Posts Tagged ‘Tom Butt’
Debate Over Zeneca Development Continues
The debate rages on between community activists and the Richmond City Council, who are trying to push for development on the highly controversial “Zeneca site.”
Read MoreTense Council session covers Molate judgment updates, district election hearing
Tuesday’s City Council meeting – called “long and raucous” in an email missive by Mayor Tom Butt — mimicked a battleground with locals and lawmakers firing off dissenting opinions over issues from the proposed Point Molate development to the prospect of district council elections.
Read MoreInterim Police Chief French aims for permanent job in ‘very male-dominated field’
With the police chief position vacant the current interim police chief Bisa French threw in her hat as a contender for the leading role. French has spent her entire 22-year career at the department and is wants to finish it off on top.
Read MoreRichmond street renamed after international religious leader
Richmond is now home to “Dalai Lama Avenue,” a block-long stretch of Huntington Avenue the City Council renamed on Tuesday to honor Richmond’s Tibetan community and the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists worldwide. The newly-renamed avenue will guide visitors searching for the Tibetan Association of Northern California (TANC), which is located on Huntington between Columbia…
Read MoreCelebrating Spirit & Soul with spirit and soul
“This year’s Spirit & Soul was the largest to date. In just about every aspect. The festival broke records.”
Read MoreCouncil votes on Zeneca site clean-up and development
Electrician and two-time cancer survivor Sherry Padgett could throw a baseball from her 49th Street cabling business and hit what Richmond residents call “the Zeneca site:” an eighty-seven-acre property that contains more than a century’s inheritance of hazardous waste from manufacturers including the now-defunct herbicide maker Stauffer Chemical and the European pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. Padgett…
Read MoreCouncil greenlights tenant purchase proposal, Veolia deals
Richmond landlords may be forced to give tenants the first shot at buying their homes before putting them on the market under a proposed rule whose drafting the City Council kicked off on Tuesday.
Read MoreCouncil takes no action on proposal to charge fees for public records related to police misconduct
The fee, intended to charge enough to cover the actual cost of the service, applies only to previously private police misconduct records made disclosable by the recent and upcoming police transparency legislation Senate Bill 1421 and Assembly Bill 847. SB 1421, enacted in January, has made a number of formerly unreleased police misconduct records disclosable to the public, including records related to officer-involved shootings, uses of force resulting in serious injury, on-duty sexual assaults and police dishonesty.
Read MoreRichmond police present council with update after report found leadership problems
The report last year by MBD Innovations, a public safety consulting group, identified six key issues within the department: a lack of a compelling vision; a disconnect between management and staff; poor morale; poor handling of high-profile disciplinary cases; a lacking relationship between the city manager and the police chief; and an unnecessarily acrimonious relationship between the Richmond Police Officers Association and the Richmond Police Department (RPD) administration.
Read MoreRichmond mayor delivers State of the City address
Butt’s roughly hour-long speech, assisted by a data-laden slideshow and a short promotional video, provided a present-day overview of Richmond’s finances, education, public safety, transportation, housing, commercial development, business, economy and environment.
Read MoreDevelopers present plans for Point Molate to Richmond City Council
Orton Development, Samuelson Schafer, SunCal, and Point Molate Partners each presented plans, in 20-minute chunks, to both the council and a chamber filled with protesting members of the public. The crowd, many a part of the Point Molate Alliance— a coalition of residents which that seeks to halt development on the site—carried signs, pictures, paintings and an illustrated cloth banner that said “Save Pt. Molate.” Over 30 people spoke during the public comment period to criticize and oppose the proposed plans.
Read MoreKathy Robinson: the Richmond mayoral candidate you didn’t hear about
Less than a week before Election Day, Kathy Robinson got into her car, ready to drive around Richmond and tell as many people as she could that she was running for mayor. Her aging white Volvo was decked out for the occasion, plastered with homemade campaign flyers. In her trunk were stacks of these same…
Read MoreLED lights draw hundreds of light pollution complaints from Richmond residents
In the past six months, Richmond officials have received hundreds of complaints regarding LED light pollution from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. The goal of installing the new lights was to save energy, but now some residents can’t sleep.
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