Sutter Hospital Continues to Say NO to a CBA - Community Leaders Push Back

 Impolitic Corporate Hubris:

Pushed to Commit to Negotiate With the Community, Sutter Demurs

Community Leaders are Unimpressed

News Analysis

Executives at Sutter Health Corporation redoubled their insistence recently, that they would not partake in any Community Benefits Agreement proposed by the Emeryville community associated with their proposed $1 billion hospital campus at 53rd and Hollis streets.  The surprising Sutter recalcitrance has prompted government officials, community leaders and city council candidates to publicly weigh in on the corporation's lack of faith in the same community it wants to locate within.  

Sutter is aware their participation is voluntary and there is no law constraining them with regard to such a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) made with the community.  They are however constrained by law with regard to negotiating and entering into an agreement with the City of Emeryville if they wish to locate their hospital campus here.  Such an agreement is called a Development Agreement (DA).

Sutter's Media Relations Manger
Monique Binkley Smith
She took issue with the Tattler's story on
Sutter's refusal to participate in a CBA.
But she refuses to commit to Sutter 
participating in a CBA.  Gaslighting?

Sutter’s latest dustup with the community and their CBA proposal came in response to a Tattler inquiry made after our September 8th story, where we broke the news of Sutter’s intension to waive off a CBA.  That story hit the streets with quite a fury causing Monique Binkley Smith, Sutter’s Media Relations Manager, to write a September 9th email to the Tattler expressing disfavor over what she saw as inaccuracies in the story.  Ms Smith asserted, “Statements [in the Tattler story], including the headline that 'Sutter Hospital Says NO Community Benefits Agreement', as well as assertions that Sutter 'will not participate' in a CBA or 'will not negotiate directly with the community', do not accurately reflect what we communicated”.  

The Tattler responded to Ms Smith and the management at Sutter, the email trail informs that they had in fact asserted they would not participate in a CBA for their Emeryville project but if Sutter wants to change their refusal (as hinted to by the denials in the September 9th email from Ms Smith), the Tattler would gladly commit to a story on Sutter’s new found community spirit and commitment to participating in a CBA.  We said in the email response we would give them ample time to mull it over.  That was September 9th.   We conclude now that Sutter continues to refuse to participate in a CBA associated with their Emeryville project and their refusal to clearly say they are willing to participate is what drives our conclusion.

Simply put, Sutter can inform the community at any time they want that they are willing to participate in a CBA and the community will oblige and the Tattler will report.  Gaslighting the press or the community directly will not help in Sutter’s quest to make the friends they will need in Emeryville as they attempt to move the project forward.  This obstinacy will make the city council’s job more difficult when they consider whether to grant approvals for the project and it is not a stretch to imagine this kind of impolitic corporate behavior by this want-to-be corporate neighbor, will harm Sutter’s prospects.

A CBA is a legally binding agreement between the community and a developer.  Municipalities are not part of a CBA.  Negotiations during the CBA process brings community benefits provided by the developer and signed off promises from the community to not further block a developer's project proposal.

The Community Speaks

The whole imbroglio has brought the community into conversation:  

North Oakland's Cathy Leonard
She has much experience with CBAs
in her community activism and she
indicates it is critical Sutter act in good 
faith to mollify community impacts.

North Oakland resident and Golden Gate Community Association (GGCA)  Board Chair, Cathy Leonard, stated, “The (GGCA) supports a formal Community Benefits Agreement negotiated with Sutter Health by a unified local coalition of residents and other stakeholders from project-impacted neighborhoods across all three cities, i.e. Oakland, Emeryville, and Berkeley.  As part of this coalition, GGCA would work to ensure that affected neighborhoods and taxpayers do not bear the hazards and cost burdens associated with Sutter Health's increased traffic, noise, pollution, and other probable impacts clearly identified through the EIR scoping process by more than 60 residents, public agencies, the City of Oakland, Emeryville City Council members and Emeryville Planning Commissioners.” 

United States Congresswoman Lateefah Simon said she expects “robust community engagement” with Sutter in Emeryville.  She added, “Sutter needs to listen to the people in the community”, while California  Assembly Member Mia Bonta told the Tattler simply, “CBAs are good things in the community”.

Emeryville City council candidates were eager to weigh in: 

Brandon Soublet said, “I’m glad to see local elected and appointed officials uniting around a resident-first approach. We all agree this development has to work for Emeryville—and with a non-profit partner like Sutter, that means securing binding agreements for real community benefits.  This project has to make sense for Emeryville residents, and because Sutter is a non-profit, that means legally binding agreements to bring tangible benefits to our community.”

Corry Frydlewicz told us, “I think developing a CBA can be a great idea. The ideas shared that get the community on the same page can be helpful for organizing and educating our representatives. Sutter has been asking for our feedback, so hopefully they'd welcome it too. There's really no downside for openly collaborating on a plan, even if it doesn't get accepted.”

Current City Councilman and candidate for re-election Kalimah Priforce had the shortest answer of any of them.  When we told him Sutter so far is refusing to commit to a Community Benefits Agreement, the Councilman simply said, “We’ll see about that”.

David Mourra, also current Councilman and candidate for re-election was asked directly about the Sutter refusal but he also refused….to comment.

Rounding out the City Hall response, the following were contacted but refused to comment on the failure of a Sutter CBA:

-Mayor Sukhdeep Kaur

-Vice Mayor Mathew Solomon

-City Councilwoman Courtney Welch

-City Manager LaTanya Bellow

-Emery Schools Superintendent Quiauna Scott

The initial September 8th Tattler story on the Sutter CBA refusal is HERE.

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon
California’s 12th Congressional District
U.S. House of Representatives
"Sutter needs to listen to the
people in the community".
"Nothing for us without us".

Emeryville Neighbors United to Host City Council Forum

The civic activist group Emeryville Neighbors United announces they will host a city council candidate’s forum on October 18th.  The meeting/forum is scheduled to last two hours starting 1:30 pm. The public, as always at ENU meetings, is invited.  

Because Emeryville Neighbors United evolved mostly to address the proposed $1 billion Sutter hospital proposed for the town, it is presumed that the forum will center mostly around Sutter.  However any other Emeryville centric questions from the audience for the council candidates will be entertained in the ENU intimate setting. 

City Council Forum

Sunday October 18th 1:30 pm

5514 Doyle Street

1st floor community room

CORRECTION: we previously reported this meeting would take place on a Saturday.  The actual day is Sunday.  We thank the reader for the correction.

Emery School Board Forum Cancelled

The League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville announced today the cancelation of their Emery school board forum scheduled for Thursday evening because only Tattler editor and candidate Brian Donahue responded affirmatively for a willingness to participate.  This is the first time in more than 20 years in Emeryville the popular forum has had to be cancelled due to a lack of commitment from candidates.  The League has a policy to not hold a forum if there is only to be one candidate committed.

The League’s city council forum Thursday October 8th is still going to be held at 6:30 pm at the Emeryville Center for Community Life on San Pablo Avenue in the auditorium.

Renter Protection Comes Before The City Council: The Great Untalked About Topic to be Talked About

October 6th Council Meeting Marks the Beginning of a City Hall Working to Take Renter Protection Seriously

After more than two decades of a frantic paced rental apartment building spree, the City of Emeryville is poised, finally, to own up to its duty to provide more than just a modicum of protection for the scores of renters that now make up a majority of the population.   Before its regular 7:00 PM meeting on Tuesday, October 6, the Emeryville City Council will hold a special 6:00 PM study session devoted entirely to tenant-protection policy recommendations.

It's a case of better late than never for most renters here who have faced unfair and sometimes illegal evictions and rent increases from mostly faceless corporate landlords who are now in the aggregate, the largest part of the Emeryville living experience.  

While the Tuesday meeting will not itself enact any final ordinances, Council direction Tuesday could determine which protections move forward, how strong they are, and what staff ultimately brings back for adoption.

The package for discussion is broad. The City’s work includes a Tenant Right to Organize, expanded just-cause protections for Below Market Rate tenants, temporary relocation assistance, and changes to Emeryville’s rules governing eviction, relocation, right to return, tenant harassment, and related protections.

Among the recommendations are proposals concerning a minimum amount of unpaid rent before a landlord can begin an eviction for nonpayment, minimum damages for certain violations of tenant-protection laws and requirements that landlords file termination notices with the City.

Those questions are especially significant in a city now dominated by renters. Emeryville reports that more than 65 percent of its housing units are tenant occupied.

City housing records also show how frequently residents encounter the eviction process. Emeryville reported 905 three-day eviction notices submitted to the City in 2024. That does not mean 905 completed evictions, but it does show the scale at which residents can enter the first stage of the eviction process.

At the same time, Emeryville rents are the highest in the East Bay.  According to Zillow, the online real estate marketplace, current rental-market data puts the average Emeryville rent at about $3,095, with the average one-bedroom around $3,087.  For comparison, Zillow reports average one-bedroom rents of roughly $2,100 in Oakland, $2,295 in Berkeley, $2,299 in Alameda, and $2,395 in Walnut Creek.

California housing officials classify households spending 50 percent or more of gross income on housing as severely cost burdened, an increasing demographic in Emeryville.

For Below Market Rate and income-restricted tenants, the October 6th study session may be particularly important. The City’s own tenant-protection work specifically identifies stronger protections for BMR tenants as part of the policy discussion.

Emeryville already has local just-cause, anti-harassment, relocation, and tenant-notification protections but the study session will help determine whether the City significantly expands and strengthens that framework.

For residents who have dealt with a rent increase, eviction notice, BMR recertification, landlord dispute, or fear of displacement, this will be a meeting worth watching and attending.

Important: the tenant study session starts at 6:00 PM, not 7:00 PM.

Don't Vote For Brian Donahue For School Board

 Please Don’t Vote For Me

I Want Something From You, Just Not Your Vote

Fourth in a series about Emeryville’s public schools for election 2026

Opinion / News Analysis

By Brian Donahue

I’m the editor of the Emeryville Tattler, I’m running for Emery School Board and I do not want your vote.  Got that?  I can make this surprising statement because I’m only running to force an election in November at the school district so some new people can become board members, not me.  

I forced the election when I completed my paperwork and registered as an official candidate with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters back in August.  Because I registered and therefore forced an election to happen, other candidates subsequently also registered to run and now there is going to be an election for school board in November in Emeryville.  The Alameda County rule that cancels elections if incumbents are the only candidates running, will not be in effect this time (this was explained in the Tattler’s August 7 story).  For purposes of this, the Tattler’s fourth installment of our 2026 look at Emery schools and the upcoming school board election, I want the people of Emeryville to know I do not want your vote.

Although I don’t want you to vote for me, I do want you to care about good government and I want you to hold bad public servants to account. I want everyone to pay attention to the public schools in Emeryville because we owe it to our children to care about and provide for their education, and because we pay our hard earned money for our government and we expect results.

Because I will not be a school board member by my choice, my name, though on the ballot, is not going to be a viable choice for voters.  You will have to decide who to trust running our schools; the two incumbents running for re-election, or the two newcomers who, unlike me, want to win and are running election campaigns this year.

Emeryville’s public school district is the worst run district in Alameda County and its also the most expensive.  I explained this at length in our viral September 16 story.  The take-away for voters should be to not vote for the incumbents.  You should not vote for me either.  That leaves the two newbies that are running. The Tattler will address that in story number five in our series on the schools and school board election.

You can thank me for running, thereby forcing the incumbents to face the voters this year if you want but please do not vote for me.  I don't want the job of running the schools and I will not take the job.  I am interested in reporting on the schools, not running them.

The Tattler Emery school board 2026 election series:

1st in the series: Why I’m running HERE

2nd in the series: Questions for candidates HERE

3rd in the series: Emery’s failing schools HERE

Emery's Failing Schools Again Urge Voters to See the Urgency Required

 Emery School District Drops to Last Place in Alameda County (Again)

Third in a series about Emeryville’s public schools for election 2026

News Analysis

Every two years Emeryville voters are given a chance to force leadership change at the city's failing school district.  Each time incumbents are re-elected.  The schools in Emeryville continue to slump.

There are 16 public school districts in Alameda County and academically, Emery Unified School District is in last place.  At the same time, in the category of district spending per student, Emery is in first place.  Thus, Emeryville is in a unique but unenviable position: we spend the most money on our schools but we get the worst results. 

Every two years, before Emeryville’s school board elections, the Tattler checks with the California Department of Education to see how our little school district is doing because we don’t want to take the word of the board members seeking re-election.  What we find this year is Emery has slid from second lowest place academically two years ago to now last place.  Six years ago, Emery was also in last place academically.  During all the six years and before, Emeryville schools have maintained the highest spending per student of all districts, now at $17,598.  Piedmont comes in at a distant second at $15,965. 

In terms of revenue per student per year, Emery also is easily in first place at $27,613, beating the second place finisher Albany at $19,648.

The State of California reports students are tested for English and math proficiency and Emery comes in at 39% for English and 23% for math.  Those numbers are very low but it should be stated that test scores have been found to select for student family affluence, meaning, the more affluent the families in the district are, the higher the test scores generally.  Emeryville is considered relatively affluent among towns in the county but Emery Unified School District also takes in the highest number of transfers from other districts.  The student transfers generally come from low income families and that is tracked by the State and puts Emery at 68% on the low income families metric. That number is high, but it’s not the highest in the county.

To get a fair assessment of how the district is doing, it’s important to also acknowledge the numbers of students that are what the Department of Education calls ‘English learners’.  If a student’s first language is not English, they are expected to not score as well in the testing for English proficiency.  In this English learners category too, Emery has a relatively high number (14%).  This high number would tend to bring down the English proficiency level for the whole district (39%).

Unsurprisingly, the five lowest scoring school districts in Alameda County all share high percentages of English learners and high percentages of low income families.  There is a lot of poverty in the families of the children in these districts and they tend to suffer from chaotic home life associated with poverty that tends to be less conducive to student learning. The five from fifth lowest to lowest are:

12th place Newark School District

13th place San Leandro School District

14th place Oakland School District

15th place San Lorenzo School District

16th place Emery School District

Conversely, the five highest scoring districts are all much wealthier and spend a lot on their schools (but not as much as Emery spends) and they all have lower English learner numbers except Albany Unified School District that has 12% (almost as high as Emery).  These districts feature high income families with lots of private tutoring of the children to augment the public education.  Also, these families tend to have high functioning family dynamics that are supportive of children’s learning. The five, from highest to fifth highest, are:

1st place Piedmont School District

2nd place Sunol Glen School District

3rd place Dublin School District

4th place Pleasanton School District

5th place Albany School District

It is important to know Emery did not score last in English proficiency.  At 39%, Emery scored higher than Oakland (34%) and higher than San Lorenzo (31%).  However, both Oakland and San Lorenzo have considerably higher numbers of English learners (32% and 31% respectively).  Emery’s lower number of English learners (14%) must be factored in.  Emery scored the lowest in math proficiency (23%) but that low number is shared with San Lorenzo.  Mollifying San Lorenzo’s low math proficiency is its low income score of 74% (compared to Emery’s 68%). 

The numbers in the aggregate show how Emery is falling behind comparable districts.  Our ranking over two years from second worse to last place, regardless of the mountain of money Emeryville citizens throw at its schools reveals a lack of leadership at the district.  It can be argued that for all the money Emeryville residents lavish on their schools (in the form of high parcel taxes we have volunteered to pay), we should not be in last place and we should not be getting worse over time. 

Another interesting bit of data from the Dept of Education illustrates how Emery spends its money.  Statewide, school districts spend on average 52% of their budget on classroom instruction.  Among Alameda County districts, the average number is close to the State average.  However at Emery, only 19% of the budget goes to classroom instruction and that’s by far the lowest number of all districts in the county.  The next lowest district is Castro Valley who spends 42% of their budget on instruction.  The bulk of Emery’s money goes to the category of “other” spending and that number too is by far the largest of all districts county wide.  ‘Other spending’ includes paying for corporate educational consultants which Emery does more than any district as a percentage of students enrolled.  Additionally, Emery, being such a small district at about 590 students, spends a greater percentage of its budget on administration salaries.  

One criteria where Emery shines is with the 16:1 students per teacher ratio, and there, Emery is tied with Albany for the lowest among all 16 districts in the county.  Statewide the average is 22:1.

To arrive at our rankings, we tracked the following categories (tracked by the Department of Education):

-Academic performance (English and math)

-Students per teacher

-Low income families

-English learners

-Average revenue per student

-Average spending per student

-Percentage of revenue from local sources

-Percentage of spending on instruction

-Percentage of spending on ‘other’ (unquantified) things

Student Academic Progress
Emery has a larger number of schools whose students are
making less academic progress than their peers at other
schools in the state. 

Source: CA Dept of Education

Emeryville pays more money for its schools per student
than any district in Alameda County.
Virtually all the money over the other lowest scoring five districts 
comes from parcel taxes the people of Emeryville have so 
generously given to Emery Unified over the years.

                                                                  Source: CA Dept of Education

 

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

Second in a series about Emeryville’s public schools for election 2026

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