City Manager’s Weekly Report for the Week Ending 1/20/2023
You can view the current City Manager's Weekly Report here: City Manager's Weekly Report 01/20/2023
Court Order Sought to Invalidate Sale of Terminal 1
Today, we filed a request for a writ of mandate from Contra Costa Superior Court to vacate, set aside, and/or rescind the Land Development Agreement (LDA) entered into between the City of Richmond and Terminal One Development LLC on December 29, 2022. Click here for...
Election of Vice-mayor Creates Potential Charter Crisis
I understand that the City Council elected Gayle McLaughlin as vice-mayor last night, creating a potential future Charter crisis (similar to a Constitutional crisis). Article III-A, Section 3(a) of the City Charter states, “No person may serve as Mayor for more than...
City of Richmond’s Highway Users Tax Account (HUTA) Fund Allocation Suspended
The City of Richmond’s access to Highway Users Tax Account Funds has been suspended because the City is delinquent in filing is Annual Street Report (ASR) for the Fiscal Year 2021-22. See HUTA Suspension Letter. This is the kind of thing we are likely to see more of...
Stuntboy Revival
The film Stuntboy (Click Here) was shot by former Richmond resident John Behrens in 1988 when he was 14 years old and completed in 1990 when he was 16. John wrote: Francois Chew and I made this film in 1990. It was written by Tom McGowan to be a making of an...
City of Richmond Awards Millions in Contracts to Revoked, Suspended and Delinquent Nonprofits
Like San Francisco (see article at the end of this email), the City of Richmond routinely awards contracts to nonprofits, the status of which is revoked, suspended or delinquent. Doing due diligence and vetting the status of nonprofit grant recipients is the job of...
The Secret Lives of City Council Members
A recent posting on social media about Melvin Willis’ quest for a new place to live in District 1 evolved into a claim by failed RPA candidate Jamin Purcell that, “the pay for council members is so abusive” and whining that the alleged low pay for City Council members...
Rooted in Richmond
The Rooted in Richmond app is now complete, and we just pushed the final update (which increased the multilingual functionality and also reduced the download time for the files) I’m including the language and promo information below. Also see the slide presentation...
Bay Trail Richmond New Year Report
Check out the upbeat, colorful 24th Bay Trail Richmond New Year Report prepared by TRAC, the Trails for Richmond Action Committee, available at https://www.pointrichmond.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TRAC_NewYear_Report_2023_FINAL_HighQuality.pdf. It summarizes great...
In Richmond, at Least Six Manholes Continued to Unleash Sewage into San Francisco Bay as of Tuesday Morning
See https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/weather/millions-of-gallons-of-sewage-are-spilling-into-sf-bay/article_3474d37c-9136-11ed-a6e4-ef581c011dbd.html The fundamental challenge with the wastewater system that serves 60 percent of Richmond residents is that some old...
New Hyper-RPA-Controlled City Council Challenged by Pension Debt
The following article appeared in the East Bay Times. The biggest challenge the new City Council will face is getting control of labor costs, and especially unfunded pension liabilities. This will be difficult for the RPA-controlled City Council because they are, in...
LAST E-FORUM AS Mayor
I am going to keep the E-FORUM going for a while at least, but this is my last one as mayor. I just finished my last City Council meeting, a special meeting to certify the election results in District 2, which passed on a 5-1 vote with Bates Absent and me voting NO. I...
Why the RPA Can’t Get the Election Results Certified
A combination of missing RPA City Council members, an incompetent and corrupt city attorney and a disorganized Contra Costa County Elections Division created a perfect storm where certification of newly electeds Eduardo Martinez, Cesar Zepeda, Doria Robinson and...
Mayor Elect Martinez Pays for Private Swearing-in Ceremony at Bridge Storage
According to posts on Facebook, Vice-mayor/Mayor-elect Eduardo Martinez has paid for a private swearing-in ceremony for Cesar Zepeda, Doria Robinson, Soheila Bana and himself at Bridge Storage. The official City Council meeting to conduct the swearing-in remains...
City Manager’s Weekly Report for the Week Ending 1/6/2023
View this in your browser You can view the current City Manager's Weekly Report here: City Manager's Weekly Report 01/06/2023 PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL. THANK YOU AND HAVE A NICE DAY. * * * * * * *
Update on Seacliff Slide
City of Richmond Fire and Police were able to reassess homes in the incident area to confirm vacancy. No homes are occupied, and currently there is no need to evacuate additional homes. The Police Department is staffing the roadblocks to prevent anyone from accessing...
Slide Fissure at Seacliff Shows up on Google Maps for Years
Although recently activated by extensive rain, the slide fissures and scarps above Seaview Drive have been observable from space in Google Earth and Google Maps for years. The image below is from https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9119511,-122.3742744,112m/data=!3m1!1e3.
Seacliff Slide Update Saturday January 7, 2023
From City Manager Shasa Curl: Evacuation Orders Fifteen (15) homes within the impacted area have been evacuated and are unoccupied. Per the City’s consultant, Cal Engineering & Geology, Inc. (CE&G), there is currently no need to evacuate additional homes. In...
Is Terminal One Terminal?
City Attorney Dave Aleshire worked through the holidays from the ski slopes at Mammoth, obsessed with jamming this poorly designed project through a sale to Terminal One Development LLC before the end of 2022. See Terminal One Single-Family Housing Development In...
Seacliff Slide Update
Yesterday, January 3, 2023, at 5:23 PM, I received an email from Tom Leader, a landscape architect and former Richmond Design Review Board member, alerting me to a potential geologic hazard on the slope above the Seacliff development. From the photos, it was clear to...