District Maps And Reflections
In Which: City Draft District Maps are revealed. The Herald Celebrates its first birthday. And I muse about the future of the Herald.
City of Hayward Reveals Draft District Maps
The City of Hayward dropped three draft district maps for the City Council. A full analysis will be coming on Thursday, but for now let’s see what the consultants cooked up.
This map divides Downtown along Mission Blvd, lumps upper B Street with the Hayward Hills, and groups much of Hayward South of Tennyson Blvd together.
This map keeps downtown together, makes an interesting L shape with Southgate and Tennyson, and groups Fairway Park with Tennyson instead of the Garin area.
This map divides West Hayward along 92, lumps Garin in with Fairway Park and everything else South of Tennyson. It also breaks up the Jackson Triangle between Downtown and Tennyson.
There’s all kinds of demographic information and political implications to get into on this, but that has to come later. Take a gander at these and let City Council know how you feel about it. How did your neighborhood fare?
Hayward Herald One Year Later
The Hayward Herald officially started on Substack on August 11, 2023. It’s been a little over a year since then and a lot has happened! I wanted to take some time to reflect on some of the highlights of the last year and give some hints about what’s to come.
The Herald: By The Numbers
Every platform has a dashboard to track things like subscriber counts, page views, email opens, that kind of thing. Here’s a rundown of some of the more interesting numbers (as of August 27th)
Email Views: 18,745
Users: 10,943
People like to take a peek back at the articles in their email every once in a while
Direct Views: 4,092
Users: 1,475
For all those who want to take a peek, but haven’t committed to actually subscribing. You know who you are. ;)
Subscribers: 278
Pledged Users: 9
Total Amount Pledged: $600/yr
Information deserves to be free. But those who have committed to supporting us financially when we do start accepting donations really mean a lot.
Subscribers in California: 94%
Farthest Away Subscriber: Romania. What a legend.
Although our subscriber count is modest, the Herald has grown almost exclusively by word-of-mouth. We’ve done zero paid advertising and limited unpaid advertising. Our referrals have been from people who believe, like we do, in developing grassroots local news coverage of Hayward, CA.
What We’ve Covered
The Hayward Herald is, as of now, a 1-person reporting operation being run on a budget of $0. Despite no funding and only working in my off-hours, I’ve watched every City Council meeting, every Planning Commission meeting, and every Community Services Commission meeting. But the most popular posts still surprise me.
Our Lucien Zell story is, defying my politically-focused heart, the most popular story on this entire site. Hosted by Books on B, Zell served up custom-mixed recommendations for those looking for something unexpected. Although he rushed back to his home in Prague, our coverage of Zell showed that there’s an appetite for arts and culture reporting in Hayward.
Though the city is gone, the story of Russell City continues in the present day. This story covered the culmination of over a year of conversations between the City of Hayward and the former Residents and Descendants of Russell City. After lengthy and moving testimony from dozens of former Residents, Descendants, and supporters, the City Council committed to the recommendations from the Russell City Reparative Justice Project Steering Committee (RCRJPSC). But, as Debora Harris said, “An apology is just words.” But Russell City is an important part of our history and our community.
I’ve always said that the only thing that the people of Hayward care about more than their cars is the School Board. Hayward parents are extremely involved, often despite many barriers keeping working-class folks from engaging with government. Even before Hayward became an Education City, turnout for School Board elections was high and engagement at meetings has always been robust. The popularity of this article gives more evidence that there’s appetite for School Board coverage.
I conducted interviews with every single incumbent running for re-election to the Hayward City Council, and it’s one of the reasons I started writing the Herald. Every Hayward resident should know their Councilmembers: what their priorities are, what they hate, what drives them, and who they’re aligned with. Even if people don’t want to read a full summary of the Council meetings, they want to know who’s running their government. So keep your eyes here for coverage between now and November.
The Reactions So Far
The readers who have reached out have been really supportive. I can’t say that everyone has liked everything I’ve said, but I don’t get a lot of hate-mail. Most people are just relieved that someone is writing something about what’s going on in Hayward.
Thanks for the time you’ve spent creating the Hayward Herald. While I read it sporadically, I’ve gained valuable information.
I’ve also caught wind that most of the movers and shakers in Hayward are occasional readers—though I doubt many would admit it in public. And although that gives me a certain amount of pride, I’m not out to bully City Council. I want to make sure the people of Hayward know what’s going on so they can decide whether the City Council is truly following the will of the people.
I enjoy your writing. It also reminds me of the times when I knew all the players and pretty much everything that was going on in and around Hayward. I'm glad that someone still does.
I hope that you can help those of us who are out of the loop to be more informed in the upcoming elections.
Community members and organizations have requested coverage of local events, sometimes even outside of Hayward. Unfortunately, I don’t have the capacity to cover those at the moment—I’m only one guy spinning a lot of plates. But the fact that business owners and event hosts are seeing the value of what we’re bringing is a really good sign.
I'm really surprised to see somebody doing actual journalism in, of all places, Hayward.
Finally, multiple people have told me that we’ve helped to explain how things work in Hayward. What happens at City Hall is often confusing, full of jargon and charts, and seems designed to be inaccessible to normal people. If the Herald can help anyone understand how the laws are changing in Hayward, it’s doing something right.
Where We’re Headed
When I dream, I tend to dream big—even if my reach often exceeds my grasp. I’ve got big plans for the Herald that extend far beyond Substack. I’m starting to make connections with others who are interested in what’s going on in Hayward and actually want to use writing and journalism to make change.
In the very near-term, we’re going to start covering local events and highlighting the local business community. Anyone with eyes can see that the national businesses are leaving us in the lurch—Sears, CVS, and Bank of America immediately come to mind—but our local business scene has always been thriving. Although I don’t count myself a capitalist, small businesses keep Hayward money in Hayward community.
I’m also trying to connect with people who can cover the HUSD School Board. I’ve been asked about candidate forums—twice—and I know they need more regular coverage. Their meetings run weirdly, they engage in behind-closed-doors discussion on important issues, and even their agenda software is difficult to navigate. But I need another set of eyes to do that—at least they only meet twice a month.
Unfortunately, anything beyond that is just dreaming. Can Hayward produce a bi-lingual—or even multi-lingual—local news source? Can a local newsroom operate with a co-op business model? Can print journalism make a resurgence in the Heart of the Bay?
I certainly intend to find out the answers, but I can’t do it alone. So reach out, tell people about us, or even just subscribe. We can build this together if we all pitch in. In the meantime, I’m gonna keep building because it’s the only thing I know.
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you on Thursday.