Hate Speech Interrupts Council Meeting
The Mayor shuts down hate speech, 238 Parcel Affordable Housing gets a small update, and 10 pages of Public Works updates!
Neo-Nazis Invade Public Comment
The Hayward City Council was forced to reckon with half a dozen public speakers who spewed antisemitic hate speech during Public Comment on Tuesday. The women and men who gave public comment went to great lengths to appear reasonable before launching into antisemitic and racist hate speech. One racist ended her comments by saying “White Power” before the Mayor directed the City Clerk to cut her off.
The first speaker of the group began with a criticism of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has grappled with controversy in the past. Others began with reasonable-sounding comments before launching into antisemitic screeds that ranged from farcical to grotesque and using racial epithets against members of the Council. Eventually, in consultation with the City Attorney, the Mayor closed public comment for everyone.
After the Mayor cut the first person off at the end of their 3 minutes, another decried it as an infringement of their First Amendment rights under the US Constitution. Fortunately for the rest of us, The Brown Act has been a part of California State Law for a long time and is likely beyond any potential legal difficulties. The Brown Act has provisions that give City Council “great discretion in regulating the time and manner… of testimony by interested members of the public. (§ 54954.3(b).)”
The Brown Act also allows the Council to remove “all persons who willfully cause a disruption of a meeting so that it cannot be conducted in an orderly fashion,” according to the Office of the Attorney General of California. Having punished myself by listening to the commenters, the speech was definitely disruptive. Thankfully, the Mayor acted decisively to cut off the offending commenters with the backing of the City Attorney.
Although it’s very likely that the people are agitators from outside of our community, it’s important to remember that the Bay Area is not as universally Progressive as it’s often portrayed. Research by the Southern Poverty Law Center lists over 100 hate and antigovernment groups in California as of 2022. At least four of these groups are located within the Bay Area—though this is likely an undercount.
It’s also important to not fall into the trap of blaming the Palestinian Rights Activists for the appearance of antisemitic groups. If they are members of our community, they have doubtless existed here for some time—it’s not like they just developed this ideology over the last month. And it could also be part of a coordinated effort—Hayward wasn’t the only city targeted by neo-nazis that night.
Mayor Mark Salinas and other members of the City Council should be applauded for how they handled such a difficult situation. This is, unfortunately, one of the costs of living in a society where free speech is protected. Hopefully this one outburst doesn’t convince Council to remove remote participation for members of the public—it’s been a massive boon to members of the public who are otherwise unable to attend in person.
And while we’re at it, we as a community need to remind neo-nazis that we won’t tolerate their nonsense in Hayward.
Updates on Affordable Housing on City Land
The City had to approve some minor changes to an affordable housing development on former Route 238 Parcel 8. The development, on the corner of Grove and Foothill, will eventually become 82 units of permanently affordable housing. Unfortunately, this plan has been in the works for 4 years now, and the developer needed to make some changes to the plans.
The primary things that needed changing are:
Extending the deadline for transferring the property to the developer to the end of 2026
Reducing the number of units from “up to 96” down to 82 units, but increasing the size of those units
Moving some money the City has already allocated to them from development costs to pre-development costs
A commitment to rehab however many units are still occupied when escrow is closed
The parcel has an existing set of apartments on the property, and the developer has committed to providing relocation assistance—permanent or temporary—and allowing the tenants to have one of the affordable units if they decide to keep on until the project is done. The only downside is that this area is very transitory. In the last 4 years, the number of existing tenants has dropped from 11 to 7. This trend may continue over the next several years.
Council didn’t have too many questions for the project—a surprising amount of questions had to do with water lines. Councilmember Andrews asked about a potential upsizing of the water mains, presumably increasing water pressure. Staff said that there’ll be 2 mains, one on Grove and one on Foothill. The Foothill main will get a bump up in size.
Councilmember Goldstein asked about including a recycled water line for landscaping and other things. City Staff said that the design hasn’t been finalized yet—they still have a lot of fundraising to do—but will consider it if there’s money to do so.
Councilmember Roche asked about engagement with tenants and the community about the project, and Staff said that they’ve done outreach but only 2 people showed up last time. The tenants who were there mostly wanted to make sure that issues that the current building has are addressed in the new building.
Councilmember Zermeño asked about the timeline. Construction is hoping to start in 2026 with the build taking between 18-24 months—so likely in 2028. That’s a long time to wait, but most of the actual wait for affordable housing is fundraising, unfortunately.
Ultimately, everyone on Council was supportive of the project, especially the increased sizes. Councilmember Roche liked the increased size of the units, which will “allow families to find space for themselves.” Councilmember Bonilla Jr. was “glad the units are going to be bigger because I think we know from our RHNA numbers… bigger units at affordable pricing levels are very much needed.”
While I agree that having family-sized units is a huge boon, there’s no blueprint of any kind yet. We don’t know what size they were planning before, nor how big they’re deciding to make the units now. I don’t think a loss of 14 units is the end of the world, but given the scale of the housing crisis, we’re going to have to start making sacrifices on size and form at some point.
Infrastructure Project Updates
Y’all know this is the kind of concentrated nerd stuff that I live for. Since this was mostly just informational on how far along projects are, there wasn’t too much discussion on this item.
Councilmember Roche asked why the Library Construction was still at 98% complete—despite starting in 2019. City Staff said that the main issues are the elevator in the parking garage still being unfinished and several other minor items that haven’t been tied up yet. But Public Works is hoping to polish it all off soon.
Councilmember Andrews asked about LaVista Park—a favorite question—and was told that there will be an item coming to Council next week (Feb 27) with plans for the park. She also asked about freeway underpass murals—another standby—but those are, unfortunately, not under Public Works.
Councilmember Roche asked about fleet electrification upgrades, which are being mandated by State Law. Staff said that they do the best they can to buy electric vehicles whenever they can, but some heavy duty vehicles don’t exist yet, so they buy hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles to make up for it. Thankfully the State’s hilariously ambitious timeline of full electric by 2026 allows for exemptions, which the City will certainly apply for.
Traffic calming projects on Hayward Boulevard and Orchard Avenue came up. For Hayward Blvd, apparently there was—as usual—community pushback on removing lanes and adding bike lanes. While, in fairness, the hilly areas of the City should be lower-priority for bike lanes, enacting a road diet would make University students and wildlife a lot safer.
For Orchard Ave, it’s been a lot more positive—doubtlessly helped by Mr. Pena’s untimely death. Public Works plans on developing short-term solutions that can be implemented within 60 days while also developing long-term solutions. Director Ameri said something that warmed my urbanist heart, “[the Eastern portion of Orchard Avenue] is excessively wide. It’s 70 feet from curb to curb.” He said that they plan to narrow it down and rework the roundabout, too.
Councilmembers Bonilla and Syrop asked for some enhancements to future reports, including current status and a target completion date. Councilmember Syrop asked if it was possible to have a map of where the projects are, which would sure save me a lot of time. There are some security concerns, which would doubtlessly keep some off of the map, and Councilmember Andrews said that the full GIS data may be too much to have for every project. She recommended at least having cross-streets listed.
Councilmember Zermeño also said he wanted to see completed projects, just to be able to look at everything the City has done. I’m all for that—sort of like a Public Works sticker chart. Though I’m sure there’s also some political motive—due to difficulty with communication, the public often thinks that the City isn’t doing anything with infrastructure.