Council Fights Capitol Corridor Changes
In Which: The City Manager re-re affirms Hayward's Sanctuary status, Council butts heads with the Capitol Corridor, And The Library Strategic Plan reveals understaffing.
City Re-Re Affirms Sanctuary Status
New City Manager, Dr. Ana Alvarez spent time at the beginning of Tuesday’s City Council meeting to re-reassure residents—in English, Spanish, and Mandarin—of the City’s sanctuary status. “[We] do not, must not, and will not participate in,” City Manager Alvarez said, “or support federal immigration enforcement in any form.”
She referenced the City Council’s Sanctuary City Resolution from 2017. The Herald did a full analysis of the City’s Sanctuary City Resolution in a previous story you can read below. City Manager Alvarez expressed concern about the proliferation of rumors and encouraged residents to monitor official City communications like the Stack Newsletter.
Mayor Mark Salinas also sought to reassure the public. “Immigration isn’t only a Latino issue,” he said, “Immigration is an issue that reaches every ethnic group, every community—not only here in Hayward, but throughout the country.” More than anything, the Mayor pushed for calm. “I want to communicate a sense of calmness to the community,” he said.
The Mayor stressed the importance of trust within the community. “We have built a strong social infrastructure here in the City of Hayward,” he said, “And this social infrastructure is based… on a lot of the non-profit organizations that are here in Hayward that we work with every day.” He listed multiple other cities and elected bodies—which are not non-profit organizations—as well as Tiburcio Vasquez, Hayward Promise Neighborhoods, La Familia, St. Rose, and Centro Legal de la Raza.
Mayor Salinas further warned against spreading misinformation. “When you post, verify it,” he said.
Flood Control Rates To Increase In Some Areas
Some areas in Hayward along the San Lorenzo Creek may see their Flood Control District fees increase. In an effort to prevent damage similar to that sustained by A Street during heavy rains, the Alameda County Flood Control District (ACFCD) is going to propose a ballot measure to affected households to raise rates.
The rates, if approved, will pay for over $300,000,000 in infrastructure over 20 years. The improvements will improve storm water capacity in the creek, protect property, and improve related infrastructure to reduce long-term costs. The current rates are $25 per year for a single family home and rates haven’t been raised since the 1990s.
The ballots will be mailed in April, and if the increases don’t pass, the ACFCD will have to pursue grants and other ways to improve infrastructure to prevent future damage—grants which they may take a lot longer to clear and that they may not even get.
Hayward Fights For Amtrak Station
The Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) is proposing to change the route for the Capitol Corridor trains through Hayward. Rather than using the Niles Subdivision (where it currently exists), the train would use the Coast Subdivision though the industrial area.
This change would also remove the Fremont and Hayward Amtrak stations and consolidate them at the Ardenwood Park and Ride. This would save 13 minutes from the current trip between San Jose and Oakland—the two biggest East Bay stations. It would also improve reliability as the project includes adding a second set of tracks along the Coast Subdivision. The project will eventually be paid for with State and Federal transportation dollars.
The plan will also elevate the track and, more importantly, the signaling equipment, to mitigate the future climate impacts of moving closer to the coast.
Why Is This Happening?
Okay, so the first thing that needs to be kept in mind is that the CCJPA is a regional body. If you look at their board of directors, it’s made of transit authorities from everywhere between Santa Clara and Sacramento. They have a big area to consider when they make plans, and two of the biggest cities they serve—Oakland and San Jose—have a chance to have more frequent, more reliable, and shorter rides with this change.
Also, the State and Federal funding used to bankroll the project only care about one thing: getting cars off the road—reducing Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) in the biz. Most cars are used in commuting, so they’re trying to connect to other regional transit systems. They prioritized the Park and Ride in Fremont because it’s got many transbay busses used by people travelling from San Jose to Palo Alto—Amtrak could connect them.
The alignment also helps to differentiate Amtrak from BART by serving a different area. As you can see from the map, the Niles Subdivision parallels the BART tracks—within a mile or so—for almost the whole stretch from Fremont to Oakland. This allows it to avoid competing with BART for passengers.
Finally, something to bear in mind is that the CCJPA has no real representation that covers Hayward. The closest things we have are our BART reps—we have 3 covering different parts of Hayward and mostly other places so that’s useless—and 2 county reps—neither of which is Elisa Marquez. So Hayward has no real voice on the CCJPA and that sucks.
And while I think in a macro-sense this is a really good idea, Hayward is going to lose out. Period. There’s no sugar-coating that. We’re going to lose our Amtrak station and, if we bankroll it ourselves, may get another station in a less convenient part of town. That sucks. It’s going to hurt people and there’s no way around that.
The question is: How do we react to that reality? Do we fight it and hope it fails? Or do we try to find a way to make it suck as little as possible?
Council Chooses To Fight
The City Council apparently chose to fight it—some even openly wished for its failure. Councilmember Francisco Zermeño expressed skepticism even of the reported ridership numbers—he was reassured that it was a real count—and expressed concerns about removing stations affecting ridership. “Taking away a train station discourages public transportation,” he said.
“I’m very much against this,” Councilmember Zermeño said, “and I hope that you receive no funding whatsoever from our present leader. And I hope that it fails because I think that we need to keep our train service alive and healthy with our train station.”
Councilmember Roche wasn’t nearly so aggressive as her colleague, but did recognize the reality facing Hayward. “It’s clearly lose/lose for Hayward,” she said, “where there’s no efficiency that will make this more efficient for Hayward.” She questioned the cost-effectiveness of the project. “$69,000,000 per minute, that does sound pretty obscene as far as use of money.” She also expressed concerns about the equity of the project. “[Ardenwood] station will continue to serve a more privileged community while you’re taking away stations from some more low-income potential riders.”
Councilmember Bonilla attempted to bargain with the CCJPA on how this is addressed. “I would like to see the conversation shift to say how can we work together,” he said, “to improve ridership and how can we make this station a thriving station so it can remain versus let’s do away with it.” However, he recognized that even if the alignment does change, Hayward should get something in return. “I want to see more benefits for Hayward if this station does close.”
Councilmember Andrews asked if it was possible to speed up the trains on the current alignment to make the same time savings. “We are where we’re going to be,” the speaker said. “13 minutes is a lot of time and will reduce time between Oakland and San Jose to an hour.” Councilmember Andrews also pushed for the community to make their voices heard. “I’m hoping that you hear from the people who are making these trips,” she said, “that this is a significant impact to our community.”
Councilmember Goldstein was significantly more supportive—or it might have been resigned—to the project, but still expressed concerns about the additional cost to residents to buy a BART ticket to the Coliseum to transfer. “We do have a significant number of folks who are price sensitive,” he said. “They just don’t have the means to cover [the BART fare to Oakland].” However he fell short of wishing it would fail. “Anything that builds faster, more reliable systems, I think is going to win.”
Councilmember Syrop aligned with Councilmember Bonilla on attempting to get something for the loss of the Hayward Station. “The removal of the Hayward Amtrak station represents the removal of an amenity from our community,” he said, “and there’s nothing really being offered in return.”
Councilmember Syrop also questioned how this would affect the car traffic in Hayward. “No station in Hayward means we’re potentially looking at 70,000 more car trips,” he said. “This is a traffic bomb being dropped on our city.” But he closed by wondering what working together could look like in order to improve a bad situation and have a dialogue.
Mayor Salinas was one of the more aggressive commenters, going so far as to suggest putting the funding toward another project. “Couldn’t we take those dollars and improve the transit system that we have right now?” he asked. “Like maybe wrap BART around the Bay?” It is unclear if such a project would qualify for the same funding the CCJPA would apply for and would undoubtedly be much more expensive.
Mayor Salinas then focused on equity, which was a talking point for most of City Council. “Equity means that when you have a disadvantaged community… you calibrate resources and services and assets to the communities that really need it,” he said. “And then you raise them up and bring them to parity with [everyone else]. You’re taking from a low-income neighborhood and you’re adding to a region in Alameda County that is high income and high resourced.”
Unfortunately, as I outlined above, the funding that the CCJPA is looking to acquire doesn’t put much weight on the equity of a project so long as it reduces the number of cars on the road. So while equity is important and it should be taken into account, if the funders don’t care, it can hurt your application to give more weight to it.
Finally, the Mayor relayed that this was another instance where regional and State interests are pitching a project that affects the City with little regard for its residents. “Here in the City of Hayward,” he said, “we get frustrated when we see projects that are literally driven though our city that don’t benefit the City.” He cited the Downtown Loop as an example, which was spearheaded by CalTrans in an effort to alleviate traffic congestion on Mission, which is technically Highway 238.
The CCJPA representative, after over an hour and a half of hard questions that have no good answers, summarized what he heard from the City Council. “We got it,” he said. “Message heard loud and clear. Universal opposition from the Hayward City Council.” Though what effect it will have on the outcome remains unclear.
Hayward Public Library Needs Staff
The Hayward Public Library Director, Jayanti Addleman, gave a presentation on the Library’s new strategic plan, which had been delayed due to the new possibilities of the Downtown Library building and then the COVID lockdown. The report lays out all of the important future initiatives—there’s even a handy one-sheet you can read.
One of the things that came to the forefront for me, as someone who is a librarian by training, is the need for more staff. On the presentation, there was even an anonymous quote from a staff member, “Low staffing is at the root of many issues.” Director Addleman pointed out that Hayward is one of the lowest staffed libraries per-capita in the Bay Area.
The Library Director also pointed out concerns around the unhoused population, specifically around the Weekes Branch. She cited safety concerns, environment and cleanliness, and the impact on children and families, specifically blaming the encampments for these effects. She said that the Weekes Branch used to be higher use than the Downtown Branch before the new building, but also blamed that shift on the unhoused residents of Weekes Park—not the new building itself being a draw.
Have You Considered…
The City Council had nothing but praise for the Library, citing all the work it does for the community and how much the community loves it. But they still pushed for the Library to do more, without addressing the staffing shortage.
For example, Councilmember Bonilla asked about expanding the Literacy and Tutoring programs. Director Addleman explained that the Library already has citizenship, conversational English, English as a Second Language, and Families for Literacy programs. “We have one of the busiest literacy programs in the state,” she said. Still Councilmember Bonilla pushed for the programs to be expanded to Weekes Branch.
Councilmember Andrews asked if the Library had considered how it could operate as an emergency shelter in the event of an emergency. She cited how libraries had become go-to locations during the Los Angeles fires. Director Addleman said that they work with the Fire Department regularly and can consider that. Councilmember Andrews then asked about a tool lending library, which Director Addleman explained was a lot more work than one might think: storage, checking the tools, maintaining them, and the cost of acquisition. “We really don’t have the capacity for that,” the Director said.
Multiple Councilmembers pushed for expanded hours, especially on Sundays and evenings. Councilmembers Bonilla, Zermeño, and Andrews all pushed for expanded hours in the evenings—some as late as 9pm.
Councilmember Syrop was the only Councilmember to mention staffing levels when he asked what the current staffing was per capita. The Director, unfortunately, didn’t have those numbers readily available. Then Councilmember Syrop pitched partnerships with Eden Area Regional Occupational Program and the Hayward Area Historical Society, to help the library tell the history of Hayward.
Fund Your Priorities
The City Council is right to celebrate the Library. Libraries all over deserve praise for being public goods that provide places for people to learn, relax, and just exist without having to pay for a single thing they’re doing. They are one of the last examples left of what our world could look like if we actually meet people’s needs with compassion and don’t charge them for the privilege of being human.
“How [the library approaches] the resources we provide our community,” Councilmember Syrop said, “I really see as a shining example of what local government can do for its people.” Councilmember Zermeño said, “We have a jewel and let’s keep it.” Mayor Salinas said, “Our library has undoubtedly been at the forefront of ensuring that our programs and services are connected to the community.”
But despite this, there was absolutely no mention from anyone on that dais about giving the library extra funding. The Library receives 3.6% of the general fund while development services receives 5.4% and the Police Department receives a whopping 43.5% of the entire general fund. General funds predominantly pay for staffing. The Library has almost 41 FTE staff while HPD has 333 FTE staff—the Library is 12% as big as the Police Department just by headcount.
And yet the Library is constantly expected to do more and be more. If the City Council is really serous about how much it loves the library, it could show it in February by allocating them some more staff. Those 20 Sworn Officer vacancies—that have no direct affect on crime and have existed for over a year—could likely double the staffing of the Library department, given how much officers are paid.
If the City Council loves the Library as much as they say, they should demonstrate it with more than a sticker.