School Board Member Christian Patz: Willing to Agitate for Emery's Students

Member Patz Tells the City Council to Hold Out For a Family Friendly project

Emery School District Not Interested in Bringing Families to Emeryville Despite Claims to the Contrary

Opinion
For years now, the Emery Unified School District has decried the existential threat posed by falling student attendance and the critical need to bring more families to town to help with that.  Followers of the District know however that this kind of talk is just so much hot air because never have any District employees or School Board members ever actually done what it takes, impolitic though it may be seen by some, to facilitate that; none have summoned the courage to appear before the City Council to challenge a non-family friendly residential development project on the docket to press the District's interests.  For more than 20 years as the Emeryville City Council continued to approve residential projects, one after another, all built to attract singles or childless couples, never once did anyone from the School District press its case for holding out for building housing for families.  Not as the Center of 'Community' Life was being planned and built, not ever.  Not until the Tuesday before last.

Emery School Board Member
Christian Patz
Courageous agitator for the
students and the District. 

The Emeryville City Council meeting that Tuesday July 21st was historic in two ways: first the City Council said NO to a developer pushing a flawed project and second a School Board member came and testified for the need to build family friendly housing and to reject a residential development proposal, the Market Place project, for not being family friendly.  The City Council as it turned out, agreed with the School Board member and rejected the project, also something that's never happened before in Emeryville.

So who is this heroic and courageous School Board member?  None other than Christian Patz...the dissenting voice on the School Board...the voice for the citizens, students and parents; the same Board member that voted NO to the disastrous hiring of the now infamous Russom Mesfun, a vote incidentally that stands now as an archetype for political courage at the Emery School Board analogous to Senator Barack Obama's 2003's vote, so deeply unpopular at the time, against the Bush invasion of Iraq.

We applaud Mr Patz for his principled stand at the dais before the City Council on the 21st but we are chagrined it's taken this long for anyone from this District to have the cajones to get involved, for this is how democracy works and how change can happen. And so with a School District filled with administrators and politicians making political calculations all while the District fails for lack of revenue increased attendance would alleviate,  we are relieved finally someone has shown he will put his ass on the line and speak out for the students even though it may embarrass some entrenched aging politicians.

Emery School Superintendent John Rubio
Not willing to stand up for family friendly housing to
help the schools.  Not courageous. 

Emery School Board President
John Affeldt
Like the Superintendent, not courageous...
another 'C' word comes to mind:
rhymes with 'showered'.

To School Superintendent John Rubio and School Board president John Affeldt, both of whom have never had the temerity to so challenge the City Council in the District's interest, we say you two have just been humiliated.  Your colleague Christian Patz, the same one you routinely vote down 4-1 when important decisions come before the Board, has shown us all what principled courage looks like...done at your expense (even though he didn't intend for that to be the case probably).  Because where were you on the 21st when it was time to testify for family friendly housing?  We've heard your oft repeated but empty family friendly rhetoric, why though we ask, have you never followed through?
We're sad it's newsworthy when an Emery School Board member gets up before the City Council and tells it like it is because that's what's in the student's and the District's best interests.  This should happen every time a residential project appears before the City Council, not once in...well, once ever.

Emeryville's Redtail Hawks' Terrible Demise

From the Golden Gate Audubon Society:

Redtail nest saga in an Emeryville park By GGAS on Jul 19, 2015 06:00 pm By Mary Malec This is a story where everyone does everything right… almost. Six or seven years ago I was driving up my street returning home from work and looked up to see a male Red-tailed Hawk flying toward me, rodent in its talon. I pulled over in time to watch it rise up into a grove of eucalyptus and land on the rim of a nest. The female on the nest stood up stiffly, roused, took the rodent, and flew off to a nearby tree. The male looked down into the nest then snuggled down with a tell-tale egg wiggle. That nest has been successful most years since, fledging one to three young each year. The nest tree is in a pocket park in Oakland on the Emeryville border. Emeryville maintains the park. Three years ago, a friend sent me a link to a notice on the Facebook page ofRaptors are the Solution asking for help from anyone who could attend an Emeryville City Council meeting. The City was scheduled to approve cutting all the trees in the pocket park to make room for a playground directly under the tree where the hawk nested. A biologist had surveyed the area and found no environmental reason not to cut the trees. Somehow he or she had missed the large nest and the limbs covered with hawk droppings. Two redtail nestlings and mother in nest in 2011 / Photo by Mary Malec A fledgling in 2012 / Photo by Mary Malec I spent an hour that afternoon selecting and printing and labeling photos I’d taken over the previous several years of the nest, the adults, and each of the nestlings. I put them into a packet and went to the city council meeting. There I was joined by many neighbors of the park, some there to plead for the redtails’ nest tree and others to ask for other changes in the park plans. Some were there to ask that all the eucalyptus be cut to prevent future limb fall, especially in the area where the playground was to be located. The City Council listened to the public, looked at my photos, and changed their plans. The trees were severely trimmed and some were stabilized mechanically. Other trees were added to the park so that even if the eucalyptus are cut, there will eventually be mature trees to provide a home for wildlife and a buffer between the park and neighboring houses. A wise decision by the city! Two weeks ago, I was at the park early in the morning and saw a tree care crew starting work on routine trimming. They had their wood chippers running and were grinding up limbs they had collected from the ground. But one of this year’s redtail nestlings was still in the nest. The other had fledged the night before and was standing unsteadily in one of the trees slated for trimming. One of this year’s redtail fledglings, eating a gosling / Photo by Mary Malec Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk on a neighbor’s fence in 2012 / Photo by Mary Malec I walked over to talk to the crew. They called the supervisor over and I showed him the hawk nest with the baby standing on the nest rim. I showed him the fledgling. He said very little but walked around to look at the trees. I checked back in with the crew an hour later. The supervisor had left to go look at other jobs so they could re-schedule the work. The crew finished grinding the downed tree limbs and packed up to go to other jobs — leaving the hawk fledglings alone. I emailed the supervisor for Emeryville’s maintenance crew to let him know that it would be safe to resume tree work in a few weeks. I asked him to thank the supervisor of the tree trimming crew. The company that was so responsive to the needs of the hawks is West Coast Arborists, which handles tree-trimming for local governments. Red-tailed Hawk mother / Photo by Mary Malec When I wrote this blog post, I framed it as a story where – for once – everyone does everything right. Thoughtful city officials, nature-loving residents, a responsible tree care company…. I’m so grateful to live in an area where there can be a balanced and reasoned response to the needs of the public and to the needs of wildlife. Yet shortly after I finished the story, there was a less happy epilogue. Two weeks after the babies fledged and seemed to be doing well, I got a call from a neighbor about a juvenile hawk sitting on the ground near the children’s playground.  She was picked up and taken to Lindsay Wildlife Center, where she was found to be emaciated and severely dehydrated.  Her blood was the color of pink lemonade.  Lab tests showed her organs were shutting down.  Although she was not necropsied, the conclusion was that she had been exposed to chemical poisoning, probably rodenticides. I was devastated by the death of this baby I’d watched for several months, and the shaky future of the adults that have been my neighbors for so many years. We will be posting flyers from Raptors Are The Solution informing neighbors that there are nesting raptors in the park, and explaining the dangers of rat poison for raptors as well as for pets and children. We lost a juvenile this year, but it is critical to protect the adults’ safety for future breeding years. Building on the good will shown to these red tails around tree trimming, I hope we can protect them from rodenticides too. ——————————- Mary Malec is starting her 11th year as a volunteer with Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, counting and identifying migrating raptors. She has monitored raptor nests in the Bay Area for nine years.

Emeryville's Poet Laureate, Now in Richmond, Excoriates Emeryville's Lack of Housing Affordability

Sarah Kobrinsky
Emeryille's Poet Laureate
Formerly of Emeryville
Artists and others not in the
Information Technology field
increasingly are being
priced out of Emeryville.

Emeryville's poet laureate, Sarah Kobrinsky, chased out of town by rising rents, has moved to Richmond  where she has successfully appealed to the city council in her new hometown to institute rent control.  This week Ms Kobrinsky, increasingly drawn as a bellwether and who's plight has come to be seen as emblematic of all that is wrong with Emeryville and its lack of affordable housing policy, joined with her new neighbors in the grassroots push to avoid the Emeryvilleazation of their town.

"Overnight our stability was taken out from under us," Ms Kobrinsky told the Richmond city council of her time in  Emeryville, "I urge you to do the right thing and protect the people of Richmond."

From the San Jose Mercury News:

Richmond becomes first city in Contra Costa to approve rent control

By Karina Ioffee

kioffee@bayareanewsgroup.com

POSTED:   07/22/2015 01:32:51 AM 

RICHMOND -- In a raucous meeting that lasted more than six hours and drew hundreds of people, the Richmond City Council has passed rent control, making Richmond the first city in Contra Costa to enact such an ordinance.

The meeting, which was filled to standing room capacity, was the culmination of nearly six months of discussion about how to best protect low-income residents from displacement. Rents have increased by an estimated 30 percent over the past four years, although housing prices are still much lower than in many surrounding cities.

 Read the rest of the story HERE.

Breaking News: City Council Says NO to Market Place Development

Tuesday July 21st 2015, a red letter date in Emeryville history: tonight the City Council in a 3-2 vote said NO to the Development Agreement for the proposed Market Place development on Shellmound Street; the first time in at least 35 years the City Council has said no to a developer promoting a project.  The historic vote came down with the old guard (Davis, Atkin) standing against the new progressive majority (Asher, Donahue, Martinez) who cited a lack of public benefit as the reason for their vote.  The historic NO vote does not constitute a rejection of the project it should be noted, rather a rejection of the specific Development Agreement for the Market Place project, a controlling suite of development conditions, findings and parameters that can be re-drawn, presumably making the project more palatable to the Council majority.  It is not clear at this moment how the project will move forward and the developers hurriedly left the Council chambers refusing to comment to the Tattler.
Look to the Tattler to report on developing news as a result of tonight's astounding turn of events.

Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance Makes "Best New Law" List

From the East Bay Express "Best of the East Bay" series:

BEST OF THE EAST BAY 2015

Best New Law 

Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance

On June 2, tiny Emeryville did a very big thing by raising its minimum wage for all workers to $16 by 2019. Emeryville's minimum wage law is the most ambitious and equitable of any municipal minimum wage yet passed in the United States. And unlike a lot of cities where political leaders failed to act, year after year, forcing voters to demand a minimum wage increase through the initiative process (e.g. Oakland), Emeryville drafted and passed its minimum wage through a city council ordinance. The courage of the Emeryville city council to take on the issue and push for a truly living wage benefited everyone and resulted in a much smarter measure than what most cities have passed. The law distinguishes between large and small firms, immediately lifting pay at big companies to $14.44, and for small companies to $12.25. These two wage schedules converge on $16 an hour by 2019 for all employees, and the wage is linked to the Consumer Price Index, so its value keeps up with inflation. Hopefully other cities take note of Emeryville's leadership and catch up.

Public Interest Not on Display in Market Place Development Agreement

To the Emeryville City Council:

Let's Welcome the Market Place Project But 

Only If It Doesn't Make Our Town Worse

Opinion
The Tattler has much reported and opined on problems with the incipient Market Place residential development in anticipation (and dread) of the 456 unit all rental apartment project on Shellmound Street getting its approval.  That approval is scheduled for Tuesday night in the City Council chambers and there's much there in the developers' interests, but not a lot for the residents.   We hope the City Council will vote in the resident's interests and we only request they keep any pro-development bias out of the process.  We ask that they recognize this development will add a lot of traffic to our town and a lot of other negative impacts associated with high density projects like this one and we ask the developers not be allowed to degrade and erode what livability we have here now in Emeryville.

Public Interest: The Coin of the Realm
Development Agreements are arcane final planning documents that are supposed to forward projects that comport with the existing General Plan and are in the public interest exclusively.  The interests of developers are not supposed to be taken into account.  Historically, the staff at City Hall has played fast and loose with that basic idea.  The current Market Place Development Agreement the staff is presenting to the Council Tuesday makes no attempt to qualify or even mention much that the public would say is in their interest.
We say this Development Agreement is not in the public interest as it is currently written and we ask the following be quantified before we allow this project to move forward:

1. We have a ratio of park land acreage per resident in Emeryville now and we ask these developers not make that ratio worse in the aggregate for Emeryville with their proposed project.
2. We have a ratio of numbers of families per number of housing units in Emeryville now and we ask the developers not make that worse.
3. We have a ratio of number of affordable units per resident in Emeryville now and we ask the developers not make that worse.
4. We have a ratio of square footage of locally serving non formula retail per resident in Emeryville now and we ask these developers not make that worse.

Additionally, this agreement doesn't contain a labor agreement or specially allow for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA); two important public interest provisions.

A NO Vote is a YES for Renegotiation
The people of Emeryville voted in November for a change in how this town gets developed even if the staff didn't seem to get that memo.  A NO vote Tuesday, while historic, wouldn't really be a radical thing.  A NO vote on Tuesday is not a NO to the Market Place development.  It's a NO to this specific Development Agreement (a document more reflective of Emeryville's past values).  The four points above are eminently reasonable things.  It's entirely reasonable to demand developers not make our town demonstrably worse.  They don't even necessarily have to improve our town with this project (although that would be nice), we just don't want the developers for this and all future projects to be allowed to leave our town worse off after they collect their profits and bug out.
A NO vote Tuesday also sends a powerful message to all the other developers lining up, wanting to make a killing here: You're welcome here but you're not going to leave our town worse off after you're finished.
To the Council: Let's hold out for a better agreement, shall we?

Letter to the Tattler: Jess Dervin-Ackerman

The following letter was received from Emeryville resident Jess Dervin-Ackerman:

Dear Emeryville Tattler,

I know most folks have heard about the dangers of oil trains rolling through our town, but now there is a proposal to bring huge amounts of another dirty fossil fuel through Emeryville by rail.

The developer of the former Oakland Army Base is currently pursuing a plan to receive, and then export, up to nine million tons of coal per year. If Oakland allows the developer to move forward with this plan, it would mean long, dusty coal trains through our communities and compromising health, worker safety, and climate security.

This could bring up to 12 mile-long trains full of toxic coal through Emeryville each week on the journey from the mines in Utah to the export terminal located just south of the Bay Bridge toll plaza. On the journey from the mine to the export terminal, these mile long uncovered coal trains spew off thousands of pounds of coal dust into the communities along the rail lines. Toxic coal dust is linked to decreased lung capacity, increased childhood bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, emphysema, and heart disease. For Emeryville and other communities along the I-80 corridor, adding more toxic particulate matter to the air would mean more trips to the hospital, more kids with asthma, and shorter lifespans for too many people. Port workers will also be hurt by this proposal; individuals who have prolonged exposure to coal at the export facility would suffer an even greater health risk.

In addition to local health and safety impacts, this proposal takes us backwards in our decades of leadership on environmental stewardship and climate action. California has worked hard to be coal-free — but while the Governor and state legislature are setting aggressive carbon-reduction targets, this terminal would allow the most carbon-polluting fuel to be brought to market, with devastating consequences. From extraction to transport to burning for fuel, coal leeches toxic chemicals into communities and the environment causing climate disruption and deadly diseases. Don’t let Big Coal exploit the Bay Area's economy, health, and environment.

Oakland City Council has the power to stop this proposal to bring dangerous fossil fuels through the East Bay. Join us in fighting this disastrous plan by signing this petition and rallying against coal exports in front of Oakland City Hall at 5pm on Tuesday, July 21st.

Jess Dervin-Ackerman lives on Park Ave in Emeryville is a supporter of Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE) and is the Conservation Manager for the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter

'Market Place' Developers Overturn Hard Fought Family Friendly Housing Policy

'Family Friendly' OUT,

Say Hello Instead to"Family Flexible" Housing

Developers Eviscerate New Guidelines 

Empty Euphemism Replaces Real Policy

The developers of Emeryville's largest residential development to be built in years, the 'Market Place' project on Shellmound Street, are requesting the City Council give final approval for their 456 unit all rental proposal Tuesday night but they're asking that the Council ignore Emeryville's new family friendly housing guidelines, protections the Council itself enacted recently to correct a chronic lack of suitable housing for families in town.  Instead the developers, City Center Realty Partners and Avalon Bay Communities Inc, are pushing something for their project they call "family flexible" design; a dramatically weakened version of the Council approved 'Family Friendly Design Guidelines', that critics say will result in precisely the kind of housing the City's new guidelines are meant to stop; namely apartment units taken up by students with roommates in place of families.
It's a critical distinction; the "family flexible" Market Place project in fact removes the most salient and essential protections of the Family Friendly Guidelines; the single master bedroom requirement, and separation of sleeping areas from living areas, rendering the Market Place proposal as essentially not different from any other Emeryville residential project built over the years that has failed to attract families.

Roommate Problem
The developers for their part insist their "family flexibility", that being the regular two and three bedroom apartments in the project's mix without any restrictions, is sufficient enough to do the job.

Mark Stephan
City Center Realty's
point man for the 
Market Place development.
"Family flexible" units are good.
It's got the word 'family' and 'flexible'
...that's good, right?...as opposed to rigid.

However if history is to be a judge, families won't move in to those units; instead the more likely outcome will be students and others will rent out the units and take on roommates for the extra bedrooms.  This is in fact what has happened with other apartment buildings built with multiple bedrooms over the years in Emeryville before the Family Friendly Design Guidelines were crafted.  The 'roommate problem' is exasperated by this "family flexible" every-bedroom-is-a-master-bedroom provision and is the primary reason the City wrote the new Guidelines.

Anti-Family Emeryville
Compared with all our neighboring cities, Emeryville is a city without families.  This is known by census information.  Formerly ignored by City Hall, appreciating Emeryville's lack of family friendly housing reached a nadir after passage of 2010's Measure J, the $95 million public school bond and its built in existential need to increase student enrollment at the new school.  Soon after, City Hall's come-to-Jesus moment came as a result of the civic embarrassment accompanying a paper released by the University of California's Goldman School of Public Policy.  The Goldman study found a primary reason for Emeryville's remarkable childless population was the family inappropriate housing stock; virtually all the new housing built is for singles or couples.  Families have been left out of the mix.  So even though the rhetoric at City Hall has been pro-family, the housing policy has not been supportive of that cause and the housing as built has stubbornly remained anti-family.
The Goldman report noted when developers had been convinced to provide some two and three bedroom units in their projects, instead of attracting families, they were generally rented out by college students.

$18,000 Family Housing Study
Last November's election brought a new pro-family City Council majority and earlier this year, the Council commissioned a six month policy study to ameliorate this lack of family housing.  The council spent $18,000 on consultants and lots of paid staff time on the study and the resultant policy is now official, encoded as the Family Friendly Design Guidelines.

Meet Emeryville's newest neighbors!
Build "family flexible" units and they will come.

Central to the new Guidelines are three provisions the Market Place's 'family flexible' designation overturns (J-53 through J-55 in the 'unit design'); among them the every-bedroom-is-a-master-bedroom, and a prohibition against bedrooms opening directly onto common living spaces.  Perhaps tellingly, the Market Place developer's "family flexible" designation removes what the consultants said are the most essential ingredients for attracting families.

Tuesday night the developers of the Market Place project will attempt to convince the new Council majority all their work and money invested in attempting to attract families to Emeryville has been wasted and public policy is best left up to developers who know what's best.  The developers of the Market Place, who did not return calls from the Tattler,  will try to tell the Council their "family flexible" idea is great for attracting families.  Perhaps the developers won't reveal that it just so happens they can maximize profits with the "family flexible" idea over the more regulatory and onerous Family Friendly Guidelines.
Will the new progressive majority of the Emeryville City Council hold?  Before the sun rises Wednesday morning in Emeryville, we'll know if the first stand of the new Family Friendly Design Guidelines was also its last stand.

RULE Meeting

Residents United For A Livable Emeryville

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

Our next meeting will be:
Saturday, July 18 

Doyle St. CoHousing, 5514 Doyle St., 1st floor common room

New interested people especially welcome.  

Stay tuned for the agenda. Hope to see you there!

Bring breakfast snacks....coffee and tea provided

Judy Timmel, 510-601-6521

What's Next? A 'Regional Approach' on Composting Fees?

Composting Services For Businesses Are Free in Emeryville 

Must Fees Now be Imposed

to Meet Oakland?

Opinion
The San Francisco Chronicle reports Oakland has almost doubled their fees on restaurants for composting in a piece printed today, recalling a recent meme forwarded by pro-business forces in Emeryville that business fees mandated by local cities should be done only as a part of a 'regional approach'  rather than in a unilateral move like this.  The notion that a city might act unilaterally imposing business fees is a bete noir for the right wing opinion blog the E'Ville Eye and much ink has been dedicated to foreclosing on Emeryville raising its minimum wage in that blog, owing to the need for the regional approach, an idea the blog presents as an inherent good.

Now Oakland takes unilateral action with the compost fee increase, drawing Emeryville's Farley's Cafe owner Chris Hillyard into the fray.  Mr Hillyard, who owns cafes in Oakland, San Francisco and in Emeryville told Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson,  "What’s so stunning about Oakland’s deal with Waste Management is that few, if any, cities pay anything close to the rates Oakland commercial customers are paying".  Mr Johnson goes on, "Hillyard confirmed that he pays $77 a month in San Francisco and receives free services in Emeryville, but the monthly bill for compost services at his Oakland store is around $500.  “In Emeryville and San Francisco, both cities provide a diversion discount,” Hillyard said. “Instead of throwing stuff in the landfill, you’re given a credit on your bill for recycling and composting in both cities.”

Emeryville it would seem is the place for small business...especially restaurants.

Are customers going to abandon Oakland restaurants now and run for Emeryville because of the low composting fees?  That's what the E'ville Eye would have us believe if they're planning on presenting a consistent argument.  Oakland taxpayers presumably are tired of absorbing these costs that arguably should be borne by the private businesses and so they're now going to see these businesses flee to Emeryville or go bankrupt if the E'Ville Eye is correct.

The shoe is on the other foot with Oakland acting on its own and Emeryville standing by on the sidelines...the opposite of what happened during Emeryville's minimum wage debate.  Is the E'Ville Eye now going to start railing for a regional approach for composting fees as they did for the minimum wage increase?  Are they going to demand Emeryville slavishly raise their fees to match Oakland to accommodate this meme of theirs?  Or will the pro-business E'Ville Eye now see the silly procrustean nature of their previous hamstringing argument?

The San Francisco Chronicle article may be read HERE.

Pixar/Disney Cannot Countenance Epic California Drought

The same crew that lawyered up, threatening the City Council to keep its tax rate lower than anyone else in town via Emeryville's infamous business tax cap, the same ones who pay Emeryville a whopping $8000 per year in taxes and turned off the philanthropy spigot at the School District, now turns on a different kind of spigot...Introducing the lush and verdant acreage of Pixar/Disney's  beautiful Emeryville oasis of a campus, kept that way by torrents of our Sierra Nevada snowmelt.
If the rest of us can't have anything green, it's heartening to know at least the billionaire corporate class among us can pretend California is Kentucky.  While we can't stroll on this luxurious emerald carpet in our town, we, the great unwashed (literally and figuratively), can peer through the fence and thorn bushes on Park Avenue and get a peek.  Pixar/Disney; corporate bad citizens creators of fantasy, living in fantasy.
To everybody else, remember: if it's yellow, let it mellow and no showers longer than three minutes (wet, shut off, lather, rinse...catch spare drops in buckets on shower floor).


Picture taken yesterday at the Pixar campus on Park Avenue:

Pixar/Disney's World

Our World

New Concept: Emeryville Doesn't Have to Get Worse Over Time

The 'Big Three':

Let Real Negotiations Begin 

Emeryville Can Get Better Over Time

News Analysis/Opinion
The Tattler has devoted much space to document how, in the last 25 years, Emeryville has remade itself.  It's morphed to its current state from a town of condos on the western waterfront and modest working class detached single family residences on the east side with the great middle comprised mostly of abandoned factories and empty warehouses, relics from a time when America made things.  Now Emeryville's become a place for business with large regional strip malls and lots of expensive drive-in drive-out luxury apartment buildings.  The density of our town has risen greatly but Emeryville has thus far been largely unsuccessful in delivering the good things that higher density  usually promises such as parks and other civic amenities, all the while getting the bad things higher densities bring; notably worse traffic.

The town we've made has been without central planning...it's been instead built by developers, done they way they've wanted it.  In fact, every single large building project on a specific parcel of land that's been proposed by developers in our town over the last 25 years has been OK'ed by the City Council.  A developer has never been turned down by the Council.  The success rate up 'til now has been 100% for developers in Emeryville.
However the City Council is there to negotiate on the resident's behalf.  The Council is supposed to extract concessions from the developers.  They're supposed to 'sell' our town at the market rate, not cheaper than what the market will bare.  In that equation, the residents have batted zero.  In 25 years, not one developer has walked away dejected.

We're Getting 100%, Should Be 75%
The developers themselves are aware of their incredible fortune of having this little city right in the middle of the most desirable real estate in the US, and how the local City Hall is ready to do their bidding.  That's how Emeryville has gotten its reputation for arguably being the most pro-business town in the Bay Area.  The developers are aware of how lucky they've been up 'til now...they're aware more than anyone about how contracting is really supposed to work, aware of the adage that in contracting, you're supposed to lose 25% of your bids.  If you're awarded every bid, then you're bidding too low.  These developers know Emeryville has been bidding too low.  Emeryville should be losing about 25% of every development project proposal owing to the hard bargaining that's supposed to be happening from the City Council.

This has been the culture at Emeryville City Hall up 'til now and it's how we've made a city so lacking in amenities for residents.  In the wake of the historic City Council elections last November, progressives seizing the majority, change now becomes possible.  It becomes possible the City Council may hold out for a better project than what a specific developer might propose, raising the possibility a developer might walk away without a project in Emeryville.  If ever there were hope for change in the course of Emeryville's dramatic twenty five year redevelopment, one has to think now is that time.

The Big Three
As we move forward now with developing the last three large parcels of Emeryville land, we're hoping the change residents voted for will be manifest.  The last 'Big Three'; the Market Place development, the Sherwin Williams development and the Anton (Nady) development will add hugely to the traffic of Emeryville and in a story June 23rd, the Tattler has shown how they will not improve our town in terms of park land.  The Big Three will actually make the town worse off in terms of people per acre of green space.
The Big Three will also be lacking in terms of providing locally serving retail residents want, the developers offering no guarantees for this rather only vague claims of delivering this kind of retail.  Those claims ring hollow without written guarantees because we've heard these promises from developers many times before in Emeryville.
Lack of affordability, lack of family friendly design and lack of ownership units all bring negative impacts for our town.  The Big Three represent our last chance to get it right and they are going to have to make up for a lot of the negative impacts the previous development has wrought.

Over the last 25 years, the City Council has kept capitulating to developers, what amounts to waiving a white flag to them.  The idea, unspoken, is Emeryville is really no good and we're in no position to bargain with developers. The mantra has been any project is better than no project.  And while it is a subversion of civic duty to capitulate like this, there has been a rational argument presented by the Council: these projects will bring us tax receipts.  Never mind that Emeryville's improved tax base has not delivered us the public amenities described above, it should be noted this argument falls on its face when considering residential or mostly residential projects like the Big Three.  Emeryville, or most any other city for that matter, doesn't profit from housing development.  Residents actually use more in services than what they pay in (this is especially true of more expensive housing).
So the Big Three should not be OK'ed using the prior metrics....clearly, the new City Council needs to drive a harder bargain with these three developers.

New Concept: Emeryville Doesn't Have to Get Worse Over Time
The old unspoken but realized adage that Emeryville must get worse over time is now long in the tooth.  We're proposing a new concept: Emeryville gets better over time.  As new development get approved, our town gets demonstrably better in the aggregate.  We're talking actually better with the negative impacts clearly over run by the positive effects of the civic amenities the Big Three deliver.  So that means the Big Three must take the whole town in a positive direction; they deliver park land per acre of resident MORE than what Emeryville has now, they INCREASE the existing Emeryville average of affordable spaces per capita, they INCREASE the whole town square footage per resident of locally serving non formula retail, they bring more families to Emeryville at a rate HIGHER than the town has now on a per resident basis, and they deliver ownership units at a HIGHER rate than the city's average.

No Project is Better Than a Flawed Project
Failure to achieve these goals for the Big Three means the last chance to get it right in Emeryville will have been squandered.  The City Council is free to negotiate with these developers to get funds to realize the required amenities off site from these projects, but there must be a clear link and ultimately, the amenities must be delivered in a timely manner.
The Council too, must be prepared to say NO to any of these developers because our new adage must be 'no project is better than a flawed project'.  By flawed, we mean one that takes us backwards in one of the key amenity areas outlined above.  We must remember what a NO vote by the Council on one these Big Three projects means; it means Emeryville stays as it is...it means Emeryville doesn't get worse, it's a vote of no change.  Traffic doesn't get much worse.  That's a perfectly fine vote.  We can wait for a better developer to make a proposal.  There's no emergency, it doesn't have to be developed NOW regardless what the developer might be saying.

To the City Council: It's Perfectly Legal to Vote NO
The developers of the Big Three will likely threaten to sue our city if the City Council ultimately votes NO to their projects.  This is to be expected.  But our City Council majority must remember, the State grants them the right to vote on these projects.  Inherent in that franchise is the right to vote NO.  The Emeryville City Council is legally entitled to vote NO to these projects even if it means saying NO to a billionaire.  There are certain things the Council must not say during the deliberative entitlement process for fear of unnecessarily bringing a lawsuit it's true, but ultimately voting NO isn't one of them.  We have every right and expectation that our independent City Council not be kowtowed with threats of legal action from developers.  We ask the staff: show us were it says the City Council must vote YES on the 'Development Agreement' for any of these projects.  Were that the case, there would be no vote at all, the project would simply be approved by right, bypassing the City Council.
We also recognize the lobbying City Council is going to get from interested residents with real estate material gains in the mix.  We realize these residents, who own real property nearby the Big Three stand to financially gain from a project being built owing to increased real estate values.   We know those among them who want short term financial benefit, will urge a YES vote.  To that we remind the Council their duty is not to prop up the fortunes of specific real estate investors who might also be residents but instead to build a livable city for the ages.  We aren't here to boost the fortunes of house flippers.

The first project under the scrutiny of the new progressive City Council majority is the Market Place development, coming soon.  The Council will be asked by staff to vote YES on the Development Agreement for the entire project.  Unless there's been real negotiations with regard to resident amenities that takes our town forward in terms of livability, we say NO.  It's a new day in Emeryville and we're not going to let the last undeveloped bits of our town contribute to the real problems here.  It's our last chance to get it right and we're perfectly positioned to use our clout and our legal entitlement to announce to these developers seeking to maximize their profits at our expense, we've finally arrived and we're no longer getting worse over time, instead we're getting better.

New Minimum Wage Law Takes Effect Today

Today, Emeryville's historic 'Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Ordinance' takes effect, raising the economic prospects of and dignity for the working poor in our city.  The new law guarantees all workers in Emeryville at least $12.25 per hour ($14.44 for workers at businesses with more than 55 employees) plus paid sick days.  Additionally, the new law provides that employers who tack on service charges to customers must pay this additional money to the employees.  Lastly, the law guards employees against retaliation from employers.  The City is ready to enforce the new law with a new enforcement officer, Molly Hogan at (510) 596-4316.  Punishment against employers who disregard the new law will be in the form of fines, meant to exceed the amount not paid to each employee.  Enforcement will be complaint driven.  Emeryville workers who aren't paid at least the minimum wage are encouraged to fill out a complaint form (linked below), provisions are available for anonymity for those employees wishing it.

Emeryville businesses must pay their employees the new minimum wage starting today.

Below is text taken from the City's website outlining the new law (the City's full website page is HERE).  

MINIMUM WAGE AND PAID SICK LEAVE ORDINANCE 

The Emeryville City Council adopted an ordinance on Tuesday, June 2, 2015 that will provide for a higher citywide minimum wage and additional paid sick leave provisions than required by the State of California. The new law goes into effect July 2, 2015.

There are three key provisions of the new law:

1) Minimum Wage Increase

A Small Business is one with 55 or fewer employees working within the geographic boundaries of the City of Emeryville. A Large Business is one with 56 or more employees working within the geographic boundaries of Emeryville.

For Small Businesses, the minimum wage rate will be $12.25 per hour effective July 2, 2015. Large Businesses will provide a minimum wage of $14.44 per hour effective on July 2, 2015. These rates will increase annually with Large Business minimum wage rates adjusting annually for inflation every July 1 based on the annual increase in the local consumer price index (CPI). Small Business minimum wage rates will increase in increments until 2019, at which point the Small Business minimum wage rate will match the Large Business minimum wage rate and both will be increased every July 1 by the local CPI. 

2) Paid Sick Leave

On July 1, 2015, AB 1522 will go into effect requiring that all employers in the State of California provide Paid Sick Leave to both full-time and part-time Employees, accrued at the rate of one hour Paid Sick Leave for every 30 hours worked. The City’s ordinance includes additional Paid Sick Leave benefits beyond the State requirements. Emeryville’s ordinance requires Paid Sick Leave for full-time, part-time and temporary Employees and includes the following:

• Maximum of 48 Paid Sick Leave hours accruable for Employees of small businesses (55 or fewer Employees within Emeryville city limits) and 72 hours for Employees of Large Businesses (56 or more within Emeryville city limits).
• In each year of employment, an Employee may use up to the total number of Paid Sick Leave hours accrued, subject to the maximum number of accruable Paid Sick Leave hours, as described above.
• AB 1522 allows an Employee to use Paid Sick Leave to provide care for a family member. The Emeryville ordinance broadens the definition of “family member” to include a designated individual (if Employee has no spouse or registered domestic partner) for whom an Employee can use Paid Sick Leave to provide care. In addition, the Employee may use Paid Sick Leave to provide care for a guide dog, signal dog, or service dog of the Employee, Employee’s family member, or the person designated by the Employee.

3) Hospitality Service Charges

Emeryville’s new ordinance also requires that Hospitality Employers who collect service charges from customers must pay the entirety of those charges to the Hospitality Workers who performed those services for which the charge was collected. Examples of activities that could fall under a “service charge” are: delivering food or beverage to a hotel room, catering duties at banquets, or carrying luggage to room for hotel guests.

No Retaliation

Employers are prohibited from discharging, reducing compensation or otherwise discriminating against any person who makes a complaint under the ordinance.

The full ordinance text can be found here.

Map of geographic boundaries of the City of Emeryville

RESOURCES FOR EMPLOYERS 
This information will assist Employers with compliance under the Emeryville Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Ordinance.

Resource List for Business Owners

Mandatory Bulletins (paper size 11” x17”):

• Minimum Wage and Sick Leave Poster:
  • English | Chinese | Farsi | Spanish
• Service Charge Poster:
  • English | Chinese | Farsi | Spanish

Posters must be displayed where they can be read easily by all Employees. Violators are subject to penalties.

Official Notices (paper size 8.5” x11”):

• Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave
  • Small Business English | Chinese | Farsi | Spanish
  • Large Business English | Chinese | Farsi | Spanish
• Service Charge: English | Chinese | Farsi | Spanish 

Official Notices must be provided to all current Employees by July 2, 2015. Employees hired after July 2, 2015 must be provided the Official notices upon hire.

The poster(s) and official notices are required to be provided in all languages spoken by 10% or more of the workplace’s Employees. If an Employer needs the notices translated into other languages please contact City staff below. You may reproduce the poster and notices as required by your needs, and they need not be reproduced in color.

RESOURCES FOR EMPLOYEES

If you believe that your Employer is not paying you the required minimum wage, not providing Paid Sick Leave, or otherwise violating the Emeryville Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Ordinance, please complete a Claim Declaration form.

Claim Declaration Form English

You may submit the form to the City in one of three ways:

1. Via mail to: Economic Development and Housing Division
   Community Development Department
   1333 Park Avenue
   Emeryville, CA 94608
2. In person at the City of Emeryville City Hall at the address above during regular business hours which are Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm, excluding City holidays.
3. Via email to minwage@emeryville.org.

Overview Presentation

UPCOMING PUBLIC INFORMATION SESSION!

• July 11, 2015, Saturday 10am-11:30am

Both events held in City Council Chamber Room on the 2nd floor of City Hall located at 1333 Park Avenue, Emeryville, CA 94608. In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a person requiring an accommodation, auxiliary aid or professional language interpreter service to participate in this event should contact Serenity Mlay at (510)450-7801 or by email: smlay@emeryville.org as far in advance as possible, but no later than 72 hours before the scheduled event.

See fliers for event here: English | Spanish

CONTACT US

If you have any further questions or require assistance please call (510) 596-4316 or email
minwage@emeryville.org