Neighbors United Public Meeting

 The citizen's activist group Neighbors United announces their next community meeting, open to all including Emeryville and North Oakland residents:

Neighbors United will meet this Saturday August 1st, 11 AM at 5514 Doyle Street, first floor common room.  We have a lot to talk about regarding the next steps in the process with the Sutter hospital proposal.  And let’s report on what has worked and not worked in our various activities so far.  If you weren’t at the last city council meeting we can fill you in. 

Let’s do this!!

Sutter Hospital Proposal Draws Neighbors United Group to Release poster Ahead of Council Meeting

 The citizen activist group, Neighbors United, released this poster to the press ahead of the Tuesday evening City Council meeting where Sutter Health will present their hospital proposal idea to the Council.

Neighbors United Urge Citizen Attendance at Critical Sutter Hospital Meeting

 Sutter Makes their Pitch for their Billion Dollar Emeryville Hospital Complex Tuesday

Tuesday evening, July 21st, Sutter Health, will present their proposal for a controversial billion dollar hospital to be located at 53rd and Horton streets for the Council’s consideration. The Council will hear a lengthy presentation from Sutter but they will also allow citizens one or two minutes to opine on the 1.3 million square foot proposed trauma center complex.  

Emeryville’s newest citizen activist neighbor group, Neighbors United has been alerting the community about the impending meeting, putting up some 200 flyers around Emeryville and the surrounding community.  However most were quickly taken down by unknown vandals, probably in a coordinated effort, some members of Neighbors United report.

Emeryville resident Laura McCamy, a Neighbors United member, told the Tattler Sutter Health had lobbied the California legislature to pass AB 2231, a bill that would fast track hospital construction by removing environmental regulations but pushback from multiple sources, including State Senator Jesse Arreguin, makes an immunity from environmental regulation claim in Emeryville by Sutter unlikely.

Laura McCamy 
Long time Emeryville resident, community
activist and Neighbors United 
founding member.

 

Speaking about the rushed nature of the Sutter proposal, Neighbors United member McCamy said “The proposed hospital will have significant and potentially unmitigated negative impacts and should be given a full environmental review, with adequate time for residents to participate in the process.”

Sutter will bring an extra 20,000 vehicle trips per day to the Emerville site.  The main building will be 330 feet tall, Emeryville’s tallest and will feature a heliport with daily helicopter flights.  Emeryville's Planning Commission Chair Jordan Wax called the Sutter proposal "car focused" and a "broken promise" to the people of Emeryville.

The community meeting will be at Emeryville City Hall at 6:00 PM Tuesday and all members of the public will be afforded one or two minutes (at the Mayor’s discretion) to say their piece. 

NOTICE: This story was updated Monday at 8:45 PM after Ms McCamy clarified her information supplied by her to the Tattler.  The story reflects the changes.

New Citizen Activist Group in Emeryville Emerges

 Neighbors United

Scrappy Group of Citizen Neighbors Taking on the Billion Dollar Sutter Juggernaut

Problems with the planned Sutter hospital center for 53rd Street in Emeryville has citizens in Emeryville and North Oakland concerned enough they are coalescing into a new activist group called Neighbors United.  The 30+ member group, open to all, has several members of the former activist group RULE (Residents United for a Livable Emeryville) among its founders.  The group invites all who are concerned about the Sutter project to the meetings (the next one will be tomorrow).  

Sutter Health proposes a new 200 bed facility, about the same size as Kaiser Oakland, in a 330 foot tall tower with a heliport on the roof with 20,000 project generated car trips.  The hospital plus administration buildings will total approximately 1.3 million square feet in a footprint half the size of Kaiser Oakland.

The 200 bed, 330 foot tall hospital with accompanying administration and parking structures totaling 1.3 million square feet and will present “traffic gridlock” as Neighbors United presented it, generating thousands of daily car trips as well as heliport noise and risks from all the low altitude helicopter flights to and from the proposed rooftop helipad. Several Neighbors United members state the project should move elsewhere because it is too large for the site and too constrained by it (being right up against the rail road tracks west of Horton Street) and so it will have an unnecessarily deleterious effect on the whole neighborhood.

A Neighbors United organizer and former RULE founder, Tracy Schroth pointed out the irony of Sutter Emeryville being a “trauma center creating trauma for the neighborhood”.

Sunday’s meeting, the group’s second, will be at 11:00 AM at Stanford Park at the corner of Stanford and Hollis streets.. 

  

Neighbors United flyer making the rounds in the neighborhood.