Too Conservative for Alameda County Voters: Councilman Bauters Tries To Hide From His Record

 Supe Board Election Quandary:

Alameda County Voters Are More Progressive Than Councilman Bauters

His Anti-Labor, Pro-Corporate Record Vexes

News Analysis

Four days after announcing his re-election campaign for November’s Emeryville City Council election, John Bauters now says he will run for District Five of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, a position that would disallow him to serve on the City Council.  It was not something planned.  The Supervisor seat was suddenly made available in a surprise announcement from the veteran politician Keith Carson, who after 32 years, says he will retire from the post.  

City Councilman John Bauters
He is hoping Alameda County progressive voters
don't check out his record in Emeryville.

The swift pivot away from Emeryville by Bauters reveals where his priorities and loyalty lies.  Although the bigger-than-Emeryville ambitions of our current City Councilman may not be surprising to all, what is baffling is how Mr Bauters, a centrist corporate Democrat by most measures, sees himself fitting in at the seat of power in arguably the most progressive county in California.

The seat Mr Bauters seeks is taken by Mr Carson, a progressive Black man and Berkeley resident who has long time and loyal support from the progressive community in Oakland and Berkeley.  If they knew of his record in Emeryville, it’s unlikely Alameda County progressives would vote for John Bauters.  Indeed, it will be up to Mr Bauters to keep his corporatist, anti-labor record quiet as he accentuates his positives in his soon to be ubiquitous campaign literature. 

Outside of little Emeryville, few know his record:

— Council member Bauters led a drive to roll back the wages of the poorest workers by rewriting City Hall’s landmark minimum wage ordinance.  

— More recently, Mayor Bauters disallowed even a council discussion of a resolution in support of a ceasefire in Gaza brought by Councilman Kalimah Priforce.  

— On the housing front, Bauters has been such a steadfast supporter of the developer lobbying group YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard), it earned him the title of the most YIMBY mayor in the most YIMBY city in California by the San Francisco Chronicle.  YIMBY California, headquartered in Sacramento, lauded Mayor Bauters with their highest praise when they presented him with the coveted “Developer Shill” award.  

— Even in his self congratulatory category of bicycling, Mr Bauters, doing the work of the business community, refused to implement our Bike Boulevard network, putting bikers at risk and disallowing the idea that Emeryville could have quiet streets for bikes (and pedestrians).  Not one of Emeryville’s five bike boulevards has been implemented during his time here on the Council.  His Emeryville record on bikes is pushed down hard enough that when speaking to outsiders, he feels comfortable enough to cast himself as “America’s Bike Mayor” in the Supervisor race. 

          .                .                .

In 2019, working on behalf of the Emeryville business community, Mr Bauters assembled a last minute majority coalition on the City Council to stop the impending implementation of Emeryville’s landmark minimum wage ordinance, depriving the working poor in town of a living wage.  Only by direct action leafleting and a door-to-door petition drive was the Alameda County Labor Council able to mobilize to stop Bauters’ wage roll back legislation.  Raising the minimum wage has proven to be very popular with Emeryville voters despite their pro-business Councilman.

Mr Bauters has also assembled an activist pro-housing developer majority on the Council that has closed off the things Emeryville citizens want, as expressed in their General Plan.  Things that developers could help pay for....like parks.  All must be set aside in order to enable developers to build more market rate rental housing as Mr Bauters himself says.  He states rents will eventually lower, they will trickle down, when we give developers dominion over our housing policy.  In this way, City Hall must never be allowed to constrain corporations that want to maximize profits by building more rental apartment towers he says.  We must sacrifice all to the “housing emergency”, even the building of parks and other things essential to livability, must be sacrificed, he announced.  

What Councilman Bauters fails to mention is that Emeryville has built more market rate housing than any other city in the East Bay.  In fact, every year, for more than twenty years, Emeryville has exceeded its housing requirements as delineated by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).  Mr Bauters lets the actual housing shortage outside of Emeryville’s borders and a little legerdemain serve as rational for not asking developers anything in trade for permission to continue the building boom, done at the citizen’s expense.

But perhaps the most disturbing quality of Bautersian politics is the undue attention he gives forwarding his political narrative, a level of control that he demands and he gets as a result of never being accountable to the people.  Mr Bauters will not answer questions from the public if the questions are tough or tend to put his Council work in a bad light.  He has brought to the Emeryville City Council a new hermetically sealed culture where the public is seen as undeserving of answers to their questions about public policy.  In this regard, Councilman Bauters will not talk to the local press, not by email, phone, text or in person.  He has never held a press conference and public meetings are structured by California’s Brown Act in such a way that questions can never be answered there.  

Unfortunately, this lack of accountability has been infectious: other City Council members are now also following the Bauters directive on silence in the face of public questions; namely members Courtney Welch and Sukhdeep Kaur.  But outside of Emeryville, citizens will likely take umbrage at the prospects of their pols being so cloistered.  Alameda County voters, famous for their insistance on government accountability, will not likely take to a lack answerability at their Board of Supervisors siting down, setting up a possible season of discontent at the Board were Bauters to win.  The idea that a corporatist, anti-labor Democrat taking the seat of Keith Carson may also rub Alameda County voters the wrong way.

The election is  March 5th with a runoff election in November if no candidates get more than 50% in the March vote.  If Mr Bauters were to win a seat on the Board of Supervisors, he would have to vacate his Emeryville City Council seat.

The Board of Supervisors District Five consists of Berkeley, large parts of Oakland, Piedmont, Emeryville and parts of Albany.

Council member Bauters did not return calls for this story.

Breaking News: Council Member John Bauters Announces He Will Seek Alameda County Supe Seat

 Breaking

Four days after announcing his re-election campaign for Emeryville City Council, Council member John Bauters now says he will run for Alameda County District Five Board of Supervisors, a seat currently taken by Keith Carson who announced December 8th, he will vacate.  District Five encompasses Emeryville, Berkeley, Piedmont, as well as part of Albany and a large part of Oakland.  Mr Bauters did not say if he will suspend his campaign for Emeryville City Council to seek the bigger prize of Alameda County Supe.  He could not be reached for comment. 

Councilman Priforce's Gaza Ceasefire Resolution Idea Fails For Lack of a Second

 

Emeryville City Council Majority Says YES to Ukrainian Children but NO to Palestinian Children

After passing a City Council resolution in support of the people of Ukraine some months ago, Emeryville’s City Council majority said a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in support of ending the mass killing of innocent civilians, was not something they would be willing to consider.  The vote (4-1 Priforce dissenting), came in the form of a refusal to even discuss the merits of the resolution that had been brought to the table by Council member Kalimah Priforce Tuesday night.  The action by John Bauters, who as mayor, led off the opposition by refusing to provide a second to Mr Priforce’s motion, was notable for being his last official act in his two year mayoralty. 

These dead children are not Ukrainian and so the 
Emeryville City Council majority cannot see them.

Council member Priforce’s idea of a ceasefire in Gaza is not a radical idea as it has been taken up by centrists and progressives all across America.  Since Israel’s attack on Gaza after October 7th, over 18,000 Palestinian civilians have perished by many estimates, including some 10,000 children.  The slaughter has brought millions of Americans, over 66%, to demand Israel stop the bombing and for both sides to recognize a ceasefire.   Indeed, most Americans outside of the Emeryville City Council majority can see the humanity of Palestinian children.  The words of current presidential hopeful Dr Cornel West, “A Palestinian baby has the same value as an Israeli baby” has been taken up by large majorities of Americans.  By their vote however, the Emeryville City Council (minus Mr Priforce), can only see the suffering of the Ukrainians at the hands of Russia.    

Hinting he may yet bring the idea back for a future vote before his Council colleagues, Mr Priforce put the resolution idea in moral terms, "To draft a resolution that acknowledges that a ceasefire would save the lives of children in Gaza and Israel reflects the character of our city and our strive towards inclusivity and equity. My proposal is simply that we join our regional neighbors in being pro-active rather than burying our heads in the sand - just as we did when we drafted a resolution over the war in Ukraine”, he said.

After Mr Bauters led his drive to kill the resolution in support of Palestinian children from lethal violence and perhaps as an unintentional counter factual, former Councilwomen and current Planning Commissioner Dianne Martinez approached the podium, calling John Bauters, “The best mayor in the United States of America”.

Breaking News: Vice Mayor Vote Shocker - Priforce Skipped

Council Member Priforce Skipped Over in Favor of Mourra

Council Majority Disregards Priforce Despite Status as the People's Clear Favorite

BREAKING

Tonight, in a four to one vote (Priforce abstaining), the City Council elevated David Mourra to Vice Mayor, skipping the people's choice Kalimah Priforce, presaging a move to deny Mr Priforce his turn at the mayoralty.  Former Vice Mayor Courtney Welch, a favorite of vacating mayor John Bauters, was selected to be Emeryville’s newest mayor, a move not surprising to anyone.  

New Vice Mayor David Mourra
The people's second choice but 
the Council majority's first choice.

Mr Priforce, a progressive who has been repeatedly attacked by Mayor Bauters at the Council meetings, separated himself from the Bauters led conservative majority.  This has been evident especially over the issue of housing, Mr Priforce taking the side of anti-gentrification and placing the interests of the people of Emeryville over that of real estate developers.  Mr Bauters, a stanch YIMBY supporter who effectively runs the City Council, has sought to reel in the independent voice of Council member Priforce.  

YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) is a corporate real estate developer lobbying group based in Sacramento.  They have targeted many Bay Area cities, overturning their formerly independent planning commissions to hand over decision making powers to out-of-state development corporations.  The other four Emeryville City Council members have shown their loyalty to YIMBY in action and words over the last two years.

Emeryville’s mayor is selected by a vote of the City Council and each council member is supposed to get a turn at being mayor.  The idea is that the people’s choice for council comes with an expectation they will be mayor. The Vice Mayor almost always ascends to the mayoralty after one year.  There is no force of law to this however. It has generally worked over the years with some exceptions but the skipping of some members has been happening with greater frequently recently.

Over the years, lone progressives on the Council have been forbidden to be mayor by conservative majorities controlled by former Councilwoman Nora Davis (and now John Bauters).  In this way Council members Greg Harper, John Fricke were skipped over.  More recently, Council member Ken Bukowski was skipped over for mayor after he told the New York Times he was a methamphetamine user and Scott Donahue was skipped after Mr Bauters called his competence into question.  Bauters used that vote to personally take another year being mayor.  

Vice Mayor David Mourra, Emeryville voters’ second choice, having received only 1223 votes, or 21%  will become mayor next year while Council member Kalimah Priforce, the overwhelming choice of the people, who won with 1583 votes or 28%, will likely never be allowed to be our mayor (with this conservative Council majority in power).  

We reached out to Council member Mourra over the last week concerning the impending vice mayor vote but he didn't return our calls.

Military Culture Permeates Emeryville Police Department

 Emeryville's Militarized Police Force:

A Modest Proposal

Opinion

by Brian Donahue

Grand Poobah / Il Duce

For a hot minute, after officers from the Minneapolis Police Department murdered George Floyd, the nation cried enough is enough and police reform seemed to be on everyone’s lips.  Even here in Emeryville, the City Council passed a proclamation supporting State legislation proscribing police militarization.  All the heated talk ended quickly however and the police went back to being the police.  Here at the Tattler, we didn’t see police reform as a bandwagon to hop on and hop off.  We still think reform is the goal.  For instance, we see no cogent reason why our police should routinely carry military weapons of war on Emeryville's streets as they do.  The police here are adamant: they need more firepower, they need to always be armed with assault rifles with enough power to blast through three house walls and still kill a civilian.

Against that backdrop, we introduced a new, largely symbolic effort to bring our police back into our community, to reflect community values.  We suggested the Emeryville Police Department throw off their military personnel ranking system they use and replace it with a civilian ranking model.  In this way, the Chief would become EPD#1, the Captains would become EPD#2, the Lieutenants EPD#3 and so on.  Current Lieutenant Fred Dauer for instance, would become EPD#3 Fred Dauer or just #3 Dauer.

Field Marshal Dauer

Alas, the police took to this proposal like a cat takes to water: they responded with a full throated NO.  They will keep their military modus operandi including all the trappings, they insisted.  But the United States military, as everyone knows, are liars.  They always lie to get us into wars.  And then they lie again when we inquire as to how well they are prosecuting the war.  The Emeryville Police Department is in the thrall of and wants to be associated with this government agency that can be counted on to lie to the people; right down to their military ranking.   Our police love governmental lying.
 

So after years trying to get a less militaristic, more community friendly police department, we’re ready to throw in the towel.  Let’s give them what they want.  Let’s hyper-militarize the Emeryville Police Department.  If EPD Captain Oliver Collins is feared by the people with the military epithet 'captain', imagine how much better it would be if he were known as Generalissimo Oliver Collins.  Lieutenant Fred Dauer too will be even more fearsome as Field Marshall Fred Dauer.  That a militarized police department is cast as a good thing, why then equivocate Emeryville?  Let's start thanking them for their service, why not?  Let's wallow in military grandeur and idolatry.

Here’s our modest proposal:

Letter to the Tattler: Emeryville Needs an Ethics Commission

Emeryville Should Have an Independent Ethics Commission Like Other Bay Area Cities 

Open Letter 

by Elisabeth Montgomery

The City of Emeryville recently devoted time and energy to establishing a Code of Ethics, which I applaud since small communities must stay engaged and diligent about upholding government standards in our democracy. The City Council was asked to begin this process based on behaviors exhibited by our councilpersons during the July hiring hearings in 2021 when several applicants were for the open City Planning Commission. One councilperson spoke in hostile words towards one or more applicants. Disclaimer - one of the applicants happened to be my husband Eugene Tssui. When researching how to send a complaint about a City Council member’s conduct, I discovered that Emeryville had no ethics code. “Who handles complaints against council members?” The reply from the legal department was, “City Council will decide if the complaint is valid.”

Emmy Award winning 
Emeryville resident
Elisabeth Montgomery

Thus, I began a journey to understand how a Code of Ethics can inform our city leaders about running our local government. I wrote letters to then-mayor John Bauters and spoke to city lawyers and clerks. I reviewed city council transcripts and spoke with regional organizations that assist cities in setting up a Code of Ethics. Like our US Constitution, I learned that developing a great Code of Ethics is a “living document” that is always “in progress” and needs annual reviews. 

One hallmark of a great Code of Ethics is not just writing up a legal template for the city staff and saying it is done. Instead, it requires gathering input from the residents and community. According to legal experts at the Institute for Local Government, the other explicit guarantee to be embedded in the Ethics Code is that the clear objective - when confronted by constituents with challenges to city staff conduct - the City Council should not be the only decision-makers on the issue. Instead, an independent governance body should help decide the case. This will assure elected officials avoid perceptions that their values are based on their views rather than the everyday ethics that determine our laws. 

The current Emeryville Mayor must take the next step to inform residents, gather input, set up an oversight committee, and update the Code of Ethics in 2024. 

Elisabeth P. Montgomery, Ph.D., GCDF is an international career development educator and an Emmy Award winning documentary film producer.  She has lived for 34 years in Emeryville with her husband Eugene Tssui, himself an international architect and author.  Mr Tssui's work is currently being shown at the New York Museum of Modern Art.  The couple have been advocating for an ethics commission for Emeryville for the last two years.  The current Mayor of Emeryville, John Bauters, has recently said NO to the question of an ethics commission for Emeryville.

New Bike "Improvements" on Adeline Street Puts Cyclists in Harm's Way

Emeryville City Engineer to Adeline Street Bikes:  “Prepare to Get Doored!”

By John Fricke

Twenty years ago, Adeline Street (Oakland’s sections north and south of Emeryville, and Emeryville’s short section in the middle) included four travel lanes, in addition to parked cars on each side of the street. 

Adeline Street 20 years ago.

When I joined the city council, I pushed to convert the right travel lanes into bike lanes.  A vocal minority living in the Andante apartment building (Adeline and 40th Streets) sought to kill the project because diagonal parking spaces in front of their building would be converted to parallel parking.  They asserted that the whole exercise was meaningless given how short the Emeryville section of Adeline Street is. 

Thankfully, the pro-car voices did not prevail and the project was completed. 

Adeline Street up until two years ago.

(Several years after completion, the City of Oakland repaved its two sections of Adeline Street.  The City of Oakland striped its sections of Adeline Street nearly the same as in Emeryville.  The tail wagged the dog.)

For over fifteen years, Adeline Street was a relatively sound design for bikes; until Emeryville’s current city engineer (annual salary: $168,000) took a look at Adeline Street. 

The city engineer (duly licensed as both a civil engineer and a traffic engineer) recommended a plan which included, in one section near 45th Street, curving the bike lane up against the parked cars. 

Before:

Two years ago, before bungling: Note the ample space 
for car doors.

After:

Adeline today: Prepare to get doored. 

Bike riders are now sitting ducks for a passenger car door that abruptly opens in front of the bike.  So close is the newly-striped bike lane that a bike farthest to the left in the bike lane is still in harm’s way.

Bam!

Are traffic engineers allowed to arbitrarily shift a bike lane into harm’s way?  Not according to the California Highway Design Manual.  At over one thousand pages, the Highway Design Manual dictates exactly how all the public streets in California are to be laid out, including precise details regarding bicycle lanes.  “All city, county, regional and other local agencies responsible for bikeways or roads . . . shall follow the bikeway design criteria established in this manual and the California [Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices], as authorized in the Streets and Highways Code Sections 890.6 and 891(a).”  Section 115.1. 

According to the California Highway Design Manual, a bike lane shall be at least five feet wide and shall be at least eight feet from the vertical face of the curb.  The city engineer's new serpentine bike lane maintains the legally-required minimum width of 5 feet, but is only seven feet from the curb at its closest point.  This represents a swerve of four feet into the door zone.  The curving of the new bike lane is also in violation of the California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices which states, “[b]icycle lane markings on Class II Bikeways (Bike Lane) should be placed a constant distance from the marked lane line or centerline . . ..”  Section 9C.04. 

Not only did the city engineer curve the bike lane into the door zone, he reconfigured most of the intersections to force bikes to make sharp turns. 

Street sign reads as follows- Bikes: now swerve right, then
swerve left.  Prepare to repeat until you reach the 
Oakland border.

These new intersection configurations violate the standards dictated by the California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices: 

1:  the bike lane is to maintain a constant distance from the centerline (cited above).  Section 9C.04. 

2:  “Raised barriers (e.g., raised traffic bars and asphalt concrete dikes) or raised pavement markers shall not be used to delineate bike lanes on Class II Bikeways (Bike Lane).”  Section 9C.04.

Here is the required intersection configuration:

Normally, traffic engineers slavishly follow the state law requirements so that the city doesn’t get sued when someone is injured.  Not so in Emeryville.  How did this bungling design get approved by the city engineer, city attorney, city manager, and city council?  The Dunning-Kruger effect is alive and well in City Hall.

John Fricke is a longtime Emeryville resident, father of three, husband, lawyer, and former member of the Emeryville City Council.

Mayor Bauters To Step Down, Give Reins to Vice Mayor: Two Years of Subterfuge Revealed

 Our Mayor is Loudly a Progressive

A Closer Look Reveals a More Complicated Politics

Opinion

As our consecutive back-to-back termed mayor, John Bauters, prepares to step down to allow our vice mayor Courtney Welch assume the Emeryville mayoralty, now seems a good time to take stock of the politics of this loquacious, globe trotting, camera smitten leader of ours.  The two year mayor of Emeryville as it turns out, is well known outside our little town.  Notably, not since the fall of the corrupt chief of police John LaCoste back in the 1980s, has Emeryville had a political leader so well known around the nation until the rise of Council member cum mayor John Bauters.  The vehicle for this has been Mr Bauters’ energetic penchant for self promotion.

Emeryville Mayor John Bauters
He recently told a throng of striking Oakland 
workers he supports labor over corporations. 
Conveniently, he didn't tell them
his actual record on that.

A perfunctory gaze at the politics of the quixotic mayoralty of Mr Bauters, could lead one to believe he would be placed solidly on the left wing side of the political spectrum.  Indeed, he has often directly stated as much.  He is starring in more than 20 YouTube videos proudly wearing his progressivism on his sleeve.  But a more critical look reveals a more complicated reality.  

Mayor Bauters came out publicly against building more parks for Emeryville but many might be surprised to learn that our liberal mayor has quietly foreclosed on the idea of establishing an ethics commission for City Hall.  Amid a growing culture of nastiness on the Council and under increasing pressure from the public, Mr Bauters relented recently and joined his Council colleagues in a vote to allow a ceremonial albeit toothless ‘code of ethics’ for City Council members and City Staff.  But he vigorously opposed a more constraining citizen’s ethics commission as other neighboring cities have done.  

Mayor Bauters seems to be saying the government can be trusted to investigate itself and the citizens should simply trust them.  When the Tattler recently inquired about the establishment of an ethics commission, Mayor Bauters was unequivocal: “No” he said tersely.  This is an authoritarian, illiberal view of governance.

On the housing front, Mayor Bauters (and Vice Mayor Welch) has led the Council majority in fierce support of a corporate vision of 100% rental units for Emeryville, in direct defiance of our General Plan.  Emeryville has for more than a decade, exceeded the market rate housing recommendations of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), making cries about not enough market rate housing from the housing developer lobbying group YIMBY, ring hollow.  Nonetheless, the Mayor and Vice Mayor have both followed the straight and narrow pro-corporate developer YIMBY path although Mr Bauters HAS pushed for more affordable housing.  Notably, he led a drive to pass Measure C, a voter backed, taxpayer funded $50 million affordable housing bond in 2018 without objection from developers.

Bike boulevards in Emeryville were never
supposed to have more than 3000 vehicle
trips per day, until Mayor Bauters said 
a resounding NO to that.  

Mayor Bauters spins a yarn about his progressive worldview but what’s telling is on two conspicuous issues, biking and labor issues, he is the polar opposite of what he tells the world.  That has a Trumpian ethos about it. On bicycling, Mr Bauters has used his entire term on the City Council subverting our bike boulevard system, putting bikers in harm's way.  Bike boulevards are supposed to be corridors where cars are allowed but bikes are preferred.  Emeryville pledged to do that in 2012 (before Mr Bauters got on our Council), by limiting the number of vehicles sharing the boulvards with bicyclists to less than 3000 per day.  The City of Emeryville officially does not recommend more than 3000 vehicle trips per day because it is too dangerous for bikers and this has been in our Bike Plan. But the business community pushes back against limiting the number of cars and that’s who Mayor Bauters has been listening to.  Because Mr Bauters has been so effective in lobbying in favor of the business community, Emeryville has not limited the number of cars to less than 3000.  In fact, the City has tremendously INCREASED the number of cars using our bike boulvards since Bauters moved to overturn our Bike Plan.

Being narcissistic, Mayor Bauters doesn’t take a principled stance on just about anything, the evanescent and shifting opinions of the fickle public being his conspicuous go to place.  Recently, as public opinion about labor unions has shifted to a more pro-union stance, Mr Bauters has been all over that.  So whereas before, he was vehemently anti-labor, now Mayor Bauters has used a bullhorn to support labor….literally he’s taken up a bullhorn.  Back in 2015 when Emeryville businesses cried over our new Minimum Wage Ordinance, a law written before he got on the Council, John Bauters led a 2018 drive to roll back wages delineated by the ordinance, leaving the working poor the working poor.  A labor petition drive of Emeryville voters ultimately stopped Mr Bauters' anti-worker move.  

But that was then, now he says he LOVES labor.  Last week our Mayor, during a workers' strike at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, gave a full throated, bullhorn assisted trashing of corporate greed and pledged his fealty to labor.  That’s just the way he rolls he told the crowd of striking workers, always in support of the little guy.  Later, he proudly told his 38,000 Twitter followers (X) all about it on his ‘Mayor John’ site.  He told them, “It is wholly unacceptable for a greedy corporation like Kaiser to rely on frontline healthcare workers to lead us through a pandemic and then turn its back on fair wages and basic dignity”.  He failed to mention he did the same thing as Kaiser did to workers when he tried to overturn Emeryville’s Minimum Wage Ordinance.  Did it slip his mind?  Maybe.  It’s hard to know the mind of a narcissist.

So now Mayor Bauters will become just regular old Councilman Bauters (unless he goes for a third term as mayor....warning Emeryville citizens, it could happen).   Next up, the corporate Democrat Courtney Welch and her illiberal, anti-democratic drama train.  Her constituents that disagree with her or try to hold her to account, all “fuck boys” in her estimation, likely will have some fireworks to look forward to.  Maybe the new Code of Ethics will constrain the pugilistic Mayor Welch.  Don’t bet on it.

City Decides Behind Closed Doors to Stop Conducting Traffic Counts Meant For Bike Safety

 Bi-Annual Traffic Count for Bike Safety Quietly Ended

Done Without Public Input

City Won't Say Why 

(But Councilman Priforce Knows Why)

Sometime between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2021, government officials at the City of Emeryville secretly met behind closed doors to stop and retract long standing bike safety public policy spelled out in the City’s Bike Plan that counts the number of vehicles using the bike boulevards in town, the Tattler has learned.  City Manager Paul Buddenhagen revealed in a recent email to the Tattler, there was a private meeting or series of meetings between undisclosed City employees at City Hall that took place where the decision to overturn the City’s Bike Plan and stop the bi-annual vehicle counts was made.  The meeting(s) were conducted before Mr Buddenhagen was hired he noted and he said he had no knowledge of of it until recently, regardless that the Tattler inquiry request for information started a year ago.  Mr Buddenhagen did not offer anything more about the meeting(s) but he did say he thinks the traffic counts are unhelpful because bike boulevards are not very good and that he prefers protected bike lanes. 

From Emeryville's Last Official Traffic Count, 2019
Every bike boulevard was unsafe because of too many cars.  It's gotten a
lot worse since then.  The City can't be held to account if it doesn't take account. 
Business owners' concerns take precedence over bike safety.

The counting of vehicles on the bike boulvards is meant to provide a Bike Plan backstop over which a regimen of traffic calming provisions are to be implemented for bike safety, often seen as an inconvenience for vehicle drivers and anathema to businesses. 

The Bike Plan was certified by the City Council in 2012 at a cost of $200,000. However bike boulevards have been ignored by the City since the beginning, as the bi-annual traffic counts show.

Council Member Kalimah Priforce
Traffic data is no longer being collected
because it shows too many cars on the
bike boulevards is "bad data" and is
 "embarrassing" for Emeryville.

Bike boulevards are described as streets where cars are allowed but bikes are preferred.

The surprising email from the City Manager came after a protracted year long Tattler fight to learn why the City’s bike boulevard bi-annual traffic count policy was not being followed anymore.  During that time, nobody at City Hall could or would answer our questions about it.  The last time the bi-annual traffic count was conducted (2019), it showed an excess of traffic on all five Emeryville bike boulevards and consequently, the City is on the hook for providing more traffic calming infrastructure.  Increased traffic calming measures on the bike boulevards have been strenuously objected to by several businesses in town, especially Wareham Development who have offices on the Horton Street Bike Boulevard.  Rich Robbins, CEO of Wareham, has been a contributor to many City Council members' re-election campaigns over the years.

Mayor John Bauters
Our bike boulevard network is not a priority,
"I've been doing a lot of other things" he said.

Use of the California Public Records Act has not brought any documents to light, bolstering Mr Buddenhagen’s suggestion that the non public meeting(s) conducted were meant to be secret.

Bike Safety is the stated reason why no bike boulevards should exceed 3000 vehicle trips per day according to Emeryville’s $200,000 Bike Plan.  The City says the 3000 number was incorporated by recommendations from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities.  The Horton Street Bike Boulevard had 4127 vehicle trips per day on it in 2019.  With the Sherwin Williams housing project now nearing completion and over 1000 new renters using Horton Street, that number has likely gone up considerably and bike safety has commensurately suffered.  But because the City has stopped the traffic counting, it remains an unknown quotient. 

Emeryville’s Bike Plan makes it clear that bike safety goes down on bike boulevards as the volume of car traffic goes up. From the Bike Plan:  

Volumes of motor vehicles determine the frequency of passing events; at 1,000 vehicles per day, cars pass a bicyclist approximately every two minutes, while at 3,000 vehicles per day, cars pass a bicyclist every 46 seconds. The rate of automobiles passing a bicyclist indicates the number of potential conflicts and affects the comfort of the bicycling environment.  Bicycle boulevards with volumes higher than 3,000 vehicles per day are not recommended.

The Bike Plan continues,

Counts should be conducted every two years. If a bicycle boulevard goal is not met, the City should consider treatments that will allow the bicycle boulevard to meet goals. If additional treatments are not possible, or if treatments are unlikely to result in conditions that meet the above goals, the City should consider a different type of bicycle facility.

Mayor John Bauters, who regularly likes to display how much he likes bicycling on his X (Twitter) feed, told the Tattler he doesn’t take our bike boulvards very seriously.  After he was informed at a recent public bicycling event, bicyclists are unsafe because of too many cars, he indicated he had other priorities, “I’ve been doing a lot of other things” he said.  He said he didn’t know why the bi-annual traffic counts had been stopped and didn’t express any interest in finding out.  Council member Kalimah Priforce on the other hand was quite forthcoming.  He said the traffic data is embarrassing for the City and that’s why the traffic counting has been stopped.  “Showing too many cars on bike boulevards is bad data for the City” he said.  He added, “It would be embarrassing if we’re telling a narrative that’s different than what the data reveals.”

Mr Buddenhagen for his part refused to say if the City would go back to following the City’s Bike Plan and resume the traffic counting. 

Street Trees on San Pablo Avenue: Berkeley is Leafy Green, Emeryville is Sun Blasted and Bleak

Emeryville's San Pablo Avenue Failure: 

Optimizing For Cars Means Fewer Trees 

Means Diminished Public Space 

Means Less Pedestrians 

Means Less Citizen Engagement

Means Less Local Economic Activity 

Means Civic Failure

Infrastructure of the 1995 San Pablo Avenue Beautification Project:
Street lights, bricks & ample left hand turn lanes.
Trees are allowed but not encouraged.

News Analysis

Twenty eight years ago, the City of Emeryville embarked on a visionary $4.1 million San Pablo Avenue Beautification Project, to create a pleasant pedestrian-centered boulevard out of a grimy and drab busy thoroughfare. Up the street in Berkeley, there was no big initiative, though it has always been a tree-lined road with a landscaped median; standard Berkeley stuff.  Here in Emeryville, all of San Pablo was reconfigured with the 1995 beautification project; a new raised median was added and many trees were planted.  Emeryville seemed to catch up with Berkeley, and then some; the project also included brick pavers on the sidewalks and pedestrian oriented street lamps.

Twenty eight years later, the trees (what’s left of them) have matured. Taking stock of our $1.4M infrastructure project--how have we done? We've failed– because, baked into the revitalization project was a guiding philosophy that beautification and pedestrian improvements shouldn't in any way impede traffic or commerce. The median is mostly the province of motor vehicles---long left turn pockets at each cross street.  Some take up the entire block, in both directions, leaving no trees at all. Other left turn pockets stretch half a block, leaving a two foot wide median, enough for a shrub or two, but not trees. 

The city also specifically chose species that remain small, so as not to hide billboards and signs on businesses, at the request of short-sighted local and national merchants. 

In Berkeley, sylvan, mature trees arch over San Pablo, forming a canopy in places. It's helped Berkeley attract locally serving retail shops to a place pedestrians linger, as if it were a destination in and of itself, not a corridor to a more pleasant place elsewhere---completing a virtuous cycle of good urban design.  Emeryville can’t seem to attract any locally serving retail on San Pablo Avenue without city subsidies, such as Arizmendi’s Bakery.  Here, we must provide financial assistance or risk our commercial spaces falling vacant or being gobbled up by fast food and national chain stores 

Compounding the lack of median trees in Emeryville, most of the trees planted in 1995 have since been replaced by saplings. Whenever developers remodel or replace a building, out come the chainsaws. City Hall allows this as despite our Urban Tree Ordinance, street trees aren't valued here.

So there you have it, clear to see. Travel the length of San Pablo Avenue from University Avenue in Berkeley to 39th Street in Emeryville.  But be sure to have your sunglasses handy when you reach Emeryville.  Here the street is sun blasted and hot in the summer while in Berkeley it's cool and shaded.  The divergent values can be easily seen with one transit.  One city prioritizes public space for pedestrians, the other for a swift vehicular pass through.

Street Optimized For Cars
Typical road diet in Emeryville: long left hand turn lanes, no room for trees.

Street Optimized For Pedestrians
Typical street scene on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley.  Large trees on both sides reach over to
large trees in the median to make tree tunnels.  Not possible with long left hand turn lanes.

San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley: Dappled Sunlight, Pedestrian Friendly
It's much cooler than Emeryville and much more inviting for small locally serving retail shops.