Residents Plan Protest Rally, Big Showing at Upcoming Council Meeting

Group Demands Action From City Council,
Criticizes Special Treatment for Developer of 2nd Phase of Bay Street

What: Emeryville residents, workers, small business owners and members of the Coalition for a Better Bay Street will stage a rally in front of City Hall to protest the possibility of a fifth extension of an exclusive agreement with the city to develop the second phase of the Bay Street project. Madison Marquette, also developer of the first phase of Bay Street, is requesting an estimated $50 million public subsidy for the second phase of the project, slated to be a mixed‐use retail project including a 23‐story hotel and condo tower and 900-car parking garage. The rally comes after an historic town hall where more than 100 residents, workers, and small‐business owners called on the City Council and Madison Marquette to work with the community to create a better project through a formal community benefits agreement. Their requests to date have been ignored.

When: Tuesday, September 1, 2009, 6pm, Press Conference and Rally; 7 pm, City Council Meeting

Where: Emeryville City Hall, 1333 Park Ave.(@ Hollis St.)

Who: Sponsored by the Coalition for a Better Bay Street, which includes Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE), East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), and UNITE‐HERE Local 2850. The rally will feature residents and workers speaking out about their vision, including good jobs for local residents, affordable housing for families, funding for schools, and residents having a voice in how their city spends public dollars.

Why: “Bay Street 2 will cost us—the taxpayers—about $50 million in subsidies,” says Tracy Schroth, seven‐year resident of Emeryville and member of RULE. “What do we get in return? What does this $50 million buy in benefits for the people who live and work here? The City Council majority and a handful of developers have had a run of the city for years, and we want it back.”

Based on more than 400 community surveys collected earlier this year, an overwhelming majority—82%--are not supportive of or have mixed feelings about the current Bay Street Site B proposal put forward by Madison Marquette.

Emeryville Resident Demands Answers from City Council on Developer Subsidies and Staff Salaries

An open letter to the Emeryville City Council and all interested Emeryville residents.

I recently attended a Town Hall meeting that did not address the following issues:

• Subsidies for developer Madison Marquette - I want to know, and so should all citizens, the amount of the subsidy the council is planning to give. I want to know how much money the city will receive from the proposed project over a 2-year, 5-year and 10-year time period. I want to know why the council has renewed the ENA (exclusive negotiating agreement) several times and plans to do so again. I want to know why the council will not open bidding to other developers.
• Proposed assessment of property owners - the above info will provide numbers on revenue intake and thus possibly make a proposed property assessment unnecessary or minimal. I am opposed, and so should you be, to any assessment without knowing the amount of money the city will receive from any proposed subsidy. I want to know how much money the city wants to subsidize the developer with. If there is an assessment at some point, I want all persons owning property to pay the same amount - that will eliminate political bickering over who uses more services.
• Belt tightening action by the city - it is my understanding that the city is considering cuts to salary and benefits and that same is suggested by the city manager to be considered within a year. It is reasonable to assume that City Manager Patrick O'Keefe and City Attorney Mike Biddle are the highest-paid employees, with the city attorney being paid a probable six-figure income. The city attorney wrote/writes his own contract and has had it renewed over many years, perhaps now through 2011. How does the sitting city attorney get to write his own contract? The city manager, I think, also gets a six-figure salary and I think has also had his contract renewed through 2011. I think the city council should make clear why they have permitted Biddle to write his own contract many times; and, if applicable, why they have permitted O'Keefe to also write his own employment description. I think their exact salaries and benefits is public information and I want that information to be made known to all citizens of Emeryville. Insofar as I am aware, neither the city attorney nor city manager have offered to take less money when, in fact, any cuts should start with them - the highest paid persons, and then proceed to those who are paid less. I believe that the city attorney and city manager discuss cuts to the city's employees' salaries, but why have they not included themselves? I think this is Orwellian - in his novel, Animal Farm, Orwell said, "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others." I don't think that should be an acceptable stance by either Biddle, O'Keefe, or the city council. I believe that the two highest-paid employees should not be able to pass the problem of decreasing city revenues to those they gaze down upon from lofty heights of salary and benefits. I also ask the council why these two positions have always been renewed with the same persons occupying them and whether there been efforts to actively consider other individuals? After all, the current fiscal problems of the city have occurred on their watch. If these concerns are not addressed, and if the information requested is not provided, I think Emeryville citizens should either consider a recall of the council or, in the alternative, should vote the council out. Given that they have protected Vice Mayor Ken Bukowski, their self interest is more than clear.
  

Walt Watman
Emeryville resident

900 Parking Spaces, 3X the Height Limit, $8 Million Taxpayer Subsidy

(Edited email from Council Member John Fricke to Emeryville residents Aug. 14)

One prime example of the City Council majority’s genuflection to developers is the ‘Transit Center’ (proposed for the lot just north of Emeryville’s train station).

At the upcoming Council meeting August 18, the Council majority will likely support a project that will:

• Exacerbate traffic congestion
• Vastly exceed the maximum building height allowed by the city’s zoning ordinance
• Funnel millions of dollars in taxpayer money to Wareham Development. (I will miss the meeting due to a family vacation.) (See below for my past email messages about the proposed project.)

Although this proposal has gone through several iterations in the past several years, the developer's hyperbole hasn’t changed much. Among the developer's misrepresentations:

The project would result in the clean-up of a toxic site.
Decades ago, the toxic soil was surrounded by a wall and capped. Periodic soil sampling continues to indicate that the toxics are staying put, and therefore pose no harm. The same cannot be said for the risks of removing the toxic soil.

The project will improve public transit.
Not unlike the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, the developer seems to have finally acknowledged that the ‘Transit Center’ has no transit. The project has thus received a re-branding: it is now called EmeryStation West.

Traffic Congestion

As first proposed, the Transit Center included hundreds of parking spaces next to a street (Horton Street) that is not designed to accommodate such a volume of traffic. The latest proposal includes even more parking spaces. In addition to the proposed office building next to the train station (300 parking spaces), the developer would also construct a parking garage across the street (600 spaces). The city staff report is conspicuously silent on the impact of 900 cars accessing city streets designed for far fewer cars. Horton Street is a bicycle boulevard, and is the last north-south street in Emeryville – running nearly the length of the city – that remains pleasant for bicyclists and pedestrians. 900 cars would surely change that.

Building Height

The current proposed height of 17 stories (160 feet), has changed little since the developer first proposed the transit center and condo tower. The city’s zoning ordinance allows a maximum building height of five stories (50 feet).

In Washington, D.C., lobbyists manage to get special exceptions inserted into legislation to benefit a particular industry or client. So too in Emeryville, where the city council is about to approve a new zoning law that carves out a specific exception for the site of this proposed project.

In the area around the train station, the proposed zoning law provides maximum building heights of seven and five stories. The maximum height is reduced the closer one gets to older residential areas – EXCEPT for the one parcel where Wareham Development intends to construct its 160-foot office building. Here is a map of the proposed maximum building heights (6MB):

http://www.johnfricke.com/DraftGenPlan-MaxBldgHeight.pdf

Often, a developer will justify exceeding the maximum height by saying that anything less will simply “not pencil.” In this case, the developer is both asking for three times the current maximum height, and a multi-million dollar subsidy from the city.

$8 Million Taxayer Subsidy

Wareham Development has received millions in city subsidies, the most recent of which is for a project next to the greenway at Powell:
http://www.johnfricke.com/05-14-09.html

For the proposed project next to the train station, the developer wants an $8.3 million subsidy. The state budget recently approved will require Emeryville to give back millions of dollars to the state. The money will come from the same budget that the city has for granting subsidies to developers. By continuing to grant subsidies to developers, the city council will be forced to reduce funding for projects that would provide concrete benefits to the residents.

About a year and a half ago, the city council debated imposing an impact fee on developers. The money would have been used to pay for infrastructure improvements and public amenities (such as new parks and open space) that would be necessary as more people moved to and worked in Emeryville. The city council majority let this impact fee quietly die, but the longstanding practice of lining the developers’ pockets with city subsidies continues unabated.

John Fricke
1057 43rd Street
Emeryville, CA 94608
510/601-8846
jfricke@JohnFricke.com
www.JohnFricke.com

My past email messages about the Transit Center:

http://www.johnfricke.com/03-09-06.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/03-22-06.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/02-18-07.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/03-05-07.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/03-19-07.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/12-20-07.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/02-02-08.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/01-25-09.html