Richmond, California
A civic pamphlet. Not a newspaper. No ads. Nothing for sale.
Publius
22 January 2026.
By nine o’clock on January 20 the chamber was full, and so was the overflow room at the Auditorium. People stood along the back wall with their coats on, the way people stand when they expect to leave angry. The microphones squealed once. Somebody’s phone played the first notes of a ringtone and went quiet. A Council meeting at that hour stops being a meeting and becomes weather.
It began with an election. The Mayor moved to make Councilmember Bana vice mayor, and Councilmember Brown seconded. Then came a substitute motion, from Councilmember Jimenez with Councilmember Wilson seconding, to make Councilmember Robinson vice mayor instead. The substitute passed 4–3. Under Robert’s Rules, as practiced here, the substitute is the main event. The original motion exists mostly so it can be replaced.
Later came the item the room was there for: a “restorative process” between the Mayor and the City’s Jewish community, after a controversy that had caused real hurt. The Mayor gave an overview and offered an apology. Then the wording began. Should Councilmembers be required to attend an antisemitism training, or merely invited? The text moved from “required” to “voluntary” to “the councilmembers have agreed to attend the training voluntarily,” and then, after further discussion, to “most of the city councilmembers have agreed to attend.” Most. A friendly amendment to make the training mandatory for the Mayor alone was not accepted.
Councilmember Zepeda, seconded by Councilmember Brown, moved to amend: keep all of that and add a formal censure. The amended motion failed 3–4. The original motion, the one with “most,” passed 6–1. The separate censure item, which had a resolution attached and its own place on the agenda, was “continued to a future meeting.” Earlier in the evening, motions to hear the censure earlier, or to hear it together with the restorative item, had both failed.
I want to be careful here, because this is the kind of night where people say things they regret, and a pamphlet should not add to the pile. I take no position on what was in the Mayor’s heart. I take a position on procedure, because procedure is what is left when everyone goes home.
Here is what procedure did on January 20. It let the Council write that “most” of its members agreed to do something, without saying which ones. It let a censure resolution, noticed and agendized, be set aside for “a future meeting,” which is not a date. It let the meeting be extended to eleven o’clock specifically “to hear Items Q.3 and Q.4,” and then let Q.4 not be heard.
A future meeting is the most useful room in City Hall. It has no seats and no microphones, and nothing said in it can ever be quoted. It holds the censure now. It may hold it for a long time.
You can believe the restorative process is the wiser path. Plenty of people in the room did, and said so with feeling. You can also believe a Council owes the public a vote on a resolution it agreed to place on its own agenda. Those are not opposites. The trouble with the substitute motion, used this way, is that it lets a Council choose the first without ever having to say no to the second.
The meeting adjourned at 10:53 p.m. Outside, the overflow crowd from the Auditorium was walking to their cars in the cold, and you could hear the arguments carry across the plaza, still going, in no particular order.
The next regular meeting of the City Council is Tuesday, January 27, 2026.
— Publius