Steven Falk
Steven B. Falk (born November 21, 1961) is a longtime California city manager whose resignation due to climate change and affordable housing concerns was a national story[1].
Education[edit]
Falk received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Reed College and a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Early Career[edit]
Falk began his public service career in 1986 in Long Beach, California as an intern in the city manager's office. He spent two years working in the budget office of the San Francisco International Airport before taking a position as Assistant City Manager of Lafayette, California in 1990. In 1996, at the age of 35, Falk was promoted to city manager of Lafayette and he served in that position for the next twenty-two years. While in Lafayette, Falk spearheaded a wide variety of projects with a focus on revitalizing the city's aging and moribund downtown area. Falk managed the effort to construct a new Veterans Building and the Lafayette Library and Learning Center [2]. He is the longest serving city manager in Lafayette's history, and was co-named as Lafayette Citizen-of-the-Year in 2010.
Housing Controversy[edit]
In 2015, Lafayette was sued by SFBARF for reducing the size of a certain housing development. The group referred to this as their "Sue the Suburbs" campaign, and created a website and campaign with the name.[1] The suit claimed that under California's Housing Accountability Act, the Lafayette city council could not force developers to reduce the density of a housing project since the project already complied with all zoning laws.[2]. SFBARF's Lafayette lawsuit is considered one of the touchstones of the modern YIMBY movement.
Meanwhile, Lafayette was at the same time also sued by a group of local residents who opposed the same development because they felt it was too large and too dense, and not consistent with the City's semi-rural environment [3]. The irony that a city could be sued by two parties simultaneously over the same development proposal, with one side arguing that the project was too big and the other arguing that it was too small, was sufficiently notable that The New York Times reported on the matter, placing Steven Falk's photograph on the front page of the business section. [4]
In summer 2018, after both lawsuits were resolved, Lafayette voters rejected a measure that would have allowed a 44-house development on the 22-acre parcel [5]. That same summer, the city council opposed state bill, AB 2923, that would have allowed the regional transit agency to build housing on its own properties near transit stations, including one in Lafayette [6].
Resignation[edit]
In September, 2018 Falk submitted a letter of resignation to the Lafayette City Council, citing concerns about Lafayette's opposition to new housing. The letter was released on Twitter [7], where it garnered nearly 100,000 views. Several newspaper stories covered Falk's resignation[8][9]
In December 2018, National Public Radio's Dan Charles produced and ran a nationally-broadcast story about Falk's resignation titled "For One City Manager, Climate Becomes A Matter Of Conscience."[10]
New York Times writer Conor Dougherty profiled Steven Falk and his resignation in his book Golden Gates - Fighting for Housing in America[11], Penguin Press, 2020.
Public Policy Lecturer[edit]
In August 2019 Falk began teaching in the Master's Degree in Public Affairs program at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.
Artist[edit]
In addition to his career as a public servant, Steven Falk is an award-winning artist whose work sits at the intersection of abstract expressionism, pop art, and American modernism (see: www.stevenbradleyfalk.com and has been displayed nationally and internationally[12].
References[edit]
- ↑ "Sue the Suburbs". SFBARF. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
- ↑ Modenessi, Jennifer (December 9, 2015). "Lafayette sued over luxury homes approval". Contra Costa Times. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
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