Handbook Revise Brings Changes to Commissions and Council Pay

Filipinos and Education get recognition, AC Transit is in transition, and Changing Council pay by unanimous decision

Special Presentation Small Plates

Proclamation Adobo

The City proclaimed October 2023 to be Filipino American History Month, the first time the City has made such a proclamation in its 147 year history, despite Filipinos currently making up 10% of the population. Multiple members of the Filipino American community came out, notably most of them appeared to reside in Union City. The exception being HUSD Board President Peter Bufete.

During a small speech on the proclamation, Mayor Mark Salinas spoke about the connection between Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers and the Filipino community. There was no mention of prominent Filipino farm worker organizer, Larry Itliong.

However, the United Farm Workers only came out of a merger between Chavez’s National Farm Workers Association and the Filipino union called The Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee led by Larry Itliong. Itliong himself was, allegedly, skeptical of the merger and feared that progress for Mexican farm workers would come at the expense of Filipinos.

Unfortunately, history has shown this to be a wise concern. It is our hope at the Hayward Herald that this proclamation is followed by substantive action to highlight prominent Filipinos in the United States at large, and Hayward specifically.

Ciudad de Educación con Crema

A second proclamation was also made by the Mayor, designating Hayward as an Education City. This has been a prominent initiative from Mayor Salinas since he took office. He even mentioned “Education City” in his inauguration speech when he took the office of Mayor.

Mayor Salinas highlighted the work that had been done at the invitation-only event he hosted one week prior. He mentioned that over 60 organizations were coming together to help create a “national model of commitment to the community and collective effort that alleviates inter-generational poverty and creates equity for all in Hayward.”

The need for this comes as Federal investment in education has reached an all-time low (approximately 0.1% of GDP), investments in safety-net services have been systematically undone, and capitalist practices have eliminated the middle-class and driven many Hayward residents into living paycheck-to-paycheck or open poverty. The 60+ organizations will, presumably, seek to fill that gap in order to ensure that, as Mayor Salinas said, “all residents have access to educational opportunities and cradle to career support so they can achieve their life goals.”

Mayor Salinas also said he wanted to partner with former Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf to push other Bay Area cities to commit to becoming Education Cities. And while one resident insisted that “the number one reason why people come to a city or leave a city is because of the quality of the schools,” given the systemic issues around how schools are funded and the proliferation of private and charter schools that parents who hold that view typically flock to, it will be interesting to see how this initiative develops.

Transit Realign Tapas

Representatives of AC Transit came to give a very brief presentation to City Council about the proposed realignment paths that they’re planning to take in reaction to the funding shortfalls that have plagued it, and other area transit agencies. The primary items were two Cost Neutral paths and one Unconstrained Funding path.

The Cost Neutral paths were broken into a “Stay the Course” path which maintained business as usual to try to have “balanced coverage”. The “Increase Frequency, Decrease Coverage” path suggests a frequent service scenario where no bus line will have wait times of over 30 minutes. However, this will come at the cost of shortening or eliminating some bus lines. The most notable for Hayward are that the 99 would be eliminated and the 10 line would be extended to South Hayward and Union City BART. Lines 41 and 56 would remain the same, but likely be consolidated into one line. And the 28 and 93 lines would be shortened slightly to increase frequency under the "Increased Frequency” plan.

The “Unconstrained” didn’t get much detail, but assumed an increase in funding that doesn’t seem to be in the foreseeable future at this point.

Council stepped in with some questions for the presenters. Councilmember George Syrop expressed a desire for more bus passes for students in order to foster independence: “We want autonomous children, not autonomous cars.” Councilmember Julie Roche expressed that when she had last gotten on the bus, she wasn’t certain how to pay. And given the dominance of cars in our society, that is likely not a minority experience for infrequent transit users. Councilmember Angela Andrews asked about taking the survey that AC Transit was promoting if one didn’t have a computer and was assured that paper forms were available at the Downtown Hayward Public Library.

Councilmember Dan Goldstein lamented the last mile and expressed the difficulty he had getting back up to his home in the Hayward Hills after walking down to Mission to catch a bus. He mentioned the idea of AC Transit partnering with an autonomous vehicle company before quickly expressing that he did not endorse the idea. The AC Transit reps explained that in the Unconstrained model, microtransit options were being explored.

Some members of the public also took the time to speak to the AC Transit reps. One expressed support for safe routes to schools and tied more equitable and available public transit to its importance for the Education City initiative. Another explained that having more consistent connections from East Hayward to West Hayward, specifically Point Eden, would benefit workers in the more industrialized section of the City.

Consent Item Small Flight

While no consent item was specifically pulled for changes or a separate vote, some Councilmembers had comments they wished to give highlighting certain items. Councilmember Ray Bonilla Jr. expressed his support for the additional funding being given to the South Hayward Parish Warming Shelter. However, he conflated rapid rehousing, which places unhoused people into homes as quickly as possible, with the warming shelter, which is, by definition, a temporary shelter. On the same item, Councilmember Roche expressed the concern about the availability of ongoing funding for the Warming Shelter, though she recognized the need and celebrated the extra money.

Councilmember Andrews thanked the Hayward Police Department for their work pursuing the grants they recently received, though their own staff report states that the funding was secured by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department on HPD’s behalf. She also noted the high quality social media outreach the department has been doing lately. For context, the Hayward Police Department maintains a full-time social media person whose job is to improve the relationship between HPD and the general public.

Hickory Smoked Handbook Update

The City Council has maintained a special Council Handbook Update Ad Hoc Committee for the past several months in an effort to update the Council Handbook and ensure clarity. There were, to be sure, a lot of changes. Many of them were mundane and not important to the general public (like clarity on how to amend a motion or specifying that reporting from subcommittees and liaisons should happen at the Council Announcements and Reports section of the agenda).

One change that could prove significant, that no Councilmember commented on, was the change in how appointments to Council Subcommittees will be conducted in the future. Currently, the Mayor appoints people to subcommittees and that’s it. It is entirely at their discretion who gets put where and nobody gets a say on it but them. Going forward, the Mayor will make the appointments, but Council will get a chance to actually vote on whether or not to accept them. Not the biggest change, but a meaningful concession of power.

Tangy Attendance Reduction

One item which the Council did discuss was the change in attendance for Commissions and Task Forces. The change means that if the attendance of a member of a Commission or Task Force drops below 75%, then that member will be removed from their position. That attendance does now include special meetings, which weren’t previously counted, but it is a hard line. The concern likely comes from the difficult transition many Commissions had after the pandemic-era Brown Act changes went out of effect and meetings were forced to return to in-person format. The Community Services Commission (CSC), for example, couldn’t even make quorum and vote for almost 3 months. We also believe that there was a Planning Commissioner who reached that threshold during their previous year but maintained their position on the Commission.

The concerns for the Planning Commission were specifically highlighted, with Mayor Salinas saying “The Planning Commission is a highly revered commission that makes multi-million dollar decisions on projects. And when commissioners do not show up, the public optic is that you really don’t care.” Councilmember Andrews concurred, saying “I went to Planning Commission two weeks after giving birth, that’s how important it was to me. Now, I don’t recommend it, but…”

Councilmember Bonilla Jr. was also concerned about the attendance requirement and recommended changes to how the Commissions and Task Forces operate. He expressed a desire for stronger language when it came to Council oversight of Commission Bylaws changes and explicit language around Commission purview. “Just to be really clear, a statement like ‘Commissioners should not oversee subject matters that are already overseen by other commissions, task forces, or committees.’” This likely is a reference to the CSC and CAP item brought before Council in the prior meeting. Despite having not mentioned the CSC explicitly once during his comments on suggesting a Council Public Safety Subcommittee*, it appears likely that he is in alignment with Andrews, Roche, and Mayor Salinas in wanting the CSC to “stay in its lane,” so to speak.

*Editor’s Note: Councilmember Bonilla Jr. noted during the Announcements section that an update on the Public Safety Subcommittee should be expected around the December 5th Council Meeting.

Compensation Pudding

The most headline-grabbing part of the changes has to do with Council compensation. The City Council pay has been flat, or worse, for almost 20 years (the Council hasn’t had a raise since 2004, and took a voluntary pay cut in 2009). Currently the Mayor makes $40,000 per year and a Councilmember makes $25,000 per year. The Handbook allows for the Council to increase their salary based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) but not to exceed 5% per year.

The option that Council eventually settled on is retroactively applying the 5% from 2004 onward through FY 24. The Council wouldn’t get any “back pay”, but the new salary would take effect in August of 2024. This would mean the Mayor making approximately $69,000 per year and a Councilmember making a little over $43,000 per year.

Councilmember Syrop moved the item and highlighted the disparity between what people think a Councilmember makes and what they actually make:

I was getting my hair cut today… and I did ask my barber today “How much do you think a Councilmember makes?” and he said “Oh, I don’t know, maybe 100k” and I said “What if I told you it was about a quarter of that?” and he said “Less than minimum wage?” and I said “Yeah” and he was shocked. “That’s way less than what I make.”

However, the primary reason given for the increase was framed as an equity issue.

When the majority of Americans can’t afford a $600 emergency, and we live in a democracy that supposedly respects the majority, then we need a compensation structure that I think also honors that majority. It says, right now, that the only people who can represent our community are those that can afford to or are wiling to suffer a great deal

Councilmember Goldstein concurred, saying “The least we can do is make it affordable for everybody” to serve on council. Councilmember Roche also chimed in with support for the pay increase, stating that currently councilmembers “accept that this is a sort of volunteer job with a stipend” but wanted it to change because “it shouldn’t cost people to serve.” She also framed it as being out of compliance with the Municipal Code which states “From and after the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2003 and for each fiscal year thereafter, the compensation for the Mayor and each Council Member shall be increased…” The “shall” is important as it is usually interpreted as being mandatory.

Mayor Salinas was the last to support the pay increase. He reminisced about his time on Council since 2010 and the need Council felt to keep the City budget solvent, implying that it was a large factor in keeping Council pay stagnant for so long. He also expressed it as an equity concern, saying “Hayward deserves to have the very best Council.” And while we understand and support a living wage for our politicians, the implication that higher pay directly increases candidate quality only goes so far (for example, overpaid administrators and CEOs cost more than they bring in).

All of Council agreed, however, that an increase in pay could bring in better candidates in the future for Hayward City Council. With the new pay scale set to go into effect before the next election, it will be interesting to see if this changes the calculus for any potential candidates in the next 12 months.

The changes to the Council Handbook were passed unanimously.