Buffy the cowboy glares at the closed door, his feet set apart, the bandolier round his belly loaded with red shot-shells. His ten-gallon is pulled down over his forehead, and his neckerchief is snugged up tight under a steel slide, which depicts a lewd act between two hogs. It is morning, and the sun has not yet pierced the fog draped on the outskirts of Richmond. The ground is dew-darkened, with lighter scars of dry dust from boot scuffs….
Measure N was defeated in Tuesday’s election with an overwhelming two-thirds of voters saying no to the one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. Of the roughly 25,000 votes cast, more than 16,000 went against the measure. Championed by the Richmond Progressive Alliance, the proposed tax attracted national media attention, and drew the ire of local pro-business groups and the national soda industry, which spent more than $2.6 million to defeat the measure. A victory would have made Richmond the first city…
“Knock! Knock!” Compared to the red door, the woman’s head and shoulders, blurry through the window, look enormous. The weather outside is ominous, dark and cloudy. “Who’s there?” The door opens. The giant (surprise!) is City Council candidate Marilyn Langlois, and this is the inside fold of a slick red and olive political flier. Don’t vote for Langlois, the ad implores the reader—“She wants to raise your family’s taxes!” and, “She even refused to pay her own taxes!” The real…
Streaming water, Jack Johnson hauled himself up on the dock and spat out his regulator. He pulled off his mask and sat panting, fins in the water, his face pooched out under his camo neoprene hood. “Can’t do that on the vegetarian diet,” he said, wiping at the water dripping from his forehead. He’d just scrubbed the bottoms of a 38-foot sailboat and a 35-foot powerboat, feeling his way around in the frigid green baywater, breathing through a hose attached…
His team crushed 53-0, Coach Mack Carminer ordered his Kennedy Eagles back to their bus even before the McClymonds Warriors had cleared the field. “Back to the bus,” he yelled, “Back to the bus!”
The last few years saw many boots unlaced as development stalled and jobs disappeared, with construction workers—carpenters and roofers, pipefitters and welders, cement masons and bricklayers—unemployed at more than double the rate of the general population. But things finally seem to be improving, says one local boot seller—and he would know.
Near the corner of Cutting Boulevard and 23rd Street, between an asphalt parking lot and a concrete sidewalk, surrounded by weeds and yellowed grass, is a dead tree.
For Doug Deaver, Richmond’s proposed cent-per-ounce soda tax would mean more paperwork and less profit. While city politicians argue over public health, government overreach and the influence of outside money, Deaver, who owns a vending machine company, worries more about his bottom line. If Measure N passes in November, businesses that sell soda, energy drinks, or other beverages with added sweeteners like sugar or corn syrup would be required to keep tabs on exactly how many ounces of those drinks…
Doug Kidder, the owner of a small Richmond boat company, said he wasn’t surprised when the Port of Richmond called him last summer to let him know it was going to increase the rent on his small lot in the Richmond Shipyards. It had been a few years, and Kidder said he was probably paying slightly below market value. But he said he was shocked when the new lease terms arrived — the Port was nearly tripling his rent. Port…