The Fairview Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) met on May 6, 2026 (the transcript references May 5, but the official date is May 6). The meeting included updates from the California Highway Patrol, the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (HARD), and the Alameda County Administrator's Office on the upcoming budget. The council also approved minutes, adjusted the June meeting date, and heard public comments on transit service reductions and county governance.
Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our May 5th, Fairview Mac. Um, let's let's start off with a Pledge of Allegiance, please, Ms. Farmer. And can we get a roll call, please? Councilmember Farmer. Present. Councilmember Higgins. Councilmember Philbin, excused. Vice Chair Rhodes. Here. Chair Anglin. Here. We have a quorum. Thank you. We'll open it up for public comment. You have up to three minutes to speak on anything that's not on tonight's agenda. Do we have any speakers online? Yes. Diane, you're on the line. You have three minutes. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Yes. Okay, thank you so much. Yes, my name is Diane Castleberry, and I'm calling from calling. I'm sorry to join you online versus in person. I am here to just provide a public service announcement for AC Transit. It provides bus service in your area, although limited. We are announcing to everyone that on June 10th, our board will be meeting to provide a presentation on a contingency contingency service plan that may be initiated, depending on whether or not we have new funding that becomes available by the end of this calendar year. That plan will consider uh reductions that could be up to 16 more than 16 percent plus um up to 300 layoffs. Um and that's the equivalent, like if in terms of um 16.4 percent um reduction in service would be like 100 buses removed um from service. And so we are asking people to just kind of be aware that we are having this uh uh board meeting where we'll be presenting a draft plan um for consideration and seeking feedback. Additionally, um at our offices, we'll have an open house that afternoon um to provide with staff available to kind of walk through what that means for their service. And we also plan to be out in the community, and so in a couple of weeks, um you'll see um on our website and we'll be sending out like an e newsletter out um to let people know about um where we'll be and what those changes will look like, and then um the earliest that those changes would go into effect would be June of 2027. Um so there is still time, um, but we just wanted to let people know that on June 10th um this draft contingency plan will be presented to our board, and we will be seeking uh public comment, and we will also have an open house that afternoon um to you know have staff resources to provide people with information, and then of course they can also um reach us, but we'll send out an e-newsletter um in the next couple weeks to let people know what's going on. So thank you so much for your time. Kelly, you're on the line, you have three minutes. Yeah, well, we just heard from AC Transit. Maybe um we could hear from uh Bart. You know, BART has a train station, it's not in Fairview, but it's in Castor Valley, and uh it'd be nice if uh if instead of sending out the staff to uh to take the the you know to to bring the bad news, maybe they could send out their politicians to uh to tell you about uh what what shutting down the Castor Valley Bart station would mean for uh for fair for Fairview and for Castor Valley. Um it's funny how the politicians disappear when uh when there's bad news. Um in Fairview, um there's this uh, you know, the county administrator's office um has a lot uh a lot of stuff going on inside the county and um they went to all the Macs and said told you that you're gonna have action minutes instead of detailed minutes because video is is record being recorded of all these meetings. Um they forget that uh the microphones, especially in the in the uh, you know, that uh main uh planning commission uh meeting hall that uh the microphones cut out really often, and that means the video is pretty useless sometimes if you don't hear what anybody's saying uh as the microphone cuts out. Um and the planning commission when the uh the chair was stood up on uh his hind legs and barked back at the action minutes idea uh yesterday. Um he expressed disbelief, disagreement, and outright rejected the order that supposedly came from the county administrator. And he said, quote, we've been hearing this for 15 years, end quote. So uh he's not buying this at all. Um he also staff told him that uh staff that the county staff is reports to the big county boss, meaning the county administrator.