City of Emeryville Retaliates Against Tattler

City Hall Removes Tattler Bulletin Board in an Act of Apparent Retaliation

Community Services Director Can't Elucidate City's Policy on Removal

Acting on a complaint from a single person, the City of Emeryville has removed a bulletin board adjacent to a public sidewalk placed by the Tattler for the dissemination of information in the public interest.  Lasting barely two weeks at the corner of Horton and Sherwin street, the Community Bulletin Board was removed despite a plethora of other encroachments into the public easement throughout the city that have received public complaint yet remain standing.  

Community Services Director
Pedro Jimenez
He is responsible for encroachments 
on Emeryville property but he
can't or won't explain how he decides
who is golden and who is an outcast. 
Who's encroachment gets to stay
and who's gets removed.

Pressed for clarity on the law in this matter, the City of Emeryville has so far refused to explain the process for how private encroachments into public space can be removed, leaving the City exposed to credible charges of retaliation against those in disfavor at City Hall.

Favoritism

Director of Community Services and Assistant City Manager Pedro Jimenez told the Tattler the Community Bulletin Board, that extended seven inches into the public easement, was not placed there with permission and that it had received a citizen complaint.  Those two metrics are all it took for the City to remove it, he said and that’s what the Public Works Department promptly did.  However Mr Jimenez refused to elaborate on how numerous other privately owned things installed on Emeryville public property without permission, including two so called ‘little libraries’ and at least one other community bulletin board, have been able to remain despite citizen complaints.  Notable is the fact that two former City Council members have installed their personal property in the public easement without permission and the City has allowed them to stand.  Nonetheless, Mr Jimenez is adamant the law in Emeryville on this is not arbitrary or capricious and there's no culture of favoritism helping popular people nor one of retaliation against unpopular people, including the Tattler, a well known and long standing critic of City Hall.

Retaliation

The Former Community Bulletin Board
It stood seven inches into the public
easement but after it received a citizen
complaint from a Tattler hater,
it was removed in three days.

The City of Emeryville received a complaint against the Tattler's Community Bulletin Board and within three business days the Public Works Department had removed it.  That's very quick public service considering how long they take to fill potholes dangerous to bikes.  Some could argue that the three day rapid response is indicative of a City Hall that is not appreciative of the Emeryville Tattler and all its stories exposing the dysfunction at City Hall, especially when it is compared with the six weeks the City has so far taken (and still not removed), the public encroachments elsewhere in the City that have received complaints.  The asymmetry of response reveals an Emeryville City Hall that feels it is OK to retaliate against critics.

Explaining that the public, including critics of City Hall, “should be treated fairly and equitably”, Pedro Jimenez failed to explain the discrepancies between the Community Bulletin Board encroachment done by the Tattler and the other encroachments done by other people including former City Council members.  He said the City only needs two conditions be met to remove a private encroachment on the City’s property: if it was placed without permission and if the City received a complaint about it.  But when he was reminded of all the other private encroachments throughout Emeryville that have met those two criteria, Mr Jimenez said the City will “look into them”.  That was six weeks ago.  Questioned repeatedly, he refused to say what other metrics would be considered as the City ‘looks into it’.  This is a violation of the government’s requirement to treat everyone equally under the law and the City of Emeryville is thus found lacking.

A Different Community 
Bulletin Board
In the Triangle neighborhood, it stands
11 inches into the public easement but
despite citizen complaint, it gets
to stay.  The City won't say why.

The City of Emeryville made a choice to remove the Tattler Community Bulletin Board three days after receiving the citizen complaint.  There is no law stating it had to be removed using complaints or whatever metrics the City claims to be powerless against.  One only needs to note the other encroachments throughout the city to see proof of that.  We’re not sure why the City of Emeryville, who is on record claiming to desire sidewalk vitality and public engagement would be so quick to remove something that brought that to the neighborhood other than the obvious.  

The opposite of people engaging in the public commons is them cocooning in their homes, not using the sidewalks, not being active in their government, not being democratically engaged.  Community bulletin boards help make the public commons more vital and active and help engage people into the community; all things Emeryville City Hall and the City Council claim to want.    They could have allowed the Community Bulletin Board to stay but other unacknowledged forces were in play.  This is obviously simple retaliation against a free press that delivers the truth to the people of Emeryville, thirteen years running….a truth that our local government is sometimes not as good as they say they are.  

The Community Bulletin Board is censored and removed but the Tattler won’t be.

Emeryville Planning Director and former City
Councilwoman Dianne Martinez, without permission, 
put this private encroachment on public
property and the City has received citizen
complaint against it.  It gets to stay says Pedro.

Former City Councilman Scott Donahue 
placed this encroachment into City property without
permission.  It attracts graffiti, extends 14 inches into
the public easement, received citizen complaint against
it and it also gets to stay.

After 23 Years, Emeryville's Consequential Community Development Director Retires

 

Retirement Journal:

Like What You See in Emeryville? Thank Charlie Bryant

Don't Like What You See?  Thank Charlie Bryant 

News Analysis

Lavishing praise on the outgoing Emeryville Community Development Director, Mayor John Bauters Tuesday night presented a plaque of appreciation to the retiring 23 year civil servant, Charlie Bryant, honoring his "service to the people of Emeryville".  Invoking the consequential nature of Mr Bryant’s tenure here as “the conductor of the orchestra” at City Hall, Mayor Bauters wished Charlie well on behalf of a grateful city noting he could make a “great history book of the city”.  

Mr Bauters' gushing commendation for Mr Bryant was not surprising given his vision of private development and the government's role that has dovetailed so well with that of several iterations of City Council majorities

Emeryville's Community Development Director
Charlie Bryant
2000 - 2023
He brought us what we see in Emeryville,
for better or worse.
August 31st, he's outta here.

.

Charlie’s vision for Emeryville did represent a change towards accommodating real estate developers using the language of inclusion for residents versus the time before when City Hall operated in a less democratic manner when those kinds of decisions were more commonly made behind closed doors.  However it is also interesting to note the change in the tenor and the language emanating out of City Hall has resulted in very little actual change in how the City gets developed beyond the normal market ephemeralities real estate developers follow.  Whereas developers were interested in building shopping malls in Emeryville when Charlie came on board in 2000, after 2007 and the Great Recession, they’re now interested in building rental apartment projects.  During the intervening 23 years, the private development intensity, encouraged by a City Hall willing to stand aside and let the market run free, remained unchanged as the developers chased their profits as they saw fit.  The name of the game at Emeryville’s City Hall, then and now is for the government to get out of the way of private enterprise.  This is the culture Charlie Bryant encouraged during his time here.  

Developers & City Council Love Charlie Bryant

While Mayor Bauters gladly noted Charlie’s helpful six year involvement in crafting Emeryville’s General Plan update in 2009, he spoke of resident friendly infrastructure it brought such as the much loved Doyle Hollis Park and the Emeryville Greenway.  Acknowledging the good it has delivered for Emeryville citizens, Charlie noted how our General Plan received an award from the American Planning Association for how democratically vetted it is.  Then reminding the viewers and the Council, he said Emeryville must prepare to conduct another General Plan update after he's gone because the current plan will sunset in a few years.  Regardless of all the praising of the General Plan by Charlie and the Mayor, neither one mentioned the many times where refusal to follow our General Plan has failed us on Charlie’s watch.

Since Charlie Bryant arrived at City Hall and under his unchanging tutelage, Emeryville has seen tremendous growth. He has seen six City Managers come and go while the town has doubled in population.  Charlie has been very influential, as the Mayor noted, and his vision for our town has largely come to pass over the last 23 years.  So while Mr Bauters talked about bikes during the Charlie Bryant fete Tuesday night, efficiently moving cars to service the shopping malls and apartment towers has been the great project for Emeryville over the last 23 years.

Shopping Malls to Apartment Buildings  

By supporting developers as a modus operandi, Charlie ushered in Emeryville’s status as a rental apartment building city, moving from a town with a majority of home owners, 55% in 2000, down to 24% homeownership today.  During Charlie’s time renters, as a percentage of the total population in Emeryville, have increased from 45% in 2000 to 71% today.  The General Plan clearly says NO to this.

Mayor Bauters also praised Charlie’s work delivering family friendly housing during his time here.  But the number of families in Emeryville, the lowest among all East Bay cities, has remained virtually unchanged at 1.76 persons per household (it was 1.71 in 2000).  Emeryville, 23 years on, is still by far the worst city for families in the East Bay.

Where Are The Parks?

But where our Community Development Director has been the most at odds with our General Plan has undoubtedly been in parks and open space.  Emeryville has the fewest acres of park and open space per resident of any city in the East Bay, both before Charlie got here and now.  The General Plan calls for three acres of park space for every 1000 new residents.  But developers don’t want to pay for parks and so every year since 2000, Emeryville gets farther behind the goal.  As a result, Emeryville added almost 7000 new residents since 2000 but only about two acres of new park land (or about 3500 people per acre).  By the sunset of the General Plan in about 2029, we are supposed to have more than 50 acres of parks, no more than 333 people per acre, as the General Plan delineates.  The Sherwin Williams project will bring an additional 3.5 acres of park space but that is little help for such a park starved city.  Right now Emeryville has only about 15 acres and for our population, that totals more than 500 residents per acre. This all amounts to a kind of development but it’s hard to call it “Community Development”.

Empty Storefronts

Typical Emeryville Empty Storefront Story
San Pablo Avenue at West MacArthur
Since this apartment building was built 15 years ago,
the retail space here has never been rented.

Trees too, were never a priority for Charlie.  Developers want to cut our street trees but since 2000, Emeryville has drafted a tree protection ordinance.  Mr Bryant has fought the ordinance every step of the way, protecting an anemic 2.5% of trees developers wanted to cut on his watch.  While our public street trees keep getting cut by developers, the square footage of empty storefronts associated with the new apartment buildings keeps increasing since 2000.  Mr Bryant pushes the “mixed use” development best practices touted by city planning professionals.  But the will to follow through and force developers to rent out the street level retail spaces they are required to build doesn’t exist in the Community Development Department Mr Bryant heads.  So instead we keep getting boarded up storefronts and the community crushing climate they bring. 

'Memorable' City?

This is the kind of development 
Charlie Bryant says satisfies the requirement 
to create a memorable city.

But perhaps the most surprising delivery brought but ultimately ignored by our Director of Community Development is the General Plan’s provision to ensure Emeryville develops as a “memorable city”.  This integral part of the Plan was quoted by the Mayor Tuesday night.  Flying in the face of acres of baking parking lots fronting anonymous shopping malls, anywhere USA apartment buildings and multi-national drive up fast food chains, our General Plan's ‘memorability' clause represents a willful detachment from reality, now 14 years past the General Plan’s inception.  Neither Charlie nor the City Council majority ever has taken memorability to heart and what exists on the ground here serves as a testament to that failure.

It is unknown how much Charlie changed his community development ideas to accommodate Emeryville's elite over the years or how much the elite changed to accommodate Charlie.  We do know it became a near perfect match.  As he prepares now to take his leave, Mr Bryant told the Council Tuesday night his biggest point of pride is the General Plan update he worked so hard on.  But it is glaring that the thing he says he likes the most is the thing he has ignored. Indeed, this was the biggest question we had for Mr Bryant for this story but he refused to comment, allowing his injudicious record to serve as his legacy.

Emeryville Housing Autonomy Confounded by the Advancement of a Paid Sacramento Lobbyist to Council Committee

The City Council Appoints a Paid YIMBY Lobbyist to the Housing Committee

Corporate Developers Now in Direct Control of the Levers of Power at City Hall

The Emeryville City Council Wednesday appointed a professional influence peddler for California YIMBY, a Sacramento based corporate real estate developer supported lobbying organization, to the Emeryville Housing Committee.  The Council appointee elevated to the Committee, Ned Resnikoff, is employed as the Policy Director for California YIMBY and has lived in Emeryville just two months.  The pick is a first for the Emeryville City Council who have so far resisted appointing a paid lobbyist to any Council committees.

New Emeryville Housing Committee member
Ned Resnikoff
He says 'best practices' for housing policy is to 
remove regulation for developers.  The implication
being that benefit for average people will
then trickle down, Ronald Reagan style.

Council member Kalimah Priforce strenuously pushed back against the appointment in what Councilwoman Sukhdeep Kaur pejoratively called an “outburst”.  As such, Mr Priforce was the lone dissenting voice among his colleagues against the controversial pick.

The vote elevating Mr Resnikoff, 4-1 (Priforce dissenting), raised the specter of a new paradigm in Emeryville of Council committee appointees being actual paid corporate lobbyists in the bailiwick of the business of the committee.  

Up until Wednesday, many if not most committee appointees have been local community members shown to be in the thrall of the business community but never in modern Emeryville history has there been such a blatant abdication of the City’s autonomy over to purely corporate interests.  

It was an action that drew rebuke from Mr Priforce, "How does a lobbyist even survive the vetting process through the Housing Committee he said.  “Should a  member of the NRA [gun lobbying organization] sit on the Public Safety Committee, he further inquired of his colleagues rhetorically.  The Councilman castigated the YIMBY employee for his housing policies as working against the interests of Black and Brown people, “You don’t care if [marginalized] people are gentrified out of their communities, he said.

Relying on a publicly offered argument of 'trickle down' democratic benefit, YIMBY's pro-developer policies have been shown to work in the real world as a gentrifying force against poor people in their communities, all the heated countering rhetoric from YIMBY aside.

Mayor Bauters dropped the gavel on Council member Priforce calling his speech “out of order” for disrespecting a "constituent" even though Mr Bauters himself is fond of doing precisely that from the dais, it should be noted.  

Council member Kalimah Priforce
"Emeryville's reputation of being a rotten city is
something we have tried to grow away from. 
But some of the rotten is still here in
how we chose to do things, in who
we select for our committees".

The YIMBY organization (Yes In My Back Yard) is a nation wide pro-housing developer lobbying organization and California YIMBY is the largest cell within the organization.  Their aim is to protect developer’s profit margins to get them to build more housing and they do so at the expense of local autonomy.  YIMBY pushes back against anything that would impinge on corporate profits including the building of more parks as the Emeryville General Plan calls for or even to deliver more ownership housing.  Developers can make more profit by building rental only housing and so that’s what YIMBY uses its power in the service of.  Emeryville has in recent years morphed from a mostly home ownership city into a mostly rental city regardless of Emeryville’s General Plan and its direction to increase the ratio of ownership housing.

The Mayor and Vice Mayor have forged ahead recently to deliver Emeryville to YIMBY, much to the delight of the Sacramento based lobbying organization.  California YIMBY, showing their appreciation, elevated Mr Bauters and Vice Mayor Courtney Welch to their ‘developer shill’ bracket  because of the pro-corporate housing deference the two have shown.  

The elevation of the Director of Policy for YIMBY to our Housing Committee sends a signal that the Council now pays total deference to the Sacramento organization, further bolstering the claim from the San Fransisco Chronicle that Emeryville is "the most YIMBY city in the state".

The Tattler reached out to Mayor John Bauters for this story but he refused to answer any questions.

The applicant's innocuous statement begins at 44:10 (below) but the fireworks start at 50:16.