CITY BEAT

FOOLED AGAIN: The Richmond City Council may form a sister city relationship with Baghdad. Well, not really, but hundreds of people believed it for a little while last Sunday thanks to Richmond Councilman Tom Butt's annual April Fools' Day e-mail.

For the past several years, Butt has made fools of the uninitiated readers who subscribe to his popular e-mail forum, which regularly carries reliable city news, commentary and community announcements.

This year's mischievous missive had Police Chief Chris Magnus outfitting Baghdad-bound council members with new Kevlar vests so they could be tested before they are used by Richmond police officers.

The councilman's high jinks triggered a call from an earnest reporter, who shall go unnamed ... all right, it was Jim Zamora from the San Francisco Chronicle, who wanted to know more about the Richmond/Baghdad alliance.

"I got a bunch of e-mails from people who wanted to know what could be done to stop the council from considering this," a gleeful Butt said.

"And Zamora wanted to write a story."

Don't feel bad, Jim. Last year, another scoop-crazed, though unnamed, reporter ... all right, it was a close colleague of the Eye, mis-dialed three times in a rush to call Chevron's public relations officer to find out if it was true the refinery was packing up to move to an offshore location.

Chevron's Dean O'Hair said in a deadpan voice that "we are preparing a statement that will be released later today."

John Geluardi, Randy Myers, Elisabeth Nardi and Martin Snapp contributed to this column.