School District to Open City Dump?

A Robust Idea

Opinion
In a bold maneuver apparently designed to respond to critics of the planned Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL), the Tattler has learned that the School District has scrapped its plans for the ECCL and now intends to place a City Dump on the San Pablo Avenue site instead.

In anticipation of the new development, local residents have already joined the District in dumping their trash at the new site, as pictured below:

Future site of the Emeryville Center of Community Life as seen in May 2013.

The Tattler first brought you the story of the lingering presence of discarded toilets on School District property on April 25th, by which time the District's rubbish pile had already been in place for many weeks. Blight begets blight, as they say, and now weeks later with the District's trash still in place it seems others have seen the wisdom in the School District's vision for a grand entry-way into our City on the corner of 53rd Street and San Pablo Avenue. Perhaps there could be a community dump-naming contest!  We submit the "Emeryville Center for Community Trash."

In times like these it would be nice to have a Community Preservation Officer one could contact with concerns about compliance with municipal regulations concerning blight, but in the last round of budget decisions our City Council thought it wise to fire our long-serving Community Preservation Officer. They obviously could see no work for her to do. It's another fine example of the partnership between our City and School District. Perhaps they can get together to have a private "robust policy discussion" about the wisdom of this new dumping ground.