Melvin Willis never planned to one day become a Richmond City Council member.
If you would have told the two-time incumbent who was first elected in 2016 that he would end up on a government body that has made some the of the most significant decisions impacting the city in the past decade, he’d be the first to tell you that all he wanted to do was help his community.
“I wasn’t the type of person to look in the mirror and be like ‘Melvin, you’re going to be on the council one day,’ ” he said. “It became an idea because I spoke at public comment or at all these events and people liked what I said and how I said it.”
District 1 Richmond City Council candidates
WHO: Melvin Willis
PLATFORM HIGHLIGHTS: Tenants’ rights, homelessness, housing.
WHAT HE SAID: “I’m always trying to build up to a Richmond that is doing more than just surviving but that is thriving.”
OTHER D1 CANDIDATES: Read about Willis’ opponents: Jamelia Brown and Mark Wassberg.
This is among a series of profiles of the seven candidates running for seats in three Richmond City Council districts. Visit our local elections hub for more stories.
As a council member, he’s been at the forefront of the campaign for Richmond’s rent control and just cause eviction ballot measure, which passed the year he was first elected, and was one of the Richmond Progressive Alliance-backed candidates that won a majority of the seats on the council in 2020. He helped place the Measure U gross receipts tax on the ballot while also voting to approve the $550 million settlement with Chevron to drop a proposed oil refining tax ballot measure.
He said he celebrates the victories but is also motivated by those he wasn’t able to help stay in the community — those close to him who’ve left Richmond due to housing insecurities, such as rent hikes.
“You take the wins and you learn from the losses but I’m proud that I was able to be there,” he told Richmondside. “Part of the work is you push as hard as you can and take it to the finish line to see if you are able to help this family or at least know that you went as far as you could.”
Now, eight years later, Willis is defending his District 1 seat, representing the Iron Triangle and Belding Woods, against Mark Wassberg and Jamelia Brown at a critical time. The new council will have one of its biggest tasks in recent history: determining how to spend its $550 million Chevron settlement. The task is particularly meaningful to this district, with the refinery sitting just a couple of miles away, emitting harmful pollution. Those funds could prove signficant for neighborhoods that have historically been underserved and where residents say they are struggling to flourish.
“It was just always about survival…”
Willis can relate to district residents who say they’re just trying to get by. When he was 20 he said he began his career in community organizing for the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), because he needed a job.
Growing up along the 23rd Street corridor near Wendell Park without a car, Willis said walking gave him an intimate understanding of his city.
After graduating from El Cerrito High School, he went to community college, first attending Contra Costa College and then Laney, where he got involved in student government, helping a friend gather signatures for their nomination. In one instance he got almost 40 signatures during a lunch period.
“That was probably my first step into activism and talking to people without even knowing about it,” he said.
After finding out he couldn’t actually participate in student government at Laney until he established a GPA, a friend told him that ACCE was hiring canvassers for $12 an hour.
“I was like ‘Oh, $12 an hour, huh, and you want me to just invite people to a community meeting? And that’s it?’ ” he recalled. He wasn’t hired right away but eventually got an assignment to invite residents in North Richmond to a community meeting.
That town hall meeting, he said, changed his life.
“It completely changed my perspective on the community overall, like all these stigmas that were given around this area, the community or just in the whole of Richmond,” Willis said. “After that town hall meeting, I said, ‘How am I going to tell people to show up to a community meeting and not show up myself too?’ ”
Housing insecurities, homelessness and tenants’ rights have always been issues close to Willis as someone grew up bouncing from home to home in west Contra Costa County and who eventually became his mother’s caretaker due to her health issues. His experiences made working for ACCE personal.
“I just know that renter experience of being in Richmond, San Pablo and just being forced to bounce all over the place which is why I never really had a high goal or expectations for myself growing up,” he said, speaking openly about dealing with depression as a youth. “It was just always about survival and getting by and just trying to figure it out at the end of the day.”
As a part-time organizer for ACCE, he eventually made connections with the person who would become his mentor, Juan Reardon, a co-founder of the Richmond Progressive Alliance. Reardon saw potential in Willis, who was outspoken about tenant-related issues and nominated him for the 2013 “Mario Savio Young Activist Award,” which he won. Reardon then persuaded him to run for city council in 2016, and he became the youngest city council member in Richmond’s history.
Willis ran for mayor in 2018 but lost to Tom Butt before winning his District 1 seat in 2020 after the city moved from at-large elections to district races — something he has seen change how candidates treat campaigning and how council members allocate resources.
“I had a preference for making sure that candidates felt accountable to Richmond as a whole rather than just their own district,” Willis said. “I’ve even started hearing those narratives like ‘My district deserves this or that,’ and when we start doing that we start only focusing on a piece and not the whole. I think there needs to be a concerted effort to focus on a whole and approach everything from an equity lens.”
Community engagement and the Chevron settlement
Willis said one of the district’s biggest challenges has been getting residents to discuss the issues.
“We have the same stakeholders that do come up (to speak at meetings) and occasionally some new folks,” he said. “There are a lot of needs in our community. We’re just not always hearing about them.”
Now more than ever because of the Chevron settlement, Willis said, the next two years are going to be crucial as the council will be responsible for ensuring that the money is used in a way that positively impacts residents.
“I do support the idea of having a community oversight board,” he said, adding that he advocated for similar oversight of funds raised by Measure X — a countywide 20-year, half cent sales tax approved by voters in 2020. “I think the practical and just objective challenge is going to be balancing the community needs and (city) recommendations.”
He added that setting environmental provisions for the funds won’t just benefit the environmental advocates who pushed for the oil refining ballot measure. It will also help residents negatively impacted by the refinery, especially in District 1.
“It’s a lot of issues that are intertwined with each other, like making sure we have expanded youth programs and services too so folks are making living wages,” he said. “Personally, my thing would be having a dedicated fund for the next 10 years that’s going towards rental assistance to make sure that we’re helping out folks who find themselves in an emergency situation.”
Willis also said using the funds to support the council’s “Green-Blue New Deal” will help bring environmentally friendly union jobs to Richmond.
“I know Mayor (Eduardo) Martinez, he’s really been working on our port area to figure out how we’re implementing that vision over there,” he said.
When asked what he thinks the next 10 years will look like in RIchmond, Willis said he believes a thriving city is possible if the city can maximize the Chevron settlement by supporting services, living wage jobs and economically revitalizing corridors such as 23rd Street, Macdonald and San Pablo avenues — though he knows the settlement money is finite.
“We’ll be talking about another tax on corporations because the 10 years on that settlement will be up,” he said. “I’m always trying to build up to a Richmond that is doing more than just surviving but that is thriving.”
From organizing in the community for 13 years to two consecutive terms on the council, Willis said he believes that he is the best candidate to continue representing District 1 because he’s able to build relationships with community stakeholders around issues such as homelessness, housing, immigration and mental health.
“Just having those relationships and that foundation that I build on is what I think gives me an advantage,” Willis said. “Doing these various things constantly — year in and year out — just helps keep me grounded into work that keeps my eye on being a good representative. Not a good leader.”
He doesn’t want to come off as political because, in his eyes, he’s still just Melvin.
“I just take the information I get and try to make the best choice possible.”
