Cronyism Charged as Council Appoints Former Councilwoman to Planning Commission

 Councilman Priforce: Cronyism 

in Martinez Appointment 

Votes 'Predetermined' as Council Majority Seeks New 

Housing Policy Backstop 

In an unprecedented vote at the April 18th City Council meeting, the Council majority, bolstering Emeryville’s reputation as the indispensable Bay Area city for unfettered rental housing development, appointed YIMBY advocate and former Council member Dianne Martinez to the position of Planning Commissioner, an action that drew the ire of Council member Kalimah Priforce who charged the Council with “cronyism”.  The indictment rolled off the backs of the four other City Council members however and they proceeded on with the installation of Ms Martinez over Mr Priforce's objections.  

Councilman Kalimah Priforce
He says the Council vote for
Dianne Martinez was "stacked".

For the record, Ms Martinez’s cronies Mr Priforce referred to are those Council members who support her pro-housing policies that derive from the real estate developer lobbying organization YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) she forwarded on her years on the Council, especially Mayor John Bauters and Vice Mayor Courtney Welch.

The Planning Commission historically has been a faithful supporter of the Council majority’s housing  policies, however Ms Martinez was appointed by the Council to shepherd any wayward Commissioners on the pro-YIMBY track.  Mr Priforce, who interrupted the Council’s deliberations with peals of laughter at the prospect of the appointment of Ms Martinez, said his colleague’s vote for the developer friendly former Councilwoman was “stacked”.

The YIMBY organization has been active across the State, convincing municipalities to give up their independence on housing policy, but nowhere as successfully as in Emeryville whom the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed the “most YIMBY town in California”.  Critics of YIMBY, including the Tattler, have noted the organization, being a business lobbying group, has an agenda wholly based on increasing developer’s profits, not on ‘building housing’.   In fact, it has been shown that cities that follow the YIMBY path do build more housing (at the expense of other necessities) but primarily, housing of a particular type - that being luxury rental housing.  Accordingly, Emeryville, largely doing the bidding of YIMBY over the last ten years, has been transformed from a mostly home owner city into a mostly rental city, a fact Council member Priforce has been touting on the dais and in his blog.  The transformation of the city’s black and brown people from homeowners into renters has been especially pronounced, Mr Priforce has shown.  

In fact it’s not just black and brown people that have been negatively affected by the increase in rental housing over home ownership housing.  The YIMBY transformation has been stark; Emeryville now stands as the highest percentage of renters over homeowners of any city in the East Bay.  

Former Councilwoman Dianne Martinez
Appointed to Planning Commission, she
says people who want the General Plan 
followed on housing are nothing
but 'NIMBYs'. 

Mr Priforce, the lone City Council voice of independence over YIMBY,  apologized to Watergate resident Eugene Tssui, the other candidate hoping for the Planning Commission slot at the April 18th meeting.  He told Mr Tssui the Council’s decision was predetermined, the votes had “already been counted and decided” in favor of Ms Martinez he said.  He dismayed at the “cronyism all of this displays to the people of Emeryville” and the “baggage that would come to the Planning Commission as a result of this decision [to appoint Dianne Martinez]”.  

Perhaps as an attempt to draw attention away from the YIMBY connection at the Planning Commission appointment, Councilwoman Courtney Welch said she was voting for Ms Martinez not because of her housing advocacy but rather because of her gender.  Noting there’s only one woman currently on the Planning Commission, Ms Welch told the other audience, “To add to the gender balance, we should at least add one other woman”.

YIMBY’s insistance that good and affordable housing will trickle down for everybody if municipal housing policy is simply handed over to private real estate corporations is analogous to the trickle down nostrums of the Reagan era that posited the middle class would be helped if massive tax cuts were provided for the wealthy.  Then and now, the idea hinges on a 'market infallibility' fallacy.  And like the zealotry of trickle down idealism from the 80’s, government deception is required to keep the thing going.  In the case of YIMBYism, local governments are put to work to obscure the fact that real estate developers are here to maximize profits for themselves, not to provide a public good.  Thus the government, abdicating its role here and now, means only build luxury rental housing will be built.  Not only are the City Council zealots ignoring our General Plan provisions that we must increase ownership housing over rentals, they are also precluding that we could be using our clout to force these developers to provide the proper amount of park space the General Plan prescribes and other quality of life infrastructure the addition of more people in our town necessitates.  The pro-marketplace zealotry means we remove any chance to try to craft a place people want to live, all for obedience to the trickle down housing scheme.