Emeryville's Website Asks Citizens a Very Personal Question

 The City of Emeryville Gives Us Six Sexual Positions to Choose From

We're Supposed to Select Our Favorite

This Kind Of Thing Used to be Considered Private Info

Which sexual position do you prefer?  The City of Emeryville wants to know and they have given us a total of six to choose from.  The City's website says you can go to the Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL) website at emeryvillecenter.org to take the quiz about your particular sexual proclivities.  The six City of Emeryville approved positions are graphically presented for those with dull imaginations.  

Not generally known for its prudishness, the Tattler has nonetheless provided an expurgated version of two of the positions on offer at the City website (see photo at bottom).  To those not wanting to view straight up pornography should be warned however; although the Tattler added the black bars in the photo for this story, the lurid photos are graphically displayed without bars for all to see, including children, at the website. 

A search revealed the City's website seems to have been taken over sometime in 2024 by someone using 'Porkbun', an ironically named internet domain name registrar.  As it stands now, this site, being connected with the School District, certainly has lured children to it.  Specifically, anyone looking for public art at the City's official ECCL site will be directed to the following address in all its prurient carnality (warning, click on it at your own risk and children are told to not click on this):

emeryvillecenter.org

Here is the City’s current webpage that invites people to click to see the porn: 

We had to go back to 2020 to see where emeryvillecenter.org used to direct to:

Now, it directs people interested in public art at ECCL here (Tattler expurgated version):

UPDATE:  As of 9:41 AM 1/6/24 the City of Emeryville has removed the link to emerycenter.org from its website.

Election '24: Elsie Joyce Lee Represents a Change for Emery Unified School District

Change Needed at Emeryville's Schools:

Elsie Joyce Lee For Emery School Board

Vetted by the People, Not the School Board

Opinion

By Tattler Editor Brian Donahue

The Tattler has long reported on the dysfunction at our little school district and this year it’s no different. Because we should not let dysfunctional government continue and because Emeryville’s schools are highly dysfunctional, we should vote for a new face with new ideas to break up the ossified insularity here.  We should vote for Elsie Joyce Lee for Emery Board of Trustees (School Board) because she represents the change that’s needed.

Emery School Board Candidate
Elsie Joyce Lee
A new voice for EUSD, vetted by
the people, not the School Board.

There are two Board seats in contention.  The incumbent running for re-election and the husband of the existing Board member Regina Chagolla, who’s also running, represent the status quo, the ‘no change team’.  Challenging them is Ms Lee, the change agent. 

My name, Brian Donahue, also appears on the ballot but I don’t want to be on the School Board.  I don’t want to win.  I only ran to force an election and give voters a chance to have a say in how their schools are governed.  Because I don’t want to be on the School Board this year, I’m directing anyone that would vote for me to vote instead for Elsie Joyce Lee and only Elsie Joyce Lee, a classic ‘bullet vote’ strategy.  This 'one vote only' strategy provides pro-change voters the best chance to get Ms Lee elected.  

Because I entered the race and forced an election, my job is here is finished.  Now it’s the job of the electorate to put a new face with new ideas on our School Board.

Emery Unified School District is academically the second worst school district in Alameda County (when controlled for the percentage of student English learners) and Emery gets the most funding, by far, over any other school district in the county.  Emery is funded at almost $28,000 per student per year.  The second highest funded district in Alameda County is Piedmont Unified at about $18,000 per student.  

Low scores and high funding: that’s a unique level of dysfunction that highlights Emery's unique level of mismanagement.  

Shockingly, the existing School Board members are defending the dysfunction, stating inexplicably, that we need to “keep Emery on track” .  They excitedly point to the fact that two years ago, Emery was the school district with the worst academic results of all 15 districts in Alameda County but now we’ve moved up to second worst, and that’s somehow worth rewarding them with your vote.  What they're not saying is at this rate of improvement, Emery will finally be a good school district in half a century hence. 

We Emeryville residents are very generous to the schools.  Our school parcel tax rate is legendary among districts around the Bay Area.  Other districts are jealous of the money Emeryville property owners lavish on their schools.  But while it's imperative for voters to adequately fund public schools in the community as we have done, we can't then just walk away.   We can't just continue to throw money at the school district and expect our job to be done.  We also need to hire good stewards for all the money we're investing.  The existing Board is remiss in their duty to the taxpayers, yes.  But more importantly, they are failing the students at Emery.  We need a change here in this locus of dysfunction.  Candidate Elsie Lee provides a chance for such a change. 

Ms Lee was not informed about this opinion piece before posting. 

Please see Ms Lee's impressive performance at the League of Woman Voters Candidate's Forum: School Board Forum HERE

https://youtu.be/Zs7RTtnwhFA?si=CcEKXHqj--czjX34

Emery's test score results are the second worst among Alameda County school districts
(when controlled for percentage of English learners).

Source: California Department of Education

Low test scores and high funding means
Emery is poorly managed.  The children suffer
when the schools are so terribly managed. 
Even though Emery is by far the highest funded
school district in the county, they spend the smallest
percentage on instruction (19% of budget).  Most of the
money goes to corporate educational consultants.

Source: California Department of Education

Lack of Interest By City & Schools Puts Children's Safety at Risk

What Will It Take to Lock The School Security Gate at ECCL? 

A Bad Guy With a Gun?

Opinion

Rebecca Sermeno
Community Services Director

Emery School District begins the new year with an old reoccurring problem: a security gate off the San Pablo Avenue public sidewalk is constantly wide open during school hours, inviting anybody to stroll right in and access any classroom filled with children.  The Tattler has documented this for years now but so far there has been no fix for this easy to solve and potentially calamitous problem.

The school campus is part of a community center known as the Emeryville Center for Community Life (ECCL) and is a joint City/ School District facility.  As such, both the City of Emeryville and Emery Unified are responsible for keeping the children safe there.  The gate that they can’t seem to ever secure is just off the public lobby for both the Community Services Department and the School District. 

Quiauna Scott
Superintendent of the Schools

Rebecca Sermeno, the head of community services for the City and Dr Quiauna Scott, the superintendent of the schools are the two managers responsible for this ongoing problem and they have repeatedly told the Tattler they will fix it but virtually every time we pass by on San Pablo Avenue, we glance over and see the open gate. When we have time to stop and interact, each time the explanation is the same: “We thank you for bringing this to our attention, we take this seriously and we’re going to fix it.”  Then the next time, sometimes the very next day, it’s, “We thank you for bringing this to our attention, we take this seriously and we’re going to fix it”.

After a couple of years of this, it’s obvious they don’t take the children’s safety seriously.  Is it going to take some kind of violent security breach for the responsible employees, the one’s paid to provide safety, to fix this? We don’t think it’s too much to ask that the government keep our children in their care, safe.  Locking a security gate should be the simplest thing to do to provide a basic minimum of security for the children.  It’s sad the Tattler has to report on this.

 Here is a small sampling over the last few months:

Pixar's Broken Promises Affect Schools, Affordable Housing

 Pixar Said it Would Fund Our Schools...

Where is the Money?

Tattler Protest Causes Pixar, Schools, City to 

Unite in Resistance 

City Hall, Schools Don't Seem to Want the Promised Money

Emeryville’s schools and affordable housing problems are worse today because two decades of broken promises by a local successful and beloved company that’s become one of the biggest corporations in the world.  In a deal made two decades ago for a corporate campus expansion that failed to deliver for local residents, Pixar, now a division of Disney Corporation told Emeryville voters they would fund Emeryville’s schools and give $700,000 yearly to help pay for affordable housing, neither of which has materialized. 

An election, held on November 2nd 2004, concerned whether Pixar, who wanted a major campus expansion, should be subject to a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) that would bring improvements to the Emeryville community.  Pixar, who didn't want to be beholden to a CBA said its promises to fund the schools and provide money for affordable housing were enough.  To help assure victory, Pixar told the City and residents, they would pack up and leave Emeryville if the two ballot measures allowing for the expansion didn't pass.  

The promises were not a part of the development agreement but Pixar spent more than $200,000 and went around the City of Emeryville, making their promises directly to the Emeryville voters in their 'Yes on T&U' campaign mailers sent to every household.  The majority of voters said yes, handing Pixar a victory and as a consequence, there was no CBA but the promises to fund the schools and to fund affordable housing are still in effect.    

The Tattler will continue the protest against Pixar's 
broken promises over the next few months despite the 
threats from the City of Emeryville.

The campus expansion agreement gave Pixar a very large parcel of land that was previously earmarked in the General Plan for housing and also an entire public street, the former Emery Street between Park Avenue and 45th Street.  The land consolidation made in the agreement created Emeryville’s largest ‘super block’, stretching all the way from Hollis Street to nearly San Pablo Avenue.  Super blocks are antithetical to pedestrian activity and other goals of mixed use zoning.   They are generally seen in planning circles as a hallmark of broken public policy. 

Since 2004, Pixar has failed to fund the school district at all and it has failed to pay the City for affordable housing at a rate any higher than it did before the campus expansion.  The promises were made in campaign literature mailed to every voter by the ‘Yes on T&U’ campaign committee registered with the State of California.

As the 20 year anniversary of Measures T&U approaches, the Tattler has stepped up the pressure on Pixar with a 12 foot protest banner placed at the main gate on Park Avenue.  The protest will continue on occasionally and unannounced through the summer and into November.

Pixar spent $200,000 to convince Emeryville voters, threatening
to leave if they didn't get everything they wanted.

Noteworthy in the protest, nobody from the City of Emeryville or the School District has shown any interest in getting Pixar to honor their promises.  Odd because those two agencies stand to benefit from Pixar paying the money they said they would.  In fact, the City has ‘sided’ with Pixar in the imbroglio.  In a January 19th letter obtained in a public records request, City Manager Paul Buddenhagen told Pixar Facilities Manager Patty Bonfilio, the impending protest banner would be considered a “threat to property” and he added, “we will be on alert to him”, referring to the Tattler editor.

We reached out to the School Board and the Superintendent of the District for this story but our letters and calls were not answered.  Also, Paul Buddenhagen was contacted but he did not return calls or emails.  Rounding out blanket refusals to comment was Pixar’s Director of Public Relations, Eric Zerton.  

We tried to hand out literature explaining about the broken promises to employees driving in
in the morning but none would take a flyer.  One employee expressed fear of reprisals from Pixar,
"There are cameras out here", they said.
One interesting thing we learned: Virtually EVERY Pixar employee
 drives to work.  We saw zero bikes and only one pedestrian in the hour and a half we were there.

Emeryville’s then City Manager John Flores sells the Pixar expansion to the Planning Commission (above).  

He said the suburban style development “will better meet the City’s vision for providing a more dense, vibrant urban city”.   In fact Pixar has not provided community vibrancy at all, locked away as they are in their sealed campus, with no community interaction whatsoever.  But he saved the biggest canard for last; “Pixar has been and will continue to be a major benefactor to the community, supporting the schools”, he told the decision makers.  No City Manager since then has explained the broken promise and what should be done about it.

Guest Column: Former City Councilman John Fricke on the Privatization of Emeryville

The Privatization of Emeryville

By John Fricke

Guest Columnist

Back in high school, I learned about the concept, the tragedy of the commons, which holds that unregulated access to public land will inevitably lead to its degradation.  I’m happy to report that we in Emeryville are not at risk of suffering the tragedy of the commons because our public spaces are being safeguarded for private users, to the exclusion of members of the public.

Dean and John on the smaller
play structure in 2019, now
off-limits to the public.

As a parent of a three-year-old, I am again a frequent visitor to Emeryville’s parks and playgrounds.  My son, Dean, my wife, Andrea, and I often visit the public schoolyard next to our house that is owned by Emeryville’s school district.  The schoolyard includes a large play structure for big kids, and a smaller one for kids closer to Dean’s age.  (When my daughters were Dean’s age, we used to enjoy having access to the schoolyard on the weekends.)  But this site is no longer used by the school district as a public elementary school, and the weekend public access is being curtailed by a private school that occupies the site.  

In 2017, the public elementary school was relocated to the high school site, and the school district struck a deal to lease the original elementary school site to a private school that conducts classes in German.  Rest assured, the school district said, public access to the schoolyard would continue.  Indeed, this promise was memorialized in the lease agreement.  

But ever since the German school occupied the site, the public access has been spotty at best.  Most recently, the German school installed a gate and padlock, preventing public access to the smaller playground, sandlot, and community garden.  

Contrary to the lease, access to the public
is denied.

When I brought this to the attention of the school district’s superintendent, Quiauna Scott, Ed.D., a week went by with no response.  After following up with email and voicemail messages, Dr. Scott responded that she would forward my email message the school district’s facilities person, Jody Clarke; and, to the head of the German school, Rufus Pichler.  This latter action struck me as odd given that my message to Dr. Scott included my many unanswered email messages to Mr. Pichler complaining about the German school’s weekly leaf blower noise on Saturdays.  

Apparently, Mr. Pichler felt no need to respond to repeated messages from a member of the public until the superintendent directed him to do so.  His response?  Threaten a lawsuit.  

“It is unlawful to interfere with our contractual relations in this manner. We hereby give you notice and ask that you cease your unlawful interference.”  -- Rufus Pichler.

As it happens, not only does the lease with the German school require that weekend public access be maintained, it also requires the German school not to engage in annoying behavior, such as hours-long leaf blower noise on Saturdays (often coinciding with Dean’s naptime and his parents’ only quiet time during the day).  

Let me pause here to state the obvious:  there is no need to use a leaf blower at all.  The state of the schoolyard grounds before the leaf-blowing is generally fine, except for small areas that can be taken care of with a broom.  Just because there is a tool that can remove every speck of dust from the ground doesn’t mean that it must be used.  Schools somehow managed to operate quite well before the advent of the leaf-blower.  

Why does the school create this noise pollution on Saturdays?  In an unattributed message I received the German school stated that “this work can only be done on weekends when the school is not in session.”  In other words, the noise pollution is not acceptable when the private school is in session, but it is fine to create noise pollution on the weekends when the public has access to the schoolyard.  Mr. Pichler would have us believe that this creates no deterrent to the neighbors’ use of the schoolyard.  By sheer coincidence, whenever the private school parents and students gather for a weekend activity in the schoolyard, the leaf blower noise does not occur.  

What can we expect from Superintendent Scott?  Will she exercise her authority over the private German school, a tenant of the school district?  

The lease revenue from the private German school (close to half a million dollars for this school year) represents a significant portion of the school district’s budget.  Any school district would jealously guard this revenue stream since it comes with few reporting requirements (unlike the money from the state).  

Dr. Scott’s most recent email message reported that she met with Mr. Pichler.  Dr. Scott provided assurances that the small play structure and garden area will remain accessible to the public on the weekends, subject to the area being assessed.  As for the weekend noise pollution, Dr. Scott assured me that the German school “will make a concerted effort with the landscaper to reduce the amount of time the leafblower is used as practicable.”  (Read:  the German school can continue its leaf-blower noise pollution on the weekends when the public is present, so that noise pollution can be avoided when the private school is in session.)  Did Dr. Scott ask Mr. Pichler the obvious question:  why is the leaf blower necessary?  Inquiring minds want to know.  

Any email message assurances from Mr. Pichler directly?  No.  Will my “unlawful interference” on behalf of the public lead to a lawsuit against me or the school district?  Stay tuned to this bat channel.  

Until public access is restored, I will tell Dean that he can only play on the schoolyard’s play structure designed for older children.  As for the leaf blower noise on the weekends, let’s all bring our ear plugs to the schoolyard.  The tragedy of the commons in Emeryville is not overuse, but denial of public access in favor of private use.  

John Fricke is a longtime Emeryville resident, father of three, husband, lawyer, and former member of the Emeryville City Council.

School District Made Up of Abnormal People

 Why Can't Emery School District Attract 

Normal People to its Administration?

Stark Differences Between the School District and the Community

Community Wants to Help the Poor & Downtrodden Among Us, the District Doesn't

News Analysis

The people that run the Emery Unified School District are bizarre.  By ‘bizarre’  we mean not normal.  What else are we to believe when we have a local government agency in a democracy that demonstrably represents the polar opposite of the values of the community in which they exist?  Not to put too fine a point on it but the opposite of normal is expressly, not normal.

Here in Emeryville, we have a community that wants to help the working poor among us.  They want to help build a more equitable community that empowers all in the community.  We know this by the results of many votes taken over the years.  Yet our school district is here working to highjack these values, despite all their propaganda to the contrary. 

Consider what it is that Emeryville residents want: we want to increase the wages of the poorest among us.  We know this from votes taken in 2015 and 2019 and the election of each of the pro-minimum wage ordinance City Council members.  Our School District however, wants to keep wages low.  We know this from their actions and their statements.  Also, we want to hold ourselves accountable for past bigotry.  Our School District however wants to change the subject, run away from accountability.  We want to help our teachers thrive in our community.  Our School District wants to fire teachers.  On matters of existential importance like this, the community and the School District are opposites.  It’s all very curious. 

 

Emeryville’s record on raising the hourly wage of the working poor is impressive; we easily passed 2005’s Measure C, the ‘living wage for hotel workers’ when 54% of voters said hotel workers should make at least $9 per hour.  The school district on the other hand, was 100% against it.  Unsolicited, every single school board member signed a letter urging Emeryville voters to say NO to the wage increase.   In 2015, the City Council voted to increase the minimum wage in town to $14.03 with cost of living increases baked in.  Later when three Council members voted for a wage roll back at the behest of business owners, the residents of Emeryville fought to keep the progressive minimum wage by petition with the threat of an election.  The Council backed down because they could see the writing on the wall: Emeryville people support living wages. 

Increasing the wages of the poorest workers in our community is very popular with the whole community (except at the Emery Unified School District).  Current school board member and former City Council wannabe John Van Geffin pledged to voters in 2016 he would try to kill the Minimum Wage Ordinance at every single City Council meeting if voters would only elect him to that body.  Voters resolutely said NO to Mr Van Geffin for City Council.  So off he went to where he is more welcome: the Emery School Board.

In addition to keeping worker’s pay low, Emery Unified has sought to stop affordable housing for families in town.  In 2018, only two school board members were willing to endorse Measure C, Emeryville's affordable family housing bond then on the ballot for Emeryville voters to decide (the same Measure C name but distinct from the 2005 hotel workers measure).  A majority of board members said NO to the Measure and as a result, the District failed to endorse it.  A full 72% of Emeryville voters passed the Measure C affordable housing bonds.  Again, very compelling and illuminating numbers; almost three quarters of residents supported the housing bond but the school board couldn't even get a majority to support it.

72% of Emeryville voters were in favor of the
Measure C  affordable family housing bond.

In the 1970s, our school district fired a teacher for being a transgender person.  By 2020, a groundswell of citizens in the community sought to make amends for the District’s role in that anti-transgender bigotry.  The grass roots action was seen by our school district as something to put down.  And so they moved in and disallowed naming the school gymnasium after the teacher they had fired so many years ago.  The bigotry continues at Emery Unified.  The community is now trying to name the athletic field at the school site after the fired transgender teacher but again, our School District is actively pushing down this new community effort against bigotry and for accountability (see upcoming Tattler story on this).

In 2014, the board hired a new superintendent of the schools, John Rubio.  Mr Rubio used his office in a multi year radical effort to wholesale fire veteran teachers putatively to drive up test scores at Emery.  The effort placed Emery in the unenviable position as the worst school district in the entire Bay Area for teacher retention, a well known benchmark for assessing a school district’s success.  After a couple of years at it, Superintendent Rubio was firing new teachers he himself had hired.  Emery’s test scores fell every year Mr Rubio was at Emery, a point lost on the school board who continued to support him as he drove Emery down to the bottom, becoming the worst school district in the East Bay.  More important than raising test scores was the board's bizarre need to fire teachers.

60% of School Board members were against
the Measure C  affordable family housing bond.

In a scathing rebuke, nine teachers testified against Superintendent Rubio at a now legendary school board meeting.  The board, working for Mr Rubio,  gave individual fired teachers only three minutes to speak their piece on their way out the door.  Some of these teachers had worked for the District for over a decade.  Afterward, the school board, in a whitewashing response, refused to faithfully record the event in the official minutes as they are required to do.

Another former Emery Superintendent testified in federal court against teacher unions.  Superintendent Debra Lindo, a very popular superintendent with the school board, used her time at Emery to try to take down the teacher’s union, netting a ‘teachers resolution’ countering Ms Lindo and signed by 93% of teachers.  Later, little Emery Unified was featured in the notorious 2014 Vergara v. California, a case with national implications.  Our superintendent supplied the billionaire tech titan plaintiff, David Welch, with a legal declaration in which she said teachers unions must be destroyed 'for the sake of the children'.  

What are the odds that in a fair world, the values of the democratic government would so nearly be completely at odds with the governed?  Take the minimum wage issue: how many people are in favor of increasing the minimum wage in Emeryville?  We know by the 2005 plebiscite that number is 54% (and that’s with a massive campaign spending imbalance in favor of the NO side).  One would expect at least half of a school board who presumably would want to help poor families in our town, to be on the same side as the majority of residents.  And yet 100% of our elected school board members, inextricably people culled from our community, were against it.

This long standing record of Emery employees shows us what this public agency stands for.  And what they stand for is what the people of Emeryville stand against.  The Emery Unified School District is an alien presence in our community.  These are not normal people.   But why should abnormal people be ensconced in a democratic agency?  Shouldn’t our values be reflected in an agency that’s answerable to the people?  One would think so but the fact this is not the case tells us political ideologues are in charge at Emery.  

This school district is and has been steadfastly and demonstrably against the working poor in our community.  They are anti-union.  They are anti-transgender.   There is a culture at Emery School District that works against the people they are paid to work for. 

We don’t know why this district attracts people so wholly against working poor families like this but such a paradigm should be inherently unstable in a community such as ours.   The only way it can endure is in darkness.  Emeryville residents should shine some light in there.  

School Board Member John Van Geffen
He's really not fond of the working poor.
As a City Council candidate in 2016, he said if elected 
 he would try to overturn Emeryville's Minimum Wage
Ordinance at every single Council meeting over
his entire four year term if needs be.

March 5th, 47th Street to Transition to Steve Dain Drive

 City Honors Fired Transgender Teacher After Emery School District Balks 

Introducing Steve Dain Drive

School Board Digs In Its Heels Against Honoring Its Fired Teacher

The City of Emeryville has announced it will officially change the name of 47th Street to Steve Dain Drive on March 5th when employees from the public works department add the new signs to the existing street sign posts.  Both the old street name and the new name will be posted for a period of 18 months the City reports but they will start calling the street by its new name in March.  Only the portion of 47th Street West of San Pablo Avenue will get the name change.  

In an announcement made last May, the City took on the task of honoring the late Steve Dain, a teacher at Emery Unified School District who was fired by the district in 1976 after he surgically transitioned from a woman to a man.  City Council members expressed anguish that Emery School Board members had stopped a grassroots drive last year to honor the teacher the district had fired for “immorality” and it was suggested the City could act on its own by renaming the street, correcting the historic wrong. 

The district’s high school is located on the future Steve Dain Drive, the same school where Mr Dain taught 45 years ago.  The AC Transit bus yard is the only other entity that will have a Steve Dain Drive address.

School Board President
Brynnda Collins
Refuses to comment regarding
the district's role in the
firing of its transgender teacher
for "immorality".

The City Council took over the job of acknowledging Mr Dain after the School Board reversed themselves upon having made an initial move towards naming their newly remodeled gym for the fired teacher.  Since then the Board has reneged on a plan to pass an official resolution apologizing for firing the teacher who had once been awarded the title of teacher of the year at Emery.  Notably, the Board’s refusal to acknowledge the wrong done against Mr Dain by the district comes at the same time they have been honing their public message of "inclusionary equity".

The City has not announced plans for any official March celebration associated with the name change but there is talk of a street closing block party perhaps in the fall of 2021, depending on the status of the COVID pandemic by then.

Both AC Transit and Emery Unified School District have been notified of the impending renaming of the street City officials said.

School Board president Brynnda Collins and Superintendent of the Schools Quiauna Scott were both contacted to comment on the refusal of the district to account for the firing of Steve Dain and its failure to apologize but both leaders refused to respond.  

City/School District Fails on Acknowledgment of Wrongdoing Against Transgender Teacher

 What To Do About Steve Dain?

Emeryville Settles on Inaction 

Opinion/News Analysis

Hey Emeryville!  November 20th was national Transgender Day of Remembrance.  A day that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.  What did you do to observe it?

The answer is nothing.  Nothing was done by our government in our name to observe the date or even to set its own terrible record right with regard to the mistreatment of transgender people.  Regardless that in 1976, Emeryville fired a transgender teacher for who he was and with lots of recent talk about that not representing who we are emanating from our government, nothing is being done.

Still 47th Street
The City of Emeryville said this sign would 
read 'Steve Dain Drive' by this time.

The just passed national Transgender Day of Remembrance November 20th, followed Transgender Awareness Week November 13th through the 19th; an auspicious time for a ribbon cutting ceremony if there ever was one to reassert our Emeryville values.  But that was not enough to get Mayor Christian Patz to follow through with his pledge to re-name 47th Street Steve Dain Drive.  Mr Patz, who’s mayoralty ends on December 1st, took up the charge for the City, promising the name change after Emery School District failed to acknowledge the wrongdoing of the firing of Mr Dain.

Call it just another failure to honor Steve Dain, who was humiliated by the government here in Emeryville, for being transgender.  That humiliation goes on today following his 2007 passing.  With neither government agency able to do the right thing by Mr Dain and therefore all transgender people, the humiliation is on us, the people of Emeryville.  Indeed, WE fired Mr Dain for who he was and WE refuse to apologize here and now for that act of public cowardice. 

Transgender Flag Flying
at Emeryville City Hall
As far as Emeryville is 
ready to go at this point.

Surprisingly, Mayor Patz claims that 47th Street is already named Steve Dain Drive (it is not).  He says he has done it and he was given an award for it in September.  At the 8th annual East Bay Stonewall Pride Awards ceremony on September 13th, Mr Patz, accepting the award, told the group,  "I worked with the School Board to honor Mr. Dain, but just as in the 70s, there are too many bigots in public office.  Thankfully, I work with an amazing City Council and together, we were able to rename the street in front of the school Steve Dain Drive."

It's all talk now in Emeryville.  Two elected officials, Christian Patz of the City Council and Susan Donaldson of the School District, rode in to set Emeryville right but both dropped the ball.  Mr Patz let his mayoralty run out and Board member Donaldson wrote a public letter, posted in the Tattler in May, stating that the Board would finally and officially apologize for the firing of Mr Dain.  But without any interest among her School Board colleagues, Ms Donaldson has also quietly dropped the issue.

The electeds in Emeryville (at least two of them) have a message for you Steve Dain: The people of the City of Emeryville didn’t care about you when you were alive and we sure don’t care about you now.  And with that, it seems it's time for Emeryville to move on.  With this unpleasant issue forgotten, it’s back to brunch in Emeryville apparently.

School Board Looks at Raising Administrators' Pay After Promising Voters They Wouldn't

Board Considers Raising Admin Pay After Passage of Measure K 

Emeryville Measure K Parcel Tax Passed Last Spring Promised No Money to Admin

The Emery Unified School District is pondering raising the salaries of non-teacher administration employees after assuring Emeryville citizens considering Measure K, a school parcel tax passed by voters last March, they would not.  Despite strong ballot language guaranteeing that there would be no increase in administration salaries from the March 3rd election, the School Board has hired a consulting firm to look into increasing administration salaries, just as taxpayer money from Measure K is beginning to flow into the District's coffers.  

The Board took up the item at their meeting last Wednesday with a power point presentation from School Services of California, a Sacramento based consulting firm paid by the District.  After reporting that Emery administrators' compensation is "significantly below" teacher pay, the consulting firm suggested the District should first raise administration compensation before increasing teacher pay.

Board Member
Lauren Salazar
We cannot commit to honor
our pledge to not raise
admin salaries at this time.

Concerned Letter From the Mayor

The Board's agendized discussion/action item was enough to prompt an October 28th letter from former School Board Trustee and current Emeryville mayor, Christian Patz who challenged the Board to not raise administrator's salaries until new revenue sources could be secured to pay for it.  Mayor Patz, noting the fungible nature of money, raised the idea that the District could tap the pot of Measure K money, expressly not for administration compensation, to pay for administrator pay increases nonetheless.  The Mayor challenged the Board directly, "Commit to not adjusting administrators' salaries until you identify new revenues to pay for those increases.  This means not just shifting teacher salaries to the parcel tax income but actual new income." 

The Mayor's letter was not well received.  Board members universally expressed their displeasure, especially President  Brynnda Collins who chastised Mr Patz for his questioning of the Board's promise to not misuse Measure K money, "I find it hard to believe leadership [on the City Council] can't be on Team Emery" she said.  She called the letter "sad".  Outgoing Board member Cruz Vargas was even less circumspect, bringing up Mr Patz's lack of support for Measure K last March, "People who could have supported us [during the Measure K campaign] didn't.... and it's not worth our time to respond to them now" he said, adding anything that's done with Measure K funds would be done "for the kids". 

Board member Lauren Salazar put it most succinctly stating she has faith in the process.  Responding to Mayor Patz's request for a Board commitment to not violate Measure K funding promises made to the voters, Ms Salazar spoke for the Board indicating all options would be retained, saying "Making any commitments now is inappropriate."  

Asked to clarify, Board President Collins later told the Tattler any notion that the Board is considering raising administration salaries in any incorrect way is "full of shit".

Mayor Patz however made it very clear he doesn't trust the Board will honor their pledge to the voters.  He told them, "This past spring, you put forth and passed a parcel tax with the promise 'no funds for administrator salaries.'   That is a direct quote from the ballot language you put to the voters.  At the time, I said the Board could not be trusted with the voters' money and was not being honest about how they would use the funds.  Now that the funds are available, the groundwork is being laid to prove me right."

After hearing the consultation presentation from School Services of California, the Board voted to push the issue of raising salaries, administrators' and/or teachers', off to a future meeting.

Measure K levies 12 cents per square foot of residential and commercial building area, taking in an additional $1.8 million per year for Emery Unified.  That amount represents a 37% increase in cost for an average home from $405 to $555 annually according to the San Jose Mercury News who urged Emeryville voters to reject the measure in the run up to the March 3rd election.   

A previous iteration of Measure K, also a school parcel tax passed by voters in 2014 was supplanted by the new 2020 Measure K.  The Tattler reported in February that Emery Unified had deceived voters in the 2014 election after it was found that the District had increased administrators' salaries after also promising they wouldn't. 

No Apology From School District for Unjust Transgender Firing

District Refusing to Apologize for its Roll in Anti-Transgender Bigotry

More Than a Year Passes After Proclamation Proposal 

The Emery School District’s Board of Trustees this week is remaining steadfast in their disapproval to acknowledge the District’s past bigotry against its former employee, Steve Dain, a Teacher of the Year fired for being a transgender man in the 1970s.  The Board President failed to forward a proposal for the Trustees to vote on Wednesday, a public apology, proclaiming the District unjustly fired the former Emery gym teacher, a proposal brought by Board member Susan Donaldson back in May.  Instead, President Brynnda Collins, feeling no urgency, has bumped the issue down to a sub committee to ruminate on for an indefinite amount of time.  The District, more than a year ago indicated in the abstract it would make an acknowledgment that the firing of Mr Dain was wrong but there has not been a majority of Board members interested in actually following through despite Ms Donaldson’s proposal.

The Board majority has not felt impelled to make amends for the District's firing of Mr Dain, however, they did feel a sense of urgency about the Dain issue in June of 2019 when then President Barbara Inch proposed her colleagues name the newly remodeled gym at the high school, Steve Dain Gymnasium by fiat, to acknowledge the fired Emery gym teacher.  Board members Collins and Cruz Vargas moved quickly and led a successful drive to stop the Steve Dain Gym proposal, settling on a different, non-transgender former gym teacher to name the gym after.  Ms Inch resigned the Board in protest shortly after the Vargas/Collins caper.  Board member Susan Donaldson, who joined with President Inch in voting to name the gym after Mr Dain,  consequently asked for and received assurances from the entire Board (including Collins and Vargas) they would make some other gesture to acknowledge the District’s culpability in the bigoted firing, an idea that has languished now for more than a year.  Wednesday’s Board meeting was to be the vote to apologize by official proclamation.

Emery Teacher of the Year
Steve Dain
After his surgery, Emery trespassed him off 
school property and then fired him
for being who he was.

The City Council, exasperated by the District’s failure to acknowledge its mistake and take responsibility for correcting the hurt the firing inflicted on Mr Dain and the community, took the issue on for itself when they announced they will officially change the name of 47th Street to Steve Dain Drive.  In a turn of karmic restitution, the same gymnasium where Mr Dain worked won’t be named after him but it will have a Steve Dain Drive address.  

Steve Dain, who died in 2007, never received an apology from Emery Unified School District after they fired him following his surgical transformation to a man in 1977.  The official reason for Mr Dain's termination was given as "immoral conduct", a charge that stands today in the absence of an official apology from the District.  

Mr Dain has living relatives still residing in the Bay Area. 

 Board President Brynnda Collins, who helped the Board sink the vote to name the gym after Mr Dain, has called the proposal for acknowledging Mr Dain, "political".  She did not return calls for this story.

School Board Member Proposes Official District Apology for Steve Dain Firing

School Board Member Donaldson: District Needs To Apologize for "Unjust Firing"

1976 Termination of 'Teacher of the Year' Still Isn't Resolved 

at Emery

A week of rapidly moving events at the Emery Unified School District including bad press from the Bay Area's LGBTQ community have culminated in a board member announcing she will propose the district draft an official apology for the 1976 firing of an Emery teacher who after gender confirmation surgery, transitioned to a man, ending in his termination for what the district called at the time, “immoral conduct”.  School board member Susan Donaldson said she will propose to her colleagues at the beleaguered district they write an official letter of apology to acknowledge the wrong done by the district against its former employee, Steve Dain in his “unjust firing”.

Emery School Board Member
Susan Donaldson

The announcement comes after the Emeryville City Council last week pledged to rename the street fronting the high school where he taught, Steve Dain Drive’.  The City was moved to action a year after the School Board failed to act on promises to honor Mr Dain in some other capacity following a board vote against naming the school gymnasium after Mr Dain.
Mr Dain died in 2007.

Current board president Brynnda Collins drew the ire of the LGBTQ community and the news outlet, the Bay Area Reporter during the naming debate last year after she reprimanded her colleague, then board president Barbara Inch for proposing the district honor Mr Dain with the gym name at all, calling it abjectly “political”.  She proceeded to call down Mr Dain, telling her colleagues that instead they should name the gym after “a pillar of the community”.  It was a comment that City Council member Patz called “transphobia”.
Ms Collins refused to elaborate or clarify her ‘political’ charge for purposes of this story.

The idea for honoring Mr Dain initially came some six years ago from then board member Christian Patz who learned of the fired teacher that earned ‘teacher of the year’ commendation from the district the year before they fired him.  Mr Patz proposed naming the newly rebuilt gym after Mr Dain who had been a PE teacher at Emery.  The concept did not go over well with his colleagues who subsiquently deep sixed the idea.  It wasn’t until later, after Mr Patz was elected to the Emeryville City Council and his spouse, Barbara Inch was elected to the School Board, the idea was brought up again.  The board however still resisted the idea of naming the gym by fiat with a simple up or down vote as they could have.  Instead the board members voted to consider other people to name the gym after and then do ranked choice voting.  That vote allowed three choices and Steve Dain lost to a former coach at the high school, Elio Abrami.

Board President Brynnda Collins
Naming the school gym after
the former gym teacher
Steve Dain is "political".

Steve Dain came in second place in a field of 12 choices.

Board member Brynnda Collins voted for Mr Dain as her third choice while member Cruz Vargas didn’t vote for Mr Dain at all, offering instead a vote for Steph Curry, a person who has no association with Emery Unified School District.
Mr Vargas refused to return calls from the Tattler.

President Collins, aware of a public relations kerfuffle stemming from last year’s rejection of Mr Dain followed by last week’s City Council street renaming, has been contacting local leaders (and the Tattler) to let them know she is happy the City is renaming 47th Street Steve Dain Drive.  However, she refused to comment to the Tattler whether the District would go ahead with their promise to honor Mr Dain in some other way as they promised they would last year.

Here is a portion of the text of Board Member Donaldson’s letter proposing an official apology from the district:

I will be proposing to the school board that we issue an official letter of apology to Steve Dain’s family regarding his unjust firing in 1976.  I am in support of the city naming a street after him and am so happy to see that honor, but I would like the school board to officially apologize for the action it took many years ago.  As a board, we have updated our policies to reflect that we will provide a "Safe, Nondiscriminatory School Environment for Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming” students and staff.  Now we must be the change that we ask our students to be by acknowledging this wrong from our past and apologizing for it.  There is more work to do, but an apology is a start.

Susan Donaldson
Member, Emery Unified School District Board of Trustees

Elio Abrami Gym Name: Not Political (presumably)
However, the newly named Elio Abrami Gymnasium
will have a Steve Dain Drive address.

Breaking News: Council to Name 47th Street 'Steve Dain Drive'

Council Moves to Honor Former Emery Teacher After School District Twice Fails

Breaking (City Hall):
Tonight the City Council moved to change the name of a portion of a street in town after an Emeryville PE teacher that was fired by the Emery Unified School District for “immoral conduct” in 1976 after he had gender confirmation surgery, transitioning to a man.  The unanimous vote  to rename 47th Street between San Pablo Avenue and Doyle Street ‘Steve Dain Drive’, came after the Emery School Board failed to name the school gymnasium honoring Mr Dain last summer following a tumultuous public debate there.  The vote tonight directs the staff to bring the issue back to the Council for the final OK at a future meeting that hasn’t been announced.  Emery High School and the gymnasium are located on 47th Street, a piece of infrastructure owned by the City of Emeryville.

Council member John Bauters was the most animated among his colleagues during tonight’s discussion, stating he found the School Board had “reached a new level of disappointment” and that he was “very unhappy” over their refusal to make amends for the unpropitious firing of the Emery teacher, “terminated for who they were” Mr Bauters said.  However the lone School Board supporter of the naming of the gym to honor Mr Dain last year, Board member Susan Donaldson, expressed support for the renaming of the street in a phoned in comment to the Council tonight.  “I was on the losing side” Board member Donaldson told the Council recalling last year’s School Board retrenchment on the Steve Dain issue, but she praised the Council’s vote to “right this wrong” done by the district to the former Emery teacher.

Former Emery Teacher of the Year Steve Dain
His courage will finally be remembered for all
time with the naming of our street in his honor.

The short section of 47th Street to be renamed has the AC Transit’s bus yard facility and the Emery gym and high school on it, fittingly the same address where Mr Dain was a teacher for ten years.  Notably, during his time at Emery, Mr Dain was elected teacher of the year before he was terminated by the district.  He died in 2007 at the age of 68.
There are no residents or businesses located on the portion of the street to be renamed.

After the school district balked on naming the gymnasium after Steve Dain last year, Board members announced they would seek to honor him in some other unspecified way but they failed to do that, a fact noted by Council member Bauters tonight.  Councilwoman Dianne Martinez raised the issue of Emeryville’s legacy with the renaming of the street, recalling that Steve Dain is “an important part of our history.”
But it was Mayor Christian Patz that seemed to best capture the mood of the Council, “you should be allowed to be who you are” he said as he cast his YES vote.

The City Council will make the vote official at a subsequent meeting followed by a street sign replacement, probably this summer.

Oversight Committee Violates the Brown Act as it Moves to Support the Brown Act

'We Had to Violate the Brown Act in Order to

 Protect It'

Does the Oversight Committee Need an Oversight Committee?

Responding to a Tattler exposé, the Measure J bond Citizens Oversight Committee of the Emery School District, violated the California Brown Act accountability law Tuesday when, without a quorum, it moved to abandon its earlier plans to jettison the constraints of Brown Act regulations.  The committee, who’s state sanctioned job it is to watch and hold accountable the School Board as they spend $95 million in Emeryville taxpayer funds, dialed back a host of this and other illegal and unseemly proposals after the Tattler story posted on Monday.   Central to the Tattler story was a planned roll back of conflict of interest policy meant to stop committee members from unduly benefitting as a result of their committee work.
With only three legitimate attending members Tuesday night, the committee, without a quorum, was legally required to adjourn the meeting according to the Brown Act.  However, moving to support the Brown Act that they had previously placed on their agenda to disregard, the committee proceed to violate the Act it meant to support.  The committee will now follow the Brown Act, they say.
The irony of the situation was not acknowledged by any attending members, the Superintendent of the Schools or the bond consultant paid to advise the committee, both of whom who were also in attendance.

One of the components of the Brown Act makes it clear that the only legitimate action any bond oversight committee can make without a quorum is adjournment.  The quorum provisions of the Brown Act are something the committee members and even the paid staff professionals are unaware of.  After the Superintendent announced a quorum was lacking, instead of adjourning the meeting, the committee voted to forge ahead and make decisions on committee policy and other topics, but only in a “recommendation” capacity in an attempt to satisfy the Brown Act.  The Brown Act does not permit that and the whole meeting was in violation.

A central complaint of the Monday Tattler story was a highlighting of the committee’s attempt to erase existing Sacramento mandated conflict of interest policy that requires committee members to wait for two years until they are permitted to bid on or do (Emery) School District jobs.  The committee, feeling the pressure from the Tattler story, agreed to back off and maintain the two year waiting period but not before the consultant weighed in on the value of the deregulation scheme.  Matthew Kolker of Government Financial Strategies, a private government consulting firm, told the attendees the idea behind nixing the conflict of interest waiting period was to “streamline the process”, presumably for those committee members who would like to profit off the District using their built up associations with colleagues.  Asked how the public would benefit by the streamlining, neither the consultant nor the committee members ventured an opinion.

The committee expressed their frustration in getting the members to dutifully attend meetings, making quorums difficult to achieve.  It was conjectured by committee members that because the District had already spent all but approximately $20 million of the original $95 million of Measure J bond money, meetings are less consequential and therefore less compelling to many members. Mr Kolker suggested by removing the conflict of interest laws that bounds committee members, perhaps the district could more easily draw potential new member interest.

After the Tattler reported on numerous violations of the Brown Act, the local media picking up the story, a crash program of Brown Act instructional meetings were conducted by a contrite Emery Unified.  To no avail apparently.  The District continues to struggle with following or even understanding this important sunshine accountability law.

Should be posted in School District executive suites, conference rooms
and at all street entrances to the school district.  

Election Season Deceptive Flyer From School District

School District Falsely Claims Low Funding,
 Admin Salaries

The deceptive mailer was signed by the
Superintendent of the Schools

In anticipation of the March 3rd election and the Measure K school parcel tax proposal, the Emery Unified School District late last week released a four page public mailer deceptively claiming Emery to be “One of the lowest funded districts in California” despite being funded 4% above average of State funding and over nine times the average district in local funding according to the California Department of Education.  Additionally, Emery is asserting that “No [Measure K] money can be spent on administrators' salaries” but this is the same language that was used for the last Emery parcel tax (also called Measure K, in 2014) and the District subsequently increased the number of administrators while keeping teachers’ salaries low.  Spending on administrative salaries increased by 45% while teachers' salaries went up 8% three years after passage of the parcel tax.
The 2014 parcel tax language, like this year's, claimed to bolster teacher salaries while not increasing administration costs.

The year before the existing parcel tax (2013-14), Emery spent $3,374,743 on teachers’ salaries.  In 2017-18, the most recent year reported on Ed-Data.org, the district spent $3,631,650, an increase of $256,907.  Administrative salaries went from $622,780 to $903,052 an increase of $280,272.  That means administrative salaries increased by $23,365 more than fifty teachers’ salaries increased over the same period of time.
Past and present Emery parcel tax claims of 'no administration salary increases' appears to be a deceptive shell game that discounts the fungible quality of money, an argument of sophistry.

Usually, this kind of exaggerated rhetoric if not outright falsehoods can be found in election campaign literature but for a government agency to partake of it is untoward.  Noteworthy is the fact that the flyer contains no sources or accreditation for any of the information it contains.

Emery is highest in the East Bay in Per Pupil Spending
Emery spends $18,472 per student versus
California statewide all districts average of $12,714
Source: CA Dept of Ed

Government agencies including Emery Unified, are expressly not allowed to campaign for parcel taxes they place on the ballot as Emery has with the current iteration of Measure K.  They have to rely on citizen led election committees registered with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) to do such campaigning.  The Registrar of Voters provides that government agencies, including school districts, can only produce factual, objective information disseminated to voters, not campaign material. 
Emery Unified is claiming this flyer they produced and mailed to each voter in town is such a mailer; factual and objective.  As such, the District has charged Emeryville taxpayers for the cost to produce and mail the flyer.   If this mailer were produced as part of a campaign, the costs associated with it would have to be paid by private donations. 

The president of the School Board and the Superintendent of the Schools were invited to clarify or explain their statements in the mailer but they declined to.  The Tattler will report again on this story before the election and it is hoped the District will engage with the citizens on how they got this erroneous information of Measure K low Emery funding and no admin costs they sent out to voters last week.

Administration salaries went up disproportionally over teacher salaries after passage of the last
Measure K parcel tax despite claims to the contrary.
Source: Ca Dept of Ed