Emeryville Resident Town Hall Meeting Big Success

Check out news coverage of Emeryville's Town Hall Meeting last Tuesday, July 28:

Beyond Chron:

Historic Town Hall Asserts
New Vision for Emeryville
by Tracy Schroth and Reem Assil
Jul. 31‚ 2009

More than 100 Emeryville residents, local workers, and advocates gathered on July 28 at an historic community town hall meeting to call on the Emeryville City Council to ensure the second phase of a major retail-project — Bay Street Site B — results in good jobs for residents, affordable family-friendly housing, and investment in the local public school system. It was one of the largest grassroots gatherings Emeryville has seen in years.

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San Francisco Business Times:

The future of the second phase of Bay Street Emeryville is in flux as the developer struggles to come up with a plan that will pencil in today’s economy.

Meanwhile, a group of Emeryville residents wants the community to have a greater input about the second phase.

The first phase, a 1 million-square-foot mixed-use development built in 2002, includes about 65 retail stores, a movie theater, restaurants and condos on top of the shops resembling shopping districts like Union Square.

The residents say that the first phase created a project that does not connect with the rest of the city. Another concern is that the city catered too much to businesses and failed to foster its community fabric. Close to 10,000 people live in the 1.2 square-mile city.

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KPFA:

kpfa.org/archive/id/52813 (move bar to 53:40)

Letter from Council Member John Fricke

(Unedited text of email sent by John Fricke to Emeryville residents Saturday, July 25).

Dear Emeryville neighbors,

Residents United for a Liveable Emeryville, a resident organization, is sponsoring a community meeting to discuss the future development of the land adjacent to the Bay Street shopping mall:

Tuesday, July 28th, 6 p.m. Emeryville Senior Center 4321 Salem Street

The city council majority intends to negotiate an agreement with the developer of the Bay Street shopping mall to expand the mall to the north. This agreement will likely include giving the developer tens of millions of dollars in subsidies. I oppose these subsidies because the money should instead be used to pay for concrete benefits to the residents, benefits such as constructing a permanent rec. center, providing a pedestrian/bicycle bridge across Interstate 80, and improving access to public transit. The community meeting on Wednesday will be an opportunity to discuss how to make the project meet the needs of Emeryville residents.

CITY BUDGET. At its last two meetings, the city council has been determining how to close current and projected budget deficits through budget reductions and new sources of tax revenue. My questions about the fairness of a tax to support park landscaping and street lighting have not been addressed.

REDUCING CITY EXPENDITURES. Several months ago, the city council decided to reduce the costs of running the city. The combined budget reductions will save about $1.2 million, and include such things as reducing the frequency of street sweeping and not filling vacant city staff positions. Despite these cuts, there will still be a budget shortfall. The city council decided to make up the shortfall by drawing money from a fund set aside in past budgets for economic downturns. (Many cities and the State of California did not set aside money in past budgets, and are now being forced to make severe cuts to balance their budgets.) The city council chose not to lay off employees so that basic city services such as police, fire, maintaining city parks, maintaining sewers, etc., will not be impacted.

If the economy does not recover in the next year or two, the money that the city council has set aside may become depleted before the economy recovers. In addition, new demands on the city budget will arise in the coming years. For example, maintaining new amenities such as the public park at 61st/Doyle, a future park and pedestrian bridge to the Bay Street shopping mall will increase the city’s budget. To meet these demands, the city council has discussed various tax measures, including increasing the gambling tax, and creating a tax to pay for landscaping and lighting.

GAMBLING TAX. Emeryville currently imposes a tax on card clubs. (For quite some time, Emeryville has had only one card club, the Oaks.) Last Tuesday, the city council voted to put a tax measure on the November ballot. If approved by the voters in November, the tax rate on card clubs will be increased from nine percent to ten percent. I intend to vote for this tax measure.

LANDSCAPE AND LIGHTING ASSESSMENT DISTRICT. At two recent city council meetings, I have repeatedly raised concerns about the inequitable tax rates for this proposed annual property tax assessment. This tax measure would not be decided by registered voters in Emeryville, but by those who own property in Emeryville. (The ballots are mailed to the property owners.) If it passes, the assessment tax would appear on the annual property tax bill, and would be calculated by multiplying the square footage of the property by the tax rate. (Compare this to the property tax which is calculated by multiplying the assessed value by the tax rate.) Those of you who own a condo or house would pay an additional amount on the property tax bill. Those of you who rent an apartment in Emeryville may see your rent go up to pay for the additional tax.

As currently proposed, there would be different tax rates for the following categories (amount in parentheses is the annual tax based on 1,000 square feet): Industrial ($27.50); commercial/retail ($68.75); office building ($82.50); and residential ($127.96). These differing rates are supposed to reflect the degree to which the people associated with these different categories use the landscaping and lighting in the city.

In comparing the residential rate to the other rates, I noticed that the residential rate is fifty percent more than the rate for office buildings, and double the rate for commercial/retail. (The rate for industrial is low but seems about right since an industrial property probably doesn’t use the city’s landscaping and lighting as much as a retail or office property.)

As a property owner, I am willing to pay to maintain the landscaping in our parks and the lighting on our streets. But making residential property owners (or a tenant through a rent increase) pay a higher rate strikes me as unfair, especially when you compare what a different consultant came up with about a year ago. This other consultant was asked to determine what one-time fees to charge developers of residential projects, office building projects and retail projects. (After developers objected to this development fee, the city council majority quietly dropped it.) The fees would have been used to pay for creating new parks. His conclusion: charge basically the same rate for residential developments as office building or commercial/retail developments. Considering that far more people work and shop in Emeryville than those who live in Emeryville, this one-to-one ratio seems fair.

Since there is more square footage in an office building, an office-building property owner will pay much more for this assessment tax than a residential property owner. But that doesn’t mean that the higher rate for residential is necessarily fair.

Furthermore, the vote is not the same as an election where each voter gets one vote. When voting on an assessment district, property owners who would pay more money get more votes. For example, a person with a 1,000-square-foot condo would get 127.96 votes, but a property owner of a 100,000-square-foot office building would get 8,250 votes. This means that a small number of property owners who own the large office buildings in town could have effective control over the outcome of the vote.

The tax burden should be more fairly distributed between the business-oriented uses and the residential uses. The city council can change these rates, but once the ballots are mailed out, the rates will be set.

Best,
John

Will the "City of Shopping Malls" be a Good place to Live and Work, too?

by Reem Assil

In light of requested $47 million taxpayer subsidy, report shows how new Bay Street development can create good jobs and livable communities

With state and local budget crises looming and the economy struggling to recover, a report released this week shows residents and workers in Emeryville want a say in how their "shopping-mall of a city" spends their public tax dollars. United through the Coalition for a Better Bay Street, residents and workers see a key opportunity to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable city through the second phase of a large-scale development project.

"In the midst of a recession, with the possibility that redevelopment funds may shrink in the city, it is more important than ever for residents and workers to have a say in how tax dollars are spent," said Jennifer Lin, Research Director at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy and co-author of the report.

The new report, entitled Bringing Main Street Back to Bay Street: Win-Win Solutions to Create Good Jobs and Livable Communities in Emeryville, comes as the City Council is considering an estimated $47 million subsidy for the second phase of the Bay Street project. The agreement between the City and the developer to pursue development is set to expire in September. The community report outlines how the City, the developer Madison Marquette, and the community together can achieve quality jobs for local residents, affordable family-friendly housing, and improvements in the public school system.

"We don't want our home to be a soulless, regional shopping mall," said Tracy Schroth, a member of Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE). "We really look forward to sitting down with [developer] Madison Marquette and the city to come up with an agreement. We see this as a huge opportunity to create something really good, for the developer, for the city, and for all the residents who live in this community." Schroth was one of the residents knocking on doors last February surveying over 400 Emeryville residents. The surveys showed that an overwhelming 82% were opposed to or had mixed feelings about the second phase of the Bay Street project in its current form. Based on the last publicly available information, the project proposal includes a 23-story hotel and condominium tower, up to 130,000 sq ft of retail, and up to 900 parking spaces.

In order to achieve this vision of a Main Street-type Bay Street, the report points to establishing local hire and first source hiring processes that would allow Emeryville residents a first-chance at new job openings, creating family-sized affordable housing that is accessible to a range of incomes, and considering creative resource sharing between the City and the School District. "People living and working in Emeryville need better paying jobs. … Since there is a subsidy involved in the next phase of Bay Street, they should be creating quality jobs, not just creating more working poverty," said Cristal Ticong, a worker at Emeryville's Hilton Garden Inn.

According to the report, the first phase of Bay Street represented a missed opportunity. While providing some affordable housing benefits and generating significant tax revenues for future development, it did little by way of quality jobs for local residents, transit, bike, and pedestrian-friendly development, and promotion of locally owned, local-serving businesses.

The report will inform a public discussion at an historic Community Townhall Meeting where residents, small business owners, workers, advocates and other community leaders will gather to call on the City Council and the developer of the second phase of Bay Street to work with the community to achieve a "Better Bay Street". Free copies of the report will be available at the town hall. Click here to access the online version.

The town hall begins at 6pm on Tuesday, July 28th at the Emeryville Senior Center (4321 Salem Street).

To RSVP, contact Raquel Namuche, raquel@workingeastbay.org

---------------------------

The Coalition for a Better Bay Street consists of residents, workers, and advocates organizing to ensure that the second phase of the Bay Street development creates good jobs and livable neighborhoods. Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE) is a citizens group working to improve the quality of life in Emeryville. The East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) is celebrating 10 years of building power and raising standards for working families.

Reem Assil is a community organizer for EBASE. Reem is inspired by both her love for community and her understanding of the importance of building power in the labor movement. Her formative experience with coalition building and community organizing comes out of organizing in the Arab American community, in which her heart lies.

Federal Stimulus Money Funds Internships in Emeryville

by Margaret Leonard

An Oakland 15-year-old and an Emeryville yoga teacher are among the first to take advantage of President Barack Obama's Economic Stimulus Plan.

One wanted a job and the other wanted to hire a young local person to give her new connections to the community.

Both got what they wanted.

Chakesha Thompson has just started her summer internship at the Square One Yoga Collective. It’s not far from her home in Oakland and even closer to her high school in Emeryville, where she’ll be a tenth grader in the fall.

Katy Cryer, 32, the yoga teacher and studio owner who hired Thompson, plans to teach her as much as possible about starting a new business during a frightening recession. That’s what Cryer has been doing for the past five months.

“If I can start a successful yoga studio in the heart of a recession, Chakesha can follow her dreams too,” Cryer said. “If her dream involves starting a business, marketing, PR or customer relations, I can teach her many of those skills.”

Thompson got her job, and Cryer got her intern, from EYE –- Emery’s Young Entrepreneurs -- an East Bay branch of the federal stimulus plan. EYE's budget is $84,000, enough for 25 summer internships.

The internships have been offered and taken quickly, according to Jennielyn Dino Rossi, EYE's liaison. In fact, she said, EYE is now trying to raise money to set up more internships for the waiting list of eager students.

Thompson said she applied because “I want the experience.” She also wants to put away a little money for college.

Cryer applied for the chance to take an intern because “I wanted to help, that it would be a good way to be of service to the community.

“I’m a high school teacher (seven years teaching math to teenagers), and I know how to start a business. I want to teach her about possibilities. If there’s good stuff out there, you go after it.”

What else does Thompson want?

"I want to help her expand her business,” Thompson said. One reason Cryer hired Thompson was that the 15-year-old has a lot of ideas for expanding Cryer’s business. For example, she wants to go to the senior center and recruit older people to take yoga. Cryer, whose studio hasn’t seen many elderly people so far, likes that idea. Thompson also wants to recruit people her own age to “youth yoga.”

Square One , which has 12 instructors, charges just $10 a class.

Thompson says she doesn’t mind any of the work. In addition to the marketing she wants to do, she has typical high-school-intern chores: answer the phone, water the plants, sweep the floors, wash the cups, sign in the students.

And she’ll have on-the-job training: five classes of yoga.


“I watched yoga; I liked it," Thompson said. “I’ll give it a try.”

She’ll get paid to take her first five classes and then have “all the yoga she wants” without charge as long as she works there. The contract says that’ll be up to 200 hours, until Sept. 30. Right now, Thompson says she hopes to make it permanent and full-time when the internship expires.

Cryer said Thompson will earn as much as $1,600 in wages.

__________________________________________________________

Square One Yoga Collective is located at 4336-A San Pablo Ave., Emeryville.

Margaret Leonard is the mother of Katy Cryer. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she lives in Tallahasee, FL.

John Fricke Won't Seek Second Term

The Bad News: Fricke Will Not Seek Re-election to City Council

The Good News: New Park, New Cafe, and New Berkeley Bowl Open

(Email message sent to residents by John Fricke on July 1, 2009)

Dear Emeryville neighbors,

The play structure at the new park at 61st and Doyle streets is open! (The newly-planted grass will need additional time to get established before the central grassy area of the park opens as well.)

There is a new café on 65th Street at Vallejo called Bailey’s on 65th. It is open for breakfast and lunch on weekdays. I had a great lunch there today with Jim Martin. Here are some reviews:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/baileys-on-65th-emeryville

The new Berkeley Bowl opened a few weeks ago. It is at Ninth Street and Heinz Avenue, near Orchard Supply and Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley. Unfortunately, Berkeley’s connection to Emeryville’s greenway seems to be years from realization.

My city council term is ending this fall, and I will not be running for re-election.

Four years ago, I ran on a platform of improving access for pedestrians, bicycles, and public transit users. When I was sworn in, I called for a new model of growth in Emeryville. A model of growth that ‘emphasizes quality of life as well as economic vitality, that emphasizes pedestrian and bicycle access as well as reduced vehicle congestion, and that emphasizes fulfilling our community needs as well as providing a place for regional retail activity.’ In four years’ time, I can point to a limited number of results: the bike lane on Adeline Street, the lane reductions on the 40th Street Bridge, and the park that is soon to open. I look forward to continuing to work on a number of ongoing efforts until my term ends in November.

Best,

John

John Fricke
jfricke@JohnFricke.com
www.JohnFricke.com

Semifreddi's Leaving Emeryville After 20 Years

Beloved Family Bakery Displaced by Pixar

Forced to Leave Town Despite City Promises

By Brian Donahue and Tracy Schroth

Sometime before Oct. 31, the final tray of baguettes will be pulled from the oven and another Emeryville business and its 125 jobs will vanish in the name of “progress.”

Semifreddi’s, one of the Bay Area’s leading craft bakers is being forced out to make room for the latest expansion by Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios.

“We would have loved to stay in Emeryville," said Tom Frainier, co-owner and president of Semifreddi's. "But there is no space for light industrial use such as ours anymore.”

The die was cast in 2000 when Pixar purchased the building at Hollis and 45th streets where Semifreddi’s, Bisco’s Café, Grainger's tool supply, and other businesses called home. The building, a low-slung, brick and glass pre-war factory now has a firm date with the wrecking ball. It will be replaced by a new two-story office building, part of phase II of Pixar's campus expansion. The campus, when complete, will stretch from 45th to Park streets, and from Hollis Street to San Pablo Avenue. It will be the largest uninterrupted parcel of commercial space in town. The entire campus will be surrounded by an 8-foot security fence.

Frainier said his company has had a good working relationship with Pixar, its neighbor and current landlord. However, relations with the City have been less amicable. Despite promises from Council Members Nora Davis and Dick Kassis that the City would help the bakery find a new home, Frainier said little was done to keep the bakery in Emeryville.

“Talk is cheap,” Frainier said.

The Bakery has operated in Emeryville for the past 20 years, delivering pastries, bread, and desserts to hundreds of supermarkets, restaurants, and specialty shops all over the Bay Area.

“Our first choice was to stay in Emeryville,” said Mike Rose, Semifreddi's co-owner with brother-in-law Frainier. “We love it here.”

Rose said he has known for years that the end was coming. Pixar bought the building in 2000 with the intent of tearing it down. He said Semifreddi’s was never even given a chance to put an offer on the building. Since then, every effort to purchase another building in town has been unsuccessful.

“Every time we tried to buy a space in town, we were beat to it by condo developers,” Rose said. “Pulte Homes bought the last site before Semifreddi’s could." Left with no choice, the bakery, which produces 160,000 loaves of bread a week, took its search outside the city limits.

Semifreddi's has found an eager host in the City of Alameda, where it will relocate in November. It will keep company with two former Emeryville neighbors, Peets Coffee and Donsuemor, which makes gourmet French cookies.

“Emeryville has done everything to transform [itself] away from blue collar industry,” Frainier said, adding he's watched it turn from a small town with "alittle bit of everything" to a city that caters to corporations and big box retail.

“Now the town has morphed into malls, condos, and office space," Frainier said, lamenting that the many things that make a city attractive have been left by the wayside.

Frainier's partner, Mike Rose, added that the city has “inadequate provisions for families,” which has created a “diminished sense of community."

Opinion

Big Business Needs to Pay Their Share


by Scott Donahue

Our city must raise more money to support the general fund because sales tax revenue
has severely declined. Where is this money going to come from? Every city has a business license tax and every business in Emeryville earning more than $5,000 in gross receipts must pay this tax. Businesses pay a percentage of their gross receipts whether they earn a profit or not.

There is, however, an exception: big business.

Big business in Emeryville is required to pay tax only on the first $3 million of gross receipts. The rest is entirely tax-free. Why is this? Why should small business pay proportionally so much more than big business? Emeryville has among the lowest business tax rates of any city in the Bay Area. The city council majority has always argued that it must provide incentives to big business so as not to lose them to other cities. This is absurd. Emeryville is among the most desirable places to do business in the Bay Area. We have the ability to collect taxes in a more equitable way. If big business were to pay what small business pays our general fund would gain much needed revenue.

I believe we could easily raise our overall business tax rate and not lose business to other
cities. I pay taxes to other cities where I do business, and all of them have significantly higher tax rates than Emeryville.


Scott Donahue is a 32- year resident and business owner in Emeryville. He chairs the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, whose members are appointed annually by the City Council.