Courtney Welch: Latest City Council Member Found to Have Violated FPPC Rules
City Council Waits for the Next Shoe to Drop
After Mourra Fail, Will Accountability Come This Time?
Emeryville City Council member Courtney Welch recently failed to file a required political campaign disclosure form for elected officials with the California Fair Political Practices Committee it was revealed. Following a second warning notice sent to the Councilwoman from the Emeryville City Clerk, Ms Welch appears to have made good with the FPPC for the transgression shortly after, the Tattler learned.
The FPPC, a state sanctioned agency charged with ensuring all California elected officials are bound by the same election laws fairly, determined that Ms Welch had not filed her Form 460 as the law dictates, the same as her colleagues Mayor David Mourra and Council member Kalimah Priforce who the agency determined both to be in violation earlier.
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| Emeryville City Council member Courtney Welch She's violated FPPC rules. |
Council member Welch, who did not return calls from the Tattler for this story, appears to have corrected her transgression with the FPPC in March, sometime after City Clerk April Richardson’s second attempt to notify her.
Ms Richardson is tasked with ensuring Emeryville’s elected and appointed officials are in compliance with FPPC law.
Over the decades, many Emeryville City Council members have failed to keep 100% current with the multitudinous required FPPC fillings and many have failed to file on time as is the case with the most recent Welch violation. Transgressions have generally been seen as a technicality as far as the public and the press are concerned. All of that changed however, in 2024 when the City Council majority used a late filing to try to bring down Council member Priforce by use of a censure and sanction against him.
Mr Priforce, the sole progressive on Emeryville’s City Council, has earned animosity from the more conservative Council majority for his center left politics and they have have used every opportunity to try to discredit him in the eyes of the public for it. Accordingly, his late FPPC filings were seen as a way to discredit him but they may have failed to realize the Tattler would thereafter see all Council member failures to file all FPPC forms in a timely manner as a hot ticket news item and that they would soon run afoul of the FPPC’s byzantine filing schedule themselves. The Tattler has vowed to highlight each Council member’s violations as we find them.
Before the Council majority, especially members Welch and Mourra, so sanctimoniously went after Council member Priforce for his violations, this was seen as something not newsworthy because most elected officials would run afoul of the FPPC from time to time. The Tattler never reported on these violations because it was not seen as something nefarious, rather just an honest mistake anybody but a lawyer would be expected to occasionally make.
So perturbed were the conservative Council majority, they even spent public money to send a US postal service stamped letter to every Emeryville household to notify the public of the disciplinary action the Council majority took against Priforce. Later, after the Tattler showed Mayor David Mourra was also guilty of recent FPPC filing violations, the Council majority pulled back and opted to do nothing, no public rebuke, no stamped letters, no hair on fire sanctimony, chalking it up rather as a simple oversight by the mayor.
It is not known if the council majority will now rise up in indignation at Ms Welch’s FPPC filing violations made public here by the Tattler like they did with Mr Priforce or if they will let this pass like they did with Mayor Mourra’s violations. The Council has treated Welch (and Mourra) with kid gloves up until now. The Tattler will report.
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| The hubris smashing FPPC, now 50 years old, makes sure all elected officials are transparent in their public works. |
I agree that almost everyone but lawyers are going to get tripped up by all the different forms and deadlines occasionally. The council was wrong to make that a central point of their case against Priforce and now that you showed two other council members who made mistakes they need to have some humility. Brian is right- the worst kind of political corruption is the hypocrisy kind. It's so basic- if you're going to get all up in a lather about your rival doing it wrong, you better make sure you're doing everything perfect yourself. Nobody likes a hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteShe was late and then she took care of it. Not a news story.
ReplyDeleteDid you not read the story? It's not about Welch's late filing, it's about unequal treatment for the same violation.
DeleteExactly. The double standard is glaring and unethical.
DeleteThank you for covering this important story. It's gross how the council treated CM Priforce last year. I, along with many community members, attended that city council meeting and watched CM Welch's antics. She reflects the corruption of not only the Emeryville City Council but also of the Alameda County Democratic Party Central Committee. They are true examples of keeping progressive out of positions of power.
ReplyDeleteCourtney Welch didn’t just fumble her FPPC filings, she exposed herself as a political fraud. The same Councilmember who played ethics cop when it came to Kalimah Priforce now wants us to believe her own violation was just a clerical error? Spare us.
ReplyDeleteWelch has been nothing more than a polished PR shield for the worst instincts of Emeryville politics. Handpicked by John Bauters, she’s been the Black face of white gentrifier policy and a willing tool used to mask displacement, developer greed, and institutional gaslighting as “equity.”
She built her brand on identity while stabbing the very communities that identity is supposed to represent. Behind closed doors, she mocks renters, protects power, and plays petty politics. In public, she smiles, nods, and recites YIMBY talking points like a press release with a pulse.
And when she violates the very laws she once weaponized against the only truly independent voice on the Council? Silence. No letters mailed out. No censure hearings. No calls for resignation. Just another example of Emeryville's two-tier system: punishment for dissent, protection for loyalists.
Welch isn't just a hypocrite. She's the kind of opportunist who uses race and representation to insulate herself from accountability while doing the bidding of the same political machine that’s hollowing this city out. She doesn’t lead. She obeys. And that’s what makes her dangerous.