Mayor McLaughlin voted against this measure since she thought the city needed to overhaul the process entirely to make it more democratic.
[2] The council has been noted for having two distinct and opposing factions consisting of: Viramontes, López, Sandhu and sometimes Bates which conflicts with the remaining fellowship of McGlaughlin, Butt, Ritterman, and sometimes Rogers.
They serve alongside councilmen Nathanial Bates, Eduardo Martinez, Demnlus Johnson, Jael Myrick, and Melvin Willis In 2010, the council passed an ordinance approving of unlimited cannabis dispensaries.
This was supported by Nat Bates, Gayle McGlaughlin, Jim Rogers, and Jeff Ritterman, while opposed by Myrna López, María Viramontes, and Tom Butt.
This was supported by Myrna López[4] In 2011, the council voted in its majority with Nat Bates and Jim Rogers dissenting to cancel the Point Molate casino project and give the developer and tribe 120 days to propose an alternate use for the former Navy site.
[7] In the 2018 elections, the Richmond Progressive Alliance whose candidates form the left wing position on the council lost their supermajority.
[8] The other half of the council is typically made up of Richmond Chevron Refinery backed candidates, also Democrats, but more to the right.
[8] The reasons cited were Gayle McLaughlin and Jovanka Beckles running for statewide office and Ada Recinos falling to sixth place in the election.
[10] It amounts to blocking 25% of the United States coal exports from the West Coast worldwide, mostly to China and other Asian countries.
[15] The 2000s saw the rise and fall of pro-Chevron and anti-Chevron camps on the city council and the formation of the Richmond Progressive Alliance co-founded by Andres Soto.
It was also the time during which Richmond was transformed from city with high gun violence and homicides to one with renewable energy and new schools built by a progressive Green Party mayor - Gayle McLaughlin who replaced Irma Anderson.
[19] Mentioning the word "reparations", this story was picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle and carried in papers in Salt Lake City, Utah and Bluffton, South Carolina.
[21] From 2006 to 2010 Ludmyrna "Myrna" López was on the city council, she was criticized as a rubber stamp for Chevron and the developers such as the Point Molate Casino by Andrés Soto while she promoted jobs and education for the most part.
[24] is a graduate of the UC Davis Financial School of Management, and is affiliated with the "powerful" Bay Area group Black Women Organized For Political Action.
He is currently vice president of the board of for the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility[32] From 1981 to 2010 he worked at Kaiser Permanente's Richmond Medical Center where he rose to the position of chief cardiologist.
[42][43] In 2003 she voted against the Point Molate casino, however in 2010 she supported the project, that was later turned down by Richmond voters for the former naval fuel depot.
[45] In 2005 she proposed a measure with John Márquez to declare a state of emergency over the city's high crime rate which she compared to a "war zone"[46] something opposed by then-mayor Irma Anderson citing that such situations involve the National Guard and suspending civil rights, ultimately her proposal was voted down.
[54][57] George Carroll was an American lawyer who was an important civic figure in Contra Costa County, California and the city of Richmond.
[58] Afterwards George Carroll became the first black judge in Contra Costa when he was appointed to the Bay Municipal Court by Governor Pat Brown in 1965.