Correction: A description of a confrontation between Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller and a supporter of Mayor Eduardo Martinez has been corrected to include the full exchange.
Jump to live coverage of the Jan. 6 meeting
The Richmond City Council on Tuesday refused to consider an emergency resolution that, if passed, would have formally censured Mayor Eduardo Martinez for what it states is “antisemitic” conduct.
The resolution, authored by council members Jamelia Brown and Vice Mayor Cesar Zepeda, states that council members have received “thousands” of emails, some requesting that the mayor be removed for office (something the council doesn’t have the power to do) and saying he has caused “harm to community members” and is “acting inconsistently with the professional standards required of an elected official.”
Martinez became the subject of controversy over social media posts he made and then deleted about the Israel-Gaza conflict and the Bondi Beach attack. After the posts came to light, some 80 Bay Area elected officials and former elected officials signed a statement condemning his actions.
At the time, Brown posted a statement to her personal Facebook calling for Martinez to step down and suggesting that the public could “pursue a recall.”
Zepeda said Tuesday that he is not calling for Martinez’s resignation and stressed that the censuring has “nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza” and has everything to do with Martinez’s sharing of conspiracy theories.
“For example, what should the community reaction be if the mayor would have shared information that was a conspiracy theory against the LGBTQI community?” Zepeda said. “Taking it outside and within that air is understanding that we should be doing this … None of us should be putting out conspiracy theories or baseless attributions of a certain group or collective blame on a group because that would be horrible. This is the same.”
For the censure item to be heard as an emergency, two-thirds of the seven-member council would have had to approve it. Zepeda told Richmondside that he plans to put the measure on the regular agenda of the Jan. 20 council meeting.
This isn’t the first time a Richmond mayor has faced a censure. In 2021 then-Mayor Tom Butt was censured by the council based on allegations that he shared confidential information on his email forum, though he was later vindicated.
The move to censure Martinez following his December LinkedIn posts about the Australia attack that killed 15 people, including a 10-year-old child and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor.
The censure resolution obtained by Richmondside states Martinez “shared and amplified social media content that advanced conspiracy theories and generalized claims attributing responsibility for antisemitism and violence against Jews” in the aftermath of the Dec. 15 attack in Australia. The resolution notes this is “not the first time Mayor Martinez has amplified antisemitic rhetoric,” citing his promotion of “false-flag conspiracy theories” and messages “tacitly supporting the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.”
Martinez has publicly apologized for the posts, calling them a mistake, and told Richmondside Dec. 23 that he has been in contact with “several local rabbis and leaders from other Jewish organizations.”
However, Jeremy Russell, marketing and communications director for the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), told Richmondside Tuesday that he has “not talked to a single member of the Jewish community who the mayor has reached out to,” including local rabbis.
Mayor led Richmond in becoming first city to pass resolution supporting Palestinians in Gaza
Martinez was instrumental in Richmond passing the first resolution by a city in the nation to stand in support and solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza.
The censure resolution asks Martinez to complete 16 hours of antisemitism training and six hours of cultural sensitivity training by March 31. He would also be required to defer six months of his salary — equivalent to his last pay raise — and donate it to a Richmond nonprofit focused on “bringing communities together.” It would be chosen in consultation with Temple Beth Hillel, the city’s only synagogue.
The censure would also require Martinez to remove himself from all regional committees for one year and engage in “meaningful engagement” with the Jewish community, facilitated by a neutral third party, within the first quarter of 2026.
Supporters and detractors of Martinez arrived to the council meeting early, and the meeting was at capacity, with more than 75 people in an overflow room. The topic took up the entirety of the meeting, and in the end about 51 speakers were in favor of the mayor’s resignation; 71 were in support of him; and seven shared comments but didn’t clearly lean one way or the other. (Martinez is up for reelection in the city’s first primary election, set for June.)
On Monday the Bay Area chapter of the JCRC sent out an email saying that the organization planned to hold rally before the meeting but cancelled it a couple of hours before, saying they were concerned about getting seats inside the meeting and would hold a rally at a later date.
A number of organizations allied with Martinez, including the East Bay chapter for the Democratic Socialists of America and the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), also encouraged their members to show up early to make sure they would get seats.
“Our progressive victories are under attack by a corporate-funded political pressure campaign” read one RPA text while another said they “expect coordinated turnout from Zionist org.”
Russell disputed accusations that his organization is an out-of-town politically motivated group and said the group represents 10 Bay Area counties.
“The Richmond Jewish community is absolutely taking the lead,” he told Richmondside before the meeting.
He said some who are concerned about the mayor’s comments may feel more comfortable attending the meeting remotely because they “are afraid for their safety.”
“A lot of people are very upset at what the mayor said and are very interested in expressing their views and being heard,” Russell said.
The list of talking points the JCRC provided before the meeting say that the mayor “has a documented history of antisemitic statements, including sharing victim-blaming conspiracy theories about the mass murder of Jews in Australia on Hanukkah.”
Live meeting coverage
9:45 p.m.
The open forum, which featured more than 150 in-person and online speakers for and against Mayor Eduardo Martinez, is closed to allow time for other business before the required meeting end time of 10 p.m. District 4 council member Soheila Bana called for a moment of silence for Richmond’s 2025 homicide victims. The meeting is adjourned.
9:15 p.m.
Online speakers continue a polarizing open forum, with support for Martinez and calls for his resignation seemingly split.
Sarah Cantor, a Richmond resident who is Jewish, said she felt that Martinez’s reposts were an example of antisemitism but wanted to distinguish between antisemitism and anti-zionism.
“They are not the same thing as many speakers tonight have said,” she said. “I was also horrified by Mayor Martinez’s posts and they are an example of antisemitism. The things that he posted were not about criticizing the genocidal actions of Israel and it is an example of antisemitism. The rest of his actions supporting the people of Palestine and calling into account the genocidal actions of Israel are not antisemitism but anti-zionism.”
Barry Taranto, of San Rafael, said that he feared he would likely not visit Richmond anymore due to the mayor’s reposts.
“I’m very much concerned that an elected leader of a major East Bay city decided that it was OK to accuse Jews of wanting to kill themselves,” Taranto said. “I hope that the mayor can take the time to figure out how to do restorative justice and realize that his words kill. That it is not so much him but now I’m afraid to come to Richmond.”
Rabbi Cat Zavis of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley said that she opposed the move to censure Martinez.
“I have members in Richmond,” she said. “Mayor Martinez’s posts were hurtful and perpetrated antisemitic tropes.”
Zavis said that she has spoken with Martinez “a few times” since the backlash he received.
“I have found him to be genuinely concerned and apologetic,” she said. “He has expressed interest in learning and making amends or as we call in Judaism, doing teshuvah.”
8:53 p.m.
City Clerk Pamela Christian announced there are 45 online Zoom commenters who will address the council during open forum.
8:15 p.m.
Public comments from speakers are continuing, with those in an overflow room now being heard.
7:45 p.m.
There are so many speakers waiting it is unclear if the council will have enough time to hear them all.
7:24 p.m.
Being the primary subject of the public comment portion of Tuesday’s Richmond City Council meeting appears to have left Martinez unfazed. At one point he told speakers who used more than their allotted time to “have decorum” when speaking.
7:14 p.m.
Mark Wassberg, a regular council meeting attendee and a perennial council candidate, is among the hecklers. As police officers walk up to him, he leaves the meeting.
6:58 p.m.
The mood is tense in the Richmond City Council chambers, with hecklers from both sides calling for speakers’ microphones to be cut off if they spoke for longer than the one minute allowed per person for public comments.
After Julie Saxe-Taller, rabbi of Richmond’s Temple Beth Hillel, went a few seconds past the minute allowed for delivering her comments, which ended with her cautioning the public about residents’ fear of ICE and the recent conflict in Venezuela. She got into a brief confrontation with another meeting attendee as she went to her seat.
“When I passed by she said, ‘Interesting you care about ICE but not about genocide’ because I had mentioned people are afraid to go out,” Saxe-Taller said. “My response was ‘I did not talk about genocide’ (during her public comments) and then she kept saying I did.”
6:54 p.m.
Saxe-Taller addressed the council and told Martinez that she would meet with him and hoped that they could “repair the harm” that was done by his LinkedIn post about a Bondi Beach attack conspiracy theory.
“It starts with acknowledgment and apology and it completes with a full building of relationship and repair-of-harm done,” she said. “So I hope that our meeting will begin a real process.”
6:30 p.m. An effort to censor Martinez by putting an emergency measure on the Richmond City Council meeting agenda has failed, with council members Doria Robinson, Soheila Bana, Claudia Jimenez, Sue Wilson and Martinez voting “no.” The vote means that the censure won’t be considered at tonight’s meeting but it could be revisited.
Brown, who co-authored the measure with Vice Mayor Cesar Zepeda, said that she believed that the measure, condemning social media posts Martinez made in mid-December, qualifies as an emergency and she was in favor of it.
“If you had a pulse and you live in Richmond then you know what has (transpired),” she said. “We can’t have justice wait for people who have expressed harm and feel unprotected.”
Zepeda reiterated that he felt that the measure met standards to be added to the agenda and that during his tenure there have been a number of items that have been “added for less.”
“We here have that authority to make sure that we measure what is important and what is not,” he said. “If we don’t give this the importance then it shows.” He had told Richmondside earlier Tuesday that if the council refused to call it an emergency, he would put the measure on the Jan. 20 city council agenda through the routine process.
Brown said that although she previously called for the mayor’s resignation, censuring Martinez would be the “least” that the council could do.
Shortly before the vote on whether to put the censure measure on the agenda, Martinez says Zependa and Brown visited his office to discuss it.
“I don’t know if his (Zepeda’s) intention was to talk to all council members about it but I had told him (Zepeda) that I had already talked to council member about it (the LinkedIn reposts), and he kept insisting. So I became like a broken record,” Martinez said. “It is amazing to me that he would come to me at the last minute and he would not talk to me at the very beginning to find out what I thought, what I did and what we could do to move forward.”
Martinez said that he felt the censuring was “punitive” and that because of the “lack of respect and rule of law” that he would vote no.
6 p.m. Zepeda presented the proposed measure to censure Martinez at the beginning of the Richmond City Council’s regular meeting Tuesday.
Acting City Attorney Shannon Moore presented the legality of the emergency measure after Martinez questioned whether or not the resolution met the threshold of the council considering it.
District 5 council member Wilson acknowledged that there is a lot of “anger and frustration” but said that she believed it was impartial to not have council members read the measure beforehand.
“I believe that it is important that we uphold Brown Act standards,” Wilson said.
Council member Jimenez said that she wants the item put on the regular council agenda per the proper rules and methods.
“It does not meet the standards of an emergency item,” Jimenez said, adding that it was overreaching on a “complicated issue.”
6 p.m.
Nearly 90 people are inside the Richmond City Council chambers as the meeting begins, with some holding signs calling for Martinez’s resignation and others showing support. Another 90 or so people are in an overflow meeting room, where the meeting will be live streamed.
5:20 p.m.
Christine Escolero from San Pablo told Richmondside in the overflow room that she attended the meeting to support Martinez.
“Well, I think that the Zionists are trying to push him out. And also, you
know, free speech. We all know that when it comes to Israel and that
word, it is not allowed that you say anything against them,” Escolero said. “We’ve been indoctrinated this way, and it’s hard to break that for some people,
to make people realize, you know, they’ve done some bad things. And
I’m here to support that free speech. That’s what I’m here for. But
again, nobody is allowed to speak against Israel. No one, no
politician, no president. We’re not, and this is an example of it.”
She suggested that people avoid putting “any country on a pedestal because the pedestal can break and fall.”
5 p.m.
When Martinez appeared before the public comment session held before the council’s 5 p.m. closed session, there were cheers and few boos from the crowd.
4-5 p.m.:
People began lining up outside of the Richmond City Council chambers well in advance of tonight’s 6 p.m. meeting, which is expected to be filled to capacity. Some are holding signs of support while others are reading a printed list of talking points provided by a Bay Area Jewish group that says, “Your Ask: Mayor Eduardo Martinez must RESIGN for his Antisemitic rhetoric and the Richmond City Council must TAKE ACTION to assure the safety and inclusion of Richmond’s Jewish community.”\
Richmondside Editor Kari Hulac and freelance reporter Zoe Harwood contributed to this report.
I have lived in Richmond for nearly 15 years. Because of Mayor Eduardo Martinez’s divisive and inflammatory public statements, I no longer feel safe in the city I call home.
A mayor’s responsibility is to unite and protect all residents. Instead, Mayor Martinez has used his platform in ways that alienate minority communities and fuel hostility. This has caused real fear, pain, and distress for my family and others.
At a time of rising antisemitic violence worldwide, it is especially dangerous for a U.S. public official to spread rhetoric that emboldens hate. Jews are a federally protected minority, and this behavior puts our community at greater risk of hate crimes and violence.
The harm to community trust is profound. I urge the City Council to ask Mayor Martinez to step down. Richmond deserves leadership that protects not endangers its residents.
I was at the meeting and my clear impression was that most of the Jewish Community Relations Council members who spoke either did not identify their city of residence or if they did indicate they were from Marin. I had never heard of JCRC but nunerious jewish supporters of the Mayor claimed they were a Zionest group with “orders from the Israeli government”. That said the two council menbers who supported the resolution were in my opinion trying to score points in the upcoming elections. This resolution will be on the regular council agenda in two weeks unless it is withdrawn by its Cesar.
I am a strong supporter of Mayor Martinez and the excellent actions of his administration resulting in Richmond being safer for residents with a better financial budget to meet the needs of residents. I deplore the actions of the JCRC and their supporters, including the comments and actions Councilmembers Zepeda and Brown, in fanning the flames of political unrest in Richmond to gain support for their individual political agendas. The censure resolution is a poorly reasoned document designed to penalize the Mayor rather than heal the Richmond community. I applaud and thank The Richmond City Council for denying the emergency agenda which allows for a more reasoned discussion at a later City Council meeting.
It’s hard to judge this incident without knowing the content of Mr. Martinez’
posts. Making the ruling an “emergency” measure sounds extreme, along with the noted sanctions it would impose. The distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism is crucial. Maybe someone from Jewish Voice for Peace or Kehilla Synagague could weigh in.