At the City Hall meeting (Tues Sept 6), I raised the issue of the dust with high lead content during the public comment period. Surprisingly enough, no local residents came to raise this issue. A rep from the artists’ co-op was the only other public commenter, and she said that most of the people who attended the artists’ co-op supported the extended work hours, with only a “couple of” people strongly opposed, and she ignored the “toxic dust” issue altogether.
Surprisingly enough, Larry Mencin did not take the podium to address the lead in dust/testing issue I had publicly called to the Council’s attention, and initially it looked like the City Council itself was going to brush over it.
However, after some extended discussion about the noise and impact on quality of life that would result based on the proposed after hours work, both Ruth and Jennifer DID ask questions about dust testing. At that time Larry Mencin did step up to the podium and confirmed that they just ran some tests and hope to have results back soon. I suspect he was advised not to even mention the positive (they DID run tests, according to him) unless there was no choice but to do so (is that transparency?).
I urge residents who are sincerely concerned about this issue to press Larry at the resident meetings or via Mara Feeney, and to do it promptly. While you no longer have the leverage of opposing the extended work hours, I think anybody wondering about what they are breathing over there should ask to see the tests.
When it came to voting on the extended hours, Ruth proposed modifying the developer’s proposal to eliminate any Sunday work altogether, and to eliminate the use of dump trucks both at night and on Saturday. She proposed to allow rail car dirt removal only, since the rail cars pick up at the north end where there haven’t been any complaints. I thought Ruth’s compromise proposal was a thoughtful balancing which would allow the project to get done more quickly (before the possibility of rains completely blow the schedule for completion) while giving residents at least one day of rest and keeping the noisiest part of the work, the dump trucks, off the streets. I was happy to see her oppose Nora, who was pretty much completely pro-developer, and stand up for the residents EVEN WHEN RESIDENTS DIDN’T SHOW UP.
Usually Nora is very savvy about informally asking the other council members how they expect to vote, but she didn’t this time, apparently confident that she would quash Ruth’s compromise position and get approval for the developer’s full proposal (although the developer agreed to take Sunday work off both alternatives).
And then in a stunning reversal of fortune, Ruth’s amended extended hours motion failed to get enough votes, but then Nora’s un-amended proposal also went down in flames.
Sherwin Williams went home very unhappy campers.
Michael Webber is a candidate for Emeryville City Council
(To comment on this story, or to read the comments of others, click the headline to go to the story page, then scroll to the bottom).
If you question Sherwin Williams representatives, like I have, about why they want to extend the work hours they will tell you that it’s because they want to beat the rains. If you ask why that’s a concern, they’ll tell you it’s because it’s more difficult to conduct the clean-up when it’s raining. If you remind them the difficulty of clean-up is not the resident’s concern and ask again why extend the hours, ultimately they’ll tell you in so many words, it because it costs Sherwin Williams more money to not extend the hours.
So there you have it: Sherwin Williams spent decades illegally dumping toxic heavy metals and other toxins into our community and now that they’re being forced to make amends, they want to conduct this digging, raise a bunch of dust that they won’t test and now they want to do it after school hours when the young children at the Artist’s Co-Op are present. And they want to do it to save their billion dollar corporation money and to maximize profits.
They asked for this outrageous request because they know our city council and they thought they could get away with it cleanly.