Pay Attention and Look Ahead,
and Save Our Town From a Future of Declining Services and Increasing Debt
Have you not been paying attention to what has happened in Emeryville over the past 20 years? As a long term resident who has watched this city turn into a strip mall, I am very concerned. This small city could have been a model for all of the nation, small enough to provide the very best of education from pre-natal through college bound; small enough to provide small businesses with subsidies to keep a feeling of relationships and connections; small enough to provide neighborhoods of caring people. What did we do instead? Turn it into a developers’ and bondholders/bankers’ dream, indebt the citizens of Emeryville so that the general funds are depleted and there is not enough funding for schools, neighborhoods, and our community services, including police and firefighters.
Watch how the game is played; try sitting through planning meetings as the staff of Emeryville recommend over and over again to ignore height, width, and setbacks. Yes, I said, over and over again. Take a look at the records. Pay attention to the council, who have cut back citizens’ speaking time to 3 minutes, and then watch the council berate every citizen who gets up and shares their concerns; sometimes for as long as 20 minutes. Look at how the city has been built. Where is the housing for those with limited economic means; where is the housing for families; where is a true living wage?
What has happened is appalling, and still we sit and pay little attention. You can rant from a Republican/Democrat stand, but that is futile. This is about the quality of living, life, and the desire to have a relational community and not a strip mall town.
What are you going to do when you truly find out how much each and every one of you owe in indebtedness to the Redevelopment Agency?
I ask you to pay attention to the detail and look ahead. We are in deep trouble, we have misunderstood the bubble of supercapitalism and we will go under if we continue in this way. Pay attention, save Emeryville, and stop the subsidies to development. We owe too much already and we no longer need to pay the developers for development in this city.
Ruth Major, M.A. Ed.
Early Education Consultant, Infant Parent Mental Health & Birth to Three Specialist
Ruth Major has lived in Emeryville for 25 years
That's interesting, because I moved here because of what Emeryville has become over the last 20 years. I'm not sure I would have wanted to live here 20 years ago, but I love living here now. I love the eclectic urban environment that Emeryville is becoming!
Emeryville is neither eclectic nor urban. The development model is homoginization and suburban. Go check out the suburban towns in east Contra Costa County to verify. We certainly COULD have become eclectic and urban…with another set of council members.
My use of the word 'model' is probably not a good one though since that would imply there is some operating greater plan, when in fact it's the unconnected developers themselves who give our town its look and feel. The council always lets them do as they wish, bypassing our General Plan. Maybe you could say it's become 'eclectic' insofar as Wareham Devlopment has different investors with perhaps different portfolio needs then say BRE's investors.
Nothing that has been developed in Emeryville in the past 5+ years resembles ANYTHING that has been developed in Brentwood or Antioch in the past 5+ years, with the possible exception of Bay Street vs. Streets of Brentwood, but even that is a bad comparison.
A different City Council could have just as easily fostered better development as set up Berkeley-style obstacles to development. Even in the gang-busters market of a few years ago Berkeley only ended up with a few meaningful projects along the San Pablo Avenue corridor. We could have the beginnings of a truly walkable environment along the Avenue, but instead we still just have that one block at Dwight. In Emeryville meanwhile, we have the wonderful, continually-developing, walkable node at 65th and Hollis. I spend a lot of time there and I love that environment. You can now grab a great slice of pizza and eat it in the beautiful new park or sip a mojito on Kitty's sunny patio or cruise up and down the lovely Greenway. It is a wonderful environment which is still developing and coming into its own.
Remember, it was community members not the Council that nixed the one truly urban General Plan alternative, which would have allowed Emeryville to become the downtown of the East Bay.
This is absolutely an urban environment. I live in a four story building over a restaurant and I walk and ride my bike and take transit everywhere I need to go. That's not suburban. It's also the reason I moved here and I'm not the only one.
Emeryville is extremely car-centric and among other things that makes it suburban at its core. Suburban towns are car-centric, urban towns are not. Emeryville's solution to the already clogged wide streets is to widen them more to allow for even more cars. They are hostile to unbundled parking and like to provide plenty of free parking for all new developments, including residential. Everything here is really about moving cars more efficiantly, and that's how the council sees all transportation problems. They don't even try to hide it.
I don't remember a big project that obeyed the General Plan. And still there's talk of making the new plan "flexible"; code for no planning. To deny there's a pro-developer bias is to be deluded in the extreme.
Since we have so few (favored) developers building our town, the place has lost most of it's funky charm and has a cookie-cutter look of any other suburban town. The lack of a diversity of developers, has really made the town homogeneous.
The story of Emeryville so far has been the story of squandered potential. Now it would seem we're in an era of 'pay to play' with developers taking as much as they can before the jig is up.
It's funny, what this guy calls "obstacles to development", others might call "resident involvement".
Too bad that when the people decide they ought to have a say in their town's development some choose to demagogue it along the same old battle lines. The idea here is that it's up to the politicians and the developers alone to decide how the town will change. Any other ideas are to be discredited outright.
I'm impressed about how Emeryville is a mirror, reflecting what goes on in the greater nation. This has come into sharper focus lately with the national health care debate with the health industry lobby and its Emeryville syndesis of the favored developers plying for public money. In both cases its the monied interests that control the debate by use of disinformation and cozying up to power.
But where's our Barack Obama in Emeryville? We're going to have to do this ourselves here I think.
How about residents vote for some pro-development council members who are also pro-resident, pro-green, pro-small business, and pro-transportation?
Someone voted the current council in. Vote them out if you like.
Vote them out indeed. After 35 years of Republican rule in Washington, American voters (and workers) finally got smart and got rid of them. Maybe Emeryville voters can do the same…one can hope.
I find it very strange that the commentor Sept 7 @ 8:13PM said Berkeley's Dwight and San Pablo block is a rare example of good development for that town. It's strange since he lambastes Berkeley for blocking development and then he proclaims the virtues of Dwight/San Pablo.
The Dwight/San Pablo area is notable since there was no Emeryville style development there. The developers were held a bay and all the original buildings and street trees left intact. All the historic brick one storey storefronts are kept unlike Emeryville where we keep tearing down these kinds of buildings to make way for….stucco lofts with fake retail. Dwight/San Pablo has real locally owned shops of the kind that serves local needs. We aren't getting that in Emeryville, so I agree with him about this area.
What is this guy talking about? I don't think he is paying attention.
Hey Bryan, Jennifer, et al,
If you have been in Emeryville for all these years, why have you not participated in the actions of the city council other than shouting what is wrong and participating in a positive way to make the changes you are now expressingt ? Are you both planning a Swift boat as in Fricke's last minute attempt four years ago???
Hey Bryan and Jennifer-
I agree with the other outraged commentor.
What makes you think you should be able to run against our wonderful elected officials? Your arrogance is blinding! What audacity! I just can't beliveve it has come to this. The fact that you both are questioning the wisdom of the status quo makes you worthy of contempt.
To the anonymous Sept 17 writer (above)-
I presume you are talking about me in your screed. I have worked for many years to make positive change in Emeryville. Several years ago I wrote our Urban Forestry Ordinance for instance.
Regarding shouting what is wrong, I think we need to hold the elected officials feet to the fire to get them to do as they said they would at election time. I think it's a good thing when the citizens demand better governance and put themselves on the line to get it. Better than apathy wouldn't you agree?
I presume the 'Jennifer' you mention is Jennifer West. While I can't speak for her, I can say the "Swift Boat" incident you mention is problematic. The actual swift boat incident involved people lying about John Kerry's war record. What Fricke did was to simply inform Emeryville voters as to the actual voting record of Ed Trueting as he sat on the Planning Commision. Trueting's votes are a matter of public record, easily checkable, just so you know.
So the Swift Boat incident was a lie and the Fricke incident was the truthfull telling of a Planning Commissioner's voting record. Incidently, Trueting should stand up for his record, but I think he didn't like how Fricke let everyone know about it. Many elected officials would rather us not be aware of their voting records.
To now answer what I think is your question;
No, I will not lie as I seek the School Board position.