Two years after giving $1 million dollars in grants to six non-profits, Chevron California Partnership hosted an event Tuesday to show how the organizations have used the donation. Each organization presented a video of their work and discussed how the money was used since receiving the grant in 2011. The California Partnership was established in 2009 by Chevron to distribute funding to community organizations that focus on STEM, an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math. Chevron External Public Affairs…
A program that gives away free books to school children has touched down on the West Coast, and one of Richmond’s schools was the first to host the event Wednesday night. Through the Newark-based program, My Very Own Library, more than 2,000 books were available for all students at Making Waves, a charter middle and high school that’s made up of students who are almost all low-income and qualify for free lunch. Every student received a certificate earlier in the…
This weekend, the West Contra Costa Unified School District held the first of a series of public meetings to encourage residents to discuss how the next five years might look for public schools. On Saturday, about 130 people arrived at Ford Elementary School to participate in the first of six town hall meetings organized by the school district and Capitol Impact, the consulting company hired to develop the district’s five-year strategic plan. Jay Schenirer, the founder of Capitol Impact, who…
Efforts to have Richmond Assistant City Attorney and Human Resources Director Leslie Knight removed from her position were deterred Tuesday evening, when a resolution calling for her dismissal was taken off the city council agenda shortly before the meeting. The resolution, introduced by Councilmember Jovanka Beckles, recommended that City Manager Bill Lindsay, who has the power to fire employees, terminate Knight for violating city policies, as found in a city-funded independent investigation. In a public statement Lindsay released in March,…
While waiting to leave for church on Monday night, January 30, 2006, Karen Jones worried about her unanswered phone calls to her son. It had been six hours since he’d left school. He should have been home by now. He usually called her back. Finally, her phone rang. But it wasn’t her son—it was one of his friends. “Did you hear…” the friend started to ask, but seven years later Jones can’t remember exactly what they said—or even who the…
A synchronized swim team known for sending athletes to the Olympics gave Richmond residents a treat Friday as they performed several of their routines at the Richmond Plunge. The Walnut Creek Aquanuts, founded in 1968, has had more than 30 Olympians swim for its team, eight of them going on to win gold. Coach Kim Probst said about half of the team hails from near Walnut Creek, while the other half come from all around the country to train with…
Five years of abandonment left the house at 127 Chanslor Avenue in Richmond in terrible condition. It caught fire twice from squatters taking advantage of its neglect. (You can read Zach St. George’s previous story on the history of the property here.) As part of a plan to demolish such properties, Richmond’s Code Enforcement Department secured a warrant through the court to tear it down. The city’s Code Enforcement Manager Tim Higares has a list of four other homes he…
The SS Red Oak Victory has a long history of carrying cargo. After being commissioned in 1944, it transported ammunition during three wars. The Richmond Museum Association took ownership of the vessel in 1998, and now the ship is being restored in the same port where she was built: the Richmond Kaiser Shipyards. A group of faithful volunteers is getting the ship prepped to take passengers on cruises across the San Francisco Bay four to six times a year. Click on…
The Bay Area Toll Authority— the government agency that handles revenue from toll booths—approved a $5.6 million contract with a Richmond-based event planner to organize a two-day celebration of the opening of the East Span of the Bay Bridge over Labor Day weekend.
As part of a system-wide initiative to increase its African American student population, officials from California State University, Sonoma visited St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church in Richmond on Sunday with a message: “Send us your best and brightest,” CSU president Rueben Armiñana said to church members from the pulpit.
On Valentine’s Day, health professionals at Doctor’s Medical Center focused on the most important organ of the day—the heart—by presenting several free sessions to an audience on how to better care for their own. Doctors Medical Center is the only hospital in Western Contra Costa County—which has a population of close to 200,000 people—that receives patients who are suffering from a kind of acute heart attack called a STEMI (or ST-elevation myocardial infarction). It occurs when a clot blocks the…
As rent increases in art-friendly cities like Oakland and San Francisco, artists are looking beyond those places to find affordable work spaces…
Two successful restaurateurs are set to bring their award-winning cuisine to the Richmond Craneway Pavilion this February, replacing the Boilerhouse restaurant, which closed in December. Husband and wife team Richard Mazzera and Terumi Shibata-Mazzera have more than 35 years of experience managing restaurants between them and have made Richmond the location of their newest restaurant, Assemble. It was named in recognition of the Ford Motor Company Assembly plant, which operated on the same shorelines that Assemble will overlook, along with…