On Tuesday, Castro Valley Matters formally asked the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to help create an elected Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC).

In a letter submitted to the Board of Supervisors, CVM’s Board of Directors asked that the Board of Supervisors “either pass a resolution changing the Castro Valley MAC to an elected body or place a referendum on the June 2016 ballot so county voters within the Castro Valley General Plan Area can decide if the Castro Valley MAC should be elected by its constituents.

We ask that you place this on the Agenda of a Board of Supervisors meeting in the very near future so that the people of Castro Valley may start a process of asserting greater control over their civic affairs.

Castro Valley Matters asks for your support for an elected MAC for Castro Valley. You can show your support by:

• Signing this petition in support of elected MACs in Alameda County.
• Liking, following, and sharing posts on the Castro Valley Matters and Elect Your MAC Facebook pages.
• Contacting each member of the Board of Supervisors to let them know you support an elected MAC. Castro Valley’s Supervisor is Nate Miley.
• Attend a future Board of Supervisors meeting when the issue of an elected MAC will be discussed.

Whether the MAC should be elected was the issue that sparked the creation of Castro Valley Matters.

• An “Elect My Castro Valley MAC” Facebook page was created in August 2012 to advocate for an elected MAC, and the issue was first discussed by the MAC in October 2012.
• Throughout 2013, the group of Castro Valley residents who would go on to create Castro Valley Matters participated in the Eden Area Livability Initiative, sponsored by Supervisors Nate Miley and Wilma Chan, and advocated for governance reform, including an elected MAC.
• Castro Valley Matters informally organized in December 2013, incorporated in May 2015, and recently received non-profit status from the IRS.

Castro Valley Matters has blogged extensively about MACs and local governance solutions for unincorporated communities. In October 2014, Castro Valley Matters Vice President Michael Baldwin, presented an analysis of MAC election costs in a blog post titled “An Elected MAC: The Affordable Truth.” Baldwin wrote:

Castro Valley could elect its Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) at a fraction of the cost asserted by Alameda County officials at recent Eden Area Livability Initiative (EALI) Governance Working Group meetings. Based on research of elections within Alameda County and throughout the State of California coupled with  publicly available information, something is not adding up in how Alameda County has been estimating the cost of an elected Castro Valley MAC, by a lot.

Read Castro Valley Matters letter to the Board of Supervisors here.

Sign the petition in support of elected MACs for Alameda County here.