How's That HUSD Campaign Going?
In Which: Bruckner-Carrillo's campaign finances dwarf the competition. The establishment continues to cozy up to Kelley. And where did Jauregui come from? Plus: HARD Maps!
HARD District Maps Revealed
The Hayward Area Recreation and Park District has revealed the 5 draft maps they’re considering for the next public hearing on September 16th. I’m honestly not able to go into too much detail at this point—today’s main story took most of my time—but they’re worth taking a look at, if you have the time.
Some of them have made some strange choices—like rolling the Jackson Triangle into the same District as Fairway Parks and Mission/Garin on Draft G—but regardless, almost any of these maps will completely change the makeup of the HARD Board. Right now, the entire Board is composed of people from the Hayward Hills or Castro Valley. But most of the maps give at least 3 Districts over to the Hayward flatlands and Cherryland/San Lorenzo—areas that desperately deserve representation.
I’ll go into more details on these maps soon, but if you have any comments about them or have a favorite you’d like to see, click on the link below and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. If you care about the parks in your neighborhood—because if you live in Hayward, HARD controls it—make your voice heard.
Updates On HUSD School Board Race
After Luis Reynoso and Tom Wong were put back on the November ballot last week, it’s worth giving an update on what’s happening with the current slate of candidates.
Bruckner-Carrillo Has Worked Overtime
Austin Bruckner-Carrillo has, at this point, been campaigning for around a year—he formed his campaign committee in August of 2023—and has been fundraising since last October. His primary email messaging has been as an alternative to Joe Ramos, the conservative Trustee who has expressed anti-LGBTQ+ views and was censured by the Board last year for saying a HUSD Staff member should be “strung up”. After Tom Wong’s victory last week, Bruckner-Carrillo’s campaign sent out an email using it as a call-to-action for a canvassing event.
Bruckner-Carrillo’s other message has focused on endorsements. In his most recent campaign email, he highlighted endorsements from the Alameda County Labor Council and the Association of Educational Office and Technical Employees (AEOTE), which represents specialist and district staff at HUSD. His campaign has been endorsed by the Hayward Education Association (HEA), but also the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), and the Nor Cal Carpenter’s Union.
But the messaging hasn’t left out politicians. Bruckner-Carrillo’s most recent fundraising event (at least the third so far) will be hosted by a who’s-who of political elite. The headlines include State Senator Aisha Wahab, Assemblymember Liz Ortega, two members of the Alameda County Board of Education, and the Chair of the Alameda County Democratic Party. Bruckner-Carrillo has been working overtime to connect with establishment power players for months.
In looking at campaign finance disclosures, the work has paid pretty handsomely. As of July 1, his campaign had over $22,000 in cash on hand—a small fortune in a HUSD School Board race. But only around 35% of the donors are from the HUSD catchment area of Castro Valley and Hayward. The remaining 65% of donors are from places like Oakland, Union City, San Leandro, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles—some as far as Boulder, Colorado and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The donor list also has local politicians like former Assemblymember Bill Quirk, Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, HUSD Trustee Ken Rawdon, and Hayward City Councilmember Ray Bonilla Jr.
It’s unclear if this strategy wins Bruckner-Carrillo the Board seat—elected officials from outside of Hayward don’t vote for HUSD School Board, local parents do. With such a heavy focus on endorsements and political networking, there hasn’t been as much evidence of parent and community engagement—though recent flyering events are a welcome change.
Regardless, Bruckner-Carrillo could easily buy his way into the minds of Hayward voters—$30,000 can buy a lot of mailers. But I hope that he moves from talking with teachers and politicians to talking with parents. At the end of the day, they’re the ones entrusting their children to HUSD.
Updates on Other Candidates
But what have the other candidates been up to?
Sara Prada
Sara Prada has a slick new website. Notably, she’s taken a much different approach than Bruckner-Carrillo—there isn’t even a link to donate to her campaign. Instead she’s focused on hero images, endorsements, and what she’s done as an incumbent.
Her endorsements include HEA, Aisha Wahab, and Liz Ortega. Beyond that, she only mentions an endorsement from Gloria Prada. For her past work on the School Board, the themes are mostly community voices, equity, and educational achievement.
There isn’t a lot of focus on what she would continue to do in the following four years in office, however—presumably more of the same, but priorities and situations change. Also, the links to follow her on social media just link to the main websites, not her direct profiles. But the website looks very professional and she recently participated in a flyering event hosted by HEA, which has presumably put her in contact with some parents directly.
Calyn Kelley
Kelley has embedded himself with the City establishment even more, having attended Mayor Salinas’s birthday party at Buffalo Bill’s last month. He was photographed there with April Oquenda, lending more weight to the rumor that she pushed him to run in the first place.
Kelley still doesn’t have the HEA endorsement, but there’s a weird line between HEA, their endorsement of Peter Bufete, and Bufete’s endorsement of Kelley. He does have some endorsements from individual educator, though many of them are administrators and/or retired. Most of Kelley’s endorsements come from the City’s political establishment, with 6 City councilmembers, and 3 former City Councilmembers (Sara Lamnin, Al Mendall, and Bill Quirk).
Interestingly, his endorsements overlap significantly with Bruckner-Carrillo’s: Alameda County Board of Education Trustee Aisha Knowles, Building and Construction Trades Council, and Ray Bonilla Jr. But as of June 30th, Kelley still hadn’t filed a campaign finance disclosure with the County—it’s unclear whether it’s because he hasn’t raised enough money or if he simply hasn’t filed yet.
Peter Bufete
Peter Bufete looks like he’s running entirely on name recognition and incumbency. He has no active campaign website, and hasn’t been particularly active about elections on social media. But he’s shown up at APICI meetings, promotes district events on Instagram, has attended City Council awards ceremonies, and has cozied up to Supervisor Elisa Marquez.
Tom Wong and Luis Reynoso
I group these two together because they seem very aligned as a slate. Tom Wong updated his campaign website to include coverage of his lawsuit against HUSD from the East Bay Insider. Luis Reynoso still has his Trumpian remarks in response to his censure from the CLPCCD Board last year—literally using “witch hunt.” Both of them are conservatives and, if Wong can hitch his cart to Reynoso, have a surprisingly large base in Hayward.
For context, Reynoso got 21,642 votes in 2020—only 250 shy of Peter Bufete. Tom Wong only received 10,019 votes in 2022, but if he decides to run as a slate with Ramos, it could be a much different story. 2022 was also not a Presidential election year, which will have a much bigger turnout.
Sophia Jauregui
Sophia Jauregui has been something of a dark horse in this race—but an eerily effective one. In less than 48 hours, she was able to secure 100 valid signatures to secure her spot on the ballot. Rumor has it that she worked with local School District critic Araceli Orozco, who unsuccessfully ran for School Board in 2022. Araceli has deep connections to a more conservative parent community and Jauregui has already leveraged those connections to great effect.
Looking at LinkedIn, Jauregui’s background is in criminal justice and she has ties to MADD and law enforcement agencies. This puts her at ideological odds with Sara Prada’s focus on removing School Resource Officers, and may play into messaging after the recent stabbing at Hayward High. Jauregui has been a substitute teacher in HUSD for the last year, but otherwise has no online footprint that I can find.
There’s still a lot of campaigning at the local level that involves just talking with other people and unfortunately there’s still only one of me.
Final Thoughts
In the past, incumbency and some key connections have been enough to carry a candidate into a victory—April Oquenda spent almost nothing on her campaign in 2022, for example. But this recent cycle could mark the last gasp of establishment candidates riding into office on a few well-placed handshakes.
With districting coming in 2026, a whole new crop of candidates will have a chance to step onto the school board—at least two seats don’t have a current incumbent. And one of the benefits of districting is that endorsements and fundraising won’t be as important—reaching around 20,000 voters is a lot cheaper than over 100,000.
But this election cycle may define how campaigns are run going forward—how much of a part fundraising will play, the strength of the establishment versus the teachers, and how effective a candidate can be going directly to voters on private channels. A lot can change in the next two months, and we won’t know for sure until all the votes are counted.