General
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…
Contra Costa Health Services is now offering the new omicron booster shots in Richmond. “This Omicron booster will offer vaccinated people renewed protection against new variants such as BA.5, which is now dominant, before fall and winter,” said Will Harper, a Health Services spokesperson. The World Health Organization’s initial reports on omicron have found it is lesssevere than other forms of the virus, such as the delta variant. However, omicron is much more contagious, which is why development of a…
Police have arrested four juveniles and are looking for others who they say are connected to break-ins at five West Contra Costa Unified School District buildings last month, smashing windows and electronics and ransacking classrooms. The juveniles who were arrested late in July and early this month ranged in age from 12 to 16 years old, said Sgt. Aaron Pomeroy of the Richmond Police Department. He said police are still gathering evidence and working to identify other suspects. Richmond Police…
Richmond Police Chief Bisa French returned to work on Monday, nine months after being put on administrative leave because of an assault accusation, Assistant Chief Louie Tirona confirmed Wednesday. French rose through the ranks to become the city’s first female police chief in July 2020. Last October, then-City Manager Laura Snideman put her on paid leave after an 18-year-old family member requested restraining orders against French and her husband, Lee French, an Oakland police sergeant who was put on leave…