Manifold Monday

Happy new week, Tazerville! We start with an op-ed from the Times...

-----------------------------------------

Green era begins

A new era begins on Tuesday in Richmond when Green Party member Gayle McLaughlin officially becomes the city's mayor.

McLaughlin's surprising victory in Richmond over Democratic incumbent Irma Anderson is a major coup for the Green Party. Anderson had strong financial backing from Chevron and the corporate establishment.

That she still lost was a strong message from voters that they were unhappy with an inept city leadership that has failed to put forward a blueprint for dealing with runaway street crime.

Now it's up to McLaughlin and the Green Party to prove that they can succeed where the Democrats failed.

The Times did not endorse any of the mayoral candidates, because we thought, and still do, that Richmond could have produced a better slate of candidates.

None of the candidates offered a single sensible proposal for tackling crime, which, given the terrifying escalation of the violence in Richmond in the last year, is simply unacceptable.

The Green Party has traditionally focused on environmental issues. But McLaughlin must understand that the ability to walk outside of one's home without getting shot is just as much of an environmental concern as living near a Chevron smokestack.

She and the council must come up with at least the beginnings of a plan to stop this violence.

That's not to say that other environmental issues don't deserve attention.

Richmond residents have long complained about the negative effects of various industries on their quality of life. They have expressed concern about air pollution from the Chevron plant, diesel fumes from trucks and excessive noise from the Santa Fe trains. Health studies have found that children living in certain areas are more prone to asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

Richmond would become a ghost town without industry. Yet there is a fine balance between providing a welcoming environment for companies to operate in and jeopardizing the health of residents.

To her credit, McLaughlin realizes that. And she will be an advocate for those in poor communities dealing with these concerns who have long been ignored.

The key for McLaughlin will be to remain true to her principles without alienating the corporations and businesses so vital to the city's financial well-being.

She has pledged to make Chevron pay its fair share, which it should. But antagonizing the city's biggest corporate citizen would not be in Richmond's best interest.

McLaughlin's seat on the council remains to be filled. McLaughlin and her fellow council members should name Corky Booze, who lost by 482 votes to Ludmyrna Lopez. He was clearly the voters' next choice.

Rather than ignoring the public's wishes and deferring to powerful interests as they have in the past, the council should honor what voters clearly wanted.

-----------------------------------------

And that should pretty much speak for itself, but there was an opposing view on the council vacancy among today's reader letters...

-----------------------------------------

Progressive choice

When the Richmond City Council fills the vacancy created by Gayle McLaughlin's ascension to mayor, it has the opportunity to appoint a true progressive, Harpreet Sandhu.

Sandhu has positively served this community for many years in the education, cultural and political arenas. He has always conducted himself with a respectful and deliberative manner. Sandhu is currently a Human Relations Commissioner for Richmond.

It would be a foolish and naive mistake for the new mayor to support Corky Boozé, who stands for everything McLaughlin professes to oppose.

Worse for McLaughlin, Boozé's backing from Nat Bates will ensure that he will make her term as mayor even more miserable for her than he did for Irma Anderson and Rosemary Corbin, from the other side of the podium.

Boozé's appointment will guarantee her progressive agenda will be DOA.

Our democracy in Richmond is broken: McLaughlin needs allies, not enemies, to fix it.

Andres Soto
Richmond

-----------------------------------------

We at the Tazer aren't sure if you noticed, but there's been a flood of letters to support Corky Booze. Many, like the previous Times op-ed, say that he's the people's choice based on votes. If that were to be carried out to its fullest extent, Booze should be mayor since he got more votes than MacLaughlin...which is an outcome we wouldn't object to...

But that's not how it works in Richmond, because the city charter says that, unlike the election, appointments to fill council seats aren't an ordinary popularity contest. In other words, appointees don't have to impress you or us; they have to impress the rest of the council instead, and Harpreet Sandhu is 1) NOT Corky Booze, which the council probably likes, and 2) already within the City of Richmond machinery, so he'd (hopefully) know what he's doing.

The Tazer isn't sure if Mr. Soto saw what we've seen, but Corky Booze seemed awfully cozy with Jim Jenkins and Gayle McLaughlin during the candidate forums. Thus, we don't figure Booze's presence on the council is as much a liability to McLaughlin as perhaps the rest of the council.

And it shouldn't be a matter of if McLaughlin (or any political leader) has allies or enemies on the council. It only matters to the Tazer if the councilperson in question is an ally to the PEOPLE OF RICHMOND!

To finish our thoughts for this morning, a peek at RPD from the inside, courtesy of another Times letter...

-----------------------------------------

Police race bias claim is nonsense

I was a member of the Richmond Police Department for 30 years (1963-1993) and I have inside knowledge about what I'm going to say.

When I began my career, there were four black officers: Doug Ellison, Lonnie Washington, Clements Kelly and Marvin Smith. These guys were terrific and were well liked by everyone.

By the time I retired in 1993, there were many black officers in the department, and I got along with all of them. Some were fantastic on the job, some were just so-so. But the same thing could be said about the white officers.

However, this current claim of discrimination by six black officers just makes me sick. How can they claim discrimination when there are seven black officers in the department who are either captains or lieutenants?

The two deputy chief spots are assigned to minorities -- a Latino male and a white female. The next position above that is the police chief, and he was selected by Richmond's city manager.

These claims of discrimination are false. These six officers are lying; they are simply attempting to control all the top command positions. With actions such as this continually occurring, racism will never cease.

Walt Burgess
Rodeo

Burgess is a retired Richmond Police Department officer.

-----------------------------------------

Sounds about like what we've been thinking. If Chief Magnus's accusers had any sort of case, one would think that there would be a pattern of behavior and droves of anecdotes. Nope, haven't read or seen anything like that...