[Marin-d] Fw: [northbaygreens] Richmond's (Green Party) Mayor Faces Formidable Challenge

[david quinley]

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Subject: [northbaygreens] Richmond's Green Mayor 

 
 
Richmond's Green Mayor Faces Formidable  Challenge
In race focused on casino, opponent says jobs trump the  environment
By Gerry  Shih on September 9, 2010  - 9:00 p.m. PDT
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Nat Bates, right, speaks to supporters during the opening of  his campaign 
headquarters in Richmond on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2010 (Adithya  Sambamurthy/The 
Bay Citizen)
Nathaniel Bates, a 78-year-old retired parole officer, has run unsuccessfully  
for mayor of Richmond three times. He kicked off his fourth campaign one recent  
afternoon by attacking the policies of the incumbent, the Green Party's Gayle  
McLaughlin.
"This mayor is for jobs, but only for green jobs," Bates, a Democrat who sits  
on Richmond's City Council, told supporters. "Well, my perspective is that I  
don't care if the job is green, purple, yellow or polka dot. A job is a  job."
Richmond, with a population of 103,468, is the largest city in the  country with 
a Green mayor. But with the city's unemployment rate near  20 percent, Bates is 
seen as a formidable candidate to unseat McLaughlin, whose  environmental 
activism is suddenly viewed as a potential liability during hard  economic 
times.
Bates's platform — jobs trump the environment — is playing out across  
California's political landscape, even in the Bay Area, a hub for the  
environmental movement. The November ballot contains Proposition 23, which would  
freeze the state's landmark global warming law, AB 32, barring a precipitous  
drop in the unemployment rate.
Carly Fiorina, the Republican candidate for Senate and a former chief  executive 
of Hewlett Packard, came out in support of Proposition 23 this month,  calling 
AB 32, a "jobs killer." Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for  governor and 
a former chief executive of eBay, has said that, if elected, she  intends to 
suspend AB 32 for a year.
In Richmond, the debate revolves around a proposal to build a $1 billion, Las  
Vegas-style casino on San Francisco Bay. The developer, James D. Levine,  
contends the project will create 17,000 jobs. The casino's future rests on  
another November ballot measure before Richmond voters, and although the ballot  
measure is only advisory, its passage would greenlight the project.
McLaughlin strenuously opposes the casino, which would be built on a  promontory 
known as Point Molate. "We most definitely need jobs and a good  healthy 
development at Point Molate," she said in a telephone interview, "but a  casino 
will not bring that. The evidence is overwhelming that casinos create  more 
problems: crime, prostitution, theft, drug sales. We need the kind of  
development that will bring about a legacy for Richmond that we can be proud  
of."
Bates said in response that Richmond, which has the 12th-highest homicide  rate 
in the state, already has those problems in abundance.
Bates, who is black and was first elected to the City Council in 1968, has  tied 
his candidacy to the casino. He described the project as a class issue.
"A lot of the people who don't want this and don't want that, they're already  
secure in life," he said. "They're not concerned about jobs.
"We are the playground for the elitist people from the Berkeley Hills, from  the 
Oakland Hills, from San Francisco. We want all these beautiful amenities  that 
go with the elitist groups. But if I'm unemployed, I don't have a job, I  don't 
have a way of even buying a McDonald's burger, then what the hell kind of  life 
do I have?"
Regardless of its outcome, the casino debate has laid bare some awkward  truths 
about Richmond. In 2008, the median income for white households here  ($61,000) 
was roughly 50 percent higher than for blacks ($42,000). The city is  
essentially divided between outlying neighborhoods like Richmond Annex and Point  
Richmond — home to a mostly white population, including many recent transplants  
seeking relief from the Bay Area's dizzying real estate prices — and blacks and  
Hispanics spread across a gritty urban grid where most of the crime occurs.
 
Courtesy of Gayle McLaughlin
Mayor Gayle McLaughlin 
McLaughlin, who is a white former schoolteacher and a native of Chicago, won  a 
three-way race in 2006 by 242 votes against two black candidates: Irma  
Anderson, the incumbent mayor, and Gary Bell, a banker.
McLaughlin opposed a 2008 deal to import Japanese cars through the Port of  
Richmond, arguing that the increased traffic would pollute the bay. She also  
opposes a plan to retrofit the Point Richmond Chevron refinery to process heavy  
crude oil, arguing that it would damage the environment.
She has repeatedly clashed with Chevron, the city's largest employer, and  
spearheaded a campaign to extract more taxes out of it. In May, McLaughlin won a  
major victory when Chevron agreed to pay an additional $114 million to the city  
over the next 15 years. (Chevron has remained neutral on Proposition 23, which  
has received significant financing from out-of-state oil companies.)
At the same time, McLaughlin has transformed Richmond into the Bay  Area's 
unlikely leader in solar power production, home to prominent start-ups  like 
SunPrint and SunPower. Her efforts have drawn both praise and  criticism — 
detractors have dubbed her Mayor Moonbeam, playing off the nickname  once given 
to former Gov. Jerry Brown.
"We can't solve old problems with old solutions. We can't rely on these quick  
fixes," McLaughlin said about her opponents' vision for job growth. "Now we're  
poised to take advantage of the only growing sector in our economy. I have a new  
model for business."
A rendering of the proposed casino (Courtesy of Jim Levine)
McLaughlin and groups like Citizens for a Sustainable Point Molate are  
skeptical that the casino will produce thousands of jobs. They prefer a  
convention center for the site or a network of waterfront parks.
Bates said the most important consideration was that a casino would bring in  
new jobs — any new jobs — and generate approximately $20 million a year in  
taxes.
Bates's supporters point out that neither McLaughlin nor her staunchest ally  on 
the Council, Jeff Ritterman, the chief of cardiology at Kaiser Richmond  
hospital, is a longtime resident of Richmond. In contrast, Bates came to  
Richmond with his mother in the 1940s when she worked as a coach cleaner on the  
Santa Fe Railroad.
In addition to McLaughlin and Bates, John Ziesenhenne — a former councilman  and 
past president of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce — is running for mayor.  
Ziesenhenne is basing his campaign on job growth, too, but in an interview, he  
said he would not specify his position on the casino until after the  election.
Several black political action committees are throwing their weight behind  
Bates. He also has the support of the local police, firefighter and trade  
unions. While the Chamber of Commerce endorsed Ziesenhenne last week, Bates has  
the support of many individual businesses.
Chevron is also rumored to back Bates, although the company has not given to  
any campaigns yet, according to the latest campaign filings. A company spokesman  
said Chevron would "put our support behind a candidate who supports Richmond's  
jobs."
Jason McDaniel, an assistant professor of political science at San Francisco  
State, said Bates's strong base among blacks and his longtime ties to labor  
might enable him to defeat McLaughlin. The mayor's Green Party status makes her  
more vulnerable, he said.
"If the mayor was a Democrat, I would expect her to be more formidable," he  
said. "I see her as being ripe to be defeated."
Compared to McLaughlin, Bates is a social conservative who grouses publicly  
about the mayor's refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and  
the gay and lesbian street parades she has organized.
Bates, a former high school football star who looks younger than his 78  years, 
said he believed he often clashed with McLaughlin and other female  officials 
because "a lot of them have never been participants in athletic  programs."
He represents, perhaps, a throwback-style of politics that was on display  
during a recent drive through downtown to distribute campaign materials.
"The police are friendly with me. Who are they going to ticket?"  Bates said as 
he drove briefly down the wrong direction of a one-way street. He  parked his 
white pickup truck in front of a fire hydrant as he walked inside  C.J.'s 
Barbeque & Fish shop to put up a campaign poster !!
As he chatted in familiar tones with Charles Evans, the shop's long-time  owner, 
Bates spoke of his disapproval of the mayor's emphasis on the  environment.
"You can save this planet," Bates said. "But hell, if people don't have any  
work and jobs to sustain themselves, then what are you doing?"
This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York  Times.
 
Gerry Shih Gerry Shih is The Bay Citizen's government  and politics writer. He 
came from The New York Times, where he wrote for the  local Bay Area pages and 
the business section in New York. He is ... 



      
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