Special District And City Updates
In Which: HUSD faces a massive budget shortfall. Mayor Salinas pushes for more enforcement Downtown. And BART's Police Auditor pushes for more secure funding and independence.
HUSD Hate Speech And Budget Woes
Banning The N-Word And Hate Speech
On September 11th, HUSD voted on a policy that bans the use of the N-word, in all its variations, and hate speech “all HUSD schools, facilities, and during any school-related activities, including online platforms.” The ban encompasses students, staff, parents, family and community members, and all visitors. The staff report takes special note that there will be “considerations for unintended consequences towards Black students in particular.”
District Superintendent Reimann explained, “This is happening in 2024 because this is an issue that continues to haunt our community. It is something that we wish was gone… but it is something that continues to impact our students.”
The policy notes that consequences include counseling, restorative justice learning opportunities, suspension, or expulsion. To educate the students, staff, and the community, the district will integrate lessons on the impact of hate speech into the curriculum, offer professional development for staff, and conduct community outreach.
The staff at Longwood Elementary have created a standard operating procedure document which will be shared throughout the district. This will include things like form letters of apology, examples for setting up assemblies, and different lessons that can be integrated in the curriculum.
Although Trustee Rawdon was concerned about “opening the floodgates,” the presenter assured him that there will be a formal racial complaint process which was developed last year, so there is accountability around these issues in particular. However, she stressed that the process was not merely punitive and was instead pushing for a culture shift.
HUSD Faces Budget Shortfall of $31 Million
HUSD is failing to meet it’s State mandated minimum reserve balance of 3% and is running a deficit of $31,000,000. According to a staff presentation, HUSD enrollment is down about 20% from 2016—a loss of over 4,000 students. Although the District was allocated over $100,000,000 in COVID relief money, that money is fast running out—all grants are expected to be spent by the end of this school year.
HUSD is hardly the only District in the Bay Area to be losing students—Dublin Unified School District was the only District in the Bay Area to grow in the last several years, likely due to families fleeing San Francisco during the pandemic. To compound the issue, the State reduced the TK-12 allocations, resulting in $20,000,000 less over the next two years.
Though Governor Gavin Newsom frames this as “a correction,” it’s up to HUSD to figure out how to “right-size” the budget—it will almost certainly include cuts to staff and services.
Trustee Prada pushed for the district to expand its attractive programs, like dual language immersion Mandarin, to help address the declining enrollment problem. Unfortunately, Superintendent Reimann stressed that the process is just at the beginning of identifying what kind of budget solutions they need. The discussion made clear that this level of deficit was going to be an all-hand-on-deck situation.
City’s Plan To Address Downtown
The City put together a Downtown Working Group in response to a referral from Councilmembers Roche and Andrews. This covers a lot of projects, meant to be low-effort and high-impact, specifically addressing the Downtown Foothill corridor. Here are some of the ones that the Economic Development Committee got updates on this month.
Grants for Downtown business owners to get Social Media-worthy lighting and decorations to entice influencers.
A Park Here plan to try to educate delivery drivers about where they can park to keep them from parking illegally on B Street and blocking the road.
More cops Downtown, including over 150 “security checks” and 125 traffic stops, just in the Downtown area.
Painted bulb-outs and on-street parking on Mission Blvd.
Loading zones and a valet parking plan for businesses that want to participate
Revamping that fancy piano crosswalk
Serious graffiti abatement
Updating old and dilapidated signs Downtown—hopefully 15 will be changed by November
Activating Heritage Plaza, across from the Library
Those hanging baskets with flowers in them, new banners, and concrete planters to make everything look nicer.
Councilmember Bonilla was pleasantly surprised that the projects were being funded using existing funds—he’s been very vocal about the budget this year. He was particularly excited about the speed reductions. “If that’s gonna be delivered in 60 days,” he said, “that’s gonna be very exciting.”
Councilmember Andrews listed more than a dozen different suggestions, including activating Heritage Plaza with monthly events, having a plan to activate the movie theater until it gets new tenants in, and sharing out information about street vendors so business could “have [information] in their face every day” about what to do about them—though street vendors are rare Downtown. She also asked about the Police ambassadors, which are non-sworn and unarmed officers, but there are issues with recruitment.
Mayor Salinas made the argument that, since the City has invested so heavily in social services, that it’s about time to do some more enforcement. His priority, he said, was “enforcement of bad behavior and bad conduct Downtown.” He shared anecdotes about a drug seller outside of Cookie’s and people “needing psycho-social services that are completely derobing [sic] in front of Buffalo Bill’s and Casa Del Toro.”
“Clearly,” the Mayor said, “a big need for enforcement and response.” He listed a number of things that the City had invested in through their Social Services department. “Everything that an individual needs, we have invested in that,” he said, “And now we just really need to work on enforcing some of the ordinances and policies we’re putting forth.”
Mayor Salinas also spoke for the whole City Council by giving public support to policing efforts. “If the Police Department… needs to know that they have the support of the council on being more aggressive on enforcement,” he said, “I believe they have it.”
HARD’s District Map Finalized
The last map has been settled—this is it. The image above is the final District map for HARD. If you want to find out which district you’re in, or take a closer look, you can check out an interactive map below.
This map has 2 predominantly White voter districts (Districts 4 and 5), 2 predominantly Latine voter districts (Districts 1 and 3), and one predominantly Asian voter district (District 2). According to the HARD Districting website, even-numbered districts will be voted on in 2026 and odd-numbered districts will be voted on in 2028—when there’s more turnout.
This could mean big changes for representation in Hayward—right now there appear to be no current Board Members living in Districts 1 or 2. So if you have a passion for parks, start planning your 2026 campaign now.
BART’s Buddy Cars and Police Oversight
BART Floats Buddy Cars To Combat Sexual Harassment
BART’s Transit Security Advisory Committee received a presentation on the idea of “Buddy Cars” in an effort to combat sexual harassment on BART. The ideas is to have a designated car that, through branding and boarding information, will “encourage solo travelers, minors, and those at increased risk for sexual harassment and gender based violence to seek out safety in numbers,” according to the presentation.
This initiative follows a number of other countries and cities with a similar policy, largely because sexual harassment occurs frequently on public transit and also reduces the number of at-risk riders who would use the train. The plan is in the early stages, at the moment, but the plan will include focus groups, outreach, and engagement strategies to ensure that it’s meeting the needs of those who would most use it.
Support For Independent Police Oversight
The BART Board heard a presentation on the importance of an independent Police Oversight authority for BART Police. It highlighted the national trend of reduced oversight during the inevitable backlash against oversight demands in the wake of the death of George Floyd. It stressed that over 30% of riders do not believe that BART PD officers treat all passengers equally and fairly—and you can count me in that number.
This also comes in the wake of an increased BPD deployment in 2023 which has caused a sharp increase in the number of Police misconduct complaints, administrative investigations, and use of force. Investigations from the Office of the Independent Police Auditor increased 78% since 2021 because of it.
The presentation was a push to change how the OIPA is funded by BART, setting their budget at 1.5% of the annual BPD budget, and also helping to eliminate any efforts by the General Manager to under-resource the department—perhaps at the behest of the BART Officer’s Association.
Independent Police Oversight is the least that BART can do, especially since they increased the budget of BPD by $8,500,000 in the middle of a historic budget crisis in an attempt to “saturate” the trains and entice back passengers. BPD was deployed in an attempt to make trains safer for passengers in the less-packed trains, however they had also previously lobbied hard against bringing community care workers into the space, instead getting more money for themselves and rolling any public service under their umbrella.
AC Transit And City Focus On Student Riders
AC Transit met with their City Council counterparts to discuss initiatives to court student transit riders. The presentation discussed the idea of adding supplementary services to lines that go past the many high schools and middle schools of Hayward, to help better incentivize students to use the bus. The additional services would be added in the afternoon, to catch the end of school when many parents are still at work.
The presentation also highlighted the student discount fare structure, and the 31 day youth pass, which gives unlimited rides local rides for $34/month for all riders between the ages of 5 and 18. This is a savvy move for both AC Transit and the City, helping to meet climate goals, reduce the after school automobile crush, and also assisting AC Transit out of its fiscal instability.