Richmond voters will chose a mayor in the Nov. 3 election, which is a run-off between the top two vote-getters in the June 2 primary. Richmondside is republishing this edited version of the one-on-one interviews we conducted with candidates Ahmad Anderson and Claudia Jimenez last spring.
The Nov. 3 Richmond mayoral run-off election pits political newcomer Ahmad Anderson against District 6 city council member Claudia Jimenez, the top two-vote getters in a June primary that saw a field of five candidates, including current Mayor Eduardo Martinez, who didn’t get enough votes to advance to the General Election.
Richmondside mayoral forum
What: Richmondside journalists and audience members will query the candidates in a free public forum.
When: Thur., Oct. 1, 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m.
Where: Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza
RSVP: The event is free but please register here.
“Richmond is at a crossroads,” Anderson states on his campaign website. “Let’s reimagine public safety, help small businesses succeed, and give our kids every opportunity possible. Join me in bringing Pride and Purpose back to the Mayor’s Office.”
Jimenez says she’s running for mayor to ensure that the progress that has been made in Richmond is sustained.
“To continue moving in the right direction, Richmond needs a capable leader, one who knows how to take good ideas and turn them into real world improvements that uplift every person in every neighborhood. I believe that leader is me,” her website statement says.
Jimenez received the most votes in the primary, 38%; Anderson received 28%. Before the primary, Richmondside met with the candidates to discuss their campaigns and their top priorities if elected. Here’s a recap of what Anderson and Jimenez had to say, in their own words.
Ahmad Anderson
Ahmad Anderson
Education: UC Berkeley/Political science and government
Occupation: Human resources director
Neighborhood: Laurel Park
Resident for: 60+ years
Why he’s running: “Richmond is at a crossroads. The decisions we make now will determine whether our city becomes safer, more prosperous, and more affordable — or whether working families continue to feel squeezed out.”
Photo courtesy of the candidate
Q: You’ve said that Richmond has a reputation crisis in terms of how the city markets itself. What is your vision for the city’s marketing?
A: “The workforce trends are moving into the area of not only clean energy and blue energy but are also moving in the area of manufacturing, warehouses and logistics. I have experience in not only the manufacturing world, but also the warehousing and logistics.
My experience with 30 years of human resources, working with organizations like UPS in 1985, even when I was involved in politics then, I was a member of the Council of Industries that talked about bringing UPS to the city of Richmond. It was an enterprise zone where we provided a pathway for them to get settled in and get started, tax breaks in order to provide revenue for the city and community benefits. Those community benefits were not only revenues to be able to help our capital projects in this area in infrastructure, but it also provides a pathway for jobs.
What that equates to today is not a whole lot of money with the prices of gas going up but you know, with a high school degree, that is worth $100,000 to $130,000 a year with, not only benefits, but being able to do your best to pay rent or even purchase a home in some cases, and that’s still a challenge because we haven’t built homes that are reasonable or even affordable. We don’t even have shovels in the ground.
But what it (those jobs) afforded people was the opportunity to be able to improve the quality of life which they had then to what they have now and also retirement. I was a part of that, building organizations in this community, working with communities to assess what the needs were for those communities, like taking care of our high school, community college students and those who are transitioning and able to provide an avenue towards a better life, which afforded them to have money in their pocket to eat, live, work, and enjoy this community. But we still suffer because we’ve not been able to increase revenue outside of Chevron.”
Q: What are your thoughts on the 10-year, $550 million Chevron settlement?
A: “In the election last time (in 2024), it (the settlement) was a tactic and I say it was a tactic because it was the shiny bait. It told the fish, ‘Fish, come up out of the water! We have $550 million! Hallelujah!’ but I’ll cheer with you. You (electeds) said that, so what? Now what? What is the plan? Every question and maybe questions that you will ask as we are asking ‘If you became mayor or elected official in those districts, what would be your priority with the $550 million dollars? It’s a question, and it’s a great question, but that should have been the question that was made to those on the council who pushed forward for the settlement.
The question that should have been asked: When you get the money, what is the first thing you’re gonna do at the turn of the year to ensure that the business community, the people in the community, the environmentalists in the community, and even our schools and how it will impact the community? And we’re still asking those questions a year later. We’re still asking the same question that preceded that, what has happened to the Measure U money and where have you invested that to retain and grow the businesses here?
We do a lot of talking on that city council, but we have very little action, and this requires somebody who has demonstrated leadership working with building organizations, working with the community to move towards real problem solving solutions in real time and a community-centered focus on the people who live in the city around meeting the moment, meeting the times to increase and improve the quality of life. We’re not doing that.”
Q: During the District 5 city council candidate forum that Richmondside hosted in 2024, you said that the Chevron settlement is not a sustainable model for economic development as an engine to provide tax revenue to the city. If you’re elected, what would your economic development plan look like and what industries, projects or areas of the city might you hope to focus on?
A: “I’ve worked with Stephen Baiter of the East Bay Economic Development Alliance and I brought him in as a visitor to our Economic Development Commission meeting twice. Our membership with that organization lapsed, and the value that membership provided was an opportunity to have a dialogue with him about like cities, not only in the region, which is important, but also in the state … What kind of jobs can we start to develop our community with so we can attract, through the training, the opportunities, for businesses to come to the city?
But here’s the concern. You can’t have businesses come here and you can’t build housing unless people feel safe in the community. It is a holistic strategic plan that you look at people and say, ‘We will take care of safety’ so people can come to your business in downtown Richmond. We have the Macdonald Avenue Task Force now but we also have the City of Promise in place, which is very similar to … the Macdonald Avenue task force. It talked about so many blocks around downtown that you just don’t do a reboot, but that you reset to make sure the housing meets people at their economic level, affordable. It talks about putting in grocery stores that meet them at their level in that community and having mixed housing so you have the fluidity of money that provides the opportunity for people to shop and eat and also a corridor for arts and culture, of entertainment that will draw people from, not only downtown, but throughout the city of Richmond and elsewhere.
That type of revenue develops a base but safety is important. Businesses want to make sure not only would you protect my commercial property, as you know, murders have gone down, but business and commercial property property and damage has gone up. It’s also gone up around assaults and sexual assaults, but nobody will come if they don’t see changes … (there’s) 23rd Street, where you have human trafficking. Where you have drug trade. Where you have a blind eye to protect the community regardless of your citizenship.
All people in each neighborhood … are concerned about safety and their wellbeing and community policing that requires not only staffing, but a relationship for training for the police to understand the trauma and what the city has gone through to be able to connect and be a bridge of those they protect and serve.”
Q: You have called out the staffing issues at the police department and, since your last campaign, a civil grand jury report was released that highlighted the issue. If you were elected mayor, how would you go about having those budget discussions surrounding public safety?
A: “Defunding is not the term and that’s a non-conversation for me. What it is is a dialogue to ensure that the police have an understanding that, one, as your mayor I will not be adversarial to the police. When you’re leader of your city or your council, the majority of it, say ‘police are bad, we don’t support them’ then the vision that you have in your community, for those who know, and those who don’t know, say, ‘Well, what do you do to protect us in the city that we love? How do you protect all of us?’ And the message is you need to understand the history and the trauma that has come before you … in relation to the police. From redlining and communities around racial discrimination to the cowboys that were here in the ‘80s and the ‘70s. And what damage it did when police were not policing, but police were seeking out people of color. When they were pulling them over and taking them in and, at times, there was harassment.
But times have changed. We’ve had this series of community policing when (Chief Chris) Magnus was here, but we had the staffing to meet the need. We had a different philosophy and implementation of what it meant to look out for your community, work with your community, and embrace the cultural history. We also need to be able to look out for the police officers, not only the community around mental health issues and being able to assign organizations like ROCK to work with the county to do what they are supposed to do and address the public issues of our community. We need to also understand that officers have mental health issues as well.
When you are overworked, when workers comp numbers are going up, when you have folks who are retiring and you are already understaffed, that creates undue pressure on those who are working. So much so as you know, that many of them work more hours than they have time to take breaks. If a truck driver over the road is told that after X number of hours, you need almost half of that to be able to rest in order to get back on the road to maintain public safety while driving. It should be no different than an individual who is there to protect and serve and make instant decisions while carrying a gun or a taser to be able to rank if they are in the right and healthy enough to do that. That is a detriment and lackership of our council to not see that.”
Claudia Jimenez
Claudia Jimenez
Education: Universidad San Buenaventura Cali (Colombia), architecture/UC Berkeley
Occupation: Richmond City Council member
Neighborhood: North and East
Resident for: 17 years
Why she’s running: “I am running for mayor so I can deliver what Richmond residents need and deserve, including: safe and clean neighborhoods; better jobs; healthier air, land and water; affordable housing; and equal protection for all regardless of immigration status.”
Photo courtesy of city of Richmond
Q: What is one priority that you want voters to know that you will focus on if you are elected?
A: “I think one of these priorities is to make sure that we have a good investment of the $550 million (Chevron settlement). As you know, I was one of the leaders in bringing that to the forefront as a ballot initiative with the allies (APEN and CBE). Now that we have the money, how are we going to be able to, with the goal of these 10 years, decrease the dependency of 24% in the general fund from Chevron significantly? I don’t want to say a number but that is something that the experts will say, how are we going to do that? What is the investment that is needed to do that? Some of them are financial and, you know, I’ve brought an agenda item and it has been developed around the municipal finances and whether paying the whole (unfunded pension liability) is the way to go to save some money to take the pressure from the general fund that now we use $20 to $30 million from the general fund to pay that pension obligation. (Then) it is taken away so we can invest that money or use that money for other services.”
Q: You have been on the council for a number of years and have seen a lot of these different policies you have worked on come to light. We have ROCK now up and running. Public safety, unfilled vacancies in the police department as well as alternative approaches to public safety have been recent themes in this election. What would your approach be, if you are elected, for not only supporting these new alternatives but also managing the relationship with the department and tensions that exist there?
A: I think the relationship has to be with an understanding that we all want what is best for the city but there are different ways to go about it. I don’t understand why they say that the relationship is bad when the last time we signed an (memorandum of understanding) with the (police union) it gave them 20% higher than any other union. That we have been taking measures like letting them take their (police) cars home. What I’ve heard is that people want to come to work in Richmond. The report from the city manager at the last council meeting said that the mandatory overtime is no longer there because the new chief has done a really good job in bringing more people. People are coming here because they see the financial stability that we have. We are not talking about laying off people. That stability is attractive. We also give a really good benefit package that is one of the best in the Bay Area. The healthcare is all paid by the city. There are many things but because it’s politics they (RPOA) feel that they don’t have power and they want to grab it. This is what they have been talking about but the reality is that what we really want (in Richmond) is to create a holistic way of serving the community when the community has an emergency that is non-violent.”
Q: What are your views on housing and economic development?
A: Housing and combining this with the revitalization of the downtown, Hilltop and the port with a vision that brings blue collar jobs that allow us to actually really create the just transition so we can be a model for the country. If people see us really developing in these areas then perception is going to change. It’s going to take some time, don’t get me wrong, it’s not going to be from one year to another but at least we have right now some of the seeds planted and if we are more aggressive in terms of, we know that we can not allow the market to rule what they can build here because then we won’t be able to build anything. We have to look into what subsidies we can give, what partnerships we can do, what permits we can move forward rapidly and work with the trades and developers who want to do (project labor agreements), who want to do local hires.”
Q: What do you have to say about criticisms of how the current city council works with the business community?
A: I think that one part is that we need to support businesses here and especially small businesses. I have been talking to Vern Whitmore, who now is the person in charge of the Chamber of Commerce, and he is really interested in how we can get together to support small businesses. One of the things that we have been talking about is the permitting because it is really convoluted and especially for small business owners that are immigrants or just got here (to Richmond) they don’t like the convoluted process (of permits). So we need to streamline these processes and maybe make them not that expensive. Then we can start thinking about subsidies for those small businesses that want to be here. Also, I think we haven’t developed or used our purchasing power we have as a city to be able to support and sustain some of these small businesses. There are a couple businesses here that had really good stories about how, by having a contract to clean uniforms and (building) units, had been able to survive during COVID. We also have examples of the pilot projects where we gave grants with the ( American Rescue Plan Act) funds to small businesses that helped them a lot. So having a couple of programs that can be revolving door loans where you are having some issues you can apply for this loan and it’s a loan with low interest rates that you can pay back in an easy way but that money comes back.”
Q: The issue of homelessness in Richmond has residents talking about abatements of encampments, dealing with blight in certain parts of town and concern that Richmond is duplicating work by funding homeless services that Contra Costa County is already doing. What are your thoughts on that criticism?
A: Was it enough before? No it wasn’t. I think (our) responsibility as a city is saying we have this money and we are advocating for more funding but in the meantime we need to take a step into that leadership and really invest resources. So we can help because, if not, then what? I will say, people don’t want to hear the response that this is a county issue. Residents are not going to take that as an answer. So what I feel like our leadership recognizes is an issue, a big issue, a hot potato and we need to do our part. And our part was to put money into a program like SOS, which is fantastic. They are now having a day center. We need to support that because one of the things that we see is that people call the police because somebody is wandering around. They say, ‘Well, I’m here because the shelter is closed and I cannot be in the shelter. I don’t have any other space.’ There is a need and we are stepping into that. When I got here, the city wasn’t putting much money into homelessness and now we have permanent money every year that goes to unhoused intervention. I believe that we are here to support the needs of everybody. Every resident, no matter status or income. I think by putting money into unhoused intervention, we lift up all of the community. I always believe that if you support the ones who are at the bottom of the barrel and lift them up, everybody gets lifted up.”
Mayoral forums: The Leaque of Women Voters will hold a mayoral debate on Sept. 21 at the city council chambers, 440 Civic Center Plaza, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The event can also be watched via Zoom.
Richmondside will host its mayoral forum on Oct. 1 at the Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza, from 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m. RSVP here.
