Here’s some news from the Hayward Area Historical Society. Each year, they honor local residents, organizations and businesses that are history minded, and for 2011 they’re seeking the public’s help in coming up with some candidates. They’d like to hear from you by the end of the mo nth.

Click on the link at left to cue the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

The Daily Review received one in 2006, a few years before I landed at the paper. I took a photo of the black obelisk award, attempting for some kind of dramatic perspective.

Submissions can be made by mail:

ATTN: History Award Nominees

Hayward Area Historical Society

22392 Foothill Blvd.

Hayward, CA 94541-2710

By phone: (510) 581-0223 ask for Alison

By email: alison@haywardareahistory.org

Find press release after the jump, but feel free to also bounce some ideas around in the HayWord comments, too, it could be fun!  Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: They found a spot. Latest release from family:

Hayward, CA (June 14, 2011) – Almost three weeks into missing student Michelle Le’s disappearance, her family is calling on community supporters and volunteers to help conduct volunteer search parties this upcoming Friday, Saturday and Sunday (June 17-19) from 8am to 5pm. Our family’s goal is to reach out to get public help and support to finally bring Michelle home.

Our family is preparing to make a public statement on Thursday afternoon, June 16, 2011, regarding the search parties. Future details will be easily accessible on Facebook, as well as www.michellelemissing.com. 

KlaasKids Foundation Search Director Brad Dennis will be collaborating with professional and experienced search and rescue parties to adequately train and prepare volunteers. Details of the search will be provided to the volunteer search parties each morning at the command center.

Volunteers are required to be 18 years or older, must have a valid government ID, and must wear appropriate clothing (long-sleeved shirt, pants, closed-toed shoes). If volunteers do not meet these requirements, or choose to opt out of search parties but are still wanting to help, they are welcome to assist in the command center.

The command center is located at 25350 Cypress Ave, Hayward, CA.

The family of missing nursing student Michelle Le is hoping to find a business or organization that can offer up a space on the cheap for use as a staging site for search parties this weekend. They are working with Marc Klaas’ foundation, and have some experts coming in to help organize and conduct the searches, which are being done in conjunction with Hayward police. They’re hoping to have a place lined up ASAP, like today. If you want to help, contact the family through their website. Message from the family:

Hi everyone,
We’re planning either search parties or more flyer distribution days. We’re thinking Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We’re in contact with people trained in search and rescue so we’re going to do it big and its going to be organized. So if if you could please free up one or multiple days out of your weekend, that would be amazing.
 
We are in the process of planning a few search parties very soon and would like to ask the community for help in finding a staging area. The staging area is needed for search personnel to gather and organize the search. We would like the the staging area to be in or around Hayward/Union city and can be something like a community center, church, etc; somewhere large enough for a large group to meet. Preferably, the staging area should be indoors, with a parking lot for search personnel, and electricity for computers/printers.
 
We would like to ask for a place that can be donated for us to use for a couple days or at a very cheap rate. If anyone has any suggestions or offers, please let us know!
 
 
Thank you so much,
Michelle’s Family
www.michellelemissing.com

It’s oral and written history time over at the Hayward Area Historical Society, where they want to hear your fondest memories of Hayward, Cherryland, Castro Valley, San Lorenzo, Mt. Eden, Ashland, Fairview or old Russell City. They’re putting together an exhibit for the new museum space, which is under construction in the former Kumbala building at Foothill and Russell in downtown Hayward. The exhibit, scheduled to open in the fall, will feature memories of residents tied to the Hayward area, both of the recorded and written variety.

We were just talking about good ideas for the Hayward mural, here’s another chance to share some of your treasured or poignant moments. Deadline is April 30.

Read some examples, find out how to submit after the jump. Bonus: Historical photos, courtesy HAHS! Read the rest of this entry »

I figured I’d put this in its own post because I have the press release info pasted after the jump. I’m already committed to another Thursday evening meeting, but Review will be staffing this … The East Bay Greenway path sounds interesting: Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some links to look at… like I mentioned in a recent comment, I’m off this week but I wanted to open up a new post for election commenting.

HUSD 2-year seat. Here’s our story.

Here’s the smartvoter information page on candidates. Candidate websites: Jesus Armas, Lawrence Fitzpatrick, Annette Walker.

HUSD 4 year seat. Here’s our story.

Here’s the smartvoter information page. Candidate websites: Audie Bock, Lisa Brunner, Sue Lafferty, William McGee, Sheila Sims.

We also had stories on the Eden Township Healthcare District race, Hayward Area Recreation and Park District, San Leandro school board, San Leandro mayor, San Leandro City Council, San Leandro ballot measures, more on San Leandro’s Measure Z, San Lorenzo school board, Fairview Fire  Protection District, Castro Valley Sanitary District, and last but not least, the District 2 supervisor’s race.

Here’s the smartvoter Alameda County page, where you can find more information on many of those races.

The city of Hayward website has a page with links to videos of forums between the supervisors and Hayward school board candidates, but it doesn’t seem to be working for me. Might be my computer.

Catch you all next week!

Good news! We have some additional hands around here these days: Chris Metinko, who was covering Alameda County issues for the Oakland Tribune, joined us to take over the unincorporated areas beat.

That includes Castro Valley, San Lorenzo, Fairview, Ashland and Cherryland. Like the rest of us, he’ll tackle all aspects of the areas, including schools, crime and planning/land use/neighborhood issues. In addition, he’ll be taking on stories out of Cal State East Bay and Chabot College.

Chris is a very welcome addition. If you have stories out of our neck of unincorporated AlCo, let him know. He’s at 510-293-2479 or cmetinko@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Longtime Daily Review reporter Karen Holzmeister (on the left, with Hayward Area Historical Society Vice President Gay Ostarello), who retired from the paper last summer, was one of the honorees at the HAHS awards dinner last week.

Karen was an institution in the newsroom, someone whose mind-vault contained a wealth of information about southern Alameda County that can’t be found in any google search. She remains sorely missed — not just by Review staff but by community members as well. Then again, she’s missed particularly by Review staff, who were treated to a delicious sherry cake when she was in the neighborhood and stopped by earlier this week.

Karen’s been busy in her retirement, having done some traveling including a trip to the Middle East.

Here’s an item in Carol Thornberry’s column about another recent honor Karen received.

And here’s the HAHS press release on their event, which included some other local notables: Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE 2/25: Survey has been updated so that it’s no longer confusing.

The Hayward Unified School District set up a special Web page that has a load of information regarding upcoming budget cuts. It has feedback from the community meetings held in recent months, and links to information about budget timeline, who is on the Budget Advisory Committee, statements from top HUSD officials and a feedback form, where you can rank priorities for cuts.

In addition for a chance to weigh in, it gives a good idea about how much can be saved by doing what. The format is a little confusing, however. From the survey:

Respond to the following questions by ranking each one on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being most important and 5 being least important.

Q4: Reduce or eliminate staff development for teachers (currently 3 days). Saves $400,000.

So what this means is, you’d rank it 1 if you consider it “most important.” That doesn’t mean you think staff development for teachers is a most important priority, but rather that you think it’s most important for the district to cut said development.

To see other savings, read on: Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s an interesting item , from the Inside Bay Area political blog. To those who need more incentive to click, the gist of it is that Nadia Lockyer has a sizable head start in money raised for the upcoming Alameda County District 2 supervisor race. Hayward Councilman Kevin Dowling has considerably less cash available, but he’s maintaining that most of his donations come from within the district, while nearly all of Lockyer’s war chest comes from outside the area.

The National Weather Service issued an urban and small stream flood advisory for the Hayward area, meaning that nuisance flooding could occur. Not nearly as extreme as a flash flood watch. Regardless, we went down to take a look at San Lorenzo Creek in a number of spots and found it flowing rather rapidly.

Here it is near Foothill Boulevard and City Center Drive.

Here it is at the Grove Street Bridge.

Here it is behind the Meek Mansion.

Want to know how your surrounding area would fare in a 100-year-flood? Here’s a FEMA site where you can punch in your address and get an overview.

And here’s a Daily Review from the mid-1950s, before the San Lorenzo Creek was calmed by dams and culverts.

Let us know if you are aware of any particularly flood prone areas in the greater Hayward area that we should be keeping an eye on.