On Jan 8th, 2023 at 7:53PM, I shared a link among the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club's email group of the Emeryville Tattler's story entitled, "Round Two in War Against City Council Member Priforce," since the blog post by Brian Donahue has gone through several updates and iterations, one particular iteration that went live by the time I posted the article contained a number of accusatorial leaps and taunts but also included tidbits on the influence of YIMBY on Emeryville's city council.
I ignored the tabloid aspects of the article and share dit to bring light to the issue. My post to the group created backlash from members of Emeryville's city council - current, reigning, and recently vacated, the YIMBY coalition of elected officials, followers, and party insiders, and even state political figures chimed in.
My first involvement into the matter was to address the issue of my posting to the group, which came in the form of an apology for the raucous it caused:
Next came clearing up some of the parts of the article that I contributed to and came along with minor edits:
Less than twenty-four hours later, the article was revised to include an update to the collegiality pledge conflict. In response I posted:
More developments may come, but these series of exchanges have helped to:
(1) call into question the unfair practice of requiring a collegiality agreement from others but not from yourself (something I would learn later) and engaging in non-collegial practices that are supported by others who also have not signed similar pledges.
(2) bring YIMBYism and Market-Rate Housing advocacy to the forefront to be challenged in ways that has not existed in Emeryville and the new Assembly District 18.
(3) revisit the non-existence of a code of ethics for councilmembers to adhere to followed by the formation of an ethics commission.