Sacramento, CA – California Women Lawyers is pleased to announce that Judge Diana Becton, Superior Court of California, Contra Costa County, has been selected as the 2012 recipient of the distinguished Rose Bird Memorial Award. Judge Becton is the Presiding Judge of the Contra Costa Court and the first African American Judge to serve as such.

Judge Becton has served on the Contra Costa County Bench with distinction since her appointment in 1995. She earned her law degree Golden Gate University Law School in 1985. Prior to serving on the bench, Judge Becton had her own firm in Richmond, and was previously a partner in a Point Richmond law firm. Judge Becton currently serves on the California Trial Court Presiding Judges Advisory Committee.

The CWL Rose Bird Memorial Award recipients are recognized for their excellence as a jurist, with a longstanding commitment to and/or groundbreaking efforts in the realm of public service.  In the tradition of Chief Justice Rose Bird, Judge Becton serves the community as a role model and inspiration to women and female lawyers throughout California.

Judge Becton will receive the award at the CWL Judicial Reception on March 23, 2012. The event will be held at 101 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, from 6 to 8 p.m., and the venue is kindly provided by Whiting, Fallon, Ross & Abel, LLP.  Speakers at the reception include California Supreme Court Associate Justice Carol Corrigan, Court of Appeals Justice Martin Jenkins and Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Lois Haight.  Reception Sponsors include Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and John Vidano; Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein; Bramson, Plutzik, Mahler & Birkhaeuser; Miller Starr Regalia; Steele, George, Schofield & Ramos; Casper, Meadows, Schwartz & Cook; Alborg, Veiluva & Martin; and Littler Mendelson.

Please join the California Women Lawyers and the Contra Costa County Legal Community in honoring Judge Diana Becton.  Advance registration is required for the reception, and can be made at www.cwl.org.  For more information or to reserve your attendance, please contact the CWL Executive Office at (916) 646-3114.

The legislation passed the House by a vote of 246-175, and now goes to the Senate
for consideration. The lawmakers responded today after the vote:

“The fact that this legislation passed the House shows that some Representatives are
more concerned with satisfying well-funded south-of-Delta water contractors than
protecting state laws and finding science-based solutions to California’s water
challenges,” said Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-1). “This bill puts politics ahead of
established science, guts environmental protections and kills local jobs. The Senate
should reject it, and solutions to California’s water challenges should be based on
sound science so that wildlife is protected, and our fishers, farmers, families and
businesses that depend on the Delta for their livelihoods are not harmed.”

“This bill would only help a few well-connected water agencies, to the detriment of
everyone else in California,” Rep. George Miller (CA-7) said of the legislation. “It
is a selfish and extreme approach that would end all productive efforts to solve
water problems in California. If this bill were ever enacted, it would unravel legal
settlements, defy Supreme Court precedent, and pose a serious threat to water
management all across the West. HR 1837 is bad for the Bay, bad for the Delta, bad
for California’s environment, and bad for our economic future. By asking Congress to
override state water law – against the state’s wishes — and by ending the
collaborative work that’s taking place in California, the special interests and
water exporters who are supporting this bill are playing a very dangerous game.”

“This bill is a blatant attempt to steal water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta.  It would undermine existing state and federal laws and forever harm the
millions of people who live from Sacramento to Stockton to Brentwood in the Delta
region.  This bill was crafted without any input from the Delta communities,
farmers, and businesses that will be devastated by its enactment, and it should not
move forward.  It is a bad bill that robs Peter to pay Paul.  To steal from one
community for the benefit of another, while creating a worse problem for everyone,
is completely shortsighted and unacceptable.  I will continue to stand up for the
farmers, families, and small business owners who rely upon a healthy San Joaquin
Delta for their livelihoods.  My colleagues who pushed this bad piece of legislation
forward will have to answer for playing games with the precious water supplies in
California,” said Rep. Jerry McNerney (CA-11).

“In Northern California, we have balanced our watershed to the benefit of our
cities, farms, and habitat. However, this legislation will throw our work out the
window, along with the ability of California to make its own decisions on its water
resources. H.R. 1837 is an unprecedented and unacceptable water grab, and California
cannot afford for it to pass – the stakes are simply too high,” said Rep. Doris
Matsui (CA-5).

“This is not the time to reignite the California water wars of the past. This is not
the time to pit Californians against each other,” said Rep. John Garamendi (CA-10).
“This is the time to focus on meeting the coequal goals of water supply and
ecosystem protection. We must focus on responsible, science-based water management,
with conservation, storage and recycling playing a prominent role. That is the
solution to California’s water needs. H.R .1837 takes us in the opposite direction.”

“On leap day, House Republicans are telling California and other states who want to
manage their own water to take a flying leap. This bill is the ultimate in
Washington power grabs, telling the states that we don’t trust you to manage your
own water for your people and your farmers,” said Ed Markey (MA-7), Ranking Member
of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) issued the following statement at the Congressional Progressive Caucus press conference:

“While I am pleased that the President made a strong case for his bill last week, I certainly think that we need to go bigger and bolder. After touring the country and listening to the American people on this summer’s Speak Out for Good Jobs! Tour, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is determined to rebuild the American dream.

“Today, we present the Rebuild the American Dream Platform, a comprehensive effort to put Americans back to work. The six principles outlined in the platform address three key ideals: In America, every good worker deserves a good American job. America should work again for people who work for a living. Working Americans should use their strength in numbers to counter corporate dollars.

“We need to invest in workers, provide targeted relief to the most vulnerable struggling to get by, and give the economy the jolt it needs. Too many Americans have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits we must provide another 14 weeks of benefits, not only providing an immediate injection into our economy, but increasing demand and creating jobs. Communities of color continue to carry the burden of higher unemployment rates than the national average of 9.1 percent. African Americans have an unemployment rate of 16.7 percent and Latinos have an unemployment rate of 11.3 percent. We need immediate and DIRECT investment for the communities hit hardest by high unemployment.

“While there is no one way to go about creating jobs and growing our economy, the Congressional Progressive Caucus will continue to lead the way on helping our most vulnerable who have been hit the hardest by the Great Recession. “

East Bay Center for Performing Arts set to open after $16 million renovation

Month-long series of celebrations, performances and

special events begins October 1, 2011

Richmond, CA (September 9, 2011)…As it nears completion of an extensive $16 million renovation, the East Bay Center for Performing Arts in Richmond is set to open to the public with a month-long series of celebratory performances and special events on October 1, 2011.  Transformed from an aging and ailing building back to its original glory, the vibrant community arts center that works with thousands of children and young adults each year is poised to be the fulcrum for a neighborhood renaissance.

“We’re thrilled to be in the home stretch, and preparing to welcome the community to our transformed home,” said Jordan Simmons, the Center’s Artistic Director.  “We are spearheading a renaissance in Richmond – to be an anchor for the transformation of this neighborhood and to help new generations of students train in the arts, imagine, and create a better life for themselves and their community.”

During the month of October, the public is invited to a series of events and performances to celebrate the completion of the renovation and re-christen the Center as it moves into the next phase of service to the community.  The events include:

• · Saturday, October 1 – Premiere Gala (ticketed event)
• · Thursday, October 6 – Community Launch Party
• · Friday, October 7 – Hip Hop International
• · Saturday, October 8 – Iron Triangle Legacy Family Day
• · Sunday, October 9 – Luz de tradición, a Mexican Rural Fandango
• · Saturday, October 15 and Sunday, October 16 – World Premire of Konyifafa
• · Friday, October 21 – Jazz Heritage Concert
• · Saturday, October 22 – Mien Ceremonial Feast and Cultural Festival
• · Saturday, October 29 – Faculty and Alumni Concert
• · Sunday, October 30 – YPSO Concert with Richmond Chamber Ensemble

· Sunday, October 23 – Iron Triangle Legacy Film Screening

· Friday, October 28 – Iron Triangle Legacy Theater Showcase

Renovation & Renewal

Originally built in 1924 as a dance hall, music store and flower shop, the Winters Building became home to the East Bay Center for Performing Arts in 1973.   In the decades to follow, the Iron Triangle neighborhood dramatically changed, gaining notoriety as center of violence and chaos in Richmond.  At the same time, reflecting the changes in the neighborhood, the building’s exterior began to age and fade – even as the Center’s programs were providing more than 2,500 children and young adults each year with high-quality artistic instruction and direction.

A public-private partnership that included the City of Richmond, the Richmond Community Redevelopment Agency, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation and the California Cultural and Historical Endowment embarked on a campaign to reinvigorate the neighborhood starting with the renovation of the Winters Building into a vital community center.  The two-year, $16 million renovation has added an additional 7,500 square feet of public spaces, dramatically transforming the building into a more open and welcoming facility ready to accommodate students and visitors of all ages and physical abilities.

“Helping to create this new center has been such pleasure,” said architect Mark Cavagnero, who developed the design for the renovation.  “I can’t teach music, drama or dance, but when I first visited; I couldn’t help but get excited and want to be a part of it. For me, this has meant the opportunity to give them a great place to come together, a place that has character and excites them. This is what architecture strives to do. I want our effort to be worthy of what they do and who they are.”

The building’s exterior has been dramatically restored to its original glory, with ornate Renaissance detailing in addition to new first floor windows and doors. Inside, the new features include a new climate-controlled 2,500 square-foot ground floor theater, a 200-seat second-floor proscenium theater, and an additional 5,000 square feet of rehearsal and teaching space.  In addition, the building is now fully accessible, with large modern restrooms and other amenities designed to make audiences of all ages and physical abilities feel welcomed and comfortable.

“The East Bay Center is one of the best kept secrets in Richmond,” said Rep. George Miller, a U.S. Congressman from the East Bay. “Year after year, it .has provided young people and the community with so many opportunities and shown what is possible—even with relatively modest resources—when a cultural center grows organically from the community. This renovation might well be a linchpin for a broader revival in a neighborhood that has had a shortage of good news.”

“The new building means a new home for me,” said Cuauhtemoc, 16 year-old Richmond student at the Center.  “It means love for the students and teachers and that the staff and community care about the students.  They rebuilt the old building to make it better for us and for Richmond, to give Richmond a good name.  We can show people all around that Richmond has talent.”

Established in 1968, immediately following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., East Bay Center for the Performing Arts engages young people and the community in developing works of art, events and performances that are inspired and driven by the locale, history, events and rich ethnic culture of the area.  The Center focuses on helping students produce “community driven” works as part of its ongoing core work of raising young engaged artists. These include films, photo exhibits, poetry days in the park, original theater productions, historical narratives, dance theater works, ceremonies of remembrance and heritage and more. The Center provides a welcoming place with engaging programs that teach young people to artistically express their feelings, experiences and hope in a way that develops qualities to help them grow and flourish.

For more information and an updated schedule of events, visit EastBayCenter.org

The California Association of Code Enforcement Officers has awarded Richmond’s “One Block at a Time” project with the title of Innovative Code Enforcement Program of the Year.

OBAT partners local residents with the Richmond Police Department’s Code Enforcement Unit to target neighborhood blight. The CACEO chose the initiative from a competitive pool of other code enforcement programs throughout the state.

Code Enforcement Unit Manager Tim Higares, who has worked in Richmond with OBAT for three of its five years, said this award is the first of its kind to be awarded to the department.

“Richmond is becoming recognized for code enforcement,” he said. “We’ve had other jurisdictions [such as Oakland] contact us wanting to model their programs after ours.”

OBAT focuses its projects on one to two-square-block areas with serious blight problems. In addition to beautifying the location, the vicinity is inspected for municipal code violations, broken streetlights and other issues.

Program leaders organize “abatement days” where the community comes together to trim trees, dispose of trash, remove graffiti and eliminate any other existing or potential code violations. The Richmond Fire Dept. and Veolia Waters are among the groups that regularly assist in upgrading the blighted areas.

Nearly 80 volunteers participated in most recent OBAT event.

Although the award does not secure additional grant money for OBAT, Higares said the title is considered a huge accomplishment for the city.

“It’s just a kudos,” he said. “It makes me proud to have a program as innovative and effective [as OBAT]. Richmond needs some more positive press.”

In the future, Higares said the group may focus on particular areas for lengthier periods of time in order to “sustain the beautification.”

“We want to keep on being innovative,” he said.

Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus commended OBAT and Higares Monday at the Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council meeting and also looked to the future of the program.

“We plan to continue doing [clean-ups] and we continue to learn as we go,” Magnus said.

The CACEO Board of Directors will present the award to the City of Richmond at the Sept. 27 City Council meeting.

Photo one caption: Marena Brown, left, and Saleem Bey animatedly argue during a snack break at Monday night’s Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council meeting. (photo by Robert Rogers)

By: Robert Rogers

At Monday night’s Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council meeting – which draws representatives from dozens of enclaves from all over the city – it was arguably Richmond’s most maligned community that had the honor of having two competing factions vying to represent it.

It was North Richmond. The little neighborhood that has historically suffered from a lack of leadership was suddenly over-represented. It was a dubious honor.

Saleem Bey, right, and Rev. Kenneth Davis during Monday’s meeting. (photo by Robert Rogers)

Both sides were seated up front in the City Hall-complex meeting room, and neither looked happy. The confrontation that would boil over Monday was an extension of the continued disunity of political forces in North Richmond, a tiny enclave split with arbitrary boundaries dividing the city of Richmond and unincorporated Contra Costa County land.

Marena Brown, a regular attendee of the citywide meetings, sat on one side, wearing a sharp gray pantsuit and a look of edgy concern.

A few feet away sat Saleem Bey and Rev. Kenneth Davis, two neighborhood activists who have a reputation for fiery confrontations with local elected officials. Uncharacteristically, both wore conservative, monochromatic suits and looks of relaxed ease.

Both Brown and the tandem of Bey and Davis claimed to be the same thing: The leaders of the Shields-Reid Neighborhood Council representing North Richmond.

Brown gave her report first. Her group was planning a march for peace this fall.

Tensions mounted.

Moments later, Bey gave his report of community events and services, and announced himself as president of Brown’s council, as decided by a certified election held Aug. 17. A few scoffs were audible. Someone interrupted.

The meeting adjourned for a snack break. That’s when uneasy calm broke once and for all.

“What is this?” Brown asked Bea Roberson, the RNCC president.

“They paid their dues and they turned in their paperwork,” Roberson said. “That’s it.”

Bey hovered near. Brown turned to him.

“What are you doing, what are you doing?” Brown said to Bey, their faces barely a foot apart. Brown’s voice rose. “You are all about the money, all you want is the power and the money, it’s wrong what you are doing to our community.”

“We had our neighborhood council …” Bey began before tailing off. Brown walked away, out the door and toward the parking lot. She declined comment. When the meeting resumed, her seat was empty. Bey went on to note that his group has been meeting for years at Shields-Reid Community Center, while Brown’s meets at the Community Housing Development Corporation’s headquarters a few blocks away.

Roberson said the situation was unfortunate, but rules are rules.

“They either have to work together or split up into separate communities to represent,” Roberson said. “(Brown’s) argument is that she is a resident and (Bey) is not, but there is no residency requirement in our by-laws.”

Bey, who lives in Oakland, said he has been a consistent advocate working in North Richmond, and said that he has family ties to the neighborhood that go back generations. When asked why he should represent the neighborhood if he doesn’t live there, he said, “My roots in North Richmond are solid.”

The confrontation Monday was the latest episode in a simmering feud involving local activists and dueling county and city elected officials.

Bey and Davis have been locked in a bitter contest with County Supervisor John Gioia, unincorporated North Richmond’s de facto elected official. Gioia has accused Bey of trying to intimidate public officials into giving him money, a charge Brown echoed Monday night.

But why is North Richmond, the Bay Area’s poorest community, suddenly the venue for a power struggle? Part of the answer may lay in a pot of relatively new monies, some residents and observers grumble.

In 2006, Gioia led an effort to impose a free on tonnage processed through the nearby West Contra Costa Sanitary Landfill station. The money amounts to about $600,000 annually, and its expenditure is directed by a committee that includes three Richmond City Council members, three community members, and Gioia.

Currently, at least half of the money goes to subsidize additional Sheriffs patrols, an allocation Gioia supports, but Bey and Davis do not. Leadership on the neighborhood council could be a key position from which to exert influence over the mitigation fund.

Gioia on Wednesday tried to stay above the fray. Davis and Bey have called Brown “Gioia’s candidate,” a connection Gioia has denied.

“I think these issues (of community leadership) are best solved by the community itself,” Gioia said.

But Bey and Davis have their allies too. On Aug. 17, Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin attended the neighborhood meeting led by Bey and Davis, and according to both men was adamantly in support of their legitimacy as leaders of the organization.

McLaughlin and Gioia have had a cool relationship in the past. Gioia has supported McLaughlin’s political opponents, most recently former Mayor Irma Anderson. Gioia has never endorsed McLaughlin, who has run and won two campaigns for Richmond’s highest office.

Gioia has declined further comment on Monday’s flap. McLaughlin did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

“The mayor doesn’t really have a place to get on one side or another of this thing,” Roberson said. “But she clearly did take the side (of Bey and Davis).”

As for what’s next, it’s anybody’s guess. At next month’s meeting, there may be more testiness. Bey and Davis, both known as not being shy with expressing their opinions, will likely have a seat at the table at least until their dues are up in December, Roberson said. A board meeting is scheduled for Monday, and Brown contacted Roberson Tuesday to express interest in attending and perhaps working toward a solution.

Meanwhile, the president and vice president of the Neighborhood Council in a neighborhood that is mostly in the county are clearly allied with Richmond’s mayor, and have a toxic relationship with county government.

“According to the rules, they’re it,” Roberson said, shrugging her shoulders.

By: Rachel Waldholz, Richmond Confidential

The 2,900-acre Chevron refinery complex has been a familiar backdrop to locals since it was built in the early 1900s — but few have ever had a chance to look behind the curtain. Given the opportunity on Saturday, 425 people — many of them the families of Chevron employees, curious about the place their family-members work — turned out to tour the refinery during the company’s second annual Community Tour Day.

Visitors gathered in a parking lot off Castro Street, where they were greeted with balloons, candy, hand puppets for kids, information on Chevron’s Renewal Project and postcards of refinery workers through the ages – and asked to leave behind all bags and cameras, for security reasons.

The tour was conducted entirely by bus. Tour guides pointed out the stages in the refining process, from the moment crude oil arrives on tankers — most from the North Slope of Alaska and the Middle East –to the time the refinery ships out its main products: 250,000 barrels a day of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, propane and butane, plus lubricants, exported via pipeline, trucks, or rail. The refinery, the largest of five in the Bay Area, produces most of the jet fuel used at area airports and roughly one quarter of the gasoline produced in the Bay Area, according to a guide.

Fatima Alleyne and her sons Joshua, Micah and Ari, enjoyed Chevron’s Community Tour Day.

Behind the gates, the buses wound through a labyrinth of silver and maroon tanks, columns, and, above all, pipes, with puffs of white steam erupting at intervals. The facility has some 5,000 miles of piping, testament to how the refining process has evolved since the refinery opened in 1902, when the refinery “was basically a series of pots,” said tour guide Tim Burchfield, a process engineer at the site. The original facility essentially boiled oil to separate it, said Burchfield, making kerosene and home heating oil.

In the modern refinery, the principle is the same, though the process has become more complex. More than one visitor compared the modern process to a distillery. Crude oil is first heated in a column to separate it by density: propane and butane at top, then gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, and at the bottom, gas oils. It is then “cracked,” or broken down into smaller molecules, stripped of sulfur, and blended with additives into usable fuel. In between refining stages, the oil – called intermediate hydrocarbons – is stored in the maroon tanks that cover the hillside above the refinery – the “tank farm,” Burchfield called it, noting that he’d worked at 15 different refineries, and this one is the prettiest he’d ever seen.

Burchfield explained some of the plant’s more iconic features, including the tall flares that residents can see from a distance. When locals see flares, it means something in the refinery is starting up, shutting down, or malfunctioning, he said. The large white spheres, which are synonymous for many with oil refineries, hold propane and butane – light materials that must be kept under pressure to remain liquid. Spherical shapes have more integrity than cylinders to hold that pressure, Burchfield said.

The buses also drove past the “biopond,” a blue, bubbling stretch of water that looks as sci-fi as its name. The pond is part of the refinery’s wastewater treatment system, where water is aerated and treated with microorganisms.

Chevron opened the gates of its Richmond refinery on Saturday, offering community members a rare glimpse inside.

Visitors came for a variety of reasons. Norm Walters, who first worked at the refinery in1941, came with 10 men from El Sobrante United Methodist Church to see how the refinery had changed since his days as a machinist’s assistant. “It’s so much cleaner now,” Walters said.

Many of the visitors said they were curious to get beyond the gates and put names and purposes to the familiar skyline of towers, tanks and pipes.

Fatima Alleyne, a Richmond resident and graduate student at UC Berkeley, brought her four kids to check out the plant.

“I just wanted to see what’s going on, let them see what’s in the community,” Alleyne said. Her son Ari was celebrating his eighth birthday on Saturday, and she said he loved science and dinosaurs. “I wanted to expose him to different areas of science and technology.” Ari wasn’t much of a fan of the tour – “It was kinda boring,” he said – but the hard hats and hand puppets at the end were a hit.

Chevron employees also took advantage of a rare opportunity to show their families the refinery.

Yolanda Weinmann’s husband is a procurement manager who was doing Saturday duty handing out goody bags to visitors. Eric Weinmann has worked for Chevron for 23 years, but Yolanda said she has never been inside the refinery. The facility was always “so mysterious,” she said, so she took advantage of the chance to bring her sons David and Aaron to look inside.

There were very few workers about, which is usual, the tour guide Burchfield said. Though the refinery employs some 1,300 people — another 1,300 are employed in other Chevron businesses on the Richmond campus — very few work outdoors. Most of the plant is automated, controlled by workers monitoring operations on computer screens.

Visitors also saw the foundations laid two years ago for a new hydrogen plant, the centerpiece of the halted renewal project, which Chevron is now applying to restart. Distillation columns and vessels lay out by the road. The equipment has been lying still since construction was halted by a court order in 2009.

Photo Caption: Mayor Gayle McLaughlin discusses blight at the Refund & Rebuild Richmond community meeting. Police Chief Chris Magnus and Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles sit to the right.

By: William Harless| Richmond Confidential

Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and Police Chief Chris Magnus pledged Tuesday to crack down on any banks that are neglecting foreclosed properties in the city. And they said they’ll push harder to enforce a city ordinance that fines banks $1,000 a day for vacant properties with code violations.

At a meeting at the Nevin Community Center, Magnus said empty, foreclosed houses have become havens for crime and that the banks and mortgage companies that own them are deliberately obscuring their ownership, avoiding penalties that way.

“Thirty-two years ago, when I got into policing as a young man, I knew I was going to be dealing with certain members of the community that would be involved in robbing banks — what I did not plan on was having to deal with certain banks that would be robbing members of the community,” Magnus said.

Magnus said it took months to identify the owner of a blighted home in his own neighborhood. The property holder turned out to be Deutsche Bank, and Magnus said the city may now be able to fine the bank under the Foreclosure Fine Ordinance, which the Richmond City Council passed in 2008.

The law brought in about $780,000 for the city last fiscal year, according to Magnus, who said most of this penalty money derived from houses in wealthier neighborhoods of the city. He said banks typically try to conceal their ownership in less-affluent neighborhoods, often by leaving property titles in the foreclosed owners’ names as long as possible.

McLaughlin and City Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles, who also spoke, both said they like the idea of using some of the money to help fund “youth blight brigades,” a possible jobs program for young people that would give them an opportunity to work with city officials on blight identification and clean up.

The mayor also said the money could be used for community land trusts.

“We should be able to seize these homes, and if we can do it by court order, let’s do it,” McLaughlin said of the blighted properties.

Magnus, Beckles and McLaughlin all stressed a correlation between empty buildings and crime.

“There is an absolute connection between blight, between neglected, vacant properties and between crime,” Magnus said. “When we have properties — as many as three, four, ten, fifteen in a block that are blighted, that are foreclosed, that are empty — it sends a message that anything goes.”

North Richmond resident Ina Mason was at the meeting. She said she lives down the street from an empty house and that she worries about the people crossing the railroad tracks to go into it. Mason said she assumes the itinerants are committing illegal activities, and she said fires have been set there.

“You don’t know who these strangers are who are coming in and out and so forth,” she said.

Mason said the house isn’t in foreclosure, but other property owners at the meeting told similar stories about foreclosed homes.

The event was put on by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a community advocacy organization. McLaughlin, Magnus and Beckles all signed a pledge in support of a plan by ACCE to take a harder stance on property owners who let their buildings fall into disrepair.

The plan calls for creating a “bank report card” that would influence the city’s decisions on which banks the local government would do business with, for establishing a blight-related jobs program for young people and for establishing a community land trust.

By: Robert Rogers Richmond Confidential

He’s the kind of guy you just can’t help but want to roll with.

The charisma was on vivid display in May at a Richmond City Council meeting. With his requisite neat tie and cool demeanor, the youthful policy intern delivered a report on the “People’s Budget,” a basket of revenue and spending priorities put together this year by U.S. Congress’ progressive caucus.

Although the council had little influence on the issue, City Council intern David Gray, under the direction of Councilman Jeff Ritterman, developed the presentation to persuade the council to pass a symbolic resolution in favor the “People’s Budget.”

The most telling reaction came from Councilman Nat Bates, who always gets testy when the council makes symbolic proclamations on national issues. “This is not going to fly,” Bates muttered, going on about the hopeless stalemate in Washington D.C. and Richmond’s folly in weighing in on such a far-off topic. Then Bates blindsided everyone. “But I’m going to support this – primarily because of David’s presentation.”

It was a twist. The curmudgeonly Bates, 79, now flashes his famous humor much less often than in the past. “But I still don’t believe this is going anywhere, David!” he said, smiling.

City Manager Bill Lindsay, right, is all smiles when he sees young intern David Gray. (photo by Robert Rogers)

That’s the power of personality.

“I was a little taken aback, but I appreciated what Councilman Bates said,” the 23-year-old Gray said, chuckling, reminiscing about the moment from the city council offices where he works.

Meet David Gray, intern, New Orleans native, UC Berkeley graduate student in public policy, and resident golden boy around City Hall. As a public policy intern in Richmond, Gray works about 15 hours per week in the city council offices, in addition to his regular coursework. He helps prepare the twice-monthly City Council agendas and backup documents, delivers multimedia presentations to the public and council, and is an active participant in meetings involving local policymakers.

City Manager Bill Lindsay lights up when he sees Gray’s face. Ritterman calls him “the future.” His presentations before council, the public, and various committees have built a reputation that precedes him.

“Welcome to the David Gray show,” Ritterman said at a council meeting in July, just after Gray riveted the audience with back-to-back slideshow presentations spanning topics no less expansive than the Civil Rights era and Richmond history.

One on one, Gray is less the shimmering star and more the dutiful public servant. Sitting in his indistinct gray cubicle in the city council offices Aug. 3, and wearing a minimalist, monochromatic ensemble – pin striped black suit with a black-and-white paisley tie — Gray chatted about his various projects more than himself.

He’s been here since March, but has hung no personal photographs around his desk. A few mounds of papers bookend his computer, and a small stack of books is nestled in the corner, prominent titles including Robert Reich’s Aftershock and Marcus Aurelius’s Emperors’ Handbook.

“The Reich book helped me with the People’s Budget presentation I did for Dr. Ritterman,” Gray said, popping off his spot seated atop his desk to lean toward a computer keyboard, the keys of which he tapped a few times to show off some graphs that were part of that slideshow. “I learned so much doing the research for that one. It’s amazing how much income and wealth inequality have grown since the 1970s.”

The most public part of Gray’s job is to prepare and deliver presentations to the council and public about policy issues, often aimed at garnering support for a course of action. One of his presentations this summer was on local legend Ethel Dotson and the historic International Hotel she ran on South Street.

During the mid-century era, the Pullman company serviced cross-country rail cars in Richmond, the western terminus of their runs. According to Gray’s presentation, there was a since-demolished hotel on Carlson Avenue that served “layover” white workers on the corner of Carlson. Black porters were welcomed at Dotson’s International Hotel, where there were 20 little second story rooms and a large reception area on the ground floor. The building still stands, and Gray’s presentation sparked a lively debate among the council and public about renewing efforts to get the building on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Dotson was truly a hero right here in Richmond,” Gray said later.

In a second presentation that same evening, Gray’s objective was more of a benign trot down memory lane than an open exhortation to council action. This time it was with a historical overview of the Freedom Riders movement – the thrust of the Civil Rights movement’s offensive against Jim Crow segregation of public accommodations – that culminated with an appearance by a Elizabeth Hirshfeld. A former Kennedy High School teacher, Hirshfeld was arrested while engaging in civil disobedience as a freedom rider in Mississippi in 1961.

“It was really an honor to meet her,” Gray said of Hirshfeld.

One of Gray’s Civil Rights heroes is an unconventional choice: Diane Nash. Nash was a steady force for integration, who did dignified work alongside Rev. James Lawson and John Lewis — one an influential devotee of non-violent resistance, the other, Lewis, a man who would become a member of the U.S. Congress — and others in Tennessee in the early 1960s. They were immortalized in the David Halberstram book The Children. Being a woman and so fair-skinned that some mistook for being Caucasian did not impede her in a world dominated by committed and stern African American men, Gray said.

“There is something about her proud fortitude that I just find so inspiring,” Gray said. “She never let her gender or her color hold her back, she never failed to overcome the odds, and she never even allowed herself to even look discouraged.”

Gray has a natural affinity for history, deepened by his childhood in the South. He was born in Burbank, his family having had a brief stay in Southern California because his father worked for aerospace and defense giant Lockhead Martin. But the family moved back to its southern roots when he was 3, and Gray was raised in New Orleans.

“My whole family is from Louisiana—we go back a long way,” Gray said.

Gray attended Tulane University, beginning his education in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Tulane’s campus was profoundly damaged by the flooding, and new students were encouraged to do community service as part of their curriculum.

The public service suited Gray well. “I did a lot of working with different community organizations, including creating a lot of GIS [Geographic Information Systems] maps that looked at redevelopment and unemployment, data that helped apply for grants and resources and target them properly,” Gray said. “It was rewarding work. I learned so much a city that I thought I already knew.”

After graduation, Gray was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, where he plans to graduate in 2013. He hopes to land a job in local city government in the Bay Area.

One morning earlier this month, Gray was busy preparing for a meeting after going through his normal routine of scanning the morning’s local news over a cup of coffee.

“I have been checking on the Half-Steppers first thing each day,” Gray said, referring to the local track team to which the City Council gave $17,000 for a trip to the Junior Olympics in New Orleans. “I love those stories, especially because they are from here and out in New Orleans.”

Gray adds that in the days following the council’s surprising last second decision to fund the kids’ trip, he was one of the lead staff members in scrambling to get the funds released and paid to the coaches. “We had to drop some things to move to get funds of that magnitude so quickly,” Gray said.

Asked who has been most influential to him in Richmond, Gray demurs, then narrows the group to three: His supervisor and City Council Office Manager Trina Jackson (“She keeps this office amazingly efficient and effective”), Senior Development Program Manager Shasa Curl of the city manager’s office (“Her job working with different departments on the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory event was just amazing”), and Councilman Ritterman.

“Dr. Ritterman never walks into a meeting with his mind already made up,” Gray said. “He remains open to all perspectives, and that’s a kind of open-mindedness that I really respect.”

Ritterman has an equally glowing appraisal of the young intern. “I love working with him,” Ritterman said. “He is more like a partner than an intern … Whatever David ends up doing, humanity will benefit, I just hope Richmond is one of his stops along the way.”

“If I have an opportunity for a future in Richmond, I would definitely take it in a heartbeat,” Gray said. “It’s my top option. I have fallen in love with Richmond.”

Having been on the inside for a series of high-level discussions at a momentous time in the city’s history, Gray is bullish on the city’s future. “In 10 years, I see a Richmond that is home to the Berkeley lab, an increasingly diverse community economically and ethnically, and a destination for expanding businesses looking for space in the Bay Area,” Gray said. “Farther off, in 30 years, Richmond will be a premiere place to live, work and raise a family in the Bay Area, and a place on the leading edge of innovation and green jobs, and crime won’t be a major issue.”

Gray pauses, mulling over the enormity of the possibilities.

“In 30 years, people are going to look back and say ‘Wow, Richmond, how did this success story happen?’ I hope I’m around to help explain it.”

By: Robert Rogers, Richmond Confidential

At what would be one of his last public appearances, Fred Jackson’s wheelchair was no burden to his trademark graciousness.

“But for the grace of God I can be here today. The service that I have given has come from God, and whatever I am I owe to all of you,” Jackson said in late July, as he addressed about 200 people gathered in his beloved North Richmond for a music festival. His voice was thin and raspy from his continuing bout with cancer. “Thank you for allowing me to be of service.”

Jackson died Thursday morning at the Vale Healthcare Center in San Pablo. He was 73.

Born Feb. 6, 1938 in rural Mississippi, Fred Davis Jackson came to North Richmond with his family in 1950. Over the next 61 years, he would establish a reputation as one of the region’s most consistent humanitarians and community leaders, amassing an innumerable collection of accolades and commendations along the way.

Jackson was a man of many sides. Devoutly religious, his faith-based activism was in the tradition of Civil Rights-era African American Christian leaders. His message was always laced with peace and love and, most of all, equality.

“Fred was an incredible coalition builder,” said Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia in a telephone interview from Washington D.C., where he is attending a conference. “He could appeal to people across all lines, racial, religious, generational.”

In recent years, Jackson had become something of a cause célèbre all himself. City, county and even federal leaders praised him and showered him with honors. Earlier this year, Gioia moved to have North Richmond’s largest street was renamed “Fred Jackson Way” in honor of Jackson’s lifetime of community service.

Jackson graduated from Richmond High School in 1957, the same school that youths in the deeply impoverished North Richmond attend today.

During an interview earlier this year, Jackson fondly recalled his early years in North Richmond and how he was drawn to the nascent Civil Rights movement. At the time of the interview, Jackson was recuperating from chemotherapy sessions at a family member’s home in San Pablo.

“There was a togetherness, a loving respect in the old days,” Jackson said. “Life was hard, but folks looked out for each other, for each other’s children. My community had a lot to do with raising me to be who I am.”

Jackson served in the armed forces after high school, and picked up some German language skills while stationed in Europe. He met then-President John F. Kennedy in Berlin.

After returning home to North Richmond, Jackson worked for many years at Pacific Telephone. He devoted increasing time to community activism during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, during which thousands of minority men and women ascended to leadership positions in community improvement projects and organizations.

Beginning in the 1960s, Jackson served stints as chairman of the county’s Economic Opportunity Council, and on the boards of Richmond’s Main Street Initiative and Arts and Culture Commission.

In the 1990s, Jackson worked with the Neighborhood House of North Richmond, the city’s oldest African American-run social service agency.

At the same time, one of Jackson’s most memorable roles was the one he seemed perfectly -suited to. With his robust white beard and tender manner, Jackson every year donned the red suit and slid into his role as Santa Claus, doling out gifts and spending time with children at Verde Elementary School in North Richmond.

In February Jackson, still looking vigorous and cheerful despite his ongoing struggle with cancer, was honored by the city of Richmond with a 600-word proclamation for “exemplary service to the community.”

Customarily, Jackson was self-effacing at the ceremony.

“Whatever I am, whatever I hope to be,” Jackson said. “I owe it to my family. You drove me.”

Jackson was also an artist, particularly in his later years. He wrote plays and songs and a book that was published earlier this year.

News of Jackson’s death Thursday sparked an outpouring of praise and solemn odes from friends, family and community members on social media sites. The Richmond Police Department’s Facebook page was among the dozens of Richmond residents and institutions that used the popular site to pay tribute.

“Our deepest sympathy in light of the passing of beloved community champion, Fred Jackson, who made the lives of Richmond residents better and brighter through his activism,” read the post on Thursday. Residents and well-wishers quickly added condolences and memories to the thread.

In North Richmond, Jackson’s home for many decades, the mood was somber.

“I am just happy we had him for as long as we did,” said Kenneth Davis, a fellow North Richmond community activist who worked with Jackson over the years.

In Washington, D.C., Congressman George Miller (D-Martinez) delivered a eulogy on the floor of the House of Representatives.

“(Jackson) spent his life making life better for others and he has called on us all to do the same. I invite my colleagues to stand with me and salute the work of a quiet man working tirelessly for justice and thank him for the change he has brought to our community,” Miller said, according to a transcript relesed by his office.

Gioia, who first met Jackson in the 1990s, said his favorite memory of his friend and partner was a little episode during a community cleanup day about 10 years ago.

“The television stations were there, and they were interviewing Fred,” Gioia said. “A bunch of children had been following him around that day, drawn to him. And so he was standing there giving an interview on the street, talking about how the youth were the future and how we had to work with them in cleaning and building our community.”

Gioia paused. He said he could still conjure up the visual.

“As he was talking there were all these kids behind him, energetic. It was this unforgettable scene. It was Fred at his best.”