Big Data And Council Updates
In Which: HPD locker room project grows, Commissioner Stevens loves tax revenue and data centers, and Some Commissioners fear making big money decisions.
Council Is Back In Session
After an almost month-long hiatus, the City Council is back to doing business again. That means there are a lot of things that will need approval, so let’s dig into them.
Police Expenses Coming Through
Asset Forfeiture
First, we have the Police Wellness Center. Apparently the exercise equipment is broken after almost 10 years of use so HPD is looking to buy some replacement equipment. Enter the Asset Forfeiture Fund. If you’re not familiar with what this means, the Staff Report gives a somewhat misleading definition:
Asset forfeiture funds are seized by law enforcement agencies through legal processes from individuals or organizations involved in criminal activity. These funds typically come from the confiscation of assets linked to illegal activities, such as drug trafficking, money laundering, or organized crime.
Although that’s technically true, the reality is that Asset Forfeiture can happen for all kinds of reasons, including anything that someone can be arrested for. Don’t believe me? Take it from a guest on Last Week Tonight: “Civil Asset Forfeiture is really a mechanism by which the state and federal government can seize people’s property without having to convict them of a crime… It’s really legalized robbery by law enforcement.”
Neat, right? And although the Staff Report implies that there’s some restrictions to how the funds are used, there aren’t. It can be used for almost anything. And $45,000 of it will be used to buy new exercise equipment for HPD.
Pork Barrel Locker Rooms
Back in 2022, the City approved the reconstruction of the HPD locker room for $416,000. Apparently it was leaking, out of date, and had hardly any facilities for female staff. Although I’m no fan of HPD, nobody deserves to have a moldy workplace—that’s just not OSHA safe.
But the project keeps expanding. Back in March a further $114,000 was approved to complete the construction documents—just to draft the plans. And now a new Communication Center has apparently been added to the project for a further $338,000. The project has now more than doubled in cost from $416,000 to $868,000 and we haven’t even broken ground yet.
Bring Them Back From Retirement
But even when the Communications Center is complete—bearing in mind this will be in a building that is due to be vacated in several years once the new HQ is built by the Airport with the generous help of Measure K1—the Communications staff is still far below where it needs to be.
According to the Staff Report, there are 7 vacancies in the Communications department. And hiring is going slowly enough to the point where they’re bringing 2 retired Communications staff back out of retirement and waiving the usual 180 day waiting period between retirement and going back to work.
I don’t know the details of how all this works out, but I know this feels like double-dipping: They’ll be receiving their CalPERS pensions and receiving a salary from the City for the job. Retired Police and Firefighters do this all the time, often taking a teaching/training position or even a new officer position in another city after they retire. Although Communications staff don’t make nearly as much as Sworn Officers, let’s hope the hiring situation eases up soon.
Traffic and Housing Projects
2 New Developments Get Green Light
First up is 420 Smalley Avenue, which will be subdivided into 8 attached townhome condos. This one surprised me until I learned the City Council approved it way back in 2018. The main holdup was that the developer will have to extend sewer lines to all of the units, underground all wires, provide lighting and landscaping covered by the HOA, and have pervious pavement driveways.
The next one is Eden Village III at 24764 and 24656 Mohr Drive. I covered this back in December, when the Planning Commission reversed its decision to—perhaps illegally—scuttle the project because of some flimsy reasoning. Now it’s going to the City Council, almost a year later, and construction can begin shortly after.
Traffic Stuff Incoming
First comes a speed management plan, costing $210,000. The idea is to have the consultant develop a plan to reduce speeds throughout the City. We’ll have to see what they suggest, but if it doesn’t include narrowing excessively large streets I’m going to be surprised.
There’s also an improvement project coming to the Hesperian Frontage Road, which will mostly involve refurbishing the dividing median and all the plants and planters along there. They’re just calling for bids, so it’s unclear how much it will cost or what the timeline will be.
Finally, we have bus shelters. The City is going to take over a portion of the cost of maintaining the 63 bus shelters in Hayward. Due to some complicated nonsense, AC Transit is asking all Cities to step it up and help fund the contractor who will maintain them. The City will be paying $39,361 per year to fund the maintenance and includes the following regular services:
Pressure washing once a month;
Routine cleaning twice a week;
Inspection of lighting and Real-Time signage and reporting deficiencies within twenty-four (24) hours of discovery; and
Replacement of maps and public information within ten (1) calendar days of being notified by the District
So if you see a bus shelter that’s in need of some love, reach out to AC Transit. I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.
Big Data Center Comes To Hayward
The Planning Commission met last Thursday and discussed a new data center that’ll be coming to the industrial part of town. Located right by Highway 92—just past the Clawiter exit if you’re headed East—this new building will be 3 stories tall, over 310,000 square feet, and 100 feet tall. It’ll have an on-site substation and switching yard to handle the immense amount of electricity it will be using.
Although it’ll create over 30 new permanent jobs—I don’t count those temporary construction jobs, which will number in the hundreds—it’s replacing 8 industrial buildings currently on site. The interesting part is that Stack Infrastructure, the project owner, will be a landlord—building the site and renting it to cloud data firms.
But what the Planning Commission needed to discuss was the Public Benefits Package. The code in the industrial area limits building heights to 75 feet—the City wants something in return for the extra 25 feet of height. Stack Infrastructure proposed a $1,300,000 benefits package, which you can check out below.
Now, if this looks familiar to you, I covered this when it went to the Economic Development Committee back in June. Since then, the package has increased from $1,100,000 to $1,300,000. And it may get even bigger. After meeting with the Hayward Area Shoreline Protective Agency (HASPA), they pushed for a bigger package.
Staff recommended combining items 4 and 8 on the list above (not numbered) and giving it over to HASPA so they can decide what to do with it—likely help fund improvements to the Shoreline Interpretive Center. There was also a call to increase the package and include funding for solar panels for the upcoming Water Resources facility and a bike path connecting the Shoreline to the Eden Greenway.
The main questions City Staff wanted answers to were:
Is this benefits package acceptable?
How do you feel about the design of the building and artistic screening
For better or worse, many on the Planning Commission had other things they wanted to know about instead.
When it was time for Public Comment, HARD Board members, Sara Lamnin and Louis Andrade, pushed for Public Benefits Package money to be allocated to the Shoreline Interpretive Center—aligning with Staff recommendations.
Old Hands Stay On Target
Commissioners Goodbody, Lowe, Stevens, and Hardy (nee Patterson) stayed well on target. Commissioner Lowe asked about getting words on the decorative screen—perhaps something with Hayward on it—but staff had issues with making something look like a City building when it wasn’t. On top of that, the developer said that the manufacturer of the screen wouldn’t put paint on the screen because it would invalidate the warranty.
Commissioner Goodbody suggested a green over a blue to tie to the nearby Bay Trail. She also asked about an obsolescence plan, and the developer said that, although there’s been no hints of the industry shrinking, they do have a plan for how to use the building for other purposes if needed.
Commissioner Hardy asked if there was some kind of formula to right-size the Public Benefits Package—which there isn’t—but also asked about the environmental impact of the backup generators. The developer said they’re Tier 4 generators, which are the cleanest in the industry right now.
New Hands Wander Off
Commissioner Meyers asked a wall of questions ranging from EV parking, the impact on local businesses, water storage, and power backup options—none of which were within the scope of their work. Commissioner Meyers pushed hard for solar panels and battery backup which, though laudable green energy efforts, were well outside of what Staff was asking for.
Commissioner Haman started his comments by saying they were “apart from the feedback you’re asking for.” He then asked about local hiring for construction, sales tax revenue—which Commissioner Stevens had asked about earlier—and the impact on the City’s power grid. Obviously, much of this had either been sorted out by Staff beforehand or were outside of the scope of what could be asked for or guaranteed.
Fear Of Power When They Have It
Commissioner Goodbody started comments by essentially arguing that the Planning Commission shouldn’t be deciding the Public Benefits Package. “This body or the City Council or perhaps maybe an ad hoc committee could really benefit from carving [out the Public Benefits Package],” she said, “and unpacking it to realize efficiencies. And to what extent some of the proposals could be benefitted by matching funds.” There was no mention of the time it would take to do all of that, delaying construction and driving up costs even further.
“I’m wondering,” Commissioner Goodbody continued, “if we could combine them in a way that we could do it in phases or we can come together on some sort of another package.”
Commissioner Hardy fell short of passing the buck, but did seem concerned that there wasn’t some kind of formula to know the right amount to ask. She did some basic math and recommended $100,000 per additional foot of height, for a total of $2,500,000, and suggested a number of other programs to consider, including HUSD. “If there is something that can be done for the public benefit to help the school district, that would be great,” she said.
Commissioner Stevens questioned why there was even a Public Benefits Package in the first place. “How do you correlate public benefits and dollars, this seems very confusing,” he said. Staff admitted that the decision fell on the Planning Commission. “It’s really somewhat subjective,” they said, “It’s really up for the decision making body… to determine whether the amount is suitable.”
Stevens Really Loves Data Centers
“This is one of the greatest projects I think I’ve seen here in the six years I’ve been here,” Commissioner Stevens said. From there he explained that he loves this project because it makes money, has no people working there, and keeps things clean.
[It’s a] giant building that’s gonna produce a ton of tax revenue, doesn’t generate any traffic, is a great partner, cleans up the block, keeps things clean, improves AI efficiency, reduces latency in our local area, and probably generate additional data center interest in the area.
He loves the project so much, that he was willing to leave millions on the table. “I don’t even understand why there’s any money spent for public benefits,” he said, “It makes no sense… I think this are should be filled with data centers.”
Commissioner Stevens held up example cities like Santa Clara and those in other states with massive data centers—millions of square feet of vacant industrial buildings that use so much power Google is looking to build its own nuclear reactor to power them.
Commissioner Stevens also railed against the idea of using 100% renewable energy or battery backups, “I think that is silly given the state of our energy system,” he said, “Creating that encumbers the future of Hayward… to participate in the new economy.”
Haman Pushes Money To Funded Projects
Commissioner Haman suggested including several projects which have already been funded or which were infeasible. He suggested funding the Jackson Gateway Sign, which has already been paid for, and that charging stations be included for commuters, which would be a security risk. He also suggested that the decorative barrier be used for murals, despite the developer saying multiple times that the manufacturer and installer won’t allow paint.
Commissioner Haman then pushed some Keep Hayward Clean and Green initiatives, including tree planting and Adopt-A-Block. He was then seemed to lose his place when discussing parks. “I think you wanted a park,” he said, “I don’t know if that was an on-site park… or if this was a park in another location.” As the slides pointed out, the suggested park was La Vista Park. The public commenters from HARD also pointed out that La Vista had been fully funded—though that may be misleading as it was funded for a reduced scope.
In his final comments, Commissioner Haman then seemed to have forgotten the content of the last meeting he had attended. “I’m a bit confused on how you value a tree,” he said. In the last meeting about native trees, Staff had explained that an arborist determines the value of the trees. Commissioner Haman also suggested moving trees, which Staff also explained in the previous meeting was very expensive and prone to failure.
Suggestions And Conditions
Commissioner Meyers then suggested adding solar to the facility, though it was not a condition of approval and may be ignored. Commissioner Lowe, however, pushed to add the facility’s purchase of 100% carbon-free power from AVA Energy as a Condition of Approval. The developer said that their company had a commitment to that already, so was happy to accept the Condition.