Dozens of residents packed into CoBiz in Downtown Richmond on Thursday night, ready with questions—and candidates running for City Council gave them plenty to talk about.
In one of the more heated forums of this election season, candidates sparred over police staffing, marathon council meetings and whether city leaders are truly engaged with the communities they serve.
Hosted by reentry nonprofit 1Hundred Years Enterprise, the forum brought together candidates from all three races on the June 2 ballot. But the night’s sharpest exchanges centered on questions residents keep coming back to: Is the city doing enough to keep people safe, and is City Hall actually accessible to the people it represents?
However, not all candidates participated.
Of the five mayoral candidates, Ahmad Anderson, Claudia Jimenez and Demnlus Johnson attended. Mark Wassberg was not present and incumbent Mayor Eduardo Martinez arrived at CoBiz before the forum began but excused himself, telling organizers he had another meeting to attend.
In the District 4 race, incumbent Soheila Bana did not attend, while challengers Keycha Gallon and Jamin Pursell were present. In District 3, both incumbent Doria Robinson and challenger Brandon Evans participated, as did Matthew Singh, 22, a Contra Costa College student who qualified as a write-in candidate on April 6.
‘We already have our minimum staffing’
Police department staffing has come up at nearly every candidate forum this election season, and Thursday night was no different—though it came with a new wrinkle.
Demnlus Johnson, who has been outspoken about wanting more officers on the streets, framed his position in direct terms.
“When we call for services, I want the police to show up. First I want them to answer the phone,” Johnson said. “For me, we want the police to work in our neighborhoods like they work in the wealthy neighborhoods. Where they don’t kill anybody and show up to do their job.”
But two candidates currently on the council—Robinson and Jimenez—pushed back, saying recent hires at the Richmond Police Department have already eliminated the need for mandatory overtime.
“We already have our minimum staffing. I just talked to the police chief (Tim Simmons) and he said we no longer have mandatory overtime,” Robinson said. “He said that because our budget is so good, because we have surpluses, because we’re off of the audit list…we have a number of officers who are coming in and applying to Richmond.”
Jimenez added that she and Robinson have championed alternative public safety programs during their time on the council, including the crisis response program Reach Out with Compassion and Kindness, known as ROCK, and the Office of Neighborhood Safety.
“It’s so the police have the time to really do what they are trained to do, which is investigating violent crimes,” Jimenez said, pointing at the city’s 2025 homicide numbers, which she said were at an all-time low.
Challengers not currently serving on the council questioned both the timing of the staffing announcement and the effectiveness of those alternative programs.
Gallon raised concerns about how long it took to get the ROCK program off the ground, citing ongoing disputes with the Richmond Police Officers Association as a contributing factor.
Anderson welcomed the staffing news but said officers still need deeper training in cultural competency—an understanding of Richmond’s history with law enforcement, including episodes like the Richmond Cowboys scandal in the 1980s and the 2014 shooting of Pedie Perez.
“Having that collaboration, the training to understand the history of Richmond is important,” Anderson said. “Everybody needs to be protected, respected and safe in their community no matter what zip code it is.”
Pursell called reaching minimum staffing the bare minimum and said he would continue pushing for more hiring even alongside those alternative programs.
“We need to bring back that community policing we have had in the past where we know our officers and not just our officers know us,” Pursell said, referencing former police Chief Chris Magnus’ model that was nationally recognized.
Evans was more pointed, calling it convenient that the staffing milestone was being announced during an election season and arguing that the roots of the department’s challenges haven’t been fully addressed.
“I think we should talk about what led to some of the issues and a lack of morale in the police department,” Evans said, citing the social and political climate following George Floyd’s murder and how it affected departments across the country.
“I think we can get up here today and say everything is great and everything is amazing but that is simply just not the case,” Evans added. “I hope we don’t have any snake oil salesmen here for you this evening telling you these untruths. I think we need to be honest about the lack of staff and the need to support our officers here.”
“Who has five hours to sit there?”
Another major flashpoint in the forum came not from a candidate, but from a resident in the audience.
When Kokoye Sande, a Richmond resident, was given the floor, she didn’t mince words.
“As a Richmond resident who is interested in stuff like this, can’t you all figure out how to say you’re going to have maybe a three hour meeting and make it a three hour meeting?” Sande said. “I have not attended one meeting where I’ve been able to listen to the whole meeting because, I mean, who has five hours to sit there? Can you do better than that?”
Jimenez acknowledged that meetings have run long and noted that the council voted during her tenure to cap meetings at 11 p.m. But she said she was reluctant to limit public comment, pointing to a recent meeting in March where more than 100 young people showed up to speak on the Kids First initiative.
“I don’t want to quiet anybody,” she said. “Everybody needs to make sure that they speak up.”
Johnson didn’t let that answer stand without a challenge. He questioned whether Jimenez had helped create the very problem she was now describing and argued that existing rules—Robert’s Rules of Order and the Brown Act—already give the council the tools to run tighter meetings.
“Policies are in place to prevent these meetings from going over,” Johnson said. “You don’t know the rules and that’s what we’ve been seeing.”
Pursell suggested that agenda items requiring more debate could be given more structured time so that the council isn’t running out the clock on important discussions.
Gallon went further, saying she believed the council isn’t spending enough meeting time on Richmond-specific business and questioned whether members are adequately trained on how to run an effective meeting while Anderson suggested some council members arrive without having read the agenda or spoken with city staff beforehand.
Robinson agreed that meetings are long and proposed creating a separate session for proclamations and acknowledgements to free up time for substantive discussion. She also pointed out that setting the agenda is solely the role of the mayor and city manager—leaving other council members largely in the dark until the agenda is released.
“We have no idea what is going on (the agenda) until Thursday night and then that’s it,” Robinson said. “We have no say in it. I think we need to have a lot more transparency—to have a vision ahead of time so we know what’s coming.”
When the forum wrapped up, residents and candidates spilled out of CoBiz onto Macdonald Avenue and into the night—still talking. The question one of the moderators had posed from the floor earlier seemed to hang in the air: Why should Richmond residents trust you? On June 2, voters will have their answer.
