Company Town
Dueling visions for the city’s future could be heading for a day of reckoning with city voters in November. A Chevron Corp-backed measure to slash utility taxes for residents has paid hands fanning throughout the city on a mission to collect 4,000 signatures.
Chevron’s plans to expand operations to refine a wider range of crude oil at its Richmond refinery have been halted by a California court.
Anthony “Van” Jones, a former special adviser in the Obama Administration’s White House Council on Environmental Quality, spoke to a crowd of about 200 at Mayor Gayle McLaughlin’s re-election campaign announcement party. Immigrant rights activist Nativo Lopez also spoke.
Richmond residents continue to struggle with elevated hazards to their health.
Chevron recently announced that it pumped $3.43 million into a host of local programs and institutions in Richmond and surrounding Contra Costa County communities in 2009, a figure that is significantly up from recent years.
At a recent meeting held by a local activist group, City leaders and a prominent author told residents of their criticisms of Chevron Corp. and vowed to plan for the lingering possibility of its departure.
In the Fall of 1912, a Western town nested against a deep-water point in San Francisco Bay stood poised before a seemingly limitless future. A report produced that year describes a Richmond as endowed with an energetic population and broad industrial shoulders, providing rare perspective on how the city evolved into what it is today, and where it may go tomorrow.
City leaders and residents publicly discussed the possibility of a future without the largest enterprise in the city as uncertainty swirls over Chevron’s intentions for its local refinery.
After a long and sometimes contentious public debate, the Council voted 5-1 to declare the city in recognition of a lower standard of carbon dioxide levels in the air.