The Tattler presents the Emeryville city council candidates’ questionnaire for 2026. Because of the rather lengthy answers, we have broken up them up into two groups: the challengers and the incumbents. First up is the challengers. The incumbents will follow shortly.
Brandon Soublet’s website can be viewed HERE.
Corry Frydlewicz’s website can be viewed HERE.
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Brandon Soublet:
1- Should the community get benefits for the Sutter Hospital proposal? If so, name the three top things the people of Emeryville should get in exchange for approving the Sutter Hospital project (presuming the project is approved).
This project is completely unprecedented – nobody has ever dropped a 1.3 million square foot medical campus into the middle of an established 1.2 square mile city. Since this project is unprecedented, the community benefits should be as well. I think Emeryville should get at least a free community health clinic for residents, comprehensive senior programming for our elders, and school programming that not only promotes student health, but also provides student pathways into health careers. These are basic benefits Sutter could offer that would also demonstrate that they care about the health of our community and being a good neighbor rather than just being a corporate tenant.
2- Should Sutter and the local community enter into a Community Benefits Agreement?
Sutter is a non-profit, so they will not be contributing at all to the city’s tax base. We have a $10M budget deficit that’s projected by city staff to increase to $14.5M by 2030. Because they won’t be paying taxes, Sutter needs to provide tangible, legally binding benefits to the community. The only way to do that is with written Community Benefits Agreements or Development Agreements (which are different, because a Development Agreement between Emeryville and Sutter likely wouldn’t address the impact on Oakland or Berkeley of the project’s proposed 20,000 vehicle trips per day).
3- Does Emeryville have enough renter protection law right now?
At what point do we have “enough renter protection”? I don’t want people being kicked out of their homes when they hit a rough patch in life. Renter protections are some of the best ways to deal with homelessness. People don’t become homeless if they don’t get evicted from their homes when times get tough. According to the Census Bureau, Emeryville is now 76% renters, and I’m among that population. I have the good fortune of renting from a landlord who is a real human being with emotions like empathy and compassion, which is a luxury I know many Emeryville renters do not have. A huge percentage of our city’s renters are in contracts with large scale corporate landlords whose only motivation is their bottom line, and that’s usually not good for renters. During a city council meeting last week, staff reported that an Emeryville resident got a 3-day eviction notice for nonpayment of rent of $5. Are you kidding me? You’re going to put someone out on the street over $5? It cost you more than $5 in staff time and paperwork to serve that eviction notice. I will personally give money out of my pocket to any Emeryville resident facing eviction over that sort of nonsense.
4- Do you support Emeryville’s bike boulevard network as stipulated by the existing Alternative Transportation Plan? If not, should the ATP be amended and how so?
Emeryville should be the most bike-friendly, walkable city in the Bay Area. We’re 1.2 square miles and flat as a pancake. Our Active Transportation Plan is a key part of making that a reality. I support the city’s Active Transportation Plan because it does so much for us – it makes our streets safer and more inviting, it encourages physical activity and health through biking and walking, and it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by making non-vehicular transportation and transit more appealing. Our bike boulevard network is a critical part of our active transportation network and should be preserved. Emeryville is a recognized leader nationally in bike infrastructure and we should be proud of that. We have more work to do in terms of building connections across the railroad tracks and the freeway, but we’re headed in the right direction.
5- Does Emeryville need to build more market rate housing now?
Where? We’re 1.2 square miles (and potentially shrinking due to sea level rise). We already have among the lowest occupants per housing unit in the Bay Area. We already have among the highest jobs-to-residents ratio in the Bay Area. Where are we supposed to build this market-rate housing? And why should we emphasize market-rate rentals over affordable housing or ownership housing? I’ve been shown studies that say that municipalities that build market-rate rentals see a lowering of overall rents locally. The Emery opened a few years ago just blocks from my house. My rent didn’t go down when it opened, it hasn’t since, and I don’t expect it to in the future. These academic studies look at places like Oakland and Richmond. You know what those cities have that we don’t? Land. Oakland and Richmond have enough vacant space that they can try things out and see what works and what doesn’t. We’re 1.2 square miles. Anything we build we’re stuck with for decades, so we need to be very conscious about what we’re building. We don’t get do-overs.
6- Do you support the State taking away Emeryville’s control over its housing policy?
This is a bit of a loaded question. The state is not targeting Emeryville specifically; this is about statewide housing mandates. That said, a one size fits all state-level approach to housing does not work. We can’t have the same housing policies as Oakland or Berkeley or Richmond because our city is so different from them. We’re nearly completely built out, we’re 76% renters, and despite that, the state has designated us a Prohousing Jurisdiction because we’re meeting the state’s housing goals. Our street level realities are unique, so we need to be able to tailor our approach to housing for the local context.
7- To what extent should City Council members be accountable to the citizens? Town hall meetings? Email? Telephone?
I think all city council members should have regular “office hours” or other engagement events to listen to constituents. If elected, I’ll commit to having office hours/AMAs at least once a month and I will make my email address available to any Emeryville resident who has concerns.
8- Do you support an independent ethics commission to reinforce and compliment Emeryville’s existing Code of Ethics?
I’m not really sure what problem an independent ethics commission would be solving. When I talk to my neighbors, nobody is railing against corruption in city hall. They do say that they don’t know what’s going on in the city, but that can be addressed through better city communications rather than an ethics commission. We have a $10M budget deficit; how is this ethics commission being paid for and what is its goal? Acting ethically is critical in any sort of government, but I’d need to hear a lot more about any proposal related to this before I form an opinion.
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Corry Frydlewicz:
1- Should the community get benefits for the Sutter Hospital proposal? If so, name the three top things the people of Emeryville should get in exchange for approving the Sutter Hospital project (presuming the project is approved).
Yes. What we get will obviously depend on what we all come together to prioritize as a community, but my top 3 goals for a Sutter CBA are:
Public Transit support in the form of significant funding for new development of routes, road work, and ongoing maintenance.
Employee Housing that's affordable to employees of all levels to reduce added commuter traffic and contribute to Emeryville's goals of building more affordable housing.
Noise Mitigation development to design all of their buildings, strategically add green spaces, and funding subsidies for nearby residents (including along likely helicopter and ambulance routes) to reduce noise and vibration impact.
2- Should Sutter and the local community enter into a Community Benefits Agreement?
Yes, once we've negotiated a plan our community is aligned with. I got a little ahead of this in my previous answer. 😅
3- Does Emeryville have enough renter protection law right now?
No. Currently, rent is allowed to rise up to 10% (usually it ends up at 8.5% recently). Our housing costs are already so high and such a large portion of our paychecks that it's unsustainable. Few people get a raise every year, and my "Cost of Living Adjustments" have always lagged behind the CPI and whatever my landlord decided was fair. We need a lower cap than that to keep people who are just getting by today in their homes and in Emeryville next time their lease is up.
I want to freeze all not-for-cause evictions while we sort out this housing emergency. We need to raise the threshold for what qualifies for a for-cause eviction, so a $5 balance doesn't cut it. We need to penalize big corporate landlords for holding vacant units at high rates because they can afford to keep people unhoused for long enough to inflate the market rate. And we need to continue the work the council has been allegedly considering to prevent "reno-victions" from bending the rules toward predatory owners.
4- Do you support Emeryville’s bike boulevard network as stipulated by the existing Alternative Transportation Plan? If not, should the ATP be amended and how so?
Yes. I love how Emeryville is a local leader in street safety measures and I want to continue that work. I mostly get around on foot or with public transit, so feeling safe crossing some of our busier streets will always be important to me. I also care about the environmental and fiscal impacts of having so many motor vehicles on our roads all the time, so I want to veer us away from car-centric thinking in how we envision the future of our city.
5- Does Emeryville need to build more market rate housing now?
Yes, we need to build more housing of all types. It would be great if all housing was affordable, and I'll work toward ways we can get there -- for example improving our schools so we can qualify for big state grants to build more -- but it's been scientifically proven by multiple studies that housing supply is the best way to reduce rents and costs long-term. This is just one aspect of what I want to do for housing, of course, because my priority is on the renters and families looking to buy their first home here today but are priced out by a variety of factors.
6- Do you support the State taking away Emeryville’s control over its housing policy?
I support the push to repeal Costa-Hawkins, and will continue my attempts to "manage up" to loosen the grip of housing policy by big corporate landlords who disproportionally benefit from restrictive building and financing rules at the state level.
While I love my realtor friends, I'm not a huge fan of lobbying groups that try and keep people flipping, buying, and selling for the sake of continuing to inflate the housing market for profit. It raises housing costs, encourages gentrification, and worsens transience, which is especially bad for families with children. As the child of divorced parents working as public school teachers, I've moved around a lot, and it's not great. I want housing insecurity as minimal as we can make it in Emeryville
The "abundance movement" is pushing for deregulation on environmental reviews with things like Prop 45 this year. I'm against that kind of deregulation. There's a lot of red tape in building housing. If we can reduce it, great, but not when it comes to the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the safety of our families. I will not compromise on environmental justice for the sake of developers having better market conditions. No on 45!
7- To what extent should City Council members be accountable to the citizens? Town hall meetings? Email? Telephone?
City council members have their work email addresses publicly displayed, and I've never had trouble reaching them there personally. I was able to meet or chat with most sitting council members when I first decided to run through those emails. I think that's great, and I'd try to be similarly accessible as a councilwoman.
Sadly, city council in Emeryville is only a part-time position. We're not like Berkeley who can pay folks a living wage to make it their entire focus for their full terms. I'd love to do this full-time and be even more accessible and have more time to interact with the public, including the press, but I have to pay my bills with my regular full-time job that already barely gets me by. I will absolutely do my best, but hope for some level of understanding if I can only do so within boundaries and timing that works for my health, my privacy, and my family's needs.
8- Do you support an independent ethics commission to reinforce and compliment Emeryville’s existing Code of Ethics?
Yes, I generally support public voluntary oversight in all government operations. I also believe updating the code of ethics regularly is a good practice.
