Road Dust is Richmond’s Most Dangerous Pollutant
From a health and environmental standpoint, the most important result of street sweeping is the debris you cannot see. Recent research has revealed that a chemical found in car tire debris kills coho salmon returning to spawn. For the first time in years, endangered...
City Manager’s Weekly Report for the Week Ending May 13, 2022
This message is being sent on behalf of City Manager Shasa Curl Hon. Mayor and Members of the City Council: This is the report for the week ending in May 13th, 2022. Meeting Notes The next Regular City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday May 17th, 2022. Closed...
Rent Board Adopts 2022 Annual General Adjustment in the Amount of 5.2%
When Richmond voters adopted Richmond Fair Rent, Just Cause for Eviction and Homeowner Protection Ordinance (Rent Control and Just Cause), one of the stated objectives was to put the brakes on unjustified rent increases, although there was no evidence that this was...
Bike to Wherever Day
Bike to Wherever Day is back in person this year and coming up soon! Join the City of Richmond, Bike East Bay, 511 Contra Costa, and more, on Friday, May 20th from 7am - 9am to celebrate the Bay Area’s biggest day for bicycling. You’ll get a free, limited-edition Bike...
Lost Tales of Point Molate – McLaughlin Snatches Defeat from Victory
After the City rejected the casino project in 2011, Upstream and Guidiville (“Tribe”) brought a lawsuit in federal court, claiming the City had breached the Land Disposition Agreement. In 2013 U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers ruled in favor of the City,...
Lost Tales of Point Molate – The King of Pot
Figure 1 - Bruce Perlowin, the "King of Pot" Figure 1 - In 1979, Brett Douglas was a twenty-eight-year-old US Marine Corps veteran working as a commercial tuna fisherman in California. That year, a young man named Bruce Perlowin came looking for professional seamen...
Lost Tales of Point Molate – Steam Trains
From 1969 to 1985, the Pacific Locomotive Association had its railway museum at Point Molate and was a very popular weekend destination. The boarding area was located where Point Molate Beach Park is now. The Pacific Locomotive Association operations are now located...
Lost Tales of Point Molate – Last Whaling Station
In addition to Point Molate, the City of Richmond owns Terminal 4, about a mile up Stenmark Drive. The terminal is no longer active as a maritime operation, but it was once a bustling center of fish processing. It was also the location of the last whaling station in...
Correcting the East Bay Times Again
The East Bay Times struggles with facts. The East Bay Times wrote, “And on Nov. 16, the mayor published previously classified findings of a nearly two-year investigation that exonerated him after a city employee accused him of discrimination, retaliation, corrupt...
Forgotten Tales of Point Molate – Winehaven
By the late 19th Century, the California wine industry was well established, having begun with viticulture practiced at the California missions. It had actually begun and flourished first in southern California before moving to the now famous regions of Sonoma, Napa...
Forgotten Tales of Point Molate – End of the Proposed Casino Project
After entering into an agreement with the City of Richmond in 2004, Upstream and Guidiville had five years to complete certain requirements, including an EIR and a favorable Indian Lands Decision, before transfer of the property for uses that included a casino could...
City Manager’s Weekly Report for the Week Ending May 6, 2022
This message is being sent on behalf of City Manager Shasa Curl Hon. Mayor and Members of the City Council: This is the report for the week ending in May 6th, 2022. Meeting Notes The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 17th, 2022. Enjoy the next...
Forgotten Tales of Point Molate – The Beginning of the Casino Project
In November of 2004, after a prolonged period of soliciting proposals for the development of Point Molate, the City Council had only a single viable proposal -- the project by Upstream and the Guidiville Band of the Pomos to build a destination resort with a casino....
Forgotten Tales of Point Molate – Industrialization of the Point San Pablo Peninsula
With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho San Pablo was filed with the Public...
Forgotten Tales of Point Molate
For thousands of years (4,000 BCE to around 1776) the only residents of what is now Point Molate were the Huchiun, an Ohlone tribal group that held the eastern bay shore from Temescal Creek in present-day Oakland/Emeryville to the lower drainage of San Pablo Creek in...
Forgotten Tales of Point Molate – Selection of Point Molate Reuse Plan Consultant
The most contentious issue to face the City Council after the 1995 election was the selection of a consultant to prepare the reuse plan for Point Molate. Not satisfied with the short list selected to be interviewed by staff, the City Council insisted on interviewing...
Forgotten tales of Point Molate – The Wickland Oil Caper
Lost in the fog of the current political struggles over the future of Point Molate is an incident over two decades ago that could have changed its history forever. In the mid-1990s, as Richmond was preparing for the eventual transfer of Point Molate from the Navy,...
City Council Calls it Quits in $300,000 Litigation Against Mayor
At the May 3, 2022, City Council meeting, the City Council voted 4-2 to end the litigation against me but to authorize payment of $300,000 to the greedy and unethical southern California attorney who promoted the litigation and profited from it at the rate of...
Downtown Richmond Promo Produced By CoBiz Richmond
From Wesley Alexander of COBIZ In the spirit of changing the narrative and perception of Richmond, I am writing to share our promotional video about the great assets, resources, and businesses located here in Downtown Richmond, which also includes CoBiz. As you know,...
Richmond Journalism Student Wins White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Scholarship
A Richmond CA journalism student at UC Berkley, Maria Fernanda Bernal, was named one of the 2022 winners of scholarships by the Whitehouse Correspondents’ Association, which sponsored the White House Correspondents Dinner, headlining President Biden and Trevor Noah,...