The most comprehensive profiles available of City Council candidates are those prepared by Richmond Confidential. Each Richmond Confidential reporter was assigned to a specific candidate. My profile by Stephen Hobbs is copied below, and others are available as follows:
Robert Rogers also published thumbnails in the Contra Costa Times.
I have to say that the reporters did a good job in making each candidate interesting and bringing out the best in them. Unfortunately, what nobody has done yet is to make a critical and objective comparison of the candidates. Here are some points worth considering:
- Three of the candidates are backed massively by Chevron with well over a million dollars invested in their success. All claim to be independent, but it makes you wonder… Bates, Booze and Roberson are also an admitted threesome. Do we need more of that?
- Two of the candidates are backed by the RPA, reviled by Chevron, the Chamber of Commerce and other establishment power centers. They scare the hell out of the establishment because they really are independent of special interest influence. The RPA has been characterized as frivolous, and I have to agree that sometimes it is. However, the City Council majority that includes RPA members has completed an astonishing amount of substantive business that has moved Richmond forward in a big way like no City Council has in years. LBNL and the General Plan 2030 are prime examples.
- Most of the candidates have big plans to fix Richmond, but does Richmond really need to change course? Maybe we are actually doing something right for a change. We have a great city manager and management team. Crime continues to plummet. Homicides are on track to nearly a 50% reduction this year. Unemployment continues to drop, and job creation is up. Streets, while still needing more funding, are in the best condition for decades. The City’s reputation is probably at an all time high.
City Council Election 2012: Tom Butt
“I think I am really unique because my record shows that you don’t have to pit environmental issues and quality of life issues against issues involving business and industry,” Butt said. (Photo by: Jason Jaacks)
By Stephen Hobbs
Posted 2 hours ago
In March 1970, Tom Butt, fresh out of serving in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Vietnam, chose to be discharged there. He mainly wanted to visit Angkor Wat, an architectural wonder in nearby Cambodia. Butt then continued a long “odyssey” back to the United States through Southeast Asia, across the Trans-Siberian Railway in the former Soviet Union, and through Europe.
“The people you meet and the people you travel with are some of the things you remember the best,” Butt said. “It was just one of those things you do when you are young.”
His trip to Angkor Wat, and subsequent trip home, were also emblematic of two of his passions: architecture and nature. It’s almost 8,000 miles from Richmond City Hall to Angkor, Cambodia, but Butt says there’s more connection than you’d think – and that his ability to merge an interest in the human-built world with an appreciation for the natural makes him the most qualified candidate in this year’s City Council field.
“I think I am really unique because my record shows that you don’t have to pit environmental issues and quality of life issues against issues involving business and industry,” Butt said. “They are not inherently at odds and there is nobody on the council and no candidate that really sits in the position I sit in.”
Butt was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1944. When he was less than a year old, he and his family moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where his family put down roots. His father was an Arkansas Chancery and Probate judge for 50 years and his mother was a librarian in the Fayetteville Public Library.
Butt’s love of architecture and nature was evident at an early age; he worked part time in architectural offices when he was in high school. He stayed in Arkansas to complete his undergraduate degree, graduating from the University of Arkansas with a bachelor of arts degree and a bachelor of architecture in 1967.
While at the university, Butt spent a summer with the U.S. Forest Service, then four more working as a student trainee architect for the National Park Service.
For Butt, working in the National Park Service was “the best job I have ever had in my life,” he said. “I got to spend one summer in San Francisco, two summers in Yellowstone and one summer in Hawaii.”
In 1971, Butt was married to his current wife Shirley and by 1973 he completed a master’s degree in architecture and urban design at UCLA.
After graduating from UCLA, Tom and Shirley moved to Richmond for its San Francisco Bay shoreline access at a lower cost than other Bay Area cities. That same year he also founded Interactive Resources, an architectural and engineering firm located in Point Richmond that he still serves as the president of to this day.
Butt also became active in the community. He was inspired by a group of women called the “little old ladies in tennis shoes,” who were community activists exhibiting “hardcore volunteerism” in the city, specifically their work with expanding public access to the shoreline in the city.
One of those women in particular, Lucretia Edwards, led him to become active in the Richmond community. Over the next 20 years he served a variety of roles, such as president of the Richmond Rotary Club and the Point Richmond Neighborhood Council, and participated in many efforts to restore Richmond’s shoreline.
His two decades of unofficial service left Butt at a crossroads. He decided that to have a voice in the future of the city, he needed to have a vote in the City Council. Butt felt connected with people on the council, and he felt they respected him for his expertise. But he then had a “rude awakening.”
“One day I woke up and I realized that none of them gave a damn,” Butt said. “They weren’t listening to me. They were listening to the people who were buying them and the people who were providing big money for their campaigns.”
So Butt ran for his own seat, and after losing in 1993, was elected in 1995. He’s been a member of the council ever since.
In those first years, Butt described the dynamic with the other councilmembers as “me against the world.”
Now his feelings are much different. Seventeen years after he was first elected to office, the 68-year-old leans back comfortably in his black leather chair in the Interactive Resources conference room.
“The last couple of years have been particularly good,” Butt said. “I have had a supportive majority on the City Council that has supported almost if not everything that is important to me.”
As a current member of the council, and one of two incumbents running for re-election on Nov. 6, Butt has the advantage of already being identified by Richmond voters. When he first campaigned for election, Butt was much more active in walking precincts and using phone banks to reach potential voters.
He still has campaign mailers that he sends out to Richmond voters, but now he also uses his e-forum as a way to interact with his constituents. Butt regularly sends out emails about issues, articles and events that are important to him and he feels will interest his readers, and is able to increase his exposure to more Richmond residents. “That communication mechanism puts me in touch with thousands of people,” Butt said.
In one of his most recent e-forums, Butt laid out his opinions on state and local measures, including his support of Measure N.
Although he is not a member of the Richmond Progressive Alliance — “I have never been asked,” he says – Butt said he also appreciates not being strictly identified with one organization.
“I like to be independent,” he said. “I don’t want to be labeled with a group.”
But Butt agreed that he is generally “on the same wavelength” on a lot of issues with the RPA.
If re-elected, Butt hopes to continue the meshing of business and environmental issues for the next four years. It’s what he’s been interested in for more than forty years, and whether it’s a 12th-century Cambodian temple in the jungle or a 21st century oil refinery on the edge of the Bay, Butt says he thinks he’s got an appreciation for the two that keeps his approach fresh.
“I am living proof that there is an in-between,” Butt said. “I am right here and I understand it and I live it.”
Meet the candidates for Richmond City Council 2012
By Robert Rogers
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 09/17/2012 12:06:41 PM PDT
Updated: 09/21/2012 09:40:04 AM PDT
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JAEL MYRICK
Age: 27
Occupation: Senior field representative for Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Four years working on environmental campaigns with the California League of Conservation Voters. Founder of Standing To Represent Our Next Generation (STRONG), an organization to encourage political activism among young people. Staff member serving Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, for more than three years.
Personal background: Raised in San Pablo. Son of a West Contra Costa school district teacher. Father of 7-month-old boy.
Education: Kennedy High School in Richmond, La Sierra University, Riverside
GARY BELL
Age: 53
Occupation: President and CEO of Cooperative Federal Credit Union in Berkeley
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Has lived and worked in Richmond area since 1989. Served as the CEO of Cooperative FCU for two years. Worked in the main office of First Bankers Mortgage and Realty in Richmond. Was a licensed real estate broker and owned and operated First Bankers Mortgage in Richmond for several years. Was vice president and branch manager of the Bank of the West in Richmond for nearly 10 years.
Elected to City Council in Wichita, Kan. in 1985, only the second African-American to serve in the city's history.
Richmond City Councilman 1999-2004. Helped initiate the Richmond Main Street Initiative, which is revitalizing historic downtown Richmond as a pedestrian-friendly urban village, and the Easter Hill Hope VI Project, which transformed that dilapidated housing project into a new mixed-income development.
Personal background: From a family of 10 children. He has a twin sister. Married father of two sons.
Education: MBA in management from John F. Kennedy University, Orinda. BA from Wichita State University.
MARILYN LANGLOIS
Age: 62
Occupation: Community advocate, organizer and mediator
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Recently retired from position as community advocate in the mayor's office in Richmond. Previously worked as a community mediator and conflict resolution trainer, and volunteer organizer with the League of Women Voters and Richmond Progressive Alliance. Previous experience includes teaching, administrative assistant and graduate student services.
Personal background: Says her experience living in different countries and communities taught her the importance of appreciating other people and working in solidarity to build a world where everyone can have a decent life while contributing to the well-being of the community as a whole.
Education: Public schools, El Cerrito; BA in German, Pomona College; training in tax preparation, counseling and mediation.
ELLA "BEA" ROBERSON
Age: 68
Occupation: Retired
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Former personnel/accounting manager for Alten Construction, retired in 2010. Served as president of the Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council for the last three years and treasurer for three years before that. Current chairwoman of the Richmond Police Commission. West County Liaison for the Red Cross. Logistics chairwoman of the Home Front Festival and Juneteenth Festival. A CERT instructor and member of executive board for Emergency Preparedness in Richmond. Executive board member of the Crime Prevention Program. Police volunteer for five years and continues to assist at events. Works at the Richmond Library, and has boxed up more than 90 boxes of old books to be sent for sale instead of being thrown away.
Personal background: Grew up in Anadarko, Okla. Came to Richmond in 1964. Raised a family.
Education: Information not provided.
NAT BATES
Age: 81
Occupation: City Councilman
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Worked for the Alameda County Probation Department as a group counselor, retiring as administrative supervisor in 1989. Field representative to state Sen. Dan Boatwright.
Political career began in 1967, has been elected to seven terms in office.
Personal background: Widower, father of four.
Education: BA, San Francisco State University; teachers credential, California State University, Hayward.
TOM BUTT
Age: 68
Occupation: City Councilman/architect
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Vietnam veteran. Decorations include Bronze Star and Army Commendation Medal. Founded Richmond firm Interactive Resources nearly 40 years ago.
Elected four terms to City Council, served 17 years. Serves on several regional commissions.
Personal background: Married, two children, four grandchildren.
Education: BA and MA in architecture and urban design, University of Arkansas and UCLA
EDUARDO MARTINEZ
Age: 63
Occupation: Retired teacher
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Taught elementary school for 18 years in the West Contra Costa school district.
Personal background: Born and raised in Texas. Came to Bay Area in 1971. Married with one son.
Education: BA liberal studies, multiple subjects; teaching credential
MARK WASSBERG
Age: 56
Occupation: Filmmaker
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Longtime filmmaker and actor and host in public access and web-based media.
Personal background: Longtime area resident and fixture at council meetings.
Education: Richmond High School, Contra Costa College.
ANTHONY GREEN
Unknown
ELEANOR THOMPSON
Age: not provided
Occupation: Founder/CEO of Social Progress Inc.
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Worked with West Contra Costa school district. Served as Richmond police commissioner. Volunteered with the Anti-Drug Task Force. Vice president of the Iron Triangle Neighborhood Council. Neighborhood Watch block captain. Representative for the West County Democratic Party.
Personal background: Not provided.
Education: AA Contra Costa College, BA from Chapman University
MIKE ALI-KINNEY
Age: 59
Occupation: Native American civil rights advocate
Professional background/occupation/elected history: Native Advocate for more human and civil rights for Indian Country for the past 25 years. San Francisco Bay Area delegate for the Inter-Tribal Council of California. Founding member of The Committee of Families for the Safety of Our Children, a watchdog organization. Writer, author and speaker.
Personal background: Lifetime Richmond resident.
Education: Richmond High School graduate. BA from Cal State Hayward.
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