History
The decision to close La Perla Mexican Deli wasn’t made because of rising taxes, slim profits, or a change in the community. These are all things the family business has seen and overcome in the 63 years it’s been operating in the Iron Triangle. The building is owned by the family, the revenue is enough for them to pay their own bills, and through the riots of the ‘60s, the restaurant stayed put. Though time has made the family restaurant…
Decades of industrial pollution have left toxic contaminants in Richmond’s air, water, and soil. Click on the icons to learn more.
More than 12 million men and women were victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States in 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and Richmond hasn’t escaped the problem. Richmond Police Lt. Bisa French estimated that the RPD sees 20-30 domestic violence cases a month. STAND! For Families Free of Violence, which works with victims in Contra Costa County, receives more than 15,000 clients a year, said Gloria Sandoval, the group’s…
The site of a former Stauffer Chemical Co. plant in Richmond is still contaminated with a huge amount of toxic waste. Sherry Padgett, whose office is across the street, has spent the last decade trying to get the site’s current owners and environmental regulators to clean it up. Click the arrow to hear Padgett and other local residents tell their stories.
Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin first saw Henry Clark, as so many have, at the gates of Richmond’s Chevron oil refinery. It was a blustery day in June 2003 and Clark was calling for environmental accountability from the oil company – as he has for many years – in front of an impassioned crowd of community members holding signs attacking refinery flares and “dirty air.” “He spoke prior to me” at the event, recalls McLaughlin, who had arrived armed with statistics…
Environmental health advocates have often linked asthma rates in Richmond to nearby industrial polluters like the Chevron refinery. But while science has established some strong correlations between air pollution and asthma episodes — such as in studies conducted by the California EPA Air Resources Board or published in scientific journals such as Current Opinion on Pulmonary Medicine — the jury’s still out on causation. “The connection between asthma and air quality is complicated,” says Abigail Kroch, Director of Epidemiology, Planning & Evaluation at Contra…
Mayor Gayle McLaughlin invited the community to the Richmond Public Library Friday night to honor the memory of this year’s homicide victims. More than 30 people attended the event. Chairs formed a circle providing a public forum for the mayor and the attendees who had stories to share about the year’s 18 homicides. “It’s people owning the neighborhood together,” McLaughlin said on ways to decrease crime and violence in the community. She focused on communities taking personal responsibility, being more…
As a 20-year-old growing up in the woods near Louisiana State University, Jones said he didn’t know the war was going on—much less where Vietnam was on a map. “I just plain volunteered,” he said. “I went to my boot camp, gun school and ITR. At the end of my training they said, ‘You’re a machine gunner and you be going to Vietnam.'”
When the official returns came in on Wednesday morning, Richmond voters had decided that after the most expensive campaign in city history, what they wanted was familiar faces. Incumbents Nat Bates and Tom Butt were re-elected to the City Council, and Gary Bell, who will return to the dais after an eight-year hiatus, will take the seat vacated by retiring Councilmember Jeff Ritterman. The city’s proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, Measure N, was defeated. Money was a major talking point…