Progressive, activist Green Mayor heading big city USA

Richmond, California’s Mayor Gayle McLaughlin

Edited by Carolyn Bennett

PASSED: Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and Councilmember Jovanka Beckles propose resolution urging federal government to pass constitutional amendment limiting role of corporations in elections



This week when fire and explosions in Chevron’s refinery created billowing black smoke spewing over miles of California’s Bay Area and causing a level three health warning mandating “shelter -in- place” of “tens of thousands of people,” Mayor Gayle McLaughlin demanded accountability.

The mayor called for a “full investigation and analysis from both Chevron and independent sources [and] full and complete transparency and accountability” in determining the precise conditions that jeopardized community health and safety. 

The now-mayor of Richmond rises from many years of politically progressive activism.  

Chevron Refinery fire
August 7, 2012

In her early activist years, Gayle McLaughlin worked with such groups as the Central American solidarity movement; the North Star Network, a national networking effort to unite progressives; and coalition-building with People United to Save Humanity (Rainbow/PUSH). She was on the steering committee of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). 

In addition to being a U.S. politician, her career and character have been described as social activism participating in peace, social justice, civil rights, and environmental movements; an educator with research and  leadership experience promoting literacy, social justice, and environmental health and addressing needs of disadvantaged youth. 

She is a co-founder of the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), a non-partisan progressive group of Democrats, Greens and Independents “coming together in progressive unity for a better and healthier Richmond,” the mayor’s website says. She is also co-founder of Solar Richmond, a nationally-recognized local program promoting solar power and green jobs in Richmond; and of Richmond Residents for a Responsible General Plan, “a community organization committed to ensuring that the General Plan process is transparent and open to public participation.” 

Gayle McLaughlin has stood against Chevron’s Richmond Refinery tax perks and against development on the North Richmond shoreline, against the USA Patriot Act and the criminalization of the homeless, and against cutbacks in jobs and salaries of union workers. 

Mayor McLaughlin

Power of ideas, values 

Mayor Gayle McLaughlin is a two-term mayor (2006, 2010) of the City of Richmond (Calif.), the largest city in the United States with a Green Party mayor.  

Gayle McLaughlin

Before assuming the office of Richmond mayor, McLaughlin held an elective seat on the Richmond City Council. She has conducted her political campaigns “without a penny of corporate money,” her website boasts, thus marking “a turning point in Richmond politics, when voters selected a candidate solely on the power of her ideas and values, rather than the power of wealthy special interests.” 

While in office, Mayor McLaughlin has helped facilitate grassroots efforts calling for fair taxation. The result was a historic settlement in which Chevron agreed to pay an additional $114 million into the Richmond’s general fund over the next 15 years (a rise in the annual average of $7.6 million). The mayor has advocated for thousands of residents evicted from their homes by bank speculators and supported fair-cause eviction policies. She has protected Richmond open shorelines from toxic spills and unhealthy, ill-conceived development; and spearheaded and sponsored many new green and sustainability initiatives. 

Mayor McLaughlin is a member of the Mayors against Illegal Guns Coalition; and she has worked closely with law enforcement and neighborhood safety on strategies to reduce all violence in Richmond. She has defended victims of violent crime and spoken out particularly against church shootings and rape inflicted on school children and youth. 

McLaughlin’s schooling 

Gayle McLaughlin is U.S. Midwestern, eastern and western. A native of Chicago, Illinois, she took her undergraduate and graduate credentials in education and psychology at Massachusetts’ Bridgewater State College, the Rhode Island College, and the University of California Berkeley. 

Sources and notes 

“Richmond Mayor Seeks Full Transparency in Determining Cause of Refinery Fire Richmond, CA” (Office of Mayor Gayle Mclaughlin, Media Contact: Jeff Shoji, jeff@officeofthemayor.net), August 7, 2012, 450 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond, CA 94804-1630 Telephone: (510) 620-6503   Fax:  (510) 412-2070   www.ci.richmond.ca.us

 http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/index.aspx?NID=55

Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, biography

http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/index.aspx?NID=399
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gayle_McLaughlin&oldid=500157400

Richmond, California
Contra Costa County
Population in 2010: 103,701.
Rank: 2nd in Contra Costa County; 61st in California; 264th in the United States
City Data, http://www.city-data.com/city/Richmond-California.html#ixzz22zF8PZ6C
See also Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_California

Images

City data dot com map

Smoke from the Chevron refinery fills the sky above Richmond after a series of explosions beginning around 6:15 p.m. No one was killed, Chevron said. Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle / SF
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Fire-at-Chevron-refinery-in-Richmond-3767221.php#ixzz22zUVkQm0

Christopher Connelly/RichmondConfidential.org
Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and Councilmember Jovanka Beckles proposed a resolution to urge the federal government to pass a constitutional amendment limiting the role of corporations in elections. It was passed unanimously.http://blog.sfgate.com/incontracosta/category/news/page/4/
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Humanity without fear in domestic, foreign relations—U.S. Rep. Ellison

Editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett
A politics of generosity 

“You take a tiny minority of extremists and try to make them emblematic of 1.3 billion people, and you expand the number of people whom you fear and don’t like and are potential enemies of yours, and you shrink the number of people who could be on your side.…


“There are Muslims in places like Jordan and Afghanistan and Pakistan and all over this world—American Muslims. There are 6,000 [Muslims] in the United States armed forces. They are serving their country. Many millions more are seeing patients every day, representing people in court, looking after their kids right here in the good old USA.…


“Let’s unpack your fear, unpack your worry so we can get down to some real humanity.”

U.S. Member of Congress Keith Ellison spoke today on the Democracy Now program with Amy Goodman. This is more of what he had to say on anti-Islam feelings and actions, U.S. foreign policy and CIA drone attacks, and U.S. progressives.

Islamophobia—Anti-Islam in United States

I do hope that this spike in Islamophobic ideas can cause us to really think about prejudice, acceptance, belonging, who’s in, who’s out, what is our national commitment to inclusion and generosity.

[America] is a country that underwent a civil war over who belonged and then went through a momentous civil rights movement, again, over who belonged.

Let’s pull on our experience and rediscover the fact that we shouldn’t have any second-class citizens in America. I think if we don’t get together we run certain risks.

U.S. foreign policy: Yemen
The White House considering armed CIA drones against militants in Yemen (as CIA’s Pakistan campaign), to strike in sovereign territory without approval from the government of Yemen.

I’m concerned about that policy. I am concerned about it because I have endeavored to try to study terrorist ideology and these people don’t expect to defeat the United States with these bombs and stuff.

They want to provoke a reaction, which they then can use to whip up—use as a communications tool against the United States.

These terrorist groups are hoping to agitate the United States or the larger military power to come back at them; and then, when civilians die, they say, ‘See what the U.S. did. We’re the ones to help you; the U.S. is not.’

I think it’s important to bear in mind what their strategic objectives are and not allow ourselves to be tricked into their game plan.

I think that what we may do is go slower here. Think through the implications of it. Think through the legalities of it and really try to come up with a real counterterrorism strategy designed to undermine these people. I am concerned about [White House policy in Yemen] and really, really have reservations.

U.S. CIA Drones on Yemen as Pakistan/Afghanistan
[Killing by remote control]

… The whole idea of the drone program is something I think we need to have a real dialogue about; talk about asymmetric warfare. This is the ultimate in being able to strike but not be struck back against. Whenever that is the paradigm, you wonder whether or not your threshold for decision making gets lowered.

…How many casualties are acceptable?
How much evidence do we need before you do a targeted assassination?
What are the due process implications?
Are victims to be compensated?

… There is a whole range of important questions that I don’t think we’re answering or even asking. … I can tell you that the United States used to be a very popular country in Pakistan. Our popularity there has plummeted. I don’t think it’s a good idea to repeat that scenario in Yemen. I do believe there’s got to be better ways to do this.

The fact is we need to strengthen diplomatic relations.

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world. Yemen is a country where some transnational terrorists can … run around without a lot of scrutiny because the Yemeni government is so weak. There are many things we should do before we launch into — we basically become — a military presence in Yemen.

We would be [a military presence] if we have military wherewithal, hardware, personnel, there, and are engaged in fighting. Then we are militarily in Yemen without the Congress ever saying a word about it.

The reason Congress is not really focusing [on Yemen] is because there are no body bags to worry about; nobody’s son or daughter is going to come back—and, of course, we don’t want that— but that then relieves us of the responsibility to really make the tough decisions. There are a number of issues.

U.S. assassinations

When you do this assassination, you essentially give him what he wants, martyrdom. Anwar al-Awlaki is not scared to get killed. He is somebody who has delusional, fantastic, crazy dreams of being some kind of a martyr.

Why reward him with that? The last thing Anwar al-Awlaki wants to be called is a common criminal, which is what I think he is. I would rather us pursue a strategy of arresting him and putting him on trial — not allowing him to claim himself a victim.

To “Progressives”

What if progressives in 1950 had said: ‘you know what; this civil rights stuff is hard. We haven’t seen the progress we were looking for so we’re going to abandon the effort.’ Please, don’t do that. Stick, stay, and remember that this movement is not about a personality, a president— or even an election.

It’s about restoring dignity to working and middle-class Americans

Eliminating poverty
Upholding civil and human rights
Inclusion for everybody.
It’s about a politics of generosity.

Sources and notes


Congressman Keith Ellison has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2007. His House Committee Assignments are Financial Services and Foreign Affairs. Before coming to the U.S. Congress, he served in the Minnesota State House (2003 — 2007); he practiced law in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1990-2006). He holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Economics from Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan) and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Minnesota Law School.


“U.S. Representative Keith Ellison on Tea Party Anti-Muslim Bigotry, U.S.-backed Assassinations in Yemen, and the Firing of Juan Williams,” November 1, 2010,
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/1/muslim_congressman_keith_ellison_on_tea


Anwar al-Awlaki of Yemeni descent was born April 22, 1971 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He holds dual United States and Yemen citizenship. Anwar al-Awlaki is an Islamic lecturer, spiritual leader, and former imam who has purportedly inspired Islamic terrorists against the West; and, according to U.S. government officials, he has also become ‘operational’ as a senior talent recruiter, motivator, and participant in planning and training ‘for al-Qaeda and all of its franchises’ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki]




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