The Richmond City Council will hold a fourth meeting this month, on Tuesday, to continue unfinished business from its regular April 22 meeting, including discussing a new approach to prioritizing capital improvement projects.
The council had to schedule the meeting based on rules that require it to end its regular meetings by 11 p.m. or vote to extend them, which didn’t happen during the April 22 discussion about the projects. Also on the agenda: A proposal to pilot occasional street closures for bicycles and pedestrians and an ordinance amendment that would triple fines for the use of illegal fireworks in areas most at-risk for wildfires.
Since the last update on the capital projects in November, according to Public Works Director Daniel Chavarria, the department has developed a new weighted scoring system to help determine which projects get done first — a system that at least one council member has said may be unfair.
“The emphasis was on moving from planning everything to it being a more programmatic approach,” Chavarria said. “Seeing the issues of the city as programs and not just CIP (capital improvement projects).”
Richmond’s projects are organized into five categories: Transportation, Parks and Open Spaces, General and Public Safety Facilities, Water Resource Recovery, and the Port. Currently, the program includes 95 projects — up from the 88 reported during the November 2024 meeting.
Josef Munoz, capital projects manager, told the council last Tuesday that a proposed 100-point scoring system would include nine factors such as: equity (19 points); requirements, such as legally obligated work with funding requirements (19 points); readiness, projects that are not awaiting construction, funding or staffing delays (12 points); environment (8 points); economics (8 points); quality of life (8 points); safety, including illegal dumping and emergency preparedness (8 points); housing (8 points); whether the project fits within an already established neighborhood plan (5 points); and collaboration (5 points).
Scoring system an effort to explain which projects are moving forward
Munoz said the scoring was developed in an effort to synthesize the council’s six previous prioritization goals and three priority levels — many of which were incorporated into the new scoring system.
While a higher score indicates a project might be a higher priority, other factors, such as funding sources, could impact which project gets completed first.
“We are hoping this simplifies the many methodologies,” Munoz said.
Munoz added that although the council had implemented those prior six prioritization goals during a March 2024 meeting — such as legal obligations, housing/facility and quality of life — staff still found it difficult to determine which category outranks the other.
“Is one more important than the other? It was hard to say,” he said, while showing the council an example comparing the new and old prioritization score models. “Now, (with the new scoring) just because it’s a higher score doesn’t necessarily mean that will be our recommendation. The reason for that is that certain projects align better with certain grants.”
For example, funding sources such as Contra Costa County’s Measure J and the state’s gas tax, he said, must be spent on infrastructure projects.
Ultimately, Munoz said the new scoring system will help staff explain why certain projects are going forward or not.
“It’s a way for us to answer the question, ‘Why are you recommending this over the other?’ ” he said. “ ‘Why not this community center over that fire station? Why not this traffic safety project over this park project?’ ”
Last Tuesday’s meeting ended before the council members discussed the scoring system, but District 4 council member Soheila Bana, who represents neighborhoods such as Fairmede/Hilltop, May Valley and the El Sobrante Hills, said it means projects in underserved communities will always receive the most points.
“That is, our district would almost never get a project,” she wrote in a Thursday email newsletter. In the email, she included a current city project map that shows her district only has five active projects.
According to the CIP dashboard — a tool documenting all active projects and how they are funded — the five projects are: the $2.9 million Rheem Creek restoration, $11.1 million for the sewage repairs on Via Verde and $4.5 million for its mitigation, $1.2 million for the Santa Rita Street rehabilitation project, $300,000 for Richmond Fire Department’s Fire Station 63.
“How many projects do you see in District 4?” she wrote. “These proposed criteria would mean that this trend continues, and we will never get any capital improvement projects despite paying taxes.”
Bana encouraged District 4 residents who think the scoring system is “unfair” to either email Chavarria, Mayor Eduardo Martinez and the other five council members or attend Tuesday’s meeting.
Council to consider “ciclovia” project and tougher fireworks fines
Also on Tuesday’s agenda are a “ciclovia” project, referring to the Spanish term for “cycleway,” used as a permanent bike path or the temporary closing of certain streets for cyclists and pedestrians.
The city hopes to test the first ciclovia this summer to promote car-free health and wellness activities, pointing to similar projects in other cities, such as San Francisco’s Sunday Streets.
The council will also consider directing city staff to amend the city’s illegal fireworks code, tripling fines in “high” and “very high” fire hazard zones.
