Bay Citizen
When Juan Lores delivered pizzas in the late 1980s, the area around Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street was so dangerous his manager wouldn’t let his drivers deliver there after dark. A lot has changed in the last 20 years. Lores in 2009 moved his family into the neighborhood he used to steer clear of. And on a sunny Thursday this week, he looked on as shiny new solar panels were installed on his home’s roof – at no cost to…
Congressman George Miller (D-Martinez) lobbed a lot of questions Thursday afternoon. But he only got one unanimous answer. “How many of you plan to go to college?” Miller asked about 20 Richmond High School students. Every hand shot up. Miller smiled wide. It was part of a more than one-hour after-school conversation between the longtime congressman and teen members of the Bay Area Peacekeepers Inc., a violence prevention and education program that targets youth in Richmond and San Pablo. The…
George Livingston liked looking back. His hindsight wasn’t marred by what-ifs or dubious intentions. He gave it all he had, and there’s no shame in that. “What I am proud of is I was able to help integrate the city,” Livingston said during a lengthy chat in his Richmond home in February, 2011. “I gave people a chance that didn’t have a chance.” History will remember Livingston for many things. He was the city’s second African American City council member…
Richmond continues to make gains in reducing most crimes, but a deadly summer contributed to an uptick in homicides, according to year-end statistics released by police Friday.
Joe Blacknell III, age 20, is accused of a slew of crimes committed in the spring and summer of 2009, including the murder of Marcus Russell, a 21-year-old rap artist who was shot and killed as he drove west on I-580 on a weekday afternoon.
2011 was quite a year, to borrow a favorite phrase from longtime resident Sims Thompson, in “our fair city.” I know that’s vague, but it’s tough to turn a pithy phrase that sums up a year in a vibrant, bustling and changing city. We had tragedy and triumph, tumult and harmony. Alliances and rivalries. Echoes of the past and glimmers from the future.
City Manager Bill Lindsay said late Wednesday he’ll order an investigation into who leaked information to the press and a councilmember about a non-criminal Sheriff’s stop involving an Office of Neighborhood Safety staff member. The move is aimed in part at easing the concerns of ONS staff, who have complained publicly and privately about what they regard as a breach of trust in their relationship with Richmond police officials. Lingering tension between personnel in the ONS and the Police Department…