Nate Miley is the incumbent for Alameda County Supervisor District 4, and is running for re-election in the June 2016 primary. We reached out to each candidate to ask them for their vision for the next four years.
Nate Miley
When I look forward to the next four years here in Castro Valley, I know we are on the cusp of many significant projects and changes. I expect to look forward to an enhanced downtown. We are streamlining government for businesses and crafting and implementing a new Downtown Specific Plan. We will have more thriving economic activity, street fairs, food trucks and festivities in a more walkable, accessible business and entertainment district. Twenty-first century infrastructure will be in place and expanding, including electric car charging stations, high-speed internet fiber, enhanced bicycle parking, and better public transit options for seniors and students.
Transportation circulation will be significantly improved with the Norbridge/Strobridge project allowing for Norbridge to be a two-way route alternative to CVB. Substantially more pedestrian and bike friendly infrastructure will be in place, particularly around schools and along our major corridors so that it is much safer and more convenient to get kids to school and local commuters and shoppers on bike and foot. We will have a new Transportation Oriented Development (TOD) plan underway in the area around the BART station. Our transportation improvements will not only improve quality of life in Castro Valley, but will go a long way towards meeting our Climate Action Plan targets.
In four years, we will have addressed vacancies and brought in high quality businesses that the community desires. The Daughtry building will have new restaurants, offices, and retail businesses with enhanced shared parking all the way to Wilbeam Ave. Our priority will be on bringing in quality restaurants and grocery stores. The old library building, which we have already replaced with a state-of-the-art new library, will be used for after school programs and/or affordable housing for working class people and seniors.
There will be a new public sector center partnering with the school district, HARD, CVSAN, and the county. Also, a mid-county warming center and homeless shelter will be on the way to help address the needs of the homeless.
What’s more, Castro Valley will enjoy greater civic engagement and democratic representation. The Eden Area Livibility Initiative, which has already promoted such civic organizations as Castro Valley Matters and BikeWalkCV, will continue to improve citizen participation in government. And my office will continue to expand opportunities for the community to get involved and steer their own destiny to a greater degree.
All this will be built on the strong outcomes we have already achieved here in Castro Valley. We have our Meds Coalition project that continues rolling out our safe medication disposal ordinance. Thanks to our victory at the United States Supreme Court last year we have a powerful collaboration of many agencies and organizations dedicated to keeping unwanted, unused and expired meds out of our environment, and out of the hands of those who might misuse them, especially children. Our CURB (CleanUp, Revitalize, Beautify) neighborhood cleanup project is expanding to work towards keeping Castro Valley looking its best. We are again moving forward on our Don’t Rush Safety campaign in cooperation with the Sheriff’s Department, CHP, and our three school districts to improve pick-up and drop-off safety around our schools. We will continue to push for cutting-edge collaboration on new initiatives to help Castro Valley become the place we all know it can be.
Even with all that we are working on today, my eye is always on the future. I am constantly searching for, and creating new opportunities for collaboration with the community, businesses, public sector agencies, and non-profits to find innovative ways to improve this town.
As you can see, we have a lot in the works for the next four years. Of course, it will not be easy to fulfill this wish list for Castro Valley. But I have confidence in my experience delivering service, my hard-working staff, and the civically engaged and energized people of Castro Valley to get the job done!
Related
Supervisor Miley,
Instead of just talking about what you plan on doing this time, but haven’t done for the past 15 years, you could do something actionable today, by actually talking to the UFWC local 5 and asking them to drop their frivolous environmental lawsuit which is preventing a new Sprouts from moving into to the dilapidated Rite-Aid space.
Your stated reasons for not doing this seemed ridiculous. A potential board of supervisors appeal which is likely to never happen, should not prevent you from actually doing your job and trying to help the community out of this mess through communication. I think the more likely reason is you do not want to upset the unions during election time and simply think the residents of CV aren’t as important.
Bryan
Bryan, you make false claims and ignorant assumptions.
Meetings with those involved with the Sprouts/RiteAid situation have been taking place.
You demonstrate your complete lack of understanding of the district by thinking that we haven’t accomplished a great deal in the last 15 years.
You disparage the blood, sweat and tears of those who give it their all everyday for the community they live in and love.
Matt: Bryan is a voter in the district, not a candidate. Seems like this is an opportunity to engage with him in a conversation, not telling him he demonstrates “a complete lack of understanding of the district by thinking that we haven’t accomplished a great deal in the last 15 years.”
Michael Kusiak is the leader of Castro Valley Matters, an organization dedicated to establising an elected MAC any cost. He conveniently sidestepped Parker’s false claims to criticize Matt Turner’s well-founded opinion.
Toni – CVM does support an elected MAC. As we’ve talked to the community, it’s clear that for most the idea of the MAC being elected is not controversial.
The comment above to which Matt responded is not by Bryan Parker.
Excellent prediction from Supervisor Miley, based on his record of intelligent governance, collaborative planning and fact-based possibilities. Parker’s single-issue attack is sadly predictable, given the tenor of his campaign, and indicative of his growing desperation not to lose this election as badly as he lost the Oakland mayoral race.
I have spent hundreds of hours at EALI, MAC, Unincorporated Services, Board of Supervisors, and other local meetings, and I have a question for you Nate Miley supporters….
Can you name five accomplishments that Supervisor Miley has successfully implemented that improved Castro Valley over the last 16 years?
I am supporting Bryan Parker because I believe that his private sector background will lead to concrete changes in a more innovative and urgent fashion. Castro Valley needs a leader who will advocate on our behalf, and Nate has had 16 years to do so with little to show for it.
Hi Peter,
I have served my county and community for many years. Supervisor Miley’s Castro Valley Office alone, I estimate receives between 900 to 1100 requests for help and information each year. Some issues can be solved quickly and some take months and years working with folks.
People in Castro Valley told Nate they wanted greater access to fresh fruits and vegetables. They wanted a farmers’ market. We have had a farmers Market for many years now.
The bigger things are obvious but the day to day issues are the majority of what goes on at the Castro Valley Office of Nate Miley. You are a beneficiary of those services.
Bob
Thanks for asking, Peter. Supervisor Miley’s accomplishment in Castro Valley include:
1. Securing funding in a very competitive process to open the state-of-the-art Castro Valley Library, resulting in an endorsement from Alameda County Office of Education Superintendent L. Karen Monroe.
2. Securing funding to upgrade and modernize downtown Castro Valley with the Castro Valley streetscape project, and to further upgrade Downtown Castro Valley when the shared parking project begins this August. Resulting are endorsement from the Alameda Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Building & Construction Trades Council of Alameda County and Carpenters Local 713.
3. Establishing the Walk and Roll to School Day in Castro Valley to promote safe routes to school, which evolved from a single day in 2001 to an entire Walk and Roll to School Week, and expanded throughout Alameda County. Resulting were endorsements from County Board of Education Trustees Ken Berrick, Aisha Knowles and Eileen McDonald.
4. Actively supporting Measure G to further improve the education of Castro Valley students, resulting in endorsements from Castro Valley Unified School Board Member John Barbieri, Chabot-Las Positas Community College District Trustees Hal Gin, Marshall Mitzman and Carlo Vecchiarelli; and Ohlone College Board of Trustee Teresa Cox.
5. Regularly co-sponsoring Castro Valley Earth Day Clean Up with the Castro Valley Sanitary District, actively working with dedicated volunteers to keep Castro Valley clean and beautiful from the Castro Valley Creek, to the Castro Valley BART Station and Castro Valley Boulevard.
6. Regularly vetting and appointing knowledgable citizens to Castro Valley’s MAC. Sponsoring a panel discussion to help Castro Valley residents understand the pros and cons of electing a MAC, and to allow citizens to voice opinions. Proposing an elected Castro Valley MAC to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.
7. Authoring the Safe Medical Disposal Ordinance in Alameda County which requires that pharmaceutical companies fund costs related to the disposal of expired or unwanted medications instead of having them leech into our waterways and ruining our environment.
8. Leading efforts to pass and reauthorize Measure A to ensure that all members in our community receive essential healthcare services and to keep our hospitals open. Resulting is an endorsement from the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
9. Continuiing to demonstrate commitment to Older Adults by promoting exercise groups and walk clubs, providing public transportation travel training, and establishing United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County.
By the way, Peter, I believe that supporting Parker because of his private sector background is just like supporting Ben Carter because of his medical background. You can’t cut through the political process with a scapel or suture political issues.
Toni, I think we have a different understanding of “successful accomplishments”. I am sorry that this response is so long, but you chose to list nine “accomplishments” for Castro Valley, and I will address each of these.
1) If memory serves, the $22 Million Castro Valley library received $14 million from the State of California Library bond that was approved in 2000. In order for the bond money to be awarded, Alameda County Redevelopment was required to contribute $7.5 Million, I also want to point out that the application for the library bond money was filed by Gail Steele, not Nate Miley. This new library was the result of many years of local effort that took place prior to Nate Miley becoming Supervisor. Much of the work was due to the extensive efforts of local citizens like the “Friends of the Castro Valley Library”, and the revenue from their booksale helped to make it happen. In fact, when library finally did open, Alameda County did not even include enough money to pay for the furniture and fixtures. An additional local fundraising effort was needed to pay for this $5 Million shortfall. In San Lorenzo, Supervisor Wilma Chan managed to pay for the entire new library and fixtures without forcing the San Lorenzo community to furnish an empty building, but Supervisor Miley had very little to do with the funding of our library.
2) I, and many Castro Valley citizens see the downtown streetscape project as an abject failure. It is only four blocks long, and the implementation of the improvements has been problematic. Marc Crawford still openly complains to this day that the County shortchanged Castro Valley on this project and never made us whole. The largest issue was that the crosswalks were supposed to include a distinctly different red paving surface to delineate them form the asphalt roadway. Alameda County approved (without any local input) the request to paint these crosswalks with red paint instead. This saved the contractor well over $200,000, and these savings were not transferred to another part of the project. More importantly, now our crosswalks will need to be painted every few years, and this will cost us more money. The lightpoles that were selected are not strong enough to support banners across the Boulevard, so we can no longer have promotional banners strung across the Boulevard for the Rodeo, Fall Festival, and local events. The Flowering pear trees all have fireblight, (as I predicted would happen over 2 years ago), and will need to be replaced. In addition to this, Alameda County Public Works has still not updated the plantings as promised during the multiple meetings I attended over the past few years (I wrote a blogpost about this in October of 2014 if you want to understand these issues better).
It is outrageous that the Streetscape project took over two years. Several businesses ended up having to close because patrons had no street parking, and most of Castro Valley went out of their way to avoid this downtown area when the streets were torn up.
The shared parking and Daughtrey’s building renovation has still not started after all these years. I fact, it has taken so long, that the latest State of California runoff requirements for parking lots means that the shared parking lot will lose more than 8 of the spaces that the Daughtrey and Knudsens lots currently have.
3) Supervisor Miley has done a great job promoting the “Safe Routes to School Program”, and I applaud him for these efforts. I do wish that he had spent some time ensuring that we have more sidewalks, and better striping, specifically near the schools. I keep hearing that there are limited resources for these projects, but Measure BB will generate over $8 billion in transportation funding for needed projects in the area. It is disappointing that Supervisor Miley did not advocate for ANY projects in downtown Castro Valley during the Measure BB process, and some of this money could have clearly helped with sidewalks and our downtown. This should have been the funding source to complete Castro Valley Boulevard renovation all the way to Lake Chabot, but Supervisor Miley neglected to do this.
4) I am glad that Supervisor Miley and Bryan Parker both support Measure G, but this is not an accomplishment.
5) Again, I applaud these efforts to promote Earth Day and the cleanups, but I don’t see this as an accomplishment.
6) We disagree here. The selection process and vetting of the recent MAC appointees was not handled well. The sitting MAC chair and vice chair should not have been involved in the selection process. The process was not transparent, and it should have been. I do believe that the current MAC is very strong and has qualified people, but the manner these people were appointed is one of the reasons so many of us are pushing for an elected MAC.
I suggest you listen to the audio recording of the Board of Supervisors meeting that discussed the elected MAC. If you listen to this meeting, you will find that Supervisor Miley did not push very hard for the right of Castro Valley citizens to decide if they want to elect their MAC. This is what we are pushing for, the right for THE PEOPLE OF CASTRO VALLEY TO DECIDE this issue.
7) Here is an actual accomplishment. I understand that Nate is very proud of his work on the Safe Medical Disposal Ordinance, and I have seen his flyers promoting this.
8) Just like your points #4 & #5, this is not an accomplishment.
9) I think that it is great to encourage older people to exercise and help them with transportation issues, but I do not see them as strong Castro Valley accomplishments.
Bottom line, I think that Nate should have accomplished more in Castro Valley, during his 16 years. He has been there for 16 years, and by now, he should be able to do more than advocate for Castro Valley, he should have accomplished many tangible results. Nate lost me at the second debate during his closing statement when he said that politics is the most noble profession a person can choose. If he believes that he is more noble than his constituents, this explains much of his recent behavior and strategy. I have heard him say that public works and county staff do not work at the same pace or in the same manner as those in the private sector. This willingness to accept the glacial pace of change as “status quo” should not be acceptable, and it would not be acceptable in the private sector. I truly believe that Bryan Parker has the background, will, sincerity, and skills to lead us forward. Supervisor Miley has had 16 years to make a difference in Castro Valley, and it is time to look to the future and choose Bryan Parker.
Superviso Miley’s record of economic development in CV over the past 15 years is abysmal. After Cassandra Hunter filed her frivolous and CEQA protest on behalf of the UFCW union, Supervisor Miley condoned it publicly, saying it’s not the union’s fault they’re holding a community hostage because CEQA is broken.
This might be bizarre behavior coming from someone who is supposed to represent the community, until you realize that on May 19, 2016, the UFCW gave the “Nate Miley for Supervisor 2016” campaign $10,000. This is the largest campaign contribution from any one group during this period and represents a sizable percentage of all of his contributions. (source: http://static.netfile.com/agency/coa/)
Its is very clear through his words, actions, and financial disclosures that Miley is representing the UFWC and not the citizens of CV.
Bryan
Weighing in on the Sprig’s issue here. Had planning performed a simple and competent traffic study and a competent analysis of prospective noise issues (hmm sounds a lot like an EIR) The threat of a lawsuit would be a lot more remote and the odds of the county prevailing in such a lawsuit would be greater. I suspect Sprigs was looking for a way out of this deal before this occurred. County planning handed them the means to do so. We in Fairview have been pressing these issues for a long time. Supervisor Miley through the EALI process is getting us a MAC in Fairview so the 15,000 people who live here will have a formal voice in matters affecting our community and we will be more difficult to ignore. I’d like to point out that at lease one supervisor questioned the wisdom of a MAC for Fairview citing budget concerns. Said supervisor has no problem funding a MAC for Sunol a community of 600 people. Supervisor Miley anticipates no problem funding a similar MAC for Fairview.
In defense of Supervisor Miley, his staff is also working to change policy in the county Planning Department to ensure all all West County BZA hearings are held in the evenings for the convenience of the working people of the county rather than afternoon hearings for the convenience of the staff. We asked and we are getting action..
btw could we as a community please refrain from trying to marginalize our neighbors and their opinions when they differ from ours. I know and respect a lot of people in the community whose opinions I disagree with. I enjoy engaging in debate of the issues and collaboratively finding answers. This is one reason I remain engaged in the EALI governance process. At times I fretted we had lost all traction and would get nowhere. But we are getting there. Progress in Fairview. Also progress in Castro Valley. I thought Supervisor Miley endorsed letting the voters of Castro Valley decide whether or not they wanted an elected MAC. The county counsel also made a finding that it was legally possible to create an elected MAC. I hope such an organization becomes a reality for my neighbors in Castro Valley, but I leave the choice up to them. .
If you do not know what Nate Miley has done all of his career you have not been paying attention. Parker had to answer in the manner that he did. He does not have much vision other than general statements about any growing, small community. He has to sell himself because most CV voters do not know a darn thing about him. So he put out a short, personal Resume, rather than any thoughtful, specific, meaningful plan about CV’s future in the next four years. Parker is a carpetbagger who moved to District 4 in order to run for this seat on the Board. He ran for Oakland’s Mayoral race and lost miserably. He had no vision for the city then. Most residents know he is just looking for power, rather than doing the hard work of community organizing, policy research, tough decision making, balancing competing needs, and constituent services. Parker needs to stay in the business community…he needs to stay in his lane!!
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors Unincorporated Services Committee meets on Wednesday, April 27 at 6:00 pm to hear from the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) about a proposed fiscal analysis of the feasibility of incorporating Castro Valley and the other Alameda County unincorporated communities.
Supervisor Nate Miley has nominated current Castro Valley Municipal Council (MAC) Chair Marc Crawford to serve on the Alameda County Planning Commission, according to the agenda posted for Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. Crawford’s resignation from the MAC is also included on the agenda. The Planning Commission is made up …
