I spent much of today at a Cherryland "charette" attended by a couple hundred residents of the unincorporated communities most conveniently known as the Eden Area, which in this case (but not all cases) includes Castro Valley.

The unincorporated areas are confusing enough already, as people who live there will tell you. But no sooner did I file my story when a copy editor called me up and said, "Hey, what is a charette? It's not in the dictionary."

And no, it is not in our dictionary. But it is in some others. The exercise had some of the atmosphere of the town meetings I've witnessed in New England. The big difference is that while a true town meeting turns the local citizenry into lawmakers, Cherryland's charette electorate made symbolic votes and now will have to hope the real lawmakers listen to their non-binding suggestions.

But anyway, there was a charette and lots of people voted for lots of different things and here, in a HayWord exclusive, is the Read the rest of this entry »

San Leandro educators began informational picketing this week to raise awareness of failed contract negotiations. San Lorenzo teachers are also working on a new working agreement, while Hayward Unified's contract with its teachers expire this summer.

With the governor proposing across-the-board cuts, including in education, school districts are preparing for big losses in revenue.

So how can financially strapped districts fairly compensate arguably its most important employees? Remember, California already ranks among the bottom in per-pupil spending when compared with the rest of the nation.

School officials may look to you for the answer. Districts are warming to the idea of placing a parcel tax before voters to help compensate teachers.

Are you willing to support such a cause by paying higher taxes? Why or why not?

If you caught "The Girl Next Door" on CBS's "48 HOURS" last weekend, about the Castro Valley Jane Doe case, a couple of pieces of the puzzle were missing.

Lone Tree Cemetery was identified as the place where Yesenia Nungaray Becerra, 16, was buried after her body was found on May 1, 2006, in the rear of a Castro Valley restaurant parking lot. Program producers only mentioned Castro Valley and Hayward in the program, and Lone Tree is in Fairview.

Also, the television show mentioned the Alameda County Sheriff's Department is looking for a suspect who lived in the same Hayward cottage as Yesenia. The small home actually is on Smalley Avenue in Cherryland.

Hi ho, bloggers! Got a cool holiday light display, or know someone else who does? Post the location on our new interactive holiday lights map. You can put anything on there, from local houses to big commercial or public displays.

The site also contains listings of holiday events around the Bay Area, and other fun holiday-related things. Have I used the word holiday enough yet?

Holiday. Holiday. There, that should do it.

Do you use a park to walk, run, bike or play? Have any good stories about parkland or jogging/biking experiences in Hayward, Castro Valley, San Lorenzo or San Leandro?

Let us know. And if you've got a particularly good story, e-mail it to one of us and maybe we can start a blog post of your own.

FYI: Tomorrow, at 8 p.m., the Hayward City Council is voting to update its decade-old Bicycle Master Plan and also voting to appropriate about $95,000 to create some new bike lanes, including one connecting downtown BART to the Amtrak station.

(Photo by Mike Lucia of Fernando Delgado, 14, at the Eden Greenway in Hayward)

It only mentions Hayward twice, and once incorrectly (no, the Coyote Hills are not here), but a 69-page report released today by the Golden Gate School of Law raises intriguing questions about flatlander access to parks in the East Bay.

Anyone ever try to take a bus to Garin Park?

In a press release and our story today, the report authors say one solution to the alleged inequity is making parks easier to get to via public transit.

Readers and public relations specialists sometimes blame journalists for dwelling on the negative. Journalists, in turn, sometimes blame the readers who comment on their Web sites for being even more negative than they could imagine.

So here begins the first ever HayWord Positivity Forum.

Tell us what you love about Hayward, San Leandro, Castro Valley and the unincorporated areas sometimes known (for good reason!) as the Eden Area. We know there's lots to love and we don't have a monopoly on telling you about it.

For starters, there's an open studios arts festival coming up next week, not to mention an electric car Ride-a-long Rally and a downtown street party on Thursday evening. And that's just the organized cheer.

Hayward's population rose by about 1 percent last year and hit 147,845 people by Jan. 1, according to new info released by the California Department of Finance. The statewide growth rate was 1.3 percent and the Alameda County rate was 1.1 percent.

San Leandro rose by .5 percent and the city population is now 81,466. Unincorporated areas of the county, which include Castro Valley and San Lorenzo, grew by .6 percent to a total of 139,880 people.

The population report can be read in spreadsheet form here.

Quake stories, anyone? We were eating pizza and the side of our parked car, quite coincidentally, was being smashed into by a hit-and-run truck driver at the time of the 4.2 earthquake that struck near Acalanes High School in Lafayette. According to USGS, most Castro Valleyans and San Leandrans felt it as "light," whereas folks in Hayward thought it was merely "weak." It could be a function of geography, different land types, or maybe Haywardites, what with their own fault and all, are just more jaded.

But jaded or not, some people might be interested in the free first aid tips and disaster preparedness lessons that will be provided by the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter later this month. The course is at 12:30 p.m. March 18 at the Eden United Church of Christ, 21455 Birch St., in Castro Valley. To pre-register, which is required, e-mail office@edenucc.com or call (510) 582-9533.

Hayward and San Leandro got the lowest grade available, an F-, in an audit examining the openness of California police departments. The Alameda County Sheriff's Department, which protects Castro Valley, San Lorenzo and places in between, also received an F- in the report published today.

The grades are the result of an investigation by a coalition of journalists, including the Review's own Martin Ricard, who visited police departments across California to find out if they were releasing public information when asked. Many were not.

In San Leandro, according to the report, an "officer who wouldn't give her name told the requester she wouldn't accept a written request unless she knew what the records would be used for." In Hayward, the requester was asked multiple times for identification and what the information would be used for. Similar problems arose at the California Highway Patrol branch office in Hayward.

The audit also gave departments a numerical ranking. Dixon, a small city in Solano County, did the best in the state with a score of 94; East Palo Alto was the worst in the Bay Area, with a score of 5. East Palo Alto Police Chief Ron Davis, who lives in Hayward, told a reporter he was dismayed by the score. Local scores were as follows: Alameda County Sheriff's Department (20), CHP Hayward (10), Hayward police (25), San Leandro police (20).

Want to read more about the audit? Check out how it was done, what the law says and how different departments scored.

Have you had positive or negative experiences trying to get public information from local government agencies? Please let us know.