Meet your Richmond City Council District 3 candidates — in their own words

With ballots for Richmond’s June 2 primary election expected to be sent next week, District 3 voters have just a couple of choices when it comes to who will represent them on the city council.

Incumbent Doria Robinson is defending her seat against just one challenger, Brandon Evans. If a candidate gets 51% or more of the votes, they’ll win. Otherwise the top two vote-getters advance to the November general election. The district consists of portions of the south side of the city, including Atchison Village, the southern portion of the Iron Triangle, and the Coronado, Richmore Village/Metro Square, Pullman and Park Plaza neighborhoods.

richmond voter interviews

What are Richmond residents worried about as primary election approaches?

However, there’s a chance voters will have another choice: While Matthew Singh did not qualify as a candidate by the March deadline, he did apply in April to be a write-in candidate. The deadline for write-in candidates to submit their application is May 19 before they can be qualified for the election. (If Singh qualifies, Richmondside will give him the same chance to share his platform in his own words.)

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

Q: What is one priority that you want voters to understand about you?

A: “I’ll start with the platforms. As you know, when you are developing these platforms they are really a starting point. You need to have an idea about it as a candidate but then you go through a period of what I like to consider listening sessions. Where you’re engaging as you test out these platforms or talking points. You get feedback and then you go retool and refine. We talk about public safety. I think public safety is a broad umbrella of traditional public safety models, policing and fire and we also talk about more progressive kinds of ideas around gun violence reduction programs like ONS or ROCK. I think all of it is great. We need both ends.

“When we talk about the need to have a fully staffed police department, it isn’t because I’m a police candidate or a supporter of the institution of policing, but what I understand is that my lived experience tells me that Richmond has a dark history of gun violence and I don’t know another way. There are other tools like the ONS, like ROCK and these other kinds of community-based responses but the only way that you counteract that type of activity is police presence. It’s not police presence where we’re being racially profiled or targeted but I want police presence in my neighborhood to deter that type of activity.”

Q: If you are elected, what does economic opportunity look like in Richmond to you?

A: “It starts with employment. We look at the existing infrastructure that supports someone getting employed here and that is the city of Richmond’s Employment and Training Department. If you asked me, in terms of if I had to rank the most important departments in the city, I would probably put them (number) one, if not two. When someone has been displaced from employment or has no experience trying to get in the workforce or when someone is actively employed and trying to skill up or get training that should all happen at Employment and Training. You should be able to walk in there, talk to (California’s) Employment Development Department, talk to the Department of Rehab, receive a certificate, attend training, and receive work experience for younger people. All that should be taking place. Is it happening? It’s not.

“I know this because I worked there and I continue to partner with them to support individuals who need those services. This year, you see a reduction in workable hours for our youth. So historically, youth in the Youth Works summer employment program receive between 300-500 hours (of work). This year, they’ve received 100 hours. Now tell me what 100 hours does for a young person with no work experience trying to learn a skill. One hundred hours is about two weeks of full-time work. 
What can I actually impart upon a young person in two weeks? 

“But the city is telling (the public), we served so many kids during our summer youth employment program. You might have served them, but you didn’t do justice by them. So what is that kid to do when that 100 hours is over? They’re back in the community looking for a career or a pathway, and you don’t have internal staff capacity or desire to actually provide that. Then you tout we redirected the money during the defund (the police) movement to Youth Works. Well, you put it there, but you didn’t manage what happened with the money. I have people in the department who I work closely with that money that was allocated for youth wages is now going to cover staff salaries. You know this. But are not addressing it.”

Q: A topic this election has been Richmond’s economic development. If you were elected, what is one way that you’d address economic development in the city?

A: “I think when we talk about economic development it’s a broad term. I think we need to get into specifics. We are talking about business attraction and business retention. So how are we supporting our existing established businesses, both small and large? How are we really reshaping our regional reputation as having a chaotic, anti-business, anti-growth council, which is the reputation. That we’re a dangerous city because of the historic gun violence and our lack of capacity in our police department. How do we attract businesses here? We have a council with no vision. We have a mayor that’s referred to as the ‘Jew hating mayor of Richmond.’ What makes businesses want to come to Richmond when they can go to Emeryville, El Cerrito, San Pablo, Pinole, Hercules, San Francisco and San Leandro? 

“Why choose Richmond? They don’t. If we aren’t willing to have honest conversations about what is actually happening and the substance of the issues then, what are we actually talking about? I think that the progressive regime is content with acting as if everything is great.”

Q: You worked as a campaign manager and close friend of both Demnlus Johnson (current mayoral candidate) and council member Jamelia Brown, also vocal critics of the progressives on the council. You are all part of a wave of young, Black leaders in a community that has seen drastic demographic changes in the last 50 years. How do you see the opportunity to possibly serve alongside them as a voting bloc?

A: “It’s not just for the Black community. This (city) is a melting pot. My house is a melting pot. My children are half-Mexican. My partner is Mexican, first generation here. I’ve mentored a thousand young people, ask me how many have been Latino or Hispanic? Just as many who have been African American. When Jamelia didn’t vote to support the ICE-free zones. There was a whole (online) narrative of (Jamelia) Brown versus the Browns. How dare you? To demonize her and try to make it racial. 

“When we talk about policies they are inherently racial. I think also voters are super emotional and invested in candidates and issues. But when you do that I think it speaks volumes about the type of leaders that you are when you are divisive like that in a community where you cannot tell the difference between a Black neighborhood and a Latino neighborhood. It’s one neighborhood. It’s one community. Our houses are one. Our communities are one. Claudia (Jimenez) referenced Jamelia didn’t vote for the ICE-free zones and she represents a Latino majority district. To stoop that low when you have everything, a political war chest and an unlimited amount of resources (of financial backing from the public employees unions and nonprofits). What does that tell you about what these people are willing to do to stay in power? By any means necessary. 

“So we see that plan now. I think of the opportunity to serve with Demnlus and Jamelia. I love them because we’re friends. I love them because we are family. But these people are bright. They understand they are qualified. This is not about a popularity contest. I’m not supporting them because they’re my friends. I’m supporting them because they are competent and the best of us. They’ve taken the time through lived experience, through professional experience and expertise to become the subject matter experts. When you delineate my support for either of them to being my friend, you disregard the talent, time and work that they have individually put in.”

Q: You were on the ad-hoc committee that negotiated the $550 million Chevron settlement, but some critics have downplayed the role of the committee and said that the labor unions were the ones pushing for the council to be at the table. How do you address those critiques?

A: I was literally in the meeting, in the rooms with the Chevron representatives on the other side, cursing and pissed. We definitely were doing the negotiations with the city attorney with us. We were putting things out. We were meeting with them. These things never happen in a vacuum. It’s folly to think that it was only us talking to them. Whenever you’re making a move this big you have allies who are working and speaking and doing what they can from their perspective but that doesn’t mean that they did it and that doesn’t mean that we did it alone but I’ll tell you we got many offers. The first offer up until the bitter end was extremely low and if we didn’t hold the posture that we did during that process, it completely dismisses (our role) when we were getting so much pressure from particular parties to ‘take the offer, take the offer, take the offer.’ ” 

“I had to literally stop answering my phone from a whole swath of people because they were just in fear (of getting sued or having to go with the ballot measure) that we’re going to be in legal things forever. That’s part of negotiation. We had a whole dynamic where we really switched roles. Where (mayor) Eduardo (Martinez) was kind of the unrelenting, whimsical, ‘Screw your thing’ and Claudia (Jimenez) was the reasonable one trying to convince us, and I was the middle ground person. This is multiple calls and multiple meetings where we were stressed. It was extremely stressful and was a short period of time, like a few days where all this was happening because it needed to happen before things went on the agenda. 

“And for people to say that we didn’t negotiate it. It’s bullshit. And again. I’m not saying we did it alone. It wouldn’t even have been there if the environmental groups hadn’t done years of work to get it to the point where it could be a ballot initiative. We wouldn’t have even been there. Of course you have people rallying from their perspectives to help it happen. But without them (the environmental groups), we wouldn’t have had the amount of leverage to be able to push to the bitter end, literally just hours before the agenda item needed to be submitted and we were still arguing over the final dollar amount and the terms and not relenting. (We were) readying to say, ‘OK, fine. We’ll go to the ballot then’ and call them on the bluff until they gave in. So I think that whole (narrative) is a load of crap.”

Q: You’ve been a vocal advocate on the council of investing the $550 million settlement to make it stretch longer than the next 10 years. If you’re reelected , what should voters expect to hear from you about this subject?

A: I do strongly believe in a community process. I think that there is no need to rush. We have surpluses in our budget. We can still do a lot of things with that money and while we’re figuring this out, the (settlement) money is growing. It’s sitting in an investment account now. None of it has been spent, except for the money that goes to Kids First, which is automatic. The rest of it is sitting there growing which is a good thing. We’re making more money but need to go through a community process. I need to hear from people. 

“At first, I was like, as everyone else was, saying we’ve been surveyed ad-nauseum and we don’t need to do it again and then when people came to council and started talking about the wide range of things they were interested in, from community schools to low birth weight and responses to human trafficking initiatives. All of these things are not in that data (we have). All of these things people are talking about now are not in that. So it’s like, maybe we do need a new process to say, what are the priorities now? I do feel like there’s a few things that the council needs to make sure we do like investing in our built environment. There’s way too much deferred maintenance, way too much deferred care for our parks, buildings and fire stations. I couldn’t believe it when I went and saw what was going on (at the fire stations). So I feel like there’s a whole host of things that we just have the responsibility to move but you can only do so many things at a time. We can’t take on 20 projects or 60 projects. They can only efficiently move a handful. So we need to prioritize them.”

Q: Public safety and police staffing have been a topic of discussion.Though the city has improved in homicide numbers, other gun violence has increased. How important is it for you to address public safety issues in your community?

A: There’s still a lot of this in my district. I was trying to point that out to others (on the council during the Flock vote) that this is a real reality for people. Some of the other districts just don’t have the level of violent crime. If you’re living in that and you’re experiencing that you don’t have the luxury to wait for some of the solutions that are coming up (like ONS and ROCK). Honestly, if you are the mom of the person who was shot in the face, to be told that there is a tool (Flock ALPR cameras) out there that could help find the person who did it and bring them to justice but you’re not going to use it because of the possibility that despite agreements (with the company to not share the city’s data) it may be used in a negative way can hurt part of the community, maybe. It just feels unfair. But not only that, who’s to say that the folks that are doing that (violence) aren’t going to do it to somebody else? It’s usually the same set of people who are doing these things. Every now and again it’s a one off, like recently where it was personal, but oftentimes, it’s the same set of people who are involved in these things. And I believe that they need a time out, you know? They need to be told that they can’t just do whatever. They want to and (believe) no one will ever hold them accountable.

“I feel like that is one of the messages that we have to stop communicating as a city. That you can do whatever you want in Richmond and no one will hold you accountable. Even in my work at Urban Tilth, that has been a hard lesson that people will learn with me. I’m all about restorative justice. I’m all about all these things but you have to be accountable for what you do. And I don’t care if you get mad at me for holding you accountable. At some point, it is going to be too much and we will call you on it. There will be no more sort of justice after that point and I think that those actually are healthy boundaries and it shows people that they can’t just do whatever they feel like.”

Q: Chevron is almost a quarter of the city’s budget. What are your thoughts on a just transition away from a fossil fuel dominated budget and how could the city better utilize the city’s economic development to make that a reality?

A: First of all, we need to have an economic development department that is strong and capable and have people who are experienced in attracting and supporting commercial businesses, like large scale businesses. I do not believe we have the talent on our (city’s) team currently who are experienced with brokers and with warehouse-scale, large developments. We need that person or persons on our team in order to even catch the potential opportunities with the (Contra Costa County) Green Empowerment Zone (GEZ) process or any other process. 

“Another thing, so one of the things we’re doing as part of the GEZ, which I sit on, that I helped put together. was a list of potential commercial properties that could be developed into the kinds of scale of operations that could help replace that 24% or like $60 million-ish dollars a year on that scale. It’s not going to happen through small businesses and that doesn’t mean that we don’t support small businesses. What we need is scale. We need to be super proactive because there’s a lot of industries that we probably don’t want here that are going to cause the same or similar problems to Chevron. But I deeply believe operations, businesses that we do want here and want to be part of the narrative that we want to tell but we need people with the skills, background and connections who could go in and recruit those people and get them to see this narrative.

“I also feel like we need communications. We need a marketing team that will rebrand like no other. We need to know what assets we have. We need to be working with PG&E. One of the things we heard was one of the big barriers to activating existing commercial inventory is the access to power and how slow it comes and how it’s not possible for some sites. One of the things that was suggested in the last GEZ meeting was starting conversations with PG&E and asking where the easiest places to get levels of power are. Here is the map. Here are the locations that we know about. Then if they say it’s easier to build out here because of X, Y or Z infrastructure then we can focus there in that area. Working with them to build the vision. We need a marketing team to tell a different story. We need people on our team who have the skills, connections, the language and ability to move in that world to catch and attract. Those things are not in place yet.”

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