From the presidential election to the City Council, from the school board to Measure N, we’re covering it all: the money, the measures, the personalities. Click here for Richmond Confidential’s complete coverage of Election 2012.
Richmond Confidential reporters spent time with each one of the 11 candidates running for council. Click left or right to scroll through this interactive carousel and read the candidate profiles. Note: This is a circular carousel, candidates are not arranged in a particular order.
A frozen bottle of Coca Cola rolled, fizzed and melted as it lay cold in a miniature casket mounted on a table at the corner of Richmond’s Macdonald Avenue and 37th Street.
In the summer of 1975, Richmond Councilman Nat Bates received a call from Ben Brown, a Democratic campaign organizer in Atlanta. Brown needed Bates’ support rallying African American voters behind his candidate, Jimmy Carter, a little known peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia who had just finished his term as governor and was seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Bates was split. Back in California, incumbent governor Jerry Brown was also running for the Democratic presidential ticket, and Richmond councilmembers were…
Committees backed by the American Beverage Association have spent $3.5 million total to defeat measures proposing one cent per ounce taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages in Richmond and El Monte, CA.
The stoppage of operations at Chevron’s damaged Crude Distillation Unit, which supplied units at the Richmond refinery responsible for 38 percent of the Bay Area’s total refining capacity, has been partially blamed for soaring gas prices across the state.
The Texas-based movie theater chain Cinemark USA Inc has joined the campaign against Richmond’s Measure N, adding nearly $107,000 in non-monetary contributions against the measure between July 15-Sept. 30, according to campaign statements filed with the City Clerk. During that period, Cinemark was one of two contributors to the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes, which has spent $2.2 million this year in opposition to Measure N. CCABT’s other — and largest — contributor is the American Beverage Association, a lobby…
The Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes spent $1.8 million dollars on efforts to defeat Measure N between July 1-September 30, more than four times what it spent on the campaign in the six months between January and July. Campaign contribution statements filed with the city clerk Friday show that the CCABT, a local group funded mainly by the American Beverage Association, received $1.39 million in total contributions between July and September and spent $1.84 million on its efforts to defeat…
City Councilmembers Tuesday night refused to publicly discuss last week’s assault involving Councilmember Corky Booze, saying they would leave the matter to law enforcement. Booze was involved in a fight with a member of the Richmond Progressive Alliance last week, and the RPA, the NAACP and members of the public gave statements in public comment condemning political violence. ”The NAACP rises in opposition of any violence used by any person or organizations as a tool to silence conflicting opinions,” the…
The City Council unanimously adopted two resolutions Tuesday: an industrial safety resolution calling on Chevron to adopt the highest possible safety standards during renovations to the crude distillation unit damaged in the Aug. 6 refinery fire, and a long term investment resolution encouraging the energy giant to invest in a technology campus at Marina Bay. The industrial safety resolution, authored by Mayor Gayle Mclaughlin and Councilmember Jovanka Beckles, received public backing from the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, an environmental conservation…
With a month left to the November 6 election, City Council candidates are turning to video and social media to engage voters and gather voter feedback. Candidates Nat Bates and Mike Wassberg last week released a campaign video attacking the Richmond Progressive Alliance for its support of the city’s plans to build bicycle paths in Richmond, saying only 2 percent of Richmond residents use bicycles. The 12-minute video, produced by Wassberg, is presented in the format of a talk…
As Richmond Fire Department and Chevron firefighters complete joint search-and-rescue training operations at the Chevron refinery this week — a sign of cooperation between the two agencies at a time when residents and regulators are demanding answers about refinery safety — Contra Costa County is taking steps to tighten its industrial safety standards. The county’s Board of Supervisors last week appointed Supervisor John Gioia and District 5 Supervisor Federal D. Glover to consider amendments to its Industrial Safety Ordinance and…
A music video recorded by a coalition of Richmond-based artists, featuring an inmate and a parolee in support of President Barack Obama’s campaign for reelection, has gone viral on YouTube, attracting more than 80,000 views with at least 60,000 people having watched it in the past week. The song, titled “Change,” features the vocals of R&B singer Waymond “Suave” Anderson, who is serving a life sentence at the California State Prison in Lancaster following a 1997 conviction for murder. In…