Q&A with Mark Wassberg, candidate for mayor

On June 2, Richmond voters will cast ballots in a primary election. Richmond Confidential interviewed the five mayoral candidates either in person or by phone or video, unless noted. We are publishing their verbatim responses, with light editing for clarity or brevity.

Mark Wassberg, mayoral challenger

Why do you want to be mayor?

Well, the problem is you have a you have a government you have the city government and the Police Department. They are not obeying our constitutional laws because we know at the last city Council meeting there for this sanctuary city stuff and that is totally illegal to the Constitution, because the City Council and Richmond PD does not recognize our Constitutional laws, because the government we have right now in Richmond favor the criminals instead of law abiding citizens for the last 20 years. … If I’m here, I will go ahead and change the City Council and the Richmond PD, because the problem is, you cannot have people in our government that take a note to the Constitution that’s good to support criminals. You don’t do these things in our government, and this is what the city government’s been doing to the city on account of the [Richmond Progressive Alliance] for the last 20 years. … This is why I’m running for mayor, because I have a chance to change this stuff. And the problem now is you got Eduardo Martinez, he was out there preaching all his hate, his anti-Semitism stuff. S now you have [Claudia} Jimenez, she’s running against Eduardo so they’re going to split the vote, but the only problem is, the RPA believes in both of them, believe in the same thing. … Now you got [Demnlus] Johnson and [Ahmad] Anderson, they’re going to end up splitting the Black vote, because the NAACP is not endorsing these people.

Can you suggest ways in which the city can attract more industries so that it is not so economically reliant on Chevron?

Well, what we could do is that we could make adjustments to Measure U, because Measure U right now is because of the high taxes, high property tax, the high sales tax. This is why big business is not coming in. But it doesn’t matter if you have a small business or a large business or multi-billion-dollar business, we all need business to come in, the city needs revenue. The businesses are not coming in because, actually, to see the council right now, their support is the small green jobs. … The problem is, the City Council is dependent on this money from Chevron. They’re going to use the money to bring small green businesses, which don’t pay no money — they don’t pay no revenue, but but they’re going to do it anyway. If they feel that they have enough of these small green businesses, they’re going to try to close down Chevron.

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Name one dire need in Richmond that you think the Chevron settlement money should be used to address.

I would like to see a massive job job training program, like once you get out of high school, play time is over, it’s time to get serious about life. You can join the military or go to college or get into the job training programs. I was thinking of us setting up a program where you could stay at these homeless shelters as long as you go to college. We will pay you for going to college, we will pay your tuition, we will buy you your books. …. Once you’re done with that program, the city will help you get a job. You can go with the college or you can go to a job trading program. It doesn’t matter, but you’re going to have to be clean, something like the military or being in prison, you can’t go out and mess around. You’ve got to be serious. You’ve got to be going to school every day. We’ll come and pick you up. We’ll drive you down there when you’re done. Then you go back to the shelter.

By the end of the year, City Council again will have to decide whether to continue using Flock license-plate-reading cameras. Where do you stand on the issue?

The reason why that the Police Department shut off the cameras is because they didn’t want other law-enforcement to get the information, like the FBI, Homeland Security, ICE, or any other or law-enforcement organization. I would go to court if I have to sue my own city to keep those cameras going, because those cameras are necessary to fight crime and this is what the Richmond PD is not doing. Actually, they are harboring.

How would you bring more affordable housing to Richmond?

The problem is, you have these contractors coming in, and the City Council is always intervening, that we want this done this way, we want this done that way, it’s going to cost some more money because these these contractors could hardly make a profit. That’s one of the reasons why we need to bring in more housing, to let the contractors build it, so they’re going to have to make a profit. We have plenty of land. We have enough land in Richmond, but we could build public housing for the next 20,30 years and you could have government subsidies. … There’s a lot of projects you could start up, but the problem is, I’ll have to get together with the Planning Commission. I can’t do it all. You have to do all the environment, who going to live there — you have to take all that in.

What makes you the best candidate?

I believe in law and order. I respect the Constitution, laws. I’m all for the cameras, whatever we could do to make Richmond safe. My priorities are public safety infrastructure, that’s the purpose of the city government. That’s why I’m I’m the best candidate, because I won’t be out there supporting the BLM (Black Lives Matter), Antifa and terrorism.

(Top photo courtesy of the candidate)

Coming Tuesday: A Q&A with City Council candidate Brandon Evans
(Mayor Eduardo Martinez and Councilmember Claudia Jiménez did not schedule an interview with Richmond Confidential or answer emailed questions.)

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Q&A with Demnlus Johnson III, candidate for mayor

Q&A with Ahmad Anderson, candidate for mayor