Assembly Member Mary Hayashi Term Coming To an End for Pleasanton and Dublin

That is good news. Mary Hayashi will no longer be the elected assembly member representing Pleasanton and Dublin. The bad news is she is running for the District 2 supervisor seat in Alameda County.

Pleasanton and Dublin residents do not vote in District 2, Nate Miley is Pleasanton's supervisor in District 4. Pleasanton got Nate Miley from redistricting. Scott Haggerty is Dublin's elected supervisor in District 1.

Mary Hayashi claims her service in Sacramento has given her "a great opportunity to make a difference." Yet her votes often came late, after the fate of the billls have already been decided and thus made no difference

An analysis by the Associated Press shows Hayashi, D-Hayward, added her vote to a roll call 290 times during this year's legislative session, far more than any other Assembly member. She also changed one vote after the official roll call.

Those 291 votes represent 6 percent of the 5,012 vote changes or additions made in the Assembly overall. Critics say the practice allows lawmakers to mislead their constituents by changing the official record of how they acted on pieces of legislation. Hayashi's vote changes this year were from Jan. 17 through Aug. 31.

Hayashi pleaded no contest to misdemeanor grand theft, based on her October 2011 arrest for shoplifting $2,450 worth of clothing from Neiman Marcus in San Francisco. Hayashi is currently serving three years probation.

Hayashi's main opponent for Alameda County supervisor, Richard Valle, has failed to confront the assemblywoman about her shoplifting conviction. Valle has been reticent about confronting her in public about that conviction.

Now, it seems, Hayashi has seized the opportunity and appears to be in the driver's seat and could win the election, partly because of short term memory of the voters.

Hayashi has become the aggressor in the race at numerous public forums, while Valle calmly stares into the distance, instead of confronting Hayashi on her criminal conviction.

Valle touts his service to the community as one of the founders of Tri-CED, the largest nonprofit recycling companies in the state. Valle pledges to keep Hayward's St. Rose Hospital in operation and to continue his work with the poor.

The strong sense that Valle is letting Hayashi off the hook has been growing recently, as more supporters are urging him to talk openly about her shoplifting conviction and the fact she is currently on three years probation.

There is a genuine concern that if Hayashi wins the supervisory seat, she will seek revenge on all who opposed her over the past year. Following a forum this month, Hayashi went after Valle for his participation in a county program for the poor that was riddled with mismanagement and was later dissolved.

Hayashi also alluded to Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley's involvement in the program. Hayashi pointedly declared that when elected she would hold oversight meetings to probe the reasons for the program's demise.

Hayashi insinuated the investigation would focus on Miley, who publicly declared last May that Valle was the Board of Supervisor's best choice for defeating Hayashi in this election.

Hayashi contends that voters want someone with solutions and not candidates talking about the past. "Voters don't care about that", she said. I guess if Valle is not reminding voters of the past, no one will be thinking of her conviction.

There are two other candidates in this race for the supervisor seat. They are Union City Mayor Mark Green and Mark Turnquist, a recently retired Alameda County Sheriff's deputy.

The two candidates are taking votes away from the popular Valle. Mary Hayashi may win this election with as little as 35 percent of the vote. I would like for Green and Turnquist to withdraw and throw their support behind Valle.

With Mary Hayashi's criminal conviction and her dishonesty in misleading and  deceiving the voters that put her into office by way of her 291 late votes after official roll call that did not make a difference as she has declared.

Hayashi refused to resign office when her constituents demanded she do so and all the newspapers in her district called for it. It is a danger to all of us that she be elected to another office.