently exhibits.  From the Code: "Members shall refrain from abusive conduct, personal charges or verbal attacks upon the character or motives of other Members, the public and staff.  This requirement is applicable to Members at all times."

 

After the Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct was certified by the Council, Mayor Courtney Welch went on a rampage of name calling from her Twitter/X account, (cw4emeryville) calling the Editor of the Tattler a “misogynist” and a “liar” added to the earlier epithets “fuck boy” and “racist” (the latter two names were issued before the Council certified the new law and so she can’t be held accountable under the law for those two).

An independent ethics commission, like Emeryville’s neighboring cities have, would not likely have let the Mayor off the hook for so blatantly violating the Code in this case and fittingly, it was Council member Priforce that did try for a commission to be set up simultaneously with the Code of Ethics.  But the Council majority refused Mr Priforce’s request at their September 2023 meeting.  Vice Mayor David Mourra said he was not against the idea of an independent commission but he thought the Code should be certified first, “As a first step, it makes a lot of sense” he said.  However, the Council has not moved on setting up a commission and in fact, Mr Bauters subsequently said NO to the prospect.

Mayor Welch was contacted for comment on this story but she did not reply.  

The 'Code of Ethics and Conduct for Elected and Appointed City Officials' (Resolution 23-125) strangely, cannot be accessed at the City of Emeryville's website but the citizen activist group Emery Rising has provided a URL to it HERE.  

The meeting where the Mayor will bring charges against Council member Priforce for violations of the Code of Ethics and Conduct is Tuesday December 3rd at a 'Special Meeting' in the Council Chambers at 6:30 pm.  Anyone can attend.

Instructional Video for the City Council on how not to violate 

the Code of Ethics.

5:00: A City staff member asks about social media accounts

5:55: The City Attorney explains they have to act with decorum, even on their social media accounts.

They cannot call people names on their social media he says emphatically.

Mayor Welch heard this but she violated it anyway.

Breaking: City Council Majority Votes to Agendize Censure of Council Member Priforce

Breaking News:

Tonight at a special Emeryville City Council meeting, Mayor Courtney Welch moved to censure her colleague Kalimah Priforce for “numerous violations” of Emeryville’s new Code of Ethics to be voted on at a future City Council meeting.  The vote was 4-1 to agendize the item (Priforce dissenting).  

This is the first use of the Code of Ethics since it was certified by the City Council last year.

The Mayor did not describe what ethics violations she thinks Mr Priforce violated but even without any general description, her three colleagues voted to place the item on a future agenda.  None of the three Council members who voted with Ms Welch to agendize a censure, not David Mourra, John Bauters or Sukhdeep Kaur, publicly asked the Mayor what violations they were being asked to vote on, raising the specter of a possible private pre-discussion by Council members.  If such a discussion happened behind closed doors, that could constitute a Brown Act violation.  

The City Attorney, John Kennedy, gave a presentation to the City Council some months ago wherein he described that Council members or even City committee members are proscribed by the Code of Ethics; among the violations he listed is “calling people names” on social media.  Because the Mayor Courtney Welch (and Planning Commissioner Dianne Martinez) both violated this mandate, the Tattler submitted a complaint to the Council in October but they refused to hear it.  This fact plus tonight’s opaque misadventure shows how the new Code of Ethics has already been politicized by this Council majority.  The Tattler will report on how the Code of Ethics is being abused by the City Council in a future story.

Council member Priforce responded to the Council's action tonight, telling the Tattler, "None of this is a surprise to me or should be a surprise to anyone who has been following the hostility of this council towards me since before I took office with their collegiality pledge, the attacks I received on the evening I took office, and on multiple occasions they've attempted to silence or trivialize my presence on the council. They are afraid of my voice. They are afraid of the people's voice. It's not about me, it's about what I represent. So rather than laugh at their theatrics, I focused on the task at hand, support Calvin and Mia in their campaign to be our future council members and return city hall back into the hands of the people."

Mayor Welch Says She's a Targeted Victim of a Green Party Typo

Election Nuttiness:

Fueled By 'Outrage Porn', Emeryville's Mayor Says Green Party's Typo Was Done On Purpose

Mayor Claims Victim Status Regardless of Apology

She Made the Same Error Herself in 2021, But Her Error 

Was Just "A Simple Mistake" She Says 

Emeryville’s mayor is crying foul over a typographical error made by the Green Party in their voter guide that she says was purposeful and meant to demean her and she is refusing to accept an official retraction for the error offered by the Greens.  Instead, she is repeating the slight all over social media despite the fact that she made the same mistake in her official candidate’s statement run up for her 2021 City Council run.  

The Green Party error came in their Green Voter Guide that left out the word ‘non-incumbents’ in a block of text.  So the original stated, “Council member Priforce’s slate of two, the only African Americans running for council, are Mia Esperanza Brown and Calvin Dillahunty.”  As corrected, it was changed to “Council member Priforce’s slate of two, the only African Americans non-incumbents running for council, are Mia Esperanza Brown and Calvin Dillahunty" (our italics).

Mayor Welch says she's Black and the Green Party is trying
to take that away from her.  It's so unfair!  But it's exactly like
how she tried to take away Brynnda Collins' Blackness in 2021. 
Brynnda has been Black since her birth but Courtney just ain't seein' it.

But in 2021, Council member Welch was on the other side of the same error, an error SHE made.  In her official Alameda County Candidate Statement from 2021, candidate Welch stated she is “…the first Black woman in 34 years to seek a seat on the Council.”  In fact, a Black woman, Brynnda Collins, sought a seat on the City Council in 2016.  After her statement was shown to be factually incorrect, the statement Ms Welch submitted to the County Registrar under oath as being factual, Ms Welch was forced to file voluminous legal paperwork with the County, correcting the mistake. 

Candidate Welch admitted she made a mistake with her 
false claims in 2021.  She admitted it only when Alameda County 
forced her to correct the error. 

At the time, the Tattler didn’t report on the story because we took Ms Welch at her word it was a simple mistake.  However, after she won the 2021 election, Council member Welch has been shown to be a petulant vulgarian, quick to lay accusations on and name call her constituents who disagree with her policies and her dissenting City Council colleague, Kalimah Priforce.

Not satisfied with the Green Party’s apology and retraction of the typo, Mayor Welch has continued to bring up the issue on social media, claiming without evidence, the first version of the voter guide was not a mistake.  She is not mentioning to her followers that the Green Party has corrected the error.  

What Mayor Welch is claiming is that the Green Party of Alameda County, by their typo, they're trying to take away her 'Blackness', the same thing, exactly, that candidate Welch did in 2021 to Brynnda Collins with the typo in her Candidate Statement when she tried to take away Ms Collin's 'Blackness'.

Perhaps sensing further political gain that could be made, Mayor Welch, who is Vice President of the organization Black Elected Officials of California (BEOC), released a public letter of condemnation against the Green Party of Alameda County stating the typographical error by the Greens had “deliberately misled” the people and they had therefore “undermined the democratic process".  Further, BEOC claimed, without providing evidence, “We are especially troubled by what appears to be a pattern of targeted disinformation against people of color and women.”  However, BEOC refused to provide any examples that would bolster their claim of such a pattern created by the Green Party, a political party that has anti-racism and anti-sexism among its Ten Core Values.  Finishing up their letter, BEOC demanded another public apology from the Greens.  

 However, the Greens were having none of that.  After calling the hyperbole from Mayor Welch a "political tactic", Green Party County Council member Greg Jan wrote a responce to the BEOC that explained they had already publicly apologized for the typo error and made the correction in their Voter Guide the same day they were alerted to it.  Mr Jan's letter shamed the Mayor and even connected Council member John Bauters into the Welch fabricated imbroglio, stating: “We do ask that Courtney Welch refrain from using her position as Vice-President of your body from further bullying the Green Party of Alameda County and our electorate with baseless attacks just as she and John Bauters have done with their elected positions against their council member colleagues.”

Seemingly incapable of shame, Mayor Welch has continued on with her attacks on the Green Party, inferring bad faith in their motives, prompting a response from Mr Jan who told the Tattler yesterday, “This Mayor doesn’t seem to want to accept our apology we publicly announced for the typographical error (in our Green Party Voter Guide).  It’s strange since the Mayor herself made the same error in her Candidate’s Statement last time when she ran for Council. We apologized for the typo and we’re moving on.  We think the Mayor should too.” 

Mayor Welch did not answer our requests for comment.

Outrage porn (also called outrage discourse, outrage media and outrage journalism) is any type of media or narrative designed to use outrage to provoke strong emotional reactions for the purpose of expanding audiences or increasing engagement.

Campaign ’24 Fact Check: $12 Million Budget Deficit is Not "Financial Solvency"

Campaign ’24 Fact Check:

Mayor Welch’s Campaign Lie Hides 

Huge Deficit 

She Replaces Budget Hole Reality with 

Personal Fiscal Acumen Fiction

Telling voters she's "fighting for the people", we're left wondering what people the Mayor is talking about?  

Take a look at any of the expensive election flyers hitting your mailbox from Mayor Courtney Welch and your take away will be that she’s personally responsible for and a capable financial steward of the people’s money at City Hall.  What she’s not telling us this election season is Emeryville is in dire fiscal straights, saddled with a $12 million budget deficit this year, the worst in Emeryville history.  Mum's the word on this now but we think it will be quietly announced after the election. 

City Hall’s financial problem is walloping and growing.  The deficit, at $12 million, amounts to almost $1000 in red ink for every Emeryville resident.  Not only does the Mayor hide the sea of red ink from voters, she flips the script:  “Mayor Welch has a proven track record of delivering results for Emeryville families” , she says in her campaign flyers.  And then she lists as her top achievement that she is “Maintaining a financially solvent city”.

Never mind that the Mayor is pandering to a fake demographic, families (of which Emeryville has the lowest percentage of any city in the East Bay), the bragging about her financial acumen against a massive deficit done on her watch, is Orwellian manipulation meant to deceive the voters.  This is a lie.

From a Courtney Welch Mailed Campaign Flyer
Our hornswoggling Mayor tells voters how great a job she has done with the budget.

The Tattler gives this a 
"Pants on Fire".

Mayor Welch Reverses Ban On Citizen 'Time Yielding' at City Council Meetings

 Former Mayor John Bauters' Tight Control on Citizen Free Speech Lifted by Mayor Courtney Welch (a little)

Citizens Now Allowed to Yield Their Time to Other Citizen Speakers

Mayor Courtney Welch
Tuesday's action means more rights for citizens
addressing their government.  Accountability is
increased (slightly).

In a rare opening up of government accountability, Mayor Courtney Welch announced Tuesday she is reversing a former ban on citizen ‘time yielding’ at City Council meetings.  As is the case in most cities, Emeryville citizens will now be allowed to yield their (two minute) speaking time to another citizen, thereby doubling the speaking time of those granted the extra time, up to four minutes.  

While Mayor Welch did not indicate she would permit more than one citizen to yield their time per go as many other cities in the East Bay do, this expansion of citizen free speech in Emeryville is nonetheless unprecedented.  Over the last decade plus and picking up speed under the tenure of former Mayor John Bauters, citizens wishing to engage with their government by offering up public comment at Council meetings faced nothing but increasing constraint.

The time yield concept was tested Tuesday by members of the staff, who’s union; SEIU, was expressing their disfavor over a City Hall planned 6% roll back on their pay when a staff member called out from the gallery, “I yield my time to the speaker” who’s two minutes speaking time had run out.  It was an outburst that would have brought the gavel down during the time of Mayor John Bauters.  Instead of dropping the gavel, Ms Welch calmly acquiesced and then granted it again to another SEIU member later in the meeting.  And, because all citizens must be treated fairly and equally by the government, citizens are now granted the right to yield their time at Emeryville City Council meetings.

In Emeryville, mayors are given the power to grant or forbid the yielding of public comment time and also the number of minutes citizens are allowed to speak.  California law requires a minimum one minute per citizen for each agenda item but most cities grant three minutes.  Commonly, mayors will lower the speaking time if there are large numbers of speakers.

Former Mayor John Bauters
Not a fan of accountability, Mr Bauters moved to constrain
citizen's ability to speak at City Council meetings making it 
less free than any other time in more than 40 years.

The new increase in ability for citizens to speak to their government in Emeryville is rare indeed.  Twenty years ago, speaking time for public comments was five minutes and multiple citizens could yield their time to speakers at the podium for each agenda item.  This was chipped away at over the years.  The speaking time was first lowered to three minutes and then down to two minutes by Mayor Bauters.  The ability for citizens to yield time was also then taken away by Mayor Bauters.  So draconian were the anti-free speech policies at City Hall by the end of Mayor Bauters tenure, Emeryville had the ill fortune of having the harshest constraints on citizen engagement of all neighboring cities.  Mayor Welch’s increase in Emeryville citizen's free speech rights, incremental though it may be, reverses the nearly two decade long slide.