Overview:
The city of Richmond is receiving about $50 million a year from Chevron for 10 years.
The city council is hiring a consultant to oversee meetings with community members to discuss how to spend the funds.
Many residents hope it goes toward a "just transition," meaning it would be used to establish an economy that doesn't rely on the oil refinery, which contributes about a quarter of the city's annual general fund revenue.
Nearly 20 months after reaching its historic $550 million Chevron settlement agreement, Richmond is moving forward as promised and hiring a consultant to hear how the community wants to spend the money.
The Richmond City Council voted 5-to-2 Tuesday night, with Mayor Eduardo Martinez and District 1 council member Jamelia Brown dissenting, to negotiate and execute a contract with Dalberg Global Development Advisors. In January the council voted to spend between $150,000 to $300,000 on the consultant, who will help lead community meetings.
According to the request for proposals, Dalberg will handle community input meetings and advise the city on how to hold and invest the settlement funds, which are being paid out annually over 10 years.
Dalberg, which is based in New York but has a San Francisco office, is primarily known for international development work with clients including the World Bank and USAID. The firm beat out 10 other proposals in a competitive bidding process.
Additionally, according to the proposed contract, Dalberg would develop an online feedback platform and interview each city council member individually. The firm’s role is strictly advisory. Ultimately the council is responsible for the city’s budget and spending.
Emily Combs, director of Richmond’s Finance Department, when asked by District 6 council member Claudia Jimenez why Dalberg was the best choice, told the council that the panel that selected the firm noted its “flexibility” in what the eventual community engagement would look like.
“It seemed like they were going to kind of customize as they went along,” Combs said. “They weren’t just going to say, ‘This is our plan and we’re going to go in with six meetings.’ They said it could be more.”
City Manager Shasa Curl advocates for “endowment” approach
Brown, who has been opposed to the city conducting additional community surveys, again said she wants to “move away” from studying the city’s issues to fixing them.
“Are we able to use any of the funds or do we have to wait for the outcome of this study? How long are residents expected to wait to actually see tangible benefits from this settlement?” Brown asked City Manager Shasa Curl, who replied that it is up to the council.
Curl, who earlier this month announced her retirement, said she wants the city to have an “endowment” approach to the settlement — one that would see the projected balance after the second disbursement, $100 million, accrue 4% interest as the city continues to get community input.
“We are going into Year Two, and it could give the council $4 million next budget cycle to appropriate and then that could help augment with things like staffings or supplies or grants and things of that nature,” Curl said. “I would hope that the council probably waits until this process is commenced and culminates unless we have some sort of significant financial event.”
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“How long are residents expected to wait to actually see tangible benefits from this settlement?“
— Jamelia Brown, Richmond City Council member
Curl added that the city is navigating “unprecedented” financial moments for the country.
“The things that are happening are way beyond what I certainly studied in economics,” Curl said. “This is an unprecedented time with the rate with the way the market is and so I think it’s important that we remain nimble and not just start spending because there are so many priorities.”
Brown said the third installment payment (about $50 million) will arrive before the engagement process is done, in about seven months.
“When will the community actually see something from the settlement? I know we want to wait. We want to make sure that we’re making smart investments, but when you’re walking outside and you’re seeing all these things that this money could help alleviate, one could only think like: When do we start to actually put, you know, words, reports, documents into action?” Brown said.
Curl reminded the council that the city still has about $27 million worth of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding remaining and $50 million in grants that are “in the pipeline” and cautioned that spending Chevron funds quickly would over-extend city staff’s ability to provide proper oversight to projects.
She also mentioned they are finalizing negotiations with the public employee unions and the Richmond Police Officers Association (RPOA).
“I think two things would be extraordinarily helpful. One thing is finishing the MOU negotiations. We still have three bargaining units outstanding,” Curl said. “So then we can update our five-year forecast to have real numbers there and finishing this proposed scope of work would put the city council, I think, where you can make informed decisions. Not having your MOUs finalized or updated five-year financial forecast and then starting to spend money puts you in a position where you are potentially being reactionary instead of able to plan forward.”
Martinez votes ‘no,’ over how funds were described
Martinez said that he voted against hiring the consultant because the city is referring to the money as “settlement funds.”
“When we start looking at the budget as separate issues we tend to have a budget that is skewed and not holistic,” Martinez said. “We’re looking at parts of it (the budget) instead of the budget as a whole. From the very beginning I’ve said if we want to look at money we need to look at it holistically. I would like the community to look at the entire budget, not just $50 million (the annual payment amount) but the entire budget so that we have a better idea of how the money is spent, where it goes.”
Since the council approved the settlement with Chevron in 2024, in exchange for not putting an oil tax on the ballot, Martinez — who was on the ad-hoc negotiating committee with Jimenez and District 3 council member Doria Robinson — has been vocal about not referring to the Chevron payments as being separate from the city’s general fund, where the money is deposited.
The proposal soliciting the consultant described the money as the “Polluters Pay Settlement Fund” while Tuesday’s agenda report used the term “limited-term revenue.”
District 5 council member Sue Wilson highlighted the “polluters pay” wording and said she believes the negotiations with Dalberg should also specify that they discuss with the community what a just transition in a post-Chevron world would look like.
“I do want to hear the feedback and I think most of us probably from our emails have some sense of what those answers are going to be but also that there has to be some really careful attention to thinking about what if you had, you know, $50 million a year, what are some of the things you could do to to to expedite a just transition and lower reliance on fossil fuels and fossil fuel corporations,” Wilson said. “So I don’t have the expertise to know what those questions should be and you know I’m sure the staff can make those connections if necessary because I’m not sure.”
