We Measure C What You're Doing There
In Which: Homekey paperwork is fumbled, I critique data gathering, and The Mayor lands on an optimistic message.
Update on Districting
The City Attorney revealed that, in their last conversation with Attorney Scott Rafferty, the City Council came to a settlement on the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) lawsuit. Here are the important bits:
There will be 6 districts with the Mayor being an at-large seat
The maps will be finalized in mid-October of 2024
The maps will go into effect for the 2026 election
Scott Rafferty will receive a payment of $125,000 for all of this
So not only will Rafferty be getting a lump sum larger than my entire year’s salary—most people’s entire year’s salary—it will be for about 3 month’s worth of work and negotiation. The idea that this wasn’t his primary motive is really difficult to believe, given the massive benefits he’s personally reaped when his own city of residence isn’t districted itself.
The other thing that will be interesting to see is whether or not there’s any discussion in the future about when seats are voted on. Right now, during Presidential election years we vote on 4 different Council seats, but the Mayor’s seat is voted on in off-years with 2 other Council seats. For the only at-large seat left, it’d make sense to vote for it during the elections with the biggest turnout.
Also of note, if you’re interested in HUSD’s districting, there’s a Town Hall meeting TONIGHT at the HUB on Soto Road at 6:30 pm. If you can make it down there, I’d try not to miss it. The maps for HUSD will be decided by the end of June—so make your voice heard now.
A New Challenger
Public comment was mostly quiet, but a brief public comment was made by a man named—I believe—Ken Rollins (I wasn’t able to see how it’s spelled, so apologies if I’ve misspelled). After some opening remarks congratulating the City on doing so well, he announced that he will be running for City Council.
Nobody with a name remotely similar to that has pulled papers so far and, try as I might, I couldn’t find a campaign website or much of any information no matter how I spelled the name. There is some trace of someone with that name who ran for Council in the past. Is it the same person? I have no idea.
If you happen to know more, drop me a line.
Where’s My Homekey?
Councilmember Bonilla Jr. pulled an item from the Consent Calendar around Project Homekey and a Scattered Site plan. Now, foolishly, I had assumed that this was appropriating the money that had already been granted. I was mistaken.
From the sound of it, the agency who had partnered with Hayward and Union City on a scattered site project—basically the plan was to buy some homes and use them as scattered supportive housing for unhoused neighbors—pulled up stakes at the last minute. Or, at least, that’s what Councilmember Bonilla seemed to believe.
In looking at the Staff Report myself, it appears as though the applications used inconsistent language when referring to Bay Area Community Services (BACS) who would be running the sites. There’s been back-and-forth for almost a year on how BACS is named in the applications. This is the 3rd time the City is turning back in the application with revised language to satisfy the state.
Interestingly, the Acting City Manager said that this would help people find “their forever homes”—and given all the confusion on the issue, made it seem like it was a partially new application. During the discussion, Councilmember Andrews asked about using the money for hotels, but the Acting City Manager said that he wasn’t sure it would qualify for the grant and highlighted the fact that St. Regis will serve much the same function when it comes online.
Unfortunately, the Community Services Manager who has handled this application, is on maternity leave right now, doubtless making this a much more confusing process.
We All Need a Dose of Measure C
The extension of the 1/2 percent Sales Tax, known as Measure C was the main item on the agenda this week. It was originally approved in 2014—I voted for it—and has been used for a variety of projects and services. It was set to expire in 2034, but the City is looking to extend it for another 20 years (starting in 2024) to push its sunset date out to 2044.
The way it works is that the City gets big lump sums for infrastructure projects that it gets to pay back in pieces with our tax money—essentially a special loan, but different in ways I can’t reasonably explain. The neat part of Measure C is that if the City puts a tax on the ballot that’s earmarked for a project, it needs a 2/3rds majority vote to pass—a very high bar indeed. So instead they phrase it as a General Funds tax and then pinky swear they’ll use it for what they said. There’s flexibility in that, but also… it’s a bit of gaming the system.
By the end of the original lifespan, Measure C was expected to have given the City over $25,000,000 in revenue, including almost $15,000,000 for operating expenses—from a previous staff report, much of the ongoing money goes to the Police Department and Maintenance Services. It’s also paid for the new Downtown Library and the new Station 6 by the Airport. It’s also provided funding for the Navigation Center, HEART, and Downtown—though details were limited during the presentation.
The proposed uses for the extension include renovations of the City’s Corp Yard, Station 9 [at the top of Second Street], the Animal Shelter, Weeke’s Branch Library, the Stacks Center, and the new HPD HQ—also proposed by the Airport. The City did some outreach on the subject of the extension and got some interesting results. Of the almost 2,000 responses to their survey, the top priority was Public Safety/Emergency Response—though how that is defined is left ambiguous here.
The priorities were then, in order: Maintaining local streets and roads, Disaster preparedness, Safety net services for those most in need, and Upgrade public facilities. It’s important to point out here that this extension has pretty broad support. There was also an “other” section, and this was more telling.
Overwhelmingly, people seemed to want more cops. followed by landscaping, and a distant third going to Parking issues. There was no demographic information listed, but there’s good reason to believe that it would have a similar outreach efforts, like they did for the Street Vendor Ordinance, which did have demographic info. Using that, it’s safe to assume that the voluntary outreach that the City does skews toward old homeowners who are either white or Latine.
This is all just a long way to say that this information should be taken with a grain of salt. The results are not necessarily representative of our City and the anecdotes—which the Council will share later—are potentially even less representative. And all of that matters because it seems clear from the next presentation that this data informed the more scientific study that came next.
The consultants did, it appears, a much more robust and statistically reliable survey of Hayward residents, but one of their first slides caught my eye.
You see those little up arrows? Those are called carets. In the fine print of that slide, it says that those items marked with a caret were given to every person who was contacted, while the other items were only given to half of them.
This means that the City appears to have used the heavy emphasis on Public Safety and Policing from their non-representative survey to inform how this more representative survey was phrased. For example, everyone got to chime in on Police patrols, but only half were asked about “Community services to community members who are experiencing homelessness” which received only 57% support.
The real purpose of this survey wasn’t to actually get the community’s feedback on priorities, it was to inform the messaging. They noted that more people were receptive to the messaging when it was broad and people tended to push back or be undecided when the messaging was more specific. FM3, the consultancy group, are brought on for the politics, not the actual prioritization.
At the end of the day, the consultants showed that even with some negative messaging beforehand, people in Hayward are generally in favor of an extension of Measure C. Even the lowest group approved it by about 60%, more than enough to get it passed.
Council Supports The Measure
Unsurprisingly, there was universal support for an extension of Measure C by the City Council. True, there were members of the community who spoke against it—some because they felt taxes are too damn high, some because it didn’t incorporate more for the unhoused, and some because they didn’t trust the City Council. But the Councilmembers seemed to be unmoved from their position.
Councilmember Zermeno stressed that the projects are “resident-centered” and said, “I believe this is best for Hayward.” Referencing almost exclusively parks, public safety, and roads, Councilmember Zermeno stressed that it was not a new tax and that the projects are going to benefit residents. “These are projects,” he said, “that are going to benefit the 160,000 people we have.”
Councilmember Roche acknowledged the pushback on taxes. “I understand it is difficult,” she said, “People are not happy having to pay current taxes.” But she then said, “I am comfortable” with a 20 year extension—as was the rest of Council. She stressed that, from her canvassing and talking with residents, these projects meet the expressed needs. “Anecdotally,” she said, “safety—public safety, streets, and roads, that seems to be the predominant concern.”
Addressing the concerns around government transparency, Councilmember Syrop came to the City’s defense. “I think the City does try to be transparent around how these dollars are spent,” he said. “The City could be better about communicating impact, though.” He said that the City needs to contextualize the need for new buildings, saying that the reason for poor recruitment for the Police Department can be blamed on the state of the building. He closed by stressing that the City wasn’t relying on these revenues alone, “We are trying our best to generate revenue as a city to provide high quality services.”
Councilmember Bonilla seemed to take the desire for transparency to heart, “Upholding our public promise is a priority.” He stressed that his support comes, not from his own feelings, but from the data, “60% of our community supports putting it on the ballot.”
Councilmember Bonilla asked if the money could be used on projects before 2034, which the Acting City Manager assured him that it can. The Acting CM then revealed one of the side-benefits of extending the bond early: having an extended timeline will make it easier for the City to leverage it as a means to take on more debt. Truly the debt financialization of our lives knows no bounds.
He also said that he wanted to change some of the language away from what might be most successful at the ballot box and instead order it in line with the City’s actual priorities. “I want us to make sure that we’re… clear on what our public promise is,” Councilmember Bonilla said, “The majority of this money is going to aging facilities… It just seems like we’re burying the lede here.”
Having said that, Councilmember Bonilla also recognized the realities of public perception. “Public safety and housing go hand in hand, but I am not sure the general public sees it that way, to be honest,” he said. He asked if the City could “be more explicit in our commitment to housing and homelessness as a means of responsibly using these funds to address what I think are pressing needs.”
Councilmember Syrop then stressed that he supports more language on the ballot being explicit about housing, like Councilmembers Roche and Bonilla. But then Councilmember Roche stressed that she didn’t want to change the consultant-tested and approved ballot language, but instead the long-form support language, instead. Again, the City can really do whatever they want with it.
Councilmember Andrews supported all of the priorities, even the pavement improvements, though she stressed that the current pavement improvement index “is the highest we’ve ever had.” When it came to public safety facilities, she had an interesting idea to “include something in there that’s community facing—that’s life-affirming.” She didn’t detail what she meant by “life-affirming,” but went on to say, “We need public safety, but we need the life-affirming services, as well.”
Councilmember Andrews also expressed a desire for more community updates on the projects. And, in a nod to the fiscal conservatives, stressed that “we are not doing this alone.” She cited other agencies that the City has contacted to help pay for things like St. Rose Hospital—which may soon get a big loan forgiven by the State—, the Stack Center, and others.
Councilmember Goldstein stressed the importance of maintenance and infrastructure. “If you don’t repair what needs to be repaired, it gets more broken,” he said, “[The Police Headquarters] is actually in danger of falling down in an earthquake.” He also stressed the importance of these big spends to attract more new residents, which leads to more businesses and more jobs and more spending and, through it all, more tax revenue for the City. With the plummeting birthrates in California, it’s unclear where these people will come from, but who ever said that endless growth isn’t possible?
Mayor Salinas was quiet on the points staff wanted to know about, supporting the measure for a 20 year timeline and saying, “We’ll let the data speak for itself,” when it comes to the priorities. He instead took time to frame the Measure C projects as an investment in the City’s future. “We’re a city of young folks. We’re a city of students.” According to the 2020 Census, the percentage of residents in Hayward under 18 is 20%. However, the Mayor was using a figure of 42% of residents between preschool and graduate school—which, at the earliest, would be anyone under the age of 24, though graduate school can be completed at any time.
Although Mayor Salinas initially framed it around students, “We need to invest in all the supporting institutions and all the supporting agencies that support students,” he then pivoted to wanting to grow the City. He said he wanted graduating students to move back to Hayward, “so we can grow our tax base… So we don’t support other cities.” But at the end, he landed on investment as the main focus. If we want the best for our City, he said, “the only way we’re gonna get there is that we have to invest.”
“I look at it as building a future,” he said, “The more we can invest today, the better our City will be for tomorrow.”