Long time Contra Costa Times Reporter John Geluardi is leaving the West County Times next week to join former East Bay Express reporter Will Harper at the San Francisco Weekly. Geluardi has covered the City of Richmond, including Richmond city government and politics since Rebecca Rosen-Lum moved on to cover central Contra Costa several years ago. According to Geluardi, the move will give him an opportunity to write longer and more in-depth investigative articles about local government – in this case, the City of San Francisco where he will be covering, among other things, the Mayor’s Office. Geluardi’s last day at the West County Times will be August 22.

While we wish Geluardi the best in his career change, we are also sad to see him go. He has been able to develop a remarkable knowledge of the inner workings of Richmond’s political machinery and to share that insight with the readers of the West County Times. He will be difficult to replace, and indeed, there are rumors that the MediaNews Group, which is in the process of consolidating regional newspapers and laying off staff, may not replace Geluardi at all, leaving Richmond without local coverage. We hope that is not the case.

In his last few days, Geluardi is leaving us with a couple of mostly upbeat summaries of the state of Richmond government, including the following two articles about City Manager Bill Lindsay and the Richmond City Council:

Strife doesn't throw council off course

·  Despite setbacks, Richmond's leaders say, city has regained respect and its bond ratingBy John Geluardi

STAFF WRITER
Contra Costa Times

Article Launched:08/18/2007 03:05:22 AM PDT

Since January, the new Richmond City Council has been effective in moving the city in a positive direction, though bickering and some spite votes have caused setbacks.

"Yes, there has been a lot of personal stuff," said Councilwoman Maria Viramontes, a leading member of the council majority. "But we actually made a lot of hard decisions together, and if all of the fighting, crying and whining are part of that, I guess we'll have to work with it."

The council's summer break began July 31, and its next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 11. When they return, council members will consider the expansion of the Chevron Refinery, a potential scandal involving the city's wastewater management company, Veolia Water, and the ongoing process to update the general plan.

The council's composition changed dramatically after the November election, with Green Party member Gayle McLaughlin winning the nonpartisan mayor's seat after serving two years as a councilwoman. With very little money, McLaughlin unseated Mayor Irma Anderson, who had a formidable campaign war chest stuffed with contributions from Chevron.

McLaughlin's membership in the Green Party has had no effect on her ability to find common ground with her council colleagues, who have been like-minded on many environmental and social issues.

McLaughlin also has been successful at increasing grass-roots participation at City Council and community meetings, which has helped to somewhat loosen the stranglehold industry, developers and city unions have long had on city policy.

Council neophytes Ludmyrna Lopez and Harpreet Sandhu still are finding their way on the council and largely have voted in lockstep with their council mentors, Viramontes, Councilman John Marquez and, to a lesser degree, Vice Mayor Nat Bates.

Those five form the council majority and often vote in opposition to a loose-knit rival faction of McLaughlin and Councilmen Tom Butt, Tony Thurmond and occasionally Jim Rogers.

Despite the dustups, the council has successfully continued to regain the respect of city residents and the Bay Area.

Perhaps most significantly, the city regained its favored bond ratings from both Moody's Investor Service and Standard & Poors thanks to the council's consistent fiscal discipline. The favored bond rating is doubtless a sign of financial recovery from a $35 million budget crisis in 2004 that resulted from six years of gross mismanagement under former City Manager Isiah Turner.

The council also doubled the annual funding for critically needed street repairs and launched the $111 million first phase of the Civic Center renovation.

Under McLaughlin's leadership, Richmond has become more environmentally friendly. The council rolled out the welcome mat to green businesses by declaring Richmond a Green Economic Development Area, reduced solar fees to the lowest in the Bay Area and approved the Green Building Ordinance, which governs construction of all city-funded projects greater than $300,000.

The council formed the Office of Neighborhood Safety to coordinate anti-violence programs among city departments, the West Contra Costa Unified School District and nonprofit groups.

And the council took steps to get the Chevron Refinery to verify its annual utility users tax payment. In July 2006, the refinery suddenly and without explanation reduced its payment by $4 million, dealing the city a financial blow as it recovered from its budget crisis.

Although the council was thoughtful and effective on the majority of issues, there were times during the past seven months when good government took a back seat to personal bickering. Name-calling and spite votes were costly for residents, employees and the city's long-suffering image.

The best example is the council's 5-4 vote against windows that open -- also called "operable windows" -- in the renovated Civic Center. In June, the council majority voted down operable windows despite a presentation by a nationally respected environmental engineer on employee health and productivity benefits of an operable-window system.

Operable windows have been popular in civic buildings across the country and particularly in the Bay Area. The council's narrow rejection reaffirmed an image of petty personal politics and backwardness the city has been struggling to overcome.

Frustrated by the majority's vote, Butt fired off a nasty installment of his popular e-mail forum denouncing the council majority for a series of what he called heavy-handed votes on commission appointments, the dissolution of the Design Review Board and the formation of a blue-ribbon committee to consider amendments to the City Charter.

Viramontes responded by covering Butt's City Hall office with funeral flower arrangements, each bouquet festooned with the quotes of prominent women such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Browning and Helen Keller.

Viramontes' colorful response seemed to have a calming effect, and the final few council meetings before the break took a more collegial tone.

"There's always going to be debate on any city council," Butt said. "I guess in my dreams, I would like to see a council that's rational and less political and less personal. If we can do that, we'd have a pretty good functioning council."

Reach John Geluardi at 510-262-2787 or jgeluardi@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Richmond manager wins high praise

·  Council seeks ways to retain Lindsay, whose contract expires next yearBy John Geluardi

STAFF WRITER
Contra Costa Times

Article Launched:08/15/2007 03:04:38 AM PDT

Two-and-a-half years after City Manager Bill Lindsay came to a very troubled Richmond, leaders are asking whether the city is a better place.

And the answer so far is a resounding "yes."

The soft-spoken Lindsay is getting credit as a major force in rooting out dysfunction that in the not-so-distant past resulted in rampant and pernicious cronyism, 100 corruption-busting FBI agents swarming City Hall and ruinous financial mismanagement that cost 300 city jobs and the decimation of city services.

"What pops into my mind is an ocean liner -- a very, very big one -- that was pointed in the wrong direction," City Councilman Jim Rogers said. "And with the help of Bill Lindsay, we are in the process of getting pointed in the right direction."

Lindsay's contract with the city expires Feb. 13, and the council opened negotiations earlier this month; currently, he earns $200,000 a year. A straw poll Monday showed that council members are happy with Lindsay, and they would like to settle his new contract in short order after they return from summer break on Sept. 11.

Since coming to Richmond from Orinda, Lindsay's effect on city operations has been far-reaching. Chief among his accomplishments are the hiring of nearly all new department heads, three consecutive balanced budgets, reinstatement of the city's favored bond rating, and groundbreaking on the largest public works project in city history: the $111 million renovation of the Civic Center complex.

Under his leadership, the Richmond Police Department has returned to a community policing model, the Main Library is operating at full capacity and two branches will soon reopen, and the city has more than doubled funding to repair its roads, among the worst in the Bay Area.

Lindsay also has developed a reputation for confronting city problems in a straightforward manner. He supported a residents' survey that sought public opinion on a variety of issues such as crime, road conditions, job training, traffic, and city employee responsiveness. Such surveys are common in wealthier communities in Contra Costa County.

But such surveys are unusual in troubled cities such as Richmond, which long has been plagued by chronic violent crime, high unemployment, industrial pollution, and a tradition of indifferent city officials.

"He's the first city manager we've had who actually implemented a city survey and then put the information out so people could see all its warts and boils," Councilman Tom Butt said. "Bill's not afraid to tell you where we have problems and what we're going to do about fixing them."

Councilwoman Marie Viramontes also is a Lindsay supporter, though she said she would like him to be more persuasive with the council and his staff on agenda items he thinks are important.

"I would like him to tell us, 'I like option B and here's why,' and get city staff to support him," she said. "He can do that -- there are no shrinking violets on this council."

For Lindsay's part, he has said on numerous occasions that he wants to complete the work he has started here.

"The issues that are facing Richmond don't lend themselves to short-term fixes," he said. "I am committed to the community for the long term ... for as long as they will have me."

And the community appears to be equally committed to him. Sandi Genser-Mack, president of the Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council, which represents 35 community councils, said Lindsay has done a remarkable job of supporting resident participation.

"He comes to our meetings as much as he can, and he's appointed a liaison from his office, Michele Monk, to come to all of our meetings," Genser-Mack said. "He's even apologized to me when he can't make the meetings. We haven't had that kind of support in the past."

Lindsay has been effective in bringing together divergent community groups and interests to work together toward a common goal, said the Rev. Andre Shumake, president of the faith-based Richmond Improvement Association.

"He has demonstrated the ability to bring people together into performance partnerships, men and women working together to improve the lives of everyone who lives and works in Richmond," Shumake said. "He listens to the community and tries to incorporate what he hears into his leadership, and that's invaluable."

Despite the praise, Lindsay is the first to say that much remains to be done.

"We still need to focus on issues associated with crime, continue to rebuild our infrastructure, city staff has to improve on basic service delivery, especially public works and parks and recreation," he said. "I can tell you that being city manager is a very hard job, but I was very optimistic about Richmond when I first came here and I'm even more so now."

Reach John Geluardi at 510-262-2787 or jgeluardi@bayareanewsgroup.com.