Emeryville's Stingy Business Sector
Emery Schools Left in the Cold
Tightfisted Businesses Extract From Community,
Don't Support the Community
Don't Support the Community
Wareham One Bright Spot
Emeryville’s growing business sector, an economic engine that funds City Hall with a workforce that more than doubles the town’s population each work day, is nonetheless extremely stingy when it comes time to help fund Emery’s schools according to a document recently released by Emery Unified School District. The document, obtained by a Tattler public records request reveals that only one business, Wareham Development, donated anything beyond a pittance to the schools during the last three years.
Despite occasional claims to the contrary, corporate philanthropy to Emery schools has been anemic over the three years we checked; the top ten major corporate employers in Emeryville were all shown to have given the schools nothing or almost nothing.
 |
| Sad that Pixar is so miserly. And Grifols...and Leapfrog...and the Oaks Club...and Peet's Coffee... |
Major corporations in town have long made public claims of support for Emery schools but only Wareham and Mr Robbins have followed though, the document shows.
Perhaps the other corporate actors in our town meant they support the idea of supporting the schools. Or they support the schools in spirit...like saying the word support is itself support...like 'I support the troops'.
A District spokesperson has noted in addition to the large donations from Wareham, some small non-monetary donations have come in from some businesses during the three years.
Also of particular note is the penurious parsimony of Pixar, a Disney subsidiary that has earned $11 billion for its parent company, itself a nine billion dollar a year corporate entity with a youth oriented focus. Pixar has led all Emeryville penny pinching corporations in cupidity by offering virtually no support at all to the schools or the community. Other than in 2004 when it needed Emeryville voters to support a major campus expansion and when it stated categorically it would be a continuing major benefactor for Emery schools, Pixar has never felt any need to share its good fortune with the education of the children of our community who pay to watch its films. Pixar supports the troops and maybe they'll offer Emery schools their thoughts and prayers.
| Emeryville's Biggest Employers | Number of Employees | 2014-2017 Donations to Emery Schools (10K or greater value) |
| Pixar |
1155
|
0
|
| Grifols |
544
|
0
|
| AC Transit |
511
|
0
|
| Oaks Card Club |
430
|
0
|
| Clif Bar |
397
|
0
|
| LeapFrog |
373
|
0
|
| IKEA |
348
|
0
|
| AAA of Northern CA,NV,UT |
300
|
0
|
| Novartis |
280
|
0
|
| Peet’s Coffee & Tea |
258
|
0
|
| Fiscal Year | Donor | Amount |
| 14-‘15 | Wareham Development |
$25,000.00
|
| 15-‘16 | Wareham Development |
$10,000.00
|
| 16-‘17 | Nancy & Rich Robbins |
$15,000.00
|
Grossly Overstated: Emeryville's former City Manager goes to bat for Pixar in 2004 with effusive public testimony as the citizens prepare to vote on Measures T&U; permission for a major corporate campus expansion. They will be a "major benefactor to the schools" the City Manager said of Pixar.
After years of trashing the school district, now you expect the business community to give them extra money? Maybe they're not giving because of what you told them about the district.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question: Yes, I expect them to give a small percentage of their profits to the local school district. Even more so for a district that is struggling and failing to properly educate the children.
DeleteGreat having Brian as our permanent gadfly. However, he omitted showing how much the first ten named businesses did contribute,albeit under $10,000
ReplyDeleteThe school district didn’t tell me info on the small donors but I do know a few Pixar employees helped with planting the garden at the ECCL one afternoon last year. That counts as a donation it’s true…a small one. I’ve heard that at least one other corporation made some small non-monetary contribution. That’s all I’ve heard. I could do another public records request and try to get info on all donations over $100 in value. But warning; the EUSD really takes its time answering PRR’s. They commonly violate the law by taking so long. This info I got for the story took more than a month, and they legally only have 10 days to respond. They wrote a threatening letter from their attorney before they finally complied. But I tell you what Joe, I’ll go ahead and do another PRR on your behalf. I’ll report back when I hear back from them.
DeleteOur school district could maybe solicit donations more actively. I searched their website for "donation" to no avail, while school districts across the Bay Area, including` Oakland, make it easy to give money: https://www.ousd.org/domain/3241
ReplyDeleteBusinesses like Safeway have regular programs to give back to their communities. In fact, Pixar's donation policy specifically mentions schools: https://www.pixar.com/company-faqs/#company-faqs-1
Maybe the EUSD or a volunteer group supporting it needs to try a little harder.
True, we could all do more...give more of our own limited take home pay...or maybe the CEO of Pixar (and the rest of them) should just open their checkbooks and write a damn check. The miserliness of the Emeryville corporate community is disgusting.
DeleteA few years back, Clif bar sent hundreds of employees to Emery high for an entire day to paint, landscape and do other maintenance. That’s certainly a substantial cost and highlights the fact that some of these organizations are doing things that don’t show up in the monetary donations data.
ReplyDeleteThere have been some corporations that have given to the schools in the years before the three year period the document highlights. Back in 2004, when Pixar needed the citizens of Emeryville to approve the controversial major campus expansion that involved the City giving them two entire streets (Emery and Watts streets), their corporate philanthropy towards Emeryville's schools was made known to everybody. They endowed the schools over $100,000.
DeleteBay Street Mall developer Madison Marquette gave $50,000 to Emeryville's schools in 2009 when they needed the Council to OK the exclusive right to negotiate (ERN) for the "Site B" mall expansion on some fallow ground to the north of the mall. The ERN agreement between City Hall and Madison Marquette would lock out any other developer from making proposals for the site. After the City Council granted the ERN, Madison Marquette, with its portfolio of 23 million square feet of prime retail real estate holdings, severely curtailed spending on Emeryville schools.
This is usually how it goes with corporate philanthropy in Emeryville; they see it as a means to an end. Once the period of corporate exposure and need for public beneficence is over, the spigot is turned off.
Probably the donation you reference from Clif Bar was either right before or right after when they had an ask of the City. I will check into your claim and report back on it. Thanks for the tip.
I agree it's concerning how little these big corporations give to our schools and I thank you for bringing this to light but I wonder why you pick on Pixar so much. The other companies are just as bad or maybe even worse. Everybody needs to get on this and tell these big corporations we expect better of them.
ReplyDeletePixar:
Delete-Emeryville's biggest employer (by far)
-Takes up almost 10% of our land mass
-Received more City Hall give-a-ways than any other business
-Pays almost nothing in taxes to Emeryville
-Donates almost nothing to Emery schools
-Has walled itself off from our community
-Is a children centered company that forwards social justice (on film)
I don't know anything about financial donations, but Pixar sent dedicated volunteers for the 15 years I was teaching at Anna Yates. I had two volunteers in particular, Kurt and Gregg, who came for an hour a week for ten years each. They were marvelous and really impacted my students' academic growth. Pixar also sent about 25 volunteers weekly to do reading buddies with the 2nd/3rd grade. That also went on for about 15 years.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Pixar has hired some pretty community minded employees. Good on those employees. That’s score one for Pixar workers but still zero for Pixar corporate.
DeleteEliminate the Chamber, completely tune out the voice of business and misuse local funds pushing an anti-business, socialistic Green Party agenda and wonder why businesses don’t all of a sudden want to be generous? What you reap, you sow.
ReplyDeleteA socialistic Green Party agenda? From your lips to God’s ears.
DeleteRegarding the rest of your commentary; “eliminate the Chamber [of Commerce]”…they eliminated themselves. “Misuse local funds”…really? Do tell- any findings of misuse will net a Tattler story…please inform. But your most bizarre comment is the thing about businesses “all of a sudden” not wanting to be generous…when were they generous? Again, please inform and you’ll get a Tattler story. I’ll be waiting for your reply but I’m thinking your comments are likely not much more than Trumpian style bloviating. Prove me wrong.
let us not forget the emery ed fund and it's director, eugenia bowman, quietly terminated and the 501 (c) (3) shut down.
ReplyDeleteYes, the former entity charged with tapping the corporate sector for Emery, the Emery Education Fund (EEF) left everyone with a lot of unanswered questions.
DeleteShirley you are misled. I, Eugenia Bowman, was not terminated. That is in fact disparaging, and slander, and I suggest you do not post such hearsay on public media. I resigned to create a new and effective model for poverty intervention, received my MS in Health Policy and Law to help equip me and am working on a neighborhood by neighborhood systems change model for Oakland. I will thank you to delete your comment and set the record straight.
Delete