Mayor and Councilmembers:

 

This is the weekly report for the week ending January 26^th, 2007.

 

1.         Meeting Notes

 

The special meeting of the City Council to discuss the “sludge pond” issue is scheduled for Tuesday, January 30^th, at 6:30 PM.  The next regular City Council meeting will be on Tuesday, February 6^th.

 

2.         Point Richmond Shores Design Charette

 

As a reminder, the second design charette meeting for the Point Richmond Shores project is tomorrow (Saturday), January 27^th, in the City Council Chambers at 10:00 AM.

 

3.         City of Richmond Receives Budget Award

 

The Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) has awarded its Distinguished Budget Presentation Award to the City of Richmond for the City’s 2006-07 budget document.  In order to receive the budget award, the City had to satisfy nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation.  These guidelines are designed to assess how well an entity’s budget serves as:

 

·        A policy document

·        A financial plan

·        An operations guide

·        A communications device

 

Budget documents must be rated “proficient” in all four categories to receive the award.

 

When a Distinguished Budget Presentation Award is granted to an entity, a Certificate of Recognition for Budget Presentation is also presented to the individual or department designated as being primarily responsible for its having achieved the award.  This certificate has been presented to the Richmond Finance Department, whose staff members worked very hard to upgrade the City’s budget presentation.

 

4.         Grants Received by the Employment and Training Department

 

RichmondWORKS learned this week that its Richmond BUILD proposal was selected by the State of California for funding in the amount of $600,000.  With this grant, the Richmond BUILD project will establish a pre-apprenticeship construction skills training program for Richmond residents.  The Richmond BUILD partnership includes Contra Costa Community College, West Contra Costa Adult Education, Contra Costa Building Trades, and a host of developers and construction companies doing work in the City of Richmond.  Assistance with this successful grant proposal was provided by the Glen Price Group.

 

RichmondWORKS also applied for and secured $55,000 from the State of California to increase services for foster care youth that are being “timed out” from the system once they turn 18 years old.  Approximately 500 foster care youth reside in West Contra Costa County and most of them live within the City of Richmond.  The funding will provide services for 15 youth that will include transitional housing, counseling, life skills development, training, and job placement.

 

5.         13-City Gang Task Force Meeting

 

As previously reported to you, the City of Richmond is participating in a grant-funded effort that consists of 13 California cities, networking to develop strategies to reduce gang violence.  These cities include San Jose, San Francisco, Salinas, Fresno, San Bernardino, Oakland, Oxnard, San Diego, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Stockton, Los Angeles, and Richmond.  The underlying goal of this 13-city conference is to convene a multidisciplinary policy team that will allow participants to develop, implement, strengthen, and improve short and long-term strategies to reduce gang violence.

 

The Richmond community was represented at the first meeting of the task force this past week by Chief Chris Magnus, DeVone Boggan, Taalia Hassan, Sandra Nathan, Lionel Chatman (County probation department), and Deputy Chief Medina.

 

Participants reported that the meeting was effective and positive.  Over the two day meeting, network member cities made presentations regarding current anti-gang efforts, discussed both successful and unsuccessful strategies, and shared other information concerning this issue.

 

We will keep you informed as this project moves forward.

 

6.         City Manager Washington Trip

 

As you know, I was out of the office Monday through Wednesday, January 22-24, attending meetings in Washington.  During the two full days that I was in DC, Dick Kochan and I had three separate meetings with program managers from HUD, had a very interesting meeting with a representative from the National Parks Foundation, and attended the keynote address by Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the meeting of the US Conference of Mayors.  The highlight of the visit (from my perspective) was a meeting with Congressman George Miller, who was kind enough to spend nearly 45 minutes out of his schedule to discuss issues and challenges in the City of Richmond.  My thanks to Leslie Knight for filling in as Acting City Manager during my absence.

 

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments about these or any other items of interest to you.

 

Have a great week!

  

Bill Lindsay

City Manager

City of Richmond

1401 Marina Way South

Richmond, CA 94804

 

Phone:  510-620-6512

Fax:      510-620-6542

e-mail:   bill_lindsay@ci.richmond.ca.us