Candidates benefit indirectly from Chevron campaign funds, deny link

A week ago, a website came to Richmond residents’ attention. It urges voters to support Chevron’s slate of favored candidates: Nat Bates for mayor, and Donna Powers and Charles Ramsey for City Council. And it also touts Jim Rogers and Jael Myrick for City Council. People immediately wondered, are Rogers and Myrick now on Chevron’s team?

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Richmond’s program to prevent foreclosures spreads

It was one of those public meetings with a whole lot of talk and no action, but this discussion –in Oakland – is nonetheless crucial to Richmond’s plan to prevent future foreclosures. That’s because Richmond may need the support of other cities to succeed in its struggle with the banks.

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Mayor circulates letter blaming council “dysfunction” on one member’s “chaos, disruptions, and vitriolic speech”

In an unusual move, last week after a particularly heated city council meeting Mayor Gayle McLaughlin sent an email to her online supporters entitled “The situation at City Council meetings,” in which she castigated “one councilmember’s” behavior during meetings, urged the public and other councilmembers to recognize to her authority as mayor and assured everyone that she will be tightening the reigns.

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Langlois, Martinez appear at fundraiser for their city council campaigns

On Saturday night in downtown Richmond, the unmistakable beats of Latin Jazz, followed by cheers and laughter, poured out of a small office tucked away in a row of other non-descript offices. The little space on Macdonald Avenue by the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts was illuminated with ambient lighting and filled with people. In the back corner the band played while people twirled on the dance floor. This is how the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) was helping two of its own candidates—Marilyn Langlois and Eduardo Martinez—raise money.

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At heated council meeting, debate over Teach for America, public speakers’ rights

During a heated meeting on Tuesday night, Richmond council members tackled two items that drew out many members of the public: the teachers’ union’s concerns about Teach for America members employed in Richmond and the formation of the city’s first business improvement district. But the most heated exchange of the night came when council members Corky Booze and Jovanka Beckles got into a dust-up over Booze’s request for a legal opinion regarding his concerns about the possible civil rights violations of public speakers during past meetings.

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Richmond organizations whip up bicycle fever with two-day event

Richmond’s Lincoln Elementary School playground and parking lot were turned into a Bike Fiesta Saturday, with scores of neighborhood bike riders and dozens of bicycling enthusiasts from throughout the city coming out to celebrate cycling. It was mild mayhem as bike-riding youngsters careened, sometimes on wobbly wheels, around the school grounds dodging bystanders and each other.

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