The race to become Fremont’s next mayor is getting contentious, with accusations flying between two of the top candidates.
Dr. Raj Salwan, a long-time veterinarian, landlord, and Fremont city councilmember, is having to spend part of his time on the campaign trail defending himself. While Salwan said he would rather be talking about the priorities he hopes to tackle as mayor, including public safety, homelessness, and affordable housing, it’s his work outside of city hall that is now drawing criticism from one of his political opponents, as well as some of Salwan’s own tenants and customers.
Among those concerns: lawsuits alleging chronic cockroach infestations and poor conditions at Salwan’s rental properties, state violations and fines at his Fremont veterinary hospital, and findings from the customer review site Yelp that someone tied to Salwan’s family-run animal hospital attempted to “mislead consumers” by transferring bad reviews to seemingly fake businesses in order to give the hospital a clean slate of reviews.
What makes politics very difficult now is this toxic politics of tearing the other side down.
Raj Salwan, speaking about the range of criticisms lodged against him by his political rival, Vinnie Bacon
“What makes politics very difficult now is this toxic politics of tearing the other side down, character assassinations, personal attacks, and not focusing on the issues that are facing Fremont residents,” said Salwan, responding to the broad range of criticism in an interview with NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit. “That harms governance – it prevents the good people from running.”
Salwan tells NBC Bay Area much of the criticism lodged against him was first drummed up online by his main political opponent, Vinnie Bacon. Salwan is now firing back at Bacon, describing the former Fremont city council member as a chronic no-show at certain committee and commission meetings, and points to fines the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) issued to Bacon for failing to submit timely financial statements relating to fundraising for one of his previous campaigns.
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“[Bacon is] very good in politics, but terrible in governance,” Salwan said. "My biggest concern is that my opponent often doesn't show up when it's time to do work.”
Bacon, a software engineer who served on the Fremont City Council between 2012 and 2020, lays out what he describes as Salwan’s “weaknesses” on his website “The Truth About Raj,” which also notes concerns that the successful real estate mogul could use the mayor’s office to enrich his real estate business in Fremont.
We need to bring out the truth about him and we need to tell voters this is who my opponent is.
Vinnie Bacon, speaking about his main opponent in the Fremont Mayor's Race, Raj Salwan
“We need to bring out the truth about him and we need to tell voters this is who my opponent is,” Bacon said.
Bacon, who has a master's degree in city planning, said he's committed to growing Fremont responsibly, without caving to developers.
"I have knowledge of what is good city planning," Bacon said. "I also think I really do listen to the people of Fremont. I've been very good about that."
Salwan, who grew up in Fremont, is a veterinarian at his family’s animal hospital and also owns dozens of buildings across the east Bay, containing hundreds of rental units.
“I’ve worked very hard my whole life,” Salwan said. “I have the time now; I have the capacity to do good work for my community.”
Lawsuits allege neglect and poor conditions at Salwan's rental properties
Salwan and his rental properties, however, have been the target of at least seven lawsuits since 2016, some of which accuse the prolific landlord of neglecting his apartment buildings and taking advantage of low-income renters, including Maria Vasquez.
Vasquez and her family, along with longtime neighbors from two other units in their Hayward apartment complex, sued Salwan last year. In the lawsuit, Vasquez and her longtime neighbors allege they endured water leaks, rodents, and a bed bug infestation that Vasquez said left bite marks all over her newborn daughter’s body.
For years, Vasquez said she was forced to store her pots and pans outside because cockroaches took root inside her kitchen cabinets. Vasquez and the other plaintiffs allege their complaints to building management often went ignored regarding their Salwan-owned rental units.
“If he is going to be a candidate, he should first fix what he has here, then look into future things,” said Vasquez, who didn’t know Salwan was running for mayor until asked about it by NBC Bay Area.
Vasquez said her cabinets were finally replaced earlier this year, but only after she filed her lawsuit.
“People having to move because of bed bugs and toss every piece of furniture that they own, it’s a pretty big deal,” said Ed Higginbotham, the attorney representing the Vasquez family and others in the building, including some of Maria’s family members.
"This is not a mom-and-pop operation where they're really struggling to pay bills or make repairs they cannot afford," he said. "This is an entity that owns a lot of units."
Most of the seven lawsuits appear to have been settled, but the details of those agreements aren’t public.
Salwan said his apartments aren’t luxury homes but play an important role in providing affordable housing to working families.
“All of our apartments are below market [rent],” Salwan said. “And we purposefully do that because we want to help the people. We want them to stay there for decades. So, our goal is always to try to keep people there, try to help them and try to address these issues.”
When asked about the allegations in the lawsuits, Salwan insisted his property management company promptly deals with tenant complaints and said the plaintiffs represent a tiny fraction of his total tenants.
“I don’t do the active day-to-day management of the properties,” Salwan said, but added “anybody that has an issue, the property management immediately addresses it.”
Salwan said his father, Dr. Dharam Salwan, is the person responsible for managing his properties. In response to Vasquez’s allegations, Salwan’s father provided NBC Bay Area a copy of a work order. While mostly illegible, he said the document shows Vasquez and her family refused certain pest control services last May, but did not provide copies of any other work orders detailing additional pest control services.
“While I have ample documentation to refute these claims, I don’t want to try this case in the media when we have ongoing litigation,” Dharam Salwan said in an email.
Vasquez denied ever refusing pest control services, and said she has always allowed building management into her home in hopes of solving her roach problem, but added those visits were ineffective and rare.
Tricity Veterinary Hospital cited by the California Veterinary Medical Board
Salwan’s rental properties aren’t the only family business caught in controversy.
He and his father are both part owners of the Tricity Veterinary Hospital in Fremont, where the city councilmember said he works six days a week.
In 2022, the California Veterinary Medical Board cited and fined the hospital for six separate violations, after inspectors documented ongoing problems such as “unsanitary” animal cages, an “unsanitary” surgical suite, and unclean medical equipment. When issuing its fines, the Board noted the violations had gone uncorrected for nearly four years.
“The issue you reference is a citation that was given to my father, who is the managing licensee,” Raj Salwan said. “The managing licensee is responsible for the upkeep of the premises.”
In an email to NBC Bay Area, Salwan’s father accepted responsibility for the violations as the hospital’s managing licensee, but he downplayed the severity of the violations noted by state investigators.
These matters don’t affect patient care or the quality of medicine we provide.
Dr. Dharam Salwan, speaking about the violations state investigators found at the Tricity Veterinary Hospital, where his son, Dr. Raj Salwan, works as one of the main veterinarians
“These matters don’t affect patient care or the quality of medicine we provide,” Dharam Salwan said in the email. “I did not agree with the conclusions reached by the inspector and felt the issues he wanted corrected were not adequately explained to us.”
When Raj Salwan was asked if he, too, should bear any blame for the violations as one of the hospital’s owners and primary veterinarians, he said, “I think it’s always a shared responsibility.”
“My role is to serve customers and provide exceptional patient care,” Salwan added.
Yelp says mayoral candidate attempted to "mislead customers" with "fake" websites
On the customer review site Yelp, however, Tricity Veterinary Hospital has a two-star rating, with hundreds of pet owners saying they haven’t received that level of care.
Some customers accused the Salwan’s animal hospital of trying to dodge those bad reviews, by changing the hospital’s name and address on Yelp to seemingly made up businesses, on at least two separate occasions. Those actions effectively attached the hospital’s negative comments to those "fake" animal hospitals instead of the Tricity Veterinary Hospital.
In response to an inquiry from NBC Bay Area, a Yelp spokesperson said its investigation into the claims found the changes were made by someone associated with Tricity Veterinary Hospital’s Yelp business account in an attempt to disassociate the negative reviews from their actual business. Yelp took action earlier this year, merging all of those businesses and reviews onto one page under the Tricity Veterinary Hospital name.
“Fortunately, these attempts to mislead customers were mitigated on Yelp by our User Operations team,” a Yelp spokesperson said in an email to NBC Bay Area. “Our moderators investigated and took action based on information from our engaged community of users, who help report businesses taking actions that may violate our terms of service.”
Salwan repeatedly denied he or anyone else at the hospital changed the name and address of their business on the company’s Yelp page.
I don’t really understand the internet or exactly how this works, but we didn’t make any changes.
Raj Salwan, speaking about allegations his veterinary hospital purposely tried "misleading consumers" by using fake yelp pages to wipe away negative comments from his clinic
“We never changed that,” Salwan said. “I don’t really understand the internet or exactly how this works, but we didn’t make any changes.”
Salwan said it all amounts to a distraction from the issues Fremont voters care about, and leveled his own criticisms at his political foe, calling Bacon a chronic no-show for two of the roughly half-dozen boards he served on during his eight years as a Fremont councilmember.
For one of those boards, the Stop Waste Management Authority, records show Bacon missed 82% of meetings while he served from February 2017 through January 2019.
“Every committee member has an alternate, and if you can’t make the meeting, you ask your alternate to go for you,” Bacon said, adding that those missed meetings came during the day, when he works full-time as a software engineer.
Meeting minutes, however, show Bacon’s alternate was still absent most of the time, leaving Fremont without representation for about 60% of those meetings.
When asked whether his poor attendance should be considered an indicator of dedication if elected mayor, Bacon emphatically disagreed.
“I will commit a lot of my time to being mayor,” Bacon said. “And I will just say as a city councilmember, I missed two meetings for the entire eight years that I was there.”
Bacon added that if elected, he would immediately adjust his tech job hours and likely leave the role altogether within a year of taking office.
Salwan, however, still questions Bacon’s reliability, pointing to four separate fines in 2020 from the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) for failing to file campaign fundraising disclosures on time. The filings were made anywhere from two to 35 days after the deadline, according to FPPC records.
“I really have no good excuse,” Bacon said. “It’s sloppy and I should have turned them in on time.”
As Bacon points out, however, state investigators “found no evidence” Bacon was attempting to “conceal” financial information and determined harm to the public was minimal.
Those living in Fremont will soon get the final say. The election is slated for Nov. 5, with early voting ballots expected to be mailed out next month.
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