City Manager & City Attorney Remove Grassroots Community Free Food Table Pantry

 Mean Spirited City:

Food Insecure Community Members Left Out 

in the Cold by City

Popular Free Food Table Taken Down Because of 'Code Violation'

Breaking News

Emeryville's food insecure lost another resource today, as city public works crews removed a table that has been offering free, non-perishable food to the community, on orders of Emeryville City Attorney John Kennedy and City Manager LaTanya Bellow. 

The Tattler Free Food Table on its first day.

According to a written notice signed by Mr Kennedy, the table was in violation of  municipal code section 7-2.02 (a).

The table was set out in November, as a community response both to the federal government 'shutdown' crisis, which threatened SNAP, formerly USDA food stamps, and the extended relocation of E.C.A.P., a critical local food bank distribution point, to West Oakland.

Conceived, constructed and initiated by the Tattler's Editor,  Brian Donahue, the table quickly became a node of community activity. Local neighbors continuously replenished what was made available and those in need could take what they wished with dignity.  

The table was located at the Horton and Sherwin street intersection near the Emeryville Artists' Cooperative driveway.

The Food Table on Monday.

The food table has helped dozens since its inception, with food being delivered and taken daily. Not meant to supply every need, it served as an important supplement or emergency source of sustenance. The local community's generosity and provision of nutritionally dense food was impressive.

It is unclear how disruptive the table's removal will prove to those who have come to rely on it. 

While ECAP recently returned to its longtime home on San Pablo Avenue, long lines and limited hours make it inconvenient to access for some, such as those in low-paid jobs with inflexible hours. 

Renewed assault on programs at the federal level such as SNAP and Medicaid could drive more people into food insecurity.  Some users of the food table expressed to the Tattler their dismay at the prospect of its closing.  

The Tattler will continue following this story and will provide an update as more facts become known.

City Manager LaTanya Bellow has so far declined to respond by press time, to multiple attempts to reach her via telephone and email.

The initial story on the table is HERE.

The Department of Public Works removed the table today at 8:30 AM.
It is unknown what will become of the table or the food that was on it when it was taken.

Democratic Citizen Accountability Program Suspended at City Hall: No Explanation Given

Once Popular 'Coffee With the City Manager' Program Suspended 

Emeryville Citizens Used to Be Able to Speak Directly With Their City Manager Under the Program

No Longer

Emeryville’s new City Manager, La Tanya Bellow announced she would not be re-starting the former citizen engaging ‘Coffee With the City Manager’ program after having pondering over it during the first 100 days of her job as city manager.  The democratically minded program was discontinued in 2020 because of Covid but before that, the popular program enabled normal citizens to engage face to face with the most powerful government official at their City Hall.  Ms Bellow told the Tattler that while she has shuttered the Coffee Program indefinitely, she is not necessarily averse to someday re-starting it.  She did not say why she would not meet with citizens through the program.

Emeryville City Manager
La Tanya Bellow
Not a fan of transparency or 
citizen engagement. 

The government in Emeryville has long made proclamations regarding the inclusionary and democratic existential nature of City Hall and they proved it in 2014 when the popular program was initiated under former City Manager Sabrina Landreth.  Under the program, citizens could just drop by without making an appointment and speak freely with the city manager in the city manager’s office during the three hour period once a month.  

Despite ending the once a month citizen engagement, Ms Bellow, who makes $315,0000 per year, has made statements touting her approachability for regular people.  Before her hiring in January, she told the City Council she was a “committed public servant” who could be counted on to lead Emeryville’s government “with transparency, with integrity and with collaboration…with the members of this community”.  That may have been what she was thinking at the time but after settling in at her Park Avenue corner office, apparently she seems to have had a re-think.




Lack of accountability has a long tradition at Emeryville City Hall.  Before the democratically minded City Manager Landreth, Emeryville’s City Manager John Flores, for years, regularly scheduled closed-to-the-public meetings in the city manager's office with the Chamber of Commerce board president, every Monday morning at 9:00 to discuss anything that the Chamber, a private corporation, wanted to discuss.  The Chamber of Commerce, who received large amounts of money and favors from City Hall, likely discussed that and more at these regularly scheduled private meetings in the City Manager’s office.   

Former City Manager 
Sabrina Landreth
She had a democratic view
of government.  She liked to 
hear from regular citizens.

Uncomfortable with the lack of accountability and transparency, the Tattler suggested that perhaps regular people should also have a regularly scheduled time to interface one-on-one with their government.  The idea was forwarded that every month, regular citizens could freely express their ideas, suggestions or complaints directly to the city manager at their seat of government.

Although the secretive John Flores was not fond of that idea and he refused it, the democratically inclined Sabrina Landreth agreed with the Tattler and she began the program that ultimately became very popular with Emeryville citizens.  Notably, the Emeryville Police Department initiated its own "Coffee With a Cop' program patterned after the success of the city manager program, building it into their 'community policing' policy.  EPD still continues on the popular program.


The Coffee With the City Manager Program continued until Covid and the manager at the time, the former Paul Buddenhagen, did not restart it after Covid had passed, regardless of citizen requests.  Ms Bellow continues on with the refusal, despite all her highfalutin citizen engagement rhetoric.  

After she was hired, the Tattler inquired about Coffee With the City Manager and Ms Bellow indicated she would decide and make an announcement about it in the “first 100 days” of her administration. Announcing her refusal to re-start the program, she assured the Tattler she is “focused on meeting the community where they are to foster a more inclusive and responsive dialogue” after noting that her contact with the Tattler was a violation of the City Attorney’s order that no government officials may communicate with the Tattler in any way.  “I am making this one time exception” she said. 

Emeryville Launched Novel Legal Effort to Silence the Tattler

City's Tattler "Communication Plan" Is Really A Non-Communication Plan 

By Mr X

Emeryville’s administration is attempting to muzzle the city’s independent news service, erecting roadblocks to news-gathering and threatening the publication’s editor with prosecution. 

Oddly echoing events playing out in Washington DC, local leaders have enacted an executive order barring the Tattler’s editor from any vocal or written interaction with any city employee. 

According to a 'communication plan' drafted by City Attorney John Kennedy, Tattler editor Brian Donahue may only communicate with city elected leaders, officials or employees during the ‘public comment’ period of city council meetings. Under state regulations, city officials, elected leaders and employees are all barred from addressing concerns raised during public comment. 

Kennedy, in a memo sent to the Tattler in October, describes the Editor’s news-gathering and reporting as "harassment," “aggression,” “threatening,” “intimidating,” and “hostile,” attempting to conjure a linguistic context for his actions. Exactly the types of terms the Administration in Washington has leveled at news outlets not offering fawning, supplicating coverage. 

A bizarre attempt by Kennedy to add gravitas by citing case law, undermines his own memo, and the constitutionality of his actions potentially resulting in financial liability for the City of Emeryville. One case, Minn. Bd. Commun. for Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271 (1984) concerns unrepresented groups attending meetings for unionized employees during contract negotiations, the other, L. F. v. Lake Wash. Sch. Dist. concerned an aggrieved parent and communications with the teachers of that parent’s children and school and district officials—not an entire city. Regardless, on-going bi-weekly meetings between the parent and school officials were established. 

While this effort to restrict and eventually destroy an independent voice in Emeryville plays out in court, perhaps the most troubling aspect is how closely local officials are adhering to and advancing President Trump’s effort to silence inconvenient voices. The Emeryville Tattler must be fairly effective.

Mr X, besides working for the Tattler, was a reporter for the Oakland Tribune and several other print
publications, two NPR affiliates in Northern California and received an Edward R Murrow award for his work covering wildfires in Northern California. 

Silencing journalism increases group think, stifles public participation and decreases critical thinking.

Breaking: City Council Majority Votes to Agendize Censure of Council Member Priforce

Breaking News:

Tonight at a special Emeryville City Council meeting, Mayor Courtney Welch moved to censure her colleague Kalimah Priforce for “numerous violations” of Emeryville’s new Code of Ethics to be voted on at a future City Council meeting.  The vote was 4-1 to agendize the item (Priforce dissenting).  

This is the first use of the Code of Ethics since it was certified by the City Council last year.

The Mayor did not describe what ethics violations she thinks Mr Priforce violated but even without any general description, her three colleagues voted to place the item on a future agenda.  None of the three Council members who voted with Ms Welch to agendize a censure, not David Mourra, John Bauters or Sukhdeep Kaur, publicly asked the Mayor what violations they were being asked to vote on, raising the specter of a possible private pre-discussion by Council members.  If such a discussion happened behind closed doors, that could constitute a Brown Act violation.  

The City Attorney, John Kennedy, gave a presentation to the City Council some months ago wherein he described that Council members or even City committee members are proscribed by the Code of Ethics; among the violations he listed is “calling people names” on social media.  Because the Mayor Courtney Welch (and Planning Commissioner Dianne Martinez) both violated this mandate, the Tattler submitted a complaint to the Council in October but they refused to hear it.  This fact plus tonight’s opaque misadventure shows how the new Code of Ethics has already been politicized by this Council majority.  The Tattler will report on how the Code of Ethics is being abused by the City Council in a future story.

Council member Priforce responded to the Council's action tonight, telling the Tattler, "None of this is a surprise to me or should be a surprise to anyone who has been following the hostility of this council towards me since before I took office with their collegiality pledge, the attacks I received on the evening I took office, and on multiple occasions they've attempted to silence or trivialize my presence on the council. They are afraid of my voice. They are afraid of the people's voice. It's not about me, it's about what I represent. So rather than laugh at their theatrics, I focused on the task at hand, support Calvin and Mia in their campaign to be our future council members and return city hall back into the hands of the people."

Emeryville Guitar Center Violates Minimum Wage Ordinance Says Employees

Minimum Wage Ordinance Violations:

City Attorney Investigates Guitar Center 

Employees of the Guitar Center store on Shellmound Street have filed complaints with the City of Emeryville alleging their employer is not paying them the proper wage as the new Minimum Wage Ordinance mandates the Tattler has learned.  Employees say they're being paid $12.25 per hour and the store manager has violated the $14.44 per hour provisions mandated by the Ordinance for every Emeryville employer with 56 or more employees.
The employees say the manager is telling the City the store formerly had more than 55 employees but he had fired enough of them before the new law took effect on July 2nd to bring down the number of employees to 55, the cut off point requirement between the two differing wages.  The contention is that the store still has more than 55 employees according to the employees and that even if the manager was correct that he had fired the requisite number of employees, the Ordinance provides for employee counts to be averaged over the preceding fiscal quarter and that average for Guitar Center was in excess of 55 employees.  The manager failed to understand how employees are counted by the City before he started firing them they allege.

The Guitar Center is further violating the Minimum Wage Ordinance in other ways by misrepresenting the nature of its business the employees say.  The manager is attempting to portray the Shellmound Street business as two businesses to the City in order to employ more than the 55 employee cut off by claiming a portion of the store, the so called 'Guitar Center studios', is a separate business they say. Further, the employees were not properly informed of their rights because the manager failed to post required documents they say.

An employee complainant who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisals from the store manager told the Tattler the employees at Guitar Center intend on forcing the store to obey the Ordinance and they expect to receive their legitimately earned back pay, "I was excited that the citizens of Emeryville agree with so many other Americans that people deserve to be paid a living wage.  I find it disheartening that the Guitar Center is subverting that" the employee said of the new law and the manager's attempts to bypass it.
Michael Guina, Emeryville's City Attorney said the City is actively taking up the issue, "We're in the initial stages of the investigation of the Guitar Center employee's complaints.  If we find evidence of wrong doing, we will work with the employer to make sure they comply with the ordinance".

Guitar Center, which is majority-owned by private equity firms Ares Management and former Republican Party presidential aspirant Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, has had a long history of labor strife including union quashing.  The Nation did an expose piece in 2013 on Guitar Center's employee mistreatment centering on low employee pay and sleazy tactics.

The Emeryville store manager could not be reached for comment.

Carolyn Lehr Selected New Emeryville City Manager & Michael Guina Elevated to City Attorney

Emeryville has hired a new City Manager, Carolyn Lehr and a new City Attorney, Michael Guina, City Hall revealed today.  In a memo to the City staff, outgoing City Manager Sabrina Landreth made the announcement; the City Council has selected Sacramento native Carolyn Lehr to replace Ms Landreth and current Emeryville Assistant City Attorney Michael Guina will replace outgoing City Attorney Mike Biddle.

New Emeryville City Manager Carolyn Lehr
She arrives from Chowchilla CA where
she has served as interim City Administrator
since December of last year.

Ms Lehr graduated from San Jose State and obtained her MPA from Rutgers University. In addition to over 25 years in local government, she spent seven years in product administration in Silicon Valley and also served as a public relations director to a community hospital.  Carolyn is married with two sons.
She will begin her work in Emeryville on June 19th.

Michael Guina will serve as City Manager as a result of a tentative agreement beginning July 1st.  He was first hired at Emeryville as a Deputy City Attorney in 2003, later he worked for a private law firm, Oakland's Burke, Williams & Sorensen as a partner.  Mr Guina returned to Emeryville in 2013 where he has served as Assistant City Attorney in Mr Biddle's office.

Breaking News: Emeryville's City Attorney Abruptly Resigns

Mike Biddle, Emeryville's long embattled City Attorney suddenly announced his resignation before a small audience in the City Council chambers tonight.  He leaves his position after 26 years with the City.  Mr Biddle has long had a rocky relationship with some Council members but since last November's City Council election and the rise of a new Council majority, relations have been strained.  Even still, while some city employees might have known the resignation was looming, to the citizens, the news comes as a surprise.  
The resignation comes in July after Mr Biddle's contract expires.  He did not publicly specify what he will do after he leaves Emeryville.

City Attorney Relents on Council's Charter City Directive

City Now Has Proposed Charter 

At the June 3rd City Council meeting, Mike Biddle, the city attorney, finally relented and produced a "short and focused" charter for the City of Emeryville as he had been expressly directed to do on three separate occasions by the Council, a growing source of friction publicly played out in dramatic fashion at City Hall and covered by the Tattler.  The two page document presented Tuesday by Mr Biddle spells out a new municipal governance model, a 'charter city', that will be voted on by the Council and then taken to Emeryville voters in November for their consideration.
Mr Biddle had previously resisted doing the two page work tasked to him by the Council repeatedly since April, insisting that only a 12 page document would suffice despite evidence of numerous other California city's one and two page charters.
The City Attorney had come under increasing fire from the Council for his obstinacy on the issue, eventually alienating all five members  even Councilwoman Nora Davis, his biggest supporter at City Hall.
The City Council had explained that a lengthy charter, filled with legalese, would only serve to confuse voters, leading to an unnecessary defeat for the proposal in November.

The Council has collectively expressed desire to include in the charter provisions to levy a real estate transfer tax as neighboring cities have done in order to make up for lost revenue after the demise of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency.  Emeryville's current governing model, 'general law', a model orchestrated by Sacramento, does not permit such a tax to be implemented.  The legal provisions of charter cities, sometimes referred to as 'home rule' or 'local control' cities however, allow for local voters to decide such things.

The City Attorney in Emeryville serves at the pleasure of the City Council.

School District and City Withhold Public Documents from Tattler & the Public

Public Better Off Being Ignorant Says City Attorney & School District

Opinion
Emeryville's City Attorney has ruled that documents in the possession of the City and the School District outlining meetings of public officials that took place behind closed doors will not be made public according to a letter recently received by the Tattler.  The City Attorney, Michael Biddle, ruled that the release of the documents would harm the public now and that the public would be further harmed later because government officials would not be able to engage in "robust" behind closed door discussions necessary for good public policy formulation.

One of the documents, a major traffic study regarding the new Emeryville Center for Community Life (ECCL), was requested by the Tattler in April from both the School District and the City.  Both refused to provide the document in response to a California Public Records Act request and as a result Emeryville residents can now only guess what public officials know about the traffic impact that will be caused by the ECCL that officials are unwilling to share with the public.

City Attorney and interim City Manager
Michael Biddle (on left) with recently retired
City Manager Pat O'Keeffe 

The Emeryville Center for Community Life, still years from being completed, has recently disappointed residents that hoped it would live up to the environmental promises made by both School District and City officials.  First, this February we saw the School District request special permission to be exempted from the City’s LEED environmental standards for Emeryville public buildings. In a 3-2 vote, the City Council allowed this environmental promise to be broken.

More recently, in April, we saw the School District back before the City Council requesting that it be exempted from another environmentally-friendly requirement that it found bothersome, the General Plan’s requirement that there be a bicycle and pedestrian path along the western property border of the proposed ECCL site. While this 3-2 vote of the City Council preserved the path in the City’s General Plan, none of the most recent ECCL designs show any intention by the District of actually building the required path.

With the School District’s record clear, the Tattler has decided to watch carefully the District’s compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as it proceeds with the ECCL design and construction.  On April 11th the Tattler wrote ECCL project director, Roy Miller, requesting all Environmental Impact Reports related to the planned ECCL, all CEQA notices, and to be placed on a list of “interested parties” to receive all future CEQA notices.  Mr. Miller replied that such documents were not currently available and would be available at the District office once “they have been prepared for public release”,  presumably after having been scrubbed clean.

However, we were surprised a few days later with the release of the monthly Progress Reports, dated March 1 and April 1, prepared by the City’s Building & Planning Director, Charlie Bryant, which each describe the School District providing the City with a copy of a traffic study for the ECCL project, and the City’s Building and Planning department responding to the District with comments.  The Progress Reports reveal no details of the traffic study.

If the earlier request for CEQA-related documents was not clear enough, the Tattler again wrote to the School District’s Roy Miller to request a copy of this ECCL traffic study.  For good measure, the City also received a request for the same ECCL traffic study document.

After several days, lawyers for both the City and the School District flatly refused the Tattler’s request for Public Documents.  City Attorney Biddle responded on behalf of the City that the traffic study was a “draft” not subject to the Public Records Act.  Mr. Biddle’s letter claims that “the public interest in withholding those records clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure,” citing a California Supreme Court decision called Citizens for a Better Environment v. Department of Food and Agriculture. 

Phony Case Law
Readers might find it as amusing as we did to read the court opinion cited by Mr. Biddle (in the link above), because what the Court actually decides in that case is that the documents at issue have to be disclosed to the extent the document contains factual material and that only the expressions of opinion have to be redacted.  So, clearly this top secret ECCL traffic study is either entirely a work of opinion, and therefore not subject to disclosure, or a work containing factual material that the City and School District are improperly withholding from the public.  This leaves one to wonder what value a traffic study would have to a CEQA process if it were made up entirely of opinion and contained no facts on which to base those opinions.   Leave it to our School District to break exciting new ground in purely fictional traffic studies!  Bravo!  The Tattler expected nothing less.

Mr. Biddle also argued that the documents requested were “deliberative materials necessary for robust agency discussion” and therefore subject to an exception to the Public Records Act intended to foster “robust policy discussions.” This is what the Tattler has always found to be true of both our City and School District. They never shy away from a “robust” policy debate… just so long as the public isn’t included.  If we're allowed to listen in, presumably the talk becomes wimpy and feeble.

This City and this School District, fearful as they are of transparency should come clean with regard to this withholding of documents.  We ask again, are these environmental documents for the Center of Community Life factual in nature?  If so, the City Attorney's own citation requires their release to the public, by his own reckoning he must make them available.  And in that case, Mr Biddle and the School District is wrong, for they are harming the public more by withholding these documents than by releasing them to the rightful owners, the public.

City Attorney Quietly Removes Provisions To Tear Down Elementary School

City Hall/School District Rescinds Offer To Allow Developer To Build Lofts On Elementary School Site

Tonight the Emeryville City Council and the Former Redevelopment Agency now known as the Successor Agency voted on a resolution that had been quietly purged of a previous section that offered up Anna Yates Elementary School and Ralph Hawley Middle School to the highest bidder for new condo and loft construction.
The resolution was changed sometime after the Tattler reported on its earlier incarnation on Sunday.  The City Attorney Mike Biddle and the council members refused to comment on the last minute change other than to acknowledge the fact that it had been changed.  Mr Biddle refused to answer specifically why the resolution had been re-written.  The new document makes no claim as to the fate of what had been formerly referred to as School District "surplus property".

Council member Nora Davis did not refute that the resolution had morphed, but she denied the previous language in the document that referred to the schools sell off ever existed, calling any mention of it "misinformation".  Tattler readers can view the previous resolution on their own, complete with the section on selling the elementary school and the middle school off to developers for demolition, HERE (please go to page four).

The City Council and the Successor Agency are comprised of the same people.

Biddle Contract Approved, 9 Months Pay Perk Added

Worried About Termination, Biddle Nets Ballot Initiative Severance Pay 

Emeryville city attorney Mike Biddle changed his employment contract with the city to blunt the effects of a possible termination of his employment by voters in the scheduled November ballot initiative.  Mr Biddle however lost his bid to receive the 18 months ballot initiative severance pay he requested, garnering instead nine months by city council fiat last Tuesday.
The council voted 4-1 to grant nine months severance pay with council member Ken Bukowski dissenting, claiming Mr Biddle should receive no special severance in the event the people vote him (Biddle) out of office.  Mr Bukowski is the progenitor of the autumn ballot initiative that would remove the city attorney position as a regular employee of the city adding instead subcontractor attorneys for the city's legal work.

18 months of aggregate salary for Mr Biddle would total at least $431,000 based on the city attorney's 2010 salary according to the Public Employees Salary Database.   Council member Jennifer West offered instead 9 months of salary totaling about $216,000, a savings of approximately $216,000 for the city.

The negotiation of Mr Biddle's employment contract was regularly scheduled by the city council and the looming ballot initiative against the city attorney's employment is unconnected to it.

City Attorney Tells Council To Create Phony Housing Authority

Cynical Gaming Of Government Services:

City Attorney Recommends City Set Up Sham Housing Authority 

Emeryville's city attorney, Mike Biddle has recommended the city council set up a new governmental agency in Emeryville; a housing authority, who's sole purpose is not to administer housing but instead to enable certain managers at City Hall avoid paying 6.2% of their salaries to the Social Security Administration.

Mr Biddle, in a pre-dated May 3rd letter, reminded the city council that Governor Brown could terminate the Redevelopment Agency and that would trigger the end of the other half of a coupled Emeryville joint powers authority known as Management of Emeryville Services Authority (MESA).
Mesa as it turns out, is a major employer at City Hall; except for Police, Fire, and SEIU employees, everyone else (mostly managers) don't actually work for the city of Emeryville but for MESA.

MESA employment is different than city of Emeryville employment in that city workers must pay 6.2% of their income to Social Security (SSI) but as MESA employees, there is no deduction for SSI owing to an alternate retirement program.

MESA, being a joint powers authority, must exist with another government entity (as it now exists in conjunction with the Redevelopment Agency) so in the event of a Redevelopment Agency shut down, the only way for managers at City Hall to get their desired MESA retirement package is if another government agency can be brought forth for MESA to couple with.

Mr Biddle's solution is to create a sham entity to become part of MESA to fulfill the requirement of two distinct entities needed to keep MESA alive.  Mr Biddle recommends forming a phony Housing Authority to accomplish this.

In his letter, Mr Biddle assures a skittish council the new housing agency won't have to actually transact any business; there would be "no requirement that the Authority provide for section 8 housing, nor is there any requirement that the Agency own and operate any housing as a landlord" or anything else that housing authorities do to create affordable housing.  Instead, Mr Biddle says in the letter, the new Housing Authority could just sit there and serve its real purpose: bumping up the pay of city managers by 6.2%.

The city council will discuss the issue on Tuesday night.

Council Member Bukowski's Letter: City Attorney's Office

Any Emeryville elected official that makes a submittal request to the Tattler for publication, we will oblige.  Here then is Council Member Ken Bukowski's unedited  letter to the Tattler, received today:

Memo from Emeryville Council Member Ken Bukowski

       (510)  305-0000

To all:

I am requesting your support to urge the other members of the city council to have the Department of the City Attorney be required to keep hourly records of time spent by his office as well as other attorney's working in his department for every activity the city has to pay for.

As taxpayers in this community it makes sense to impose this requirement as we seek to identify wasteful spending in all city government.  This request is a common practice in the field of law, and the City Attorney & his staff, should be required to be accountable.

I remain disappointed the City Council refuses to consider the option of using outside counsel to perform the functions of the City Attorney's Office.  There is no good reason why the city council should not explore the option of using outside counsel. 

We're paying the City Attorney about $24,000 per month with nine months severance pay...  He earns more than the Oakland City Attorney. We pay the same amount of money as the City of Pittsburg pays for it's contract with an outside law firm of Myers-Nova who handles all their legal work. Their redevelopment agency is TEN TIMES the size of the City of Emeryville's redevelopment project.

When the State took money from redevelopment agencies last year, by a percentage of economic activity, the City of Pittsburg was required to return $128 million dollars to the State, compared to the $2.1 million the city of Emeryville had to pay, to give you some comparison.

The fact the city attorney works directly for the city council is a problem. The City Attorney must satisfy at least three members of the city council to keep his job. This creates a direct personal relationship between the city council members and the person holding the position.  The use of an outside firm prevents the possibility of such relationships.

Employee performance of the city attorney with an outside law firm would be determined by whether the client is satisfied. Such evaluations could occur annually, The question of client satisfaction would definitely include the opinion of the city manager, in an atmosphere where such criticism would be welcome, and not seen as an attack upon another employee of equal status with the city council. The City Manager does not participate in the evaluation of the City Attorney...?  A major flaw in the evaluation process.

The evaluation would also provide for the city council members to be objective where there is no personal relationship with individual city council members. Proper review of legal performance should occur outside of any political consideration. 

Specifically, as long as this city attorney knows that pleasing Nora Davis means he must do things against Ken Bukowski, and others, the system is broken.  Davis' strong level of influence over the City Attorney is a problem which must be recognized. Instead of each council member thinking about issues I raise during evaluation..  They have to decide what happens if anyone decides to support what I'm saying.

Davis will be very displeased........,  Does anyone want to bear the wrath of Nora Davis..?  This is reality.  That is what we have had for a long time. I'm tired of it, and I have to tell people about it.

At this point I'm simply asking for your support for the requirement for the city attorney to keep hourly accounting of all legal services performed. The council will be continuing the evaluation of his performance at the next city council meeting on March 1st.  Now is the time to communicate your support for this idea.

best:

Ken Bukowski