Richmond Retains Secrecy Lead
Today"s Contra Costa Times includes a comprehensive investigative piece on Contra Costa and Alameda County public agencies" compliance with the California Public Records Act. Not surprisingly, Richmond tied with San Ramon for "Best in Class," in Contra Costa County by...
Cleanup Concerns and Possible Misinformation Stalk Campus Bay Project
A proposal to use part of the Campus Bay site for medium and high density housing has sparked a debate over the quality of the hazardous materials cleanup and its monitoring as it relates to the fitness of the site for residential use. A group of adjacent businesses...
Vista Hills Continuation School Plan Appears Dead
Dozens of residents of Fairmeade-Hilltop who have lobbied the Richmond City Council and the WCCUSD Board for weeks to rethink a plan to combine two existing continuation schools at the Vista Hills (former) elementary school campus will likely break out the champagne...
Richmond Bay Trail Mid-Year 2004 Report
TRAC_map_01-06-04.pdf This report marks the fifth anniversary of TRAC, the Trails for Richmond Action Committee Eight miles of new Bay Trail have been built in Richmond during this period with an additional 2-1/2 miles in the pipeline to be built by year end. With...
Comcast Reviews Mixed But Service Restored
I got a call yesterday from Terry Jacobson, the City of Richmond contact for Comcast Broadband network services, who had been referred to me by Sue Hartman, City of Richmond IT Director, after reading my E-FORUM piece on COMCAST. Terry promised restoration of my...
City Council Selects Interim City Manager
As announced by Interim City attorney Everett Jenkins in last night"s meeting, The Richmond City Council yesterday selected former Contra Costa County Administrator Phil Batchelor to act as interim city manager at least through January of 2004. Batchelor administered...
Richmond Fiscal Responsibility in Action
One of the programs that was de-funded in the recently adopted FY2004-2004 Richmond budget is the Disabled People"s Recreation Center (DPRC). It is a fact that this is a unique and well-run facility that provides an invaluable service to children with special needs...
PBS Spotlight on School Funding Highlights WCCUSD
A PBS national news program on inequitable school funding can be seen tonight at 6:00 PM on Channel 9 KQED. The piece discusses inequity of funding by the State of California and has interviews with Superintendent Johnston and Congressman Miller with extensive...
Comcast
The City of Richmond has a franchise agreement with Comcast (the cable company) that generally requires the company to provide high quality service. Among other things, Comcast offers high-speed Internet service. Until last month, I was using SBC DSL, but the...
Home Front Event
There is a fascinating program this Saturday, July 31st about the experiences of two ethnic minorities in Richmond during WWII. The basic details follow, and a flyer is attached as a PDF file: What: "Not at Home on the Home Front: A Public Forum on Japanese Americans...
Movement in Richmond City Manager Search
The City Council spent six hours yesterday interviewing four candidates for permanent city manager and two candidates for interim city manager. On July 20, the City Council will decide whether to continue evaluating one or more of the permanent candidates or negotiate...
Support Open Space Measure
The July 27 voting deadline for property owners voting for the County Open Space Measure is fast approaching. For $25 per year, we get $5 million for Richmond shoreline open space (San pablo peninsula and Bruenner Marsh particularly), $5 million for the SF Bay Trail...
Richmond Lighthouse Inn Featured in Wall Street Journal
East Brother Light Station was one of three American lighthouse hotels featured in the Wall Street Journal July 14, 2004, Travel Section. A PDF file is attached. wall_street_journal_071404.pdf
Belcher Declines Re-Election Bid
City Council member Rev. Charles Belcher, who won a two year term three years ago after first being appointed to the seat vacated by Alex Evans, announced tonight that he will not seek re-election in November 2004. Like the other four odd-year members, we got an extra...
Opening Day
For those who aspire to fix whatever may be wrong with the City of Richmond, today is the first day of the filing period for the City Council election of November 2, 2004. There are five incumbents who presumably will ask the voters to return them to office. These are...
Volunteers Leverage Limited City Resources
Many cities vastly expand services to their residents and businesses through a variety of volunteer programs where citizens work alongside full-time city employees. Although there are a number of volunteer programs related to Richmond City government, mostly related...
Richmond’s Best Blackberry Cobbler
Possibly Richmond"s most obscure eating and drinking establishment, the Galley Caf" at Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor is open once again. I stopped in after a day at East Brother Island on the "Wickies" July volunteer day for a bowl of fresh blackberry cobbler with ice...
Vision of Hope for Youth Scores Massive ChevronTexaco Grant
On June 16, 2004, Chevron Products Company announced that the Richmond organization, Vision of Hope for Youth, headed by Ronnie Wallace, has been selected to receive a contract for $202,015 to implement the Summer Youth Paint program. Sharon Craig Carter, Public...
A Younger Corbin Touts California’s Biological Heritage
Jeffrey D. Corbin, Ph.D., son of former Mayor Rosemary Corbin and Douglas Corbin, and an ecologist in the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, authored an a editorial in today"s San Francisco Chronicle urging support for two bills in the California...
Final Meeting on Accident Prevention Industrial Facilities
Thousands of Richmond residents live within "circles of death" that are described in Risk Management Plans (RMP) prepared by local industries in accordance with state and federal law. Industries prefer to use the euphemism "scenario circles," which are described by a...