Who's Who Running For HUSD
In Which: HUSD Board candidates are listed and discussed, We explain the local Republicans, And some Tuesday fun because why not.
7/31/24 CORRECTION: A previous version of this article asserted that Sara Prada had worked for a charter school in the past, which was incorrect. The article has been updated with correct information and we regret the error.
HUSD Board Race Is Getting Packed
The City of Hayward City Council race could be a boring one—at least until the City Clerk reveals who pulled papers—but the Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) Board of Trustees race is getting busy. There are three seats up for election, and seven people in the running. Each candidate has their own story—some of this is rumor, but I trust my sources.
Peter Bufete
The lone Filipino in local elected office—at least for now—Bufete is an incumbent who is well-liked by the establishment. He’s spent time with former Hayward City Councilmember and current County Supervisor Elisa Marquez at concerts and local events the last few months. He’s been voted by other HUSD Trustees to be President twice and has kept himself drama-free at meetings.
His establishment ties and professional demeanor—as well as a big local Filipino population—will likely let him slide into a second term without issue.
Sara Prada
Sara Prada is also an incumbent, but she’s been a more divisive Trustee. She’s had friction with other Trustees—some of which is warranted—and rode a progressive wave into office in 2020. She’s a Black woman who was at one point involved with the Hayward Community Coalition and ran listening sessions with other candidates from the group during the 2020 election cycle.
As an incumbent, she’s got a lot working in her favor to keep her seat, but there are rumors that another candidate—Calyn Kelley—was tapped specifically to run against her. Kelley is a Black man who may have been tapped to oust Prada.
Mayor Mark Salinas, and other City Councilmembers, appear to be siding with Kelley over Prada—despite the Hayward Educator’s Association(HEA) endorsing Prada—so her incumbency may not be as secure.
Joe Ramos
A local Conservative, Joe Ramos came into office in 2020 after fellow Conservative Luis Reynoso was ousted from HUSD (Reynoso won both his HUSD and Chabot Las Positas Community College District (CLPCCD) Trustee seats, but was kicked off HUSD because of a conflict of interest). Ramos did almost no public campaigning and instead seems to have relied upon a tight-knit network of conservative groups—possibly church attendees—to slide into office.
Ramos has spent his time in office taking an anti-LGBTQ+ stance and complaining about Woke Kindergarten—even at City Council meetings. He’s been censured by the Board and is frequently ignored during meetings whenever possible.
The tactic may play well for an at-large seat, but it’s unclear if culture war tactics will work once he’s forced into a districted election in the future. Still, he doesn’t have to worry about that until 2028 if he can keep his seat.
Rumor has it that Ramos is also making a bid for City Council, though the City Clerk’s office is still playing coy with who has asked for candidacy paperwork.
Austin Bruckner-Carrillo
Running a campaign specifically against Joe Ramos, Austin Bruckner-Carrillo has been campaigning for School Board since late 2023. He’s gotten an endorsement from HEA—over Joe Ramos—and has made his entire campaign about being the anti-Ramos. His campaign website has a different set of platform priorities, but the emails and fundraising messages have all positioned him as being opposed to Ramos rather than for anything.
Bruckner-Carrillo has racked up a number of endorsements from unions, organizations, and elected officials—including the majority of Hayward City Council. Given his strong ties to Castro Valley—via the Castro Valley Pride Festival—it’s unclear if his current messaging will resonate with the Hayward parents of HUSD students.
Calyn Kelley
The only other serious contender for the HUSD Board, Calyn Kelley works at 4C’s of Alameda County and appears to have the backing of the majority of Hayward City Council. Rumor has it that HEA didn’t endorse him because of anti-union sentiment he expressed during interviews. If that’s the case, the Union-Friendly image of the City Council may be in jeopardy.
Kelley is also rumored to have been hand-selected to oust Sara Prada, who frequently clashes with the more centrist members of the School Board and City Council.
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of publicly available information on Kelley. He has no campaign website that I could find and his financial paperwork shows no fundraising yet. We’ll keep you posted as new information becomes available.
Everyone Else
The last two are equal mysteries. Vincent Milani and Hamed Akbar have both filed paperwork to run for School Board. Neither has a campaign website or other notable public profile to speak of.
Milani initially formed his campaign committee in October of 2023 and looks to have donated $322 to himself—mostly to cover the cost of a mailbox and a business checking account.
Akbar has only filed an intention to run with no other information.
For context, running an at-large election like School Board usually costs around $30,000 to be successful.
Keep posted here for more information on candidates as the filing period draws to a close.
Local Conservatives
One of the smaller, but no less important, groups in Hayward politics is the local Conservative Set. The candidates seem to consist, at this point, of three people at varying levels of government: Tom Wong, Luis Reynoso, and Joe Ramos.
Tom Wong ran unsuccessfully for HUSD School Board in 2022 on a platform of dubious Asian tropes and conservative rage bait. There’s been no noise from him this cycle and it’s possible he’s reworking his strategy for 2026—I try not to keep too close a tab on folks like that, it’s bad for my insomnia.
Joe Ramos is, so far, only running to keep his seat on the HUSD School Board, though there’s rumor that he’s angling for a Council seat. It’s very possible that, should he win, this will be his last term at HUSD. With an at-large election, it’s possible that the crowded field will give Ramos his second term with the remaining viable candidates splitting the votes.
Luis Reynoso is running for 4 different elected seats at the same time: CLPCCD Board of Trustees Area 1, Eden Township Healthcare District Director Area 4, Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (HARD) Board, and Oro Loma Sanitary District Board of Directors. Although HARD will be annoyed that they’ll actually have to hold an election this year, it’s possible that Reynoso could get—and keep—all of these seats.
The only reason that he was ousted from the HUSD Board is because of a conflict of interest between the HUSD Board and the CLPCCD Board—the two districts have a lot of contracts with each other worth millions of dollars. Reynoso’s choices seem to have very little to do with each other directly—it’s possible that HARD has some contracts with Oro Loma, for example, it’s nowhere near as closely linked as HUSD and CLPCCD.
If the Conservatives can’t get multiple people elected, why not have one person get elected to as many boards as possible? It’s a shrewd tactic, but it’s difficult to know what the endgame is or how he can advance his generally anti-LGBTQ+ goals. Maybe Reynoso just wants to sit in meetings full-time.
Some Tuesday Fun
We’ve been accused on multiple occasions of not being “objective.” And as we’ve made plain, we are never objective. Objectivity is impossible, especially when you’re impacted by every decision that you cover.
The Herald isn’t about being objective, it’s about relaying the factual truth with as much context as possible—some people may not like how we frame that, and that’s okay. You can go back to reading the Daily Review, if you like.
But when I think about Objectivity, I can’t help but think of this brilliant and simple game from Molleindustria: The New York Times Simulator (video above). It’s free to play in your browser, so give it a try if you like. The premise is that you are tasked with choosing headlines for a newspaper and managing some competing interests: The Police, Israel, and The Rich (it’s very timely). You choose one of several headlines that frame the same event in different ways.
The secret ingredient here is that every single one of the headlines is real. They’re all from real stories of real events that have actually happened, each from different news outlets. It shows quite clearly that objectivity has never existed in news and can’t exist at all. Newspapers push a certain point of view that benefit certain interests. The only variable is whose interests those are.
The Herald is looking to represent the interests of Hayward residents (los Haywardenses, if you will). Whose interests does your objective news source serve?