Council Claps Back at Attorney

In Which: I discuss details of the recent count of unhoused people. The Chamber of Commerce openly asks for power. And Councilmember Roche leads the charge against an attorney.

Homelessness Count Results

The initial results of the Alameda County Point-In-Time Count have been released. Looking at just the summary tells a particular set of stories, but they definitely deserve some context.

The first thing to note is that Hayward has had an increase in the total number of unhoused people from the last count in 2022 by 30%. And while that is definitely bad news, there’s more to it than just housing policy. The first thing to remember is that 2022 was still in the midst of the Pandemic lockdowns. This meant that the guides—many of whom are formerly unhoused or work with them directly—were in very short supply, likely making 2022 a massive undercount.

Secondly, this last year had a huge increase in the number of volunteers available to conduct the count. There were so many, that there weren’t enough guides for every group and Hayward’s survey completion rate was above the county average. This means 2024 was likely a very accurate count compared to 2022, even though it makes the situation look worse in Hayward than it was.

Thirdly, the eviction wave hit Hayward this year. Since the initial days of 2020, landlords had been forbidden from evicting tenants because of unpaid rent—since many people lost work or were unable to go to work. However, those protections ended last year in April of 2023—even then the actual eviction wave didn’t hit until October of 2023, heavily impacting the Courts and driving hundreds of Hayward residents out of their homes. And that’s just the ones that made it to court.

The last thing I want to point out is that the number of people in actual shelters increased by 90%, meaning that although we may have counted more people, they’re at least more likely to have some kind of shelter. This is good from a mental and physical health standpoint, if nothing else.

But if you look at other places, there are some interesting stories there, too. Piedmont, for example, found only 3 whole people in their entire city. Emeryville saw a big decrease, as did San Leandro, Union City, Unincorporated Alameda County, and Berkeley. But far from blaming this on people “migrating” to other cities—which is unsupported by research—there are other more likely causes for these decreases.

While Berkeley may be laying a lot of credit at the feet of its housing policy, they’ve also been increasingly hostile to encampments like People’s Park. It’s not like Fremont, or Union City have been building much affordable housing. In the last year or so, multiple cities have been ramping up enforcement against homeless encampments. And if rousting has been an issue, there’s a good chance that, far from leaving their communities, they may find more creative places to sleep in an effort to avoid detection.

It’s important to remember that there are a lot of reasons why the numbers may go up or down—from successful housing policy to police action to lack of volunteers to count. This is just an initial summary, so hopefully future updates will give a more complete picture.

Council Lashes Out At Lawyer

This past Tuesday, City Council held their first of 4 public hearings on the districting process. In case you somehow haven’t read it in the last several articles, the City of Hayward has been sued by an attorney, Scott Rafferty, and is being forced into changing from at-large elections to by-district elections.

This is really a positive thing for the City—despite what some will say—because it will help improve representation for different regions of the City, make it easier for people to run for City Council, and dilute the power of the institutional kingmakers like the Chamber of Commerce. The only downside is that we’ve been forced into it—the lawsuit forces the process to take place within 3 months, which doesn’t allow for a lot of community input.

But that’s where these public hearings come in. The districts don’t exist yet and it’s up to us to give the demographer—the exact same one HUSD is using—the building blocks they need to put it together. If you don’t want your neighborhood to be broken up or divided into pieces, then you need to submit a map.

Each district will, ideally, have around 27,000 people in it with one member of City Council representing their interests. Not that I think current Councilmembers are intentionally neglecting areas of the City, but the people who live somewhere tend to know it best. And right now, nobody lives in areas like the Jackson Triangle, or between Industrial and Tennyson, or between the BART tracks and the Bay north of 92.

Public Comment Divided—Mostly Against

The community members that were able to attend had pretty clear mixed feelings about it. The group skewed, as you might expect, more affluent and older. Some wanted to improve the process as best they could.

One man highlighted the difference between population, voting-age population, and citizen voting-age population (those who can actually vote). Hopefully the demographer knows the difference, but the presentation appeared to mostly be focusing on raw population, which may not be electorally representative.

The Hayward Concerned Citizens offered up ideas for reaching more residents—specifically citing their extensive NextDoor group. They also suggested town hall-style meetings in other parts of the City to better engage residents who can’t make it to City Hall. One resident of Southgate made the case for her neighborhood to remain in one piece, despite being bisected by 92—she made sure to point out that they have “high voter turnout”.

Many more, however, were against the process altogether. The head of the Rental Housing Association—that’s the landlord lobby, for those at home—pushed for extending the process out to 2026, seemingly unaware that it would be in violation of state law. A representative of the Chamber of Commerce pushed for the City to also push the timeline back to allow the Chamber to “work with business owners” on the process—reminder that the Chamber of Commerce has all but hand-picked almost every member of the City Council for the last decade.

Attorney Attempts to Mollify Council

Despite his rather aggressive public comments during the Russell City Reparative Justice Project Council meeting back in March, Attorney Scott Rafferty has made attempts in recent weeks to behave more nicely with Council. He attempted to highlight some of the benefits of districting in order to sway the City Council to his point of view.

He argued for a 7-way division, though the City Council appears to be only considering a 6-way division and keeping the Mayor as an at-large position. He also continued to push for implementation in time for the upcoming November election, despite the Acting City Manager stating, in no uncertain terms, that it won’t be used until 2026.

Using terms like “equality of influence” and highlighting other areas where districting has caused a “dramatic increase in Latino turnout and Asian turnout,” Attorney Rafferty made his best pitch to Council.

Some of his message was undercut, however, when he said, “This is very rushed. And that is not my choice.” It, in fact, was exactly his choice. He was the one who initiated it with the lawsuit, knowing full well the timelines the City would be forced into. It’s always felt disingenuous to complain about the timeline and lack of outreach when he’s the one who forced it.

As we’ll see, if he was looking to win over Council, he failed.

Council Claps Back

It was clear that, despite having been in government for years and watching a presentation on the subject, certain nuances were confusing even for the City Council. Councilmember Zermeño opened the discussion by asking of the Ohlone people could sue the City in an effort to “satisfy the demands of a certain ethnic group that feels that they’re not being represented up here.” The demographer assured him that the districting process will satisfy the lawsuit and it won’t be able to be filed again.

The particularly hostile tone that Councilmember Zermeño affected during the question highlights a particular issue with Attorney Rafferty’s claim that he is representing “the Asian community.” He is, in fact, representing one Asian man named Jack Wu. It’s true that the Asian community is underrepresented on Council—they make up almost 30% of Hayward’s population according to the last Census—it’s problematic to frame this as some kind of racialized power grab.

Thankfully, none of the other members of the City Council seemed to be following a similar train of thought.

Councilmember Syrop was, publicly at least, the least hostile to the process. His questions focused primarily on process. He made sure that it was okay for people to submit maps on behalf of others who may not be able to do so themselves—it is—and asked if it was okay for someone to submit multiple maps of their own—which it also is. “We’re gonna do our best,” he said, “to allow folks to participate.”

The comments took a turn, however, when it came time for Councilmember Roche. After asking about the possibility of hosting town halls in other parts of the city—possible, but difficult—she turned her comments to Rafferty himself. “You’re looking at a Council that almost perfectly mirrors our demographics,” she said. This, however, only true if you consider race—there’s only one renter on the Council and they make up over 50% of Hayward residents, for example.

She also took aim at an anecdote that Rafferty shared about another Mayor who allegedly learned more about his own community through the districting process. “Three councilmembers are born and raised here,” Councilmember Roche said, “I’m a little offended by you bringing your talking points for the whole state into a city like Hayward… We’re all people that have lived here a long time.” That last statement is mostly true depending on how you count “long”—some have lived here for as little as 8 years.

Councilmember Roche summed up her feelings by saying, “I don’t appreciate you coming into our house and telling us how we should understand our community more.” Mayor Salinas then interjected, “I appreciate your comments.”

Councilmember Bonilla also stated his approval of Councilmember Roche’s comments before asking if it was possible to hold a meeting at the Matt Jimenez Community Center—though it’s technically closed. He also expressed what three other Councilmembers are doubtless thinking, “I’m glad this is not going to be implemented until 2026.” Councilmembers Bonilla, Zermeño, Andrews, and Goldstein are all up for re/election this year. “I may not be the one that’s the most supportive of this right now.”

Councilmember Andrews recommended trying to partner with HUSD, which is also going through the process, to find venues in different parts of the City. She then pivoted to Rafferty, “I’m not going to even respond to anyone that mentions ‘The Blacks’ in a comment” and thanked Councilmember Roche for her previous comments.

A less combative tone was heard from Councilmember Goldstein who made a call to action for residents to get involved and submit maps and be engaged. He was, unsurprisingly, not happy about the process, “We feel that our city has done a fantastic job in bringing representation forward. And it’s a little scary to think that now things are going to change.” He then suggested that some members of City Council would even move in order to be able to maintain their seat—which feels like a desperate bid to keep power.

Councilmember Goldstein closed by saying that prospective future Councilmembers will need to be mentored, adding, “Not everyone is well suited for the job.”

Mayor Salinas’s comments were, if anything, the most overtly aggressive. He’s been openly hostile to the form the process is taking—if not to districting itself—for as long as it’s been public. Tuesday night was no different.

After giving a history of the Federal Voting Rights Act, Mayor Salinas agreed that California has had some racial issues—many would argue it still does. And he said that the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) “started out good” but stressed that he is not pleased with the idea of someone using it to sue cities for profit.

“Make no mistake,” Mayor Salinas said, “We’re doing this because we have an attorney that has come to our city, sued us to do this. And he’s making money—he’s profiting from it.” Scott Rafferty is one of two individuals who sue cities and districts up and down the state, earning money from the winnings guaranteed by the CVRA.

He then leaned into his Hayward roots. “I find it absolutely offensive that somebody comes into our house and tells us—tells me—that I would learn more about my city going through this process. I’ve walked every single one of [the 176 voting precincts in Hayward]. To say that we would grow from this is absolutely offensive.”

The Mayor then highlighted the small margins by which individual districts can be won or lost, citing a vote for Berkeley City Council that was won by 300 votes. If that was a same margin in an ideal District in our city, it would be decided by 1%—for context, Dan Goldstein lost to George Syrop in 2022 by 936 votes across the whole City, or by about .5%. Also, the most recent Special Election in Berkeley this year for District 7 was won by 94 votes.

But the Mayor closed his comments, and the meeting, with a final shot across the bow of Attorney Scott Rafferty. “I look forward to the day,” he said, “when I read in the newspaper that Walnut Creek becomes districted.” Walnut Creek, the home of Scott Rafferty, still uses at-large elections.