Richmond, California
A civic pamphlet. Not a newspaper. No ads. Nothing for sale.
17 October 2026
This week in full. The Record for the week of the October 6 Council meeting: The Record, week of 6 October 2026. Every earlier week: Archive.
Council, October 6: the full digest is up. Item by item, with motions, votes, and what is not yet confirmed: Council digest, October 6, 2026.
City Manager’s Weekly Report, October 16. The report dated October 16, 2026, posted to the City archive Friday evening and labeled “Shortened” in its file title, is signed by Interim City Manager Mark Scott and again names Tuesday, October 20 as the next Council meeting. Items of record: a Safe Routes to School sidewalk-shaving project is “fast-tracked,” with construction to begin the week of October 26 at Lake Elementary, Aspire Richmond Technology Academy, Sheldon Elementary, De Anza High, and Valley View Elementary; the report counts about 3,087 sidewalk repairs near schools citywide and names Precision Concrete Cutting as the contractor. Contract amount: not stated in the report. Police weekly snapshot, October 5–11: 1,963 calls for service, 228 reports, 55 arrests, 44 collision reports. Public Works abatement for the week: 68 tons of illegally dumped debris from sidewalks and roadways (including 62 mattresses and 90 tires), nine tons from encampments, and 14 graffiti tags. Code Enforcement: 15 complaints received, 14 closed, 70 inspections, 6 administrative citations. The report also restates the election key dates, including the supplemental voter guide mailing on October 21, and invites applications to a Macdonald Avenue Corridor Task Force. It does not mention the Axon contract’s revised not-to-exceed or any license-plate-reader return date.
Source: City Manager report, Oct 16 | retrieved 17 October 2026.
Rent Board, Wednesday, October 21: agenda posted. The Rent Board agenda for October 21, 2026 sets a 5:00 p.m. regular meeting in the Council Chambers, Community Services Building, 440 Civic Center Plaza. Consent: September 16 minutes; community letters on the Fair Rent, Just Cause for Eviction, and Homeowner Protection Ordinance; the fiscal 2026–27 activity report through September; late-fee waivers for October. The one board item, G-1, is a joint presentation with the Deputy Executive Director of the Housing Authority of the County of Contra Costa on how rent control applies to Section 8 and low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) housing, with direction to staff on Regulation 202, Regulation 204, and Resolution 19-01. Staff report for G-1: not in the posted agenda file.
Source: Rent Board agenda, Oct 21 | retrieved 17 October 2026.
Personnel Board, Thursday, October 22: packet posted. The Personnel Board packet for October 22, 2026 (6:15 p.m., Council Chambers, hybrid) asks the board to approve revised job specifications for Battalion Chief and Fire Marshal. The Human Resources staff report says the current specifications “have not been updated since the 1980s,” that the revisions grow out of the Segal classification study the City contracted for in April 2020, and that the Richmond Fire Management Association received the drafts in March 2026 and agrees with them. Also listed: commission-member training requirements (no action) and the status of two Personnel Board vacancies (no action). Salary changes: none stated in the staff report.
Source: Personnel Board packet, Oct 22 | retrieved 17 October 2026.
October 20 Council agenda: unchanged since posting. The Council agenda for Tuesday, October 20, 2026 was re-downloaded this morning and is byte-for-byte the file first posted (hybrid; open session before closed session at 3:30 p.m.; Housing Authority at 5:55 p.m.; regular Council at 6:00 p.m., Community Services Building, 440 Civic Center Plaza). Closed session on the face of the agenda: labor negotiations with SEIU 1021, IFPTE 21, RPOA, RPMA, IAFF 188, and RFMA; and existing litigation Zhou v. City of Richmond (Contra Costa Superior Court Case No. C24-00630). No appointment of an interim city manager is listed as an open or closed-session title. Consent items above $100,000 include a fifth amendment with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore for labor counsel (+$475,000; total NTE $2,440,000 through June 30, 2027) and first-responder counseling with Restoration Family Counseling Center (NTE $118,937.52 over three years). Budget session: city financial reporting and the Polluters Pay settlement funds / community-engagement process. Public hearing: extension of the temporary data-center moratorium to September 15, 2028. New business carried from October 6 includes the Police Strategies ALPR analysis amendment (+$20,000), 23rd Street corridor safety measures, a citywide fatal/severe-injury traffic-safety plan, a Disaster Preparedness Commission referral, and grant applications for armored police vehicles. Votes and outcomes: not yet; the meeting has not been held.
Source: Council agenda, Oct 20 | re-verified 17 October 2026.
County Board of Supervisors, Tuesday, October 20. The Board’s agenda for October 20, 2026 (9:00 a.m., 1025 Escobar Street, Martinez; posted October 15) lists no item on the Air District’s Richmond-area Catalyst grant or its sub-agreements. West County items on its face: C.25, accepting as complete Sletten Construction’s West County Accessible Room Conversion Project, Richmond area (no fiscal impact); C.53, a contract with 18 Reasons, not to exceed $300,000, for nutrition support to new mothers in the Black Infant Health Program in West County (October 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027).
Source: Board of Supervisors agenda, Oct 20 | retrieved 17 October 2026.
West Contra Costa Unified: next meetings listed. Today’s retrieve of the district’s board meeting list succeeded. It shows a Governance Committee meeting Tuesday, October 20, at 9:00 a.m. and a Regular Board of Education Meeting Wednesday, October 21, at 5:00 p.m. Minutes of the October 7 regular meeting are still marked “UnPublished.” Agenda items for October 21: not yet retrieved (the agenda loads only in the district’s viewer).
Source: WCCUSD board meetings | retrieved 17 October 2026.
Everything else unchanged overnight. Aside from the three new files above, no new documents appeared on the City archive. Council minutes still show only the Oct 6 public comments. Planning Commission still tops at the Planning agenda, Oct 1; the Community Police Review Commission at its Oct 14 packet; Design Review Board at its Oct 14 agenda; Historic Preservation Commission at the HPC agenda, Oct 5. The City calendar now lists the November 11 Design Review Board meeting as canceled. Granicus video still tops at the October 6 Council meeting; KCRT still shows the Richmond Rising Collaborative Stakeholder Committee videos of October 7 as newest. The City election and news pages are unchanged from 16 October.
Source: City archive shelves above | City calendar | Granicus video | KCRT | retrieved 17 October 2026.
Wednesday, October 14: outcomes still not on the record, three days later. Economic Development Commission (agenda: Taste of Richmond 2027 fiscal sponsor), Design Review Board (agenda: PLN26-0228, 744 Yuba St; PLN26-0148, 518–520 20th St), and Community Police Review Commission (packet: emerging technologies; Policy 415 / patrol rifles; a recommendation that the City discontinue RPD license-plate-reader use and decline renewals or expansions). No minutes, action letters, Granicus clip, or KCRT video for any of the three has been located. Votes and recommendations: not yet confirmed.
Source: EDC agenda, Oct 14 | Design Review agenda, Oct 14 | CPRC packet, Oct 14 | retrieved 17 October 2026.
Carry-forward. The HPC minutes of August 3 remain stamped “approved at the HPC meeting on October 5, 2026”; the October 5 votes on PLN25-0416 (3000 Atlas Road) and the Mills Act study session are not yet confirmed. Certified Resolutions 162-26 through 169-26 (first through last) remain the stamped October 6 consent set; no Axon resolution among them. On O.1 (Axon / Assure, approved except license-plate readers, “adjust the contract amount accordingly”), the revised not-to-exceed and the return date are not yet confirmed.
Source: HPC minutes, Aug 3 | Council resolutions, Oct 6 | re-verified 17 October 2026.
Still unclear on the record. Planning October 1 minutes not posted (the appeal date stated on video, October 13, has passed; whether any appeal was filed is not yet confirmed). Zoning Administrator: no decision letter located for PLN26-0210 (Chismesito Cafe, 1725 Barrett) or PLN26-0274 (front fence, 1910 Virginia Ave, heard October 13). Recreation & Parks and Shimada October 7 outcomes: not yet confirmed. Council October 6 minutes: still “public comments received” only.
Source: Planning Commission archive | Council minutes archive | retrieved 17 October 2026.
Election and air calendar unchanged. Registration deadline October 19; supplemental voter guide mailed October 21; last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot October 27; Election Day November 3 (Mayor: Ahmad Anderson; Claudia Jimenez; Measure Q); comments on the Air District’s preliminary Health Risk Analysis for Chevron Richmond close November 23, 5:00 p.m.
Source: City election page | City news page | retrieved 17 October 2026.
Resident discussion, not verified fact. Nothing here is part of the Record.
Ford Point. Residents are still circulating press reports that Ford Point, the former Ford assembly plant at 1414 Harbour Way South that houses the Craneway Pavilion, changed hands through foreclosure this month. The Monitor has not yet seen the recorded County document and reports nothing about it as fact. If a City agreement, lease, or permit touching the site turns up, it will appear in the Record.
Mayoral mailer. Residents have been looking at a Claudia Jimenez for Mayor mailer that lists endorsers including labor and environmental groups, and asking which names are missing from the list. That is campaign chatter, not a City document. The Record will note Form 460 or independent-expenditure filings when they appear on the Clerk’s site.
16 October 2026.
Richmond is a city of a hundred thousand people, but on paper it can feel like a village where everyone serves on everyone else's board. I say this with affection. Villages are efficient. Nobody needs an introduction, and nobody needs to fill out a form twice.
Consider the Air District. On September 9, its Community Equity, Health and Justice Committee met to recommend how fine money from industrial polluters should come back to the community. The chair was Supervisor John Gioia. According to the draft minutes, Chair Gioia made the motion to recommend $38,752,145 for Richmond and surrounding communities. It passed 5–0. The full Board approved the awards on October 7, and the Air District announced them on October 9, at the RYSE Center, which Supervisor Gioia co-founded.
Of that sum, $12,934,417 goes to Contra Costa County, with Urban Tilth listed as a co-applicant. The County's own application, approved by the Board of Supervisors in May, proposed $6.49 million of the County's request for Urban Tilth. Another $10,681,489 goes to the City of Richmond, whose co-applicants include Rich City Rides and RYSE. The final split of the County's share has not been published. It will appear, one expects, on a consent calendar.
The choice of venue was apt. RYSE began in 2008 in a county-owned building that, by the County's own account at the time, the Supervisor secured "at no cost." In 2019, RYSE closed a New Markets Tax Credit financing of about $11 million to rebuild the site as RYSE Commons. At the groundbreaking, the Supervisor observed that the property had all been owned by the County and was now "owned free and clear by RYSE." Few organizations get to hold the press conference in a building the announcer helped them acquire. It saves on travel.
Urban Tilth has a similar history with the County. It farmed the three acres at North Richmond for years under County leases, the long one signed in 2016. On September 14, 2021, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved selling the land to Urban Tilth. The Supervisor's statement at the time was gracious: transferring County land would let the community finish the farm. The farm the County sold is the same farm whose "Community Resilience Center" the new Air District money will help complete. On March 17 of this year, the Supervisor moved a $60,000 County payment to Urban Tilth for solar work there. In August 2024, the County agreed to partner with Urban Tilth on a $19.1 million federal EPA grant, with Richmond LAND among the planned subrecipients. EPA cancelled it in 2025.
The City has done its part as well. Richmond leads a state Strategic Growth Council "Richmond Rising" grant of about $35 million. On October 3, 2023, the Council approved sole-source agreements under it of $7,042,833 to Urban Tilth and $3,680,657 to Rich City Rides. Councilmember Doria Robinson recused herself. Two years later, the Fair Political Practices Commission found she had not stated the nature of her financial interest on the record that night, a $400 matter (Case 2025-00236). Four hundred dollars is not much, but it is a receipt, and receipts are what this column collects.
The results show up on the balance sheet. Urban Tilth reported $13.8 million in revenue for fiscal 2024. Before 2019 its assets were under $1 million. They are now about $31 million. That is a remarkable harvest for any farm.
The County keeps a web page on urban agriculture and another on the North Richmond Farm. Both list Tania Pulido as Supervisor Gioia's staff contact. Urban Tilth's filings with the IRS list Tania Pulido as a member of its board. Both listings are public. I mention them side by side only because they sit so comfortably together.
The County also gives each supervisor $1 million for a district Community Impact Fund, approved by the Board in June 2025. I have not yet seen the list of District 1 recipients. It is a public record, and I look forward to reading it.
Then there is Richmond LAND, the community land trust. Its founding executive director, Valerie Jameson, came up through the RYSE Center as a youth leader. Richmond LAND was written into the County's May application for a line of $907,750. The Air District's award summary does not list it among the County's co-applicants. Whether it is in or out is, for now, unclear.
Richmond LAND has had a difficult few years, and to its credit it has said so. Its own IRS filings report that a board member authorized to sign checks wrote checks to himself: $78,972.50 in 2023 and $135,000 in 2024. Its new executive director, who started in June 2024, says she found the problem on September 5, 2024, while reviewing the books, and has put the unauthorized withdrawals at $204,960 from January 2023 to September 2024. The organization says the board member was removed, repayment was demanded, a police report was filed, and new controls were adopted. As of its latest filing, the money had not been returned. I have found no public record of charges, a civil suit, an insurance recovery, or an audit finding. None of this is a reason to doubt anyone now in charge. It is a reason to ask what the County checked before proposing nearly a million public dollars for it.
The circle has a housing wing. Melvin Willis, a Richmond councilmember from 2017, rented a home owned by Valerie Jameson's parents until early 2023. He paid $650 a month, with two dogs. HUD's fair market rent for a studio in our area in 2020 was $1,488. Under the state's gift rules (FPPC Regulation 18940), a discount not offered in the ordinary course of business is a gift, and a gift of $50 or more belongs on the official's Form 700. His Form 700s report none. There may be an innocent explanation. Landlords are allowed to be generous. Officials are required to say so.
The circle also has an academic wing. Eli Moore, a former Urban Tilth board member according to its old IRS filings, went on to the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, where Ms. Jameson has also spoken. Residents have asked how that institute's work with the City relates to Councilmember Claudia Jimenez. I have not yet found the contracts or payments that would answer the question. If the City has paid the institute, the amounts are a records request away. That is where I would start, rather than with anyone's friendships.
And the circle votes. Supervisor Gioia is listed among the elected leaders endorsing Councilmember Jimenez for mayor, alongside Councilmember Robinson and others. Endorsements are a lawful courtesy between colleagues. I note only that the people who endorse each other also fund, staff, house, and audit each other, and that the audit seems to be the part done last.
That question isn't really about any one person or land trust. A small, busy group of nonprofits now sits at the receiving end of a very large public pipe. It flows from the Air District, through the County and the City, from Sacramento, and in some years from Washington. These groups are often the right people to do the work. But in a village, the people who write the application, chair the committee, staff the program, sit on the board, and sign the endorsement can turn out to be a short list. The minutes are in order. The votes are unanimous. That is exactly the trouble with a village: everything is in order, and nobody is outside it.
A modest suggestion. Before the County signs its sub-agreements, it could publish the split, name every subrecipient, and attach each one's latest audit. Where a supervisor's own staff sits on a recipient's board, the County could say so in the staff report, in plain words, rather than leaving residents to match two web pages. The City could post every payment it has made to the institutions its councilmembers work with. Councilmembers could file their gifts on time. It would cost nothing. Sunlight is one of the few things in Richmond that doesn't need a grant.
The Board of Supervisors meets next on Tuesday, October 20, 2026. Will anyone at that table, I wonder, be in a position to ask?
— Publius
Earlier: No. 23 — On Accordingly (8 October 2026); No. 22 — On Accomplishments (24 September 2026); No. 21 — On Urgency (17 September 2026); No. 20 — On a Closed Door (28 August 2026); No. 19 — On Four Hundred Dollars (13 August 2026); No. 18 — On a Street Party (30 July 2026); No. 17 — On a Bearcat (23 July 2026); No. 16 — On Ethics, Later (23 July 2026); No. 15 — On Two Pockets (25 June 2026); No. 14 — On a Portion (11 June 2026); No. 13 — On Small Gifts (28 May 2026); No. 12 — On Uncollectible (21 May 2026); No. 11 — On a List of Requests (7 May 2026); No. 10 — On the Third Time (30 April 2026); No. 9 — On a Gift (23 April 2026); No. 8 — On a Work Plan (26 March 2026); No. 7 — On Two Boards (19 March 2026); No. 6 — On a Restroom (5 March 2026); No. 5 — On Foreign Policy (19 February 2026); No. 4 — On a Ship (5 February 2026); No. 3 — On Asking (29 January 2026); No. 2 — On a Substitute (22 January 2026); No. 1 — On Continuance (8 January 2026). All essays.
Called meetings. Confirm time and place on the published agenda before you go.