E'Vill Eye Editor Makes Criminal Allegation Against Council Member
Nepotism Charged
In an explosive and accusatory tweet, the editor of Emeryville's conservative pro-business blog, the E'Ville Eye, is charging an Emeryville city councilman with criminal nepotism, ostensibly because he is married to an Emery School District school board member. The editor, Rob Arias, also made references to the City Council as an "Axis of E'Ville [evil]" in the tweet, presumably for their public policy in support of affordable housing and the working poor in our community, both policy concepts he has long railed against in his blog.
The occasion for the tweet, made on October 10th, was a published photograph of a crowd in attendance at the League of Woman Voters Emeryville Council/School Board candidates debate that happened to show Mayor John Bauters and Council member Christian Patz as well as School Board member Barbara Inch that was seized upon by Mr Arias.
The October 10th twitter charge of #Nepotism is added to the same charge made on occasion by Mr Arias over the last two years after the Council member husband and School Board wife, Christian Patz and Barbara Inch, both won their independent elections in 2016. The election of Ms Inch, incidentally is noteworthy owing to the fact that she won her school board race with more votes than any elected official in Emeryville history.
Instead of the record breaking election of Ms Inch; the people of Emeryville getting the person they voted for elevated to the School Board, the E'Ville Eye apparently sees evil afoot in the form of a stolen election...stolen by Council member Patz in some sort act of depraved nepotism. Mr Arias refused to return calls to the Tattler to clear up his baffling allegations but with his latest tweet, he is staking his reputation on these accusations against Mr Patz and Ms Inch.
Newly Expanded Definition of Nepotism
For the record, there is virtually no way the charge of nepotism is accurate. For there to be nepotism at play, Councilman Patz would have had to somehow clandestinely thrown the Alameda County overseen election over to his wife, effectively making her ascension to the School Board an appointment. But both Mr Patz and Ms Inch won their respective elections in a fair and free open plebiscite that the Alameda County Registrar of Voters confirmed in 2016.
Emeryville citizens that have seen the Arias tweet have expressed confusion (in emails to the Tattler) as to what exactly Rob Arias is alleging with the nepotism charge. Some are taking the tweet at face value: that Rob is asserting Mr Patz stole the election. Some have said Rob is using big words he doesn't understand. One other is conjecturing Rob instead is hoping his readers don't know the meaning of the word nepotism and that he is just fishing for clicks to his ad-laden blog by making explosive charges.
Regardless the reasons for the E'Ville Eye's latest Trumpian tweet, if Mr Arias wants to make a law against family members serving Emeryville in different elected bodies (or the same body), he should speak up (although we're not sure why that is something the people would want). In the meanwhile, the law of the land allows full democratic expression: the will of the people is allowed to flourish and it's not untoward to have a husband council member and a wife school board member in Emeryville. It's not nepotism Rob, it's democracy.
 |
| 'Evil' is an elected body helping provide affordable housing and helping the working poor by raising the minimum wage. 'Nepotism' is when the people get to democratically select their choices for candidates to public offices. Mayor Bauters is in the cap, Council member Patz is in orange and School Board member Inch is in between. |
nepotism noun
nep·o·tism | \ˈne-pə-ˌti-zəm \
: favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship
