Special interests directed Hayward officials during meeting, councilmember admitted it in real time

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Hayward Councilmember Elisa Marquez wants to be the next Alameda County supervisor from District 2. As a prelude to the appointment process, she torched public ethics during a meeting last week.

CITY NEWS

HAYWARD

—NOT HOW GOV’T WORKS—It’s one of the most shockingly transparent examples of a special interest group literally dictating their demands to East Bay officials in real time.

—Furthering disbelief, the interaction that occurred at last week’s Hayward City Council meeting, included one councilmember openly admitting during the meeting that a member of the city’s Chamber of Commerce was directing them via email to halt discussion of a late-proposed amendment.

—The councilmember, Elisa Marquez, who is also a candidate for the upcoming Alameda County Board of Supervisors appointment, complied with the chamber member’s request, urged for the agenda item to be continued, and registered opposition to an amendment that would have eliminated a food-to-alcohol sales ratio for Hayward restaurants.

—”I want to apologize that I’m looking at my phone,” Marquez during the council meeting. “But this is how government works.” Marquez then implicated the entire council into what may be described under the Brown Act as a “serial meeting.”

“We are getting emails right now about this,” she said, referring to the proposed amendment. “There’s an ask to table this,” she continued. “This is sent from someone who is very involved with our chamber, is a local operator.”

—Other Hayward councilmembers received emails regarding the subject during the meeting, according to a source.

—It appears Hayward Councilmember Francisco Zermeño also got the email or, at least, got the message from Marquez’s comments.

—As you see in the clip, Zermeño was very supportive of the amendment early on, before he wanted nothing to do with it.

—Last week, Marquez reportedly filed an application for appointment to the open Alameda County Board of Supervisors seat in District 2. Blatant flouting of rules forbidding conversations with colleagues and the public during council meetings has further meaning.

—That’s because the Alameda County Board of Supervisors was slapped last year with a complaint regarding alleged repeated violations of the Brown Act. The board later complied.

—ANOTHER VIOLATION—We didn’t even get into the fact that Francisco Zermeno, an experienced Hayward councilmember who has served since the George W. Bush administration, acted as if rejecting an accepted friendly amendment without a vote of the council is legit. It’s not. (See the video above)

—The Hayward City Council needs to agendize a re-vote on the amendment and original motion. Where was Hayward’s city attorney last Tuesday?

COUNTY NEWS

DISTRICT 2 APPOINTMENT

—DEADLINE DAY—If you want a chance to be the next Alameda County supervisor in District 2, the deadline for applications is today at 5 p.m.

—The list of official applicants is expected to be released by the county clerk’s office sometime on Thursday. Some names have leaked, but insiders say there is no definitive front runner.

—In fact, high-level calculations for several candidates show they are struggling to piece together a strategy that nets them the requisite minimum of three votes for the appointment.

—The same scenario occurred in 2012 with the process that eventually led to the appointment of Richard Valle to the District 2 seat previously held by Nadia Lockyer. The final vote between Valle and former Newark Councilmember Ana Apodaca faced a pair of deadlocked 2-2 votes.

—The issue this time around is similar to a decade ago. A vast number of competing interests, including labor, the trades, police, fire, tenant and landlord advocates, and others, are struggling to find a consensus candidate.

—There’s also external pressure on the board to appoint a women to the seat. In addition, since District 2 has a large Latino demographic, in particular, Hayward, there is a preference among some advocates that the appointee be Latino.

—Toss all that in the hopper, mix it up, and it will be no surprise that a tasty recipe for an appointment alludes the remaining four county supervisors.

RECOUNT

—For more than a year, attorney Jason Bezis and the Alameda County Taxpayers Association have harangued the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

—The group has raised legitimate concerns about the board’s adherence to the Brown Act and shed light on the unscrupulous appointment process that led to Dave Brown replacing the late Supervisor Wilma Chan.

—In the past, the Board of Supervisors typically ignored such legal bluster, but they’ve appeared genuinely concerned about Bezis’ threats of litigation.

—Now Bezis is raising questions about the county’s likely to never occur recount of ranked choice voting races from last November. Last week, Bezis said the county registrar’s manual recount last December yielded three uncounted ballots, which should have raised serious concerns.

—Instead, the registrar certified the election in early December, only to later learn in an Oakland ranked choice voting school board race that the certified winner actually lost due to an incorrect setting in the county’s software.

—“The manual recount is the watchdog. Why didn’t the watchdog bark?” Bezis told the Board of Supervisors last week. “Why did three ballots missed during manual recount last December? It’s not a function of the algorithm setting being incorrect.”