Development
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.
On Monday morning, the County Assessor’s Appeals Board denied Chevron’s appeal of its tax assessment value for the years 2007 – 2009. Representatives from the oil giant had argued that the county had overvalued the property taxes due from the company’s Richmond oil refinery, and that it was owed a refund of up to $73 million. The appeal was the largest in the county’s history, according to County Assessor Gus Kramer.
There is great news for fishermen and salmon lovers. This year’s projected salmon count in watersheds around the bay is higher than it has been in years. Last year only about 115,000 salmon were counted swimming from the bay up the Sacramento River. This year the projected count is over 800,000.
When downtown Richmond’s Metro Walk was first designed, it was billed as a mixed-use development where residents could live just steps from BART and Amtrak, with retail and restaurants right next door. But for years, the Walk’s three retail spaces – 7,000 square feet total – sat empty. Folks waiting for Amtrak had to hike the two long blocks to the Richmond Shopping Center for a snack. Residents said they wished there was somewhere to duck in for a cup of coffee on their way to the train.
The USS Iowa, a World War II-era ship that’s the fastest battleship ever built, stands out in the Richmond marina. The 887-foot long gray hull dwarfs the surrounding ships and containers that are scattered around the harbor.
The Lauritzen Channel has more DDT in it than before the 1996 cleanup, and some fish are turning up with DDT levels in their tissues hundreds of times higher than their counterparts in the rest of the San Francisco Bay. It took one company less than two decades to create a chemical mess in the Lauritzen Channel that will take almost half a century to identify and clean.
A lot of Betty Reid Soskin’s emotions find articulate outlets. Ninety years of life, a sharp memory and a lucid mind do that for her. Standing in late February at the last exhibit of the free tour she gives every few weeks of the Rosie the Riveter Memorial National Park, Soskin shared with her tour group why this place is so important. “It’s amazing how far ahead than the rest of the country the Bay Area is, and people have…
Plans have been in the works for several years for a construction project that would close an Interstate 580 onramp near the Point San Pablo Peninsula in Richmond. Caltrans originally planned to close the eastbound I-580 onramp for two years while it repaired three bridge decks that hang over Scofield Avenue, which drivers must take to get to the onramp.