Big Win for Emeryville Progressives
We're a little miffed that SFGate couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the electoral goings-on in Emeryville, and we're more than a little miffed that it took until after midnight for the city to finish tallying all 2100 votes, but in the end all the nail-biting was worth it: the progressive candidate for city council, John Fricke, decisively won one of the two open seats, and the living-wage ballot measure passed with a decent margin.
The incumbent, Dick Kassis, took the most votes in the three-way race. He had teamed up with candidate Ed Treuting, but despite the partnership, Treuting received approximately 25% fewer votes. We don't really feel sorry for Ed, though; when he called us to ask us for our vote, we told him we were voting for Fricke and maybe either him or Kassis, and we asked him to tell us why we should vote for him rather than Kassis. Since they were running as a team, Treuting didn't want to say anything negative about his buddy. That and a progression of nonanswers to our other questions gave us a clear decision on the matter of Ed Treuting.
We're happy but not ecstatic about the passage of the hotel union-backed Measure C, which guarantees a "living wage" for employees of the large hotels in Emeryville. We put that in quotes, 'cause we don't know about you, but where in the Bay Area is $9/hour considered a living wage? Anyway, we don't like how the union behaved -- the measure should have applied to all Emeryville workers, not just the ones the union wished it had as members -- but the sheer vitriol, outright lies, and bizarre doublespeak from the No-on-C people just made us ashamed to have people in our town capable of such expensive nonsense. Anyway, C is far from perfect, but Emeryville voters have signaled that we're interested in a living-wage law. It's time for the city council to take note.
So it's four more years of Kassis, and four new, promising years of John Fricke. With two progressives now on the five-member council (the members of which take turns being mayor), we hope to see more socially conscious plans coming out of the E-ville town hall.