Emeryville City Manager Announces He's Quitting

 Paul Buddenhagen Lasts Less Than Two Years as Emeryville City Manager

Is City Hall Dysfunction a Reason For His Departure? 

And so another Emeryville City Manager bugs out.  

Paul Buddenhagen announced to the people of Berkeley yesterday he will be leaving his Emeryville job where he’s been for less than two years, to take up the position of Berkeley City Manager.  While he will take a much larger salary than the $280,000 he receives in Emeryville, that fact was not mentioned as a contributing factor.   Mr Buddenhagen is familiar with Berkeley, having served as Berkeley’s Deputy City Manager before his Emeryville stint.

During his short stint in command at Emeryville, Mr Buddenhagen’s governing style dovetailed with the City Council majority.  One of his first acts was to close down Emeryville’s formerly popular ‘Coffee With the City Manager’ program that invited average citizens to come to City Hall to freely ask questions and solicit ideas.  Coffee With the City Manager has been a once a month scheduled event since 2015 (with a break during Covid), started by then Manager Sabrina Landreth.  Every Emeryville City Manager up until Paul Buddenhagen continued on with the tradition. 

Paul Buddenhagen
Emeryville's newest former City Manager.
Despite a guiding philosophy matching the 
City Council majority, he departs in September.

 

The curtailing of citizen engagement has not happened in a vacuum.  The City Council majority, led by the two termer John Bauters, has largely forgone accountably, commanding a government famously unresponsive to its constituents.  Mr Bauters and now Mayor Courtney Welch have tightly controlled citizen participation, disallowing constituents or the local press access.  Unlike previous Council members, they are not available - not by phone, emails or any other venue.  The only way the Tattler has been able to get any answers to questions at all from Mr Bauters has been as a result of rushing him with our camera as he is caught in public.  Mr Buddenhagen has also governed with a ‘no public access’ policy, probably taking his cues from Mr Bauters.  Notably, two Council members do make themselves available to answer constituent’s questions, Vice Mayor David Mourra and Council member Kalimah Priforce.

Mr Buddenhagen has managed City Hall with an illiberal undemocratic guiding philosophy with timidity as a default.  In response to a man with a camera, he permanently closed down more than 90% of the people’s building in 2023.  More recently he closed down the popular Zoom capability for citizens to remotely speak at meetings because of some Nazis who had called in with racist comments. 

While it is compelling that the City of Berkeley is offering Mr Buddenhagen more money than Emeryville is willing to pay, we can’t be sure that's the only or even the primary reason for his leaving.  For the last two years, the Council, controlled by Mr Bauters and gladly taken up recently by Ms Welch, has been a locus of uncivil and boorish behavior.  Recriminations are routinely handed down from the dais against citizens as well as against the dissenting Council member Priforce.  The dysfunction and turmoil may have contributed to Mr Buddenhagen’s decision to depart.  

City Manager Buddenhagen will leave for Berkeley in September.  He did not answer calls for this story.

Emeryville Reverses Course on COVID Mask Policy

Public Mask Wearing Order Policy Thrown Over to Private Sector

City Hall Places Public Health Trust With Private Developers 

No More Surprise Inspection Visits From the City

News Analysis

The City of Emeryville has initiated a new COVID policy that claims to punish contractors at construction sites in the city for their workers not wearing masks—but only if they get caught—and they won’t get caught because the City will only check for compliance during regularly scheduled construction inspections.  The contractors will be fined $188 if their workers are not obeying the Alameda County mask order but, absurdly, they know exactly when the City inspectors will be coming to their job sites so workers can quickly slip on their masks during the inspection thus avoiding both the fine and public health policy capacity.  How’s that for effective public health policy during a deadly pandemic?  It’s like if the police gave warning to crack house squatters that they’ll be breaking down the doors next Thursday at noon to look for crack and make arrests.  Think there’ll be any narcotics to be found at the crack house next Thursday? 

This ridiculous situation is where Emeryville City Hall is in the fall of 2020 with COVID-19 raging through the population.  It represents a regulatory relaxing of deterrence against rule breakers.  The new COVID policy replaces former policy from last April when the City didn’t give warnings before they came to check on mask wearing compliance at construction sites in town. 

With Americans’ expectations of general dysfunction or even uselessness from their government the new norm, Emeryville’s new public health policy in the face of an exploding pandemic is notably feckless and reckless.  It is after all the preeminent role of any government to protect the health and welfare of the people.  Maxims aside, the COVID policy we’re getting in Emeryville is inverse to the threat level the deadly virus poses. 

Emeryville City Manager
Christine Daniel
 'Emeryville COVID policy
should be relaxed as the 
virus explodes exponentially.'

When the pandemic first took hold last April, Emeryville formulated an effective response to the Alameda County mask wearing order it is charged with enforcing.  Citizen complaints registered with City Hall against workers seen not wearing masks at any of the construction job sites in town would draw a surprise visit from a City of Emeryville building inspector.  Violators were given warnings at first but the City formulated a program of increasing punishments against wayward building contractors.  This policy has been replaced this fall with a new policy where, after receiving a citizen complaint, the City will not send a surprise visit from a building inspector.  Instead, building inspectors have been directed to notice if any workers are not wearing masks at the job sites during regularly scheduled calls for inspection services.  The calls for inspection it should be noted, come from the contractors themselves.

The City’s first iteration of mask wearing compliance at job sites allowed the contractor to mete out punishment against the workers with promises from at least one contractor to the City that offending workers employees would face employment termination.  A public records request revealed that the contractor at the Sherwin Williams building site on Horton Street had violated the County mask order in late August with a City building inspector recording in his report from his surprise visit he saw “12 individuals without masks on.  Four of these individuals were within 6 feet of another worker.”  No workers were reported terminated for that violation nor were any for violations called in after that initial contact by the City.

A new policy without such surprise visits from City inspectors arose sometime after an early September flurry of violations, primarily at the Sherwin Williams site and with some recorded at the “Intersection” site (AKA the Maz Project) on San Pablo Avenue at Adeline Street.  The new policy was clarified by City Manager Christine Daniel who told the Tattler Wednesday, “The City’s building inspectors continue to remind contractors about the requirements and will cease an inspection if proper [mask wearing] practices are not being followed.” 

The new policy, unsurprisingly, is less effective at catching violators at the job sites.  The employees of the contractors are now all wearing masks having been forewarned when the inspectors are arriving at the sites but subcontractors, who aren’t at the site every day have been problematic as it turns out.  The subcontractors apparently aren’t getting sufficient forewarning from the contractors and are consequently getting caught by City inspectors.

The City has stopped relying on the contractors to terminate offending employees, a relic from the first COVID mask wearing policy and now the punishment leveraged against contractors is that the inspectors will leave a site if any workers are seen not wearing masks.  City Manager Daniel reported to the Tattler on Wednesday,  “As recently as Monday of last week an inspection was terminated, a correction notice issued and the contractor was requested to notify all sub-contractors to review the importance of compliance with the County Health Officer Orders.”  The fee for rescheduling an inspection is $188, an amount so low that it can be easily absorbed as a cost of doing business for any large project in town.

So the new policy from City Hall is not effective according to the City itself.  The former policy had a mechanism to catch violators but lacked effective punishment and the new policy is ineffective with regard to both catching and punishing violators.  The result is worksites without workers wearing masks continuously happening in Emeryville since last April.  

Emeryville is not interested in doing what it takes to satisfy the Alameda County mask order and therefore not interested in helping to stop viral infections, even as cases spiral in our community.  This is not an opinion.  This is demonstrably true, using the City’s own records.  This story is not an editorial or an opinion piece. 

The City Manager failed to explain when and why the City’s new COVID policy was enacted, only that it had been implemented.

$188: Not Much of a Punishment
Letter from the contractor to sub-contractors at 'The Intersection' project.
This violation cost the contractor $188 in a project that will run 
more than $50 million.  The workers don't want to wear masks and neither the
contractor nor the City wants to force them.

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.

The People Are Welcomed Into the People's Hall

Ordinary Emeryville Citizens Walk Where Only the Rich and Powerful and Connected Once Tread

News Analysis / Opinion
This city is going above and beyond the legal minimum in terms of public access.  And that means extraordinary things are about to happen.
Never before in modern Emeryville history has the public been granted the same status, the same access as the rich and powerful.   But starting Thursday at noon, the last will be first and the first will be last at Emeryville City Hall.  The City Manager's office, the historic locus of true power in our town, the seat of business and development legerdemain is being transformed; the shades are to be flung open, the window sashes hoisted, the smoke cleared out, the stately doors chocked open and ordinary Emeryville citizens will be in there, amidst the dark wood paneling expressing their opinions, their desires, their musings on all things Emery to the Emeryville City Manager.  Just another Thursday in Emeryville...not!

Emeryville's previous city manager Pat O'Keeffe
called himself "pro developer".  He used his
office to negotiate directly with developers
and businessmen (public not invited). 

It's being called "Lunch with the City Manager".

We like to imagine the spectacle of dozens of dastardly developers scurrying like roaches once the shaft of noonday sunlight penetrates that office Thursday as Emeryville citizens, once seen as the rabble,  stroll in.   And sadly, that cartoonish image might not be far off the mark.  For as long as we can remember and quite possibly for the entirety of Emeryville history, the City Manager would work out development deals from his office...dickering with developers seeking project approvals.  By the time the public was allowed to weigh in at Planning Commission or Council meetings, it was too late; the all but the most innocuous details of the proposed development had long been decided...behind closed doors.
The new city manager, Sabrina Landreth is different.  For one, she's a woman; probably the first in Emeryville history.  When we first met her at her first City Council meeting, she seemed cut from a different cloth.  Now, there's no denying it: business as usual in Emeryville is gone.

The City Manager's office has gone from this...

to this.

Ms Landreth is inviting the public into her office...on a regular basis, a democratic counter point to the previous two city managers that held weekly meetings with Emeryville business lobbyist and political power broker John Gooding every Monday at 9:00 AM for an extended closed door session.  Topic of discussion?  Whatever John Gooding wanted to talk about.  The meetings may have helped Mr Gooding's bottom line but was the public's interest being addressed?  We'll never know because the weekly meetings were closed to the public.  Business interests and developers would routinely meet with the City Manager...in his office...behind closed doors.  If you asked, you would be told the public's interests was the only concern of the City Manager in these closed door meetings.  We had to take them at their word.  No records of the meetings were ever kept.

Now Ms Landreth has turned all that on its ear. Starting Thursday at noon, the public is invited in to talk about whatever is on their minds.  And Ms Landreth intends to make it every 3rd Thursday (exact times after this coming Thursday may change depending on how accessible it is for people).  For the time being, she's calling it "Lunch with the City Manager", or possibly (jokingly?) "Beer with the City Manager" if a later time period is settled on.  Watch this space for developments (pun not intended).

We called on Ms Landreth to do this some months ago.  We thank her for this public access she has provided to the people's hall.

An Open Letter to Emeryville's New City Manager, Sabrina Landreth

Monday Mornings at 9:00

To Emeryville City Manager, Sabrina Landreth-

We congratulate you as you settle in as Emeryville's new City Manager.  We look forward to many years of service on your part, assuaging the desires of the people of Emeryville as we work together crafting the town we residents want to live in.  No doubt by now you have learned a lot about the culture at City Hall and how politics are played here in Emeryville.  And this is why we write to you now.

The city manager position in Emeryville is not simply an office running job.  This position historically has been used to bend the trajectory of development in the town, regardless of the official job description.  The city manager has not merely fulfilled the will of the City Council, scurrying about as a automaton-like servant.  No, the person in your seat has been the most powerful figure in Emeryville, forming power coalitions, working with a development agenda, for good or bad.

Over many years we have watched with dismay as your office, under your predecessors and behind closed doors, has been used by developers and other business concerns, to conduct business without transparency and without accountability to the people.  The way this has traditionally been done in Emeryville is that development deals are made within your four walls before the public is even informed.  Later, when a development proposal is moved into the public arena, overseen by the elected officials, all the decisions of consequence have already been settled.  The public has been effectively shut out of the process.  With business and developer friendly city managers at the helm up until now, this is how Emeryville has come to be known as the East Bay's business friendly city.

Our new City Manager, Sabrina Landreth

But even as you now assume your position and begin your duties as our new city manager and we turn a page in Emeryville history, we want to make sure we really do turn a page in Emeryville history.

A great place to start we think, is Monday mornings at 9:00 in your office.  Because that is the time and the place one private Emeryville citizen has had reserved for private closed door meetings for more than 10 years.  That citizen is of course John Gooding, the Chamber of Commerce political power broker and business consultant/lobbyist.

Mr Gooding would meet with former City Manager Pat O'Keeffe in Mr O'Keefe's office for a private closed door meeting, Mondays at 9:00.  We're told that time was permanently set aside by Mr O'Keeffe for Mr Gooding.  And before Mr O'Keeffe, it was former City Manager John Flores meeting with John Gooding.  Again, Monday mornings at 9:00, private one-on-one meeting with the man running City Hall.  What was discussed at those hundreds of meetings?  We'll never know. But what was notable was that no other private citizen or even group of citizens ever got equal treatment from the city manager.  The rest of us were locked out.

What we want from you Ms Landreth, is a similar time set aside.  We'd like Monday mornings at 9:00 to be set aside again....only this time we want the door to be open and we want Emeryville residents in your office.  Any of them...hopefully all of them (in one way or another) over the years.  We want you to meet with resident groups such as Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE).  We want you to hear OUR concerns, not just business/developer interests.  We want 9:00 Monday mornings in your office reserved for US.

We think this would help serve as a powerful balm for much of what ails Emeryville.  It would help connect the heretofore alienated public with their City Hall.  We like the 9:00 time slot specifically.  It would serve as a beautiful, symmetrical and just counterpoint.  It would go far to show everyone that a page has indeed turned.

Pat O'Keeffe To Step Down As Emeryville City Manager

Congratulations To Emeryville's New 
City Manager, Helen Bean

Opinion
At tonight's council meeting, Emeryville City Manager, Pat O'Keeffe announced he plans on retiring in March, surprising meeting attendees and forcing a "search" for a replacement to be conducted by the city council, probably in January.  We'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Helen Bean, currently Emeryville's Director of Economic Development and Housing, on being selected as Emeryville's new City Manager.

As Emeryville's current second in command at City Hall, Ms Bean will be selected by the council after a nation-wide executive "search", paid for by Emeryville taxpayers, probably in February.

Welcome Aboard!
Emeryville's current Economic Director and
future City Manager, Helen Bean

The "search" will be contracted out to an executive head hunter firm and will likely cost some $30,000, the same amount charged to "find" Mr O'Keeffe in 2007.
After an exhaustive nation-wide "search", the city council selected Pat, bringing him up from his former position as Emeryville's Economic Director.
The council, later on selected another city employee, Maurice Kaufman, to be Emeryville's Director of Public Works after another nation-wide executive "search", this one costing some $7000.  Mr Kaufman had previously been second in command at the Public Works Department before the taxpayer funded "search".

We wish Ms Bean all the best in her new position and we give a nod to the city council for their unswerving tenacity in making sure nothing is left to chance as they soldier on with their program of reliability and predictability in public policy.  The way the council selects managers here helps contribute to our reputation for being extremely business friendly.  We should acknowledge this reputation is earned, cemented really by Emeryville's reliable and predictable environment creating an ongoing laser-like focus on keeping businesses happy.

Job Opening In City Of Atherton: Emeryville City Manager Encouraged To Apply

Opinion
The City of Atherton California, located on the peninsula halfway between San Francisco and San Jose and home to "some of the most beautiful estates in the country"  has announced it is seeking a new city manager.
Atherton, primarily a bedroom community is notable with 96% of its homes valued at a million dollars or higher.  The city boasts a high percentage of Republicans and includes eBay CEO Meg Whitman among its notable denizens.
The expectations of the populace in Atherton and the culture at the city hall there would likely dovetail nicely with the policy preferences of Emeryville's own city manager Pat O'Keeffe and the Tattler would like to extend to Mr O'Keeffe this invitation to apply for the prestigious Atherton city manager position.
Pat, we think you'd do very well in this position and the pay scale would probably be an improvement over  Emeryville; we think you should check it out.  We'll give you a glowing recommendation if it will help you get the job.   Good luck.