Maurice Kaufman 'Resigns'

Nora Davis' Star Begins to Set

Two Down, Two More To Go

News Analysis/Opinion
Long time Emeryville Public Works Director, Maurice Kaufman surprised many in town Monday when he announced he intends to quit effective in May, giving no reasons other than his desire for a new direction in his life.  This resignation of a department head at City Hall leaves speculation open that the major change in elected public officials in Emeryville last November, the election of three new progressive Council members, is the driving force behind this major shake up.  Given the particulars, we can say with few reservations that Mr Kaufman, hired by and the champion of former Councilwoman Nora Davis, was likely forced out.  This being a personnel matter and therefore not subject to public scrutiny, it’s all tight lips among the Council members and City Manager.  But to this consequential change we say: it’s about time and don’t let the door hit you on the way out Maurice. 
 Some were surprised as noted but not us; a severely out of balance polity can only continue to exist for so long before one way or another a correction is bound to take place. What is surprising is why it took so long to push Maurice along towards the exit.  

Primarily a traffic engineer, Maurice Kaufman had his time here but now he’s a dinosaur, a left over relict from the Nora Davis years when developers (and the cars they bring to a community) were king.  We remember when Maurice told us he's fine with traffic calming for bike safety as long as it doesn't impede car traffic.

Traffic Engineers Like Efficiency
Maurice Kaufman likes cars moving quickly
and efficiently.

 
Mr Kaufman was selected by Ms Davis to support her pro-business/developer philosophy, a role he performed quite well over the years.  It’s just that the people of Emeryville finally decided they’d had enough of that and they ‘voted with their votes’ for a change.  So slowly (very slowly) now the staff at City Hall is starting to finally show signs that the will of the people is being placated. With the head of Public Works gone it’s two down, two more to go on that account. 

Keeping on Nora Davis’ staff at City Hall with the new City Council was/is a piece of regrettable Californication in Emeryville.  A little have a nice day, we could never do anything so harsh as to fire somebody flawed public policy.  And the City Council continues to leave the remaining Nora Davis selected department heads on at their continuing peril.  For surely as night follows day, the will of the Council has been and will continue to be subverted by such a staff.  Want evidence of that? 
Here’s a little taste down through the years of Maurice Kaufman, Nora Davis’ favored City Hall staff manager (partial list): 

• - In 2015, Maurice attempting to stop traffic calming on 45th Street, lied to the new City Manager about our Bike Plan’s requirements to deal with excess car traffic there. A Tattler Public Records Request proved it with a damning document. 
• - The Programs Director of Bike East Bay, formerly known as the East Bay Bike Coalition, the Bay Area’s premier bicycling advocacy group, wrote a letter condemning Maurice for harming the cause of safe bicycling. 
• - Maurice helped draft the Environmental Impact Statement for the Sherwin Williams Project that killed the Horton Street Bike Boulevard. He helped write the Statement of Overriding Considerations that made it official. 
• - Maurice waived fines for developer Pulte Homes who illegally cut down 20 street trees. No reason was given for the pass given to the developer. 
• - Maurice, always hostile to traffic calming for bikes, showed that he doesn’t even understand the idea behind traffic calming when he worked against the Horton Street Bike Boulevard. 
• -Maurice was aware a bike boulevard had too much traffic on it to satisfy the Bike Plan but he didn't inform the City Council, purposely keeping the elected officials in the dark.
• - Maurice paid a contractor the final payment for an unusable bike path, leaving the City with no recourse to fixing it. 
• - Maurice allowed a developer to trash our newly made basket weave brick sidewalks on San Pablo Avenue. Again the final payment was presented to the developer leaving the City with no recourse. 
• - Public Works took years to replace burnt out light bulbs for a crosswalk at Anna Yates Elementary School. 

Imagine if there were ever another Democratic President elected in Washington (that would mean Donald Trump decided to allow it, admittedly a stretch)...now imagine if she decided to leave in place Trump's staff and cabinet and tried to govern.  That's what's been going on in Emeryville.  Elections as they say are supposed to have consequences.  
To the City Council: We're finished with Council member Nora Davis...she had her 30 year run and now it's time to move on.  Insofar as you gave Maurice Kaufman the heave ho last Monday, let's keep that momentum going.

So long Maurice Kaufman. We wish you all the best and no hard feelings… it’s just your time has passed in Emeryville.  Next!

Emeryville Paid Contractor $818,000 For an Unusable Bike Path

If You Wear Dentures, Don't Use the New Christie Ave Bike Path

Bone Jarringly Bumpy Asphalt: "Meets CalTrans Specs" 

An important heretofore missing bike path section of the Bay Trail through Emeryville has been completed along Christie Avenue earlier this year but City officials admit the path isn't being used as much as they had hoped, probably because of its extremely rough surface as a result of "poor workmanship" by the construction contractor according to the City engineer.  Even though the work was signed off by the City, numerous City staffers and Council members are complaining about the terrible condition of the asphalt there.  Bike East Bay, the premier local bike advocacy group agreed the path is too bumpy and they suggested City Council members consider redoing the path after receiving complaints about it from their members.  However the Tattler has learned the City paid the contractor who built the path, Tiburon based Redwood Engineering, the final payment in full in April and no recourse for a fix or restitution exists at this point. Any additional fixes would have to be born exclusively by the taxpayers said the City engineer.  The Mayor Scott Donahue refused to comment to the Tattler about any plans to repair the path.

The City engineer and head of Public Works, Maurice Kaufman told the Tattler he's not happy with the low quality of the work done by Redwood, "It wasn't the best" he said after he indicated the bumpy surface nonetheless meets CalTrans specifications, still "It would have been nice to have a smoother path" he said.  Mayor Donahue disagreed, "It's a little bit lumpy" he said but he thought it would serve a useful function for bike safety as a speed inhibitor. Leaving that aside, several bicyclers were observed using the street rather than subject themselves to the bone jarring ride along the new bike path recently as the Tattler filmed the experience from a bicyclist's perspective for this story (below).

Redwood Engineering, originally the lowest bidder out of five contractors originally bid $739,125 for the job but bumped up (so to speak) that number by $79,445 due to "unforeseen additional work" bringing the total to $818,570.  After the added costs unforeseen by Redwood Engineering, their bid price ended up being the fourth highest.
The bids delivered to the City listed lowest to highest:
1. Redwood Engineering Construction $739,125  ($818,0570 actually charge to City)
2. Phoenix Electric Company $749,687 
3. Bauman Landscape and Construction $775,846 
4. Sposeto Engineering Inc. $786,460 
5. Ray’s Electric Inc. $913,650

The City received a grant from Alameda County for $550,00 to put towards the job (funds from voter backed Measure B) leaving Emeryville with a bill for $269,000.
The City made the final payment in April but not before Mr Kaufman rode the path himself to check on the quality of the work, "I wish it rode better"" he acknowledged after he approved the last payment.  Regarding the poor workmanship done by Redwood Engineering on the Christie Avenue bike path, the City engineer added, "I wouldn't want them to do another paving job in town".

'Safe Routes to School'? Maybe, But Not After the 'Flashing Beacon' Lightbulbs Burn Out

Q: How Many Public Works Employees Does it Take to Screw In a Light Bulb?

A: More Than 13

Opinion
Emeryville City Hall tells us they care about children.  But how much do they really care?  They care enough to apply for a $500,000 grant to install crosswalk flashing warning lights as part of a "Safe Routes to School" federal program.  Unfortunately, they don't care enough to change the lightbulbs when they burn out.  Changing lightbulbs is not a task the 13 employees at Emeryville's Public Works Department is adroit enough to handle.

Safe Routes to Schools?
43rd Street at San Pablo Avenue-
The existing in-pavement flashers are
being removed but the flashing sign
beacons will remain.
Safe....until the light bulbs
burn out.

After securing the grant money, the City is directing the work now starting on three intersections along San Pablo Avenue at 43rd, 45th and 47th Streets in anticipation of the eventual completion of the Center of 'Community' Life at 47th and San Pablo.  These are the crossings children will be using to get to school and button activated flashing beacon signs are the central part of the scope of work.

The problem is we've seen this story before and it doesn't end well...
Simple maintenance and follow through is not big at the Public Works Department.  Consider the crosswalk at 43rd Street and San Pablo.  Ten years ago, anguished parents appealed to the City to help children safely cross that busy street near Anna Yates Elementary School.  The City responded with a $20,000 program to install button activated flashing beacons on signs and in asphalt pavement embedded lights at that intersection; a vast improvement.
(On a side note, now, only the flashing beacon signs will remain at the 43rd Street crossing; the pavement embedded beacons are being removed as part of the new Safe Routes to Schools program, leaving the claims of improved safety in question, at least for that intersection.)
The last flashing beacon light bulb finally burned out a couple of years ago at the San Pablo Avenue/43rd Street crosswalk leaving parents and citizens attempting the traverse at the mercy of busy California State Route 123 (aka San Pablo Avenue) drivers.  Complaints to the Public Works Department over the years about burned out lightbulbs have fallen on deaf ears, all the hyperbolic talk of child welfare and safe routes to schools notwithstanding.

We're not sure why the Emery Unified School District was so insistent to place our new elementary school directly on the busiest street in Emeryville; San Pablo Avenue with its 1600 vehicles per hour speeding through these intersections, but now we're stuck with it.  Presumably, with the new flashing beacons provided by the federal government, children will be able to safely cross (so says the School District)....safe until the light bulbs start burning out.
Unfortunately again, the safety of our children is placed in the hands of the can't-be-bothered-to-change-lightbulbs Public Works Department and its Director Maurice Kaufman.  Too bad we can't get the feds to commit to changing the bulbs...then maybe we really would have safe routes to schools.  All these new lightbulbs being installed is going to be too much for Maurice Kaufman to handle.

How many Public Works employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?  We wish it were merely a bad joke.  The actual truthful answer to that question; more than 13, isn't funny.

Vexing for the likes of Emeryville
Now what do we do?

Emeryville City Hall Staff Doesn't Understand Bike Boulevards

"Like a Squeezed Balloon..."

Emeryville's City Hall Staff Can't Imagine

Bike Boulevards

Analogy for Sisyphean Meaningless Work: 
Squeeze it here and the air goes over there;
you've accomplished nothing says Emeryville.

News Analysis/Opinion
Sometimes a single utterance gives away the whole game...
When a feature of a democratically vetted new polity is described by those entrusted with promulgating it as a flaw, you know there's a fundamental lack of understanding going on.
And that's what's happening behind the scenes at Emeryville City Hall right now.

Case in point: when recently interviewing the department heads management staff, the same curiously quoted axiom kept coming up: the idea of the futility of squeezing a balloon as a stand-in for meaningless work.  What these paid staffers are referring to is our Bike Plan and its provisions for building a network of bike boulevards in Emeryville.
Bike boulevards are corridors set aside primarily for bicycles and central to that endeavor is the requirement laid out in the Bike Plan to strictly limit the number of motor vehicles using these specially designated streets.  The Plan seeks to force cars from the bike boulevards over to regular streets for the safety of bicyclists.  This isn't a bug, it's a feature.

"If the idea is to atomize traffic in town, 

trying to keep an equal amount 

on all streets that the balloon 

analogy reinforces, then there's really 

no such thing as a bike boulevard". 

And yet our City staff can't seem to understand this basic principle, hence the oft repeated balloon analogy.  What they don't understand, they don't want.  At its core is a refusal to accept bike boulevards.  If the idea is to atomize traffic in town, trying to keep an equal amount on all streets that the balloon analogy reinforces, then there's really no such thing as a bike boulevard.  And viewing their actions trying to stop the Horton Street Bike Boulevard specifically over the last couple of years, it's safe to say we now know the philosophic underpinnings to their work: they can't even imagine a bike boulevard.

City Manager Carolyn Lehr
A fundamental lack of cognition:
"Like a squeezed balloon, the traffic
will just go elsewhere, you're
not solving anything" she said
of bike boulevards.

Who has spoken of squeezed balloons at City Hall?  The top brass; our City Manager Carolyn Lehr, our Director of Public Works Maurice Kaufman and also at least one underling.

We call on the Emeryville City staff to educate yourselves about our General Plan, our Bike Plan and Bike Boulevards.  The squeezed balloon image that you've been citing as reason for your dismissive demeanor is actually how it's supposed to work; we're supposed to squeeze traffic off the bike boulevards and onto regular streets.  Remember, it's bikes preferred, cars allowed on bike boulevards.  So stop trying to subvert that basic premise and get with the program.

Sherwin Williams Project: 'Cars Are Good, Bikes Are Incompatable'

Sherwin Williams Primer:

'Bike Boulevards Not Acceptable'

EIR Says Glut of Cars Should Push Bikes Out
If All Goes to Plan 

There's only one way the 540 unit Sherwin Williams project gets built; and that's by accommodating its glut of cars seeking its 1000 parking spaces by getting rid of Emeryville's General Plan mandated Bike Boulevards on Horton Street (as well as 45th and 53rd streets) according to City Hall and the environmental document it directed for the project.
But it wasn't supposed to be this way. The document prepared to study the effects of the Sherwin Williams residential building development proposal that has been written that precludes the three planned bicycle boulevards was specifically supposed to accommodate the bike transit corridors in its traffic analysis.  Emeryville's Directors of Planning and Public Works made an executive decision as it turns out, to only study one traffic scenario for the project; one that disregards the three bike boulevards.  The document was supposed to assist the City Council in their decision about the Sherwin Williams proposal as if bike boulevards could coexist with the cars.

"It didn't occur to us" 

to accommodate bike boulevards

-Charlie Bryant 

Emeryville Planning Director

The State mandated document, called the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DIER), was prepared by Maurice Kaufman, City Hall's Public Works Department Director as well as Planning Department Director Charlie Bryant by deleting from the City's General Plan the bike boulevards and moving the project forward with a field leveling, full steam ahead Statement of Overriding Consideration for the City Council to sign.  Alternatively, the bike boulevard standards quantified by the Emeryville's Bike Plan (part of the General Plan), could be "loosened" by amending the Bike Plan to permit the piling of more cars onto the bike corridors Mr Kaufman told the Tattler Wednesday.  However Emeryville's allowance of 3000 vehicles on its bike boulevards is already very high by national standards, "That's probably too high" Steve Clark, the 'bike friendly community director' at the League of American Bicyclists told the Tattler last summer.  Regardless, four years ago, Emeryville's Bike Plan was recognized by the League as good enough to award the city with the designation 'bicycle friendly city'.

Emeryville's General Plan provides for no more than 3000 vehicle trips per day on the three bike boulevards and provides a remedy of traffic diverters to maintain that metric.  Mr Kaufman and Mr Bryant directed the DEIR to assume two 'half diverters' for Horton Street, one at 40th Street and one at 53rd Street that would permit southbound traffic only and northbound traffic only respectively, in order to try to bring down the number of vehicles on the street but the study reveals the remaining traffic would still exceed the 3000 vehicles per day limit as the Bike Plan spells out.  The scenario studied in the DEIR calls for no diverters for either 45th Street Bike Boulevard or the 53rd Street Bike Boulevard.

Directors Bryant (L) and Kaufman (R)
Bike boulevards are only possible
"If you loosen your standards" (Kaufman)
 because "It didn't occur to us" (Bryant)
 to accommodate bikes (as mandated 
by the General Plan).

The DEIR could have studied the traffic effects of the Sherwin Williams project with enough diverters on the bike boulevards to accommodate Emeryville's Bike Plan but Planning Director Bryant told the Tattler that idea wasn't entertained, "That didn't occur to us" he said.  For its part, LSA Associates, the firm that actually wrote the DEIR thinks the two half diverters as proposed by City Hall, while not adequate to save the bike boulevards, are the "maximum that is feasible", a representative told the Tattler.

The public is allowed to comment on the DEIR and any comments received will be reflected in the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) as well as any responses deemed reasonable from LSA Associates.  Commenters should contact the City of Emeryville.

Council Majority Refuses to Implement the Horton Street Bike Boulevard

Emeryville's Progressive Council Majority:

Not Progressive on Bike Access

City Needs to Return Bike Plan Award
Received Under False Pretenses

Opinion
For more than 15 years, Emeryville's Bike Committee has been clamoring for traffic calming for Horton Street, Emeryville's premier north/south bike commuting corridor.  Using what leverage they had, the Committee forced the previous City Council majority's hand and a new document, the Bike Plan was commissioned and certified to the tune of $200,000 in 2012 after two years of study.  The Plan, officially part of Emeryville's General Plan, also called for traffic calming just as the Committee had been.  We're sorry to say that's where this story ends....with a plan...on a shelf.

Regular Tattler readers will attest the story of the problems this city has had bringing traffic calming to Horton Street are legendary.  The problem historically was a disingenuous City Council.  They would campaign for bikes at re-election time but they had no interest in following through with traffic calming for Horton Street.  We thought that once the old order was broken up and a new seemingly pro-bike progressive City Council majority was elected last November, the taxpayer funded $200,000 Bike Plan would finally be taken seriously and traffic calming would finally come to Horton Street.  We're sad to say we were wrong.

Almost a year after the new City Council ordered the Plan be implemented, Horton Street is now no closer to getting traffic calming; not even a little. There has been no action whatsoever on this and there is no sign of any action anytime in the future.  Meanwhile, bicyclists are continuing on, dangerously trying to share a street with more than 3000 vehicles per day as they have done for more than 10 years.  The Progressive Council majority has not made any move to rectify the situation and they seem happy with their empty vote to implement the Plan last year.

The problem now, if it even matters identifying it, is the head of the Public Works Department Maurice Kaufman.  Mr Kaufman, a traffic engineer, has long said his job is to make cars move more efficiently, the antithesis of a bike boulevard with its traffic calming meant to discourage efficient vehicle use.  The distance Mr Kaufman is willing to go to continue to stall Bike Plan traffic calming was revealed by the Tattler last August when we uncovered an internal document wherein Mr Kaufman lied to our new City Manager about it.
As Tattler readers know, temporary bollards, glued to the street, are what's called for in the Bike Plan so the effects can be studied on reducing the traffic below 3000 per day.  The Public Works Department routinely does this gluing down of bollards whenever there is a construction project and a developer needs to temporarily take a portion of a street.  The problem is Mr Kaufman says he can't do that now on Horton Street for bikes as the Bike Plan directs because he maintains (without evidence) that a whole new expensive study needs to be completed.  The Tattler has referred to this new study as the "study of the study"; a bogus and unnecessary time stalling tactic.  So this is where we are now...waiting on the study of the study to be commissioned by the Council.  We're no closer to implementing the bogus study of the study than we've ever been and there has been no action on even securing an author for it.

So here we are, no closer to implementing our long overdue Bike Plan than we were with the old City Council.  This new Council majority may be progressive when it comes to other things in Emeryville but as far as bike access goes, they're no better than the old right wing Council majority.

We call on this majority to make your decision now: implement or rescind so we can return Horton Street back to what it was, a regular high volume busy street without the dangerous purple bike boulevard signs and stencils on the asphalt giving bicyclists a false sense of security.
Council be warned however, if you move to rescind the Plan or if you stall for more time, we say Emeryville residents and regional bike commuters have waited long enough; the City of Emeryville must return the award it received for its Bike Plan in 2013 from the American Planning Association.  A letter should accompany the returned award saying this town doesn't like the idea of bikes on our streets.  We don't have the stomach to make a place for bikes here in Emeryville.

Emeryville's Award Winning Bike Plan
It was received under false pretenses:
Emeryville appears never to have had any intention to implement the Plan.
Time to return this to the American Planning Association.

Internal Document at City Hall Reveals Clandestine Attempt to Overturn Emeryville Bike Plan

Public Works Department Subverts Bike Plan 

Smoking Gun Document Shows a Department Bent On Torpedoing Settled Bike Policy

A damning internal City Hall document obtained by the Tattler Thursday reveals a rogue Public Works Department attempting to misdirect the newly hired Emeryville City Manager in order to subvert and ratchet back Emeryville's Pedestrian/Bicycle Plan.  The document, a letter from a Public Works employee to City Manager Carolyn Lehr, was sent in response to a public request to conduct a traffic count on 45th Street, a street designated as a bike boulevard, and was meant to assure Ms Lehr no such traffic count is prescribed by the Bike Plan, a patently false claim.

In the letter obtained by a Public Records Request, the employee falsely tells Ms Lehr other than in case of "significant community concern", the only circumstance when the City should conduct traffic counts on 45th Street or any other bike boulevard in Emeryville is when, "significant development occurs on or near that boulevard."  In fact the Bike Plan actually says unequivocally, "[Traffic] counts should be conducted every two years."

Noteworthy is that the Bike Plan prescribes a course of traffic calming action, as is the case for all seven bike boulevards in Emeryville that are found to have an excess amount of traffic, for the 45th Street Bike Boulevard that being a maximum of 1500 vehicle trips per day.  If the street were to be found to have more than this volume of traffic, a regime of traffic calming measures would be automatically initiated as called for by the Bike Plan.  The letter would remove Emeryville's capacity to determine when traffic calming is called for, leaving bicyclists in danger on bike boulevards with gross excess vehicular traffic.

The Bike Plan provides for up to five levels of traffic calming on bike boulevards meant to keep traffic volumes below the maximum allowable for each boulevard.  Traffic calming starts with simple signage and progresses up to level five traffic diverters.  The idea is that on bike boulevards bikes are preferred although cars are allowed so long as the maximum number of cars per day is not reached. Up to two years between each level are called for to study the effects on traffic.
The main north/south bike boulevard in Emeryville, the Horton/Overland Bike Boulevard has been in violation due to excess car traffic for at least ten years and has been a source of friction between the Bike Committee and bike interests versus the Public Works Department.  Decision makers at City Hall have not been able to move Horton Street past level three traffic calming even though the Bike Plan clearly calls for it.  The Horton Street recalcitrance has cast a pall on bicycling as a viable mode of transportation in Emeryville.

Public Works Dept: Increasing Traffic Not Possible
Besides misleading the City Manager about the need for a traffic count on the 45th Street Bike boulevard, the Public Works Department, by falsely presenting the requirement for development on or near bike boulevards to trigger a traffic count, a bizarre and unfounded finding of fact is presented that it is inconceivable that traffic might increase over time in the absence of a development project on or near the street in question.  This premise has been shown to be patently false in the Bay Area over the years.  What has been indicated is an increasing number of vehicles using city streets as the aggregate population in municipalities and the region increases.

Maurice Kaufman, Emeryville's Director of Public Works and the ultimate progenitor of the letter to Ms Lehr it should be noted, has expressed concern over bike boulevards in the past.  He has indicated to the Tattler his job is to make traffic in Emeryville flow more efficiently and he's noted although bikes are not a problem, traffic calming over level three would begin to severely impede the flow of vehicles, something he has said he is duty bound to prevent.
Mr Kaufman is on vacation and unavailable for comment for this story.

The letter to the City Manager omits the Bike Plan's direction for traffic counts every two years on Emeryville's bike boulevards and instead jumps to a section that adds on to that a further requirement to conduct traffic counts when development has occurred.  From the letter dated July 17th:

"...The plan says that the City should collect traffic data when significant development occurs on/near that boulevard or when substantial community concern is brought to the City.  Our last traffic counts on 45th Street were in 2008, and volume did not exceed the goal of 1,500 average daily vehicle trips.  There has been no significant development in the area that would suggest traffic has changed substantially."

From the actual Pedestrian/Bicycle Plan:

Monitoring
As noted in Chapter 4, Section 4.4.3, the City should regularly monitor traffic volumes, and speeds on its bicycle boulevards to determine if they are meeting the goals listed above or not. Counts should be conducted every two years. If a bicycle boulevard goal is not met, the City should consider treatments that will allow the bicycle boulevard to meet goals. If additional treatments are not possible, or if treatments are unlikely to result in conditions that meet the above goals, the City should consider a different type of bicycle facility. Emeryville should collect this data and evaluate each bicycle boulevard in the case of any of the following:

• Development occurs that is projected to increase motor vehicle volumes on the bicycle boulevard 

• The Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan is updated 

• Substantial community concern is brought to the City 

  public records request bike blvd 45th St

45th Street Bike Blvd Violation: City Council Hasn't a Clue

Broken Government

Time for an Audit at City Hall

If We're Going to Make Public Policy, We've Got to Keep Proper Track of It

Opinion
Emeryville's Director of Public Works, Maurice Kaufman, revealed to the Tattler today that 45th Street east of San Pablo Avenue now has and for years has had more than 3000 vehicle trips per day, a condition not allowed according to the City's Bike Plan.  The Director has known the street is in violation of the Bike Plan "for years" he says ever since there was a traffic count conducted after the 'Triangle Neighborhood traffic calming' program a few years back.
45th Street was designated as a Bike Boulevard by the Bike Plan after the Triangle traffic calming program and the vehicle count conducted by Mr Kaufman's Department is necessary information for the City Council because that street is not allowed to have more than 1500 vehicle trips per day according to the Bike Plan.  After that number is reached, a series of ever more restrictive traffic calming measures is identified and called for by the Bike Plan.
Had the Council members known the street was in violation years ago, presumably they would have started the program of traffic calming that the Bike Plan calls for to remedy the violation.
The Triangle Neighborhood traffic calming plan has been completed and it's tangential to the Bike Plan and its provisions for 45th Street.  It should be noted the Bike Plan traffic calming metrics for 45th Street are more onerous than the Triangle traffic calming goals were.

In his defense, the Public Works Director stated he doesn't feel it's appropriate for Bike Plan traffic calming on 45th Street, "We've already done traffic calming there.  The neighbors don't want more" he said referring to the former Triangle traffic calming.
To that we say: It's not up to you, Maurice...nobody voted for you.  Your job is to provide objective analysis to the City Council.  If you have information the decision makers need to know to not be in violation of their public policy, you need to volunteer that information.

Which brings us to our greater point here: We don't want the Emeryville Tattler to be the entity to keep the City of Emeryville on track.  We're just here to report to the people.  We don't want this responsibility.  We want this city to stay on track itself.  We don't want the City to let its infrastructure fall into disrepair because there's no accounting going on.  We expect there should be somebody at City Hall keeping track of this stuff, not just a bunch of groping around in the dark.
If the City isn't aware of the violations with the Bike Plan, they probably are dropping the ball in other areas.  Obviously there needs to be an audit at City Hall to get a handle on this and to ensure there's a process moving forward to make sure we're not going off the rails.  The idea of planning to make it so we don't careen from crisis to crisis.  Let's hope the new Council majority gets it.

'Transit' Center Project Mysteriously Missing from Emeryville Capital Improvement Presentation

'Transit' Center Pushed Down the 
Memory Hole

Opinion
If the City of Emeryville planned on spending $4.2 million on a specific capital improvement project between the years 2014 and 2019, wouldn't you think that project would appear in a City Hall produced document for public edification entitled 'Capital Improvement Program Fiscal Years 2014-15 to 2018-19'?   Especially if smaller projects representing less public money were highlighted in the document?
That's what we thought.  So we were surprised when the City Staff gave a thorough account of planned capital spending and the 'Transit' Center, a Wareham Development project planned for Horton Street with it's $4.2 million publicly purchased amenity of four Amtrak bus bays, was completely  left out of the document handed out to the public and discussed yesterday morning.  Other  projects, like the Senior Center Rehabilitation at $1.9 million, the Peninsula Fire Station Renovation at $1.3 million, the Art Center at $3.9 million were explained in detail by the Staff but strangely, the 'Transit' Center at $4.2 million was not.  
"It was an oversight", Public Works Director Maurice Kaufman explained when asked.

An "Oversight"... Was it Really?

The City used the Saturday meeting to explain about the Capital Improvement Program which is essentially a 'wish list' for City projects to benefit the people.  The City also wished to elicit comment from the public about the CIP.
They took pains to describe the negative repercussions on the CIP as a result of the demise of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency (RDA) and about how the City had rescued some projects from the clutches of the State of California when Sacramento declared Redevelopment Agencies illegal state-wide last year.  Emeryville had four projects so rescued and some former RDA funds were permitted to be unlocked.  The State is basically letting us use our own money to fund these projects. The four projects are the Center of 'Community' Life on San Pablo Avenue, the Art Center at City Hall, the South Bayfront Ped/Bike Bridge over the railroad tracks and the 'Transit' Center project.   Other projects in the CIP wish list are to be funded by the City with money generated without the Redevelopment Agency. The three projects included by Staff were described in detail Saturday but the 'Transit' Center never made it into the document or the discussion.  Observant people with a knack for budgetary spreadsheets might have seen the small text entry of the $4.2 million in an adjoining financial accounting however.

The crowd Saturday was asking for capital improvement funded amenities one would expect from residents: parks (for dogs and people), bike and ped infrastructure, street trees and those kind of things.  Nobody there was clamoring for bus bays.  In fact we've never heard any Emeryville resident ask for more bus bays from the public coffers.  Yet that's what we're getting.  And that illustrates the point: The 'Transit' Center project is not popular with the people of Emeryville.  There already are bus bays at the Amtrak station near the proposed "Transit' Center.  The people in Emeryville don't think it's a wise use of limited public money. The Emeryville Planning Commission, a body hand picked by the City Council, agrees with the residents; they twice voted NO to the 'Transit' Center, stating there wasn't enough in public amenities to justify the $4.2 million public cost.  But the City Council majority overrode the Planning Commission and voted to grant the public money to favored developer Rich Robbins, CEO of Wareham Development  anyway.
Now that that's done, obviously, they want it to just quietly disappear.  They'd rather not needlessly crow about it and remind people that it's developers that call the shots in this town.

Sometimes it's the little things that give away the bigger picture in Emeryville.  Like when our City Attorney Mike Biddle leapt out of his seat, grinning ear to ear, and shook the hands of Wareham representatives in attendance at the January 21st meeting after the Council voted (3-2) to override the Planning Commission and give the green light and public money to Wareham's Rich Robbins.  Sometimes it's the non-existent things that tell the tale; like when the 'Transit' Center got pushed down the memory hole.

Watergate Neighborhood Explodes as Emery-Go-Round Scales Back Bus Service

Bus Service at Watergate Cancelled

Watergate residents have been flooding Emeryville City Council members with angry calls and e-mails after the Emery-Go-Round bus service has been terminated along Powell Street adjacent to the resident condominiums recently.  The popular free bus service, paid for primarily by commercial businesses in town, is used by many Watergate residents and service has been disrupted ever since the Emeryville Public Works Department started a sidewalk restoration project there a few weeks ago.  Emery-Go-Round officials informed residents that the City didn't confer with them before they began the sidewalk project and now as a result,  there's no room to turn the buses around, a requirement because the street dead-ends.
The charge of non-cooperation with the City is being denied by Public Works.
Meanwhile, the President of the Board of Directors at Emery-Go-Round announced at a meeting that the problem is not the new sidewalk but instead that Watergate residents aren't payers into the bus system and that is why service has been curtailed there.

Watergate residents are incorrectly assigning blame with the City says Maurice Kaufman, the City Engineer and head of Public Works.  He flatly denies the charges made against the Department, "Emery-Go-Round has known of the sidewalk work proposed there for years, We've been discussing it with them for a long time" he told the Tattler.  "They've changed their minds about their acceptable method of turn around" he added, indicating that EGR officials now don't want to make 'K' turns at Watergate condos since the street in the area isn't wide enough for a U-turn for buses both before and after the sidewalk work.   Mr Kaufman conjectured that perhaps prior EGR managers didn't communicate with new managers as to the source of the miscommunication.

If there is a miscommunication.

Geoff Sears, President of the EGR Board of Directors, hinted to Board meeting attendees that sidewalk

EGR President Geoff Sears
We have a fiduciary responsibility to accommodate
the payers into the bus service, not the non-payers.

work by the City has nothing to do with the cancelled bus service.  He says they are attempting to curtail rising costs and that they are responsible to the payers into the bus system to do so.  "Watergate residents don't pay into Emery-Go-Round" he said at the last meeting adding, "We need to optimize the route for payers into the system."
Board member and Emeryville commercial property owner Francis Collins agreed, "The turn around controversy isn't a big deal as far as I'm concerned.  The real deal is this bus system is dead unless we can figure a way to legally fund it" he said, in a nod to the payers/non-payers calculation.  Mr Collins indicated that the way the service is being paid for now is illegal and unfair to the payers into the system, the commercial property owners.

Former Council member Ken Bukowski, a long time supporter of the Emery-Go-Round said the service should be paid for by an Emeryville sales tax.  He noted "Alameda County is going to have an additional 1/2 cent sales tax before voters in 2014.  Emeryville should get enough to fund the EGR.  Perhaps we should have a 1/2 cent sales tax of our own to help pay."

Council members have indicated they are going to work to resolve the issue, "Elderly Watergate residents [and others] need the Emery-Go-Round" Jac Asher told the Tattler, "Some have gotten rid of their cars and use the service for all their transportation needs".  "EGR is extremely popular" the Councilwoman said.

East Bay Bike Leader Says Emeryville is Anti-Bike; City Hall Complicit, Possible Misuse of Funds Alleged

From the East Bay Bicycle Coalition Blog:

Emeryville City Attorney, Traffic Engineer Say NO to Safe Bike Access

BY DAVE CAMPBELL 
ACTION ALERT

Imagine if San Pablo Ave & 40th St looked like this:

You shouldn’t have to dodge right-turning cars on your bike commute on 40th St as you cross San Pablo Ave, and from W. MacArthur Blvd you shouldn’t have to get off your bike and walk across San Pablo Ave to get to the new bike lanes on Adeline St. Yet this is exactly what Emeryville expects you to do because their conservative city attorney [Mike Biddle] has legal concerns and their traffic engineer [Maurice Kaufman] is concerned about slowing down cars in order to make your bike commute safe. We need your help to change this.

We are asking for advance bike boxes to be reincorporated into 40th St at San Pablo and that a safe bike crossing of San Pablo at W. MacArthur be included in the project. Please contact these key Emeryville City Council members and let them know you want full bike accommodations in these two intersections.

Transportation Committee Members:

Mayor Kurt Brinkman

Councilmember Nora Davis

Other Three Council Members:

Vice Mayor Jac Asher

Councilmember Ruth Atkin

Councilmember Jennifer West

If you can attend a key meeting of the Public Works Committee on July 18, 9:00am at City Hall Garden Room, please join EBBC and Emeryville BPACmembers in pushing for a better solution that allows you to stay on your bike and avoid having to dodge cars on your bike ride to work.

We appreciate Emeryville’s willingness to stripe green bike lanes at critical points in these intersections to highlight the presence of bicyclists-it helps bike safety, but much more is needed to get you safely across busy arterial streets. Emeryville originally included advance bike boxes with right turn prohibitions at San Pablo Ave & 40th St to get you safely across San Pablo Ave without having to dodge right-turning cars, but then removed them at the insistence of the traffic engineer and city attorney. We want the bike boxes put back into the plans. This intersection has the highest volumes of bike traffic in Emeryville.

These bike boxes were proposed in Emeryville’s Safe Routes to Transit grant application for $820,000. They have been removed from the project.

Equally frustrating are suggestions that bicyclists get off their bikes and walk across San Pablo to get onto Adeline St. and its new bike lanes where W. MacArthur intersects with San Pablo Ave. There should be a direct and safe bike connection between W. MacArthur Blvd and Adeline St, across San Pablo Ave. This intersection has the 2nd highest volumes of bike traffic in Emeryville.

Imagine a traffic engineer telling a driver they need to get out of their car and walk half a block and then get back in their car to continue their commute? This is the level of inconvenience being designed into two new intersections in Emeryville for bicyclists. It’s time for you to be able to make everyday trips in Emeryville on the streets you ride, like 40th St and W. MacArthur. Contact your City Councilmember today!

View the city’s existing plans for the 40th/San Pablo and Adeline/W MacArthur/San Pablo intersections online here.

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Dave Campbell is Programs Director at the East Bay Bicycle Coalition and frequently offers his prodigious bike policy expertise at Emeryville's Bicycle Pedestrian Committee.  Founded in 1972, the East Bay Bike Coalition is the premiere bicycling advocacy organization in the East Bay.  Among their accomplishments are Bikes on BART, Bike To Work Day and passage of Measure F ($11 million for local roads and Complete Streets). The non-profit group, open to all, works for "safe, convenient and enjoyable bicycling for all people in the East Bay". 

Street Trees Illegally Cut On Park Ave

First Test Of Newly Strengthened Tree Ordinance

In a test of Emeryville's newly strengthened tree ordinance, a Park Avenue commercial property owner that in Janurary cut down three mature street trees without permission is being notified that he could be penalized $13,800, triple the value of the trees, according to a City Hall interdepartmental letter received by the Tattler.

The February 8th letter, written for City Manager Pat O'Keeffe by the Public Works Department, says the three trees in question were recently inventoried by the city's arborist as part of a city-wide tree count and that their value was determined to be $4,600 a piece.  The tree ordinance allows the City Manager to waive the fine but in that case the city council must hold a public hearing and the full fine can be reinstated and imposed at the council's pleasure.

Scene of the crime

Should the fines be successfully imposed as the ordinance calls for, it would be a first in Emeryville public policy; the business sector being held accountable, at least as far as the tree ordinance is concerned.

This case of the tree ordinance, first enacted in 2003 and strengthened by amendment in May 2010, will be the first test of the fortitude of the amendments.

The triple value fine and the requirement for a public hearing were among the amendments, added after several residents pleaded to the city council to better protect Emeryville's publicly owned street trees.  Before the amendments, the ordinance, known as the Urban Forestry Ordinance only fined illegal tree cutters the value of the tree removed and allowed the Director of Public Works to waive the fine at his discretion with no possibility of a public appeal in front of the city council.  Many residents at an August 2008 council meeting decried that the result of the lax penalties and low fines in the ordinance was that developers kept cutting the street trees.

Before the ordinance was amended, developer Pulte Homes 'Glasshous' project was involved in a particularly egregious violation.  In order to save money and to ease construction of the condos, the developer illegally cut every large mature street tree for one full block on 65th Street east of Hollis Street; some 20 trees in all.  The Public Works Director, Maurice Kaufman waived Pulte's fines with no explanation offered to the public.  Mr Kaufman also allowed the developer to replace the formerly spreading 30 foot tall trees with small six foot saplings.  If the newly amended tree ordinance were in effect at the time, such large fines would be levied against Pulte, it's unlikely they would have cut the trees, opting instead to work around them.

The trees illegally removed on Park Avenue were 25-30 feet tall locust trees, located on the south side of the street between Harlan Street and Haven Street just east of City Hall.  The owner of the commercial property adjoining the trees was identified as the responsible party according to the February 8th letter.

In addition to the $13,800 fine, the owner of the property could be charged for an arborist fee and also be responsible for replacing the three trees.  The ordinance also provides for criminal penalties as well as civic penalties but a city official said it's highly unlikely any criminal intent will be asserted by the city.   The City Attorney wrote a letter to the property owner notifying him of the violation and the right to appeal any fines imposed.