Friday Family Movie Night

The City of Emeryville will be showing a free movie Friday night at the Senior Center 4321 Salem Street as part of the "Family Movie Night" program.  The event is open to all, including singles.

The City’s Community Services Department is hosting a Family Night at the Movies on Friday, February 28.  The Lion King will be shown promptly at 7pm. and free hot chocolate and popcorn will be served.

Parents will have the option to mingle with other parents in the Billiards Room while their children are watching the adult-supervised movie showing. HOWEVER parents must remain on site while their children are watching the movie and space in the Billiard “Parent” Room is limited.

For more information, contact Roselle Loudon, Community Services Department  (510) 596-4353.

            

RULE Meeting

Residents United For A Livable Emeryville

Come and meet your progressive neighbors and help make your city grow in a good way!
Next regular meeting:  Saturday, March 15
10:00 - 12:00
Artists' Co-Op, 1420 45th St. (note change of location)

Agenda: 

Upcoming campaign for city council

Update on Sherwin Williams project community benefits
Capital Improvements in E'vlle
Additional items may be added and are welcome

Bring breakfast snacks
Coffee and tea provided 
For more information contact Judy Timmel, 510-601-6521 or reply to this email

Alameda County Announces Home Repair Grant

North County Grants for Home Repairs

Lead poisoning, asthma triggers and safety issues in the home can be serious threats to our children's health.  We're happy to pass along news that the Alameda County Healthy Homes Department has services to assist low-income residents and property owners in making their homes safer for young children. Grants and technical assistance are now available in Alameda County to reduce lead hazards and other health and safety issues in the home, as well as free consultation services. 

  

Helping Make Homes Healthier for Kids

The Healthy Homes Department has a special grants program they are currently promoting.  Do you or any of your clients have a pre-1978 home in Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville or Oakland? Are there any children under 6, or a pregnant woman, living in the home? Or do children under 6 regularly visit? Is the household low-income?

If so, these households may qualify for up to $6,000 in grants for lead hazard and other safety repairs in the home from the Alameda County Healthy Homes Department, as well as up to $4,000 in no-interest, deferred payment loans. Rental and owner-occupied homes are eligible. Free consultations are also available.

To find out more and to apply for one of these special grants, go HERE or call  510-567-8280. And please help spread the word by forwarding this message to agencies throughout the communities covered.

With No Returns Coming, Why Should We Say OK to the Sherwin Williams Development?

We're Not Legally Required to Say Yes to Developer's Projects

So Shouldn't We Hold Out For Real Benefits for the Neighborhoods?

Opinion
Everybody knows Emeryville City Hall gets revenue from business development.  But how much revenue does the City get from residential development?   The answer may surprise some; it's less than zero.  It's negative revenue.  Residential development in Emeryville actually costs City Hall money because residents use a little more in services than they pay in.  As it turns out this dynamic is pretty normal in the world of municipal budgeting and financing.  Cities generally don't use residents to generate cash, they don't imagine making money off the residents.  Emeryville is no exception, we lose money on residents.  It makes sense because after all, Emeryville is us.

So residential development costs us money.  We should get other non-monetary benefits from developers of large scale residential projects then, right?

Sherwin Williams Project
They're going to dump thousands of cars into
our city as the developer seeks to maximize
his profits.  Shouldn't we maximize OUR profits?

Against this backdrop, picture an alternative Emeryville where the City Council was working wholly in the interests of the residents and not the developers (you'll have to use your imagination with this).  In this imaginary Emeryville, developers would have to show real benefits to the residents in trade for approving development proposals.
Now imagine a lousy proposal from a developer for a residential project with little or no benefits.  That fictitious City Council could say NO to the developer, right?  Well, because of constitutionally ensconced private property rights, the answer is they would have to say YES to the project.  State law forces any city hall to allow a developer to build a residential project, regardless of any benefits to the residents, for any project up to 20 units per acre. If the developer wanted to build a project at more than 20 units per acre, well then the imaginary Emeryville City Council could force the developer to negotiate.  That's the leverage point where residents could see benefits emerge.  The Council could trade increased units per acre for resident amenities.

But this is just a thought experiment, albeit a pleasant one.  In the real Emeryville, the City Council majority simply grants the developer whatever he wants without asking for benefits.
It's happening right now with the Sherwin Williams project on Horton Street.  The Developer, SRM Ernst Development Partners has done the obligatory shopping of the project around town and they're now quietly working to secure entitlements to build their residential project at 80 apartment units per acre.  Remember, we're only legally required to allow them to build 20 units per acre.  Those additional 60 units per acre are going to massively impact our town, especially the Park Avenue neighborhood.  The project is going to add thousands of vehicle trips per day on our already crowded streets.

Councilman Kurt Brinkman
We're not in any position in Emeryville
to ask developers for anything.  Besides
developers are already looking out
after our interests.  We're in good hands
when we let them run the show.

  The "benefit" for this project essentially amounts to a center green space proudly touted by the developer.  But this isn't really a space meant to be used by residents outside the project.  This greenery is meant to serve as bling to increase cache for the project to help SRM Ernst's bottom line.  It's meant to be used as a device to bump up the rents at the Sherwin Williams apartments.  The small amount of green space proposed on the periphery of the project is land already owned by the City of Emeryville.
The greenery is the sum total of project benefits at the Sherwin Williams project.  So the City Council is  giving away 60 units per acre for that.

We need to do a proper costs/benefits analysis with Sherwin Williams as it's being proposed.  If we add up all the losses and compare that with the benefits, it's no contest: we're on the losing side with this project.  We see the down side, but where's the up side?  Since we don't legally have to make this lousy deal, and since City Hall is going to perpetually lose money with it, then why should we allow it?  What's in it for us?  It seems crazy that we would allow this deal.


We already know the three Council members, Nora Davis, Kurt Brinkman and Ruth Atkin are pro-developer ideologues.  We know they're not going to ask the developer for any resident benefits in trade for approving this project.  But this is the last large piece of fallow land left in Emeryville.  It's our last big hurrah.  Why should we accept the imaginary Emeryville scenario where the City Council operates in our interests, strictly as fantasy?  The Sherwin Williams developer is working to maximize his profits with this project.  We're about to give away something extremely valuable on this site.  Shouldn't we expect our government to work to maximize OUR profits?

Emeryville Residents Warned of Mass Exodus of Business

Businesses: "Unless We Get Everything We Want We're Taking Our Marbles and Leaving"

City Hall: "We Have to Do What Business Says or All Will Be Lost"

Opinion/News Analysis
The record is stuck.  Can somebody move the needle forward?  It keeps repeating itself.
What we refer to is the oft repeated mantra heard year in and year out at City Hall; the call and response followed by the familiar hijacking of public policy for private gain.  It's the old stand-by warning from developers and businesses that they'll....wait for it....pack up and leave unless they get everything they want on whatever relevant proposal is being discussed at City Hall.  The conciliatory reaction always comes from Councilwoman Nora Davis with a second from Councilman Kurt Brinkman; we have to do what developer X says is their response.  Emeryville is in no position to ask for anything good they remind us.  With Councilwoman Ruth Atkin as their third vote, it's been a highly effective formula for delivering the goods to developers and business in Emeryville.  This reputation of ours is earned.

Emeryville: Charter City
The old formula is going to repeat itself this summer.  As concerned Emeryville citizens begin their signature drive to put the proposal before voters that Emeryville become a Charter City on November's ballot, a new paradigm that will permit us to tax businesses like other Bay Area cities do, the Chamber of Commerce will once again join forces with the deep pockets in the corporate community to try to defeat it.  No new parks for us and sidewalk repair must wait, you understand.

We can hear it now, loudly proclaimed, nay screamed this summer and fall: all will be lost if Emeryville becomes a Charter City.  It's going to be in our mailboxes in torrents of professionally designed glossy color flyers.  It's going to be on our answering machines after we come home from work, warning us of the coming apocalypse.  Our dinners will be interrupted this fall; poorly paid young men and women from places other than Emeryville will be warning us in 7:00 PM phone calls.  You may be able to ignore the phone calls but your door will be incessantly knocked on as well.  Behind the door will be an Oakland resident or a Hayward resident telling you how bad it'll be if the Charter City Initiative passes and Emeryville taxes business like other cities do.  They won't tell you they're not from Emeryville and they won't tell you they're being paid to knock on your door and make phone calls but they will assure you they only have your interests at heart.

These well funded scare campaigns rise up every time business is asked to pay their fair share in Emeryville.

We remember the card room plebiscite of 1997, a tax increase for Emeryville gambling parlors where in the Oaks Club, the only such parlor, would be "driven to bankruptcy" we were told if they were required to pay the Bay Area card room average tax rate.  It passed of course, and the Oaks Club is doing just fine....but now paying Emeryville what other card rooms in the Bay Area pay.

Then there was the recent attempt to remove Emeryville's infamous business tax cap, a mechanism that allows Pixar and other large businesses to pay much less taxes than other smaller businesses in town pay.  That voter drive was sabotaged before it even got to the ballot box thanks to Council members Nora Davis and Kurt Brinkman.  It would be the end of Emeryville they assured us after Pixar threatened to leave town if Emeryville voters were allowed to decide about the tax cap.

Of course there was also Measures T & U, a 2004 campaign to get a Community Benefits Agreement in trade for a planned Pixar campus expansion. A YES vote would negate the CBA, give Pixar millions in Emeryville subsidies in cash and property transfers and negate our General Plan and zoning regulations.  Again Pixar was going to leave Emeryville the Chamber of Commerce assured us (right after they spent tens of millions of dollars on their Phase One campus build out).  The NO on T&U simply asked for a Community Benefits Agreement to be entered into, a standard procedure for City Halls outside Emeryville.  But Pixar told us it was an existential threat.  It was a scare tactic that worked; Emeryville rolled over with prompting from Nora Davis, Kurt Brinkman and the Chamber of Commerce, netting Pixar millions of dollars in City Hall subsidies.
It should be noted Pixar, the multi-billion dollar corporation is now paying us $8000 per year in taxes (thanks to the tax cap) the Tattler found out.

We also fondly remember the anti-Measure C campaign of 2005.  It was a lavishly funded campaign to stop Measure C, Emeryville's 'Living Wage for Hotel Workers' ballot initiative.  The campaign, run by Councilwoman Nora Davis and the Chamber of Commerce, assured us all would be lost if Emeryville hotels were forced to pay their workers a couple of dollars more per hour; a living wage. Nora joined with the hotels and scores of other businesses in town to warn us of the dire consequences in store for us.  The Chamber of Commerce even fired up their Political Action Committee (EmPAC) with it's massive war chest of donations from out-of-town businesses to take the fight to the hotel workers.  Hotels would fold up their tents en masse and leave Emeryville we were told.
In the end, Emeryville voters DID pass the living wage for hotel workers, regardless of all the hyperbolic screaming from Nora Davis, the Chamber and their corporate paymasters.
One hotel, Woodfin Suites on Shellmound Street actually did leave town in protest after they lost a bruising court battle to not pay their workers their back wages.  Woodfin was subsequently bought by Hyatt.
The mass exodus of hotels never materialized curiously.  In fact, Emeryville is about to get a brand new hotel, Hyatt Place at Bay Street.  And they're going to pay their workers a living wage.  Tellingly, Nora Davis, her sycophants and the Chamber of Commerce never admitted they were wrong about the consequences of Measure C.
Instead they've begun preparing themselves for the next apocalypse looming this fall for Emeryville.  The Charter City Initiative is coming.  Emeryville voters will be allowed to decide for themselves.  All will be lost people, all will be lost.

Emeryville Hyatt Hotel Proposal Missed Deadline Puts Project in Jeopardy

Madison Marquette, the developer of Emeryville's Bay Street Mall has missed an important deadline as part of an 'implementation agreement' with the City of Emeryville that would have necessarily extended rights to sell property to Hyatt Hotels Inc for a planned 169 room hotel on land it owns adjacent to the mall the Tattler has learned.  The implementation agreement, the 15th such agreement controlling the development of the proposed Hyatt Place hotel expired on September 30th 2012.

The suite of implementation agreements are meant to extend development rights for Madison Marquette and are part of a larger contract called a Disposition & Development Agreement  established in 1999.  The missed deadline now puts Madison Marquette in violation for the entire development deal to take place.

Madison Marquette has been proceeding as if the project is still moving forward, making community presentations and committee reports it should be noted.  For the City to start up implement agreement #16 as if #15 had not expired would be a violation of law on the part of the City.  The project is effectively dead as of now, a City Hall insider who wished to remain anonymous told the Tattler.

The expiration of the agreement is the second time this developer has let a time extension request expire in Emeryville as it turns out.

Tattler readers may remember Madison Marquette requested many similar time extension agreements with the City for development of the last parcel of land located to the north of the proposed Hyatt Place hotel called "site B".  Those time extension requests, collectively called an Exclusive Right to Negotiate (ENR) were granted to the developer several times totaling some eight years.  Those time extension requests enabled Madison Marquette the luxury of keeping the development site, a planned expansion of the Bay Street Mall,  locked in their exclusive reserve while they decided whether to develop the site.
  Many residents at the time complained that the time extensions only helped Madison and that the residents got nothing in the trade.   The last ENR request for Site B, a two year extension coming in 2010 was highly controversial after residents rallied for compensation from Madison but the City Council rebuffed them, granting Madison Marquette a clean two more years.  After the 2010 time extension was granted, Madison allowed it to expire in 2012 without making their development proposal, leaving Emeryville with nothing but fallow land and no tax proceeds, the gamble having not paid off with a project.  Many residents were furious with the Council especially since other developers (with more resident friendly proposals) had expressed interest in the site but they were cast aside by the Council as they placed all their faith in Madison Marquette.

Emery School Board: Citizens Want Some Accountability

"We're Moving On"

School Board Code for

"We're Not Accepting Accountability"

Opinion
The Emery School Board wants it both ways: They want our trust in their selection(s) of our school superintendents but when it all goes wrong they want to "move on"; they don't feel they need to answer to anyone for their bad decisions on the selection.
This is being revealed again as the Board starts up a campaign to derail citizen's requests for an explanation as to the recent disappearance of former Emery Unified School Superintendent Debbra Lindo.  Obviously, accountability isn't their strong suit.  That is clear now but also before when the same crew got hoodwinked by the false resume of former Superintendent Steven Wesley.  A quick look at the resume, riddled with falsehoods according to the San Francisco Chronicle, would have made anybody suspicious except the Emery School Board.  After the story hit the front pages, rather than accept accountability, the Board shifted the blame to the executive search company they had hired.  And don't even get us started on JL Handy, the former Emery Superintendent who  bankrupted the School District and fled town, law authorities in hot pursuit.
There's an M.O. pattern emerging here.

This time, School Board member John Affeldt would only comment, "we're moving on" when asked recently what happened to Ms Lindo.  His colleges refused to comment at all.  The refusal to accept accountability yet again is a mighty bold tactic for a group ready to make yet another superintendent pick.  Something tells us they're going to say the same things about the next superintendent they said about all the previous ones: it'll be a string of hyperbolic superlatives.  It'll be "wonderful" this and "fabulous" that.  But if Ms Lindo is so wonderful, why then is she not still the Superintendent?

School Board member John Affeldt
Speaks for his colleagues when he says
"we're moving on" after Debbra Lindo.
But before, the Board told us she was
 fabulous and not to listen to the teachers
about her.

This Board has chutzpah.
They stood by their superintendent choice in Debbra Lindo to the bitter end.  They stood by her when 93% of teachers wrote their Teachers Resolution explaining how they couldn't work with her shortly after she took office. They stood by her when they wrote a resolution of their own, backing Ms Lindo in response to and at the expense of the teachers.  They stood by her for a year and a half after the impasse by ignoring the teachers concerns as laid out in the Teachers Resolution.
Now Debbra Lindo is suddenly gone....made so by this School Board.  We want to know why.
We understand as an employee of the School District, the Board isn't free to reveal every detail regarding her termination but we also understand the Board can give us more information than they have done, which the totality essentially amounts to 'she's gone.'

This School Board has shown over and over transparency is anathema to them.  We say they can't be trusted with the selection of another superintendent until they tell us what happened to the wonderful woman that according to them, we all should have rallied behind, teachers be damned.

Barring any more information as to the "retirement" of the former Superintendent, we're going to have to assume this Board stands by Debbra Lindo's Declaration submitted to the plaintiffs in an anti-teacher lawsuit now taking place in Los Angeles.  In it, Ms Lindo expressed her desires to link student test scores to teacher pay and her desire to bust the teachers union by removing due process and tenure rights.  We have to assume these are the same sentiments of this School Board.  As they prepare to select yet another  $200,000+ School Superintendent we need to insist teacher's concerns are front and center.

So while "we're moving on" may help them escape an uncomfortable moment at a School Board meeting, it doesn't help us at all.  They may have moved on, but we want to fix what's wrong before endlessly and blindly lurching forward.  Let's start with some transparency and accountability.

RULE Meeting

Residents United For A Livable Emeryville

Come and meet your progressive neighbors and help make your city grow in a good way!
Next regular meeting:  Saturday, February 8
10:00 - 12:00
Our usual location:  5514 Doyle St., 1st floor common room

Agenda: 

-Upcoming campaign for city council

-Possible Community Benefit Agreement for the Sherwin Williams project

Additional items may be added and are welcome

Minutes of our last meeting attached

Bring breakfast snacks
Coffee and tea provided 
For more information contact Judy Timmel, 510-601-6521 

Powell Street Plaza Mall Site of Alleged Attempted Kidnapping

From the Bay Area News Group:

Emeryville: Suspect arrested in attempted kidnapping of 7-year-old girl

Bay Area News Group

POSTED:   02/04/2014 10:18:57 AM PST

UPDATED:   02/04/2014 10:39:58 AM PST

Gabriel Weathersbee. (Photo by Emeryville Police Department)

EMERYVILLE -- Police arrested 20-year-old Emeryville man suspected of trying to kidnap a 7-year-old girl Monday night at the Powell Street Plaza.

The girl and her mother had left Starbucks Coffee just before 5 p.m. when Gabriel Weathersbee, 20, allegedly walked up behind the child, picked her up and carried her away into the parking lot, according to Emeryville police.

The mother started yelling and Weathersbee reported dropped the child about 30 feet away, police said.

Police were alerted and a nearby security guard followed Weathersbee, pointing him out to officers when they arrived.

Emeryville Police had previous contact with Weathersbee in November, when he was sent to John George for a psychiatric hold, police said.

A Tale of Two Cities: Mayor Brinkman's Emeryville vs Mayor Asher's Emeryville

Two Different Mayors

Two Different Visions

One Placates Business, One Placates Residents

Opinion/ News Analysis
The last two Emeryville 'State of the City' annual addresses were quite different:
In 2013, when he was mayor, Kurt Brinkman said the solution to the town's woes was to keep business taxes low to help out the corporate sector....to attract and retain them.  If we help the businesses out, they'll help us out.  All boats will be lifted by a rising tide....a classic 'supply-side' trickle down argument.
This year Jac Asher is mayor and she says Emeryville is a town of ultra low business tax and we need to tax more, almost as much as our neighboring towns do so we can help out the residents like other towns do...we should build more parks, fix sidewalks and other amenities to attract and retain residents; even the vulnerable among us like families, the elderly and the poor.

It's easy to see how some residents can compare what's going on in Washington DC with our own Emeryville City Hall.  The same left wing/right wing dynamic is at play in both places.  One remarkable difference; while the two opposing sides in Washington deliver nothing but gridlock, here in Emeryville, it's the right wing that controls public policy.  That doesn't mean the left wing side has rolled over however.  They occasionally make their voices heard, sometimes to the consternation of the majority.  This year's State of the City address is one such moment.

The last two State of the City mayoral annual addresses, the 2013 speech by mayor Kurt Brinkman and the 2014 speech by mayor Jac Asher, serves to reveal the stark political divide in Emeryville.  And as in Washington, the cultural and political divide in Emeryville makes sense when one sees who the paymasters are; as in who's interests the decision makers are working.

The differences could hardly be more clear as the two competing visions are revealed in these back-to-back speeches (see the videos below).

Mayor Brinkman, despite his avuncular and personable style, uses his speech to proudly note how Emeryville has changed from a industrial city to what it is today; a mecca for corporations and a boon for developers.  He laments the end of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency and says that because of its demise, the City Council's charge is to placate business even more than it historically has.  Mayor Brinkman makes several shout outs to CEO's and business executives in the audience at the private by invitation Chamber of Commerce fundraising luncheon venue.  He notes that Emeryville is better than Oakland or Berkeley because "We make business happen here".  To make it happen more he says we need to strengthen City Hall's relationship with the Chamber of Commerce.  He says this will help close the gap in funding left over after the Redevelopment Agency but he doesn't show precisely how.

Mayor Asher, in contrast to Mayor Brinkman's exclusive venue gives her State of the City address at the people's hall; City Hall, free and open to all.  She notes that economic health should be linked to services for residents.  Mayor Asher acknowledges the loss of the Redevelopment Agency has meant a sharp drop off in revenue for the City and she shows how the problem isn't going to be fixed without a new revenue source. She makes a dramatic showing of how property taxes only make 6% of the revenues at City Hall and about how it's not really possible to bring in enough money from new business to even fund basic infrastructure properly.  She shows how changing the governing structure in Emeryville like other cities in the Bay Area have done,  by becoming a 'charter city',  will deliver the funds we need (see the Tattler story on this HERE).  She notes how City Hall should work for the residents and comport governance with a social justice perspective, "We talk quite a bit about attracting business in town but we also need to attract and retain people that live here.  In particular we need to work to keep those that are vulnerable close to resources: elderly, families with children and people living below the poverty line.  In short I want us to be a just city."

Videos courtesy of the Emeryville Property Owners Association:

Emeryville Mayor Promotes New Governance System to Increase Revenue: Charter City

Post Redevelopment:

Emeryville "Leaking" Millions of Dollars 

Emeryville mayor Jac Asher raised more than a few eyebrows at City Hall at the last January Council meeting when she used the normally business friendly and innocuous mayoral State of the City annual address to promote the notion that the City fundamentally change its governing system to capture millions of dollars in business property tax proceeds that now goes uncollected.  The existing 'General Law' governing model would be replaced with a more democratic governance system called a 'Charter City', a move that would allow residents more say in how the City operates and allow City Hall to capture business property transfer tax money now lost, a "leaking" of proceeds the mayor says.  It's a change we need to make to fund more parks and public infrastructure maintenance such as sidewalks she said in her address to the City.  In the wake of the recent demise of funding from Redevelopment Agencies state-wide, it's a change our neighboring municipalities including Oakland and Berkeley have made, bolstering their general fund coffers.
Transfer taxes are collected by cities when businesses change ownership or merge, a method initially made popular after Proposition 13 stripped California cities of crucial property tax revenues, now increasingly so after Redevelopment funds have also gone dry.

Emeryville Now Loses $3 Million Per Year
To become a Charter City requires a majority vote of the residents and in the case of Emeryville, nothing of substance necessarily need to change at City Hall with the exception of capturing these heretofore unpaid business transfer taxes.
The mayor noted that with the current General Law provisions in place, Emeryville only yielded $157,000 in 2009 to 2014 on business transfers.  That's $.55 for every 1000 dollars of real estate value compared to our charter city neighbors Oakland and Berkeley who yielded $15.00 per 1000 dollars of value.  It has meant a loss of an average of $3 million per year for Emeryville over that time.

Emeryville stands alone in it's retention of the General Law status in the region.  Cities throughout the region have changed over to Charter City status to net these business transfer monies, using them to fund amenities for their residents.  Here's a breakdown of some local cities and their capture of transfer taxes:

• Alameda          $12.00 per thousand on full value
• Albany            $11.50
• Berkeley          $15.00
• Emeryville       $0.55
• Hayward          $4.50
• Oakland           $15.00
• Piedmont          $13.00
• San Leandro     $6.00     

 Mayor Asher said in the address Emeryville would be unable, legally, to increase its business property transfer tax without changing to Charter City status like neighboring cities have done.  To remain competitive, she suggested the tax should be raised to $12; still less than Oakland or Berkeley. Ms Asher also noted should Emeryville vote to become a Charter City the residents would be free to change other things about the city in the future such as voting directly for mayor, something now conducted exclusively by the City Council members.  Or the residents could elect to leave things as they are with the exception of raising the transfer tax to closer to what our neighboring cities charge.  The issue could be placed before Emeryville voters this November either by collecting signatures in a ballot initiative drive or the Council members themselves could, by fiat, elect to put the issue on the ballot for Emeryville voters in November.

Mayor Asher called the Charter City question a "way forward" after the loss of the Redevelopment Agency and all the fiscal woes visited upon Emeryville without that formally copious revenue stream.


Video courtesy of the Emeryville Property Owners Association: