Maurice Kaufman 'Resigns'

Nora Davis' Star Begins to Set

Two Down, Two More To Go

News Analysis/Opinion
Long time Emeryville Public Works Director, Maurice Kaufman surprised many in town Monday when he announced he intends to quit effective in May, giving no reasons other than his desire for a new direction in his life.  This resignation of a department head at City Hall leaves speculation open that the major change in elected public officials in Emeryville last November, the election of three new progressive Council members, is the driving force behind this major shake up.  Given the particulars, we can say with few reservations that Mr Kaufman, hired by and the champion of former Councilwoman Nora Davis, was likely forced out.  This being a personnel matter and therefore not subject to public scrutiny, it’s all tight lips among the Council members and City Manager.  But to this consequential change we say: it’s about time and don’t let the door hit you on the way out Maurice. 
 Some were surprised as noted but not us; a severely out of balance polity can only continue to exist for so long before one way or another a correction is bound to take place. What is surprising is why it took so long to push Maurice along towards the exit.  

Primarily a traffic engineer, Maurice Kaufman had his time here but now he’s a dinosaur, a left over relict from the Nora Davis years when developers (and the cars they bring to a community) were king.  We remember when Maurice told us he's fine with traffic calming for bike safety as long as it doesn't impede car traffic.

Traffic Engineers Like Efficiency
Maurice Kaufman likes cars moving quickly
and efficiently.

 
Mr Kaufman was selected by Ms Davis to support her pro-business/developer philosophy, a role he performed quite well over the years.  It’s just that the people of Emeryville finally decided they’d had enough of that and they ‘voted with their votes’ for a change.  So slowly (very slowly) now the staff at City Hall is starting to finally show signs that the will of the people is being placated. With the head of Public Works gone it’s two down, two more to go on that account. 

Keeping on Nora Davis’ staff at City Hall with the new City Council was/is a piece of regrettable Californication in Emeryville.  A little have a nice day, we could never do anything so harsh as to fire somebody flawed public policy.  And the City Council continues to leave the remaining Nora Davis selected department heads on at their continuing peril.  For surely as night follows day, the will of the Council has been and will continue to be subverted by such a staff.  Want evidence of that? 
Here’s a little taste down through the years of Maurice Kaufman, Nora Davis’ favored City Hall staff manager (partial list): 

• - In 2015, Maurice attempting to stop traffic calming on 45th Street, lied to the new City Manager about our Bike Plan’s requirements to deal with excess car traffic there. A Tattler Public Records Request proved it with a damning document. 
• - The Programs Director of Bike East Bay, formerly known as the East Bay Bike Coalition, the Bay Area’s premier bicycling advocacy group, wrote a letter condemning Maurice for harming the cause of safe bicycling. 
• - Maurice helped draft the Environmental Impact Statement for the Sherwin Williams Project that killed the Horton Street Bike Boulevard. He helped write the Statement of Overriding Considerations that made it official. 
• - Maurice waived fines for developer Pulte Homes who illegally cut down 20 street trees. No reason was given for the pass given to the developer. 
• - Maurice, always hostile to traffic calming for bikes, showed that he doesn’t even understand the idea behind traffic calming when he worked against the Horton Street Bike Boulevard. 
• -Maurice was aware a bike boulevard had too much traffic on it to satisfy the Bike Plan but he didn't inform the City Council, purposely keeping the elected officials in the dark.
• - Maurice paid a contractor the final payment for an unusable bike path, leaving the City with no recourse to fixing it. 
• - Maurice allowed a developer to trash our newly made basket weave brick sidewalks on San Pablo Avenue. Again the final payment was presented to the developer leaving the City with no recourse. 
• - Public Works took years to replace burnt out light bulbs for a crosswalk at Anna Yates Elementary School. 

Imagine if there were ever another Democratic President elected in Washington (that would mean Donald Trump decided to allow it, admittedly a stretch)...now imagine if she decided to leave in place Trump's staff and cabinet and tried to govern.  That's what's been going on in Emeryville.  Elections as they say are supposed to have consequences.  
To the City Council: We're finished with Council member Nora Davis...she had her 30 year run and now it's time to move on.  Insofar as you gave Maurice Kaufman the heave ho last Monday, let's keep that momentum going.

So long Maurice Kaufman. We wish you all the best and no hard feelings… it’s just your time has passed in Emeryville.  Next!

E'Ville Eye Editor Rob Arias Throws Another E'Vile Temper Tantrum

We Must Fight Blight!* Says Rob Arias

*Homeless People

Opinion
Rob Arias, editor of the right wing pro-business blog the E'Ville Eye; a guy who always has a disparaging word for the working poor in our midst and who can always be counted on to crank up the hyperbolic invective against his favorite punching bag, homeless people, made quite a spectacle at the April 18th City Council meeting, even by his own pugnacious standards.  Down slammed the box filled with drug paraphernalia in theatrical fashion while he proceeded on with his infantile rage, voice cracking, about how the City Council is not doing it's job.  And by that Rob means they're not clearing away homeless people (from Oakland near Emeryville's border).

Rob's increasingly aggressive behavior against homeless people now finds obtuse expression in his attempt to highjack the City's Capital Improvement Program (CIP) to spend Emeryville taxpayer money on.... a dog park in Oakland.  Wait...what?

I am here to distract you.

Emeryville's right wing found themselves without a mooring after the Chamber of Commerce collapsed a couple of years ago and Rob, ever the entrepreneur, saw a niche to re-fix the pastiche of Emeryville's right wing around his new blog and make money while he's at it.  The demise of the Chamber of Commerce wasn't a random thing.  Rather it happened as a result of our citizenry's increasing expectation that their institutions should reflect their values. That left a small but angry base of right wing support for Rob's project.
Besides making money, Rob has used his blog for attacks on labor and homeless people.  He seems to hold a special kind of hatred for homeless people, seeing them as a problem best solved by clearance sweeps.  We remember Rob inveighing against 'those people' using Joseph Emery Park as "targeting" of the park.  Rob demanded the Emeryville police make sweeps of homeless people out of West Oakland at a Public Safety Committee meeting; they are drifting into his neighborhood he told the committee.  He's going to be a father he said and this will not stand he warned them.  Homeless people should not be seen by children...think of the children, he says in an attempt to shame the City to go all extra-legal on 'em.

After he was told Emeryville is not going to use its police to clear homeless people out of West Oakland near his residence, Rob came up with another idea: let's create a buffer at the border in the form of a dog park under the 40th Street Bridge he started calling the Halleck Beach Dog Park.  He used his blog to gather his minions and ultimately they descended on City Hall to berate and hector City Councilman John Bauters at an informal meeting the Councilman called to address the issue.  After explaining in his lawyerly way, the myriad problems with Emeryville locating a municipal park in Oakland, not the least of which is the large and ongoing expense that would be incurred, Mr Bauters skillfully separated the crowd away from the red herring of the dog park and exposed their true desires; they want to keep homeless people out of Emeryville, the dog park is just a means to that end even if some of them like dogs.

Councilman Bauters' blog and his (rather wonky) story on the Halleck Beach Dog Park may be viewed HERE.

The Halleck Beach Dog Park
Clean, no blight.

Never mind the use of a sociopathic overlay while formulating public policy and its attending problem of Constitutional prohibitions, we're not going to use our local government to adapt Rob's new word for homeless people unveiled at the John Bauters meeting, 'blight', nor sign on to do to them as the old Redevelopment Agency did to blight in a more decorous and genteel era when the word was merely used to describe decrepit buildings, not people.
Adding to the current state of callous narcissism emanating out of Washington and taking over the polity, Rob Arias is our own little local installment in this growing culture of cruelty sweeping the nation.


Like all (privileged) children who disparage authority not doing their bidding, Rob cries 'it's not fair' to the City Council...'you should be pushing MY agenda...clearing away homeless people and protecting my real estate investment.'  Many techie newcomers to Emeryville, those for whom we have built housing here exclusively over the last twenty years, obviously agree with Rob.  These are his readers.  They are concerned, besides wanting to know about the latest ramen shop and crime blotter (with its Black suspects), many of them attended the meeting about the dog park.  They scolded Councilman Bauters; Rob's right, Emeryville should remain "clean", no blight here they insisted.  That's Rob's community.

Like so many others on the right wing, Rob co-opts the language of the left; he calls himself a "community activist" and he is an activist (for his specific community) although not one normally associated with that title.  What Rob has done for community activism, he's also done for blight.  Community activism now includes reverse Robin Hood policies and blight now includes poor people (that need to be cleared out) in Rob Arias' Emeryville.

Superintendent's Role in Emery's Rolling Teacher Retention Crisis Revealed

John Rubio On The Defense

Problem Worse Than Initially Reported

37% of Teaching Staff Leaves

Rubio Fiddles

Emery Unified School District's Superintendent John Rubio is facing charges of gross incompetency after it has been revealed he made an executive decision to spend just 1% of parcel tax proceeds out of $2.5 million on retaining teachers that has exacerbated a rolling crisis; teachers quitting Emery en masse. That and the fact he has made work life intolerable for many of the 53 teachers hired by Emery according to teachers themselves.

The regularly scheduled Emery School Board April 12th meeting brought a dramatic public showdown as Emeryville's Mayor led parents and teachers in demanding account from district Superintendent John Rubio for an ongoing and unprecedented exodus of teachers over the last year regardless of the glut of cash received from the taxpayers to stop it.  Mayor Scott Donahue, responding to a Tattler story March 18th and a follow up story March 22nd, requested the Superintendent account for public tax proceeds spent specifically to retain teachers at the troubled district and to get to the bottom of a culture that has manifest a leadership vacuum resulting in 20 teachers leaving in the last year alone (the number may actually be 21, we're still waiting for confirmation from an uncooperative School District).

Candid or truthful answers were not forthcoming from the Superintendent, leading the Board to call for revisiting the issue at a later meeting.  This despite Mr Rubio’s attempt to put the brakes on citizens such as the Mayor (who had made the request for the issue to be on the Board meeting agenda for the April 12th meeting) from making agenda item requests in the future in a proposed bylaws amendment.  The bylaw amendment idea was also shelved by the Board but not before Board member Barbara Inch quoted from Sacramento mandated education code that specifically empowers private citizens the ability to place legitimate school related issues on school board agendas.

$20,000 out of $2.5 million 

spent on teacher retention 

net a loss of 37% of the 

entire teaching staff.

Despite Emery’s abysmal record on teacher retention, by far the worst of any school district in the entire Bay Area, Mr Rubio gave the Board a glowing presentation of his work retaining teachers that inextricably highlighted “improvements” in the number of teachers rushing for the exits this year over last year.  It was a claim refuted by current City Council member and former School Board Trustee Christian Patz, who attended the meeting and noted this year’s teacher retention will not be substantially known until late May, when school districts all over the State view teacher resumes for hiring in the fall.  Added to that and rounding out the final numbers would be Emery teachers vacating after that, up until the end of the year.
Mr Rubio noted “only seven" teachers had left since January 1st, a number he used to show an improvement over last year however Mr Patz told the Board that at this point last year, also about seven teachers had had separated from the District (and that number subsequently rose to 20 by year's end).  The Tattler checked Mr Patz's claim and based on Board minutes, found the number the same; seven teachers had left by this time last year (see chart at below).

When it comes to job satisfaction, Emery teachers are voting with their feet. The numbers are disturbing.  The 20 certified teachers who quit last year, including the five who left mid year, represents a loss of some 37%, far worse than Oakland Unified School District who lost 7% of their teaching staff during the same period.  The next worse district in the East Bay Area is Berkeley Unified who lost 2% of their teachers.  The other districts large and small around the Bay Area all hover around 1.5% teacher loss.

These numbers are likely attenuated by the money spent by the District on retention as determined by the Superintendent.  Of more than $2.5 million taken in last year from Measure K, the parcel tax Emeryville voters passed in 2014, records show only 2% was spent on teacher recruitment and retention, about $41,000.  Ostensibly, only about $20,000 was spent on retention exclusively, a number that dovetailed with the Superintendent’s testimony that teacher retention, feeble by any standards included, “dinners with the Superintendent” and free refreshments served during professional development seminars.  The "signing bonuses" the Superintendent claimed were paid by Measure K parcel taxes last year and count as teacher retention actually came from outside donations specifically earmarked for that purpose; another point corrected by Councilman Patz from the floor.

Notably, Board President Donn Merriam so far is sticking up for Mr Rubio; he voted YES to renew the Superintendent’s contract when it came up for review last December against the admonitions from then School Board member Patz.  It should be noted Mr Merriam, who refused to comment to the Tattler for this story, was aware of the rolling crisis of teacher retention at the time.  The Tattler endorsed Mr Merriam when he first sought election to the Board in 2014.
The Tattler noted in a story in 2014 about Measure K that promoters had refused to quantify how teacher retention would be supported by the ballot measure, but ultimately ended up endorsing it.

Teacher retention is commonly cited as one of the twin poles parents and educators use as a barometer to determine a school district’s function. The other most commonly used metric, test scores, continues to be a stubborn and intractable problem for Emery.

Teacher retention

A summary of departures:

All Certificated	24
Administrators	2
AYE	18
ESS	2
Total Teachers	20
Other Certificated	3
Mid Year	5

Below is a record of Certificated and Administrators staff that separated from Emery USD from Jan 2016 to Jan 2017.  This material is part of Emery USDs public record listed on each Agenda under 'closed session' with a link to actions taken.  AYE refers to Anna Yates Elementary School and ESS is Emery Secondary School (the High School).

Board Meeting Date	School	Effective
1-13-16	AYE	1/15/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/17/16
3-9-16	AYE	3/2/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	Admin	6/30/16
3-23-16	AYE	6/30/16
4-27-16	AYE	6/30/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	Counselor	6/17/16
5-25-16	Speech	8/10/16
5-25-16	Nurse	8/10/16
6-8-16	AYE	8/10/16
6-8-16	AYE	8/16/16
6-22-16	AYE	8/10/16
8-10-16	Admin	7/7/16
8-10-16	AYE	7/19/16
8-24-16	ESS	8/10/16
10-12-16	AYE	9/9/16
1-11-17	AYE	18/28/16
1-11-17	AYE	12/16/16
1-25-17	ESS	1-25-17

Taxpayer Funded Measure A (&K) Expenditures
Note: Measure A is slated to sunset and will be subsequently replaced with Measure K,
passed in 2014 and due to sunset after 20 years.  Both parcel tax measures tax at the
same rate. Emeryville residents are very supportive of their public schools.