The city’s lawsuit against Alameda County claims a child foster center in Hayward has spiraled out of control.
The city of Hayward filed a searing lawsuit against Alameda County on Thursday, claiming the county allowed one of its foster centers to spiral out of control into a hotbed of child prostitution and rampant drug use after sheriff’s deputies were inexplicably removed from the facility.
“This current situation is untenable and must be addressed quickly,” wrote Mayor Mark Salinas, in a recent letter warning of the impending lawsuit. Instead, the county opted to hire security guards to ensure the safety of residents and staff at the Hayward building.The facility quickly became a widely-used recruitment center for pimps and traffickers seeking to recruit children — some of whom were as young as 10 years old, the lawsuit alleged, citing observations by the CEO of the security company hired to oversee the place.
In another instance, a security guard was found unresponsive and was hospitalized after coming into contact with a plastic bag containing fentanyl at the building, the lawsuit alleged. Also named in the lawsuit are WestCoast Children’s Clinic, a nonprofit that manages the center, as well as Wolf Investment Co., which owns the building.
In a letter penned June 14 that warned of an impending lawsuit, Hayward City Attorney Michael Lawson pilloried the county’s “deliberate indifference and failure to act or intervene” in the safety and welfare of children at the building, adding that the county seemed “disappointingly passive” toward conditions there.
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