Pro-Israel Lobby Take Over of Local Democratic Party Delegate Group Despite Emeryville Councilman Priforce ADEM Victory

'Progressive Populist' Priforce Manages to Beat Back Conservative Tide in Local ADEM Election

Northern Alameda County Democrats have selected Emeryville City Councilman Kalimah Priforce to serve as a delegate for the state party in Assembly District 18, the lone progressive among a field of 13 other winners backed by Washington DC based Israel lobbying concerns.  Mr Priforce was the only candidate to win from the ‘People’s Slate’, a group of 11 progressive candidates in the 18th District ‘ADEM’ race.  The other group of candidates, called the ‘Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate’, was backed by the pro-Israel lobby.  A much more conservative slate than the People’s Slate, the ‘Housing’ group won every delegate seat except Mr Priforce, a marked difference in the race run two years ago when the Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate won only one delegate to the People’s Slate's 13, a near total victory for progressives.  In 2022, Assembly member Mia Banta, an elected official characterized as a 'corporate Democrat' by some, endorsed the losing conservative slate. 

Emeryville City Councilman Kalimah Priforce
Progressive Populist Winner in ADEM Election Again
The sole progressive and independent to win the
18th Assembly District ADEM election. 
The rest of the winners are endorsed 
and supported by the Israel lobby.

White Faces

Council member Priforce will sit on a much changed 18th Assembly District ADEM delegate board moving forward.  Notably, he will be the only man of color on the new 14 member delegate board representing northern Alameda County, a remarkable change over previous 18th District ADEM boards.  

The near total victory for the white conservative slate this election, compared with the near total victory for the progressive slate last time, calls into question the influence of the nation-wide Israel lobby inserted into local Alameda County politics. 

The remarkable two year shift to the right demonstrated by District 18 Democrats as characterized by the vote this year has been challenged by at least two voting Democrats; a rank and file member, Paola Laverde, as well as David Weintraub of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club Coordinating Committee, both of whom registered complaints with Democratic Party of Alameda County honchos highlighting campaign irregularities that would tend to benefit conservatives in the election.  Responses to election integrity complaints have not been widely distributed by party officials if they came at all. 

The ADEM boards control what the Democratic Party statewide will prioritize, and as such, they are considered very influential within the party that controls politics in California.  The ADEM delegates help select the Democratic Party platform, among other duties.  Here, they serve under the statewide Assembly member representative Mia Bonta, for District 18. 

Illegal Campaigning and 
Unattended Ballots 
The conservative slate placed campaign
flyers directly on the table where voting 
happened, a violation of the rules.  Also, ballots
are not filed and are out in the open. 
Progressives registered complaints about
the rules violations, after the fact.

The Tattler reached out to Emeryville resident Sam Gould, who ran with the Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate and won, but he didn’t respond to our queries.  Mr Gould was selected as a new Planning Commissioner last Tuesday by the City Council in a 4-1 vote (Priforce dissenting).  Emery School Board member Regina Chagolla, who also ran in the “Housing” slate, also won an ADEM position.  Emeryville City Council member Courtney Welch ran with the conservative Bonta backed slate in 2022 and lost, as did Ms Chagolla.

Council member Priforce, having won the delegate race in the two lopsided elections, speaks to his ability to transcend partisan politics, at least outside of Emeryville.  Here in highly partisan Emeryville, Mr Priforce has been frozen out by his more conservative Council colleagues, even suffering a censure and a sanction for violating Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) rules, the same violation as the anti-Priforce Mayor, David Mourra, who also violated FPPC rules.  The fact that the anti-Priforce majority on the Council has not censured and sanctioned Mayor Mourra for the same violation, is particularly informative as to the partisan culture that has seized control of and degraded Emeryville politics.

The 18th Assembly District is comprised of Oakland, Alameda and Emeryville.  It is considered one of the most progressive assembly districts in the United States.   Emeryville, now having three ADEM board members, is represented far over its population in the District it should be noted.

The Democratic Party election just completed for ADEM representatives for the 18th District, is now represented by seven men, six of whom are white; the highest albedo level for an 18th Assembly District ADEM board in more than a generation.

Council Member Priforce to Force Election on Unfair Small Business Taxes

 Council Member Priforce Says Small Business in Emeryville Is Taxed Unfairly

Snubbed by Council Majority, He Says Voters Should Now Decide

Big Business Pays a Much Lower Tax Rate Than Small Business

Council member Kalimah Priforce announced today he is beginning a campaign to lower the tax rate on small business in Emeryville by forwarding a direct ballot initiative for voters, bypassing the City Council.  If successful, the small business tax ballot initiative would culminate a citizen drive begun in 2011 to finally address Emeryville’s infamous business tax cap, a regressive structure implemented by a pro-business City Council in 1993 that allows the largest corporations in Emeryville to pay a much lower tax rate than small businesses do.  Mr Priforce's announcement comes on the heels of a rejection in December by his colleagues to even discuss the business tax cap at the Council level.  The City Council could get rid of the cap by fiat but they have steadfastly refused and they even actively worked to stop an incipient citizen's ballot initiative in 2011 that would have removed the tax cap.  Emeryville is the only city in Alameda County that has a business tax cap.

Council Member Kalimah Priforce
He says helping small businesses thrive in
Emeryville should be more than just platitudes.
Small businesses in Emeryville should not have
a higher tax rate than big businesses do.

Council member Priforce, who calls himself a 'progressive populist', announced at the Council's December meeting that the lack of equity in Emeryville’s business tax code is troublesome and that the Council needs to finally do something about it especially seeing how they (individual Council members) often publicly exclaim how they want to help small business, he said.  As it is now, the small businesses in Emeryville are effectively subsidizing the big businesses by paying a rate higher than they need to for the City to collect the same amount of money.  A ‘flat tax’, that being every one paying the same rate, would be more fair than the current tax cap scheme and it would enable the City to charge all businesses at a lower rate to collect the same amount of money.  Small businesses would pay considerably less money under a flat tax.

Mr Priforce is correct: Emeryville’s business tax cap is unprecedented.  In fact, no other city in the entire East Bay has such a tax cap.  For small businesses, the business tax rate in Emeryville is .1% of gross receipts.  Large businesses pay a much lower effective rate, and it’s a rate that goes down the bigger the business is.  This is because big businesses, those with revenue that would be taxed above the $450,997 capped total, don’t have to pay any tax at all on any receipts above that.  Small businesses on the other hand, must pay tax on all of their revenue, making for a much higher tax rate; small businesses must pay the full .1%.

Mayor David Mourra
He likes the business tax just as it is.
NO to helping small businesses he says.
He won't even allow a debate about it.

The inequity is highlighted by a comparison between a large business in Emeryville and a typical small business.  A small local restaurant with $500,000 in revenue (gross receipts) owes the City of Emeryville the full .1% of their revenue, whereas Grocery Outlet Corporation owes the City a lower percentage of their revenue.  Every dollar the local restaurant makes is taxable versus Grocery Outlet who doesn’t likely have to pay Emeryville any taxes at all for some of their $3,969,549,003 ($3.96 billion) revenue.  If they were taxed at the rate of small businesses, Grocery Outlet would have to pay Emeryville more than what they now pay with the cap.  The cap affects the two businesses this way: the local restaurant owes the City $500 per year and Grocery Outlet owes no more than $450,997 per year.  The cap being a cap, every other large business in town also owes Emeryville only $450,997 per year regardless of their revenue.  That’s the most any business in Emeryville has to pay, no matter how big they get.  Because Grocery Outlet operates some of their stores as franchises, it is unknown how much of their revenue is taxable by Emeryville and City Hall does not reveal that private information.  

The tax cap is a very sweet deal for the large corporations in Emeryville and something much less than that for the small businesses. 

Council Member Courtney Welch
She says she loves small business.  Except when
it comes to taxing them.  Then she's saving all
her love for big business.

At .1%, Emeryville has the lowest business tax of any neighboring city.  Berkeley’s business tax, dependent on the type of business, ranges from .16% to .45%; from 50% over Emeryville to four and a half times Emeryville’s rate.  And Berkeley doesn’t have a tax cap so every business pays fairly and equally.  With a $12 million deficit this year, if Emeryville raised the rate to what neighboring cities charge and removed the cap, the deficit would be taken care of rapidly. 

Mr Priforce says Emeryville could decide how to best tax businesses after a public debate.  Two ideas are presented without a tax cap: money to the City could remain the same (revenue neutral), meaning a large tax rate reduction for all businesses and a big savings for small businesses, or the rate could be kept at .1%, meaning small businesses would pay the same as they do now but big businesses would pay more, giving the City a lot more money to pay down the deficit and have money left over or something in between.    

City Council Tax Double Cross in 2011

Back in 2011, Emeryville residents reached a boiling point with the tax cap because of the unfair taxation on small businesses.  A drive to put the issue before Emeryville voters was started by Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE), a citizen’s activist group.  RULE took out papers and started a door to door signature drive to get the issue on a ballot because the City Council refused to remove the tax cap by fiat as is their prerogative. After they caught wind of the RULE signature drive, the Council intervened and they unanimously voted YES (in principle) to remove the tax cap on their own and they further announced a petition drive would therefore not be necessary.   That Council vote ended the petition drive but at the last minute, after loud protests from Pixar, the conservative majority on the Council scuttled the deal, keeping the cap in place and leaving the citizens no time to finish their petition drive before the election deadline.  Any new petition drive would have to wait until the next election, two years later.   

After the dirty deal done by the conservative Council majority, stopping the will of the people, Council member Jac Asher offered a consolation: an increase in the tax rate while leaving the tax cap in place.  The conservatives on the Council accepted that and the rate was raised from .08% to the current .1%, still the lowest business tax of any city in Alameda County even with the cap.  Ms Asher’s modest deal and the required two year wait for a new ballot initiative petition drive brought about by the Council majority dirty deal, took the wind out of the sails of the citizen petition drive and it didn't rise up again two years later.

And that’s where we are today.  From then to now, no other City Council member other than Councilman Priforce has publicly offered a plan to get rid of Emeryville’s notorious business tax or even talk about the gross inequities built in to Emeryville's pro-corporate business tax rules.

Councilman Priforce is offering the people of Emeryville a chance to return to 2011; a time when it seemed for a moment, public business tax policy would be decided by the public.  Mr Priforce gave his colleagues on the Council a chance to weigh in on this in December but they refused.  

Mayor Mourra was contacted for this story but he refused to comment, presumably leaving his publicly made NO vote to even allow discussion of changing Emeryville business tax policy, to speak for him.  Council member Priforce was also contacted and he told the Tattler he heard all four of his Council colleagues say NO to his business tax equality discussion proposal and so he will go around them and “listen to the people, not the Council”.   

Please read more on the 2010-2011 fight for a fair business tax HERE, HERE, HERE , HERE , HERE and HERE.

The Tattler will report on developments in this story as they come to light.  

UPDATE CORRECTION:  A reader pointed out that Grocery Outlet operates some of its stores as franchises and so some of their revenue is not taxable by Emeryville.  We thank the reader for catching what we missed and we apologize for the mistake.

A Sampling of Emeryville Businesses & How the Business Tax Cap Effects Them
NOTE UPDATE: Grocery Outlet operates some of its stores as franchises and the franchisees share in some of the profit and those numbers are not public.  Because of this, the numbers in these charts are based solely on the total corporate revenue and are not accurate for Grocery Outlet.  We apologize for the mistake we didn't catch.
Leapfrog Corporation has to pay taxes on every dollar it makes just like the Mom & Pop Shop and the local restaurant.  The big businesses only have to pay taxes up to $450,997 regardless of what they make.  Everything they make over that taxable amount is tax free.  It must be nice for them....says Leapfrog and every small business in town.

A Portrait of Emeryville's Business Tax Cap
Actual Tax Rates For a Sampling of Emeryville Businesses

100 = .1% (the tax rate for small businesses).
NOTE: Grocery Outlet pays Emeryville more than this number because some of its
stores are franchises.  This number is based on their total revenue, not Emeryville receipts which are unknown.
The higher the number in this bar chart, the higher the tax rate.
Higher taxes for small businesses is considered 'fair'
by the Emeryville City Council majority. 
Every other city in Alameda County disagrees with Emeryville.

The Tattler is 15 Years Old

Emeryville's Oldest and the Longest Lived Independent News Source

The Tattler is 15

The Tattler is 15 years old today!  That makes us the oldest and longest running news site about Emeryville in Emeryville history.  And like 15 year olds everywhere, we’re rebellious and we're generally pissed off.  We are little but we punch up.  We take on authority.  A decade and a half is a long time to be taking on the rich and the powerful for a scrappy little online news outlet that doesn't take a penny from anyone.  So our 15th birthday is fairly noteworthy.

Back when we started, business was king in Emeryville, controlled by corporate developers with an obsequious four person City Council majority willing to rubber-stamp every development proposal.  Now, business is still king but we have an obsequious four person City Council majority willing to rubber-stamp every development proposal.  Wait…what?…

We're 15 and we're pissed.

It’s true, we’re sad to report: the elite power dynamic in our town is precisely what it was 15 years ago.  Fifteen years of gum shoe reporting has amounted to the following change: Whereas before, developers wanted to build suburban style auto-centric shopping malls, now they want to build all rental market rate apartment blocks.  Fifteen years on, developers are still having their way with us but the profit maximizing overlord these corporate developers pray to has changed the building type.  

The people of Emeryville have nothing to do with this.  They're outta the loop.  But the Tattler has been trying to cut average citizens back in.  If history has taught us anything it's that persistence is needed when it comes to the question of control of the public commons.  The people with money have persistance.  Ordinary people generally don’t.  Against this dreary backdrop, the Tattler continues on.  

We did have a short lived flowering of democracy in Emeryville some 13 years ago when citizen activism and the Tattler helped deliver a two person progressive City Council minority with a discredited and dispirited conservative majority that was willing to break bread with the progressives.  It was during that brief 4-5 year progressive period when Emeryville took leadership status in the Bay Area and the Council passed our landmark minimum wage ordinance, showing everyone the dynamism of people power.  That enlightenment period didn’t last long and rejuvenated conservative forces soon took power back at City Hall.  But it was people over profits for a New York minute in Emeryville.  Alas, progressive movements always tend to be short lived and a conservative and angry majority can always be counted on to come roaring back.  Sound familiar?

Doing the kind of work the Tattler does always brings the haters.  They seem to come in waves, dependent on how far up we stick our head.  Progressives are rarely as angry and passion filled.  They tend to stick to the business of delivering public policy that works for the public.  Irrational conservatives are where the anger has always resided in our town (and beyond).  It's what you would expect.  What’s new, is the Emeryville City Hall that itself has joined with the traditional haters and even surpassed them.  Our City Attorney is actively trying to take the Tattler down, so perturbed is he at the prospects of local journalism pushing for accountability at City Hall (more on that in a coming Tattler story).  Readers should know, the Tattler has never backed down from a fight.  We will continue on even with the full power of the entire City Hall leveled against us.  They have been going extra-legal in their attempts to shut us down recently but we have the law on our side and we intend to use it to our advantage.

15 Years Old:
If the Tattler were a young Mexican woman,
we'd be wearing this dress today.

We’ve made a lot of powerful enemies doing what we do here and we've always managed to hold our own. But with a rogue city hall now enjoined, the consequences of the new paradigm are likely to get conspicuous. 

It should get pretty exciting around here.

So change happened in Emeryville years ago but then it changed back.  There have probably been some nation-wide mega trends at work adversely influencing our politics in our little town.  One change that appears to be permanent is the fact that most City Council members now ride their bikes, even some of the ones who support the takeover of our public housing policy by YIMBY Real Estate Investment Trust corporations.  That’s a positive change we'll take….we suppose. 

In the ways we've elucidated here, one could argue that the Tattler has a juvenile take on what the ‘adults’ in Emeryville do.  We’re outraged at their audacity and we’re rebelling against these power elites, be they in City Hall or in the far flung corporate boardrooms that control our town.  Like we did 15 years ago when we took up this fight for the public commons, we do this work because nobody else is doing it and because we believe that people, ultimately, will act in their interests if they have the information they need to see how their interests are being subverted.

It’s all quite rebellious at the Tattler.  But it’s also optimistic at its core.  Optimism that democracy will have the final say: that’s what separates the Tattler from most 15 year olds.  At the risk of being branded as a pollyanna, we're going to continue on telling Emeryville residents what they need to know about what's going on in Emeryville.

So while it's true we're rebellious at 15, we've always been rebellious.  Fifteen years old: that’s usually around the time people expect little rebels to morph into adults, to settle down and accept life as it is.  Here at the Tattler, all we can say on that score is don't hold your breath: we're going to continue fucking shit up (journalistically).

Interested readers can track these birthday celebrations at the Tattler.  We celebrated at one year, five years, and ten years.  You can track how we saw ourselves at one year and at five years as being pugnacious with massive forces aligned against us until at ten years, we were starting to say the Tattler had achieved some level of victory, and how Emeryville had transformed into a much better town (only to see it fall back into the clutches of conservatives with today's fifteen year story).

Mayor Mourra Violates FPPC Rules & Emeryville Code of Ethics

Mayor Mourra Violates FPPC Filing Rules

City Council Majority Recently Censured and Sanctioned Their Colleague Kalimah Priforce for the Same Violation

Planning Commission Chair Also Violated FPPC Filing Rules

Breaking News

Emeryville’s Mayor, David Mourra, has not filed required FPPC political disclosure forms, a violation of state law, the Tattler has learned.  The FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission), a state agency tasked with ensuring government transparency, acknowledged in a January 24th letter to the Tattler that Emeryville’s mayor is under investigation for failure to disclose as is required by law.  Mr Mourra is very late in his filing as it turns out, having not filed required campaign disclosure forms since his election victory in 2022.  The FPPC investigation comes as a result of a Tattler complaint.  

The California Reform Act of 2024 mandates that all elected officials must continue to file FPPC disclosure forms even in the event that they have been elected and regardless of any subsequent donor contributions or lack of contributions.

The Tattler investigation also revealed Jordan Wax, the chair of Emeryville’s Planning Commission, failed to file a required FPPC 'Statement of Economic Interest' form on time, itself a violation of state law.

Some elected officials have presupposed that an inactive election campaign lets them off the hook for FPPC filings but state law is very clear that filing is still required.  Violations of proper and timely FPPC filing rules have been very common among Emeryville politicians over the years.  So much so that late filings would not normally be considered newsworthy except for the fact that Mayor Mourra and his colleagues on the City Council majority made much ballyhoo of recent late filings by Council member Kalimah Priforce to such an extent that they invoked Emeryville's new Code of Ethics to censure and sanction him for it.  Now Mr Mourra, who seems to have unclean hands, finds himself in the same pickle. 

The Tattler has an open Public Records Request filed with the City Clerk for details that will inform future editions of this ongoing story.

Mr Mourra was contacted for this story but he refused to comment. 

Emeryville Mayor David Mourra
Unclean Hands
He sanctimoniously wagged his finger at
his colleague Council member Priforce for
violating the exact same state law as he did.

Anti-Palestinian Connection Found in Emeryville Democratic Party Delegate Race

Specter of Anti-Palestinian Politics in Emeryville ADEM Race

Breaking News

The Tattler has found an anti-Palestinian, Gaza genocide denying funding and influence connection in the local ‘ADEM’ Democratic Party delegate race reported this week.  Four Emeryville residents are running in two posing slates as the Tattler reported.  One of the two slates, called the ‘Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate’, is paid by ‘California Jobs and Justice’, a Sacramento lobbying entity that itself is funded by the ‘Democratic Majority for Israel’ a Washington based lobbying organization that is Gaza genocide denying and anti-Palestinian.  Emeryville residents Sam Gould and Regina Chagolla are both part of that slate.

The other slate in the ADEM race is the ‘People’s Slate’ and is the more progressive slate of the two, despite the word ‘progressive’ in the Housing and Climate Slate title.  Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez are among the People’s Slate members.  Mr Priforce is an Emeryville City Council member and a current ADEM delegate for the 18th District.  Regina Chagolla is an Emeryville school board member.

The 18th Assembly District Democratic Party delegates are charged with setting the Alameda County Democratic Party agenda and so it has been considered a powerful position and one that reflects East Bay Democratic Party values.  The anti-Palestinian connection has not been reported openly by the Housing and Climate Slate, probably because that is not a popular position for East Bay Democrats.  

Democrats are urged to vote online by January 31st at ademelections.com   

Paid for by.....
That tells you what you need to know.

The top contributors are anti-Palestinian and Gaza genocide deniers.

Emeryville Democrats Urged to Vote for 18th District 'ADEM' Delegates

Four Emeryville Residents in Two Slates of Candidates Seek Local 'ADEM' Positions

Democratic Party members in Emeryville, which make up 59% of the voters, are being asked to vote for party delegates for the 18th Assembly District to help set the direction of the Democratic Party in the future, a race that includes four Emeryville residents.  The agenda delegates, referred to by the acronym ADEMs (Assembly District Election Meetings), are divided into two slates, a conservative and a progressive and the four Emeryville residents running are split into both slates.  

The progressive slate, called the ‘People’s Slate’, is comprised of 11 members including Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce (a City Council member and existing 18th District Delegate) and Sarah Perez, while the conservative slate, called the ‘Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate’ is comprised of 12 members including Emeryville residents Sam Gould (who recently lost a City Council bid) and Regina Chagolla (a School Board member).  

The conservative slate, despite its name with the word ‘progressive’ in it, is noted for its corporate backers, notably the Real Estate Investment Trust lobbying group YIMBY California.  They put stripping local housing policy to make way for more corporate landlords at the top of their to do list.  Also notable is the fact that zero men of color are represented; very unusual for an East Bay election slate.

The progressive slate lacks corporate underwriting and concerns itself with traditional Bay Area progressive ideas like anti-gentrification, tenant protections, climate justice and a labor-led clean energy economy.  

The Tattler reached out to the four Emeryville candidates for comment but only Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez responded.  

Mr Priforce said, “For far too long, 'we the people' have been confronted with a false choice - a vote between fascism on one side and corruption on the other.  The Democratic Party needs to change by winning back the people's trust.  As an elected delegate representing Emeryville to the California Democratic Party as part of Assembly District 18, I'm once again a member of the People's Slate because of our diversity and working class progressive values that place people over profit.”  

Ms Perez stated, “Unlike others whose work is based on self-interest, my commitment for social change is personal and therefore dedicated to people who need help.  I stand in solidarity with the People's Slate. Please vote for all of us because this fight is for you.”

Democrats are urged to vote online by January 31st at ademelections.com 

UPDATE: A mistake in this story regarding the acronym ADEMS has been corrected.  Thank you to the reader for catching our mistake.

The People's Slate
Featuring Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez

The Housing and Climate Slate
Lot's of White men!
Featuring residents Sam Gould and Regina Chagolla

New Partisanship Means Council Members May Not Vote Their Conscience Safely

 Partisan Politics at Council Means Members May No Longer Dissent Without Fear of Censure and Sanction

Priforce Punished for His Vote

News Analysis

The City Council majority broke precedent when they censured and sanctioned their colleague Council member Kalimah Priforce on December 3rd for how he voted; a thing that’s never happened in modern Emeryville history.   The sanctioning punishment, for his vote on the new Code of Ethics, is a Council action that will negatively effect governance in Emeryville far into the future.

At issue is Councilman Priforce’s refusal to promise to obey (by refusing to sign) the new ethics law after he stated the law as written is not meant to hold all Council members to account equally.  While true, Mr Priforce’s refusal to sign his name in support of the new law was a legitimate protest against it.  The refusal to sign was not illegal, nor was it unethical or immoral.  The refusal was a vote to abstain on the matter of the Code of Ethics law, a law that would constrain all Council members equally were it not for the fact that the Council majority refused to agree to an independent ethics commission overseer, a fact described by Mr Priforce at the onset as a deal breaker.  

The City Council majority 
decided to spend $7570 to send a
letter of their anti-Priforce resolution
to every Emeryville household. 
The Council majority spent the money in
spite of the recently revealed $12 million
budget deficit, the largest in
Emeryville history.

The Council’s didactic and fractious sanctioning action was unethical because it took away Mr Priforce’s right to vote his conscious, something that every voter, Council member or otherwise, always retains the right to do in a democracy.  In addition, the sanctions have had the unintended consequence of lowering public safety because Council member Priforce has been stripped of his committee liaison positions, one being the Public Safety Committee.  That committee, formerly met on a monthly basis with Council member Priforce as liaison will now meet bi-monthly without Priforce, a lessening of safety services offered to the people of Emeryville. 

It was not only Council member Priforce that warned us that a Code of Ethics without an independent ethics commission overseeing body would be weaponized against dissenting Council members (himself being the sole example), the City Attorney, John Kennedy and none other than former Council member John Bauters likewise warned the Council majority against it.

In the Council’s estimation, by his refusal to sign his name to a law he didn’t like, Mr Priforce did an unethical act as called out in their resolution.  The Council included a ‘whereas’ that states he is censured and sanctioned because, “Despite his many public statements calling for a Code of Ethics, Council member Priforce is the only Member who has not signed the attestation that he will abide by the Code of Ethics, despite voting in favor or the Code’s adoption.”  

For his part, Council member Priforce says he decided not to sign the Code of Ethics legal document put before him a month after the Council voted unanimously in favor of implementing it because his colleagues had refused to implement an accompanying independent ethics commission, something he says is necessary and what they had said they would do at the December 3rd Council meeting a month earlier.  Council member Priforce stated a Code of Ethics would be weaponized against unpopular Council members by the majority without an ethics commission stopping them.  Recent events have shown Mr Priforce’s prediction on a weaponized law has come to pass.

By refusing to implement a independent ethics commission, the Council majority placed Council member Priforce in a position where his conscience dictated he refuse to sign his name to the new law and then they used that to punish him: a ‘bait and switch’ example of unethical behavior by these Council members.  Council member Priforce, who won his 2022 election over Mayor David Mourra, is paid to vote his conscience.  That means his every vote can be a YES, NO or ABSTAIN, legally and ethically.  Ironically, irrational behavior based on the City Council members’ base emotions, in this case the hatred of a colleague, is untoward and unethical. 

The Council vote to condemn a member over their vote is done: that's a bell that cannot be unrung.  That is our history now. 

The City Council majority has gotten so partisan, the vote against Mr Priforce for voting against the Code of Ethics was not enough.  They they also chose to spend $7570.96 of the taxpayer’s money to send a US Mail letter to every Emeryville home to gloat about it.  This, during the current $12 million City Hall budget deficit, the largest in Emeryville history.  The sanctimonious letter to every Emeryville resident has a cover letter from Council member Courtney Welch, a political foe of Mr Priforce, stating the vote to sanction was not taken lightly but rather through great deliberation as if the Council, in so doing, was interested in doing the people's business instead of personal partisan recrimination. 

Politics has skewed Emeryville City Council so severely in the current age, they see scoring points against their enemy on Council as more important than doing the people’s business guarding against making worse the worst budget crisis in modern Emeryville history.  

Because dissent is necessary and even a barometer in a democratic deliberative body, from this day forward the people will know their interests are being looked after by the Emeryville City Council to the extent there are accompanying votes of censure/sanction.   If they're not censuring and sanctioning, they're not likely doing our business. In other towns the majority gets their way and then they move on.  In Emeryville, the majority gets their way and then they censure and sanction those in the minority who vote differently....and then they spend $7570 to gloat about it and then they move on.

City of Emeryville is Failing to Reveal John Bauters' Election Campaign Documents

 City’s Website in Violation of California Campaign Law

Failure to Post All Bauters Campaign Documents

Election campaign forms for Emeryville City Council candidates are supposed to be kept on file for public viewing but campaign documents regarding former Council candidate John Bauters are entirely missing from the City’s website, a violation of state law.  The City is required to make all of these documents available to the public on its website but Emeryville is in violation because at least two are not viewable at all the Tattler has learned.

The FPPC Forms 460s, filed with the state of California as well as the City, detail how much money a candidate has received and from whom.  As it stands now, Mr Bauters’ campaign for re-election for City Council, abandoned by him last summer, is missing half of his required documents.  An attempt to download the missing documents at the City’s website is stopped and the site brings up a notice that the connection is not secure when an attempt is made.  Other documents are working, just not two of the Forms 460s.

From the City of Emeryville's website:
Half of Bauter's Forms 460 are not viewable on the site: a violation of state law.

The Tattler alerted the City of the problem via email but the City Clerk, April Richardson, said she never received the email.  A check of her email address revealed it was correct.  After giving up getting the documents from the City’s website or through email, ultimately, the Tattler conducted an official Public Records Request for the missing public documents, a request the state grants a municipality ten days for compliance.  

Hearing about the document disclosure problem in person, Ms Richardson volunteered that the Tattler should not try to get any information from the City of Emeryville via email in the future, an interesting if unusual request.  After 15 years of information gathering from City Hall, this is the first time a department head has told the Tattler to not use email.

Mr Bauters abandoned his run for Council in favor of a run for Alameda County D5 Supervisor, a race he lost last November.  Bauters is currently not in elective public office.

The City Council majority has stated that it is very important that the public be able to view every candidate for Council’s Forms 460s so it is assumed this problem will be fixed soon.

The Tattler will report on how this violation gets fixed.  Stay tuned.

A click on Mr Bauters' Forms 460 is disallowed and this warning comes up.

UPDATE: The City of Emeryville corrected this as of January 16.

Emeryville's Website Asks Citizens a Very Personal Question

 The City of Emeryville Gives Us Six Sexual Positions to Choose From

We're Supposed to Select Our Favorite

This Kind Of Thing Used to be Considered Private Info

Which sexual position do you prefer?  The City of Emeryville wants to know and they have given us a total of six to choose from.  The City's website says you can go to the Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL) website at emeryvillecenter.org to take the quiz about your particular sexual proclivities.  The six City of Emeryville approved positions are graphically presented for those with dull imaginations.  

Not generally known for its prudishness, the Tattler has nonetheless provided an expurgated version of two of the positions on offer at the City website (see photo at bottom).  To those not wanting to view straight up pornography should be warned however; although the Tattler added the black bars in the photo for this story, the lurid photos are graphically displayed without bars for all to see, including children, at the website. 

A search revealed the City's website seems to have been taken over sometime in 2024 by someone using 'Porkbun', an ironically named internet domain name registrar.  As it stands now, this site, being connected with the School District, certainly has lured children to it.  Specifically, anyone looking for public art at the City's official ECCL site will be directed to the following address in all its prurient carnality (warning, click on it at your own risk and children are told to not click on this):

emeryvillecenter.org

Here is the City’s current webpage that invites people to click to see the porn: 

We had to go back to 2020 to see where emeryvillecenter.org used to direct to:

Now, it directs people interested in public art at ECCL here (Tattler expurgated version):

UPDATE:  As of 9:41 AM 1/6/24 the City of Emeryville has removed the link to emerycenter.org from its website.

City Throws in the Towel on Graffiti Tags

 The City of Emeryville and PG&E Celebrates 'Junior' and Hundreds of His Friends

Commentary

By Brian Donahue

A couple of months ago a few graffiti tags appeared on the wall of the PG&E building on Holden Street.  Citizen complaints were received by the City who is required by statute to let the owner of the building know about it and to remind the owner they are required by law to remove the tags.  Despite numerous complaints over many weeks, PG&E refuses to remove the tags and because graffiti is self propagating, one tagger’s efforts are repeated by another and another, now the whole building is covered and it is spreading to neighboring buildings. 

This could be a primer in how not to conduct public policy.

For years Emeryville did a pretty good job combatting graffiti (the CVS building notwithstanding) but now the process seems to be broken.  We don’t know the precise reason for the dysfunction but the City of Emeryville doesn’t seem capable of handling a problem like graffiti removal anymore.  Tellingly, the police report to us that the City has informed PG&E about the problem but they have so far rebuffed any directives from the City to fix the problem. In frustration, we offered to do it ourselves.  We said we will voluntarily paint over the tags free of charge but later, the police told us they spoke with PG&E and they said they will sue anybody that tries to paint over the graffiti tags on their building. The police, for their part, say they will arrest anyone who tries to paint over the PG&E graffiti tags if they catch them in the act.

PG&E will not obey Emeryville’s graffiti law and they will not let us do what they refuse to do.  That lets us know all we need to know about the lack of community mindedness of this giant corporation in our town.

But then something changed.  The police informed PG&E that the Tattler knows about their lawsuit threat. Quickly, PG&E told the police to inform us that they have had a change of heart.  Now apparently they will not sue anybody that tries to paint over the graffiti on their building, and they want us to know that.  

So now we know PG&E doesn’t care about our laws but they do care about bad press. 

City Hall, PG&E and the Police Department: all are here to make sure we can’t have a nice place to live anymore.  So we’re expecting more tags…..and more and more and more.  Graffiti tags everywhere is what you get with the civic dysfunction that embodies the new Emeryville.  

This is not the kind of thing that's solvable anymore,
says the City of Emeryville.
‘Junior’ wants us to know he was here
and who are we to take that away from him?

UPDATE: Today 1/6/25 workers from PG&E painted over the graffiti.  Problem solved!