The Tattler is 15 Years Old

Emeryville's Oldest and the Longest Lived Independent News Source

The Tattler is 15

The Tattler is 15 years old today!  That makes us the oldest and longest running news site about Emeryville in Emeryville history.  And like 15 year olds everywhere, we’re rebellious and we're generally pissed off.  We are little but we punch up.  We take on authority.  A decade and a half is a long time to be taking on the rich and the powerful for a scrappy little online news outlet that doesn't take a penny from anyone.  So our 15th birthday is fairly noteworthy.

Back when we started, business was king in Emeryville, controlled by corporate developers with an obsequious four person City Council majority willing to rubber-stamp every development proposal.  Now, business is still king but we have an obsequious four person City Council majority willing to rubber-stamp every development proposal.  Wait…what?…

We're 15 and we're pissed.

It’s true, we’re sad to report: the elite power dynamic in our town is precisely what it was 15 years ago.  Fifteen years of gum shoe reporting has amounted to the following change: Whereas before, developers wanted to build suburban style auto-centric shopping malls, now they want to build all rental market rate apartment blocks.  Fifteen years on, developers are still having their way with us but the profit maximizing overlord these corporate developers pray to has changed the building type.  

The people of Emeryville have nothing to do with this.  They're outta the loop.  But the Tattler has been trying to cut average citizens back in.  If history has taught us anything it's that persistence is needed when it comes to the question of control of the public commons.  The people with money have persistance.  Ordinary people generally don’t.  Against this dreary backdrop, the Tattler continues on.  

We did have a short lived flowering of democracy in Emeryville some 13 years ago when citizen activism and the Tattler helped deliver a two person progressive City Council minority with a discredited and dispirited conservative majority that was willing to break bread with the progressives.  It was during that brief 4-5 year progressive period when Emeryville took leadership status in the Bay Area and the Council passed our landmark minimum wage ordinance, showing everyone the dynamism of people power.  That enlightenment period didn’t last long and rejuvenated conservative forces soon took power back at City Hall.  But it was people over profits for a New York minute in Emeryville.  Alas, progressive movements always tend to be short lived and a conservative and angry majority can always be counted on to come roaring back.  Sound familiar?

Doing the kind of work the Tattler does always brings the haters.  They seem to come in waves, dependent on how far up we stick our head.  Progressives are rarely as angry and passion filled.  They tend to stick to the business of delivering public policy that works for the public.  Irrational conservatives are where the anger has always resided in our town (and beyond).  It's what you would expect.  What’s new, is the Emeryville City Hall that itself has joined with the traditional haters and even surpassed them.  Our City Attorney is actively trying to take the Tattler down, so perturbed is he at the prospects of local journalism pushing for accountability at City Hall (more on that in a coming Tattler story).  Readers should know, the Tattler has never backed down from a fight.  We will continue on even with the full power of the entire City Hall leveled against us.  They have been going extra-legal in their attempts to shut us down recently but we have the law on our side and we intend to use it to our advantage.

15 Years Old:
If the Tattler were a young Mexican woman,
we'd be wearing this dress today.

We’ve made a lot of powerful enemies doing what we do here and we've always managed to hold our own. But with a rogue city hall now enjoined, the consequences of the new paradigm are likely to get conspicuous. 

It should get pretty exciting around here.

So change happened in Emeryville years ago but then it changed back.  There have probably been some nation-wide mega trends at work adversely influencing our politics in our little town.  One change that appears to be permanent is the fact that most City Council members now ride their bikes, even some of the ones who support the takeover of our public housing policy by YIMBY Real Estate Investment Trust corporations.  That’s a positive change we'll take….we suppose. 

In the ways we've elucidated here, one could argue that the Tattler has a juvenile take on what the ‘adults’ in Emeryville do.  We’re outraged at their audacity and we’re rebelling against these power elites, be they in City Hall or in the far flung corporate boardrooms that control our town.  Like we did 15 years ago when we took up this fight for the public commons, we do this work because nobody else is doing it and because we believe that people, ultimately, will act in their interests if they have the information they need to see how their interests are being subverted.

It’s all quite rebellious at the Tattler.  But it’s also optimistic at its core.  Optimism that democracy will have the final say: that’s what separates the Tattler from most 15 year olds.  At the risk of being branded as a pollyanna, we're going to continue on telling Emeryville residents what they need to know about what's going on in Emeryville.

So while it's true we're rebellious at 15, we've always been rebellious.  Fifteen years old: that’s usually around the time people expect little rebels to morph into adults, to settle down and accept life as it is.  Here at the Tattler, all we can say on that score is don't hold your breath: we're going to continue fucking shit up (journalistically).

Interested readers can track these birthday celebrations at the Tattler.  We celebrated at one year, five years, and ten years.  You can track how we saw ourselves at one year and at five years as being pugnacious with massive forces aligned against us until at ten years, we were starting to say the Tattler had achieved some level of victory, and how Emeryville had transformed into a much better town (only to see it fall back into the clutches of conservatives with today's fifteen year story).

Mayor Mourra Violates FPPC Rules & Emeryville Code of Ethics

Mayor Mourra Violates FPPC Filing Rules

City Council Majority Recently Censured and Sanctioned Their Colleague Kalimah Priforce for the Same Violation

Planning Commission Chair Also Violated FPPC Filing Rules

Breaking News

Emeryville’s Mayor, David Mourra, has not filed required FPPC political disclosure forms, a violation of state law, the Tattler has learned.  The FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission), a state agency tasked with ensuring government transparency, acknowledged in a January 24th letter to the Tattler that Emeryville’s mayor is under investigation for failure to disclose as is required by law.  Mr Mourra is very late in his filing as it turns out, having not filed required campaign disclosure forms since his election victory in 2022.  The FPPC investigation comes as a result of a Tattler complaint.  

The California Reform Act of 2024 mandates that all elected officials must continue to file FPPC disclosure forms even in the event that they have been elected and regardless of any subsequent donor contributions or lack of contributions.

The Tattler investigation also revealed Jordan Wax, the chair of Emeryville’s Planning Commission, failed to file a required FPPC 'Statement of Economic Interest' form on time, itself a violation of state law.

Some elected officials have presupposed that an inactive election campaign lets them off the hook for FPPC filings but state law is very clear that filing is still required.  Violations of proper and timely FPPC filing rules have been very common among Emeryville politicians over the years.  So much so that late filings would not normally be considered newsworthy except for the fact that Mayor Mourra and his colleagues on the City Council majority made much ballyhoo of recent late filings by Council member Kalimah Priforce to such an extent that they invoked Emeryville's new Code of Ethics to censure and sanction him for it.  Now Mr Mourra, who seems to have unclean hands, finds himself in the same pickle. 

The Tattler has an open Public Records Request filed with the City Clerk for details that will inform future editions of this ongoing story.

Mr Mourra was contacted for this story but he refused to comment. 

Emeryville Mayor David Mourra
Unclean Hands
He sanctimoniously wagged his finger at
his colleague Council member Priforce for
violating the exact same state law as he did.

Anti-Palestinian Connection Found in Emeryville Democratic Party Delegate Race

Specter of Anti-Palestinian Politics in Emeryville ADEM Race

Breaking News

The Tattler has found an anti-Palestinian, Gaza genocide denying funding and influence connection in the local ‘ADEM’ Democratic Party delegate race reported this week.  Four Emeryville residents are running in two posing slates as the Tattler reported.  One of the two slates, called the ‘Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate’, is paid by ‘California Jobs and Justice’, a Sacramento lobbying entity that itself is funded by the ‘Democratic Majority for Israel’ a Washington based lobbying organization that is Gaza genocide denying and anti-Palestinian.  Emeryville residents Sam Gould and Regina Chagolla are both part of that slate.

The other slate in the ADEM race is the ‘People’s Slate’ and is the more progressive slate of the two, despite the word ‘progressive’ in the Housing and Climate Slate title.  Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez are among the People’s Slate members.  Mr Priforce is an Emeryville City Council member and a current ADEM delegate for the 18th District.  Regina Chagolla is an Emeryville school board member.

The 18th Assembly District Democratic Party delegates are charged with setting the Alameda County Democratic Party agenda and so it has been considered a powerful position and one that reflects East Bay Democratic Party values.  The anti-Palestinian connection has not been reported openly by the Housing and Climate Slate, probably because that is not a popular position for East Bay Democrats.  

Democrats are urged to vote online by January 31st at ademelections.com   

Paid for by.....
That tells you what you need to know.

The top contributors are anti-Palestinian and Gaza genocide deniers.

Emeryville Democrats Urged to Vote for 18th District 'ADEM' Delegates

Four Emeryville Residents in Two Slates of Candidates Seek Local 'ADEM' Positions

Democratic Party members in Emeryville, which make up 59% of the voters, are being asked to vote for party delegates for the 18th Assembly District to help set the direction of the Democratic Party in the future, a race that includes four Emeryville residents.  The agenda delegates, referred to by the acronym ADEMs (Assembly District Election Meetings), are divided into two slates, a conservative and a progressive and the four Emeryville residents running are split into both slates.  

The progressive slate, called the ‘People’s Slate’, is comprised of 11 members including Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce (a City Council member and existing 18th District Delegate) and Sarah Perez, while the conservative slate, called the ‘Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate’ is comprised of 12 members including Emeryville residents Sam Gould (who recently lost a City Council bid) and Regina Chagolla (a School Board member).  

The conservative slate, despite its name with the word ‘progressive’ in it, is noted for its corporate backers, notably the Real Estate Investment Trust lobbying group YIMBY California.  They put stripping local housing policy to make way for more corporate landlords at the top of their to do list.  Also notable is the fact that zero men of color are represented; very unusual for an East Bay election slate.

The progressive slate lacks corporate underwriting and concerns itself with traditional Bay Area progressive ideas like anti-gentrification, tenant protections, climate justice and a labor-led clean energy economy.  

The Tattler reached out to the four Emeryville candidates for comment but only Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez responded.  

Mr Priforce said, “For far too long, 'we the people' have been confronted with a false choice - a vote between fascism on one side and corruption on the other.  The Democratic Party needs to change by winning back the people's trust.  As an elected delegate representing Emeryville to the California Democratic Party as part of Assembly District 18, I'm once again a member of the People's Slate because of our diversity and working class progressive values that place people over profit.”  

Ms Perez stated, “Unlike others whose work is based on self-interest, my commitment for social change is personal and therefore dedicated to people who need help.  I stand in solidarity with the People's Slate. Please vote for all of us because this fight is for you.”

Democrats are urged to vote online by January 31st at ademelections.com 

UPDATE: A mistake in this story regarding the acronym ADEMS has been corrected.  Thank you to the reader for catching our mistake.

The People's Slate
Featuring Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez

The Housing and Climate Slate
Lot's of White men!
Featuring residents Sam Gould and Regina Chagolla

New Partisanship Means Council Members May Not Vote Their Conscience Safely

 Partisan Politics at Council Means Members May No Longer Dissent Without Fear of Censure and Sanction

Priforce Punished for His Vote

News Analysis

The City Council majority broke precedent when they censured and sanctioned their colleague Council member Kalimah Priforce on December 3rd for how he voted; a thing that’s never happened in modern Emeryville history.   The sanctioning punishment, for his vote on the new Code of Ethics, is a Council action that will negatively effect governance in Emeryville far into the future.

At issue is Councilman Priforce’s refusal to promise to obey (by refusing to sign) the new ethics law after he stated the law as written is not meant to hold all Council members to account equally.  While true, Mr Priforce’s refusal to sign his name in support of the new law was a legitimate protest against it.  The refusal to sign was not illegal, nor was it unethical or immoral.  The refusal was a vote to abstain on the matter of the Code of Ethics law, a law that would constrain all Council members equally were it not for the fact that the Council majority refused to agree to an independent ethics commission overseer, a fact described by Mr Priforce at the onset as a deal breaker.  

The City Council majority 
decided to spend $7570 to send a
letter of their anti-Priforce resolution
to every Emeryville household. 
The Council majority spent the money in
spite of the recently revealed $12 million
budget deficit, the largest in
Emeryville history.

The Council’s didactic and fractious sanctioning action was unethical because it took away Mr Priforce’s right to vote his conscious, something that every voter, Council member or otherwise, always retains the right to do in a democracy.  In addition, the sanctions have had the unintended consequence of lowering public safety because Council member Priforce has been stripped of his committee liaison positions, one being the Public Safety Committee.  That committee, formerly met on a monthly basis with Council member Priforce as liaison will now meet bi-monthly without Priforce, a lessening of safety services offered to the people of Emeryville. 

It was not only Council member Priforce that warned us that a Code of Ethics without an independent ethics commission overseeing body would be weaponized against dissenting Council members (himself being the sole example), the City Attorney, John Kennedy and none other than former Council member John Bauters likewise warned the Council majority against it.

In the Council’s estimation, by his refusal to sign his name to a law he didn’t like, Mr Priforce did an unethical act as called out in their resolution.  The Council included a ‘whereas’ that states he is censured and sanctioned because, “Despite his many public statements calling for a Code of Ethics, Council member Priforce is the only Member who has not signed the attestation that he will abide by the Code of Ethics, despite voting in favor or the Code’s adoption.”  

For his part, Council member Priforce says he decided not to sign the Code of Ethics legal document put before him a month after the Council voted unanimously in favor of implementing it because his colleagues had refused to implement an accompanying independent ethics commission, something he says is necessary and what they had said they would do at the December 3rd Council meeting a month earlier.  Council member Priforce stated a Code of Ethics would be weaponized against unpopular Council members by the majority without an ethics commission stopping them.  Recent events have shown Mr Priforce’s prediction on a weaponized law has come to pass.

By refusing to implement a independent ethics commission, the Council majority placed Council member Priforce in a position where his conscience dictated he refuse to sign his name to the new law and then they used that to punish him: a ‘bait and switch’ example of unethical behavior by these Council members.  Council member Priforce, who won his 2022 election over Mayor David Mourra, is paid to vote his conscience.  That means his every vote can be a YES, NO or ABSTAIN, legally and ethically.  Ironically, irrational behavior based on the City Council members’ base emotions, in this case the hatred of a colleague, is untoward and unethical. 

The Council vote to condemn a member over their vote is done: that's a bell that cannot be unrung.  That is our history now. 

The City Council majority has gotten so partisan, the vote against Mr Priforce for voting against the Code of Ethics was not enough.  They they also chose to spend $7570.96 of the taxpayer’s money to send a US Mail letter to every Emeryville home to gloat about it.  This, during the current $12 million City Hall budget deficit, the largest in Emeryville history.  The sanctimonious letter to every Emeryville resident has a cover letter from Council member Courtney Welch, a political foe of Mr Priforce, stating the vote to sanction was not taken lightly but rather through great deliberation as if the Council, in so doing, was interested in doing the people's business instead of personal partisan recrimination. 

Politics has skewed Emeryville City Council so severely in the current age, they see scoring points against their enemy on Council as more important than doing the people’s business guarding against making worse the worst budget crisis in modern Emeryville history.  

Because dissent is necessary and even a barometer in a democratic deliberative body, from this day forward the people will know their interests are being looked after by the Emeryville City Council to the extent there are accompanying votes of censure/sanction.   If they're not censuring and sanctioning, they're not likely doing our business. In other towns the majority gets their way and then they move on.  In Emeryville, the majority gets their way and then they censure and sanction those in the minority who vote differently....and then they spend $7570 to gloat about it and then they move on.

City of Emeryville is Failing to Reveal John Bauters' Election Campaign Documents

 City’s Website in Violation of California Campaign Law

Failure to Post All Bauters Campaign Documents

Election campaign forms for Emeryville City Council candidates are supposed to be kept on file for public viewing but campaign documents regarding former Council candidate John Bauters are entirely missing from the City’s website, a violation of state law.  The City is required to make all of these documents available to the public on its website but Emeryville is in violation because at least two are not viewable at all the Tattler has learned.

The FPPC Forms 460s, filed with the state of California as well as the City, detail how much money a candidate has received and from whom.  As it stands now, Mr Bauters’ campaign for re-election for City Council, abandoned by him last summer, is missing half of his required documents.  An attempt to download the missing documents at the City’s website is stopped and the site brings up a notice that the connection is not secure when an attempt is made.  Other documents are working, just not two of the Forms 460s.

From the City of Emeryville's website:
Half of Bauter's Forms 460 are not viewable on the site: a violation of state law.

The Tattler alerted the City of the problem via email but the City Clerk, April Richardson, said she never received the email.  A check of her email address revealed it was correct.  After giving up getting the documents from the City’s website or through email, ultimately, the Tattler conducted an official Public Records Request for the missing public documents, a request the state grants a municipality ten days for compliance.  

Hearing about the document disclosure problem in person, Ms Richardson volunteered that the Tattler should not try to get any information from the City of Emeryville via email in the future, an interesting if unusual request.  After 15 years of information gathering from City Hall, this is the first time a department head has told the Tattler to not use email.

Mr Bauters abandoned his run for Council in favor of a run for Alameda County D5 Supervisor, a race he lost last November.  Bauters is currently not in elective public office.

The City Council majority has stated that it is very important that the public be able to view every candidate for Council’s Forms 460s so it is assumed this problem will be fixed soon.

The Tattler will report on how this violation gets fixed.  Stay tuned.

A click on Mr Bauters' Forms 460 is disallowed and this warning comes up.

UPDATE: The City of Emeryville corrected this as of January 16.

Emeryville's Website Asks Citizens a Very Personal Question

 The City of Emeryville Gives Us Six Sexual Positions to Choose From

We're Supposed to Select Our Favorite

This Kind Of Thing Used to be Considered Private Info

Which sexual position do you prefer?  The City of Emeryville wants to know and they have given us a total of six to choose from.  The City's website says you can go to the Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL) website at emeryvillecenter.org to take the quiz about your particular sexual proclivities.  The six City of Emeryville approved positions are graphically presented for those with dull imaginations.  

Not generally known for its prudishness, the Tattler has nonetheless provided an expurgated version of two of the positions on offer at the City website (see photo at bottom).  To those not wanting to view straight up pornography should be warned however; although the Tattler added the black bars in the photo for this story, the lurid photos are graphically displayed without bars for all to see, including children, at the website. 

A search revealed the City's website seems to have been taken over sometime in 2024 by someone using 'Porkbun', an ironically named internet domain name registrar.  As it stands now, this site, being connected with the School District, certainly has lured children to it.  Specifically, anyone looking for public art at the City's official ECCL site will be directed to the following address in all its prurient carnality (warning, click on it at your own risk and children are told to not click on this):

emeryvillecenter.org

Here is the City’s current webpage that invites people to click to see the porn: 

We had to go back to 2020 to see where emeryvillecenter.org used to direct to:

Now, it directs people interested in public art at ECCL here (Tattler expurgated version):

UPDATE:  As of 9:41 AM 1/6/24 the City of Emeryville has removed the link to emerycenter.org from its website.

City Throws in the Towel on Graffiti Tags

 The City of Emeryville and PG&E Celebrates 'Junior' and Hundreds of His Friends

Commentary

By Brian Donahue

A couple of months ago a few graffiti tags appeared on the wall of the PG&E building on Holden Street.  Citizen complaints were received by the City who is required by statute to let the owner of the building know about it and to remind the owner they are required by law to remove the tags.  Despite numerous complaints over many weeks, PG&E refuses to remove the tags and because graffiti is self propagating, one tagger’s efforts are repeated by another and another, now the whole building is covered and it is spreading to neighboring buildings. 

This could be a primer in how not to conduct public policy.

For years Emeryville did a pretty good job combatting graffiti (the CVS building notwithstanding) but now the process seems to be broken.  We don’t know the precise reason for the dysfunction but the City of Emeryville doesn’t seem capable of handling a problem like graffiti removal anymore.  Tellingly, the police report to us that the City has informed PG&E about the problem but they have so far rebuffed any directives from the City to fix the problem. In frustration, we offered to do it ourselves.  We said we will voluntarily paint over the tags free of charge but later, the police told us they spoke with PG&E and they said they will sue anybody that tries to paint over the graffiti tags on their building. The police, for their part, say they will arrest anyone who tries to paint over the PG&E graffiti tags if they catch them in the act.

PG&E will not obey Emeryville’s graffiti law and they will not let us do what they refuse to do.  That lets us know all we need to know about the lack of community mindedness of this giant corporation in our town.

But then something changed.  The police informed PG&E that the Tattler knows about their lawsuit threat. Quickly, PG&E told the police to inform us that they have had a change of heart.  Now apparently they will not sue anybody that tries to paint over the graffiti on their building, and they want us to know that.  

So now we know PG&E doesn’t care about our laws but they do care about bad press. 

City Hall, PG&E and the Police Department: all are here to make sure we can’t have a nice place to live anymore.  So we’re expecting more tags…..and more and more and more.  Graffiti tags everywhere is what you get with the civic dysfunction that embodies the new Emeryville.  

This is not the kind of thing that's solvable anymore,
says the City of Emeryville.
‘Junior’ wants us to know he was here
and who are we to take that away from him?

UPDATE: Today 1/6/25 workers from PG&E painted over the graffiti.  Problem solved!

John Bauters Era Ends: a Consequential Council Member Retires

 The End of the 'Bauters Era'

Housing Development Corporations Benefited Tremendously Under Bauters But

Residents Saw Little Benefit, Mostly Rising Problems

John Bauters stepped down from the Emeryville City Council December 10th as a necessary result of him choosing to run a campaign for Alameda County Supervisor.  That race ended in a November 5th loss and finished an eight year political career for the undisputed leader of Emeryville.  

Stripped of power and now just a private citizen, it's a good time to reflect on John Bauters’ tenure as our leader; the man who for better or worse, ran the ‘Bauters Era’ for our town.

First running a losing campaign for the City Council as a conservative in 2014, Bauters tried again as a progressive in 2016 and won after having received the endorsement of the popular center left residential activist group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE).  After taking office, he quickly repositioned himself as a conservative in the mold of his mentor, the former leader of Emeryville, Nora Davis.  Both Ms Davis and Mr Bauters unabashedly led Emeryville by embracing a top down, pro-corporate, private sector deregulation governing philosophy.  For Council member Davis it was a pro-development-of-any-kind philosophy and for Council member Bauters it was a pro-housing developer philosophy.  Both leaders took a hands off approach to corporate developers seeking profit maximization in our town.  As a result, with Ms Davis in control, Emeryville delivered three major suburban style auto-centric shopping malls and the giant campus closed to the public Pixar while Mr Bauters delivered the ubiquitous seen-one-you've-seen-them-all rental apartment blocks.  Notably, John differed from Councilwoman Davis insofar as he likes to ride his bike.

Emeryville's Homelessness During the Bauters Era
Numbers of Individuals
79% drop since 2019 but 31% increase since 2016.
He only told  Alameda County voters about his 
2019-2024 numbers, failing to tell about 
his 2016-17 numbers.
Source: Alameda County '24 PIT count

Flowing from this pro-developer epistemological polity, many of the things people in Emeryville like have been delegated to second tier status; things like creating new parks, creating housing for families, locally serving storefront retail and creating a city of homeowners versus renters.  Because housing developers would have to pay for them, these are things developers don’t want and as a result, these are things not delivered on Mr Bauters’ watch.  For the record, Bauters himself says he’s a YIMBY Council member.  The San Fransisco Chronicle agreed, as revealed in their story where they called our Councilman “The most YIMBY mayor in the most YIMBY city in California”. 

There were some positive things Council member Bauters brought.  He is a very effective speaker and able to effectively galvanize people when he needs to.  Early in his first term, Bauters staged community building citizen appreciation events at the Council meetings where individual citizens would be called up to the podium and awarded plaques of appreciation from the City of Emeryville for their public good works.  He pushed through a taxpayer funded $50 million affordable housing bond to try to ameliorate the gentrifying effects of all the market rate luxury apartments developers like to build.  But conspicuously, it has just been all-rental apartments, all the time.

A good way to recount the adverse effects of the Bauters Era on those living here is to simply tally the most egregious negativity he delivered:

1)   He rolled back the wages of the poorest working poor among us when he rolled back our minimum wage.

2)  He said NO to any new parks until there is enough rental housing built (but he has refused to tell us how much housing we need).  

3)  Going against our General Plan, he transformed Emeryville from a city of homeowners into a city of renters.

4)  Siding with the corporate Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) developer lobbying group YIMBY, he has moved against local control of our housing policy in order to hand it over to corporations.

5)  After turning us into a city of renters, he has stopped all attempts to empower renters seeking rent stabilization or rent control (because developers are against it).

6)  After agreeing to allow a code of ethics law for Emeryville, he has said NO to allowing an independent ethics commission to ensure the new law is not politicized and applied fairly and equitably.

7)  As chair of the Budget and Governance Committee for eight consecutive years, he failed due diligence and brought the worst budget deficit in Emeryville history.

8)  In order to facilitate a proposed all-rental housing project, the ill fated 700’ tall ‘Onni Tower’, he proposed a roll back two of Emeryville’s new ordinances meant to ameliorate the ill effects of developer greed: the tower separation ordinance and the unit mix ordinance. 

9)  After pushing through a Council resolution to support Ukraine from Russian aggression, he said NO to a call for a Gaza ceasefire resolution.

10)  He intervened and stopped our democratic mayoral rotation in order to take a second term for himself, stating he is needed because of his budget expertise (and then he blow up the deficit).

Homelessness in Emeryville
as candidate John Bauters reported
it to the voters. 
He did a great job he said.
But something critical is missing
from this narrative.

After suffering through all this corporatist anti-resident Bauters Era politics, Emeryville residents watched as candidate Bauters in November told Alameda County residents he had reduced homelessness in Emeryville by 79%.  The un-cherry picked facts reveal he INCREASED homelessness in Emeryville by 31% over the course of his tenure on our Council.  Bauters only told about homelessness dropping since 2019, skipping over the previous four years of homelessness increasing while he was in command.  The rest of Alameda County also followed the same trend: homelessness went down recently after having increased previously.  In this way, homelessness in Emeryville is not unique in the Bay Area.  But that was not something Mr Bauters wanted to tell.  Further, homelessness in Emeryville is much lower than neighboring Oakland because the police here roust them out before they get a chance to set up an encampment, a policy highlighted by the Tattler in a series of articles in 2022, an inconvenient fact for candidate Bauters.

Perhaps the most disturbing development at the Council in the Bauters Era is the new zero accountability, zero transparency culture.  Like Council members Courtney Welch and Sukhdeep Kaur after him, Bauters refused to answer questions from his constituents (if the questions are tough).  He refused to answer emails, texts or calls.  Adding to this, he refused to hold press conferences, and as a result, the people never got any accountability from him.  Mr Bauters, seeking bigger political office after Emeryville, protected his brand and his narrative at all costs, eschewing any negativity that could rub off on him were he to have engaged with his constituents or the press.  So far Courtney Welch is following this same path. Notably, Nora Davis did not see her role as a public servant like Bauters and Welch do: Council member Davis took questions and comments from all comers; a tradition of public accountability that sadly has died with Bauters.

Emeryville has the unfortunate distinction that it regularly falls victim to a ‘strongman’ culture at City Hall.  After the fall of the criminally corrupt John LaCoste era of the 70’s, Emeryville has had three multi-year leaders.  Two of the three have been pro-corporate, pro-developer conservatives.  The three have been Nora Davis, conservative, 25 years in power (four in the wilderness), Jac Asher, progressive, 5 years in power followed by Bauters, conservative, eight years in power.  Council member Bauters has groomed the conservative, pro-developer Courtney Welch to be our new leader but it is not clear during this interregnum period if that will become our continuing illiberal future.  

Over the last 38 years, other than the few short years with a progressive in power, conservative politics here have resulted in a corporate retail chain store and traffic clogged city with the fewest acres of parks per resident of any town in the Bay Area.  Emeryville is the largest town without a library in the Bay Area, it has the lowest percentage of families of any town in the East Bay, and the highest rate of renters over homeowners in the East Bay.  Emeryville’s renter residents live alone and cut off from a community due to the auto centric nature of our town.  At 1.8 people per housing unit, Emeryville has the lowest number of people per housing unit in the East Bay.  In a town like this, without an engaged citizenry, it’s not surprising Emeryville has the second worse school district in the East Bay.  This is the legacy of the Bauters Era.

Former Emeryville City Council member
John Bauters
2016-2024
Back in 2026?

Council Member Ends Hunger Strike: Petition Goal for Ethics Commission Met

 Ending Hunger Strike after 1000 Signatures From Community Members,

Priforce Forces Council Majority's Hand

Community Weighs In, 

Ball Now in Council Colleague's Court

Council member Kalimah Priforce ended his ten day hunger strike yesterday after an online petition in support of an Emeryville ethics commission showed more than 1000 signatures, the number he said he would need to end the strike.  The change.org petition, 1049 signatures strong at the time of this story's posting, is meant for Emeryville residents and surrounding neighbors to show their displeasure at the Emeryville City Council for refusing an independent ethics commission to be implemented to compliment the existing Code of Ethics.  

The fear, publicly expressed by the City Manager and the City Attorney when the Code of Ethics was certified in September 2023, is that without an ethics commission working to enforce the Code of Ethics, the City Council would be the enforcement arm for the ordinance and they would be tempted to politicize or weaponize it.  That fear has been well founded with the recent censure and sanction of Council member Priforce by the four other Council members even while they have refused to hold Council member Courtney Welch to account using the same Code of Ethics.  For an elected political body majority to use a law as a cudgel against a political enemy while holding themselves free from constraint by the same law is a classic polarization or weaponization that an ethics commission would not allow. 

Council Member Priforce
Last night he ate food for the 
first time in ten days.

 

The petition is designed to force the City Council’s hand, owing to the fact that the Council majority has thus far steadfastly refused to allow an independent ethics commission.   New Mayor David Mourra, when voting to certify the Code of Ethics in 2023, hinted he would be amenable to the formation of a commission at a later date, “The Code of Ethics is a good first step” he said as the Council prepared to vote on the new law. Offering a motion for a Council vote, Mr Mourra left an independent ethics commission out, at least at the outset,  “Lets take this first step and adopt this and see how things go”, he told his colleagues. Since then however, Mr Mourra has hardened his position against the idea of an ethics commission as have Council members Welch and Kaur, against a damning documented violation of the Code by Courtney Welch in September.  

The signatures collected in support of an independent ethics commission will be either taken up by the City Council as an impetuous to establish a commission by fiat or the incipient citizen activist neighborhood group Emery Rising will move forward with a ballot initiative for Emeryville voters to decide, says Council member Priforce.  

Mr Priforce told the Tattler, "As a Black man in America, I was born censured and sanctioned. The solipsistic behaviors of my council colleagues have proven the unchecked power distance that exists between City Hall and the people of Emeryville. This petitioned victory was about Emery Rising bringing the fight back to the people and letting them decide if Emeryville should remain stuck in the shadows of being the rottenest city or if an independent public ethics commission should be part of a future that unites us with a hope that moves us forward."  Conjuring a Star Wars meme, Priforce called the signature petition and looming ballot initiative,  "A New Hope".

Coming off the hunger strike, Council member Priforce reports that he is in good spirits but weak and only eating very sparingly for the time being upon the advice of his doctor.

This is what the petition website looked like at 9:00 last night.