Development
The golden shovels were out, but this wasn’t a “groundbreaking” ceremony. It was a ground “filling” one. City leaders and state and county officials were joined by more than 100 people Friday to mark the start of the final phase of a project to repair a massive sinkhole that swallowed cars and blocked access to a residential community more than two years ago near Via Verdi Road off I-80. The Via Verdi repair project began April 15, 2010, when heavy…
A divided City Council halted a grant-funded port security construction project Tuesday, opting to put plans for the site on hold while exploring the feasibility of a nearby location. The move delays a nearly $4 million project to build a security and operations center for first responders at 1411 Harbour Way South, the Richmond Port’s current main office. Councilman Tom Butt lobbied for more than a month, first to initiate a $40,000 engineering assessment of Riggers Loft, and now to…
After six years, Richmond’s long-awaited General Plan update was passed by the City Council early Wednesday after a lengthy City Council meeting. The vote was 5-2, with Councilmen Corky Booze and Nat Bates dissenting. The plan was passed as recommended by city staff, with two modifications and a series of recommendations proposed by Mayor Gayle McLaughlin. McLaughlin added two key changes to the massive plan, which has been likened by staff to a “land use Constitution” that will guide development…
City Council officials will decide tonight whether to halt federal grant-funded project to convert a building into a port security center. Councilman Tom Butt has for weeks raised concerns about whether the money would be better spent doing the same thing in a nearby structure. Butt says the city’s port operations have devolved into a “boondoggle” and that the city should reconsider port officials’ original plan, for which they received nearly $4 million in federal funding. See the port’s balance…
Around two hundred people gathered Friday at the Richmond BART for a rally in celebration of Earth Day. During the event, organized by Occupy Richmond, protestors carried signs, sang songs and chanted slogans against Chevron.
An unusually large number of people attended Tuesday’s city council meeting in Richmond. Many carried banners or wore bright colored shirts with slogans like “Don’t kill our jobs,” which others changed in “Don’t kill our kids” later in the evening.
North Richmond is no stranger to challenges – or proposed solutions. But a class of UC Berkeley grad students, backed by The California Endowment and a network of local allies, hope their efforts can make a difference. “Our hope is that we can help bring neighbors together in a way that creates new energies focused on key neighborhood issues and shared concerns,” said Heather Imboden, a first year master’s candidate in city planning. Imboden is one of a half dozen…
In an effort to build better a more amicable relationship with the community, Veolia, the company that manages the wastewater treatment plant in Richmond, has instituted an internship program geared at employing local residents. The company is already through the first stages of selecting two interns, said Jamal Muhammad, the Community Outreach Coordinator for Veolia.
Representative George Miller is an unabashedly left-leaning Democrat and Richmond’s congressional representative, who is currently focused on the national healthcare and budget debates.