School Board Employs Catch and Kill Tactic to Quash Transgender Recognition

 Another Pride Month Passes With No Action:

Steve Dain Field Turns Into a Field of Dreams For Seekers of Social Justice

School Board Says NO to Naming Athletic Field for Fired 

Transgender Teacher

The Emery Unified School District Board of Trustees, desiring to stop a growing community movement to name the athletic field at the Center of Community Life school campus for its deceased transgender teacher, Steve Dain, engaged in a ‘catch and kill’ program to neutralize the community's action the Tattler has learned.  The community quest to posthumously honor the teacher the district fired for “immorality” in the 1970s, was siloed by the Board via use of a bogus committee set up ostensibly by the Board to “investigate” naming the field after Mr Dain.  The so called Naming Committee has not met even once since its chartering in April 2021 and the Board refuses to say if it will ever meet.

Emery School Board Member
John Van Geffen
Not fond of 'Steve Dain Field'
or Steve Dain anything for that
matter, he says there's no reason
for the Naming Committee to meet.
His Board colleagues agree.

Transgender community members and their allies, having been placated by the Board's sanctimoniously claimed interest in naming the field for Steve Dain, have since wound down and dispersed, satisfied with the promise of non-biased decision making by the Board's new committee.  The community was unaware but the dispersion and tamping down of their passion was likely the Board's whole idea of the pushing the Steve Dain Field concept into the wilderness.

The Board was caught off guard in 2019 amid a rising community groundswell to name the gym at the school campus after Mr Dain who was a popular PE teacher at Emery before he was fired for transitioning to a man in 1976.  All but one Board member, the president, were against Steve Dain Gymnasium and countering the groundswell, the Board threw the decision over to parents at Emery who refused to name the gym after a transgender person, naming it instead after a non-trans retired PE teacher.  The parents gave the Board cover to anoint the 'Elio Abrami Gym' instead of Steve Dain Gym.  

The cynicism of that Board move may have gotten them out of the publicly uncomfortable position of having to go on record as having voted NO to Steve Dain Gym but it came at a cost.  Board president Barbara Inch, the only supporter of Mr Dain on the Board, resigned from the Board in protest.  Watching from the sidelines and alarmed by the Board's Abrami gambit, the City Council responded by renaming 47th Street, the street address of the School District, 'Steve Dain Drive' in March 2021 by fiat.

The result of the first use of catch and kill by the
Board (to stop the Steve Dain Gym movement).

‘Catch and kill’ is a term used by right wing media to stop stories they don’t like.  Readers may remember how David Pecker, the CEO of the National Inquirer, a strong supporter of candidate Donald Trump in 2016, paid Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal $150,000 for exclusive publishing rights to her story about her affair with Trump.  After getting her assurance she would not tell her story to any other media before the 2016 election, the National Inquirer then refused to post the story they paid for, thereby killing it to help Trump's election chances.  It was a tactic useful to Donald Trump then and to the School Board at Emery now.

In 2021, the Board said its new Naming Committee would meet on a strictly ad hoc basis, meaning only when there’s a ‘need’ to meet.  Not seeing a need to meet after assuring the social justice seeking community the issue would be taken up by the Committee, the community’s Steve Dain Field request has been quietly erased by the Board.

Board member John Van Geffen, whom the Board appointed as the Naming Committee Chair, was contacted for this story but he refused to comment.  

Steve Dain Field (except for anti-trans bigotry at Emery)
Community members who want to see the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice will
have to wait longer for the School Board at Emery Unified School District to imagine equality.
 

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.

Emery School Board Continues Undemocratic Tradition of Appointing Its Members

Yet Another Appointment to Emery School Board
After Another Elected Trustee Resigns

Emeryville, Meet Your Newest Board Member- 

John Van Geffen; Advocate for Business Interests 

& Foe of the Working Poor 

News Analysis
In his third attempt, local attorney and former City Council candidate John Van Geffen was finally successful this week in securing an appointment to the position of Trustee on the Emery School Board, a governing body that is supposed to be elected by the people of Emeryville.  However due to recurring resignations among Board members, executive appointments to this legislative body here are often the norm.  Also common is the appointing of community members to the Board that have been previously rejected by the voters of Emeryville.  Or in the case of Mr Van Geffen, a candidate that had been previously rejected by the voters AND (twice by) the School Board.  He now takes over the position of former Trustee Sarah Nguyen who resigned earlier in the year.

This week's continuation of Emery's Board of Trustees tradition, manifested by the elevating of Mr Van Geffen, comes after his 2016 City Council bid when he came in last place in a field of six candidates.  The deeply unpopular John Van Geffen was bested by current Board member, appointee Brynnda Collins, who also lost her Council bid in 2016, coming in 5th place in the six candidate field.  Unlike Mr Van Geffen however, Ms Collins actually won a subsequent (2018) School Board bid put to the voters.
Political office aspirants facing voters is the norm in a functioning democracy except here at the Emery Unified School District where Board members commonly resign before their terms are finished.

Third Time's a Charm-
Newly Appointed School Board Member
John Van Geffen
He lost a City Council bid and two previous
attempts to get appointed to the Board.

Newly minted School Board member Van Geffen was a controversial pick for the existing four Board members with his conspicuous ‘limited government’ conservative philosophy and open hostility to Emeryville's popular and progressive minimum wage and 'fair work week' ordinances in his failed City Council bid (see the League of Woman Voters video below).  Whereas Emeryville voters (and previous iterations of the School Board) soundly rejected Mr Van Geffen's attacks on the working poor in the community in 2016, the newest iteration of the Board now see a simpatico fellow traveler they can work with.

The appointment of Mr Van Geffen to the Board of Trustees adds to two existing other appointees currently on the Board.  Not including Board member Collins who was appointed and finally elected,  the Emery Unified School Board now is comprised of only three members whom voters have elected and three that have not been either rejected at the ballot box or appointed to their Board position.  A spare majority of three were selected by the people of the City of Emeryville, a tenuous majoritarian condition given Emery's historic inability to hold onto Board members for their full terms.

Readers may wish to review Mr Van Geffen's presentation in the League of Woman Voters' 2016 City Council candidates' forum in the video below and the Tattler 2016 City Council candidates' questionnaire, in four installments:
#1 HERE
#2 HERE
#3 HERE
#4 HERE

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: John Van Geffen

John Van Geffen:

On Police, Bikes, Families & Density

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered this our second questionnaire save candidate Ally Medina.  

Mr Van Geffen's bio can be viewed in the first questionnaire by using the search bar.
                                                        

Section 5 Police

After last year’s shooting of Yuvette Henderson by Emeryville police using a Colt AR-15 assault rifle, community members became alarmed to learn our police had quietly been issued these weapons and that they’re now routinely driving around with them as a matter of course. The City has used resources to tamp down citizens attempting to have a public debate about the wisdom of this militarism of our police department, specifically the routine carrying of these high powered rifles by contending these weapons are not assault rifles, directly contradicting the State of California’s finding that they are assault rifles. Police Departments up and down the State disagree with EPD. San Francisco PD, Oakland PD and San Jose PD among others say AR-15’s are assault rifles. The NRA agrees with the Chief that AR-15s are not assault rifles.

Tattler:  Do the people have a right to know how it is that the City of Emeryville has determined the State of California is wrong about the nature of AR-15s since they (the people) are paying for them in Emeryville?

  

John Van Geffen:  I think this question frames the issue poorly. We shouldn't be arguing over what model of gun the police carry, rather we should be focusing our conversation around what sort of training we can expect our officers to receive in crisis management and De-escalation so that, hopefully, we never get to a point where caliber and clip size becomes relevant.

From what I read of the public investigative report from that very unfortunate day, when the officers arrived at the scene, they weren't responding to a simple shoplifting call, rather they were responding to reports of a woman waving a gun at people in cars in an attempt carjack a vehicle to get away from police.  

Different scenarios call for different strategies--e.g., police shouldn't arrive to a peaceful protest or a domestic violence call with an AR15 just as they shouldn't show up to reports of an active shooter at ECCL with only a sidearm. 

          

Section 6 Bicycling Transportation

Tattler:  Do you support Emeryville’s Bike Boulevard metric of no more than 3000 vehicle trips per day (vtd) for all bike boulevards west of Hollis Street?

  

John Van Geffen:  I believe the Bike Boulevard issue and the Sherwin Williams project discussions need to be approached in tandem since each will affect the other.

We need to learn more about the Sherwin Williams development plan as it progresses so we know what the ingress/egress routes will be for the 500+ new tenants (not to mention the proposed West Oakland BART shuttle service). Only after we know how people are getting in and out of Emeryville can we decide what, if anything, should be done to Hollis. 

  

Section 7 Families

Emeryville is the least family friendly city in the whole East Bay and, distressingly as we continue to grow, becomes less family friendly over time; this even as we conspicuously build an ambitious new school campus. Developers, insisting over the years family friendly housing “won’t pencil out” economically (but their books are closed), have pushed back against the odd City Council member that has called on them to fix this problem. Notably over one crucial ten year period ending a few years ago, Emeryville actually lost families (in real numbers, not just as a ratio), even as the town doubled in population during the same period.

Tattler: To catch up with neighboring cities (and to erase a source of municipal embarrassment), Emeryville will need to provide virtually 100% family friendly housing from here on out, especially when one considers that our town is almost completely ‘built out’ at this point. Do you feel the ‘family friendly housing ordinance’, recently passed by the City Council, is up to the task of reversing this trend and delivering a city on par with our municipal neighbors?

John Van Geffen:  First off, you need to preface statements like "Emeryville is the least family friendly city in the whole East Bay" with "In the Tattler's opinion" so that readers do not get confused since your site continuously jumps back and forth between 'local news' and 'personal blog'. It is safe to say that a great number of people, myself included, disagree with this preface and are happy living with their families in Emeryville. But, I do believe there is room to make family life in Emeryville even better and I absolutely want to see more families moving to Emeryville.

Regarding the 'family friendly housing ordinance' that mandates new multi-unit residential developments with 10+ units have a minimum number of multi-bedroom units (again thank you Tattler for pointing out the exact Ordinance Article Subsection you wanted addressed in this question), I think that this clause is important to ensure that developers do not build honeycomb apartment complexes filled with static studios simply to maximize their return on the price per square foot. 

To answer your question more precisely, No. In my opinion, this ordinance, by itself, is not enough. It will take more than having some new 2 or 3 bedroom apartments in large complexes to incentivize families to move to Emeryville. 

If we want to entice families to Emeryville we need homeownership opportunities, construction of single family residences, new Below Market Rate housing options, raised testing scores at ECCL, enhanced bicycle and pedestrian paths, increased community participation in neighborhood events, etc., etc., etc.... 

Editor's Note: Data inference concerning families in this question comes from the US Census Bureau.  It is not based on opinion.

Section 8 Density

With the advent of ‘smart growth’, city planners have recognized the advantages and even the desirability of increasing housing density in urban areas. This is well documented and developers have taken advantage of this new paradigm. However, as with all fads, in the rush to embrace it, sometimes critical former knowledge becomes lost. Problems associated with too much density are being disregarded and a new ‘supply and demand’ axiom has taken the place of our formerly near universal acknowledgment that there can be too much density.

Tattler:  How much density is too much density? What are the warning signs that too much density has been foisted upon us?

  

John  Van Geffen:  There is no right answer to this. Everyone has an opinion and a personal preferences when it comes to community development and the scientific research on 'ideal density' varies from city to city and block to block.

My answer to this question can only be a reflection of what I personally believe is ideal. But, since you asked, my preference is for what architect Lloyd Alter dubbed the 'Goldilocks Density'--i.e., dense enough to support vibrant main streets with retail and services for local needs, but not too high that people can't take the stairs in a pinch. Dense enough to support bike and transit infrastructure, but not so dense to need subways and huge underground parking garages. Dense enough to build a sense of community, but not so dense as to have everyone slip into anonymity.

How do we find this magic middle ground? By working together and coming to a general consensus on new developments.  

  

Section 9 General/Miscellaneous

Tattler:  Emeryville’s business pay taxes to City Hall based on gross receipts. The largest businesses pay taxes at a much lower rate than smaller businesses because a former City Council majority placed a cap on taxes for all receipts higher than a certain amount, meaning those receipts are tax free; a classic regressive tax. Would you continue this regressive business tax structure, make it flat or make it progressive (larger businesses pay at a high rate than small business)?

  

John Van Geffen:  In order to provide a concise answer to this question, I need more information on how Emeryville's tax code compares and contrasts with the codes in Berkeley and Oakland and then I would need an opportunity to speak with city staff about the costs associated with changing the tax code and then approach those businesses that would be affected to ask for their input.

But, what I can say without hesitation is, I do not want the Council to pass any resolution or ordinance that will make it more expensive or complicated to do business in Emeryville. I want jobs coming in, not businesses going out. 

  

Tattler:  What Council members do you hold in high esteem, now and in the past? What Council members have done a poor job?

  

John Van Geffen:  I hold all the council members in high esteem. I do not agree with the current council on many issues but I respect them for the commitments they have made to this city.  

Tattler:  Conservative City Council members have long conflated business interests with resident’s interests as they have gone about forwarding their pro-business agenda. This governing philosophy has led us to where we are now leaving so many residents are clamoring for change. Do you feel a need to conflate business interests with residents interests? How do you see the two groups interests as disparate insofar as you do?

John Van Geffen:  To start, I believe every premise in your question is false. Emeryville's businesses pay taxes to City Hall which then in turn use the funds towards the city's streets, police, firefighters, etc. To say that business interests and resident interests don't connect, is to ignore the clearly symbiotic relationship between businesses, social services and local culture.

Second, just because I understand what is involved in running a business does not automatically make me "conservative", just like being liberal doesn't automatically equivocate with being "anti-business." 

Third, I do not believe "residents are clamoring for change" (at least as it applies to the FWO and MWO). At the October 18th City Council meeting, for every Emeryville resident in attendance there appeared to be at least six or seven non-Emeryville citizens who had been brought in from neighboring cities by EBASE, ACCE, SEIU, and CPD in order to fill seats and grab headlines. 

Simply put, I do not believe the City Council's "priorities" are in line with Emeryville residents. Rather, I believe the Council has effectively handed over the agenda to labor groups that will always put the interests of their members ahead of the interests of Emeryville and its residents. Where we disagree over issues is irrelevant, my concern is that the council has handed control of the city's self-regulation to people outside of Emeryville. It is dangerous.   

Patz, Bauters, Van Geffen Get East Bay Times Endorsment

Christian Patz
Got top billing honors
from the East Bay Times
as a corruption fighter.

The widely circulated East Bay Times endorsed Emeryville City Council candidates Christian Patz, John Bauters and John Van Geffen today.  The late in the season endorsements moved forward even though candidate Ally Medina couldn't make the interview date it was reported.  The Times places Christian Patz at the top of the heap praising his commitment to accountability and transparency calling the Emery School Board out over Brown Act violations while he has served as a trustee on that body.  Mr Patz has placed accountability and transparency at the top of his candidacy according to his campaign literature and the East Bay Times, in addition to showing appreciation to Christian Patz's commitment to those issues also agrees they're issues needing attention in Emeryville, tendering two stories to a Brown Act Violation by the Board last year.
The Times praised all three candidates for their fiscal acuity on budgetary issues.

John Bauters

The story can be read HERE.

John Van Geffen

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: John Van Geffen

John Van Geffen:

On Livability

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered our questionnaire save candidate for City Council Brynnda Collins.  

Today, candidate for City Council John Van Geffen answers questions on livability (please check the previously posted section 1 answers for this candidate's bio):

Section 4  Livability

Tattler:  Other cities have implemented bans on ‘formula’ retail; that being national chains, franchises, fast food etc.  Emeryville already has a plethora of these kinds of businesses.  Do you see constituting a ban as something Emeryville should do moving forward?

John Van Geffen: I believe the role of local government is to even the playing field to help residents and local businesses compete, not simply change the rules of the game in the hopes that when the dust settles things will be better (especially considering the large sums of money that the city would have to expend to defend against the resulting lawsuits from industry advocacy groups). 

The most important thing the Emeryville City Council can do to create a unique and vibrant business community is to support, incentivize and promote local small businesses, not try to ban chain stores in the hopes that local businesses will just materialize as a result. 

Tattler:  New construction is commonly too expensive for local retail to afford because of the high rents developers must charge to recoup their construction costs.  This is often cited as the reason Emeryville can’t seem to deliver the kind of locally serving retail Emeryville residents want.  The Tattler has proposed new development write off retail rents associated with their residential projects by forcing developers to put in writing their assurances to bring locally serving/non-formula retail.  Would you force this assurance guarantee from developers for new residential development?

John Van Geffen: Sitting here today, I cannot guarantee how I will vote on a project that does not yet exist and for which I have no information. What I can guarantee is that I will always listen to the recommendations of the Emeryville Planning Commission and seek comment from the entire Emeryville community, especially those individuals who are going to be directly affected by any new development.

Tattler:  Emeryville has gotten worse over time in several key areas, specifically with regards to the things residents tell us they want to see in their town.  We have been told by a generation of City Council members by their voting records that we must accept that Emeryville must get worse over time. The Tattler has made a declaration that we should not permit new development to make our town worse insofar as can be measured.  So for instance in affordability, park acreage per resident, locally serving retail, ratio of home ownership to rentals; these hallmarks of livability (and more) are measurable and the effect new development has on our existing metrics can be measured.  We could have a blanket insistence that all new development not make the town get measurably worse in key areas or even an insistence that new development make our town get measurably better.  Would you support this?

John Van Geffen:  I do not agree with the premise upon which you frame this question--i.e., "that Emeryville continues to get worse and worse over time". The Emeryville of today may not be what you personally wanted, but it is an amazing city with wonderful people and unique local businesses and our city deserves to be supported and promoted as such. 

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: John Van Geffen

Parks/Open Space &

Sherwin Williams Project:

John Van Geffen

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered our questionnaire save candidate for City Council Brynnda Collins.  

Today, candidate for City Council John Van Geffen answers questions on parks/open space and the Sherwin Williams development proposal (please check the previously posted section 1 answers for this candidate's bio):

Section 2  Parks/Open Space

Our General Plan says Emeryville is dramatically underserved in parks.  The 26 acres we have now (includes “linear” parks, essentially glorified sidewalks) must be increased by  21-26 acres within twelve years if our General Plan is to be honored.  However something must change in Emeryville if this is to be achieved because with each passing year, we drift farther away from our goal.  Our park fees obtained from developers have not kept pace with our needs.

Tattler:  City planners use the metric of residents per acre of park land to measure how well a city’s residents are being served.  Oakland is well served with park/open space at approximately 67 residents per acre.  Emeryville currently has about 500 residents per acre.  After peaking in the late 1970’s, Emeryville’s ratio of residents per acre of park/open space has gone down every year since then, despite a few small parks having been built.  This disturbing downward trend has actually accelerated over the last 10 years. Increasing developers park fees is unlikely to help much moving forward owing to the limited amount of developable land left.  Acknowledging all this, what can be done to build the amount of park land we say we want?   

John Van Geffen:  This goes back to your earlier question about affordable housing. We as a city need to prioritize when considering new development and its affect on our city. If the majority of Emeryville's residents decided that the need for additional park space exceeded the need for affordable housing then we definitely have options available to us through the permitting process. But the idea that we can get everything we want from developers--e.g., more bike paths, park space, mixed use, BMR units, homeownership, shuttle service, etc., etc., and STILL be competitive with alternative sites in Berkeley or Oakland simply isn't realistic. As a candidate for City Council I want voters to consider me as practical and realistic, not someone who will over-promise and then under-deliver.    

Tattler: Our General Plan is very clear on parks/open space; we need more than we have, twice as much.  But the disconnect between what the people say they want and what they’re getting is extreme in Emeryville.  There seems to be no political will to follow the General Plan once politicians get in office.  Politicians routinely say they’re going to turn this around but they have not yet done so.  And yet the voters keep voting for these politicians.  Several council members have been re-elected over and over again. Does this tell you the people don’t really want parks, regardless of what they say?  Are you willing to consider amending our General Plan to delete parks if you can’t or won’t deliver on your promise to build more so at least our guiding document will accurately reflect reality and not be a pie-in-the-sky fantasy meant to elect dishonest politicians?  Considering all this, at what point should the General Plan be considered a failure?

John Van Geffen: There is nothing wrong with wanting more park space even though in reality, the possibility of doubling our existing park space is simply not feasible (unless the train tracks magically disappear or we change the definition of "park space"). 

Unfortunately, as Mark Twain's old adage goes, "Buy land, they're not making it anymore". I do not know of a way for Emeryville to substantially increase our city's park space and simultaneously increase our housing supply to meet demands.

To answer your specific question about the General Plan, I don't think we need to amend the General Plan just to "acknowledge failure" because that does not address the problem and, in my opinion, seems to be exactly the type of political theater your blog tends to lambast against. 

Section 3  Sherwin Williams Project

The Sherwin Williams development project is a mostly residential proposal earmarked for the last large piece of fallow land left in Emeryville.  This single project could easily increase Emeryville’s population by more than 10%.  At 540 all rental residential units planned as well as some office space and a small amount of retail, this project promises to be very consequential for our town for better or worse.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams developers propose to add 2.08 acres of public park on the site.  Using the standard formula of 2 people per unit (more if the project attracts families as the developers say it will), the project will come in at about 520 residents per acre and help bring down Emeryville’s already deplorable residents/park acre average. Should negative skewing of our park/residents ratio like this be a disqualifying condition for this project?

John Van Geffen:  I attended the September 6th City Hall meetings with dozens of my fellow Emeryville residents and listened along with everyone else to the recent developments with the Sherwin Williams project. When the time came for comments from the public, there was a considerable number of opinions on how the City Council should manage the project--e.g., where the park(s) would be located, what the % of BMR units would be, whether the BMR units would be in a separate building, use existing buildings, use of commercial space, etc. 

But, while the residents of Emeryville have a plethora of views on how the project should move forward, the consensus was that the project should move forward. 

In answer to the remainder of your questions about the Sherwin Williams project, the people of Emeryville want, in some shape or form, for the development to move forward. So, instead of cultivating dissent, we should take a cue from the advocacy group PARC and concentrate on what our residents' priorities are and how to best achieve them.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams site is relatively cheap since it is fallow.  Because our General Plan requires us to build many more acres of parks within 12 years and because it’s cheaper for the City to buy fallow land than land with buildings already on it for this purpose, and because the City of Emeryville has the capacity to pass a park bond to raise revenue for this, is making the Sherwin Williams site a large park a rational choice?

John Van Geffen: Did not answer

Tattler:  With more than 500 parking spaces, this project can be fairly called another Emeryville ‘drive-in drive-out’ residential development.  Do you see adding this many cars to our streets as being offset by any benefits to existing residents by the project’s amenities?

John Van Geffen:  Did not answer

Tattler:  Is Emeryville right now not up to snuff, a less-than-desirable place to live that can only be improved by the Sherwin Williams project going in as proposed?  Do we ‘need’ the Sherwin Williams development? 

John Van Geffen: Did not answer

Tattler:  The project is hemmed in on the west by the rail road tracks and on the north by land slated for future development by Novartis, to the east is the Horton Street Bike Boulevard that our General Plan forbids adding more traffic to. How will the retail there be viable with these constraints let alone the office space and the residential units?

John Van Geffen:  Did not answer

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: John Van Geffen

Housing Affordability: 

John Van Geffen

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered our questionnaire save candidate for City Council Brynnda Collins.  

Today, candidate for City Council John Van Geffen, who answers questions on affordable housing:

John Van Geffen

Bio:

John T. Van Geffen, Esq. is relatively new to local politics having recently moved to Emeryville in 2014 with his family. John's campaign platform is about three things, making Emeryville a better place to raise families, cultivating the city's unique character by supporting local business, and ensuring the City Council direct its energies towards projects that help Emeryville residents, not

 special interest groups. For more information, his website is http://johnvangeffen.striki ngly.com/

Section 1 Housing Affordability

With each passing year, Emeryville becomes less affordable, regardless of the epic residential building spree over the last 20 years here.  Emeryville has never built housing at a pace even close to what we have done recently.  And yet, affordable housing remains Emeryville’s most intractable problem most people agree.

Tattler: Emeryville’s affordability rate right now is approximately 11% city-wide according to City Hall using their metrics.  We had more than 30 years of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency (RDA) who’s primary function was providing affordable housing and 11% is the sum total we could muster with all the largess that agency could bring to bear.  How do you see us raising the 11% average appreciably in the post Redevelopment Agency era? 

John Van Geffen:  Regardless of any action taken by Emeryville's City Council, local housing costs will not stop rising so long as the economies of San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland continue to grow. Currently the only realistic option for small cities like Emeryville to do their part in increasing "affordable housing" is to mandate that developers set aside BMR units. But unless the city is offering some form of incentive for setting aside BMR units, developers will simply consider moving their projects to otherwise viable locations with less restrictions. More over, we need to come to a consensus on how much density we want in Emeryville and take steps to cultivate home ownership.

Tattler:  Emeryville, formerly an industrial wasteland with lots of abandoned warehouses and factories in the 1980’s has been almost completely rebuilt now with lots of housing and shopping centers.  Seeing so little fallow land left and the housing stock that we have is mostly less than 25 years old, where will we build the affordable housing that we need?

John Van Geffen:  If Emeryville were to green light every development in the pipeline, we would increase our housing (all housing, not just affordable housing) by nearly 20%. But, I do not believe that the majority of people living in Emeryville want the resulting congestion, strain on our city's infrastructure and the multitude of other problems that will inevitably result from such rapid density growth. We (Emeryville and surrounding cities) need a regional approach for increasing affordable housing and we need to make sure that high density development is targeted for neighborhoods with the available resources, public transportation and infrastructure to handle it.
  

Tattler:  Urban density is generally recognized as a net positive thing.  However, increasing density also comes with its own problems, overcrowding of parks and traffic being among them.  Emeryville right now has more than 200% of recommended market rate housing according to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).  How do you suggest we increase affordability without increasing our existing 200% of market rate housing more?  Is ABAG wrong?

John Van Geffen:  According to www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/ the Bay Area population is over seven million people. While it is important for Emeryville to do its part to ensure Bay Area residents can afford to live in the cities where they work, we need to acknowledge that Emeryville's population and size is less than a percent of one percent of the Bay Area. Increasing affordable housing needs to be a regional issue so construction can be targeted towards neighborhoods that can best implement large scale projects, provide sufficient incentives to lure developers, and have the infrastructure to absorb the increased population. 

While I believe Emeryville should maintain BMR requirements to ensure a vibrant community, I also believe that Emeryville should not try to tackle this problem by itself. We should instead be pushing for development around existing BART stations to ease the strain and congestion these developments create.

Tattler:  'Supply and demand' is central to classical economics as everyone knows.  Here in Emeryville, developers and some others are using this argument to forward a position that the problem in Emeryville is that we haven't been building enough housing and that's why its so expensive here.  Yet at 200% ABAG recommendations for market rate housing (and going higher), the more we build, the higher the housing costs go.  Neighboring cities have built less than 100% of ABAG recommendations.  Does Emeryville have to be a sacrifice zone for the greater region to satiate the supply and demand axiom posited by some?

John Van Geffen: No. The regional demands of the Bay Area for more housing does not trump our fellow Emeryville citizens' desire to control our cities growth, density and design. As I mentioned above, increasing housing costs are not unique to Emeryville and continued development should be focused in those cities and neighborhoods that can afford to incentivize BMR unit construction and have existing infrastructures (like BART Stations) capable of incorporating a higher population density.