Economy
When Oakland resident Debi Mason set out to prevent mortgage associates from the Bank of America from foreclosing on her sister Patricia’s Maxwell Park home in 2007, she had only a few friends, neighbors and advocacy groups to help fend off the foreclosure. But last week, Mason, along with thousands of homeowners in Bay Area cities like Oakland and Richmond that have been profoundly effected by foreclosures and the ensuing blight, welcomed the new Homeowner Bill of Rights, a state…
Chevron awarded grants totaling $1 million to six nonprofits Wednesday morning for programs aimed at helping students and residents in Richmond.
The site of a former Stauffer Chemical Co. plant in Richmond is still contaminated with a huge amount of toxic waste. Sherry Padgett, whose office is across the street, has spent the last decade trying to get the site’s current owners and environmental regulators to clean it up. Click the arrow to hear Padgett and other local residents tell their stories.
The white-collar crime of identity theft, which has increased dramatically nationwide in the last decade, has not spared Richmond. Richmond Police Detective Jeffrey Whitson calls Richmond one of the identity theft epicenters of the West Coast. With the technological advances that come with smart phones, online banking, and other exploitative tools, Whitson said he’s getting far more cases across his desk. “It’s an epidemic,” Whitson said. Whitson said that from last November to the present he has seen more…
The House of Prayer Ministries, located near Nevin and 2nd Street in the Iron Triangle, only has about 20 church members. It’s a small parish, but lead Pastor Kenneth E. Wilkerson says it’s a strong one with deep love for people in the area. “We have a heart for this community, for Richmond,” said Wilkerson, while sitting in the church’s small back room and watching his “worker bees” buzz around clearing plates from people who stopped in for a hot…
When the official returns came in on Wednesday morning, Richmond voters had decided that after the most expensive campaign in city history, what they wanted was familiar faces. Incumbents Nat Bates and Tom Butt were re-elected to the City Council, and Gary Bell, who will return to the dais after an eight-year hiatus, will take the seat vacated by retiring Councilmember Jeff Ritterman. The city’s proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, Measure N, was defeated. Money was a major talking point…
Chevron will replace all piping in the damaged sections of the Richmond refinery with chrome alloy, the company said in a letter Wednesday to the city of Richmond and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The move comes six weeks after Chevron announced that it believed the Aug. 6 fire may have occurred because of thinning and corrosion in a piping component that may have had low silicon content. “Before the restart of the crude unit, Chevron will complete…
On the day after the election, as folks were picking themselves up after a night spent celebrating or grieving, Nutiva CEO John Roulac, a major financial supporter of the failed genetically-modified-food-labeling Prop. 37, was putting his best GMO-free foot forward. “Obviously, I would have loved to have won, but 47 percent is respectable and demonstrates that 47 percent of Californians want the right to know what’s in their food,” Roulac said, referring to the 4.3 million Californians who voted yes…
West County voters came out strong for education Tuesday — both on a local and state level. Measure E, Measure G and Prop 30 passed. Todd Groves and Randy Enos will join the West Contra Costa School Board.