¶ Emeryville Tattler: Council Member Priforce Faces 'Political Lynch Mob' at Tuesday's Special Council Meeting
¶ Wednesday, November 27, 2024
¶ Council Member Priforce Faces 'Political Lynch Mob' at Tuesday's Special Council Meeting
¶ Condemnation Brought By Teflon Mayor
Emeryville's most dependable progressive voice on the City Council may be purged from every city committee and formally censured for ethics violations Tuesday as an aggrieved City Council majority closes ranks. But the Council majority’s accusations against their colleague Kalimah Priforce and the process under which they were brought, raise their own questions - questions concerning the weaponization and politicization of Emeryville’s Code of Ethics ordinance.
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| Emeryville City Council Member Kalimah Priforce The progressive conscience of Emeryville's City Council. |
The lone progressive among his more conservative colleagues, Councilman Priforce has clashed with the majority over tenant's rights and rent control, as well as local control of housing policy since his election to the Council, earning him the enmity that could now silence his voice. The silencing will be the topic at a Council Special Meeting on Tuesday at 6:00 pm.
An inspection of six charges against Mr Priforce brought by Mayor Courtney Welch present a scattershot of violations seemingly designed less for accountability and more with retribution in mind. Of the six, four are shown to be demonstrably false and two a politicized use of the law based on selective enforcement. Ms Welch is also demanding an apology from Mr Priforce.
Tuesday’s censure/sanction vote comes amid a charge delineated by the city attorney and brought by the Tattler editor against Mayor Welch for also violating the Code of Ethics, however the Council majority has disregarded the charge against the Mayor. The two disparate outcomes - Priforce and Welch, stemming from the same violation of the same ordinance at the same time, brings the specter of cronyism and corruption on the Council majority and a powerful argument for those seeking the formation of an independent ethics commission.
Because the City Council refused to allow an ethics commission to adjudicate ethics violations as other neighboring cities do, the enforcement of the Code of Ethics in Emeryville is in the hands of the City Council itself. Findings aren't required to be factual and they don’t carry the force of law, so punishments meted out by the Council majority may be based on nothing more than their feelings.
¶ The Charges
Councilman Priforce faces the following six charges:
1) Disclosure of confidential information
2) Violations of the Fair Political Practices Commission
3) Failure to impress upon two candidates for Council he supported, the need to file their FPPC forms accurately
4) Speaking in harsh terms publicly against members of the public and specifically a City committee member
5) Failure to sign the Code of Ethics certification
6) Falsely claiming to be running for mayor in the November election
¶ The Charges Examined
1) During Nov. 19 2023 Council meeting, Mr. Priforce, reporting on the happenings of a just concluded closed session meeting, entered into the record that Mayor Courtney Welch grew so passionate and heated in her criticisms of Mr. Priforce, that her voice could be heard by the public outside the chamber along with on the sidewalk outside the building. See video link below (go to 15:38 - 19:16) In addition, under California’s Brown Act, Title 5 states: "A local agency may not take any action against a person, nor shall it be deemed a violation, for doing the following: expressing an opinion concerning the propriety or legality of actions taken by a legislative body of a local agency in closed session, including disclosure of the nature and extent of the illegal or potentially illegal action." This charge by the City Council majority against Mr Priforce is thus false.
2) Mr. Priforce appears to have missed one or more candidate deadlines for reporting donations and campaign spending to the state Fair Political Practices Commission. While this is concerning, it is by no means out of the ordinary, even among Emeryville candidates to fall afoul of fairly Byzantine regulations. At the end of the day, the FPPC handles its own enforcement. The council, by weighing in, appears to be attempting to exaggerate a pedestrian oversight into some disqualifying scandal. Mr Priforce has since brought all his FPPC filings up to date to April 2024. This finding is selective enforcement and therefore is political in nature.
3) Two candidates Mr. Priforce endorsed failed to comply with certain state Fair Political Practices Commission regulations. The Council's resolution would punish these candidates by proxy, by sanctioning Mr. Priforce for their oversights. Punishment by proxy is wrong and so this finding is false.
4) On the receiving end of a campaign of disparaging character attacks on social media by an advisory committee member, Mr Priforce, at a July 2023 Bike Committee meeting, asked for better online decorum and criticized that member at a Council meeting for making little effort in their application to the committee. Council member Priforce is being subject to censure for trivial actions that took place prior to the creation of the Code of Ethics. It represents selective enforcement with no stated statute of limitations. Charging a person before the law exists makes this political in nature.
5) The resolution would censure and sanction Mr. Priforce for failing to sign the city's Code of Ethics ordinance. Mr. Priforce, who says he was a proponent of the measure, claims his colleagues undermined the ethics code by refusing to establish an independent enforcement commission. Therefore, he says, he abstained from supporting it. It appears as though Mr. Priforce is being accused of voting with his conscience and against what he views as a measure that could be politicized, which it appears has come to pass. How one votes, a constitutional right, cannot be criminalized by a municipality. A Council member’s vote cannot be turned into malfeasance. Finding number 5 is thus false.
6) Traditionally, Emeryville's Council has rotated the largely ceremonial office of mayor. In 2023, when custom held it was Mr. Priforce's turn at vice mayor position and then the follow up to mayor the next year, the majority skipped him and instead chose David Mourra. This year, while campaigning, Mr. Priforce, in endorsing two other candidates, told the public that if both of his preferred candidates were successful, that he could ascend to the mayor's office. To accuse someone of claiming to run for mayor when local citizens don't elect the mayor and the mayor's office isn't on the ballot, is patently absurd. The statement Mr Priforce made about running for mayor is not unethical in any way and the charge against him is therefore false.
¶ Precedent: Censure/Sanction Reserved For Crimes
The action Tuesday by the Council majority is only the second time in modern Emeryville history censure/sanction has been invoked. Before the Code of Ethics was written, the Council majority voted to censure Council member Ken Bukowski for public corruption. Mr Bukowski was alleged to have voted in the interest of a private corporation on the Council while working for and taking money from the same corporation; a crime in the state of California. Mr Bukowski denied the charges and he was not arrested but he was ultimately censured by the City Council. Mr Bukowski was not stripped of his city committees. The sanction punishment came later, after further tawdry behavior was revealed and it involved him being removed from all regional committees.
Mr Priforce on the other hand, is not charged with having committed a crime but the sanction punishment, his removal from all committees including all regional committees and removal of travel benefits, is worse than what the Council meted out to Mr Bukowski for his much more egregious criminal and ethics violation.
The City Attorney and the City Manager expressly warned the City Council in 2023 against what they have now done: weaponize Emeryville's Code of Ethics. An independent ethics commission would almost certainly not have brought these charges against Council member Priforce and the forces within Emeryville's citizenry that have called for a commission are now given a powerful rallying cry. People wishing fair play, less drama and bombast from their City Council will be emboldened by Tuesday's action to join their ranks.
Here is a petition concerning the formation of an Emeryville ethics commission: https://www.change.org/p/establish-public-ethics-oversight-in-emeryville-california
The video that landed Mr Priforce in hot water with the Mayor of Emeryville is in the link below. Go to 1:18:11 - 1:21:49 in the video to see the comments from Mr Priforce that so outraged the Mayor that she brought charge #1 (disclosure of confidential information) against him. Watch the video and ask yourself: Is an ethics charge warranted? Any normal (disinterested) person will say NO. This video shows the level of depravity that now exists among the anti-Priforce zealots on the Emeryville City Council majority. Council member Priforce said NOTHING that could even loosely be considered unethical yet he now faces charges for that. Please judge for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/live/o7OntshGbR0?si=E8PF9H9jHiy1AHxc
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| Advertisement from Council member Priforce encouraging people to attend Tuesday night's event. |