Union City, California, United States

🇺🇸 Union City is a city in the San Francisco Bay Area in Alameda County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1959, combining the communities of Alvarado and Decoto, the city has a very diverse population. Alvarado is a California Historical Landmark. The city, along with the cities of Fremont and Newark, make up the Tri-City Area to the south. The city of Hayward surrounds the city to the north.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 19 square miles (49 km²), all land with no bay frontage. The Niles Cone aquifer, managed by the Alameda County Water District, supplies much of the water consumed by Union City.

Economy Union City is the location of the American Licorice Company's West Coast operations, having moved there in 1971 from San Francisco.

Union City is home to three major health care providers: a Kaiser Permanente facility, the Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center, and Washington Hospital's Nakamura Clinic.

Union City also has a large number of industrial and shipping companies, including R&S Manufacturing, RCD Concrete, Jatco, and EntirelyPets.

Local shopping Union Landing Shopping Center is a 100-acre (40 ha) shopping centre, adjacent to Interstate 880 in Union City and is one of the largest centres in the city and has about 70 stores. The mall was completed in 1999 after several years of debate on the land. The land was previously a drive-in movie park. One year later, a nearby Target shopping centre was built near Hayward/Union City border near Interstate 880 on Whipple Road.

Economy: Top employers According to Union City's June 2019 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city include: 1 New Haven Unified School District 1,196

2 Southern Wine & Spirits 600

3 Walmart 534

4 Masonic Home For Adults 498

5 Abaxis 400

6 Mizuho OSI 400

7 Sterling Foods 400

8 City of Union City 313

9 Emerald Packaging 245

10 American Licorice 239

Education New Haven Unified School District serves 11,756 students from the cities of Union City and Hayward (south). The district consists of seven (K-5) elementary schools, two (6-8) middle schools, one comprehensive high school (James Logan High School) with 3,400 students and one adult/K-12 independent study school. In December 2015, The New Haven Unified School District renamed Alvarado Middle School to Itliong-Vera Cruz Middle School in honor of Philip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong. The school district has also invested in going all solar at school sites to cut energy costs. They also have an arts centre and new track and field at James Logan High School.

Cornerstone International College, located at 725 Whipple Rd., is the first post-secondary institution established in Union City.

Purple Lotus Buddhist School was a K-12 school located in Union City until closure in 2016.

Union City lies within the Ohlone Community College District and Chabot-Las Positas Community College District.

The New Haven Unified School District had a strike about the salary of teachers, which lasted about 3 weeks in 2019. A 6hr negotiation took place between the district and the teachers. This was the first strike in the district's history, where nearly 600 teachers planned to strike.

Transport Several transit systems serve Union City, including AC Transit, the Dumbarton Express, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), and the city's own Union City Transit.

Union City Transit started in 1974 and runs nine bus lines throughout Union City and parts of Hayward.

The BART rail system came to Union City when the system opened in 1972. In 2007 the Union City BART station was rebuilt and developed into Union City Intermodal Transit Station. A second entrance is under construction as of 2019 and will be done in 2022 that will provide future connections to Multimodal trains and the 11th street side of Bart Station.

Union City is also served by a network of high-capacity streets, with four exits on Interstate 880 (Nimitz Freeway), express lanes will open on Interstate 880 Freeway by 2020. Highway 238 also serves the city (Mission Boulevard). Quarry Lakes Parkway formerly known as the East-West Connector, 3.0-mile roadway project that will connect Mission Boulevard and Paseo Padre Parkway and was approved by California Transportation Commission. The commission’s board unanimously voted to transfer 36 acres of Caltrans-owned land to Union City. The project is estimated to cost $288 million. The project is still years away from breaking ground and is the design phase. The road has been meet with a lot of protest and a lot of residents don’t believe it will address the bad traffic in the area.

Station district Union City has invested $100 million into an expansion of the downtown district, including development surrounding the existing BART station, which is itself under construction to link BART with passenger rail services: Capitol Corridor, Dumbarton Rail Corridor and Altamont Corridor Express (ACE). The city is planning East of Bart Station on 7th and 11 streets, 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m²) of office space and 1,700 units are in the planning stages and the city of Union city hope breaks ground in 2024. The city expects the project will add 5,000 jobs and revenue.

Government Union City runs a council–manager government. The Mayor and the City Council consists of five representatives on a part time basis.November 3, 2020, the city switched from citywide elections to four districts with each member required to live in their own district. The Mayor will still be elected at large and represent the whole community.As of December 2023 the following people were elected to office.Gary Singh District One,District Two Jaime Patiño,District Three Jeff Wang and lastly District Four Scott Sakakihara. The mayor and elected council members serve a 4-year term, with a full 3-term limit. Mayor Carol's seat will be up for election in November 2024 has it her last term as mayor since 2012 she also was first elected woman to hold the position. The COVID-19 crisis dealt a devastating blow to Union City's local economy. Union City will be faced with a $10.5 million annual deficit by Fiscal Year 2025/2026, or equivalent to approximately 15% of the city's annual operating budget. A ten-year financial forecast produced by an independent financial expert shows that the city can expect to deplete all of its $17 million general fund reserves by June 30, 2023. A utility users tax measure was passed in November 2020.

Union City Police Department The Police Department hosted a Justice & Equality Summit in the hopes of encouraging community conversation and with the goal building bridges of understanding, trust, and community. This first-of-its-kind event gave the community an opportunity to have a real talk discussion with Union City Police and the chance to ask key questions. The idea for a Summit first arose in October 2014 as a way to get community members together to talk about policing issues and to get to know each other better. On December 9, 2014, over 300 James Logan High students organized a peaceful Die In demonstration in front of the police department, a phenomenon that had been occurring in front of police departments around the United States, symbolizing the police community strain that was happening in Ferguson, Missouri. UCPD response was quite effective in making sure it was handled well, and they received considerable praise from the community. This summit was hosted by the New Haven Unified School District's superintendent, the city manager, Vice Mayor, a faith leader, youth leader, and Chief McAllister, the first Black Chief of the Union City Police Department.

Media Union City, Fremont, and Newark (collectively known as the Tri-Cities) had a daily newspaper called The Argus, which has ceased publication. Union City Patch also serves the community and is part of the Patch.com - a network community news websites that provide residents and visitors city news. The bi-weekly Tri-City Voice newspaper is the remaining print media in Union City.

Cultural landmarks The first sugar beet factory in the United States was located in Union City, called the California Beet Sugar Company. It is noted by a California Historical Lardmark #768, now found at Dyer and Ratekin.

The Bay Area Flight 93 Memorial is in Sugar Mill Landing Park. It was the first monument completed in the United States designed to honor the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, which was homeward bound for San Francisco, but was hijacked and crashed in rural Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

First Alameda County Courthouse Alameda County's first courthouse was located in the county seat Alvarado, starting on June 6, 1853. The original courthouse was a two-story wooden building that was originally a mercantile that included a post office. It was built by A.M. Church and Henry C. Smith. In 1865 the county seat was moved to San Leandro. With the widening of Union City Blvd., the original site has since been paved over. The site is listed on the California Historical Landmarks list.

Masonic Home at Union City Masonic Home at Union City, a senior living community for Masons and their wives or widows, has as its centerpiece a large brick administration building five stories high, visible from Mission Boulevard. The administration building was identified as a significant historic property in the 1974 Historic Resource Inventory of Washington Township. Interior features include a main staircase with stained glass windows, a parlor filled with antiques, and paintings of 14 U.S. presidents who were Masons. The original five-story brick building forming the centre or head of the current Administration Building was constructed in 1898 and was the Masonic Widows and Orphans Home overlooking the old town of Decoto. The north and south wings of the current Administration Building were added in 1914 and 1928, respectively. Ten more buildings have been built on this 305-acre (1.2 km²) campus, including Acacia Creek, a continuing care retirement community for all seniors, both Masons and non-Masons, completed in 2010. But all these buildings are hidden from the view from Mission Boulevard by this historic significant administration building.