Sutter Health plan dominates City Council candidate forum

A controversial plan to build a massive Sutter Health medical center dominated an Emeryville City Council candidate forum Thursday night. 

Resident Jeff Johnson expressed concerns about the 335,000-square-foot project’s magnitude, saying the added traffic and load on city services could be “damaging for the city for years and decades to come.” 

Council incumbents David Mourra and Kalimah Priforce declined to give an opinion on whether the project should proceed, citing rules against city officials weighing in on projects with pending permits. Challengers Corry Frydlewicz, a technology specialist at a law firm, and Brandon Soublet, a public policy analyst, said they were against the proposal, questioning whether the benefits of the 325-bed medical complex outweighed the added traffic. 

“We need to get something out of it,” Frydlewicz said.

The four candidates are vying to fill two seats. The one-hour forum was hosted by the Emery Unified School District and the League of Women Voters. League members prepared questions and solicited attendees for other queries, including those concerning housing affordability and the city budget.  

The medical center’s development application, submitted in March, is winding its way through the approval process and awaiting an environmental impact report. Jeff Fontas, an Emeryville resident who attended the forum said the Sutter project “is going to be the most consequential decision that a city council member elected in this race is going to potentially decide over.” 

If moved forward, the medical center would open in 2032 or 2033 and provide comprehensive medical resources including an emergency room, labor and delivery, neonatal intensive care unit, intensive care and surgery units. Sutter Health currently provides care for more than 3.5 million patients in California. The Emeryville project would expand its presence in the East Bay, adding nearly 3,000 jobs. As a nonprofit, the complex would be exempt from paying certain taxes.

Soublet said changes need to be made to the current proposal to ensure the Emeryville community benefits from this project. He highlighted that Sutter Health hasn’t signed off on a community benefits agreement, which Soublet said should include free community health clinics.

“Sutter has been wishy-washy on community benefit,” he said.

Frydlewicz would like to see more community feedback incorporated into the plan, including an assessment on traffic during construction and after the center opens. She discussed the possibility of Sutter investing in Emeryville’s local transport, the Emery-go-round, adding stops and enhancing services to support the larger influx of people commuting to the medical complex.

Mourra said the city should consider having Sutter make a payment to offset the city of city services during construction.

Priforce, who has called on Sutter to have an ongoing channel of communication with the community, suggested adding a city staffer to “ensure whatever the agreement is, it is upheld.” 

Affordable housing

Another focal point of the forum was the question of affordable housing. In the last year, monthly rent in Emeryville increased by $592, according to Zillow. In their comments, all candidates called the cost of housing a crisis. Priforce, Mourra and Soublet referenced tenant protection recommendations discussed at a City Council study session earlier this week, calling it a step forward.

Priforce began by pointing out that he, unlike most on the council, is a renter. “We have to focus less on building buildings,” he said, and instead find ways to build support for people.

For Mourra, there’s only one way to solve the housing crisis —  build. “We need a mix of housing, market-rate housing, affordable, subsidized housing,” he said. 

Frydlewicz framed her ideas as short-term.

“We need to freeze evictions, prevent landlords from raising rent;” long-term, “the biggest thing we can do is continue to build more housing that is diverse, that suits the needs of all of us.”

Highlighting Emeryville’s small size, Soublet suggested finding ways to optimize the city’s limited geography, proposing greater density and a mix of unit types for various household sizes. 

City budget

Emeryville’s budget has a projected deficit of more than $12 million in the next fiscal year, which is expected to grow up to $13 million by 2028. The City Council put Measure BB on the November ballot to address this by simplifying business license rates to make them fairer to small businesses, taxing gross receipts annually from 0.1% to 0.4%, depending on business category. If passed, the measure would bring in an additional $5.9 million in funding and cover around half of the projected deficit. 

Candidates were asked how they would offset the rest.

Frydlewicz mentioned vacancy taxes as a measure to increase revenue and discourage evictions. Vacancy taxes charge landlords when their unit is vacant for more than a short period of time.

Mourra is against increasing taxes. Instead, he emphasized the need to study the city budget in depth and cut unnecessary spending, as well as building more housing to increase revenue from property taxes. 

Soublet suggested a hotel tax as a means to lessen the tax burden on Emeryville residents. 

Priforce reinforced his slogan of “building people,” and posed a potential tax on corporations operating in the city.

A recording of the forum will be shared on the League of Women Voters’ YouTube channel in the coming days. The deadline to register online to vote in the Nov. 3 election is Oct. 19.

(Top photo: Candidates Kalimah Priforce, left, and Corry Frydlewicz; moderator Tracy Edwards Jenkins; and candidtes Brandon Soublet, and David Mourra at the election forum at Emery High School, by Photo by Jordan Potier, courtesy of The E’ville Eye)

(This story was updated to correct the spelling of Jeff Fontas’ last name.)

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