Richmond, California
A civic pamphlet. Not a newspaper. No ads. Nothing for sale.
Publius
28 May 2026.
I have watched a lot of people stand at the podium in Richmond and talk about Chevron. The refinery is the backdrop to every argument here, sometimes literally: you can see the flare from parts of town on a clear night, a small orange tongue against the dark. Speakers point toward it when they talk. It is the City’s weather, its tax base, its villain, and its landlord of last resort, depending on who has the microphone.
On May 26 the Council adopted a resolution to accept and appropriate a $35,000 grant from the Chevron Community Engagement Foundation for the Office of Neighborhood Safety, to enhance street outreach and mobile crisis response. The vote was 7–0.
I think the Council was right. Street outreach saves lives, and $35,000 buys real hours of it. A city that refuses help on principle is a city that has mistaken posture for policy. If the foundation wants to pay for outreach workers, let it.
But I would like the same Council to remember this vote the next time someone describes accepting the company’s help as a moral failing, or treats a candidate’s past contributions as disqualifying. The principle cannot be that Chevron money is tainted when it reaches one’s opponents and clean when it reaches one’s own program. It is either money or it is not. On May 26, by a unanimous vote, it was money.
The same meeting had other things to say about who pays for what. On the consent calendar was a sole-source contract with SoundThinking, Inc., formerly ShotSpotter, for maintenance and support of the Police Department’s gunshot-detection system: $1,242,196 over five years, July 2026 through June 2031. Gunshot detection is a surveillance technology. The Council had argued about license plate readers into the night in March. A five-year, million-dollar sole-source renewal for acoustic sensors drew no such argument here.
And there was item P.5.a, authority to apply for Bay Area Air Quality Management District grants under its program for reinvesting penalty money, with the City Manager able to adjust budgets and execute agreements with co-applicants if awarded. Vice Mayor Robinson reported a conflict of interest on that item and recused herself from the discussion and vote. It passed 6–0.
That recusal was done properly, by the look of the minutes: the conflict stated at the start, the member out of the discussion and the vote. I note it because it is the correct form, and because the correct form is worth noticing when it happens. It also tells you something about Richmond. Penalty money from polluters, reinvested through the Air District, flowing to grant programs where a sitting councilmember has an interest in the applicants: that is not scandal. It is just how tight the circle is here. Everybody is somebody’s co-applicant.
Small gifts are revealing precisely because they are small. Nobody fights over $35,000. So the vote shows you what people believe when they are not performing. On May 26, everyone believed the money would do some good. I believe it too. I would only ask that the belief survive the next campaign season.
The next meeting of the City Council is a special budget session on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, followed by the regular meeting on Tuesday, June 16.
— Publius