Taxpayers Pick Up The Tab:
Redevelopment Agency Provides Junk Food, Mattress Stores
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Gotta love it: 37 different types of chips.
Oh thank heaven! |
Opinion
Need a shot of fat and salt? The Emeryville Redevelopment Agency's got your back! Or maybe 'had your back' is more fitting. As developers line up their forces to combat the Governor's recent
rescinding of redevelopment agencies state-wide, we should pause to acknowledge all the good works the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency has done for us, the residents.
The opening this week of the new Seven Eleven on the corner of 40th Street and San Pablo Avenue provides just such an opportunity. Emeryville residents who crave cigarettes and processed garbage food will have yet another outlet to satisfy their cravings. And it's all thanks to the enlightened vision of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency and it's chief apologist and huckster, City Manager Pat O'Keeffe.
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Wanna wash that
down with a 3
liter Slurpee? |
Consider all the sublime, neighborhood enhansing retail brought to us over the years: in addition to the shiny new Seven Eleven, think Mattress Discounters, Little Caesar's Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Sleep Train and the like. It's all done to bring maximum livability to Emeryville according to Mr O'Keeffe and the city council. In addition to the swelling sense of pride Emeryville residents must feel at the opening of the new Seven Eleven, Mr O'Keeffe and the council have given us the opportunity to pig out on junk food and then sleep it off on a new mattress; all with millions in taxpayer subsidies handed out to the developers.
It's all been done with us in mind, mind you. Emeryille's Redevelopment Agency said all the big box malls and fast food and franchise chain retail is an essential ingredient to a livable town and they pursued it with great alacrity; we've been the lucky beneficiaries of that forward thinking vision.
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Failed municipality: Not one
Seven Eleven in Piedmont. |
But we're left feeling just a touch of pity for the City of Piedmont California, the hometown of Emeryville City Manger Pat O'Keeffe. It's remarkable that Piedmont has been left high and dry; they've received none of these vital ingredients to livability. It seems Mr O'Keeffe has selflessly worked for Emeryville's benefit, leaving his own town without so much as a single mattress store. Even as we bask in the glow of the civic pride engendered by the new Seven Eleven, we wish our neighbors well and we hope Piedmont will be able to leverage it's clout and bring to it's impoverished citizenry a new Seven Eleven and all the social benefits that flow from the 37 different types of chips on offer.
