End of the Month Special District Round-Up
HARD Board approves increase in Board pay, HUSD looks at what to do with closed schools, AC Transit is redistricting, and BART gets its Police Military Equipment Update
With no Hayward City Council meeting this week (5th Tuesdays are free!), I’ve trolled the local special districts to get you the updates that matter to us in Hayward. Look forward to more City Council content after the next Council meeting on September 12th.
HUSD Board Meeting Updates
The Hayward Unified School District Board of Education covers not just Hayward, but areas of Castro Valley, Cherryland, and Fairview. They cover a huge area and are probably the #1 meeting body that Haywardistes care about, trumping even the City Council. While I can’t get super in-depth for the HUSD Board, I’m always keeping my ear out.
Surplus Properties
HUSD has many sites in the Hayward area. They’ve closed 28 schools over their lifetime, 17 were closed in 1989 alone (most were built in 1980, which is weird considering 1981 was an enrollment low-point, but that’s a line of research for another day). With shrinking populations and a large maintenance backlog from the 60+ year old buildings, HUSD proposed closing several more schools in 2020, but due to intense public outcry, the reduced that number to 4 which were closed between 2021 and 2022.
HUSD held a hearing this month on what to do with 4 different surplus properties:
520 Jefferson Street, Hayward (Formerly known as Bowman Elementary)
585 Willow Avenue, Hayward (Former Cherryland Elementary site, current home of Key Academy Charter School)
2652 Vergil Court, Castro Valley (former home of Hayward Golden Oaks Montessori School until 2021, former site of Laurel Elementary until 1989)
27211 Tyrrell Avenue, Hayward (current home of the Student Information and Assessment Center, former home of Shepherd Elementary School until 2007)
Of the ones listed above, Bowman Elementary was the only one which closed, the Vergil site combined with a different Montessori school. The process for getting community involvement for the properties is determined by state law. A lot of what the 7-11 committee has come up with so far wants to push for transitional housing, workforce housing (for teachers/staff in district), and other community benefit initiatives. The committee has chosen up to 3 things that they think should be focused on at each property:
Willow: To Be Determined, but in general, a mixed-use property that serves the community.
Vergil: Review strategies for rental housing for employees and moderate-income housing strategies
Jefferson: Mixed-use HUSD daycare/medium-high density housing.
Tyrrell: support current student housing program, and support various community/training activities. Want to create access for homeless minors.
They’ve already had 15 proposals come out from different agencies, so a committee is going to review and rank them over the next month or so and provide guidance to the board on what to do with each individual property. The important thing that staff wanted to drive home is that this process goes way above and beyond what’s required in Ed Code so that the community can really get involved and give input. Usually the District would be bound to take the highest bid on any individual property.
The HARD Board came out at this board meeting, both Sara Lamnin and Peter Rosen, to push for parks at the Vergil site. They stressed collaboration, but made a lot of emphasis on how some affordable housing is being built (apparently there’s a proposal for lots of affordable housing at the Castro Valley BART, but I’d bet that’s got a lot of community headwinds).
There was also some major turnout from folks in Castro Valley who complained about the lack of outreach to the community immediately around the Vergil property. The big complaint was that there is a plan for more housing and it should instead be a park. Which… feels very Castro Valley, tbh, but also there’s no reason it can’t be both. These properties are huge. I hope they also turnout like that at their Municipal Advisory Council meetings and County Board of Supervisors meetings, especially considering Nate Miley, their Supervisor, is up for re-election in 2024.
Although it was marked as a “Public Hearing” which usually includes board speakers and discussion, it was also 9:16pm, so after public comment the item was closed. So if you want to keep an eye on this item, head over to the 7-11 Committee website and keep your eyes wide. You’ll definitely hear more about it here, as capacity permits.
HARD Board Meeting Updates
The Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (the Park is silent) is important to you if you’ve ever gone to a park or community center or just about any green space in Hayward, Castro Valley, Fairview, San Leandro, or Cherryland. They had a Board meeting this past month, and here’s the important highlights.
HARD Board Increases Board Member Pay
According to a recently adopted policy, Board members can increase their pay by 5% per calendar year. They elected to do that and now get paid $105/meeting. However, the policy also allows the board to increase the number of paid meetings, so long as they have evidence. So a similar item, presumably, just passed allowing Board members to get paid for up to 6 meetings per month for a total compensation of $7,560/year. In fairness, HARD Board Members apparently attend between 4 and 20 meetings per month (average around 10), so this number will likely go up in the future.
The downside of this is that it costs taxpayers more money, but the upside is that having a living wage for Board Members means it’s more likely that people who aren’t overwhelmingly landlords, insurance brokers, and other people fortunate enough to not need a truly full-time job may have the chance to actually run for these offices.
Assuming, of course, there’s actually an election.
Douglas Morrisson Theatre Refurbishment Funds Approved
The Board approved about $500,000 to refurbish the Douglas Morrisson Theatre. This is part of the new operating model for the facility which includes making it available as a “rental house” which, I can only assume, would put it in the same category as the Mt. Eden Mansion or any of the rentable community centers. The bulk of the money, almost $390,000, will go to new LED lighting system. $28,000 will go to repairs and maintenance (fix the leak in the roof, wall repair, and painting rooms), and $32,000 will go toward new stage cameras and monitors, a sawdust collection system for the stage shop, and new seated risers.
Despite its inaccessibility, it’s one of the only community performance spaces in Hayward, other than the Chabot Theater. It’d be great to have this become more of a part of Hayward life, though its location will likely keep use low without some serious outreach.
And before anyone messages me with an “um akshully”, the Theatre is still technically in Hayward. The City owns one of the two parcels that the Theatre is built on, which it rents to HARD (along with many other parcels) for $1/year.
Unfortunately, they don’t do any recording of their meetings, so I don’t get a chance to dig into the nitty-gritty of what the board members say, but maybe one day I’ll have the freedom to attend their Monday evening meetings.
AC Transit Board Updates
AC Transit is the main public transit agency in Alameda County. If you get on a bus that isn’t a school bus or a Greyhound, it’s an AC Transit bus. As someone who is passionate about public transit and walkability, this agency is always on my list of places to keep an eye on.
Redistricting Coming Soon
AC Transit is doing some redistricting soon, changing it’s 5-ward and 2 at-large structure to a 7-ward structure, and they’ll be holding their legally mandated public hearings soon. So if you want to give some input about where the district lines are drawn, look forward to the public hearings on the following dates:
Wednesday September 6 at 6pm on zoom
Wednesday September 13 at 6pm on zoom
Wednesday October 4th at 6pm on zoom
Wednesday October 25th at 6pm on zoom
Maaaaybe Wednesday November 8 at 6pm, if needed, on zoom
Right now Hayward is split between Ward 4, represented primarily by Murphy McCalley, and Ward 5, represented primarily by Diane Shaw. The first and second meetings won’t have a draft map yet, but are to get public input. The draft map will be available for the October public hearing and has to be presented a week in advance, so look out for it on September 28th, if not sooner.
BART Board Updates
BART is important to the entire Bay Area, but with two stations in city limits and a maintenance yard, Haywardistes should always try to keep an ear out about what the BART Board is up to. BART Police also have jurisdiction here and the Board has been beefing up their Police since people keep complaining about “safety”.
Safe Routes to BART Funding Cycle 3
Safe Routes to BART has another round of funding coming up. According to the Safe Routes to BART website, the funds are to help “local agencies improve access for BART customers traveling to BART stations by walking and biking.” That sounds pretty good to me, and other than lack of capacity, I can’t see any reason to leave up to $3 million on the table when both Downtown and South Hayward BART areas could use some improvement.
BART Police AB 481 Update on Military Equipment
Like all law enforcement agencies in California, BART Police are required to update the BART Board about their military equipment inventory and use. If you’re into demilitarization of the police, I’d consider giving the full report a look. It’s not too long. Below are some highlights from my read.
Apparently AR-15’s are standard issue for BART police officers, which is terrifying. This apparently means they’re exempt from AB 481 and don’t count as military equipment which feels really bad.
They’ve also got:
7 bolt action rifles
6 Mufflers for rifles
41 suppressors for Sig Sauer patrol rifles.
200 cases of regular rifle ammo.
1000 armor piercing rifle rounds. You know, for all those folks on BART wearing body armor.
1,200 “accurately fired” rifle rounds.
12 flash bangs.
15 “less than lethal” munition launchers.
13 40mm barricade rounds.
670 sponge rounds.
11 40mm foam batons.
5 40mm bean bags.
23 40mm stinger rounds.
Why is this important? Well, in case you weren’t aware, Oscar Grant*, who was murdered by a BART Police officer at Fruitvale Station, was a resident of Hayward. BART Police have jurisdiction in any municipality which has a BART station, and Haywardistes who take BART interact with them all the time.
Other BART Stuff of Interest
BART is also considering changing the size of trains for safety and efficiency. There’s a lot of reasons, including safety (which is a HUGE boogeyman for BART right now), efficiency, an accelerated timeline to use new train cars, and just general money savings. The main gist is that instead of most trains being 10 cars long on weekdays (8 on orange line), they’ll be 6 cars long (with 8 on yellow line).
The BART Board is also looking to support several pro-housing bills coming through the California Legislature, including an affordable housing bond act, and streamlined approvals of multifamily housing developments. That’s good news for those of us in Hayward who have gotten real tired of that spot near Downtown BART being used as a holding ground for maintenance and construction materials.
That’s a lot of stuff! Remember: I look through all this stuff so you don’t have to. But I can’t have my eyes on everything! This isn’t even every Special District that covers Hayward. So if you hear about something that you think needs to be elevated, drop me a line: haywardherald@gmail.com Many hands makes light work, fam.
*Thank you to eagle-eyed readers who caught my mistake. It has been corrected.