Daily Cal: Mayor's Car Broken Into

From the Daily Cal:

Emeryville mayor’s car broken into

BY SARA GROSSMAN | SENIOR STAFF

Emeryville mayor Kurt Brinkman found himself in an all-too-familiar situation for many UC Berkeley students when his car was broken into Tuesday morning and his iPhone stolen.

Brinkman said he was grabbing a coffee at Peet’s in the Emeryville Public Market when he realized his car had been broken into. He said he parked where he did because it was in the view of a surveillance camera.

He was dismayed, however, to learn that the camera was out of order and hadn’t been working for the past week.

“It’s very upsetting that one, you have a camera, and two, the camera doesn’t work,” he said in a phone interview Friday.

Brinkman said he has filed a report with police, but there are no leads.

Automobile break-ins are the second-most-common crime in Berkeley. Some 99 incidents of car break-ins and thefts were reported in the city last year, according to information from the ASUC Office of the External Affairs Vice President.

Brinkman’s advice?

“Don’t leave anything exposed,” he said. “It’s probably the most important thing you can do.”

Sara Grossman is the executive news editor. Contact her at sgrossman@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @saragrossman.

City Manager Responds to Call For More Transparency, Accessibility

The Tattler threw down the gauntlet, the City Manger has responded and change is coming to Emeryville.

In a move perhaps meant to separate herself from her predecessors, Emeryville's new City Manager, Sabrina Landreth indicated to the Tattler she thinks City Hall transparency and better citizen accessibility to their government "is a good idea" and she is "very open" to the idea that ordinary citizens should be able to meet with her in her office at a to-be-determined regularly scheduled time, "be they groups or individuals."
 The Tattler had suggested a good time to regularly schedule such on-going public meetings would be Monday mornings at 9:00, the same time slot her predecessors Emeryville City Managers John Flores and Pat O'Keeffe met for more than 10 years with a private citizen representing business interests.  Those hundreds of meetings, reflective of Emeryville's business friendly legacy, were conducted behind closed doors, the public was never appraised of the content of discussions held there.

Ms Landreth noted the specific 9:00 am time slot might not be possible but she was not against the idea of it.  She promised to set up this on-going open door office visiting time for ordinary non-politically connected citizens although she has not yet had the opportunity to do so, "I don't have the exact date yet but this will be forthcoming" she said.

Planning Commission OKs Center for 'Community' Life, Bike/Pedestrian Path Removed

Commission Says 'NO' to ECCL Path

Tonight the Emeryville Planning Commission reversed an earlier vote and OK'ed the contentious Center of 'Community' Life without an adjoining required bicycle/pedestrian path that they had called a 'deal breaker' only last month.  The split vote 3-2 (Vanessa Kuemmerle and Steven Steinberg dissenting) came after the School District made a presentation meant to address the Commission's earlier concerns about the path, the future 53rd Street Greenway and the 'community commons' at the site.  Commissioner John Scheuerman praised the new plan tonight, without the ECCL path in it, calling the slight modifications to the Greenway and the community commons made by the School District "much improved",  even though in July he joined the majority and castigated the District and voted down the plan because it did not provide the path.

Most of the controversy among the Commissioners tonight settled around the District's continuing refusal to build the ECCL path.  Commissioner Scheuerman seemed to hold out hope that someday the path could be built somehow but Chair Kuemmerle disagreed, "If it's not done now it will not get built" she said.  Commissioner Steinberg agreed with Ms Kuemmerle stating flatly, "We should do [the bike/ped path] now.  It's an amenity everyone wants."

District architect Mark Seiberlich told the Commissioners that an existing concrete wall in the way of the ECCL path will have to be seismically strenghtened for safety and money spent on that now would be wasted if the path is ever built at some future date.  No one from the District told the Commissioners how much money would need to be spent strengthening the existing wall.

Commissioner John Scheuerman
The ECCL Bike/Ped path
can happen somehow,
 someday, just not now.
"Maybe we can get a grant"

he said.

At the onset of the meeting, Charlie Bryant, Emeryville's Planning Director announced that the City had received an award from the State of California for the City's new forward thinking Pedestrian Bicycle Plan, the second award received for the plan so far.  Several attendees and at least one Commissioner noted the irony that as the City of Emeryville starts to reap awards for the new Pedestrian Bike Plan, the City is busy removing bike/ped paths.  If the ECCL path is indeed not built, it will be the second such path removed by the City in recent months.

Commissioner Sean Moss seemed to disagree with his colleague John Scheuerman who stated a wish to someday see a path there.  Mr Moss suggested there is simply not enough space for a bike/ped path on the site now or in the future because it would constrain an existing pool deck he said as he cast the deciding vote, killing the ECCL path.

At an earlier City Council meeting, Council member Jac Asher said the ECCL path should be built now.  Otherwise, she said the ECCL path will not be built for decades because the School District and the City have borrowed the maximum amount of money legally possible and that the school construction bonds Series A through C must be paid back before more can be borrowed to build the path. She noted if not now, it likely will never be built.

The issue of the Center of 'Community' Life now goes before the City Council one last time September 3rd.  The votes tonight could be overturned by the City Council at that time.

City/Schools Committee: Recipe For Disaster

We're in a Set of Pincers

Opinion
The Tattler has previously reported on the cruel irony that Emeryville taxpayers are being forced by the School District to pick up the tab for the major new school rebuild called the Center of 'Community' Life, a project that requires Emeryville to attract many new families with children for its success, while at the same time City Hall has for years been sabotaging any chance for that success by refusing to build housing for families.  It's cruel because of the hoodwinking and fleecing of the taxpayers and because of the short changing of the educational prospects of the children owing to the threatened viability of the schools.  The relationship between the two government agencies, Emeryville City Hall and Emery Unified School District, is dysfunctional yet symbiotic.

But while the Tattler has made much of this twisted relationship that virtually ensures failure of the new schools we're building, a greater overarching irony exists.  The much vaunted City/Schools Committee, a body made up of the City Council and the School Board members and set up by both elected bodies was specifically started with an eye towards avoiding problems like this from happening.  The idea of Emeryville's City/Schools Committee is to work collaboratively to avoid the sorts of problems that one would expect to arise when a complex project is undertaken jointly by two agencies traditionally separated by state law.

Most municipalities it should be noted don't have city/schools committees, mostly because of the state mandated firewall that is supposed to separate these two government agencies.  Emeryville is unusual in this regard.  Over the years elected officials here have made much of the close relationship between the Council and the School Board embodied by the Committee, touting its many supposed apparent virtues. The Tattler however has cautioned against the School Board cozying up to the Council by way of this Committee, pointing out a dangerous lack of independence for the School Board this relationship has brought.

But the problem here stems from the simple fact that the City Council majority is incapable of dropping its self imposed program to let developers call the shots in Emeryville, and as a direct result virtually no affordable family friendly housing has been built here in more than fifteen years.  Over those fifteen years, Emeryville's single and married without children population skyrocketed but the town actually lost families.  What we have built is a reputation for being friendly to developers, a quality proudly proclaimed by Emeryville's former City Manager Pat O'Keeffe, drawing criticism from city planners around the Bay Area.  In fact, city planners and even some council members themselves have called Emeryville's earlier decade of building nothing but lofts 'reckless' and 'irresponsible'.

Too Late
The legacy of using Emeryville's former Redevelopment Agency to partner with developers to build zero affordable family housing during the pre-recession housing building boom, a shocker ignored by the City /Schools Committee, now virtually guarantees failure of the Center of 'Community' Life.   And without the prodigious resources of the Redevelopment Agency, very little housing will be built going forward.  The little that is built will be done by the developers themselves, leaving City Hall pretty much out of the loop.  The time to have built affordable family friendly housing was when the Redevelopment Agency was extant.

How could the City/Schools Committee have gotten it so wrong?  It's a great irony, the city that proudly innovates and brings together two separate governmental agencies to work together for a common goal by forming the City/Schools Committee is the same city that has failed miserably at that goal.  For us, the residents, it's as if we were placed in a pincers of dysfunctional government; one side making us pay and the other ensuring failure.

Emeryville Can't Have What Berkeley Has

Why Can't We Have What Berkeley Has?

Because We're Emeryville, 

We're Not as Good as Berkeley
Did You Forget?

Opinion

Greenway, Emeryville

At times, as an Emeryville resident, one can find oneself feeling a funny, unfamiliar feeling about one's city. You may have just breezed down the North-South Greenway and had a delightful chat with a neighbor. Or you passed by a piece of public art you've passed a thousand times before, but something new strikes you and you smile. You might stand out at the end of Point Emery and watch the sun set, enjoy a Community Services event at Doyle-Hollis Park, or hold a small get-together and the interesting people in attendance are not just friends from far away, but your neighbors.

This is civic pride. It can sneak up on you.

But don't start patting yourself on the back too quickly. If you start getting such feelings, there are those in town ready to set you right. Chief among them are our City Council members and our School District's Board of Trustees, who want you to remember that Emeryville simply can't have the things that our neighboring cities have. You shouldn't expect so much. We're just a commuter city. We should be satisfied that people from elsewhere are willing to slum it at our regional shopping centers.

The Embarcadero, San Francisco

San Francisco can install highly-visible green bike lanes on their Embarcadero, but Emeryville residents shouldn't get their hopes up. After all, what would CalTrans say if we did something crazy like that? And the repeated insistence of our Bike/Ped committee and our Planning Commission on getting a bike/ped path to break up a super block as part of the Emeryville Center of Community Life project, well that is really just too unreasonable. It's not like that path is in the General Plan or something---er, wait, it is--but still, next thing you know you'll be asking for a path to help get people off of San Pablo as they pass between 45th and 47th streets. That's certainly not possible, even if a private school were to be on the hook to pay for it. Simply impossible.

Harwood Creek - John Muir Elementary

If Emeryville residents got these sorts of things, then the next thing you know they would expect that they could have what Berkeley has. And we know that's not possible. Residents would get the idea that we could have a natural creek running through our school grounds where "children can be found working on art projects, participating in hands-on science experiments, writing in journals, or just playing a fun game of hide and seek."

Now you've completely moved into fantasy land. I mean, it's not like our little City has the power to redirect the path of natural waterways to suit its whimsy. Oh, wait, you mean to say that Temescal Creek already runs right through the Emery Secondary School site? The future site of the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life? What?! So, we wouldn't have to move heaven and earth? Just bust up a little concrete and maybe try not to cram too many students onto the overcrowded site? Well, there you go again. Now you're thinking that we could have a separate, cute, school dedicated to just our elementary age students. I bet you'd want it tucked away in a residential neighborhood, away from the noxious fumes of San Pablo Avenue traffic, with a playing field, basketball courts, a play structure, and a garden. That's just crazy. Emeryville could never have that. If we did, we'd do whatever it took to shut it down.

Anna Yates Front Gate

Anna Yates Rear Gate

Guitar Center Pays Unfair Wages, Faces Possible Union Action

Emeryville's Guitar Center store at the Public Market may be the site of looming labor strife, the Rolling Stone magazine says.  The national retail chain is owned by the private equity firm Bain Capital, made famous by association with presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
From Rolling Stone Magazine:

Guitar Center Unionization Effort Spreads to Chicago

Employees form the company's second-ever retail union, 

citing unfair wages

Comment

31

A Guitar Center employee helps a customer.

JB Reed/ Bloomberg News/Getty

By SPENCER WOODMAN

August 11, 2013 1:40 PM ET

Employees at a Guitar Center store in Chicago voted Friday to form the company's second-ever retail union. This marks an important win for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which, after successfully unionizing a Manhattan Guitar Center in May, suffered setbacks in organizing two other New York stores. The new bargaining unit in Chicago will seek to improve wages and to change the store's sales commission structure. With Friday's success, the union now says that a national organizing effort focused on other Guitar Center stores appears promising.

Ahead of the Chicago vote, Guitar Center – a $2-billion company owned by Bain Capital – engaged in a vigorous campaign to dissuade workers from union participation. "[Friday's] outcome won't be official until the Labor board has ratified the vote count, but what we do know is that so far, the union's campaign hasn't been very successful at all," says Dennis Haffeman, the chain's executive vice president of human resources. "We feel that's because once our associates learn all the facts, they're able to make that important decision for themselves." In June, amid fierce competition between management and pro-union employees, two attempts to unionize Guitar Center stores in Brooklyn and Queens were either unsuccessful or called off.

Brian Webb, a pro-union sales associate at the Chicago store, says he struggles on his pay of roughly $11 an hour. "I make exactly as much as I did when I started here seven years ago," says Webb, 33 – who, like many Guitar Center employees, is also an aspiring musician. (Webb plays guitar and sings in a local band called Jonny Rumble.) "Anyone who works a hard, 40-hour week should be able to earn an honest living," says Webb. "This isn't just about our store – it's part of a larger effort to revive the middle class in this country."

Guitar Center tells Rolling Stone that it is in the midst of a nationwide review of employee compensation, a move it says is unrelated to the recent union activity. The union – which has received backing for its efforts from stars such as Tom Morello and Kathleen Hanna – says it has heard from Guitar Center employees all over the country seeking to organize stores. Although it will not disclose specifics, RWDSU says that all regions are on the table for future organizing.

RWDSU alleges that Guitar Center's management, in addition to frequently making anti-union statements during employee meetings, suggested to Chicago workers that winning a robust union contract could lead management to consider shuttering their entire store. (Guitar Center rejects this assertion as "positively untrue.") Such a threat could have violated laws that govern labor relations. Bain Capital has, in the past, been accused of heavy-handed and even illegal tactics to squash labor-organizing efforts.

Although falling short of accusing the union outright, Guitar Center claims that a Chicago store employee appointed by the company to monitor yesterday's union election found his car disabled the morning of the vote. RWDSU calls the statement a desperate ploy to cast doubt on its overwhelming win. Seventy-six percent of the Chicago store's workers who voted Friday did so in favor of unionization, according to RWDSU.

A primary hope of pro-union Guitar Center employees in Chicago is to change the company's commission structure, generally referred to as "fading." The system requires employees to equal their hourly earnings in unpaid sales commissions before actually earning any money on top of base hourly wages. Workers say that this system does not properly tie pay to merit, as employees who perform well on the sales floor yet must also clock hours on non-sales duties can find themselves at a disadvantage. A large proportion of hours devoted to non-sales duties can leave highly skilled sales associates at or near minimum wage, according to pro-union employees. "The 'fade' has to go," says Webb. "It's basically a method they've devised to effectively dock our pay without actually docking it."

Guitar Center says it is examining the "fade" system in its in-depth analysis of employee compensation. "Our intentions," Haffeman says, "have always been clear to demonstrate to every GC associate in the country that we're listening to their concerns and their ideas, and we're not afraid to take bold action on it as well. "

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/guitar-center-unionization-effort-spreads-to-chicago-20130811#ixzz2cAPYJ0Fb 
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Guitar Center Unionization Effort Spreads to Chicago

School District Goes Rogue Over Bike/Pedestrian Path

Bike/Pedestrian Path Putsch

School District to Emeryville Residents:
You Are Not Respected, 

"Bike/Ped Path Never Rose to a Level of Priority"

Opinion
Emery School District's chief architect for the Center of 'Community' Life, Mark Seiberlich, said it all on July 25th when, speaking for the District, he told Emeryville's Planning Commissioners the bike/pedestrian path associated with the project "never rose to a level of priority" for the District.  Meaning that they never took the required ECCL path seriously when they designed the school/community center.   

That quote, seemingly innocuous in its banality, hidden amongst more demonstrative testimony at that meeting, was really a remarkable admission.  It was an admission of insubordination from a retrograde public agency.  For those paying attention to Emeryville politics, hip to Emery's intransigence, it was like one of those incriminating utterances, an ah-ha moment picked up from a bugged East German dissident's apartment a Stasi official might listen years for. 
  
Mark Seiberlich's utterance about the bike/ped path not rising to a "level of priority" is remarkable in that it gives up the game, really.  Because all this time, the School Board has been assuring us that they want what we want; they're working in the community's interests.  But Mr Seiberlich tells us all what the real program is with the Center of 'Community' Life: Emery is not really legitimate, it's a rogue independent agency, driven by something not known but not good, posing as a school district.

Everyone Has Told the District to Comply

Emery School District to the people of Emeryville:
It's our way or...you can go here

How rogue has the School District gone?  Consider that they have totally snubbed all the authorities in Emeryville; everyone and everything charged with deciding about this issue.  Emeryville's new $200,000 Pedestrian/Bicycle Plan and the $4 million General Plan requires the ECCL path, but the District challenged it..... and then they got their answer: The Bicycle/Pedestrian Committee twice voted unanimously for the path...and then the Planning Commission twice voted for it...and then the City Council voted for it.  The insolence is astounding; they were officially told by the City Council to build the path but obliviously onward they march.   A real public agency working on behalf of the public, at this point would comply, but not Emery.  They're moving forward with the Center of 'Community' Life without the ECCL path, the democratic institutions and the people of Emeryville can all go to hell.

Our School District thinks its not beholden to the people of Emeryville.  They think they're above the democratically institutionalized deliberative process.

School District to the people of Emeryville:
'We got your bike/ped path right here'

It's now obvious that School Board members together with District officials met in private and schemed this plan, now turned into a putsch, many months ago.  They added up their votes on the City Council, 3-2 they figured.  They calculated the Council majority would give in to their commands to not force this path.  But they miscalculated.  The Council voted 3-2 alright but three said NO to the School Board and yes to the path.

As City Hall prepares to give the School District $21 million of our money to build this Center of 'Community' Life, we need to push back.  We need this bike/ped path built and all the other things the School District is taking away like the 53rd Street Greenway and the 47th Street 'Green Street'. We'll have our chance when the Planning Commission meets again to see the latest anti-bicycle & anti-pedestrian ECCL design on August 22nd.   Perhaps the Planning Commission will have the fortitude to again one more time, tell a brick wall to build the ECCL path and respect the people of Emeryville. 

Group Photo:
(left to right) The Emery School Board,
 the Superintendent of the Schools and the
management staff of the Emery School District 

   

2013 Scholastic STAR Test Results Published

Emery Unified's Scores Mostly the Same

Last Year's 4th Graders Excel

The California 2013 STAR test results were recently released by the California Department of Education showing Emery Unified largely continuing existing trends in this year's results. First, Anna Yates Elementary continues to perform better than the High School, also known as Emery Secondary School.  Second, both schools continue to under perform when compared with the State overall or with Alameda County overall. Many educators, however, doubt the usefulness of these tests for demonstrating much of anything beyond who lives in poverty and who does not, but since school districts can play fast and loose with academic performance braggadocio and because so many people nonetheless pay attention to test results, they become worthy of publishing and newsworthy.

The State's website makes it nearly impossible to compare results from one year to the next or to compare a particular District's results with the state or county overall, so the Tattler has taken a page from the School District's playbook and commissioned a consultant to produce a comparison chart.  The benefit of living in a city with a higher percentage of college graduates than even nearby Berkeley means, however, that the Tattler was able to secure these services for merely the promise to provide a few frosty treats of the liquid amber kind. (Volunteerism is alive and well in Emeryville; someone tell the District!)

The below chart shows Emery Unified's STAR test results from both 2012 (blue rows) and 2013 (yellow rows).  It also provides the overall statewide and Alameda County-wide scores for each test for both years for comparison. Some tests show scores going up year-to-year, some staying roughly the same, and some going down.  Overall it looks like sideways to slightly downward movement. The District is scheduled to review the results, among other things, this Friday morning at a Special "Retreat" meeting, beginning at 8:30 AM.

Perhaps the most notable scores are those of last year's 4th graders, where the English-Language Arts scores went from 45% at or above proficient in 2012 to 74% at or above proficient in 2013. Similarly, the 4th Grade Mathematics scores went from 42% at or above proficient in 2012 to 85% at or above proficient in 2013.  In both cases the 2013 scores exceeded both the statewide and Alameda County-wide averages.  Someone should give this Fall's 5th Graders a pizza party.

Follow the link or click on the rectangle in the bottom right corner for a larger version.

Emery Unified STAR Test Results Comparison 2012-2013 by Test

Note: Grade "13" summarizes the results for all students within the school, district, county, or the state who took each course- or discipline-specific test.

City to Consider 'Family Friendly' Housing on San Pablo Avenue

From Council member Jac Asher's blog:

Community Meeting on Thursday @ 6:30pm,

 Council Chambers

The City has received proposals to build an affordable, family-friendly housing development at 3706 San Pablo. The Housing Committee, staff, and the City Council have weighed in on the proposals, and there will be four developers presenting designs on Thursday. Please come to the meeting in order to find out more about this project and provide feedback to the developers and staff.

Click on the following link in order to view the flyer/announcement: Community Meeting

August 15, 2013 6:30-8:30 City Hall

Contract of the Day: Program Development

The Emery School District and the City of Emeryville is entering into many contracts with consultants and builders for the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life.  The money spent on these contracts is public and the public has a right to know.  Large contracts and small, the ECCL Contract of the Day will highlight what your money is being spent on.

Today's Featured Contract(s):

 $208,800 to National Equity Project, Children's Aid Society, MIG, and Partners in School Innovation 

for program development

approved February 2012.

In January of 2012, the School District's then-Director of Youth & Community Engagement presented a proposed contract in the amount of $194,900 for an "ECCL Program Design/K-12 Incubation Process."  This proposal was met with outright anger from City Council members as they received the information at the January 2012 City Schools Committee meeting.  Councilmember Ruth Atkin, in particular, expressed the view that they had done this work already for years and, from the documents presented, she could see no reason to do such work again.  "Back sliding", she called it.

The proposed contract contained some items only a long-time public consultant could dream up.  First item on their list was a "Listening campaign" to take 15 days, including planning time, and to cost $22,500.  The Tattler might be better known for talking than listening, but at a rate of $1,500/day, even we could be persuaded to simply sit and listen to people talk about the ECCL.

Then there was $38,600 for "Transitional Leadership Team: Development and Capacity Building" and another $40,800 for "Organizational Capacity Building."  It's unclear what all this "capacity building" was supposed to be about, but apparently the District needed $79,400 worth of it.  The Tattler has long had concerns about the capacity of the ECCL site, given all the buildings the District plans to put on the site, but there is reason to doubt that this was the sort of capacity problem the consultants hoped to address.

After a thorough drubbing, the District staff assured the City Schools committee that the message had been heard loud and clear and a revised proposal focused on critically needed services would be presented to them at the February meeting.

It takes a special kind of hubris to do what the District staff did next.  They returned to the February meeting with a group of four contracts for "Program Development" that totaled $208,800--more than the contract amount proposed in January!  These contracts provided for $57,600 to National Equity Project, $72,000 to Children's Aid Society, $32,000 to MIG, and $47,200 to Partners in School Innovation.

The services described and the deliverables in each contract are virtually identical, and each so trivial or devoid of meaning as to leave one uncertain whether a deliverable has ever been delivered.  For example, Page 8 of the Partners in School Innovation contract shows that they are paid roughly $4,000 per day to sit in a room with other people and "collaborate" and "comment as requested" on the design components of the over-arching program.  Each of the contract's deliverables contains "relationship building."  How does one know when a relationship is sufficiently "built" so as to be "delivered"?

Why does the District need to pay someone thousands of dollars so that District and City staff can sit in a room and talk to one another?  Are we so dysfunctional that we should also bring in boxing gloves and a referee?  And isn't the "program" of the ECCL largely to educate students?  Do we not already know how to do that or at least have in-house expertise on how to do so that wouldn't be so costly?

At this February meeting, the School District's Deputy Superintendent, Anakarita Allen, spoke at length to the Committee on the pressing need for these contracts, without ever mentioning to them that she serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Equity Project.

The City School Committee was beaten down by the District's insistence that this was the only way for them to plan for the ECCL and approved the use of joint City and School District funds for these contracts.  Enjoy these ECCL Contracts of the Day!