Follow the Money: Emeryville Minimum Wage Debate Draws Sacramento Lobbying Group

Out-Of-Town Business Interests Clandestinely Move into Emeryville: Minimum Wage Targeted 

Powerful Restaurant Lobbying Association Money Dump

Behind the Scenes Interests Work to Nix Local Control 

A powerful and deep pocketed lobbying group, the National Restaurant Association (NRA) and its subsidiary the California Restaurant Association (CRA) have clandestinely moved into our town, operating in the shadows, spending money and working to effect the outcome of the minimum wage policy now being publicly debated at City Hall the Tattler has learned.

A group comprised of Emeryville businesses funded by these out-of-town lobbying groups has formed to fight the minimum wage proposal, agitating to petition the City Council for a moratorium on implementing any proposal and demanding the Council pay for a study, ostensibly to find out more about the effects increasing the minimum wage would have on businesses.  The group calling itself the Emeryville Small Business and Resident Alliance (strangely no mention of the big business connection in the title) will not reveal how they are funded but it has been learned the California Restaurant Association is providing money to the group as well as strategy expertise, work self described as directly in the CRA wheelhouse.

Bruce Dean
Chief Operating Officer Black Bear Diner
and Chairman of the Board of Directors of
the California Restaurant Association.
Money is pouring into Emeryville.
He wants to influence our town's policy.

Public Fight, Hidden Money
A restaurant on Christie Avenue, the Black Bear Diner, has served as the point business in town fighting the minimum wage ordinance.  They have secured a conference room for meetings at the Four Points Sheridan Hotel and sent expensive flyers to virtually every business in town requesting their presence at the strategy meetings.
Emeryville's Black Bear Diner is one of 64 corporate and franchise owned locations and corporate Chief Operating Officer,  Bruce Dean is also the Chairman of the Board of the California Restaurant Association, the source of the Emeryville business group's clandestine money.

The NRA & CRA work to protect the interests of restaurants at the expense of their workers, providing lobbying efforts to quash minimum wage laws and other worker protections.  The lobby group's Political Action Committees provides money for political battles like Emeryville's minimum wage ordinance.  As a service to members, they also lobby for pro-restaurant regulation, commonly at the expense of workers as well.  In other states, the NRA (sometimes called the other NRA) has lobbied extensively to keep restaurant workers pay at $2.13 per hour.
In Emeryville, the minimum wage debate has caught the attention of the CRA and they have joined the fight.  With the Chairman of the Board's Black Bear Diner connection, Emeryville has been on the CRA's radar since at least last year.

The Tattler has previously reported on the CRA working to kill our minimum wage ordinance by actively lobbying our City Council members HERE and HERE.

Even though these powerful special interest groups and their cash have heretofore been hidden from the public in Emeryville, look to the Tattler to report on how they use their influence to craft public policy in our town to their liking.

Check out one of the flyers (below) paid for by the Sacramento lobbying group CRA sent out to Emeryville businesses (and the School District inadvertently) in early April.  It's filled with hyperbole like we heard from opponents of the last  Emeryville minimum wage increase aka Measure C 'the living wage for hotel workers'..."Emeryville's hospitality industry will be kaput"!

Minimum Wage Letter 2015 

Emeryville Senior Center Flea Market Fund Raiser

Recalling Emery's Greatest Hits

'Outlook Not So Good'

Opinion
Readers will note there aren't links embedded in this story (except for the first one)...the whole story would be chock-a-block with links and distract from the readability...please feel free to use the Tattler search bar instead.

On Wednesday evening the parents and community members that attended the Emery Unified School Board meeting learned that their input was utterly immaterial to the Board majority's already-made-up minds.  The majority on this Board made it very clear; they can really do without any community input, thank you very much.  So it seems an appropriate time to reflect back on all the great decisions made by Emery Unified School Boards of the past.  It will surely support the idea that these decision-makers know what's best for us.

Presenting... Emery's Greatest Hits (partial list)

1. Employ an architect for a district of less than 800 children. Keep him on payroll for 10 years. 
2. Hire the fabulous and divisive Debbra Lindo as Superintendent.
3. Stick by Debbra Lindo, even after she receives a vote of “no confidence” from your teachers.
4. Go into receivership.
5. Get a loan from the City of Emeryville in order to get out of receivership.
6. Tell the City you can’t repay that loan.
7. Make a plan for a K-12 school site that would make use of the property of the existing High School and the AC Transit site.
8. Lose the AC Transit half of that real estate, but refuse to revise the plan and instead decide to shoehorn every child in town into what little space you have.
9. Hire a superintendent with a history of corruption that bilks the district out of cash.
10. Hire another superintendent that lies on his resume about his qualifications.
11. Close a school site in order to rebuild (rebuild...a good decision, Magic Eight Ball says "decidedly so" to this one). But then move a daycare over to the middle school site making that site unavailable, and then pay Oakland Unified $500K* a year in order to rent another school site to house our older kids.  Wait, what?
12. Move the middle schoolers from the middle school site to the high school site. Watch middle school enrollment drop. Wait, no.  Move them to go to the elementary school site.  Watch enrollment drop.  Wait, no.  Everyone (do we still have any middle schoolers left?) go over to California State Highway 123 aka San Pablo Avenue.  Wait with breathless anticipation for our enrollment numbers…these are gonna be GOOD!
13. Pass out Measure J money to consultants.  Because we have bond money, and as it just so happens, they have advice...they've got as much advice as we have bond money.
14. Just before Sacramento makes them illegal, issue a Capital Appreciation Bond that will cost Emeryville taxpayers nearly $70 million over the course of 33 years in order to receive just $17 million for our ECCL building project.   
15. Pour hours of consultant's time into charts that show when buildings will “sleep” but do not construct enough room for actual elementary school students to play.
16. Pay some consultants thousands of dollars to conduct a "listening campaign".
17. Do not listen, instead assemble a 'negative public relations (Tattler) story rapid response team'.
18. In the summer, hire an elementary school principal with multiple past allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination.  Don't bother Googling his name before hiring.
19. Wait until his first day on the job on the first day of the new school year.
20. Fire that elementary school principal after he faces more allegations of sexual harassment.  Pay his salary for many months that he never worked.
21. Use the PTO as your propaganda arm; disallow parents making critical presentations to the group and criticism of District policies in the list serve.
22. Pay a construction oversight firm $1.1 million to watch over the contracting firm building out the new school site, a job the former District Architect would have done for $487,000 had he not left before the actual building started.
23. Promise the community a chance for them to weigh in on the wisdom of closing Anna Yates Elementary School after the passage of Measure J school bond ballot initiative.
24. Take away the chance for the community to weigh in after Measure J passes.  Tell the community it had all been decided ten years earlier.
25. Don't reveal to the community exactly who decided to close the elementary school ten years ago...let 'em guess and work on your best smug demeanor when they erupt in anger.

You know, with a track record like this, it's hard to see why parents or community members thought this School Board majority needed their input.  Stop worrying!  Like their predecessors, this School Board majority has it all under control. 

Outlook Not So Good
This District gets it wrong almost every time.
A better way for the School Board to make decisions:
use a Magic Eight Ball.
Statistically, better policy would result.

* Correction: the Tattler originally posted 

$200,000 per year.  The real number is 

$500,000 per year the District is spending. 

We apologize for the error.

Crisis in the Schools: Emery Unified On Track to Be Insolvent in Two Years

Shocked Audience Learns-

School Board Must Make Drastic Changes to Avoid Receivership

$1 Million Annual Deficit Looms

Board to Close Elementary School,

A Possible Source of Increased Revenue

Emery Unified School Board Meeting-April 22, 2015

Emeryville's schools are in deep financial trouble and ready to slide back into State receivership said Dora Siu, the School District's Fiscal Services Director before a crowded house at a School Board meeting Wednesday night. The crowd of parents, citizens and teachers, there coincidently to make a case to save Anna Yates Elementary School and a possible source of increased revenue for the District, was jarred by the announcement of looming bankruptcy.

Ms Siu's budget projections showed that if the District changes nothing about its revenues and spending from how they are right now, then within two years the District would be operating at nearly a $1 million annual deficit and, by not having the state-mandated minimum 4% in reserves, would not be certified as solvent and would likely face a return to receivership.  Ms Siu added that 4% would actually only cover one month's expenses for the District and 10% reserve would be advisable.  
Emery crawled out of a state takeover in 2011 after ten grueling years of Sacramento control after the District was bilked by a former Superintendent.

The Board seemed to take this dire warning in stride and they indicated they will consider budget adjustments at future meetings.  However, those in attendance later learned that one possible solution the Board could not see its way clear to consider was to keep Anna Yates Elementary School open in order to enroll more students than ECCL can accommodate and to, thereby, increase revenue sufficiently to cover the projected shortfall.  Instead the Board dug in its heels and said they could not change course on a plan (allegedly) set in stone over ten years ago.

Not one parent or community member had a positive thing to say about closing Anna Yates Wednesday night, but the Board was unmoved.  The Teachers Union also sent a representative to report that the teachers had met in an emergency meeting Tuesday to address this issue and that an overwhelming majority of the teachers did not want to see Anna Yates closed.

The School District is partners with the City of Emeryville in the ECCL project and two City Council members were witness to the spectacle; Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue.

Parents Erupt in Outrage
The testy crowd Wednesday night was rallying around a proposal by Board member Christian Patz, to keep Anna Yates open as an elementary school and use the yet to be constructed ECCL site on San Pablo Avenue for a middle school (as well as a high school).  The idea is the middle school children would use the building originally meant for the new elementary school after Anna Yates is closed.
But newly elected Board Member Donn Merriam, an architect, indicated he was not capable of fathoming how one could use a 1200 square foot space intended for Kindergartners in any other way.  He warned that this proposal would raise construction costs and postpone the ECCL for at least a full year.  The crowd, not inclined to the normal decorum, erupted at Board member Merriam's  intransigence and began shouting out alternative uses for the space from their chairs.

Board President John Affeldt announced his unwillingness to be persuaded about keeping Anna Yates open before even hearing public comment, a statement that especially riled up the crowd.  His remarks so enraged some parents who had, by then waited for several hours to speak, that they stormed out of the room in disgust without speaking.  Many others who had come to speak had given up by this time and had returned home to their waiting babysitters or had left to put their children to bed.  Board President Affeldt had also refused a request to move the item up on the agenda so that these parents could be heard.

Many attendees expressed exasperation to the Tattler after the meeting.  It seems to the parents among them the District's overall message is clear; they are closing Anna Yates, like it or not.  One parent wishing to remain anonymous said of the Board, "They are driving this District straight into a financial ditch and they're not willing to consider the most logical way to avoid it [keeping Anna Yates open].  On the contrary, they'd like to press on the gas further.  Parents should get ready now for either an incredible number of cuts to close a $1 million gap or two, the State or the County will be in charge of our District's finances again in a couple of years.  They're telling us to move our children to another District as soon as we can".

School districts gain revenue from enrolled students and the looming financial disaster for Emery Unified offers no palatable choices if the number of students is not increased.  Essentially, cuts and the selling off of assets are really the only options available.  Keeping the elementary school as a way to increase enrollment for the District in the cramped ECCL site is the best option parents and teachers said.  This plea was made in many ways by many speakers Wednesday night but the Board seemed unmoved, save Board member Patz.

The following budget projection reveals the disturbing slide Emery Unified School District is facing:

EUSD Multi Year Projection 2015-04-22

Breaking News: Emeryville's City Attorney Abruptly Resigns

Mike Biddle, Emeryville's long embattled City Attorney suddenly announced his resignation before a small audience in the City Council chambers tonight.  He leaves his position after 26 years with the City.  Mr Biddle has long had a rocky relationship with some Council members but since last November's City Council election and the rise of a new Council majority, relations have been strained.  Even still, while some city employees might have known the resignation was looming, to the citizens, the news comes as a surprise.  
The resignation comes in July after Mr Biddle's contract expires.  He did not publicly specify what he will do after he leaves Emeryville.

Emeryville Planning Commissioner in Hot Water

Emeryville Planning Commissioner Kairee Tann is featured in today's Contra Costa Times...but not in a good way.

From the Contra Costa Times:

Housing crisis: Emeryville planning official uses huge rent increase to boot city's poet laureate

By Doug Oakley doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com

POSTED:   04/20/2015 01:50:11 PM PDT

Sarah Kobrinsky, Emeryville's poet laureate, stands in front of the home on Wednesday, April 15, 2015, that she and her husband and their 4-year-old son were forced out of by a $500 a month rent increase in Emeryville, Calif. Her landlord is the vice chair of the city's planning commission and is listed as a member of the city's Housing Advisory and Appeals Board. Kobrinsky moved to Point Richmond, but will continue writing poems for Emeryville through the end of the year. (Doug Oakley/Bay Area News Group) ( Doug Oakley )

EMERYVILLE -- If the story of rising rents and the exodus of artists from Bay Area communities could be told in verse, Emeryville's poet laureate has one for you.

Appointed to the poetry post in 2013, Sarah Kobrinsky was forced to pack up her family and leave town recently when her landlord, who also happens to be a city planning commissioner, suddenly raised her rent 38 percent.

But her housing trauma -- she, her artist husband and their 4-year-old son are now residents of cheaper digs in Point Richmond -- inspired a new poem Kobrinsky calls "Aftershock."

In another time and place,

we are better people.

No one lies. The Earth

never shakes.

Somewhere else,

we are stronger still --

When we say we are sorry,

we honestly mean it.

As an artist, Kobrinsky said she understands the Bay Area rental market benefits some at the expense of others. But she expected more from her landlord Kairee Tann, a city official who votes on development proposals that directly affect the housing market including single family homes and apartment buildings.

Tann also is on the city's Housing Advisory and Appeals Board, which hears complaints about potential violations of the housing code.

Kobrinsky's rent in Emeryville went from $1,300 to $1,800 a month for a 1 ½-bedroom unit. Even through she lived on the same lot as her landlord in a separate unit, she said when she was notified of the increase there was no conversation, just a certified letter.

Read the rest of the story HERE

School Board Member Fight to Save Anna Yates Elementary School

School Board Member Says 

Save Emeryville's Elementary School

Emery School Board Member Christian Patz is engaging in a public campaign to allow Emeryville's contested elementary school, Anna Yates, to remain open and to continue to serve Emeryville's children, a contrary position to a decision made by the Board in November 2012 to close the school and move the children over to the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life (ECCL) site on San Pablo Avenue scheduled for fall 2016.  

Mr Patz, a new Board member, indicated the ECCL site is too small for a Kindergarten through 12th grade school and the District needs to concentrate on increasing enrollment to alleviate budget shortfalls, an impossibility at the ECCL site.  Additionally Board member Patz says Emery is suffering from a lack of a middle school, a critical ingredient for effective education according to experts in pedagogical study.  Board member Patz says by keeping Anna Yates open, ECCL could deliver what he calls a "middle school focus", something parents have been clamoring for and help retain these students that the District now loses en masse.

Emery School Board
Member
Christian Patz
Believes Emeryville's
elementary school is
worth saving.

Mr Patz's criticism of the San Pablo Avenue K-12 site being too small has found an ally in Sacramento.  The State of California has determined the ECCL site is too small for a K-12 program but there is enough space for a high school and a middle school he says.

The District for its part has said it will close Anna Yates but they have not revealed what they ultimately will do with that site; at one point they refused to discount bulldozing the school and putting up a parking lot.
At least one Charter School is interested in seizing the school, an eventuality Emery would be powerless to stop if there were no elementary school function at the site.  Charter schools are notorious for taking public money and only admitting the best and the brightest leaving the public schools with a more problematic demographic and bereft of money.  Charter schools are also less accountable to the public than traditional public schools.

Board Member Patz is sending out the following letter to Emeryville residents:

Dear Neighbor, 

On April 22, 2015 the Emery School Board board is discussing the future of Emery Schools.  I am asking the School Board to give direction to Superintendent Rubio on the roll out for the Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL) building project.  I am asking the Board  to focus on building a vibrant and rich middle school program. 

 Emery’s biggest need is to retain and grow middle school enrollment. In order to do this, I believe it necessary to keep the elementary students at Anna Yates Elementary School.
Since the closure of the Ralph Hawley school site, the middle school has been an adjunct first to Emery High and then Anna Yates.  If we let them move in a building of their own, the proposed K-8 building, they will no longer be the plus one of the district.
Emery USD has an opportunity to create a true community school district.  To do this, we will need places for kids to learn, play, and be accepted.  The space created by not moving the elementary students to the ECCL will allow for more classes to increase enrollment for the district.  Both campuses will be able to dedicate places for school enrichment programs in collaboration with the city and the recreation department.  

Please join me on Wednesday April 22^nd at 6:00 pm at Ralph Hawley Middle School, 1275 61st Street. Let the board know if you agree or disagree with the direction I am suggesting.  

Hope to see you there,
Christian Patz, Ed.D.
Emery USD trustee

Councilwoman Dianne Martinez Starts Constituant Blog

Councilwoman Martinez has started a blog emeryvilledianne.blogspot.com for Emeryville residents to follow.  First story out of the gate for Ms Martinez is a piece about the 'Fight for $15', the nation-wide minimum wage campaign Emeryville has joined.  Dianne's blog is added to Councilwoman Jac Asher's "Jac's Blog" as far as the Emeryville Council member blogosphere is concerned.  We appreciate Dianne and Jac in their constituent information effort but we're still waiting for Mayor Ruth Atkin, Councilman Scott Donahue and Vice Mayor Nora Davis to join in with some bloggy action of their own.

Adeline Street's Scarlet City Espresso Bar Has Emeryville Values

Emeryville Model Small Business of the Moment

Scarlet City Espresso Bar

Emeryville Community Spirit
Scarlet City Espresso Bar's proprietors
Susanna Handow & Jen St.Hilaire

Opinion
The rancorous pretension descended upon Emeryville City Hall over the minimum wage debate of late has found a community minded antecedent in one small business with true Emeryville community spirit: Adeline Street's Scarlet City Espresso Bar*.  This little neighborhood serving shop has resisted the acrimonious urgings of Shellmound Avenue's Black Bear Diner (and their paymasters at the California Restaurant Association) to resist the move to bring social and economic justice to Emeryville in the form of a $15 minimum wage.

Scarlet City, at 3960 Adeline Street, is a small business model for Emeryville- standing up and encouraging the City Council to adopt the San Francisco phase-in rate (which Council adopted as a model for the small business minimum wage, giving small businesses in our city a five year phase-in).  This proposal will begin with a raise to $12.25 to meet the rate of neighboring cities and progress to the goal of $15 in 2018.

The folks at Scarlet City have Emeryville values (and the coffee concoctions they make are delicious).  This is the kind of business any community would seek to welcome.

 *Note: Tattler correction- Since this story was posted, this business has signed a petition against the City Council's action on the minimum wage.  They shifted their previous approval of the minimum wage to being angry about it and demanding a moratorium.  To say Scarlett City has Emeryville values may be overwrought we're sorry to report.

Below; Ms Handow tells the Emeryville City Council they should seek a path to a $15 minimum wage in 2018 as San Francisco is doing:

RULE Meeting

Residents United For A Livable Emeryville

Come and meet your progressive neighbors and make Emeryville what you want it to be

Saturday, April 18

10:00 -12:00

Doyle St. CoHousing, 5514 Doyle St., 1st floor common room
Open to all

Agenda

-E'vlle minimum wage: response to last City Council draft
-Sherwin Williams Update

-E'vlle PBID: funding for the Emery Go Round 

-Love Our Neighborhood Day, May 30

Facilitator:  Judy Timmel

Bring breakfast snacks....coffee and tea provided

Judy Timmel, 510-601-6521

Emeryville City Council Contingent at 'Fight for $15" Rally

4/5ths of Emeryville City Council Fights for Nation-Wide $15 Minimum Wage

Mayor Addresses Large Berkeley Rally

Emeryville Contingent
Left to right: Dianne Martinez, Jac Asher,
Ruth Atkin, Scott Donahue

Today the Mayor of Emeryville led a contingent of four out of the five City Council members to petition for a nationwide $15 minimum wage at a large rally at UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza.  The protest rally, some 1500 strong, was organized by 'Fight For $15', an international activist conglomerate comprised chiefly of fast food workers agitating for $15 minimum wage laws.  Labor Unions joined social activist groups and students at the famous UC Berkeley site of the 1960's Free Speech Movement where Emeryville Mayor Ruth Atkin was the featured kick-off speaker.
Mayor Atkin chronicled Emeryville's recent foray into its own path to $15 minimum wage, noting Emeryville's leadership role.  Many in the crowd seemed to be unaware but pleasantly surprised by Emeryville's new prominent position in labor rights.  It would seem our business friendly reputation may be giving way to a new reputation.

Readers will forgive the first minute or so of Ms Atkin's speech being clipped:

How Much Have Low Wages Cost Emeryville Taxpayers?

As the City of Emeryville moves on July 1st to raise up the minimum wage on a path to $15 per hour in 2018, residents are reminded of the hidden costs of low wages.  The Tattler has reported how poverty wages (or sub-poverty wages as we have called them) represent a wealth transference from middle class taxpayers to business owners; in effect a business subsidy.   After a generation of development featuring lots of low wage service sector jobs in Emeryville brought by City Hall, it would be wise to consider the unintended consequences of this kind of development. 
From the University of California Berkeley Labor Center:

Poverty-level wages cost U.S. taxpayers $153 billion every year

April 13, 2015

BERKELEY —

While the U.S. economy rebounds, persistent low wages are costing taxpayers approximately $153 billion every year in public support to working families, including $25 billion at the state level, according to a new report from the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Labor Research and Education.  The report details for the first time the state-by-state cost to taxpayers of low wages in the United States.

More than half of low-wage fast-food workers nationwide take advantage of public assistance, ranging from food stamps to Medicaid. (Photo licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by Drpoulette)

Following decades of wage cuts and health benefits rollbacks, more than half of all state and federal spending on public assistance programs (56 percent) now goes to working families, the report documents.

“When companies pay too little for workers to provide for their families, workers rely on public assistance programs to meet their basic needs,” said Ken Jacobs, chair of the labor center and co-author of the new report.  “This creates significant cost to the states.”

The report analyzed state spending for Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program and Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), and federal spending for those programs and food stamps (SNAP) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

The UC Berkeley researchers also report that:

• On average, 52 percent of state public assistance spending supports working families, with costs as high as $3.7 billion in California, $3.3 billion in New York and $2 billion in Texas.
• Reliance on public assistance can be found among workers in a diverse range of occupations, including frontline fast-food workers (52%), childcare workers (46%), home care workers (48%) and even part-time college faculty (25%).

From 2003 to 2013, wage growth remained flat or negative for the entire bottom 70 percent of workers in the United States, Jacobs said.  Over the same time, the share of non-elderly Americans receiving health insurance from an employer fell almost 10 percentage points, from 67 percent to 58 percent. Despite modest pay raises at some of the country’s largest and most profitable employers, including Walmart and McDonald’s, wages continue to lag far behind inflation.

The researchers note that raising wages would result in significant savings to state and federal governments.  In recent months, the substantial cost of low wages has prompted elected officials to take action. California, Colorado, Maine, Oregon and Washington are considering increasing the minimum wage to $12 or higher. In Connecticut, a proposal currently moving through the state legislature would fine large companies that pay low wages in an effort to recoup the cost these companies impose on taxpayers.  The Congressional Democrats’ fiscal year 2016 budget proposal unveiled last month included a provision that would roll back tax breaks for large companies that fail to raise pay on pace with inflation.

“Our public-assistance programs provide a vital support system for American families.  Raising wages would lift working families out of poverty and allow all levels of government to better target how our tax dollars are used,” Jacobs said.

Funding was provided by the Service Employees International Union.

RELATED INFORMATION

• UC Berkeley Labor Center

The Nation Moves Toward $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage: Emeryville Leads the Way

Emeryville Leads the Nation Toward 

$15 Per Hour Minimum Wage

The Emeryville City Council, by lifting the minimum wage to $14.42 per hour for big business employees on July 1st and $12.25 for small business with yearly wage increases for both meeting at $15 per hour in 2019 as they directed City Hall to do on Tuesday, is leading the way for the nation as a whole.  Emeryville will be seen as the example for other cities in the Bay Area and beyond.

Cal Berkeley professor Robert Reich tells us why this is important:

East Bay Express: Emeryville Small Business Victorious in Minimum Wage Debate

"Most of the Business Owners Got What They Wanted"

The East Bay Express reports on Emeryville's minimum wage debate.  They conclude the small business community was successful in driving their agenda in the policy that emerged from Tuesday's City Council meeting as the Council seeks to raise the minimum wage for all workers.

From today's East Bay Express:

Emeryville Business Owners, Workers Weigh in On Proposed $14.42 Minimum Wage

By Darwin Bondgraham

Last night, at a special study session meeting of the Emeryville City Council, dozens of business owners and workers spoke about the city’s proposed minimum wage increase. No business owner spoke out against raising the minimum wage. But almost all of them voiced concerns about the pace of the increase, and whether or not Emeryville should adopt what would be the highest municipal minimum wage in the nation. Some business owners asked for special exemptions for their businesses.

After hearing from the public, the council decided to draft an ordinance that starting on July 1 will increase Emeryville’s minimum wage to $14.42 an hour for large businesses and $12.25 an hour for small businesses. Small businesses are defined as companies with fewer than 55 employees.

The draft ordinance will adjust the large employer wage upward each year to account for inflation. And the small employer $12.25 wage will be increased by a dollar each year until 2019 when it converges with the large employer minimum wage, creating a single minimum wage for all employers.

The Emeryville City Council will vote on the minimum wage next month.

Business owners and workers on both sides of the issue helped the council craft the proposal.

....Ultimately most of the business owners who spoke got what they wanted; a lower phased-in minimum wage increase. Large retailers, janitorial companies, and restaurant chains, of which there are many in Emeryville, will see an immediate increase to $14.42, however.

“The study session proved we had basically reached a consensus,” Emeryville Mayor Ruth Atkin said in an interview. “I expect this will be the version of the ordinance that ultimately goes through two readings and becomes law.”

Read the rest of the East Bay Express story HERE.

San Pablo Avenue to Get Check Cashing

San Pablo Avenue at 45th Street
Oh Boy!  Check Cashing!
San Pablo Avenue Rocks!
24% interest on the working poor and 
the destitute in your town.
Ten years of Emeryville public policy 
and city planning for San Pablo Avenue has net...
check cashing.

Emeryville Moves Forward With $14.42 Minimum Wage For Big Business July 1st

Big Business Wage $14.42

Small Business Wage $12.25

Both Meet in 2019

Tonight, the Emeryville City Council directed the City Staff to draw up a resolution for a minimum wage ordinance effective beginning July 1st that would require large Emeryville businesses to pay their workers at least $14.42 per hour.  The draft resolution will be presented by the Council at two public readings in May at which point, barring any changes subsequently made,  the ordinance will become the law of the land.  The $14.42 rate makes Emeryville the leading Bay Area municipality as far as lifting up wages of the working poor.

The Council agreed the cut-off point between big and small business will be 55 employees, including part time workers.  Small business will pay their workers at least $12.25 per hour with provisions to ramp up to meet big business in 2019 after the rate is adjusted to meet consumer price index increases.  Additionally a paid sick leave provision was agreed upon.  The only 'carve-out' concession to business the Council agreed to was a 160 hour training period for new employees 18 and under where the employer is permitted to pay workers 85% of the minimum base pay be it at the big business rate or the small business rate.
The law will effect all of Emeryville's current 2227 minimum wage workers (out of a total of 22,179 work force) who make $9 per hour now and many of the 6191 workers who currently make less than the Emeryville 'living wage' of $14.42.

How Much Do CEOs Earn Per Hour?

Emeryville City Hall is considering raising the wage of the lowest paid workers to as much a $14.42 per hour for big businesses in town like Panera Bakery, Starbucks, Denny's, Baskin Robbins, I-HOP and Kentucky Fried Chicken (some of these Emeryville restaurants or their parent companies are highlighted in yellow below). How does that stack up against the CEO's of these corporations?   USA Today has assembled a compilation of several CEO pay to get an idea:

Maximum Wage! How much CEOs earn an hour

By: Matt Krantz April 6, 2015 6:30 am

Getting paid $10-an-hour is a welcome lift for Walmart (WMT) and McDonald’s (MCD) workers. But compare that with what the average restaurant and retail CEOs earn.

The 13 CEOs of a group of well-known retailers and restaurants haul in an average $5,859 an hour according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ. Putting that another way: It would take an employee making $10 a hour more than two months working each day to earn as much as the average CEO in these industries make in a single hour. The analysis assumes a 40-hour-a-week schedule and uses total reported pay by the companies in the most recent proxy statements, which for some companies is 2014, but for some others is still 2013. Total pay includes salary but also stocks awards and bonuses.

CEO pay will be on top of investors’ minds this week as more proxy statements pour in from companies. These documents show investors how much they’re paying the top management. CEO pay is an annual source of angst for investors who, on one hand, are willing to pay managers whatever it takes to get good results, but at the same time can’t help but puzzle over the seemingly non-stop march of CEO pay higher.

This year stands to be even more charged as there’s pressure for restaurants and retailers to boost wages to hourly employees. Rising hourly pay at Walmart, McDonald’s and Target (TGT) – all announced this year – stand to drive a critical cost for all these companies higher. The raises also draw greater attention to pay disparity. Neither Target nor McDonald’s CEOs’ pay were included because their current CEOs haven’t served a full year yet.

It’s still early in the proxy season – and many companies haven’t reported CEO pay for 2014, yet. Walmart, for instance, hasn’t reported fiscal 2015 pay yet (so fiscal 2014 pay through January 2014 was included in this analysis).

No one expects a line cook or a retail clerk to earn as much as the CEO. And it’s quite possible CEOs put in more than 40 hours a week (statistics on a 60-hour workweek are also included in the chart below). But the attention to rising wages will certainly again turn a spotlight on how much the people at the top of these companies are earning.

The biggest CEO payout – by far – goes to the co-CEOs of Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG). Montgomery Moran and Steven Ells, co-CEOs, pulled down more then $13,000 a hour apiece. Compare that with the average $9.15 an hour paid to Chipotle crew members, according to Glassdoor.com. It would be very difficult for investors to complain too much, though, since shares of Chipotle gained 29% in 2014 and is the fast-casual concept to beat this year.

Over at Wal-Mart, CEO Michael Duke earned what amounted to $2,704 a hour during the company’s most recently reported proxy for the fiscal year ended in January 2014. That ranks him below well below average among the retailers and restaurants analyzed – which includes some fiscal 2014 and 2015 years. But even at that total pay, it would take the typical Wal-Mart worker more than a month working every day to earn as much as Duke makes in an hour. Wal-Mart typically files its annual proxy statement at the end of April.

Again, it cannot be stressed enough this analysis doesn’t even remotely assert CEOs should be paid closer to $10 an hour. Few compensation experts or even investors would agree with that.

But investors are constantly looking for ways to put wages and pay into context – which will be especially true this year and especially in these industries. Looking at CEO pay per hour helps investors gain some perspective during proxy season when evaluating CEO’s eye-popping pay packages.

HOURLY PAY FOR CEOS AT KEY RETAILERS AND RESTAURANTS

Company	Symbol	CEO	Pay per hour (40 hrs./wk)	Pay per hour (60 hrs./wk)
Chipotle	CMG	Montgomery Moran	$13,489	$8,993
Chipotle	CMG	Steven Ells	$13,471	$8,981
Starbucks	SBUX	Howard Schultz	$10,285 *	$6,857 *
Macy’s	M	Terry Lundgren	$7,904 *	$5,269 *
Dunkin Brands	DNKN	Nigel Travis	$4,889	$3,260
YUM Brands	YUM	David Novak	$4,795	$3,196
J.C. Penney	JCP	Myron Ullman	$4,629	$3,086
Wendy’s	WEN	Emil Brolick	$3,645 *	$2,430 *
Dominos	DPZ	Patrick Doyle	$3,571	$2,381
DineEquity	DIN	Julia Stewart	$2,766 *	$1,844 *
Sears	SHLD	Edward Lampert	$2,766	$1,821
Wal-Mart	WMT	Terry Duke	$2,704	$1,803
Panera Bread	PNRA	Ronald Shaich	$1,292 *	$862 *

Sources: S&P Capital IQ, USA TODAY research, based on 40 and 60-hour workweek and 52.2 weeks per year, total reported pay from most recent proxy
* most recent proxy end date is prior to Dec. 2014
** excludes Target and McDonald’s since current CEOs have served less than a year