Cooperation Forged In Real Time
In Which: Parks are discussed at great length. HARD and Council cooperate in real-time. Juneteenth becomes a Marquee Event.
Cameras Don’t Escape Comment
Councilmember Ray Bonilla Jr. asked several pointed questions about the license plate cameras, alluding to concerns about how the images were taken—especially if any other activity is included in the recordings—though Chief Matthews didn’t really seem to answer the questions in any direct way. The Chief merely explained how useful the cameras are for helping to improve case closure rates—an overly enthusiastic drive for which can result in bad policing—especially given their staffing shortages.
Chief Matthews said that the cameras only take photographs and that officers only get involved when there’s a flagged plate. Allegedly, anyone attempting to get access to the images beyond that would require special permission. But if it’s anything like the other policies like that, it’s likely up to the discretion of the Chief or, perhaps, other lower-ranking officers.
Councilmember George Syrop asked directly about how many license plates are collected and what the data retention policy was. Chief Matthews said that every single car that is within sight of these cameras has it’s license plate photographed and that the plates stay in the database for 30 days, unless part of an active investigation.
There was no concern expressed that this was being rushed in an effort to save $10,000.
While photographs of license plates are fairly innocuous, it’s important to know what the surveillance capacities of local law enforcement are, because things can escalate quickly. This is especially true as HPD continues lean on surveillance technology as a replacement for their staffing shortages—especially since they would then continue to receive annual funding for the unfilled officer positions and the surveillance technology.
La Vista Park Re-Tooled
La Vista Park has been on the mind of City Council for some time. Situated on the site of the old La Vista quarry on the eastern side of Mission Blvd and Tennyson Blvd, the park is going to be enormous, almost 40 acres (though no mules). There are plans for a dog park, bike terrain park, child parks, paths and trails, and lots of open space. But for something that big, it’s going to come with a hefty price tag.
The main event this week was discussing the scaled down version of the La Vista park, which was necessary to reduce the price tag from $44,000,000 to closer to $23,000,000. A lot of this was, thankfully, just some creative thinking about earth works, but there were some big losses, too:
No more switchback road
Pulled out 75% of the boulders from the plan
Lower parking lot was eliminated
Lower Neighborhood Park was eliminated
The primary things that the City Council had to decide was how much to include in Phase 1 of the plan and whether or not to supplement the budget using some Measure C money.
A Bevy of Elected Officials
Parks inevitably seem to be something contentious in Hayward, given the existence of the City and the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (HARD). Public comment veered into two different, but related directions.
First, a representative of the Fairway Park neighborhood lamented the lack of a park for residents to use. If you look at the map, there’s a lot of green space around that neighborhood. For better or worse, most of it is a golf course which usually frowns on people using it for a picnic or letting kids play on it. There’s also Twin Bridges Park, which is rather modest, though I’d say it compares quite well to Bechtel Park in the Tennyson area. But they want Bidwell Park, which looks great until you realize it’s just two old baseball fields.
So while HARD is correct that everyone in their area is within a 10 minute walk to a park, there’s no telling how pleasant that walk is nor what the quality of that park is. The speaker supported La Vista, but also wanted Bidwell to be finished, which is actually outside of the City Council’s control—it’s HARD property.
Then Former City Councilmember and Council Chamber Frequenter Al Mendall took to the podium and expressed frustration that the La Vista Park project had taken so long. He talked, at length, about how all of the housing on Mission Boulevard was approved with La Vista Park in mind—often with little to no open space in the development because of it. He, thankfully, included himself in this history lesson because he was on Council when much of that housing was approved. He seemed overly worried that the City Council would continue to drag the development process out—despite it being continually referenced by multiple members of Council as a high priority project.
Then HARD took to the podium. HARD Board President Pete Rosen pushed for changes to the La Vista Park plans, especially for re-adding the lower Neighborhood Park portion. He also highlighted that if La Vista is going to be a regional park, as it has often been framed, then more parking will be needed to handle the regional visitors.
Former City Councilmember and HARD Director Sara Lamnin followed to push for a more cooperative effort around La Vista Park. She made mention, as she frequently does, that she has a Unique Perspective from Both Sides. She seemed to recognize that there was friction between the City Council and the HARD Board by saying that “HARD is a different agency than it was five years ago.”
Director Lamnin then encouraged the City Council to focus primarily on whether or not they wanted to allocate Measure C money to the project and to then have a joint session with the HARD Board to discuss the actual plans for the park.
Actually Healthy Cooperation
The City Manager shared that City Staff will go to the HARD Board on April 1st to get feedback on the plans for La Vista park. This was doubtless always the plan considering HARD is putting up a good amount of money to help pay for it and will be taking over the park’s maintenance.
Mayor Mark Salinas shared that perhaps the last joint meeting between the Council and HARD had been a wasted opportunity.
On a more political note, the inclusion of someone from the Fairway Parks neighborhood—the “dean of the Fairway Parks neighborhood” according to the Mayor—is something to note. Councilmember Julie Roche lives in the Fairway Park area herself, and Councilmember Dan Goldstein said he used to live there, as well. Given the obvious political connections this person has, it would be understating it to say that the neighborhood has the Council’s ear on things.
Councilmember Zermeño stuck to his guns during this one and, if he had his way, would spare no expense for the park. He pushed for the old plans—despite costing almost twice as much—saying, “we can come up with the money.” He also touted the benefit of the park as being within walking distance of BART, though given the slope of the hill, might be optimistic for many people. To his credit, he did ask about the trees and the developer reassured him that there was no loss in trees and that they were all going to be native.
Councilmember Roche questioned the idea of being within a 10 minute walk of a park—see my earlier points on that—and pushed for the lower park to be included, especially with a play are for kids. Part of the reason for that is an approved low-income development just below it on the hill that will include a school. Despite her desire for the lower playground, she didn’t like the idea of spending $5,000,000 on some of the additional things, like additional furniture, irrigation, and a Science Garden.
The lower neighborhood park was supported by Councilmembers Roche, Goldstein, and Bonilla Jr. And, while Councilmembers Roche and Bonilla Jr. are fairly bearish on the budget, neither mentioned what, if anything, they would rather cut from the Phase 2 plan to pay for the lower neighborhood park. Though Councilmember Goldstein situated it as something owed to the community, “We made some commitments that I think we need to live up to.”
Councilmember Andrews pushed for the dog park to stay—which wasn’t taken out, merely moved. Many residents push for dog parks—there are several throughout the City, but it’s not easy to find a list of them. HARD President Rosen said there was an easy website to track the progress of the parks under construction, and although I found it, it’s not easy. Councilmember Andrews also pushed to see if the City could help push along the Bidwell Park and the El Rancho Verde park—though the latter is just outside of City limits.
Drawing the line between park and “open space”, Councilmember Syrop pushed to make sure more amenities and things to do were kept. His main focus was on the dog park—still in—and the basketball courts—also still in. In thinking to the future, Councilmember Syrop asked if there was an ability to upgrade after construction was technically complete if more money was available, and the planner said that it was possible. Councilmember Syrop also maintained that a smaller parking lot may encourage more local, as opposed to regional, use.
A thought shared by all of Council, however, was a desire for more cooperation between the City and HARD. Councilmember Syrop said, “I’m very open HARD staff input on this… You’re the experts here.” Councilmember Roche said that they “need HARD or park experts” for the design. And Councilmember Goldstein said, “I see [HARD] as our local park experts.”
Mayor Mark Salinas positioned it as a bit of a vanity project for the City, “[La Vista Park] was going to be the crown jewel of our city… We absolutely deserve a first class park.” This also may be a bit of a jab at HARD which has, anecdotally, put more funding and effort into parks in the unincorporated areas, especially Castro Valley, than into Hayward proper. Just looking at the difference between the two splash pads gives some weight to that argument.
In the end, the City Manager posed an idea: Make all of the Phase 2 projects “Add/Alts” for the Phase 1 bid—which allows them to be included or not at the City’s discretion—and then pick and choose with HARD based on cost and impact estimates.
When asked about the timeline, the City Manager said she wants the project to come back with a bid before going to HARD. President Pete Rosen interjected saying that he wanted HARD to have more input on the design and prioritization—something which prompted the consultant to shake his head.
The City Manager then said that she was open to going to the HARD work session, in April, to get feedback on everything before putting the project out to bid. On the subject of Measure C money, only two Councilmembers pushed for a price below $10,000,000: Councilmembers Roche and Syrop. It was unclear what the final approved Measure C amount will be, but it’s possible it will only be $6,000,000.
Townhome Tussle
We already covered this project when it hit the Planning Commission back in late February. The main deal here is that most of the plan was already approved, but there was a switch from rental to ownership and the addition of a gate.
The few questions and comments that Council had were completely different from what the Planning Commission was concerned about. It’s possible that this is mostly because they understand that, as Councilmember Bonilla Jr. put it, “tonight’s approval is more of a formality.”
Councilmember Syrop asked if there was any risk of a large corporation buying up the ownership units and converting them to rental properties. Staff explained that it was unlikely for a few reasons:
Doing so would make banks uneasy and make it more difficult for any remaining units—especially the permanently affordable ones—to be sold.
Most HOA charters—like my own—have a maximum number or percentage of units that are allowed to be converted into rentals. My own complex has a cap of 10%.
When Councilmember Syrop asked directly if a big corporation could swoop in and buy all the units to essentially become the HOA, Staff had to admit that there’s nothing the City can do directly to stop that. However, they did reiterate that banks don’t like it, either.
Councilmembers Roche and Andrews showed evidence of their time on the Planning Commission by asking about parking. Councilmember Roche was concerned about on-street parking, which already appeared to be impacted. Councilmember Andrews shared her back-of-the-napkin math for parking: 22 units = 66 cars. And, while I wish she was wrong, I don’t think she is. Especially given how many people use their garages for storage as opposed to car parking.
Unfortunately for the street, the inclusion of affordable units and proximity to South Hayward BART means that the developer technically didn’t have to include any parking at all under state law.
Hayward to Officially Sponsor Juneteenth
The last item was a referral from Councilmembers Andrews and Roche that requests that the City turn Juneteenth into a “marquee event”—meaning that the City puts up money and resources to directly sponsor it—to the tune of $15,000. Highlighting the problematic nature of declaring 4th of July as Independence Day for a country that’s entire economic engine was powered by slavery, the referral requested a few things:
A $15,000 matching grant to help pay for the event
Making Juneteenth a Marquee Event, similar to the MLK event
Develop a task force with internal and external partners to plan and staff the event
Councilmember Andrews said that she wants the Juneteenth event to be a test case for other marquee cultural events that the City can support in a more direct way—not sure how this will interact with the CSC’s Arts and Music funding, though.
This was universally supported by the City Council. Councilmember Syrop offered his support, including some of his own Councilmember discretionary funding. However, he stopped short of the task force, given some of the staffing shortages the City is already facing.
Councilmember Goldstein also put up some discretionary funding and expressed a desire to, unsurprisingly, get the Chamber of Commerce involved, as well as other parts of the community.
There was some pushback on the amount of money requested, with Councilmember Bonilla asking if this was an appropriate amount for events of this nature. Unfortunately, the City hasn’t done many Marquee Events and needs to do more analysis and develop a process and plan for these kinds of things. Mayor Salinas said that $5,000 is a usual amount that the City puts up for these kinds of cultural events, while Councilmember Zermeño noted that the Cinco de Mayo event costs around $30,000, which would put the matching grant in the right ballpark.
Look forward to this coming Juneteenth event to see what a new Marquee Event really looks like.