City Council Challengers

In Which: One challenger pushes for more heavy policing. Two conservative HUSD contenders also pull for Council. And Districting is on the Council menu tonight.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that Joe Ramos had replaced Lisa Brunner in 2022, when he had actually replaced appointee Gabriel Chapparo. We have corrected the article and regret the error.

The Prospective Replacements

We have the final lineup of candidates looking to run for City Council this year. With 4 seats up for grabs in this final at-large election, there are 7 qualifying candidates:

• Angela Andrews — Incumbent

• Ray Bonilla Jr. — Incumbent

• Tom Ferreira

• Dan Goldstein — Incumbent

• Joe Ramos

• Tom Wong

• Francisco Zermeño — Incumbent

We know who the incumbents are—not only have they been on Council for over a year, but I interviewed them all. But the remaining three people should also be explained, at least in part. Some I know more about than others, but all of them have history in Hayward.

Tom Ferreira

Of the three, Tom Ferreira is arguably the most mainstream of the challengers. He ran for City Council in 2020 and 2022. He’s a emergency room technician and a member of SEIU’s healthcare division. He’s also a member of the Keep Hayward Clean and Green Taskforce and a founding member of the Hayward Concerned Citizens.

According to his campaign website—you’re free to look it up for yourself—Ferreira’s plans focus heavily on policing as public safety. The Hayward Concerned Citizens have been the de-facto police booster society since 2020 and that agenda feels directly linked to his campaign. Policing as safety is all over his website and seems to be his answer to all the problems for small businesses, schools, and the general public.

Ferreira’s only other subject of interest seems to be affordable housing and unhoused residents—sorry, just the citizens. He wants to scrap in-lieu fees, saying it will solve all our affordable housing problems. He also takes credit for the HEART program: “Very proud to see one of my agenda items from my 2020 campaign below is moving forward in Hayward.”

On the money front, Ferreira has not been a big fundraiser and has overspent on both of his campaigns. In 2020, the only donation beyond his own was $500 from his Union, and in 2022 he received about $1,500 in small donations and no union donations. He’s dutifully pulled papers again this year and has signs up in Castro Valley and Fairview already.

Tom Wong

From Tom Ferreira, it becomes increasingly difficult to find good information. Tom Wong still has a campaign website, of sorts, up from his failed 2022 campaign. It doesn’t say much there—vagueness around values, talk of being in public schools (all colleges/universities), and some nods to police ties. On his campaign expenditures, he lists himself as CEO of Red Dragon Private Security.

But his 2022 campaign flyer for HUSD was a bit more transparent. Like a more conservative Andrew Yang, Wong’s flyer leaned into problematic Asian stereotypes. The flyer included an image titled “Asian Education Grading Scale” with “A - Average” to “F - Find a new family,” seeming to both embrace the racial stereotype and also suggesting that more rigor would improve outcomes.

Under a section titled “What Children Have Lost” it mentioned that the ability to read and write have been “replaced by controversial, radical, and divisive ideas” which is a common conservative dog whistle. And he also listed “Vocational training” as something we should be implementing in K-12—the community college system handles most vocational training.

During the 2022 election, Wong was the lowest vote-getter at 19% (~10,000 votes). He also overspent his campaign and had to forgive himself a $3,000 loan and paid his own business $680 for “security guard service.” He also received a $250 donation from the Republican Club of San Francisco, which dispels any doubt that Wong is a Republican.

Joe Ramos

Joe Ramos slid onto the HUSD Board of Trustees in a race for a short-term seat after winning a race to replace appointee Gabriel Chapparo, who had replaced Luis Reynoso after he was removed for a conflict of interest. He’s up for re-election for a full term this year, but has also pulled papers to run for City Council. Given that the Hayward Area Local Agencies Committee (HLAC) exists and that the City and School District have a lot of contracts together, if Ramos should win both seats, it’s almost certain that there’d be a conflict of interest suit.

Ramos has made his mark with conservative fear-mongering and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. He complained about the Woke Kindergarten program—which had been in place for years when he found out—and has talked about “grooming” on the dais. He’s been mostly sidelined by the rest of the Board but frequently frames himself as the voice of the Latino population, whether or not that’s actually true.

Ramos did no public-facing campaigning in 2022, relying almost solely on a word-of-mouth campaign or closed Facebook groups or something. I’ve only ever seen one campaign sign for him and it looked home made. But he clearly has a following, having secured almost 12,000 votes (38%) in 2022. Time will tell if the same strategy can pay off outside of the School Board race where money can play a much bigger role.

Your Districting Comments Do Matter

Tonight the City Council is going to meet for the last Public Hearing on Districting before the draft maps are drawn up. If you’re one of the few who have given input on the districting process, you should know that the maps are on the districting website and will be considered by Council tonight. Everything from hand-drawn neighborhoods to fully-districted city maps are up there and will help City Council to decide what the maps should look like.

Something really easy you can do, if you’re not too hot for map-making, is look at what’s already there and give some kind of comment about it. There’s a dozen maps up there—many from the same 2 people—and they’ll be influencing the draft maps. If you see something up there that you really like—or really don’t like—tell Council about it!

This one connects the Jackson Triangle and Prospect Hill and maybe you live in the Triangle and don’t feel connected to that community. Or maybe you see this one and don’t like the fact that the Fairway Park neighborhood is divided in north and south sections. Or may be you see this one and just want to say it looks like spaghetti.

It’s best to get your feedback in early—Cherryland folks got their feedback in late for HUSD and couldn’t get it integrated into the final map. Council will be talking about it tonight, so look for coverage of that on Thursday.