The Most YIMBY Mayor & Vice Mayor in the Most YIMBY City in California

Emeryville's Mayor, Vice Mayor Called Out As "Developer Shills" by Local Media

Mayor John Bauters
A "developer shill".

Emeryville’s mayor and vice mayor both made the list of the biggest lovers of corporate housing
development in the greater Bay Area in the “developer shill’ bracket produced by a local rental housing lobbying group known as YIMBYLAND in an open election of its followers.   The mutual love fest between YIMBY and corporate developers and Mayor John Bauters was particularly pronounced in the fantasy football-like bracket, netting Mr Bauters a position in the quarter finals, the group announced earlier this week.

Being selected for the YIMBYLAND developer shill bracket is no small thing, and Mr Bauters as well as the vice mayor, Courtney Welch, had to throw Emeryville’s local housing control over to developers in order to compete.  

The celebration of Mr Bauters and Ms Welch by YIMBYLAND is just the latest in the tender and devotional relationship grown between these two Council members and the nation-wide developer lobbying organization known as YIMBY, a developer funded group that wants to clear the field for developers to deliver the rental housing that is the most profitable kind of housing to build.

The result of having City Hall committed to allowing large corporate developers build what they want is the transformation of Emeryville from a city of mostly home owners into a city of mostly renters.  But Emeryville citizens don’t want what YIMBY wants.  Our General Plan is unequivocal: the City Council is to deliver more ownership housing, not more rental units.  To the extent residents know what these two City Council members are doing with our housing policy is problematic for the Mayor and Vice Mayor.  In this way, Mr Bauters and Ms Welch have had to operate under the citizen radar in Emeryville.    

More Rental Apartments Than Rain

Vice Mayor Courtney Welch
A "developer shill".

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), of which Emeryville is a dues paying member, produces its jobs/housing balance every few years and releases the number of new housing units we need.  Emeryville is famous in the Bay Area for always beating its Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) housing numbers.  Emeryville achieves it by allowing developers build so many rental only apartment towers, the kind of housing that YIMBY is lobbying for.

 This implementation period, with all the new rental apartment towers approved by the City Council, has allowed Emeryville to crush its ABAG RHNA numbers by 203%, even more than the percentage over normal rainfall in Emeryville for this year, the most in recorded history (177%).

Mayor Distances Himself From YIMBY

Emeryville has earned the accolades from YIMBY, especially since Mr Bauters was elected.  The San Francisco Chronicle in 2021 called Emeryville's City Council one of California's "most YIMBY city councils".  However, the YIMBY agenda is not what Emeryville citizens are: pro-gentrification, pro-capitalist, free market fundamentalism associated with neoliberal economic modalities.  It’s funded by real estate corporate developers, Big Tech and right wing think tanks like the Koch brothers and is popular in the Bay Area only insofar as the organization can keep the right wing attachment hidden from view.  Accordingly, neither Mayor Bauters nor Vice Mayor Welch have told Emeryville citizens the two of them had made the YIMBYLAND list of shills for developers.  Mr Bauters has not said anything about it publicly while Ms Welch made a brief mention of it on her Twitter account.  

It’s almost as if they don’t want Emeryville citizens to know about all the hard work they’ve done to help developers build so many market rate rental apartments.  The Mayor told the Tattler the list is “humorous” but he said he didn’t know why so many YIMBYLAND supporters voted for him.

Why indeed.  Perhaps Mr Mayor, it’s because corporate developers appreciate what you’ve done for them over the years and they want to show their gratitude. 

The Developer Shill Bracket
Emeryville's Mayor and Vice Mayor beat out almost every Bay Area pol when they made the 'Developer Shill Bracket'.  The Vice Mayor came out from the 'mixed-use zone' while the Mayor took up position in the 'industrial zone'.  Mayor Bauters made it to the quarter finals only to be beaten by state senator Scott Wiener who wrote SB35 which forces cities that have fallen behind their government mandated housing allotments (not Emeryville) to deregulate their housing development policies.

Emeryville's General Plan Overturned to Bring Gay Hating Fried Chicken Fast Food

Do You Remember 'Memorability'?  

Emeryville's Planning Director Says 'Memorability' Is No Longer A Thing, Forgettability Is Much Better

News Analysis

After months of remodel construction and with a grand opening slated for early April, Emeryville’s General Plan is being used to facilitate another fast food restaurant by skewering its provision to create a “memorable city” regardless that the new restaurant is one of a chain of 2709 locations nation-wide. 

The new automobile centric, fast food, national corporate chain restaurant, the Georgia based, Christian, gay hating Chick-Fil-A will “contribute to the well-being of the surrounding neighborhood and community” and it will “create a sense of place, a memorable place” according to the City’s Planning Director Charley Bryant.  The buoyant language Mr Bryant is using for this restaurant is held over from the findings that permitted the building of the previous fast food chain, Panera Bakery with its 1562 world wide locations at the same East Bay Bridge Mall 40th Street site.

Workers were caught last week cutting
branches of off site public street trees
that were blocking the corporate logo.
Emeryville police were summoned but
there were no arrests or citations.

Back in 2012 when the Panera Bakery corporation sought approval from Emeryville to construct the building, the City had just recently finished its new General Plan that would protect against this kind of retail use owing to its “memorability” clause.  At the time however, Mr Bryant hurdled over that problem by insisting that a memorable mural would be painted on the south side of the building as reported in the Tattler.  

However, after the gay hating fried chicken corporation recently destroyed the mural as part of their remodel, citizen complaint again invoked the memorability problem.  How could a fast food restaurant with 2709 locations be considered memorable?  Mr Bryant explained to the Tattler the gay hating chicken place would still comport with the General Plan because the mural had been photographed before it was destroyed and it has been re-created on an ink jet printed banner.  The banner would be hung on the south side of the new building in the same area as the original mural he said.  That would take care of the memorability requirements he said....but not the incessant Tattler inquiry.

Since then, the Planning Director has retracted his earlier statement about the printed banner.  Now Mr Bryant is telling the Tattler, as it turns out, memorability is not really necessary after all, regardless of what the General Plan says.  This leads to questions about the hoops Panera had to jump through in 2012. 

Panera Bakery had to pay the artist to paint the mural at the insistance of the Planning Director in order to provide political cover because without it, a fast food building would have been seen as torpedoing the General Plan right after the Plan had been freshly certified by the City Council.  Ten years later, now it seems Mr Bryant is making a calculation the public doesn't care about trying to create a memorable city anymore and that love of gay hating fried chicken will make Emeryville citizens forget all about their General Plan.  Once this newest fast food restaurant opens, a precedent will have been set and the door will be open to all manner of forgettable national franchise chain retail stand alone buildings for Emeryville.  Ideas of creating a memorable city will become quaint, traded for gay hating fried chicken and other fast food restaurants waiting in the wings.  Wings?  How about another burger franchise? 

The memorable city idea was a noble idea, vetted as it was by the people of Emeryville in a series of public scoping session meetings years ago when we were collectively trying to imagine a city we wanted to live in.  The demise of the noble idea was not democratically vetted, rather, it was simply taken away by the Planning Director and the City Council majority.  Ultimately though, our city is becoming just like every other city because the people failed to keep a watchful eye out over their government.  The fault is ours.  All is not lost however.  We may not get a nice place to live but at least we're going to get some delicious fat and salt in the form of gay hating fried chicken in the deal.

The "memorable" mural that was offered up to get a fast food bakery restaurant for Emeryville.
Now it's no longer needed according to the City's Planning Director.  Memorability is no longer
a thing for Emeryville he says.  Why have memorability when you could have forgettability?

City Took Away Housing That Would Have Supported CVS

Blighted CVS – Thank City Hall’s Leading Lights from Twenty Years Ago

By John Fricke

Once upon a time, there was a small town with a not so nice street.  To protect the innocent, let’s call this town, Pottersville.  

The not-so-nice street was called San Pablo Avenue, and on one of its blocks there were a number of contiguous properties that were occupied by a grimy Kentucky Fried Chicken, a greasy spoon called, Broom Bush Café, some residential units, and a moribund paint store.  The Best and the Brightest down at City Hall decided that this block of San Pablo Avenue needed to be destroyed to save it.  

Having designated virtually all of Pottersville as a redevelopment zone, City Hall’s big thinkers came up with a plan: they demanded that the private property owners sell their parcels of land to the city government (at a generous price).  The city government would consolidate the contiguous parcels, raze everything, and turn the whole thing over to a developer who would create something better: retail shops that fronted on San Pablo, surface parking, and townhouses in the back. 

To the neighbors living nearby, including this correspondent, the plan seemed like not a bad idea.  Who wouldn’t mind getting rid of the decades-old KFC with its rotating bucket on a pole (which had long since stopped rotating).  The Broom Brush Café had been there for some time, but the area needed more housing.  The paint store was bumping along, but who could argue with progress?  A profit-oriented developer was on the case.  What could go wrong?

City Hall’s alchemists held community meetings, displayed renderings of the future “Promenade”.  No longer would the parking spaces front on San Pablo, they said.  The new businesses would have entrances that would be right on the street, thereby ‘activating’ the street with pedestrians.  The nearby neighbors dreamed of neighborhood-serving retail that they could walk to.  City Hall’s bright lights said new retail space would feature tall ceilings, a smart facade, not another big-box retail monstrosity.  (Never mind that Pottersville’s big box nirvana was brought to you by the same usual suspects. ‘Meet the new boss . . .’)

The existing property owners took their payouts and left.  (Broom Bush Café relocated to Berkeley.)  But even before construction began, the promises started to go south.  The housing would not be built right away, first the retail, they said.  The Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise cut a separate deal with City Hall – it would reopen at a new location right down the street.  And the neighborhood-serving retail was merely a bait-and-switch.  Even though City Hall now owned the land, it made no demands on the developer in terms of what types of businesses would be selected as tenants.  

Then, the developer rolled out the hit parade of proposed future tenants: IHOP, Panda Express, Longs (which demanded a liquor license), Hawaiian BBQ, and Quizno’s Subs.  

Neighbors and I organized a full-throated opposition.  We attended numerous city council meetings, we wore stickers (“Mom and Pop, not IHOP”).  I argued that the city was within its legal right to exercise final approval over tenants.  The city attorney took a different legal position, namely, that the city council had given away the store to the developer, and needed to give away more.

The know-it-all experts in city hall tried to explain – while talking slowly and not using any big words – that the developer had incurred large costs in constructing the new retail space, and that he needed to charge high rents to recoup his investment – only the national fast-food chains were in a position to pay at that rate.  Translation: we should feel the developer’s pain.  

Had my second-grade teacher, Mrs. McGuinness, been on the scene, she would have asked all the miscreants down at city hall to get out a piece of paper and a pencil, and write, twenty times, First Do No Harm.  

Although we were unable to close the barn door on IHOP, over the course of several city council meetings, we pressured the city council to find neighborhood-serving retail for the remaining retail space that was slated for Panda Express.  When Arizmendi expressed initial interest, we organized a community meeting to court the Arizmendi people (mainly, Jacques Kaswan) who had reservations about San Pablo Avenue.  We then persuaded the city council to subsidize the rent for five years so that Arizmendi could get on its feet.  

And what about the townhouses? Pixar cast a roving eye across its vast sea of surface parking spaces, and fixed its gaze upon the land slated for the townhouses.  When Pixar came calling, City Hall quickly struck a deal to ditch the townhouses and sell the land to Pixar.  Was Pixar planning to use the land to house some of its employees?  Not.  Pixar paved it over and striped more surface parking spaces for its car commuters.  The Pixar superblock got even bigger.  

Why did CVS close last fall?  Was it done in by the pandemic?  By the steady stream of shoplifters?  By the ‘challenges’ associated with San Pablo Avenue?  

CVS’s demise was foreordained over twenty years ago when the rocket scientists down at City Hall napalmed the block and then caved to their handpicked developer and to Pixar.  The one success story, Arizmendi, arose despite city hall’s genuflection to the developer, Pixar, and fast food nation.  

So, dear reader, the next time you walk along the Promenade, averting your eyes from the blighted black hole that was once CVS, don’t reach into your pocket looking for Zuzu’s petals.  They disappeared over twenty years ago when the brainiacs down at City Hall decided that they knew best.  

John Fricke is a sometimes Tattler contributor, longtime Emeryville resident, father of three, husband, lawyer, and former member of the Emeryville City Council.  He is currently spending a year living in Berlin.

Emeryville's Development Policy in Spray Paint

Here's What Happens When City Hall Fails to Protect Resident's Interests

Emeryville residents living in the San Pablo Avenue corridor, dismayed at the deterioration of their neighborhood by vandals who have been targeting the abandoned CVS Pharmacy building are now being told the City of Emeryville is powerless to stop it.  Graffiti is festooning the facades, vegetation is collapsing down onto the sidewalk and plywood panels have been ripped down.  The debasement of the neighborhood comes despite all the taxpayer money spent to improve and beautify the San Pablo streetscape because of a lack of will to hold businesses and developers to account by the City of Emeryville.

CVS quit Emeryville and closed down the business last September, leaving the building unattended and the City of Emeryville has no legally binding agreement from the Rhode Island based corporation to keep the property in decent shape upon their departure.  Emeryville’s Community Development Director Charley Bryant told the Tattler in December he is aware of the blight conditions at CVS but he is powerless to stop it, “We’re working with them” he has repeated since then, apparently hoping the corporate pharmacy giant will feel sorry for us and voluntarily clean up their property.  

City Hall is powerless because there is no one there that would rise up to hold a developer to account when approval is being sought for a proposed development.  A legally binding contract with teeth would hold developers to keep their property up to community standards after a client or the development corporation itself abandons the building.  But that would be considered a government constraint on a developer, something this city has not been comfortable with. 

Eventually, the property will be sold and some new developer will probably tear down the blighted monstrosity but until then, Emeryville residents will have to get used to their neighborhood brought low by a City Hall that works in the interest of business more than residents.  It's shown in Emeryville's development policy written in spray paint.

Vegetation is collapsing onto the sidewalk: ADA violation.

A look inside Emeryville's CVS Pharmacy building  
Editorial: It's warm and dry in here while outside people without homes huddle in the wet and cold. If developers abandon buildings and refuse to keep them up, Emeryville should take them over by eminent domain and provide a safe warm dry place for people without homes.

Emeryville Home Ownership Dropping, Rentals Rising

Council Member Priforce's Numbers Reveal YIMBY Obeisance: 

Home Ownership Falls, Rentals Rise

Public Policy Crisis: General Plan Overturned to Developer's Profit Seeking Goals

Emeryville is the worst city in the East Bay as far as home ownership is concerned.  Statistics show it's bad and it's getting worse.  While the City's long standing approach of letting developers do what they want has fueled the worsening condition, it stands to codify and put into law the 'hands off' approach by certifying the new Housing Element plan and its provision to officially seek to "remove government constraints" on developers.  While the future looks bleak, Council member Kalimah Priforce has been busy detailing for citizens how the condition has worsened over the last decade.

Mr Priforce has publicly released housing data that puts numbers to a multi-year project taken up by the Emeryville City Council that has been forwarding transformational but not fully accountable housing policy that favors the building of rental housing over home ownership.  The tranche of data delivered by the Councilman on his website objectively tracks what many residents have been sensing over the years and petitioning against: Emeryville has been fully turned into a city of renters, now comprising 72% of us, the highest percentage of any East Bay city.

The revelatory information is presented on Councilman Priforce’s informational website, votepriforce.com he has set up expressly for Emeryville residents since his election last November and is viewable HERE.

The rental housing numbers are likely as distressing for Emeryville residents as they are antithetical to the General Plan’s general provision to increase the percentage of ownership housing.  In 2011, shortly after the certification of the General Plan, 36% of residents were homeowners compared with 28% by 2021 (the last year presented), an eight point drop.  Compared with the neighboring cities of Oakland and Berkeley, Emeryville’s drop is seen as even more troubling.  Those cities dropped their homeownership percentages but only by one point; from 42% to 41% and 44% to 43% respectively.  In fact when cities across Alameda County are studied, there is shown to be a remarkable consistency; county-wide homeownership percentages dropped less than a point: from 55% to 54%.

When the data is broken down by race, Emeryville is shown to be failing people of color in our town, especially Black and Brown people.  Black homeownership dropped from 2011 to 2021 from 16% to 13%.  Latinos were shown to drop from 29% to 17% and Asians dropped from 37% to 35% .  

Emeryville stands alone in the East Bay area as the lone city looking out primarily after the interests of developers and the latest renter data proves it.  The lion’s share of damage to our homeowner percentage can be tagged to the 2014 election of Council members Scott Donahue and especially Dianne Martinez who showed animosity towards the scientifically generated jobs/housing balance proffered by ABAG (the Association of Bay Area Governments, of which Emeryville is a dues paying member) and their RHNA numbers (Regional Housing Needs Assessment).  These two council members along with the later elections of John Bauters and Courtney Welch have helped shepherd Emeryville’s housing policy on a YIMBY (the developer lobbying organization Yes In My Back Yard) track.  This obedience to YIMBY picked up speed in 2016 with the election of Ally Medina and John Bauters to the Council.   

Over the last eight years, Council members Donahue, Martinez and Medina all expressed deference to YIMBYs rental only housing ideas in practice with their unspoken 'hands off developers' policies.  More recently, Mayor Bauters and Vice Mayor Welch have followed the policy deference to the out-of-town lobbying group but also they have expanded YIMBY's reach into Emeryville's City Hall by accepting YIMBY cash to their campaign accounts.  

YIMBY primarily concerns itself with changing law in Sacramento and it has had great successes there and flush with tech entrepreneur money, the group has also spread into cities across California.  Developers can make more money building rental housing over ownership units and as a result, YIMBY has shown hostility towards municipalities encumbering developers in any way, including even any encouragement of the building of ownership housing.  Mr Priforce’s data shows how influential YIMBY has been at Emeryville's City Hall regardless of the General Plan's call to increase the ratio of ownership housing.  

Council member Priforce says he will hold a town hall style meeting for the citizens in the future about this disturbing trend.  The Tattler will report details of the meeting when they become available.

  Emeryville's homeownership numbers trend is down, especially since Council members Bauters, Welch, Medina, Donahue and Martinez took office.  Source: City of Emeryville & US Census.

Oakland home ownership has been inching up over the years.  Unlike in Emeryville, developers are not in the driver's seat in Oakland.

Berkeley too has very stable home ownership numbers.  YIMBY has had 
a much lesser effect than in Emeryville.

Home ownership numbers are remarkably non-changing in Alameda County.

Sukhdeep Kaur Ascends To City Council by Appointment

 City Council Appoints Sukhdeep Kaur Emeryville's Newest Council Member

Breaking News

Tonight, at the first Emeryville City Council meeting open to the public to attend in person since the pandemic closed City Hall in 2020, the City Council voted 4-0 to elect Sukhdeep Kaur to the City Council on their first ballot.  Ms Kaur who lives in the Watergate neighborhood and who ran a nearly successful bid for Council in November replaces Ally Medina who quit her Council post in January.  Nine candidates applied but two dropped out before the 5:30 meeting.  Council member Kaur immediately assumed her position on the dais, as is the tradition for newly sworn in City Council members 

Sukhdeep Kaur takes the oath of office in the City Council chambers in a sparsely attended 
first open meeting since the beginning of the pandemic.

Kalimah Priforce Wins Democratic Party Delegate Race for Emeryville

 Mayor's Losing Fight Against Councilman Priforce 

Priforce Victory Called 'Huge Upset'

Money & Power Backed Council Member Courtney Welch Loses

Council member Kalimah Priforce
Big winner in Friday's delegate race and rising 
regional political star representing Emeryville.

Emeryville City Councilman Kalimah Priforce was part of a slate of 12 progressive candidates, all of whom won a landslide victory in a contentious Democratic delegate race to the California 18th Assembly District, announced by the party Friday. Council member Priforce handily defeated Councilwoman Courtney Welch who ran as part of a corporate backed slate of candidates, but that slate of 14 candidates were all defeated excepting for one.  The rank and file Democratic Party delegate election represents a defeat for the corporate backed 18th Assembly District representative, Mia Bonta, who leveraged her power to try to get her slate of candidates elected.  The election results, what many are calling a ‘huge upset’, were unexpected owing to the power and money representing Ms Bonta’s slate.  The newly elected delegates will serve under a now weakened Assemblywoman Bonta.

Mayor John Bauters
He endorsed the loser,
Councilwoman Courtney Welch.

The election of Mr Priforce as Democratic delegate means Emeryville’s interests will serve an oversized role in the delegation with our little town representing one of the 14 in a district that encompasses all of Alameda and most of Oakland.  Had Ms Welch also been elected, Emeryville’s power in the California Democratic Party would have been hugely increased.  However, Emeryville’s Mayor John Bauters used his position to lead a drive to steer votes away from Council member Priforce being elected in favor of Ms Welch.  As such, the regional election for the 18th District, conducted over the last couple of months, has come to be seen by East Bay politicos as part of a proxy battle for who is to control Emeryville City Hall, Mr Bauters or Mr Priforce.

The loss for Ms Welch is a blow for Mayor Bauters who has used his position to push against Council member Priforce in the Council chambers and in the delegate race securing the endorsement of Ms Welch by Council colleagues Ally Medina, and David Mourra.  Despite his Council colleagues working against him and with the delegate race won, Mr Priforce is now seen as a rising political star in regional politics, and a challenge to Mr Bauters. The two councilmen can be seen as representing two different visions for Emeryville with Mr Bauters’ side represented by a deference to housing developers versus a deference to a more democratic policy vision shown by Mr Priforce.  

Assemblywoman Mia Bonta
Her slate of corporate backed
candidates, including Courtney Welch
 lost.

The ‘battle for the 18th ‘ delegate race was represented by the two opposing slates, Mr Priforce’s grassroots progressive “People’s Slate” and the Mia Bonta corporate backed and ironically named “Progressive Unity and Labor Slate” that Ms Welch ran with.  The People’s Slate for the 18th District was endorsed by Our Revolution, a national grassroots political organization started by Senator Bernie Sanders and a critic of Councilwoman Courtney Welch, whom they called a “corporate backed Democrat”.

During the campaign, Councilman Priforce signed a pledge to not take donations from corporations including from corporate real estate organizations such as YIMBY, an action that the YIMBY backed Councilwoman Courtney Welch mocked on the campaign trail.

Speaking to the Tattler, Allyssa Victory, the top vote getter in the Democratic delegate race and an Oakland mayor challenger in the election last November said,  “The People’s Slate was truly independent and all 12 candidates were successfully elected due to a strong grassroots campaign that included a people-centered platform, direct outreach, voter registration, and education to overcome the many hurdles in the election process. All members of the Slate, whether re-elected or elected for the first time, ran to change the status quo by addressing the crises in our democracy and increasing accountability to the people we are elected to represent."

Council member Priforce came in 6th place in the delegate race with 286 votes while Council member Welch came in 16th place with 192 votes.

Councilwoman Courtney Welch
She has the support of corporations but she
does not have the support the of the people.

The People's Slate
Swept the Corporate Backed Slate
Non corporate and victorious.  All signed pledges not to take corporate money.
Every candidate won their race.

New Emery School District Test Scores Plummet

 Emery School District Slides Precipitously

Department of Education Shows Emery on Bottom Academically

School Board Election Claims Shown to be False

Board Member Brynnda Collins
She got the endorsement of the
Alameda County Democratic Party
and she told voters to "Keep Emery
on track".

The California Department of Education has released new test score data that tracks an academically plummeting Emery Unified School District, getting worse over last year’s results which already had Emery in the basement.  The plunging test scores reveal Emery to be once again, in last place among all Alameda County school districts, a position the district has inhabited for several years running.  

The district fell from 23% proficiency in math last year to a new low of 14% proficiency, a dreadful nine point slide; making Emery the worst performing district in the county.  English proficiency wasn’t much better.  That plunge from 37% to 34% proficiency, makes Emery now second only to San Lorenzo Unified School District, a district with a much lower number of students with English as their primary language.  When that is factored, Emery performs lower than San Lorenzo in English (as well as math).

The test results show while Emery is taking up last place outright in math and very nearly in last place in English proficiency, the rate of ‘English learners’ at Emery (22%) is much lower than at the second and third worst placing districts, Hayward and San Lorenzo.  Those two districts show a rate of 28% and 30% of students classified as English learners.  Emery is shown to have a ‘Hispanic’ student population of 24% while Hayward and San Lorenzo have 64% and 28% Hispanic population.  Both those two districts show Hispanics as the primary student demographic. 

Board President
Susan Donaldson
During the election campaign
she told voters the district's test score
data was "misinformation being
shared by someone running for
School Board". 
Now what does she say?

When the two primary test scores in math and English, tracked by the State are numerically combined, Emery registers at 48 while Hayward and San Lorenzo total 53 and 62 respectively, making Emery the worst performing school district in Alameda County (even before factoring in the English learners handicap).

Emery is also unique among East Bay school districts with its high administration cost.  Emery has the highest ratio of administration to students of any district in the East Bay.  The data reveals that even though Emery spends by far the most money per student, they spend only 19% on actual instruction, the lowest amount of the money taken in of any district in the East Bay.  The lion’s share of revenue at Emery goes to administration salaries and election consultants.

The disheartening new data from the Department of Education comes after a November School Board election that featured three incumbents gushing over how good they are at their jobs and how the voters must not risk putting in a new person with different ideas about how to run the district.  School Board President Susan Donaldson told voters in October the three incumbents were doing a “great job” and that Emery is a “top rated” school district, never mind the actual data from the State.  Board member Brynnda Collins warned voters not to listen to anybody who brings up test data but instead insisted we must keep Emery “on track”. 

School Board member Regina Chagolla
She insisted voters re-elect her and the 
other incumbents because new ideas 
must not be allowed to take hold at Emery.

The Tattler editor Brian Donahue, who ran a low cost insurgent campaign for the Board countering the three incumbents, told the voters the top down, administration heavy Emery should try a new path by putting teachers in a higher position and paying them more.  It was a stance the three incumbents strongly refuted, stating the teachers were happy with what they have at Emery.  Mr Donahue ran on the three incumbent’s records, reminding voters of the low test scores putting Emery in last place, a charge the three refuted.  Hiding the fact that Emery’s English language learner rate is much lower than San Lorenzo and Hayward, President Donaldson made a case that Emery is only the third worst district in Alameda County and that is part of what makes Emery “great”.  

Notably, the three incumbents refused to answer the Tattler election questionnaire for voters last October, a first in Emeryville electoral politics, and none of the three would comment on the new State of California Department of Education data for this story.

Straight From The State
These numbers are as critical for Emeryville residents to know as they are 
 inconvenient for the three incumbents.

Council Says NO to Democracy For Council Replacement: Appointment Offered Instead

Breaking News:

City Council to Appoint New Council Member

Tonight the Emeryville City Council chose to decide for themselves who should replace former City Councilwoman Ally Medina instead of letting the people decide.  Councilwoman Medina resigned early, effective last Friday and on the agenda at tonight's Council meeting was a choice; who should decide about a replacement.... the people or the Council?  

Some council members balked at the estimated cost of holding a special election, up to $152,000 according to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters but in the end it was decided the cost is less important than the idea of having only four Council members until next November, the earliest date date a special election could be held.   The Council will have up to 60 days from today, March 16th, to come up with a replacement. 

An appointee would only need to secure three Council votes to become the next City Council member, it was announced.

Mayor John Bauters expressed strong views that an appointment is the best choice while Council member Kalimah Priforce expressed reservations but he ultimately agreed an appointment is the best way for Emeryville citizens to get their next representative. 

Names thrown out for appointment included two who ran for Council last election, Brooke Westling and Sukhdeep Kaur and also School Board member Brynnda Collins.  Other names were hinted at but not revealed tonight.

Mayor Bauters Leads Drive Against Council Colleague, Kalimah Priforce

Round Two in War Against City Council member Priforce

His Colleagues Refuse to Endorse Him For Assembly Delegate While They Endorse Council Member Welch

Mr Priforce Asked to Sign 'Collegiality Agreement' 

An emerging discord among Emeryville City Council members has manifest in another unprecedented event Friday when the Mayor and two colleagues endorsed Councilwoman Courtney Welch for a delegate to the Democratic Party Assembly District 18, conspicuously leaving aside Councilman Kalimah Priforce, who is also running for delegate in the same election.  Notably, the Emeryville City Council has never endorsed a candidate for the State Assembly, let alone snub a fellow Council member running as they did on Friday.  The negation of Mr Priforce adds muscle to the new polity of hostility against him by the Council majority after the wholesale attack on Mr Priforce at his swearing in meeting. 

City Council member Kalimah Priforce
Since entering the City Council, his colleagues
have been hostile to him.
The Council refuses to say why.

 

Propping up Ms Welch at the expense of Mr Priforce for Emeryville representation in Assembly District 18, Mayor Bauters was joined by Ms Medina and even newly sworn in City Council member David Mourra.  In a show of force, the existing District 18 Assembly member Mia Bonta has also endorsed Courtney Welch and other corporate backed Democrats, revealing the political reach of Mayor Bauters who plays by the Democratic Party mainstream rules and gets favors like this returned.  

Mr Priforce and Ms Welch are running for delegate on different slates with different guiding philosophies.   Ms Welch’s slate of 14 candidates is noteworthy for its attachment to YIMBY, a developer lobbying backed organization that seeks to remove local regulation in housing policy.  A central figure supporting Courtney Welch is her slate mate Zac Bowling, a software CEO and YIMBY backed candidate.  Ms Welch too is backed by YIMBY, having received $1000 from the 'YIMBY Victory Fund'.  Mayor Bauters has also received YIMBY money from YIMBY supporters it should be noted.  

The YIMBY organization (Yes In My Back Yard) is backed by rightwing groups including the far right Koch Brothers.  The organization has quietly reached tentacles into cities across the Bay Area in recent years as they get municipalities to reverse their rules constraining developers that would deliver livability for existing residents.     

Councilwoman Welch was called out as a “corporate backed Democrat” by several local election watching politicos including the well known progressive Alameda resident, Democrat Dan Wood.  Ms Welch has forcefully pushed back on the accusations on her Twitter account stating "From here on out, if you want to say I'm connect w/, to, involved in, etc something, cite your sources or shut the fuck up & that's on everything."

Courtney "Shut The Fuck Up" Welch
Council member Welch is supported by the YIMBY
backed network East Bay for Everyone.  Their agenda is
to overturn local municipal power and give it to housing developers.
Council member Priforce has been critical of YIMBY.

The snubbing of Council member Priforce by his colleagues is added to the recently released pre-City Council election collegiality agreement they required him to sign.  The agreement stipulated that Mr Priforce is to behave in a collegial manner at City Council meetings (never mind the fact that the Council majority themselves violated the collegiality they sought at Mr Priforce’s swearing in meeting).  

For his part, Council member Priforce has taken the attacks and snubbing from his colleagues on the Council in stride.  He told the Tattler, "As a Black man, a Buddhist Haitian Afro-Latine son of foster care, I'm used to being judged and non-engaged with out of fear and biased assumptions.”  He said of his fellow Council members, “I have no power over darkness, only my own light.”

The City Council members did not respond to Tattler questions about the snubbing of Mr Priforce as he seeks to represent Emeryville in the Democratic Party except David Mourra who said he didn’t receive an ‘ask for endorsement’ from Mr Priforce. 

California Democratic Party Assembly District 18 includes Emeryville, Oakland, Alameda.   Emeryville voters registered as Democrats were asked to vote last Friday for 14 candidates although they can still vote by appearing at polling places outside Emeryville up until January 22nd.  Winners will be announced in March.

UPDATE TO STORY:  We received emails asking for us to include the full quote Council member Priforce supplied us with.  We left part of the quote out initially to keep the story on track and to the point.  Because Tattler readers have requested it, here's one better, a revised full quote from Councilman Priforce:

As a Black man, a Buddhist Haitian Afro-Latine son of the foster care system, I'm used to being judged and non-engaged with out of fear and biased assumptions. Today, an elderly White woman pulled me aside after church and told me, 'it's so good to have a Godly Black man on the city council.'  That is what centers me throughout all this drama that looks more like student government than a real government led by mature, mindful adults.

But it's folk like her that remind me to pray for my colleagues and focus less on them and more on the mandate granted to me by the voters to make Emeryville a better village to work, live, and play in. I don't agree with many of the views expressed in this body, but any semblance of special interest influence that warps the destiny of our city, its residents, homeowners, and workers is something I will always fight against and address. Silence is complicity. I also suggest readers focus less on the sensationalism or the back and forth and more on the solid points being made.

Matthew 5:16 says 'Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works..." so I'm focused on my own good works and to continue to be a light that shines in darkness - like I've done all my life. I have no power over darkness, only my own light. What my colleagues say and do is up to them and I want no part in anything that doesn't serve the best interests of Emeryville."

SECOND UPDATE & CORRECTION:  We erroneously reported that Councilman David Mourra was not asked to sign a collegiality agreement.  We apologize for the error.  At 8:31 tonight (1/10) Councilman David Mourra confirmed he in fact also signed a ‘Candidates Pledge’ (AKA collegiality agreement) given to him by his colleagues.  Before we posted the story, we reached out to Council members Bauters and Medina to ask if Mr Mourra was given the Pledge to sign after we got tips from two independent sources that they did not ask Mr Mourra to sign it or even present it to him.  The two Council members refused to confirm or deny.  

The collegiality agreement cooked up for this election is unprecedented in Emeryville City Council history and this election with Kalimah Priforce (and David Mourra) running, was the first time there has ever been such an agreement presented to any Council candidates.  No other Emeryville City Council members or Council candidates have ever been asked to sign such a document.