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  Timing Ripe for Chevron Sponsored Sustainability Conference at Marina Bay?
August 12, 2012
 

This week and last were going to be big weeks for Chevron, with the opening of a 110-year history exhibit at the Richmond Museum of History and signups for refinery tours in September (TOM BUTT E-FORUM: Chevron Richmond 110 Year Anniversary - Museum Exhibit and Refinery Tour), both well-publicized.
Eclipsed by events  related to the fire, the history exhibit opening has been postponed as has the launch of 4Richmond, a mysterious fund that was to be seeded by Chevron. No announcement has been made about the refinery tours in September.
Not so well publicized, in fact not publicized at all, is a week-long conference, informally termed “The Richmond Economic Revitalization Initiative,” hosted by Chevron in an empty building Chevron formerly occupied at Marina Bay. The conference that includes an impressive list of regional leaders as attendees, will begin Monday with virtually no media coverage but, according to the Richmond Police Department, the expectation of demonstrations. The Invitation is titled: “Building on Common Ground, Shaping Goals for shared, Sustainable Growth in Richmond.”
The only media hint I have seen is a short mention in Lisa Vordebruggen’s August 10 column in the Contra Costa Times:


More significantly, it forced the postponement of Thursday's planned launch of Four Richmond, a new labor-business coalition nonprofit for which Chevron is providing the seed money. The entity was formed to raise cash for jobs, education and public safety programs.
The fire will cast a shadow over this week's Chevron-sponsored economic diversification conference with Richmond senior city staffers and community leaders. The company's global arm is looking at investing millions of dollars into broadening the city's tax base and reducing the community's heavy dependence on refinery taxes.
I first heard about the Richmond Economic Revitalization Initiative conference on July 26 and queried Chevron contacts, who were quiet forthcoming, providing the following:

Our goal as a community partner is to help improve the quality of life for Richmond residents through expanding opportunities for youth, education, economic development and local hiring. We are committed to helping to create permanent pathways to sustainable, living wage or better jobs and careers in growth industries through the development of a sustainable, multi-service training, education and employment system that meets local and regional employment-focused job training and placement needs.

Chevron Richmond would like to help Richmond and North Richmond become an economically viable, high performing community through a new community engagement program – the Richmond Economic Revitalization Initiative.

In January 2012, Chevron Richmond invested $125,000 to embark on a one year planning process and hired Emerald HPC to build a strategy for economically revitalizing the Richmond/North Richmond area by developing the foundation, processes, environment, and community support needed to make a lasting impact on the local economy. This process includes identifying key issues, building capacity of stakeholders and leveraging strategic partnerships to support existing and future projects, along with Community Housing Development Corporation, a nonprofit in North Richmond.

The purpose of this yearlong planning process was to identify some key outcomes around economic development and create metrics around those outcomes which could be implemented over a 5-year period to create sustainable and long-term change. Chevron Richmond has secured a significant amount of funding (in addition to our annual $3.5 million in social investments) for this 5-year economic revitalization initiative.

As part of this planning process, Emerald HPC contacted and interviewed some high-level stakeholders who have a vested interest in economic development and revitalization of the community.

The next step is to bring those stakeholders together for a weeklong forum to facilitate strategic conversations, explore issues, generate possible strategies and determine the most appropriate data sets and/or cross agency data that is needed for a deeper analysis to determine change strategies and crucial intervention points for creating a high-performing community. This forum " Building on Common Ground: Shaping Goals for Shared, Sustainable Growth in Richmond” is scheduled to take place here in Richmond from August 13-17th.

The weeklong retreat will be facilitated by Different Tracks Global, a group based in Northern Ireland that works in partnership with Emerald HPC International, a U.S.-based company that builds high-performing communities. For over three decades, Different Tracks Global has worked for reconciliation during and after Northern Ireland's conflicts and has in other countries around the world bringing together disparate groups around a common goal.

Confirmed attendees are:

Chris Magnus, Chief of Police, City of Richmond
Phil Kader, Chief Probation Officer, Contra Costa County
Linda Jackson, WCCUSD Executive Director Emeritus (representing Dr. Bruce Harter)
Adam Kruggle, Executive Director, CCISCO
Alex Gomez, Executive Director, West County Business Development Center
Andrea Bailey, Community Engagement Manager, Chevron
Andy Wong, President, AJWI
Armando Viramontes, Government & Community Relationships Rep, LBNL
Bill Lindsay, City Manager, City of Richmond
Don Gilmore, Executive Director, CHDC
Dr. Henry Clark, MAC, North Richmond Community Activist
Jane Fischberg, Executive Director, Rubicon Inc.
Judge Diana Becton, Presiding Judge, Contra Costa County Courts
Judy Morgan, Executive Director, Richmond Chamber of Commerce
Karen Norwood, Facilities Service Manager, Kaiser Permanente School of Allied Health Sciences
Katrinka Ruk, Executive Director, Council of Industries
Kish Rajan, 4Richmond Coalition
Lori Krepismann, Economic Development Advisor, Chevron
Luz Gomez, Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of Supervisor John Gioia
Priscilla Leadon, Dean of Economic Development, Contra Costa Community College
Sal Vaca, Director, Richmond Workforce Investment Board
Sheriff David Livingston, Contra Costa County
Stephen Baiter, Director, Contra Costa County Workforce Development Board

In the first half of the week of the forum, the group will be deepening its understanding of the driving mechanism of conflict in our professional and community lives. Next the group will move from understanding to building critical competencies that will enable it to work more effectively together toward the goal of economic and social revitalization in the Richmond and North Richmond communities. The second half of the week will focus on scenario-based work that will be built out from participants contributions as a core stakeholder group and that looks at systems and the critical first entry points for achieving the program’s goals. This will help ensure that participants maximize time together and develop goals that are relevant, achievable and measurable and that have real impact. The outcomes from this forum will shape and inform the economic development investments that will be made by Chevron in Richmond/North Richmond as part of this 5-year revitalization effort.

Community leaders working in the field of social change are on the front line of building and rebuilding society and frequently deal with conflicts. To be successful in their endeavors, these leaders must acquire specific skills to enable them to address a variety conflicts. Additionally, as part of their contribution and their commitment to the process, Emerald HPC invested $50,000 to sponsor this forum and Chevron Richmond will be convening the partners and hosting the event during the week.

I was curious why elected officials were neither informed nor invited to the conference and was told that it had been conceived as a “staff level” event, and Chevron wanted keep politics out of it.

I also found it curious that at least 2/3 of the invited attendees convened to solve Richmond’s problems are not residents of Richmond. Outside experts are obviously expected to deliver the goods. The one attendee listed as the 4Richmond affiliate is Mayor Pro Tem Kish Rajan of Walnut Creek.

At least one unhappy camper is Richard Poe, the owner of the building that will be the site of the conference. Poe first heard of the event last week when a Chevron facility manager contacted him to be aware that 100 to 150 protesters from the Occupy Oakland movement are expected to show up.

Poe has some advice for Chevron about how to help Richmond’s economy – move Chevron’s corporate administrative offices back to Richmond. Chevron once occupied Poe’s building at Marina Bay but vacated when the refinery improvement project was shut down by a court order.

Poe wrote in an email:

Let’s  us not forget  just a few short years ago Chevron was looking at redeveloping and building a second campus in the energy corridor, 225,000 square feet  of  existing buildings plus the vacant land. The Chevron second campus  could have possibly been as big as phase I of the LBNL campus. The impact would have been years earlier then LBNL  , and transformed the redevelopment agency and surrounding lands and services . The lacking of services won’t have been an issue on the table for UC , and the impact would have been huge.

The legal challenges to the renewal project  caused the project to stop. Chevron then went through a relocation of employees, and now the Richmond Marina Bay is major decline with dark buildings. Let face it , Richmond Marina Bay was caught in the middle of a huge fight , and we were all losers.

The  Chevron Richmond Marina Bay second campus in the energy corridor , combined with LBNL second campus would have been something to see , and a game changer that would have help offset  the impact of the Chevron fire. All these scientist working on alternative energy , with Chevron being the crown jewel , that would have been a sight to see.

Poe claims that Chevron bought out the lease of a high-tech company, Inovis, (now GXS), to obtain more space. Now Chevron and Inovis are both gone, along with hundreds of jobs.

Poe claims that UC  Vice Chancellor Bob Hathaway said, as he toured Marina Bay buildings,  “The largest employer in Richmond, Chevron, shouldn’t be pulling out hundreds of Jobs to be relocated to San Ramon, with 17 percent unemployment .“
  
While Chevron is the host of the Richmond Revitalization Initiative conference, apparently a consulting organization Emerald HPC International “invested $50,000 to sponsor this forum” for reasons that are unclear. Emerald’s website lists no information about where the company is located but describes itself as follows:

Keith and Iris Archuleta founded Emerald Consulting in 1992 to improve the lives of people, create healthy organizations and build sustainable communities. We promote a socially responsible approach to business and we strive to strengthen relationships between and among individuals, groups, and communities.  

We have developed the High Performing Communities framework  to shape initiatives that strengthen community, corporate, agency and project outcomes.   Now, after 20 years years in business and 20 years of growth and development, we are expanding.  

Emerald Consulting is now Emerald HPC International, LLC.

Emerald HPC:

  • Employs strategic planning and best practice models to improve the accountability, efficiency and effectiveness of organizations
  • Offers consulting, coaching and training that helps stakeholder groups build capacity, messaging, and a common set of tools from which to work 


Emerald HPC services have ranged from building workforce pipeline, career and college readiness, integrated arts education, and youth violence prevention initiatives in Northern California to providing board development and strategic planning training for faith based and nonprofit groups throughout California; from outcomes-based evaluation and data management training for a neighborhood initiative in San Jose to organizational development coaching and urban strategy planning in regions throughout the United States and abroad.
The other participant mentioned in the conference description, Different Tracks Global, had no hits in a Google search.
The “Four Richmond” or “4Richmond” funding initiative also mentioned in Vordebruggen’s column is equally murky. Apparently with little fanfare, Chevron has assembled a steering committee of “business friendly” (“labor-business coalition nonprofit,” as it was called by Vordegruggen) community leaders to advise Chevron. Some sources believe the initiative is intended as sort of sort of an “RPA antidote” to show that the solutions to Richmond’s challenges lie with the labor and business community and not with the super progressive RPA. A Google search yielded no information about 4Richmond or Four Richmond.

Despite its stealth approach and closely held details, if the Richmond Economic Revitalization Initiative and 4Richmond initiative can deliver a more sustainable Richmond, we’re all for it. Something good may come of this, but Chevron certainly has a strange way of going about it, which makes people both suspicious and skeptical.

It’s not clear what ulterior motive Chevron might have from “investing millions of dollars into broadening the city's tax base and reducing the community's heavy dependence on refinery taxes.” Richmond can barely balance its budget with the substantial tax payments already being made by Chevron. Broadening the City’s economic base would not obviate the need for Chevron taxes, but it might enable the City to bring all its streets up to accepted standards instead of only 60% of them, or it might replace some of the critical financing lost to the state in the theft of redevelopment funding.

In any event, it should be interesting.  I hope someone who attends tells me about it. I like to keep current on things that affect Richmond’s future.

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