Things On The Horizon
In Which: We discuss the City Manager position, Union Negotiations continue, and Districting continues for three different bodies.
The Hayward Herald is taking Thursday off. We’ll be back on Tuesday July 30th. Goodness knows there’s enough going on at the National level to keep y’all busy for a day.
What’s On The Horizon?
Right now, the City Council—and many other local governments—are taking a break. Things are still going on—more on that below—but there aren’t any meetings and City Staff is keeping things going for the time being. I wanted to share out some things that are coming up in the next Legislative cycle that I’ll be keeping an eye on.
New City Manager Incoming
After Kelly McAdoo left the City in May, Assistant City Manager Dustin Claussen has been keeping things going. And with the information coming out of the City, he’s going to be floating things until sometime in 2025. There’s no way Claussen isn’t putting in for the full City Manager position, he wouldn’t have taken the Interim position otherwise.
The question is going to be whether or not he impresses City Council enough to give him the job. I don’t know if this happened last time—McAdoo was promoted in 2016—but the consultants running the search are looking for input from the public. So if you have thoughts on what the City Manager should be like, take the survey.
It’s pretty short and doesn’t necessarily allow for a lot of detail, but assuming Council and the Consultants listen to the results—never a guarantee—you could play a hand in what qualities they think the next City Manager should have. If I were choosing between the two Assistant City Managers, I’d pull for Regina Youngblood.
Negotiations Continue
The City Council is having a special meeting tonight to talk with their bargaining team about the Staff contract negotiations. Word from SEIU is that it’s getting close, but isn’t there yet—a big improvement from “insulting” offers. I also got confirmation that City Council doesn’t negotiate with the Unions directly, but directs a consultant to negotiate on their behalf.
I may be a control freak, but I’d feel weird not being at the table if I was in Council’s position. Then again, I’m not in the habit of trusting consultants, either.
Given the position Council has taken on the budget recently—Bonilla and Roche have been vocally hawkish—there’s a good chance that the Police department may have sucked all the budget from the room. With their additional $5,800,000 in salaries tacked onto a budget already in deficit, there’s less and less budget left for other Staff.
Our best goes out to SEIU, HAME, and IFPTE 21 during the ongoing negotiations.
Planning Commission Seat
The Planning Commission still has one vacant seat left and it’s anyone’s guess who will put in for it. If last year is any indication, there’s a good chance that some folks from other commissions will try to move onto Planning along with a bunch of people trying to leap right in. That latter path doesn’t usually fly, but last year both of the people who got selected pulled the same trick.
Commissioner Franco-Clausen had already been jilted from the year before, but presumably called on her extensive political network to lobby for her seat. Commissioner Meyers took a more traditional approach of glad-handing Councilmembers until he got in. It didn’t help that the former Library Commissioner who was leagues ahead in the initial voting absolutely bombed the interview.
The biggest appointed bodies, the Community Services Commission (CSC) and Keep Hayward Clean and Green, may have some people willing to step into a more prominent role. But many of those who would from the CSC are making the jump directly into an elected position—Chair Bruckner-Carrillo and Commissioner Gunn. With the high turnover at the CSC, most people haven’t been there for more than a year or two.
And Library Commissioner Shonda Goward just pulled papers for the AC Transit seat, so it’s unlikely she’d try to go for the Planning Commission. I look forward to the lineup come August.
Council Elections
2024 is likely going to be a sleepy year for City Council elections. In the last 10 or so years, only one incumbent has ever lost and that was now-Senator Wahab who took down Marvin Peixoto. Beyond that, every seat that’s been replaced has been because it was a vacancy. And this year, there aren’t any vacancies to be had.
Some people will still doubtless put their hats in, David McBarron has already filed his financial paperwork and Tom Ferreira will doubtless put his bid in again. Unfortunately, the City’s website leaves a bit to be desired when it comes to election information. With everything being handled at the City level, I worry about timeliness, though that may be unfair.
But beyond a few vanity campaigns I don’t expect any serious competition this year anyway. Why would you run now when the field will be so much more manageable in 2026? With at least 2 districts up for grabs—possibly 3 if the sequencing gets changed—and only needing to work 1/6th of the territory, 2026 is going to be a wild one.
Districting Is Still Going On
Yes, absolutely nothing is fully decided yet. Districting is still in full swing in the most boring and important thing to happen in Hayward electoral politics in decades. Maps are being drawn and decided for Hayward Unified School District (HUSD), the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (HARD), and for the City Council.
The HUSD Board of Trustees is meeting on Wednesday to vote between Map A and Modified Map A. Given that a lot of the loudest voices came from Cherryland and Modified Map A was the result of outreach specifically in that area, there’s a good chance that this is the one that the Board will settle on.
HARD has been doing an admirable job of outreach—despite their board meetings being impossible to watch unless you can attend in person on Monday nights. They’ve had 4 meetings so far at a few different in-person locations—one each in Hayward, Cherryland, Castro Valley, and Fairview (sorry, San Lorenzo).
But it’s all quiet until August 5th when they’ll present the draft maps that they’ve come up with so far. I’m excited to see the majority of HARD board members living in Hayward for once. Maybe they’ll even hold elections—wouldn’t that be novel?
Finally, the City of Hayward is laying low after their last outreach event at Chabot College on July 9th. The next meeting won’t be until August 13th at the next City Council meeting. The draft maps haven’t been posted yet, and won’t be until August 27th. This one is going to cause the biggest upset because it has the longest timeline and has the most incumbents potentially in one district—up to 4, depending on how the lines are drawn.
2026 is going to be one hell of an election year for Hayward politics. But it all gets decided in the next few months.