Doubt Emeryville's Pro-Developer Culture?
It's in Blue Neon at 5885 Horton Street
News Analysis
This last week, Rich Robbins, the CEO of the San Rafael based Wareham Development Corporation, repaid former Emeryville City Councilwoman Nora Davis posthumously, for all the tax breaks and outright gifts of cash from the public coffers she extended to the development giant over the years with the erection of a sign proclaiming Emeryville’s popular train station henceforth be called the Nora Davis Emeryville Transit Center Station. The renaming will ripple through vacationer’s and commuter’s macrocosm as they become accustomed to the change appearing on new brochures and passenger train websites. The legendary Amtrak Zephyr will now be listed as the route from the historic Chicago Union Station to the Nora Davis Emeryville Station. Travelers on California’s iconic Capital Corridor train will board at Sacramento Valley Station and disembark at Emeryville's Nora Davis Station.
Seemingly public infrastructure, the train riding public would be surprised to know the Emeryville station is actually private property. Mr Robbins himself owns our local train station. He built it and he owns it but with a proviso that the public be allowed to use it as if it were part of the public commons. But that’s also why he gets to name the station after his favorite City Council member who ruled our town from the Council dais for 29 years before she passed away in 2020.
Councilwoman Davis was famous for her pro-developer philosophy and of all the developers she showered government largess upon, and there were many, none were sanctioned at the level of her favorite, Rich Robbins of Wareham.
The renaming of the train station by Mr Robbins comes after a push by many in the Emeryville business community to name all manner of public infrastructure after the deceased City Councilwoman for all she did for them as well. Proposals included renaming Doyle/Hollis Park as Nora Davis Park and the new bike/pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks at the Bay Street Mall as Nora Davis Bridge. Either out of ignorance or a sense of taunting (owning the libs?), the business community has never acknowledged the fact that when she was on our Council, Ms Davis actually fought against these two public infrastructure projects. The existing City Council knows Ms Davis’ record and they rebuffed the business community’s proposals. Indeed, Council member Davis made the city the current City Council is struggling to remake. Ms Davis saw Emeryville as developers at the time saw it: a low slung, low density suburban style town with lots of strip malls with baking asphalt in front, serviced by anti-bike anti-pedestrian ‘stroads’ choked with auto traffic inching towards the copious at-grade free parking. That is Nora Davis’ actual legacy.
But all that is forgotten now by Rich Robbins of Wareham who returns favors and doesn’t forget a generous friend, even in death. For us, the Nora Davis Emeryville Transit Center Station will always be there as a reminder about who the levers of power in government are supposed to be for.
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| The two most powerful people in Emeryville: Wareham CEO Rich Robbins and his friend the late Councilwoman Nora Davis |
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| Story earns one Nora smile... |
Why call it favoritism? Why not call it what it is- CORRUPTION
ReplyDeleteI'm calling it favoritism because 'corruption' caries a whiff of illegality and we've never found that in Wareham's dealings with City Hall. Favoritism is better because Wareham was placed in the first position among developers by Council member Davis. She was the queen of the Council and she clearly loved Wareham and Rich Robbins. All developers were handled with kid gloves but Wareham was in a league of their own. Wareham never needed to break the law in our town.
ReplyDeleteThe gates were opened up for them by Nora and company and they could feed freely from the public trough.
Many would be surprised to know this 'Wareham love' culture at the City Council still exists. Wait for the coming Tattler story on their next project for Emeryville, the 'Overland' project. It's another give-a-way by an enthralled City Council (even after Nora Davis has left the scene). Some habits are hard to break I guess.
Emeryville leadership is depicted as either serving the interests of business with giveaways and largesse or at the other extreme of blocking private investment and private development. Isn’t there somewhere in the middle where the city isn’t directly involved in every action
ReplyDeleteI can't remember a case where the City blocked private investment and private development (unless it was illegal) but I would love to hear about it. To answer your question though, a case of 'middle' ground as you describe, would be called "not news" and therefore not reported on by the Tattler.
DeleteI was so outraged when I saw that the station wasn't named in memory of our neighbor Doris Briggs, who devoted her last years to developing a cadre of volunteers at the Amtrak station.
ReplyDeleteDORAS BRIGGS OBITUARY
Doras Moreton Briggs
July 4, 1918 - May 4, 2015
Emeryville
Noted rail advocate Doras Moreton Briggs died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Emeryville at the age of 96. She was born in Waterloo, Iowa, to Arthur Ralph and Blanche Moreton; her family moved to California during the Great Depression. Doras attended Oakland Technical High School and UC Berkeley, where she received a degree in music in 1942. She was a chimes mistress for the campanile on the Berkeley campus for many years and played the organ for several local churches. Doras also worked at the Richmond Shipyard during World War II. From 1951 to 1978, she served as an assistant to the vice president in the University of California Office of the President, and she ultimately became assistant director for the UC Expansion Project.
Doras was passionate about politics, genealogy, and rail travel. She fully researched her family tree, and got to know dozens of family members previously unknown to her. Doras fell in love with trains on her fifth birthday, when she took her first trip from Waterloo to Cedar Falls, Iowa. She and her husband were active members of the East Bay Model Engineers Society. Once she retired, Doras devoted herself to promoting rail travel through local and national advocacy and lobbying. She served as a member of Amtrak's Customer Advisory Committee, Director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, and Director of the Train Riders Association of California, among other rail advocacy positions. She often spoke to local groups and traveled to Washington to lobby for Amtrak, and she testified before a Senate committee about the importance of Amtrak for seniors.
In 2001, at the age of 83, Doras founded the Station Host program at the Emeryville Amtrak station, training volunteers to provide information to passengers. Under her leadership, the program spread to many other California stations and has spawned similar programs in other states. She received frequent recognition for her rail advocacy, including the California Golden STAR Award, the George Falcon Golden Spike Award, and Amtrak's Champion of the Rails. In 2003, she moved from her long-time home in Kensington to an apartment overlooking the Amtrak station in Emeryville, and she continued to go to the station every morning and travel on the trains until just weeks before her death. Doras was known around Emeryville as the "train lady," and she wore her conductor's hat proudly until the end.
Yes, I agree she should have gotten the station named after her. I remember Doras fondly. She came and spoke to our South Bayfront Bike/Ped Bridge Committee about the railroad. What an asset she was for the Emeryville community! But because of blinkered politics, Doras was skipped over for this acknowledgement. Maybe someday when the Nora Davis fever ebbs in our town, Doras will be rightfully acknowledged. Thank you for the obituary and your comment.
DeleteThis is laughable at best. At least Rob has useful content on his blogs instead of a bunch of complaining you do
ReplyDeleteRob who?
DeleteSurprised Rich Robbins hasn't yet had Nora Davis exhumed and re-buried on his golf course for the tax break---like Trump with Ivana
ReplyDeleteNora herself would not be surprised at this posthumous thumping. She understood that politics is often reduced to designed to disturb patter. I hope she rests in well deserved peace.
ReplyDeleteShe was 'thumped' before she died as well. I remember the first time Nora and I had an impasse. After I supported her first election and made phone calls on her behalf during her first election campaign, I had the temerity to ask for stuff from her as our new Council member. The first thing I asked was for bike racks at the old City Hall on Powell Street. Nora said only children ride bikes (this was in the mid '80s) and that NO she wasn't going to put bike racks in. She publicly castigated me as "an idiot" for even suggesting it. It took over a year of me advocating and going door to door with hand published leaflets before Nora (and the rest of the Council minus Greg Harper who was in favor) finally had enough public embarrassment to put the bike racks in. This was her first thumping and she identified me as a political enemy from then until she died, even though I supported her first candidacy.
DeleteRemember that old saying..."ALWAYS speak ill of the dead...it's a great look for a politician."
ReplyDeleteIt hasn't seemed to hurt Democrats speaking ill of Reagan. In fact it helps the public know their values when politicians criticize former politician's public policy. Knowing where we've been is helpful to knowing where we are and where we're going. So I'm agreeing with the old saying as you put it: It IS good to criticize dead politician's policies.
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