AP

Nutiva hosts grand opening

Terry Harris spent the last four years bouncing between temp agencies and commuting to the South Bay to find work, never able to find a full-time job. Then Nutiva, an organic “superfood” company, arrived in Richmond and started hiring Richmond residents – including Harris, a forklift operator. Now, he said, he can ride his bike to work. Thursday afternoon Harris walked through the cavernous 105,000-square-foot warehouse, mixing with business owners, residents, politicians — and his new coworkers – at a…

LBNL unveils long term plan for new Richmond Bay Campus

Representatives from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab unveiled long term plans for the Richmond Bay Campus, including ideas on how to involve surrounding neighborhoods, at a workshop at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium Thursday night. The lab’s Long Range Development Plan will consolidate existing bioscience facilities associated with LBNL from around the East Bay. The research goals at the Richmond campus will include bioscience solutions for carbon-neutral fuels, reduced human environmental footprint, and improved human health. The presentation Thursday highlighted the…

Ready To Play

Due to a surge in player turnout this season, Richmond High School’s football program has fielded its first junior varsity team in two years.

Hull diver makes a living cleaning boats

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…

Langlois replies to critics on tax evasion

Richmond residents received a campaign mailer this week criticizing the taxpaying record of City Council candidate Marilyn Langlois. The mailer, and connected website, add an additional narrative to the campaign for the three open city council seats. Both reveal that Langlois failed to pay taxes to the IRS and that she had two tax liens against her. The first came in 2007, for $9,728 and the second in 2008, for $5,940. Langlois responded by sending out an emailed explanation of…

Art on the Greenway exhibit a community effort to celebrate Richmond

The Richmond Greenway got a huge makeover this summer – from colorful murals to mosaic benches to hand-welded bike racks – thanks to $65,000 in grants through Richmond’s Neighborhood Public Art program. The summer’s projects culminated in a multimedia exhibit at the Richmond Art Center called Art on the Greenway that will remain until November 9, 2012. The Richmond Arts & Culture Commission awarded NPA grants to three different entities this year: The Community Rejuvenation Project for eight murals and…

Council passes resolutions urging Chevron to tighten refinery safety, invest in Richmond

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…

Isaiah Thomas shooter says it was self-defense

A 30-year-old Richmond man pleaded not guilty to murder charges for a shooting in mid-September at a hearing Tuesday in the Richmond Superior Court. Jafari Sargent turned himself in to the Richmond police on Sept. 18, a week after the shooting death of Isaiah Thomas. Eyewitnesses said the shooting resulted from an escalating argument between Thomas and Sargent, who were cousins. Sargent’s attorney, Colin Cooper, said that the victim provoked Sargent. “It wouldn’t have happened had he not been put…

Interactive art makes waves on Macdonald Ave.

An outdoor art exhibit of work by acclaimed new media artist Scott Snibbe made its debut at the Richmond Arts in Motion festival this Saturday. The display consists of four screens that hang in the front window of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts on the corner of 11th St. and Macdonald Ave. Three panels feature pre-recorded videos of the EBCPA’s students and resident artists dancing and acting in silhouette. The fourth panel pulls pedestrians on Macdonald Ave….