Mayor Welch Becomes the ‘Candace Owens’ of Emeryville, Lashing Out Against Critics

Mayor Courtney Welch Makes a Slashing Power Play For a Rare Political Opening

Lame Duck ‘Strongman of Emeryville’ John Bauters Leaves Political Vacuum Welch Seeks

Emeryville’s Mayor Goes on Bullying Offensive Against Her Constituents, Colleague and the Local Media

News Analysis

Emeryville residents might be wondering and alarmed at Mayor Courtney Welch’s increasing childish attacks against critics, especially her social media tirades against her council colleague Kalimah Priforce and the editors of both of Emeryville’s online news journals.  Giving away her pugilist and impolitic impulses, many citizens have noted how Mayor Welch finds comfort in unleashing streams of invective rhetoric against anyone with the temerity to challenge her. What many hoped the City’s recently adopted Code of Ethics would temper, Mayor Welch’s increasing attacks have continued undiminished, even increased.  This sort of divisive politics, rampant across much of America, has landed in Emeryville to the dismay of many.

Mayor Courtney Welch: Bully
Ask for accountability and wait for the fireworks.
All chaotic dysfunction mode all the time.
Regardless, she says she's "fighting for the people".
Which people?  Developer people?

The pettiness coming from Ms Welch may be illiberal but it is not without reason as it turns out.

After former mayor and indubitable ‘Strongman Leader of Emeryville’ John Bauters’ announcement in December that he would be seeking an Alameda County Supervisor Board seat, he  automatically vacates his council seat come November. This has created a gaping political vacuum of influence with potentially one of four council members to fill.  Ms Welch appears to be seizing the strongman position with her style of ‘mean girl cheerleader’ rancor against any would-be challengers.

The persistent brashness of relentless attacks by Mayor Welch serves to highlight the rare and seductive power that the unwritten position of ‘Strongman Leader of Emeryville’ embodies. Indeed, there have only been two of this archetype in Emeryville politics over the last 35 years; long term Council member Nora Davis (1987-2016) and John Bauters (2016-2024). Owing to our peculiar and seemingly entrenched political culture, since the mid 1980s, the Strongman Leader of Emeryville exercises unwarranted power over our town with the aid of a compliant, subservient council majority made up of sycophantic minions. 

In this way, both Davis and Bauters employed developer-friendly stances with no effective opposition.  Dissident Council members in the minority over the last 35 years have been progressive but ineffective.  Council member Priforce now serves as the lone dissenting progressive voice.  Through the 80s, 90s and 2000s, Jennifer West, Jac Asher, John Fricke and Greg Harper stood where Priforce currently stands, but Mr Priforce’s Brooklyn born scrapper-style bravado seems like a new kind of opposition. 

With a conspicuous onslaught of unprecedented public taunts and attacks against her critics online and in the council chambers, Ms Welch’s combative style is conjuring up the bad girl Candace Owens of Fox News fame - the bombastic political commentator that vilifies progressives and utilizes social media as her most powerful tool.

Notable is a fresh series of tweets against E’ville Eye editor Rob Arias who has been critical of her online behavior.  In the past, Mayor Welch outed Mr Arias online for defrauding Emeryville’s Below Market Rate (BMR) housing program, leaving herself open to investigations into her own BMR rental status to be challenged by the Emeryville Tattler after discovering inadequate reportings of her household income; violations which would have disqualified most people.


Lame Duck City Councilman John Bauters
He replaced Nora Davis as Strongman Leader
but now his star is beginning to set in Emeryville.




Attacks against Mr Priforce’s dissenting voice on the Council have emanated mostly from Council member Bauters, but notable is the co-joining and ramping up of attacks by Mayor Welch of late.  On numerous occasions, Ms. Welch has retweeted (the “X” platform formerly known as Twitter) Mr Priforce’s tweets with spurious charges thrown against him.  Regardless of provocation, Mr. Priforce, it should be noted, has never taken to social media to attack Ms. Welch, and has shown restraint from criticizing his colleague's posts.  

Given our town’s proclivity for enabling the ‘Strongman Leader of Emeryville’ role beyond that which is normal, it is easy to imagine how the Mayor’s recent power play will work out to her advantage.  The barrage of attacks against the local media and her lone progressive council colleague can be interpreted as a show of force directed at her remaining colleagues, Council members David Mourra and Sukhdeep Kaur.  Lacking the audacity of Mayor Welch, Mr Mourra and Ms Kaur are being expected to fall-in-line as her minions, as they did earlier for Mr Bauters.

Calling herself “A fighter for the people,” without specifying which people (corporate developers and landlords are people) and without recognizing the irony, the ambitious Courtney Welch, like John Bauters, is likely using the position of Strongman Leader of Emeryville, as a launching pad for her quest for higher political office beyond Emeryville.

After realizing the path was closed to her by way of the Oakland City Council in the city she lived up until two years ago, Ms Welch saw our town as a place where she could bide her time and build her name. Less than two months after moving to Emeryville she began her campaign for City Council.  Less than a year after winning, she along with former Council members Dianne Martinez and Ally Medina, requested a collegiality pledge from Democratically-endorsed candidates to sign, agreeing to always be respectful and courteous as Council members.  The promise for comity was short-lived after Priforce faced attacks of “sexism,” for suggesting that Welch or Medina be selected as mayor rather than a second term for Bauters.

In an attempt to decrease hostilities in City Hall, an Emeryville Code of Ethics, inspired by Emeryville residents Elizabeth Montgomery and Eugene Tssui, was adopted which all five Council members supported.  Regardless, Mayor Welch sees her next step is to become Strongman Leader of Emeryville now that John Bauters will be leaving us and she feels the best way forward is to publicly attack all critics.

From Emeryville’s Code of Ethics:

“The professional and personal conduct of Council Members must be above reproach and avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Members shall refrain from abusive conduct, personal charges or verbal attacks upon the character or motives of other Members, the public, and staff. This requirement is applicable to Members at all times.”

“The constant and consistent theme through all of the conduct guidelines is “respect.” Members are called upon to exhibit appropriate behavior at all times.  Demonstrating respect for each individual through words and actions is the touchstone that can help guide Members to take appropriate action even in the most difficult situations.  In all cases, this common goal should be acknowledged even though individuals may “agree to disagree” on contentious issues.”

Below is just a small sampling of the witty repartee from our Emeryville mayor (dishonor yourself much?).  It's all about punching down and remaining unaccountable.  It's too bad our Code of Ethics has no teeth.

Mayor Welch can't stand journalists that hold her to account.

How convenient!  What other pol also trashes journalists?  

Hint: initials are DJT.

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

Arias Housing Investigation Expands to Include More Alleged Fraud in BMR Program

‘Mr Emeryville’ Surrenders Emeryville Loft Home

'Hyper-Local' Promoter , Rob Arias Ensnared in Affordable Housing Fraud Allegations

A family atop Emeryville’s long waiting list for an opportunity to buy an affordable loft home are about to feel that they won the lottery.  The winnings might be easier to come by for more people in coming months as fraud is uncovered in the City's BMR subsidized housing program..

Every unit within one of Emeryville’s main affordable housing programs is being investigated for fraud after authorities uncovered one unit being used as an office. Several other units are under suspicion. It is unclear how many units within the city’s Below Market-Rate (BMR) program are being illegally sublet, used as AirBnBs, or as a pied-à-terre.  There are 238 for-purchase and rental units in the program, in a city where 134 mostly market rate housing units were built in 2020.  There were about 2400 people on the City’s wait list for the last tranche of BMR affordable units that became available. 

Ironically, the incident sparking the investigation starts with one of Emeryville’s leading promoters, a man who made a second career building an on-line hub for positive, ‘hyper-local’ spin.  Rob Arias, editor of the E’ville Eye was asked to sell his loft home at 1500 Park Avenue back to the City this month, after admitting to city investigators he had purchased a Pleasant Hill home in 2019.  Tuesday night, after the lengthy City investigation, the City Council voted to place Mr Arias' Emeryville home on the market so that a needy family can take advantage of his unit, a coveted ownership BMR affordable home.

People using Emeryville’s BMR program must annually certify the unit is their primary residence.  The City investigated following repeated calls from The Tattler after neighbors said the unit was seldom occupied, and even more rarely after business hours.  Numerous photographs taken by Tattler staff showed the unit vacant every night for weeks. The evidence was later confirmed by City staff, presumptively at the behest of the Council. 

When drawn into direct communication with investigators, Mr Arias asked for elaboration on the definition of 'primary residence' even though he had annually signed a legal document certifying the loft had been his primary residence since 2003.

Arias purchased the Park Avenue unit in 2003 for $206,000.  The City paid $338,200 to buy it back this week.  Essentially, Mr Arias received free housing for eighteen years and left with $132,000 in walking around money. He can’t be faulted for that.  That’s how the BMR ownership program is supposed to work.  Give people in need a chance.  But if you strike it rich, or in this case find a way to finance a second home, continuing to own a government subsidized unit is wrong morally.  And legally, if you live primarily in your new market rate home.  It violates the legal annual certification and is a slap in the face to everyone on Emeryville’s lengthy affordable housing waiting list.  

Mr Arias needed an affordable home in 2003 and he was lucky existing BMR unit holders didn’t exhibit the same behavior he has been engaging in over the last two years, otherwise he might not have been able to get affordable housing through Emeryville's BMR program.   People’s financial situations can change.  And the financial lure of holding on to a bargain in Bay Area real estate must be great.  But officials are finally acknowledging in action that poorly supervised affordable housing is an ‘attractive nuisance’ encouraging misuse. 

The housing authority at City Hall is wrapping up its investigation of other abuses in the BMR affordable housing program.  The Tattler has public records requests pending and will continue to report on the un-needy but greedy people who take advantage of Emeryville's good will and non-wealthy people who would be helped with housing in our town. 

Tattler Investigation:
Eight successive nights between 8 PM and 9 PM last spring revealed 
lights out at Rob's Emeryville loft (red arrows).   Early to bed?

Tattler Investigation

Rob's Car is Almost Always Parked at His Pleasant Hill Home

Eight different days; mornings, afternoons and nights.  Only one time

on a Saturday at 11AM was Rob's car not in the driveway. 

A clear sign he likely lives at this address.  The City of Emeryville agreed.

Under Penalty of Perjury Rob Signed This Declaration
This was signed in July 2019 AFTER he and his spouse had
purchased their Pleasant Hill home.  

Rob Forgot What a Primary Residence Was Before His Required Interview by City Housing Investigators
A few days after he sent this email (January 21st) he was interviewed.  He wanted to know what
'primary residence' meant for purposes of the interview, even though he had signed an annual declaration that his Emeryville loft was his primary residence since 2003 without being bothered by this question.

According to Redfin, Rob's home in the suburbs is worth $833,881.  He and his spouse purchased it in May 2019 for $630,000.

Regardless of the government assistance meant for needy families, Mr Arias (and his spouse) own more than $1 million in California real estate, until the final sale of the Emeryville loft probably in about a week

Breaking News: City Action Leads to Rob Arias, E'Ville Eye Editor to Sell His Former Emeryville Home

 Breaking: City to Take Back its Affordable Home Previously Owned by E'Ville Eye Editor

Tattler Initiated Investigation Prompts City Action

BMR Program Beneficiary May Have Violated Conditions

Tonight, the Emeryville City Council effectuated the sale of the former home of embattled local gadfly and self styled political pundit Rob Arias who had been enrolled in the City’s Below Market Rate housing assistance program since 2003.  The Council took the action unanimously in a ‘consent calendar’ vote at the regularly scheduled Council meeting.  Mr Arias’ unit was taken back by the City in a responsive action to complaints after an investigation into the legitimacy of the contract Mr Arias had with the City regarding the habitation of his unit.  Under contract, all recipients of BMR ownership assisted housing in Emeryville must sign a yearly contract holding the unit as a ‘primary residence’ for 10 months out of every year, a condition the City may have found to be false in the case of Rob Arias.  A January 11th Tattler story revealed Mr Arias had purchased a two bedroom home in the city of Pleasant Hill in 2019.  Tonight's Council action was initiated by the City of Emeryville and initially challenged by Mr Arias but ultimately agreed to.

E'Ville Eye Editor Rob Arias
He has owned a home with his wife 
and child in the city of Pleasant Hill 
since 2019.

As a result of  tonight's action in the Council chambers, Rob Arias' unit, #322 at 1500 Park Avenue, will soon be wholly owned by the City of Emeryville and will be put back into service as affordable housing for low income people who want to live in Emeryville.  The City will buy back the below market rate unit from Mr Arias for $338,200.  After an inspection of the unit, a list of repairs was issued before the sale happens and the City takes possession. 

The Tattler first broke the story of the Arias residence in Emeryville after it was found Mr Arias and his wife purchased a home in Pleasant Hill in May 2019 for $630,000 while continuing to hold his Emeryville government assisted affordable unit.  The City launched an investigation as a result of the Tattler story and citizen complaints that came from it.  The current value of the two bedroom two and a half bath Pleasant Hill home is $751,000.  

Rob Arias, the editor of the right wing pro-business E’Ville Eye ‘community’ news site, has continued to tell his readers he lives in the Park Avenue district and that his “hyper local” E’Ville Eye is the voice of the community.  

Simultaneous with the Arias unit, the City of Emeryville is reviewing the entire BMR program for compliance city-wide in a process that is ongoing and has not been completed yet.  

The Tattler will continue to file public records requests investigating the sale of unit #322 at Park Avenue and other BMR units in the city and report in the days to come.  Watch this space.

"Hyper-Local" Emeryville Blogger Rob Arias Purchased Home in Pleasant Hill in 2019, May Be Forced to Sell His Home Here

 Emeryville Booster/Blog Editor Reportedly Moved Out of Town in 2019

Possible Violations Against City's Affordable Housing Program

Editor Rob Arias Tells His Readers He Still Lives in Emeryville

The self styled 'voice of the community' hasn't
been seen in the community for quite some time.

Emeryville blogger, local booster and political pundit Robert Arias, apparently moved to Pleasant Hill nearly two years ago.  A move would tend to undermine Mr Arias' public positioning as the voice of the Emeryville community, if he's sleeping each night in another county.  The move would also have real consequences.  Mr Arias may have violated stipulations in an Emeryville affordable housing program by apparently retaining possession of one of City Hall's few subsidized units, if the Park Avenue unit in question is no longer his primary residence.

The Tattler learned Mr Arias apparently jumped ship in 2019, closing escrow on an 1,163 square foot, two story home with two bedrooms and two baths, in May, according to public records, in the Contra Costa County community.  At the same time, he has apparently retained his Emeryville unit, purchased (in 2003) through the City's Below-Market-Rate affordable housing program, rather than selling it to a qualifying buyer or obtaining a waiver as the housing program requires. 

Having built a fairly successful, heavily monetized web presence in Emeryville, offering generally positive coverage- the digital equivalent of an old time small town newspaper’s proud, if boosterish coverage, Mr Arias hasn't volunteered anything publicly on his E'Ville Eye about any move 30 miles to the east.

The E'Ville Eye editor purchased this
Pleasant Hill home in May 2019.  

According to Emeryville’s low income housing assistance regulations, BMR owners must live in their units as a ‘primary residence’ for at least 10 months per year.  Living elsewhere represents a breach of contract.  Renting out a BMR unit is also a violation, though it is unclear that this has occurred. The program requires the sale of units to applicants meeting the city's income guidelines, (just as Mr Arias had in 2003) after the owner relocates.  The goal being having a supply, albeit a small one, of affordable housing for purchase in Emeryville. 

BMR unit owners, even though they receive assistance in the initial purchase, are allowed to realize property value gains over the tenure of their occupancy.  By law, Mr Arias would be allowed to keep 20% of the sale price above his initial investment.  Being across the street from the long-planned ten-acre, 500-unit, Sherwin-Williams development and new public park now under construction, Mr Arias’ unit has likely increased in value in recent months, a windfall he will be able to realize the longer he holds the unit.

This story will continue to evolve as new facts are revealed and we will report as our investigation continues.

Mr Arias declined to comment for this story.  

Rob continues to tell his readers he lives in Emeryville.  If the City's housing assistance director finds he has defrauded City Hall's BMR program, Mr Arias will be forced to sell his unit.  Bio pulled from his E'Ville Eye this week.

COVID-19 Forces 'Maz' Developer to Negotiate With City For Affordable Housing

Finally: Something Good Comes From the 

Caronavirus Epidemic

Virus Increases Emeryville Housing Affordability

The developer of the ‘Maz’ project, a large apartment building being constructed at 3800 San Pablo Avenue, renegotiated his agreement with the City of Emeryville last week, volunteering to add 10 units of affordable housing as a result of the Alameda County COVID-19 Shelter at Home Order.  The County order includes a prohibition on construction projects during the corona virus pandemic and would have forced Holiday Development to stop all work on the 101 unit housing project because Maz was approved without any affordable units.  Rick Holiday, CEO of Holiday Development, approached City Hall Thursday offering to renegotiate his project to add a permanent deed restriction for 10 affordable units to thwart the County’s stop work order for all housing construction projects with less than 10% affordability, coming in just under the wire (actually 9.99%, 10 out of 101).

Mr Holiday has had a very difficult time completing the Maz project, formerly called ‘The Intersection’ after getting City Hall approval for it back in 2013.  The 1.1 acre project, located at San Pablo Avenue and Adeline Street has been set back two times before after an arsonist twice burned down the nearly finished five story building.  After the second fire, the developer optioned to change to modular offsite prefabricated construction.  During the interim period, Holiday also contracted with the University of California to make the building exclusively for the housing use of Berkeley students, a change that incidentally wasn’t cleared with the City of Emeryville.

Maz developer Rick Holiday

In response to citizen calls received by the Emeryville Police Department last week referencing the County work stoppage order and police visits to the site enforcing the order, Mr Holiday at first claimed that since the project is now for student use, that could be defined as low income housing. The argument was presented that with the students (at 100%), the Maz project qualifies for the County’s 10% minimum affordability mandate but was rebuffed by the City Manager Christine Daniel, according to City Hall sources.  Following that rejection and facing a County work stoppage of unknown duration, Holliday agreed to guarantee 10 units of affordable housing with an irrevocable deed restriction.
Emeryville's new housing regulations, enacted after the approval of Maz, require a minimum of 17% affordability for all projects over 10 units.

The Maz project, likely to be renamed, has been controversial from the start.  Approved in 2013 in a 3-2 City Council split vote (Kurt Brinkman, Nora Davis and Ruth Atkin voted YES and Jennifer West and Jac Asher voted NO), Maz turned away from the attempts to make Emeryville housing more family friendly and affordable being promulgated by the then progressive Council minority.   With its zero affordability all market rate housing, Maz also is not family friendly, coming in with almost no three bedroom or even two bedroom units.  Studio apartments make up fully 60% of the unit mix at the anachronistic housing project.  At the time of approval, Mr Holliday told the Emeryville Planning Commission that he saw Maz as a building filled with dynamic young [affluent] people, “Younger people seeking an interesting place to live”,  a prospect the Commission called “exciting” as they passed it over to the City Council for approval.
When it's finally finished, almost ten years after approval, the Maz apartment building will push Emeryville's housing affordability percentage down, despite last week's renegotiation and will drive down the City's already low ratio of resident families to non-families.

The Tattler criticized the project after it was approved in 2013, likening it to a “men’s dorm” owing to the predominance of tech workers drawn to such market rate housing with so many dorm-like studio units.  The ‘men’s dorm’ charge rankled conservative Emeryville business advocate and Tattler hater Rob Arias, to such an extent, he publicly accused Brian Donahue, the editor of the Tattler of being the Emeryville arsonist at a police press conference in 2017 after the second Maz blaze.
The fact that the Maz project will now be for the exclusive use of UC Berkeley students and is therefore actually a dormitory, is merely a coincidence and the Tattler makes no claim of extraordinary prescience when we called it a dorm in 2013.

E'Ville Eye Editor Says Emeryville Has Criminally Attacked Free Press

E'Ville Eye Tantrum:

News Blog Editor Calls $2000 Gift From the City Too Little, "An Attack on a Free Press"

Rob Arias Resigns From City's Bike Committee 
in Protest

Calls City Council "Criminal", "Unethical"

The Emeryville City Council recently approved a gift of $2000 from the City’s Community Grant Program for this year to the Emeryville Historical Society, an amount that business advocate, local news blogger and Society member Rob Arias says is less than what they had asked for and further, that amount is so little that it constitutes a criminal act of biased retaliation against him he said.  Mr Arias, the editor of the conservative Emeryville centric pro-business blog The E’Ville Eye said in a sharply worded letter to the Council the paltry $2000 subsidy of taxpayer funds granted to his Historical Society group, is so miserly, that it is “biased” and amounts to a “criminal retaliation against a free press”, referring to the fact that he is editor of that news blog.

Editor and Former
Bike Committee Member
Rob Arias
Says the City's $2000 grant is a
"criminal attack on a free press".
He quit his Bike Committee
position in protest. 

An anguished Mr Arias, who in addition to being a Historical Society member, renders services to the group and stands to materially benefit from the City’s largess, told the Council in the rambling and pointed May 6th letter that Emeryville is no longer “worthy of his efforts” and that he is quitting his position “effective immediately” as a member of the Pedestrian/Bike Committee in protest.  The Historical Society had requested a community grant of $7150 for this year.

The Society reported to the Council at the April 16th meeting that they wish to digitize their private collection of some 1000 photos and any subsidy from the City to the group would primarily be used for that endeavor.  The Society, which has no public access address but holds its archive of photos in the home of a founding member who lives in Oakland, said the pictures, once digitized, would be available for viewing online. The group maintained their right to keep the photos as their private property.  The online public presumably would need permission to reproduce the images and pay a fee to do so.  Mayor Ally Medina concurred, telling the audience, “The community doesn’t own these photos once they’re digitized.”  The online photos available for single use viewing would likely have a standard overlay stamp claiming ownership rights.
Regardless of the Oakland address of the photo collection, the Society listed the Emeryville home address of Rob Arias as their place of business for purposes of their grant application.

The City Council, who yearly grants money to groups they believe do valuable work in the interests of the community, gave a total of $73,500 this year to 11 groups such as Head Over Heels gymnasium, Friends of the Golden Gate Library and California Poets in the Schools.  Most, but not all of the groups on the list received the amount they asked for in their respective grant applications.

Reviewing the Historical Society’s request for $7,150, the City Council took issue with the amount of money the group said it would cost to digitize 1000 photos.  Mayor Medina said she checked industry standard pricing for digitizing and reported that the amount cited in their grant application as too high, “Far, far over anything I could find online” she said.

Perhaps the most surprising allegation in the Arias letter is the charge he leveled at the Council as being “out of step with the desires of the community.”  Long time Tattler readers will recognize the irony in that statement.  We have long chronicled the history of Mr Arias’s political editorializing in Emeryville and have noted that in every ballot initiative, measure plebiscite and race for elected office that has come before Emeryville voters over the years, Rob has always backed the losing side.  Not once has he endorsed the winner, making his claim to know the desires of the people of Emeryville a stretch.

City Hall’s lack of full funding to the Emeryville Historical Society’s request has brought out some overwrought if baffling charges in Mr Arias’s missive. Citing the $2000 endowment as a slap in the face, he’s making it out as a City Council crusade against the community and him personally, a “vindictive” attack on “working families” in Emeryville he says.  His letter calls out Council members Christian Patz and Dianne Martinez as “unethical”, projecting their vote to give his group less money then he asked for as “petty and vindictive”.  He added that he believes Mayor Medina is complicit in the Council's scheme to inadequately fund the Historical Society, equating her silence on the issue as an act of “cowardice”.

$2000 is not enough!

Below is the full text of the Rob Arias resignation letter:

May 6th, 2019
Marcy Greenhut - City of Emeryville Environmental Programs Technician
and Committee Secretary
1333 Park Avenue Emeryville, CA 94608

City of Emeryville Staff and Council,
Please accept this letter as notice that I will be resigning from the
Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee effective immediately.
I've enjoyed my time on the BPAC and have developed camaraderie with
many of its members. While I fell short of my personal goals of
improving pedestrian access in my own neighborhood including obtaining
sidewalks on the strip of Hubbard b/t Park & 40th and improving
thoroughfare on Halleck, I felt I made a meaningful contribution to
the city's efforts to be more bike/ped friendly. I'm especially
satisfied with the walking tours I contributed to including the
sponsorship of the 2018 post-ride happy hour at Rudy's where I spent
$250 of my own money.
I'm a 15 year resident with a long track record of advocacy for the
residents and small businesses within our city. I've served on panels,
graduated from EPD's Citizens' Academy and serve on the nonprofit
board of our city-run daycare ECDC. I'm the neighborhood captain for
the annual National Night Out event and created Emeryville's only news
website The E'ville Eye that keeps citizens informed on important
issues. Recently, I turned my efforts toward the preservation of our
city's unique history through my involvement with The Emeryville
Historical Society. I've devoted my personal time to helping modernize
their platform, fundraising and achieving nonprofit status.
Unfortunately, what I witnessed at the April 16th City Council meeting
contradicts everything I hold dear about this city and is out of step
with the desires of our community. For the second straight year, the
Historical Society was recommended for a community grant by a
subcommittee. For the second straight year, the grant was subjected to
unparalleled scrutiny and denied the grant as requested. This is more
than a coincidence. This is bias. This is retaliation against a free
press. This is criminal.
Councilmembers Patz and Martinez' pettiness, lack of ethics and
vindictiveness toward working families and members of our senior
community is deplorable. Mayor Medina's silence is cowardice and
complicity. Any body that ignores the bias that was exhibited and
blatant to everyone in the room that day should be ashamed.
There are many great causes worthy of my personal time and dedication.
If this is the behavior I should expect from those that purport to be
leaders in our community, then this city is not worthy of my efforts.

-Robert Arias

Mayor John Bauters: Democratic Ideals Mix With Good Public Policy

A Mayor of Consequence

Mr Bauters Finishes a Year of Competence 

News Analysis/Opinion
It's not often the Tattler mentions a job well done by Emeryville's politicians- as far the elected's work performance goes, usually no news is good news.  But we're going to make an exception in the case of Mayor John Bauters.  An elected public official who knows the proper role of government mixed with extraordinary political competence has made for that rarest alignment of political stars: a democratic government that reflects with fidelity the desires of the citizenry.

As he rotates back to the City Council sidelines, Councilwoman Ally Medina now taking the role of mayor for the next year, we pause to look back at a year in Emeryville with Mayor Bauters in charge.

Emeryville Mayor
John Bauters

Mr Bauters sees a central role of government as attenuating the growing rift of inequality in our riven society.  And the most important things he accomplished as mayor were designed with that in mind; things like the introduction and shepherding of Emeryville's landmark $50 million affordable housing bond known as Measure C and the daunting but critically needed work of ameliorating homelessness in our community (please see the video below).
In addition, Mr Bauters made community values affirmation central to the bi-monthly assemblies of the citizens, the gripefests also known as City Council meetings, in the form of uplifting 'Community Celebrations'.  These celebratory acknowledgments of the civically virtuous in our town, be they the best of the LGBT community, the African American community, girls in the community or simple citizens officially highlighted before each Council meeting for whom community means a selflessness in giving back, have served to offer to us all realization in the proper role of government.  City Hall, Mr Bauters reminds us, is not here just to fix potholes but to help bind us together into a cohesive community.
Further, Mayor Bauters has kept his focus on budgetary concerns like the payment of an additional $4 million towards liabilities on his watch, saving the taxpayers some $11 million in interest.  He has also reached out to small businesses with a listening series of well attended quarterly town hall events meant to mollify their concerns.

As with any politician of consequence, Mayor Bauters took his share of knocks from the critics for his bold moves on behalf of the community.  He has taken on the label 'progressive' proudly and it has earned him the enmity of the right wing in Emeryville.   The editor of the pro-business blog the E'Ville Eye, Rob Arias has practically made taking down John Bauters a personal crusade.  One only needs to peruse the cesspool that is Mr Arias' Twitterfeed to get a taste of the villainization of Mr Bauters there.
Rob Arias uses his blog and twitter account to promote disdain for homeless people and disdain for those who would help people trying to afford homes in Emeryville while taking on Emeryville's mayor and champion of those issues...that's something one would expect but over the last year, John has kept his focus on what matters.  We remember an issue not related to public policy while we have watched Mr Arias' slimy spectacle; we remember how Mayor Bauters brought to Emeryville a brave young man from Kentucky.  This young man, a recent valedictorian at his high school, had been refused to give the traditional valedictorian speech to the student body there because his hometown cannot countenance that he is gay and gender non-conforming.  Mr Bauters cleared the way for that speech to be given...here in Emeryville at one of our Community Celebrations.  We can't think of a better way to show who we are as a community.
Our City Hall should be used in this kind of way, the way Mayor Bauters sees it, the way the greater Emeryville community sees it.

E'Ville Eye Editor's Tweet: Council Member & School Board Member Are Illegitimate

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

Emeryville's Disappearing Conservatives

What Happened to Emeryville's Right Wing?

MIA for November's City Council Election

Running for City Council This Time:

Dianne Martinez

Scott Donahue

Ken Bukowski (the populist)

Opinion
Emeryville's political conservatives, those among us with a predisposition towards ameliorating local business and developer interests as their central tenet of governance, have been a shrinking force in our town of late.  As of Friday August 10th at 5:00 pm however it's now undeniable: Emeryville's right wing, formally potent and authoritative, has for all intents and purposes, winked out of existence.
Or at least they've transmogrified into a picayune trifle.
At 5:00, once the City Clerk's office closed, the deadline for filing candidate papers thus passed and with it any hopes for an ascendent Make Emeryville Great Again movement dashed, we became aware the Tories of Emeryville have ceded November's City Council election to the progressive elite.
It's going to be a re-coronation of Councilwoman Dianne Martinez and Councilman Scott Donahue.

A Black Hole Singularity
Right wingers in Emeryville have
passed through the event horizon.

Conservative voters will get to cast a single protest vote in the twofer election; former City Councilman, the deposed but perennial Ken Bukowski has again thrown in his hat so there will be the appearances of democracy at least.
Dianne and Scott have the endorsement from the resident advocacy group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville and as such they will mop the floor with the guileless Ken Bukowski, like they did last time, securing for RULE and all progressive minded Emeryville residents another two years at least, total representational power.

But it is the folding up of the right wing tent we find so astonishing; their collapse being so complete and final.

Those of us who arrived in Emeryville in the early '80's found a vile little place run by the all powerful Emeryville Industries Association and a corrupt Chief of Police propped up with his dirty patronage machine.  It had been a matter-of-fact kleptocracy like that for years but it was soon to morph into the doctrinal neoliberal quagmire embodied by the "reformist" 30 year Councilwoman Nora Davis.  Her chief sycophant, Ken Bukowski joined her on the Council for decades after forming the Chamber of Commerce, the libertarian replacement for the erstwhile clubby Industries Association.
The whole affair seemed unstable in the progressive Bay Area.  We wondered how year after year Emeryville voters, by reinstating the hubristic Nora Davis, her sycophants and her developer friend paymasters,  they seemed to present a perplexing vignette of a little right wing burg surrounded by normal (progressive) people (in Oakland, Berkeley and such).

Perennial Council Candidate
Ken Bukowski
A Councilman in the 1980's,
he's running again this year.
Formerly a Nora Davis sycophant,
Ken's an ideologue turned populist;
 no longer owned by
the right wing.

After a time, stability finally did assert itself.  Reality caught up with Emeryville, as mass numbers of (normal) new people moved into town and asserted their (normal) desires, unconcerned as they were with Ms Davis's insistence developers be coddled and in the face of promises of livability to be achieved after a great tricking down of prosperity from the developers.  The Ancien Régime with its facile and Procrustean allegories was in retrograde, its practitioner/leaders decamping en masse. 
It was in the cusp of the new milieu that RULE and the Tattler were born, representing the new Emeryville; a town like the rest of the Bay Area, shorn of its magical thinking narrative from its right wing high priestess.

So it was to be expected our town would cast off its strange and unsustainable What's-good-for-business-is-good-for-Emeryville ideological overlay.   The change has been underway for some years now, the demise of the Chamber of Commerce coming in 2015.
Even still, we can't imagine our former overlords would be so utterly vanquished.  We're going into an election season with no resistance!  Where did they all go?  For all the efforts of our blogger friend Rob Arias, his villainous right wing tropes offered up to the easily manipulated by his heavily monetized E'Ville Eye, there appears to be nobody home in right wing world Emeryville edition.

It's all so weird.

So it's to be a brave new Emeryville.  Now onward comrades to glorious one party rule, this time from the other side.  What could go wrong with that?

Measure C Beckons Residents to Finally Do Something About Housing

Measure C: A Chance to Finally Do Something Consequential Against the High Cost 

of Housing

The Costs of Doing Nothing Are Too High

Opinion
The Emeryville housing bond initiative known as Measure C is on Tuesday's ballot, giving voters a chance to finally do something about the crazy high cost of housing in our town and deal with its associated problems like chronic homelessness and the displacement of existing but vulnerable renters by helping them buy a home in our community.  Rising housing costs present a problem that has been well described but not adequately dealt with and Measure C puts a solution in our hands rather than simply continuing to trust in market vagaries who's result so far has been the $3600 Emeryville studio apartment owned by foreign investors.  Oops, make that $3700....the rent just went up again.

It's not that we haven't been building housing in Emeryville; our population has doubled in the last ten years.  Over that time we've gone from a city of homeowners to a city of renters as developers keep throwing up apartment buildings as fast as they can, trying to cash in on the high rent bonanza.  But all the harried building hasn't brought down the cost of housing.  In fact, the more housing we build here, the higher the cost of housing becomes, a reverse corollary that turns on its head the old supply and demand saw.  After 20 years building housing at a frenetic pace and with the limited amount of space now available, the sky-high cost of housing in Emeryville is clearly a beast that we, through the private sector, cannot build our way out of moving forward.

It's bad for Emeryville but let's not fool ourselves, the lack of affordable housing is a regional problem and no one thing we do in our little town to address this growing threat, not even the passing of Measure C, the first attempt to deal with it (by plebiscite), will completely solve the problem here.
But make no mistake either, Measure C will go a long way towards solving this existential problem, at least in our little corner of the Bay Area.  And by "a long way" we mean a long way.
This common sense and fair housing solution for Emeryville promises to be a game changer; likely up to at least $300 million spent on our little town to help thwart the seemingly inexorable rise in the cost of housing....that's enough to truly make a difference.  And that's what Measure C is designed to do.

The problems associated with high Bay Area housing costs are hugely complex and the solution can't be facile market dependency; we need a cogent big solution to this big problem.  The critical game changing components of Measure C with its relatively modest $50 million in local bond funding are its attendant State and Federal matching funds, a monster $300-$400 million brick that will bolster the relatively small amount Emeryville property owners are going to kick in.  It's $50 million on steroids, jacked up to as much as $400 million for a 1.2 square mile city.  That's an opportunity we should seize; a chance to face a major problem squarely with a rational solution and a large hammer.

Measure C is a progressive tax.  At $49.12 per $100,000 of assessed property value, a cost born 70% to 80% by businesses in our town, in a town of renters, the average Emeryville resident stands to pay nothing or almost nothing.  Homeowners will pay dependent on when they bought their homes.  Those who have lived here a long time, primarily the elderly, will pay less because the tax is assessed on the value of the property at the time of purchase, not on the current market value.  That means the average homeowner will pay just $10.50 per month.
The business sector picks up 3/4 of the tab for Measure C, taking the pressure off residents.  For instance Pixar/Disney, a miserly multi-billion dollar corporation in our town will pay $10,000 per month, a cost they will not be able to weasel out of as they and other corporations have infamously done with a loophole in Emeryville's business tax.

Another nice benefit of Measure C is that Emeryville will be able to finally clear up its portfolio of blighted and vacant land the City already owns, land set aside by the former Redevelopment Agency for this use.  Taking land acquisition off the table will help deliver more affordable units at a lower building cost.

Measure C is a well written and well conceived solution to this vexing problem and that's why its been endorsed by the Democratic Party of Alameda County, the Sierra Club, the entire Emeryville City Council, the Green Party, Residents for a Livable Emeryville, SEIU Local 1021, the League of Woman Voters and the East Bay Express.  And now to that list add the Emeryville Tattler.

Correction-  Please note, a reader found a misspelled word in the chart below and two mistakes.  See the comments below.

Pixar (and other businesses) will finally pay!
The business community picks up 3/4 of the Measure C tab.  The home-owning elderly in Emeryville like former City Councilwoman Nora Davis, won't have to pay much at all.   
Naysayers representing business interests like local blogger Rob Arias have been railing against it.  But how much does Rob Arias care about Emeryville?  The numbers tell the story: less than $10 per month.