Sutter Hospital Says NO Community Benefits Agreement For Their Emeryville Project

 Sutter: Willing to Meet With The City of Emeryville Directly But Not The Community

Local residents will have no say in what, if anything, they'll receive in exchange for welcoming a new hospital complex in Emeryville.  A high level Sutter Health official announced last week the firm will not participate in a Community Benefits Agreement concerning the proposed campus along Horton Street.  

Sutter Health Vice President of External Affairs, Melissa White surprised community leaders when she announced the corporation will not take part in a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) associated with their proposed billion dollar Emeryville hospital project proposal.  The surprising announcement places the City of Emeryville in the hot seat after City Hall's Senior Planning Manager Miroo Dessai assured community members earlier a CBA for the project would in fact be expected.

Melissa White
Sutter's Vice President
of External Affairs
Sutter will not negotiate directly
with the community.

While a community benefits agreement is not mandatory, these types of covenants have become common with large development projects and assure local residents are compensated in some way for perceived burdens.

CBAs are legally binding contracts signed by community groups and a real estate developer that requires the developer to provide specific amenities and/or mitigations to the local community or neighborhood.  They can be construed as coming from a loss of full faith by the community in the local government as a partner.  Thus, cities are not signatories on CBAs and they are not supposed to have any influence in negotiations between the community and the developer.

Accordingly, if Sutter refuses to take part in a community benefits agreement, there will be no community benefits agreement associated with the Emeryville Sutter Hospital.

Emeryville resident Brandon Soublet, who is running for city council in November expressed shock by the directness of the Sutter email, “I’m shocked but not surprised. I’ve been in every public meeting about this project and saw no desire from the Sutter team to meaningfully engage with the community” he said. 

Sutter began to back away from the community benefits agreement idea in August when Ms White claimed her corporation could not even enter into a community agreement if they wanted because of internal structures at Sutter, “A CBA is intended for developers and for-profit development projects. We are neither, we are a nonprofit organization, not a developer; our role is to provide healthcare services to the community” she said in an August 28th email.   After that, on September 2nd, Sutter confirmed there will be no CBA for the Emeryville hospital.

However, non-profit status doesn’t preclude a corporation from entering into a CBA and in fact it is quite common.  The claim that Sutter Health is not the developer of the Sutter Emeryville project is also factually untrue.  It is unlikely Sutter is unaware of these conditions and so their refusal to meet with the community to negotiate a CBA is probably their preference.  They would rather negotiate only with the City of Emeryville through a Development Agreement (DA), the document produced through standard negotiation processes between developers and municipalities.  Development Agreements are between cities and developers whereas CBAs are between the community and developers.  Both DAs and CBAs run concurrent with each other. 

Brandon Soublet
City Council Candidate
Shocked but not surprised
at the Sutter decision to
exclude the community.

CBAs usually arise when the community loses faith in the city to produce a DA that faithfully represents the community’s interests.  Over the years, Emeryville has earned a reputation for being business friendly and the Sutter CBA pull out represents a marginalizing of the community that will likely produce blowback.

Indeed, the local citizen activist group Emeryville Neighbors United (ENU) is already weighing in on the Sutter announcement.   Judith Timmel, a 34 year Emeryville resident and founding member of the group told the Tattler,  “This is not a response that one would hope to get from a  developer partner for the City of Emeryville. While I am opposed to the Sutter proposal for a 330 foot tower tucked away in a small corner of my city, if such a thing were to come to fruition, I would expect that the community, the residents, the workers would have a voice in measures to help remediate the overwhelming consequences of such a decision on the part of the city.”

Lillian Schroth, also a founding member of ENU said, “Sutter’s response is unfortunate and seems very disingenuous. Call it a community benefits agreement or something else – the principle behind it is the same: that Sutter is willing to work with the community to mitigate some of the huge impacts that this project is going to have on our neighborhoods.”

Council candidate Soublet indicated he is having trouble understanding Sutter’s ‘no CBA’ goal, he questioned, “Will pride in having a state-of-the-art nonprofit medical center cut our city’s budget deficit, help our housing problem, or improve the quality of life for the average Emeryville resident without a CBA?”

Plans to strengthen parts of Berkeley Alta Bates Hospital against earthquakes and add new facilities have long been stalled by Berkeley neighbors over construction, noise and traffic, prompting the non-profit hospital chain to study relocating to a medical center proposed at Horton and 53rd streets in Emeryville.  Sutter also operates facilities on Oakland's Pill Hill.

Emeryville Neighbors United Launches Website

 The citizen activist group Emeryville Neighbors United (ENU) announces the launch of a website designed to assist the public as a central repository for disseminating information about the proposed Sutter Hospital for 53rd Street.  The project contains controversial proposals that would negatively affect Emeryville and the surrounding community and the new website chronicles these effects.  Neither Sutter nor the City of Emeryville has committed to providing the community with information that would tend to put the hospital proposal in a bad light.  As such, ENU provides some much needed transparency and accountably surrounding the project.

The new website is HERE.   

https://emeryvillenu.com/

Emeryville Neighbors United Meeting Announced: All Are Welcome

 The citizens' activist group Emeryville Neighbors United announces its next community meeting on Monday the 24th at 5514 Doyle Street across from the Doyle Street Cafe at 7:00 PM.  The meeting will take place in the ground level Community Room and is open to all members of the public. The proposed Sutter Hospital project will be the topic of discussion.

Questions Any Emery School Board Candidate Should Be Able to Answer

Election '26:

 Here Are 17 Questions That Should Be Answered By The School Board Candidates

As the campaign season gets ready to heat up, Emeryville citizens who normally only vote for city council members should consider how their vote can have a bigger effect in ameliorating government dysfunction at the school district board race than the city council race.  That’s because a large majority of voters don’t pay attention to the school board because they don’t have children enrolled in Emery schools.  But they should pay attention because their one vote makes a much bigger difference in a school board race than a council race.  Also, for as dysfunctional as Emeryville city hall is, it’s no match for the government dysfunction at Emery Unified. 

Emeryville citizens without children enrolled at Emery schools with a modicum of civic mindedness should have no patience for government dysfunction in a general way of course but true as well they should find objectionable their (forced) financing of it.  All citizens, home owners and renters, pay for Emery schools.  Help can be only one election away.  At Emery, there’s a rare combination of great need and possible great effect: the dysfunctional culture has a great need for democratic electoral oversight that your one vote has the power to deliver.  

Owing to the ignorance of the average Emeryville citizen in school affairs, the Tattler presents here 17 essential questions for anybody running for the board.  These questions are mostly specific to Emery.  Because the Tattler editor is running for the school board, we don’t feel it’s fair for us to put these questions we authored to the other candidates on our own.  However Emeryville citizens can ask these questions (and more of their own) of the candidates. Citizens should ask these questions any way they can during the campaign season and vote according to how the candidates answer.   The best thing we can do for Emery and for the children under its care is to demand good governance through transparency and accountability that only can come from citizen involvement.   

The Questions:

1). Emeryville spends more per student than any school district in the East Bay.  Why is it so expensive to run our schools?  Can we run it more efficiently?

2). Emery has the highest number of inter-district transfers of any district in the East Bay, meaning Emery takes the most students from other districts in order to fill our schools.  Why is that?  What can be done to lower the number of inter-district transfers if you think we should do that?

3). Emery spends more on consultants than any district in the East Bay.  Why?  Should we be spending more or less on consultants?

4). The current school board members don’t return calls of parents with children enrolled in our schools.  Is that ok?  How can this be rectified? 

5). Because the Brown Act forbids the superintendent of the schools and the school board from answering citizen’s questions at public meetings, should they hold press conferences from time to time so the public can ask questions about their district?  If NO, why?  Is there another way questions can be answered?

6). What does the school district owe the public (if anything)?

7). Test scores at Emery are low.  More importantly, our ranking among other school districts in the East Bay is very low.  This has been the case for decades.  How can this be improved?  What specifically needs to change?

8). Emery teachers are paid about average for the East Bay. Should they be paid more?  If teachers should be paid more, how do you propose raising or allocating the money to do that?

9). The ratio of administration pay to teacher pay at Emery in terms of the total budget is skewed towards the administration more than any school district in the East Bay.  Why is that?  Should it be changed?  How?  

10). What is the best way to stop bullying among the children?  Is the current system acceptable? How will you implement your ideas if they differ from the current system?

11). Should the school board be answerable to the press?  To the extent they are not now, how will you change that?

12). How important is school security?  Because the public should not be able to enter the campus during school hours on their own without checking in with the front desk, is the school district (and the school board)  responsible for keeping the children safe?

13). The City of Emeryville is responsible for keeping the children safe at the ECCL but the City is failing to always keep the children safe because they fail to keep security doors locked.  If elected, will you personally step in to demand and make sure the doors are secure?  How will you change the current lax safety culture to accomplish that?

14). What should be done with all the surplus school property in town (the Ralph Hawley and Anna Yates sites)? 

15). How has this school board done a good job? How have they done a bad job?

16). Emeryville has the lowest number of children per home in the East Bay.  Is it a part of the job of the school board to try to improve this low number?  If elected, will you appeal to the city council to build more family friendly housing?  How? 

17). Do you currently have your own children or have you ever had your children enrolled at Emery?

The Candidates:

CHRISTOPHER KEITH ALLEN 

Parent

email: keith2allen@att.net 

REGINA CHAGOLLA 

Incumbent

web: chagollaforemery.com 

BRIAN DONAHUE 

Businessman/Journalist/Parent

email: sophbeau@yahoo.com

DAVID RIDLEHUBER 

Parent/Contractor

6251 SHELLMOUND ST. 

EMERYVILLE, CA, 94608 

email: dridlehuber@yahoo.com 

KIMBERLY SOLIS (formerly served on the Emery school board)

Student 

email: soliskimberly@proton.me

Why I'm Running For The Emery School Board

 The Tattler Should Be Reporting on the School Board Election, Not Running In It...

Right?

Opinion/News Analysis

By Brian Donahue

Voters may notice and wonder why the editor of the Tattler, Brian Donahue, is on the ballot this election.  Again, like last time, two years ago and two years before that, I have run for Emery Unified School District Board of Trustees in order to force an election so that Emeryville citizens may be able to cast a vote for the candidate of their choice and to force the candidates to face the voters, making their case for why they should be trusted running our schools.

The above sentence may seem fatuous but let me explain:  I’ve lived in Emeryville for 44 years and during that time there have been only been a handful of school board elections.  Most commonly, there are no elections at all.  What commonly happens is incumbents run unopposed.  And when that happens, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters cancels the election and the incumbents are automatically re-upped without having to face the voters.  No League of Woman Voters candidate debate, no media vetting of the candidates, no media reporting fact checked election claims, no candidates meeting the voters door to door presenting their case to the people.  Without elections, democracy is not served and the whole school district suffers as a result.

No Elections? Don’t We Have Them Every Two Years?

It is important to know how this sorry state in Emeryville perpetuates.  Unfortunately, the much vaunted incumbent advantage is especially strong for the Emery school board elections owing to Emery’s small size and the lack of an engaged citizenry in its schools.  School board races are much less popular than city council races here in Emeryville as it turns out.  So existing school board members who are tired of the job quit and their friends on the board appoint a replacement member of their choice, skipping the voters.  Then when the next election cycle comes, the replacements are incumbents with the incumbent advantage and this process thus repeats ad infinitum.  Would be candidates from the community don't run when incumbents are in the way because they know they will lose.  This is how it is nearly impossible for change to happen at Emery and why solvable problems tend to become systemic problems here.

The group-think culture at this unchecked and sclerotic school board means the children’s educational prospects are dimmed at Emery.  Virtually every vote on the school board has been 5-0 unanimous over the decades and that's not good for a school district with very low academic performance such as Emery.  The children themselves of course bear the brunt of this entrenched and homogeneous culture on our school board.

It is noteworthy that since I registered to run this election, two of the three incumbents dropped out of the three seat race, upsetting the normal way this plays out.  The two probably didn't want to have to do the work of actually running as a result of me being in contention.  That has set off a flood.  Seeing a real election about to happen, three new never before been on the board candidates have entered the contest (and one former board member who felt compelled to throw their hat in it).  That makes a total of five candidates for three board positions.  There could be an incumbent win and one or even two new faces on the school board.  Democracy is flowing freely at Emery this year.

I will weigh in on what is wrought by the lack of democracy at Emery later on in the campaign season but suffice to say that school board candidates facing voters, as they will do this election, can only be good for the district and the children.  

This season at Emery, candidates will seek money for their respective elections and the Tattler will report on where they’re getting it.  We will chronicle and fact check what they say on the campaign trail.  The only thing that won’t happen is there will be no Tattler candidate questionnaire this time because of the unfair advantage that would be gained by me as a candidate posing the questions.  So the citizens will have to ask questions of the candidates themselves.  We will suggest what we think voters should be asking the candidates. 

So that’s it.  After 40 years of mostly undemocratic unaccountability at the Emery School Board, this is the new Emeryville where voters will be able to decide who has the best ideas for how to run our public schools.  I will run for school board every time from now on to assure the old way, the no election way, is relegated to the dustbin of history.  After I’m gone, someone else should pick up the task.  

Democracy has come to Emery Unified and that’s a good thing.  Maybe school board elections will become as popular as city council elections around here.

Neighbors United Public Meeting

 The citizen's activist group Neighbors United announces their next community meeting, open to all including Emeryville and North Oakland residents:

Neighbors United will meet this Saturday August 1st, 11 AM at 5514 Doyle Street, first floor common room.  We have a lot to talk about regarding the next steps in the process with the Sutter hospital proposal.  And let’s report on what has worked and not worked in our various activities so far.  If you weren’t at the last city council meeting we can fill you in. 

Let’s do this!!

Sutter Hospital Proposal Draws Neighbors United Group to Release poster Ahead of Council Meeting

 The citizen activist group, Neighbors United, released this poster to the press ahead of the Tuesday evening City Council meeting where Sutter Health will present their hospital proposal idea to the Council.

Neighbors United Urge Citizen Attendance at Critical Sutter Hospital Meeting

 Sutter Makes their Pitch for their Billion Dollar Emeryville Hospital Complex Tuesday

Tuesday evening, July 21st, Sutter Health, will present their proposal for a controversial billion dollar hospital to be located at 53rd and Horton streets for the Council’s consideration. The Council will hear a lengthy presentation from Sutter but they will also allow citizens one or two minutes to opine on the 1.3 million square foot proposed trauma center complex.  

Emeryville’s newest citizen activist neighbor group, Neighbors United has been alerting the community about the impending meeting, putting up some 200 flyers around Emeryville and the surrounding community.  However most were quickly taken down by unknown vandals, probably in a coordinated effort, some members of Neighbors United report.

Emeryville resident Laura McCamy, a Neighbors United member, told the Tattler Sutter Health had lobbied the California legislature to pass AB 2231, a bill that would fast track hospital construction by removing environmental regulations but pushback from multiple sources, including State Senator Jesse Arreguin, makes an immunity from environmental regulation claim in Emeryville by Sutter unlikely.

Laura McCamy 
Long time Emeryville resident, community
activist and Neighbors United 
founding member.

 

Speaking about the rushed nature of the Sutter proposal, Neighbors United member McCamy said “The proposed hospital will have significant and potentially unmitigated negative impacts and should be given a full environmental review, with adequate time for residents to participate in the process.”

Sutter will bring an extra 20,000 vehicle trips per day to the Emerville site.  The main building will be 330 feet tall, Emeryville’s tallest and will feature a heliport with daily helicopter flights.  Emeryville's Planning Commission Chair Jordan Wax called the Sutter proposal "car focused" and a "broken promise" to the people of Emeryville.

The community meeting will be at Emeryville City Hall at 6:00 PM Tuesday and all members of the public will be afforded one or two minutes (at the Mayor’s discretion) to say their piece. 

NOTICE: This story was updated Monday at 8:45 PM after Ms McCamy clarified her information supplied by her to the Tattler.  The story reflects the changes.

New Citizen Activist Group in Emeryville Emerges

 Neighbors United

Scrappy Group of Citizen Neighbors Taking on the Billion Dollar Sutter Juggernaut

Problems with the planned Sutter hospital center for 53rd Street in Emeryville has citizens in Emeryville and North Oakland concerned enough they are coalescing into a new activist group called Neighbors United.  The 30+ member group, open to all, has several members of the former activist group RULE (Residents United for a Livable Emeryville) among its founders.  The group invites all who are concerned about the Sutter project to the meetings (the next one will be tomorrow).  

Sutter Health proposes a new 200 bed facility, about the same size as Kaiser Oakland, in a 330 foot tall tower with a heliport on the roof with 20,000 project generated car trips.  The hospital plus administration buildings will total approximately 1.3 million square feet in a footprint half the size of Kaiser Oakland.

The 200 bed, 330 foot tall hospital with accompanying administration and parking structures totaling 1.3 million square feet and will present “traffic gridlock” as Neighbors United presented it, generating thousands of daily car trips as well as heliport noise and risks from all the low altitude helicopter flights to and from the proposed rooftop helipad. Several Neighbors United members state the project should move elsewhere because it is too large for the site and too constrained by it (being right up against the rail road tracks west of Horton Street) and so it will have an unnecessarily deleterious effect on the whole neighborhood.

A Neighbors United organizer and former RULE founder, Tracy Schroth pointed out the irony of Sutter Emeryville being a “trauma center creating trauma for the neighborhood”.

Sunday’s meeting, the group’s second, will be at 11:00 AM at Stanford Park at the corner of Stanford and Hollis streets.. 

  

Neighbors United flyer making the rounds in the neighborhood.

 

 

Planning Chair: Sutter Hospital Unacceptable -Too Many Cars and Destruction of Bike Boulevard

Planning Commission Chair Calls Sutter Proposal "Car Focused" and a "Broken Promise" to the People of Emeryville

New Citizen Activist Group 'Neighbors United' Forms to Push Back

Planning Commission Chairman Jordan Wax told representatives from Sutter Health Hospital last Wednesday their planned construction of a billion dollar hospital on 53rd Street that requires the destruction of Emeryville’s Horton Street Bike Boulevard would constitute “breaking a promise” to his constituents and people in the greater East Bay region.  Two other Commissioners joined with Chair Wax expressing dismay over the Sutter announcement of the destruction of the bike boulevard, a three vote majority that sends a strong message to the hospital giant they may have to negotiate to get their proposal approved by Emeryville’s planers. 

Nearly all Commissioners expressed some concerns over the proposed 330 foot tall hospital project but Mr Wax, who called the whole project flawed and “car focused”, leveled the hardest criticisms against Sutter.  Sutter will have to issue an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that would cite the destruction of the bike boulevard as an unmitigated and significant impact and get City Council approval to proceed. The Council can override a Planning Commission rejection based on the destruction of the bike boulevard but it would require a Statement of Overriding Concern that provides compelling reasons in the form of findings in the public interest, not just a disagreement.

Emeryville Planning Commission Chair Jordan Wax
The Sutter proposal is "car focused" and its required
destruction of the Horton Street Bike Boulevard is "breaking 
a promise" with the people of Emeryville.

 

Horton Street is required to be a quiet street according to Emeryville's Active Transportation Plan with no more than 3000 vehicle trips per day.  The last time the City of Emeryville measured the traffic volume on Horton Street was 2019 when 4127 vehicle trips per day were recorded.  The Sutter project will place far too many vehicles on Horton for bike boulevard compatibility and for this project to go forward as planned would require the ATP to be amended, removing the Horton Street Bike Boulevard from the City's bike boulevard network.  Horton Street is currently used by a great number of regional bicyclists and the only other planned north/south bike passage in town is Shellmound Street, a non contiguous corridor that doesn't connect with Emeryville's Greenway as Horton Street does.  As such, the loss of Horton Street for safe bike transportation would represent a region-wide loss for bicyclists. 

The public Planning Commission meeting netted many concerned comments from members of the public and also the announcement of a newly formed activist group, 'Neighbors United' born out of frustration with the Sutter project. Two Neighbors United members, both founding members of the former Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE), a powerful citizen activist group, spoke out expressing concern for the demise of the bike boulevard and other problems associated with the development.  The formation of a new grassroots RULE type group could spell trouble for Sutter as they seek their City approvals.  

Sutter hosted an earlier public meeting where they hinted that the Horton Street Bike Boulevard diverter at 53rd Street might have to be destroyed and they notified the attendees Sutter would make themselves available to the community to answer questions from the community in the days and weeks ahead promising accountability, transparency and partnership with the Emeryville Community.  They expressed desires to be good [corporate] neighbors.  However, it should be known Sutter has reneged on that promise, refusing to answer repeated calls and emails from the Tattler.  

The proposed Sutter Health center will feature a 200 bed, 330 foot tall hospital with accompanying administration and parking structures totaling 1.3 million square feet and will present “traffic gridlock” as Neighbors United presented it, generating thousands of daily car trips as well as heliport noise and risks from all the low altitude helicopter flights to and from the proposed rooftop helipad.

The Horton Diverter at 53rd Street
After more than ten years of planning in response to too many cars on the bike boulevard
the street was closed to through traffic last year.  The diverter is required by the City's Active Transportation Plan.  
The reason cited for the diverter is bike safety.  The City of Emeryville concern for bike safety will be removed if the diverter is removed by Sutter.