Family Man Image Deserves Scrutiny
In which Horrifying images are shared to prove a point, The Stack Center is compared to Police Buildings, and The Planning Commission fails to meet.
Eric Swalwell’s Campaign Needs To Pivot
Members of the House of Representatives do a lot of campaigning. Having to be re-elected every two years means a lot of chances to lose a seat and a lot of working the public to keep it. It means lots of fundraising and glad-handing and outreach and social media work—significantly more than our absentee-feeling Senators who only have to worry once every 6 years.
This cycle, I’ve noticed Swalwell’s campaigning has leaned heavily on his position as a parent. He invited Emily Calandrelli as his State of the Union guest because of her “travelling parent” story, he’s framed the IVF ban as a “war on families,” and in the past few weeks has really leaned into a Family Man persona by posing with and posting pictures and videos of his children.1
He’s posted pictures of his children doing adorable things like giving him big hugs, balancing on his back while he does pushups, sleeping on his lap, and messily eating what appears to be pudding. He’s held them while posing with fire fighters and held their hands in photos taken during parades. It humanizes him and is, on the whole, a tried and true campaign strategy that’s worked for countless other political figures.
Like Representative Swalwell, I’m also a dad. Being a parent is at times both joyful and heartbreaking in ways that are impossible to describe. It’s completely changed my perspective and how I see the world. I’d do anything for my child and have wells of empathy for parents and children in ways that would have been foreign to me before having a child of my own.
But when I see photographs of children in Palestine starving, dead and injured, or wrapped in sheets in their parents arms, or screaming for their parents in a warzone—and there are hundreds of thousands of videos and images beyond what I’ve seen—I think about this man who claims to be an ally for families. I ask myself: What families does he care about? Clearly his own. And clearly those of the photogenic white women he invites to the State of the Union. But just as clearly not Palestinian families.
So while I know that Swalwell will definitely get another term, he should also know that his Family Man image is a farce.
Despite using his own children to bolster his image during campaign season and co-authoring legislation to help travelling families, Eric Swalwell has actively refused to call for a ceasefire. For over 5 months he has demonstrated that he does not care about the thousands of children and parents who have been killed by the Israeli government. For over 160 days Eric Swalwell has done nothing to help these families living through a genocide.
Rather than helping the thousands of irreparably shattered Palestinian families that are being ground into dust by the Israeli government, Eric Swalwell is using his own children to burnish his image. These actions are difficult to reconcile as anything other than racist. I’ve been calling his office daily for 5 months—shout out to the staffers there; y’all deserve a better boss—and he hasn’t budged from the party line of Unconditional Support for Israel.
Instead he’s poured money into efforts to keep progressives and leftists out of the Democratic endorsement process, spent time wooing local elected officials to keep them on side, and worked hard to position himself as some firewall against the Republicans—despite national-level Dems working overtime to become Republican Lite. This is how Institutions reinforce themselves.
And while I don’t see an alternate path in the near future, Eric Swalwell deserves to know that his new campaign tactic is not fooling anyone.
Consent Item Palate Cleanser
After dining on some of the most bitter things I can think of, let’s get into what’s happening at tonight’s City Council meeting.
More Stack Center Funding
The Stack Center, a project which has been going on in earnest for over 10 years, is getting another tranche of funding tonight: $2,500,000 from the State’s Department of Housing and Community Development. The Center, poised to replace multiple buildings around the Matt Jiminez Community Center on the corner of Tennyson and Ruus, has leveraged dozens of different lines of funding to cover its over $53,000,000 price tag.
With this funding, it will get a little bit closer to its final funding goal, though it is still almost $25,000,000 short of the funding needed. It’s leveraged everything from private donations to county money to State Library grants—not really sure how they swung that one—to Sheriff funding. The hoops that the Stack Center—which was ostensibly to provide space for services provided to low-income families in the Tennyson and South Hayward neighborhoods—has had to jump through have been numerous. Even then, they’re still nowhere near the end of it.
But keep an eye on how many hoops the Police Department has to jump through to get their infrastructure needs met.
More Cameras, You Say?
In a continuing advance of the Surveillance Industrial Complex, the Hayward Police Department will get $300,000 to pay for a further 35 automated license plate readers, positioned at strategic locations throughout the City. This will bring the total throughout the City to 64 cameras. This feels like a lot until you hear that Oakland has over 330 of them.
HPD says that the current cameras have directly assisted in over 90 arrests for things like vehicle theft and “various other felonies” as well as returning over 70 stolen vehicles. I’m morally opposed to further surveillance, as a rule, especially since there’s been no discussion about what other images these cameras are capturing, what the data retention policy is, or where that data is going to be stored.
This would have been a source of discussion at the new Public Safety Committee, but HPD is looking to speed the approval through to score a deal of $10,000 off the installation fee. Rushing surveillance purchases without engaging in public debate because it’s on sale feels really dystopian.
Police Locker Room Plans Cost Money
The City is going to approve an additional $114,000 to pay for architectural plans for the new locker rooms at the current HPD building on Winton. This will bring the cost for the planning and bidding to over $500,000. The actual construction of the new locker room is projected to be $6,760,000—though if you find a large construction project that comes in on time and on budget, buy yourself a lottery ticket.
Airport Indian Food
The Raja Indian Cuisine building is getting a renovation and a new lease agreement. It’s been riding on an old lease that was approved 50 years ago and, because of that, was only paying about $1,500/month for the ground—from what I understand the business owns the building but the Airport owns the land, which is why municipal stuff makes normal people’s heads hurt.
Under the new terms, the rent is increased to a little over $5,500/month—which will net the Airport an additional $50,000 or so per year—and will only last for 35 years. Unfortunately, the land will also be re-assessed for market rates and Consumer Price Index raises every 10 years starting in 2028 and 2033, respectively. So expect some construction on that building soon if you frequent it.
Planning Commission?
I didn’t forget the Planning Commission. They were supposed to have a meeting last week, but couldn’t make quorum: Commissioners Stevens, Franco-Clausen, and Patterson were absent. Their absence, plus the vacant seat, means that there weren’t enough people there to have a meeting according to the Brown Act.
This also marks the second absence this cycle for both Commissioner Stevens and Commissioner Franco-Clausen, which—if memory serves—puts both of them close to getting them pulled from their positions for attendance issues.
I recall this being a point of particular interest for Councilmember Bonilla Jr., but the only published language I can find says “Members shall be required to attend no less than seventy-five percent of all regular meetings held.” This would put the allowable missed meetings at less than 6 (75% of 20 meetings is 15, and missing 6 would put you at 70%). But if the language has changed, it may be more restrictive.
The Council meeting in November changed the rules to include Special Meetings in attendance counting, and also referenced Resolution 87-323, though old resolutions are notoriously difficult to find. I sincerely hope that everyone is okay, though it would be interesting to see what happens if a further Planning Commissioner had to give up their seat.
Editor's Note: A prior version of this article showcased my poor math skills and alleged there were only 10 regular PC meetings a year, when there are 20.
This is all on his congressional Instagram, by the way. I’m not stalking his family, just to be clear.