How’s She Gonna Pay for That?

Financial Penalties

Entities that undertake business practices or policies contrary to the values of the city or our General Plan should be financially penalized for those misalignments.

Vacancy Taxes

I propose a progressive vacancy tax that aggressively impacts entities that own many vacant investment properties in our city. The amount of these penalties would greatly effect its impacts, but I’d intend for it to drive landowners to use or sell their space. In addition to funding enforcement, penalties we collect would ideally go toward services for the homeless, small local businesses, and/or tenants.

Learn more about my proposed vacancy taxes on my Housing Affordability policy page.

Income Inequality Taxes

Because all of these things are connected, we also need to improve the distribution of income. We need to do our part to reverse the damage done from the lie of trickle down economics. I want to tax big corporations who operate in Emeryville based on the pay gap between their executives and their median paid workers. Thus incentivizing those companies to pay their workers — who’re often our own city residents — better or pay more into our city to help us provide services and make improvements.

Some example companies operating in Emeryville:

• Company Pay Ratios (AFL-CIO)

Make Polluters Pay

In Emeryville, we have pretty good environmental policies for new construction, but there are existing operations here that negatively impact our environment. We need to incentivize them to do better by charging them for polluting.

I’m in favor of taxing fossil fuel profits in our city, whether that means gas stations, coal operations, or businesses that use an excessive amount of fossil fuels in their operations.

Ideally, we can stop using and transporting these corrosive materials in our city entirely, but when we can’t we can at least encourage more responsible use and reparations.

Employer Parking Fees

We can tax employers who utilize large amounts of parking for employees, and incentivize them to encourage alternative transit or hire employees more locally.

Permit Use Delay Fines

We have multiple projects in pending “more favorable market conditions” in Emeryville. Some of them are for housing, others for commercial spaces. Much like with vacancy fees, I believe we can nudge these developers into building what they plan to build sooner. We can charge them each day they delay in making progress on building on the land they’re holding up, and create more favorable market conditions today.

Defund the Police State

We are surrounded by cities who’ve caved to Palantir, Flock, and other big tech companies that’ve convinced these representatives that they need to constantly surveil their residents. We have to resist this trend of police militarization and intrusion of our privacy.

The media immediately seized upon the “Defund the Police” protest call to action as soon as they heard it. They did everything they could to poison the phrase, but it’s not as crazy as Fox News makes it sound and it’s absolutely necessary for the survival of modern cities.

Police Budgets are Out of Control

Emeryville’s budget for police is nearly half our total city budget. That’s insane. And yet every few council meetings we see EPD and related interests asking for more.

So when budgets get tight, other city services are the ones that see cuts. Education, parks, economic assistance, housing support, public transit, and other services that do more to promote public health and safety are getting cut. We need to stop and reverse this unsustainable trend.

Police Marketing

All you have to do is look at any police department’s social media feeds to see how much of their budget they spend on marketing.

• AI-generated ads promoting police like a full-time marketing department
• Enforcement actions against low-priority non-violent issues.
• Heavily produced videos designed to make minor crimes look as scary as possible.

• Copaganda: What It Is and How to Recognize It (Teen Vogue)

Harassing Residents

Police departments spend their allegedly tight budgets on minor issues, bringing their guns, tasers, batons, and sometimes even body armor to situations where regular peaceful citizens are just trying to live their lives.

Nice small local business you got here. It’d be a shame if…

I’m not in favor of underage drinking, but sting operations are entrapment. They instigate situations to create crimes police can take credit for solving. Cops generally target small local businesses (often run by immigrants and people of color) and expend city resources to make their lives more difficult. I don’t want our cops acting like the gangsters I grew up dealing with in Jersey in the 90’s.

Heaven Forbid Teenagers Hang Out at the Mall

Emeryville PD somehow heard about a gathering at Bay Street where some teens were going to play music, show off their cars, and set off (illegal) fireworks.

Instead of waiting for Bay Street’s private security to report any actual crimes and responding, they post a public notice and show up in force to ruin any potential good vibes that could be had there.

The “unpermitted gathering” never ended up happening. Either because it was a hoax that successfully wasted all these resources or because the cops successfully ruined a potential good time. Either way, this isn’t what I want my city’s budget going toward.

Teenagers need spaces to gather, be noisy, and have fun. I grew up a skater kid chased away from public spaces regularly just for making noise in broad daylight. Let me tell you firsthand: It doesn’t lead to safer streets or less depressed kids. It pushes those kids to worse places and activities, and teaches them that their city doesn’t trust or value them.

Do you want more interactions with police?

Riding a bike without a helmet may not be safe, but neither is being pulled over by police.

Each time a resident has an interaction with police they don’t solicit themselves, they’re at risk. They’re made late for work, they get a ticket they can’t afford, or they have a panic attack as soon as they see the lights behind them. We shouldn’t be seeking out more opportunities for police to do this to peaceful residents.

If this is what police are spending time and resources doing, they have too much of it.

Tax Big Corporations & Wealthy Individuals

Finally, the least exciting but most effective way to raise revenue is progressive taxation. There shouldn’t be any flat taxes in our city. Those blessed with immense profits and incomes should pay proportionally into the collective budget that supports the city we all live in and benefit from.

As a member of city council, I’ll join other voices there who push for taxation to mostly spare those who struggle to get through each day and seek to collect more from the biggest earners. Not to punish them for their success, but to ensure that success benefits everyone who contributes to it. This includes city workers, street teams, housing support services, education, public health and safety, sanitation, maintenance, and all the other unsexy but necessary foundations these folks stood atop while making those profits.

Some will say this should be handled higher up the chain, at the federal or state level perhaps. But we can’t wait for them to finally react to today’s realities. We can’t count on them to do right by us. We need to protect our own today.

1% Sales Tax on Big Chains

I’d seek to add a supplemental sales tax to big national chains. Considering how much of our city resources our shopping centers demand from us, our revenue numbers from their profits aren’t making that worthwhile. It’s a consumption tax, which is more equitable than pulling from income and it’s more likely to bring in money from people visiting Emeryville from other areas.

It could also help drive customers to smaller local businesses that don’t participate in national chains. Big businesses often charge us in the city more to supplement low prices in rural parts of the country. Their customers use our roads, leave pollution and trash in their wake, and cause public safety incidents. We don’t have to enable that extraction without making them help us pay for it.

I’d like a portion of this revenue to go toward city programs focused on small business, like our BIPOC small business support program that started recently. If possible, I’d love to see it fund subsidies for brand-new locally-owned and controlled small businesses to fill our vacant storefronts and add to the vibrancy of our neighborhoods.

Tax Land Value, Not Building Value

It costs the city far more in per-capita infrastructure costs to support a single family home than it does a multi-family home. Better efficiency the denser that property gets. Cities generate more tax revenue from denser buildings without spending as much to have them spread out.

We should find ways to adjust our city property taxes more toward land value. We can get more from our big box stores with massive parking lots. We can take less from renters and owners of more efficient homes with smaller footprints.

It also incentivizes owners to take better care of their property, because we don’t tax them extra for having a nicer place. They don’t get a break for letting the place fall apart.

This is one of many ways we can get our budget on track and fund the city of our dreams.

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