Posted on Sunday, December 10, 2006
Sacramento Bee MAIN NEWS section, Page A4

Richmond's Green Mayor

Gayle McLaughlin's narrow win in November is a first for her party in California

Sacramento Bee
By Herbert A. Sample - Bee San Francisco Bureau

Richmond's Mayor-elect Gayle McLaughlin started a grass-roots effort to defeat Mayor Irma Anderson. Her win may make the Greens a viable third party in local elections. Sacramento Bee/Michael A. Jones

When Gayle McLaughlin was a young teenager almost 40 years ago, she watched on television as peace activists enflamed by the Vietnam War and Chicago police battled outside the Democratic National Convention. The violence formed a lasting impression on McLaughlin, leading her to years of grass-roots activism in liberal and social justice circles, and eventually into the Green Party and onto the Richmond City Council.
But come Jan. 9, that behind-the-scenes work will shift to a higher profile when McLaughlin, 54, takes the reins of the Bay Area's 13th largest city and one of its most troubled.

McLaughlin's somewhat surprising victory last month was notable not only because she defeated an incumbent but also because it will make Richmond the largest city in the country to be run by a Green mayor, and make her the first Green to be elected mayor in California. At the same time, her victory signaled a decline in African American dominance over political affairs in Richmond.

If McLaughlin's four-year term is successful -- and she concedes that sparse mayoral powers will make it difficult to push her agenda through -- she could help make the Green Party a more acceptable alternative for voters. "I think people are pretty upset with the way things are," McLaughlin said in an interview last week. "It's clear people want something different, so the opening is there."

McLaughlin grew up in Chicago, the third of five daughters to a carpenter father and a housewife mother. She watched as her mother agonized over the street battles outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in downtown Chicago.
"She was really outraged that young people were mobilizing for a good cause and there was such a harsh response from the Chicago police and the political structure in Chicago," she said. "It kind of alerted me that there was a different kind of value system."

As an adult, McLaughlin's political consciousness led her to work with groups opposed to U.S. policies in Central America during the 1980s, and others focused on gender and racial equality. After marrying and moving to Richmond in 1998, she turned her attention to environmental issues and the Green Party.

She won a City Council seat two years ago. McLaughlin said city leaders permitted too little debate on important issues, particularly controversial housing developments and the utility taxes that Chevron's sprawling refinery pays. "There's been a strong level of corporate control in city hall," she said.

It's that kind of language that has left Richmond business interests apprehensive. "Her votes over the last two years have done nothing to dispel the notion that she sees businesses as the enemy instead of the source of most of the tax revenue and all of the jobs in the city," said Joshua Genser, chairman of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce's political action committee, which endorsed incumbent Mayor Irma Anderson. He contended that McLaughlin "assumed Chevron was lying" about the taxes the firm said it should pay because Chevron has a poor reputation among liberal activists, not because there is evidence that it should pay more.

Chevron once made flat utility tax payments rather than amounts based on a percentage of energy use. It recently switched to the percentage method, which resulted in a lower payment. However, Chevron refuses to release energy usage figures so the city can confirm the accuracy of the new payments. Business owners may be anxious, but other Richmond residents are elated about McLaughlin's ascendancy.

Juan Reardon, who co-founded the Richmond Progressive Alliance in 2004 with McLaughlin and others, said there has too long been a perception that nothing would alter "business as usual" in Richmond. But McLaughlin's victory "represents hope and sends a signal that change is possible," he said, adding that McLaughlin's ability to galvanize the grass roots will help her prod the City Council to compromise with her.

One of the mayor-elect's goals is to reduce the violence that has roiled the city for years. Richmond, a city of almost 97,000, has suffered 40 homicides this year as of Wednesday, compared with 36 at this point last year. McLaughlin said she wants a responsive police department but that the city also should focus on the roots of crime. She plans to propose a program to create 1,000 jobs over the next four years for Richmond youths that will include educational components.
She also will be pushing for new parks and wider use of solar power, and against Indian casino proposals.

McLaughlin's victory was one of three in the Bay Area that demonstrates Greens can win nonpartisan races, said Susan King, a state party spokeswoman. "Voters are looking more at issues rather than what political party they are registered with," she said.

Robert Smith, a political scientist at San Francisco State University, said it was less McLaughlin's party affiliation and more her views, Anderson's liabilities and the presence of a third mayoral candidate that decided the election. McLaughlin's campaign literature said little about her party registration, he noted. "I don't think it represents a victory for Greens as such," said Smith, who lives in Richmond. "But it will be interesting to see whether she tries to use it to build the party, to articulate explicitly Green positions on the council."

Still, King said it was striking that McLaughlin -- a white female in a political party that some regard as the province of white liberals -- defeated Anderson, an African American who has been mayor since 2001. Richmond is 35 percent white, 29 percent African American and 15 percent Asian American. Latinos, whose demographic may overlap with others, make up 34 percent of the population.

As in many other Bay Area cities, Richmond's African American population is dropping and the number of Latinos is rising. The City Council included six African Americans three years ago, but there will be only two next year, along with three Latinos.

Ken Nelson, president-elect of the Richmond branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said McLaughlin enjoyed some support among African American voters but added that his community must keep closer tabs on city hall now. "I'm going to hope she is sensitive to the needs of the black community," Nelson said.
McLaughlin, though, said her victory demonstrates that voters who share her views on social justice and environmental responsibility want representatives "who are willing to stick their necks out for communities of all colors."

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