General

City offering businesses a free pass on late fees

The City of Richmond’s finance department is urging businesses who don’t have an up-to-date license to get one by offering an amnesty on late fees. The move could bring in as much as $300,000 in revenues at a time when the city is taking in less and less tax money.

No urgency before emergency

Without the eyes of news media fixed on them, district board members have displayed no urgency to protect Richmond’s largest school with fences and cameras.

Youth employment program on the rise

Richmond’s YouthWORKS, a city-run youth-employment program, employed 705 local teens and young adults ages 16-21 last summer at 140 Bay Area public and private work sites. The civic youth jobs program is one the nation’s largest in proportion to the population of the city it serves.

Years later, chemical company lot still a toxic stew

The site of the former Stauffer Chemical Company has been closed more than 10 years, but it’s still a hot topic for people working around the shoreline, who want answers about why toxic waste there was simply buried beneath a concrete cap.

Local eatery alive with history, flavor

Pepito’s Deli has been a local institution since the late-1970s, serving Richmond authentic cuisines passed down through generations of the Mexican American family that still owns and operates the restaurant.

Hundreds gather to support rape victim

More than 300 people turned out at Richmond High School in a show of solidarity for the victim of an alleged rape on campus last week. Students, parents and teachers organized dozens of performances in an attempt to begin healing.