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.