More Things Than You Can Shake A Stick At
HPD spends big on recruitment, National Guard Base plans come to Council, Main Street revamp revealed, and Pay increases for HPD Captains and Firefighters.
Speculation Station: Pending Litigation
It looks like the City is looking to sue PG&E. Not sure what it’s about, but maybe it has to do with the rate increases. Maybe it has to do with something going on with some of the solar stuff going on! Goodness knows that the California Public Utilities Commission recently passed some rules limiting how much solar electricity PG&E needs to buy back on larger buildings. That’s something that the City has been betting big on and investing heavily in.
Maybe one day we’ll find out! In the meantime, speculate away!
Consent Item Smorgasbord
Consent items are things that the Council usually doesn’t bother to debate at length and approves in one big group. This means they don’t often get a lot of air-time, even though a lot of important stuff (read: Money) gets handled here. This week has a whole lot of stuff on it since Council was out for half of last month.
Police Re-Crudités
The Hayward Police Department is looking to spend $158,300 to have All Star Talent Inc1 to recruit more cops. One thing that sparks interest is how HPD is framing the reasons for the recruitment issues: “Since 2020, the Hayward Police Department has experienced a significantly diminished pool of qualified sworn and professional applicants due to a competitive market and other factors including COVID and civil unrest.”
It should be noted that the “civil unrest” that the Staff Report is alluding to was caused by a larger pattern of police violence, a pattern which HPD is not immune from.
The City has been paying All Star Talent month-to-month since this last May, for which they’ve hired: “16 Police Officers, 2 Communications Operators, and 2 Call-Takers have been hired within that time frame.” Though it should be noted this is 20 people hired out of almost 270 applicants (a 7% hiring rate).
The item is looking to spend salary savings (which means money that HPD was given for positions that don’t have people in them) to pay for all of this. They have a lot of salary savings as they currently enjoy a 20% vacancy rate (about 50 or 60 people). The staff report operates under the assumption that more police = more safety, which is a debatable assumption at best and disingenuous at worst.
There are also, it should be noted, many other departments which are short-staffed that could use the funds and might actually help residents more directly (for example, the rent registry idea being floated in the Homelessness and Housing Task Force!).
Education Fund-ue
Take a moment to enjoy some feel-good news: some of our American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding is going to go to students to help with whatever they need. The main reason this is coming forward is because the City has the money and they’re going to give it to the Friends of Chabot Foundation and the California State University East Bay Foundation Inc to handle giving the money out. There’ll be a contract and agreement, but so far $67,000 has been dispersed to 134 grantees and the grants “prioritize high, medium, and low priority programs, addressing industries with labor shortages, and providing flexibility based on individual needs.”
How much is going to this program? A whopping $400,000. In the grand scheme of City Budgets, this isn’t very much, but even the microgrants of $500 can allow a student to get two textbooks that they otherwise may not have afforded.
So that’s pretty cool and I hope you enjoy the good news!
Garage Re-péritif
The Watkins Street Garage (right in front of City Hall) needs some repairs. Just in case you were looking to do anything too fun in there, the stairwells on B St. and Watkins St are both apparently in need of repair, as well as a joint on the second-level parking deck.
There will also be some cosmetic fixes (maybe putting those planter boxes to good use?) taken care of at the same time. The expected bill is $425,781 which will be taken from the General fund. Further proof that infrastructure projects aren’t necessarily investments, they’re also potential liabilities.
Airport Flatbread and CANG-y Dip
The California Air National Guard (CANG) site of the Hayward Airport is almost 17 acres of asphalt that the City is looking to develop. And the plan so far is:
Advance Manufacturing industrial area
New Police HQ
Now, the city isn’t really blaring the trumpets in this plan about the new Police HQ site, though they do refer to it in the image above from the staff report. The Police HQ will likely be funded through a renewal of Measure C, which is the bond measure that paid for the Library, the new Fire Department building (which will be right next door to this), and paying HPD several million dollars for (likely vacant) officer positions over the course of the bond. When the Measure comes up in November, I’m willing to bet that a good portion of that is going to this project.
But what the Staff Report wants you to look at is the advanced manufacturing development. “Advanced manufacturing includes the use of innovative technologies to improve products or processes, including life sciences (i.e., drugs and therapeutics), or electronic products (i.e., robotics and energy).” It’s a growing industry in the area, one that’s tech-adjacent so the companies will actually move here. The report highlights the temporary jobs provided to “low-skill” workers in construction and the longer-term benefits for “high-skill” workers in biotech, pharma, robotics, and energy.
The big upside for the City is increased tax revenue from actually doing something useful with the site.
The former Skywest Golf Course property also has a plan that’s looking for Council approval. A whopping 47 acres are up for development of some kind. There was a lot of community push for more green space and parks whereas the Airport and City wanted commercial development. And it looks like we got both smooshed together, if the above is any indication.
The highlights are some more commercial development on the Western side: “The intent is to create multiple class A commercial buildings for life sciences.” and some “aeronautical development” areas on the south-east side to connect to the airport proper2.
There’ll also be some park space. In the far northwest tip will be a pocket park that will connect the Bayside Trail all along the northern side of the property past the industrial area and into the larger park where it’ll end by the Target. The “FAA Airport Safety Zones” will be, presumably, some open space (but technically not park) that will connect a smaller park in the west to a larger park (with dog park) on the east side. It’s unclear from the plans if the public will be allowed to wander around in the Safety Zone, but considering it was a golf course before, I’d hope so. But if not, the trail will run along the north side to connect everything.
It seems like they managed to fit everything in that they wanted, but it remains to be seen what will be “value-engineered” between now and the completion of the project.
Auto-Stuffed Main Street
Main Street is finally getting revamped. It’s only taken 6 years of planning and discussion. But it’s gone through the absolute wringer. Let’s break it down:
It started as a plan to upgrade Main Street between McKeever and D in 2017.
In June 2020 a public meeting was held and the general feedback was separated bike lanes with a 2 foot buffer and 15 foot wide sidewalks and a concrete median.
In July 2020, the Council Infrastructure Committee was in support of the same plan, but suggested a “moveable median barrier” instead.
October 2020 brought the money discussion. The scope was reduced to be Main between A and D Streets.
In March 2021 an engineering firm was brought on to get the ball rolling. But then…
The Chamber of Commerce pushed back hard and asked to keep the 4 lanes and tried to get the bike lanes pulled entirely from the plan3
Then Staff met with the Chamber and the Downtown Hayward Improvement Association (DHIA) in January 2022 and they continued to push for more lanes and parking, citing fire truck access which HFD did not support. AC Transit didn’t have issue for buses either.
More meetings with downtown businesses happened in May of 2022 and they pushed for more pedestrian safety and increased parking4
And that’s the plan we have now. It’s got buffered bike lanes, parallel parking (not necessarily bad), and an unnecessary center turn lane that looks like it’s trying to mollify those with shipments5. Thankfully the driving lanes are only just over 10’ wide, though the bike lanes are still between the cars and traffic (which is bad), and the sidewalks are only 10’ wide, which will limit outdoor dining and activity space.
The City is also proposing to add a fiber optic trunkline through Main Street so that businesses downtown will have access to high speed fiber internet. I’m not sure how the ownership of that breaks down or the costs, but the City would definitely be laying the groundwork even if AT&T or Comcast will be providing the internet. If memory serves, when they’ve done this in the past, they just sold it to the internet companies so that the City didn’t have to do maintenance long-term, but if I’m wrong, please correct me.
The cost breakdown is below. It should be a little under $5,500,000 for the whole project.
This also shows the importance of going to subcommittee meetings because serious stuff happens there before it gets to the full City Council.
HFD and Police Manager Pay Mélange
After contract negotiations, Hayward Firefighters (Local 1909) is getting just under a 20% raise and the new contract stipulates that “the City is contractually obligated to compensate this group at the average of the top four survey agencies.” And although there won’t be any Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), the raise will come all at once, and every year after 2024 salary adjustments are made annually based on the average of the top four “survey agencies” with no salary caps.
So depending on who those four agencies are (they aren’t specified in the staff report), if they negotiate big raises, the City will be required to give HFD raises to match. It’s an interesting negotiation tactic given the interconnected nature of the Bay Area, but I’m concerned given the funding disparities between even Hayward and Fremont. But time will tell how that goes.
The Police Management Unit (HPMU) will get a total of about 18.5% raise because they’re currently about 12.45% below the regional average for Police Captains plus an additional 6% because the rank-and-file cops negotiated a big pay increase, too. They’ll also get a lump sum of $10,000 at the end of the year and a 4% COLA. I suppose it’s fortunate there’s only 5 people in this unit at the moment. Though did you know that the police captains have a health and wellness stipend of $1,200 per year? It’s all framed as a way to “retain police management staff and will secure stability in the department long-term.”
Police are technically laborers just like any other laborers, but cops are also historically on the side of the state and companies against other laborers. So, while I support organized labor, police unions are something else. But that’s the state of things for now.
Wow, that website is… something else. It’s always an eye-opener to look at websites in the larger Police Industrial Complex.
Looking like it might be more hangars, since there’s airplane access to the buildings.
This is objectively against their own long-term interests as continuing to support automotive-only infrastructure only hurts downtown and the businesses there. But that’s never stopped people from resisting change.
Increased parking and pedestrian safety are diametrically opposed. The only parking that should be downtown is metered, parallel street parking.
It should be noted that B Street, which is the most popular and walkable street in the entire City, is 2 lanes with no center turn lane and those business are frequently busy whereas Main has much lower foot traffic despite having just as many businesses.