Black History and Budget Discussions
Hayward declares Black History Month, Trustee Ramos complains to City Council, and the City Council wrestles with balancing the budget.
Proclamation of Black History Month
It’s fairly standard for the City to proclaim certain special days and months to celebrate various minoritized groups: Indigenous People’s Day, AANHPI Heritage Month, Pride Month, Juneteenth, etc. Usually some local nonprofit or notable political figure will accept a written proclamation, give a speech, and take a photo. It happens almost every month.
For Black History Month, the Black political establishment turned out in force and elected officials lined up to curry favor this election year. Black sororal organization Delta Sigma Theta - Hayward/Tri-City, Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) Hayward/South County, and the Hayward NAACP chapter all had multiple representatives present. A staffer from Representative Eric Swalwell’s office was in attendance, as was one from Sate Senator Aisha Wahab’s office, to offer certificates of recognition to the three groups.
Hayward City Councilmember Angela Andrews is a confirmed member of both Delta Sigma Theta and BWOPA—it’s unconfirmed, though very likely, that she’s also a member of the Hayward NAACP. These are powerful political organizations that have a lot of pull on local elected officials. Mayor Mark Salinas commented that he’s had a relationship with BWOPA since they endorsed him for City Council 15 years ago. They also, doubtless, pulled for Councilmember Andrews and will likely continue to do so for as far as her political ambitions will take her.
And all of these groups are single chapters of much larger statewide and national organizations. The Hayward NAACP has especially deep connections and influence, as pointed out during a brief speech from their Youth and Council President, Mahdi Fugfugosh.
“Miss Davis [President of the Hayward NAACP] asked me ‘What do you want to be when you get older?’ I said ‘A lawyer.’ She said ‘Cool. Elgin [Lowe, Esq.], please explain.’ And since then I not only got internships, I not only worked for state senators, now I’m going to the district attorney’s office.”
These groups have a lot of political power and connections within Hayward, the region, and the State. And it was obvious from the presence of Representative Swalwell’s and State Senator Wahab’s offices that they have influence that elected officials want—they sure didn’t show up for Indigenous People’s Day or Filipino American Heritage Month.
The Hayward NAACP, BWOPA, and Delta Sigma Theta are examples of what political organizing can earn. It’s taken time—the Hayward NAACP has been around since 1950—and a lot of work from a lot of people, but these folks have the ears of those in power and that’s always something worth paying attention to. It should also serve as an example for those who feel marginalized of what organizing can make happen.
Trustee Ramos Takes Show On The Road
Hayward Unified School District Trustee Joe Ramos took to the City Council’s public comments to explain his percieved issues with a DEI-focused kindergarten program. Despite being under active investigation by the Board of Trustees for his aggressive remarks during a recent School Board meeting, Trustee Ramos took time to inform the Hayward City Council about the alleged dangers of Woke Kindergarten.
Despite the name being easy fodder for conservative dog-whistlers, the idea of integrating age-appropriate abolitionist and anti-racist lessons to children is something I’m more than happy to spend my tax money on. However, since it’s an election year where he’s running for two different seats—much like his predecessor who was drummed out of the School Board—Trustee Ramos has taken to sounding the alarm about a program that was enacted years ago in an effort to gin up his conservative base.
Though the City Council is barred from responding to public comment on items not on the agenda, it’s unlikely that Ramos will find sympathetic company on the Council, especially given Ramos’ history of bigoted and inflammatory remarks.
Modelling The Budget
The City of Hayward is facing the prospect of running out of money within five years. That’s the summary of the 5-year forecast from the City’s Finance department. Over that time span, the City is projected to spend between $4,000,000 and $10,000,000 (increasing over time) per year more than it brings in.
One of the issues is that the City can’t do much to increase revenues. Because of statewide legislation like Proposition 13, property taxes are capped and adding additional taxes can require a 2/3rds majority vote to pass. Not to mention that Hayward already has one of the highest sales taxes in the country at 10.75%. Understandably, the prospect of running out of money had the Council a little rattled.
However, City Staff pointed out that the models are usually very conservative. For example, similar modelling predicted that the budget would dip into reserves by $3,000,000 or more for 5 of the last 7 years. In reality, the City has actually had a surplus for 5 of the last 7 years, and one of the deficit years was because of the lockdown. Even if the City is predicting doom and gloom, it always does and it usually works out okay.
Part of that comes from assumptions that the model makes, one of which is full employment—which almost never happens. At last count, the Hayward Police Department alone had several dozen sworn officer vacancies. However, savings from vacancies isn’t something that the City can always rely on.
The Finance Department laid out some ways the City could change their budgetary fortunes, including raising the hotel tax and cutting up to 5% in services and other expenses that are within the City’s control. But these were fairly modest and didn’t do enough to offset the big expenses. Staff did say that the model low-balled the income from property, sales, and utility user’s taxes—sometimes by several percentage points—keeping it very conservative, likely leading to the marked difference between the predictions and the actuals.
Most members of City Council just wanted to get a better idea of what was covered in the model. Councilmember Angela Andrews wanted to make sure that upcoming development projects, especially hotels and large developments, were being included. Most of them are, but development timelines are difficult to predict, so not all of them were.
Councilmember Julie Roche was concerned about unexpected expenses not being reflected in the model—especially the purchase of the movie theater property. City Staff—and Councilmember Bonilla Jr.—attempted to reassure her that the movie theater purchase is a loan, not an expense. Because of how accounting works, a loan is tallied differently since it will get paid back with interest. Despite that, Councilmember Roche expressed concern about the loan and the modeled deficit throughout her comments. “Seeing all that red feels dire to me right now,” she said.
Others on Council were looking for more granular data. Councilmember Dan Goldstein wondered if it was possible to see hotel tax generation on a parcel by parcel or even room by room basis. This could given an idea of what hotels are doing better and where further hotels could be incentivized. Councilmember Syrop also agreed that it would be good to have a more detailed picture of where taxes were generated instead of just lumped into “Property tax” or “sales tax”.
In a similar vein, Councilmember Roche wanted more frequent financial updates and predictions of what decisions could do to the financials. “If we were talking about a new expense or referral or project or tragedy that comes our way, maybe there’s some trigger—$1,000,000 or something—where we take a really quick harder look at it,” she said. “Sometimes a referral comes our way or a cinema comes our way and we make that isolated decision.” Though City Staff pointed out that the financial impact of all of their decisions is taken into account in the Staff Recommendations and the Staff Reports.
Mayor Mark Salinas tied the need for financial health (and having a 20% reserve) to the ability to weather nationwide upset. Nobody knows for sure how the next Presidential election will go or what that will do, so having healthy reserves can allow the city to better handle instability. He also took the time to recognize the work that labor unions had done in the past to refill the reserves and restore the City’s financial health —foregoing raises, taking furloughs, accepting lower raises, etc.—he framed it as a group effort for the City’s sake. And with contract negotiations starting on the 13th, thanking them costs nothing and could earn political points.
Councilmember Zermeño expressed a desire for sales tax revenue to outpace property tax revenue—which would be a tremendous change, given property values in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, a lot of policy decisions in that area have to come from Economic Development. And the Finance Director stressed that there wasn’t one “magic lever” that could turn the finances around.
Ultimately, this was a relatively new City Council bumping up against the reality that the Assistant City Manager laid out fairly clearly. “It’s been bad before,” he said. “It’s about making tough decisions. We don’t have the ability to fund every single thing that we need.” Being on City Council is all about making hard decisions and then facing the consequences. It’s going to be difficult and some of the decisions are going to be unpopular. The trick is going to be whether or not they can convince residents that it’s the right thing to do.