Food
Richmond’s regressive and indiscriminate sugar tax promises a bitter outcome for our most underserved residents and struggling businesses.
The proposed tax is extraordinarily broad, impacting much more than the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) sweetened sodas suspected of causing much of the nation’s obesity
A study of the average weight of students in middle schools throughout California reveals that cities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties have a high number of children who fall into the category of overweight or obese, including nearly half of the kids in Oakland and Richmond.
Talk about bang for your buck—14,000 square feet for a dollar a year ain’t bad. In terms of food production, that could mean a whole lot of apples, and whatever else will take root on the corner of 1st Street and Chanslor Avenue. The nearly half-acre lot sits just one block east of the Iron Triangle and used to be a popular spot for drug dealing and a dumping ground for trash. Now thanks to the daringness of one resident,…
City council leaders In Richmond voted 5-2 on Tuesday night to put a special soda tax proposal on the November 6 ballot. The soda tax would add a one cent per ounce surcharge to soda and other sugary fruit drinks that contain less than ten percent juice.
More than 100 residents and activists turned out in force to work and celebrate Earth Day in North Richmond on Saturday. But they had a lot of help from those no longer here in body, but very much loom over this historic community in spirit. “It feels so good that the community thinks so much of my brother to want to dedicate this garden to him,” said Leo Jackson, brother of longtime community advocate Fred Jackson, who died of cancer…
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.
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.
Just over a year ago, an oasis blossomed in a rundown Richmond neighborhood off of Highway 580. Cars speed by on the busy freeway overhead and the Safeway Beverage packing plant, large and industrial, looms within eyesight. But here at the Self-Sustaining Communities garden, chickens peck at nubs of grass, a pair of rabbits dart in and out of their burrow, and, if you listen closely, you might hear a faint buzz. Thousands of bees flit between the nearby plants…