One More Impediment to Chevron Modernization Falls
October 17, 2014

The graphic shows two main components of the Chevron Richmond Refinery Modernization Project.
CBE settles with air district over Chevron Modernization, but construction still on hold
October 17, 2014 by Mike Aldax
An environmental group announced Thursday it has settled its lawsuit with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District over permits for the Chevron Richmond Refinery Modernization Project, but that doesn’t clear the way for construction on the project to begin.
The same environmental group, Oakland-based Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), is also challenging an attempt by the city of Richmond and Chevron to lift a court stay on construction, which could take years to resolve, Chevron officials said.
This week’s settlement involved CBE’s lawsuit claiming the air district should not have renewed a permit for the $1 billion Modernization Project before an environmental review was certified by the Richmond City Council.
The air district denies that any permit was renewed and said it was waiting for the latest EIR to receive City Council approval. The EIR received unanimous approval by council in July.
District spokesman Ralph Borrmann told Bay City News its settlement with CBE “commits us to do what we would be doing anyway.”
The environmental group announced the settlement after Richmond council members on Oct. 8 called on it and similar groups to reconsider their lawsuits that are holding up the project.
Not only are Chevron and thousands of workers hoping construction can start, so is City Council. Only when Chevron clears legal hurdles preventing construction from beginning will funds for the $90 million community benefits agreement with Chevron be released. The council has expressed a desire to use a portion of that money to keep Doctors Medical Center open as a full-service hospital, but the financially struggling hospital is set to close early next year.
It could take months to years for those funds to be released due to the pending litigation by CBE.
A Superior Court hearing is set for Jan. 25 to hear the environmental group’s challenge of requests to allow construction to proceed.
Councilmember Tom Butt said in his e-forum Friday that it could take a minimum of six to eight months for a final decision.
“It is unclear when the Court will decide the matter, although judges are expected to rule within 90 days,” Butt said. “Either party then has 60 days to appeal an adverse decision. It is, therefore, possible that the trial court proceeding will not become final for 6-8 months from now, but it is difficult to predict.”
In 2009, a previous version of the refinery project was halted after a judge rejected the city’s EIR on the grounds that it failed to disclose whether the plan would allow for the processing of heavier crude, which has the potential to increase emissions.
Chevron Richmond returned with a scaled-down project that would reduce the refinery’s emissions and make it safer. The project’s EIR has the support of multiple state agencies and officials, including Attorney General Kamala Harris and frequent Chevron critic U.S. Rep. George Miller.
In his e-forum, Butt pointed out there has been “no challenge to the current EIR.”
“So the EIR certified in July is conclusively presumed to be a valid CEQA document for the Modernization Project,” the councilmember said.

Plan for Winery at Riggers Loft has Important Connection to Upcoming Veteran's Day Event
October 17, 2014

The riggers Loft, the rehabilitation of which Nat Bates and Corky Booze did everything in their power to stop, will figure prominently in Richmond’s Veterans Day recognition next month.

Riggers Loft, an assembly plant during WWII, will soon house a winery. (Photo courtesy of Alten Construction)
Plan for winery at Riggers Loft has important connection to upcoming Veteran’s Day event
October 17, 2014 by Mike Aldax
In a Veteran’s Day ceremony on Nov. 11 connecting the Richmond waterfront’s proud past and bright future, the SS Red Oak Victory’s 70th anniversary will be celebrated in Riggers Loft, a historic building once used for assembling ship parts that will soon house a winery.
During last year’s annual Veteran’s Day celebration, Riggers Loft, located next to the Red Oak Victory on the former Kaiser shipyard, was dedicated following its renovation.
Alameda-based winery R & B Cellars hopes to begin operating in a portion of the building with more than a dozen employees early next year, said Councilmember Tom Butt, who secured the council votes to direct a state grant for the renovation of the building.
In late October, City Council is set to decide upon an agreement in which Chinese investors would put up $2 million to “get the site up and running,” Butt reported in his e-forum.
The future of Riggers Loft is just one reason to celebrate there on Veteran’s Day.  Starting at 10:30 a.m., the community is encouraged to attend a Grand Re-Launch of the Red Oak Victory, which was launched at the Kaiser Richmond shipyards during WWII.
A former crew member of the ship will attend the relaunch. On that day, free tours of the Red Oak Victory will be offered throughout the day, along with a USO style dance in Riggers Loft.
A 1945-style boxed lunch will be offered at $7.
The event is sponsored by the Richmond Museum of History, Chevron Richmond and the City of Richmond.
For more information, call the Richmond Museum of History at 510-235-7387 or the SS Red Oak Victory Ship at 510-237-2933.”

Richmond Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park

Loma Prieta 25 Years Later - The Richmond Connection
October 17, 2014

In 2014, it’s the Giants and the Royals in Kansas City. On  October 17, 1989, it was the Giants and As in the World Series at Candlestick Park when Loma Prieta struck. The game was called, and the world waited.
A week later, according to the New York Times, San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos “…received a report on the Candlestick inspection late Monday from structural engineers for Interactive Resources Inc. According to John Clinton of Interactive, engineers found that damage from the earthquake was limited to some nonstructural concrete chips on the stadium's windscreen; some minor damage to bleacher stairs, which have been replaced, and cracked concrete, which has also been repaired, around three of the eight expansion joints that permit flexibility and movement of the structure. Clinton said the repairs were similar to repairs on other parts of the stadium after a 1983 inspection.”
''Those repairs held up well during the earthquake,'' he said in the statement released by the Mayor's office.
According to the Daily Record, Agnos said, “There’s no question in my mind that the World Series can proceed this Friday. I’m satisfied that Candlestick is as safe as any facility can be before or after an earthquake.”
“Agnos had demanded ‘ironclad assurances’  of the safety of the stadium and apparently got them in a report from Interactive Resources, which said the “integrity of Candlestick has not been impaired by the earthquake.’”
Here is the backstory:
October 17, 1989, I was in my Point Richmond office talking to a client in a high rise in San Francisco. All of a sudden. He yelled, “holy shit,” and I heard crashing in the background (It was his bookcases falling over). The phone went dead. A few seconds later, it hit our building, and we all spilled out into the street.
Later, we climbed to the top of Nicholl Knob where we could see the Marina District of San Francisco burning and the collapsed section of the Bay Bridge. I thought it looked like 1906 all over again.
I was in the office at daylight the next morning when I got the call from the head of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. “How soon can you get your engineers over here?” he asked.
My firm, Interactive Resources, had been working on Candlestick Park since 1983 for the City and County of San Francisco, providing a comprehensive investigation of the deterioration of structural and architectural components of the then nearly 30-year old precast concrete structure. Our consulting services included a detailed report on observations, recommendations, and test results, estimated construction costs for necessary repairs for an extended service life. The study determined that the stadium was in serious disrepair and recommended that the park be upgraded immediately to provide a higher level of resistance to potential seismic forces. Interactive Resources subsequently prepared contract documents for structural repairs and provided construction administration services. The repair work went on for some five years, ending in 1988, at which time we were once again called in to resolve water infiltration problems in the newly constructed luxury boxes at the stadium.
It turned out that in 1989 structural engineers at Interactive Resources, led by my partner, John Clinton, knew Candlestick park better than anyone. San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos tasked Interactive Resources with the responsibility of comprehensively inspecting Candlestick to determine if it was safe enough for the World series to resume.
Under direction of Clinton, the entire staff of Interactive Resources swarmed over every inch of the stadium for days looking for critical damage. None was found, but surely without the repairs designed and overseen by Interactive Resources for the previous five years, the earthquake damage and subsequent injuries or loss of life could have been catastrophic.
A week later, Clinton submitted his report, and on October 25, 1989, “Mayor Art Agnos of San Francisco, satisfied with the condition of Candlestick Park and Bay Area traffic, gave his final blessing today to the resumption of the World Series on Friday night.” (Click here for the entire article from the New York Times)
Agnos received the report on the Candlestick inspection late Monday from structural engineers for Interactive Resources Inc.
According to John Clinton of Interactive, engineers found that damage from the earthquake was limited to some nonstructural concrete chips on the stadium's windscreen; some minor damage to bleacher stairs, which have been replaced, and cracked concrete, which has also been repaired, around three of the eight expansion joints that permit flexibility and movement of the structure.
Clinton said the repairs were similar to repairs on other parts of the stadium after a 1983 inspection. ''Those repairs held up well during the earthquake,'' he said in the statement released by the Mayor's office. Commitment to Rapid Transit
When the World series resumed, we all got complimentary seats right behind home plate. As an extra bonus, I remember john Clinton’s daughter caught a high foul ball that sailed over the backstop. I bobbled it, and she caught it.
That was, unfortunately, the high point of our professional relationship with the City and County of San Francisco.
Back in those days, we had contracts for several really high profile projects in San Francisco, including the rehabilitation of Coit Tower. It turned out, however, that the publicity about Candlestick was our undoing. After all the press coverage, local architects and engineers began to complain to politicians that out of town consultants were getting too much work from the City and County of San Francisco. Robust hiring preferences were quickly adopted, and ironically, Interactive Resources was never again allowed to have a contract with the City and County of San Francisco.

The day the World Series stood still
By Angela Hill
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 10/17/2009 12:00:00 AM PDT
Updated: 10/17/2009 04:54:22 AM PDT

It was the thick of a momentous battle between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants: the 1989 World Series, the baseball event of a lifetime for Bay Area fans and players.
The A's were up by two games and the third was just minutes from getting under way on a balmy October evening at Candlestick Park, when the ground suddenly lurched in a geologic version of the seventh-inning stretch.
On TV sets across the country, it all came through as a jostled camera view, a brief comment about a quake from ABC sportscaster Al Michaels, followed by static, a black screen, then a quick cutover to newsman Peter Jennings, and what began as a festive finale to the baseball season turned into a nationally televised disaster alert.
To many fans in the stadium, however, it was just another day in California earthquake country. They knew it was a good shaker, to be sure. The power flickered off in the ballpark, but otherwise there was little altered in the sturdy stadium. Without cell phones in every pocket, people initially had no idea of the tragedies unfolding in San Francisco, Oakland and beyond. In fact, many expected the lights to surge back on and the game to begin.
But that didn't happen. Soon, word of broken bridges, fires and collapsed freeways began to trickle through the crowd. No one panicked, but tension swelled and a stubborn traffic jam ensued as 62,000 people tried to get home to their families.
Baseball was suddenly the last thing on their minds.
Fans 'froze like statues'
Lifelong Giants fan Jon Leonoudakis had come up from Los Angeles for the game. A filmmaker by trade, he had his VHS camcorder at the ready, giddy to document this special day, even taping shots of himself in the mirror that morning in full Giants-fan regalia, then interviewing fans tailgating in the parking lot. Twenty years later, Leonoudakis, 51, has turned his footage into a half-hour documentary called "5:04 p.m.: A First Person Account of the 1989 World Series Earthquake Game." (To see portions, visit web.me.com/jbleonoudakis/Jons_Web_Site/%225_04_p.m.%22.html)
"I was waiting in line for hot dogs on the mezzanine level," he said. "Then it started shaking. People around me froze like statues. There was nowhere to go. I looked up and saw that huge concrete lip of the upper deck and thought, 'If that comes down, well, that's it.'
"But it stopped," he said. "We all thought life would go on and the game would be played. People even kept going to their seats."
Beth Elliott, of Oakland, was also in the concourse, standing in the beer line. "I looked up and I saw the walkways swaying," she said. "What I remember most was some idiot just decided he had to run outside and nearly knocked me down. It was a really good shake, but afterward people were chanting, 'Start the game!' and, 'Home field advantage!' "
Down in the A's dugout, catcher Terry Steinbach was waiting with fellow players for pre-game ceremonies and player introductions to begin.
"We heard a rumble that sounded like an airplane," he said last week from his home in Minnesota. "I saw the overhang doing, like, a crack-the-whip kind of thing. Somebody yelled 'Earthquake!' and we took a few steps out of the dugout, but no one knew how much had happened at that point. We were thinking we'd resume introductions and start the game."
Gradually, everyone realized that wasn't going to happen, and fans began milling out into the parking lot. Yet even then, the impact hadn't hit home.
"Amazingly, it was still a festive atmosphere at that point," Leonoudakis said. "People were out there tailgating. By and large, there was no major damage or injuries at Candlestick. A couple of pieces of concrete had fallen in sections 51 and 53, and I videotaped a rather inebriated guy who was carrying around a chunk as a memento."
In about a half-hour, though, news began to come through on transistor radios.
"All of a sudden, I could feel the tension just ratchet up," Leonoudakis said. "It was a sense of, hey, we gotta get out of here."
Steinbach and other players were still in the stadium.
"A fan in the front row had a small black-and-white TV with a coat hanger stuck in it for an antennae," he said. "So we kind of hung around that for a while and started to see how bad it was in the Marina district and Oakland. Then it came down from the officials to get your families and get out of the stadium."
Steinbach's wife, Mary, worried about their 2-year-old daughter, Jill, who was at home with a baby sitter in Alameda, ran to her husband's arms as the players made their way to the team buses. It would take them four hours via San Jose to get back to Oakland.
"It took forever to get out of there," Elliott said. She eventually made it out on a shuttle bus, then took another bus and a short walk to a friend's house in San Francisco.
"As it got darker, I started noticing the lights of Brisbane and the lights across the Bay were not coming on. I could see the smoke rising from the Marina fires. The reality started to sink in."
Game 3, at last
Ten days later, after the feverish rescues and cleanup efforts, the damage and the loss, there was a general urge to return to normalcy in the Bay Area, and Major League Baseball officials gave Game 3 another go.
"Professionally speaking, we were two games away from achieving the ultimate goal in our profession," Steinbach said. "But yet the humanitarian part, and the personal part — lives were lost and there was a tremendous amount of destruction. You felt compassion and concern, and baseball seemed pretty unimportant."
Leonoudakis didn't have to blink an eye about it. He still had a ticket, and was determined to see the game.
"I parked in the same place, and interviewed many of the same people again," he said. "But it was a very different vibe this time. It was as if Candlestick had turned into a church. There were solemn ushers handing out programs with lyrics to that song from that old Jeanette MacDonald movie, 'San Francisco,' about the city rising from the ashes of the 1906 quake. The wacky ensemble from 'Beach Blanket Babylon' was leading the song like some kind of unusual church choir. The stadium announcer said, 'Why don't we all turn and shake hands with each other.'
"Before, the vibe was highly competitive. We're going to crush the A's and stuff," he said. "But then, we were all just baseball fans. Just people who came to experience this thing together."

Those Videos
October 17, 2014

My political adversaries, aided by Chevron, have been circulating a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gf7unY7h0k), that purports to connect me with City Council disruptions. It also endeavors to put Mayor McLaughlin and Jael Myrick in a bad light and portrays Nat Bates as the calm voice of reason. It includes outtakes from the meetings of March 8 and March 18, 2014.
I offer some context to what is shown on the Bates/Chevron sponsored video.
There has been a very perverse and cynical conspiracy over the last several years, fueled by Chevron, to encourage disruptions at City Council meetings, then blame others, including the mayor, for not being able to control meetings and subsequently for the presumed “dysfunction” of the City Council. Nat Bates and Corky Booze are the primary City Council fomenters, aided by a handful of regular attendees in the audience and by organizations such as Men and Women of Valor.
Corky is the agent provocateur, and Nat is the straight man, blaming the mayor and others for encouraging the disruptions and then criticizing her for ultimately calling the meeting into recess in an effort to quell it.
When such demonstrations get out of hand, the presiding officer, in this case the mayor, has only a couple of options to try and restore order: first, asking for order, sometimes emphasized with the gavel, and two, calling a recess to break the spell and give people a chance to calm down.
I have to confess that I have taken the bait more than once, myself. I am a firm believer in maintenance of civility and decorum in City Council meetings. In my opinion,  applause after every speaker, as has become routine, is counterproductive and ineffective simply because it is so routine. Not only is it ineffectual because of its repetition and predictability, it often degenerates into catcalls, boos, hoots and hollers. There seems to be a fine line between applause and verbally demonstrative reactions, and that line is often quickly crossed.  Many City Councils do not allow or do not encourage applause at all, but the City Council majority seems to think it has value and continues to encourage, or at least allow, it. On April I, 2014, all members except for me voted to continue to allow applause.
On several occasions, I have patiently waited my turn to speak, only to be hooted down by a faction in the crowd who don’t want to hear anything except the message they came to convey and support. We are not talking about some grumbles and sighs, we are talking about a full-fledged disruption so loud that hearing what I have to say becomes impossible.
In such situations, I have several alternatives. I can simply give in to the crowd, abandon my turn to speak and allow the meeting to move on to comments by others. Or, I can wait to see if the mayor can bring order to the chamber. Or I can just leave, being unable to contribute any further due to the hostility of the crowd.
On March 8, 2014, I began to speak against a motion to immediately issue Section 8 vouchers to Hacienda residents and relocate them, which would cost the City over a million dollars it did not have. Before I could even get into my explanation, the crowd drowned me out with yells of disapproval. The mayor asked for order several times, but the audience just became louder. Trying to avoid another recess, for which she knew she would be criticized, she continued to no avail to beg the audience to come to order. In frustration, I got up to leave. But things just got worse. The mayor never did recess the meeting, and in frustration, I lashed out at her and accused her of not being able to run a meeting. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGvHGAsaGOo.
On March 18, 2014, I asked the mayor to request the audience to hold applause until after everyone had spoken, and to her credit, she did. The meeting resumed but with no abatement of the normal applause as the crowd, largely made up of building trades representatives, not only ignored the mayor’s request but doubled down with even more applause that morphed into yells of approval after Greg Feere spoke. The mayor then asked for a vote on whether or not to allow applause. After some spirited debate, the mayor elected not to move the motion but to simply ask the audience to refrain from applause until after the speakers have finished.
Then Booze made a motion to allow applause, and Rogers seconded it. When I spoke on the motion, the audience once again erupted into hoots and hollers, and I stated, yelling over the din from the audience, that I was not going to participate in a meeting with that level of disruption. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoibUZXtXt8.  
Gayle and I had an extended dialogue about both issues and process, but in the end we worked through our frustrations. On May 2, 2014, I emailed Gayle:
First of all, I want to apologize to you for yelling at you during the April 26 [actually March 8] City Council meeting. It was inappropriate. I was extremely frustrated that the audience would not let me speak, but that is no excuse.
Second, I want to be clear that, in my opinion, the disruption that night, and the typical disruptions almost every meeting are, in my opinion, due largely to a culture that Corky Booze has fostered by his own acts and the  encouragement he continually provides, both patent and latent, to the audience. We now have a culture in the audience where a small number of people attend meetings not to participate in public policy debate but for the purpose of entertainment and disruption. We are also seeing, as we did on the 22nd,  people who were paid to come and disrupt the meeting.
Corky is completely out of control and has no respect for parliamentary procedure, but unfortunately, there is little you can do to bring him under control except temporary measures. Hopefully, the voters will do that permanently in November,
I want to be clear that I support calling recesses, ending debate and, if necessary, clearing the Chamber, as measures to restore order and decorum.
I was disappointed that my proposal to reduce applause failed to pass, that is not the main problem.
For Nat Bates’ version of the march 8 and March 8 City Council meetings, see http://www.radiofreerichmond.com/nat_bates_the_most_dysfunctional_city_council. You can find plenty of videos featuring Nat Bates (and his pal mark Wassberg) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2IiKQtr04), Nat Bates and hate speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftLjerZYwa0) and disruptions condoned by Bates (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d9f2iHGW04).