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Richmond nonprofit donation drive begins

 A marathon donation campaign is under way in Richmond, the first of its kind in California. At 6 a.m. Wednesday, the Richmond Community Foundation’s “We Give – 2013!” campaign kicked off, a 36-hour, non-stop social media donation drive to benefit city nonprofit organizations. The campaign is at the heart of the foundation’s mission to use philanthropy to build healthy, sustainable communities. “Nonprofit organizations … in Richmond struggle with reaching out to individual donors,” Jim Becker, Richmond Community Foundation’s vice president…

State of the streets

The pavement buckles up into a mound directly in front of the house where Elizabeth has lived for 47 years.  The bump in the pavement is five feet long and one and a half feet wide—or the size of a small person lying down. “A few years ago that lady’s daughter tripped on that hump,” Elizabeth says motioning to her neighbor’s house on the left. “I called the city, and they dug up the hump, but it buckled up again…

Lawsuit against Richmond’s eminent domain plan dismissed

Richmond notched a victory in its effort to use eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages on Monday, as a federal court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank against the city. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote that the case is not “yet ripe for adjudication.” In other words, the banks can’t sue the city for something it hasn’t done yet. The lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of using eminent domain to seize more than 600 underwater mortgages…

WCCUSD meets to discuss test scores

Despite signs of improvement, test scores in the West Contra Costa Unified School District continue to fall short of expectations. That was the message on Wednesday night when the West Contra Costa Unified School District Board met to discuss the school district’s test results and Academic Performance Index ratings. Nearly 75 percent of the district’s schools fall below the state’s target API score. The district includes 50 schools and 30,000 students of varying ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds. “As a district, we…

County supervisors adopt suicide prevention plan

The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors has taken steps to curb what it considers an unacceptably high rate of suicides. More county residents die by suicide than homicide, according to recent statistics, from a special county committee. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors adopted the Suicide Prevention Strategic Plan. It was the work of the county’s Suicide Prevention Committee, made up of more than a dozen agencies and groups, including representatives from the RYSE Youth Center, Contra Costa Behavioral Health,…