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Hayward Councilmember Francisco Zermeno
serving as an impromptu translator at Tuesday
night’s council meeting.
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Translation: Hayward does not offer Spanish translation at its city council meetings
HAYWARD CITY COUNCIL |
Hayward’s diversity is boosted in part by the largest Latino population in the East Bay–by some estimates, including up to 40 percent of the city. Yet, Spanish-speaking residents upset with Hayward city government or even in the mood to praise them, will find it does not provide translation services at city council meetings.
The gap in services was highlighted during Tuesday night’s council meeting after more than dozen residents approached the lectern to speak during public comment. When it was communicated that several in the group only spoke Spanish, it was learned a translator was not available.
“We’re part of the community, too,” said Hayward resident Araceli Orozco. Mayor Barbara Halliday quickly responded, “Of course you are.”
Nevertheless, a translator not only in Spanish, but any other language is not readily available at every council meeting. On occasion, Spanish-speaking residents, especially addressing the council within a group, have provided translation on their own.
Hayward City Manager Kelly McAdoo said, “Usually we get a request in advance if someone needs the service.”
To alleviate the problem Tuesday night, Councilmember Francisco Zermeño volunteered to translate the concerns of several speakers voicing concern over rising rents, low wages and the city spike in homicides.
The optics of Zermeño, through his translations, voicing words of despair and displacement, appeared jarring. Especially, on other occasions, when it appeared as if Zermeño, like a puppet voicing a ventriloquists words, was casting aspersions against the city council.
Signaling out not only Zermeño, but other Latino American Hayward councilmembers, such as Mark Salinas and Elisa Marquez, one speaker castigated the trio. “You are Latino and you should support the Latino community.”
ebcitizen.com 
That's why I like East Bay Citizen, because our elected city officials need to be held accountable for their actions and inactions. They don't work for free, they are well paid and they get primo benefits, free excursions etc. When they suck, vote them out. The East Bay Times doesn't know enough about Hayward, but they endorse candidates for mayor, city council and the school board. For Pete's sake, they endorsed Halliday for mayor and Salinas for city council.That's solid proof that they don't care about us.
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Interpretation is very important to our community..we are in a free country where if you want to speak other languages it's totally ok..and yes school board meetings have the best interpretation I ever had before even than tv interpreters…
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If I hated Hayward I would be like the Bay Area News Group and ignore the city. But liking or hating a city is not the point. This site is all about keeping government and elected officials accountable.
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The LDS Church on Gading offers free classes for people to learn to speak English. The council should have voted to spend less than 90 million on the new library and put aside money so that English Language classes could be taught there for “free.” Our city leaders just like spending money and raising taxes. Also, they like ignoring the needs of non-English speaking residents as well as people who live in the flatlands, except for the movile home voters. People in the Hills call the shots, for now.
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@4:09
Maybe and just maybe Mr Tavarez has a soft spot for our beutiful city of hayward and hes trying to do his part as to wake uo the comunity. He is the only one that really exposed the thrut about our city, because the coucil alwals try to sell our city like a great place were everything is pink color. so for that A big thanks to Tavarez !!! people is waiking and taking action!!!
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Mr. Tavares of EBcitizen why do you dislike the Hayward City council so much? Why do you write stories like these so negative about Hayward?
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November 20, 2016 at 9:50 AM “Learn English.”
If the schools were open on Saturdays, many Latinos would take the classes and the other foreign speaking residents. The city should have adult classes and classes for children in English, Saturday mornings, free for the public, paid for by the city council.
Those courageous women, at the council meeting, are US citizens. I know some of them. All their children are American born.
Obviously the city is NOT meeting the needs of its residents. Translators and English classes are need and should be a priority. Hayward made this a Sanctuary city. The council should pay for English classes. Cut the well paid city workers’ wages to pay for English classes. The council got involved with the school board election. Now the council can take action for the residents needs.
English speaking Hayward residents, get on board with the rent control and raising the minimum wage. This effects you, too! Oakland is at $12.75. Other cities throughout the Bay Area are higher than Hayward. Petition the council and raise the minimum wage!
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@10:11 the “All American City” so-called contest is very similar to beauty contests for 3-year-old little girls where everybody wins as long as you buy the pictures, trophies, posters etc. The “All American City” is the biggest fraud around where cities use that as a front to cover up some serious problems the cities don't have the guts to fix. Given we have a gutless city council it is much better to have the city participate in a staged beauty contest. Yes, you do have to have token documents to present and other paraphernalia similar to having the 3-year-old little girls be in their best clothes and able to dance or sing. You show up at Denver to a staged presentation and you pay for everything. I would like to know how much Hayward and HPN spent to have Hayward participate in this staged beauty contest for Hayward.
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@9:50am Not sure if just because you speak Spanish better than English if that should keep you from telling the council how lousy they are on doing their job. When they criticize how terrible Francisco Zermeno, Elisa Marquez, and Mark Salinas they are on helping Latinos I think it is a very sincere complaint against very incompetent politicians. The rents are too high, the minimum wage is too low, and the crime rate is too high. I don't agree that you need to speak English fluently to get your incompetent council to get working instead of campaigning against a school board. Sarah Lamnin, Barbara Halliday, and Al Mendall are just as bad on not doing anything to fix Hayward. Sad day for Hayward city council. I agree with @1:53pm because I also never heard these people from the school board. Now comparing the school board against the city council I am embarrassed to see how much more eloquent and caring the school board is compared to the city council.
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“No city job pays less that $20 an hour” is one of the things Halliday blurted out to the Latinos who wanted to address their concerns about high rents, etc. Really? Does Halliday mean actual city worker jobs? Was she speaking of the “Live in Hayward, Work in Hayward” program that fizzled out? The city has so many take aways that they amount to pay cuts. Not only that, they constantly threaten layoffs. They were sued by 300 of their own employees for violating Labor Law. Unless the Mayor was speaking of all the fastfood restaurants and discount stores in Hayward paying $20 an hour. Not likely. Last week there was a Bay Area Mayor's Conference on attracting manufacturing jobs to the Bay Area. Did mayor Halliday attend? No. Fremont, Oakland, San Francisco, San Leandro and other cities with mayors who aren't sad little clowns showed up to improve their communities. But guess what, when it came to entering Hayward as an “All America City” the mayor, city manager, Neighborhood Promise, HUSD, Data Dobbs, a handful of students, chaperones and families went to Denver to compete for the title. Hayward actually won. Titles, awards, banners and merchandising to sell the city. How does that help residents? Putting your little awards in a glass display case for everyone to see does not lower rents, create good paying jobs, educate the kids, help the homeless or lower our taxes When Halliday ran for mayor she basically said that Hayward has “no potential” to be anything other than Hayward. No room to move up and lift up the residents income, yet she was elected mayor. That's what happens when people don't bother to vote. Its not always cream that rises to the top.
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Learn English!
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I was surprised when Mayor Halliday stated in a recent city council meeting that Spanish-speaking interpretation is not provided at city council meetings. You would think that would be a given, seeing that almost 41% of Hayward residents are Hispanic.
Maybe the city council should follow the lead of the Hayward school board, where a Spanish-speaking interpreter is provided at all school board meetings. It's called trying to meet the needs of the community you govern.
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Council likes to talk about raising the minimum wage, rent control, jobs for Hayward residents and reducing crime. Its mostly all talk! If it was raising taxes, they would be on it. They wanted that marijuana tax revenue and boom, there's an ordinance. We were less than 10 years into a 20 year tax and boom, it gets renewed by the public before it even sunsets. City Hall used the exact same colorful flyers and propaganda they used less than 10 years earlier to get the tax increase passed. Fran David even contributed money to get this tax increase passed by the Voters. Time to help the people of Hayward and keep your grubby hands out of their pockets city council! Hayward is the Shart of the Bay.
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I was told to read this story and dang that is quite a video that all in Hayward must see that goes with this:
http://hayward.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=315
The Latino parents begin speaking at 0:27:00 and Lisa Brunner and Luis Reynoso begin speaking at 1:12:00
It is just awful and insulting to watch the council get a whipping from the school board and the parents, and that council deserves it. We have very weak council. WOW that school board completely runs circles around the city council I had no clue that Lisa Brunner and Luis Reynoso were so eloquent and very strong. This is the first time I have ever heard them speak. I want the school board to take over the entire city and to recall the council.
Yes the council is an embarrassing bunch for not doing their job while they were out campaigning for that political school board pac. Perhaps they should pay back all monies from the filing period to the election (about 4 months) back to the tax payers. 250K a year plus benefits for the entire council and the school board only get $400 a month. WOW!!! Sarah Lamnin, Al Mendall, Francisco Zermeno, Mark Salinas, Elisa Marquez you are all nothing but a bunch of do-nothings for not bringing up Rent Control, Minimum Wage , and Reducing murders in Hayward. We need a recall on you people. I will contact Luis Reynoso and Lisa Brunner to get you guys out. Good story ebcitizen, I did not know how much the Latino community is not served by the council in language issues.
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City council loves to be praised and they love praising Stan Dobbs, the Police Chief, the Fire Chief, retied city manager Fran David and angry little former mayor Mike Sweeney. 12 homicides in Hayward and they are trying to say it was all gang related. They all were not gang related and bullets don't just strike gang members. Even if the murders were all gang related, shouldn't Zermeno, Lamnin, Marquez, Salinas, Mendall, Halliday and Peixoto still care? Guess not, because 6 of them did some heavy duty fundraising and campaigning to get their own Huey, Dewey and Louie elected to the school board. Council goes balls to the wall out of spite, but not for the residents they serve. Latino activists, if you need help with your cause call out to the community. I support your efforts. Now lets see if council gets off their butts and does something besides make lame excuses.
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Thank you to the Latino group and the HUSD trustees who spoke out at this meeting. You do have a voice. The people in Hayward need to get involved. I hope more join your group.
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Mayor Halliday and council live in the clouds. I bet they haven't even set foot near the apartments on Berry, Gading, Mannon, Jackson, etc. Mayor Mike looked upon South Hayward with contempt and disgust but at least he saw it as part of Hayward. This council doesn't even recognize it, nor its citizens who are being taxed to the hilt to pay for council's expensive foibles and follies. To totally disregard a large segment of Hayward's population is not only foolish since we have 3 city council members who espouse their own Hispanic/Latino self-awareness and identity. I'm not saying they should favor the Hispanic/Latino citizens of Hayward. Just that they and the other members of council should take EVERYONE in to account. They are obligated to provide representation to ALL Hayward residents. So council struck out helping the kid?. Now step up and dust yourselves off and help the entire family with affordable rents first! Help the working poor and low income residents as well as the homeless. I'm not re-electing any of these city council losers. Thank you Dr. Reynoso and Lisa Brunner for calling out our bumbling city council members. They collect their checks and that's it. The mayor can't help talking out of turn and interrupting the speakers. I hope to see more of the community standing strong and letting council know that they have needs that are not being addressed by our so called leaders.
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This election has woke up the community to the corruption that plagues us and I am so proud of this group. Aracely, amazing job! Thank you. I hope more join in because this is horrible. Families are being pushed to homelessness due to high rent increases and not having livable wage. Yet the mayor's response is they do have rent control and we do have programs and the city doesn't pay less than $20 an hour. Then why are families and the city suffering Mayor Halliday??? You would rather put your efforts Toward the epic failure of the PAC then reach out to the Hayward families where it counts. Shame on you!
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Wow it really takes guts to stand up to the city council good job Latino Community it was time for you to wake up
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