Unfortunately, the Occupiers—with their partners in the Richmond Progressive Alliance—were Hell bent on disrupting the meeting and when it ended, many of us came away still in the dark—and not because Chevron and the County weren’t trying to talk to us—but because the Occupiers/RPA people did not want to allow them to speak.

You had the one scruffy faced angry man (see photo above) that refused to shut up, refused to sit down, refused to stay away from the stage, refused to stop throwing things at the panelists and refused to stop forcing his large sign from being seen (by placing it on Chevron’s easel directly in front of the panel). Many times he proclaimed that he had the right to protest. But does his right to protest supersede the rights of the rest of us to have this “conversation” that we came to have? Oh, and by the way, apparently everyone in the room was a liar except him—at least that’s what he kept yelling when anyone tried to speak.

Just as with many of the Occupy riots, they beg the question about what exactly it was they were trying to accomplish. They came in angry and pretty much all they did was to make even more people angry but was this newfound anger pointed towards Chevron or the County or was it towards the disrupters.

The scruffy faced man—who seemed to be ignoring any manners his mother may have taught him—came across as the exact type of Occupier that we saw in Oakland breaking windows, burning cars and violently throwing objects at anyone who disagreed with him. Seeing this, it made many of us concerned for our own safety. When people empower themselves to the point where they feel they’re allowed to do anything they want, they often take advantage of that and actually do anything they want. And if this means torching the building or physically accosting other people, then in their minds these are just the casualties of war.

I know many of the leaders of the CBE and I’m disappointed that they aligned themselves with these people.

Chevron screwed up and they know it but does anyone really think they set this fire on purpose? This will cost them many millions of dollars to repair—if not tens of millions and will cost them even more in lost profits. And at a time when they’re trying to win community support for their modernization, this was not good. Since we all know that Chevron is here to make a profit, would it make sense for them to do anything that would disrupt this flow of profits into their coffers?

As a community, we need to hold Chevron’s feet to the fire but we need for an investigation to be completed so the publicly released incident report (due by 5 PM this Thursday) can be presented and we need to wait for the Root Cause Analysis to be made to determine what caused the fire. And we need for the regulatory agencies to finish their investigations so we know exactly what was released into the air and what the risks to the community might be.

When Urban Tilth brought in their wheelbarrows full of vegetables and plants to throw at the panelists, did they really want us to believe that they were all poisoned and died as a result of this fire? Take a look at the map showing where their gardens are located [http://www.urbantilth.org/map_test/] and look at the direction that the wind was blowing (northeast towards Pinole/Hercules) and ask yourself how likely it was that their crops were contaminated to the point that they were poisoned. And do they expect us to believe that these plants all died in less than 18 hours because of this fire? Even Round-Up doesn’t kill them that quickly.

Chevron knows that the people in this community are angry. They didn’t need to come to this meeting to know this. But what was gained by the violent chaos demonstrated at this meeting by the people who came solely to disrupt?

And let’s not forget how the RPA has already turned this into political fodder. The Mayor has already issued a letter advising the public to throw off of the City Council anyone who doesn’t think like them and replace them with RPAers.

While Chevron has taken responsibility for things they had control over, we all need to work with the County to fix the Emergency Alert system. We had too many areas where sirens either didn’t go off or were unheard. And then there’s the siren on McBryde near Lassen that was knocked down many months ago by an errant driver but wasn’t deemed a high enough priority to be promptly replaced.

We heard from plenty of people last night that were upset because they were asked to go to specific web sites to learn what was found in the smoke or the particulate matter. They were also asked to go online or to fill out a form to register their phone numbers for emergency contact but that wasn’t good enough for some of them. I’m not sure exactly what they wanted the County to do to either get information from them or to provide them with information. Do they really think it’s practical for County representatives to knock on every door to answer questions or get their contact info?

As long as we live in the shadow of Chevron, we all need to be proactive in trying to help ourselves. We need to do what’s necessary to protect ourselves and to make sure that we’re getting the information we need. The welfare days are over where residents should expect everyone else to take care of them. Sometimes you need to stand up and take care of yourself.

There’s a great YouTube video of one of the RPA honchos extolling the importance of finding a wedge issue to divide the public and that’s exactly what we saw last night at both the rally before the meeting and then at the meeting. What we didn’t hear from these Occupiers/RPAers was anything that sounded like a cry to find a way to work together. What we heard was an incitement to join forces AGAINST what they believe to be their enemy.