Meet your Richmond City Council District 4 candidates — in their own words

Mail-in voting begins this week in Richmond’s first primary election, and this is the final installment in our series of candidate profiles designed to help prepare community members to cast their ballots. 

Richmond City Council District 4 incumbent Soheila Bana is defending her seat against challengers Keycha Gallon and Jamin Pursell. If a candidate gets 51% or more of the votes cast as of June 2, Election Day, they’ll win. Otherwise the top two vote-getters advance to the November general election. 

The district consists of the eastern portions of the city, including Hilltop Village, Hilltop Green, Fairmede Hilltop, Quail Hill, Greenridge Heights, May Valley, El Sobrante Hills, Greenbriar, Castro Heights and the Carriage Hills North and South neighborhoods. (Not sure which city council district you live in? Check out the city’s election map here.)

Richmondside recently interviewed the District 4  candidates to discuss their campaigns and some of their top priorities if elected. Here are some highlights of what they said.

Q: What are some issues and needs that you have heard from residents in your district?

A: “That our basic rights have been denied for a long time. We pay taxes and when I was canvassing (during my first campaign) that was the number one complaint. ‘We pay too much tax and we receive little services, close to none.’ They were right. Our community had been neglected. Mostly, I think, because we are on this side of the freeway. We are meshed in with unincorporated El Sobrante and we are middle class. Point Richmond, the Richmond Riviera, are doing fine. They have their own resources. Underserved communities get a lot of attention and grants from the city government. But the middle class has remained with a hole devoid of services.”

Q: What’s one thing during your first term that you can point to as something that you had to adapt to or learn?

A: “I learned how local government works. I spent a lot of time building connections, knowing people, and bonding in a way professionally with this city leadership team. At the council, being independent, I felt isolated and lonely at times. Also, I felt like I’m facing more obstacles as the chair of the West Contra Costa Fire Safe Council (as a Richmond City Council member). There are more barriers for me than when I was a community advocate because they are constantly reminding me that, ‘No, you’re a council member, you cannot directly communicate with city staff.’ While as a community advocate, you can reach any of your city staff, right? So it has been way more difficult. I faced many more barriers than I should have, in my view. But I learned the value of working with other city council members.

“At this point, I think I’ve brought in agenda items and collaboration with every single city council member. I’m proud of that but I’m being attacked because of that instead of being praised, which is a point of confusion for me. It has not been easy to reach across the aisle. I managed to do it and I’m proud of having achieved that building relationship and working because I had to convince them, ‘Hey, these are people (in my district), especially if you are running for mayor, that will be voting for you. You’d better pay attention to their issues.’ ”

Q: Do you think that aspect of Richmond politics has a tendency to get very polarized?

A: “I find it very sad that the city is polarized for and against the RPA (Richmond Progressive Alliance). It reminds me of Iranian politics. You know, government supporters make up between 15% and 30% in Iran. Ifyou want to have democracy, are we going to kick them out of the country or learn a way to live with them and allow them to have their own representation in the parliament? The answer is clear. When it comes to the city of Richmond, which is located in the United States of America which is supposedly far more democratic and more open minded, we see the similar situation and it’s very sad. You either have to be pro-RPA or absolutely against it. And if you are with RPA, certain people see you as a demon. I don’t believe in polarization of politics. RPA should have as much representation as they have constituents, and they have to be able to work together for the betterment of the city. Similarly with Chevron. Chevron is a fact of life whether you like the fossil fuel industry or not, a third of our city revenue comes from Chevron. (Editor’s note: About 24% of the city’s revenue is from Chevron.) We need to learn how to live with them and also quickly learn how to wean off fossil fuels because if they leave we will be in a terrible position.”

Q: You were on the council that ultimately approved the $550 million settlement with Chevron. If you’re reelected, how would you advocate for that money to be used?

A: “I think we should make an educated decision. It shouldn’t be a matter of taste. This is an investment meaning not just immediate results but also into the future. If we invest into pension liabilities, then we relieve future generations from a heavy burden. If we invest in infrastructure then we save money because the longer you defer maintenance, the more expensive it is and because there are immediate needs that people deserve, too. So how much goes to what? I don’t think it should be a matter of preference, we need to calculate exactly and ask our finance department to calculate if we put this much into pension liability, considering actuaries and interest rates, how much are we going to save? If you put that in for infrastructure, how much are we going to save? Then based on the data they present to us and present to the community, we make a collective decision.”

Q: What can you say about the current philosophy that the council has about public safety? If you’re elected, what would you continue to advocate for, what do you think needs to be improved, and what do you think the council has been getting right?

A: “I understand the position that says too much of our budget goes to our emergency responders but the number one reason people pay taxes is for the government to protect them and their safety. It’s about lives and property. So it’s very important to have adequate emergency responders, both police and firefighters. We used to have around 200 police officers. Now we’re down to 130, considering that some of them are on vacation, injury, leave, etc. That’s not acceptable. People deserve a good level of service. We have to hire more and so I am for hiring more and definitely am for alternatives to the police. I strongly support ROCK (Reach Out with Compassion and Kindness). I’ve met with (ROCK Director) Michael Romero and know his team and support them. I think it’s an excellent opportunity for the city and we need to see how it works but I’m very hopeful that it will have good results for the city. We need to have a balance. I’m not ideological. I’ve been an engineer, very pragmatic, based on results, data, numbers and what works, works. We should do that. We should embrace our budget and put it in the most effective way but it needs to respect the needs of people, the services that they deserve and what’s good for public safety. So if you have to hire more police officers, we have to hire more police officers.”

Q: You’ve mentioned that you want to be a voice on the council for all of Richmond. What do you see as needs that aren’t being met by the current council?

A: “My concern is that you have to bring stuff to the people when you say that something is going to stimulate the economy of Richmond and bring outside dollars in. For one, you need to tell the people what the proposal is, how it is going to generate the outside dollars, whether that’s the stimulation of Macdonald and surrounding areas and is it all inclusive to the community? Or is it just for a certain ethnic group? You really have to bring the community on, I feel like we force stuff on the community without really educating the community on what we are doing. We make decisions for the community without even including them and it is not right. It causes disparities and a divide.”

Q: Is it that division that you would say is the main problem that motivated you to run?

A: “Absolutely. The city council does not hear the community. When we come there to address our concerns it falls on deaf ears. They say that they are going to do something and they don’t. There’s no follow up, no return emails, nothing to show that they are going to support us or that they are even listening.”

Q: What is an issue that you hope to address if you are elected?

A: “To create more viable programs that really help people. Like with homelessness, and I’m just going to roll it back, because everything is intertwined — homelessness, workforce development, public safety — everything is connected whether we want to admit it or not. Because if you don’t have people working and making a livable wage where they are able to pay their bills, where they are able to still save and where they are able to play and do the things that they want to do, you are going to cause disparities there. With those disparities, you are going to have people start thinking like criminals. (They think) ‘You have so-and-so get away with it, maybe if I try, I can get away with it’ so then if they can’t afford to work where they live and afford it then things get shifty and it causes homelessness.

“Even when you go out there with the homeless, if you are really not assessing those people, making sure their mental health is intact and making sure that they can actually afford the place that you give them if you do move them into that place. Oakland has that issue right now. They moved a lot of these people into tiny homes now they have to evict people because they didn’t have the foundation there to actually teach these people and show them what they needed to be stable.”

Q: Do you agree with the city and county’s current approach to homelessness?

A: “There is no real structure or foundation in place. They throw a lot of hotel vouchers out but are not assessing them or following them to make sure they are being employed and have the tools they need. That old saying says if you give somebody fish they are going to constantly come back, but if you teach them how to fish they’ll find their way and never come back because they have that foundation. That’s what they have to do in our communities by creating pipelines for the workforce. I don’t understand why there are people who live in Richmond but there is not a training program in Richmond where they can go and get themselves a city job. You would rather bring outside people in and employ them pushing those city dollars outside of the city.”

Q: The city has seen fewer homicides in recent years. However, some insiders say that a lot of Richmond-related violence happens in other cities. Do you think the city’s current public safety approach has limitations?

A: “It’s people moving somewhere else because they couldn’t afford to live in Richmond and the person who they had problems with also moved too. They are still dealing with the same problems. Supposedly, ONS (the Office of Neighborhood Safety) was put in place for the shooters but now it isn’t even for the shooters, it is for intervention because, let’s be real, shooters are not going to go collect $1,000 when they could make double that in a day on the streets. We have to start at the preventative stage. We need a full circle. We need the pre-, middle and the post. You need your prevention and intervention because you need people that can actually interact with the people that can relate to them the most. So you have people in ONS, people in 1Hundred Year Enterprise that have been through what those kids have been through but they were put away (in prison) for years so they are kind of in a safe space because the people that they had problems with are either dead or are not with that nonsense anymore. But how do you reach those people who are in the mix right now? You really have to bring everybody to the table and figure out how to change it. Some you’ll be able to change and some you won’t. Because, at the end of the day, these kids don’t really know why they are having problems with the other side because it was something that happened so many years ago to where it is so diluted now they don’t even know what it is anymore. 

“If you ask them, they really don’t know. They just know that this side doesn’t get along with that side and we are in it but you have to change their way of thinking at an early age so that they know they are not apart of it and they don’t have to be a part of it because there are options — that you want to live and you should want to live. That’s why I say that preventative care is really important and it goes hand-in-hand with intervention. I would like to see the city of Richmond, ONS, start working on infusing more preventative (measures) with their intervention and stop focusing on intervention so much.”

Q: You split fairly publicly from the Richmond Progressive Alliance in the last year. You’ve mentioned that political ideologies were divisive, hindering community building. Is that why you parted ways?

A: “Where people, I found, had the biggest contention was their lack of humility of their own beliefs. People have a really strong sense that they’re right, everybody’s the hero of their own story and especially in the social justice world because you think you’re doing it for the right reasons. I mean, you probably are looking for the right reasons but how you go about it, that could be the difference. And that was the thing that really bothered me was in-group output. Inner circle and outer circle. Who could dictate the dialogue and what was acceptable and what was not. I remember one of the things that when I first joined (the RPA) was the sugar tax and I was in the office and somebody was talking about it and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’ because I had no love for it. It was punishing people who are struggling. You’re punishing particular communities because you are like wagging a paternal finger at them rather than trying to give them better options, you are enforcing a penalty for their enjoyment of life. They (the RPA) were not happy about it. Paternalism is something I struggle with a lot of times when I look at policy where I’m like, can you tell people what are good or bad life choices on a lower level like that? Obviously there are broad ones like ethics, morals, values and things like that but to try and shame people into compliance and practice never works because you build resentment.”

Q: You ran unsuccessfully against this district’s incumbent in 2022. Is there anything specifically that you can say you learned from that race?

A: “The first was don’t be in a camp. Camps suck. You have to be a wanderer as a politician. You have to be able to talk to everybody. You can’t be in a camp and say ‘I’m going to be isolated, that I’m not going to even talk to you’ or give the basic level or respect of saying that folks matter to my community just because we have disagreements. I went to the police the last time around for an endorsement interview but I didn’t go to the trades or anyone who would disagree with me. Frankly, because of the RPA, a lot of doors were closed to me before I even walked up to them because I was carrying the burden of what other people had done in years prior that had nothing to do with me. It was just the matter that I was with that organization and group. Honestly, I will say I know there are very nice Republicans out there and yet, if they tell some people that they’re Republican, they will get every single Donald Trump thing thrown at them, regardless of whether they voted for a Democrat, because they are registered as a Republican. You know, it’s that sort of thing where it was too factionalized, too siloed and, like that demonization that happened in 2014, just kept happening again in those future races and it kept isolating them more and pushing out the other groups that were disagreeing with them.”

Q: You’ve gotten some financial donations from the Richmond police union in this race and have said you have reached out to officers to better understand their work.  How has your perspective on policing changed?

A: “You have to use that new information (you receive) rather than reject it just because it confronts something that you already previously believed. I mean, that was the really big thing with me and the police. My dad was in prison. And so we did not have a favorable view of cops, and when I grew up, I saw the Rodney King riots, I saw LAPD, and I saw all these things that were reinforcing this. 
(The television show) ‘Cops,’ I think, was the worst propaganda for police ever put out. But that’s not our officers. That’s not who I met. I made friends with (Richmond) Sgt. Terry Thomas, and I went on a ride along, and honestly, I was asking questions all through that of people. And when I went on my ride along, I had the misfortune, should I say, I saw a young man get killed in a drive-by shooting. I think the ride along would have been life-changing on its own, but seeing how they interacted with the public under this very stressful, very traumatic situation. 

“Seeing how the community was not bullied, they were not condescended to, they were treated with respect even when they were asking ‘What’s happening?’ The officers were frankly not at all what I would have expected. And I had to be able to understand that my perspective was wrong. I had to get out of that way of thinking and realize that they are doing things differently. 
And, you know, they are … And so why are they demonized? Why is this the worst thing? Are we supposed to, you know, excise them from the village, so to speak? Run them out on a rail? That’s not how you build community. That’s how you have to continuously search for new scapegoats and new villains.”

Q: What are three issues that are core to what Richmond leadership needs to focus on in the next 10 years?

A: “It’s going to be public safety, economic development and infrastructure. All these are kind of tied together but at the same time we’ll parse it apart. So Public safety, the biggest thing is that you can’t argue with somebody’s feeling of safety, whatever that might be. Some people don’t want police to respond to their issue, some do. It’s not for me to tell them what is right and wrong for the response. The severity of the response has to be met with the appropriate response level. 
But I can’t tell somebody that you shouldn’t feel unsafe when we have less officers. Because I don’t know their background. I don’t know what their life story is and why they look to that for safety, but I shouldn’t be arguing with that. 
I should try and figure out a way to make everybody feel safe. 

“And if that means expansion of public safety to, you know, bring up the staffing of the police, making sure that we have appropriate fire response and having the equipment and facility is necessary, but also having nonviolent response, unhoused services. We have a lot more ways that we provide public safety: Good lighting, good infrastructure, safe roads.

“We need to have our police to have an actual police station or within a public safety building that is more centralized and not in Marina Bay. In our district, it is about a 20-minute drive from Marina Bay out here. So, of course people don’t feel safe up here because you feel like anything is a significant drive away in an emergency. 
This part of infrastructure (I believe) is looking at the properties that we have, that the city already currently owns, and trying to bring back substations. If this would help people feel safer … especially for older folks, so they can feel like there’s a place they can go to make reports or be able to talk about their issues.”

Q: Critics have said the council’s current approach on homelessness is duplicating county services? Do you agree with the city’s approach? 

A: “I would say the reasoning is cultural competency. How you interact with a person really does say it. You have to have a knowledge of how to be able to interact with people from various different backgrounds. How you interact with a wealthier white community is not going to be the same as a Hispanic community or an underserved Black community. 
Their needs are going to be different. Their resources that they can draw from are going to be different.

“I will also say that this is a bigger issue that I think both our local response and the county’s response has a problem. We don’t have the services to provide them. 
If somebody has a mental health issue, we don’t have a mental health facility to be able to to be able to help them. I know Alameda (County) is like strapped for beds. I’ve heard stories of people sleeping on the floor. You know, these are the services they need. 
And I think that A3 is great for covering a lot (of the county). But when you have communities of need, they’re gonna have more need. I don’t think we could get a dedicated A3 response out here only in Richmond. Honestly, we can’t even compare ourselves to the level of need to like El Cerrito or Pinole or Hercules, because those are communities with, I would say, a bit more resources and less area, and a lot less of a storied past.

“I can understand the argument of double dipping on the tax level, but at the same time, I also can see the need that is still there. I will say that a mental health facility is not something a city can offer.”

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