Councilman Priforce's Gaza Ceasefire Resolution Idea Fails For Lack of a Second

 

Emeryville City Council Majority Says YES to Ukrainian Children but NO to Palestinian Children

After passing a City Council resolution in support of the people of Ukraine some months ago, Emeryville’s City Council majority said a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in support of ending the mass killing of innocent civilians, was not something they would be willing to consider.  The vote (4-1 Priforce dissenting), came in the form of a refusal to even discuss the merits of the resolution that had been brought to the table by Council member Kalimah Priforce Tuesday night.  The action by John Bauters, who as mayor, led off the opposition by refusing to provide a second to Mr Priforce’s motion, was notable for being his last official act in his two year mayoralty. 

These dead children are not Ukrainian and so the 
Emeryville City Council majority cannot see them.

Council member Priforce’s idea of a ceasefire in Gaza is not a radical idea as it has been taken up by centrists and progressives all across America.  Since Israel’s attack on Gaza after October 7th, over 18,000 Palestinian civilians have perished by many estimates, including some 10,000 children.  The slaughter has brought millions of Americans, over 66%, to demand Israel stop the bombing and for both sides to recognize a ceasefire.   Indeed, most Americans outside of the Emeryville City Council majority can see the humanity of Palestinian children.  The words of current presidential hopeful Dr Cornel West, “A Palestinian baby has the same value as an Israeli baby” has been taken up by large majorities of Americans.  By their vote however, the Emeryville City Council (minus Mr Priforce), can only see the suffering of the Ukrainians at the hands of Russia.    

Hinting he may yet bring the idea back for a future vote before his Council colleagues, Mr Priforce put the resolution idea in moral terms, "To draft a resolution that acknowledges that a ceasefire would save the lives of children in Gaza and Israel reflects the character of our city and our strive towards inclusivity and equity. My proposal is simply that we join our regional neighbors in being pro-active rather than burying our heads in the sand - just as we did when we drafted a resolution over the war in Ukraine”, he said.

After Mr Bauters led his drive to kill the resolution in support of Palestinian children from lethal violence and perhaps as an unintentional counter factual, former Councilwomen and current Planning Commissioner Dianne Martinez approached the podium, calling John Bauters, “The best mayor in the United States of America”.

Cronyism Charged as Council Appoints Former Councilwoman to Planning Commission

 Councilman Priforce: Cronyism 

in Martinez Appointment 

Votes 'Predetermined' as Council Majority Seeks New 

Housing Policy Backstop 

In an unprecedented vote at the April 18th City Council meeting, the Council majority, bolstering Emeryville’s reputation as the indispensable Bay Area city for unfettered rental housing development, appointed YIMBY advocate and former Council member Dianne Martinez to the position of Planning Commissioner, an action that drew the ire of Council member Kalimah Priforce who charged the Council with “cronyism”.  The indictment rolled off the backs of the four other City Council members however and they proceeded on with the installation of Ms Martinez over Mr Priforce's objections.  

Councilman Kalimah Priforce
He says the Council vote for
Dianne Martinez was "stacked".

For the record, Ms Martinez’s cronies Mr Priforce referred to are those Council members who support her pro-housing policies that derive from the real estate developer lobbying organization YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) she forwarded on her years on the Council, especially Mayor John Bauters and Vice Mayor Courtney Welch.

The Planning Commission historically has been a faithful supporter of the Council majority’s housing  policies, however Ms Martinez was appointed by the Council to shepherd any wayward Commissioners on the pro-YIMBY track.  Mr Priforce, who interrupted the Council’s deliberations with peals of laughter at the prospect of the appointment of Ms Martinez, said his colleague’s vote for the developer friendly former Councilwoman was “stacked”.

The YIMBY organization has been active across the State, convincing municipalities to give up their independence on housing policy, but nowhere as successfully as in Emeryville whom the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed the “most YIMBY town in California”.  Critics of YIMBY, including the Tattler, have noted the organization, being a business lobbying group, has an agenda wholly based on increasing developer’s profits, not on ‘building housing’.   In fact, it has been shown that cities that follow the YIMBY path do build more housing (at the expense of other necessities) but primarily, housing of a particular type - that being luxury rental housing.  Accordingly, Emeryville, largely doing the bidding of YIMBY over the last ten years, has been transformed from a mostly home owner city into a mostly rental city, a fact Council member Priforce has been touting on the dais and in his blog.  The transformation of the city’s black and brown people from homeowners into renters has been especially pronounced, Mr Priforce has shown.  

In fact it’s not just black and brown people that have been negatively affected by the increase in rental housing over home ownership housing.  The YIMBY transformation has been stark; Emeryville now stands as the highest percentage of renters over homeowners of any city in the East Bay.  

Former Councilwoman Dianne Martinez
Appointed to Planning Commission, she
says people who want the General Plan 
followed on housing are nothing
but 'NIMBYs'. 

Mr Priforce, the lone City Council voice of independence over YIMBY,  apologized to Watergate resident Eugene Tssui, the other candidate hoping for the Planning Commission slot at the April 18th meeting.  He told Mr Tssui the Council’s decision was predetermined, the votes had “already been counted and decided” in favor of Ms Martinez he said.  He dismayed at the “cronyism all of this displays to the people of Emeryville” and the “baggage that would come to the Planning Commission as a result of this decision [to appoint Dianne Martinez]”.  

Perhaps as an attempt to draw attention away from the YIMBY connection at the Planning Commission appointment, Councilwoman Courtney Welch said she was voting for Ms Martinez not because of her housing advocacy but rather because of her gender.  Noting there’s only one woman currently on the Planning Commission, Ms Welch told the other audience, “To add to the gender balance, we should at least add one other woman”.

YIMBY’s insistance that good and affordable housing will trickle down for everybody if municipal housing policy is simply handed over to private real estate corporations is analogous to the trickle down nostrums of the Reagan era that posited the middle class would be helped if massive tax cuts were provided for the wealthy.  Then and now, the idea hinges on a 'market infallibility' fallacy.  And like the zealotry of trickle down idealism from the 80’s, government deception is required to keep the thing going.  In the case of YIMBYism, local governments are put to work to obscure the fact that real estate developers are here to maximize profits for themselves, not to provide a public good.  Thus the government, abdicating its role here and now, means only build luxury rental housing will be built.  Not only are the City Council zealots ignoring our General Plan provisions that we must increase ownership housing over rentals, they are also precluding that we could be using our clout to force these developers to provide the proper amount of park space the General Plan prescribes and other quality of life infrastructure the addition of more people in our town necessitates.  The pro-marketplace zealotry means we remove any chance to try to craft a place people want to live, all for obedience to the trickle down housing scheme. 

Council Gives Real Estate Developers Vote of Confidence

 Council Majority Votes to Support YIMBY's Plan Over City's General Plan

Red Carpet to be Rolled Out For Developers

In a remarkable show of fraternity with corporate real estate interests, the Emeryville City Council majority voted to support the hand over of California cities’s autonomous public housing policies to private developers Tuesday night.  The voting (4-1 Priforce dissenting) puts the City’s imprimatur squarely in the ‘hands off’ developers camp with its nod to near total deregulation of municipality's housing policy for the benefit of market forces.  The vote shows a Council hostile to Emeryville's General Plan and a predilection to disallow Emeryville's residents a say so as the guiding principle for its housing policy in the future.

The new housing polity was forwarded in a series of affirmative votes, officially conjoining Emeryville with developer’s wishes, each in the same 4-1 fashion; a roll back of State planning protections for residents (AB 1307), a lowering citizen’s threshold vote from 2/3rds to 55% for development projects that would cost taxpayers money on infrastructure  (ACA 1) and a bill that broadly deregulates the approval process for local municipalities, including a roll back of affordable housing construction regulation (SB 423). 

Mayor John Bauters
Emeryville's laws protecting 
housing must be "streamlined" to
protect developers.    

 

The Council explained that community safeguards protected by Emeryville’s construction approval process need to be “streamlined” because “we are not building enough housing” and lowering the voter threshold for requiring taxpayers to foot the bill for public infrastructure improvements (coming as a result of private development) from the traditional 2/3rds to 55%, is OK because “it’s still democracy”.  

The protections the Council showed animosity towards come at the expense of decades of community activism at the local and state level through changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the Constitution of the State of California. 

The developer and tech funded housing lobbying group YIMBY backed the votes taken by the City Council, applauding Emeryville for what they characterized as being sufficiently “pro housing”. YIMBY has been criticized by many housing equity organizations state-wide for equating its hands off developers campaigning with a lowering of the price of housing as a false narrative.  

Affordable housing advocates refer to the YIMBY model as ‘trickle down housing’, recalling the Reagan era mantra of the discredited trickle down economics that was advertised as a way to buoy up the middle class.  The idea is government provides tax cuts to wealthy people and corporations and their extra wealth will trickle down to poor people as corporations re-invest in their businesses, hiring more and wealthy people hire more servants and they stimulate the economy with their increased purchasing power.  It is an idea Emeryville is doubling down on with Tuesday’s deregulation scheme.

Councilman Kalimah Priforce
The four other Emeryville City
Council members + Dianne 
Martinez are the "YIMBY 5".

Very revealing in the bills the Council voted on is a provision that developers will not have to provide as much affordable housing as they are now.  It is an irrational part of the trickle down idea: that being the notion that more affordable housing will end up being built if we remove requirements for building affordable housing.  Notably, the four supporting Council members didn't speak to that provision.  That plus the fact that developers, freed from government regulation requiring them to build ownership housing, will not build ownership housing.  Even before the Tuesday vote, Emeryville has morphed into a mostly rental city as Council member Priforce showed us on his website. 

Council members Courtney Welch, David Mourra and Sukhdeep Kaur all followed Mayor John Bauters’ lead with the votes but Councilman Kalimah Priforce was adamant this was not a way forward towards equitable growth.  Calling the four Council members plus newly appointed Planning Commissioner, the former City Councilwoman Dianne Martinez the “YIMBY Five”, Mr Priforce told the Tattler, “I want homeowners, renters, Community Based Organizations and City officials working together for an Emeryville free from developer control.  The YIMBY Five think they know better than what the people want.  I believe in placing the power back into the people’s hands so they can determine what true affordable housing is - not this trickle down housing.”

Emeryville Home Ownership Dropping, Rentals Rising

Council Member Priforce's Numbers Reveal YIMBY Obeisance: 

Home Ownership Falls, Rentals Rise

Public Policy Crisis: General Plan Overturned to Developer's Profit Seeking Goals

Emeryville is the worst city in the East Bay as far as home ownership is concerned.  Statistics show it's bad and it's getting worse.  While the City's long standing approach of letting developers do what they want has fueled the worsening condition, it stands to codify and put into law the 'hands off' approach by certifying the new Housing Element plan and its provision to officially seek to "remove government constraints" on developers.  While the future looks bleak, Council member Kalimah Priforce has been busy detailing for citizens how the condition has worsened over the last decade.

Mr Priforce has publicly released housing data that puts numbers to a multi-year project taken up by the Emeryville City Council that has been forwarding transformational but not fully accountable housing policy that favors the building of rental housing over home ownership.  The tranche of data delivered by the Councilman on his website objectively tracks what many residents have been sensing over the years and petitioning against: Emeryville has been fully turned into a city of renters, now comprising 72% of us, the highest percentage of any East Bay city.

The revelatory information is presented on Councilman Priforce’s informational website, votepriforce.com he has set up expressly for Emeryville residents since his election last November and is viewable HERE.

The rental housing numbers are likely as distressing for Emeryville residents as they are antithetical to the General Plan’s general provision to increase the percentage of ownership housing.  In 2011, shortly after the certification of the General Plan, 36% of residents were homeowners compared with 28% by 2021 (the last year presented), an eight point drop.  Compared with the neighboring cities of Oakland and Berkeley, Emeryville’s drop is seen as even more troubling.  Those cities dropped their homeownership percentages but only by one point; from 42% to 41% and 44% to 43% respectively.  In fact when cities across Alameda County are studied, there is shown to be a remarkable consistency; county-wide homeownership percentages dropped less than a point: from 55% to 54%.

When the data is broken down by race, Emeryville is shown to be failing people of color in our town, especially Black and Brown people.  Black homeownership dropped from 2011 to 2021 from 16% to 13%.  Latinos were shown to drop from 29% to 17% and Asians dropped from 37% to 35% .  

Emeryville stands alone in the East Bay area as the lone city looking out primarily after the interests of developers and the latest renter data proves it.  The lion’s share of damage to our homeowner percentage can be tagged to the 2014 election of Council members Scott Donahue and especially Dianne Martinez who showed animosity towards the scientifically generated jobs/housing balance proffered by ABAG (the Association of Bay Area Governments, of which Emeryville is a dues paying member) and their RHNA numbers (Regional Housing Needs Assessment).  These two council members along with the later elections of John Bauters and Courtney Welch have helped shepherd Emeryville’s housing policy on a YIMBY (the developer lobbying organization Yes In My Back Yard) track.  This obedience to YIMBY picked up speed in 2016 with the election of Ally Medina and John Bauters to the Council.   

Over the last eight years, Council members Donahue, Martinez and Medina all expressed deference to YIMBYs rental only housing ideas in practice with their unspoken 'hands off developers' policies.  More recently, Mayor Bauters and Vice Mayor Welch have followed the policy deference to the out-of-town lobbying group but also they have expanded YIMBY's reach into Emeryville's City Hall by accepting YIMBY cash to their campaign accounts.  

YIMBY primarily concerns itself with changing law in Sacramento and it has had great successes there and flush with tech entrepreneur money, the group has also spread into cities across California.  Developers can make more money building rental housing over ownership units and as a result, YIMBY has shown hostility towards municipalities encumbering developers in any way, including even any encouragement of the building of ownership housing.  Mr Priforce’s data shows how influential YIMBY has been at Emeryville's City Hall regardless of the General Plan's call to increase the ratio of ownership housing.  

Council member Priforce says he will hold a town hall style meeting for the citizens in the future about this disturbing trend.  The Tattler will report details of the meeting when they become available.

  Emeryville's homeownership numbers trend is down, especially since Council members Bauters, Welch, Medina, Donahue and Martinez took office.  Source: City of Emeryville & US Census.

Oakland home ownership has been inching up over the years.  Unlike in Emeryville, developers are not in the driver's seat in Oakland.

Berkeley too has very stable home ownership numbers.  YIMBY has had 
a much lesser effect than in Emeryville.

Home ownership numbers are remarkably non-changing in Alameda County.

The End of Collegiality at the Emeryville City Council? Yes, But Why?

 Petulant Name Calling, Ugly Xenophobia and Racism 

Emeryville's Famous City Council Collegiality Evaporates

News Analysis/Opinion

The ugly specter of xenophobia was raised at the December 12th City Council meeting along with petulant name calling and something else by one Council member against another when Councilwoman Ally Medina, reversing the long storied Emeryville City Council culture of collegiality, attacked her new colleague, the incoming Kalimah Priforce.  Eight days after the outburst, at another meeting, Ms Medina announced her resignation from the City Council,  citing personal reasons of a financial nature.  

The disobliging attitude against Council member Priforce, who had been sworn in only moments before the attack, came after he had respectfully expressed his discomfort in Council member John Bauters being selected by the Council majority to serve a second back-to-back term as mayor.   Ms Medina defended the selection and accused Mr Priforce of sexism with his stated discomfort, calling out his male privilege and disparaging him as a "man" who will not be listened to.

Former Council member Dianne Martinez
and current member Ally Medina. 
They're panicked.

After a San Francisco friend of Mr Priforce phoned in during the public comment period, defending him against the attack, Council member Medina denounced the commenter as having come from outside Emeryville and therefore illegitimate.  “Be well aware that with a simple public records act request we can look at all of your text messages and confirm who is and who is not from Emeryville”, she warned Mr Priforce with xenophobic and autocratic flair.  Left unmentioned by Ms Medina is the red carpet treatment given to every out-of-town developer who comes to Emeryville with an apartment tower proposal she (and the rest of them) always lavish praise on.  Didactically lecturing Council member Priforce and acting as if Emeryville were not a regional player in power politics, ugly xenophobia is only to be aimed at Mr Priforce it would seem, others are to get a pass.

Noteworthy was the fact that the rest of the Council sat in stoney silence during Ms Medina’s tirade against our new Councilman, letting her comments stand unchallenged.

Council member Kalimah Priforce
....the reason the City Council
is so distraught.

Also of note in the evening filled with Council chicanery was the stern publicly given harangue directed at Mr Priforce by retiring City Councilwoman Dianne Martinez.  The outgoing Martinez wanted the incoming Priforce to know collegiality is the coin of the realm in the Emeryville Council chamber and that he is on notice to oblige.  The irony that Ms Martinez’s friend on the Council, Ms Medina, attacked the newly instated Councilman moments later, was lost on Dianne Martinez.

The first-two meetings ordeal faced by our new Council member Kalimah Priforce was shocking to be sure.  It leaves us wondering why.  Mr Priforce made statements on the campaign trail that would indicate he might be an independent voice on the Council, it is true.  He was heard questioning Emeryville’s new pro-marketplace housing policies for instance.   But the force aligned against him was strangely disproportional.  Is this to be a new era of Council infighting we’re entering?  If Mr Priforce, who is Black, actually is an independent voice, that will likely be the case.  But the disrespect shown by the Council majority and the asymmetrical force of the attack makes us think there’s more at play here.  Name calling and lecturing the incoming City Councilman?  We think the Council is unduly afraid of Mr Priforce.  We think this is mostly racism.

Breaking: Councilman Bauters to Be Mayor a Second Term

 BREAKING Back to Back Mayor Term:

Two New Council Members Sworn In, Mayor John Bauters is Forwarded to Be Mayor For a Second Term

Tonight mayor John Bauters was elected mayor by his colleagues, skipping Ally Medina who had been Vice Mayor and in line to become mayor.  The action makes Mr Bauters mayor two years running, an unprecedented thing in Emeryville history.  The Council elected Cortney Welch as Vice Mayor. 

The move was not without drama, Vice Mayor Medina invoked newly elected Council member Kalimah Priforce’s privilege as a “man” after he raised objections to the prospect of re-upping of Mr Bauters for a second term.  Ms Medina called Mr Priforce “offensive” as he raised his objection, saying it didn’t “feel right” having the mayor go for a second round.

The name-calling came moments after departing Council member Dianne Martinez stated the most important thing the new Council needs to do moving forward is to maintain collegiality. 

Parks Get in the Way of Housing Says Emeryville Mayor

Mayor Announces Parks Are No Longer a Priority for Emeryville

It's Only Housing, Housing and More Housing For Emeryville

General Plan Parks Policy Overturned With Mayor's Proclamation

News Analysis

Emeryville’s mayor Tuesday night, finally put to words why Emeryville has stopped building new parks; “Because people don’t need to sleep in a park, they need to sleep with a roof over their head” he said, adding that “the region is suffering from a lack of housing”.  

The surprising announcement came as a response to questions from the Tattler at the City Council meeting, when Mayor John Bauters presented a major reversal of settled public park policy for Emeryville.  He said the City of Emeryville will no longer prioritize building parks, focusing instead on building as much housing as fast as can be built.  “Our housing jobs balance is off” he offered as a rationale. 

While his City Council colleagues looked on silently, the Mayor did not equivocate, “Every person on the City Council agrees we wish to expand parks and find opportunities to do that but not at the cost of housing” he said.

Mayor John Bauters
He says Emeryville needs housing
instead of parks.  He presents a false equivalency
between the two: it's going to be
parks or housing and he choses housing.

The issue of parks was discussed Tuesday night as a result of developers who had responded to a request for proposals from the City of Emeryville to build a large, new all rental residential tower on land south of Christie Avenue park.  The developers told the Council they were prepared to expand the existing park by as much as 10,000 square feet if they are given permission to build their proposed project.  But 10,000 square feet of park expansion is anemic, short by about 120,000 square feet if we are to keep pace with what the General Plan says should be built to offset the proposed tower.

The false equivalency of parks or housing put forth by Mr Bauters mimics draconian language from the national housing advocacy organization YIMBY, a group with tendrils extending into the Emeryville City Council.  YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard), a lobbying organization funded by developers and right wing entities such as the Koch brothers, was formulated as a pro-development foil to the discredited and disorganized NIMBY phenomenon that local residents sometimes engage in to fight undesirable development.  Other cities in the Bay Area have also recently taken up the YIMBY cause, some council members taking money from them and approving formerly controversial development projects as the organization grows in political power.  Several Emeryville City Council members are associated with YIMBY and at least two have taken money from them, either directly or indirectly.  

It's important to note while NIMBY represents opinions and behavior from individual citizens and as such is not an organization in any meaningful sense of the word, YIMBY is a powerful lobbying organization funded by interested parties, often with corporate dark money.

Emeryville City Councilwoman Courtney Welch (in red)
She agrees, Emeryville needs much more market rate housing.
Posing with YIMBY luminaries at the
YIMBY Prom Gala: "2022's biggest YIMBY party".  
City Council candidate Welch quietly took a campaign
donation of $1000 from the 'YIMBY Victory Fund' .

What Mayor Bauters failed to note as he announced Emeryville’s new park policy is that our guiding document, the General Plan, says Emeryville DOES need to build more parks.  A lot more.  In fact, more than 50 acres of parks are delineated by the sunset of the General Plan in 2030.  As of 2020, Emeryville had (and still has) only 22.4 park acres.  We should have had 41.6 acres by 2020 if we were following the General Plan.

Mr Bauters’ unquantified announcement that the City will not build parks until some future day when there is enough housing, was really more of an imprimatur, finalizing what has been a 'no park' trajectory by the City since the General Plan was written more than ten years ago.  The City has not been building parks nearly fast enough to offset all the new housing being built and Emeryville has been falling further behind our designated park needs every year.  The mayor’s announcement simply puts to words what has been the City's default policy of not building enough parks.  

The ‘parks or housing’ false choice proffered by Mr Bauters belies Emeryville’s massive market rate housing boom of recent years.  The City has been building housing at a prodigious rate.   The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Emeryville wants to exceed housing requirements from the Association of Bay Area Governments by 50 percent even while neighboring cities are failing to meet the ABAG housing minimums.  The Chron reported as such, "One Bay Area town, the small city of Emeryville, is shooting to not only meet the target but exceed it by a mile".  Councilman Bauters admitted as late as 2019 the City was doing its share building housing, “Developers line up to build in the City”, giving Emeryville a “pro-housing” designation, he told the Real Deal, a local real estate magazine. 

YIMBY Prom Court
Ms Martinez, a vocal
antagonist against planning and
a long time critic of ABAG's 
housing needs assessment,
was also a 'VIP' guest at the
October YIMBY prom gala.

So while Emeryville has built housing more than what the jobs/housing balance actually requires as tabulated by ABAG and in spite of Mayor Bauters’ proclamations,  Mr Bauters now says the City needs to step up even more in its zeal to build housing.  Taken at his word, the parks-at-the-expense-of housing equivalency presented by Mr Bauters hints that whereas before Emeryville could presumably build parks, now we can’t, regardless of what our General Plan says.  Parks are a luxury Emeryville can no longer afford Mayor Bauters implies.  

The new no parks policy has come at a bad time for our town.  Emeryville has been the worst city in the East Bay area for parks for decades.  Our residents per acre of park in 2020 was at 549.  That number has gone higher since 2020.  We need to be much lower; three acres for every 1000 residents or 333 residents per acre. As we build more housing and don’t build enough parks to offset the increase in population, every year Emeryville gets worse.  And with Mr Bauters’ new no parks policy, delivered by executive fiat, that will likely be our fate.  Against all this pressure from an outside organization and barring a democratic pushback, Emeryville is now on track to remain the worst city in the East Bay area for parks into the foreseeable future.

Mayor Bauters refused to comment for this story but he said his comments made at the City Council meeting can be quoted as accurately portraying his policy ideas.

Rare Open City Council Seat in November: Councilman Scott Donahue to Step Down

 Council Member Donahue Will Not Seek Re-Election in November 

The bi-annual Emeryville City Council election season begins with a surprise announcement of a rare open seat for this November’s election by Council member Scott Donahue.  Mr Donahue, in a terse statement to the public, announced he will not seek a 3rd four year term on the Council. 
 

City Councilman
Scott Donahue
2014-2022

Council watchers have had to speculate as to why, after he did not offer a reason publicly at the surprise City Council announcement.  However, he privately told the Tattler only that he wished to concentrate more fully on his life-long vocation as a sculptor, leaving aside open speculation about disrespect shown to him by his Council colleagues.  As reported by the Tattler in December 2021, then Vice Mayor Donahue was skipped over for mayor in favor of current Mayor John Bauters after his colleagues refused to nominate him.  Leading the drive to overturn a normally mundane mayor selection procedure, Council member Ally Medina urged the rest of the Council to vote to skip Donahue, citing his lack of experience with budgetary issues. 
 

Council member Donahue, who first became a Council member in 2014 after receiving an endorsement by the premier community activist group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE), did not offer any comment on the snubbing by his colleagues as a factor in his decision to not seek re-election.  Mr Donahue's running mate in the last two elections, Council member Dianne Martinez did not comment on the surprise announcement. 

Council member Donahue will step down in December as his replacement is sworn in at a regular City Council meeting

Mayor Martinez: Lying & Science Denialism Rates a D-

 Mayor Dianne Martinez

Continuing our tradition of looking back on each year-long mayorship of the rotating Emeryville City Council members/cum mayors, with Dianne Martinez now moving aside to make way for John Bauters, we take this opportunity to look back on Mayor Martinez’s tenure as Emeryville's highest elected official.  The Tattler continues with the tradition of these mayoral wrap-ups; the assignment of letter grades for each mayor—and to that end, we report Dianne Martinez has received a D- for her efforts as our mayor.

Opinion

Emeryville Mayor in 2021
Dianne Martinez

A glaring piece of bad politics came last June 15th when the Council majority voted to cut down the people’s street trees at the Sherwin Williams development site at the request of Lennar Development Corporation, Mayor Martinez leading the charge.  Before her June 15th vote, she also had voted to kill the same trees in a losing bid in 2019.  Ms Martinez, hoping people had forgotten, appallingly attempted to rewrite history when she announced at the June meeting she had been in favor of saving the trees in 2019.  “I was on the side of doing everything we could [to save the trees] but now, I’m on the side of (having the healthiest and most vibrant trees on Horton Street), she said, parroting the developer’s talking points.  Ms Martinez’s colleague, the former Councilman Christian Patz, at the same June 15th meeting told the assembled crowd that the developer had presented no new information from the 2019 Council vote (when the trees were saved).  The Mayor, undaunted, then voted to kill the trees again after happily announcing that the developer had gone behind the back of the Council and gotten permission from the staff regardless and so any vote to save the trees would just be a wasted protest vote.  This was the politics of the public be damned at its most cynical.

In addition to her terrible vote in June, before the voting and before hearing her colleagues openly deliberate on the matter, Mayor Martinez stated that she had already made up her mind to kill the trees, attempting to unfairly coerce her colleagues into voting with her.  She announced, “Let me indicate for you how I’m going to vote tonight”  (see video at 33:40) without letting the other Council members have their say in a fair and open manner.  In so doing, Mayor Martinez worked to close down open and meaningful Council debate.  All City Council members are supposed to listen to what the others say before deciding.  They should come to meetings with an open mind.  They are actually paid to have an open mind in matters of public policy.

Lying Mixed With Science Denialism

Shockingly, Mayor Martinez later denied she ever made the “Let me indicate for you…” announcement.  It’s not as if these meetings are not recorded and on the City’s website for all to see.  So we're not sure what she thinks she's doing with this.

The dreadful behavior exhibited around the June 15th Council decision is added to Ms Martinez’s blanket rejection of scientifically collected housing data by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) of which Emeryville is a dues paying member.  Mayor Martinez continued to vote to give developers a free pass, increasing their negotiating strength with her constantly stated position that Emeryville needs more (market rate) housing.  Her housing claims exactly mirror developers' and are in direct contradiction to ABAG who reports that our town is far ahead of our housing mandate every measuring period.  The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on this, to Ms Martinez's dismay.

The lone Emeryville City Council member who utterly rejects ABAG’s housing data, “I think the ABAG recommendations are too low”  she told the Tattler in 2018, Ms Martinez refuses to tell the people how she knows that or how much housing Emeryville should have.  This position of hers means she is not working to leverage Emeryville’s value when developers come knocking with their housing project proposals.  If we are always desperate for more housing, we'll let developers have their way with us, leading to less livability for existing residents in the negotiations.  

And that leads us into another area of bad policy from Mayor Martinez: Emeryville’s lack of action on delivering more parks to our worst-city-in-the-Bay-Area park acreage to resident ratio.  Emeryville added zero new park acreage during her term (and only one acre during her entire City Council term of seven years despite the City adding more than 2000 new residents during that time).

For all these reasons (especially lying to the people) plus a lack of action for bike transportation and no action on getting a public library like she promised (see question #10) , Mayor Martinez gets a D- .  Not a fail, but almost.

Vice Mayor Donahue Skipped Over for Mayor

 Council Colleagues Deny Vice Mayor the Mayoralty

Loss of Confidence in his Abilities Cited

Not To Be Mayor Scott Donahue
His colleagues expressed a
loss of confidence in him.

Mayor Dianne Martinez announced at the December 7th City Council meeting “It is with a heavy heart and for the health of the City...” she would join with three of her colleagues in stopping Vice Mayor Scott Donahue from becoming mayor as he was set to do Tuesday night.  Losing Ms Martinez's support spelled doom for the Vice Mayor’s mayoral prospects who fully expected to be voted in as mayor as is the customary tradition in Emeryville.  Instead it was Council member John Bauters who got the nod Tuesday evening when his colleagues voted for him to become the next mayor.

In what was likely an example of cultural groupthink 'go along to get along', newly elected Courtney Welch, who had been sworn in as a Council member only moments before, joined in with the vote to elevate Councilman Bauters and to stop the Vice Mayor, having had no relationship with Mr Donahue at all.    

The vote represented a rare but not unheard of skipping of a Council member in line successionally to be elevated as mayor.  After initially expressing interest in and lobbying for the mayor position, Vice Mayor Donahue ultimately joined with his colleagues in what turned out to be a unanimous 5-0 vote for Mr Bauters.  Councilwoman Ally Medina was selected as the new vice mayor, also in a unanimous 5-0 vote.  

Normally, each Council member gets a turn as mayor for a year after serving for a year as vice mayor.  Only a few times has the line of mayoral succession been upset before.

Emeryville's New Mayor
John Bauters

Tuesday night, looming budgetary problems seemed to be on the Council’s mind and that was cited as the primary reason for the vote for Mr Bauters.  Councilwoman Medina, who expressed a lack of confidence in Mr Donahue’s abilities, nominated Mr Bauters after she said next year will be very difficult to balance the budget, invoking an impending structural budget crisis.  “We’ll likely need a revenue generating ballot measure during the mid term year” she said, adding “Our city will be best served stewarded by a member of Council who has spent years diving into these [budgetary] details”.  She praised Mr Bauters’ fiscal expertise as she forwarded his name, skipping Mr Donahue.  

Skipping fellow Council members’ their due to serve as mayor is not unprecedented but it has been rare in Emeryville over the decades.  It has historically happened when a Council member angered or embarrassed their colleagues.  In the 1990’s Council member Greg Harper, the lone progressive on a very conservative council at the time, was denied his turn as mayor as was former council member Ken Bukowski later, who fell out of favor among his colleagues after a damning New York Times article about his illicit drug use.  Forming an alliance, once, a Council member was skipped in order to help a different and vulnerable colleague who needed the perceived gravitas the mayoralty provides to assist him for the following November election.

Mr Bauters will serve as mayor for one year followed by Ms Medina....unless there's more ruffled feathers and another kerfuffle in the Council chambers next December. 

Sherwin Williams Project: Violation of Public Trust on Labor Rights

 City of Emeryville Screws Construction Workers at Sherwin Williams Site

Dirty Double Deal as Workers Paid Substandard Wages in Our Name

News Analysis/Opinion

Conspicuous on Horton Street at the Sherwin Williams construction site recently is a large three dimensional representation of veiled black death and a huge thumbs down sign among other signs decrying unfair labor practices.  It's an embarrassment for our town as workers very visibly demonstrate a labor dispute with two sub-contracting firms building the Sherwin Williams project, something the City of Emeryville promised would not happen when this project was approved.  The two  firms, Steelwave Development and Lusardi Construction, have been cited by the demonstrating union workers at the project site over the last few weeks as reneging on the promise that the project be constructed with prevailing union wages that the City of Emeryville had guaranteed. 

The fact that the Sherwin Williams project, the largest construction project in years in Emeryville, is being built in violation of the agreement and so hurting workers in the community is bad for labor of course but the breach of trust violates the City's word as far as the local citizens are concerned too.  The people of Emeryville were promised this project would not be built by oppressing the workers building it.  Had we been told substandard wages would be paid by the subcontractors, we might well have protested this project.  But the City of Emeryville wanted this project to be built and so to get us on board, they assured us this would not happen.  They bought community peace with the assurance the workers would be paid prevailing union wages.  

Now we come to find out it was all a sham by the City of Emeryville.  This Sherwin Williams project is being constructed at the expense of local workers and its being done in our name.  

We admonish the two firms, Steelwave LLC and Lusardi Construction for screwing their workers in our city of course.  But these are profit driven corporations who can be counted on to always do what they think they can get away with as they seek to maximize their profits.  Corporations lie, cheat and steal as far as the law allows; that's to be expected.  So as far as their honor goes, we appeal to them to do the right thing.   But we're not holding our breath they're going to anything but continue to screw their workers as long as they feel they can get away with it.  And they know they can get away with it in a push over pro-development city like Emeryville.

All the parties concerned; Steelwave LLC, Lusardi Construction, the general contractor Lennar Development and Mayor Dianne Martinez as well as the City of Emeryville refused to comment on this.  We expect silence from the contractors but the City of Emeryville has to behave in a transparent manner.   This is public policy.  We want to know what City Hall is going to do about this.

We're calling out the City of Emeryville for this dirty double deal, screwing workers in our name.  We say the City has to make this right.  They made their promise to us, the resident citizens of this town, and now they have to step in and fix this.   

A city that loves developers is willing to screw workers. 
Emeryville promised us this wouldn't happen as long as we supported this project.

Tree Stumps on Horton Street Tell Us How Politics Works In Emeryville

 

The Stumps Are Telling Us How Broken City Hall Is

Emeryville Needs Tree Ordinance Reform 

The Ordinance is Too Weak to Save Trees

News Analysis

Tuesday June 15th 2021 has to go down in history as one of the low points in Emeryville politics.  That’s the date the City Council finally agreed to let the developer Lennar Corporation, kill every public street tree abutting their Sherwin Williams Horton Street project.  But this isn’t just a matter of a developer cutting our trees down.  That’s so common in Emeryville, it’s not even newsworthy.  Why the loss these particular trees is so notable is how revealing of the sycophantic culture at City Hall was the two year circuitous path that led to the stumps along Horton Street.  These stumps show us the how the government works at 1333 Park Avenue — how it works for developers, not for us.

Council members Dianne Martinez and Ally Medina
They're featured on one of the stumps their votes produced.
They steadfastly voted to cut all the Horton Street trees
over the years regardless of the wildly changing reasons
the staff has presented to them.

The final City Council vote to allow the developer to cut all the trees was 3-1 (Donahue dissenting).  The swing vote was delivered by the recently resigned Council member Christian Patz who changed his vote, his last vote as a City Council member incidentally, to allow Lennar to cut the trees.  Mr Patz told the Tattler he changed his vote after Mayor Dianne Martinez publicly announced right before the final vote that Lennar had before the Tuesday meeting, gone to the City staff to obtain a special ‘nuisance’ status for the trees that guaranteed the developer the right to cut the trees with or without the City Council.  Mr Patz said he felt at that point the trees were doomed and that the elected officials should take the heat for killing the trees, not the City staff.

Losing these street trees means a loss for the streetscape friendliness, the shade and cooling they provided and all the other benefits that can be said urban trees provide of course.  But it’s not that collectively we didn’t get anything in trade for agreeing to cut them.  What these stumps on Horton Street have bought us is the realization that our values in Emeryville, as codified by our ordinances, are only as strong as we live them.  As simple as it sounds, our ordinance meant to save our trees, the Urban Forestry Ordinance, can only actually save our trees if we vigilantly guard against developers who would cut them by living the life of the tree appreciators the UFO represents.   

That’s what’s missing at City Hall: tree appreciation.

Regrettable Backdrop

In 2018, Lennar went to City Hall seeking permission from the Planning Commission to kill all the street trees abutting their project.   The staff recommended the Commission permit the killing of all the trees along Sherwin Street claiming the existing trees didn’t match the developer’s desire for a different species and that Lennar had a right to a “unified streetscape” near their project (never mind this is not in the UFO).  After Planning Commission buy-in, the Council let that through and the Sherwin Street trees were all cut. 

Then there was the matter of the Horton Street trees, much grander and more visible than the Sherwin Street trees.  For those trees, the staff told the Planning Commission the Horton Street trees were all “unhealthy” and they must therefore all be cut.  But the Tattler pushed back and proved the City’s own arborist said the majority of the Horton trees were “fair” to “healthy”.  

Former City Councilman
Christian Patz
Frustrated by the vote, he said
'If there's a rule, Emeryville
will get around it'.

Undaunted, the staff, representing Lennar, still in 2018, told the City Council at the April 17th  meeting the Horton trees must all be cut because they would be in the way of underground utilities associated with the project.  Again, the Tattler led the drive to prove this was also false.  But not before the staff told the Council they must vote that night on the fate of the trees.  Council member Patz told the staff he resented the Hobson’s choice being offered that night and said he would therefore vote to save the trees. 

The vote that night was 2-2 with Council member Ally Medina joining Mayor Dianne Martinez in approving the cutting of the trees.  Council members Scott Donahue and Christian Patz voted against the cutting (Council member John Bauters is not allowed to vote on this because he lives too close to the project and state law forbids it).  The tie vote meant Lennar could not cut the trees. 

Backpedaling and still representing the interests of Lennar, the staff then reported the vote COULD be delayed and called for another vote at a later date.  

And delayed it was.  At the September 17th 2019 meeting, the matter of the Horton Street trees was back before the Council.  This time, the staff admitted the trees were not in the way of the underground utilities (save for one) and they had been wrong about that.  An “embarrassed” Council member Ally Medina publicly apologized for her earlier vote to cut the trees.  She said she had believed the staff when they said the trees were in the way of the underground utilities.

Undaunted, the staff, still working for Lennar in 2021, accepted the developer’s claim the Horton trees were “nuisances” before the final Council meeting on the 15th.  The nuisance designation meant that the trees would actually have to be cut by order from the City of Emeryville as an abatement against Lennar (never mind it was Lennar’s idea).  The nuisance designation also meant Lennar would not have to plant equal replacement trees as the UFO mandates.  The final deal was all the trees would be cut and a two inch sapling would be planted for each tree as well as five other small saplings planted elsewhere.

None of this stopped the two Councilwomen from claiming victory for the people of Emeryville.  Council member Ally Medina said the five saplings would make for a “greener and more beautiful city” while Mayor Martinez, told her colleagues she would not listen to their deliberations in the matter of the Horton trees, she said she had already made up her mind to kill the trees before the debate, “Let me indicate for you tonight, how I’m going to vote” she said.  Later, before the 3-1 vote, Mayor Martinez told everyone that despite her 2018 vote to kill the trees and despite her earlier in the meeting admitting she had already made up her mind, she told a shocked crowd, “Before, I was on the side of doing everything we could to save the trees, but now I’m on the side of having the healthiest and most vibrant trees we can”. 

The staff, working in the interest of Lennar Tuesday said the roots of the trees were close to the surface and that’s why they lifted the sidewalks there and that’s why they should be killed (the nuisance abatement notwithstanding).  The two Councilwomen seized that argument and ran with it but Christian Patz was incensed.  He admonished his two colleagues for their votes to kill the trees because there were no new facts presented Tuesday night he said, “The arborist said [back in 2018] these are known facts” he told his colleagues.  

It was after that, the Mayor, feeling the vote could be another 2-2 affair like the 2018 vote announced, “If we deadlock tonight,  the developer has the opportunity to go straight to our city administration and ask for waivers.  I just want to put that out there.”  And then Christian Patz changed his vote to a YES to allow Lennar to cut all our trees, his last vote as an Emeryville City Council member.  

Casting his last vote, Council member Patz, clearly pained, announced "I'm frustrated by the nature of Emeryville, which is, there's a rule, but we'll get around it".  And those were the final parting words to the people of Emeryville from the former Councilman.

The Former Sherwin Williams Horton Street Trees (on left)
The staff, working in the interests of the developer, falsely told the Council the trees
were unhealthy and in the way of underground utilities.  Those arguments weren't enough 
to convince the Council majority.  Only after the staff said the trees were designated as
"nuisances" and legally required to be cut, did Councilman Patz join his two women
 colleagues and vote to kill the trees.

All The Sherwin Williams Trees Killed Today

The chainsaws started up this morning at 7:00 and by 2:00 they were just a bunch of stumps.  Photos of Mayor Martinez and Councilwoman Medina were nailed on the top of each stump.

Before 

After

Before

After