Christ’s Community Church held a Q-and-A style forum last week hosted by Southgate Neighborhood Association allowing residents to question candidates for Hayward City Council about city issues and concerns.

Eight out of the nine candidates attended and spoke to a group of about twenty concerned residents addressing each issue individually.

The eight that attended are contending for four seats, which include incumbents Barbara Halliday, Francisco Zermeño and Olden Hensen, alongside Greg Jones, Al Mendall, Peter Bufete, Ralph Farias and Fahim Kahn, who are seeking to fill Bill Quirk’s open seat.

The questions focused on six priorities current within City Council, including safety, cleanliness, a sustainable green community, organizational health, land use and fiscal stability.

Improving the economy was the night’s main topic, particularly in reference to the planning commission’s refusal to utilize Wal-Mart as a possible job-creating grocery store that would keep Hayward residents away from the neighboring Union City’s Wal-Mart.

“[Wal-Mart] doesn’t fit the zoning. That property is zoned not for a neighborhood commercial, which that grocery store is,” claimed Mendall. “It’s zoned for regional or sub-regional retail.”

Hensen and Zermeño followed in Mendall’s footsteps, voicing their various reasons for disregarding plans on the supermarket grocery store. Hensen mentioned that it would create undesirable jobs, while Zermeño suggested another replacement store that would be preferred.

Halliday was neutral about the issue, stating the city council was going to re-evaluate the subject in a few weeks, sympathizing with property owner Dan Temkin, who has been losing money.

Jones, Bufete and Kahn questioned the planning commission’s decision, citing that the denial of Wal-Mart could send out an anti-business message despite the possibility of it raising the level of economic activity in the area.

“Its money coming in that is not coming in already; we’ve heard a lot of businesses around there saying they want this,” stated Bufete.

Farias separated himself from the groups by attacking Mendall’s statement. He said that wether the zone was regional or sub-regional, the planning commission has the power to interpret the zoning rules.

“Not to point fingers, but the deciding vote of the planning commission was endorsed by the UFCW,” said Farias. “It was more of a political decision than a true definition of what regional or sub-regional was, and in a Hayward review meeting Mr. Mendall over here said that there was no true definition of regional or sub-regional.”

The slow-paced improvement on the infrastructure of Hayward’s roads seemed to be a reoccurring question as well by placing emphasis on ideas to enhance A Street and other county areas.
The three incumbents quickly answered the question by accounting it to missing funds and low revenue, indicating they needed more time to complete the construction.

Farias and Kahn pointed out the construction has been a problem for a while and the city needs to be held accountable for the unfinished project, with Kahn suggesting they allocate funds from the county to fix A Street.

Jones created an idea to annex the county areas in general, leaving the responsibility to the county and encouraging people to access Hayward.com to see when the city is planning to work on a specific street.

“There is a master plan to repair streets in the city of Hayward,” said Jones. “I’d actually proposed as a priority to City Council that we look at a long-term annexation plan along the north side of A Street.”

Mendall and Bufete explained through working with businesses, money would be generated to fix the problem. Mendall identified that as an attractive business incentive, the city could give half the sales business tax back for three years, or hand out temporary business permits, that could benefit the area.

Other issues centered on Hayward’s cleanliness, stretching from Caltrans’ leftover mess, airport cleanliness to even trivial front and backyard cleanliness. The gang injunction was mentioned and was agreed upon by all candidates.

Shahla Azimi was the only candidate absent from the panel, and hasn’t made an appearance to any of the forums.