Candidate for
Council Member; City of Emeryville

Some Personal Notes by William "Michael" Webber

I grew up in North Hollywood, in Southern California, and went to college down there; I was a full-scholarship student at the University of Southern California and majored in English.

I worked for several years after graduating college, and decided to go to law school in 1978. I was very fortunate to be accepted by Sanford Law School.

A year after graduating from Stanford and working in a law firm in Los Angeles, I realized that the Bay Area had made a big impression on me, more substantial than I realized during law school, and I moved up here. I lived in San Francisco from 1983 until 2000, when I moved to the Temescal District in Oakland, right off Telegraph.

For the entirety of my legal career, my focus has been in real estate transactions (not litigation) - principally commercial leasing and commercial purchases and sales. I started in big firms, but had my own practice, worked as counsel in a community bank, and most recently, for almost 10 years, handled all the west-coast leases for a REIT (now an LLC) situated in San Mateo.

I got married in 2003, and when our baby girl Alexsi arrived in 2004, we took the momentous step of buying our first home and we moved to Emeryville in April of 2005.

Alexsi is 7 now, and a second grader at Emeryville's own Anna Yates Elementary School. I can remember her toddling around in the un-finished commercial space at the Andante Emeryville condominium project which eventually became the Miyozen sushi restaurant; the first organizing meetings of the Andante homeowners' association were held in that un-finished space. I volunteered to serve the community and was elected to both the Board and to the Presidency of the Association, and served it for 5 years, from initial construction issues through construction litigation (which resulted in a $1.8 million settlement for the Association from the developer).

Almost right from the start I had to get to know Emeryville City Hall - as a new condo project we had some growing pains, and I had to gather petition signatures on issues like parking and development of the residential project across the street (we needed the parking but lost it, we favored the development and today it is up and occupied).

I supported one new candidate's campaign for City Council that first year in Emeryville. I walked parts of the City with him, canvassed for him, and he explained the importance of the "old stock" housing and how it was important to balance the old and the new. He was a fantastic advocate for Triangle residents. He lived, breathed, ate, and slept Emeryville. He had a great approach to listening to, and making his best effort to serve, the different constituencies in Emeryville and really wanted to represent the entire City, not any particular narrow focus group.

I also came to know an incumbent City Council Member known as a "maverick" and learned that he was one of the few Council Members who would take the time to notify residents when particular issues came up in committees or before the City Council so we could voice our position on them. I helped him run in his last campaign, volunteering to canvass the Andante community for him and also worked a phone bank for him.

So why am I running for myself now?

Simply stated, because I care. Serving as President of the HOA taught me that if the best people don't roll up their sleeves and volunteer, then the best job won't get done for the residents and other stakeholders in this small community.

At the Andante Owners Association, I discovered that serving a community requires attention to detail (why don't we have safety mirrors in our parking structure so we can see oncoming cars?), good judgment (can we get "punch list" construction items finished by the developer short of construction defect litigation so we don't put a damper on sales? we tried, but at the end of the day had to bring the litigation, but by then the resale market had dried up anyway and no owners were hurt by the litigation), and mediating different constituencies among the residents and homeowners. Much like serving on the City Council, though on a smaller scale.

I intend to run a low-keyed campaign with as much personal contact and availability as possible.

I don't think being a "professional" politician with a polished "consultant" speaks well of how a democracy should operate, at least at this very local, grass-roots level.

Running for, and winning, public office shouldn't directly correlate to how much is spent on campaign materials. It should correlate, instead, to how well the candidate listens to the voters and how carefully the candidate can mediate the various constituent positions to protect the rights of the minority while acknowledging the decision of the majority.

My wife and I own our residence and have three children in school here - Alexsi, her little brother (in the Emeryville Child Development Center now, starts kindergarden next year), and her older sister, my wife's first child, who attends the high school here in Emeryville. We live here, shop here, and care about our neighbors, schools, and police.

Please call me at 510-830-8755 or leave a message on 510-761-5618 if you have any questions or comments.

~Michael Webber