Rob AriasThe man notorious for walking right up to the line and daring those he is antagonizing to cross it … might have finally goaded someone into stepping over it.
Blogger and School Board Candidate Brian Donahue was involved in a still-under-investigation incident involving an alleged assault during the recent Harvest Festival at Huchiun park.
In addition, the city has issued an unprecedented and scathing letter reprimanding him and warning him of future legal action if he does not cease his “bullying” behavior.
The proximity of these incidents to each other is notable. The alleged assault happened on October 5. The letter from the city was issued just a few days later on October 9.
Donahue has elevated his personal attacks and confrontations in recent weeks, likely fueled by the heightened and polarized election season.
Harvest Festival Incident
On the day of the Harvest Festival, an event intended to celebrate community and gratitude, Donahue could be seen following city employees, police officers and elected officials recording them with his mobile device. He persistently demanded statements that he could presumably twist and use against them on his blog. Donahue framed this to us that he was “exercising his First Amendment right” in his trademark bluster.
Later in the afternoon, Donahue confronted Emeryville City Councilmember John Bauters, who lives near the park and had a booth promoting his run for County Supervisor.
In the embedded 57-second video, Donahue can be seen pressing a smirking Bauters to repeat an expletive that Bauters allegedly made about rival councilmember Kalimah Priforce at the recent Albany Solano Stroll event.
A man interrupts to ask that Donahue not repeat the expletive around his children. Donahue then turns his camera on him and the man, angry for being filmed with his child on his shoulders, puts his child down before the alleged physical altercation occurs and the video is interrupted.
The audio portion of the recording continues with Donahue expressing discomfort “Oh F*ck, Oh F*ck, OW!” The man then asks “does that f*cking hurt?” as Donahue is writhing in pain on the ground. “Yes, it hurts!” Donahue responds. “Don’t threaten my children!” the man responds. Bauters can be heard in the background asking the unidentified man to stop.
Similar confrontations instigated by Donahue are too numerous to name but this is believed to be the first that escalated into a physical altercation.
Last election, when he was also running in a failed 2022 School Board campaign, he showed up at a private event, refusing to leave until Police showed up.
He’s also been removed from council meetings, confronted people outside of council chambers and even infiltrated a children’s daycare harassing an employee. Despite these many collective incidents, he has never been arrested to our knowledge.
Donahue has framed the incident that the man ‘assaulted him without provocation.’ Another unconfirmed, second-hand witness testimony claims that that man attempted to swat the phone out of Donahue’s hand and that Donahue fell over a chair.
Councilmember Kalimah Priforce acknowledged the altercation in a tweet adding that “Violence by any means is never tolerated in our city and shouldn’t mire a family fun-filled event,”
Donahue, an estimated 6′ 2″ and over 275 lbs., is an imposing presence and the man might argue that he felt threatened by him as Donahue stood up to confront him. A citizen’s arrest by Donahue was requested and the man will be summoned to appear in an Alameda County courtroom in December.
Donahue was administered treatment by an EMT and could be seen with an ice pack wrapped around his left elbow.
The man is reportedly an insurance broker in Oakland who also holds a seat on a local, private elementary school.
Despite filing a Public Records Act request with the EPD two weeks ago, they have not provided a report saying it was still an open investigation.
The precise relationship with the alleged assailant and Bauters is unknown and whether he had any direct involvement in his campaign although Form 460s reveal that the same man has previously donated to his campaigns.
Editorial Notes: We will not name the suspect in the alleged assault until this has been verified by the Emeryville Police Department. We reached out to John Bauters to clarify his relationship with the suspect and his account of what happened at the event but did not hear back.
10/23: Update: The story was updated to include that the arrest of the assailant was a citizen’s arrest.
City Issues Rebuke of Donahue’s Behavior, Outlines “Communication Plan”
A few days after the event, Emeryville City Attorney John Kennedy issued a scathing letter to Donahue admonishing his behavior and outlining a “Communication Plan” on how he could make inquiries with staff moving forward and bring some order to his incessant requests.
“You have engaged in a pattern of harassing City of Emeryville staff at City Council meetings, at the Emeryville Center of Community Life, and at City-sponsored events,” the 2-page letter details. “You have also sent incessant emails to staff accusing them of wrongdoing, leveled threats, and acted in an aggressive, hostile, and intimidating manner in both face-to-face interactions and in communications. Your communications are extremely time-consuming and have made Emeryville officials and staff feel threatened and intimidated.”
Donahue has persistently advocated, based on his long tenure and having a blogspot, that he should be given special access and treatment including councilmembers personal mobile numbers.
Neither of these requests are constitutionally protected and the city letter refers to a legal statute that the government cannot be “forced to listen to” him and another ruling that the First Amendment does not require that they respond to all of his inquiries.
“If you continue to engage in any type of harassment of City Hall or ECCL employees, the City Attorney’s Office will consider taking further legal action.”
Green Party Endorses Donahue, Esperanza, Dillahunty & Nikki Bas
As an active member of the Alameda County Green Party, Donahue has received their endorsement in the upcoming Emery School Board race. Donahue has also been aggressively campaigning for other Party members with his personal attacks and one-sided editorials.
The Greens made a glaring error in their Voter Guide by omitting Emeryville City Council candidate Courtney Welch among the African-American candidates that were running. “Council member Priforce’s slate of two, the only African Americans running for council, are Mia Esperanza Brown and Calvin Dillahunty,“ they state in their endorsements.
After being called out, The party addressed their mistake calling it a “typo” and that they intended to include “non-incumbent” prior to “African-American.”
They then proceeded to blast Welch for her criticisms saying she “demonstrates her desperation to use corporate Democratic Party tricks to distract the public from her failings as a public servant.”
Welch seized on the unforced error, tweeting, “Unfortunately do [sic] to disinformation being spread by the Alameda County Green Party, I just wanted to share with everyone that I am Black. I’ve been Black since my birth 37 years ago, and I plan on staying Black until I die.”
Their voter guide has the fingerprints of Donahue and his blog all over them, regurgitating some of the same falsehoods and out-of-context paraphrasing of Emeryville politics.
While Donahue personally lacks credibility with anyone in a position of real power, his persistent intimidation and harassing tactics can be effective by wearing people down and pushing out elected officials who don’t want to deal with his antics and attacks.
Some have referred to his presence as that of a “useful idiot” as those who oppose his personal stances, even ones that a majority might agree with, can reference his uncivil behavior as a reason not to support them.
The Green Party is not surprisingly throwing their support behind Nikki Fortunato Bas in the County Supervisor race against Bauters.
I was not aware of the Green Party endorsement of Brian Donahue for school board. Thanks for informing voters about this important connection.
Watergate residents recently got in an exchange with him on Nextdoor about his harassment of councilmembers at Watergate, refusing to leave due to his job and right as a journalist and constituent. Security was called.
Let the John Bauters incident be a lesson to all the kids at school facing a bully provoking you. Don’t respond. Don’t engage. Walk away (unless you’re a local official and is held hostage by public comment). It doesn’t matter how many times you got it right. It only matters the one time you did not.
I’ve seen this guy in action before. He’s a straight out bully and it is disappointing he pulled this crap at an event geared for children. It is sad that a person attending got sucked into his antics. It is also disappointing that there are those in Emeryville who are attempting to gaslight us into supporting his unacceptable behavior.
The guy will milk this like the bloviating cow he is. He claims to be a journalist but has no ethics. Claims to be a truth teller but all he does is lie.
Such an upstanding community member that has had many reports filed against him with EPD (they know him well).
Just tired of his shit. It gets really old.
Too many people believe that having “innovative” or controversial ideas is enough of a qualification for public office. But if you go into your work with a confrontational attitude, it becomes impossible to actually act on those ideas. It makes discourse impossible, and creates/worsens dysfunction. Donahue claims to hate the wastefulness and inefficiency of our local reps, while doing everything he can to sabotage them in a way that’s typical of an obstructionist. He’s more than happy to continue wasting the city’s (and county’s) resources so he has more fuel for his 2026 campaign to blame them for the time he’s wasting.
The bigger question for Emeryville voters should be, why is Brian Donahue pushing so hard for Kalimah Priforce to become mayor and Kalimah’s slate Mia Esperanza Brown and Calvin Dillahunty to stack the vote for Kalimah to become mayor?
If Brian succeeds in getting what he wants, what will a mayorship under Kalimah and with a slate controlled by Brian Donahue and Kalimah look like?
Residents have experienced the values Brian represent. These are the same values shared by Kalimah, Mia and Calvin.
Do you share the same values as Brian Donahue?
The Alameda County Green Party endorsement, if it was influenced by Brian, was circulated online on social media mostly by Kalimah. Not by the Alameda County Green Party’s mostly dormant X accounts.
Brian and Kalimah are a team.
Rob, I believe your Green Party voter guide link is to the 2022 one. The 2024 link is: https://acgreens.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/gpac-vg-11-24-web-fnl.pdf
Or, the Green Party endorsement is available on Kalimah Priforce’s account. https://x.com/priforce/status/1847806169395712281
Thank you, this link has been fixed.
The bully is the one who hit Brian Donahue.
Says someone who clearly has never been on the receiving end of crazy Brian’s rage. The guy that punched him is a hero! Let’s start a gofundme for his defense.
The video didn’t show any hitting.
I have seen Brian Donogue in action over years standing over people half his size while badgering them mercilessly without end. Emeryville’s school board needs strong but not this kind of disruptive leadership to help it overcome current significant difficulties.
He’s never been successful at any public office (I wonder why). He had a bumper sticker on his truck that read something to the account “abolish the school board”. That’s how much he supports the institution (he’s almost as bad as Trump in that way).
When I attended back to school nite at Anna Yates elementary, the guy would never engage with any of the parents (I wonder why).
I can’t wait for him to chime in (or one of his lackeys).
Kalimah and his crew can’t be that naive to not know that they’re being used by Brian to stay relevant, can they? Maybe this is what happens when you run for office without ever paying attention to what’s going on in the city.
I felt bad for Brian Donahue’s brother, former Councilmember Scott Donahue. Must have been challenging sitting through years of city council meetings during your own brother’s contentious public comments https://youtu.be/lkTrYczSkXU
Scott had to be a civic leader while balancing being a brother. No wonder he didn’t seek additional terms on the council.
If Brian’s active participation has been happening for 10 years, it’s probably too late for change. What the city attorney has done is too little too late.
The constitution does not protect his right to force us to listen to his falsehoods, but it DOES protect his right to be a complete and utter A-hole.
What candidate would want to associate themselves with this guy? I was considering voting for Mia & Calvin until I learned they are allied with this clown.
Brian fell over his chair when trying to back up – that his how he hurt his elbow.. he claims he got hit in the face but that’s utter nonsense. I had a clear, unobstructed view of the incident.
I’ve seen that guy wreak havoc all over the place. Like some kind of giant male Karen. For such a small town Emeryville has way more drama than it should. 65 pct of it because of Brian. Clearly an intelligent guy. Too bad he uses his powers for… whatever he thinks he is doing.
Very thankful you wrote this story and comprehensive history of Brian Donahue in Emeryville. Your story is being found by new people and referenced a lot on Nextdoor since Brian Donahue and Kalimah Priforce have been posting there a lot. This is an important story and you’re doing important work thank you!