Refinery Town

by Steve Early

  Organizing around such issues “showed what a little group of people could accomplish,” Reardon recalls today. But members of the group, soon to be rebranded the Richmond Progressive Alliance, realized they needed more allies, like liberal Democrat Tom Butt, within local government. That required getting themselves elected to office or appointed to city positions where they could directly affect policymaking.

  Given Richmond’s financial distress and city hall dysfunction, the municipal voting scheduled for November 2004 created a timely opening. RPA founders originally hoped to field a full five-candidate slate for the council that would reflect the city’s racial and ethnic diversity. Andres Soto, a graduate of Richmond High School and nearby Contra Costa Community College, had deep roots in the community and was ready to run, particularly on the issue of police misconduct.

  In 2002 Soto and his two sons were among several dozen Latinos arrested during Richmond’s Cinco de Mayo festival. Soto, a city and later county employee, who once contemplated a career in law enforcement, questioned the RPD’s heavy-handed dispersal of a celebratory crowd. As a result, he was roughed up, pepper-sprayed, and charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. A Latino community mobilization, orchestrated by Soto, led to a Richmond Police Commission finding that excessive force was used. A commission investigator recommended that one officer responsible be fired. On the day of his own trial, all charges against Soto were dropped.

  Other potential candidates, from the black community, were less eager to be tethered to a common political platform developed by local radicals. Tony Thurmond, a liberal Democrat who now represents Richmond in the California Assembly, met with RPA founders and sought their endorsement of his planned 2004 council race. However, in return for that support, he wasn’t willing to spurn corporate donations—required, then and now, of all RPA-backed candidates.3

  Soto’s only RPA running mate ended up being a newcomer to Richmond, a fifty-two-year-old Chicago native named Gayle McLaughlin. Before relocating to California in 2000, McLaughlin had been active in the Central America solidarity movement and supported Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The daughter of a union carpenter, she studied psychology in college and worked after graduation as a postal clerk, teacher, and caregiver for disabled children and the elderly. As a member of the Young Socialist Alliance, she got to know Peter Camejo, then a leader of its parent organization, the Socialist Workers Party. Camejo later joined the California Green Party and twice ran as its candidate for governor.

  In California, McLaughlin joined the Greens too and met fellow members like Juan Reardon. As a movement person, she had never considered running for office herself. However, she had decided, after arriving in Richmond, “that it was time to put down roots and get involved in local work.” Both Camejo and Reardon encouraged her to run for city council. Reardon agreed to serve as her campaign manager, which required becoming a self-taught expert on the mechanics of local campaigning.

  Soto and McLaughlin kicked off their joint campaign with public forums featuring speakers from out of town. Matt Gonzalez, a Green Party member on the San Francisco board of supervisors who had just lost a close race for mayor, came to Richmond, as did US congressman Dennis Kucinich, then campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. Six hundred people turned out to hear speeches by Kucinich, McLaughlin, Soto, and an up-and-coming Bay Area environmental justice campaigner named Van Jones. McLaughlin challenged the crowd to “begin right here and now to build a progressive future for our polluted, our corrupted, and our life-threatened city.”

  To reinforce McLaughlin and Soto’s message that “another Richmond is possible,” the RPA convened a first-ever “People’s Convention.” Three hundred residents set local policy goals that included repealing the city’s anti-homeless ordinance, taxing Chevron more heavily and punishing its “industrial pollution events,” strengthening police oversight by the community, fighting for affordable housing and public access to Richmond’s shoreline, enacting rent control and “just-cause” eviction protection, establishing a living wage, and fully “investigating the current city budget crises and the governmental mismanagement” responsible for it.

  Soto’s campaign for “new leadership, new ideas, and new ethics” garnered far broader labor and political support than the lesser-known McLaughlin. A registered Democrat, he was endorsed by the Contra Costa County labor and building trades councils, the county Democratic Party, and local Democratic officials. Both RPA candidates were backed by ACORN, the community organization later known locally as ACCE (the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local that represents Richmond city employees.

  Soto’s $175,000 settlement from a lawsuit over his Cinco de Mayo mistreatment made him persona non grata with the Richmond Police Officers Association (RPOA) and Fire Fighters Local 188. Soto regarded both as “attack dogs for corporate power,” and they responded in kind. Their Keep Richmond Safe Committee spent $270,000 on advertising for its favored candidates and hit pieces aimed at Soto.

  Both Soto and McLaughlin were also heavily outspent by Chevron. McLaughlin’s low-budget, grassroots campaign had so little money for glossy mailers that she was not taken seriously by those smearing Soto and thus largely ignored. Yet, in a field of fifteen candidates, she placed third among the five winners, while Soto, after being severely attacked as a dangerous radical, finished sixth. As a new city councilor, McLaughlin proceeded to confound the expectations of Richmond insiders “who saw her as an ideologue ill-suited for the tedious work that elective office requires.”4

  OUTSIDER ON THE COUNCIL

  After taking office in January 2005, McLaughlin championed new park projects and faster, safer cleanup of Richmond’s toxic sites. On refinery-related issues, McLaughlin aided a promising but short-lived “Sunshine Alliance,” which united building trades unions (that later became RPA critics) and local environmental groups. All opposed Richmond’s practice of allowing Chevron to ensure its own compliance with city codes and permitting requirements through “self-inspection.” Over company objections, the city council voted to make refinery construction work subject to regular city permits, fees, and independent certification—regulatory oversight that also had the effect of curbing the company’s use of nonunion contractors.

  McLaughlin backed a successful campaign by Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) to get the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to adopt a first-in-the-nation flare control regulation, applying to Chevron and four other nearby refineries. And, much to Chevron’s additional chagrin, McLaughlin criticized Big Oil’s privileged treatment as a utility user, joining Tom Butt’s activism on this issue, which had begun before he joined the council in 1995.

  While other Richmond residents paid, on average, about 10 percent of their tax bill for utility services, the refinery’s liability was capped at $14 million a year, based on a very favorable flat rate formula. With support from some city councilors, the company balked at releasing information about its actual energy use, claiming that “business confidentiality” prevented the city from accessing such records. This bolstered McLaughlin’s case for repealing the utility users’ tax cap in order to generate revenue for a greatly expanded jobs program for Richmond youth.

  Irma Anderson, an African American public health nurse then serving as Richmond’s mayor, was not supportive of McLaughlin’s ideas. The widow of a former city council member and mayor, Anderson enjoyed the support of the local industry council, the Richmond Chamber of Commerce—then headed by Chevron executive Jim Brumfield—and Chevron itself. She was dismissive of Richmond Greens, calling them “a special interest group.”

  To accomplish more on the council, McLaughlin challenged Mayor Anderson when she was up for reelection in 2006, creating a three-way race that included a second black candidate, former Richmond councilor Gary Bell. The incumbent collected a string of endorsements from California Democratic Party heavyweight
s, like US senator Dianne Feinstein and then state treasurer Phil Angelides. She raised four times more money from her business backers than McLaughlin did from her small individual donors and campaign volunteers. Chevron, the chamber, and the industry council also helped Anderson by running ads against McLaughlin criticizing her support for Measure T, a tax proposal on the November 2006 ballot.

  If adopted, Measure T would have raised $10 million by imposing a manufacturers’ tax on Chevron. Unfortunately, the poorly drafted measure would also have closed a local tax loophole benefiting small landlords, so Measure T foes were able to claim that its passage would trigger rent increases. Voters were bombarded with mailings declaring that “Gayle Should Fail with Her Terrible T.” Measure T did fail, but McLaughlin did not. Instead she shocked and amazed the local political establishment—and surprised herself—by winning the mayoral race by 279 votes.

  McLaughlin’s upset victory in 2006 made Richmond the largest city in the United States with a Green mayor. Despite Chevron’s win on Measure T, McLaughlin’s RPA-backed campaign raised public awareness about Big Oil’s long history of trying to substitute corporate philanthropy—voluntary donations to schools, libraries, and local nonprofits—for tax revenue that would be greater, if the company paid its fair share in one form or another. Future tax fights would not end so favorably for the refinery.

  USING THE BULLY PULPIT

  Under Richmond’s city charter, the disparity between the authority of the city manager and the mayor is pretty clear. The latter is paid far less than the former—in Richmond’s case, five or six times less. The city manager directs a city workforce of about seven hundred today, while the mayor’s office has a staff of only two or three people. The mayor casts a single vote on the city council, presides over its meetings, and appoints, subject to council approval, members of local boards and commissions. But the mayor can also “develop and inform City residents of policies and programs which he or she believes are necessary for the welfare of the City,” an agenda-setting role that Gayle McLaughlin played to the hilt during her eight years in office.

  McLaughlin turned what had been a part-time job with a $45,000 salary—less than a city janitor’s pay—into a bully pulpit for reform causes. In a series of battles that pitted fossil fuel defenders against local critics, the new mayor confronted industrial hazards arising from both oil refining and local railroad operations. She and her council allies waged major fights over development issues, home loan foreclosure relief, and an innovative public health initiative to curb soda consumption. Under McLaughlin, Richmond quickly became a more welcoming place for immigrants and, unlike most US cities during the same period, managed to improve relations between police and the community.

  One of McLaughlin’s first official appearances as mayor set the tone for her administration. In January 2007 she addressed an emergency meeting of one thousand Richmond residents protesting local raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. These neighborhood sweeps, leading to deportation and detention of some undocumented workers, made other immigrants in the community fearful of contacting the police to report crimes. City hall began work on the creation of a multiyear municipal ID card for anyone living in Richmond who did not have picture identification. Unveiled in 2014, this card can be used in dealings with the police or other accessing of public services.5

  McLaughlin helped strengthen grassroots organizing in the city by seeding an array of city commissions, boards, and committees with like-minded activists rarely considered for such roles in the past. Three prominent RPA members she named to the Planning or Human Rights Commissions—Jovanka Beckles, Marilyn Langlois, and Eduardo Martinez—later ran for city council based in part on their records as city commissioners. Along with community advocate Nicole Valentino and union activist Jeff Shoji, Langlois also served on the mayor’s full-time city hall staff. Through its energetic outreach work, the McLaughlin administration built ongoing relationships with a wide range of community groups and tried to strengthen ties between city hall and Richmond’s forty neighborhood councils.

  One of the most important actions that McLaughlin and council allies like Tom Butt took, even before she became mayor, was hiring Bill Lindsay as city manager. Lindsay arrived in Richmond two years after its near bankruptcy, taking over from a former Contra Costa County administrator hired to manage the city on an interim basis. Lindsay’s background and appearance was quite different from that of the Richmond activists in McLaughlin’s kitchen cabinet. A gray-haired Yale graduate, he dresses in such neatly pressed, buttoned-down fashion that he could easily pass for a New England prep school headmaster or classics teacher. Before coming to Richmond, he served as city manager of Orinda, an upscale East Bay bedroom community not far from Walnut Creek, where he was raised. No less than McLaughlin, however, Lindsay believed that “new ideas can percolate up from cities” when municipal government becomes a policy innovator. He shared Richmond progressives’ strong commitment to making city government more accountable and transparent. And, proceeding in his own brisk, business-like fashion, he was no less willing to push the envelope when gang violence or mortgage foreclosures required unusual policy initiatives.

  Lindsay was viewed with much initial suspicion. “People just thought that Richmond would gobble me up,” he told me. The city government Lindsay inherited was “viewed as a failed organization. There were not a lot of high expectations for what it could do.” Among the challenges the new city manager faced was ensuring sufficient funding for public safety (now 45 percent of Richmond’s general fund budget), developing better departmental leadership, and repairing municipal labor relations. During Richmond’s 2004 layoffs, “people found out in the newspaper whether they were losing their jobs,” he recalled. “So there was a complete lack of trust.” Over time the new city manager was able to develop what he describes as “good relationships with our unions.” During the always challenging process of balancing annual budgets, “they have come to the table and said, ‘We want to be part of the solution.’”

  In addition to better communication within the city workforce—now several hundred employees smaller than when Lindsay arrived—one hallmark of his tenure is the remarkable amount of information flowing from his office to the community. The city manager sends a weekly report, illustrated with charts, graphs, and photographs, to several thousand Richmond residents who have signed up to be on his e-mail list. He provides information for people trying to access city programs and services of all kinds, detailed updates on the work of various municipal agencies and departments, and the activities of local nonprofits serving the community.6

  Lindsay also oversaw the drafting of “Richmond General Plan 2030.” This sweeping policy document now provides guidance in the area of “land use, economic development, transportation, open space conversion, and arts and culture.” In rather singular fashion, Richmond’s general plan also prioritizes “community health and wellness—conditions that previous city administrators and elected officials had neglected.”7

  When Lindsay was hired, others in city hall were still bemoaning Richmond’s generally unfavorable media coverage. The city had a reputation for crime, violence, and political dysfunction that was hard to shake. New business was difficult to attract and even some BART users avoided its downtown Richmond station. Lindsay’s response was “If you don’t want horrible press, do good work. If you get things done, you’ll get good press.” Over the next decade (while not always entirely avoiding controversy himself) Richmond’s manager followed his own advice. As city hall administration and conditions in the city steadily improved, Richmond’s turnaround became widely hailed as “one of the most remarkable stories in the Bay Area.”8

  The list of civic accomplishments under McLaughlin and Lindsay would have been much shorter if the city council majority had remained beholden to past benefactors. Jeff Ritterman, the second RPA member elected to the council, was definitely not a favorite of Richmond’s corporate donor class. The
n chief of cardiology at Kaiser’s Richmond Medical Center, Ritterman is a former sixties radical, who sports a graying ponytail. He belonged to Physicians for Social Responsibility and aided Central American solidarity campaigns in the 1980s.

  When Ritterman announced his council candidacy in 2008, he had just helped secure thousands of signatures for another ballot initiative to raise taxes on Chevron. Both Chevron and the Richmond Chamber of Commerce spent heavily to defeat this local utility tax proposal, claiming it would hurt small business. Nevertheless, 54 percent of Richmond voters favored the RPA-backed measure. In a council race more competitive than usual (because the body was being downsized from nine to seven members), Ritterman emerged as a winner.

  The city’s legal and political skirmishing with Chevron over taxes continued for another two years before a settlement was reached. The company agreed to make a graduated payment to Richmond totaling $114 million in return for a fifteen-year moratorium on any new local taxes.9 Meanwhile, McLaughlin and the RPA helped keep the pressure on county tax assessors during a protracted fight triggered by Contra Costa County’s 2004 decision to reassess the value of Chevron property in Richmond. The company appealed the resulting tax bills three times, leading in one case to a $23 million rebate. In late 2013, Chevron finally settled its property tax disputes, based on the refinery’s 2012 assessed value of $3.28 billion.

  By 2014, that meant the company was paying about $50 million in property taxes to Contra Costa County, with Richmond, its second largest city, receiving less than one-third of that amount. “Is $3.28 billion a ‘fair’ assessment?” asked RPA activist Jeff Kilbreth, who was one of many who lobbied the county for a better deal. According to Kilbreth, Chevron “is still going to pay property taxes based on roughly 1/3 of the Richmond refinery’s true value.”10 But, he notes, that unfair result is the product of California’s nearly forty-year-old cap on taxation of commercial real estate that doesn’t change hands, a property tax policy badly in need of statewide reform.