View
this email in your browser

So Much Spice Today!

In my March newsletter I gave each item a spiciness rating — 1 to 5 chili peppers — based on how controversial I thought it was. I abandoned the chilis in April
because the topics were pretty mild, plus I didn’t feel like pasting in all the little pepper pictures.

This month it strikes me that most of the items I’m about to cover are spicy! That’s why I’m giving this newsletter as a whole 4 out of 5 chili peppers. If you like
to read about people disagreeing about things, you are in for a treat!

That said, this council still agrees on most things, and most of our disagreements have been respectful and productive. I hope we continue that energy as we sort
through the matters below.

–Sue Wilson        

Sewage and the Budget

The key takeaway I want you to get from this newsletter is that flushable wipes are not really flushable. Maybe you already knew that. But did you know what
happens to your so-called flushable wipe once it goes down the toilet in Richmond? Thanks to my tour of the Richmond Sewage Treatment Plant, I do. Skip to the next section if you don’t want to know.

At the very start of the treatment process, there is a large, not-inexpensive metal grate that all the water from the sanitary sewer lines passes through.
It captures large, solid objects like wipes and drops them on a conveyor belt, where they are moved into plastic bags, which are thrown into a dumpster. I have no idea what happens to the dumpster.

Our sewage treatment plant is many decades old, but also quite modern, because we invest a substantial chunk of city tax money to keep it up-to-date. As
a new council member I’ve been learning how many invisible-but-very-important things a city has to pay for, like that wipe-capturing grate.

I’ll spend more time talking about the city budget in the next newsletter. In the meantime, I encourage you to watch the budget presentations that are taking
place at all city council meetings in May and June. You can watch the live meetings or the recorded presentations from past meetings –
click on a meeting date to get started.

Fireworks Town Hall on Monday

Last month I revealed that
I don’t like illegal fireworks.
However, at the city council meeting on April 29th, I argued against a proposal to direct staff to draft an ordinance that would have tripled fireworks fines in some parts of the city.

While I appreciate Councilmember Bana’s efforts to foreground the issue of illegal fireworks safety, I think the approach she was recommending – tripling
fines on fireworks users – is not effective. I asked Police Chief Bisa French for statistics on fireworks enforcement, and learned that over the last 5 years, only 10 fireworks infractions in total were issued by the police. I don’t blame the police for that
– even if we were to double the size of the police force (which would bankrupt the city), it is still nearly impossible for officers to catch someone in the act of using illegal fireworks. In my opinion, tripling fines when we don’t really hand out fines is
not a solution, and I don’t think we should pretend we are addressing the fireworks problem if we’re not.    

Here’s what I think we should do instead:

1. Education. I helped connect community members and public works to launch a plan to post signs across the city to remind people that fireworks are illegal and dangerous.
2. Communication. At the April 29th meeting Councilmember Bana and I agreed  to hold a community roundtable on the issue of fireworks.  City departments, including police and fire, and community groups will present
   their plans to mitigate fireworks risk this summer.  We’ll leave plenty of time to discuss new ideas and next steps. See invitation below!
3. Cut the supply. I think we should target the people who bring tons of illegal fireworks into the state and sell them. One of the things I’ve learned is that at least 90% of illegal fireworks are manufactured in China,
   and most enter California through Mexico and Nevada. In 2024 there were efforts to encourage Governor Newsom to enter into an interstate pact with Nevada to stem the flow of illegal fireworks from brick-and-mortar stores in their state to ours. Those efforts
   fizzled out (get it?!?), but I am not alone in thinking that city leaders and community members across the state should put pressure on the Governor until that gets done. I’m glad to see that some community members are organizing around this idea as well –
   I will be happy to join those efforts.    

You’re Invited: Richmond Town Hall — Stop Illegal Fireworks

Hosted by: Richmond Police Chief Bisa French, Fire Chief Aaron Osorio, Public Works Director Daniel Chavarria, Julie Freestone from Stop Illegal Fireworks grassroots, and Councilmembers Sue Wilson and Soheila Bana

Time: May 19, 2025, at 7:00 PM

Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83263489027
Meeting ID: 832 6348 9027

One Tap Mobile Access:
+1 669 900 6833,,83263489027#

Party for Stege Elementary Families

As you know,
Stege students and families have gone through a lot this school year.
In an effort to better engage the families, Healthy Contra Costa and
Fierce Advocates will
be hosting a Stege End-of-the-Year Celebration at Booker T Anderson park on Friday May 30th, from 3-7pm. They will be providing the Stege students and their families with food, music, fun, and health education. They hope to have a lead education session during
the event, so parents understand the dangers of lead and why it’s important to get their children tested for lead exposure.

Ad Hocs & Police Accountability

An ad hoc committee is a temporary working group of 1 to 3 council members who meet with each other and city staff to work on a proposed item before bringing
it to the City Council as a whole for a decision. I think every council member is currently working on some issue – fireworks, wildfires, pension debt – as part of an ad hoc committee.

On the May 6 agenda the Mayor agendized the creation of a 3-person ad hoc committee to review a set of recommendations approved by the
Community Police Review Commission.
The recommendations are aimed at improving the commission itself, making the commission’s services more accessible to the public, and increasing community oversight of the police. Right now the recommendations are spread out over the minutes of several CPRC
meetings, and some would probably benefit from input from the Police Chief, the City Attorney and other staff before we vote on them – all good things to get done in an ad hoc committee, in my opinion.  

I was surprised that three council members (Bana, Brown, and Zepeda) disagreed and voted no on the creation of that ad hoc committee. The motion failed 3-3
(Councilmember Robinson was absent on bereavement leave). Why did this particular ad hoc committee get voted down?

In the discussion, it emerged that Councilmember Bana was bothered that she had not been asked to be part of the ad hoc committee. I can sympathize with
Bana here – none of us like to be left out of an ad hoc on issues we care about. However, because committees are capped at three council members, it happens to all of us. And as a council member, she still had ultimate decision-making authority, being able
to amend, approve, or reject whatever recommendations that would have come from the ad hoc committee. None of us are left out of the process in the end.

A more disturbing reason for killing the ad hoc committee is that I think Councilmember Bana and Councilmember Brown are intent on burying the CPRC recommendations
completely. Of course, rejecting the ad hoc committee does not prevent the commission’s recommendations from reaching the council. This was Vice Mayor Zepeda’s point of view, that he preferred that all the recommendations be brought directly to the full City
Council without the intermediate step of an ad hoc. On the other hand, Councilmember Bana and Brown seem intent on throwing up hurdles to keep the council (and the public) from hearing the recommendations at all.

My proof? Bana and Brown have now put an
item on this Tuesday’s agenda demanding an investigation of the CPRC,
citing a critical email sent by a former employee over 8 months ago as their reason.

Note that Bana received the email criticizing the CPRC in September 2024. Yet she did not agendize an investigation of the CPRC during City Council meetings
in September, October, November or December of that year, nor in January, February, March or April of this year when Brown could have joined her in sponsoring the item. If she was truly concerned about CPRC misdeeds, there have been 22 meetings since that
email was sent (yes I counted), 22 opportunities to call for an investigation – which she did not do. Why is she doing it now? That is made abundantly clear in the second part of the agenda item:

“Until the findings of the third-party legal expert are finalized and submitted to the City Council, the CPRC may continue its work but shall be advised
to refrain from adjudicating any cases involving police officers. In addition, the CPRC, as an advisory commission, shall not bring forward any recommendations, findings, or policy proposals to the City Council during this period.”

In short, Bana and Brown are trying to use one critical email as an excuse to shut down the Community Police Review Commission, meaning you and I won’t hear
the set of recommendations being made by the CPRC. Not coincidentally, the president of the police union has also been arguing vehemently against those recommendations in his own public comments. I think they are all looking for ways to make these recommendations
go away forever – but we’ll know for sure on Tuesday.

There’s got to be a better way. I’ve talked to enough people in Richmond to know we have diverse opinions about the proper role of the police and what form
community oversight should take. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, I hope you will agree that what’s going on here isn’t right. Using a flimsy charge of corruption to shut down a commission and bury their ideas is not something I will ever support.

Let’s just have the conversation, and see what we can get to on the other side.

The Port and Riggers Loft

Have you heard of
in media res? Google will translate it as “in half beef,” but that is incorrect. In Latin it means “in the middle of things.” English-teacher-types use
in media res to describe the narrative technique of beginning a story (or epic poem or TV show or
movie) in
the middle of events rather than at the chronologically earliest point. You start in the middle of the story, and you have to piece together what happened previously in order to make sense of the whole.

Being new on city council involves a lot of
in media res. As a new council member I have to develop opinions and make decisions about things that other council members have been discussing for years. It’s not easy! For example, last month, I received dozens of emails from patrons imploring me
to save Riggers Loft, a local wine bar and event space. The Riggers Loft saga has been going on for a long time. Arriving near the end, I had to put together the backstory in order to decide whether I would heed the call to save it. And my answer is – I don’t
think we can.

To summarize what I learned, the owners of Riggers Loft rented a large, semi-industrial space from the Port of Richmond. The Port is owned and operated by
the city. In that space Riggers ran a wine bar, hosted events, and sub-leased space to other businesses. Though their rent was considerably lower than what other port tenants pay, Riggers Loft had trouble keeping up with payments, especially during COVID.
After COVID, they were unable to stick with the repayment plan they signed with the city. As of today, Riggers Loft has not paid any rent to the city in a year, and their payments were partial and sporadic before that. After an attempt to create another repayment
plan failed, the city began legal proceedings to evict Riggers Loft. Those eviction proceedings are nearing completion now, and patrons of Riggers Loft have come forward to ask the city to stop the eviction process, forgive the debt, pay for required improvements
to the space, and charge lower rent to Riggers moving forward. Here’s how I have responded:

• In my opinion, saving Riggers Loft would not be a responsible use of city resources.
• Running a hospitality business in a gigantic building at an aging port is an incredibly expensive proposition. Frankly, I think it’s a money pit. Keeping it going requires ongoing capital investment, which Riggers
  Loft does not have. The city should not try to fill that gap because we have
  more pressing needs.
• I think the City showed a lot of patience in giving Riggers as much time as it did to figure out a plan. But as a result, we have lost $400,000 in unpaid rent, which is disappointing.
• Moving forward, we can and should be good stewards of city properties by not letting our affection for particular people or businesses outweigh the need to manage our assets in a way that maximizes revenue for our
  community.  

I know many people will be disappointed by my response, but any second thoughts I had about this were knocked out of my head by
a presentation from the Port Director last week.
We are coming to the end of a much-needed audit of port facilities, and it looks like some of the berths are in need of serious repair. When the report is finalized, the City Council will face difficult decisions about what we will fix at the port and how
we will pay for it. I think we have to prioritize port businesses that generate enough revenue to help maintain the port over ones that require city subsidies to survive.