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.