community
Richmond City Attorney Teresa Stricker has resigned, Mayor Tom Butt announced Thursday in his newsletter. The announcement comes after months of Butt lambasting the attorney and city manager for their purported role in investigating him over allegations that his architecture firm accepted city work, which would be a conflict of interest for the mayor. Butt has denied the accusation, which hasn’t been made publicly, and claimed that Stricker and City Manager Laura Snideman have used city money to investigate him,…
Claudia Vela studies at the El Cerrito Library every morning. The 38-year-old graphic design student at Berkeley City College has a 1-year-old son — the library gives her a quiet place to get her work done. But Vela wishes the library, which opens at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, opened earlier. “I get a lot more done here,” she said. Vela may get her wish under the Contra Costa County Library’s plan to keep libraries open for 56 hours…
Robin Donovan’s 13-year-old son didn’t get to trick-or-treat last year because of the pandemic. Instead, he and some friends shared a big bag of candy in the family’s El Cerrito backyard. Donovan’s son wasn’t alone. “Normally we got a lot of trick-or-treaters, hundreds in the past. Last year we didn’t have any,” Donovan said. “When I talked to people last year, nobody was planning to send their kids trick-or-treating.” Donovan’s son, 12 at the time, was old enough to understand…
Richmond residents have until Monday to fill out the 2021 Community Survey, which gauges life, work and play in the city. The survey has been conducted every two years since 2007. It takes about 20 minutes to complete and asks residents to rate their satisfaction with education, infrastructure, safety, transportation, and the city’s overall economic health. It is offered in both English and Spanish and is available online through the city’s website. “I think it’s always important to fill out…
A court case last month possibly set the stage for a new cannabis dispensary in Richmond, the resurrection of an old fight to keep it out — or both. Two Richmond dispensary owners were ordered to pay $5 million in damages for conspiring against a rival owner. On Sept. 23, a Contra Costa County jury found that William Koziol and Darrin Parle, who operate the Green Remedy Collective, had prevented a prospective dispensary, Richmond Compassionate Care Collective, from establishing a…
There was a time when most Richmond voters would have been disappointed by Mayor Tom Butt’s decision to make this term his last in public office. That was before they elected a slate of progressives whose majority on the City Council drowns out many of Butt’s opinions and initiatives. “To a lot of us, Mayor Butt represents politics as usual: Connected to the big businesses, protecting big developers, and against progressive taxation and social policy,” said resident Benjamin Mertz. “Richmond…
Richmond will be using the recently released 2020 U.S. census data to redraw the city’s political boundaries and is inviting residents to help. Three public workshops already have been held online and two more are scheduled in January and February. But anyone who wants to participate can submit maps and suggestions by email. The census triggers a redrawing of political boundaries across the country every 10 years. In Richmond, City Council representation likely will be reconfigured as a result. The…
Some incarcerated people with lengthy prison sentences may see a reduction in their time now that Contra Costa County is among the first in the nation to launch a resentencing pilot program, which it did this month. For decades, California’s “tough on crime” stance sent swaths of individuals into state prisons with lengthy sentences. While the state’s political leaders and the judicial system have made moves in recent years to reduce prison populations, the legacy of mass incarceration has left…
Madalyn Law knows how to keep the food in the refrigerator from going bad when the power goes out. She learned the hard way. Living in Richmond’s Park Plaza neighborhood, Law has experienced four power outages over the past four weeks. To keep her food from spoiling, she “did it old school” by not opening the refrigerator door too often. “I have never experienced outages like this, and I’ve been here for 42 years,” Law said. “The scary part is,…