Emeryville is One of the Last Cities to Open Up Public Meetings to In-Person

Emeryville Vies With Oakland to be Last in Democracy

Both Cities are the Last Holdouts for Public Meetings

Opinion/News Analysis

As the Covid pandemic settles down into epidemic status, cities across the Bay Area are opening their city council meetings back up for full public in-person participation.  It’s a flowering of democracy after the long dark night.   However, two cities continue to be closed; Emeryville and Oakland.  They're the last holdouts.  

For months now, the State of California has allowed cities their discretion for opening the people’s city halls to the people and Emeryville’s neighbors (save Oakland) have done that.  

The following neighboring cities have completely opened up for full democracy:

• Berkeley
• Hayward 
• Piedmont 
• Orinda
• Walnut Creek 
• El Cerrito

The following cities are now in the process of opening back up:

• Lafayette 
• Alameda

The following cities are closed indefinitely:

• Oakland
• Emeryville 

During the pandemic, cities used Zoom to try to facilitate the people being able to still participate in their government but online access was shown to be a pale and anemic simulacrum of democracy.  Whole classes of people, including the elderly and the poor were shut out.  Anytime entire classes of people are (effectively) barred, it cannot be described as democratic.  And that holds true for Emeryville today.  Emeryville has not had democracy since March 19th 2020.

Hayward City Hall
Enlightened
Poor people and even elderly people can come here
and freely speak out about government policies.

So why does our city council not want to open City Hall back up for full throated democracy?  They are invoking the fear of Covid.  Does that mean our city council thinks neighboring city councils are reckless for opening up?  Does the Emeryville city council think the Berkeley city council is negligent and imprudent?  Do they think the city council of Hayward is foolhardy and thoughtless?  Is the Walnut Creek city council brash and audacious? Or maybe it’s the Emeryville city council.  Maybe the Emeryville city council is just more comfortable keeping meetings closed.

The public is messy, loud and opinionated.  They have strong opinions and they don’t mind telling their local government about it.  The elderly and the poor too.  Sometimes they’re not happy with policies coming out of City Hall.  If they could be silenced, the meetings would be so much more comfortable for the city council.  Who wants to be yelled at and berated? 

The public speaking freely can be messy.
The establishment authority sometimes
doesn't like it so much.

But the Emeryville city council and the staff are paid to take the public being unhappy with them.  It’s supposed to be part of the job.  This city council likes to attack public commenters who are critical.  When they attack public commenters, they show us they don’t accept the compact with the public that government employees are required to accept.  Is this anti-democratic culture at Emeryville City Hall affecting the city council’s decision to keep public meetings closed?  Or is it that they simply want to protect us from disease as they say (and Berkeley doesn't)?  

We’re keeping tabs on this and it doesn't look good for Emeryville.  Right now it’s the City of Oakland and the City of Emeryville neck and neck in last place for democracy.  Oakland?   Really, Emeryville?  Someone should tell Emeryville that Oakland is a low bar.  

Is Emeryville going to wait until the State of California finally forces them to open up their meetings for democracy?  Only our city council, the same city council that publicly attacks dissenters that have the audacity of speaking out in full throated democratic fashion, knows for sure.

Elderly people commonly have a tough time with these 
computer contraptions.  Maybe it's easier to just forget about 
speaking out at the online city council meeting.  Judge Judy beckons
and she's on at the same time as the city council meetings.

 

Delinquent Filing By Affordable Housing Beneficiary Threw Off Emeryville Investigators

Missed Arias Filing Deadlines With State 

Threw Emeryville Investigators Off Trail 

Proper Filings Would Have Shown Emeryville Housing Investigators "Hyper Local" Rob Arias Actually Lives in Far Off Pleasant Hill 

Opinion/News Analysis

Rob Arias
Defrauded Emeryville's
Affordable Housing Program. 
His Pleasant Hill address was not
filed until after he was caught.

Rob Arias, the editor of the Emeryville centric news blog the E’Ville Eye, received a notice of delinquency from the California Secretary of State warning if he didn’t file his required biannual Statement of Information for his business, after fining him, the State would shut down his company and seize the name.  Mr Arias had become delinquent in 2019, the same time he and his wife bought a home in the Contra Costa County village of Pleasant Hill according to publicly accessible documents at the Secretary of State’s office and the Contra Costa County Assesor’s office.  This information reveals a fast and loose handling of required filings by Mr Arias that could have been part of an attempt to hide damning evidence from investigators for the City of Emeryville’s Below Market Rate affordable housing program Mr Arias was later found to have defrauded.  Beneficiaries of the BMR program as Mr Arias was, are required to live in their units.
 

The documents Mr Arias filed with California's Secretary of State showed his last place of business was on Park Avenue in Emeryville in 2017.  But then he failed to file for his business in 2019, as was required.  Instead Mr Arias waited until after City investigators discovered he had defrauded Emeryville’s BMR housing program in June 2021 (because didn’t live in Emeryville anymore). Then in September of 2021, after the City moved in on him, effectuating a forced sale of his unit, and two years overdue with the State, Rob finally brought his business filings into good standing with Sacramento, his address now shown as Pleasant Hill California.  

Mr Arias was able to stall and ride out threats from Sacramento for more than two years until he finally sold his Emeryville BMR unit, thereby keeping his Pleasant Hill address hidden from Emeryville housing investigators.  Thus, Rob never had to lie to the California Secretary of State, an organization with an impressive legal department and a potent police force, the state Board of Equalization, that is feared by cheats up and down the state. 

E'Ville Eye Address is Now Pleasant Hill
P'Hill Eye?
Rob's Pleasant Hill business statement filed  
with the State of California.  Before this
he was delinquent with the state for two years
while the City of Emeryville investigated him.
Seeking to prove Arias lived in Pleasant Hill,
the City was thrown off because there was no business
document linking him to his Pleasant Hill address.
Rob still keeps an Emeryville PO box,
probably to continue some scam.

Of note is the fact that these Secretary of State public documents record the applicant’s place of business and so the two years Mr Arias was in violation with the State are the same two years that he now claims he was still living and doing business in Emeryville.  Apparent to everyone now, Rob was living in Pleasant Hill in 2019 and if this business filing gap was indeed an attempt to hide from the City of Emeryville’s BMR program, it is pretty glaring.  The City took ownership of Rob’s unit after he finally admitted he was not living in Emeryville and they have since sold the unit to a needy party as the BMR program dictates.

Rob went missing from Emeryville in 2019 when he didn’t tell his former neighbors on Park Avenue he and his wife had bought their new $630,000 (now valued at $974,000) home in Pleasant Hill.  Several Park Avenue neighbors report in May of 2019, they suddenly stopped seeing Rob on his daily dog walking rounds or at any local businesses he formally had frequented or indeed anywhere in town.  Rob, for what it is worth, is still telling his E’Ville Eye readers he moved out of Emeryville in 2021 for some reason known only to Rob.  He left our city, but he didn't want to leave a bunch of money on the table here.  He had built up a pretty good business here with its corporate paymasters made up of appreciative businesses in Emeryville.

He Likes to Tell Us How To Vote In Our Elections

So what are we to make of the far flung suburban dwelling Rob Arias who in addition to lying about his place of residence, is fond of telling us how to vote in our town?  Rob quit Emeryville, yes, but he hasn’t quit our body politic or the money he draws from his heavily monetized, corporate underwritten “hyper local” news blog.  He vacated Emeryville without telling anyone, moving 30 miles east, to the other side of the hills, to a cul-de-sac adjacent to a golf course in a leafy suburban village teeming with Republicans while defrauding the City by continuing to hold his government subsidized affordable condo unit in Emeryville, over time netting impressive real estate value gains.

Another Scam
Rob's Next Door Emeryville Page
He's still a 'Lead' (moderator) at the site where 
Emeryville residency is required.

Rob dropped hints about his plans back in 2019.  He penned a diatribe addressed to the City Council on May 6th 2019 wherein he told them “This city is not worthy of my efforts”.  Two days later, he and his wife closed escrow on their home on the shady cul-de-sac with the Kentucky bluegrass front lawn adjacent to the Contra Costa Country Club.  But he’s still going to tell us how to vote in our elections here in Emeryville because he knows what’s best for us presumably.

Next Door Scam

Meanwhile, Mr Arias is continuing on with another fraud here in our town.  He is a moderator at the website Next Door Emeryville, where he recently blasted Mayor John Bauters for not being a member there, presumably because this pet site of his would benefit from the gravitas of Emeryville’s mayor being a member among other reasons.  Rob wants to engage Emeryville voters in the negative and often hate-filled space on Next Door where as moderator, he can manipulate the conversation.  He has been publicly critical of Mayor Bauters’ Twitter account where Mr Bauters has more than 23,000 followers and where the conversation about Emeryville is informative and elevated and where Rob can’t direct the narrative.

The Contra Costa County Country Club
Typical fairway scene located next to Rob's Pleasant Hill home.

Over at Next Door Emeryville Rob likes to advertise the E’Ville Eye and (to leverage his moderator status) to remove people he doesn’t like who actually do live in Emeryville. The corporate policy at Next Door incidentally states moderators and members are required to live in the cities where the site operates.  Members of Next Door Emeryville MUST live in Emeryville.  Rob has gotten past that, presumably, by lying to Next Door corporate about his place of residence.

Out-of-Towners Want to Make Money Off Emeryville

Rob Arias continues to crow about Emeryville but we shouldn’t listen to somebody that lives in suburbia about how to fashion our city.  We should make our city the way WE want, not according to the dictates of out-of-town interlopers, be they wealthy developers with an eye towards pulling profits out of our city or Rob Arias for the same reasons.  We have a suggestion for Rob: start an actual hyper-local news blog in the town you really live in; you can call it The Pleasant Hill Town Crier or the P'Hill Eye. 

As election season approaches this summer with two City Council seats to be decided by the people of Emeryville, we should tune out this guy that has tuned us out.  He has no interest in how our city evolves except for how he can bump up his personal bank account.  He doesn’t care about Emeryville and we shouldn’t care about him or the didactic political prognostications he has for us.

Rob Arias Country