Emeryville's Greedy Business Sector: No Support for Schools

Emeryville's Stingy Business Sector 

Emery Schools Left in the Cold

Tightfisted Businesses Extract From Community,
Don't Support the Community

Wareham One Bright Spot

Emeryville’s growing business sector, an economic engine that funds City Hall with a workforce that more than doubles the town’s population each work day, is nonetheless extremely stingy when it comes time to help fund Emery’s schools according to a document recently released by Emery Unified School District.  The document, obtained by a Tattler public records request reveals that only one business, Wareham Development, donated anything beyond a pittance to the schools during the last three years.  

Despite occasional claims to the contrary, corporate philanthropy to Emery schools has been anemic over the three years we checked; the top ten major corporate employers in Emeryville were all shown to have given the schools nothing or almost nothing.

Sad that Pixar is so miserly.
And Grifols...and Leapfrog...and
the Oaks Club...and Peet's Coffee...

Only San Rafael based Wareham and its CEO Rich Robbins, Emeryville’s largest developer, gave any substantial donations to Emery Unified, breaking the $10,000 mark three years running.
Major corporations in town have long made public claims of support for Emery schools but only Wareham and Mr Robbins have followed though, the document shows. 
Perhaps the other corporate actors in our town meant they support the idea of supporting the schools.  Or they support the schools in spirit...like saying the word support is itself support...like 'I support the troops'.  

A District spokesperson has noted in addition to the large donations from Wareham, some small non-monetary donations have come in from some businesses during the three years.

Also of particular note is the penurious parsimony of Pixar, a Disney subsidiary that has earned $11 billion for its parent company, itself a nine billion dollar a year corporate entity with a youth oriented focus.  Pixar has led all Emeryville penny pinching corporations in cupidity by offering virtually no support at all to the schools or the community.  Other than in 2004 when it needed Emeryville voters to support a major campus expansion and when it stated categorically it would be a continuing major benefactor for Emery schools, Pixar has never felt any need to share its good fortune with the education of the children of our community who pay to watch its films.  Pixar supports the troops and maybe they'll offer Emery schools their thoughts and prayers.
  

Chart courtesy of City of Emeryville and EUSD

Emeryville's Biggest Employers	Number of Employees	2014-2017 Donations to Emery Schools  (10K or greater value)
Pixar	1155	0
Grifols	544	0
AC Transit	511	0
Oaks Card Club	430	0
Clif Bar	397	0
LeapFrog	373	0
IKEA	348	0
AAA of Northern CA,NV,UT	300	0
Novartis	280	0
Peet’s Coffee & Tea	258	0

Fiscal Year	Donor	Amount
14-‘15	Wareham Development	$25,000.00
15-‘16	Wareham Development	$10,000.00
16-‘17	Nancy & Rich Robbins	$15,000.00

Grossly Overstated: Emeryville's former City Manager goes to bat for Pixar in 2004 with effusive public testimony as the citizens prepare to vote on Measures T&U; permission for a major corporate campus expansion.  They will be a "major benefactor to the schools" the City Manager said of Pixar.

CA Dems Respond to CAR Mailers: Endorse YES on Measures U&V

Democratic Party Says YES on Measures U&V

The California Democratic Party has made endorsements in the looming Emeryville election and they're peppering the town with door-hangers the Tattler has learned.  Of note is the endorsement of Measures U&V, the twin charter city and real estate transfer fee initiatives authored by the City Council.  U&V are meant to provide critical revenue for new and existing infrastructure maintenance lost after the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency was dissolved by Sacramento.   Since the Emeryville electorate is overwhelmingly Democratic, the door-hanger endorsements are a major bulwark against the wall-to-wall mailers from the Sacramento based California Association of Realtors (CAR) anti U&V campaign.  CAR has set aside $85,000 in Emeryville to stop U&V.

Election year 2014 marks another year that the California Republican Party has ignored Emeryville, with no endorsements forthcoming from them.  The Republicans have never dared to wade into local elections here it should be noted (at least not in modern Emeryville history).  However the California Association of Realtors donated heavily to the Republicans this year, giving in excess of $2 million to that party.

The California Democratic Party has also endorsed City Council candidates Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue.

Here's the door-hanger cropping up around town:

Dems may wish to consider taking it with them to their polling station, although for State Assembly, Tony Thurmond would be the more progressive choice.

Emeryville History 2004-2014: City Hall in the Tank for Pixar

OOOPS!  Ten years later, the hyperbole is revealed to be.....hyperbole.

Here's City Manager John Flores, in 2004 in the tank for Pixar as that company sought voter approval for a major campus expansion.  The Tattler has shown how the pitch from Pixar (and City Hall) for Measures T & U were vastly overstated including how Pixar was going to benefit the schools and the community. But what we got for our permission to vastly increase their campus instead is a giant corporate tax cheat and no money for the schools coming forth from the fenced off and secretive private Pixar compound.

In addition to giving credence to the absurd claim that Pixar would flee Emeryville unless it got everything it wanted (and write off its billion dollar initial investment), Mr Flores, supposedly representing our interests, tells us that Pixar would be a "major benefactor to the Emeryville community including the schools".
Pixar for its part, told voters in 2004 that they (Pixar) would tremendously benefit the Emeryville community but instead of putting that in writing as the T&U opposition wanted, they should simply be taken at their word.
And the rest is history as they say.

Video from the Emeryville Property Owners Association

Corporate Donations to Our Schools? Pixar (& others) Ain't Feelin' It

In Emeryville, Corporate 'Generosity'
is Not Really Generosity

When It's Done, It's Done To Help Themselves

News Analysis

Q:  How much money did Pixar donate to Emeryville schools last year?
A:  Goose egg!

Corporations commonly donate money to needy causes in the communities where they're located.  It's an effective way for them to remove the taint of all the negative impacts associated with their presence for members of the community.   Emeryville, having been transformed into a corporate mecca over the last 20 years should be awash in donations for causes like education (the perennial corporate favorite) then right?  Wrong.
Corporations here start out giving to the schools, very visible giving usually when they need something from City Hall.  After whatever favors are granted and they no longer need us for anything however, corporate philanthropy commonly slows to a trickle or even stops altogether.  In the Emeryville world of corporate generosity, giving is seen as a means to an end.

Corporations like to foster community good will towards themselves by such indiscreet giving.  Sometimes their City Council sycophants will do the PR work and loudly proclaim the corporate generosity.  Of these, Pixar/Disney, with its $42 billion revenue in 2012 is notable.
It's common knowledge in Emeryville that Pixar is extremely generous to our schools; offering mentoring, screenings of their new films for fundraising and lots of money.  Everybody knows they give a lot to our schools, right?  One would expect them to, after all they're a multi-billion dollar corporation with a child-centric raison d'etre,  taking up a huge percentage of land in our town.  How much money do you think they donated last year?  The answer is zero.  Plus the film screening fundraisers have stopped all together.  Pixar's donations to the schools, started out robust as they sought to expand their campus a few years ago but since then the much ballyhooed spigot has quietly been turned off.

Pixar gave Emeryville schools 

zero last year

Back in 2004, when Pixar needed the citizens of Emeryville to approve a controversial major campus expansion, their corporate philanthropy towards Emeryville's schools was made known to everybody.  They endowed the schools over $100,000.  It was a major feather in their cap as they sought to persuade Emeryville residents to vote yes to Measures U and T; the ballot measures needed for their construction project to start.  The NO on U & T side said Pixar should build their campus expansion but should enter into a Community Benefit Agreement; an accord to provide local hire for the construction, to guarantee money for the schools, help with affordable housing and other such things.  Community Benefit Agreements (CBA's) are common in the Bay Area for major corporate planned unit developments like the Pixar expansion.
Pixar for its part said in addition to their ongoing generosity towards the schools (not forced but donated voluntarily), they would pay millions every year in business taxes.  As it turned out, after Measures U & T passed, they claimed their income was to be attributed to Burbank, the headquarters of Disney Corporation, of which Pixar is a subsidiary.  As a result of that claim, they paid Emeryville just $8000 in 2011 business taxes according to City Councilman Kurt Brinkman, and presumably similar amounts in subsequent years.

Hoodwinked
We just spent $100 million on Phase 1 of our campus.
But we're willing to lose that and leave Emeryville
if we have to sign a CBA like other corporations do.
Oh, and we're not paying taxes or giving anything
to your schools after you vote YES on T&U.

Before the 2004 election Pixar had just completed Phase 1 of their campus at a cost of approximately $100 million.  However, the thought of having to sign a CBA with the people of Emeryville was enough for them to claim they would pull up stakes and leave our town unless they got everything they wanted.  That was a threat Councilwoman Nora Davis and some of her colleagues said was absolute it should be noted, and she railed against any citizen who had the temerity to ask that City Hall negotiate with Pixar for a better deal.
 
Not Just Pixar
And that's the way it goes in Emeryville.  When corporations here face any kind of exposure, when they need something from us, out comes the check book and the corporate largess towards the schools flows like wine.
Bay Street Mall developer Madison Marquette gave $50,000 to Emeryville's schools in 2009 when they needed the Council to OK the exclusive right to negotiate (ERN) for the "Site B" mall expansion on some fallow ground to the north of the mall.  The ERN agreement between City Hall and Madison Marquette would lock out any other developer from making proposals for the site.  After the City Council granted the ERN, Madison Marquette, with its portfolio of 23 million square feet of prime retail real estate holdings, has severely curtailed spending on Emeryville schools.  Since 2009 they have only given $5000 or less per year.  Wareham Development's donations to the schools has dropped precipitously from the years when they were asking permission to build several major projects in Emeryville from 2008 to 2011. During those years Wareham gave $60,000 to as much as $87,500.  Last year Wareham gave just $15,000.   Emeryville's Novartis Diagnostics, a major bio tech corporation at $58 billion in US revenue last year alone hasn't needed anything recently from City Hall, no request for permission to expand their campus or any other favors and so they haven't donated anything at all to Emeryville's schools.

Emeryville Residents Warned of Mass Exodus of Business

Businesses: "Unless We Get Everything We Want We're Taking Our Marbles and Leaving"

City Hall: "We Have to Do What Business Says or All Will Be Lost"

Opinion/News Analysis
The record is stuck.  Can somebody move the needle forward?  It keeps repeating itself.
What we refer to is the oft repeated mantra heard year in and year out at City Hall; the call and response followed by the familiar hijacking of public policy for private gain.  It's the old stand-by warning from developers and businesses that they'll....wait for it....pack up and leave unless they get everything they want on whatever relevant proposal is being discussed at City Hall.  The conciliatory reaction always comes from Councilwoman Nora Davis with a second from Councilman Kurt Brinkman; we have to do what developer X says is their response.  Emeryville is in no position to ask for anything good they remind us.  With Councilwoman Ruth Atkin as their third vote, it's been a highly effective formula for delivering the goods to developers and business in Emeryville.  This reputation of ours is earned.

Emeryville: Charter City
The old formula is going to repeat itself this summer.  As concerned Emeryville citizens begin their signature drive to put the proposal before voters that Emeryville become a Charter City on November's ballot, a new paradigm that will permit us to tax businesses like other Bay Area cities do, the Chamber of Commerce will once again join forces with the deep pockets in the corporate community to try to defeat it.  No new parks for us and sidewalk repair must wait, you understand.

We can hear it now, loudly proclaimed, nay screamed this summer and fall: all will be lost if Emeryville becomes a Charter City.  It's going to be in our mailboxes in torrents of professionally designed glossy color flyers.  It's going to be on our answering machines after we come home from work, warning us of the coming apocalypse.  Our dinners will be interrupted this fall; poorly paid young men and women from places other than Emeryville will be warning us in 7:00 PM phone calls.  You may be able to ignore the phone calls but your door will be incessantly knocked on as well.  Behind the door will be an Oakland resident or a Hayward resident telling you how bad it'll be if the Charter City Initiative passes and Emeryville taxes business like other cities do.  They won't tell you they're not from Emeryville and they won't tell you they're being paid to knock on your door and make phone calls but they will assure you they only have your interests at heart.

These well funded scare campaigns rise up every time business is asked to pay their fair share in Emeryville.

We remember the card room plebiscite of 1997, a tax increase for Emeryville gambling parlors where in the Oaks Club, the only such parlor, would be "driven to bankruptcy" we were told if they were required to pay the Bay Area card room average tax rate.  It passed of course, and the Oaks Club is doing just fine....but now paying Emeryville what other card rooms in the Bay Area pay.

Then there was the recent attempt to remove Emeryville's infamous business tax cap, a mechanism that allows Pixar and other large businesses to pay much less taxes than other smaller businesses in town pay.  That voter drive was sabotaged before it even got to the ballot box thanks to Council members Nora Davis and Kurt Brinkman.  It would be the end of Emeryville they assured us after Pixar threatened to leave town if Emeryville voters were allowed to decide about the tax cap.

Of course there was also Measures T & U, a 2004 campaign to get a Community Benefits Agreement in trade for a planned Pixar campus expansion. A YES vote would negate the CBA, give Pixar millions in Emeryville subsidies in cash and property transfers and negate our General Plan and zoning regulations.  Again Pixar was going to leave Emeryville the Chamber of Commerce assured us (right after they spent tens of millions of dollars on their Phase One campus build out).  The NO on T&U simply asked for a Community Benefits Agreement to be entered into, a standard procedure for City Halls outside Emeryville.  But Pixar told us it was an existential threat.  It was a scare tactic that worked; Emeryville rolled over with prompting from Nora Davis, Kurt Brinkman and the Chamber of Commerce, netting Pixar millions of dollars in City Hall subsidies.
It should be noted Pixar, the multi-billion dollar corporation is now paying us $8000 per year in taxes (thanks to the tax cap) the Tattler found out.

We also fondly remember the anti-Measure C campaign of 2005.  It was a lavishly funded campaign to stop Measure C, Emeryville's 'Living Wage for Hotel Workers' ballot initiative.  The campaign, run by Councilwoman Nora Davis and the Chamber of Commerce, assured us all would be lost if Emeryville hotels were forced to pay their workers a couple of dollars more per hour; a living wage. Nora joined with the hotels and scores of other businesses in town to warn us of the dire consequences in store for us.  The Chamber of Commerce even fired up their Political Action Committee (EmPAC) with it's massive war chest of donations from out-of-town businesses to take the fight to the hotel workers.  Hotels would fold up their tents en masse and leave Emeryville we were told.
In the end, Emeryville voters DID pass the living wage for hotel workers, regardless of all the hyperbolic screaming from Nora Davis, the Chamber and their corporate paymasters.
One hotel, Woodfin Suites on Shellmound Street actually did leave town in protest after they lost a bruising court battle to not pay their workers their back wages.  Woodfin was subsequently bought by Hyatt.
The mass exodus of hotels never materialized curiously.  In fact, Emeryville is about to get a brand new hotel, Hyatt Place at Bay Street.  And they're going to pay their workers a living wage.  Tellingly, Nora Davis, her sycophants and the Chamber of Commerce never admitted they were wrong about the consequences of Measure C.
Instead they've begun preparing themselves for the next apocalypse looming this fall for Emeryville.  The Charter City Initiative is coming.  Emeryville voters will be allowed to decide for themselves.  All will be lost people, all will be lost.