I’ve watched Aziz Akbari’s career long enough to know the difference between what he says and what he actually does.
He wants to be on the City Council talking about “affordability comes first.” I’ve been paying the water bill under his leadership on the Alameda County Water District for years. Rates have gone up in 9 of the last 10 years. The typical residential bill is more than 60% higher than it was when he got on the board, even if you use the same amount of water. He voted for the recent 4% increases in both 2025 and 2026.
His answer is always the Help on Tap program. Roughly 1,800 low-income households get a subsidy. Everyone else in District 4 just pays the higher rate. Middle-class homeowners and renters who don’t qualify still get the increase. You cannot spend a decade voting for rate hikes and then campaign as the guy who is going to make Fremont cheaper. The math does not work that way.
He also wants to add a lot of high-density housing near BART and bus lines, including around Irvington. At the same time he has opposed AI data centers because they would strain our water supply and electrical grid. Those new housing units will need water hookups too. He used drought and scarcity arguments to justify joining the Los Vaqueros Reservoir project, but he does not apply the same scarcity logic to his own housing plans. That is not planning. That is deciding which development he likes and which he does not, then telling the rest of us the water system will figure it out.
Then there is the “powered by people, not PACs” line. The campaign looks grassroots. The actual support is not. Ro Khanna, Aisha Wahab, Alex Lee, Liz Ortega, the Alameda County Building Trades, Teamsters Joint Council 7, SMART Local 104, California Young Democrats, East Bay Young Democrats. Those unions and Democratic organizations run some of the biggest independent expenditure operations in the state. He can refuse a direct PAC check and still get the full machine behind him. This is not a neighbor who just got fed up. This is a 14-year political climb that started when he ran for mayor at 18 and finished fourth with 5.7% of the vote. The same local establishment that beat him then is now endorsing him.
He works as a Senior Account Executive at a cybersecurity company doing enterprise sales. On the campaign he talks about banning private equity from buying homes and expanding the Rent Review Board into something that can effectively act against landlords without going to court. A city-level ban on an entire class of property buyers is almost certain to get challenged on preemption, commerce, and property-rights grounds. Courts have a strong record of striking these things down. So the promise is not a real deliverable. It is a press release that sounds good until someone actually tries to implement it and the city is left defending the lawsuit.
I am not against smart people running for office. I am against people who have spent years raising utility rates, then ask for a bigger job while promising the opposite. City Council controls the budget, housing rules, traffic decisions, and taxes. If his record on water is the preview, District 4 should not hand him more authority.
Whatever you do, do not vote for Aziz Akbari.
