Really Emeryville? You're Going to Permanently Close Swaths of the People's Hall to the People Because of a Guy With a Camera?
Emeryville: Imagine Democracy, Accountability
News Analysis / Opinion
A man with a camera came to peacefully, quietly and legally make a video of the publicly accessible portions of Emeryville’s City Hall. Would the public servants we hire who work at City Hall allow him unmolested, to use his camera? Or would they panic and call the men with guns to come and remove the videographer? The answer is of course, the latter as the Tattler reported back on July 28th.
Now, large portions of our previously open City Hall have been quietly closed off forever. Fully 2/3rds of the old part of Emeryville City Hall are now closed to the public indefinitely. The grand front steps and front doors of the beautiful Beaux Arts people’s hall are no longer accessible. Inside, the entire lower level, the main floor and the Council Chambers all used to be open but are all now closed to the public (the Chambers are open during meetings only).
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| This is what counts as accountability for Vice Mayor Courtney Welch A majority of City Council members refuse to be held to account: John Bauters, Courtney Welch and the newly appointed Sukhdeep Kaur. |
After several Tattler attempts, Mr Buddenhagen refused to elaborate what he meant by “security” and “Covid” as legitimate reasons to close our City Hall to us.
Before the mystifying closures, the public could walk all around the open areas of our hall as the man with the camera did. The only difference was the camera. However cameras are perfectly legal. It is legal to film in public. Somehow in Emeryville though that basic freedom we all enjoy is seen as a security risk.
We don’t get it. If a person can be in a public place, they can film in that place. The Supreme Court has been very clear on that. Cameras are not menacing and the public, especially public employees have no expectation to privacy in public. In fact, we are expressly allowed to check up on our government and our public employees. It’s the first law of the United States. But our City Manager takes a dim view of this most basic right we Americans enjoy.
And then there’s Covid. Why, we asked, when the State of California lifted the Covid emergency order did the City of Emeryville then invoke this as a reason to close our hall of government? Why did City Hall remain open for months before the man with a camera came, when the State of California still had the emergency order in place? Again, the City Manager refuses to explain.
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| Emeryville City Manager Paul Buddenhagen Men with cameras are so scary, City Hall must be closed to stop them. Lack of community access to their government is a small price to pay to stop cameras. |
Put bluntly, phony unqualified Covid and security scares are not good enough reasons to close our property off to us. This is an abuse of power. We were told our old City Hall would be open to the citizens after the City moved back to the original City Hall site in 2000. Before that, Emeryville’s City Hall unceremoniously occupied the 12th floor of a private tower at Watergate for decades. One of the worst features of the Watergate City Hall location was the not-so-subtle message of closed back room politics sent out to the citizenry. After the LaCoste corruption scandals of the 1970s and 1980s, reformist civil servants wished to highlight a new day and a new democratic vision for our town. Reopening Emeryville’s beautiful turn-of-the-century Beaux Arts City Hall was central to the new vision. So was the ample use of glass in the new addition. It was to be transparent, literally and figuratively. The grand front stairs were once again to be open to the public in a nod to the salve of democracy and openness for Emeryville. But this noble vision has now been taken from us not because of the corrupt former police chief John LaCoste but because of a guy with a camera.
In Trump’s America, there’s a paranoia that has settled in. Democracy has taken a hit. In Emeryville, too. A cult of personality has taken over the mayoralty, resulting in groupthink and homogeneity on city committees, accountability and transparency are in retreat as most City Council members now refuse to talk to the local press and now our beautiful City Hall is closed not because of security or Covid but because of a guy with a camera.
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| This is why we can't have nice things in Emeryville. |
Hey Brian,
ReplyDeleteI was able to check out the video, I can upload it if you want since it was taken down.
I do have a problem with this guy.
I'm all for transparency, but the guy is completely rude and he isn't doing the very thing he is demanding for from others - transparency.
The staff member who is asking questions of him from the beginning requests he show ID, identify his purpose for being there, and remind him that city hall is still on Covid lockdown. If this person had Covid, they couldn't even contact race because he is remaining anonymous. To me, coming from Brooklyn, it takes a special kind of cowardice to troll others yet keep yourself anonymous. This is why I don't respond to or rarely read anonymous posts.
Emeryville city hall employees, most of them unionized, have family members visiting them, loved ones, not to mention sensitive materials that can identify Emeryville residents on matters that should only be discussed in closed session with the city council, all of this while he keeps his identity unknown.
He doesn't even treat or speak to them with respect. I've checked out his instagram as well and many of the commentators are misogynistic, right wing, and conspiracy-laced. He's not even asking questions about issues important tot him on the Emeryville video, his philosophy seems to be, "I'm this obstinate White guy that can walk into any public space and film and no one can do anything about it.
I agree with Paul Buddenhagen, our City Manager, in refusing access to city hall worker spaces to guys like him. At first, I assumed it didn't need not be permanent, but after watching the video, I think it should be.
The problem with Emeryville city hall is its design flaws. It was never design to be a gathering space for the community. They never assumed that people would want to come to city hall and attend special events or meetings.
They also assigned executive-like offices spaces on one side of the catwalk and the workers on the other side. It's not an inclusively designed space. So when you have someone like BayAreaTransparency show up with a camera and thinks he can go into any space and claim 4th amendment rights, it's problematic and dangerous how much exposure our staff members are subjected to - especially when city halls and government spaces in America are being increasingly occupied by women and people of color.
At mark 7:03, he tells one staffer that she "has an attitude problem," followed by (at mark 7:35) calling her an "ignorant young kid." He does it twice.
She asked him not to disrespect her, but he doesn't apologize. Somehow this is entertaining to his fans - comedy derived from making mostly women and people of color uncomfortable, and yet he mimics African-American vernacular.
Legally, how is it not okay for anyone to enter the nation's capitol whenever they want, and yet it's okay for him to come in and make our workers uncomfortable? Would this be okay at public schools as well? His videos give me insurgency vibes.
[Part One]
having worked there several years ago and participated in the design process, work all it's constraints, designing for community access WAS included. that's what the lower front doors were for. the project issue at Old City Hall could have been fixed by adding a security feature to the bridge areas. access to the basement would need to be controlled and will be an issue because that was the employee lounge while i was there, and meetings were held there.
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ReplyDeleteFor the Emeryville video specifically, he insists that being in the lobby areas of the executive offices is his right, but then uses his videos to film inside their offices with a zoom camera. This gives me Russian espionage vibes too. Any private information he can record including the pictures of family members on employees' desks to sell off to the highest bidder.
I am actually pretty disgusted that it went that far. The staff and police should have been more defiant, but maybe that is why he took down the video, he looks like a jerk and someone probably told him that it's a bad look for him.
Emeryville staff were nice and he was a total jerk to them. If you think respecting someone's dignity should not be a factor in these interactions, it's a very privileged way to think. Including when he tried to inject himself in recording the private conversation between and officer and the city attorney.
None of it is right and I stand with the city manager in making sure city hall is not a hostile environment for our staff.
Lastly, I'll say this, because after 3/4 into the video I had to stop because my stomach was turningm there is something that Black and Brown people know intimately through our history of colonization, enslavement, and exploitation.
When White people use the law as a cover for their behavior rather than what is morally right or wrong, they are playing a rigged game, rigged for them because they made the rules that they expect everyone else to follow, but then go on to break laws any time it inconveniences him and find it entertaining.
We as people of color know it, feel it, and recognize it for what it is - unchecked White Supremacy (specifically White toxic males and their "Karen" consorts, and BIPOC accomplices) designed to do more harm than good.
-Kalimah
The man in question came into the lobby and started filming. The staff incorrectly told him he had to sign in (there’s no force of law with that. The Fourth Amendment is still extant in Emeryville). After the staff got belligerent (and rude) to him and they told him to stop filming, he became rude to them. They called the police on him. The police came and reminded the staff that it’s legal to film in public and then they allowed him to continue to film.
DeleteNo laws were broken by the man filming or not signing in or being rude (after the government officials tried to bully him). No laws were broken. Now our City Hall is closed to us. That’s the point here. Even if a rude man comes to City Hall, that should not be reason to permanently close our City Hall. There are rude people everywhere. They are called ‘the public’. Our building is open to the public. Government should not react in authoritarian manner because of rude people. Government officials should be able to handle all kinds of law abiding people in our public buildings.
This seems like a thin and convenient excuse. The phony Covid argument bolsters this. People in power always want to exert their power. Government officials in Emeryville want to close our City Hall and so that’s what’s now happened. Happy about this Emeryville citizens?
This is preposterous! Has the City government itself become a spineless fiefdom of offensiveness and fear?? A man with a camera creates havoc in the city government?? In a normal city, who cares if a man is taking pictures? Tourists take pictures every few minutes of the day! I hear of no governments that are shut-down from tourists or residents taking pictures!! Is this what our local government has become? A bailiwick of frightened, sniveling, wimps??
ReplyDeleteI saw the video. The freakout by the staff was because he was filming and he wouldn't say why. They were very uncomfortable. Of course the guy could have been more transparent and told them he's filming them because he wanted to see if they were good public employees but then that would have defeated his purpose. It was a public employee check and Emeryville public employees failed. He did a public service.
ReplyDeleteWhite males and "Karens" intentionally oppressing people of color?
ReplyDeleteCome on.
The epithet "Karen" is intentionally misogynist.
DeleteThis does look like the city is run by fearful people. What's the big deal about a guy with a camera? The cops came and lectured the city instead of arresting this guy proves how dumb Emeryville city hall is. Dumb and fearful.
ReplyDelete