Marshland, Parking lots, and Movie Theaters. Oh My!

Movie theater bailouts, parking lot renos, restoring marshland, and Speculation station on legal action

Consent Calendar

The Consent Calendar is for items that are deemed “non-controversial” and don’t usually get individualized discussion. Any councilmember (or member of the public) can request to pull an item to discuss it, but discussion is never guaranteed.

Bribing Century Theaters to Stay in Hayward

The City is looking to bail out Century Theaters to keep them from pulling out of their lease. According to City Staff, due to a 40% decrease in revenue, Century was planning on not renewing their lease when it ends at the end of October. The City, understandably, is not excited about one of their only anchors downtown pulling up stakes, not to mention the difficulty of trying to get a multi-screen movie theater another tenant.

So, for context, the City (via the Hayward Successor Agency) technically owns the land that the theater and parking structure are on and are leasing it to “1069 B St. LLC.”* in a contract which expires in 2056. The City agreed to take over parking and maintenance of the parking structure, for some fees, and 1069 B St. LLC collects rent on the theater building.

So neither of them wants Century Theaters to leave, so 1069 B St. LLC is offering reduced rent and the City is offering to waive the fees for the maintenance of the parking structure for three years.

What that means for us, is that the City is ponying up over $350,000 from the General Fund to keep Century Theaters open, so long as the theater stays fully operational and they provide twice a year sales reporting to the City. To me that sounds an awful lot like a corporate bailout.

I don’t want to see the theater leave, either, but maybe a smaller, independent group could take over and we could get something a little more interesting (I’d also accept municipal ownership). Goodness knows I think Hayward could support a second-run theater or something more interesting than hosting mega-church gatherings on Sunday mornings. I don’t imagine Century is going to be keen on taking risks, though.

*Did you know that 1069 B St. LLC sued Brews and Brats to evict them last year? Also, the company is based in Santa Monica because corporate money never stays in the community.

Repaving Parking Lots Despite Plan Recommendations

Okay, I know this looks boring, but hear me out! The main item is that the parking lot behind the Hayward Area Historical Society is getting repaved. Not very exciting, I know. BUT the staff report highlighted an issue that I think is interesting.

The document mentions the need to “improve the much-needed public parking requirements in the Downtown area” which sounds weird to me, because the Downtown Specific Plan (DSP) specifically encourages higher density, walkability, and infilling parking lots. Hell, the very parking lot which is going to be refinished at the cost of about $400,000 is marked on the DSP as a part of an “Urban Neighborhood” which encourages dense development and infilling parking lots.

But sure, we can focus on the “lack” of parking as the reason none of those businesses on Foothill do well and completely ignore the massive failure that is The Loop. Our own DSP advocates for narrowing Foothill, adding protected bike lanes, and generally making it harder to park there.

Okay, yes, I know the improvements are likely needed in the short-term and I know it’d take a lot more than $400,000 to undo the loop’s issues, but I also don’t see anything being done about it in the near future.

Prove me wrong, Council!

Restoring Marshlands With EBPRD

The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is looking to rehab a good chunk of the Hayward Marsh, adjacent to the Hayward Regional Shoreline owned by HARD, to make it both a better habitat for the California least tern and more resilient to inevitable sea level rise!

This is a good thing. The only downside is that a lot of infill needs to be done as these were used for wastewater treatment overflow and it’ll take 30,000 truck trips over 3 years. Yikes! I’m not sure how the math works on all those emissions, but it sounds really bad. Also, because of the damage all those trips will cause to any road they use, City Staff is recommending that we force EBPRD to send the trucks over land that the City doesn’t own, likely lengthening their journey.

So… good, but also bad, I guess.

Closed Session: Speculation Station

The Closed Session Meeting is where the City Council can do some meetings that won’t be accessible to the public. It’s allowable under certain circumstances, usually negotiations of some kind, like with Unions, or to discuss upcoming lawsuits. We can’t know what they mean, so I always take a guess and hope you do, too!

Getting Ahead of a Lawsuit

All we get for this item is:

A point has been reached where in the opinion of the legislative body of the local agency on the advice of its legal counsel, based on existing facts and circumstances, there is a significant exposure to litigation against the local agency.

What could it mean? Who knows! But clearly something is on the horizon that’s given the City Attorney enough notice to try to get ahead of it. I’m not plugged in enough to say for sure, but maybe it has to do with the recent police shooting. If there’s a next-of-kin, that could be a possible lawsuit, considering he wasn’t armed with a deadly weapon and was shot an undisclosed number of times (though a witness apparently reported that it sounded “like the 4th of July”).

Whatever it is, clearly the City Attorney sees it coming, so it can’t be too secret. What do you think it could be?

More Negotiating With Century Theaters

These addresses are for the movie theater and parking structure. I have a feeling it’s just more negotiations around an item on the Consent Calendar, which was detailed above. I wish I was a fly on the wall in that room, if only to understand more fully how all the pieces fit together. All these agencies and layers of ownership are really hard to follow. @_@