Despite $3.7 Million Major Remodel, City Forgot the Fire Escape: More Money Needed

Fire Escape Blunder Will Cost $300,000

Exterior Stairs to be Added to Front of 
Police Department Building

Emeryville's Public Safety Building is Still Unsafe

Emeryville's chief building official announced Tuesday the City will likely have to build an external stairway out the front of the two story police headquarters building because the City failed to provide an emergency fire exit during a major $3.7 million remodel of the building in 2012.  The second floor front public lobby at the police department building on Powell Street, is accessible by elevator only and has had no fire escape since 2012 or sometime after, when the building was cleared for occupancy, possibly erroneously, by the City's own Chief Building Official, Victor Gonzales, an "oversight" he says.

Emeryville's Police Department
Existing Entryway
The new fire escape will have to come
out through these upstairs windows, catwalk
over to the left and then down a flight of stairs.

Mr Gonzales, who makes $155,000 per year as head of the Building Department at City Hall admitted the lack of a legal fire escape for the ironically named Emeryville Public Safety Building must be fixed even though he himself signed off on the building. "Mistakes were made and we're working on a fix" he said before he mentioned the external stairs solution.  Preliminary estimates for legal egress stairs range up to $300,000 and would have to be paid via Emeryville's taxpayer funded Capital Improvement Program, a fund with an already overextended and fully earmarked project wish list.
The police building was overhauled in a major remodel completed in 2012, ironically done in part to improve safety, including fire safety, at a cost of at least $3.7 million according to the chief architect for the project.  The Tattler reported a $2.7 million figure in a December 2016 story, a number obtained from the City of Emeryville but the architect reports the 3.7 higher number.

The architect, Don Dommer of Oakland's Don Dommer Associates, told the Tattler he recalled he provided a legal "path of travel" for egress in the event of a fire and that unauthorized work done without benefit of his plans may have been subsequently done.  The Tattler is waiting to receive a set of the plans of the 2012 remodel project to be made available by a public records request, due in 9 days.  The Chief of Police, Jennifer Tejada has requested the plans be redacted owing to their sensitive nature.

City to Red Tag its Own Building?
Further complicating the public safety issue in the remodel and the concomitant embarrassment for the City, is a binding Certificate of Occupancy document uncovered by the Tattler that requires the City to vacate the police department building because of the lack of legal public egress.  The April 27th, 2012 C of O document that conditionally permits the Police Department and the public use of the building, mandates the permission for use be revoked and the Certificate of Occupancy be void if the "prescribed codes or regulations of the City of Emeryville are not met".

Second Floor Public Lobby: Fire Trap
The windows will be replaced with egress doors.

In a bizarre turn, the same person who signed off on the police building's fitness in 2012, Victor Gonzales, being the Chief Building Official, is the same person whom the Certificate of Occupancy now requires to 'red tag' the building, causing its forced evacuation.
While the building has been in a technical state of violation, probably since completion of the 2012 remodel project, only since the earlier Tattler story made the lack of legal egress condition known to the Emeryville Building Department in 2016, has it been imperative the building be red tagged.  Before that Tattler story, Mr Gonzales theoretically could have made the argument he didn't know the building lacked a fire escape. However, in the wake of the current Tattler story, the City Attorney, Micheal Guina said he is looking into what could be a conflict of interest or a state of jeopardy; Mr Gonzales being the same person to enforce the illegal condition he signed off on.   Thus being the power of a chief building official.
Beyond Mr Gonzales's obvious reluctance to implicate himself, the only way for the City to obey the core provision of its own legal document, the police building Certificate of Occupancy now, would be to tender an admission of incompetency, an unlikely event.

Still, Mr Guina told the Tattler he will consider the implications of the tricky exigency and report his decision to the City Council soon.

Attempting to defuse what's becoming a volatile situation for City Hall, Mr Gonzales, who's bailiwick is the construction trade, buildings and the public safety therein, told the Tattler Tuesday his oversight is understandable, "I'm doing the best I can. Everybody makes mistakes".  Besides, he said, the public safety has thus far "not been put at risk", "have there been any fires?" he asked.

Damning Document
Portends Homeless Cops
It's "....shall become void", not 'might become void'.

Both the City & the Bay Street Mall Claims Ownership of Emeryville Street

Showdown With City Looms as Bay Street Mall Claims Ownership of Street

Mall Reversal: Citizens Ok'ed to Park on 'Their' Street 
(For Now)

Who owns Bay Street?  The answer to that straight forward question depends on whom you ask.  If you ask the City of Emeryville, they'll say the people own the street but if you ask the owners of the Bay Street Mall, they'll tell you it's private property; they own it.
As a result of a story the Tattler reported last Monday regarding the Bay Street Mall issuing tickets to overnight parked cars on Bay Street, the corporation that owns the mall has taken down signs disallowing non-shoppers from using the street but is asserting this has been done only as a act of good will and that they are under no legal obligation to allow non-shoppers to park on the street because the corporation owns the street.
In a stunningly bold May 24th letter to Emeryville's City Attorney, the Bay Street Mall is asserting since they are "paying property taxes for the ownership of the streets", they own Bay Street, not the City of Emeryville, a claim refuted by City Attorney Michael Guina.  The mall is also asserting their right to disallow parking after 10 PM, the cut off time for metered parking, a direct conflict with what Mr Guina says.

Jen Nettles
Manager Bay Street Mall

The conflict of ownership claims promises a showdown; mall manager Jen Nettles maintaining they will continue to disallow cars from parking after 10 PM while the City of Emeryville guarantees drivers the right to park there overnight.  The conflict also has ramifications that will echo to the incipient Marketplace development on Shellmound Street with its similar arrangement of public streets and private sidewalks hammered out between that developer and City Hall last year.

The divergent assertions between the private corporation and the City have come as a result of an unusual agreement made in 2000 as the mall broke ground.  The mall requested and was granted ownership of the sidewalks along Bay Street while the City retained ownership of the street itself, according to the City Attorney.  Madison Marquette Corporation, the owner of the mall at the time had interest in assuring its tenants that protests or other civil actions would not be possible as a result of the corporate ownership of the sidewalks.  This arrangement has proved valuable to the mall owing to the high level of national chain stores located there, with their often dubious labor and environmental practices.

The letter to the City Attorney included
an Alameda County Tax Assessment map as
proof of corporate ownership of the street.

Ms Nettles refutes claims the mall security officers are issuing 'notices to pay' for after hours parked cars on Bay Street, stating instead only warnings are being issued.  The Tattler reported Monday that tickets are being issued (by either security officers and/or Emeryville police) based on interviews with Tattler informants and ticket writing security officers themselves.
Ms Nettles agreed to remove signs stating parking on Bay Street was for "customers only" regardless of her claim of property rights inherent with the corporate street ownership only as a good neighbor gesture to the City.  The signs were taken down on Tuesday.

In the meanwhile a line is being drawn in the sand; the "Bay Street [Mall] is the present title owner of record for the property and the street" Ms Nettles informed the City in her May 24th letter, a contradiction of what has been directly asserted since 2000 by former City Manager Pat O'Keefe, former Chief of Police Ken James, former City Attorney Michael Biddle and current Attorney Michael Guina.  However, regardless of the numerous claims of City ownership of the street and any documents the City might have to satisfy such claims, a legal construct known as adverse possession could grant the Bay Street Mall ownership of the street by sheer dint of its (uncontested) possession over time.

The Tattler will closely follow this inauspicious evolving story.

Emeryville Guitar Center Violates Minimum Wage Ordinance Says Employees

Minimum Wage Ordinance Violations:

City Attorney Investigates Guitar Center 

Employees of the Guitar Center store on Shellmound Street have filed complaints with the City of Emeryville alleging their employer is not paying them the proper wage as the new Minimum Wage Ordinance mandates the Tattler has learned.  Employees say they're being paid $12.25 per hour and the store manager has violated the $14.44 per hour provisions mandated by the Ordinance for every Emeryville employer with 56 or more employees.
The employees say the manager is telling the City the store formerly had more than 55 employees but he had fired enough of them before the new law took effect on July 2nd to bring down the number of employees to 55, the cut off point requirement between the two differing wages.  The contention is that the store still has more than 55 employees according to the employees and that even if the manager was correct that he had fired the requisite number of employees, the Ordinance provides for employee counts to be averaged over the preceding fiscal quarter and that average for Guitar Center was in excess of 55 employees.  The manager failed to understand how employees are counted by the City before he started firing them they allege.

The Guitar Center is further violating the Minimum Wage Ordinance in other ways by misrepresenting the nature of its business the employees say.  The manager is attempting to portray the Shellmound Street business as two businesses to the City in order to employ more than the 55 employee cut off by claiming a portion of the store, the so called 'Guitar Center studios', is a separate business they say. Further, the employees were not properly informed of their rights because the manager failed to post required documents they say.

An employee complainant who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisals from the store manager told the Tattler the employees at Guitar Center intend on forcing the store to obey the Ordinance and they expect to receive their legitimately earned back pay, "I was excited that the citizens of Emeryville agree with so many other Americans that people deserve to be paid a living wage.  I find it disheartening that the Guitar Center is subverting that" the employee said of the new law and the manager's attempts to bypass it.
Michael Guina, Emeryville's City Attorney said the City is actively taking up the issue, "We're in the initial stages of the investigation of the Guitar Center employee's complaints.  If we find evidence of wrong doing, we will work with the employer to make sure they comply with the ordinance".

Guitar Center, which is majority-owned by private equity firms Ares Management and former Republican Party presidential aspirant Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, has had a long history of labor strife including union quashing.  The Nation did an expose piece in 2013 on Guitar Center's employee mistreatment centering on low employee pay and sleazy tactics.

The Emeryville store manager could not be reached for comment.

Carolyn Lehr Selected New Emeryville City Manager & Michael Guina Elevated to City Attorney

Emeryville has hired a new City Manager, Carolyn Lehr and a new City Attorney, Michael Guina, City Hall revealed today.  In a memo to the City staff, outgoing City Manager Sabrina Landreth made the announcement; the City Council has selected Sacramento native Carolyn Lehr to replace Ms Landreth and current Emeryville Assistant City Attorney Michael Guina will replace outgoing City Attorney Mike Biddle.

New Emeryville City Manager Carolyn Lehr
She arrives from Chowchilla CA where
she has served as interim City Administrator
since December of last year.

Ms Lehr graduated from San Jose State and obtained her MPA from Rutgers University. In addition to over 25 years in local government, she spent seven years in product administration in Silicon Valley and also served as a public relations director to a community hospital.  Carolyn is married with two sons.
She will begin her work in Emeryville on June 19th.

Michael Guina will serve as City Manager as a result of a tentative agreement beginning July 1st.  He was first hired at Emeryville as a Deputy City Attorney in 2003, later he worked for a private law firm, Oakland's Burke, Williams & Sorensen as a partner.  Mr Guina returned to Emeryville in 2013 where he has served as Assistant City Attorney in Mr Biddle's office.