Mayoral Campaign
Chevron’s Moving Forward has funneled $1.9 million into two similarly named campaign committees over the last six weeks. Through those committees, Chevron/Moving Forward has spent $1.2 million in support of Chevron-friendly mayoral and city council candidates and in opposition to candidates more critical of the oil giant. And there’s still a month to go.
The RYSE Youth Center, Invest in Youth Coalition, and the League of Women Voters hosted a two-hour debate Thursday at Richmond’s City Council chambers, with youth age 24 and younger and audience members presenting Richmond’s 13 mayoral and city council candidates with a range of questions.
As political campaigning intensifies ahead of the upcoming mayoral and city council elections, candidates draw criticism for a deluge of political signs flooding the streets of Richmond.
Uche Uwahemu, a newcomer to Richmond politics, has built a grassroots campaign that relies on youth campaign workers and small donations from friends and fellow Nigerian émigrés to counter the name recognition of Tom Butt and Nat Bates.
On Saturday, Richmond mayoral and city council candidates debated plans over how to spur economic vitality at Hilltop Mall. Click through the photo gallery to see what they had to say.
Mayoral and council candidates clashed during a debate Saturday over whether to green light a digital sign on the I-80 corridor that would tout the troubled Hilltop Mall business district.
If elected, the 73-year-old Mike Parker said he will focus on education, affordable housing and job training.
“I believe the school system has failed both the teachers and the parents in Richmond,” said Parker. “People don’t have confidence in it.”
Uche Uwahemu—trained in law and business, and shaped by a decade of nonprofit work—speaks earnestly about the future of Richmond. At 41, he is the youngest of Richmond’s four mayoral candidates. Wearing a gray pinstripe suit with a lavender tie, Uwahemu sat in the Café Pascal last week and shared his thoughts on solving the toughest issues facing the city.
It was decades ago, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, when Richmond mayoral candidate Nat Bates received a call from his buddy, the late then Richmond Councilman George Livingston, to spur his interest in public service. He was then working for the Alameda County Probation Department, and a career in politics was the farthest thing from his mind. But he knew Richmond, and had spent the majority of his life here. Many remembered his run excelling in both…