Could it be many of your so called constituents can't legally vote?

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Article Last Updated: 08/21/2006 02:44:44 AM PDT

City Council lacks Latin flavor
Hayward's big Hispanic population has had no representation since 1991
By Matt O'Brien and Martin Ricard, STAFF WRITERS



HAYWARD — Frustrated by the lack of Latino representation on the Hayward City Council, leaders of the city's largest ethnic community say it has been too long since a Latino has made it to the city's top political office.

An estimated 36 percent of Hayward's population is Hispanic or Latino, according to 2005 census data released last week. That population has nearly doubled since the last time Hayward had a Mexican-American councilman, in 1991.

"It's the inspiration, the public face that's really missing," said Francisco Zermeo, who ran for a council seat in 2000 and 2004 and lost both times, then applied for an appointed council seat this summer and was passed over.

The high cost of running a viable campaign, the difficulty of mobilizing the city's diverse Latino residents and the failure to groom candidates who can speak about politics to the entire community are all factors contributing to the failure of Latino candidates to gain political traction in Hayward, according to experts, entrenched city leaders and the candidates themselves.

The result is a city that now stands as one of the few in Northern California in which one of its largest ethnic groups does not have a voice in local government's most powerful body.

The disparity is one that politically active Latinos say theyare struggling to fix.

"Do we run Zermeo again?" Zermeo asked about himself, wondering if local Latinos would support the Chabot College instructor making another council bid. "Do we run two people? Five people? What's the best way to ensure Latino representation? It's not just that we want numbers, numbers, numbers. We feel we have something to offer."

Pent-up frustrations about City Hall's ethnic makeup escalated in July with the death of 83-year-old City Councilman Matt Jimenez and a protracted political battle over who should replace him. Jimenez, though his parents were immigrants from Spain, associated himself with the city's Latino community and was, for the past 15 years, the only council member who spoke Spanish.

The appointment


Mayor Mike Sweeney and the council majority in mid-July moved to appoint Jimenez's replacement rather than hold another election. They whittled the list of nominees down to three candidates, two of whom were bilingual and Latino: Zermeo, who also co-founded the Hayward Latino Business Roundtable and is on the Hayward Planning Commission; and Ohlone College counselor Evangelina Genera.

But the council ended up picking the third person, former Councilwoman Doris Rodriquez, a political ally to the council's progressive majority whose Spanish surname is from her former husband. Those who voted to appoint the 77-year-old retiree cited her vow to be a "caretaker" who would not run for office when her term expires in 2008.

Supporters of Zermeo and Genera left the July 27 appointment meeting upset, and some later said they felt betrayed or called it a social injustice. Genera's husband, one of Sweeney's campaign supporters just a few months ago, later warned the mayor in a published letter that his failure to appoint a "real Latina" would come back to haunt him.

Rodriquez, aware of the lingering sentiment and offended by critics who said she was using her Spanish last name for political advantage, said she could only encourage Latinos to organize aggressively for the 2008 election and try again.

"In the meantime, I'm going to keep this seat for two years," she said. "When you're on the council, you represent everyone in the city. You have to look at it as a whole. You can't look at it in parts."

The disparity


Several political observers argue it is problematic that Latinos have been trying to get elected to office in Hayward — and have been unable to do so.

"Hayward doesn't need caretakers, they need public servants," said Melissa Michelson, a professor at California State University, East Bay, who studies Latino politics. "It means that (Rodriquez) really doesn't have to care what voters think because she is not responsible for them. It's really the opposite of what an elected official is supposed to be about."

Others blame various obstacles they say Latinos must overcome to launch a successful campaign.

Mark Salinas, a longtime Latino activist in Hayward politics, said some of those barriers include the high cost of campaigns, and because of the city's growing immigrant population, an overarching stereotype according to which a Latino council member would be able to speak only to other Latinos.

Still others pointed out that not enough qualified people are running. Since the 1990s, Zermeo has been the only bilingual and Latino candidate running for the council. He lost the appointment, Sweeney and other insiders say, because the council majority was unimpressed by his past seven years on the planning commission, during which he rarely voted against or voiced skepticism about any proposals that came before him.

"It may have to do that not enough folks think I was good for the job," Zermeo said, adding, "On occasion, I'm seen as pro-development. No, I'm pro-growth."

The 'controlling vote'


Councilman Bill Ward, the first African American elected to the City Council and now its senior member, said "the controlling vote population in Hayward is still largely not people of color."

Ward said he has succeeded politically because he has a background as a professional urban planner — most of the council's work involves land-use decisions — and because he has been able to build bridges.

"I could never have been successful if I ran as the African-American candidate, as opposed to the candidate who happened to be African American," Ward said. "I see myself as someone who has a track record of working to represent everyone."

Ward, who had advocated for appointing Genera, said Hayward would have been better off if the council had opted to let voters decide on a new council member in the November general election.

But whether an election in the next few years is likely to bring a Latino council member is still unclear. Zermeo said many powerful Hayward incumbents, such as Jimenez, have been so unbeatable at election time that political hopefuls who care to win simply do not run. He said that is why he did not run in the June 2006 election.

Newark City Councilwoman Ana Apodaca, a budding politico elected to office in November 2005, gained her experience coming up in the ranks under the auspices of Charlie Santana, a legendary Latino politician from Hayward, and his successors (see related story above).

Apodaca said the main reason she won her at-large seat last year, in a city that is a little more than 30 percent Latino, was the support from a large Latino constituency. But she said a viable campaign also depends on how much money is raised. Most candidates, she said, build their campaign universe around likely contributors, and many ethnic communities get overlooked.

But "it's not like cities in the Bay Area don't elect Latinos," she added.

The ties that unite


Most of the political organizations that helped strengthen candidates like Santana in the 1960s are long gone.

But those who have joined Zermeo's business round table say it has successfully created an influential group of Latino business people who can network and make strides together on issues that matter to them. Zermeo has also pulled strings for liberal Latino political organizations that have formed in recent years because they felt excluded from the two Democratic Party organizations based in Hayward.

But without any local elected leader, the only mobilizing force that comes close to uniting the larger bilingual citizenry, particularly newer immigrants, is Spanish radio. About a week ago, within a day's notice, the local carrier for Los Angeles DJ Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo attracted a crowd of people to a parking lot in front of a Mexican boot store on A Street in north Hayward.

It was a fun promotional barbecue, not a political event, but radio assistant Horacio Muoz, 20, of Newark said Sotelo's humorous talk show can get people to come to pretty much anything.

"The main thing on the show is for every immigrant to progress," Muoz said. "He's a positive role model."

The radio personality helped organize demonstrators in Hayward and across the country during May's historic pro-immigration marches.

"Whenever people call and have problems, he gets them counseling," said Cindy Vargas, another local radio assistant. "When someone passes away, he does car washes."

Asked if any East Bay community figures have that kind of impact, Vargas and Muoz said they cannot think of anyone.

Hayward Councilman Bill Quirk said the best thing the council has been able to do is get a cross-section of the city appointed to the commissions that advise the council on different issues.

"I think that it behooves us to make sure we have representation of the Latino community on our commissions, and we've done a better job of that in the past few years," Quirk said. "It also behooves us to reach out to the community. Just sitting up there, we don't know, per se, so we have to reach out."

Hayward also has, in longtime City Manager Jesus Armas, a Mexican American whose day-to-day oversight of City Hall and hundreds of city employees makes him one of the most powerful public servants in the city.

Armas, who grew up in the largely Spanish-speaking Lincoln Heights region of Los Angeles, said he hears from Latino residents who appreciate his leadership role.

"Someone came up to me the other day and said, 'You know, it makes me proud to see there's someone of Hispanic background in a position of leadership,'" Armas said. "It happens from time to time. I sense it more from people of an older generation."

He added that he does not think the level of Latino representation in Hayward is unusual compared to other cities, nor does he believe the council should have a Latino member just "for the sake" of having one.

Salinas said Hayward is in dire need of a Latino representative who can make citizens feel that government is responsible and that they have a voice. But he noted that "this idea that we advocate Latinos just because they are Latinos is nonsense.

"But there's something intrinsically unique about a Latino sitting on City Council," he added. "Not only do we have community representation, but also it gives the future of Hayward — the younger Latinos — an idea that if somebody like Francisco Zermeo can do it, so can I. If somebody like Nina Genera can do it, so can I."

With the summer's appointment controversy over, he said, the focus now is getting someone elected in 2008.


Contact Matt O'Brien at (510) 293-2473. Contact Martin Ricard at (510) 293-2480.