Government
Voters in West County have a lot to think about this election when it comes to education. The West Contra Costa Unified School District is asking voters to approve a parcel tax extension. Read more about Measure G.
Randy Enos, the son of a teacher, the father of a teacher, a 37-year-veteran of the classroom himself, is not much of what you’d call a politician. But the candidate for the West Contra Costa Unified School District board has retired from teaching, so maybe this is the next best thing.
A frozen bottle of Coca Cola rolled, fizzed and melted as it lay cold in a miniature casket mounted on a table at the corner of Richmond’s Macdonald Avenue and 37th Street.
California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill last month to ban what’s commonly called “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy,” processes aimed at changing the sexual orientation of minors.
Two weeks ago, hundreds of staff and movers transported the Richmond Health Center to its new home in San Pablo. This was one of the last steps in opening the doors to the West County Health Center, and it had been preceded by years of preparation. The long-term planning process was fed by focus groups that considered staff and patient needs. Dr. Chris Farnitano, the WCHC ambulatory care medical director, said planners wanted a building that would “encourage a team-based…
In March 1970, Tom Butt, fresh out of serving in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Vietnam, chose to be discharged there. He mainly wanted to visit Angkor Wat, an architectural wonder in nearby Cambodia. Butt then continued a long “odyssey” back to the United States through Southeast Asia, across the Trans-Siberian Railway in the former Soviet Union, and through Europe. “The people you meet and the people you travel with are some of the things you remember the…
Gary Bell was the first person in his family to go to college, a star football player, and the youngest city council member ever elected in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas. But don’t ask the Richmond City Council candidate about his defeats. “Did you just use the defeated word with me?” he asks, his eyebrows arched incredulously. “Well, you lost the election, right?” I say, referring to his Richmond run in 2005. “Lost?” “Isn’t that what you just told me?…
When the door opened at West County Detention Facility for Tamisha Walker, it was dark. After six months in jail, Walker was free. But she was alone. No one was there to pick her up. All she had was a bus ticket and a bag. “You just get on a bus,” Walker said. “And it’s a long, lonely ride.” Jeff Rutland knows the lonely freedom Walker spoke of. He’s reminded of it every time he sees a released inmate walk…
In the summer of 1975, Richmond Councilman Nat Bates received a call from Ben Brown, a Democratic campaign organizer in Atlanta. Brown needed Bates’ support rallying African American voters behind his candidate, Jimmy Carter, a little known peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia who had just finished his term as governor and was seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Bates was split. Back in California, incumbent governor Jerry Brown was also running for the Democratic presidential ticket, and Richmond councilmembers were…