Makes me heartsick to see it.  All that open, green space gone for a smattering of ugly toys on top of pavement and rubber. I find it hard to believe that people with children require the destruction of a beautiful mixed use park for this unimaginative and narrow development.

Photo taken from inside the park prior to the new construction. Submitted by Trisha Ristango.

Photo taken from outside the park (opposite view) since the new construction, which is ongoing. Submitted by Trisha Ristango.

Sales tax revenues are up 2.5% from June, 2011 and transient occupancy taxes are up 18%.  Other revenue sources remain stable.  These are not bad signs given the lingering effects of the Great Recession.  Property tax revenues jumped 81% as a result of the dissolution of the city’s Redevelopment Agency, a one-time phenomenon.  This surge tells us little about the future.

Total expenses for governmental activities were $47.9 million in fiscal 2011-2012, a decrease of $25.5 million from the previous year.  Dissolution of the  Redevelopment Agency was responsible for most of the drop. The city’s departments, in the main, have been coming in under budget for the work they do.  In keeping with our budget philosophy, one-term windfalls are not being used for long-term projects, the General Fund reserve is at 25% of operating costs, and the Economic Uncertainty Fund stands at 19% of the General Fund.  The city is running a tight ship, and that’s wise policy in uncertain times.

The unemployment rate in Emeryville was 6.1% in June, 2012, compared to 7.9% the previous year.  To put that in wider perspective, Alameda County had an unemployment rate of 8.6% last June.  Here again we have good signs.  Let’s hope the real recovery from the recession, that is, people getting back to work at decent jobs continues.

The Annual Report offers useful information on city debt, most of which was generated by activity of our now-defunct Redevelopment Agency.  Long term liabilities as of July, 2011, stood at $175,417,781.  The cost of financing that debt annually is $8,700,290.  I didn’t find a combined figure for both principle and interest in the report, but assume it must be about $250,000,000, the amount the City Treasurer gave me a year or so ago.  Debt per capita for our small town is $16,690.  That sounds like a lot, but cheer up: the figure peaked back in 2005 at $24,401 a person.  Another way to get perspective on debt is to look at state law governing the ratio of debt to total assessed property value in a city.  The state sets a maximum of 15% debt to assessed value.  We stand at 4.26%.

No one can predict the over-all play out of shutting down the city’s Redevelopment Agency.  Will we be owed or will we owe?  Will law suits be required?  The Annual Report offers no answers to these questions. If it’s any consolation, cities across the state face the same uncertainty.  Our financial future hinges, then, on two big uncertainties: the final results of the RDA shutdown and, of course, the fate of the global economy.  So far so good.

Bill Reuter, Resident Member and Chair, City of Emeryville Finance Advisory Committee

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Photo: Fun Cheap SF

Last night after 10 PM, while I was fading out via Netflix, unusual sounds from outdoors raised my awareness beyond the flickering screen. I heard many people and music, whooping and joy yelling. I thought I detected Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries.” Off of the couch, slipped on my shoes and out onto 45th Street looking towards Horton Street. I saw a continuous flow of bicyclists with fabulous lights on their wheels, on their bodies, and multiple overlapping soundtracks emanating from sound systems mounted on racks. The music now had a beat and people were yelling “bike party!” In my 34 years in Emeryville  I have never seen or heard anything quite like this. People on bicycles just kept coming, hundreds upon hundreds of them.

New Civility
During the procession a car came down 45th St. and at the stop sign the parade of cyclists prevented this car from turning left. After about a dozen bicyclists blew through the stop sign as if they were a stampeding herd, a young woman chose to stop, a few more cyclists flew by her and then another cyclist stopped, then another. The entire following procession came to a halt and the car turned left! This was not The Critical Mass that I have seen and experienced in San Francisco but rather a new attitude of civility towards drivers.

Who Were These People ?
They were adults, youngish mostly, hardly any spandex and appeared of mixed ethnicity. The flow of people continued for at least 10 minutes and there seemed to be some cultural clustering around certain types of music: some BMX cyclists jumped on and off the sidewalk with their athletic tiny bicycles within the audio ambience of Oaklandesque rap music with a good beat. Bringing up the end of the procession were  gray-haired stragglers with cool flashing lights and lots of color riding big tired bikes.

Why?
I fantasized that these people were celebrating the just-removed yellow zone that has blocked the bike lane on Horton Street for a decade. But in fact it was the third annual  East Bay Bike Party Ride. The start this year was the Richmond BART station and the official ending was Lake Merritt Oakland. These rides will happen every Friday night this month.

Scott Donahue, 1420 45th St., studio 49, Emeryville

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An early rendering of the bike pedestrian bridge

Text reprinted from Council Member Jennifer West’s blog:

Yesterday (Thursday, May 9), the City of Emeryville had a real victory! We won our litigation against the State of California, which had denied our use of Redevelopment funds to pay for the South Bayfront Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge and Horton Landing Park, after the dissolution of Redevelopment.

It is a long and complicated story, but the short version for now is that the Department of Finance, which  insisted on us turning over funds set aside for the Bike Ped bridge connecting Stanford and 53rd St. (east of the railroad tracks) with Bay St. (west of the tracks), lost, and the City of Emeryville, the residents of Emeryville, have won!

This is a wonderful decision that came on a day of celebrating bikes and connectivity with Bike to Work Day, May 9, 2013.

The Bridge had been planned over the past 10 years or so, and was ready to go to bid for construction 2 years ago when redevelopment was ended by the state. I hope that with this decision the city can move quickly on getting the project over the train tracks moving again. Having a better connection with Bay St. will be a huge asset for the retail area, the residents, employees, and for the region. With improvements coming soon for the Bay Trail through town, and with the bike and pedestrian access to the new east span of the Bay Bridge being worked on right now, this sorely needed bike link will be important for our town.

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(RE Oct. 16, 2012 Letter to the Editor from Eric Gascoyne: Cut Spending, Save the Trees at Temescal Creek Park)

To the Editor:

Thanks (to Eric Gascoyne) for writing his letter. I went to the City Council meeting and spoke on behalf of the trees and the hawks. I’m glad we have saved them for now. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the park project has made a park with lots of potential into an ugly “inner city”-looking park. They paved over the entire grassy area, giving ample room for vandals to break glass, urinate, and tag on the abundant hard surfaces. If you urinate on grass or on a tree, nature will deal with it, this is not the case for man-made materials. Will Emeryville parents really want their kids riding trikes through busted glass and human urine, passing by swear words tagged all over the play structures? Do you remember who actually hung out on the former play structures? Usually they were not children. This combined with Emeryville taking over the Oakland school on Adeline and 53rd Street, sending waves of high schoolers up 53rd – littering, loitering, selling drugs and even trying to steal my cell phone, has made my neighborhood seem much worse. Now, instead of a park, I live next to an inner-city playground and a dog run. Remember when groups of people got together to host events, concerts and picnics in the park? Do you remember people doing Tai Chi, Karate, Parcor, training dogs, and strumming guitars, all integrated as a community in one common area? Now the space has been deintegrated and degreened. Not a very progressive project and obviously designed by people who do not understand or care about the area.

Francis, Emeryville resident

____________________________________________________

To the Editor:

A lovely, vibrant mixed-use park has been destroyed to create a paved over, padded romper room that leaves only a narrow patch of open green space. After all the local communities’ issues with their plan, Emeryville did some trimming of trees that they initially intended to completely remove (out of safety concerns for all the children they expect to come to the park). But they did not change or modify plans to move or reduce the amount of paved play structure area. I fully expect that once the first branch falls, they’ll swoop back in and remove the trees anyway. This is how Emeryville rolls. Thanking the community profusely for taking an interest, then doing exactly what they intended to do in the first place. Removing those trees will remove wildlife habitat. The hawks living and breeding there for years will be a casualty. But there will be a play area that no one but vandals and high school kids will use.

Emeryville’s idea of city planning has a decidedly suburban feel and is typically undertaken with HUGE spending in the initial phases. It’s as if they’ve discovered a very efficient formula – spend a ton of money before it’s even approved, and then everyone on the Planning Committee and City Council feels somehow obligated to make whatever non-essential pet project happen to justify the expense. Amateur and provincial – not the urban leaders they aspire to be. Temescal Creek Park and a planned Skate Park between the shopping center and Pixar are just two examples. Who puts a skate park in a parking lot? And WHY? Aren’t there other things that money should be spent on? Ridiculous.

What they’ve done on the Oakland edge is out of step with the neighborhood and wrong-minded. I used to think Emervyille progressive. I no longer do.

Trisha Ristagno

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This was recently posted on Nextdoor Emeryville, a local social networking site. The incident occurred about a week ago.

“K and I were riding our bikes along Mandela from WO BART a bit after 7:00
this evening, more or less side-by-side in the bike lane with me on
the traffic side. Just before 14th Ave. there were two young men on
the sidewalk a few yards away, and at about the time K noticed one
had a gun he lunged at her and knocked her to the ground. I saw the
gun pointed at me when I turned back, and handed him my phone and her
bag as he directed. All this as cars were passing! The gun guy
headed up 14th with our stuff, two OPD officers arrived, and half an
hour later when the reports were finished we found the bag, minus only
cash and phone, a block away. The business in front of which it
happened has a security camera, so perhaps we’ll even have pictures of
the guys — assuming a robbery where nobody was hurt rates any of a
detective’s time.

I bet most of the cyclists who passed thought we were being given a
ticket for something.

Anyway, the police said they’ve been patroling around the BART station
because, if I understood correctly, this has been happening a lot
lately. Be careful!”

New Family Resource and Wellness Center!

Several years ago, John Sugiyama, interim superintendent of Emery Unified School District, put together a small working group to look at services in Emeryville for children birth to 5 and their families.  There were many gaps in services and families looked to Berkeley and Oakland for support.  Using information prepared by the working group, Superintendent Sugiyama wrote a federal grant to bring resources to these families and fill the service gaps.  Emeryville USD received a federal grant of $250,000 to open a Family Resource Center and alleviate some of the difficulties families faced.

The Family Resource and Wellness Center opened on March 26th at the city’s recreational building, 4300 San Pablo Ave.  The 5 Bold Initiatives Project has been incorporated into EUSD’s Coordinated School Health: A Framework for Wellness Program and is one of eight elements in this framework.  For more information on this project, contact Wanda Hundley, Family Resource Center Director, 510.596.4384; wanda.hundley@emeryusd.org.

The Center no longer serves food from its kitchen, but now contracts with a food service program for the children’s meals.  Although there is a beautiful kitchen on site, it is difficult because of staffing issues to organize and cook daily meals.

What does it mean for the city of Emeryville to have a Center such as ECDC right here in our small town?  The possibilities are endless.  This is a chance for the city to think about what it means to support a relationship-based center that connects to the whole community.  A report on the center in March 2012, conducted by BANDTEC, an early education consultancy group, provided crucial information that enabled the city and Center to begin work toward excellent care and education. This report is available on the ECDC city website. It is worth reading.  It offers a comprehensive look at multiple aspects of the program and highlights both areas of strength and areas in which growth and support are required.  It is important to understand the impact of such a thorough analysis of the city’s program.  And, this transparency is an indication of the commitment of the council and staff to have a high-quality center in our city.  The center has been working since March toward achieving the report’s recommendations through a quality improvement plan (QIP).

With so much change and lack of continuity in leadership in the past two years, there is more stress, and staff and children are vulnerable to it. Meanwhile, the state’s licensing agency is stretched thin, having suffered numerous cutbacks over the last few years. For this reason, the agency only attends to programs brought its attention. It would take a book to explain the challenges to quality, support, and training facing early education here in California and nationwide.  But there are many groups working with our own ECDC to improve its quality and to build a community for children and families.

The Center itself is a beautiful building and the environment offers great learning spaces for children and adults.  But one of the questions  remaining for me is will the city and staff open themselves up to multiple perspectives on how children learn and how best to support them and their families?  One of the areas that must be examined is curriculum.  This is such an important part of what makes a program successful.  It is so easy to get caught up in a particular ready-made curriculum that costs a fortune but provides minimal results.  I hope, with wider discussion, we can avoid such traps.  We have several excellent programs close by that could serve as sister schools to support the staff in moving toward excellence in both curriculum development and understanding children’s learning.

Stay connected to Emeryville’s early education center.  Support it any way you can.  Please consider donating to Friends of ECDC, a non-profit that supports the Center’s work. There is also a scholarship program being developed to help low-income families. Supporting young children and families is crucial for the good of the whole community.  As James Heckman, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, said: “Great gains are to be had by investing in early childhood development—from birth to age five.”

We had hoped to see Ralph “Pine Tar” Buxton pitch for the Oaks, famous (or infamous) for loading the ball with pine tar hidden in his mitt.  The illegal stuff gave Buxton, a right-handed pitcher, a wicked “screwball” that broke back over the plate from outside on right-handed batters or in over the plate to lefties.  To our disappointment, Buxton didn’t pitch on the day of our illegal entry.  But the general quality of play didn’t disappoint.  The Pacific Coast League was a classy minor league operation loaded with good ball players, many of whom would make it to the majors.  It was my first look at professional baseball, and I was dazzled.

Even more memorable, however, was the behavior of a cluster of Oaks fans who sat in the right field bleachers, just behind whoever played defense in right field.  They chose to torment the Padres’ right fielder when the Oaks batted, and the torment amazed me, a kid from small-town Concord who had never seen pros play or heard fans at a pro game indulge in verbal abuse.  They questioned the Padres player’s manhood, the size of certain key body parts, the alleged lack of virtue of his mother, the probable profession of any sisters he may have had, and added a stream of other demeaning queries.

The Padres right fielder took it all without showing any sign of dismay.  At the end of the game—the Padres won—he caught a fly ball for the final out, turned to the bleachers, tossed the ball under hand to his tormenters, and, still poker faced, trotted off the field.  Not quite an example of Hemmingway’s definition of courage—grace under pressure—perhaps, but a gesture showing real professional aplomb.  I was impressed, and it made a perfect end to a memorable afternoon.  I’ve had other memorable afternoons since then in Emeryville, but this one still has a special glow.

Bill Reuter, 34-year-resident of Emeryville, and counting …

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Girl Rising:  Stories of 9 young girls from developing countries overcoming great obstacles to obtain an education and change their fates.

Now playing at UA Emery Bay Stadium 10, 6330 Christie Avenue, Emeryville. If you enjoy films or documentaries without car chases, explosions, or Dolby sound so loud it hurts your ears, support Emery Bay Stadium, the city’s first movie house.

Only $5 on Tuesdays!

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• Dr. Parissa Peymani, Emeryville Chiropractic, 5858  Horton St., Ste. 155, Emeryville
• Eric Pascuale,  Cafe E-22, 1366 Powell St., Emeryville
• Inna Jam (purveyors of organic jams), 1307 61st St., Emeryville
• Summer Summer Thai Eatery, 5885 Hollis St., Emeryville
• Wendy Yoshimura, Oakland Artist

and congratulations to our winners!!

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