General
Richmond has an image problem. And its residents are well aware of it. They see it in outsiders’ faces, hear it in their derogatory comments and sense it when they tell others where they are from. The image of Richmond as a rough-and-tumble town was solidified in the movie “Coach Carter,” about a Richmond basketball coach who inspires his scrappy but talented players to succeed athletically and academically, against all odds. That descriptor, apt as it may have been, also…
In 1897, Isaburu Adachi left Gifu, Japan, for California at the age of 25. Eight years later, Isaburo managed to buy five acres of land in El Cerrito. That land turned into 12 greenhouses before the first world war broke out. The Adachi Florist and Nursery survived into the 21st century, closing its last nursery five years ago. Isaburo’s granddaughter Wendy Adachi wanted to honor her family’s legacy — and that of the other Japanese Americans who opened nurseries in…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a new recommendation for infants and people above the age of 60 to receive a single-dose of the RSV vaccine, which was approved earlier this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The CDC, in a September health advisory, found that the respiratory syncytial virus was spreading in the southeastern part of the country. Cases have steadily increased in California in October and November. The risk of infection from RSV,…
Aboard the Mare Island vessel en route to Oakland, it’s easy to sit back, relax and enjoy a jaunt across the bay. Yet the journey of ferry transportation in the Bay Area hasn’t always been so smooth, and the COVID-19 pandemic reversed strides made in recent years. To recoup riders, the service, which is administered by the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority, cut fares by 30%, reworked schedules to address new commuting trends and weekend demand, and…
Applications are now being accepted for the Reporter in Residence program at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The program, offered in partnership with Richmond Pulse, will run from Aug. 23 to Dec. 8 and is open to Contra Costa County residents interested in a journalism career. Up to two resident reporters will be selected. Each will receive a $2,000 stipend and one-on-one mentoring, and will participate in an Introduction to Reporting class. Applications are due on July 14. More information…
Soggy weather dissuaded many from voting in person on Tuesday but, apparently, the rain did not keep people from casting ballots. “There have been an enormous number of ballots in the drop-off boxes,” Melissa Hickok, with the Contra Costa County elections office, said Tuesday night. About 229,000 people cast votes in Contra Costa County, about 30% of registered voters. In-person voting picked up during lulls in the rain, Hickok said. But drop-off boxes were filling up, even though Californians had…
Aiming to curb gun violence before it begins, the California Violence Intervention & Prevention Grant Program recently awarded $6 million to Richmond. Allocated by the Office of Neighborhood Safety, the money will support education and life skills programs, employment training, street outreach and stipends for would-be offenders of violent crime. Those programs fall under the office’s Operation Peacemaker, which will receive about a third of the grant money. Operation Peacemaker launched an 18-month fellowship program in 2010 that incentivizes those…
On a Sunday afternoon in late September, TC Ball entered Richmond’s Multicultural Bookstore with a cart full of kings, queens, bishops, rooks, knights, and pawns and boards to start the first of several chess classes for children. “Cool people play chess,” said Ball, 69, founder and director of the West Coast Chess Alliance in Richmond, as he prepared to start the class. He fell in love with chess about 40 years ago when he was at college, and then 13…
“People of Richmond” is a regular series in which reporters pose a question to people in the community. Answers are presented verbatim, though sometimes edited for brevity. Q: If you were superintendent of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, what would your top priority be? “I would make sure that students have enough teachers. Right now, a lot of the classrooms are overfilled and the students don’t get adequate attention. It’s better to have more teachers or tutors in each…