Hayward is an exceptional place to live, work and play. From the peaks of the eastern hills to the city’s pristine shoreline, 163,000 people call Hayward home.
Hayward Mayor Mark Salinas provided Tri-City voice and interview in July. The mayor talked about the progress his administration has made and current projects of the Hayward City Council. Mayor Salinas exuded a sincere enthusiasm for his job.
I asked Mayor Salinas to name Hayward’s greatest strength. “One significant strength is our proximity in the East Bay to virtually every asset in the state. We have San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Silicon Valley, the Port of Oakland. We have transportation, housing, colleges and universities. It’s our proximity to all of these incredible assets that really make a city thrive, ” said the mayor.
Mr. Salinas was an educator for 20 years. On any given day, more than 62,000 students are educated in the City of Hayward. The mayor spoke about his vision for Hayward as a premier education city. The mayor coordinates a monthly meeting to bring this vision to life. Participants include the president of Cal State East Bay, the president of Chabot College, the superintendent of the [Hayward] school district and the president of the Hayward Chamber of Commerce.
“We’re home to every academic institution in the state. Every June we graduate hundreds if not thousands of entry level and professional level students. If you’re in biotech, food tech, you’re in factories, transporting, whatever the discipline is – we have a young, willing, capable, smart workforce,” said the mayor.
Hayward is a great place to raise a family. The mayor said, “Families look to move to Hayward so that they can educate their family from preschool to graduate school and then have a seamless pathway from school to career where they can have a job, where it enables them to sustain a family, where it enables them to grow families.”
Mark Salinas was elected Mayor of the City of Hayward in November 2022. He previously served three terms on the Hayward City Council. Mr. Salinas holds a bachelor’s degree in La Raza Studies and a master’s degree in Educational Administration and Public Policy Studies.
The mayor spoke highly of his fellow city council members. “The council is strong, competent. They know their role, they know their boundaries. But most importantly, I think what our council, at the end of the day, has in mind is the issues that impact Hayward. We’re thinking about how our budget is going to impact Hayward, how public safety impacts Hayward. How does housing impact families and kids in Hayward neighborhoods.”
The mayor said his top priority is safety. “If you look at every neighborhood survey, every citywide survey that has been done in Hayward over the last 5 to 10 years, crime and safety has always been the number one priority. People want safe neighborhoods. Families want to be able to go outside and enjoy their neighborhood without having to live in a neighborhood where crimes take place.”
Another priority of the mayor is economic development. “We have a great economic development team right now that is laser focused… deploying innovative and creative strategies to help small businesses,” said the mayor. “We’ve been able to take struggling businesses and help them in the social media space. We’re doing small business loans and grants. We’ve done virtually everything imaginable to bring small, innovative and different types of business or retail into our city.”
“It is my task to reopen our downtown and other retail corridors like Jackson, Harder, Tennyson, and A street. My goal is to make sure businesses in all of these different corridors have the resources they need to not only reopen but to at least get their businesses back up to a pre-pandemic position,” said Mayor Salinas.
The mayor explained the city’s purchase of the downtown B Street movie theater. “I am very happy and pleased that the city of Hayward was able to buy the movie theater and all of the retail spaces connected to the theater. We’re hiring a property manager to really rejuvenate, to ignite activity in that retail space. That is the largest retail footprint in downtown Hayward.”
The busy mayor finds time to serve on more than a dozen civic committees and intergovernmental agencies such as Hayward Youth Commission, Alameda County Transportation Committee and Hayward’s Homelessness-Housing Task Force.
The mayor seemed passionate about the city’s efforts to assist Hayward’s St. Rose Hospital. “St. Rose is an important public health safety net hospital. St. Rose needs to be open,” said the mayor.
The 55 year old St. Rose has struggled financially for the past several years. Mayor Salinas went to Sacramento this summer and talked with the Senate Budget Finance Committee, advocating for the state to forgive a $17 billion loan that it made to St. Rose Hospital.
The mayor was born and raised in Hayward. “Hayward for me in the next 15 to 20 years is families and businesses. It has been a real honor and privilege to serve this city.”
