Council Member Priforce to Force Election on Unfair Small Business Taxes

 Council Member Priforce Says Small Business in Emeryville Is Taxed Unfairly

Snubbed by Council Majority, He Says Voters Should Now Decide

Big Business Pays a Much Lower Tax Rate Than Small Business

Council member Kalimah Priforce announced today he is beginning a campaign to lower the tax rate on small business in Emeryville by forwarding a direct ballot initiative for voters, bypassing the City Council.  If successful, the small business tax ballot initiative would culminate a citizen drive begun in 2011 to finally address Emeryville’s infamous business tax cap, a regressive structure implemented by a pro-business City Council in 1993 that allows the largest corporations in Emeryville to pay a much lower tax rate than small businesses do.  Mr Priforce's announcement comes on the heels of a rejection in December by his colleagues to even discuss the business tax cap at the Council level.  The City Council could get rid of the cap by fiat but they have steadfastly refused and they even actively worked to stop an incipient citizen's ballot initiative in 2011 that would have removed the tax cap.  Emeryville is the only city in Alameda County that has a business tax cap.

Council Member Kalimah Priforce
He says helping small businesses thrive in
Emeryville should be more than just platitudes.
Small businesses in Emeryville should not have
a higher tax rate than big businesses do.

Council member Priforce, who calls himself a 'progressive populist', announced at the Council's December meeting that the lack of equity in Emeryville’s business tax code is troublesome and that the Council needs to finally do something about it especially seeing how they (individual Council members) often publicly exclaim how they want to help small business, he said.  As it is now, the small businesses in Emeryville are effectively subsidizing the big businesses by paying a rate higher than they need to for the City to collect the same amount of money.  A ‘flat tax’, that being every one paying the same rate, would be more fair than the current tax cap scheme and it would enable the City to charge all businesses at a lower rate to collect the same amount of money.  Small businesses would pay considerably less money under a flat tax.

Mr Priforce is correct: Emeryville’s business tax cap is unprecedented.  In fact, no other city in the entire East Bay has such a tax cap.  For small businesses, the business tax rate in Emeryville is .1% of gross receipts.  Large businesses pay a much lower effective rate, and it’s a rate that goes down the bigger the business is.  This is because big businesses, those with revenue that would be taxed above the $450,997 capped total, don’t have to pay any tax at all on any receipts above that.  Small businesses on the other hand, must pay tax on all of their revenue, making for a much higher tax rate; small businesses must pay the full .1%.

Mayor David Mourra
He likes the business tax just as it is.
NO to helping small businesses he says.
He won't even allow a debate about it.

The inequity is highlighted by a comparison between a large business in Emeryville and a typical small business.  A small local restaurant with $500,000 in revenue (gross receipts) owes the City of Emeryville the full .1% of their revenue, whereas Grocery Outlet Corporation owes the City a lower percentage of their revenue.  Every dollar the local restaurant makes is taxable versus Grocery Outlet who doesn’t likely have to pay Emeryville any taxes at all for some of their $3,969,549,003 ($3.96 billion) revenue.  If they were taxed at the rate of small businesses, Grocery Outlet would have to pay Emeryville more than what they now pay with the cap.  The cap affects the two businesses this way: the local restaurant owes the City $500 per year and Grocery Outlet owes no more than $450,997 per year.  The cap being a cap, every other large business in town also owes Emeryville only $450,997 per year regardless of their revenue.  That’s the most any business in Emeryville has to pay, no matter how big they get.  Because Grocery Outlet operates some of their stores as franchises, it is unknown how much of their revenue is taxable by Emeryville and City Hall does not reveal that private information.  

The tax cap is a very sweet deal for the large corporations in Emeryville and something much less than that for the small businesses. 

Council Member Courtney Welch
She says she loves small business.  Except when
it comes to taxing them.  Then she's saving all
her love for big business.

At .1%, Emeryville has the lowest business tax of any neighboring city.  Berkeley’s business tax, dependent on the type of business, ranges from .16% to .45%; from 50% over Emeryville to four and a half times Emeryville’s rate.  And Berkeley doesn’t have a tax cap so every business pays fairly and equally.  With a $12 million deficit this year, if Emeryville raised the rate to what neighboring cities charge and removed the cap, the deficit would be taken care of rapidly. 

Mr Priforce says Emeryville could decide how to best tax businesses after a public debate.  Two ideas are presented without a tax cap: money to the City could remain the same (revenue neutral), meaning a large tax rate reduction for all businesses and a big savings for small businesses, or the rate could be kept at .1%, meaning small businesses would pay the same as they do now but big businesses would pay more, giving the City a lot more money to pay down the deficit and have money left over or something in between.    

City Council Tax Double Cross in 2011

Back in 2011, Emeryville residents reached a boiling point with the tax cap because of the unfair taxation on small businesses.  A drive to put the issue before Emeryville voters was started by Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE), a citizen’s activist group.  RULE took out papers and started a door to door signature drive to get the issue on a ballot because the City Council refused to remove the tax cap by fiat as is their prerogative. After they caught wind of the RULE signature drive, the Council intervened and they unanimously voted YES (in principle) to remove the tax cap on their own and they further announced a petition drive would therefore not be necessary.   That Council vote ended the petition drive but at the last minute, after loud protests from Pixar, the conservative majority on the Council scuttled the deal, keeping the cap in place and leaving the citizens no time to finish their petition drive before the election deadline.  Any new petition drive would have to wait until the next election, two years later.   

After the dirty deal done by the conservative Council majority, stopping the will of the people, Council member Jac Asher offered a consolation: an increase in the tax rate while leaving the tax cap in place.  The conservatives on the Council accepted that and the rate was raised from .08% to the current .1%, still the lowest business tax of any city in Alameda County even with the cap.  Ms Asher’s modest deal and the required two year wait for a new ballot initiative petition drive brought about by the Council majority dirty deal, took the wind out of the sails of the citizen petition drive and it didn't rise up again two years later.

And that’s where we are today.  From then to now, no other City Council member other than Councilman Priforce has publicly offered a plan to get rid of Emeryville’s notorious business tax or even talk about the gross inequities built in to Emeryville's pro-corporate business tax rules.

Councilman Priforce is offering the people of Emeryville a chance to return to 2011; a time when it seemed for a moment, public business tax policy would be decided by the public.  Mr Priforce gave his colleagues on the Council a chance to weigh in on this in December but they refused.  

Mayor Mourra was contacted for this story but he refused to comment, presumably leaving his publicly made NO vote to even allow discussion of changing Emeryville business tax policy, to speak for him.  Council member Priforce was also contacted and he told the Tattler he heard all four of his Council colleagues say NO to his business tax equality discussion proposal and so he will go around them and “listen to the people, not the Council”.   

Please read more on the 2010-2011 fight for a fair business tax HERE, HERE, HERE , HERE , HERE and HERE.

The Tattler will report on developments in this story as they come to light.  

UPDATE CORRECTION:  A reader pointed out that Grocery Outlet operates some of its stores as franchises and so some of their revenue is not taxable by Emeryville.  We thank the reader for catching what we missed and we apologize for the mistake.

A Sampling of Emeryville Businesses & How the Business Tax Cap Effects Them
NOTE UPDATE: Grocery Outlet operates some of its stores as franchises and the franchisees share in some of the profit and those numbers are not public.  Because of this, the numbers in these charts are based solely on the total corporate revenue and are not accurate for Grocery Outlet.  We apologize for the mistake we didn't catch.
Leapfrog Corporation has to pay taxes on every dollar it makes just like the Mom & Pop Shop and the local restaurant.  The big businesses only have to pay taxes up to $450,997 regardless of what they make.  Everything they make over that taxable amount is tax free.  It must be nice for them....says Leapfrog and every small business in town.

A Portrait of Emeryville's Business Tax Cap
Actual Tax Rates For a Sampling of Emeryville Businesses

100 = .1% (the tax rate for small businesses).
NOTE: Grocery Outlet pays Emeryville more than this number because some of its
stores are franchises.  This number is based on their total revenue, not Emeryville receipts which are unknown.
The higher the number in this bar chart, the higher the tax rate.
Higher taxes for small businesses is considered 'fair'
by the Emeryville City Council majority. 
Every other city in Alameda County disagrees with Emeryville.

The Emeryville Face of Citizen Engagement and Activism: RULE Folds After 14 Years

 RULE Showed Us How It's Done

The Emeryville resident activist group known as RULE announced in a press release through its steering committee last week, that it is disbanding after 14 years, having run its course as well as having been sidelined as a result of the pandemic over the last two years.  The group, who’s name is an acronym for Residents United for a Livable Emeryville and who has been the focus of many Tattler stories over the years, was ambiguous in its reasons for folding now, stating only that it had reached a “natural stopping place”.  The press release singled out the local social justice activist group EBASE (East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy) for helping get RULE off the ground and thanking them, noting the remaining funds in its bank account ($1317) would be donated to EBASE.

Having the ear of the City Council, RULE contributed much to Emeryville, having endorsed every winning Council member over the years.  In fact, one of the the most extraordinary things RULE accomplished in its 14 years was its perfect record on selecting politicians and local electoral measures and ballot initiatives.  Every single RULE endorsement was victorious, including even every School Board candidate selectee; a remarkable consummation of its political clout and indicative of its Emeryville centrist values and political bonafides, made even more remarkable considering its inauspicious beginnings.

Some 50 dues paying members strong at its outset, RULE was forged in 2008 during a time of business and developer hegemony in Emeryville history when resident’s interests took a back seat to business interests at City Hall.  The City Council, stacked up five deep in order to help those seeking to make a profit in our town, were in the thrall of the business community.  The locus of the power resided in the long standing Councilwoman Nora Davis.  At her zenith at RULE’s inception, Ms Davis, was a stalwart and generous friend to developers and the powerful Emeryville Chamber of Commerce who ran City Hall out of its taxpayer funded headquarters on Harlan Street.  Together, they provided the leadership to build the town as the developers and business owners prescribed.  

RULE joined with EBASE to help give 
the City Council space to raise Emeryville's
minimum wage to the highest in the nation.

In this milieu and made up of only residents, RULE took on a plucky and adversarial role with enough audacity to imagine a more democratic city that would work for the residents.  The Tattler was there, ready to support RULE since its beginning.

With its outrageous pro-resident and left wing demands, like more locally serving retail as well as a place at the table for unions in construction and a higher minimum wage in Emeryville, RULE was mostly just ignored by the elite….at first.  But as successes came, derision came, followed by fighting and vilifying from the businesses community and their Council sycophants, and especially from former resident Rob Arias, who helped form a pro-business blog the E’Ville Eye meant to counter the Tattler and RULE.  Mr Arias, who has since moved on to Pleasant Hill in Contra Costa County, provided the pushback and as the powerful Chamber of Commerce foundered, he helped form a replacement business lobbying group known as Little City Emeryville. 

That group, undemocratic and secretive, also folded against mounting RULE successes.  Little City Emeryville and the E’Ville Eye ultimately served as an impotent foil to RULE and the Tattler.  Emeryville voters wanted none of what the business community was selling; Mr Arias and Little City Emeryville backed the loser in every Emeryville election before Rob finally packed it in and moved out to the suburbs.

RULE went to the residents to see what they wanted in a city-wide survey at its inception.  Now, having achieved most of its goals identified by that survey, the most influential resident interest group in the City’s history leaves the scene with much to be proud of.  Its work included installing a progressive vision and a progressive City Council to implement that vision in order to deliver among other things, a minimum wage high enough to keep full time workers out of poverty and real solutions to address the region-wide lack of affordable housing.  These progressive policies and more for which Emeryville is now known and emulated among California communities were brought to fruition in no small part by RULE.

In its swan song March 21st press release, RULE takes a bow for its impressive game changing list of accomplishments and they throw down a challenge to new residents who might take it all for granted.  Warning against a reinvigorated business community rising, RULE  reminds new residents as it exits the stage; ‘It’s only when residents get involved, raise their voices, organize, and go to the polls that positive change is possible’ .

Community Benefits Agreement Looming for Controversial Onni Project Says RULE

The Emeryville resident advocacy group known as Residents United for a Livable Emeryville has announced it is considering plans to negotiate directly with the developer of the proposed Christie Avenue Onni apartment tower project, skipping the City of Emeryville, by means of a Community Benefits Agreement to deliver a more resident friendly project than is being proposed.  In an August 17th letter to its members, RULE's steering committee indicated they have requested the City host a town hall type meeting to address resident concerns about the controversial 650 unit Onni project to be followed by a RULE facilitated Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with the developer, depending on the outcome of the town hall.

A CBA is a legally binding contract signed by the community and a real estate developer that requires the developer to provide certain amenities or mitigations to the proposed project in exchange for the community’s acceptance of the project.  Often, the community forms a coalition with labor organizations and environmental groups.  CBAs are open processes and the whole community is encouraged to attend meetings and engage.  Usually CBAs accompany the largest development projects.

The Proposed Onni Project
At 700 feet, the Onni tower would be
America's tallest residential building
west of the Mississippi River.

RULE, extant for more than 10 years, is open to all Emeryville residents and even out of town residents (in a non voting capacity).  The only group excluded from RULE meetings have been City Council members although they have been allowed in by invitation.  However a RULE facilitated CBA would likely allow out of town groups to have the same legitimacy as Emeryville residents.

The Vancouver-based Onni developer is entangled in a FBI bribery allegation after officials accused a Los Angeles Councillor of accepting money from Onni in exchange in 2018 for a positive vote on a pending LA Onni project.

In Emeryville, Onni plans an all rental 650 unit 700 foot tall apartment tower joined by a bridge with a 200 foot office tower.  The City Council has been working to help the developer, voting to remove existing ‘tower separation’ regulations from the books in July.   Additionally, the Council will seek to overturn existing family housing regulations at the request of the developer who claims he can’t afford build the towers if he is required to build family housing as other developers in Emeryville are.  These regulation rollbacks were chronicled in a Tattler story exposing City Hall of ‘regulatory capture’ and has contributed to a lack of trust among the residents, helping fuel a push for a CBA.

CBAs have a checkered history in Emeryville.  In 2016, a private group of property owning neighbors formed the Park Avenue Residents Committee (PARC) for the sole purpose of negotiating a CBA with the developer of the Sherwin Williams project, a 500 unit development on Sherwin Street slated to begin construction later this year.  The City assisted PARC with the "CBA" and ultimately the City Council used it to justify approving that project.  However, the Sherwin Williams "CBA" turned out to be out of character for a CBA; the PARC group operated behind closed doors and only invited guests could attend their meetings.  No other community members or labor or environmental groups were permitted to take part in the negotiations.  Regardless that the final document produced by PARC and Sherwin Williams didn't fit the description of a CBA, the City proclaimed it as such.
The RULE/Onni CBA by contrast will be democratic and transparent, says members of the steering committee.

Existing 'Tower Separation' Rules to be Overturned to Help Onni Tower Developer

Onni Developer Wants Tower Separation Regulations Repealed

City Council Prepared to Acquiesce 

No Reasons Offered Why Existing Public Policy

is Unacceptable 

News Analysis
What was considered fantastic in Emeryville only a short while ago, now inexplicably and with no new information, is totally unacceptable.  
Apropos to that, the City Council votes Tuesday to, without findings, remove protections against overcrowding of architectural towers in town, a condition of 'Manhattanization' recognized by the City's own General Plan, at the behest of a specific developer who stands to materially benefit from the repeal.  The developer of the Onni project proposal, a Christie Avenue 700 foot apartment tower together with a 200 foot office tower on the same lot is constrained, like every other developer,  by Emeryville's 'tower separation' regulations but he says Emeryville's rules make it so his project "won't pencil out".  The City Council in response, is considering removing the pesky UD-P 35 tower separation regulations from the books altogether, making sure this or any other developers' towers will never again be so constrained in Emeryville.

Emeryville, long known for bending over backwards to accommodate developers, on Tuesday is moving into new territory to assuage the desires of a developer.  Normally, when city regulations are considered for amendment or repeal, new findings of fact are presented that change or negate the original findings.  The Council, if it goes along with the staff's recommendation on Tuesday however, vacates UD-P 35 (and addendums) and all its original findings with no new findings whatsoever leaving open questions about the truthfulness of the original findings; as in were they false?  Did the City of Emeryville make bogus findings of facts about tower proximity for the General Plan ten years ago?  Or is the problem occurring now?  Should the City, for transparency's sake, let us know why the regulations need to be overturned?  Or is it rather that City Hall doesn't even care about policy optics anymore and has entered a new phase of naked (anti-public) policy?

The current City Council members, not seated ten years ago when the General Plan was written, do not owe allegiance to the sentiments that brought us the UD-P 35 tower separation regulations.  But any reading of democratic governance tells us they need to reveal why they disagree and not just rely on facile procedural claims to their authority to reverse the regulations.  Their authority or even the legality to do that is not what's in question.

It's noteworthy that the staff report accompanying Tuesday's City Council decision goes into some detail highlighting the legitimate authority of the Council to overturn the tower separation regulations but nothing as to why they should do so. The report highlights how the Planning Commission had agreed with the Council that tall steel constructed buildings should not have to abide by the City's family unit mix regulations (also a gift to the Onni developer) and then by extension somehow that the Council should now overturn the tower separation regulations as well.  From Tuesday's staff report sent to the Council:

 "At the City Council meeting on October 16, 2018, the Council directed that the Planning Commission reconsider the Planning Regulations unit mix requirements for residential buildings that are taller than the California Building Code allows for wood-frame construction. In this context, staff also identified an additional regulation to be examined, namely the minimum separation of buildings over 100 feet tall, or 'tower separation'."

It's neither cogent nor rational.  The conflating of the two regulations is not warranted beyond a naked and undemocratic greasing of the skids for a specific development proposal and a specific developer, unless the current Council wishes to announce a new pro-development, anti-regulatory regime that's being assembled.  That seems unlikely though, owing to the fact that the new City Council, RULE endorsed with progressive bonafides touted to the rooftops, has always sought to distance themselves from this sort of reputation-proceeding Emeryville city planning ethos from a earlier era.
If for nothing more than transparency's sake, it is hoped Emeryville citizens will get a stated reason from their representatives Tuesday night as to why their laws from a few years ago, considered to be a good thing by all involved, are now suddenly not up to snuff and must be utterly vanquished.

Alameda County Certifies November Election: RULE Sweep

Election Certified:

RULE Wins Emery Unified School District Board Majority

Councilwoman Martinez Takes Historic 49% of vote

Alameda County Registrar of Voters certified the results of the November 6th elections today, officially confirming the majority takeover of the Emery School Board by the Emeryville resident advocacy group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville.  The election of RULE School Board candidates Brynnda Collins, Sarah Nguyen and Susan Donaldson on November 6th makes RULE endorsed Board members now a majority.  On the City Council front, RULE candidate and incumbent Dianne Martinez sailed to victory with 49% of the total vote; the largest in modern Emeryville history with 3182 votes, representing the largest number of votes ever garnered by a candidate for elective office in Emeryville history.

The historic election cements RULE's power in Emeryville with a popular total RULE backed City Council and now a new super majority RULE backed power base at the School District.  In 2016, RULE crushed the election with the sweep of it's candidates John Bauters, Ally Medina and Christian Patz, shutting down the anti-RULE business backed contenders and turned the previous simple majority into a five for five 'RULE bloc' totality on the Council.  This November's election RULE sweep notably makes the seat of existing School Board member Cruz Vargas the last lonely holdout for the anti-RULE minority in all of Emeryville.

Equally unparalleled in Emeryville history is the fact that RULE has never missed even one call.  Every single candidate or ballot initiative measure (like last June's Measure C the affordable housing bond) RULE has endorsed has passed; a remarkable perfect record dating back to RULE's inception and the election of Councilwoman Jennifer West in 2009 who handily beat her contenders (anybody remember Frank Flores for City Council?). Anyone considering running in two years for the seat now occupied by School Board member Cruz Vargas might want to take to heart the last ten years in Emeryville election history.

NOTE TO READERS:  This story originally contained an inaccuracy and the Tattler issued a retraction on December 8th.  The retraction can be viewed HERE. 

Asterisks represent RULE candidates
as well as election winners

Measure C Beckons Residents to Finally Do Something About Housing

Measure C: A Chance to Finally Do Something Consequential Against the High Cost 

of Housing

The Costs of Doing Nothing Are Too High

Opinion
The Emeryville housing bond initiative known as Measure C is on Tuesday's ballot, giving voters a chance to finally do something about the crazy high cost of housing in our town and deal with its associated problems like chronic homelessness and the displacement of existing but vulnerable renters by helping them buy a home in our community.  Rising housing costs present a problem that has been well described but not adequately dealt with and Measure C puts a solution in our hands rather than simply continuing to trust in market vagaries who's result so far has been the $3600 Emeryville studio apartment owned by foreign investors.  Oops, make that $3700....the rent just went up again.

It's not that we haven't been building housing in Emeryville; our population has doubled in the last ten years.  Over that time we've gone from a city of homeowners to a city of renters as developers keep throwing up apartment buildings as fast as they can, trying to cash in on the high rent bonanza.  But all the harried building hasn't brought down the cost of housing.  In fact, the more housing we build here, the higher the cost of housing becomes, a reverse corollary that turns on its head the old supply and demand saw.  After 20 years building housing at a frenetic pace and with the limited amount of space now available, the sky-high cost of housing in Emeryville is clearly a beast that we, through the private sector, cannot build our way out of moving forward.

It's bad for Emeryville but let's not fool ourselves, the lack of affordable housing is a regional problem and no one thing we do in our little town to address this growing threat, not even the passing of Measure C, the first attempt to deal with it (by plebiscite), will completely solve the problem here.
But make no mistake either, Measure C will go a long way towards solving this existential problem, at least in our little corner of the Bay Area.  And by "a long way" we mean a long way.
This common sense and fair housing solution for Emeryville promises to be a game changer; likely up to at least $300 million spent on our little town to help thwart the seemingly inexorable rise in the cost of housing....that's enough to truly make a difference.  And that's what Measure C is designed to do.

The problems associated with high Bay Area housing costs are hugely complex and the solution can't be facile market dependency; we need a cogent big solution to this big problem.  The critical game changing components of Measure C with its relatively modest $50 million in local bond funding are its attendant State and Federal matching funds, a monster $300-$400 million brick that will bolster the relatively small amount Emeryville property owners are going to kick in.  It's $50 million on steroids, jacked up to as much as $400 million for a 1.2 square mile city.  That's an opportunity we should seize; a chance to face a major problem squarely with a rational solution and a large hammer.

Measure C is a progressive tax.  At $49.12 per $100,000 of assessed property value, a cost born 70% to 80% by businesses in our town, in a town of renters, the average Emeryville resident stands to pay nothing or almost nothing.  Homeowners will pay dependent on when they bought their homes.  Those who have lived here a long time, primarily the elderly, will pay less because the tax is assessed on the value of the property at the time of purchase, not on the current market value.  That means the average homeowner will pay just $10.50 per month.
The business sector picks up 3/4 of the tab for Measure C, taking the pressure off residents.  For instance Pixar/Disney, a miserly multi-billion dollar corporation in our town will pay $10,000 per month, a cost they will not be able to weasel out of as they and other corporations have infamously done with a loophole in Emeryville's business tax.

Another nice benefit of Measure C is that Emeryville will be able to finally clear up its portfolio of blighted and vacant land the City already owns, land set aside by the former Redevelopment Agency for this use.  Taking land acquisition off the table will help deliver more affordable units at a lower building cost.

Measure C is a well written and well conceived solution to this vexing problem and that's why its been endorsed by the Democratic Party of Alameda County, the Sierra Club, the entire Emeryville City Council, the Green Party, Residents for a Livable Emeryville, SEIU Local 1021, the League of Woman Voters and the East Bay Express.  And now to that list add the Emeryville Tattler.

Correction-  Please note, a reader found a misspelled word in the chart below and two mistakes.  See the comments below.

Pixar (and other businesses) will finally pay!
The business community picks up 3/4 of the Measure C tab.  The home-owning elderly in Emeryville like former City Councilwoman Nora Davis, won't have to pay much at all.   
Naysayers representing business interests like local blogger Rob Arias have been railing against it.  But how much does Rob Arias care about Emeryville?  The numbers tell the story: less than $10 per month.

Coterie of NIMBYists at PARC Wins: No "Destination Park" for Sherwin Williams

NIMBYism Wins at Sherwin Williams Park Site

"Destination Park" Shown to be Pejorative in Park Avenue Neighborhood

Full Basketball Court Rejected by Planning Commission: Outsiders to be Discouraged

Reversing an earlier decision, Emeryville's Planning Commission voted NO Thursday night to a controversial basketball court for the planned park at the Sherwin Williams apartment project site in the Park Avenue neighborhood.  The reversal from their decision in November praising a full basketball court came after Lennar Development Corporation and the City Hall staff Thursday made a strongly one sided presentation stating a half court is "more usable" and that basketball players would rather use a half court than a real full court.  Notably absent from the presentation to the Commission this time was the previous verbal insistence to make sure the new park not be made a "destination park" with the specter of outsiders coming into the neighborhood even as the forces aligned against the full court still pursued that goal.
Barring a City Council appeal, due within 15 days, the forces that called on Emeryville's decision makers to discourage outsiders from coming to the new park, notably Park Avenue Residents Committee (PARC) and Lennar, won the fight over for whom the City of Emeryville should be building parks with Thursday's final Planning Commission vote.  Despite their decidedly negative view on building a basketball court for the Sherwin Williams park, the developer voiced agreement with PARC that basketball is not necessarily a bad thing and a court might someday be built as long as it's in some other part of town.

Planning Commissioner Steven Keller
Changed his vote from YES to NO.
He's had a change of heart about basketball. 
Before he thought it would be good at Emeryville's
newest park.  Now he says it brings a rough crowd.

Still, basketball players were left stunned Thursday night after learning the Lennar spokesman told the Commissioners a half court is better because it is "more optional" for the new park, "more flexible" and inexplicably, "A half court will get more usage."  The Planning Commissioners, three of whom last meeting said a full court was a great idea, didn't question these new findings nor did the developer offer any evidence to support the claims.  Further, it was claimed by Lennar that a full court would "change the feel of the space", presumably for the worse and that "a half court looks better."  Again, no evidence to support those claims were forthcoming nor did Lennar qualify the dubious statement that people could use a half basketball court for stretching exercises but on a full court they couldn't.

Commissioner Steven Keller who had at the November Planning Commission study session on the park, joined the majority of his colleagues and asked the staff to come back in December and present a park with a full basketball court for them to vote on, was nonetheless pleased this time with the presentation that roundly rejected that ask by the Commissioners.  Vaguely referencing the earlier PARC and Lennar concerns about outsiders coming to play basketball, and reversing previous claims of the benefits of basketball, Mr Keller this time moved to limit games being played, saying "people get rowdy" playing basketball.

With this victory keeping basketball outsiders out of the Sherwin Williams park, PARC adds to its accomplishments and builds its clout with City Hall.   The organization which calls itself a citizen's activist group reflects its xenophobic vision for this park, being an exclusive group closed to outsiders despite the self applied epithet 'community activist group'.  When PARC announced its formation last year, they claimed to speak for the community as they formulated what they called a Sherwin Williams Community Benefits Agreement with Lennar but they turned the idea of a CBA on its head.  The discriminative PARC excluded other community members and community activist groups such as Resident for a Livable Emeryville (RULE), those exclusionary aspirations being the antithesis of the democratic essence of a real CBA.  The Tattler has reported on the likelihood that a better, more resident friendly development would have come to pass if an actual CBA were to have been agreed to but City Hall chose to accept the exclusive PARC agreement (and accept PARC's crowning of their agreement as a CBA).  It is likely a real CBA would have net a real basketball court for the park as well as other amenities but this is Emeryville and that's the path not taken with the Sherwin Williams project.

Video of the meeting can be viewed HERE.

Mayor's 'State of the City' Address Premier at RULE Meeting

From RULE:

RULE is please to host Emeryville Mayor Scott Donahue for a presentation on current priorities of our City Council.   Residents United for a Livable Emeryville Making our city a great place to live and work!  Come and plan for the year ahead with your progressive neighbors Where:  5514 Doyle St., first floor common room When:  Sat., Jan. 28, 10:00 - 12:00 Agenda: -Mayor Scott Donahue gives the premiere iteration of his "State of the City" presentation....what's coming up, what's important to the new City Council. Have your say.              -Plans and goals for 2017, all are welcome to have input. Bring breakfast snacks.....coffee and tea provided See you there!   Judy Timmel, RULE Steering Committee

RULE Assumes Total Power; Residents Replace Business at City Hall

"RULE Block" Bloc Takes Over

RULE Rules; Victory for Residents

First Time Ever; Businesses Have No Representatives at 
City Hall

News Analysis

All five Emeryville City Council members are now RULE backed Council members.  On December 6th, three new City Council members backed by the resident activist group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE) took their oaths of office and filled out the City Council as they joined the two already elected RULE backed Council members for an unprecedented total RULE takeover of City Hall.  Put this way, as some on the right wing in Emeryville have done, it sounds ominous: a total takeover?  Is it a complete "RULE block" as the anti-RULE pro-business blog E'Ville Eye calls it?  That's pretty disconcerting sounding, but what really is a 'RULE block' anyway?

A total RULE block means Emeryville residents interests will now have 100% representation at City Hall as opposed to what existed in the Emeryville of yesteryear when a 'business block' at City Hall and in the Council chambers looked out after business interests. 

New RULE Councilman
John Bauters
Part of the RULE block 

RULE Block
Emeryville's 2014 election seated Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue, both RULE backed candidates and together they joined their colleague already on the Council, Jac Asher, to form the first RULE majority, the first RULE block as it were.  Now however, Emeryville residents, and their advocate at City Hall, RULE, can rightfully claim their influence and power is not simply part of a 3-5 majority anymore but their power at 5-5 is now complete and total; a remarkable turn of events given Emeryville’s not so distant staunchly pro-business history when resident's interests took a back seat.  

New RULE Councilwoman
Ally Medina
Part of the RULE block

The election on November 8th, the fifth consecutive RULE election sweep (every RULE candidate won their seat), added RULE backed candidates John Bauters, Ally Medina and Christian Patz.  It marks the wholesale accession to power for the resident's advocacy group and a total abdication of power by the business community and business advocacy groups the E’Ville Eye and also Little City Emeryville (a new organization that has inserted itself into Emeryville politics and casts itself as a replacement for the vanquished Emeryville Chamber of Commerce). 

New RULE Councilman
Christian Patz
Part of the RULE block.

Business Block
The win on November 8th consolidating total power for an advocacy group was remarkable but not unprecedented in Emeryville history; the 1997 election of Chamber of Commerce backed candidates Gary Caffee and Dick Kassis added to three other already seated Chamber backed Council members, netting the business community an eight year 5-5 total lock on power (from a 4-1 simple majority earlier).  The Chamber leveraged that power in the form of City Hall sponsored give-a-ways to the business community, automatic green lights for developers seeking approval for projects and even for itself when it secured City Hall sponsored free rent and cash grants to publish its newspaper all paid for with public money. Before 1997 you’d have to go all the way back to the 1960’s through the 1970's (before the Chamber existed) with the Emeryville Industries Association to see a similar 100% business block on power at City Hall.

Existing RULE Council members
Mayor Scott Donahue & Dianne Martinez
Both part of the RULE block.

Predictably, now that RULE enjoys the same level of power that the business community used to have, business advocates have cried foul.  Notably among the detractors is Rob Arias, the editor of the pro-business blog the E’Ville Eye who has even before the last election used his blog to chastise RULE, to insinuate the democratic resident advocacy group is somehow illegitimate, characterizing them as secretive, somehow even dangerous or nefarious. 

Former RULE Councilwoman
Jac Asher
Part of the RULE block.
She gave RULE a shout out as she stepped
down on Tuesday night.

As the locus of power has shifted to the residents, Mr Arias, who also is a co-founder of Little City Emeryville, has raised alarms about what he sees as the improper vesting of so much power in one organization.  It is remarkable that Mr Arias, for all his histrionics on the recent shift of power in Emeryville, sees a crucial 

distinction between a business interest lobbying group and a citizen advocacy group both petitioning their government as one between a magisterial elite that should be shown great deference and a rag tag bunch of (hippie?) residents worthy of little more than derision.  Vexing in this calculation for Mr Arias no doubt is the unavoidable 'problem' that only citizens can vote, not businesses.  The whole idea of the franchise of course is the empowerment of resident citizens, and RULE, a democratic group open to all residents and advocating as they do for pro-resident change, represents that empowerment. 
Not prone to transparency (a quality at odds with the title 'journalist'),  Mr Arias has steadfastly refused to answer questions about his favorite punching bag, RULE for this story, regardless of the optics that creates. 

Contrary to RULE, groups such as Little City Emeryville and the former Chamber of Commerce are anti-democratic private clubs, restrictive in their memberships.  Of course, business advocates never publicly reveal their advocacy so bluntly as this.  Usually attempts are made to invoke resident's interests using the classic trickle down economic proposition, in this case: what's good for business is good for Emeryville.

Former RULE Councilwoman
Jennifer West
Before the RULE block when
RULE was in the minority. 

This plutocratic view of governance, with its whiff of desperation may be derided by most around here as too easy but it must be acknowledged and respected for what it is: a potentially effective stalking horse ripe with utility by would be demagogues and interlopers among us, even those who count themselves as journalists.

Former RULE Councilman
John Fricke
Before the RULE block when
RULE was in the minority.

But even as Emeryville slips into a new era, a ‘post land use’ era what with the last large developable sites having been developed, there's no guarantee a City Council entirely backed by RULE will be looking out exclusively after resident's interests.  Indeed, recent pro-business moves, by the RULE majority made before the formulation of the new total RULE block (the unnecessary give-a-ways at the Marketplace development, Sherwin Williams and the Anton/Nady project) are echoes of the days when business was king in Emeryville.  

RULE's accession to total power has an extra cautionary tale for haters who would take on the group in the story of John Bauters and his two year pivot; Mr Bauters ran as an anti-RULE City Council candidate in 2014 and lost. Perhaps sensing the rising power of RULE, this year Mr Bauters patched up relations with the group and sought and received RULE's endorsement.  This time RULE members even worked on the Bauters campaign (as well as the Ally Medina and Christian Patz campaigns) by phone calling and precinct walking.

The November 8th three for three election of Mr Bauters, Ms Medina and Mr Patz continues RULE’s uncanny ability to pick winning candidates for public office.  The fact that every single RULE candidate that has ever sought office (at the School Board and the City Council) over five election cycles has won speaks to the highly centrist nature of the group, regardless of the loud condemnations from extremist right wing organizations and individuals in Emeryville.  RULE demonstrably has its finger on the pulse of Emeryville; it is the pro-business ideologues at E'Ville Eye and Little City Emeryville who can't win elections anymore that are, by definition, the extremists. 

The E'Ville Eye
RULE hating pro-business blog.
Big loser in the November 8th
Emeryville election.
The 'Business Block' advocate
refuses to answer questions about RULE
even as the blog continues to report on it.

Little City Emeryville
Founded by the E'Ville Eye.
Business lobbying group;
Chamber of Commerce replacement.
Loser in the election.
Longs for the salad days of the 
'Business Block'.

Breaking News: RULE Candidates Appear to have Won City Council Election

Breaking: RULE backed candidates John Bauters, Ally Medina and Christian Patz appear to be the winners of the 2016 City Council election with all precincts reporting.  The results:

John Bauters  1378 (23%)

Ally Medina 1254 (20%)

Christian Patz 1036 (17%)


Other candidates:

Louise Engel 755

Brynnda Collins 702

John Van Geffen  627

RULE Endorses Medina, Patz and Bauters for City Council

The Emeryville citizen activist group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE) has announced their endorsement of John Bauters, Christian Patz and Ally Medina for Emeryville City Council.

Christian Patz

There are six candidates running for three seats in an unprecedented open City Council election on November 7th.  The three picks will likely receive a big electoral boost by the nod owing to RULE's high rate of success in picking election winners.  Last election RULE accurately picked both City Council candidates as well as all three School Board candidates that featured a RULE challenger pushing out an incumbent on the School Board, a rare event.  Additionally RULE endorsed the dark horse Tony Thurmond for 15th Assembly District in a never before done outside of Emeryville endorsement by the group.  Mr Thurmond upset favorite Elizabeth Echols in the 2014 race.  RULE has selected winners in every other Emeryville election save one and the RULE candidates have come in first place each time arguably making RULE a venerable Emeryville institution at this point.

John Bauters

Ally Medina

Sherwin Williams Project: Emeryville's City Staff Prepares a Bogus Environmental Document

An EIR is Supposed to Tell Decision Makers About Negative Environmental Impacts 

What Will the Sherwin Williams Traffic be Like?

Nobody Knows

Opinion/News Analysis

EIR's Are Supposed to Measure
Will the City Council demand
measurements from the
Sherwin Williams EIR?

Emeryville’s City staff has prepared the environmental document that facilitates the last large development project for our town, the Sherwin Williams Project (SWP), and the City Council decides Tuesday night whether to certify the Environmental Impact Report as a properly prepared CEQA document.  
But hold on; there’s a huge problem.  The City Council cannot certify the EIR for Sherwin Williams because the EIR fails at it’s most elemental CEQA charge; to inform the decision makers about how the proposal will effect traffic in our town.  

In fact the EIR contains no useful information about traffic at all.  That’s because the traffic study within the EIR was written with the assumption the City Council will amend our General Plan to get rid of the Horton Street Bike Boulevard as it calculated the traffic effects the SWP would have on the neighborhood.  It's not up to the staff to decide the General Plan will be amended.  

What if the Council decided they like bike boulevards?  What if they want to keep the Horton Street Bike Boulevard as the General Plan says it should be?  As they have said many times they wished to do?  Well then less traffic would be using Horton Street and that excess traffic would move to other streets.  And that would change the ‘level of service’ on those other streets to a lower level.  In that case, the streets in the neighborhood would be more negatively impacted by the Sherwin Williams Project than the current EIR shows. 

The City Council and the people of Emeryville are in the dark about how the Sherwin Williams traffic will impact our neighborhoods.

The City Council needs to know this to make an informed choice about the SWP.  Is it too impactful to traffic in the neighborhood?  Is it acceptable? The Council needs to know this before they can decide on this project.  Says who?  Says the State of California: the central function of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is exactly this….to properly inform the decision makers about development proposals.  

The document the staff will be pushing Tuesday night doesn’t do that.  It fails at the sole task it’s supposed to perform.  The City Council needs to throw it back.  They need to tell the staff to prepare a  new EIR with traffic numbers that show the effect on the neighborhoods with the assumption we’re going to keep the Horton Street Bike Boulevard, that's all.

More Traffic on our Bike Boulevards Means
More Ghost Bikes for Emeryville
Will the City Council make the right decision
on Tuesday night? Will they keep open the
option to have a bike boulevard for Horton Street?

The citizen activist group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE) wrote a letter to the staff about this subject.  Inexplicably, the response to RULE’s letter was the staff didn’t understand the question.  That seems like a canard.  They're paid to know about this. 
We understand it: this is an end run on what’s supposed to be a transparent process.  The staff is trying to show a Sherwin Williams Project with less effect on traffic to make it more palatable to the public, to make it an easier sell for the Council. 

We have a right to know what the effect on traffic the Sherwin Williams Project will have in our town assuming we keep our bike boulevards. We need to know how this project will effect the real world. The world that contains the Emeryville General Plan and bicycling as a safe possibility here.  If the City Council certifies this EIR as it is being offered up to them by the staff on Tuesday night, we’ll know they never had any intention on having a bike boulevard on Horton Street.  The developers for the Sherwin Williams Project don't want a bike boulevard on Horton Street.  Let’s see who’s back this City Council has.  Watch this space….