Emeryville is One of the Last Cities to Open Up Public Meetings to In-Person

Emeryville Vies With Oakland to be Last in Democracy

Both Cities are the Last Holdouts for Public Meetings

Opinion/News Analysis

As the Covid pandemic settles down into epidemic status, cities across the Bay Area are opening their city council meetings back up for full public in-person participation.  It’s a flowering of democracy after the long dark night.   However, two cities continue to be closed; Emeryville and Oakland.  They're the last holdouts.  

For months now, the State of California has allowed cities their discretion for opening the people’s city halls to the people and Emeryville’s neighbors (save Oakland) have done that.  

The following neighboring cities have completely opened up for full democracy:

• Berkeley
• Hayward 
• Piedmont 
• Orinda
• Walnut Creek 
• El Cerrito

The following cities are now in the process of opening back up:

• Lafayette 
• Alameda

The following cities are closed indefinitely:

• Oakland
• Emeryville 

During the pandemic, cities used Zoom to try to facilitate the people being able to still participate in their government but online access was shown to be a pale and anemic simulacrum of democracy.  Whole classes of people, including the elderly and the poor were shut out.  Anytime entire classes of people are (effectively) barred, it cannot be described as democratic.  And that holds true for Emeryville today.  Emeryville has not had democracy since March 19th 2020.

Hayward City Hall
Enlightened
Poor people and even elderly people can come here
and freely speak out about government policies.

So why does our city council not want to open City Hall back up for full throated democracy?  They are invoking the fear of Covid.  Does that mean our city council thinks neighboring city councils are reckless for opening up?  Does the Emeryville city council think the Berkeley city council is negligent and imprudent?  Do they think the city council of Hayward is foolhardy and thoughtless?  Is the Walnut Creek city council brash and audacious? Or maybe it’s the Emeryville city council.  Maybe the Emeryville city council is just more comfortable keeping meetings closed.

The public is messy, loud and opinionated.  They have strong opinions and they don’t mind telling their local government about it.  The elderly and the poor too.  Sometimes they’re not happy with policies coming out of City Hall.  If they could be silenced, the meetings would be so much more comfortable for the city council.  Who wants to be yelled at and berated? 

The public speaking freely can be messy.
The establishment authority sometimes
doesn't like it so much.

But the Emeryville city council and the staff are paid to take the public being unhappy with them.  It’s supposed to be part of the job.  This city council likes to attack public commenters who are critical.  When they attack public commenters, they show us they don’t accept the compact with the public that government employees are required to accept.  Is this anti-democratic culture at Emeryville City Hall affecting the city council’s decision to keep public meetings closed?  Or is it that they simply want to protect us from disease as they say (and Berkeley doesn't)?  

We’re keeping tabs on this and it doesn't look good for Emeryville.  Right now it’s the City of Oakland and the City of Emeryville neck and neck in last place for democracy.  Oakland?   Really, Emeryville?  Someone should tell Emeryville that Oakland is a low bar.  

Is Emeryville going to wait until the State of California finally forces them to open up their meetings for democracy?  Only our city council, the same city council that publicly attacks dissenters that have the audacity of speaking out in full throated democratic fashion, knows for sure.

Elderly people commonly have a tough time with these 
computer contraptions.  Maybe it's easier to just forget about 
speaking out at the online city council meeting.  Judge Judy beckons
and she's on at the same time as the city council meetings.

 

Delinquent Filing By Affordable Housing Beneficiary Threw Off Emeryville Investigators

Missed Arias Filing Deadlines With State 

Threw Emeryville Investigators Off Trail 

Proper Filings Would Have Shown Emeryville Housing Investigators "Hyper Local" Rob Arias Actually Lives in Far Off Pleasant Hill 

Opinion/News Analysis

Rob Arias
Defrauded Emeryville's
Affordable Housing Program. 
His Pleasant Hill address was not
filed until after he was caught.

Rob Arias, the editor of the Emeryville centric news blog the E’Ville Eye, received a notice of delinquency from the California Secretary of State warning if he didn’t file his required biannual Statement of Information for his business, after fining him, the State would shut down his company and seize the name.  Mr Arias had become delinquent in 2019, the same time he and his wife bought a home in the Contra Costa County village of Pleasant Hill according to publicly accessible documents at the Secretary of State’s office and the Contra Costa County Assesor’s office.  This information reveals a fast and loose handling of required filings by Mr Arias that could have been part of an attempt to hide damning evidence from investigators for the City of Emeryville’s Below Market Rate affordable housing program Mr Arias was later found to have defrauded.  Beneficiaries of the BMR program as Mr Arias was, are required to live in their units.
 

The documents Mr Arias filed with California's Secretary of State showed his last place of business was on Park Avenue in Emeryville in 2017.  But then he failed to file for his business in 2019, as was required.  Instead Mr Arias waited until after City investigators discovered he had defrauded Emeryville’s BMR housing program in June 2021 (because didn’t live in Emeryville anymore). Then in September of 2021, after the City moved in on him, effectuating a forced sale of his unit, and two years overdue with the State, Rob finally brought his business filings into good standing with Sacramento, his address now shown as Pleasant Hill California.  

Mr Arias was able to stall and ride out threats from Sacramento for more than two years until he finally sold his Emeryville BMR unit, thereby keeping his Pleasant Hill address hidden from Emeryville housing investigators.  Thus, Rob never had to lie to the California Secretary of State, an organization with an impressive legal department and a potent police force, the state Board of Equalization, that is feared by cheats up and down the state. 

E'Ville Eye Address is Now Pleasant Hill
P'Hill Eye?
Rob's Pleasant Hill business statement filed  
with the State of California.  Before this
he was delinquent with the state for two years
while the City of Emeryville investigated him.
Seeking to prove Arias lived in Pleasant Hill,
the City was thrown off because there was no business
document linking him to his Pleasant Hill address.
Rob still keeps an Emeryville PO box,
probably to continue some scam.

Of note is the fact that these Secretary of State public documents record the applicant’s place of business and so the two years Mr Arias was in violation with the State are the same two years that he now claims he was still living and doing business in Emeryville.  Apparent to everyone now, Rob was living in Pleasant Hill in 2019 and if this business filing gap was indeed an attempt to hide from the City of Emeryville’s BMR program, it is pretty glaring.  The City took ownership of Rob’s unit after he finally admitted he was not living in Emeryville and they have since sold the unit to a needy party as the BMR program dictates.

Rob went missing from Emeryville in 2019 when he didn’t tell his former neighbors on Park Avenue he and his wife had bought their new $630,000 (now valued at $974,000) home in Pleasant Hill.  Several Park Avenue neighbors report in May of 2019, they suddenly stopped seeing Rob on his daily dog walking rounds or at any local businesses he formally had frequented or indeed anywhere in town.  Rob, for what it is worth, is still telling his E’Ville Eye readers he moved out of Emeryville in 2021 for some reason known only to Rob.  He left our city, but he didn't want to leave a bunch of money on the table here.  He had built up a pretty good business here with its corporate paymasters made up of appreciative businesses in Emeryville.

He Likes to Tell Us How To Vote In Our Elections

So what are we to make of the far flung suburban dwelling Rob Arias who in addition to lying about his place of residence, is fond of telling us how to vote in our town?  Rob quit Emeryville, yes, but he hasn’t quit our body politic or the money he draws from his heavily monetized, corporate underwritten “hyper local” news blog.  He vacated Emeryville without telling anyone, moving 30 miles east, to the other side of the hills, to a cul-de-sac adjacent to a golf course in a leafy suburban village teeming with Republicans while defrauding the City by continuing to hold his government subsidized affordable condo unit in Emeryville, over time netting impressive real estate value gains.

Another Scam
Rob's Next Door Emeryville Page
He's still a 'Lead' (moderator) at the site where 
Emeryville residency is required.

Rob dropped hints about his plans back in 2019.  He penned a diatribe addressed to the City Council on May 6th 2019 wherein he told them “This city is not worthy of my efforts”.  Two days later, he and his wife closed escrow on their home on the shady cul-de-sac with the Kentucky bluegrass front lawn adjacent to the Contra Costa Country Club.  But he’s still going to tell us how to vote in our elections here in Emeryville because he knows what’s best for us presumably.

Next Door Scam

Meanwhile, Mr Arias is continuing on with another fraud here in our town.  He is a moderator at the website Next Door Emeryville, where he recently blasted Mayor John Bauters for not being a member there, presumably because this pet site of his would benefit from the gravitas of Emeryville’s mayor being a member among other reasons.  Rob wants to engage Emeryville voters in the negative and often hate-filled space on Next Door where as moderator, he can manipulate the conversation.  He has been publicly critical of Mayor Bauters’ Twitter account where Mr Bauters has more than 23,000 followers and where the conversation about Emeryville is informative and elevated and where Rob can’t direct the narrative.

The Contra Costa County Country Club
Typical fairway scene located next to Rob's Pleasant Hill home.

Over at Next Door Emeryville Rob likes to advertise the E’Ville Eye and (to leverage his moderator status) to remove people he doesn’t like who actually do live in Emeryville. The corporate policy at Next Door incidentally states moderators and members are required to live in the cities where the site operates.  Members of Next Door Emeryville MUST live in Emeryville.  Rob has gotten past that, presumably, by lying to Next Door corporate about his place of residence.

Out-of-Towners Want to Make Money Off Emeryville

Rob Arias continues to crow about Emeryville but we shouldn’t listen to somebody that lives in suburbia about how to fashion our city.  We should make our city the way WE want, not according to the dictates of out-of-town interlopers, be they wealthy developers with an eye towards pulling profits out of our city or Rob Arias for the same reasons.  We have a suggestion for Rob: start an actual hyper-local news blog in the town you really live in; you can call it The Pleasant Hill Town Crier or the P'Hill Eye. 

As election season approaches this summer with two City Council seats to be decided by the people of Emeryville, we should tune out this guy that has tuned us out.  He has no interest in how our city evolves except for how he can bump up his personal bank account.  He doesn’t care about Emeryville and we shouldn’t care about him or the didactic political prognostications he has for us.

Rob Arias Country

City Council Moves to Stifle Public Debate on Uncomfortable Noise Ordinance Subject

City Council Asks, What Would Mitch McConnell Do?

New Tactic Seized Upon:
Disallow Public Debate

Uncomfortable Topics Will Now Go Straight to Vote
No More Presentation of Issues or Debate
.......
Noise Ordinance Waiver Rubber Stamped, Not  Debated

Opinion / News Analysis
Faced with a large crowd and an uncomfortable vote on a developer's Noise Ordinance waiver request they'd rather keep quiet, the Emeryville City Council last Tuesday night employed a new tactic in their ongoing effort to assist developers seeking favors from City Hall.   After reading aloud a waiver request agenda item number (11.1), followed by an empty call for public comment, the Council moved straight to a vote; no staff presentation, no chance for the public to hear about the issues involved, no debate.  It's a tactic that Washington DC's most effective Senate Majority leader in years, Mitch McConnell, would approve of and one, whom Tuesday's spectacle invoked.   
When it comes to developer's requests for waivers to our Noise Ordinance, since 2010, the City Council has shown remarkable consistency for approvals, denying only four out of 19 requests up until last year.  The Tattler has long chronicled the pro-developer bias that exists at City Hall when it comes to these waiver requests, and the April 16th approval is just the latest in a long line, regardless of a new self proclaimed livability-friendly Council.

Charting new territory, on Tuesday, the new Council agreed that since they had already heard a presentation about the specific noise waiver request in question at a previous meeting,  they could dispense with another presentation and any public debate.  This reasoning, erroring on the side of opacity in City government, negated the room full of people at the meeting, most of whom had not been at the previous meeting and whom had an interest in hearing about the request and being given a chance to weigh in.

These are academic and picayune concerns for a City Council, wont to speed up government processes to help those who matter the most in Emeryville.  Avoiding civic and personal embarrassment was likely on their minds as well.  These tactics, the same as those taken up by the great turtle man in Washington notably also serve the same demographic.  It would appear like minds think alike. 
We're looking forward to much more efficient City Council meetings and the chance to get home at a reasonable time, all that uncomfortable public debate having been found by our City Council to be unnecessary.  The business sector helped, the public shut out, government streamlined....Mitch couldn't have done it better.


 The fun begins at 12:09

Sherwin Williams Project: Emeryville's City Staff Prepares a Bogus Environmental Document

An EIR is Supposed to Tell Decision Makers About Negative Environmental Impacts 

What Will the Sherwin Williams Traffic be Like?

Nobody Knows

Opinion/News Analysis

EIR's Are Supposed to Measure
Will the City Council demand
measurements from the
Sherwin Williams EIR?

Emeryville’s City staff has prepared the environmental document that facilitates the last large development project for our town, the Sherwin Williams Project (SWP), and the City Council decides Tuesday night whether to certify the Environmental Impact Report as a properly prepared CEQA document.  
But hold on; there’s a huge problem.  The City Council cannot certify the EIR for Sherwin Williams because the EIR fails at it’s most elemental CEQA charge; to inform the decision makers about how the proposal will effect traffic in our town.  

In fact the EIR contains no useful information about traffic at all.  That’s because the traffic study within the EIR was written with the assumption the City Council will amend our General Plan to get rid of the Horton Street Bike Boulevard as it calculated the traffic effects the SWP would have on the neighborhood.  It's not up to the staff to decide the General Plan will be amended.  

What if the Council decided they like bike boulevards?  What if they want to keep the Horton Street Bike Boulevard as the General Plan says it should be?  As they have said many times they wished to do?  Well then less traffic would be using Horton Street and that excess traffic would move to other streets.  And that would change the ‘level of service’ on those other streets to a lower level.  In that case, the streets in the neighborhood would be more negatively impacted by the Sherwin Williams Project than the current EIR shows. 

The City Council and the people of Emeryville are in the dark about how the Sherwin Williams traffic will impact our neighborhoods.

The City Council needs to know this to make an informed choice about the SWP.  Is it too impactful to traffic in the neighborhood?  Is it acceptable? The Council needs to know this before they can decide on this project.  Says who?  Says the State of California: the central function of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is exactly this….to properly inform the decision makers about development proposals.  

The document the staff will be pushing Tuesday night doesn’t do that.  It fails at the sole task it’s supposed to perform.  The City Council needs to throw it back.  They need to tell the staff to prepare a  new EIR with traffic numbers that show the effect on the neighborhoods with the assumption we’re going to keep the Horton Street Bike Boulevard, that's all.

More Traffic on our Bike Boulevards Means
More Ghost Bikes for Emeryville
Will the City Council make the right decision
on Tuesday night? Will they keep open the
option to have a bike boulevard for Horton Street?

The citizen activist group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE) wrote a letter to the staff about this subject.  Inexplicably, the response to RULE’s letter was the staff didn’t understand the question.  That seems like a canard.  They're paid to know about this. 
We understand it: this is an end run on what’s supposed to be a transparent process.  The staff is trying to show a Sherwin Williams Project with less effect on traffic to make it more palatable to the public, to make it an easier sell for the Council. 

We have a right to know what the effect on traffic the Sherwin Williams Project will have in our town assuming we keep our bike boulevards. We need to know how this project will effect the real world. The world that contains the Emeryville General Plan and bicycling as a safe possibility here.  If the City Council certifies this EIR as it is being offered up to them by the staff on Tuesday night, we’ll know they never had any intention on having a bike boulevard on Horton Street.  The developers for the Sherwin Williams Project don't want a bike boulevard on Horton Street.  Let’s see who’s back this City Council has.  Watch this space….

Emeryville Police Should NOT Carry AR-15 Assualt Rifles

Wrongheaded Policy on Police Weapons Hijacks 

Smart Public Policy

The Chief of Police Needs to Provide the Elected Officials 

With Objective, Trustworthy Information

Opinion/News Analysis
Should Emeryville police carry AR-15 assault rifles? That's a public debate that didn't happen; our police officers in fact already do carry these controversial high powered rifles with them.  Still, the City Council majority seems interested enough to begin an ex post facto debate on the issue. Last Thursday's Public Safety Committee was the opening salvo, so to speak, in the better-late-than-never debate.
So far what we've heard in this up until now one sided debate is that the Police Department has no choice about the weapons they carry; that's determined by the criminals and in the weapons the criminals happen to choose says our Chief of Police (the criminals in the aggregate presumably but unqualified nonetheless).

Councilwoman Nora Davis
We have no choice in the matter,
"Force must be met with force" she says.
On the table in the foreground are bullets,
the largest being a .50 caliber round
tank buster, the next weapon to be carried
by the Emeryville Police Department.

Public policy must be subverted we're told, all in service of a dubious meme that would lock us into an arms race with criminals.  The other side of the debate, promulgated by those who would advocate for a polity that doesn't lock us unnecessarily into that predetermined fate, those who say smart police tactics are what's called for and force need not slavishly be met with equal force, is countered by the Chief and also by Councilwoman Nora Davis as it turns out.  It's all being played out over the the Emeryville Police Department's use of the AR-15 assault rifle and its high powered rounds that can literally blow a person's head off, specifically, what's being debated is the wisdom of these new weapons being carried by officers in their day to day patrols.  Also at that consequential and revealing meeting, we watched the Chief present evidence that tantalizingly hints of a .50 caliber future; what's to come in Emeryville's  arms race with criminals.

Thursday's meeting revealed an unfortunate lack of cogency on the side of the police department and Machiavellian tactics being used to shut off honest debate by the Chief of Police Jennifer Tejada and her friend on the Public Safety Committee, member Nora Davis.

The police use of deadly force was placed on the agenda by Vice Mayor and Committee Chair Scott Donahue and was intended to open up the debate, but it was seized upon by Chief Tejada as an opportunity to deceive the Council member decision makers present (at least the Vice Mayor) as she presented a 'war on police' narrative that necessitates a ramping up the firepower of the cops on the street.  Since criminals are carrying these assault weapons, so must the police apparently.
Further, she attempted to mollify would be concerned citizens and Council members by signaling the AR-15's ordinary and 'reasonable' status by claiming the rifle is not even illegal in California and that the police aren't therefore carrying anything more than can be bought by ordinary citizens, a patently false statement.

The Chief of Police is enthralled with the idea that police must carry at least the same weapons that the criminals carry, hinting next in the line-up will be .50 caliber weapons.  It was a sentiment echoed by Councilwoman Davis, "Force must be met with force" the Councilwoman stated, a fait accompli that would take the public out of public policy and place it instead in the control of criminals.  This democratically disempowering and cynical worldview was presented after an officer made a presentation to the Committee about how police had recently found a criminal's cache of .50 caliber weapons, a gun that can take out a tank on a battlefield, a gun that's being employed more and more by ordinary criminals the officer said.

Emeryville Police Chief
Jennifer Tejada
In her days as Sausalito Chief of Police.
Now, in Emeryville, she's not 
giving us an honest debate
on the AR-15 assault rifle.

To graphically show the special capacity for havoc .50 caliber weapons can wreak, the officer placed a round on the table next to other rounds, including the AR-15 round.  These .50 calibers are what's coming next for the EPD and it would appear the Chief of Police is preparing the City Council to wrap their heads around the idea of our officers carrying this tank busting gun...we have no choice, remember?  Councilwoman Davis was so impressed by the presentation, the dramatic sight of the huge .50 caliber round prompted her to demand the Emeryville Police Department weapon up and meet force with force.
To pause for a moment and express the obvious: this dumb line of argument makes no sense whatsoever and is reckless, frankly.  In fact, we are not boxed in, our hands are not tied by criminals in Emeryville.  This is not policy in the public interest and it's dangerous.

After the presentation that presaged our bleak future, Emeryville cops carrying .50 caliber weapons (mounted on the roofs of the cop cars?), the Chief of Police again told the assembled throng that AR-15s are not assault rifles...an opinion disguised as fact by our Chief.  As we have said in the past, the Congress of the United States and the State of California disagree with her on that.  It's unseemly that our Chief puts stock in the opinion of the NRA over the State of California on this issue.  It's noteworthy that the police departments of the City of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and San Jose all disagree with our Chief on the AR-15....they all agree with the State of California that these guns ARE assault rifles.  Nomenclature is important because the debate frame will drive public opinion and transparency and forthrightness by government officials should be the the operating principle here.

Coming Next to the Emeryville Police Department:
The 'Tank Buster' .50 Caliber Rifle
'Criminals are starting to arm themselves with it,
so therefore must we.'

But it's Chief Tejada's insistence that public policy be hijacked in Emeryville by the whims of criminals and their ever increasing firepower that we find most objectionable.  We urge the Chief of Police to stop this ham handed approach to policing.  To the Chief: if you think it's prudent for our officers to carry AR-15 assault rifles, or .50 caliber rifles, then you should made a cogent and persuasive argument and don't rely on these dishonest and unbecoming tactics.  Tell us why it's important for Emeryville police officer to carry whatever weapon you think is prudent and let's have a REAL and transparent debate.


To cut to the chase however, there's no war on police in America or in Emeryville and we believe its not appropriate for Emeryville police to carry AR-15 assault rifles (let alone .50 caliber guns).  Studies have shown police tend to use new weapons given to them with increasing and increasingly inappropriate frequency.  It's the old adage at play; when all you a have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.  Police departments that issue tasers find their use by officers increases over time, increasingly with terrible effect on the public.  Already, one person has been killed by Emeryville police with the newly issued AR-15 rifle.

The AR-15 is a high powered weapon and it can blast through a concrete block wall or penetrate three people and still have enough power to kill the fourth.  It has the power to decapitate people.  We don't need our police carrying that kind of firepower in their day to day patrols in our town.  Perhaps these guns could be stored at the police station for use in the unlikely case one were ever needed.
But what we cannot countenance is for the Police Department to be used to purposefully obscure and now engage in forwarding actual misinformation to the decision makers and the citizens as they give us their opinion that they should continue to be allowed to carry AR-15's.  Our Emeryville Police Department has a stellar reputation; it's a shame to see it unnecessarily marred like this.

Emeryville Can Demand More From Developers Than Neighbors Cities Can

Position of Power:

Emeryville Can Say 'NO' to Developers and the Developers Know It

After a generation of taking anything and everything from every developer who wished to make a buck off our town, Emeryville is finally in an inarguable position now to demand better development.  And we can easily get it.

Opinion / News Analysis
Abstract:

• Emeryville doesn't need any more market rate housing.
• Emeryville doesn't get any positive revenue from housing.

Got that?  These two points aren't a matter of someone's opinion even though that word precedes them in this story.  These two points are factual and they assertively inform us through hyperbolic debate frames rising up from interested parties of the ideological sort as well as those who would materially benefit.  Once people realize the prophetic exigency of these two points, how we finish the job of developing our town becomes a lot clearer.

Emeryville is in an enviable position with regards to development. Due to forces in our control and those out of our control, we're at a powerful place where we can call the shots; we can rationally say NO to flawed development, starting now.  The last City Council election with its progressive sweep and the rise of a newly enlightened electorate has something to do with this fortunate position we find ourselves in, of course, but in addition it has to do with the extremely limited supply of large scale development properties left in our town and the incredibly valuable geographic location of Emeryville that only gets more valuable over time.   But more pressing than those extant and compelling realities, our new power position has to do with our over the top, nay epic RHNA numbers.

Emeryville's RHNA Numbers
Twice as big as we need.

RHNA or Regional Housing Needs Assessment (pronounced reena) is a housing data compilation of the whole Bay Area produced by a consortium of local governments meant to mete out each municipality's work load share of the goal of providing a jobs/housing parity.  The state mandated idea is each city should carry its weight as far as providing enough housing for the entire region.  Emeryville was given a specific housing goal by this consortium (known as Association of Bay Area Governments ABAG).  Due to Emeryville's huge housing boom over the last 20 years, we not only met our ABAG goal, we smashed the goal.  We actually doubled the market rate housing goal, Emeryville's built market rate housing right now is more than 200% of what RHNA suggests.  At this point, nobody can claim with a straight face Emeryville needs to build more market rate housing, that we're somehow derelict in our duty.
If we do approve more housing projects moving forward, it can and should be only those that improve the livability of our town.  We've already more than done our regional market rate housing duty.

Emeryville's 'double RHNA' numbers have the effect of punching a huge hole in the 'supply and demand' argument that's always proffered by developers.  They use that argument to shame municipalities into approving housing projects they want to build.  Some places, they would have a point.  Not here.
Everybody knows the argument; if we increase the housing supply, the housing demand goes down and so do the prices.  Except here in Emeryville we've doubled RHNA and the housing prices still keep going up, especially rentals.  That's because all the developers are really interested in is maximizing their profits and thus, all they're interested in building (and all we've been getting) are $2500 per month one bedroom luxury apartments. As shocking as it is, this shouldn't come as a shock.  The idea that a developer (or indeed any business owner) might lie to protect his profits should be seen as a given...especially since there's no down side to lying, no penalty.  And so that's what we get from them generally.

With the supply and demand canard off the table, there's really no cogent reason developers can offer as to why we should accept a flawed housing project.  Some apologists will fatuously claim housing development adds to the City's tax base, but that's a lie too; Emeryville actually loses money (a little) off residential projects.  Residents use more in services than they pay in.  City Hall gets its revenue from businesses, not residents.

With nothing to gain and much to lose, at this point with these RHNA numbers, developers better offer something overwhelmingly good in trade for approving a project that will increase traffic, noise, pollution and crowding.  That's the point of the Tattler story of July 23rd.  We posit there are four chief areas where Emeryville needs improvement:

1. Affordable Housing
2. Family Friendly Housing
3. Parks / Open Space
4. Locally Serving 'Non-Formula' Retail

These points are measurable.  We say every developer's project proposal must demonstrably improve (or least not make worse), the existing ratios we have in these four categories.  These should be the starting point for any residential project.  Otherwise, the default position should be no development at all.  Right now, we have an intensively developed town with a lot of density and a lot of commercial revenue shared by our existing population.  If we stay as we are, we're fine.  Unlike our neighbors who haven't met their RHNA goals, we don't need to take on more market rate residential development.
The residential developers may be salivating at our remaining three or four fallow patches of land with their boatloads of potential profit but we could retain the status quo; keep a couple of patches of our town fallow for future consideration (a future park perhaps?), and we'll be OK.
Or we could allow more development...a new kind of development we haven't demanded or gotten up until now; development that demonstrably improves our town.

Emeryville has always had naysayers in our midsts.  There's always been those who loudly claim we're no good, terrible really and we must let the developers have what they want because we don't rate anything better.  Indeed, before last November, the City Council majority itself said as much ad infinitum over the years.  There are plenty of regular residents still saying it now.  Somehow, these Chicken Littles see these last pieces of fallow land left as an emergency; a gap that must be filled with whatever the developers want.   No time to waste they're saying, we must defer to the developers now.
Or maybe they'll bide their time: we expect the naysayers to try to retake the City Council majority next year with lots of hidden campaign donations from developers.
But in the meanwhile, next time you hear the old 'supply and demand' con, remember our epic RHNA numbers.  Next time you hear them try to frame the debate in terms of development being a given, remember we don't increase our revenue from residential projects.

To reiterate:

• Emeryville doesn't need any more market rate housing.
• Emeryville doesn't get any positive revenue from housing.