Government
City and county leaders joined with members of Richmond’s growing urban farming community to discuss ways to keep West County communities at the forefront of the movement toward locally-grown foods.
The “West County Urban Agriculture Summit” is set to run all day Saturday, June 4.
There’s good news and bad news for the city’s budget for 2011-2012. In the positive column, the city’s credit ratings remains strong, there’s money in the bank—$10 million in general fund reserves, essentially a rainy day fund—and funding for the city’s services will for the most part remain intact. The bad news is that every part of city government will experience cuts of some kind, while programs that rely on state funding are under threat of a drastically constricted state budget, and part of the city’s budget relies on ballot measures, which are risky.
On June 7, Richmond residents will go to the polls to vote on Measures C and D, both tax-related measures that are meant to make up for shortfalls in the budget stemming from Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget cuts. But opponents say the measures are a bad idea, and could potentially expose the city to costly lawsuits.
Ready to move forward after the first quashed attempt, Chevron’s Richmond refinery began the process to restart its embattled Renewal Project on Monday by filing a new conditional use permit application. This will be the second attempt to complete the project, which was halted by a county appellate court in 2009 after it was narrowly approved by the city council. The project is meant to upgrade equipment at the refinery and replace aging components.
A bevy of state, county and local officials donned hard hats and grabbed shiny new shovels to break ground for the West Contra Costa County Health Center in San Pablo. The shovels were ceremonial, but real work will begin soon on the new clinic that will serve real needs in the community.
In a complex and dynamic world where scientific certainty is hard to come by and new technologies, chemicals and industrial processes are being introduced into the world, Richmond’s City Council decided that it is best to take a cautious approach to making policies and city planning. At least, that’s the aim of a resolution passed at last night’s city council meeting.
Richmond Police Sergeant DeWayne Williams and community activist Naomi Williams were recognized for their work combating alcohol and substance abuse at the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday.
Richmond moved forward yesterday in the competition to be the site for a second campus of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The city’s Richmond Field Station, already owned by UC Berkeley, is one of six finalists. Other finalists are in Berkeley, Alameda, Albany, and Oakland. LBNL has outgrown its current location in the hills above UC Berkeley, and Richmond has long looked to the site as part of a plan to bolster the city’s growing green- and clean-technology sector….