City Council - Regular Meeting

Hey, hey, hey. Recording in progress.

Okay. Okay. Uh, good evening everybody. Wow, I wasn't used to Good evening. Yeah. Wow. I have to Let me put my glasses on to see who said that. Oh, okay. Welcome. Good evening. Uh, good evening everybody. I like to call this meeting to order. This is city council meeting March 17th, 2026. Happy St. Patrick's Day, Council Member Roach, happy St. Patrick's Day. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Happy St. Patrick's to everyone.

And and and thank you for the for the lapel pins, by the way. Yeah, I'm wearing uh I'm wearing my lapel pin, so I appreciate that. Um I'd like to next call upon uh Council Member Andrews. Please, if you can um give us or deliver the pledge of allegiance. Please stand if you're able to. Of course. Ice to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationisible and justice for all.

Thank you. Uh madame city clerk if you can please take role. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Council member Andrews present. Council member Bonia Jr. present. Council member Goang present. Council member Roach present. Council member Sire present. Council member Cmeno. Mayor Selenia present. Thank you. Uh next is uh our close session announcement. Uh Mr. City attorney if you can please deliver close session announcement.

Good evening Mayor and councel. The council did convene at 5:30 to consider two items in close session. Uh one dealt with pending litigation. Um the uh Gali lawsuit as to which the council took no reportable action. Council also uh discussed [clears throat] uh bargaining with all labor groups also took no reportable action. There was one property transaction matter uh that the council discussed gave direction to staff but there's no reportable action. Thank you. The close session adjourned at 7 p.m.

Thank you. Um, our next uh item is a recognition for Women's History Month. Excuse me. Uh, proclamation for Women's History Month. And I have a proclamation. Um, and the proclamation, I'm not sure if uh we're going to hand the proclamation to uh three groups. Um, Supervisor Alisa Marquez, I don't know if if there's a I don't think there's a rep from her here yet. Um, but we also have uh women in leadership from Cal State East Bay. No. Okay. Uh, but we do have the Hayward Public Library. Uh, the Okay, so we got the Hayward Public Library here. Director um, Giani Adelman is here. And then, um, let me see. Let me make sure. Uh oh, League of Women Voters. Right, there you go. We have the League of Women Voter here. Why don't you hold that one? And then this one is from BAPA. Where's Bwapa? Well, Boa right here. Good. And um also we are going to be um uh in addition to this uh we are going to be awarding um a commendation uhly uh to um uh acknowledging uh Miss Abbott, one of the founders of BOAPA and um uh BOAPA has been a a pretty you know forceful organization here uh in the East Bay uh when it comes to advocating for neighborhood issues and community issues. So um uh Miss Abbott uh you know I'm sure I think there's a family member here. So um yeah absolutely her daughter right is the daughter. Yeah. So um so we will uh when I come down we'll offer you

the the accommodation. Okay. Um actually let me Yeah, I think.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Just the from BAPA is Roel Johnson and then from League of Woman Voters Mirian Hannah, right? Miriam and then Grace Carter, president. And then from the city of Hayward, of course, is Janente Adelman. Um from And then, um that's right. So, Cal State East Bay and Alisa and C or Supervisor Marquez um are not here. Okay. So, uh what I'd like to do is uh this is the proclamation for Women's History Month. Um whereas women's history month begins in 1987 evolving from a single day to a week and eventually to a full month of observ observance and celebration dedicated to recognizing the historical contributions of women from all backgrounds to society. And whereas the movement to establish women's history month in the United States was initiated by the National Women's History Alliance in Santa Rosa, California. in Santa Rosa, California. Whereas during this month of celebration, we honor the often overlooked roles of women have uh women have played in shaping our society while while raising awareness of the struggles they have faced including but not limited to gender inequality in the workforce, under reppresentation in leadership roles, restrictions on reproductive rights, lack of access to quality healthcare, pay disparities, and the systemic barriers faced by women of color. And whereas the theme of Women's History Month 2026, leading change, women shaping a sustainable future, expands our understanding of sustainability beyond just environmental concerns and encompasses financial sustainability, community res uh resilience, leadership succession, and intergenerational

equity. And whereas the city of Hayward is committed to applying an intersectional approach to gender equity within the broader context of racial equity and the city honors community agencies that support the city's commitment through programs to improve the lives and livelihoods of Hayward's women and girls. And whereas black women organized for political action, BOWAPA was founded in 1968 to empower black women in political and community leadership. And the Hayward South County chapter is dedicated to ad uh advancing equity and justice through civic engagement, advocacy and leadership development, advocacy and leadership development in Hayward and beyond. And whereas BOAPA would like to honor one of the 12 founding members of the Hayward South County Chapter, Alpha Abbott, for her leadership, commitment, and many years of generous and dedicated service to the community. Whereas the League of Women Voters of the Eden Area is an is an inclusive organization dedicated to political responsibility through informed and act uh and active participation. And whereas the women in leadership program at California State University East Bay accelerates students skills through academia industry through academia industry collaboration cooperation offering high impact learning mentorship from industry leaders and opportunities to apply their learning to social causes. And whereas the Hayward Public Library is recognizing Hayward uh Women's History Month with adult, teen, and children's book displays uh an online reading list, a scavenger hunt in the children's section, and more. And whereas during Women's History Month, we recognize the community's own trailblazers in local

government, including Alama County District 2 Supervisor Alisa Marquez and current council members Angela Andrews and Julie Roach. Now therefore, I, Mark Selenus, mayor of the city of Hayward, and on behalf of the city council, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as Women's History Month. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give all women a big round of applause. [applause] Okay, let's uh go down to the Why don't we all go down there and

Okay. Uh, yes. Go right ahead. Legal women voters. Good evening, um, honorable mayor and members of the Hayward City Council, on behalf of the League of Women Voters, Eden Area, thank you so much for that beautiful proclamation and for honoring our organization. As you know, the League of Women Voters uh was formed in the wake of the of women obtaining the franchise to vote in 1920. And since 1920, the leagues around the country, including our league here, have uh worked to ensure that voters are educated, that voters have access to information about um their franchise and the exercise of the franchise. Nothing could be more important now than protecting the franchise, particularly of women and marginalized voters. So, thank you for the honor. uh your league uh is uh continuing to work and um and we continue to ask the public to join us. So we um in April we are having a coffee where you can come and and and spend an afternoon with us on April 11th to uh at at San Lorenzo Library. So thank you so much on behalf of the Eden Area League of Women Voters.

Thank you very much League of Women Voters. [applause] do important work uh throughout the East Bay. So, thank you very much. And then I don't know if Bwapa if you would like to say a few words. Good evening. As you already know, my name is Rquel Johnson and I serve as the president of the Hayward South County chapter of Black Women Organized for Political Action. For more than 57 years, Bwapa has worked across California to advance civic engagement, develop black women leaders, and advocate for communities that are often underrepresented. here in Hayward and throughout South County. Our chapter carries that legacy forward by creating opportunities for residents to engage, learn, and to take action. We've been a proud partner locally, whether through our Black August teachin with the Alama County Reparations Commission or bringing community members together for conversations on issuing impacting local media across with information as well with also organizations such as the League of Women Voters. These moments are about more than events. They are about building awareness, strengthening community voices, and ensuring that people feel empowered to participate in the decisions that shape their lives. Our mission is our members are not only engaged, they are leaders serving across school boards, commissions, Council Member Andrews, um helping to shape policy and represent community at every level. We are grateful for this recognition and remain committed to continuing this work. strengthening civic participation and

uplifting the voices of black women here in Hayward and beyond. Thank you. Good evening everyone to city council. My name is Carolyn Abbott. I thank you uh sincerely for honoring my mother-in-law Alfreda Abbott. She she was a founding member of Blackboom organized for political action. Um, and that group, that organization was really founded to get women of color elected to office. That really women in general, uh, but specifically women of color. So, those trailblazers are really led the way for a lot of the ladies we see here. So, thank you again on behalf of myself, uh, Brian Abbott, and Ross Abbott. We appreciate this recognition. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank [applause] you. Yeah, Director Adam. Good evening, mayor, city council members. Thank you so much for this pro proclamation. I'm really proud of our library and all of our staff, everything they do. But I'm also equally proud of everything that happens in this city. We are a very diverse and inclusive city. Sitting right here on the dis, we have two city council members. We have a city manager. We have so many in our executive team. But throughout the city, we have so many strong, dedicated, and hard-working women who really work every day to make Hayward a better place. And so I accept this on behalf of the library and also all of the women who work for the city of Hayward. Thank you. [applause]

Thank you. Um Okay. And uh congratulations again and um and thank you for really you know and you know both BWAPA and the League of Women Voters I think uh the two biggest contributions uh both of you make one is uh voter education, election education and democracy education. Uh, and of course BOAPA. Um, you know, I I would be remiss if I did not bring up I will never forget uh when um I don't know how long BAPA had been um had been established at the time, but um Miss Lillian Litzy uh uh invited me to a BAPA meeting and uh it was one of my very first uh if not it might have been the first, but it was one of my very first um uh endorsement meetings where uh and uh it was um the the meeting was it was very um very polite. People were very respectful and um and not to say I also got the support [laughter] of Boappa but anyways um uh but thank you very much and and God bless your mother.

Yeah. Okay. Um our next item is public comment and um this is reserved for anybody in the public that would like to make a public comment on something that is not on the agenda. Uh, and I do have some cards here. And our first speaker is Tom Ferrer. Hi, good evening uh city council mayor. Uh happy St. Patrick's Day to everybody. Um here on behalf of uh SEIU, uh UHW, the healthcare union of our our union. Um there we go. Sorry about that. I'm the executive board member of SEIU and also the Feturo ambassador of SEIU. And Furo, just to explain what Furo is, uh it's u it's a healthcare college education program that Kaiser gave us five about six years ago, gave us 134 million to start it up. We're going to be short 500,000 healthcare workers in the next 10 years. So basically Kaiser said, "You guys train them, get them trained, bring them back to us, we'll hire them." So we've been doing that for the last six years. We got 10,000 folks in inside healthcare jobs um at Kaiser at our facilities at Kaiser and also Sutter Health and Dignity Healthcare out in the valley. Um this program is very unique where everything is paid for. You don't have to pay for anything. These jobs that are on the list, these are

from $32 an hour up to $43 an hour. No education required. Uh we train you, it's 85% of the training online. The other 15% is your externship in the hospital. Uh we take care of the licenses. The state licenses are paid for. Uh we have a coach that's assigned with you every week and checks on with you every week how you're doing, what you need. Um, and then at the at your graduation, we help you out with the resume and get you connected with Kaiser, Sutter, or Dignity Healthcare. So, it's a really great program. I've shared this with Shabbo. I shared this with other programs and I uh just wanted to share this to the public if anybody's interested. Um, my number is right there. If anybody would like to call me or or you want to sign up for the program, you could do that using those specifics there. Um, happy to answer any questions anybody has. Um, I appreciate your time uh for this and it's a great program and I hope everybody continues to join and we'll get up to 15,000 people. So, thank you so much. Thanks for your time. Uh, one last thing I want to u part of the women's day that we're celebrating Hill and Valley Club 115 years in Hayward. I want to appreciate that. So, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, our next speaker is uh Ishmael GO. Good evening, honorable council members. I gota start with this comment. Very impressive. This is my first time coming into to speak in public. But I was not coming to this but when I saw this uh comments or this uh exercise of the first amendment of this my neighbors here from resident of H by and on the neighborhood where this school is going to be closed or attended to be closed. So I want to participate participate in making these comments that please hear their voices. You are the people who run the house. You are the people who make vote and say yes keep it keep it open. So these fate uh ringol schools is about to be closed. It's been put on the agenda. And me being an educator, a school man since I was 12 years of age. I was an instructor when I was 14 uh 14 years of age in Mexico course teaching in my community how to write their names and they didn't know how to uh write and then I become a teacher I went to high levels of education prep school high school and elementary schools and I got teaching credentials I am a former uh inspector here from the city but for multi- reason I just have to leave I have to be gone there'll be another subject that I'll bring up But uh what I want to say this this close this schools wants to be closed. Please education is very important uh especially for for this school uh uh this uh uh school this elementary school but

there is special needs students in special community I will say again it's my neighborhood and uh like I said you all know education is very important and I'm here to this uh to my age with many u certifications on the building industry as a teacher. I was an instructor in uh Corinthian colleges for nine years. I was training uh on the trade school teaching code and and and they had to close they had to close the school too for other reasons. So I want to participate making these comments. Education is very important. Please keep this school open if you can. I know it has to do with budgets with interestes of uh the people who run the the school whatever but please vote to keep it open. Thank you.

Thank you. Um our next speaker is uh Aris Elliot Orosco. Good evening everyone. It's been a while since I've been here, but my name is Araselor Rosco and I've been a parent and a student advocate for more than 30 years here in the city of Hayward. Um, we just I know that um there's the city of Hayward doesn't have any jurisdiction in um Hayward's um school district, but um these the decisions that they make also affects us residents and taxpayers. Um well, the latest thing that HUSD has done, they have uh broken the law. There's um a state law ABC AB 1912 uh that I don't know if you know or not, but I'll just read it briefly. It says under ABC 1912, a school board considering a close a closure should develop and set a metrics um for developing the equity impact analysis and make those matrix public at a regular schedule meeting of the governing board of the school districts so that the public can provide input regarding the matrix being used to conduct the analysis. Well, none of that was done. no analysis was done. It says

um under AB1912 these matrix must include at least all of the following and this is from our state um attorney general uh Ro Bonda. So first number one is the the condition of the school facilities uh the operating cost of the school and associated savings resulting uh from a closure. the capacity of the school to accommodate excess um students. Special programs. Number four, special programs available at the schools being considered for closure and whether those programs will pro will be provided at the same current level at the schools to which students will be uh diverted. And just to let you know, there on special kids, is to take all of our special ed children from Faith Ringle, which is over here in the north side of Hayward, and send them all the way down to the south uh side of Hayward, um to close to Union City. So, that's their plan for our special ed children. Number five, environmental factors including but not limited to traffic and approximately um uh to freeway access uh balance of people with students demographics including race and ethnicity students with disabilities, English learners, foster youth and homeless youth in the schools being considered for closure and the resulting demographic balance of students after placement in order um other students in order for to determine if the decision to close or considerate will have a disappropriate impact on the particular demographics groups which apparently mco

yes your time is up okay oh I didn't sorry it's been a while but um there's nine points so please I know that uh city Hayward um can do something for our kids kids in our community too thank you

uh Lean our next speaker is Leonardo Himenez. So like if you close this school like like all my effort I did is going to like be thrown away in the trash and and like I got worried about other stuff like communities and friends will be separated and it'll be really hard to get everything back cuz you just started over and like Fif Ringo is a place I like I have like a good teacher that's teaching me well and I got like a lot of good friends and if they close it all of that's going to be gone. So thanks for taking your time to like hear me and why not like you should close this school. Thank you.

Thank you. [applause] Thank you. And then um Stephanie Himenez. Um, it's some somebody's going to translate or or how is this?

Um, I'll tell you what. We don't have We don't have a translator tonight. We didn't know you were coming. But what we'll do though is I'll tell you what, I'll give you six minutes and if you wanted to translate what she said, you can do that. Okay. Okay. Thank you for your time. I'm here to advocate for the faith wrinkle students.

This is the second time that our school has been on the list. Um they have closed in other schools and for this one they only gave us a three-week um notice. They apparently went to let them know how the transition's going to go.

And u and when they asked uh how is that going to happen that their answer was that they were just going to there to present but not answer any questions. They have asked what uh we gonna what are they going to do with the students and they don't have a plan.

So we have asked uh what are they going to do with the leftover money that was collected from the state from Faith Wringle and we still don't have any answers. All that they have said is that there's no there's not going to be any um transportation for the students. Union City, some of them are going to travel uh three miles, others five miles and some of them are close to Union City border. They said that because you are a small community But the um the attendance has increased for the last it's been increasing for the last three years. We have also increased the numbers in um math and English reading

and they have been um they haven't been considering all those and so our kids feel very disappointed. So this is why one of the reasons to come here because they do not listen to us. So we have taken complaints to the district and all we get is that we're just um okay just like uh people with uh making noise. Yeah. Making noise. Okay. Sorry. [laughter] not a professional, but go ahead.

When they also decided uh to close seventh and eighth grade, they said they promised that they were going to help us in a lot of ways and it was all a lie. Now we also we are also um are worrying that it will happen again.

I personally call the other schools where they um and the the other schools have no had no idea that Faith Ringo was going to close. So that's why we're we're here to beg and to um ask to be our voice to them. Ask him at least for the plan. Um ask him um if how is the plan and how is I'm sorry and how is the transition going to be? because it's not um right that they say that they're going to close it and they don't have a clue what they're going to do with our kids. Fairview.

So, some of our uh kindergarters are going to be transferring to Helen Turner and um all the other grades are going to be going to different schools. Yeah. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Thank you. Uh our next speaker is um [applause] is uh is it Gladia Pallayo or Glad Gladia? Claudia.

Um me is Claudia Pellayo. My name is Claudia Playo and I go to Alingo.

I know that you don't have any jurisdiction in this. But we're here so you could listen to us and and to please help us. We are a lot of parents that we worry where our kids are going to end up. member does so they have no idea of like what we are feeling um to us today but I know but I don't know you but maybe some of you are parents I don't know you and I hope you could feel what we are feeling

and we ask you all the immigrant community because that's what we are in that community. There's uh parents that don't have a a vehicle.

And there are parents that have to work uh both parents and they leave their children with other parents. and that's why our community um it's grateful because that's what we do.

This is the the first principle that I have had for my daughter and she's the best. daughter's name and that really counts. And there's parents that we do need of that school because we could have an illness or maybe we could have a disability.

And there's parents that help each other and and I'm telling you because of me. And that's why I'm here right now advocating for the rights of our children and to listen to us to the end of the world. Even though we're not a lot right now, but our voice is loud because we have the same purpose. The well-being of our kids. And today I'm here to ask you if you are in this position

to help us please because it's difficult. Um thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, our next speaker is Rebecca Zaragosa. Hello, my name is Rebecca Zeruggoza and I'm a mom of uh my child who attends TK at Faith Ringold. Faith wringled maybe looks like a a name on a list um to you all. So I'm here to show a face um and uh also to advocate for my child who has done amazing at Faith Ringold. She's in TK. She's 5 years old. Um but she knows all her sight words. She's learning how to read and she um and she has a very bright future ahead from what I can see, you know, and how she's doing at school. Her teachers are very dedicated. Um and so, uh that's been a pretty common um story with a lot of parents at Faith Ringold. Uh, and so those children are our future community here at Hayward. Um, and so I just wanted to speak on uh the illegal closure of Faith Ringold, um, per the state law AB 1219, uh, the district had a legal obligation to get input from every everyone in the community, but um, that didn't happen. And it was a surprise for us to learn that her school was closing. Um my

daughter, she started crying. Um and uh we really love that school because the class sizes are a little bit smaller. Um she gets attention from her teachers. She's made close bonds with her peers. Um all of these are, you know, things that help her um academically and socially in these very important uh years in her life. Um and so I'm here to speak on on her behalf as her mom. Um and you know, doing my best to make sure she has the best future possible. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Well, if she's here, she's got a bright future, let me tell you. Um, our free our next speaker is um free laser.

Good evening, Mayor Selenus. Good to see you again. And likewise, city council members. My name is Free Laser. I'm here tonight asking for help because after more than nine months of continuous trying every legal and public avenue available to me, I have nowhere else to turn. I am an elder resident and a Shabbo College student and radio disc jockey there who rented a room here in Hayward for my home. I paid the rent on time and in advance, but shortly after moving in and being paid, the landlord began a pattern of terrifying and violent behavior toward me and another elder in the house. He smashed furniture and household items regularly in fits of rage. He destroyed property, including mine. He tipped a big refrigerator over onto my belongings. And the final act that forced me to flee was when he stabbed a knife into the wall next to my bedroom door and left it there as a message. I left for my safety. Since then, he has refused to return my security deposit and overpaid rent. I filed a small claims action, but it cannot proceed because he has successfully evaded sheriff's service six times. even though he still lives on the same property here in Hayward. In addition, he stole my US mail for months, over 50 federal felonies, yelling at me that I had no right to have mail received there, even though I was a resident where I was legally paying rent. I have contacted law enforcement repeatedly, legal aid, and multiple agencies, and have done everything I know how to do, and still nothing. I stand here today not only as a victim of what I believe is elder abuse, but as someone who has already lost over 40 years of my life to wrongful imprisonment before being proven innocent two years ago with no compensation for it and immediately disabled myself on my first job fresh out of prison. Since my release, I have tried to rebuild my life again with dignity only to face this nightmare. I'm asking this council what can be done

when a resident is terrorized, financially exploited, and then blocked from justice because the system cannot serve papers. Is there any way the city of Hayward can help ensure accountability in cases like this? I'm not just asking for myself alone. I'm asking so that no one else, especially the vulnerable residents, elders, and such has to endure this kind of abuse without recourse whatsoever. Please, if anyone who can hear me, hear can help or guide me or intervene in any way, I am asking for that help tonight. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Um, our next speaker is Elizabeth. Is it Sapata? [laughter]

Good evening, Mayor Selenus and members of the council. I'm Elizabeth Sapata. I was a grad student here at Cal State East Bay. I have since taught at Cal State East Bay and then lived here in Hayward while I drove down to Certino teaching statistics. And uh that's impressive. Come on. Um, so I want to talk about the downtown one-way streets. They I was here before they existed and I feel like the one-way streets need to be reversed. We need to have two-way streets in the downtown area just because the businesses it's becoming a wasteland and it really needs I I just think two-way streets would help addressing somehow the loop. I think the fact that you can get off the freeway, zoom down, and then zoom on to the other freeway. I did that when I was a student down in Fremont. I didn't even know there was a town there. I thought it was just a pass through with a Jack in the Box. So, we we can do better than that. We aren't just a pass through. So, thank you very much.

Thank you. Um, our next speaker is the distinguished scholar from Cal State East Bay, Sherman, Professor Sherman Lewis.

Can you put this up on the There we go. I'm Sherman Lewis. I've been around a while. Been concerned, as you know, about the loop. And uh a few weeks ago, I had this idea of a way to make some kind of traffic circle work at Foothill Mission Jackson. Uh, basically it would be a traffic circle at grade, but the wrinkle would be to dig down the center and have descending sidewalks that come underneath the traffic and then can go in any direction to exit other pedestrian sidewalks going up back to level. There's no conflict between pedestrians and bicyclists with vehicles and the pedestrians can go out any direction that they wish uh for a lot of flexibility. I have presented this to Byron Tang, your traffic planner. Uh he hopefully will take it into consideration. I had uh my son Sherman and a friend of his make this 3dB model which I will give to the clerk to pass around up there those you want to get a closer look but I would like the clerk to get it back to uh the traffic planner tank when when you're done with it. The inaccuracy is the down ramps which are supposed to be alongside the roads not off a distance uh to be more practical. I have reviewed the questionnaire that is going to be distributed. I felt it needs some review. I had a belief that the idea of uh show me my time now. I had the idea

uh that If you're going to get two lanes of Jackson coming up ordinarily to Foothill and you try to put them onto one lane going up a what is now a sidewalk to the base of Maine and East Street plus the two lanes coming up Mission that may want to make that same movement that ordinarily go on Foothill. You're taking four lanes and condensing them down to one lane. It comes out at the base of mission with very difficult access over to Foothill. As much as I don't like traffic, I think that's too much strangulation. And the other issue is that if this traffic circle is studied, I think it's going to actually be in a way too good because of the smoothness and volume of traffic it can hold. And there are many other things that will need to be done to uh slow the through traffic especially on Foothill. Uh the uh questionnaire I felt needs work. It should be reviewed uh by average citizens to uh figure out if they uh like it. Have I only talked five seconds? This is not right. Oh, I'm counting down. Yeah, I'm done.

Professor Lewis, your uh your time is up. [laughter]

Okay, thank you. Uh, our next speaker is Tom Ferrer.

Hello. Um, I wasn't going to speak tonight, but I uh saw the Faith Ringold crowd come and I was just thinking what the mayor has always been saying, education city, education city. And that's very important. It's good for all of our residents, all our young ones, uh, thriving here in Hayward. I'm the literacy chair of Hayward Rotary for the last three years, and I've noticed a substantial change over the years, especially in Eastab last year. a huge facility, brand new, nice, less than five years old. But I was delivering two small boxes of books. Usually it's five boxes. And I was like, "Where's all the third graders?" And the teacher said, "They're all moving. They're going to Tracy. They're going to Mika. They're going elsewhere. They're not staying in here in Hayward because they can't afford to stay here." So it it's just it hurts our city. We're losing more people. I mean, just this last Thursday, the planning commission accepted a $3 million in ll fee for 20 units. That doesn't have to be affordable housing. Right now, we're building condos, town homes, right and left. But these are not people that are staying in Hayward. These are 40 year olds, 50 year olds. They're not having kids. They're shopping elsewhere. They're not shopping Hayward first, as Francisco always teaches us. Um, they're going elsewhere. They're not staying in Hayward. unless and it shows in our downtown. We have a lot of empty areas still in downtown. And so we got to we got to switch around from the money aspect and think about the future of the kid aspect and growing up in Hayward, shopping Hayward, living Hayward, Hayward first. So I just want to remind you guys of that. Um me having a daughter on the spectrum. I was delivering to Faith Ringold last week

and delivering there. The teacher was just beside herself. She she got all these new students, special ed students, and all the parents were fired. It's just her. So it's just a sad situation. So let's not continuing going in a sad situation. Let's build Hayward up. So thank you so much. Thank you. Um I have been uh tracking the uh faith ringled issue and I have been talking to the superintendent and I have also been talking to the school board uh some of the school board members about that. So um we are certainly tracking it and uh and we are certainly um uh watching uh process and making sure that process is followed. So um that is certainly on our radar. Okay. I'd like to next close public comments and I'd like to move on to uh uh city manager comments.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor, council members. Um I have some good news from um the city of Hayward's water resource recovery facility. Um we are pleased to announce that the facility and staff member Mark McGrath received recognitions from the California Water Environment Association at its annual conference on February 6th. Um, Siwa is a statewide water wastewater association with 17 local sections, including the San Francisco Bay section, of which Hayward is a member. And the Hayward wastewater recovery resource recovery facility was named San Francisco Bay section plant of the year for its size category. Um, and they the plant of the year awards recognize accomplishment in regulatory compliance, innovative practices, cost effectiveness, and superior plant performance. And in addition, Mark McGrath, who serves as collection system supervisor at the facility, was named supervisor of the year for Siwa's San Francisco Bay section. Um, supervisor of the year awards recognized successful mentoring of team members, professional development, and effective communication. And Mr. McGrath was nominated by his colleagues and was selected for the award by Seiwa's leadership development committee. So, congratulations to Mr. McGrath and the entire team at the Hayward Wastewater Recovery Plant. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, let's give them a big round of applause. You know, um [applause] you know, the wastewater treatment plant is sort of it's out there and um you know, sometimes we don't know it exists until we really really need them. And so, uh but they sure do exist. They do some incredible work. And so, um uh Mr. Amir, please tell Mr. McGrath congratulations. And um yeah, that's great. Fantastic job. Thank you, sir. Okay. Um, our next item I will move on to. We have a presentation today. Um, item number one is downtown Hayward

Improvement Association, DHIA, received the annual report of the DHIA activities. And this report is going to come to us by way of our development services director, Sarah Bowser. Good evening, mayor and council. It is my pleasure to be here tonight. I am going to turn it over to the downtown Hayward Improvement Association executive director Marco Landry and assistant district manager Nicholas U. Um so please welcome them and they will be giving tonight's presentation. Thank you. Hit the button. Uh so red means go here. There we go.

There we go. Okay. Thank you mayor and city council. Sarah, we're ready to go. So this is the boundary of the downtown Hayward Improvement Association which is a community benefit district. I was the one that formed this district and 2018 I believe took about three years to form. It has interesting boundaries but this is what we came up with and we believe that this is really the heart of the city and [clears throat] we've seen tremendous growth uh since co uh you can see we have almond members on our board of directors. The overall budget this year, which includes Carrie Ford, is $86,000. We provide daily services, seven days a week, uh, to all the downtown property owners and business owners, sweeping sidewalks, pressure washing. Nick's overseeing the crew on the landscaping also, and the majority of the business district is conducted through three advisory committees. The three advisory committees are part of the management district plan that were written originally. Sidewalk operations really deals with the issues regarding curbed property line. What do people experience? Uh is it clean? Uh are sidewalks cracked? Are trees dead? And so our crew deals with all those on on a daily basis. Again, supervised by Nick, who's our assistant district manager here. So that's more defensive. The offensive is the district identity and streetscape. How do we market and promote uh downtown? We've gotten a lot of media coverage. We have a PR team that puts out recently they did celebrating the 150th anniversary of Hayward and uh all the events that we do. They have a very robust social media platform and give us regular updates and reports at the board meetings. And the last is the land use and project review. We've been waiting to see and and we keep Sarah keeps us informed on what's

going on on B and Maine on the burnt out building that was there and I think that that's coming forward with the new mixeduse development project Maine and Maple and any other new opportunities. We also have an empty US bank at the corner of Maine and B and we're looking at what's going to happen on that. So, we want to make sure that we stay in tune and in touch with the new developments because we believe that the more residents live in downtown, whether it be market rate or affordable, the better for all the businesses in downtown. The uh I'll talk I'll leave it to Nick now. He can talk a little bit about sidewalk operations. This is the biggest part of our budget. It's about $400,000 out of the 800,000 that we spend every year.

Thank you. Um, yeah. So, right now, uh, at the beginning of 2025, we went to a in-house maintenance operations team. I'm sure you've seen them all around. They're there every day wearing the green jackets. We have seven full-time employees now going in-house, and they are doing everything that's necessary to keep everything clean, all the sidewalks. We're, you know, we get individual calls from businesses all the time just trying to make sure that we're there making it more cleaner and safer for everyone

and district identity. Again, the issues that we've been working on uh more than anything is we're working with the city to figure out what's going to happen in a placemaking project which was implemented at the Cinemark Century Theater. We all know that theaters are not the same postcoid as they were pre-COVID and it's it's it's hard to move forward on that and you look at the consolidation of what's going on in Hollywood and we're not sure what's going to happen with the movie industry but we also support a number of events uh the Chamber of Commerce Lucy Lopez is on our board and she brings forward all these ideas and proposals to bring more activity into downtown. Last year we supported the Junth celebration. The taste of Hayward is the first time we did Taste of Hayward which was sold out which was great and light up the season and Quanza celebration last year. Uh implementation of the downtown mural. There were 117 banners uh that were in in implemented installed and taken down within the district. Uh we work with all of public relations to promote downtown through the newspaper, whether it be the Business Journal or San Francisco Chronicle or the East Bay Press in order to promote everything that's going on in downtown Hayward. And then Instagram audience has grown to 13,000 4,000 new followers in the last year with a total of 1.9 million views all across the com combine content. So this is our offensive uh matches the defensive. So, sidewalk operations deals with what it looks like and downtown uh district identity has to do with attracting people to come and visit uh downtown Hayward. You can see the pictures from the taste of Hayward. Uh it we were surprised that it was sold out and there was so much activity and so many people said we need to do this more often. So, we're trying to reach the critical mass of restaurants in downtown Hayward and we're getting to that point and I think you'll see some some of the new ones, Nick, that have come up

story book and yeah, we've had uh in the last six months about 11 new businesses uh that uh have opened different types of businesses uh not just eeries but um but that was really our focus because some of our challenges was having um dealing with street closures. We're dealing with um competing businesses, food trucks, uh and these kind of things. So, we wanted to make sure uh the reason the taste event was so successful was highlighting the diversity and the eeries uh uh that are available, but also just making sure that it doesn't interfere with daily business for a lot of the local businesses.

Uh Sarah Al and I want to thank city staff. Working with Jennifer has been great. I've known Jennifer for a very long time. and sir Sarah's been on our board and Daniel from economic development is also on our board. So we have great city representation on the board. We also look at the all the parking lots and the parking lots create opportunities not only for parking but also for mixeduse development and we work with the city and we're looking at the some the surplus land uh issues that the city is putting out at this point. Uh Jennifer gave us an update on that and we're pretty excited to see that going forward. And then we're trying to deal with long-term vac uh property vacancies. There are some property owners that don't really care if they collect rent or not. Uh there's nothing, we don't have a magic wand to make them suddenly realize that they should be generating revenue and filling their their location, particularly on B Street. Uh that's much more of a long-term issue and eventually they'll either get a tenant or ideally they'll sell the the property. And we're looking at the undeveloped and under uh utilized parcels within the district. Again, Maine and Maple was a great project that did not make it through COVID and now we're looking at Maine and B, which we think will be a tremendous project bringing a lot more people into the area coming in 2026. Nick, you want to talk about some of these?

Yeah. Uh, the first one is going to be the Big Belly Decorating Contest. Um, so we are looking into uh doing some vinyl wraps for uh highlighting some local artists and just creating a little bit more local artwork and just um and uh highlighting some of the talents that the community has. Uh we've also been in heavy conversation with Tatiana from West Coast Makers um regarding the the Juneen Festival, the Latin Jazz Festival that's also coming soon and also potentially some of these um night markets that will also be coming probably potentially in the fall as well. Uh the taste of Hayward will also be returning in October planned. Um and with uh with um some of the new uh businesses that also have opened up in the last 6 months and we'll be re um reattempting to do that. We're going to be expanding on it as well and selling more tickets because the previous one sold out so quickly. Is that it, Sarah? Okay. We're happy to answer any questions that the council and mayor might have uh regarding our efforts and Dominic apologizes for him not being here, but he and I split up the task today and he's with his five-month-old son as well as he had to speak at another city council meeting today. So, I said I'll fill in. I'm happy to.

Thank you. Uh, Council Member Dmeno,

Mayor, thank you and thank you for the, uh, report. Uh, it's impressive. So, just two minor points. Um, uh, a little bit more of public art. I think that would be tremendous. Colleague Andrew, I'm sure might even talk to you about it. Uh, but I think that's always a an attraction besides our murals, some statues or some sort like that. And then my second point is um So, you mentioned the vacancy and some of these owners don't care. Um, have you can you this is a request. Can you keep talking to them? Can you somehow or there uh I mean the property right across Kasa El Toro has been vacant like that. I come on give us a break. Uh, you know, the one next to the cookies has been vacant since 1890. I mean, you know, we need to do something. So, help us out in that respect. Yes. And we regularly send information to the property owners. They get the annual report.

Uh when I was forming the district in 2017 and 2018, that was the same issue. They were vacant then. So it it has sometimes to do with with trust where the kids don't even care that they have this asset in the middle of a really great downtown that's surrounded by BART, the city hall, and everything else that's going on right now. So we will try our efforts to the greatest extent possible to make these people motivated to actually enter the business world and have tenants. All right.

Okay. And the public art is critical and we're looking at doing something like an art walk here, but we're trying to figure out all all those details because art attracts a lot of people. And let's have a let's spend a couple of minutes thinking in your group about closing be to to traffic maybe in a weekend or and eventually forever and never. Yeah, we'll look at that. We have and we manage eight districts uh all throughout the state and we try to be as as um conservative as possible when it comes to street closures only because some of the businesses get upset because their regular customers cannot park in front or park down the street from them. They can park in the back. They can park. Yeah, there's plenty on the parking lots, too.

Yes. And that's what we're doing, working with Lucy and the chamber to do that. And we want to make sure that we have a balance on all street closures as well as opening things and doing things that could actually be events, but they're not closing the street. They might be in some of those parking lots, too. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Mayor Prom Cyra.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the report. Thanks for all the work that you're doing. Um, I always see Nick walking around the downtown, uh, taking stock of how the different businesses are doing, what activity there is, and so I just really appreciate your attention to detail, attention to culture in Hayward. Uh, want to give a shout out to my neighbor Israel who's part of the downtown Hayward's improvement uh, cleaning team. I always seem out there too making our city a more beautiful place. Uh, just some thoughts or comments. I think, you know, on the topic of vacant buildings, share the similar frustration. I think that kind of falls into our wheelhouse. We may want to think about uh, strengthening our definition of blight. thinking about carrots and sticks here, but we really need folks to activate properties if they have especially if they've been vacant for a long period of time. So, uh definitely an agreement there around that challenge and hoping we can find some kind of way to to tackle that. And then I think the other when you talk about how many lots there are uh for parking, you know, I also am curious how we can be more strategic about our parking especially as the downtown gets denser. I know property development is one approach. Uh but I've talked with a few business owners about uh piloting some kind of parking payment program. And of course, you know, we don't want to charge folks to have to come downtown, but maybe maybe because the city has a parking garage behind the theater, it's employee parking at the top level and maybe that one facility is paid. So that way we're able to fund, you know, uh, downtown traffic, uh, you know, downtown security or something to make the downtown safer, more inviting while also creating more parking spaces for customers to come because employees have a designated place to park. So yeah, I'm just throwing I'm spitballing here just because I, you know, I encourage uh our staff have their hands full with the operation of the entire city, but I think your perspective is unique and that you can help bring forward ideas or proposals or pilots like this for us as a council to consider uh so we can keep making our downtown more vibrant. So I appreciate the work that you're doing. I think this report is helpful for folks to understand because I've had people say, "What is DHIA?" So I'm happy that it's all here. Uh and I'm looking forward to our our continued collaboration. And thank you to our members of staff that have been helping guide DHIA and representing the city well uh on our behalf. Thank you.

Thank you. We had a very good discussion about parking today at our board meeting. Jennifer was um kind enough to come and give us an update and I think you can see on the board we we believe the parking has to be managed to the extent that eventually it could be paid parking. We're not afraid of that. That's hap it started in the 1930s in the Midwest which is not known as an area of radicalism. I mean, so parking management is critical because I know a lot of the business owners are complaining that employees park out there all day long or people park out there all day long. It ties up everything. People drive down the street, particularly on B Street, and they said there's nowhere to park and they just keep going. So, we want to work closely with the city. We know that in July there will probably be two-hour parking, which is enforced. Nick is going to be talking to each business owner so they know what's going on. We'll be posting things on probably light poles to say, "Be aware of this." And then Jennifer's got some ideas too on how to make sure because without managed parking, it's going to be a problem,

especially as we add more housing units in that area. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Um, let's see. Council member Andrews hit the button four times. So, uh, Council Member Andrews, is it a glitch? I don't know. Um, I wanted to acknowledge the work of Nick Yu and just really being excited about where he works and being passionate about the downtown. Um, I've definitely seen a new energy downtown and I know it's a lot because of his ef efforts. So, I just wanted to give him special kudos for that and he had a great hire uh with hiring. Thank you.

And and Nick uh grew up in downtown so he knows it very well. He knows businesses that were there 10 15 years ago because this is where his parents had the restaurant. Yes. Yes. We were lucky to found find Nick.

That's awesome. Um I wanted to talk a little bit about the council referral. We did a foothill action plan and it really um took off in terms of helping with guiding the uh the staff and DHIA to put more infrastructure improvements and activity downtown. And I also wanted to give kudos to Sarah Bowser for really um um executing on that and as well as Paul Newan um from economic development and um Alex Mary. Uh, but I wanted to also talk about um just some of the the activities we are seeing downtown. And I know our the goal is really to drive people to come downtown um come to the restaurants, come to the businesses there, but I do feel like a lot of the events are communitydriven and I wanted to see if the DHIA um is starting to look at leading more events because I know Taste of Hayward was led by um property owners and as well as you, but I want to know if there's someone that you all are thinking about in terms of leading those events because the council and community members. We put a lot of energy and time and effort to drive activity downtown and it's a lot of work. So, we were hoping that maybe you all can start taking more of a lead in terms of either hiring an event planner or an intern. Uh because it really a lot of these events are it's it's they're simple ideas, but they do help drive the the population to come downtown. So, I just wanted to see if there's any plans for that.

Right. Do you want to talk about your talk with Tatiana?

Yes. Um, so yeah, as I mentioned, but we did we are in talks. We our association isn't an event planner ourselves. Uh, but we do sponsor a lot of events especially in the community. you know, we don't get to choose what type of events there are and we want to be sure that, you know, we don't want to put an event that doesn't represent and help the the local businesses. And so, um, but we have pushed for like the Quanza event. We have pushed for the the fights at the Ozario event as well. um sometimes because we don't maybe if we don't do a financial sponsorship that doesn't mean we're not helping or assisting uh whether it's promoting or helping you know coordinate the events or the details for that event. Um, so, uh, I think the last, uh, fight at the Rosario Center brought over a thousand people, you know, just for that day. And they were all local with visitors coming from Sacramento, San Jose, and afterwards they all supported the local, the vast majority of them supported local businesses nearby in the area. So, it's just making sure that we curate a lot of these uh community events to make sure that it's supporting the community as opposed to outsiders or somebody else from far away coming in making money and and just leaving. And so, that's what we want to make sure. So we are working with Tatiana quite a bit um with the Latin jazz festival uh the Junian festival and then that's the whole goal of the the night market but trying to also listen to a lot of the local businesses to make sure it doesn't interfere with their daily business. a lot, you know, we have about 280 businesses in the district and uh 80% or the vast majority of them are

independent owners and a lot of them are single owners. Um, and so the one day of business or one week of lack of sales or interfering with business, that might actually be enough to lay off staff or close the business, you know, or um, seriously affect them financially. And so we just want to make sure we're fine-tuning the the events that are in the district to make sure that they benefit the community. So, but

great. And then I also want to give kudos to um Olive Public Relations. I've been seeing the downtown in news a lot more and more positive news. So just wanted to acknowledge that as a really good consultant for you all. Um but I also wanted to see if they are connecting with influencers so it can be less work on them but the influencers have more reach and um also we have a really engaging social media um uh staff person at the library so maybe there's some partnerships there um also partnerships with BART and they have really good social media so just wanted to see if there was any strategy on that front. Yeah, Bard has a rep on our board.

Okay.

Uh and so the communication between our PR company, I I will bring up the issue of influencers to them and just see if they're tapping into the local influencers. Uh but we're we're in an interesting world that that social media has such a a predominance at this point. You know, in the old days when I first started this, you have to put posters up in windows and scotch tape and all that other stuff. But that's the not the world we're in. To me, the most important thing that we can possibly do is when someone says downtown Hayward, what comes into their mind? Is it, oh, well, I've been there before. It's nothing big. Or, oh, there's all this new stuff that's going on. We have to create the perception and the reality that people say downtown Hayward is where I want to go on this Friday night, Saturday night or Tuesday night. So that's what we're trying to really build is the image of downtown Hayward being very positive to people. That is something that I think we're moving in that direction. I think we're making great strides. But I'll take this and I'll bring it back to Dominic and in the social media group and just say how do we outreach what we're doing so when we put out something it goes to multiple sources.

That was a good idea. Thank you. And the last thing I'll bring up is like you said consistency and and messaging and I'm seeing other cities uh put out messaging about monthly events and I know that's very difficult to do but um I have seen your articles in Tri City Voice and I think it's really helpful that you uh let us know what events are happening but if we could figure out a way to do monthly events that would be probably the most helpful because then it gets the word out that Hayward is you know doing something at least monthly. So, I've seen similar strategies in San Leandro, but I'm sure you'll talk to Tatiana about that. Yeah, I formed that district, too. And Dominic, that's where Dominic Okay.

You know, cut his teeth on and learning how to manage was in San Leandro. But we had another good talk with Jennifer today about Heritage Park and us working with the city on Heritage Park and seeing if that could really become a venue so we don't have to worry about street closures and things. But that it's such a beautiful venue. It's right across from the library. It's tied close to Bart. So, uh, it's one of the great assets in downtown, too. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Roach.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks for being here. Thanks for the presentation. I I wanted to appreciate, um, some of the work that you're doing as well, especially the lights. I love, you know, when the lights went up on Foothill, I thought that was really inviting, sort of guiding people downtown. And then all the lights on B Street and especially the canopy above the movie theater. That was a really nice um nice addition. And then definitely the cleaning crew. They're so visible downtown. I think that, you know, it helps. It brings comfort I think to people to know that there is a crew sort of watching downtown. So um so thank you for that. Um I wanted to just add on to is like the parking issue because you know that's obviously an issue in every downtown. You have workers come in and then they park out some of the lots all day long. The one [clears throat] lot I know in Main Street across um sort of between Maine and second I get no Maine and C. Yeah. Um down by that. You know it's just you know it's filled up by the workers and they they park there all day long. I don't blame them. they need to park somewhere. But I do feel like we need to do a better effort of identifying the outskirt parking lots where staff can go. And I don't know how that works. A shuttle or something in the morning to bring people downtown because um yeah, it's hard. You can almost guarantee it every parking spot will be taken up. And um again, this is a problem everywhere. This is not just a Hayward problem that workers need to park somewhere. But there obviously has to be an organized concerted effort to open up some of those spots and then enforce the the limits, right? the right whatever it is two hour limits so that you know people know they got to move along have some dinner and move along and then and then you know staff of all the establishments know okay if I want to park all day I need to be somewhere um somewhere else which has to be identified for them right they need to be able to

the parking structures are key to that so employees can park we were talking about the length of parking is at 10 hours for free for example so an employee can take a lunch and and work eight hours a day then we have to make sure that they feel safe with their cars in the parking lot parking structures So, we're we had this discussion just today. Okay. Great. And so, we're working closely with the city manager on this and with Sarah. Okay. Yeah. Great. I mean, yeah, you got to protect them, too. You know, they can't be walking home late at night. And you couldn't afford to build a parking structure today at 85,000 bucks off the space. So, you already have them. We just need to activate them in a lot of ways.

Okay, great. I'm glad you're having those discussions. And then the final thing is to council member Andrew's point. Yeah, I think that it's that, you know, the consistency of scheduling. So I see a lot of, you know, a lot of cities do a first Friday art and winewalk or a second Saturday, you know, I I don't know, pub crawl, just so that if if everyone knows, okay, I know we can go to Hayward on the first Friday and the, you know, maybe some portion of B Street's closed down for four hours and I can take the kids and they can stroll. But if it's consistent, then people can count on it. It's like hours of a restaurant, right? You know, you need to know when you show up on a certain day at 7 o'clock, the restaurant will be open. And so I do think that consistency is, you know, will will help us as well. Um, I know that's hard to do. it's asking people to organize something. But if it became, you know, okay, in first Friday, everyone know it's art and wine night, right? So, whatever the restaurants want to do to present that art and wine night, um, you know, maybe and that maybe then it would become less work over time as that just became a go-to. And, um, yeah, I think, you know, maybe some closure on that whatever that monthly thing is so families knew they could stroll and the kids feel safe and, um, I yeah, I think continuing to do some work on that I think would be really important.

Understood. And whatever we can do to support that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks again, Council Member Bono. Thank you and thank you, Nick, and thank you for your great work as well. I was going to ask [clears throat] about Heritage Plaza and how we sort of tie that open space into the activation of downtown, but it sounds like you guys are exploring that. Um, I also appreciate, you know, the cleaning crews that are out there. I think that that's making a big difference. Um, what about wayfinding in downtown Hayward? like have you guys kind of thought about like you know how that might help move people around or get people to understand the businesses that are in downtown Hayward? Uh wayfinding you mean in terms of signage?

Yeah, like signage or maps or just like anything in downtown Hayward because I feel like you know when you go to like other cities or when you go to certain parts of other cities, you'll see like maps of that particular area that says here are some of the restaurants or here are some of the recreation or here are some of the things to do. And I feel like in downtown between the billiards that we have, you know, if you go a little bit up, you know, with the arcade that we have, with the restaurants that we have, it's like where's that one consolidated place that you can find a map of everything that's in downtown when you're in downtown trying to explore it,

right? We'd uh worked with that in one of our other districts and actually came up with something like an 8 and 1 half by 11 folded but card stock and then cut it in half where someone could look at a map and like all the retail would be red and then all the services might be green. So they can just glance at and they could see where the critical mass of restaurants or services or small businesses were. So that's a good idea. We you know the internet at this point makes it so easy for people just to look on their phone and open it. But we can try that too. I think that we have that in our budget. We can try something that can be on every storefront on a counter when people are there. They can just say what's going on in downtown Hayward.

Or it could even be like a digital type thing, you know, where you have like some big old huge digital something. I mean, I don't like know how to do it exactly, but I've seen it in other cities where it's like digital billboards. Yeah. It's like in the community where you are here. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. you are here and here's what's around you and it's interactive and it could you know I think help people really explore the downtown in a much more interactive way. I agree it's being very customer friendly doing that. So yes that's a great idea too. And then council member real quick uh director Bowser did you have a comment?

I I just wanted to share that we're also exploring so there is the physical kiosk that's in front of cookies on be street and so we're engaged in some conversations to see where there might be some opportunities there. It may not be as flashy as your digital billboard that you're talking about, but it might be a place or an opportunity where such a map like that could be useful. Um, so we're engaged in conversations just to kind of figure out what does that look like? How could we utilize an existing asset that we already have in the city in the district that might work in that way? Like I said, it might not be as fancy as you're just talking about, but it might work as a good, you know, interimm step or solution.

No, I I love that idea. And then that could even be expanded to include some of the events or other things that are happening in downtown just beyond the sort of stationary businesses that we have. And there are companies coming in and they're trying to propose and they do revenue splits with cities and district downtown districts as long as they can show theformational thing in terms of the map, but then they sell advertising too. So that would be a decision for the city council to look at. Yep. If we have a proposal. And then can you just briefly share what some of your plans are around the new furniture and infrastructure for downtown? And I think that was on one of your slides as something that we can look forward to.

Yeah, we started that in one of our key districts about 25 years ago. Um instead of having benches, having movable tables and chairs, so if it's hot, you can go in the shade and if it's cold, you can go into the sun. We've always looked at the park at um at mission and B as an opportunity. You can't develop it because it's an earthquake quick there. also the old city hall which I think is a great public space and putting tables and chairs up there. We're trying to get before we do that because we know that there's certain people that will just hang out in downtown and they'll sit in those chairs all day long. So, how do we manage that and how do we moni how do we um uh make sure that it's not used by of course anybody can sit there but we don't want people to hang out there all day. So, we do have all those plans. We just want to find out the best spot and one of our goals is to get a lot more daytime population here. City employees walking up B Street because that's the key place where we be doing the table decision umbrellas. We would lock them up at night because they're not inexpensive and we would work with um Nick to make sure we have someone on lake crew, but that's been part of our plan for years. We just don't think we're downtown's ready for it at this point. If we could fill a lot of those empty holes, it would be much more conducive towards doing that. Agreed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Um, you know, I uh wanted to make a comment about one particular thing. I I have a few things, but I just want to make a comment about one particular thing. Um, thank you for being positive about our downtown. I mean, you know, I can't tell you how many people when we talk about our downtown, it's, you know, the there people are always complaining about it and this conversation clearly you guys have, you know, you you are reframing the discussion about our downtown filling up empty buildings and, you know, um, you know, activating the the corners and I mean, just just everything you've said tonight is positive and, you know, I um uh you know it's uh so I I appreciate that uh our our downtown people love to hate it and um but I'll tell you um I'm just looking in the audience right now there are two people in the audience right now that are doing what a lot of people who own buildings in downtown don't do and that is put all of their money put all of their investment into our downtown. they are investing in our downtown. And so, you know, when uh so when people out there, you know, when they're talking and you know, and they're making their comments about about downtown, one thing that we can say right here unequivocally is that we have people dedicated to this downtown, right?

And um and you know, and so, you know, um the corner of B and Foothill um you know, I know Parana is here. I mean, you know, I mean, that is a critical corner, you know, not only at at her corner, but on the other corner where you have the new coffee shop coming, you know. Um, Buffalo Bills, one of the most iconic restaurants in the East Bay, if not in the Bay Area, if not in the state, was able to get was able to stand up again even in a post-pandemic Yep.

era, right? hire local, support local economy, you know, I mean, it's just absolutely uh the event center going back, you know, story book. Um I mean, you know, so I'm I'm just the the fact that you the the fact that you are framing this conversation tonight uh positively about events and because you know, one thing that we do see is every time we do an event in downtown, people turn out. Yeah, they do. you know, and uh so

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to bring up too that things change quickly. So, I did the financial district uh community benefit district in the summer of 2019 with like a 3% vacancy rate in the financial district and four months later you had a 75% vacancy rate. So if you would have said financial district with 400,000 people taking BART over to San Francisco every day in late 20uh9 and then you go six months later the concept of financial district is totally different in mid 2020 than it was at the end of 2019. So that's why that the names are really important. So our whole commitment is to building the image of downtown Hayward. So when people say that, they say a lot of things are good that are happening there and we have to go there more often. And it would encourage you have 150,000 people that live in this city. The more they recycle their money into downtown Hayward, the more sales tax revenue that comes to the general fund. It would be great to get a hotel down here so people can actually stay down here and they could patronize all the restaurants and the businesses. Well, we're not there yet. Do you do you track um do you track impact of businesses on other businesses?

You mean in case one business opens, does it? Yeah, it's or closes.

Um yeah, the closures are we're seeing a lot more openings than we are closures at this point, which is great. And the old hardware stores that's on the corner, that's going to become a great mixeduse project. The more people living in downtown, um uh Lincoln Landing was a great addition. It's a little bit out of downtown, but when Maine and B comes on board, whatever happens with the US Bank, the lot at the corner of C and um Main Street, all these are huge opportunities for mixeduse residential. And I I want to defer also to Councilman Syra SC about the idea of making sure that it's affordable so people that work here can live here. That's key, too. So, we're all on the same wavelength on this to try to build you because you have great infrastructure, great assets already, but we have to make sure the world knows about all the assets here.

Yeah. Um, the city of Hayward, we have uh we have run into, you know, there's legal ramifications or or legal restrictions uh around our authority to do this. Um, but I was curious, um, do you have more flexibility, uh, as a board, uh, to, um, incentivize, uh, empty buildings in downtown? Yeah. One thing we won't do is pay people to do what they're supposed to be doing anyway, which is find tenants and get, you know, get commercial brokers. So, the only way we can incentivize them at this point, I think the council Sarah, you might remember, wasn't there a vacancy um or

a vacant property ordinance? But it's complicated and there's not as much teeth in it that I think the current council might want it to have, but I think that's kind of what council member Cyber was alluding to. Maybe there's some opportunities for improvement. We thought that was a great idea cuz why should everybody else pay for the maintenance of downtown and these people are just sitting on these empty properties which are some some great architecturally designed buildings. So let me reframe the question. I I might have asked the question incorrectly. Do you have more um uh leverage as a as a nonprofit in independent agency or or entity to uh charge more fees for a a building that's empty of a business owner? No.

No. Okay. That that's the city council's decision, not ours. Okay. Yeah, we can tell you which one's empty, but it's it's up to you guys. So,

yeah. All right. Um and you know the uh yeah I I the the main part I wanted to I just wanted to highlight was you know the the level of positivity the level of positivity I mean the the work that you guys are doing it uh the work that you guys are doing investing uh in in the downtown uh you know I I still um I spoke with the p the last city manager about this. It's still a vision of mine. Uh we'll get it someday. But, you know, I I do want to see a big um a big life-size metal buffalo in the front of Buffalo Bills. So, it turns into this big Instagrammable moment where, you know, have this buffalo in front of this iconic building, you know.

Well, Alejandro is on our board and he's on our executive committee, too. So, I'll bring up the idea to him. Yes. Yes. They they make them in I've looked it up. They make them in in North Dakota. [laughter] I'll drive. Um, okay. Well, thank you. That's all I have. Uh, seeing no more other questions, thank you for the great discussion. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. And for all of the business owners in downtown Hayward that are here tonight, thank you very much for stepping up and continuously investing in our downtown.

And I want to thank you for having the staff work so closely with us. We work closely again with Jennifer, Sarah, Daniel, and PD. So, we're we're all tied in together because we see this downtown as something we all have to work on and improve. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh we're going to move on to our next item, which is our consent calendar, items 2 through 7. Uh I have not uh nobody's asked me to pull any item and so u I will look at my screen. Uh you got to hit the button. Council member Bonia.

Let me see. Let me see if uh Uh moved by council member Bonia, seconded by council member Cyra. Uh and if there are no uh well I guess we have to go to uh Yes. Uh go ahead and take the role. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. And just for the record, no public comment on those items, correct? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. And the item unanim unanimously passes. Okay. Thank you. Um, next item is our it's a work session fiscal year 2026 quarter 1 and quarter 2 semianual capital improvement program progress report. And this is going to be uh delivered to us by our public public works director, Alex Amiri. Mr. Amiri.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, mayor and council members. You may recall that this item uh has usually been anformational item that comes before you. Council asked us a few years ago to start reporting on the progress of the capital improvement program projects to you and we've been doing that on a semianual basis. There is a report uh staff report with over 100 projects that we are reporting on. It is attached to the uh uh staff report and there are 12 projects that were completed last year and we are reporting on those too. Uh the reason that this is a work session tonight is that we have made an improvement to the reporting process so that council receives timely report and that uh any time that you want to see the report you can do that. The uh person behind the operation has been my management analyst Marissa Mata who is online and she has a very short report that she wants to share with you. Marissa, are you there?

Yes. And I'm joining you virtually just making sure that you can hear me and see my screen share. Yes.

Okay. Wonderful. All right. Good evening, city council. Tonight, I will be presenting the new online dashboard for our semiannual CIP progress report for your review, questions, and comments. To provide some brief context that Alex uh briefly mentioned, in fiscal year 2024, council asked staff to provide consistent status updates of CIP project progress. Since then, then uh public works and utility staff have been providing a semianual staff report with these CIP project updates. Moving forward, we will still provide a static copy of the report via the staff report process. But starting with this report for the fiscal year 26, Q1 and Q2 semiannual period, we have also transitioned the report to an online dashboard so that city council and members of the public can have quick access and increased visibility to these updates. So to locate the dashboard, I will first direct you to our CIP homepage, which can be found at hayward-ca.gov/cip. Scrolling down on this CIP homepage, the public will see several blue buttons. If I click into the blue button under the CIP progress report section here, this will take me to the online CIP progress report dashboard. The public can also access this dashboard on my screen um by visiting ciphard.clearpointstrategy.com. Before I start, I do want to make a few brief notes. First, this CIP progress report dashboard will always display the most current updates available for the most recent semiannual period. Normally, those are July through December and January through June. Second, um, and to reiterate, city council will still continue to receive a semiannual staff report with the information contained within this

dashboard. And lastly, the design of the dashboard may seem familiar to you. City manager's office actually introduced Clear Point, the Clearpoint dashboard format to council previously, and public works decided to customize Clear Point's functionality in order to streamline the semiannual CIP progress report for city council and the public. So, moving on on this page, the user will see several colorful tiles which correspond to each of our CIP project categories. If I click into this light orange road and street projects tile, taken to a new page that will list all of the CIP projects we are reporting on for the most recent semiannual period for this category. On this page, I first want to direct your attention to the color-coded key for our status indicators that we have used to assign a status to each project. For example, a green status corresponds to a project that has been completed during the reporting period. And a light blue status here means a project is on track to meet its target due date. If I click on this expand to see more link here for the route 238 corridor improvement project, you will see several pieces of information. First, under the project title here, we have the project number along with a brief description of project progress or activities completed during the time period. In this case, fiscal year 2026, quarter 1 and quarter 2, which corresponds to July 1st, 2025 through December 31st, 2025. I want to mention those dates specifically because there may have been further project progress since December 31st, 2025 that were not incorporated into this report. For example, if we look at the status of Main Street complete street project here, you will

see a reported status of delayed due to delays from AT&T and PG&E and a target due date of February 2026. This project has since been completed and will be reported as such in the next CIP semiannual report. Also, starting with this report, we have also added a general fund measure C impact section where we have specified whether or not a CIP project has general fund or measure C impact and detailing that impact if applicable. We have also provided a link here if available to the CIP projects budget page where the user can find more information specifically related to project budget. Next, if you look on the right hand side, you will see two columns, one for percent complete and the other for target due date. Next, if I press the back arrow to get back to the dashboard landing page and click into this light green livable neighborhoods category, I will then see several subcategories I can choose to click on. For example, if I click on this traffic calming subcategory, I will be taken to the list of projects within that subcategory with all of the same data points we went over in the road and street projects category. Additionally, if I want to see updates related to another subcategory like sidewalks and wheelchair ramps, I can click into that subcategory and review those projects as well. So, that concludes the very brief presentation. and I am now available to answer any questions or receive city council's feedback on the new online CIP dashboard report format.

Thank you. Uh this is a work session item so I'm going to open up for public comment first. Um I don't have any cards and um there's uh no one online. So I will uh come back to the deis and let me refresh and um I have two speakers. Uh Mayor Pro Cyro.

Thank you mayor. Uh thank you so much for this presentation. Great work on leveraging technology to make our information and our work more accessible. Uh I'm really excited that we found a secondary use for some of the strategic road mapping software that I think it was uh assistant city manager Thomas that helped set up. So I'm happy that we're stacking functions here. Uh seeing this it kind of inspires me to think okay what if we took it one level higher and you know imagine one primary map where you see all the CI CIP projects all the projects that are in development in terms of uh uh uh construction and you know I think we actually have a separate map don't we of the different developments that are happening across Hayward right um including uh strategic roadmap projects like if there was one map that was like the bird's eye view of everything that's happening in Hayward I know this is this is separate from what's being presented but now that we're getting all this data structured. Yeah. Just I guess it kind of feels like a logical next step to me. And that way, you know, anybody on staff, anybody on council can look at any part of the city and see like, oh, there's four different kinds of projects happening here. Some are from the CIP, some are related to development services, some are council strategic initiatives. Um, but just the thought of being able to look at that so anybody's able to see what's happening in every corner of the city would be pretty interesting. Um, but yeah, all this is to say that I'm inspired by this and so new ideas are coming to fruition and I think that's a good thing. um excited about the progress that was made on Main Street. Uh two quick questions because I worry when I hear something is 100% complete, but then I walk by and there's crosswalk buttons that aren't activated or there are pedestrian flashing lights that aren't activated yet. And so my concern is uh us calling something complete when that's not quite done yet. And you know, for all intents and purposes, it's like 99.9% done. It's about getting two light bulbs going and a button activating. Uh but now when you press it sometimes it says state password instead of like wait you know and I guess I just was curious about a status update on that front.

So we have had some challenges with the uh electric subcontractor. They are a little bit behind. Um and I have to say they are not as capable okay as I want them to be. Uh but they are making progress now. Okay. And you're just you're aware of it though. Absolutely.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure because that that was my main concern is if we say 100% complete and we're moving on and that's still happening. Uh that's where I I start to get a little bit nervous. I think other than that those those are my comments. Keep up the great work. You knowund and what was it 17 projects you said it's a lot of projects to run simultaneously. So I appreciate your leadership in the department as well and keeping all of these irons in the fire and moving forward. Uh yeah keep the great work. Thank you. Thank you.

Council member Andrews. when director Amiri said absolutely it is always absolutely he knows everything about all the projects I'm always very impressed um wanted to ask you about the uh this new system which I I just love uh want to know what was the duration and time it took to put this together not too long okay great so the um so the previous binder you're no longer using that you're going to be using this dashboard now moving forward or you're going to see the dashboard in that binder that you've created um uh in the final in the end of year you're gonna you're gi we're going to continue to see both correct okay great

and I just wanted to add that bec the duration was not that long because of the work that the assistant city manager had done here uh on the strategic road map and we use the buttons and we want it to be consistent

oh great yes and I I agree with um council member sire is this is way more userfriendly and accessible to the public. And I know a lot of public agencies are trying to get to this level. So, I'm sure they're going to be reaching out to you, including myself, reaching out to you on how you um got this done. So, just wanted to thank you for that. Um I wanted to know if there was any impacts to what we're seeing just in world events, global events impacting any of the CIP projects, whether it's with materials, fleet management, ordering, any anything you've seen there issues? You know, it's interesting that you uh asked that because we were just receiving today we received our bids on our pavement project

and pavement projects use a lot of oil and we were thinking that because of the jump in price of oil we are going to see um you know some high prices. Yeah. We received seven bits and six of them are below the engineers estimate. Okay, great. So, not a huge impact on us. Not yet.

Okay, great. And then, um, again, I love that you feature, um, not just, uh, you you note when there's a measure C fund versus a general general fund versus an um, yeah, enterprise fund. So, um, I liked how you highlight that there. Um are you seeing any um efficiencies of looking at more of the enterprise funds to reduce pressure off of the general fund and measure C funds? Absolutely. We're always looking for that and uh make our best effort to have a small very small footprint on general fund or measure C. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you uh Council Member Roach. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. It is fun looking through the dashboard. I really appreciate it. Um I I did want to ask you know you know because I clicked on the blue and I realize that's the budget that those are the budget details for each question. Will there be and I know this is more information than you want to put on here but will there be um further information you know like if it's a building or you know where people might want to look at what the project is like you mean like renderings or like like renderings? Yes, renderings or even a or just a map maybe where is this one? You know that kind of thing. Of course, we can add that. Okay. I mean, I know that's like work down the road, but um but Marissa, we can add that, right? [laughter]

Yes. And some of the uh project pages already have that. But for the projects that um don't, we just link the fund summary. So, like for example, this this project will have its own project page with a picture. Okay. I just didn't click the one that had it. Okay. Good. Good. I was looking at I think it was it the Jackson's Triangle Median. I think it was that one. But um Oh, good. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So that's sort of like an ongoing process. It so if if applicable, the project will have its own budget page, but not every CIP project has its own budget page within our online CIP budget book.

Thank you. That answers my question. And then yes, I mean, council member, I just said it, but I just really appreciate you calling out the measure C and the general fund um piece of it. And and to that end, I did want to ask um you know, as we move forward, I mean, what is your biggest pain point right now? Like, have you had to cretail some of these projects because of this? And what is the what is the biggest project we might worry about in the community when people notice, oh, what happened to that? Like you've stalled it or it's not happening now because of the budget deficit.

So, we are still grappling with supply chain issues. Okay. when we need to have a transformer let's say for for a building or a facility at our you know water facilities we have to wait a long time and that causes delays but u you know those delays are getting slowly reduced now

okay okay thanks and um and then I also wanted to ask about you know the we've had some recent you know very tragic traffic accidents and has that changed the priorities and how you might be addressing some of the streets around here, especially given the city manager's recent update that they'll be sort of like a what we called it like a task force or an emergency emergency sort of response team for some of these. Um,

absolutely. Absolutely. We have some quick build projects that look at uh a half dozen or or actually more intersections that are on our high injury network and we are implementing quick build solutions to them to reduce the possibility of injuries. Okay. Just want to add that Alex and his director Mary and his team are we are working on doing a street uh safety work session at the next meeting next week and so we'll have a lot more detail about some of those projects too.

Okay. Um and then the other one I wanted to add um that I want to make sure this is um if it's on here is because I've talked about it a couple times but the trash capture project is is that on is it on here somewhere that I is that Yes, it is. Okay, great. I I just wanted to sort of congratulate your team on this news that we found out at our sustainability committee that Hayward has now after 10-year um time frame has reached this 100% trash capture for our sewer system and you know thank you and congratulate you and your team for that. It's very exciting. There's another big one coming up, right? Another trash capture project still coming up.

Correct. We are working on it and we are working with the county flood control to make sure that they are comfortable with us putting the device in their waterway. Great. Now, I think that's an amazing news, right, that that Hayward is doing this and protecting our bay and sort of leading on these efforts. So, thank you. Congratulations. All of that, by the way, is uh by using outside funding, not funding of the city of Hayward. Yes. Thank you. That's a huge important point and um it's it's amazing what's happening out there. So, I hope we do more about announcing that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh Council Member Bono,

thank you, Mayor, and thank you for this report and also thank you so much for this website. It's just so easy to go through. I think it's so intuitive. Um, and I also agree with what council member um, it was Cy what he had said related to kind of seeing this visually across the map because it would great it would be great to see, you know, where these projects are happening so that the city can see they're happening all across the city and maybe not concentrated in any one area because I do think that there's a nice sort of spread across the city related to these projects. So it would be good to see that on a map and then even use the map as a way of kind of clicking in depending on what you want to know within that area. Um and then the second thing is as it relates to the status indicators, what is that the status of? Is it like the scope, the schedule and the budget? Is it one or all three? But I guess what goes into determining if a project is delayed or on track? So mainly the schedule because we have a project schedule at the very beginning when we have our pre-construction meeting with the contractor and we want to do our best effort to stick with the with the schedule. So if there is a delay u we note that as a delay we show it. We work with the contractor to expedite their work if we can. U sometimes you know delays are inevitable because of outside factors and that is the main criteria.

Perfect. And then um I I know that you know we don't want to put too much detail in here because of staff time but I think any you know as it relates to the activities too because there's so much to be proud of of the work that we're doing in here. I think that some of the descriptions related to the actual work we've done is a little bit vague. So maybe if we can kind of just add a little bit more detail to the actual set of progress that we've made because like even it says you know some design has been like what does that mean right or it's like some things have been or a few of it's like what does that actually mean you know so we could all celebrate this progress a bit more and be proud of the great work that you and your department are leading. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you mayor.

Thank you. Okay. Um oh my last question. Sorry. If there's a year and like if the if like there's a project and it just has a year 2027, is it to be assumed that the completion is the end of that calendar year versus if it has a date of like November 2027? Usually we use fiscal year. So it would be June of 2027. Got it. We'll we'll specify uh more precisely. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor.

Council member Zermeno. Thank you, mayor, and uh Director Mary, excellent job. I'm very impressed with what's done here and then also with your knowledge of all the uh projects over 170. I have two probably not questions. All right. So, my first probably not questions. If we were to slow down a CIP projects, would that help our general fund? Um the short answer is no. That's right. The longer answer is that we have looked at projects that are either totally or mostly funded by general fund. Okay.

And we have delayed those projects. For instance, if there is a uh median landscape project that is funded by general fund, we have pushed it by like one year in order for us to have a breather and then see if general fund is in a position to be able to spend a million dollars, let's say, okay, for a median improvement program. Okay, so that so that is good news. So slowing down some projects will help our general only those few projects that were funded by either uh general fund or measure C.

All right. Okay. We don't know how many there are. I'm sorry, city manager. I would say about less than 10% of our projects. Okay. All right. But it's it's it's something. solve this, you know, I could just expand too because a lot of these projects are things that we have to do at some point or a deferred maintenance or and so even if we slow them down, it might be a temporary benefit to us, but they may be obligations or things that we need to do longer term. So, we're kind of just kicking the can down the road. So, we have to be careful to delay too much some of those projects. Okay. All right.

We are looking at temporary relief and ways we could delay some of that if we if we can. And I just wanted to verify c could we see the map again or where the different projects are? I want to see the police see uh the police there. Can you show the police? Do we have one for the police station, police center? No, we do under municipal facilities. Is it anywhere? Yes.

Okay. So, we're 25% completion. All right. This is good. I still have some calls from people that tell me that uh we're we're forgetting the police center and it's not very good. You're not very you're not listening to us because everybody says public safety and I said it's it's in the works. Don't worry. It's in the works. We just completed our needs assessment um for the police department.

Okay. 95%. Okay. Thank you. And then I have another probably not question. This is probably a not. Um, we used to have these really great looking posters on the cinema on the foothill side. Would it be a CIP project to put them back? In my mind, they were fantastic. They were great. They were big and it told the world this is a cinema and then they were taken down. Could that be one of your CIP projects? Yeah. Um, unfortunately they are not CIP projects, but we can look into them and see where where they went. So, who do I have to call to put them back? Mary or or

Huh? Okay, Mary Thomas, I'm going to call you tomorrow by putting them back. We've we've tried to identify where these went and so far we've not had luck, but we'll continue to try. Thank you. Yeah. Could you me I mean, they were an attraction right there. Look, there's a cinema on our left and they stop. They see that and they'll stop. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um Okay. So, thank you. So, I will Thank you, Mr. Mary, and thank you, Miss um Mata, right? Yes. Yes. And um Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Okay. Uh our next item is council reports and announcements. Any council reports and announcements? Um I will pick on Council Member Roach first because it is St. Patrick's Day. Thank you. Which is what I wanted to say. I just wanted to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick's Day. It turns out there are roughly 30 to 32 million Americans who claim some sort of Irish heritage, which I think on this dice as well. George, I think Angel's Do you have a little bit little Pikito8? Okay. Point. Um, so we're all and everybody is Irish on St. Patrick's Day. So, happy St. Patrick's everywhere. everybody and Slancha. Uh, council member Andrews,

I just wanted to thank hard for being a great partner for the 150th birthday celebration. A lot of community members approached me and told me that it was nice to see the city celebrated. They also wanted to thank the downtown Hayward Improvement Association for advertising. A lot of people let me know that it was on the news and it looked lovely. So, I just wanted to thank all the community partners that came out to help us get that done. So, um happy birthday, Hayward. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Um Mayor Pro Tim, uh Cyra,

thank you, Mayor. Uh following that trend, I just want to give a big shout out to our community partnerships manager, uh Zachi. We had a large, uh production called the state of the city, which is on YouTube for folks that had missed it. Uh the mayor did a great presentation on the state of our city. Uh, and then we had Hayward's Birthday almost immediately afterwards, or it might be the other way around. Still massive productions and, uh, I believe Zachabati was at the helm of organizing both of those. So, I hope you got some rest this weekend, Zach. Uh, great work and I'm really proud of, uh, everything he's putting on for the city.

Yes, absolutely. Those were two big events within 24 hours, man. Um, okay. So, next item is council referrals. There are no referrals, ladies and gentlemen. Meeting adjourned record