Council Considers 'Fair Work Week/Employee Scheduling' Ordinance

The Emeryville City Council is considering possible legislation supporting regulations regarding employers scheduling of their employees work times at a study session on August 16th.  A new ordinance called the Fair Workweek / Employee Scheduling Ordinance is the intended outcome.  Last spring, the Mayor Dianne Martinez and Council member Ruth Atkin authored an op-ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle on this subject.   We re-post their op-ed here:  

Needed: A Regional Employee Scheduling Law

For low wage retail and service workers at large corporations, there’s no moving forward.

 Do you know what it’s like working long, erratic hours without knowing day to day what your schedule would be?  Some of us do.  If we haven’t worked in low-wage retail or the service sector, we’re lucky that usually our hard work paid off, and we could advance in our careers. 

For low wage retail and service workers at large corporations, there’s no moving forward. When someone has an “I’ll do anything it takes” attitude, they are not rewarded for their labor, their adaptability or their commitment.  Instead, they are often met with the chaos of unpredictable hours. 

When people don’t have stable full-time or even part-time hours, they can’t budget or schedule basic things like child care, doctor visits, classes, family time or self care. 

Take Cinthia, who works for DB Shoes, one of Emeryville’s numerous corporate retail chains.  She works hard to take care of her family, but struggles with not having reliable hours.  She juggles appointments for her younger brother,classes and work.  When we met her, we asked how much sleep she got the previous night.  She said, “Four hours.”

A recent survey conducted by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy and the Center for Popular Democracy found that a staggering 80 percent of retail workers have fluctuating hours from week to week; 68 percent only receive part-time hours; and more than half experience “clopening” shifts — back to back closing then opening a few hours later.

Two out of 3 workers surveyed want more hours but can’t get them.  Fluctuating hours are considered undesirable by many workers.  There are thousands of working people like Cinthia who are run ragged with erratic work schedules that not only have harmful effects on them personally, but on their families and our communities. 

Our cities are built on everyone coming together to create a thriving place where people can live, work and play.  But when people are not earning enough and have erratic schedules, they don’t have time to invest in our community or local businesses.

San Francisco passed a fair workweek policy, putting the Bay Area at the fair workweek movement’s forefront.  Emeryville and San Jose are also considering similar policies to begin to move the entire region toward a more sustainable work model and ensure that people have both higher wages and regular, predictable hours they can count on. 

Some of us take our routines for granted.  We get up, rush to get everyone out the door, work a single job, come home, eat, go to bed. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.  But for too many working people, that kind of stability is a dream.  It shouldn’t be — and we can do something about it. 

Now that we’ve won a $15 minimum wage across California, we know we need to finish the job and ensure working people have hours they can count on.  A regional fair workweek provides hardworking people with the opportunity to work with stable schedules so they can pay the bills, live healthier lives, and contribute more to our communities. 

Dianne Martinez is the mayor of Emeryville.  Ruth Atkin is a member of the Emeryville City Council.

We Beat de Blasio...But Not For Long: NYC Raises Minimum Wage to $15

Right Wing (in Emeryville & Elsewhere) Faces Rising Tide of Concern Over Wealth Inequality

E'Ville Eye/Businesses Argument Fails

News Analysis/Opinion

Progressive
minimum wage law:
She beat...

In 2016, Emeryville's status as highest in the nation minimum wage is being challenged from all sides; after Califonia Governor Jerry Brown announced Monday the entire state will henceforth be a $15 per hour minimum wage zone come 2022, now New York, not to be outdone, announced Thursday is also raising its minimum wage in New York City to $15 but they're instituting theirs in 2018, same as Emeryville.  Additionally, NYC will provide for more guaranteed paid sick days than Emeryville making for a more progressive minimum wage law than Emeryville all in all.
And so the rising tide of rising minimum wages all around us is seen as a boon for wealth equality and a blow to the intransigence of the right wing on its core principle of market piety.

After years of stagnation on the minimum wage nation-wide, Republicans controlling the debate, municipalities and now an entire state are fairly tripping over themselves to raise their lowest wage to $15.  The dramatic turn around represents a rise in general anxiety that's been precipitated by a intractable increase in wealth inequality over the last few decades but really picking up in intensity after the Great Recession.
The trend, as would be expected has been vigorously contested by the right wing around the nation and specifically here in Emeryville.

...him (but only temporarily).

Right Wing Looses Key Arguing Point
The right wing in Emeryville is losing its prime, albeit never cogent arguing point; the simple uniqueness of our Minimum Wage Ordinance serving as a stand in for failure itself.  Our (soon to be former) highest minimum wage in the nation status has been used by its opponents as a straw man argument; something sold as unreasonable and outrageous on its face.  However the new paradigm of $15 minimum wage arising everywhere around us will serve to discredit that argument leaving only the tactic much used by Emeryville's right wing blog, the E'Ville Eye; that being the chalking up each business failure as somehow proof of the destructive effect of raising the minimum wage.  The fact that the minimum wage of every other city around Emeryville will now also be $15 tends to dilute that arguing tactic but also an endless repetition of reporting on new businesses opening as that blog likes to do, will subvert its own ideological goals of keeping the the minimum wage low.  People will find it difficult to see new businesses opening as proof Emeryville's high minimum wage is a failure.

And we all beat this guy
(allied as their ideas are with
the Republican Party).

Emeryville business closings, now reported wall-to-wall and credited with the MWO at the E'Ville Eye, of course leaves out the possibility that businesses come and go in any market, irrespective of any minimum wage law.  As common to zealots everywhere, the E'ville Eye presents a tautology: business failures reported are held up as a straw man proof of its ideological bound worldview but also in the hermetically sealed world at that opinion blog, each new business opening happens in spite of the MWO.  Meanwhile the inconvenient truth as reported on the six month anniversary of the MWO by the Tattler is that business openings are up when compared to the era before the MWO while business closures are actually way down.

As the $15 minimum wage becomes the norm around the country, those tilting at windmills, positing it must be rolled back will be relegated to the status of Birthers and Flat Earthers.

Post Moratorium Debate, a Flawed 'Market Place' Development Moves Towards Approval

Mayor's Secret Plan For Better Housing Gets First Test

News Analysis
A huge residential apartment development proposal is just now rounding the corner in Emeryville, heading into the home stretch, headed for approval at City Hall.  It's the massive multi-phase 'Market Place' project on Shellmound Street with its 456 100% rental residential units, 70,000 square feet of retail and 1345 structured parking spaces.  Being all rental, this housing project is similar to most every other residential development project approved in Emeryville over the last many years.  It's also counter to what Emeryville residents say they want from new housing projects.

What's noteworthy about this project is that it's the first development proposal coming up for approval after a controversial residential building moratorium idea was proposed by the City Council but then rejected by Mayor Ruth Atkin and Councilwoman Nora Davis last February.  The three vote Council majority sought the moratorium to carve out time to strengthen the City's planning documents after so many years of flawed developments approved under the existing documents.  Lacking a four vote super-majority, the moratorium idea failed leaving only Ms Atkin's plan to fix Emeryville's weak planning documents.  However, Mayor Atkin has yet to reveal her plan to fix the problem, tantalizingly offering only "a moratorium is the wrong way to go about doing this".

Artist's Conception: Market Place Development
Featuring lots of deluxe White People.

For their part, developers aren't interested in waiting to hear about the Mayor's plan to stop flawed residential development; they're rapidly moving ahead in Emeryville.
One of the last three major residential developments left in Emeryville (the other two being  at the Sherwin Williams site and the 'Nady' site), the Market Place received approval for the first of its five parcels from the Planning Commission on May 28th.  The remaining four parcels are being presented rapid fire at subsequent meetings for the Planning Commission's approval.

A high density development, the Market Place project has the following characteristics identified by the public as being undesirable for future Emeryville residential development proposals:

• 100% rental, no for sale units
• No affordable units
• Automobile dependent
•  Not family friendly
• No guarantee for locally serving non-formula chain retail
• Exacerbates Emeryville's existing bad ratio of residents per acre of park/open space

The bullet points above are taken from goals highlighted by Emeryville's planning documents.  The Market Place project runs afoul of the following City Hall documents:

• The General Plan
• The Housing Element
• The Family Friendly Design Guidelines

After a 25 year building spree has left only three sites to get housing right in Emeryville, residents know the kind of housing development found in the Market Place proposal is flawed.  A contrite Mayor Atkin assured everyone she agrees the residential development that's been built over the last many years has been flawed.  Regardless of the fact that as a five term Council member, she herself has voted for all that flawed development, Ms Atkin has assured Emeryville residents now she gets it and this time she will deliver a Market Place development in line with what the residents have said they want.  However time is running short for Ms Atkin's plan to take shape and it appears with the vote to approve the first Market Place parcel already having been cast, the Planning Commission is simply doing what it has always done with regard to project approvals.  At this point, Ms Atkin's plan will require the Planning Commission's first vote on the Market Place be overturned.

The Planning Commission will continue to approve the project on a parcel by parcel basis and the City Council will vote on the final development agreement for the Market Place project sometime probably in August.  Watch this space.

President Richard Nixon
In 1968 before the election, Mr Nixon indicated he 
had a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam.  
Strangely, he refused to give details on the plan.  
The war continued on.

Mayor Ruth Atkin
She intimated she also has a secret plan:
 to bring better housing to Emeryville.
Like Nixon, she too has not given any
details for how it will be achieved.  
We hope for the resident's sake, it 
works out better than Nixon's plan.

Emeryville To Have Highest Minimum Wage In The Nation

Last night's Emeryville City Council vote puts Emeryville as the highest minimum wage in the nation (for large businesses) at least for a while.  With the nation-wide 'Fight for $15' campaign, many other cities across the country are also looking to follow Emeryville's lead.  The $14.42 wage set to begin on July 1st will make Emeryville eek up over every other city but likely only for a short while.
From Lift Up the East Bay:

      

Emeryville City Council Votes Unanimously to Raise Minimum Wage to Highest in the Nation

Consensus Among Community, Labor, Small Business, and Government to Lift Low-Wage Workers and Address Income Inequality

BAY AREA, CA – Emeryville legislators voted unanimously to raise its minimum wage to $12.25 with a path to almost $16 by 2019, making it the highest in the nation. Their vote was spurred by consensus for a higher regional minimum wage between residents, workers, faith leaders, and small businesses. In their deliberations, Emeryville Mayor Ruth Atkin and Councilmembers cited the crisis of income inequality as the reason for their decision. The law will go into effect on July 1^st after a final procedural reading of the ordinance on May 19^th.

“With income inequality out of control, we need to lift the floor for low-wage workers so if you work full-time, you don't need public assistance,” said Emeryville Mayor Ruth Atkin. “We have a tempered regional approach and consensus that includes business. This is a policy for the common good.”

The Emeryville ordinance will raise wages for small businesses to $12.25 on July 1, with a path to $15 by 2018. Big box retail stores and other major employers with more than 55 employees like IKEA – which profited $3.7 billion last year – will raise to Emeryville’s living wage of $14.44 on July 1. The two wages will converge in 2019 at an close to $16, and continue upward with annual cost of living increases. All workers will earn 6 to 9 paid sick days as well.

At the Council meeting, roughly 25 members of the public delivered passionate testimony in favor with virtually no vocal opposition. There was clear consensus from workers, small business, faith leaders, and community members that $12.25 would be a fair place to start, helping workers, and beginning to create a regional standard to level the playing field for business.

“I have two jobs to help my mom pay the bills, and it’s hard to pay for transportation to get to school so I can get an education,” said 16-year old Emerald Jenkins, Emeryville Pak ‘n Save worker who gets paid $9 an hour. “It’s just common sense to raise the minimum wage. Not only would I be able to pay the bills, but if I earn more, I spend more, and that helps everybody.”

“Emeryville’s leadership is contributing to the positive tipping point on the minimum wage nationally,” said Jennifer Lin, Deputy Director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. “Two years ago, $15 was unthinkable, but today it’s unstoppable because of the broad consensus we have among workers, community members, faith leaders, small business, and our elected leaders.”

“Our employees are our greatest asset, and If we want to grow our community, we have to make our jobs better jobs,” said Ahna Adair, owner of CommonWealth Micropub in Emeryville and CommonWealth Café and Pub in Oakland. “We’ve done it in Oakland, and the sky hasn’t fallen. We’ve raised our prices 25 cents on a coffee, and I think our customers just perceive it as the new norm.”

Jackie, an Emeryville Starbucks low-wage worker and ACCE member, said in tears, “I can’t afford to live on my own, and have to rely on my sister to get by. I have medical bills that are destroying my credit, and I don’t have enough money to see the doctor. So many of my coworkers are in the same boat.” 

"With the new minimum wage, more workers will be able to live here and support Emeryville’s local businesses," said Judy Timmel, 22-year Emeryville resident and member of Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE). "And if I have to pay a little more in businesses, I don’t mind because I know it’s going to the right place.”

Councilmember Dianne Martinez thanked workers for their moving testimony and said, “If our workers are creative enough to make it on minimum wage, our businesses are creative enough to make it work. We are all going to rise together in Emeryville.”

“We have to move people out of poverty,” said Gary Jimenez, Vice President of SEIU 1021. “We are winning the fight for $15, and the Bay Area is moving to develop the first regional standard in the country for wages and working conditions.”

Emeryville is the latest city in a national movement for $15 that began in the fast food industry across the country. The vote occurred as neighboring Berkeley and Richmond also look to raise their wages. Last November, 82% of Oakland voters and 78% of San Francisco voters approved wage raises to address growing income inequality in the high-cost Bay Area region. Oakland’s $12.25 wage went into effect this past March 2, and San Francisco on May 1.

More than 190,000 workers in Oakland and San Francisco won a raise thanks to the November initiatives. A higher minimum wage in those two cities alone will put $500 million into workers’ pockets, which gets spent in local businesses, growing the economy. More than half of the workers of color in those two cities received a raise.

Lift Up the East Bay is an offshoot of Lift Up Oakland, a coalition of community, labor, faith, and small business organizations established to address income inequality and lift up low-wage workers across the region who are struggling to survive. 82% of Oakland voters supported an Oakland initiative driven by Lift Up Oakland, made up of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), the California Nurses Association, the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), East Bay Organizing Committee (Fast Food Fight for $15), Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), SEIU 1021, SEIU ULTCW, Street Level Health Project, and UNITE HERE 2850. 78% of San Francisco voters supported Proposition J, sponsored by the Campaign for a Fair Economy, made up of SEIU 1021, the San Francisco Labor Council, UNITE HERE Local 2, the California Nurses Association, Jobs with Justice, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), the Progressive Worker Alliance, Chinese Progressive Association, Young Workers United, and SF Rising.

Emeryville City Council Contingent at 'Fight for $15" Rally

4/5ths of Emeryville City Council Fights for Nation-Wide $15 Minimum Wage

Mayor Addresses Large Berkeley Rally

Emeryville Contingent
Left to right: Dianne Martinez, Jac Asher,
Ruth Atkin, Scott Donahue

Today the Mayor of Emeryville led a contingent of four out of the five City Council members to petition for a nationwide $15 minimum wage at a large rally at UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza.  The protest rally, some 1500 strong, was organized by 'Fight For $15', an international activist conglomerate comprised chiefly of fast food workers agitating for $15 minimum wage laws.  Labor Unions joined social activist groups and students at the famous UC Berkeley site of the 1960's Free Speech Movement where Emeryville Mayor Ruth Atkin was the featured kick-off speaker.
Mayor Atkin chronicled Emeryville's recent foray into its own path to $15 minimum wage, noting Emeryville's leadership role.  Many in the crowd seemed to be unaware but pleasantly surprised by Emeryville's new prominent position in labor rights.  It would seem our business friendly reputation may be giving way to a new reputation.

Readers will forgive the first minute or so of Ms Atkin's speech being clipped:

Moratorium Victory Pyrrhic for Developers, Mayor

Onus Now on Developers, Mayor to Deliver on Housing

Family Friendly, Affordable, Ownership Housing

Opinion/News Analysis
Champagne glasses may have been clinking as giddy developers relished their victory in beating back the 45 day residential building moratorium in the Emeryville City Council chambers in a special meeting on the Friday before last.  But as the sun rose Saturday, aching heads from over-imbibing were undoubtedly made worse by the realization that the victory isn't all it seemed to be for developers in Emeryville, indeed theirs is a pyrrhic victory.   Because now they're going to have to deliver their residential development projects to the Council for approval, and they're going to have to impress the new progressive majority...the same three Council members that said YES to the moratorium.

Mayor Ruth Atkin
in Hot Seat
We're going to deliver
affordable family friendly
housing MY way, the
empower developers way
(strange it hasn't
worked up 'til now).

The developers have a little 3-2 problem;  Asher, Martinez, Donahue versus Atkin, Davis.  That's the new guard versus the old guard.  It's a problem for them because while a 4-1 super majority is needed for a building moratorium, to approve a specific development proposal, there needs only to be a simple majority.

Councilwoman Jac Asher got it right when she said from the dais, developers themselves would benefit from a moratorium.  The new majority is big on planning in our city and they intend on updating City Hall's regulations to make them comport with planning documents (and the resident's values).  A moratorium would have provided time and a space to do that.  Developers would have benefited because they would have known ahead of time, how to craft a project that would stand a chance of being approved by the new majority.  Now, they have no idea and onward they're going to march forward with project proposals that will not be approved, wasting their time and money.

Generally, it's a good idea to work with and co-operate with the people that lord power over you.  That's a lesson Emeryville developers are going to have to learn the hard way.

Build Our Way To Cheap Rent?
Integrity is not big with developers.  They lashed out at the moratorium with a disjointed and absurd idea; planning is not needed or even wanted they say because if a town plans how to develop, that will drive up rents.  Emeryville is in no position to get what it wants because the town's hands are tied; developers must be put in charge to keep rents low.  Not mentioned by them is the fact that they keep building luxury apartments (because that's how they maximize profits) and rents will not be lowered this way.  In fact rents will be pushed up around town.  Also not mentioned is why this deregulation idea of theirs has delivered precisely what they now say is no good; high rents (and lack of family housing).  This argument of theirs is just more lies on their part and those citizens who spoke out, forwarding the bogus low rent meme, are tools for this shameless developer money grab.

Mayor Atkin In The Hot Seat
The Mayor, Ruth Atkin, who threw in with the developers with her vote (as did developer's perennial favorite Councilwoman Nora Davis) now has a heavy burden to bear.  Having won, she's going to have to make sure her way, the anti-moratorium way, delivers the kind of housing we want and need.  Councilwoman Jac Asher and her colleagues had their idea how to do it but Mayor Atkin shot that down.  Now Ms Aktin is in the hot seat .  Emeryville residents want affordable housing, ownership housing and family friendly housing.  Ruth Atkin now has to see to it it gets done that way.  Ms Atkin, it's worth noting, never explained why her way, the same way we've been developing this town for a generation, hasn't worked up 'til now.  For their part, developers laid it on thick and heavy at the Friday special meeting; they will deliver affordable family friendly housing if only the moratorium is defeated.

"I just think this [the moratorium] is the wrong way to go about doing this" Mayor Atkin said as she killed the moratorium.  Let's see how she does, doing it her way.

City Council to Consider Building Moratorium

Residential Housing Projects May be Put on Hold in Emeryville

Starting Immediately

The Emeryville City Council voted unanimously last night to direct the city staff to craft language to hand down a city-wide residential building moratorium for at least 45 days with provisions to extend that time.  The proposal was initiated by Councilwoman Jac Asher who cited recent resident exasperation at the rapid pace of apartment building in town, saying of the action, "We need to hit the pause button."

The moratorium is being pursued for all aspects of all residential development proposals in the approval process.  Ms Asher said the areas of concern that residents have been vocal about include unit mix, family friendliness, ownership vs rental and out-of-date 'density bonuses' granted to developers that are encoded at City Hall.  The Councilwoman also noted the scale and the speed at which new projects are coming at the Council combined with the sense that the community feels the last parcels of fallow land should be more carefully considered contributed to her decision to call for a moratorium, "If we have anything on our side, it's time" and "People want us to do better" she added.  Mayor Ruth Atkin agreed, postulating, "We're seeing these large projects not meet community needs."

City Attorney Mike Biddle said after 45 days an extension to the moratorium could be granted if certain findings could be made and he said building moratoriums can be extended up to two years maximum.

The Council agreed to vote on the moratorium at a special meeting to be convened on February 13th at 5:00.

City-Wide Minimum Wage is Coming to Emeryville Says Councilman

Emeryville Set to Lead on Minimum Wage

The Emeryville City Council Tuesday night unanimously expressed their desire to explore imposing a city-wide minimum wage ordinance setting the rate at $14.03 per hour possibly as early as July, an eventuality Councilman Scott Donahue chose to clarify today. "City-wide minimum wage is coming to our town and Emeryville's rate should not be less than Oakland's new minimum wage" he said, expelling any notions he would balk at the idea as reported by the East Bay Express last week.
"As long as there's no harm to the workers, I'm amenable to creating a pathway to a $15 per hour minimum wage" the Councilman added.  Oakland's rate approved by their City Council starts at $12.25 effective March 1st but won't hit $15 until sometime after 2021 if at all.

Councilman
Scott Donahue
Wants a path to $15
per hour minimum wage.

Mayor Ruth Atkin proposed the $14.03 city-wide rate Tuesday to match Emeryville's existing 'living wage' ordinance for City employees and City vendors.  The Council agreed in principal to the Mayor's proposal with added worker protections and an annual cost of living increase baked in. They ordered the staff to put together an agenda item to that effect for future consideration.  The $14.03 rate, if implemented this summer, would place Emeryville's minimum wage rate as the highest in the nation, but presumably only for a few years until eclipsed by San Francisco's new law that will set that city's minimum wage at $15 in 2018.  It's now set at $12.25.  Seattle will hit $15 in 2017 for companies with more than 500 employees.  Emeryville would hit $15 per hour at an undisclosed date, depending on increases pegged to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate.

Council member Donahue, reported by the East Bay Express to be the only naysayer among the Emeryville City Council members said he needs to see the studies that show how workers will benefit to be convinced precisely where to set the minimum rate.  The business community's vocal concerns wouldn't be as compelling he said, accepting a rate high enough to possibly drive out some businesses that currently pay poverty wages, "There might be some loss of marginal businesses in town" he noted, "but overall we're looking for a net gain for workers with this".  He added, "We need to find the right balance".

Emeryville Becomes a National Model for Social Justice

Los Angeles Looks to Emeryville

for Inspiration

News Analysis
Ten years ago, two opposing forces in Emeryville began gearing up for an epic battle that would culminate in a November election, testing the voter's will for social justice.  That election battle, Measure C, also known as the 'living wage for Emeryville hotel workers', resulted in the first industry specific minimum wage law in California history.  And it's been hugely influential as municipalities across the West Coast and the Nation start looking to Emeryville's lead.
After two unsuccessful lawsuits were brought challenging the new law, Measure C has moved on, as it was designed to, providing Emeryville hotel housekeepers with significant wage increases and other benefits while also serving as impetuous for similar such laws protecting hotel workers in other cities such as Long Beach in 2012 and Los Angeles in 2014.  Seattle and nearby Sea Tac Washington used the Long Beach and Los Angeles law as a model for their respective city-wide minimum wage laws recently passed.

EBASE's
Jennifer Lin
"Emeryville has
been very
influential."

Measure C comports Emeryville's values but it also has shown the Nation as a whole how cities can serve as loci for their community's values.
"Other cities are looking at what happened in Emeryville, with increased worker wages that ripple to the rest of the economy" said Jennifer Lin, Deputy Director at East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), a local community organization working for economic justice issues for working families, "Emeryville's been very influential" she added.  EBASE's efforts and the efforts of UNITE HERE-Local 2850 in 2005 were essential to getting Measure C before Emeryville voters.
Ms Lin noted that Emeryville, despite its small size, shines as an inspiration to other, larger cities, "Living wages for hotel workers caught on with other cities...they took the Emeryville model and scaled it up" she said.

This is What Democracy Looks Like
Post Measure C Victory: Woodfin fight 
The battle at the ballot box was only the first; one
law breaking hotel sought to subvert Emeryville
voter's will.  Near daily protests were conducted
 at the Woodfin Suites Hotel.

An easy win at the ballot box for Measure C belied the opposition's tenacity and apocalyptic rhetoric.  The fight for the Measure was fierce and battle lines were drawn, with nine out of ten elected officials in Emeryville warning of a massive economic calamity if the Measure were to pass.  Residents weren't impressed with that argument and Measure C won with 54% of the vote despite a mountain of cash thrown at it from the NO side to see it defeated.  Living wages are very popular with Emeryville residents we've found out.

The NO on Measure C side called itself the "Committee to Keep Tax Dollars in Emeryville" (as in; hotels will flee Emeryville if this passes) raised and spent $115,000, a huge amount for an Emeryville election ($110 for each NO vote as it turned out).  The funding came almost entirely from the hotels and the Chamber of Commerce, who put up everything they had against the ordinance.  Residents were told the sky would fall if Measure C passed; the Emeryville hospitality industry would be wiped out, sending the town's finances into a tailspin they said.  'It's not for a lack of caring, everyone wants higher pay for the working poor but we have to be realistic', the voters were told.
In fact the opposite has occurred over the proceeding ten years; all the hotels from 2005 (except Woodfin was bought out by Hyatt) are still here and a new hotel has even been approved.  The number of Emeryville hotels has gone from four to five since Measure C passed.

John Gooding
He consolidated the
Power Elite in town.
Hotels will leave
Emeryville en masse
if Measure C is passed,
all will be lost!

As the people voted YES on the living wage ordinance, virtually the entire Emeryville Power Elite rallied against it.
Emeryville political power broker and business lobbyist John Gooding took a leadership role in attempting to defeat Measure C.  Mr Gooding joined with the Chamber of Commerce and convinced the entire Emeryville City Council (save Ruth Atkin) to sign their names to the NO side as well as the entire Planning Commission and the entire School Board.

2005 was also a City Council election year and candidates Dick Kassis (incumbent) and his slate mate, Ed Treuting  both conspicuously ran on an anti-Measure C platform while challenger John Fricke endorsed Measure C as part of his platform.  Some election watchers claim that support for a living wage is what gave Mr Fricke the edge he needed to decisively win his election bid as he did.
The debate was heated and Councilwoman Nora Davis went as far as calling Emeryville residents that spoke out in favor of Measure C "dupes for EBASE", a charge she may have wished to take back after the 54% of Emeryville residents said YES to living wages for our town.

Emeryville's Influence:
Less this...

Measure C delivered the goods: In the first five years there were $1.168 million in wage increases for the workers according to a study conducted by EBASE.  Many workers were able to survive on their own and support their families without government assistance after the Measure C passage while the hotels were found to have their costs increase less than 2%.  Many workers got pay increases of up to $5 per hour, translating into an extra $5000 per year to help families make ends meet. Over 100 workers were helped in the new law's first year alone.

...more this.

It's ironic that the politicians at Emeryville City Hall and at the Emery Unified School District, the same bodies that railed against Measure C in 2005 have long boasted about how Emeryville is becoming a national model.  It is clear they are correct, but not in the way they think.  Emeryville's influence is not being felt in terms of schools as community centers as a result of the construction of the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life as these people would have you believe but rather in labor relations, social justice and the rise of minimum wage law.

As the 10 year anniversary approaches, Emeryville residents would be excused if they felt a little civic pride in the prescience of our very influential landmark minimum wage ordinance: Measure C.
We rock (editorial).

Living Wages for Hotel Workers Started in Emeryville

Now it's Taking Off Everywhere

Here's a source of real Emeryville civic pride: After retaliatory firing of workers, 

the workers successfully forced the Woodfin Suites Hotel to pay their back wages as 

mandated by Measure C.  After the Emeryville Power Elite including the City Council, 

lost their battle against Measure C at the ballot box, City Hall implemented the 

new law, forcing the Woodfin fight.
Wage increases for the working poor among us is the will of the people of Emeryville.

Horton Street Bike Blvd: Brinkman, Davis say NO

After Nine Years Planning,

After Countless Volunteer Hours,

After Countless Paid Staff Hours,

After Voting $200,000 for the Bike Plan,

Then

After Certifying the Finished Plan,

Now

Nora Davis & Kurt Brinkman 

Call Bike Plan 'Unrealistic'

"We're going to make people ride a bike?"

-Nora  Davis

Opinion
Council members Nora Davis & Kurt Brinkman told residents they don't understand Emeryville's Bike Plan Tuesday night, the same plan they themselves voted for in 2012 and then they said the Plan doesn't sound any good.  And then they both voted NO to its implementation.  It was an astonishing Council meeting drama even though ultimately the Plan's implementation was agreed upon by the other three Council members.  The two Council members said the Horton Street Bike Boulevard, a part of the Plan and the object of Tuesday's vote, is not something they can now support even though no new information about it had come to light.  No hidden traps or obscured pitfalls or lurking poison pills have been revealed about the planned Horton Street Bike Boulevard by the staff.  The only change that was revealed was Nora Davis & Kurt Brinkman's change of heart right at the moment of implementation.

The NO vote by these two was nine years in the making but if it were in the works all that time, they kept it to themselves.   Still, they offered no reasons for their reversal on Horton Street the two have ostensibly supported for the last nine years.

Horton St Bike Blvd: Hand Finally Forced
The sudden reversal is remarkable given that the two Council members have been moving this Horton Street bike project forward by asking for more time to study it over the years then voting to spend $200,000 of the taxpayers dollars to prepare a Plan drafted by Berkeley's Alta Planning.  The two Council members (and their colleagues) urged on the City Staff to spend lots of billable hours on the Horton Street Bike Boulevard, figuring out precisely how to implement it, studying its implications.  Hundreds of hours in citizen volunteer time was brought to bear on the formulation of the Plan in general and Horton Street specifically by the City's Bike Committee at the behest of Ms Davis and Mr Brinkman.  By Tuesday, the two Council members had run out of stalling options.  The Council had to finally vote to implement required traffic calming measures for the street as called for in the Plan they certified in 2013.
And they both voted NO, feigning ignorance about what they were voting on and implying the Plan is somehow too radical and extreme.

Councilwoman Nora Davis
"I'm confused about what
we're doing.
We're going to make people
ride a bike?"

Agenda Revealed
The clownish theatrics of Davis/Brinkman Tuesday night was a ploy. We think these two cowardly Council members never had any intention of allowing a bike boulevard for Horton Street and they've just been stalling for time all these years hoping for a three vote majority to finally kill it in the end.  Indeed, they both expressed desire to stall the vote again on Tuesday, citing need to continue studying the Plan.  But the other Council members finally had heard enough apparently and the latest iteration of the Davis/Brinkman stalling gambit was overridden.

The business sector, the self admitted raison d'etre for Davis & Brinkam have kept up a constant background chorus against the Horton Street Bike Boulevard especially Wareham Development and the two faithful servants have done their best to forward business interests but in the end, they simply ran out the clock.

Council Candidate
John Bauters
"We have to be practical."
Emeryville is a shopping 
and jobs center and the 
Horton Street Bike Blvd 
isn't compatible he says.
Too bad for him the in-commuting 
workers and shoppers aren't 
allowed to vote in our elections.

Perhaps as a demonstration meant to show Emeryville residents how close was the bullet dodged in the last election when they rejected him, recent Council hopeful John Bauters put in his two cents calling for "realism"in the Horton Street Bike Boulevard debate.  He went on to explain that the Bike Plan provisions for reducing traffic volume on Horton Street should be rescinded. Throwing in with the Chamber of Commerce and outgoing Councilman Kurt Brinkman, Mr Bauters reminded the Council that people come to Emeryville to jobs and to shop and that's who we need to build our city for, not the residents.  He noted Horton Street should be kept clear for cut-through traffic for shoppers wanting to bypass more crowded streets.  He spoke to the need to increase the efficiency of vehicle traffic, not to decrease it as a bike boulevard would do.  There's already lot's of traffic he said and these workers and shoppers have a "patience threshold" and any increase in the frustration of drivers is unwarranted.  "We'd like people to ride bicycles but we have to be practical" he said.

We thank Councilwoman Ruth Atkin for sticking by her campaign pledge to improve biking in Emeryville and serving as the swing vote on the side of bicycling in our town.  And good governance.

The horribly cynical vote by the Binkman & Davis duo though is a fitting last tribute to the dark force that is Kurt Brinkman on our City Council.  After nine years, as Mr Brinkman readies his departure in December, we are relieved the reign of this dark force on our Council is finally coming to an end.  Going forward, we urge Councilwoman Davis, left without a second, to get with the program.  Emeryville residents want safe bicycling here.  They want the Horton Street Bike Boulevard.  They should have what they want.  They're going to get it despite the nine years of procrastinating by their decision makers.  Justice delayed is justice denied but at least we're finally going to have justice.  As Councilwoman Jennifer West indicated Tuesday night, it's time to finally get moving on the Horton Street Bike Boulevard.

3900 Adeline Crumbles: Profits Stronger Than Brick Walls

Emeryville's Weak General Plan Can't Withstand Developer's Desires

Opinion
Emeryville's old General Plan recognized the town's formerly extensive portfolio of vernacular historic buildings should not be torn down but instead they should be saved and rehabilitated.  That old plan was replaced with our new plan a few years ago.  The new plan cost us four million dollars and allowed for, among other things, much denser development.  But one thing that didn't change was the call to save Emeryville's significant historic buildings.  The new General Plan qualifies how historic buildings are valuable enough to be left intact.  It's very unequivocal on this.  So unassailable is this seemingly abstract concept in our General Plan, the scale is quantified to individual buildings.  Each individual building is specifically listed, deemed historically and/or architecturally significant.
So bestowed was the recently torn down 3900 Adeline Street; after a multi-year Dresden like campaign of building demolition in town, it was one of Emeryville's last buildings determined to be both architecturally and historically significant.

3900 Adeline Street last week
"architecturally & historically significant"

The building that graced the corner of Adeline and 39th Street for more than a century helped Emeryville create an authentic sense of place.  And that's no small thing; combined with all the other historic and vernacular buildings torn down being replaced with buildings that don't reference place, the town we're re-imagining here could be anywhere...how about Fresno?
If we value community here in Emeryville, this pogrom of historic building destruction is a funny way to show it.

This save-our-heritage sentiment isn't just our opinion.  It's the people of Emeryville that want to save these old buildings.  Our new General Plan, so clear on the fate of 3900 Adeline (and the others) was actually written by the residents themselves.   So many citizens helped formulate the Plan, it received an award for democratic vetting: more than 25% of our citizens took part in the numerous General Plan scoping meetings, a California record for a town our size.

John Protopappas CEO
 Madison Park Financial
Their ironic slogan:
"Commitment to Community".
We're supposed to lose our soul 
because he needs Corinthian leather 
in his Mercedes.

3900 Adeline Street was a building that the people of Emeryville wanted to save.  But there was an emergency.  There was a force bigger than the people of Emeryville loose in our town.   Madison Park, an out-of-town development corporation desperately needs to increase its profits.  And they looked to Emeryville for their fix.  They didn't see any value in the 3900 Adeline Street building.  All they saw was potential profit.  And that's all that's needed for our City Council majority to give the green light for the wreaking crew.  This developer, John Protopappas, CEO of Madison Park Financial, realized he could make a buch of money if he tore down the building and built another 100% rental residential tower filled with studios and one bedroom apartments on the site.  The Council he figured would be push overs, given their reputation.

Push overs they are and the City of Emeryville will not ever make a dime off this transformation; our coffers will not benefit but Mr Protopappas sure will.  The residents will gain lot's more traffic generated by the drive-in drive-out tower and lose something we're clamoring for; an authentic sense of place, the same thing our General Plan says is essential for a livable town.

It's absurd.  The majority of the people of Emeryville can't seem to get their wishes met.  Those who might have looked to our General Plan for protection have been repudiated.  Our General Plan is a weak and pathetic thing.  It's been shown to really only exist to lend a sense of legitimacy for City Hall as it comports among real cities.  A four million dollar document merely to give the impression that Emeryville is a real town..."General Plan?  yeah, we got one of those..."

The will of the people of Emeryville is only as strong as the capricious whims of three Council members who feel developer's pain as it turns out. Our General Plan isn't as strong as these Council members default position to help out their developer friends who's bank accounts are wanting.
The only thing that will change this terrible exigency is to change the Council majority.  November looms....

"We feel...

Madison Park's...

pain".

Emeryville, we've got your General Plan right here.

3900 Adeline Street this week
Here's what we think of "architecturally and historically significant".

Loan Scandal Elevates Mayor's, Councilwoman's Star

Profiles in Courage

Jac Asher & Jennifer West Emerge from Scandal as Heros

Opinion
What kind of town is it where politicians need to be thanked simply for doing their job?   It's Emeryville; sadly, our kind of town.

So let's get to it.
We thank Mayor Jac Asher and Councilwoman Jennifer West for disregarding the advise of the staff and their colleagues on the Council when the two voted NO to giving a gift of $6 million in public funds to Mall developer Madison Marquette last year, a story of City Hall ineptitude that's recently been highlighted as egregious in a report by the independent Alameda County Grand Jury.
The courageous two councilwomen come out smelling like a rose in the report.  Their colleagues, the other three?  Not so much.  To be less obtuse, they came out smelling like something, just not roses.

"Vote for me and I'll look
 out for your interests"
So we did.  
And so she did.

Why was the vote courageous? Because the two council members risked scorn and repudiation for their vote.
We've seen it before, especially from Council members Nora Davis and Kurt Brinkman: 'Ms Asher and West are filled with hubris, acting as if they are more enlightened and knowledgeable then our professional staff.'  Stuff like that.  But guess what?  They ARE more enlightened and knowledgeable, and their vote against this deal, a deal the Grand Jury called a "failure" of the decision makers to "fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to the citizenry",  proves it so.
This Grand Jury report, read by people and institutions all over the East Bay is an embarrassment for the City of Emeryville.  It's a civic embarrassment Ms Asher and West heroically sought to avoid with their vote.  They should be thanked...but not by us; instead it should come from those now with egg on their faces at City Hall.  Something tells us it's not going to work out that way however.

A fan of democracy,
transparency and
effective government
she.

There's been a twenty five year pro-developer juggernaut at Emeryville City Hall.  Notice how we say "developer" and not "development".  Because that's the ideological modus operandi that drives the council majority.  It's not that they simply want to facilitate development, it's more critically that they want to help developers...certain favored developers.  In this case Madison Marquette, the same developer they bent over backwards for to help secure free exclusive rights to the fallow land north of the Bay Street mall for almost ten years, a case wherein Emeryville residents ultimately lost everything after Madison got off the pot after not having shat.
In a rare moment of forthright brevity by a staff member, the E'Ville Eye blog recorded former City Manager Pat O'Keeffe admitting this specific general affection for developers he (and the Council majority) has; "pro developer" he called it.

Aside from a few such rare moments of cats being let out of bags at City Hall, the Grand Jury's dispassionate and apolitical take on this rotten deal, happily accommodated by the pro-developer 'council three', should serve as an irrefutable spotlight to those who still doubt the real nature of the culture here in Emeryville.  Plenty have long harped on this issue, including the Tattler, and it's validating and empowering to see such a venerable and respected outside group such as the Alameda Grand Jury agree with us.

The question now is what is to be done with this?  Having found malfeasance but no evidence of overt criminal activity in the case of the Madison Marquette Council vote, it's something the residents themselves will have to decide, possibly in the voting booth or before.

But in the meantime, again, thanks be to Jac Asher and Jennifer West.  They told us they would look out after our interests if we elected them to the City Council, and that's what they've done.  It may be a sad commentary on the state of Emeryville politics to have to say it but thanks for doing your job, you two.