Richmond, California
A civic pamphlet. Not a newspaper. No ads. Nothing for sale.
Publius
23 July 2026.
Late July in Richmond is when the ballot deadlines come due, and the Council chamber takes on the feel of an airport gate at boarding time. Everybody is carrying something they need to get on the plane. Not everything makes it.
On July 21 three things were trying to board.
The first was item O.1, a general obligation bond for fire station improvements. The Council adopted a resolution of necessity and introduced the ordinance to submit the bond to the voters, 7–0. Councilmember Zepeda had first moved to also have staff return with lease-revenue bond options in case the voters said no, then withdrew that part. The bond boarded easily. Unanimity is a fast lane.
The second was item Q.2, a resolution to establish a Public Lands Policy, effective immediately. The Mayor moved, and Vice Mayor Robinson seconded, to table it until there was “a better understanding and a timeline,” to let City staff and the unions discuss their differences. That passed 6–1, Councilmember Zepeda voting no. The policy did not board. It is in a lounge somewhere.
The third was item Q.6, the Richmond Government Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics Act, the GATE Act. Its sponsors, Councilmembers Zepeda, Bana, and Brown, proposed a ballot measure for an ordinance establishing an independent ethics commission. The item asked the City Attorney to draft the measure and set it for adoption by July 28 to make the November ballot. It had already been continued once, from July 7. Councilmember Brown moved and Councilmember Zepeda seconded. It failed 3–4: Bana, Brown, and Zepeda yes; Councilmembers Jimenez and Wilson, Vice Mayor Robinson, and the Mayor no.
I do not know whether the GATE Act was well drafted. Ethics commissions can be good or bad, independent or captured, useful or ornamental. A councilmember could vote no because the measure was rushed, or because the ballot was crowded, or because a commission costs money. Those are honest reasons, and the minutes do not tell us which ones applied.
What the minutes do tell us is the shape of the night. A tax on property owners, to build fire stations, was sent to the voters without a dissent. A measure that would have let the same voters decide whether their elected officials should answer to an independent ethics body was not sent to them at all. Voters are trusted with the bill. They were not trusted with the referee.
There is a familiar argument that ethics is everyone’s job and so needs no special commission. It is the argument a team makes for playing without umpires. It works beautifully until the first close call.
One of the four no votes came from the member who, between May 26 and June 16, stated a conflict of interest at three meetings on grant-funded items. That is a fact about diligence, not wrongdoing; she stated the conflicts, as the law requires. I merely set it next to the vote, the way the minutes do, and let the two facts sit together.
The next regular meeting of the City Council is Tuesday, July 28, 2026.
— Publius