Swalwell Stops By Buffalo Bill's for Photo Op
HEART pulls in $1.5M in grants, Bus stop seats have been chosen, and New Council subcommittees.
Swalwell Visits Downtown to Glad-hand
District 14 Representative and stalwart ceasefire-resister Eric Swalwell made one of his first high-profile visits to Hayward in several years. On January 28th, Representative Swalwell donned his sportsball gear and headed to the burgeoning nexus of political power, Buffalo Bill’s, to pull pints and pump paws.
As one of Hayward’s few claims to fame—though perhaps not its most important one—Buffalo Bill’s Brewery has become a favorite hangout of Mayor Salinas, especially since its recent revitalization by local restaurant magnate Alejandro Gamarra. If you’ll recall, Gamarra secured over $600,000 in City funds to reopen Buffalo Bill’s in late 2023. Since then, Gamarra and Mayor Salinas have been particularly close: Gamarra hosted the entirety of the Hayward City Council for a private celebration shortly after the funding was secured and Mayor Salinas has hosted personal celebrations there—though it’s unclear whether the latter have been comped in any way.
Hosting Representative Swalwell, Supervisor Marquez, and other Councilmembers and City Officials, including the new Chief of Police, is another step up in the political significance of the local brewery, and Gamarra in particular. In posting about it on Instagram, Representative Swalwell and Mayor Salinas can be seen pulling pints behind the counter during the 49ers Playoff game.
It’s unclear whether this photo-op was due entirely to the recent meeting between himself and Mayor Mark Salinas on January 18th. It’s also possible that, given the recent demonstrations and action around the genocide in Palestine, Swalwell is making rounds to pull local elected officials back into his orbit. Regardless, it seems clear that Hayward’s leadership is getting some attention from our Federal Rep. Let’s hope they use it for something meaningful.
Big Funds Going To HEART
The HEART Program is pulling in some big grants this month. Between $876,000 from the California Department of Healthcare Services (CDHS) and $709,000 from the Department of Justice (DOJ), there’s no doubt that the HEART program will be well funded through 2025.
The primary purpose of the CDHS grant seems to be to build capacity within existing services. Nothing new has been listed in the program goals aside from data collection and monthly calls with Advocates for Human Potential (who seems to be an enormous Federal contractor with a penchant for stock photos).
The DOJ grant appears to mostly be the same thing, building capacity for existing services and gathering data. The data is, unfortunately, a big component to getting more grants. Having spent some time on the Community Services Commission, having demographic information on those who are served is an indispensable part of securing Federal grants (like this DOJ grant). The idea is that the Feds want to make sure that the most at-need people are being helped and direct money to those who most need it.
Unfortunately, in practice this means that programs like HEART spend a lot of time and money on gathering data, analyzing data, putting that data into grants, and starting the cycle all over again. In fact, both of these grants specifically call out lines for administrative staff, data collection, administrative personnel, administrative support, analyst personnel, and financial and performance reporting. Imagine how much could be saved if all of the money went to the people doing and managing the work as opposed to administering and writing grants.
What To Do With Empty Planning Commission Seat?
Former Planning Commissioner Aidan Ali-Sullivan announced his resignation at the last Planning Commission meeting, but the City Council still has to approve it on Tuesday. The staff report says that his position “will be filled as part of the annual appointment process for the City’s appointed officials to Commissions.”
But it’s a gray area in the Council Handbook, because there is no other alternate (Meyers was the alternate and he filled Arti Garg’s seat) and the newly updated Handbook says that the seat should only be left empty after April of that year. There’s a chance that some members of Council will want the seat to remain empty, if only to not have to go through the trouble of gathering and interviewing applicants. But the Planning Commission is an important body for development in the City.
We’ll have to keep an eye on Council to see how they handle it.
Bus Stop Seats On Order
Councilmembers Syrop and Zermeño wanted to pilot having seats at every bus stop for accessibility and comfort. It’s going to cost around $60,000 from Measure B funding and they’re going to look like one of these:
These are from a company called Simme-Seat and they look okay. I mean for $2,000 there’s a part of me that wants more, but I know how expensive things are these days. To their credit, the company has a range of colors, so it’ll be interesting to see which the City and AC Transit settle on.
Council Appointments
We finally have some clarity on who’s on what Council Committee now, thanks to some new language in the Council Handbook. Before, the appointment process was solely at the discretion of the Mayor, but now it has to be approved on the agenda—so we get to take a look, too.
If you’ve ever wanted to know what Council Members are doing between meetings, this document tells you all about it. The primary point of interest is seeing what Councilmembers gravitate toward, which may (kind of) give an idea of what their interests are. So allow me to generalize very broadly with some Themes for a moment:
Mayor Salinas: All Things Internal, some Transportation and City/Agency partnerships and the Youth.
Dan Goldstein: Housing and Services
Francisco Zermeño: The Environment.
George Syrop: Kind of all over? (Budget, Housing, Infrastructure, Personnel, and the Mosquito Abatement District)
Ray Bonilla Jr.: Budget, Economics, and Safety.
Julie Roche: Safety, the Environment, and Agencies
Angela Andrews: Economics, Infrastructure, and the Environment
Everyone contains multitudes and there’s a good chance that not everyone got exactly the things they wanted, because of limited time or seats. But these are the kinds of things that the individual Councilmembers will be keeping an eye on through the various committees. It’s no substitute to watching the Council meetings, but even seeing this can help you get to know the Councilmembers better.