Richmond’s City Council on Tuesday took a step toward creating an arts corridor in the heart of the city. It also approved a plan for what’s being called the“Green-Blue New Deal,” an initiative to provide environmentally friendly jobs.
In a unanimous vote, the council awarded the arts contract to Independent Arts and Media, a fiscal agent for Richmond Renaissance — a local nonprofit whose goal is to make Macdonald Avenue and 23rd Street a regional arts and culture destination and the group that originally presented the idea for the corridor.
The council initially heard presentations for the contract from Independent Arts and Media as well as Ceres Policy Research on June 25 but asked city staff to rework the bid to create an arts corridor instead of an arts district, which was the original wording.
The corridor would run along Macdonald Avenue, from 41st Street to Sixth Street and on 23rd Street between Rheem Avenue and Cutting Boulevard.
According to Ratha Lai, who presented the Richmond Renaissance proposal, the group has already made connections with local organizations including the RYSE Center, the Richmond Museum of History and Culture and Safe Organized Spaces (SOS) Richmond, among others.
Lai said the group plans to incorporate aspects of vegetation and urban greening and make changes to the streets that would solve traffic safety issues.
District 4 Council Member Soheila Bana made the motion to award the contract.
“This group seems the most capable. They have already advanced the planning, and they’ve made connections,” Bana said. “The group which had this whole idea for the arts corridor as their brain child have proven, in my view, get a 100% (score). ”
Mayor Eduardo Matinez seconded Bana’s motion and commended Richmond Renaissance for doing the necessary community outreach.
“In their presentation, they have shown they have done outreach to funders, they have exposure in the media, that they have done major outreach to art communities,” Martinez said. “They have creativity to include urban greening and environmental justice and these are things that weren’t included by the other group. I have to say that Richmond Renaissance is Richmond.”
Prior to the vote, District 3 councilmemberDoria Robinson, whose district borders the southern side of Macdonald, was supportive of the project, but she voiced some concerns about Richmond Renaissance taking on the plans and the economic revitalization aspects.
“I do feel like there is — at least from what was presented and what I know about folks because people are Richmond residents and we do know each other — that there isn’t the same amount of experience doing this kind of work, doing this kind of report and doing this kind of research,” she said. “Not just with where you place a mural or art object but how you change major parts of the built environment in order to support an economic plan.”
Robinson added that an idea to add murals in between existing art assets in the community — such as the East Bay Center — would be nice, it isn’t what she was expecting. She is also concerned about whether there are enough staff to support the project.
“I’m also concerned that it seems to be only two dedicated staff to pull this off,” she said. “I’m worried. I’m not worried about the amazing art organizations and the work that’s gone into it, but I’m worried that we don’t have all the players in place to make it as impactful as it needs to be. As the community deserves.”
Martinez defended the group’s experience, adding that though the group’s staff for the project is small, they are local.
“They are dedicated to Richmond,” he said, adding that he understands the learning curve will be a big part of the process. “They’ve done a lot and the pay that they have received is zero. So, anyone who is willing to dedicate hours and hours and hours for nothing so that they can enrich the city of Richmond in terms of art I think have the fire to make this thing work.”
“I hope they can do that in two months,” Robinson replied, pointing to the project’s December deadline for accessing American Rescue Plan Act Covid-19 relief funds.
‘Green-Blue New Deal’ draws questions
Richmond’s “Green-Blue New Deal” has been in the works since 2021 when the council passed a resolution looking to invest in “clean-energy” jobs.
In April 2022, Appraccel, LLC was awarded a $300,000 contract to do community engagement, an analysis and a report implementing the initiative,which aims to bring 1,000 green jobs to Richmond.
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“I would expect more for our money than an overview list of 24 projects with $300,000.”
— Richmond City Council member Doria Robinson, on why she opposed the Green-Blue New Deal plan
At Tuesday’s meeting city staff gave examples of green industries, including off-shore wind turbines and manufacturing of ships powered by those turbines to smaller-scale shoreline ecotourism and surplus food rescue projects.
The council approved the opportunities report 3-1, with District 5 councilmember Gayle McLaughlin, District 6 councilmember Claudia Jimenez and Martinez voting in favor of it. Robinson voted No, and Bana abstained. District 1 Council Member Melvin Willis left at the end discussion and was absent during the vote.
Robinson had questions about the report. For example, when referencing the port, she said the plan did not contain a list of sites and their potential usage for off-shore wind turbine ship building, an omission that could affect the city’s leverage in negotiations to attract developers.
“We need to know which one of these options is going to bring the best return for the city because some of these things might not be as good for the city as others, but we would need to know that,” she said. “When I’m thinking of an implementation plan and not just a list of possibilities, I want to know those kinds of facts so I have all the information I need so we are choosing which types of these projects can actually bring jobs.”
Martinez, who has been advocating for the offshore-wind industry in recent years, pushed back, saying that the ideas were not set in stone and that developers have approached the city and have been given dimensions for what the port can accommodate.
“When we went to the off-shore wind conference (last year) we brought the specifics about our port and we shared a report of our port to developers who looked at it,” he said, adding that developers have already visited the port. “Once they tell us what they want to do then we can start asking ‘How many people will you hire? Will they be union jobs? What sorts of materials will you need and how will you transport them here?’ ”
The next steps are for city staff to release the implementation plan and to conduct a 60-day comment period with the city’s Economic Development Commission, Workforce Development Board and Richmond Coordinating Counsel. The final implementation plan is tentatively scheduled to be presented to the council in early 2025.
Although she clarified she is a fan of the idea of a “just transition” away from fossil fuels and the “greening” of the port, Robinson said she expected more from a $300,000 contract.
“I would expect more for our money than an overview list of 24 projects with $300,000,” she said. “The reason why I’m so adamant about this is because I know we need it to work. We need the information so that we can be successful — not just for Richmond, not just for our economy but for our planet — and poor execution gets us death.”
Thank you for spelling Macdonald Avenue correctly. I have corrected so many people (including Caltrans), that the correct spelling is one word, with a lower case “d”.
Macdonald Avenue. Named for one of the “Founding Father’s” of Richmond.